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PAGE TWO
Public Opinion Throughout the Union
A MUNICIPAL-OWNERSHIP SNOW
STORM.
Much cynical comment has been excited by
the discovery in Chicago that 1,100 laborers
employed by the Dunne municipal-ownership
administration for emergency work in remov
ing the snowfall of January, 1905, are still
on the city pay-roll in that capacity. In
deed, in July, 1900, the number of snow-shov
ellers was increased to 1,500.
Yet the situation appears to be a perfectly
logical one. Municipal ownership being a step
toward socialism, and socialism holding as
one of its cardinal doctrines the support of
everybody by the state, the city employes who
have been drawing wages for doing nothing
seem merely to have been alive to their op
portunity. They have established a princi
ple and turned a theory into a condition. If
everybody is to subsist at the public curb,
what is there in the occupation of shovelling
snow in July to carp at? Diogenes, who
rolled his tub about with feverish activity to
show how busy he was, would have indorsed
these Chicago philosophers.
In future histories of economic progress
Chicago’s January snowstorm conquered in
July should have a place with other epoch
making meteorological phenomena —with the
snows of Valley Forge and the sun of Aus
terlitz. —N. Y. World.
TARIFF AND THE TRUSTS.
Watson’s Magazine is regarded as the cor
rect exponent of Populistss’ tenets. The par
ty doctrines are held to be a reflex of Mr.
Watson’s editorial utterances. For this rea
son I ask that this dissent from your attitude
on the tariff question have place in your col
umns. The Populist party does not believe
that the tariff is the mother of trusts.
We do not believe that an Englishman,
Frenchman, Dutchman or Canadian loves us
any better than does an average American.
If we permit criminal combination, the few
exploiters of things produced or manufac
tured abroad will become members of such
combinations. Indeed such is now the case.
A large percentage of these same foreigners
are now members of our great trust organi
zations. If our Ports of Entry were entirely
free these vendors from abroad are shrewd
enough to see the advantage of association
with Carnegie, Havemeyer, McCormick, Ar
mour, et al., ominus genus, and w r ould soon
chant the slogan, 11 Charge all the traffic willl
bear.”
Combinations in restraint of trade or to
throttle competition must be declared a se
rious felony, and their promoters drastically
punished by our criminal courts to break up
the evil. I doubt the success of even this
policy. Many of them are so powerful and
well entrenched that it will require, in all
probability, the competition of the whole
people to break their power. Notably among
them, the Banks, Railroads, Petroleum and
Coal. J. M. LONDON.
Kaseyville, Mo.
THE JEFFERSONIAN
LEFT OVER PROBLEMS.
To the year 1908 has been handed over two
difficult problems, both of which will no doubt
be well advanced before the advent of still
another year. *
One of these may be said to consist of a
bunch of problems all relating to the banks
of the country and the various currency is
sues. It is not, however, probable that a full
and final settlement of this bunch of problems
can be secured in 1908 or in any other single
year. A central bank will not be established
because public sentiment in its favor is not
ripe. It may be increasing, but it is not strong
enough to be felt by members of Congress.
A compromise measure in relation to bank
note circulation, looking toward increased
elasticity, is all that Congress will enact as a
presidential election comes on. That presi
dential election invites caution, lest voters be
offended and alarmed.
The other great left-over problem relates
to the regulation of railroads and states in
the control of interstate roads, and the extent
to which the states can carry rate adjust
ment. The new year is expected to bring de
cisions from the United States supreme court
that will clear the way enabling state legisla
tors to see what is feasible and what is not.
The contentions that have arisen involve both
the eleventh and the fourteenth amendments,
and the final construction by the court of last
resort is awaited "with deep interest as the old
contentious year goes out. —Age-Herald.
THE VISIBLE EFFECTS OF PROHIBI
TION TO DATE.
Georgia and Augusta have been four days
under the new order, which has closed the
saloons and outlawed the liquor traffic. This
is too short a time to judge of its ultimate ef
fects, yet it is well to note what changes it
has brought.
There has been a remarkable decline in the
business of the police court. Every year, aft
er the Christmas holidays, which are presumed
to end with the last day of the year, there has
been a falling off in the number of arrests
made by the police, and there are those who
claim that the falling off in the police court
business noted is no greater this year than in
preceding years. This, however, is a mistake,
as investigation shows that the number of ar
rests for the first three days were fifty per
cent smaller this year than last.
But more remarkable still is the falling off
in the number of arrests made for drunken
ness. This class of arrests is almost totally
absent. The one case before the recorder
was a drunk that was tanked up on dispen
sary booze supplied by that branch of the
great moral institution recently set up in
North Augusta.
Another thing will have been noted by ev
eryone who passes about over the city. We
had in Augusta about one hundred bar rooms,
of which probably one-half could fairly be
classed as dives. In and around each of
these a number of idlers were always to be
found. If ten such loafers be set down as
the average number of loafers around each
dive (and this is not an extravagant estimate)
we have 500 loafers constantly congregated
in and around them. These are now conspic
uous by their absence. Corners that had be
come notorious on account of the collections
of loafers and bar room bums constantly to
be encountered there, are now deserted by
this class and as orderly as other corners.
This has been a pleasant effect of the new
order which has brought out general favorable
comment.
What has become of this small army of
loafers, not less than 500 in number, has not
yet developed. Possibly they have found new
haunts, and possibly in these new haunts they
may be even more vicious than in their old.
But it is also possible that, their usual re
sorts or rendezvous places having been broken
up, many of them have sought employment.
Time must develop what has become of this
vicious element which the closing of the bar
rooms has deprived of their accustomed loung
ing places. At present we know only that
this army of bar room loafers has disap
peared.
Os the evil effects which it was feared by
some would follow the suppression of the bar
rooms none have materialized to an extent
to be appreciable. Many of the places occu
pied by them are vacant, but this was inevita
ble when they continued the business up to the
last minute. However, quite a number of
these stores are already occupied by businesses
in other lines, and others are being rapidly
changed to adapt them to other business. The
old saloon signs are gradually disappearing,
and the indications now are that within a rea
sonably short time there will be no indication,
either by vacancy or remaining signs hung
out on the front, of any of the numerous
family of old saloons.
These are the visible effects of prohibition
after four days’ operation under the law which
instituted it. It is really most encouraging.
—Augusta Herald.
SECRETARY TAFT.
Secretary Taft returns from his globe
girdling trip rotund, smiling and apparently
happy. He finds his presidential boom
in quite a healthy condition. It swagged con
siderably at one time during his absence, be
cause, mainly, of the uncertain attitude of the
President, which seemed to cast a doubt on
Mr. Taft’s own sincerity, but recent events
have given it a decided boost. Missouri re
publicans have declared for Taft. The south
ern office-holders who were recently juggling
with the Cortelyou scheme are falling over
each other to get on the Taft band wagon, and
Taft clubs are being organized in all parts of
the country* Hughes and Foraker are imped
iments. The reactionary sentiment against
Roosevelt is in his way, but, on the whole,
the Secretary of War has every reason to feel
encouraged concerning the situation as he
finds it.