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NOVEMBER 26, 1909
oraturo. Ferrer was not tried for beinr an an
archist or for teaching anarchy He was trfed
tZdnde,innC? for ovort acts connccUon with
tho Barcelona insurrection, in which 138 persona
were murdered by the Insurgents. lie was not
tried by the civil courts but by military Tdbuna
because under the law of Spain where a sta?o
of insurrection is formally declared to exist tho
civil courts are automatically closed and the
military courts take their place. This may not
be right law., according to our ideas, but it Is
t un, vVf Sl!?in- r,KIng Alfonso had 'no oppor!
tunity to pardon Ferrer. HG could not legally
do so under the Spanish constitution without tie
approval of the responsible minister. This an- '
?ffV,iaiJ? naDGra. Premier Maura saw fit
to withhold. Mr. Maura did with the king what
Mr. Stanton did with President Johnson in the
?w m S' SuJfatfc Th0 ony difference was
that Mr Maura did not exceed his constitutional
an nrwrv0 0ingflwuile Mr- Stanton exercised
an arbitrary discretion. In view of these facts
2iYw y ? ul?Be AmerIcans look, who, though
neither socialists nor anarchists, persist in praiB
Ing as a martyr a professed atheist, whose rulo
.JlffLwas No sovernmont! No God! Down
with these humbugs!' "
THE ST. LOUIS Censor gives the American
peoplo something worth thinking about
when It says: " 'Trust-Uncle' Joe is a mere
figurehead nothing more than acting chairman
for the interests, who inaugurated the system
and made the rules under which the interests
allow the house to act. He is not in the least
Indispensable to the system; but the error has
gone out that he is, that he is responsible for
this vicious and destructive system which ren
ders the house powerless before that privilege
which plunders the country. When Reed de
Vised the system, he made it self perpetuating
and most automatic. The real feat was to set up
his system and silence the house in tho begin
ning. Since then it has been easy. Given arbi
trary power, with a bludgeon in one hand and
a bunch of rewards in the other, tho game is
exactly, like the tariff. Every attempt to re
form rii, makes it wprse. Witha speaker with
power in the, first place to make any certain
member the most favored- and Influential repre
sentative of the session, or reduce him to abso
lute nothingness without the power to say a
half dozen words during the session, as the
speaker will, it is easy to understand whence
comes the authority to continue such a vicious
system. As Cannon is but tho figurehead of tho
system, would it not be a stroke of good politics
for the interests to wish his defeat, or if not
that, to remain passive? It would allay agita
tion and divert public attention from a govern
ment rotten with wrong. The word would go
out that Cannonism was crushed, and it would
take the public, in Its stupid "complacency, a
year or two to find out that the interests had
placed another man. in Cannon's place, and that
the system had gone right on without a hobble."
EVEN THE New York Sun objects to Senator
Aldrich's proposed central bank. Following
is an editorial printed in a recent Issue of the
Sun: "The Sun will always oppose a central
bank of issue. Such a bank is intended by the
monetary commission. The policy of that body
as now formally disclosed by Senator Aldrich
points to no other consummation. It is our con
viction that a central bank of issue bearing the
same relation to the money of this country that
the banks of France and of Engbmd bear to the
money of those countries would prove a national
evil. This country is traditionally and temper
amentally unsuited to such an institution. If
Mr. Aldrich and his associates by their united
genius can fashion a central bank whose func
tions and powers shall be purely automatic and
mechanical, well and good. But such a bank
with us is impossible. We have developed no
class in America from which we could create
or recruit the administration and control of such
an institution, while to Isolate it from our politi
cal life is hopeless. We wish it were otherwise.
It is a national misfortune that we can not create
a bank of issue, regulation and control like the
Bank of England. But it is a misfortune to
which we are habituated and which is an ac
cepted condition of our economic existence. It
might be possible In time, but that time is re
mote. Tho temperament, the political genius
and the geography of our country assure us that
the creation of such an institution would lead
Inevitably to disaster graver and more far reach
ing than tbat which our recurrent panics and
The Commoner
anv!?1 w c,ontvuls,on8 entail. They constitute
an evil, but It is a negligible evil compared with
VnulS possITbllItl of another Bank of tho
;!r f In country of vast wealth
whore there is not a dollar of money for which
a dollars worth of gold can not bo hnd there
must, from the operation of natural forces, pres
ently develop a system or a habit wheroby tho
minimum of tho physical mobility of actual mon
SniSa combined with tho maximum of sta
bility and liquidity of credit. That end can bo
attained, and in our belief will bo attained, with
out tho injection of any federal dogma of any
CONCERNING the much talked of British
V budget a writer in the Chicago Tribuno
says: A misapprehension of tho intent and of
nrSiFJ0??!0118 tUo Brit,8h budeet not unnat
urally follows tho attempts of Americans to
analyze and comprehend this great financial
measure, to which the term 'socialistic' has boon
attached by the privileged class whoso prlvllogo
it hits. If tho abuses which Lloyd-Georgo Ib
endeavoring to correct existed in tho United
btates and were the endeavors of correction so
moderate and temperate as his, Americans would
start a revolution. Tho budget is condemnod
as socialistic because it seeks to extend tho
application of tho old ago pension system and
because It seeks a revision of tho land tax
Through old age pensions Great Britain Is striv
ing to find a remedy which Germany has found
more effectively In industrial insurance. In tho
increasing poverty of tho English people the
British statesmen find an alarming danger to
the national life, growing with every year, and
Americans who may be startled by tho magni
tude of the fund which it Ib proposed to devote
to the relief of the Impoverished profitably may
consider the fact that the United States govern
ment annually pays in pensions to tho veterans
of tho civil war a sura far in excess of that
whioh is contemplated in the extension of tho
British system. The land tax is socialistic in
the opinion of the great land owners of England
who, with tho brewers also hit by an increased
tax and the connections of both, rule in the
house of lords. If it were to be proposed as a
remedy for a kindred III in America it would
be rejected with paving stones. If one man
owned all of downtown Chicago, and if three
men owned New York south of Forty-second
street, and if these holdings and others like them
were subject to a tax which had not been revised
since Cromwell's time, which was a tax merely
in name, and which operated to make land own
ership a weight bearing down on the prosperity
and development of the country, Americans
would not waste time listening to an opposition
which called the proposed remedy socialistic.
If 90 per cent of the land In America were
owned by less than 10,000 persons something
more than the land tax provisions of the Lloyd
George budget would be used to restore owner
ship to the people."
TyrR. CHARLES W. ELIOT, former president
JlVX of Harvard University, and now president
of the National Conservation Association, has
issued tho following public statement: "The
National Conservation Association is convinced
of the urgent need of Immediate measures to
prevent the control of tho great sources of heat
and mechanical power in tho United States from
being seized by monopolistic organizations and
to secure their best development in the interest
of the whole people. These sources aro water
falls and coal. Under the existing laws tho
wisest development is practically impossible.
Tho following statement describes the situation
with respect to coal lands: Tho qoal lands in
the possession of the United States are being
rapidly absorbed under the present inadequate
law. Tho great fields of Alaska, estimated to
contain 15,000,000 tons, shall remain in the
heritage of tho peoplo. But bad as is the general
coal land law of the United States, that of
Alaska is even worse, for there tho government
is absolutely limited to a charge pf $10 an acre,
which, according to a public statement by the
director of tho United States geological survey
is less than one-tenth of tho real value of these
coal lands. It is true that tho field was recently
withdrawn from entry, but tho legality of tho
withdrawal has been questioned. Even if the
nine hundred existing claims now coming to
trial should be declared fraudulent, new claim
ants may file on these lands. We have urged
the present administration to postpone, for the
common good, the trial of these claims, and wo
7
luL, ?,OU,)t,' !? .T,ow of th0 fact nd ot the
Sn aw."1.0 ft,d,In,n,fltratlon as declared by Presi
dent laft in his speech at Spokane, Wash., on
SKIS!" ,0r ?.' ftat. our ro(lUC8t will bo granted,
inero is a limit, howovor, boyond which such
delay can pot go. Should congress fall to act
at tho coming session, It Is possible that the
opportunity to obtain ndequato legislation for
the coal binds still In possession of tho United
States will bo lost. Wo therefore appeal to tho
AS??S!CttJ S?1 t0 bring tho urgent needs of
tho situation to tho attention of thoir ropresonta
tlvcs in congress in order that comprohonBlvo
legislation on tho mattor may bo enacted at the
next session of congress."
0N 'VuJ7 ,12.' 1908' th0 SL Lou,fl Ropubllo
published Its centennial Issuo, that papor
having boon established in 1808. Soon thoro
aftcr tho Republic took an actlvo part in tho
formation of a Century Club of American News
papers, composed of weokly and dally journals
that aro 100 years old or older. A booklet jus
published by tho Ropubllc describes tho eighty
two papers that aro members of tho club. Thoro
aro fifty-flvo dallies and twonty-Boven weokllc.
twonty-two of which aro published in Now Eng
land, thirty-eight In tho mlddlo Atlantic state,
nine In Ohio, ono in Indiana, cloven south of
Mason and Dixon's Ho, and one- tho Ropubllc
west of tho Mississippi rlvor. Pennsylvania hau
thirteen mombors of tho club, and tho two oldest,
tho Philadelphia North American and Saturday
Evening Post, each founded in 1728. Then fol
i -.ion Charlc8tn Nows and Courlor, founded
nr ' tho AnapolIs Gazette, founded in
1740; tho Portsmouth Chronicle, foundod In
175C, and tho Newport Mercury, foundod in
1758, oach mor0 than 150 years old. Tho Gor
man languago Is represented by two nowspapers
in tho club, tho Newmarket Shenandoah Valloy.
published originally In German as Dor Vlr
glnlscho Volksborlchtor und Newmarket Woch
onschrlft, founded In 1807, and tho Lancaster
7?io .,round uud Bebachter, established in
1808.
A REMARKABLE case of ,tho dovolopmont
of criminal Instinct is that of Earl Bullock,
seventeen years of ago. His homo wan In Law
rence, Kan. On October 11 Bullock was arrested
at Eudora, Kan., on tho charge of having robbed
a second-hand store. Tho deputy sheriff had
taken Bullock into tho Eudora bank. Whilo
there Bullock drew two revolvers and forced
tho deputy sheriff and Cashier Wilson into tho
bank vault. Ho then snatched about $1,000 and
fled. That night Policeman Prlndlo went to
Bullock's homo and called him to como out and
surrender. Bullock replied with a rain of bul
lets and Prlndlo was killed. Bullock then made
his escape. Tho authorities were unable to
locate him, but it later developed that he began,
life In a fashionable hotel at Jacksonville, Fla.,
under an assumed name. There ho became ac
quainted with William McKay, a fifteen-year-old
boy, holding out to McKay "tho beauties"
of a robber life. Bullock persuaded tho boy to
accompany him and on November 12 they re
turned to Eudora for tho purpose of robbing
tho samo bank which Bullock had robbed on
November 11. Bullock and McKay entered tho
Eudora bank. Fred Star, the cashier of another
bank happened to bo in the Eudora bank and
Bullock shot him through tho jaw. Snatching
money amounting to, perhaps, $800, Bullock
and McKay fled followed by a posse of citizens.
McKay surrendered but Bullock wrenched tho
revolvers from his faltering partner's hands and
ran, returning the fire of his pursuers. Finally
being surrounded he put the pistol to his own
head and flred. Tho wounded lad was taken
to a hospital where ho died a few hours later.
THE KANSAS COMMONER
Tho Kansas Commoner, published at Wichita,
has been purchased by Mr. M. B. Murphy, late
of Malone, N. Y. Mr. Murphy is a thorough go
ing newspaper man and a faithful democrat. In
his salutatory Mr. Murphy said:
"Tho present editor proposes to make tho
Commoner tho exponent of pure democracy as
advocated by Its acknowledged leader, William
Jennings Bryan, and invites the public to read
tho Commoner for further Information along
these lines. With tho abiding faith that tho
new enterprise will redound to the credit and
welfare of democracy, lth in state and nation,
permit me to subscribe myself."
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