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About The Nebraska independent. (Lincoln, Nebraska) 1896-1902 | View Entire Issue (May 8, 1902)
THE NEBRASKA INDEPENDENT May 8, 1902 tbt Hebraska 'Independent Lincoln, 1Ubrask,i PRESSE BLOC, CORNER I3TH AND N STS FCBUBRED KVRflT ThCBSDAT $1.00 PER YEAR IN ADVANCE Wbn kln rtmltttncei do et Uv moo with bw a(oaei, poitmtttri, t. to forwarded by them. Tbty (rqntly .forft or remit different e mount the wet left with them, ad the abeeriber felli to get prorr eredit. . , . , . , : ' Address ell eommoofeetione, tad meke all draft, nooey 'er, etc., payable to Zh tltbrasha Tndtptndtnt, Lincoln, Neb. Anooymom comtnunlctlon will not be no ticed. Kejncted munuicrlpte will not bo re arned. T, IL .Tibbies, editor-in-chief of The Independent, is pretending to take a three weeks' vacation on hjs farm In Cuming county. As a matter of fact, he will he "grinding out copy most of the time. Correspondents who desire their communlcatloriH to reach him directly should address him at Han croft, Neb. The Religious Editor. The strikes that are taking place ell ovr tho country would be more accurately described If they were called "bread riots." ' The P Street Idiot, after profound and prolonged cogitation, has come to the following conclusion: "The truth about the 'water cure' Is that the Filipinos arc surprised at Us mild neea." yy J. Sterling Morton undertook to re establish the law of primogeniture and entailment In the disposal of his real estate In Nebraska City. He was truo to his plutocratic convictions even In 1 If one want to find "a law-abiding citizen" It would be useless to look among the millionaires and trust magnates. Every one of them are law violators. The law-abiding citizen is found okly among tho poor and lowly. In view of the lynching of many Italians in this country and the long time that has always elapsed before that government could ever obtain any satisfaction, the prompt action of the young king In relenslng tho Amer ican officers makes the act all the more gracious. Down in the eastern states where the millionaires are very numerous, bread riots and strikes are also num erous. Out here In Nebraska where we have no millionaires there are no such dleturbanees. Millionaires and paupers. The two classes are always found together. , There never was a time when so many strikes and strikes of such Im mense proportions In one day as there were on Thursday of last week, it seems that the whole wage-working rrasses In the east had discovered all at once that the result of the laot election was an '"empty' dinner pa!l and so they went on a strike. "Ought a man to be taxed for Im proving his property and thereby Im proving the city?" Pertinent Inquiries in "Justice." Wilmington. Del. lie eouldu't escape it even under tho single tax. Tut a $2,500 building on n $2,f00 lot and both together are "worth, more than $.".000 but it Isn't the building that has Increased in value. , , , '" The officers of the cruiser Chicago, vho were fined and Imprisoned Sn Venice for a disturbance on the streets, were pardoned by the ktng. The oU cers deny that they wore drunk and ty the fracas began by the accidental -"upsetting of a table. They say that a mob charged upon them and that they defended themselves the best that they could. , Captain Clark, whom Roosevelt se lected, as the naval officer to repre pent him at th coronation of King Edward, has declined the proffered honor. Captain Clark helped Schley fight the battle of Santiago bay and evidently felt that he would be sally out of place helping to crown a king. fo he put up the pica of poverty and asked to he excused. Neither In this country nor England have the great fortunes come from land owning. Ten years ago the land owners of Britain were the most dis tressed of all the business community. There are mighty fortunes in England, but with the exception of three or four, 11 ko the Duke of Westminster, none of these fortunes came from landlordism. In this country the land lord fortunes can be counted on the fingers of the hands. But there are over 5,000 millionaires and perhaps two billionaires. With the exception of less than a dozen, they are not Urge land holders. If the landlords of this country were the millionaires, then It would be less hard to accept the single tax theory as a remedy for all our woes, akmy ornciRs The cry that the army la being as saulted Is a false cry. It is not the array, nor .its officers, many of whom have grown old and gray-haired in the service, with long and honorable records of braver), gallantry and hard service. Hardly one among them has a dollar outside of his salary. They have not been money-grabbers and robbers of the poor, but servants of the whole i people. Some of them are men of eminent scientific attainments, inventors v In the ; field of applied science, giving their Inventions to the government, which, it they had re tained and patented, would have made them-eminently wealthy. It is not at them that The Independent would hurl its anathemas. It is the system ot Imperialism and the orders that they have received from Washington. ' Since the war of conquest was flr3t begun by an imperial edict of th? president, for the constitution de clares that congress shall declare war and make peace, and congress never declared war on the Filipinos, The In dependent has not ceased to tell the people what effect such a war would have upon the army and the people of the United States. The acts at which the people are now horrified are the necessary result of the system. They will constantly recur as long as such a war is propagated. No power In all the world in all the past has been able to prevent them and no power in the future will be able to do so. A i marked by the Increase of man's wants, and if the permanent effect of rural free delivery should be to cur tall the number of articles sold, it would undoubtedly be pernicious. It would destroy a great market for goods of many kinds, and be detri mental to the consumers as well The chief end of man is not to ac cumulate and hoard money, but to accumulate and enjoy and consume goods (from an economic standpoint, of course) and anything which tends to decrease the number of wants with out supplying them, la a step back ward. But from a more restricted point of view, this curtailment may temporarily be a good thing. Itjmay put an end to the senseless buying m credit of things not really needed, simply because they are cheap, or seem to be. And in the long run, af ter conditions become settled under the readjustment of affairs, it may be that the retail buyer can order from a" catalogue just as skilfully as the average merchant does now. So far the results of free delivery seem to be beneficial. There is less liquor drunk, more letters written, more papers read, less time lost, more production accomplished; It is diffi cult to see how increased facilities for transmission of Intelligence and the distribution of goods can be harmful on the whole. Changes of any kind always hurt somebody, but after the readjustment comes the real benefits can be known. The lntroduc- foreign army bent on conquest, 7,000 j tion of steam railroads ruined stage miles from home and the restraints j coaching and canal transportation and of law and civilized life, will degen- overland freighting; but nobody is erate. Nothing that we can do will stop the degeneration. That has been the history of the world. It will con tinue to be Its history In the future. What has happened is Just what The Independent predicted would happen. It will continue as long as the im perial policy of the government con tinues. It Is the republican political power at Washington that Is respon sible for all thla and not army officers. At their heads the people should hurl their anathemas and not at the army. THRIR DAT IN COURT There used to be a good deal of talk In the magazines and papers about what they called English and Ameri can fair play. We don't hear anything about that now. That Is one .of the things that passed away with the Dec laration of Independence. But there are a few senators left who still arc Imbued with that Idea. Tho country has been flooded for three years with the military aide of affairs in the Philippines, but no Filipino has been allowed to be heard they have no day in court. Now Carmack, Patter son and a few more of the senators are saying that fair play demands that the Filipinos should be heard, that they should have their day in court. They want Agulnaldo, Lopez and one or two of the Filipino gen erals to be sent for and let them pre sent their side. They also want Major Gardener subpoenaed. But there is no fair play in an Imperialist and Lodge and his confreres will have none of It. They are going to try this casa and allow but one side to be heard. KUKAI. FKKE DKMYKUY The effect of mall order houses and rural free delivery upon merchants In country towns Is assuming one phase which presents different aspects when viewed from different standpoints. The simple proposition that mall or der houses and free delivery are bad because they deprive the local mer chant of some sales, Is not sound eco nomically. The consumer has somo rights to be considered. If he can procure goods that he needs from the mail order houses for less than hs can from the local merchant, It is cer tainly his right to do so. And it Is no argument to say that he sends his money out of the state, because the local merchant does that when he buys goods. Or, by a parity of reasoning, it would be pernicious for the farmer to sell his corn to a local consumer, because if he should sell abroad it v.'ould bring money into the state. But there is another feature. Mer chants tell The Independent that it is not the sales of mall order houses that seriously affect their trade, but rather the absence of rural customers from the local stores. "It's like this," said a furniture dealer, "I sell a mirror for $2 which some mall order house might duplicate for less money, so that af ter paying express the buyer would save a few cents. It isn't the sale cf that mirror .at hurts me. but the fact that the buyer doesn't come to my store at all. If he had come In to buy a mirror, while there he would doubtless see a rocking chair that would be 'just the thing for gran'ma, a couch that he'd been wanting for ever so long, an ice-chest that wife had been harping about for a year or two. and so on. It isn't on the things he knows he wants and buys from mail order houses that we lose money: but its on the things that he doesn't know he wants until he comes Into the store that we mak a living. And if he doesn't need to come to town after his mail, and buys what he knows he wants from the mall order houses, then we 1 lose a big share tt our usual trade that nobody els gets. ., 1 :-v Now4 the advance of civilization. Is clamoring to go back to these primi tive means. QUICK It DEMOCRATS There are some mighty queer demo crats down In Douglas county. Many of them, of course, are the "salt of tha earth" and are democrats because they believe In democratic principles; but every now and then one of them set? his jaw to wagging In a manner that would indicate that he Is training with the wrong crowd. At a recent meeting of the Jack sonlan culb Will H. Herdman cham pioned the cause of the beef trust which was certainly bad practice for a professed democrat; but he "went further, and championed the Fowler currency bill. Herdman is one of a number of Jacksonlans who have been bery energetic lately In having the club expel or suspend certain South Omaha members who would not sup port the democratic nominee for mayor of South Omaha. According to his lights the true test of democracy is In voting the ticket yellow dog or what not; but; belief in party prin ciples doesn't count; In fact, a demo crat of the Herdman stripe can hold with the republicans on every vital point, talk pompously about being "i democrat a Jacksonlan democrat" and probably secretly vote the re publican ticket. If The Independent mistakes not this particular Jackson lan is now holding a federal job. Is it possible that; colors his views about the meat trust and the Fowler bill? "The greatest amount of feathers with the least squawking" is the only excuse ever attempted in behalf of Indirect taxes "crooked taxation, r.s Thomas G. Shearman terms it. But there is no justification for the system. The taxpayer does not contribute in proportion to the benefits received or according to his ability to contribute. He pays according to what he ou sumes. As Mr. De Hart has well shown, the respective positions of the republican party and the democratic party on the tariff question amount simply to another case of tweedledum and tweedledee, with the advantage, if any. In favor of tweedledum. With both great parties favoring crooked taxation. It cannot be much advantage whether the crook bends one way or the other. And, as Mr. De Hart con tends, the fight from now on must be between an equitable income tax on the one hand and crooked taxation on the other. The day has passed whan much enthusiasm can be aroused over a protective tariff with incidental rev enue or a revenue tariff with inci dental protection. The real issue is between crooked taxation and just taxation. General MacArthur, In defending his position that the army was in the Philippines to establish republican in stitutions, acknowledged under the cross-examination of Mr. Culberson that the rights of free speech, to bear arms and trial by jury could not be granted to the Filipinos. The amount of. republican institutions teft after these things were eliminated would not have troubled old King George III. All such talk as that of Genejral MacArthur is pure hypocrisy. Secretary Root is the first cabinet officer who was ever proved to be a common liar by the official documents In his own office. He reprimanded Miles for saying that war in the Phil ippines had been prosecuted with "marked severity, and declared that the Filipinos had been treated with great consideration. The documents that the senate, forced from him show that; when he reprimanded Miles and made the statement he was lying and knew that he was lying. RKTRIBUTION The smallpox Is spread all over the United States and there are thousands of new cases everywhere. The physi cians all declare, that. It Is becoming more virulent. This Is part of the retribution inflicted upon this country for its wars of conquest in the orient. But Itjs only part. There are over 1.C00 known cases of leprosy, how many unknown can only be guessed at. Smallpox ' has sometimes been called a filth disease, but it attacks with impartiality people ojt the most cleanly habits, living in houses with all the modern sanitary improvements and those who live in the slums. There are a lot of doctors in this country who ought to be hung to the first tree or lamp post to which they could be dragged. There are not many of that kind, but they have been encouraging the people not to rely on vacination. Recently there was a family living in a modern house with all sanitary im provements that could be devised, neat as a pin from top to bottom, where all had been vaccinated except one young lady who had refused when' the rest were vaccinated. The other day she broke out with smallpox. No one knows where the disease came from. None of the others had it, but the house was placarded and quarantined to the great annoyance and cost of every inmate. Chicago and every city in the west is saturated with smallpox. But not a member of the Chicago police has had smallpox for years, although their occupation brings them in contact with it all the time. They are all vaccinated. Physicians look forward with dread to next winter, as they ex pect the disease to take on a" most virulent form by that time. We should have the German system in this coun try and compel every person to be vaccinated. There is no smallpox in Germany. THE HORROR OF IT It appears that the "water cure" was not an invention of the Maccabebes. It was brought, to the Philippines by the Spanish and . was one of the tor tures used by the inquisition. The records which have come down to us from the middle ages contain many accounts of the application of this torture. It was applied to the Mar quise de Brlnvllllers in France to force a confession from her in July, 1676, and a full description of all the hor rible details lie before us. After giv ing an account of the effect of tho first ten pints i of water the account proceeds as follows: The torture by the injection of water was renewed, whereupon she ' cried several times in great agony, -beseeching :the mercy of heaven Again admonished to confess, she said they might kill her, but she would not lay the guilt of perjury upon her soul. The torture wa3 repeated; she was again convulsed, but was silent. ... The torture was thrice repeated, but she spoke not, upon the third time she an swered only with a deep groan and an ejaculation to heaven. Upon which she was unbound, re moved from the rack and placed before the fire in the customary manner. " That Is the sort of work that officers of the United States army have been engaged in in the Philippines. The miserable creatures who edit the re publican dailies are defending and apologizing for such work as that! The same vengeance that was visited upon Spain and France will be visited upon these states unless a reversal of the course of government is speedily accomplished. It is as certain to come as there Is a God in heaven. There is no escape from the penalties for violation of the eternal laws of jus tice which He has established. Does Justice Brown now look upon his work with satisfaction? No such, things were reported from the Philip pines until after the protection of the constitution was removed from the islands by the supreme court. Cruel nnd unusual punishments are forbid den by the constitution, but the brown men of the far east cannot appeal to it. They have been placed by Justice Brown beyond its protection. Oh, tha horror of it all! The constitution must be re-established. Get out and work as you nev er worked before. If you do not it will not be many years until you will find yourself in the same situation as the Filipinos now are. j orably to the banking interests as it is, me DanKers pay no more attention to it than if ; It were N not on the statute books at all. The law in the first place was drawn by bankers and for bankers. Sinco that time'they have grown more bold and piratical and repudiate and vio late the very law that they them selves caused to be enacted. What meat do these Caesars feed upon that they have grown so great? The hum ble toilers of the land have to obey the law. If they are caught in any violations of it they find no mercy In the courts. But trust magnates and national bankers openly violate the law and trample it beneath their feet. There may come a time when thesa robbers will need the protection of the law and need it bad. What will be the reply of an enraged people to their appeal? WHERE TO SEEK THEM "Why not seek our taxes (pub lic revenue) where the speculator gathers his riches namely from land values?" Pertinent Inquiries :, in "Justice," Wilmington, Del. Why not seek them, then, from pub lie franchises that it where the spec ulator gathers his riches. The value of a railroad does not come from its right-of-way. It comes from its right to "charge all the traffic will bear." The land is necessary, of course, but the value of a railroad must be as certained by its earnings not the rental value of its right of way. Even pressure of population and Increased business can be followed by a decline in the value of a railroad if the man agement be wasteful, thus reducing tho net income. But the value of a farm is estimated by reference to others near it and what it would produce in net income under reasonable management. A kid-glove agriculturist might lose all kinds of money attempting fancy farming on a quarter section, but the value of his farm would increase rather than decrease. Not so with r. railroad. The two respond to opposing eco nomic laws and no scheme of land values can ever reconcile the differ ences.. The law of decreasing returns holds good in agriculture; and increas ing returns in railroading. That Is to say, within reasonable limits, a doubling of expense will not double the returns from agriculture. But In railroading, within reasonable limits, the business can be doubled without doubling the expenses. Look Out for things That are Gut in Two. Some merchants are alway.s advertising cut-in-two-prices, but tlje facts are that genuine cut-in-two-prices are as few as cut-in-two-men. We make no such claims about our prices, but simply stand on the' propo sition that we can save, you from Sl2 to 5 a suit as compared with your home prices. Furthermore we will be glad to send you samples of the cloth in different grades of Suits for Men and Boys and then leave the matter to your own judgment. Our mail order business was never so large as now, which inclines us to think that the people must be satisfied. We will be pleased to send you our sample book and full particulars if you will send us your address on a postal card. THE BANKING PIRATES Perhaps a hundred times in the last five years the editor of The Indepen dent has declared that the national banks had practically no reserves at all and that they were doing business in direct violation of law. The articles by Hon. Flavius J. Van Vorhls which have been printed from time to tlmo in these columns have given the fig ures from the official reports of the comptroller of the currency to prove that the assertion was true. Partic ular attention Is called to the article from his pen In this issue. The comptroller is of course a crea ture of the secretary of the treasury, and the secretary Is a creature of tho president, so these financial pirates are permitted to constantly violate the law and thereby create a condi tion that threatens all the founda tions of business in the whole United States, by the permission of Presi dent Roosevelt. The law is bad . J enough, but as bad as it is and as fav- j IT MAKES US LAUGH .The dailies have had a good deal to say during the last few days about maintaining republican principles, j Here's one who would like to know what those principles are. It makes the ordinary man laugh to read the last republican platform in connec tion with the events of the last two years. Great trusts have come into being under the fostering care of tho republican party during that time and others have extended their operations without let or hinderance. But the following is what the republican plat form says: We condemn all conspiracies and combinations intended to re strict business, to create monop olies, to limit production or to control prices, and favor such leg islation as will effectually restrain and prevent all such abuses, pro tect and promote competition, and secure the rights of producers, la borers and all who are engaged in industry and commerce. The adoption of that plank was the vilest hypocrisy. The men who drafted it and the convention that adopted it never Intended that it should be of any use except to catch mullet heads. Where is the promised legis lation "to restrain such abuses?' The congress elected under that platform has been in session for months and months and is now about to expire, but not a republican has offered a bill j to restrain the trusts. The conven tion that adopted it was composed of trust magnates and corporation man agers. and every man of common sens knew that the declaration was a fraud and a farce. The words of the plank are very sweet and catching, but still when we reflect upon what the republicans have done since then in regard to trusts, it makes us laugh to read it. The two greatest reform editors of the United States, Bryan of The Com moner and Tibbies of The Indepen dent, are now doing the Cincinnatus act. There are hundreds of editors in the United States who would be ben efitted by living even a few months on the farm. With some mud on their boots, hayseed In their hair, and good fresh air in their lungs, their brains might resume the normal state and their thinking apparatus get to working better. What The Independent has been saying for more than a year, the east ern dailies are just finding out. One o them remarked last week:' "The enterprise of the country has been overinfiated and credit overextended, and a check must be applied if serious trouble is to be avoided." That is what The Independent has been say ing for months as all ? its readers know. Those who have I followed lis advice will be safe in their cyclone cellars when the tornado comes. MENTION THE j INDEPENDENT. I Lincoln, Neb. ENUNCIATION AMU APPLICATION There seems to be a growing diverg ence between the enunciation of prin ciples and the application of them between stating a rule as fundament?. and then seeking some hair-splitting excuse for claiming this thing an that as exceptions. In the politica and economic world no law could uo framed which1 would be beneficial at least, directly so to every individual In a negative way, then, the law which produces the least suffering to the smallest number, Is the best law. Or stated affirmatively, the rule should be: "The greatest good to the great est number." By implication this i the basis of the idea that the majority should rule, because the presumption is that the majority will know what is best for it, and rule accordingly. A political party to succeed and to be a permanent power for good, ought to adopt certain, well-denned prin ciples; and when given power should apply those principles without regard to the fact that possibly some, of Its members might be injured by the ap nlication. But the tendency Is al ways strong for individuals to throw r,artv nrinclDles to the winds and c V adopt the motto, "Everybody for him self and the devil take the hindmost, especially when the application of party principles might appear to be detrimental to the interests of tho particular individuals. The republican party Is today the greatest object lesson of this tendency to announce nrinciples with a. blare of trumpets and then to ignore them in substantially every particular when it comes to the application. Its so called protective tariff idea can scarce ly be called a principle, for no one knows exactly what it includes; an.l it is notorious that our tariff laws are simply the result of log-rolling and sectional struggles "everybody for himself." etc., and "when you're git- tin', git plenty," or "get all you can and keep all you get" The idea of the greatest good to the greatest num ber does not enter into the application of the protective tariff that is never thought of except In campaigns. But the republican party is not alone In this tendency to preach one thtnjr and practice another when the pinch comes. Populists and democrats in congress right along forget the prin ciples they preached from the stump and advocate something opposed to those principles at times, because they believe their constituents, or some cf them, might suffer If the true rule wer Invoked. For example. Congressman Stark last winter sent out a letter n which he made a savage attack on tho parcels post bill, not so much becaus some republican deviltry was lurking behind it, as because a parcels post would enable the farmers of his dis trict to buy goods from Sigel, Cooper & Co., or Montgomery, Ward & Co., at a less price than they would have to nay the local merchant. Here wasl a measure essentially populistic in principle, opposed by a populist. And he was not alone in the opposition. A number of the Fourth district populist papers took it up and combatted the bill. " because it was a parcels post measure and not because it might have some bad features. During the winter The Independent has observed that the populists and democrats at Washington were for a time at sea re garding the Cuban bill. Each one. instead of saying, "My vote shall be in accord with democratic or pop ulistic principles," was on the anx ious seat, between the devil and the deep blue sea, not knowing which way to turn for fear of " incurring the dis pleasure of a handful of beet growers In hi3 respective state. Since the meat trust agitation began and suggestions were made ,' to - take the tartl off dressed meats, the Washington Star gives what purports to be an inter view with Congressman Shallenberge. in which' he skilfully avoids saying anything in particular, but leaves ti e impression that he would oppose It because it might injure certain inter ests in his district And prominent populists in Nebraska have been hear I to urge that we drop agitation of tb? meat trust question because "farmeti are getting high prices for their cat tle" and might vote the republican ticket if we pushed it too far. It is high time we get back to fir ft principles and stand by them. If certain thing Is right when applied ;o the other fellow, it ought to be right when applied to us. And If we intend to desert our professed principles th moment they are to be applied to us. better drop the whole thing and join the republican party, which knows no principle but selfishness; whose lead ers believe in appealing to the belly instead of to the head. A parcels post . would s undoubted! y injure some merchants in the smaller towns; but it would be of great ben efit to a hundred times more people. Absolute free trade in sugar ro!g!t hurt the beet sugar factories al though that is open to doubt but ev ery cent reduction in the price of su gar would mean a saving of about $2 to $3 a year to each family. Taking the tariff off meats would doubtless do no good, but leaving it on doesn't. THE NEW LAWMAKERS The New York clearing house ha openly declared itself the lawmaker in regard to banks and reserve?. Th open violation of the law that con gress made has been known to th managers for a long time, in fact ev ery member of the New York clearing house is a criminal, but the thin?: has gone so far that the manager? b gin to fear that the cob house will fall down, so the authorities got to gether the other day and passed tha following resolution: Every institution which may hereafter be permitted to clear through a member of this associa tion shall be required to keep in its vaults such percentage of cash reserve to its deposits as the clear ing house committee may deter mine. They do not say that the cash re serves shall be what the law requires, but such as they, the lawmakers, sha.l determine. After all. this Is perhan.' he best way. The people might i well be Informed that the idea that we have a lawmaking body In eongres that can pass laws to govern banks i a fiction. The men who have for years made the laws on that subject are thj members of the clearing house govern- ng committee. THE BOYS OF '76 One of the pictures that used to b n thousands of American homes wis of an old gray-haired hero of the revolution, charging up a hill. By his side was one boy with a musket and another little fellow beating a drum. low a look at that picture used to fire our. hearts .when we were hoy. The boy with the musket was wounded and the blood showed in the picture. but he was charging on. while the lit tle fellow with the drum, too small to carry a musket, cheered them by beating on it with all his might. That represented America 126 years a?o. Now It is represented by Genera! Smith who orders that all the boys in a whole province above ten years of age shall be shot, because they, like the boys of '76. are brave enough ;o fight for liberty and independence. The repudiation of the Declaration of Independence and. the overthrow o the constitution has wrought mighty changes, the full significance of which is not yet understood.