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THE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA., TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 1913.
THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL
ATLANTA, GA., 5 NORTH FORSYTH ST.
Entered at the Atlanta Postoffice as Mail Matter of
the Second Class.
JAMES R. GRAY,
President and Editor.
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Atlanta, Ga.
Monopoly Self-Confessed.
More rapidly than might have been hoped, we are
getting behind the mask' of American trusts and
monopolies. Some .time ago Mr. Garnegie frankly
declared that the steel industry needs no tariff pro
tection. Now comes William E. Corey, formerly
president of the United States Steel corporation,
and testifies that between 1901 and 1904 divers pools
were organized to control the supply, the produc
tion and the price of steel. He also testifies that
the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company was a com
petitor of the trust at the time it was absorbed
with the sanction of President Roosevelt.
Thus from a leader of the inner circle do we
learn that the interests of the country’s manufac
tures and building and transportation and other
important spheres of industry and commerce have
been at the mercy of a monopoly that could dictate
prices and hold enterprise at its heck and call.
This is but one of many interesting confessions
that have recently been made. George . P. Baker,
one of the peers of the Morgan court, has admitted
to the Pujo committee of Congress that control of
the country’s money and credit is in hands of com
paratively a few financiers and that the power they
hold, should it pass into the hands of unscrupulous
men, could be used for the peril, if not the ruin, of
the nation’s business.
That 6Maa-b\- which a small group of fdrtune-
WHP¥teenabled td'monoplize material products or
’
resources and to go further and monopolize money
and credit itself, stands convicted by its own par
ticipants. (■
If the people of the United States are to retain
a vestige of economic freedom, if individual enter
prise is to have the opportunity to which it is en
titled, the power of monopoly must be dethroned.
She is a wise woman who laughs only at the
right time.
For the University of Georgia.
Every alumnus of the University of Georgia
should join heartily in the movement to secure from
the Legislature an appropriation sufficient to meet
certain practical needs which vitally concern the
university’s comfort and progress. A new dormi
tory must be built, a heating plan: must be installed
and other facilities must be added or enlarged for
the welfare of the students.
These improvements cannot be made unless the
Legislature grants an increased appropriation. To
that end it is important that the friends and par
ticularly the alumni of the university organize and
b e prepared to make their own and the public’s senti-
; ment count for definite results at the next session
of the General Assembly. A campaign of education
should be set going as soon as possible, a campaign
that will appeal not only to University men but to
the people as a whole in order that the latter may
realize more keenly how much the school means to
: their common interests and how important it is
that its needs be supplied.,
Atlanta alumni of the University will meet Fri
day evening to plan their own part in this season
able and worthy endeavor. Similar meetings should
be held throughout the State, for the success of the
movement depends largely on the amount of organ
ization and of personal earnestness behind it.
Occasionally a man is too patient to be of any
practical use.
Pickwickian But Effective.
There was, perhaps, a touch of the true Pick
wickian to the bill recently introduced in the Mis
souri legislature by Representative Stark, providing
that every lobbyist at' the State capitol be required
i to wear a red cap, a g-een tie and a brown suit as a
uniform of his calling.
Be that as it may, the bill, if enacted, will doubt
less accomplish its purpose; for, few evils are so
deeply intrenched that they can survive when once
they are made really ridiculous. ’ Many an honest
reform has been disheartened and delayed by a joke.
Why shouldn't the reformers turn this facile weapon
to their own account? Emerson said that the Devil
is an ass. Whenever the majority of people can be
made to see that truth and to laugh in response,
the world will be a much better abode.
There is but one criticism to be made on the
Stark hill. Green ties should not be designated for
the lobbyist's. Too many Americans are Irish, either
by lineage . or sympathy, for that, glorious color to
be used for other than the highest symbol or pur
pose.
Would it not be more effective to decree that the
lobbyist wear a jabot in place of a cravat or that he
declare his business by appearing in an old-fashioned
mother hubbard?
July 22, 1864-1914.
The approaching semi-centennial of the Battle
of Atlanta suggests two seasonable undertakings—
one of them a fertile opportunity, the other an
urgent obligation.
July the twenty-second, 1914, will mark the fif
tieth anniversary of the battle that turned the for
tunes of the Civil war and gave this city a heroic
placed in American history. Would it not be an ap
propriate thing to commemorate that day with -a
great reunion of the Blue and the Gray, held here, on
the now hospitable soil where the epic struggle was
staged? Such a memorial, we believe, would strike
a nationwide response. It would be the last grand
gathering of the veterans whose ranks are fast
thinning with the lapse of every year; it would
carry a poignant appeal to the %eart of the cofnmon
country. Such a reunion, furthermore, would fur
nish the vital center for a distinctively Atlanta semi
centennial in which the city’s progress during the
past half century could be strikingly set forth. We
shall do well to seize this inviting opportunity and
begin forthwith to plan for its fruition.
Atlanta is paticularly fortunate in possessing a
great painting that commemorates the battle of
July the twenty-second, 1864. Since it came into the
city’s ownership and was established in the cyclo-
rama at Grant park, it has attracted six hundred
and fifty thousand visitors from every part of the
Union and, indeed, from divers parts of the world.
Last year alone, it was sought out by fifty-three
thousand persons.
It is a distressing and really disgraceful fact that
this invaluable canvas is housed by a flimsy wooden
building and is thus in constant jeopardy of destruc
tion by fire or accident. True sentiment and good
business both demand that Council provide an ade
quate building for this priceless treasure. The
painting now nets the city a revenue of four thou
sand dollars a year. That is equivalent to a four
per cent return on one hundred thousand dollars, or
an eight per cent return on fifty thousand dollars.
Surely such an investment is worth preserving; but
under existing conditions it is likely at any moment
to be swept away forever.
• These two suggestions—a semi-centennial cele
bration in 1914 and a suitable museum, built with-
put further delay, for the city’s heroic war painting
—should commend themselves to the earnest thought
of Council and of all Atlantians.
N EW YORK, Jan. 24.—Tom Lawson has another
"remedy” for Wall street. And this is his final,
dead-sure scheme to throw and hog-tie the "sys
tem” and reduce the cost of living
by checking- the vast gambling ope
rations of th e stoek exchange.
He tells abojat it today in *the
February number of the American
Magazine. It is an improved meth
od of barring bad brokers from the
mails.
Lawson reviews, by way of pref
ace, the relations of the Pujo
"money trust” probe and the awak
ening of the whole American peo
ple to the facts that Lawson him
self has been dinning into their
ears. He says:
"The evidence thus far produced
befor e the Pujo committee showing
the existence of a highly centralized
money trust that controls credits,
absolutely affords a spectacle that
should make -trong men weep, for
It shows how daring and contempt
uous have become the powers that
be—how contemptuous of the rights
of a once sovereign people.
"You and 1—all of us—know and
have known for a long time that
there is in this country a money
power, a money trust. You and I don't have to apply
the strict rules of court evidence to prove it. We
know there is a System—THE System. We know
there is in Wall street a concentration of banks, and
thus a concentration of ^edit, more powerful and,
therefore, more absolutely controlling the economic
life of each and every one of us than any other con
centration of power that has ever existed. In its pos
sibilities of oppression it transcends the power of the
most despotic monarchy.
"You and I know all these things, and now In order
to put them down in black and white for' ourselves,
*we have set our detectives at Washington to track
the beast to its lair. And how do we fare?
"Well—and then not so well.
“The committee has helped lay hare a condition
of stacked-card, loaded-dice, sure-thing gambling that
makes the old-time, fixed faro game seem like a
What-Became-of-jenni e-Brice contest. Through a
glass darkly—we have gfot a glimpse of a thousand-
tentacled octopus sucking to itself the economic life
blood of a nation.
“We have had sketched loosely for us the outlines
of what we know to be an elaborate and perfectly
oiled mechanism for concentrating the savings of the
people in the hands of a few unscrupulous manipula
tors, that each sitter-in in the crooked game may pile
them as chips in front of him.
"There h-~ been reared before our eyes a huge
banking structure containing the bil
lions of a sovereign people’s savings,
and at its apex a half dozen institu
tions that are in turn completely
controlled by a few individuals.
"This body politic and economic
of ours has been X-rayed on the
screen and its heart located—not in
Washington, but in Wall street.
"What are we going to do about
it?” asks Lawson. And his answer
is contained in a bill that be has
framed, for congress to pass.
This measure would establish a
charter and set of by-laws under
which all stock exchanges would be
required to organize. If stock ex
change members then lived hp to
these provisions the present evils of
gambling, control of credit, etc.,
would be eliminated. If they failed
to do so, the postmaster general
would, after ten days’ notice, bar
the offending members from the use
of the mails—and that would put
them out of business.
The law would provide for an ap
peal to the courts, so that the post
master general could not abuse his
power. "If this law is put upon the statute books by
the incoming congress and President Wilson in 1913.”
says Lawson, "this is what it will do by 1914:
“Absolutely destroy stock-gambling.
"Start the drop in tue annual interest return to in
vested capital.
"Start a drop in the high cost of the American peo
ple’s living without a corresponding drop in the wage
of the American people.
"Start an increase in the price of every honest,
good Ameralcan security. f
"Start a drop in the price of every dishonest, bad
American security.
"Pull the teeth, cut the claws, and wither the fangs
of the money trust.
"Start the stock exchange toward the high postiion
it should occupy in the nation’s business structure.”
Lawson remarks that since the Wall street inves
tigation began, the market value of a seat on the New
York stock exchange has sunk from $90,000 to $50,000.
As there are 1,100 seats, this means that the $44,000,-
000 has been squeezed out of the capital stock of the
greatest of all gambling organizations, as a result of
a growing disinclination of the public to do business
with it under present conditions.
THOMAS W. LAWSON.
The Ottoman Fate.
Though we no longer think of comets as “blaz
ing forth the death of princes” or read in any of na
ture’s doings an augury of human events, the
earthquake which shook Constantinople Saturday,
presents a striking symbol of the trembling Turkish
empire; indeed, it may be regarded, without undue
fancilfulness, as a portent of Ottoman fate.
Many days will he required to reveal clearly the
conditions at Constantinople and throughout the
Moslem domain, but there is little room for doubt
that the “Sick Man of Europe” Is nearing his end.
Just what will he the manner or the circumstance
of his taking-off remains to he seen. It may be that
for years to come there will he a nominal Turkish
power in the Southeastern comer of Europe. But
there is no likelihood that this tottering government
will retain more than a fragment of territory and a
shadow of sovereignty.
The new cabinet apparently insists that whatever
may be the terms of settlement for the Balkan war,
Turkey shall hold Adrianople. That is the prize
which the Balkan allies refuse to forego and evi
dently they are supported by the larger European
powers. When the Powers addressed their recent
note to the Ottoman goevrnment, advising the ces
sion of Adrianople, they had doubtless reached a con
clusive agreement among themselves; and doubtless,
too, they are prepared to enforce their advice,
should it not he amicably accepted.
Turkey may show stubbornness in defeat, if it
will,. and the uproar of an angry populace may
frighten a cabinet into resigning, but that will avail
nothing against the decisive victories the Balkan
peoples have won or against the united purpose of
Europe.
A Wail No One Heeds.
The wail of certain reactionary Congressmen
that the Democratic plan of tariff revision will dis
turb business prosperity is simply an echo from last
year’s campaign of Republican defeat.
It is to be expected that the representatives of
special interests will wax nervous whenever there
is a suggestion of discontinuing the patronage which
the Government has hitherto granted their clients.
So long have they been accustomed to tariff for
privilege that they are stricken at the thought of
tariff for revenue.
However disturbed this group of gentlemen may
be in appearance or reality, the people as a whole
are tranquil and content. They expect a thorough
going revision of the tariff schedules; for they de
manded such a revision at the polls and they com
missioned the Democratic party to perform, this im
portant task.
But they do not look for a revolution. They ex
pect, on the contrary,' a thoughtful readjustment of
the tariff system, a readjustment in behalf of com
mon prosperity and one that will quicken rather
than retard the progress of business in general.
That is the program to which the Democratic
leaders are committed and which they are now pre
paring to carry into effect. The calamity howl
which has been raised so long against honest tariff
revision has become hollow and wearisome. The
country knows that the natural sources of prosper
ity were never so abundant as today and that the
incoming Democratic administration has no thought
of any measures that would harm legitimate busi
ness or imperil the people’s well-being. -.
King Alfonso.
If King Alfonso carries out his intention of visit
ing the United States, he will find a cordial welcome
untinctured by any acrid memory of the war with
Spain. His personality is among the most interest
ing, though not the' most forceful, of the world’s
sovereigns. “Had I been horn in different circum
stances,” he is credited with once having said, “I
might be striving-for a republic instead of reigning
upon a throne.” A good, husband and a good father,
a gracious friend with an open mind, Alfonso claims
attention, as a man as much as a king.
Within the past decade, his country has made
long strides in prosperity and in the efficiency of its
government; and besides this, Spain is, as it has
ever been, a land of castles and romance to which
American imagination still turns as eagerly as in
the day of Washington Irving.
Twice Told Fairy Tales
BY ANNE BBNNER
There was once upon a time, a Senegal tailor, who
had a daughter as dazzling as the sun. All the youths
in the neighborhood were in love with her beauty, and
two of them went to her and asked for her hand. The
girl, like a well-trained daughter, made them no an
swer, but called her father, who listened to them and
said:
"It is late; go home, and come again tomorrow. I
will tell you then which of you shall have my daugh
ter.”
At daybreak the next morning the young men were
at his door.
"Here we are,” they cried; "remember what you
promised us yesterday.”
"Wait,” said the tailor; "I must go out and buy a
piece of cloth; when I ^tum yen will hear what I ex
pect you to do.” K •
He soon returned, and, calling his daughtera, said to
the young men:
"My sons, there are two of you, and I have but one
daughter. I cannot give her to both of you, and must
refuse one. You see this piece of cloth; I will cut
from it two pairs of breeches, exactly alike; each of
you shall make one of them, and the one that finishes
first shall be my son-in-law.”
Each of the rivals took his task, and prepared to
set to work under the tailor’s eyes. The latter said
to his daughter: "Here is thread; you can thread the
needles for the workmen.”
The girl obeyed; she took the spool and sat down by
the youths. But the pretty witch was full of cun
ning; her father did not know which one she loved,
neither did the young men, but, for her part, she knew
very well. The tailor went out, the girl threaded the
needles, and her suitors set to work. # But to the one
she loved she gave short needlesful, while she gave
long needlesful to his rival. Both sewed zealously;
at 11 o’clock the work was scarcely half done, but at
3 in the afternoon the young man with the short nee
dlesful had finished his task, while the other was far
behind. When the tailor returned the victor carried
in the finished breeches. His rival was still sewing
"My children,” said the father, "I did not wish to
show any partiality between you, for which reason I
divided the cloth into two equal parts, and gave each
a fair chance. Are you satisfied?”
"Perfectly,” answered they, "We understood your
meaning and accepted the trial; what is to be will be!”
But the tailor had reasoned to himself: "He who
finishes his task first will be the better workman,
and consequently the one better fitted to support his
household.” It did not occur to him that his daugh
ter might outwit him by giving the longer needlesful
to the one she did not wisii to win. Woman’s wit de
cided the contest, and the girl chose her husband her
self.
“Concentrated Selfishness.”
Said a wearied member of the Ways and Means
committee, after he had sat through a fortnight of
hearings on various tariff schedules, listening to one
long plea after another in behalf of some special
privilege, “Never In al_ my days have I seen such a
continuous exhibition of concentrated selfishness.”
His phrase aptly describes the attitude of those
interests which have enjoyed the patronage of a Re
publican-made tariff. They have come to regard the
government as a dispenser of favors and to consider
their own affairs the center of national life.”
As to the rights of the consumer and of com
mon business interests, they seem to know nothing
and to care less.
“With a few exceptions” continued the committee
member, and he voiced the sentiment of his col
leagues, “every man we have heard from has for
gotten all about th e other follow, has forgotten all
about the traditional tariff policy of the Democratic
party and seems to have forgotten the cardinal issue
on which Woodrow Wilson was elected.”
It Is against this attitude that the Democratic
majority in Congress must set itself most reso
lutely. There is no purpose to revise the tariff in
other than a spirit of ‘foresight and of due regard
for all legitimate interests that may be concerned.
The changes must he made, as Governor Wilson ex
pressed it, by such stages and at such a rate as
will least interfere with honest business enterprise;
but there must nevertheless be revision “unhesitat
ingly and steadily downward.”
In the face of a nationwide and long-ignored de
mand for this reform, the party cannot afford to be
swerved from its duty by the selfish pleas of any
group or Individual.
A Slice of Happiness
(New York Evening Post.)
What is a luxury and what a necessity is a ques
tion that has been extensively discussed, though per
haps not to much effect, by economists as well as by
moralists. The classic example, perhaps, of a stand
ing difference of opinion on this point is the case of
tobacco—the poor man’s friend or enemy, as you
choose to look at it. In yesterday’s tariff hearing, on
the chemical schedule, a place was claimed for per
fumery as a feminine indulgence upon grounds not
unlike those usually urged for tobacco in the case of
the rougher sex. "We are all entitled to a slice of
happiness,” exclaimed a New York witness, who
spoke in behalf of the Manufacturing Perfumers’ asso
ciation, after stating that he knew of working girls
who spent much of their wages on perfumery, and he
accordingly asserted that it is a necessity for servant
girls and for womankind generally. Apart from the
specific point thus raised, this assertion of the status
of perfumery is suggestive of the broad question of
the subtle and silent changes which take place, all
along the line, in standards of living, and which are
continually making the luxuries of the past—or luxu
ries unknown in past ages—the necessaries of the
present. How much of the advance of man’s power
over nature is thus silently absorbed, and how much
this absorption is overlooked in comparisons between
the condition of the masses in our day and in former
times, is one of the most interesting of sociological
questions.
Dr. Frank
Crane
GENIUS
A genius is a superior human machine.
He gets a great deal of praise and reward, but In
truth he deserves no credit, for his best work is auto-
jnatic. Nothing is more mechan
ical than originality.
For the brilliant ideas are nev
er produced by tiresome effort;
they pop up out of the subcon
sciousness without any prompt
ings from us.
Note your own bright Inven
tions. You have been thinking
over a matter for days, until
perhaps you have given it up and
put it aside in despair; and then
suddenly, apropos of nothing at
all, while you are boarding a
street car or getting your shoes
shined, click!—you have it!—the
solution flashes * full-born into
your mind.
You may say it "just came” to
you. Better, it just came out of
you. For after your conscious intelligence had
chewed and chewed upon it, you swallowed it, so to
speak, and it passed down into your subconscious In
telligence, then was digested and prepared, and when
perfected suddenly reappeared in your consciousness,
after the manner of ruminants.
A genius is a person who is endowed with a pow
erful subconscious mill for grinding out ideas.
He does not necessarily have a trkined mind; he
must have a wonderful sub-mind.
The physician who is a genius looks over the pa
tient and the correct diagnosis "just comes” to him.
That is the genuine God-made doctor. The man-made
product of the schools tries to pierce the mysteries of
life with his bare brains and stumbles into an inex
tricable maze.
The lawyer genius penetrates at once into the gist
of a case. Study and experience may help him, but
nothing can take the place of that inward nature-born
sharpness vision.
The literary genius is one to whom the right word
"comes,” the priest genius is the one with the X-ray
of ethical sympathy, the artist genius is the worker
whose subconscious soul grasps the truth of beauty
with unerring taste.
That is why no genius can explain himself. Mi
chelangelo or Conan Doyle or Paderewski cannot
tell how he does it. He doesn’t know. The great
things he does are nonconscious.
There is ground -for believing that there is as much
c-fference betwee the genius and the common man as
there is between man and the animals.
Kant says: "The greatest discoverer in the sphere
of science differs only -in degree from the ordinary
man; the genius, on the other hand, differs spe
cifically.”
For your true optimist, there is no time like the
future.
If the cost of living remains high it oughtn’t
kick if the price of cotton keeps on soaring.
It’s the easiest thing in the woTld for a pretty
woman to manage a man—if she isn’t married to
him. i
Frederic
J Haskin
III. THE PROVISIONAL GOVERRNMENT
The Republic of China
Popular agitation for reform in China developed
into the well organized revolutionary movement in the
spring of 1911. The, appointment of the notorious
Prince Ching to the new post
of prime minister, together
with delay in the promulgation'
of the constitution, even after
the prince regent had appeared
to take a personal interest in
the matter, convinced the young
students who were developing
public sentiment that only the
overthrow of the Manchus and|
their fawning Chinese officials
and the establishment of a re
public patterned after the gov
ernment of the United States,
would give the people the just
and modern administration
which they clamored for.
• • •
Renewed demands for a con
stitution in June, July and Au
gust were met by the usual
promises. In September Spe
cimen province seethed in the protest against the rail
way policy of Sheng Kuan-huai. On October 10 the
accidental explosion of a bomb in Hankow exposed the
revolutionary plot, and precipitated the conflict. The
rebels demanded a modern government and constitution
at once. The forty-eight generals of the royal army'
advised the Manchu court to grant the demands of the
rebels or face certain destruction. Even at that time
the revolutionary leaders would not have objected to aj
limited monarchy with a Manchu on the throne, which
would be an ornament and not a burden.
• • *
The national assembly drew up nineteen fundamen-'
tal principles of government based on the revolution
ary demands. In the meantime, the Manchus, in the
name of the poor baby infant, in manifesto after mani
festo, did the humble kow-tow to the rebels and to the'
whole people in a most astonishing manner.
... i
On November 3 the program of the national assem
bly was accepted In an extremely advanced grant of a
constitutional government. It provided that “the Ta-!
ching dynasty shall reign forever!” and that “the per
son of the emperor shall be inviolable," but it also said
that “the power of the emperor shall be limited by a
constltuion; the order of succession shall be prescribed
by the constitution; and the constitution shall be drawn
up and adopted by the Sze-cheng-yuan (national assem
bly) and promulgated by the emperor.”
...
This grant gave the parllam-nt absolute power over
taxation and expenditures and made! the premier and
his cabinet responsible solely to parliament. It was.
In essence, the British constitution put in writing. No
power was held hack—the throne abandoned all sub
stance in the hope of preserving the shadow.
...
This was a remarkable document In the light of
centuries of Chinese history, and doubly so when com
ing from a Manchu ruler. As further evidence of ab
solute abasement the court two days later directed
that the parliament be convened immediately. On No
vember 16 Tuan Shih K’ai, now premier, announced his
cabinet. To appease the rebels there was only one
Manchu member among nine Chinese, one of whom
was an avowed rebel leader.
...
Too late! The revolution triumphed; on February 3
the emperor abdicated—the Manchus were cast off for-
ever. A provisional republic was formally organized
March 10, 1912, and now the Chinese people are select
ing members for the first congress, which will devise
a constltuion'adequate for a modern republic, and will'
elect a permanent president, who doubtless will be the
present provisional president, Hon. Tuan Shlh K’at.
Should he decline, the honor will go to General L.1,
Tuan-hung, the provisional vice president and hero of
the revolution. The constitution which the first con-!
gress will formally adopt has already been outlined by
the national assembly.
• • •
The congress of the republic of China will consist 1
of a senate and house of representatives. Each of the
eighteen provinces Is entitled to ten senators, who will'
be elected by the provincial assemblies. Election of
senators will not be confined to provincial assembly-'
men. Mongolia will have twenty-seven senators. Tibet!
ten, Chlnghal three. In addition, the Central Educa
tional society will provide eight, and Chinese citizens'
who live abroad will be entitled to six.
...
•i
Two or three of the last named will be from the
United States and one from the Philippines. The Ma
nila senator has already been elected In the person of
Sy Cong Bleng, a millionaire merchant. These out-'
side senators will be elected by the foreign Ch/hesa
chambers of commerce which the Peking authorities
recognize. The senators will serve for six years, ex-;
cept those of the first congress. They will be divided
by lot into three groups, to serve two, four and six)
years each. Thereafter the term will be full six years.
The senate will have 234 members.
• • •
The house of representatives will consist of about
BOO members, as the ratio has been fixed at one repre
sentative to each 800,000 of the population. The term
will be for thre e years. A system of primary and fi
nal elections has been devised. At the primary elec
tion each district entitled to the representative will elect
fifty men. The fifty having the most votes from the
people will be declared elected at the primary election.
...
At various electoral centers the chosen representa-:
tives-apparent of not more than eight districts; In oth
er words, 400 men, at the outside, will meet, form an'
electoral college, and from their number elect the onaj
man in fifty who shall go to congress. At the same'
time an equal number of reserve candidates will baj
elected, so that no seat in the house of'representatives
shall be vacant for long because of the death, resigna-j
tion or removal of a member.
... |
Widespread poverty and paucity of general educa
tion will serve to keep the voting proportion low for!
several years. Any male who Is twenty-one years old!
and over, who has resided at least two years in his!
electoral district, may vote If he can prove any one of|
the following requirements:
* * *
Payment of at least $1 per annum in direct tax to,
the government; possessing; immovable property worth'
$250 (this proviso will not operate in Mongolia, Tibet j
and Chinghai); graduate of a grammar or high school
of western standards, or the equivalent.
!
* * *
Suffrage is denied army, navy, police, admlnlstra-,
tive and Judicial officers while they hold office. Oth
ers who cannot vote or hold office are idiots, bank-1
rupts, Illiterates, opium-smokers, those who have been
deprived of civil rights and priests, except priests fill
Mongolia, Tibet and Chinghai. To hold office a man
must be at least twenty-five years old.
* * *
Senators are now being chosen by the several prov
incial assemblies. The primary election for represen
tatives was held throughout China December 10 last,
and th© final elections are being held now. The new
congress will meet next month or as soon as possible
thereafter. Its principle duty will be the adoption of
a complete constitution and the election - of a president
of th© republic, whose term will be for six years, It IS;
expected. A two-thirds vote will be necessary for the
adoption of the constitution. All laws, of course, must
pass both houses and get the signature of the presi
dent. Congress will meet twice a year. The powers i
to be given the president of the republic have not yet
been defined, but it is likely that they will be midway'
between those exercised by the president of the United
States and the president of France. The British sys
tem of having a ministerial bench in the house of rep
resentatives with absolute responsibility to parlTa- i
ment, will probably be used. properly constitifted
courts will be organized, taxes equalized, and life, lib-'
erty and. the pursuit of happiness guaranteed.
fi