Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 May 1902 — POLITICS OF THE DAY [ARTICLE]

POLITICS OF THE DAY

General Order 100. Each officer in the Philippines accused of cruelty to prisoners and others says in his defense that lie acted by the authority of his superior officers. So sill the acts of cruelty arc traced up from one officer to another until the whole respousibility is placed oti General Smith. General Smith says that his orders to ids subordinates were based on general order 100. recently issued for the information of officers as to their duties. General order 100 was issued by the war department in 1803. It covered instructions to Union officers who captured guerrillas of the Quautrell kind who had committed excesses in violation of the rules of war. It authorized a “suspension of ail rules of warfare and retaliatlou when the enemy acts in a similar manner.” This old order was dug out of the dusty files of the war department and republished last year for the instruction of our array in the Philippines. Tills fact furnished the apologists for the administration what they thought was a good joke on the press and public men who had criticised its application to recent methods in the Philippines. They found great humor in the fact that newspapers and members of Congress had condemned acts of barbarism supposing them to have been committed under a recent order, when, as a matter of fact, the order was issued during the War of the Rebellion. The joke is not apparent. General order 100 had been obsolete and a dead letter for thirty-nine ycarsi. It never would have been heard of again hut for Secretary Root and his methods. Its existence was recalled by some memory useful only for evil. Civilization has advanced by leaps and hounds since the order was issued, more than a generation ago. Another One. Mr. McKinley found Secretary Alger too heavy a load to carry and lie was dropped. Mr. Roosevelt shouldered Secretary Long and stumbled along with him for a while, hut he had to let go finally. There are indications that the relations between the President and Secretary Root are becoming similarly strained. Mr. Roosevelt is muscular and strenuous, but when it dawns upon him. as it must very soon, that Mr. Root will have to be carried by main strength he is likely to throw him. As an old friend and associate in •strong-arm practices about all that Mr. Root can hope for will be that the place selected for the dump will not he too rocky.—Chicago Chronicle. la Roosevelt In Earnest? The old leaders of the Republican party either do not know or pretend not to know wliat to make of Mr. Roosevelt’s display of activity against trusts. It is something new for a Republican President to make even a decent pre, tense of enforcing the laws against trusts. The leaders, therefore, are puzzled and more or less alarmed when Mr. Roosevelt mounts his broncho and sallies forth for a furious tilt-against the trusts without so much as winking the other eye at them. Can he mean it? Or is he merely out showing his teeth to the gallery gods of the political amphitheater? He does not take the party bosses into his confidence, and very likely they are really at a loss to know whether he is in earnest. Anyhow, there is a lot of scurrying. The gentlemen of the Northern Securities merger silently lile them to the capital and anxiously consult with Mark Hanna and the rest and pass the word up to the White House that If the President really means it something heavy will drop on the Republican party, or at least on Mr. Roosevelt as its official head, and the huge business and financial “interests," otherwise called trusts, will know wlmt that something heavy Is. The astonished packers also move on Washington through their political agents. If not personally, on a like errand bent, and they repeat the solemn warning. They remind Mr. Roosevelt that without the hacking of the big trusts the Republican party could not have won n battle these last fourteen years at least, and that no statesman of that party can put up an honest fight against the trusts and live. Is Mr. Roosevelt in earnest? That Is a thing that is yet to he found out. lie knows that these things are true. He knows that neither lie nor any other Republican candidate for the Presidency can win without the active supl>ort of the trusts. We can draw our own inference. We shall he assisted in drawing the inference If we l>enr In mind that he is proceeding by Injunction only. When we hear of his Instructing the proper officers to have the trust magnates Indicted under the criminal provisions of the statute we may begiu to believe he means something.—Chicugo Chronicle. ■ i i. Finite the Food Trust. The tariff duties on meats raise their price. That is why the duties were levied. Take off the dutleg on meats and the price will come down v Therefore President Roosevelt, If In earnest in bis desire to disrupt the Food Trust,

will supplement the court proceedings of his Attorney General by urging Congress to repeal the price-enhancing duties on the meats controlled by the trust. The President can do this most effectively by sending in a special message. So long as a Republican Congress, which has power to remove these du ties, allows them to remain the Republican party makes Itself responsible for the tariff protection given the Food Trust. That is a consideration which should have great weight with the President, who is a keen politician. Does Mr. Roosevelt want his party to stand in the coming Congressional campaign as the champion of dear food? That will he its position if Congress, which can take off the duties in twenty hours, shall keep up the tariff fence that protects the Food Trust while it robs the people. Send in a special message, Mr. Roosevelt. Hit the Food Trust through the tariff! —New York Journal. No Use In Heine Squeamish. The American people have declared themselves in favor of retaining the Philippines. The army is trying to carry out their wishes. Such being the case, why should they be squeamish about methods? Is not oriental expausiou the natural destiny of the American people? Senator Beveridge and the rest of the imperialistic statesmen have assured us that it is. Way falter, then, ou the way to destiny? What matters it if there are a few more dead bodies to step over, and why should a people marching to destiny concern Itself about the manner in which the former owners of these bodies came to their death? Destiny is destiny, aud is not all flesh grass? And what is a little grass more or less that it should block the progress of civilisation?—Detroit Free Press.

The Tariff Cannot Stand. It becomes more evident every day that the present tariff schedule cannot stand much longer. The paramount issue of the Congressional election this year will be the tariff and the old lines will lie changed Very decidedly. There are many men now demanding a reduction of duties wiio even two years ago would have stubbornly opposed any such tiling. The split iu the Republican party on this question is widening rapidly. Republican press is even more divided than the Republican politicians. Seldom has any party In this country been so much at sea as the Republicans are now on reciprocity. They are famous folk for getting together, hut if they can reconcile their differences on this question they will beat their own record.—Atlanta Journal. Farms Not Making Millionaires. The agriculturist of an agricultural country cannot ho benefited by a tariff on agricultural products. But they can be greatly injured by a tariff on the things they use. If they have to pay more than their foreign competitors for the tools they use, the clothes they wear, the food they purchase, the material needed for fences and buildings, they are manifestly handicapped in the contest, and that is what the American farmer is experiencing. Thu farm is not making any Scliwabs or Carnegies or Rockefellers or Morgans —at least not directly. These suddenly acquired fortunes are not the result of tilling the soil, hut the tillers of the soil are contributing to every one of them.—lndianapolis Sentinel. Orosvenor Talking Nonsense. Representative Charles 11. Grosveuor in attempting to show that the steamship consolidation furnishes no argument against the passage of the shipsubsidy hill declares that not a ship of the combination will receive any subsidy. Mr. Grlscom and Mr. Cramp disagree somewhat violently with General Orosvenor. They know very well Hint the combination would receive subsidy payments for all its new ships, while Senator Frye’s report shows that Mr. Griscom’s company, which has gone into the combination, will receive $1,713,8G3 per year.—New York Times.

Rushing Too Fuat Again. Just as was the case ten or twenty or thirty years ago, so It is the case now that in the warm sun of prosperity Is generated a sangulneness untempered by tlie remembrances of past disasters, and the opportunities of the moment are pursued with an eagerness which takes little account of ,ue possible vicissitudes of the future. Thus lias been generated In the past the pride that goetli before destruction, nnd, so far as the psychology of the case Is concerned, the present is In no wuy different from the pnst.—Baltimore News. The Only Hope of Relief. The Republican party, which created nnd fostered these monopolistic organizations nt the sacrifice of the people's rights, is owned body aud soul by the combines which it hns created. So honest or effective anti-trust action Is to lie expected from Republicanism. The Democratic party must make the tight in the people's behalf. If the evil working of the trust system Is to be remedied the remedy must come from Democratic action.—St. Louis Republic.