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PAGE TWO Public Opinion Throughout the Union “ROOSEVELT FOR LIFE.” The Interesting Heading in an Agri cultural Paper. (New York Journal.) “Brown’s Farmer,” an able agricul tural newspaper published in North Dakota, prints on the front page a picture of President Roosevelt, and with the picture an article advocating the election of Mr. Roosevelt to the presidency for life. The editor of Brown’s Farmer asks: “Why not call a special session of congress and amend the constitution to permit of the election of a presi dent for life?” The editor goes on to say: “Could we do better than install Theodore Roosevelt in the presidency for life? He is without a peer for ability, with out a superior for knowledge, and a patriot in every thought and aspira tion. Under his wise, permanent ad ministration the country would settle down to a career of steady prosper ity.” This interesting suggestion will not surprise those that have studied the history of republics in the past. It need not surprise those that know something about human nature and its tendency to abandon an effort. The man who takes a good resolu tion nine times out of ten gets pretty tired of it after a while. The people that undertake self con trol and self government, as history teaches us, are very apt to get tired of it after a while. The average man who starts out in business for him self drifts back into a clerkship soon er or later. Some people in America got tired long ago of the effort of self government. To begin with, those that brought about the revolution and freed the country from the control of the English king, were attacked and hated by all the so-called aristocrats and respectable people of the day. All the “old families” of that time, the rich men with few exceptions, were in favor of English rule and de spised the idea of a republic. In our day many men —the most prosperous principally—are tired of the idea of self government. A good, strong king would suit them better. Time will tell what kind of a race of men this nation, with its mixture of nationalities, has produced. Time will tell whether or not this country is to go back to the monarchial form of government, and leave some better, abler race to solve the problems of republican government and develop a nation of men capable of governing themselves instead of living like chil dren under the government of one man. We are not at present questioning Mr. Roosevelt’s fitness to be president for life, or what would be the same thing, the first king of the United States. Nor do we question the fitness of his sons, carefully educated by him, as rulers in this country. We do not question the judgment of those who declare that Mr. Roosevelt u the only one among eighty millions capable of filling the office of president satis factorily. The question that interests us is not one concerning Mr. Roosevelt himself, but one concerning the American peo ple. Are they going to drift gradually away from the old standard, and give up the effort of the last hundred years? Will they gradually, with a third term, and a fourth term, a life presidency, and then a hereditary rulership, re- peat the old familiar story of repub lics on this earth? Our humble and unimportant opin ion is that the American people are not quite ready for a monarchy yet, and that neither those living nor their children will see the abandonment of th£ American system of govern ment. But there is no denying that many men among us, some of them the ablest, look upon republican govern ment as a joke and would gladly change for something “more stable.” BRYAN TO TRY AGAIN. (New York Globe.) William Jennings Bryan spent a quiet Sunday in Richmond. All he did was to make a couple of speeches, give the glad hand and flash the expansive smile to all who called, and as a topoff dictate an interview in which he said he would probably again be a presi dential candidate. Mr. Bryan’s unus ual inactivity was because he was rest ing in order to be physically fit when he invades New York again this week. He has an engagement to appear at Albany, and while there will make an address if his well-known aversion to talking is overcome by sufficient urging. Mr. Bryan has not had an opportu nity to tickle New York ears since his friends engaged Madison Square Garden in order that he might tell the listening universe that there should be federal ownership of trunk railways and state ownership of branches. There had been the most careful prep aration and rehearsal. He had calmed the turbulent waves on his way across the sea by reciting his periods. Yet the event was disappointing. Things happened and didn’t happen that were disquieting. In the first place, instead of roaring applause there was, if not a frost, at least a chill. Not many voices became hoarse that night from cheering. In the second and more im portant place, one William Randolph Hearst was present, and the Bryan bodyguard was incensed by what they identified as a clear attempt to steel the meeting. Taken all in all, it was a most heartbreaking affair. No won der the Peerless One has wanted to come back. No wonder he was fur ther alarmed last fall when he waited and waited in vain for the expected message requesting him to take part in the New York campaign. Mr. Bryan has made little conceal ment of his deep distrust of the Hearst goings on. He has arrived to put a quietus to them if he can. With his approval an organization has been cre ated whose object is to counterpoise the privately owned Independence League. Which is Hearst —ally or en emy? It is time for a smoke-out. So it is not difficult to see that the olive branch, stripped of its twigs and leaves, can be used as a club. The national campaign is but a few months ahead. Is Hearst to be in the ranks or out of them? Does he purpose to attempt to work the same game at the national Democratic convention that he successfully worked at the Buffalo convention? Is he coming for ward with the ultimatum: “Nominate me or face a split"? Thoughts of these things are taking the few remaining hairs from the Bry an head. Os what profit is it to at tempt to make merry over Republican family jars when there is sound of breaking crockery In your own house hold? Professional party optimist though he is, Mr. Bryan knows that WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN. / J® k ‘ «. •. Vr 1 /'J j— s. s -s. •sSgStaj&y;-. J w. . ■ r/ l CHARLES W. FAIRBANKS. Vice president of the United States and candidate for the presi dency. the danger is not merely an imaginary one. He knows why the Hearst news papers so scrupulously refrain from promoting the Bryan tradition—why every Hearst hired man is sneering as if an old-fashioned gold bug at a third candidacy. He knows that Hearst bolted McClellan, that he bolted in California, that he would have bolted in New York and Massachusetts last year if the party had not succumbed. He knows that this year in Chicago poor ex-Mayor Dunne was hugged to death, and that in many states the business of building of building up a hostile political organization goes steadily on. If the Roosevelt and anti-Roosevelt feeling in the Republi can party is a cleavage the division in the Democratic party is chasm. Mr. Bryan is anxious to run again for the presidency. This much is cer tain. But not to run again and be de feated. The hope that he could con ciliate Hearst has died out, for Hearst’s only notion of compromise is the nomination of Hearst. So the un fortunate man of Nebraska out of one political mire only to stumble into an other, has come on to see if there is not some way to suppress Hearst or at least fence him in below the Harlem. THE GREED OF THE SOUTHERN RAILROAD. (The Vidalia Advance.) This paper has tried to be just on railroads, but this recent act of the old greedy Southern Railway refus ing track rights to Atlanta takes all the charity out of our soul for them. Let the people of Georgia rise up and burst the combination which the Southern holds. We can and must do it. Here is a targe population of people along the Seaboard and M. D. & S. Railways that need a through freight and passenger connection to Atlanta. They have a right to demand it. From a conversation with an official of the Seaboard a few days ago, the editor of this paper learns that the Seaboard realizes that the public de mands a through train and that they must furnish it. We also learned that the Southern demanded such a tre mendous price for trackage rights from Macon to Atlanta that the Sea- board could not afford to pay it. The reason is easily seen for such actions upon the part of the Southern. They own the Central Railway and they do not want a shorter route to the sea to operate. Will the Seaboard be thus bluffed? Will the public stand such? Will the Georgia legislature and Governor-elect Hoke Smith stand such monopoly in fair Georgia? We hardly believe it. Let the Seaboard build from Macon to Atlanta. Let the legislature burst that Southern-Central combine. Then and not till then will the people of Georgia get any relief. 13 BANKERS IN ONE JAIL. Thirteen rich ex-bankers locked up in a jail. Such is the spectacle pre sented at Leavenworth, Kan., where the United States penitentiary draws interesting recruits from various com monwealths. The high financiers con spicuous on the Leavenworth rolls, dressed in the prison gray, wearing each his penitentiary number and get ting no privileges for his accomplish ments in money matters, are these: John P. Cooper, McGregor, Tex., who loaned the First National Bank’s money over the limit to cotton spec tators. Justus L. Broderick, Wilson C. Col lins, Walter Brown, former president, cashier and director of the First Na tional Bank, Elkhart, Ind. Alfred C. Parker, ex-cashier First National Bank, Bedford, Ind. Cyrus E. McCrady, ex-cashier First National Bank, Seymour, Ind. An ex cellent man at the Bertillon measure ments. Robert B. Taylor, banker-forger, from Missouri, transferred from Jef ferson City. James H. Wood, another former cashier from Indiana. Frank G. Bigelow, former president of First National Bank of Milwaukee, who used $3,000,000 not exactly his own. Henry G. Goll, ex-cashier of said Bigelow’s bank, will be released in 1913, a year after his superior. George A. Conzman, president Vigo County, Ind., National Bank, who vio lated the banking taws. Hermann Haass, transferred from Joliet, 111., a Chicago banker who led the detectives a chase to South Africa. Francis B. Wright, former national banker in Kane county, 111. These financiers are employed in va rious clerkships about the peniten tiary. Their sole distinction in pris on treatment lies in their being so placed in the dining-room that pris oners from the shops shall not rub against them, Imparting such grime of toil as might afterward be transferred to the prison books the bankers keep. (Boston Herald.) Gov. Hughes scores again. He will further consider the propriety of rais ing the wages of the New York city female school teachers to the level of those of the men when it is pro posed to treat the teachers of all oth er localities in the state with equal generosity, and when the women em ployed in all other occupations are similarly treated. Meanwhile his ve to will stand. (Washington Herald.) A friend of the president says that Mr. Roosevelt might be Induced to accept another term in the event of a war. The war inside the Democratic party doesn’t count, however.