Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 54, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 March 1902 — AN OCTOPUSTER NO MORE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AN OCTOPUSTER NO MORE.

Former Governor Hogg of Texas Now an Oil Merchant. Former Governor James S. Hogg of Texas is in London organizing a gigantic English corporation to operate In the Beaumont oil fields. The capital stock will not be less than $15,000,000, of which Mr. Hogg and his four Texas associates will hold $5,000,000. This company, we are reminded by the dispatch from Austin, “Is Independent of the other English oil corporation, with a capital of $4,500,000, recently promoted in London by James W. Swain, one of Mr. Hogg’s associates.”

In connection with this interesting intelligence comes the statement that L. V. T. Campbell, who accompanied Mr. Hogg to London, is “a representative of the Standard Oil Company,” and that this “lends color to the report that the extensive oil interests of Mr, Hogg and associates are closely identified with the Standard Oil Company.” It is but fair to say, however, that Mr. Hogg enters a rather mlid denial of the latter

Taken otherwise at its face value, however, this information groves that another of William Jennings Bryan’s band of octopusters has abandoned the strenuous pleasures of the chase for the sweet comforts of a soft seat “on the ground floor.” Glancing back over the last six years, one finds it almost Incredible that Hogg of Texas, whose resounding voice has been heard North and South, East and West, appealing to the common people to array themselves against the “sharks of Wall and Lombard streets,” should now be promoting alliances with those same “sharks” to place the natural resources of his Lone Star State, the natural inheritance of his beloved people, in “the merciless clutches of organized wealth!”

Yet, strange as it may appear, such is the case. Former Governor Hogg has apparently forgotten everything save the possibilities which the Beaumont oil fields and the British investor have to offer him. He no longer shieks defiance at* the money bags of Europe and the East. He no longer trembles with Indignation as he contemplates Wall and Lombard streets. He no longer shrinks with loathing from contact with the octopus. Rather does he nestle confidently and comfortably within the embrace of its golden tentacles. ...

Bryan, Towne, and Hogg, these three; and the greatest octopuster of these was Hogg. But he is an octopuster no more. He has become a dry nurse of octopuses.—Chicago Inter Ocean.

Spooner and the Philippines.

The first duty of the United States in the Philippines is the pacification of the islands. This is not incompatible with the ultimate withdrawal of the United States troops, and the recognition of Philippine independence. But pacification must be accomplished first. It is imperative, and it has been carried so far that not more than 10 per cent of the inhabitants of the islands are now concerned in the insurrection. The Filipinos themselves as a people appreciate the good things which have been accomplished in the Islands by the Commission representing the United States. Justice has been guaranteed by the institution of impartial tribunals, the abolition of the ecclesiastical courts, and the establishment of the writ of habeas corpus. Free schools have been opened and are largely attended. Civil government has supplanted military rule in many of the provinces, and the people are gaining their first acquaintance with the exercise of suffrage. With characteristic thoroughness and eloquence. Senator Spooner went over the whole ground, rising to a climax when he read the confirmation from tlie widow of Gen. Lawton of the letter in which that martyr for the American flag attributed the persistency of tlie Filipino rebels to the encouragement they received from the Indiscreet utterances of foes of the administration in the United States, and expressed tlie opinion—afterward resembling prophecy—that if he were to fall in the fighting, he might almost as well be shot in the back by his own men, for the bullet would be really due to the misdirected apologists of the Insurrectionists in America. Senator Spooner has never been enamored of the prospect of retaining the islands. But he feels that duty often imposes an obligation higher than inclination for nations as well as for individuals. His speech was a con elusive reply to all the arguments advanced by Wellington and Teller, and will be accepted as such by more than nine-tenths of the people of the United States. -Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin. War Taxes Vs. Free Cuban Sugar. Of course. If Republican Senators are determined to destroy the Republican party they can do so. In this particular case, if the matter comes to a conflict between the two branches of Congress. the House is fairly certain to win. Not even devotion to the Sugar Trust will probably induce the Senate to go so far ns to declare, and stick to It, that the people.shall not be relieved of the war taxes, except at the price of permitting the Sugar Trust to destroy American producers of sugar, The Senate will back down iu the end. But in the effort to accomplish its alleged purpose the Republican Senators can do mischief to their party which Republican spellbinders will never be able to repair before election. They have not yet done what it is claimed that they will do. Perhaps they have no such Intent. Certainly we hope they have not. We trust that th* gods do

not Intend to destroy the Republican party, but sometimes it seems as if they taking the first step to that end, by making Republican leaders mad.—San Francisco Chronicle. Firtd Count the Cost. Reciprocity, like protection, should be adopted only in the interest of national welfare. It is not in the interest of national prosperity to adopt a po.icy that shall merely promote the Interest of one industry by sacrificing that of another. So far as public policy is used at all, it sh&jld be used for the development of all domestic Industry, both manufacturing and agricultural. Foreign trade, if it is acquired, should be acquired by the development of perfection and superiority in our domestic Industries, so as to overcome foreign competitors by competition, but never by a special bargain that shall sacr l flce or injure another domestic industry. Before the manufacturers of this country give themselves over to the reciprocity movement they had better stop and count the cost, consider the Influence, not upon the stove factories or the plow factories, but its influence upon domestic industries of the whole country. They must remember that if favors are granted to one they must be granted to another and another and another. In fact, one concern has just as much right as another to ask the government to buy its right of free entry into some foreign market by adding its neighbor to the free list. The only logical outcome, in fairness to them all, would be to put them all on the free list, which would, of course, accomplish the highest ideal of those who are most ardently promoting the reciprocity movement.—Gunton’s Magazine.

What Farmers Will Think.

When the farming'-interests is once convinced that a protective tariff is ’designed simply to protect the manipulators of their products, and not to protect the producers, they will loSe much of their interest in the question. The workingman does not follow the ramifications of the protective system. He looks only at immediate results. When the elections of next year occur the Republicans will be in an awkward position when they are asked by their farmer constituents why they destroy the only protection ever granted to the agriculturist and leave untouched the duties upon all commodities that the farmer has to buy—why they continue the enormous protection afforded the sugar refiner and at the same time subject the sugar grower to that competition with cheap tropical labor and conditions which the party has invariably declared to be Inimical to the interests of the home laborer. Should the Democrats win tlie battle by the aid of Republicans who yield to the Sugar Trust, the result of the next national elections may be very different than that of 1890 and of 1900.—New Orleans Item.

Is He Willing?

President JJavemeyer, of the Sugar Trust, is hostile to the tariff on raw sugar. This, mind you, is all in the interest of tl>e poor consumer. Mr. Havemeyer finds that $85,000,000 a year could be saved to these people- by the abolition of the duties on sugar; and these, he is sure, the country, with an overflowing treasury, does not need. How unspeakably generous. Now there is one question which the country Is anxious that Mr. Havemeyer should answer. Is lie willing that the duty on refined sugar should be abolished along with that on tlie raw article? The pedpie do not use tlie raw, but the refined product. Therefore, if it is their interest that we are to consider, it is the duty on refined sugar that must go first. There is no question about the position of the philanthropist who wants to kill the sugar planting industry and the beet sugar industry in this country when it comes to admitting the cheap sugars of Europe in coinpetition with his product. It is a pretty good rule to find out what Mr. Havemeyer wants to do and then not do it.— Seattle Tost-Intelligencer.

Shall We Welcome This Worm?

Source of Knowledge. In view of tbe many curious errors of statement contained In his various communications on the subject of sugar and tobacco values, exports, etc., there is room for the reasonable deduction that the knowledge possessed by General Wood, military governor of Cuba, regarding economic and trade conditions has been chiefly derived from the pages of materia medlca. Heartless Offspring, The Democrats keep hopping up and declaring that the tariff is the mother of trusts. -Now the Sugar Trust is clamoring for the removal of the tariff on sugar. Don’t It beat thunder that the Sugar Trust wants Congress to kill its mammy?—Moravian Falls (N. C.) Yellow Jacket. There are some kind of men who cannot pass their time alone; they are the flails of occupied people.—BonaUL