The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1910-05-05
The Nation Is
Waking.

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Let US not despair. The old land is
waking up. At the present clip the
reverse brakes will be thrown COM
pletely on before many more moons.
Those things we smiled upon yester-
day, we scorn today. Yesterday there
were evils we did not sanction, but
we did not condemn strong enough,
but today we are looking through
spectacles of another color. 1t may
be an outraged public conscience
moving us, but whatever 1t is its form
Is welcome to our midst.
Corruption in high circles, both in
legislative and commercial arenas, is
almost universally damned by the
people and the guilty are being pun
ished by the courts-in other words
the people are coming into their own
once more, and while we've been out
OF the saddle so long as to forget how
to ride gracefully. we ought soon to
regain the art.
Monday of this week was bad day
for questionable combinations. The
decree of the Mississippi supreme
court disbanding the Consolidated AS
ISOLATION of Retail Lumber Dealers in
Mississippi and Louisiana was upheld
by the United States supreme court.
This combination had deliberately vio.
lated the antitrust acts of the re-
spective states, and the trust was dis
solved.
On the same day the Standard Oil
Company of Kentucky was ousted
from the state of Tennessee. The
Standard and two of its agents were
indicted under the state antitrust act.
One of the agents was convicted, but
the Standard escaped punishment on
the ground that it could not be fined
under the act, but could only be
0usted.
Custer proceedings were then begun
against It, the charges being based On
the Gallatin transactions. The state
courts issued an ousting decree, from
which an appeal was taken to the su-
preme court OF the United States.
These are two cases in point to
show that the public Is winning. But
there are others, though different in
nature, but none the less important
Even the staid old Charleston News
and Courier Acknowledges the magni-
tude of the white slave traffic, the
most revolving stain on our escutcheon
today.
Some impressive revelations in this
traffic were made in New York last
week, and of this our Carolina contem.
porary says:
The district attorney there was con.
WINGED that there was traffic in white
girls, that they were being sold into
moral and physical slavery Instead
of trumpeting his belief to the far
heavens and dealing in platitudinal
phrases, he selected two women who
had regulations as investigators of so.
cial disorders, two women we'll
equipped to make a glorious fight for
decency, both of them college grad
yates, and he sent them into suspected
districts with instructions to pose as
buyers from the west. This the two
women did, and they were able TO sc
convincingly establish their identity in
their assumed roles that eventually
they succeeded in actually purchasing
four of the sO-called white slaves. Two
OF them were mere children, one cry.
ing for her Teddy bear" and the other
for her tattered doll. They were pur.
chased from a negro woman. Need
less to say, the slave dealers have
been arrested and will doubtless be
convicted and placed where they can
do no further harm.
And in our social set, too, is to be
found a gratifying tendency. Let us
listen to the Cincinnati Enquirer for q
moment while it points a moral and
adoTns tale:
II the Drama League shall persist
to success in its endeavor, the stage
and even the arena Of the circus in
this country may have to present its