OUR AMERICAN LETTER

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 14343, 1 May 1912, Page 3

OUR AMERICAN LETTER

(from orn ows correspondent.) SAN FRANCISCO. April 1. -'Notwithstanding tlio almost univerj £al]y-admitt<xl fact that tho moat I packers of Chicago irero in combination to sustain retail prices, iiml suppress competition, their prosecution by I tho Federal Government has euded in j a vordict ot not guilty. It wa* the one! j of ;i loyal battle lasting ten years, the gathering of evidence against the Trust i having begun a decade ago. Tho leaders or the Trust were prosecuted under I the criminal clauses of tho Sherman i law, and had they boon convicted \ would have in all probability been sentenced to servo terms in gaol. Jurors interviewed afterwards said that the failure of tho Government to prove the caso beyond reasonable doubt was responsible for the verdict. The jury deliberated nineteen hours. The acquittal of tho members of iho Arraour-Swift-Morris meat combination is the most serious set-back the Government has sustained in its campaign nga:iit.t Trusts. SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM. It if; nine year.s since Joseph Pulitzer, tho recently-deceased owner of the New York "World," offered one million dollars to the Columbia University, of New York, for the establishment of a school of journalism ; but owing to the opposition to that scheme that de- , veloped it is only now that plans arc being laid for nutting it into effect. ' Tile school will be opened nest September, and it i<s announced that the trustees of tho endowment have .selected Talcott Williams, assoriatoeditor of the Philadelphia ; 'Pr«'?B, M as head of tho institution. Mr Williams ha« forty years' newspaper ex(>erienco in the-"United States, and no man stands higher in the profession. The scoffers say journalism cannot bo taught. If Mr Williams cannot teach it then probably they are right. A | Jittle rumpus has already been started by tho announcement that women students will not bo admitted when the •school opens, although later on iJiimprobably will become eligible. In order that students may start their course with the rudiments ol" tfie business 'typewriter* will l>o installed in tho instruction rooms. That there is need i'ara school in journalistic ethic* in New York Mould seem to be apparent if one half of the statements made by Mayor Gaynor in an article in 'Collier's Weekly" are true. The New lork Press, says the Mayor, is so corrupt and unreliable as to lie a disgrace to the city. With conspicuous exceptions, ho charges tho New York papers with ' suppressing news at- the behest of advertisers. News of the conviction of a merchant for marketing impure foods' or drugs wonl<l net be published if tho merchant were a largo advertiser. Further 'c-han that, Mayor Gaynor assorts, the toll ot persons whose hearts have been broken and their lives ruined by the prying of the newspapers into matters of private concern is incredible. As to the reliability, of the New York papers, the Mayor says it makes him laugh to mention the subject. Certain papers never mention him but they make statements ludicrously far from the truth. It is plain tho Pulitzer school of journalism has hen» a, fine field upon which to work. It is at, the so-called ''Yellow" Press that Mayor Gayuor girds; and strangely enough Joseph Pulitzer is reputed to be tho originator of that class of journalism'in the United State's, although William ' Randolph Hearst, has developed ifc far beyond the dreams of Pulitzer. . • . TWO DISASTROUS MINE EXPLOSIONS. Gas explosions in coal mines, attended with great loss of life, are comparatively common in the, United States, but with.two such disasters reported in one .the death of. nearly 2QQ minere, tho public has lieeii" ~shoe EecT into giving ear to an insistent demand I for "better supervision. It is admitted tliat the great , coal corporations-'aro criminally, lax in the provision of safety appliances in the mines, a fact which is lkely to turn public opinion in favour of the miners in the great struggle which seems imminent. The two disasters occurring in the- week from March 20th to , 26th accounted for respectively 91 and 81 lives- At McCurtain. Oklahoma, the San Bois Coal niine was■•■wrecked by, an explosion on, March 20th, and of the IIC men in the workings only 26 came out alive, one of those subsequently dying. Many of tho victims were burned to death. Within half an hour of the explosion dense clouds of black smoke were pouring from the mouth of the mine. Just a week later a gas explosion occurred in the Jed Coal and Coko Company's mine at Jed, West Virginia. Eighty-two miners were.killed almost instantly. Only eleven men escaped alive, and one of these died an "hour after being brought to the surface. BOOM TIME FOR SHIPOWNERS. It. is only a few years since vessels were? pointed to in San Francisco harbour as having been laid up in idleness for as long as eighteen months simply for want of charter. .To-day the situation- has changed to a remarkable extent. - Shipping men here report an almost phenomenal demand for cargo space,'and a great scarcity of time charter tonnajre. The shortage is said to apply to shipping between America and Australia and New Zealand, as well as to tho trade with China and Japan. The volume of freight being moved is estimated as three times that following the- period of revival which began'iii 1881. One of the consequences is extraordinary activity fn the shipbuilding yards. A local" paper states that ship brokers admit they have 'never seen a condition even'remotely resembling tho present one?. Tho.improvement was noticeable- as early as September, 1910. but it .was not until 1911 was well under way that it reached an extraordinary volume. Ships that a year ago could be chartered for £1200 a mouth, now demand £2000, and are getting it. The demand i for tonnage from th:s coast to the ■'■Orient,- tho East coast, and New Zea- | Land and Australia is greater than for some" time,_ and high rates are being paid, especially for.tho transportation of flour and cotton cargoes • to China and Janan. ■ Shipyards , on both tho Atlantic and Pacific aro busy turning out carriers of AI dimensions. On tho West.Coast- there aro stated to bo now building more, than 20 steam schooners, and the coastwise fleet- is increasing almost weekly. U.S. SETTLERS IN" CANADA. The task of attracting agricultural settlers to Canada is largely undertaken by the railway corporations of tho Dominion, relieving the Government of this expense. The CanadianPacific Railway, for instance, has agents scattered through the west an-i middle western States of America booming the recently, opened Canadian wheat-growing lands. Mr .John S. Dennis, assistant to tho president of the railway in question, after a recent conference in Chicago with-86 of such agents, announced that this year the i immigration.from the United States to Canada would be in excess of 200,000. These immigrants in his opinion will be drawn chiefly from tho States of Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, lowa, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky. Nebraska. .North Dakota, South. Dakota, Pennsylvania and Oklahoma. Of the magnitude of the railroad corporations, some conception may be gathered from the statement of Mr Dennis. He said to an interviewer: " Of the company's lands in Alberta practically all the western section-of the 3,000,000 acre irrigation block hasbeen taken up, and we are to-day announcing that this summer will sco placed on.the market some SOO.OOi

acres of the eastern section, which contains in all 1.000,000 acres of land- The prices of rmr irrigated lands in the eastern section will be from 35 dollars to oo dollars per acre, which is an inf fca.se of from o dollars to 2o dollars per acre over tho prices of the lan.tltf; in tho western section- Of our 7.000,000 acres of general wheat lands in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta I have not announced an increase, although an increase is now under consideration.' .