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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (April 22, 1904)
im to w m m m B ft? I 4' The Commoner. ISSUED WEEKLY. Kntorcd at the postofflce at Lincoln, Nebraska, as second. Ikm mall matter, One Year fi.eo SfxMonth.1 v sec In Clu I ol $ or more, per year 75C a Three Mentha .....35a SlnrleCopy 3 Sample Co plea Free. Foreign Postage sac Extra. RllitscPIPTIONS can be sent direct to The Commoner. They can also bo sent through newspapers which havo adver Used a clubbln rate, or through local agents, where such Bents.havo been appointed. All remittances should be sent bj poitomco money order, express order, or by bank draft on New York or Chicago. Do not send Individual checks, stamps, tor money. RENEWALS. Tho date on your wrapper shows when your aubscriptlon wlll'oxplro. Thus, Jan. 81, 05, means that pay ment lini been received to and Including tho last Issue of Jan uary, 100ft. Two weeks aro required after money lias been re ceived before the date on wrappor can be chanced. CHANGE OF ADDRESS.-Subscrlbcrs requesting a chang f address must fjlvo OLD as well as tho NEW address. ADVERTISING rates furnished upon appllpation. Address all communications to l THE COMMONER, Lincoln, Ne Tho president's trust busting promises have a regular Ben Davis apple flavor. Captain Carter should now begin the study of modlcino and jump back into army favor. " At least Russia deserves credit for not apply ing tho "thrown into our lap by providence" ex cuse to Manchuria. Mr. Cleveland wants, a short platform. How would what Judge Parker has said on present-day issues strike him for brevity? Tho report that tho president said Senator Burton got his deserts is calculated to make the sonator bring out that old Jerusalem exhibit letter. It is roported that a button bearing a "speak ing likeness" of Judge Parker has made its ap pearance in New York. "Speaking likeness-' is good. The impeachment case of Judge Swayne goes over until tho next session. Is it possible that the statute of limitations is to be overworked agaiu? Fivo hundred people are killed every year at Chicago's, grade crossings. And tho number will grow until human life becomes moro sacred than the dividends of corporations. Tho republican Chicago Record-Herald flies to the defense of Judge Parker's democracy and reads Mr, Bryan a locturo. The judge's republi can and bolting democratic post-convention sun port seems well nigh unanlmpus. . Some of Colorado's militiamen claim to be supremo over tho civil law. This sort of claim lias been growing ever since this country side stepped, all precedent and started .on governing aUen peoples without, their consehU . ii . Speaking of "available candidates" tho Sa vannah Press says: "That is a question for tho party to settle." This Is encouraging. A little handful of men claiming to be democrats insisted on sottling it for the party eight and four years go Governor Pennypackor says ho has good rea sons for declining a nomination to tho supreme bench of Pennsylvania. As the reasons were .manufactured by Mr. Quay, we see no reason to, doubt their worth from the Pennypacker staud- ,n hQ Chl?.fi? ?r5)niclo sy that "the demo cratic party did not have Mr, Bryan's support in 1892, when it elected Mr. Cleveland." The Chi" . cago Chronicle, acting on the. theory that a false- reiterated that one until It probably believes it , l ln ough thai; Messrs, Belmont, Hill Cleveland Rothschild, Olney and. Lauterbach know where. Judge Parker stands on tho issues of tX dity. Democrats who found their democracy on principle, and not on selfish interests, have avlsht ?tT - y are asea t0 slVQ ni $ The Commoner A reader of Tho Commoner asks for the sub stance of tho Elkins law. There is a very general misapprehension as to its terms. It repealed tho imprisonment provision of tho interstate com merce law, not of tho Sherman law. The crim inal clause of the Sherman law still stands, but is not enforced. The matter has already been dis cussed in Tho Commoner, but it is referred o again because there are still many who do not understand. A reader of Tho Commoner suggests that in stead of seeking a questionable victory by sur render and concession tho democratic party finould trust in tho triumph of truth and, para phrasing Shakespeare, say: "What stronger broast-plato doth democracy desire than a plat form with corporate power untainted? Thrice aro they armed who have their quarrel just, and they but naked though locked up in steel, whose conscience with injustice is corrupted." VOLUME 4; 'NUMBER 14. Tho No,w York Sun says, and what it says quoted with approval "by tho Chicago Chronirio f m that Judge Parker has handed LaW Mo.y down decisions in several law View disputes, anI "so far as these With Suspicion decisions liayo come to our no , ,u tico, they. have, been character ized by a good deal of common sense, and plain straightforward interpretation of the law." Mem' bers of labor unions know very well the inteic&f taken by tho I?ew York Sun and tho ChKaa Chronicle in the welfare of organized labor Add organized labor will look with suspicion upon the decisions in labor cases that secure the commenda tion, of these, two. well known advocates of tho D. M. Parry idea of union, crushing. Mr. J. A. Everitt, president of the American Society of Equity, has issued, through the Hollen beck Press of Indianapolis, a book entitled "The. Third Power." The book Is dedicated "to the. largest class, tho most dependent class, the hard est working class, the poorest paid class of people in the world the farmers.'- The purpose of the book is to show tho importance of the farmer's place in the industrial and political world and, to demonstrate what, according to the opinion of the officers of the Society of Equity, the farmers aro able to do in their own behalf. In Mr. Bryan's article on Tolstoy he said that Tolstoy was a believer in Henry George's theory of the land tax, A reader of The Commoner and a single taxer criticises tho oxpression, and fears that it will lead to misapprehension. He says, that Henry George "never believed in a land tax, but only a tax. on the owners of land in direct pro portion to the money values of land owned for present use, irrespective of improvements there on." He insists that a "land value tax" or a "ground value tax" is more correqtly express e. of his propositon and that "single, tax" .is thq distinctive term employed. A correspondent writing to the Carpenter's Journal shows how tho republican party has ig nored tho interests of tho laboring man, and then ho asks: "And how did we fare under demo- cratiq rule when Grover Cleveland was in uie White house?" Ho proceeds to recount the politi cal crimes of President Cleveland. Thus tho democratic party is constantly made to bear the sins of Mr. Cleveland's administration, while Mr. Cleveland's influence has been used to help elect republican presidents. Both 'the Chicago and Kansas City platforms espoused tho cause of the laboring man, and it is only fair that laboring men should distinguish between the attitude of the democratic party in recent campaigns and the at titude, of the party under Mr; Cleveland. - A reader of. The. Commoner asks whqn the American people decided against bimetallism. They never decided against it. For about eighty years wo had bimetallism with no one opposing it; then silver was demonetized without the duL 1 c knowing it. Then for twenty years all par ties, claimed to be in favor of remonetizing silver In 189G tho republicans pretended to favor inter national bimetallism, even declaring for it in their platform. After the election was over thev claimed a victory for the gold standard, m 1900 they tried to dodge the question of imperialism by shouting "prosperity" and, attributing it 0 Hie gold standard They are not now willing to state in their platform the financial policy which thev propose to pursue; they dare not submit thSK financial plans to the people. thelr A reader of The Commoner sends in a circuit issued by a republican candidate for county Cnm missioner In an Ohio county. In th chnL 1?" candidate makes tkn i&tto?0 pose of securing votes. First, ho promised tnI his influence to "raise the road to the TeS RkW tEfSi t0 ;'maUe a present ?25 to all plecincti' that give him a majority for the nominal J . ? case he is electedl third, ho proposed ln !n present of $50 to the precinct" th?f fi iI?ake a banner majority in case h Is elecSi S5Im,Ue not say haw the money is to be SSL?? 'Jots precinct or to whom it is to he . ?,,SKn ded by tho is certainly a unique wav o ' nd,0Ver' but lt And yet the "repuMlcanSv 7n ? Support not a few dollars. bu Venomous sum ? "3? glv?s ous- industries that furnish th! 3' to,the " and coerce voter U the camPaigu fiiud In tho Electoral College. An Albany county, Now York, reader asks if tho electoral, college is obligated to vote for the canuiuate nominated by the po litical party. This, reader asks: "Could not tho electors when they meet to vote for president and vice president, leeniiv vnf for some other person than the ones for whom they were chosen? Would it be a moral wrong for any elector to cast his vote for a candidate not nominated by his, party?" Legally, any elec tor may cast his vote according- to his own pleas ure. It is. not at all, probable, however, that any one having been chosen to the electoral college for the purpose of casting his vote for a certain candidate would violate his plain moral obligation. The -Minneapolis Journal, asks a question, which it seems to think unanswerable. "If the democratic party' asks the Healing Journal, "as the. . democratic in Intangible leaders openly declare, to be Futures. tneir intention, repudiate the " . Kansas City platform and turn their backs upon Bryan and Bryanism, what is to become of a profitable publishing business at Lincoln?" The best reply to the Journal query is the story of tho little girl who was found stand ing by the well one morning crying bitterly. "What is the matter, dear?" queried, her mother, "O, mamma," wailed the little girl; "I was just thinking that some time I Would grow up ana get married, and have a little-daughter, and that she might crawl over here and fall in the well and bo drowned! Boo-hoo." From tho-infantile Journal to the second generation Journal Is a very far cry. Tho Cedar Rapids (la.) Gaeztto, referring to President Roosevelt's statement that EUhu Root TUa Is tho greatest American, and me uazette the further statement that ho on Dangerous purposed supporting him for Ground. President in 1908, asserts that m, the president is inconsistent, -ine Gazette says that Mr. Root may not be with lis in 1908, and that Mr. Roosevelt should give the country an opportunity to elect its-greatest American this year. But the Gazette overlooks that little thing called a ''mental reservation." It may be that in referring to Mr. Root as "the greatest American," the president had a mental reservation. Or, perhaps, the president is of the opinion that the people of this country are not yet sufficiently advanced to be trusted with the task of accepting or rejecting his idea of American greatness. Whatever the presidential motive, tho Gazette is dangerously near lese majeste when it accuses the president qZ inconsistency. Mayor McClellan has. refused to. issue a permit to tenants of the East SidS to hold a parade and ir,,ii maSs meeting to, protest against evictions the arbitrary increase in rents. in He holds that the parade and New York City, meeting would peihaps lead to . L rioting. But why should there ue any protest against an increase of rents? Aie not landlords entitled to a share of. the "won, derful prosperity"- that is upon the country? Or is it possible that "prosperity" is confined to those 7 fixQd investments? This, protest against extortionato rents recalls, to mind the startling iact that there were more evictions for non-payment of rent in New York: city last year than there were in Ireland during the three or four years of tho greatest activity in that line. Theu the great daily papers of America were loud in their denunciations, of the cruelty of British land lords, and full of sympathy for the evicted Irish tenants. But you wil search, these same daily newspapers in vain for any "scare heads" and ex pressions of editorial sympathy for the evicts tenants; pf New YQrk cjtyr ..'.., tfwg "&tf44ftu&