Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (April 15, 1904)
-"Tf-wffwW''ff ! :J i. 2 ly declare its purpose and renominate Mr. Cleve land. Parker, nlias J3olmont, could not bo sub stantially different from Cleveland, alias Mor gan, and either would mean that organized wealth would continue to plunder the people as merci lessly as it does now. August Belmont is too shrowd a financier to advanco money br loan in--iluonco without security, and the fact tnat he is exerting himself to secure tho nomination of Judge Parker ought to convlnco any reasonable mind that with Parker in the chair tho Judges appointed to tho supremo court would bo known in, ad vance to sympathize with tho corporations on the great issues which havo been dividing tho coun try. What friend of equal rights and Just legisla tion would think of nominating either August Belmont or David B. Hill for president? Why, then, should any democrat delude himself with tho hopo of any substantial reform if the party puts at its head ono who would commit his political interests to tho hands of two such notorious rep resentatives of organized greed? No wonder Judge Parker has remarnea si lent. It is not a question of Judicial ethics that restrains him; it is tho fact that ho cannot dis cuss the great questions now pressing for solu tion without alienating either the voters upon whoso suffrages ho must rely, or the financiers from whom his campaign fund is to come. It would bo a reflection upon tho intelligence of the party to think that its members could bo brought to tho support of an aspirant who not only .re fuses to give utterance to his opinions, but places his campaign in tho hands of men known to be hostile to tho interests and rights of the common people. JJJ Commercialism in the Church. The Now Havon Palladium publishes a ser mon recently delivered by the Rev. Dr. Ralls of that city which shows how tho commercial spirit is invading evon tho church, and casting it's shadow over religious institutions. The follow ing quotation from the sermon presents tho facts as related by tho minister: "Lot us illustrate this. A few months ago I preached in this place a sermon against stealing. I pointod out some of its modest forms and showed that some tnings that passed for high flnanco wore simply robbery on a largo scale. I cited several instances. Tho report of the sermon came to one of these men, ono of the most prominent of these modern financiers. He m?de his complaint to mo in two letters. He denied nothing. He simply asserted two things. Ono was that I ,, should have been silent, for tho chief Chris tian virtue was charity. Tho other was this ,sontonco: 'Although I havo given several mil lion dollars to tho churches, since your at tack upon me I nave decided to make no fur ther contributions in that direction.' Now that Is what some men call the old, orthodox idea of the gospel. The gospel of Christ means the forgiveness of sins and charity for all. Lot tho preacher proclaim this and be silent on all olse. L3t the Morgans and Rockefellers ana Schwabs float their watered stock, and then bring thqir gifts to church and college, and say, Wo are delivored to do these things.' Charity is not the chief Christian virtue, hut . love. And Christian love is no maudlin senti ment. It is tne passion of the cross, clear ot vision, loving men, hating iniquity, with eternal enmity for all evil And it is that preaching of the cross applied to all life re buking sin and warning and inviting the 'sin ner, condemning the wickedness of men and s lifting up tjhe broken-hearted it is that that j wo need today. Tho dangerous heresy today , is not a theory about the person of Christ but , tho opinion that there is any part of life . or of the world from which Christ may be shut out as tho king and tho rule of life." This incident shows how the trust magnates tire attempting to coerce the church and its min isters. Tho Morgans, tho Rockefellers and Lno Schwabs havo silenced many a tongue that oucht to bo thundering against wickedness in high places and against larceny on a grand scale. It is fortunate that we still have many preachers who .like Dr, Ralls, will not bo silenced, and who will speak out against tho demoralizing and coriunir ing tendencies of presont-day commercialism Tho sanctimonious sinners who rob their neighbors all the week and .hen piously contribute a part of their plunder to the church, talk about old-fash" lonod religion much as Mr. Cleveland and Mr The Commoner. Hill talk about old-fashioned democracy. Just as democracy is of no value except as it aims at justice in government and equity in legislation, so no religion is of any value that does not lead to virtuous living. There is a great need today for more minis ters who will stand up in their pulpits and apply Christianity to the every-day lite of their mem bers, and by so doing withdraw their membership from association- with those who debauch elec tions, bribe legislators and corrupt government for tho purpose of exploiting the people after wards. JJJ Letter to the Iroquois Club. Mr. Andrew J. Ryan, Chairman Invitation Committee, Iroquois Club, Chicago. My Dear Su : I am just in receipt of your invitation to attend the twenty-third annual banquet of the lroqaoiH club t6 be held on the 13th inst. I thank you lor tho invitation, and regret to say that I shall not be able to attend. I trust, however, that those present will take advantage of the occasion to present to the country the importance of main taining democratic principles as they were set forth In the platforms of 180G and 1900. The merger decision shows how closely the supreme court is divided and how easy it is for those who sympathize with corporate wealth to find plausible reasons for staying the hand of the law when it attempts to rebuke those who exploit the people. Under our constitution the president appoints judges and those who havo watched the decisions in the Hayos-Tilden con test, in the income tax case, in the trust case, and in the cases involving the policy of the gov ernment in the Philippines cannot doubt that it is as important to have judges who sympathize with the people as to have judges learned in the law. ' ' In the present struggle between plutocracy and democracy the corporations are seeking to control the supreme court, and if they can do that the house of representatives, the senate and the president will be powerless to protect the public. I trust that those who ar,e honored with on invitation to speak at your banquet will raise a note of warning against the attempt now being made by the money magnates to control the dem ocratic convention and to secure the nomination of a democratic candidate who will be obligated in advance to betray the hopes of the democratic masses. Yours truly, w. J. BRYAN. JJJ Republicans Fear Trust Issue The press dispatches from Washington in 1 cate that the republican leaders are trying to se cure an early adjournment, April 28 being the day now under consideration. The republicans are afraid of the trust issue and are trying o avoid it by an adjournment The merger decision has put the administration in a dilemma; it must either take the position that the trust law is suf- SSS?Lan f ?rC the law or 2t musL e the n?ni T that prcsent law ls inefficient and edv thSTET1 SOm SI)ecjfic and Gffeve rem- thinw !' mUSt d? ne 0r the other of the things if it is going to meet the issue. But it grows more and mere apparent that the party in power does not intend to do anything whateve? "t rust aueatlon, and therefore the republi ,lla(lers trying to get away from Wash lr?f nrS?s t0 escaPe responsibility. The demo crats of the senate and house ought to insht unZ locus attention . Ipon u tata ,l Wl" but cans, thoy may ueTr a ftoaSiShffij M Journmont should bo consented to iminf,," a?" nra put in the nrorpu nf in. H1 t,le tnats present trust domination of thl ?, bIe for tho they themselves put fSrth ovivVe,?ment Unle Power to secure rZXtZvJ1 in thcir JJJ Et Tu, Cleveland ! Clev JnaorSenT!!f jTt t presidential candidate of a SarJep as a fit That settles it. When Mr m ? democracy." burning brand of his ? corSki Cleveland Puts the VOLUME-4,, NUMBER - has aroused, the jua'ce- tntw Wir- , Caesar's language andS&alfi If Mr. HJll'tad been a Ailft1?" is credited with .being; he would haenjo n rt tho Sage of Princeton from thus earlv pvinl a the influences behind the Parker boom exposillS JJJ A People's Victory. On another page will bo found a report of n, decision recently handed down by the supreme court in the. case brought before the intersti n commerce commission by Congressman Hearst Believing that the attorney general was not i r, forming his duty in the prosecution of the coal trust, Mr. Hearst instituted proceedings at ht own expense before the commission, but w-S blocked by the refusal of the railroad and coal officials to testify or to produce their books and the contracts under which they operated The an promo court has with but one dissenting judeo held that the witnesses must answer and produco books and contracts, and the way is now open to break up the combination. The decision is an im portant one, rind Mr. Hearst deserves great credit for his part in forcing this step toward relief from the extortion practiced by the coal trust. . . . JJJ Betrayal and Betrayer. We are told by the New York World that at a meeting of democrats .held recently in New York city, one speaker referred to David B. Hill as "the up-state Judas who has twice betrayed the party and after giving it the kiss did not have the grace to hang himself." Another speaker eulogized "our noble and vigorous old Roman, Grover Cleveland," saying "Grover Cleveland has never found it necessary to say I am a democrat'." Another speaker, referring to "our noble and vigorous old Roman," said. "The pilot who has twice steered us between the Scylla of monopoly and the Charybdis of socialism can be trusted to guide us again. If the people will again turn to him he will sweep the country." "What is there about party desertion that Mr. Hill should be branded as the "up-state Judas who has twice betrayed the party," while Mr. Cleveland, who not only betrayed the party in two national contests, but betrayed the trust the party placed in him during his second aGministration, should be labeled "our noble and vigorous old Roman." Perhaps Mr. Cleveland never thought it nec essary to say, "I am a democrat;" and yet, his acts during his second administration did not in dicate that he was a democrat, while in the na tional campaigns of 189G and 1900 he contributed materially to the election of the republican ticket. If the speaker who said that Mr. Cleveland "twice steered us between the Scylla of monopoly and the Charybdis of socialism," will examine the files of the New York World during the year 189o, lie will discover, if, indeed, ho is ignorant of the fact, that "our noble and vigorous old Roman" was operating hand in glove with monopolists, and acting very much as a republican politician would be expected to act, JJJ Empty Honors. While the Grover Cleveland boom was flour shing flourishing In the columns of the Brook lyn Eagle and tho New York World the editor of the World and the editor of the Eagle en gaged in a long drawn out controversy as to which of the two editors originated the Cleve land boom. But when thd Cleveland boom dieii, these editors ceased to wrangle. Now that both the World and therEagle have taken up with the Parker boom, the editors of these papers are discussing the question as to which of the two originated the Parker boom. In a recent editorial, the Eagle says:. "The primacy of the Eagle In the Parker movement is indisputable. Its primacy in the movement for Cleveland was indisputa ble, and that primacy was gratefully acknowl edged by Mr. Cleveland ' himself, when he brought the movement for himself to an end. Pacts like these fake care of themselves. We -do not havo to boast about them, and, to tell the truth, boasting has little respect and less imitation here. Wo hardly need to call attention to them, except when thoy are mis represented by those wh.p would crowd them out ot view. Calling attentipn to them, how ever and merely doing so, is sufficient. 'Our readers know-, all our, contemporaries know, and all their renders know that tne primacy of tho Eagle," firstr In tho Cleveland" r r -a asm-