The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1891-06-09
DOMESTIC NEWS.

OOMES IL NE w -
DIES MONIES, Iowa, May 29.-Gover-
nor Boies is making a record as the
champion pardoner. Since the first of
April, he has granted two pardons and
nine suspensions to criminals. Five of
the nine suspensions are in favor of
violators of the ~prohibitory law. The
tender mercy wherewith the Governor
tempers the severe justice of the State
Of Iowa is indicated by his reason for
releasing one Kinney, a notorious
liquor seller of Louisa county, who
was convicted of maintaining a liquor
nuisance, sentenced at the November
term, 1890, to pay a fine of $500, and in
default committed to jail. Gov. Boies
granted a suspension because, in his
opinion, a fine of 5000 was excessive"
punishment for this brutal and persist
ent law-breaker.-The Voice.
The case of Professor Briggs came
before the Assembly last week and, as
was expected, resulted in a vote of dis
approval. The majority against him
was about seven to one. This does not
by any means settle matters. There is
serious doubt as to the rights Of the
Assembly in the case. The right to
veto an appointment is not called in
question. But in this case it is not a
new appointment, but a transfer from
one chair to another. DR.. Briggs has
been, for seventeen years, we believe,
connected with the Union Theological
Seminary. If he had been disapproved
when first appointed, there would have
been no legal complications; but
whether the authority of the Assembly
extends to assignments of work for the
different teachers is a question which
may yet go to the civil courts for ad-
Indication. In the meantime, the
presbytery of which DR.. Briggs is a
member has instituted a trial for
heresy, which is likely to become his
torical. The decision in the case will
be taken from one e~ccesiasticaI court
to another till it reaches the General
Assembly. For sometime to come,
therefore, DR.. Briggs is likely to be a
centre of unusual agitation in religious
| circles .-The Voice.
The Kaweah Colony experiment, in
Tulare county, California, is the sub
ject of an interesting two-column news
letter in the Memphis, Tenn, CONNER
cjaI of May 25th. AS our readers are
aware, this colony is in the nature of
a socialistic experiment, meaning
socialism not in the anarchial sense at
tached to the word by many, but in
the sense of industrial cooperation.
These socialistic experiments of the
past have been, almost uniformly, fail
ures. Their failure, too, has generally
sprung from internal weakness or dis
sension. The only exceptions have
been colonies that were held together
by some peculiar religious rites or be-
liefs. Kaweah Colony and the colony
at Topolobampo, Mexico, are recent
| experiments that have seemed to
promise better things. But in the case
of the former misfortunes wholly I'm
deserved, as we are persuaded, have
been inflicted upon the colony from the
outside, the latest being the decision of
the Secretary of the Interior denying
to the settlers title to the lands which
they have at great expense improved.
These prosecutions are attributed by
the colonists themselvest to the machina-
tions of a great lumber corporation
that covets the rich timber land the
| colony has made accessible. A glow
ing picture of contentment and pros
perity is drawn by the writer in the
Memphis Commercial, and is confirmed
by copies of The TuI0re County Times
which have come to us, and by public
-manifestoes made by the colonists
themselves. Perhaps one of the reasOns
why Kaweah Colony has been such a
marked exception to the socialistic ex-
periments of the past, is to be found in
this one descriptive phrase: GA town
without a saloon" The absence of
a saloon" The absence of saloons, by
the way, was one of the features of Sir
Thomas More's Utopia" written
nearly 400 years ago. Pity Bellamy
did not display equal sagacity.-The
Voice.