Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 December 1900 — Office on Van Rensselaer Street, North of Ellis & Murray’s Store. [ARTICLE]

Office on Van Rensselaer Street, North of Ellis & Murray’s Store.

“The war is still on. Pay! Pay! Pay!” Queon Victoria’s speech to Parliament. •’ The northern papers nre still discussing moans to suppress lynchings. How would it do to try decreasing criminal assaults? Governor Roosevelt has gone to Colorado to hunt. Victor people will take warning and remain indoors until he leaves the state. Oom Paul wishes that the Dutch would help to capture the Transvaal, instead of pluming themselves on having once taken Holland. Tli’e brewers threatened to go out nf business if the tax on beer wasn’t reduced. Naturally, Congress didn’t dare to riskacatastrophy like that. The new board of county coihtnissioners of Grant county contemplate ordering an investigation of the various county offices, the inquiry to extend back ten years. Why should fifty cent dollars be such awful things at home, but all right when it comes to imposing them on the innocent Filipinos as is now [imposed by Secretary Gage? The Boers have done it again, and the British are hurrying further reinforcements to South Africa. It seems almost like a leaf of the Revolutionary War annals, doesn’t it? The election being over, there can be no real objection to the .Neely and Rath bone cases being brought up for trial. Any unpleasant disclosures will be forgotten before next time. 4 After March 4th, any story of an attempt to assassinate President McKinley should be taken with a grain of salt. No one short of n raving madam would contemplate such a thing -if he paused to think who would succeed to the throne.

For the first time since 1814, j when the British burned the Capitol, the British flan was draped inside the House of Bepresenta-1 fives and him*' on the Trout of the Capitol on Wednesday last at the | Cen tenuial celebration of the founding of Washington. The Republican prossis making! a groat miration over Secreta r >' Hay’s condescension in agreeing to submit the amended treaty t° j Great Britain w ithout word of disparagement. We should like to inquire just wlmt country Secretary liny imagines he represents in this canal matter, anyway! The ship"subsidy bill was drawn primarily by the agents of the American li to and has recently been deliberately amended in order to enable that line to rake off twice the subsidy it would get under the original bill. Truly “the bill has been much improved” as Mr. llantm declared in the Senate the other day. Governor Mount should not take the recent lynchingsin Rockfort and Bonneville so much to heart. When n state executive takes murderers “under the shadow of his wing” and refuses to turn them over to the courts for punishment. he should not ho so fearfully offended if the people of his own bailiwick occasionally take the law into their own hands and mete out punishment to brutal murderers. What is the matter with giving the farmer a subsidy for the breeding of improved stock or raising of superior crops? He is just ns much entitled to it asaro the owners of ships who seek a subsidy. If the shipping business is not profitable m a certain line there is no law that compels companies to enter into the business and there is no shadow of excuse for the national government to pay the mating >n of the enterprise a bonus

Oh, of course, our consular salaries are so miserable that no one can afford to take them. Probably that is why there are several thousand applications on hand for them. The Fowler Leader favors subsidizing farm wagons. It thinks that the subsidies going around should be delivered with a generous hand, and the farmer ought to have his share. If it were provided that he should be paid yearly a subsidy for every farm wagon he had in use, the total amount to be paid to depend on the number of trips made, he would receive a goodly number of dollars from the national treasury and would have some recompense for his toil. Unfortunately the Lender’s foresight isn't eqoii to its hind sight. Two months ago it was whooping ’er up for Hanna and the whole republican gang of subsidy hunters.

The Apologist man is great tin establishing new precedents. He was the first “editor” heard of in this section of the state suing another for libel, and now he does the unheard of act of going into the commissioners’court in company with the Barnacle “editor” and tries to get the printing bill of another editor cut down simply because that other editor got the job instead of himself or the Barnacle. It made no difference to him that the price of that printing was much less than either of these two “gentlemen” had been charging or would have charged had they got the work, or that it was a very reasonable price indeed, and lower than any of the neighboring counties, they didn’t get the work and therefore they must try and beat the other fellow out of his pay for it. Both these “editors” occupy a very unenviable position among the newspaper fraternity as well as among all other honerable men of whatever calling they may belong. Prosperity “moves in mysterious ways its wonders to perform.” About a year ago our republican newspaper brethren and the administration shouters were long on prosperity in the cattle business. Of course, the farmer didn’t have any fat cattle to sell but the millionaire cattle trust had lots of inferior stock or feedingcattle to unload upon the farmer through its agents at a fabulous price, and it put up the price of fat cattle to a corresponding high figure. The farmer was led to believe that these prices had come to stay, and, raising what cash he could, he invested it in a first payment on these “runts” from the great cattle ranges of the West, giving a chattel mortgage on the cattle to secure the balance of the purchase price. A great many farmers in Jasper county bit, anil the result proved disastrous in practically every case. Thousands upon thousands of dollars was lost in the speculation and many farmers irreparably bankrupted. One small farmer told |us a few days ago of his own experience and that of a near neighborhood. He fed up all he raised | to the cattle and lost $l2O in cold j cash, while his neighbor sod all he raised and lost S3OO to boot. These are but two instances of probably one hundred or more in Jasper county ns a result of this cattle speculation. Then, we have the Tanner case, when tho farmer loses everything he has and his backers hold the sack for several thousand dollars. Added to this i is the case of another prominent i farmer who in the past three weeks has given a mortgage of $1,3(5(5 27 upon his farm and a chattel mortgage covering all his horses, hogs and stock, corn, hay, fanning implements, etc., etc., also two chattel mortngages on a lot of steers amounting to $8,714.17. Strangely as it uiay appear, lour republican friends are very quiet about piosperity in the cattle business these days.