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Public Opinion Throughout the Union |
WHAT CONGRESS DID.
(Ft. Worth Telegram.)
Congress has adjourned for the reg
ular term, and there is not a great
deal that stands to its credit. Fol
lowing is a brief synopsis of what was
accomplished during the term:
It ratified the Santo Domingo treaty.
It passed a billion dollars’ worth of
appropriation bills.
It ordered an investigation of the
lumber trust; of the international
harvester trust and cotton exchanges.
It passed an immigration act, coup
led with the exclusion of Japanese
coolies.
It knocked out the canteen at sol
diers’ homes.
It gave the railway employes a six
teen-hour law.
It established an agricultural bank
in the Philippines.
It passed a rather tame currency
reform measure.
It provided for a new battleship.
It passed a modified act prohibit
ing parties from making campaign
assessments.
It ratified the Algeciras treaty.
It adopted a resolution providing
for an investigation of the Brownsville
affair.
It decided that Senator Smoot of
Utah was entitled to his seat.
It passed a general service pension
act.
It passed a rivers and harbors bill.
It raised the salaries of the vice
president, speaker, cabinet members,
members of congress and postal em
ployes.
It passed and provided an appropri
ation for pneumatic postal tubes in
several of the larger cities.
There is not much in the list of real
moment to the masses of the people.
THE CASE OF PERKINS.
(The New York Sun.)
We would, with all proper diffidence
and regard, ask Mr. Perkins if he
thinks that he has shown a due and
creditable solicitude .for the feelings
of Mr. Roosevelt? Mr. Perkins, bow
ing with dignity to an aroused and
re-constructed public sentiment, ac
knowledges the technical immorality
of the New York Life contribution to
the campaign, and he, out of his own
pocket, restores the full amount, with
interest. Mr. Perkins was in no wise
the beneflciajry except as the con
sciousness of a good act, well and
timely done, may have refreshed him
casually. The sole, individual benefi
ciary was Mr. Roosevelt, who was
elected to the presidency of the Unit
ed States. Mr. Perkins, therefore, is
denuded of his $50,000 without profit
and without recourse! The New York
Life attained its laudable object; it
saw Mr. Roosevelt elected. It is sat
isfied and urges no audible complaint.
Mr. Perkins, too, may be satisfied
for aught we know to the contrary. He
was gratified, doubtless, over Mr.
Roosevelt’s success, but that he as
sessed his emotions at the figure of
$50,000 our well known scepticism
makes difficult of acceptance. In fact
for us, the postulate is wholly unob
scured —who is going to make good
to Mr. George W. Perkins his departed
$50,000?
Senator Bob Taylor says “the world
is growing better.” He ought to think
so since it made him a senator just
after the salary grab was success
fully worked up.
IS HARRIMAN JOKING?
(The Washington Herald.)
That eminent humorist, Mr. Harri
man, dropped in on the interstate com
merce commission the other day with
a broad grin on his face and communi
cated to them the startling informa
tion that he wanted to get in touch
with the commission, to obey the laws
and to be a good boy generally. We
wonder if that is another of Harri
man’s little jokes, a timely pleasantry
offered in mitigation of sundry un
pleasant revelations to which Mr.
Harriman has playfully alluded as an
cient history. We wonder if Mr.
Rockefeller will laugh when he hears
of it, and whether there will not be a
hearty haw-haw from the whole re
gion of high finance when they get
wind of Harriman’s latest. We should
like to take it seriously, but how can
we, in view of the Harriman propen
sity to be jocular about our most cher
ished institutions? A short time ago
Mr. Harriman was convinced that the
country was afflicted with an attack
of interstatecommercecommissionitis;
has he himself succumbed to the dire
malady? Is he, too, willing to go un
der the yoke, or is he only joking?
RELIEF MUST BE FOUND.
(Los Angeles Examiner.)
When William J. Bryan expressed
himself as being in favor of the gov
ernment ownership of railroads, the
view was.indorsed by some of his fol
lowers and even by others, irrespec
tive of party. The reason of this sup
port cannot be attributed so much to
a confidence in the policy as to the
readiness of the people to grasp at
any remedy for the prevailing ineffi
ciency of our railroads.
Whether Mr. Bryan’s plan is expe
dient or whether the taking over of the
railroads by the government would
simply open up another avenue for
political plundering and legislative
corruption is problematical. It is cer
tain, however, that a change is neces
sary and imminent. The conditions
which exist today are appalling—the
railroad facilities of the country, par
ticularly those between Chicago and
the Atlantic seaboard, are terribly in
adequate. Because of congestion,
shipments invariably suffer delay and
our commercial activities which are
dependent upon transportation facili
ties can see no progress until relief is
found.
THE PEOPLE’S POWER.
(The Washington Herald.)
When it is remembered that of the
original states only Massachusetts and
New Hampshire submitted their con
stitutions to the pepole for ratification,
while the custom of amending consti
tutions by popular vote is now es
tablished in every state except Dela
ware, we can plainly see the great
advance which has been made in the
direction of giving the people more
and more power. We believe, too,
that this advance is only the beginning
of a movement toward a higher de
velopment of popular supremacy. The
people are coming into their own.
The federalism of today is a democratic
federalism. Where it will lead is a
question which only the future can
answer; but the fact that the people
are exercising a larger degree of power
today than ever before is a fact which
cannot escape any student of our po
litical institutions.
"The weekly Jeffersonian.
DAY OF RECKONING FOR THE
SUGAR TRUST.
(The New York American.)
The United States government is to
move for the dissolution of the Sugar
Trust.
This is the direct result of the cases
brought on evidence furnished by Wil
liam Randolph Hearst and of the Su
gar Trust’s part in wrecking the Real
Estate Trust Company of Philadelphia.
Under the proceedings instituted on
information supplied by Mr. Hearst,
the American Sugar Refining Company
—the Sugar Trust —was convicted of
accepting rebates from the New York
Central Railroad Company. Both the
trust and the railroad were fined, as
criminals, the Central suffering to the
amount of SIOB,OOO and the sugar trust
getting off with a paltry SIB,OOO.
The amount of the fines, however,
was not so important as the fact that
these corporations had been convict
ed of systematic law breaking.
Mr. Hearst not only furnished evi
dence showing that the New York
Central had been guilty of giving re
bates to the trust, but that other trunk
lines had followed the same practice,
and this evidence has been utilized
as fast as the department of justice
has been able to reach the specific
cases.
In addition to its crimes of exacting
and accepting rebates, the sugar trust
is also implicated in the looting of the
Real Estate Trust Company of Phila
delphia and the suicide of its presi
dent, Frank K. Hippie. The part taken
by the sugar trust in that affair was
characteristic. Adolph Segal had bor
rowed two million dollars from Hippie
for the erection of a great sugar re
finery at Philadelphia. Needing more
money, Segal came to New York and
got $1,250,000 from a man named Kis
sel, who was really a dummy of the
trust. As the price of advancing the
money Kissel had himself and two
friends elected as a majority of the
directors. Then they got the $1,250,000
back and voted not to operate the Phil
adelphia refinery. In this way they
killed a competitor of the trust. Be
cause of this trick of high finance the
Pennsylvania Sugar Refining Company
has just sued the American Sugar
Refining Company for $30,000,000.
As was shown by the evidence in the
Hearst cases, the great club used by
the sugar trust to kill its competitors
was the railroad rebate, the same as
that employed by the beef trust, the
Standard Oil and kindred monopolies.
Then, having used a public utility to
crush competition, it proceeded to loot
the public through high prices in the
customary trust fashion.
n
EVERY LITTLE HELPS.
(The Providence Journal.)
Mr. Roosevelt is a far-seeing states
man, and he has convinced himself
that the voters of America desire the
curbing of the trusts and the elimina
tion of graft and discrimination from
the management of those corporations
that have an important connection
with the public welfare. When on
Monday he signed the bill to limit
the working hours of railway employ
es, he said to one of the labor rep
resentatives, who stood near by: “You
know the president only gets a per
centage of what he wants,” but his
own percentage has been considerably
In excess of that of some former pres
idents.
RAILWAY RETALIATION.
(The Chattanooga Times.)
It will be interesting to watch the
effect of the recent orders of the rail
roads operating in Nebraska as the
result of the 2-cent a mile passenger
rate recently arbitrarily established
by the legislature of that state. Here
after there is to be no special clergy
men rates; no excursion rates; no
reduced fares for disabled soldiers or
volunteers or special rates for charit- ’
able institutions. Everybody will have
to pay the full 2-cent fare at all times
and for all occasions.
While the railroads may feel that
they have been forced into this atti
tude of aggressive retaliation, it is
doubtful if it shall prove to be the best
policy for them. The present attitude
of the public toward railroads and
carrying corporations is not reassuring
and will not probably be Improved
any by the resort of the companies
to that sort of procedure no matter
how very exasperating and inviting
the provocation.
n
SENATOR BAILEY.
(New York Tribune.)
Said Senator Bailey in his recent
remarkable outburst before the Texas
legislature:
“I have letters from other states
sayihg that if Texas was tired of me
I could come among them and they
would send me to the senate.”
It is too bad that Mr. Bailey did
not name the states. Probably he
left them nameless so as not to offend
the susceptibilities of Democratic col
leagues in the senate now holding on
ad interim. Texas ought to feel
the implied rebuke and strain her
self to do proper honor to a statesman
so widely honored in sister common
wealths.
JOLTS FOR STANDPATTERS.
(New York Times.)
France joins Germany in pressure
upon the United States for loosening
of the bands which restrict commerce
between the two nations, and in the
background are the rest of the round
baker’s dozen of nations whose reci
procity treaties lie buried in the sen
ate files. This is a rude jolt to the pol
icy of postponing tariff reform until
the trusts have been smashed, the
railways reformed and sundry odd do
mestic jobs cleaned up.
WHAT BRYAN SHOULD DO.
(Chattanooga Times.)
Everybody has a high opinion of Mr.
Bryan’s honesty and sincerity and now
if he would only address himself se
riously and with a purpose to bring all
elements of the party together by tak
ing a conservative stand on the things
that demand conservatism and be rad
ical only where radicalism is demand
ed, he would greatly hearten his party
and increase its prospects of success.
CARMACK'S GOOD JOB.
(The New York World.)
Many years ago Thomas H. Carter,
of Montana, talked a river and harbor
bill to death in a dying congress. Re
cently Senator Carmack talked the
subsidy bill to death. It was a good
service. Mr. Carmack’s senatorial ca
reer ended with the congress that
expired recently, but he finished In
style. A good' man who died with
his boots on. Mr. Carmack deserves
a glorious political resurrection.