Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

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.