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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (March 17, 1905)
J t- fT" .." 1 v it. B- ( H 6 AN Interesting review of the fate of many of Mo president's recommendations is given l.v tho World's correspondent. From this re view the following extracts are taken. "The annual message of tho president, sent to congress on Dec. G 1901, contained many strong recommendations. Ills introductory paragraph was a caution against extravagance in appropriations. The total of auth orized expenditures will increase instead of lower the treasury deficit. The president argued at great length for tho passage of an employers' liability law. Such a bill, passed by the house, was before tho senate- committee on interstate commerce for moro than a year, and never was taken up for con sideration. The strengthening of the Safety Appli ance act was recommended, and the subject was discussed by tho senate interstate commerce com mitteo without action of any kind. Railroad rate legislation was strongly indorsed. The house passed a bill, but the senate did not give the mat ter any actual consideration. The house bill was pigeonholed by the interstate commerce committee, action being deferred until the next session of congress." MR. ROOSEVELT asked for legislation to bet ter control insurance companies. Nothing was done. Senator Dryden introduced a bill pro viding for federal control of such corporations on tho day before final adjournment. The president requested legislation creating a system of small parks for the city of Washington. Tho matter was ignored. lie asked for a law to consolidate forest work in the department of agriculture. Nothing was done in that direction. He asked for two bills to quarantine diseased cattle and to prevent inter state commerce in such animals. This was derided by Senator Hale, and even Senator Piatt, of Con necticut, took a fling at tho president's special message making this suggestion. The president wanted authority to set apart certain lands for game preserves. This was denied. Ho requested a reorganization of the consular service and the substitution of salaries for fees. The matter was pigeon-holed. He wanted a national gallery of art created. It was not done. Ho urged a national quarantine law. The recommendation was passed over in silence. He asked for currency legisla tion. Tho subject was not even discussed. Ho especially recommended legislation for encourag ing tho merchant marine. Tho bill prepared by .a special commission was not brought before either branch of congress. It was killed by the presi dent s approval. He desired legislation to give the United States better facilities for reaching to hi silencem S Th mattei' WaS paSsed over MR. ROOSEVELT recommended that congress amend tho naturalization and immigration laws, but this recommendation was ignored Ho suggested an act concerning citizenship, but no attention was giyen tho suggestion. H0 recom mended an enactment for the protection of oZ lT JJ 'T?S sreoted with silent daughter He called attention to the long delay in criminal pros! editions, using the cases of Greene and pvn !t SS r CSo bS do nlinwJS Mpe,C,ia,,y (lesirine that this terSy bo allowed a delegate in conKress tL , ? president, who wa at th ? .0plnIon of tho navy, and 01 the battleships. He asked ty g two addItional 'mines be pWiSed foi 1 art? E?tQm of floaS tor was not discussed w efense Tho mt honor for commission;,! Rested medals of tho navy, biT was refled l tY11' offlcer3 n whipping post CwK?Stei?inr??Cm!Sended a Columbia. Such a measur , 2 V10 DistrIct r bachelor member of tho in Vas advcated by a to beat, and ttfppS tirlce had no couragement. received no other en- THE president asked for a law t , smoke nuisance in the c tTof wTe.nt tne the smoke of an electric ll"ht niiL ? Washington, the White House Ulfirff 2 Tllie Commoner was so unsatisfactory that he gave it a pocket veto by refusing to approve it before congress ad journed. Ho urged the ratification of the Hay Bond treaty, establishing reciprocity between the United States and Newfoundland, believing it would serve as an entering wedge for reciprocity with Canada. Nothing was accomplished in this direction. He sent a treaty with S'anto Domingo to the senate. It was not taken up by the Foreign Relations Committee. It was postponed for action at the special session of the senate and may not be accepted. He strongly urged the reduction of the Isthumian canal commission to live or three members and a form of government for tho canal zone. No bill of any kind for that purpose was passed. A deadlock resulted between senate and house. He desired legislation to prevent the trans mission of insect pests through the mails, but this failed at the last minute. About the only legis lation especially desired by the president which he obtained was the passage of the Philippine tariff bill. This slipped through in the last hours of tho session, when appropriation bills prevented any formidable opposition to the measure. No such array of snubs was ever before administered to a president within three months. GOVERNOR LARABEE, according to the Fort Dodge, Iowa, Messenger, paid his compli ments to the stand-patters of his party in a speech before the Iowa Manufacturers association at Ce dar Rapids by comparing them to the Fox Indians of Tama county. The boy, he said, who rides to the mill on horseback and with a bag or meal on his shoulder just as hi3 father did, is a stand patter. He said he was satisfied that many other articles as well as lumber and coal ought to be put on tho free list, and stated that steel is sell ing in Europe at $24 a ton and in America where it is produced at $33. That places the American manufacturers who must use steel at an awful dis advantage. THE confusion in the statements as to when the terms of members of congress expire whether March 3 or March 4 seems to have been cleared up by a writer in the Louisville Courier Journal. This writer says: "The Congressional Directory, in its sketches of Senators, uniformly says their terms expire March 3 in a certain year. This arises from the fact that the congressional day begins at 12 o'clock noon, instead of midnight and ends at 12 the following day. The term of a' congressman ends at 12 o'clock noon on March 4 according to the calendar, but this is the close of. the congressional day March 3. The statement therefore that the term of a senator expSon March 3 is purely technical, a legal fiction that not supported by the almanac, -which ha ?! called a part of the common law." n SEVERAL 'days after Dr. William Osier made his now famous declaration concerning ?S uselessness of men who had reached thj tV of cssary brutality " Tmp Tn,w i 7 of an unnec' esting contribution to the dif,1 makes lnter" the theory. It says that in eS ?" ccmcernine or a rising young barriste nffn f Peple speal of sixty years or thereaboutV n y and that men the positions of trust S t.T"1' , nearly a out: "The idiocy of his ?ldep.entlent Pints us when we remember our coun! 8rWS Upon a president under fortv i i ry has never had 40, being the youngest fof Koosevelt, now unknown andiscm da f list. Grant was president at 47 t nlv I0' a hero and a x""!? the wSite dent at G5, Washington fathered Si? T8 presU n the forties and fift es and ?lo S C0Untry while rate at 57. BaiZVaMinT iT? masis" ic service after he was 70 L d bis best PM he multiplied indefinitely Tn R exramV could senate today, out of the 90 mt United states a SCre Wl11 yetTn ZooV , VOLUME 5, NUMBER even in letters, Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, produrin his first novel when past 50, is one of many pies of ripened talent. George Elliott wZ "Romola" at 44. Swift was 69 when "GullS Travels" testified to his lively imagination and wit Hugo at 60 wrote "Les Miserables," and "Robin son Crusoe" was Defoe's work at 58. Moreover who speaks to chloroform William Dean Howell! at 68 Here are some of the really great books that were written after 40: Locke's "Essay on ths Human Understanding" (58). Shakespeare's two greatest dramas "Lear" (41), "The Tempest" (47) Milton's Paradise Lost" (50). Goethe's "Faust' (41 to 82). Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" (53). Thomas Hobbes' "Leviathan" (C3). Gib bon's "Decline and Fall" (51). Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" (57). Shift's I'Gulliver's Tray. els" (62). Dr. Samuel Johnson's Dictionary (46) Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" (43 to 44). Macau! lay's "Hi3tory of England" (48). Michael Angelo built the great dome of St. Poter's after ho was 60. Newton was 45 before ho discovered the law of tho attraction of gravity. At 42 Robert Fulton sailed his steamboat up the Hudson." WRITING in the Cosmopolitan, the earl of Ran furly, former governor of New Zealand, says: "The government carries on life assurance doing nearly half the New Zealand business in this lino (namely, forty thousand policies, assuring over nine and one-half million pounds sterling.) Acci dent assurance, employers' liability and fire arc all dealt with by the government. People who look alone at the total debt of New Zealand, viz; about fifty-six million pounds sterling, and slate that such a monstrous liability (considering the popu lation it is but eight hundred and fifty thousand) must betoken future bankruptcy, little consider the assets named above, and that the government, besides being a government, is also a colossal trad ing company, with huge sums invested in the var ious departments; for instance, 3ome twenty rail lions in railways, many millions in land, in post offices and postal equipment, in telegraph and tele phone exchanges, in loans to settlers, in light houses, in collieries and endless other commercial enterprises, from which a fair and certain return is derived, not to mention the opening up of the whole country in a marvelously short period of time." THE Chicago correspondent for the New York World says: "The packers manifested tho greatest pleasure in the Garfield report and for the first time in three yeara were in a mood to talk. Mr. Armour is quoted as saying that the re port is 'very fair, and gives the reader a good idea of what profits are made in the beef industry.' The Herald quotes a man who has intimate knowl edge of the beef trade as saying that those who conducted the "investigation" under Mr. Garfield, were not familiar with the trade and were unablo to make much headway, so in the end they took the figures given by the packers." The Herald's informant says that the gross business of the 'big six; amounts to $825,000,000 a year. The Herald's informant adds: "A net profit of 2 per cent on this amounts to $16,500,000. As the actual capital invested is far less than $100,000,000 it will bo seen that the profit above noted is at least 16 per cent. But, besides this, there is the profit from refriger ator cars. There are under control of the big con cerns 54,000 cars which the Bureau of Corpora tion n8 M worth S1000 each, or a total of ?i ,4 ' 0n thi3' from mileage alone, is real ized 17 per cent or $9,180,000. Besides this thero J-re the large charges for icing, which will return at least as much as the mileage. Furthermore, the packers' books would not show, and the gov tiiS7mnt agents could not flnd y any methods, from w e Poflts realized by th ereat beef men mn S faMB.!P0m milroas. A conservative esti S wTni ? item Voul(1 place lt at $10,000,000. It ancPsiieeU mr' thn' WUld h th baI" MeflaMSnfirSSnnSUBlno8B of ?825,000,000. .$10,500,000 Rebatges n54'00carS 9,180,000 eDates 10,000,000 SiS ' $35,000,000 WBOOOonnn ? Percentage on a capital of about works Bv ?W' Here ,s wher the trust scheme Soss all ovpp 5? bU8lnes3 at 2 Per cent on tbe the sma SSwiS1"1 they aro abIe to fT $200 flootnl, .lth a gross Rainess of $25,000 to t ThlVn"81?8 on a sImIlar- basis or sell nal ing gretofif "fl colWion, while still as through nrivntJ ?te n capItal employed aS well "uugn piivato cars and rebates." ',11 .LA ..