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About The Columbus journal. (Columbus, Neb.) 1874-1911 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 12, 1900)
rTwiMl V - " i--rw?lW"'Sr4 .. ; C-5V '"? A W.v-i- mt ' wstsMMrrWntMwnmwmmmr'' Tt ''111117 THinOrTnTri Ml irrmwWlBWHt Lambos, Rhi Aryan's avowed aid and m comfort to a6uiiuld0. Indications that the Democratic Leader and r the Filipino Insurgent Have a Very Sat isfactory Mutual Understanding. AGUINALDQ WARTS US TO SUPPORT HIS "REPUBLIC; We Are to Hold the Big and Keep Off Other Nations. While He Is to Get All the Benefits Aguinaldo Admitted that His People Were Divided as to Policy. Gen. Whittier, of Gen. Merritt's staff, called on Aguinaldo by appointment at Malolos (see page 498, Senate Docu ment 62, Treaty of Peace papers) and bad a business talk with him. The sub stance of this conversation has become much more important since the Demo cratic party has committed itselfato the Aguinaldo policy in the Philippines and since the Democratic candidate for the presidency has accepted that program, added to it the Monroe doctrine, and is pressing the campaign upon the theory that the "paramount" issue is a protec torate for the Philippines after we sur render them and to cover them against the intrusion of Europe with the Asiatic annex of the American doctrine of Mon roe. There occurred between Gen. Whittier and the Tagal tyrant a thorough conver sation on the subject of this American protectorate of the Philippines. Gen. Whittier told Aguinaldo that iu a few days he would go to Paris to appear be fore the peace commission sitting iu that city, and the General added (to quote his own official report of the conversation): "I started the talk by announcing to Aguinaldo that I was to leave in a few days to appear before the peace commis sion, and that I had a very friendly feel ing for the Filipinos and admiration for many of their good qualities, their quiet, cleanliness, temperance and great imita tive power, and a possibility of learning almost any profession or business; that I would like to be able to present to the commission his and his people's views and demands and what relation they ex pected to hold to the United States in case we decided to keep the islands." Tt will be noted that Gen. Whittier ex pressed himself fully and clearly. He said: "Aguinaldo replied rather naively, that his people were divided into two parties those in favor of absolute independence and those of an American protectorate; that the parties are about equal; that he is waiting to see who will have the ma jority, in that case to take his position." This report of what Aguinaldo had to say about a division of opinion between independence and an American protecto rate is much more interesting just now tluin it ever has been. This conversa tion was nearly two years ago. Aguinaldo had made himself troublesome at Bac coor. and his removal to Malolos, it is evident now, was a step that meant pre parations for war with the Americans. lie found he was not to be admitted to Manila, and made choice of a position on the railroad from which he expected to turn and capture the city. He was en gaged iu this work when Gen. Whittier called upon him, and eluded the pene trating question asked him by saying: "The parties among his countrymen in respect to absolute independence or an American protectorate were about equal, and he was waiting to see who would have the majority to take his position." Aguinaldo had this habit of avoiding giving a straight answer to a strong ques tion. Mr. Whittier told him, and it would be well for Mr. Bryan to make a memorandum of what Whittier said to Aguinaldo, and for the people of the United States to study it closely and seriously, for precisely the objections to Philippine independent government that existed then exist and are more obvious now. Gen. Wrhittier said: "I pointed out to him that it would probably be useless to try to bring those in favor of absolute independence to any change of opinion, but they must con aider that they are without any navy and without capital, which is greatly needed for the development of the country: that the Philippine government alone did not possess the element of strength to in sure the retention of the islands without the assistance of other governments. They would be at the mercy of any of half a dozen powers striving to take eith er a part or the whole of the islands, and they must consider that their greatest prosperity would come by the gradual accession of power under American aus pices." This was to the point and Aguinaldo was disturbed. There isn't a particle of doubt that he had already fully made up his mind to make war for complete in dependence without any expectation or desire to please the United States, but it was too early for him to avow his pur pose. He knew perfectly that his views of carrying on a personal government could not be acceptable to the people of the United States. The reply of Agui naldo to Whittier and remarks upon a further question are of sensational pith and moment now. Gen. Whittier's re port is quoted as follows: "But the civilized nations of the world would see that our possessions were not taken from us." I replied: "How has it been in China, where England, Russia, France, Ger many, etc., all strive to control terri tory?" To this he couli make no reply. I further asked what that side would expect America, acting the role of pro tector, to do. 9 He said: "To furnish the navy, while the Filipinos held all the country and administered civil oflices with its own people." "And what, then, would America get from this?" said I. "That would be a detail," he said, "which would be settled hereafter." Gen. Whittier adds: "We pursued this subject of a protectorate for some time without getting any satisfactory results." Mr. Higgins (a friend of Whittier who accompanied him) felt that Aguinaldo had been simply repeating a lesson, but I did not feel so sure of that. Buen Ca mino, a close friend of Aguinaldo, was present at this conversation, but came in and gave his opinion he was an inti mate of Aguinaldo that the President was in favor of an American protecto rate. Certainly he would be if it was the end of a series of propositions such as Bryan has presented to the American people, which proposed plainly the turning over to Aguinaldo the American army and navy whenever he has a government in his own hands stable as to his authority and independent of any other authority. Then the time comes when the protec torate will be vital. The American duty as a protector is to stand off the powers named by Whittier England, Russia, France, Germany, and Japan is to be included, and what are Americans to get for all this? We have already the answer of Agui naldo: "A detail to le considered here after." It is a question whether the Americans are to pay their expenses while in the service of Aguinaldo. Aguinaldo's state ment of what he meant was made more than two years ago. He said the same thing to me, with a little less detail, on the 27th of August, 18!)S. The Democratic party has submissively embodied the Aguinaldo plan in its plat form, and Mr. Bryan has exploited it in his speech, and as a personal contribution he has slung iu the Monroe doctrine in such a way that if he were President of the United States he would have the al ternative of backing squarely out of it. or warring with all the nations of Euf rope that are determined to pursue their colonial system. It is well known that there has been a good deal of correspondence between the malcontents of this country and the in surgents of the Philippines, and the symptoms are that Bryan and Aguinaldo, who constitute a mutual admiration so ciety, have been directly or indirectly in confidential communication. Why not directly? Each of them would feel himself hon ored to have so distinguished a corre spondent. They have much in common. Each anticipates being the ruler of his I own country and is in a state of confi I dence that he is going to be. The first thing Bryan wduld think about would be of soothing the enemy he denominates "our ally" by entering into an alliance with him, offensive and de fensive. This would require a good deal of letter writing, and they have worked their three points down fine. The Philip pine resolution in the Democratic plat form and the Philippine proposals of Mr. Bryan in his acceptance speech are in the nature of a protocol, and if the Unit ed States is ready to submit to serve Aguinaldo as a protector, and do it for nothing, maintaining a great fleet and army to do it with, Aguinaldo would not be foolish enough to offer objections. Bryan offers him plainly to play his game and has put in the Monroe doctrine as a trump card to scare Europe. Bryan has invested everything he has got in the Malay business. There is a striking resemblance in one respect between Aguinaldo and Bryan. Neither has ever been elected President, but both are assuming the duties of the office, each attitudinizes as the personifi cation of the nation. Bryan hasn't as yet appointed himself to anything. Aguinaldo can teach him the trick. It is the profound faith of each that he is by and for and in himself an E Pluribus Ununi. MURAT HALSTEAD. Veterans Indorse McKinley. Veterans of the G. A. R. held the opening business session of the encamp ment Aug. 29 iu Chicago. Joel M. Longenecker, commander of the Illinois department, played the leading role at the meeting, which took place in the Studebaker Theater, and before he had finished his part President McKinley had received the indorsement of veterans, representing posts throughout the United States. The outburst came spontane ously and suddenly and the ex-judge's commendation was emphasized with a five-minute demonstration, in which aged men forgot their years and clambered upon seats and yelled frantically. All this happened while Mayor Harrison, who had just welcomed the veterans for mally to the city, sat close by, grim, un moved, silent. The Illinois commander, in his turn, was tendering the hand of greeting in be half of his department and was lauding the heroes that Illinois had turned out and that Illinois, hand-in-hand with the nation, now felt proud of. Lincoln had been cheered. So had Grant and Logan. By this time the ex-judge was perspir ing and his collar ws gradually wilt ing beneath the strain of oratory. "And we have been proud of a com rade who has occupied the presidential chair for four years," he shouted the veterans in every corner moved closer "and for four years more we will be proud of him." The cheers that greeted the speaker were beyond anything given during the encampment. There is no doubt of it the Grand Army is with Comrade Mc Kinley heart and soaL "DEAR BOY" LETTERS-NO. 4 My Dear Boy As an American citisen I am happy over the vast progress made by the United States during the admin istration of Wm. McKinley. ' It is true that the increase of our wealth, the enlargement of our posses sions, and the position which we have gained among the nations of the earth, hare brought to us a vast increase of responsibility. However, this responsi bility came to ns providentially, unex-, pectedly and unsought; and, if we are true to ourselves and to righteousness, the God of nations will guide ns in the future as in the past. - It is also trne that there are some sad things to contemplate hi thjsjwnnection War is always, sad,; and we have had practically three wars on our hands. None of them could be foreseen four years ago We were pushed into them and it is a good thing that we had so wise a pilot at the helm in this critical period of ournation's history. But while there are things that make one sad, there are many more to make one glad, and it is of these things that I wish to speak. First The better state of feeling be tween the North and the South. You were born since those old days and can have but little idea of the intense bit terness engendered by the Civil War. It was a common saying at the close of the war that it would take several genera tions for the enmity to liass away. Men thought it impossible that North and South should come together heartily dur ing the lifetime of the men who fought the battles and the women who gave their husbands and their sons to the Northern andSouthern causes. Gradu ally the feeling between the sections be came better. We made a long stride forward during the summer that Gar field lay dying and the whole nation. North and South, watched by his bed side in anxiety, hope and fear. But the Spanish-American war finished the trou- LABOR WANTED. In a recent visit to St. Paul the writer passed up Third street and near the Merchants Hotel a man was busily engaged in tacking up signs in front of an employment agency. This attracted our attention and we stopped and read the following bulletins: WANTED. WANTED. Men for sawmill work In Minne- Camp cooks for sota. $1.63 per day. the woods. Teams for city Sawyers ior White Rude work. Lumber Company. Five men for clay- I Woodmen In Ithlnelander. Wis. hank. I $2G to $30 per month. Teamsters and scraper holders Hands for harvest fields In North in city. Dakota. Good pay. HotPl rr.nfcs Ten la,,orers ,n dty. $l.r0 per Hotel cooks. day pay every week Ten men to work on dam at Somer- Men wanted for North Dakota, set. Wis. $1.73 per day. $2 per day. Ten men for fencing In Iowa. Woodmen; the Pine River Lumber $1.73 per day. , Co.. Moran, Wis. $28 per mouth and board. In the fall of 1895 we passed this what we saw on the bulletin board: WANTED. Tn 1893, which was the last year of the Democratic Cleveland admin istration, there was a mob of idle men in front of this place "oegging for a job, while in 1900, the closing year of McKinley's administration, there are plenty of jobs looking for men which the employment agent cannot supply. This same condition was and is true of Minneapolis, and no doubt of every city in the land, and the lesson it teaches is obvious. Waseca, Minn., Journal. Conditions are the same everywhere. Here is a sample poster that is everv fence, gate, door and post in a Michigan town: MEN WANTED! Inquire S. Gill, Superintendent, Coal Dock, Gladstone, Michigan. ble. When Joe Wheeler and Fitzhugh Lee put on the blue and called them selves "Yanks," when the sons of the Union soldier and the sons of the Con federate soldier, side by side, won vic tories for America, the heart of the North and the South came together. 1 rejoice with joy unspeakable that I have lived to see the day when I and my com rades in arms for the Union can clasp the hauds of our former foes and con gratulate each other on the prosperity and increasing glory of our common coun try. Second The expansion of American territory. It has been going on for a hundred years, Tand never more glorious ly than now. The American spirit is that of expansion. Ft was an American boy who set the hen on forty-seven eggs and told his mother that he did so be cause he "wanted to see the blamed old thing spread herself." To keep spread ing is an instinct of Americanism. And don't you be one bit afraid, my boy, that the old mother American eagle will not be able to hover safely over all the eggs she can find. You see, my boy, I think that the best thing the whole world can do is to settle down quietly and be United States. I have a profound pity for anybody on the earth who does not live under the pro tecting folds of the star-spangled banner. Every drop of your father's blood is American, and it tingles with delight at the sight of Hawaii, Porto Rico and the Phlippines added to our American pos sessions. True, affairs in the Philip pines are not as pleasant now ns we could wish, but "wait till the clouds roll by." The flag has brought blessing to every place it has touched hitherto, and will do the same in the fnture. Third I rejoice at the increased re spect for our country among the nations of the earth. Manila Bay, Santiago and San Juan were revelations to the na tions abroad. Hitherto their idea baa beeir that the Yankee is simply a shrewd trader and inventor, with no soul beyond the Almighty Dollar. It was an awak ening to them to discover that American gunners are the best in the world, that American warships are unequalled, that American soldiers are unsurpassed in courage, discipline, intelligence and effi ciency, and that Americans fight, not merely for money, but for ideas, for lib erty and for the deliverance of the op pressed of other lands and races. And in the present trouble in China the Unit ed States is winning the esteem of the world, not only by the success of our armsbut by our careful, dignified, judi cious diplomacy. Fourth I rejoice in the increase of the nation's wealth. In Cleveland's time we were a nation of borrowers. Now we are a nation of lenders. We are a happy and prosperous people. Meanwhile, the twentieth century dawns upon ns with tremendous possi bilities in store. Just what Is before ns we do not know. But there is a mighty shaking among the dry bones and in-, dications of tremendous steps forward toward the coming of the kingdom of God. My part in life is nearly'done, but you, my son, will live to see the mighti est epoch in the world's history. Be honest, be true, be Christian, and BE AN AMERICAN. - ' Do not vote to "Swap Horses While We Are Crossing Streams." Vote to keep at the helm the man whose steady brain, loving heart and true hands have under God guided the ship of state so safely through peril to a new birth of national glory. YOUR FATHER. Remember. REMEMBER '92. During the cam paign of '02 you thought you were too busy to take an active interest in poli tics. Remember the result: Consternation. Loss of confidence. Empty pocketbooks. , Vicious tariff laws. Emergency bond issue. Losses" in business. Assignments. No employment. Distress. Do not make the same mistake this year. Marion, Ark., Herald. same employment agency and this is WANTED. on Hearst for Expansion. Bryan's Chicago paper, the American, owned by W. K. Hearst of New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Dener and prospectively of Indianapolis, in com menting on the growth of San Francisco, said: "The manufacturers and the producers of the United States reaching out for new markets to the westward will send their products into San Francisco for trans shipment to the great steamers lying in her spacious harbor. The people" of the East, of China, India, the Philippines and Hawaii, will all turn to this great port to make their purchases and to transact their foreign business. "The rush for gold is no less great to day than it was then, but men find gold in new ways now. The great captains of industry no longer delve it out of the earth, but win it in the less rugged but quite as profitable line of trade and com merce. "There is a fascination to-day to the man who sends his ships bearing his goods to the far-off islands of the distant East, the islands of which the poets love to sing, but toward which only within the last decade has the face of the Amer ican merchant been turned. "'The golden age of San Francisco's romance is not yet parsed. Once she had the miner who conquered nature. She soon will have the international mer chant who conquers the seas and the pre judices of people now unknown and hos tile. "What New York has been, facing a civilized Europe, that will the City of the Golden Gate be as Asia gradually becomes civilized, and the Pacific, like the Atlantic, becomes a highway of trade between nations rivaling each other only in the struggle for trade and all that makes for the highest type of national development." Extracted from Chicago American, Aug. 29, 1900. ; A DRUMMER DISCUSSES FORMATION OF TRUSTS. They Have Never Succeeded in Creating a Monop oly Because There Never Can Be a Monopoly of Brains Competition Always Open. WHEN THEY GET GREEDY THEY BREAK THEIR OWN BACKS As They Transact Business on a Large Scale, They Are AWe to Buy Cheaper and to Sell Cheaper to All Consum v ers No Trust Can Hold a Monopoly. T have been a drummer for fourteen years, have traveled enough throughout the country to know that human nature and business conditions are about the same everywhere, and have learned, be cause the question has come right home to me, considerable about Trusts. Perhaps this seems like an over-eoufi-dent statement, but I want to say that if any drummer, or anybody else, can gainsay what I am now writing, I should like to hear from him. In this discussion we must, like busy men engaged on a hard business proposition that actually concerns us, eliminate all the pipe dreams, all the cheap stories, all the Hun garian jokes, all the stuff and nonsense; we must get right down to cases as I will now. First Kemember that trusts are big comuinations for business purposes; big ger and bigger, if they are necessary, and can do themselves good by being bigger and bigger; smaller and smaller, or fall ing to pieces altogether, if they can't do themselves any good. It is a little vulgar to say that every body is "out for the dust," but every body is, just the same. To be a little more exact, let us believe, because it is perfectly true, that anyone who has gone into a trust, or has helped to form a trust, has done it for what he expects to be his own advantage. Anyone who is opposed to a trust will succeed in inter fering with it, or breaking'it up, just in proportion as he, and not the trust, is working in harmony with some economic law. Economic law is a large-sounding ex pression, but I know what it means. Years ago, no matter how many, there weren't any factories; people made things at home. Afterwards they gathered in factories and made things there. Then came machinery, which displaced many of the work people. This was a hard ship to them, but they couldn't help it; and after they got over feeling badly, they were glad to live under the new con ditions. Years ago Jones & Son, or Jones & Co., had capital enough and brains enough to do everything that was requir ed of a business concern. After a while no partnership had money or brains enough for the bnsiness requirements of the time. Then corporations were neces sary. By the way, corporations are char tered by State legislatures, and what State legislatures do for them, or to them, they can undo provided, of course, nobody is wronged in the process. Please keep that all in nuud. because it is im portant. It is important to know that corporations, and after them trusts, are creatures of the law and can't transcend the law, and since we, the people the peepul, Mr. Snlzer would call us elect the lawmakers, it is our own fault if the laws don't suit us. Conie down to the present time in this matter of the development of industry. This matter of the development of pro duction, manufacturing and commerce, is, according to economic laws; that is, ac cording to things as they must absolutely happen, according to things that couldn't happen any other way. Just as machin ery has more and more replaced hand work greatly to the advantage" of the manual laborer in the end because he could turu to better things and could make more money at it, and could buy the necessaries and the luxuries of life cheaper, because they were made cheap er by machinery and could be sold cheap er so on tne nnanciai emi oi it. in me way of providing and using capital, in the matter of selling in all kinds of markets, there has been a corresponding change; big capitals taking the place of small ones, smart fellows going out and tack ling all the problems of invention, econ omics, traveling, selling, advertising, etc.. instead of old-fashioned ones. The cor poration is pretty old, the trust fairly new. When the trust dropped down up on us nothing new happened in particular except that bigger and bigger, corpora tions were to take the place of the older and smaller ones. Here we are, then, down to the present time. Business was bad around '93 and '94. Hundreds, yes, thou inds, of man ufacturers, jobbers and merchants were flattened out; first, by the uncommonly hard conditions brought upon them by the Cleveland panic, and then by a kind of structural weakness in their business caused by the violence of competition. These hard times, making this too vio lent competition more weakening than it could ever have been under other con ditions, made the formation of trusts, all of them that could possibly be formed, very easy. The manufacturer wanted to reduce the violence of the competition or do away with it altogether. He was tired of worrying. He wanted peace. He saw, too, that there were economies in production and distribution that he him self, working alone. couM never realize, that would be realized the moment he and his competitors worked together buying larger quantities than ever be fore together, making things up togeth er, selling then together, cutting the price a little together perhaps, and, if so. increasing the quantity of sales. In uv, .........,... ... .. .g......... -.,. u... ... ... . the new scheme was a chance to live. ,, There was peace. There were economies that could be effected and that 'he was a fool not to effect. There was a chance to steady things and know whether he had anything in the world or not. Pos sibly there was a chance for profits again. This was the chance for the promoter and the underwriting banker, or what ever you choose to call him, as well aa for the manufacturer. If the manufac turer hadn't been in the condition de scribed, the promoter and the banker couldn't have done anything with him or for him. It required cash money, or its equivalent, in guaranties, to buy, or partly buy, one plant here and another plant there. This the underwriter could furnish. It required the promoter to t-ee about it all. But the promoter's employ ment didn't last long. Where is the pro moter now, by the way, and where is the underwriting banker? Things have been going so well in the last two or three years that the manu facturer, the man who used to want to combine, doesn't want to combine any longer. He isn't tired, he has plenty of capital, his machinery is buzzing, he is selling twice as much stuff as before, probably just as much abroad as at home. There is a chance for all. Competition is active, but buyers are not haggling about the price quite so much, or at least they have got some money with which to buy something ouce in a while. This isn't saying that trusts are not now forming, and that many more of them, a great many more, will not be formed. They are forming, and they will be formed: but they will only be organiz ed successfully where there is'some econ omic reason, some reason in .good busi ness economy and judgment, why two, or twenty, or two hundred concerns should pool their isMies. cut expenses and lop off the dead stufT and get there in true business style, whether ten men or a thousand men arc- required to do it, whether a hundred thousand dollars or a million dollars are required to do some thing in this, that or the other part of the world, or in any old part of the world. Now without going into definitions too much especially since we are agreed what a trust really is let me say that a trust, in the right acceptance of the word, is not a monopoly. It can't be, or if it thinks it can be, let it try! Ten to one, yes. a thousand to one. it knows better than to try. The Standard Oil Com pany is not a monopoly, and I'll wager, if the truth were known, that it makes money by its methods just as mueh as it does by the volume of its business. Judge Gary of the Federal Steel Com panya little two hundred million dollar corporation which doesn't monopolize the steel business as I notice, and proba bly never will while Andrew Carnegie and a few other good scrappers are in the field says that a well-organized and well-managed trust is all right up to tho point n here it tries to monopolize its pro duct. There it over-reaches itself, it gets into danger, it invites competition, and this, mind you. is the competition of giants and not of pigmies. Mr. F. O. Mathiessen. once the chair man of the manufacturing committee of the sni;ar trust (and I don't know of a higher authority that could be cited), says that the Glucose Trust, which, I believe, he organized and is at the head of, is in the field for onlv about seven per cent for its stockholders; that it would be folly for them to try to squeeze more out of the consumer for their investing capitalists: that plenty of money and plenty of brains (for brains and money are two commodities that nobody in the world can corner in a thousand years) could go right into the field against them and level them down to the seven per cent basis as quickly as Brother Bryan can turn a political handspring. The Glucose Trust, you understand, might not hesitate to squeeze an eight or a ten per cent dividend out of the consumer if it thought it could succeed in doing so. It can't succeed, and it knows it. A DRUMMER. (To be continued.) EQUALITY OF MONEY. Doillver'fc Object Lesson ia Commer cial Credit and Trade. Here as the American people stand on the edge of a new era we propose to equip our business world with the best tool of exchange known to modern com merce. We propose to send our ships into all parts of the world as wc have raised our flag in the uttermost parts of the earth. And we want it understood in Europe and America, in Africa, in Asia, and the islands of the sea, that there is no longer a debate in the United States n to what the standard dollar of the American people is. We arc going to write in the laws of this country what is already the prac tice of our government, that every obli gation of the United States shall be paid in gold. When a man comes to the coun ter of our treasury we are going to lay down two coins before him, the gold dol lar and the silver dollar. We are going to say to him: "There are the standard coins; one of them is as good as the other; gold is the standard and silver is conformable td that standard. And the credit of the United States is out to make one just as good as the others; take your choice." And, for one, I believe that when it is in there it will maintain the gold stand ard and a just equality of all the coins of the United States. Extract from ...... speech of Congressman Dolliver.