UTJNE 9, 1905 .
It Impossible for him lo finance Ms project through!
$he Equitable Life. If this was Mr. Harriman's
trorpose It failed, for Gould remains on the direc
torate and Harriman is out.- The New York
Sorld finds In the report of the Frick commit
tee full proof of that paper's charges of Equitable
corruption. It says:
The committee has found
That officers and directors have syndicat
ed Equitable securities at the expense of the
policy-holders.
That the revenue from Equitable invest
ments has been diverted from the policy-
holders to officials and directors.
That the Equitable's large cash balances
have been used for private gain.
That directors' personal obligations have
" been paid by Equitable funds.
That executive officers have been waste
ful, lavish and self-seeking.
-The Initial exposure of Jame.i Hazen
Hyde's Sherry ball, the Cambon dinner and
such matters sinks almost to insignificance
in comparison with the flood of worse disclos
ures. Since these are the facts, what was to be
gained by trying to conceal them? As well
might a cancer be covered with court-plaster
- to prevent its ravages. The first remedy for,
corruption is exposure. The next is the
knife and the cauterizing Iron.
The Chicago Tribune holds that the commit
tee laid bare much scandalous conduct on the
part of the officers and dummy directors of the
company:
The report discloses a disgusting state of
affairs. There has been extravagant man-
: agement, misuse of funds, and contempt for
the fundamental principles relating to the
handling Of "trust funds. Men not legally
qualified acted as directors, not that they
might watch over the welfare of the policy
.. holders, but to act as sales agents for rail
roads with which they were Intimately con
nected to unload on the jcompany the securi
ties of those roads. In doing that they dis
played a lack of moral fiber and a callous
indifference to the simplest rules regulating
the conduct of business men and gentlemen
which is unazing. Exposure has not shamed
them. Popular indignation has not cowed
them. They stopped fighting among them
selves and united to vote down the report
which held them up to public contempt. It
is their aparent intention to maintain a
brazen front. Now that it seems clear there
Is to be no reform from within, it is neces
sary that there should be reform from with
out. It is time for the state of New York to
look after the corporation it created, to oust
the dummy directors and force a business
management upon the company. If that be
not done it will be because the dummy direc
tors control the state government.
The Pittsburg Leader thinks the commit
tee's report brings conviction to the public:
At the crucial moment the rivals, fore
seeing collapse -for themselves in case the
virile and merciless correctional power rep
resented by Mr. Frick and his associates were
permitted to prevail, joined hands and secured
a majority vote against the report. The status
quo is thus restored. That Is to say, the only
power capable of bringing order out of chaos
and of obtaining a just and orderly adminis
tration of affairs is thrust aside and the Hyde
and Alexander factions assert, as a majority,
their right to continue their feud and to keep
their personal interests still paramount over
the interests of the society itself and its
policy holders. Such recommendations in the
line of remedial action as the majority has
seen fit to make as an offset to the bad effect
of the rejection of the Frick report are, of
slight value under the circumstances. The
fact remains that the oportunity of righting
the ship definitely has been sacrificed and that
the problem presented by the state of dissen-
Nobraclxo. Indopcridcnl
Bion existing within the Equitable Is, to all
appearances, as far from solution as ever.
," APPOINTMENT OF BONAPARTE
The appointment of Charles J. Bonaparte, a
descendant of the great Napoleon, as secretary
of the navy, has attracted unusual interest. The
New York Tribune gives this resume of Mr.
Bonaparte's public career:
Mr. Bonaparte has played for years In
Maryland politics and to some extent in na
tional politics a role the value of which the
public is only just beginning to appreciate.
A man of education, refinement and "Walth
with no other stimulus to activity than a
sense of public duty, he threw himself years
ago into the struggle then beirmniug to ele
vate and purify political life. In his own
state and city he saw a corrupt and tyran
nical machine intrenched in power, boasting
its ability to maintain itself through its fraud
ulent control of the election machinery. He
spoke, worked and fought against that ma
chine with all his might, and was recognized
as one of the forces which finally accom
plished its downfall in 1895. An ardent foe of
the theory so long tolerated in this country
that government exists for the benefit of the
poliitclans who govern, he identified himself
conspicuously with the civil service reform
movement, and has long had an active part In
the agitation which is gradually taking the
classified officeholders, federal, state and
municipal, out of partisan politics. Every
movement directed toward the betterment
of political conditions has enlisted Mr. Bona
parte's sympathy. He has minced no words
and spared no sensibilities in his crusades
against the spoilsman, the "grafter" and the
corruptionist, and his outspokenness has
brought him the enmity of . leaders in both
political organizations in his own state; but
his efforts for better government, his un
compromising rectitude and civic courage
have won him the respect and confidence of
his own people, and at the presidential. elec
tion last fall he received the highest vote
cast in Maryland for any presidential elector
and was the single successful candidate on
the republican ticket.
The Springfield Republican views with amuse
ment the charge that Mr. Bonaparte has not been
entirely orthodox as a republican:
The Bonaparte cabinet appointment
arouses conflicting emotions in sundry bo
soms of strong men within the republican
circle, and the criticisms that are heard be
tray the feeling that the grand nephew of the -Emperor
Napoleon I. is not "true blue" in
party affiffiiliations. All of these criticisms ,
may be dismissed as puerile. Mr. Bonaparte
has always been a republican in national poll
tics, while he has been wholesomely Independ
ent in the politics of his city and state. The
dreadful charge that he was an anti-Imperialist
is the most amusing thing that has been
said. If he was, or is, the fact Is news to us.
Tha Republican has never heard before that
Mr. onaparte even went so far as to sympa
thize with Senator Hoar. As our readers
know, the Baltimore lawyer test year, in a
series of letters to this paper, ardently de
fended the president's treatment of Colom
bia in the Panama coup, and there was noth
ing in his writing at that time wh ich indicated
that Mr. Bonaparte was anything but a big
sticker after Mr. Roosevelt's own heart
QUAKER CITY'S VICTORY
The kaleidoscopic changes In Philadelphia,
which-finally resulted in the "back-down" of the
United Gas Improvement company, are viewed
with satisfaction by editorial writers In all parts
of the country. The Outlook , extols Mayor
Weaver:
The "gang" is maintaining a 4efiant front
and is preparing to fight just the thing the
people of Philadelphia need to keep them
"keyed up" but gas works have wrecked two
machines, and it looks as if they would wreck
PAGE 6
this. In the meantime the people are rejoic
ing that they have In the mayor's chair a
man who has not failed them at the crucial
moment? and John Weaver has taken a high
place in the hearts of the people and bids
fair .to make a notable reputation for himsell
as a faithful conservator of the people's inter
ests and as a means for restoring to Phll
delphia its almost lost liberties. Before the
week ended the supreme court granted an
appeal from the preliminary Injunction, which
will act as a supersedeas and enable Mayor
Weaver's appointees, Messrs. Acker and Pot
ter, to discharge the duties of their offices
until the legal questions Involved are settled.
A special correspondent of the St. Louis Pos
ispatch writes that the Quaker City ring contin
ues to lose ground:
As relentlessly as the passage of time
- Mayor John Weaver is terminating the official
existence of the last survivors of the corrupt
Philadelphia machine. Secretary Rolla M.
Dance of the civil service loard resigned today.
The secretary retired at Mayor Weaver's or-"
der. When the executive issued his first com
mand for the rsignation of machine officials,
the latter declined to obey. An attempt was
made to fight the mayor In the courts. . The
hopelessness of the struggle was soon made
clear to them and they yielded. Secretary
Dance resigned without the shadow of resist
Dance. The spirit of the organization is brok
en. In little more than a fortnight Mr. Wea
ver has demolished the most perfect, munici
pal political machine in the world. :
SENATE WILL SURRENDER
W. G. Joerns In the June Arena shows how
the special pleaders for the railways Juggle with
facts and figures about' transportation. In order
ti" deceive the public the annual reports of the
railways are so doctored as not to disclose the
real volume of net earnings, such words as "bet
terments ," "other deductions" and "improve
nients" being used as blinds. Mr. Joerns com
mends the Esch-Townsend bill, which, he con
tends, gives to the Interstate Commerce Commis
sion only such powers as it was supposed to pos
sess until the supreme court rendered its ad
verse decision in 1897. Mr. Joerns thinks that
the senate will not dare to defy the wishes of
the people much longer:
, . There Is, however, room for substantial
doubt that this wise and sedate body is going
to dig any such pit-falls for itself. If some
somewhat sensational current reports are
true, there are those among the senators
whose control of. rotten boroughs is so abso
lute as to render them indifferent to public
opinion, but not so with the most of them.
This fact must, by this time, have percolated
down or penetrated up, -as you will, to even
the dignified members of the so-called higher
legislative body. And after all, these great
men of the senate are human. In the final
analysis they will not in' a great emergency
either imperil their own political existence
or the ultimate welfare of their constitu
ents. They may or may not act with fair dis
patch. They may not consider it as comport
ing with the pedestal of dignity on which
they find themseves, to act otherwise than
with impressive deliberation. There hap
pens, however, to be a strenuous executive
wlo will see that they don't get away from
the question; and we may rest fairly well as
sured l-ct when final senatorial action does
come it will correspond, except in point of
dispatch, with that of the lower co-ordinate
body. The present is not an oportune time
for the apologists for transportation exploita
tion. There is something "in the air" that
bodes ill for that system of oppression, legal
ized or penalized, that a few years back, was
rather . forbearingly greeted as "benevolent
feudalism." We are a great democracy and
the people are just baginnlng to realize that
not in a backward step to the middle ages, but
in progress along the lines of equality and
Justice, must lie our individual and national
salvation.
