Kansas City daily journal., 1897-01-28
EDITORIAL NOTES.

In enc of the magazines for February
there is an article headed Women Pen
sioners of the Revolution" At first blush
this heading seems to refer to women of
the past. but it refers to the present, and
the reader is surprised to learn that there
are now on the rolls of the pension Office
the names of seven widows of men who
served in the war of the Revolution. The
oldest of these pensioners is in the 95th year
of her age, and the youngest is SO years old.
| These women were, of course, young brides
of old men, else they could not have so long
survived men who fought in the Revolution.
One of these pensioned widows married her
Revolutionary hero in 1885, fifty-two years
after the close of the war. when he was &c
years of age and she was only %. The last
widow of the Revolution who married her
husband before the war had closed was
taken from the pension rolls by death
twenty-seven years ago, only year or two
after the death of her husband. who was
the last of the Revolutionary heroes to an
swer the last tattoo.
So anxious are the wool growers of Aus
tIalia to get their wool into the American
market before congress could possibly re-
enact the Mckinley bill that the ship
ments have largely increased. Last week
the exports from Sydney alone, to say
nothing of what was shipped from Mel
bourne, Adelaide. Brisbane and Albany,
reached 1888 bales which were loaded
into six steamships and three sailing ves-
sells. These nine cargoes were valued at
a total of e656OOO, bringing Sydney's total
export up TO 3O5, ,9O5 bales for the season,
with a$total valuation of G3,36O.OOO, equlva-
lent to about s16 900 of American money
OF this amount large proportion was
shipped to various ports in America.
Secretary Olney's disregard for An;eri-
can sentiment is only equaled by his
anxiety to serve Spain at all hazards. His
complacent Indifference to the brutalities
of Weyer's uncivilized methods of warfare
accords with his bitter enmty toward any
thing and everything designed to aid or en-
courage the Cuban patriots in their strug-
gle for freedom. His latest interference
with the regular process of law, in the case
against the Three Friends, coupled with
the threat that if he cannot find sufficient
law for the courts against filibustering he
will prosecute every expedition to Cuba for
piracy, is on par with his remarkable
dispute of the authority of congress to rec
ognize the Cuban republic.
Senator Hawley's remark that "the
American people will fight when they get
ready, treaty or no treaty" is open to criti-
cism. The American people have great
respect for treaties and more than once
have suffered from them rather than violate
them Under the arbitration, too, they
will be much less liable to get ready" to
fight than they would without it. There
never was people more sensitive to ques-
tons of national honor, but at the same
time there never was a people who could
patriotically endure more in the interest of
peace.
1t is idle to maintain that convicts shall
not be employed. Employment is essential
to the health of the convict. Without il
prison discipline would be we'll night i'm
possible, and the men, when turned out
into the world would be totally unfit for
any kind of labor. Therefore the keeping
of men in idleness is not to be thought of.
The problem to be solved is, how shall
the convict labor be employed? Perhaps
an investigation of the effect of prison
products upon the market in ordinary
times would go far toward the solution of
the labor problem in prisons
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