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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 22, 1902)
tggggHff in ii i , t uiyjpin m iiCTnwyy WWt HHIHttlUMM.M.fl "flW1 "'UfF"Wj-wpnp- ""ST 16 The Commoner. Vol. 2, No. 3i. L. ' ' t v Items of Interest. Massachusetts has 4,600 register! physicians. California Is producing daisies a foot In circumference. Scotch-cured herrings are bringing big prices in the Netherlands. The amount of French capital in vested in China oxceeds $100,000,000. In some New Zealand towns there are more womon voters than mon. Legislation enactod by the last con gress will result In at least 10,000 new pensioners. i Thoro has been noted In Honolulu a series of tidal waves believed to bo duo to volcanic action. Strlkos and riots aro blamed for the removal of six big insurance com panies from Paterson, N. J. Carl Myers of Frankfort, N. Y., is "building signalling and scouting bal loons for the United States govern ment. I A circus performance was recently given in the penitentiary in Jackson, Mich., and the convicts enjoyed it thoroughly. A Trenton, N. J., man recently took iflrst the gold cure and then a sleep, from which last ho failed to wake up for ton days. It is said that almost every steamer from the Hawaiian islands that ar rives on the Pacific coast brings hun dreds of Japanese laborers. From Winona county, Minnesota, comes a report that this is a record summer for rattlesnakes. One citizen has killed more than 200 of them. The topographic mapping of the Btate of. Vermont is being continued this summer by the topographic branch of the United States geologi cal survey. The government of Honduras has granted a subvention of $100 a month to a college for women and has given it a building with accommodation for some 200 scholars. In order to kill off mosquitoes own ers of property In Greater New York on which there are pools and marshes have been asked to drain the land, fill It in or sprinkle it with oil. According to reports made by the1 government geologists of Victoria and Queensland, there are no less than 62,000 square miles of coal-bearing country in the eastern states of Aus ' tralia. Pittsburg Dispatch. ANOTHER RAILROAD HOLD-UP. Th Madam XL R. Reorganise to h Publio 'Hr, Carry Tain 2o lfr . x .jj - "tvyvja TV WPltf - By Courtesy of the Chicago Record-Herald. An Educational Trust. In a recent letter to the Chicago Record-Herald,. Walter Wellman tells the following: -"Among senators and representa tives lingering hero there has been a great deal of comment upon the re port of the steel trust, which shows not earnings of $04,000,000 during the last six months. 'This means that we 'have got to roviso the tariff,' said a western republican. 'The Amorican people know that the average protec tion on the product of the steel trust Is nearly 40 por cent. They know that on account of this protection there is no foreign competition in our market -.They know that the prices of iron and steol are from 25 to 50 per cent higher than they should be, and that these prices, which enable the trust to roll up such enormous profits, aro made possible by tiio high tariff. In other words, the steel trust is taking out of other industries $20,000,000 or $30, 000,000 a year more than it is fairly entitled to and more than it could take did not the federal government bar out legitimate competition. This is using a government of the people to rob the people, and here is the question which the republican people have got to face.' The sooner we make up our minds to it the better will it be for the party.' " That is an apt phrase "government of the people to rob the people." It is likely to bo heard of again as the cam paign progresses. The big steel trust is educating oven republican poli ticians, and it cannot bo expected that the people will be unmindful of the lesson that is being taught. The steel trust, getting between $20,- uuu,uuu ana ?3U,uuu,ui)u a year more than it is entitled to out of the public, may be robbing the people to a greater extent than is any other combine, but the difference between it and scores of other trusts is only one of degree of robbery. Others are mulcting the peo ple in exactly the same way, through the tariff, and the steel trust has proved beyond all dispute that is so. The education it has imparted on this subject may bo worth all it has cost the country. Sioux City (la.) Tribune. Fifty Millions Out in the Strike- The ninth week of the anthracite coal strike has ended and the strike has entered on its tenth week. We have the usual estimates of losses, .more or less correct, but certainly sotting forth the magnitude of the movement. The loss to operators in the price of the coal that would have been mined had there been no strike is put as $23,000,000; the loss to strik ers in wages is" estimated at $11,000, 000; to other employes than strikers. $3,000,000; to business men in the coal region in loss of trade, $7,500,000; to business men outside the coal region, $4,500,000; cost of maintaining "coal and iron . police, $650,000. Omitting other and smaller items of less conse quence we have hero a total loss in business and wages of not less than $50,000,000 in nine weeks. The figures are probably exaggerated, but the cold facts make them big enough in all con science, as can bo realized by an ex amination of the operations in the anthracite region last year, which was the most prosperous in the last quar ter of a contury. The total output of the mines was but a few tons short of 60,000,000 tons, and for producing the output the miners received $36,323,000 in wages. The selling price in 1901 was thirty to forty cents a ton higher than in 1900. The 60,000,000 tons at $3 a ton represented a value of out put reaching $180,000,000. Viewed in the light of common sense and sound business principles, could anything be more foolish and suicidal than this struggle in which the brightest business men of the land and a great army of industrious me chanics aro engaged? They seom to be blinded to their own interests and duties, as well as the geenral pros perity of the country. Yet it could all have been avoided by arbitration; but the operators rejected all offers of ar bitration, even those supported by tho civic federation, on the ground that there was "nothing to arbitrate," and the only settlement possible was by submission to the terms proposed by one party to the difference a party of few men and many millions, against a party of hundreds of thousands of men and no dollars. This makes an argument for compulsory arbitration or for public ownership of the co&l mines; but we are told both are im possible. Arbitration is impossible simply because- the capitalistic side would maintain and assert power ovor flesh, blood and muscle. And, fur ther, it dare not face the American, public with such a disclosure of its business methods as would follow im partial Investigation as the- necessary prelude to arbitration. The loss to tho operators in dividends far oxceeds tho additions to the wages of the miners that would have avoided and would now settle the strike. This secret and powerful coal trust must bo taken in hand by tho federal government, if there is any virtue In the anti trust law or any sincerity in tho pro fessions of President Roosevelt and Attorney General Knox. Pittsburg Post -1 i ffiT " iV,rj i MMM1W.1M t-kT.Mii fc-ajf a LJEJIaHMH t.faiAifad a . ,.v A ,,.. a'.. '-""- "- y.