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Items of Interest Gathered Here and There
Secretary 7 aft’s 'Reception by the
Japanese.
In the matter of eating up Japan byway of the
dogs of war, or being eaten up by Japan byway of
other dogs of war, it is opportune to note the late
visit of Secretary Taft to the mikado and an im
portant declaration made by President Roosevelt
in a Mississippi Valley speech, that the dispatch of
a great battleship fleet to the Pacific is the inaugu
ration of a policy to recognize that we have two
ocean coasts, and that it is his hope that such a
fleet may hereafter train in Atlantic and Pacific
waters in alternate years. Such a policy is reason
able and not truculent. The navy, as the world
goes, must still be sustained. Its ships must be mod
ern, its crews drilled and sufficient, its capacity to
uphold the Monroe doctrine and guard the Panama
Canal unquestionable. In short, we have extended
our property and the watchman is making his first
tour around the block. Let us be sure the watch
man can be trusted. Secretary Taft’s Japanese
visit awakened extraordinary enthusiasm among 1 his
hosts, although it is not known in what degree his
visit was an official mission to convey and receive
certain definite assurances of policy and good will.
At any rate he was acclaimed tumultuously and en
tertained in a manner to say that Japan desires it
understood that she wishes unbroken peace with het
first modern schoolmaster. Departing he spoke the
words of an envoy of a nation wishing peace and
construing the purpose of his hosts as leading to
the same great end. If the two nations now arrive
at an immigration treaty acceptable to Japan, the
appearance of a great American battle fleet in the
Pacific every two years will not likely be thought
an aggressive flourish of the “big stick.” But let
the world think what it may, a man shall look
after his own. —Exchange.
* W
Improbed Waterways As Freight
Regulators.
President Roosevelt is again receiving from his
countrymen those demonstration of interest which
doubtless assure him that he is a good deal of a peo
ple’s president. Proceeding from the unveiling of
the monument to the martyred McKinley, at Canton,
the president has traveled on the Mississippi, the
improvement of which is the key to the progress
of the central West, and with speeches along the
way and amid an unusual concourse of governors,
congressmen and others, has proclaimed his own al
legiance to waterway improvement in an address
before a great convention at Memphis of the Lakes
to-the-Gulf Deep Waterway Association. Certain
of the president’s propositions are these:
“The valley of the Mississippi is politically and
commercially more important than any other val
ley on the face of the globe. * « * There are
already evident strong tendencies to increase the
carrying of freight from the northern part of the
valley to the gulf. * * ♦ These natural high
ways, the waterways, can never be monopolized by
any corporation. They belong to all the people, and
it is in the power of no one to take them away.
Whenever a navigable river runs beside railroads
the problem of regulating the rates on the railroads
becomes far easier, because river regulation is rate
regulation. When the water rate sinks the land
rate cannot be kept at an excessive height. There
fore it is of national importance to develop these
streams as highways to the fullest extent which is
genuinely profitable. • • • Immense sums al
ready have been spent upon the Mississippi
by the States and the nation, yet much of
it remains practically unused for commerce. The
reasons for this fact are many. One is that the
work done by the national government at least has
not been based upon a definite and continuous plan.
* * • The more far-seeing railroad men, many
of them, have become earnest advocates of the im
provement of the Mississippi, so that it may become
a sort of inland seaboard, extending from the gulf
far into the interior, and I hope ultimately to the
great lakes. An investigation of -the proposed lakes-
the Golden Age for October 10, 1907.
to-the-gulf deep waterway is now in progress under
an appropriation of the last congress. We shall
await its results with the keenest interest. The
decision is obviously of capital importance to our
internal development and scarcely less so in rela
tion to external commerce. * * • Another im
portant group of questions concerns the irrigation
of arid lands, the prevention of floods and the re
clamation of swamps. Already many thousands of
homes have been established on the arid regions
and the population and wealth of seventeen states
and territories have been largely increased through
irrigation. It is the plain duty of those of us who
for the moment are responsible to make inventory
of the natural resources which have been handed
down to us, to forecast as well as we may the needs
of the future, and so to handle the great sources of
our prosperity as not to destroy in advance all hope
for the prosperity of our descendants. The conser
vation of natural resources is the fundamental prob
lem. Unless we solve that problem it will avail us
little to solve all others. To solve it the wnole na
tion must undertake the task through their organi
zations and associations, through the men whom they
have made specially responsible for the welfare of
the several states, and finally through congress and
the executive. As a preliminary step the inland
waterways commission has decided, with my full ap
proval, to call a conference on the conservation of
natural resources, including, of course, the streams,
to meet in Washington during the coming winter.
This conference ought to be among the most im
portant gatherings in our history, for none have
had a more vital question to consider. ’ ’- Stand
ard.
n *
Salaries and Cost of Libing.
There is almost universal complaint against the
increased cost of living. Whether the complainant
is a millionaire or a wage earner, the volume of
protest is the same, although neither the profit
maker nor the wage-earner has the right of com
plaint that belongs to the salaried man. The employ
er of workingmen is making more money than ever,
in spite of the fact that he is paying higher wages
than ever. The salaried man, as a rule, is just where
he was before the good times began. Especially is
this true of the clerks of the United States govern
ment. There is no balm of Gilead for them in these
flush days. They are really losers.
Recent attempts have been made to prove that
high prices are the result of the world’s increased
gold output. It is reasoned that as money becomes
more plentiful its purchasing power decreases. The
dollar of twenty-five years ago was harder to get
than the dollar of 1907, and it was more highly
prized. It bought more. If this be true —and there
can be little doubt of it, whatever the economic rule
that may be at the bottom of it —then the govern
ment clerk who is receiving the pay of 1880 is be
ing docked the difference between the value of the
dollar then and the value of the dollar now. He is
twenty-five years behind the times, and his shrewd
old employer is getting his services for less than
they are worth in the market.
It is estimated by some authorities that the sal
aried people number about 10,000,000. They sup
port nearly a third of the whole population. If it
be true that their salaries have not risen in harmony
with the general increase of work and wealth, it is
little wonder that through all the expressions of
satisfaction over prosperity there should run the
murmur of complaint and protest. The salaried
man who works for the government is practically
powerless to help himself, and his fellow in private
employment is little better off. Aside from the
small range of liberty allowed by the law of supply
and demand, the salaried man must take what
comes. He cannot organize and force his employer
to pay higher salaries. If he is not worth more
money to some other employer, he must be content
with what he gets.
Private employers here and there all over the
country are readjusting salaries to correspond with
the present value of faithful service. The govern
ment is backward in doing justice to its servants.
A strong effort is to be made at the next session
of Congress to increase the salaries of army and
navy officers, and it should succeed. They are
wretchedly underpaid. But there are others, too,
who are underpaid, and who must depend absolute
ly upon the sense of justice of the government.
The civil salaried list should be revised and brought
into correspondence with the conditions of life in
1907. —The Washington Post.
M *
Warring Against Crime.
Just how much of its amazing development this
vast country owes to its postal service would take
volumes to tell. A mighty machine is this, whose
pulsing is felt in every home and place of business,
however remote, from Alaska to Florida. It is
served by a mighty army of 319,898 employes, strat
egically disposed in some 70,000 offices, which han
dled last year 11,361,090,610 separate pieces of mail.
It is evident that to protect these postal myriads,
and see that their units are not used for fraudu
lent purposes, is the work of a Titan, who, however,
looms unobtrusively as Postmaster General George
von L. Mever.
Crimes of all kinds connected with the postoffice
are published in a journel never seen by the ordi
nary public—the Depredations Bulletin of the Ser
vice—which must be read by every soldier of the
postal army under pain of fine. And, as you may
suppose, the work of what I may call the secret
service of the postoffice is immensely interesting.
Monday morning frequently brings a startling
wire to a State center —“'Postoffice robbed last
night—safe blown with guncotton or nitroglycerin. ”
An inspector is on the spot as fast as express trains
will carry him. And a stringent inquiry is begun
on the spot. Occasionally suspicion falls on an
inside man, who, if convicted, is taken before the
Federal courts and sentenced to at least three years.
I may mention here that every postoffice in the
country is periodically ovrhauled by an expert, and
everything from staff to stamps checked and passed
“All well.” And incidentally all complaints
against postmasters, carriers and clerks are sifted,
for charges more or less well founded are often
laid against these for intoxication, laziness, loiter
ing, carelessness, or downright dishonesty.
But the fraudulent use of the mails through
swindling advertisements is vastly more difficult
on account of legal technicalities and flaws of which
swindlers know so well how to avail themselves, John
Hill, Jr., of the Chicago Board of Trade, estimates
that every year the people of the United States
contribute the enormous sum of $100,000,000 to
get-rich-quick and “safe investment” swindlers
alone. All classes are affected, from the laundress
to the lawyer, clergyman, and merchant. There
are victims in the cities, on farms, ranches, and
plantations, and in every hamlet and little village.
For distance is swiftly bridged by the United States
mail, and the public’s money flows freely and
quickly through that gigantic artery.
Only the other day an enterprising “seed” mer
chant was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment and
a fine of SSOO. Amateur florists all over the coun
try had for years been receiving gorgeous colored
catalogues from' him, and in every case he an
nounced the discovery of a rare and marvelous
flower, and he agreed to send a small quantity of
the precious seed for $1 a package.
In the first flush of enthusiasm few amateurs let
such a chance go by. Even professional florists
subscribed. On each package was the usual trade
notice that no guarantee could be given as to germ
inating power; but as such a notice is quite usual
in the trade, few buyers balked.
Much anxious watching, careful watering and
weeding availed nothing, however, and fur the most
part the gardeners concluded their methods were
too crude for so exotic a flower. A New York wom
an thought otherwise. On receiving her packet she
took it to an expert, and found that the priceless
“seed” of that wondrous bloom consisted entirely
of palm leaf fans crushed into seedlike fragments.
—New York Press.
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