The Say of Reform Editors

WHEN the German Emperor rides on the railroads a detailed bill for every locomotive and every car used is sent him and he pays the bill. In the United States when the President rides on the railroads no bill is sent him and no charge is made. In Germany the government owns the railroads and in this country they are private property.—Nebraska Independent.

Government ownership would adjust the matter of railroad rebates equitably. And it would do more. It would prevent the railroads extorting from the government untold thousands of money which they at present filch from the public treasury by excessive charge for hauling mail cars. This money would come mighty handy in extending the rural free mail delivery system. And it could be spent to good advantage in raising the salaries of the postal clerks who deserve so well at the hands of the people. Or it could be turned to account in lowering the price of letter postage. There’s a thousand and one better ways to spend the people’s money than handing it over to the corporations that are always soaking it to the government every time they get a chance.—What’s The Use?

If President Roosevelt sincerely and vigorously attempts to obtain any reform legislation during his administration, two-thirds of his support will come from the opposition. His own party, owned by and mortgaged to the few, is absolutely powerless to effect any good. There are a few prominent kittens in the party who simulate a little independent thinking, but when the mother cat gives them a collective swat in the face, they lie down and put their chins on their paws and mew in obedient accents that they are now good cats.—Chadron (Neb.) Times.

A certain Wall Street firm was engaged in doing business as curb brokers and “washing” a certain stock.

Do you know exactly what “washing” stock is? It is simply a fake auction on a big scale. It is the kind of thing that puts a little man in jail if he is caught doing it. It is the kind of thing that makes respectable fortunes for some of the big men.

This firm was engaged in “washing” a certain copper stock. An officer of the dignified National City Bank was interested in this stock. He had agreed to take a certain amount of it at a very low price, and he wanted to unload it on the public at a very much higher price.

The brokers proceeded to “wash” the stock accordingly.

Let us say that the stock was worth fifty cents per share. One broker bid fifty-five cents for a thousand shares, and they all pretended that it was a legitimate transaction—in reality it was a fake bid and a fake transaction.

The other broker engaged in the skin game would then bid sixty cents for another thousand shares—and so it would go.

Not one person engaged in the swindle was actually buying a single share of stock. They simply bid back and forth, pretending to buy it, and putting the price up day by day.

The crowd of poor fools that believe in the “honor” of these disreputable Wall Street gamblers looked on at this mock auction, this fake selling and buying of stocks, amazed and excited by the constantly increasing values.

Occasionally some gullible creature outside the combination that was doing the stock “washing” would come in and in good faith buy some shares, actually paying his good money for the worthless stuff.

This went on until they had forced the price of the stock up to a high figure, ten times what it was worth. During this “washing” operation, they had succeeded in working off a good deal of this stock on the public that believed the crooked sales were really genuine.—New York Journal.

The Chicago Union Traction Street Railway Company has issued bonds and stocks to the amount of $112,500,000, or at the rate of $135,507 a mile. The capitalization of all the street railways in Massachusetts only amounts to $110,000,000. In Massachusetts, stock watering is prohibited, and the average capitalization of trolley lines in that state is only $390.67 per mile. The sort of work done in Chicago is theft, and the men who did it, although they occupy the chief seats in the churches, are thieves. There is not a preacher in the whole city that dare say so, and that makes them accomplices of the thieves.—Nebraska Independent.

The Chicago Record-Herald, a Republican paper, refers to the fact that the Federal Grand Jury returned indictments against Senators Mitchell, Burton and Dietrich, and says: “In each of these deplorable instances the charges involve corruption and moral turpitude—a bitter reflection for a legislative body proud of its traditions and jealous of its prerogatives and reputation. The low tone of political morality receives a painful and striking illustration in these successive blows to senatorial prestige.”

The Record-Herald adds: “The possibility of further disgrace and degradation would be greatly diminished by substituting for indirect elections the plan of popular election of Federal senators.”

The Record-Herald might also have said that the fact that there are a number of prominent United States senators who have not yet been reached by indictment and will perhaps never be reached by indictment, who serve on the Senate floor as the representatives of special interests, provides another striking argument in favor of the popular election of senators.

The Record-Herald might also have said that the fact that New York, Minnesota and Nebraska have during the present year elected to the Senate men who were picked by the railroads provides another strong argument in favor of the popular election of senators.—The Commoner.

An Eastern woman, who “wants to do something for the poor laboring man,” threatens to start a school of physical culture for them in New York City.—Rocky Mountain News.

Bee stings cure rheumatism, but a more drastic treatment is necessary for the man troubled with politics.—Eastern Sunday Call.

There are persons who, with their backs to the future, see no objects but those that are past. Of history in the making they know nothing. Such are those public men, editors and statesmen who are now asserting that Jeffersonism has given way to Hamiltonism. The truth is that Jeffersonism has been giving way to Hamiltonism ever since Chief-Justice Marshall began on the judicial bench to retrieve for Hamiltonism the utter defeat it had suffered at the polls. Step by step the Hamiltonian principle was built up by judges until the Civil War, and by judges, Congresses and Presidents of all parties after that war. But the day of Hamiltonism is now passing. A new regime is setting in. The pendulum is poised for the swing back to Jeffersonism. Those who think they see Hamiltonism looming up ahead are really looking backward.—Chicago Public.

We blame men for bribing legislators; yet sometimes they are in the position of the fellow who is “stood up” by a footpad, with the demand for his money or his life.—San Francisco Star.

The pretentious Apes, in either finance, literature, religion or moral philosophy, are making faces at Thomas W. Lawson, of “Frenzied Finance” fame.

Making faces, through such mediums as Collier’s Weekly and others of that ilk, is all they can do. The weekly tasks of a half-dozen of such writers, the rapidity and the versatility of Thomas W. Lawson shows that he could walk all over them in ten minutes. The exhibitions of these hirelings exemplifies the old story of the frog trying to swell himself up to the size of the ox.—The Patriarch.

The Populist ideas are well to the front. It is difficult to pick up a magazine or newspaper of any kind now without finding favorable opinions of some Populist measure, particularly as to the reforms in voting and the management of monopolies. The Populists never stood so high in the respect and admiration of the people. It is a time when state and local committees should be up and stirring. Whenever and wherever an improvement comes, the Populists will be the kernel of the problem. The Populists will be required to furnish the working plans and should be prepared to receive their friends.—Joliet News.

It is a lamentable fact, but true nevertheless, that there is more absolute want and poverty in these United States than ever before.

Notwithstanding we have made so much cotton here in the South that we cannot sell it for enough to pay the cost of production, there are thousands in our Southland who are shivering with cold for want of needed clothing. Though our prairies have furnished trainloads of choicest cattle, our people are forced to go hungry or pay robber prices for meat. Our coal mines have yielded coal enough to warm every hut in all the land, yet thousands are freezing for want of fuel. Our charity associations are snowed under by the inordinate demands for help from the unemployed. Even in New York there are forty per cent. more idle men today than ever before.

We Southern people know but little of the effects of the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few men; of the grinding poverty which prevails in the congested centres of population; of the lavish extravagance of the pampered spawn of plutocracy and its parasites. It will come to us later unless we set to work measures to check it at once.—Southern Mercury.

While the bacillus of populism is still at work in the Democratic Party, it has also attached the railroad arm of the Republican machine.—Our Standard.

Our readers will remember the article we printed a short time ago by Mr. Eltweed Pomeroy, showing how the voters of one ward of the city of Los Angeles, Cal., “recalled” an alderman charged with corruption. That was the first time in the United States the Recall has been used. About six weeks ago San Diego voted to amend its constitution by adopting the Initiative, Referendum and the Recall, and the Legislature has just ratified this. We understand that Pasadena has also just adopted the Recall, though it has had the Initiative and Referendum for about a year. Thus government by the people extends itself. The evils of democracy can best be cured by more democracy.—Independent (N. Y.).

Reports of suffering from poverty in London are harrowing. At a relief meeting on the 31st it was reported that 200,000 people in that city alone are living on the verge of starvation. In the midst of all this suffering there is something shocking, in spite of the evident good intentions of those in attendance, about the self-satisfaction of the luxurious persons constituting the relief meeting at which this report was made. The meeting was held in the house of a duke, whose great income flows unearned into his private coffers from the common inheritance of all Londoners. A duchess, whose family lives in luxury on incomes also wrung unearned from people who work, occupied the chair. Among those participating were other titled personages whose luxurious incomes are enjoyed at the expense of their starving fellows whose sufferings they had assembled to relieve. But all they proposed to do was to spend pennies here and there for sweet charity. Sweet charity! Yes, sweet; so sweet to those who dole it out, and so bitter to those who must humbly take it or starve. Not one word escaped the lips of any of this charitable assemblage in recognition of the element of justice. To know that 200,000 fellow men and women were on the verge of starvation excited their human sympathies; but that the starving horde were starving because privileged drones and titled parasites revel in unearned incomes, clearly manifest as is the relation here of cause and effect, did not concern the relief meeting. It was something like this that Tolstoy had in mind when with characteristic simplicity and directness he said: “The rich are willing to do anything for the poor people but get off their backs.”—Chicago Public.

The Democratic mule is dead.

The last echo of his heroic brays has died away.

His tail lies limp on the bare ground, like the banner of a defeated army.

His ears lop together and lie stiff and lifeless, like fallen flagstaffs from the conquered walls of a dismantled fortress.

There is no breath to moisten the lips that gave forth such pleasant music.

Around him stand the doctors.

The autopsy begins.

Dr. Bryan gently, almost lovingly, lifts the tail of the corpse and examines it carefully.

“It was Spinal Belmontitis,” he says. “That’s what killed him.”

Dr. Gumshoe Stone is down on the ground examining the ears.

“I think it was Parkeritis.”

“It might be a complication of both,” answered Dr. Bryan.

Dr. Tillman gritted his teeth and spit like a cat.

“I know a name for it,” he hissed, “but I have no language to express it.”

“I pronounce it damphoolishness,” answered Dr. Hogg, of Texas.

“That’s a slow disease,” chimed in Dr. Daniel.

“He’s had it a long time,” said Dr. Hearst.

“But it never affected his voice,” suggested Dr. Williams.

Dr. Bryan blushed and dropped the mule’s tail.

“Let’s try a reorganization battery on him,” he said.

“He’s been organized and reorganized too often now,” grunted Hogg.

“Let’s prop him up anyhow; maybe we can ride him again,” insisted Dr. Bryan.

“Let’s rest,” the others said, and they all sat down.—Morgan’s Buzz-Saw.

Influence of Letters

JOHNSON—What do you think of those correspondence schools?

Bronson—I guess love is about the only thing in this world you can learn by correspondence.

A Bad Break

SUITOR—I’d marry your daughter if she didn’t have a single dollar.

Rocksey—Then you’re a bigger fool even than I thought you were. Get out of my house at once.