Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-06-29

count as q satisfactory gain for the present
local appointments to purely local Offices, and
be, comparatively speaking, content with this
degree Of consideration.
An interesting problem will be-not solved,
but-advanced one step toward solution if
the President persists in his purpose of pro-
hibiting the introduction of intoxicants into
the District militia camp next month. The
W. G. I. L., who have urged him to issue such
an order, act on the general principle that the
moral duty of the government to the soldiers
as individuals demands the removal of tempta-
ton from them The opponents of the pro-
posed rule, however, consider this question
of practical expediency rather than of morals,
and fear that the militiamen, having no suffers
booth to depend upon, will supply themselves
with stimulants in q private way; that tent
tipping will take the place of drinking at the
bar; and that distilled liquors, owing to their
smaller bulk and better keeping qualities, will
be consumed instead Of the less harmful pro-
duets of malt and hops. We shall see the
struggle between the prohibition and license
systems exemplihed on a narrow scale in this
experiment in camp; and, while the results
will probably convert nobody among the
disputants, since their opinions on the ques-
ton are already pretty well fixed, they will
supply the one side or the other, and perhaps
both, with brand new stock of arguments, hot
from the griddle of observation.
Commissioner Roosevelt is gaining golden
opinions everywhere for the manly way in
which he has laid his grip upon the frauds mas
que-ading in the guise of civil service reform.
His conduct has been independent and unset
fish enough to draw hattering comments from
sources where enmity was to have been looked
for through over-zealous partisanship. That
is as it should be- Civil service reform is only in
its infancy now. 1t will continue to grow in
importance as an issue, the better the people get
acquainted with its merits. One day it may
reach point where q presidential election
will actually turn upon it; and then all parties
will search for candidates whose past records
give the best earnest of their future policy
There is q bye-and-bye for those who stand
firmly at their posts as reformers, as surely as
for those who spit at reform and try to block
its progress. Let every young man in public
life who doubts the wisdom of initiating Mr..
Rooseyelts course bear this in mind
Six rows Of seven stars each will ornament
the blue field in the corner Of our national flag
with the coming Independence Day, the day
Of all the year in which the old flag may most
appropriately spread itself. The point has
been raised with respect to the arrangement,
that no such symmetry will be possible again
till We have forty-nine states in the Union,
when the stars will stand in seven rows of
seven But from the way the territories are
filling up that may not be so very long hence,
especially If California and Texas consent to
L.. -. -S.L
habits, Arizona runs irrigating bitches through
her broad acres Of desert, and Oklahoma grows
in the nurture and admonition Of sound Ameri-
can citizenship as fast as she has grown in pop
ulation during the last three months.
In the Mellow murder trial which has been
exciting Charleston the jury consists of seven
colored and five white men, and the fact is noted
as an indication that no color distinction is
made, outside Of the law, in impaneling juries
in the south, and that the fourteenth amend
ment as construed by the Supreme Court Of the
United States is fully observed in this respect.
A jury to try q white man in which negroes
predominant Is, however, q novelty in the
south, not from any practice Of disregarding
the fourteenth amendment in impaneling
juries, but from the fact that a
white man accused of crime ordinarily
makes use Of his peremptery challenges
to cause his jury to be, nearly as possible, of
the same complexion with himself, with the
idea that the sympathy of q jury thus composed
can be more readily aroused in his behalf.
That the Jury in the Mellow case contains a
majority Of negroes is probably due TO the be-
lief Of the accused that q prejudice which ex-
listed among the colored people against Capt.
Dawson, whom he killed, may be utilized to
his advantage with jurors Of that race. Thus
It happens that the spectacle, strange to south
srn eyes, is presented Of the rendering of a
decision Of life or death concerning promi-
nent white citizen by tribunal in which men,
beers Of the recently subject race predominant.
Consumers Of coal need not lose courage be-
cause the mining barons have combined 70
raise prices. Whilesthe hot season lasts 1,
won't make much difference; and, before the
cold weather comes again, the chances are that
the barons will be cutting under each other on
the sly and the public getting the benefit Of
their treachery. History repeats itself in the
coal market % elsewhere.
There 70 some complaint Of dull business