?AGE 4
U6o Nobraskcx Independent!
NOVEMBER 16, 1905.
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Current Comment on Leading Topics
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the wave OP RPrnnM
While all commentators on the recent elec
tions are willing to admit that the -results show
a revolt against bossism, they are careful to point
out that bossism Is a result of the domination
exercised by corporations in "political affairs.
The boss is merely a field general for the money
power: ,-
The time was ripe for this uprising in
New York. The scandals and exposures of
corruption in high places haa aroused the
just wrath of an outraged people. Jerome
stood for reforms and for prosecution of
boodlers. Kansas City Journal.
This is one of the most extraordinary
upheavals in recent American politics. Nor
is the significance of it hard to find. There
is little of the personal in this demonstra
tion; it represents rather a great popular up
rising over an issue, and that Issue is the
plundering of our American cities through
the. bosses, by corrupting and aggrandizing
corporations engaged in exploiting for pri
vate profit monopoly franchises of untold
value. What has now happened In New York
Is a repetition essentially of what has been .
happening in' Chicago a demonstration of
strong popular favor, whenever It has had a
chance to express itself, for the policy of
public ownership of public service enter
prises, as against the policy of giving over
these privileges to private monopoly working
in league with the dominant political ma-
vmue. &pnngneid Republican.
The magnificent triumph Is enkindling
because it shows organized power .and stay
ing strength. Last spring we fought under
a quick, hot impulse. Yesterday we marched
like an army with banners in serried ranks
and fixed purpose. Then we flamed under
an immediate and daring assault. Now we
are massed in solid and lasting phalanx
against a continued and abhorrent thraldom
That was symptomatic this is deep-seated.
The victory, is inestimable in its value not
merely for Philadelphia, but for the entire
land. It will exhilarate Philadelphians and
It will encourage all true Americans. Its
broad and far-reaching significance cannot eas
ily be overestimated. What Saratoga was to the
war of the devolution, what Gettysburg was
J!L.ih! ,war of tfle nion, this the battle of
Philadelphia is to the war of municipal re
demption. It is the turning point in the
struggle of civic purity. Philadelphia Press.
The Ume is past when the people can
be fooled by loud-sounding promises behind
which they can see nothing to warrant be
lief n them. They are looking Into things
for themselves. They demand platforms
and men upon them in whom they can place
confidence. Buffalo Evening Times.
The supporters of Hearst in New York
Wcav?r in Philadelphia, should join
with other reformers in a call for a national
conference to take the same independent
political action in the nation that has been
taken in the two cities named. The time
to act is now while things are hot. Tho
nation needs reform as badly as do those
cues, and the reform movements in tho
cities need the backing of a great national
organlzation-a great party of the people.
Missouri World.
The people have found that there are
grave abuses, and while casting about for
remedies they are putting on record their
condemnation of the abuses. What policies
they will ultimately favor whether they will
plungo the country from the frying pan
of corporate graft and tyranny into tho fire
or socialism will probably depend mainly
on the vigor and success with which tho men
who are responsible for preaent conditions
oppose the adoption of reasonable reforms.
The most potent promoters of socialism la
this country are not and will not be tho
Hearts and the Debses but the Morgans,
the RocVeMWrs, the Depews, the Hyde
the McCurdys, and the McCalls. That the
will be remedies for present conditions Is
certain. Whether they will be worse than
the disease remains to be seen. Chicago
Tribune.
William Randolph Hearst has been
elected mayor of New York. Never before
in the history of New York were such un
blushing frauds carried out in every one of
the pollla? rlaces. The scoundrels in con
trol of the present city administration did
not spare money or criminal designs to de
feat the will of the people. Notwithstanding
every species of trickery and chicanery and
frauds that should carry their perpetrators
into state prison, the vote, even on the face
of the returns, has amounted to over 220,000
for Mr. Hearst. When the defective ballots
have been recounted and the false and
fraudulent ballots have been thrown out, it
will be shown that his vote is at least 235,000
or 240,000. Affidavits have already been
sworn to, documents have been procured
and lawyers are at work on cases of un
blushing deception, on the most inpudent
trickery, on criminal miscounts, on the voting
of repeaters in nearly every district. The
manifest intent of the voter has been ignored
in every case where the Tammany officials
succeeded in getting the republican inspectors
to consent to their view of the meaning of
the vote. The crime of 1876, when Samuel
J. Tilden was cheated out of the presidency
of the United States, cannot be repeated in
New York. This is not Florida, nor is it
Louisiana. Returning boards here cannot be
packed. The battle will be fought out in
j every detail to the most bitter finish. Every
vote that was meant to be cast for W. R.
Hearst and the municipal ownership ticket
will be inspected. The criminals will be sent
to Smg Sing. Already there Is an exodus of
men from the city. The repeaters have fled.
But the men who hired the repeaters and
the men who led election officials to betray
their trust can yet be reached. When they
are reached, justice will be done with a
swift and unerring hand. William Randolph
Hearst will yet be sworn in as mayor of
New York. New York American.
, i J e one tnread running through all
of the elections of yesterday. The color may
be different in spots, but it is the same thread
the thread of Rooseveltism; the thread of
a square deal, of higher ideals and anti-machine,
not so much on account of the machine
itself, but because of what the machine rep
resents. So far as party issues are concerned
it has no significance. Governor Hoch of
Kansas.
If William Randolph Hearst received in
Tuesday s election one single vote more than
Mayor McClellan; if enough Hearst voters to
have changed the result were driven from the
voting-booths by bulldozing and browbeating;
f hired repeaters and floaters expressed at
the polls what passed for the will of the
people; if unexampled frauds availed to taint
the reckonings of. the ballots after they were
cast; if for any one of these reasons, or if
for all these reasons combined, the election
figures do falsely record the will of the voters
then law should intervene, then justice should
vw v ' the "ft Hearst hould be seated.
New ork World.
GROWTH OF RADICALISM
The New York World Is greatly atated by
the growth of radicalism and belives that so
cialism will be the next step unless the cor
potations are controlled. After dwelling upon
the significance of tho election of Tom U John
son In Cleveland, Brand Whitlock In Toledo and
Schmtt2 In San Francisco, the World says:
Governor Hoch Is not exaggerating tho
facts. They are so plain that no human belne
of ordinary Intelligence should mistake their
meaning. A great wave of discontent (a
sweeping over the country which Is manl
resting Itself In tho form of socialistic rem
edlei for political and economic evils. The
great corporations are larcelv resnonslhle
for the radicalism that is rampant every
where. The real leaders in this movement
are not the Bryans and the Hearsts and the
Dunnes and the Johnsons and the Schmitzes,
but the Rockefellers, the Armours, the Mor
gans, the Swifts, the Ryans, the Yerkeses,
the McCurdys, the McCalls, the Hydes, the
Perkinses and the Harrimans, with their
Muryhys, McCarrens, Coxes, Durhams and
Penroses.' Ten years ago Plngree was de
nounced as an anarchist. Today Pingree's
program would be regarded as mild and
conservative. Where is the thing going to
end? .
MUNICIPAL OWNERSHIP
The - Springfield Republican holds, that the
great vote in favor of Hearst in New York shows
that municipal ownership is gaming ground
rapidly: ,
There plainly exists among the people,
even in this time of unexampled prosperity,
great unrest over the concentration of wealth
which is still going on apparently as never
before, and the misuse of it as shown in the
insurance exposures. There prevails a feel
ing that this grossly unequal, distribution of
the industrial product of the country is re
lated in no small degree to the private own
ership of monopoly privileges granted by
law or assumed in spite of law; and the mu
nicipal ownership movement represents one
direction in which the popular protest is or
ganizing for the preventive action. This is
not surprising. It was bound to come some
time, but that it should be able at this time
to make so great a demonstration In the first
city of the country will amaze and confound
the interests identified with the private ex
ploitation of public privileges. The country
is unquestionably face to face with a gen
eral extension of this movement,' whose prac
tical and successful application in a kindred'
country supposed to be far more conserva--tlve
than our own, is being known and read
by all our people.
MALTHUSIAN IDIOCY AGAIN
Among economists there are some who still
cling to the Malthusian theory that population
increases faster than subsistence and that the
world will soon be so crowded that "race suicide"
will be the only solution of the problem. The
latest advocate of the theory is an English alarm
ist, who believes that in a few hundred years
there will be 6,000,000 human beings to every
square mile in England. The Omaha World
Herald shows the absurdity of the theory:
Henry George never performed a greater
service than when he demonstrated the utter
and absolute falsehood of this method of
reasoning and the conclusion It deduces He
showed that, according to this theory the
descendants of Confucius, in 2,150 years after
his death, should have numbered 869 50 10'
106,709,670,198,710,528 souls, whereas their
actual number was only about 22,000 souls
Nothing in nature bears out the theory. After
thousands of years of human life the earth
is still thinly populated. "Many of the hives
of human life are now deserted; once cultf-
yated fields are rank with jungle and the wild
beast licks her cubs where once were busy
haunts of men." It would not bo far amiss
to argue that for centuries upon centuries
the population of the earth has been practi
cally stationary, decreasing in one place as
fast as it Increases in another. Henry Georgo
further adduced, in disproof or the theory
tho generally recognized fact that wealth
tends to Increase, and doos Increase rela
tively faster than population, and that It Is '
In tho countries most populous that tie
wealth necessary to sustain life Is relatively
as well as actually most abundant. Not ouly
ho showed, is this true of Inanimate wealth'
but of tho vegetable and animal kingdom'
which reproduce much more rnpldly than man'
furnlhlng constantly Increasing storo for his
subsistence, Tho trouble, lu the World-