MARCH 5, 1903.
THE NEBRASKA INDEPENDENT.
3
HON, A. C. SHALLENBEHGER
Private Secretary RUley Gires ft Rmoim
of lb Work AeeomplUbed la
Two Years
I am persuaded that the average
citizen is unacquainted with the
amount of work it falls to the lot of
a congressman to perform in the dis
charge of his whole duty to the people
of his district I have determined,
therefore, to give somewhat in detail
what has passed under my observa
tion during the two years I have
served Hon. A. C. Shallenberger in the
capacity of his private secretary.
During' that time there have been
received and answered approximately
5,000 letters and postal cards making
requests of various kinds. This is one
of the larger tasks imposed. As to the
distribution of seeds, of all varieties
of garden, vegetable, flower, lawn
grass, sugar beet, sorghum, forage
crop, etc., 30,000 packages have been
sent out In addition to this, a great
many requests for wheat, oats, alfalfa
and other grains have been filled To
this feature of the work may be "add
ed the sending out of about 300 trees,
300 strawberry plants and 100 grape
vines. Practically two-thirds of the
garden and vegetable seeds, 20,000
packages, have been sent out to indi
vidual addresses over the district.
The remainder have been turned over
to newspapers whose editors were
kind enough to assist in getting them
into the hands of the people for use.
The minor supplies of various kinds
were sent out upon request.
Over 40,000 farmers bulletins have
been distributed, these in the same
way as the seeds; while over 5,000
doses of black leg vaccine have gone
out to those needing it Of public
documents of one kind and another,
embracing some of rare value and the
whole relating to some branch of the
governmental service, more than 7,-
000 have been distributed. -During
the two years, 50 petitions
for rural free delivery have been re
ceived and indorsed and their early
establishment urged upon the post
office department, while 35 new routes
have been established. During this
period 5 new postofilces have been es
tablished and 15 new star mail routes
started. This fails to include depart
mental work, necessitating many trips
to the various officials, for the purpose
of securing passports for some who
contemplate traveling abroad, of look
ing up the war record of some old
veteran, the present whereabouts of
some Spanish war veteran, the perusal
of land titles, the transferring of mail
clerks, the examination of patent
claims, and a vast number of other
details, many of them small them
selves, but in the aggregate consider
able. Of the pension business, all that
need be said is that this is the larg
est single feature of the congress
man's work. Of the period of which
1 write, some 600 cases have been
looked after in the pension office,
more than one-third of which have
been allowed and the remainder ma
terially hastened toward adjudica
tion. Of the work more closely connected
with congress itself, it is now proper
to speak. Mr. Shallenberger has in
troduced some 75 private bills, of
various tenor, such as those to grant
pensions, to give war medals, to cor
rect military records, etc., and of
these 6 pension bills have already
passed both houses of congress and
been signed by the president. He has
introduced one resolution of inquiry
into the conduct of the war depart
ment, and presented 200 petitions of
one kind and another from various so
cieties, organizations and citizens of
the district.
His most noted bill has proven his
anti-trust measure, much discussion of
which has occurred in committee and
in the press of the country. Mr. Shal
lenbrper has introduced three other
bills of special importance to certain
towns. His bill appropriating $125,
000 to erect a public building at Hast
ings passed during the first session of
this congress. The bill to appropriate
$10,000, to purchase a site for a pub
lic building at Grand Island, will pas3
this session, while the bill for the ben
efit of McCook remains unacted upon.
His reputation as an orator has ben
established by the delivery of six
speeches, two on the Fowler bill, one
on - trusts, one on irrigation, one on
oleomargarine and one on the Rebec
ca J. Tavlor civil service case. Of
these about 40,000 copies have been
distributed.
Of Mr. Shallenberger's stand upon
public questions, and particularly lo
cal affairs of interest, the people are
generally familiar, and this short re
view of the work done will be con
vincing that he has left no stone un
turned the unturning of which would
benefit the Fifth district That this
vast amount of labor could te per
formed in two years will be surprising
to many, but it will illustrate the ad
vantage of sending to congress men
who by energy and talent are equipped
for the place. H. W. RISLEY.
Taxing Coal Mines
Editor Independent: I have just
seen your editorial of January 22, "The
Situation," for the first time. As the
conditions are still essentially as they
were then, it may not be too late for a
few words. You say, "there are coal
mines sufficient to furnish all the coal
the people require there are railroads
enough to haul it to consumers; there
are people with money in hand ready
to buy," and you say there is a wide
ly extended coal trust, with enormous
powers of extortion. All this is true,
but, to my mind, you omit the most
important consideration of all. You
say nothing of the fundamental fea
ture which enables a few men to form
such a mighty trust the feature
which is, in fact, the basis of all suc
cessful trusts, viz: the control of the
sources of supply.
Now, extend your analysis to the
end and you expose this condition,
abundance of coal to be had for the
digging, thousands of men anxious to
dig it, and other thousands anxious to
buy it when mined. But standing be
tween these two groups is the coal
land owner, requiring tribute from
both parties. He refuses to let the
miners dig unless they give him all
the product but a bare subsistence. He
refuses to let the consumers buy until
they pay "all the traffic will stand."
Owning the coal land, he has no com
petition. He can sell to whom he
will. So the coal dealers, in the cit
ies at least, have become but mere
agents of the mine owners and we have
the intolerable condition of a coal
trust, "refusing to sell coal except at
exorbitant prices," and idle factories
and perishing children, as results.
The remedy, in my judgment, is not
to be found in jailing dealers, or even
mine owners, for refusing to sell coal.
They have as much right to hold their
coal for a higher price as farmers
have to hold their corn. But this
remedy, even if applied, would be in
effective. The owner would say, "Very
well. I will sell what I have, but I
will not mine more," and the old con
dition would soon return. The law
does not compel, and it cannot compel,
the mine owner to hirn men and pro
duce coal any more thsn it can com
pel a man to ma' e brick of the clay
in his yard. Neither is the remedy
to be found in a government railroad,
greatly to be desired though that is.
A government road to the very heart
of the anthracite fields would not
compel the sinking of a single shaft.
All the hard coal beds are actually or
virtually owned by the same parties,
and there are, as you say, ample trans
porting facilities now.
While law cannot compel these
mine owners to furnish coal as it is
needed, it can, by means of a tax,
make it profitable for them to do so
and Exceedingly unprofitable for them
to refuse. This, I think, is the sim
plest, if, indeed, not the only, effec
tive remedy for this private monopoly.
Therefore tax coal lands till the Penn
sylvania railroad cannot afford to hold
them idle. Then still further encour
age mining by exempting shafts, ma
chinery, tools all products of labor,
from taxation. The result will be more
mines and more coal. If the Penn
sylvania railroad refuses to haul it
another road will be built by either
private or government capital. The
situation will then be, for the miner,
wider opportunities and higher wages;
for the consumer, fuel at cost of pro
duction; for the general public the
added benefit of increased revenue
with taxes more nearly in proportion
to the privileges enjoyed by the tax
payer. A DISCIPLE OF
HENRY GEORGE.
(Our friend forgets that there are
yet great areas of undeveloped coal
fields which cannot be developed be
cause of railroad discriminations in
freight. Out in western Colorado and
eastern Utah the mountains are full
of coal; but only a few mines are
developed beyond what is necessary
for a limited local supply, because the
coal cannot be shipped over the rail
roads to other points. A government
railroad would enable these mines to
market their coal in other cities in
competition with the product of other
mines.
If the Pennsylvania railroad is pow
erful enough to successfully refuse to
haul coal, or refuse to do any other
thing which is required by law of a
common carrier, isn't it probable, or
at least possible, that it might be pow
erful enough to refuse to pay the tax
which- our friend seems to think
would solve the coal problem? Ed.
Ind.)
Some people lean so heavily on the
Lord that they forget how to use
their legs,,
r.
i
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V
"Seed Potatoes"
You cannot afford to plant knotty, fcaby, water soaked potatoes
for seed this year. What you want is gxd, solid, regular sized,
free from scab potatoes and yoi get all this when you buy our
Red River grown potatoes. In dry years these potatoes will
yield a bountiful crop while native potatoes will yield nothing.
Parties who have given these potatoes repeated trials find that
the northern potatoes yield from one-third more to twice as
much as native potatoes and you get a crop that you are proud
of, one that is much earlier than the native potato and one
that sells much better. We have one car on the way now from
near Fargo, N. D and more will follow. One party has already
placed an order for 2f0 bushels.
"Red River Early Ohio"
This is our standard extra early main crop for Nebraska. Our
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"Early Six Weeks"
While this is not quite such a heavy yielder ai our Red River
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"Acmes"
This probably is'the most profitable extra early potato in cul
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"CARMAN NO. 3"
This is a handsome main crop potato of large sire, yields very
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We have several other varieties and they are all Northern stock
Write us for catalogue and prices in large lots, stating the
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III P. O. Box K,
Lincoln, Nebraska.
The Daisy Seed Farm
Columbian Beantv Seed Corn, the premimn corn of the world. Ik took the preninm
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$100, One Peck $3 50, Mall Bwskel 4-e. Cm Bushel $7.00, T we Buckets $ia.oo.
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p For a success,
I THE DAISY SEED FARM
J Daisy, Forsyth Co., N. C
I
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CORN
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Carefully selected seed.shelledorin the ear. Illus
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Write today. Address C. M. WEST, Shenandoah, la.
zz hh n w 1 ixiii ixi 1 ikNpk im
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RELIABLE SEED CORN
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600 Acres. 13 Greenhouses. Established 1852.
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Park 8U, Bloomlaton, Illinois.