If President Roosevelt sincerely and vigorously attempts to obtain any reform legislation during his administration, two-thirds of his support will come from the opposition. His own party, owned by and mortgaged to the few, is absolutely powerless to effect any good. There are a few prominent kittens in the party who simulate a little independent thinking, but when the mother cat gives them a collective swat in the face, they lie down and put their chins on their paws and mew in obedient accents that they are now good cats.—_Chadron (Neb.) Times._ * * * * * A certain Wall Street firm was engaged in doing business as curb brokers and “washing” a certain stock. Do you know exactly what “washing” stock is? It is simply a fake auction on a big scale. It is the kind of thing that puts a little man in jail if he is caught doing it. It is the kind of thing that makes respectable fortunes for some of the big men. This firm was engaged in “washing” a certain copper stock. An officer of the dignified National City Bank was interested in this stock. He had agreed to take a certain amount of it at a very low price, and he wanted to unload it on the public at a very much higher price. The brokers proceeded to “wash” the stock accordingly. Let us say that the stock was worth fifty cents per share. One broker bid fifty-five cents for a thousand shares, and they all pretended that it was a legitimate transaction—in reality it was a fake bid and a fake transaction. The other broker engaged in the skin game would then bid sixty cents for another thousand shares—and so it would go. Not one person engaged in the swindle was actually buying a single share of stock. They simply bid back and forth, pretending to buy it, and putting the price up day by day. The crowd of poor fools that believe in the “honor” of these disreputable Wall Street gamblers looked on at this mock auction, this fake selling and buying of stocks, amazed and excited by the constantly increasing values. Occasionally some gullible creature outside the combination that was doing the stock “washing” would come in and in good faith buy some shares, actually paying his good money for the worthless stuff. This went on until they had forced the price of the stock up to a high figure, ten times what it was worth. During this “washing” operation, they had succeeded in working off a good deal of this stock on the public that believed the crooked sales were really genuine.—_New York Journal._ * * * * *