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The Commoner,,
WILLIAM J. BRYAN, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR
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Vol. 5. No. 31
Lincoln, Nebraska, August 18, 1905
Whole Number 239
CONTENTS
Avenues of Usefulness
Munioitai. Telephones
Is This PnosrEBiTr?
Railroad Rates and Pricks
Social Distinctions at Yale
No Discretion
The Dreams That Come True
A Growing Sentiment
Are Our Dollars "Dollars Every
where?" Criticising a Patriot
Comment on Current Topics
The Primary Pledge
News of the Week
I
. IS THIS PROSPERITY?
We are told by the republicans that the
country is enjoying a - period of unexampled
prosperity. It might be pertinent to ask why
the increasing hostility between labor and capi
tal and why the extraordinary accumulation of
wealth in the hands of a few. The republican
platform of last year offered no remedy and
promised no relief. But the object of this edi
torial is to call attention to another development
of modern business, namely the employment of
so many girls in store and factory. Go into
any great city or factory town at morning or
at evening and you will And an army of girls
with dinner basket in hand trudging to and
from work. Is the country prosperous when the
girls have to b3come breadwinners at an early
age in order to piece out the family income?
Surely under favorable conditions the head of
the family ought to be able to support his wife
and children. Often the work Is of a kind too
severe for women. What is the effect to be on
future generations? Women may displace men
in the shop but men can not take woman's place
in the home. Any system that lessens woman's
ability to discharge the duties of wife and mother
must in the end bring a harvest of disasters.
Will the republicans insist that this forcing of
worn-"i into the field3 of remunerative labor
is a step in the line of progress? If not what
plans have they for the improvement of present
industrial conditions?
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MUNICIPAL TELEPHONES
Press dispatches from London announce that
England will soon have a system of government
telephones. PuMic ownership must sooner or
later extend to the telephones. The telephone
business is by its nature a mouopoly. No one
cares to have several differc.it phones in his
house. One telephone system in a city is very
much more convenient than several sys
tems but if the one system is in tfr j hands of
private citizens it is sure to develop all the ob
jectionable features of a monopoly.
Public ownership is the only solution. The
- city should own the city system, the county
should own the system for the country outside of
the cities and furnish connection, between the
cities of the country. They can add intercounty
lines and the -tional can, if it becomes necessary,
add interstate lines.
Our system of government is admirably
adapted to this divided work. Each sub
division can do the work to be done within its
limits. In some states th- cities rre not allowed
to take up this work but the laws should be
changed. The telephone monopoly will soon be as
burdensome as the. telegraph monopoly and the
railroad monopoly if private ownership is permitted.
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I fWUT WELL mm ALONE
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SPEAKING OF LIDS
-St. Louis Globe Democrat
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Here's One That Won't Stay On
And Here's Another
AVENUES O F USEFULNESS
...MECHANICAL SCIENCE...
Attention has already been called to the wide
field which farming offers to the young man
who desires to live a useful life, but there are
some whose tastes lead them toward work more
purely scientific. Instead of studying nature's
laws as they apply to production they have a
bent for research into the laws which relate to
the mechanical world. The wonderful develop
ment of commerce has turned attention to the
transportation problem while in the cities the
question of lighting, heating and communication
are added to the traction question. The political
phases of there questions will bo considered at
another time but the mechanical problems alone
offer measureless possibilities.
Steam and electricity are the motive powers
now employed both but recently brought Into
use. Are there any "dark horses" yet to be called
into service? Is there any other force that can
be harnessed?
Professor Ellsha Gray, of telephone fame,
suggests that the contraction and expansion of
metals under the influence of atmospheric
changes may yet be used as a motive power.
There is an incalculable amount of energy stored
in the air and in the water and a new utilization
of this energy by economical methods will richly
reward the inventor and greatly benefit the
world.
At present there is an enormous waste in
fuel, but a small fraction of the energy stored in
ccal and wood being saved by present processes.
Is it possible to reduce this waste? There is
leakage in the transmission of electric power,
can this leakage be lessened? And the storage
battery, can it be further improved? When the
dream of the inventor is realized and the storage
battery perfected the winds and the running
water and even the sun's rays can be made to
store light and motive power.
The lighting problem is one of increasing
Interest. Acetylene has not only become a rival
of coal gas, but is more easily produced In small
quantities, whllo electricity rivals both. Have
we reached the limit in this direction?
Less progress has been made in heating than
in lighting. We have, to be sure, the hot air
furnace, the steam pipes and the hot water rad
iator but we rely on coal and wood as our fore
fathers did. The Ice machine has robbed the
winter of his old time monopoly; Is there any
way by which the process could be reversed. It
has been demonstrated that the heat increases
from the surface of the earth toward the cen
ter. It has been suggested that this heat might
be made -available by a system of pipes which
would carry wter down cold and bring it back
heated. Who will be the first to tap this ex
haustless furnace?
The telephone and the telegraph have won
derfully improved the means of communication.
The transmission of intelligence by wire had
become an old story when the telephone appeared
with its still more wonderful transmission of
the human voice along the wire and now science
is flinging messages through space without the
aid of voice. What will the next step bo?
While one group of scientists is working on
forestry, another group is devising substitutes for
wood, and already the cement house, the cement
sidewalk and the cement fence post are reducing
the lumber bill. Here, too, is an inviting field.
What young man can content himself with Igno
ble indolence when he can find so much hap
piness in rendering a valuable service to society.
Parents can encourage their children by placing
before them books which will turn their thoughts
toward these fields. Every child that has a taste
for scientific study should have Elisha Gray's
three little books entitled "Nature's Miracles."
They are published by Lords, Howard & Hurl
burt, New York, and can be procured at any book
atbre'for about 60 cents per volume. They are as
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