PUBLIC OPINION.

It is the purpose of the managers of PUBLIC OPINION to present in one paper the views of many, to give each week the pith of prevailing thought, and, in short, to impartially reflect public opinion. PUBLIC OPINION will contain, in attractive form, printed and spoken opinions on leading questions, taken as they appear, without comment, and with due credit, from newspapers and periodicals, from organs of political parties, from the independent press, from the publications of various orders and associations, and the utterances of professional and public men-thus focalizing many and divergent views and opinions.

PUBLIC OPINION will aim to be an epitome of American thought, in which the reader will find prepared and arranged for instant perusal and examination the most important comments and expressions on the foremost topics of the day. They will appear without bias toward any political party, commercial enterprise, religious sect, or contending influences. Recourse will also be had to papers in this country printed in foreign languages, and to European publications, for matters and opinions therein.

PUBLIC OPINION, in brief, is designed to be the one medium through which will be given current and contemporaneous opinions on subjects commanding public attention, together with a carefullyprepared miscellany, a chronological record, and items of general and special interest.

For the purpose set forth, and believing that the Capital of the Nation is the best point of observation, the PUBLIC OPINION Company will prosecute the enterprise with energy and persistence, confident that it will meet with public favor.

THE PUBLIC OPINION CO.

POLITICAL.

CIVIL SERVICE.

Harper's Weekly (Ind.), April 10.

THE President may not have known the facts. The law, under the Constitution, vests many appointments in the heads of departments. But a President known to be bent upon reform may justly assume that whoever accepts an invitatation to his cabinet intends to conform to his policy. And when once such facts are known to the President, as he is responsible for his own administration, and can ask any explanation or the resignation of any secretary, such facts unexplained or such offenses unredressed necessarily impair public confidence in his own good faith. We certainly justify, and on the highest public grounds, removals, not for political opinion, but for offensive partisanship. But this is a principle which is absolutely impartial. V THE truth is, as everybody knows, except, possibly, the simple-minded old grannies acting as Commissioners, that the civil-service law as operated by this administration is the merest farce, and one that grows more transparent every day.

Indianapolis Journal (Rep.), April 12.

vice would now be on a business-like basis, and reasonable people everywhere would be satisfied with the rules which govern its administration. But while nearly every one of the old employes represents the favoritism or the political debt-paying of some Republican spoilsmen, and "few die and none resign," the basis of the service will remain partisan. A law requiring the examination and reclassification of the old force, putting its members upon a plane of equality with other candidates for public employment, would therefore be a measure of justice. This was a feature of the civil-service law, as at first prepared, but it was omitted partly through fear of overburdening the machinery of the new system, and partly, it was more than suspected, from an unwillingness of the Republicans in Congress to disturb their dependents and favorites who had been crowded into every place in the service in anticipation of the passage of the reform act. The merit system, to be as popular as it deserves to be, should have started fairly as between the two parties.

Washington Critic, (Ind. Dem.), April 14.

As THE civil service rules now stand a great injustice is done to a large and growing class of Government employes, and at the same time heads of departments and bureaus are crippled in their efforts to secure expert workers of the class referred to. These are the type-writers, for whom the rules in operation make no allowance. If the service of a person who is really an expert in the use of the writing-machine is desired in a department no provision exists by which he or she may be employed, except in the grades below $900 per annum, as laborer or messenger, and that makes the injustice. If such a person enters into the civil service competition for the classified grades, no account can be taken of the special qualification most desired; and while such service might be far more valuable to the public service than that of a mere copyist or low-grade clerk, yet the standing reached in competition might be so far below that attained by the non-expert that there would be no chance for appointment under the rules.

THE BLAIR EDUCATIONAL BILL.

National Republican (Rep.), Washington, D. C., April 13. THAT the bill would meet with some opposition was anticipated. There are some politicians who would rather have the negroes ignorant and the poor whites illiterate. There are some who want the money for jobs, and hate to waste it on schools. There are some so eager to diminish the tariff revenues that they would cut off every expenditure which tends to make a tariff revenue needful-a political leader who fears that he will fare worse with an intelligent constituency than an ignorant one, a jobber who wants to line his own pockets, a free trader who is devoted above all things to an increase of imports, and an extremist who dares not let his own State have its treasury replenished from the national vault-any of these may naturally enough oppose a measure which is to employ national money for the aid of education. Outside of these clauses, however, the opposition to the bill is almost entirely frivolous. The pretense of scruples where none exist; the claim that the South is abundantly able to lift the load of illiteracy, when from the very nature of the case it is impossible that she could be; the lamentations over a wasteful expenditure of money, as if in the presence of so grave a danger as threatens us from the mass of ignorant suffrage the sum proposed in the bill could possibly be better employed; the attempts to excite State jealousy, lest, on the basis of illiteracy, one should receive a somewhat greater share than another; the anxiety over Constitutional points, as if every street-corner statesmen were wiser than the Supreme Court-all these classes of opposition to the measure are entitled simply to the contempt of those who see the need and wish to supply it in the most simple and most practicable way. If any evidence were needed to prove the good faith and sincerity of the Southern people in their advocacy of this measure, the fact that eleven Southern States pay annually sixteen millions of dollars for education, and five millions of this for colored schools, while the colored people themselves pay less than two millions of taxation, tells the whole story. The South is doing its best in this direction, and will continue to do its best aided or unaided. But its best is not sufficient to meet the need. To the Republican members it would seem that nothing of urging or persuasion should be required. Upon principle they are the friends of education, and assuredly should not now stand in the way of giving it to the people. Let these two classes, then the Republicans and Southern members-unite in securing the passage of this wise, humane, and philanthropic measure. Future generations will applaud it as second only to the emancipation act in the possibilities of its influence upon the unity of this nation through all

time.

Puck, April 14.

THE "Blair bill" is losing friends day by day. The more the subject is discussed, the more clearly do people see that Congress has no business to make New Hampshire pay for North Carolina's schools. And even if the scheme were far sounder and more desirable than it is, it could hardly be a popular measure. The hideous extravagance of our legislators is a burden on the country. Business men are tried hard enough at present by the demands of their employes. They do not want to have trade further intimidated by the prospect of a depleted National

about it. Thus there are now found journalists and Congressmen who affirm, as others did in 1866, that a removal of duties on wool is absolutely necessary to secure a decent price for American wool to the growers. At the same time there are found some manufacturers who insist, as others did in 1866, that the manufacture cannot grow and prosper without cheap raw material. To the dullest mind these two claims are irreconciliably conflicting. Yet both find place in the report of the majority of the Committee on Ways and Means in support of the pending bill. If a removal of the duty will make wool cheaper for the manufucturer, how can it secure a better price for the grower? If it will secure to the wool-grower a better price for his product, how can it benefit the manufacturer by giving him cheaper raw materials? Events have proved that the reasoning of free traders in 1866 was unsound. But now the kinds of goods chiefly used in this country are made here as cheaply as they are made in any other country, and are best made with little or no admixture of foreign wool. Of the wool imported, 51,000,000 pounds is for use in the carpet manufacture, and only 17,000,000 pounds of all other classes. In only a small part of the other manufacture would the use of foreign wool be an advantage. To use more than the sixth of foreign wool, in place of any considerable part of the five-sixths domestic wool now used, would mean ruinous prices for the growers, as they well know. On the other hand, if there were any truth in the claim that the removal of the duty would enhance the value of 320,000,000 pounds of domestic wool now consumed, it would inevitably increase the cost of nearly all goods to consumers far more than the cost could be reduced by reduction in the price of the one-sixth foreign wool now used. A very few manufacturers would be benefited, at the expense of the rest of the country, by the proposed change. But nearly all woolen manufacturers have united in an earnest protest against the threatened change of tariff, and they understand the present condition and needs of the business better than the Bourbon legislators at Washington.

Boston Advertiser (Ind.), April 13.

THE paragraph of Mr. Morrison's tariff bill which places wool upon the free list promises to be one of the most troublesome to its inventor. Not only has it alienated the Ohio Democrats and other representatives from wool-growing districts, but it has called out the publication of the statistics of this industry, which present, perhaps, the most startling evidence of the impolicy of the free trade idea. A reduction of the surplus revenues of the country was manifestly not the primary object of Messrs. Morrison and Hewitt. If a lessening of taxation and of the revenue surplus had been the object sought, it could have been most readily obtained by removing the duties upon sugar, which latter article now yields onefourth of the customs revenue of the United States, and is handled somewhat too daintily by the Ways and Means Committee. The primary object sought by the committee was evidently a reduction of protection and not of revenue.

Pittsburg Penny Fress (Ind.), April 13.

THE tariff bill before the House is intended to defeat the protectionists by detachment. Leaving coal and metals protected is intended to capture the votes of members from the coal and iron districts, North and South-to avoid the opposition of Randall and his Democratic protection followers, as well as that of the Republican protectionists for the present. The result of that scheme, if it succeeded, would be to leave those who are to be protected at present without the strength which they have hitherto derived from those who are interested in protection for American wool, lumber and salt. Of course the next move of the free traders, after thus insidiously dividing the protectionists, would be to put ores, metals and coal upon the free list-if they should have a majority in the next Congress. It would be better for all the protectionists to stand or fall together than to permit their forces to be divided now and weakened for future contests. If wool,

lumber and salt can be put upon the free list by the present Congress, ores, metals and coal might as well go with them at once as to follow in another year or two with their powers dissipated by divisions to prevent the reversal of their defeat. Protection must be sustained, not for the advantage of a State or section, but for the benefit of the entire country. It cannot stand on any other foundation.

Boston Journal (Rep.), April 13.

THE latest tariff bill, from the free trade standpoint, is the best which has been prepared by the free trade interest for many years. We have not credited Mr. Morrison with broad views regarding the tariff, even from the free trade position, but the free wool feature of the last bill indicates that the free trade committee have at least chosen their ground boldly, and, in the event of success, most wisely, since their action shows that if they can put wool on the free list, they believe that they will, by so doing, detach the large body of men hitherto voting with the protectionists from that side of the question and make them the allies of the free trade party. If they could win they could doubtless accomplish this result, since the men whose industry has been destroyed, having nothing at stake, would be in- ' clined to join the element which has no other object in view than to open our markets to those whose cheaper labor and capital permit them to undersell the American producer. If by any means the free traders could tempt the representatives of the districts largely engaged in woolen manufacture to vote for free wool, and thereby carry their bill through Congress, they know that they would strike a blow at protection which they could not by any other method of attack. If the foreign manufacturers could secure the enactment of this bill they could afford to contribute a million dollars to effect it, since it would make such a breach in the protection line that other parts of the system could be successfully assailed. If the reductions of the burdens of the people is the purpose of the Democrats in the House, why is sugar left to retain nearly the same duty as the present? If manufacturers are to be benefited, why is not alcohol employed in manufactures exempted from taxation? The committee have had neither of these objects in view. Their purpose is to overthrow the policy of protection.

National Republican (Rep.), April 14.

THE tariff bill is evidently drawn in the interests of the Democratic party. It protects the products of Democratic States and strikes a deadly blow at the indusTxU

tries and prosperity of the section that furnishes the men and money to crush the rebellion and restore the Union It is as vicious a piece of legislation as was ever proposed in the National Congress. If it should become a law it would work irretrievable ruin to many of the leading industries of the country, it would lower the wages of the American workingmen, and inaugurate a reign of discontent and suffering such as this country has never experienced. In the interests of the American people every Republican vote in the House will be cast against the bill; in the interests of European manufacturers and foreign traders, every Democratic vote (with a few possible exceptions) will be cast for it.

Der Deutsche Correspondent (German), Baltimore, April 14.

IT IS now two years since Morrison's tariff bill was rejected in the House of Representatives by 156 against 151 votes. Forty-one of the Democratic members, at that time, voted against it, distributed as follows, among the different States, namely: Pennsylvania, 12; Ohio, 10; New York, 6; New Jersey, 3; California, 4; and the States of Maryland, Illinois, Connecticut, Louisiana, Virginia, and West Virginia one each. The excitement will probably be recalled which arose in certain Democratic journals, in consequence of the action of the forty-one Democrats, to each individual of whom political death was prophesied, and the defeat of the party in the approaching Presidential election predicted as certain. The Kentucky school has now matured a new tariff proposition, which is somewhat milder, it is true, than the one of two years ago; but this, also, has little prospect of a successful issue. Crawford, of the New York World, has already discovered more than forty Democrats who will vote against it. Most of the Democrats who, two years ago, voted adversely to the bill, have been re-elected, and in the Middle and Eastern States, Morrison's bill can count upon only one Democratic vote as certain, namely: that of Collins of Massachusetts. Quite as remarkable is the change of opinion in the South. Two years ago only three Southerners voted with the Democratic minority, to-day, on the other hand, the delegations of the two Virginias and the Carolinas are equally divided, and from Louisiana three, from Mississippi two members, have declared themselves as adverse, whilst the delegates from Georgia, Alabama and Florida are thoroughly hostile to it. But the fact most worthy of remark is the revolution in the Southern States. Two years ago there was in the whole South not a single protective paper, to-day there is scarcely one influential sheet remaining which is not favorable to a reasonable protection of national labor. But a few days ago we had occasion to report a change of saddle of the Mobile Register, to-day is lying before us as unquestionable a Southern Democratic paper as the Macon Telegraph, which says: "The Democratic party is no Free-trade party. To the great mass of its members the tariff question is as yet a terra incognita. The South, which gave 153 to the necessary 201 electoral votes, has, since the civil war, never had a political contest in which the tariff question entered as a factor. When, two years. ago, Morrison's tariff bill was rejected, the Southern members, through mere complaisance toward the West, voted for it, and the Western leaders sought to infuse the belief in them that thus they would most favorably represent their constituencies. They were deceived; and they very soon discovered the error they had committed. From every portion of the South came protests. The Southern people, now enlightened by their press, have taken their position upon this question, and to-day are ready and determined to protect the industries and manufactures of the country. Four years ago, in the entire great State of Georgia, there was only one journal which ventured to give utterance to the word protection! To-day there exists in our State not a single sheet of consequence that has not taken its stand against free-trade. We do not doubt whether there is a single man in the State of Georgia who could be elected as a free-trader." Just the same revolution of opinion is observable in the two Virginias and Carolinas, in Tennessee, Alabama, and Louisiana. The Democrats of Ohio are constantly drawing closer to Pennsylvania, and Kentucky, Missouri, and Texas are daily becoming more and more isolated.

Frank Leslie's Illustrated Paper, April 17.

THE most significant feature of the proposed bill is that placing wool-the most important, perhaps, of all raw materials on the free list. This is following a settled principle of political economy, that the materials which home industry employ in manufacturing fabrics or articles should not be taxed by a government which desires to encourage or aid such industries. To cheapen raw products is to lessen the cost of manufacturing, and hence the cost of manufactured articles to the consumer. All clothing into which wool enters as a component part will be made cheaper by removing the wool duty. But is argued that the tax on this great staple should not be removed because it may injure the wool-growers of Ohio. It is by no means clear, nor is it conceded, that the wool-producers in any part of the Union would suffer detriment in the end if all imported wools ceased to be taxed. It is very certain that the wool-growers themselves would pay less than they now pay for their blankets, carpets and all their own clothing, composed in whole or in part of wool, which of course would lessen the cost of living. It is also certain that they would be partakers of the general benefits resulting from an increase of our export trade by opening up to the domestic manufacturers of woolen fabrics the markets of the world.

Another wise modification of the tariff under this new measure is the ten per centum reduction in the duty on sugar. Sugar is such a common necessary of life, and is in such universal use, that whatever reduces its cost benefits the entire population. The sugar-producers in two States are too small an element to subordinate to it the interests of a whole people. With reduced duties on imported sugars will come cheaper refined sugars and cheaper food. The welfare of the largest number must control. The small reduction proposed is also judicious, because extreme or radical changes in rates of duty should not be made at one time or in one year. Upon the whole, the defective Morrison bill has become a meritorious measure under the wise revision of Mr. Hewitt and others, and now deserves to become a law.