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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (May 12, 1905)
tTft- rwwr ? fc I w t. i I' it. t 2 SP, convention, or the action of the people voting at' primary elections, to havo bearing or influ ence on hlra. Every man elected to a state legislature, or to any similar body, is invested with a largo degree- of personal responsibility and porsonal discretion. His accounting must bo with the constituency which elected him. A senator or representative in the general assembly of Ohio from Hamilton county, when ho votes for United States senator, is respon sible to himself and his constituents of Hamil ton county. The instructions of some fellow who is able to handlo a state convention should be of no acount to him. So, according to The Enquirer, oven though the men who nominate a legislative candidate at a primary instruct him on the senatorial question, he is not bound thereby. Tho Enquirer goes so far as to say that "if a man is decently qualified for public life ho will not allow the 'instructions' of a state convention, or tho action of the people voting at primary elections, to havo bearing or Influence upon him." This is not democratic, and it Is doubtful whether any republican would admit that it is republican. It is autocratic and plutocratic. Tho theory that tho people elect a man to do their thinking for them and then invest him with "a largo degree of porsonal responsibility and per sonal discretion" that tho peoplo themselves cannot direct or control, is entirely antagonistic to our principles of government. The people do not elect representatives to think for them but to act for thorn, and nearly all of the evils in our govornmont come from a failure of representatives to carry out the wishes of their constituents. It is not enough that a man shall be "responsible" to his constituents, for tho trusts are in a position to make any senator independent who will do their bidding. Government would soon bo a mock pry if the people had no right to direct or instruct their representatives. What Is a platform for except to instruct representatives? According to the theory advanced by The Enquirer, either there ought to be no platform or a platform is not bind ing upon thoso who are elected upon It. Tho Enquirer's situation Is a pitiful one and It is another illustration of tho truth that Is roally too evident to need illustration, namely, that when an editor departs from democratic principles ho heads directly and irresistibly to ward the aristocratic position that rests upon a contempt for both tho rights and the intelligence or , Uio people. Comparatively few republican papers would quote with approval what tho Iwsqufror says in tho discussion of governmental principles The Enquirer has fallen to a depth Where it has but little company. JJJ V i " CARNEGIE'S NEW SUBSIDY Andrew Carnegie, in his effort to get rid of hiB wealth, has stumbled upon one of the most successful plans for subsidizing public opinion yet discovered. He has set apart ten millions in steel trust bonds as a fund for the aid of super annuated college professors. The income will amount to $500,000 a year and this will furnish an annuity of five hundred dollars to one thou sand teachers, or an annuity of one thousand dol lars to Ave hundred. He has named the presi dents of some twenty-ilve of the largest private " TZZITZ What anmmiiy from tIl6 tULury of the t?st S thecoiiegeroSohnelrnrnal WPk wWfih anmnVe bo looking forwarS to L ahriffiSSrs Who w111 How many defenses n?SeflaId llms Promised? manufacture Wsnatlonf fT7, a succes's which UieynofcoZT the Poison Rockefeller, bolSnofV ? K?X faeffi "braries up the each person is too smnii Ct W "le benefit to sons nave led tn ?? c,nlculate these roa librar es but l" ni geileral acceptance of lis of "ndlgVssors0 ?" for the tendency will be ?S-SnS AUral aml inevitable w win ue t(T suppress the discussion of the The Commoner- trust principle and trust methods just where they, should be most thoroughly Investigated. Now, if Mr. Carnegie will provide an annuity for needy editors, another for aged ministers and still another for superannuated congressmen, sen ators and politicians, he will have the batteries pretty effectually silenced, and he could establish all these funds without exhausting the sum which he is drawing from the public by the elimination of competition. If he wants to return to society tho money ho has drawn from It let him invest his money in government bonds and then sur render the bonds for cancellation. The people would then bo benefitted in proportion as they pay taxes. Or, if he wants to leave a monument, let him build an air-line railroad from ocean to ocean, with branches to tho main distributing centers and give it to the government. Such a gift would yield an annual return to aid the revenues and would regulate rates more effectively than any rate law. Under just laws Mr. Carnegie could never have' accumulated his enormous fortune and it is adding insult to injury to so distribute it as to prevent the reform of the "system." rV JJJ "THE POOR WERE RIGHT" Thoughtful observers of present-day condi tions may be interested in reading an extract from "The History of England from the year 1830 to the year 1870." The author of this work-was' William Nassau Molesworth, M. A., Vicar of Scotland, Rochdale. One portion of this work is devoted to "The -reception of the reform bill." A Commoner reader asks that these extracts bo reproduced : "The plan thus brought forward was received by the radical party with delight, by the whigs with doubt, by the tories with terror. It surprised aI L though lt di not come up to the wishes of tho radicals who desired the ballot, more fre quent parliaments, and universal suffrage it surpassed tho expectations of all parties. By the great body of the people it was hailed with en thusiasm. From the moment of its first announce ment they seemed to forget all the other meas ures which had been prayed for in their petition, and adopted the cry of 'The bill, the whole bill and nothing but the bill," which they sustained under a the changes and vicissitudes it under went till it finally became the law of the land. On the other hand, the higher and better educat ed classes generally regarded the measure with great alarm, as the commencement of the over- " throw of all the established institutions of the country They had not forgotten that, under : tho first French revolution, the landed proprie- i tors had been stripped' of their property and driven into exie or put to death; and they dreaded that what they regarded as similar be-" ginnings would lead to similar results. "It may seem strange that a change, which all men now admit to have been a great and neces sary improvement, should have been resisted bv the wealthy and educated few, and carried main ly through the exertions of the poor and unedu cated multitude; but there is really nothing very surprising -in this circumstance. The same may be said of almost every great improvement that Sn eeJ effec,te in thia or any other country. The leaders of the movement have usually been men of rank and intelligence, and there have been fqund amongst their followers many mln of liberal and highly cultivated minds-nav sometimes, whole classes of such nersn S whom the existing abuses have pressed w?th un fair severity, may havo joined them; yet as a general rule, the rank and file of The army of progress has been composed of the claaapq wmS? constituted the chief streng h 0f the rlform P?Pift iBut perhaps this truth was never mom strikingly exemplified than in the instance Tow before us; for if we would put our hands on the men who brought the reform struggle to K Sf umphant conclusion, we must noielk th"m mV the ministry, in the leading bankers mnnufJ? urers, and tradesmen, who in various linSJ f S kingdom petitioned for reform but in tfi t f 5he mob, in the two or three SdVed thousand mn? bers of the Birmingham political iS 1 f determination of tho great ma f T ln-th in all parts of the kingdom, t Zr h onVnf?le at the first signal given bytheiMelderT- S? on tho other hand, we are nqki5 ?? a,nd if on the quarters from Sf put our hands and perUna'XIsTa hTml116 we must fix on the court tSe oit Proceed, versities, the inns of court Vn th2 nle two uni' hecause, if I tQs K gTSSS fir VOLUME :5, -NUMBER IT) fortune and position, It at least renders nr sary efforts for the-preservation of the one or 1 1 other, and that often of a character to which t ! are unaccustomed, and which perhaps thov TrJ unable or unwilling to put forth. But truth nS right must ultimately prevail The resistir.nL thus offered may indeed defer the dreaded chanS? hut can not prevent its advent, and is certain to render it more violent when at last it do come. On the other hand, the very poor are tin first to feel the evils "which result from a viciouq state of things, and their demand for the remedv is sure to cause its production, which they guid ed by a blind but sure instinct, readily recognize and earnestly demand. And this is perhaps tho true explanation of the old maxim, "Vox ponuli vox Dei;" a maxim which certainly rests on a foundation of facts very far from contemptible It is not, of course, meant to be asserted that everything the people clamor for ought to bo granted; but it is a truth, confirmed in each cao by the verdict of posterity, that they have almost invariably been right in their demands when they have generally and persistently supported any measure of alleged improvement. The opinion of the rabble, as they are sometimes called, is ny no means to be despised; for it has often proved to be more correct than the judgment of men who have enjoyed a high reputation for states manship. Unquestionably, in the reform strug gle the mob was right, and thsir learned, wealthy, and aristocratic opponents altogether mistaken." JJJ A GROWING CAUSE The New York Weekly Post, which has been a little slow to join in the attack against the trusts, has at last come out with an editorial on "The Man Behind the Octopus." The Post insists upon the enforcement of the criminal clause of tho Sherman law the position taken by The Com moner months, ago. The Post even goes so far as to ask why the gentleman who is 'connected with the illegal Northern Securities company has not been fined and imprisoned, and repeats the inquiry in regard to the head of the beef trust and the head of the Standard Oil trust. The Post says: Until the law smites in their persons a few of these gentlemen, who sustain our churches, adorn- bur clubs, and promote our philanthropies, the talk of controlling the trusts as such is the wildest Unreason or the . most patent hypocrisy. Nobody likes to be imprisoned. The most formidable deterrent lies at our hand, and we are too easy-going to use it; and until a -fearless enforcement of the present laws lands a few pillars of society behind the bars, all executive excursions and alarms against the trusts will recall that King of. France whose twenty thousand men came down the hill and passed into nursery mythol ogy. Good for The Post! The Commoner welcomes The Post to this very rational and patriotic posi tion. Its tardiness jn coming will be overlooked if with the zeal of a new convert it will continue its advocacy ,ofthe enforcement of the criminal law against the trust magnates. JJJ THE TIMIDITY OF CAPITAL Mr. J. J. Dickinson, writing in the Saturday Evening Post, calls attention to the timidity of capitalists in testifying against the trusts. Ho gives several instances to show that even men who have been driven out of business by trust methods have been afraid to make known what they have suffered lest they be made the victims of further wrath. Mr. Dickinson's article presents a new phase of the subject and illustrates the dif ficulties that lie in the path of those who attempt to prosecute the trusts, but it also illustrates the necessity for heroic treatment. The trusts are to the busy thoroughfares of commerce what the highwayman is to the lonely road, or what the pirate used to be to the high CasV. !t retluires Physical cdurage to deal with the highwayman and the pirate so it requires moral courage to deal with private monopolies. n? w, neAed Just now a public sentiment that win cultivate moral courage in our business men. S;wurse thfre is rIslc but Is not worth some Jjs k to save the business world from the evils of the trusts? i?011 evidence be secured for the convlc SS L 5e great violators of the law unless those 2,m,n er ?V.e tesmony? The public, too, SS? 1?llBU?porJ those who show a . willingness to I Li Sis and thus rednce the Sacrifice to Lmi UTn; ,No ono is so humble that he may not ivM i ? in the restoration of -the era of Indus trial independence.