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4 The Weekly Tribune THJC WEEKLY TRIBUNK. One year - Six months W Payments required in advance. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1893 «' ■■ - AGENTS FOR THE TRIBUNE. Armnchee-Misa Lillian Watts, Crystal Springs—Mrs. P. M. Storey. Cave Spring—T. J. Davis. Silver Creek—George Porter. Van’s Valley—B. B. Sanders. DANA AT THE SEPULCHRE. The following from Mr. Charles A. Dana, who has been to the Holy Land, will be read with interest: “We hate to say a word that may discourage any one’s search after knowledge, but we must advise our readers who are preparing to see Jerusalem not to read too many books of modern exploration and criticism, for fear of losing all faith in the holy places where the remem brance of the Founder of the Chris tian religion is most religiously pre served. This modern criticism, con ducted in considerable part by men as pious as they are learned, has brought into dispute almost every spot of importance in the history of the sacred city. Excepting the site of the Temple and the Mount of Olives, I don’t think there is a single locali ty which remains free from question or denial. “It is evident that much study in this direction cannot lead to that reverential and prayerful spirit in which any person of Christian edu cation must naturally approach the place where he believes the Redeem er of the world was laid after his execution; and weturn with pleas ure from scepticism to the opposing utterance of such an authority as Mr. William C. Prime. He is a PrW testant, understands the questift thoroughly, and is familiar views of all the scholars written be- ■ Holy ■ ~ - A , . IF ’'l i :ii' I •• ' ■ HF ■' : ■f, ■ Hie i’aet. bii’. ‘ cil its t r 111 ’<! •. ; t > ■ ' - (inr t hiu !u- ■ . s"* ||f eontiii'.'ihv, it liav- Kk-mti vd from t hat or state in which they live or to the I business in which they are engaged. ’ No argument can be made to suit l all interests,the greatest good to the < greatest number should be the aim < and in order to discover the best < compromise the wide discussion of the subject is much to be desired. Free coal will undoubtedly benefit very materally the manufacturing interest of New England, and no less will it discourage the coal in dustry of the South and the twq Virginias particulary. Mr. Edward Atkinson very ably advocates the removal of the tax on coal and shows that American production can compete with the world. He claims, co itrary to the popular a that our labor is the cheapest in the world per unit of product, and sup ports his argument with/ abundant statistics of exports of our product to foreign countries. / Why then should we protect is in the lead of competition ?, But the pro tection the Southerners want is not from loreign manufacturers but from New England whose industrial de velopment so farAjjceeds that of the South that a hope i n 11 u man 11 a c d en- couraged. By placn^icoal on the free Hat New England manufacturers could'easily shut out competition and immense harm would be done the great coal industries of the Virginians. Here is a double disadvantage and an aspect of the tariff business that should make Southerners think. As to iron ore we think there is a modification to be desired in the specification of the kind of all to be freed from duty. It is evident that foreign ores cannot compete with our low grade or non Bessemer ores, but when it comes to the class of ore produced in the Lake Supe rior field or the Mesaba there is un questionably-a. chance for foreign competition. These-oses are mined very cheaply, but the difficulties of transportation are such as to make them in the American market high pricedoies. There are many things bearing on this question of tariff that entirely escape a superficial observer and some that seemingly have escaped the acute minds of the Waysand Means Committee. The has done much to clear up ■kplai” things, especially im : us as it is getting to be to our interest to look ■ whether pe- ■Fisle’s report shows of affairs with re- V: ■fflie silver certificates issued ■Ki the deposits of silver bullion. “Some of the principal difficulties encountered by the Treasury de partment,” the report says, “lesult h&pm the-indisposition of the public . Btetain standard silver dollars and in circulation. It constant effort upon the •> ■the Treasury ollii ials to pre certificates especially from lEt-L-Blatiuer'' in the Sub-Treasur exclu-ion of legal tender KffffwbV- Why this should be the not easily understood, for, ||||||Vgh these certificates are not • ■ s.■tender in the payment of pri i ■debts, they are, by the acts of gMßaml 1886. made receivable for public dues, and by the H|Bof May 12, 1882, national banks . K authorized to hold them as part lawful reserves.” --■This result does not seem so ■angc to us. The certificates are Hither legal tender nor a conven- form of currency for general Mfirculation. The treasury depart ement has difficulty in keeping them y out and is likely to have so long as they remain In their present form. Mr. Carlisle proposes to meet the difficulty by taking up the certifi cates and having them re issued in small denominations of ten- dollars i or less, so that they will be conven ient for general circulation. To in crease the demand for them he pro . poses to withdraw from circulation the smaller denominations of other kinds of currency. i This will have some effect, but if - ■ S' :! Bve Wfland, Wheeler, ■of the llssed by is a ■ b’ ■tted by ye or dis x sections THE WEEKLY TRIttUNE, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 28, 18»3 the Secretary wishes to put the sil ver certificates in a form convenient for general use, why does he not ask congress to pass a bill for the coinage of the silver bullion, at least so much of it as represents the seignorage ? If he will do that and accompany it by the seme measure which he now proposes for the withdrawal of small denominations of other kinds of currency, he will have no difficulty in keeping the silver coin in circu lation. One advantage of such a course is that it would give the treasury about fifty millions of seignorage, and thus avcid the necessity for the issue of bonds. Some people fear that such coinage would strain the credit of the government. We think the idle bullion strains the credit more than the dollars would in ac tive circulation among the people. This is especially true if a green back dollar is withdrawn for every silver do’lar put out. The green back is all fiat and the coin is only part fiat. That removes nearly two thirds of the fiat from every dollar of coin put in the place! oi green back. THE INCOME TAX. Secretary Carlisle has created a jmnsation by advocating a personal Tncmne tax on all incomes derived from stocks and bonds. The advan tage of such a tax is that the num ber of shares of stock held by indi viduals in any corporation may be ascertained without serious difficul ty. To tax the corporations and tax their dividends in private hands would be to tax the same thing twice. We do not suppose the Secre tary contemplates that. There is no doubt that corporate property is a good target for taxing power, whether it aims at the com pany or the individual holder of stock or bonds. When the state creates an artificial person it makes it in its own image. What God creates, the State does not so easily control, but its own creation is al ways in sight and in reach. It must be said however, that such a tax, unaccompanied by a tax on other forms of income, would be class legislation. We see no reason why income from land should not be taxed, especially land in cities, where rents are enormous. Rents are know” and paid of all men. It would be hard for the landlord tq* dodge the income tax. The only difficulty is that he might put up rent to pay it. IDLE MONEY. The report of Secretary Carlisle has this interesting comment on the accumulation of idle money in the centers: “This excessive accumulation of currency at particular points is caused by the fact that there is no such demand for it elsewhere as will enable the banks and other in stitutions to which it belongs to loan it to the people at remunerative rates, and it will continue until the business of the country has more fully recovered from the depressing effects of the recent dis turbances. “Money does not create business, b”t business creates a demand for money, and until there is such a re vival of industry and trade as will require the use of the circulating medium now outstanding, it would ■ be hazardous to arbitrarily increase its volume by law or to make ma terial changes in its character by disturbing in any manner the rela tions which its different forms now bear to each other.” , The Secretary makes a distinc i tion that is worth remembering when he says, “Money does not create business, but business creates a demand for money.” Money oils the wheels of com merce, but it cannot make them go without the motive power of pros pective gain. People do not like to swap dollars. Within the past year we have seen two remarkable phenomena in the business world. One was the stop page of business by the luck of a medium of exchange. The other is a delay of business because of tin certainty with regard to the tariff. The first has beeu so fully remedied ■ that there is more money on deposit than ever before in the history of the country; but it is mostly idle, and doing little good, because of un certainty with regard to the tariff. Wool, ore and cotton are the main items of manufacture in this coun try, and if two of the three are to be put on the] free list, the manufac turers want to know it before buy ing any more raw material or mak ing up any more goods. We have thus had two unusual situations, no business for lack of money and no money for lack of business. The first evil was a ques tion of supply, the latter is one of distribution. The first was removed by action of congress and the second will go the same way if the tariff bill is speedily passed. THE NATIONAL WHISKY BILL. The Atlanta Constitution, which s by no means a prohibition organ and is not edited by cranks, prints this striking temperance lecture: “One of our Washington specials yesterday quoted some internal rev enue statistics showing that in spite . of the hard times we have wasted , enough money in the past year to 1 make everybody in the country ' comfortable. “The Americans who were howl ing about the financial depression i spent in the past twelve months $609,000,000 tor whisky ! “The same crowd spent in that period $617,268,460 for beer ! “For cigars and tobacco they spent $275,750,000 ! “These grumblers and growlers ' who talked economy to their wives and children and prayed for the re turn of good times, managed to ] scrape up about $1,600,000,000 for their common drinks and their igars, and what their wines and brandies cost we may imagine! “This enormous sum, our corres pondent says, is more than our en tire volume of circulation. It is 27 per capita more than the pres ent per capita circulation. It is $195 for each head of every family in the United States “This money would pay all the appropriations of a billion-dollar Congress and leave enough to more than half pay the expenses of an other such Congress. It would pay six times over for our annual cotton crop. It would pay the cost of a long foreign war. It would feed and clothe in a plain fashion every family in the union. ’ “This is not a temperance edi torial. It is simply a statement of facts which muss open the eyes of men to the true explanation of most of the poverty and suffering now prevailing. The American liquor ana tobacco bill would be frightful enough in a period of prosperity, but what shall we say of it these hard times ?” SENSELESS RADICALISM. Some people are abusing the president because he counsels, and the Ways and Means Committee be cause they have exercised some dis cretion in cutting down the tariff. The committee has shown a wise discretion and by so doing will take away the alarm that pervades the business world when radical meas ures are resorted to. By this course they will prepare the country for such further reduction as may be possible without too far depleting the revenue, and such steps may be taken hereafter. In the meantime they have cut off at one blow, about half the tariff burden which now rests on the people of the United States. Such a cause is much bet ter calculated to make tariff reform permanent and progressive than the radicalism which would wipeout all the tariff at once. Such a coursewould inevitably be followed by the undo ing of the work by the next con gress, The country recoils from extremes, though it seldom recedes from a good position taken by a well considered measure; and such a position once occupied and its ad vantages fully seen, gives the coun try confidence to go a step further. That is the true policy of tariff re formers. LOWELL’S LETTERS The publication of two volumes of James Russell Lowell’s corres pondence throws a pleasant light on the character of that genial, whole souled man of letters. The letters written when he was United States Minister to England show the gen- uineness of the man’s character. He detested pomp, and in spite of the charge of anglomania, he was thoroughly patriotic. Writing home from London in 1884, he said to a friend: “My fate often seems to me a strange one—to be snatched away and set down in the midst of Baby lon, the great city, obliged to inter est myself in what, to me, are the ! mirages of life, and above all, to ’[ make speeches (which I loathe), and ’ to be praised for them, which makes it more bitter.” Writing to Stedman, Mr. Lowell ays a great deal in a few words about the spasm of erotiesm which afflicts modern poets of whom Swin burne is a type. He says: “I have not seen Swinburne’s new volume —but a poem or two from it which I have seen shocked me, and I am not squeamish. * * lam too old to have a painted hetaira palmed off on me for a Muse, and I hold unchastity of mind to be worse than that of body. Why should a man by choice go down to live in his cellar, instead of mount ing to those far upper chambers which look towards the sunrise of that Easter which shall greet the resurrection of the soul from the body of this death? Virginibus puerisque? To be sure! let no man write a line that he would not have his daughter read. When a man begins to lust after the Muse in stead of loving her, he may be sure that it is never the Muse that he embraces. But I have outlived many heresies, and shall outlive this new Adamite one of Swinburne. The true church of poetry is foun ded on a rock, and I have no fear that these smutchy back-doors of hell shall prevail against her.” There aie some more directly ptr sonal judgments: To begin in New England, we have Emerson, the lecturer: “Emerson’s oration [before the Phi Beta Kappa Society] was more disjointed than usual, even with him. It began nowhere and ended everywhere, and yet, as always with that divine man, it left you feeling that something beautiful had passed that way—something more beautiful than anything else, like the rising and setting of stars. Every possible criticism might have been made on it but one—that it was not noble. * gle 1, lie lost his p on li is g lasses ; bfl uutt'llV Iroin >"]■' ? lost his way in » -V ' our built, not. hiW ? v■ . The «’x port u gn’.d ..:i Sat unlfl ,>' < ' k ’7 i b ■ 1 r !. ia ey market ■■":•'s■; /.y.k;/.; '' is that such isting conditions is a sign of ,health and not of disease. With call mon ey as low as 1| per cent here, while it commands 2| in London and 3 or 4 in Berlin, an exportation of gold is desirable. If the gold is owned by us we shall get more tor its use abroad than could be obtained here. If it is owned by foreigners, we shall no longer be paying interest for something that we cannot employ profitably. These are very ele mentary truths. They are properly appreciated now because we are not under apprehensions of a change in the standard of value arising from the purchases of silver by the Gov ernment. On the contrary, we are now witnessing large shipments of sil /er abroad, for which gold would have been required under the re gime of the Sherman act; 450,000 ounces of the white metal having ’ gone out on Saturday. Another fact of importance is the increased productiveness of our own gold mines, those of Cripple Creek, Col orado, having risen to $261,000 in October, as compared with $204,000 in September, a gain of 30 per cent. The fiendish plot to abduct Taby Ruth from the White House shows that men classed as cranks are ' likely to be criminals of the most diabolical character, to be kept in check by the strong hand of the law, and not entitled to much mercy when they are caught. A BOY S AMBITION. bam was usually a very cheerful boy, but all day long he toiled up and down the long snowy cotton rows in moody si lence. It was a dreamy October day, the part ridges piped cheerily in the dead white grass of the stubble, and beyond the grove of sweetgums dashed with yellow and crimson, the wide, deep woods slept in a mystic glamour of light. It was circus day. For weeks Sam A' 1 •••»“ had looked in|wonder at the great flam ing posters on tbe country blacksmith shop. He thought many strange things about the terrible animals and wonderful birds, and to see them real and alive— with long mane and terrible claws— at once touched with a magical light the summitof bis hopes and ambitions. But Sam’s father was a plain, matter of-fact old m-n, and when circus day came he notified Sam in no uncertain terms to “Git to that cotton patch, an’ don’t hev no foolishness.” I'he public road led by theootton field, and as the crowds passed towards town boisterously shouting their anticipations, Sam regarded them with a heavy heart. “Never mind,” he said to himself, with a meaning shake of the head, “I’ll be a man some day, an’ ’nen I’ll see some thing myself.” That was a long time ago. Sam spent his nights reading histories and studying geographies. He went to school ard learned rapidly. The years went by and Sam grew to young manhood. He took no interest in thejordinary affairs of per sons of his age. He never had a sweet heart, the never went to a party of any kind. He planned and woiked con stantly to one end—to visit and see with his own eyes the remote regions of the word was the highest dream of hfs life. At tweuty-one be left home and went west. He worked hard and saved his money. He became informed in the world’s ways. From Texas he went to New York. Months were spent studying the American metropolis as a lawyer studies Blackstone. He then crossed the Atlantic and spent years in the various countries of the old world. Thtough the clanging streets of Lon don, across tbe snow-crested Alps, through the dreamy valleys of Piedmont, and at last reposed his weary limbs be neath the crumbling arches of Rome. His footsteps led throu h tbe groves of Athens, across the marble deserts of Egypt and over the mountains of Leba non. He lingered in tbe groves of Geth semane and bathed in the river of Naaman. He listened to the cry of the tiger in the jungles, he heard the ecash of the Alpine avalanche and the moan of the sea on desolate shores, and bis heart bounded with a sublime exudation in the realization of his boyhood’s dream. J. A. Hall. “THE SAD FACE OF A DISAPPOINTED CHILD ” Let them have their toys, their dolls and their fire works. It is every man’s duty to feed, clothe and educate his children and our laws now by taxing the general public aid him in the latter work. The performance of these daily duties are se rious matters. As our Presbyterian friends would say they are matters of “susten ance,” nor. of merriment. They lighten the childis life but they do not brighten it. Christmas should be a bright day. The broom of Santa Claus should sweep away and the elves and the fairies their sunshine and songs the / ; k h. ort ,A> i : r a pair of shoes, one with a side of bacon, one with a pound package of soda, one with a string of select sausages, one with a tripe, one with a soup bone, one with a peck of meal and some salt, one with a bunch of pine and half bushel of coa., one with a cheap overcoat, one with a night gown and a tooth brush, one with a catechism, one with a copy of Doddridge’s Rise and Progress, one with an obituary notice in black and gold of his great-grand mother with directions where to find her grave, as their Christmas presents, gazing with the sad faces of disappointed children “alternately at their articles of susten ance” and of every day life, and at the other group of merry children, and the words you have written rebuke the man who goes “mourning all the day.” “Let him who would abate by one single rip pling syllable the childish glee of this season stop and think what anguish might be his in looking back a year hence upon the sad face of a disappointed child.” Some man has said, “The more I know of men the more I like dogs.” I will say, the more I know of men the more I love chil dren. God bless their innocent little hearts! My greatest joy is to lighten their little lives and make them happy, and how happy they make me when with their lit tle arms around my neck they give me their gratitude and love. When you buy presents for the children, think well and long, and don’tjbuy to suit your fancy, but get things that will please them. J • Branham. CHRISTMAS RHYMES. Christmas times in Georgia—presents for the folks; Old friends shakin’ hands sgentellin’ old time Jokes! Games with kissin’ in ’em—many a smack and hug; Beat the eggs until they foam, an tilt the old brown jug!—Atlanta Constitution. Men fear not the bold highwayman, Or the footpad in the land, But the wives who go through pockets Now that Christmas is at hand. Chicago Inter Ocean. The problem that is causing Old Santa’s worried look Is how to show up in good shape With flattened pocketbook. —Kansas City Journal. A fauncle strange my sense doth grete Midst Christmas throes; Each poemc, now, upon its fete Hath mistletoes! —Washington Star. There was a woman in our town And she was wondrous wise, She bought her Christmas presents ere I The crowds increased in else. —Boston Transcript* I