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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 1, 1923)
Entered at the Postoffice at Lincoln, Nebraska, as second-class matter. WILLIAM J. BRYAN, CHARLES W. BRYAN, Editor and Proprietor Associate Ed. and Publisher Edit. Rms and Business Office, Suite 207 Press Bldg. One Year .fl.00 Three Months.25 Six Month*.50 Single Copy ...... .10 In Clubs of Five or Sample copies Free. more per year .. .73 Foreign Post 25c Extra SUBSCRIPTIONS can be sent direct to The Com tnoner. They can also be sent through newspapers f which have advertised a clubbing rate, or through local agents, where such agents have been ap pointed. All remittances should be sent by post office money order, express order, or by bank draft on New York or Chicago. Do not send individual checks, stamps, or currencj*. RENEWALS—The date on your wrapper shows the time to which your subscription is paid. Thus, January 21 means that payment has been received to and Including the issue of January, 1924. Address alL communications to— THE COMMONER, LINCOLN'. NEB. m Sacrificing the Public The plutocratic policy of the Republican leader ship is nowhere more clearly manifested than in their refusal to allow the government owned ships to be used to advance the public welfare. Big business views the public owned ship as a menace to private greed, not only because it in troduces competition, but because the successful operation of government ships would show how the government can protect the public from com binations and conspiracies. The government has never been more completely in the grip of the greedy. With absolute power, and backed by a large majority of those who use the government for the securing of privileges and favors, they have attempted to make the most of their op portunity. Their domination of the government ends on the fourth of March next. While the Senate and House remain nominally Republican, the pro gressive Republicans hold the balance of power in the both houses and no more reactionary leg islation is possible—there is even hope that some advance may be made toward the rescue of the public from the profiteer and the plunder bund. x W. J. BRYAN. SHIP SUBSIDY STEAL—NOT YET The ship subsidy bill is still held up and it looks now as if it would be impoesible to pass it in spite of the efforts of those who were defeated at the last election. About six-sevenths of the 76 Republican congressmen, defeated at the last election, voted for the ship subsidy when it passed the House, and nearly all of the defeated Republican senators are counted among its sup porters. If the bill can be postponed untiknext congress it has not the slightest chance or pas sage. When these facts are considered, the very attempt to pass it now shows an insolent disre gard of the will of the people actually expressed at the polls. If the voters could have known BEFORE the election the attitude assumed by the Republican leaders AFTER the election, the defeat of that party would have been great er than it was. W. J. BRYAN. THE GRANT CASE Dr. Grant’s attitude is the natural and logical result of evolution cons’stently applied and hon estly admitted. There are ministers in nearly all the leading denominations who believe as he does but who are pot so frank in declaring their views. Dr. Grant has a right to believe or dis believe a's he likes as long as he speaks as an in dividual, but when he speaks as a minister, his church has a right to dismiss him if his views are not in ,.cecrd with the doctrines of the church. As the church ordained him and holy orders were conferred upon him by the church, he will not desire to misrepresent it. If he really thinks that his church has discarded belief in the mira cles, and in the deity and virgin birth of Christ, he can test the church’s present attitude by de manding a trial. Members of other churches will watch the trial with interest because the same controversy is quite sure to arise in other churches whenever it becomes apparent that a minister is substituting man’s guesses for God s word. Dr. Grant’s recent declarations will awaken Christians to the menace of Darwinism by showing how much of the Bible one must reject to make it harmonize with a jungle an cestry. W. J. BRYAN. ENCOURAGING LAWLESSNESS One without knowledge of the previous rec ord of Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University, would be surprised to find him encouraging lawlessness by declaring that there is no likelihood that the Eighteenth Amendment will ever he enforced, “no matter at what expenditure of time or effort.” And, strange to say, this statement was made to the Ohio State Bar Association and his subject “J^aw and Lawlessness.” This is the same man who in 1920 was a candidate for the Republican Presidential nomi nation on a wine and beer platform. One might suppose that his ridiculously low vote in the convention would have taught him something. But, having failed to secure the endorsement of his ideas by his own party, he now gives en couragement to every law breaker by declaring it impossible to enforce the Eighteenth amend ment. To the extent that his words have influ ence, they lead to violation of the law. The law is going to be enforced; President Butler can not prevent it, but he can decide whether to join with the forces that guard the home and throw his influence on the side of en forcement or choose his companions from the slums where the vicious gather to plot against the welfare of society. No wonder, the press of the United States has held li in up to ridicule and contempt. His at tempt to link the Fifteenth amendment to the Eighteenth is as disreputable as it is illogical. There is no connection between the two and no similarity to justify the mentioning of them to gether. It was simply a petty piece of petti fogging to which no high minded man would resort. Knowing that the southern states are strong for prohibition, he thought to pry them loose from their virtue by a threat of raising the color Question. He will have enough to do representing the wine-bibbers and beer-guzzlers and the boot-leggers. W. J. BRYAN. THE MINIMUM WAGE DECISION The New Republ'c gives a very interesting account of a rainumum wage decision recently rendered by the Appeals Court of the District of Columbia. The plan employed for securing a reversal of the decision is extraordinary, to say the least. The statement that protection of property is more important than life and liberty shows the extreme to which the worshipper of the dollar can go. The people of Nebraska will be pleased to know that Justice C. J. Smyth did NOT concur in the opinion. The matter now goes before the Supreme Court of the United States. Like many of the questions that go before that august tribunal, this is not so much a legal question as a political question and the judges will differ as tbey differed on the income tax, not upon the law but upon what they think should be the law. It is no reflect'on upon judges, who are after all merely human beings, to say that they have their fundamental bias like other people and that this bias manifests itself whenever great political issues arise. It will be remembered that the Electoral Commis sion contained five of the most prominent sen ators, five of the most prominent congressmen, and the five supreme judges having the longest service. We could certainly expect impartial ity here if anywhere, but every inmortant de cision was rendered by a vote of eight to seven_ each one of the fifteen voting just as he would have voted if he had gone into the booth to make out his ballot according to his polit'cal bias. So the decision on the minumum wage case, like similar decisions occasionally rendered will disclose not the legal learning of the judges but their bias on the question: Which comp* first, the man of the dollar? W. J. BRYAN The Republican leaders are fond of talkin'* about a business administration by business men That depends upon how you describe a business man. Governor Donahey was never conspicioua at the conferences where the big business men met but his idea of business seems to be quite satisfactory to the people of Ohio. The pub lie’s business is not conducted on the same plan as much of so-called business is, and men with common sense, common honesty and a broad sympathy with the masses are just the kind of business men the people need in office just new. • Evolutionists in Retreat The Fort Dearborn Indpendent in a recent is sue brings out a very interesting fact, namely, that the evolutionists are in full retreat. They no longer exhibit the arrogance which char acterized them a few short years ago; they are scurrying to and fro—dodging, evading, and ex plaining. No wonder they are in consternation. For years they took advantage of a sleeping public and were as bold as owls after dark. *Now it is dawn and the light embarrasses them. The Fort Dearborn Independent submitted a series of questions to the heads of a number of universities, state-, and religious. Four of the questions were as follows: 1. As far as you have observed, do reput able scientific investigators hold that evolu tion postulates the ascent of man from the ape (the sense in which .“Evolution" is commonly conceived^ by the people)? 2. Did Darwin ever teach that, or did he merely advance it as as speculative hypoth esis? 3. Has not post-Darwinian scientific re search greatly modified the earliest Darwin ian tendencies? 4. Has science ever found sufficient ground to declare that one speeies has be come another species? Have not most of the advances in knowledge been made in the region of development of species with in their natural limitations? Prof. Dudingtcn of Oberlin College, Prof. Hagen of the University of Utah, Prof. Crawford of Lynchburg (Virginia) College, Prof. Bristol of New York University, Prof. Burlingame of Stanford University, Prof. Murl'n of Boston University, Prof. Bolton of Temple University, Prof. Booker of Arkansas Baptist College, Dr. Schreekengast of Nebraska Wesleyan Univer sity, and Dr. McVey of the University of Ken tucky, all answered the first question in the negative; that is, that REPUTABLE SCIEN TIFIC INVESTIGATORS DO NOT BELIEVE THAT MAN IS A DIRECT DESCENDENT OF THE APE. So far as they express themselves, they believe that man descmded from the SAME FAMILY TREE AS THE APE BUT NOT THROUGH THE APE LIMB. Professor Shull says: “Reputable biologists hold that man has ascended or descended, whichever you prefer to say, from an animal that was near enough like both man and the anthropoid apes to be the ancestor of both of them. It is hardly correct to say that they hold man to have come from the apes for that would mean that the apes have remained unchanged while man has evolved from them." Dr. Schreekengast says: “So far as I know, no reputable scientist thinks that man is de scended from the modern ape. The ape is him self a specialized development from certain simpler-forms oU 1'fe. Back somewhere nearer the trunk of the tree, the ape branched off. The relation of man to the ape would be like this —instead of going directly from the end of one limb to the top of the tree, you would go clown the limb to the trunk and up the trunk to the top." Nearly all of the above named educators an swer the second question by denying that Dar win ever taught that man descended from the ape. Prof. Dudington "says: “Darwin did not teach that present-day man is a descendant of any present-day an mals, wrh:ch would thus be considered man’s ancestors. He, of course, did teach a common ancestry of man and the other Primates—holding essentially the same view as is held by any evolutionists today. You ask, “Did he merely advance it as a speculative hy pothesis?” to which one must always allow that the doctrine of evplution will always be a hy pothesis, but with such a body of evidence in its favor as to make it as convincing as a fully known matter of fact.” Prof. Hagan says: “Darwin did not teach that nor advance it as a hypothesis.” Prof. Bristol says: “So far as i know, Darwin did not teach it nor did he advance it as a spec ulative hypothesis.” Prof. Crawford says: “Darwin was only of fering a possible explanation when he spoke 01 this ancestry, and was wrholly surprised at the attention given his speculations.” Professor Shull says: “Darwin advanced this idea as an hypothesis although I would be will