THE NEBRASKA INDEPENDENT
April 3, 1902
tbe ftebraska Independent
Lincoln, Hebraskn
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' Zht Uebraska Independent,
' , Lincoln. Neb.
Anonymous communications will not be no
ticed. ; Rejected manuscript will not be re
rned.
In the eyes of President Roosevelt
the biggest thing m these United
States is the verdict of a drumhead
oourt-martial. ,
Mr. Bryan is now sleeping in a hay
loft. If he ever? runs for office again,
Cie charge that he has haysted in his
balr will not" be a slander; '
It should be remembered that when
tSie gold democrats talk about the nec
essity of "new issues" that they al
ways mean "bond issues" that can be
made a base for national bank notes.
The democrats of Kansas -have re
solved to follow in the footsteps of the
illustrious Clem and hoof it down the
middle of the road in the hopes that
the republicans will divide the offices
U I Iflffll.
The - Hannapops having been
knocked clear out in Nebraska, are
now trying to gain a foothold in Mis
souri. . So far they have not made any
great headway. They should send for
Clem Deaver. He could teach them
how to be "true populists."
Hanna is working the labor agita
tors for all he can get out of them.
The scheme seems to be to get up fake
strikes and then Hanna is called to
settle them. They are speedily set
tled and Hanna has all the glory
which he expects to coin into votes
when the time comes.
As no word of condemnation has
come from the White house, the fact
must be accepted that Fred Funston
expressed the views of the administra
tion and that Roosevelt, believes that
any man who presents a petition re-,
questing any change in the policy, of
imperialism should be hung.
It seems that the honest money
crowd are perfectly wiling to force a
50-cent silver dollar on the Filipinos
and to provide for free and unlimited
coinage of silver in those islands.
They have been declaring for ten
years that such action as that was
repudiation, dishonesty and every
thing that was Criminal and wrong.
The administration did not have the
cheek to ask for an appropriation to
te cpent in the crowning of King Ed
ward. There was a line or two stuck
in an appropriation bill allowing the
secretary of state $40,000 additional
for his secret fund, the expenditure of
which is ; not reported to congress or
any other body.
Congress has repealed the wrar taxes,
except the tax on bucket shops, to
which. all the boards of trade were op
posed. The bucket shops interfere
with their gambling business. If any
one can point out what difference there
is morally between a bucket shop and
a board of trade it is time that it was
done. Both of them are gambling concerns.-
t v
There Is one vacancy In the chap
lains of the British navy and the Eng
lish papers report that there were four
thousand applications, for the position
within - three days after the vacancy
was" announced. ' There must be a lot
of preachers out. of a job 'over in ; old
England.' Did any of theapostles or
early Christian ', ministers go -around
hunting a job as a navy chaplain?
Abner De France writes from Okla-,
homa that he: has been a Reader of
The Independent ever since the Oma
ha -convention." lie has - been trying
what effect The Independent would
have on the republicans down there,
but says most of, them haven't got
their eyes open yet Nevertheless he
ordered a block of five Liberty postal
cards and has sold most of them. ,
Kruger's prophecies are being veri
fied in a most wonderful way. His
reputation in ; tto at line is likely to
equal any of the ancients. .? The "price
that would stagger humanity" is fa
miliar to all. Another of his wa3
that Queen Victoria, Cecil Rhodes,
Lord Salisbury and Joseph Chamber
lain would be in their graves before
the South African republics were real
ly cpnanp're;
AN INCENDIARY DOCUMENT,
There have been many letters of in
quiry sent to The Independent asking
about the laws -passed by the Taft
commission which , are in direct con
tradiction of the constitution, mak
ing the Declaration of Independence
an incendiary document and the per
son found with it or any one circulat
ing It guilty of treason against the
United States and the government of
the -Philippine islands. The whole
plan of, subjugating the Philippines is
unconstitutional and to enable the
government to execute its designs
there a decision was secured from the
supreme court placing the Philip
pines and the inhabitants thereof out
side of the constitution, giving ab
solute and unrestrained authority to
congress to pass any laws it might
see fit concerning them, or to delegate
the authority to govern, them to carpet-baggers
sent by the president to
the islands for that purpose. Under
this arrangement' the president is as
absolute an autocrat In the govern
ment of the Philippines as is the czar
of Russia over the possessions of that
empire. Every law in force in the
Philippines is headed: "BY THE AU
THORITY OF THE PRESIDENT OF
THE UNITED STATES be it enacted
by the United States' Philippine com
mission." There is no authority there
except the personal authority of Pres
ident Roosevelt. The members of the
commission are subject to his orders
and can be removed at any time by
him. The government of the country
is an absolute despotism. The judicial,
civil and . military power Is all cen
tered In the hands of one man and
any inhabitant who objects to it, or
who by speech or written document
objects to it or proposes any change is
guilty of treason. There is not an
other despotism In all the world to
day which is so unlimited and all
powerful as the despotism established
in the Philippine islands. The despot
is" the president of the United States.
These being the facts in the case
such a document as the Declaration of
Independence becomes highly incen
diary. That document, among other
things, declares that all men are cre
ated equal, 'that they are endowed by
their Creator with inalienable rights,
that to secure these rights govern
ments are Instituted among men, de
riving their just powers from the con
sent of the governed, that it is the
right of the people to alter or abolish
government, or institute a new gov
ernment, laying its foundations on
such principles and organizing its pow
ers in such form as shall seem to
them mrst likelytto effect their safety
rnd happiness.' ' Among a people
where a government has been estab
lished by force and ! is maintained by
a standing army, the circulation of
such a document could not be allowed.
It would be an .incentive to organize
and by all the means in their power to
endewor to maintain their right to
alter, abolish or institute a new gov
ern ment.
Why any one . should express sur
prise that the circulation of the Dec
laration of Independence was pro
hibited in the Philippines is hard to
surmise. It is a necessity if the United
States is to hold the islands by force.
It is therefore not at all strange or in
creditable that the Philippine commis
sion should have passed the now cele
brated act, No. 292, an act defining the
crimes of treason, insurrection, con
spiracies and sedition and prescribing
punishment therefor, nor is it at all
s-trange to find in that act such a sec
tion as this:
It shall be unlawful for any per
son to advocate, orally or by print
ing or writing or like methods
the independence of the Philippine
islands or their separation from
the United States whether by
PEACEABLE or forcible means,
or to print, publish of circulate
any hand-bill; newspaper or other
publication advocating such inde
pendence. The circulation of the Declaration
of Independence which calls all these
things "inalienable rights" is thus
made treason. . " "
In paragraph 3 of section 12 of the
same act there is "another thing made
treason. It reads as follows:
To fail or refuse to Inform and
, give evidence against any asso
: ciate, confederate" or other person.
This provision was so drastic that
it. wa3 modified by the bill that passed
the senate on "motion of Senator Hoar,
so that a wife was not bound to hurry
to the nearest military officer and ac
cuse her husband, r .
From the grand and patriotic dec
larations contained in the first plat
form of the republican party and the
the leadership of the great lover of all
mankind, .that party has degenerated
to the establishment of an absolute
despotism, the denial -of every great
principle that Lincoln advocated and.
the passage of laws making the Dec
laration of Independence an incendiary
document. Strange as it may seem,
the claim is still made that it Is the
party of Lincoln, r '
AN EDITORIAL- SCOLD
- . t . -t i ...... '
The state and county committees of
both populist and ' democratic parties
need a thorough overhauling. How
thing to advance the cause is a mys
tery. Many of them will not even an
swer a letter. Some of them utterly
repudiate the authority of the state
organization and want to run the cam
paigns to suit themselves. They , may
be more capable than the men the
party has chosen to conduct the work,
but they create only confusion and
render active service to the enemy
when they attempt to establish a di
vided authority.
One thing that most of these men
fail to understand is that the fateof
the party depends upon its pres3.
Without a party press all efforts at
reform are useless. Nothing whatever
can be accomplished. The republicans
understand that very well and have
spent millions in establishing their
party press. Some of these committee
men take It as an insult when it is
suggested that they should do some
thing to extend the circulation of the
populist newspapers. Some of them
are known to take republican papers
and then plead poverty or the old and
worn-out excuse that, they have more
papers than they can read when asked
to subscribe for a populist paper.
There is many an editor of a country
paper who spends all his time and
sometimes employs ; members of his
family in the publishing of a weekly
paper and these men instead of aid
ing himjn building up the party, will
refuse even to subscribe for the paper
and then come around, if they happen
to be a candidate, and want the edi
tor to spend -dollars and many days
of hard work in trying to elect the
cheat to office.
Sometimes after such a man is
elected to office he will give all the
work which he controls, to the enemy.
Several such cases have been reported
to thi3 office.
The building up of the populist press
in this state has been the work of the
privates in the ranks. The committee
men and those who have held office
have given it, with a few exceptions,
no support at all. These men will
sometimes pay five or ten dollars to
get a noted speaker to come to the
county for one address, who will not
make a dozen votes, and fail to sub
scribe for a populist paper that holds
the whole populist force in line and
makes votes wherever it is read.
How did so many of these political
deadbeats ever get upon the commit
tees? One man writes that a good
many of them got there by their own
initiative, because -they thought that
it would be a good start to get ah
office and when they failed in that
they refused to raise their hands for
the party ever after. The greatest
want of both the populists and demo
cratic parties is working committee
men who will see to it that the reform
papers, county and state, are got into
the hands of the people. The Inde
pendent will make a desperate effort
to do that thing. Some . hundreds of
its readers have resolved to do all in
their power to aid It. Some thousands
in the eastern states who have recent
ly become readers of The Independent
are spreading populist literature in
their localities, while here in Nebras
ka the committeemen to whom the
workers in the ranks have entrusted
the management of party affairs, for
the most part Mill do nothing.
The want of the circulation of pop
ulist papers has been illustrated by
several letters received at this office
within the last week In which the
question is asked if it is a fact that
a law. was passed in the Philippines
making the circulation of the Declara
tion of Independence and Congres
sional Record treason. The imperial
ist republicans have captured nearly
all the avenues of information to the
people and the only way they can be
informed of the facts Is to Increase the
circulation of the reform newspapers.
A lot of committeemen in this state
seem oblivious to, that fact and their
refusal to do anything for the party
has aroused. this editor's ire. He don't
often indulge in a scold, but he has
got this one off .in the hopes that he
would feel better after he saw it in
print.
In gifts to charitable and benevolent
purposes the hard working poor far ex
ceed fche rich, even in the amount of
money, if it . were all counted , up.
When the poor give, it is not heralded
abroad -in the newspapers and bur,
few know about it.t The carpenter'
union has donated for benevolent pur
poses over $1,000,000 since 1883, and
every dollar of it wa3 earned by hard
work before it was sent to bless the
poor.; The donations of the rich, most
of which is stolen money, makes a
big showing in the newspapers, but
in the ledgers that the angels keep it
occupies a very small space.
The crowning act of Senator Teller's
long career was when he forced the
senate to adopt that famous resolu
tion declaring that the United States
would evacuate the island of Cuba as
soon as a government was established
there by the people. Had it not been
for that resolution the imperialists
would have forced the troops to stay,
and Cuba would have been in the same
condition as the Philippines. The Cu
oft m&MIff
BELMONT AND WILLIAMS
If there were a sound public policy
at the bottom, of the plans of the na
tional bankers it would be possible for
them, able men as they are, to make
an argument that would stand the test
of an analysis, but as their schemes
are only for public robbery and the ac
quiring of wealth that belongs to other
men, every" effort that they make in
that direction is full of contradictions
and absurdities. The bill recently fav
orably reported to the house to reor
ganize our whole financial system is
being quietly pushed by the New York
bank ring. Congressman Hill of Con
necticut recently got. printed in the
Record a . report made by a .' special
committee of the New York chamber of
commerce. It Is .signed by a long
list of presidents qf . New York banks,
among them August Belmont and
George W. Williams of the Chemical
National bank. The whole list of
names , is very familiar to all those
who have any interest in the money
question.; ir
One of their first statements is a
contradiction of all that they have,
said during the last ten years. Every
one knows that these men have "been
declaring ever since 1893 that the
coinage of silver must be stopped or
ruin to every . financial and business
interest ( would result. Long before
that, they fought, the coinage of the
silver bullion in the treasury and were
able to keep, that mass of silver lying
there perfectly useless while the na
tional debt mounted up by millions.
Now they- say:
It seems to your committee that .
it is part of good judgment and
wise procedure, having on hand a
large and burdensome stock of
silver bullion to-utilize it in such
forms as will keep it in circula
tion either in coin or small bills
represented by bullion deposited,
for in- this way, at least, it can be
made of some use, and through
small coinage the risk of its re- -turn
to the treasury in volume at
unseasonable and perilous periods
Is largely reduced. The rapid
growth of the 1 country in trade
and population will" enable it to
absorb and keep, in circulation a
much larger per capita volume of
silver coinage than now exists,
while the enormous increase in
our stock of gold, which will prob
ably continue,, will be, adding an
ample gold reserve to offset the
issue of silver coinage."
That is only a slight, modification
of what the populists and other men
who fought the national bank conspiracies-
for years have said. Of
course the heresy' of "redeeming" sil
ver runs through this statement, but
otherwise it is just what these same
mien denounced as "repudiation", dur
ing ' the last two . presidential v cam-
paigns. . '
Then these men adopt the old catch
phrase of "national credit" with which
they fooled the voter for so long a
time. That phrase was worked for
years until every little banker who
followed Wall street and the unlearned
generally, came to worship the term
just' as the Chinaman worships his
joss. "Credit" in their confused
minds was something high, holy and
upon which the life of the government
wholly depended. If one asked 'these
spell-binders what credit was, it drove
them wild. They had no idea on the
subject themselves. All they knew
was that the phrase had been adopted
by the clearing house ring and that
was all sufficient "for them. In this
report these Wall street bank pirates
make use again of this term. They
say:
. For the government of no civil
ized nation can permanently en
joy the best of credit when it is
sues ove. five hundred millions of
currency for circulation based
upon a metal not the standard
unit of value, compels the people .
to accept such issues at their face
value in gold, and refuses to com
mit itself to a pledge to pay gold
for such Issues when payment is
demanded by the holder thereof
They may think their credit is of
the best, but their, own people will
not so regard it, and the world at
large will not so regard it.
That is1 to say that the national
credit is in danger. But these same
men have been bragging that the
credit of the UnitedStates was the
best in the world. They have pointed
to the fact that English consuls were
selling at a discount while the bonds
of the United States were away above
par. This Wall street gang are not
at all abashed at a contradiction like
that. If their attention is called to
It they will reply: "Oh! that's busi
ness, you know." ;
No "credit" is simply power to
borrow. "Do these financial .pirates ex
pect the American " people to believe
that this government with its 76,000,
000 of people and its' $100,000,000,000
of wealth will ever be unable to bor
row a few hundred millions ? "We
must preserve the credit of the na
tion," these men cry, and every mullet
head at once believes that the time
is near at hand when the United States
will be unable to borrow-a few mil
lions. ; 1 ' '
What these men advocate is to make
the silver dollars and silver certifi
cates redeemable on . demand in . gold,
but in the body of their report occurs
the following astonishing statement:
When the strain is put upon the
system, when gold is needed and
tion, while gold is being hoarded,
then confidence grows weak, and
the system becomes a rope of sand.
It would seem to any man of com
mon sense that that is an unanswer
able reason why silver certificates and
silver dollars should not be made re
deemable in gold.
These men express great fear lest
the silver dolars and silver certifi
cates should fall below par in gold.
But there never was a moment when
a silver dollar or certificate was not
equal to gold. When the republican
senators were wont to get up on the
floor of the senate and talk about a
50-cent silver dollar, they were al
ways met with the offer to take all the
silver dollars that they could produce
at 99?i cents, but never one of them
accepted the offer. Silver certificates
are at a premium over gold in every
mart of trade in all Europe today.
When this writer was in England he
got at the Bank of England quite a
little premium for his silver certifi
cates oyer the American gold that he
had when he went to exchange it for
English money. The premium is just
equal 'to the ; difference In the cost of
transportation of gold and paper
money. As long as the English, Ger
mans or French have to buy bread
stuffs and other aillcles from the
United States not one of them will take
a fraction less for any kind of Ameri
can money that is legal tender here
than its face value. The reason is
that he can send it here and pay for
the goods that he must have.
The silver dollar is at a parity with
gold because it is a legal tender for all
debts and dues except interest on the
public debt or where other money is
specified in the contract. If these
men really wanted to keep it at a
parity with gold, instead of making it
redeemable on demand in some other
kind of money, they would advocate
abolishing all the discriminations
made against it and ask that it be
made a full legal tender. Then all
the powers of Wall street and all the
world combined, could not depress it
the hundredth part of one per cent.
No one knows that better than Bel
mont and Williams. They are advo
cating a scheme that they know is
fraudulent. Instead of being honest
and wanting honest money, they are
dishonest and want money that will
enable them to defraud the people.
They are financial villains worse men
than. the highway robber, for they add
hypocrisy to their stealing.
ENGLISH COURTS IN IRELAND
A great deal has been said lately in
the fdispatches about the unrest in
Ireland Why there is unrest there is
plain to be seen from a recent occur
rence in the English parliament. John
Dillon read an account of how justice
was administered by the English mag
istrates. It appears tl at a lot of peo
pie - were arrested for using coercion
against an old woman who sold milk.
The old woman and her husband were
brought up as witnesses for the crown
They both swore positively that there
had been , no coercion and that they
were at peace with all their neighbors
Mr. Dillon read the proceedings of the
court which wras as follows:
Ultimately Mr. Murphy (prose
cuting, attorney) asked the court
to commit these two crown wit
nesses for contempt, which was
acordingly done. At this stage the
court adjourned. Ultimately the
verdict of the court was to the
following effect: "The defendants
are acquitted of all charges against
them, which are dismissed with
out prejudice, , and they are ac
cordingly held to bail and sent
for three months' imprisonment to
Limerick jail."
That is the. kind of justice that is
meted out by Imperial courts in Ire
land. What does the reader suppose
they do in the Philippines? '
THE BIGGEST MAN
Who is the bigest man in the United
States? It is not Roosevelt; it is not
Hanna; it is not Morgan. These pay
a little attention to the will of con
gress and the constitution. It may be
very little, but they do not openly and
avowedly repudiate them. The big
rest man in the United States is Fred
Funston. He waives constitutional
rights aside with contempt. Fred Is
"It." The constitution says that con
gress shall make no , law prohibiting
the right of petition, but Fred Funston
says: " , a . " - V
It would have been. more of an
act of justice had we hanged some
of the people .who signed the re
cent petition ' to congress asking
that we confer with the Filipino
leaders in an effort to secure
peace. . ;
.Fred is i bigger than the constitu
tion, the house, the senate and all the
people combined. ' Fred is the biggest
man. There can be no doubt of that.
Any man who does not say so is a
"copperhead" and a "traitor." So that
matter is settled.
England and Japan entered Into an
alliance and France and Russia en
tered into another, and now President
Loubet. is going to St. Petersburg to
see the czar. - After the European
powers get all of their; alliances made
what will happen next? Will Russia
and France take a whack at England
and Japan? If they do, how will the
PUT A STOP TO IT. j
Some time ago the editor of The In
dependent received a letter from an
army officer whom he used to know
on these plains years ago. It was a
confidential letter such as one old
friend would write to another, & sort
of heart to heart talk. ; This officer ha3
served his country faithfully for "many
years. He has marched over the hot
alkali plains of Arizona and camped
in the snowdrifts of the Dakotas when
the thermometer was thirtv degrees
below zero. He is a West Point man,
but never had any pull at Washing
ton, so his promotions have been slow
and far between. At last, though get
ting towards the retiring limit by age,
he was sent to the Philippines. There
he has done his duty ni he has every
where else. This letter has colored the
writing in The Independent, although
from the confidence in which it was
written, none of it could be used.
From that time on the editor has been
saying, don't waste pity on the Fili
pinos,' but remember the sufferings of
our own men in those tropical islands.
There Is an article in the last Cen
tury magazine written by an army sur
geon that depicts the suffering of our
men there. It is not the fighting, but
the steaming," sweltering climate and
the fevers, the horrible sores, the dis
eases that the -soldiers contract which
make up a 'tale V of horrors"- .never
equalled in the history of .war before.
All knowledge of . these sufferings are
kept from the American people by a
strict military censorship. But our
boys are dying there the most horri
ble deaths, in a war of conquest in
which there is neither glory, honor
or any other recompense. Men with
compound fractures of arms or legs
are jolted along in bull carts and oth
ers burning with fever and eaten up
with vermin, suffer agonies that no
tongue can tell. Then they die die
by the hundreds, as the depleted regi
ments that have returned show. Oth
ers amil all these horrors lose the.'r
reason and are sent home raving
maniacs. There have been 120,000 men
all told sent to the Philippines, 40,000
are still on duty there, but how many
have come back? '
Tfcc should be clubs organized all
over these states ;to make constant
protest against this torture and jdeath
of our young men. Where are the
ladies who so sympathized with our
boys when the war first broke .out?
How Is it that they have all become
silent? Have we so degenerated -that
even the women of our'land no longer
sympathize with suffering? -How
many of our boys lie to day In nipa
huts dyingslowly dying from vfever.J
dysentery and the' horrible diseases of
the Orient? Is there no one to care
for all this? What ls to be gained by
this needless murder of thousands of
our young men and the desolation of
thousands of American homes?
Against these awful horrors The
Independent protests. For the waste
of money it is not so much concerned
although, tens of thousands of men
will ave to toil in the fields for years
to come to pay the cost of it all, but
against this needless and , purposeless
suffering it cries out. General Chaffee
says we will have to keep 50,000 men
in those islands for at least five years
more. Remember that, and then count
up if you can the agony and death
that it means. And what is it for?
It weakens ,us in a military way. If
we should get Into a war with any
foreign nation the first places to be
attacked would be the Philippines,
Hawaii, Porto Rico or those Danish
islands that we have just bought. It
means that we must keep up a large
navy and a grea. standing army. The
trade and commerce of the Philippines,
even if it were necessary to hold them
to get it, is not one-tenth of the trade
we will have with free Cuba. How
can any honest man sleep in quiet
when knows that there are 0,000
American boys wading through rice
swamps, marenmg over steaming
plains, dying in temporary hospitals.
From every home in this Jand, from
every man and every woman, theie
should go up a cry: "Stop this. We
will have no more of it."
ECONOMIC IDIOTS ,
The capitalists "who , recommended
extreme saving on the part of the
workingmen and. the economists like
Edward Atkinson as well as the col
lege professors who send out formu
las of food stuffs upon which work
ingmen can subsist for 6 cents a day,
altogether forget the other end of the
proposition. . Judge Simon Baldwin
advises workingmen that they should
adhere to a less expensive and more
vegetarian dietarythan is now com
mon in this country, and should be
less, extravagant In furnishing their
homes (mentioning lace curtains par
ticularly as an example of needless,
but common expenditure) is along the
same line. Suppose that the working
men should take this ' advice, what
would become of the market for beef
and pork and goods produced by the
workers in the lace factories and j the
employes In the packing houses, i to
gether with the employes In a thou
sand and one other trades and occu
pations dependent for a market uon
If their advice were taken, would pro
duce a panic and hard times just as
long as such a systeti was in vogue.
The truth is that these men and
they are the ruling class in this coun
try know nothing about the funda
mentals of political economy. When
ever their advice has been taken,
wreck and ruin has followed. Spq
their work In 1873 and in 1893. Then
reflect upon the misery that followed.
Years of suffering and distress. This
same class of men are at mork In con
gress and if they succeed In making
silver dollars redeemable in gold and
establish their Wildcat banking, more
ruin will follow. Yet they strut
around claiming that they are the
repositories of all economic knowl
edge. When all men are able to pro
cure all the necessities and some of
the luxuries of life, trade will be good
and just as soon as any considerate
portion find themselves in such con
ditions that they cannot afford to get
them, then trade Is bad. No class of
the citizenship can be permanently
impoverished without affecting every
other class. Mankind is a brother
hood and plutocrats cannot overcome
the laws of nature. Whenever they
try it, punishment sure and swift al
ways follows.
THE REPUBLICAN FLAN
The republicans have at last out
lined a policy for the Philippines in
the bill submitted to the senate. Af
ter providing for a census which ic
will be utterly impossible to make,
they continue the government of the
islands by the carpet-bag commission
as it had been heretofore run. Tho
next statement is of the same kind
that the party has indulged in for
the last few years, full of hypocrisy
and cant and so constructed that it
may mean anything. They say:
That the Philippine commis
sion is hereby authorized and di
rected, in its discretion, to con
tinue to establish additional mu
nicipal and provisional govern
ments in the Philippines with pop
ular representative government,
so far and so fast as communities
in such civil divisions are capa
ble, fit and ready for the same,
the qualification of electors in
elections in municipalities and
provinces to be the same as now
provided by law for electors in
. municipal elections; and said
Philippines commission, when
ever they find other male inhabi
tants of lawful age in such mu
nicipalities and provinces capable,
fit and ready for such extension,
shall include the same among the
electors, with the purpose of grad
ually extending to municipalities
and provinces permanent popular
representative government.
"Popular representative govern
ment." What do they mean by that?
The Taft commission has been at that
sort of business for a long time. To
get men to accept office under that
sort of "popular representative gov
ernment," it has had to resort to coer
cion and heavy penalties. All the
time there has been another govern
ment in these places which all the In
habitants respected and obeyed and
as soon as the troops disappeared be
came the open and public government.
There is not a line in the bill that pro
vides that the Filipinos shall ever
have a government instituted by
themselves, and all these phrases nre
used to cover up the fact that the re
publicans expect to . establish a gov
ernment by forpe and maintain it by
a military power. The sweet phra?c3
used are pure cant and hyporcisy. That
is the republican plan and it me.ikis
50,000 troops in the Philippines for a
generation to come. How do you
like it? ' .JL
President J. B. Duke of the tobacco
trust has been casting goo goo eyes
at the French government's monopoly
in ,the weed. Tobacco Is one of tt ei
chief sources of French revenue and
shows an enormous increase each
year. Mr. uuKe onerea to deposit a
sum guaranteeing the government a
profit considerably greater than pres
ent returns, but the French were wf raid
to accept.
The Washington Post things that
the navy department need3 a clean
ing worse than the Augean stables
when Hercules undertook the job, but
it doubts whether the new secretary
of the navy is equal to the task. It 13
the opinion of The Independent that
Moody will not even undertake the job
and that the old bureaus will smell
just as badly two years from now as
they ever did. .
Being afraid to let the people know
the facts in regard to matters In the
Philippines, Senator Lodge issued an
order that no reporters were to be ad
mitted to the sessions of the commit
tee with the exception of one represen
tative of each of the press associations.
The press associations are monopol
istic concerns under the control of
Wall street and their representatives
could be trusted not to let anything
leak out that would be antagonistic
to the established doctrines of imper
ialism. No such thing as this sort of
suppression of news was ever before
attempted In Washington. It Is one
of tho concomitants of Imperialism,
and we will have more and more of -