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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 11, 1907)
Li,.i.iim'iir,i'""-" y- I j r7 $5w9'vy $" - Ej(Bs n ..,- ICK 1 Vi I 1..N . '. 2 The Commoner. ,as those corporations confine their 'business to the state, the federal government can not inter fere, but the moment those corporations step across the stato line, they come under the super vision of the federal government and congress has power to fix the terms upon which they shall do business. This is a very much better arrange ment than to have national corporations superior to and independent of the states. We have trouble enough with overgrown state corporations. We would have still more trouble if we permitted the creation of overgrown national corporations. The state and the nation both are neces sary and the doctrine of Jefferson and Jackson is the doctrine that must prevail today. We need no new principles; we only need the courageous application of old-time principles to the new con ditions. We need remedies, stato and national, but it is not necessary that the nation should en croach upon the rights of the state or the state upon the, rights of the nation in order to secure such remedial legislation as is demanded. :. fc JJJ CHINA AWAKENING A dispatch from Pekin announces that an imperial edict was published during the holidays raising Confucius to the same rank as heaven . and earth. Thfs edict was issued in order to give the emperor a monopoly of the worship of Con fucius. The emperor, acting as the representative of his people, offers sacrifice to heaven and to earth, and the dispatch says that the action of the" emperor in issuing this edict is due to the fact that the Christian students in the govern ment colleges object to kow-towing to the tablet of Confucius. Henceforth the .emperor will do .' all the kow-towing and the students will be re lieved. When Mr. Bryan was at Shanghai he visited the state school there, and seeing the chapel prepared for the kow-towing which was to take place next morning, he arose early and went out to witness the ceremony. He was dis appointed to find that for some reason not given the ceremony did not take place. It was rumored ..then that it was losing its hold upon the students, ' ,ahd this rumor seems to be substantiated by the edict of the emperor. This edict is an indication - of the progress which China is making in the adoption of western ideas. The Christian relig ) w ion, ia making headway against the doctrine, of .Confucius, ,and in proportion as religion takes the place of Confucianism, China may be expected to rise in civilization. It is the boast of the , Chinaman that the Chinese people live up to the ideals of Confucius. That in itself is a suffi cient., condemnation of those ideals, for an ideal which is fully embodied in the life is. not as .jhigh as it ought to be. It is the glory of the Christian ideal that struggle as we may, -we can only .approximate to it, not reach -it, for while it is within sight of the lowliest and the liumblest, it is. so high as to keep the noblest and the best With their faces turned ever upward. W JJJ 'II THE SHIP SUBSIDY The advocates of a ship subsidy, like the ad vocates of the asset currency, hope to rush their ; measure through before public opinion has a' chance to act upon it. When Secretary Root went to South America it was generally supposed that the object of his visit was to cultivate more intimate relations between this country and the SlWn' U nW 8eeiT1S that the real flVLhlS V' p was t0 fortify his arguments t nr n a, 8lp S,Ubsidy' Whether the advo- subaidWm- f . D0 content w begin with lnste 1 Ie llne? t0 South America or will mains to L 2mp,Lete WiQ subsidies re and loMnMil een' The democrats will naturally are Z "ktaS of gf wX "V Wh- TherG ttlaVVwa!?' f ' TbSL ?n Interests could be properly , . .protected in (lie contracts. , . , There are two kinds of government aid to an industry. Qne kind is illustrated in the agri cultural experiment stations. The government at its own expense experiments on matters con nected with agriculture, horticulture and stock raising and gives to the public the benefit of its experiments. The results of its work are open to all and are an instruction to all.' This is a legitimate use of government money. The gov ernment is under no obligation to continue an ex periment when it proves unsuccessful, and no one can monopolize the benefits which flow from a successful experiment. The establishment of a government line of boats either directly or through lesees would be in line with the experiment sta tion. The government's success or failure would be instructive and no one would be able to monop olize the benefits. The second way of giving the government aid is to subsidize. This taxes the public for the benefit of a few, and the few who receive not only monopolize the benefits but in sist upon the continuation of the system. The protected industries are now demanding higher duties than were demanded in the beginning of the century. Instead of being strengthened they have been enervated, and the country has to go through a life and death struggle to get the public teats out of the mouth of one of its pampered in fants. So it will be if we enter on the subsidy scheme. A little subsidy now will mean a bigger subsidy in a few years, and the steamship lines built up by subsidy will threaten to die if they are left unsupported. A protective tariff and a steamship subsidy are one in principle. Those who believeNin taxing the many for the benefit of the few are likely to favor both. Those who believe in the doctrine of equatorights to all and special privileges to none will favor neither. The argument that subsidy is only temporary ought not to deceive anyone. The time will never come when a subsidy once granted can be withdrawn without a struggle, and the more successful the subsidy has been in building up the favored in dustry, the more difficult will it be to repeal the law.' ' ' - -f" & W JJJ CIVIL PENSIONS -, The National Civil Service Reform League has Recently made public the' result of its study ,of the subject of civil pensions, There are now several bills before congress providing for pen sions or superannuated government clerks, and the various state governments are continually importuned to provide for pensions for state and municipal employes. The Civil Service Reform League finds that it would cost about twenty-five millions a year to provide pensions for all the employes in the government service, whereas the government's loss from the inefficiency of its employes who are above sixty-five amounts to but one million two hundred thousand a year. The investigation which has been made and the facts brought -.out will be useful when these bills are considered in the state and nation. JJJ SAGACITY The editor of our esteemed contemporary, the Washington Post, was guilty of a mental lapse the other day when he wrote the editorial on "States manship and Sa&acity." He said: "Here is Mr. Bryan indorsing the, Beveridge child labor bill. He thinks he sees in child laboran evil. Well, given an evil, and Mr. Bryan would abate it by act of congress, however unconstitutional. If congress can curtail interstate commerce by enact ing the Beveridge bill, it can eradicate Interstate commerce by some other bill. It is madness, from the standpoint of the old-fashipned demo crat, to suppose that the constitution clothes con gress with such autocratic power. Child labor is an evil, we make no doubt, but not an unmixed evil. A boy ten years old, helping to plant corn and dropping pumpkin seed, is to be envied rather than commiserated. It would be as stupid as it would be despotic to forbid a railroad to carry a bushel of corn from state to state because the seed of which it was the yield had been 'dropped' by a boy of twelve. Had that been the law, Abra ham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, Andrew Johnson, and many other of our greatest and best public men would not have received that discipline in childhood that made them pillars of the state in jnanhood. Mr. Bryan is a brilliant man, and by many' looked upon as a matchless statesman and peerless orator. He is the best advertised private citizen in the world, and Mr. Bryan would bo a pretty considerable man if nature had not denied him the quality of sagacity. And sagacity is pretty nearly indispensable to a leader of a po- VO'LijMB;6, NUMBER 52 litical party in a country that nriw0 x manhood suffrage." adheres to universal ir tne editor of the Posf wi i i .read the Beveridge bill hP . Sni I iake tlm t( labor at which the "ill aim" i?&at J0 ch and factories. It does not cnvl, IS r in m,ne farm, and there is a reason fn, ft?0P,iU??n tho which is thus drawn betwTn Si ? distinction factory on the one sido n?i f r ln mine ai1 In the first PlLeTabor Upon the L- " fining like labor in the factor and?n t,n0t ?n' And second, labor on the faTm Uo e ,?T the summer time when school Lf , eralIy, ln Third thP ohivi S scnool is not in session. the child does upon the farm during vacations and before and after school hours Is a work Zt SS s totTrth6tl,at a Td d0es '" " tellect it ,ii ',-e BroYth and dwilrrs tne in- SSESCbSF care t0 reaa and un" & Neither need one be a latitudinarian to favor ?ol o??L?Jhe federal COngress in n n L? interstae commerce. Instead of having SpI ?w "If contemPt for th old democratic gos pel that the government at Washington is one of delegated and restricted powers" Mr. Bryan believes thoroughly in that doctrine, but he wm not be deceived by those who spend their time n JrJlf n reasons to support inaction when a great evil is to be dealt with. Child labor is a S? Zih,und Thile each 8tate has a right to deal with the subject as it will, the federal gov ernment has a concurrent remedy which it can employ Senator Beveridge has embodied this remedy m a bill which does not in any way tres pass upon the rights of the states. The people of a state can permit the employment of -child labor if they will, but congress has a right to say that .they shall not use that child labor to make the child labor laws of other States ineffec ,,??'. The Prlnciple embodied in the Beveridge bill is exactly the principle endorsed in the anti trust plank of the democratic platform of 1900. Every democrat the senate and house ought 'ta support the Beveridge bill, and then the prin ciple of the Beveridge bill, ought to bo applied to tue trust question. The editor oL the Post is respectfully invited to examine the bill and tho constitution and then take his position among tho supporters of this important and necessary measure. JJJ DID NOT SAY; IT ff . The'Sioux City Journal has an editorial based upon the claim that Mr. Bryan said: "Such a high honor as the ' presidential nomination is something that no American citizen should de cline." The Journal's editorial is all very inter esting to be sure. But the sentence quoted by the Journal was not employed by Mr. Bryan. Ho simply stated in Topeka what he stated else where, that he was not ready to make an an nouncement on the nomination. Whether a nomi nation should be declined or accepted depends on conditions under which the offer is made. The -platform is a matter to be considered; the char acter of the organization is also important, and the general line to be pursued in the campaign can not be ignored. The platform ought to fit the issues; the candidate ought to fit the plat form, and the party organization ' should be in harmony with the party's purpose.' JJJ INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM The Referendum News gives a resume of the results accomplished for .the public's interest since the adoption of the initiative and referen dum in the Juno election in Oregon. The News says: ' "Here is what the voters of Oregon have ac complished since they shook off machine rule by establishing in ' themselves a veto power through the optional referendum and a power to initiate measures by petition. "The establishment of tho system was com pleted early in 1904, petitions' wero immediately circulated by the people, one for a direct nomina tions system and the other for .logal option on the liquor license question. At the referendum election both measures were adopted. "The next election was held in June, for which ten Initiative petitions were circulated and sufficient signatures secured for .their submis sion. Five of these were proposed by the People's Power League and are as follows: r "A constitutional "amendment, for the initia tive and referendum for ordinances in cities, --A. ., i & f jJJA&fc L