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The Commoner.
&PRIL 3, 1903.
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The Des .Moines Capital, a republican paper,
advances the interesting suggestion that the Iowa
republicans should not insist
Tli upon tariff reforms, because even
Same though they made a desperate
"Idea "r effort to incorporate the "Iowa
idea" into the republican na
tional convention, they would fail and that then
Iowa, having lost the speakership, would lose its
representation in the cabinet
Mr- Roosevelt is having considerable diffi
culty these days with his appointments. The
senate has rejected tfyrae, m
dicks' candidate for the district
attorneyship in Delaware, and
it has rejected the nomination
of Crum to the custom house
Recently Mr. Roosevelt named
iWilliam Plimley to be assistant treasurer at New
tYork. This appointment was such a bad one
that the senate, after having ratified it, recon
sidered its action.
Trouble
With
Patronage
In Charleston.
The Missouri supreme court has decided that
five beef packing companies are guilty of combin
ing to fix and control prices of
The in violation of the anti-trust law
Missouri , of that state, and has assessed
Way. a fine of $5,000 against each
company. The opinion was
written by Justice Marshall and is concurred in
by all members of. the court. A few fines like
this will do more to bring the trust magnates to
time than all the injunctions and restraining or
ders that could be issued.
In his biography prepared for the Congres
sional Directory, Sehatory Spooner says that
McKinley twice offered him a
Spoener place in the cabinet, first as sec
and retary of the interior, and then
Allison as attorney general. The friends
of Senator Allison rushed for
ward to say that the senator from Iowa has even
a better record in this respect. Presidents, Gar
neld, Harrison and McKinley, according to these
gentlemen, invited Allison to become a cabinet
member. In each instance Senator Allison de
clined. Giving cordial support to the proposition to
elect United States senators by direct vote of the
people, the Chicago Record-Her-A
aid, a republican paper, says:
dreat "No other reform in the meckan-
Reform. ism of tne federal government
will have a more beneficial in
fluence on the political life ot the country. Through
it local issues may be in large part disentangled
from national policies, the all too numerous Ad
dickses of the senate may be weeded out by the
people, and the senate will stand some chance of
attaining a position in which its members will ex
peditiously attend to the interest of the nation
instead of to those of their personal friends and
supporters."
The Washington Star says that "the difference
between an adviser and a candidate is so slight
under existing circumstances
Hla that Mr. Cleveland's three de
vest liverances will not serve to take
Friends." iB name out of popular specu
lation," and the Star adds.
"His best friends will continue to rate him as tho
best man for next year's race." But it is general
ly believed that Mr. Cleveland's "best friends"
are republican leaders or Wall street financiers
who lose no opportunity to contribute to the suc
cess of the republican party. Would it not be bet
ter for Mr. Cleveland to aspire to a nomination at
the hands of the party with which he has prac
tically affiliated during the past seven years?
The Chicago Chronicle says: "The way to
harmonize democrats is to give them democratic
doctrine and democratic leader
ship, and by that act to bid de
fiance to all the elements in the
party and out of it which are
urging policies in all cases un
democratic and in some un-American." That is
exactly what Kansas City platform democrats
say. But the Chronicle's idea of democratic doc
trine is that it should resemble the doctrine of
the republican party; and the Chronicle would
choose democratic leaders who have no intention
of waging serious war upon special Interests. Kan
sas City platform democrats are not the ones who
are urging undemocratic and un-American poli
cies. That is the part played by the reorganizers.
The Way
to
Harmony.'
' 'A writer In th6 New York Times tells a good
Gtory concerning Paul Kruger and Poultney Bige-
low. Bigelow had undertaken the
A task of interviewing Mr. Kru-
Good ger, but could only get mono-
Story, syllables in reply to questions.
Ho employed every art of the
interviewer, but to no avail. Finally, despairing
of getting any information of use to him by
straight questioning, ho determined to bo diplo
matic and approach Mr. Kruger from his family
side. So ho said, very nonchalantly: "Is your
"wife entertaining this season?" Short and sharp
came the gruff answer: "Not very." Bigelow ex
ploded with laughter and gave up the task. "Oom
Paul" smiled grimly as he said: "Good-bye."
It seems that, after all, tho opponents of Cu
ban reciprocity have won a victory, The Wash
ington correspondent of tho
A String Chicago Record-Herald says that
to the the approval of the Cuban con-
Treaty, gress as well as that of tho
congress of tho United States is
necessary for tho complete ratification of this
treaty. It is provided that "Ratification shall bo
exchanged at Washington as soon as may be be
fore tho 31st day of March, 1903, and the conven
tion shall go into effect on tho 10th day after
tho exchange of ratification." Even though the
Cuban congress shall approve of the treaty, the
American congress will not bo in session until
next December, and tho Record-Herald intimatoS
that the fight will have to be gone over again.
The Philadelphia Record says that if the
democrats will drop "the obsolete silver platform,
there will be little or nothing
Tliere in tUG way 0f democratic har-
are mony." But the so-called sil-
Others. ver plank is not the only fea
ture in the democratic platform
objectionable to the reorganizers. They are bit
terly opposed to many of the planks in that plat
form and are antagonistic to its general spirit. It
will be remembered that the Brooklyn Eagle criti
cised Edward M. Shepard because he suggested
that the platform of 1904 should arraign tho trusts,
government by injunction and other evils of tho
day, and the New York World, another represen
tative of the reorganizers, promptly gives ap
proval to the Eagle's criticisms. Doubtless the
Philadelphia Record entertains the same views.
The New York World says that "it does not
say that Mr. Cleveland can be elected." But it
insists that ho is "tho logical
candidate and the strongest can
didate for the democratic par
ty." If the World does not feel
confident that Mr. Cleveland
could bo, elected, why does it support him? It
has all along insisted that a democratic candidate
should be nominated who could give high promise
of victory. That, rather than the things for which
the candidate stands, was, in the World's opinion,
the important thing to be considered. There are
a great many people who believe that the reor
ganizers are not nearly so anxious to secure a
democratic candidate who can be elected as they
are to persuade the democrats to nominate a man
who, if elected, would carry out practically the
same policies to which his republican opponent was
committed. If the trust magnates could control
the democratic convention as well as the repub
lican convention, they would not be in the least
disturbed, whatever the result of the campaign
might be.
Former Governor O'Farrell of Virginia is
quoted as saying that "Mr. Cleveland is the strong
est man in the party for the
nomination in 1904." He says
that he does not doubt Mr.
Cleveland's willingness to run
again. He explains that "of
course it will be necessary to convince Mr. Cleve
land that the salvation of the party and the coun
try depends upon it, but that should not be diffi
cult for the Cleveland movement in 1892 took
that form. The ex-president's admirers surround
ed him and explained his duty to him." Mr.
O'Farrell does not think that Mr. Cleveland would
be "unreasonable" now and that he would ac
cept the nomination. Undoubtedly Mr. Cleveland
would accept the nomination, but Mr. Cleveland
is not the only one to be convinced. There are
several millions of democrats who will require
considerable proof to be convinced that the salva
tion of tho democratic party and the salvation
of tho country depends upon the nomination of a
man who betrayed his party and whose financial
policies well nigh wrecked the country.
"The
Logical
Candidate."
Saved
tho
Country.
Already democrats aro beginning to realize
tho inconsistency of choosing as a leader in the
senate a man having no sym
A pathy with democratic prin
Public ciplos and democratic profes-
Grin. sions. Tho New York Evening
Post, referring to tho "ac
claimed leader of tho democratic party, in tho
United States senate." says that "he is himseir
tho full flower of special privileges," and adds:
"Ho has shared with Mr. Aldrich tho honor of
being tho peculiar representative of selfish in
terests. What ho did in that capacity to trans
form tho Wilson tariff bill into an act which
President Cleveland denounced as tainted with
perfidy, is still fresh In the general memory. It
is his recovered prominenco in tho party counsels
which will make tho public grin at tho Idea of his
leading an assault on special privileges."
The American Economist took to task tho
Sioux City Journal for suggesting that tho trusts
. bo deprived of tho sholter which
lHy thoy find in tho tariff. Tho Jour-
. Will nal retorts that tho Economist
Dictate. s "tno representative of com
bination greedy for monopoly.
Tho 'trust is tho marrow of its bones and the
blood of its veins. It follows tho crook of a fin
ger and bends the hinges of Its limbs without
the suggestion of an interrogation point" And
then tho Journal makos this proud boast: "The
republicans of Iowa will exorcise their freedom
and such judgment as thoy can In thoir own right
command. They aro national republicans, and
yet thoy claim elbow room to bo Iowa republicans
as well. It is not bombastic to say that they will
not take dictation from the American Economist
certainly not unless the character of it is vastly
changed." The Economist can pernaps give the
editor of tho Journal somo pointers. There is
every probability that tho Iowa republicans will
take dictation, If not from the American Econ
omist, at least from the special interests which
that publication represents.
A reader of the New York World expresses
surprise that little comment has been made upon
the fact that the appropriations
by tho Fifty-seventh congress
reached tho enormous sum of
$1,554,108,514. This reader says:
"Few of us comprehend how
vast a sum of money that is. Divided pro rata .
it would give more than $20 to every man, woman
and child in the United States. It is sufficient to
pay an annual salary of $1,000 to 310,821 men for
a period of five years. Were it in silver dollars
placed edge to edge, they would make a band clear
around the world and overlap more than half
the way back. Placed one above the other, thoy
would make a silver staff more than 4,509 miles
high. Its weight would be more than 91,581,391
pounds. Allowing 40,000 pounds to a freight car,
and twenty loaded cars to a train, it would re
quire 22,89Q cars, or 1,145 freight trains, to move
it" Perhaps the fact that the people have be
come accustomed to extravagance at the hands of
the republican party and do not expect anything
in the way of economy will explain why tho enor
mous appropriations made by the republican con
gress have elicited little comment
Accustomed
to
It.
The New York Press, a republican paper,
says: "Senators who are trying to checkmato
tho sovereign will of tho peopl9
Drive in respect of control of the
Them 'trusts' will not succeed. They
Out. WM succeed in convicting tho
system by which such instru
ments of the 'trusts' are made possible. Such wit
ness are they bearing against the present method
of election to the United States senate that there
will be nothing left for the American people to
do, while they are establishing control of the
'trusts,' but to establish at the same time con
trol of their United States senate." But these
senators who are trying to checkmate the sov
ereign will of the people understand, in spite or
whatever the Press may say, that the republican
party may depend upon the support of such news
papers as the Press regardless of what the repre
sentatives of the party may do. These senators
do not appear to be disturbed, nor have they ap
parently any reason for being disturbed, by tho
suggestion that there is any probability that they
and the interests they represent will loso control
of the party. The only way for the people to es
tablish control of tho United States senate is to
drive the republican party out of power in that
body.
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