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KOVBMBBR 8, 1907;
The Commoner
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j Garden or Eden, for we have In tlio First Ne
braska district as beautiful -and .fertile farm
y lands as the sun turns his face upon in all
.: nls course. I deny that it is just to the farmers
of my district that gamblers should be permitted
to bet on the price of their products to thpir
injury after they hare prepared their crops for
the market. When the farmer has taken the
chances of rain and drouth, when he has taken
the chances which must come to the farmer as
they scarcely 'come to anybody else; when he
has escaped the grasshopper and the chinch bug
and the rain and the hail and the dry winds, I
Insist that he shall not then be left to the mercy
of a gang of speculators who, for their own gain,
will take out of him as much of the remainder
as they can possibly get.
"There is no difference in the moral char
acter of the transaction between the action of
the burglar who goes to a man's house at night
and takes from him a part of that which he
receives for his wheat, and the action of the
gambler .who goes on the board of trade and,
by betting on the price of products, brings down
that price and takes that much from the farmor's
income."
'. As with the farmer's grain so with the
property of the railroad stockholder, or the
industrial corporation stockholder, or the bank
- depositor, or the real estate owner, or the wage
earner the property and rights of everyone
.of whom are affected by these high scale gamb
lers who, under the guise of business men, have
destroyed honest values and created fictitious
values at their own pleasure.
It will do no good for the American people
, to shut their eyes to the truth J they must not
suffer themselves to be led into greater pitfalls
by the very men who have brought them to
their present day plight. Let us cultivate a
healthy public sentiment that will frown upon
this great gambling system.
If the educators who have faith in the power
of public opinion to remedy evil will endeavor
to create a sentiment against gambling in
stocks and grain and produce they will find it
easier., to prevent gambling among their
students. "
- If the ministers who discourse eloquently
on sin in the slums of the; cities will arraign
the-speculating pew holders they will find it
easier to cure the more hideous but less harm
ful kind of gambling.
If the bank depositor, the property owner,
the wageworker :-men and women in all stages
of life who want a condition of affairs wherein
the results of their toil will be safe from the
hands of those who would misappropriate it
let them join in the chorus that ought to go up
-from every city and village and from every farm
- in the United States of America: "Stock ex
change gambling must go."
;m ; : s - r
Washington Letter
Washington, D. C, November 11. I talked
recently with a man who is -recognized in Wash
ington as the first financier of the city chitside
of the treasury department. The windows of
his office look out on the stately colonade of
that gray granite building in which are kept
the millions , of the United States government
and under the rqof of which are housed the
Becrets of the relations of the United States
Treasury with the great banks of New York;
While I was talking with him two former treas
ury, officials, -who are now high In banking
circles in New York came in to discuss the sit
uation. The spot was the center of national
finance so far as Washington Is concerned. The
banker to whom I was talking frankly admitted
that much of the trouble in New York, Indeed
most of it, was duer as he said, to the fact
that every corporation of great size and power
which had been subjected to an investigation of
any sort proved to be full of corruption. From
he time that the Investigation into the insur
ance companies of New York began until now
that they are Investigating Thomas F. Ryan's
merger, there has been an uninterrupted course,
of revelations of dishonesty on the part of the
managers of these corporations. "It is not,"
said he, "that the banks of New York are weak.
As a matter of fact they never were stronger.
It .is not that there Is anything in the country
to justify apprehension of disaster. The crops
are good and prices high. But .a few men of
great prominence in the United. States have put
their personal fortunes far ahead of their indi
vidual honor, or of their duty to those who have
entrusted them with the management of the
corporations they control. I do not boliovo that
either newspaper clamor or the trust' busting
activities of tho presfdont caused this collapse.
It is due more than anything else to tho ontiroly
justifiable exposition of tho financial methods
of some of tho now practitioners of high
finance"
Not everybody sees the Now York Sun. Not
everybody knows that it speaks distinctly for
Wall Street. As a newspaper it Is seldom fair
but usually clever. This is tho comment which
it has to make upon the Now York panic for
.that panic will hardly spread boyond tho
gambling district which clusters ' around tho
United States sub-treasury:
" 'He touched tho dead corpso, Public
Credit,' said Daniel Webster of Alexander Ham
ilton, 'and it sprung upon Its feet.'
"Is It to be said of another Now York fed
eralist, infinitely more popular and far more of
a federalist than Hamilton that ho touched tho
healthy body of Private Credit, and it became
a corpse?"
"Shall It be added that an adoring nation
cheered tho miracle and murmured with rever
ent lips: 'Hail Caesar! Wo who are about to
bust salute you.' "
In sharp contrast to tho alacrity with which
the secretary of the treasury has sprung to tho
relief of Wall Street every time thoro has been
a flurry on the stock exchange, is tho cold re
ception accorded the financial needs of another
section of the nation. In tho south tho banks
have served notice that they will no longer
make advances on warehouse cotton. Tho ex
cuse of the bankers for thus practically forcing
tho sale of cotton in storage is that it will bring
millions of much needed foreign money into the
country. In other words tho producer of cot
ton Is to be forced to sell his prbduct at a sac
rifice that money may be poured Into Wall
Street to save the stock gambler from sacrific
ing, his stock on the market. It is this situation
that has brought Representative Burleson of
Texas to Washington. He has asked that de
posits to 4the amount of ton millions, one-third
of the amount deposited in one day in Now
York City to check the Wall Street panic, be
distributed among the southern banks in order
to save the cotton producer $150,000,000. This
request is in compliance with the recent law
that the treasury deposits should bo distributed
equitably between tho different states and sec
tions. It is not a wild cat request because a
warehouse certificate on cotton Is far better se
curity for a government loan than tho collateral
tho New York banks are now depositing to
got the nation's funds. Tho treasury has de
posited to date in national banks about $201,
000,000, a large proportion of this amount (n
New York. Much of this money has been
loaned by the government In the last few days
to stock gamblers, in order 'to obviate their
dumping their watered stocks upon tho market
to bring what they would. It would seem that
there, is as much Teason for the administration
to consider tho loss of tho producer of an actual
product of real wealth, like cotton, as to favor
Wall Street. Yet Mr. Burleson is curtly told by
the treasury department that however much the
government might be disposed to comply with
.. his request, it would rnot now be possible, as
the treasury has already been stripped of Its
cash save a bare working balance. In fact, the
working balance alluded to, -is admitted In Wash
ington to be far short of tho amount required
for that purpose.
WILLIS J. ABBOT.
SPEAIONGOF "VIMLES"
There is a merry contest going on between
the Houston Post, Washington Herald, Charleston-
News and Courier, Milwaukee Sentinel and
other newspapers as to which locality offers the
most gustatory delights. Owing to the fact
that Nebraska has not yet been entered The
Commoner admits that the Houston Post leads
with the following: . "A pair of Texas 'possums
duly dressed and baked, garnished with taters,
and accompanied by Texas celery, tomatoes,
crackling bread, cold buttermilk and punkln
pie." The Post furthermore promises to fur
nish the "vittles" for a Thanksgiving day din
ner if the contestants will visit Houston. This
sounds good, but up hero In Nebraska the
Thanksgiving day dinner will consist of alfalfa
fattened turkey stuffed with the crumbs of
bread made from Nebraska wheat, sweet taters
raised in the once despised sandhills, seedless
tomatoes that will still bo blushing red on the
vines despite the November season -and each
weighing more'n a pound, pone made from the
finest corn that over rustled its blades in tho
wind or noddod its tassols towards tho horizon,
wheat broad mado from wheat so hard it cuU
tho rollors like omory -powder, boss mado from
apples as different from tho Bon DavJs varioty
as democratic, principles aro from g. o, p. hot
air, tomato ketchup so fine that every taste gives
you an appetite for another squnro meal, maca
roni and cbceso, tho ingredients of which were
secured first hand from Nebraska farms and
dalryn, Injun puddin' covered with a swoot
aauco mado from sugar extracted from Nebraska
beets, and plo mado of punkins as yollow as a
newly minted gold caglo and swootor'n a dream
erf your first sweotheart. Tho chief drink will
bo wator so cloar that a full glass looks ompty
and so cold that It will mako frost on tho outer
rim; wator that has boon flltored and purified
by thousands of foot of porcolatlon through
rock aud sand and brought to tho surfaco by
gravity. And whoit tho dinner is ovor tho happy
NobraskanB will wander forth under tho clear
blue sky and look abroad ovor a land toemin'g
with industry and dotted by full granaries,
pretty schoolhouscs, cdmfortablo churches, cosy
homos and fat flocks and herds. Texas, Wis
consin, South Carolina, tho District of Colum
bia fino places all and worthy tho praises of
tholr local journalists. But ovory tlmo wo walk
abroad across tho Nebraska flolds wo kick up
evidences that go far to provo to our entiro
satisfaction that tho Garden of Edon was located
between tho Missouri river and tho seventh
guide meridan west, with tho clear and pollucld
Platte bisecting it east and wost.
oooo
WILL FURNISH "STRIKE BREAKERS"
Laboring men will bo particularly Interest
ed In a nowspnpor dispatch under dato of Wash
ington, Octobor 25, and printed in tho Lincoln
(Nebraska) Journal, republican:
"Tho buroau of commerco and statistic
is sending out circulars all over tho country
to the principal business houses and associa
tions which is very likely to stir tho labor unions
to wrath,
"In this lcttor tho bureau says that accord
ing to the import of congress which created the
department they aro trying to help poor, ignor
ant, and homeless foreigners to a ,placo wh.re
labor is plentiful. They point out that thoro
aro thousands of aliens, many of them unskilled
laborers and others tradesmen of tho highest
skill, who have settled in sections of tho coun
try where their true economic worth is not ap
preciated. TIjobo men aro living in parts of
tho country that aro over-populated where work
is scarce and lahorers are plentiful. '
"Tho department is asking those to whom
they send their circulars to send them lists
of employers who aro In need of help and tho
kind of workmen they need. The department
on receipt of this Information will get into
communication with tho mon who wish to im
port laborers frorn the congested foreign dis
tricts in. the cast and will endeavor to send them
men to fill the vacant -places. The department
says that the list they will bo able to fill in
cludes skilled labor pf all kinds, unskilled, labor,
farm hands, domestic and settlers. fc
; "The thousands of men, easily got- hpjd
pf by this department of tho United States ,oy
ornment to send to any part of tho nation wher
, a call comes from may affect strike situations to
a. great extent. So it is looked on by those who
have heard of tho mqyc of tho authorities and
it 4 expected further that tho various organIzar
tlons of allied labor will protest agains tho gov
ernment putting in their way cheap foreign,
labor with-which they must thereafter compete'
. , OOOO
iH
ONLY?
The Hurley (S. D.) Herald (rep.), says:.
"Tho republican party is under more 'or less
suspicion today of being a corporation nartjr.';
Only suspicion? ;..
t'. "WITHOUT ARE DOGS" '","'
If, through some wondrous miracle of grace, .
To the Celestial city I might win,
And -find upon the golden pavement place,
Tho gates of pearl within.
Irisdmo sweet pausing of the immortal song '
'" To which the choiring Seraphim gave birth,
Should I not for that humbler greeting long
Known in the dumb companionships of
earth?
Friends whom the softest whistle of my call
- -Brought to my. side in love that knew no
doubt, :.
Would I not seek to cross the jasper wall ;
If haply I might find you there "Without?"
Edward A. .-Church in the September Century.
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