And still the beet sugar bonnty industry...

And still the beet sugar bonnty industry goes merrily on. Lansing is now figuring on a factory. Since the Register has become absorbed in the Phillipine question it has forgotten that there ever was such a person as Billy Judson. We notice that Bro. J. M. Moses, of the Marshall Expounder, has been summoned as a witness in the celebrated Mains case now on trial at that place. As this Mains case was a dark affair it is altogether probable that the court wants to find out where Moses was when the light went out. John B. Corliss is said to be an exceedingly busy congressman this session. He has introduced a bill for the construction of a cable to Hawaii and a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. . This is the sort of activity that-is ex pensive for the people but it is a never failing Republican symptom. Senator Butler, the North Carolina populist, has introduced a bill giving Confederate veterans, from this time forward, the same graft on the pension fund that the Union veterans has. Evidently the senator does not know that McKinley's Southern speeches are not intended for Northern consumption. It is rumored that the cards have been fixed for unseating John J. Perren, Democratic senator-elect from the first district. If this is the way the Republican factions propose to cultivate the good graces of the Democratic minority they may strike some slippery places before the session has progressed far. The book concerns which have on hand a large stock of unsaleable second-hand books which they can throw on the market at any price are anxious to force school book uniformity upon the people of Michigan. Superintendent of Public Instruction Hammond seems to be aiding these concerns in this purpose. According to the Detroit Journal the appointment of Ralph Stone has a sort of a "get there Eli Sutton" tinge to it. Permit us to suggest that until Col. Dean 's term as regent expires by constitutional limitation and he fails of re-election, Colonel Eli will have something of a job of getting there of his own to attend to. And now comes Dr. Carl Louis Perrin and says that Pingree will be president and that he is just as sure of it as if the votes of the electoral college had already been cast for him. What pleasant prospects for the anti-Pingreeites! Perrin is the palmist ho read McKinley's hand several years before he was president and pronounced the presidential verdict upon it. He has been reading the fine lines of the governor's hand. He reminds one of the old-fashioned phrenologists who gave school house readings and after feeling the bumps of the school boys often found presidential timber. Col. A. T. Bliss, of Saginaw, has a scheme for paying pensions which strikes him as the correct thing. He thinks the burden of $160,000,000 a year is, perhaps, a little too heavy for the present generation. So he would issue 50-year bonds and sell them to pay the pensions as they become due. This would relieve the pressure at the present time, but what a legacy for our grandchildren. At the present rate of f160, 000, 000 per year there would be $8,000,000,000 of these bonds out in 50 years. Eight billions may not be a large national debt 50 years hence but it is a larger sum than any nation has been able to pile up as a public burden up to the present time. Col. Bliss says these bonds would make a desirable investment at 8 per cent interest, would go like hot cakes as it were. And that is the trouble. They would take too well, they would open the door to gross laxity and extravagance in the matter of pensions and they would not save the present generation anything, for the money which is now used for the payment of pensions would be squandered. for less meritorious purposes. No, Col. Bliss, your bond scheme will not produce any more material results than your candidacy for the republican nomination for governor did a short time since. Judge Day and Whitelaw Reid are to receive 100.000 each for doing what hundreds of men would have done better and done it for nothing. Not content with holding down 25 per cent of Michigan 's seats in congress the Smith family is now reaching out after one-half of the senatorial seats. Of course that little $100,000 fee of Judge Day's is not intended as adequate compensation for spending 13 weeks in Paris, but just as a small token of the president's fellow feeling for an Ohioan. It is taken for granted that Farmer John T. Rich will have his fall work far enough advanced that he can leave the farm in charge of the hired man while be helps Senator Burrows with his log rolling next month. While the Courier recognizes the fact that Governor Pingree is a pretty fair sized man and pretty much of a governor that journal does not concede that he is big enough to be governor, legislature and supreme court all at once. P. S. - The Courier is for Burrows. The Kalamazoo Telegraph, edited by E.5. N. Dingley, the son of his father, says that the receipts of revenue from the Dingley tariff have exceeded the expectations of its sponsors. This must be taken as a confession that it was never intended to meet the expenses of government. We are not surprised to learn that Captain Schuh, is an expansionist of the most pronounced figure. A survey of the captain 's equatorial zone is sufficient to convince us that he would be recreant to a well developed trust did he hold other than the most inflated views on the question. When the American army took possession of Santiago last August the existing tariff duties were cut down 62 per cent by an executive order. President McKinley has just signed a general tariff for Cuba which reduces the Santiago tariff still lower and many articles now dutiable are put on the free list. Mr. McKinley heads a party which has been preaching high tariff for 40 years. The higher the tariff the more beneficent its effects. How will he explain to the waiting multitude a reduction for Cuba which is a direct contradiction to the apostolic creed of protection. The differences between the Chicago school board and Supt. Andrews have been settled and victory perches on the banner of the superintendent. The victory is a notable one for the cause o education and will be far reaching in its results. It is in the interest of every child in the public schools of Chicago. Dr. Andrews' contention was that the superintendent being the professional head of the school system, selected because of technical knowledge of educational matters in general, should have the full and unhampered direction of all of the educational work of the schools. This, according to Dr. Andrews, includes the initiative in the appointment, promotion, transfer and dismissal of all teachers and freedom in mapping out courses of study and directing methods of instruction. His idea is that the duties of the board begin and end in the management of the business pertaining to the school system. That when they have selected a superintendent, they should concern themselves with the results of his work alone, leaving him the widest discretion in the management of educational matters. For if a mistake is made in the selection of an incompetent superintendent, a remedy is always at hand in his dismissal and the employment of another. That there should have been any room for difference between the superintendent and his official superiors on these grounds, seems strange. That it was the intention when the office of superintendent was instituted that he should perform, unrestricted, the above mentioned functions is unquestioned. Upon no other hypothesis can the office be defended. But there has been a disposition in many places for the board, subject as its members are, to political pulls and wirepulling influences, to encroach upon the prerogatives of the superintendent and to make of this important official a mere figurehead. In standing up strongly for the functions of his office and an untrammelled exercise of these duties, therefore, Superintendent Andrews has performed a lasting service to the cause of public education. Senator Burrows doubtless under stands that if the "national honor" is to be preserved through his re-election it must be done upon a gold basis. It was all right for Judas Iscariot to do business with silver, but the dollar which will be powerful enough to re elect Michigan's most gorgeous statesman must be just as good as any other dollar and better than Pack's.