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EDITORIAL NOTES. (Continued from Page 9.) Frank says that the Tar Heel weeklies have a prescriptive right to steal from one another, and that he supposed he was borrowing from a neighbor when he purloined the goods of the Post. The Washington Post is so tempting that Stroud continues to copy from it, but when ever he does so now he flags the train at both ends. The Socialists lost out in Germany, in Lon don, in Wisconsin, and in Chicago, but they gained ground in Finland. Hooray! ! ! We shouldn’t wonder if, in the next decade or so, they swept victoriously over Iceland and Terra del Fuego. In the meantime, as the Demand for Labor grows faster than the Supply, and wages go up, up, UP, in obedience to Natural Law, So cialistic nonsense is less and less heeded by the working classes. Flon. John W. Daniel, one of Tom Ryan’s brace of Senators from Virginia, is going to have opposition, just as A. O. Bacon, of Geor gia, would have had it, if anyone had known in advance that broken health would retire Misleading Statistics of 'Raillvay 'Earnings (The New York American.) The Pennsylvania Railroad is to ap peal to the supreme court against the action of the legislature of Penn sylvania in fixing the passenger rate in that state at two cents a mile. The argument which was made last week to prevent Governor Stuart from signing the bill will be repeated. This is, as set forth by James McCrea, of the Pennsylvania Company, and by Mr. Baer, whose “divine rights” are begin ning to be trampled upon, that at two cents a mile the railroads cannot make money. In an attempt to prove this, the pas senger earnings are given and suffi cient railway expense piled up against them to make it appear that passen gers already are carried at a loss. THE VALUE OF WATERWAYS. (Continued from page 1.) way had to be devised to reach an end so pressing and desirable. Providence provided the way. Rath er than permit Britain to seize on Louisiana, Napoleon sold the territory to the United States. Through its tributaries the Mississippi connects the Appalachian mountains in the far east with the Rockies in the far west. It binds the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. The whole nation is con cerned in its development and improve ment. Not a state but would benefit. A RESTRICTED CONFERENCE. (The New York Times.) It seems very unlikely that either of the two subjects which our govern ment has signified a desire to dis cuss, the limitation of armaments and the limitation in the use of public force to collect ordinary public debts accruing from contracts, will be add ed to the program for the conference. In view of the fact that the criminal wards of Chicago were unexpectedly carried by the Republicans, Carter Harrison Is free to claim that he could have been elected mayor If he had been the Democratic candidate. Car ter Is a bird —a buzzard bird. WATSON S WkkKLY JEFFERSONIAN. - John Temple Graves from the senatorial race. The man who is going up against the Tom Ryan railroad machine in Virginia is State Senator A. F. Thomas. The Jeffersonian glories in his spunk and wishes him success. Let him go directly to the people as Hoke Smith did in Georgia. The common people, IN ALL THE STATES, are eager to back those leaders whom the corporations can neither buy nor scare. “DOWN WITH THE CORRUPT AND GREEDY RULE OF NORTHERN AND EASTERN CORPORATIONS!” is a slogan which would sweep the West and South, over whelmingly. Every great combination of capital which is plundering the South and the West is owned and controlled in the North and East. With headquarters in New York, these char tered robbers are foraging, pillaging, plunder ing the South and West without mercy. THE STATES CAN PUT A STOP TO IT! Forfeit the Misused franchises, and save the South and West from the New York buc caneers ! That statement alone convicts the presidents of insincerity. Nothing could induce these big com panies to conduct an elaborate pas senger system if it did not pay, and pay well. Mr. McCrea presents sta tistical tables compiled by his ex perts to show that the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, on its lines east of Pittsburg and Buffalo, in 1905, lost $3,260,000. As a matter of fact, the total income of the Pennsylvania lines in 1905 brought that company a great profit. Last year the revenue, both gross and net, was greater still. In 1906 the total income was $6,650,000 MORE THAN IN 1905. After providing for interest, rentals and taxes, the Pennsylvania Company, DIVORCE IN OPEN COURT. (The Baltimore American.) Delaware is the first state to adopt some of the more important reforms in divorce procedure recommended by the national divorce congress. Star chamber hearings will no longer be tolerated there. The trial must take place in public. The argument in fa vor of this change was that publicity was the most effective preventive of collusion between the parties, while at the same time it acted in many cases as a deterrent against the permanent separation of married coup les. There is undoubted force in the claim that with compulsory hearings in open court the tendency to seek divorce on trivial grounds will be checked, and that there will be a great er effort at forgiveness and reconcil iation. THE BAR ON THE BAR. (The Saturday Evening Post.) For picturesque scenes and local coloring the recorder’s court in Atlan ta is a wonder. Recorder Broyles is a keen analyzer of the foibles and weaknesses of humanity, and is usu ally able to get at the bottom of the obscurest tangles. A majority of the cases tried are which its president says is losing mon ey carrying passengers, had A BAL ANCE OF $35,674,000. In the year before the balance was $35,000,000 in 1906, car trust and sink s3o,lo2,ooo. From the balance of more than ing fund payments were deducted. A dividend of 61-2 per cent was then paid, amounting to more than $19,000,- 000, which left A SURPLUS IN THE PENNSYLVANIA’S TREASURY of $11,201,000: When the passenger fares per mile are to be reduced, the company says that it is losing money on that part of the service. When the shippers of Cincinnati protest against the pro posal of railways to increase freight rates, the carriers reply that they negroes, and the bulk of their erring is in drinking too much. Not long r since a shiftless-looking ne gro man was arraigned for habitual drunkenness. The principal witness against him was his wife. She was on the witness stand with Recorder Broyles apply ing his incisive scalpel. “Does your husband stay drunk all the time?” asked the recorder. “No, suh, not all de time. Sometimes I ain’t got any job.” THE BEST MAN OF HIS HOUSE. (The Washington Star.) The yarn about the Czar’s abdication lacks persuasiveness. Such a steu might involve Russia in more trouble than ever. Unequal as he is to his great task, he is yet the best man of his house, and the only one who in spires respect and sympathy outside of his country. The man for the emer gency has not appeared. It is to be doubted if he exists. For the present therefore drifting and experiments may continue for some time. If this second duma fails a third may be called, and so on until one is obtain ed that will stick and do business. At all events constitutional government of some kind for Russia seems a cer tainty. The Government has decided to enlist no more negro soldiers in the army. Good! Now let the negroes be dropped from all civil offices. Let us have a government of the whites This will be best for the negroes as well as for ourselves. Nobody wants to see our military, or our civil service, carried on by Indians, Chinese, Hindoos, or Japanese. We would raise an outcry against the yellow man, the brown 1 man, the red man. Why. then, should we not apply the same rule to the black man? Let us give the negro his full legal rights, withdrawing political privileges. This will be best for both races. Nine-tenths of the black race — being just plain negroes—would be perfectly satisfied with full protection in their legal rights. The other one-tenth—being composed of Afro-Americans—would howl, of course; but they would be helpless to prevent what is the wise course. They would have to behave themselves, OR GET OUT. The bulk of the race would stay right here, buckle down to work, and look to the white man for guidance, protection and government. are making no profit out of that branch of the business. Meanwhile, the total traffic of all the companies, save on the lines that have been wrecked through manipula tion or gross overcapitalization, is piling up colossal gains. The quoting of segregated railway figures to prove some desired deduc tion is a favorite ruse of adroit offi cials of big lines. Fortunately, in the case of the Penn sylvania Company, the legislature and the governor were determined upon a two-cent fare. After all, the reduction on that sys tem is infinistesimal. The average passenger rate, according to the pres ident’s statement, has been 2.055 cents per mile. PATIENCE WITH CUBA. (The New York Tribune.) There are, no doubt, some unpleas ant facts in Cuba, and some conditions which cause perplexity and call for much thought. But things are not half as bad as some lurid fancies have pictured them, and it will be well to possess our souls in patience and not attempt to dictate or to an ticipate the decisions concerning fur ther policies in that island which Sec retary Taft will presently make in his his own good time, after he has seen the state of affairs there for himself with clear, straight and penetrating vision. TOO LARGE AN INVESTMENT. (Boston Herald.) Dr. Stone of the Harvard Medical school states that 90 per cent of the population have tuberculosis bacilli in their bodies. He also said that taking everything into account the annual loss to the commonwealth from this one’disease was $3,000,000. Assuming the accuracy of his esti mate the principal sum at 3 1-2 per cent Interest which we have invested in consumption is between $85,000,000 and $86,000,000. The means whereby to reduce it are hospitals, clinics, in spection and education.