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About Morning Oregonian. (Portland, Or.) 1861-1937 | View Entire Issue (April 14, 1910)
THE MORNING OREGONIAX, THURSDAY, APRIL. 14, 1910. PORTLAND. OREGON. Entered at Portland, Oregon. Postofflee as second-Class Matter. subscription Bates Invariably In Ad-ranea. fBI MAIL.) Xallr. Sunday Included, one year ..98-00 ally. Sunday Included, six months... 4.23 Dally. Sunday Included, three month. . 2-25 Dally. Sunday included, one month.... .75 Dally, without Sunday, one year..... 6.00 Daily, without Sunday, six months..-. 8.25 Dally, without Sunday, three months 1-75 Dally, without Sunday, one month o0 Weekly, one year 1-50 Sunday, one year 2.60 Surday and weekly. &ne year. 3-60 By Carrier.) Dally. Sunday included, on year...?. "00 Dally, Sunday included, one month 75 How to Kemlt Send Postofflee money order, express order or personal check on your local hank. Stamps, coin or currency are at the sender's risk. Give postofflee ad dress in full. Including county and state. Postasje Rate 10 to 14 paces. 1 cent; 18 to 28 paces. 2 cents; 30 to 40 paces. 2 cents; 40 to SO pases. 4 cents. Foreign postage double rate. Eastern BnstaeM Office The S. C Beck wlth Special Agency New York, rooms 48 50 Tribune building. Chicago, rooms 610-512 Tribune building PORTLAND, THURSDAY, APRIL. 14, 1910. WHERE IS THE TRUTH? President Woodrow Wilson, of Princeton University, in a recent ad dress, spoke of high prices and their cause. "Take meat, for example," he said, "and see what the truth is. The truth is that the meat trust has been able to control the meat market to such an extent that scores of ranch men have been driven out of the cattle-raising business because it was un profitable. The short supply of meat js due to the monopoly created by the meat trust. It is true, therefore, that the supply is short compared with the vast demand, but it has been made short by the operation of a trust fostered by the legislation of the government." All want the truth on this subject, the sheer truth; but President "Wilson made only general statements, and of fered nothing to support them. All would like to know about the meat trust, and whether, or how far, it is the cause of high prices. We think it probable that Judge Samuel H. Cowan, of Texas, repre sentative of the Texas Cattle Raisers' Association and of the National Live stock Association, whose object it is to promote the interests of those who raise livestock for the markets and keep the meat trust and the packers from setting too much of the profits, may have better knowledge on such a subject than President Wilson. Judge Cowan is a representative of '.he producers, as against the packers; and a few days ago he delivered testi mony before the Senate committee on high prices of meats and their cause. He explained that meat animals cannot be grown at as low prices as formerly and enterted into details to jhow why. Into the problem, he ex plained, enter the price of land, the price of corn and hay and the price of labor. The days are gone by, he ex plained, when the ranchman could pasture his herds on public land, and bo bring steers to a condition- in which they would be salable at a profit. He must now buy his pasture land or rent it. And he must pay far higher for it in either case than ten or twelve years ago. No longer is there 30 cent .corn.' but 70-centcorn: to herders Hfid other helpers much higher wages jjuist be paid; and a 1200-pound steer .jiat brought $65 on the ranch in 1898 tarings over $100 now. ! J Judge Cowan's business is to speak for the stock-grower, not for the packer: but he entered Into certain de Jtfiils about the relations of these two tinterests to each other. The profits tf the packing industry, he said, are from by-products rather than meats. By the methods employed in great JKtabllshments profits are made on Hides, tallow and lard. The witness t-'lted a case where the packer sold a Jtarcass that cost him $83 to the re tailer for $84.70. His knowledge was Jmly general, but he believed the profit to the butcher for killing and dress sing was about SO cents a head for cat tle, but the profit from the by-prod-.icts was much more considerable. A ,t6 retailers' profits, they can hard'y Jbe large,- though there may be ex ceptions. Steaks at 25 to 30 cents a iund certainly are high, but the re Jtftller has to sell three-fourths of the Mtrcass at one-third of these prices. What, then, is the matter? Where jj the trouble? The railroads are under very otrict repulation, by the Jhterstate Commerce Commission, ?htch moreover responds quickly to -inmplaints about high or unejual Jites. It would seem that the inquiry us. to the cause of the high cost of lueats tends to this conclusion, name Higher cost and value of land arid labor, with consequence of higher Iprlces of forage crops, higher taxes Jrnd general expenses on the farm as JOsewhere. That the meat trust, ao Jiilled, gets some share need not be ioubted, but it is very questionable whether it is the main factor in the 'Jhigher prices. Land values have ad vanced greatly; the area of "open singe" is diminishing fast and Its pro ductivity, too; farm and ranch labor is higher and in less supply, and corn find other forage crops bear much Jitgher prices than in former times. Ijheap beef and pork and mutton Should seem to be an impossibility Jivithout cheap land. Rise In land ral lies, moreover,- is -one of the main ausesf the advance, in wages that Jnust be paid to workers on the land. -THE COUNCIL AND THE FOURTH. ' j I The Mayor's project of a safe and sne Fourth of July meets with some mexpected opposition in the City t"puncll. One member ""knows there js much harm by accidents," but he thinks "the game is worth It." That K the fun of the firecrackers and toy jitstols is v.orth all the wounds and laughter they cause. Some' men's deas of comparative values are singu lar. Another Councilman thinks the poise and danger Instil patriotism Into the young people. Evidently this pub lic official does not distinguish clearly between patriotism and the germs ef lockjaw. It is the latter which the fireworks arid miscellaneous snooting really instil. A. further oil of councilmanic wis dom upon this subject is the opinion tiiKt the riotous uproar of the hood lums' celebration, with the wounds and deaths which result from It, "'la' the best way to teach the children that we are celebrating the Declara tion of Independence." Is there in deed no other vay to impress them with this important knowledge? . Would not they learn it equally well if they were given the opportunity to witness a pretty pageant in which the signing of the Declaration played a. conspicuous part? Might not intelli gent poems . and recitations convey fully as much patriotism ' t firecrack ers to the youthful mind? Would it not contribute to the National under standing of this .natter if some pne would explain clei-rly Just what the relation is between Chinese firecrack ers and the American Declaration of Independence? Upon the. whole, the reasons which various Councilmen ad vance for opposing the Mayor's plan do more credit to their hearts than to their heads. TAFT AND ROOSEVELT. It is impossible to conceive that there can be or will be any dissen sion between Taft and Roosevelt. Be tween them there can be no differ ence on ,any matter of importance. Roosevelt warmly recommended Taft for his successor. Taft isn't play ing second fiddle, but is pursuing the general course and policy marked out by the authoritative declarations of his party. Some other man than Taft may be the Republican candidate in 1912 but how can it be Roosevelt? One would say it cannot be Roose velt. , ' One scarcely wishes to say that Roosevelt made Taft President; but it is certain . that ".oosevelt commended him and supported him for the posi tion. Taft has individuality., and abil ities. He is the President, on his own character and merit. Can those per sons who assert or Intimate that Roosevelt is to supersede Taft realize or imagine what position it would place these men either of them and both of them? Roosevelt cannot be a candidate against Taft. If Roosevelt were to .have been a candidate again the op portunity was" in 1908. But he de clared he had had two terms and i would not be a candidate for a third. He would respect the unwritten law as to two terms. The law has the same force now that it had then. True, in his case, there has been a break of the continuity in the series of terms; yet against a third term there re mains the. same objection as before. It is an objection that defeated Grant as a candidate In IS 80, after the inter val of the Hayes term. It was de cided then that the "Interregnum" didn't remove the objection to a third term. There's, no assurance that Roose velt could be elected In 1912. From many springs and sources opposition would rise up against him. Perhaps Taft can't be, either. That will de pend a good deal on the spirit and conduct of the opposition. Should Bryanism ' still dominate the Demo cratic party, Taft probably would be re-elected. , The conditions are such that we should expect the Republ'can party during the next three years to stand or fall with Taft. FORTY-FIVE TEARS, AGO. On this night, April 14, forty-five years ago, Abraham Lincoln was shot by an assassin. A crime as foolish as horrible. It changed (not for the better) the whole course of American political life, from that day tp this; and it may be doubted whether we shall ever escape from the conse quences of that horribly mad and criminal act. The irrational division of political parties today is a consequence of this crime; and no one can see far enough into the future to imagine when the course of our history. Bet awry by this act of an assassin, will resume any rational or normal line of action. THE HOUSEWIFE'S OCCUPATION. The order to the census takers to classify women who keep house among those "having no occupation" has ex cited much justifiable indignation. Probably the departmental clerk who invented the order never undertook to run a household r toe would have been of a different opinion about it. The chances .are that he would have found himself fully occupied from morning until night for seven days of the week. The truth of the matter is that housekeeping is not only an oc cupation, but u very trying one. It makes severe demands upon the time and strength of those who practice it and it requires a high degree of intel ligence, so much that capable house keeping is a comparatively rare ac complishment. Almost any woman can manage a household without ac tually driving- her husband insane and starving "her children, but there are very' fw who csn conduct the affairs of a home competently and econom ically. The history of mo- domestic establishments, if it were to be writ ten, would present a sad tale of neg lect, waste and ignorance. When the mystery of the present hard times and high prices is fully explained, conspicuous among the causes of the trouble will stand the fact that the American housewife is not mistress of her occupation. In man's world when a given task is found to be disgusting or dangerous a. machine is invented to do if with out much human intervention. When a housewife finds any of her tasks disgusting she does nt Invent a ma chine to do them. She simply shunts them off upon low grade laborers of her own sex, and if she cannot afford to do that . she lets them go unper formed. It is not the lack of servants which is breaking up the American home so much as the lcck of intelli gent thought applied to its problems by the American housewife. Instead of facing her tasks she too often flees from them to the secure refuge of the boarding house or the furnished flat. There never was before such a uni versal admission of defeat as our American women are making by their hegira from the home to the hotel. Can the woman who spends her nights playing bridge and her days , eating candy and reading novels in a rented bedroom be said to have an occupa tion? THE SILVER LINING. The balance of trade, which is the difference between the amount of ex ports which we sell the foreigners and the value of the imports which we buy from them, has this year shrunk to such small proportion that It is feared the end of the fiscal year will witness Its total disappearance. Nat urally, this unsatisfactory condition of affairs by which we are obliged to ship gold t. Europe to make up a de ficiency 'which we usually pay in wheat, corn and cotton, has created unfavorable comment. A close an alysis, however, of the business for the first eight months of the year, presents features that throw a better light on the foreign trade as a whole. Imports for the eight months end ing with February broke all previous records for the period, and: for the first time In our history exceeded $1, 000,000. 000. Exports for the eight months were, on the contrary, nearly $150,000,000 behind the record. Im ports included material for use in manufacturing to the extent of. $562, 627,025, or about 55 per cent of the total. These figures, of course, mean that we are Increasing our manufac turing business at a very satisfactory rate, and so long as our- own manu facturing enterprises are handling this imported material at a profit to them selves and supplying American citi zens with employment, there is an economic advantage even in a seem ingly gloomy adverse balance of trade. That we are reaping some benefit from this class of imports is also shown in the export trade. Manufac tured articles for the eight months were 4 1 per cent of the total com pared with 37 per cent In the preced" lng year. Of the February exports, 50.84 per cent were manufactures. There has been a corresponding decline in the percentage of foodstuffs exported. While the totals for both exports and Imports for the fiscal, year ending June 30 will undoubtedly break all records, the gain will' be in the im ports, for It is now practically certain that the exports for the few remain ing months will be insufficient to swell the total to record proportions. There are so many factors to be con sidered that It is difficult to determine exactly whether we are gainer or loser by this shifting in the percentages of imports and exports, but the manu facturing item on the totals is cer tainly reassuring. 19 THIS TREASON? Secretary Wilson of the Agricultural Department has held his seat in the Cabinet for a greater length of time than any former occupant of that position. The firm hold which he seems to have on that particular seat among the mighty is Cue to the skill ful manner in which he has succeeded in making the farmers believe the department was run by a farmer and must perforce be" as near perfection as is possible. The grain trade, the men engaged in buying and selling grain, chartering ships and ordering cars on the basis of advance informa tion on the size of the crops, have for years regarded the Agricultural Department as a good deal of a joke, so far as Its work touches them and their interests; but up to the present time, the grangers have stood val iantly by the greatest granger of them all. Now comes an advance notj of treason, for the State Grange of West Virginia has drawn up and passed a memorial protesting against the mis representations of the Agricultural Department. Taking Secretary Wil son's impressive total of $8,760,000, 000 as the alleged value of the prod ucts of American farms in 1909, they divide it among those actually engaged in agriculture and dependent on the industry for support, and get it down to a pep capita basis of but $250, which, in the language of their memo rial "does not look like abounding wealth." But the grangers will not even admit that there were enough farm products last year to provide even a per capita of ? -5 0. They pro ceed to a charge of $1,000,000,000 on interest account on the investment in farms. Another - $1,000,000,000 goes glimmering in the purchase of seeds, fertilizer, and the like, and taxes, depreciation and insurance make further inroads on tha great pile which Farmer Wilson has credited to the farm account. The strongest .point made against the glowing report, however, is where the grangers' memorial charges du plications. For example, the enor mous corn crop figures to .the limit in the total, but there . are also im mense valuations placed on cattle, hogs, sheep, chickens and other ani mals which eat up the greater, part of the corn crop, while it is still on the farm. The same is true of oats, hay and other Crops which are fed on the farm, and the value of-which ap pears in Secretary Wilson's totals as original products and again, as the price of the stock that consumes them. Of course, this treasonable spirit and inclination, to question the accuracy of the statistics supplied by "Tama Jim" has "hot spread very ex tensively as yet; but as the increased cost of living continues to attract larger attention, and the consumer and the middlemen continue to pass the respor ibility on to th s man on the farm, there may be further signs of restlessness, and the campaign ora tors will be asked to revise their statements regarding the hilarious prosperity of the farmers of the coun try. . COEDUCATION AT TUFTS. Tufts College, Massachusetts, has finally effected the much discussed change in its organization and will cease from this year to be a coeduca tional Institution. Women students will be provided for in the new Jack son College, which is to be established as soon as practicable. The reasons for this radical change at Tufts Col lege are not all of them openly pa raded. Much is made of the patent fact that courses of study suitable for boys are not always suitable for girls. It is also said that the same code of discipline ought not to be applied to both. Girls need certain concessions and a mildness of rule which would be injurious to boys. In general the effort to govern students of either sex by the same principles has resulted In more or less harm to all of them. The young men tend to become more rude in their manners than they do in col leges exclusively for their own sex. Lwhile the young women acquire a cer tain mannishness of demeanor which adds nothing to their charm and little to their efficiency. The old notion that men educated in co-educational colleges are tainted with effeminacy is far from correct. The reaction against womanly ways makes them emphasize their native roughness to the point of brutality. All this may or may not be true, -but the real reason why Tufts College has banished the girls is because they made it unpopular among young men. One would generally suppose that stu dents of the sterner sex would be at tracted to co-educational schools, but they are not. They are disposed to shun such places, and Tufts has ex perienced a sad falling off in its at tendance on that account. Tht Is to say, the enrollment of men has fallen of.- It has been in a fair way to be come a woman's college pure and sim ple. Just why men dislike co-eduea-tional colleges in the East, it would be difficult to say. Probably it is a matter of fashion. Tale, Harvard and Princeton admit no women. There fore It is in the nature of things im proper for them to attend the same colleges with men anywhere else. This seems to be about the way the sub ject Is reasoned out, and the train of logic compares favorably with most of those upon which educational prac tice is founded. AH records for traffic on the lake were broken last season, but the busi ness for 1910 is opening up on such, a great scale that it is confidently ex pected that a corresponding increase will be scored this year. The Ameri can Shipbuilding Company has orders for thirty mammoth freighters, which are to cost $10,000,000, most of them being 600 feet long and with a carry ing capacity of about 9000 tons. These big freighters are built on the lakes at smaller cost than they could be built elsewhere. When completed they handle freight at a lower cost per ton mile than it is -handled anywhere else in the world. For the present, Amer ican capital finds plenty of employ ment in railroads and lake craft, but some day our shipbuilders may enter the field on the high seas, with craft built in the lake yards. We shall then have a merchant marine of which we can be proud, and which will require no subsidy-. Barnum's "wild man of Borneo," deaf, dumb and ninety, is dragging out a solitary existence in his little home at Waltham, Mass. In his prime ho was' forty-three inches high, his brother and companion, who died live years ago, was thirty-six, and together they weighed ninety-four pounds. Curiosities in Human form, they were on exhibition for many years and made rich those who profited by the pitiful trick which Nature had played upon them, and the fate that literally tore them from their native wilds. These little wild men were captured on the coast of Borneo foTty-three years ago. An exile for nearly half of his long life, Plutano, the little old survivor of the two, waits in silence and loneliness the end of a life of won derful vicissitude, ranging from naked poverty to affluence, and from the most primitive surroundings upon his native island to the wonders of world wide travel- . The New York, New Haven & Hart ford and the Boston & Maine Rail roads 'are end-to-end, not competitive systems. To unite them for purposes of traffic and management cannot, therefore, violate the National law against combination and merger. Since the Legislature of Massachusetts, the state In which the roads meet end-to-end, has authorize i a proceeding to bring the roads Into operation to gether, there can ' be no reasonable ground for the objection raised by a Senator (La Follette) from a distant state. But it's La Follette's way. Tet It was just as well that the Senators from Massachusetts and New Hamp shire should have taken the trouble to tell the Senate and the country that the Senator from Wisconsin didn't know what he was talking about though nobody, perhaps, could have supposed he did. Not all of the foreign nobility wastes its time lapping up brandy and soda and Scotch highballs in the old world clubs, nor in title hunting in America. Here we have a story from Nome, Alaska, of a 400-mile dog race on which $50,000 was wagered, and in which the two leading teams were owned by British lords. One of the titled foreigners actually drove the team himself.' Dog-racing may not be a very commendable pursuit, even for a British lord, but it i3 so much bet ter than the mercenary chase for American heiresses, which attracts so many titled lords, dukes and other offscourings of old-world nobility, that Lord Ramsey and his "sporty" uncle. Sir Charles, ought to become American citizens. Is the rejection of representative govern ment, or representative methods, neces sary to maintenance of the political rights of the people? It Is so assumed by those who approve the assembly representative system. This was the introductory para graph in an article in The Oregonian of yesterday. The word "approve" should read "oppose." It is a mis take pardonable to the haste of com positors and proofreaders when the handwriting of the copy Is a ra'pld scrawl. Since Senator Beveridge. of Indiana, just now is an object of so intense admiration of the Democratic press of the country, will the Democratic members of the coming Legislature of Indiana stand right in for his re election, next year, when the Legisla ture is to meet? "I trow not." Oh, no! This admiration is the political game A proper bill to keep Old Glory sacred was up in the House committee yesterday. It prohibits any kind of advertising. That is one kind of mili tarism the whole country will agree on. Over in the Grand Ronde. where they have been growing fine fruit for nearly half a century but have been too modest to talk of it, a snow flurry is welcome this early in April. The Kaiser and Roosevelt believe In having large families. The Kaiserin and Mrs. Roosevelt may have op portunity to exchange views on the subject. We suppose, if Mr. Bryan were on the stump, that RoorDvelt's conduct abroad, compared -to his own, would be something awful. Jeffries .plans a trip abroad after "licking" Mr. Johnson. Foreigners will be delighted to see the next great est American. A fiat money man got what was due yesterday when Judge Morrow gave him five years for uttering forged checks. Senator Beveridge and some others will find that other Republicans can eport as insurgents with Democrats. Speeding is a disease that requires treatment. Solitary confinement might cure it. A great many more persons , will be disappointed when they see the comet. The State Inspector of Washington has found that oil has a tendency to taint. Bryan is regreasing his old silver toboggan. The Lafean apple bill has been boxed. ' WHAT SHOULD OLD-AGES LIMIT BEI Historical Facts Presented In Con-' rreaslonal Debate. Congressional Record. In the House:' Remarks upon the ad visability of establishing an age limit for Government employes. Mr. Sheppard (.Texas) It occurs to me that in the noisy onsweep of an intensely material era we are perhaps not suffi ciently familiar with the capabilities of age. Indeed, it has become too much & habit in recent years to disregard and put aside our older men and women. A cele brated physician Dr. Osier expressed the opinion only a short while ago that the effective work of the world is done between the ages of 25 and 4a A more colossal error could not possibly have been made. Let us consider what has been achieved by men beyond- the age of 80. Titian, master of Venetian painting, produced his most wonderful canvases after 80, paint ing his famous "Battle of Lepanto" at the age of 98. Fontenelle, one of the most versatile of men; Cobaro, the great disci ple of temperance; Pope Leo XIII, John Adams, Theophrastus strode Into the 90' s with intellectual vigor unimpaired. Michael Angelo at 89 still held the sky a prisoner in his brush, having executed his "Last Judgment," perhaps the most famous single picture in the world, and his celebrated frescoes In the Slstlne Chapel between 60 and 70. See Von Moltke in full uniform at 88. still the) Chief of Staff of the Prussian Army, hav ing crushed France at 72. Hear John Wesley preaching with undiminished elo quence and power almost every dfey at 88. Mr. Kellher (Mass.) I desire to ask the gentleman from Texas if he can tell us how old the Speaker of the House was .when he outgeneraled, the House re cently, Mr. Sheppard He is now nearly 74. Whether the Speaker outgeneraled the House or not on that particular occasion, he is a conspicuous Instance of the ac complishments of age. See Guizot and Hobbea and Landor with active pens at 87. See Talleyrand and Thomas Jeffer son, Herbert Spencer, Newton and Vol taire, all fruitful in the SO's. See Ban croft, uffon and Ranke writing death less history after 80. See Palmerston, Prime Minister of England at 81, and John Qulncy Adams, stricken in the full ness of his strength on the floor of Con gress at the same age. Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar" was composed at 83, Goethe's "Faust" at SO. See Gladstone conducting one of his most exciting po litical campaigns at 80, taking control of a nation and becoming its Premier at 83. See Cato learning Greek; Plutarch, Latin, and Socrates, music, all at 80, and tell me no more that the old are no longer capable of high and useful achievement. Think of Joseph Jefferson portraying Rip van Winkle with added effectiveness at 76, or the Irish actor. Macklin, ac tually taking part in a performance in England at 99. Think of Browning, bril liant and complex as ever at 77, or Whit- tier and Bryant issuing new volumes at 79. Think of Grimm, Laplace, Lamarck, completing tremendous tasks in the neigh borhood of 80. Think of Perugino, at 76, painting the walls of a vast cathedral, or Humboldt deliberately postponing until 79 the best work of his life, his Immortal "Kosmos,"' completing It at 90. Think of Galileo discovering the daily and month ly vibrations of the moon at 73. Think of Irving and Lamartine, Hugo and Holmes, Wordsworth and Longfellow, Hallam and Grote, George Buchanan and Samuel Johnson, Kant, Savigny and Littre, ail astounding mankind with masterful pro ductions between 70 and 80. Think of Henry Clay, Calhoun, Metternlch. Bis marck, Crispi. Thiers, Franklin, Morgan, Reagan, Roberts, Allison, Morrill, Can non, all towering figures in politics after 70. The average age of the Chief Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, perhaps the greatest legal tribunal on earth, is nearer 70 than 60, Marshall having concluded his prodigious labors of more thaan three decades at 80. Taney at 8S, Walte at 72, Fuller still presiding over that auerust bodv todav at 76. It is safe to say that the average at which all the more than 50 associate justices who have occupied the Supreme Bench since its or ganization were still In the full' exercise of their functions is nearer 66 than 60. In the words of Mr. James Q. Howard one of the most gifted officials in our Congressional. Library, himself an exam pie of the possibilities of age. a man is as a rule "immature, unripe, callow, vealy, verdant, sappy, bumptious, bat- blind and grass-green" until he reaches the age of 40 years. I repeat that there has been of late too much of a disposi tion to neglect and disregard the old. Prayers for Pittsburgh ' New Tork World. The Episcopal bishop of Pittsburg has designated next Sunday as a special day of prayer for the redemption of that city. To attempt to accomplish the spiritual re generation of a city of 350.000 souls at a stroke is an ambitious project, and a pe culiar efficacy will be required of the prayers which are to "save this whole community from political corruption. greed. Intemperance, lawlessness. the desecration of the Lord's Day. the viola tion of the sanctity of marriage, and every false way. No harm and perhaps some good can come from the plan. But It is through secular agencies, such as a fearless grand jury and a vigilant District Attorney, backed by an honest public opinion that the purification of Pittsburg must be ac complished. The indictments for bribe- giving found against bank and corpora tion presidents are worth a whole litany as a practical remedy for civic corrup tion. . If these Indictments .are followed by others, and bribe-givers and bribe-takers of all ranks are prosecuted with relent less impartiality, there will be no need of supernatural assistance In redeeming Pittsburg. Spring;' Vocal Uplift. Baltimore American. With the full flowering of the season. with the spread of vernal leafage, with the bursting of the blooms, the birds ex pand their theme. It is a grand theme; It is full of the finest inspiration; it Is the subtlest and most charmful of all the things that enter into the appreciation of the senses. Music distilled by the breezes, bathed in the sunshine, modulat ed and modified by the various earth sounds such music is beyond the reach of the regular and orderly notation of the composer who seeks to develop one sub ject and can never rise to the untversali zatlon of all the harmonic impulses of the wide open In which bird and tree. sun and shower, combine to preserve art from decay. , Civilization owes much to the bird: it owes vastly more than could be set forth to the melody of the feath ered tribes. The dead silence of Winter is broken and the welcome flight of na ture's merry mistrels is turned this way. Their pinions cleave space in an eager en deavor to arrive in time to give each fair Spring day its celebration. . Scissors Heeded. Pittsburg Gazette-Times. On account of red tape, Oapt. Peter C Hains, of the United States Army, now in prison serving a sentence for murder, is tlll drawing pay from the Government. Somebody should send a pair of scissors to the War Department. Two Kinds of Lions. Kansas City Star. "Swat the dandelion" is the slogan In many Kansas communities. Thafs what Roosevelt was doing in Africa for nearly a year. Has Friends Anions; Both. Kansas City Star. As for Mr. Roosevelt, he is neither a Catholic, nor a Methodist, but he knows lots of nice people who are. STREAMS NOT CONSERVED BY FORESTS Water Flow, Rainfall, Floods ana Climate Not Affected by Trees, and Tim berland Should Not Be Withheld From Food Production by False .Ideas In These Matters, Says Willis L. Moore, Chief of the United States Weather Bureau. That forest conservation and water conservation should each stand on Its separate merits is the keynote of a re port made by Willis L. Moore, chief of the united States Weatner Bureau, to the committee on Agriculture of the House of Representatives. This may be startling doctrine amid the dogmatic assertions of Pinchot con servationists, that preservation or lor- est areas is necessary to conservation of water flow in streams; to protection against extreme floods on the one side and against droughts on the other; to maintenance of sou productivity anu climatic salubrity for future genera tions: and to prevention of wastes in America, such as are alleged to have followed destruction of forests In the Old World. i,acn oi tnese dogmatisms oi ex treme conservationists is rejected by Mr. Moore, who declares that they are not substantiated by facts in the Old World or in the New. And while he himself endeavors not to be arbitrary in his conclusions, still he holds to them as the fair Judgments of wide sci entific evidence and practical observa tion. The obvious meaning of which Is that forests should be preserved for their value as timber, alone, and should not be made a pretext for "conserving" lands against agricultural use. Tha question therefore narrows down to whether a given area of forest land is more valuable for timber production than for food production. "Forested land," says Mr. Moore, "yields not a handful of wheat nor of corn and makes not a wretched substitute for the pas ture upon which to feed milch cows and beef cattle." Mr. Moore thinks and here he states In a sentence the Far Western opposition to Pinchot con servation that there can be no valid objection to decreasing a forest area, so that "homes and a well-fed people can take the place of wild animals and the wilderness." "I - believe lorests should be preserved for themselves alone, or not at all," he says. Mr. Moore's conclusions are as fol lows: First The cutting away of forests has had nothing to do with the creating or the augmenting of droughts in any part of the world. And marked cli matic changes that may have taken place are of wide extent and not local and are appreciable only when meas ured in geological periods. Second Rainfall controls forestation, but forestation has little or no effect on precipitation. Third Rainall Is the result of con ditions that exist at such altitudes as not to be controlled by or affected by small thermal irregule.rltles of surface air surrounding forests. Any local modification of temperature and hu midity, caused by the absence or pres ence of forest covering, the building of villages and cities, could not extend upward more than a few hundred leet. Fourth During the period of ac curate observations, the amount of pre cipitation has not increased nor de creased to any extent worthy of con; sideration. Fifth Floods are caused by excessive precipitation, and there has been neither increase nor decrease of floods as forests have diminished. Sixth Even if deforestation were the cause of floods over a watershed, it would be necessary, in order to pre vent them, to reforest the lower levels and their vastly greater areas an Im possibility unless valuable agricultural lands are to be abandoned as food producing areas. The area of the head waters of a stream is small compared with the total drainage basin, and its run-off would not be sufficient. to cause floods, even If deforestation allowed a greater and quicker ljun-off. Seventh High waters aj-e not higher and low waters are not lower than for merly. In fact, there appears to be a tendency of late years toward a slight ly better low-water flow in Summer. Eighth Floods are not of greater frequency nor of longer duration than formerly. m These principles of conservation are little understood by the public, espe cially in Eastern states as to their ap plication to Far Western regions. Ex treme conservationists of the Pinchot type, have dinned into the ears of the public for several years that forests must be saved not only for themselves alone, but also for the sake of the wa ters, and large part of the people have come to accept their assertions as established truths. In Oregon and Washington, for example, it seems to have been forgotten that water-laden winds from the south, - bringing up against the lofty barrier of the Cas cade Mountains, depdsit their contents on the western slopes of the mountains in copious rains, which are wholly in dependent of and uninfluenced by for ests, and are In fact the creator of the great forests of this country. The Coast Range of mountains, on the margin of the Pacific Ocean, is the first obstacle to these rain-bearing UP-TO-DATE NOTES ON SCIENCE. Several Late Discoveries by the Genial Office Statistician. New York Times. Research proves that the smallest men push the heaviest loads, while the big fellows hold down the office chairs. A cubic foot of water is a load for one man. A cubic foot of near-whisky will make a load for forty men. Pure still-ale should assay not more than ten cross words to the barrel. One of the most peculiar optical Illu sions is the fact that a small front yard looks larger than the State of Indiana when viewed from the rear of a dull lawn mower. Out of the 26,232,615 haircuts ad ministered in this country last year 37 were cut just as the patrons desired they should be. Wild geese fly In the shape of a V even 6n the restaurant menu. The first green thing to show after the melting snow Is the labels on the empty tin cans in the back yards It Is a peculiar fact that the Chinese of this country forget their English as soon as they are arrested and do not recover It until they are free again. Halley's comet first appeared in the newspapers last October and will be visible in the magazines about the first of next May north-by-east of the rear advertising pages. The driest thing on earth Is a. Dutch picnic on a July day In a temperance township. The diamond is so hard it will make a large dent In the hardest heart. The destruction of our old apple trees threatens the supply of genuine French briar. The boll-weevil has wrought untold havoc with, this year's Importations of pure olive oil. With the Invention of the bath tub in 1823 the number of perfume fac tories decreased 90 per cent. The easiest thing to touch is someone who wants a favor. Maybe He Will. Washington Herald. "If the Colonel would go around to the Reichstag while he is in Berlin and tell them how to run the em pire ." begins the Richmond Times Dispatch. Well, it is no sure thing, by any manner of means, that he will not! winds and on their seaward slope falls the heaviest precipitation in America. . often exceeding 100 inches. Next the Cascade Mountains rear their rain condensing summits, after them the Blue Mountains and then spurs -of the Rockies and Anally the -Rockies them selves. The western slopes of each ot these ranges are well watered while the eastern slopes are semi-arid. It is the testimony of old residents ol this country and their word should be valuable as corroborative that rains are no more copious than before for ests were cut nor are floods more rre quent nor more severe. The worst floods occurred years ago before the timber areas had been touched by ttie ax or the saw. And while equally severe floods may recur, still this will not he proof that deforestation has been the cause. , Mr. Moore quotes scientific students of Asia and France in support of his opinion that deforestation does not pre cede drought nor extreme floods. "The fact that dead forests stand long after streams have receded, seems to prove that they are the last to disappear rather than the first. Unmistakable evi dence is found of the existence of ex tensive, forests in Arizona and New Mexico, where only the petrified trunk of trees now remain. It cannot be said that man removed these forests and. brought on the drought." Furter, Mr. Moore quotes French authorities in sup port of the view that agricultural im provements take up water and retain it and diminish floods more than do forests. Mr. Moore quotes a number ot authorities who aver that deforestation has had little effect In America or other countries in Increasing frequency or height of floods. These opinions of Mr. Moore were cor. roborated in Portland last Sunday bv John T. Whistler, civil engineer, former. , ly an engineer for the Reclamation Serv ice, who delivered an address at the Uni tarian Church. Mr. AVhistler cited ex amples of streams in Oregon, those flow ing from forested sources and otheTs from non-forested, to show that trees have.no esential Influence either on volume of streams or on their eveness or variation of flow. He cited examples of streams flowing from timber sources whose variation of flow greatly ex ceeded that of streams of the other kind. Donner and Bllzten River and Sllvles River both flow. Into Harney Lake. Silver River comes from a haavlly-for-ested basin and the other river from s watershed almost nude of forests Records of 1909 show the maximum flo-w of Sllvles River to have been 125 times the minimum and the maximum of Don ner and Blltzen River to have been bul 12 times the minimum. In Central California, Kings Rivet drains a heavily-timbered region on the west elope of the Sierra Nevada Moun tains. Owens River drains a correspond ing region on the east elope that is almost without foresta The maximum dlscharsre of the tlmberless river in 1906 was five times the minimum, while the maximum of the other stream was 130 times the minimum. The timberlecs river is the one from which Los Angeles plans to draw its water supply. Forestry officials' have advocated the forestation of its watershed, in order to make its flow more uniform. "If this compari son Is" any indication," said Mr. Whistler, "it would be well to let well enough alone." ' In the Middle West, Mr. Whistler cited the examples' of Niobrara River, flow ing from Wyoming through the north western part of Nebraska; Republican River, flowing from Colorado, and French man River, a tributary of Republican, River. All three watersheds are 'tree less. The ratio of maximum to minimum flow in each case is much less than, the ratio of the forested areas mentioned in the foregoing. In 1906 the ratio of Niobrara was five: of Republican 34 and of Frenchman 11. In Oregon again, the Willamette, the Deschutes and the Crooked rivers all have dense forests at their' sources. Al though forests, according to the tenets of radical forest conservationists, ought to make the . flow of these stream v-niform. we And that in 1909 the maxi mum flow of the Willamette was 57 times the minimum; of Crooked River 111 and of Deschutes five. - t "There is no doubt that if we could , place all these streams on the same basis, we would find that the heavily forested areas would deliver less water In proportion to the rainfall received than the non-forested areas. In fact it has been shown from recent experiments in Switzerland that the run-oft from for ested areas is frequently but 60 per cent of that from cleared watersheds, all other conditions being the same. It is admitted by all, I think, that the total run-off of a stream Is lessened by foresas. On any stream devoted to irrigation or power, therefore, where storage is pro- vided for the entire run-off of ordinary or low years, forests might be very det rimental." ANDREW CARNEGIE AS EDITOR. He Might Stairt Mollycoddle Newspaper to Rap Certain Critics. Washington (D. CI Post. - Andrew Carnegie, according to re ports from Pasadena, is seriously con sidering the problem - of. starting a newspaper, which shall be non-sectarian, non-political and non pretty near ly everything else in the calendar; If the number of nons has not been over stated it would seem that the Carnegie paper is to be a mollycoddle. Not yet, however, nas Carnegie made up his mind. A delegation of women from Pasadena called to see him and suggested the idea. At first glance, he said, he liked It. Yes; he liked it very much. If he owned a newspaper hs would be an editor. Perhaps he thought John D. Rockefeller might establish a foundation every five minutes, and he. Editor Carnegie, could bury the news on an inside page. Had Carnegie owned a newspaper when he was advocating the removal of the duty from steel, he would have been able to give himself an exclusive story. Then, when captious critics censured him for his splendid altruism, he would have been able to come out with double-leaded editorials defending his own position. Perhaps Mr. Carnegie's temperament i not quite suited to newspaper proprietor ship, but he mtght find it an entertalninc way of avoiding the accumulation ot more money something which he pays he fears. And he would find the. com pany great. What would be better, for instance, than an exchange of amenities between Editor Carnegie and Editor Roosevelt, to 6ay nothing of a little chit chat with Editor Watterson, whose two column pert paragraphs are the pride ol the craft? Surely there is work for Editor Car negie to do the abolition of war, . for example. If he -insists upon putting an end to war, let him start a newspaper; After that he will not care whether there is war among the nations or not. He will have troubles enough of his own. Conservative Socialism. New York World. Milwaukee's newly elected Socialist Mayor is a disappointment. "Socialism." he says, "has been given a chance to show its merits. We can do this by in sistent and consistent conservatism." What a shock to the good people who ex pected him to hoist the red flag and in troduce some new reforms with dynamite