lfc is said the Filipinos distrust Cien....

lt is said the Filipinos distrust Otis and that they will listen to no peace talk from him. There are others who distrust him also. They are said however to have profound respect for Admiral Dewey.

It is said that a new nation has sprung into existence in South America being formed of territory in dispute between Brazil and Bolivia. The people of this territory becoming weary of the eternal quarrel have declared their independence and set up the nation of Acre.

The power of the tursts to do untold injury to the people is finely illustrated by the recent raising of the price of beef by the Beef Trust when there was no diminishing of the supply or increase of demand. There was no excuse whatever for this increase in price except the greed of the trust. But the people are obliged to pay the two cents a pound increase all the same. The trust has the power to inforce its demands, and who shall say nay?

Reports that Gen. Merritt is to succeed Gen. Otis in command in the Philippines, are beginning to come now with the regularity of the reports, some time ago, that Secretary Alger would be succeeded by someone else in the War Department. Judging from the Alger case, therefore, the displacement of Gen. Otis is not far distant. If the President is to get the Philippine war off his hands before the next presidential campaign, he will need a more active General in command there than Otis. The country has all the confidence in Merritt which it lacks in Otis.

Oom Paul does not refuse the British request for a joint inquiry as to the effects of the recent Boer legislation increasing the political rights of the Uitlanders but he in turn offers another solution. What he offers is said to be much more than has ever been offered before but his proposition carries with it an agreement on the part of Britain that she surrenders all rights of suzerainty over the Transvaal. But she is not likely to give up what authority she has over the Tarnsvaal. What she wants is more authority and this she will undoubtedly obtain sooner or later.

It is reported that Gen. Otis has ordered the exclusion of the Chinese from the Philippines. If this be true, it will probably add to the difficulties the American is experiencing there. Exclusion there probably means much more to the Chinese than exclusion from the states. The Celestials may even things up by making it a little easier for the Filipinos to get their munitions of war from Chinese sources. Why not? American sympathy went with those who tried to aid the Cuban rebels in the same way. At least it is not easy to see what advantage is to accrue to the Americans from this act.

The Michigan Central is just now burdened with freight business, more freight passing over the line than ever before. In fact, this is true of all the great trunk lines, The movement of freight in every direction is said to be the greatest ever known. Some of the trunk lines are short of cars to meet the demands of their business to the number of 5,000 to 10,000. This fact seems marvelous when one stops to think that the rail ways of this country have resources greater than any others in the world. The car builders are overrun with orders, being unable to meet the demands upon them. This is due in considerable measure to the fact that there is a large foreign demand for American cars, 36 percent of the possible product of the existing factors being contracted for abroad.

At last is may be said the president has a Philippine policy. He is at least making great preparations tor a vigorous pushing of the war. In the mean time his pile of money is growing beautifully less. Already talk is being indulged to the effect that more taxes must be laid or else a resort to bond sales will be necessary in the near future. The $80,000,000 appropriated for the expenses of the war are rapidly growing less, more than a third of it having been spent in two months. As the army continues to grow, the expense increases. When it reaches a 100,000, there will be a much larger expense account. Where is the money to come from except through an increase of war taxes or a bond issue?

Now it is said that Capt. Oberlin M. Carter, who was found guilty by the unanimous vote of a court martial of embezzing several million dollars while in charge of river and harbor improvements along the gulf coast, and sentenced to be dismissed from the army, suffer three years imprisonment and pay a fine of $10,000, is about to have a part of his sentence, at least, set aside by President McKinley. The handling of this case has been a disgrace to the administration, and show how completely subservant McKinley is to those who have money. The powerful friends of this convicted felon have not only had influence enough with the President to keep him from carrying out the sentence of the court, but to enable the scoundrel to continue to wear the uniform which he has disgraced and to draw his full salary in the regular army. Repeated efforts have been made to find some loop-hole out of the findings of the court, but none have been discovered. Now it is said the President will intervene to mitigate the deserved sentence.

The present plans of the Washington administration are it is said to have 63,000 men in the Philippines at the beginning of the dry season. Out of this number it is expected there will be at all times an effective force of 50,000. Evidence increases to prove that they will all be needed and possibly more. Notwithstanding the fact that Gen. Otis has insisted all along that he had men enough, recent reports say that the Americans only hold a radius of 15 miles about Mnaila nine miles about Iloilo and a small radius about Cebu and outside of these limits the Filipinos are in full control and that on indescribable state of anarchy exists. The Americans are likely to have fighting to do in Negras, Cebu and Panay as well as in Lulu and will probably need every man provided for by congress. The administration is acting wisely in sending sufficient force to the Philippines to do the work it has set his hand to do. But the causistency of leaving a general in command whose reports as to the number of men needed to do the work have been distinctly repudiated is not discernable to the layman.

Who said the Mattew Stanly Quay's days of bossism in Pennsylvania were over? Did he not control Wednesday's state convention just as absolutely as though he had nut been an indicted felon a few months since? He named every functionary of the convention form temporary officers to every man on the ticket. He even had the convention endorse himself as the appointee of Gov, Stone to the United States senate. He appears to have completely rehabilitated himself notwithstanding the fact that he escaped the penitentary only on a technicality. He is now the greatest and most unscrupulous boss in the country excepting only Mark Hanna. Dick Croker holds larger New York in the hollow of his hand and Platt has something of a grasp on the throat of the republicans of New York state, yet these bosses reduce their followers to no such slavery as does Quay. Mark Hanna surpasses Quay only in the territory he takes in. It is a strange thing that our institutions and political methods beget such things but they do and men of pretentions to honesty and clean politics place themselves absolutely in the hands of the boss. Then when these men are placed in positions of power the boss's interests instead of those of the people receive first attention. However the people deserve just what they get and appear to be satisfied.

There appears to be pretty reliable authority for the belief that President McKinley himself is the one most principally to blame for the inadequate forces with which the Philippine war has been fought thus far, and consequently for the paucity of accomplishment there. It appears that Secretary Alger and the military men about Washington, including Gen. Miles, who, of course, was wholly ignored, advised the sending of larger forces there. But, with his usual infirmity of purpose, indecision and fear of the consequences upon his political future, the President procrastinated and waited for something to turn up waited for the McKinley lack. Finally having compelled the hapless Secretary of War to become a McKinley scapegoat, he invites into his Cabinet a man of acknowledged great ability, Elihu Root, presto change! Secretary Root is a man of large grasp, and determined. He brings the President to as much of a decision as a man of his temperament ever reaches. He lets the President understand that if he is going to administer the War Department, his advice must have weight, He warns the President that eastern Republicans are losing faith in the administration and are coming to believe that it is incapable of handling the great issues which confront it. The secretary presses the necessity of a more vigorous policy, until he finally obtains consent to enlist men up to the limits of the number prescribed by law. Having entered upon a war of subjugation in the Philippines, an adequate force is the first essential. It is a good thing for the country, therefore, that the President has found a man larger than himself, whose counsel he is practically forced to follow- if he is to retain him in the Cabinet.