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MARCH 3, 111
ment of Justice Edward Douglas White as chief
justice of the supreme court by President Taft.
What would Lee, the perfect type of a south
erner, think if he were here today to hear that
President Taft, a son of an. abolitionist, a
Yankee and the son of a Yankee, had appointed
to the highest appointive office in the world, the
chief justice of our supreme court, a hero who
was a private in the southern army?' he said.
'Would it not make his heart glad to have seen
it? . The day of thanksgiving is here when a
confederate Veteran sits on the bench as chief
justice of the, supreme court of the United
States, and I thank God that the day has come
when the northern brother has come to do
justice to the southern men. If Lee were alive,
do you think any northern man, even the presi
dent, would have been fairer than he? Would
he have let anyone be more generous than he?
A northern congFess had put Lee's statue in
the hall of fame. I hope I would not seem
disloyal to my father, who was buried in the
gray uniform of the confederacy or to Georgia,
the state which gave me birth and education,
for mo to say that we are just as true and
good Americans as President Taft or any brother
man of the northern states. I believe that the
men of the north will teach their children to
honor the s greatest man of the south and that
the men of the south will teach their children
to honor the greatest man of the north. And'
I believe that the reunited women of the coun
try will teach their children to honor the
greatest men of the nation, and that they will
look back upon one a southerner and a cavalier
and the other a northerner and a commoner and
do them honor as the greatest men of Ameri
can history.' "
CONCERNING ANNUITIES AND old age pen
sions, the Saturday Evening Post says:
"Canada established postal savings banks forty
years ago and now has about a hundred and
sixty thousand depositors in such banks, with
$45, 000,000 to their credit. Two years "ago,
as a further encouragement to thrift, the Do
minion government began writing annuities. A
Canadian aged twenty, say, may pay in twenty
five cents a week at any post-affice and be as
sured of an annual income of eighty-five dollars
at the age of fifty-five or of a hundred and
thirty dollars at the age of sixty. He may pay
in ten dollars a year and receive an annuity of
a hundred dollars at the age of sixty. Four
dollars and seventy-five cents a year paid in
on account of a child five years old insures
him a yearly income of a hundred dollars at
the ago of sixty. Payments may be made in
any regular amounts at any regular intervals
and the annuity will be whatever they produce,
compounded at four per cent interest, free of
expense. How many young men who are self
supporting at all could not spare twenty-five
cents a week? The Canadian government
makes nothing out of the plan unless getting
many people of small means into the habit
of putting a little sum every week or month or
quarter may be counted a national gain. We
don't seem to count it so on this side of the
border, but Canada is more interested in British
affairsthan we are; and consequently, no doubt,
was more impressed by the spectacle of the
British government appropriating many millions
of pounds tc pension aged and indigent citizens."
WRITING IN EVERYBODY'S Magazine,
Frederick Townsend Martin, a New York
millionaire, declares that the average employe
in this country produces $1,280 of wealth every,
year. Of this amount ho gets $437. The remainder,-
$843, goes into the hands of other
men, the capitalist or the exploiter oj labor.
Mr. Martin adds: "I do not mean to say that
all the dividends and interest are gathered by
the idle rich. Such a condition as that can
exist only once in the history of the nation. It
came about in Rome and it led to the fall. It
came about in France and it led to the terror.
Here in America it has gone far, to be sure,
and the tendency is onward; but it has not yet
reached a point where we can say 'tomorrow
the harvest is ripe For thirty years we have
been piling up wealth In the hands of men who
do not work. It has gone so far that today, in
every city in the union, the class of idle rich
has reached proportions that, to the thoughtful
student, are alrming. Machinery, instead of
emancipating the worker, has welded chains of
industrial slavery about their necks. The fruit
of invention is plucked by the hands of the
few. The once powerful middle class, which
is the safety of every nation, Is weak and is
very day declining. When the nineteenth
century closed America worshipped wealth. It
The Commoner,
sanctified its possessors. It deifies the multi
millionaires. Plutocracy is disgorging, but pub
lic opinion is relentless. With trumpet and
drum and black banners flying, came the army
of muckrakers. And their revelations made
the nation heartsick. We can no longer blind
ourselves with the outworn boast that the
American workingman is the highest paid
artisan in the world. We know those lying
figures too well. We are learning that what
we give the workers in wares, wo took back
from them in. the higher cost of necessities, in
food, in clothing, in medicines, in insurance, in
a hundred devious ways, all with, one tendency
to keep the living margin down. Today we of
the class that rules, that draws unearned profits
from the toil of other men, know full well that
the time is almost here when there must be a
true accounting."
WHAT PRIVILEGE MEANS In England,"
tt is the title of an interesting article,
printed in the New York World. The World
writer says: "An American in London, seeing
in the house of lords a small body of men, dis
tinguished in appearance and of good ability,
discussing public questions in a dignified man
ner, may wonder at the outcry against them.
In fact, the house of lords is a body of some
600 members, less than 100 of whom attend
to their duties. There were "wild lords" in
the crisis last winter who asked of policemen
their way to their seats. Nor Is the average
lord an able man, as compared with the com
mons. This would matter little, since only the
ablest peers commonly attend debates, if they
were not representative solely of special in-,
.terests. The house is not even an aristocratic'
body in family and lineage, since the old peer
ages constantly die out. A family so recent
as the Pitts won four peerages; all are extinct.
Not one of the marquises antedates our revolu
tion. Less than one-third of the earls do so.
From 1800 to 1907 376 peerages were created.
From 1857 to 1907 123 tory peers were mado
and 92 liberal peers, half of whom afterward
turned tories. A few new peers are scientists,
soldiers and statesmen. 'But most of them are
irremovable Guggenheims, Scotts and Penroses,
mere men of privilege. Alsopp's ale, Bass's ale
and Gilbey's whiskeys have peers. Guinness's
stout has two. The Rothschilds, Lubbocks and
other financial houses have peers by. the score.
Tory newspaper-owners are ennobled; and also
one who owns both tory and liberal papers. Re
calling the scandalous origin of many peerages,
the natural son of a lord was ennobled so
late as 1859. Two archbishops and twenty
four bishops sit as lords spiritual, representing
a minority but legislating for the majority, at
salaries of $15,000 to $75,000 a year, which
are a public charge. The consequences in daily
life of this union of the church, the. saloon,
entailed land and big business to control public
business are to an American mind amazing. We
may name three examples. First the support,
by taxation, of a state church in England and
Wales, but not In Ireland, where the lords long
blocked disestablishment. Second The taxa
tion of land upon its income, not its value, mak
ing it possible to check the growth of a village
or even depopulate it and pay farm taxes on
land needed for habitation. Third The huge
national folly of permitting a mere license to
sell liquors to acquire property value, so that
even the proposal to acquire and close saloons
at fourteen years' purchase is denounced in
pulpits and on platforms as "confiscation."
Upon the other side, the peers have opposed as
long as they dared, every attempt to alleviate
the political and industrial condition of work
ingmen, except when the cynical Disraeli
'caught the liberals bathing and stole their
clothes.' Is it any wonder that a finally eman
cipated British people propose to 'end or mend'
the house of privilege?"
THE ADMONITION, "bear ye one another's
burdens," was well obeyed in New York
City recently" and the story is told by the New
York World in this way: 'A boy three and a
half years old stood crying at the corner of
One Hundred and Fifth street and Third avenue
about 7 o'clock last night. He had light hair,
blue eyes, and was dressed in a dark gray mil
itary suit, with black leather belt, black shoes
and white stockings. His little gray cap was
pulled down over his eyes, and though he strove
- manfully not to cry the tears persisted in trick
ling down his rosy cheeks. Down the avenue
another little boy came trudging. He was
about five years old, and also wore a gray suit
and gray overcoat. His shoe3 and stockings
were black and his black peak cap was pushed
Jauntily back on.hla head. Ho was trying his
best to whistle. When the elder of tho boys
spied tho youngor one crying ho paused and
watched tho little fellow for a momont. Tho
boy was a stranger to him and at first ho did
not know what to do. But as the child's sobs
cpntinued ho threw formality to tho winds and,
running over, put his arms about the boy and
asked, 'What's the matter?' 'I'm losted,' sobbed
tho child. 'I'm losted too,' said tho older boy,
'but don't cry; I'll tako caro of you.' He potted
tho other one and comforted him as best ho
could. After a few minutes tho smaller boy
took heart in tho consoling words of tho
stranger and stopped crying. 'I'm. .losted to,'
repeated tho older, 'and you come with mo and
we'll find a policeman.' Hand in hand tho boys
started down tho avenuo, and at One Hundred
and Fourth street they found Policeman Dono
huo. 'We're both losted,' said tho older boy.
Donohuo asked them many questions, but was
unable to learn their names or anything about
them. They were sent to the Children's
society."
p EFERRING TO tho Now York word contest
XL the Chicago Record-Herald says: "A con
test conducted by an eastern branch of the
Y. M. C. A. for determining the twenty-fivo most
beautiful words in the English language was
won by a young man who cannlly mado up his
list from such vocables as these: Melody,
splendor, adoration, eloquence, virtue, Inno
cence, modesty, faith, joy, honor, radiance,
nobility, sympathy, heaven, love, divine, hope,
harmony, happiness purity and liberty. That
is to say the victor selected words for their
meaning rather than for their sound. Ho ap
pealed to association rather than to the ear.
But Is 'hope,' to tho impartial auditor, more
melodious than 'soap?' Is the auricular address
of 'splendor' moro alluring than that of
'spender?' Is not 'infernal' as musical as
'divine?' Is not 'servitude' moro mellifluous
than 'liberty?' Would 'faith,' .with its th-sound,
or 'innocence,' with its clash "of final s's, make
any kind of appeal to tho non-English ear?
Recent efforts in England along these same
lines have brought back into notice 'that
.blessed word 'Mesopotamia,' along with many
high-sounding geographical appellations em
ployed by Milton. The words 'amber' and
'nightingale' havo also had their ardent sup
porters. It seems, after all, as if a 'beautiful'
word must fulfill three requirements: It must
sound well to tho ear, it must print well to
the eye, and most important of all it must
enjoy long consecrated connotations. A fourth
requirement that It should sound well to the
fastidious ear of a man unacquainted with tho
language to which it belongs, might be too rig
orous. Of all these requirements, that of racial
association and appeal seems to be the most
important, and it is apparently on such grounds
that the contestant whose list we give carried
off tho prize."
PRESIDENT TAFT, In a letter dated Decem
ber 29, 1910 and read in three thousand
Sunday schools in the United States sounded
the keynote of a total abstainers' move
ment. Tho letter Is addressed to Sunday school
pupils as "My Dear Young Friends," and reads:
"The excessive use of intoxicating liquor is tho
cause of a great deal of the poverty, degrada
tion and crime of the world, and one who
abstains from tho use of such liquor avoids a
dangerous temptation. Abraham Lincoln showed
that he believed this, in writing out for his boy
friends the pledge of total abstinence, so often
quoted. Each person must determine for him
self the course ho will take in reference to his
tastes and appetites; but those who exercise
the self-restraint to avoid altogether tho temp
tation of alcoholic liquor are on tho safe and
wiser path."
THE HUNTSVILLE (Alabama) Daily Times
prints this editorial: "There is no denying
the fact that William Jennings Bryan is the
most potent factor in the democratic party
today. The party has many big men but none
of them have been able to hold out and keep
themselves before the public as has Mr. Bryan.
He is a man with distinctly ideas of his own
and what he has to say will largely shape the
next democratic platform. In three presidential
defeats Mr. Bryan has risen bigger in the est!-'
mation of his friends and the public all the
while. Tho principles he has advocated were
taken up and enunciated by tho republicans.
Mr. Bryan is about ten years ahead of his or
any contending party. He is one of our greatest
American citizens."
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