Newspapers / The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, … / Feb. 21, 1909, edition 1 / Page 13
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Mill SECOND SECTION Twenty-Two Pages . SECOND SECTION Twenty-Two Pages x it ii iii Br. &! . fli ri it V V Raleigh, FelS. 18. Now that we ara ' to havt the plaster replica of the fa- moui statu of Washington by can ova and ar to havs also 'a very fine j.rbls bust of the distinguished Wll- A. Graham, and there ta already ' ok:he walla of ihe Capitol the bronse tablet commemorative of the Edenton ii Tea Party. It looks something like a beginning. The State haa -quite a large collection l paintings how, but that started only. In 11 87, when tha first one came 'n, a full length of Chief JuaUce Ruffln, which, was for awhile in the Goverpors office but which la now In the Supreme Court room. Now the State has portraits everywhere in the publlo buildings. Those in the Supreme Court room have been very attractively labeled with metal name-plates, and those at the Executive Mansion ought to be treat d in the same way. This is a sort of preface to the fact that the tablet above referred to Is very badly placed In the Capitol.- Shadow falls upon it and almost every day, and certainly upon every cloudy day. visitors are ob served striking matches In order' to ee It. The writer had suggested that It be placed some twenty feet to the left Of where it now stands. There It could gather whatever, light ther is In the never-too-bright rotunda of the CapltoL There Is a growing sentiment In North Carolina in favor of co-education of the sexes and it is going to be found that the new high schools will increase this. The children grow up together In the lower schools, then pass Into the high schools, so that there are years of association. This will bring about, no doubt, a liking for similar associations in the Institu tions which are higher etlll. Such Is the comment made by thoughtful people. The fact that Raleigh's publlo schools are to close on the 6th of March is a subject of no little regret here. Meanwhile the books have been opened for registration for the elec tion for a special tax of IS cents for the township schools and the mayor makea a powerful appeal for the schools. The whole matter nere na been very' unfortunate and haa caus ed no little hard feeling some of It quite bitter in fact People simply do not know what to do with their children. In two or three cases they have been sent away to other points to get the'henefit of a full term. Thdugh It seems quite reasonable to believe that the election might carry, yet it Is said there Is some opposition to it and people are heard going around the streets talking against It. One of the visitors -this week, la a man who always gets a warm welcome to Raleigh ex-Gov Thomas J. Jar vis. He has received no end of com pliments on his splendid address be fore) the Legislature last week. He oiwava ntnza a cheery note and he nn thtnra look extremely good in his section of North Carolina. He Is very proud of Qreenvjne, wnicn, in deed, is a live town, arid of the East m Tralnlnsr School for Teachers, . which is a olg thing, too, and Is going tn Tilav a treat Dart in the develop ment of eastern North Carolina. Be yond a doubt Improved teacttprs have Improved scholars and improved schol ars have Improved conditions and the publlo and private schools are so playing a great part In North Caro lina's uplift. The next step to be taken In the case of a great many of the schools Is going to be the ag ricultural feature and it will not be long before there will be high school model farms or something along that line and there are going to be dis trict publlo schools like those In Geor gia and in so many great States In the West. It seems that railway development Is going to be another feature or iu. Rnnm. bir interests. It is rumored, are casting their etfes over the North Car olina Held, tsome are ioohhj n Seaboard Air Line and others at the Norfolk ft Southern, it Is said, both f th belna- roads with futures. The Seaboard Air Line did extremely well In 1908, actually matting mora mont under a receivership than It did the previous year under ordinary condi tions. Some of he roads have had a fashion of making a tremendous show ing in earnings and that sort of thingj some times brought about by heavy cutting, of all sorts of expenses and of work really needed. ' Talking with Mr. Ernest Martin, one of the owners of the Martin Hos iery Mills here, a day or two ago he spoke about the movement In the South "to make finer goods. Hia own mill, for example haa been operating what are known as 17-needl ma chines in making .hose and has now discarded these and pat In 140-needle , machines, which are aa fine aa can . It seems. Everything that dan be done to get the most out of apound . of cotton Is what North Carolina needs and this applies to the whole South. -Ther haa bees a great rage In past year for coarse goods and to New England has been left the finer work, but now the table are being turned, somewhat, at least. ' There Is now a vogue of the auto mobile. Haa the auto come to stay or will It run a race for awhile with fashion as did the bicycle and then -go out of favor as early as did the latter, smashing forty great firms and mak ing Idle no end of plants In which millions upon millions 'had been in vested? People swore the bicycle had come to stay and that its use had only begun; in other words, that It was as vital a thing as the sewing machine, " but It was not so. - There are others f -who say that the automobile people - ',will go In the same way and that the theatrical people, now so harass ed by Hie,, moving picture shows, will only have to Tilde their time to see the latter pass sway - and ? be rele gated to the limbo of the loet that place where so many forgotten things are pot to ctch"th - dust.-- But It teally looks as if the auto and the moving; pictures are fixtures. .: And "this, reminds ma of the fact that a great many antomoblllsts en- - joy the machines mainly for the thrill. Th machines are capable of much ' and yet are often overtasked. , If there Is a fascination, however. - In bowling along on a fine road on a line dav. figure ro yourself what aest there Is-In a night run through the woods. This week the writer had firh a 'run In mighty good company. The bright acetylene gas lamps threw a (lare far ahead, almost lik that GOSSIP OF STATE CAPITAL By COL. FRED A. OLDS Observer Bureau, Holleman Building, Raleigh of electrics, while above the duller glow ' of the ordinary lamps added something at least to lighten the gloom. The clouds hung low the trees bordered the roadside, often hug ging it close, and along miles of tortuous track, on the 'crest of a long ridge or "divide." our route lay, f part of it, In fact, almost all of It, through what uaod to be tne great maneuvre grounds of the North Caro lina troops. Many old soldiers will remember tha place when they are told that it was once "Camp Man gum." Now most of It Is a wild tangle of scrub oaks, with pines here and there. Our route the evening In question led from the black-lead mines and all their tangle of pits and galleries, honeycombing the swelling hills and dense forests, up a slope and then through a jungle growth, mostly of trees, which hold their old leaves until the new ones literally shove these aside; scrub-oaks and black jacks, those trees which follow pines and which hang on like grim death In any sort of situation. With the glare of lights, the 'chug-chug of the motor and the ceaseless sound of the siren we rushed along, taking the turns In the most approved style, and had some three miles of thrill without a break In It. A glow la the sky which marked where Raleigh lay seemed many miles distant and yet in a direct line was near, and the ra diance rose In the upper air rather like that of an aurora. Cabtns along tho roadside showed their tenants as the demon of a machine rushed by and though used to such things in the daytime they plainly showed their surprise. The whole thing showed the possibilities of a night run through the woods with a flue hand att the wheel and there were beauties at every turn, utterly un dreamed of In the more prosaic day light. Monday evening at the reception given by the Daughters of the Revolu tion to their president general, Mrs. Fltz, Chief Justice Clark was among the notable guests and he spoke to me about a movement about which something haa been heard to a greater or less degree these six or eight years, namely, to move the cap ital from Raleigh to Greensboro. There are people who have treated this matter somewhat in earnest, but tho North Carolina world generally takes It as a Jest It Is very safe to say that the Barringer bill will be defeated. The fathers acted wisely ami well when they selected Raleigh as the capital. If one looks at the map of the State, and balances the whole Commonwealth, so to speak, It will bo seen what wisdom they show ed, when after full deliberation they chose this particular place. They named a territory about the size of the District of Columbia, within which the special commiasioners ap pointed by the Legislature were to locate the capital. Tba site was to be bought and part of tlft money arising from the sales of tne lots was to be applied to public uses; that is, the Capitol, etc- This is the way Raleigh began, as a State cityr and so it has remained. We are moving back, at least some of the gentler sex are, to the days of our great grandmothers and even further back still, for the short walsted gowns with sweeping skirts, very scanty in everything out length below, are quite along the line of those dear old gowns which are Jn collections. So it happened Monday evening that a young Raleigh bello, dressed In revolutionary apparel, did not look so amazingly old as might be supposed when she was sur rounded by a bevy of beauties In latter-day gowns of pretty nearly the same cut The sheath dress has not come to North Carolina yet and may not arrive, but the dlrectoire Is a fairly close rival of It A lady re cently very wittily described a gown of this class as containing very little cloth and leaving very little to the imagination. It takes a woman to say such a thing as that A man would never think of It I believe I've written something about the use of the horseshoe as a good-luck emblem. It will be inter esting to people in the various com munities in North Carolina to keep their eyes open as they walk about, which, by the way, not many people do, and see how many horseshoes are used, generally over doors- A day or so" ago, out In the suburbs, a house which looked exactly like a tavern or some other resort for ghosts, was seen wlUi horse'shoes over every one of Its. tumble-down doors and with a fewt more by. way of good measure nailed nere and -there above win dows and on the sides of the fast-falling-to-pieces building. On a tree beside a deserted well, which was walled with rocks covered deep with moss, was snother of these good luck emblems. But all of them together will not save the house. Voiceless and eyeless It stands there, a re minder of Its former greatness, when It waa a mansion., and of the transi tion stage, when very .ordinary people lived In it who thought much mora of horseshoes' than they 'did of saint and Improvements. ... It Js fery Interesting to look abctot when-a legislative session is on to see how many there are of whet a wit here calls supernumerary people; all sorts of cjerks,' assistants here and there, sweepers and that sort, of thing. Away back yonder In the cam paign people . : had been promised places snd the promlsers had to make good- The Legislature, at every turn Investigates to se how many . extra hands it has and some of the investi gations have been very amusing in deed. It must be said la all frankness aooui me prewem jsusuwur aai u t is mnc&T above the average. -Dnrtartf.,- 0f ft to the SUfe anT to-the this entire term there fea only been on a cross word, not a case of public drunkenness or public . misbehavior, snd as a result most of the members have en in their seats, while not many yeurs ago ones In awhile ' on would be absent on account of boozi ness. and. there would be talk about expulsion and that sort of thing, but nothing has been heard of that this term, gome of them may drink on th- sty, but if so tbey have a happy way of not violating what soma w Irk ed people call the eleventh command ment. "Thou aualt sot b lotuU ouf.7 And ty the way, in not a few minds this last commandment, not mspircu by any manner of means, is a good deui mora of a force than the otner ten which -are Inspired. 1 All of us have seen Aoys who, when ever they have witnessed some won derful play or stunt of any kind do something in an imitative way, but a couple of Raleigh youngsters of very tender age, have brought out an en tlrely new stunt, which followed the thrills they got when seeing Tom Dixon's play, "The Clansman." Tha father of one of the boys tells the story. His youngster of t years saw the fiery cross which the Ku Klux sent around in the play and he and his comrade got a quantity of small pieces of Ughtwood, very cleverly fastened them together and so made a cross which, when everything was) quiet, they put up in one of the bed rooms at home and then touched off the numerous pieces of fat pine which composed It. There was a smell of smoke and the parents rushed in to and the boys looking at the blase. In a few moments the house would have been on Are. When asked where they got the Idea they said at once from "The Clansman." This was a boy's experiment. It remained for a Raleigh engineer who runs a stationary boiler to do a stunt which is perhaps superior to this one. He wanted to know if the draft under the boiler was all right and crawled in, luckily leaving the manhole ajar. He saturated some newspapers with oil and told his as sistant to touch these off in the for ward portion of the boiler, and see if everything was all right while he got In the rear. The effect waa Jim ply stunning. The draft waa soflfln that In a moment there was a yell and a rattle of Iron and out came the gentleman, through the manhole, his assistant declaring that his hair and whiskers were on Are. It waa hard to have a closer call than he had. Recruiting for the. regular army In North Carolina is quite a feature, and Captain Winston, who is of very notable' North Carolina descent and who Is stationed here - for eastern North Carolina, says that during the twenty-five months which he has been here the average number of recruits has been SO, though last month It was 45. which breaks his record so far. Thus he has enlisted 750 men, and he says -they are of a very fine type, much desired In, the army. In the western recruiting district, with headquarters at Charlotte, the average enlistments are about 40 each month. Captain Winston says men from the mountain region enter the army more easily than those from the flat coun try; for one thing because wages are lower and they see a great opportu nity ahead of them. Thus it is that such numbers of them come from western North Carolina, Tuesday evening Mr. Charles N. Evans, of Wilmington, so well known In the banking world of North Caro lina, was at the meeting of the cham ber of commerce and made a delight ful talk. He was Introduced by Presi dent Charles E. Johnson, who told "a good story about htm, every word of It true. Mr. Evans was a page some twenty-flve years ago in the Legisla ture, and a mighty clever youngster he was. One day young Evans was sent to the poatofflce to buy soma stamps and was given a 110 bill with Instructions to buy fS worth. Those were the days when the boys had reeds through which they blew soit- balls of paper, and when young Evans waa returning to the Capitol with the stamps, the 85 and some paper, ne saw a good chance to use his blow gun and thoughtlessly tore off a cor ner of the--86 bill and fired away, When he got to the Capitol he found the mutilated bill and was In great grief, but he went to a banker here, who looked at the bill and told htm there was enough of It left to redeem it and so to Charles' great joy another bin was given him in ex change, president Johnson said from that moment Mr. Evans made up his mind to be a banker and that he is known as a top-notcher In the pro fession. Passing mention has been made of the fact that Attorney General Pick ett has been called upon to make a ruling as to the distinction between a uylng-jenny of native construction and one of those combinations of noise and whirl known aa a merry-go-round, so often seen at fairs and other gatherings, and which rakes in the nickels so rapidly and Is there fore a subject of taxat(o nfor license. The correspondence, however. Is too funny to be passed by so lightly. The following Is the letter written by tha man who was in trouble and who was lifted out of It by the ruling, his Metter being addressed to "The Ator- aey uinrai. -non. air not thinking of law and not knowing Iwould have to pay license I built arude merry, goround to have a little fun with the young folks on Saturday evenings but they tell me I will have to pay li cense before I can run the thing will you please advise me along this Una and help me out If yon can It Is only a handmade concern with a few benches to alt on and It is in a small country place of about 250 inhabit-, ants and twenty miles from any town r railroad and I can only - us It about ens hour on Saturday evenings when the weather permits which only gives me 12 hours a year at the very est. please relieve me as you can as I would like to run it a little now I got It dona trusting; you 'will consid er this and that I may have a favor able reply." etc The reply of Attor ney General Blckett is a very happy combination of law, Latin and humor and Is in these words. "Tour letter has been - carefully considered. The plain reading of the statute would seem to make you liable for a license tha -chin-. , .m ,.-. it 1. a ftv. county. However, I am persuaded th Legislature never intended the law to apply to th simple device you have gotten up for th simple amusement of a pastoral people 20 miles from th railroad. From -your description Ing-Jenny instead of a merry -go-round. This is my official construc tion of th machine. Th law I Vil est as to a flying-Jenny and there for it- cannot be taxed. ,: Expressfo unum excluslo alterlus. It really ought not to b taxed. Think of the hundreds of laughs; the thousands' of delicious sensations, ox childhood that would be crushed, .murdered by the heavy hand of the tax gatherer. Qui haeret in lltera haeret In cortlce is a truth as old as the hills. This office will not do violence to It. It will not stand for such sticking in the bark. Of course I cannot control your county authorities, but if they will be good about the county license I will make the Slate Treasurer do the same, and If he cuts up about It I will pay It myself. The children shall rido, even if they do live twenty miles from a traia. Equal and exact Justice to all demands it. Respect fully submited. "T. W. BICKETT, Atty. Gen." A WAR-TIME SMOKE. It is queer how things come about. The writer was speaking to Mr. Michael Bowes, of Rulelgh, who has already been written about as the States' powder-maker during the war. about the John White blockade-run ning story written for The Observer. Mr. Bowes, who is yet 'a very active man here, said: "I can tell you a story myself about blockade-running. The last trip the blockade-runner Advance made I got a box of cigars she brought over, which I had order ed and for which I paid $700 In Con federate money. As that money was then at the rate of about 8100 for a silver dollar, my cigars cost me 7 cents apiece, there being 100 In tho box. I had business at Qoldsboro to get some material for making powder and took two of the cigars with me. There was only one passenger enr on the train, that being the 'ladles car,' as It was termed, but as there were no ladles cn It when the train started! I lit a cigar and began to smoke. Xt the first station two ladles came aboard, both dressed in homespun and with slat bonnets, so common then; everything being home-made. One of them saw me smoking and said 'How good that tobacco smells.' I apologized for smoking in that car and thereupon one of the ladles re marked that ahe wished she had a pipe of tobacco, for she loved It dear ly, but had never In her life smoked a cigar. I thought I would be gallant se I offered this lady my other cigar, which she took, put in her mouth and then took the cigar I was smoking In order to get a light As soon as her own cigar was going, she gave the one I had been smoking to her friend, nd there I was minus any cigar but enjoying the smoke which the ladles puffed in quite a cloud. They were perfectly happy and confided to me that at least they understood why men liked a cigar better than a pipe, for there was a lot more In it It was one of the most curious occurrences in my life. That Is the way my pair of really fine Havana cigars went." HOW THE BLIND TIGER SCHEMES -A very good story, was told this week by a member of tho Leglafature at the reception given by the Biologi cal Society at tho Agricultural and Mechanical College. Somebody made some mention about the prohibition laws; their enforcement; the dodging, etc., whereupon a story was told about a blind tiger here in Raleigh. People here are yet laughing at the trip through the Federal .building, notably on the third floor, here the court room la, made by thatVdmlra blc jurist and enforcer of the laws, Oudge Boyd, In the course of which he found some scores of flasks and other vessels which had contained liquor. The story is thai some of the jurors In the Federal Court got very dry themselves and one man, who had a particularly keen eye for a blind tiger, saw negro man who, to his mind, was exfc.-tly the right person to approach, told him he wanted some liquor, and when asked how much, said about a pint, whereupon the negro said: "Boss, 16 you give mo 76 cents and hold dls here package, you will aholy git de Hkker." The Juror gave him the money and away he went, leaving the package in the Juror's hand. The darky didn't come back any more and by and by the Juror, tired of waiting, concluded to look in the package, and, lo and be hold! there was the pint wrapped up in a newspaper. One would have thought that his fine instinct would have told him he had the liquor all the time. Any way, he took a pull at the bottlo and It waa soon among the pile of "dead men" over which Judge Boyd later threw his sharp and quick eye. In the prohibition days the darkey flask-sellers used to range through the building and get bags full of bottles and sell them, but now there is no deed for these articles. Even a blind tiger would not dare buy them. He might steal them or slip" them out on the sly, but so modest are these people that they don't want to do anything public. THE TABLES TURNED; HOW THE CAT KILLED THE CUR. A few days ago the writer took ad vantages of a charming afternoon to spend a few hours in a country rambling behind a pack of very good rabbit hound?. Rabbits were not overly plentiful, but were overly sharp, and when they wanted a place of . refuge they simply dashed under the thick mat of honeysuckle, which sometimes covered the grounds for acres in this section of the State. One In this they ware safe and the dogs could do nothing. But the curi ous .thing about the hunt was a aid line. Very" near the Soldiers Home, and exactly at the place where are the remains of the Confederate breastworks, an old negro woman was heard weeping and walling and ahead of her waa a stout negro girl, carrying in her apron a cur dog; on of the brown kind, with, much curled tall, which negroes so dote on and which are so numerous In Norm Carolina, and which a negro once. for lack of a . better name, told m was "Jusr sr dawg,7 this being a very good description, by the way. This dog was dying, evidently, his eyes wer glazing and his limbs were stiffening, and- in- a few moments he was gut down in the path, gave a kick or two and that was the last of mm. "Then It was found that an ordinary cat, on of those gray foragers which slip about In the . woods or fields, half tame or half wild, bad bean fighting with this dog in a marshy hollow for nearly an hour, and had finally kill ed the dog. which weighed five or six times as much as th cat ' The cat seemed to hav severed th wind pipe, for no blood was visible. Chil dren had seen th animals fighting and naturally thought th dog would Win out, but this waa the Urn when th cat tamed the tables and worried the dog to death. ANOTHER ILLUSION DISPELLED. How our Illusions are dispelled. Nine people out of ten will speak to you about the beautiful teeth negroes have and will say they wish the white veople had such. The teeth of th blsdk people seem whiter by contrast with the dark faces. A dentist will tell you In a minute that their teeth re, as a rule, much worse than those of whites, because they pay so little kttention to the care of them. FRED A. OLDS. SLAVEHOLDERS' DESCEXDAVTS. They Are Not a Small Bnt a Irge Part of the Southern Population. Macon Telegraph. To Judge the expressions of North ern writers and speakers, the con clusion has been reached in that sec tion that the descendants of the slave holders of the old South are a very small minority and are but sllghfly represented In the activities and prosperity of the South of to-day. It Is sometimes even confidently assert ed that the slaveholdlng class of the old South was a mere handful com pared with the wholo white popula tion. And yet a mere glance at the census figures for 1860 will show that this Impression Is altogether without basis. The slaveholdlng class waa a minority class but not a small one. There were tn 18(0 about four million slaves and about four hundred thousand slave holders. That number of slavehold lng heads of families, allowing five persons to a family a very moderate estimate for that period would mean a population of two millions belonging to the slaveholdlng class. Now, the white population for the whole South, Including Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri, was a little less than eight million, and therfore fully one-fourth of the people south of the Potomao and the Ohio belonged to the slave holding class. The proportion was very much greater In some States and parts of States, an(fconslderably greater In the eleven States of the Southern Con federacy as a whole. In those eleven States were found more than 3,600,000 of the 4,000,000 slaves, and no doubt fully 350,009 to 400,000 slavehold ers. By the same moderate allow ance of five to a family, we get a slaveholdlng class of 1,750,000, or about one-third of the 5,448,461 it white population, In the eleven Stvte.i of the Southern Confederacy. Barring the all too slight element that has- been received since the war from the North and 'orelgn countries, we may safely cnncludo that about the same proportion stilt holds, or that one-fourth of the population south of the Potomac and the Ohio, and that one-third of the population in the eleven States that formed the South ern Confederacy, are of slaveholdlng ancestry. Everywhere In society, in business. In politics and lnthe pro fessionsthe sons of slaveholders are conspicuous among the leaders testi fying to the absurldty of the notion that this element in the South Is "played out." This misapprehension Is built upon another that preceded it. The com paratively few large "slave barons" did not hold the' bulk of the slaves, as was supposed. The smaller planters and the business and professional men of the towns held the bulk of them in small lots of three, six, a dozen, twenty, forty, sixty, and so on, according to circumstances, need ahd wealth. The owner of Ave hundred to a thousand slaves was less common j than is the multi-millionaire of our time. POEMS. By His Majesty Mutsulilto, Emperor of Japan. The Independent, New York, Feb. IS. Hlsakata no Sora nl haretaru Fuji no ne no Takakl wo hlto no Kokoro to mo Oana! Fuji's chrir-cut peak Stands proudly soaring 'gainst the cloud less skyi Would that the man's heart Soared Just as high as that. Matsurigoto Idete kiklnu to Omolahl wa Yume narlkerl na, Nlwatori no naku, Metliought I sat before my Council Board, Engrossed in pressing business of the stato. 'Twas but a dream; for presently th Cock J Crowed, and I woke to Life's Realities. Toki hakaru Utsuwa no mays nl Arinagara, Tayumi gachl narl, Hlto no kokoro wat Poor human heart! so weak that e'en th Clock, With tireless tick meas'rlng' the stesdy hours, Shames It not Into unwearying energy. Fukl susabu Kaze no manl-manl Sasowarete lye no uchi made Tsumoru yukl kana. Bleak btow the Winter's blasts; the whistling flakes Drift at the wind's behest; and, swept against Windows and doors, makt bold to Invade my house. In the Japanese cycle, this yeafhTthe year of the Cock. POEMS. By Her Maejsty Haruko, Empress of Japan. The' Independent New York. Feb. 18. Tsutae koshl t Fumt arlte keso, - Shlrare kere Totiu ml-oya no Kami no ml-ldzu we. Had we not bad our books, Aa heirloom of the Ages, writ of yore. In which we read the ancient comlngn- - forth Of our god-anoestors tand learn that we, Their offspring, must be godlike in our .UvesJ. Kaku bakarl Megnmi amaneki " T O ml yo nl ' . ' TJmar an koso ... Urtahl kari kere. Only to have been born In each a reign When th Imperial Mercy is so wide, pervading all the land. Is Joy aeuga. . - -Ayamatan r Koto wo oraoeba, . ; Kartaotn not " Koto nl m men wa , ., ' .Tsutsushimaretsutsa. When" w fear . - '- " ' " To slip or err, we wisely tJke good heed And e'en tha smallest deed do needfully. NEW YORK AND WASHINGTON GOSSIP In private circulation in New York to-day, in the haids of eiht or ten leading lawyenfund stuiler.tn of af fairs, Is a memorandum which con tains the germ. t least, of Mr. Taft's tentative plan for the better regula tion of combinations and "trusts.'' As the public utterances of the President elect have already Indicated, this prop osition would dovetail Into the pres ent Bureau of Corporations and the present Interstate Commerce t'ommis lion. But, confidentially. Mr. Taft is now wondering whether the up shot of this whole rtepjJatlon problem will not be price regulation ; that Is, whether the publlo will not ultimate ly and In reality jlemand (as a meas ure not necessarily of keeping com petition alive actually, but rather of perpetuating potential competition) that the so-called trusts shall keep below a certain figure when It comes to calculating what their prolita shall be. Thla necessarily would Imply the existence of certain additional machinery In the Bureau of corpora tions, through willch the facts rela tive to the profits of industrial combi nations, as well aa the prices charged, would become known, and there, If not In the previous process of deter mining what the prices are (and, un der the plan, ought to be) would come the rub. These learned New York lawyers who are discussing the proposition realize that the questions involved are of the utmost difficulty. If not impossible of solution by such a method. But this is not the only symptom that the trust problem Is certain to require an Immense amount of study by the Taft administration. In the recent tariff hearings it appeared, from the statements of Judge Gary, chair man of the United States Steel Corpo ration, as well as from the utterances f Mr. Carnegie, that the largest steel makers did not care whether the du ties on Iron or steel products were re duced or not In the Payne Mil. Mr. Carnegie made fun of tho ways and means committee and the situation, and a good deal of fun has been made of him. But Judge Gary, whose cautious and calculating statements have bean almost as widely noticed, was taken more seriously. Undoubt edly this representative of the great est of all corporations, which had aa greatly enjoyed the benefits of the pro tective tariff, voiced the sentiment of his stockholders when he declared that he would prefer as a citizen In terested in prosperous business con ditions generally, that tho steel sched ule should not oe rut too much, pet haps not at all, but that, aa head OT a manufacturing enterprise of the size of the steel corporation, he was, as a matter of business for Itself, honestly and necessarily Indifferent, becaune If the Independent ind small steel manu facturers could sUnd a cut, he could. In fact, "What would become of the little fellow?" This was what caused Dr. Lyman Abbott to doclare that the best inter est of the public consisted not In proi tecting by means of existing duties on Iron and steel -products th smaller manufacturer In the continuance of his smaller and hence less economical and efficient methods, but rather in letting him take the consequence of a cut and in providing the necessary measure of regulation by the govern ment, in the interest of the public, for the larger corporation. This does. indeed, point out the real dilemma of those whd wish, on the one hand, to reduce certain duties which they be lieve too high and who recognize, be cause they see them, the dlffcultles In volved In providing an adequate meas ure of regulation for the trust, which might go on indefinitely enlarging Its operations (and hence making them more economical and efficient), and hence might also go on Indefinitely absorbing Its less effective competi tors. At all events, the continuance of actual and active competition In such a matter is evidently of Increasing moment; and since on this account the ordinal y kind of competition with which, you are familiar would serve its purpose (of protecting the public) less and less efficiently, the problem of providing a quasi or potential com petition in the shape of government control Is equally of increasing mo ment It la this condition of affairs which haa doutbless inspired Mr. Carnegie to project his plan by which all prices would be regulated by an Industrial court He would first provide a tar iff commission. This, no doubt, would look In the direction of an Industrial court by first determining What may be the differential between American labor cott and foreign la bor costs; and then presumably it would seek to determine what Is the "reasonable profit" promised to Amer lean manufacturers by the Chicago platform of the Republican party. Then, he says, would come the su preme industrial court, to pass upon prices, which he declares to be even a larger question than the tariff, and apparently one Inevitably growing out of It ( The expert accountant has not yet appeared to tell the ways and means committee, or even any Interest ap pearing before it In the recent tariff hearings, what tho differential be tween American labor costs and for eign labor costs may be. There have been gropings, but only groplngs, for what the manufacturers appearing be fore the committee would consider a "reasonable profit" to be. Evident ly there are questions, however, which some governmental authority must look into if the wishes and needs of only the largest corporations, or the combinations ahd trusts, in other words and there are many of them are to be regard!, for evidently gov ernment regulation, which the public would doubtless Insist upon as a de fense, would have to be intelligently and thoroughly and justly worked out. Some authorized representative of the public would have to do it Thus the Carnegie plan laps over into the Taft tentative plan, or the tatter over into it: and this means that there' would be something doing in snd about the Bureau of Corporation It would require new machinery, which would have to be provldsd by law, as with the additional powers desired J and thought to be necessary by many for the Interstate Commerce Commis sion. But note the troubles of Sen ator La Follett and others to provide a physical valuation of the railroads. This has not encountered merely th opposition of interests directly con cerned. - It Is a doubtful question entertained by many whether ade quately to enable th Interstate Com merce Commission to represent the shipping and traveling public in the matter of rat carrier's . -pres- would be possjbl tinder th constitu tion. - Other economlsta , than Mr. Harrii&aa feallev in monopoly if it Is adequately regulated In th Inter est of the public by this quasi or potential competition that I navt spoken of whether he believes in such a kind of competition, or any , competition, or not. The tariff discussion and the Taft and Carnegie plans serve to start a discussion of the real problem bow . to harmonize an economic tariff law with the changes Involved in the im- , mense and apparently Increasing; growth of trust operations, while as the same time providing through th proper governmental agencies an ef fective means of regulation. As it says in the advertisement, "Think 18 oer." New attention has lately been -drawn, not merely in New Tork and Washington, to the fact that other combinations or associations are about to find a way to propagate the mors and more extent-ive application of their methods through the patent system. , You are familiar with the fact that we have an American association ot licensed automobile manufacturers. Each member pays a royalty to sj company owning certain patents. The) i recent St. Paul dispatch that th ' manufacturers of Portland cement were about to form a similar alliance) was premature, but there wa some thing in It, and apparently they will succeed with It. The Hurry and; Seaman patents, to-called, by whicht the most economical production oft Portland cement Is possible, are owned by a certain company. It has col letted royalty, but there have been quarrels over the use of these pat ents, and mergers, which may or may; not have been Illegal, have resulted. The patent system appears to yield) . Itself gracefully enough to this pro cess Of allying all contending com panles, or companies that might pr fer not to contend: and this is another) condition, rather than a theory, which! confronts the lawmakers, who think no doubt lightly, that in th interest) of the people pjt the pee-pul of tha demagogue, bt.t the real people that they must further regulate the trusts and combinations. Meantime has Just come out, per haps at the physiological moment aa ; adverse report by Mr. Nelson, of Min nesota, from tho Senate judiciary committee, upon the so-called . clvla federation bill to amend tha Sherman anti-trust act Mr. Nelson and those, other eminent lawyers point out what Is practically the Insuperable difficul ty in the way of that, and th folly, practically speaking, of undertaking it in the present state of publlo epin- ' inn with reference to combinations. , Innumerable decisions of . the courts, many of them the highest are quoted, and appropriately enough Judge Taft himself is quoted from the bench, as deciding that however reasonable tha prices fixed by a combination or as sociation may be. and however ilttla such combination or association may tend to go an actual or oppressive monopoly, it is nevertheless com pletely void at common . law becaus In restraint of trade and tending to a monopoly and it follows that tha . question of reasonableness or unreas onableness In reference to such ef forts to Ax prices does not enter, be cause the tendency involved in pro tecting the alliance in a reasonable, combination would mean the tempta tion to unreasonableness, and ' this would not be protected by th courts. Senator Nelson's report speaks 08 the four classes of remedies iagslnst combinations, contracts and monopo lies In restraint of trade and com merce: namely, by criminal prosecu-. tlon, by Injunction, by seizure and confiscation of trust goods While In, transit from one Stat to another or to a foreign country, and by civil action for triple damages In behalf of any party Injured; and he points out that all these remedies hav been applied, and evidently he and his fel low members of the Senate judiciary) . committee want them all to be con- ; tinued to be applied, for they declare -that the civic federation bill to amend the Sherman act would render It nugatory because criminal -.prosecu-' tlons would not 'le and civil remedies would labor under the greatest doubt and uncertainty. "To destroy or nn- , dermlne it at th? present Juncture," says the report "when combinations are on the increase and appear to b as oblivious as ever to tha rights Of the public, would be a calamity... C, As for the pretensions ,of th bill which provide that good trusts Shall practically be those registered wills the Bureau of Corporations or th Interstate Commerce Commission, and that bad trusts shall be "the others," ; he says that this would Involve a dis pensing power, or n power of granting . Immunity, conferred on a mere bureau head In the case of Industrial corpo rations, and upon an administrative) . body In the case of Interstate carriers, and In both cass without notice or hearing and wholly ex parte at course of procedure that would not be tolerated, according to 8enatot Nelson. In any court of our conntry. . He also points out that the so-calledl tabor section of 'he proposed bill does not give to labor any rights, befora the courts which It does not now possess. It can strike now, just as it could strike then. TRIAL BY JURY. Reduced to an Absardity tn tha Coupe r Murder Case,--' New York Evening Post Trial by jury reaches its acme ot absurdity In the case of th murderers of senator Carmacknow pending at Nashville. After more than three -eeks of elimination of the intelligent, a Jury was found on Saturday which contains four absolute illiterates, two . others who can barely read, while a'.I twelve swear that they hav not read: a newspaper sine the shooting, soma adding, with a fine superiority Ilka that of Mr. Balfour, that they had not rea'd a paper far ten years. ' So much for the rediculous laws In Amer ica, obstensibly aiming to secure Im partiality in a Jury, but really obtain ing .stupidity, Better openly fill in box from th Idiot asylums anl in a ranks of the defective. We sincerely hop that th Nashville jury will ba capable of following the evidence and doing its duty; but certainly the law of Tennessee has don its best not only to prove that it is an ass, but t make sure that ta rauy computer c jr. -shall n oarren rrom trying n. issue, not only ot lire ana deem, cue of civilisation Itself. . Peruana needed such a ghastly exhibition in order to indue lawyers and Jh!ps to t about th long delayed- reform of our Jury laws. - :
The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Feb. 21, 1909, edition 1
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