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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 6, 1907)
IM4. ! -V The Commoner. VOLUME ,7,. NUMBER 31 6 V A , Xt m K 13 ,1 fe it ) tl JJ Mil The Commoner. ISSUED WEEKLY WltXlAM J. DnvAN Editor and Proprietor. IIICIIAIU) L. MirTCAI.l'K Awfoclnto Kditor. CllAlU.VS W. HllYAN Publisher. Editorial Roomn nml Ilitnluom Onico 324330 South 12th Street. Kntcml at- tho 1'OHtpfllco M Lincoln, Neb., n socoud-clnsa matter Ono Your - - 81. OO Three Montlin - 5"o Six Month - - .BO Single Copy - - 5o Jn Clubs of Five or more, Snmplo Copies Froo. 3'crYear - - .75 Foreign Fort bro 52 Cents JCxtra. SUltSOllII'TIONS can bo sent direct to Tho Com moner. They can also bo sent through newspapers . which havo advertised a clubbing rate, or through local agents, whoro sub-agents have beon appoint ed. All remittances 'should be sont by postofflco monoy ordor, oxpross order, or by bank draft on Now York or Chicago. Do not send Individual chocks, stamps or money. DISCONTINUANCES It Is found that a largo majority of our subscribers prefer not to havo tholr subscriptions interrupted and their flies broken in caso they fall to remit before expiration. It is therefore assumed that continuance is desired unless subscribers ordor discontinuance, either whon subscribing or at any time during tho year. Presentation Copios: Many persons subscribe for friends, intending that tho paper shall stop at trie ond of tho year. If Instructions arc given to mat offoct they will rccolvo attention at tho proper time. IU3NI3VAIjS Tho date on your wrapper shows tho time to which your subscription is paid. Thus January 31, '08, means that payment has beon re ceived to and including tho last issue of January, 1908. Two wocks are required after monoy has boon received before tho dato on wrapper can bo ' changed. CHANGE OF ADDRESS Subscribers requesting a change of address must give' OLD as woll-as NEW address. ' ' ADVERTISING Rates furnished upon applica tion. Address all communications to THE COMMONER, L'ncoln, Neb. Perhaps President Stickney would agree to boil the water in the railroad stocks. ' . The legal department of the government is after the powder trust. Look out for the fl'are back! ' ' Senator Foraker talks like a man who knows mighty well where the bulk of the re publican campaign fund comes from. After narrowly escaping a rough house fin ish the Oklahoma republican convention woiind 1 up by nominating a rough rider candidate. Mr. Wellman is dashing for the pole very much like the average man dashes down street to pay ,his gaB bill a month or two in advance. a i (,,VT-1Gro seems to be .a, very great deal of . need for a lot of blue vitriol and some new ...zincs in tho batteries of that Ohio fire alarm , system. A scientist having declared that champagne affects the eyesight the Washington Herald adds, "Also the nose." And also the pocketbook and the future. Bandit Rasuli scornfully refuses to come in and bo good. Rasuli has a regular protective tariff standpat cinch on the bandit business, and he doesn't purpose revising his graft. If Governor Glenn is willing he can lend his executive backbone to several other gov ernors without displeasing the, people of the states presided over by tho borrowers. Well, that $29,240,000 fine on the Stand ard Oil company only means about forty cents per capita, providing the company is content with collecting only tho amount of the fine from tho public. Mr. Rockefeller is reported to havo con tinued his game of golf after having been noti fied of the huge fino imposed by Judge Landis. Perhaps he did, and if so it is quite likely that ho swatted 'the ball a littlo harder than usual, just for luck. Strikebreaking minors in the Mesaba range took their, babies into the mines .in order to protect themselves against the attacl.s of the strikers. It was a great victory for the babies, who will -not, we hope, grow up into such pusil lanimous cowards as their fathers. Mr. Watterson and "The Omaha World-Herald" .-In its issue of August 23 Tho Commoner reproduced an editorial from the Omaha World Herald in which editorial Mr. Henry Watterson was taken to task for criticising in Mr. Bryan what he commended in Mr. Taft. Mr. Watterson replied to the World-Herald seeking to justify himself, and in its issue of August 29 the World-Herald retorts in an edi torial which explains Mr. Watterson's defense and the World-Herald's position. The World-Herald's article follows: Mr. Bryan reprints, in the current number of The Commoner, under the cap tion of "A Palpable Hit," a leading article which appeared in the Omaha World-Herald ten or twelve days ago, designed to show "the entire lack of good faith," we quote from its initial sentence, "that characterizes the attitude of Henry Watterson toward Mr." Bryan," the discovery of this lack of good faith consisting in Mr. Watterson's recent commerit on Secretary Taft. Several persons put themselves to the trouble of especially sending the Courier Journal this article, indelibly marked in deep, dark blue, or bloody red ink, and we , had, before seeing it under Mr. Bryan's own superscription, read and reread it, J and pondered over it, and wondered how that which the Courier-Journal said about Judge Taft could be tortured Into bad faith to Mr. Bryan, or as claiming for Judge Taft a political enemy what had been denied to Mr. Bryan, a political friend. We reprint in another column, side by side, the two art icles, the one from the Courier-Journal on Judge Taft, the other from the World Herald on Mr. Watterson. It would take a Philadelphia lawyer to detect wherein what we said of Judge Taft contradicts what we have said of Mr. Bryan, or contravenes any i - limitation we have put upon Mr. Bryan's parts of speech. With this somewhat labored exordium Ed itor Watterson of the Louisville Courier-Journal proceeds to a much more labored effort to ex plain why he commended frankness as a quality that would strengthen Secretary Taft as a pres idential candidate, after having repeatedly and heatedly asserted that Mr. Bryan, by his frank ness, has disqualified himself; -why he com mended Taft for "daring to prefer to be honest rather than shrewd a statesman rather thati a politician," after having long pleaded with Mr. Bryan, apparently with more gusto than sin cerity, to be shrewd rather than honest a poli tician rather than a statesman. Confessedly one of the ablest of living con troversialists, Mr. Watterson labors along through a good part of two columns and does not arrive anywhere. This is due to no failing powers on his part, but to the impossible nature of his task. For it is as difficult to reconcile the conflicting advice Mr. Watterson has given as it would be to assert one day that two and two are four, the next day that two and two are seven, and the third day to prove that both assertions are true. Out of the long and fine spun thread of Colonel Watterson's rejoinder the World-Herald selects this single paraeranh which alone of its brothers is pertinent to the discussion, and gives it for what it is worth: Judge -Taft is the secretary of war Ho was the original governor of the Philip pines. He is, it is true, a live, professed and undefeated candidate for president. But the proclaimed object of his speech-making is to enlighten the country touching policies of which he" is an official part. The people go to hear him not as a showman but as a representative. They have more right than curiosity to see and hear him. . He has therefore, great drawing power though not a particularly brilliant platform orator as Bryan is and might get big gate mon ey; but ho appears in all the dignity of a statesman and asks not a penny for his speeches. Ho comes clothed with the im portance and the majesty of the govern ment of the United States, the hand of the president in apostolic succession upon his head, This makes a world of difference be tween Mr, Bryan and Judge Taft, and yet we think it will prove fatal to Judge Taft. Editor Watterson, it will be seen, admits the futility of his own conclusion and points out the danger of following his own advice For if Judge Taft's frankness should indeed "nrovo fatal'.; how can he fail to remember, as his eyes are glazing in political death, that it was Henry Watterson advised liim to be frank! Evidently the prediction that "this will prove fatal to Judge Taft" should have been omitted from the Wattersonian explanation, else it is no explana tion at all. Omitting it, we find Colonel Wat terson lauding frankness in Taft and condemn ing it in Bryan for these reasons: Taft is a public official and Bryan but a private citizen. Taft's duty is to enlighten the people, and .we are left to infer that Bryan's duty lies else where, if not directly opposite. , Taft speaks always "for nothing," while Bryan exacts a fee for his lectures never, of course, for political speeches. Taft has been chosen by Roosevelt for his successor, while there is no "apostolic hand" on Mr. Bryan's head. Therefore, candor in Taft is a virtue, in Bryan a weakness! All of which is purest nonsense, of course, and as such exposes how desperate is the plight of the editor of the Courier-Journal. And the one service it does in this office is to make clear, as the World-Herald showed in the beginning, that Colonel Watterson is a captious, hostile and we regret to say disingenuous critic of Mr. Bryan, and as such should be known to all democrats. From the first the World-Herald has never presumed to object to Colonel Watterson's criti cizing Mr. Bryan to his heart's content; we have only insisted that he stand forth bravely and honestly in his true colors. When we are sum moned to see "what a rent the envious Casca made" we would only know that it was the envious Casca, indeed, that struck, and not a loyal friend. Omaha World-Herald. oooo Washington Letter Washington, D. C, September 2. The most strikirig feature of Mr. Taft's Lexington speech is his statement that the south has permitted the shadow of an issue (race question) to bind it to the democratic party, no matter what prin- ciples or candidates that, party adopts. Contin ing Mr. Taft says: "If only under the influence of President Roosevelt's administration some of the southern states, including Kentucky, could be led into the republican column in accordance with the real sympathies of the. voters of those states, it would be a crowning glory of his administra tion. It will not necessarily work for the bene fit of the republican party in the end because of the closeness with which the southern states have united in support of democratic candidates has introduced a similar cohesion among the northern states, and we might expect more in dependence of vpting at the north if the voters were not confronted with the solidarity of the south. As an American citizen, and lover of my country, I long for the time when the south shall be received again in the councils of the nation, and when the people of that section shall resume the influence to which they are en titled and which they deny themselves by being frightened at a mere ghost of the past." With these few words the president's can didate for president insults and loses the solid south he hopes to break, and helps to break the solid north he assumes is won. For the south to be told that she has supported a party regard less of its candidates or principles, that her statesmen have not had a part in the councils of the nation; for tlie north to be t&ld that her lack of independence in voting is due to the solidarity of the south, would even be insult enough were it true. It is doubly an insult in that it is absolutely false. It comes with peculiarly bad grace from the spokesman and legatee of the Roosevelt ad ministration to slur the . part Southern states manship is playing in the councils of the nation. It is bad grace because the Roosevelt adminis tration has drawn the majority of its most ef fective and popular measures from democratic platforms drafted in part by southern statesmen. It is doubly in bad grace becanse when republi cans were fighting the president's policy he had to appeal to a Tillman of South Carolina, a Cul berson and Bailey of Texas, and to other south ern statesmen to champion his measures and save them from defeat at the hands of his own fellow partisans. Even then had the president stood by his southern allies' who so brilliantly fought on the battlefield republicans had deserted-, his rate bill, would have been a far more " --Vj .tt&&M&'il