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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (June 26, 1903)
7( tim6ummttiS(mtitmriia 14 ) 3&'iwlpBwiS;WLjT!?S?-r - J 6 The Commoner, VOLUME 3, NUMBER 23. iMtn Ps x"" igr vv ..'"into, f i ' j . - 1 - - yr Si THE ENORMOUS INCREASE IN THE NUM ber of immigrants will be better appreciated when it is known that in one day during the month of April, 1903, 12,784 people landed at Ellis island. The New York correspondent for the St Louis Republic says that "so congested has the port of entry become with the pauper hordes of Europe that the facilities for examining each individual considered adequate one year ago havo been so overtaxed that the unusual procedure of inspecting steerage passengers at the pier was iesorted to." Ellis island's capacity for handling immigrants has been found to be 8,000 a day, but, according to the Repub.ic correspondent, the island is now so thronged with immigrants that there is hardly room to move around. Officials of the immigration bureau say that the year 1903 will provide the high recorc mark, for statistics bo far show almost double the influx of last year. AN INTERESTING DESCRIPTION OF THE methods employed in handling immigrants Is given by the Republic's New York correspon dent. As each boatload arrives, the immigrants aro directed up the main stairway in single file. Over the railing of the balcony high above the main floor, they see suspended before them, as they ascend, a large flag ue design of which many of them behold for the first time the stars and stripes of freedom. As the line moves up to the top of the stairway the papc of each immi grant are stamped with arrival date, and their first examination, that of the medical staff, takes place. Each Immigrant is crre'ully scrutinized for the much-dreaded .and contagious diseases favus and trachoma concer.le'. arms or hands are uncovered, and any lameness is inquired Into. Suspects are put aside into the detention cage and further examined In the private rooms of the hospital board, and if in need of medical atten tion they are sent over to the hospital, a large, now structure opposite the boat slip, and thor oughly equipped with the most modern and up-to-date appliances for the treatment of any medi cal or surgical cases. Those who pass the medi cal Inspection file into the various compartments located en the large main floor, which are num bered. Each immigrant is ticketed, and there are thirty of each number, that being the list of names on each manifest. When the recorders are ready for a squad they are led out of the com partment and form a lino leading to the record ers' desks, of which there are twelve, at the west end of the floor, and several lines of immigrants aro being examined at 'he same time. IF ALL QUESTIONS ARE PROPERLY AN owered and the money in nanu Is sufficient and if a good record has been shown, the immi grant passes down to the railroad floor and se cures transportation to Now York or the west. If bowover, the immigrant cannot pass inspection! he is hold for tho board of special Inquiry, which hoard further investigates and passes upon his case. This loard rejocts many applicants on the ground that they havo a criminal record, are pau pors or diseased, or have been bro jgt In under a labor contract. Tho rejected ones are returned at tho expense of the steamsMp company. Dur ing tho year 1902 there were returned 4,479 pau pers, -274 contract laborers, and 711 diseased per sons. The Republic correspondent says: "The sorrow, anguish, and despair of some of tho ex cluded aro touching In tho extreme, but why should wo, a prosperous, young and God-fearing country, be loaded down with the scum, tho pau per and tho criminal classes of the older Europ ean and Asiatic countries, who aro only too glad and eager to thrust on us the loathsome burdens With which for centuries they havo been af flicted?" INVESTIGATIONS IN TPIE AFFAIRS OF THE postofllco dopartmont have already disclosed a vast amount of corruption and those who are in a position to know say .hat there are many sensations to come. John R. Proctor, president of the civil service commission, has made a re Kcm wlcU' amonS other things, he says: "Tho Investigations seem to show clearly that most of WgU department omoTBrilcaTca V 1 to the postmaster with all the force of a direc tion." The name of Perry S. Heath, former first assistant postmaster general end now secretary of the republican national committee, figures con spicuously in these investigations. The Washing ton correspondent for the New York World, un der date of June 13, said that if Mr. Heath "does not start on his suddenly arranged six months' trip to Japan pretty soon, it Is quite likely he will be called to Washington to answer some embarrassing questions." The World's correspon dent says that Mr. Proctor's report shows that Heath "conducted his office as first assistant post master general as a vast clearing house for the political obligations incurred by Mark Hanna prior to the first McKinley rampaign and during that campaign. Heath paid the political debts of Hanna." According to the Proctor report, in Washington city alone four hundred persons were improperly appointed to office during one year. NOT THE LEAST INTERESTING FEATURE of the postofflce scandalp Is that relating to the charge that the investigations have devel oped that among the politicians in control, there existed a plot to prevent Roosevelt's nomination. The Washington correspondent for the New York World says that he has secured from a govern ment official who has been intimately associated with both the president and the postofflce de partment for nearly two years a statement "lay ing bare the inner history of an amazing net work of postal irregularities." According to the Worlds informant there exists in the postal branch of the government a clique of officials who have used their official position for personal profit by levying blackmail upon all contractors lor supplies. This clique has been supported and maintained by men powerful in the national re publican organization, by at least one United btates senator, several members of congress and by prominent republican leaders in various 'parts of the country. It is further charged by this same informant that republican heads of the de partment postal service were cognizant of the evils and tolerated them at the direct instance of prominent republican leaders; that the mem bers of this clique paid for their protection by ex panding for the benefit of their protectors the rural free delivery service at the expense to the government of many millions of dollars. ' & f THE POSSIBILITIES OF VAST POLITICAL power in the rural free delivery will be fUnHe,rStu0d by a slance at the appropria v,vmI Sral?ch of the Pstal service. The tLHniSaMhingt0n C0Pndent points out uiat in 18U7 the amount was v ".OuO 1898 JRnnnn 1899, $150,000; 1900, $450,000; 1,01 $i 'I 1902, $3 993740; iu03, .,000,uu6; wiS'a deflcic appropriation of $500,000 added; 1904, $12,000 000 The estimated cost of the service when it is com pleted as now planned will be $24,000,000 a year This high government official is quoted b tho St?oront0rIty Clmrge tffwh'fe he its insniration .nT1 f,reG delIvery bureau fod us inspiration in the demand of the farmers for increased ma 1 facilities it was later traTsformed into a perfectly organized facf.-al machine ret- tobetSdnSPLy 1 0i0,0H0 VOtGS and inUnfdJd to be used as a club by members of the national repub lean committee and their aids who were Jfon6111115 fgainst Mr' Roosevelt' nomTa! tion. It seems r.lso to be admitted that ! ? vest gation was originally made for the nuVnose of destroying this political conspiracy and Uie Stie hShrS?ndent' ?peaking on the ay uncoverinl iff Tt!Smeilt fflclal: Says that In th uncovering of this conspiracy "the present in vestigators incidentally discloses a system of Vaft in several branches of tho postal service.'' Aft ftC A REPORT RECENTLY MADE BY THE BU reau of forestry shows that on an averatro each year sixty lives are lost in forest fires am! that $25,000,000 worth of property is destroyed more than 10,000,000 acres of timber land aro burned over and young forest ground worth at the lowest estimate $75,u00,000 Is killed Jt J ELIZABETH COOMBS ADAMS DIED JUNE 13 at Quincy, Mass., aged ninety-five years. She was the grand-daughter of President John Adams and was the eldest daughter of Thomas B. Adams, son of the second president Miss Adams was present at the meeting between La fayette and John Adams in 1825, when the corner stone of Bunker Hill monument was laid, and she attended the inauguration of every president from that of her uncle, John Quincy Adams, to that of Grover Cleveland. ALONG PERIOD OF" DROUTH HAS BEEN visited upon some of the eastern states. The weather bureau has referred to thij season's east ern drouth as unprecedented, but a writer in tha New York Evening Post takes issue on this point and says that the most serious devastation from this cause occurred in 1881. In April, 1S81, a com mercial review said: "The winter has been un usually severe and prolonged, coming on early and continuing late, and more lately the wheat growing sections of the northwest have suffered from floods beyond all precedent Winter camo on so suddenly last year that farmers have had no time to plough to the extent desired, and the floods this spring have overflowed much land, so that it could not be sowed. In June, the agricul tural bureau reported for winter wheat 'an aver age condition for the whole country of only 7G,' with drouth not only in the eastern and central Btates, but in California. This drouth continued. Wheat sold on August 1 at $1.25 per bushel; it reached $1.53 on October 1. Every one will re member the stifling heat of that autumn; the burnt meadows, and the 'yellow days,' when smoke from the blazing woods of Maine over spread New England and New ork. The gov ernment's September condition estimate on corn was only 60. Not until the opening of October was the long drouth broken. The year's full crop of wheat was 383,280,000 bushels, against 498. 549,000 in 1880., Of corn only 1,194,916,000 bushels were produced, as against 1,717,434,000." ANOTHER FAMOUS DROUTH YEAR WAS 1890, and the Post writer points out that the government's report of June made no refer ence to a drouth, winter wheat's poor condition resulting from an unfavorable start Drouth in the Missouri valley began in July, however, and lasted until late in the summer. During July, the government's condition estimate on corn was cut down from 93.1 to 73.3, and on spring wheat from 94.4 to 83.2. Rain came at the close of August; but too late to save the full crop. The yield of wheat was cut down 91,000,000 bushels from 1889, and the yield of corn 622,000,000. The sea sons just described were both unlike 1903, whose drouth not only came too late to impair the win ter crop very seriously, but too early to interfere on any large scale with the spring wheat yield, and with a water-soaked western soil to' help thp future growth. DOMESTIC SCIENCE IS TAUGHT IN A PRAC tical way 'at Park College at Parkville, Mo. At that college the young women do the cooking tor more than three hundred students, no ser vants being employed and a systematic rotation oi work by which each one becomes acquainted with various lines of work. This plan is said to operate very successfully. Commenting upon it, a writer in the New York Tribune says: "At wS, HW In its seminary days, and at Wellesley Co lege, which was modelled largely on Mount Holyoke, a system was at one time in 3K b3. wh,ich the "Si housework, such as dusting, chamberwork, serving in the dining room !!? tri1mmlnS. was done by the students, ViG ea involved was less to teach housewif ;,!L ,,n J save the wages of seryants. There ,m , .Q Same' a notioa that sucn duties in S?liW ay tended to counterbalance and mitigate oi "Stpcjing tendencies of Greek' and Latin, fmini!S infl"ence was believed to bo distinctly mJ ?& 0no young woman would All salt Sv i ao ?ear; anther would spend her Snf i?llr 0f ,usework trimming German stu n i?. FiS; 5UU anotlier would be deputed to ff ES Browning room, the holy of holies. JlJft th0 Penetralia, the arcanum of Wel tSL "egG; Aa, !t eraergqd from its earlier traditions and gained in ambition and .scope, . rt s y JLwJkA