Jasper County Democrat, Volume 4, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 February 1902 — COMMIŢEE REORGANIZED. [ARTICLE]

COMMIŢEE REORGANIZED.

The Democratic minority in Congress is not indulging in obstruction tactics as our Republican brethern tell us. They are exposing the errors of the dominant party and their travesties on the fundamental principles of good government. Those who think they see discord and disaffection in the Democratic ranks, and therefore predict further defeat for the party should remember £bat there nave been many Democratic victories won through the dissatisfaction of the people at Republican high-handedness. Two of the neatest and best edited newspapers that reach our table are the Pulaski County Democrat and the Starke County Democrat. Both of these papers are a credit to the community in which they are published as well as to the democracy of Indiana. We wish that every county in the state had such able exponents of Democratic principles as Pulaski and Starke, in the person of these two most excellent papers. E. B. Sellers, of Monticello, who has acted as attorney for Goodland in the county seat election question, writes a member of the committee regarding the present status of affairs ns follows: “The appellants have 60 days in which to file a petition for a rehearing in the supreme court. When that period has elapsed the board of commissioners should call the election, and this action will probably be taken in March.’’ As the commissioners must give 60 days notice this would bring the election about June Ist.-—Good-land Herald. The inquiry of Senator Rawlins as to the new “treason” law in the Philippines is one more reminder of the departure from American principles that is going on under our policy of empire. Government by injunction is a bad thing at home, but it is not to be compared with legislation by commission abroad. The idea of a halfdozen men appointed by a foreign executive making laws to control eight or ten million people, and fixing their right to property, liberty and life, is so monstrous from the American point of view that it is difficult to see how any American indorse it. Indianapolis Sentinel.

The $100,(KX),0(M) a year profits of the steel trusts distributed as dividends on its 11,000,000,000 capital is 10 per cent on the investment, including money, water and wind. A large proportion of this immense profit was made by selling steel rails in the United States for S2B a ton while the same rails are laid down at English ports, freight paid, for $17.50 a ton which is less than the English price for pauper labor steel rails. The immense profits of the steel trust came from extortionate prices in America to make up for low yet adequate prices in England. A statement was made by this “infant industry” ten months after its formation showing the condition of affairs. The syndicate retained 6-10,987 shares of prefered and 849,988 shares of common stock: “This residue of stock, or the proceeds thereof after reimbursing the syndicate the $25,000,000 in cash which it paid to the corporation and approximately $3,000,000 for other syndicate obligations and expenses, constituted surplus or profit of the syndicate.” Estimating the value of the stock at the present market quotations—43 for common and 93 for preferred—the profit of the syndicate was $68,998,275, after deducting the $28,000,000 which it paid out. That may be regarded as a pretty handsome profit on the deal. As it is plain that the deal did not create new property to the value of a dollar, but merely brought existing properties under a single management, we may conjecture for ourselves as to the source of the profit. We might

suppose that the profits came from the higher prices which the corporation, holding a practical monopoly, was able to exact from consumers. The report of the corporation assures us, however, that: “The demand for products has been so great that prices could easily have been advanced. ludeed, higher prices have been voluntarily offered by customers, hut the companies have firmly maintained the position of not advancing prices.” So we are warned not to suppose that this is the source of profit. We naturally turn, therefore, to those economies which we have so often been assured enabled the captains of industry to lower prices as soon as they secure a monopoly. But the report states that while great progress has been made in the general plan to effect economy in manufacture, still that end has not yet been reached. We are left to conclude that the syndicate profits gushed up out of the ground or dropped down from the sky. We learned from the same official source a month ago that, thq, profits of the business of the corporation for the first nine months of its existence had been at the rate of about 10 per cent upon its enormously inflated capitalization of $1,100,000,000. The figures now published, so far as they are intelligible, confirm this deduction from the former report. Since it is notorious that the capitalization is at least half water, there can be no escape from the conclusion, upon the corporation’s own showing, that the profits on its business are at least 20 per cent upon the capital actually invested.

The Democratic County Central Committee met last Saturday in response to call issued by Chairman Bates and elected E. P. Honan, chairman, U. M. Baughman, secretary, and N. S. Bates, treasurer. The time for holding the county convention was fixed for Saturday, April 12, and the primaries to select delegates thereto will be held Saturday, March, 29. The new leaders are popular and men who will wage an active campaign and use all honorable means to bring about democratic success at the polls in November.