Nebraska Newspapers

    7
3:,.
THE NEBRASKA INDEPENDENT
Hay 29, 1902
tbt Dtbraska Independent
Lincoln, Uebraska.
PRESSE BLDG.. CORNER 13th AND N STS.
PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY.
FOURTEENTH YZAB.
SI.OOPER YEAR IN ADVANCE
When making . remittances do not leave
money with news agencies, postmasters, etc,
to be forwarded fey them. They frequently
forget or remit a different amount than waa
Jft with them, and the subscriber fails to get
proper credit.
Address all commanications, and make all
drafts, money orders, etc., payable to
the Tltbratka Independent,
Lincoln. Neb.
Anonymous communications will not bfl
noticed. Rejected manuscript will not b
returned.
The "powers" did a huge amount of
looting in China In the ordinary way
that Tlctorlous armies have when in
vading a foreign country, but the dl
.plomats provided for more looting in
their own slick way than the armies
ever did. ' The Chinese indemnity was
made payable in gold, and then the
governments went to work to further
depress the price of silver. As Chinese
money is all silver, every time the
price of, silver goes down a cent on
the ounce the indemnity is vastly in
creased without any invading army.
When the bicycle first came into
general use pedestrians had to run the
risk of their lives every time they
crossed a street frequented by the
"scorcher." A few good-sized fines
and the general contempt of the whole
people after a good many had been
killed and maimed brought the idiots
under control. Now the same diffi
culty has arisen with the automobiles.
The class of simpletons who are en
gaged in endangering the lives of the
people with machines are the rich.
There should be no mercy shown them.
"For Democrats: How to Treat the
Trusts and How to Win in 1904," is the
title of a neat little book, 81 pages,
12 mo., from the pen of John Haggerty,
published by the Abbey Press, 114
Fifth avenue, New York city. Mr.
Haggerty believes that the democratic
anti-trust plank defeated Mr. Bryan in
1900. "The democratic plan fright
ened the trust workmen at the last
presidential election, and as they held
the balance of power in the three great
states where trusts are most in evi
dence, they ran McKinley In, although
I believe that most of them wanted to
vote for Bryan." Mr. Haggerty's ideas
do not differ materially from those of
H. Gaylord Wilshire, whose slogan is,
"Let the nation own the trusts," but
for the democratic platform of 1904.
Mr. Haggerty suggests that direct leg
islation be made the principal plank,
promising to give the people a refer
endum on the questions of what shall
be done with the Philippines, the
trusts, and other live questions.
The Crowder report concerning the
British post at Chalmette at this writ
ing is still safely locked up in the
president's desk, but the Louisiana
legislature has had something to say
on the subject. It unanimously passed
a concurrent resolution approving
"most heartily" Governor Heard's let
ter to President Roosevelt protesting
against the use of Louisiana waters
and soil as a military base of supply
by the British government in its war
against the Boers. The governor also
"is urged to take any such further
steps conformable to law, as in his
judgment may be necessary to estab
lish and maintain in this state obed
ience to the law of nations and respect
for the treaties of the United States."
If the colonel's report had been satis
factory to the administration there is
no doubt but that it would have been
printed a long time ago. The suppres
sion of news is one of the chief char
acteristics of the republican policy.
Our correspondent, H. W. Risley, in
his Washington letter this week com
ments upon the fact that there are 227
lawyers in the present house of repre
sentatives, and shows why the. lawyer
succeeds as a politician - where the
-newspaper man fails. Mr. Risley's ar
gument is good. The lawyer, is usual
ly a conservative, rarely a radical
and the newspaper man who is not a
radical is usually not much of any
thing. The pioneers, either in settle
ment of a country, political move
ments,, or anything else, are seldom
the ones who are given the opportun
ity to carry into effect or enjoy the im
provements or reforms they advocate.
But there Is no denying the fact that
a legal training is a great help to the
man who fills a public office, be it ad
ministrative, legislative, or Judicial.
The fact that there are so many law
yers In the house is proof of several
things: that the lawyer Is considered
best fitted for the duties of legislator;
and that he is usually a hustler for
votes In the campaign. On the face of
things it would seem that the lawyer
has more than his share, but it will
probably be so as long, as there are
laws to make, to administer and to in
terpret. Nearly every president had a
iegsu .training. .Ui.titfU
A. WORD TO WAGE WORKSR8
That there Is a conflict coming on
between capital and labor more fierce
and determined than any of the past
is believed to be certain by many of
the sociologists and, economists. The
organization of trusts in every depart
ment of industry with no. disposition
on the part of the party in power to
check or control them, and the recog
nized existence of that partisan insan
ity that influences the mass of the
people to vote for a party name re
gardless of the principles or tendency
of the organization bearing the name,
makes the coming of such, a conflict
inevitable.
Hundreds of thousands of wage
workers will go on a strike and suffer
privations indescribable in a fight
against the oppression of a trust and
when election, day comes will go to
the polls and vote to give that trust
and others like it control of the gov
ernment. They will do that when they
knpw that the organization that they
are voting for will use the army
against them, will establish and main
tain courts that will issue injunctions,
depriving them of any or all of the
rights embodied , in the first thirteen
amendments to the constitution, will
imprison them for months in bull
pens aa has been done out In the west
ern mining districts, or shoot them
down in the public highways as in
Pennsylvania.
The fact of the existence of this par
tisan insanity should be taken note of
by the brighter minds among the labor
leaders. These leaders are not all
demagogues and fakirs as the press
of the political party they support
constantly declares. There are pa
triotic men among them men of good
thinking capacity. The reason that
they do not have greater control, i3
that most of them have not had the
opportunity to ground themselves in
the fundamental principles of politi
cal economy and government. The
reading of the beautiful dreams of
Bellamy does not give the virile
strength of intellect to fight such men
as run the coal, steel or standard oil
trusts. It takes a different sort of
education to qualify a man to enter a
battle like that.
Toward the close of the seventeenth
century and at the beginning of the
eighteenth, a few great thinkers and
scholars through their works taught
the active minds engaged in commerce
the real principles of the wealth of na
tions. Adam Smith, Ricardo and other
writers for the first time brought with
in reach of the creators and manipul
ators of wealth the fundamental prin
ciples. The first to make use of this
knowledge for their own enrichment
was the house of Rothschilds. Some
thing over a half a century later, the
"captains of industry" in this country
began to comprehend and make use of
them. Meantime labor was befogged
with the old ideas and bound to politi
cal organizations by the insanity of
party fealty. What labor needs to en
able it to fight for its rights Is not
impractical dreamers, but men who
clearly understand the laws that gov
ern the production and creation of
wealth men who think clearly and
who are not influenced or overcome
with political psychological waves
created by a mental maelstrom, engen
dered by political leaders for the ex
press purpose of bewildering and be
fogging them.
It would be millions In the pockets
of members of organized labor if they
would take a small portion of the fund
expended for other purposes and ex
pend it in sending four or five of their
brightest men to " some university to
take a course in political economy and
sociology and then put them at the
head of their forces to fight the trusts.
Then there would be a fight that would
make the fur fly.
The instincts of the labor leaders are
right, but they lack the special train
ing to make them effective antagon
ists against the trained political eco
nomists which capitalism brings Into
the field to fight its battles. Suppose
that when Edward Atkinson brought
out his stove, which was to do th
cooking for a workingman's family for
a cent a day and the other economists
of that kind were publishing articles
telling how laborers could live on
three cents a day, that the labor lead
ers had had some economist of equal
training to have met, not only with the
justifiable denunciation that was used,
but with a complete economic and un
answerable argument showing the fol
ly of such a system. What a world .of
difference there would have been in the
situation of the wage-earners today.
Suppose that they had replied to Mr.
Atkinson and the other hired econom
ists of capitalism: Your system will
stop consumption. - - The wage-workers
are the consumers of the products of
the manufactories. Reduce their cor.-r
sumption to six or eight cents a day
and nine-tenths of , the manufactures
will close their doors within a year.
You talk about the smoke from the
factory chimneys. , In that day the
skies will not be darkened with the
clouds from burning coal any more.
The roar of the machinery will stop.
Neither capitalist nor wage-worker
will get any more returns, from the
factories. You have destroyed con
sumption and " production ' must also
stop, for there would no longer be a
market for your, goods. .Mr. Atkinson,
your theories would, if put in practice,
bring disaster upon the whole human
race. They would make a howling
wilderness of this great and beautiful
country. In the wreck and ruin the
adoption of your principles would pro
duce, you and your kind would be In
volved as well as the wage-worker.
An argument along that line and
many others that a trained economist
could have made would have driven
Atkinson and his confreres from the
field, while denunciations employed by
the labor leaders had little or no ef
fect. -.
Labor leaders should get into their
hands weapons with which they can
do something more than irritate and
annoy. They should be so armed that
they can drive the enemy from the
field. After getting hold of the funda
mental principles, it would not be long
until they could control the govern
ment and bring its mighty power to
bear upon the conditions of which they
complain.
ANSWER THE QUESTION
Let every American citizen ask him
self if the war in the Philippines has
been any benefit to him. Has he been
made any happier for It? Has his toil
been made the least lighter for it?
Has any inspiration come to him to
make his life better? If he answers
honestly, he will answer no. That will
be true of every man who has not re
ceived an office on account of the war
or made money from army contracts.
On the contrary, let him ask what he
has suffered on account of the war.
Ten thousand young men have lost
their lives in the Philippines and that
many American homes have been
made sorrowful and desolate. Every
man has had to contribute money to
the support of the war and is that
much the loser. Why is it then that
there Is a single man in all these
United States who favors the continu
ance of the war?
The war on the Filipinos was started
and has been carried on without ask
ing the people whether they favored
it or not. It was inaugurated by a few
republican politicians at Washington.
Congress was never consulted and
never declared a war on the Filipinos.
It was done by a commission ap
pointed by a republican president to
make a treaty of peace with Spain and
that treaty was ratified by a senate
that waa not chosen by a vote of the
people and all of whom were elected
before there ever, was a thought of a
war with Spain.
The war is continued by the men
who started it because of the political
patronage that it furnishes. By means
of it fat places are given to the friends
and adherents of the few families who
control the republican party. Service
in some of the colonial offices for three
or four years makes a man indepen
dently rich for the salaries attached to
them are enormous.
But why should you desire its con
tinuance? Do you expect to get an
office or a big army contract? What
sort of a reason can you give for vot
ing to continue this war of conquest?
Is it because your father voted the re
publican ticket?
WHO ATTACKS THE ARMY?
The republican gag, "attacking the
army," has been pretty much worn
out before the campaign has begun.
The question is: "Who is attacking
the army?" All the witnesses who
have given evidence concerning the
employment of torture have been mem
bers of the army. The general criti
cisms of the army have been made by
two regular army officers. Major Gar
dener and Captain Grant. No demo
crat or populist has testified against
the army. When one of these mem
bers of the army, officers or enlisted
men, gives testimony concerning the
Inhuman manner of carrying on the
war in the Philippines, then the im
perialist, with rage in his eye, turns
upon the opposition in congress and
shouts: "You are attacking the army,"
when not a man among them has given
any testimony against the army at all.
When some democrat or populist ap
pears before the Philippine commit
tee and gives testimony against the
army, then Lodge and his confreres
will have some ground for shouting:
"Yovv are attacking the army." Until
then they had better pay attention to
the only witnesses who have borne
testimony against the army. The be
ginning of the whole thing was the
remark of the lieutenant general in
command of the army to the effect
that the war was being waged with
severity. All the testimony since has
come from the honorable men of the
army.
The republicans appointed the inves
tigating committee. They issued all the
subpoenas. They brought to Wash
ington every witness. They are re
sponsible for all that has resulted. It
has been so disastrous to them that,
viewing their own work, they seem
to have lost their heads entirely and
accuse their opponents of doing some
thing that they have had no part in
at all. If any set of men has "at
tacked the army," it is the Philip
pine investigation committee of the
United States senate, and that Is a
body appointed by a republican senate
POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY
Political psychology would be an in
terestine study. There should be a
chair established in every university
to teach it. It is one of the practical
things that should be included in the
modern curriculum, Let the philosoph
ers get at it and tell why it is that a
'man who has never attracted any at
tention when nominated for office all
at once becomes a hero to be wor
shipped, honored and lauded by tens
of thousands of people, the most of
whom never saw him and who know
nothing about him. Why do the masses
watch every word he says as If it were
tne law and the gospel? How is it that
a psychological wave is created affect
ing the minds of thousands, influenc
ing them to spend their money and
their time to go out and shout for him?
How such a wave is ' started, its
growth, its climax and its sudden sub
sidence would be a study well worth
the time of any scholar.
Personally, what difference does it
make to 999 men out of every 1,000
whether Mr. Jones or Mr. Brown is
governor? There are many chances to
one that the man who has shouted and
worked for Mr. Brown or Mr. Jones
will never see the man after he is
elected, and whichever wins, it will not
affect the life of the voter. He will
still have to plow and sow stand be
hind the counter or work in his shop
just as before, yet this psychological
wave will so affect tens of thousands
that they cannot sleep nights and they
will imagine, and for the nonco
really believe, that if their candidate
is not elected that the state will be
ruined, men will lose their farms and
merchants will become bankrupt. Such
was the state of mind of thousands
upon thousands of republicans when
the populists elected a governor the
first time. They firmly believed that
the farms of Nebraska, being mort
gaged, eastern creditors would swoop
down on the state and sell it out at
auction and that these fertile prairies
would become a howling wilderness.
The agony they suffered was terrible.
Each individual is of course more or
less affected by the sort of state gov
ernment we have and perhaps more by
a good or bad national government.
While the fusion government was in
control of the state, the debt was de
creased over $600,000, and the first two
years of republican government will
increase it by about the same amount.
That, of course, affects every man in
the state. . What he must pay in in
creased taxes 'Will have to be earned
and handed oyer to the tax collector,
instead of being kept in his own pocket
to add to happiness and comfort. This
matter seems, however, to have little
effect upon the men who are under
the influence 'of "a political craze. The
psychological effect is aside from this.
It is a , wave , that sweeps men from
their mental foundations and starts
them whirling around in a vortex, dis
connected from the ideas that usually
control their conduct. It drives them
into a madness that leads them to be
lieve that the populists are bent on
bringing destruction upon the whole
community. They denounce them as
scoundrels, idiots, traitors. Yet
strange as it may seem, these populists
are their neighbors. They meet them
in a friendly way. Buy from and sell
to them. Exchange neighborly cour
tesies. Often belong to the same
church with them, and yet when this
psychological influence is upon them,
they think of populists as being little
short of demons in human form.
The psychologist who will examine
this question in a scientific fashion,
collect his facts and draw his conclu
sions -after the manner of inductive
philosophy will do mankind a service.
It is in fact a part of the science of
sociology and has wide influence "upon
the relations of men. If Dr. Ross
should give attention to this matter,
he would doubtless evolve something
that would be of. vast interest to man
kind, ss
COMB OK WITH YOUR SHOOTING
The catch phrases of the imperial
ists are more senseless than any ever
employed before. "We have outgrown
the Declaration of Independence." Can
justice and truth ever be outgrown?
If we have outgrown the Declaration
of Independence, then it never was
true, and our whole government was
founded on a lie, and the men who
founded it were liars. If men who
denounce the course which has been
followed in the Philippines are "trait
ors" and "copperheads," then Lincoln
was a copperhead. He said that a
people that denied liberty to others
did not deserve it for themselves. The
epithet, "Your friend Aguinaldo'
which has been so often used on the
floor of congress, is the hissing and
spitting of a viper, not the statement
of men who honestly defend a political
policy. Those who oppose imperial
ism are not personally interested in
Aguinaldo, and the men who use the
hissing phrase know that they are
not, but are anxious to preserve the
liberty that the founders of this re
public bequeathed to us. They still
remember the words engraved on the
old liberty bell:. "Proclaim liberty
throughout the land, unto ALL the In
habitants thereof." .
"To criticise the army is tr.eason."
No matter if it kills the innocent and
helpless. The army must not be crit
icised. That is to say that the army
can do no wrong, which is a thousand
times more infamous than the old doc
trine that the king can do no wrong.
Men who dare to criticise the army
should be shot, say the Funstons.
Never in the darkest days of the dark
est ages was there a more infamous
doctrine promulgated Yet the great
republican organs give support to such
damning statements. All the men
who fought for liberty and free speech
in the revolutionary war are dead.
Some of those who fought for these
things in the, civil war are still llvin?
and they are ready to die for them
now. There are millions of others in
these United States who have never
bowed the knee to Baal and never
will. Come on with your shooting.
CABINET 1 ESPOTISX
Secretary Root plays -despot with a
nonchalance that no cabinet ministry
in all Europe dare imitate. A state
ment of the cost of the Philippine war
has been demanded of him by congress
and he refuses to make it. Such an
act as that would cause a revolution in
any European government. The Eng
gllsh house of commons asked for a
statement of the cost of the South
African and Chinese wars and it was
made within a very few days. The
frivolous excuse of Root that he had
kept no separate accounts of the wars
we have been waging, first in Cuba
and Porto Rico, then in China and
the Philippines, was accepted as per
fectly satisfactory by a truckling ma
jority in the house. The war in the
Philippines has cost the people of this
country some hundreds of millions.
The men who pay the money out of
their hard earnings have a right to
know the exact amount. But Secre
tary Root refuses to give them the in
formation. To any protest against
such despotic action the reply is made:
"Well, what are you going to do
about it?"
, HE WON'T DO IT
The British taxpayer has one satis
faction that is denied to the Ameri
can citizen who has to furnish the
money to pay the cost of foreign wars.
The chancellor of the exchequer, with
out any hesitancy, tells the Britisher
exactly what each of his foreign wars
costs him. Not only does the chan
cellor do that, but he also gives an ex
plicit statement that any working man
can read and understand, of the cost
of the home government, just what the
Income of the government is and how
much the deficit amounts to. The last
statement shows that the cost of the
war in South Africa up to" the first of
March of this, year was $796,870,000,
while the estimated expenses for the
current year will bring these figures
to $1,114,870,000. The cost of the China
campaign will add $30,000,000 more to
this total. To pay the war bills of the
year and also meet a deficit in the or
dinary expenditures the ordinary rev
enue would have had to be increased
by $80,000,000. The treasury will re
ceive for the four years of the war up
to March, 1903, $369,000,000 from tax
es, leaving $775,000,000 to be obtained
by adding it to the national debt,
which will be a charge for years.
It is no wonder that the English are
anxious to patch up some sort of a
peace in South Africa. If we could
only get a like specific statement from
our government of the cost of the
war in the Philippines it might cause
even some of the imperialists to have
a sober thought or two. But Secretary
Root will not make any such state
ment and what are you going to do
about it?
"LOYALTY TO THE ARMY"
The cry of "loyalty to the army" has
in it the very quintessence of absolut
ism. It was never heard in the United
States until a few days ago. The ques
tion is not whether there is loyalty to
the army, but the more important one:
"Is the army loyal to the principles of
this government?" Men are sworn to
support and defend the constitution.
They have never been called upon to
take an oath to support and defend
the army. That American citizens
should be required to do that is one of
the advanced steps of imperialism.
That demand has developed within a
very short time. It belongs to the or
der of things that was established by
the supreme court when it tore the
constitution In shreds and established
imperialism in its stead. It has been
expected by. every man who has been
watching the trend of events. Imper
ialism is based upon the army and m
the very nature of things it must de
mand "loyalty to the army" instead of
loyalty to the principles of free gov
ernment. The fiercest "attack on the army"
during last week was made by Presi
dent Roosevelt. In a letter to Bishop
Lawrence of Massachusetts, the presi
dent said : "In reference to these
cruelties I agree with every word in
your address. No provocation, how
ever great, can be accepted as an ex
cuse for misuse of the necessary se
verity of war, and, above all, not for
torture of any kind or shape. I have
directed that court-martials be held
under conditions which will give me
the right of review." No democrat or
populist has made any such an "at
tack on the army" as that ;
ARMY OFFICERS j
It Is the inspirations of HbWty or
influence of despotism that makes the
difference in the record of array offi
cers. In Cuba, the army officers, and
they are the same sort of men who
were.sent to the Philippines, have or
ganized a system of, hospitals and
charities; they have inaugurated a
new system of custom houses and a
new revenue service; they have or
ganized and trained a native police
called the rural guard; they have so
cleaned and drained the cities that, In
stead of being among the most pesti
lential, they are now among the
healthiest In the world. Yellow fever,
which formerly menaced every south
ern . port on our - Atlantic and gulf
coastline, has been driven from Ha
vana. A public school system of near
ly 4,000 schools, aside from higher in
stitutions of learning, has been suc
cessfully started, and maintained.
In the Philippines, officers of the
seme race, education and earls' train
ing, have desolated whole, provinces,
formed reconcentrado ' camps, left a
howling wilderness in their track, re
sorted to torture, the destruction of
private property and the general mur
der of the inhabitants of at least two
provinces. The former were under in
structions to restore liberty and the
latter to establish ,a despotism. The
result is what; every patriot has said
always was and always will be. 'A
nation cannot long endure half slave
and half free." "Those who deny lib
erty to others cannot long maintain
It for themselves." ' Our own liberties
are more seriously threatened than
those of the Fiiipinos. When the
whole of the army has had Its turn In
setting up despotism and returns to
the United States, what effect will that
have on this government. . Already one
of the returned generals has declared
that such men as Senator Hoar ought
to be shot and if they had been caught
In the Philippines they 1 would have
been. No United States army officer
ever talked in that strain until after
he had been employed by a republican
administration in setting up despot
ism In Asia.
SENATOR HOAR'S 8PEECH
The speech of Senator Hoar upon
the Philippine bill will undoubtedly
be the most marked feature of all this
session of congress. He has without
passion clothed in the most elegant
E'ngllsh the arguments and facts of
the case against the imperialists. There
is not a point made that cannot be
duplicated in the writing that has ap
peared in these columns, but begin
ning at the very commencement f
the abandonment of the Declaration
of Independence he sums up the whole
course of the government in language
so pathetic and strong that it will be
a powerful factor in the coming cam
paign. It is an arraignment of the
doctrine of government by force that
will be read by lovers of liberty when
every member of the senate will be
mouldering in their graves. There
will be millions of copies of the speecn
printed and circulated during the n,ext
few months. It should be placed In
the hands of every republican voter.
The speech is a terrific arraignment
of the cruelty, inhumanity and despot
ism of the imperial policy. The calm
ness of the speaker gives to his words
a tremendous effect. What is inex
plicable to most men Is the fact that
while Senator Hoar knows that If the
republican party is successful in the
coming campaign that this policy
which he arraigns before the world
as the embodiment of all the cruelties
of the past and makes Insecure even
the liberties of the people of the United
States, yet he will go back to Massa
chusetts and do all that is within his
power to keep the republican party In
power and thus perpetuate the horrible
crimes which he denounces. Could a
more evident demonstration be made
of the power of partisanship? Let
every populist thank God that he is
not afflicted with such a baneful In
fatuation. SENATOR JOHN P. JONES
It is said in Washington that Sena
tor John P. Jones has announced that
he will retire at the end of his present
term and not seek a. re-election. He
will probably be succeeded by Con
gressman Newlands. During the
height of the silver agitation a dozen
years ago Mr. Jones delivered a s eech
in the senate nearly as extraor nary
in its scholarly presentation of the
money question as in its length, and
this speech was distributed on applica
tion from the country by tens of thou
sands. It became the chief work of
reference for the talkers on the silver
side.
When the McKinley administration
went to coining more silver than was
ever coined before, Senator Jones
went back into the republican1 party.
He was always a protectionlHt and
while not fully agreeing with the new
imperial policy of the republican party
he made no opposition to it. These
transactions have thrown him out of
sympathy with his state and as he Is
nearly seventy years old, he thSnks it
best to retire without a struggle. His
great speech of 1893 is not a discus
sion of the silver question only, but a
work on political economy, covering
every; phase of the money, question ex
cept that of credits, which is referred
to in an appendix, being part of a
speech he delivered at the, BrusseU
conference. It will take its place as a
standard work and endure for all time.
It was the result of twenty years of
hard study, assisted by two secretaries
of vast learning, and involved the col
lection of perhaps the finest private li
brary on the subject of political econ
omy in the world. Senator Jones waa
a millionaire, having made a fortune
in the Comstock lode, and he never
spared money in the purchase of books
or in the payment of learned and ex
pert assistants. For many years he
paid his secretaries more than he re
ceived as salary as a United States
senator, and they were" known as the
hardest worked men in the whole city
of Washington.
OBSERVERS AND THINKERS
There are two classes of men
take Interest in public affairs. One
class, understanding the fundamental
and -unrepeatable laws of political
economy, put their reason to work
and can forecast with certainty the
economic effect of certain policies.
The other class have only skill in de
scribing those effects, being a sort of
economic historians, as it were. The
former are thinkers and the latter
merely Observers. Of late the "observ
ers" have been recording the result of
their observations and some of them
are ' extremely accurate reproductions
of what populists said would follow
the unchecked organization of trust,.
A writer discussing the decrease in.
the number of young men who can ob
tain a college education after, men
tioning the lengthening oftthe college
course, says:' .
'A still more potent cause,
however, and one which ought to
have suggested itself to anyone
giving this subject the most super
ficial attention, is the unfortunate
condition which has prevailed in
;the business world for at least a
decade."
The hirelings of the trust have no
possible chance of a college education.
This same writer tells of one youug
man who entered the service of one ot
them at $4.50 per week six years ago
and after faithful and efficient service
for more than half a decade now gets
$6.50. He went into this service with
high expectations of rapid prbmotion,
but tnere is under the present syst m
no hope for him In regard to this
the same writer remarks:
"More serious than the inability
to obtain a college training is the
far more important question. How
are young men working for $6.50
a week going to establish homes?
This is the alMraportant question
for social economists, for prac
tically it" becomes one of morals.
A nation can live without college
bred men, but not without homes."
If the trusts are fostered and en
couraged as the republican party anl
the republican press have been do
ing, the American family will certain
ly to a large extent disappear. When
all the inhabitants except the mag
nates become hirelings of the trusts,
the foundation of the home Is gone.
The "observer" above quoted has bev
taking note of that fact, but he is only
reproducing in a very literal way wrtpt
the "thinkers" said nearly a decade
ago. He has perhaps been aiding by
his vote to bring about the condition
of things which he deplores. The Mor
ganization of all industries goes on
with astonishing rapidity and the con
dition of trust hirelings spreads widpr
and wider.
GOT WHAT THEY WANTED
The best lawyers look upon Judge
Grosscup's decision in the beef trust
case as the most tremendous ftretch
of the power of federal judges ever at
tempted. It Is in fact the assumpcion
of authority by the federal courts cf
the power to fix the price of beef in
the United States. The only way tf
enforcing the Injunction will be to
bring the managers before the court
for contempt for charging too much or
too little for beef. There Is not a
trust In all the land but would b
willing to let the federal judges fix the
price of all its products. That is what
has come of President Roosevelt's at
tack on the beef trust by way of In
junction. The Independent had no
faith in it from the beginning. It was
simply a political move of doubtful
utility to the republican party. There
will be no serious attempt made to
curb the rapacity of trusts while tn
republican party remains in power.
The only way to down the trusts is ta
down the republican party.
A prosecution of the beef trust under
the criminal law, a trial before a jury,
a conviction if the proof sustained
the charge and Imprisonment in th
penitentiary of the big millionaire
moguls would have meant something.
This Injunction performance was a
shallow political trick and has endt d
in establishing a more offensive des
potism than the one which it was pre
tended to attack. The way to attack
tne trusts In the courts was so tlain
that a wayfaring man, though a fool.
couia not err therein. The attack w
such a farce that the trust put up no
defense. They accepted an Injunction
just as the railroads did in a similar
case. It was what the trusts wantM.
and as has always been the cane un
der republican rule, the trust got what
it wanted. s