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The Commoner
.VOLUME 5, Number 3l
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A REMARKABLE story is told by the LcSeur,
Minn., Correspondent for the Chicago Chron
icie. This correspondent says, that "Jacob Vard
man, a farmer of Blake Township, in this county,
and his wife and three small children were saved
from death in a most remarkable manner recent
ly. They were on their way home from town,
driving a team of powerful horses, when the ani
mals were frightened by a dog that ran out and
barked at them. The horses sprang forward
swiftly, and when Mr. Vardman attempted to rein
them in both lines broke, leaving him without
any control over the team. The animals realized
this at once and ran at high speed down the road.
The bridge is washed out at the Remison farm
and the road fenced off at'tho first corner this
side to make travelers drive around the other
way, but the runaway team paid no attention to
the barrior. They smashed through the light
obstruction and rushed along, headed directly for
the rocky thirty-foot gully that formerly had been
spanned by the bridge."
MR. VARDMAN attempted to creep out on the
tongue of the wagon, and thus to reach the
horses' heads, but was provented from' doing so
by his wife and the children, who clung to him so
closely, in a paroxysm of fear, that lie could not
free himself from them. The gully was only 100
feet ahead, and the endangered family seemed to
have but a few seconds more to live, when help
came in a marvelous way. A storm was coming
up and the heavens were .shrouded in a black
pall of clouds, rent now and again by vivid flashes
of lightning, succeeded by deafening peals of
thunder and just as the ragged chasm seemed
yawning at their very feet a glittering lance of
electricity shot down from the clouds and pierced
the running horses through and through. They
instantly fell dead, their bodies sliding along the
road as far as their own momentum and thai of
the wagc-i would carry them, and came to a stop
within less than ten feet of the edge of the ravine.
Some persons who were not far away, and who
were looking on at the time, ran at once to give
what aid they could. They found the Vardmans
all lying senseless in the wagon, but only pros
trated by the shock, and all soon fully recovered,
i, yardman's horses were insured against
lightning in a St. Paul insurance company, and
the company has offered to pay him the loss,
which is $250, but he will not accept the money,
holding that in so doing he would be showing the
rankest ingratitude for the wonderful escape of
himself and family. v.
TNT7A .,EDIT2PIAL entitled "sd at the
X Roots the St. Louis Republic says: "Morals
are just now possessing an almost sensational
N and dramatic interest for the American people.
Popular a scussion is getting down to the ethical
question involved, in business, in politics, in gov
ernment, with a peculiar and sharp zest which is
eloquent of a strong, alert and at tlfe same time
fnnitem!?tal m,oral . sense' Whatever are the
2, f, lfndut in various lines which the
period exhibits the country by its wholesome and
keen interest for the moral consideration is
2SffSn8n?ting,.tB Psaessia an essentially fine
Si .n mot,ve conclusive of advancement in
ffSMfiiW011 and upon wnich faith an not
Uneuteli T&Wy f?r future beh-avior. A Jis
monor th?Q Mjssourlan who sends to The Com-
whS til eel C &l& SayS "Tw years ag0 a man
dreamed WaS rGgarded as a sentimental
TH?hinLSUnCti0nlt0f being the oldest living
X tnmg, according to a writer in tho Phiii
delphia, Public Leaser, t "on ot tta
to locate this tree and to determine its ace h-ivo
been made and he adds: "A century age De
Candolle found two yews-one at Porting to
Perthshire, and one at Hedsor, in BucksthS
were estimated to be respectively 2500 and 3 240
years old. Both are still flourisl ?ng, and the
older tree has a trunk twenty-seven feet in cir
cumference. A gigantic baobab of Central Amir
ica with a trunk twenty-nine feet ttouth is
estimated to be not less than 5,150 years old
, Mexican botanists believe they have now dht
cqvered a life-span even greater than this! and
from the annual rings a cypress of Chapultepec,
whose trunk is 118 feet in -circumference, is as
signed an age of about 6,200 years."
FORTY-EIGHT of the fifty-one members of the
Indian Territory statehood committee met
recently at Muskogee. The committee agreed
upon the name of "Sequoyah" for the new state.
Referring to the selection of this name, a writer
in the St. Louis Globe Democrat says: "Sequoyah
was the Cherokees' Cadmus. He Revised their
alphabet, and in it a newspaper has been printed
for many years. No other man of his race has
conferred more credit on the Indian name, al
though many Indians have won a high reputation
in war, oratory and statesmanship. Sequoyah
deserves to have some permanent memorial
erected to him, and a state which would carry
his name would, of course, be a particularly
high honor. But there is not the faintest chance
to get the Indian Territory admitted separately.
The leaders at. the Muskogee convention of a
few days ago knew this. Some of the rank and
file of the Indian delegates may imagine that if
they persist in their agitation for a state by
themselves they will get it. But the chiefs of
the . Cherokees, the Greeks and the rest of the
five tribes are aware that this separatist crusade
is an iridescent dream. Congress would never
admit the Indian Territory except as a part of the
proposed state, of Oklahoma. This has been
shown so often and so plainly that no intelligent
person in either of the twin territories has any
doubt on this point."
BACON'S observation that a wife is an impedi
ment to enterprises of mischief received
support according to the New York Evening
Post in the yearly record. of the New York dis
trict attorney's office. The Post says: "Only.
718 married man, as against 1,579 bachelors were
found guilty x of crime. Once you are married,
Stevenson said, there is nothing left for you but
to be good. 'You have wilfully introduced a wit
ness into your life . . . And your witness
IP not only the judge, but the victim of your
sms. Most crooks are single: they may play
confidence games on their own sex, but not on
th$ other. (Even in bigamy the ratio of female
to male offenders is 1 to 4, whereas, in the total,
all kinds included, it is only 1 to 13.) Burglary
13 peculiarly the occupation of men who have
not domesticated the Recording Angel. In this
county the record was 280 single, seventy-seven
married. Under other heads the account stood:
Stealing 828 to 303; rape, 16 to 8; murder, etc.,
20 to 14. Strange to relate, the opposite holds
true of women. The married were the chief
offenders! The tables show six td nothing in
favor of the spinsters, as to abduction; 35 to 25 "
as to stealing; 2 to 1 as to manslaughter; 4 to 1
as to forgery. A husband and child seem to hde-
meeaVof SSSL "
MRNR?EVELTS remarljs at Chautauqua,
i ''mye atracted more than ordinary
attention. The New York Evening Post 2
? ttathe8 ""r8 n tlatoccaS
slio,. that he is not nearly so sure of his ground
as formerly. The Post adds: "Mr. Roosevt be
trays a nervousness and irritability on the sub
ject, quite new to him. No longer is he for tie
bill, the whole bill, and nothing but the bill to
fix rates. All that he asks now is power to
remedy the abuses in connection with railway
tna!X0rftati0,n; N?fc yet' lt api)ears' has he looked
to see if existing law does not furnish adequate
power provided that it were used. And Tow
after having refused to allow his chosen in
vestigators to prosecute Paul Morton can the
president rage, as he does, against those rloh
men who knowingly violate the law? h! mav
h? Whthat Morton case will be thVownT
his teeth many times at Washington next win
ter. How unconsciously Mr. Roosevelt drops Into
the language of a benevolent autocrat is' seen
if tawsibl?l,B,l,peedl- HWthStTt
is impossible for him longer to show 'lohlpnnv
to offenders against the anti-trust laws But
that is .the tone a gracious monarcb A con-
ulo,ua, ms-soie duty is .to-enforce
the law. And what could be more futile than
the president's begging the corporations 5
acquiesce in the 'mild kind of governmental
trol' he proposes, 'lest some agitator comet
power and deal with them in a far more St ft
manner? Sensible men will consider his Z
posalB on their merits; as they will those of th0
wilder confiscator when he turns up."
M. DE MARTENS one of the Russian dele
gates declared, during the peace confer
ence, there was no precedent in history whero
a country whose territory was not occupied in
whole or any part by the enemy had paid war
tribute upon the conclusion of peace. He said
Should Russia consent to pay tribute to Japan
in any form, it would be her political death
The powers would understand that she accepted
the proposition of President Roosevelt, not be
cause she was desirous of an honorable peace
but because her power had been annihilated and
she recognized that itwas impossible for her to
continue the war. It would mean a public con
fession that Russia is at Portsmouth helplessly
kneeling before Japan, imploring peace, and
ready to accept any terms imposed. No one will
seriously contend' that the Muscovite empire is
in any such position."
MANY interesting historical examples were
. by M. de Martens. He pointed out that
in 1807 when Napoleon imposed the peace of
Tilsit, French troops occupied practically all of
Prussia, and the Prussian royal family had fled
to Russian soil. France could dictate terms. She
exacted a war indemnity of $3,000,000 and gar
risoned several Prussian towns with French
troops at the expense of Prussia as a guarantee
of payment. She required that the Prussian army
should be reduced to 40,000 men. In 1815, when
Napoleon was annihilated at Waterloo, after the
famous "100 days," and the second treaty of
Paris was concluded, the allied powers occupy
ing Paris, as the Prussians did later, in 1870, im
posed, in addition to other conditions, a war
indemnity of $500,000,000, to be paid in five years,
during which time the allied troops were to hold
a portion of French territory. That sum, how
ever, was considerably- reduced by Wellington
at Aixla-Chapelle, and France completed the pay
ment of the indemnity in three years. The largest
war indemnity ever exacted was imposed by
Prince Bismarch, upon France, in 1870. It
amounted to $1,000,000,000. But Napoleon III had
fallen. Gambetta was powerless. Prussia was
at Paris. The third republic succeeded in
liquidating the- indemnity in two years, while,
according to, the treaty, she had five years' time
in which to pay.
IN OTHER CASES where even a portion of
the territory of the fated, country was oc
cupied, M. de Martens said that no indemnity
was exacted or even asked. For instance Russia
in 1856 was not- asked to pay tribute. Neither
did Austria in 1859, after having been de
feated by the l Franco-Piedmontese and having
lost Lombardy, or in 1866, after having been
beaten by Prussia, pay an indemnity. Den
mark in 1864 lost Schleswig-Holstein to Prussia,
but paid nothing. "A new precedent was mado
by America," added M. de Martens, "in her war
with Spain. Although victorious and in a po
sition to claim indemnity, she ended the war
on principle and actually paid $20,000,000 to tho
Madrid government for the Philippine islands."
Independent of all these considerations, M.
de, Martens said, Russia's objection to the pay
ment of an indemnity, under no matter what
form, comes from the fact that in all her history
she never paid a cent in tribute to a foreign
power, not even during the time of her worst
defeats under Peter the Great, when a large por
tion of the country was in the hands of the in
vaders. AT THE MEETING' of the Grange held re
cently at East Plymouth, Ohio, resolutions
introduced by L. W.Stevenson were adopted as
follows: "Whereas wo have been having bank
failures for the past forty years .or longer, and
our legislatures have taken - no ",steps to protect
the people. Of late they are getting so frequent
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