FAR-SIGHTED CARLOS MORALES
The United States is now in Santo Domingo; President Roosevelt, with a stroke of the pen, has fixed Don Carlos Morales firmly in the saddle. That cheerful and ingenious bandit begins to enjoy the unearned increment of the “status quo.” He can read now with a smile of the erstwhile terrible preparations of Jiminez and Barba. He can sit in his palace and rake in 45 per cent. of the customs revenues of his republic, collected for him and scrupulously accounted for. That was what Morales wanted, and he is happy. Domestic malice, foreign levy—nothing can touch him further.
If Cipriano Castro had one-tenth of the ingenuity of his brother bandit of the black republic he would have seen long ago that his present policy is foolish. Instead of making faces at the United States, Castro should have been busy inducing the foreigners in his country to set up a concurrent roar. He should have acknowledged the validity of claims of any kind and to any amount, the bigger the better. Then, at the psychological moment, he should have pointed to the imminent danger to the Monroe Doctrine, and begged the United States to enter and preserve order, collect his revenues and pay him a share of the proceeds.
If there is any other Central or South American dictator who is shaky on his pins, now is the time he should apply for relief. Let him take a lesson from Morales and imitate that “prudent and far-seeing statesman.” Forty-five per cent. of the revenues, in clean, hard coin, without work or worry, is better than all the revenues with danger of revolution and dismemberment.
Step up, gentlemen! The United States has a big navy, and it has nothing to do at home. Our duty is to protect our weak and struggling sister republics, and now that the Senate is out of the way, we propose to do it. We shall take right hold, and leave to the future the problem of how to let go.—Washington Post.
A man was killed at Lancaster, Ontario, while trying to rob a bank. There are still a few of the old-time robbers who have not learned that the proper method of robbing a bank is to work from the inside.—New York American.
A good sign of awakening conscience is evident by the protest from the ministers against accepting Rockefeller’s money that has been wrested from the people by indirection. The great success of the Standard Oil robberies has spawned upon the country hundreds of such corporations that plunder the public with even more skill than the Standard. If the church accepts this donation it will be as fatal to it as the thirty pieces of silver were to Judas. This protest against the gift by these ministers is a most courageous act. The Standard Oil tactics may lose every one of them their pulpits. The Standard Oil management will stoop to any kind of dirty work to perpetuate the system. They are attempting now to ruin Lawson, and, with all his astuteness and his millions of wealth to back him, they may succeed in doing so. The people should stand by Lawson to a man, and the congregations of these ministers that have dared to affront Rockefeller should see that none of his poisoned arrows reach them.—The Forum, Denver, Col.