People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 March 1896 — NOTES AND COMMENT. [ARTICLE]

NOTES AND COMMENT.

rushes of Thought Prompted by Current Events. The Morgan syndicate gets about lone-third of the recent issue of bonds, but it pays a better price than it did in that Cleveland-Carlisle-Stetson deal. Yet it will make a very good thing off of its recent deal, as it buys at about sl.lO and will be able to dispose of the bonds at $1.20 to $1.21. Three or four million is not as good as ten million but it does very well for these hard times. * * * There is not much that the demagogues in the American congress, backed by the plutocratic press will not undertake to do. The latest effort is to try to convince the public that inconsistency is a jewel. It will be remembered that a short time ago the press was busy trying to prove that the change of opinion on the financial question of Sherman, Carlisle, Hoke Smith, and othere, was the result of investigation by them and was not to be considered as inconsistent. Now comes Congressman Hall, of Missouri, who, when he was president of the farmers’ organization in his state was absolutely certain free silver was right, is now as absolutely certain it is wrong, and i tries to prove that inconsistency is one of the greatest qualifications of a statesi man, and cites as examples such emi‘‘'fnent men as Gladstone, Bismarck and Tom Reed. Mr. Hall is a shyster politician. • * * In this day of agitation and progress a great newspaper, if it gives the news, I must necessarily tell the truth occasionally. The following is an editorial paragraph clipped from the GlobeDemocrat:

“They do things differently to Parts. Its streets and public buildings are lighted with gas at cost, and in ten years the city has received $40,000,000 from the company furnishing gas. A public franchise in Paris means something handsome for the city treasury as a matter of course.” “The streets and public buildings are lighted at cost, and in ten years the city has received $40,000,000 from the company furnishing gas.” That sounds like Populism. That also sounds like common sense, yet it is one of the “isms” which some of the so-called Populist leaders are denouncing as socialism and with the principles of party. There is nothing new to this principle of municipalities aaMtog and operating kheir public at cost, and experiment everywhere has proved both its beneficence and its practicability. It is growing in popular favor rapidly, and Populists need have nothing to fear from its advocacy. * • * The United States is not the only nation that is suffering from agricultural depression, nor is it the only one that is agitating the question of currency reform. A dispatch from London, Feb. 7, says: “Replying to-day to a deputation representing agricultural interests, the First Lord of the Treasury, Mr. A. F. Balfour, informed his visitors that the government was preparing various measures for the relief of the agricultural classes. Mr. Balfour also stated that it was his personal conviction that agriculture suffered doubly, owing to the present condition of the currency, and expressed his personal belief that the reduced prices were largely due to the artificial appreciation of gold which followed the demonetization of silver; and, secondly, to the artificial advantage given the producer in silver-using countries over the producers in goldusing countries. Continuing, Mr. Balfour said that the obstacles to reform did not come from abroad, they were to be found at home. Therefore, it was desirable to impress upon the powerful interests opposing it how much the national and individual prosperity was bound up in currency reforms.” “The powerful interests opposing it” are the bankers and usurers, who, in connection with the same class of men in this country have conspired against the agricultural interests in the United States.

* * • When the Populists have advocated owning and operating the railroads and telegraph lines they have frequently been met with the objection that it always costs the government more to get work done than it does a corporation or Individual. Now comes the GlobeDemocrat, which is very good plutocratic authority, and says that such is not the case. Discussing salaries and pensions, it says: “The government does not pay exorbitant salaries to any of its officers. Generally speaking, it gets its work done at cheaper rates than those paid by private corporations for similar service; and no man has ever yet acquired wealth from the legitimate proceeds of Federal employment. Some of the salaries probably ought to be increased, but so long as they remain what they are, and men accept the offices at such rates of compensation, no further payment should be made. That is to say, when a public officer dies, Congress should not hasten to vote a gift or pension to his widow on the ground that he was so lightly recompensed for his service to the country that he could not provide for those who were dependent upon him. It is sad, of course, to know that statesmen frequently die poor; but that is not a misfortune which falls exclusively upon those who labor in the field of politics. Men of all classes and of all vocations are subject to this grim irony of circumstances; and society does not undertake to rectify such wrongs by a posthumous increase of wages or profits. No claims of that sort are recognized except in the sense of charity. There is no law or rule of justice or fairness by which the work of private citizens, however faithful and useful, is remunerated after they are gone, and because they have left bankrupt estates behind them. The editorial from which the above is quoted discusses the widow pension business so fairly that we give it to our readers: “It is impossible,” says the G —D., “to justify a policy on the part of the government which is thus absent from the philosophy and practice of society. Men are not compelled to accept federal offices, or to retain them after discovering that they are unprofitable. The government does not draft citizens into the civil service, but leaves them free to decline all kinds of political positions. It offers certain salaries for certain forms of labor, and those who accept do not thereby become entitled to any additional pay in case they spend all they get and have nothing left at the end of their -days. There may be special cases now and then in which the voting of a pension on account of the services of a deceased Federal officer is warrantable; but surely there is no general obligation in that respect. In other words, the mere fact that a man who dies poor is a Federal officer, either civil or military, does not signify that his salary or any part of it should be continued to his family after his death. His contract with the govvernment lasts only as long as his service, and this method of extending it outside of the general pension law Is Irregular and indefensible. The question is not one of sympathy, but of 'egality and propriety. Men seek these places anxiously and hold them as long as possible, and no right of profit accrues beyond the established salary.” There have been several large chunks of prosperity for the bondholders.