AUGUST 31, 19M
fetBRASK cTi.c
HISTlMiUL bUClETY
The Commoner.
0
years ago that Ire Invested forty-lour cents in
postage stamps, pasted them on a letter ad
dressed to Secretary of the Treasury John Qf
Carlisle and awaited developments. Ho bid for
about $8,000,000 of bonds at various prices and
was allotted $1,500,000. These ho disposed of at
a tremendous advance, realizing nearly $100,000
profit. That was his start as a flnancior. . 'I've
got a warm spot in my heart for postage stimp
bidders he said laughingly to a World reporter,
'and, moreover, I have proved it Sam Byerley,
tho express company clerk who was smart enough
to put in a successful bid for $5,800,000 of tho
Panama canal bonds, won't have to go back to his
desk in the American Express company's office
when ho returns from Europe. I have had Byer
ley elected vice president of the Abraham "White
Bond company, a new corporation. He will fill
tho bill. He has an expert knowledge of bond
matters and has shown that he possesses the kind
of business courage and judgment which pushes
a man into the forefront these days.' "
TWO OFFICIAL STATEMENTS, one showing
the aggregate money in circulation in the
United States March 1, and the other the pro
duction of the great South African gold region
for the month of July concurring has, in the opin
ion of the Omaha Bee, a suspicious significance.
The Bee says: "Our total circulation on that date
reached the unprecedented figure of $2,757,000,000,
being an Increase of $12,800,000 for July and
$152,400,000 for the twelve months. The per
capita thus on that date was $32.52 against $32.45,
the highest point ever reached before. The treas
ury report shows that not in half a century has
the proportion of gold in our circulation been so
great as now, nor as rapidly growing as lately,
most of the great gain in recent months being
gold and a large part of it through importation
by transfer of the South African output. In July
the officially recorded output of the South Africa
mines amounted to $10,500,000, as against $8,
700,000 as the highest previous record, and the
total product of that district alone for the current
year will probably be $120,000,000, or not very far
below the low point of the world's gold annual
output within the memory of men still living.
Themines of the United JEjtates are expected this
year" to add over $100,000,000. The world's pro
duct, fotbe, year can. hardly be much less than
$350,000,000, or far more than the annual incre
ment of the value of b'bth gold and silver not
many years ago."
THE FIRST COINAGE in the American col
onfes, says a writer in the Kansas City
Journal, was in 1652, when the general court
of Massachusetts established a mint in Boston,
and John Hull, mint master, struck silver shil
lings, sixpences and threepences. The Journal's
writer adds: "All of these coins bore the device
of the pine tree. They were of the same fineness
as the English coin of like denomination, but
of less weight. This mint continued in operation,
for thirty-six years. After a while the 'royal oak'
was substituted for the pine tree, in order to .'con
ciliate King Charles II., who disliked this mint
ing by a colony. All the above named coins bore
the date of 1652. But twopenny pieces were added
with the date of 1662. No other colony had a
mint until 1659, when Lord Baltimore caused
shillings, sixpences and groats to be coined for
use in Maryland. James II. issued ten coins for
circulation in America, though few of them found
their way 'hither. In 1722, 1723 and 1733 copper
coins were minted in England with the legend.
'Rosa America? There were also copper half
pence issued in 1773 for circulation in Virginia,
and in 1774 silver shillings were added. Florida
and Louisiana had colonial coins of their own be- .
fore they became parts of the United States."
THE HENY GEORGE memorial isnow attract
ing widespread attention. The Johnstown
(Pa.) Democrat says: "It will. have been sixty
seven years on the 2nd of September since Henry
George, whom the Duke of Argyll many years
later derisively dubbed 'the Prophet of San Fran
cisco,' first saw the light in Philadelphia. Not
many Pennsylvanians know that this man who ex
ercised so profound an influence on the thought
of the world and whose philosophy is daily find
ing a wider and wider acceptance was a son of
the Keystone state. For some strange reason
the majority of the people have the impression
that he was of foreign birth. Yet Henry George
was a native of Pennsylvania and his youth was
spent in the City of Brotherly Love. It isfthe.
purpose of the Democrat .to celebrate the sixty-
seventh anniversary of tho birth of thin lllnnJrfnnn
son of Pennsylvania in a befitting manner and
its issue of September 1 will ho a sort of memo
rial number, enriched by contributions from many
men distinguished in tho great democratic move
ment to which 'Progress and Poverty,' 'Social
Problems 'The Land Question 'Protection or
Free Trade?' and 'The Condition of Labor' gavo
so tremendous an impulse. Among these contrib
utors will bo William Jennings Bryan, Justico
William- J. Gaynor of tho supromo court of Now
York, Edward Osgood Brown of the appellate
court of Illinois, Tom L. Johnson, Louis F. P03t,
William Lloyd Garrison, Willis J. Abbott, Robert
Baker and many others. Already acceptances of
an invitation to contribute to this number have
been had from men of high standing in tho demo
cratic movement and it Is believed that those art
icles will bo entirely worthy of the writers and
ot tne occasion."
THOMAS SPEED MOSEBY, pardon secretary
to the governor of Missouri, has written for
Harper's Weekly an interesting article ontltled,
"Does Capital Punishment Tend to Diminish Capi
tal Crime." Mr, Moseby's contribution is a record
of inquiry, addressed to the attorney generals of
the forty states, which Inflict the death penalty.
Eighteen of the forty declined to express an
opinion. Only sixteen of tho attorney generals
of states which inflict the death penalty declared
themselves as clearly of tho opinion that capital
punishment does tend to diminish capital crime.
Two of the forty were positive In their conviction
that tho death penalty does not tend to diminish
capital crimes, and stated their opinion that tho
death penalty should be abolished, while four of
the forty gave qualified answers. In the five states
of Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Rhode Island, and
Wisconsin, where capital punishment does not
exist, the attorney generals have noted no In
crease In capital crime since the abolition of tho
death penalty, and generally express themselves
as satisfied with tho conditions existing in their
respective states. In Michigan, Wisconsin and
Rhode Island capital punishment was abolished
over fifty years ago, and has not since been
re-enacted. Though nominally prescribed by law
in Kansas, the death penalty can be executed in
that state only upon the governor's warrant, and
the Kansas governors have persistently declined
to issue a death warrant, the condemned persons,
meanwhile, remaining in prison. In five other
states where the death penalty exists the trial
juries have power to commute it to life impris
onment. THE DEATH PENALTY was abolished in
Iowa several years ago, but was again en
acted by the legislature, as the attorney general
said in his letter to Mr. Moseby, "because of the
increase of. murders In the state." Mr. Moseby
says: "It does not follow, of course, that these
sequent murders were consequent upon the aboli
tion of the death penalty. Singularly enough, the
experience of Maine has been quite tho reverse
of this. The death penalty was abolished in
Maine in 1876. In 1883 it was re-enacted for the
crime of murder alone. In 1885, just two years
later, the governor of Maine, in his message, re
ferring to the death penalty, remarked that there
had been 'an unusual number of cold-blooded mur
ders within the state during the two years last
past and that the change in the law relating to
murder had not afforded the protection antici
pated. Two years later, in 1887, the death pen
alty was again abolished, and advices from Maine
are to the effect that the sentiment of the people
of that state is so strongly against capital pun
ishment that there. Is little likelihood that the
death penalty will ever be re-established there.
The general tendency of American legislation is
now and for some time past has been, unquestion
ably, against capital punishment."
FROM A PERSONAL study of niore than two
thousand cases Mr. Moseby is convinced that
most crimes are committed by persons who either
expect to escape all punishment, or who, upon
the spur of the moment, are regardless of all
punishment, or who are governed by cosmic,
social, or individual factors which render the
prospect of punishment inoperative as a deterrent
agency at the time of the commission of the
crime. Mr. Moseby concludes his Interesting art
icle in this way: "If not necessary to kill "the
offender for the protection of society from the
individual malefactor or to deter others from the
commission of similar crime, then justification
can be Bought in the lex talionis alone; or, in
other words, it must be justified purely as a mat-
ter of retaliation and vindictive punishment, ac
cording to tho Mosaic principle of 'an oyo for an
oyo, a tooth for a tooth otc, And, indeed, though
defended by publicists on otbor grounds, tho p?o
lotariat always justifies capital punishment for
murder ns purely a matter of retaliation, thinking
it ontlrely rational and jU8t that tho blood of tho
culprit bo nhbd by way of ntonomont for tho
blood of- his victim; for, as somo of tho ultra
pious declaro, it is written that 'WItoaoover shed
deth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shod
Yet tho laws of modern civilization (with this
slnglo excoptlon) nowhere contemplate retaliation
or revenge. Such considerations are entirely for
eign to every modern juristical concept. Al
though the Idea of retaliation was common among
cortain of the ancientsnotably tho Hebrowa
and among tho barbaric peoples of Europe dur
ing tho Middle Ages, It Is no longor recognized
in tho civil establishments of tho modern era,
If a man burn tho dwolling of another, wo do not
burn his dwelling In return. If ho publish a libel
the law does not decrco tho publication of a libel
against him. If ho commit a felonious assault,
tho law does not authorize a similar assault
against him on tho part of the victim or tho vic
tim's relatives, as was tho case under the ancient
laws of England. All these crude conceptions 6f
justico have gone tholr way, with the thumb
screw and tho rnck, with trial, by compurgation,
combat, and ordeal. And tho cruel and vengeful
laws of capital punishment, 'those laws In the
language of Victor Hugo 'those laws that dip
the finger In human blood to write tho command
ment "Thou shalt not kill," thoss impious laws
that make ono lose one's faith in humanity whoa
they strike the culpable, and that cause ono to
doubt God when they smite tho Innocent' thoBO
laws, too, are passing away bofora the enduring
eloquenco of men like Baccarla, Motesquiou, Tur
got, Franklin, Guizot, Hugo, and John Bright, and
tho inexorable logic of an experience that is teach
ing the world tho folly of shedding human blood:"
PERISH THE THOUGHT
i
The Union Pacific directors held a meeting
July 19. To an executive committee they re
ferred the question of a dividend. Tho dividends
were announced August 17. During the four weeks
intervening between tho reference of dividends
and tho announcement of tho dividends the, Union
Pacific and Southern Pacific stocks enjoyed .a
material advance. Tho Wall Street Journal do
clares that "during the four wcoks .during whfbb
this exclusive knowledge rested with tho Union
Pacific directors these two stocks have scored
tho moat remarkable price movements of their
history." The Journal undertakes to banish the
thought that any directors, or executive officers
of tho Union Pacific or tho Southern Pacific "sold
his honor for stock profit." It refuses to believe
that any director, or executive officer of tho
Union Pacific or the Southern Pacific "sold his
honor for stock profit." It refuses "to believe that
any of the directors or officers knowing that a
dividend would be declared, and that there would
be a consequent advance in the stock went out
and slyly purchased large blocks of these stocks
because, In tho opinion of the Journal, that w6uld
not have been fair, it would not have been hon
orable, and it Is, as tho Journal says, "an awful
thing to be so bound in chains of honor."
Of course, these gentlemen would not have in
dulged in such tactics. They are of the stuff
from which "defenders of the national honor"
are made. Indeed, in 1896, they were conspicuous
among tho men. who made "great sacrifices'' in
order to preserve tho honor of this great republic
of ours.
Would any of these defenders "sell his honor
for Btock profit?" Perish tho thought; for we
do not know that an old line Insurance official
' could not be persuaded to misappropriate the
funds of his policyholders; an officer of the re
publican national committee could not be re
strained from "putting it back" when he learned
that he had been the recipient of stolen funds;
"and a duck would not take to water on a warm
day in June? "
JJJ
The St. Joseph (Mo.) Observer, a weekly dem
ocratic newspaper, has made its appearance. C.
F. Cochran, formerly representative in congress,
is tho editor, whllo Frank Freytag is the business
manager. Mr. Cochran has a wide acquaintance
among democrats, and the fact that he is editor
of the Observer will provide for democrats, at
least, the assurance that the Observer will faith
fully defend the public interests.
JJJ
"The way to. keep cool in bed" remarks an
exchange, "is to go to bed with a calm and placid
mind," That would be easy if the grocery bills
' and rent were not due. . ' ' - x
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