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Public Opinion Throughout the Union
A SIGNIFICANT INCIDENT.
We are told that the saloonkeepers
of Los Angeles closed their places of
business while the funeral services
of the late Francis Murphy, the apos
tle of temperance, were in progress.
The incident suggests the possibility
that through the agitation of the
radical prohibitionists the retail
whiskey dealers and the brewers of
the country may learn that the ex
istence of their business depends up
on genuine, practical temperance re
forms in the cause of which it may
be necessary for them to enlist.
Drunkenness has become intolerable
to the American people and the whis
key dealers will, if they are wise,
realize and recognize it without de
lay. To the excessive use of intox
icants statistics are laying nearly all
the crimes and vices that afflict so
ciety, and hence the crusade amount
ing almost to a popular stampede to
suppress the traffic entirely.
It is within the power of the whis
ky dealers themselves to minimize
drunkenness. They know the men in
each community addicted to inebriety
and they are fairly acquainted like
wise with criminal and violent ele
ments. It is about to come to pass
that unless the saloon voluntarily
limits its business, stops the sale of
whisky to drunkards and the crimi
nally inclined, rigidly adheres to the
regulations respecting minors and ir
responsible persons, it will not have
a very prolonged lease of life.
There is no reason why the saloon
should allow itself to become a me
nace to the public order and a con
tinuing disturber of the peace of so
ciety. The evils of the traffic are in
the abuse of the privileges it has
hitherto enjoyed. Whether it can re
claim itself is a question, certainly
it will not unless it becomes in fact
and promptly an adjunct to practical
temperance. It will be impossible,
probably, for all saloon people to re
alize this but those who do not will
find themselves in time survived by
those who do, or else there will be
no survival of even the fittest.
The action of the Los Angeles sa
loon men in recognizing the virtues
of Francis Murphy is a step in the
direction of reform all wise whisky
dealers would do well to study.—
Chattanooga Times.
THE LA FOLLETTE BOOM.
Senator LaFollette, who is called
the Bryan of the Republican party,
is evidently in earnest in his purpose
to capture the Republican nomina
tion for President. At a recent con
ference over which the Senator’s law
partner presided, a campaign was
mapped out for promoting the La-
Follette candidacy and securing del
egates to the nominating convention.
Nevertheless Mr. LaFollette is not
very seriously considered by the
country as a presidential possibility.
A presidential boom, however, has a
flattering aspect to a politician, and
sometimes in the complications of a
campaign a boom that at the outset
may be regarded as purely tentative
or inconsequential looms up as some
thing to be seriously taken into ac
count. LaFollette, with the delega
tion from his own state and some
scattering delegates in sympathy,
may succeed, if not in nominating
himself, in wielding an influence in
the making of a platfrom.—Nashville
Banner.
WALL STREET AND THE PEO
PLE.
Yesterday’s press dispatches con
tained the startling information—
startling to Wall street, that is—
that there is no hurry on the part of
the public to subscribe for the new
convertible bonds issued by the Un
ion Pacific Railroad. This, coupled
with the reports of the tobaco trust
procedure, was sufficient to depress
stocks several points.
To Wall street the situation is se
rious. Wall street, whose vision is
bounded by artificial values hover
ing in the vicinity of Old Trinity,
thinks the developments referred to
presage further bear campaigns that
will seriously impair the financial
condition of the country. “The trust
prosecution is in line with other Fed
eral acts that will injure business.”
is the wail, and it is wailed to the
echo—in Wall street.
Strangely enough, all this does not
seem to produce the scare that usually
has followed similar talk. For some
unaccountable reason, the people do
not seem to care a rap if Wall street
does wail. Right on the heels of the
Wall street announcements come the
reports of record-breaking savings
bank deposits, those .in one New
York institution alone having passed
the $100,000,000 mark. The public,
profiting by what Federal and State
investigations have shown it about
the conduct of many of the big cor
porations that invite speculation in
their stocks, has discreetly left Wall
street to speculate with itself. Now
the bears and bulls may devour one
another. The usual diet of lamb is
conspicuous by its absence, for the
lamb is running to savings banks
with its money, and the United
States is on the threshold of a sea
son of prosperity that has never been
equalled.
“Our prosperity will continue.”'
says John D. Rockefeller. “The
country need fear no business depres
sion,” declares H. C. Frick. De
pressions in Wall street may come
and go, but, with the per capita cir
culation constantly increasing, the
Treasury overflowing with surplus,
and everybody at work, unscrupulous
financiers will find their task of
bringing about near-panics—one of
their methods of “shaking down”
the public and obtaining its loose
change—increasingly difficult. After
it has come down to a case of bull
eat bear, possibly Wall street will
awake to the fact that the United
States extends a long way west of
Manhattan Island and that the pulse
of the country is not always to be
accurately judged from the figures on
the ticker.—Washington Herald.
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
CHURCH AND STATE COMPRO
MISE.
On terms agreed upon in June by
Secretary of War Taft and a repre
sentative of Archbishop Harty, head
of the Roman Catholic Church in the
Philippines, an agreement has just
been signed ending a dispute which
originated as soon as the United
States became sovereign in the isl
ands, and some points of which are
now in litigation before the insular
supreme court, but which will now
be dropped.
Inexitable differences of attitude
towards the Roman Catholic church
on the part of the Spanish and the
American governments caused differ
ences of opinion as to ownership of
property in Manila and other towns.
Complicating this situation was the
Agilpay movement, with its demands
for withholding from the Roman
church much that otherwise without
question would have been turned
over to her. Moreover, there was the
problem of the vast estates owned
and controlled by the orders, and the
claim made on the part of the secular
clergy that not all of the wealth com
ing to the friars from the purchase
and transfer of their lands to new
owners through American govern
mental brokership should leave the
islands and go with them to Europe
or America.
In handling these and other com
plex questions growing out of the
new order of relations between church
and state, Mr. Taft has shown cath
olicity of spirit, sanity of judgment
and due regard for our national tra
ditions, as well as the just rights of
the church. He has had to bear in
mind the possibility of causing criti
cism from a Protestant majority in
this country, sensitive to anything
like “catering to Rome,” and at the
same time carry out a policy set by
his executive chief to know no re
ligious or racial prejudices and to
give Roman Catholics recognition
that some of his predecessors in the
presidency have refused to give.—
Boston Herald.
A BIRTHDAY.
Today Thomas Collier Platt, sena
tor from the great state of New
York, is 74 years old. He is observ
ing it —perhaps trying to forget it—
alone.
The enemies of Platt’s old age are
loneliness and disesteem. He might
have had friends and esteem both
with him today, but he chose the
other part. There is none in this
country or any other country to do
him honor. He is broken and de
serted and both conditions are de
served.
It was a man so far greater than
Platt that the height of the moun
tain lies between them, who said:
Had I but served my God with half
the zeal
I served my king, he would not in
my age
Have left me naked to mine enemies.
Platt’s king is or should be his
country. He has served well neither
his God nor his king, and today
there are few who feel the inclina
tion even to “Give him a little earth
for charity.” —Chicago Post.
THE TOLEDO WAY.
A year ago a Toledo judge sen
tenced a group of ice dealers to the
workhouse for violating the Ohio
anti-trust law. Yesterday another
Toledo judge imposed workhouse sen
tences on twenty-three leading citi
zens engaged in the lumber business.
It looks as if they will be compelled
to serve, for the progress of the ap
peal in the ice trust case holds out
small hope that the law will be held
unconstitutional.
Judge Morris evidently does not
agree with Attorney-General Bona
parte and the Department of Justice.
Instead of appointing receivers for
the lumber companies with which the
convicted men are connected, to the
injury of their unfortunate stock
holders, he goes after the guilty, not
the innocent.
One does not need to be the sev
enth son of a seventh son to predict
that the Toledo way will be more ef
fective in discouraging trust illegal
ity than the Bonaparte way.—N. Y.
Globe.
A DEMOCRAT.
The Washington Post condenses
Mr. Bryan’s definition of a Demo
crat as follows:. “A Democrat is a
man who voted for Mr. Bryan in
1896 and 1900 and feels like doing it
a few more times.”
According to Mr. Bryan’s defini
tion, “all men are Democrats” ex
cept those who are not, which al
though not very perspicuous will
probably satisfy about as well as
any other he could give at this time.
Os one thing Mr. Bryan is sure—
there is at least one Democrat, even
if he has to look into a mirror to see
him. —Chattanooga Times,
EVENTS IN NEW YORK.
Every 40 seconds an immigrant
arrives.
Every 3 minutes some one is ar
rested.
Every 6 minutes a child is born.
Every 7 minutes there is a funeral.
Every 23 minutes a couple gets
married.
Every 42 minutes a new business
firm starts up.
Every 48 minutes a building
catches fire.
Every 48 minutes a ship leaves the
harbor.
Every 51 minutes a new building
is erected.
Every 55 minutes a passenger
train arrives from some point out
side the city limits.
Every 1 3-4 hours some one is
killed by accident.
Every 7 hours some one fails in
business.
Every 8 hours an attempt to kill
some one is made.