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About The Nebraska independent. (Lincoln, Nebraska) 1896-1902 | View Entire Issue (May 22, 1902)
I )i . -if. i I P THE NEBRASKA INDEPENDENT May 22, 1902 Zbe Nebraska Independent Lincoln, tlebraska. g :r " SI . ii it - M -to PRESSE BLDG., CORNER I3th AND N STS, PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY. FOURTEENTH YEAR. $1.00 PE Ft YEAR IN ADVANCE . When" making remittances do net leave money with news agencies, postmasters, etc., to be forwarded by them. They frequently forget or remit a different amount than was left with them, and the subscriber fails to gel proper credit. Address all communications, and make all drafts, money orders, etc., payable to Zhe Hebraska Independent, Lincoln, Neb Anonymous communications w:ll not be noticed. Rejected manuscript! win not De returned. The argument of the republicans in tha first place concerning the Philip pines was, "There i3 money there. ' Whether that was true in the begin ning or not, it ought to be true now. Uncle Sam has been pouring a flood of it into the islands for the last three years, and little or none ever comes back. s-vvn The' Independent acknowledges re ceipt of a copy of "Facts and Fig ures' of the Chicago live stock trade, covering a period of twenty years, is sued . by Wood Brothers, live stock commission merchants, Chicago. It is a neat booklet of 64 pages, and gives a great deal of valuable statistical in formation. It will be sent free to any one. Mention The Independent. Mr. H. B. Steagall of Montgomery, Ala., a nephew of our correspondent, Hajor A. H. Steagall, De Land, Fla., Is being mentioned as a candidate for legislative honors in his district. The Montgomery Advertiser says: "He is an active and prominent member of the democratic party. He led the fight against the new constitution in Dale county and succeeded in getting a ma jority his way of about 1,000." It is now authoritatively announced that Carnegie proposed to McKinley that It he would make arrangements with the Filipinos to grant them inde pendence, that he, Carnegie, would repay to the United States the $20, C00.000 that was paid to Spain. He also requested that he might be sent as a special commissioner or one of a commission to the Philippines to make the agreement with them. Mc Kinley is reported to have said that Mr. Carnegie did not understand . e matter, and let the whole subject drop. This administration makes a howl ing wilderness of Samar, but where a volcano makes a wilderness in Mar tinique It serds shiploads of food and clothing. It kills all over ten in Sa mar, but sends hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of supplies to keep the people from dying in Martinique. That Is the sort of madness to which imperialism has driven it. The Butcher Smith let loose on the little brown people in the islands of the Asiatic sea3 was more terrible and destructive than Mount Pelee. The western bankers at Kansas City sat down very hard on that economic idiot from New York, Horace White, who came all the way out there to in struct them in their duty to the hand ful of millionaires of Wall street who have concocted a plan to make the western bankers tellers and bookkeep ers in the branch banks which they Intend to establish on these plains. If there is anything walking on two legs more ignorant of every branch of political economy than the said Horace White it has never yet been discov ered, and his egotism equals his ignor ance. The captured correspondence of the Big Six packing houses which has been printed in the newspapers make a clear case. The letters prove that a series of definite trade agreements exists among the "big six," some being together in one section of the coun try and some in other parts; that dif ferent scales of prices rule in differ ent districts; that the territory is par celed out by explicit understanding. With this state of facts before It, the administration proposes to have the United States courts issue an injunc tion Instead of prosecuting these crim inals under the criminal law. A tariff so high that no goods can be imported under it of course pro duces no revenue. What increase is "made In the cost of the goods to con sumers goes to the manufacturers and not a cent to the treasury. A tariff of that, kind under which a trust is farmed Is the most iniquitous legisla tion that can be . enacted. There are a good many of that kind in the United States. - It is simply a tax on the peo ple who 'buy the goods for the benefit of the trust. There is nothing else in it. In that case most certainly the foreigner does not pay the tax, for the foreigner has nothing whatever , to do Jm OUR fOUETEKKTH YEAR Vol. XIV., No. I, greets the eye of the careful reader of The Independent this week. Last week rounded up the full thirteen years of The ; Indepen dent's existence, and this week It be gins Its fourteenth year fuller of fight and more optimistic even than when its first copy was issued. It is true that in looking back over the thirteen years, there are seemingly many things to discourage the man who started out to reform the world in short order. The encroachments of organized greed have been very rapid and far-reaching. Consolidation and combination of the railroads has prog ressed so rapidly that now a very few men control practically all the means of transportation and transmission of intelligence; and this, consolidation and combination ha3 by far exceeded in rapidity what even the wildest eyed populist thirteen years ago ex pected, but in principle it has worked out exactly as predicted. The only criticism that could possibly be made is that the populists were conservative in their estimates of the time which would probably be required. Looking back over the thirteen years one cannot but be impressed with the rapidity in which other combinations and consolidations have been made. Then the Standard Oil company was almost alone in its glory. It was the great object lesson, not of the value of combination in developing industry, in learning new and better ways to transform the raw product into the finished article, but in demonstrating the value of secret railroad rebates to crush out competition. The art of stifling competition by secret com pacts with those controlling the aven ues of transportation, transmission of intelligence, and the circulation of money and bank credits, is now well known. Every trust of the more than two hundred now existing depends up on this art for its existence. The cry that greater economies may be effected by such combinations is simply the cry of "stop thief" to distract public attention. Some economies there may be; but without special privileges of some sort either public favoritism m the way of protective tariffs and pub lic service franchises, or private favor itism in the way of secret rebates from railroads, telegraphs, telephones, ex press companies, banks, etc. none of the industrial trusts could menace the public welfare. Mere mass of capital may give some advantage, but not enough to destroy competition; but the small manufacturer is powerless to compete when secret' freight rebates are against him. Apparently the people are more helpless now than they were thirteen years ago. There is ample, ground to justify the claims of the most pessi mistic. Yet The Independent cannot be other than optimistic in spite of conditions. The people know more than they did thirteen years ago. They are rapidly learning where the shoe pinches. When enough of them be come satisfied that they are not mis taken, and overcome their partisan prejudices, they will right the wrongs. The life of one man is too short to see the progress made, unless he Is more than ordinarily a close observer. It is but little over a hundred years since Adam Smith and those of his school were successful in their revolt against the king-commissioned mo nopolies. So thoroughly and so wide ly are his ideas believed, that it is bard for the superficial observer to be lieve that conditions were ever ma terially different in principle from the present. But new problems have been, pre sented. The advent of steam power and electricity has been followed by new lines of industry of which Adam Smith and his school never dreamed. His theory of non-interference by gov ernment and to allow competition to regulate trade .applied very well to known conditions then. But the problem cannot now be completely solved by Adam Smith's formula. The new factors require new treatment. The people are slowly learning that in some lines of business there is an ir resistible tendency to consolidation and combination an irresistible ten dency to crush out competition. As competition was their watchword, they at first tried to combat this tendency by governmental Interference in the way of creating artificial competition. When one electric light company be gan to charge exorbitant rates, an other was given a franchise. For a time there was a show of competition, generally, however, with as little real ism as a stage fight. Behind the scenes the lifeless combatants arose, walked off arm In arm, the "best of friends. Then the people discovered that their artificial competition compelled them to support two plants instead cf one. Now the march of municipal owner ship is well nigh irresistible. None of the old-time bugaboos can stop its progress. The people have learned that political corruption is seldom met with In public-owned utilities; but that wherever there is a private waterworks, electric light plant, or street railroad, the corporations own ing and operating, these utilities L will be in evidence at every election. JNot even the member of a school board can be, elected wthom-,Jhjrjnterference: n'urtvc The city of Lincoln has an army of postoffice employes and railway mail clerks, a similar army of railroad em ployes and express men, the public employes of the city-owned water works, and the employes of the pri vate-owned gas plant. On election day there is nothing to indicate that there is such a thing as a postoffice or wa terworks these public employes vote and go about their business without interfering with the rights of anyone But everybody knows there is a B. & M. railroad and a gas company every time there is an election.. Not even dog-pelter is too small for them to control. Thirteen years hence will doubtless see rapid strides in municipal owner ship. The city that does not own and operate its waterworks, electric light and gas plant, street railroads, and kindred utilities, will be truly a back number. By that time, top, it is pos sible that the public ownership of the railroads may be accomplished. The state by that time may be conducting insurance business. It may own and operate the stock yards. In all prob ability it will own and operate all the telephone lines. Thirteen years is a long look ahead even in these rapid days. What The Independent may accomplish in that time in its mission of educating the people on economic subjects, time alone can tell. But if its circulation grows proportionately, there can be little doubt that its influence then will be infinitely greater than now. TWO SENATORIAL YAHOOS The silliest performance any two political galoots ever entered into was when Senators Dietrich and Beveridge, after a soldier had testified that the canned beef served to the troops in the Philippines was bad, invited him to dine with them at the senate restaur ant and after the $5,000 chef had pre pared a dish from the canned meats used at the capital had it served to themselves and the soldier. Then they went out and told the newspaper men how they had tricked the soldier into eating canned meat and that he had declared that it was good. The Asso ciated press took up the tale, and the great mullet head editors wrote ar ticles about-it. No doubt Dietrich and Beveridge think that that was a very statesmanlike and dignified thing to do and that it places them on a level with Clay, Webster and Calhoun. But the truth about the matter is that it shows Dietrich and Beveridge to be of a lower moral standing than an Arab of the desert. To offer hospital ity to a man for the purpose of trick ing and taking advantage of him Is about the lowest and meanest thing that a man can do. It stands, in the estimation of all honorable men, on a lvel with using a flag of truce to de ceive and slay an enemy. That Diet rich would engage In such a thing will surprise no one who knows him, but that Beveridge should so disgrace him self is somewhat remarkable. Some of the lowest down specimens of hu manity that can be found on the face of the earth get into the United States senate. No doubt Dietrich and Bev eridge think that their performance is "conclusive" proof that all the canned meat served to the soldiers in the Philippines is absolutely first class. Beveridge declared on the floor of the senate the other day that evi dence secured by torture was con clusive." BEGINNING TO LEARN The mullet heads of Kansas are at last becoming capable of entertaining an idea or two. The bankers' associa tion that recently met at Kansas City m.clared that "the members of this as sociation have carefully listened to the recent discussion of the subject of branch banking as advocated by the able gentlemen from the east, and combated by some of the ablest and best known members of thi3 state as sociation and of our neighboring state of Nebraska, and we hereby affirm our unswerving allegiance to that view of the proposition which condemns it in all its forms as being unpatriotic, un-American, unbusiness-like and as tending to establish a monopoly of the great and honored business of banking in the hands of a few mil lionaires." If the millionaires can't work this scheme they will try something else and the bankers of the west will find out after a while that the tremendous concentration of wealth that has been fostered by the republican party threatens their business and fortunes just as much as it does that of any body else. It seems that these men are making a slow beginning toward learning something about political economy. Perhaps after a while they will drop their mad partisanship and pursue a course that will bring pros perity to all the people instead of a few millionaires only. At the bankers' association which met , at Kansas City the other day, President Jones urged the passage of laws giving the banking business "more extensive privileges." The his tory of the horse leach Is that It was always demanding "more." Mr. Jones will get the privileges if the republican PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT Five years ago when the tendency to form trusts under the protecting wing the republican party became appar ent to all thinking men, The Indepen dent called attention to the fact, I the policy continued, that the free and independent citizens of this coun try would by it be made a nation of hirelings and we should see a concen tration of wealth in few hands such as the world never saw before. It ut tered its warning then. It said the time to crush the trusts was before they became so powerful that they would control every branch of the gov ernment, ; , ' The Independent looks upon Presi dent Roosevelt as a man with humane and honorable intentions, but he Is evidently surrounded by influences at Washington too powerful for him to resist. . It would take a mighty man a man equal to any of the heroes of tha past to do that, and the difficulty be comes greater when any connection with tfie party In power is kept up. It begins to appear more plainly all the time that Roosevelt is not made of the stuff to do it. The feeble attack on the beef trust Is a. politician's move and not the work of a great statesman and ruler. The line of attack in the courts was in a criminal prosecution, and in the field of legislation on the discriminations in freight rates and tariff protection An approach along those lines would end in the overthrow of not only the beef trust, but most of the other trusts Although the railroads plead guilty before the interstate commerce com mission, they were allowed to go scot free. The same kind of an action was begun against them as has been brought against the beef trust and the roads said they would welcome an in junction. When the case came to trial they offered no opposition. The beef trust will likely pursue the same course. The Anthracite coal trust has done business in defiance of law for years. The magnates of that trust can meet at any time and put 25 or 50 cents on the price of coal and it is collected from the people with the same cer tainty that the duties on imports are collected by the officers of the govern ment. The coal trust has exactly the same power to tax that the govern ment at Washington- has. It will con tinue a kingdom within a kingdom as long as the republican party remains in power. - While the facts' are known to all men, President Roosevelt allows his supporters to continually announce In the columns of the great dailies that he has no Intention of making the managers of all the trusts obey the law. The Standard Oil trust, the coal trust, the sugar trust, the steel trust and all the others are not to be mo lested by the administration. That is not the course that a real reformer would pursue. The Independent is be ing slowly driven to the conclusion, that Roosevelt, instead of being a statesman, a patriot, and reformer, is simply the tool of the money mag nates like all the republican presi dents who have preceded him. It will be remembered by the old readers of this paper that very many times in the last few years it has been declared in these columns that when the next great distress came upon the people, it would not be the workers of the west who would suffer the most as in the last panic, but the weight of it would fall on the workers of the east the very ones who have de nounced us, called us socialists and anarchists. The hands of the trusts are very heavy even now on the poor of the east. Many thousands are forced to labor hard every day without meat, and many other things that have been considered necessaries. As the months go on they will suffer more and more. Every word that The Independent has said about the conditions which will be forced upon these hirelings of the trusts will be found to come true. The report of the wages paid to the em ployes of the steel trust shows how the army of men who toil for it have been ground down to a bare existence while magnates pile up their unearned millions. That is a sample of what is coming to all these men. There is no escape. They have brought it all upon themselves. They refused to listen to reason and they must suffer the penalty. There is no hope for relief from any thing that President Roosevelt is like ly to do. WHAT WILL HAPPEN THEN? Some one connected with the Chi cago packers is said to have made this remark: "I have noticed that several large . bodies of people have resolved that they would eat no meat for a week or a month. Suppose we should retal iate and declare that we would sell no meat for "a week or a month. What would happen then?" No doubt that the trust could do that very thing and make money by it. They could check up on the buying and put their meat in cold storage. But the thing ,that sug gests Itself is the tremendous power that the trust has. They control the fresh meat trade by the means of their refrigerator cars and the dependence of the retail dealers upon them for er to bring great suffering upon the people, but to inflict It when they please. So it is with every other trust There . is no good sense In talking about a free and Independent people while, the criminal trusts are allowed to live. They are the rulers and the people must submit. The remark of the Chicago packer starts a long train of thought. Suppose the coal trust should refuse to sell coal for a week or a month in the midst of winter. What would happen then? Suppose that the banking trust should refuse to lend money and call in all loans. What would happen then? We all know what happened in 1S93. But let this Eckles-Horace White scheme of branch banks become- a law and a few millionaires control the money and credit of the United States. What would happen then? The people and the government itself would be at the mercy of these men. It would be a good thing if a good many people would stop to consider what will hap pen if the trusts are to be fostered in the future as they have been in the past. What will happen? Who can tell? FREAKS OF THE MIND The editor of The Independent often wonders whether his mind cuts such capers with him as is apparent in the writings of so many men. Now here is the Springfield Republican, a fair and honorable sort of a paper, and it makes the. statement "that for the last ten years capital has been gather ing to itself a smaller per cent of profit rather than a larger," and then it prints the following table to prove its assertions, saying that "the cause as to labor can be roughly carried back to 1850 with this result:" Gross product Average per wage ... wage earner, per person 1900 .....$2,451 $438 1890 .., 2,204 445 1880 1,965 347 1870 2,060 377 1860 1,438 289 1850 1,065 247 The Republican uses the word roughly" in regard to these statistics. It had better said that it was pure guess work and no statistics at all. It confines production to "wage earners." But a great part of production is not connected with "wage earners" at all The great proportion of production of this country is on the farm, where the farmer, his wife and children are pro ducers and the "wage earner" enters but slightly into it. Then a very large proportion of the profits of capital is not concerned with production at all Look at the many millions of capital employed" in speculation on the boards of trade and in promoting trusts. Not a thing is produced from this use of capital, except in a very remote and indirect way, yet the profits of capital engaged in that are enormous. If only that proportion of capital employed in actual production is meant, still the conclusion is all wrong. It would seem that if any man, guided by rea son, would take but a casual glance at the enormous accumulation of wealth which has occurred in the last few years and then at the homes of wage earners" would come to an en tirely different conclusion from the one the Republican arrived at. ! ... , Opportunity ICnoc ONC THE LIGHT OF THE EARTH A genuine populist farmer is not only the light of the earth, but a joy to the world. He does not trouble himself about the little tricks of the trade of politics. He never says: "If we do this, we gain the German vote, the Irish vote, the city vote, or the armer vote, or if we do that we will ose one or the other of them." He never thinks along those lines. He studies principles. He tries to arrive at the truth and when he thinks he has found it. he does not speculate on the probability of gaining or losing votes by advocating or refusing to ad vocate it. He goes to talking to his neighbors or friends and explaining why he thinks that it is true. At the time the oleomargarine bill came up, farmers wrote to The Independent that they wanted no special privileges, they desired no advantage given to them by law over any other man. Populist dairymen said all we ask i3 that there shall be no fraud. Let butter be sold or butter, oleomargarine for what it s and renovated and process butter be treated In the same way. One man got so mad at The Independent for taking that position that he stopped his paper. But he was not a farmer. He was afraid that the course this paper was pursuing would lose votes of the farmers, wherein he was mis taken, for mullet heads do not vote the populist ticket anyhow. Many farmers have spoken to the editor of The Independent since he has been up here in the north part of the state about the course of the paper in regard to the beef trust. They gen erally say: "I like what you say about the beef trust. That is right. Stick to it. We pity the toilers in the cities. We don't want to see any class of the people suffer. There is enough for all and some to spare."' How much more noble is such a position than scheming to catch this vote and that vote. In the long run it is the better policy, whatever the "peanut" politicians may Your opportunity right now is to secure a first-class, up-to-day Summer Suit several dollars cheaper than you can buy equal quality at home. Josh Billings says "opportunities are like eggs they must be set on while fresh." Lose no time in sending us your address by postal or letter, and we will place our Catalogue and Samples of Suits for Men and Bovs in your hands free of all expense. You will .find it an intelli gent guide to honest, well-made Clothing at real money saving prices. Try us once and give us a chance to prove our assertions. MENTION THE - INDEPENDENT. Lincoln, Neb. THE REPUBLICAN DEFENSE The only defense that the republi cans can make concerning the atroci ties in the Philippines is the defense that Lord Erskine made of Warren Hastings' conduct in India, but they have no orator of Erskine's ability to speak for them. That such things were sure to occur when we attacked another race a race whose civiliza tion and environment was entirely different from ours every man of thought well knew when the conflict began. In defense of Warren Hast ings, Lord Erskine said: "He may, and must, have of fended against the laws of God and nature. If he was the faith ful viceroy of an empire wrested in blood from the people to whom God and nature had given it, he may and must have preserved that unjust dominion over timorous and abject nations by a terrify ing superiority. If he was the faithful administrator of a gov ernment having no root in consent or affection, no foundation in sim ilarity of interests, nor support from any one principle which ce ments men in society together, then that . government could only be upheld by alternate stratagem and force. To be governed at till, they must be governed with a rod of Iron; and our empire In the east would long since have been lost to Great Britain if civil skill and military prowess had not united their efforts to support an author ity which heaven never gavi by means which it never can sanction." If we are to hold the Philippines in permanent subjection, they must be held in just this way. There will be ever-occurring massacres on both sides and the thing will go on in that way as the weary years pass by. More and more of American youth will find their graves there. After a while the coun try may be brought to starvation and the inhabitants reduced to the condi tion of the East Indians, when they will be at peace. It is no use to de cry these inhumanities. The thing for us to do is to decide whether the game is worth the price. If we decide to hold the Philippines in subjection, let us stop the cry of inhumanity and make a howling wilderness of the isl ands as soon as possible. The ques tion is: Do we want to do it? DEIFY THE ARMY The deifying of the'army, the idea that the army must be worshipped and that no matter what it does, the man who ventures to criticise it is a traitor, is one of the accompaniments of im perialism everywhere and always. That the republican press has adopted, this as the card to play in the coming campaign Is everywhere evident. The army is always the chief reliance of tyrants and usurpers. Without it they could do nothing and so every effort is always put forth to deify it, to de clare that the army can do no wrong. Let that sort of madness once take possession of the people and this re public is gone, gone the way of all the nations of the past that have ex alted the army above criticism. The Independent is glad that the republicans are pressing that point. It hopes that they will keep It up. If there is a spark of patriotism left among the people it will flare into a blaze under such, a campaign as that. Let the press generally denounce as traitors every man whose humane in stincts leads him to protest against the burning and laying waste of whole regions of country and the slaying of all the inhabitants above ten without rebuke, and it will not be long until the army will begin to demand .that such men" shall be hung. In fact one general has already made , such a de- hanging and shooting by orders of the army. The great and fundamental idea of the founders of this govern ment was to make the army subserv ient to the civil power. They all had sad experiences with a soldiery that could not be criticised. They created what they thought would be a govern ment that would prevent such a scourge ever afflicting their descend ants. But the supreme court tore their statesmanlike work to shreds and put imperialism in its stead. Step by step it has advanced, just as The Indepen dent said it would, until the usurpers demand that the army shall be above criticism. What it all portends, no man can tell. FICTITIOUS HANK DEPOSITS While it has been the fashion of the republican papers for years to pre tend that bank deposits represented actual cash, not ' one of them would ever admit to their columns a true statement on that subject. The other day in recording the proceedings of a meeting of bankers, a reporter incor porated in his article the speech of John B. Forgan, president of the First National bank of Chicago, and. no doubt, through the inadvertance of the night editor, the report was printed in the Chicago Tribune. As this statement is made by a national banker and a staunch republican, some of the readers of The Independent may find use for it when talking to their republican neighbors, all of whom firmly believe that the total of bank deposits represents nothing but cold cash. Mr. Forgan said: "I have prepared a statement showing the greatest possible mul tiplication of deposits under our present system of allowing a por tion of the legal reserves of one bank to be held as deposits in an other. For illustration, national banks in Dead wood (not a reserve city), Omaha (a reserve city), Chicago (a central reserve city), and New York, the financial center of the country, are used. "On a deposit in Deadwood of $64,000, $3,840 must be retained in vault as cash reserve, while $60,160 may be deposited with an Omaha correspondent. "Of the deposit in Omaha of $60,100, $7,520 will be held as re serve, while $32,640 may be de posited with a Chicago correspon dent. "Of the deposit in Chicago of $52,640. $13,180 must be retained as a reserve, while $39,460 may be deposited with a New York corre spondent. "Of the deposit in New York of $39,460, $9,865 is reserve, while $29,595 may be loaned. "This shows a total deposit of $216,260, all based on an original deposit of $64,000. "This illustrates our method of artificially increasing bank de posits and their greatest possible multiplication under our national system." It will be seen that to the original $61,000 there was added $152,260 of bank wind. 80MEWIIAT DOUHTFUL An eastern editorial writer in dis cussing the recent revelations in re gard to the manner of carrying on the war In the Philippines, gays: "America still has a conscience, after nearly four years of 'imper ialism,' and its conscience is shocked by the discovery that the blue uniform of the American army is desecrated by tho brutality of some of its wearers, who have sought within their limited spheres to emulate the crimes of an Attila or a Genghis Khan." That statement is somewhat doubt ful. Whether America has a con science or not depends very much upon whether there is money in it or not. The dominant force in this country has a conscience if it pays. ' If it does