The National tribune., 1903-10-08

no person believed much in It, yet 1t was
stumbling block. Finally Fl Of the au-
tOmobile makers, who had been more or
less successful in perfectinR the machine,
| formed a trust with Selden's patent as
their basis. Its validity, which is very
gravely doubted by most of the attorneys,
has never been actually called in question,
and the automobile makers who secured
| Selden's rights in some way have deter
mined that it shall not he called In ques-
ton. 1t is good enough for them just as it
| is, and they compel everybody who at
tempts to make an automobile to pay royal /
| ty to them and agree not TO begin any suit
/ TO test the validity of the patent These
operations choke out any possible competi-
tors, since none of them have money
enough to fight the great, strong assocla-
| ton. At the meeting last week of the as
ISOLATION. the main business was the eab-
Grafton of scheme 70 prevent the manu-
| facture and sale of machines outside OF
| the trust. 1t was decided to boycott any
dealers who sold or attempted to sell I'M
licensed cars. They thought when they
got through that they had left no loopholo
by which unlicensed cars-that is, those
made outside of the truSt-could be placed
upon the market. This will be a throt-
ting of inventors who must either sell out
to the trust. or be prevented from putting
theic machines on the market. And all
! this upon the basis of n patent of very
doubtful validity.
Who will be the next Chairman of the
| House Committee on Post Offices and
Post Roads? Very likely this question is
worrying the next Speaker of the House
nightly. 1t is an important committee,
and its Chairman is going to have trouble
without hunting it in the 5Sth Congress.
| Mr.. Loud of California, was the Chair
man in the last Congress. Mr.. Loud posed
as reformer all through his years of ser
vice on the committee. and was all the
time harping on the big expense of the
Post Office Department. 1t happened, how
ever. that Mr.. Beavers and Mr. Machen,
the two men who are today loaded down
with indictments in the Post Office
scandals. We're unable to get their salaries
raised by Secretary Payne, but went to
Mr.. Loud, of California, and got exactly
| the raise in their salaries that they de-
sired on the Post Offices and Post Roads
bill.
The root of the evil in the Post Office
scandals has been in the influence of Con
gressmen on subOrdinates in the Post Of
ice Department, who directed the DISPOSE
ton of postal funds in the local offices. 1t
is II sad commentary on honesty of both,
but it is the truth. so what are you going
to do about it? Mr.. Cannon will make n
committee that will do its work honestly,
undoubtedly. but nobody desires to take
the job just now.
The President denies most emphatically
that he declined to attend any social func
ton because Mr.. Cleveland was to be
there. 1t ought to be unnecessary for
President Roosevelt or any other man who
such statements. 1t is only the man of
narrow, contracted views and mental
strabiSmus, who, because a man who diff
ferS from him in politics is invited to sit
ut table with him in friends house, or
to occupy seat upon q platform with
him when both are to speak, refuses the
courtesies extended. Mr.. Roosevelt and
Mr.. Cleveland are the best of friends per-
sonally. in all probability, and even if
they were not. the etiquet of the occasion
would lead them to meet as friends. Men
do not forget the common decencies of life
when elected to high office.
At the Land Office it is said that 522.-
600 acres Of the Chippewa Indian lands
that are to be opened in November are
what is termed swamp" lands and no good
Tor agricultural purposes at all. Only
100000 acres of the land is fit for agricul-
tural purposes.
In the general cleaning UP Of the Pat
ent Office that has been going on for sew
eral months the officials of the office have
found more than half n million copies of
old patents that were thought to have been
used. These copies were of no particular
value, except that they were copies of the
office records and are frequently called into
use through the examination of patents
The office keeps a number of copies of all
the patents it has issued on file so that
they can be had when the occasion pre-
sents itself for their use. In the examina-
ton of the thousands of patents that come
into the office during the year it is neces-
sary to refer to the old copies, and many
of them have been lost. so that the stock
on hand was much depleted.
The discovery, or rather the finding of
the copies, by the cieaning-up force will
help fill up the files and give the office a
larger reserve stock to draw upon. The
old copies were found in all sorts of out
| Oftheway places. Chief Clerk Irean has
put force of clerks to work sorting out
the copies so that they can be filed in their
proper pigeon holes in the file cases. At
present the papers are piled up in the gal
iery with the older class of models.
1t will be remembered that William
Alden Smith, Representative in the House
| from Michigan, was one of the members
of the last House who strongly opposed
reciprocity with Cuba. In fact, he was
one of the ''insurgent' members of the
| House. and in season and out of it be-
labored all suggestions of reciprocity. His
particular bette noir was the idea of let
| ting Cuban sugar into the country free of
| duty, as he believed that this would sound
| the death-knell of the beet-sugar industry
at least in Michigan.
| Mr.. William Alden Smith has cleaned
off the slate of the last Congress, it seems,
and is now ready to enter the Fifty eight
| Congress with a clean page on the
reciprocity business. He considers that he
made good fight in the last Congress,
and that he did all that he possibly could
! to defeat all reciprocal relations being men
| toned in the treaty, and that as the mat
| ter comes to Congress in an entirely diff
ferent light from what it did in the 57th
| Congress, he will make no determined OBJ
| lection to ii.
| Mr.. Smith has not changed his opinion
on the subject Of reciprocity, he says. He
merely proposes to avoid any fractional op-
position to providing for the treaty after
it had been ratified. my impression is"
said Mr.. Smith. when asked his views on
| the work of the extra session, that the
Senate having ratified the treaty with
Cuba, the question of putting into effect
the obligations of the treaty by proper
legislation is the thing that we mean to
address ourselves to, and that ought not
to be done in any fractional spirit, nor
| ShOulI Such oction ha cnntroIIaJ Nv