K1;'
The Commoner."
JULY 11. 1M3''
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in 1826. He says he expects to live to the cen
tury mark. "I'm only eighty-seven years old,"
he says, "but somehow I can't hear like I once
could. For that reason I resigned as justice of
the peace." In 1805 Long camo to Cincinnati,
and from-there to Omaha, where he has resided
ever since. But long before ho left Massachu
stts he held office in the Masonic fraternity. In
Massachusetts he rode -on the first train that
ever ran over a completed railroad in this coun
try. That was the old Boston and Lowell. In
Cincinnati he held office in various lodges and
fraternal societies, but it was not until he came
to Omaha early in the 'GO's that he was elected
to public 'office. Omaha was only a collection
of mud huts and Indian tepees when Judge Long
was elected city auditor. When ho came up for
re-election he was defeated by Charles Goodrich,
the only defeat he ever .suffered. Afterward he
was elected to .the school board, on which he
served seventeen years, two terms as chairman
of the board. In 1891 he was elected a justice
of tho peace, which oflico ho hold until ho re
signed. O c& l
A NOVEL defense by a prisoner' is described in
a Macon, Mo., dispatch to the St. Louis Re
public, as follows: Christopher C. Carter, who
is serving a six month's term in the Macon jail,
in a signed statement to the local papers refutes
the charge that he was to be one of the benefi
ciaries of the liquor which some boys tried to
smuggle into the jail. The statement that the li
quor was seized by a deputy and a Shelby county
man was arrested for sending it, was printed in
a Macon paper. In a signed reply, Carter says
that instead of thinking of liquor and such
things, he' had been busily engaged in reading,
as follows: Thirty-two magazines. Two daily
newspapers. The Congressional Record of the
month. One volume of sacred history. Latest
decisions from southwestern reports, comprising
fifteen cases from Arkansas, twenty-seven from
Kentucky, thirty-five from Missouri, sixty from
Texas." "Since readying, them," Carter writes,
"the Missouri cases have been committed to
memory for future use. I have ts'o started two
manuscripts during the month, one of them be
ing upon the Dred Scott Case,' and the other on
'The Foljiep ,o'f Our Criminal Procedure,' to be
read before a national association of lawyers.
WJth such matter to occupy my time I am con
fident that a fair-minded public will never be
lieve that I sought anything to drink which
would cloud my intellect. I am not guilty."
CONCERNING America's vast business a
writer in the New York Press says: We
talk of tho economic growth of the United States
as the most amazingly rapid that has ever taken
place anywhere in the world. And now and
then it is helpful to have some figures to bear
us out. The Nation's Business, published by the
chamber of commerce of the United Sta'tes,
furnishes them. Fifty years ago exports were
$5.83 per capita, compared with $22.41 now;
imports were $5.79, compared with $16.94 now.
But the most surprising thing is that the total
commerce of the United Sates a half century ago,
according to this publication, was less than one
fourth that of the single port of New York in
1912. The exports and imports at New York
are given as $1,793,000,000 for last year, $2,
000,000 more than London and $120,000,000
more than Hamburg, which leads Liverpool by
a small margin. Assuming that the figures for
18G2 do not include the then blockaded ports
of the confederacy, they cover New York, Phila
delphia, Baltimore, Boston and the entire Pacific
coast. They show as strikingly as anything
could show what a rich inheritance- America pos
sesses not only in natural wealth, but in the in
dustry and enterprise of its people, and what
a great obligation rests upon the nation to use
this wealth aright.
V m &
A TRIBUTE to tho American city is paid by
CX the Philadelphia Public Ledger in this way:
Forty years ago the American city was regarded
as hopeless. Crowded tenements, dirty alleys,
haunts of vice and cesspools of disease were
accepted as inevitable results of dense popula
tions. Epidemics were expected and when they
came and killed their thousands they were
looked upon as necessary evils. But science
found the microbes and tho civic conscience
found the joy of public service. Thus in a third
of a century a miracle was wrought, and today
the city shows up better in the health and in
sanity and defective statistics than the country.
The pressing problems of better living are found
in the rural sections. There is much to do in tho
way of sanitation and ventilation, of purer water
and more sunshine. There its a noble gain to
bo made in giving more variety and interest to
country life. The lonosomeness can bo changed
and the change moans a wonderful uplift In tho
average of tho now generation. Of course, the
cities tire far from perfection but they are also
far from their conditions of forty years ago,
and city people have Been and learned. Soon
they will be scattered throughout tho rural re
gions. Why not take with them a purpose to
use their knowledge wisely? In helping tho
peoplo in the country to bettor living and
healthier ways they will be helping themselves,
for we know only too woll that tho energy
of tho city is fed by tho new blood from the
country, and the better and purer this blood is
the better for the city.
w t? fc
A PROTEST against war talk by men of
authority is registered by the Cltvoland
Leader. Tho Loader says: Major General
Leonard Wood says: "We know that a war Is
coming. It is arrant nonsense to say that the
day of war is over. Wars are not made by in
dividuals, but by the pressure of public events.
If thero were war tomorrow the United States
would need 16,000 trained officers to command
600,000 men. We have 4000 men prepared to
command." Senator Elihu Root says: "It is
no longer governments, but people who do most
to bring on wars. We in America must learn
that wo can not continue a policy of peace with
insult. We must learn civility Wo must learn
that when an American sovereign speaks of the
affairs of a foreign nation he must observe those
rules of courtesy by which alone the peace of
the world can be maintained." Let us contrast
the words of these two eminent men tho one
a professional soldier of high rank, and the
other a statesman of broad vision. Major
General Wood is doing his best to promote a
larger army, and a more efficient army, and ho
has the sympathy of a majority of Americans iii
his efforts. It Is agreed that under present in
ternational conditions it is the part of wisdom
reasonably to increase our military resources.
But it is true, as Senator Root says, that flory
talk fans the flame of war. It is just such out
bursts as the foregoing by Major General Wood
in his commencement address at tho Carnegie
Institute of Technology that Senator Root warns
against. Senator Root Is right. Suppose the
German kaiser were to speak as Major General
Wood has done, or suppose the czar or the Mi
kado or King George were to do so? How soon
would follow such Intemperate language the
roar of big guns of dreadnoughts?
t5 i5 w
TTE first White House wedding Is announced
In a dispatch, carried by tho Associated
Press as follows: Tho President and Mrs.
Wilson announced tho engagement of their
second daughter, Miss Jessie Woodrow Wilson,
to Francis Bowes Sayro of Lancaster, Pa. Tho
wedding is expected to take place next Novem
ber at tho White House. Mr. Sayro is at present
at attorney in the office of District Attorney
Whitman of Now York. While close friends of
both families havo known of the engagement
for somo time, announcement was withhold.
White House officials accompanied tho brief
announcement with a biography of Mr. Sayro.
Ho is twenty-eight years old and after prepar
ing at the Hill school at Pottstown, Pa., and
Lawrenceville, N. J., graduated from Williams
college in 1909. Ho was manager of tho foot
ball team there, valedictorian of his class and
interested in Y. M. C. A. work. Ho spent two
summers with Dr. Wilfred T. Grenfell in his
missionary work on the coast of Labrador, and
studied law at Harvard law school, where he
graduated last year "cum laude." He has
traveled extensively during his vacations, spend
ing last summer in Alaska and northern Siberia.
Mr. Sayre comes from a collegiate family. His
father was the late Robert Heyshaw Sayre, for
a long time president of tho board of trustees
of Lehigh university, and builder of the Lehigh
Valley railroad. His mother was Martha Finloy
Novln, daughted of John Williamson Nevin,
theologian and president of Franklin and
Marshall college at Lancaster, Pa. She is
descended from Hugh Williamson of North Caro
lina, one of tho framers of tho constitution.
She is a sister of Robert J. Nevin, head of the
American church of Rome, Italy, and a first
cousin of Ethelbert Nevin, tho composer. Miss
Wilson Is twonty-four years old and was edu
cated at Goucher college, Baltimore, where she
specialized in. political Kclonco. Sho has don-iW
much settlement work In Philadelphia ntyTU'fftt. '9q
neon actively identified with tho Y, yf. O. ,A,1
having rocoii'lly inado many Bpoqchos in Its Jkj- .
half. Whilo Mr, Sayro la not known toWusblnj?
tonians, ho has in ado sovoral quiet Httlo vlsltn to
tho Whlto House In rccont months and was a fre
quent visitor at tho Wilson home at Prlncoton, ,
N. J. Tho announcement wan received with '
koon Intorost In social circle of tho national
capital, us the wedding starts tho winter season
with an Important social function. Not fllnrof
Miss Alice Koosovolt and Former Representative
Longworth of Ohio wcro married has there been
a wedding at tho Whlto House, and many yoarH
prior to that tho wedding of Cleveland took
place. .
w 0 w
T'llii women of Illinois are rejoicing thono
days.- A writer in the Lincoln (Nob.) Journal
says: By tho time Governor Dunne had signed
the Illinois woman suffrage bill tho scope of
that measure had become known. It was not
oasy to bellovo that the Illinois legislature had
suddenly and without public discussion admitted
woniQn to a voto In tho vital mattors of govern
ment. Women havo had municipal suffrage in
Kansas for .thirty years, and no conspicuous re
sults have been shown. If this was all that had
been done in Illinois, it was Important but not
revolutionary. As tho now law Is analyzed It
is found to mean much more than that. Besides
a vote lor president, which tho Kansas woman
had never had, tho Illinois lav grants woman
suffrage on some county offices. But tho most
interesting test of women's votes comes by tho
way of tho very municipal suffrage that Kansas
women have. The women may now govern tho
nation's second largest city on equal tonus with
men. What will tho womon do with Chicago?
Will they keep Hlnky Dink and Bathhouse John
in tho council? Will the town contlnuo tho easy
going policy toward capitalized vice? Illinois Is a
local option stato in liquor mattors. Tho suffrago
extension appoars to give women a voice In local
liquor roforendums. Where wero tho browors
whon this bill was passing? In the western
states where womon voto they do not appear to
havo landed on the saloons with any mora force
than the man had been doing, yet tho liquor
capitalists are in a stato of anguish over tho
spread of women's votes. Illinois will confirm
or allay that fear. Friends of votes for women
will say that specific results aro no fair test of
tho expediency of woman suffrage, that womon
aro ontltlod to a voice in public affairs regard
less of tho tono of voice. Nevertheless, tho re
sult will havo weight with many of tho men
whose votes will he needed to extend women's
votes In other states. The specific results of
women's votes In Illinois will havo an Important
influence upon other suffrage campaigns.
DR. LEONARD P. AYRES, speaking In Phila
delphia, said that not long ago ho and his
staff had been asked to examine tho school cur
riculum of a certain large Now England town.
He discovered that most of the children dropped
out of that school at tho seventh grade. Prob
ing further, he found that tho courso in arith
metic in that grade dealt almost wholly wlth the
various tables of measurement. Ho took ten
representative problems from this courso and
submitted them to ten business and professional
executives In New York city, men whose salaries
range from $3,000 to $15,000 a year. Tho
story continues: "The highest mark was scored
by the secretary of a well-known propagandist
society In social work. His grade was 25,
There were several zeroes. Tw.o of tho problems
were concerned with buying and selling paper
in bulk. One of the men who took the examina
tion was tho editor of a magazine and another
was tho head of a book-publishing house, Both
failed on these two problems. They declared
that tho terms employed in the problem had not
been in current use for fifty years. Each of tho
ten men explained his low grade by saying: "I
learned that stuff once, but I haven't had any
uso for it since."
A FAIR CHANCE
It Is an injustlco to Mr. Bryan to say ho is
at last eating salt out of the hand of tho
goldbugs. He Is simply standing back of his
chief. Mr. Bryan is determined, so far as ho Is
concerned, that Mr, Wilson shall have a fair
chance. And, by the way, apparently that la
all the president asks. Sioux City Iowa)
Journal (rep.)
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