8
THE NEBRASKA INDEPENDENT.
MARCH IS,
the Nebraska. Independent
Lincoln. Utbraaka.
LIBERTY BUILDING.
1328 0 STREET
"Entered according to Act of ConjTefiof March
8, 1879, at the Postoffice t Lincoln, Kebrk,a
: second class mail matter.
PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY.
FOURTEENTH YEAR.
s $1.00 PER YEAR 1
When making remittances do not leare
money with news agencies, postmasters, etc,
to' be forwarded by them. ' They frequently
forget or remit li different amount limit wmm
left with them, and the ' subscriber fails to get
pi oper credit.
Address all communications, and make all
drafts, money orders, etc., payable to
Zbt Utbraski Tndtptadtnt,
Lincoln," Neb.
Anonymous communications will not be
noticed. Rejected manuscripts will not be
returned.
The republican dallies are telling
wonderful stories about the abolish
ment of passes under the Elkins bill,
but on a recent train the editor of
The Independent saw more passes
flashed on the conductor than he ever
saw .on one passenger car in all hi3
fife before.
Silver went up nine points within
three days after the passage, of the
bill to appoint a commission to go to
Europe and get an agreement to fix a
ratio between silver and gold. It is
now hovering around the 50-cent
mark. The Independent predicted
that about three months ago.
It takes just fifty-one votes to pass
a bill in the Nebraska house of rep
resentatives, and the railroads never
buy more than the exact number need
ed. Just that number was needed to
exempt the railroads from paying
. their just share of taxes and they
lined , up. Baldwin didn't need any
more, therefore" he did not 'buy them.
. Coffee in New York for 51-2 cents
a pound? Out here the ordinary grade
is 25 cents a" pound and the better va
rieties from 15 to 20 cents higher, "to
the fanner who has to buy coffee and
sell ; corn it , seems that well some
ten thousand or more of them who
jread The ' Independent in this state
know how , it seems without .being
told.
" The dai'.'e3 ha e of late been filling
their columns with articles telling
young men how to "succeed." v Col
umns are written about "success."
From what The Independent can gath
er from all this writing the conclu
sion must follow that tie worst fail
ure in all the history of making is
that of a man called Jesus of Naza
reth. He never made a million dol
lars. Worst of all, he never tried to.
Nearly all the idols worshipped by
the heathen are made in Christian
lands and are manufactured by men
professing to be Christians. The
principal places where they are made
are Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania,
Birmingham, in England, and several
factories in Germany. Of all the
hypocrites that reside on the face" of
the earth, Christian nations can fur
nish the most numerous and best
specimens.
A Chicago court spent a week or
two trying to find twelve men who did
not know that there had been a coal
famine or that coal had raised in
price to act as a jury to try the mem
bers of the coal trust When it at
( last succeeded, the operators come-in-'
to court and confessed that they had
entered "into a formal agreement
among themselves to fix prices and
restrict the output of fuel, but pro
tested that they had not done it with
criminal intent and that the combina
tion was not Illegal. ,
WHO KNOTT
The editor of The Independent has
received many inquiries about the car
famine. The public knows that for
weeks it was impossible to get cars,
but just at present the sidings all
over - the state , are crowded with
"empties" and trains of empties as
long as can be handled-- on the sid
ings go scooting over the state in ev
ery direction. "Where were these' cars
six weeks and two months ago?
In Investigating this subject, In
formation has been obtained from cor
respondents in Chicago and New
York, from bankers, elevator men,
merchants and others in this state,
and this is what those men say, some
giving one thing as the cause and some
another, the first is from New York.
The thirteen men who rule this
country through the power of ac
cumulated capital, of which The In
dependent spoke a while ago, got to
gether in New York and having come
to the conclusion that there was dan
ger of a panic on account of the
stringency in the money market, de
termined to cut down the amount of
business being transacted in the coun
try and limit it to such a volume that
there would be no strain on the New
York banks. New regulations were
issued to railroad employes, one of
which was that no freight should be
started out from any chief point of
shipment until there was a full train
to haul from each place. No empties
were to be sent west. Cars were to
be held until they were loaded with
merchandise for the spring trade. Way
cars that became empty, were to be
shunted out on side tracks and left
Whenever one car became nearly
empty, the train men were required to
transfer the' goods to another car and
leave the empty. -That is, no empty
cars were to be hauled anywhere.
That, it was thought, would not, only
accomplish the desired object of re
stricting trade, but be a great money
maker for the roads. That is one ex
planation sent to The Independent.
Here is another: '
The roads were gradually increasing
the work that trainmen were required
to do without any Increase in their
pay. The man who had fired one of
the old engines and could do it with
put overwork was put on one of the
big moguls where the wrork was more
than doubled on account of the size
of the engine and the increase in the
tonnage hauled. He get no extra pay
for this increase of work. The. length
and weight of the trains was greatly
increased and the work of every" train
man was largely augmented. , Against
this condition of affairs the men at
last rebelled. They refused to per
form the service required of them.
They side-tracked loaded cars here
and there, without any record being
made, until they had reduced the
length of the trains, so that they could
handle them. In other cases they
made no attempt to keep up the sched
ule time and trains for weeks were
hours and sometimes days behind
time. It is said that stock trains
from Wyoming and other cattle ranges
have sometimes been 9G hours behind
time "at Omaha. Suits have been .be
gun against the railroads for im
mense sums in damages caused by loss
in handling live stock.
A distinguished banker says to The
Independent that the chief cause was
tho inefficiency of the management
resulting from combining the roads
into great systems reaching across the
continent and making it an utter Im
possibility to eniciently manage them
from one office.
Again it Is said that there was a
slight, actual and unavoidable cause
for the shortage of cars. That came
about on account of the coal strike.
No coal was hauled during the sum
mer months and a larger amount of
cars than usual were of necessity
used for that purpose.
Whatever view one takes of this
matter of shortage, there is but one
statement from all concerning the dis-
i. Y VV WK fV mHo, -Yr -tf f ?rM M stf Mr t?f J
W WW JJ CV? WW W C? W w i ww Ww w w VW
Why Don't You Send for Our i
NEW SPRING CATALOG?
ui9
YOU we mean you who are buying your
clothing of the country merchant where you are
limited as to your selection, and when you do "de
cide on any article you pay 15 to 40 per cent, more
than we would charge you. For those who are not
registered on our mail order list ' J
We will Send Free Our
New Spring Catalog,
If you Cut Out this Ad,
Sign Your Name to
It, and Tell us where g$
You Live.
Name . 3
Town ..... qfp
Men's catalog or woman's catalog? (0
We issue two catalogs, one for women, one for men.
asters that have resulted. The busi
ness of every city and town in the
west has been cut down. It affects
the banks, the merchants and the
farmers and the losses have run up
into the millions. Farmers could not
meet their obligations. Merchants
could not pay the drafts drawn upon
them banks had to greatly extend
credits one directionand cut them off
in another . and work all sorts, of
schemes . to prevent general disaster.
It shows to what a condition of slav
ery the whole American - people have
been reduced to the great railroad
masters. The people are, under pres
ent conditions, just as helpless as an
ld African slave on a southern plan
tation before the war." They will so
continue as long as the public high
ways of commerce are owned by pri
vate parties and not by the people.
JUDGES AND TRUSTS
When the editor of The Independent
said several weeks ago that the prose
cution of the Chicago coal trust was
a fake affair and that the prominent
republicans who organized it and pro
duced a fuel famine in that city which
the board of health declared resulted
in hundreds of deaths, would never be
convicted, her was not playing the role
of prophet at all. He was simply us
ing a little common sense. Any one
who knows anything about the re
publican party, who sustains it, in
whose interest it is kept in power,
would have no trouble in coming to
the conclusion that a republican at
torney general elected by the money
contributed by the trusts would never
enter into a prosecution that would
send the men to the penitentiary who
elected him to office. 1 The partners
in this coal infamy came into court
and plead guilty to forming a com
bination in restraint of trade, to re
strict production and force the people
to pay an exorbitant price for coal,
but the judge took the case away from
the jury and discharged the accused,
on the ground that although they
were guilty, they could not be pun
ished because the Illinois anti-trust
law covered the same ground as the
Sherman anti-trust act and therefore
was null and void. When stripped of
its technical phraseology that is the
exact meaning of the judical decision.
In cases having a political bearing,
the judges never run contrary, to the
party in power. Especially is that so
if they are elected for long terms or
are appointed for life.
The republicans who look for any;
check to be put upon the greed of
trusts because of recenc legislation are
doomed to disappointment. Even if
that legislation was of an effective
kind, it would produce no result. The
truth, however, is that it was not in
tended to affect the - trusts- in any
way, but was applied as -a dose of
soothing syrup for the people.;. N-j
matter what legislation is. put .upo'a
the statute books against the trusts,
it will have no effect as long as the
republican party is in power." The
courts of this country . follow in their
decisions the "desires of the party in
power. The judges will always find
some way to let . the trusts escape.
Noneof'them will have a more diffi
cult feat to accomplish than this Chi
cago judge who ordered : the r eleasi
of, the murderers of "the" Chicago"
coal trust."1 ; - -
Frank B. Noyes' idea of how the
volume of money is increased or de
creased is shown in the following
paragraph of the Record-Herald. He
says: "Addicks is reported to have
spent $250,000 trying to-get himself
elected senator. Without Addicks the
per capita circulation would be con
siderably smaller. It's an ill wind
that blows good to nobody." Has Ad
dicks a little mint of his own where
he coins the money that he spends in
politics? If Addicks has really added
$250,000 to the amount of money in
circulation in the United States he 13
not as bad as represented.
;The eastern papers are just be
ginning to learn that reorganizing W.
J. Bryan out of the democratic party,
is not so easy a thing, even in the
eastern states, as might be. Several
New York papers are publishing pro
tests from the rank and file. The
New York World, among others,
printed the following: "After reading
a recent editorial arraignment of Mr.
Bryan in the World, I feel it incum
bent on me to inform you that a re
cent and reliable canvass of the vot
ers of this community reveals the fact
that not one democrat who voted the
ticket in 1896 and 1900 will vote for a
bolter in 1904. Nearly all of them
say they would rather vote for a re
publican than for Hill or Parker or
any other bolter. Allen Smith, Lost
Creek, Md., Feb. 21."