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| Elmer J. Burkett. |
Cortland Evening Standard, Saturday, Jan. 11, 1902.
CENSUS DEPARTMENT.
House Considering a Bill to Make Bureau Permanent.
RECOMMITTED FOR AMENDMENT.
Present Employees to Be Protected by Civil Service Rules—Much Opposition to the Measure—Mrs. McKinley to Be Given Franking Privilege For Life.
Washington, Jan. 11.—The house spent the day considering the Hopkins bill to create a permanent census bureau. While the general sentiment was in favor of a permanent bureau there was strong opposition to the bill as drawn, on the ground that it was not well matured. There also was an overwhelming demand for a provision to place the present employees of the census bureau under the protection of the civil service law and the bill finally was recommitted with instructions to report back a bill containing a plan for a detailed organization of a permanent census bureau to include also a provision to place the present employees under the civil service. The fight to recommit was made under the leadership of Mr. Burkett of Nebraska, the new member of the appropriation committee.
A bill was passed unanimously to give Mrs. McKinley the free mailing privilege during the remainder of her life.
The house then adjourned until Monday.
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| Empress Dowager Cixi. |
EMPRESS VERY FRIENDLY.
Thanks Ministers For Kind Greetings of Foreigners.
Pekin, Jan. 11.—The dowager empress yesterday followed up her friendly advances by verbal messages to several of the ministers thanking them for the care they had taken of the palaces and expressing pleasure at the reception accorded her by the foreigners on the occasion of their majesties re-entry into Pekin.
The report of the arrest of General Tung Fuh Siang, whose decapitation has been ordered by the dowager empress, is incorrect. The Tartar general who is governor of Kan Su was afraid to execute the orders he received, owing to Tung Fuh Siang's influence among the Mohammedans who dominate the province. The governor fears that the arrest of Tung Fuh Siang would incite the Mohammedans to rebellion.
NEWS FROM MANILA.
General Bell's Campaign—Russian Fleet Arrives.
Manila, Jan. 11.—General Bell visited the city for four hours yesterday and had a conference with General Chaffee. He says the present campaign is accomplishing valuable results and that it is possible that Malvar, the insurgent leader, will surrender next week.
The United States Commission has appropriated $2,500,000 for insular expenditures during the first quarter of the year.
Admiral Tchoukhnine with three Russian warships has arrived here.
CHEYENNE INDIANS
Prospect of Trouble at Lame Deer Agency—War Dances.
FORSYTHE, Mont., Jan. 11—Alarming developments are reported from Lame Deer Agency, where the Cheyenne Indians are all arming for desperate resistance. The war dances are in progress and excitement is intense. Fifty men of troop F, under command of Lieutenant Rosyn, are expected to reach the agency this morning. Twelve enlisted men are at the reservation. Advices from the Indian agent show that they are in danger of immediate attack and it is feared that all will be murdered.
The Cheyennes are able to carry on prolonged hostilities, the surrounding country being specially well adapted to their peculiar method of waging war. The Indian agent believes that the Indians will be able to hold a far superior force of soldiers at bay for a long time.
The trouble is due to the attempted arrest of an Indian called White. He resisted a posse sent out to catch him and shot one Indian policeman. Then he committed suicide and his squaw and daughter, out of respect to the dead brave, also committed suicide.
Onondagas Want to Vote.
The Christian party of the Onondaga Indians has sent a petition to the commissioner of Indian affairs at Washington asking that the tribal system among the Onondaga Indiana be discontinued; that the reservation be divided and that the tribal holdings be distributed into individual holdings. The petition says:
"We ask the government to grant us the right to cast our ballots as free-born American citizens. We ask the government of the United States to bear in mind, before attempting to free the Indian from the reservation system, that our confederacy of the six nations once owned all the lands of the state of Ohio and Pennsylvania and New York to the Hudson, and that for all this property we and our fathers have received scarcely a cent."
The Christians on the reservation contend that the pagan chiefs are accustomed to lease the most valuable of the lands to white men, who do not realize the value of the lands. These chiefs worship by ghost dances, burning dogs to atone for their many sins. The young women are not protected and vice flourishes. The petition makes a plea for industrial schools.
PAGE FOUR—EDITORIAL.
Amending the Immigration Laws.
Not least important among the measures pending in the Fifty-seventh congress is that relating to the regulation and restriction of immigration, public demand for which was augmented by the assassination of President McKinley. The house committee on immigration and labor has prepared a bill on the subject, which is practically a codification of existing laws with a number of new clauses, the purpose being to put into one act a number of scattered provisions relating to immigration, to eliminate from the existing statutes whatever experience has shown to be objectionable, to a mend provisions which have not stood the test of judicial interpretation and practical application and to add to the present law whatever seems to be necessary to meet the advanced judgment of those who have been studying the immigration question for the last quarter of a century.
One of the most notable changes suggested increases the head tax from $1 to $3. It is provided that this tax be levied upon aliens coming into the United States by land as well as those reaching American shores by water, exceptions being made in favor of citizens of Canada and Mexico.
The dangers of a large and growing alien population are to be met by turning away those found to be objectionable by the examining officers at the immigrant stations and by keeping track of those who, having got into the country, subsequently become criminals and paupers. An extension of the period of observation is provided for, so that at any time within five years after his arrival an undesirable alien may be deported. The counterpart of this system is found in the system of inspection abroad, which is designed to prevent the embarkation of diseased persons, criminals and anarchists.
The excluded persons will comprise idiots, insane persons, paupers and those likely to become a public charge, persons afflicted with a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease, those convicted of a felony or other crime involving moral turpitude, polygamists, anarchists and advocates of assassination, prostitutes and persons who procure the same, persons whose migration has been induced by offers, solicitations, promises or agreements of labor or work or service and persons whose ticket or passage is paid with the money of another or who are assisted by others to come unless it be affirmatively shown that the persons do not belong to one of the aforementioned classes.
It is provided, however, that nothing in the act shall be regarded as excluding persons convicted of offenses purely political, and like provision is made in relation to offenses not involving moral turpitude. It is also provided that skilled laborers may be admitted if laborers of like kind cannot be found unemployed in the country, and professional persons and personal and domestic servants are not excluded.
In line with the general policy of the other changes is the provision increasing from one to five years the duration of the period within which an alien coming into the country in violation of law may be deported.
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| Gov. Benjamin Odell, Jr. |
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| Cortland Normal School. |
''PERVERSION OF NORMAL SCHOOLS.''
Opinions Held in High Places on This Subject.
The readers of The STANDARD will doubtless remember the warnings which we uttered during the recent controversy over the appropriation for an addition to our Central School building against making any further demands on the state for tuition for the children of the city. They will also remember that we pointed out the danger of losing some of the Normal privileges already enjoyed lf we foolishly grasped for more, or agitated in favor of trying to enforce any alleged claims which the city might have on the state in connection with the Normal. For doing this we were charged with trying to deceive and bulldoze voters by trumping up a danger which had no existence in reality. Those who read Governor Odell's recent message so far as it referred to Normal schools must have been convinced—if they had before doubted it—that The STANDARD sought to raise no false alarm in what it said on this subject. The following editorial from a recent issue of the New York Tribune further confirms what we said, and also contains the passage from the governor's message above referred to. The Tribune says:
PERVERSION OF NORMAL SCHOOLS.
The paragraph in Governor Odell's message dealing with the State Normal schools calls attention to an abuse which has long flourished unchecked. That same tendency to make state institutions the servants of local interests which the governor is trying so hard to correct in the case of hospitals and reformatories has led to the undue duplication of normal schools and their use for purposes entirely apart from those which gave them excuse for being.
Nobody who is familiar with the educational affairs of the state will question the accuracy of the picture which Governor Odell draws when he says:
"An examination shows that under certain special laws affecting Normal schools some localities are benefited by having academies maintained at the expense of the state, thus defeating the object for which Normal schools were originally intended. There is no reason why the expense of academic education in these various municipalities should not be borne locally, or why the state at large should furnish financial aid to a greater degree than that now provided for by general law for the maintenance of all high schools and academies."
In some parts of the state the Normal schools are the favorite institutions for college preparation. They compete with and discourage the academies and preparatory schools maintained at private or local expense for that work. These schools if allowed proper scope for development in harmony with the requirements of the colleges, would give a system of higher education much better than that which we now enjoy. Too frequently students are led to the study in an elementary way of many subjects having a proper place in a Normal school, to the neglect of the thorough preparation in the subjects which would best enable them to take advantage of college courses. On the other hand, the Normal schools are diverted from exclusive attention to their own proper work and led to give energy to college preparatory work. As they also maintain more advanced Normal courses, these courses are often presented to the minds of young students as practically equal to or at least a fair substitute for a college education. Thus the Normal school tends to occupy in the popular mind a false position, harmful to educational ideas.
It was never meant to be a rival of or a substitute for the college. It was meant to raise the qualifications of our common school teachers. In former times these were themselves largely graduates only of the common schools or of ill equipped village academies. The Normal school was meant to help them, not to act for the general public a standard of higher education. Neither was it meant to destroy, as it has almost done, all the local and private institutions between the common school and the college. It should be kept in its proper sphere, and, as the governor says, "Action should be taken to restrict the attendance at the Normal schools to those who are intending to enter the profession as teachers."
If the above means anything, it foreshadows an effort to abolish academic instruction in the Normal schools. Those who voted for the school appropriation recently carried at our special election may have builded [sic] even more wisely than they knew. The day may not be far distant when this city will be compelled to support a complete school system, academy included, just as if no Normal school were located here—except so far as children are admitted into the schools of practice at the Normal for budding teachers to try their hands on, and even here they may be obliged to pay tuition.
Whenever Normal school towns enjoying special privileges call attention to the fact, and especially when they clamor about their claims on the state, or demand still further privileges, they put in jeopardy all which they now enjoy. The wise policy for citizens of all such towns is to "go way back and sit down," and if they must sing at all. "sing small"—meanwhile thanking Providence that they are as well off as they are.
How a Teacher Worked It.
A teacher in one of our schools, who by the way is quite young and pretty, felt disposed to complain at the condition of the schoolroom, especially mornings, the floor being but half swept, windows dusty and things generally looking glum. To obviate this, as well as to give her pupils a practical lesson in tidiness, she announced on Friday that the boy [who] would come early to school mornings and tidy up the room would receive a kiss. What was her surprise on the following Monday morning on reaching school to find every boy there, some new scholars, and the board of education, all smiling, at the room clean and bright as a new dollar.—Tully Times.
TO JOIN THE NAVY.
Fred Whiting Has Enlisted for Four Years and Goes at Once.
Fred Whiting, son of Mr. and Mrs. P. R. Whiting, 68 Pomeroy-st., Cortland, went to Syracuse this afternoon and will start from that city at 7 o'clock tomorrow morning for Norfolk, Va., to join the United States navy at that point. Mr. Whiting went to Syracuse last Wednesday to try the examinations for entering and passed these in a very satisfactory manner. He has enlisted for four years. He expects to remain in Norfolk during the remainder of this winter, after that he cannot speculate with any degree of certainty upon where he may be stationed.
Death of Mrs. L. R. Rose.
Mrs. L. R. Rose died at East Homer of heart trouble last night. She was born 52 years ago in Homer and was a daughter of Robert and Mary Jackson. All her life has been spent in the town of Homer. She is survived by her mother, by one brother and sister, Nelson Jackson and Miss Charilla Jackson, all of whom now live in Newark Valley, and also by her husband and four daughters: Mrs. E. S. Bosworth of Cortland, Mrs. George Henry of Homer, Mrs. Ira Slater of East Homer and Mrs. O. A. Knapp of Cortland. The funeral will be held on Monday at the house at East Homer at 1 o'clock and will be private, and also at the church in East Homer at 1:30 o'clock, at which time friends are invited to be present.
BREVITIES.
—New display advertisements today are—A. S. Burgess, Clothing, page 7.
—The last car to Homer now leaves Cortland at 11 o'clock and the last [tolley] car for Cortland leaves at Homer at 11 o'clock. The 11:30 cars run only to the car barn unless special arrangements are made in advance.
—The First National bank has issued a very neat and dainty calendar for 1902. The feature is the head of a very pretty girl with a bunch of carnations in her hair, from which it gets the name assigned to it, "Carnations."
—The regular meeting of the directors of the Y. M. C. A. which would naturally have come next Monday night is postponed till called by the president on account of the union services at some of the churches which are to be continued another week.
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