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The Commoner.
nHfUKi o, .WILLIAM J. BRYAN, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR
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9ri7WLLIAM J. BRYAN, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR
:ol.6ojL SQCjpTy Uncoln, Nebraska, August 24, IQQcT
Whole Number 292
CONTENTS
Mb. Bryants Lkttkr
. . "Lovk Thy Couiraty"
Won't Stay Closed
The Housewife's Complaint
How They Quahkel About It
Does He Believe It?
Interests With a Cinch
Have You Contributed?
Nebraska Democratic Contention
Comment on Current Topics '
Home Department
Whether Common or IN ot
News of the Week
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DOES HE BELIEVE IT?
The St. Louis Globe-Democrat, referring to
a man more or less prominent in politics for
whom it has a very poor opinion, says: "The
only place for him is in the bosom. of the denioc
racy, where they care nothing of what a man
thinlts, r or. whether vhe thinks at all, if he only
votes." . ...,, . .
This was no't a hastily written paragraph,
but appears as the concluding lines in a long
editorial. .- .
Does the editor of the Globe-Democrat really
believe the statement thus quoted? If he does,
then he is, indeed, a poorly informed man. We
rather, incline to the opinion that in writing these
lines, Ihe Globe-Democrat editor ,was in the same
mood as when he referred to the republican party
as the "party of God and morality."
JJJ . ::
WHY? . "
One newspaper dispatch, referring to the
indictment brought against the Standard Oil trust
by the federal grand jury at Chicago, says: "It
did not take the federal grand jury a half day to
discover that crime had been committed by the
corporation." Yes and it would not take a fed
eral grand jury, instructed by a determined pros
ecuting attorney, half an or hour to discover that
crime had been committed by John D. Rockefel
ler, Henry H. Rogers and other persons of flesh
and blood.
Can any one explain why some of these men
have not been indicted?
JJJ
ENOUGH FOR HALL RENT
While Chairman Sherman of the republican
congressional committee has prepared the dollar
contribution to help on the republican campaign
fund, Speaker Cannon has announced that the
republican party will "stand pat" on the high
protective tariff law. Dispatches say that dollar,
contributions are not pouring into the republican
treasury, but the republican managers seem not
to be greatly disturbed.
Maybe the committee won't suffer after all.
Maybe the tariff barons will contribute enough
to pay hall rent, at least.
JJJ
ONLY THIRTY PER CENT!
Stockholders of the Wells Fargo Express
company are quarreling, and the public has been
treated to the revelation that the company's
net earnings last year amounted to thirty per
cent on its capital stock. That's a pretty fair
return on the investment made. No wonder
these great corporations are devoted to the "let
well enough alone" slogan.
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The Grand Old Protector of American Labor
THE BYZANTINE CAPITAL
Mr. Bryan's Thirty-second Letter -
It is impossible to convey to the reader any
adequate idea of the beauties of the Bosphorus
at the point where Constantine located the capi
tal of the Byzantine empire. The best way to
approach it is by the sea, and as the traveler
usually enters from the west, he sails through
the Dardanelles, known in ancient times as the
Hellespont, passes through the Sea of Marmora
and enters the Bosphorus between Constantinople,
on the one side, and Skutari on the other. The
Bosphorus itself is between fifteen and twenty
miles long and very deep. It is the connecting
link between the Black Sea and the Sea of Mar
mora and the hills that jut into it on either side
are nearly all covered with towns and villas.
The water 4s as clear as the water of a lake,
and fish may be seen at a great distance below
the surface. A ride through the Bosphorus re
minds one of a trip up the Hudson although the
former has the advantage in the depth of the
stream, in the transparency of the water, in the
height of the banks and in the irregularity of
the course. In fact, the channel contains so many
curves that one seems to be passing through a
succession of lakes.
A little more than half way between the
Sea of Marmora and the Black Sea, on the north
bank, is Therapla, the summer capital, to which
the officials repair when the warm weather be
gins, and upon the same bank, about half way
between Constantinople and Therapla, is Roberts
College, an institution for boys, established and
maintained by American philanthropy. It occu
pies a promontory which overlooks the Bospho-
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rus at its narrowest point, the point' at which
Mohammed II crossed over from Asia, when in
1453 he succeeded in capturing Constantinople.
The Golden Horn is the name given to an
arm of the Bosphorus which, leaving that strait
a few miles from the Sea of Marmora, stretches
northward five or six miles to receive a stream
called the Sweet Waters of Europe. It may have
been that the Golden Horn at one time rivalled
the Bosphorus in beauty, but it does so no longer.
Full of ships and boats of every description, from
war vessels to canoe, and polluted by the sewage
of two cities, it disappoints as much as the Bos
phorus delights.
The city of Constantinople is divided by the
Golden Horn, Stamboul, the Turkish city lying
on the west, and Galata and Pera, the foreign
' quarters, lying on the east. Skutari stretches
along the Asiatic aide of the Bosphorus, and the
navies and merchant vessels of all the world
could ride in safely in the waters adjacent to
these three cities.
In the seventh century, B. C, a colony of
Greeks under the lead of Byzas settled at Cape
Bosphorus, now the site of Stambul, and in the
rise and fall of the dynasties of the east, it has
played an important part. Being on the boundary
line between "Asia and Europe and guarding the
water communication between the Black Sea and
the Mediterranean, it possesses strategic advant
ages which statesmen and warriors have been
quick to recoguize. The Persians always wanted
it and several times captured it. The Greeks
were continually taking it and losing it; Phillip
in.
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