Newspaper Page Text
2
Public Opinion Throughout the Union
EMIGRATION SOUTHWARD.
(The Washington Post.)
The dilution of the black population
in the southern Atlantic coast states
by white immigration may be imper
ceptible for a long time, but it is a fac
tor that will be borne in mind by
southerners who are seeking some
practical solution of the race question.
The reduction of the proportion of
blacks may be slow, but it is a very
sure method of relieving the situation.
Perhaps the immigration movement
may assist powerfully in this sociolog
ical reform when established immi
grants begin to send for their relatives
and friends, as they have been doing
in the north for many years. There
is no reason apparent why a current
of immigration may not be started to
ward the South which will become au
tomatic.
•ft
THE WALL STREET VIEW.
(The New York Sun.)
Mr. Roosevelt has destroyed the
credit of the railroads. Even with his
great power and his passionate pur
suit of his quarry, he could not have
effected his purpose had it not been,
first, for the public indignation at the
disclosures of the system of criminal
rebates, and secondly, the popular dis
gust and rage precipitated by the Har
riman-Kuhn-Loeb-Schiff revelations.
These two causes, brought into high
relief with all of Mr. Roosevelt’s unde
niable dramatic skill, have sufficiently
inflamed the public mind to damn all
the railroads in the country and paint
the whole industry in Chicago and Al
ton black.
•ft
DEMAGOGUES AND GAMBLERS.
(The New York Tinies.)
For business undertakings there is
no way to success save through busi
nesslike management. The exploita
tion and looting of railroad systems
for private gain is as unbusinesslike
as the exploitation and paralyzing of
them for political gain. The people of
the country ought to pray with equal
fervor to be delivered from the dema
gogues on the one hand and from the
manipulators on the other. Both are
dangerous.
•ft
THE NEW DOUMA.
(The London Times.)
The last douma failed because it
wanted to remold at once the whole
constitution of the empire; the new
douma seems to be meeting in a very
different spirit of discretion and self
control, and will have, we hope, the sa
gacity to work with the implements at
hand.
•ft
MUST MAKE PEACE.
(The Chicago News.)
The railroads must make their peace
with the people. They must obey the
laws and must do it in away that will
disarm hostility. They must have the
public confidence. If the railroad
presidents of the United States can hit
upon a program that the people will
accept as fair, there is good reason to
think the results will be immediately
beneficial to all interests.
•ft
THE JAP WAR SCARE.
(The Chattanooga Times.)
Mr. Hudson Maxim, the greatest liv
ing American inventor of munitions of
war, talking to the Washington Post
the other day while in that city on his
way to witness a test of smokeless
powder, said: “I measure my words
when I make this prediction: We
shall have war with Japan as sure as
the sun rises and sets, and that, too,
within five years.” Other makers of
war material, such as armor plate for
battle ships, gun makers, etc., all more
or less share Mr. Maxim’s opinion and
it may be that by constantly talking
it, they may get our lawmakers and
impetuous jingoes to the point where
they will be ready to foment the trou
ble for wnich they are looking. Mak
ers of war munitions, like men engag
ed in other business, are constantly
looking for trade, and they are of
course never so busy as when a war is
going on.
•ft
FROTH ON THE FINANCIAL BEER.
(The Philadelphia Record.)
The vast number of shares held as
investments did not enter into the
reckoning at all; nor was their actual
value to the holders diminished. If
they have been bought at a fair price,
and bring the owner the same returns
in dividends first as last, their invest
ment value to him remains what it
was. He is no poorer except in the
sense of the fellow who made a cor
rect guess of the winnning horse at
the race and failed to bet on it. Real,
concrete wealth is neither made nor
dissipated by the rise or fall of quota
tions. The fictitious values clicked
over the ticker are to the wealth of
the country what the froth is to the
beer.
•ft
A JOLT TO G. W.
(The New York Times.)
Beyond question the president’s
method of communicating directly
with the governor of a state respect
ing pending state legislation, and di
rectly with the mayor of a city respect
ing pending municipal legislation,
would nave made George Washington
“stare and gasp.” Not only the people
of San Francisco and of California, but
all the people of the United States
are taken into the confidence of the
government in its diplomatic opera
tions. It is a startling novelty in pro
cedure. But in this case it seems to
have worked.
•ft
NO HONEST FOLK HURT.
(The Philadelphia Press.)
No creditors are affected by the
smash in stock values this week. No
failures have followed, x\o bank or
financial institution is in trouble. Busi
ness is not touched by this wholesale
decrease in share values any more
than it was in May, 1901, by a like fall
then.
Then, as now, the liquidation is not
in mercantile credits, but in stock
speculation, a wholly different matter.
•ft
RECOGNIZING STATE RIGHTS.
(The New York Times.)
“Assisted immigration” in South
Carolina has been a subject of anxious
discussion at the White House since
Attorney General Bonaparte’s adverse
ruling under the new contract labor
law was submitted. The southern peo
ple, not unwarrantably, have raised
the cry of bad faith and sectional dis
crimination. When they sent dele
gates to the president recently, he
found it expedient to hear them. Now
it is given out that the attorney gen
eral’s opinion was merely an “obiter,”
quite outside the case he was deciding,
which was under the old immigration
law. The intent of congress, as the
debate in the senate shows, was not
to interfere with the right of states to
offer substantial inducements to immi
grants to come in and build up their
territory.
THE WEEKLY JEFFERSOJtIAR.
UNUSUAL, BUT RIGHT.
(The Fort Worth Telegram.)
Southern blood is warm and impul
sive, quick to right a wrong, and al
ways ready to stand up in defense of
woman’s honor. It was a little unus
ual, however, for a southern judge to
congratulate a jury upon its findings
as was the case in the Strother trial.
It was singly a case, however, of the
chivalry in southern nature asserting
itself over what may have been judi
cial dignity. Such cases are a little
rare, but they have occurred, and
doubtless will continue to occur..
The men of the south love their
women, and when wrong of any kind
is done them, there will always be a
day of reckoning. Lynch law is al
ways a regrettable procedure, and any
man who takes the enforcement of
the law into his own hands is commit
ting a great wrong against the law.
But therQ are times when, unfortu
nately, there seems to be no other
available procedure. Such was the
condition of affairs connected with the
Virginia case under discussion, and
the prompt acquittal of the execu
tioners serves to show the proper ver
dict in such cases.
•ft
WHY JURIES GO WRONG.
(The Chicago Post.)
There is always much criticism of
the jury system. Men in good stand
ing—especially business men who have
lost their case in a jury trial —are
often heard to deplore the stupidity
and inc’onsequentiality of juries. They
tell stories of verdicts being decided
in a hurry in order that supper might
not go by, or of extra weight being
given to evidence because the court
had ordered it excluded. But these
same critics are not above offering
misleading physicians’ certificates
when their own turn comes. They for
get their inconsistency in their haste
to act on the theory that personal con
venience is the first law of happiness.
•ft
PERMANENT PROTECTION.
(The New York Herald.)
Every intelligent Cuban knows that
the island never has had independent
government and that its people are not
yet prepared for successful self gov
ernment. In the Platt amendment
there is a protectorate, but one which
will bring the Americans to the isl
and after revolution, bloodshed and
destruction of property. What every
intelligent Cuban wants is merely a
change in the form of that protector
ate so that revolutions shall be pre
vented.
•ft
A LABOR VICTORY.
(The Philadelphia Public Ledger.)
It is wholly unjust to insinuate that
the president is not responsive to pub
lic opinion. With the issuance of his
recent executive order, excluding Jap
anese and Korean immigrant laborers,
he has met the wishes of labor men on
the Pacific coast swiftly and complete
ly. It has been a long time since labor
has secured so great and so impres
sive a triumph.
SCARE OF THE RAILROADS.
(The Indianapolis Sentinel.)
The railroad men seem to be almost
paralyzed with astonishment, not so
much over what has been done, as
over what they think is threatened,
over what they believe to be the tem
per of the people. They have aban
doned the policy of attempting to in
fluence legislatures even in legitimate
ways. The spirit of the people Is run-
ning so strong against them that they
have evidently made up their minds
that it is not worth while to try to re
sist it. And it is the same people over
whom they used to drive with an en
tire disregard of their rights. It would
be well for our friends to understand
that the change in the spirit of the
people has not been wrought by dema
gogues or agitators or a yellow press.
It is the product of unfairness of the
railroads themselves.
•ft
THE LESSON OF HARRIMAN.
(The Long Branch Record.)
We have nothing whatever against
him personally, but we can only con
sider the fate which has overtaken
him to be most exemplary. He thought
that the people upon whom he was
preying were defenseless. He boast
ed that he had gone only “so far as the
law allowed him.” Perhaps he is
right in thinking that he has nothing
to dread from the courts and juries.
But there is something more formida
ble and crushing than a legal process.
It is the deliberately formed opinion
of 80,000,000 of people that a man’s
wealth is ill-gotten because his meth
ods have been dishonorable and heart
less. Against that what can uncount
ed millions do?
•ft
YES, CHEER UP.
(The New York Times.)
Congress has adjourned. They are
scrubbing up the summer capital at
Oyster Bay. The state legislatures
are doing more talking than legislat
ing. Our demagogues are no worse
than other people’s demagogues. Our
pirates are no more ruthless than
other people’s pirates, and they are too
busy cutting one another’s throats to
work irreparable injury to the com
munity. Our fools are no more pestif
erous than other people’s fools. The
sun shines as often as every other day
now. The rain has cleaned the
streets. Spring is coming. Cheer up.
•ft
A COMPOSITE SETTLEMENT.
(The Philadelphia Record.)
By a fortuitous combination of leg
islative and executive acts and diplo
matic agreements with the mikado, on
the one hand, and the labor unionist
mayor of San Francisco and the gover
nor of California, on the other, the
peace of the world has been secured;
and a little code of laws has been
evolved covering matters of municipal,
state, federal and international regu
lation of the utmost complexity. Who
says that our composite system of gov
ernment cannot be worked?
TRUST BAITING IN JERSEY.
(The Baltimore American.)
New Jersey is after 8,000 corpora
tions fostered by its laws, for neglect
in complying with certain legal pro
visions, and purposes to collect fines
amounting to $2,000,000. By the irony
of fate, the trusts are being exposed
as hitherto unknown mines to states
lucky enough to possess keen-scented
and energetic public officials. Trust
baiting is apt to become more popu
lar than ever if it is found that there
are millions in it.
HEROES IN JAPAN.
(The Philadelphia Ledger.)
By a vote taken in the Tokio
schools, Washington was declared first
among the world’s immortal heroes,
and Lincoln second. However, the in
cident is worthless as support of the
theory that Japan sits up nights to
hate America.