"LET US FACE THE TRUTH"

Under this bold and virtuous title, the Chicago Inter-Ocean devotes a leading editorial to saying many bad things about GUNTON'S MAGAZINE. GUNTON'S is guilty of many sins, but in this instance the principal offence was an article reviewing the facts in the Cuban sugar controversy and criticising the conduct of Secretary Root and Gen. Wood for taking funds from the public treasury for party political purposes. In its righteous wrath the Inter- Ocean thus delivers itself:

"The current issue of GUNTON'S MAGAZINE contains a six page editorial onslaught upon the secretary of war, culminating in the demand that the president instantly remove Mr. Root from office as a traitor to protection, under penalty of being deemed an abettor of his treason.

"On protection,' says the magazine, ‘Elihu Root has always been a half-hearted weakling' 'In dealing with Cuba,' it adds, 'Mr. Root's anti-protection influence in the administration has been conspicuous. In this he easily commanded the support of General Wood, his subordinate, and equally indifferent to the policy of protection.'

"Governor Wood's and Secretary Root's insistence upon reciprocity for Cuba is then described as merely a campaign for free sugar.' 'This, of course,' adds the editor, 'elicited the praise and support of the pronounced free-trade journals of the country. As the contest advanced, the free-trade forces lined up stronger and stronger behind Messrs. Wood, Root and Havemeyer. The president, under their influence, finally took sides against the protectionist party.'

"For impudence, impertinence, sophistry and fallacy, these remarks certainly are unsurpassed in the literature of Cuban reciprocity."

It must have been warm in Chicago about the 8th of July, else so much heat with so little light could never have emanated from a single source; but it is often easier to use expletives and call names than to furnish facts and prove propositions. It was deemed advisable to reprint this, if only to furnish a specimen of what a great daily can do in the way of firework's argument when it has "an issue" to champion. But "let us face the truth," for while that may be a little unpleasant, it is always a moral tonic.

The Inter-Ocean began by saying that GUNTON's demanded “that the president instantly remove Mr. Root from office as a traitor to protection, under penalty of being deemed as an abettor of his treason." To be strictly parliamentary, our contemporary is mistaken. Nothing was said in GUNTON'S suggesting the resignation of Mr. Root for his views on protection, but for his misuse of public funds for party campaign purposes. What we said was:

"Of course it is not supposed that President Roosevelt authorized either Wood's misuse of the public funds for political purposes in this tariff warfare, or his purchasing of Gen. Gomez's political influence in Cuba, but the facts remain. It is for the president to say whether he will stand for that and the methods such acts represent, or will do the only other thing left, ask Mr. Root to resign."

Is it not true that the opponents of tariff reduction were willing to afford all the relief asked for Cuba by other methods, like rebate? Is it not true that the Root and Wood policy has elicited the praise of the enemies of protection? Is it not true that the freetrade forces have lined up, stronger and stronger, behind Messrs. Root, Wood and Havemeyer" for a tariff war? Is it not true that Gen. Wood paid large sums of money out of the Cuban treasury for the political influence of Gen. Gomez ? Is it not true that he also used the public funds to subsidize the Havana Post, furnish campaign literature and lobby service in this country? Instead of throwing light on some of these things the Inter-Ocean simply calls it "impudence," "impertinence," "sophistry" and "fallacy," as if such screeching proves anything but bad manners.

While the subject is up we may as well ask the Inter-Ocean to "face the truth" a little further. In its issue of July 1st, under the title. "Cuba's Impending Ruin," it devoted its leading editorial to showing how Cuban planters were losing money on every pound

of sugar they produced, in proof of which it presented the following:

"The Diaro de la Marina of Havana demonstrates in figures the ruin with which Cuba's chief industry is now threatened. The figures are taken from the books of a leading planter. They set forth, therefore, an actual and recent transaction.

"This planter had 10,000 bags, or 3,200,000 pounds, of sugar of such high grade that he was able to get for it 10 cents a bag above the current New York price. Yet, having no other market, he was obliged to sell his crop at a net loss of over 68 cents a bag. His expenditures and receipts were as follows:

"Actual cost of production and transportation to Havana, per bag, $4.3123; freight, insurance, brokerage, etc., Havana to New York, per bag, 68 cents; duty, per bag, $5.392; total cost delivered to refinery, per bag, $10.3843; received from refinery, per bag, $9.70; net loss to planter, per bag, 68.43 cents.

"In other words, for sugar that cost him $103,843 to produce and get to market the planter received but $97,000. With no allowance whatever for local taxes, interest on capital and depreciation of plant, his net loss on his year's work was $6,843. No business man needs to be told that to attempt to do business under such conditions is simple ruin."

This statement is essentially false, because it is founded upon a bold misstatement regarding the price at which sugar was sold, and for this there can be no excuse for the editor of a great newspaper, since the market price of sugar is a matter of daily publication.

It will be noted that this planter, who is said to have lost $6,843 on his crop, produced ten thousand bags, containing an aggregate of 3,200,00 pounds of sugar, which would be 320 pounds per bag. If, as the Inter Ocean says, "the planter received from the refinery, per bag, $9.70," that would be exactly three cents a pound plus ten cents a bag. But the market price for this grade of sugar has not been as low as three cents a pound for nearly six years; the lowest point it has touched since October, 1896, is 3 cents a pound. For 1897, the price of 96° centrifugal sugar averaged 3.557; in 1898, 4.235; in 1899, 4.419; in 1900, 4.566; in 1901, 4.047; down to June 26, 1902, 3.50; and the average

for June was 3.41. So the simple truth is that there was no price at which sugar has been quoted since 1896 at which this planter would have had any loss at all. On the contrary, at the lowest price it has touched during this period, he would have received 90 cents a bag, or $9,000 more than the price given by the Inter-Ocean. Therefore, instead of losing $6,843, he would have made, at the very least, $2,157; but, if he sold it at the average price which prevailed during the month of June (the time this statement was made), he had a net profit of $5,277. If he had sold it at a price equal to the average from January to July, this year, he would have made a net profit of over $8,000.

But there is another form of misrepresentation in this statement: In estimating the cost of producing this sugar, the Inter-Ocean adds the duty, which, on the ten thousand bags, it puts at $53.920; but the planter never paid this; all the planter invested in this output was the cost of raising the sugar and delivering it in New York. The purchaser paid the duty. The $53,920 is a part of the cost of the sugar to the public, but it is not part of the expense of the planter. He delivers it in bond, and the purchaser pays the duty when it is taken out; so that, properly speaking, the planter's investment in this ten thousand bags of sugar is not $103,843, but only $49,923. The additional $53,920 is paid, but it is paid by the refiner to the government, and not by the planter at all in marketing 96° centrifugal sugar. Then, at the very lowest price at which this planter could have sold his sugar, if he had sold at the most inopportune moment, he would have made a net profit of 4.32 per cent. At the average price which prevailed in June, 1902, he would have made a net profit on his investment of 10.5 per cent.; at the average price for the six months of this year, he would have made 16 per cent. on his investment.

The Inter Ocean may have been mislead by the facts furnished from Havana, but only reckless zeal and indifference to accuracy can explain its falsification of

the market price of sugar.

Justice to its readers and

its own reputation demand that the Inter Ocean at once "face the truth," and begin to tell it.

But we might as well "face the truth" on this matter a little further while we are about it. This jumble of lies (for that is what it is), presented editorially by the Inter-Ocean, is really no work of its own; it is simply parroting a story that has been going the rounds in other papers, and the Inter-Ocean just swallowed it whole, without the slightest investigation of its truth, or concern for its moral influence, suffice that it seemed to make out that the Cuban planters were being ruined, and so contribute to a campaign cry. This story appeared in the New York Sun of June 30th; it was taken up and reprinted in an hysterical editorial by the New York Times the next day, and also received recapitulation and sympathy in over a column editorial in the Boston Herald. The Inter-Ocean's account differs from that of the New York Sun and Times and Boston Herald only in the fact that by a different use of the figures it makes the planter lose $6,843 on his output, while the other three make him lose $7,500.

Nor is it any mitigation of the Inter-Ocean's offence that the New York Sun and Times and Boston Herald committed the same sin against truthful statement and decent journalism, in order to bolster a political fad. Moreover, so far as we know, not one of these papers has attempted to correct the lie they all boosted along with the "moral" influence of editorial endorsement.

In view of such bold perversion of common facts, in the name of "moral propaganda," the American people may very properly doubt the genuineness of the