The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923, October 06, 1911, Page 7, Image 7

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OCTOBER 6, 1911
tion, show him this letter written by Lyman J.
Gage, when he was secretary of the treasury, to
Representative Gaines of Tennessee:
Treasury Department, Offlco of tho Secretary,
Washington, D. C., March 25, 1897. Sir I have
tho honor to acknowledge tho receipt of your lotter
of this date, requesting tho original letter, or a
certified Copy thereof, written by Mr. Secretary
Foster, February 20, 1893, addressed to tho chief
of the bureau of engraving and printing, authoriz
ing tho preparation of certain plates. In com
pliance with said request I submit below a correct
copy of tho letter in question, also a copy of tho
text of tho proposed bond.
Copy of letter.
Treasury Department, Oifice of tho Secretary,
Washington, D. C, February 20, 1893. Sir You
are hereby authorized and directed to prepare de
signs for the 3 per cent bonds provided in a senate
amendment to the sundry civil bill now ponding.
Tho denominations which should first rccelvo at
i. a?,,1,0l,s and 1.000s of tho coupon bonds,
anA,1???!1,0!0!.08 and ,10'000s of tho registered bonds.
This authority is given In advance of tho cnact-
2?l i'i u -vIie . rress'? contingencies, and you
aro directed to hasten the preparation of the de
signs and plates In overy possible manner. I
JS.0? ft mem?rP?um for your guidance in pro
?. ,V10 ficrIPt, for tho body of the bond. Re
spectfully yours, (Signed)
rvun mi , ,, CHARLES FOSTER, Secretary,
lng Ch,Gf of -ho Bureau of Engraving and Print
Text of tho Bond. " '
Washington, April 1, 1893. This bond is Issued
r In accordance with the provisions of section
Lan a?fc cnt,lt,ea "An act making appropriations
for sundry civil expenses of the government for
tho fiscal year ending Juno 30, 1894, and for other
purposes" approved March 3, 1893, and is redeem
able at tho pleasure of the United States after tho
ll dyi,.of A,p Av ' ?88 ,n coIn of the stand"
aQooValH?. ,f too United States on said March 3.
ic03 wIt,h Interest in such coin from tho day of
tho date hereof at the rate of 3 per cent per annum,
payable semi-annually on tho 1st days of October
and April in each year. Tho principal and interest
arc exempt from the payment of all taxes or duties
of the United States, as well as from taxation in
SMt?.' b&cS5oCUt1du?ry8tyaot&a.mUnlClPa'' l0Ca'
HOK. JOHN W. GAINE& G' AGE' S00"1
House of Representatives.
OUR OLD MISSOURI HOME
Where tha winding Mississippi
Meets its sister from the west, .
And, like an arm extending 'round
The land I love the best
Where waves of corn, unending
r; j; Are like white-capped ocean's foam
Their, garden fragrance sending, . '
O'er, our Old Missouri Home.
Chorus
Where rolls the red Missouri
Where grows tho shady trees
I see them o'er and o'er where e'er I roam;
Oh, the Ozarks are sunny,
In that land of Milk and Honey
I'm glad I have an Old. Missouri Home!
There lived my dear old Mother,
'Neath the hills of Nodaway,
Where I and little brother in the valley green
would play.
The trees were tall and growing
'Round the old church with the dome,
And sparkling rivers flowing
Past my Old Missouri Home.
Oh, the Mississippi river,-where first I learned
to float
From Canton to New Madrid, on our stately, tall
steamboat.
At the wheel I learned to steer,
Clear the eddys, cut the foam
And ever mem'ry wjll hold dear our Old Mis
souri Home.
Then in St. Louis City,
Where I came, and learned a trade;
Her modest maidens pretty, and so charmingly
arrayed.
I still see their bright eyes sparkling,
Where e'er away I roam,
I used to call one Darling! in our Old Missouri
, Home.
The great Eads bridge, the levees long,
The fac'tries towering high
The hum of trade that seems a song:
Tho thousands that march by
The streets so clean, Park-like and green,
The Cathedral's crowning dome!
No fairer land was ever seen
Than our Old Missouri Home. f
The spell of sweet St. Joseph,
The Kansas City "vim!"
The cornfields round Sedalla,
Just seem to me a hymn
The foothill's breeze is blowing,
O'er rich and quickening loam,
And roses red are growing
'Round our Old Missouri Home!
By Chas. C. Boland.
The Commoner.
Clever Falsehoods About Public Servants
The Kansas City Times prints the following
interesting story: Three extraordinary men sat
down to luncheon together In a Denver restau
rant recently, relates Georgo Creel in tho Colum
bian Magazine for September. Tho throe men
were Judge Ben B. Llndsey of tho Juvenile
court of Denver, Francis J. Honey, prosecutor
of the San Francisco boodlers, and ox-Senator
Frank J. Cannon of Utah, who is fighting poli
tics of the Mormon church.
The three men exchanged experiences of tho
slanders and libels that they had encountered
the lies that had been told about them to dis
credit them and their work with the people.
Mr. Creel sat with them and took notes. Ho
calls his story, expressively, "Polecat Fighting."
And ho writes:
" 'What's tho worst they ever said about you,
Heney?' Llndsey asked.
"And over their dishes tho three began to ox
change reminiscences of appalling slanders that
had been attempted upon them, of miraculous
escapes from those assassins of a public man's
reputation that are hired to follow every re
former, of amazing lies circulated by apparently
respectable newspapers and the still more amaz
ing credence given thoso lies by Intelligent
readers.
IIENEY'S THRILLING TIME
"Heney is a man of peculiarly winning geni
ality, with a smilo that is a broad, boyish grin.
He told as if it were a boarding school row
of the murderous attack that had been made
upon him by Morris Haas in San Francisco, and
the way in which public sympathy had been
turned against him and to Haas by newspaper
accounts of the shooting, not only in California,
but throughout the whole country, by the dis
patches of the San Francisco correspondents.
" 'You see, they made it out that Haas didn't
want to serve on that second jury which was to
try Abe Ruef, the grafter boss of San Francisco;
that ho fought against serving because he was
afraid his prison record would be found out
and ho had lived that down, they said.
" 'They described him as the proprietor of a
cigar store, who 'enjoyed the respect and esteem
of tho community' after years of hard work and
square living. And so, when I came along and
brutally exposed him not out of necessity, but
from the sheer joy of disgracing him the poor
devil went crazy, rushed out and got a' gun, ran
back again and shot me.
" 'As a matter of fact, Haas had been tho
keeper of a low grocery, and was openly living
with a woman to the shame of his wife and
family. His prison record wasn't a secret, and
he boasted to his paramour that his vote for
Ruof's acquittal would put him back on his feet.
There wasn't a single thing about the man's
case that called for the slightest consideration,
and it was imperative that I should get him out
of that jury box. As for going mad with the
disgrace and shooting me down in a burst of
insane rage, he hustled out of the courtroom
and wasn't seen again for seven months.
" 'It was'nt until Reuf's third trial that we
saw Haas again. Ten jurors had been selected,
and I was proving that tho eleventh man had
been a bribe giver and a participant in municipal
coiTuptlon. The defense had exhausted its
peremptory challenges, I had two left, and it
seemed a cinch that we would get two honest
men and begin the trial. There was pretty
general belief that Ruef would break down and
confess rather than take his chances with a
square Jury, and if Ruef confessed, that meant
bringing in the men higher up, you know.
" 'The Judge called a night session, the first
in the aso. As we entered the courthouse that
night, Haas was hanging around at the top of
a dark staircase. Foley, my body guard, hap
pened to bo walking ahead. He pushed Haas
out of the way. The next morning Haas came
into the courtroom, and for two weeks fairly
hannted the place. He was always trying to
slink into the press chairs just behind me, and
I can't tell you how many times Foley shooed
him away.'
"'What on earth was the matter with you!'
exclaimed Llndsey. 'Why didn't you have him
iirpflfccd ? '
" 'On what charge?' Heney shrugged. 'Right
up to the day of the shooting the papers ridi
culed my body guard, and if I had had Haas
arrested they would have yelled their heads off
over the 'terrible outrage' and my cheap 'grand
standing.' To tell you the truth, I didn't think
Haas had the nerve to pull anything off. All
through tho three trials tho courtroom was full
of the gang's real bad men, and I reckon I'd got
In tho habit of watching thorn. Anyway, I had
reached a sort of 'what's tho use stage. You
ought to know how It Is. Aftor tho first week
or two a man's nerve naturally lets down ho
comes to sco that if it's going to huppon It's
going to happen, and all the watching in tho
world won't help. Of course, I saw Uuof and
his attorneys going white ovory now and then.
Even tho judge took notice of their jumping
and dodging, and asked mo what I thought it
meant.
" 'Well, aftor two weeks of constant trying,
Haas slipped Foley's eye und got Into tho chair
right behind me close enough to press tho
derringer barrel right against my head. You
see, the Idea was to tako no chancos of Just
wounding me. But I happened to be laughing
at tho time. If I'd had my Jaws togethor I
would have lost more than my hearing in my
right ear.'
" 'A master slander,' Judicially commented
Senator Cannon. 'By far and away tho most
successful lie that the interests ever put across.
It alienated tho sympathy of people who could
not have been reached any other way.'
" 'It caught me,' shamefacedly confessed ono
of the newspaper men. 'Brand Whitlock and I
talked it over at the tiino and'
" 'And you thought I was a brutal, bullying
prosecutor who got what was coming to him,'
Honey nodded. 'Never mind apologizing. You
had plenty of good company. Wherever I go I
find honest peoplo still believing tho lie still
half convinced that I brought It all on myself.' "
Disreputable lies about himself which Judgo
Llndsey recounted Mr. Creel cites, and with tho
account of them ho gives tho throe reformers'
simple statements of how impossible it is to
answer tho lies and punish the blackguards.
"Judge Llndsey brought to that luncheon,"
writes Mr. Creel, "a recent copy of an obscure
weekly containing eight newspaper pages of
affidavits, letters, signed articles, interviews and
editorials accusing him of everything from mis
appropriating tho court's postage stamps to 'out
raging tho constitutional rights of children,' and
traducing the 'fair name' of tho state. Ho
spread it out before him with a patient smile.
'They're putting a copy of this Into ovory homo
in town,' he said. 'I hear that tho tramway
people ordered a hundred thousand copies.
They're mailing them all over tho country.'
"Heney grinned. 'Did you ever seo the
pamphlets they put out about me?'
" 'You bet I did,' Llndsey laughed. 'They
sent me all of them in order that I might be no
longer deceived' In you.'
"He turned to Cannon. 'I had a letter the
other day from a man In Utah warning me
against you, senator. He Inclosed a pamphlet
that said you had once stolen jewelry among
other things.'
"Cannon nodded, Indifferently. 'Are they
still circulating that?'
" 'But look here, judge,' ono of tho other
guests broko in. 'These aro affidavits.' And ho
slapped the paper with indignant hand. 'Can't
you have them prosecuted for perjury?'
" 'The district attorney says not,' Llndsey
explained. 'Not under the laws of Colorado as
ho Interprets them. He holds that It isn't per
jury unless the oath Is used' in a court pro
ceeding. I Imagine they got that ruling before
they printed. Besides, If I start to sue, I'll
never have time for anything1' else. And you
ought to know what chapce I'd have In tho
courts here. Why, the man who publishes this
paper is clerk of the district court that I'd havo
to suo in. Ho is a notorious pplitical tool of
tho public service corporations of Denver.'
" 'Sue nothing,' said Heney genially. 'Pay
no attention to them. You only encourage
them. That's their game. They want to put
you on tho defensive
" 'Answer one today,' Cannon agreed, 'and
there will bo ten to answer tomorrow. Answer
thoso and the next day there will be thirty "
Other lies, very desplcabie lies, circulated
about these samo fighters for the people and
about Brand Whitlock, Joseph W. Folk and
others are recalled In Mr. Creel's article. When
a man or a newspaper gets on the toes of
grafters and fights special privilege tho black
guards get busy. Mr. Creel asks 'Must tho
man who tries to save an American community
bo prepared to loso his own reputation and the
respect of the citizenship for whom he sacrifices
himself?" Kansas City Times.
11
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