S

KILLED MAKERS AND DISTRIBUTERS of "tainted news, hired by Mr. EDWARD H. HARRIMAN, are the sources of widespread "news" despatches to the effect that their employer is now out of the woods. "The fact is, the President is at sea. The conservative members of the Cabinet are urging him to drop the matter'-so runs a "tainted news" despatch in the Kingston, New York, "Daily Freeman" and many other papers throughout the country. "HARRIMAN has kept within the letter of the law. . There are those to-day who make the unqualified prediction that he will never be prosecuted. . . The opinion prevails among officials of the Department of Justice who have read the testimony . . . that it is not sufficient to warrant prosecution." That Mr. HARRI

MAN should employ one of the most successful of the "tainted news" agencies to disseminate these these and similar despatches through the press is not, of course, merely a matter of whistling to keep up his courage; he has motives as ulterior as they are obvious, and therein is illustrated the inherent evil of

NOT OUT OF THE WOODS

"tainted news.' But that may pass for the moment. We can not claim an intimacy with the intentions of the Sisters Three, such as Mr. HARRIMAN'S publicity agents seem to have with "the conservative members of the Cabinet," "officials of the Department of Justice," and the state of mind of the President. Nevertheless, we throw out with some confidence the thought that proceedings such as have been begun against Mr. HARRIMAN do not logically end with the taking of evidence. The course of nature is on the side of the prediction that Mr. HARRIMAN will ultimately achieve close personal contact with twelve plain citizens. and a judge. Moreover, the public bearing of Mr. HARRIMAN on recent occasions does not justify the belief that he has attained that chastening of spirit, that taming of temper, which could have been nature's only purpose in bringing adversity upon him. The obvious probability seems to have escaped general attention that Mr. HARRIMAN'S troubles either already have, or will soon acquire, a California end. Any capable clairvoyant on Sixth Avenue ought to be able, for a reasonable fee, to warn Mr. HARRIMAN to beware of a short, blond, smooth-faced man, of an inquisitive intellect and a persistent mind, temporarily residing in San Francisco, whose name begins with H.

IN THE HAPPY COMMENCEMENT SEASON that has just ended, the classes of '82 have enjoyed a pleasing prominence. Coming home to their respective Alma Matres just a quarter of a century after graduation, in the full tide of worldly success, with their hair flecked with the grizzled threads that denote maturity, wisdom, and settled character, they have held honored places on the programs, and have served the new alumni as models for admiring emulation. Of all these silverwedding classes none had an opportunity for a more interesting reunion than that of the University of California. One of its

A LOST OPPORTUNITY

members, Mr. FRANCIS J. HENEY, had just succeeded in putting in jail his classmate, Mr. ABRAHAM RUEF, affectionately known in college days as "Piggy." A third, Mr. JOSEPH DWYER, was mentioned as a probable temporary Mayor of San Francisco, in case Mr. HENEY should finally succeed in prying loose the grip of SCHMITZ on his office. The opportunity for a novel function does not seem to have been fully grasped. For the convenience of Mr. RUEF, the reunion should have been held in the county jail. There Mr. RUEF and Mr. HENEY could have exchanged reminiscences through the bars, after which both could have joined in starting a class fund for the endowment of a memorial Chair of the Ethics of Government.

LESS

one

POSSIBILITIES

ESS THAN A YEAR FROM TO-DAY, the two great parties will have nominated two men, one of whom will spend four years as the most exalted official of a nation of eighty millions. Who that man will be is no more determinable to-day than a year ago. The Fairbanks boom, although the press mercenaries and the hired biographers pump the bellows with redoubled ardor, bears more and more the atmospheric characteristics of a hard winter and a late spring. Undeniably, TAFT, who at time seemed the best guess, has conspicuously failed to make the progress that his friends expected. It has been frequently assumed that he was the choice of the present occupant of the White House. Whether this be true or not, there is nothing in the present political situation more clear to those who have tested public opinion widely than that an effort on the part of Mr. ROOSEVELT to name his successor would not help to make his choice a favorite, and would lessen his own popularity. All this is well. Two or three sometimes mentioned as Presidential possibilities ought soon to realize that they do not fit with the mood of the times. It would be humiliation saved for them, and no calamity to this republic. As to HUGHES, KNOX, TAFT, ROOT, CULBERSON, or DANIEL, the longer the race remains as much the prize of one as of another, and as possible to a dark horse as to any of them, the richer and more confident will the country feel in its resources for the filling of high and responsible office.

UPON

ONE UNION'S OPPORTUNITY

IPON THE RANK AND FILE of the Western Federation of Miners rests a heavy responsibility for realizing that for any labor union the only source of real strength is public sympathy with its purpose and public respect for its methods. One of their leaders has been identified with the slogan, "Strike terror to the hearts of capitalism"; another, at an annual convention, said: "I strongly advise you to provide every member with the latest improved rifle, which can. be obtained from the factory at a nominal price. I want you to take action on this important question, so that in two years we can hear the inspiring music of the martial tread of twenty-five thousand armed men in the ranks of labor." Such utterances as this on the part of labor leaders would never have been permitted to establish the policy of the miners, if the leaders of capital had not matched them with the Colorado Judge-Advocate-General's "To hell with the Constitution," or the Colorado Governor's suspension of the habeas corpus, an action which undid in one ruthless moment several centuries of patient progress in human liberty.

A

YEAR AGO COLLIER'S commented upon the new slidingscale gas law which had been enacted for Boston through the efforts of the Public Franchise League. The price of gas before the passage of the act had been ninety cents per thousand feet, and the Consolidated Gas Company had been paying eight per cent dividends. The lawmakers took the price the company was charging as the standard maximum rate and cut the dividend to seven per cent on a rigidly limited capitalization. Then they told the corporation BOSTON'S WAY that if it wanted to restore the eight per cent dividend it might do so by reducing the price of gas to eightyfive cents, and that it might keep on hoisting its dividends just as high as it pleased, provided it took the simple precaution of lopping off five cents from its charges for every increase of one per cent in its dividend. The company went to work promptly and cheerfully to make the best of the new conditions. It improved its business methods, cultivated good

relations with its employees, and soon found no difficulty in furnishing eighty-five-cent gas with an eight per cent dividend. Now it has pushed the sliding scale another notch, to eightycent gas, with nine per cent dividends in sight, and with seventyfive-cent gas and ten per cent dividends a good deal nearer than they seemed to be when COLLIER'S said last summer that they were expected within a few years. Considering the cost of coal and other expenses, even an eighty-cent rate in Boston is cheaper than a seventy-five-cent one in New York, where the Consolidated Gas Company is protesting that the enforcement of the eighty-cent law would confiscate its property. "Boston Gas," which under ADDICKS was once the country's awful example, is now its model.

PROTEST ON THE PART of the land-grabbers against the

APOSTLES OF THE AX

National Forest regulations has taken official form. Colorado, through her Legislature, makes herself the mouthpiece. of those gentlemen who wish to preserve the Western forests, for their own gain (with an ax), and has held a "public lands convention" to give voice to their objections and their appetite. "Congress has enacted new laws,' states the call of the Program Committee, "which will hinder the development and acquirement of title to these lands." Quite true, in so far as a certain kind of "development and acquirement" is concerned. The acquirement of woodland in bulk, by big timber corporations, through fraudulent entry, which has been practised so extensively and so profitably in many Western States, will be decidedly hindered by the new laws. Similarly, that form of "development" which. has "skinned" so large a part of the Eastern mountain ranges down to the merest scrub will be checked. But the bona fide acquirement and development of lands within the National Forest, by settlers who purpose to retain their holdings instead. of turning them over to the forces of destruction, will be fostered by the wise and temperate restrictions of the forestry service. Twenty years from now the nation will be taxed to restore the woodlands which are to-day being so recklessly felled. Shortsighted, indeed, is a policy that permits ravages now, which, in the future, must be paid for with many times compounded interest.

PIN-PRICKS, IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, are only too

PLAYING WITH FIRE

likely to arouse serious resentments. Therein lies the danger of such public expressions of private ill-feeling as are typified by a recent article in the Los Angeles "Times." The "Times" is prone to excitability, even irritability, on the Japanese question, and, in pursuance of its policy, it occasionally wanders into the realm of fiery fancy. It printed on its first page, recently, this conspicuous heading, "AOKI Is Snubbed, ROOT Resents Resents Talk About Trifles, Ruffled Diplomat Leaves Department After Hearing Some Plain Talk." The remarkable feature of this journalistic "scare" is that in the article itself there was not a single supporting fact underlying the statements in the heading, other than that the Japanese Ambassador, after leaving the State Department, had "no time to talk," and that "it was clear [to the "Times" correspondent] that his feelings were much ruffled." On the strength of this the reporter gives the gist of obviously imaginary conversation in which "Mr. Roor undoubtedly did some plain talking to Viscount AOKI." If Mr. HARRIMAN should one day emerge from the White House with a dent in his hat, would the Los Angeles "Times" trumpet out in headline type the scandalous news that President ROOSEVELT had whacked him over the head with a bound copy of the Railroad Rate bill? Such an interpretation would be in line. with the Aoki canard, but it would be less harmful. not made, indeed, out of such balderdash as this, but the feeling aroused in that part of the public too careless or ignorant to read between the lines does not exactly make for peaceable relations.

COM

an

Wars are

too

OMMON SENSE SHOULD APPLY to our relations with the Japanese. We should be ourselves in the right and expect and no less from them. Tokyo papers have circumstantial accounts of the mischievous action of American mission

no

more

A PIN-PRICK IN KOREA

aries in Korea who take the side of their converts against the ruling power. If these allegations be true, and there is reason to believe that some of them are, then the missionaries are forgetting their divine mission in order to play an illegal and worldly part. The United States recognizes Japan as suzerain of Korea, subject, of course, to rights guaranteed by treaty to resident American citizens and American property. Any missionary who interferes with Korean politics or incites the natives against the recognized government is a transgressor of the same order as a Japanese who stirs up trouble for our authorities in the Philippines, and he is equally open to suspicion and equally responsible for the misunderstandings that result. Of all international pests, the overpatriotic busybody is the worst. He leads the foreigner to mistake individual interests for national policies. When he wears the cloth he is wholly inexcusable.

FOR KILLING 1,600 ELK two

As

VANDALISM

men were found guilty and fined in the Federal Court in Pocatello, Idaho. One of them, when arrested, was carrying a bag containing 275 elk teeth, and had recently sold as many more. His forefinger was calloused from pulling the trigger. The carcasses of the dead elk were allowed to rot after the teeth were pulled. to these men, this is, of course, merely an isolated example of depravity. No sort of ethical appeal can reach them. But how about that Order, whose agents they were, and which paid them $10,000 for the teeth to use as ornaments and insignia? The Grand Exalted Ruler of that order has advised its members to discontinue the use of emblems that involve not only a violation of law but an outrage against sentiment, and the approaching convention at Philadelphia will do well to give emphatic sanction to that advice.

PROSPERITY

IF THE MARS DAILY "JOURNAL" should commission us to report for it the trend of the times upon this earth, we should note with emphasis, as a sign that things go well with men, the extent to which the advertising pages of this and other papers are occupied by Mr. KEITH's announcement of plans for houses that cost $2,000, Mr. Lowe's description of the virtues of his house paint, Mr. GLIDDEN's Jap-a-lac, and the other articles which enter into the construction, adornment, or furnishing of homes. How many magazines, like "The Twentieth Century Home," "Homes and Gardens," "Suburban Life," and the kind have sprung up within the last few years, and how they seem to thrive! Not without a shrewd certainty that he meets a broad demand does Mr. BOK fill his pages from month to month with minute directions "How to Build a Bungalow for $1,500." There must be a vast amount of prosperity in this country, and the trusts must be missing a good deal of it which goes to men who are building $2,000 houses and planting gardens of their own. There are few sounder elements of happiness possible to man than to water his own lawn with his own forty feet of hose. To such satisfaction as is afforded by the reflection that this sort of comfort is increasingly common in the United States, it is not necessary to add what thoughts may be appropriate to the official report from an American consul in Saxony that the butcher shops and markets of Germany last. year disposed of 7,000 dogs and 182,000 horses.

IN THE TALONS N THE TALONS of Sindbad's roc be transported for an instant to the Orient to the desert just west of China. The Peking-Paris automobile race is on. Skimming across the tawny expanse observe the motor-car of one of the contestants, and within it, his pigtail flying out like a whiplash, the governor of this buried province. Thanks to the invitation of a foreign white-devil, he is taking a ride. From every hole and corner issue Mongolians on horseback, soldiers, herdsmen, types. of every description. They form an indescribable cavalcade following the motor-car in wild disorder at a desperate gallop, disappearing, now and then, in the dust and tumbling tumultuously in the road. "To all appearances"-and can the correspondent, whom the "Sun" attributes to the London "Telegraph," be other than a Frenchman?-"a whole antiquity was following fero

ciously that small, modern thing which fled in advance." Is it not, mes enfants, a quaint picture? When will there be an end to the daily wonders which this age of machinery brings? A New York woman, suing her husband for separation the other day, said: "He went up in a balloon and came down; then he went down in a submarine boat and came up. Then he sprawled out on the lounge and said: 'I've been as far above the earth as I could go, and there's nothing there but atmosphere; as far under it as I could go, and there's nothing there but mud and water. There's nothing left in life for me.'" That was the case of too much mechanical magic., magic. His poor imagination, dissipated by violent stimulants, had withered away and died. Most of us, happily, are not able to get enough of these magic machines to get over our wonder for them. Oughtn't we, as STEVENSON remarked, to be as happy as kings in a world so full of a number of things!

THE MANDARIN AND THE MOTOR

GI

IRLS WHO GAVE NECKTIES to men used to get into the joke papers. Now, no more. Since the notion of wearing knit ties came in a few years ago, the mightiest is not too proud to display such handiwork. And in this act is there not a quaint and charming symbolism? The tie, fashioned by innumerable delicate motions of soft fingers, represents in its final form almost a detached part of the lady herself. Mere thread Her-that is the tie. And this resultant the man, a willing slave, knots around his neck. Might not one DANGERS LURK- almost say that that silken noose, which, minus what her hands have done, would be mere yarn, is indeed her hands. A noose-aye, there's the rub! For if once around one's neck, it is but a step from being caressed to being throttled in the relentless grip of the Superman. Each must decide for himself. As for us, we are willing to risk it, provided we get the tie. No, this is not fishing. A man used to have to ask his friends to send him knit ties from the other side. Now they may be picked up' in every Broadway shop and are become almost vulgar.

ING IN CRAVATS

BEFORE DR. OSLER says the last word about the antique and the useless, it might be well to inquire if longevity, as a habit, is increasing in the United States. There is no lack of Grand Old Men, of one sort or another, occupying the seats of the mighty. Mr. CANNON at seventy still stands with all the patness of boyhood, and Mr. ROCKEFELLER, who counts himself a young man, aspires to surpass the age of METHUSELAH in the doing of good works. Passing lightly over the celebrated longevity of the Senators from New York State, one might survey the country in general with a view to determining, if possible, what is the Old Age Centre of the United States. A hamlet not far from Philadelphia claims an average longevity of eighty-seven years, and can show the records of Old Pop TURNER, who lived to an age varying between 107 and 170, depending upon the sobriety and temperament of your guide. San Diego, California, puts in a claim to the longevity-banner under the plea that the climate is so healthful that people "just can't die" there. In a colony of New York Shakers, there is a collection of old people of fabulous, but unrecorded, age. A cowboy once claimed that SUN-UP SAM, a Piute Indian, was 139 years old, the oldest living man. "But how can you prove it?" asked a sceptic. "I've knowed that Injun for seven years, summer and winter," said the cowboy, "and he's been powerful old all that time." Although this editorial is based but slenderly on statistics, we should be seriously indebted to such readers of COLLIER'S as, in a spirit of local pride, might tell us where the real Longevity Centre of the United States is to be found. The authentic record is held in England by Old PARR, who died in 1635 at the age of 152 and now occupies a niche in Westminster Abbey.

LONGEVITY CENTRES

Here is an athletic event worth trying for.

FROM MOROCCO comes the announcement that RAISULI, the bandit, driven forth from his native stronghold, has been offered a "huge" salary as an attraction on the European and American vaudeville stage. Is the rumor true? Perhaps. But what of it? RAISULI in vaudeville would be merely coming to

RAISULI IN VAUDEVILLE

his own, claiming the just and honorable rewards of a career of painstaking notoriety. Vaudeville for RAISULI would merely denote commonplace, substantial success. Mrs. CHADWICK, JOHN ALEXANDER DOWIE, JAMES JEFFRIES have been made similar offers. Doubtless many a vaudeville manager has pondered hopelessly as to what amount might tempt Mr. HARRIMAN from monopoly to monologue. We seldom enter a concert hall without a titillating apprehension that Mr. LAWSON's name may appear conspicuously on the bill as "The Financial Firecracker in a Whirlwind Talk Against Time." Quietly, then, but with heartfelt encouragement, we are ready to welcome Mr. RAISULI into a broader field of art. Here may be gathered a sufficient income to shelter his days in a chaste obscurity, far from the madding Sunday supplement!

FOR MONEY, THE RELIGIOUS PAPERS which carry patent

medicine advertisements prostitute their columns; when the balance of profit points the other way, they will clean their columns up. Here is one case where the means of reform is simple, sure, and direct. Mr. CHARLES HUGHES of Jellico, Tennessee, knows it. He sent this letter to the religious paper which has been coming to his family:

RELIGIOUS PAPERS

"GENTLEMEN-When my subscription to the 'Standard' expires, please discontinue same, as I do not care to subscribe or even read a paper that carries as many quack and fraudulent advertisements as the 'Christian Standard.' It is a pity that a paper supposed to be published in the interest of the Christian religion and for the bettering, the uplifting, and educating of the people should descend so low as to endorse and carry such advertisements. When you rid your columns of such trash, I will be glad to again become a reader of your paper. Very truly yours,

"CHARLES HUGHES.'

Conferences, synods, or such other religious organizations as have official supervision of offending papers, can supplement this method effectively; and even privately owned, free-lance religious papers would have a wholesome respect for a few winged words from the organizations to whose members they cater.

THAT INGENIOUS AND WIDESPREAD FAKE, the "Viavi”

SILENCE AT A PRICE

system of "curing" disease, came in for a vigorous harrowing recently at the hands of the "California State Journal of Medicine." Now, it has been the distinction of "Viavi," that it does not advertise in the papers, but spreads its fraudulent doctrines among womankind, by "lectures," "addresses," and a system of personal visits by "Viavi" representatives, who, to' a lay mind, appear to be practising medicine without a license, since they prescribe "Viavi" medicines or "Viavi" treatment for pretty much everything from heart disease to freckles.. Upon the publication of the medical journal's article, however, a change came o'er the spirit of the "Viavi” dream. The Law Brothers, proprietors of "Viavi," who have grown rich and influential from the money of their dupes, live in San Francisco, where the "California State Journal of Medicine" is published. Their feelings were harrowed, particularly as one daily newspaper, and one weekly in their own city, gave some space to the attack upon their business. Immediately they rushed into print. To reply to the attack? To refute the charges? Not at all. that kind of print. Their method was to buy advertising space, and insert huge advertisements in all the local papers. Result: A complete silence thereafter, as regards the "Viavi" matter, except that the offending daily which had already referred to the medical article printed later a pleasant and complimentary little "write-up" about the LAWS and their enterprise. Yet, we presume, the LAWS would indignantly deny that they had bribed the newspapers into silence, and the newspapers would even more indignantly deny having been bribed. We can swallow a coincidence as raw as any one else, but the coincidence concern that hasn't advertised for years, suddenly flaming into print at a considerable outlay, immediately following an attack upon its methods, is too great a tax upon our faith. Long since the Proprietary Association of America has shown the inner workings of that method. "Viavi" has merely adapted the "Red Clause" method to its own needs.

of a

It was not