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Items of InlerHesif. .
The widow of Matthew Arnold, the famous
British poet, is dead.
Several deaths from bubonic plague have oc
curred at Oporto, Portugal. -
The coronation of King Edward is announced
ti take place in June next. -
Eight expeditions are now being planned to go
lr. search of the North pole.
The Norwegian parliament has conferred the
right of franchise on women taxpayers.
An official statement was made in parliament
that the cost of the Boer war was in excess of $6,
000,000 per week.
The submarine boat inventor, Holland, is now
building a boat in wlich he expects to sail to Eu
rope under the Atlantic ocean.
Plants are very sensitive to the'effects of pois
onous substances, making possible the detection of
their presence when all other means would fail.
The Ave leading minerals of the United States
acqording to the value of their production in the
year 1900 were coal, iron, copper, clay products
and gold in the order named.
A protocol has been signed by the representa
tives of the United States and San Domingo ex
tending for one year the pending reciprocity treaty
between these two countries.
The United States grants about 25,000 patents
each year, or nearly three-fourths of all granted by.
the rest of the world combined. England 'ranks
next with about 8,000 patents to her credit-'' "'
In the year 1900 the United States consumed
6.8 poundB of coffee and 1.1 pounds of tea' per
capita. During the same period the per capita con
sumption in Great Britain 'was 71-100 pounds of
coffee and 6 pounds' of tea.
Hon. John J. Feeley of Chicago is the youngest
member of the present congress. He is from the
Second congressional district of Illinois and was
elected to his high position when but 25 years old,
the age which the. constitution requires one to at
tain before ho is eligible to' a seat in the house of
representatives.
Wireless telegraphy can now be successfully
used for a distance of 200 miles. There are reg
ularly established stations now in service between
England and Belgium, and also Ireland and "Wales,
these lines being 60 miles in length. The system
has been adopted by some of the English, German
and Italian war ships and promises to be of great
service in naval operations.
According to United States Commissioner of
Patents Duell, Thomas A. Edison leads the list of
American inventors, having procured 742 patents,
the most of which are for electrical devices. The
man with the next best record is Francis H. Rich
ards, who has procured 619 patents, mostly for
weighing machines. For inventive genius the five
leading states rank in the following order: Con
necticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey
and New York,
Chicago Tribune: London, June 29. A blue
book on India, just issued, shows that 18,390,000
was expended for the relief of famine sufferers
during the year 1899-1900. The mortality from the
plague for the five years ending March, 1901, was
nearly 600,000. The census completed in Harch,
1901, shows that the increase in population during
tho last ten years was only 5,000,000 to 6,000,000 in
stead of the normal 19,000,000. The loss repre
sents deaths from famine and tho deaths in con-
sequence of the famine.
Chicago Tribune: Every mixer of egg choco
lates, ice cream sodas, and other summer drinks
can have his own cliemical engine if he takes Chief
Musham's advice. Three feet of hose and the ap
paratus is complete. If a fire breaks out in one
The Commoner,
corner of the drug store all the mixer has to do
is to attach the hose to' the soda fountain and turn
on the water charged with carbonic acid gas. Tho
mixer will be able to shoot a stream of water over
the heads of his patrons and into the corner, and
when the department arrives there will be nothing
to do but turn in the "fire out" report. "Drug
gists generally realize the value of soda fountains
for extinguishing fires," said the chief, "but they
have not carried the idea far."
The coinage at the United States mints during
the fiscal year ending June 30, 1901, was .as fol
lows: -
Denomination. Pieces. Value.
Double eagles 2,640,041 $ 52,800,820 00
Eagles 3,130,088 31,300,880 00
Half eagles 2,972,623 14,863,115 00
Quarter eagles 40,360 t 100,900 00
Total gold 8,783,112 $ 99,065,715 00
Denomination. Pieces. Value.
Standard dollars 24,298,850 $ 24,298,850 00
Half dollars 9,282,850 4,641,425 00
Quarter dollars 14,697,514 3,674,378 50
Dimes 26,508,450 2,650,845 00
Total silver 74,787,664 $35,265,498 50
Denomination. Pieces. Value.
Five cents 26,882,113 $ 1,344,105 65
One cent 66,546,243 665,462 43
Total minor 93,428,356 ? 2,009,568 08
Denomination. Pieces. Value.
The Fourth of July.
If there has ever been anything really indigen
ous and peculiar toAmerican life, it has been the
annual celebration of the Fourth of July. That
has been one holiday which we possessed to our
selves alone, and in Which we all joined. Christ
mas and New Year's we shared with all civilized
nations. Thanksgiving day and Washington's
birthday have never been truly national holidays,
though of late years they are coming to be more
generally observed by out people. But the "Glor
ious Fourth" has been celebrated in every hamlet
of the United States, and the flame and smoke of
its triumphant gunpowder have filled the land from
Sandy Hook to the Golden Gate, from the St Law
rence to the Rio Grande, and have had no echo or
reflection beyond those bounds. Indeed it has not
been thje least of the glories of our national holiday
v that other nations could not share in it, and there
have been those among us who have found a cer
tain pleasure in fancying the Crowned' Heads of
Europe as looking upon us in this annual orgie of
pyrotechnics somewhat sourly, and withal in ap
prehension lest the political doctrines we cele
brated should spread beyond our own borders and
undermine their thrones. Once a year for a cen
tury and a quarter we have exalted the principles
of the Declaration of Independence, and with them
as a sort of chip on our shoulder have defied all
Christendom.
Suddenly now it comes upon us that the men
ace to the principles of the Declaration comes not
from kings and potentates, but from ourselves.
The "effete monarchs," of whom our orators have
loved to talk, have needed only to sit still in pa
tience and behold us repudiate all in the way of a
broad and general philosophy that the Declaration
of Independence stands for. The watchword of the
quarrel out of which came the Declaration was
"taxation without representation is tyranny," and
the Declaration Itself enumerates among the causes
for separation from the government of the King of
England, "imposing taxes on us without our con
sent." Yet precisely these things we are tlolng
in Porto Rico, have done in Cuba, and shall do in
the Philippines, while our supreme court affirms
their entire harmony with our constitution.
It was the practice universally years ago, and
may be still the custom in sdme of our smaller
communities, to have the Declaration read on tho
village green or at some other public place for
the instruction of youth and the refreshment of pa
triotism generally. It.was a salutary nractice, and
one which it were a pity to abandon, yet wo can
foresee some embarrassment this year on the part
of a reader with alert wits, when, in the face of our
own doings of late, ho shall como to the enumera
tion of tho dire offenses of King George offenses
that justified our revolution.
"Ho has refused his assent to laws tho most
wholesomo and necessary for tho public good,"
and President McKinloy has just condemned the
wholo Cuban constitution.
"Ho has made judges dependent on his will
alone for the tenure of their offices, and tho amount
and tho payment of their salaries," exactly as the
judges In Porto Rico and tho Philippines are de
pendent on our president.
"He has erected a multitudo of new offices,
and sent hithor swarms of officers to harass our
people and cat out thoir. substance," Porto Rlcans
and Filipinos can reiterate this charge with entire
justice.
"For imposing taxes upon us without our con
sent. For quartering largo bodies of
armed troops among us. For depriving
us in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury."
These are reasons why our forefathers threw
off the rule of tho British king. Are wo guiltless
of them?
To go through tho wholo Is neither necessary
nor pleasant. The catalogue of tho sins of George
IIL is tho list of the colonial triumphs of tho
United States government In tho opening days of
tho twentieth century.
Perhaps it is not wholly bad that our national
self-esteem should be tempered a little on this
Fourth of July, for as a rule wo make of our
selves on that holiday an egregious spectacle of
conceit and bumptiousness. If recollection of tho
fact that out of a war entered upon with a dis
avowal of any land-grabbing intent we have como
with the biggest booty measured by square miles
ever won in war, shall make us a little less
boastful of our virtues well and good. If knowl
edge of our commission of all the sins that our
forefathers at Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, de
nounced shall make us humble, that at least will
be not wholly unfortunate. And, indeed, there is
a certain plausible excuse for much that we have
done in seeming antagonism to our earlier national
ideals, for it has been done experimentally, and In
professed effort to prepare these countries either
for self-government or for admission to the full
privileges of our own government. It tho spirit
has boon American, has been the spirit of that first
Fourth of July, then no matter how far the letter
may have fallen behind there cannot bo complete
condemnation.
But unhappily it Is exactly In the spirit that
wo have repudiated the Declaration. That docu
ment was not merely a shout of defiance to Great
Britain; Jt was an effort to formulate a political
creed of universal applicability. It was intended
to apply to all peoples as well as to tho American
colonists, to the United States of 1901 equally with
the confederation of 1776. The phraseolgy Indi
cates that it was a" political philosophy as well as
a declaration of independence that the authors
thought they were formulating. But we have re
f pudiated the philosophy, and In celebrating the oo
casion now it Is only our separation from Great
Britain and not tho reasons assigned for that sep
aration that wo approve. Many of our public men
frankly declare that tho Declaration is a mere
bundle of glittering generalities, a purely senti
mental and impossible compilation of political
idealisms as far removed from the practical science
of -government as the golden rule is from business
principles. We have discarded the theory which
was tho corner-stone of the Declaration, "that gov
ernments derived their just powers from the con
sent of the governed," perhaps never to Teturn to
it. And he who should seriously say nowadays
that all men are created equal would be held as
crazy as one who should sell all that he had and
give it to the poor.
It is indeed a new era of thought and of action
upon which we bave entered, and our Fourth of
July must have a new significance. We can cele
brate our greater wealth, our greater power, our
wider domain, our higher place in the fears of na
tions. But we cannot longer celebrate ourselves
as the custodians of the principle of self-government,
for we have denied that boon to people whom
we have bought with out money or won with our
sword. We cannot feel ourselves the" nation to
which all struggling for freedom, may turn for
sympathy, and even aid, for we have been deaf to
the moans of the dying republics of South Africa
vhile engaged in blotting out the budding republic
of Luzon. No longer are we sons of the morning.
Wo take our place with the great powers of tho
world, their equal in blood-letting power, their
superior in wealth and in enterprise, their com
panion in the exploitation of weaker peoples. As
a universal shop-keeper, the United States is the
marvel of the age, but no longer is lb the pioneer
of liberty and the defender of the faith, in the
equality of man and the inherent right to self
government. The Pilgrim.
