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About The independent. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1902-1907 | View Entire Issue (March 26, 1903)
MAJICH 26, 1903. THE NEBRASKA INDEPENDENT. . FX.UTOCBATIC LITERATURE There has been a great deal of mourning by ministers and prominent men in Chicago over the decadenceof morals, the increase of crime, the so cial foulness in the two extremes ot society, that is, among the very rich and,Jtbef very poor. .;'.'.. ; , T XThereHs spread out before the edi- tor as he writes, one of the great Chi cago dailies. The thing lhat the edi tor of that paper thinks is1 of the most importance to the public, and to which tie. gives the largest, amount, of space . in head-lines js; '?A' Beautiful Virginia Widow Forces Owen Burns v to Dis gorge $1000 Htl-the 3 Potntf ; Re-: volver." The Upacejaevotedf in -this display : head,, is almost as great as that of all the rest'of; the head-lines on the page. So the editor must' have concluded ' that the beautiful Virginia widow and 'her revolver Was the thing that the 2,000,00G inhabitants, of Chi: cago were , most interested v in. The rest oi tne nrst jpage or .tnat. greai daily is made up of an article on roy alty involved in a scandal, a divorce J " wife's plea, a murder - case," a' fight over a will, an account of the birth of a deformed child, something about a Minneapolis criminal, , the announce ment of the death of a notorious Tex an, who, when acting as justice of the peace, when a man was brought before him . for murdering a Chinaman, an nounced as his solemn judgment: l'I have examined the law of this state carefully and"" can - find' nothing whial makes it a crime to kill a Chinaman; the defendant is discharged." Then there are some sensational Charges described , in which a sister of Congressman Hull accuses him of forging a will. An account of the proposed ; visit of the president, an item about the health of Dr. Webb and a very short-one concerning a revolution in Uruguay, make up . the contents of the whole page. This is the reading republican daily of Chi cago, the Inter-Ocean of March 17. The great plutocratic dailies of the whole land . are .like . unto , it. Some of them are even worse. -: . . . f When; the homes of , the people are constantly flooded with literature like that, what other result . can be ex pected, than the - one condition that stares us in the face everywhere? There is not one. line in that whole page that would tend to make a bet ter citizenship, that gives:' any useful information, or that is not demoraliz ing and degenerating, except the an- nouncement concerning the , president and Dr. Webb. And this is not for one day only. It comes in an over whelming torrent every day in the , year, including Sundays. In fact Sun days generally get a auadrupled dose of it. There is an object in all this. These editors persistently refuse to publish articles of general interest to decent people and most positively, those of an educational character, even when written in unexceptional English and offered free. It is the plan to amuse the people with divorce news, scan dals, murders and highly spiced oc currences in fashionable life, while plutocracy perfects its plans for their enslavement, It is claimed that this is the kind of literature that the people want and the only kind that they will buy and pay for. I the claim true? The ca reer of The Independent proves that it is not This paper prints no such stuff and never has. Yet it has had a steady growth for the last ten years and continues to grow. It has spread into every state and territory of the' Union and continues to spread. It is modest in appearance, it has no Illus trations to entice the eye, it prints nothing that would bring a blush to the cheek of a maiden, its matter Is all instructive and and its news cov ers everything in which decent people, are interested and Is up to date, in fact, it is the very antithesis of plu tocratic literature. And an increasing number of people-want it, they buy it and pay for it Many prominent men in the eastern states have writ ten to the editor that if the manage ment would move it down there,; they would f guarantee a circulation of 100, 600 In less than six months. ' The claim that the people prefer vile literature" is therefore not sustained. But nn'fl thiri? la rertaih. Tf the ipv- ; , 7 r? " l 7j pie are swamped .with the sort of lit- erature that the plutocratic dailies fur nish for a generation without, protest," by that time their claim will become true? By -that "trine the masses! wlir be so demoralized;- that they will read : no other, kind. - . There is' no -work in which anj one' wishing to benefit mankind is so sure of brilliant results as placing good educational literature- into the homes of the American people.. That is just as true, from. a party as from the ethi cal standpoint. ' :; . ; iti : ' "THK FINANCIAL REGULATOR Iii the Very ' constitution of things there is ; a ; sortof financial regulator, which, "if allowed to work, will keep the steam down in the boilers below the 'explosion point f It is only when some financial fool gets to sitting on the safety valve, while others ; like unto him begin to jam theiurnace3 with coal tar, bacon and what cargo of dry pine they have on board, that the "explosion takes place and all go to the .bottom together. .That financial regulator is the interest rate. When the rates of interest are low men be- bin to expand their business in'every direction. Plants are increased, more are employed and there, is a general tendency , to boom things. A few years ago it will be remembered that the banks were full of money, they went seeking customers and to , get them put the rates of interest -'way down. Everything began to expand. Men be gan to make money , in nearly air the enterprises in which they were en gaged. On top of this, the credit sys tem was "spread out over all creation. The banks were to blame for this. But now there , is a change, Rates of interest have become abnormally.high. Banks are charging excessive rates and a halt is being called. Men go to the banks to get credit The conservative banker, instead of telling the would- be. borrower that he has not the mon ey to lend or that he has doubts of the ability to pay, simply puts up the rates of Interest to such a. point that the customer knows that there will be loss instead of gain in the proposed enterprise and he abandons it- That has a tendency to curtail business and bring it down to a point commensurate with the volume of money. The trouble about, this regulator is that it is worked by very fallible and selfish creatures called national bank ers. At first the increased rate of in terest is a great gain to them and the tendency is to push it until industries are crippled, thousands of men are thrown 'out of employment and the creation of wealth in a great measure stops, the fires in the furnaces go out, the wheels refuse to turn and the re sult is the same as if the furnaces had been filled with 'coal tar and pine with a nigger sitting on the safety valve. CONCENTRATING POWER Some time ago The Independent ex plained to its readers how a small coterie of Wall street pirates tiad so manipulated things that by the own ership of $75,000,OOG of stock, the whole of the great Rock Island system was thrown into the hands of three or four men. Judge James M, Beck In his argument against the Northern securities company, tells how 33,000 miles of railroad, by "means of a New Jersey, charter, was thrown into the hands of two men. In analyzing that charter, Mr. Beck said: , "Such- extraordinary powers were never yet granted "to a cor poration unless it be one of the New Jersey breed. In a -few words, its powers may be classified as follows: ,. , . . - (1) Infinite in scope. (2) Perpetual in character. n-vy SPECIAL: SEE Uy uLviS-SP RING CLOTHING fin : ;vWe make it a pointrtobaveV the;; best tctothing; there is made. If you want th ''right" clothes let ua. show -them to you; .'The Haj'dencloWes are right in style and in the mak ing; they fit y the prices fit ybu'rsisJWe. guarantee you absdlntesafisf action. - 1 j 200 TJien?5 very fine suits' at a price ihahhaa -never been ri valed in Hhe history of clothing sales. These, suita are made Meh'sfsuitaJti al chev' colors and stripes- all I lined - with'dil nest serge lining, best sleeve linings and i well tailored throughout; Q I II fin - worth f l&;50r"our extra "slleciallsale rpnce".','r.r)! UiUU Mens ex tra swel I : and fancy worsteds,- in Scotch plaids, plain, colorsj atripes and fancy mixtures; all made with hand padded shoulders; ; hair cloth fronts making them shape holding; hand-felled collars lined with the very finest of serge linings. The fit aud hang is perfect; none of these , suits worthTess than ' $18.00 to $22.50; our extra special sale price, g j QJJ (Vlai! Ord e rs Pro m ptly Fill ed Write for our new spring clothing' price list and sample book. It's free. " ' - HAYDEN BROS.' W MV (3) Vested in the hands of a few. .. , (4) By methods secret even to stockholders. It will be Interesting, to follow out the possibilities of such a cor poration. The original idea of the holding corporation, as explained by rioted financiers, is to enable ; the minority to rule the majority.' ...... A majority of the Northern Se- , curities, company, namely, , $201, 000,000, controls the. Burlington, Northern Pacific and Great North-, ; 'era ' systems and all . subsidiary companies whose aggregate capl- . talizatlon Including funded debt, exceeds $1,000,000,000, but , the , board of, directors, whose holdings . . of Northern Securities .may be comparatively insignificant, can, ; . during the tenure of their office, appoint a committee with power to act and to use the seal of the. corporation at pleasure. This committee may only be three in number, and a majority is deter minative. Thus, in the last an-, alysis, two men may control the . " unlimited powers of the holding, company, which I n tu rn controls ' . the vast powers of the Burling-' . ton, Northern Pacific and Great ' Northern companies and all sub-; . sidiary companies. When in the history of corporate organization was there ever a charter which concentrated such vast and im measurable power, in the hands of so few?" . In the hands of those two men would lie the destinies of the mil lions of toilers in the states in which He those 33,000 miles of road. With that power, those two men could ruin iiny business firm and build up any in which they were interested. They could cause the grass to grow in tha streets of one city and make another a great commercial emporium, in which the favored merchant princes would live in marble palaces. The two men who controlled transporta tion rates upon which all business depends would be the absolute master or the millions, no matter what form of government they might adopt The people there may have the Initiative and referendum, the single tax or the income tax, they may etect their sena tors by a vote of the people, have a tariff or free trade, if the power re mains in the hahd3 of these two men to fix the charges for passengers and freight, they, and they alone, will be the rulers and gather all the wealth that is produced above a living for the inhabitants. That Is the power that railroad managers would grasp. TUX PAMAMl CANAJL ..The Independent does not believe that a Panama canal will be built dur ing this generation and perhaps not during the next. It has many rea sons for such a belief. Among them are the following: Senator Morgan is known to be a man of great ability, a -constitutional lawver of the highest grade and he has devoted his life to the accomplishment of this one pur pose of building a canal ; across the isthmus. If he believed that this re publican; deal including the payment of $40,000,000 to the French for the re- , mains of their failure and the treaty with Colombia would result in the con struction of a canal, he . would have been one of its most enthusiastic sup porters instead of a fierce opponent. That is one reason. -,-.- Another reason is that if such a canal was built by the government and operated at cost, the necessary ef fect would be a great reduction of freight rates across the continent. To such a thing as that, the great rail- , road magnates of the country would be opposed. These, railroads are th3 very framework of the superstructure that upholds the republican party and by whose influence and contributions, togehter with the national banks, it hold3 power. The banks which are floating the corporations would nat urally be as much opposed as the rail reads. Does any one believe that the republican party would promote a scheme to which the national banks and railroads were both opposed? The canal treaty was ratified be- cause it would furnish the banks with $200,000,000 bonds to bank on, not be cause it was intended to build a canal dunng the life of this generation, and because an utter defeat of the propo slticn would have resulted in disaster to the republican party. . . , , fine rf iha mnof H taonict In r mnnnn olies in this country is the Pullman; Sleeping Car company. Charging as they do exorbitant prices, they are not of their employes to get their living by begging. That is what the "tip ping" custom on the Pullman sleepers means. The porters are paid an in significant salary and told to get tha rest of their living from tips. There is nothing too low for some of these plutocratic monopolists to do.