NEWS WORTH REMEMBERING
News Worth Remembering THE KILLING of Francisco I. Madero, deposed president of Mexico, is the latest turn in the Mexican revolution. Ever since it appeared that the rebel forces of General Diaz...
...His cabin was a mecca of lovers of his poems...
...Newspapers throughout the country gave great prominence to the news that a trust head had received a jail sentence for breaking the law...
...An official statement was immediately given out at the national palace by General Victoriano Huerta, provisional president of Mexico, concerning the killing of the deposed president and vice president...
...This was the decision against the National Cash Register Company at Dayton, Ohio, which was adjudged guilty of violating the anti-trust law...
...As against Madison's 1,200,000 sittings at the theatres during the 40 weeks of a season, the circulation of the city library is 80,000 volumes a year...
...Physical valuation is one of the strong and distinctive features of Wisconsin's system of public utility regulation and for seven years Senator La Follette has striven to have his physical valuation amendment incorporated into the nation's railroad laws...
...convention in Chicago last June, announces that he is in favor of holding a Republican convention at some convenient time next fall or winter for the following purposes: "First, to make representation to national conventions proportional to the Republican vote—that is, correcting the disproportion in what is spoken of as the Southern representation...
...The public received the news with like interest, regarding this as an exceptional sentence in view of the fact that trust magnates who have hitherto been convicted of spurning the law had escaped with nominal fines which were immediately recovered from the pockets of the consumers, or with "dissolution"—a form of business reorganization which has invariably strengthened the monopoly involved and boosted its stocks in the market A Special Republican Convention is Proposed Senator Root of New York who was chairman of the National Republican JOAQUIN MILLER "The poet of the Sierras," whose long life was ended last week in his little one-room cabin which he built in the Piedmont Hills of California years ago...
...President Taft announces that the murder of these two leaders of the deposed regime, while deplorable, did not constitute of itself sufficient reason for any change in the policy of this government with regard to the Mexican situation...
...We find that the leasing of prisoners to private contractors has introduced within the prison walls subordinate contractors, employees who are interested solely in exploiting the prisoners for profit...
...John H. Patterson, president and general manager of the corporation, was sentenced to one year in jail and to pay a fine of $5,000...
...Through the entire report there is a scathing denunciation of the contract convict system, and the abolition of it is recommended, as is also the removal of the women convicts to a separate institution...
...His statement enumerates a long list of improvements in the work of the common schools that "the department has labored to improve or secure" and complains that the routine work of the department has "grown enormously" and that he does not, under the law, "possess large powers...
...Score Prison Management A special commission, appointed by the Governor to investigate the Maryland penitentiary has submitted its report...
...Madero was shot down in cold blood...
...President-elect Wilson sighed, "It is too bad," when he learned of the tragic death of Madero, but he refrained from comment, saying he would maintain his policy of silence until he had taken office...
...They will have to call the next convention just as they did the last one, under these rules, unless a special convention is called to make the changes which certainly ought to be made...
...The slaughter of Madero and Suarez has not caused any change in the provision of the administration at Washington...
...House Kills Immigration Bill Five votes prevented the passage of the Immigration Bill over the President's veto in the House of Representatives last week...
...One Struck from the bill a provision directing the Interstate Commerce Commission to report the names of stock holders and bond holders and the names of directors...
...This is 15 votes less than the two-thirds majority required but a change of only five votes from the minority to the majority would have sufficed to place this measure upon the statute books...
...On the other hand a successful play must play to at least 200,000 a season in order to pay for itself, and many plays must play to several times this number...
...Referring to the exchange of shots which resulted in Madero's death, the statement of Huerta reports "Both prisoners were killed...
...The blame for the mismanagement of the institution is placed upon the warden, who the commission finds guilty of petty graft and falsehood, and that he tried to balk the investigators in their work...
...A successful novel may sell 50,000 copies, and once in several years we find a novel which sells 100,000...
...The national committee is still bound by the old rules which were adopted by the convention of 1880...
...The report charges that the prisoners have been cruelly treated, were inhumanly punished, were driven by cruel and hard task masters, that punishments in the main were inflicted to drive the convicts to greater exertions for contractors, that cells were found dirty, that men were confined in dark cells infested with vermin, and that they were exploited by the commissary...
...Upon the official record appears the notation, "Prisoners shot trying to escape...
...He touched America's life at its wildest on the Pacific slope in the early days and his writings vividly reflect pioneer life and straggles...
...The bill was left a strictly valuation measure and made to apply to telegraph companies, express companies and other interstate commerce carriers...
...Several amendments were recommended by the committee...
...We find that the delegation to any extent of control over" the convicts to private contractors, whose interests are opposed to the interests of the state, is unwise, and fundamentally wrong in principle...
...In commenting upon the earnings for the State, owing to contract system, the commission says: "We find that the success of the system, of penal industry cannot be measured by cash earned under such system...
...A novel may be successful if it sells no more than 10,000 copies...
...Last week the Senate Interstate Commerce Committee voted to report favorably this measure and the report was prepared by Senator La Follette, who is a member of the committee...
...Such a course it was claimed would have put out of the way any men of strength and leadership who might later make trouble for his administration...
...The vote was 223 to 114...
...Indeed, there has been much criticism of Madero, among certain interests, both in Mexico and in the United States, because of his "weakness" in not putting to death his opponents as soon as he had overthrown the government of Porflrio Diaz and was established as president...
...Comparing the total attendance at a play with the total sales of a successful novel the results are no less striking...
...The records show each year a score of plays, any one of which plays to from ten to twenty times the number of total sales of a successful novel of the season...
...If a play does not secure an audience of 10,000 within the first two weeks it is a failure...
...The author of "Songs of the Sunlamp" and other verse has long been one of Amer-ica's most picturesque and noted literary figures...
...The Senate committee was assisted in perfecting this physical valuation bill by Professor John R. Commons of the University of Wisconsin, and at the present time a member of the Wisconsin Industrial Commission, and by Mr...
...Of all the agencies of social appeal the newspaper, which sells for one or two cents on the streets, is the only one which can compete with the play, which sells for from ten to two hundred times these amounts...
...Only one of the defendants escaped...
...The Associated Press reports that "a great part of the public in Mexico regards the official versions with doubt...
...The commission, in commenting on the contract system says: "We find the contract system wrong in principle, and the root of all evils, real and imaginary, existing in the penitentiary today...
...COMPARING the theatre with other forms of public appeal, wo find that the play houses far exceed all agencies other than the newspaper...
...Second, to permit the Republicans of each state to elect delegates to national conventions in their own way, so that the choice in each state will be regulated according to the laws of the state...
...Trust Heads Sentenced to Jail The latest sentence handed down under the Sherman law aroused keen public interest because it imposed jail sentences upon trust officials...
...Edward W. Bemis, a public utility expert of Chicago...
...The railroad company contested the law on the ground of interference with interstate commerce regulations, but the Supreme Court states: "There are no specific federal regulations touching this matter which conflict with those of the state...
...He promises a thorough "investigation" and adds: "The government promises that society shall be fully satisfied as to the facts in the case...
...The counsel for the defendants gave notice of appeal and were given four months to prepare the record...
...The committee refused to approve a provision calling for a board of engineers, suggested by railroad officials, to assist in fixing the valuation...
...Notes on the Present State of the Theatre By THOMAS H. DICKINSON III...
...THE AUTOMOBILES WERE BADLY DAMAGED...
...If we contrast the attendance at the theatre during the season with the annual circulation of the libraries, we find that whereas New York supplies 120,000,000 sittings at the theatre, the total circulation of all its public libraries is 12,000,000, or one-tenth...
...Ever since it appeared that the rebel forces of General Diaz hau gained the ascendency in the capital city of this greatly troubled country, predictions have been made that Ma-dero's fate would bo death...
...News Notes -State Superintendent of Public Instruction C. P. Cary of Wisconsin has formally announced his candidacy for re-election...
...The Supreme Court of Wisconsin has upheld the constitutionality of the so-called upper berth law of 1911, which requires sleeping car companies to put up the upper berths when not in use and when so requested by occupants of the lower berths...
...Sharply rebuking the business methods pursued by this trust, Judge Hollister, in handing down his decision, said: "The government is strong enough to protect its people whether this protection extends to the transportation of dynamite across the land for the purpose of blowing up bridges or the Taring of the hands upon men who seek to stifle competition by illegal methods...
...It is freely predicted that the same measure or one that is almost an exact copy will be passed in the next Congress...
...Physical Valuation On the Way Prospects are bright at this writing for the passage of the La Follette-Adamson bill providing for a physical valuation of railroad properties of the United States...
...We find that the contract system has created an undesirable spirit in the inmates of the institution, and that they are inflamed with the sense of injustice at being leased for another man's profit...
...Twenty-seven other present and former officials of the company received correspondingly severe sentences...
...Says Senator Root, "In order that these changes shall be effective in a convention to nominate a President, they must be made before that convention and that can be done only by a special convention...
...He was being taken to the penitentiary under guard in an automobile...
...Since the Republican caucus recently included that measure among the several important measures to be supported during the present session it was predicted early in the week that the perfected measure will pass in the Senate and go to conference...
...Just before arriving there a body of men sprang up in the dark-ness and after an exchange of shots it was found that both Madero and Jose Pino Suarez, the deposed vice president, had met with death...
Vol. 5 • March 1913 • No. 9
