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VOEUME 8, NUMBER 15
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The Commoner.
ISSUED WEEKLY.
Wll.MAM J. UllVAM
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THE COMMONER, Lincoln, Neb.
Tho first step in tariff revision is to revise
congress.
Has any one lately seen anything of tho
old "home market" theory of the protectionists?
: A- Mr' Fake is a candidate for congress in
.7 New fersoy. If olectod he will be welcomed
by tho majority. . '
Mr. Harriman has just scooped in another
$50,000(000 on a railroad deal. But Mr. Har
riman is "a practical man."
After figuring up his last campaign Con
gressman Littlefiold decided that discretion is
the better part of economy.
Ithode Island republicans have declared
against tariff revision; and Senator Al'drich.was
Plover so 'surprised In his life.
'
Up to date a republican congress has failed
to enact into law any important recommenda
tion made by a republican president.
The congressional majority has adopted
some rules enabling it to continue its policy of
doing nothing in the interests of tho people.
Secrotary Taft says our government of the
Philippines is purely altruistic. And now they
aro using that fl"o old word to cover up schemes.
Milliners say that despite its size the new
spring hat can bo adjusted in a few seconds.
Perhaps, but it takes longer than that to adjust
tho bill.
A Chicago jury has decided that a man
need not pay $50 for his wife's hat. Wo know
somo men who do not need a jury's decision on
that point.
The workingman who violates an injunc
tion has to go to jail. Tho packing trust that
violates an injunction merely raises the prices
of its products.
The New York man who died in a fit of
laughter evidently had been reading that the
tariff would be reviled by its friends in the in
terests of the whole people.
The Commoner.
WHAT THEY EXPECT
In order that Commoner readers may be in
formed as to tho expectations of the special
interests represented by the New York World,
the following editorial from the Pulitzer paper
is reproduced:
THE DEMOCRATIC DELEGATES
There will be 1,002 delegates in the demo
cratic national convention, with 668 necessary
to a choice under the two-thirds rule and 335
necessary to prevent a nomination.
The delegates thus far chosen or provided
for are divided as follows:
INSTRUCTED FOR MR. BRYAN
Oklahoma J
Nebraska '
Kansas 0
Wisconsin 2
South Dakota
Indiana 30
Iowa ; 2 jj
North Dakota . ;..... ". . . . 8
Total 148
INSTRUCTED FOR JUDGE GRAY. -Delaware
6
UNINSTRUCTED
New York 78
Rhode Island 8
Total I 8'6
Among the states reasonably likely to send
uninstructed or anti-Bryan delegations to the
Denver convention aro the following:
Pennsylvania . . 68
Massachusetts ". . . "32
New Jersey 24
Connecticut 14
Maine '. '.-'... .;. .12
Vermont . . ; ............ 8
Now Hampshire ............. ...'... A ... 8
Maryland ...;;. 16
Virginia .- -.".". . . il 27
North Carolina '. 24
Minnesota .V .'. . . '. .'i .-.' . . 22
California . .....;....... ..7. .... ' 20
Oregon . ".-. ...... '. . . ;. . 8
Washington . . . ;'....'-.'.'.... . . ... . 10
District of Columbia.' yi" .' . '.' 6
Total - ;. . '.'..; 296
Among the states in which the issue be
tween Bryanism and anti-Bryanisni is at pres
ent more or less in doubt are these: ,,
Ohio ......'; 46
Illinois ........ 54
Louisiana 18
Texas 36
Georgia . 26
Florida ."".. 10
Colorado .,. 10
Total . 200
Six plus 86 plus 296 plus 200 is 588. In
other words, there exists a possibility that a
numerical majority of the delegates will go to
the national convention with fairly open minds,
not irrevocably committed to any man's candi
dacy, but the "ablest, strongest and most rep
resentative men" of the democracy of the coun
try, in the language of the resolution adopted
by the New York state convention, sent to Den
ver, "to the end that out of the deliberation and
consultation of such men there may be then and
there nominated a ticket which will rally to its
support the judgment, conscience and votes of a
majority of the citizens of the country."
We do not say that this will happen. We
do not say that the democratic party is capable
of so much sense and sanity. We say merely
that there is a possibility.
& vJ j
WASHINGTON LETTER
Washington, D. C, April 20. A few days
ago Senator Gore of Oklahoma took advantage
of his position as a United States senator to
force" into the Congressional Record the famous
ioliui wi-iuuii uy mr, xtooseveit to in. H. Har
riman in which the president of the United
States declared that they wro both practical
men and should meet as practical men to. dis
cuss the state of the union. He asserted when
li"4 ino rl li r 1rkff-m I vi 4-V a ah.j 11 1 .
The Philadelphia Public Ledger opines that rather be responsible for the introductionof
the only way to satisfy Samuel Gompors is to that letter into the Senate Record, than to be
elect him president. It is safe to say that Mr. the writer of it.
Gompors, who was bom in England, knows more And after all there is much in Gore's noint
about the constitution of tho United States than of view. . If the mroiiw. f S tt1S80??S:
the editor of tho Public Ledger dees. writes a letter that can not ba nrlntTcT m
read in the senate of the United States it ig
a serious reflection on the president. If a
senator writes a letter officially that may not
be printed it is not to the credit of the senator.
Newspaper correspondents who go to the Whito
House know that Mr. Roosevelt absolutely re
fuses to talk confidentially to anybody. It makes
no difference whether it may be Senator Bourne,
or Senator Lodge, or the plain ordinary com
mon correspondent who comes in and asks a
question, it has been the long time method of
the president to hold them twenty feet away and
announce with a flourish of trumpets that he
will not talk confidentially to anyone and that
they must put their questions at the top of
their lungs and he will answer them at the top
of his lungs. This fact seems to have been
pertinent to the statement foregoing. It seems
to show that there is no reason why a Roosevelt
utterance should be regarded by anyone as con
fidential. As a rule the Congressional Record is not
humorous, but this , brief paragraph from a
speech made by Joh'n Sharp Williams and em
balmed in that melancholy publication deserves
wider circulation. ' Mr. Williams was talking
about the tendency of the republican party to
defer action indefinitely on all matters of imme
diate importance. Said he:
"Every time anybody wants to pass any of
this reform legislation, so much of which is de
sired by honest men in your own party, you cry
out 'After the election! After the election!
After the election!' You remind me of a little
bit of poetry my boy picked up the other day
somewhere at the public school and brought
home and recited to me and his grandmother,
and of which when he got through his grand
mother said: 'Kit you ought never to repeat
that any more, because that is just about the
same as telling anybody to go to the bad place.'
The poetry ran after this wise:
" 'When I asked my girl to marry me, she said:
Go to Father,
She knew that I knew her father was dead;
She knew that I knew the life he had led;
She knew that I knew what she meant when she
said,
Go to father.' " . -
The public when asked to wait until after
election for needed legislation are likely to feel
as Mr. Williams has humorously put it that they
are asked to go very much further for the
remedies they seek.
Congress having loafed for the greater part
of its first three months is now discovering that
it is time to adjourn without doing anything in
particular. It has enacted one' bill of national
. importance, namely the employers' liability bill,
It is now giving final consideration to the Aid
rich currency bill. Apparently the chances are
that the currency bill will not get through even
though it has been amended in a way to elimi
nate most of its more objectionable features.
Three months ago this congress would gladly
havo enacted a reasonable bill for the increase
of the currency. At that time banks were
charging that the people were hoarding "money
and that therefore the banks could not pay out
any. Nothing has happened since to restore
public confidence, business as a whole has not
Improved, industry has not revived, railroads
have ceased new construction, but the bankers
seem to have recovered from their panic and
have apparently determined to pay their honest
debts, exactly as they make those who borrow
from them pay. There are no more clearing
house certificates in circulation. The psychologi
cal moment for the passage of the Aldrich
bill has passed. Last January it might have
been pushed through with all its provisos for
basing circulation on railroad bonds, municipal
bonds, county bonds and any other kind of
bonds. Now they have been compelled to cut
out the railroad bonds and observers at Wash
ington doubt very much indeed whether the
municipal and county bonds will be allowed to
remain in. the list of securities upon which cir
culation may be based. As a matter of fact
there are few people about the United States
capital who think that the bill will ever get
through in such a shape as to meet with the
approval of the president.
If the republican party, which won its way
into power in 1896 by professing to know all
that could be known about the reformation of
the currency, is after twelve years of complete
power utterly unable to unite on a currency bill
which will obviate future panics like the two
which have occurred during its regime, what
sort of confidence can be placed in its ability
to correct tariff or trust evils?
.WILLIS J. ABBOT. .
WM