NOVEMBER 23, 1905
&6e Nobrasko. Independent
PAGE 3
bo a constant effort to secure for the people '"a square deal." This
can be accomplished, to express the writer's ideas in a very general
.way, by the withdrawal of special privileges and by public ownership
of railways and municipal utilities.
THE ROLE OF CHARITY
Many earnest people who are sure the world will be made
happier by various social and economic reforms are apt to minimize
the importance of charity in human affairs. By their panaceas they
hope to solve all those sad problems springing from poverty and
crime. But with the approach of winter in this keen northern climo
we are forcibly reminded that "the poor we have always with
us."
No matter what changes may be wrought in methods of dis
tributing wealth the centuries will witness the continued exist
ence of a defective and a delinquent class. Tim "problem of the
unemployed" may not be the same tomorrow as it is today. .The
application of the golden rule in business and politics may go far
toward the removal of poverty and the elimination of crime. A
reign of law and justice may give to each man a fairer share of the
world's goods. But the weak and laggard, the sick, vicious and
defective will not vanish from the earth.
Neither your cure nor mine will ever produce an economic
condition that will make it possible for men to say, "I am not my
brother's keeper." Even if we grant that laws and customs may
give the individual a better chance to obtain a livelihood wo must
expect that human greed will forever strive to escape the law and
leap the hedges of custom. The weaker will go. down in the battle
of tomorrow as they are going down in the battle of today. Poverty
may grow less and less and its shadow may cease to darken all the
land, but there still will bo a place for charity, in a world where'
human weaknesses and passions continue to produce want, sickness
and misery.
There was a time when the phrase "Merry England" was used
to describe a nation in which pauperism was unknown. At that
epoch the fuedal system was in its flower. Individual liberty as it
exists today was unknown, but industrial conditions were such that
the rich did not grind the faces of the poor and the people were
happy and contented. And yet Robin Hood and his merry men
detained the wayfarer long enough to relieve him of his purse, and
in every part of the kingdom were hospitals and refuges for tho
sick and suffering, the weak, laggard and defective. For there was
still a place for charity.
If there were no place for charity, it is likely that man would
become a cold, callous and entirely selfish being. The circumfer-.
ence of love would not be the circumference of the world, but the cir
cumference of the family or more often of the individual.
While advocating reforms and offering remedies for economic -ills
no man should forget the obligation of loving his neighbor. A
mind too much set upon the problem of improving the material
condition of men in the mass may and sometimes does ignore tho
immediate needs of the individual.
IMPLEMENT COMBINE'S INSINCERITY
The Nebraska and western Iowa retail implement and vehicle
'dealers have declared themselves as heartily in favor of the presi
dent's railway regulation policy. This is a commendable stand
to take and might indicate that implement and vehicle dealers are
disinterested advocates of the "square deal." At every conven
tion the acts of the harvester trust are aired and sometimes they
are condemned, but the implement dealers themselves are not free
of tho trust taint.
While demanding "a square deal" for themselves, they are un
willing to grant "a squaro deal" to their customers. One of the
closin-r acts of the 11)0 convention in Omaha was tho fixing of
prices and an agreement to maintain these prices. It was a secret
agreement and was not reported in the newspapers. It is quite
probable that like action was taken at thi year'., convention. At
all events this is a common practice with the implement ami ve
hicle dealers and i clearly a combination in restraint of trade such
n is condemned by the federal law and the statute of the state of
Nebraska.
The attention of Attorney CJoneral I'rown U called to this de
fiance of the anti trust law. If he should legin action against tho
implement dealer he might find hiniM-lf handicapped by the faet
that the Nebraska and Western Iowa Retail Implement and Vehicle
lhaler' uwoeutto i an interstate corporation, but in that event
the ca-e would 1k taken into the federal court when it would come
under the provision of the Sherman anti-trust law. The attorney
general has been working to secure what he terms "a free harvest"
for tho farmers of Nebraska this year by striking down tho grain
trust. Meantime he might add to tho benefit of tho "free harvest"
by breaking up the agreement among tho retail implement dealers
t maintain prices illegally fixed.
WHY THE RAILWAYS ARE HAPPY
Various explanations have been offered for the discontinuance
of the railway publicity bureau, which, it is said, has spent
$2,000,000 in an effort to educate tho people against the president's
rate regulation policy. Uie consensus ol opinion is mat tne ourcau
proved a failure, but is this the real explanation of the death sen
tence which has been passed upon it? To The Independent it seems
as though the railway trust has decided that it is unnecessary to
influence public sentiment against a policy which has turned out
to bo little more than a myth, if some- of its talkative advocates
are telling the truth.
Since President Roosevelt's speech at Raleigh the most en
lightening speeches on the subject have been delivered by Secretary
Taft and Senator Knox. Both gentlemen promised tho railways
that the courts could be trusted to fully protect the railway in
terests. Senator Knox was most explicit. In his speech at Pitts
burg on November ? the senator said:
"No such law could be enacted that could prevent the court,
if satisfied that injustice has been done the railroads, from staying
tho operations of the order upon terms until the court had passed
upon tho merits of the controversy."
Plainly this was a hint to tho railways that they could rely
on government by injunction. The inference, is that the railways
can enjoin any order of the interstate commerce commission no mat
ter how great may bo the commission's theoretical powers. All
these powers must bow before a federal injunction.
President Koosevelt evidently has grave fears that his plans
for rate regulation will fail, for ho demanded in his speech at
Raleigh that congress pass a little effective legislation rather than
a great amount of useless legislation. Whether Taft or Knox share
tho president's anxiety is not clear, but whether grieved or gratified
they have taken tho trouble to inform tho railways that government
by injunction will render rate legislation of little avail.
After Senator Knox had uttered the foregoing words just suffi
cient time had elapsed to impart their full meaning to the railway
lawyers when it was announced that the railway literary bureau
would bo discontinued. The connection between these two events
h not capable of absolute demonstration, but it is most natural to
conclude that the railways would scarcely expend another $2,000,000
for education when convinced that tho federal injunction is a much
easier and cheaper method of preventing effective governmental con
trol of transportation.
. The quiet life proved too galling for Teddy and 'so he started
quite a row with Harry Whitney of Massachusetts, and it must be
conceded that the president is still something of a fighter in spite of
his billing and cooing with the bird of peace.
m
Defenders of the national honor are having poor success in
defending their own honor. If this thing keeps up plain people will
leave New York for Sing Sing to get into a more respectable neigh
borhood. .
As soon as the foreign engineers had gone on record as favoring
a sea level canal President Roosevelt said ho was in favor of a lock
cnnal. ' The foreign engineers will wonder why they were invited.
Senator Chester A. Long, of Kansas, thinks ho will not support
tho president's railway policy. Another statesman discovered by tho
railways.
Secretary Taft says tho secret enemies of tho canal are delaying
it construction. That acquits the open friend of tho canal of all
guilt.
Perhap Norway did not lxfome a republic leeauso a very
h.rge republic ha lteen getting a bad example.
Now that the lde of Pine ha seceded from Cuba, Long Inland
tdiotild m-cdo from the United State.
The nuiulter of ejHualtie among the 1nsc wa great, but ltosot
po?ts wonderful vitality and die hard.
