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FEBRUARY 22, 1907
The Commoner.
still, but ho was yet asleep. "George" gently
shook his shoulders and repeated the message-sent
to the senator. 'George" was a black bo v. The
senator, finally awake, wheeled slowly from (he
couch, and "George" went to work with a sponge,
hay-rum and coarse towel, in response to the in
junction, "George, they've sent out again for he
patent outside of the old democratic party; so get
to work and freshen me up a bit."
Presently a freshly curried, grlzzleu old oody
o' brains, and God's purest manhood of truth and
honesty, entered the senate and slowly went to
Senator Bayard's desk. That gentleman's anxious
face looked up and with a sigh of relief he handed
his notes to Senator Thurman.
Soon Senator Edmunds clo'sed his remarks and
the Old Roman, with Senator" Bayard's notes in
his hand, rose. For an hour and forty minutes,
the pure, simple Addisonian English, so easily at
the command of Senator Thurman, poured out In
a stream of convincing and convicting argument.
And then -he started for the door of the senate
at, one end, as Senator Edmunds went out of the
other. They met Hear the middle cloak room door
and staVted, ami in arm, for the restaurant. Sen
ator Edmunds remarked, "Senator, your argu
ment ..was very strong, very strong; yoii met aiuL
answered me on every point."
And they went on to the restaurant.
Imagine Aldrich hold on! I beg pardon of
everybody!
"Nothing is ever forgotten," said Willie Winter
lately, in writing of the career of Mary Anderson.
Doubtless the purists may find fault with the
words, even Winter himself if held down by the
logic of languages. But to the sense: "Nothing
is ever forgotten," and yet, seemingly, how little
is remembered, how few remember!
The civil war was a wall between the then and
now. Before, the honor of a man was the price
less asset of pure manhood, now it has become m
terdistinguishablc with the "guinea's stamp," and
frequently the value is considered as less than iho
price. Principles.no longer actuate the living of
life, and policy dictates the motives of men to such
an extent that profit argues the correctness of coil
duct. Men are no worse, no better, but the methods
that obtain to domination are ignobly base. The
wealth of a Corcoran bespoke honorable method;
the great fortune of the Astors provokes no sense
of; shame in the present methods of its gathering;
but the temper of our people is tried by the laud
ing of the" ways of a Rockefeller, and we are bo
sought to give praise to conditions that have made
a Carnegie possible. lie has seen to it that he
shall not be soon forgotten, by building his own
library-monuments, with the taxes wrung from
the people by the tariff 'schedules in which lie ,
wrote their taxes and his profits!
Truly, though "nothing is ever forgotten," so
much do we fail to remember. "Befo' th' wall,"
and we smile; now, "Before GodP'and we fall
upon our faces to the golden calf, our icon of
purest worship! We are rushing so madly upon
tomorrow, that yesterday is a century past and U's
lesson is not' remembered. We smile patronizingly
upon what we are conceitedly disposed to con
sider provincial (except New York, and that !s
her especial virtue!) and made heart deep in the
cess-pool of worldly wisdom. And the content
ment with the change in ourselves from honor
able to dishonorable, is the most horribly astound
ing transposition ever observed in any people in
the world.
That the virtues of men of two generations ago
are not forgotten is quite true, but that we remem
ber them with the least idea of their worthiness
of emulation is all but absurd. Neither the con
trast in men, manners, conditions of necessity nor
opportunity of events justify the neglect on our
part of the right principles of the Fathers; and
yet, in all things, they are "old fogies," and we
laugh and push on to exploit for profit the honor
they heed so sacred.
In point, note the reply of Robert E. Lee, when
-solicited to accept the presidency of a great in
surance company, after the civil war: "My name
shall not be traded upon among the people at the
South." Now, we see the practical owner of a
great insurance company selecting as trustees,
three prominent names merged in one in the hope
that the influence of that one name, as a mercan
tile asset, may be sufficient to protect from Sus
picion the future conduct of that company. I rue,
he is not, to the extent of human nobility, a Lee:
but stands in the place of the consecrated icon oL
the canary colored metal upon a pedestal almost
as high.
Would it not be better, granting that "nothing
is ever forgotten," that we should remember all
that was worthy) In those who have left a virtuous
example of llfeV
W. S. RYAN. ,
. Indianapolis, Ind.
" LETTERS FROM THE PEOPLE
. Francis O'Connor, Rochester, N. Y. Your is
sue of January 2," contains the following:
Charles II. Hunter, Defiance, Ohio, sub
mits this interesting inquiry:
" 'Apropos of your article on 'Popular
l hrases, the phrase, 'A government where all
power is from the people and in the people
and for the people,' appears in a speech bv
Douglas, found on page 109 of 'The Rhetorical
Reader,' by Ebenozer Porter, published in
1S31. Can you tell me what Douglas it was?'
"Can any Commoner reader answer?"
. Lfind in a later edition of Porter's Rhetorical
Reader than that referred to bv Charles H. Hun
ter, on pages 190, 197 and 19S three selections
from a book entitled "The Advancement of So
ciety in Knowledge and Religion," by James
Douglas, Esq., First American, from the second
Edinburgh edition, Hartford, published by Cooke
& Co., and Packard & Butler, 1S30.
In the first of those selections, under the cap
tion, New Social Order in America, are the words
quoted above by Charles II. Hunter. Under the
heading "Voluntary Association" the second selec
tion reads like a prediction of the Commandite,
Trust, and Corporation of today. The third offers
this magical spirit of association to quicken the
operations of the Bible Society.
The American edition presents strong com
mendations of the book and its author from
learned and religious Americans of its time. The
author is represented as a Scottish gentleman of
good connections and estate.
John Crane, Logansport, Ind. I notice that
another man has resigned and come home from
Panama, and they have had a banquet in New
York city. Now it seems to an old 'codger,' like
yours truly,' that that affair and the president's
'special message,' should about complete the big
ditch. Maybe not though.
J. W. Lockhart, St. Johns, Wis. 1 like The
Commoner very much indeed. The opposition
"well may dread the lightning of its blow;" but
.when even my best friend indulges in such ex
travagant and misleading sentamentalism as that
under the caption of "Sacrificing the Children,"
I feel that it is my duty to call for saner state
ments of facts. Mr. Spargo's sentimentallsm
is of that foolish type that seeks to carry its point
by an assault upon the sympathies rather than
by an appeal to reason and to facts. Admitting
that the child labor problem is a very serious one,
and that the condition of the children working in
our factories should be ameliorated or prohibited,
none will deny that the results can be better at
tained by a strict adherence to facts than by un
supported flights of fancy. Our sympathies should
never be permitted to control our judgment.
If the readers of The Commoner will turn to
page 300 of the Compend of the Twelfth U. S.
Census, they will discover that the average num
ber of children under sixteen years of age em
ployed in the manufacturing establishments of;
the United States during the census year was
1G8.5S3, while on page G4 they will find that the
total number of children between the ages of five
and fifteen years was, approximately, 17,000,000.
These 108,583 children under sixteen years of age
earned wages amounting to 925,(501,092, or an av
erage of about fifty cents per day. The number
of manufacturing establishments in operation
was 512,270. And yet in the face of the best ob
tainable statistics Mr. Spargo imagines himself
to be within the bounds of reason when he guesses
the number of children under fourteen years of
age employed In the factories of the United
States to be, 'not less than 2,250,000 Quite a
wide difference, let it be observed.
There is another side of the child labor prob
lem that deserves serious consideration, and that
is the "Mother Labor" side of the question.
There is some reason to believe that in, at least,
nine cases out of every ten where children work
in the factories necessity compels them to do so
as a means of subsistence. With them it Is either
work or starve, and when the children cannot or
will not work the mothers are compelled to take
their places. And it Is greatly to be feared that
the motherless homes might be productive of
more and greater evils than child labor confined
within its present limits. When the mothers are
condemned to hard labor for the support of the
family, including, possibly a drunken brute of n
husband, as is only too often the case, who would
care for the moral well being of the children? In
the face of the dens of iniquity that curse our
larce cities, and the sleuth-hounds of vice and
crime forever on the trail of innocence and virtue
it requires no prophetic vision to see the final re
sults when young girls and boys are turned loose
to seek their own associates. But to my mind
the' strangest thing is this: That those who most
vehemently denounce child labor are as silent us
the grave in regard to the most prolific cause of
the cviL-they denounce. It requires no savant
to understand that the heartless avarice of n li
censed liquor traffic is more the cause of child
labor than all ( ther causes combined. I believe
that W. 13. Gladstone was right when he stild:
"The. traffic in intoxicating liquors causes more
misery and human suffering than war and famine
and pestilence combined."
Henry S. Fargo, Hartford City, Ind. Thero
are large and increasing numbers of members vC
both parties, that see in government ownership ti
sure remedy for the extortionate charges, and for
the unfair discrimination and rebate system now
practised, and used in railroad management
Government ownership and operation Is objected
to by some, on account of the vast political power
that might be placed In the hands of the political
party that should be 'In power; that it might
result in the building up or a political machine,
such as was never before known in uie history of
the country; a power too great to be entrusted
to any political party, and a greater menace to
the rights and liberties of the people, than the
wrongs that this movement seeks to redress. Wo
may expect all manner of scarecrows suggested
by the railroad people, to frighten, scare, and to
direct public attention away from this proposition.
But if government ownership of railroads should
obtain in this country, would It be necessary for
the government to engage in the transportation
business as such? Would uot the government
ownei-ship of the right of way, in fee-simple, to
gether with the road bed and track, with nil
terminal facilities, give to the government suffi
cient control for all purposes? And could not this
principle be applied to lines operating wholly
within a state, as well' as to lines engaged in in
terstate commerce? The government being the
owner, could have these lines of railroad oper
ated by. transportation companies under leases of
reasonable duration, wherein could be embodied
every precaution against unfair discrimination,
and this unjust system of rebates, as well as the
extortionate charges for the transportation of
freight and passengers. I for one do not believe
that it would be necessary for the government to
acquire the rolling stock, or the motive power, or
to otherwise engage in tin railroad business. Our
railroads, like our rivers and lakes are now great
public thoroughfares over which the supplies, and
productions of eighty-five millions of people are
to be transported and should be owned exclu
sively by the government. If the government
ownersmp proposition should be con lined to the
ownership of the right of way, road bed and track,
with terminal facilities, the movement would jo
hailed with great satisfaction by the common peo
ple of this part of the country I feel assured.
Republicans and democrats all talk alike, when
speaking of government ownership along these,
lines. There is also another reason why the gov
ernment should own the railroads; because rail
road corporations have not seen fit to furnish suf
ficient facilities for handling the traffic, that has
been increasing with the development of the coun
try; a shortage of cars, for the transportation of
freight, is the cry, people almost everywhere suf
fering for want of coal, and no coal can bo had,
because the railroaus cannot furnish the trans
portation. The trouble seems rather to be that
the railroads own the coal mines and by being
short of cars, they are able to raise the price of
coal. We are living in an age when single track
railroads, ought to be a thing of the past; rail
road accidents are occurring every day, resulting"
in great loss of human life, and can only be ac
counted for, on the theory, of overcrowding, and
inadequate facilities for handling the business.
Government ownership, seems to offer the only
remedy for the many evils of which we complain,
and if confined within the limits suggested herein,
ought to receive a great public endorsement.
The rights of the children are entitled to more
consideration than most of the so-called vestaJ
rights 7r-
Milking by machinery is not so now. Just'
think how the public has been "milked" by the
tariff machine.
Of course $85,000,000 river and harbor bills',
are not calculated to disturb the rest of the
'standpatters."
The Interstate commerce commission's report
on Standard Oil sounds like rank plagiarism of
Ida M. Tarbefl.
People who predict a horseless age because
of the automobile should bear in mind that the
highest priced automobile yet built cost only ono
slxth of the amount paid for the highest priced
horse.
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