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The Commoner.
WILLIAM J. BRYAN, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR
Vol. 5. No. 22
Lincoln, Nebraska, June 16, 1905
Whole Number 23o
CONTENTS
The Next Awakening
A- "Tainted Money" Pkeoedent
A Queer Situation -
"Happy -Dispatch"
A Lawyer's Conscience '
t
"Scattered at the Feet of Man"
A Trust's View op Trusts-
QUEERNESS OF REPUBLICAN LOGIC
t
Comment on Current Topics
The Primary Pledge
News of the Week
"HAPPY DISPATCH".
Richard Weightman, writing in the Chicago
Tribune, says that American methods have failed
in the Philippines because we have tried to make .
Americans of the Filipinos. He declares that
General Wood is making "distinct progress in
his particular line of benevolent assimilation."
He inaugurated the work in Jolo, Mr. Weightman
says, "by killing several hundred of them out
right and only a few days ago he administered
the happy dispatch of three hundred more." This
tone of levity in speaking of human life is quite
characteristic of imperialism, and the more peo
pie talk of the "happy dispatch" of subjects the
cheaper will life become in the United States.
Our methods have failed in the Philippines be
cause we have tried to give to the methods of
monarchy the sanction of a republic. People in
stinctively hate hypocrisy and the Filipinos ill
resent our government even mor than they would
the government of a nation which openly re
pudiates the doctrine of self government.
JJJ
. A QUEER SITUATION
Uncle Sam owns a single track railroad in
Panama. Its business has grown so great that
Uncle Sam finds it necessary to double track
it. This brings him up facing a strange proposi
tion. If Uncle Sam's laws apply to the canal zone
through which the railroad runs, then he will have
to pay $28 a ton for the rails, for the steel rail
pool organized under Uncle Sam's beneficent
tariff laws has made ttiat price and provided
a heavy penalty on the member of the pool who
underbids. If Uncle Sam's laws do not apply,
then he can buy steel rails for $20 a ton, that
being the price that the steel rail pool makes
in the foreign market to meet foreign com
petition. It is a queer situation for Uncle Sam. If he
Is under his own law he is mulcted to the tune
of $8 a ton on every ton of steel rails he buys
for his own railroad. If he is a foreigner he
can buy them for $20 a ton. If he owns to his
relationship to his nephews he pays $8 a ton for
giving his nephews recognition. If he disowns
his nephews he saves $8 a ton. If he pays $28
a ton for the rails that his foreign cousins can
buy for $20 a ton he confesses that he permits
his rail making nephews to rob and plunder his
rail consuming nephews. If he buys them as a
foreigner in order to save $8 a ton he con
fesses that he is willing to make his rail con
suming nephews pay a tribute that he himself is
unwilling to pay an unfilial act that even Uncle
Sam would hesitate to commit.
But Uncle Sam must double track that -Panama
railroad. If any of his nephews can give
him some sound advice doubtless Uncle Sam
would appreciate It very much.
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THREE TAILORS OF TOOLEY STREET
Three tailors of Tooley St., Southwark, England, not being satisfied with the official note of tho
House of Commons addressed a petition of grievances to that body, beginning: "Wo, tho
People of England."
The Next Awakenin
Written by W. J. Bryan for "Public Opinion" and
reproduced by Courtesy of that Journal.
The conscience is the most potent force of
which man has knowledge. Its decrees are more
binding than statute law; its mandates are more
imperative than the warrants of a king, and the
Invisible barriers which it raises are stronger
than prison walls. There Is no resisting the con
science when it Is once aroused. To satisfy its
demands many have faced death without a fear;
in obedience to its promptings, and aglow with
an all-pervading love, others have traversed
oceans, buried themselves' among strangers, and
devoted their lives to the elevation of men and
women to whom they were bound only by the
primary tie which links each human being to
every other.
The conscience, quickened, has substituted
altruism for selfishness as tho controlling purpose
of an individual life, and so changed that life
that instead of resembling a receptive, stagnant
pool it has become like an overflowing spring.
As the conscience of an individual may trans
form him from a fiend incarnate into a minister
ing angel, so the conscience of a community, a
state, or a nation contains dynamic force suffi
cient to destroy any threatened evil and to pro
pagate any needed truth.
There is evidence today of the awakening
of both the individual and the civic conscience.
In some places this has taken the form of a re
ligious revival where the regeneration of the
hearts of a multitude of people has manifested
itself in changed lives, changed customs, and
changed social conditions. Tho recent revival
in Wales is an illustration of the far-reacliing
effect of a spiritual awakening. In the United
States there have been recent indications bf a
return from materialism and commercialism to
a higher spiritual life, and there Is going on a
world-wide study of the teachings of Christ as
they apply to cvery-day life.
Sometimes religion has occupied Itself main
ly with the contemplation of tho unknown future
life; it Is today busying itself more with tho
life that now is; tho emphasis is being placed
upon tho here rather than upon tho hereafter.
Sometimes the Christian has sought to prepare
himself for immortality by withdrawing from tho
world's temptations and from the world's activi
ties; now he is beginning to see that he can only
follow in the footsteps of the Nazarene when ho
goes about doing good and renders "unto the
least of these," his brethren, the service that
the Master was anxious to render unto all.
In an article written almost twelve years ago, -Tolstoy
quotes a letter written by Dumas a little
while before, in which reference is made by the
latter to the coming of an era of human brother
hood. Dumas says:
"Agreement is inevitable, and will come at an
appointed time, nearer than is expected. I know
i
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