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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 6, 1908)
d . THE SUNDAY OREGOXIAy. rORTLAXD, SEPTEMBER 6, 1903. &)t tertian rOKTLANU. URECOti. Entered s Portland. Oman. Fostortcs Eecond-Clsss Metier. tmbecrlplsua Kates Invariably In Adrsn.ce. Bt Mali. I Dallr. Sunday Included, ona year ?"S? Lallr. Bunaoy Included, six months.... e -a Ial:r. 6unday Included, three montha. lalr. Sunday Included, ona mouta.... Lal.y without Sunday, ona year J Dally, without Sunday, all montha 1.2J I'Slly. without Sunday, thrte months.. 1'aily. without bunuay. ona month...-. -oo Weekly. on,e year Jo" Sunday, ona year oU bunds and Weakly, ona year, a otf (By Carrier.) Dally. Sunder Included, one year...... i JO Daily. 6unday Included, ana month IS How to Hemlt Send poatoffl.ee money order, express order or personal check on your local bank. stamps, coin or currency ara at the aendcr'a rUk. Give postofnee ad dresa in full, Including county and elate. Footage Kales in to 14 paces. 1 cent; Id to 28 pages. 2 cents; SO to 44 pages, t cents; iti to 00 pa sea. 4 cents. Forelgu poet see double rates Eastern Beninese Offlre The 8. C. Beck wltii bpeclsl Agency New York, rooms 4H 60 Tribune bunding. Chicago, rooms A10-&13 Tribune building PORTLAND. SClDAT, SEPT. MR. CUTCELAXiyg LAST MSSACK. The New York Times, the Pitta burg' Dispatch and many other news papers that share the copyright, pub lished last Sunday an article on the present state of politics and aspect of public affairs In our country, by the late President Cleveland The article was the first of an Intended aeries of .three, for which arrangements had teen made by a syndicate of many newspapers. It will be remembered that 'Mr. Cleveland's death came suddenly. 'It was a surprise even to' his physl , cians. and could not have been expect ed by himself so soon. No trace of the other two articles which he had (promised has been found among his 'papers. Indeed, from the plan he had announced, it was too early to write them.- The one he finished Is a general discussion of the political field, the Issues of the Presidential year and the men; the second was to deal more at large with the issues as developed in the contest, and was to appear in Sep tember; the third was to deal with the doubtful states, and was to fee pub lished just before the election. The article which has been given to the public was written just before the party conventions were held, and from knowledge then general that Taft and Bryan were to be the candidates. "The campaign upon which we are now en tering." wrote Mr. Cleveland, "sig nalizes the crystallization of more that is new than any other within forty years, yet is not so important for the policies that it will fix for the next four years as for the greater changes that its results will be found to fore shadow." It was believed by Mr. Cleve land that Mr. Taft would be elected, and in the circumstances he thought he ought to be. His reasons were his distrust of "Bryanlsm" Mr. Cleve land's own term, by which, of course, he means the change that has taken place In the general policy of the Dem ocratic party under the leadership of Mr. Bryan; the fact that Mr. Taft ever has been sound on the questions of money and finance, while Mr. Bry an never has been; again.- that Mr. Taft has a record in official life that proves his quality as an administrator and as a Judge, both able and consci entious. Mr. Cleveland states that per sonally and .officially he has had op portunity of knowing many things concerning Mr. Taft that were not matters of general knowledge, upon which he judges the man. His treat ment of the rights and claims of union labor, as well as of independent labor commends him to Mr. Cleveland, as against the variable course which Mr. Bryan has pursued: while hia knowl edge of the "outlying domain" our newly acquired possessions and his record for adjustment of difficult 'questions therein, mark his especial : fitness for dealing- with these special duties, which it is not possible to evade or escape. Lest he be misun derstood, Mr. Cleveland has said very little of Mr. Bryan, but makes it clear that in his opinion Mr. Bryan ought not to be elected. It was Mr. Cleveland's view that Mr. Taft ought to be elected because he stands for the permanence of right principles, and moreover that he would be elected, not merely because of those principles, but also because of the weakening effect on Mr. Bry . an's canvas produced by the course of Mr. Hearst and Mr. Watson and their followers, and In greater degree because of the rapidly increasing strength of Socialist party under the present leadership of Mr. Debs. In. his analysis of the situation Mr. Cleveland adverts to the prohibition question, to the action of Governor Hughes against race track gambling and to his Insistence on other reforms, ' to the claims of the Socialists and to several other subjects now under dis cussion by greater or larger numbers. The article throughout is exceedingly compact and direct, and ought to be read by the whole body of the Amer ican people. There is a pathetic touch, too, in the thought that it was Mr. Cleveland's "last word" to the country. The Democratic Convention, that renominated Mr. Bryan, paid an extraordinary tribute to Mr. Cleveland, after his death, yet refused to honor him by following any part of the. ad vice or example he had given during his great career. CTRB TRICK LAWYERS" One reason why lawyers are so fre quently unscrupulous is that success In their profession depends upon win ning cases, and it Is deemed a greater evidence of ability If a lawyer wins for the wrong side than if he wins for the side that has the right of the controversy. To win the case becomes the sole object in a trial and if the adverse litigant does not get Justice, that Is his fault or the fault of his lawyer, even though the winning at torney may have resorted to sharp practice. This spirit of devotion to a client's Interests gives rise to the feel ing that all is fair in litigation as well as in war. Lawyers become accus tomed to seeing cases go to the jury with part of the important evidence knowingly suppressed. They see cases won and lost on technicalities that have little or nothing to do with the merits. By constant observance of denied or dearly-bought justice, law yers become hardened, and it is not surprising if many of them eventually resort to methods which they would not have thought of employing when they first began to ' practice law. If they do not adopt the policy of "any . thing to win" they become callous ; enough to do almost anything to win. 'The lawyer who loses cases, even though on the wrong side, loses stand ing thereby. To him the all-Important thing Is to win. He has a personal interest in securing his clients' de mands, even though those demands may be unjust. It would be interesting to observe the effect of having all cases tried by attorneys employed by the public and not by the parties. A city of 10,000 Inhabitants has fifteen to twenty law yers, most of them making a bare living. Two firms of attorneys could do all. the work distributed among a dozen firms. Directly or indirectly, practically all the people of a com munity contribute toward the main tenance of an unnecessary number of lawyers. Is it not likely that the bur den would be lighter and better serv ice would be secured if two lawyers were employed by the public to attend to all the litigation of all the people of the community? Since incentive to defeat the cause of justice would be removed, much less time and work would be required, both in the prep aration and the trial of cases. 'Wit nesses could be examined upon each side without any effort to conceal or distort facts. Many cases now taken into court would be compromised out of court. When cases came to trial there would be no long-drawn fight upon technicalities, but the merits would be Inquired into at once. Quite likely injustice would sometimes re sult, but no more frequently than trials fail to secure Justice now, while the probability Is that by the removal of the reason for sharp practice, trick ery would end and equitable adjust ment of differences would be attained In practically all cases. TUB ELECTRONS. In the ancient theological and quasi-scientlflc beliefs which, at one time or another, have been popular in the world there is usually something more than a shadow of truth. The notions of Imputed sin and righteous ness, for example, which from one point of view so absurd, from another point of view are not absurd at all but correspond to facts of common knowledge In human life. The son of a thief walks under the Imputed bur den of his father's sin from childhood to old age and the grandsons of Marshal Field will flourish in the glory of their father's righteousness. A person is Judged by all of us only In part by what he himself' Is. In large measure we prejudge him by what his father was. In believing that the Almighty follows our example and imputes to a man's offspring the guilt of their parent we merely obey the universal rule by which the char acters of all deities are constructed. These beings are usually nothing more than enlarged Images of their wor shipers. Perhaps one reason why primitive men worship their gods so tenaciously Is the slightly obscured fact that they thus enjoy without re proach the delicious sensation of wor shiping themselves. ' Like the old dogmas of theology, popular beliefs about the natural world have generally contained a germ of truth. The old idea that the metals loved and hated one another finds a sort of verification in the laws of chemical attraction and repulsion. To account for the affinities and re pugnancies which they behold In the laboratory chemists are beginning to hint that possibly the elementary sub stances are not so "inanimate" as we have been taught.' The primal germs of consciousness and passion may ex ist In the ato.ms of matter. If not there, where are they? Most of the sciences began with speculations which were rejected later as super stitious; but we now seem to be re turning to them, driven by the irre sistible impulse toward truth. As tronomy originated in the vague hopes or fears of men that human destinies were regulated by the stars. If we could unravel the complicated mysteries of the revolutions of the suns and planets we might predict the course of future events. The ab surdity of this belief lay In Its as sumption that the principal function of the heavenly bodies was to direct the affairs of men. If it had stopped with the assertion that the sun, moon and stars play an important part in our destinies the mark would not have been missed very far. though the laws of their action are so compli cated that only simpletons would try to formulate them yet. Perhaps the most attractive of all these old half-scientific beliefs was that of the transmutablllty of the metals. It was assumed as a matter of course that there was some way of changing lead into gold, base earth Into diamonds and dead matter into living creatures. The earlier experi menters In physical science cherished no doubt whatever that it was possible to make gold in their laboratories out of cheap material. Some of them sup posed there might be a way to con struct even a human being. Mrs. Shelley took the latter belief for the theme' of her "Frankenstein." one of the most remarkable novels ever written. But as knowledge became more extensive and accurate every new fact seemed to weigh against the prospect of transmuting the metals. It degenerated from an article of scien tific faith to a vague dream and from that to the low estate of a popular superstition to be exploited by charlatans and im posters. The chem ists finally laid down the dogma that the number -of primitive substances was fixed and changeless. New ones might be discovered from time to time, but none of them could be changed into any other, they taught, and the educated world accepted their dictum for fact. All the time however, the meta physlclsts cherished a speculation that for all the elements, gold, silver, tin, there was a common substratum. Perhaps it might be an elemental atom. This atom combined in vary ing numbers and arrangements would compose the molecules of divers species and from these all the dif ferent materials in the world could be constructed. This is a very ancient speculation and at no time In the his tory of the world has it been definitely abandoned. The chemists themselves accepted it after a fashion, but they eluded its fundamental charm by making the atoms themselves of di verse nature. Thus they begged the question of the basic Identity of the metals but their creed worked in practice for a while, at least, and like all scientists being thorough-going pragmatlsts, they were satisfied with it. Their faith received its first shock from Mendelejeffs discovery of a periodic law which connects the atomic weights of the elements. Ac cording to this law the chemical ele ments are arranged in groups, whose properties are similar. If -a gap exists In any group the chemists are able to say what the atomic weight of the missing substance ought to be and to predict its properties Just as Newton's law enabled Adams and Leverrier to say where the unknown planet Nep tune ought to be in the sky at a given second. More than one new element has been discovered by the suggestion of Mendelejeffs law. But It was the discovery of "radio activity" which rehabilitated the be lief' In the transmutation of the metals and forced savants to reconstruct the atomic theory along the line of the old metaphysical notion of a common substratum. Radio-activity is that mysterious capacity to emit energy without apparent cause, which is dis played by radium and other such sub stances. This phenomenon is ex plained by supposing that the chem ical atoms are composed of electrons, a. definite number for each, and an electron is a measured quantity of electricity gathered into a minute space. From the electrons thus segre gated all matter is formed. Within the sphere of the atom they whirl about. If their motion Is disturbed they set the ether vibrating and pro duce light. If an atom loses or gains an odd electron it becomes electrified and the electrons released from their customary orbits fly wildly through apace and produce the mystio radio activity. By steadily losing electrons it is clear that a substance may change Into something else. Physic ists have actually seen this miracle happen in their laboratories. They have not yet seen lead change into gold, but it t easily conceivable that they may before a great while,' and then we shall all be able to get as much as we desire of the precious metal, which, however, may no longer be precious. LITERARY STATESMEN. For some reason which Is not en tirely clear royal artists and literary men have seldom been taken seri ously by the world. The Kaiser Wllhelm is no exception to the rule. The paintings which he has exhibited from time to time seem to have been valued more for the halo of authority which hung over them than for in trinsic merit. Irreverent wits in France and elsewhere have cast Jibes at them as if the monarch over shadowed the artist. William has now entered another department of the fine arts with even less than his former success unless the accounts are misleading. He has either written or revised a ballet called "Sardana palus" and produced it on the Berlin stage to the joy of those who hate him. Whatever literary merit the production may have was smothered In a vast array of gorgeous stage set tings Indicating that the Kaiser's taste Inclines somewhat to the barbaric. Sardanapalus could not have been a sovereign much to William's liking, since he was a feeble voluptuary, whose effeminate vices led to a revo lution. " One of Byron's dramas treats of his calamities and though it is not a very admirable play it is probably a great deal better than William's. None of our American Presidents, ex cept Thomas Jefferson, has been dis tinctly literary. Jefferson was master of an excellent style and his thoughts have Influenced the history of the United States profoundly. Franklin will outlive him In literature, because his writings deal less with politics than with the fundamental qualities of homely human nature. A greater statesman than Jefferson, he never has received his Just meed of fame on that score, but his books, especially his autobiography, will always rank high among the monuments of the English language. Of our prose styl ists, Emerson and Hawthorne alone ought to be mentioned with Benjamin Franklin. Since revolutionary times our statesmen have not much Inclined to literature. It would be difficult to specify a writer who has met with eminent success in politics. Of late, two or three have aspired to elective office, but the people do not seem to have fallen In love with them. Desirable as ' Winston Churchill might be in public life, the Vermont electorate decided that he would be more useful as a novelist. -'Of course, we have sent literary men to foreign lands as diplomats and their success has been uniformly brilliant. Andrew D. White, Hawthorne, Motley, Lowell, are a few names from a long and distinguished list. England can boast of many literary statesmen. One of her monarchs, James I, was a good deal of a scholar as well as a writer. He has been ridiculed persistently for his flirtation with the muses, but very likely his gifts were better than Is commonly supposed. The translation of the Bible, which he promoted, was among the greatest services which English letters have ever received. In modern times, passing by the great Lord Bacon, literature has become rather the fashion among British politicians. Gladstone was almost as much ad mired for his books as for his finan cial prowess'. Mr. Balfour has written profoundly on philosophy. In other European countries men below noble rank would find it difficult to enter political life If they were not masters of literary expression. QUESTION OF MORE APPLE TREES. A suburbanite, who finds the price of fruit rather high, notwithstanding it seems to the producer to be too low, writes The Oregonian to suggest a plan by which fruit could be made more plentiful and be placed within the reach of poor people not now able to afford as much as they should have. His Idea is to have fruit trees planted in all the fence rows along the high ways where now there are strips of brush land ten to twenty feet wide, producing nothing of value to any body. His argument is that since this land is" waste it. could as well be planted to fruit trees at little cost and In a few years those who are too poor to buy fruit could gather what they need along the public roads. This Is an idea that has been ad vanced many times and which has been practiced by some farmers, though not exactly with -the idea of providing fruit for the poor. But ex- perlence shows that the plan is a mischievous one. Many a farmer has planted a row of fruit trees' close to his fence, thinking thereby to get the fruit from an additional row of trees. But he has met disappointment. Trees planted close to the fence can not be cultivated and trees that are not cultivated will not produce fruit worth eating. Moreover, because the trees were la a fence row they were not properly pruned nor sprayed. It was not convenient to get to them with the pruning hook and was prac tically impossible to get around them with the spraying machine. So trees thus planted have become breeding places for all sorts of pests. They mar rather than enhance the beauty of the highway. Xo one wants to eat the small, sour and gnarly apples they bear. Instead of planting in the fence row, the up-to-date horticultur ist leaves a space between the fence and the outside row of trees large enough to turn his team in cultivat ing his orchard. The difficulty is to get ffult Inspectors to chop down the trees which in years past have been planted In fence rows and which are now a menace to the fruit Industry. THE DEATH OF IRA D. 6ANKEY. With the death, at his home in Brooklyn, a short time ago, of Ira D. Sankey, the most noted of the singing evangelists of the world, passed away. A throb of public sympathy, tender and widespread, followed the an nouncement of his passing, and a sym pathetic host has listened in remin iscent silence while the simple story of his life has been rehearsed from the pulpits. "' Ira D. Sankey, so runs the brief record, was born In Pennsylvania In 1840. Full thirty years of his allotted span of life were given to the work of "winning souls" through the magic of his melodious voice. The words of his songs are. In the main, meaningless when detached from music and read dispassionately, but when played upon by a fervid imagination, given endless repetition and attuned to a voice that was full of melody, of pleading, of pathos and of tenderness, they became a tremendous power In the realm of human emo tions, i This sweet singer of Zion had been for some years blind, his eyesight. It is said, having been sacrificed to the zeal with which, in season and out of season, and in every land, he pursued his chosen work. He was not an aged man, as age is now reckoned, since he had not quite completed his sixty eighth year. He had, however, been driven many years by a boundless en ergy, and he was possessed of a burn ing zeal that grew In immensity, making heavy drains upon the vitality upon which it fed. He had lived in the realm of over-wrought emotions for the greater part of his life, and fell early, relatively speaking, into physical weakness and decay. He was restless rather than placid during the later years of his life. An ardent Methodist In belief and practice for many years, he latterly attached him self to the Presbyterian faith and doc trine and at his death was a member of that church. All creeds were, how ever, forgotten In the contemplation in death of the work which Mr. San key had done in life. Dr. Charles Ed ward Locke, formerly pastor of the Taylor-Street Church, In this city, but now of Brooklyn, conducted the obse quies of his former churchman, and later, when the vacation is ended and pastors and flocks return to the city memorial services for the dead singer will be held in the Presbyterian church with which he later, became affiliated. Not his own words, but those of Fanny Crosby, the blind hymn-writer of Brooklyn, trembled upon the Hps of this other blind singer at his pass ing. Bending low beside his bed, the watchers who went with him to the verge of the Dark Valley, heard these words: Some day the sliver chord will break And I no more, as now. will sins; But oh! the Joy when I awake Within the Palace of the King. So passed away the gentle, emo tional, zealous idealist. Greenwood Cemetery opened her fragrant bosom to receive his mortal part. His favor ite hymns were sung as he was laid tenderly in his last bed, and a life that had touched, through the exaltation of song, the lives of hundreds of thou sands of the lives of his fellow men, passed to the domain of memory. In the passing of Ira D. Sankey the old-time singing evangelist may be said to have passed, even as the old time pleading evangelist passed with the death, a few years ago. of Dwlght L. Moody. Powerful exponents and promoters of emotional religion, these men stood each at the head of his class in his long and earnest day. The voice of the one has died away In slowly receding echoes; that of the other is still heard and will long be heard In Sunday schools and mission ary meetings, from America and Eng land to Egypt, India and Far Cathay. Translated Into many languages, the words of "Ninety and Nine," "When the Mists Have Rolled Away," "Sleep, O Beloved," and other hymns written and sung by Sankey, will continue through myriads of voices for untold years to speak to timorous souls he universal language of a faith that Is blind and a hope that Is earnest and a belief in immortality that is ever seek ing confirmation. THE rXASSMTLATED ALIEN. The unprecedented exodus of for eigners continues, and as there is a corresponding decline In the number of emigrants arriving, a sudden re vival of industrial activity in this country might find us handicapped in many lines by a scarcity of labor. Sta tistics recently compiled by the Immi gration authorities show that during the twelve months ending August 1, there came to our shores but 782,970 foreigners, compared with 1,285,348 during the preceding twelve months. The outflow for the same period reached a total of 650.000 people. That the movement Is still on in spite of the apparent improvement in the In dustrial situation In this country, is plain from the figures for the last week in August, which shor that 12,856 steerage passengers left, the port of New York, while there were but 7220 arrivals during the same period. Nearly all of these returning for eigners are said to have considerable sums of money is a. result of their work in this country, and not a few of them have secured a competence suf ficient to last them for the remainder of their lives. The drain from this source on our money reserves is not inconsiderable, and the situation con firms an oft-repeated charge that about all that many of the incoming aliens care for in this country is the opportunity it affords to accumulate money more rapidly than it can be got together In the country they leave. That old sentiment about the love for freedom being a powerful magnet in drawing foreigners to our shores, loses much of Its force In the face of such an exodus of aliens as has been going on for the past year. Their action shows quite plainly that freedom and the old flag cut but a slight figure in the mind of the foreigner when econ omic conditions undergo a change that reduces or stops his pay. And all of these fleeing citizens and aliens will come trooping back as soon as there Is an improvement in the in dustrial situation and the Star Span gled Baraier again seems attractive to them. Free institutions are all right for Americans who did not come here In the steerage, and they have proved attractive and beneficial to thousands who did come In that humble part of the ship. But the great unwashed mob, whose reverence for the Goddess of Liberty is confined exclusively to her likeness on metal or greenbacks, will continue to ebb and flow with good and bad times. In this country they will damn the Government and sing the praises of their native land, and in the old world they undoubtedly discuss with their impecunious neighbors the shortcom ings of the monarchy under whose flag they temporarily dwell, until times Improve in the land of the free. These unassimilated aliens are of ad vantage during rush times, when per manent labor Is scarce, but they are not the kind of citizens on whom It Is worth while wasting any sentimental thoughts of the "my-country-'tis-of-thee" kind. The word "Unitarian" means noth ing in particular, except this, that the person so designated believes in one God, who directs the moral gov ernment of the world, and doesn't split himself up Into fragments, by meta physic subtleties, to which there is nothing answerable, except In ecclesi astical dogma or opinion. Some op position to Taft, because he is said to be a "Unitarian," was manifest a short time ago, but it seems to have disap peared. At any rate, it is not militant. After eighteen centuries of discussion and persecution on this abstraction, it is time the "debate" should cease. For thousands and tens of thousands have been sacrificed to establish a dogma, that hasn't been established yet, and never will be. It is high time these notions were treated as purely speculative. Every person of sense and Judgment, who has followed this controversy of centuries utterly barren except in intolerance and blood will be glad to see It dropped. For their own peace the Intolerant advocates of the dogma would do well to drop it, too. Efforts are being made to establish a commercial cream-separating plant at Hillsboro, the plan being to sell the cream in Portland and take the skim milk back to the farm to feed to hogs or calves. The value of the skim milk Is an Important feature in dairying. While it pays a farmer better in dollars to sell his product to a condensery than to a creamery he soon finds that by selling to a con densery he is sending away from his farm the entire product, while if he keeps the skim milk and feeds it to stock he retains much that is of fer tilizing value. One cannot draw for ever from the soil without replenish ing, any more than one can draw for ever from a barrel without refilling. M..O. Lownsdale has been retained as fruit inspector in Tamhill County, notwithstanding the. protests of soma farmers who do not like the vigorous manner In which he strictly enforces the law against orchard pests. Good for the Yamhill County Court. If such men as Lownsdale have a swlngj at the San Jose scale, codling moth and anthracnose for a few years the old motto "Yamhill against the world" will be established for all time. Reports from England are that heavy storms have Injured the hop crop In that country. In California the pickers have struck and many of the yards have been Injured by van dals. Probably a large part of the California crop will not be picked. All of which incidents will encourage the Oregon grower to proceed with his picking. - A whole lot of persons neglected their work to take a look at Harri man. They wanted to see what a rail road magnate look3 like. If they had asked him how he attained his suc cess, lie might have told them, "By attending to business, and not run ning around looking at magnates." "Preaching temperance with prohi bition left out." says John P. Mc- Manus in the Pilot Rock Record, "is like playing Hamlef with . Hamlet left out." Of course. So it is. Some body hold John P. Better still, some body keep the bottle where he can't see it. While Mr. Harriman is present in Oregon is as good a time as any to begin the suit for cancellation of the Oregon and California land grant. The suit was a long, time getting started, but the public hopes it will not be delayed In getting to trial. Mr. Bryan has asked the chairmen of Democratic rallies not to introduce him as "the next President of the United States." But how is an audi ence to know when to begin that pro longed applause without this well known cue-? Said Governor Hughes yesterday at Youngstown, Ohio: "If all that Mr. Bryan has favored and urged during the past twelve years had been enact ed into law we should now be over whelmed with disaster." If the Oregon Legislature will enact proper penal laws for the punishment of dishonest and criminally careless bankers Oregon will find little Interest in the question of Government guar antee of bank deposits. All the Republicans whom the Gov ernor has appointed to lucrative offi ces In Oregon are "Chamberlain Re publicans" that is, not Republicans at all. But it doesn't matter. There is one way to get even with the extravagance of families at the beach. Send 'em to the hop yards for two or three weeks. Judging by the price of hops, this ought to be a great year for hop house fires. Of course. Democrats think yester day's peace pact among Republicans hardly proper. FARMER SELDOM OX HIS FARM Has Ceased Bring a Laborer, and la Now Man of Science, Says Critic. Washington (D. C.) Herald. The prosperity of the farmer is be coming amazing. It marks him for at tention. No longer Is his prosperity the theme and Interest merely of the politician and the statistician. It has seized and held the attention of his' city neighbors. They who used to laugh at the farmer now envy him. The old farm has undergone a meta morphosis. It is no longer a sorry huddle of buildings on a stretch of stubborn soil; it Is a country "place" of broad, fat acres and buildings electrlo lighted from top to bottom. It Is no more a mortgage hole wherein the toller must sink his money, but a splendid freehold piling up money In the farmer's bank. The farmer, too, has undergone a change. He no longer wears chin whiskers and chews on a straw. He has forgotten how to stuff his trousers Into cowhide bootlegs. he is more frequently to be seen In an automobile at the horse show than following the plow; he deals more in city real estate or the sock market than he does In guanos for the south meadow lot. The fact is, the farmer seems to lead the happiest and most leisurely of lives. Those harried, overworked city men, who visit him In his native fields, are constantly amazed. When does the farmer do his work? They ask them selves and him the question; they pry upon him, and take note of his move ments, in vain. They never see the farmer do his work; they never know when he does it yet the work Is done, and the fields yield up their harvest. The truth is. most careful observa tion leads to the conclusion that the farmer is seldom on the farm. In the morning he has his spanking bays hitched to a light runabout that takes him into town. In the afternoon his car or coach carries him over to the farmers' picnic. In the evening he is at the opera-house or the club, or per haps at the bridge party over on the next farm. One thing is certain, he Is never in the fields. Search them through from Maine to the Carolinas, and out in 'Kansas' cornfields, and you will seldom find a single human figure toiling in the fields. Of course some body must put the crops in and some body must garner them, but when and how? The answer is that the new farmer has left off being a laborer, and be come a man of science. He works no more with his hands, but with his head. He is seldom In the fields, because his presence is seldom needed there. Farm ing on scientific methods consists chief ly in preparing the soil for the seed, and then letting nature do the rest. Nature and machinery do more and better work than the old-time farmer could do with all his 18-hour day and his eternal round of toil. The result Is that the farmer is rap idly becoming the backbone of our "leisure class." Out of him may yet arise a new American aristocracy, which toils not, nor yet spins, but which partakes of the Increase of the earth. It is little wonder that the leisurely farmer with his fattening barns and swelling bank account has become the envy of his hard-working toil-driven city neighbors. COMPLAINT OF HIGH CAR STEPS. Lesral Remedy of Interest to Portland Invoked at Washington. Washington Star. Numerous complaints are being filed with the Interstate commerce commis sion's local rapid transit board regard ing the high steps with which the street cars of Washington are equipped. The Star has frequently in the past called attention to this nuisance in the hope that the companies themselves would see their way clear to remedying the defect in the equipment. Nothing has been done by them, and it is now to be hoped that the newly constituted sup ervisors of local street railways will find a method of relieving the public from this burdensome condition. On a great majority of the cars the steps are so high that women board them with the greatest difficulty. It is to be be lieved that physical Injury Is Inflicted on them in some cases. On some of the open cars the running-board is two feet from the ground, which, as one of the Commission's correspondents points out, is 'as high as the average chair. In most cases the high steps are caused by the use of heayy motors, necessitating the raising of the car body a long distance from the tracks. In the case of such rolling etock the defect Is remediable only by the adoption of a special platform. There is no good reason why the entire platform should not be dropped several inches below the floor of the car. This would make of It a separate step. If then there could be two steps to the ground. Ingress and egress would be eaey for all. Cutting Into the platform for a second step would lessen the standing room space there. This brings up the question of whether the companies should be permitted to handicap the public for the accommodation of plat form standers. By adopting the double platform car, with a railing separating the avenues of entrance and exit from the standing space, this difficulty might be avoided. Whether the solution lies in the adoption of specially constructed cars or the remodeling of the platforms of those already In use, certainly the pub lic has a right to expect the Commis sion to require the corporations to ren der its rolling stock fit for uee without Imposing a heavy handicap upon the passenger It is merely necessary for the Commission to adopt a maximum height of step from the ground and from tread to tread In order to ac complish the desired object. Crime Wave in Boston. Baltimore News. There are so many criminals In the prisons in Massachusetts that the Mayor of Boston was compelled to re lease at one time 557 convicts. The police stations and jails have been packed to suffocation. Self-Help. Louisville Courier-Journal. It Is fortunate for the human race, although discouraging to philanthro pists, that independence is usually won by individuals who succeed despite lack of help or encouragement from others rather than because of it. ' A Charge. 8t. Louis Globe-Democrat. If thou hast squandered years to grave a gem Commission'd by thine absent Lord; ana .while 'TIs incomplete. Others would bribe thy needy skill to them Dismiss them to the street! Should'st thou et last discover Beauty's grove. At last be panting on the fragrant verge. But In the track. Drunk with divine possession, thou meet at her bidding, back. When round thy ship in tempest hell appears. And every specter mutters up more dire To snatch control And loof to madness the deep-kennell'd tears Then to the helm, O Soul! Last, if upon the cold green-mantling sea Thou cling, alone with Truth, to the last spar. Both castaway. And one must perish let It not bs he Whom thon art sworn to obey! HERBERT FRENCH. TAFT A.D PACIFIC COAST HMMi Reasons for Their Voting; tbe Republi can Ticket in November. Washington (D. C.) Post, Ind. It should hardly require the wizard ' spirit of a Merlin to enable one to fore- ; cast that the Pacific Coast would be found 1 favorable to Mr. Taft next November. ( The Pacific States know well enough upon what side their bread is buttered. Whatever may be Mr. Bryan's appeal to the other parts of this Union, it may be safely said that his policies and his doc trines can never carry far among the peo ples that border near the slope of our Western ocean. People take sid&s in poli tics according to the material benefits they may derive from politics. The evils which certain Eastern and Middle West ern States complain of as thwarting their Industrial prosperity have never been felt on the Pacific Coast. Those people have found prosperity and profit In Republican, administrations; they are In accord with Republican principles, as they are applied to em, and they are content to let well enough alone. By every implication of their being, .. the mass of the people bordering the Pa- I f i ciflc are Republican. Occasional local and I municipal disturbances have caused them : to turn Democratic for the time being in ; choosing an administrator for their local J affairs, but on National questions they; are almost universally Republican. Aside ' from this, Mr. Taft's attitude toward the Philippines pleases them. Much of their prosperity and much of their great trade which is their future hope depends upon t our relations with our Isles of the EaM-i ern seas, and Mr. Taft Is the personal ex- ponent of what they most desire in the j stand of the United States upon the Bast-1 ern expansion question. Being producers of much wine and wool , and fruit, the citisons of the Pacific Coast J are bound to be protectionists. Free . trade would permit these articles to coma in from other countries to such an extent j that home production of them would be j totally paralyzed. The three Etates of J Washington, Oregon and California have j no intention of vying with Sicily, Spain, , Australia, Argentina and Franc? in tha markets of the United Stafs. Whatever; Mr. Bryan and his friends may claim as .' to the benefits accruing to the whole j . Union from a wholesale slaughter of the tariff, those benefits would never reach as ! far as the Coast and the people out there I know It. They regard that man as a ; fool who cuts his own purse strings i and permits his hardly-wrought gold to ; pour out upon his neighbor. They are not; in business for Utopian purposes. j As to the matter of the Democratic : stand on the Asiatic labor question, most I of the thinking voters fear that that plank in the Democratic platform was put there for the sole purpose of catching their votes. They do not place great faith in its effectiveness. Besides. Secretary Roofs and the President's method of handling! the Japanese and curtailing Japanese Im-' migration has both won their admiration; and relieved them of any fears as to an iniiux of the yellow peoples upon them. All In all. it is difficult to see why the: Coast States should not give Mr. Taft! their support, and equally hard to see why. the supporters of Mr. Bryan should claim' much strength for him there. DAYS WHEN SILENCE WAS GOLDEN ' SpeechmaklnK by Presidential Candi dates No Longer Dangerous. Indianapolis News. The modern practice of speechmaktng , by Presidential candidates Is In marked contrast to the early practice. In former times it was considered undignified for a candidate for President to make any' open effort in his own behalf and candi dates generally observed strict silence. A The theory was that if a candidate 79 opened his mouth to say anything or. even wrote the most commonplace letter! It would be used against him. General Scott, Whig candidate forj President in 1852. owed his defeat in part, to two innocent, but unfortunate, expres-j slons, used by him long before his noml-' nation. In 1S46. when he expected to be ordered to Mexico, he bespoke the sup- . port of the administration for his mill-, tary plans by saying in a published letter that "soldiers had a far greater dread of, a fire upon the rear than of the most: formidable enemy in the front." For' this expression President Polk declined ' to order him to Mexico at that time and! when Scott was nominated for President j six years later he never heard the last , of "the fire upon the rear." The other expression occurred In a' note to the Secretary of War. One day' the Secretary called at General Scott's, office and found that he was absent. On ' . returning and learning that the Secre- tary had called the General wrote a note In explanation of his absence, saying that; he "had only stepped out for a moment' to take a hasty plate of soup." When; he was, nominated for President the j "hasty plate of soup" figured In all sorts of caricatures and brought upon him rid icule that he did not deserve. Abraham Lincoln, a frequent speaker' prior to his nomination, did not utter a' word publicly during the campaign. He; made no addresses, wrote no public let-; ters, and held no conferences. His letter of acceptance contained only 134 words. The practice of speeehmaklng by candi-; dates after their nomination began with Garfield, was continued by Harrison andj McKinley, and received a great Impetus: from Mr. Bryan. It is no longer consid ered dangerous for a candidate to talk, ' and the people seem to like publicity. Condemns the Rebuilding of "Shucks." PORTLAND. Sept. 3. (To the Editor.) As a tourist passing a few days In Portland. I am so favorably Impressed with Its climate and location that I shall not fall on my return to my home city, Elmlra. N. Y.. to comment most favor ably on the" future outlook of your city. But, withal. I must not refrain from calling attention to some things which should be rectified: the old shacks now occupying some of the most valuable corners of Portland should by some reg ulation or ordinance be condemned and removed. While riding on Washington street near Twelfth I saw an apparent movement to reconstruct a shack that was all but consumed by a fire. I won dered whether Portland's City Council or building Inspector granted permission for the resurrection of such structures? In the East we do not allow such re building, as It at best only proves a con-j tlnuing menace and Is a sore reflecttlon on civic pride. JOHN JASON. Deaomlnatlonallsm In Polities. Christian Register. Unitarians in America have never ac quired the habit of voting for a candidate because he was a Unitarian or of voting against a man because he was a Roman Catholic or a Methodist. But, if they were inclined to carry their denomina tional Interests Into politics, they would, be restrained by the saving grace of! common sense. They remember the sadj fate of Mr. Burchard, the honest gentle-) man, who, by the alliteration of the three R's, Rum, Romanism and Rebellion, was, charged with defeating Mr. Blaine, the candidate whom he supported. Any publio man who in his private capacity is a loyal Unitarian has the right to let his: denominational preferences drop out of, sight when he becomes a candidate for office; and he is neither a consistent Unl-j tarian nor a wise supporter of such a can-i dldate who challenges the vast majority who are not lovers of UnltarlanJsm who. make it an Issue at the polls. Candidate Against Candidate. Manchester (N. H.) Union. They are paired off beautifully. Bryan devotes his wind-fanning hooks and up percuts to Taft, while Kern contents him self with harmless swings at Sherman. I0O Miles Per Hour for Nine Miles. Indianapolis News. A train on the Pennsylvania Rail road ran between Plerceton and War saw, Ind., a dlstanoe of nine miles, at the rate of 100 miles an hour. A
