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pretending Missouri conductor, and it was a wholesome deed. To charge a battery in the excitement of battle animated by the gaudium certaminis in company with hundreds or thou sands of one’s shouting comrades has ever been accounted a heroic perform ance, but it is easy beside what was done by Heywood. Unarmed, watch ing an opportunity, single handed he pounced on the robber who had bis pistol in his hand, knocked him down and held him till he could be tied. Certainly Carnegie ought to give him a medal, and the railroad company ought to give him a life pension equal to his salary. Leonidas at Thermopy lae, the Light brigade at Balaklava, the Old Guard at Waterloo—none of these showed more courage than did Conductor Heywood. All honor to his name. May his tribe increase. Like Lord Byron, he awoke one morning to find himself famous. Conductors who act as he did are as scarce as poets who write as Byron wrote. If Hey wood were of proper age, he ought -to be sent to West .Point, but as be is sixty-four that cannot be. If he had performed his heroic feat within the realm of Napoleon while that mighty man was emperor of France, he would most certainly have been rewarded with the cross of the Legion of Honor and given even more substantial re wards. Even in this prosaic age Hey wood should not go unrewarded. •t A Contrast. Little Delaware is to be most heart ily congratulated on having unloaded Gas Addicks, the greatest incubus that ever afflicted any American common wealth. He has kept her in the lime light—and such a limelight!—for ten or twelve years, humbled her, dis graced her, made her name a hiss and a by-word among the states. Twice he forced her to have only one Unit ed States senator for the space of two years each time, and once for a period of two years he prevented her having any United- States senator at all. That’s Republican Delaware! What an awful contrast with the Democrat ic era when Delaware sent to the sen ate such splendid Americans as the Saulsburys, the Bayards and Judge George Gray! n Holding On. What has become of the Platt res ignation rumors? For months they came thick and fast, but the aged, not venerable, Thomas Collier Platt still sits in the house of the ancients and gives no sign. It will be remembered that he once resigned. That was away back in the dog days of 1881, during the Garfield-Conkling feud. Most folks believe that the lordly Roscoe com pelled Thomas Collier to resign, and they therefore and thereupon dubbed him “Me Too Platt.” His friends that he suggested the idea to Conk ling—a statement taken cum grano. That Conkling would have heeded his advice is altogether improbable when we reflect upon the known character istics of the two men. At any rate, Platt hasn’t resigned any fat posi tions since Conkling died, and, what’s most likely, he never will. * Perhaps somebody some time some where has done a more unwise and inopportune thing than Governor Swet tenham did when he wrote his rude and uncalled for letter to Admiral Da vis. If so, it has escaped the histo rians of all time. It is the ne plus ul tra of bad manners. In this era of good feeling betwixt us and Great Britain there, is no danger of its pro ducing international complications, but nevertheless the British foreign office did well to promptly disavow it. It The world moves, and no mistake. James Bryce is the only untitled En- glishman ever accredited to our gov ernment as the British diplomatic rep resentative. The entire diplomatic establishment as now conducted is ar chaic and should be abolished, but if it is to be continued, as it no doubt will be, then we hail James Bryce, embassador, etc., as the harbinger of a better day. CHAMP CLARK. HUH STOCK WATERING AND RAILROAD OPERATIONS. That railroad capitalization is large ly built upon water in the United States, has been demonstrated time and again. This watered stock may be illustrated in several ways. For instance, suppose the grocer in a local town has a ten thousand dollar stock of goods, including his building and equipment and his business is very prosperous on account of lack of com petition, and he is making twenty to twenty-five per cent over and above expenses each year on his investment. This big profit invites too much in quiry and temptation on the part of persons disposed to be inquisitive. The grocer organizes a “corporation” and so manipulates matters that he sells another fifteen thousand dollars’ worth of stock, the money which he suc ceeds in getting, or notes for it, as “promoter,” and he still retains his ten thousand dollars’ worth of stock and perhaps gets some of the new stock. If the original stock w r as mak ing an average annual income of twen ty per cent, the whole new stock of twenty-five thousand dollars, instead of the original ten thousand dollars, would be making 8 per cent, the pro moter, the holder of the original ten thousand dollars would have his ten thousand dollars’ worth of stock, would have the fifteen thousand dollars paid in for the new stock, would still be getting 8 per cent on his ten thousand dollars and would have fifteen thous and dollars of loose money for other purposes. Not a cent would have been added to actual assets of the corporation, but fifteen thousand dollars would be add ed to the capital stock, and instead of reducing the price to the patrons of the store, as ought to be done, without issuing watered stock, the con sumer has to pay prices to sustain and maintain an income on stock that rep resents nothing at all, except a graft upon the public. The case is "much more flagrant in the case of a railroad corporation. It is a public service corporation, and of such large capitalization that new and competing roads cannot be built in a hurry. The store in the supposed case is a strictly private concern and a small capital could put in a com peting store in short order. The sup posed case can be remedied easily, that of the railroad corporation from its nature and business enjoys privi leges and opportunities that the small er concern does not, and the railroad can easily confuse the public where the other could not. Railroads are permitted to be built and operated for what is supposed to be the “public convenience,” for the better handling of the traffic of the people—at a reasonable cost. In good faith the cost of the traffic to the pub lic, in charges should be based upon actual Investment —not upon water — and water frequently many times more than the actual investment. If the watering of stock is permitted, it may be indefinitely multiplied, and if freight and passenger charges may be based rightfully on such watered stock, then the process may be carried on so as to absorb every dollar of earnings of the people. But the watering of stock is not con fined to railroad companies, it is and has been common in all other matters, such as the great oil trust, steel trust, THE WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN. and other corporations of like chai acter. We are at a critical period in the history of the country, which needs not be alarming, but which calls for sound statesmanship, and which will also require that the strong and certain power of government, govern ment by nation, state, county and mu nicipality, be exerted to control and regulate corporate wealth and prop erty of every class, keeping it at all times in subjection to the best inter ests of the people, while permitting it at the same time to yield a fair re turn to the investors. The stock watering is, in effect, for gery on an extensive scale. This is the plain and unavoidable result to the paying public, and a government or ganized by the people themselves for their own protection, surely must have enough virture in it to correct a plain and dangerous invasion of the intent and purpose of all government, the equal protection of all. —The Searcn light. M H H WILL KEEP UP THE BOYS ON THE FARM. By a Farmer. The subject is one of great mo ment, for in it lies the solution of the “labor” the “vagrant negro,” and the “boys leaving the farm” prob lems. One of the sages has said “fools learn by their own experience, the wise by the experience of others.” I think the southern farmers would do well to consider this. Go into their homes and you will find all up-to-date household necessa ries—the sevdng machine, washing machine, cream separators and other labor saving inventions. Go to the saw mills, cotton mills, printing of fices, etc., and you find every known device for saving labor and reducing hired help to the minimum. Go into the field and you find the old fashioned Dixie plow; one. plow, one man, one mule, making one furrow. Plowing around stumps that have to be “wed” every year. Turning at the rail fence which has to be “righted up” everv year, and distributing manure with shovels, utilizing both the boys and hired help. •While gang plows or disc plows or harrows with two or three mules and one man would do more work, do it better and do it all “just at the right time,” why plow and weed around stumps when improved machinery will rid the farm of them once for all at a very small cost? Why fix up old (or new) rail fences when timber is so valuable and wire so cheap? Whv spread manure by hand when a spread er with one man and two horses will do more and better work than the same team with a wagon and four men. I say up-to-date equipment solves the “labor” problem because the farm er needs less “help,” consequently can pay better wages and secure compe tent men. I say it solves the “vagrant negro” problem because the farmer can be as independent of the negro as the negro is of the farmer. If that isn’t a complete solution when the “vagrant” gets into the toils of the law it will be. I say it solves the problem of the boys leaving the farm because if the farm is run in an up-to-date man ner the boys can have as much time for recreation as the city boys. If the hired help is competent, educated men, the boys will not dislike their society. If the farm is relieved of its drudgery (the majority of which is unnecessary) the boys will look upon farming as a scientific study, devote their evenings to reading and study and grow up to be competent farm ers. If the farm was relieved of its drudgery it would be as near heaven as any place on earth. And the farm er would be its king instead of its slave. This is possible only through the use of labor saving machinery.— Union News, Barnesville, Ga. H M H MY SEASON O’ THE YEAR. There’s a time ’at soots my fancy, Tho’ it may not jast fit yours, When the house is like a prison, An’ I long fur out o’ doors. J ■• ' There is joy to me in winter, When the stingin’ frosty bite Sends my blood a hoppin’ jumpin’ An’ makes me feel ’bout rite. What a joy the fust brite blossoms, Which, like visions from above, Are blessings ever welcome An ’ they tech our hearts with love. An’ I like the time o’ summer, When the golden harvests wave, An’ the house-wren an’ the bobolink In the meadow brooklets lave. F ; • | But the time I love the best Os all the pleasant year, Is when the squirrel gathers store, An’ the autumn leaf is sear. When the day is sorter dreamy' An’ the eooin’ of the dove Fills the mind with restrospeetion, An’ the heart with mellow love. itJ' Il ; I i When the death ’at Mother Nature Some day will send to all, On every leaf an’ blossom Is seen to lightly fall; mi; , When the soul o’ man is quickened An’ his thots to heaven ascend, An’ it seems the Past an’ Future In holy union blend; When I see the Hand o’ Heaven On all things far an’ wide, An’ I feel the life within me Has reached its ebbin’ tide; r ; iII ' I I ’Tis then my soul in rapture To its highest pleasure soars, An the fields air so invitin’ At I must git out o’ doors. —J. A. ROSS. nun OREGON AFTER HARRIMAN. Oregon proposes to make the boot fit both feet. Now it says the rail roads will have to pay some demur rage, say ten dollars a day in ease they fail to furnish when a demand is made for them. The roads make you pay for the cars, when not un loaded promptly, and the shipper should have some lick at the roads when they want to ship and have no cars. It is thought that when Ore gon’s legislature meets, and this law is put into effect, that Harriman will scramble about and squtnder some money on building cars Eagle, Dothan, Ala. < * W THE HEARST CONTEST. The new development in Mr. Hearst’s effort to count the ballots cast when he ran for Mayor against Mr. McClellan in 1905, is a motion on the part of Mr. McClellan’s lawyers for an order adjudging Attorney General Jackson in contempt of court, and punishing him for his vio lation of the writ of prohibition, ob tained by the Mtyor. If the Attor ney General should refuse to with draw his action, in the name of the people, this, in a motion, asks for his imprisonment until he does so. The< motion will be held in Albany Saturday. . __ Z 3