The Commoner.
VOLUME 6, NUMBER 2
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The Commoner
ISSUED WEEKLY
WIM.IAM J .HJIYAN CHAULK8 W. BllYAW
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THE COMMONER. Lincoln, Neb
The sweet girl graduate is now thinking
'about a dress for her address.
It seems that Miss Bird was not inclined to
he hampered by the bars of a Standard Oil cage.
The "Allison compromise" reminds us very
much of the one Russia made with Japan at
Portsmouth.
If the merit system prevailed in the senate
there would be a sudden change in the make-up
of that body.
President Cassatt seems to have been de
ceived by the fact that the agents employed to
do various illegal things actually did them.
"There are things that might be worse than
a democratic house," says Senator Ald'rich. Of
course. .Just think of a house made up of A1-drlches.
A lot of g.o. p. organs that have said mean
things about the "muck rakers" very naturally
applauded the president's special message, which
was of itself a pretty good specimen of what
these organs are pleased to call "muck raking'
wlldWto n!llawPhia I?vaning TeleeraPh rushes
Slr x (lefese of President Roosevelt and
5?5r nnd severely cen'3ures Senator
T??fnmn?d GX'Setor Chandler. The Phila
delphia Telegraph's ofllce is on -Chestnut street.
The fact that tho majority of the canal
ene ; neers favored a sea level canal is not going
to bo allowed to stand in the way of the kind of
a canal that will take the longest to build The
fo Pa'nZ Tar VVT ?ad the "ite "JltoSS
SiToHu thaU l e,ay the WOrk wiU
. a
DUTY TO THE HELPLESS
The people of Nebraska are iust now infm.
ested in the investigation o sSuHhS
against the management of one of She afaSS
asylums for the insane. It fe charged I that thS
patients in the Norfolk asylum avo been brut
ally treated on occasions, and the governor is
SeDngs hTlry ,int, the ces. ftVo0 often
P I Hefty SiS?h f5 are suPnred because
i.SJy.f cruelty or abuse to the help-ie-as
waids of the state should be ricidlv invoo
avo Gd ft0?' l0SS f tIme d withou tfea7 or"
favor. Tho insane re especially helnless and
in need of the mo thorough caV and protoC
tion. The man who would let partisan or per
sonal interest interfere with the duty he owes
to these helpless people is not deserving of the
name of man, and is unworthy to be entrusted
with tho business of the public. It is to be hoped
that the Nebraska authorities will probe tho
charges to the bottom, and punish the guilty
parties, and punish them to the utmost limit.
JJJ
' THE FOOT-PATH TO PEACE
Henry Van Dyke, professor of English liter
ature at Princeton University, has written many
things worthy of preservation. He reveals the
secret of happiness in the following beautiful
paragraph :
"To be glad of life, because it gives you the
chance to love and to work and to play and to
look up at the stars; to be satisfied with your
possessions, but not contented with yourself until
you have made the beBt of them; to despise noth
ing in the world except falsehood and meanness
and to fear nothing except cowardice; to be gov
erned by your admirations rather than by your
disgusts; to covet nothing that is your neighbor's
except his kindness of heart and gentleness of
manners; to think seldom of your enemies, often
of your friends these are little guide-posts on
the foot-path to peace."
JJJ
AN AWFUL CRIME
The special" grand jury which has been in
session at Springfield, Missouri, for several
weeks investigating the lynching of three ne
groes April 14, has submitted its report. Tho
grand jury has indicted twenty-two men for
participation in the lynching. In its report the
grand jury denounces mob law as "an inexcus
able crime and a shameful stain on the repu
tation of any intelligent community." It de
nounces the act of the Springfield mob as "not
only unjustifiable and unlawful, but without
reason or excuse." Referring to that mob the
report says:
"The lynchers consisted mainly of a
crowd of irresponsible, drunken men, who
had no respect for law or order, no regard
for the rights of others, and who took ad
vantage of the occasion to commit acts of
lawlessness that were absolutely barbarous
and fiendish, and that these acts were noth
ing more nor less than the outward exhi
bitions of their real inward criminality."
The grand jury points out that the woman
who it was alleged was the victim of the men
lynched, disappeared, and the jury was unablo
to obtain her testimony. The jury says:
"From what we can learn, however,
from other witnesses, it seems at least very
doubtful to the jury whether Mrs. Edwards
was, in fact, assaulted as alleged at the time.
She was in a normal condition physically
the next morning, and bore no marks of
violence upon her person whatever. These
facts, in connection with the further fact
that she was at the time a married woman,
riding at night with an unmarried man, in
a dark, remote and unfrequented portion
of town, on a journey to no particular place
so far as we can learn, and that she is a
woman whose reputation for virtue and chas
tity is not good, make it at least doubtful
whether her story is worthy of belief But
conceding that an assault was committed
on the woman as told by her at the time,
we have investigated the facts as to the
whereabouts of the two victims of the lynch
ing, Duncan and Coker, and from the evi
dence taken, it is clear that these two negroes
could not have been guilty of the alleged as
saint. I
"According to the testimony before us
the alleged assault could not have occurred
later than 9:30 o'clock on the night of April
13, and these two men, Duncan and Coker
wore at work on that night and did not leave
m their work earlier than 10 o'clock, and this
assault is alleged to have taken place at
least a mile from the place where they were
at work. For these reasons we believe the
o7surSe.'?UI1Can ana,C0Uer' in
Governor Folk and the authorities at Spring
field are entitled to commendation for pushing
the investigation, it will be helpful to thl
iCndUicetedf ifv0thigOVernme,nt wnere if the men
cuted Tho qnrSSd, Ury ?re viSrously Pse
cuted. The Springfield mob was guilty of an
punished ie' aml thG gUllty Sh0uld be sere
THE EIGHT-HOUR DAY
A. C. Hayden,, representing tho Carnegie
Steel company, appeared recently before the house
committee on labor in opposition to the proposed
eight-hour law. He said the enactment of the
measure would drive every large institution now,
taking government contracts from that field
would turn over tho manufacture of supplies of
the government to the small contractor and
would increase the cost of the same to the govern
ment from 12 to 25 per cent. The Carnegfo
inT'i he f Id.' ne tirae made an exptdmfn!
in changing its factory method from 'two shifts
of men working twelve hours each to three sh fts
r;i"ht h0UrS' ThG resulc wa the'produc?
of that factory was decreased 20 per cent
ia i? e re,ally queer thln about this statement
Is the omission, of, the claim that the results
of two 12-hour shifts could be excelled by wormng
the men one 24-hour shift. That would be thl
logical conclusion of Mr. Hayden's argument
against the 8-hour law. But the facts tr all
against the representative of the Carnegie Steel
company, it is the almost unanimous verdict
of soc ologists, of the general public and of un
prejudiced investigators that the 8-hour day is
morally, economically and industrially right It
i demonstrated time and again that the
worker who enjoys the 8-hour day is a better
workman, turns out more and better work and
is a better citizen than the man who is compelled
to work long hours and is thereby deprived of
needed rest and recreation and the opportunity,
to improve his mind.
But there is another phase of this question
-which Mr. Hayden does well to ignore. The
steel industry, of all industries, fe benefited by,
the protective tariff. That tariff is advocated
on the ground that it is a "protection to Amer
ican workmen." What sort of "protection" is
it that compels a man to toil twelve hours a
ay,o J1 dirty' foul-smelling, dangerous steel
mill? The chief trouble about the- "protection"
afforded by the tariff is that it is not equitably,
distributed. The employes in the steel mill are
merely "protected" in their right to work twelve
hours, while the owners of the mill are "pro
tected" in the privilege of. extracting as largo
a profit as the traffic will bear. As a result the
protected American steel worker works twelve
hours lives on partial rations, is forced to put
his children to work before they have acquired
even the rudiments of an education and can look
forward only to a life of never-ending toil for
himself and his children. On the other hand,
the men who are so vociferous in their demands
for the "protection of the American workman"
live in palaces, have cottages at the sea shore,
devote millions to debauching courts and legis
latures m their own selfish interests and set at
defiance every law of decency and morality with
out fear of being called to account.
If the tariff really protects the worker why
not let the fact be known in a shortening of the
hours of labor, a betterment of the conditions sur
rounding his work, better wages, better oppor
tunities for his children and a brighter outlook
for the future of himself and those dependent
upon him.
JJJ
ASHAMED OF HIS "INNOCENCE"
Newspapers generally have printed a New
York dispatch as follows:
"The story is told in Wall street that Presi
dent Roosevelt's message was read to Henry H.
Rogers, of .the Standard Oil company, by his son,
H. H. Rogers, Jr. Young Mr. Rogers had just
read that the company had been obtaining $750,
000 a year through secret rebates on a total busi
ness of 23,000,000 barrels of refined oil, each bar
rel containing fifty gallons. This would figure
out a great deal less than a mill a gallon. 'My
dear Harry,' remarked Mr. Rogers, 'that Is not
even petit larceny and I am almost ashamed of
my innocence.'"
Said in jest, to be sure. But if the stealings
of the Standard Oil trust were no more than
$750,000 a year, the Rogers and the Rockefellers
would unquestionably be ashamed of their "in
nocence." It may be that all has not been told
with respect to the rebate proposition. It may be
that the profits through rebates do not by any
means include all of the illegitimate income of
the Standard Oil trust. Certainly the enprmous
wealth of "the system" has not been made pos-'
sible on a $750,000 income.
JJJ
It will occur to a great many people that it
is time for the , administration -to begin in a
serious way the task of backing its words 'by its
deeds. ., ) . .
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