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PAGE TWO Public Opinion Throughout the Union NEW YORK’S NEW COMMIS SION. The New York public utilities bill calls for two commissions of five men each, and Governor Hughes ran sacked his state to find men of ca pacity and integrity. The salary of each commissioner is $15,000 a year, and this has given the governor o New York a pretty good opportunity in his search for first-class men. His appointments are as follows: First District (Greater New York) —William R. Wilcox, chairman; William McCarroll, Edward M. Bas sett, Milo Roy Maltbie, John E. Eus tis. Second District (all othei* coun* ties) —Frank W. Stevens, James town, chairman; Thomas Mott Os borne, Auburn; Charles Hallam Keep, Buffalo; James E. Sayne, New Hamburg; Martin S. Decker. Chairman Wilcox is the present postmaster of New York city, and Mr. Maltbie is secretary of the art commission of that city. Messrs. Bassett and Eustis are lawyers, and Mr. McCarroll is president of the leather trust. The up-state commis sion is made up of men who are well and favorably known in their re spective localities. The New York Times is inclined to like the two commissions because they are made up of il business men or lawyers who, if not conspicuous, are at least of good standing in their communi ties.” There is but one practical railroad man in the entire list o ten commissioners—Mr. Sayne, and he is not widely known. —The Age- Herald. THE LONGEST WAY. The untongue-tied representatives of Mr. Hearst will make the most of the excuse for howling given by Mayor McClellan’s suit to test the validity of the recount act. “See! He’s still afraid!” Yet to induce the bringing of such a suit has been (he chief objective of Hearst’s ma noeuvring for six months. Delay and a chance to lay the blame for the delay on the other side —to this double end the Gilsey House cabi net has devoted its conjoined intel lect. Things’* have not been altogether comfortable since the Court of Ap peals threw open the door to quo warranto proceedings. Attorney- General Jackson was so anxious to institute a suit that he could hard ly wait until sworn in. But the Court of Appeals granted his re quest too speedily. It took away the pretext of languor. In this sea of embarrassment the recount bill was a spar, and it was eagerly clutched. “If we can only get it,” reasoned the tacticians, “and begin proceedings in another way, the may or will, of course, fight them, and then we can say it’s infamous the recount doesn’t take place.” There is no reason, in view of the latest development, to revise the opinion that if those who supported the recount bill really wanted a re- count they took the most effective way to secure delay. If the mayor is as all his enemies represent they gave him another line of defense aft er his first was exhausted. If Hearst is as insincere as his enemies assert he was given an opportunity to con tinue jockeying tactics. Even now, if there is any real desire for a re count, the quo warranto method will more quickly secure it than the oth er. None are more fully advised of this fact than the Hearst attorneys. If they persist in taking the longest way around but one inference is pos sible. —New York Globe. WHAT OUGHT A DEMOCRAT TO BE? May it not be that the apparently unsatisfactory nature of Mr. Bry an’s response to the inquiry, “What is a Democrat?” is due to his hav ing in mind not what a Democrat of the present day is, but what he ought to be? That is to say, Mr. Bryan has undertaken to set up an ideal, not to describe an actuality. From this point of view Mr. Bry an’s inability to gather all those who call themselves Democrats under the wing of a single definition is perfect ly comprehensible. His party has not yet unanimously arrived at his way of thinking; that’s all. The ideal is still far distant; to some, perhaps, inapproachable; to others, impossible. We shall not attempt to define that ideal, but for all that it is not so uncertain or indistinct that it cannot be rejected by those who don’t like it. That it has been so rejected is the best of evidence that it is not totally lacking in defi niteness of outline. The New York World, which is terribly concerned about the true definition of Democracy, has at last submitted a conception of a true Democrat with fifteen duly numbered qualities. We have no doubt that any person possessing all, or even some, of these fifteen requisites would be entitled to a certificate of Democracy, but would all those ac customed to call themselves Demo crats subscribe to the entire fifteen articles of Democratic faith as ex pounded by the World ? That is the crucial question. The World, as we see it, is no more successful than Mr. Bryan in defining that which is true Democ racy always, everywhere, and in all circumstances. It has given, as Mr. Bryan gave, its conception of what a Democrat ought to be. And, like Mr. Bryan, it proceeds to read out of the party all those who fall short of its ideal. Meanwhile, we are still interested in receiving answers to that other question, “What is a Republican?” —Washington Herald. “The craze for money is sapping the vital force of Americans.” de clares a London contemporary. This is a good thing to tell the bill col lector when he gets insistent.—Nev- York Mail. WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN. THE INDEPENDENCE LEAGUE. Mr. Hearst’s Independence League is effecting a national organization, doubtless with the purpose of enter ing the presidential contest next year. Independence is a good name so far as the true significance of the word goes, but this league belongs wholly to one man and is being en gineered in the exclusive interest of a personal ambition. Its sole object is to organize a compact political machine that may be used in boost ing Win. Randolph Hearst for Pres ident. No other purpose or person is possible within the scope of its undertaking and the word independ ence has been adopted to appeal to the disaffected of other parties or to the imagination of the public. The Independence League was or ganized to make Mr. Hearst Gover nor of New York, but when its or ganizer and owner had accomplished the purchase of the corrupt Buffalo convention and brought Murphy and “Fingy” Connors to his support, he allowed the league to assume a second ary position and the men whom it had nominated for minor offices were sacrificed. Doubtless the purpose of the national organization of the In dependence League is to repeat in in national politics the program car ried out in New York. Mr. Hearst expects to make such a noise through means of his league and his numer ous newspapers that he will frighten the National Democratic Convention into accepting him after the league has made him its nominee. What he can not acomplish by playing on Demo cratic fears of a disrupted party he hopes to make good by a liberal use of money. That at least is the way he worked the game in New York. The league will be put forth pro fessing to champion popular rights and clean politics. It will really be a machine controlled entirely by one man and it will scruple at no meth od by which its end may be accom plished. It is absurd to expect “clean politics” from a concern that has made common" cause with Mu - phy and Connors. It can be in no sense a spontaneous popular move ment, but is a close organization em anating from one source and work d by money and an attempted newspa per trust. Os course the promoters of the league will flood the country with flamboyant demagogy and specious promises to the so-called common people. They will magnify popular grievances and picture wrongs that do not exist in order to create the belief that the league, which they will allege can alone bring redress, is a public necessity and the cham pion of the oppressed, but the real purpose will be to serve one man’s ambition. This Independence League creates another perplexing complication in the Democratic outlook for next year. It expects to draw its support chiefly from Democratic ranks and also by adroit methods to force its candidates on the Democratic con vention. The South is the home and stronghold of Democracy. No im pression can be made on the National Democratic party without the South’s sanction. The Independence League stands for none of the policies this section holds as essential to South ern interests. It will appeal to the prejudices of the unlearned and the passion of the injudicious, but it can in no way benefit the South. —Nash- ville Banner. MORE RECRUITS TO THE INDE PENDENCE LEAGUE. The growth of the Independence League continues to be the most no table movement in present-day poli tics. Monday Grenville S. MacFarland, chairman of the Democratic State Executive Committee of Massachu setts, resigned from his place and withdrew from his party to give his whole support hereafter to the League. His reasons were much the same as those announced on taking a similar step by Charles A. Walsh, Democratic Committeeman from lowa and former secretary of the Nation al Committee. Such men do not sever a life-long political affiliation without cause. They know the paity machinery and its tendency, having been in a position to observe both. They also know the hopelessness of expecting reform from such a source. If a tree may be known by its fruits, so may a party be known by the men it places in charge. These are surer indices of its policies than are its platform declarations, since the men are the heart of the organi zation, while the resolutions consti tute only its clothes. What, then, can be expected of a party that puts in places of com mand the Taggarts, the Sheehans, the McCarrens, the Whitneys, the Guffeys, the Belmonts, and the Ry ans? Mr. MacFarland goes to the Inde pendence League because the spirit of Democracy has gone there. He knows that the Democratic party has been hopelessly divided for twelve years; that when a progressive candi date is nominated the conservatives knife him, and that when a conserva tive heads the ticket the radicals desert him in droves. He knows fur ther that a house divided against itself can no more stand in this day than it could in the days of Lin coln. He knows, as every studious man must know, that there can be no hope of reform through the Republi can party. For whatever pretences may be made by its leaders, the agents of the interests in Congress can always be depended on to see that nothing is actually done. Some measures are killed outright, others nullified through “joker” leg islation. In this way, despite the beating of drums and the sounding of cymbals, no real advance is made and the people find themselves more and more at the mercy of the trusts from year to year.—N. Y. American.