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Netos and Vie to s From All Around "PARTY SPIRIT.” (New York Times.) Two horrible scandals, published on the same day, warn us almost equally against being too much “at ease in Zion.” One is a state scandal, one a municipal scandal. It is shown that the state of Pennsylvania has been so looted that if it had been a poor com munity it would have been impoverish ed by the depredations committed up on it in the furnishings of its state capitol. It is shown that the munic ipality of San Francisco has been de spoiled by the majority of its official custodians. In the city and in the state the causes of the corruption are essentially the same. For a generation the Republican party has almost con tinuously ruled Pennsylvania, with hardly a chance that any outrage it might commit would in any extremity be avenged through popular indigna tion by its own displacement. The ex ceptions do no more than prove the rule. It is not the Republican party which has been the fetich under which San Francisco has been ruled and rob bed and ruined. A REAL LIVE ’RISTOCRAT. (Manning Times.) Senator Tillman is no longer one of the common people. He has commenc ed to boast of his pedigree. Nobody ever did look upon him as a “gray ne?k,” not even when he wore a sun burnt alpaca coat and used the sleeves as a handkerchief. He was not even regarded a clod-hopper when he wore brogans greased with tallow. True, his public speeches were to arouse the common people, one of whom he claimed to be, against the Bourbons or aristocrats, and everybody else that failed to appreciate Tillman’s methods. The glamor of the footlights and the comfortable feeling of fat purses has made a great difference; who would not realize the difference between ped dling eggs in Augusta at the market price per dozen, and being the star attraction at a talking function at S2OO per night? RYAN’S CONGO PEANUTS. Thomas F. Ryan, the new “boss of Wall street,” has entered upon a new field of enterprise and probable profit. Some time ago Mr. Ryan ac quired possession of 70,000 acres of land in Congo. Exactly what he in tended to do with the tremendous tract in that remote land even the shrewd est of his friends could not guess. It was known that the properties of the soil were not such as to prove favora ble for any of the ordinary crops of the world. But Mr. Ryan is long headed. Moreover, he is a southern er. He knows several things about the profitableness of certain crops raised in the south —among these, peanuts, He learned that the Congo land is just the place for raising the biggeest, most palatable and most desirable peanuts in the world. So he intends to devote the greater part of the 70,000 acres to raising the favorite, popular "jumbo” variety of nuts. A SHAFT AT SHILOH. Mrs. Alexander B. White, state pres ident of the United Daughters of the Confederacy of Tennessee, Issues a stirring appeal for aid in the matter of securing sufficient money to make a great success of the project of erect ing a magnificent monument to the memory of Confederate soldiers who fell in the battle of Shiloh. FOR THE VETERANS. The following is the official program of the meeting of United Confederate Veterans at Richmond, Va., May 30 to June 3. The program for each day is as fol lows: Thursday, May 30 —Meeting of con vention in morning and parade of Vet eran Cavalry Association, Army of Northern Virginia, and unveiling of Stuart statute in the afternoon. Night, reception to veterans by Sons of Veter ans, sponsors and maids of honor. Friday, May 31 —Meeting of conven tion in the morning, business session and reception in the afternoon, ball and entertainment of Confederate Vet erans at night. Saturday, June I—Business1 —Business session in the morning. Entertainment of vet erans, Sons of Veterans, sponsors and maids of honor and the public in the afternoon. Reception at the Execu tive Mansion by the Governor of Vir ginia at night. Sunday, June 2 —Memorial services at the Auditorium in the afternoon. Monday, June 3 —Grand parade and unveiling of Jefferson Davis monument in the morning. Grand rally at con vention hall of Veterans, Sons of Vet erans, sponsors, maids of honor. Me morial Association and United Daugh ters of the Confederacy at night. “THEOLOGICAL CURIOS.” Cincinnati, April.—The Methodist ministers had a sizzling session at the Methodist book concern in the regular meeting of the Methodist preachers’ union, at which Dr. Davis Clark retired after a two years’ term as president of the union. All was serene until the Rev. Mr. Clark declar ed that theological dogmas are “curios and could well be kept on the top shelf.” Immediately there was a storm, mostly of protest. • The sub ject was so enthralling that nearly ev erybody present desired to voice his protest or defense of Clark’s words. CALLED FORAKER’S BLUFF. Mr. Charles P. Taft, of Cincinnati, brother of the secretary, accepts the gage Senator Foraker • threw down when he demanded that the issue be tween him and the president be left to the people. If we are not mistaken Senator Foraker has put his foot in it. When he goes butting the Hon. Theodore Roosevelt before the Repub lican voters of Ohio his finish will come speedily. In the meantime the echoes from the fray are going to be positively entertaining. HUSBANDS BY WHOLESALE. Washington.—A special to the Post from Richmond, Ind., says: Mrs. Polly Weed Baker, of Boonville, widely known as the most married wo. man in Indiana, has been granted a divorce from her eleventh husband, John Baker. Baker is the ninth of her eleven husbands fro mwhom she has secured a divorce, one having died a natural death and another committing suicide. Mrs. Baker is sixty-five years old. OVER A MILLION FOR PICTURES. Brussells. —It is currently reported that J. P. Morgan, of New York, has acquired for $1,200,000 the unique col lection of Jules Van Den Poreboom, which comprises furniture, pictures, arms, brasses, ancient engravings and chimney pieces. WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN. TREATIES NOT SUPREME. (The Indianapolis News.) In his eagerness to magnify the treaty-making power of the nation, Sen ator Beveridge gives to treaties a su premacy which they do not have. He says that the constitution provides that “all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land,” etc. Which is true. But there are other things which are the supreme law of the land, too, so that treaties have no special pre-emi nence. The constitution provides that “this constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made,” etc., “shall be the supreme law of the land.” The purpose was not to give one form of law pre-eminence over the others, but to make all fed eral laws legally enacted paramount throughout the country. The constitu tion, and the laws enacted under it, are quite as supreme as treaties are. LIQUOR DEALERS’ RIGHTS. Judge Artman, of Indianapolis, who recently decided that civic powers had no power to grant a license to liquor dealers, has another case under consideration which is causing much nervousness in the saloonkeepers’ camp. We believe it has been decided in that state that a saloonkeeper has no right to vote on a liquor license when he is a member of the city coun cil, and this coming case is to decide whether the saloonkeeper has any right in the council at all or not. If so decided, it will make cities a lot of trouble, for acts and ordinances passed by councils who have a saloon membership will be illegal. In the former case the decision made the cities responsible for damages caused by liquor selling. We believe that in the city of Indianapolis there were $200,000 in such cases where barns were burned by men under the in fluence of liquor, and for personal in juries resulting from liquor drinking, and a long list of those classes of cases. ATTRACTION OF COUNTRY LIFE. (Cleveland Leader.) The call of the country grows loud er every year. It will yet be heard above the hum and roar of the machin ery of trade and industry in the cities so clearly that there will be an equal izing of the conditions of employment. There will be a better supply of work ers on the farms and less pressure for places to earn a living as clerks in stores and offices. The rural districts of America grow steadily more attrac tive, always more favorable for full and rounded life. The country is coming slowly but surely into its own, for work and for residence. THE WAY TO STOP TROUBLE. (The Chicago Record-Herald.) W. J. Bryan is not in favor of wip ing out reasonable profits on railroad investments. Neither is any other sensible man. What the public wants is a square deal, and by granting it the railroad companies will find the quickest and easiest way to stop trouble. SURELY NOT. (The Portland Oregonian.) A correspondent of a Birmingham paper says that in the tropics Speaker Joe Cannon wears a straw hat, a linen duster and a green umbrella. Is that all? RAILROADS IN 1907. According to the Railway Age there is nearly as large a mileage of new railroads projected for 1907 as was the case last year at this time, but the probability is that the present uncer tainty as to federal and state inter ference in the affairs of the railways will hold in abeyance a very consider able portion of these extensions and improvements. In March of 1906 13,000 miles of new road were under contract, and about half of this was completed before the end of the year. At present the mile age under contract is 11,912, and of this about 8,700 miles are what the Railway Age calls live projects and explains as those “which probably would be undertaken during the pres ent year were the conditions more favorable.” AN IMPROVEMENT. (The Boston Herald.) They go at the thing in very sim ple fashion in Texas. There is a two cent-a-mile bill before the legislature there and the railroads meet it with an offer to spend $15,000,000 in ex tensions and improvements within the next fourteen months if the bill is de feated. If the bill passes the projects will be indefinitely postponed. There is sense in this way of meet ing objectionable legislation. It is open, fair and above board. A great improvement on the other way of maintaining an expensive lobby of shyster lawyers to work secretly and underhandedly against any and every measure the railroads regard as harm ful. Why not copy Texas up north? DON’T LET THE FARM LIE IDLE. (Conway Field.) We regret to learn that people in some sections of the county will this year abandon their farms mid cut cross ties and other timber. There is money in these commodities, but it doesn’t pay to let a good farm lie idle in order to produce a product which is gone w r hen once produced. A farm is better each year from having been cultivated the former one and great damage is done when it lies idle for a year. STATE GOVERNMENTS NECES SARY. (The Commoner.) The states are even more needed than they formerly w’ere for the ad ministration of domestic affairs. As a matter of theory, that government is best which is nearest to the peo ple. If there is any soundness at all in the doctrine of self government, the people can act most intelligently upon matters with which they are most fa miliar. LOVES TAFT—AND ROOT. (J. C. O’Laughlin, in The Outlook.) The president recently said that he would crawl on his hands and knees from the White House to the Capitol to bring about the election of Mr. Taft to be his successor. He would do as much for Mr. Root. Publicly and pri vately he has expressed the highest opinion of the intellectual and admin istrative capacity of his secretary of state. NEW JOB FOR ROOSEVELT. (The Cleveland Leader.) Nobody has hazarded the guess yet that Roosevelt will be asked to take the presidency of a railroad when he leaves the White House. 3