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PUBLIC LEDGER - PHILADELP

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ESTABLISHED 1836.
PUBLIC [image: logo] LEDGER
GEORGE W. CHILDS
Editor and Proprietor from 1864 to 1894.
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Published every morning at PUBLIC LEDGER Bldg.
By PUBLIC LEDGER COMPANY:
CYRUS H. K. CURTIS, President
John Gribbel, Vice President; George W
Ochs, Secretary and Treasurer; Chas H.
Ludington, Phillip S. Collins, Directors
_______________________
George W. Ochs, Editor and Publisher; Alan
Cunningham, Associate Editor: G. Warfield
Hobbs, Managing Editor; Milton B. Ochs,
Business Manager
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OFFICES:
Main Office —Independence Square.
CENTRL—Postal Telegraph, 1326 Chestnut St.
UPTOWN—Fenner's, Broad & Columbia Ave.
HARRISBURG BUREAU—The Patriot Building.
WASHINGTON BUREAU—The Post Building.
NEW YORK BUREAU—The Times Building.
BERLIN—60 Friedrichstrasse.
LONDON—2 Pall Mall East, S.W.
PARIS—32 Rue Louis le Grand.
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PRICE:
Daily . . . . . One Cent —│ Sunday . . . . Five Cents
BY MAIL outside Philadelphia
Daily, one month, 25c. One Year $3.00.
Daily and Sunday, one mo., 50c. One year $5.30
_______________________________
Telephones:
Bell, 3000 Walnut. Keystone, Main 3000
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ENTERED AT THE PHILADELPHIA POSTOFFICE AS
SECOND-CLASS MAIL MATTER.
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PHILADELPHIA, SATURDAY, APRIL 19, 1913.
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THE MISUSE OF THE MIND.

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patible. Some of the wisest of men
have endeared themselves to their fel-
lows by a benign, and compassionate
disposition, and one can be a mathe-
matician and a humanitarian, too.
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BRAZEN IMPUDENCE OF COUNCILS.

It is regrettable that the machine
Councilmen were given an opportunity
to whack the Mayor heavily on a ques-
tion where his position is by no means
unassailable. The proposal of Mr.
Blankenburg to levy a tax on manu-
factured products, however small, was
not popular even among his most ar-
dent supporters, and it afforded hostile
Councils the opportunity for
which they have been waiting. Their at-
titude in reference to vetoes of salary
increases, however, is wholly indefen-
sible and evinces a narrow spirit of
political venom which will be resented
by every citizen who believes in an
honest administration of municipal af-
fairs.

The introduction of a resolution
carrying with it an insulting preamble
requesting the City Soliciter to give an
opinion as to the legal authority of the
Mayor or the Director of Public Safety
to employ policemen to canvass the as-
ssessors' and registration lists was an
act of amazing effrontery, even though
it came from subservient political
gangsters. When one remembers the
saturnalia of political crimes, bal-
lot-box stuffing, false impersonations,
brutalities, intimidation and unblush-
ing disregard of every principle of hon-
est voting, which characterized the
years of municipal domination by a
corrupt political machine until it
seems scarcely credible that political
bosses would now dare to question the
efforts of the Mayor to preserve the
purity of the ballot.

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"INVESTIGATING" THE DUAL
OFFICEHOLDERS.

The majority report on dual office
holding at Harrisburg prepared by the
estimable Charles J. Roney, Jr., of
Philadelphia, is an extraordinary docu-
ment. One would suppose from its
perusal that those who accepted two
salaries from the State conferred a
positive favor on the taxpayers by so
doing, instead of proving—ipso facto—
one or both of the offices to be sine-
cures.

Harry S. McDevitt is Assistant Ex-
ecutive Controller and also clerk of
the Board of Public Grounds and
Buildings. In a frantic effort to justify
his occupancy of both positions, Mr.
Roney's report has him working "all
day" and "each night" and "on Sun-
days" as well, "persistently and con-
tinously," Yet it is said that Mr.
McDevitt is not in Harrisburg from
Friday until Monday.

The Executive Controller's own state-
ment is accepted as his subordinate's
complete exculpation. "Mr. Todd, in
his testimony, made it very plain his ca-
pability and efficiency." County Clerk
Meyers is dubbed "very valuable, de-
sirable, advantageous and economical."
and another of the Auditor General's
assistants is described as "peculiarly
fitted with rare and extensive knowl-
edge."

Such an investigation is a farce.
It starts out with the deliberate inten-
tion of find nothing out—at least,
nothing out of the way. The evil, in
two-score cases at Harrisburg as in
more than a dozen cases in Philadel-
phia's Councils, is dual office holding.
The evidence is perfectly available
even to a sodden gangster to prove or
disprove the charge. The findings of
Mr. Roney and his committee consist
of impassioned rhetoric, fatuous eulogy,
whitewash and buncombe.

Yet Mr. Roney, secretary and guid-
ing genius of this ridiculous investiga-
ting committee, is the man who pro-
poses to tell Philadelphia how to spend

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cerns the question of just recog-
nition of negro labor, in the belief that,
while the matter of employment does
not cover every need of every griev-
ance of the negro, given a fair chance
to work and then conforming to high
civil and political standards, every
other adjustable difference between the
races will be settled with more celerity,
more mutual forebearance and more
universal satisfaction than by any
other means that could possibly be
employed. While the entire pro-
gramme seems homely and simple, it is
one that should appeal to the intelli-
gent community with peculiar force,
and inaugurate a movement that will
be the harbinger of a new day for the
negro and the nation.
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MR. BRYAN SPEAKS OUT.

It is not usual for a Secretary of
State to outline his policies to the pub-
lic or to take notice of insensate ru-
mors relative to the cordiality, or want
of it, existing between him and his
chief; but Mr. Bryan has been the
subject of so many ridiculous stories to
the effect that the President was ig-
noring him and his office and intima-
ting that the foreign policy of the na-
tion was to be one of niggardly hesi-
tance in protecting American interests
abroad, that it was altogether proper
for him to take the Washington cor-
respondent of the PUBLIC LEDGER into
his confidence and, through him, to re-
assure the country in regard both to
the sympathetic unity of the President
and his Cabinet on all matters of im-
portance and the sobriety of the for-
eign policy which will be pursued.

Mr. Bryan was not ignored in the
matter of the Chinese loan. He has
found the President "altogether fair,"
and he has never known a man with
"a more open mind nor one who tried
more sincerely to get at the meat of
any question." Mr. Bryan never at-
tempted to dictate the composition of
the Cabinet. Instead of being opposed
to Mr. McAdoo, he regards the Secre-
tary of the Treasury "as one of the
most competent and trustworthy men
in the Cabinet, a man of conspicuous
ability, of high integrity, a progressive
of progressives."

Mr. Bryan has not assumed the pre-
miership with the idea of a short ten-
ure of office. On the contrary, he has
taken a house in Washington and will
stay there, performing the duties of his
office "until the end of my present
commission." He likes the work to
which he has been assigned, which [im-?]
poses the hollowness of the tale that
he wished to be Secretary of the Treas-
ury, and he has "no other wish of
purpose than to be of the largest pos-
sible service of the President in work-
ing out the difficult problems of his
Administration."

The foreign policy of the nation will
be an application of the Golden Rule,
granting to all other nations their just
dues and demanding of them what in
justice they should give. It is not a
mollycoddle programme that is pro-
posed, but a programme which has in-
herent virility becase of his open[?]
and honesty.

[?]
date rumors of [?]
loyalty in the Cabinet should have been
circulated, but the discreet, yet frank,
utterance of the Secretary of State
should definitely put an end to them
and be effective in strengthening the
confidence of the country in the moral
integrity and discipline of the Admin-
istration.
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In Pennsylvania 212 daily newspapers
have organized under the name of Penn-
sylvania Associated Dailies. Think of
that number of daily journals of enlight-
enment in the Commonwealth! It may
soon be in order for the Keystone State
to change its name to the Imposing-stone
State.