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IAIIY 17, 1908
The Commoner.
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lid take the politics of papers like the New
fc World very seriously. Having made, In
matters of public concern, a good record,
srs like the World boldly undertake to pull
tfporatlon chestnuts out of the Are. They hope
Pconceal their real purpose by pointing to the
bd record they have In some Instances made,
Sf by their strong professions of concern for
pae puonc interest, wmcn proiessiuiis uu xiul,
p the whole, we are bound to say, square with
lieir practices.
The World is not solely interested in giv
ing Its readers an "interesting" newspaper. It
is an interesting newspaper, but its greatest con
cern at this time is that the democratic party
'shall not become the medium through which the
American people may find substantial relief from
,the impositions put upon them through .the influ
ences that are co-operating with the New York
World in its political deals.
As The Commoner has already pointed out,
no one connected with the New York World has
reason for personal hostility toward Mr. Bryan.
Its antipathy lies deeper than anything of a
personal character could go. It pleads not for
the best interests of the democratic party nor
the welfare of the general public. It speaks for
interests whose hold upon the people is threat
ened by the growth of genuine democratic senti
ment. And greater service is to be rendered to
the public, and to truth, when such publications
are unmasked instead of being excused on the
ground of unparalleled ignorance or unex
ampled imbecility.
OOOO
NEW CABINET POSITIONS "
The president received a few days ago a
delegation which urged the creation of a new
cabinet position with a secretary of health at
the head of it. In declining to endorse the
proposition he took occasion to say that he
opposed the creation of any new cabinet posi
tions. It is to be regretted that he has thus
thrown his great influence against an enlarge
ment of the cabinet for there is one new office
that is imperatively needed, namely, secretary of
labor. The vast army of wage earners deserve
a representative at the president's council table
and the new position ought to be created at once.
We might with advantage establish two
other cabinet positions, namely, secretary of
railroads and secretary of mines and forests.
With more effective railroad regulation we need
a secretary who can devote his whole time to
this groat subject, while the extension of our
mining interests and the preservation of forests
require increased attention. Separate depart
ments can attend to these matters better than
new bureaus in departments already over
crowded. OOOO
PROSPERITY
A New York dispatch to the Philadelphia
North American follows: "Carrying his four-
. year-old boy, Carl, down three flights of stairs
after an evening's happy reunion with his wife
and child, Alexander Grenquiest, thirty-four
years old, an illustrator, who had been out of
regular employment since October, early today
paid the penalty of his parental affection with
his life. Grenquiest lived in a furnished room
in West Twenty-first street up to a week ago,
when he accepted the invitation of a feljow
artist to stay with him in West Fifty-fourth
street. His family, meantime, were cared for
by his former landlady. Last night the artist's
, "wife and child spent several hours visiting Gren
quiest in the studio. When they started to leave,
Grenquiest picked up the baby and started down
stairs. At the foot of the bottom flight he fell,
and died within a few minutes. The family is
penniless."
OOOO
A THOUGHTFUL SUGGESTION
George Fitch, writing for the Business
Monthly Magazine, declares that "the curse of
America's railroad system is the private car of
the railroad president." Mr. Fitch then pro
ceeds to furnish argument that goes a long ways
toward proving the truth of his contention. He
declares that the railroad president, traveling
over his railroad system in a private car fitted
up like a palace, stocked with the season's deli
cacies, given the undivided attention of a well
trained porter, catered to by a chef and assist-
ed by an accommodating conductor, can not
know the many discomforts endured by the com
mon'herd forced to crowd into unsanitary cars
and submit to autocratic trainmen often made
grouchy by overwork and worry. Traveling
special these railroad presidents can not know
first hand of the unsanitary stations, of the
branch trains always late, of tho lunch counter
with its archaic sandwich, the gruff station agent
or the belated train that is to be In "pretty
soon" but does not arrive for several hours.
Mr. Fitch offers two suggestions: "First, that
railroad presidents be compelled by law to travel
as their customers do; second, that when they
are found guilty of breaking the laws they bo
condemned to live in a small town in the middle
of the worst branch on their system and to travel
back and forth on tho train every day for a
year. This would result in two things. In tho
first place railroad magnates would insist on
good train service, clean stations and human
employes. In the second place they would have
a horrible dread of breaking any law whatso
ever. Let It be tried at once."
Mr. Fitch's suggestions are cordially rcc
omended to the attention of railroad presidents
throughout the entire country.
OOOO
THE SYSTEM
Louis F. Post' writing in "The Public"
says:
"Of course the great big fact behind tho
inspired clamor against Bryan, Is the weaken
ing of party distinctions along old political di
visions. THE DEMOCRATIC MASSES HAVE
LEARNED, AND THE REPUBLICAN MASSES
ARE LEARNING, WHAT THE FINANCIAL
BANDITTI LEARNED LONG AGO, THAT THE
TRUE POLITICAL CLEAVAGE IS NO LONGER
ALONG REPUBLICAN AND DEMOCRATIC
PARTY LINES. IT IS BETWEEN PUBLIC
RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGED INTERESTS. MR.
BRYAN STANDS FIRMLY IN SPIRIT
(WHETHER IN PLAN OR NOT IS OF LESS
IMMEDIATE IMPORTANCE TO BOTH SIDES)
AGAINST THE AGGRESSIONS OF THE IN
TERESTS. For this reason they are against him
in the democratic party as they are against
LaFollette in the republican party. That they
are against him because his plans may be bad,
it would be folly to suppose. They never fear
a public man with bad plans, fccing expert about
plans themselves; BUT THEY DO FEAR A MAN
WHO HAS AN INVINCIBLE MORAL PURPOSE,
AS BRYAN HAS. BE HIS PRESENT PLANS
DEFECTIVE OR NOT, IF HIS MORAL PUR
POSE IS RIGID AND HIS GOAL THE DE
STRUCTION OF THE PARASITICAL GAME
UPON WHIC.H THEY FLOURISH AND FOR
THE PERrETUATION OF WPIICII THEY
SEEK TO CONTROL ALL EFFECTIVE PARTY
ORGANIZATIONS, TIIEY FEAR HIM AND
RIDICULE HIM AND MISREPRESENT HIM.
THIS IS THE SECRET OF THE OPPOSITION
TO BRYAN. BUT ISN'T IT THE BEST
TRIBUTE THE INTERESTS COULD POSSIBLY
OFFER?
"Of ex-President Cleveland it was once said
that he should be loved for the enemies he had
made. There was some truth m the suggestion,
for Cleveland had made enemies of certain pub
He enemies. BUT THE ENEMIES CLEVE
LAND HAD MADE, IN CONTRAST WITH THE
ENEMIES BRYAN HAS MADE, WERE,
AS PUBLIC ENEMIES, AS AN AWKWARD
PICKPOCKET IN JAIL TO AN EXPERT COUN
TERFEITER AT LARGE."
OOOO
FALSELY ACCUSED
The Lincoln (Neb.) Journal (rep.) says:
"Cleveland became president the second time
on the eve of a panic. The republicans ascribed
the panic to the prospect of a democratic ad
ministration, and that explanation was accept
ed to the extent of helping materially to keep
the democrats in disrepute for fifteen years.
Now comes a panic in a republican administra
tion and with only a remote prospect of a dem
ocratic triumph in the next dozen years. Up
spring the exultant democrats to prove out of
the mouths of the republican spell-binders of the
last fifteen years that the republican party
caused the panic. But what do they find? A
public quietly hearing and accepting the evi
dence that the republican party had as much to
do with the panic as the man in the moon and
no more, that panics are psychological and in
ternational, that all but one o our panics start
ed in Europe, that they have occurred under
all parties, all tariffs, all mone.y and banking
systems. Their only comfort is the admission
that the democratic party, except as it may have
caused some exaggeration of the trouble by its
money question, was after all not the cause
of tho panic of 181KJ, which n&ally bogan with
tho Baring failure In London in 1800."
This is a very frank admission. Repub
lican organs and orators falsely charged a dem
ocratic admin istration with the panic that be
gan under republican administration and undr
republican legislation, and this accusation
"helped materially to kerp tho democrat! In
disrepute for fifteen years." It will occur to
the ordinary man that something in tho way of
an apology is due from republican editors for
this accusation now admitted to be thor
oughly false.
This republican paper admits that tho so
called panic of 18915 really began In 1890. That
Is quite true. It really began, so far as surface
indications wore concerned, November 11, 1800,
which was a little more than thirty days after
tho McKinlcy tariff bill became a law.
OOOO
WHO WILL BUY?
I
P. J. Han ley of 'ashlngton, la., has pre
pared and sent to Tho Commoner the following
interesting matter which he suggests that re
publican politicians might use as a hand bill:
PUBLIC SALE
Our lease with Uncle Sam, having practi
cally expired, and having decided to quit Din
business, and retire to private life, we the under
signed, will offer at public sale at our residence
at the Capitol In Washington, D. C, commencing
on the second day of December, 1907, the fol
lowing described property, to-wit:
One elephant, about forty-five years old.
One financial panic, old enough to be
weaned.
One republican platform, tho same being
somewhat rotten.
One big stick.
One republican machine, the Hamo being
somewhat out of repair.
One financial system.
Fifty million Teddy Boars; and other art
icles too numerous to mention.
Terms of sale, cash.
G. O. P. Owners.
Rockefeller & Morgan, Clerks. .
Wall Street, Auctioneer. - . ,
While it is believed by many that moHt-of
the above mentioned articles will be purchased
as relics, by the standpatters, still I have been
Informed on good authority, that it is the earn
est desire of the G. O. P. that the democratic
party bo present at the sale and thus show their
interest and goodwill in the same, even though
they don't see anything which they care to
purchase.
OOOO '
"WHAT IP?" '
A republican politician speaking at an
Omaha banquet board demanded: "What vould
have happened If the democratic party had been
in power during the recent financial crisis?"
The Omaha World-Herald answered the
question In this vigorous fashion:
"If the democratic party had been In power
the government might have taxed the people to
pay interest on money donated for the free and
unrestricted use of the Wall Street gamblers!
"If the democratic party had been in power
the United States treasury might have been
stripped of all its cash, and the cash have been
given, Interest free, to these same Wall Street
gamblers, that they might lend It out at ex
orbitant interest, to the people who had paid it
into the treasury and to whom it belonged!
"If the democratic party had been in power
the United States might have tottered into the
yawning chasm of utter and irretrievable ruin
unless John D. Rockefeller and J. Plerpont Mor
gan had generously stepped to the front to save
it just as it was toppling over the brink!
"If the democratic party had been In power
men might have been thrown out of work, mills
might have closed, wages might have been re
duced, guardians of the national honor might (
have committed suicide, and a hundred thousand
homeless and hungry men might be tramping
the streets of New York!
"Worse than that! Cows would refuse to
give milk, hens to lay eggs, the sun to shine, ,
the rain to fall, the crops to grow, tho J
trains to run, the country would have been
devastated by fire and flood and earthquake;
in the Stygian darkness of the noonday streets
men would have crouched in despair before the
closed portals of Their establishments, fearing to
raise their heads and dreading to look into one
another's eyes!
"It would have been fierce, and no mistake,
if the democratic party had been in 'power!"