Jay Goukl is a little man physieally, we...
Jay Goukl is a little man physieally, weighing only 107 pounds, but he is worth much more than his weight in gold. The population of England and "Wales is 29,001,018 according to the census just taken. This is an increase of over three millioR in ten years. In the very stronghold of Monnonism, Salt Lake City, the gentiles have just elected the school board. The Mormon power is being pretty effectually broken. Occassionally, at least, a wealthy clergyman can be found. Rev. J. Mott Williams, an Episcopal rector, paid $3,057.31 city taxes in Detroit last Saturday. -That is probably a larger amount than his salary. The United States is the largest copper producing country in the world, and Michigan stands second as a copper producing state, being excelled only by Montana, which in 1889 produced 98,000,000 pounds as against 87,455,675 pounds in Michigan. The Detroit Journal speaks editorially of ''the Kansas alliance judge who studied three months at the Michigan University af ter his election to fit himself for the bench." This is news here. No such student ever matriculated in the law department or took lectures. So that the tactics of the obstreperous judge in opposing supreme court decisions cannot be charged to any defect of teaching on the part of the law facultv. In spite of the high tariff laws in this country the production of pig iron during the first six months of the year was ovef a million tons less than the six months of last year, or more than one quarter less. The reduction in output is eyen larger than the reduction which followed the panic of 1873. And yet the miners will be infornied that their present starvation wages are dependent upon the tariff laws and ■will be walked up to the polls to vote the republican ticket. Twenty years ago, the statesmen of that day had very little idea of the enormous amount of money the pension rolls would requireeach year. In 1872 Jamer A. Garfield, chairman of the house committee on appropriations in speaking on the expenditures for pensions which were then $30,000,000 a year, said: "We may reasonably expect that the expenditures for pensions wil] hereafter steadily decrease, unless our legislation should be unwarrantably extravagant." Now, twenty years after that speech our pension expenditues are more than four times what they were then with every prospect of a great and rapid increase. As will be seen by a referenee to our news columns, this coucty outside of the cities and villages lost nearly 3,000 in population in the ten years from 1880 to 1890 under a high protective tariff, which bore down most heavily upon the farming community. This one f act shown by the official census speaks volumes in condemning the tariff policy of the government. But for the tariff policy, the articles which the farmpr buys would have gone down in price as have the prices of what he sells. The farmer gets no benefit from the tariff laws, not even on wool. And he is taxed to meet the expenses of billion dollar congresses and to put more billions into the pockets of the manufacturer and capitalist. What wonder, then, if the finest farming country in the United States shows a decrease in population? Does prohibition prohibit ? Those who believe that it does will have to explain away some statistics collected concerning arrests for drunkenness on the last f ourth of July by the Portland Advertiser. The prohibition law which governs Portland has been on the statute books for over forty years, so that if it ever prohibited, it is about time for it to begin. The arrests of those boisterously dronk on the fourth of last July in that city numbered 82. The arrests in other larger New England cities were: SpringOeld, Mass., 15; Lawrence,Mass.,23; Bridgeport,Ct., 17; Lynn, Mass., 30; and in Worcester, Mass., with more than doublé the popnlation, 40. Prohibition is not in force in these latter cities, and with the knowledge that the average drunken man in Portland was not arrested, the showing for prohibition is of the kind to require explanation from the advocates of prohibition. Pension Commissioner Raum in an article in the July North American Review estimates that 1,208,707 soldiers of the Union are living, and 1,804,658 were either killed in battle or died dunng or since the war. Inother words, nearly Kalf the soldiers of the late rebellion have passed away. Of the survivors, 478,3-56 are on the pension rolls, besides 120,522 widows and dependents. There are now in tlus country about 600,000 pensioners, an enormous number. In addition to this number, over 500,000 claims for pensions are now pending, another enormous number. Is it any wonder that the politicians f all over each other in heir zeal to secure the passage of, pension legislationV
Article
Subjects
Copper Mines
Tariffs
Prohibition
Old News
Ann Arbor Argus
Jay Gould
Montana