NEWS WORTH REMEMBERING
News Worth Remembering HARVEST time has come and with it the annual call from the fields of the West for help in gathering in the crops. The demand this year is for 50,000 able-bodied men,...
...Strike Still on at Pittsburgh The strike of the employees of the Pressed Steel Car Company is still unsettled...
...Dividend Tax now in Bill One thing that the conference committee did accompish, however, was to agree upon the Senate amendment providing for a tax upon the net incomes of corporations...
...from gamblers, $3,000...
...Heney had received $23,000 in 1908 from the government, for which he performed no services whatever...
...The weather has been generally fine, though in some sections so dry that farmers are feeling some concern about the corn crop...
...He said, "If once you give the power to the nation to tax all the incomes, you give it the power to tax the states, not out of their existence, but out of their vitality...
...Meanwhile, the President gave a dinner to the Republican members of the committee on the 21st, and the reports of this gathering indicate that the best of feeling prevailed and that the prospects of agreement seemed bright...
...It will be of little advantage to the body of the people to do away with unnecessary duties upon raw materials if the manufacturers are permitted to enjoy the excessive duties that enable them to take extortionate profits upon the things that the people must buy and use...
...At this writing (the 26th), the conference committee is still at work...
...Prime Minister Clemenceau immediately resigned...
...Thus far some men high up in the police department have been caught "with the goods" but there is nothing in the accounts of the prosecution to indicate how thorough and complete the disclosures will be made...
...from women of the street, $6,000...
...Although an avowed socialist, Briand announced that he intended to complete the work of the Clemenceau cabinet and to carry out the wishes of the President and form a Republican cabinet committed to Republican policies...
...The week closed with the committee apparently as far as ever from agreement on some of the provisions demanded by the President...
...The demand this year is for 50,000 able-bodied men, according to officials of the Department of Commerce and Labor, but the supply is not forthcoming, because of the penniless condition of the thousands of aliens who land each year on our shores...
...Efforts to bring the strikers and the officials of the company together, in which Justice Marshall Brown of the common pleas court participated, were without avail...
...On the 24th the men resumed work...
...Senator Clapp's modification of the amendment, including holding companies among those of be taxed, was left out of the bill...
...These tributes for "protection" amount to $107,500...
...Their attitude indicates that they may block any bill that comes from conference without any sembance of downward revision except free raw materials...
...It will be remembered that last February Secretary Garfield, upon the recommendation of Mr...
...It seems, however, that members of the committee spent more time in safe-guarding provisions of the bill that they were particularly interested in than in co-operating to lop off the excessive duties with which the bill abounds...
...The only thing that saved Galveston from a repetition of the disaster of 1900 was the sea wall built jointly by the government and the county, four years ago, at an expense of $2,000,000...
...That the purpose of Tawney's statement was to discredit Mr...
...Heney's efforts to reach "the man higher up" in the San Francisco graft prosecutions, is so plain that comment is unnecessary...
...In New Jersey, too, labor unions are in a state of unrest...
...His course took him 250 feet above the water, and he was carried at a speed of nearly a mile a minute...
...This was in line with the policy of the Roosevelt administration to hold in the control of the government all water sites located upon public lands...
...Railways vs...
...On the 21st, following an order served on the strikers by the company to vacate the tenement buildings in which they lived, four of the houses were burned...
...Bleriot is the first aviator to accomplish this feat, and by doing it won a prize of $5,000...
...His abrupt departure from the committee room gave rise to rumors that the breach among members of the conference committee had grown so wide that agreement looked remote...
...This system permits of an elastic computation which cannot be understood by the foreigners who constitute the greater part of the working force of the mills...
...It was estimated that the yearly graft by the West Side police is as follows: From disorderly houses, $84,000...
...Senator Cummins issued a statement to the effect that "while it is of utmost importance that iron ore, oil, hides and coal be dealt with as proposed by the President, it is of still greater importance that the duties on manufactured products shall be brought down somewhere near the protective point...
...In this incident may be seen the beginning of an attack upon Mr...
...There were days when adjournment seemed in sight, but the President is reported as being against adjournment until the committee has agreed upon a bill that he could sign...
...Heney, upon learning of this statement, issued a denial, declaring that he had never received a cent from the government except for services rendered...
...But his position was so untenable from the standpoint of public interest that he subsequently backed down and ordered that restricted areas surrounding water power sites should be withdrawn from settlement...
...from special saloon privileges, $7,500...
...This took place at the plant if N. R. Allen Sons Co., tanners, and resulted from demands for the removal of an objectional foreman and an increase in pay...
...The specific charge was that he had received $75 for police protection from Morris Shatz, a resort keeper...
...At present the control of water power resources seems to be engaging the attention of the states and the federal government...
...On the 23rd, Aristide Briand, who was made the new prime minister, organized his cabinet...
...On the 19th news despatches from Washington stated that Chairman Tawney, of the House appropriations committee, gave out a statement that Mr...
...Newspaper accounts have it that Ballinger resents the activity of Mr...
...At Kenosha, Wisconsin, a strike was in progress during the week that threatened at times to become violent...
...Pinchot in Trouble...
...Flies over British Channel On the 25th, Louis Bleriot, a Frenchman, crossed the English channel in a monoplane...
...They cannot verify the correctness of the aggregate sums which are handed them once in two weeks, computed on piece-work, but they do know how many hours they have worked and also that the system under which they are paid often allows them only fifty or sixty cents a day...
...State and federal work must be supplemented by private initiative, he says, and private initiative will come in only when a reasonable amount of traffic is assured to the waterways...
...After some preliminary skirmishing, on the 23rd, State's Attorney Wayman secured the indictment of Detective Jeremiah Griffin for bribery...
...On the 21st, David J. Brewer, justice of the United States Supreme Court, in an address before the Association of Agents of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company at Milwaukee, declared that in his opinion an income tax would destroy the vitality of the states...
...And as an incident in this great controversy, it was reported on the 20th that United States Forester Gifford Pinchot had become involved in a dispute with Secretary of the Interior Ballinger that may mean the removal of one or the other...
...Grand Jury Uncovers Graft in Chicago Following the rumors of corruption in Chicago's official family, and the almost uniform silente of the press in the matter, mentioned in these columns last week, the grand jury was called ana began an investigation of police graft and "protection" to gambling houses and disreputable dives that is causing a panic among members of the police department and vice kings and denizens of the red light district...
...It was reported that some of the men secured increases in wages, but that the settlement was made on the terms originally offered to the men by the company...
...Waterways . If there is to be efficient and reasonable use of the water courses of this country, there must be co-operation between the railways and the waterways...
...The country was visited by two severe storms—one at Galveston which nearly rivalled the hurricane of 1900, and another in the Lake Superior region which caused enormous damage...
...New French Cabinet Following a heated debate over the naval scandals, on the 20th, a vote was taken in the Chamber which resulted in 176 to 212 against the government...
...Pinchot, withdrew from settlement many acres of land located along streams...
...The situation is so serious that Baron Julius Barnantsza, Austrian-Hungarian consul at Pittsburgh, made an investigation and reported that the workingmen had been outrageously treated by the company in the matter of the wage system...
...This was done on the 19th, but not until several changes had been made in the original draft...
...The tax was reduced from 2 per cent, to 1 per cent...
...Pinchot by those interests that want no interference with their own private control of the country's vast natural recources...
...New wheat is already beginning to come into the markets, and the sale of this crop has been responsible for a backset in values...
...Pinchot in taking directly to the President the matter of protecting the public from grabbing water power trusts who have a covetous eye on valuable sites in the public domain bordering on streams...
...President Taft has let the committee understand that in "his judgment the committee must put certain raw materials on the free list...
...Wrestling with the Tariff Bill All week long the conference committee wrestled with the tariff bill...
...The attempt of the managers of the pant to resume operations with the aid of strike-breakers failed...
...Garfield promptly restored these lands to entry...
...Thus the question now is, "How shall we secure to the inland rivers and canals a reasonable share of the country's traffic...
...Heney Also Attacked In line with this effort to make trouble for a public servant who does not fetch and carry for the big business interests, the week has brought news of an attack upon Francis J. Heney that is deeply significant...
...Another problem before the American people, of even greater immediate importance than the development of waterways, is the protection of vast natural resources against the exploitation of private interests...
...On the same day the Wisconsin Federation of Labor, in convention at Eau Claire, unanimously adopted a resolution favoring "a gradually increasing tax on incomes and inheritances...
...To even things up, Chairman Aldrich repeated this performance on the 25th...
...He declared that the first work of the new administration will be to formulate plans to end the war between labor and capital which has disturbed France for so many years...
...Commissioner Smith points out that "it is a pubic evil that the entire transportation system of the United States should be, as now, at odds with itself through destructive competition, while the transportation needs of the public suffer...
...This is the opinion of Herbert Knox Smith, Commissioner of Corporations, as expressed in the second part of his report on the subject of transportation by water, submitted to the President on the 19th...
...from cocaine sellers, $5,000...
...Some rioting was reported during the week, but for the most part the men were orderly...
...On the 20th, Chairman Payne broke up the conference by stalking out of the room in anger...
...On the 24th, Inspector Edward McCann of the Des Plaines street station was also indicted as a taker of bribes...
...He also charges the Forester with nullifying the will of Congress in withdrawing from entry certain lands near forestry reservations...
...This exemption of the giant concerns that draw enormous tribute from combinations of lesser companies is regarded by many as the most pernicious feature of the bill...
...Ballinger, as soon as he succeeded Mr...
...It is reported that he refuses to submit to the dictatorial manner of Aldrich...
...Members are greatly wrought up over a decision of Vice-Chancellor Howell enjoining the hatters who struck some time ago from picketing or from interfering in any way with the business of E. V. Connett & Co., against whom the United Hatters struck...
...The Progressive senators, however, want the President to go farther than he seems inclined to go, and to lower the rates materially on goods manufactured from raw materials, in addition to putting the raw materials on the free list...
...Fight over Income Tax Opens Now that the various states will have to decide whether or not a constitutional amendment shall be adopted providing for a federal income tax, the discussion pro and con has begun...
...from thieves and other criminals, $2,000...
Vol. 1 • July 1909 • No. 30
