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FEBRUARY 4, 1910
The Commoner.
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CURR8NT (pOPICS
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SECRETARY OF the Interior Ballinger deliv
ered an address at Williams College, Wil
liamstown, Mass. He chose for hisr subject
"Executive Functions Under the Constitution."
A Williamstoyirn dispatch to the Washington
Herald says: " "In the course of his address ho
laid bare his sentiment in the Pinchot contro
versy, administering a scathing rebuke to the.
former chief forester. "Former President Roose
velt did not escape censure. . The secretary of
the interior openly avowed that developments
in his department are natural sequences to ad
ministration acts of the past several years. Al
though Secretary Ballinger announced the sub-,
ject of his address at the outset, in the. same
breath he added-that he did not intend to con
fine himself wholly to his text. What followed
amply justified that rather mild foreshadowing
of what his address proved to bo."
CONCERNING SOME "public men and their
va'garies" Secretary Ballinger said: "We
have been surfeited for a long time with this
kind of public men, "and in a measure their
vagaries have been seized upon by the faddist
an'd sentimentalist for exploitation, so that on
many public questions the public mind is in a
ferment of uncertainty and alarm. Those who
do not become hysterical over their tales of dire
calamity and calmly ask for facts are charged '
with being- in league with or accomplices of
these imaginary- criminals. Some public officers
make the mistake of assuming that they have
been commissioned by their own assumed indis
pensable qualities of fitness to govern. It is
elemental under" our republican form of govern
ment -that .public officers, go.vern only with the
consent (Tf the governed'. The stability of our
institutions 'is 'wholly dependent upon our firm'
adherence 'to1 'this principle. Ours is 'a govern
ment ;of lawbf Mbeffry regulated bylaw. That'
is "not legislation which adjudicates in a particu
lar case, prescribes the, rule contrary to the gen
eral law, and orders it to be enforced. It is a
maxim of our constitutional law that the powers
conferred upon one department, can not be dele
gated to any other body or authority. Where
the sovereign power has lodged this authority,
there it must remain and -be exercised The
founders df our government realized that men
love power; that they will generally exercise
it when they can get it, and abuse it in popular
governments under declaration of lofty patriot
ism to disguise the assumption. Public seryants
of this class are the least amenable to the law,
for they are generally harder to get at from the
standpoint of popular disfavor."
IT IS JUST beginning to dawn upon the Amer
ican people that the Alaska coal fields are
very valuable property. A Washington dispatch
to the Denver News says: "John E. Ballaine,
of Seattle, said to be the largest individual prop
erty owner in Alaska, made a proposition in
writing to the senate committee on territories,
of which Senator Beveridge of Indiana is chair
man, offering to the government a royalty of
'50 cents a. ton for coal mined, for the lease
of five thousand acres of 'some of the choicest
coal lands in Alaska, in the Katallo and Nan
tanusaka districts. Such a tonnage royalty
would net to the government, Ballaine claims,
amounts as high as 2,0 00,0 00 per hundred
acres. This proposal contemplates a radical de
parture from past practices in the government's
disposal of the Alaska coal lands, and it comes
avowedly to do battle with another proposition,
embodied in a bill that has been prepared, but
not yet introduced, designed to permit the sale
or lease of such lands at a rate of $10 peV acre.
It is' said that the general features of the plan
have the approval of officials high in the admin
istration and of influential members of both
houses of congress, including some of the promi
nent insurgent republicans and Delegate Wicker
Bham of Alaska. Ballaine in his letter to Sen
ator Beveridge offers to 'enter into a bond of
$-1000,000 with the government for he per
formance of his part of the agreement, which
he proposes, and he makes the charge that
other interests' have now .at work in Washing
i6n a lobby, 'headed Mf a former United 'States
senator,' dn support of the bill referred to above,
under whose provisions, he declares, the govern
ment would extend an unconditional guarantee
to a railroad or railroads which these interests
purpose to build in, Alaska, and would virtually
donate to thejn at $10 per acre-one or more
tracts of 5OQQ acres each to bo selected by
them. Ballaine asks congress to authorize the
head of a department to be designated in the
legislation to enter into a lease with a coal
company to be organized by him for 5,000 acres
of Matanuska coal land, under all the provisions
for regulation and against monopolistic control
of prices, as stipulated in the bill recently intro--duced
by Senator Nelson in conformity with the
recommendations of Secretary Ballinger's an
nual report. This coal company would pay the
United States and Alaska a royalty of 50 cents
a ton for the coal as mined. Ballaine says veins
averaging a total thickness of twenty feet would
yield, according to standard measurements, a
total in excess of 100,000,000 tons from the
5,000 acres,' making a royalty of $50,000,000
for this comparatively small area."
THAT THERE is something rotten in the ter
ritory of Alaska is the opinion expressed
by the Omaha World-Herald. The World
Herald says: "The slimy trail of that rotten
ness, covers all the thousands of miles that lie
between the rich coal -fields of Alaska, and the
interidr department at Washington. Every few
days there is afresh, development going to show
that Congressman Hitchcock's original resolu
tion, calling for a congressional investigation
of the interior department's administration of
Alaskan affairs, went straight to the mark. And
the nearer the congressional committee comes
to confining-its inquiries to what has been hap
pening in Alaska-, and- what now is. happening -there,
the better it will'-serve the -purpose, for...
which it was created. The offer made in writing
by John E. Ballaine, described as the largest
individual property owner in Alaska, to the sen
ate committee on territories is absolutely as
tounding both in what it discloses and in the
possibilities it suggests. The scheme which is
now on foot, and which only the investigation
and the publicity attending it can defeat, is for
the government, to lease or sell the Alaska coal
fields at $10 an acre. Mr. Ballaine noty offers,
instead, to pay a royalty to the government of
50 cents a ton for 5,000 acres of such coal land.
Heoffers to file a bond of $1,000,000 to' insure
his fulfillment of the contract. The. royalty, he
estimates, basing the estimate on reports of the
United States geological survey, would run as
high as $2,000,000 per hundred acres or $100,
000,000 for 5,000 acres! Contrast this with the
$50,000 the government would realize out of .
the sale or lease of 5,000 acres in the manner
proposed by Secretary Ballinger's friends! Mr.
Ballaine further quotes the geological survey
as estimating that there are sixteen billions of
tons of coal already in sight in Alaska. If this
were mined on the same royalty basis he offers
the government would realize, out of these
coal fields, the stupendous sum of eight billions
of 'dollars!"
64ys IT STRANGE," asks the World-Herald,
X "in the, light of these figures that the
Guggenheim interests should find it worth while
to make strenuous efforts, to stop at nothing,
to reach even into the cabinet itself and into
congress, to realize its ambition to gain control
of these enormous coal deposits for a mere song,
$10 an acre deposits worth many billions of
dollars! According to charges made by Dele
gate Wlckersham of Alaska, even army officers
are at Washington lobbying in behalf of the
Guggenheim steal, and have threatened him
with personal violence for his opposition. One
of these officers proclaims himself to be 'tho
adviser of 'the administration on all matters
relating to Alaska In written charges filed
with the semate committee on territories Judge1
Wlckersham who for SevOral years watf a fed
eral judgfe in Alaska appointed by' President
McKIhley-makes "allegations so serious, re-
fleeting oven on President 'Taft, that Senator;
Beveridg'e, chairman Of the, commltte'e, refuses'
to make them public or incorporate them into
tho record. Even if tho president woro Bryan
or a prohibitionist, or a socialist, says Beveridge,
with a fine gush of patriotism, ho would not
alltfw bucIi charges to bo published against him!
Despite anything that may be done, however, JLho
public attention has been focused on Alaska.
Tho indignation of an entire nation has boon so
stirred that whatever plots of gigantic jobbery
and rapine of public property max. have been
under way, It will be impossible now to put
them through. The game has become too danger
ous. It may have been an easy matter to de
ceive tho president as to Secretary Ballinger
and the plotters who are backing him. But
light is flooding the dark places and tho deeds
that were begun in darkness can never be car
ried to a successful conclusion when the sun is
shining. Tho president may stand by Ballinger
to the end to the bitter end but tho gigantic
conspiracy, the greatest ever plotted against tho
American people", and of which the foisting of
Ballinger upon Taft as secretary of tho Interior
was a necessary part, Is foiled In Its beginning."
ANOTHER NEW anesthetic has been discov
ered. A Hartford Conm, dispatch to tho .
Philadelphia North American says: "Before
about twenty-five surgeons of- this city, Dr.
Louise Rabinovitch, of New York, the physician
who, for fifteen years, has been perfecting her '
methods of electrical anesthesia, supervised on.
operation on John Crosic, 25 years old, at St.
Francis hospital this afternoon. Three toes were
amputated successfully from his two feet while .
the subject was under the Influence of the .weird
electrical phenomena, which was used for practi
cal purposes on a' human being for the first time
in medical history in this city today. Last night
at the Hartford Medical Society' clubropms Dr.
Rabinovitch demonstrated the. possibilities of her
discovery on a rabbit which she subjected to the
electrical anesthesia, and, after cutting tho
Spinal cord, sewed up the wound, permitting
the rabbit to hop freely and happily about tho
room, as though nothing had happened. Tho
patient was given an electric current of four
milliampheres and fifty-four volts by means of
three electrodes, one at tho ankle, another at
the shinbone and the third at the groin. It
was a complete success. ' The patient felt no
pain and absolutely no after affects, such as .
ether is apt to produce. The operation will be
come a regular thing at the Philadelphia General
hospital when the apparatus is installed."
SOME LIGHT on prices from tho farmers'
viewpoint is given In a letter printed in the
Lincoln (Neb.) 'Journal and written by Mr. S.
C. Bassett of Gibbon, Neb. Mr. Bassett writes:
"I have just read in your issue of January 25,
the statement that Representative Thiessen, of
Jefferson county had marketed a carload 'of
hogs which brought him $1,608.05 and that
after deducting all expenses he had left $1,
108.41. Analyzing this statement as best I can,
it appears that Mr. Thiessen raised, fattened
and marketed, "all expenses included, approxi
mately .twenty thousand pounds of fat hogsvfor
$500 or at the rate of about two and one-half
cents per pound. If Mr. Thiessen will furnish,
In detail, for publication, a statement showing
that on farms in eastern or central Nebraska
on tho basis of present prices for grain or other
food products fed to hogs it is possible to raise,
fatten and market, all expenses paid, a carload
of hogs at a cost of $2.50 per hundred pounds
he will furnish a news article of moro absorb
ing interest to the farmers of Nebraska than any.
news item which has beei published since Ne
braska' became a state."
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