Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

PAGE TWO Public Opinion Throughout the Union BRYAN FOR DIRECT VOTE. The Populists and advocates of di rect legislation—that is, the initiative and referendum —were greatly pleased with the spirit of Mr. Bryan’s Brook lyn speech. The Brooklyn Eagle, speaking of the speech, says: "Mr. Bryan’s full statement on this point is as follows: "The doctrines of Jefferson are marching on. Anything that makes the government more Democratic, more popular in form; everything that gives the people more control over the government will win. "You may help it, you may retard it, you may defeat it, but one of the things that is coming, that is Jeffer sonian, that is Democratic, is the In itiative and Referendum for the con trol of the government. No man will make an argument against the ref erendum who is not prepared to deny the capacity of the people for self government. You may differ from me on every question, but if you do not believe in the right of the people to govern themselves. I will, if I can, drive you out of the Democratic party (loud applause), and if the Demo cratic -party .does not believe in the rule of the people it will have no trouble in driving me out of the Dem ocratic party (applause), but I do not think it is coming to the test. "The faults of our government are not in the people themselves; they are in those whom the people elect. The faults of our government are in the representatives of the people who pretend to be friends of the people but betray their trust and turn to private account the authority placed in their hands, for public purposes, (applause). The initiative places it in the power of the people to compel the submission of any question upon which they want to act, and the ref erendum enables them to sit in judg ment upon anything which the leg islature has done. Your constitution provides that the governor or presi dent may veto what the legislature proposes, and if any man has a right to veto the legislature, who will say that the majority of voters has not the right to veto also (applause)?" BUCKET-SHOP THIEVES. (The Boston Herald.) The action of the governor in sign ing the anti-bucket shop bill closes a most creditable chapter in the leg islative history of the commonwealth. Open gambling has been prohibited for years. But this more insidious and ruinous form of real, though co vert, gambling went on unchecked. Under the guise of "stock quotations” the prices of so-called, as well as real, securities were manipulated and "held back” until the poor dupe who had be come infected with the gambling fe ver had no possible chance. The sharks who preyed on him got his all in time. At last the common wealth has interposed. It now only remains to enforce the law promptly and relentlessly, and a long step for ward w’ill be taken on the road to public betterment. SHOULD INCLUDE SCHNEIDER. (The Cleveland Plain Dealer.) The staute of Joseph Jefferson is to be completed and ready for unveiling a year from next June. Let's hope it will Include a bronze duplicate of my dog Schneider. WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN. 1* " Pwgl wftwtfcSrM I - * wOwf ■ SENATOR WILLIAM E. BORAH, CONSPICUOUS IN THE PROSE- CUTION OF WILLIAM D. HAYWOOD. "THEM FURRINERS!” (The Royston Record.) The farmers of Georgia elected Mr. Smith and they are not in favor of foreign immigration. No foreigners are needed in Georgia by the farmers. Low wages are no more wanted or needed on the farms than in the cities. The farmers are willing to pay for their hire if they can get a legiti mate price for their products and this they propose to do. Os course the railroads and corpo rations want foreign immigrants. Thev need them in their business, but the farmers do not. What do the serfs of Russia know about a free and independent gov ernment, and what do the people of south Germany know of self-govern ment? If the people of the over-crowded northern or other states of our own country want to come south let them come, but keep out the foreigners— the cheap laborers. The writer has been all over the west and on the Pacific coast and knows something about these cheap laborers. A large majority of them are socialists, anarchists and revolu tionists of the lowest order. They think no more of the country in which they live than they do of the one they left. They are used to bowing down to power and greed and the south ern people have no need for them. THE “DRY” SOUTH. (The Washington Post.) For rigid political morality sugges tive of old-time New England one must go south. One after another the New’ England states have tried prohibition in the shape of state-wide laws, and finding the experiment a failure, all have given it up save Maine, where it still stands, but with great and growing disfavor. Mean while, prohibition in the shape of local option is rapidly covering the south and governors of states and many oth er influuential citizens, in and out of office, are teetotalers. There is a more general prevalence of extreme temperance sentiment, of total absti nence sentiment in the south today than anywhere else in the country. DECLINE OF PARTY LOYALTY. (The Portland Oregonian.) If they should succeed in placing pliable nonentities at the head of both paities next year, what would be the result? Probably a Republican vic tory, but not certainly. The times are pregnant with change, and party loyalty sits lightly in the breasts of the people. There is the specter of Hearst and his third party to be reckoned with, and who can say with confidence that the disgust of the voters might not sweep him into power? IS THE PUBLIC JUSTIFIED? (The Augusta Herald.) The interstate commerce commis sion has recently issued “accident bulletin No. 22” which includes rail way accidents during three months ending December 31, 1906. If the previous bulletin was astonishing in the enormous number of accidents it reported bulletin 22 is still more startling. It shows the total num ber of casualties to passengers and employes while on duty to have been 20,944, an incrase of 1,094 over those reported during the preceding three months. A special dispatch from Washington to the Journal of Com merce continues a summary of the bulletin as follows: "The total number of collisions and derailments was 3,965 (2,226 col lisions and 1,739 derailments), of which 391 collisions and 190 derail ments effected passenger trains. The damage to cars, engines and roadway by these accidents amounted to $3,- 099,228. "The number of passengers and em ployes killed in train accidents was 474, an increase of 207 over the num ber reported in the last quarter. The number of passengers killed in train accidents in this quarter, 180, is the largest on record except passengers killed in the quarter, 143, are attribut able to three accidents, two collis ions and one derailment. "The number of employes killed in coupling and uncoupling cars and en gines was 84, as against 81 reported killed in the last preceding quarter. “The most disastrous accident re ported in the present bulletin was a collision between a passenger train and an extra train haulin gempty pas senger coaches in which forty-three persons were killed and sixty-three in jured.” It would seem that to those who decry present railway agitation as "hostile” and unreasonable it should be necessary only to point to the above ghastly record to convice them that long suffering public is justified in seeking immediate and efficient rem edies for such service. This record of disaster to human life is alone enough to create a demand for complete re form in operating methods, and, cou pled with the inadequate and inef ficient freight service that is being furnished on many lines, it is sur prising that the demands of the pub lic have not assumed a really radical form. REMOVE THE TARIFF. (Virginian-Pilot.) If the steel mills, from improper rolling, or other causes, are turning out defective rails, they cannot im prove their methods and processes too quickly. If, on the other hand, the trouble really is in the weight of the rail, then heavier ones should be substituted as rapidly as possible. In creased cost should not be permitted to stand in the way of an improve ment calculated to increase safety of travel. But remove the tariff on steel and iron and their products and there would be no increased cost. The heav ier rail could then be bought for considerably less than is now exacted for the lighter. EXPLAINED. (The Cleveland Leader.) A Connecticut fisherman claims to have seen a red-headed devil-fish which stood on Its tall and hlrsed at him. Too much bait!