The independent., 1907-02-14

did not know that this oil company
was associated with the Standard Oil
company, and that there was nothing
improper in the assistance he gave to
secure for the concern permission to do
business in Texas. The difference be-
tween a cash payment for services and
a loan in cash is not very great, and
yet his friends argue that there is a
difference. The value of the testimony
offered by Mr.. Francis must depend
largely upon what has gone before and
what will come hereafter in this re-
markable case.
One by one dwindles the number or
crafts whose members are not asking
to be saved by statute from the full
operation of the law of competition.
The chiropodists of Massachusetts, ana
the cab drivers of New York are
among the new claimants for special
protection, and others might be found
by careful examination of the bill
files of both houses of the Nebraska
legislature. In California the BARRIERS
are asking for a second trial of a
license system for BARRIERS, a first trial
having failed as it did in Nebraska.
The architects of California are also
forbidding any house to be built that
has not been planned or the plans 2p-
proved by a licensed architect, a board
of architects, self interested perforce
in keeping down the number of archi-
tects, being the licensing power. Why
the tailors have not proposed law
forbidding men to wear clothing unless
passed upon or made by licensed
tailor we cannot imagine unless it be
that the tailors lack strangely in polit-
ical influence. Almost everybody is
firmly attached to the principle Of COM
petition. 1t is the life of trade. But
as to its application, we are inclined
to think as did Mark Twain when
asked where he considered was the best
place to have a boil He thought the
best place was on some other fellows
neck.
An Iowa legislator has introduced a
bill intended to outlaw the firecracker
throughout the commonwealth. The
father of the measure is Sixty-three
years old and of nervous tempera-
ment.
Lincoln's birthday recalls an opinion
recently expressed by Professor Gold
win Smith Of the effects upon recon-
struction Of the untimely death of Lin
coin Mr. Smith was regimus professor
of modern history at Oxford during
the civil war, and devoted himself ably
during that period to combating the
pro-SOuthern sentiment voiced in
Great Britain, particularly by the Lon
don Times. In the last year of the
war he visited the United States partly
to convey to the president at Wash
ington assurances Of English SYM
pathy for the north. He has told,
among other things, how completely
his first glance at the president dis
PEELED his idea, then prevalent in
Great Britain and due largely to the
presidents story telling habits, that
Lincoln was given to levity. Professor
Smith, now a resident of Toronto,
wrote a few days ago: Never was a
more fearful blunder than was the as
sassnation of Lincoln by southern
hand 1t proved the ruin of reconstruc-
ton. / cannot help thinking that Lin
coin mistook the nature of the prob
lem with which he had to deal, taking
for rebellion, as he always did, that
which in fact was not q rebellion but
the sudden creation of a new nation
ality by a rupture which was newt
able and which had been long foreseen.
But the influence of his character
on reconstruction would have been in
estin1a BILE"