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PAGE TWO 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.