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The Commoner
VOLUME 7, NUMBER 49
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The Commoner.
ISSUED WEEKLY.
WlM.lAM J. BllYAN
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" RlCllAltl) L. Mm CAI.Flt
Atf oclnto Editor.
Clf AJILK3 W. llllYAN
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. THE COMMONER, Lincoln, Neb.
The eagle on the new gold coins is flying.
.And. that is what makes 'em so hard to catch.
In the meantime it is a cood idea to be
organizing for-the campaign of 1908. Join the
Mijlion Army" and be prepared to' do your
p'artv
Long before the douma has abolished the
czar's titles the czar will have finished the
douma.
I' This advice to keep our money in circula
tion during the Christmas season sounds super-:'fluous.
It is now recalled that simplified spelling
MAid not make much ofv a-'showing in the recent
message. '-" '! . -
'''l;?V.Thec6mmoner wishes every reader and
jftirtho'wnrlil haoton V,r -tt i V ,
.luv w.w. oco a molly uunsimas ana a
Happy New Year. -
' M
i.t , ConSressman Fowler seemingly favors
hitching an enacting clause to the national banks
and letting them be it.
"Wizard" Burbank has involved the spine
less cactus, several years after the evolution of
the spineless congressman.
Speaker Cannon is now -telling how much
he loves organized labor. But organized labor
will insist on being shown.
Word comes that Secretary Cortelyou nlavs
the piano well. But we opine that his JotS
look better than they sound.
With a fifty per cent salary increase in
flU.Sdh.5 sh0Uld conBressmen ybe "mp?essed"
with the idea of a currency stringency?
Senator "Bob" Taylor says he hasn't played
on a violin for twenty years. But just say ''fid
dle' to him and he knows what you mean?
Doubtless a number of Kansas City men
and women arrested for violation of the law
Kb?. g n SUnday WU1 bG able t0 Pvo an
. ,.Any one knowing tho whereabouts of, or
naving any information relative to T. M. Walters
BOoVVt?"" 5 at Seattle' Wash No
500 Sixth Avenue South, April 1902, will
We tremble lest all the criticisms of the
eagle on the new gold coins result in the elimin
ation of the eagle and the substitution of a
bear or a bob cat.
The Washington Herald says a certain grade
of cheap whisky, is made from rags. This is
news, although we've often heard of rags being
made from whisky.
Speaking of tough luck, that is what hap
pened to an Oklahoma bank that safely tided
over a big run and the financial flurry, only to
be looted by safe blowers.
Speaker Cannon opines that there will be
no tariff legislation at this session, and as
"Uncle Joe" is congress he surely ought to know
what is not going to happen.
Senator Piatt has just introduced a bill
to give corporations a little bit 'more of the
best of it. Senator Piatt is determined to per
form the work he was elected to perform.
Wo respectfully submit to the Paragraphers'
Union the desirability of excluding from mem
bership those who persist in putting the most
of their product inside of quotation marks.
Complaint is made that the new $20 gold
pieces are concave and otherwise irregular in
shape, thus making it difficult to stack them.
But that isn't what makes it difficult for most
men.
A Pittsburg man offers $2,000,000 for a
seat in the senate. It would be a good invest
ment for the government to pay several senators
that amount to vacate the seats they now
occupy.
The Pittsburg Gazette-Times says Chicago
is as good a place to nominate P. C. Knox as
any it knows of.' Wouldn't Philadelphia seem
more like home? Or the new state house 'at
Harrisburg?
James Hazen Hyde expresses a willingness
to pay over 1, 000,000 if allowed to return to
this country without being molested by the
sheriff. That is a lot of money, but under the
circumstances hardfy enough.
- The laws of West Virginia prohibit the em
ployment of children under fourteen years of
age in mines. Many of the victims of the Mo
nohgah disaster were boys under that age. Here
is an opportunity to enforce the written law.
WASHINGTON LETTEJt
(Continued from Page Five)
there was something sinister about Mr. Hill's
argument. One phrase of it would strike the
man who has studied the 'question with peculiar
force. Without quoting literally, Mr. Hill said
in effect this: "(janals Capable of transporting
one thousand ton barges will not solve the prob
lem. A one thousand ton barge can't compete
with one box car. Canals and river channels
capable of accomodating vessels, whether
barges or steamers, of ten thousand tons are
essential. Obviously. Mr. Hill's purpose was to
applaud the theory, but to make its application
utterly impossible.
But harking back to Mr. Cannon. He told
a number of gentlemen interested in what is
perhaps today the most vital movement for the
improvement of freight conditions In the United
States that he would have none of it. He would
not aid a vote of a hundred million bonds for
the improvement of interior waterways, nor
would he one for five millions of bonds. In
brief his position is that so far as our waterways
are concerned, they must be developed slowly
out of current Tevenues. He said benevolently
that no doubt when the present ninety million
American people had grown into four hundred
million, the system now sought could be put into
effect. But until that time he would not turn
over a hand to aid it. How much this will
popularize him with the people of the west and
the south, who with insufficient railway facili
ties, have magnificent possibilities for water
transportation, if developed, can only be left
to conjecture. Still it may be said for Mr
Cannon that he has thrived on unpopularity and
may think it still not a bad political asset
Almost everybody in public life has been
saying that there should be a revision of tho
tariff, of course at the hands of its friends Mr
Roosevelt contributed the one, offiqial statement
on the subject when he said in his message
virtually that to revise before election would
be unwise, and after election unnecessary tw
again Mr. Cannon stepped into the breach with
a straightforward statement of his princinhW
He is for revision, almost ready for immedhtA
revision. But the kind of revision is not quite
that for which the country as a whole has been
clamoring. Addressing a convention of Ohio
and New Jersey pottery manufacturers, he as
sured them that there would be no reduction
of the tariff on the goods which competed with
theirs, but that as a matter of fact it ought to
be increased. So that .the first specific proposi
tion for a revision of the tariff which has como
from any prominent member of this adminis
tration has. been for revision upward and not
downward.
It was at this meeting, so rumor goes, that
a somewhat disgruntled potter, who is also
active in national politics, delivered himself of
the following epigram:
"I hope the administration has something
to promise us in the near future. I have had
two gifts from the republican party in the last
ten years. From the McKinley administration
I got a handsome house and lot; from the Roose
velt administration a mortgage upon it."
Free silver, not this time from the demo
cratic party, that famous party of "repudiation
and dishonor." But before this congress is over
you are going tor find republican senators and
congressmen from the middle. west urging as
a relief from the present financial stringency, a
renewed coinage of silver. Colorado has a new
senator by the name of Guggenheim. He is
one of seven brothers who control the silver
smelting business, practically of the entire coun
try. His brother Solomon is traveling through
the west preaching a new form of silver coin
age. He offers this suggestion: "The west
frame a bill giving the secretary of the treasury
discretionary power to purchase silver bullion
up to fifty million ounces, and that all silver
so purchased be immediately coined into silver
dollars." He does not specify the price at
which the silver should be purchased, although
he says that when the silver question was agi
tated before throughout the country the pro
duction was twenty-three of silver to one of
gold. Now it is eight of silver, to one of gold.
We accept Mr. Guggenheim's figures without
investigation as he is unquestionably an au
thority on the subject. It would be curious,
would it not, if Mr. Roosevelt and his party hav
ing adopted practically all the other principles
for which Mr. Bryan stood in 1896 should wind
up by taking over to themselves the coinage of
silver as a relief for a financial stringency for
which they themselves are responsible.
Once again comes the proposition for the
revision of the tariff by its friends. And again
the revision is to take the shape of an increase
of the tariff. Senator Galllnger of New Hamp
shire, who is serving his third term in the senate,
has offered a resolution which. has for its ulti
mate purpose the destruction of the reciprocity
arrangement with Germany. Senator Gallinger
coines from a, state in which there is little man
ufacturing done. In the senate he is a sort of
friend and philosopher of the republican ma
chine, not exerting any very wide influence, but
on the other hand having no serious enemies.
When he was elected to ,the senate men laugher.'.
He was a .druggist and also -had a small practice
aB a physician. At first he was known in Wash
ington as Dr. Gallinger, He has carefully elim
inated that honorable title. In politics of the
senate he has proved himself a master. He has
secured a position on the most eagerly sought
committee, namely, the District of Columbia
committee, and since the retirement of Mr. Bab
cock of Wisconsin is practically the mayor of
Washington. Mr. Gallinger has aligned himself
with the men in the republican party who de
clare that there shall be no revision of the tariff
unless ' upward. . His prominence gives especial
force to what he has tq say.
These are the men who insist that tho tariff
shall stand as it is or be increased: Senator
Foraker, Senator Dick, Vice President Fair
banks, Speaker Cannon, Senator Lodge, Senator
Crane, Senator Gallinger, Senator Perkins, Sen
tor Guggenheim, Senator Cullom, Representative
Madden, Senator Allison.
iBut after all it is not worth while to enu
merate all. It is fair to say that the dominant
forces at the capital today stand against any
sort of tariff revision and that the Sixtieth con
gress will do nothing, to. .relieve the burden of
taxation until after the presidential conventions
are held, and probably not until after the presi
dential elections.
. " " , winiiis J. ABBOT."
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