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4 THE PfllLY GLOBE every day AT NEWSPAPER ROW,. COR. FOURTH AND MINNESOTA STS. OFFICIAL. PAPER OF ST. PAUL,. SUBSCRIPTION RATES. Payable In Advance. Daily and Sunday, per Month .50 Dally and Sunday, Six Months - $2.75 Daily and Sunday, One Year - $5.00 Dally Only, per Month .40 Dally Only, Six Months f2.25 Dally Only, One Year f4.00 Sunday Only, One Year -- - - $1.50 Weekly, One Year f 1.00 Address all letters and telegrams to THE GLOBE, St. Paul. Minn. EASTERN ADVERTISING OFFICE. ROOM 401. TEMPLE COURT BUILDING. NEW YORK. WASHINGTON BUREAU. 1405 F ST N. W. Complete files of the Globe always kept on hand for reference. WEATHER FOR TODAY. WASHINGTON. Aug. B.— Forecast for Sun day: Minnesota — Fair, warmer during the day ; southerly winds. Wisconsin — Generally fair, continued high temperature; light to fresh westerly winds, shifting to southerly. South Dakota— Fair, light to fresh westerly winds; cooler Sunday night. North Dakota— Local thunder storms; west erly winds; slightly cooler. Montana— Local showers; cooler In western portion ; westerly winds. TEMPERATURES. Place. Tern. I Place. Tern. Boston 76-80; Helena 60-88 Buffalo 80-80: Montreal 76-86 Cheyenne 80-80 New York 80-92 Chicago 88-98 Pittsburg >.82-88 Cincinnati 88-94 Winnipeg 76-80 DAILY MEANS. Barometer. 29.80; relative humidity. 68; weather, part cloudy; maximum thermometer, 86; minimum thermometer, 65; daily range, 21; amount of rainfall or melted snow in last 24 hours, .99; thermometer, 76; wind northwest. RIVER AT 8 A. M. Gauge Danger Height of Reading. Line. Water. Change. St. Paul 14 2.1 *0.3 La Crosse 10 2.3 0.0 Davenport 15 2.0 —0.1 St. Louis 30 15.5 0.0 •Rise. —Fall. Note — Barometer corrected for temperature and elevation. — P. F. Lyons, Observer. BRIVG Ot'T THE TRUTH. Some of the most extraordinary and sensational statements ever made in connection with the railroad business in this country and with the enforce ment of laws to regulate it, have come cut in the examination of Mr. Stickney at Chicago with reference to Western freight rates, and to the existence of an alleged pool among Western rail roads for a division of cash business in defiance of law. Mr. Stickney af firms that the Western roads have been acting illegally right along, making a traffic arrangement with one another which was actually, as well as virtual ly, a pool, and that they are angry with him because he has been getting the better of them. They retort by accus ing him or cutting rates and giving re bates indirectly, but do not seem to-be In a hurry to disprove the principal charge. The whole facts, it would seem, must now come out; since the interstate commerce commission, leth argic as that body is, and slow to move, can hardly refuse to go to the bottom of this business. It is certainly no secret to our read ers, for we have denounced it again and again, that the authorities behind the interstate commerce law have never enforced its' pr6vlslons literally and comprehensively. Except in certain non-esaentials, it has been practically a dead letter from the time of its pass age. Even since the Counselman case, and since the enactment of a law that puts it in the power of the commission- ers to require a man to testify without incriminating himself, little or noth ing has been done. In the slow, sleepy, red-tape, indifferent way In which all our official bodies move, the commis sion has been getting around toward the time when it should determine to begin to get ready to commence to do something. We say right here, and we cannot say it often enough or loud enough, that it is this sort of thing which has brought the People's party into existence, has Increased its membership and will eventually make it, with all its follies on its head, a majority party in this country, if something Is not done to satisfy the people that laws are made to be obeyed, and that officials are elected to enforce them. The great misfortune and danger is that the People's party and its associates have been led away by demagogues and the worn out and selfish politicians dis carded by both the old parties, to the advocacy of measures which do not remedy the evils existing, but must, instead, create new and greater ones. The evils, however, are not denied. Were it not for the agitation at this time of the free coinage question, pub lic attention would be centered upon the great crime of the times, which is the immunity of powerful corporate tnterests from legislative control. It is this fact, the ignorance of the actual menace of our liber ties, standing threatening at our doors, which makes the pursuit of the ignis fatuus of cheap money as a remedy at once so pitiful and so hostile to the preservation of liberty and equality. The trusts and monopolies are every where. They care nothing about the money standard or "bimetallism." They can buy men Just as well, and rather more cheaply, with a silver dollar, as with a gold dollar. They can prosper on the basis of China and Japan even more lustily than on that of the civilized world. What they must have, what they insist upon and what this debate about a sham and foolish Issue is helping them to secure, Is im munity in their pursuits from the re straints and the punishments of the law. The mighty hand of the trust is felt everywhere. Is Industry free? Can any man start and follow any business that he pleases in St. Paul tomorrow? Let him try to establish a biscuit factory or a match factory in this city, with legitimate capital be hind it, and endeavor to do only a le gitimate business on a legitimate profit, and he will find rv a t. He will be crushed as remorselessly as his body would be if he threw himself In front of a locomotive engine. So it is all over the nation. Everywhere indus try is limited and hampered, produc tion is dictated by those who have mo nopolized Its resources, and combina tion eats up competition, that the peo ple may be left defenseless while the administrators of our laws look on and either smile or sleep. There is no dearth of statutes. We have laws enough, heaven knows. We have the old common law, under which all combinations In restraint of trade are illegal. We have a certain federal law against trusts, which Is not wholly satisfactory, but which congress re fused to make operative at its last session, although the - attorney- gen eral of the United States told it how this might be done. We have anti trust laws In nearly every state In the Union. We have the federal law reg ulating interstate commerce, and a whole volume of railway laws govern ' ing the operation of the roads in each commonwealth. Yet the combinations grow and flourish and wax fat. Not upon them, should fall the heavy weight of the people's censure,' for they have only done according to their kind. It is the faithless guardians of the peo ple's rights on whom should fall the swiftest and most unrelenting ven geance. This ought to be the real is sue before the American people today. It is on this side that their armor is unfastened, and from this quarter that the foes of the republic are throng ing down. Meantime, the people thomselves, conscious only of the growth, of danger ous and demoralizing powers, distract ed by wrongs and weakness, and un tutored in the remedies that they need, run this way and that, and find their necessities made the opportunity of the false prophet and the foolish teacher and the ambitious politician. They ask for the bread of equal rights, and the best that is offered them is the stone of free coinage. Hardly more lamentable in itself and in its probable effects upon this country is the free silver agitation than in its postponement and its obscuring of the real issue of our age. which is the restraint and abolition by law of the great combinations that today deter mine the production and distribution of wealth, apportioning to each his share, leaving, like the grand seignior of old, to the laborer his pittance, and appropriating for themselves the bal ance. Freedom of trade within our own boundaries is a more necessary and vital thing to us Just now than freedom of trade with foreign nations. Whatever tends to make this clear, whatever leads our people to perceive the real evils that afflict them, and thus turns their minds away from the false remedy and toward the true, will give new life to the republic. CAUGHT IST THEIR OWN NET. The retributions of political warfare are not so infrequent as one might think. Leaders and parties who wor ship expediency, and whose idea of pol icy is to do the thing that seems most profitable at the moment, almost al ways find their own actions rise up to confront and paralyze them a little later on. A case in point is the fate of the Irish land bill in the English house of lords, and the hopeless embarrass ment in which this has involved the Tory government. It was in opposition to a measure for justice to Ireland that this government came 'into -p-ower. it was in the house of lords that it made Its great stand against . home rule for the Irish people, and secured the de feat of the life labors of some of Brit ain's greatest statesmen. No one can have forgotten the extraordinary dem onstration that was made when the Tory peers, who had not been seen in the house of lords for years, were driven up in herds, lfke their own cat tle, by Salisbury's lieutenants to record an overwhelming vote against the home rule bill that had passed the house of commons. There the opposi tion made Its stand, and there ft wrought the defeat of the Gladstone ministry, which had no other recourse than to appeal to the country against the decision of the pews. The upper house was sustained by the electors. The Tory party came back Into power by virtue of the action of the honse of lords. It has its btg majority and feels itself intrenched securely for a dozen years to come. And now it runs np against the same contemptuous obstruction that it raised against its political opponents. The landlord interest in the English house of peers Is the most selfish and dom ineering in the civilized world. It recks little of parties, policies or Justice. It means to take care of its own. It pro poses that the titled aristocracy, that hold in fee so large a portion of the soil of Ireland, shall be protected against any possible concessions to the peasantry. It has reformed one clause of this bill so as to read that all im- provements on land shall be presumed to be made by the landlord. It changed other clauses against tne remon strances of the government Itself, and so emasculated the bill that it will have to be dropped entirely. Thus Is the Tory party caught in the toils of its own net. The same reck less disregard of right and justice, the same prejudice of the landholding as against the land-cultivating class, to which it appealed to put the Liberals out of power and prevent the passage of home rule, is now raised against it, while endeavoring to carry out a pol icy that would pacify the people of Ire land and remedy some of their com plaints. We can rest well assured that any bill which receives the sanction of the S&lisburys and the Balfours and the other gentry who have fought Ire land for years does not lean too much to the Irish side. Yet even what they are willing to concede is too much for their lordships, who exercise their her editary right to perpetuate a notorious hereditary wrong. The Tory party, like that which It succeeded, has been defeated by a hos tile majority In the upper house. It will net, probably, therefore, re linquish its power or appeal to the country. But it has felt the check and the galling restraint of that same element of reckless injus tice and greed of power that it raised THE SAINT PAUL GLOBE: SUNDAY, AUGUST 0, Igg& up to defeat the work of the greatest statesman of his time. Sooner or later this conservative ministry will be ground to pieces between the upper and nether millstones of a popular de mand for reform and a stubborn resist ance to it among the peers. The main reliance of the British Tory is destined to be, In the long run, his downfall. Kll,ll\ti THE (i(X)SE. Some part of the disturbances and uncertainties of business in this coun try and of resulting failure seems to us to be due to the general invasion of the field of legitimate business by the speculative spirit. We are forcing everything at a high pressure spaed. We do not permit industries to run their natural course, and to develop along lines that insure stability. The rage for profit is such, and the mobili ty of capital In these times has become so great, that no variety of enterprise that returns even a reasonable profit Is allowed to remain in that condition. There is forthwith such a rush of en terprise in that direction that the margin of profit declines or disappears altogether, and capital and labor, hav ing obtained but a momentary advant age, are once more left idle and on the lookout for employment. The case particularly in point at present is the decline in the profits of bicycle manufacturing, caused by the enormous investments of capital in that business within the past two years. There are at present some evidences of distress in this line of industry, and a number of minor concerns have gone to the wall. This is the first clear symptom of overproduction. It is an inevitable! consequence of the gravita tion of capital by millions to a new field, in which there are promises of advantage and speedy returns. The illustration is an excellent one, because the industry is practically new. Until a very few years ago the bicycle was scarcely more than a toy. Its sudden adoption by all sorts and conditions of men and women created a demand greater than the manufacturing facili ties then in existence could supply. Prices were made and kept high, pro fits were large and the output of the factories was frequently contracted for a full season in advance. Since many other industries were languishing and large blocks of capital were lying idle, the opportunity was too tempting to resist. Everybody went into the bicycle manufacturing- business. New factor ies by the score sprang up all over the country, new patterns of wheels were introduced by the hundred and the stress of competition changed from buyers to sellers. These are the conditions that must surely affect a market. Some of the concerns that were least able to staivl the strain of this fierce rivalry, united with the contracted credit caused * v financial uncertainty, have go.clv s 0 liquidation. The strong firms,< vprtich are many, and the wheels that have an established reputation, will maintain themselves without difficulty, although it is probable that the day of great profits is past. But there will be many losses on the part of those less able to meet current conditions, and the mar gin of gain will be diminished all around. This is a consequence of an unnatural development of industry by speculative methods. It is a case of that disposition to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, which is becom ing too characteristic of the American people. On the «*•• h^ ,^ ni f« nT i array of monopolies and trusts which gather in heavy and unearned profits by combining to restrict production unnaturally, and prey upon the neces sities of the consumer; while on the other hand stands an unrestricted competition, whose unwisdom of act lon is as fatal to capital itself. Both of these tendencies are, at least tn an indirect sense, a product of the protec tive system. It has taught the man agers of business interests in this country that Industry does not develop naturally, and that you must be on the lookout for a chance, possibly created artificially by legislation, to make money, to work it for all that it is worth for a few years and get oot your pile of profit before the crash comes. This Is the history of the growth of moat of our industries under protec tion. First comes the Imposition of a tax that offers to capital a big bribe to go Into an undertaking that it wouW not assume opon Its merits. It fs a speculative risk. No one knows how soon another party may come- into power that will change the law and reduce profits. No one capitalist knows how many more there are who are going to plump their millions into th<? same line of business and drive it hard while the opportunity lasts. So the American people have been educated into the haMt of rushing business un naturally, squeezing the orange dry in a few years, and then having to spend all the profits of that brief space in carrying themselves through a long succeeding period of stagnation and loss. Take the condition of the tin plate business, for example. The Mc- Klnlejr law placed mch an enormous bounty on tin plate production that millions upon millions of capital were forthwith located permanently in ex tensive works for its manufacture. A big profit, again, diverted capita) unnaturally into that channel. Then came the reaction; which the price lists show to be entirely independent of the operation of the present tariff act. The competition of tin plate makers themselves all over Oie world, supplemented by the rising price of the raw material, threatened the rising in dustry with extinction, and has made all those Interested In ft clamorous for more protection. It will be a long time before our industrial customs shake themselves free from the evil precedents of tlie past. Slow but sure, is the old unfail ing motto of business success. A prop er distribution of capital and labor among the different industries is in dispensable to general prosperity. As long as the industrial forces stand massed like an army waiting- for the appearance of a weak point upon which they may throw themselves en masse, we must continue to develop spasmodically one Industry at a time; and. by successive alternation erf ex- cessive profit and heary loss. Prosper ity can seldom be long continued where this Is the rule. READ THE ARTICLE*. To the Editor of the Globe. Your editorial of Aug. 2, 18*6, entitled Blackguard or Bribe-Taker?" may be briefly summarized as follows: 1. Under free coinage the Bilver dollar will be a 50-cent dollar. 2. The owners of silver mines have a mer cenary motive In procuring free coinage, be cause they can then convert 50 cents' worth of silver into $1. 3. The heavy capitalists have no mercenary interest in the insult, of the present conflict between the golfl and silver forces. 4. In the event of free coinage, the prop erty values of thta claas would be cut in two; they would be prftettaally ruined. How would yqu reconcile these conflict ln& statements? _ E ric L. Wlnje. Duluth, Minn., Aug 6, 1896. The first an<| principal answer to the questions asked above, as to many others that come to us, is an earnest admonition to our correspondent to turn to the flies of- th« Globe and read the article in question. If he does so carefully, he wfll find that his inquiries need not have been made. To begin with, we must emphatically and to tally disclaim and deny the assertion made in his statement number two. Instead of asserting that the owners of silver mines had a mercenary mo tive in procuring free coinage, the whole purpose of the article was to brand as unworthy of decent and hon orable men such charges on either side without proof positive to back them. What the article proposed to do, an-1 did, was to show that there would be a great gain resulting to one side and none directly to tho other; and, there fore, that it ill behooved the former to bring charges of a corrupt motive against the latter. Taking up his third and fourth statements, we will simply quote from the article referred to. "There is not one owner cf capital, be he 'money shark' or large-hearted philanihropist, who can be shown to have the slightest con ceivable individual Uterest in the defeat of free coinage, except as saving him from a possible and frightful loss. They all believe that their possession!. In co;.imon with those of the poorest laboring man, would be cut in two by free coinage, if they were not absolute ly lost in the ensuing dissolution in business and trade. The,y ire loing their best to prevent what they regard as a frightful calamity. But by no possibility and no force of argu ment can it be shewn that if they succeed they would be the gainer in pocket by the fraction of a dollar. ' In these words we covered explicitly the point raised. It should need no further elucidation. Our correspond ent will certainly understand that there is a wide difference between the effect of a law v«hich should transfer one-half of his possessions without recompense to. a neighbor, and a law which should traisfer one-half of his neighbor's possessions without recom pense to him. We think that he would be very active, aid would be justified in making a hot fight to prevent the former; whereas ie. would be open to the deepest and Ijlafckest reproach for endeavoring to consummate the latter. The case, stated! simply, is this. We do not consider ifcja, mercenary motive when a man enderwors to prevent the confiscation of hty.and other people's property by Inflation, tltft, how ever that may ; ibe, the question which we asked originally is "how he would be in purse the' fitter if free coinage is defeated?" *Thit is to say, if free coinage is en&etec we ,'pan see ._ where certain men would have power to en large their fortunes by many million dollars at the exfense of others. If free coinage is defeated, we cannot see where a single doilar would be added to any man's previously existing for tunes. Therefore, the motive so fre quently ascribed J>y reckle3s shakers and writers to t)e advocates of the gold standard doefc not exist. The de sire to escape fitom threatened loss, like the instinct of; self-preservation, of which it is a part, is common to all mankind, whatever their views about money, and cannol be ruled out of the case. The moral argument remains the same, in any event, and it has received the approval of all decent and right thinking men. It is worth while to repeat it here; and that is that the man, whether g-old bag, silverite or un conditional ftatiat, who, "without evi dence to back his assertion, accuses a political opponent of acting from in terested and corrupt motives, is him self either a blackguard or a bribe taker." "MOSEY AND BAXKIN6." It }» safe to say that eighty out of (every hundred men who will east ballots in November have made up decisively their Judgment on the main and, in fact, the sole issue, In what, with more or less accuracy, they term their minds. The percentage, if a cen sus could be taken, would be above rather than below that ntimbeT. But the decision does not rest with th* eighty one-hundredtks of the voters. It lies with tb* twenty. It always does. No state in the Union is under the control of any party whose majority is so large that a change of ten men out of each hundred would not deprive the dominant party' of control. That wonld be exceptional; a change of fire is usually sufficient, is to the doubt ful fraction that argument must be addressed. It is a waste of time and eneTgy to poor If out on the other. Of this uncertain twenty, half are honestly desfrotts of knowing. They are confused by the statements they hear and have no elemental facts to tie to. They want to learn, but may not know where to go for knowledge. If treatises on finance are pot fnto their hands, they find them too ab struse for comprehension.; the Instruc tion flies over their heads. What they want is something tbet will give them the fundamental facts, the elemental laws, as evolved in the experience of men and nations. What Is money, and how did it come into existence, and what have governments tried to do with it, and how have they failed or succeeded, and In what ways; what has been demonstrated that men and nations can do, and what they cannot do in regard to money? These are the things the ten men out of each hundred who will decide #ho shall be president are wanting and asking for. Among the books that are being poured out on the public bearing on an these questtons^no/pne that we have seen so happily and completely presents all phases of th» jutsttoti ua does "Money and Banking* from the pen of Horace White. Mr. White Is not a, banker nor a capitalist, but a journa list who regards It as the first law of his" profession that the editor must know about that of which he writes. He must not guess or surmise or ima gine or conjecture; he must know. And to know he must go to the fountains of knowledge and read and study, weigh and sift and get out of the mass of chaff the kernel of fact and truth. It is fn this spirit Mr. White has stud ied for years the money question, and it is out of the fullness of this study that he writes. His purpose is not to discuss the present issue academically, but historically and scientifically. There is no phase of the case today that has not been covered by the ex perience of this country since the Dec laration of Independence, not to men tion the earlier efforts of the colonies. The book opens with a historical sketch of the attempts of states to "make" money, the devices resorted to, the legislation adopted to give effect to them and the result. Various as the devices are, the result was uniform. Failure, disaster and a worse condition after was the uniform outcome. The inquirer of today will read the same arguments that he hears on the streets or reads In the papers made by the advocates of cheap money a century fi.go. He will see what came from states' listening to them, and, if he is wise and sensible, he will conclude that what men have so uniformly failed in doing, it is foolish to attempt again. The precedents are not restricted to those from our own history, but the efforts of other nations are briefly though succinctly stated*. The joini attempts of the nations in their inter national monetary conferences are nar rated. The law .of evolution in money is traced from wampum and sheila, its lowest stage, to gold, its prosent highest. It is shown how this is a true development, resisted by states, but forced by the commercial neces sities of the people and growing out of ineradicable and uncontrollable hu man motives. Tt is with pleasure that we commend to the twenty a reading, a study, of Mr. White's historical sum rr.n--y of the development of money under the sometimes harmonious, but oftener conflicting forces of trade and legislation. They will come from it with a clearer conception of the rule of law abevo legislatures and congres ses, and, what is of most value, that course is wisest that is guided by and obeys the natural laws of evolution. CGMPEMSATIOXS OUT OF WEALTH. •It is comfortable to be rich. So think the poor, looking at the rich. It is com fortable to be poor, think the rich, looking out of their perplexities upon the irresponsibilities of the poor. To amass wealth takes great effort united with great ability, but to keep it re quires as much or more. Commodore Vanderbilt said his wealth was a pile of sand at which he must incessantly labor to keep its particles free from their tendency to run down. Added to that native trend is the constant aid of envious men to help the particles escape. A thousand things jar on the sensitive nerves of wealth that never Sisturty'rtie rest of the poor. The mil lionaire's nerves tingle with apprehen sion when he reads that Finkelstein & Feierstein have ordered a million dol lars in gold from the treasury for ex port. It affects the poor man no more than does the item about the export of a million bushels of wheat. But out of the riches of the wealthy come compensations for the poor, even the very poor. The wealthy serve them in spite of themselves. Life's conditions are easier for them than they could possibly have made them by them selves. It is a good balm for discon tent to consider some of these. We would all like to bo rich, and we cannot, all be. Nature has so decreed it. Let as who cannot be rich seek for the ad vantages we get from those who can be. Not the least benefit is that we need not thank them for them. They do not come to us a3 charities. They are not cast-off clothes contemptuously flung: to us. We get them in the ef forts of the wealthy to better them selves, a struggle we are all engaged in from youth to the grave. Men can not keep all they gather. As they move along they leave portions behind them for other men to enjoy. Let us consldpr some of these things and soothe the irritation envy begets, for we all think, down in our hearts, that we have not been dealt justly by, as the rich man rolls by In his carriage, while we trudge home on foot carry ing oar dinner pail, with a week's scant wages In out pockets, to homes where wants are plentier than comforts. Pass by those unsubstantial things that ap peal to an aesthetic sense we have no time nor means to cultivate; their beautiful homes, gardens, flowers, whose beauty is as much for our eyes as for theirs, and whose wealth they cannot lock up in safety vaults. If we go awheel we ride over the smooth pavements they have been made to build for us, instead of being bounced aver the rough roads we, of ourselves only, could build. We, with not a dol lar In our pockets, independently poor, ride along their avenues, under the shade of the trees they have grown for us, on the asphalt they have laid for us, with that added comfort thai comes from the thought that In all this we are futst as rich as are they who have made them. But there are more material compen sations that come to us out of that singular provision of nature that gives to some men the capacity to gather riches and withholds It from the many. We, of the poor, the poorer, the poor est, are better housed by far than we could be had not some men made money before and for ua. The nature of man Is very elastic Increase our Incomes, and new desires quickly take up the slack until outgo holds income taut. It is he who can keep the line always slack who gets rich. Man, by nature, is a home-builder. He builds as his means permit, where he does not swamp himself In exceeding them. As the money-maker increases his store the home grows too small, too unfash ionable for the girls and boys. He builds again and again. Every city shows these successive growths by lines as distinct as are those that mark the growth of trees* or clam shells. You find their beginnings in the slums where the poorest have better shelter than their means could provide, and they progress in increasing comforts until you reach their latest develop ment In the quarter of the city most recently decreed by fashion to be fit for the abiding places of the rich. These homes they have to leave behind them. They cannot take them with them if they would. Then we, who are poor, who could not build homes with any part of the comforts of these va cated houses, find their occupation within reach of our incomes, and we move In and take Into our lives the good that comes to us because other men have the ability to get rich that is denied to us. Some day, when the im pertinent city has crowded too closely, and fashion has decreed a flight to a more distant and exclusive residential quarter for our rich, we, who are only poor, will, without gratitude but as we take the sunshine and the moonlight, gather our household goods and move into some stately house on Summit av enue, provided for us by some obedient subject of the fickle dame, and, while the children play on the lawn, and we smoke our pipe on the broad veranda, thank whatever gods there be for the rich. I\DER THE DUST OP POLITICS. Were one to accept the daily press as the mirror reflecting all the daily life of the people of this over-politicked country, to coin a term, he would con clude that all the ordinary vocations of men had been temporarily suspended, and that they talked, ate, drank and slept sliver. But when one turns from papers to streets and country one sees the people going about their ordinary affairs, only pausing to discuss ratios now and then, in the Intervals of leis. ure, when the tongue must wag to maintain man's standing as a social animal. Buying and selling and mak ing go on about as usual, and men find in these things their real and absorbing interest. The chemist in his laboratory and the inventor in his workshop keep on enlarging the command of man of the resources of nature just as if no president was to be elected, and the crops grow and mature, and the har vesting machinery sings its busy song all the day long heedless of the battle of the standards. Industrial items get second place now among the news columns, but they come to tell how the world is moving under the cloud of dust politics kicked up. There was a little note about the clearance of the steamer Queen City from Chicago for Buffalo with a cargo of 302,000 bushels of corn to emphasize how far commerce had traveled since the day when the clearing of the Dean Richmond, with about 30,000 bushels of wheat, was deemed the attainment of high water mark in lake vessel build ing. Ten times the load, less than hall the labor and less than a fifth of the freight charges. The Queen City takes the entire contents of an elevator that would fill ten Richmonds, lessening again the cost of handling. Loading back with coal, the same cheapening process occurs. That means cheaper fuel, barring the intervention of the coal combine and trust. Then there comes from Niagara Falls the announcement that the company that has harnessed the falls to the dy namo is contracting to deliver 20,000 horse power in Buffalo to the factories and mills and all users of power, at a price half that resulting- from the use of coal and steam. Tesla has made this possible. He has solved the problem of the long-distance transmission of the electric current with the minimum percentage of loss in transit. He sim ply passes the current through a trans former, giving it increased voltage, changing again to a direct current at the terminal. His was the discovery, and its utilization, that increase of voltage meant decrease of loss. What that means in the economy of electric ity is shown by the statement that the loss is 400 times greater in the trans mission of 500 volts than in that of 10, --000. Meanwhile Prof. Jacques is so busy in his laboratory, devising methods to render commercial his discovery of con verting the energy in coal directly into electrical energy, that he has no time to think of politics or candidates or standard*. And it is well for mankind that this is so. What If the wheat ! fields should stop in their heading and filling until it was decided whether Mc- Kinley or Bryan were elected and i whether we were to have a gold or a ! silver standard? AW INTERNATIONAL MEMORIAL. States and nations erect memorial monuments to the men who have served them greatly. Hitherto they have been deemed the most worthy of this recognition who have served the state in arms. Monuments to them are the most plentiful. Allied with them are the statesmen who held the helm whtle the warriors wielded the sword. Latterly there is growing an appreciation that men who have served their fellow men by inventions and discoveries that have made easier the conditions of thetr lives axe as well worthy of memorials testifying to a nation's gratitude aa are those who, la its defensive or Its offensive wars, have made them harder. An fn»tanee of thfcr later manifesta tion ta the movement to inaugurate an international memorial that will, in some fitting way, be*r witness to the appreciation of the nations of the im mense service done their peoples by the invention and application of sub marine telegraphy by oar own Field and the Bnffliahmen, Anderson and Pender. There is merely th# sugges tion of the fitness of such recognition of eminent service at present without definite plan, offered as a nucleus around which public sentiment may gather, leaving matters of detail to the future. Of its fitness there can be no question in the minds of any one having even a slight conception of the changed conditions of the civilized world that have been wrought by the brains that conceived the idea, and the energy, skill and pluck that car ried it into effect and brought the re motest regions of the world into in stant communication. Commerce, the exchange of Interna tional products, trade, finance, were the first to feel the effects as they were the largest recipients of the benefits. The N'-.w York merchant knew im mediately the changes in foreign mar kets instead of having to wait days for mail advices. The exporter of the produce of our farms dealt with a greater certainty when each morning brought him advice of the conditions of the terminal markets and the prices ruling there. The risks of commerce caused by liability of changes in prices since the last advices, a risk the pro ducer has always to bear, no longer were run. Certainty took the place of uncertainty. European markets and their dealers were, as to time, only in the next block to the exporter in our cities, and communication with them was as easy and expeditious as if they actually were. In his "Recent Economic Changes" Mr. Wells Illustrates this Immense change and Its effects on business, by an instance. A Boston manufacturer, before leaving for Washington, wired a dealer In Calcutta to buy and ship him a cargo of burlaps. Arrived in Washington he found a message say ing that the burlaps had been bought and were being loaded on the ship. Before the days of oceanic cables and the Suez canal it would have taken months to get the order to the East Indian dealer and advice back. Carry this Illustration into all our foreign commerce, as it can be, contemplate the saving in time, the expedition of trade, the immense economies effected, follow the effects out aa they went in reduced cost to the common consumers, making better their conditions and more comfortable and useful their lives, and one gains some conception of the invaluable service to their fel- lows performed by Cyrus W. Field ftis English associates and co-opera tors. It is proper that the nations make suitable recognition of this in some enduring memorial. WILL, BEAR WATCHING. The people of St. Paul should keep their eyes very wide open and direct ed upon the franchise for a new tele phone company, which it has been pro posed to grant by an ordinance of the common council. The Globe does not pretend to know what Is behind this ordinance; whether it would secure for us a desired competition, or is a speculative enterprise; in a word, whether it is in the public, or in a private interest. It does know that every such proposition should bear, and requires, close scrutiny and the largest publicity. It knows, further more, and regrets that it is obliged to so state, that the people cannot afford to turn over the care of their interests to the present council without looking most carefully into maitera them selves. It Is the fault of that body that we are obliged to make this un pleasant statement. It has thus far put itself on record in a way that will require considerable good behavior to restore public confidence. It has delib erately and officially violated the plain nu.ndate of the city charter. It has, after a full explanation of the matter, voted to confirm appointments illeg ally made, in defiance of the written organic law of the city, it has deliber ately placed in Jeopardy large public Interests, thrown unnecessary impedi ments in the way of the prosecution of public improvements and greatly em barrassed the property holder and the taxpayer In the matter of the board of public works, for no purpose what ever except a stupid and stubborn partisan malice. The abolition of the board of public works and the sub stitution for it of a single commis sioner, as provided for by law, does not in the least require the action upon which the mayor and a majority of the council have insisted. The plan could be carried through just as well while allowing the public to take for mal proceedings before both the old authorities and the new, until the courts decide between them, so that no act of either would be Invalidated by the final decision. This permission has been forbidden, out of mere devil try, as it would seem to the onlooker. We say, therefore, that the public, whose interests have been scouted and whose laws have been defied, should, as a matter of precaution, take it upon itself to scan carefully the propositions Involved in this new telephone fran chise. It is not a good thing to have any branch of public service given over to a monopoly. It Is an even worse thing to have franchises granted unless they are asked for in good faith, paid for in full value and subjected to conditions required for the public good. For example, we want no more overhead wires strung upon the streets of this city in the business district, and as few as possible anywhere el3e. Neither do we want permission granted to lay conduits on streets where as phalt pavement has been put down, and thus license the breaking up and practical destruction of this valuable improvement. All franchises that in volve the occupancy of any portion of the public thoroughfare, in the air above or the earth beneath, should bo most carefully limited, and considered only after an exhaustive dis cussion. It is therefore incumbent upon the public to take care that no special privileges shall be railroaded through a local legislature which has not thus far exhibited even a decent regard for charter regulations or for the people's rights. MND AND THE PHESS. The Minnesota Democratic 6*ate convention ywterdaj, seems to be very muchike Z ssi ft .r'.,^^'ew>£A' It seems strange that the Democrats con vention would nominate John Und for kov HT and H MaJl Bowler tor "eStenant govl ernor, and unseat Dan Lawler. F. w M Cutcheon and Judge McCafferty bpcauso they are not Demoerats.-To<H County News! Apparently all the statesmen of thp old Democratic p*rty have .lescrted els' thero would not be such haste In the party to fly • ♦ • tlo^V't?'^ ?° eS DOt a 9P™ve °t the ac tion of tt>o *tate convention in caatin* out