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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (April 17, 1908)
n ? APRIL 17, 1'908- 9 Into effect. He also pronounced against the plan for four battleships. Senator Hale traced the Increase in military expenditures to the necessity for protecting the Philippines, which he spoke of as 'a. pestilential curse.' He made the prediction that the expenses would continue to pile up until this country got rid of those islands. Senator Clapp, expressing himself in sympathy with Senator Hale, suggested the recommendation of the army bill with a view to modifying its provisions, but Mr. Hale replied that the naval bill, which would come before the senate before a great while,' would afford ample opportunity for the senate to show its state of mind regarding military expenditures. Incidentally Mr. Hale expressed the opinion that the war talk between the United States and any other country was nonsense. Senator Warren contended that it is necessary to prepare for emergencies, and said that we had not now suffi cient munitions to support a campaign of an army for one month. Senator Hale then made a motion to re-consider the vote by which the military bill was passed, and Senator Burkett attacked his motive in doing so, saying that in his opinion the motion was made 'for the par ticular purpose of criticising a particular man who is now attracting attention throughout the country.' The comment was taken as a direct charge that the debate had been engineered to injure Secretary Taft. The Nebraska senator said the fact that Senator Hale had absented himself from the chamber after making the remark was an indication that the motion had , not been made in good faith. At the conclu sion of Senator Burkett's remarks Senator Frye declared that the criticism upon his colleague was unjust. He then moved to lay the resolu tion for re-consideration of the vote upon the table, which motion was carried." WRITING TO his paper under date of Wash ington, April 6, the capital city corre spondent for the Louisville Courier-Journal says: "Notwithstanding the daily attacks of the east ern press upon the candidacy of Mr. W. J. Bryan, and the establishment of the Governor John A. Johnson bureau in Chicago and Judge George Gray bureau in Washington, the readers of the Courier-Journal can rest assured that Mr. Bryan will be nominated at' Denver next July on the first ballot. Those opposed to Mr. Bryan who are figuring on securing one-third or more of the convention against him should remember that no candidate for the nomination has ever been beaten after he secured-' a majority vote in the national convention. Even the hardest sort of work and a masterly organization of the opposition can not defeat Mr. Bryan." EH. HARRIMAN has, according to current , reports, gobbled up the Erie railroad. It is claimed in a New York dispatch to the Chicago Record-Herald that Mr. Harriman went to the rescue of the Erie railroad, putting up the sum of $4,500,000 borrowed money. Here are some of the things he got in return: Con trol of the Erie railroad, a $400,000,000 cor poration. A-' through' freight and passenger line from San Francisco to New York, for which he has been working and- dreaming and schem ing for years. Renewed prestige in the financial and railway world, which compensated in a great measure for his loss as a result of the "big stick" vigorously wielded for several years by President Roosevelt. Five million dollars in new Erie six per cent Bhort term notes, which his control of the road will enable him to meet when they mature three years hence. Two hun dred and fifty thousand dollars of actual cash, handed back to him for use as pin money at a time when many millionaire are having a hard struggle finding money to finance lobster and champagne suppers. THE STORY of how Mr. Harriman accom published his Erie scheme reads like a tale from the Arabian Nights. The Record-Herald correspondent says: "First he learned that the Erie was going to have a hard time getting the money to meet its obligations of $5,500,000 which matured yesterday. Then, through inter ests allied to him, he made sure that no bank ing establishment would advance the necessary cash. Next, he allowed alarming reports of the Erie's difficulties to be published broadcast, so that the holders of the short-term notes would become alarmed and sell them at panic prices. Then he sent agents into the market, who picked up $5,000,000 of the notes at 80 cents on the dollar an investment of $4,000,000. Finally The Commoner. he made his spectacular offer, which, at the last minute, saved the Erie railroad from a receiver ship. The offer looked as if he were going to put up an immense sum just out of pure philan thropy, but there was a string tied to it It was for the purchase of new six per cent notes at 9o cents on the dollar sufficient to pay off all the old notes whose holders would not accept new notes at par and a bonus of five per cent in cash. Mr. Harriman already owned $5,000,000 of the $5,500,000 notes, so it was necessary for him to put up only $500,000 more in cash. Ho even got back a part of this because certain speculators had sold notes they did not own, and in order to deliver the goods today were forced to pay a premium. And now all the financial world is Btanding aghast at the result. The ac quirement by Mr. Harriman of a transcontinental line is the part of the deal which appeals most to railway men. Mr. Harriman and his asso ciates, it is reliably reported, stand ready to spend, under certain conditions, from $30,000, 000 to $40,000,000 for improvements in ter minals, tunnels, trackage and rolling stock. If these plans are completed Mr. Harriman's dream of a perfectly equipped, complete transconti nental road, with Erie as the eastern outlet, will have come true. Although it can not be stated with certainty how soon it will be before the Morgan interests cease to dominate Erie, those who claim to be in the confidence of Mr. Harriman predict that this will be accom plished at no distant date." IN HIS SPEECH at Omaha Mr. Taft charged Mr. Bryan with inconsistentency and im posing imperialism while he urged the adoption of the peace treaty. Referring to this criticism the St. Louis Republic says: "In Bryan's will ingness to pay Spain $20,000,000 for the Philip pines, rather than have the treaty of Paris fail, there was no sort of indorsement of the ex penditure of $175,000,000 for their conquest, nor of the squandering upon them of some $500,000,000 more in the policy of benevolent paternalism to which Mr. Secretary Taft is de voted. Mr. Taft strains the record severely in charging that Bryan is inconsistent .in what he is now saying about the course of the re publican adminfstration in those islands. As long ago as the meeting of the democratic na tional convention in Kansas City, Bryan con sented that imperialisin, as practiced by the Mc Kiriley administration in those and other islands, be made the paramount issue in the democratic platform of 1900, and 'he has consistently op posed that policy ever since. He has, moreover, proposed the best solution yet aivanced for our costly Philippines problem, which is to hold such naval stations as we need there, guarantee their independence by treaties with the powers, and give them such help as they may be capable of receiving in the arts of self-government. Since the drain upon the treasury which these worth-" less possessions cause is fikely to be an im portant issue In this year's elections, it is best to get the record straight." WILLIAM COWLEY of Washington, D. C, who is deeply interested in the play " ground movement throughout the United States, speaking recently to a representative of the Nashville Tennessean said: "We opened twenty-six play grounds last year, fourteen of them being attached to school buildings and twelve being outdoor play grounds. Most of these are on rented property, but last year we bought two acre sites at a cost of more than $40,000, and we will buy another in Georgetown. There were more than 375,000 children at the play grounds last year and the average daily atten dance was nearly two hundred at each one. There is a great need of baths at all the play grounds, since it is difficult to establish a standard of cleanliness without them and it is not hygienic to engage in vigorous exercise with out a bath. However, it is a fact that the play ground is making the boys more manly and the girls more womanly, and especially are they act ing as a tremendous moral uplift among the latter, largely supplanting the dance hall." FOR ONCE and for a wonder the New York Sun makes kindly reference to Mr. Bryan The Sun says: ""With regard to the blunder of the National Democratic club of this city over its invitation to William Jennings Bryan to attend its Jefferson dinner on April 13 Mr. Bryan has acted throughout with good taste and judgment. He declined to allow his friends to hold a rival dinner and he has de cided not to embarrass the club and himself by attending its feast and thus providing opportu nity for misunderstandings and unpleasantness. The club handled Mr. Bryan clumsily from bV ginning to end. Ho has behaved with good na ture and discretion. Perhaps ho was tempted to take advantage of the chanco afforded to score a personal triumph. Few men would not have been so tempted. If ho was he has not Injured himself by acting the part of a gentle man. The incident recalls another Jefferson dinner the 'ten dollar banquet' of 1899 given under the auspices of the same club, which Mr. Bryan declined to attend and which resulted in the holding of two great 'dollar dinners' In his honor. The Democratic club has been both impolitic nnd ungraceful In Its treatment of Mr. Bryan. He, on the other hand, has shown a' creditable self-restraint." - CONGRESSMAN Do Armond delivered an ad dress before the Yalo Political club at New llayen, Conn., in which he said: "So steadily m 80.poatly hflvc the judges magnified their offices that a congressional enactment is lightly treated as unconstitutional according to the judgment, prejudice or whim of the pettiest federal judge in the land. I am not unmind ful that from time to time, not even excepting this epoch in our nation's history, the lines of executive authority have been extended far. Eut we have come to a time when the public mind is not concerned so much about the extent or the limit of executive powers as it is about the sup posed necessity for what the executive does or attempts in view of the listless, lnefficent course of senators and representatives and the rapid and menacing increase of judicial power by judicial construction. Is it not enough to let the responsibility of nullifying the legislative will rest upon the supremo cou-t alone? Why not let laws be laws until solemnly declared by the supreme court not to be laws? Why not deprive every inferior court of the power or as sumed power to pass upon the constitutionality of acts of congress?" Of the constitution itself, Representative De Armond said that all the tendencies of the present day are to make tho constitution stand for whatever the statesman wants himself. "The accepted creed of a par ticular group of persons," he went on, "Is well expressed in the conundrum, 'What's the con stitution between friends?' " O UNDER THE headline, "A Faithful Band," the Washington (D. C.) Herald prints tho following editorial: "Jf Mr. William Jennings Bryan should ever be elected president of this great and glorious republic, and there are count less people who hope he may be, he ought to give at least one dinner at the White House Jn honor of the Bryan Birthday Society, of Chat tanooga, Tenn. This band of faithful Bryanltes was organized oleven years ago, just when Mr. Bryan was recovering in a measure from the sharpness of his defeat by Mr. McKinley, and at the time Mark Hanna and the republican stalwarts of that day were preparing for the martyred Ohioan's inauguration. It was in this season of Mr, Bryan's disappointment that the Chattanooga society was gathered together to dine sumptuously in the Nebraskan's honor. Meeting about the festive board on the honoree's -birthday, it was resolved to regather on each succeeding birthday until one of three things happened Mr. Bryan's election, his passing away, or the blowing of Gabriel's trumpet. Earnestly and enthusiastically has this society kept faith with itself and the standard it set up eleven years ago. Through the second Mc Kinley campaign it stood true, which was not hard, perhaps. Through the Parker days, when Mr. Bryan's political prestige seemed on tho wane, the Chattanoogians shouted louder than ever their hurrahs for the 'peerless leader.' There has been no lull in their loyalty; no pause in their labor of love. Each annual dinner has been marked by some special event; Mr. Bryan has been present at many. It was at one at Hiooq offnira tVinf fr .Tnh n Tomnlfl fJrn.vflr -A. buow U...IW..J w.v .... .- x'-y y -vited Mr. Bryan to nominate Mr. Roosevc nresident. Bryan talk is on the grownrese days, Mr. Henry Watterson, shrewd observer and astute politician, thinks the Nebraskan wilj' be elected sure, if opposed by Mr. Taft. Mr. Bryan feels great confidence in himself. Thousands of friends throughout the jinlon are beginning to sit up and take notice. That is why, in this hour and at this time, we call at tention to that band of faithful Chattanoogians. Like Napoleon's 'Old Guard,' they may die, but they never surrender. And if their chief gains a victory,, we want him to remember these ever loyal ones," . ' LsuiiaBI Ul n r u Wfl h Ml