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Commentaries On The Week’s Nelvs 2,000 Ministers Wanted. The Christian Church, through its societies of propagation, has issued a call for 2,000 young preachers to fill vacant pulpits throughout the coutnry. The growing indifference of young Christian men to enter the ministry is a significant sign of the times. It does not, however, warrant the charge that “commercialism” is sapping the enthusiasm of Christian men for the speeding of the work of Christianity in the present age. It is not “commer cialism” for a young man of talents, graces and religious capacities to wish to know that if he enters the ministry he will be given the reasonable and prompt compensation that his natural necessities require. That is not done, as a rule, in these days. A man is &sked, in plain terms almost, to gamble on the chances of his proper ministerial support. One year he may have S3OO, another year SSOO promised and S4OO paid, another year S7OO and SSOO paid. The experi ences of the majority of ministers on this salary question form the most rag ged, pathetic and irreligious histories with which we are acquainted. And we know our subject. When the churches get on a sure and honest basis regarding this ques tion of ministerial support, we think they will find little difficulty in finding young men of piety, power and self sacrifice of a reasonable sort to fill all their pulpits. Using the Wrong Bait. The Houston Post has discovered that Foraker has a number of negro emmissaries traveling in the south for the purpose of working up his presi dential boom. He wants the delegates from the southern states and is rely ing upon the negroes to get them for him out of the several state Republi can conventions. The Foraker negroes are using the Brownsville incident and Foraker’s defense of the discharg ed negro troopers as argument in his favor. But Foaker is not wise to the ways of the negro. He can be stiired emotionally by appeals to his racial prejudice, but when it comes to get ting political good from him a crisp two dollar bill is the only argument that makes Sambo come across. Negroes in the Army. The war department has instructed the recruiting stations to accept no more negroes for the army. This does not mean that no more negro troops are to be used in the army. We have by law two regiments each of negro cavalry and infantry and these are prob ably now recruited to their minimum strength for service in the Philippine Islands, to which they are to be trans ferred. In those mongrel islands the negro troops will give less offense than they do in the United States and as long as we retain those over that sea colony they should be kept busy on the perpetual firing lines that we will have there. A Spasm of Virtue, The San Francisco board of super visors, after learning from the testi mony In Abe Ruef’s case that he has bribed them a number of times to pass up his fat jobs of public plunder, has suddenly become virtuous enough to discharge Its secretary. But what the public seem to think necessary Is that the board itself should make restitu tion of its graft money and then resign In disgrace. Carmack’s Ultimatum. Ex-Senator Carmack is easily the foremost figure today in the politics of Tennessee. He is at the capital fighting vicious legislation and promot ing the people’s causes. He has tak en up the fight against the longer dom ination of Tennessee by the Louisville and Nashville railroad combine and has issued an ultimatum to them in the following pungent sentences: “These roads have grown so confi dent of their power to control the poli tics of this state that they have be come brazen and shameless in their methods. “If this activity were purely defen sive it might be excused, but it is not. The railoads fight to escape jujst taxa tion; to defeat just and proper regula tion; to maintain extortionate rates and practice unjust discrimination; to protect themselves in gross neglect of duty and to secure immunity for The railroads fight to escape just taxa violations of law. To accomplish this they are at any time ready to deliver the state or any community into the hands of the worst elements. The people have grown weary of their in solence and the day of reckoning is at hand.” The Hague Peace Pow-wow. Tn the middle of June at The Hague, capital of The Netherlands, represent atives of all the great powers, includ ing the United States, are to meet and discuss measures to promote the peace of the world. Russia, as at first, takes the initia tive, but the program of the conference is being expanded beyond the Russian suggestions by the other powers. The United States, Great Britain and Spain reserve the right to introduce disarmament proposals; the United States will present the Drago Doctrine for discussion; and England and Ja pan reserve the right to abstain from considering any points in the Russian schedule that do not promise conclu sions satisfactory to them as allied powers. It is probable that the duelistic for mula for quieting international quar rels may find favor by the conference, but the limitation of armaments may fail of success. Mrs. Eddy’s Flanker. To avoid the suit at law by her rela tives to try her competency to manage her estate and to appoint a receiver for it, Mrs. Eddy, “The Mother of Christian Science,” has deeded her vast property to three trustees for the benefit of the church she has estab lished throughout the world. She ap pears to have chosen men of affairs who are her trusted friends, and by this movement seems to have effectu ally flanked her relatives, unless they can go on and successfully attack her mental competency to even make such a deed of trust. Ex-Senator Bill Chan dler, who represents the contenders against her competency, is likely to be interesting to those trustees and entertaining to the nation at large. A Great Southern Tornado. Last week a great and destructive tornado swept over the lower sections of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Nearly a score of persons were killed and a large number injured, while mil lions of dollars of property was de stroyed. The State Insane Asylum at Jackson, La., was demolished and many of the Inmates Injured. WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN. The President’s Mare’s Nest. President Roosevelt, with a great show of assurance, announces that he has discovered a “rich man’s conspir acy,” with a $5,000,000 campaign fund attachment, to oppose his policies in general and the succession to the presidency of any Republican commit ted to the continuance of them. In newspaper language, “that would be important—if true!” But the chanc es are strong that the president has been hoaxed by some ribald states men who enjoy seeing him show his teeth. plutocrats, especially those in the insurance and railway camps, are not fools, and they know that the real lion in their pathway is not the pres ident, but the people acting through their state legislatures. They are probably telling the truth when they deny the president’s story and claim that his playing it up is his first move to create a popular demand that he should “take a third term.” The Anti-Gambling Crusade. Quite as remarkable as the tremen dous wave of anti-saloon reform now sweeping the south and west is the ac tivity in suppressing gambling. Mon tana, Arizona, Texas, Kentucky, Ten nessee and other states are making all forms of gambling felonies, punishable with penitentiary sentences. The gam blers are “on the hike” and only a few out-of-the-way places in Nevada, Wyoming and New Mexico afford them room to rest their feet. Even Mexico, the old, is enacting anti-saloon and an ti-gambling laws, and threatening to suppress bull fighting. Surely we are seeing marvelous revivals of righteous ness in our day! The Defeat of Dunne. The Republicans succeeded in secur ing the defeat of Mayor Dunne and his policy of “immediate” municipal own ership of the traction lines in Chicago. The fight was complicated by the sell ing out of the Democratic city council to the traction interests, and the pas sage of an ordinance granting 20 year franchises upon conditions, the ulti mate one being the right of the city at the end of 20 years to take over the lines at a liquidatable price. The result is only a brief postpone ment of an inevitable end. It will not be long before the mixed elements of Chicago will unite and seize the street traction lines of that great city. 2 Cents In Pennsylvania. The governor of Pennsylvania has signed the law fixing two cents per mile as the maximum rate for railroad fares in that state. President McCrea, of the once omnipotent Pennsylvania System, protested vigorously against the signing of the bill, but without avail. It must be a daily source of jim-jams in the Penn’s headquarters in Philadelphia to know that at last that great commonwealth has a gov ernor who is not a bell-boy in buttons to fetch and carry for that cormorant corporation. It is positively shocking —this awakening of railway magnates to the fact that they are no longer the “Robinson Crusoes of the Repub lic.” Senator Taylor is Sick. Senator Bob Taylor, of Tennessee, fell sick at Dallas, Texas, last week and was forced to cancel certain of his lecture engagements in the Lone Star state. His condition is not se rious. The Harriman-Roosevelt Row. Harriman has “peached” on the pres ident, accusing Roosevelt of seducing him into raising $200,000 for the New York campaign fund of 1904, of which sum Harriman gave $50,000 himself. The president replies that Harriman is “a liar” as to some of the details, but he does not deny the $200,000 con tribution, or the charge by Harriman that the money caused a change of 100,000 votes in favor of the Repub licans in New York state in that year. We do not see where either President Roosevelt or Harriman gets any credit from these revelations. The former is shown up as one willing to use large sums of corporation money to sway an election and the latter as one will ing to furnish the boodle to buy votes “for the good that might follow.” The Greene-Gaynor Case. The United States circuit court of appeals at New Orleans is now consid ering the Greene-Gaynor case. The claim was set up that they did not get a fair trial before Judge Speer in Savannah and that he seriously pre judiced their rights by his conduct on the bench. It may be possible that this precious pair of rascals will yet go free, but if they do justice should rip the bandage from off her eyes and hereafter go gunning for government thieves with both eyes open and a magazine revolver in each hand. Thaw Is Not Crazy. The expert commission appointed to find out whether Harry Thaw is sane enough to be continued on trial for the murder of Sanford White, reported that he is sane, and the trial proceed ed on Monday. Counsel have since been engaged in arguing the the case to the jury and by the time we go to press a verdict may have been reached. The common opinion seems to be that the “unwritten law” will be accepted by the jury and Thaw acquitted. The Czar to Abdicate. There is news in London to the ef fect that the Czar of Russia is about to abdicate and turn over the troubles of the throne to Grand Duke Michael as regent during the minority of the czarevitch, who is yet quite a small child. It is said that the czar’s mind is giving way—and could you blame him, if it were, seeing all the troubles that have been piled upon it for years? Hermann Fighting Hard. Congressman Binger Hermann, of Oregon, is making a hard fight to be acquitted of fraudulent dealings in ptlblic lands in the west while he was United States land commissioner. He is swearing hard against all the evi dence produced to convict him. If the railroad corporations had not so often meddled with the business of state legislatures they would not now have to complain so much of legisla tive meddling with their business. That Wall street panic is already neardly forgotten. It shows how really little we care about the weather when the wind don’t blow! The fruit crop is safe and the frost liar is out of a job for another year. Governor Hughes’ Public Utilities bill glares at the corporations like a full set of Roosevelt teeth. 5