The Daily times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1886-1889, 1888-02-03
CREAM OF THE PRESS.
CURRENT COMMENT OF LIVE JOCE-
NAILS on LEADING TOPICS.

4
NAILS on LEADING TOPICS.
gress-Ihe Reading Railroad Strike ana
| the So-CaIIed Trust Combines General
| sherman ON the War-Tarif Reduction.
The House Of Representatives has OF
dered two inquiries of the greatest ini-
portance-that into the combinations
which call themselves trusts and that III
to the Reading Rail. Dad troubles.
The answer is that the inquiries are ex.
trcmely important To guide the general
action of Congress upon measures OF
taxation and revenue. A thorough in
vestigation of the Reading Railroad
troubles. for instance, will, We are con
fdent. show that with coal duty free no
such troubles would occur 1t is, we be
| lieve. because a needless and TO all New
| England specially injurious duty on
! foreign coal gives TO the coal combina-
ton, which includes mine owners and
operators and coal carrying roads, mo
nopoly, that there has been for so many
wears trouble and complaint from work
men in the Pennsylvania coal regions.
Now, if a thorough investigation shall
make this clear, "a we are confident ii
will, Congress will see that its most I'M
perative duty TO the people at large ana
To the workmen in the mines Is TO strike
of the duty on coal The inquiry il,
therefore, most useful and necessary.
| Of course the monopolist organs will cry
out that TO make coal duty free will
| lower the wages of miners, bu, that IL
bosh. Their wages are now so low that
they cannot be lowered without starry
ing the men and their families,
and the monopollsts not only
have : kept wages at starvation point, but
| have for years managed that their people
should not even have steady employment
at that.-N. J. Hcrad.
The resolution of Senator HOar, to ex-
tend the present presidential term TO
April 80, 1889, and to make the last day
OF April Inauguration day in every
| fourth wear, aud the commencement Of
the congressional term, is offered a. part
of movement which was explained and
advocated i'm The Sur last year. The
fact that there was no opposition to the
resolution i'm the Senate shows the on
currence of public sentiment i'm its favor
If passed by the House, the constitu-
tional amendment will 90 into effect on
being ratified by the legislatures Of
twenly-seyen States.-N. }. STIR.
II is a pity that the House of Repre-
seatatiyes should have been melted to
take official notice Of the Reading strike
No good has ever been done by any con-
gressional investigation of labor
trouble and no good is likely TO be
done simply because the fact uppermost
in the minds of the investigators is the
numerousness and importance Of the
labor vote. Mr.. Rayner's points about
the tax lodging of the Reading road may
be well taken ana might be worth inves-
tigating by themselves, /. it he true that
the road has evaded its State taxes on the
plea that it was an interstate corpora
ton and therefore responsible only to
Congress.-N Y. Times.
General W. f. Sherman has just pub
an essay on the strategy Of the civil war,
i'm the course of which he makes the fol-
lowing allegation:
Thus the Army of the Potomac had
four commanding generals, the Presi-
dent. the Secretary OF War, General Hal
leck, and General Mcclellan, each giving
orders, planning campaigns, ordering de-
tachments hither and thither, seemingly
without concert, and based on the latest
information by spies and infOrmers.
Nothing but Divine Providence could
have saved the nation from humiliation
at that crisis of our history
This is rhetoric run wild and assertion
without balance. There is no fOunda-
ton but fancy for the ayerment that in
dependent, contradictory orders were is
sued to the Army of the Potomac by the
President, the Secretary OF War, and
General IIalleck, or that either of them as
sumed 10 command that army General
Halleck was the Convnanderin-Chief Of
all the armies, with his headquarters al
Washington.-N J. Sun.
Senator Frye recently introduced and
had referred 10 the Senate Committee on
Finance bill providing that the con-
sent of Congress is hereby given that the
laws of the several states relating TO the
sale of distilled and fermented liquors
within the limits of each State may apply
to such liquors when they have been i'm
ported in the same manner as when they
have been manufactured in the United
States"
The committee very sensibly wish to
be relieved from the consideration of
this bill, and ask that it be referred to
the Judiciary Committee as involving a
constitutional question. The bill of
course discriminates against importers
who live in alleged prohibition States
like Maine, and is designed to prevent
the Maine importer from selling the i'm
ported goods in original packages TO any
persons in that State
We should suppose that such legisla-
ton bv Congress would be clearly uncon-
stituiional.- Washington Post
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