The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923, February 17, 1911, Page 7, Image 7

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FEBK'uXRt 17,'181i
The : Comrao aer
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7
ON THIS SUBJECT a United Press dispatch
frpm New York says:. "The. Now York
Press, which gives the detail of the recant
changes in the magazine field, says that" J. P.
Morgan is tho most active in the trust. Thomas
.W. Laraont, newest partner of .the Morgan firm,
says that concern can now dictate tho policy of
periodicals with a circulation of 3,000,000. La
mont controls the Crowell Publishing company, .
which markets the Woman's Home Companion,
the Farm and Fireside and which last week'
secured possession of the American Magazine.
Lainont's two most important assistants in the
Crowell concern, says the Pjess, are George H.
Hazen, president, and Joseph P. Knapp of -the
American Lithographic company, who is a direc
tor of the Associated Sunday Magazines. This
periodical has a circulation of more than 1,000,;
000. The Press states that the Curtis publica
tions of Philadelphia, tho McCluro publications,
Hamptons, John Wanamaker's periodicals,"
Robert J. Collier and Condenat's magazine will
not enter the combination. Thomas F. Ryan
also is to be a potent factor in the periodical
literature field monopoly, if rumors in the finan
cial world are to be given credence. It devel
oped that it was not alone to muzzle the maga
zines that the big financiers were in the market
to buy but tjhat they have discovered that by
applying trust methods fully as enormous profits
are to be extracted as have come from oil, sugar
or tobacco. This will precipitate a fight between
the financial interests who .want control and
will materially benefit those publishers who are
willing to selK With the big magazines con
trolled by a- single group of interests, the club
plan of selling will be developed. Magazines
will be grouped as follows-: Woman's maga
zine, a current affairs magazine, and a fiction
publication. To this group will be added a set
of books and the canvassers will offer the en
tire lot on the usual installment plan. The
canvassers' commission will be fifteen per cent,
five times the amount he would get from tho
magazine alone and Vill give tho combination
a monopoly of thevbest canvassers. The . big
distributing companies, which put the magazines
on the Marketers also to befthe. objectiveo:the
financiers, 1t Issaid; The ideabciroulation ofa
'successful magazine isfofty per cent stand sales
and fifty per cent subscription;' Therefore, the
men who want to form the magazine trust would
like' to get hold of the distributing agencies and
offers have already been made for controlling
stock. Another report given wide credence is
that notes for upwards of $3,000,000 are held
by the paper company which has a monopoly of.
furnishing paper for printing the standard maga
zines. This company Is alleged to have connec
tion with Morgan and company, but at its offices
no one would discuss the matter."
THE SEATTLE, Washington, -recall law passed
two years ago, provides for a recall election
upon the presentation of a petition signed by
twenty-five per cent of the voters at the previous
general, election. After this , petition is certified
to, the- city council sets the date for the elec
tion, which must be within thirty days. Under
the pro visions -of this law an election was held
February 8, and Mayor H. C. Gill, who had been
elected by 3,50Q majority, jyas ousted by 4,0Q0
majority. A Seattle dispatch, carried by the
Associated Press, says: "George Dilling was
elected mayor to succeed Gill, and will take the
oath of office tomorow. , One of the big surprises
of the election -was the enormous vote polled
by the socialist candidate, which it is certain
will exceed 5,000. This is the first thorough
test of tho principle of the recall of a public
ofllcial who failed to do his duty. Gill's
stipulated term of office has only half
expired. A total of about 62,000 votes were
cast, nearly half of which were by women. This
was the first time that women, under the new
law, could vote and 30,000 of them registered
for the election. The women seemed to know as
muchabout the voting as the men. They stpod .
In orderly lines "at the polls and were as quick
In voting as their husbands, and brothers. They
established the fact that their votes are cast for
a, clean city as against.one governed by partisan
ship, the redllght district and the criminal eler
jnent. pilling was sleeted because the people
refused any longer to stand for Gill and his
wide open town- policy. His "platform was as
follows: 'I want to get this vice, business clear
ont of sight. Clean it up and put it away. I
,-wa-nt .to drive it put of politics, i aon z warn
te to have to keep on.tmnKing anu uujuub
j(Jeople
bout vice. Get it undercontol ana out or ine
,Way of the city's growth. As against this wu
Advocated a wide open town for 'business rea
sons.' Ho has permitted gambling' under pro
tection. The city was.full of assignation houses.
There was no control of saloons. "Vice was
.openly flaunted."
a ILL" WAS ELECTED mayor last March.
Plans to recall him were begun last October.
. The petition for that purpose which was cir
culated declared, in brief: "That Mayor Gill
has shown himself incompetent and unfit; that
he has abused tho appointive power by selecting,
for personal and political reasons, men person
ally unfit for office that he has whojly neglected
to enforce- the criminal laws; that ho has per
mitted Seattle to become a home and refuge for
the criminal classes; that his continuance in
office is a hienace to the business enterprise and
morality of the city." The Seattle dispatch says:
"When Gill was nominated for mayor ho was
president of tho council. His business outside
of the council was that of a lawyer. Much of
his practice was among tho disorderly elements
of the city. It was a common practice for him
to leave a meeting of the council to go to the
aid of one of his clients who had been arrested.
In the race for tho nomination Gill had as an
opponent aman of foreign birth, now to politics,
a poor campaigner and by many considered
dangerous because of his radical opinions. Wil
liam Hiskman Moore, nominated to oppose Gill,
made a strong race, although ho was tho candi
date of a weak minority. Gill was a good cam
paigner'. He was a hail fellow well met. People
who despised and abhorred his principles, liked
the man. All downtown Seattle knew 'HI' Gill.
He was the hero of the underworld, the toast
of the midnight cafes. And Gill, when speaking
in the residence districts, promised well. A
good 'business administration,' segregatiori of
the restricted district, efficiency in all depart
ments, this was the pledge made by Gill up
town his bid for respectable votes. It is said
for Gill that he Intended a better administration
than he gave, but that in the hard contest ho
'had for election ho was forced tQ malce promises
that recoiled upon him." w ' l'' '' '.
JONATHAN HIGGINS of- Bignell, Nebraska,
: writes to the Omaha Daily News to say:
"Political parties have been tho curse of this
nation since the day of the Jackson edict, 'To
the victors belong the spoils.' Deceptions,
fraudulent practices and chicanery have been the
potent factors in party political methods for more
than fifty years. There have been exceptions.
The heart of the great Lincoln beat in unison
with that of the masses, but he was so hedged
about by designing, corrupt exploiters of the
nation that he once declared: 'I wish they had
their devilish heads shot off.' It is too recent
history to recQunt the corruption funds, the
briberies, deceptions and billingsgate resorted
to defeat Bryan, the nation being bought with
millions of the 'system's' cold cash. Conse
quent upon that "purchase the people are be
ing exploited as no other nation on the globe
could endure and not become bankrupt. This
has become so Intolerable that men of old parties
are in revolt revolting democrats led by Bryan
and revolting republicans by LaFollette. Tho
people aTe forcing the primary .method of nom
inations. In .this, and the initiative and refer
endum and recall, the exploiters see their .finish,
and are making superhuman efforts to hold
party shackles upon them through the closed
primary method, virtually saying to tho people:
'So long as you wear the party yoke, you can
make nominations by this method.' But to what
purpose? The New York World recently said:
'No man can bo elected president without tho
electorate of the state of New York . There
we have it hot off the griddle. No man can
carry the -state of New York without the slums
of New York City. So, according to the' World,
more than 90,000,000 people must be ruled by.
tho slums of the most corrupt city on earth.
Bryan is my first choice for president. Who In
this supposedly free country should have the
right to dictate that with Bryan I must, take In
numerable 'system' democrats? My second choice"
is LaFollette. With LaFollette 'must I take
Aldrich, Cannon, Morgan, Taft and the mighty
straddling hunter? A mighty revolution is .loom
ing up."
N ATLANTA, Geotgla, reader of the New
York World writes, to that newspaper to
say: "I want every v sufferer ,from cancer.
-throughout the world to know the beneficial re
sults to be obtained, by the use of kerosene 611
applied to the affected, parts by means of cotton
tampons saturated with the pure oil, or if too
sovero for some cases, mixed wth lard.. The
rolioffrom pain is almost imniediato and the
. improvement, wonderfully rapid. I havo bad ex-
perio'neo wlth, this disease and this treatment
"and feel'that; It should bo thoroughly tried dut
in hospitals a.nd sanitariums and tho public given
the bopefltof tho experiments at once, I hopo
you will do all In your power to bring- this to
tho attention of all sufferors, that they may try
tho remedy for thomsolves." i. ' i
COLLIERS WEEKLY prints this interest
ing story: "Some three years ago Gcorgo
S. Lof tus of Minneapolis, a reformer of tho 'do-it-now'
typo, turned up at tho office of James
Manahan, his lawyer. 'Jim,' ho said,' 'I want
you to sue the Pullman company.' $What for?'
'Oh, just sue them, and charge that their xatca
are exorbitant. I got In from Chicago this
morning. I had an upper berth, and couldn't
sleep, and they charged mo just as much .as I
would have had to pay for a lower.' Manahan
drafted an innocont looking compJaintr saying,
in a few words, that Pullman rates wero unjust.
There was no technical verbiage. He mailed this
to the interstate commorco commission atv Wash
ington. Throe months later Manahan was' noti
fied by mall that In ten days a special examiner
would bo in St. Paul prepared to hoar Ldftus'
case. Up to that date all tho evldenco Loftus
and his lawyer had was Loftus' one sleepless
night on tho train. On tho morning of tho hear
iftjg the court room was filled with ex-Pullman
porters. It was proved that tho porters received
$25 a month, out of which they-had to pay for
their meals on tho road and their unifdrms
They were compelled to replace all fflw'dls',
combs, and other lost articles. The public prac-
tically paid their salaries in tips. This was the
small beginning of one of tho largest results
yet achieved' in the prosecution of any trust.
There was no loud proclamation of tho setting
of government machinery in motion.- On
humble citizen liad merely' started to awwbefd
It was proved thatfho Pullman company earneiT
$,000 annually o4 cars that cost them '$l"tiiJb'
that the porters made up ten million "beds an
nually, and the company made in' 1907 over
$32,000,000 gross. Its- capital had Increased
from $100,000 'to '$150,000,000. Tho end has
now come In an order from the intorsatec6m-
merce commission, reludtantly agreed tdmftho!
Pullman company,, reducing its rates! 'tWmtf
five per cqht, about five per cent on-lowe"! berths
and about twenty per cent on upper berths1. ' It
may have significance for some of our readers
that George S. Loftus Is tho close friend and
political disciple of Robert M. LaFollette, "while
Manahan is the", close friend and apostle of the
Nebraska commoner. These two reformers,
working together, have saved travelers at least
$2,000,0.00 annually."
A CONTEST TO DECIDE the question, "What
are the- twenty-five most beautiful words
in the English language," was held before tho
New York Y. M. C. A. The prize winner was
John Shea, a lawyer. Twenty-one of the
twentyiflve words submitted by Shea were ac
cepted. The words are: Melody, splendor,
adoration, eloquence, virtue, innocence, mod
esty, faith, joy, honor, radiance, nobility, sym
pathy, heaven, love, divine, hope, harmony, hap
piness, purity and liberty. Three of tho words
rejected wero grace, justice and truth. The two
former were stricken out, it was explained, be
cause of the harshness of the "g" in grace and
the "j" in justice. The word "truth" was "elim
inated because of its metallic sound. - -
4tTO FIGHT FOR THE.RIGHX"
0
Associated Press dispatch from Wash
ington, February 6: Conspicuously hung
in the lobby back of the house tonight
was a placard bearing a quotation from a
speech by Minority Leader Clark, June 7
last, the placard having been placed there
by a republican to call attention to Mr.
Clark's opposition to any amendment of
the reciprocity bill. The placard read:
"I do nqt know how Jong we shall stay
out here, but as Jong as I am here I In
tend to fight for the right tp amend every
'section of oyery great bill which comes
into- this house, and I do not care a straw
whether tho democrats .control the house
or the republicans."
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