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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 15, 1909)
- J "r'W"t.i' --y- f WH -.""f vjvcr?r'' ywwpjwi-rTf' The Commoner; 4- VOLUME l NUMBER U ! n 'vr "Mfss1 it i' ft ft j the Commoner. ISSUED WEEKLY. Entered at tho Fostofflco r.t Lincoln, Nebraska, as second-clans matter. "VVJI.T.1AM J. IJRVAN Keillor and Proprietor IlKHAItn I MkTCAI.KB Atfcoclnte Kdllor Cmaki.es W. Bkvah Publlriicr Ktlitorinl Jtooms and BusincM Office 324-330 Botith 12th Street One Year.. .',$1.00 Six MoHtkft CO In Clubs of Five or more, per year... .75 Three Month .25 HIbkIc Copy Sample Copies Free. Foreign Post Cc Extra. (C The Prize Bunco Game of American History )3 SUBSCRIPTIONS can bo sent direct to Tho Com moner. They can also be sent through newspapers which have advertised a clubbing rate, or through local agents, . here sub-agents have been appoint ed. All remittances should bo sent by postomco money order, express order, or by bank draft on New York or Chicago. Do not send individual checks, stamps or money. 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ADVERTISING Rates will bo furnished upon application. v Address all communications to THE COMMONER, Lincoln, Nob. A SPEOIAIi INTERESTS ADMINISTRATION , While". Mr. Taft is out preaching for policies advocated by special interesls tlio secretary of war is preparing to appear in court as attorney for a great corporation in its suit against the state of Illinois. A Nashville, Tenn., dispatch carried by the Associated Press says: "A special news dispatch from Chicago to night say that Secretary of War Dickinson will appear before the Illinois supreme court to aTgue a case for the Illinois Central Railroad company, Cor which he was formerly general counsel, and lhat the state of Illinois is the opposing party to the suit. Judge Dickinson's attention having been called to the matter, he said the suit had already been argued by him in the lower court while general counsel of the Illinois Central road. He said that the suit involved a large amount in-taxes to the road, and had required a great amount of detail of preparation. He emphatically declared that no question was involved that in any way affected government regulation of rail roads. It was simply a question of accounting under a contract. Secretary Dickinson explained that when offered a position in President Taft's cabinet, he informed the president that he would dissolve absolutely his connection with the rail-" road company, but told him that at that stage of the suit in question the company could not employ new counsel who would have the fa miliarity with the case requisite to argue it on appeal and that he did not feel it was right, under such conditions, to abandon the case. The president, Mr. Dickinson said, agreed to this view," The Lincoln (Neb.) News, a republican paper, prints this dispatch: New York, October 4. "The plan for a cen tral bank originated in Wall Street and not with the national monetary commission. Wall Street will control this bank or there will be no such institution." So declared Alfred Crozier, the Wilmington, Del., author, who is probably one of the best versed students of finance in the country, when asked for an explanation, based on the state ment published, that one of the commission ad mits that such a bank will be recommended. "It is really humorous," continued Mr. Crozier, "to note tho coy manner in which Wall Street interests are allowing information to 'leak' out. As a matter of fact this deal, the prize bunco game of American history, calcul ated to place the entire control of the nation's currency in the hands of a Wall Street company, has been completed for months. Fearing the uproar that would have been certain to result had the entire scheme been sprung on the public at once, the men engineering the deal have been shrewd enough to spring their plans by strategy. Today's scheme is accredited to one of the mem bers of the monetary commission. It i3 planned that tho statement that the monetary commis-' sion appointed by the last congress has decided that a central bank is necessary, is merely a feeler. If it causes a protest, as it is sure to SHIP SUBSIDY, TOO A Washington dispatch to tho Lincoln (Neb.) Journal (rep.) says that President Taft is known to be in favor of the ship subsidy bill. This - dispatch adds: "Many evidences are given that the greatest campaign yet carried on in behalf of ship sub idy legislation is now afoot in various parts of the country. Not only through speakers, but by tho distribution of literature, and in other ways, is this campaign being carried on. All tho signs are that the subsidy question will bo extremely alive from the opening day of con gress. The test will come in the house, which has always been close In recent years on the subsidy question, as the senate will pass a bill." Is this another instance where Mr. Aldrich is to demonstrate that he 1b ,the real leader of the republican party? do, from small bankers who have not yet been whipped into line, the way will be smoothed and it will bo easy to find out who the opponents of the bill are. Badly as Wall Street wants the institution which would give it entire power to issue and withdraw the money of the country namely the power to make and unmake panics the men back of the project will knife their own offspring in an instant if they feel that any scheme will be consummated which will keep the control of the institution in the hands of the government. "Of course there has been no open talk of Wall Street control of a central bank of issue. Such a thing would be fatal. The plan is for a bank with capital stock privately owned. In my opinion no possible srbeme could be de vised which would prevent Wall Street from gaining control of a bank with its stock issued as this is planned. "There are a great many suggestions made regarding the proposed bank and every effort will be made by the Wal! Street interests to surround the entire matter with Buch a wealth of technicalities that the public will refuse to pay any attention to the scheme. "The real issue, however, is merely this: Shall a great central bank be established which will have power to issue or secure our money, and if so shall it be done by the government or by private corporations-" .. Paying the Republican Tariff Tax on Clothing One of the matters which the people had in their mind when they asked the government to arrange the tariff law so that it would bear a lit tle less oppressively upon them was clothing. Clothing costs far more in the United States than it does in any other part of the world, though this country produces most of the world's cotton and a great part of the world's wool. In spite of the fact lhat this nation sells abroad vast quantities of both of these principal materials for cloth es-making, and that with its improved machinery and intelligent labor it ought to beat the world, the price of clothes is higher here than it is anywhere else in the world; and the reason is that the tariff schedules are so high as to tax all the people through every article of clothing they buy, almost entirely for the benefit of a few mill-owners who have done nothing to earn this fat special privilege. Congress did not lower the wool schedules. It is asserted, in its defense, that it did not raise them, either, though until the full extent of the sleight-of-hand work accomplished by Aldrich is laid bare, nobody can be sure of that. Congress did not lower the cotton schedules, but it did raise them, and it raised most heavily those covering articles which most people buy because most people can afford nothing better. These things were done by the tariff law which President Taft praises, and for voting against which he has chastised the insurgents of the west. These abstract facts are made more interest ing by a few figures. Clothing has already in creased in price, and still further increases are promised for next spring. The suit of clothes that you used to buy for $16 is now $20; and the additional $4 represents your tribute to the wool trust and the mill-owners, though there, was a large tribute in the old price of $16.. The wholesale manufacturers have to pay more for cloth, linings, and trimmings, and so they declare they are compelled to raise prices and, what is worse, to cheapen the quality of the goods. The consumer has this tempting choice: He can pay $25 for the kind of suit that he bought last fall for $20, or he can pay the old price of $2.0, and get for it the kind of suit that he could have got for $16 last spring. . A pattern of goods that used to be sold to the manufacturers at $1,75 per yard now costs him $2.10. It takes three and a half yards to make a suit so the added cost on this item alone is $1.22. Adding In the additional cost of trim mings and linings it is estimated that the in crease in the making a suit out of that cloth is $4.22. A dealer quoted by the Cincinnati Enquirer says: "The retail storekeeper who has a run on suits that he pays $15 for and sells at about $22 if he wants to hold his $22 price will have to take an inferior quality of suit. He will get a grade that sold for about $12 previously and which he used to sell in his store at $18." Another dealer says that "it is simply a hold up behind the tariff fence." This un bought a lot of cloth for $2 a yard that sells the same goods from the same mill for 85 centsHa yard in England. The suits made of it are sold to the retailer for $16.50 and.to the wearer" for $25. If the cloth could be bought at the English price, 85 cents, the retailer would get the suit for $10 and the wearer a". $15. And so It goes, throughout the list, thanks to the tariff law which the president of the United States is praising "In the name of republican "party solidarity." What does the wearer of clothes, thus robbed, care about "party soli darity?" Duluth (Minn.) Herald. CONSCIENCE? Will those who deny the binding force of a platform say that candidates for the legislature publicly pledged to vote for the ratification of the Income tax amendment can honorably vote against the ratification of that tax? If he did violate his pledge, would anybody believe that it was his conscience that led him to take the side of the great fortunes against the masses? REPUBLICAN EDITORIALS It appears that the feeling against the tariff and those who made it is so strong if not act ually bitter that a good many republicans are ready to co-operate with the democrats in an effort to overthrow the republican party in Massachusetts. Tho action of the democratic convention, therefore, may possibly be taken as the beginning of a revolution, Many will in terpret it In that way. If Foss and Shepard take this positive and radical stand, what may not other men do? It is known that they do not represent simply themselves and their own views. On the contrary, their views are the views of thousands of republicans in Massachu setts. For one man who will come out into the open there are likely to be a dozen or a score of men who will content themselves with regis tering a quiet protest by their vote. We do not wonder that politicians at Wash ington are asking themselves, "If what has taken place in Ma&3achusetts is to take place in other states." There Is no telling. All that can bo said and thid the people understand perfectly well is that there is more community of in terest between individual republicans and indi vidual democrats than there is between low tariff republicans and the men now in control of the republican party. We look to see the insurgent movement grow stronger rather than weaker. Indianapolis News, Rep. 1 "ataamwutMtM..r..T HlPllHi '.! I.