Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

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.