THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



steady adherence to duty which caused 

 him to remain in the trying climate of the 

 Philippines when he might have hastened 

 home to receive the enthusiastic honors 

 awaitimg him than for the victory itself. 

 The country went wild over the great 

 commander and the cartoon repi esenting 

 the statue of "Liberty," at the mouth of 

 New York harbor, as having dropped her 

 torch and seized a telescope with which to 

 watch for Dewey is typical of the attitude 

 of the nation. It watched and waited for 

 the commander who was not only a sea 

 commander, but who, during his long stay 

 at Manila, "shone as a diplomatist and a 

 manager of men. He maintained his own 

 dignity and that of his country. He got 

 his government into no disagreeable com- 

 plications." He well earned the sword 

 which was presented to him and is worthy 

 of the admiration with which the Amer- 

 ican people, democrats, republicans, anti- 

 expansionists, free-silverites, all com- 

 bined, regard him. 



Even the caricaturist, who like the Lord, 

 "is no respecter of persons," has spared 

 Admiral Dewey and the public press has 

 had no disparaging remarks, no shaft of 

 ridicule for him. 



"Chicago 

 Dy." 



Chicago is this week cele- 

 brating the anniversary of 

 the great fire, which twenty - 

 eight years ago laid the city waste and, it 

 was said, ended its existence. Chicago is a 

 good example of what may be accom- 

 plished against almost overwhelming diffi- 

 culties; built' on a marsh, a location which 

 the doubters claimed was against it from 

 the start, it justified the confidence of its 

 founders by becoming a great city. Then 

 came the fire, from which it rose phoenix- 

 like from the ashes, to become one of the 

 foremost cities of the union. So the 9th 

 of October, 1899 finds it gay with flags and 

 decorations, crowned with people and bus- 

 iness superceded by rejoicings and cele- 

 brations. 



The laying of the corner stone 

 of the new posl-offlce building 

 vas one of the events of the 

 week, and speaking of the corner stone 

 leads one to think of the many disagree- 

 ments and unpleasantnesses connected with 

 the stone; of the protest from the labor 



The 



Corner 

 Stone. 



unions because, it was claimed, the stone 

 had been cut by non-union men; the strike 

 ensuing, and the threats and counter 

 threats. The unprejudiced observer is 

 constrained to ask "What, after all, do 

 strikes accomplish?" An exchange says: 

 "A strike, even if ultimately successful, 

 rarely compensates workmen for the pe- 

 cuniary losses they sustain during the pe- 

 riod of idleness. A lockout deranges the 

 business of an employer, interferes with 

 the fulfillment of contracts, necessitates 

 the employment of unskilled labor or of 

 mechanics unfamiliar with the employer's 

 methods. A. duel between labor and capi- 

 tal makes victims of both parties, and 

 creates sores that contrive to rankle long 

 after reconciliation is supposed to have 

 been effected." 



At a meeting in Chicago of representa- 

 tives of building contractors controlling 

 capital to the amount of $5,000,000, a reso- 

 lution was adopted unanimously as follows: 



"Resolved, That it is the sense of this 

 meeting that lockouts, boycotts and strikes 

 are injurious and costly to employers and 

 employes and detrimental to the interests 

 of the city, and that we pledge ourselves 

 to avoid these methods, and pledge our- 

 selves to use all peaceful means to better 

 our relations with employes." 



Another chapter of the true 

 France 1 .** 1 storv which reads like a ro- 

 mance has been finished; 

 Dreyfus has been tried, found guilty, and 

 then crowning act to this shameful 

 farce pardoned. Not long since I saw a 

 photograph they are for sale in almost 

 every store of Dreyfus at the time of his 

 first trial and at the present time, while 

 between the two, the young soldier and 

 the prematurely aged man, stands the 

 faithful wife, and the thought came, even 

 if he were guilty, a punishment so severe 

 as to change a man as that had done was 

 inhuman. In speaking of the trial recently 

 some one said: "I always think of France 

 as an hysterical woman." This I think 

 aptly describes the nation. Impetuous, 

 fickle, capricious, republic, monarchy, 

 bigot, infidel, full of contrasts, such is 

 France. But the inhuman treatment of 

 Dreyfus, whose long imprisonment and 

 torture has won for him the sympathy of 

 the civilized world, is the darkest s\ain 

 yet on the flag of France. 



