i - v "ipf
UrJ'wgjfWJ'
4
- Jt,TXr
' , - VOLUME 4. NUMBER 52
. President Eliot, of Harvard announce i,Jo
Pf
'
larae.
i rasti..
ffi
.MS
The Commoner.
ISSUED WEEKLY.
Entered at tho postofllco at Lincoln; Nebraska, as second
claBs mail matter.
One Year Ii.eo
Six Months i sec
In Clu b ol 0 or more, per
year 75c
Three Months ac"
Single Cepy ....fie
Sample Ceplea Free.
Foreign Postage gac Extra.
SUBSCRIPTIONS can be sent direct to The Commoner.
They can also bo sent through nowspapers which have adrer
Used a clubbing rate, or through local agents, whero sub
agents iave been appointed. All remittances should bo sent
by postofllco money order, express order, or by bank drait on
Now York or Chicago. Do not send Individual checks, stamps
or money.
RENEWALS.Tho date on your wrapper shows when your
subscription will expire. Thus, Jan. 31. '05, means that pay
ment has been received to and including the Inst issue of Jan
unry, 1005. Two weeks arc required after money has been ro
eclved before the date on wrapper can be changed.
CHANO.E OF ADDRESS. Subscribers requesting a change
el address must give OLD ns well as the NEW address.
ADVERTISING rates furnished upon application. Address
all communications to
THE COMMONER, Lincoln, Nek
' The trouble seems to be that the trusts learned
"jiu-jitsu" first.
There vere 1,600 postofflce robberies last year
from tho outside.
It sefems less painful now that wo can refer
to it as the defeat of last year."
Tho fear that "Gas" Addiclcs will break into
tho magazines is not well founded.
1 --
Very naturally Mr. James J. Hill favors a con
tinuance of government regulation by. the railroads.
Wo trust that Dr. Lyman Abbott ia not the
advance agent of a campaign of "frenzied theology."
Before visiting the south to show his ' friend
ship President Roo3evelt administered the fourth
doso of Crura.
Of course, if Wall street gets to shooting over
the Lawson expose it will have to be chronicled as
a naval battle.
Up to date the trusts have not been very badly
frightened by rattling shackles under their busi
ness office windows.
It must bo remembered that a great many
western blizzards rage fiercest in the headlines of
tho eastern newspapers.
It may be that in striving so hard to forget
Thomas "W. Lawson Mr. Rockefeller did not have
time to remember Chicago University.
Mr. Henry H. Rogers continues to worry a
great deal more over the memory of the dead
than he does over the welfare of the living.
A Pennsylvania judge has decided that steal
ing a kiss is grand larceny, and there are those
who will admit that if it is worth stealing it is
mon.
- The Commoner.
' K
Just about tho time wo hoped the president
would come down o"h tho beef trust he switched off
on tho railroad question. Did he run up against
a beef trust block signal?
After their experience with Mrs. Chadwick
those bankers are in a position to sympathize with
cne people wno invested their savings in steel com-
A lot of republican papers that 'are commend
ing Commissioner Garfield's plans threw frenzied
fits of horror when the same plan3 were ' sub
mitted by democrats.
The trusts view with equanimity the spectacle
of Uncle Sam policing the South American repub
lics. It gives more opportunity for working both
sides of tho homo street.
Tho Cincinnati Enquirer called it its "vale
dictory" as a democratic organ. The Enquirer must
havo mislaid its . dictionary. "Reminiscence" would
have been a better word.
General Miles has declined to draw two sal
aries, one as a retired lieutenant general and tho
other as adjutant general of Massachusetts. Gen
eral Miles is a democrat.
The New York corporations decided upon, a
truco in tho senatorial light until after tho Christ
mas holidays. The truco was possible because of
the indifference of the voters.
When it becomes universally known that only
ten states cast more prohibition votes than Ken
tucky Colonel Watterson will probably decide to
make France his permanent residence. ,
arbitration has success?, f,y a"
complahed its purpose."
evidently does not ant"to "snZZfo T
labor unions and can therefore see no right which
labor has to demand arbitration. It is not i
pected that arbitration of labor disputes will LuC
every point at issue, or that it will satisfy nil n?,
ties. But it is expected that it will ue far " eUei
than strikes and lock-outs. c
J. Plerpont Morgan has just paid ?6,000 for
the oldest piano in existence. But ho does not in
tend using it to make music for legislators to
dance to. He has better Instruments.
The king of Servia has just Signed a bill re
pealing the freedom of the press. Peter will come
much nearer muzzling the press, too, than Gover
nor Pennypacker did to shackling the cartoonists.
Mr. Rockefeller failed to make the expected
gift of $2,000000 to Chicago university. It may
be that Mr. Rockefeller lias encountered competi
tion in the oil business in some little town.
"You can't go benind the returns" was a re
publican shibboleth a few years ago, but that was
when going behind the returns meant defeat "f or
the g. o. p. It's different in Colorado right now.
Governor General Wright reports that "troops
were in the field most of the year quelling upris
ing." Isn't that rather queer news from a country
thoroughly pacified and satisfied with American
rule?
The Chicago Chronicle is not happy even now.
It has discovered some signs of "populism" in the
republican party. The first thing we know the
Chronicle will be flocking by itself, grand, gloomy,
peculiar, and alone.
The bank commissioner of Iowa seems to havo
been the premium "standpatter" during 1904. A
score of bank failures, a loss to depositors of up
wards of $12,000,000 and two or three suicides
because of them, was the record.
We talk a great deal about the world's ad
vancement, but can you find in history a year that
equals the record of 1904 for loss of life iri bat
tle and because of ac- ents that might havo been
avoided by ordinary precaution?
A man who was locked up in a refrigerator car
imagined that he was freezing to death, and actu
ally died, although the car was not iced. Such an
imagination is equalled only by those who imagine
that the trusts are frightsned by all this admin
istration anti-trust talk.
Tho Saturday Evening Post says that there is
to be a new deal in politics. It predicts a realign-'
ment and declares that "there is a great body of
republicans who really belong on the- democratic
side, and a smaller, but still large number of
democrats who ought to be republicans." Let the
exchange take place tho sooner the better. Har
mony in belief and in purpose is the only basis
of co-operation in politics.
Ho May
Expect
Too Much
Tho Minden (Neb.) Courier calls attention to
a matter that shows the advantages to the people
' of an elected judiciary. An Ax-
Whrln The tell, Neb., man sued in the state
Difference courts for $30 overcharge by a
Lies railroad company for- hauling iCe
xt , e company having charged him
that much more for a short haul than it charge-l
another man for a long haul. The case was taken
irom the district to the state supreme court and
the plaintiff won in both instances. Recently a
federal judge decided that the railroads had a right
to charge more for hauling sugar from San Fran
Cisco to Kearney than it did for hauling sugar from
San Francisco to Omaha, although Omaha is 200
miles further from San Francisco than Kearney.
The Axtell man tried his case before judges elected
by tho people. The sugar case was tried before
a judge appointed for political reasons.
Something
of Practiced
Utility
Several states will soon.have battleships named
after them afloat upon the paters of the ocean,
ana the ' newspapers of theso
states are discussing ways and
means of making some public
recognition of the honor thus
conferred unon them, a sliver
service seems to be the accepted idea, but the pre
sentation of 3uch a gift is open to objections. A
silver service will in no wise benefit the majority
of those aboard a battleship. The stokers, tho
gunners, the marines and the machinists will never
have an opportunity to use it, and it will be ser
viceable only to tho chief officers. The "Jackies"
are entitled to something more than the sight of
shining silver, and The Commoner suggests, not
as the originator of the idea, that the gift take
the form of a library. That may bo used by all
aboard the battleship and will be of real service
to everybody.
The Lexington Gazette, one of the staunciiest
of the democratic nowspapers of Kentucky, quotes
with approval tho st-tement of Hon. Norman E
Mack of the Buffalo Times to the effect that the
election means the "re-adoption of most of tho
basic principles of the party as enunciated in the
Platforms of 1896 and 1900." The principles of
those platforms are sound, and departure from
them is neither right nor expedient.
A public report of more than ordinary interest
was recently given out, but somehow or other the
administration organs ' seem to
Increased have overlooked it, either as a
Number of ncws feature or as a mere literary
Unemployed Production, The report was sub-
1 , A "to1 by New York charity of- "
flcials, and tho statistics showed an increase of 40
per cent in tho number uf unemployed who are
forced to seek assistance over tho number one year
ago. Ten years ago tho closing down of ec little
shop and tho discharge of a half-dozen emploves
was enough to throw tho average republican or
gan into a spasm. Their nerves have grown
stronger lately-or their yes much weaker.
A resident of Havana, Cuba, while gladly ad
mitting that United States occupancy of the island
Pneumonia resulted in tho almost total ob-
and Hteration of yellow fever, says
Y!i!W it kat when a Cuban starts for tho
i enow c ever Btates, especially New York, he is
warned to be careful about contracting pneumonia.
"Wo fear pneumonia when in the states much
more than we ever feared yellow fever when in
Cuba," he said. Pneumonia claims its victims by
the hundreds of thousands every year, yet wo
hear much less about it than we used to hear
about yellow fever. Perhaps we have become so
accustomed to tho devastations of pneumonia that
we give it little attention. But the medical pro
fession is striving earnestly to combat it, and in
view of the profession's success in combatting
other and once dreaded diseases it i3 not too much
to hope that in due time the disease will havo lost
its force.
The discouraging report comes that the Guate
malan ant is a dismal failure as a destroyer of the
boll weevil, and as a result the
The Ant southern cotton growers are in
That Became despair. The ant promised to do
a m,frirf..i wonders along the line of put
A aiuggard ting the boJ1 weevU QUt Qf busi.
ncss, and for a time actually did seem to try. But
it seems that in. this case, as in others, "familiarity
bred contempt," and now the ant and the boll wee
vil lio down side by side in the most friendly
fashion. It Is now claimed that the only remedy
.is to secure an early maturing cotton plant. It
tho cotton can be harvested about the middle or
October, before tho boll weevil gets in its deadly
work, and the plant left in tho field speedily de
stroyed, It is believed that the pest will succumti
to starvation. Scientists are now striving to secure
the early cotton plant, and in tho meantime aio
also striving to concoct some kind of PIea8J"
tasting food that will fatally disagree with tns
boll weevil's digestion.
uiNs;
m
ii"mJ