The age-herald., 1898-11-20
AN OLLA-PODRIDA
 OF CURRENT EVENTS
BY NED BRACE.

tance taken up by the senate. Senator
 Morgan is the author of the bill which has
 already been reported favoraby to the
 senate, and which will be the first measure
 pushed. Senator Morgan has been working on this matter for fifteen years and he ex- poets to be successful at this session of congress.
 Nearly every member of the senate, as
 well as the majority of those in the house,
 are in favor of building the Nicaragua
 canal. Yet, there promises to be bitter
 contest over the method of it's construction. Everybody wants the canal, but there are
 as many as a half dozen plans proposed
 for its construction. Senator Morgan's bill
 provides for its construction by the Mari
 time Canal company, aided by the United
 States government.
 I was talking with Senator Money, Of
 Mississippi, about the matter several days
 ago. Senator Money is an enthusiast on
 the subject of building the canal, but he
 says he shall fight Senator Morgan's bill.
 He wants the government itself to build
 the canal. He wants it to be a United States government canal. Senator Money is extremely hostile toward the Maritime Canal company, which is headed by Ex-
 Senator Warner Miller, of New York. Senator Money declares that the Maritime Canal company is nothing more nor less
 than great fake institution. He says
 that the company has done practically
 nothing, but has simply been manipulating
 it's stock for years for the apparent pur- pose of making money out of the govern ment.
 Senator Money says he will oppose the bill until the Maritime Canal company Is removed from participa tion in its construc- tion. He says the charter rights of this company, granted by Nicaragua, expire next year, and perhaps the government may have to wait until that time to oblit- crate this company
 Senator Morgan has always believed that the Maritime Canal company had such rights and charters that the government
 could not proceed to build the canal with out first obtaining the franchises held by it.
 Senator Turpie, of Indiana, has been prob ably the most vigorous opponent Of the Maritime Canal company on the floor Of the senate.
 If course, the Pacific railroads will fight the building of the canal, and, of course
  character of the bill which is to be passed, but the indications are that this congress will pass a bill of some kind for the con- struction of the canal.
 I happened to be in Memphis Thursday and Friday while the quarantine convention was in session. Every delegate had a set
 of resolutions and every delegate proposed
 his resolutions It was perfect bedlam of speech-making and arguments and the
 work 1t accomplished is more or less of stradde However, it-is probably well that
 these matters should be thoroughly argued and that so much interest is manifested in
 tne discussion It will probably lead con- gress to pass a bill of some kind to super wise quarantine matters and cooperate thoroughly and completely with the states. I was at a meeting of the publishers of
 the large morning daily papers of the south held in Memphis on Thursday. It was a sort of "experience" meeting. The editors, proprietors and managers of all the south-
 ern morning papers met to talk over busi-
 ness matters. Each one told what he was
 doing with his paper, how much circulation he had, what he paid for white paper, what
 he charged for advertising, and, in fact, all the details of management, and many of them spoke of their profits. One publisher, short distance west of Birmingham, an- nounced that his paper had made a net profit of $40,000 last year. An editor of paper a short distance east of Birmingham l>announced that his paper had made clear | profit of 1885, 900 last year. Knowing that
 The Age-Herald had not cleaRed~ quite ~as. l much as eithen-0f these, investigation de- I veloped r,i5T fact that it was because of the
 very low price paid for advertising in Bir-
 mngham. I learned that the merchants of | Birmingham get their advertising 20 per l cent cheaper than those of any other im- | portant city of the south. Memphis Nash | vile and Atlanta merchants are compelled l to pay from two to six times as much per 1 inch for advertising, and they apparently
 do it willingly.
 I was surprised to learn that one south 1 ern publisher charges 75 cents per line for
 each insertion of ad1 . Using in his news l paper columns. As there are fourteen lines l to the inch in agate type, which is the l standard of measurement, the merchants of l the city referred to, and elsewhere, must
 pay $10.50 per inch per insertion for their l advertisements
 1 The publisher of the Ladies' Home Jour
 nal, who was present, announced 1 that the cheapest advertising taken by his | paper, payable in cash in advance, was s5
 per agate line. This class of advertising
 comes high, but it seems that the mer-
 chants and manufacturers deal in it largely,
 for it is a known fact that the Ladies'
 Home Journal never prints less than $50O00
 worth of advertising in any one of its .s- | SueS HoWeyer the circulation of this l periodical is S470OO per issue.
 I An important matter discussed by the publishers was how to protect the adver- tisers of city from fake advertising so- licitors This class work great harm to
 regular newspapers. The Birmingham mer-
 chant, probably, knows as much about | them as the merchants of any other city
 in the world. They have been imposed
 upon repeatedly. I know one con- | Il.u xxxl,;o fo~