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2 Public Opinion Throughout the Union SOUTHERN OPINION OF TILL MAN. (The Richmond News-Leader.) What an ill-contrived, cross-grained, porcupine kind of a surly brute this man Tillman is! Here in Richmond he was treated with the most careful and elaborate courtesy. Gov. Swan son, in his own carriage, drove the visitor over the city in the afternoon. The newspapers gave him ample no tices and the audience was large and representative. Yet he went out of his way to insult the local Young Men’s Christian Association by accus ing it of neglect and discourtesy, and his lecture itself was so coarse in many of its allusions and illustra tions as to shock the kindly and re fined people who gathered to listen and who had the right to expect that their feelings and tastes would be re spected. The poor strolling player who performs in cheap houses and earns S2O a week is courteous to his patrons as a matter of instinct, training, prin ciple and policy; but this senator from South Carolina could not observe the ordinary rules of decency. The man leaves a trail of bad flavor and bad temper wherever he goes. He carefully advertises himself and his show, very much as Tom Dixon does, by disregarding the ordinary conven tionalities and decencies of life and making himself conspicuous for vul garity, coarseness and ill-nature. The southern gentleman is about the most courteous, kindly, genuine and loyal of all human beings; and, on the other hand, the southern man who for gets or disregards the traditions of his section or is ignorant of them, and pre sents himself as a sharper and trick ster intent on making money at any cost, is about the hardest, most cal lous, most unscrupulous and grinding proposition in existence; and the southerner who for any reason or with out reason, and merely in obedience to instinct, is a tough, is the most insuf ferable and offensive of all black guards. ONE MAN PARTIES. (Nashville Banner.) Mr. Bryan says in his Commoner: “The Republican party is now in such straits that it has just one man whom it regards as popular enough to be the candidate for president. Is there any parallel in history to a situation in which a party hinges its success on one man, and when that man is one who has had the courage to drop his own platform and adopt that of the opposition party?” But, really, is not Mr. Bryan’s criti cism of the Republican party as having only one man popular enough to be its candidate for president even more ap plicable to the Democratic party? BRYAN AND HIS PARTY. (The Ohio State Journal.) There is a quiet effort going on among the Democratic chieftains to eliminate Mr. Bryan from party prima cy, especially when it comes to the problem of nominating a candidate for the presidency. There are two men who are most talked of for that honor; one is Judge Gray, of Delaware, and the other Judson Harmon, the Cincin nati lawyer. Notwithstanding the devotion of the party to Mr. Bryan, and its admira tion of his many high personal quali ties, there is a substantial belief that he cannot carry the full party vote, and either of the other men can. WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN. POPULAR ELECTION OF SENATOR. (Worcester Evening Gazette.) By an overwhelming vote the upper house of the Illinois legislature yes terday voted in favor of the direct election of United States senators by the people. This is a long way from an amendment to the constitution of the United States necessary to this general result, but it shows the trend and spirit of the times. Were United States senators chosen by popular vote do you think a senile Platt and a doddering Depew would represent the great Empire state at Washington? There are others, too, who would be missing. Even our own Henry Cabot Lodge might have a tougher road to travel if byway of a state convention and the polls. RAILWAY DEATH ROLL. (Everybody’s.) In the nineteen years since the in terstate commerce commission began the collection of facts about accidents, nearly 6,000 passengers, more than 48,000 employes, and nearly 90,000 oth er persons have been killed on Ameri can railways and nearly 1,000,000 more have been crippled or maimed, scalded or crushed, disfigured or invalided, and we still make no protest. For a coun try that has pride in itself and its “progress” this seems to be a humili ating situation. But the still more hu miliating fact is that conditions grow worse year by year. In 1905 it was twice as dangerous to travel on a rail way train or to work for a railway company in the United States as it was in 1895. THE OUTLOOK IN RUSSIA. (From the London Times.) M. Stolypin’s declaration of policy on behalf of the Russian government is a very remarkable pronouncement. He announces a network of measures which leaves hardly a single depart ment of Russian life untouched. He does not shrink from phrases that sum up the significance of these reforms in unmistakable fashion. Russia, he says, must be transformed into a Con stitutional state. It is a new regime which the government are contemplat ing in their measures. That a Russian premier should stand before the Duma and use words like these is surely remarkable, and it is to be hoped that the lesson will not be lost even on the extremists. MUST HARRIMAN GO? (From the New York World.) It was the interstate commerce com mission’s exposure of Mr. Harriman’s swindling stock-jobbing operations which set the “panic” in motion. Noth ing would contribute more toward still ing the tumult than the retirement of Mr. Harriman from the presidency of the Union Pacific. If Mr. Schiff is in the business of restoring public con fidence there is his work already cut out for him. He made Harriman. Now let him unmake Harriman. He can do it. “LOGIC IS LOGIC.” (The Boston Herald.) Richard Olney, in defending trusts as “an economic institution,” says that “their right to exist is fairly to be inferred from the complete failure of all attempts to suppress them.” If this is good logic, what shall we say of burglary and other pursuits which the world has decided it best to prevent as far as possible? Does failure to suppress establish their right to exist? TARIFF THAT REALLY WILL PRO TECT. (The Pittsburg Post.) Instead of having a tariff system which enables our manufacturers to charge the highest possible prices to our own people for their products, and to sell the latter to foreign customers at much less figure, we should have one which will really protect the Amer ican consumers from extortion, and make foreigners pay proper prices for our goods. It is time that our na tional lawmakers legislate on this sub ject for the benefit of the masses of the American people, instead of for the trust magnates and the foreigners to whom they sell some of their goods. GOVERNMENT BY CORPORATIONS. (The Detroit News.) “Let us alone,” they say, until they have involved the stock market in a turmoil. Happily the country is no longer run by Wall street and they can pound down stocks as they please, and take the consequences. As a mat ter of fact, there seem but two cours es to follow. It rests with the peo ple to say whether they will govern the corporations, or be governed by them, and the wonder is that they have deliberated so long over a pre posterous proposition. AMERICAN PROGRESS. (World’s Work.) We are going fast upon our way, we people of the United States. We have built higher, deeper, faster than ever nation built before. Yesterday we were as a pauper amid industrial magnates, calling upon the gold of En gland for the opening of our mines, our lands, our forests; today the banners of our commercial vanguards float above the snows of Siberia, the jun gles of the Amazon, the forests of the Congo. THE BANKER’S GRAFT. (National Co-Operator.) A national banker can borrow mon ey from the government at one-half of one per cent, and without security. A farmer cannot borrow money at even ten per cent, and with his crop of grain or cotton as collateral to se cure the payment. Why is this the case? THE ONE HOPEFUL ISSUE. (The Philadelphia Record.) If the Democratic party is to put forward issues on which it has been defeated, or socialistic ideas that the country has repudiated, it might as well save itself the trouble of making a nomination. But the occasion is ripe for putting forward the historic Demo cratic issue of tariff reform —the one issue on which Democrats are united and Republicans divided. THE CHIEF OBSTACLE. (The Kansas Cinty Journal.) As long as Col. Bryan’s chief ad visers are the Tom L. Johnsons and his chief boomers the George Fred Williamses, the chief obstacle in his road to the white house will be the American people. THE INVESTMENT CENTER. (The New York Times.) There is a Wall street which Is a savings bank —the greatest and most Important savings bank on earth. Don’t confuse it with the celebrated gam bling hell of the same name. TENNESSEE KEY-NOTE. (Chattanooga Times.) Senator Carmack sounds the keynote to the next gubernatorial campaign no matter who may be the candidate —the railroads must be kept out of offensive meddling in state and local politics. The senator says he has indubitable proof that the Louisville and Nashville railroad helped to log roll the Mem phis “ripper” bill through the legis lature. He made the charge openly and boldly, and yet there has been nei ther denial nor a demand by the legis lature for an investigation. UNCLE JOE IN CUBA. (Nashville Banner.) Uncle Joe Cannon has been having a jolly good time in Cuba, where he is said to have attracted as much at tention as he would have done had he been Czar of all the Americas. A Havana special to the St. Louis Globe- Democrat quotes Uncle Joe as saying, “I feel like I could jump over a smoke house. I have got rid of the grip; I have never missed a meal, and I have smoked more cigars than I thought had been born.” The Cubans called the lively old gentleman “one frisky mou chacho.” WHIPPING THE EDITOR. (Arizona Republican.) In the absence of a definite statute like that sought to be enacted in Penn sylvania, instances in which the editor was whipped are not prominent in his tory. In the last analysis there is the immortal and constitutional right of freedom of the press, which upholds the defender of liberty and adds right to his might; and besides, there is al ways the office towel, which is a more weighty weapon than the sling of Da vid. INSECTS IN THE OINTMENT. (The Birmingham News.) It is announced that the balmy win ter has done much to encourage the boll weevil family to get busy again. From the same reason the mosquito will operate earlier and more exten sively than usual. Thus even agreea ble weather conditions are more or less expensive, too. IS WASHINGTON JEALOUS? (The New York Times.) If through conspicuous and heroic achievements on the part of the pres ent governor of New York the atten tion of the country should be center ed upon Albany, there would be a vexatious derangement of well-matur ed plans and foreordination of the ev ents of 1908 might be upset. ONE BORN EVERY MINUTE. (The Indianapolis News.) But as to the government’s protect ing the innocent investor —will the innocent investor stand for anything that interferes with his inalienable right to buy gold bricks? TOMMY’S AMBITION. Congressman Hardwick is said to be an aspirant to succeed Governor Smith. Comes from the wrong end of the state. —Americus Times-Record er. A SELF-EVIDENT TRUTH. (The Chicago Record-Herald.) Im challenging Taft, Foraker cannot be accused of “picking on one who Is smaller than himself.”