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The Commoner.
WILLIAM J. BRYAN, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR
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Vol. 6. No. 20
Lincoln, Nebraska, June 1, 1906
Whole Number 280
-- CONTENTS
Mr. Bryan's Letter
Paokingtown's Foul Deeds
Aldkicii and tub White IIouse
The Chicago Platform Still Lives
A Story Common to Imperialism
But Who Has Been Punished?
Newspaper Verses "W ortiiy a Place in
Scrap Books
Fresh From Wall Street
William F. Switzler
Comment on Current Topics . -
Home Department
Whether Common or Not
News of the Week
IT WAS REAL DESERTION
The Cincinnati Enquirer -.pays a high tribute
to Senator Foraker for his com we on the ri'iway
rate bill, saying: "If any man is entitled to
distinction for initiation and suggestion by which
the bill was to be made sane and strong, For.
aker's name is in the blazon light."
Something more than a year ago the En
quirer formally deserted the democratic party.
Since then it has done many things in liuo with'
an anti-democratic program. Recently it ob
jected to the election of senators by direct vote
of the people. It condemned the primary system
characterizing- ft as "carrying ,to an extreme the
current fad and heresy of legislative interference
with the private affairs of a political party."
And now the Enquirer eulogizes Senator Foraker .
for the part he played in railway rate legis
lation! The Enquirer certainly deserted.
JJJ
KENTUCKY'S FAVORITE SONG l
This month Kentuckians will celebrate "Old
Home Week," and thousands of former Ken
tuckians will soon be on their way to the old
home to renew their youth and the acquaintances
and friendships of other days. Referring to this
fact the Houston Texas Post declares that the
favorite song in the Blue Grass stale will be
"My Old Kentucky Horned In this opinion. The
Commoner coincides. But there is another song
that will run Foster's composition a close second.
In fancy we can hear the home-going Kentuckians
singing, "With All Her Faults I Love Her
'Still.' "
NOT FOR THE LAFOLLETTES
The Sioux City (Iowa) Journal, republican,
reproduces several attacks by republican editors
upon Senator LaFollette. One of these repub
lican editors says: "A man of LaFollette's
stamp is out of place in legislative halls." Surely
'tis so. Places in legislative halls should be
reserved for the Aldriches, the Depews, the Platts
and the Burtons men whose devotion to public
interests has made them leaders of the republican
party.
JJJ
PECULIARITIES
The St. Louis Globe-Democrat, republican,
says: "A peculiarity about the congressional
canvass of 190G will be the attention which the
democrats will give to the western states." An
other peculiarity about the congressional canvass
of 1906 may. be the attention which the people
of all states will give to the record of the re
publican party.
- .s
Don't Give Up the Ship!
BURMA AND BUDDHISM
V
Mr. Bryan's Twentieth Letter
Burma is another country which was added
to our list after leaving home, but as its people
are quite distinct from the inhabitants of India
and as it is one of the strongholds of Buddhism,
we turned aside to visit it en route from Ceylon
to Calcutta. On the map it occupies a part of
the east side of the first of the three great penin
sulas that stretch down from Asia to the Indian
ocean and is separated from India proper Dy the
Bay of Bengal. Its principal stream is the Irra
waddy, famed in story for the magnificent scenery
along its course and for the fertile valley through
which it passes on its way to the sea.
Rangoon, the seaport of Burma, Is situated
some twenty miles inland upon a river of the
same name and has a harbor quite different
from those at Singapore and Colombo. At those
places the passengers on the incoming and out
going steamers amuse themselves by tossing
silver coins into the transparent waters and
watching the divers catch them before they can
reach the bottom, but at Rangoon the water is so
muddy that a diver would have difficulty In find
ing an electric light. The depth of the water,
too, is insufficient except when the tide is high.
But the city of Rangoon is substantially built
and has a number of fine business blocks and
excellent public buildings. A municipal hospital
now in course of construction surpasses anything
which we have seen in the east. The park
system at Rangoon is very attractive, and one
sees the well-to-do element of the city fully
represented there in the early evening. The
roads about Rangoon are good, but not equal
to those of Ceylon and Java. I have already
-spoken of the Java roads, and those of Ceylon
are not behind them. No one can see these
well graded, well drained and beautifully shaded
highways without having his Interest in good
roads quickened.
At Rangoon we saw the elephants at work in
a, lumber yard, and they did not attract anything
like the attention from the natives that "Jumbo"
and the "Baby Elephant" did in the United
States during my boyhood days. It is not nec
essary here for the head of the family to take
his wife and all the children Jo the circus in
order that the younger members of the family
may catch a glimpse of one of these ungainly
beasts. In Burma the elephant is simply an every
day beast of burden and earns his food .as
faithfully as the horse or the ox. We saw three
at work in the lumber yard which we visited,
the oldest of which Is more than three score
and ten years and has labored industriously for
more than fifty years. A native rides upon his
back and directs him by word, sometimes empha
sized by an iron-pointed stick, and the huge
fellow lifts, pushes and twists the logs about
with almost human intelligence. The elephant
has an eye for neatness, and' one would hardly
believe from hearsay with what regularity and
carefulness he works, moving from one end of
the log to the other until it is in exactly the
right place. In lifting he uses his tusks, kneeling
when his work requires it In carrying large
blocks of wood he us&3 both tusks and trunk.
Sometimes the elephant pushes a heavy log along
the ground with one of his forefeet, walking on
the other three, but generally the logs are drawn
by a chain attached to a broad breast strap.
An. eighteen-year-old elephant, working in the
wl