The silver state news. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1907-1909, 1908-02-06
From Goodwin Weekly.

From Goodwin's Weekly.
The Republic stood steady and pros
porous through the poverty and hard
ships of the frontier days; it foght
back the crisis of the rebellion, and
when that was lone a watching world
said: "The problem has been solved,
a free government founded one
more majestic in power than any land
which depends upon armed men and
the law of might for securely But
it seems that il is possible for a PEG
pie to triumph over poverty and beat
back the waves of q great rebellion,
and yet to have difficulties and dan
gers spring upon them, which may
test the integrity and strength and
power of free government IN a way
altooetber filled with menace. We
have two examples in full view today.
One of them is in the south and one
is in the west. Of late years the old
slave states nave shown a great desire
to obtain laborers from Europe, and
in the last year some shiploads have
been sent in, the immigrants being
from Italy and Hungary Some of
these immigrants mortgaged their ser
vices to ceure passage to this Lane
of the free and the home of the bles-
sed Some of them fell into the
hands of true and honorable men and
the change in their lives was a bles-
sing to them and to their employer.
Some of them fell into other hands
and in some wav they never could
get out of debt, the little debt involv-
ed in their passage. And some of the
southern states nave passed peonage
laws to hold such debtors. At last
complaints reached the Italian minis
ter at Washington, that some of his
countrymen were being held as poems
in some of the southern states, es-
perially in Mississippi. He appealed
to the president and to the state de-
partment and sent a messenger down
to Mississippi to investigate. This
agent began his work and was getting
along all right until it was found out
what he was doing, when he was ar
rested on some charge tried and con
victed and sentenced to pay a fine
of $50 or serve so days on the chain
gang. He explained that he had done
nothing illegal, nothing that would be
illegal in any country, but had acted
solely under the instruction of the
state department of the Federal gov
eminent. Then he was Informed that
if President Roosevelt in person were
to come there and engage in the same
Zwork, they would put him in the
chain gang, for Mississippi was a
sovereign state and had the power to
execute her own laws. The state de-
partment has been obliged to notify
the Austrian and Italian governments
that the United States has no power
to protect her people in certain sthates
of these United States.
The other case is in Nevada. We
are all, in this region, familiar with
what has ben going on in that state
for more than a year past. The gov
ernor has convened the legislature in
extraordinary session to provide means
to compel justice and preserve the
peace of the state. Aside from the
dangers of violence and a great prop
erty loss, the conditions prevailing
there are keeping people away, and
inf1iceing inestimable losses upon the
state, and fixing upon it a reputa-
tion which will be a calamity to it
for many years to come. But at this
writing "a large proportion of the peo-
pie, some of the members of the legis-
lature itself, are showing a DISPOSE
ton to make it impossible to put GER
tain regions of that state under the