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The Commoner.
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VOLUME 6, NUMBER
50
La3si
.-". 3 TrnTrrvTr
h' win i, .i . -. s . i.i)
George Burnham. Jr.. vice president
arr the ' Mutual Reserve Funds Life
Insurance company, has been sen
tenced to two years in the penitentiary.
fondbn cablegrams say that James
Bryce is to be made ambassador to
the United States. ,
, Assistant' Attorney General Lake of
Missouri says that in the event the
Standard Oil trust is convicted in the
Missouri proceedings against it, the
.property of the trust will be confiscated.
,. .
Bishop Charles C. McCabe of the
Methodist church died in New York,
aged 70 years.
The coal famine" in the northwest
has reached a serious stage; many
towns report that they are, practi
cally, but of, fuel afid Supplies.. jThe
famine is due to -an alleged shortage
p. freight cars. -',"?' " ; " .-
As a result of the election for the
control .oiVthe New York Life and
Mutual Life Insurance companies, "Mr.
Untermeyor claims a victory for the
policyholders. , He says their ticket
received 159,150 votes,- while ttier ad
jninistration ticket ' received l467750f.
The officers of the ' company claim
the administration has won
..Edward H. karriman bested japles.
J. Hill in a contest for the. 'control
of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St:
Paul railroad. '
Secretary-. Lefllingwll -of- the! San
Fr.anQisco. board of education dalle's
s.!H.e fr Secretary Metcalf. IiTan
Associated Press 'interview, Mr. Lef
fingwell says: "The report made by
Secretary Metcalf as exploited before
congress contains many assertions
and ' inferences which are surprising
to say the least, since they are in
error and are therefore unfair, as
they are applied to the members of
the board of education. When Sec
retary Metcalf reached this city on
his mission for President Roosevelt
and the object of his visit' was made
known the board of education did all
in its power to equip him with the
facts surrounding the new order made
in regard to the schooling of Japa
nese pupils, When Secretary Metcalf
asserts that the Japanese and Korean
exclusion league directed the board
SL ?UCa on t0 enter tlle rulinS con
f S3 ww i JapaneS(l Pupils, he utters
uiat which we say is an error. The
members of the board of education
mSSn7 ?areful exPlafn he
cafin &V2J Met-
inU ,. " """" u-uLtsu upon its own
Nfifrrn rUin .
turhoTi i, are Bomewhat dis-
lof Boston anrl vinnf .,.bH 'Lague
tonight, resolution V? Jtt na
BTgsr aa ? -
The peHfti,iH; " "" 10 Passed.
fc&j
fcrakm. v;.w.r:r11. u 1BWGr " the
nMf-eyT
dent of a Christian republic. One who
is familiar with the tyrants of the
past would think it was the language
of Nero or the Duke of Alva. In his
message inciting race hatred and mob
violence against ten million of inno
cent citizens, he has shown himself
to be. a mere politician and not a
great statesman. In accusing all col
ored persons who object to his unlaw
ful and summary punishment
of 170 colored soldiers without trial
of court martial or examination by a
military court of inquiry of a desire
to shield murderers, the president mis
represents ten million of as law abid
ing and patriotic native born AmpW.
can citizens as the country pos-
Bryanism in an Early
sesses.
i i
' The steamer Scoville was destroyed
by an explosion near Vicksburg. John
Quackenboss, captain of the vessel;
Wade Quackenboss, clerk; Joseph
Smith, clerk, and Lavell Yerger, a
traveling salesman, were killed. A
defective boiler caused the explosion.
A Columbus, Ohio, dispatch to the
New York World says: "Cassie Chad
wick is . gojhg south for her health,
although she Is in the Ohio peniten
tiary. She will go under guard. Mrs.
Chadwick has complained to the Uni
ted States authorities of ill-treatment,
and inspectors sent to the prison have
recommended her removal to Atlanta,
-I ,
The . Interstate commerce commis
sion is making an investigation into
the car shortage. It develops that
the cattle men as well as the coal
consumers have been greatly incon
venienced: H. C. Jett of Fort Davis,
Texas, testified that not ten per cent
of the cattle are being moved.
Governor Hlggins of New York has
commuted to life imprisonment the
sentence of Albert T. Patrick, the
New York lawyer who was to have
been electrocuted.
of T-S? fwl "L6 federal distrIct court
of Bartlett Richards, president; Wil
liam G. Comstock, vice president; C.
u Jameson, secretary and treasurer
TmfS11 manager of the Nebraska
fh 4ned!ns cmPany. controlling
a ,i'0SP, acre sPado" ranch, and
Aqullla Triplett, their agent, ended
in the conviction of the four defend-
nT?irty:six counts of a indict
ment which charged conspiracy to de
rraud the government of public lands
and subornation of perjury. ,
The democrats of the Sixth congres
sional district of New Jersey are just-
gnrdt f Je trIumph of William
Hughes in the recent election. He
has been before the voters of the dis-
Hr wuttj wr congress three
times and the runs he has made have
mprWnQjnenaI considering that for
merly the normal republican majority
was over 5,000. In 1902, He was elect
ed over Colonel William Barbour, a
milliona re manufacturer, by 3,848. In
1904, although President Roosevelt
carried the district by 8,338, Mr
Hughes was beaten by but 510 -and
this year he has been elected by a
majority of 2,103. He has been prom
inently mentioned as a candidate for
governor next year, and as New Jersey
back'into ST? 8ignB tt
chanpo 1 10i dcinocratic column, his
chances for election would be good
SenatorLodge speaks In high terms
of the Massachusetts system of publfc
supervision of railroads, and he refers
to Mr. Acworth, the English railroad
authority, who thinks the Massachu
setts legislation a model of its kind.
What is meant by the Massachusetts
plan is the exercise through, a com
mission of advisory instead of arbi
trary powers, or the power to enforce
Its recommendations.
It is commonly claimed that this
Massachusetts method has Worked to
perfection. But it would probably be
nearer the truth to say that, in rela
tion to the steam roadn nnrT fhoin
charges, it has not worked at all
at least in late years. The value and
efficiency of the state railroad board
have been best shown in relation to
street railways since their conversion
to the use of electric power some fif
teen years ago; the board here has
been an active and strong influence
not only in keeping capitalization
within honest bounds, not only in reg
ulating and imnrovinir transnortntinn
facilities, but in occasionally moderat
ing rates of fare.
But as to the steam roads? They
opposed the law of 1869 creating the
commission, and then they fought the
commission and, successfully. The very
first vQuestipn the original commission
took up was that of passenger fares
and freight rates with the view of
securing a deduction. But the rpads
interposed so stout and general a re
sistance that any substantial effort in
tms direction was abandoned and
never resumed. The Massachusetts
steam railroads have been practically
free to charge just what thv niojico
throughout the thirty-six years cov
ered by the legislation which Mr.
Lodge and Mr. 'Acworth regard as a
model. So great indeed had become
the inattention of the commission to
the steam roads and their rates that
when the legislature, at the time of
authorizing the Boston and Albany
lease, wanted some information on
this subject the commission had to go
to the company, and the company had
to admit that its freight rate schedules
were not only a secret of its own for
der at that. From the standpoint of
the roads, the legislation of isrp nnri
its "commission regulation had been a
great success.
It is a somewhat curious fact, con
veniently overlooked by Mr. Lodge,
that the original commission conceded
in advance that It was bound to be a
failure in the effective regulation of
rates. As then composed the board
consisted of James C. ConVrso n
Boston merchant, Edward Appleton
and Charles Francis Adams, who later
became chairman and who was then
the dominating spirit of the commis
sion. And this is what the commission
said in its second annual report:
"Should the legislature delegate a
power in this regard (specific rate
regulation) to the present or any
other .board of commissioners, it would
Massachusetts Beport
which can work only through reluo
tant agents, and the position of ono
who can direct but can not execute i3
in the last degree unfortunate. It re
sembles ndthing so much as that of a
military commander, all of whose sub
ordinates . feel a direct and lively in
terest in his failure."
simply destroy it in so dointr. A
sponsibility would be imposed unsus
tained by any executive power, An
authority to regulate fares and
freights over roads owned, controlled
and operated by others, would place
those in whom such authority was re
posed in an entirely false and im
possible position. Those managing the
roads could produce what results they
saw fit; they could easily demonstrate,
by apparent practical workings, the
absurdity of anything which was dis
tasteful to them. They could reduce
to real failures the most correctlv
reasoned theories. It Is useless for
the legislature to look for satisfactory
results from the labors of any board
This argument appears to weigh as
strongly against effective rate regula
tion by a commission of arbitrary pow
ers as against one with only advisory
powers; and accordingly it tells
against the present plan of national
rate regulation as 'well as against the
Massachusetts plan. The point is that
in either case the orders or recom
mendations of the commission remain
to be worked out by hostile agents
(the railroads); and it will have to
be said that so far in the experiment
of public regulation that forecasts of
largely futile results, made by the
early Massachusetts commission, has
been borne out not only in Massachus
etts experience but in federal exper
ience and in that of states which liave
employed more arbitrary powers.
We are now to make a new trial on
a national scale; and it is to be said
that if there are those like Bryan who
think it foredoomed to continued fail
ure, this is no more than what the
pioneer commissioners in American
rate regulation also thought. They
considered as necessary for effective
state regulation that the state itself
should be the agent for carrying out
Its ideas of what a railroad should
do, and this could be done only
tnrough the ownership and operation
by the 4 state of some line of road to
yhose. example and, standards the private-owned
roads, would 'be forced to
conform. This was how they came
to advise the state purchase and oper
ation of the Fltchburg -road, then
about to be extended through Hoosac
tunnel to New York state, in which
the state owned a large interest.
. Thus if Bryan were to reduce his
plan simply to the initial ex
perimental one of having the national
government acquire a single through
line from San Francisco, to Chicago,
New York and Boston, he would oc
cupy a position on all fours w.ith that
of the early Massachusetts commis
sion. But it would be a far stronger
one practically; for the state acqui
sition of the Fitchburg, or even of the
Boston and Albany, would almost cer
tainly have been doomed to failure
since the all-important western con
nections would have been controlled
by private-owned roads Interested in
killing the Massachusetts state road.
A national road, however, stretching
clear across the country by way of
the greater centers of population and
commerce could not possibly be
choked to death by other roads. It
could only fail through a failure to
do business better and more cheaply
than other roads similarly situated.
This second Massachusetts railroad
report forms indeed a veritable cam
paign document for the Bryan agita
tion. It holds the same view regard
ing the ineffectiveness of rate control
through the commonly adopted meth
ods, and presents substantially the
same alternative method of dealing
with the problem. Mr, Lodge will not
be hurting the Bryan agitators as
much as he thinks he is in directing
their attention to Massachusetts ex
perience. nerlence. Springfield,' Mass., Republican.
TO CURE A COLD IN QNE DAY
TaUft LAXATTVE BUOMO Quinine TaWets.
Dn,r"rists rotund money If it falls to cure.
E. W. GROVE'S signature Is on eaoh box, 25a
r . tfdal
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