The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, August 28, 1898, Page 6

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, AUGUST 28, 1898. <Call Che. SUNDAY JOHN D. SPRECKELS, Propiietor. | e ) Address All Communications to W. S. LEAKE, Manager, I PUBLICATION OFFICE......Market and Third Sts., S. F. Telephone Main 1868, EDITORIAL ROOMS..........2IT to 221 Stevenson Street Telephone Main 1874 i THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL (DAILY AND SUNDAY) Is served by carriers In this city and surrounding towns for IS cents a week. By mail $6 per year; per month | 65 cents. | THE WEEKLY CALL OAKLAND OFFICE... | NEW YORK OFFICE Room 188, World Building | DAVID ALLEN, Advertising Representative. | WASHINGTON (D. C.) OFFICE Riggs House | C. €. CARLTON, Correspondent. | CHICAGO OFFICE ..Marquette Building | C.GEORGE KROGNESS, Advertising Representative. | One year, by mall, $1.50 | veseees...908 Broadway | BRANCH OFFICES—527 Montgomery street, corner Clay, | open untll 9:30 o'clock. 367 Hayes street, open until 9:30 o'clock. 621 McAllister street, open untll 9:30 | o'clock. 615 Larkin street, open until 9:30 o'clock. | 1941 Mission street, open until 10 o'clock. 2291 Market | street, corner Sixteenth, open until 9 o'clock. 2518 Mission street, open untii 9 o'clock. 106 Eleventh street, open untll 9 o'clock. 1505 Polk street, open untll 9:30 o'clock. NW. corner Twenty-second ana Kentucky streets, open untll 9 o'clock. [ e AMUSEMENTS. Columbta—+On Probation * Alcazar—+The Merchant of Veniop * Morosco’s—“Ordeal of Two Sisters. ' i Tivoli—“La Gioconda.™ Orpheum - Vandeville. | The Chutes. Vaudeville and Cannon. the 613-pound Man. | Alhambra, Eddy and Jones streets—Vaudeville. Opening | Saturday, September 8. Clympia—Corner Mason and Eddy streets—Specialties. Mechanics' Pavilion—The Irish Fair, Sutro’s Bathe—Swimming. Recreation Park—Baseball this afternoon. Coursing—At Union Coursing Park. | Stat acramento. September 5. W President found much difficulty in his efforts | to get strong representative men to serve on the Peace Commission, it is certain he succeeded in | the task. We may have somre reason to complain be- | cause no representative of the Pacific Coast was appointed, but the nation at large will be well satis- | fied to leave the settlement of the issues arising out | of the war to such men.as Secretary Day, Senators | Frye and Davis, Justice White and Embassador Reid. | Strong as the commission is it will have no strength to spare when it comes to grapple with the Spanish officials in the field of diplomacy and undertakes the task of bringing the controversy to a speedy conclu- | sion. It is Spanish nature under all circumstances to | do nothing to-day that can be postponed until to- morrow, and in the present emergency the natural tendency to delay will be augmented by a thousand motives of pride, exasperation and the hope that by prolonging the talk something may occur which will redound to the benefit of Spain and impel us to grant some of her many claims. Statements recently made by Sagasta show the policy the Spanish representatives will pursue when the commission assembles. “The peace question,” said the Spanish Premier, “is at present very compli- cated. The Paris conference will settle the Philippine | question, and wiil also arrange commercial treaties by | which Spanish goods may obtain tariff advantages in | Cuba and Porto Rico in exchange for similar ad- | vantages given to the Americans in the Philippines.” | As if there were not enough impudence displayed in | this cool assumption that Spain has either the right | or the power to arrange tariffs in the Philippines in | exchange for favors granted in the West Indies, Sa- } gasta went on to say that while Spain will surrender | Cuba and Porto Rico it will claim all Governmental property in the islands, including national buildings ‘of all kinds, and will insist in having a voice in the settlement of such civil and criminal cases as are now pending in the courts. Spain, it is further announced, will stand firm against assuming the payment. of any part of the Cuban debt. Finally she will maintain that the. Philippines are still legally her possessions | because the surrender of Manila did not take place | until after the protocol of peace was signed. It will be readily seen that if the American Com- missioners consent to discuss these propositions the | end of the conference will not occur during the few | years that are left of this century. The Commission- ers in debating such a multitude of claims throughthe | slow processes of diplomacy will remain in Paris to | see the exposition of 1900 and still remain there when | it closes. Negotiation on such a basis will be as long | drawn out as that of a European concert, and the re- | sults will probably be as ineffective. | Fortunately the American Commissioners are men | who are not likely to give much consideration tothese Spanish claims. The Philippines, as well as Cuba and Porto Rico, are in our hands. The Government prop- “erty is ours as much as the soil of the country in which the property stands. It is for us to offer terms and for Spain to accept the offer or renew the fight. So far from being a complicated problem, as Sa- | gasta asserts, the making of this peace is one of the | simplest problems ever submitted to diplomats. | ¢ — THE PEACE COMMISSION. 1 | | HILE the reports may have been true that the | Several instigators of a prize-fight in New York | have been arrested because one of the principals hap- | pened to get killed in the ring. For some reason this | course is taken after each similar event, the law ap-‘ parently deeming it a necessity to make a bluff of | caring how many pugilists die with their gloves on. e | A. J. Drexel, the Philadelphia banker, is to have a | $1,000,000 yacht, to which he has a perfect right, and for which he will doubtless pay cash. But it is to be | built abroad, and there is no reason why it should not | have been built in this country. e The Spanish paper which says that England wishes the United States to annex the Philippines so as to | have them for a British base of operations against France and Russia would better guess again. R When the Democratic section of the fusion plat- form refers to the good deeds of all the Democratic successors to Jefferson in the Presidency does it in- clude Grover Cleveland? It is demonstrated that California is a citrus belt from Siskiyou to San Diego. It is all one State, one | climate and one orange, and the fusionists are not | going to suck it, either. Perhaps it would be wise for Alger to keep the volunteers in service until the differences between himself and the rest of the War Department have been settled. Germang are charging that American flour is| adulterated with meal. If it is, the trade will be lost to thiscountry, and serve the dishonest speculators rightly. P AT 2 If England and China really open hostilities the .. AUGUST 28, 188 | | 1887 because it did not indorse the single tax, why q pressed the opinion that legislation for the relief of ‘ago, is he honest in becoming the candidate of three | THE WAR DEPARTMENT SCANDALS. | said it.” | tion. What is needed now, therefore, is an investiga- latter will learn to regard the affair with Japan as a mere incident 1 no one else who would exactly fill the bill DR. SANGRADO MAGUIRE. NTIL he became a candidate for Governor Judge Maguire had but one remedy for all the evils of society, and that was the single tax. Sangrado bled for all disease, and Maguire proposed, by bleeding the land-owner, to abolish crime, poverty and all unrighteousness without regard to any moral thange in the personal character of men. On account of the single tax he bolted the Demo- cratic party in 1886, and for that he kicked and de- feated Hastings, Ferral and McCoppin in succession as Democratic candidates in his Congressional dis- trict. In each of these bolts against the Democratic ticket he was aided and abetted by his next friend, Barry, who is now the Democratic candidate to suc- ceed him in Congress. In addition to all these bolts and betrayals of Democracy, in 1887 he by letter per- manently withdrew from the Democratic party be- cause it would not indorse the single tax. For that he cursed and quit it, remarking, as he left, that it was a rather nasty party any way, with which no honest man or gentleman could safely associate. Now, as he found the Democratic party unfit to stay with in does he go back to it now? Has it indorsed the sin- gle tax by indorsing him? Until now in everything Judge Maguire has written or said the single tax appears as inevitably as the head of Charles I in the essays of Mr. Dick. He left his seat in Congress to make long single-tax cam- paigns in Delaware and boasted that he had broken down the Democratic party of that State by raising the single tax issue. He lately addressed the single- taxers of the State of Washington, saying the single tax is the sole issue worthy the support of a good citizen. No longer ago than the 18th of last February (see Congressional Record, Vol.31,No.54), discussing the bankruptcy bill, he said: “In the course of my remarks on the floor to-day I referred briefly to the causes of bankruptcy in the United States, and ex- ruined merchants and others who are carrying on the wealth-producing and wealth-distributing enterprises of our country is a poor substitute for legislation that would remove the great universal cause of nearly all the unmerited distress and bankruptcy among our people.” Then quoting Henry George on effects of the single tax, he said: “Socialists, Populists and charity-mongers, the people who would apply little remedies for a great evil, are all barking up the wrong tree. The Upas of our civilization is our treatment of land, It is that which is converting even the march of invention into a blight. ~ There is but ome cure for business depression, there is no other: that 1s the single tax.” If these were his convictions only seven months parties which fuse upon the single proposition that the free coinage of silver is the one cure for business depression? Fusion here and everywhere is upon free silver as the panacea, but seven months ago Judge Maguire said there was but ome ‘remedy, and that not free sil- ver, but the single tax. If that were true then why is it not true now? - If free coinage of silver then were the remedy for business depression, why did he say the single tax was? Does Judge Maguire believe in free toinage of sil- ver? Does he believe it will cause the economic re- form declared to be its purpose by Mr. Bryan, Con- gressman Towne, Coin Harvey and its other pro- ponents? If he does so believe his single-tax theory is a myth and sham. If his single-tax theory is true | then free silver is a lie and a sham. Is there anythingthonest in this free silver fusion on a candidate who denies that there is any remedy for business depression except the single tax, and by that denial repudiates free silver? HETHER true or false, the many reports of Wmismanagement on the part of the War De- partment have now reached proportions of such magnitude that neither the administration nor Congress can afford to ignore them. What at first were but little more than mutterings coming from obscure sources have grown to the clamors arising from all sides. Dispatches from the East teem with | statements of blunders or worse, committed in the conduct of the war, and some of these are of a nature that compel attention even from persons most skep- tical of general rumors. As the matter stands the complaints concerning the ill usage of the troops at the front and at the various camps established in the Eastern States have been made the basis of sensational attacks upon the Secre- tary of War and the commanding general. The result has been that the whole subject is involved in such a mass of self-evident exaggerations that the fair- minded citizen cannot distinguish what is true from what ig false, and finds it difficult to decide whether the evils were caused by wrongdoing or were the in- evitable outcome of an effort to hasten the war to a swift conclusion instead of proceeding slowly and taking ample time for preparation. In this condition of affairs the public should be on guard against the attempts that are being made in certain quarters to array one set of officials against another. It will be remembered that the yellow jour- nals not long ago endeavored to place Sampson and Schley in conflict, and at one time went so far as to assert that the two heroes were personally antago- nistic. A similar attempt is;now being made to array General Miles against the' Secretary of War and to provoke them to mutual recrimination. ‘ Up to this time all these efforts to embroil high officials in the scandal have failed. To a reporter who asked him what answer he had to make to certain statements said to have been given out by Miles Sec- retary Alger replied: “I have seen what was in the papers about General Miles’ reported utterances, his demand for an investigation, and charges about with- held or garbled messages, and I will say frankly I don't believe a word of it. I don’t believe he ever The answer was in every respect proper. If Miles has charges to make they should be formulated and submitted in an official report. It is certainly not credible that he has made grave complaints reflecting upon the War Department to irresponsible persons and sent them out in a form easily subject to the ex- aggerations and misrepresentations of every one who repeats them. That much suffering among the troops has resulted from the insufficiency of the supplies furnmished them may be accepted as fully proved, but that the amount of the suffering and the degree of insufficiency of sup- plies have been grossly exaggerated is beyond ques- tion that will separate the truth from the falsehood and make clear the real condition of things. It will then be possible to determine whether the War De- partment has been mismanaged or whether it has done the best that could have been done in making ready a volunteer army and hurrying it to the front in order to close the war before the yellow fever sea- son began in the West Indies. Such an investigation is imperative, and the sooner it is begun the better. Of course Major McLaughlin will be chairman of | the Republican State Central Committee. There is | these are reported from New York, and may be cited | | return, which it is said will result in largely increasing I DEATH ACCORDING TO FICTION. HE death of Rev. A. P. Dodge of Georgia was sufficiently different from the ordinary style of shuffling off to merit notice. Mr. Dodge, aside from being a minister of the gospel, was very rich, and could afford to indulge his foibles. Among these was the preservation’of the body of his first wife. The lady had left her tenement of clay some fifteen years before, and stipulated that it should be preserved un- til he had left his own, at which time the two should be buried side by side. Mr. Dodge not only agreed to this, but got a new wife to help him watch over the first. Suddenly the minister was told by his physician that there remained to him of life a period not much over fifteen minutes. Dodge was not rattled. Indeed, he did not seem to care particularly. Instead of grow- ing maudlin or preternaturally pious he ordered glasses and wine, and upon their arrival proposed a toast to the long life and prosperity of all present. Then he sank back on his pillow and his soul took flight to regions where human judgment may not fol- low. This is not the style of death which is expected from the truly good, and certainly not the sort in which a minister of the gospel is supposed to indulge. It breaks clear away from old traditions and follows the pattern laid down in recent fiction of which “Quo Vadis” is a sample. We hope Dodge will rest well and that the bones of Mrs. Dodge No. 1, having found a grave after all these years, will enjoy the same boon. As to No. 2, she is entitled to double condo- lences. May the fortune left by the two deceased bring to her a measure of comfort THE WAR AS A PUBLIC BLESSING. LL the world has by this time recognized that fl our war with Spain has resulted in a benefit to humanity. Even the Spaniards themselves doubtless perceive in their lucid intervals a distinc(‘ profit in getting rid of colonies that were a source of | corruption in their politics and the cause of wars that entailed heavy taxation upon their people. As for the other nations of Europe they are so well aware of the benefits growing out of our victories and conquests! that they are devising ways and means of getting a | share of them and getting it early. There is then no question of the good resulting from the war, as it affects the larger destinies of mankind and the development of industry andcommerce. These larger issues, however, by no means include all the | benefits flowing from the victories we have achieved. There are some of a minor nature of sufficient import- ance to attract attention and merit notice. Two of as examples of the whole group. The first is the development of a genuine patriotism in a class of people who have been in the past more or less indifferent to their duties to the nation. Colonel John Jacob Astor, it appears, affords a striking illus- tration of this. It is reported that while serving in; the army he saw the need of the Government for money, and learned by companionship with his com- rades in the field how hard is the struggle for exist-J ence among a large proportion of his fellow-citizens. He thereupon determined that hereafter he would pay the full measure of taxes upon his estate, and since his return home has ordered his agents to go over the list 1: of his holdings, properly appraise them and make a his taxes. P % ; A mofe curious benefi reported by a New York physician, who asserts: large ber of persons who ‘would have died @ the ing heat of | the summer, under ordinary.conditions, managed to | gain strength and live by reason of the animation with which they were inspired by the outbreak of war and i the glorious victories that followed. Patriotic ardor was the medicine that roused them and bore them safely through the crisis of disease. According to this authority more people were saved by the war than were killed in its battles, and as a vifalizer and health- preserver the hundred days of hostilities were more efficacious than any nerve tonic on the market. A question whether it was worth while to go to war to attain these minor benefits is not pertinent to the issue. Of course it would not be expedient as a gene- ral rule to whip a foreign nation every time we wished to make an Astor pay his taxes, nor to call out 200,- 000 volunteers and set all the brass bands of the coun- try playing patriotic airs for the purpose of bracing up the languid invalids of the sweltering East. It would be cheaper to let the big man dodge taxes as usual and to help the sick by sending them to spend the summer in California, where the air is al- ways invigorating, and where, according to Edispn, the waters endow the human liver with so much vi- tality that after death of the man the liver has to be killed with a club. Nevertheless these minor benefits are worth adding to the sum total of what has been gained by our “pleasantness” with Spain. A new thrill of life spirit- ual and physical has been felt in New York, and in the rest of the country as well. Let us therefore re- joice and cheer ourselves on this delightful day of rest by indulging the hope that these good effects will be as lasting as those produced in the world of politics and government. Members of the Federal Court have no need for personal worry over the circumstance that the Gov- ernment building here is not to be built in accord with their ideas. At the rate the structure promises to progress it will not be occupied until the present generation shall have passed away, and gray-haired jurists, as yet unbort, be wearing the gowns of office. Ex-Secretary Sherman may be old and out of polit- ical life, but he occasionally makes remarks to which the country is ready to listen. In his objections to the way American soldiers have been treated there is not the slightest evidence of dotage. It appears that the American soldier killed recently in the streets of Cavite brought his own fate upon himself by discharging a revolver when there was not the slightest occasion for doing so. ~There is no profit in getting too gay. prdidett e Americans will not tolerate abuse of American sol- diers. The country pays to have them properly cared for, and if they do not get the care the responsible persons may expect a large dose of trouble. Two young shoplifters have been dismissed with a reprimand. There was no doubt as to their guilt, but they did not claim to be victims of kleptomania, and naturally the court felt kindly toward them. Admiral Sampson may attend the peace jubilee at Omaha, and he would be certain of a hearty greet- ing. Sampson knows a thing or two about the best modern methods of creating peace. 1 AN i g There does not seem to be ground for the positive statement that no more troops are to be sent to Man- ila. Aguinaldo’s old followers may yet have to have some sense knocked into them. : L Anarchy is said to be prevalent in Porto Rico, which is now virtually a part of the United States. There might be such a thing as undue haste in calling our soldiers hothe. > | RN ENERNNNEEREN SRR RRRERRRRERY WITH ENTIRE FRANKNESS. By HENRY JAMES. RRENNINRRRNIRVRIVIGNS 2888 8 BRRUURRLRLLRN To say aught against a woman is never a pleasing task; but when a woman descends from her high estate to become an unholy and unclean wan- ton, polluting her environment with the utter foulness of a total and irre- deemable depravity, her sex no longer protects her. To permit it to do so ‘would be a wrong to others. I do not refer to the outcast, for misfortune may have been her lot, and charity ex- tends to her a hand, knowing her to be no worse than some to whom is permitted still to wear the cloak of respectability. I refer particularly to that wretched and despicable creature, Margaret L. Shepherd, who parades her own infamy for money, and while doing so professes to be a reformer. * In her chosen task she slanders women the hem of whose raiment she is not fit to touch, and in telling of the lewdness of Sisters of Charity, one of whom she professes to have been, lies with a venom unequaled, and shows a black- ness of heart never exceeded by thetra- ducer of innocence. Lost to all shame, dead to the impulses which stir wom- anhood and purity, her words are the words of the abandoned. A slanderer, a liar, a mischief-maker, she deserves the scorn of men, the loathing of women. I can write this fairly be- cause all the traditions of my youth were of the severest type of Protest- antism. In the town whi I was reared there was no Catholic church, and as a boyI had no idea that a Catholic looked and acted like any one else. It was my boyish notion that Catholics were of a separate type. But later in life there came to me a knowledge that Catholics and Protestants serve one Master, only through different form, are touched by kindred emotions, are under the same fiag, love the same- couniry and the same God. I have learned to revere the unselfish devotion of the Sisters, their courage, their kindness and their whiteness of soul, and I abhor such vermin as this Shepherd, a tonguing strumpet, unfit to assoclate with de- cency and beyond the desire of reform. That she can find profit in selling her wares is a reproach to our civiliza- tion. . E. B. P.:: You mistake my purpose entirely if you think I would criticize an article with intent to cause the writer pain. To demonstrate my sin- cerity, the article in question shall be passed over without a word of com- ment. A woman 32 years of age, the mother of elght children, has killed herself rather than beBome the mother of the ninth. I do not blame her overmuch, and yet her course seems a little hard as to the eight already born. She should have paused to reflect that the youngsters were not to blame. .. e Doctors surely ought to know more than ordinary people about the rules of health, and probably do, but the knowledge does not seem to do them any good. I have noticed with sur- prise that they die as readily as though the art of healing had never been prac- ticed. Within the last few months there have been lost to San Francisco by death Doctors Stanton, Lovelace and Morse, all. young men, all physi- clans of standing, and the last at least of eminence in the medical and surgi- cal world: To me it is inexplicable that men should study to cure dis- ease, and live so as to promote it and become its early. victims. The three mentioned had hardly passed half the allotted span of life. .« . Readers will bear with a few words about the Republican convention, or such as feel they cannot may skip this paragraph. In line of dugy I had at- tended the Democratic pow-pow, and returned with a deep and abiding dis- gust for the outfit, which was neither Democratic, Republican, Populist nor a wholesome combination. It named a ticket which is destined to be licked, partly because it deserves this fate and partly that the Republicans have been shrewd enough to put up a better one. But neither gathering had special rea- son to feel proud of itself. I had ex- pected at the latter to hear many good speeches, and to get spellbound, but out of the dozens dellvered there were not above four appealing to any emo- tion save ennui, and one of these was delivered by General Barnes, who was there only as a spectator, and kindly filled in an interval which Reuben Lioyd had created by lingering over lunch. Another was the address of Davis in nomination of Gage. It was finished, scholarly, incisive, giving evidence of nicety in preparation of phrases; in construction and delivery the work of an elocutionist, not an orator. ~The best .speech from a delegate was that of T. B. Hutchinson in behalf of Judge Buckles, the Judge subsequently going down to honorable defeat. I must also advert to the remarks of Van Duzer and the witty monologue of Matlock. Otherwise the talk was not only com- monplace, but most of it without ex- cuse, the speakers merely desiring to place themselves on exhibition. wAs to detail of the convention, it was so com- pletely covered by the exhaustive re- ports of The Call that nothing remains to say. The subject was introduced simply to lead up to the status of Sac- ramento as a convention city. .« s s “Sacramento was the very essence of hospitality. The citizens had decor- ated the Pavilion to a place of beauty and charm. The weather was not se- verely hot, for Sacramento, and much of the perspiration shed was due either to the outflow of oratory or the re- ceipt of the same. Nights were cool and under their somnolent influence the crickets reposed and permitted vis- itors to sleep when there happened to be leisure for an experience socommon- place. But if Sacramento is to con- tinue to be a convention city it must provide hotel facilities. I do not see why it cannot have as .good a hotel as Los Angeles, San Jose, Santa Cruz or other Californian towns. Why should Fresno and San Rafael excel it in this respect? Never having been at Milpitas, I do not know how it com- pares with Sacramento, but am will- ing to bet against the superiority of the capital. People famillar with Sac- ramento for twenty-five years say ho- tel accommodations were better at the beginning of that perfod than they are now. People do not go to a conven- tion expecting the comforts of a Coro- nado or a Del Monte. They go In- spired by a high and holy patriotism and to get In the way of a possible stroke of lightning. But a bed is a necessity, and the patriots do want something to eat, together with ser- vice not distinctly promiotive of pro- & Fd Ed e b 2 fanity. Delegates to both conventions this year swore long and loudly that they would not again submit to the im- position constituted by a fifth-class caravansary and a first-class rate. Ware the matter left to me I would select any other town in the State, provided it had as many as fifteen thousand in- habitants, rather than go another time to Sacramento. This is said in all kind- ness to the people there. They are not directly to blame, and yet the subject is one 'for them to agitate as a measure of self-protection. Some day a hun- gry legislator rising, caloric, from the table to which a haughty waiter has declined to bring his order, will intro- duce a resolution, or something, to re- move the capital to some other town, naturally choosing one with a hotel, and the resolution will not be a bluff such as scared Sacramento a few years ago. And the city is in even greater danger of losing its conventions than the seat of government. + You seem to be a Please waste “An American.” vicious sort of an idiot. no more postage on me. CE— Among the recommendations of Mr. Curry for the office of Secretary of State is the fact that the Examiner op- poses him. I can never divorce my- self from the notion that any person or thing which has won the disappro- bation of Andy Lawrence is, to that extent, admirable. . . Phil Francis of Stockton had the te- merity to jump on the bard of Visalia and was promptly hit over the head with a loaded lyre. I hope for his own sake he will now consent to be good. There are but few who have dallied with that bard and come out of it un- scathed. > + s e Professor Charles Eliot Norton has been talking again. As a humble American citizen, I wish he would stop. It is not pleasing to know that.a man eminent in educational circles, having access to the ear of youth, and influ- ence great enough so that his words find their way into print, should have every element of the traitor save the redeeming one of courage to take up arms against his country, whose pa-i triotism he flouts, whose achlevements | he belittles and whose purposes he im- | pugns. Next to the thieving contrac- tors who robbed the soldiers and the thieving officials who despoiled them of what the hands of charity had loving- | ly bestowed, the war with Spain has developed no character quite so des-i picable as that of the Norton individ- ual. He deserves perpetual exile, and I am sorry there is not a statute fitted | to mete out to him that which he de- serves. | There {s a Democratic tendency to| slobber over Gavin McNab because he | declined a Congressional nomination. | Men who will do a thing like this “for | the sake of principle are not to be| foundeveryday in the week,” proclaims | one admirer.. To those who do not, like myself, abhor slang, here is afforded an opportunity to cry “rats.” There ‘was no principle involved in the de- ‘clination. - There, was.the fact so pal- pable that Gavin saw it, that, if he ac- cepted the nomination he would get the worst beating ever given an as- pirant. So he declined. I am will- ing to give him credit for horse sense, but nothing more. He had no more chance of election in the Fourth than he has of being snatched to heaven in a flaming chariot by reason of the quality of purity he has projected into politics. LR The present is a Httle earlv for in- dulgence in acute analysis of the cir- cumstances of which Mrs. Botkin Is the central figure. To accept the the- ory of guilt and use the facts thus far developed. to sustain this is an easy and yet a senseless thing to do. The case In its present aspect is one of the most tragic. The exploitation of it is certain to lay bare domestic secrets, the revelation of which means ruined réputations and shadows never to pass away. Yet, as damaging as appear- ances are, I take it there Is no justice in the hasty assumption that Mrs. Bot- kin is a murderer. Accidents will happen, and long series of coincidences, forming an almost perfect chain, will at the last be overthrown. I do not see why the possibility of accident should have been overlooked. Candy is not always pure. A gentleman in this town, who sells chemicals, one day got an order from a candy manufac- turer for a chemical which had the power to stain a bright yellow, but was a deadly poison. Thinking there must be a mistake, he communicated with the head of the candy house, who in- formed him that it was the poison that was wanted, that by using it a quar- ter of a cent per pound could be saved in the manufacture of candy. My friend declined to fill the order, but there is no reason to suppose that all other dealers refused. If manufac- turers use poison even In infinitesimal quantity the likelihood of their slaughtering an occasional customer must |be recognized. But to make a technical fight for Mrs. Botkin, or to advance the absurd plea of insanity, would be an error. If a gift deliber- ately poisoned was sent to Mrs. Dun- ning the sender is sane enough to merit any punishment the law may prescribe for the most unforgivable form of as- sassination. Despite the valorous achievements of the American army, out of the clamor of accusation against the War Depart- ment there is likely to come a definite demonstration that some one in the ‘War Department has been negligent, that the brave soldiers have undergone unnecessary hardships, and that some of them have been driven to their graves by the criminal brutality of those superior in authority. I hope the investigation will be so thorough that the guiity shall all be punished, even if the head of the department be involved. I never ran across any particular rea- son for having confidence in Alger, and never had any, but that he is guilty of cruel wrongs against the troops, wrongs profitable to himself and his friends, is simply beyond belief. How- ever, the charges are so direct that un- less he insist upon an investigation there will remain a cloud upon his rep- utation so long as his reputation sur- vives, and he does not need this. But while one shrinks from crediting the | rumors there is evidence that on.board ships bearing sick and wounded delica- cles furnished by the Red Cross for just such emergencies were sold to the sufferers. This is too bad to be fitting- 1y characterized. The guilty men should have swung from the yardarm. As they escaped this they should at least be exposed, branded as murderers and thieves and be dismissed in disgrace from the positions they dishonor. . .+ = It would pain me to call the attention of the Examiner to certain of its short- comings, save that I do so in the spirit of kindness. I, am grieved to be obliged to state that the reputation of the Examiner for honesty has been im- paired. Itis regarded as occupying the moral plame on which are to be found the confidence man and. the picker of pockets. Now there is an opportunity to demonstrate that it has a shred of conscience left, that it is once in a while ashamed of its indecency. Of late the sheet has been advertising a cer- tain . pyrotechnic show, has begged patronage for it on the ground that a portiont of the proceeds were to go to the Maine monument, to be erected to the glory of Hearst. This is the same monument for which solicitors have been promised a rake-off of 10 per cent on all sums collected. The offer was not publicly made, for, despite rumor to the contrary, Hearst has a molety of modesty left and does not propose to let the world know how he loves him- self. The pyrotechnics have been and gone. 1 suggest that there be an open accounting of receipts and a statement as to what share is to go to the Hearst monument. The people who ~were begged in the name of patriotic char- ity to attend have a right to know all about it. If the information be with- held a suspicion will surely arise that a new bunko scheme as low as the baseball tournament of a few months ago has been sprung on them. I have heard that the tournament was an ar- rant swindle, and labor under the sor- row of believing the information cor- rect. While assured that my personal opinion is not by the temporary and empty head of the concern held of high value, I can asSure him that there are others taking my view. Has the pub- lic been done up once more? FProba- bly, yes. To overthrow the contention requires only that a few figures be pro- duced, duly sworn to by somebody not connected with the Examiner office. ot i As nearly as I am able to judge, ex- Marshal Creed of Sausalito is a bully and a coward, as bad a citizen as he was official. He is a big fellow, run- ning mostly to paunch, and right in the forefront of that protuberance should be deposited a kick. Creed has Just whipped a reporter of half his own weight for having told the truth about him. Had the reporter been two-thirds the Creed avoirdupois this would never have happened. I hope the overgrown swaggerer will soon run against a man of sufficient size to mix up with him and teach him a lesson in manners. . It is a strange circumstance and verges on distressfulness that in the effort to advocate a movement entirely proper and commendable I am certain to run counter to the ideas prevailing in the Home of Peace. To state.that this home is the editorial den of the Examiner is hardly necessary. There love abides, and there Andrew, put- ting on a halo and a frown, directs the destinies of the world. Sometimes the destinies fly the track, but no matter. It seems to me that when General Shafter returns to this city he should get a reception radiant with red fire, noisy with bands and with shouting, and that the people should all be out to welcome the hero of Santiago. But I know the Examiner will not agree. The unpleasant duty of bouncing the Examiner’s representatives from Cuba because mext to the yellow fever they were the most malign things there fell to Shafter. That he performed the duty quickly and well is of record. Of course a wave of rancor invaded the Home of Peace and some traces of it remain. Nevertheless, sympsathizing as they do with the exiled outfit, the residents of San Francisco confess to a liking for Shafter and a degree of pride in his achievements. I think the Examiner can be induced to permit the giving to the general of a reception, and even that it will later go so far as to claim entire credit for the affair. C——————————— HUMORS OF SCHOOL EXAMINATION. It appears that at an elementary ex- amination in English which was lately held in a school near New York two sen- tences were given out to be corrected by the younger scholars. The first sentence was to be corrected as to its subject mat- ter, and the second sentence as to its syntax. These were the sentences: 'he hen has three legs.” ‘Who done {t?"" ‘When the papers were handed in it was found that one of the examinees had a; parently regarded the sentence as subt connected in thought, for his answer was as follows: “The hen didn’t done it; God done it.”— Bookman. —_——— Treat your friends to Townsend’s Cali- fornia Glace Fruits, 50c Ib. in fire-etch boxes. 627 Market st., Palace Hotel bldg.® s i by The man who isn’'t capable of filling the Om‘C: ble’t(e;o (hain fi;“e man appointed has yet to be born in this great and gl Tepublic—Chicago News. . Pt e B R Spectal information supplied dail business houses and public men by the Press Clipping Byrean (Allens). 1 ont- gomery street. Telephone Main 1042 . ADVERTISEMENTS. MACKAY’S Furniture Must Go! THIS DEPARTMENT TO - TIRELY CLOSED QuT = =% $33,000 WORTH_OF FURNITUR! ACTUAL cOST. o AT Stock complete in every detail. A rare opportunity to buy good goods at auction prices. A few quatation: SOLID OAK CENTER TABLES. 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