The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-11-12
Also Wit in Describing Parties,
People and Places
On His Recent Visit to New York
and Philadelphia.
TIMES ARE CHANGING.
Republicans Not Always Bound
by Party Ties.
Same Signs, Different Times,
Mean Weak or Strong Hind.

After the theater New York is
great sight. The lights seem to burn
brighter and the automobiles to toot
more devilishIy, and the cabs and
hansoms to be skuIking about in the
night with more significant meaning.
10 a man from the country it is all a
very notwithstanding spectacle. So
many people are up after bedtime in
New York that one wonders how they
sleep and earn a living. As a matter
OF fact. they do not earn a living.
They sponge it, and a lot Of poor devils
have to work for 1t ALL having their
honest share Of the good things of life
which their own hands have earned
by honest labor cheated from them
to give to the butterflies and dragon
flies and maggotS of society. 1t is not
right; but some day it win be righted,
and there viii be more justice in the
world than there is now.
For every year sees the world grow
better, every year sees the laboring
man get more and more of the com
forts and IuxurieS of life, and little by
little he will rise until he will have
his dueS-Which brings one souarely
up against a curious thing that is hap
pening in New York. Two of the
candidates for mayor, the Republican
candidate and Mr.. William r. Hearst,
the owner of the famous newspapers,
favored municipal ownership of gas.
Az III anu FdAEAs anu municipal means
OF transportation. Ten years ago such
things would have been called rank
socialism, and yet Mr.. WINS, the Re
publican candidate for mayor. talked
about public ownership as glibly as
ever a Kansas pOpuliSt talked in the
days OF the Alliance.
Certainly we are going some, as the
man said to the ghost who chased
him across the field, and certainly we
win be going some more.
The writer hereof expects to live to
see the time when the street railways
and electric lights in every American
city, and when the street cars in every
American town will be owned and
operated by the people. He expects
TO see the time when insurance com
panIes will be controlled by the gov
eminent lust as banks are, when all
corporations will be semi-public bust
ness, and when the government viii
say what is q fair and equitable rate
for railroads to charge.
For the thing is in the air. The
man who says he hopes for these
things is no longer regarded as a So
cialiSt or a dreamer. 1t is curious how
the world moves. and how the thing
which was the sign of a weak mind
yesterday is the sign of a strong mind
today. 1t is noticeably odd that prac-
fically all the great newspapers OF. the
east and most of the welI-knOwn writ
erS of the east who haze any views at
an on socidl questions, are permeated
with what ten years ago would have
been known as socialism.
The leading eXpOnentS OF current
tendencies in American economic
thought would have been called cranks
had they said in the SOS what they
are advocating openly now. A strong
group of decent, clean-lived, practical
young men who are prominent in the
ownership and the conduct of the lead
ing American magazines. are frankly
taking up advanced positions on social
and economic questions and the people
are unconsctously imbibing a doctrine
which fifteen years ago would have
been called rank poison.
The world is moving very rapidly,
and seems to be going in a definite di-
rection toward a larger recognition of
the practical partnership of society,
and the submergence, more and more,
of any mans private business into the
public good.