9
The Commoner.
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' VOLUME G, NUMBER 21
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CURB6NT GOPICS
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THE EIGHT-HOUR BILL has boon favorably
reported to the house. The Washington
correspondent for tho Chicago Record-Herald
says: "It was far from the intention of the re
publican leaders to let tho bill get a place on
the calendar at this session." But this corres
pondent adds: "A combination of circumstances
and democratic shrewdness in taking advantage
of an opportunity brought the committee o'n labor
io unexpected action." The Record-Herald cor
respondent explains: "There were only six of
tho thirteen members of the labor committee
present this morning when hearings on the bill
were resumed. They were Gardner of New Jer
sey and Gofibel and Norris of Ohio, republicans,
and Hunt of Missouri, Stanley of Kentucky, and
Rainoy of Illinois, democrats. A speech in op
position 'to the measure waB being made by the
representative of a ship-building firm, when Rep
resentative Hearst of New York, a member of the
committee, having arrived in Washington on one
of his Irregular visits, strolled into the room. His
presence made just a quorum, with the democrats
one in majority. Breaking the shipbuilding rep
resentative off in the middle of his argument,
Representative Hunt sprung a motion to close
the hearfng then and there. The republican mem
bers, .of the committee sent hurry calls for the
. absentees, but there was no response, and Mr.
Hunt's motion prevailed. Then Representative
Rainey made a motion that the bill be . reported
to tho house with tho recommendation that it
pass. It was carried. The members of? the com
mlttea who were not present werewBartholdt of
Missouri. McCall of Massachusetts Vreeland of
New York, Connor of Iowa and JHaskinV 6t Ver
mont, republicans, and" Davis jtffWest Virginia,
ZZZLh
THE EIGHT-HOUR BILL TBplles to all work
in which the federal arnmenjy inter
efteru?iMrcctlyander the -supervision
of the government itself or by contract with
private firms. It therefore affects not only work
on public buildings and the like, but the con
struction of vessels in shipyards throughout the
country, and it is from the latter class of in
dustry that much of the opposition to the measure
has emanated. Tho Record-Herald's Washing
ton correspondent says: "The politics involved ,
in tho proposed legislation forms one of the most
important phases of the subject. A few months
5S?iih?n S.!llBh 0fllclnIs of the organization
7 Vldv )h the, Aniericun Federation of Labor
brought their petition of grievances to President
SSSf v1 Si,?.lkGr Gannon and President Pro
lem. Five of the senate, they dwelt particularly
lw n elght-hour Proposition. It was cbmplained
tiiat the present eight-hour law was not enforced
itn any degree of worth to the great body of
employes whom it was designed to reach, and
U was charged the corporate influences were pre
venting efforts to secure more effective legisla
tion, lhe measure whose passage was demanded
re-enacted tho provisions of the existing law and
went still farther in extending its operations to
all contract work, and everything, in fact, where
the government is a party in interest. The
threats made by the leaders of organized labor
to carry their light into the congressional elec-
dirS5o?0?n m aid hereafter to pledge all can
d dates for office to support of ideas favored by
n If,01;1,116 Classes woro Predicated largely on
the eight-hour proposition. Now that the eicht.
hour bill is actually before the Tho use the labor
leaders will have ample opportunity to show thdr
power by marking those members VhocasT heir
votes against it, if it comes to a vote on its pas
sage. If a vote is not reached, it goes without
saying that the democrats will make the most of
the situation in their campaign and will hold
the republicans responsible for failure to put
the bill through. Tho whole situation is one of
the most interesting of those that have sprung
sion KnSesl f
T INIfRTEn?T Jclsoille, 111.! May 28, the
KJ St. Louis Globe-Democrat prints thn follow
ing dispatch: "Judge Owen P. Thompson toSS
sent his resignation to Dr. Joseph R Harker
president of the women's college; setting forth
that he could not longer remain a trustee of the
college when they will accept money from An
drew Carnegie to apply on its endowment fund.
Carnegie has recently given the college $25,000.
A year ago Judge Thompson resigned as a trus
tee of Illinois college because that institution had
appealed to Andrew Carnegie for funds. William
J. Bryan was president of the board of trustees
of this school, and he also sent his resignation
from Hong Kong, China, when he learned that
a majority of the board favored approaching
Carnegie and Rockefeller. Judge Thompson's
resignation is a document of two thousand words,
in which he states that he could not 'remain
identified with an institution of learning wherein
the management allows a policy which robs it of
its Independence to freely discuss all forms of
social and economic questions and places the in
stitution under obligations to capitalists. It was
because Illinois college decided upon a policy of
begging from Rockefeller and Carnegie that I
resigned from that board.'"
A WRITER IN THE Chicago Record-Herald
says: "In England a man with an income
of $2,000 a year pays $62.50 in hard cash to the
government each year as income tax. If his in
come is $3,500 he must pay ,$175, and for all
incomes over that size the rate is the same
one-twentieth of the income. Only incomes of
less than $800 are, entirely exempt. Also in Eng
land there is an inheritance tax so heavy that it
absorbs 8 per cent of all estates of $5,000,000 value
or over, decreasing, however, for snfaller estates,
so that for the smallest it takes only 1 per cent
of their value. From the inheritance taxes the
British treasury gets upward of $50,000,000, and
from the income taxes upward of $'110,000,000 a
year. Indeed, with a higher tax rate, the yield
of the income tax has been as much as ?190?
000,000. in Germany over 10" per ceI& of the in
come of' the states comes from the income tax.
In Italy over 16 per cent. In France over 2 per
cent. In Japan about 5 per cent. In Sweden over
11 per cent. The inheritance tax, whicli gives
England about 9 per cent of its total revenue,
gives Belgium over 4 per cent, and is said to
be in practical use in almost all of the European
countries except Russia and the Balkan states.
If President Roosevelt some day in the future de
cides that the time has come to 'formulate a sys
tem' for progressive inheritance taxes he will
find plenty of material to aid him on the technical
side in the experiences of many other countries
with their progressive taxation. The income tax
is forbidden to our federal government until the
constitution is amended or the supreme court
reverses itself, but the Inheritance tax Is with
in the power of congress to impose. These two
forms of taxation can be made to do each other's
work without great difficulty. If the president's
plan should, however, ever be adopted in so radi
cal a form that it would strike very deeply into
the greater estates so as to permanently decrease
their size, then the tables will bo turned, and
European nations will have to get their lessons
from us."
A'rILLIAM SHARP' an English writer, died
VV recently and his widow announced that
he was "Fiona Macleod, a brilliant writer of
Irish stories and poems whoso identity has been
the subject of much mystery. A -writer in the
Denver News says: "It was supposed that Wil
liam Sharp had for some whim merely preferred
to allow a certain class of his work to pass under
a feminine nom de plume and, although this was
remarkable, when the work under his unknown
identity was greater than that under his own,
nothing of psychological mystery was suspected
by the general public. In the Fortnightly Review
however, the Irish novelist and poet, Katherino
Tynan (Mrs. Hinkson) gives it as her belief that'
the two names represented two iersonalitie.-: ac
cording to the phenomenon of multiple personality
which the students of mind have been discovering
frequently in late years. According to this idea
the Irish woman genius and 'the talented English
author were really two distinct personalities,
both using the same body. It is said that the
handwriting of Fiona Macleod was" quite distinct
from that of William Sharp, and that the letters
he wrote as 'Fiona' voiced a sense of total differ
ence in identity from William Sharp. A biog-
, raphy is to be issued by a physician who knew
William Sharp well, and Mrs. Sharp is to assist
in it. If, as is claimed, this physician believes
that the two literary reputations for one man were
the result of involuntary disassociationMn person
ality the biography will be of great psychological
interest, for while there have been many instances
of the kind where the personalities were of the or
dinary type, this would be the first case in which
each identity gave itself literary expression and
gained distinguished recognition. A careful biog
raphy, making plain the relationship between these
two famous personages in one bodily form would
be invaluable."
JUDGE SHEPPARD BARCLAY of St. Louis,
formerly a judge of the Missouri supreme
court, visited Washington recently and in con
versation With a representative of the Washing
ton Post told of the success with which the Peo-
pie's Bank of St. Louis had recuperated from
the fraud order issued against it several months
ago. "It was charged that the bank was a scheme
to defraud, and a receivership -was appointed,"
said the judge. "Since then all the bank's debts
and loans have been paid, the stockholders have
received 85 per cent, and the supreme court of
Missouri has recently decided that there was no
ground at all for appointing a receiver. Now the
same postofflce inspectors have charged the Lewis
Publishing companw, of St. Louis, whicli published
two magazines for women that have circulations
of over a million; with abusing their privileges
in the mails. Edward G. Lewis, owner of the,
publications; Walter B. Stevens, secretary of tho
World's Fair company; a former governor 'of Mis
souri, and others are here to" argue the case of
the magazine before the assistant postmaster
'general' - , ., -'-, --
REPRESENTATIVE GOULDEN of New York,
- recently testified before the house commit
tee on judiciary. Mr. Goulden is also a repre
sentative in New York City of the Penn Mutual
Life Insurance company of Pennsylvania. In
his testimony before the committee Mr. Goulden
said: "We were held up for $10,000 by the re
publican national committee in 1896. The demand
was persistent and insistent, and because of the
influence or other methods used, the $10,000 was
contributed by the Penn Mutual. The company
"was not so much concerned in the election of
either Mr. Bryan or Mr. McKinley. It was the
powerful and convincing influence that caused
the contribution to be made. Practically the same
tactics were tried in 1900 and again in 1904, but
without the insistence and persistence, and be
4 cause of this the insurance companies did not give
up as freely as they had done in 1896. Another
thing that caused the companies to quit making
campaign contributions after 1896 was. the fact
that the general counsel for the New England
Mutual company of Boston, after considerable
study, gave it out that in his opinion any board
of directors of a mutual company voting cam
paign contributions was individually liable for
the amount should the matter ever be contested
by policyholders. This opinion had much to do
with the refusal of the mutual companies to make
contributions in 1900 and 1904."
DURING THE 1904 campaign demands wero
made, according to Mr. Goulden, to collect
campaign funds from his insurance company. The
contributions were not made. "The campaign
committees stood ready and willing to take all
we would give," Mr. Goulden said. "It was not?
their fault that every company in the United
States did not contribute. All were invited to
do so. Insurance companies in New
York City have always been ' regarded
as good things. It is a well known fact
in New York City that an election to the state
senate fe regarded as being worth anything up
to $50,000 a year by the right men. This money
came largely, from tho insurance companies. It
has been no secret that large sums of money
were spent in Albany each year by the insur
ance companies. Already, 'the testimony before
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