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VOLUME 10, NUMBER 18
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froquontly co-operated with those who find a
profit in cultivating an appetite for drink.
Mr. Bryan believes that the 8 o'clock closing
law, enacted by the last Nebraska legislature,
is a reasonable regulation of the Unfile and he,
thoreforc, favors the retention and enforcement
of the law. lie disputes the proposition ad
vanced by tho liquor interests that the right of
Individuals to drink includes the right to sell
or givo liquor to others, and he favors legisla
tion which will enforce the law against treating.
In Nebraska county option has become an
Jbbuo and Mr. Bryan believes that the people of
each county should bo permitted to exclude the
open saloon when they see fit to do so. Tho
exclusion of tho open saloon does not necessarily
deny to tho individual the right to use liquor
In his homo or under other restrictions; it
Bimply closes tho public salo of liquor when, in
tho opinion of the people of the county the
public Bale is detrimental to the interests of the
county.
Whether the people of a county should, in tho
exorciso of their rights, close the saloons, is a
question entirely separate and apart from the
right to do so, and Mr. Bryan is no more willing
to deny to tho people of a county the exercise
of a' clear and undeniable right, merely because
they may make mistakes in exercising that
right than he is to deny people the right to
vote merely becauso they may, in the exercise
of that right, vote the republican ticket.
Ib there anything undemocratic or revolution
ary about these propositions?
Tho above measures relate to Nebraska; there
aTo cortain phases of tho liquor question which
are national. Interstate commerce is used to
ovorride stato laws. What democrat is willing
to put himself on record against the proposi
tion that tho right of tho people of a stato
to control tho liquor traffic Is more sacred than
tho right of liquor dealers to dispose of their
product In dry territory and in violation of the
law?
Mr. Bryan believes that congress should pass
a law recognizing the right of each stato to pre
scribe tho conditions upon which intoxicating
liquors can be transported, sold and used with
in its borders. He also believes that die federal
government should dissolve partnership with
law breakers and no longer issue licenses for
tho sale of liquor in communities where local
laws prohibit its sale. If it Is thought unconsti
tutional to discriminate, in the issue of licenses
between different communities the same end
can bo reached by reducing the license to a nom
inal figure and requiring the applicant for a
fodoral license to give written notice to the local
authorities, and newspaper notice to tho local
public of his Intention to apply for a license.
Now lot those who oppose these propositions
meet them with arguments.
It would bo no answer to say that Mr. Bryan
intends to publish a prohibition paper, even if
it woro true, and it is not true. Ho has no
thought of starting or conducting a prohibi
tion paper. It would bo no answer to say that
Mr. Bryan wants to Inject the prohibition ques
tion into national politics, even if it were true,
and it is not true. Ho has no thought of ad
vising national prohibition and does not expect
to see it a paramount issue during his life
tirao. But he will exercise his right to oppose
domination of national politics by the liquor
Interests just as he will exercise the right to
oppose tho domination of state, county and city
politics by them.
Tho advocacy of needed stato and national
legislation on tho liquor question will in no way
change his position on other questions or lessen
his earnestness in urging tho reforms outlined
In democratic platforms.
The Commoner.
monopolists have that party in their grasp. The
democratic party ought to render real servico
to tho people. Its leadership ought not to try
to mako that party shapo its course in the hop
of gaining tho favor of tho monopolists who have
wrecked tho republican party. Tho people are
getting ready for a change. It will do them no
good, however, if they "jump from tho frying
pan into tho fire." The democratic party will
win and winning will continue to live to tho
glory of its founder if it shall meet the issues
fairly and with the determination to render gen
uine service to tho people.
THE POSTAL SAVINGS BANK
The senate has passed the postal savings bank
bill and the measure is before the house. It
is to be hoped that the democrats of tho house
will try to improve it by amendment but, hav
ing exhausted every effort to perfect it, they
should support it and establish the principle,
leaving further improvement to the future.
Tho democratic national platform of 1908
contained the following plank:
"We favor a postal savings bank if the guar
anteed bank can not be secured, and that it be
constituted so as to keep the deposited money in
the communities where it is established. But
we condemn the policy of the republican party
in proposing postal savings banks under a plan
of conduct by which they will aggregate the de
posits of rural communities and redeposit the
same while under government charge in the
banks of Wall Street, thus depleting the circu
lating medium of the producing regions and un
justly favoring the speculative markets."
Republican success has postponed, for the
present, the securing of the guaranteed national
bank but there is a chance to secure' the protec
tion of savings deposits and the democrats can
not afford to join with the financiers who are
trying to prevent the giving of an additional
security to depositors.
It will be easy enough to find flaws in any
bill which the republican leaders prepare or
agree to, but the principle is more important
than the details and when the principle is once
established the defects can be cured the more
glaring the defect the easier will it be to secure
a remedy.
Depositors need more security; the guaran
teed bank would have given it without bring
ing the government into tho banking business,
but postal savings banks are better than no se
curity, and their establishment will hasten the
day of tho guaranteed bank. The financiers
will be forced to give security in order to hold
deposits.
WIOKERSHAM'S "GOOD NEWS"
A Chicago dispatch says that Attorney Gen
eral Wickersham declares he has good news for
President Taft. "I do not believe the republican
party is to be split by the divergence over tariff
or other policies," said Mr. Wickersham. "I
base my opinion on inquiries I have made hero
concerning the extent of what is described as
the insurgent movement. Misunderstandings
are still prevalent, and as soon an these are
cleared up I am satisfied the insurgent senti
ment will subside."
Insurgency may subside among some insur
gent leaders, but Mr. Wickersham ought to tell
the president that insurgency among the rank
and file of the party will not subside so long
as the republican administration continues to
pull the corporation chestnuts out of the fire
SOMETHING OF A WARNING
The socialist victory in Milwaukee is not ex
clusively local in importance. It does not neces
sarily mean that tho socialist party or its doc
trines have made permanent progress in public
estimation. Milwaukee tried both the republican
and democratic parties in recent years and evi
dently, both parties failed to make good,' and
tho people turned to the socialists in the hope
of relief.
That was a very natural movement too. Dem
ocrats and republicans alike throughout this
union of states will do well to heed the warning
Prosperous and contented, in their individual
affairs the people are often all too patient with
public evils. But when individual burdens
cause men who have seemed indifferent to give
some study to public questions, then party
leaders will do well to "sit up and take notice."
The republican party, ropoatedly trusted with
power, has proved faithless to tho people. Tho
Practical Tariff Talks
Dingley law was half a cent a pound, or $10
a" -ton. The house cut this duty in two, but the
senate restored it. . In conference the duty was
placed at four-tenths of a cent a pound, or $8
a ton.
Here is the point: There was a reduction in
this one item, and, therefore, wire nails went
into the president's list of articles of consump
tion upon which the tariff had been reduced.
Assume that the production is $27,000,000 a
year, that sum would be added to the president's
array of beneficences under the law. The rate
was reduced but a tenth of a cent a pound, or
$2 a ton, a reduction so small as to absolutely
cut no figure in the price of nails, even if that
price were not fixed now by the steel trust. The
proof of this is shown by the fact that under
the Dingley law the imports were $3,288 in
1907, while the steel trust exported $2,500,000
worth which it sold abroad for a less price than
was charged the consumer at home. The small
imports and the large exports prove conclusively
that the Dingley rate was a prohibitive one,
and that a reduction of a tenth of a cent a pound
meant no permanent price relief to the nail
user. A reduction of a tenth of a cent a pound
is so ridiculously small that it could never reach
half the people who use nails, and as it amounts
to but 10 cents a keg the contractor is unlikely
to profit either. As a matter of fact an inspec
tion of price lists for the last nine months shows
the same price range as before. And yet these
$27,000,000 production of nails is complacently
included by the president in the list of one of
the reductions to be thankful for.
In the various tariff speeches which the presi
dent has made in defense of that Payne-Aldrich
bill, he has included a billion and a' quarter
dollars of items in the metal schedule in which
there had been a decrease in duties. If the
task were not an endless and perhaps weari
some one to tho reader, a careful picking anart
of this schedule would show the hollowness of
SiHtenlG conwQf' ThG People demanded a
reduction because they wanted the prices of
over-protected goods reduced. Mr. Taft savs to
them, pointing with pride to the new law here
is our pledge redeemed. Take the wire nail!
schedule as an example. It is only one of many
Thao ?Uld bS tllZQa from this schedule aTono
1 he wire nail s in universal use. The produc
tion of w re nails annually is about $27,000 000
These nails sell in the American wholesale marl
ket on an average of 2 cents a poundthe
smaller sizes. The tariff on these under the
The Germans are the parents of wire nail
making. The Americans found them in control
of the market when the steel business reached
a fair development in this country, and like
other American manufacturers they proceeded
to go after that control for themselves. Their
first precaution was to secure a prohibitive
tariff, which kept out the foreign nails. Twenty
four years ago, according to Senator Oliver, a
wire nail manufacturer of Pittsburg, the Amer
icans took the market away from the Germans,
in South America and the Orient, and hold it
still. So thorough is their control of the situa
tion that the Germans can get practically no
nails at all over the tariff wall. They are able
to do this in spite of the fact that the German
manufacturers get a large bonus from their gov
ernment. The keg is the standard of measure
ment. The average price of a keg containing
100 pounds of nails laid down in New York is
$2.34, or was at the time the tariff bill was
under discussion.
Twenty-four years control of the home market
has allowed these infants to grow so large that
we now export 600 times as much as we import.
At the same time that they get this big duty on
wire nails they ask for and receive a duty of
$20, $25 and $35 a ton upon the wire out of
which these nails are manufactured. As the
steel trust makes the most of the wire from
which these nails are made, it compels any man
who desires to go into the manufacture of wire
nails to either erect a wire-making plant in addi
tion or else buy his wire from it. When a man
ufacturer is at the mercy of his competitor for
his raw material he is not very powerful as a
price-maker or price-cutter.
C. Q. D.
WHICH BONAPARTE
In Louisville Courier-Journal editorial,
Henry Watterson said: "The time has come for
the people of the United States to consider Theo
dore Roosevelt as they have never considered
him before; to take him more seriously than
they have ever talcen him; to realize that he
is altogether the most startling figure who has
appeared in the world since Napoleon Bona-
Sfd potent"11111 DOt WlthUt Blenificance
Hereafter the relations between the Louis
ville Courier-Journal and the editor of ?
Houston (Texas) Post will be strained, for com
menting upon the above statement, the Hous
ton Post editor was mean enough to say: We
love Henry Watterson beyond all the power of
words to express, but the foregoing makes Ss
tired. Doesn't Marse Henry mean Charles J
Bonaparte of Baltimore?" nanes J.
Tho American Homestead, a monthlv fn
journal of national scope, wilf b sent J
Commoner subscribers, without additional W
who renew their subscriptions during i J month
nnAPriI; i Tak vantage fffS a?o5&
and send in your renewal. c
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