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6
The Commoner
VOLUME 10, NUMBER 2J
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pi
141
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Iti.
fin HE VOTERS of Dallas, Texas, havo recently
JL used tho "recall." The Dallas correspon
dent for tho Omaha News says: "Tho 'recall'
Is ono of tho now dovices whereby tho pcoplo
keep control of tho public business. When a
public ofllcer no matter for how long elected
Is condemned by a largo number of pcoplo, a
'recall petition' is filed and a now candidate is
named for tho Job. Then tho man already elect
ed has to.riin for hiB ofllco a second time, and
If ho doesn't get moro votes than his opponent
ho loses his Job and the recall candidato is
declared elected in his place. By uso of tho
recall tho peoplo apply tho samo rule tho
right to hire and fire to public employes, as
has always been applied by private omployoro
of men. It works flno in Dallas."
ACCORDING TO tho News correspondent, "tho
pcoplo of Dallas showed that the 'recall' is
,'a mighty weapon. They also answered many of
tho arguments against tho recall. Chief of
thoso was tho argument that tho peoplo wouldn't
turn out and vote in a re-call election. In April
Dallas elected a school board of seven members.
Five were new men, and two, John C. Mann and
John W. George, wore old members, re-elected.
As usual tho old men, knowing the ropes, ran
things. They inaugurated a policy of secret
sessions. Tho public didn't like tho idea, but
tho board didn't care. Finally, in a secret meet
ing, tho board discharged two veteran teachers.
Tho teachers demanded to know why they were
let go and what charges had been made against
them. They demanded some sort of a public
hearing. Refused. A citizens' mass meeting
was callod and a committee named to ask, of
tho board tho reasons for tho discharge of tho
two teachers, Joseph Morgan and CharlcB D.
Tomkins. Tho committee was treated with con
tempt. Another mass meeting was called and
a blaze of indignation swept the city. A 'recall'
petition was prepared. It was leveled only at
Mann and George, as being tho chief offenders,
Two candidates were named to run against them
at tho special or 'recall' election. Thoso men
were J. D. Carter, u civil enginqer, and John B.
McGraw, a' union printer. Tho fact that Mc
Graw was a republican made no difference in
democratic Dallas, because tho peoplo were at
tending to their own business Just then, and
didn't mind party labels. Tho recall election
was managed by "W. R. Harris, attorney for
public service corporation and representing the
silk stocking element, and R. H. Campbell, dis
trict organizer of tho American Federation of
Labor, representing tho working people. So
that class lines were wiped out Just as party
lines were. All tho politicians, most of tho
officeholders and a fine lot of 'big business' in
fluence lined up to beat the 'recallers.' They
didn't want tho peoplo to get a taste of the
power that the recall gives. There was heavy
pressure from 'conservatives' and school supply
peoplo, and a lot of talk about this being 'an
attack on representative government,' and the
campaign was bitter. All the newspapers
good party organs fought the recallers except
the Dallas Dispatch which, alone, supported the
recall. When tho votes were counted it was
found that ten per cent more votes had been
cast on the recall election held in midsummer
? than at tho regular April school election.
Each of tho recall candidates had won by a
twenty-five per cent plurality, and tho star
chamber gentlemen were ousted from office.
The board of education now transacts business
-with open doors, and tho professional politicians
are sad. Thus Dallas places herself beside Los
Angeles in leading tho way toward the making
:Of public servants rather than public tyrants
out of officeholders."
NOW MR. ROOSEVELT is getting a tasto of
the claptrap which tho democrats were sub
ject to. Wall Street is sending out messages
to tho effect that Mr. Roosevelt's speeches In
behalf of popular government are "hurting
business." An Associated Press dispatch says:
"Many of the leaders in the financial world,
who frankly admit privately their hostility to
ward tho ex-president, hesitate to go on reoord
publicly apparently not knowing what may
happen. In a statement issued today, J. S. Bache
& Co., tho brokerage firm that engineered James
A. Patten's cotton pool, said: 'Roosevelt is a
destroyer not an upbuilder. Roosevelt endeavors
to tear down by violent criticism, but offers no
sano remedy or reasonable method of improve
ment. In whatever light it Is looked at, Mr.
Roosevelt's speeches out west "will stir up
trouble. They aro intended to benefit Mr.
Roosevelt. His speeches aro thoso of a dema
gogue and are Intended, and do arouse excite
ment and resentment. But what he says has no
real purpose of direction. By this broadspread
tirade against tho business honesty of tho na
tion, ho smirches all business. The position he
assumes politically is an unfair one. Under
cover, ho te attacking tho administration. But
he shoulders no responsibility. Thinking peo
plo aro beginning to discover him in his true
light, and the best thought must eventually
control.' 'I shouldn't be surprised if Roosevelt
discovered and endorsed the ten commandments
before he got through,' said A. Barton Hepburn,
president of the Chase National bank, comptrol
ler of the currency under President Harrison.
'Roosevelt seems to have made the remarkable
discovery that there aro crooks in all stations
of life who should be punished. I don't think
his present utterances will have any material
effect on business.' "
WHILE MR. ROOSEVELT was on his west
ern trip tho New York Evening Post at
tacked him editdrially. Writing in the Outlook
Mr. Roosevelt replies to the Post in this way:
"In the struggle for honest politics there is no
more a place for a liar than there is for a thief,
;and in thei movement designed to put an end
to the domination of tho thief but little good
can bo derived from the assistance of tho liar.
Of course objection will be made to my use of
this language. My answer is that I am using
it merely scientifically and descriptively and be
cause no other terms express tho facts with tho
necessary precision. In tho article in which
the Evening Post comes to the defense of thoso
in present control of the republican, party in
New York state, whom it affected to oppose
in the past, the Evening Post, through what
ever editor personally wrote the article, prac
ticed every known form of "mendacity. As far
as I am concerned every man visited the White
House openly and Mr. Harrlman among others.
I took no money from Mr. Harrlman, secretly
or openly to buy votes or for any other pur
poses. Whoever wrote the article in the Even
ing Post knew that this was the foulest and
basest He.. The statement of the Post is not
only false and malicious, Is not only in direct
contradiction of the facts, but is such that it
could only have been made by a man who, know
ing the facts deliberately intended to pervert
them. Such an act stands on a level of Infamy
with the worst act eyer performed by a corrupt
member of a legislature or city official and
stamps the writer with the same moral brand
that stamps tho bribe taker."
THE NEW YORK Evening Post, responding
to Colonel Roosevelt's editorial in tho Out
look, says: "Mr. Roosevelt writes In the Out
look that the editor of tho Evening Post is a
liar' and adds that objection will be made to
that language. Not by us. We regard it as
a decoration. To be thought worthy of receiv
ing the order of merit which Mr. Roosevelt has
bestowed upon so many distinguished citizens
makes us, In his own words, 'very proud and
also very humble.' We supported measures to
force corporations out of politics, especially to
make it illegal for them to contribute money to
political campaigns, long before Mr. Roosevelt,
and did our best to make corporation gifts to
politicians odious at the very time when Mr.
Roosevelt's agents were collecting hundreds of
thousands of dollars from them to help elect
him president. In view of all this, we will not
retort Mr. Roosevelt's word upon him, but will
merely say he has been misinformed." In con
conclusion the Post says: "It ia plain that the
president urged Mr. Harrlman repeatedly and
cordially to come to the White House and that
in fact, Mr. Harrlman, after he did go to sco
Mr. Roosevelt made a contribution of $50,000
and Harrlman himself said, 'I was not a political
manager I could help to raise money'
This he did, collecting $200,000, by the expendi
ture of which sum, he wrote to' Sidney Webster
'at, least 50,000 voters were turned in tho city
of New York alone.' "
IN THE OPINION of a writer in the St. Louis
Globe-Democrat, "there is a fine mediaeval
ring in the talk by William II. at the banquet
at Koenigsberg. In an ago when even Turkey,
Russia and Persia have adopted constitutions,
and when China has taken the preliminary
steps to frame one in 1917, a head of a great
modern state declares, in effect, that constitu
tions should not be allowed to say the last word
in matters of government. Here, by one of tho
most powerful of the guild, the doctrine of the
divine right of kings is proclaimed. While
almost every other potentate of the earth makes
some concession to tho vox populi, the German
kaiser tells his subjects and the rest of man
kind that the vox populi is not the vox Dei-whenever
it comes in conflict with the views or the
caprices of the crown. The voice of God, he an
nounces, is never authentic unless it comes
through his regularly anointed representative,
tho monarch of the day. No such talk has been
heard in England since the time of the Tudors.
For attempting to carry on government on this
theory Charles I. of England was executed in
1649. For a smaller assault than this on the
prerogatives of the populace Louis XVI. of
France lost his head in 1793. The kaiser's
Utterance has a' refreshing, absence of hypoc
risy. In a period of , dull., monotony, this will
strike the world as a novel doctrine."
WHEN JEFFERSON, then in France, hand
ed Talleyrand a copy of tho Constitution
of the United States Talleyrand said: "At last
liberty and equality are imbedded in the charter
of a great people." Referring to this remark,
the Globe-Democrat writer says: "The idea
made such an appeal to the rising liberalism
of that day that France adopted a constitution
in 1792, at the birth of its first republic, and,
under the influence of Bonaparte, the Helvetic
republic of Switzerland, which had been playing
at democracy for five centuries, framed a con
stitution in 1798. In the next quarter of a
century charters based on the American idea
wore framed in most of the states between tho
Rio Grande and Cape Horn. England's consti
tution, then and still unwritten, consisted of
various concessions extorted from its kings, sup
plemented by acts of parliament, and these re
ceived large extensions in the franchise acts
of 1832, 1867 and 1884, under which the basis
of the electorate is almost as broad as it is in
the United States. The house of Hapsburg, an
older and a prouder dynasty, than that for which
William II. speaks, was, within the recollection
of men still living, compelled to abandon Metter
nich's teachings and to give a voice to its people
in the management of their 'affairs. A little
over twenty years ago Japan introduced a writ
ten charter into Asia. Except Morocco and
Abyssinia, every country in the world which is
important enough to get on the map of today
has a constitution, written or unwritten, or, like
China, is going through the preliminary stages
of getting one. Less than two-thirds of a cen
tury ago a certain monarch of the house of
Hohenzollern had such a high regard for his
people that he refused, as he phrased it, to
allow 'a paper charter, like a second Providence,
to stand between him and them.' Nevertheless,
Prussia framed a constitution even before
Frederick William IV.'s death. When the peo
ples of the various states of the present empire
of Germany took the steps, in 1871, which led
to the establishment of the government over
which William II. rules today they may or
may not have had divine inspiration for their
deed. But the crown which William H. wears
as German emperor,- though not that which ia
his as king of Prussia, dates from their initia
tive. The empire over which William I., grand-