Newspaper Page Text
PAGE TWO
Public Opinion Throughout the Union
AN “APPEAL TO REASON.”
(New York World.)
An unguarded reference by Presi
dent Roosevelt to “undesirable citi
zens” provokes Socialistic demonstra
tions in New York and other cities.
Thousands march in procession byway
of rebuking the utterance, and the
numbers of the paraders, the glimpses
of red flags and the coincidence of
the twenty-first anniversary of the Chi
cago bomb-throwing attract attention
to the prevalence of doctrines about
which the general public has not re
cently concerned itself.
What gives them vitality and fosters
their growth? Some extracts from the
Appeal to Reason, the Socialist week
ly published at Girard. Kan., and cir
culated among 300,000 readers, may
help to explain how the making of So
cialist opinion goes quietly on, unno
ticed except when an incident like the
Moyer-Haywood case gives it emphatic
expression.
Readers are reminded that “on his
toric Boston Common 100,000 voices
echoed the refrain of the Appeal and
its army: ‘lf Moyer and Haywood die
twenty million workingmen will know
the reason why;’ ” and that “the shout
was taken up in old Manhattan and
echoed and re-echoed, causing the
plutes to rub their eyes in startled
amazement.”
President Roosevelt is alluded to as
“the spectacled sham that poses as
the champion of the square deal,” and
a letter from a correspondent is print
ed pretending to quote Mr. Roosevelt
as saying in 1895 that “men like Alt
geld, Bryan, Towne and Tillman should
be stood up against a brick wall and
shot to death.”
“Freeborn American citizens” are re
quested to take notice that “the kid
napping Governor of Idaho,” Frank-
Gooding, is a foreigner and a British
subject, while the grandsire of William
Haywood, “his kidnapped victim,” was
minuteman at Concord and a signer of
the Declaration of Independence. “It
is the old issue of British gold against
American freedom.”
Judges are called “the real kings
of the land; whoever can buy a judge
can rule.” An opposing newspaper is
“a moribund old scab.” A report about
Moyer is characterized as a “cold
blooded hatched-to-order lie to blacken
the reputation of an honest working
man.” The owners of the San Francis
co car companies “instead of having
troops to defend their loot” ought to
be in prison. The kind of justice
American work-people get is “the same
kind the czar dishes out to his work
people;” he shoots them by platoons
“legally,” but he makes the laws just
as American capitalists make them
here. The “plutocratic plunderbund”
and a “satanic press” are denounced.
The question is asked: “What if laws
do destroy the values of railroad prop
erties? Did not the laws made by Re
publicans destroy the value of chattel
slaves? Is it a crime for others to do
what was a virtue in Republicans?”
“Malignant foes of labor” are stig
matized by name. “No Socialist,” it is
asserted in black type, can be accept
ed as a Haywood juror. Railroad com
panies are charged with using Bertil
lon measurements to blacklist employ
es. An editorial denunciation of the
president for “violation of all ethics
and decencies” is endorsed as “most
fair and candid.”
This is the editorial food on which
the Socialistic agitation feeds. The
Appeal to Reason, by its own admis
sion, is beset by enemies: “Plutocracy
... tPrawSHMBf tfT.V-,
STATUE OF GENERAL J. E. B. STUART.
Unveiled at Richmond, Va., on May 30. Frederick Moynihan, Sculptor. Cast
in Bronze by the Gorham Company.
has marked it for slaughter,” but it
is undaunted; its “work has only com
menced.” No thoughtful American cit
izen can afford to disregard the prob
able effect of these utterances repeated
week after week to 300,000 persons.
MERIT FIRST.
(Boston Herald.)
“I believe in rewarding party serv
ice and in opening the door of op
portunity to every worthy aspirant for
public station, but over its portals 1
would place the inscription, ‘Merit
first, politics afterward.’ ”
That is the kind of a partisan spoils
monger Secretary Cortelyou allows
that he is. It isn’t so bad as it
might be but for the sign over the
door.
ALMOST A NATIONAL SCANDAL.
(Long Branch Record.)
“Teddy” is at it again.
This time he has made some Dr.
Long, a scientist and animal student
of no great prominence, famous by
designating him in a magazine arti
cle as a “nature fakir.” The doctor
has replied in kind and both men are
getting a vast amount of free publici
ty. The president has queer tastes,
however, if he likes this kind of no
toriety.
The Harriman episode, from which
he retired with no credit, it was hoped
had taught the nation’s chief execu
tive something, but it seems the lesson
was in vain.
The malady, we fear, is incurable.
Ambassador Bowen was a “disingen
uous liar,” Judge Parker an “atrocious
liar,” Former Senator Chandler a “de
liberate and unqualified liar,” Ambas
sador Bellamy Storer a “peculiarly per
fidious liar” and so on ad infinitum ad
nauseam.
And still the epithet habit grows on
the president.
We have never hesitated to express
our admiration for the man’s good
qualities and our appreciation of his
frequent meritorious acts, but no one
more than Roosevelt admirers can feel
keener chagrin at these unseemly out
bursts.
The cause of wonder to us is that
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
a man of the president’s pre-eminent
ability should manifest such an ut
ter lack of the sense of dignity which
belongs to his high office and should
so repeatedly and flagrantly outrage
the public’s sense of propriety.
A SPEEDY SOLUTION OF THE
"BROKEN RAIL” PROBLEM.
(Madison Daily Democrat.)
We invite the attention of those who
are interested —and who is not? —in
the serious question of the increasing
number of broken rails, to the some
what lengthy article published else
where in this issue on that subject. It
would be the sheerest folly to ignore or
deny the magnitude of the danger
which, under the existing conditions,
threatens everyone who takes a jour
ney upon our railroads. The state rail
road commission of the most important
state in the union has taken official
cognizance of this question; and unless
the responsible parties take speedy
steps to improve the quality of the
rails, the subject is one that may well
become the subject of federal action.
The present conditions are intolera
ble. Rails have become so unreliable
as to constitute a continual menace to
the safety of the passengers. The daily
papers are filled with accounts of this
or that train that has been ditched;
and in the majority of cases at the end
of the telegraphic account is a brief no
tice to the effect that the cause was a
broken rail.
Starting from the incontrovertible
standpoint that the railroads ought to
be provided with the very best and
safest rail possible, it would seem that
the only and perfectly proper
of the difficulty would be to make the
one-third crop, as requested; roll rails
of the very highest character that can
be secured under the Bessemer pro
cess; and in order to meet the shortage
of the supply that would result from
these improvements in manufacture,
to remit the duty on steel rails, until
such time as the rail making concerns
shall have been able to build and set
in operation sufficient Open-Hearth
plants to supply the full demand of the
country.—Scientific American.
Here we have the strongest kint|
of evidence of the criminality of the
high tariff. The Scientific American is
a well known advocate of protection
and here we have her emphatic state
ment that our great railroad disasters,
murdering thousands of our traveling
citizens, and making it absolutely dan
gerous to take a ride on a railroad, are
in a very large measure due to poor
rails in the tracks, poor because of the
high tariff on material that would
make them good and safe. And this
high tariff paper advises that the tariff
be taken off steel rails until the Amer
ican rail makers can fit themselves to
make good rails. Does this not seem
inconsistent from a protective point of
view; that the tariff is causing our
steel trust to make bad rails and -mur
dering the traveling public, and that to
enable the trust to make good rails we
must stop the protection for awhile?
There is more truth than poetry in
the suggestion, however. The tariff has
built the steel trust up to the migh
tiest aggregation of wealth in the
world, and so pampered and powerful
have they become under government
protection that they now fearlessly put
poor material into their rails that the
profits may be still greater, caring
naught for the slaughter in railroad
accidents as a result.
And yet we continue to shout “Pro
tection,” and vote for it at the polls.
TARIFF REVISION.
(Nashville Banner.)
The American Tariff League is look
ing askant at the Taft boom. It says
the country must have “a better pro
tectionist than Mr. Taft in the white
house.” The Washington Star takes
up the cudgel for Mr. Taft and de
clares that he is as good a protection
ist as was President McKinley and is
a protectionist of the same order. The
Star adds:
“The standpatters are about at the
end of their row. Tariff revision is
almost at hand. Some specific deliver
ance on the subject by the Republi
cans must be made next year, no mat
ter who the candidate may be. No
body could be elected president on a
platform which should leave the sub
ject in the air. The time for revision
must be stated in terms that the voters
will accept. A plank in the platform
which should pledge the party in that
old moonshine phrase about revising
the tariff when the proper time comes,
and then so as to injure no American
indsutry, would make the party ridic
ulous. The country is convinced that
the time has arrived; and everybody
understands that the Republican party
is not warring on American indus
tries.”
This from a Republican journal Is
significant. It is evident that the re
vision question is a disturbing one in
the Republican party, and it is one that
cannot be set aside. The standpatters
are beginning to see the inevitable
and while they ostensibly are holding
out for the let-alone policy and harp
ing on the danger of interfering with
the established business basis, they
are really hoping only to check the
revision idea within limitations that
shall be prescribed under rigid pro
tection rules.
Cleaning compounds are always dan
gerous. Never use benzine, gasoline
or other like fluids in any room in
which there is a light or a fire. These
oils are extremely volatile and their
fumes catch fire at a great distance,
the flames traveling back to the
source. Explosion and scattered fire
are the results.