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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 11, 1905)
,IA .nii.M.nir i II "',l '"" rJtSnSSP'' 'HT5 6 The Commoner. yOLTJME 6, NTJMBEIt 30 A...- t TTTTBTTHH l( L'UmjLLjJi. w 1. 1.XI" - - wr AUrw"" w ' "' ' Siii'J 'l" ' ' ' ' jjlil-i VftMfc; ..tf'kk lis Sygrr a., CUfcRGNT MAYOR DUNNE, of Chicago, delivered an address on municipal ownership in Boston July 29. Several thousand people were in at tendance, and It is said that the mayor won many converts. Reviewing the municipal ownership movement, Mayor, Dunne said: "I can con fiidently assert that it is almost in variably the rule that where utilities are furnished by private companies they cost from 50 to 100 per cent more than where the same utilities are furnished by the public companies." He vigorously defended himself against state ments which had been published that he had re canted his faith in municipal ownership, saying: "I am glad to state to you that the cause of municipal ownership is ardently espoused by me today as it has been for several years past, and that I am as confident of its ultimate consumma tion as I have ever been at any time in my life. I confidently predict, from what I Imow of the people of Chicago, that within a very short time it will have the proud distinction of being the first city in the United States to be in actual ownership of its own municipal street car system, and when once that great city has proved that municipalization of -street car plants is an assured success it will mean that hundreds of other Amer ican cities will follow in her wake and accom plish an economic revolution to the great ad vantage of tho citizens of this country." J MAYOR DUNNE declared that "Chicago is in earnest and when she says ' I will' today she will say 'I have done' tomorrow. That to morrow in my opinion will be but a few months away." Other extracts from Mayor Dunne's Bos ton speech follow: "Misrepresentation and mendacity have been freely resorted to by the press in Chicago in order to embarrass, impede and prevent the consum mation of the municipalization of the street car systems." "The fight between vested interests and the people is well under way, and I have no fears of the ultimate result." "The movement in favor of municipal owner ship of public utilities is advancing with tre mendous strides all over the United States." ACCORDING to Frederick Innes, the band mas ter, Lindsborg, Kan., is entitled to ranks as "the most musical town in the United States." Having declared this to be a fact, Mr. Innes says: "In the effete east I would be mobbed for malting such a statement, but it's the truth. Lindsborg, numbering 2,000 souls, plastered over a monoton ous prairie landscape, with wheat fields all around it; Lindsborg a typical, long-whiskered Kansas town is the only music center worthy of the name that this country boasts. It's soaked in music. It's music mad. Surprised?' I never was more surprised in my life. K you were to find a man-eating tiger waiting on table in a grill room, you could not be more surprised than I was when we struck Lindsborg, Kan." MR. INNES says that when his company ar rived at Lindsborg the utire population was in waiting at the depot, and adds: "The bag gage man at the 1epot was whistling the 'Mes jslah.' The bus man was humming a bit from one of the Wagner waltzes. The bellboys at the hotel were singing the 'Parsifal" motif over and over again. I couldn't make it out at alL The hotel was not to my liking, but it was the .only one. The first thing I did was to go to a national bank to cash a check. I got into conversation with the cashier and complained of the hotel. 'I wish you would stay at my house,' the cashier said. 'You will bo more comfortable there, and my wife and I would enjoy having you with us. 'We are both musical. My wife is a harpist, and I play the first cornet in the Lindsborg orchestra.' ' I accepted the invitation gladly and from my host and hostess I learned all about Lindsborg. There is a colloge there Bethany college, they call it ' which has a large music department. Everybody in the town has graduated from tho college at one time or another and all have taken tho course inr 'music. They have a chorus in Lindsborg of 698 voices. Not bad for a 2,000 town, eh? Yes, . - and rthey have a big orchestra, too. Every year -they give a big music festival. They generally sing the 'Messiah.' This year they decided to go in for a bigger festival than usual; that's why they sent for us. That night's program was a musical revelation to me. I have trained many choruses, bigger ones han the Lindsborg, but never in my life had I heard such singing. They sang all four parts with a good quartet. A third of the town was on the stage, the rest were in the audience, with a liberal sprinkling of farmers. I never heard such thunderous, spontaneous and sincere applause." REFERRING to the O. K. which the United States government has placed upon the Standard Oil magnate, the New York American says "Comment upon the useless and misleading publications occasionally issued at public expense by bureaus of the United States government is getting wearisome. Each new abuse seems worse than the last. But surely it was idotic enough for the commissioner of education (William T. Harris), under the secretary of the interior (Ethan Allen Hitchcock), to send out a list of 'educational benefactors' without printing in it a eulogistic biography of John D. Rockefeller. These documents are distributed among schools and libraries. The persons happily few who may consult them will find this description of the methods by which Mr. Rockefeller built up the Standard Oil company: 'He early began to appre ciate the efforts to secure cheap lighting illumin ation. Crude petroleum was offensive to the smell. He saw what was needed, and out of his school chemistry he was aided in devising meth ods of purifying the crude oil, saying to one of his teachers: 'I think I can relieve this substance of its offensive smell.' His efforts were success ful. Whale oil was disappearing from the mar ket; the new substance was soon widely demand ed by the trade; fabulous results followed his efforts.' Not a word there of the deadly rebate, nor the cold-hearted system of freezing out com petitors, even though they were personal friends. The admiring commissioner of education only knows that Mr. Rockefeller took the bad smell out of petroleum and incidentally affixed it to his name. One million to Yale ended President Hadley's earnest desire to ostracize trust mag nates. Does the ten million to the general edu cation board explain this eulogy from the pen of the commissioner of education?" ABIT of interesting history, not entirely dis connected from insurance scandal, is given by Henry Loomis Nelson, writing in the Boston Herald. Lou Payn was New York's, insurance commissioner when Mr. Roosevelt became gov ernor. Senator Piatt and Mr. Odell, who later became governor, recommended that Payn be reappointed. Mr. Roosevelt's suspicions had been aroused, and he ordered the examination of the books of a certain trust company in order to test the accuracy of some charges that had been made. Mr. Nelson says: "Mr. Payn will not be annoyed by the statement that he was at that time the most notorious lobbyist in Albany. His appoint ment was a scandal, but his reappointment was demanded by Mr. Piatt and Mr. Odell, who were then the bosses of the republican party of the state. Mr. Roosevelt had refused, very properly to consider the demand, and he desired some evidence, not to sustain his determination, but with which to overwhelm Mr. Piatt and Mr. Odell and prevent the senate from refusing to confirm Payn's successor. He discovered that Mr. Wil liam. C. Whitney had loaned Mr. Payn, when the latter was in great distress, $100,000. Incidentally 5?ndnAnnnered tha' ?. trust company had loaned $2,000,000 to an office boy. This office boy is said to have been Mr. Ryan's, and therefore that the loan was made to Mr. Ryan, to whom ife could not have been made under the state law. It was also commonly believed that Mr. Root, as counsel for the trust company, had advised the loan. This Is the Mr. Root who is secretary of state and who sometimes takes such high ground that all good citizens must commend him. At any rate Mr Root refused for soma time to speak to Mr Roosevelt because of this disclosure and for other reasons which Mr. Root said were evidences of treachery on the part of the then governor. The point is, of course, that the trust company was not discovered in its delinquency by the -sfate officers until the governor had occasion to mak a case against the superintendent of insurance" JUDGE BEN B. LINDSAY, of Denver's juvenile J court believes that in dealing with so call a "bad boys" one must appeal to their better natures. Judge Lindsay says that he has sent to the industrial school at Golden, Colo., fortv.hvn boys. These boys were sent "on their honor" being told to report at the industrial school and being unaccompanied by an officer. Judge Lind say says that not one of these lads failed to carry out his agreement. He says he is proud of this record, and well he may be. Many of these boys had criminal records, some of them, as Judge Lindsay says, "entirely out of proportion to their ages," but every one 6f them showed that thero was something good in him. REFERRING to his experiences Judge Lindsay says: "In many instances the police have warned me against permitting certain offenders to have the chance of skipping and have entered an emphatic protest against my plan of allowing these boys to go to the school alone. But I havo never been thrown down in any instance. See what it proves: There is always some good in every boy, no matter what his previous surround ings or his life may have been, if you only go about it in the right way to find that good. Take the case of Earl Wert, which I had last Saturday. Earl was arrested by the police on the charge of robbing a saloon. He is 15 years old, big and burly for his age and considered a hopeless case by the authorities. He inveigled four younger boys to help him in the robbery. I had Earl before me last Saturday, talked to him for moro than an hour, secured his confidence and .he boy told me everything of his past life. I know every bad habit the lad has. I decided to send him to the reform school. 'Don't send him alone the police said. 'He -will make a break for liberty as sure as you do;' I gave him 60 cents for his fare. He got on a car at Fifteenth and Treraont streets, transferred at the 'loop,' took the Golden car and again transferred at First street. Hero Ip the return from the superintendent showing that Earl reported to him. Further, the boy re turned to me of his own free will the money in excess of his fare that I had given him. It came with the report from the superintendent. That isn't bad for a boy who was arrested and con fessed to robbery. Another thing I wish to em phasize: 'Oh, you don't send any more boys to the reform school,' say the people. But I Jo, through only when I give the boys a chance and find them too weak to be good at home. This method has saved the city at least $1,000 since I began sending the boys without an officer. I would like to see the- city council appropriate that amount into a fund for a public playground or some other juvenile improvement. The tax payers are interested in this and should approve the idea." WASHINGTON dispatches say that several thousand requests have been received at the interior department for copies of the John D. Rockefeller tribute issued under- the authority or the interior department. It is claimed that the sketch was written by General John Eaton, for mer commissioner of education, who is an inti mate personal friend of Mr. Rockefeller. This highly complimentary reference to Mr. Rockefel ler has been sent to every high school of tne country. When questioned as to why the SoveJ?: ment had issued this eulogy of the Standard uu magnate, Commissioner of Education Harris saw. "That work was written six years ago. Gencrf' Eaton was a Cleveland mm and a teacher in tno Cleveland schools under Everett C. White, w was most familiar with the man ana hibwuii -was most familiar with the man anu u "y ;, ' therefore best fitted io write of him, partlcuiaiiy on this topic. General Eaton was conneuicu ,... this depavtment during the time of Grants ad ministration. He knew all of Jie big nien "J the country. He did not get the facts from J Rockefeller, so far as I know. We did not sium .out Rockefeller foany other reason than oecam he was the patron of education in rge sums money and hard .advanced the cause. 1A1IU?' 9 felfr, was .justifiable. We printed 39,000 volumes of the report and sent, out 20,000 of them, o ,gress sent -out .19,000." .Although-the article ft ft' Sir titim -v '