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PAGE TWO j 'Public Opinion Throughout the Union A NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE LEAGUE. The announcement from Indepen dence Leage headquarters that the organization is to be made national is good news for all who believe in actual rather than pretended reform. The enthusiasm with which the ad vent of the League has been hailed in other states proves that it is a welcome and permanent movement for the betterment of American poli tics. The American people have wearied of being herded into parties. They are tired of following-politicians who aie in politics for hire and for the profit of corrupt corporations. The tendency toward independent vot ing, which has been manifested in recent elections, is still growing. That is the people’s only hope. It was the spirit of independence that made this nation, and it is the spirit of independence that must preserve it. The causes that made the League a power in this city and state are general throughout the country. The people have come to feel a profound district of both old parties. The dis closures of the trust contributions to the last Republican national cam paign fund are only equalled by the fact that the Democratic National Executive Committee is made up of men for the most part notorious for corporation associations. Party gov ernment is responsible for present conditions. It can hardly be expected to remove its own handiwork. The League, out of power, has shown itself more potent for reform than the parties in power. That is because it is sincere, and the people know it is sincere. Simply 'being in earnest is a force worth reckoning. The American people are becoming in earnest in dealing with party treachery and corporation rule. It is for that reason they are welcom ing, and will continue to welcome, a national Independence League.— N. Y. American. THE CASE OF MR. HARRIMAN. The definite announcement that the federal government will at once be gin proceedings against E. 11. Har riman, to compel him to answer cer tain questions he refused to answer when the Interstate Commerce Com mission was inquiring into the Al ton matter, seems to indicate that the authorities have grown a bit W'eary of the contempt wealthy men are inclined to show the law and iis officers. It is about time the author ities were moving against men of this type, and they should press the issue to the limit in order to break up a practice which tends more and moie to increase popular disrespect f<ti the law. Rich men who publicly defy the authorities, who refuse to do what the law commands, and who deliber ately attempt to strangle and defeat official inquiry into wrongful acts, are a menace to society. Not only do such men weaken and impair the respect the people ought to have for the government and its agencies; they also increase and inflame pop ular prejudice against men of wealth, strengthen class hatred, and other wise harm the body politic. Os such men as these, examples should be made. As a rule, efforts’ at concealment suggest wrongdoing. Corporations that have acted in all respects within the limits of the la-w have no reason to fear the fullest possible inquiry into their business methods. On the other hand, when they seek to evade legal processes, to dodge public inquiry, defy officers of the law, and to cover up and con ceal the nature and character of their business, these facts alone justify a strong suspicion of wrongdoing. In all such cases the government should exhaust every possible power to bring these men to book. The na tion’s worst enemies are men of wealth who persistently defy the law, ignore its mandates and outrage its decrees. The last vestige of the na tion’s power, if needed in the work, should be used to crush them. —Se- attle Post-Intelligencer. AN INGENIOUS DEVICE. That was rather an ingenious de vice of the Adams Express Company to conceal its enormous increase of dividends. Os course, it is not quite effective, but it is a refreshing departure from the old, threadbare device of water ing stock. Nominally this company pays an annual dividend of eight per cent on its capital stock of $12,000,- 000, and points with proud confidence to this modest dividend as a conclu sive reason for not reducing its ex orbitant rates. < Some nine or ten years ago the company found itself embaiiTassed with a surplus —some $12,000,000 more than it knew just what to do with—and inasmuch as an additional dividend of 100 per cent might cause comment and lead to suggestions of lowering rates, or even give impetus to the movement to establish a par cels post, it was desirable in some way to veil the transaction. Instead theiefore of distributing the $12,- 000,009 outright, it was placed in trust to secure a similar amount of four per cent bonds, which bonds were distributed among the stock holders. In effect this was even better for the stockholders than would have been a distribution of the money it self. The bonds were secured by their face value in cash or its equiv alent, and in addition to that, their interest was paid out of the income of the company. Substantially it amounted to a four per cent increase of dividends, only it did n d look like it on the surface. In order to conceal its great profits an enormous surplus was given the appearance of a bonded liability, and a fixed charge on the company’s income. But this added burden was not WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN. enough to keep down the growing surplus, and recently the company was confronted with the necessity of disposing of another surplus, this time of $24,000,000, or 200 per cent of the capital stock. Congress having defined express companies as common carriers and brought them under the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commis sion, it would have been even more impolitic than formerly to distribute an extra dividend of 200 per cent in addition to its regular eight per cent nominal, twelve per cent actual, div idend; nor was it judicious to try to cover the increase by watering the stock. And so its former expe dient was again adopted. The $24,- 000,000 was put in trust to secure another issue of four per cent bonds, this time amounting to $24,000,000. Thus it appears on the surface that the company is burdened with a bonded liability of $36,000,000, or three times the amount of its capi tal stock. As a matter of fact these bonds represent no money borrowed by the company for corporate pur poses, but profits actually earned— or collected from shippers—during the last ten years, put, as we have said, in trust and distributed as div idends to the stockholders. In fact, therefore, the stockholders of this company receive eight per cent on their capital stock of $12,- 000,000, and four per cent on their dividend bonds of throe times as much, or $36,000,000, the amount of the surplus profits in ten years. This is the same thing as, or much better than, twenty per cent dividend on the capital stock of $12,000,000, but it is cleverly concealed. It may possibly have the desired effect of preventing any very urgent demand for a reduction in rates, or at least furnish an excuse for resist ing any reduction on the ground that it will take away the company’s abil ity to pay its fixed charges, i. e., the above-described fixed bonded “in debtedness” of $36,000,000, and a fair profit (eight per cent) on its capital stock of $12,000,000, and hence, would amount to confiscation. It remains to be seen whether this clever device will “hold water” be fore the Interstate Commerce Com mission and the courts. —Richmond eJournal. TEXAS NEGROES A HARD LOT. A late press dispatch gives an ac count of the wounding of an innocent bystander by an ugly negro with a gun in his hand. The “innocent by stander” was another negro whose hurt was accidental. From observa tion of what little colored population there is in Dublin we are inclined to believe that the teim “innocent by stander,” can never be properly ap plied to one of them. The aggrega tion here in Dublin lacks everything of being innocent. For any purpose the whole bunch, is not worth the dynamite it would take to blow them off the face of the earth. They won’t work when they can, they can’t keep their hands off of anything of value that is not chained down and they have no idea of what a moral prin ciple is. If the class of “niggers” in the towns in Texas where they are numerous are anything like as worthless as the few we have in Dub lin, we sympathize with the town. — Dublin, Texas, Progress. ‘‘UNWHIPPED MOBS” IN AMER ICAN history; “An unwhipped mob,” says Gen. Funston, describing the citizens of San Francisco. An apt term, al though not in just the sense meant by the officer who gained his title leading “unwhipped mobs” of American volunteers. American mobs have away of be ing unwhipped and of remaining that way indefinitely. ’ The unwhipped Boston mob which dumped British tea into the water, the unwhipped mob which brought the Lone Star in to the constellation, the unwhipped mobs which precipitated the freeing of the slave, are examples enough to show that General Funston's term fits better than he knew. There Is an undertone of sadness, however, in the general’s words. It is as if the Czar should see an un whipped mob from his palace tow ers and straightway remedy the de fect by calling out his whip-wield ing Cossacks and knout-swinging po lice. Would General Funston suggest his willingness to try his hand at whipping an American mob?—N. Y. American. A BLOODY WAR. What a bloody war that between Russia and Japan was! Short, sharp, decisive and, to a degree, sanguinary. “The worship in honor of the souls of the soldiers and sailors of Japan who fell in the war with Russia, cel ebrated at Tokio on May 1, disclosed the fact that the total loss on record was 84,848 killed and died of wounds. This is about 85 per cent of the battle losses of the federal army during our great Civil War.” And yet our war lasted four years. In the outcome Russia cut a sorry figure in the Russo-Japanese war, but the above figures show that she did execution while it was on.—Charlotte Observer. WHISKERS. The fellows who grow whiskers to hide the absence of ties haven’t any thing on the railroads, which grow weeds for the same purpose.—Spar tanburg Journal. WAITING FOR REFORM. Nix—There’s an island out in the Pacific Ocean where crime, poisons, drunkenness, • and courts are un known. Dix—Civilization is a long time reaching that island.—St. Joseph (Mo.) News-Press.