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PAGE TWO Public Opinion Throughout the Union AMERICA LEADS IN COMMERCE. (The Louisville Herald.) America is making vast strides in advance in respect of foreign trade. Since 1891 Great Britain shows a gain in all imports of 30.43 per cent and in imports from the United States a gain of 16.8. Germany shows, in the same period, an advance in all imports of 71.75 and in imports from the United States of 122 per cent. Russia has made a gain in all imports of 65.30 and in American imports alone a gain of 190 per cent. The imports of the Neth erlands from all countries since 1891 show an increase of 92.08 per cent and from the United States of 117. In the case of China the advance has been enormous. Imports from all countries since 1891 have increased 110.66 and from the United States 673 per cent. Japanese imports from all countries have gained by 397.59 per cent, while the imports of the Mikado’s empire from the United States show the stu pendous gain of 1,069 per cent. Bel gium showing a gain of 68.58 on all imports registers but 2.4 per cent gain from the United States. France alone indicates a falling off in Ameri can imports. The total gain in all French imports in sixteen years is .23 per cent and the decline in Amer ican imports .012. The United Kingdom now draws 20.45 per cent of her imports from the United States, Japan 21.35, China 16.68, Denmark 16.08, Germany 13.91, Italy 12.48, Australia 11.70, New Zea land 11.21, Spain 11.21, France 10.70, Russia 9.66, Austria 9.49 and the Neth erlands 9.38. American exports since 1891 mark an increase of 96.95 per cent; Germany is a good second with 80.50; the Netherlands third with 74.91; Belgium next with 52.28. Other countries follow, the United Kingdom indicating an increase of exports in sixteen years of 33.40 per cent, France 36.34, and Russia 36.95 per cent. Os Oriental nations Japan stands first with a gain of 159.09 per cent and China is second with a gain of 40.62. Commerce is doing more to bring the nations of the world together than all other agencies. It is a more potent influence for peace than even The Hague Tribunal. It can do much, not alone for peace, but for the extension of that interchange of products be tween teh nations which contributes so powerfully to peace and brother hood. NOT YET, BUT— (The Pittsburg Dispatch.) Mr. Roosevelt says we are a good many thousand years from the millen nium. This will be a keen disappoint ment to those who have been expect ing him to usher it in. OUR ANTIQUATED TARIFF POLICY. (The New York American.) Most of the nations of Western Eu rope have written their tariff laws. They are prepared to traffic with the world on a reciprocal basis, while America, through the lack of initiative on the part of the administration and the inattention of congress, has failed to adjust itself to the new economic program in world traffic. Until some international settlement is reached, and made known to the business inter ests involved, commerce will necessa rily be threatened or disturbed by tar iff wars. WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN. I ■ ■' :.T % - I ■' • I I ' I //! y ' x ' - L f IL ft I \ Sk 111 \\ vl v Mm / //1 EX-SECRETARY CHARLES S. FAIRCHILD, INDICTED FOR AL LEGED FORGERY. SOUTHERN DEMOCRACY. (The New York Tribune.) There is now. practically no opposi tion party in most of the southern states. The Democratic leaders of the south are never harried by the fear of local disaster. They can give all their energies to the tasks of national poli tics. But this sense of security at home seems to have enervated them. They have ceased to have a will and purpose of their own in national poli tics, and content themselves with tak ing directions from others. They have played the opportunist with cynical complacency, swinging from Cleveland to Bryan, from Bryan to Parker, and from Parker again to Bryan without the slightest inward or outward com punction. They have accepted implic itly the watch-word of Senator Ray ner’s original and ideal Democrat, Ia go—“1 am not what I am.” THE LUMBER TARIFF. (The Indianapolis News.) We are destroying and consuming our forests because naturally timber men are eager to make the most of the situation which grants them a practical monopoly of the lumber mar ket and enables them to command a high price. With the end of our own forests already in sight, and with lum ber so high that many would-be build ers cannot use it, it would seem to be reasonably well established that the time for the removal of the lumber tariff has arrived. JUSTIFYING THE POULISTS. (The Joliet News.) The initiative and referendum has been adopted in New Jersey for the towns, cities and other municipalities. The principle has been adopted by the city of Wilmington, Del., the low er house of Pennsylvania has passed the bill, and Maine will vote upon it as a constitutional amendment. SALOONS UNCONSTITUTIONAL. (The Joliet News.) Still another Indiana judge has held that all saloon licenses in Indiana are unconstitutional. In a case be fore Judge Ira W. Christian at No blesville, he declared that saloons were not permissible under the Indiana constitution. The reasoning in his de cision is as follows: “The saloon, which has been repeatedly held to be the prime source of all crime, has no right to exist at common law, and the license which grants it is the granting of a right which heretofore did not exist. 1 am therefore of the opinion that a law creating a busi ness dangerous to public morals, to public safety, to public peace, to pub lic health, is not within the police power of the state. The liquor busi ness legalized by statute, subverts justice. I have arrived at the con clusion that the license law is uncon stitutional.” Judge Artman, of Leb anon, Ind., on February 12, handed down a decision that is practically the same as that of Judge Christian and the liquor interests of the state did not appeal. THREE TIMES AND OUT. (The St. Louis Globe-Democrat.) Col. Bryan has a new lecture enti tled “Oratory, Ambition and Fate.” Oratory refers to his first presidential nomination, Ambition covers his sec ond, and Fate will take care of his third. NOT ON YOUR LIFE. (The Griffin News.) From all accounts the Democrats are not to have the support of the Popu lists in the next presidential election. President Roosevelt has captured that crowd, lock, stock and barrel. The deal was made through the chairman of the Populist national committee, Marion Butler, of North Carolina. THE UNWRITTEN LAW. (The Louisville Herald.) Another instance of the unwritten law’s popularity. The Alexandria (Va.) Gazette reports that fifty-three men out of a venire of 100 summoned there for the third trial of a policeman charged with killing his wife and her paramour were excused by .the circuit judge. They swore that they believed in the unwritten law. Each of these men said that he would vote to free the prisoner if the unwritten law was pleaded in his defense. The Gazette adds: “Lex non scripta seems to be gradually asserting itself, and it is likely to become more firmly entrench ed if certain crimes continue to grow.” JURY REFORM. (The Boston Herald.) Under the provisions of the jury reform act to which the governor has just affixed his signature, no name can hereafter be placed on a jury list in this commonwealth until the au thorities preparing it have thorough ly and fully investigated the reputa tion, character and fitness of the per sons otherwise qualified to perform jury service, and the authorities mak ing up the list are given full power to reject any person whom they may deem unfit for such service. Intelli gently and impartially administered, this law should have an effect to im prove the quality of our juries. There is ample room for it. TARIFF REFORM AS AN ISSUE. (The Savannah News.) In his recent Brooklyn speech Mr. Bryan said: “On the great question of tariff reform, there is not the slightest indication that the Republican party is going to do anything * ♦ ♦ There is no tariff reform that means any thing in the Republican party.” This is undeniably true, and we repeat what we have heretofore said, that in tariff reform there is an issue upon which all true Democrats can unite and pre sent an unbroken and triumphant front to the party of trusts, privilege, and imperialism in 1908. THE PRESIDENT AND LABOR. (The Philadelphia Public Ledger.) On every possible occasion, from the anthracite settlement down to the championing of every possible act of congress, such as the act regulating the hours of labor on railroads; in ev ery possible connection, from berating judges of the courts for their decisions on the employers’ liability law to the delivery of innumerable speeches ex coriating “swollen wealth,” he has “coddled” laboring men as carefully as if they were “mollycoddles.” If the president is not the friend of labor, what does labor expect? DEMOCRACY IN AN EMPIRE. (The London Times.) It has been often academically de bated whether a democracy can gov ern an empire. The experience of history has been quoted, mostly against the proposition; but one con clusion is always certain, that igno rance is a democracy’s besetting sin. Our own imperial problem cannot be exactly paralleled from history. It is not one, but several, great democracies which have to work in unison; but, while decisions continue to be taken in London, the heaviest responsibility lies on the democracy at home.