John W. Mcgrath

The democratie nominee for justice of the supreme court, John W. McGrath, is by ability, learning and experience well fitted for the high position. He is at the present time chief justice of the court and is a credit to the bench. He possesses a judicial mind and is a strong, logical, convincing reasoner. His decisions show him to be deeply versed in the principies of law and disposed to hold the scales of justice with the same delicacy of balance for all classes of people. He has no leanings towards corporations as is proven by one and all of his decisions. In fact he is exceptionally impartial. He is a man of fine presence, courteous and dignified and always approachable. He is a democrat in principie, but is unbiased as a judge. He is at the nieridian of his powers, both mental and physical. He is a well tried man, while his opponent is without experience on the supreme bench and in a condition of health such as to make the exacting duties of the court burdensome. Besides it is better for all concerned that the court be not wholly partisan. His experience, his record, his learning, his health and his belonging to the opposite political school from the rest of the court, all plead for his election rather than his opponent. Under these circumstances he ought to be re-elected. There is something wonderful in the facility with which the great exponents of the protective theory change front as changing economie conditions affect their particular interests. Andrew Carnegie, one of the leading beneficiaries of the system which " taxes people rich," has been telling the world through the Forum what he would do, by the grace of God and Andrew Carnegie, in the matter of the tariff, were he Czar of these United States. Strange]y enough Czar Carnegie would do just what ironmaker Carnegie has been obstructing, with all the vast wealth and influence at nis command for many years - levy a tariff for revenue only, and that upon the luxuries of the rich rather than upon the necessities of the poor. But we are not to give Andrew Carnegie the Czar credit for a philanthrophy that is lacking in Andrew Carnegie the protected ironmaker. Consideration for the American laborer or the American consumer is not a factor of his conversión. Self-interest is still the dominating inñuence in his economie doctrine. Conditions have changed in the iron industry, and human like, Mr. Carnegie has changed with them. The American iron-masters no longer need protection from foreign competition, but a foreign market, and they now consent to recognize the fundamental principie of commerce, that trade of every character implies an exchange of commodities, and that any interference with the freedom of that exchange is a restriction upon home industry. Carnegie can sell iron producís to customers in other lands only by taking, either directly or indirectly, their products in exchange, and the extent as well as the profits of the trade will depend largely upon the facility with which he can puss the American tariff wall. This try has spent hundreds of millions in improving communication for the - benefit of trade. Mountain ranges ' have been leveied, rivers deepéned, harbors enlarged, and steamship lines subsidized. We are non considering in the construction of the I Nicuragan canal a gigantic ■ ment upon the handiwork of the' Almighty. Yet these improvements, ' in so far as they relate to external ! commerce, are futile so long as their ! effect is met and parried by trade j restriction. , The monumental effrontery of the Michigan legislature in passing resolutions felicitating the country on the adjournment of the 53CI congress surpasses everything in that line known to the oldest inhabitant. If there ever was a case of the devil rebuking sin this seems to be a case of it. YVhat has the Michigan legislature done to entitle it to parade this "holier than thou" spirit? It has been in session nearly two and a half months and what has it accomplished for the people's I tage? It has taken several junkets at state expense and drawn three dollars a day as salary for its members. It has prepared a fine lot of partisan bilis and knocked out Pingree, one of its own ilk. It has tried hard to submit a constitutional amendment to the people increasing the salary of various state officers, thereby creating another ctyportunity for a repetition of the frauds of '91 and '93. Unless its fruitage, therefore, shall belie its promise, its demise some months henee will be even more welcome to the people of the state than was the expiration of the 53rd congress to the nation. The expiring congress undoubtedly deserved tnuch of the wholesale criticisrn which has been directec against it; but it might have been worse. It might have been a republican congress, and iii that event the country would in all probability be staggering under the incubus of the makeshift Sherman silver purchasing law and the trade-crippling and revenue-reducing McKinley tariff law. The tifty-third congress is entitled to credit for the repeal of these demagogie and monopoly enactments. It performed in this respect a great and praiseworthy work. It is only because it failed to supplement this work with the passage of other remedial legislation that it has disappointed the expectations and forfeited the confidence of the party which elected it. - Lansing Journal. The following words of Congressman Tom L. Johnson, of Cleveland, are worthy the careful consideration of every working man: '■ This demand for proteetive duties for the beneüt of the American workingman is the veriest sham. You cannot protect labor by putting import duties on goods. Protection makes it liarder for the masses of our people to live It may increase the profits of favored capitalists; it may build up trusts and créate great fortunes, but it sanuot raise wages. You know for yourselves that what your employers pay you in wages does not depend on what any tariff may enable them to make, but on what they can get oth3is to tuke your places." " When the day shall dawn in which the farmer, the mechanic and the wage worker shall alike have the right and the privilege to go into the open, liberated markels of the land and buy where their hard-earned money will buy most for their wants, with none to molest, to assess, to levy, to take tollr or to task or tax, then indeed will the millenium of labor have come and all the sons and daughters of toil shall rise up and cali their government bless;d." - Voorhees.