A bilí lias just been passed in the Iow...

A bilí lias just been passed in the Iowa legislature giving women the right of suffrage in town, city and school elections. The principie of woman suffrage is evidently marching on. The only labor interest to which certain United States senators seem to give recognition in the performance of their official duties is the labor of the lobby. They are prompt to respond to any cry of distress from that source. 'And when it was all over not a Senator from either side of the chamber congratulated the man who had spoken." Such are the reports from Washington as to the reception accorded Senator Hill when he finished his recent speech in the senate. It speaks volumes. The republican pharisees who held up their hands in holy horor at the appointment of Van Alen to the Italian mission look with great satisfaction and complacency upon the purchase ot a Rhode Island senatorship by that millionaire resident of New York City and prince of good fellows, George Peabody Wetmore. Apparently we have arrived at that dangerous period in our country's history, forseen by many of the greatest of our early statesmen, when the privileged classes created by special legislation would prove stronger than the government and control it by corrupting it. It is a humiliating spectacle to see the policy of an overwhelming majority ot the people betrayed and thwarted by a coterie of men who are not dependent upon the people for the positions they hold. The only way to remedy this condition of things will be to cause United States senators to be elected by the people. According to the New York World Congressman John DeWitt Warner has prepared a document upon Sugar Tariff and the Sugar Trust for the use of the finance committee of the senate giving all the known facts on the subject. It advocates the laying of a tax of a half cent per pound on all imported raw material and refined sugar. Should Mr. Warrner's scheme be enacted into law, it would not add one cent per ton to the cost of sugar to the consuraer, but it would transfer the $i8, 000,000 which the people now pay to the unspeakable sugar trusts into the United States treasury. This $ 1 S, 000, 000 is the tribute which the people annual pay under the McKinley law for the farther enrichment of the already enormously wealthy and monopolistic sugar trust. Could the so-called democratie "Conservatives" in the United States senate once realize the vast distance between the moral position occupied by themselves and that always assumed by Thomas Jefferson, the great father of democracy, their action upon certain schedules of the Wilson bill would undoubtedly be changed. The following is the rule of action by which Jefferson claimed always to be governed: "When I first entered on the stage of public life I carne to a resolution never to engage, wliile in public oflice. in any kind of enterprise for the improvement of my fortune. I have never departed from it in a single instance, and J have in multinlied instances. found inyself happy in being able to decide and act as a public servant, clear of all interest, in the rnultiform questions that have arisen, wherein I have seen others embarrassed and biased by having got themselves in a more interested situation." The republicans affect to be greatly shocked at the doings of the wicked democrats in seating one or two democratie contestaras from districts claimed by republicans. It would be well for these g. o. p. patriots to try to collect their scattered thoughts and see if they cannot recall the high-hand and coldblooded methods by which they created a safe majority at the time of the Czarship of Reed. No clearer cases of downright stealing of Congressional seats were ever indulged in, and yet the very same people who are now most indignant at the democrats for their actions in unseating a republican or two were loudest in their commendation of all the odious acts of Reedism. Their own action at that time was so much worse than any thing that has happened in the present congress that there can be no comparisons drawn. If their own example shall return as a boomerang upon them, they have no one to blame but themselves. Those features of the federal constitution which the test of time has proven most unsatisfactory of all the work of the fathers are the compromises. The one relating to the election of president and vice-president was long since overridden by the people and made of no effect. That relating to the question of slavery has been blotted out in blood. The one providing the existing method of electing United States senators still lingers, a menace to the supremacy of the people. Every day makes more apparent the necessity of removing this remaining evidence of distrust of the ability of the people to govern themselves and elect their own ofïïcers. This change cannot be made directly of [ course withouc an admendment to the constitution, but the substance of it can be secured through nominations made by the state conventions. r Illinois is a pioneer in this movement, and the two men whom she thus nominated and elected to the senate, while not men of enorrnoiis wealth who purchased their nominations and election, were men of great ability, the peers of any who ever represen ted that proud state in the upper house of congress. A concerted movement should be started araong the people in favor of this method and party conventions should be required to nomínate a candidate for senator the same as other candidates are nominated. Then when legislative canidates are named, they should be pledged, if elected, to stand by the party nominee for senator. Senators would by this method be made responsible to the people and would be compelled to heed their wishes. The voice of the people would then control in every división of our government, in practice as well as in theory.