Newspaper Page Text
PAGE TWO
Public Opinion Throughout the Union
RAILROAD’S SACRED RIGHT TO
BREAK A STATE LAW.
Because the Southern Railway de
sires to break a law of North Caro
lina, the United States courts have
kindly undertaken to decide whether
or not the law is constitutional.
The State law provides that the
railway shall not charge passengers
on its trains more than two and a
half cents a mile.
Agents of the railroad did charge
more than two and a half cents a
mile for tickets, and they were ar
rested and sentenced to the chain
gang.
Then the legal talent of the rail
way from New York and elsewhere
invaded North Carolina and carried
the case into the United States
courts, with the result that Federal
authority rescued the prisoners from
the chain gang and holds them until
it can look into the matter.
The news dispatches state that the
agents will probably be liberated.
The right of a United States court
thus to set aside the law of a State
is gravely questioned by the Gov
ernor of North Carolina and by the
State’s Attorney. The people of
North Carolina, who have been in the
habit of passing the sort of laws
they wanted and enforcing them, are
naturally excited and indignant.
But the prisoners are still held by
the strong hand of a sternly pater
nal Government, and the railroad is
preparing to appeal to the Supreme
Court of the United States in order
to learn if a mere State can pass
laws by which they are bound.
That there is anything preposter
ous in this situation does not seem
to have occurred to the attorneys
who represent the railroad. They
regard their right to break the law
as inalienable —guaranteed by the
Constitution of the United States,
and not to' be interfered with by
any commonwealth on earth.
But if a hobo, arrested for riding
on one of their trains, were to ap
peal to the United States court to
protect him from the chain gang, al
leging that his rights as a citizen
were infringed, and if the United
States court actually granted him so
much as a hearing, from railroad at
torneys, presidents and directors all
over the country a howl against Fed
eral interference with State rights
would go up that could be heard
across the continent. —New York
American. t
“SAFE, SANE AND SILENT.’’
Everybody knows that the New
York Times is owned by some of
those “Captains of Industry’’ who
navigate their piratical craft on the
troubled financial sea, the shores of
which are strewn with the wrecks of
their making; but it is possible for
the New York Times to say a good
thing once in a while. In fact, its
very ownership puts it in possession
of an unlimited supply of money
with which to hire the best brains
in the country for its staff.
Speaking of the appointment of
Bankhead to the vacancy in the Un
ited States Senate by the death of
Senator Morgan, of Alabama, the
Washington correspondent of the
Times said:
“In the Senate he will be safe,
sane and silent, and he will add one
more to that growing galaxy of
southern statesmen whose vast influ
ence in the Senate will at once be
suggested by the mere recital of their
illustrious names —Lee S. Overman,
Asbury C. Latimer, James P. Clarke,
James P. Taliaferro, James B. Fra
zier, and Furnifold M. Simmons. The
South seems to be partial to that
brand of statesmanship of late.
“What! Never heard of them?”
That is it. Safe, sane and silent.
They follow the line of least resist
ance. Most of them are known as
business men who look at all ques
tions of governmental policy from
the viewpoint of the sellers of herr
ing and the buyers of corn. They
belong to that class of Americans
which Burke mentioned in his great
speech on Conciliation. They are
traders and traffickers, and he told
the English Parliament that England
had nothing to fear from them. They
would not go out and fight for the
abstract principle of liberty, but
would measure war or peace with
their yardsticks or weigh the conse
quences of revolution in their scales.
Safe, sane and silent! These men
sit in the Senate occupying the seats
that belong to the Southern people,
but they do not fill them. Once in
a while the South sends a MAN to
the United States Senate, and look
ing over the representatives from
the South I see but one who measures
up to the standard of what a man in
public life should be, and that man
is Tillman, of South Carolina, and
he falls far below it in dignity.—
Tallahassee Sun.
PARTISAN STUPIDITY.
The Houston Post and the Topeka
(Kan.) State Journal, the one a
Democratic and the other a Republi
can partisan, offer the same com
plaint against the proportionment of
delegates from the different States
in the respective national conven
tions. For instance, the Post says
that there are States which never
select a Democratic elector that will
dominate the Democratic convention.
The State Journal says the same
thing obtains with reference to the
party machinery of the Republicans.
The Memphis Commercial-Appeal,
another Democratic partisan, in com
menting on the complaints of the two
first named papers, says: “But this
condition has long been a subject of
complaint, and it does not appear
that there is any present chance of
a change.”
This may be true; the “chance of
a change” may not soon be offered;
but it is not true that a plan for a
change has never been submitted.
This plan is the simple and purely
democratic proposition of the Pop
ulist party which was called “pro
portional representation.” Strange
that Bryan and Roosevelt should have
overlooked this plank in the Popu
list platform in their wholesale raids
upon it in recent years.—People’s
Advocate.
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
THE SAME OLD STORY.
Senator Hopkins, fresh from a
talk with the President on the sub
ject of the tariff, says the conclu
sion was reached that no tariff re
vision should be undertaken until aft
er the next presidential election. “It
would be suicidal to the Republican
party,” the senator added, “to un
dertake a revision of the tariff dur
ing the next session of Congress.
After the presidential election, I be
lieve it will be the duty of the Re
publican party to revise the tariff,
and that it will be done.”
The “conclusion” said to have
been reached at Oyster Bay is sim
ply the continuation of an old story
—the repetition of a promise, in
place of performance. It is concrete
stand-patism. “Give us the power
for four years more, and we will do
something.” 'What this something is
pretty sure to be may be inferred
from the Republican performances in
the past. Many times since the war
has the tariff been “revised by its
friends” —always upward! As a re
sult, the average duty today, forty
five years after the passage of the
Morrill tariff, is nearly 40 per cent
higher than it was then —very near
the top-notch reached during the
war, in sact —and the people were
compelled to pay last year a third
of a billion dollars in tariff taxes, the
largest amount ever collected in a
single year. Os this amount, nearly
$90,000,000 was in excess of the gov
ernment’s needs.
In other words, we have a tariff
for bounties and a surplus, which
handicaps our industries, robs the
people, affords shelter to monopolies
and promotes and protects trusts.
And a spokesman for the Republi
can leaders says:
“It would be suicidal to undertake
a revision at the next session. After
the election we will attend to it.”
Why “suicidal”? Do the people
really so enjoy paying unnecessary
and therefore unjust taxes that they
will punish any party that abolishes
them? The senator can hardly mean
that favored industries would with
hold their campaign contributions
if their bounties were reduced, for
Congress has passed a law forbidding
such contributions from corpora
tions.’
The old plea is made that “busi
ness would be disturbed by the nec
essary readjustment of prices. ’ ’
What is more common now than for
business to readjust its prices to pre
vailing or coming conditions—mark
ing goods up or down as the circum
stances demand? With a tariff bill
passed in January, to take effect Ju
ly 1, all legitimate business would
have ample notice and time for any
required readjustment.
It is said that there is not time
during a short session to pass a sat
isfactory measure. “Where there is
a will there is away.” If the Pres
ident were to drop his fads borrowed
from Mr. Bryan and the Socialists,
which the Republican party has nev
er approved, and urge tariff revision
with the vigor and determination
that he put into the fight for his pet
measures at the last session, it
would pass readily enough. It is
the will —the honest purpose —that is
lacking.
The political trust agents who get
the President’s ear tell him that it
is dangerous to touch the tariff when
a general election is pending. And
they point to the Republican defeat
after the enactment of the McKin
ley law, and to the Democratic dis
aster that followed the passage of
the Wilson bill. But in both these
cases the people were disappointed
and outraged, and had a right to be
angry. The McKinley tariff, passed
in response to a popular demand for
reduced rates, actually raised the du
ties on a number of standard arti
cles, as a reward to Republican cam
paign contributors. In consequence
prices were advanced, as the buyers
quickly discovered. “The shopping
women did it,” was Mr. Blaine’s
terse and true explanation of the Re
publican defeats in 1891 and 1892
The Wilson tariff bill in 1894 was
so juggled with by “perfidious”
Democrats in the Senate, who allied
themselves with high-tariff Republi
cans in granting concessions to the
sugar trust and the coal combine,
that President Cleveland refused to
approve it, permitting it to become
a law without his signature. The
voters, naturally and very properly,
punished the Democratic party at the
polls. In addition to this, the free
silver movement was then gaining
the strength which enabled it to
control the party in 1896, and lead
it to its doom in a campaign in which
the tariff was purposely disregarded.
To say that it would be “sui
cidal” for the party in power to re
duce taxes that are no longer needed
for either revenue or protection, and
that admittedly promote monopolies,
is an affront to the intelligence and
honesty of the voters. It is simply
an excuse for non-action in the inter
est of the favored class that controls
the Republican party.—Boston Her
ald.
“I AM ALL RIGHT: LOOK AFTER
THE OTHER FELLOWS.”
“I am all right: look after those
other fellows.”
The saying of Midshipman Cruse,
frightfully injured by the blazing
gases which filled the Georgia’s tur
ret, takes its place by Sir Philip
Sidney’s, “Thy necessity is greater
than mine,” as he passed the cup of
water to a dying soldier.
Sorrow for the gallant fellows who
died so horrible a death fills the na
tion’s heart, but it is the proud sor
row of the mother whose sons have
died bravely. With such men to sail
her ships the country knows that
the spirit of Jones, Decatur, Farra
gut is still afloat on every wave.—
New York American.
Speaking of the presidential nomi
nation Mr. Taft remarked, “If the
duty comes I shall not decline it.”
Tn the meantime he is keeping the
country posted as to his whereabouts.
—Washington Post.