Amador ledger., October 27, 1905, Image 5

About Amador ledger. (Jackson, Amador County, Calif.) 1875-19??

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MONEY FOR POLITICS.
LEGISLATION TO PROHIBIT COR
PORATIONS MAKING CAM"
■ PAWN PAYMENTS.
Question of Taxinc Patent Medicines
to Be Discussed by Concress — One
Method'Sueeested to Meet Deficit-
There are prospects that two pieces
of legislation will be strongly advo
cated at the coming session of Con
gress, both of which, however, will be
vigorously opposed. They relate to the
!ES-SENATOR W. E. CHANDLER
I practice of making political contribu
j tions and to the question of taxation
: upon certain patent medicines, al
though this latter is but a feature of
the general subject of overcoming the
[Treasury deficit.
It is expected that the President will
refer in his annual message to the
question of campaign contributions,
end it is known that there are many
Senators and Representatives who
would favor prompt action in the en
actment of prohibitive legislation.
I Chandler's Bill to Prohibit Con- '
L_. - tributions. ',-.>
As far back as 1901, Senator Chand
ler of New Hampshire, introduced a
bill to prohibit those national banks or
. corporations which do an interstate or
foreign business from making any po
litical contributions, and to prohibit
any corporations from contributing to
campaigns involving the election of
United States Senators and Represen
tatives. The bill was almost imme
diately favorably reported to the .Sen
ate, but it was near the end of the
Ehort session and it failed of passage.
, The evident fact that it could not be
| taken up and passed may account for
the entire lack of opposition to it.
iWhat strength will develop against
such a measure this winter is problem
atical. It is no secret that many cor
porations regularly contribute to both
; political parties. Mr. Havemeyer, of
! the sugar trust, has declared in plain
language that he has contributed to
I the Democrats and Republicans alike.
Publishing the Donations.
The discussion next winter is likely
to centre largely around the Presi
dent's plan for the publication of all
campaign contributions, with a view
to framing such a law as will prevent
money, from being spent for corrupt
practices. Every one recognizes that
in order to have the great political
issues properly contested there is a
certain need of money. The publica
tion and distribution of speeches and
all classes of literature is quite gen-
I erally regarded as not to be condemned,
but as of advantage in having thr
j Questions of the day properly under-,
1 stood by the voters.
j Leaders in Congress are but a unit
! in declaring that it is only when
money is expended in order to corrupt
voters that the expenditure can be crit
icised. But it is generally believed that
this subject will give rise to an im
mense amount of debate in the next
Congress. There are a score of Sena
tors and_ a large number of Represen
tatives who will wish to go on record
Baying things about the corporations
and the practice of corporations mak
. ing contributions to political cam
paigns.
Propose Tax On Medicines.
The question of the taxation of pat
ent medicines, which contain consider
able alcohol, is bound to receive seri
ous consideration by Congress, espe
cially if the present rate of the Treas
ury deficit continues. The deficit is
running about $5,000,000 a month now,
which is considerably less than last
year, still it is possible that it may
increase to an annoying extent and
necessitate some action by Congress.
There has been a number of extra ex
penses which has caused the deficit,
and there are other extra expenses
ahead, while it is, of course, not certain
to what extent Congress will increase
or pare down appropriations. A num
ber of congressional leaders have had
in mind, as a partial increase in the
revenue desired, a tax on patent medi
cines,
Patent Medicine Men Will Fight.
The Commissioner of Internal Rev
enue has been called upon for unofficial
information and an opinion on these
non-revenue producing alcoholics. The
patent medicine people recognize that
a fight is ahead and they propose to
meet it. They will resist efforts to
impose special taxes upon them, claim
ing with apparent force that the alco
hol used in their medicines has al
ready paid its tax.
The Amador Ledger.
REAL HEART OF THINGS.
Its Found Not in the Great Cities ;
But in Country Homes.
"In time the great cities may be
come dominant, but it will be many
years hence, and I would b% sorry
should I live to see the day/ said
James J. Hill, President of . the Great
Northern railroad. "The national wel
fare depends upon the prosperity of
the farm lands, the mining districts,
the lumber camps— not on the growth
of big cities. The agricultural inter
ests in particular represent the great
est strength of the country, and will
for many years to come.
Yet men stand appalled at the spec
tacle of a metropolis. Let us take
.New York, as our most striking ex
ample — where the visitor gapes at the
crowded markets, the endless traffic,
the hurrying throngs, the skyscrapers,
the roaring factories, the bustle of
commerce, all the urban ' reek and
riot, and heedless of what lies behind,
the hidden motor power, cries:
"Here is the heart of things; here is
the pulse of the national life; here the
life blood of the nation centers, life
blood which.flowing through the veins
of commerce, gives vigor to all the
land." New York, the heart of the
country? Rather New York the par
asite—the blood sucker.
A Giant Exhibition.
At best, New York is but a monster
exhibit of the products of mines,
farms, cattle ranges, mills and factor
ies, and of the rural homes where gen
ius is born, nourished and inspired.
What more speaking symbol of these
things than the city's skyline. In it
self that skyline of marvelous archi
tecture, save as it excites wonder, ad
miration and a sense of enterprise and
activity amounts to nothing. What it
signifies in each ascention and depres
sion is the comparative values of the
country's material resources.
Concisely, it represents capital, la
bor apd raw material. Of these three
the. city produces not one — in appreci
able quantity. The raw material, the
men to handle it, the gold to buy and
sell the finished product, come out of
the ground and from the open spaces.
New York, Chicago, St Louis, or
any other city, has its inception in the
open country, and its existence is and
ever will be dependent upon the latter.
None recognizes this more quickly
than the city man. He knows from
experience that the city suffers first,
last and most from any national dis
aster. To go no further back than the
coal strike of three winters ago— New
THE REAL HEART OF THINGS
York faced for weeks a coal famine
that paralyzed her activities and al
most killed her poor. Manufacturers
could not secure enough fuel to run.
their plants and women on the "east
side"i>aid ten cents for as much coal
as would fill a quart pail. The suf
fering in this city was out of all pro
portion to that of the rest of the coun
try.
All food products come from the
outside. New York uses three million
eggs every day, aad beef arrives in
wbole train loads daily. The city must
go to the country for its building ma
terials, for- wool, cotton, everything
that is needed to run its factories,
stores and banks.
Dependent on the Country.
The reckless expenditures of the
city dweller are continually giving rise
to the question, "Where does the mon
ey come from?" From the country,
of course. Every wild-cat scheme
that is hatched in New York, from
Wall Street to Madison Square, in
augurates its proceedings by send
ing circulars . into the country, to
catch the dollars of the farmer.
The operations of the stock ex
change are all based on the condi
tion of the country. A short wheat
<rrop, a slump in the production of
pram, or the prospect of one, turns the
floor of the Exchange into a pande
monium. Year by year the eyes of the
moneyed interests are turned to the
earth, figuratively speaking, and the
keenest minds of the metropolis are
speculating as to what success the
farmer is going to have with his crops.
The results of that speculation involve
millions of dollars. All the country
knows what happens in New York
when the cotton crop fails. The beef
strike last year caused meat to van
ish from a million family dining
tables in New York city. In summer
eggs at 3oc a dozen are t«» expensive
as an article of diet for more than half
the city's population.
Material and money she gets from
the outside; and rarely, indeed, does
JACKSON, AmADOR COUNTY, CAL., OCT, 27, 1905.
she even produce the men to handle
them. A glance at biographies will
show that lujr captains of industry,
merchant princes, men of art, profes
sions, laborers, are "country bred, from
A. T.' Stewart (to go no further back)
to the Rockefellers, Clewes, Depews.
and all the rest of the present day
leaders.
Even The People From The Country.
Dr. John H. Girdner, an eminent
New York physician, said recently:
"Build a wall around New York city
illow no new men to enter, and in fifty
years the city will depopulate itself.
This city makes too many demands
upon those who live and work in it.
Thousands drop out each month. It is
the ffesh country people flocking here
day by day that furnish the, brains,
sinews and pluck to carry the metrop
olis to its destiny. Its success in the
past has been due to this out-of-town
element and will continue to be."
"Men, men, men," is the constant
cry that New York sends out over the
country and the response is adequate,
eager and satisfying. It is in this fact
that assurance of the city's still
greater advance lies. Capital flow
ing in from the country made Wall
street a by-word to all the world.
Material drawn from the coun
try has made her the greatest man
ufacturing town in the United States.
Men attracted from the country
have made her financial mistress of
the western hemisphere.
Cities Not Self-Dependent.
Not only is she dependent upon the
open spaces for meni material and
money, but even for trade. As com
pared to the amount of money spent
in this city by out of town buyers, the
sum expended by its own inhabitants
dwindles into insignficance. In recog
nition of this, the Merchants Associa
tion of New York annually arranges
with railroads for cheap transporta
tion, and with hotels for rock bottom
rates, and runs excursions to gathgr
in the out-of-town buyers.
During the month of August over
400 buyers from the south and west
were in New York, and during Septem
ber this number largely increased.
Reckoning under the average of past
years each merchant spent more than
$10,000, and thus through the efforts
of the Merchants Association alone
more than $400,000,000 is left in the
city each year. But this is merely a
fraction of the trade which the city
receives from the rest of the country
A conservative ■ estimate places the
gross income at $1,250,000,000. ,
Each American city is a clearing
house for the rural or mining district
surrounding it, and New York the
main clearing house for the whole
country. All the mighty spectacle of
commerce is merely the dramatic and
gorgeously staged representation of
the nation's money, material and men,
which build up the metropolitan mech
anism and set it in motion".
Prehistoric Sealpture.
An idea of the small brain capacity
of primitive man can be gathered
from a crude stone head, now on ex
hibition, which was recently found
in a field at Moriches, Long Island.
The head, while crude in its work
manship, is pronounced by ethnolo
gists as doubtless true to nature—
a representation of some savage and
prehistoric people who lived ages ago.
The head is not a particularly pleas
ing bit of sculpture, as it calls up a
vision of men and women with small
brain development and huge repulsive
jaws but a degree above the other
animals. . • i
Fortunes in Church Steeples.
It is the opinion of Rev. Dr. Forbes,
Secretary of the Board of Extension
of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
that enough money has been expended,
or it may be said wasted, In building
steeples, to pay off all the church debts
of the country. Besides, he says,
steeples are a relic of barbarism, and
money used in their construction can
be more usefully expended. A good
many people will hardly agree with
the reverend doctor in his opinion that
church steeples are useless or serve no
good end. Grace and beauty are lent
to thousands of otherwise common
place looking towns and cities by the
spires rising here and there from their
midst. Everything cannot be strictly
utilitarian, and if a thing serves to
please the eyes and senses of hundreds
or thousands of people, it is far from
being useless.
THEATRE TRUST WAR.
THE INDOMITABLE BELASCO GIV
ING THE SHOW COMBINE A
FIGHT FOR ITS LIFE.
Threatened With Extinction, He Has
Organized an Opposition Which
Has Attracted Some of the Bright
est of the Theatrical Stars.
David Belasco for a number of
years has been waging a war against
the theatrical trust. He ' has ; beer
assisted in years past by Minnie Mad
dern Fiske, the wife of Harrison Grey
Fiske, ownec and editor, of the Dram
atic Mirror. This year the Shubert
Brothers broke off all business rela
tions with Klaw and Erlanger, the
moving spirits of the theatre trust,and
now a combination with a capital of
$1,500,000. of Belasco, Harrison Grey
Fiske, John C. Fisher, Frank L. Per
!ey and the Shubert Brothers has been
formed, acquiring about thirty thea
tres, extending from Boston to St.Lou
is, in which they might produce theat
rical productions without the dictum
of the trusts.
David Belasco, ever since his sever
ance of relations with the trust has
made strenuous efforts to acquire a
theatre in the nation's capital, as he
has found that the cosmopolitan na
ture of its people assists him greatly
in determining whether new produc-
BLANCn BATES,
One of Belasco's Stars.
tions will be a success or not. In Sep
tember, however, announcement was
made that he, in conjuntion with the
Shubert Brothers, had acquired con
trol of the Lafayette Theatre in Wash
ington, and also had taken up a 99
year lease on the ground on which the
theatre is built, 1 giving them absolute
possession of the property.
A Famous Theatre Site.
Lafayette Theatre is a comparative
ly modern playhouse, and occupies the
site on which formerly stood the Sew
ard mansion, in which Secretary Sew
ard of Lincoln's cabinet lived when
an attempt was made to assassinate
him the same night President Lin
coln was shot In later years the
house was occupied by Secretary
Blame.
Last year David Belasco found all
theatres in the national capital with
closely barred doors. He was arrang
ing to make the initial production of
"Adrea," Mrs. Leslie Carter's latest
success, and found no building in
Washinaton suitable for a conversion
into a theatre.except Convention Hall,
probably the largest auditorium south
of New York, and in years previous
used for an ice palace, for six day bi
cycle races, athletic meetings, and
other institutions requiring great
space. This had a hall some 150 feet
in length by 125 feet in width, with a
roof carried on huge semi-circular ar
ches rising to a height of nearly fifty
feet above the floor. Such a barn as
this Mr. Belasco in a few days con-
DAVID AMD GOLIAH.
From Life.
verted into a modern playhouse
through the magic touch of gold,
which he has found to be the most of
fensive and defensive weapon against
the combine.
Money Spent Like Water.
The regulations of the District of
Columbia- to protect theatre patrons
against the danger of fire, are ex
trem,ely rigorous, and it was these
that the trust used as a weapon to
thwart Belasco in his endeavor to
have this last production first appear
in Washington as have other plays,
which are known as general successes.
The burden of expense for this work
did net fall upon the owners of Con
vention Hall, but npon Mr. Belasco,
who paid, in order to make this hall
into a modern fire-proof theatre, an
amount aggregating nearly $25,000.
The present theatrical combine or
"trust," had first conducted a legiti
mate booking syndicate, charging for
the service five per ceut.of the prof
its, an enterprise advantageous alike
to actor and manager. . The success
of this plan opened a larger vista of
profit, and the securing of all the thea
tres in the country has led to the de
struction of competition with the two
formidable exceptions noted. In the
other theatres the manager has be
come the "janitor," while the syndicate
dictates prices, attractions, and other
features. - .
Loosing the Does of War.
But it is now war to the knife be
tween the two forces, trust and anti
trust, thrust and anti-thrust Wheth
er the trust will be successful and
absorb the independents, remains to
be seen. Probably 'not so long as it
has to deal with men who know their
actor proteges, know the method of the
trust know how to produce a play
with unsurpassed taste and know that
the American people will pay admis
sion to witness an incomparable pro
duction all the more willingly because
of the herculean efforts made to pre
sent it to them. • Belasco, in the new
combination which he has organized
seems to have gotten his knife well in
between the ribs of his antagonist and
is beginning already to twist it vigor
ously.
ENVLTtONMENT A MOULDER Of
CHARACTER.
H. S. BIGELOW
The other day I saw a group of boys
carefully scanning a theatre poster.
•The picture showed a man in the act
of Blunging a dagger in the throat of
a woman. The boys did not run or
scream. But their eyes were big and
the intensity of their faces showed
that the horror of the picture was not
lost upon them. Near by were two
younger children playing together in
the gutter. Their faces were smeared
with the mud made by the dish water
running over the sidewalk, and the
children were amusiag themselves
floating cigar stumps in the disgusting
pool. . . ' ■
Reflecting upon that sad sight there
came to mind other childhood scenes.
There stood out in memory a little lake
that nestled among the hills where
sweet-breathed cattle browsed and
where the branches of great trees were
mirrored in crystal waters. There
were the boathouse and the swimming
hole and the spring-board; and there
were summer nights, too, when the
leaves were still and stars were bright
and the spirit of the child looked up in
silent wonder.
In the race of life, in the contest of
physical endurance, in the moral tests
that come, that child has not a fair
chance who has sprung out of the mud
of the streets.
To know the breath of lilacs and the
rustle of autumn leaves, to be up with
the lark, to wet one's feet in the dew
of the pasture, to go to bed with the
song of the whip-poor-will— these mem
ories are like guardian angels.
The children whose horizon is a
brick wall, who must play on cobble
stones and go swimming in the canal
and be chased by the police, if they do
not grow up to be ideal citizens, shall
we, of holier 'memories, sit in judg
ment upon them? Shall we not remem
ber their bonds?
Worse .Than Tobacco Cigarettes.
London is reported to be in the throes
of a new vice— a vice which is not only
getting society into a turmoil, but is
also attracting the attention of the
medical fraternity. It is the tea-leaf
cigarette habit— one in which women
are becoming the chief adepts, and
which they find great difficulty in over
coming. Once the taste for the new
"weed" is acquired, it is said the sen
sation of smoking tea cigarettes is
quite pleasant. Dizziness is caused by
constant smoking and the victims
clutch madly for invisible and
imaginary objects to support them
selves. They finally drop in an ex
hausted and stupefied condition, and
then follows that wild state of dream
land said to be as varied as that caused
by powerful narcotics.
Every reader of this paper should have this book.
Cut off the coupon and mail to us with $1.50.
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MART, MOTHER OF WASHINGTON
Handsome Monument Erected by
Patriotic Citizens.
The monument of Mary Washing
ton, the mother of George Washing
ton, stands on the western side of
Fredericksburg, Virginia, almost und
eu, the shadow of Marye's Heights,
of bloody Civil War memory. Mary,
Washington died of cancer, August 25,
1789. It was in Ap.ril that year, that
Washington rode from Mount Vernon,
to say farewell— a final farewell—
to his mother before starting for New.
York to be Inaugurated first . Presi
dent of the United States. In a let
ter to his sister Betty Washington,'
who lived in Fredericksburg, Wash
ington wrote, after learning of hia
mother's death, "When I was last in
Fredericksburg I took my final leave
of my mother, never' expecting to sea
her more." ■ j
Neglected Tomb. <
For a hundred years the grave of
this good woman lay unprotected, on
what had been part of the farm of her
daughter Betty Washington, but
which became a common of the city
of Fredericksburg. For half a cen
tury the grave was marked by a little
stone slab, but this -disintegrated,
and disappeared. Various fruitless
efforts were made to build a monu
ment, and in 1830 a New York bank
er, Silas E. Burroughs, offered to give
an elaborate monument The corner
stone was laid with imposing cere
monies by President Andrew Jackson,
but Burroughs met with financial re-
MONUMENT TO MARY WASHINGTON.
verses and the work on the monument
was suspended. In 1889 some patri
otic women formed the Mary Wash
ington Monument Association, and by
subscription erected the monument
after buying the land in which the
bones of Washington's mother rest
A Story on Balzac.
The French alienist, EsquiroL on
being asked by a student, is there any
sure test by which the sane can be
distinguished from the insane? invited
his questioner to dine with him and
observe. , When the student entered
the dining room two other guests were
present one an elegantly-dressed
and apparently highly educated man,
while the other was somewhat un
couth, noisy and extremely con
ceited. As the pupil bid his host
good. night, he remarked: "The prob
lem is very simple after all ; the quiet,
well-dressed gentleman is certainly
distinguished in some line, but the
other is evidently a lunatic, and
ought to be locked up at once."
Smiling at his pupil, Esquirol told him
that he was wrong. "The quiet well
dressed man," he said, "who talks so
rationally, has for years labored under
the delusion that he is God, the
Father, while the other is M. Honors
de Balzac, the greatest French writec
of the day."