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was ever a sensible proposition made,
it would seem that that of reciprocal
free trade in coal between the United
States and Canada is one, but the
stand patters would have none of it.
The Williams bill is as follows: *
That there shall not hereafter be
levied, collected nor paid any duty
on coal the product of the Dominion
of Canada when shipped or carried in
to the United States.
This act shall take effect, however,
upon the issuance of a proclamation
by the president of the United States
setting forth that the government of
the Dominion of Canada has removed
the duty now levied and collected by
it upon coal the product of the United
States shipped or carried into the Do
minion of Canada from the United
States.
It is hereby made the duty of the
president of the United States to is
sue the said proclamation herein pro
vided for upon the official ascertain
ment of the fact that the Dominion of
Canada has removed the duty on coal
the product of the United States enter
ing the Dominion of Canada.
n
Proposition to Reform House Rules.
A great many members are weary
of the stringency of the house rules.
Among these is Judge Dorsey W.
Shackleford, of Missouri, now coming
to be what the late Charles Fremont
Cochran of Missouri would have call
ed “an old and experienced member.”
The general complaint is that the pres
ent rules give the speaker entirely too
much power. This is claimed by most
Democrats and by a few Republicans.
Before Colonel William P. Hepburn
was made chairman of the committee
on interstate and foreign commerce he
would deliver a philippic in each con
gress against the rules, but since he
was made chairman of that committee
he has omitted that speech. Whether
the chairmanship caused him to quit
or whether he came to realize the fu
tility of it, I know not. First and last,
Judge Shackleford has made several
speeches on the subject himself—ex
cellent speeches, too, full of fire and
vigor. The judge evidently learned to
spell out of Webster’s old blue backed
speller and took to heart the story of
how an old man tried to scare a boy
out of his favorite apple tree by throw
ing tufts of grass at him. Finding it
had no effect, he began to throw rocks,
whereupon the boy came down. So
the judge, finding that his speeches did
not change the situation and with hope
still springing in his breast, intro
duced a resolution which will do the
work if he can get it passed. His res
olution is in words and figures as fol
lows:
Resolved, That rule 10 of the rules
of the house of representatives be
amended by striking out the following:
“Unless otherwise specially ordered
by the house the speaker shall appoint
at the commencement of each congress
the following standing committees —
viz.,” and insert in lieu thereof the
following:
“There shall be selected at the be
ginning of each congress a standing
committee, to be called ‘committee on
organization and order of business.’
The speaker shall not be a member
thereof. Said committee shall consist
of twelve members, who shall be se
lected in the following manner: Im
mediately after the election and quali
z fication of the speaker the roll shall
be called, and each member of the
house, when his name is reached, may
cast twelve votes, all of which may
be for one person or distributed among
several, as he may choose. The twelve
persons receiving the highest number
of votes shall be declared elected mem
bers of said committee. Said mem
bers so selected shall organize by
the selection of one of their number
as chairman. To said committee shall
be referred all proposed action touch-
- *
Ing the rules, joint rules and order of
business. Said committee as soon as
selected and organized shall proceed
to the appointment of the following
standing committees —viz.”
*
Refused a Senate Seat.
Ex-United States Senator Benson of
Kansas is a peculiar man. He actually
refused an election to the United
States senate. True, it was only a forty
day fragment of a term, but it was an
election nevertheless. It will be re
membered that when Senator Burton
resigned Governor Hoch appointed
Benson to serve till the meeting of
the legislature, which would elect for
both Burton’s unfinished term and for
a term of six years. Benson was a
candidate for both the short and long
terms. When Charlie Curtis walked
away with the long term it so disgust
ed Benson that he refused the short
term. Sic transit gloria mundi.
It
Hon. Richard Franklin Pettigrew has
been in and about Washington much
this winter. It is said that he is rich
again. He has been rich two or three
times before and on his uppers—his
physical, not his mental, uppers, for
his mentality is never exhausted. It
is also said that he is going to be a
candidate for the senate again. Wish
he may not only be a candidate, but
be elected. He would stir up the Re
publican menagerie at a great rate,
and, goodness knows, it needs stirring
up. Dick Pettigrew is a radical of
radicals, but a man doesn’t have to
indorse all his ideas in order to wish
him well.
*3
If by a recent resolution of inquiry
which Senator Clay of Georgia intro
duced into the senate he can actually
find out how much our idiotic course
as to the Philippines has cost us, he
will have rendered the country a most
valuable service and will elicit infor
mation which will cause American
eyes to bulge out so that they can be
knocked off with a stick. If old Ben
Franklin could come back to earth, his
verdict would be that we have paid
dearly for our Philippine whistle.
As soon as President Roosevelt laid
his big stick on their backs the re
bellious and voluble Californians be
came mild as sucking doves on the
Japanese question and even went so
far as to vote for their own efface
ment. The Democrats in the house,
with five or six exceptions, voted
against giving the president carte
blanche to do as he pleases in immi
gration matters and against mixed
schools, but the Californians were
quiet as lambs.
CHAMP CLARK.
It H M
SOUTH’S WONDERFUL FUTURE.
At the close of the terrible civil war
which had shaken this great nation to
its foundations, the southern section
which had been engaged in the tre
mendous conflict emerged from the
struggle overwhelmed by the vast ma
terial forces against which it had con
tended, with its lands laid waste, not a
few of the cities reduced to ashes, a
hundred thousand of its best and brav
est sons cold in death, and all its
wealth destroyed by the havoc of war
or reduced to the simplest elements
from which only by the most unremit
ting and laborious exertions It would
be possible to secure a bare subsist
ence.
Forty years have passed away since
the south laid down its arms and
promptly addressed itself to the arts
of peace. From that day to the pres
ent hard work and devoted exertion
have not ceased, and the result is that
the south is growing rich, richer than
ever it was before, and richer than Its
people dreamed it could become. Its
development in those forty years, and
THE WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAff.
the wonderful results It has attained
at the present day, are ably and com
prehensively stated in a recent article
prepared by the distinguished statisti
cal and public economist who con
ducts the Baltimore Manufacturers’
Record. The following paragraphs
from it are so full of interest and so
much to the point that they are given
here:
“During 1906 the wealth of the
south increased $7,300,000 for every
day of the year, Sundays included, or
a total of $2,690,000,000. The actual
increase in assessed value was $1,076,-
479,788, and this was on the average
of 40 per cent of the true value. The
amazing magnitude of this gain of
$7,300,000 a day is strikingly shown
by the statement of the London Ex
press, which, bemoaning the inability
of Great Britain to keep pace with
America’s growth, put the increase in
Great Britain's wealth at $7,000,000 a
week.
“Contrast the south’s increase of $7,-
300,000 a day with Great Britain’s $7,-
000,000 a week, and then think of the
future.
“Great Britain, with comparatively
few natural resources, dependent upon
the outside world for nearly all
its foodstuffs, for much of its iron ore,
for all of its cotton, and a large part
of its lumber, and with only 10,000
square miles of coal, of which a large
portion has been worked out, has 40,-
000,000 people crowded into an area
equal to that of less than half of
Texas.
“On the other hand, look at the
south, with the world’s cotton trade in
its absolute domination, with 62,000
square miles of virgin coal fields, with
iron ore sufficient to duplicate for
years to come the whole iron and steel
trade of all Europe, with almost limit
less soil capabilities already produc
ing over 800,000,000 bushels of grain a
year and several hundred million dol
lars’ worth of diversified farm prod
ucts, able to produce foodstuffs for
hundreds of millions, able to clothe
the world, able to do more manufact
uring than that of the whole country
today, with millions of available water
power, 500,000 horsepower for electri
cal transmission being already under
development, and when you have cata
logued these you have mentioned only
a few of the south’s strong points.
“Who can measure the limitless pos
sibilities of the south? Who can fully
grasp the fact that the south is rapid
ly pushing forward to the time when
its own wealth will exceed all of the
vast wealth accumulated by Great
Britain through the ages, and by which
it dominates the finances of the world?
Given a few more years of this rapid
advance by the south, and it will be
gin to pile up a vast accumulation of
capital, whereas now its business is
increasing so rapidly that it requires
all of its earnings for active business
operations. Surely the vision is one to
stir every southern heart, for it is, in
indeed, a reality.”
Let it be understood that the develop
ment of southern resources, energy
and enterprise has gone on in a con
stantly and rapidly multiplying ratio,
and at a corresponding rate of growth
in the future, and there is, as far as
human foresight can go, an absolute
certainty that the wonderful >evolu
tion will continue and the enormous
results that will be realized will far
surpass the wildest dreams and soar
above the highest flights of the most
exuberant fancy.
Every force of continental develop
ment is now gravitating southward,
and the future of our section is beyond
the power of computation—Picayune,
New Orleans.
m n n
When a man is known as a confirm
ed bachelor it means that a great
many girls have assisted at his con
firmation.
THE BIG SEVEN.
The Brooklyn Eagle has divided the
United States into seven transporta
tion provinces, for each one of which
it names a railway magnate as its con
trolling figure. It credits these indi
viduals with immense political influ
ence in their respective regions by
reason of their ability to control the
wealth and actions of others in addi
tion to their own.
James J. Hill, Edward H. Harriman,
J. Pierpont Morgan, Janies McCrea,
William K. Vanderbilt, George J.
Gould and William H. Moore own or
control 8 per cent of the entire wealth
of this country, or 75 per cent of the
whole railroad mileage, with a total
capitalization and funded debt of SB,-
465,132,586. The annual net earnings
of these roads amount to $525,986,748,
or 66.78 per cent of the net earnings of
all the railroads of the country. While
the control of these seven men is not
absolute in the whole of the 150,000
miles of roads credited to them, they
largely influence the conduct of 33,549
miles which they partially dominate.
The great sway whiph these seven
men exercise in the industrial pur
suits can be realized when it is re
membered that the sale or exchange of
products of the country depends al
most entirely upon 'acilities for dis
tribution. Statistics Kr the year 1905
show that the value of manufactures
in this country was $15,000,000,000;
farm products, $23,000,000,000; im
ports $2,000,000,000. In this aspect of
the proposition it will be seen that
the nearly $9,000,000,000 of railroad
values momentously affected the $40,-
000,000,000 of other industrial wealth.
Although the processes of consolida
tion which have brought these men
into control of so vast a situation have
been going on for years, it is only of
late that compilations of their im
mense individual manipulations have
been possible, for the reason that un
til lately these concentrations had not
been completely developed.
When consideration is given to the
fact that millions of toilers are en
gaged in the operation of the railroads
and in the business of agricultural pro
duction and manufactures, some idea
can be had of the mighty power which
these seven magnates hold in the in
dustrial and commercial life of the
country, and Incidentally in politics.
It it It
RELICS OF CARPET BAG DAYS.
San Salvador, Feb. 27.—The na
tional assembly today refused a dona
tion to Salvador, made by various per
sons in the state of North Carolina,
to the amount of $500,000. In reject
ing this proffered donation the assem
bly expressed the opinion that it
would be undignified for Salvador to
accept the gift.
Simmons on the “Donation.”
Washington, Feb. 27.—The dona
tion of the $500,000 of North Carolina
bonds to Salvador which was declined
by the national assembly of that coun
try according to Senator Simmons,
was made by a New York syndicate,
headed by Bird S. Coler. Senator
Simmons says that the bonds were
issued by the “carpet bag” legislature
of North Carolina in 1868 and that the
state has never received one cent for
the securities. The New York syndi
cate, he says, has purchased almost
the entire issue, amounting to many
millions of dollars, at about two cents
on the dollar. The bonds have been
offered to a number of states and inde
pendent governments in order that
suit may be brought against North
Carolina and the validity of the securi
ties passed upon by the supreme court
of the United States.
South Dakota Keeps Money.
Pierre, S. D., Feb. 27.—The bill or
dering the return to North Carolina
of $30,000 obtained from that state in
gratis bonds, was defeated in th® sen
ate today by a vote of 25 to 16.
3