fa
K
A WEEKLY JOURNAL DEVOTED TO
POLITICS, AGRICULTURE AND HOME LIFE
I
5 V.."-
'Ji
t
Twentieth Year.
THE IDAHO TRIAL
A criminal trial that deserves
more attention than the one now
attracting public attention though
it will not get it is soon to
'begin in Idaho. This is the trial of
Mover, Haywood and Pettibone, offi
cial -or former officials of the western
minors' federation, or the murder of
ex-Oovernor Steunenberg of Idaho. The
trial of one Adams for complicity in
the ctimes charged to these three was
held last week, but hia case was dif
ferent. He had confessed to committing
crime under their direction. -They deny
all knowledge of his crimes.
In brief, the undisputed facts are
these; On December 30, 1905, ex-Governor
Steunenberg, who had incurred the
hostility of the miners while governor
by using troops to suppress strike vio
lence, was killed by the explosion of a
bomb so adjusted to the gate of his
yard as to explode when ho opened it.
One, Harry Orchard, has confessed to
a James McPartland, the detective who
exposed the Molly Maguires in Penn
sylvania, to "having fixed the bomb to
the gate. He implicated Moyer, Hay
- wood and Pettibone, leaders in the
federation of miners who were then in
Colorado. His confession is alleged to
have revealed the existence of an or
ganized system of violence on the part
of the. federation of miners'. The Inde
pendence explosion of 1003-, in "which
nineteen non-union miners were killed,
was the result of a plot of the union
miners' according to the Orchard con
fession. Tiie arrest of the accused men was
made sensational in the manner of their
extradition from Colorado. Following
Orchard's confession warrants were se
cretly issued and Idaho ofiicialsap
plied to the governor of Colorado for
extradition papers before making the
arrests. Having received these they
secretly arrested the three men, placed
them aboard a special train and rushed
them across the state line without giv
ing them time to employ counsel or no
tify their families of what had oc
curred. On account of the means
employed to get the msn to Idaho they
appealed to the local federal courts for
writs nf habeas corpus. These being
refused vhey appealed to the supreme
court, which last fall decided" it had no
right to interfere.
The men of the miners' union assert
that the whole prosecution is a plot of
mine owners to break down their or
ganization. The state authorities claim
on the other hand that the accused
men are undoubtedly guilty, and that
the future peace of the mining states
depends upon their punishment. Feel
ing on both sides runs high, and the
trial bids fair to be a dramatic on.
1'KHltlAHY.
Hany Thaw for human Interest, the
railroad In politics and business, be
t'Attn tin-in absorbed public attention
throughout the four weeks of February
to u degree approaching ex lusivcness.
Tho San FraiRhco echool question, the
doling dan of tho fifty-ninth conmvy
aliit tli ltuMun election rwhed loas
V oond l ration than their Itupoi tain-e
would hjw wurruuted Kicking lh.u
two ivvihntlmlnr nubj(ts
'I'll" only really wlnterl-di ! of ih
year f r N'birtk:i c.ini' .i F li nary,
but th- railroad manager were In Iw.t
waltr through It all. The troubh- of th
railroad ram from nil qu itUM Th
car tlkalo continued, Umh.im in a j
LINCOLN, NEBRASKA, MARCH 7, 1907.
less acute degree. This, gave rise to
reciprocal demurrage bills in a score of
state legislatures. The wreck record, al
ready so bad for January and the year
before as to excite general indignation,
grew steadily worse in February. A
stringency In the money markets,
caused according to the railroad man
agers by distrust of railroad credit due
to anti-railroad agitation, hindered the
efforts of the roads to borrow money
and tended to retard the improvements
needed to solve the car shortage. An
epidemic of two-cent fare and anti
pass bills broke out in the middle west
legislatures and in pome eastern and
southern states. The LaFollette bill for
analyzing the capitalization of the rail
roads with reference to dropsical con
ditions was in prospect of passing to
the great agitation of the railroad
masters, until a stroke of sharp prac
tice in a senate committee put it out of
the way. The week ended with Mr.
Harriman before the interstate com
merce commission giving his version
of his stcck watering and railroad
merger deals, and with railroad men
tht country over threatening that un
less the efforts to curb the methods
and rates of the roads ceased, all rail
road building and improvement would
be stopped.
Congress devoted its! dying month to
piling up appropriations past the bil
lion dollar mark for the session, mak
ing itself the first tvi-o-hillion dollar
congress. The rcuate ratified the San
Domingo treaty. The tine important act
of more than routine legislation was
the passage of the immigration bill,
adding slightly to the restrictions up
on immigration, but chiefly important
because it opened the way to the ex
clusion of Japanese coolies and the set
tlement of the San Francisco school
trouble. '
In place of tht douma dissolved last
year by tho czar for its over-radicalism
there was elected in February another
apparently no less radical. Unless the
government finds a pretense for delay
ing, it will meet on the fifth of the
present month. The British parliament
met for the winter session with blood in
its eye, and the house of lords is wait
ing to see what reprisals the majority
in the house of commons will make
forFhe sacking of their education bill
last fall.
Tho Nebraska legislature devoted it
self mainly to getting ready to pass
bills. The five or six great measures
on which public sentiment has been
intent, the two-cent fare, the direct
primary, the anti-puss law, laws put
ting the railroad commission on an ef
ficient basis, the terminal tax, have
been shaped up by special committees
and presented. The conduct of tho leg
islature thus far has been such as to
win rare confidence from the public
regardless of party either of members
or of their c-rlticM.
Senator Uurkett proposes an Investi
gation of the business of the express
companies that may result in tho un
covering of additional commercial
almim If tin' iihi!M are there, the
fart may as well come out now as
later. The country U chanlng house,
ami another room or two can bo gone
through without much additional
trouble or expense. -
Th-io will 1 lut Mp nubddy ol.
Itt"it for nt fvuni two yvut. Tho nxl
.--otion of r.mKf'M llr rvrcif :i ptvH
IdtnlUl and tiiifcrrilotial election.
AFFAIRS IN GENERAL
Ever so often it becomes necessary
to repeat the difference between a fran
chlsed public service corporation and a
dry goods store or other private busi
ness. A railroad brakeman terrified by
threats of reduced wages complains of
the two-cent fare bill: "You pay a
liveryman $2.50 to drive you teii miles,
and yet you are iyt satisfied when a
railroad carries you for thirty cents'."
Mr. Morell of Gothenburg writes in
opposition to the anti-pass bill: 'Tou
and I and every individual has his
friends, and if we come along the road
with a conveyance, we ask our friends
to ride with us. So has the railroad
company friends whom they like to
favor in the same way, and why should
they not?""
Both these gentlemen would fit
square pegs into round holes. The liv
eryman and the Individual with the
conveyance are acting for themselves,
with their own private property. Tho
railroad is a semi-public institution,
owing its existence to a contract with
the public to perform certain services
at reasonable rates and subject to other
regulations and restrictions which the
public may impose. Though the livery
man charged ten orja hundred or five
hundred times $1.50 for his ten mile
drive, yet the railroad under its con
tract with the public is not justified
in charging half of thirty cents if a
less amount is sufficient to allow it a
fair profit. Though Mr. Morell give a
hundred friends a day a free lift in his
carriage, the railroads are not justi
fied in carrying one friend free in case
the public, having learned that the
carrying free of one makes the service
cost more to all the rest, decides that
the service of the roads must in justice
be equal to all. Mr. Morell as a mer
chant may properly give free goods to
friends whom he wishes to favor. That
is a private matter. Mr. Morell as a
county treasurer may not give free tax
receipts to friends whom he wishes to
favor. Rates are likewise a public mat
ter. All discussion of railroad questions
Is idle where this is not understood.
STRANGLING A STEAL.
The house committee on postomces
and postroads has deterrnined to rec
ommend to congress that it stop
further swindling of the government
by the railways on their mail carry
ing contracts. The committee has
adopted tho proposition that hereafter
the railroads shall be paid only for
the actual amount of mail carried, and
the enormous graft now admitted to
have been long enjoyed under the ex
isting system of weighing, with the
sanction of law and with the oft ex
pressed rulings of the postofflce de
partment, is to be cut off.
I'nder the graft-tainted system of
weighing malls the average weight of
mall carried dally by the railroads has
been ascertained by dividing the total
weight obtained during tho weighing
peiluda by the number of working
days In that Krlod. That wa the sys
tem required by the law.
In other word tho mailt tarried
every d.iy, Including Sunday n, wer
weighed during the weighing rlod
and Wio daily' roHijlu all added to.
gethrr. Then, instead of dividing tho
total by tho nctual number of 1 iy in.
rlud-d In tv welching period, th de
partment would drop out Ih Sunday
und divide ho total only by the num.
ln-r of working Uiyt.
. . 1 . 6t
Subscription $1.00
This had the effect of swelling the
fictitious dally avorage beyond the ac
tual weight carried, and payment for
tho extra weight was Just po much
money presented through a recog
nized system of government graft to
the railways, from which the public
derived no benefits and for which the
railways performed no service. The
system gave the railways pay for just
one-sixth more mail than" they ac
tually carried, so that just one dollar
out of every seven paid them for this
service was simply stolen from the
people.
When one considers how easy ft
wouid have been to protect the masses
from this-monstrous extortion, he can
but wonder that it has so long been
permitted to continue without protest.
Ail in the world that Is necessary is
to strike the word "working" as ap
plied to days out of the general pro
vision for weighing, so that the total
weight obtained during the weighing
period will be divided by the actual
number of days consumed in arriving
at that tolal and tho daily average for
tho quadrennial contract period thus
obtained.
It is figured that this change will
reduce the compensation paid the rail
ways for carrying the mails five mil
lion dollars annually. If thai estimate
be correct, the conclusion is ' inevit
able that heretofore every time the
quadrennial contracts for transporta
tion of the mails were renewed con
gress and the postoflice department
have made the railways a present of
twenty million dollars of the people's
money without expecting or exacting
any service for it whatever.
This proposition to change the sys
tem of striking an average, or rather
the average, is a humiliating admis-'
sion that for many years the railroads
have been getting pay for transport
ing about one-sixth more mail than
they actually carried, and that one
sixth of tho money they received
ostensibly for carrying mail was sim
ply stolen, with the sanction and con
nivance of congress and the postoflice
department.
It is stated that five million dollars
is a conservative estimate of the
amount that will be saved to the gov
ernment by .the proposed change.
It is any wonder that, with this five
million dollars flowing annually into
their coffers, the railways were quite
fiberal in carrying congressmen and
other influential government officials,
and such others as they might recom
mend, around over the country on
passes? Surely not.
Nor is it any wonder that congress
men felt at liberty to ask without em
barrassment for as many passes as
tln-y or Iheir friends might feel the
need of, for they could not begin to
reach the value of the five million a
year with which congressmen, know
l"gly ami perfidiously, WOre feeding
tho railways.
In contemplation of the sequence of
events one mut bo driven to the con
clusion ilmt this the million annually
wa.t allow,.. tho railway for tho
piWH h.towed, fur as oon a t
w,,r cut off foirn-onc, In tho
person of Iteprofientatho Murdoch of
KiMfiH, ron up with a proposal to
"top i hut rnonitrou annual steal. U
i a long way from Kumto to Vuh.
intfton. And now tho wonder I that
congron wa no lonir In dvdofln
i man with ueh an honont impulao.
In addition to ItiU rropoJ economy