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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (April 21, 1905)
tt a yvT4V"' wmn-'ffV)'1 6 The Commoner. VOLUME 6, NUMBER 14 rCURKSNT " j : ;j --' HTtrm....ir ,iTBnIMJajj.i,-r-T u n topics H IV It) A STRANGE oxaraplo of raco merit reappear ing la cited by tlio St. Louis Post Dispatch. That newspaper says: 'It is well known that Field Marshal Oyaina is the descendant of an Irish king named O'Yama, who left the green Isle several hundred years ago. Oku is a member of the fa mous O'Keough family. Those are facts familiar to antiquarians. But that Kuropatkin was any thing but a Russian will be news even to students of tho origin of things. In 1691 Sir Dermott Carew loft Ireland and went to France. His son Patrick Carew, became a general in the French army. His eon Patrick Carew went into tho Austrian serv ice, distinguished himself in battle with the Turks and was granted largo landed estates In Hungary by tho grateful emperor. This Carew had a son, also named Patrick, who entered the Russian serv ice. In Russia the surnamo is placed before tho Christian namo. lie was known as Carew Patrick, which readily yielded to phonetic requirements and becamo Kuropatkin. The present general is eighth or ninth in descent from Sir Dermott Ca rew, 1691. It is a strange example of raco merit reappearing. And rcmombor 'that, sinco tho Irish are tho ten lost tribes, it follows that tho heroes of the war in tho east, victors and vanquished, aro of tho blood of Abraham, Isaac and "Jacob. Truth is, indod, stranger than iletion. Happy is ho to whom It comes in forms of pleasing sur prise." TUB BAPTIST church manual contains the fol lowing: "The moral tone of tho entire mem bership may bo lowered by tho bad example. of one momber. No opportunity, should bo afforded to one guilty of misdemeanors to shield himsolf be hind some gravqr, 4offondor who remajnsnin tho church unrobuked.. , A further aim (of, church dis cipline) Is to save, others In the church who may 1)0 temptod into sin or qbrrupted by the -evil exam ple of ono already guilty .V REFERRING to these provisions, the Now York correspondent for the Denver News says that certain oxponcnts of tho Baptist doctrine de clare that tho heads of tho Fifth Avenue church r.T?1?! ,ToIln D' Rckofollor helongs will not be lalthful to tho church law if they do not institute proceedings against their wealthy associate. These persons furthor declare that it is the Imperative duty of Mr. Rockefeller, according to tho law of the Baptist church to domand tin investigation. The News correspondent adds: "Those persons who have made a study of church law, and have followed tho Rockefeller case from the beginning of the $100,000 gift controversy, are wondering whether the members of tho Fifth avenue congre gation will meet tho issuo boldly or dodge it. No ono who knows Mr. Rockefeller and his dislike for notoriety believes ho will court an investiga t on. It Is more to his liking to be silent and let time heal his troubles." CA. PROUTY of tho interstate commerce commission delivered an address in Chi cago on the evening of April 12. Mr. Prouty said that there had been groat discrimination prac--J?Sa y.Ul? railroatls in making rates to shippers, and that the greater part of this discrimination had been effected by tho rebate system. Some progress had been mado, ho declared, toward tho eradication of the evil, but there must be an amendment to the present law; and it mustin - elude the private car lines, the terminal railroads and tho olovators. He declared that six railroad systems had control of 55 per cent of the total mileage and two-thirds of tho gross receipts from traffic throughout the country and that they were practically a monopoly. A railroad monopoly, he said, was the most injurious matter of its kind contend0 wCith?enS f C0Untry C0Uld have to ON THE SAME OCCASION, Georgo R. Peck & qt ClEf1 fop, thG ChlcaS. Milwaukee L? aV,! raIlr,oad' snoke on the subject of re bates or discriminations. Mr. Peck declared that rebates wore no longer given. He ad (led- -Bear iA5md5 eiVlng Preference to ono shipper o?er ftrioUier is not illegal at'eommon law. ComnetiHon Is tho one thing favored, and comnMHnP on . Vfemal advantages $ m$?ZSI Is' In preferences. Tho anonmlv nf n, . ,n nation that l6 CSalooTS prohibits tho steps necessary to procure It. If railways corapoto they are seized by tho interstate commerco law if they do not compete they fall Into the hands of tho anti-trust law; The reductio ad absurdum is; that therefore th,e interstate com merce commission should make rates." MR. PECK brought forward tho constitutional objections to government control as antici pated in newspaper dispatches several weeks ago. He said that the power to regulate commerce, con ferred upon congress by tho constitution, was sub ject to tho limitation that no preference should bo given by any regulation of commerco to the ports of ono state over the ports of any other state. He contended that under this limitation it was inevitable that government rate-making could only bo carried out upon the basis of a dis tance tariff, which, while it would be within the provisions of the constitution, would be hopelessly destructive of tho commercial and industrial fabric of tho coimtry, which has been built up under the adjusted systems of tariffs, under which a scien tific attempt has been made to equalize the disad vantages of geographical location, and place the different producing sections of the country on as near an equality in tho markets to which they ship as possible. TPIE prudential committee of tho American board of foreign missions voted on April 11 to accept the $100,000 offered by John D. Rocke feller. This action was taken by the full com mittee. It will be remembered that several weeks ago a sub-committee recommended the acceptance of the money but the general committee postponed final action until April 11 when the gift was form erly Accepted. The committee issued a state ment, 'which, after discussing the objections of tho protestants, declares that they are not suf ficiently strong to justify the board In refusing tho money. IT SEEMS that long before tho committee acted, the board' representatives received the money and in fact disbursed some of it and one of the principal points presented in the statement made by the prudential committee is that the American board can not now legally return Mr. Rockefeller's money because the decisions of the highest court are to tho effect that trustees who have once 'ac cepted a gift and assumed certain obligation! have no power to return the gift and 'to absolve" themselves from those obligations. The commit tee holds that by returning the gift, as suggested by the protesting clergymen, tlie American board would bo made responsible not only to those for whose benefit the gift was designed, tout also to the present officers' successors. This 'statement rofers to the fact that the board has already used one-half of Mr. Rockefeller's gift which was actu ally accepted on February 14. TN ITS PUBLISHED STATEMENT, the cora 1 mittee holds that the return of the gift would have been wrong, because it would have expressed disapprobation and condemnation of a man when he was doing an act of benevolence. The com mittee says: "This would have been to confuse the issue and to act contrary to the Christian spirit. To prevent any man from doing good is a wrong way in which to condemn him for doing evil. It is as wrong to condemn him when he is do ng a good deed as to commend him when he is doing a bad deed." The committee also contends that the board is not organized to decide ques tions of temperance, economics or socialism. An attempt at this it says, would be an assumption of authority outside of its character. It is held that the return of the money would be the passing of judgment upon the character of the donor and tho bus ness methods he is alleged to have used and that this would be a wrong to the church of which he is a member. The committee adds: "Any accu ration against him could not, in Christian coun tries, be acted upon until the case had I first been tried before the church which indorses him as I member in good and regular standing." W' HEN informed pf the final actipp of the nrui dential committee awnnffniyi t? s . toller gift, Rev. Washington Seleader? Protesting forces, said: hetotlS has placed itself on the broad and Intelligible posl tion that all gifts must be received, no matter what may bo the character of tho giver, nor by what immoralities or crimes his gains may have been gathered. That is tho testimony from such high authority. From this decision appeal will now be taken to the conscience of the Congrega tional churches and the conscience of Christians." GENERAL FREDERICK D. GRANT delivered a speech in Boston recently. According to the Boston Herald, General Grant referring to tho Philippines said: "You hear a great deal about the force necessary to keep those degenerate peo pie in subjection. There are 12,000 soldiers out there. My department in tho east maintains 14,000 men to keep you citizens of New York Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and other coast places in the straight and narrow path." Further more, ho leaked this information: "As a matter of fact, there is one brigade mobilized in the Phil ippines ready to strike, I think, in favor of the open door in China, rather than against the Fili pinos." The Herald makes bold to declare: "It is a pity that this General Grant has not inherited a portion of his illustrious father's discretion." INDIANA has a new and novel marriage law. Tho Indianapolis correspondent for the Cin cinnati Enquirer says: "The state board lias pre pared a form and is now sending it to the county clerks. The day the acts are promulgated the state board will hoia a meeting, approve the cir cular and telegraph the county clerks to that ef fect. There will be two separate forms for li censes, one for women and the other for men. Twenty-seven questions will be asked. The forms are alike except that the man is compelled to swear that he can support a family. This is something new in Indiana. Otherwise the ques tions are designed to get a statement of the whole moral, civil and physical history 'of the applicants In the form prepared the questions are whether or not either of the contracting parties has been' an Inmate of a .county poor farm or home for indi gent women, whether either party is an imbecile, feeble minded, idiotic or insane, or under guar dianship as a person of unsound mind, and wheth er or not either of the contracting parties is af flicted with epilepsy, tuberculosis or any other contagious or transmissable disease." . . DON CARLOS MORALES, president of Santo Domingo, occupies a Jiigh position in the es timation of th Washington Post. The Post says: ' Formerly a priest, he soon saw the handicap of that profession in pursuing his natural bent, that of a bandit, and he doffed the spiritual robe. Pros perity smiled 'upon him from thb first. From the p, etty looter of a barrio he rose to the presidency, with all its facilities for larger operations. When with 'wise and far-seeing statesmanship' he in duced the United States to rake his chestnuts out of the fire, we perceived him to be an extraordi nary man, but we did not know that he was prov ing himself to be the financial wizard of the hemi sphere. Reports now come frdm London that in consequence of Morales' statesmanship the bonds of South American republics are going skyward. Stocks which a short time ago were spoken of as rubbish, and to be avoided by any one but the most hardened speculator, now apparently are re garded as rapidly approaching the position of gilt-edged securities, says a dispatch." ("1 OMMENTING upon this statement the Post J says: "All this is due to the prudence and foresight of Don Carlos Morales. He is the sa vior of impecunious republics, and incidentally of the Foreign Bondholders' corporation. It was his bold initiative, his grasp of the situation, his JS?0!.11 of a Psychological conjunction, that Jilted him at a bound above the revolutionists who administer the affairs of neighboring republics. A statute of Don Carlos Morales should be placed in the plaza of every southern capital, with this inscription:. (The, man who maO.e the big stick knock down, ttie persimmons.' f As,;fpr the Foreign Bondholders!, cqrppration, if ifcoesnot send to Don Carlos a batch Of frllt-nrtp-o1l'tt'nn,Wna linnil at 9 as a 'gratification.' if R n aFwiiiraF tn P-rntl. and sharper than a sornentVfl footti: v ' tude and sharper than a serpent's tootl fl . ,1 i - - Lt'-fa---".-iiiiLMteiri(ii ii