Arena magazine - Volume 33
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THE ARENA EDITED BY B. O. FLOWER Vol. XXXIII JANUARY TO JUNE 182 to 187 ALBERT BRANDT: PUBLISHER Trenton, N. J. and Boston, Mass. 1905 Digitized by Google
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Copyright, 1904 and 1905, by Albert Brandt Printed at The Brandt Press, Trenton, N. J., U. 8 . A. ii Digitized by Google
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/J * CONTENTS. Page. Forty Yours in the Wilderness; or, Masters and Rulers of “The Freemen ** of Pennsylvania, Rudolph Blankenburg 1 HhuAratiotu — Simon Cameron, Thaddeua Stevens, Andrew 6. Curtin, Galuaha A. Grow, Col. A. K. McClure, J. Donald Cameron. George Friabie Hoar: An Appreciation, Prof. Edwin Maxet, M. Dip., LL.D. 11 The Straggle of Autocracy With Democracy in the Early Days of the Republic, Rev. E. P. Powell 13 Light mmm Legislation Katrina Trask (Mrs. Spencer Trask) 10 Henrik Ibsen and Soda! Prams, Archibald Henderson, Ph.D. 26 The Postal Savings-Banks of Great Britain; or. How the Government of England Fosters Saving Among the Poor, J. Henniker Heaton, M.P. 31 The Social Message of Emerson, Rev. Owen R. Lovejoy 38 The Reign of Boodle and the Rape of the Ballot in St Louis, Lee Meriwether 43 Realty Masters, Eliweed Pomeroy, AM. 61 Justice for die Criminal, G. W. Galvin, M.D. 63 A Defence of Walt. Whitman's "Leaves of Grass," Clarence Cuninoham 66 A Pioneer Newspaper Cartoonist, B. O. Flower 69 Uhdtnmom — "The Steady Worker," "A Little Too Fast, Unde," "An Interruption in the Great Peace Play,” "Sedn* Thingsat Night,” "And Now Furniture is Going Up," "The New Peace Arad,” "MakingUp to theWidow^In Bryan's Pocket" The Poems of Emerson : " Hermione ” Charles Malloy, 65, 182, 289 The Dirty of the Hour as Viewed by Victor Hugo, "Lebendig" 70 The Budding of the City Beautiful, (Continue®, Joaquin Miller, 71, 187, 296, 415, 626, 636 Forte Yean m the Wilderness; or. Masters and Rulers of "The Freemen” of Pennsylvania. — H. The Master-Spirit — "Sprouting and Spreading," Rudolph Blankenbubg 113 IHudratiotu — Matthew Stanley Quay, Samuel W. Pennypacker, Lewis Emery, Jr., George E. Mapet, Charles S. Wolfe, Jeremiah S. Blade, Franklin B. Gowen, William H. Kemble, Lems C. Cassidy, William B. Mann. The Kmaraon of Municipal Activities, Clinton Rogers Woodruff 128 Public Control of the liquor Traffic in Sweden and Norway, M. Alger 134 The Impurity of Divorce Suppression, Theodore Schroeder 142 *The Armour Refrigerate-Car Conspiracy Exposed; or, A Crisis in Interstate Commerce Regulation,. . WTG. Joernb 147 Matthew Arnold as a Poet, H. W. Peck 166 The RumoJapanese War: 161 L The Russo-Japanese War from a Pro-Russian View-Point Judge Edward Campbell 161 n. A Reply from the View-Point of the Facts in the Case, . .Prof. Edwin Maxey, M. Dip., LLD. 166 Gsrnet Warren : Cartoonist B. O. Flower 171 IUustratioru — " Intervention — The Hope of die World," "Under Control," "But Wouldn’t Arbitration Be a Better Way ?" "It Seems to be in Fashion," "Where the BigStick is Needed," "A Half for Thee and a Half for Thee,” "The Only Wav," "Light in DarkestRussia," "How Long, O Lord, How Long!" "Naked, But Unashamed," "Standing Pit” Forte Years in the Wilderness; or, Masters and Rulers of "The Freemen" of Pennsylvania. — H. The Maeter-Spubit—" Ripened and Revealed." , . .Rudolph Blankenbubg 226 /tftfjtearioar— -Robert E. Pattison, George W. Ddamater, Daniel H. Hastings, David Martin, Gen. James A. Beaver, George B. Orlady, Facsimile of Letter by B. J. Haywood, James McManes, P. F. Rothennd, Jr., Facsimile of Quay’s Famous "Shake the Plum-Tree” Telegram, Facsimilie Letter from Quay to John Hopkins, John P. Elkin, J. Hay Brown. A Pen-Picture of a Great Radical Meeting in Paris, Mrs. Frances Hardin Hess 239 Ilhutrations — Anatole France, Francis de FressenssA Toe New School of Socialism in Europe, David Graham Phillips 242 Gfrinrt Hauptmann: Social Idealist, Archibald Henderson, PhJ>. 261 ike PreKnt Status of Cooperation in Great Britain, J. C. Gray 268 Tne Divorce Problem : A Suggests®, Prof. Henry Gaines Hawn 262 The Nevada Referendum Victory as an Illustration of Democratic Progress, Eliweed Pomeroy, A.M. 267 How Four Mem Rescued a City from Entrenched Corruption ; or. The Rise, Dominance and Downfall of ffie Tweed Ring, B. O. Flower 270 IUudrations bu Th. Nad — "Tweedledee and Sweedledum,” “What Are You Laughing At? To die Victor Belong the Spoils," "The Tammany Lords and Their Constituents," "The ‘Brains,’” "Let UsiRw," "Empty and Full,” "Too Thin !" "Who is Ingersoll's Company?” “Who Stole the Peocfo’s Money ?*" Wholesale and Retail," "What the People Must Do Aboutlt," “Tweed-le-dee andTHden-dmn," "Stop Thief!" "The Tammany Tiger Loose." FvtyYean in the Wilderness; or. Masters and Rulers of "The Freemen” of Pennsylvania. — HI. Law- makers Who Shame the Republic, Rudolph Blankenbubg 346 ill 156333
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IV Contents. rw^e. Illustrations — John Stewart, James W. Lee, James Gray Gordon, Photographic Reproductions of Four Passes issued by the Pennsylvania Railroad, Photographic Reproduction of Pass issued by the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company, Alexander J. Cassatt, John B. Parsons, John Wanama- ker, William A. Stone, William P. Potter, John Dean, William T. Marshall, Andrew B. Dunsmore, Philander C. Knox. What the Second City of Great Britain is Doing for Her People; or, Where Municipal-Ownership is in Full Flower, Clara Bewick Colby 861 Switzerland and Her Ideal Government; or, Direct-Legislation in the Alpine Republic, O. K. Hewbb 360 Emerson’s “ Brahma"; or. The Poet-Philosopher in the Presence of Deity, Harvey Whitefield Peck 875 Municipal-Ownership and League Organization, Wolbyan R. Brown 877 The Quaker and the Puritan : A Thrilling Passage in Colonial History, Charles Frederick Holder. LL.D. 886 Ryan Walker: A Cartoonist of Social Protest, B. O. Flower 898 Illustrations by Ryan Walker — “The Sower,” “The Accident of Birth,” “The Annexer *11 Git You ef You Do n't Watch Out,” “ Please, Mr. Santa, You Are Leaving Me a Lot of Presents I Do n't Want,” “No Race-Suicide Here,” “The Slave of the Lamp,” “Dadburn! You Not Only Slide Down on My Sled, But You Make Me Pull You Up Hill Again,” “A Colorado Monster,” “To Hell With the Constitution!” “Deported,” Six Cartoons from Fairy Stories from Real Life , Twelve Car- toons from The Social HeU. The Second Great Struggle Between Autocracy and Democracy in the Republic, . . .Rev. E. P. Powell 406 The First Great Arbitration Treaty, Edwin Maxey, M. Dip., LL.D. 410 Is Divorce a Forward or a Backward Step ? Kate Richards O’Hare 418 Forty Years in the Wilderness; or, Masters and Rulers of “The Freemen” of Pennsylvania. — TV. Phil- adelphia and The Freeman’s Ballot, Rudolph Blankenburo 467 Illustrations — George S. Graham, James P. McNichol, James L. Miles, One of the Letters that Came Back, Photographic Reproductions of Houses from which 166 Voters were Registered, Israel W. Durham, John Weaver, Samuel Salter, Judge G. Harry Davis, John R. K. Scott, Reuben O. Moon, John C. Bell, Photographic Reproduction of Pass Issued by the Pennsylvania Railroad Com- Stephen ^Phillips: Poet and Dramatist, Archibald Henderson, Ph.D. 474 Practical Results Which Have Attended the Introduction of the Referendum in Switzerland, Prof. Charles Borgeaud 486 America in the Philippines, George F. Pentecost, DJ). 486 Japan as Viewed hr a Native Socialist, Kiicm Kaneko 498 Tie Kansas State Refinery Bill and Its Significance, Philip Eastman 500 Our Policy Toward China, Prof. Edwin Maxet, M. Dip., LLJ). 505 Js Trial by Jury, in Criminal Cases, a Failure? F. J. Cabot 510 Celebrated Prophecies of History, Charles Kassel 518 Georgian Economic Ideals and Social Justice, J. Pool 516 JThe Morphineuse, William Lee Howard, MJD. 516 ^Common-Sense on the Railroad Question, Linton Satterthwait 566 Forty Years in the Wilderness; or, Masters and Rulers of “The Freemen” of Pennsylvania. — V. Municipal Black Plague. Light in the Midst of Darkness, — Rudolph Blankenburo 569 Illustrations — Boies Penrose, Philip C. Garrett, Francis B. Reeves, John Field, George D. Mc- Creary, Edwin S. Stuart, Thomas L. Hicks, Samuel H. Ashbridge, J. C. Trautwine, Jr., John W. Hill. Frederick Opper : A Cartoonist of Democracy, B. O. Flower 588 Illustrations byFrederick Opper— ‘‘Just Plain Atavism,” “Only a Dream— As Yet,” “Our Modem Inferno— The Oil Department,” “Our Modem Inferno — The Beef Department,” “Sinbad the Taxpayer,” “The War for Liberty, Bound in the End to Win Everywhere, Will Remove War of All Kinds from the Face cl the Earth,” “The Good Line and the Bad Line,” “Divine Right,” “The Office Boy,” “A Genuine ‘Spook Picture,*” “The Trusterdoodle Railroad,” “The Menace to Our Courts of Justice,” “It Makes Him Smile,” “Christmas Morning,” “The Giant’s Path.” ^ The Benjamin Fay Mills Movement in Los Angeles, W. A. Corey 598 Mumdpal-Ownership Methods, Prof. Frank Parsonb, Ph.D. 596 Rise, Mighty Anglo-Saxons! .Katrina Trabk 597 In Prison and in Kale : The Experience of a Russian Student, Edited by William Lee Howard, MJ>. 600 Beauty and Light, Kenyon Webt 608 The Commerce of Latin America : A Magnificent Field Neglected by the United States, Prof. Frederic M. Noa 615 With Four Charts Blustratingthe Comparative Exports and Imports of Latin America. Jugglingwith Facts and Figures about Transportation; or, How the Railway Interests and Their Special- jPleaders are Seeking to Deceive the People, W. G. Joerns 664 The Constitutional Rights of American Shipping, William W. Bates 634 Editorial Notes, B. O. Flower Are Our People Enjoying “Noteworthy Prosperity” ? — The Symbol of a Parvenue Plutocracy -The Fall of Port Arthur.^ 600 Digitized by Google
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Contents. Page. IWwor Mflmtebqrt Mistake — A Governor Who Would Screen the Destroyers of the Re- pobSc— The Authorship of “The Two Mysteries” : A Correction, 810 A True Democratic Government — The Supreme Need of the Hour— The Anarchist Trusts, . . 4 88 lucation, 687 1b Ike Mirror of the IVeaent Editorial Comment 88 Three Triumphs for Fundamental Democratic Principles at the Recent Election — The Victory for Popular Government in Wisconsin — Toledo’s Partial Victory for Honest Government — A City Where the Ballot is a Farce — Forbidding Free-Speech Under Our Flag — Artist-Artisanshipthe Key to Japan's Commercial Greatness— The Magazines and Social Progress — The Crisis in Russia — MmiH3|ml-Own®«Mp in Liverpool : A Former Citizen's Views — Autocracy’s Evil Hour the Peo- ple’s 0|i|Kfiiunity — The Attitude of the Reactionary Autocrats — Russia and Self-Government — Signs of Change— Revolutionary Leaders and the People— The Insatiable Greed of the Royal Fam- ily of Russia — Signal Success of Municipal Telephones in Great Britain — The Result of Municipal Ribtk>lJghting m Cleveland — Why the Gas-Trust in Two Cities Sees Peril in Yellow Journalism- Phenomenal Growth of the Socialist Vote in Italy-^-Sodal Contrasts the Fruit of Privilege and In- equality of Opportunities — Recrudescence of Medieval Religious Intolerance in Spain — A Canard that Graved a Boomerang, 210 The People in the Power of the Octopus or the “System”— An Historical Cartoon and a Libel Suit — A High-Handed Attempt to Stifle Honest Criticism — The Absurd Pretext Made for this Out- rage— French Statesmen’s Practical Proposition for Solving the Liquor Problem — The Red Czar and the Massacre of the Innocents— The Government as a Landlord— The March of Cobperation m the Middle West — The Immigration Question, 819 A State Dedicated to Freedom — A History of Unparalleled Rapacity — One Typical Example of How a Whole People Was Robbed— Seizing Upon the Virgin Wealth of Kansas— The Young David from die West Against the Corporation Gouath of the Age— A Brazen Attempt to Coerce a State — A State Government that Refused to be Corrupted or Coerced — Perils Before Kansas — Child-Slavery in New York— The Assassination of Sergius : Another Attempt to Temper the Des- potism of Russia — The Railways as Factors in a Popular Educational System — Popular Govern- ment and Reaction — The New Progressive Democratic Party in Great Britain — The Advance of Wirelesa Tdegranhy, 486 The Death-Breeding Genius of Night that Broods Over Russia — Dogmatic Religious Hierar- chies Bie Age-Long Bamer to Freedom, Justice and Human Rights — The Most Fatal Figure in Rnmia — mosor Giddmgs’ Defence of Divorce — Some Facts About High Protection. Reaction and Militarism — Something Worse than Yellow Journalism — A Referendum Victory in Municipal Government— Successful CcsSperathm in Kansas— President Roosevelt’s “Constructive'* Recess- Mileage that Has Not Prevented Bribery of Congressmen by Passes— The Late Attempt by Con- gress to Steal $190,000 of the People’s Money — A Twentieth-Century Victory; or, the Work of a Great Benefactor — A Triumph that Promises to Make Productive Millions of Acres of Desert Waste, 642 A Prophet-Voice in the Hour of the Nation's Peril — Chicago’s Great Popular Victory — Mu- sicipal-OwiMnhip Means a Diminution and Not an Increase in Corrupt Practices and Machine- Rule— MumdmtOwnerskip Does Not Increase Taxation — A Serious Flaw in Chicago's Plan — FcMiompg Public Servants: Brookline Leads the Way— The Church in America at the Parting of the Ways — The Equitable Life-Insurance Scandal— The Standard Qfl Company at Bay— The CotmtsM of Warwick and Her Work Among the Poor— The Countess as a Propagandist of Social Democracy — The Platform or Demands as Summarized by the Countess, $48 Bask 100. 988. 60S BoabTSeD^. 106, 819, 888, 447, 669, 671 Notes and Comments, Ill, 228, 848, 466, 6$ 7, 076 Page. fatraii of Rudolph Blankenburg, facing 1 Bortrritof Shnan Cameron, 2 Fbrtant of lh&4deus Steves 8 Bortnil of Andrew G. Curtin, 4 Portrait of Gahisha A. Grow, 6 ftxtvaitof Col. A. K. McClure, 7 Portrait of J. Donald Cameron, 9 Rvtrait of Katrina Trask, facing 10 Bortnit of Joseph W. Folk, facing 49 tatoait of C. L. Bartholomew, facing 64 IhrtiaH of Matthew Arnold, facing 118 Bortmitof Matthew Stanley Quay, 114 Portrait of Samuel W. Pennypacker, 114 Portrait of George E. Mapes 116 PMnit of Lewis Emery, Jr., 116 Page. Portrait of Charles S. Wolfe* 11$ Portrait of Jeremiah S. Black, 117 Portrait of Franklin B. Gowen, 119 Portrait of William H. Kemble, 121 Portrait of Lewis C. Cassidy, 128 Portrait of William B, Mann 126 Portrait of Clinton Rogers Woodruff,. . .facing 128 Portrait of Garnet Warren, facing 177 Elwell’s Dickens* “little Nell” facing 192 Portrait of David Graham Phillips, facing 226 Portrait of Robert E. Partisan, 226 Portrait of Geoige W. Delamater. 227 Portrait of Darnel H. Hastings, 228 Portrait of David Martin 229 Portrait of Gen. James A. Beaver, 280 Digitized by Google
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VI Contents k F*geJ Portrait of George B. Orlady, SSI Portrait of James McManes, 284 Portrait of P. F. Rothermel, Jr., 286 Portrait of John P. Elkin, 288 Portrait of J. Hay Brown, 288 Portrait of Anatole France, 240 Portrait of Francis De Pressenssl, 240 Portrait of Jean Jaui&, facing 240 Portrait of J. C. Gray, facing 257 Partridge's “The Madonna" facing 272 Portrait of Ralph Waldo Emerson, facing 846 Portrait of John Stewart, 846 Portrait of James W. Lee, 847 Portrait of James Gay Gordon 848 Plartraitof Alexander J. Cassatt, 861 Portrait of John B. Parsons, 862 Portrait of John Wanamaker, 868 Portrait of Wilham A. Stone, 864 Portrait of William P. Potter, 866 Portrait of John Dean, 866 Portrait of William T. Marshall, 867 Portrait of Andrew B. Dunsmore, 868 Portrait of Philander C. Knox, 869 Portrait of Clara Bewick Colby, facing 860 Portrait of Wolstan R. Brown, facing 877 Portrait of Ryan Walker, facing 892 Portrait of George F. Pentecost, DJX,. .facing 467 Portrait of George S. Graham 468 Portrait of James P.McNichol, 469 Portrait of James L. Miles, 460 Portrait of Israel W. Durham, 468 Portrait of John Weaver, 464 Portrait of Samuel Salter, 466 Portrait of Judge G. Harry Daria, 466 Portrait of John R. K. Scott, 467 Portrait of Reuben O. Moon, 468 Portrait of John C. Bell, 469 Portrait of Archibald Henderson, facing 47 2 Portrait of Kiichi K&neko, fmArnff 489 Portrait of Senator Samuel Porter, facing 504 Portrait of Rev. Benjamin Fay Mills, . . . facing 509 Portrait of Boies Penrose, 570 Portrait of Philip C. Garrett, 571 Portrait of Francis B. Reeves, 572 Portrait of John Field, 573 Portrait of George D. McCreary, 574 Portrait of Edwin S. Stuart, 575 Portrait of Thomas L. Hicks, 576 Portrait of Samuel H. AshbrJcifp, 577 Portrait of J. C. Trautwine, Jr., 579 Portrait of John W. Hdl, 581 Portrait of Frederick Opper, facing 584 Portrait of Frederic M. rJoa, facing 617 Partridge’s “Tennyson" facing 632 Cartoons by Dan. Beard, 82, 207, 206, 817, 432, 681, 648. Cartoons, Current, 84, 196, 806, 428, 588. 644 Cartoons by C. L. Bartholomew, . .60, 61, 62, 68, 64 Cartoons by Garnet Warren, 172, 178, 174, 175, 176, 177,178,179,180,181. Cartoons by Thomas Nast, 270, 271, 272, 278, 274, 275, 276, 277, 279, 281, 288, 286, 287. Cartoons by Ryan Walker, 898, 894, 896, 896, 897, 898, 899, 400, 401, 408, 404, 405. Cartoons by Frederick Opper, 684, 686,586,687,688, 689,590,591,592. Illustrations, 282, 288, 286, 287, 849, 860, 861, 461, 462,472. Digitized by Google
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Phot© by Gutekunst, Philadelphia. RUDOLPH BLANKENBURG The Arena Digitized by Google.
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v * Jf , % «. ' We. do not, take possession of our idcn*,d>\it arc possessed by them, They niastcr us and force us' into the arena , Where, like gladiators , we must fight for them”— Heine. - Vol. XXX II l he Areni • v ;%r- v - . y January, 1905 $o. 182 FORTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS; OR, MASTERS AND RULERS OF “THE FREEMEN” OF PENNSYLVANIA. 1 By Rudolph Blankenburg. “And the Lord’s anger was kindled against Israel, and he made them wander in the wilderness forty years until all the generation that had done evil in the sight of the Lord was consumed. — Numbers s 3S LET US ardently hope that the Lord's anger will not prevail until all those who have done public evil, small or great, in our Commonwealth within the last forty years, are consumed. If his anger can be appeased only and good relations reestablished by the taking away of every man guilty of evil actions, whether of commission or omission, in public life, or as a plain everv-day citizen, the death-rate will necessarily have to in- crease at an alarming rate and cause just fears that the United States Census of Pennsylvania in 1910 will cut a sorry figure and show a marked decrease in the population of the State. One of the crying evils of the hour is the lamentable indifference of the average citizen to his public duties and the easy- going spirit with which he permits his municipal or State servant to become his master and ruler, and, a<s a natural result often the unchecked beneficiary of public funds without first passing the customary appropriation bills. Another difficulty is the unconcern he exhibits when robbed of the most precious privilege and rights inherited from his ancestors or bestowed upon hirp by the founders of our government. If Jbe reads flaming headlines in his morning paper about an attempted robbery, hi$ interest is instantly aroused, every line of the story is clos^y perused; his inclination knows no bounds and he may even mutter: “ That fellow should be hung, * and I would n’t hesitate to help pull the rope.” The same paper; in a parallel column, may relate the story of the grossest de- bauchery of the ballot, of thousands of fraudulent votes cast and counted at an election affecting the very life and future of the community, the crime committed, perhaps, under the shadow of Independ- ence Hall. He glances at the head-lines, yawns, throws the paper aside and lights a cigar! We find the Metropolis of the State of Pennsylvania, called the “ most American City” in the Union, under the undis- puted control of a late police-magistrate, a successful public contractor , and a former saloon-keeper. The elation of our citizens should know no bounds when they contemplate the rare trium- virate who “ by the grace of themselves and the indifference of the people” have virtually become proprietors and rulers of 1 Digitized by AjOOQLC
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2 Masters and Rulers of “ The Photo, by Gmekunst, Phila. SIMON CAMERON. the City of Philadelphia, masters of municipal legislation, distributers of office, tithe-gatherers from dependent officials — from Mayor to scrub-woman — wizards of elections and general superintendents and arbiters of all that concerns the municipal welfare of “ their loyal and obedient sub- jects.” Our political czars may well feel a peculiar pride in their constituency, for: They control one Mayor. They own ninety per cent, of City Councils. They are Directors of Public Safety and Public Works. They select and elect all but three Magistrates. They police the Police. They promote public education through sectional school-boards of their private choice. They manufacture Republican ma- jorities a la carte . They care for machine tools and agents Freemen ” of Pennsylvania. after acquittal or conviction on criminal charges. They keep our streets as dean as their politics. They are “blind” believers in civil- service. They decree our tax-rate. These are a few of the accomplish- ments of our honored rulers. Their power and dictation are, more or less cheerfully, tolerated and acquiesced in b y : 700 churches, ministers of the gospel and their congregations. 5.000 Sunday-school teachers. 2,500 members of the bar, graduates of our universities. 2,500 physicians, graduates of our universities. 1,800 active members of the Union League. 150 life members of the Union League. 900 members of the Manufacturers’ Club. 10.000 members of other social, lit- erary, business and reform clubs. 2,500 firms composing “The Trades League.” 750 members of the “ Ancient and Honorable” Board of Trade. 200 financial institutions of dean business record. 16.000 manufacturing firms, employ- ing 250,000 hands. 10.000 business establishments, large and small. 500 building assodations with a power- ful, provident and respectable member- ship. Then there are “The Mayflower De- cendants,” “ Sons of the Revolution,” “Society of Colonial Wars,” and other hereditary bodies who glory in the virtues and accomplishments of their forefathers and are satisfied with carrying their honored names — to the grave! We have in our midst a quarter-million honest, well-disposed men who could rescue the city if they would cultivate and Digitized by Google
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Masters and Riders of “ The arouse the dormant public-spirit within them, if they would once awaken from the political turpitude and moral lethargy that has, almost continually for a genera- tion, been their voluntary lot. They have been in the hands of banded spoilsmen, who levy tribute whenever the law is not too close upon their heels and who can be routed only by an uprising of patriotic, public-spirited citizens and the proclama- tion of a new Declaration of Independ- ence aimed not at foreign foe but at a domestic oppressor, far more dangerous, insidious and threatening than any pos- sible enemy or combination of powers against our country and its institutions from foreign lands. The history of the infamy of Pennsyl- vania and Philadelphia under boss-rule, from Cameron to Quay, is of such pro- portions that it can be dealt with only in a general way and will be taken up in a series of articles, beginning with an intro- ductory chapter on THE BIRTH OP CORRUPTION. Senator Quay was not the author or originator of the corrupt system of poli- tics in Pennsylvania, which came in later years to be fittingly described as Quay- ism; he found, when he commenced his debasing public career, a crude, cut- throat political machine which he per- fected and elaborated until it became the most effective instrument of liberty- destroying power in American politics. The man who originated and laid the foundation for the unparalleled system of political debauchery which has made Pennsylvania politics a hissing and a by-word wherever the English language is spoken, was the late Simon Cameron. He broke into political parties and achieved success with the crow-bar and sledge-hammer, with a friendly burglar- proof safe, the closed doors hiding from public view compartments filled with per- suasive boodle. His successor discarded the crow-bar and substituted the finest \ tempered file; the unwieldly sledge-ham- ' mer gave way to the noiseless pry; the Freemen ” of Pennsylvania. 8 closed door of the burglar-proof safe to double-locked and guarded apartments on the political battle-ground, safe from public view but far richer in possibilities and rewards for the faithful than they had ever dreamed of under their first ruler. Cameron was born of Scotch parentage, in Lancaster county, in the last year of the eighteenth century. As a boy he learned the printer’s trade, edited a paper for a short time in Doylestown, the county-seat of Bucks county, and at the age of twenty-three removed to Harris- burg, to become the editor of a Demo- cratic newspaper, and gradually, by shrewd and timely changes of his political affiliations, the dictator and the arbiter of Pennsylvania politics for a period of forty years. His first leap into notoriety came through a shady transaction occurring during the administration of Van Buren, in which he was the authorized Govern- ment agent to pay the Winnebago Indians a large sum of money in consideration of their release of certain lands to the United THADDEUS STEVENS. Digitized by Google
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4 Masters and Rulers of “ The States. Cameron was at the time Presi- dent of a bank in Middletown, Pennsyl- vania, and it was charged that he de- posited the specie entrusted to him to discharge the debt to the Indians, in his own bank, taking with him the equivalent of the amount in new bank-bills. He is also said to have equipped himself with a large stock of beads, gewgaws, and cheap finery of the sort that would be likely to strike the fancy of the aborigines. After having first induced the Indians to accept his new Middletown bank-notes, which they regarded as the prettiest money they ever saw, in payment of their claim against the Government, he proceeded to sell the cheap stock in trade to his easy dupes to an amount sufficient to cover nearly the entire payment he had made to them. He had left the specie in his own bank before starting on his mission, and he brought back nearly all the paper notes which represented the amount. Whether the story was exaggerated or Photo, by Gnteknnst, Phi la. ANDREW G. CURTIN. Freemen” of Pennsylvania . not, it won for him the derisive title of “Old Winnebago,” which clung to him for a generation. This episode should have forever precluded his becoming an even secondary factor in the affairs of state, for a man who deliberately de- ceives and swindles the wards of the Nation should be shunned as much as he who would betray and rob his own orphan wards. He entered into politics as the leader of a legislative bolt by which he was elected to the United States Senate as the suc- cessor of James Buchanan, who had be- come a member of President Polk’s cabinet. The Democrats had a clear majority in the legislature at the time, and had nominated the late Chief-Justice Woodward to succeed Buchanan, but Cameron, who while professing to be a Democrat was a protectionist, quietly made it of interest to a number of Demo- crats to bolt the nomination of Wood- ward and support him for the vacancy. This created a deadlock, and the Whigs, finding they could not elect a candidate of their own, finally voted for Cameron, giving him a majority, and thus a step- ping-stone to his unsavory prominence in the politics of Pennsylvania. He was defeated for reelection in 1849 because the Know-Nothing members of the legis- lature, who then held the balance oi power between the Whigs and the Demo- crats, imitated the example and followed the tactics by which he had secured hii first election with this difference, thal they fused with the Whigs, voting foi James Cooper, instead of Simon Cameron, Democrat. In the election of 1854, the Know Nothing party had become powerful enough in Pennsylvania to constitute i controlling element by endorsing thi Whig candidate for Governor and th< Democratic candidate for Canal Com missioner, both of whom were elected their triumph carrying with it the com plete control of the legislature. Cameroi supported the Democratic ticket and hac made a Democratic speech the eveninj Digitized by Google
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Masters and Riders of “ The Freemen ” of Pennsylvania. 5 before the election. Immediately after the election, over night so to say, he switched around, turned Know-Nothing, and became a candidate for the United States Senatorship. Andrew G. Curtin, who was then Secretary of the Common- wealth, was his chief competitor, but there were minor candidates enough to create a deadlock, and the legislature adjourned without electing anybody. The next legislature was Democratic, and Governor William Bigler, of Clearfield, was chosen Senator. By this time Cameron had boxed the political compass with little success, but with an unabated desire to again become Senator. The legislature of 1857, which had to elect a successor to Richard Brod- head, was Democratic on joint ballot, by three votes, a temptingly small number for an unscrupulous aspirant for office and power to ignore. The late Colonel John W. Forney, was the Democratic caucus nominee, by the personal request of President Buchanan, and no one at the time dreamed that there was any doubt about his election. Cameron, after hav- ing been a Democrat, a Fusionist, again a Democrat and later a Know-Nothing had now become a Republican, having been one of the Republican candidates for elector on the Fremont and Dayton ticket in 1856. He still wanted to be Senator, but his disreputable business and political record failed to commend him to the new party which he had joined and which was composed chiefly of men of honor, principle and conscience. His name was proposed in the Republican caucus for the Senatorship, but was not seriously considered until State Senator Penrose assured the caucus that Cameron could command three Democratic votes if he was certain of a solid Republican vote. A confidential committee was ap- pointed to ascertain the truth of this statement, and reported that it had an apparent foundation. The caucus then decided to vote on the first ballot for Cameron for United States Senator, and await results. Much to the surprise of Photo, by L. C. Handy, Washington, D. C. GALUSHA A. GROW. the greater number, who were not initi- ated, three Democratic members of the House, Lebo, Manear, and Wagonseller voted with them, and Cameron was elected. The three Cameronian Demo- crats paid a heavy penalty however, for their partisan perfidy. They were driven from the hotel in which they boarded, and no other hotel in Harrisburg would receive them. They were hanged in effigy at their own homes, to which they dared not return, and were compelled to seek quarters in an obscure boarding- house in the lower part of the town. Their perfidy drove them into ignom- inious retirement, branded by their in- dignant constituents as fit company for Judas Iscariot and Benedict Arnold. Cameron, however, took little account of the storm of indignation which followed his elevation to the Senate by what were boldly charged to be purchased votes. He was impervious to popular condemna- tion. Politics with him was mere business. Digitized by Google
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6 Masters and Rulers of 44 The He thought no more of buying legislators or legislation than he did of purchasing a yoke of oxen or a pair of trousers. If he had, at that time, been overwhelmed and crushed by public wrath, if his betrayal of all that is sacred and dear to honest citizenship had been punished by politi- cal ostracism, Pennsylvania would never have sunk so deep, and the pages of her later history would not have been so black and repellent. Once in the Senate, he began to have higher aspirations. While a member of a body containing such moral and political giants as Seward, Sumner, Wade and other pillars of the newly-formed Repub- lican party, his bodily presence only was felt, for he cut no figure whatever intellect- ually or as a statesman. He prepared at once to intrigue and scheme to secure the Republican nomination for the Presi- dency in 1860. He was without the cordial support of the Republicans of Pennsylvania, whose leaders were men like Curtin, McClure, Wilmot, Stevens and Grow, yet he was able to make him- self necessary to the election of Curtin, who secured the Republican nomination for Governor of Pennsylvania in that year, and to harmonize the party and make success at the October election possible, the majority of the delegates to the Chicago Convention yielded to Cam- eron’s entreaties and voted for him for President on the first ballot. In the meantime, having cunningly secured a pledge from David Davis, who was managing Lincoln’s candidacy at Chicago, that if the latter were nominated and elected to the Presidency, he would be appointed Secretary of the Treasury, Cameron consented in return to have the vote of Pennsylvania transferred to Lincoln. As illustrating Cameron’s ideas of statesmanship, he frequently after- wards reproached McClure for refusing to give him a cordial support for the nomination, saying that he could have been nominated and elected instead of Lincoln, and to use his own expressive anguage, he added: “We could all have Freemen" of Pennsylvania. had everything we wanted.” This was the keynote of the Cameron character. Responsible offices were not in his judg- ment public trusts to be wisely adminis- tered in the public interest, but private perquisites to be sought and gained for the pecuniary benefit of himself and friends. The thought of Cameron nomi- nated and elected in the place of Lincoln makes one shudder even at this late date. It is appalling to contemplate what would have been the fate of this country if in the place of wise, honest, patriotic Abraham Lincoln an occupant of the White House had been chosen whose life and character were the very antithesis of our martyred President. We cannot enough thank Providence and the Chicago Convention of 1860 that we escaped this humiliation and peril. The election of Lincoln and the war which followed have become history. With a great deal of persuasion and mani- fest reluctance, Lincoln ratified the bar- gain made with Davis, to which he was not a party at the time, and of which he was not made aware until after the elec- tion, by appointing Cameron to his first cabinet, merely changing the promised portfolio from the Treasury to that of the War Department. It is also a matter of history that in the great crisis which tested the statesmanship and administrative capacity of each of the men the President called to his assistance in the formation of his first cabinet, Cameron proved to be the one conspicuous failure, and was driven from the cabinet within less than a year at the imperative demand of a pro- foundly disgusted and indignant country. As Secretary of War, he gave more atten- tion to the granting of fat contracts to his peculating followers than to the suppres- sion of the Rebellion, with the result that the soldiers were provided with shoddy uniforms, antiquated guns that would n’t shoot, and summer hats for winter wear. His dark and dubious doings aroused pub- lic indignation to the highest pitch. He was severely criticized and condemned by leading journals and statesmen of his Digitized by Google
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Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen ” of Pennsylvania 7 own party, while high officers of the army blamed him for much of the suffer- ing their soldiers were compelled to en- dure. Representative Dawes, after- wards Senator from Massachusetts, led an investigation of the alleged abuses of the War Department that resulted in a scath- ing report against Cameron’s method in administering the office and a vote of censure by the House. While Cameron some ten years later, occupied a seat as United States Senator from Pennsylvania the resolution of censure was expunged from the journal of the House of Repre- sentatives ! With great effort, a fifty-million-dollar loan had been negotiated with the leading financiers of the country, and when this had been expended and it was necessary to raise more money to carry on the war, the leading bankers of New York, Phila- delphia, Boston and other financial cen- ters peremptorily refused to advance another dollar until Cameron was super- seded in the War Department by a man whose integrity and patriotism were un- questioned. Then a blow fell which made the callous Secretary of War wince, and he was bluntly dismissed from the position he had disgraced and into which he had forced himself by shameless political trading. President Lincoln, in January, 1862, sent a letter to Mr. Cam- eron by Salmon P. Chase, couched in this language: “I have this day nominated Hon. Edwin M. Stanton to be Secretary of War, and you to be Minister Pleni- potentiary to Russia.” Cameron was stunned and deeply humiliated by this unexpected missive, but he had no re- dress, except that by the interposition of the late Col. Thomas A. Scott, his Assis- tant Secretary of War, President Lincoln consented to withdraw this curt letter of dismissal, and permit Mr. Cameron to write a letter tendering his resignation. This was accepted and the late Secretary of War was banished to St. Petersburg, for that was what his appointment as Minister to Russia virtually meant. It is worthy of note in this connection, that in Photo, by Qutekunst, Phila. COL. A. K. McCLUKE. the change from Cameron to Stanton, the country secured a stemly-honest, capable and efficient Secretary of War. Cameron retired to St. Petersburg with as good grace as possible, and within less than a year had formulated his plans to again break into public place through an election to the Senate at the close of the term for which he had been elected by Democratic perfidy and the vacancy in which had been filled by the election of David Wilmot, of Wilmot-Proviso fame. Fortunately for the country, and defeating Cameron’s aspirations at this time, the legislature was Democratic by one ma- jority on joint ballot, and although Cameron succeeded in securing the Re- publican caucus nomination over Wilmot, on the assurance that he could repeat the Lebo, Manear and Wagonseller strata- gem, and secure his election by a Demo- cratic vote or two, the sequel proved, that it was a game that could n’t be played a second time. On the day the ballot was Digitized by CjOOQle
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Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen” of Pennsylvania. 8 taken for Senator, the aisles and galleries of the State House were thronged with a band of determined Democrats under the leadership of the redoubtable Esquire William McMullen, now deceased, of Philadelphia, each with a revolver in his right coat-pocket and his hand on his revolver ready for business. In the face of such determined surveillance and ready argument no treacherous Democrat dared to vote for Cameron, and Charles R. Buckalew, the Democratic caucus candidate was elected by one majority. Cameron was thus compelled to defer his Senatorial aspirations for four years, when he was elected to the Senate over Andrew G. Curtin, after one of the bit- terest contests ever witnessed in Pennsyl- vania. It was during this Senatorial contest of 1867, that Cameron’s successor as the Dictator of Pennsylvania politics, Mat- thew Stanley Quay, who was a member of the House from Beaver County, and a professed adherent of Curtin transferred his allegiance from Curtin’s leadership to that of Cameron, thus falling heir to the succession. Cameron was reelected for a fourth term in 1873, and retired finally from public life in 1877, by the transfer of his Senatorial toga to the shoulders of his son, J. Donald Cameron. A review of his public career reveals the introduc- tion into Pennsylvania politics, for the first time, of the corrupting power of money and the degrading principle that participation in public affairs is a mere scramble for power and pelf. Cameron’s remark to McClure, already quoted, reveals his standard of statesmanship. The records of the Senate during the four terms in which he occupied a seat in that body, fail to show any measure of public importance associated with his name. His warfare to the point of ex- termination against other Republican leaders in Pennsylvania, shows that he realized, himself, that among statesmen he was a pigmy, and that his only hope of permanent success lay in driving every possible rival out of public life. When he entered Lincoln’s cabinet there were four Pennsylvanians who from the stand- point of real statesmanship were easily his superiors. These men were Andrew G. Curtin, the great War- Govern or, Galusha A. Grow, then Speaker of the House of Representatives and the author of the “Homestead Law,” David Wilmot, his own successor in the Senate, and Thad- deus Stevens, known as the “ Great Com- moner,” and the undisputed leader of the House of Representatives. For Cameron to retain his supremacy it was necessary that these men should be driven out of office or their spheres limited to a single Congressional District. Grow, who had served five consecutive terms in the House, was easily robbed of his place by a legis- lative gerrymander of his district made at the dictation of Cameron, by which it became Democratic. Wilmot failed of reelection because the Legislature was Democratic at the time, and Cameron was given the caucus nomination which proved to be barren. Wilmot was ap- pointed to the Federal Court of Claims, and died soon after. Curtin was beaten by Cameron for the Senatorship in 1867 by methods which would not bear the light of day, and resentment at his un- merited defeat undoubtedly had much to do with Curtin’s later adhesion to Greeley in the disastrous campaign of 1872 and his final migration to the ranks of the Democratic party. Stevens was an unsuccessful competitor against Cam- eron in 1867, and died shortly after. At the expiration of his third term as Senator Cameron had succeeded in driving from public life every rival that might become dangerous, and had fully established the era of littleness and incompetency which has disgraced the public administration of the second greatest Commonwealth in the Union for a continuous period of forty years. Grow, in his declining years, after having been deprived of a Senatorship which he had fairly won in an open public canvass before the people, by characteristic Cameronian methods, was finally permitted to reenter the House Digitized by Google
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Masters and Rulers of “ The and round out his career in that body. All the other conspicuous Pennsylvania Republicans of the war-period with the exception of Colonel McClure have been dead for years. A word here as to the introduction of the corrupt use of money in politics. The beginning of Cameron’s rise to wealth in his dubious transaction with the Winne- bago Indians has already been referred to. This occurred during the Van Buren administration, and from that time for- ward he continued to put money in his purse by canal and railway contracts, and later became the beneficiary of the war tariff through the ownership of furnaces, rolling-mills and other industrial enter- prises. Until the war-period wealth had not been considered in Pennsylvania an essential condition of eminence in public life. From the foundation of the Govern- ment, Pennsylvanians had been filling the high offices of the state because of demon- strated ability in the management of public affairs. It is not probable that any Senator or Governor for a period of three-quarters of a century had been a pre- eminently wealthy man. Cameron’s rise simultaneously to wealth and political leadership introduced a new era in politi- cal management. While the corrupt use of money to secure his own elevation was never publicly fastened on him by posi- tive and unimpeachable testimony the Lebo, Manear and Wagonseller episode left no doubt in the public mind that he was the beneficiary of corruption. His own view of the subject may be fairly in- ferred from a remark he is reported to have made to the late Christopher Magee, who was one of his political proteges. Magee had been elected City Treasurer of Pittsburg when a very young man, and upon the expiration of his term, Cameron, who had taken a liking to him, advised him to retire from politics and get rich before engaging in public affairs again, clearly indicating that he regarded riches as the only certain stepping-stone to political preferment in Pennsylvania in the future. That he did all that he Freemen ” of Pennsylvania . 9 Photo, by Gutekunst, Phila. J. DONALD CAMERON. could to make this an essential condition of political success during the period in which he controlled the politics of Penn- sylvania will hardly be disputed by any one at this time. The absolute domination of the execu- tive and legislative powers of the State by Cameron cannot be better illustrated than by a recital of the circumstances con- nected with his resignation and the trans- fer of the Senatorship to his son in 1877. Cameron had still two years to serve, and would in all probability have reelected himself at the expiration of his term, had he so decided. He had, however, failed to induce the incoming President Hayes to continue his son, Donald, in his cabinet as Secretary of War, an office the latter had filled during the closing period of Grant’s second administration. Piqued at his failure to dominate the new admin- istration, he determined to elevate Donald to the Senatorship while he still had the power, and thus entail the Cameron dynasty upon the Commonwealth while Digitized by Google
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10 Masters and Riders of “ The he was still living. He came from Washington to Harrisburg on a Saturday afternoon. The legislature had ad- journed over until Monday night follow- ing, and the majority of the members had gone to their homes to spend Sunday. No intimation of the coming resignation and deal had been allowed to get into the newspapers, and not a single member of either House was aware that it was im- pending. A consultation was held with Governor Hartranft, Quay, who was then Secretary of the Commonwealth, and Robert W. Mackey, who was at that time one of the most influential of the Cameron lieutenants, and a plan of procedure agreed upon. On the following day, Sunday, the Republican members of the House and Senate, who still remained in town, were looked up one at a time and marched down to the residence of J. Donald Cameron, on the river bank, where they were confronted with the new aspirant for Senatorial honors, who in- formed each in detail that his father had resigned, or would resign, and that he was a candidate for the succession. Each vis- itor was pressingly requested to pledge his support to this transfer-of the Senatorship from father to son on the spot, without waiting to consult with his constituents or colleagues. Taken unawares, the pledge was given in most if not in every instance. On the following day every train was watched and every Republican legislator was taken by the arm as he stepped from the train and escorted to the Cameron mansion where the Sunday process was reenacted until pledges Freemen ” of Pennsylvania. enough had been secured by this combi- nation of surprise and pressing personal request to constitute a majority of the Republican caucus. This having been secured. Governor Hartranft sent a mes- sage to the two Houses during the Mon- day evening session announcing the resig- nation of the elder Cameron and request- ing a joint convention of the two houses to elect his successor. It was the pro- found conviction of the leading members of the legislature at the time that if these pledges had not been quietly secured in advance the resignation would not have been placed in the hands of the Governor. As it was, the people of Pennsylvania were neither apprised of the elder Cam- eron’s resignation nor consulted in the least about his successor until the transfer had been consummated. The legislature of the second greatest state in the Union had been degraded from a body of su- preme law-makers, representing four-and- a-half millions of sovereign people, to an assemblage of automatic puppets, repre- senting nobody but a political dictator. Thirty years of Cameron had erected upon the ruins of a supposed representa- tive government a wily and autocratic dicatorship which took no notice of in- telligent public sentiment. That dicta- torship was perpetuated and its power rendered absolute for another quarter of a century by Matthew Stanley Quay, whose career and characteristics form one of the most striking episodes in our political history. Rudolph Blankenburg. Philadelphia, Pa. Digitized by CjOOQle
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GEORGE FRISBIE HOAR. By Edwin Maxey, M.Dip., LL.D. Of the Law Department of the University of West Virginia. N 1826 John Adams died. He had lived through and been a prominent actor in one of the most interesting periods of our history. To him was given the privilege of seeing thirteen British Colonies transformed into an independ- ent Republic. It is a noteworthy coin- cidence that in the same year that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts lost this honored son, there was bom within her borders another who would have enriched any Commonwealth, and to whom it was given to see the Republic transformed into a nation. The develop- ment of the United States within the space of those two lives challenges the admiration of the world. A sense of im- mediate loss forces us to consider the latter of these lives. George Frisbie Hoar was bom in the historic town of Concord. His grand- fathers on both sides had taken active parts in the Revolutionary war. His mother was the daughter of Roger Sherman of Connecticut. His father Samuel Hoar, was one of the ablest lawyers at the Massachusetts bar. Thus heredity and environment combined to pro- duce a strong, vigorous New Englander. At the age of sixteen he entered Har- vard College, which was then a very small institution compared with what it is to-day. The course of study was the fixed classic course given in the ordinary denomi- national college; very little attention was then given to the sciences, and there were very few elective studies. He did not make a brilliant record in college. According to his own account, he wasted a great deal of his time. But the same was not true of his course in the law school. Here he applied himself con- scientiously and under the guidance of Greenleaf, Parsons, Parker and Dexter laid the foundation of a legal education upon which for more than half a century he has been rearing a superstructure. His professional life was spent in the practice of law at Worcester, Mass. From the start he gave promise of excep- tional success, so much so that in the second year of his practice he was invited by Judge Washburn to form a law part- nership with him. Soon after entering the partnership Judge Washburn took a six months’ trip to Europe, leaving Mr. Hoar to look after the practice of the firm. During his absence he was nominated for governor by the Whigs. His election left the remaining partner in possession of one of the largest practices in the state, an extraordinary thing for one not yet thirty years old and but four years a practitioner. In the securing of it there seemed to be something of luck; but it took more than luck to hold it success- fully, which he did until his election to Congress in 1868. Though kept very busy with his law practice he found time to take an active part in the development of his adopted city. He was the founder of its Free Public Library, also of its Polytechnic Institute. To him is due the distinction of having made before the Legislature of Massachusetts the first public address in behalf of technical education in this country. Such acts are no mean tribute to his foresight and no slight evidence of his usefulness as a citizen. In addition to this he found time to render two years of service in the Massachusetts Legis- lature, during which he drafted and secured the adoption of the Practice Act, which has formed the basis of civil prac- tice in that state for more than half a century. He was also one of the first to champion the factory legislation in which Massachusetts has been the pioneer in this country. 11 Digitized by Google
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12 George Frisbie Hoar. From the time he reached his majority he took an active interest in politics. He was one of the founders of the Free-Soil party and later of its legitimate successor, the Republican party. He organized the latter for its first successful campaign in Massachusetts. He favored the nomi- nation of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 and did effective service toward electing him. There is nothing in Mr. Hoar’s whole political career in which he felt so much pride as in the part which he took in the formation of the Republican party. He was an ardent anti-slavery man and felt that this was the most effective way of promoting the anti-slavery cause. In 1868 he was elected to Congress, of which body he has been a member con- tinuously for thirty-six years, since 1877 in the Senate. So long a term of public service is certainly remarkable. But what is more remarkable, he never sought an election or a reelection. Neither did he, like all too many of our Congressmen and Senators, ever convert himself into an office-peddling agency. He gave his time conscientiously to the business of legislation. His conception of the duties of a legislator forms a refreshing contrast with that of “Tom” Platt and Matt. Quay. Though an ardent partisan he was frequently at variance with the views of his party, yet he never bolted. He be- lieved in reforming the party from within rather than by going over to the enemy. As a result of this policy he always re- tained his influence in his party, an in- fluence which though not always sufficient to control its actions has nevertheless always been respected by the thinking men of his party. The bolter, upon the other hand, loses whatever influence he had in his own party and rarely acquires more than a temporary influence in the councils of the enemy. Partisanship is not per se an evil and becomes such only when used to attain unrighteous ends. As an orator he was handicapped by a thin, piping voice, yet some of his speeches have been masterpieces when judged from the standpoint of incisive argument. But in spite of a poor voice he was always listened to with attention, for it was known that he would always say some- thing worth remembering and that he meant what he said. Intellect and sin- cerity seldom fail to gain a respectful hearing. It has been my pleasure to listen to him a number of times, and, in common with all others who have heard him, I can never forget the impression made upon my mind when I heard him for the first time. He could not electrify his audience as many men can. While he was by no means lacking in wit, the style of his discourse was in general that used in addressing the judges of a supreme court. Never did he resort to cheap clap-trap methods for gaining ap- plause. If the logic of his utterances did not commend them, he was content to fail. Neither before nor after entering the Senate did he become rich. His tastes were not along the lines of high finance. He chose rather to use his money for the advancement of institutions of an educa- tive and benevolent character, for the purpose of gratifying his taste for the best literature, and in travel. For some years he had the distinction of being one of the few Senators who could get their checks cashed for small amounts only. During the thirty-six years he had been in Congress there had not been the shadow of a suspicion that he had ever been mixed up in any scheme for the reducing of graft “to a really beautiful handicraft.” His private as well as his public life was never tainted with scandal. A product of American institutions, his character represents much that is best in American life. Edwin Maxey. Morgantown , W. V a . Digitized by Google
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THE STRUGGLE OF AUTOCRACY WITH DEMOCRACY IN THE EARLY DAYS OF THE REPUBLIC. By E. P. Powell, Author of Nuilification and Secession in the United States, Our Heredity from God, etc. THE STRUGGLE for autocracy be- gan as soon as the government was organized. The birth of two parties took place in Washington’s cabinet; Alexander Hamilton was the nucleus of centralization; Thomas Jefferson of home-rule. Hamilton had proposed in the Constitutional Convention a Presi- dent for life; a Senate for life; Repre- sentatives selected by the Senate. In Washington’s cabinet his course was con- stantly along this line. He expressed a hope that the National government would ultimately triumph altogether over the State governments and reduce them to entire subordination — “dividing the larger states into simpler districts.” Madison parted from Hamilton, because “ he wished to administer the government into what he thought it ought to be; while I endeavored to make it conform to the Constitution.” Hamilton wrote that he considered the Constitution and the Union “a frail and worthless fabric.” Jefferson avowed his belief that Hamil- ton intended to “ subvert step by step, the principles of the Constitution — leading to the overthrow of the republic, and the establishment of a monarchy.” He wrote at a later day: “Hamilton and I were pitted against each other, every day, in the cabinet; like two fighting-cocks.” We see here the origin of a struggle that has never ceased — perhaps never will. Each party was sincere; one was un- scrupulous. In 1798 John Adams was President, and represented the autocratic element; but, as it always happens in a centralized government, there was a con- flict for headship. Hamilton assumed to be leader by endowment of genius ; and he dictated measures to Congress as if himself the President. It was all-impor- tant that the Federals who then held the power should retain it. In their own judgment, at least, it would be criminal neglect to let the government pass into the hands of the democratic people — home- rulers, Jacobins, atheists. The auto- crats named their administration of affairs “The Government of The Best.” Cabot said: “I hold democracy to be the gov- ernment of the worst.” The chief organ of the party said: “A democracy is always intolerable.” Adams himself was at this time with the Centralizers. In 1798 he said : “ As to trusting to a popular assembly for the preservation of our liber- ties, is the merest chimera.” Hamilton, at a banquet in New York, responding to the toast, “ The people,” struck the table with his fist, and exclaimed: “The people! it is a great Beast!” With such views, it is no wonder that he urged on Congress to pass an Alien Bill, permitting the Presi- dent to send out of the country any for- eigner without trial, who came under suspicion. Following this came a still more autocratic measure; permitting the arrest and imprisonment and fine of any- one who printed, uttered, or published any scandal against either House of Congress or the President. This was Hamilton’s idea of a republic. These laws were en- acted by Congress, without the endorse- ment of President Adams. One Con- gressman, in Vermont, was arrested while stumping for reelection, and was fined $1,000, beside being imprisoned four months in a cold, damp jail, in inclement weather. His offence was saying that “President Adams had an unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp and foolish adulation.” Ten printers and editors were prosecuted, and either fined or im- prisoned. Judge Peck of Otsego county. New York, was arrested for circulating a petition for the repeal of the outrageous 13 Digitized by AjOOQle
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14 The Struggle of Autocracy with Democracy. statutes. The people began to organize for resistance; and throughout the whole country they looked to Jefferson as their leader. The democracy was taking shape against autocracy; home-rule against centralization. Several of the States pro- tested through their legislatures. Such laws were held to be invasions of, not only popular liberty, but of State rights. Vir- ginia and Kentucky refused to allow the obnoxious statutes to be enforced within their limits. Madison strongly sided with Jefferson. Adams, already highly indignant at Hamilton, began to nourish sentiments more closely allied to the democracy. In 1800 Jefferson was elected President although the clergy and politicians had united in pronouncing him to be a most dangerous character. He began his ad- ministration by causing the abrogation of the Alien and Sedition Laws; impeach- ing those judges who had packed juries and made stump-speeches from the bench. • He established the government on the principles of the rights of the States and the rights of the people. His followers were not the aristocratic, nor even the best educated or highest bom. This class of citizens had been Tories during the Revolution; they were now opponents of democracy — they were “The Best.” Jefferson avowed the principle as funda- mental, that we could “ trust the common people, with honest hearts, better than the select few with educated brains and selfish disposition.” He was right. He established the republic on the basis where Samuel Adams, Franklin, and Washington intended it should be placed. In the Declaration of Independence he has wedded the Golden Rule to politics; he now identified the common people with good government. The autocrats, being turned out of office and power, be- gan a desperate plot to split the Republic and create a Northern Confederacy — consisting of New England, New York and possibly New Jersey. Timothy Pick- ering, who had been in Washington’s cabinet, wrote that he held “such a measure would be welcomed in Connecti- cut and New Hampshire; but that New York must in some way be made its center.” Governor Griswold of Con- necticut wrote: “The project which we formed was to induce, if possible, the legislatures of Connecticut, Massachu- setts and New Hampshire to commence measures which should call for a reunion of the Northern States.” John Adams bristled with indignation when he dis- covered the plot, and went over with all his soul, and his friends, to aid Jefferson to sustain the Union, and to secure popu- lar rights, — no Adams was ever disloyal. This move of the dethroned Federals in- volved the election of Aaron Burr as Governor of New York, with the agree- ment that he should be made the Presi- dent of the proposed Confederacy — if it could be brought into existence. Hamil- ton, who hated Burr, with whom he had constant conflict, refused to help him, and therefore opposed the conspiracy. What Hamilton sought was not a lot of petty republics or confederacies, but a mighty Western Empire, with himself as the im- perial head. Burr was Vice-President, but he accepted the offer of the plotters, and was nominated Governor of New York. The New England Federals not only labored with pen to elect him, but aided in stumping the State. Governor Griswold wrote that Burr was the only man who could “break the democratic phalanx.” If a separation could be secured, he believed that “ the New Eng- land States, New York and New Jersey could be united.” Burr carried New York City; and failed in the whole State by only 6,000 votes. The quarrel with Hamilton, which had long been exas- perating, was now unendurable. One or the other must be disposed of. It fell to the lot of Hamilton to fall before the pistol of his antagonist. The party of “The Best” was not only broken; it was now shattered beyond possible recovery. On the autocratic side there were left ten thousand jealous, selfish leaders — the ablest lying in a duelist’s grave; the ablest Digitized by Google
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/ The Struggle of Autocracy with Democracy. statesman gone over to the Republicans; while Burr, in most ways their peer, was in exile. The full programme of Hamil- ton had been: (1) Alliance with England; (2) War on Mexico, Cuba, and all other Spanish possessions; (3) A standing army of 50,000; (4) A military regime for the nation; (5) Alien and Sedition Laws to suppress opposition; (6) The subor- dination of the States, and the absorption of their power in the Central Govern- ment. His programme had woefully failed; and the first struggle of autocracy and centralization to destroy State rights and local self-government ended for- tunately for the people and mankind. That a strongly-centralized government was necessaiy to secure administrative strength and vigor was soon disproved. Jefferson had written the Declaration of Independence which the Federals de- nounced as mere theory; yet under his administration the taxes steadily de- creased; and the national debt, which had been going up under Federal rule, now as steadily went down. Inaugurated with simplicity, he began an administra- tion of economy. In 1803, while negoti- ating with France for enough of Louisiana to enable us to use the Mississippi river, the news came to him that Napoleon would sell the whole territory. Jefferson closed the bargain as speedily as possible, and appealed to Congress to confirm the purchase. The United States thus be- came possessed of more new territory than enough to cover all the original thirteen states, — but how much more neither buyer nor seller could determine. Ex- pansion thus went on without consolida- tion of government and without an in- crease in the army. Jefferson carried into office the conviction that he belonged, not to a party, but to the whole people. In him the people saw an almost flawless leader; and nearly en masse became his followers. The Federals had increased the national debt eight millions in five years; Jefferson decreased it five millions in two years. An era of prosperity dawned — the first that the country had 15 ever experienced. The world saw a wonderful sight. On the other side of the Atlantic there was one man who pre- eminently believed in autocracy; on this side there was one man who preeminently believed in the power of the people to govern themselves. Napoleon built an empire brittle as glass; Jefferson built a republic strong and elastic as steel. As President of the Republic, without a political convention behind him, he wrote his own platform. It will be found in a letter to Elbridge Geny. It so thoroughly embodies the principle of democracy and home-rule that I give it almost entire: “ I do then, with sincere zeal, wish an inviolable preservation of our present federal Constitution, according to the true sense in which it was adopted by the States; that in which it was advocated by its friends, — and not that which its ene- mies apprehended, who therefore, became its enemies: and I am opposed to the monarchising its features by the forms of its administration, with the view to con- ciliate first a transition to a President and a Senate for life, and from that to a heredi- tary tenure of these offices; and thus to worm out the elective principle. I am for preserving to the States the powers not yielded by them to the Union; and to the legislature of the Union its constitutional share in the division of powers ; and I am not for transferring all the power of the States to the General Government; and all those of that Government to the ex- ecutive branch. I am for a government rigorously frugal and simple, applying all the possible savings of the public revenue to the discharge of the national debt; and not for a multiplication of officers and salaries, merely to make partisans; and for increasing, by every device, the public debt, on the principle of its being a public blessing. I am for relying, for internal defence, on our militia solely, till actual invasion; and for such a naval force only as may protect our coasts and harbors from such depredations as we have ex- perienced; and not for a standing — Digitized by Google
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16 Light versus> Legislation. in time of peace, which may overawe the public sentiment; nor for a navy, which by its own expenses and the eternal .wars in which it will implicate us, will grind us with public burthens, and sink us under them. I am for free commerce with all nations; political connection with none; and little or no diplomatic establishment. And I am not for linking ourselves,* by new treaties, with the quarrels of Europe; entering that field of slaughter to jpreserve their balance, or joining in the confed- eracy of kings to war against the pritici- . pies, of liberty. I ahi for freedom of re- ligion, and against all manoeuvres to bring about a legal ascendence of one sect over another; .for freedom of the press; and against all violations of the Constitu- tion, to silence by f9rce and not by reason, the complaints or criticisms, just or un- just, of. our citizens against the conduct of their agents. And I am for encouraging the progress of science in all its branches. “Thomas Jefferson.” E. P. Powell. Clinton , N. Y. LIGHT VERSUS LEGISLATION. By Katrina Tras^e. ' (Mrs. Spencer 'Trask,) . IS DIVORCE justifiable . 6r unjustifi- able? . i :■ Is it righteous or unrighteous ? That js ‘the question nien and women are asking themselves to-day. ‘ In the meantime, like “ jesting Pilate,” they “stay not for the answer,” but rush into the divorce-courts. The home, the family, society, are threatened by a growing evil. Society and many > sociologists — debating the complex problem— rplead for uniform divorce-laws, as. a remedy for the evil. The Christian Church, of all denomi- nations, also turns to legislation — both ecclesiastical legislation within the Church and combined effort to secure State legis- lation— as the best way to bring about reform. Is this the wisest way? Divorce is a symptom, merely; the disease lies back of it. No physician, be he physician of of the human body or of the body-politic, finds conditions really helped by treating the symptom. Stop divorce with laws, and perhaps a worse evil will spring from the same source which will not have been touched by the laws — except to be ag- gravated. It would be better to let the evil of divorce rage somewhat longer, %4han to chec^^he symptoms and have, from the orgamfc trouble, some greater evil develop— for the last state of society might be worse than the first. This is by .no means a protest against law; certainly not against State law. It is gather an appeal for light instead of law. It is an appeal to the virtuous and vigilant criers upon the house-tops to turn the power of the zeal that is eating them up to the propagation of light rather than into the effort to secure legis- lation. Let the motif of the cry of the crusade be changed from laws to light. Light drives out darkness. Let the light really shine, and reform on this matter will come as an evolution, not as a coer- cion. Let the reformer preach and teach the honor of self-respect, the dignity of pride in meeting and conquering a con- dition, the fine heroism of staying at the post of disadvantage, the ethics of mis- take, and, above all, the supreme obliga- tion of this generation to that which is to follow — the obligation to teach and train the children of this generation that the mistakes which are bringing the evil now upon us may be avoided in the years to Digitized by Google
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KATRINA TRASK Photo, by Lorcy, Albany. N. Y. The Arena Digitized by Google
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Light versus come. Let the energy, that is now being fused to shut down the lid, go into the knocking away of the walls of the pit. Let us find the best way to train the children; the best way to give them a new vision of the significance and poten- tiality of love and marriage; a new standard of values, to teach that purity is not a negative quality, but a positive virtue; that innocence is not ignorance, and that ignorance is a crime when one enters upon a contract sealed with vows; that a complete knowledge of, and prepa- ration for, so supreme a mission as mar- riage, with the Divine ordering of pro- creation, is a moral obligation. And should not the Church, the palladium of Christian civilization, be the first to do this— -to proclaim a more convincing gospel of light ? Surely it would bring a more fundamental reform than any that could be brought by the restriction of law. The Church, in its various denomina- tions, claims to be the Church of Christ, and to bear witness of Him, to show forth His purpose, to teach His word. Woe be unto the Church, if the spirit of the Christ be hidden by the letter of the Church; if the mission of the Church overreaches the mission of the Master; if the teaching of the priests be other than the teaching of their Lord. Light not legislation was the mission of the Christ. He taught not with nega- tives; He taught a transcendent positive. The Ten Commandments with their reiterated negatives were transformed into two commandments with their blest affirmatives. Instead of canons, Christ gave men the beatitudes. His supreme gospel was not a gospel of interdict, but a gospel of opportunity. The priest of the old dispensation put on his garments woven of many threads and bioidered phylacteries; his splendid ephod upon his breast, his perfumes and his oOs of anointing; — he went in and out between the purple curtains looped with gold; and passed judgment on those who had broken the law, putting them apart Legislation. 17 from human intercourse, and pronounc- ing them unclean. The Lord Jesus Christ walked on His weary way without ephod or priestly robe; and when, at the, well, He met the woman of Samaria, who had had five husbands and was living then in sin, He drew not His garments away from her, but asked of her a simple friendly favor; and then to her He offered the everlast- ing gift of Living Water. Christ troubled not with local condi- tions, with social institutions, or even with social evils. He concerned himself with preaching and teaching a luminous positive which — reaching the hearts of men, and transforming them — would work outward for the betterment of those conditions. He wasted not the hours of His mission in dealing with issues; He taught, instead, the righteousness which would avoid issues. He legislated not for men’s acts; instead. He poured forth the virtue within Him to project light into the source from which the acts would spring. When one of the multitude said unto Him: “ Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me,” there can be no doubt that some question of justice and equity must have come into the matter. But Christ concerned Him- self not with that; instead. He answered: “ Man, who made me a judge or divider over you?” And then, to each — to the brother who claimed and to the brother who withheld — He preached the same sublime truth: “A man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.” The persuasion of those words must have made the brother who claimed ashamed of his claiming, and the brother who withheld ashamed of his withholding; and yet Christ had judged neither. Harken unto His words: “For I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.” The Christian Church would gain a tremendous dynamic force, if it would follow the procedure of the Master; if it would concern itself less with legislation Digitized by Google
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18 Light versus Legislation. and more with light; if it would have less discussion of dogma and more deter- mination to seek and find the surest way to change men’s hearts, the most effective methods of educating and inspiring men; if it would contemplate the fact that no accomplishment, coming from an out- ward reform through legislation, can be of much spiritual gain, or hold a regen- erative power; and that it is only the reform which comes from within, through the quickened hearts of men, that is a real reform. The making of laws does not stimulate the spiritual life of the Church. Those who agree with the righteousness of the laws will not need them; those who do not, will go elsewhere to fulfil their desires. And thus the Church has lost its oppor- tunity. When the representatives of the various Churches meet in their separate conven- tions, the combined intellectual, spiritual, and practical forces of those various bodies should be concentrated, with searching energy, upon one problem; i. how best to reach the hearts of men and women. There should be delibera- tion and discussion of the most advanced educational methods — psychological, met- aphysical, and spiritual, — to use in giving man a new conception of his spiritual heritage. It is this, the Church should do to fulfil the warrant of its existence. The picture lately shown in Boston of the Convention of the Protestant Episco- pal Church strikes chill upon the mind and heart There were gathered the picked men of the Protestant Episcopal Church; they had not met as a body for three years; they will not meet again until three more years have passed; and most of the precious time and energy there, were spent in debating a canon of exclusion! Of course, the triennial Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church is a legislative body, and, it might be urged, its purpose is to legislate for the Church — and that only; but it is the only rep- resentative, authoritative body of the Church, and where — if not there — should the note be struck, which will express the mind of the Church, that those who are looking on from outside will understand its aim and its ideal? Where, if not in this Convention assembled, are we to look for the attitude of the Protestant Episcopal Church, towards questions of life and morals ? (The Church Congress is only a voluntary body for the ventila- tion of individual opinion and debate; there is no conclusion reached, no formula set forth authoritatively of a working principle.) A pastoral letter always comes from the House of Bishops from the General Convention, and one of its prominent divines has well said : u Although a part of the deliberation of the Convention consists in making laws, yet it does not exist for that purpose; its chief object being to quicken the life of the Church.” Therefore, it would not be outside of the function of the General Convention to strike a new note — and the fact that it does not would seem to prove that the Church has accepted the fact that the best way to deal with the evil of divorce is through the stricter binding of ecclesiastical laws, rather than by the lighting of the candle and the putting it into a candlestick that the light may be seen of men. There was much eloquence, much strenuous zeal, fine rhetoric and per- suasive oratory expended in the Conven- tion touching the canon on divorce and remarriage. What a stimulating and tonical effect it would have had upon the Church, and upon those who are looking at the Church with critical and analytical eyes, if the zeal and eloquence and oratory had all gone into the reform of marriage; the resolutions to enlighten and instruct every marriageable man and woman; to enforce grave deliberation, examination, and investigation, on the part of the priests as to the fitness of the children of the Church to enter into the estate; and, into an earnest asking and seeking to find an effective way to dis- seminate Christ’s luminous positive Digitized by Google
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Light versus Legislation. among its members, to arouse them through their own conviction to the value of the renunciation of freedom, and the glory of victory that overcomes condi- tions instead of running away from them. But if the wisest men in the Conven- tion agreed that legislation on the subject was necessary for the Church, why did they not base their canon on convincing arguments, and let the discussion be on broad and conclusive lines ? For days, two factions of this body discussed at great length, and with much vigor, what Christ meant by his words on marriage and divorce (in Matthew, 5: 32; Matthew, 19: 9; Mark, 10: 11-12; and Luke, 16: 18.) The echoes which reached the outside world from the Convention of tins same body, three years ago, were of this same discussion, then prolonged and finally left undetermined. When men like the members of that Convention are assembled — men of such strength and fineness of character, who are conspicuous for their ability, con- secration to duty and the work of regen- eration for the world — does it not seem a sacrifice of opportunity for them to throw their energy into the debate of single utterances of Christ? — especially when those utterances were in most cases answers to questions the Pharisees asked Him, tempting Him (in which case Christ always gave a subtile and oracular answer), and, in every case, were said from — and said to meet — the conditions of the day in which He spoke. Has not the time come for the Church to realize practically the immense value of a vital not a verbal interpretation of Christ’s supreme gospel — an all-round grasp of its philosophic meaning, a well- balanced conclusion from the many- sideness of that word — which is the most convincing presentation of truth in all literature, where it is not concealed by the swaddling bands of man’s interpretation, nor set forth in single sentences which contradict the manifest spirit of the whole? 19 Christ’s Word — like truth — is broader than a single sentence. The ultimate is more than the incident; and when they seem to contradict, we may assume that we have misunderstood the incident. This does not touch upon the well- worn discussion of the inspiration of the Bible. Whether the Bible is inspired or not, whether one takes Christ’s words as philosophy or as creed, it does not alter the advantage of treating them in our interpretation with the largeness and well-balanced common-sense with which we treat other words. Granted that the word is inspired by God; it is surely the more necessary that we bring to bear upon it the intellect made by God. Progress — scientific and intellectual — must be either of good or evil. If of evil, let us have none of it, in any department in life. If of good, why deny its evolved benefits to the interpretation of the word of life? We are constantly striving for a clearer, wider, more comprehensive reading of the classics. Not only do we make new translations to keep pace with our vocab- ulary and new historic data; but we bring to bear upon all literature and practical subjects of life the before-unseen forces discovered about us and within us. “ We are at the dawn of a new and better conception 99 of those forces. u The latest discoveries in astronomy make us,” as Brierly has so well said, “ the denizens of a roomier universe ” — and we interpret all nature with a new understanding. The revealed psychic phenomena which is causing a new consciousness to emerge within us, is being applied in many directions. Shall the Church stand still in the utilization of these evolved forces ? Shall it not read the Gospel anew in the light of a larger interpretation ? Translations and revisions should be made, of course, constantly, to keep pace with the evolution of language and knowl- edge. But that is not sufficient; our intellect with its finer perceptions, its newly developed forces, should read it Digitized by Google
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20 Light versus Legislation. with the larger vision that has come to us through those forces. We should strive for a wider, fuller, more comprehensive, more subtile interpretation of the fine shades of meaning which are not trans- latable. To do this is a proof — rather than otherwise — of a vigorous and dauntless belief in the reality of the Gospel. And it would seem to be in the highest sense following the command of the Master to strive to get that second sight which He yearned to find in His disciples. Sad, indeed, was it for Him when He was upon earth. He walked lonely. He spoke, and those beside Him had no second sight — they had eyes and saw not They translated His words of life into literalism that must have been a heavier cross to Him to bear daily than that final cross of Calvary. There is no more pathetic note in history, appealing to the heart, than that uncomplaining refrain of Christ to his disciples: “ How is it that ye do not under- stand that I spake not unto you concern- ing bread ?” “ How is it that ye do not understand ? ” “Do ye not then understand, or re- member?” “Doth this offend ye? Will ye go away also?” This cry is deeper in its pathos because it is uncomplaining and uncondemning. It shows the loneliness of the great heart bearing the veil of humanity, which hid the Father’s face. How could they so misunderstand Him ? The manner of His daily teaching must have been after the manner of His mind. He spake as a philosopher, as a sage, as an intelligent man cultured in a generation when Hebrew poetry and Greek philosophy were in the air, and in the language that He used as a medium. He came on His human side of a people whose songs were tinted with metaphor and opulent color; whose literature held the transcendent poem of Job, and that vivid cycle of allegories. He spoke the language which taught the utterances of the oracles. To Him it would have seemed but natural to speak with an im- plied taking for granted the intelligence and penetration of His hearers. And yet. His words were met with a narrow literal- ism and materialization by those who stood with Him face to face. “ I have meat to eat that ye know not of,” He said; “Hath any man brought Him aught to eat ? ” they asked. “Lazarus sleepeth,” He said; “If he sleepeth, he doeth well,” they answered. “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up”; “Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days ? ” they asked. Through all His life He was misunder- stood. He spoke in the large compre- hensive sense, and men met Him with petty verbal interpretation. And shall we continue to do this in an age of boasted enlightment? For those first disciples — men taken out of darkness into the sudden light of revelation — there is some excuse; but, for these later disciples who constitute themselves the Church, who claim to be the teachers of His Word, the preachers of His Gospel, there is less excuse. They have had a wider revelation; they have Christ’s whole life laid before them at once from which to compare and to con- clude. They have the instances of later explanations, by the Master, of the words the disciples misunderstood. And yet the Church still falls into this error of wrangling over an utterance, of pouring its energy and its authority into the dis- cussion of the meaning of a single sen- tence. The very habit of its teachers and pulpiteers serves to foster this tendency; i. *., the choosing of an isolated text and teaching a doctrine and preaching a sermon from its implication. What of those debatable words that the Church is urging as Christ’s veto on divorce ? To whom were they spoken ? By what conditions were they called forth ? It is inconsistent with the logic of Christ to go back to a condition out of Digitized by Google
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Light versus Legislation. which we have entirely evolved, to find warrant to legislate for conditions as different from the needs of to-day as the streets of Jerusalem were different from the streets of London or of New York; or as the handmaiden of the East was different from a woman of to-day. A profound, reverent, intellectual con- cept of Christ forbids us to do so. Shall we deny Christ’s human intellect because He had divinity ? Shall we feel it irreverent to associate knowledge of the world with Christ because He was of the Kingdom of Heaven? No, even those who deny the divinity of Christ admit His supremacy over all the teachers who have founded a religion, in that He was the most all-rounded, the most balanced, the most spherical of all teachers. Because He spoke as a God in things spiritual. He certainly did not speak with lack of common-sense in things temporal. ' When Christ spoke of divorce and marriage. He was speaking in a primitive age, to a primitive people who had long practised polygamy and concubinage ; whose laws had been made with appalling concession to men’s sensuality. Women were bought, sold, captured, traded; in war, they were man’s lawful prey. Marriage meant nothing more or less than slavery. The husband was the lord; the wife, the handmaiden of her lord. It is intellectually impossible to believe that Christ, if He were here, would speak to-day — for these present conditions, — as He spoke in the year Thirty, for conditions then existing. No mere statesmen would have done so. What He said then cannot be a basis for legislation in the Church to-day. As well might we urge an argument in favor of despotism, because Christ not only told His disciples to pay the tribute-money to Caesar, but performed the miracle of put- ting it into the fish’s mouthfor the purpose. It would be just as rational to defend the grinding exactions of the Caesars because of Christ’s attitude toward the custom, as to draw any lesson for the present time 21 from what He said on divorce twenty centuries ago. He was speaking from those primitive conditions and of those primitive con- ditions. The Eastern woman was a part of the goods and chattels of the master, — his personal possession. The commandments are the crystallized laws of the Jews, and, in the tenth commandment, woman is spoken of as the possession of man; one with u his ox, his ass, and anything that is his.” We know by every law of inference that Christ did not approve of this. He said it every day of His beautiful life, in His attitude toward all women, even though He did not condemn it in words — save in those which have been agitating the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies in Boston. What must the condition of woman have appeared to Christ at that time even to His human side, — His chivalry and compassion! How infinite His compassion ever toward her! He was the first to recognize her need. Too much has been said of late years about the “ Rights of woman ” — as apart from man; too little of the needs of woman — through the care, the thought of man. Christ recognized this need of thought and care with divine tenderness. In those dark hours upon the cross. He made but eight utterances; and of those eight, two were said for a woman; — one was to His mother to set her heart at ease, — the other to John to ensure his care of her. Christ saw the picture of woman in her bondage, in her slavery to the lusts of man. He remembered the words of Moses (Deuteronomy, 24 : 1): “When a man taketh a wife, and marrieth her, then it shall be, if she find no favor in his eyes, because he hath found some un- seemly thing in her, that he shall write her a bill of divorcement, and give it into her hand, and send her out of his house. And when she has departed out of his Digitized by Google
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%% Light versus house, she may go and be another man’s wife.” And when this man took her, if he also hated her, he, too, was to give her a bill of divorcement. Scant justice this, to woman — a veiled and semi-slave, with no possibility of any individual life apart from man’s desire. The man, according to the law, could have his wives — his old wives and his new wives — in interesting variety; his many concubines; and, if he saw among the captives “that the Lord God had delivered into his hand” a beautiful woman, and desired her, he had permis- sion to take her also. And to balance all this, forsooth, woman could have for compensation a bill of divorcement, if she failed to please; that, when the next man took her, mid also hated her mid cast her off, she might have it as her defence to show unto “ the elders of the dty in the gate” instead of the demanded tokens of her virginity. Can we imagine Christ contemplating so grave an injustice without compassion ? Can we imagine His speaking of it, in answer to their questions, without a pro- test, an implied command for betterment in a condition of such flagrant injustice ? No, — for nothing. He said, should man put her away unless she herself had com- mitted sin. Have conditions such as those of which ( He spoke any bearing upon present con- V ditions ? Could any command He gave * to meet that primitive barbarism be quoted as a precedent for to-day ? It is much more probable from the context of the utterances, that there lay in His answer to the questions a more profound suggestion, a more subtile signi- ficance, than His hearers could conceive, or than we have yet apprehended. Christ asserted that all men could not receive His saying on this subject; “ Only those to whom it was given.” Is it yet given to us ? Have we striven to find it ? May it not be that He touched here upon an ideal marriage that transcended what was or had been? May He not have winged His speech, as was His cus- Legislation. tom, from the local to the transcendent — from the temporary to the eternal — from the sign to the significance ? May not His words have reached far beyond the human institution of marriage back to some archetypal ideal of triune marriage? The argument of the Protestant Episco- pal Church for its canon on the subject is that marriage is a divine institution. Then, the Church at once proceeds to make the existing temporal union a basis for that claim, notwithstanding the fact that the marriage-service says: “Until death us do part.” If it is a divine union, how can death touch it ? If it is a tem- poral union, what is the argument against the temporal expediency of di- vorce? The supreme sacramental significance of marriage must be by the transfigura- tion of the physical union through the spiritual ideal; to insist upon the indis- solubility of marriage, because of the temporal marriage itself, is reversing the order; i. e.f claiming the sacramental significance on the basis of the temporal union. Must not then the marriage which has the sacramental significance go back of the physical union — endorsed and blessed by the Church and denominated by the Church as existing only “until death” — for its warrant? For if marriage is sacramental by virtue of its inherent spiritual qualities, death could not touch it. In that case — if the church must legislate in these mat- ters— the first thing to do would be to reform the marriage-service, omitting the limiting clause “until death us do part,” and to prevent the re-marriage of widows and widowers. What did Christ mean — “ In the begin* ning it was not so ? ” Certainly He did not mean in the beginning of the world’s histoiy, for all records show it was so; show the exist- ence of polygamy — concubinage — sexual slavery — gross materialism. Certainly Christ did not mean when Abram, who Digitized by Google
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28 Light versus was the father of the people from whom He came, gave his wife Hagar into the hands of Ins wife Sarah, and she drove her forth into the desert with Ishmael, who was the son of Abram and Hagar. There could be no sacramental idea of marriage, either for the man or for the woman, in this beginning of history. What, then, did Christ mean by “ In the beginning?” Did He mean in the story of Adam and Eve ? Who married them ? God? Then — be it allegory or be it literal truth — Christ would surely have had the completeness of the truth or of the alle- gory in His mind, and, therefore, we may claim, as well, the completeness of the application. God united the woman to the man from whom He had first taken the woman! Would this not imply a necessary pre- union, or fitness, that means something more than the chance selection of modem marriage, which the Church blesses with- out any investigation to see if it be the right marriage? Would it not suggest that only those unions were of God which brought die man unto hie own again, and the woman unto her own place ? If the story of Adam and Eve be urged as a precedent in the argument, at all, it should be urged in its entirety. There- fore might it not be argued from that very example that, as Eve was taken from Adam’s side, made from his rib, so there should be some more subtile union ante- dating the joining together to warrant the marriage? “In the beginning,” Christ said; may not this go back of time into eternity, or rather out of the present to the eternal, making the will and action of God in joining men and women something too spiritual and significant to be the pre- cedent for any priestly office, which joins a man and woman in a temporal union ? May it not mean that unless God has given that pre-union symbolized by the taking of Adam’s rib, there can be no true marriage? And that any man. Legislation. even though he be a priest, is putting asunder what was joined in the purpose of God if he solemnizes a temporal mar- riage between the wrong persons; and, therefore, such a marriage, in the sacra- mental sense, according to the purposes of God, was void from the beginning. If this were so, divorce between such parties, — joined in haste by the uncon- sidering priest without God’s warrant, — is, in its final analysis, merely the severing of a physical and temporary tie which has not die eternal endorsement of God. It may be that those words of Christ were a command against divorce, even if the marriage were but a temporal union; it may be that they suggested that there was a more comprehensive view which would justify divorce; but, in any case, it is the way of error to build any theory upon the single word or incident. The hope of humanity and of the Church is the taking hold of Christ’s life and words in their completeness. In that there can be no differing exegesis. And in that completeness we find Christ’s veto on divorce, though we do not find it in the single utterances, where there is room for wide difference and debate. We find the spiritual rather than the literal protest; the revelation to the soul of man rather than the restriction of the acts of man. Whatever Christ’s suggestion as to the ultimate ideal of marriage, whatever bearing his reference to load conditions may or may not have upon to-day, the totality of His teaching is distinctly against divorce — conditions being as they now are — and, consequently, against re-marriage. This is true not canonic- ally, but philosophically; not on pro- hibitory but on inherent grounds; not because of any special command of His against it, but because of His continued command for that which is a better solu- tion of the problem. We find but few utterances on which to build a dogma, but we find a multitude of utterances and also His own example, to be used as a working principle, — the out- Digitized by Google
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Light versus Legislation. 24 come of which principle would lead straight away from divorce — for any cause on any ground. We find, “ Forgive your enemies”; no exception is made of husbands and wives. We find, “ Do unto others as you would have others do unto you”; “Do good to them which despitef uUy use you ” ; no exception of this obligation is made to those bound together in temporal unions, even though those unions were mistaken ones. “Resist not evil, but overcome evil with good ” — this is not merely an utter- ance; it was the power of Christ’s life ex- emplified. That may not be a command against divorce, — but it is a command to bring good out of evil to better condi- tions. We find continual appeal to us to bring forth the fruits of the spirit: “Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentle- ness, goodness, faith, meekness, temper- ance.” Would not this fruitage in heart and home be a certain way to prevent divorce? Christ's teaching — from the Sermon on the Mount, when He said: “Blessed are the peacemakers,” to the final death upon the cross, when He said: “ Father, forgive them; they know not what they do,” — is, in effect, a distinct protest against divorce. It is not the law of Christ that forbids divorce; it is the light of Christ. To say that He verbally forbids it is an assumption based on an utterance. To say that the spirit of His teaching contradicts it is a conclusion based on His Gospel. Divorce would not be sought by one who apprehended Christ’s ideal. Granted, that a marriage is a mistake, that it has not that inner war- rant of the heart which is needed for com- pleteness, Christ has summed up the moral law in two commandments con- vincing to the soul eager to lead a spiritual life and rise above the materialism of the world: the second Commandment is, “ Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” The moment that the husband or wife forfeits the right, through any act, to the more exquisite, subtile differentiation of personal love, then there comes the other relationship to be considered — that of neighbor; and of a neighbor to whom there is especial obligation, because of special circumstances, because of con- tract and promise, even granting the con- tract and promise were originally a grave mistake and have brought no joy. The neighbor is there, and to that neighbor love must be shown — love, as it is vigor- ously painted in that incomparable essay on love by St. Paul: love that vaunts not itself, that endures all things, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things. To make crooked places straight, to make dark places light, to bind up, to heal, to forgive, to teach those nearest to us, — this is the Gospel; and it would seem to be the conclusion to any Chris- tian against divorce. If the Protestant Episcopal Convention had spent its time in forming a statement of persuasion instead of forging a chain of restriction for its members, it might have brought, perhaps, at first, less out- ward show of result than the new canon may accomplish, but it would have been more spiritual gain; for every persuaded man and woman would have been one more bit of leaven of righteousness and peace at work in the world. And it is not alone Christ’s Gospel that should make the thinking man and woman hesitate to seek divorce as a remedy for an uncongenial marriage. We should not be tricked by persuasive arguments that urge divorce, for they are only half truths; they are compara- tive, not superlative, in their moral value. Ibsen, in his masterful way, has uiged the obligation of a soul, when it awakens, to leave all and go on to its own develop- ment. Society, and the so-called ad- vanced thinkers of the day, are preaching this obligation of self-development as the righteous warrant for divorce. Surely, this is but a half-truth, — a con- fusion of the end with the means. Digitized by Google
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• THE POSTAL SAVINGS-BANKS OF GREAT BRITAIN; OR, HOW THE GOVERNMENT OF ENGLAND FOSTERS SAVING AMONG THE POOR. i By J. Hennixer Heaton, MJP. ONE THOUSAND million pounds or $5,000,000,000 is the estimated ' amount of money to the credit of the thrifty poor and the working-classes in Europe, which invested fund is backed up by the security of the government of each country* Of this sum no less than two hundred million pounds sterling, or $1,000,000,000 represent the amount in- vested in the Post-Office Savings-Bank of Great Britain and Ireland, and Savings- Banks with almost equally good security. The history of the Savings-Banks of England is one of the most beautiful chapters of English progress, and like the story of the Penny-Post is a triumph for the English people, in setting an example to the rest of the civilized world which has been eagerly followed. THE OBIGIN OF THRIFT BANKS. It is very singular that the best des- cription and the most marvelously I graphic reasons for the establishment of Post-Office and other Savings-Banks are '* obtainable from the reports of a few eminent Postmasters-General of the United States of America, beginning with Mr. Creswell, and ending with the Hon. John Wanamaker. In picturesque language we have placed before us the state of Europe one hundred years ago. A few good men were battling with the problem of teaching habits of thrift and frugality, of self-reliance and good citizenship among the very poor. There were no opportunities for these poor people to save. The chimney-corner, the trunk, the hearth-stone, the closet, and the old stocking were the receptacles for their small savings. * To offer needed security to these millions striving to be provident. to encourage other millions now thought- lessly improvident, and bind closer to the nation all those who are benefited by their savings being taken care of, is worthy of the loftiest statesmanship.” This exactly represented the want of the people of Great Britain and Ireland, but even in a finer set of phrases than used by Gladstone in introducing the measure in the House of Commons, the Hon. John Wanamaker said: “I am more than ever convinced of the wisdom of allowing to the frugal and thrifty working-man, and especially to working- women and youths, the privilege of using the Post-Offices as places of deposit for small sums. Whoever counts himself a friend of the working-people must favor some such measure. . . . The gold and notes hid away by nervous, mistrustful people, exceed in amount all the gold exported last year. Almost all the secret and undeposited savings of the people it is believed would be turned over to the government if postmasters were author- ized to receive them.” THE FOUNDERS OF SAVINGS-BANKS. There are about a half-dozen names associated in English Histoiy with the foundation of Savings-Banks. Daniel Defoe is said to have proposed them in 1699, and exactly one hundred years afterwards, on May 7, 1799, a clergy- man in Wendhover, Buckinghamshire, started the first savings-bank in England. He (the Rev. Joseph Smith) commenced the work by receiving deposits from his parishioners, and he undertook to repay the money with interest. He announced the foundation of the bank under this expressive name. M Society for Encouraging Prudence and 81 Digitized by Google
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32 The Postal Savings-Banks of Great Britain. Industry.” There is no doubt the idea originated in Mr. Smith’s mind through his being a member of a “Society for bettering the conditions and increasing the comforts of the poor,” which was founded in December, 1796, at the house of William Wilberforce in Old Palace Yard, Westminister, London. Two- pence was the minimum amount Mr. Smith received at his savings-bank^ In the same year Mrs. Wakefield started a similar scheme for the benefit of women and children in the village of Tottenham. This was afterwards reorganized under the name of “The Charitable Bank,” and Mr. Eardly Wilmot, Member of Parliament, and Mr. Spurling were ap- pointed trustees. In 1808 Lady Isabella Douglas originated the idea of a savings- bank for domestic servants. After the battle of Waterloo and the proclamation of peace, great attention was devoted to the question of savings- banks throughout the United Kingdom. From the authorities I have already quoted it appears that an energetic mem- ber of Parliament, the Right Honorable George Rose, established the “ South- ampton Savings-Bank” in 1815, and a Devonshire squire of great influence, Sir John Acland, started another savings- bank at Exeter. A few years before a parson started an institution called a “Sunday Bank,” at Hertford, at which he received the savings of the poor from fid. to 2s., after morning service on Sun- days. This afterwards developed into a properly organized savings-bank until it was swallowed up by the post-office savings-bank. “ The father of savings-banks ” was the title enjoyed by the Rev. Henry Duncan, a Dumfries clergyman. He “eloquently ventilated his views on the subject nearest to his heart, namely the providing of a safe and profitable means of investing the sav- ings of the poorer classes. The outcome of his proposals was the establishment of the Ruthwell Savings-Bank in 1810.” Then followed the Edinburgh Savings-Bank, and one in Ireland at Stilloragu in 1815. In 1815 the Right Hon. George Rose, of whom mention has been made above, introduced a bill in Parliament to afford protection to banks for savings, but he did not carry it until 1817. Immediately after the passing of the measure, upwards of five hundred savings-banks were es- tablished in the United Kingdom, and the influence of the movement extended all over the continent, France, Germany, Denmark and Italy successively taking up the idea. THE POST-OFFICE SAVINGS-BANK. We now come to the establishment of the post-office savings-banks in England. In the official record from which I have already quoted it is said the ordinary savings-banks which took their rise in 1815, performed an immense service in fostering and encouraging habits of thrift among the poorer classes. But they were so good that they were largely used by the wealthy, and the children of the wealthy, and they were wanting in that perfect security which only a govern- ment guarantee can afford. A few had come to grief by the acts of fraudulent trustees and managers. These failures caused consternation among the working- classes. Charles William Sikes, a cashier in the Huddersfield Banking Company, was said to be the originator of the idea of a system of savings-banks under the con- trol of the government. He gave evi- dence before a select committee in 1858, and urged “ the establishment of a savings- bank within less than an hours ’ walk of the preside of every working-man in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the organization of the post-office suddenly occurred to him as a means to this end. Fortunately for Mr. Sikes, the scheme found a champion in Mr. Geoige Chet- wynd, one of the ablest officials in the money-order office of the general post- office, London, and this gentleman’s plan for carrying it out was backed up by the Postmaster-General, Lord Stanley of Digitized by Google
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33 The Postal Savings-Banks of Great Britain. AMerly and by Mr. Scudamore, one of the most brilliant official heads at St. Martins-le-Grand. The Right Hon. William Ewart Glad- stone introduced the Post-Office Savings- Banks Bill in the House of Commons on February 9, 1861, by the somewhat startling resolution “ That it is expedient to charge upon the Consolidated Fund of the United Kmgdom of Great Britain and Ireland th^fc^jpscy, if any such should arise, in the sums which may be held on account of Post-Office Savings- Banks, to meet the lawful demands of depositors in such banks in the event of their being established by law.” The Post-Office Savings-Bank Bill passed the House of Commons in March, and the House of Lords on the seven- teenth of May following. Mr. Charles William Sikes afterwards received the honor of knighthood from the Queen, for his efforts in the promotion of the great and benevolent scheme. OPENING OP THE FIRST POST-OFFICE SAVINGS-BANK. On September 16, 1861, four months exactly after her Majesty gave her as- sent to the measure, “The Post-Office Savings-Bank Act” came into operation in Great Britian. Three hundred post-office savings- banks were opened at as many post- office money-order offices, and the sura of nearly d£l,000 was lodged by 485 poor people on the first day. the public announcement of the open- ing was veiy simple, but eloquent to the last degree. It stated that in such and such a town there would be brought into operation the Post-Office Savings-Bank Act, to grant to the people “ facilities for depositing small savings at interest, with the security of the government for the due payment thereof.” SUCCESS FROM TEAR TO YEAR. Forty and three years have passed since the British post-office savings-banks were first opened, and while I write I have before me the diaries or reports of the Postmasters-General of this country, for every year, on the progress of these institutions for “ depositing small savings at interest with the security of the govern- ment.” Everyone interested in the question of improving the conditions of the poor should read these reports, all bearing eloquent testimony to the great and benefident work. At the end of the first year Lord Stanley of Alderly (the Post- master-General) wrote in 1862: “ The operations of the Post-office savings-banks commenced on September 16, 1861, and the progress of the banks from that time mid especially during the past year, has been highly satisfactory. The great success attributed to the post- office banks is due to their having been extended freely to small villages and comparatively poor districts. Much use has been made of our savings-banks by friendly sodeties (1,010 accounts opened), by provident and charitable sodeties (6,422 accounts opened), and by man- agers of penny-banks (82 accounts opened). “One important advantage of post- office savings-banks is that they give any person the power of making a deposit or taking out money in any part of the country in which he may happen at the time to be, without reference to the place where his account was originally opened. This power is largely used. Last year there were not fewer than 20,872 such deposits, and 15,842 withdrawals. “The trustees of several of the old savings-banks have already shown a dis- position to relinquish the labor and re- sponsibility which they have so long taken upon themselves (without fee or reward) from motives of benevolence, and which are now no longer required of them.” (Then follows a list of the dos- ing of thirty savings-banks in the country, and the transferring of thdr deposits to the post-office.) Digitized by Google
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34 The Postal Savings-Banks of Great Britain . On the third of February, 1862, the first post-office savings-bank was opened in Ireland, and on the seventeenth of February, 1862, the first post-office sav- ings-bank was opened in Scotland. GRATIFYING PROGRESS. The statements of the Postmasters- General, and of the controllers of the British savings-banks for the following years are of great human interest. Let us look on them as diaries: Lord Stanley, of Alderly, Postmaster- General in 1865 : “The tables printed this year show that the post-office savings-banks have been successful in every part of the country, and the additional facilities which they have afforded have stimulated the growth of prudent and frugal habits throughout the whole population of England, Ireland and Scotland. “ It is at once a matter of surprise and gratification to find that in a period of only two and one-half years from the date of their establishment they should have attracted and retained 872,000 depositors, and that the accumulated fund belonging to these thrifty people should have reached the sum of four millions. “These figures show a real and con- siderable increase in the total number of saving persons throughout the Kingdom. “The great success of the post-office savings-bank of Great Britain and Ire- land induced the government to still further allure the poor and the working- classes to make provision for their old age and for the support of their families. In 1864 the government passed an act to afford facilities for the purchase of small government annuities, and for assuring payments of money on death. It re- ceived the royal assent on the fourteenth of July, 1864. Great difficulty was ex- perienced in making known the nature and benefits of this government life- insurance branch of the savings-bank. “ It has been moderately successful.” Mr. Monsell, Postmaster-General in 1871: “The rapid progress of the post-office savings-bank has been fully maintained. Four thousand offices are now open. There is a difficulty reported in the fact that persons are precluded from deposit- ing more than £30 in one year; or of in- vesting more than £200 in the post-office savings-bank. In soim^hses applicants sought to depoKP^small legacies, or hoarded money which had become a source of increasing anxiety, as in one case of a person who had secreted his money (nearly £100) in the thatch of his house. “ I have to record the establishment of the Naval Savings-Bank Act. It is for the benefit of sailors on board her Majesty’s ships, and it is worked in con- nection with the post-office savings-banks of the United Kingdom. Information concerning our savings-bank was this year by request furnished to the govern- ment of the United States.” Mr. Monsell, Postmaster-General in 1872: “ The post-office savings-banks con- tinue to show a steady and rapid advance in their business, with a remarkable in- crease in the number of friendly, provi- dent, and other societies and institutions placing money in them. By the closing of more of the old savings-banks the num- ber of such banks was reduced to 480. “ The depositors of the post-office savings-banks numbered 1,440,000 and the deposits amounted to £19,000,000, or an average of £18 for each person. One in every nine persons in England and Wales was a depositor in the post-office and the old savings-banks at the end of this financial year.” Lord John Manners, the present Duke of Rutland, Postmaster-General in 1873 : “The post-office savings-banks have again made considerable progress. In London there are 560, so that from almost Digitized by Google
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35 The Postal Savings-Banks of Cheat Britain. any point in the thickly populated por- tions of the metropolis one may be found within a few hundred yards. The cost to the post-office of each transaction in savings-bank business, i. e.9 of each separate depositor’s deposit and with- drawal, is about 6d. as compared with Is. in the old savings-banks. During the twelve years the total amount of loss by frauds only amounted to £3,000. This was borne by the government, although it was due to the carelessness of the depositors, who would not observe the printed regulations. Foreign govern- ments as well as financiers and statis- ticians in various countries continue to look to our system of post-office savings- banks as a model for practical imitation, and a measure in developing schemes for encouraging saving habits among the population. . . . “The government of France, as might be expected, took early steps to study the system in the postal savings-banks of England. The able French Commis- sioner, M. Auguste de la Marce, ex- pressed a very high opinion of the system and his report excited the greatest in- terest among the leaders of opinion in France. The Austrian and Hungarian governments also in 1870-78, sent their representatives and were furnished with information to aid them in introducing post-office savings-banks into these coun- tries. The colonies of the British Empire were early in following the example of England. Victoria, Australia, in 1865, by act of legislature, established post- office savings-banks in that colony.” Lord John Manners, in 1874: “The Department continues to afford facilities to penny-banks, and there are now 300 accounts opened with penny banks for the investment of the deposits of the latter. The experiment of estab- lishing school-banks, which has proved so successful in Belgium, has been made by the London School-Board, and several accounts have been opened by these school-banks with the post-office. “In a Highland village-school, with an attendance of little more than 160 scholars, 109 accounts were opened in eighteen weeks, and £87 deposited. “The penny-banks limit the invest- ments of individual depositors to £5. The minimum deposits in these banks is usually one penny, although in one or two cases it is as low as a farthing. It is said that on the Continent, at Ghent school-banks, the deposits received are as low as a centime, or a tenth of a penny.” Lord John Manners, in 1875 : “The number of old savings-banks in the United Kingdom has diminished from 638 in 1861 to 473 in 1875. Foreign and colonial governments continue to watch with interest the progress of post- office savings-banks in this country. Italy, Spain, Brazil, Sweden and Holland have sent their commissioners to consider the expediency of introducing post-office savings-banks into those countries, while by that remarkable people, the Japanese, the system, evidently with a very perfect organization, was adopted in May last, and no less than eighteen post-office savings-banks have been opened in the city of Yeddo alone. “It is also remarked that in this year our daughter, the Colonial Government Savings-Bank of Queensland, has taken a step in advance in allowing with- drawals by electric telegraph” (a step followed by the Mother England, a quarter of a centuiy afterwards). Lord John Manners, in 1876: “The fact of the children being de- positors is found in this country to have an excellent moral effect on their adult relatives, inducing them to open accounts of their own in the regular savings-banks. “ In Holland an act similar to*that of of France came into force on May 1, 1876, when 1,255 post-offices were placed at the disposal of the forty-nine savings- banks of that country. In Italy rapid progress has been made with a complete system of post-office savings-banks under Digitized by Google
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36 The Postal Savings-Banks of Great Britain. an act of Parliament passed in 1875. There were in February, 1876, no less than 2,144 postal savings-banks there. “ Signor Scella, Ex-Mmister of Finance, established an association or league in Italy called (La Lega del Risparmio ,’ for the encouragement of thrift among the working-classes, chiefly by inducing the principal employers of labors to bestow on eveiy person in his or their service a deposit-book in which a sum of one lira (9d.) is entered to start with. Com- plaints are made from Spain that ‘ there are 100 bull-rings and only twelve savings- banks.’ ” Lord John Manners, in 1877: “Fresh fields of operation have been opened by the establishment of penny- banks in remote villages where there is no post-office savings-bank, and letters are frequently received by clergymen and others testifying to the usefulness of the movement in this direction. “These village banks were enabled to open accounts with the post-office savings- banks, and thus they became the feeders either by them as a eoporate body or by individual depositors having their ac- counts transferred from the village bank to an independent account. A society called the National Thrift Society is now in course of formation at Oxford, having for its chief object the encouragement of thrift among school-children, the working- classes, servants and artisans.” Lord John Manners in 1878 records with pride that continual references have been made to England’s system of savings-banks by the United States of America, and he quotes a statement by the New York Herald: “The recent wide-spread failures make the establish- ment of post-office savings-banks not merely a necessity but a burning ques- tion.” Reports which Lord John supplied to the American Postmaster-General brought forth the following eloquent statement from the American Postmaster- General of the day: “Government post- office savings-banks are demanded in the name of the honest poor, the careful re- tailer, the newly-arrived emigrant, and for the security of the self-denying saving classes. In this year New Zealand was so pleased with the success of the post- office savings-banks that the people were asking for a penny savings-bank in every public-school. Facilities were given to soldiers at home and abroad (particularly at Malta, Gibraltar, Cyprus) to deposit money or open or continue accounts with the post-office saivings-banks of the Mother country.” Professor Henry Fawcett, Postmaster- General in 1879: “The Netherlands Government this year introduced post-office savings-banks with a minimum deposit of 5d. from each person. The United States have within the last few years made no less than six attempts to pass post-office savings-banks bills through Congress. All failed through the hostility of the banking interests. “ The growth of savings-banks in France is remarkable. In May, 1878, after the war there were three million depositors whose savings amounted to $930,000,000, or £37,200,000.” Professor Henry Fawcett, 1880, 1881, 1882: “I beg call attention to the extraordi- nary increase in deposits in the post-office savings-banks of Ireland. These have been doubled in the ten years from 1871 to 1880. A further number of trustees’ savings-banks have been closed and the accounts transferred to the post-office savings-banks. Facilities have been given to navvies on the peat railway-works in progress to invest their savings in the post- office savings-banks. Italian post-office savings-banks, which were established in 1876, have met with great success. In 1879 money flowed into them as a haven of refuge for the savings of the poor. Post-office savings-banks in continen- Digitized by CjOOQle
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37 The Postal Savings-Banks of Great Britain. tal countries are increasing, and they tie fast becoming universal. The Post- master-General of America, Mr. May- nard , and Mr. J. L. James speak en- thusiastically of the British post-office savings-banks. On the first of April, 1882, post-office savings-banks were es- tablished in India, with four thousand offices. A REMARKABLE SURVEY. In a previous page I told of the open- ing of the first post-office savings-banks in Great Britain in September, 1861, in 300 offices in which 435 deposits amounting to almost £1,000 were made. Let us now look at those interesting figures showing the remarkable progress made: Number of Rot-Office Barings- Bank* open in the United Kingdom. Number of Depositors. Amount to Credit of Depositors. 1871 4,335 1,303,492 £17,470,000 1881 6,513 2,607,612 36,509,723 1801 10,063 5,118,395 72,860,027 1001 13,673 8,787,67 5 139,506,000 noos 14,362 9.403,852 146,135,147 *Tfels to In addition to £44,015,000 In the did Savings* Banks. Taking the population of Great Britain and Ireland at slightly over* 40,000,000, we find that one person in every four and one-half has deposits in the post-office sav- ings-bank, and that the average amount deposited by each poor person is exactly £15. 10s. lOd. Statistics are generally dull, but these must be most interesting and gratifying to all who have the welfare of mankind at heart. WHO ARE THE DEPOSITORS ? The last evidence of the value of the post-office savings-banks of Great Britain and Ireland is afforded by a description of the occupations or designations of the people who put their money in the M government security.” Of the half-a- mflHon of depositors in 1865 it was found that 285,000 were females, children under age, or trustees of small amounts, that 140,000 were mechanics, artisans, porters, domestic and farm-servants, police- men, laborers, boatmen, fishermen and seamen; and that 53,000 were tradesmen, then assistants, farmers and clerks. Ten or twelve years after the return was made a remarkable pamphlet was republished from Cas8elTs Magazine , entitled “ Pen- nies of the People,” and its circulation did much to encourage thrift and invest- ment in the post-office savings-banks. In 1875 the Postmaster-General gave the following as the grade or order of in- vestors in the post-office savings-banks of Great Britain and Ireland: (1) Minors; (2) laborers; (3) no occupation; (4) artisans; (5) unmarried women; (6) married women. The people of this country are well satisfied with these institutions. It ap- pears almost incredible that there are no post-office savings-banks in the United States. The Honorable John Wana- maker in a statesmanlike appeal to the patriotism of his countrymen to establish these banks fourteen years ago, says that “the making of money is a part of the genius of an American, but the saving of it is not so conspicuous.” We have cer- tainly “ Consols ” representing the Great National Debt in which the savings can be invested, and are invested, and America can surely arrange for this. Mr. Wanamaker during his term of office as Postmaster-General got perhaps the best summing up of the advantages of post-office savings-banks from the Post- master-General of Canada, and, with this I will conclude the story: First, to the people personally: (1) Absolute security from loss; (2) con- venience of making deposits; (3) repay- ment not affected by change of residence; (4) safety against personation and fraud; (5) prevention of poverty, for temporary want, by developing habits of thrift and saving; (6) gives, where no other banks exist, a means of ready and safe deposit; Digitized by Google
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38 The Social Message of Emerson. (7) discourages reckless and speculative expenditures; (8) educates the young and untrained to the knowledge of the use and management of money. To the country: (1) The people re- ceive the profits (interests) of their savings when used as a public investment; (2) the country’s wealth is kept growing within itself ; (3) by the wide distribution of these savings money thus invested can promptly reach points needing it sud- denly from local causes; (4) in remote places, stringency from too limited bank- ing facilities is prevented or lessened; (5) the laboring people feel a direct personal interest in the stability of the country; (6) sectionalism among the less intelligent classes is lessened by continual and close touch with a common financial institu- tion; (7) by special investment the people’s savings may be made the founda- tion of securities for financial institutions, or loans for municipal improvements, or special national undertakings. J. Hennixer Heaton. London , England . THE SOCIAL MESSAGE OF EMERSON. By Rev. Owen R. Lovejoy. EMERSON is popularly classed as an extreme individualist, and it is true that he takes as the basis of much of his philosophy these words from Beau- mont and Fletcher: Man is his own star; and the soul that can Render an honest and a perfect man. Commands all light, all influence, all fate; Nothing to him falls early or too late.*’ His regard for the divinity in human life is so commanding that he refuses to sur- render to any power outside the life. Nevertheless “ Individualism ” in the sense in which that term is understood to-day stands, as I shall seek to show from his own words, a complete contra- diction of every principle for which he stood. His interest in the individual was not an interest in this or that particular indi- vidual, but in Man . Humanity was to him not a mass of living animals to be fed and clothed, but a race of persons of infinite significance. He desired us to become emancipated and to develop for a purpose — larger service to the race. That he was concerned in the develop- ment of individuals, not merely as indi- viduals, but in their social relations, is clear from his criticism of the Transcen- dentalists with whom tradition so often identifies him. “Their solitary manners . . . withdraw them . . . from the labors of the world: they are not good citizens, not good members of society; unwillingly they bear their part of the public and private burdens; they do not willingly share in the public charities, in the public religious rites, in the enterprises of edu- cation ... in the abolition of the slave- trade, or in the temperance society.” The struggling multitudes that have crowded the generations were not indif- ferent to him. He says: “When govern- ment reaches its true law of action, every man that is bom will be hailed as essen- tial!” Here is an Emancipation Procla- mation which is to reach the last life. Here is the kernel of the social message of one whose soul suffered pain because he saw that multitudes of people are forced into conditions which render them unim- portant to the world, which leave them unessential to progress. When we speak of the social message of Emerson we are not to look for doctrinaire teachings of any specific reform, nor set programmes for carrying out special meas- ures. Programmes were the snare of the active, and specific measures were the Digitized by Google
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39 The Social Message of Emerson . idols to which committees and societies were offering the sweet incense of their myriad resolutions. Here came one who had faith in the living spirit which is in Man. He seeks to call us from our faith in things to a faith in Life. With him the only fact and crowning worth on this earth was the spirit of man, to be liberated and brought to its perfection. Therefore whatever social message he had was to this end — that humanity might be redeem- ed from its littleness and sordidness and ugliness and cowardice and might put on the glory of God. The determining expressions of any civilization are the Political, Religious, and Industrial institutions of society. A few utterances from Emerson, which it is believed are typical, will indicate his atti- tude toward these institutions. Just at the time when Emerson came to his intellectual maturity De Tocqueville was investigating our Democracy under direction of the French government, and published his report in 1835 under the title Democracy in America . In this vol- ume De Tocqueville had said: “ I know of no country in which there is so little inde- pendence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.” And of our boasted principle of human equality, which we are now for the first time begin- ning to analyze, he said: “ The nations of our time cannot prevent the conditions of men from becoming equal; but it de- pends upon themselves whether the prin- ciple of equality is to lead them to servi- tude or freedom, to knowledge or barbar- ism, to prosperity or wretchedness.” This was a stinging criticism of our life and institutions, which the calm judgment of subsequent years has justified. The decade was one of Compromise. Those were the days of torpor and mutual trem- bling— days when the North was just awakening to the fact that an institution of deadly significance had fastened itself upon the life of our Republic, but dared not confess the discovery; and days when the South, eager for the perpetuation of a system many believed essential to south- ern progress, dared not step forward and demand that which would place the sys- tem on a firm and lasting basis. Henry Clay was not an enigma, he was the voice of the people. He merely breathed the spirit of discreet concession, and said what nearly everyone thought. There were topics on which polite society preserved a discreet silence. The man who cared for his standing in the community did not dis- cuss what was uppermost in all minds. It was a period in American history of infinite and depressing diplomacy. In comparison the decades that followed, when both the defenders and the oppo- nents of the system came into the open, are glorious. It was this condition in society which drew from Emerson an expression which has been popularly considered the climax of his “Individualism.” “Leave this hypocritical prating about the masses. Masses are rude, lame, unmade, perni- cious in their demands and influence and need not to be flattered but to be schooled. I wish not to concede anything to them, but to tame, drill, divide and break them up, and draw individuals out of them. Away with this hurrah of masses, and let us have the considerate vote of single men, spoken on their honor and their con- science.” Studied in connection with the conditions which called it forth, this utter- ance is rather the proof that he discerned the danger to our democracy, seen so clearly by De Tocqueville — the tyranny of majorities. The organization of mobs under polit- ical banners has become so perfect to-day that this protest is vitally significant. While we repudiate the rule of kings and pride ourselves on our independence we need to learn that the mere absence of a king does not imply the freedom of the people. An absolute ruler may be a Monarch on his throne, or a Panarch scattered everywhere. He may have one head, or several million. Shall I, because the men who think differently are more numerous, yield ignominiously and let unwisdom and vice continue? Shall I, Digitized by Google
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40 The Social Message of Emerson . the citizen of a kingless country, become the slave to whatever party can speak with the loudest voice? This might be safe were that loudest voice the voice of a free majority, but it is rather the overwhelm- ing^ volume of a purchased majority, a voice which does not express the lives that utter it. “ We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents.” All departments of our government are the creatures of a numerical victory. Hence the appeal in political decisions is to the voter; not to the man. Suffrage becomes a thing to be bartered in the market and the man who dares stand alone, or with an evident minority, is look- ed upon as almost an enemy to our prin- ciple of government. Beyond question the great political parties which divide the suffrage of the American people to-day, also dictate the policy of the country and fashion political and social views with a power rarely, if ever, exercised by any monarch. Men in prominent political positions, or aspirants for political honor, express their views on great national issues such as the tariff, the monetary problem, the race-struggle, immigration, provincial extension or im- perial aggression — by principles that are the result of personal conviction ? — rather by direction of “The National Commit- tee ” which dictated the platform adopted at the last National party Convention! Even our judicial decisions, which should be entirely free from any influence outside the clear ethics of law, are often kicked and battered back and forth, affirmed and reversed from lower up to higher court, until the high-priests of the court of last appeal finally settle the question, how? By a majority vote! And henceforth it is treason to refuse to recognize as Law that which, an hour before, was nothing — and that which, an administration hence, by the discoveiy of some new and mysterious technicality, may again be reduced to nothing. So long as class-interest, or mass-interest, is our only method of ex- pressing our democratic principles every department of our government stands in danger of corruption from forces which could find no mode of attack if every interest in society were permitted free expression and a fair representation in delegated authority. To develop our democratic principles beyond the experimental stage the estab- lishment and exposition of the civil law must be so rescued from the tyranny of either numerical or monetary pressure that confidence in its equity and justice shall be secured and the temple of our national justice shall become to us as sacred as was the Areopagus to the an- cient Greeks. It was this tragedy in society, as im- minent now as in his own day, this ten- dency to surrender independent personal thought to the overpowering decision of numbers, upon which Emerson looked with mingled dread and disgust. This led him to assert the necessity for complete emancipation of human nature, to see that abuse of any good custom may cor- rupt the world, and to attempt to “ draw individuals out of” the mass. Evidently his purpose did not stop with the drawing out of individuals, but that — being drawn out — we should have as a social asset “ the considerate vote of single men, spoken on their honor and their con- science.” In 1838 Emerson was invited to deliver the graduation address before the Divinity School of Harvard University. Two or three typical sentences from that address will indicate the social nature of his mess- age, and the clearness with which he fore- saw the decadence in power and influence which the church was then just beginning to manifest. A decadence witnessed to- day, with mingled indifference and alarm, in the inability of the Church to make a controlling appeal to the people who were the special objects of the care and ministry of Jesus, and also in its inability to adjust itself to changing demands of method and expression. This inflexibility renders the Church incapable, on the one hand, of speaking the word of Life to every man Digitized by Google
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41 The Social Message of Emerson. “in the language wherein he was bom ” and, on the other hand, of coordinating the efforts of a multitude of capable people who are earnestly seeking a point of con- tact for helpful ministration. “The prayers and even the dogmas of the church are like the zodiac of Denderah and the astronomical monuments of the Hindoos, wholly insulated from anything now extant in the life and business of the people. They mark the height to which the waters once rose. It is the office of the true teacher to show that God is, not was; that he speaketh, not spake. The true Christianity — a faith like Christ’s in the infinitude of man — is lost. None believeth in the soul of man , but only in some man or person old and departed.” It was not enmity toward the church that caused Emerson to resign his pastor- ate in the Second Church, Boston. It was because he believed the church to be living in the past rather than in the pres- ent; in the realm of speculation rather than of experimentation. Society has been pleased to classify Emerson as a dreaming mystic, rather than a man of action. If there is any one thing the world ought to learn about him, I believe it is that he was not a dreaming mystic, but that he was a man of action. The present and the practical must not be subjected to the tyranny of the past and the theoretical. His estimate of conven- tional religion in his day might well be expressed in the words of his criticism of contemporary literature: “It exhibits a vast carcass of tradition every year with as much solemnity as a new revelation.” He left the church pastorate because his soul refused to be imprisoned in any organization which held it essential to maintain conventional consistency with the past The church must rise to the mission of human emancipation and enlightenment must cease to exist for her- self, must become leaven of society instead of a safe-deposit vault for theological apologetics, must have a word of die “ Good News” for all life in this and each succeeding generation, — nay, must be willing to lay down her life for the sins of the world, if she were ever to fulfil the design for which she came into being. Certainly we cannot be indifferent to tins practical note of Emerson when we remember that the same spirit which drove him from the church— dedication to the past instead of the present, defence of the divinity of some person who has lived together with denial of the divinity of persons who now live, hence the failure to serve society — is driving thoughtful men and women to-day to seek social ameliora- tion and spiritual inspiration elsewhere. The industrial word of his social mes- age I find best expressed in “ The Boston Hymn”: “ But laying hands on another, To coin his labor and sweat, Hegoes in pawn to his victim, Bor eternal years in debt.” He here joins with Ruskin and William Morris in condemning an enconomic sys- tem which vitiates the ratio between labor and reward. The “ Hymn ” had a speci- fic application when written, but the appli- cation did not exhaust the principle. An institutional slavery, the chattel-ownership of men’s bodies, is not the only form of bondage. The slavery which exists in society to-day is in some respects more depressing and deadening than that which we practiced until the middle of the last century. It is more difficult to remove, because it is insidious, and it is not sec- tional. There is an ancient law, which Christ- ians at least regard as divine, that food shall be the reward of industry, that the toiler shall be the partaker. Property is ordained to be the direct effect of which labor is the cause. The mere mention of a few terms familiar to us will illustrate how far we have departed from that principle. When one speaks of “the property class” and “ the laboring class ” we should think of the same class. The “ leisure classes ” should mean to us the ragged and home- less and hungry. But when one speaks of the leisure class we think of die people who have their private cars and yachts, Digitized by Google
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42 The Social Message of Emerson. who spend their summers in Newport and their winters in the South, and the remain- der of the year in Europe, and who give pink teas and whist-parties for “sweet charity ” in their sumptuous pallors. We rarely stop to think how unscientific is this classification. The laboring class should mean the prosperous; the people who live in comfortable homes and who are secure against want or the fear of want. Instead, we think of those who live in uncomfortable houses, or pitifiil fractions of houses, where high rents and poor food and dim light and bad air and high-priced necessities, purchased from those who live by the system of “ robbing the poor because he is poor,” breed pallor and sickness and early death among the children, and premature sadness and fail- ure, and inglorious and dependent old age for the father and mother. Our present contradiction to an indus- trial equation Mr. Emerson looks fairly in the face and declares: Every drop of a man’s sweat is his own. Who steals it is a thief. So divine a being is man that whoso wrongs him robs God ! “ The consummation of all wealth,” says Ruskin, “ is in the producing as many as possible full-breathed, bright-eyed, happy-hearted human creatures.” It is in the failure of our present warlike industrial system to produce anything of the kind that Emer- son sees the magnitude of its condemna- tion. The thought that one man should lay hands on another man, to coin his labor and sweat, was to him so gigantic an offence against the dignity and sanctity of human nature that terror shot through his heart as he thought of the debt the oppressor was contracting — a debt meas- ured by the disparity between the victim and a full-orbed manhood. It was not alone, nor chiefly, the fact that faithful toilers in this and other countries are underfed and poorly clad, that concerned him. That is bad enough. But the greater sin is in the fact that the poor are also robbed of education, of refinement, of ennobling ideals, of the opportunity to let ihe soul grow, fed by art and nature. His voice is the ciy of the prophet against the moral confusion which results from this divorce between labor and reward, breeding dishonesty and cunning and faithlessness, and filling our great cities with structures designed with infinite precision to breed the maximum of vice and fever, and with factories for the pro- duction of our food and clothing, which are often huge prisons for the helpless and ideal-less multitudes who “ labor and sweat” for a reward which comes not to them. This industrial chaos affects not only the poor. “The young man on entering life,” says Emerson, “finds the way to lucrative employment blocked with abuse. The ways of trade have grown selfish to the borders of theft, and supple to the borders (if not beyond the borders) of fraud. A tender and intelligent con- science is a disqualification for success.” What a rebuke to the “ maxims of a low prudence” which are so faithfully preach- ed by the press and pulpit to-day. Our “successful” young business princes lec- ture on Sunday afternoons to Sunday- school classes or Young Men’s Christian Associations on “How to make a cold million every week, by a Christian who has done it ” and kindred themes, creating a false and vicious thirst for a wealth not measured by patience, or industry, or honor, but measured by one’s ability to get other human beings to do his work for him, and then bring him the fruits of it. Listen to Emerson: “You will hear that the first duty is to get land and money, place and name. ‘ What is this truth you seek, what is this beauty ? ’ men will ask in derision. If God has, nevertheless, called any of you to explore truth and beauty, be bold, be firm, be true. When you shall say ‘as others do, so will I, I am sorry for my early vision, I must eat the good of the land and let this go until a more convenient season,’ then dies the man in you; then once more perish the buds of art, and poetry, and science, as they have died already in a thousand thousand men.” Digitized by Google
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The Reign of Boodle and the Rape of the Ballot in St. Louis. 43 Whatever system or institution stands in the way of executing absolute justice and producing perfect liberty must be removed. These words of the Boston Hymn are, to those who thrive on the toil of others, the rescuing call of a friend who beholds them thrust off from their luxury into the Eter- nal years in debt. While to those who look for the complete evolution of the race these and other words stand as the pro- phecy of the days when there shall be in America what Emerson said earth waits for — “ exalted manhood ” ; when brother- hood, not master and servant, shall be the bond of social union, and the Kingdom of character and spiritual power shall be no longer subordinated, as now, to the kingdom of the material. Owen R. Lovejoy. Mount Vernon , N. Y. THE REIGN OF BOODLE AND THE RAPE OF THE BALLOT IN ST. LOUIS. THE MANIA FOR MILLIONS, THE DESIRE TO GET SOMETHING FOR NOTHING, ROBS THE PEOPLE OF LIBERTY AS WELL AS MATERIAL WEALTH. Bt Lee Meriwether.* SOME one has said that no man can get money without earning it unless some other man earns money without * getting it. Never was truer saying. In all countries and in all ages there have been men whose sole labor consisted in plotting and scheming how to get some- thing for nothing, how to get money with- out earning it, how to get their daily bread by the sweat of another’s brow. Centuries ago these men were called robber-barons; they lived in moated and turreted castles and when they wanted meat and grain and wine they let down the * [Mr. Lee Meriwether, who opens our series of papers on “Corruption and Graft in Municipal, State and National Government in America,” is a well-known publicist author and lawyer. In 1885-88 he tramped over Europe, from Gibraltar to the Bosphorus, and elsewhere, in order to study labor conditions from actual experience and per- sonal contact with the toilers, and on his return was appointed by the Secretary of the Interior to pre- pare a report on the condition of the laborers in Europe. Later he was appointed as a special agent for the Department of the Interior and for three years collected data relating to labor in the United States and in the Hawaiian Islands. This position be resigned to accept the office of Labor Commis- sioner for Missouri. His reports when in the latter office led to important reforms and placed Mr. draw-bridge, crossed the moat into the peasants’ fields and took with the mailed fist what spoils they chose; then they returned to their castles and reveled with wine, women and song until ready for another foray into the valleys below. The castles overlooking the Rhine are tenantless now; no robber-barons now trample over peasants’ fields; no bands of armed retainers drive off cattle and cart away grain and wine. But the dif- ference is one of method alone. Now, as in the olden days, some men still get money without earning it while their Meriwether among the foremost leaders of those favoring public ownership of municipal utilities. In 1897 he received the nomination by the Demo- cratic party for Mayor of St. Louis. He was op- posed, however, by both the partisan rings and the corrupt public-service companies. The political bosses were notoriously corrupt and unscrupulous, and they had complete control of the election machinery, and though public sentiment appeared to be overwhelmingly in favor of Mr. Meriwether, he was counted out. He is the author of a number of deeply thoughtful works, among the most im- S‘: of whicn are A Tramp Tnp: How to See on Fifty Cents a Day ; Afloat and Ashore on diterranean; and The Tramp at Home . — Editor The Arena.] Digitized by Google
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44 The Reign of Boodle and the Rape of the Ballot in St Louis . victims, the mass of plain people, still earn money without being allowed to keep it. The desire to get something for nothing, the desire to live on the labor of others, produced the robber-barons of the Rhine; and it is the same desire to-day which produces that plentiful crop of boodlers to be found in American Na- tional, State and Municipal governments. The post-office scandals afford an illus- tration of national boodle; Pennsylvania under the Quay regime furnished a speci- men of state corruption, while St. Louis presents a striking example of rottenness in certain departments of city adminis- tration. The streets of a modem city offer a far richer spoil than was ever offered a Rhine robber-baron by any German peasant’s fields. The monopoly of furnishing gas, telephones or trans- portation to the 600,000 inhabitants of a city like St. Louis is worth millions of dollars; the possessor of that monopoly need neither toil nor spin, yet he may have a thousand times more luxury than all the robber-barons of the middle ages. To obtain this luxury, to enjoy greater riches than were enjoyed by any king or emperor of the past, all one need do is to obtain a few franchises; these franchises, worth a thousand times more than a robber-baron could steal in a life-time, are not obtained with clubs, maces and battle-axes, wielded by hired marauders, as was done five centuries ago; the methods now employed are equally immoral as the methods of the past, but they are less spectacular and they are veneered with respectability and corporation law. Our modem robber-barons wear silk hats instead of helmets ; they don Prince Albert frocks instead of coats of chain- armor; they live in fashionable mansions instead of in turreted castles; and they drive to church on Sundays and found colleges and libraries with the money they purloin, instead of spending it on drunken orgies as their robber-baron ancestors did a few centuries ago. Yes, our modem robber-barons are veiy, very respectable indeed. They are our “ prominent” citi- zens, our “ business ” men, our “Cap- tains of Industry” — and here is an ex- ample of the way they go about getting something for nothing, making them- selves rich by getting millions of money they do not earn, thereby preventing a million other men from obtaining the money which they do earn. Mr. Charles H. Turner, St. Louis millionaire, “prominent” citizen and “ Captain of Industry,” was president of the Suburban street-railway company which, by reason of its monopoly of a number of miles of St. Louis’ streets, was worth $3,000,000. Mr. Turner saw a chance to double the value of his road without any work or service on his part, by the simple expedient of getting a monopoly of some more miles of St. Louis streets; and so he asked “Colonel” Butler, the acknowledged “ Boss ” of St. Louis, how much he would charge to induce the House of Delegates and the City Council to rob the people of this $3,000,000 franchise and bestow it upon Turner and his friends. Col. Butler said his “fee” would be $145,000 and Turner, thinking that too much to pay for stolen goods worth $3,000,000, went to a Mr. Philip Stock who agreed to do the job for $135,000, $10,000 less than Butler demanded. The boodlers in St. Louis’ local legislature, being like Turner and other highly respectable “ prominent ” citizens in the matter of wanting some- thing for nothing, of wanting to get money without earning it (legitimately), readily agreed to rob the people of a $3,000,000 franchise and turn the pro- ceeds over to Turner and associates, pro- vided they could be sure of their share of the spoils. Butler they knew and trusted ; Stock they did not know and so they in- sisted that he pay the $135,000 in ad- vance. Stock refused to do this but he finally agreed to put the money in a safety-vault box where it was to be called for when the franchise was granted. Stock kept one key to this box, the other key was given to a representative of the boodlers, and the bank agreed not to Digitized by Google
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The Reign of Boodle and the Rape of the Ballot in St Louis . 45 permit the box to be opened except in the presence of both parties and by the use of both keys. This done, the House and Council promptly passed the? ordinance conferring the $3,000,000 monopoly upon Turner et of., and John K. Murrell and Charles Kratz were delegated by the boodlers to wait on Stock and get the $135,000 out of the box. Before they saw Stock, however, a citizen secured an injunction restraining the Suburban road from taking possession of the franchise, whereupon Stock refused to open the box containing the bribe-money until it was ascertained whether the courts would permit the ordinance to stand. When fijaslly, on some technical point, the courts sustained the injunction and declared the ordinance invalid, Stock flatly declined to give up the $135,000, declaring that his employers had not received die fran- chise and so were not bound to pay for what they had not gotten. The boodlers, on their part, refused to let die box be opened for the purpose of permitting the money to be returned to Mr. Turner; they declared they had been bribed to vote for a certain ordinance; they had done this; that this ordinance proved defective was not their fault; the Subur- urban road’s attorneys had drawn up die franchise; if the franchise was defective that was the lawyers' fault, not die boodlers’; they had given their votes ac- cording to contract, consequently they insisted on having their bribe-money. Obviously, so unique a position as this offered littie chance of friendly adjust- ment and when the boodlers’ clamor grew too loud, when they threatened to make a “leak” as to the safety-vault box with its precious package of thousand- doflar bills, Mr. Turner took fright and resolved to make the “leak” himself; it became a race to the Circuit-Attorney’s office to see which side should turn state’s evidence first, and Turner won the race. It was a despicable role , that of informer as well as self-confessed briber and would-be receiver of stolen goods, but Mr. Turner thought that even that role was better than to wear a felon’s stripes, so he told Joseph W. Folk what he knew. The story of how Circuit-Attorney Folk produced in court the box with its $135,000, how member after member of the House of Delegates and the City Council was tried, and convicted, how millionaire boodlers like Wain wright fled to Egypt to escape prosecution, how boodlers worth only a few hundred thou- sand dollars, like Kratz and Murrell, fled to Mexico, how Folk secured an amend- ment to the Extradition Treaty with Mexico and caused the boodlers to be returned, tried and convicted — all this has been told to the world, but it is not so well known how these startling revela- tions aroused honest men on the one hand, while on the other hand they frightened the whole brood of political vultures and drove them to the most desperate meas- ures in their effort to ruin Folk and drive him out of public life. In the outset of the contest the boodlers started with every odd in their favor; for a generation men like Charles H. Turner who amass fortunes by getting for nothing franchises worth millions of dollars had been entrenching themselves behind a series of breast-works and fortifications. Their fortunes being due to rotten legisla- tion, they tried to see to it that the people’s hands were tied so tight as to make it impossible for them to undo the crooked laws that enabled a ring of “prominent citizens” to rob St. Louis more merci- lessly than the barons of the Rhine robbed the peasants of France and Ger- many. Manifestly, the best way to ac- complish this desire was to deprive the people of self-government, of the power to make good laws and to repeal bad ones. And this the respectable boodlers— >-not the petty thieves satisfied with a paltry $135,000 to be divided by twenty or more members of a city legislature;— but the Charles H. Turners who wanted $3,000,- 000 at a single instalment have done in St. Louis. St. Louis, the fourth city of the Union in population, wealth, com- merce and industrial importance, is to-day Digitized by Google
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46 The Reign of Boodle and the Rape of the Ballot in St. Lome. as devoid of self-government, at any rate, so far as primary elections and the choos- ing of party candidates are concerned, as Moscow or Constantinople. True, its citizens have a right to cast a ballot in the primary election, but their ballots are cast under the shadow of a policeman’s club and they are counted, if at all, by the tools of one faction of one political party. And that faction is owned body and soul by “ prominent citizens” of the Turner stripe who have amassed millions through boodle and stolen franchises. In April, 1901, when the people of St. Louis arose in what amounted to a politi- cal revolution and repudiated both of the two boss-ridden machines and elected a Public-Ownership ticket on a platform pledged to the operation of street-rail- ways, telephones and other public utilities in the interest of the people instead of in the interest of owners of watered stocks and bonds, the tools of the “ Prominent- Citizen” Ring were entrenched in the Election Commissioners’ office; the elec- tion Commissioners and the election judges and clerks had the counting of the people’s ballots and they calmly wrote down that their ticket was elected and that the Public-Ownership ticket was defeated. So open, so notorious was it that the in- dependent party had won, many of the hired agents of the “ Prominent-Citizen ” Ring who raped the ballot and murdered self-government in St. Louis did not even take the trouble to conceal or to deny their methods. One of the minor agents of these respectable millionaire receivers of stolen franchises was a certain Robert Carroll, now a Justice of the Peace, but formerly a paid employee and zealous satellite of the noted Boss, Col. Edward Butler. Speaking of the mayoralty elec- tion of 1901, this Mr. Carroll said to the writer: “We had no idea your people amounted to anything, but the votes came in so fast the boys had to work over-time to throw them out. For instance, in one precinct where we didn’t expect any public-ownership votes to speak of there were several hundred. Of course, the boys could n’t stand for that so they just threw out the whole lot and gave the pre- cinct unanimously to the other ticket.” Mr. Carroll explained that it was easy to do this because after the voters go home, the men in the polling-places, em- ployees, all, of our modern robber-barons, “ can in five minutes with a five-cent lead pencil cast more votes — on paper — than five thousand citizens can cast in a ballot- box in a whole day.” Said another “ practical ” politician who was, and still is, behind the scenes: “Much has been said about ‘Indians,’ ‘repeaters ’ and Col. Butler’s ‘emergency wagons’ which went from poll to poll on election day, but all this only amounts to a bluff. The real work is done on the inside of the polling-places after they are closed. The purpose of the Indian-loaded wagons is merely to intimidate honest voters. The fraud of the election does not really begin on a large scale until night, then in dozens of precincts where the judges and election clerks of both big parties have been ‘fixed’ we put down just what re- turns we wish. John Smith may have 500 votes in a given precinct, but if Smith is the man we want to beat we knock off two ciphers and credit him with 5 votes. That is cheaper and quicker than hiring 500 Indians to cast illegal ballots.” When mention of this wholesale rape of the ballot is made the question is often asked : “ Why does n’t some one make use of the constitutional provision per- mitting a ballot-box to be opened and a comparison of the ballots to be made with the voting lists so as to ascertain if the ballots are recorded as really cast by the electors ? ” Here again the “ Promi- nent-Citizen ” Ringsters are entrenched behind an impregnable fortress; they have secured a supreme court decision declaring that the ballot is too sacred to be inspected : better, says the court in effect, better rape the ballot, better murder self-government than destroy the secrecy of the ballot by letting A. know how B. voted. As the Public-Ownership nominee for Mayor of St. Louis in 1897 the writer was convinced from his own Digitized by Google
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The Reign of Boodle and the Rape of the BaUot in St Louis . 47 knowledge of the election, and from what was freely and frankly said by those who stole the election, that he had received a majority of the people’s votes, and so he instituted contest proceedings in the Circuit Court of St. Louis. Before the case could be heard, however, in a similar contest then pending the Supreme Court handed down a ruling to the effect that the boxes could not be opened and the ballots compared with the lists, and so, of course, the mayoralty contest was discontinued, thus leaving St. Louis in charge of officials who were notoriously not elected and whom the people by an overwhelming vote had declared should have no part or parcel in the city’s gov- ernment. Recalling how in the 1901 mayoralty election a sweeping victory had been thus won with a few lead-pencils manipulated by bold and unscrupulous election of- ficials, the boodlers laughed when Circuit- Attorney Folk announced that, if the people wished, he would continue his work from the Governor’s office. Why not laugh ? Were there not lots of pencils still in St. Louis ? And could not one pencil in the hands of a “safe” man out-vote a thousand fool reformers ? The “ Prominent-Citizen ” Ring knew this to be true, but in its eagerness to defeat the man responsible for the con- viction of boodlers who had made it possible for them, the “Prominent-Citi- zens,” to become rich and “prominent,” the ring foolishly decided not to rest con- tent with leaving matters to “the man inside with the pencil”; it went further and stationed thugs outside the polling- places with orders to slug, kick, beat and, if necessary, kill — anything to defeat Folk. Neither age, health nor station in life was spared ; some of the victims were men of national reputation. For ex- ample, one was the Hon. Norman J. Coleman, former Lieutenant-Governor of Missouri and Secretary of Agriculture in Mr. Cleveland’s Cabinet. Two others assaulted while standing in line outside a polling-place waiting to vote were die sons of David R. Francis, President of the St. Louis World’s Fair, former Gov- ernor of Missouri and Secretary of the Interior in Mr. Cleveland’s second ad- ministration. Another victim was a ven- erable ex-judge, 81 years old. Those, and scores of others, were knocked down in broad daylight, some were kicked and beaten, others were dragged into alleys — why? Because they were about to commit the crime of voting in a primary election for delegates pledged to nominate Folk for Governor. The police stood idly by, giving no protection whatever to the citizens assaulted, and in some instances even taking part in the outrages; for the police department is a part of the “Prominent-Citizen” Ring. There have been instances where for weeks before an election members of the police department have gone about locat- ing vacant houses and assisting in regis- tering fictitious names from such houses. One instance recalled by the writer is that of a small house at 1227 North Broad- way, St. Louis. Ninety-five names were registered, and subsequently voted, from that house although it is a physical im- possibility for one-fifth of that many persons to reside there. 186 names were registered from the house at 800 South Spring avenue. It is said that on Clark avenue the fraudulent names on the registered list outnumber the names of real persons with a legal right to vote. From 8685 Forest Park, 110 names are registered. Many similar instances might be cited. These lists are of course frauds, but the names are voted on elec- tion day and the citizen who protests is beaten by the “Indians” or arrested by the police. At one polling-place when the challenger, a Mr. Forester, asked the police to prevent a gang of repeaters from voting so many times the police laughed while the “ Indian ” at the head of the line of repeaters stopped casting ballots long enough to assault Mr. Forester and beat him so severely as to compel him to flee for his life. Mr. Forester is a reputable citizen, employed now and for years past in a responsible position in the Federal Custom-House in Digitized by Google
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48 The Reign of Boodle and the Rape of the Ballot in St. Louis . St. Louis, but he received no protection from the police in the polling-place be- cause the police knew that the 44 Indians ” were operating in the interest of the 44 Prominent-Citizen ” Ring and that that Ring did not want an honest vote; an honest vote would mean an end to stolen franchises; and an end to stolen fran- chises would mean an end to the oppor- tunities of the ring to get millions of other peoples’ money without earning it. In St. Louis county when the conven- tion met to name delegates favorable to Folk for Governor, a mob of thugs captured the court-house, smashed the judge’s bench, demolished the book-cases and furniture and forced the Folk dele- gates to flee for their lives, some of them leaping from the court-house windows. These tactics met with the customary success in the county and city of St. Louis. In all that great metropolis not one dele- gate favorable to Folk was elected. To judge from the primary returns that great city of 600,000 people was a unit in condemning Folk, the man who exposed boodlers, and a unit in supporting the criminals whom Folk was heading toward the penitentiary. This once, however, the 44 Prominent-Citizen ” Ring greedy for franchises and therefore backing the thugs in their effort to defeat Folk, the man who was breaking up the free-fran- chise system — for once these worthies over-reached themselves; their machine slipped a cog. The very decisiveness of their victory startled the state. Was it possible that out of 600,000 people in St. Louis not one preferred Folk to the bood- lers? Could the vote which produced such a result be honest? Country-folks began to ask questions ; country papers began to print pictures of boodlers knock- ing down aged, gray-haired men; pictures were printed of the judge’s demolished bench and of Folk delegates leaping from the court-house windows. And as the sturdy Missouri farmers thought of these things they set their teeth and grimly vowed, that whatever St. Louis with its police and 44 Prominent-Citizen ” Ring-rule might do, they, the people at the fork of the creeks, the people uncorrupted by the hired tools of modern robber-barons greedy for stolen public privileges, could and would nominate Joseph W. Folk for Governor. And this vow they kept when the Democratic State Convention met at Jefferson City last July. Could the story end here there would be in it naught but hope and joy to the lover of good government, but it does not end here. Defeated in their effort to de- feat Folk, the 44 Prominent-Citizen ” Ring turned its attention to the other state officials and there met with its accustomed success. It secured the nomination of men who for years past in their official positions have assessed railroads and other public-service corporations at from one-fourth to less than one-fifth their actual value; all the while private property, farms, lands, houses, horses, cattle, have been assessed at from two- thirds to three-fourths of their actual selling value. The presence on the ticket of these men, one of whom escaped prosecution for bribery only because his crime was not known until after the statute of limitations had matured, con- fused and confounded the people of Missouri; here was Folk, the prosecutor of boodlers, running for Governor on a ticket containing as candidate for the next highest office, that of Secretary of State, the name of a man whose immunity from criminal prosecution was due, not to innocence of crime, but to the statute of limitations. Another man nominated on the ticket with Mr. Folk was known as the pliant tool of monopoly corporations ; and what that meant to the people may be seen from a few illustrations. For example, at a time when the St. Louis Transit company (a street-railroad) was capitalized at $90,000,000 and charged the people a five-cent fare in order to earn dividends upon that figure, the same com- pany was made to pay taxes on only some $16,000,000, less than a fifth of its capi- talization. Again, an official of the St. Louis Laclede Gas company stated on the witness-stand that his company’s plant could be duplicated for $2,000,000; and Digitized by Google
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Copyright. 1904. hy J. C. Strauss, St. Louis JOSEPH W. FOLK Thi Arina Digitized by Google
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The Reign of Boodle and the Rape of the Ballot in St. Louis. 49 it was assessed for taxation purposes at that figure. The company is quite will- ing to adopt that figure when it comes to appraising its property for taxation, but when it comes to charging St. Louisans for gas the price is fixed at a rate high enough to earn dividends upon nearly ten times that amount. The Laclede Gas company is capitalized at $20,000,000, and the . daily stock-market quotations show that its actual selling value ranges from $16,000,000 to $17,000,000, It was to . retain this power of getting something for nothing, this power to charge high prices for gas and street-car fares so as to earn profits on ten times the capital actually invested, that the 44 Prominent-Citizen ” Bing employed Boss Butler and his 44 Indians,** first to defeat the nomination of Folk; then, having fail- ed in that, to saddle on the ticket upon which Folk was a candidate for Governor men who could not command public con- fidence or public respect. This scheme, worthy of Machiavelli himself, succeeded. And so mystified, so discouraged were men at the sight of Folk weighted down by fellow-candidates who were either the tned tools of monopoly, or were guilty of aiding and conniving in the bribery of a State Senator, that thousands of voters lost all interest in the election and either did not take the trouble to go to the polls, or else voted against the entire Democratic ticket. Folk included. The result was that Folk was elected Governor on the eighth of November by an unpre- cedentedly small margin; Missouri, a 44 rock-ribbed** Democratic state, is ac- customed to giving its Democratic tickets an overwhelming majority; Bryan car- ried the State by 68,727. Folk carried it by a plurality of 80,100 and a majority of only 9,830; all the rest of the ticket went down to an inglorious defeat — the first time since 1870 that a Missouri State Democratic ticket has been defeated in a presidential year. Part of this poor showing may be due to the efforts of Boss Butler and his re- doubtable 44 Indians.” In certain wards of St. Louis where they retained control of the polling-places Folk ballots were de- stroyed much after the old-time methods of primary-election days; but this ac- counts for only a small part of the final re- sult, for the Butler 44 Indians ** were con- confined to but a few wards of one city; moreover, the great defection from the usual Democratic vote took place in the rural districts. And from this it may be fairly assumed that the underlying ground for Folk’s almost defeat, and for the actual defeat of the rest of his ticket, was the disgust, the dismay, the loss of hope consequent upon the strange spectacle of the prosecutor of boodlers yoked with the tools of railroad and other public- service monopolies, and with a candidate for Secretary of State who escaped prose- cution for bribery only because his crime was three years old. To sum the matter up, the 44 campaign of principle” in Missouri has not re- sulted as satisfactorily or as hopefully as lovers of justice and good government desired; but, on the other hand, although handicapped by State officials and a legis- lature largely out of sympathy with his aims and purposes. Governor Folk will have it in Us power to do his constituents great service. This he can do by merely keeping the pledge he made prior to his nomination, mz.. Take the police out of politics and give St. Louis self-govern- ment. Napoleon the Little made himself Emperor of 35,000,000 Frenchmen by the daring use of 10,000 soldiers one night in Paris between sunset and dawn; and the unscrupulous use of the 1,300 armed police in St. Louis has frequently put in power in Missouri officials as little liked as the third Napoleon was liked by the mass of Frenchmen. The present police- law, which Governor Folk is pledged to re- form, is the most extraordinary, the most iniquitous that ever disgraced the statute- books of a civilized state. By1 virtue of that law the Governor of Missouri ap- points four commissioners who are vested with absolute control of the St. Louis police, removing and appointing its members, and fixing the amount of money which the city shall appropriate Digitized by Google
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50 The Reign of Boodle and the Rape of the Ballot in St Louis. for the department’s expenses. When the Governor’s four commissioners certify to the Speaker of the House of Delegates and to die President of the City Council the sum wanted for the ensuing year it forthwith becomes the duty of the house and council to appropriate the amount demanded; and any member of either house who votes against the appropria- tion thereby becomes guilty of a crime that is punishable by a $1,000 fine, by disfranchisement and by permanent dis- ability from holding any office of honor or profit. There is no maximum as to the number of police whom the commis- sioners may employ, and no maximum as to the amount of money they may de- mand from the city treasury. Imme- diately after this law was enacted the commissioners demanded some $1,800,- 000; prior to that time the expenses of the police department had never exceeded some $900,000 per year. This increase of nearly a million dollars at one bound aroused a storm of protest and members of the city legislature refused to vote for the appropriation. When taken into the courts, however, the Supreme Court declared the law constitutional and Presi- dent Hornsby of the Council, a Democrat, in voting “aye” declared from his place on the President’s bench that the bill was iniquitous and that he voted for it only because to vote against it would subject him to a $1,000 fine and to loss of all his rights as a citizen. The abuses of such a law are manifest; that four men not elected by the people, therefore not responsible to them, should be permitted to employ armed police at their discretion; that taxpayers of a great city should then be compelled to pay whatever sum these four commissioners demand, whether that sum be one or a dozen millions; and that any member of the city’s legislature who dares to oppose the appropriation demanded by the Governor’s commissioners, no matter how unreasonable, how huge that appropria- tion may be, may be legally fined $1,000 and deprived of his citizenship — all this leems incredible in an American state professing those fundamental principles of Jefferson, home-rule and self-govern- ment. But that is the condition to-day in Missouri, and that is one of the things which Governor Folk is pledged to re- form. Had the people been as aroused on the other State offices as they were on that of Governor, had they nominated a complete ticket in harmony with the campaign of equal taxation, home-rule and honest government, there can be no doubt but that the entire ticket would have been overwhelmingly elected, and then Governor Folk would have had willing and able lieutenants to aid in carrying out the promised reforms. But after the fearless prosecutor of boodlers was nominated for Governor the people’s interest relaxed ; business men went back to their business ; professional men went back to their offices; farmers went back to their farms. But the boodlers fought on — and while the people slept over their partial victory, friends of the boodlers, friends of the “ Prominent- Citizen ” Ring captured the other most important nominations, with the result finally recorded on the eighth of Novem- ber— defeat and disaster for all save Folk and almost defeat for the head of the ticket. How much the Governor alone, unaided, can do, remains to be seen; that he can do much, that he can at least appoint police commissioners who will cease to make elections in St. Louis a tragedy and a travesty upon democratic institutions, that he can ap- point election commissioners who will install honest clerks and judges in the polling places and cease the system of carrying elections with lead-pencils, after the voters have cast their ballots and gone home, — that Governor Folk can do this much all Missouri knows. And all Missouri will be grievously disappointed if he fails to do it. His enemies say he will fail; his friends say he will keep his pledges. The people will know which prediction is right after the appointment of the Police and Election Boards next January. Lee Mebi wether. 8t. Louis, Mo. Digitized by Google
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REALLY MASTERS. By Eltweed Pomeroy. A.M., President of The National WO POLITICAL events have re- cently happened on the Pacific coast which our great daily papers have almost entirely ignored and which the Associated Press has hardly mentioned, and yet it would be impossible to over- estimate their importance, for through them, for the first time in our history, the citizens realized the fundamental ideal of democracy in the enjoyment of a govern- ment by the people qn a large scale on American soil. We have had govern- ments of and for the people, but never until last June, in Oregon, have the people of a great American commonwealth actually proposed a law by an initiative petition of a part of their number, and subsequently, at a referendum, voted on that law, without the interposition of any legislature or governor. But this hap- pened with two laws in Oregon last June, and both were carried. In this connection it is well to call to mind the fact that in Oregon, after the passage of the constitutional amendment providing for the initiative and referen- dum, this innovation was attacked in the courts, and it judge of the lower court derided that the amendment had not been properly adopted, and also vaguely in- timated that the amendments were un- constitutional as not according with the clause in the United States Constitution which guarantees “a republican form of government to every state.” This decis- ion was promptly appealed to the Su- preme Court of the commonwealth where the decision of the lower court was reversed. The court, in an exceptionally able and exhaustive opinion, held that the initiative and referendum were funda- mentally democratic in character and in no way contradicted or antagonized the United States Constitution. The second initial democratic act was Direct-Legislation League. taken in Los Angeles on September six- teenth last. About two years ago the people of this flourishing and progressive municipality chose a charter commission which framed fifteen amendments to the charter, and these the people enacted at a referendum vote. Later the legislature ratified the same. Among the amend- ments were provisions for the referendum, the initiative and the recall. By the re- call twenty-five per cent, of the constitu- ents of any elective officer, by signing a petition for his recall, can force a new election during the officer’s term of ser- vice, and if a majority of the people vote for someone else at this special election the official is discharged and the vacancy thus created is filled by the person selected by the electorate. Last spring Mr. J. P. Davenport, councilman for the sixth ward of Los Angeles, outraged the opinions of his con- stituents by voting for a printing contract giving the city’s printing at a much higher rate than other competitors bid, to the Los Angeles Times , and also by protecting the saloons. A petition for his recall was circulated by the Typo- graphical Union, but on being taken into the courts on a technicality, it was thrown out by the judge. This, however, made Mr. Davenport’s constituents all the more determined, and the general public also took up the question. Great meet- ings were held and a petition signed by a large number of voters was filed. Mr. Davenport appealed to the courts and Judge Ostler decided against him and in favor of the recall. There are three points in this decision which are very important as establishing precedents : First . The judge derided that the reasons given in the petition were not in the nature of the chaiges on which a man 51 Digitized by Google
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52 Really Masters. is tried at court-martial or for his removal under civil-service rules, but were “gen- eral statements’* “designed merely to enlighten the voters, similar to the grounds the mayor is required to make when he vetoes an ordinance,” and that the Council, in calling the election under the mandatory clause in this recall part part of the charter, could not consider whether the charges were true or false, but must call the election, leaving it to the people by their votes to decide whether the charges had sufficient founda- tion to warrant the discharge of this public servant and the appointment of another. Second. The plaintiff held that the recall itself was unconstitutional and in- consistent with the spirit of the United States Constitution. The judge decided strongly against him on this point, saying in part that: “To say that an act is un- constitutional, without pointing out the particular section violated, is practically an admission that there is nothing in the suggestion.” Third . It was claimed that “ the plaintiff has some kind of property in the office and therefore it cannot be taken from him without due process of law”; that the public had made a contract with the officer, under which he held the office until the end of the term, and that a re- call violated this contract. The judge said: “The authorities are practically without conflict to the effect that a public office is not property, but a mere agency, which may be terminated at any time by the principal — the sovereign people; that the incumbent holds office by no contract or grant, and that he has no vested right therein.” This decision was followed by a cam- paign of great bitterness, in which the Los Angeles Times , naturally enough, sustained Davenport. It attacked die character of his opponent with much mud-throwing, while the other papers opposed Davenport, printing some very bad letters which he had written offering to use his power as councilman. The Times also attacked the recall, claiming that it permitted the persecution of an honorable officer, while the other papers sustained the recall as allowing the people to actually defend their own interests by discharging incompetent and corrupt officials. Only one ward voted on the question, but it became a city issue in which every one was interested. The voting took place on the sixteenthj^of September, and Dr. Houghton was elect- ed, defeating Mr. Davenport by a vote of 2,338 to 1,584, or a majority of 754. In other words, thirty-seven per cent, voted for Davenport and sixty-three per cent, against him. All but one of the pre- cincts voted against Davenport. The discredited official had behind him the full strength of the dominant Republican machine and of many of the great corporations, and it was charged that “bold attempts” were made by the corporations to vote their employees. Houghton ran as a non-partisan and had no machine behind him, but there were no candidates put up by the socialists or labor men, so that he polled most of their votes. He also had some very efficient men to aid him and much strength, be- cause the friends of the recall wanted to prove that it could be successfully em- ployed. After the election there were some threats of carrying the case into the courts again, but these soon subsided, and there is a general acquiescence in the result as being the decision of the people. The Pacific coast has been making real democratic history. These initial actions taken by the people in governing them- selves are far more important and preg- nant with promise for the triumph of free institutions and popular government than any conventions or elections of recent years. Eltweed Pomeroy. East Orange , N . J. Digitized by Google
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JUSTICE FOR THE CRIMINAL. By G. W. Galvin, M.D., PhyataUn-in-Chlef to the Emergency Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts. IN MY previous papers I called the readers’ attention to the victims crushed beneath the wheels of our legal machinery. Some* I suppose, have striven to stifle their sympathy and silence the cry of conscience by the reflection that the way of the transgressor is hard. This, of course, does not meet the situa- tion, as it is against abuses and injustice that I protest; abuses and injustice to the most unfortunate class of our people — the victims of the three-fold curse, ignor- ance, evil environment and unjust social conditions. Moreover, under the present order it is by no means the guilty that are always punished. There are to-day num- bers in our jails and penitentiaries who are there through no fault of their own, but on account of deficiencies in our legal machinery. Once, while discussing this subject with one of the foremost criminal lawyers in Boston, I was startled by his remark that there are many persons in prison who would never have been con- victed if they had had an opportunity to make arrangements for a proper defence and to engage competent legal counsel. When I seemed incredulous this gentle- man took from a shelf the so-called * Blue-Book,” an official document, and read the following: “Mike Tatouche was pardoned be- cause he had been wrongfully convicted. His cousin, who evaded the officials, was the guilty one. Tatouche had no counsel at the trial, and his mother, who was present, could not speak English.” “There are many cases like this one,” observed the lawyer, “but they are not recorded in the ‘Blue-Book,’ for it seldom happens that the guilty one steps forward and causes the release of the innocent.” It is my purpose in a future paper to give a detailed account of a number of cases, well fortified with indisputable evidence, showing how the innocent are suffering for crimes that the weight of evidence now at hand indicates they did not commit; but at the present time I wish to give what seems to me to be a rational programme of progress, or a general line of action that would prove, I believe, as beneficent as it is just. In my preceding articles I have shown by official statistics that the number of annual arrests in this country is more than three millions; that the number of annual convictions is over one million; that our permanent prison population is over one hundred thousand; and that the number of annual convictions for homicide is over ten thousand. If this record spells out anything it spells out failure for the present social and judicial means and methods in the treatment of crime and criminals. Criminology has become a science. The cause of crime has been uncovered and the fact has been established that education and economic conditions are largely responsible alike for the moral health or disease of the community and for our ethical standards of judgment. We who, largely through the accidents of environment and favoring conditions, are accounted among the respectable and law-abiding citizens, are prone to play the Pharisee and look with indif- ferent contempt not unmixed with loath- ing and disgust upon the inmates of our penal institutions, ignoring the pro- foundly thoughtful utterance of Goethe, that “There is no deed, good or bad, which I myself might not have committed if placed in the required surroundings ” ; and the equally pregnant words of Mon- taigne, when he said: “Three out of four men would be in prison if all of men’s acts could be proven before a legal tribunal.” 68 Digitized by Google
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54 Justice jot the Criminal. An infinite feeling of sadness took possession of me when I read the report of the State Conference of Charities of Massachusetts, which was recently held in Springfield, and I found myself asking the question: Are these men voluntarily or involuntarily blind? Though there was much talk about reforming the crimi- nal, there was no definite statement show- ing how such a reform could be accom- plished, no rational, sane or feasible programme calculated to achieve this de- sirable end. One man even had the hardihood to advise long prison sentences in order to attain the desired result; and the fact was loudly proclaimed, with much gratulation and self-satisfaction, that the State of Massachusetts spends every year over ten million dollars to assist and reform her people. Ten million dollars annually expended, and what have we to show for it ? Fifty thousand annual arrests in the city of Boston alone; our penitentiaries and work-houses filled to overflowing; our pauper institutions in- adequate to meet one-tenth of the require- ments. And yet year after year con- ventions meet and discuss how to reform the criminal, fighting shy of the root- causes of crime and avoiding any remedial agencies that are fundamental in char- acter. I think when on the day of universal judgment thedeeds of men are weighed and measured, the inmates of our penal and pauper institutions will arise as witnesses against our hypo- critical statesmen and false, shallow or ignorant reformers. That existing society is beset with serious evils which will in time menace the very life of the state, must be ap- parent to all student* of the philosophy of history. I am a physician, and it is but natural that when I see an evil I wish to prescribe a remedy. As a physician I also know from experience that when- ever remedial measures are delayed too long a catastrophe ensues. For the evil which if unchecked threatens to over- throw the existing order of things and bring a repetition of the horrors of the French Revolution, I would prescribe the following remedies : 1. Equitable jurisprudence. 2. The limiting of imprisonment be- fore trial to capital offences. 3. Summons before a magistrate in- stead of arrest for minor offences against the law. 4. The giving of a reasonable time in which to pay money fines imposed by police-judges. (Over fourteen thousand persons are annually imprisoned in Massa- chusetts on account of their inability to pay immediately the money fines im- posed.) 5. The furnishing of competent counsel to poor defendants. 6. The right to work. This last remedy is intended to strike at the root of our social evil, and I shall treat it fully in a future article; for I am profoundly convinced that one million dollars annually, judiciously applied, would reduce our prison and pauper population to one-tenth its present size and at the same time would banish from the nifnHa of thousands the haunting fear of want which is so largely the under- lying basis of vice and crime. On the day when the State shall be wise and sane and great enough to decree that henceforth no man shall ask in vain for work that shall enable him to sustain himself and those dependent on him, we shall have taken a long step on the way toward reducing to a minimum crime, poverty and the misery coincident with them. G. W. Galvin. Boston , Mass. Digitized by Google
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A DEFENCE OF WALT. WHITMAN’S “LEAVES OF GRASS.” By Clarence Cuningham. IN PLACING “The Two Mysteries” in his book of some chosen pieces. Professor Frank McAIpine precedes it with a sketch of the life of its author, Walt. Whitman, the Brooklyn poet. In refer- ring to Leaves of Grass Professor McAI- pine admits that the volume “ shows un- questionable power and great originality.” Yet he adds that it “ contains passages of a very objectionable character, so much so, that no defence that is valid can be set up.” To Professor McAlpine's polished and well-wiped surface I can see how the rug- ged, unrubbed soul-tones of the “carpen- ter-and-builder ” poet could cause such a radiation of cracks as would mar the panel for its place in my lady’s boudoir. “If I blush, it is to see a nobleman want man- ners,” says my lord butcher. Cardinal Wolsey. In Walt. Whitman’s case there is no nobleman in question, only a plain, bhint workman; and I suppose the learn- ed man who professionally trains the young idea how to think, blushes because he sees not in the builder’s shop any var- nish. How can such a builder ever hope to pass with the sterilized critics of archi- tecture? The builder in his unstudied honesty not for a moment seeks to excuse himself for transcribing to the written page that which was writ upon his heart and under- standing, but in his very innocence exult- ingly says: “ Leaves of Grass has mainly been the outcropping of my own emotion- al and other personal nature — an attempt, from first to last, to put a person, a human being (myself, in die latter half of the Nineteenth Century, in America) freely, fully, and truly on record. I could not find any similar personal record in cur- rent literature that satisfied me.” Now if my lord literatus would put himself on re- cord before the world “ freely, fully, and truly,” how different would he appear to the world to-day than he does appear. The man who asks questions, asks: “ What good will it do ? ” and the finan- cier says: “That wouldn’t pay!” Many things do not pay at their initiation, but upon their becoming “the thing” they roll in enough coin to satisfy even the sordid, for the world is full of die prying and of the hypercritical who are ready to spend their last dollar to find out the in- nermost self of their neighbor. As for the good it will do, it will place upon record mankind as mankind individually and collectively really is. It will give to the psychologist and to the philosopher the only true and limitiess field whence can be drawn the only true deductions of man’s relationship to God and God’s to man, and of the meaning of creation. God gives us one face and we make ourselves another, and we hold up to the gaping world a Jesuitical portraiture, all smoothy and smiles, and pregnant with moral gam- mon. To ourselves we hold up as our likeness a self-hypnotized effigy which to look upon breeds within ourselves vanity, arrogance, self-satisfaction. It is only when our subjective minds work freely, fully and truly, and we are brave enough to put ourselves freely, fully, and truly on record, — it is only then that the world and that we ourselves will know us as God knows us, as He knows the Ego, the Alma, the Spirit, as it dwells behind and gives the vital force to the physical body — the animal soul — the human soul. Not until then can we — mankind — truly deduce the definition of sin. What Whitman in his larger nature did in America in behalf of this record of the inner or hidden in man, Marie Bashkirt- seff, in a naturally narrower one, did in Europe at the same epoch. There is not a line in her journal that is not a key to the 65 Digitized by Google
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56 A Defence of Walt • Whitman9 8 “Leaves of Qrass." mystery of the inner life. In her preface to that journal she writes: “In the first place I had written for a long time without any thought of being read, and then it is precisely because I hope to be read that I am altogether sincere. If this book is not the exact, the absolute, the strict truth it has no raison d’itrc . Not only do I always write what I think, but I have not even dreamed, for a single instant, of disguising anything that was to my disadvantage, or that might make me appear ridiculous. I have exhibited myself in these pages just as I am. The record of a woman's life written down day by day, without any at- tempt at concealment, as if no one in the world were ever to read it, yet with the pur- pose of being read is always interesting." Let me add to the words of that extra- ordinary young woman that such a rec- ord is instructive, nay, illuminating and imperative. Aptly did Mr. Gladstone pronounce her journal: “A book without a parallel." In referring to his Leaves of Qrass its author candidly says: “It is avowedly the song of Sex and Aputixeness, and even Animality." It is that very feature that misleads our Professional Technique into uttering his ultimatum: It “contains pas- sages of a very objectionable character, so much so, that no defence that is valid can be set up." In uttering such an ultima- tum Professor McAlpine betrays his own nature and comprehension. When we com- prehend Sex, Amativeness, Animality, as bases or the means through which and the purpose for which the gluttonous satiety of the sensuous and the passional is to be reached, and the earthly deceptions, rival- ries, aspirations, prejudices, egotisms and aggressions are to be bated, grasped, fed, and turned to the personal strengthening of the crafty and strong, why then our very cunning and skilfully prudish training and inheritance subtilely fights from be- neath its mock-moral armor against all mention or interpretation of those attri- butes and qualities inherent to mankind; but when we regard Sex, Amativeness, Animality, as a part of the scheme, pure and simple, of the incarnation of spirit- life into physical form, as a part of the primordial law of nature illustrative of the wisdom and the Ways of God, and regard them away from their connection with the law enacted by and for artificial man, we then regard Sex, Amativeness, and Ani- mality as pure entities and the proper soil in which to generate our physical, emo- tional, moral, intellectual, esthetic Per- sonalities in their reality and not in their seeming. When we comprehend these entities “ unstopped and unwarped by any influence outside the soul within " us, and realize them as merely links in the great chain of vital power, as limitless, as aid- less, as relative, as are space and time, we will not know how not to sing them, and how not to sing the great truths bom of them. We will sing them in psychic pre- cision and simplicity, and thereby the future will be purified. That Walt. Whitman understood this and lived, moved, and acted under its meaning is shown by his adding to the statement that his song was the song of Sex, Amativeness, Animality, this state- ment: “Though meanings that do not usually go along with those words are be- hind all, and will duly emerge; and all are sought to be lifted into a different light and atmosphere. Difficult as it will be, it has become, in my opinion, imperative to achieve a shifted attitude from superior men and women towards the thought and fact of sexuality, as an element in charac- ter, personality, the emotions and a theme of literature." Not as a craven and sly Boccaccio does he seek to excuse his themes and their realistic treatment by such a papal indulgence as that the exposing and the ridiculing — the while doing it nicely! as Lord Chumley would say — that the ex- posing and the ridiculing of mankind’s physical qualities and quantities and its malpractice and abuse of them is the surest way of climimating them; but as a fearless and fearing child of God he con- ceives them and treats them as holy and indestructible creations, and seeks to Digitized by Google
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57 A Defence of Walt. Whitman's “ Leaves of Or ass." point their meaning: “I cannot under- stand it or argue it out/' he says. “ I fully believe in a clue and purpose in Nature, entire and several; and that invisible spiritual results, just as real and definite as the visible, eventuate all concrete life and all materialism, through time.” He sees and understands that the key to the meaning of earth-life is the sold in its nudity, not the soul in its inky cloak. Why are letters so valuable as the sour- ces of developing a truer and more ac- curate history, as well as being the best means of getting at the kernel of a case before a court of justice ? They are valu- able for the very reason that they are generally written in unguarded moments and are the expression of the writers’ sincere feelings and opinions. Did individuals express, bravely and without reserve, by visible signs and characters their natural, involuntary, and most constant thoughts, impressions and deductions, how different would be the comprehensions and general- izations relative to man and his actions; how much broader, higher and far-reach- ing would be the laws enacted as his rule of conduct, and how much more would they be suitable to and tally with the main- springs of those actions; and they would develop rather than stunt them. Under such conditions the whole scheme of his- tory and of the arts would change, and the science of life would be for the first time recognized and understood; the Physchologist and Philosopher would speak from the pulpit in words of sober- ness and truth, and the temples would be full to overflowing with responsive souls. There are those who would argue that a free and unceasing expression of the devices and desires of our own hearts would tend to make those devices and desires accept- able and permissible, and hence would encourage them to a more licentious and unchallenged scope. Whether expressed or hidden, mankind ever acts upon their suggestion and without control by or fear of iron-clad laws. Paint constantly the hideous, and the hideous will soon lose its fascination. “It 's the eye of childhood that fears the painted devil ”; it ’s not the man of reason. As each preceding gen- eration discovers to sight the hidden thoughts and emotions, so each succeed- ing generation will evolute into higher thoughts and emotions and will give less animal expression to them. “Confess your sins one to another” was not a gov- ernmental order uttered to encourage the wood-carvers, tapisters and upholsterers in making works of art and stalls of lux- ury, through whose lace-like openings the secret s of the soul were to be whispered, under the enticingly soft and rainbow lights of the Cathedral, to self-appointed listeners who too often used the outpour- ings of the soul as the instruments to self- ishly further petty policies or heinous statecraft and for the debasement of the human being; but it was a Divine com- mand uttered by the Creator of the uni- verse for the purification of the incarnated spirit. “ Confess your sins one to another” is the command; not, all of you confess your sins to a chosen few. Con- fess our sins one to another freely, fully, and truly, and by that very confession the river of life will become as crystal. “ Pe- ckezl CachezI Excust” Sin! Hide! Ex- cused— wittily remarked a French woman on an occasion of self-excuse. She could have gone farther and said : Being hidden and excused, the sin will become more subtile and stronger, and its gratification intensified. In the spirit of that truth the Vedanta Philosophy teaches that strong desires are the manufactories of new bodies. Lay bare to your neighbor’s eye your devices and desires, and you will begin to cultivate better devices and de- sires, and they will become more spiritual and less carnal, more objective and less subjective, and you will verify the scien- tific problem laid down by Elmer Gates, known as the mentative art or evolution of mind-building and development. Elmer Gates, following in the line of the facts revealed to Buckle, Draper, and other seekers in their particular lines of philosophical truth, establishes, by inves- tigation and experiment, the fact that Digitized by Google
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58 A Defence of Walt. Whitmans “ Leaves of Grass." mental processes are as regular in their operations as the law of gravity. He fur- ther shows that the cell is not only the anatomic but also the psychological unit of animals and plants, and cells can by psy- chological training be developed into new species. By way of parenthesis let me say that from the time of the earliest sages we have known that back of our earth-life is a vital force endowed with mind or thought-force in a potential state; that is, all visible existence has within itself the life-force and the power of growth. It is just this life-force that is the psychic, and is the force that can be trained. Mr. Gates goes on to demonstrate that con- scious mental experience creates, in some part of the brain, new structural enregis- tration, which is the embodied memory of that experience; that cells of the brain can be enlarged, made more efficient and in- creased in number, and these changes are transmitted to offspring; that there are inseparable and mutually conditional re- lations between the emotions and the chemical changes constituting cellular nutrition; that if in that portion of the mind, where evil memories are engen- dered, those that are good are upbuilt by being kept active each day, they will re- place those that are bad. He lays down this proposition: “Let a person devote an hour a day to calling up a certain class of fine, uplifting emotions and memories which in ordinary life are summoned only occasionally, let him do this regularly as he would take physical exercises, and at the end of a month he will be able to note a surprising change. The change will be apparent in all his thoughts, desires and actions.” God is light, love, purity, intelligence, and it is He who speaks to and inspires the psychic half of man; but when that psy- chic is steeped in and entangled by the physical it deafens its ear to the Holy Voice. As a means of keeping that ear alert and listening, Mr. Gates propounds his scientific teachings, while Mr. Whit- man urges his method of ever exposing to visible sight self or the psychic, thus to ever know unerringly what we really are. No art or clap-trap in word-painting, no enticement or voluptuous playing by veil- ed suggestion, does the plain, blunt man resort to by which to enhance and beglow even a single thought, word, or sentence; but by naked simplicity of expression does he display to the eye of man truths that are coetemal with God. Not seeking the approbation, but rather contemning the formal schools and existing conventions of literature, he does not, as its doctors are in the habit of doing, call in the physician for consultation and confession, and for his remedies in “ evasions and swathing sup- pressions,” but rather, he seeks that “ he- roic nudity on which only a genuine diag- nosis of serious cases can be built.” In face of such wisdom how can Professor Frank McAlpine maintain that Leaves of Grass “ contains passages of a very objec- tionable character, so much so, that no defence that is valid can be set up ” ? Oh, what an anthem to sing, and to be sung by a man of courage, and of truth, and of God! I sing “my own identity, ardors, observations, faiths and thoughts, colored hardly at all with any decided col- oring from other faiths or other identities.” I sing “America and to-day, modem science and democracy, and not the songs and the myths of the past, none of the stock ornamentation, or choice plots of love or war, or high, exceptional person- ages of Old-World song; nothing, as I may say, for beauty’s sake — no legend, no romance, nor euphemism, no rhyme, but the broadest average of humanity and its identitfes in the now ripening Nineteenth Century.” To all these new and evolu- tionary facts, meanings, purposes, he says : “ New poetic messages, new forms, and expressions, are inevitable. In the center of all, and object of all, stands the Human Being.” Further than making known his con- victions and giving, by example, a method of attaining a state of psychic evolution where we can the better comprehend the esoteric, he did not pretend to go. In the presence of “the things misnamed, death Digitized by Google
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A Pioneer Newspaper Cartoonist. 59 and existence/’ he felt no wiser than the little girl sitting in his lap, who, as he was curiously gazing upon the spectacle of death as presented by a little white coffin in which lay the body of a little child: “You do n’t know what it is, do you, my dear? We don’t, either.” “The Two Mysteries.” "We know not what it is, dear, this sleep so deep and still. The folded hands, the awful calm, the cheek so pale and chill ; The Hds that will not lift again, though we may call and call; The strange, white solitude of peace that settles over & We know not what it means, dear, this desolate heartpain; This dread to take our daily way, and walk in it again; We know not to what other sphere the loved who leave ns go. Nor why we’re left to wonder still, nor why we do not know. But this we know, our loved and dead, if they should come this day — Should come and ask us, *What is life?' not one of us could say. Life is a mystery as deep as ever death can be; Yet oh, how sweet it is to us, this life we live and see! Then might they say — these vanished ones — and blessed is the thought! ‘So death is sweet to us, beloved! though we may tell ye naught; We may not tell it to the quick — this mystery of death — Ye may not tell us, if ye would, the mystery of breath.' The child who enters life comes not with knowledge or intent. So those who enter death must go as little children sent. Nothing is known. But I believe that God is over- head; And as life is to the living, so death is to the dead.” Clarence Ctjningham. Charleston , S. C. A PIONEER NEWSPAPER CARTOONIST. By B. O. Flower. I. THE EDITOR AND THE ARTIST. / ONE DAY not more than ten years ago two men were seated in the editorial sanctum of the Minneapolis Journal, engaged in earnest conversation. The elder was J. S. McLain, the thought- ful and able editor of that leading after- noon daily of the Northwest. The young- er was Charles L. Bartholomew, a re- porter and special editorial writer who had also contributed several striking car- toons and illustrations to the Journal . Bartholomew was young and filled with the enthusiasm and compelling faith of virile early manhood. He believed there was a real demand on the part of the read- ing public for effective daily news car- toons, or, as he was wont to put it, “striking editorials in outline,” and that the dailies that were first to realize this new want would-gam-immensely in local patronage and prestige and also acquire a publicity and through this a general advertising advantage in remote centers, far greater in value than ten times the cost that an “art department” would entail on the daily; and this was what the young journalist was trying to present in a convincing manner to the editor. But Mr. McLain was skeptical. Here- tofore several attempts at illustrating dailies in the Northwest and elsewhere had proved disastrous failures, and even the enthusiasm and plausible reasoning of the young man were inconclusive to the editor, who, when the artist finished his plea for a chance to give all his time to cartoons and illustrations, in order to show what could be done, shook his head, gravely replying: “‘Bart.,* you had just as well give it up. There will not be a Digitized by Google
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60 A Pioneer Newspaper Cartoonist. Bartholomew, in Minneapolis Journal. THE STEADY WORKER. The Angel Death—" Oh, yes, War, yon do pretty well for a spasmodic fellow, bat look what my lien- tenant yonder does, with no apparent effort." time in ten years when a man can devote that much time to picture-work for the Journal .” But Mr. McLain was too big a man to imagine that his judgment must be neces- sarily correct or that all the wisdom of a great daily newspaper centered in the editor’s cranium, and he liked u Bart.,” as the young man was familiarly called. He liked his enthusiasm, his faith, his originality, his mental virility and his artistic temperament. He recognized that he had the true editor’s instinct for news and more than the ordinary artist’s ability to depict a situation in a telling manner through the medium of an out- line sketch. And so, though for the time he declined to give the artist the trial he desired, he studied the effect of “Bart’s” work on the public, and by dint of questioning and close observation he became more and more sympathetic with the plan which the young artist dung to so tenadously, until at last he not only gave his full consent, but entered into the work with something of the en- thusiasm that marked his boyhood days, even giving the young artist an hour each day during which they discussed the sub- ject of the cartoon and the most effective Digitized by Google
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61 A Pioneer Newspaper Cartoonist. way of bringing out the idea to be repre- sented. As the years passed increasing duties compelled Mr. McLain to dis- continue this aid, but the service rendered and suggestions given had been of in- estimable benefit to the young artist — a fact which he ever insists upon when describing his early victories. There can be little doubt but what these daily consultations with the able and experi- enced editor greatly assisted “Bart.” in achieving the unique reputation of always making pictures that meant something and of embodying in a greater degree than almost any other cartoonist a whole situation in a single picture. A little more than ten years have passed since Mr. McLain expressed his skepti- cism in regard to the feasibility of Mr. Bartholomew’s plan for devoting all his attention to art-work for the Journal , and to-day there are seven men in the art department of that daily, six of whom are receiving larger salaries than was “ Bart” when he tried to induce his chief to let him give his entire time to illustra- tive work. The phenomenal success of this artist is largely due to the fact that he is above all else a journalist. His scent for news Bartholomew, in Iflnneapolla Journal. A LITTLE TOO FAST, UNCLE. Cakada— “The ring lint, if you please, Jonathan.'* Bartholomew, In Minneapolis Journal. AN INTERRUPTION IN THE GREAT PEACE PLAT. Sckns, The Hague. 8eoond Act: U. a— “What in thunder has happened to the leading man that he doesn't come on?1' J. B.— “ I think the little war deTU is making trouble for him.'* is keen and unerring. He quickly realizes what part of the daily news will most in- terest the general reading public, and with this realization there usually comes to him a picture in outline that will epitomize the news situation. The newspaper car- toonist, as he often observes, must be an editor in outline. He must be able to seize on the salient points of the day’s principal event and depict them in an expressive or telling manner; and in this “ Bart.” is preeminent. No cartoonist in America, or the world, for that matter, so uniformly illustrates subject matter that is dominating the public mind on the day when the cartoon appears. Often news taken hot from the wire affords a subject for the day’s picture. Thus it is no unusual occurrence that the page containing the most prominent news item will also contain the cartoon illustrating the same. A striking ex- ample of this character occured a short time since. It was just after the Russian Baltic fleet had fired on the British fish- ing-vessels, and the subject was naturally uppermost in the public mind. At nine Digitized by Google
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62 A Pioneer Newspaper Cartoonist . Bartholomew, in Minneapolis Journal. “ SKEIN* THINGS AT NIGHT.” “ I woke up in the dark and saw things stand in’ in a row, a-lookin* at me croee-eyed an* p’inttn* at me— eo 1 ” o’clock in the morning the wires brought the explanation advanced by Admiral Rojestvensky for his amazing action — an explanation quite as astounding as the unprecedented outrage. The Admiral declared that he had been attacked by Japanese torpedo-boats, and from the telegraph-rooms of the Minneapolis Journal some one called up to “Bart.,” who was in the sky-parlor busily at work on a cartoon. The operator briefly gave the substance of the Admiral’s ex- cuse and added, “ Rojestvensky has been ‘ Seein’ things.’” Instantly the outline of the now famous cartoon, which was widely copied throughout the United States, appeared before the mental vision of the young artist, who, taking his pen, immediately drew the picture entitled “Seein* Things,” which appeared in the Journal that afternoon, together with the news item which it illustrated. The popularity of the cartoon has steadily grown with the American people and is in no small degree due to the apt and telling work of this pioneer in the field of up-to-date illustration of news by cartoon. In this respect we think Mr. Bartholomew enjoys primacy among his fellow-artists, though for the reason that he frequently has but two hours to devote to his picture after he has fully outlined the subject in his own mind he finds it impossible to make his drawings as artis- tic or finished as some of the work of the Eastern cartoonists — notably that of War- ren of the Boston Herald and Bush of the New York World . Three things, says our artist, must be kept in mind by the newspaper cartoonist: “His drawings must present an argument, elucidate the news, or humorously hit off a current event.” “Bart.*s” cartoons frequently embody all three of these important elements. We doubt if even the management of the Journal fully appreciates the enor- mous value of “ Bart’s ” work in familiar- izing the reading world at large with the name of their paper. To-day hundreds of thousands, if not millions of readers of the various great up-to-date reviews, eclectic weeklies and other papers that reproduce the most telling and timely cartoons, are familiar with the Minne- apolis Journal through seeing so many of “Bart's” pictures. Ask any intelli- gent person on the streets of our Eastern cities what daily papers are published in Bartholomew, In Minneapolis Journal. AND NOW FURNITURE IS GOING UP. Digitized by Google
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63 A Pioneer Newspaper Cartoonist. Minneapolis, and he will immediately mention the Minneapolis Journal , and then, after a pause, he may name other papers; but the chances are that the Journal is the only daily whose name is familiar to his mind. Yet this paper is an evening sheet, and it is usually the morning journals that are known abroad. II. BOYHOOD AND EARLY YOUTH. Mr. Bartholomew was bom into a home of culture and refinement in Chariton, Iowa. His father was a suc- cessful lawyer who took great personal interest in the education and develop- ment of his children’s character. It was a custom in this family during the winter evenings to assemble and listen to the father, who read aloud history, mythology and other instructive matter in such a manner as to invest his subjects with fayiTiating interest for the young people. This part of the children’s education remained with them more tenaciously tKan the lessons conned in school. The mother also devoted Sunday afternoons to reading stories and otherwise adding to the general education of the children by stimulating the imagination and im- Bartholomew, in Minneapolis Journal THE NEW PEACE ANGEL. Pmbpbct Boooyblt— 1 14 Can this be me?** Bartholomew, In Minneapolis Journal MAKING UP TO THE WIDOW. parting a taste for good literature, which is a priceless heritage to those thus early blessed. The mother exerted a very positive and helpful influence on Charles. She en- couraged him during his vacations to learn the printer’s trade, and very materi- ally aided him when he had an oppor- tunity to write for and edit the home paper. Thinking that he would like to be a mining engineer, the boy entered the Iowa State University at Ames, from which he graduated four years later. But at the time of leaving college a taste for literaiy work had been so developed that he determined to give up engineer- ing. Accordingly he set out for Minne- apolis in search of newspaper work. Here he met with the disappointments that so many ambitious young men en- counter at the outset of their careers, but at length an illustrated story which he had prepared was accepted and proved a hit. He thereupon obtained a position and in a short time secured permanent employment as reporter and special writer for the Minneapolis Journal . In time a plan that had long been maturing in his brain was partially real- ized. He was enabled to give part of Digitized by Google
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64 A Pioneer Newspaper Cartoonist. Bartholomew, in Minneapolis Journal. IN BRYAN’S POCKET. Breb Dave Hill—" Hah n't seen a stray donkey, habye?” Brer Bill Bryan—" Do yon call it a donkey? I picked np what 'peered to me a scared rabbit.” each afternoon and evening to art study and illustrating/ In this way he soon was enabled to get an occasional cartoon into the Journal , and at length achieved the realization of his dreams in the man- ner we have described. m. HOME-LIFE OF THE ARTIST. At the age of twenty-one Mr. Bartholo- mew married a college classmate, and to-day three vigorous boys furnish him high inspiration, courage and that joy in life that children afford the normal man. In his boyhood he was in the habit of working on his father’s farm m Ae summer time, and now he has a sur ,aer home of his own at Lake Minnetcika. In a letter which we received some time since Mr. Bartholomew said, in speaking of this home: “I have a large flower- garden and a meadow and some woods, all my own. I make hay, dig in the dirt, drive a team on a scraper or stone-boat, and take care of my horse.” In addition Mr. Bartholomew does much drawing for little folks, largely in the Junior Journal , a supplement to his paper; and in connection with W. A. Frisbie, the city editor of the Journal , the artist has published three delightful juvenile books entitled The Bandit Mouse , The Pirate Frog , and Puggery Wee , that have proved veiy popular with the little folks. Many flattering offers have come to “ Bart.” from Chicago and Eastern papers, but he is a true son of the West and loves her broad plains, her freedom, faith and courage. Moreover, his environment is so congenial that he wisely declines to fare forth into the seething metropolitan centers, where so frequently all the poetiy and idealism, all the faith and finer feelings of life are blunted and deadened. IV. TYPICAL CARTOONS. We have mentioned the circumstance that the artist ever keeps before his mind the fact that his work is to elucidate the news, present an argument or humorously illustrate a current topic. He especially enjoys political subjects, and we think it is safe to say that the Republican party has no artist that has made any- thing like so many telling and popular cartoons as has this young man. Like Dan. Beard, he refuses to make pictures that belie his own convictions, — a fact that speaks volumes for his manhood in an age like ours, when newspaper writers and editors seem to think it no crime or disgrace to write specious sophistry for their masters, though it be in positive opposition to what they themselves be- lieve or know to be true and right. The Minneapolis Journal is an independent Republican newspaper, and its artist is given great latitude in his work. One of his cartoons, urging the election of United States Senators by the people, was dis- played in the House of Representatives when that subject was up for debate. His political cartoons are especially de- lightful in that they are free from bitter- ness or anything which suggests abuse. One of the most popular of his recent political cartoons appeared immediately after the election. If was entitled 44 In Bryan’s Pocket,” and was widely copied Digitized by Google
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The Poems of Emerson. 65 by the contemporaneous press. Another, representing President Roosevelt as the Angel of Peace, has also proved very popular. But one of his most powerful and suggestive recent drawings was called “The Steady Worker.” It ap- peared in the Journal of October 19, 1904. This cartoon shows that in our republic 55,130 persons were killed or maimed on the railroads during the past year. It is well calculated to awaken thoughtful men and women to the crime of modem corporate greed which makes no adequate provisions for the protection of human life. It is a picture more powerful in its potential influence for good than most editorial leaders or ser- mons. Like all true, fine workers, Mr. Barthol- omew is a man of ideals and principles. We may not believe in his political theories, yet we respect his opinions and honor the man who stands by that which he believes to be right. The greatest need of our time, the most pressing de- mand of the republic, is for men of courage and conviction, — clean-souled, true-hearted men who will fight for principles and die if need be for a noble cause. B. O. Flower. Boston , Mass . THE POEMS OF EMERSON. HERM30NE. i. By Charles Malloy, President of the Boston Emerson Society. TT ERMIONE ” is decidedly a love IX poem and is, perhaps, the only one Emerson has written. It is a great poem. “Initial, Daemonic and Celestial Love” treats of love in the abstract. “Hermione” is a concrete example. We could wish that Emerson had many such, each celebrating some delicate phase of love as in the poem “ Hennione/ I have no reason to think that Emerson chose this name, Hermione, on account of any significance which it may have in history or literature. He chose it because he liked it and because in sound, form and Oriental origin it fitted a poem the scene of which lies in the East. The first seven lines of the poem are proem, as if written by an editor. The poem, after this, is almost entirely in the language of the lover of Hermione. 44 On a mound an Arab lay. And sung his sweet regrets And tola his amulets? The summer bird His sorrow heard, ' And, when he heaved a sigh profound, The sympathetic swallow swept the ground.” “Sweet regrets” do not quite express the mood of the lover, as, indeed, no two words could do. Hermione has left him, the lover, presumably forever. A beauti- ful period of his life had ended, ap- parently not by the will of Hermione, but by forces lying beyond the control of the lovers. The pretty conceit of the bird, the only companion and friend of the Arab in this scene, giving his usual flights the character of special demon- strations in response to the deep sighs of the lover, is one of those poetic felicities of which we say, if it is not true it ought to be. Poets love to feign a good under- standing between birds and lovers. This is perhaps because birds are lovers; and a pleasant fiction may go a little farther and say that the swallow had him- self lost some little feathered Hermione and knew all about it. This poem, “Hermione,” is dramatic in form. The dramatis persona are an Arab lover, Hermione, a Syrian, and several personifications, — as the south- wind, the river, the rose, the crag and j Digitized by Google
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66 The Poems bird, frost and sun, and eldest night, winds and waterfalls, music and music’s thought. These the lover calls his kin- dred who come to soothe him in his lonely retreats as he sings his “ sweet regrets.” The nature of this consolation will ap- pear at last. The Arab lover begins a monologue after the proem, in these words: “ ‘If it be, as they said, she was not fair. Beauty’s not beautiful to me. But sceptred genius, aye inorbed. Culminating in her sphere.*" The affair of the lovers was well known and had been talked over, as usual, by friends and neighbors. It is always a mystery why lovers should be so absorbed in each other, and they are re- garded generally as harmless lunatics, seeing the objects of their little world in false colors and magnitudes which shut out all the rest of the world. The rest of the world resents it and their comments are unkind. In our present case Her- mione was the object of these unkind comments. The lover hears what “ they ” say — the multitudinous, incorrigible “they.” His first sign of amelioration and gradual return to health is in the notice he gives the critics of Hermione: “*If it be, as they said, she was not fair, Beauty’s not beautiful to me. But sceptred genius, aye inorbed. Culminating m her sphere.”’ A quite serious difficulty is encountered in reading these lines as to the meaning of the words, “sceptred genius.” The lover concedes, for the nonce, that what “they” say may be true and that Hermi- one is not “fair.” But he affirms that she has a substitute and equivalent, another attraction, in the place of beauty, — namely, this “Sceptred genius, aye inorbed. Culminating in Tier sphere" — in beauty’s sphere. These lines suggest several interesting questions and remind us of some recent studies in psychology. What is beauty? I believe this question of Emerson . has never been well answered. Emerson, in his “Essay on Beauty” in “The Con- duct of Life” says: “ I am warned by the ill fate of many philosophers not to at- tempt a definition of Beauty.” We shall never achieve a definition of beauty, for beauty is not a thing. Emerson quotes the German, Moritz, as saying that “Beauty is not in the understanding”; that is, beauty is not a concept. If it were it could be defined or resolved into its constituents. Beauty, let us say, is an event. It is something which takes place and is gone. Emerson’s fine nega- tions, therefore, in his “ Ode to Beauty ” give the vanishing and elusive character of this wonderful phenomenon as the prose essay does not. “ . . . Gliding through the sea of form. Like the lightning through the storm. Somewhat not to oe possessed. Somewhat not to be caressed. No feet so fleet could ever find. No perfect form could ever bind." Beauty, when it comes from sensation, shows the common necessity of sensation. It must have an impression from some external object. But beauty does not always follow sensation. Beauty is an emotion. It lies in another category, in a spiritual process. Sensation may termi- nate before reaching it, and this event may take place with one and not with another. Nothing is so uncertain as beauty, if considered alone in its sub- jective aspect or factor, namely, as an emotion. No matter if the object, the impression and the sensation are the same. “ They ” saw no beauty in Hermi- one. “They” did not give the moral and esthetic reactions requisite as com- plementary to the sensation she impressed upon them. Thus far, to them, she was not fair. They lacked also, in judging her, the tremendous momentum which came from the lover’s personal and private relation to Hermione as a lover. This last element is generally not well considered, and “they” can never quite understand the special infatuation of the parties whose case they talk over, very wisely as they suppose. Digitized by Google
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The Poems of Emerson. 67 It is also very marvelous how persons differ as to who is beautiful or what is beautiful in those chosen as beautiful. One exacts a particular feature, — no beauty without it. One is indifferent to that essential, but is captivated by some- thing the first cares nothing about. But few, perhaps, take in the whole person and personality and are lost in the love of some fine points or special talents. Emerson in his “Essay on the Poet” begins with the following words: “Those who are esteemed umpires of taste are often persons who have acquired some knowledge of admired pictures or sculptures, and have an inclination for whatever is elegant; but if you inquire whether they are beautiful souls, and whether their own acts are like fair pic- tures, you learn that they are selfish and sensual. Their cultivation is local, as if you should rub a log of diy wood in one spot to produce fire, all the rest remaining cold.” The reader will find some of these ideas in the present poem, by implication at least. The lover would say to his critics: “ Hermione is fair, but you are not fine enough to see it. You are not beauti- ful souls; you can see only what you are. What you call beauty is not beauty to me. Your beauty is not beautiful. ‘ Sceptred genius,’ which you do not see, that is beauty to me. In view of that I do not mind a few defects in the superficial graces of form, lines and color. I see the soul in spite of some defects.” This criticism will suggest a pertinent passage in Browning’s “ Andrea del Sarto.” Del Sarto is talking with his wife about a Madonna by Rafael: “ . . . And indeed the arm is wrong, I hardly dare . . . yet, only you to see. Give the chalk here— quick, thus the line should go! Ay, but the soul! he’s Rafael! rub it out!9* The lover saw in Hermione the look which Rafael could give his Madonna, but which the perfect lines of del Sarto could not give. Rafael gave this “scep- tred genius” of Hermione. It took a beautiful soul to give it, or to see it when given. Let us try to account for these words, “sceptred genius.” My own device was to translate them into more common and familiar equivalents. “ Sceptred,” if ap- plied to a man, would designate a king or a kingly man. If applied to a woman it would mean a queenly woman. But what does “genius” mean? The lover does not wish to say that Hermione is a woman of genius in the ordinaiy sense of great artistic ability. Emerson applies the term, in the “Essay on Intellect,” to one who has the two phases of intellect, — namely, “intellect receptive and intellect constructive, when these unite in one person. One may have large reception but can make no use of it in any work of art. This requires the constructive or architectonic gift.” In his “Essay on the Nominalist and Realist ” Emerson uses the word “ genius ” in the sense of character, or to denote the total sum of qualities and attributes making up a subject. Again, it is the peculiar or differential aspect. He says: “The genius of the Platonists is in- toxicating to the students, yet how few particulars of it can I detach from all their books. Young people admire talents or particular excellencies; as we grow older we value powers and effects, as the impressions, the quality, the spirit of men and things. The genius is all. The man, it is his system : we do not try a solitaiy word or act, but his habit. We are practically skilful in detecting elements for which we have no place in our theoiy and no name. Thus we are veiy sensible of an atmospheric influence in men and in bodies of men, not accounted for in an arithmetical addition of all their meas- urable properties. There is a genius of a nation that is not to be found in the numerical citizens, but which character- izes the society. England, strong, punctual, practical, well-spoken England, — I should not find it if I should go to the island to seek it. In the parliament, in the playhouse, at dinner-tables, I might Digitized by Google
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68 The Poems see a great number of rich, ignorant, book-read, conventional, proud men, — many old women, — and not anywhere the Englishmen who made the good speeches, combined the accurate engines, and did the bold and nervous deeds. It is even worse in America, where, from the intel- lectual quickness of the race, the genius of the country is more splendid in its promise and more slight in its perform- ance. Webster cannot do the work of Webster. We conceive distinctly enough the French, the Spanish, the German genius, and it is not the less real that perhaps we should not meet in either of those nations a single individual who corresponded with the type. This pref- erence of the genius to the parts is the secret of that deification of art which is found in all superior minds.” In Emerson’s connotation of the word "genius” as exhibited in the foregoing quotations it is easy to see how he could use it in the phrase “ sceptred genius ” as designating an attraction in Hermione superior to beauty in the ordinary sense of the term. It will now be seen that a new reading may be given the lover’s words: ‘“If it be, as they said, she was not fair. Beauty’s not beautiful to me, But sceptred genius, aye morbed,’” may read, M*If it be, as they said, she was not fair. Beauty’s not beautiful to me. But a queenly character — the word "character” being a name for the total woman, implying beauty, man- ners, tone, spirit — all she was, while the added predicates, “Aye morbed, Culminating in her sphere,” would further assert that this power and charm was not an occasional but a con- stant influence. She was always herself — always at her best. " Inorbed ” is used by Milton of the moon at the full, and " culminating ” has a cognate signifi- cance. " In her sphere ” means of course of Emerson. in beauty’s sphere. Thus in a few happy lines Emerson gives us Hermione. We are reminded of another ideal woman in his Persian Lilia of Hafiz or Firdusi, in his " Essay on Manners ” : "Was it Hafiz or Firdusi that said of his Persian Lilia, she was an elemental force and astonished me by her amount of life, when I saw her, day after day radiating, every instant , redundant joy and grace on all around her. She was a solvent powerful to reconcile all hetero- geneous persons into one society; like air and water an element of such a great range of affinities that it combines readily with a thousand substances. Where she is present all others will be more than they are wont. She was a unit and whole, so that whatsoever she did became her. She had too much sympathy and desire to please than that you could say her manners were marked with dignity; yet no princess could surpass her dear and erect demeanor on each occasion. She did not study the Persian grammar, nor the books of the seven poets, but all the poems of the seven seemed to be written upon her. For, though the bias of her nature was not to thought but to sympathy, yet was she so perfect in her own nature as to meet intellectual persons by the fullness of her heart, warming them by her sentiments, believing, as she did, that by dealing nobly with all, all would show themselves noble.” Who has said such fine things of woman as Emerson ? " Let her be as much better placed in the laws and in sodal forms as the most zealous reformer can ask, but I confide so entirely in her inspiring and musical nature that I believe only herself can show us how she shall be served. The wonderful generosity of her sentiments raises her at times into heroical and god- like regions and verifies the pictures of Minerva, Juno, or Polyhymnia; and by the firmness with which she treads her upward path she convinces the coarsest calculators that another road exists than Digitized by C ogle
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69 The Poems of Emerson . that which their feet knew. But besides those who make good in our imagination the place of muses and of Delphic sybils are there not women who fill our vase with wine and roses to the brim, so that the wine runs over and fills the house with perfume; who inspire us with courtesy; who unloose our tongues, and we speak; who anoint our eyes and we see? We say things we never thought to have said; for once our walls of habitual reserve vanished and left us at large; we were children playing with children in a wide field of flowers. Steep us, we cried, in these influences, for days, for weeks, and we shall be sunny poets, and will write out in many-colored words the romance that you are.” This precedes the picture of the Persian Lilia. A curious trifle may be observed in regard to the introduction of the Persian Lilia in the above quotation. Was it Hafiz or Firdusi who said this of his Persian Lilia? What if it turns out to be neither, and that Emerson is his own Hafiz or Firdusi and feigned another, after a law which he gives, as in the practice of frequently quoting from him- self, feigning them the words of another. A thought thus seems to change its paral- lax, and often in this way takes on new relations. Emerson mentions Carlyle among others as the subject of this little device. Really I suspect that he was his own Hafiz or Firdusi, and as if thinking the critics would take him up, he changed the sentence in a later edition, and instead of 44 Was it Hafiz or Firdusi” he says, 44 What Hafiz or Ferdusi.” So I think the Persian Lilia is his own creation, the same as Hermione. “‘If it be, as they said, she was not fair. Beauty’s not beautiful to me, But sceptred genius, aye inorbed, Culminating in her sphere.*'’ The word 44 inorbed ” is used by Milton of the moon as its full; full-orbed, a perfect round. 44 Culminating” is added. All this is metaphor which says dial Hermione was always all there and always at her best. It is fortunate that one is never dimmed and crippled by moods. She was in this like die Persian Lilia, an elemental force, and astonished me by her amount of life when I saw her day after day radiating redundant joy and grace on all around her. Thus Hermi- one was something besides a picture and more than fair. She was endowed with other and superior attractions. 44 In her sphere” — in beauty’s sphere: I have known intelligent persons who contended that Hermione was the subject and ante- cedent of 44 her” — a connection which takes the meaning and poetical value away from the sentence. 44 Her sphere ” obviously means beauty’s sphere. 44 Beauty ’s not beautiful to me,” but this substitute and equivalent, 44 sceptred genius,” — this total effect of many forces, culminating in beauty’s sphere, can do beauty’s work and beauty is not needed in die action of this superior charm. The presentation of the above thought suggests the practical hint that beauty may be cultivated and so brought within the province of the will as an art or a resultant of one’s habitual tone and mode of life in this world. Thus beauty may be made an object, like virtue, and indeed there is much that is common to the two. It has been said that a woman, ' if she is not beautiful at twenty, is not responsible; if she is not beautiful at sixty, she is to blame for it; and this because a fine life goes into the expression of the face and more and more entrenches itself as “sceptred genius” or an index of character. Thus beauty comes from the soul, as Plato has taught us. Emer- son quotes Spenser’s famous lines as follows: “So every spirit as it is more pure And hath m it the more of heavenly light. So doth the fairer body it procure To habit in and it more fairly dight With cheerful grace and amiable sight; For of the soul the body form doth take. For soul is form and doth the body make." The superficial attributes which make up much of the beauty peculiar to youth do not always last; but what the 44 genius” says — the character — that is not lost by Digitized by Google
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70 The Duty of the Hour as Viewed by Victor Hugo . age, but grows instead as the other loses. Gray hair is becoming when the time comes for it, and wrinkles are an alphabet which by configuration tell what die life has been, as virtuous or vicious. So no woman who wishes the conservation of her beauty can afford to be vicious. “There is no torture,” says Montaigne, “ which a woman will not endure that she may increase her beauty.” But it is not well enough understood that the graces and conduct of the really good are cos- metics and cause the face to shine. Perhaps religion is worth all it costs, even as a picturesque attraction, some- thing good to look at. This, of course, when it appears in the face, where it must appear if it is true and genuine; and we are not so easily deceived as those think we are who resort to falsehood and hypocrisy. “ Faces,” says Emerson, “cannot lie.” It would seem wise and profitable to converse as much as possible with things beautiful in sentiment, in nature, in art and in conduct. It is perhaps in this way that we “make our own the beauty we love.” Is not this said in part in the following lines? “‘This Hermione absorbed The lustre of the land and ocean. Hills and islands, cloud and tree. In her form and motion.*” (To be continued.) Charles Malloy Waltham, Mass. THE DUTY OF THE HOUR AS VIEWED BY VICTOR HUGO. By “Lebendig.” AT NO time since the birth of modem xV democracy has it been more im- portant for thinkers and men and women of conscience to unite in a determined effort for the reclamation of those funda- mental principles of democracy for which our fathers died and which gave to the world that larger new hope and faith which transformed the face of civilization. We are in the presence of a mighty power whose every instinct is contrary to the principles of free institutions and the the- ory of equality of rights and opportuni- ties. Vast wealth as a result of privilege has been enabled to buy immunity from the penalties of infringed laws, and to place in the seats of the mighty men who are com- placent to the demands of corporate greed and privileged interests. In the presence of this supreme menace to democracy we are reminded of the words of Victor Hugo, when the great poet, author. statesman and man was an exile from his native land: “ The reigning public monstrosities impose stem obligations on the conscience of the thinker, the philosopher, or the poet. Incorruptibility must resist cor- ruption. It is more than ever requisite to show men the ideal, — that mirror reflect- ing the face of God. “ At the point now reached by the social question, all action should be in common. Isolated forces frustrate one another; the ideal and the real are solidary. . . . Let us concentrate ourselves. Let us devote ourselves to the good, to the true, to the just. “ Here is the truth: to sing the ideal, to love humanity, to believe in progress, to pray toward the infinite.” “ Lbbendig.” Boston, Mass. Digitized by Google
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THE BUILDING OF THE CITY BEAUTIFUL. By Joaquin Millbr. Synopsis of Preceding Chapters, Tbs story opens in Jerusalem at the time when Sir Moses Montefiore is making the last of his numerous pilgrimages to the Holy Land. The mat man has lavished vast sums of money in an effort to colonise Palestine with the cruelly-oppressed Jews of Russia, Poland and elsewhere, and now he has come again to the Holy City to see now nil work has prospered. It is morning in Jerusalem. At the narrow pass known as the Needle's Eve, that leads to the dirty and dismal market in the Valley of Jehoaaphat, a number of Gentiles are gathered. Many of them are tourists with guide-books in hand. There are also some Jews present and a number of peasants bearing their burdens for the market; tod a little apart stands a tall, queenly and commanding young woman. She is a Russian Jewess named Miriam, who for some time has been serving as secretary to Sir Moses. Among those who have come to the Needle's Eve is a young man from the New World. He is immediately attracted to the "strangely beautiful, silent, serene and dignified’* woman. These children of the East and West, these representatives of the Oriental and Occidental worlds, are both overmastered by a high and noble purpose to help humanity to higher paths. There is from the first community of interests and of ideals; hot the man's regard for Minam is far more personal than that which she entertains for him. Indeed, Miriam seems to type the new social savior, the great-souled, broad-visioned and deeply- qjiritual woman of the new time. Chapter V. how beautiful! "How beautiful are the feet of them that preach of peace, and bring glad tidings of good 0 star-built bridge, broad milky wayl O star-lit, stately, splendid span! If but one star should cease to stay And prop its shoulders to God’s plan — The man who lives for self, I say. He lives for neither God nor man. 1 count the columned waves at war With Titan dements; and they. In martial splendor, storm the bar And shake the world, these bits of spray. Each gives to each, and like the star Gets back its gift in tenfold pay. Toget and give and give amain Toe rivers run and oceans roll. O generous and high-born rain When reigning as a splendid whole! That man who fives for self alone Lives for the meanest mortal known. WE HAVE spoken of Miriam as a silent woman, for she really seemed silent at all times. She was, in fact, spoken of by all who knew her in London as the silent woman. And yet it will be seen that she said much. It may be that it is the man or woman who says nothing who is a great talker. Socrates was a strangely silent man in his younger days, so far as we can find out; and yet he really said more than all the men and women of his century. Jesus Christ was sad and silent at all thegond things!1* times; and yet the things he said and suggested fill more books and find place in the hearts of more good people than the sayings of all the great men of earth put together. Beauty, beauty of body and soul, was her idol. She kept the following lines from the Bible constantly before her: “Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners/’ And here is another line she loved to repeat: “ He hath made every thing beautiful in his time.” Here follow some extracts from an epistle to Sir Moses Montefiore on his hundredth birthday: “All things are beautiful. All animate life is wondroudy beautiful. You are beautiful; you were bom beautiful, — beautiful in body as in soul; beautiful with the divine beauty and image of the Eternal. If this beauty of man shall be marred or scarred it will be the fault of man, not of his Maker. Time shall not touch nor tarnish man’s beauty; man, only, can lay hand upon it. Man alone may make this beauty of body and of soul less perfectly beautiful than God made it. "It is a crime to make this beauty less beautiful. It is a duty to make this beauty daily more beautiful, — man’s duty to himself, man's duty to his Maker, man’s duty to man. It is man’s duty to make his youth sweetly Digitized by Google 71
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72 The Building of the City Beautiful. beautiful; it is man’s duty to make his merid- ian of life magnificently beautiful; it is man’s sacred duty to make his declining years, like your own, so serenely beautiful that man shall be in love with old age, — to be so tranquil, so perfectly at peace, so beautiful in body and in soul — a stately tree, Elijah’s chariot of fire in the golden autumn — that men shall see a halo of light above the good, gray head as it goes down in the twilight to the River of Rest. “ ‘Ah, no, impossible!* sighs one; *1 cannot grow more beautiful daily, for I am daily trodden into the dust. I cannot even retain the beauty of body and of soul which God gave me to begin with.’ “I answer, look about you at the down- trodden grass. Resurgam! Resurgam! Look above you at the busy clouds, the battling elements. There is not so very much rest anywhere, but there is beauty everywhere. Ay, I look down to the grass under my feet. The grass is daily trodden down, and yet it daily, hourly, tries to rise up, to grow and grow and be more beautiful even with its face in the dust. And when the storm comes it washes its face in the rain and rises up and again goes forward in its patient effort to make its one little place in man’s pathway still more beautiful. “Yes, it is to be conceded that there is not much rest for any one of us or for anything. All things toil. The oceans are busy building their sea-banks of shell and shale and snow- white sand and pretty, rounded pebbles. The flowers toil, the trees toil and toil and are often broken in mighty battles with the elements. All things toil and toil continually to make this beautiful world still more beautiful. And God himself, so far as we can find out, is the hardest toiler of all. “The thing to do is to toil harmoniously. Put the working world in harmony, and then work is rest. It is for this purpose, the pur- pose of possibly helping along in the line of harmony, that these thoughts, set down in the intervals of travel and toil of supervising, here in Palestine, the ploughing and planting, sowing grain or gathering fruit — it is in the hope of harmonizing and, maybe, the lighting of a lamp in one or two of the darker passes of life, as the peasants of Russia light lamps before the image of the Virgin in the dangerous passes of mountains, that I continually invoke the adoration of beauty. “Meantime there is good reason for hope, for the world grows better, brighter, and more beautiful, vastly more beautiful year by year. So beautiful, indeed, has the world become that it almost seems that if man could only harmonize his forces, harmonize himself with his surroundings, harmonize himself with himself, he could reach forth and say truly: ’The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ “But, alas! we are a lot of garrulous chil- dren in a great, big boat in a great, big bay; and some row east and some row west, and some will not row at all, but live and thrive on the fears and misery and the despair of the weaker ones.’’ Chapter VI. THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. I think the birds in that far dawn Were still. The bustling town below Lav listening. Its strength was drawn To him, as tides that inward flow. All Galilee lay still. Far fields of com Lay still to hear that silent, sacred mom. Be comforted; and blessfed be The meek, the merciful, the pure Of heart; for they shall see, snail hear God’s mercy. So shall peace endure With God's peacemakers. They are His, and they Shall be His children in the Judgment Day. THE great philanthropist had re- turned to London, leaving our two younger philanthropists and city-builders together in Jerusalem. These two persons were together now almost entirely. They were absolute masters of their own time and work. They were under no legal obligation to any one. But what of that broader and far more binding moral obligation to man which goes with every gift of mental strength? Being entirely released from all further care in Jerusalem, because the colonies in and round about the ancient cities had been trained, according to the wish of their founder, to lean on themselves, Miriam now began to look abroad. As said before, she was far from satisfied that the best thing that could be done had been done here. It seemed to her like the same old story of going around and around and around; and she could not help seeing that every new generation would need a new Savior and a new Sermon on the Mount. The same old Digitized by Google
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The Building of the City Beautiful . 73 enmities, the same old sorrows, and the same old sins. There was a colony of Christians down by the sea, not far from Joppa. The two city-builders went thither to see, to listen, and, if possible, to learn. They found that these colonists had come to the Holy Land to pray and to await the coming of Christ. Their devout lives, their humility and continual habit of prayer appealed to the man greatly. But as for the woman, she had no patience with them. “They should have gone to work in their own land, where God first set them down in the battle of life, and Christ would have been with them there as well as here,” she said. “Why, how selfish!” she continued. “These few came here to await the second coming of Christ; as if they would be first to get into heaven.” “ But they are so veiy devout.” “Yes, they prayed for rain all day and nearly all night last week, I am told; for their corn was being consumed by the fervor of the sun.” “And was not that a fine example of faith?” “ It was a fine example of folly, like all such prayers, and an exhibition of su- preme selfishness. Why, they appealed to God to change a law of nature. They cried out to God all day and all night to said rain, and ruin all the figs of Smyrna, in order that they might have a dozen bags of com! They simply prayed God to ruin fifty thousand people in order that fifty might have a little green com to eat! Selfishness like that cannot survive, and it should not.” He had never before seen her out of patience so entirely. It was evident that her plans for the salvation of the world, whatever they were, lay in line with the laws of nature. He began to leam that this boundless faith of hers was traveling hand in hand with reason. For while he, for his part, gave this colony of Christians all possible encouragement, and also a little solid assistance to help tide them through the trouble that was upon them because of the failure of com, she gave neither consolation nor money. But in- stead, she gave the leader a letter to the British and American consuls, and di- rected him how to proceed to get his people home at her cost. Half a year after the long prayer for rain, this colony, a sort of prayerful Brook Farm, was added to the list of similar failures, and the marsh grass now grows where the really devout and moral little community could not make com to grow with all their prayers. It is needless to say that this object- lesson in city-building here in the Holy Land was a sad discouragement to this man. Whatever her plans were, he, for his part, had planned something not veiy different from this. Only, he had not contemplated the turning back of man in his journey around the globe. He believed rather that all men should remain as nearly as possible at home, and begin the great reform in their own dooryard. “Neither will that do,” she said em- phatically, as they sat by the Virgin’s Fountain at Nazareth, whither they had gone as winter came on, and where they discussed this greatest problem of hu- manity. “A well must be dug in the desert, and a great protecting tree be planted there. Of course, any good man will do his best; his hearthstone will be a holy altar on which he will lay his toil and example and life, and good children will grow from his good deeds. But a Jacob must rise up to dig a well by the way, and a Moses must come to lead up and out from the bond- age of getting and getting and getting. There must be some great central begin- ning; and it must be removed, it must be remote from all these cruel and hard traditions of trade till, like a child, it has at least learned to stand alone. For, although the new-born city might be a Hercules at its birth, there would come, not only two serpents, but twenty serpents, to strangle it in its cradle.” This, the foregoing, is what she said one twilight as they sat on the now grass- grown escarpment of the hill above the Digitized by Google
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74 The Building of the City Beautiful . holy little city, and in answer to hishint that they should build the City Beautiful there where they would have slain the Christ. And she said it so severely! She was almost cruel in her putting aside of his sentimental plans. Do or say what he could she seemed to grow further away from him day by day; and his earnest, honest heart was breaking for just one word. Was he so entirely of earth, or was it that she was so entirely of heaven, that he had not yet dared a second time to touch her hand ? Chapter VII. IN THE SWEAT OF THY FACE. What sound was that ? A pheasant’s whir ? What stroke was that ? Lean low thine ear. Is that the stroke of Carpenter, That far, faint echo that we hear ? Is that the sound that sometime Bedouins tell Of hammer-stroke as from His hand it fell ? It is the stroke of Carpenter, Through nineteen hundred years and more Still sounding down the hallowed stir Of patient toil; as when He wore The leathern dress, — the echo of a sound That thrills for aye the toiling, sensate ground. Hear Mary weaving? listen! Hear The thud of loom at weaving-time In Nazareth. I wreathe this dear Tradition with my lowly rhyme. Believing everywhere that she may hear The sound of toil, sweet Mary bends an ear. Yea, this the toil that Jesus knew; Yet we complain if we must bear. Are we more dear ? Are we more true ? Give us, O God, and do not spare! Give us to bear as Christ and Mary bore With toil by leaf-girt Nazareth of yore! THESE rhymes tell in a crude way a pretty tradition of toil. It is the dove perhaps, the wood-dove, which the half-wild sons of desolation and the desert have heard; for Nazareth is still the city of woods. The very name meant woods. Even now, as in the time of Jesus Christ, people of the cities are saying, “ Can any good thing come out of the woods — the West?” To recount the plans of these two city- builders, here where Christ toiled, taught in the synagogue, and was dragged to the hill-top to be hurled down, would take long indeed. Let it be enough to say that they were seeking for light. “Light* more light!” was their one desire and demand. “Life is so short!” she said one day. “ For my part, I cannot afford to make a. failure and die. That would be toa terrible!” She paused long, and then with lifted face and clasped hands she said earnestly, “But to make a success, and then die at once — ah, that would be joy, joy, joy!” At such times as this she seemed to him to be thousands of miles from his side. It is more than possible that a strong, pure, and complete woman may concen- trate her entire soul and body to some high and holy purpose as well without taking either vow or veil as if she took both in due form and solemnity. Leaving Nazareth, they journeyed on down into Egypt, taking the same way, as nearly as possible, as that by which Moses had come when leading his people toward the Holy Land. One single incident of this journey, which might well fill a book, must be recorded ; for it not only indicates some- thing of her courage and strength of devotion, but also tells something of her strange belief in not only the brotherhood of man but of all animate life. They were tented for the night in the desert to the south of Mount Sinai when a lion approached almost to the tent door. As she calmly put her terrified servants behind her and, without a word, stepped between the man and the crouching beast, she looked it firmly in the face and said : “Why, don’t you know me ? I re- member you, my brother, after all these ages.” And she moved forward and would have laid her hand upon the lion’s tumbled mane had he not drawn back and away to the somber bosom of his mother, Night. “Yes, I seem to remember all this now. I surely saw that lion long, long ago, and loved him,” she said to the man at last, looking out and away to the holy moun- tain. “ And you have been here before ?” “Yes, yes, when Moses passed this Digitized by Google
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75 The Building of the City Beautiful. way, thousands of years back, I was here. I remember it all as if it were but yester- day/’ In line with this wonderful mastery of hers over wild beasts, wild men, all things animate or inanimate, let us quote a chapter from the pen of her companion. It might well be called A Study in Yellow. M One warm sunset, as the boat lay with its prow in the yellow sand that seemed to stretch away into infinity, she proposed that she and I should ascend to the top of the ruins on a hill a little dis- tance back from the river, and there wait and watch for the coming day. “It was a dreadful place. I had walked only a little way out, but on seeing a shriveled black hand stretching up from the sand, I had turned back; only to stumble over the head of a mummy which I afterward saw one of our servants gather up and take to his Copt camp for fire- wood. Still, we had been pent up in the boat much; and then would not she be with me? “Two Arabs were taken with us to carry a bottle of water and the rugs and robes. The hill was steeper than it at first seemed; and the ascent through the sand heavy. I was having an opportunity to test her strength and endurance. As we entered between two columns of red granite, one of the servants dropped on a knee and spread his hand as wide as he could in the sand. But wide as he spread it, he could not more than half cover the fresh foot-print of a huge lion. “ The clamber to the top was steep and hard. Yet it was not nearly so steep and hard as I could have wished it, when I re- flected that very likely before midnight a lion might pass that way. “We found that these wonderful col- umns were capped with great slabs of granite. These slabs were of astonishing breath and thickness. This temple, as it is called, had probably been a tomb. I took good care to see that there was no other means of ascent to the place where we had chosen to spend the night than the one by which we had ascended. And I remember how eagerly I wished for a crowbar in order that I might break down a little of the debris, so that the ascent might be less easy for prowling beasts. “The sky was rimmed with yellow; a yellow to the east, yellow to the west; a world of soft and restful yellow that melted away by gradations as the eye ascended from the desert. It was like melody in its serene harmonies and awful glory. “And she at my side partpok of it all; she breathed it, absorbed it, literally be- came a part of it. I saw her grow and glow. Soul and body I saw her dilate and expand till she was in absolute har- mony with the golden yellow splendor that encompassed us. I felt that she had been in the midst of, even a part of, this tawny desolation ages and ages before. Perhaps her soul had been bom here, bom before the pyramids. “With my own hands I spread her couch of skins and mgs in the remotest comer of a great stone slab that topped a column, high above the tawny sands of the desert. The night was very sultiy, even here on this high and roomy summit. The broad, deep slab of granite was still warm with sunshine gone away, and gave out heat like a dying furnace. The steep and arduous ascent had taxed her strength, and unloosing her robe, as I turned to examine more minutely our strange quarters on the top of this lofty tomb, or temple, she sank to rest, half reclining on her arm, her chin in her up- turned palm, her face lifted away toward the rising moon. “Half a dozen paces to the right two tall and ponderous columns of granite stood in fine with those that supported the great slab on which she rested. Evidently these grand and solitary col- umns had also once been topped by granite slabs. But these had fallen to the ground under the leveling feet of many centuries, and now lay almost swallowed up in the sea of yellow sands below. I put out my foot carefully, try- ing to reach the broad top of the nearest Digitized by Google
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76 The Building of the City Beautiful. columns of granite, but it was beyond me. Stepping back a couple of paces and quietly removing my boots, I gathered up my strength and made a leap, landing almost in the center of the column’s top. A half-step backward, another leap — who could resist the challenge of that lone and kingly column that remained ? I landed securely as before, then turned about. Her face had not lifted an instant from the awful majesty of the Orient. “Slowly, wearily, the immense moon came shouldering up through the seas of yellow sand. “ These billows of sand seemed to breathe and move. The expiring heat of the departed sun made them scintillate and shimmer in a soft and undulating light. And yet it was not light; only the lone and solemn ghost of departed day. Yellow and huge and startling stood the moon at last, full grown and fearful in its nearness and immensity on the topmost lift of yellow sands in the yellow sea be- fore us. Distance seemed to be an- nihilated. The moon seemed to have forgotten her place and all proportion. Looking down into the yellow Nile, it seemed a bottomless chasm. “ And it seemed so far away! And the moon so very near. “Silence, desolation, death lay on all things below, about, above. The west was molten yellow gold, faint and fading, it is true: but where the yellow sands left off and the yellow skies began no man could say or guess, save by the yellow stars that studded the west with an inten- sest yellow. “Yellow to the right and yellow to the left, yellow overhead and yellow under- foot; with only this endless chasm of Erebus cleaving the yellow earth and yellow heavens in halves. “After a time — and all the world still one sea of softened yellow, torn in two by Charon’s chasm of waters — I silently leaped back, replaced my boots on my feet and then held my breath. For my servants had beckoned and I had seen, or perhaps felt, an object move on the lifted levels of sand between us and the moon. “ Cautiously I sank down on my breast and peered low and long up the horizon. I saw, heard nothing. Glaring around to where my companion lay, I saw that she still had not stirred from the half- reclining position she had first taken, with half-lifted face in her upturned palm. “Then she had seen nothing, heard nothing. This, however, did not argue much. Her life had not been of the desert. She had spent her years in the study of men and women. I had spent mine with wild beasts. I could trust her to detect motives in men, give the warn- ing note of danger from dangerous men; but the wild beasts and wilder men of the border were mine to watch and battle with, not hers. “She had seen nothing; evidently she feared nothing, and so was resting, rest- ing in mind as in body. And as I glanced again over my shoulder and saw how entirely content she seemed, I was glad. Surely she depended entirely on me; on my watchfulness and my courage. And this made me more watchful and more resolute and stout of heart. A man likes to be trusted. A true man likes a true woman’s trust, much indeed. A strong man likes to be leaned upon. It makes him stronger, braver, better. Let women never forget this. Admit that she, too, has her days of strength and endurance; and admit that she, too, has her pecu- liar fortress of strength and courage, and these also man respects and regards with piteous tenderness. But man, incapable of her finer and loftier courage and endu- rance, resents her invasion of his pre- rogative. “It is only a womanly man who can really love a manly woman. But to con- tinue: Looking a third time to this woman I saw that she had let her head sink low on her leaning arm. She was surely sleeping. How I liked her trust and her faith in me! And how I liked her courage, too, and her high quality of endurance. It was her courage that had brought me up here this night to the con- templation of awful and all-glorious Digitized by Google
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77 The Building of the City Beautiful. Africa. Silently and without lifting a finger, she had shown me a world of burnished gold. I had surely seen God through her. We stood nearer together now than ever before. This single hour o: indescribable glory should forever stand as an altar in the desert. Our souls had melted and flown and tided on, inter- mingled like molten gold in the golden atmosphere and the yellow scene that wrapped us round about, and no word had been said. When God speaks so audibly, let man be silent. “I must have looked on the sleeping and trustful woman at my side longer than I should, for on turning my eyes again to the horizon, there, distinctly on the yellow sand and under the yellow moon moved, steathily as a cat, yet grace- ful and grand, the most kingly beast I ever beheld. He did not look right nor left, but moved along withhuge head in the air, slow and stately, and triumphant in his fearful symmetry and strength. “As I half arose the lion suddenly halted. He lifted his proud head higher still in the air, and to my consternation half turned about and looked straight in my direction. Then a sidewise and circuitous step or two with his long reach of hinder leg, his wide and deep and flexible flank; slow and kingly; splendid to see! “I sank down again, quite willing to let him interview the camp in the black chasm below. They had spears and guns and everything down there, every- thing but courage to face a lion with; and I was not going to interfere with a fight which at the first had promised to be entirely their own. “ But this new movement of mine only accentuated his graceful motion. The head now turned in the air, like the head of a man. I had time to note, and I record it with certainty, that the massive head and the tumbled mane towered straight above the shoulder. In fact, the lower parts of the long mane looked most like the long shaggy beard of a man fall- ing down upon his broad breast. This I noted as he still kept on in his sidewise circuit above us and around us on the yellow sand and under the yellow moon. At times he was almost indistinct. But the carriage of that head! There was a fine fascination in the lift and the move- ment and the turn of that stately head that must ever be remembered, but can never be described. “As he came nearer — for his sidewise walk was mainly in our direction — I saw that he, too, was yellow, as if bom of this yellow world in this yellow night; but his was a more ponderous yellow; the yellow of red and rusty old gold. At times he seemed almost black; and all the time terrible. “In half a minute more he would be too close for comfort, and I decided to arouse my companion. She wakened fully awake, if I may be allowed to ex- press a fact so awkwardly. You may know that there are people like that. “‘What is it?’ “‘A lion/ “‘Well, there is room for us all. Let us rest.’ ‘“Where?' “ She had looked and was still looking far out against the yellow horizon where her eyes had rested when she fell asleep. And as she looked, or rather before I ventured to point her to the spot almost under the tomb, where the lion strode, he passed on and was by this time perhaps almost quite under the great slab of granite where we rested. “ I was about to whisper the fact in her ear when I fancied I felt the whole tomb tremble! Then it seemed to shake, or rather rumble again. Then it again rumbled. Then again! Then there was a roar that literally shook the sand. I heard the sand sift and rattle down like drops of rain from where it lay in the crevices as I listened to find whether or not he was moving forward toward the place by which we had ascended. He was surely moving forward. I felt rather than heard him move. I assert — and I must content myself for the present with merely asserting — that you can feel the movements of an animal under such cir- Digitized by Google
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78 The Building of the City Beautiful . cu instances. And I assert further that an animal, especially a wild beast, can feel your movements under almost any circumstances. The undeveloped senses deserve a book by themselves. “ Pistol in hand I sprang to the steep and rugged passage. And not a second too soon. His mighty head was almost on a level with the granite slab. And he was half crouching for a bound and a spring upward, which would perhaps land him in our faces. I could see — or did I feel — that his huge hinder feet were spread wide out and sunken in the sand with preparation to lend all their force toward bearing him upward in one mighty bound. “I fired! fired right into his big, red mouth, between two hideous pickets of ugly, yellow teeth. He fell back, and then, gathering his ferocious strength, he bounded up and forward again; this time striking his left shoulder heavily against a projecting comer of the granite slab. Fortunately the ascent was slightly curv- ing, so that the distance could not be made at a single bound without collision. “Again the supple and comely beast, disdaining to creep or crawl, made a mighty leap upward. But only to strike the rounding comer of the great granite slab and fall back as before. “ But I knew he would reach us in time ! And if ever man did wish for fitting arms to fight with and defend woman it was I at that time. True, I had five shots left; but what were they in the face of this furious king of beasts ? I began to fear that they would only serve to enrage him. “ Still, he should have all I had to give. Death is, has been, and will be. The best we can make of it all is to try and see that we shall not die ingloriously. “The woman had been by my side all this time. And now, as the lion paused as if to gather up the broken thunderbolts of his strength, she laid a hand on my arm, never so gently, and said: 4 Let me go down and meet him face to face. I think he will not harm me.’ “ ‘ Madam/ I exclaimed impetuously, ‘you will meet him up here, and face to face, soon enough, I think/ “‘No, that will not do. You must trust the lion; as Daniel did/ “I pushed her back, as she tried to pass, down, almost violently. ‘“Madam/ I cried as I wheeled about and forced her before me, ‘if you have real courage leap to the head of yonder column, where those servants stand shivering, then on to the next! Quick! be brave enough to save yourself!’ “Another leap of the lion! Bang! Bang! “This time he did not fall back, but held on by sheer force of his powerful arms; his terrible claws tearing at the granite slab as they hung and hooked over its outer edge. “Bang! Bang! Bang! The last shot. I hurled my revolver in his face, for he had not flinched or given back a single grain. His breath and my breath were mingled there in the smoke of my pistol. I heard — or did I feel — his great hinder feet fastening in the steep earth under him for his final struggle to the top? “ I turned, saw that she had reluctantly reached the farther column ; and with three leaps and a bound I crossed the granite slabs and stood erect on the nearer one! Not a moment had I left. The lion, with great noise of claws on the granite, came tearing to the surface. I crouched down out of breath on the outer edge of my column, so as to be surely out of reach of his ponderous paws. I ex- pected him to decide the matter at once, to reach us or give it up instantly. But he seemed in no haste now. He scarcely advanced at all, for what seemed to me to be a long time. Finally, jerking his tail like the swift movement of a serpent, he strode along the farthest edge of the granite slab and seemed to take no notice of us whatever. Blood was dripping from his mouth, but he did not seem to heed it. “ Once more he strode with his old majesty, and seemed ashamed that he should have submitted to the indignity Digitized by Google
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79 The Building of the City Beautiful. of a struggle to gain the place where he now stood sullen and triumphant. En- raged? He was choking, dying with rage; and yet this kingly creature would not even condescend to look in our direction. “Why, I could feel his fearful rage as he now walked on and around the edge of that granite slab. At length he came opposite to where I lay crouching on the farther edge of my column. He passed on without so much as turning his eyes in my direction. And yet I felt, I felt and knew, as distinctly as if he could have talked and told me, that he was carefully measuring the distance. “When the lion, in his stately round, came to the narrow pass by which he had ascended he paused an instant, and half lowered his head. “ Ah, how devoutly I did pray that he would be generous enough to descend to the sands and present us with his absence. “But no! Lifting his huge head even higher in the air than before, he now passed on hurriedly, came on around to where he stood with quivering flank and flashing eye almost within reach of me. Yet he still disdained to even so much as look at me. His head was far above me as I crouched there on the farther edge of my column; his flashing eyes were lifted and looking far above me and beyond me. Maybe he was on the lookout over the desert for the coming of his companion. “Soon, however, he set his huge paws on the very edge of the great slab on which he stood, and then suddenly threw his right paw out toward me and against the edge of my column with the force and velocity of a catapult! “I heard the sharp, keen claws strike and scrape on the granite as if they had been hooks of steel. “ Then he threw himself on his breast, and hitching himself a little to one side, he threw his right paw so far that it landed full in the center of my column’s top and tore my coat-sleeve. Then he hitched his huge body a little farther on over the edge and again threw his huge paw right at my face. It fell short of its mark only a few inches, as it seemed to me. But, having hastily gathered in my garments, his claws did not find anything to fasten on and they drew back empty. “At this point three dusky etchings stood out against the golden east on the yellow sands, and looked intently at us with their enormous heads high in the air. And now the beast slowly arose and moved on. A lion’s head seems always disproportionately large, but when he is exercising for an appetite to eat you it looks large indeed. “ The monster who was occupying the platform with us surely saw his followers; indeed, he must have seen them long before; but his unbending dignity seemed to forbid that he should take heed of them. “The new-born hope that he would descend and join his followers died as he came on around. “ And now something strange and notable transpired. This one incident is my excuse for thus elaborating this other- wise passive and tediously dull sketch of this night. I had risen to my feet, and as the lion came on around, this woman, with a force that was irresistible, sprang to my side, thrust me behind her, and stepping forward with a single spring, she stood on the edge of the column nearest to the lion. “ I would have followed, but that same force, which I can now understand was a mental force and not at all a physical force, held me hard and fast to where I stood. “ She let her robe fall as she sprang for- ward and now stood only as the hand of God had fashioned her; a snow-white silhouette of perfect comeliness against the terrible and bloody mouth and tossing mane of the lion. She leaned forward as he came on around and dose to the edge of his slab. She looked him firmly and steadily in the face, her wondrous eyes, her midnight eyes of all Israel, the child of the wilderness, had once more met the lion of the desert as of old. “ Who was this woman here who stepped between death and me and stood Digitized by Google
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80 The Building of the City Beautiful. looking a wounded Hon in the face? Was this Judith again incarnate? Or was this something more than Judith? Was it the Priestess and the Prophetess Miriam, back once more to the banks of the Nile? Was it the old and forgotten mastery of all things animate which Moses and his sister knew that gave her dominion over the king of the desert? Or was her name Mary ? ‘ That Mary/ if you will, who won all things to her side, God in heaven, God upon earth, by the sad, sweet pity of her face, and the story of holy love that was written there? The lion’s head for a moment forgot its lofty defiance as she leaned a little for- ward. Then the tossed and troubled mane rose up and rolled forward like an inflowing sea. It seemed never so terri- ble. He was surely about to spring! And she, too! Her right foot settled solidly back, her left knee bent like a bow, her shapely and snowy shoulders, under their glory of black hair, bowed low. Her dauntless and defiant spirit had already precipitated itself forward and was smiting the imperious beast full in his blazing eyes. I felt that her body would follow her spirit in an instant more. “Face to face! Spirit to spirit! Soul to soul ! A second only the combat lasted. The awful ferocity and force of the brute was beaten down, melted like soft battlements of snow before the burn- ing arrows of the sun, and he slowly, suriily, shrank in size, in spirit, in space. A paw drew back from the edge of the block, the eyes drooped, the head dropped a little, and the terrible mane seemed terrible no more, as slowly, doggedly, mightily, aye doggedly and majestically, too, at the same time, this noble creature forced himself sidewise and back a fittle. “ Then he hesitated. Rebellion was in his mighty heart. He turned suddenly and looked her full in the face once more. All the beast that was in him rose up. The terrible mane now seemed more terrible than before. With great head tossed, tail whipped back, and teeth in the air, talons unsheathed and legs gathered under him, he was about to bound forward. “But the woman was before him! With eyes still fastened on his face, she with one long leap forward drove not only her shining soul but her snowy body right against his teeth. Or rather, she had surely done so had not the Hon, half turned about, shrank back as she leaped forward. Then slowly, looking back with his blazing but cowering eyes, feeling back with his spirit still defiant, if but to see whether her courage failed her in the least or her mighty spirit was still in battle armor; and then he passed. His companions had drawn back and into a depression in the desert where he slowly and sullenly joined them. “ One, two, three, four dim yet distinct black silhouettes against the yellow east; then but a single confused black etching; away, away, smaller and smaller, gone! “ I gathered up her robe, crossed over, let it fall on her shoulders where she still stood, looking down and after the beast. She sighed, T am sorry, so sorry; sorry for you both.’ ” Chapter VIII. THE CHRIST IN EGYPT. O land of temples, land of tombs! O tawny land, O lion dead! O silent land of silent looms; Of kingly garments torn to shred! O land of storied wonder still, as when Fair Joseph stood the chiefest of all men! The Christ in Egypt! Egypt and Her mystic star-tipt Pyramids! Her shoreless, tiger seas of sand! Her Sphinx with fixed and weary lids! Her red and rolling Nile of yellow sheaves Where Moses cradled 'mid his lfly leaves. Her lorn, dread temples of the dead Had waited, as mute milestones wait By some untraversed way unread. Until the King, or soon or late. Should come that tomb-built way and silent, pass To read their signs above the sand-sown grass. Behold! amid this majesty Of ruin, at the dust-heaped tomb Of vanity came Christ to see Earth's emptiness, the dark death-room Of haughtiness, of kingly pomp, of greed. Of gods of gold or stone, or storied creed. Digitized by Google
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The Building of the City Beautiful. And this His first abiding-place! And these dread scenes His childhood's toys! What wonder at that thoughtful face ? That boy-face never yet a boy's ? What wonder that the elders marveled when A boy spake in the Temple unto men ? WHEN the perfect woman comes — and she will come — she will ap- peal to the soul of man, not to his body; and then the perfect man will not be far off. Whoever this majestic and beautiful woman was, — this piteously beautiful woman, whatever she was yet to be or may have been, — she seemed to be, from the first time he encountered her at Jerusalem, entirely unconscious of sex. She seemed not to be a body, but a soul; and a soul, as said before, that was grow- ing daily, as a great magnolia flower-tree grows, with its perfect flowers and its soft, warm, sensuous perfume, widening, warming day by day till it fills the garden, turns all faces to this one flower-tree, draws all things to itself, and drowns all senses but this one sense of perfume and the perfection of form and color. As they had descended through the deserts and wilderness, and, as before noted, had retraced the ancient path by which Israel had gone up out of Egypt, she seemed to this man who companioned her, followed her afar off, to be all-powerful. There is a lone obelisk where stood the dty On, famous as the place where Plato and others of the wise men studied philosophy, — one lone obelisk; and that is all you can see to-day of the storied city of On, where, it is still whispered, men gathered together who knew all things, — even to the secret s that were before life and are after death. Some palm trees stood not far away, and the two sat on a toppled granite column in silence there together as the sun was going down on tawny, tired, and prostrate Egypt. “Oh, to see Egypt rise up and stand erect in her splendor once more before the end of the world!” He said this at last, as the sun lay level on the red waters 81 of the Nile, and dashed the world with molten gold. Was it a sense of pain that tinged her face, — displeasure, effort, exhaustion, something such as Christ felt as he turned to the woman when she touched the hem of His garment ? Or was it a sense of his own unworthiness which made him to imagine that a faint tinge of displeasure swept over her face as she lifted it to the waters, and in silence put forth her hand as she arose ? Who shall say? And what matter? His eyes, as he sprang to his feet* followed the direction of her hand, and there, be- fore his startled vision, in all her storied splendor of dome, citadel, and battle- ment, grove, garden, turret and tower, that melted into the hazy horizon and filled all the face of the earth as far as the eye could sweep, lay ancient Egypt. Describe the scene ? The attempt would be profanity. Account for this power of hers? Or did she merely fancy all this and make his fancy follow hers ? When science will come forward and account for the cities, seas, forests, armies with banners, heroes, battle-harness, that men see on the plains and deserts of America, without even the presence of any finer organization than their own to call up these visions, then will it be time enough to give some reasons here. As her wearied hand fell to her side, she sank back; all Egypt of old fell down and lay again in dust beneath her pyra- mids. He felt that now she was as far away from him and above him and be- yond him, as was the farthest and loftiest column she had recalled to existence. He sighed as they turned in silence home. He now began to see his uselessness and his helplessness in her presence. All the manhood in the man began to rise in self- assertion. He grew more firmly resolved than ever to go forth alone and meditate and purify his soul, go up in the moun- tains to pray, as did the prophets of old* till he, too, had Faith. (To be continued.) Digitized by Google
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THE BLANK PAGE. " WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH IT, MR. PRESIDENT?’* Drawn by Dan. Beard expressly for The Arena. (See Editorial.) 82 Digitized by Google
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PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT AND THE CLEAN SHEET. THE DAY following the election Presi- dent Roosevelt, by announcing that he would not again be a candidate for the presi- dency, did more than anything that has marked his conduct since he entered his high office to inspire confidence in the minds of tens of thousands of thoughtful citizens who had in the early years of his public life greatly admired him. It is this promise thus solemnly given, after his triumphant election, that doubtless inspired Mr. Beard to draw the cartoon which appears in this number of The Arena. The President has been elected by such a large majority as to leave no doubt in the minds of the people but what he was preferred by the mass of the voters over Judge Parker; but also no ring, machine or privileged interest can in reason claim a mortgage on him as being responsible for his election, provided Mr. Cortelyou and the President are correct in claiming that no pledges, positive or im- plied, have been made to any parties that have ’ supported him. For though many privileged interests may have and doubtless did con- tribute enormous sums to the campaign-fund of the party, no one of them can in reason claim to have been responsible for the result. Hence Mr. Roosevelt, presuming he is not mistaken in regard to ante-election pledges, bus a perfectly free hand, and with the Senate mad House so overwhelmingly Republican no special interests can combine with the opposi- tion to defeat any plans of the President to give the people relief from the shameful op- pression they have been suffering from trust and railroad extortion, or to restore as far as may be equality of opportunities and of rights in place of injustice and inequality resulting bom advantages granted by law to privileged interests. Therefore, if the President is the high-minded patriot that so many believe him to be, and that all hope he may prove himself to be, fate has given him the grandest oppor- tunity enjoyed by a chief executive within a half-century, of making a record that will raise him to the peerage of the few really great presidents who in the highest sense deserve well of the republic, and will entitle him to a place in history besides Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln. Theodore Roosevelt has the opportunity to inaugurate a movement that will end in economic emancipation and whose immediate result will be to bring relief to the people from the most galling oppression due to railroad and monopolistic extortion. In the second place he can assail corruption in high places and break up the unholy alliance of the railroads with the Post-Office Depart- ment, by which the United States now pays an annual rental for mail-cars greater than the cost of building the cars, though the average life of the car is nineteen years, and in addition to this shameful robbery an extortionate sum for carrying mail which is much in excess of what the express companies pay for like service. This is one of many fountain-heads of public scandal that demand investigation and remedy, and which history will hold the President responsible for if under present circumstances he fails to meet the demands of honesty and good government. In like manner he can give the Filipinos such positive assurances of their enjoying self-government at an early date as shall change the attitude of these people from that of hostility and sullen hate to one of friend- liness, thus greatly reducing the expenses now required to maintain order in the Islands. These are but a few typical things which the President can do and which the people rightfully expect him to accomplish. How will he fill the clean page that opens before him ? 83 Digitized by Google
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Maybell, in Brooklyn Eagle. Evans, in Cleveland Loader. AN ALLY. GERMANY HAS EXPRE88ED ITS WILLINGNESS TO SION AN ARBITRATION TREATY WITH Russian—" Halt, who goes there? Stranger—" Winter !” Russian—" Advance, friend 1 ” THE UNITED 8TATES. GooqIc Digitized by
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Politics, The People and The Trusts as Seen by Cartoonists. 85 ,RBITRATION POJJIftU THEATf ITALY j* LUT ENGLAND Walker, in Girard (Kan.) Appeal to Reaaon. THB SOCIALIST VOTE OP OVER HALF A MILLION HAS ALARMED CERTAIN METROPOL- ITAN JOURNAL8. Walker, in Girard (Kan.) Appeal to Reaaon. MY, MY, AND HE’S STILL GROWING! TWO SOCIALIST CARTOONS. Digitized by
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86 Politics , The People and The Trusts as Seen by Cartoonists. HIS TWO NIGHTMARES. Washburn, in Philadelphia Telegraph . DeMar, in Philadelphia Record. WILL HE EVER WAKE UP? LOOKING INTO THE OIL QUESTION, Google Digitized by
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Si mMsm SsfesSskiiW Politics, The People and The Trusts as Seen by Cartoonists. 87 WILL YOU EVER FORGET THAT TIMET No. 1— When you had revolted against the trust*— No. 2— And you had made it hot for the trusts— G£T oM tut earth No. S— And you had put the trusts completely out of business— Opper, in Boston American. No. 4— And then you were awakened as above— Ah, will you ever forget it ? (Reproduced by special permission of W. R. Hearst.) Lambdin, in Bingham pton Press. McCntcbeon, in Boston Post. BRYAN AND HEARST : — '* POOR ALTON. THE BLACK CARD FROM THE BLACK HAND. Digitized by
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IN THE MIRROR OF THE PRESENT. POLITICAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC. Three Triumphs for Fundamental Democratic Principles at The Recent Election. AS WE have stated, the results of certain state elections this year should be the source of inspiration and encouragement to all 'friends of free institutions who appreciate the peril of the fundamental principles which differentiate democracy from class-rulership and absolutism. Three of these conflicts were momentous in character. (1). In Colo- rado the bold question which confronted the electorate was, shall civil rule be supplanted by military depositism, defiance of constitu- tional restrictions and a trampling upon the sacred rights and safeguards of the individual by officials acting in the interest of powerful and over-rich corporations? (2). In Wis- consin the issue was whether the rule of the people should be virtually abrogated and the interests of the masses subordinated to those of the railways and other great public-service companies and privileged interests working in harmony with corrupt politicians and an autocratic partisan machine. (3). In Mis- souri the vital question was whether the reign of graft and the triumph of political corruption, fostered by the public-service corporations and rendered well-nigh impregnable by leading politicians, should be sanctioned or over- thrown. It will be observed that each one of these contests represented a phase of the one great conflict being waged between plutocracy and democracy, between liberalism and reaction, between the ideals and principles of popular government and the ideals and arrogant as- sumptions of class-rulership and absolutism which prevailed before the period of the Revolution. In Colorado the great Smelter-Trust, the Mine-Owner’s Association and the railroads, which have so long ruled, corrupted and de- bauched the legislature ai^d stood as the in- carnation of the spirit of plutocracy and despotism that is looming so menacingly over the republic, emboldened by the belief that their combined wealth was more powerful than the electorate, undertook to substitute a military despotism for civil authority. It was this element* it will be remembered, that was the primary cause of the trouble in Colorado. The electorate of the state had imperatively commanded the legislature to pass certain wise, humane and just legislation; but the grasping, privileged, over-rich and corrupt Smelter-Trust, aided by the other great privi- leged corporations, succeeded in preventing the legislature from enacting the order which had been overwhelmingly voted for by the people. Twenty-five years ago such amazing exhibitions of lawless brutality and defiance of the constitution as were perpetrated by Mr. Bell and sanctioned by Governor Peabody would have been impossible within the con- fines of the United States. But since the Homestead tragedies, plutocracy or corporate wealth has steadily gained ascendency in government, and the spirit of absolutism and reaction which is paralyzing the currents of true democracy throughout Europe, has also rapidly gained in strength and prestige since the republic became imperialistic in its policy. In Wisconsin the railways, having ruled and oppressed the people for many years through a corrupted party-machine, and holding in the hollow of their hand the United States Sena- tors and the principal Republican Congress- men from Wisconsin, believed that they were strong enough to crush the incorruptible statesman and fearless defender of the people who had insisted that the electorate rather than the railways should be the rulers of the com- monwealth, and who in the new primary- election law had proposed a measure calcu- lated to break the back-bone of the machine or the instrument through which privileged interests had overthrown democratic govern- ment. In Missouri the public-service companies had so thoroughly debauched the electorate and the public opinion-forming agencies, and so effectively driven into retirement incor- ruptible statesmen and fearless upholders of the rights of the people, and had so firmly en- Digitized by Google
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In the Mirror trenched the representatives of corruption and graft in municipal and state government, that they believed their position to be impregnable. In each instance corporate wealth, chiefly represented by public-service corporations or privileged and protected interests, stood as the supreme representative of reaction, corruption and the overthrow of republican government. In each instance the combined influence of the plutocracy, with the most lavish use of wealth and backed by all the power of their well- organized political machines, was hurled against the representative leaders of free institutions. The influences which were ar- rayed in favor of Peabody and Bell in Colo- rado, and against Governor LaFollette and Joseph W. Folk in Wisconsin and Missouri, were identical, yet in each instance the people triumphed, administering a crushing and humiliating defeat to Peabody, and thereby setting the seal of public condemnation on the shameful action of that recreant representa- tive of free institutions; upholding trium- phantly Governor LaFollette, thereby re- buking the corrupt machine, the railroads and such mouthpieces of plutocracy as Senator Spooner; and elevating to the highest position in the commonwealth Joseph W. Folk, whose herculean battle against boodle and graft had made him a man marked for defeat and political destruction by the “system” com- posed of the union of corporate wealth and the political machines. These three victories should serve to in- spire the friends of democracy everywhere. They show us that all that is needed is wisdom, union and progress on the part of the friends of free institutions in order to meet and over- throw the plutocracy which through united action, vast wealth and a settled policy of destroying the incorruptible friends of democ- racy and elevating subservient and pliant tools, has seriously menaced those great fundamental principles of democratic govern- ment that differentiate free institutions from the governments that prevailed throughout Christendom prior to the revolutionary epoch. In each of these states the fight of the people was for the election of a chief-magistrate who should stand for democracy, for the people and for the commonwealth, against plutoc- racy, the “system” or the corporations and the machine. And here we have the three- fold fight between greed, reaction and class- despotism and the principles of free govern- ment that the republic must necessarily deal of the Present. 89 with. It is the supreme conflict upon which the very life of democracy depends; the battle between plutocracy and democracy, the “system” and the people, the corporations and the commonwealth. The Victory for Popular Govern- ment in Wisconsin. Probably the most signal victory for the principles of popular government that oc- curred in the November election was the triumphant ratification by the people of Wis- consin of the radical and democratic primary- election law. This wholesome measure, it will be remembered, was opposed by the recreant and discreditable Democratic party of the Badger State, as it was also opposed by the so-called stalwart or corporation Repub- licans, headed by Senator Spooner. It was aggressively fought by the public-service cor- porations and other privileged interests which are in the habit of depending on partisan machines, political rings and the bosses of the party for the nomination of their men and the passing of measures that will enable them to acquire millions of dollars as the fruits of franchises and privileges, in return for cour- tesies, campaign contributions and other forms of bribery. Governor LaFollette led the people against this formidable opposition, — an opposition that we believe would have been invincible a few years ago; but the people are beginning to awaken, and in Governor LaFollette they have found a brave leader and an incorrupt- ible statesman loyal to the interests of the people. Hence they rallied around him ex- actly as the masses rallied around Thomas Jefferson in the olden times when the Hamil- tonian party of privilege sought to exalt wealth and privilege at the expense of the people. The new primary law is, we believe, the most radical and essentially democratic measure of the kind that has been enacted. It sweeps away the old nominating convention that has made our elections in recent years such a shameful farce, because through the union of corporate wealth and party-bosses the incorruptible statesmen and loyal cham- pions of the people have been thrust aside for the protegees of public-service corporations or the willing tools of party-bosses. According to the provisions of the new law, all the candi- dates to be voted for at the election must be Digitized by Google
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In the Mirror of the Present. 90 chosen at the September primaries. Nor is this all. The candidate for the United States Senate must also run for nomination at these primaries, and the candidate who is chosen will be recommended as the party's candidate. Presumably this will in effect secure the elec- tion of United States Senators from this com- monwealth by the popular vote, as it is hardly probable that the legislators will defy the popular mandate; and pending the securing of a mandatory national provision for the election of senators by popular vote, this measure is probably the best statutory enact- ment that could be made. Therefore the passing of this law is a great popular triumph quite apart from the splendid victory of Governor LaFollette. Toledo’s Partial Victory for Honest Government. The recent election in Toledo, Ohio, afforded another illustration that the people are awakening to a sense of their civic respon- sibilities. The rule of the grafters and the corrupt machine is already threatened. A few high-minded and earnest patriots banded together in each city and town, ready to con- secrate life and fortune to rescuing govern- ment from the plundering public-service com- panies and the immoral element in our political life, and a new, clean, wholesome and truly democratic regime will be inaugurated. In Toledo the late Golden-Rule Mayor Jones laid the foundation for good govern- ment and held in check the elements that sought to rob the people of franchises worth untold millions of dollars, through the aid of the corrupt political machine; but with his death the corporation cormorants and political vultures began to assemble, confident that now the path was open for Toledo to become a little St. Louis. The Republican machine was controlled by the street-railway company that is seeking a renewal of its enormously valuable franchise. In Toledo half the council- men are elected each year for a two-year's term. The Republicans nominated for coun- cilman-at-large a particularly outspoken cham- pion of the street-railway interests and a subservient machine man. Two of the ward council nominees were also particularly obnoxious to the friends of public-ownership on account of their outspoken advocacy of corporation interests. The other Republican nominees were not considered good machine men and were far less obnoxious to the friends of good government, who immediately placed a ticket in the field, the battle centering around the councilman at large and the obnoxious machine candidates. All the power and in- fluence of the great street-car monopoly and other public-service vampires, together with the influence of the well-organized and power- ful Republican machine, was enlisted in order to make the election of the corporation advo- cates positive and triumphant; and of course they had the benefit of the Republican land- slide which resulted in Toledo’s casting a majority of more than 12,000 votes for Theo- dore Roosevelt. Yet the Republican machine councilman-at-large and the two other specially obnoxious machine candidates were defeated, the councilman running over 2,000 votes be- hind the independent candidate. Here we have another of those encouraging illustrations which show how surely the people can win over the powerful and unscrupulous machines and corporate wealth when a few single-hearted, high-minded patriots band themselves together and organize public sentiment in the interests of civic integrity and virtue. A City Where The Ballot is a Farce. In the recent election Philadelphia fur- nished one of those startling object-lessons in political debauchery which show how a popular government may become a farce, if the high-minded men of a community become indifferent to civic duties instead of persistently holding up high standards of public morality and noble ideals before the electorate, and maintaining an efficient organization to promptly punish in the most rigorous manner all attempts to defeat the free voice of the people. It also affords a striking illustration of the way a great city may become so sodden that crimes against the ballot-box no longer seem to affront the public conscience. In a republic there can be few crimes more heinous or that call more imperatively for stem justice and the severest penalties than tampering with the ballot-box. If free institutions are to be preserved, if the republic is to be a moral leader among the nations, one thing above all others is demanded, and that is the severe punishment by long terms of imprisonment, without the possibility of pardon, of all persons who commit crimes against the ballot. We Digitized by Google
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91 In the Mirror of the Present. have come to a pass when we must arise and crush corruption, or permit the destruction of free institutions. We have reached a point where it is imperative that the reign of graft made possible by the “ system” or the union of the public-service corporations and other privileged interests with political machines and bosses, must be utterly overthrown, else the moral leprosy that now affects Philadel- phia, Pennsylvania, and numerous other municipalities and commonwealths, will have so pervaded the body-politic as to render the prospect of the triumph of republican ideals little more than an iridescent dream. The following facts relating to the ballot farce in Philadelphia at the recent election should ap- peal to the thoughtful consideration of all patriotic Americans. Philadelphia has long been ill-famed in re- gard to election corruption. It is doubtful whether the corruption practiced by Tammany Hall at any time since the overthrow of the Tweed King has equaled the shameless frauds in election methods that have for years disgraced Pennsylvania. The Philadelphia Ledger has given some amazing facts relating to the November election that ought to arouse all earnest patriots of every party to a realiza- tion that the hour has arrived when decency, honesty, political integrity, — aye, even the life of free institutions, demand united and persist- ent action against every attempt to tamper with the ballot-box. The Ledger points out the facts that the six wards that make up the city proper, in 1890 had a population of 104,154. Ten years later, or in 1900, the census showed that the population had shrunk to 95,734. This was due largely to the fact that in this city in a greater degree than in any other large American municipality the tendency of the population is constantly toward the suburbs, where through building associations homes are acquired with little more monthly expenditure than would be required for rents in the con- gested parts of the city. Now in the election of 1890 in these six wards 20,622 ballots were reported as being cast. The vote in 1900 was 19,666, or about 1,000 less than ten years before; yet the vote was regarded excessive, though it showed a decline. There has been nothing since 1900 to swell the residence population of these wards, while there is no reason to believe that there has not been a steady decrease in the population, owing to the influences that were operating between 1890 and 1900, when the population fell from 104,154 to 95,784. Yet according to the returns of the November election there were 40 per cent, more ballots cast in these wards than were returned as cast in 1900. 27,828 is the number of votes said to have been cast, as against 19,666 four years before. In Ward Thirteen the whole number of males above twenty-one was shown by the census of 1900 to be 6,466, yet at the November election of this year 7,016 ballots were returned as being cast. The Boston Herald , in an extended analysis of the Philadelphia Ledger's revelations, con- cludes that the conditions revealed at the elec- tion of November 8th “point to frauds being carried out to a greater extent than one would imagine that even the unscrupulous leaders of Philadelphia would dare to attempt/* And the Herald continues; “We have heard it said that in the third city of the United States the local political bosses boast that they register even the names on tomb-stones, and that voters are assessed from numbers on streets that do not exist and from residences that are in reality only vacant lots. It may be asked why the decent people of Philadelphia permit such conditions to exist. We presume the answer is found in the over- whelming control that the bosses have of the registration of the voters and the counting of the ballots. No matter how large a movement might exist against the Republican city ma- chine in Philadelphia, it could not hope to overthrow the bosses, with their padded regis- try-list which is made up by themselves or their tools.” In the present issue of The Arena Mr. Lee Meriwether, one of St. Louis* prominent lawyers and a man who as a publicist and an author stands high in our land, has made a sickening revelation of similar crimes against the ballot-box. In Philadelphia a corrupt Republican machine makes elections a shame- ful farce. In St. Louis a Democratic machine under the management of a Democratic boss succeeded in destroying free government by shameful crimes. But in each case and in ever}' northern community where free govern- ment has given place to ring-rule, the domi- nation of the corruptionists has only been made possible by the public-service corpora- tions and others who are seeking to acquire wealth without earning it, uniting with the criminal politicians to destroy democratic government. In the powerful series of papers which opens in this issue of The Arena, by the Digitized by Google
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92 In the Mirror prominent citizen of Philadelphia, Mr. Rudolph Blankenburg, the American people will find the history of the overthrow of republican government in one of the greatest and most opulent commonwealths of our nation, through systematic methods of cor- ruption and fraud. Friends of free government of all parties, we appeal to you as patriots, as lovers of free institutions, and as those who revere justice, integrity and righteousness, to unite in an educational agitation directed against these corrupters and destroyers of democratic institutions. All history shows that when men of high ideals unite in a determined agitation, in an environment of intellectual freedom, the potency of moral enthusiasm and righteousness is so great and the idealism or divinity in the soul of man so positive when appealed to and aroused, that all the powers of crime, sin and corruption fall before the aroused and determined public. In the presence of this grave peril ho man is quit of responsibility. Forbidding Free Speech Under Our Flag. The following press dispatch j ilished in the Eastern dailies on the eightee th of November, 1904, calls for the serious attention of American citizens who think for themselves and who even dimly appreciate the importance of guarding with jealous care the right of free speech and the exposure of abuses, corruption and despotism: “Bloomington, III., November 1 h.— Miguel Nicdao, a young Filipino stud vb is being educated at the State Normal Uni- versity by the government, has been repri- manded by W. A. Sutherland of thq Wajr Department for attacking the friars and the methods of the Catholic Church in the Philippines. Nicdao’s articles first appeared in The Vidette , a student publication at the University, and were widely copied by the press of central Illinois. The Rev. J. J. Burk of St. Patrick’s Church of this city, reported the case to the War Department, with the result stated.” This action of the War Department in forbidding the discussion and exposure of the abuses and oppressions of the friars, which were the chief cause of the Philippine insur- rection and war against Spain, is another of those dangerous, reactionary and un-American of the Present. actions which have become all too frequent since our republic became imperialistic ini tone and began to curry favor with alienj reactionary, autocratic and despotic poweraJ Nothing is more vital to liberty, to free in-j stitutions, and to the very life of democrat*! government than freedom of speech and the encouragement of fearless exposures of in- justice, corruption, despotism or inhumanity, whenever and wherever they may occur; and for the government to frown upon such action is to commit a crime against democracy. Spain owed her decadence and downfall in a large measure to subserviency to autocratic and intolerant religious domination and to the stifling of free discussion. In Russia the world beholds to-day the blight and curse of this very thing — the interference on the parti of the government with freedom of speech and discussion. Germany is to-day moving rapidly toward the accursed absolutism of Russia through the division of the Liberals and the union of the monarchal, reactionary and Catholic parties. Unless there be a check in the iniquitous designs of Emperor William, the blessings of constitutional govern- ment will shortly be curtailed if not abrogated. It behooves every true American, every person who believes in the principles of the revolutionary era, to resolutely oppose every step taken by our government in obedience to the wishes and desires of alien, un-American and reactionary influences which are at work to establish conditions such as prevailed be- fore the revolutionary era. No one believes more firmly in freedom of religion and the widest liberty being accorded to all faiths and beliefs than do we; but we hold that no true patriot or friend of free government can stand idle and dumb when a church or hierarchy assumes to interfere in such a way as to prevent free speech under the folds of the American flag. The government at Wash- ington cannot afford to become a party to reaction. Its attitude should have been that freedom of speech and the right to criticize were among the most cherished and vital principles of free government, and that if the critic was in the wrong the redress should be, not in suppression of discussion, but in a full reply, with the proof, showing wherein the critic erred. Suppression of discussion and free speech is ever the potent weapon of des- potism and reaction. Full, free, open discus- sion is the hope of freedom, of progress, of enlightenment, of purity, of honesty, of justice, of civilization. k i Digitized by Google
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In the Mirror of the Present. 98 FACTORS IN PRESENT-DAY ART AND SOCIAL PROGRESS. Ajbtist-Artisanbhip The Key to Japan s Commercial Greatness and Prosperity. ONE OF the most important and practical object-lessons which Japan has given to the Western world is found in the striking contrasts between the methods she has pur- sued in achieving commercial greatness and prosperity and those by which the Christian nations have sought to acquire gold for the favored and privileged classes. While England, greedy for the rich Trans- vaal mines and desirous of increasing South African markets, engaged in the war that destroyed the two Dutch republics of South Africa; while America, under the spell of im- perialistic commercialism was spending mil- lions upon millions of dollars in subjugating or holding in subjection the Philippine Islands; while Russia, after going into an unholy alliance with France and Germany, by which the latter nations were able to seize upon and secure bases for commercial activi- ties and spheres of influence in China, de- spoiled Japan of the fruit of her victory over China and herself purloined the rich territory in a most perfidious manner; while, in a word, the Christian world was compassing land and sea in search of markets that might be seized and held by force, irrespective of the rights of others, Japan has been making amazing strides in commercial greatness and national prosperity by employing very dif- ferent tactics — tactics which are largely the result of the rapid extension of industrial and artist-artisan education. Great numbers of technical and industrial schools have been established in recent decades, where the most thorough and competent instruction has been given in metal-working, pottery, wood-work, dyeing, weaving and other useful occupations where technical skill and artistic superiority give value and through excellence find ready sale for goods thus made. These great schools for the furtherance of artist-artisanship and industrial expertness have been thronged with students. In 1902 there were over 887,000 Japanese engaged in the manufactories of Japan. The following facts contained in a work issued by the Imperial Japanese Commission to the St. Louis Exposition and bearing the title Japan in the Beginning of the Twentieth Century , show how rapidly this Oriental land has grown commercially during the past twenty years. In 1882 the export trade of Japan amounted to 37,721,000 yen (a yen is about fifty cents of our money). The import trade for the same period was 29,446,000 yen. In 1892 the export trade was 91,100,000 yen and the import trade was 71 ,326,000 yen. In 1902 the export trade had risen to 258,303,000 yen, and the imports amounted to 271,731,000 yen. \ An important fact to be borne in mind is that \ a large proportion of the money expended in importation was spent for machinery and things required in manufacturing industries. Many 'millions of yen were expended in 1902 for iron and steel material. 78,000,000 yen was the out-put for raw cotton alone. The value of indigo and , aniline dyes imported in 1902 was 4,752,000 yen. That Japan under normal nditions is on a healthy commercial footing 6 indicated from the fact that the expen ,es of the government in 1903 were 244,572,000 yen, while the revenue amounted to 251,681,000 yen, or a little over seven millions more than the expenditures; while in twenty years, except for moneys borrowed to meet war expenses, the income of the empire has been greater than the outgo. The great fact for us to consider and profit by, ' pver, is found in the practical wisdom T in increasing the wealth of the nation by turning out skilled artist-artisans and workers from the technical and industrial schools' in such great numbers that the nation can manufacture vast amounts of really fine work that finds ready markets at good prices. America is a laggard in this respect; yet how much better this plan and policy than to seek mastery by the sword. In one line of work it is true that our nation in this respect is exhibiting preeminent sagacity, and that is in agriculture, in so far as it relates to the work of the national bureau of of the Department of Agriculture at Wash- ington. This important division of the government has during recent years become more and more a great educational factor in the land, while its practical work in promoting Digitized by Google
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04 In the Mirror of the Present. agrarian interests in every direction has added immensely to the wealth of the nation. Much remains, however, for our states to do in agricultural education through schools, in- stitutes and experiment-stations. If America should display the wisdom of Japan in foster- ing and promoting a great artist-artisan movement, and also in furthering scientific agriculture, dairying, fruit and vegetable culture, we would increase our wealth pro- duction far more than would be possible in trying to force our products on unwilling buyers regardless of their excellence; and the cost of this wise and really great policy would be infinitesimal compared with the cost of such commercialistic imperialism as we have been waging since the close of the Spanish- American war. The Magazines and Social Progress. If the republic is to be freed from the des- potism of corporate wealth operating through party machines, it will be through the awaken- ing of the public conscience by the systematic work of American magazines. It would be difficult to overestimate the immense service to the republic rendered by McClure's Maga- zine during the past two years in its bold ex- posures of evil conditions that seriously threaten the integrity of free institutions. The enormous success attending this fearless uncovering of iniquity in the presence of which the great daily press had as a rule either preserved a discreet silence or had sought to justify and excuse the unholy alliance of partisan machines with the rich and conven- tionally respectable corruptionists, who under the mantle of special privileges were acquiring untold millions of dollars that by right be- longed to the community at large or to the individual citizens, proved conclusively that the great mass of the people were not ignorant of or indifferent to the injustice and the des- potism slowly growing up in their midst. When it was seen that the circulation of McClure's had reached several hundred thou- sand, other popular magazines opened their pages to somewhat similar exposes of injustice and evil conditions. Frank Leslie's and Pearson's were among the first to join the plain-speaking minority that was exposing the prevalent political debauchery for private gain and the reign of corruption and graft that had followed the domination of municipal, state and national politics by public-service cor- porations and other monopolies and privi- leged interests. Still later Everybody's Maga- zine opened its columns to Mr. Lawson’s con- fessions of an insider, in which he confirmed the truth of the dark and sinister record of the Standard Oil Company in plundering the millions and debauching the people’s servants, which had previously been brought to light through the painstaking and exhaustive labors of such careful historians as the late Henry Demarest Lloyd and Miss Ida Tarbell. He also revealed the inside workings of the “system” in a strikingly circumstantial man- ner and did not hesitate to state why it is im- possible for the people of Massachusetts to secure even the privilege of voting on important measures that would mean the saving of millions of dollars to them, when the great corporations, such as the railroad companies and the local coal-trust, oppose such referen- dum votes. And now comes Munsey's with its opening article in the December issue devoted to a strong, graphic and impressive appeal for the fastening of responsibility when greed causes the wholesale slaughter of human life. Seldom has the murder of in- nocents been more vividly or powerfully presented than in Mr. Herbert N. Casson’s pen-picture of the burning of the “General Slocum.” But Mr. Casson is far more than a convincing delineator of thrilling scenes. He is a man of conscience and conviction. When he writes we know there is a man behind the pen, not a manikin or a body without a soul; and so his story is also a powerful appeal for the protection of the people against the sordid greed of irresponsible corporate wealth. More than twelve years ago, when The Arena inaugurated several series of papers dealing in a vital way with evil conditions and rational remedies for the same, we received a number of letters, some criticizing and some commending our innovation. We remember that not a few of our friends thought that our review should be more academic in character. “ Leave the inferno of present-day civilization, the aggressions of the railways, the questions of inequitable taxation and of land monopoly to the newspapers,” wrote some of our cor- respondents, “ and give us the space in essays on religion, philosophy, science and literature.” To these friends and to the public we pointed out at that time the fact that the newspapers were failing to do this vitally-important work, and in our judgment the gravest need as well as the highest function of the serious magazine in the presence of conditions such as con- fronted our republic was to strive to arouse Digitized by Google
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95 In the Mirror of the Present. the more thoughtful of the people and to inaugurate a moral and intellectual agitation that should result in a return to the ideals of the founders and to juster political, social and economic conditions than those which then obtained. Nothing was more palpable, as we pointed out, than the failure of the daily press to do this work, owing to the fact that many of the great journals were owned or controlled by powerful privileged interests. Others, when they sought to uncover and boldly assail the evil-doing of predatory wealth were notified by the great advertisers that they must desist or the advertisements upon which the news- papers depended for success would be can- celed; while others were approached and in- fluenced in various insidious manners by the great public-service corporations which sought to silence opposition when they wished to secure special privileges and immensely valuable franchises. A typical example of this kind occurred some years ago and was made public by the Boston Daily Post , when Mr. Henry M. Whitney, then the real head of the West End Company, sent to the Post an address which he had delivered and which was in effect a special plea for the street- railway interests, accompanied by a letter requesting them to publish the address to- gether with the illustrations which he fur- nished, as simon-pure reading matter, and charge the West End Company one hundred dollars per column, less twenty per cent. The Post declined the indirect bribe, pub- lished the letter in full, and placed the various other Boston papers in a very uncomfortable position. The advertising leverage has been one of the most powerful means of silencing the daily press. A well-known American journalist, who for years served either as editor-in-chief or as a principal editorial writer on Chicago and New York dailies, gave me some examples showing how it was impossible for the great dailies to be true to the people at all times. One instance cited was as follows: “When the Income-Tax was before Con- gress,” said this editor, “we came out strongly in favor of it, and I was pounding away in a vigorous manner when one morning our proprietor and manager, Mr. S., called me into his room and told me that we would have to drop our advocacy of the Income-Tax. “‘Why?* I asked. ‘You believe in it, I believe in it, and the people want it.* “‘Yes, that is all very true, but you know that neither this paper nor any other of the great dailies can live in Chicago without the advertising patronage of certain firms’; and he gave the names of a number of the great newspaper advertisers. ‘Well,* he continued, ‘I have received a hint, and if we do not drop the advocacy of the Income-Tax we may ex- pect the withdrawal of the advertising patron- age of these great houses.’ “Consequently we had to switch off onto other subjects.” Another typical illustration given by my informant had to do with the Beef-Trust ex- tortion. “The New York World ,” said he, “had been exposing the way the Beef-Trust and the railways had the producers and consumers by the throat, and we followed suit. But again I was called into the room of our manager, who said, ‘You’ll have to let up on that Beef- Trust business.’ “‘And why?’ I asked. ‘We are not be- holden to the Big Four. How much adver- tising do they give us in a year ?’ “‘Ah!* he broke in, ‘directly very little, but you remember the large yearly contract we secured last year from ? * “‘Yes.’ “‘Well, of the Beef-Trust is behind that firm, and I have been informed that that advertisement will be canceled if we continue our assaults on the trust.* “And so again we had to turn our attention to other matters. And,” he continued, “I could give you a number of similar instances illustrating how helpless are the great news- papers in which corporate wealth has no financial interest. And still further,” he went on, “in our great metropolitan centers there are wheels within wheels at every turn. The editors and proprietors of the journals belong to the clubs and are on the most friendly terms with the gentlemanly directors of the most avaricious and brazenly law-defying corpora- tions. Many of them have stock tendered to them, and in a hundred different ways, often before they are aware of the fact, they become obligated morally if in no other way to the individuals who are moving spirits in the great public-service corporations, the monopo- lies and the trusts.” Now all persons acquainted with the leading newspapers know that such are the handicaps under which they are laboring, even when the Digitized by Google
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96 In the Mirror of the Present. stock of the paper is not in the hands of privi- leged interests. And knowing such things as these, we determined early in the ’nineties to enter upon an educational campaign. This we inaugurated by publishing “Society’s Exiles,” “Two Hours in the Social Cellar,” “The Froth and the Dregs,” “They Have Fallen Into the Wine-Press,” “Jesus or Caesar,” “The Democracy of Darkness,” “Why the Ishmaelites Multiply,” and other papers which were later published in book form under the titles of Civilizations Inferno and The New Time . We also secured notable papers from Dr. Alfred Russell Wallace, the great English scientist and author, on “Our Social Quagmire” and “The Way Out.” We commissioned J ustice Walter Clark of North Carolina to visit the City of Mexico and interview the leading officials on the prosperous condition of our sister republic. His paper proved one of the strong educational features of our campaign. We sent Hamlin Garland through the West to make studies of social conditions as he found them in Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas, and commissioned him to embody the results in a novel of social unrest, which was entitled A Spoil of Office and which first appeared in The Arena. We commissioned Professor Frank Parsons and other leading economic educators and authorities to prepare papers on the govern- ment and the railways, the telegraph and telephone and the people, inequitable taxa- tion, land monopoly, and other unjust social conditions. That the people appreciated this popular educational innovation in magazine literature was seen from the fact that the circulation of the magazine steadily grew until it was be- tween three and four times as great as when we inaugurated our progressive educational campaign. We well remember that at the time when some of our friends were criticizing The Arena's course, the venerable and scholarly poet of the people, James G. Clark, wrote us that he thanked God for The Arena. “It is,” he said, “blazing the way for civilization. Other magazines will follow; and I believe that the magazines, which I call the senate of the people, will more than any other factor awaken the masses and inaugurate a great political reformation.” Since then we have often called to mind his prophecy and have noted how time was witnessing its fulfillment; and we believe that more and more the magazines will further the great political and moral renaissance which is to purge the temple of Liberty of the corrupt money-changers who have debauched the servants of the people, lowered the ideals of the nation and too frequently transformed the high-priests of morality and learning into apologists for the modem beneficiaries of privileged and purchased legislation. THE OLD WORLD. The Crisis in Russia. WE HAVE pointed out from time to time the fact that the gravest peril to the Russian government lies in the dangers that threaten her from within. For years the people have been taxed to the limit of their power to pay. Hard and oppressive treat- ment has been meted out to ail who offended the bureaucracy. In the political, social and economic fields there has been no freedom of thought, no freedom of the press, no freedom of meetings. Religious liberty has also been shamefully abridged, and popular education has been under the complete supervision of a strongly reactionary and dogmatic church that is as medieval in its spirit and character as is the government out of harmony with all the nobler aspirations of our age. The sacred pledges and oaths of the rulers have been broken in the most shameful manner, as was the case in the recent treatment of Finland, revealing a condition of moral obloquy on the part of the government that would disgrace the most savage nations. Moreover, the finest, freest, bravest and in every respect best natures of Finland, Poland and even of Russia have been imprisoned, exiled or slain if they* reflected the lofty sentiments of the revolu- tionary epoch inaugurated by the United' States. No measures were too harsh or- brutal to be inflicted upon students, peasants, laborers or nobles who stood in the path of the- bureaucracy bent upon making absolutism supreme. Thus, as was inevitably the case,, a condition of estrangement, alienation and mutual distrust has grown up between the- irresponsible rulers and the more thoughtful* Digitized by Google
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97 In the Mirror of the Present. of the peaceable and anti-revolutionary dement of society; while on the other hand the colleges and universities, the working- men’s dubs and the communes have in most instances become hot-beds of radical revolu- tionary propaganda, in spite of all the efforts of the argus-eyed minions of despotism. In recent years two men have been chiefly responsible for this blast and blight upon Russia — the late Minister of the Interior, M. Von Plehve, and the head of the Holy Snyod, M. Pobodonostseff. Since the death of the former and the revelations which were brought out at the time of his assassination, revealing the existence of a far-reaching plot on the part of desperate and resolute men who were de- termined to temper the despotism of the Czar with continued assassinations unless a wider meed of freedom was granted to the people, the alarmed government has felt the necessity of at least pretending to partially yield to the popular sentiment. Accordingly Prince Sviatopolk-Mirsky was called to the Ministry of the Interior and a more liberal rigime was promised. At his suggestion it was decided to permit a certain number of the members of the zemstvos or communal councils to as- semble in St. Petersburg to discuss a few matters that were uppermost in the munici- palities and communes of Russia. The Czar at first regarded this action on the part of his liberal minister with favor, but the bureaucrats instantly took alarm. Well they knew the seething discontent that exists under the des- potic superficial calm. Well they knew that any public gathering of thoughtful men would reflect the demands of justice and liberalism in such a manner as to shake the structure of absolutism that rests wholly on brutal and merciless exhibitions of force. The repre- sentations of the reactionists so far influenced the Czar that he refused his sanction for the proposed gathering, but permitted the minister toallow the assembled council to meet in private and to enjoy the protection of the police. Accordingly on the nineteenth of November the isemstvos assembled and on the twentieth of November completed a memorial that dearly and eloquently voices the sentiment of the law-revering and intelligent Russians, outside of the reactionary bureaucracy and its supporters. The members of the zemstvos have scant sympathy with revolutionists as jet They are distinctly representatives of law and order, and as representatives of law and order in the highest sense of those words they are naturally out of sympathy with the unjust and tyrannical spirit and action of the bureaucracy. And if these men have as yet shown little more sympathy with revolution than have the imperial rulers themselves, their memorial reveals the fact that they have traveled far — very far — on the way toward freedom. If the government ignores their requests, if it seeks to suppress such meetings in the future, or if it seeks to disgrace or punish these fearless spokesmen of the empire, they will be forced into the camp of the radicals, and with such accessions revolution might easily be guided to a triumphant conclusion. Nothing is weaker than a brutal and cruel despotism when a formidable revolution is led by great souls who have dedicated their lives to die cause of free institutions and the ad- vancement of humanity. The memorial adopted on the nineteenth and twentieth of November is a bold and statesmanlike paper in which is set forth the unhappy condition of Russia, with a people estranged from their rulers and where the atmosphere of distrust breeds the spirit of revolt and revolution. These resolutions are instinct with the breath of the larger life. That they have found utterance at such a time proves that the same spirit that animated our illustrious fathers lives in the minds of the most thoughtful of the Russians to-day. Take, for example. Sections 6 and 7 of the memorial, which read as follows: “Section 6. For the unrestricted expression of public opinion and the free expression and satisfaction of popular needs, it is essential to guarantee freedom of conscience and speech and of the press, and also freedom of meeting and association. “Section 7. Self-reliance is the chief con- dition of the proper and successful develop- ment of the political and economic life of the country. A considerable majority of the population of Russia belonging to the peasant class, it is necessary first of all to place the latter in a position favorable for the develop- ment of self-reliance and energy, and this is attainable only by a radical alteration of the present inequitable and humiliating condition of the peasants. For this purpose it is neces- sary (a) to equalize the civil and political rights of peasants with the other classes; ( b ) release rural self-government from administrative tutelage; (c) safeguard peasants by proper courts of justice.” One almost feels that the spirit of the im- mortal author of the Declaration of Independ* Digitized by Google
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98 In the Mirror of the Present. ence was present when those brave and noble utterances were penned in behalf of freedom of the press, freedom of conscience and the rights of the oppressed peasants. But the section that even more perfectly reflects the spirit of free government and which has therefore most enraged the bureau- cracy, is the one practically calling for con- stitutional government in which an elective parliament shall make the laws and supervise the administration of the public revenues. In its final form this section reads as follows: “In order to secure the proper development of the life of the state and the people, it is imperatively necessary that there be regular participation of national representatives, sit- ting as a specially-elected body, to make laws, regulate the revenues and expenditures, and control the legality of the action of the admin- istration.” The meeting further adopted a declaration in favor of general amnesty for all political offenders in prison or exile by administrative orders. When it is remembered that the zemstvo presidents who signed this memorial were not only elected by the zemstvos or municipal oiganizations, but were all confirmed by the bureaucratic government, and that the signa- tories also include five marshals of the nobility — the elections to which offices are of course also confirmed by the government — the significance of the memorial becomes all the more impressive and further emphasizes the truth of the statements of some of these leaders, who have pointed out that the ap- parent solidity of the Russian government is fictitious rather than real. It is highly prob- able that this memorial marks the parting of the ways for Russia. Three courses are open before the Czar and his advisers: (1) They may ignore the memorial and set to work to directly or indirectly degrade and punish the bravest of the leaders. (2) They may grant partial reforms and appear to yield many points without granting any of the demands which shall be radical in character. (8) They may frankly meet the people by granting the demands made by the zemstvos. It is probable that the second course will be the one pursued, for unless the reactionaries gain control of the Czar and succeed in driv- ing Prince Sviatopolk-Mirksy into retirement, some recognition of the memorial will be re- quired. Yet it is inconceivable that any real reforms of a radical or far-reaching character can be hoped for while the Czar is as strongly influenced as he is at the present time by the reactionary head of the Russian Church. But the memorial that has been published has sounded the marching orders for the friends of freedom, and the battle for constitutional government will inevitably be fought in the near future. The doom of the present system has been sounded. One of the signers of the zemstvo memorial well voiced the sentiment of the more far-seeing and thoughtful Russians when he declared that “the present system must in the end spell ruin or revolution.” The Bourbon monarchy was confronted by precisely the same problem, and through re- fusing the reasonable concessions demanded by the people incurred the ruin of the dynasty and the overthrow of the government. In England during the last century the same alternatives were presented to the throne and aristocracy, but in the latter nation the rulers had learned wisdom and yielded to the just and reasonable demands of the friends of con- stitutional government who were also the champions of peaceful and orderly progress toward the enjoyment of free institutions, and as a result there was no shock of force, no bloodshed or widespread ruin. Which course will the bureaucracy of Russia elect to pursue ? That is the momentous question that confronts the Czar and his government. Municipal-Ownership in Liverpool: A Former Citizen’s Views. From all parts of the country come letters evincing the fact that our people are at last awakening to a realization that the public- service corporations are not only the fountain- head of a large proportion of our present-day political corruption, but that they are annually taking from our citizens millions upon millions of dollars that under public-ownership and operation would be applied to reduce the rates and fares and to lessen the taxes. Among many interesting letters we * have recently received, comes one from Mr. J. Morgan, formerly a citizen of Liverpool, now a resident of this country. As the testimony of one familiar with the practical workings of street- railway service under both private and public- ownership is of special interest, we give the following extracts from his letter, which is dated Salt Lake City, Utah: “I was very much interested in a recent article on municipalization of local utilities Digitized by Google
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90 In the Mirror of the Present. that appeared in your review. I happened to be living in Liverpool when the question of city ownership was before the municipality, and I make the statement from personal knowledge, which none conversant with the facts can deny, that the service on the street- railways is incomparably superior under city operation than it was under private control. Not only does this apply to the control of traffic, but to the employees as well. A far higher class of men is engaged by the city than were in the employ either of the tram or om- nibus companies. The men employed by the city are given one week or ten days* holiday during the year, with no deduction from pay, while at the same time they work on the average of from fifteen to twenty hours a week less than they were compelled to work under private ownership. Moreover, they earn from sixty cents to a dollar per week more than they realized from the private companies, besides being supplied with uniforms for winter and summer free of cost People ac- customed to accept the arguments of the advocates of private ownership might imagine that this increase in wages and shorter hours would result in increase in traffic-rates, or that in some other way the people would pay the difference; and under private ownership this would be the case, as dividends on watered stock and high salaries to interested officials receive first consideration under private ownership. Not so under municipal opera- tion, as will be seen from the fact that in Liverpool the fares have been reduced at least fifty per cent, and the returns to the city have been far above anything the old companies ever dreamed of. I well remember living near Kensington when the old company was in possession, and the fare then was 3d. inside and 2d. outside (six cents and four cents), and frequently I was compelled to wait on the corner of Holt Road fifteen to twenty minutes for the tram. Now the cars run every seven minutes at latest and the fare is Id. (two cents) inside or out. “The ease and facility with which the city handles the traffic is worthy of great praise; I have seen nothing in America that can ap- proach it. This is very evident in the hand- ling of the enormous crowds at the football matches Saturday afternoons. Football in the North of England is the sport of the masses, and it is from the nimble sixpence (twelve cents) that the main support comes. The Everton ground can accommodate more than 60,000 persons, of which over 25,000 can be put under cover; while Liverpool’s ground, about three-quarters of a mile nearer the city, can hold over 35,000, cover being available for more than half. 15,000 is considered a small gate, and last March when the semi- final tie between Manchester City and Shef- field (in the English cup-competition) was played, over 55,000 were present, and the cars managed the traffic without a hitch. Also on the day of the Grand National (steeple- chase) at Aintree, when over a quarter of a million viewed the race, the vast majority were carried to the course in electric-cars. The old companies would have been utterly unable to control the traffic. “So satisfactory have been the results of municipal-ownership where it has been tried that the city is steadily extending its opera- tions. But perhaps the city which is most advanced along all lines is Manchester. That city now owns its own cars, gas, electric-light, power, theaters, baths, and has a fine farm (reclaimed from the bog) of over 2,000 acres. “After seeing as I have the practicality and immense value of public utilities operated for all the people, as they are in various English cities, I am more than amazed to see the Ameri- can public turning over all these concerns, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, to pri- vate corporations, which all know are in busi- ness for the making of enormous profits or dividends that under public-ownership would go to the citizens. It is of course only natural that they should oppose and seek to discredit municipal enterprises, as they know on which side their bread is buttered, but I am sur- prised at the ignorance or apathy of the American public in allowing such things to go on. But aside from the vast fortunes, the millions upon millions that private companies are annually diverting into the pockets of the few, there is another phase of the question which of itself should decide all high-minded friends of popular government to vote and work for public-ownership and operation, — the political corruption and demoralization that everywhere mark public life where private companies are seeking franchises, special privileges or the defeat of the just demands of the people. Is it ignorance or apathy, or have the people been industriously educated by the agents of public-service com- panies so that they are blind to the loss they are sustaining and the peril to good govern- ment incident to corruption?’’ Digitized by Google
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THE REAL JAPAN: ITS TRADITIONS, IDEALS AND ASPIRATIONS* A Book Stodt. I. THE ORIENT ALONE CAN INTERPRET HER OWN. THE STORY of Japan, embracing as it does her history, philosophy and poetry, is not unlike the fairy-tales of modem science; wonderful yet real; fascinating yet true; abounding in poetry yet at once sternly practical and profoundly suggestive. Up to the present time Occidental thinkers have not succeeded in faithfully depicting the life, ideals and aspirations of the Japanese people. We have some excellent thumb-nail sketches of the impressions of more or less cursory observers; some fairly good partial repre- sentations that reveal one side of Japanese life; but nothing that gives us the profounder aspects of this civilization or that reveals the deeper well-springs from which the Japanese draw their inspiration and which feed their ideals and stimulate their aspirations. Thus we find that the real Japan all but wholly eluded Sir Edwin Arnold. His was at best a most superficial view, a series of delightful pen-pictures, charmingly phrased, but reveal- ing nothing beneath the surface. Even Lafcadio Hearn, who by reason of his Greek blood and the vivid imagination of his Irish ancestors was enabled to appreciate the poetry and idealism of the Japanese, failed to grasp the profounder characteristics of the nation in which the valor of the warriors, the deep thought of the philosophers and the idealism of the poets are balaneed and blended in perhaps a more marked degree than in any other nation of our age. Even Japanese writers have as a rule failed to clearly and intelligently depict the various aspects of their national life or to reveal the deep aspirations bom of the imperial sway of tradition, philosophy and idealism over the imagination of the people. This has been in part due to the translators’ limited under- standing of one of the languages employed, which has led to the use of words which often fail to convey the author’s exact meaning, if indeed they do not express an idea quite • TheAwkanfnfof Japan. By Okakum-Kakuto. Cloth. Pp. 226. Price, #1.20 net New York : The Century Com- pany. foreign to the one intended to be expressed. Then again, to treat the great theme in a large and comprehensive manner the author, even though he be an Oriental, must be at once in perfect rapport with the idealism that so largely dominates the life of the children of Nippon — must keenly appreciate the artistic and poetic instincts of the people, and at the same time be thoroughly versed in the history of the civilizations of the Orient. He must, moreover, have a thorough grasp of the philosophic thought that so sensibly affects the imaginations and ideals of the Japanese; while in addition to these things, in order to make his subject perfectly dear to the Occi- dental mind, he must possess a mastery of our language and be familiar with the hikory of our civilization. In Okakura-Kakuzo we have a Japanese author who possesses the above-mentioned requisites in a more eminent degree than any other author who has essayed to write of Japan of whom we have any knowledge. He is a poet, a philosopher and a historian, and he possesses in no small degree an intimate knowledge of Occidental history and the trend of our civilization, while his knowledge of our language enables him to write of The Awaken- ing of Japan with the skill of a master of English, For these reasons this work is a volume that no Occidental student of the Orient can afford to slight. n. THE DAY AND NIGHT OP ASIA, To understand the civilization of Japan one must know the history of the civilizations of India and of China during the golden age of culture and refinement, of mental supremacy and moral grandeur — must, indeed, be thor- oughly familiar with the age of the sages, when peace smiled over the nations and religion and philosophy dominated the brain of the cultured; for it was from the philosophy and religion of India and from the exalted morals and idealism of the two great Chinese sages, Confucius and Lao-Tsze, that Japan drew her vital inspiration. And it was re- served for this wonderful people, by nature so hospitable to new thought, to synthetize the 100 Digitized by Google
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The Real Japan: Its Traditions, Ideals and Aspirations. 101 religion, philosophy and ethics of the Orient and appropriate this eclectic message so that it became the basis for a civilization that in many respects is unique and highly attractive to men of noble mind. Asia, like Egypt, Greece and Rome, had her golden age of culture, refinement and power. “The children of the Hwang-ho and the Ganges had from early days evolved a culture comparable with that of the era of highest enlightenment in Greece and Rome, one which even foreshadowed the trend of advanced thought in modem Europe. Bud- dhism, introduced into China and the farther East during the early centuries of the Chris- tian era, bound together the Vedic and Con- fudan ideals in a single web, and brought about the unification of Asia. A vast stream of intercourse flowed throughout the extent of the whole Buddhaland. . . . Kingdoms often exchanged courtesies, while peace married art to art From this synthesis of the whole Asiatic life a fresh impetus was given to each nation. It is curious to note that each effort in one nation to attain a higher expres- sion of humanity is marked by a simultaneous and parallel movement in the other. That liberalism and magnificence, resulting in the worship of poetry and harmony, which, in the sixth century, so characterized the reign of Yikramaditya in India, appear equally in the glorious age of the Tang emperors of China (618-007), and at the court of our contempo- rary mikados at Nara.” This was the summer-time of Oriental philosophy, marked in many respects by a higher standard of life than in other parts of the world, where the theory that might makes right dominated the imagination of great peoples. But as the plains dotted with happy homes, mantled in golden grain and studded with fruit-laden trees, are at times suddenly and with little or no warning laid waste by the fury of the hurricane’s blast, so in the thir- teenth century the warriors of the Steppes overran the rich and peaceful valleys of China and India, subduing the people, laying waste the splendid civilization of the Orient, and even crossing the waters to assail Japan. The latter people, however, were quick to re- pulse the invaders, and thus the land of the Mikado was preserved from the Mongol despotism. The hordes from the West which conquered India had embraced Moham- medanism; those which subdued China owned a corrupt form of Buddhism, and in a little time a barrier was raised — the barrier of intolerant religion — between India and China. All intercourse ceased; culture passed into eclipse; a profound inertia pervaded the Orient. The night had settled over Asia, a night that in a large measure extended to Japan, not merely because the inspiration and stimulation which came from the noble phil- osophy that had so often renewed the spiritual and moral life of Japan by the arrival from time to time of great Indian and Chinese sages and philosophers were withdrawn, but also because of the rise and increasing des- potism of the rule of the Tokugawa shoguns, which followed the repulse of the Mongols and the crushing of the Jesuit rebellion at a later date. Under the shogun despotism Japan was isolated from the world, buried alive, so to speak, for two hundred years. This was indeed a night-time for Japan, when the shoguns “threw the invisible net-work of their tyranny over all the nation. From the highest to the lowest, all were entangled in a subtile web of mutual espionage, and every element of individuality was crushed under the weight of unbending formalism. De- prived of all stimulus from without and im- prisoned within ’’ its island confines, the people groped amid a mass of tradition, groped in a midnight darkness that it seemed would never pass. The shogun despotism was one of those evils such as are ever bom into national life in times of war and which cast a baleful and sometimes fatal influence over a nation’s future. These rulers were military regents of the Mikado who succeeded in time in isolat- ing and secluding the ruler from his people. This was accomplished in the most artful manner. The Mikado should be regarded as one sacred and above the people. Was he not descended from the Sun-Goddess whose temple was the glory of Japan ? It was meet that he be surrounded by mystery and revered by the people, and that to other and less sacred or divine hands be entrusted the cares, dangers and powers of state. Such was the plea adroitly advanced, which flattered the ruler and found ready acceptance among the people. The Japanese have ever loved and venerated their Mikados. Around their rulers has ever existed a halo of glory. Poetry and sentiment have lifted them above their subjects and surrounded them with a golden aureole. Digitized by Google
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102 The Real Japan: lie Traditions, Ideals and Aspirations. “Over all was the Mikado. That sacred conception is the thought-inheritance of Japan from her very beginning. Mythology has consecrated it, history has endeared it, and poetry has idealized it. Buddhism has en- riched it with that reverence which India pays to the ‘Protector of the Law,’ and Con- fucianism has confirmed it with the loyalty which China offers to the ‘Son of Heaven.’” m. CLASS AND CASTE UNDER THE SHOGUN RULE. But under the rule of the shoguns the Mikado was very much like an invisible deity, while the shogun occupied the position of the high-priest who interprets the divinity’s will and executes his commands. And these rulers, not insensible to the peril of their posi- tion, set to work to divide the people into classes or castes as absolute in character as those which exist in India. There were the kuges or court aristocracy, the successors of the princely bureaucrats who had participated in the Mikado’s rule from 645 to 1166. Under the Togugawa shogun government, however, all political power was completely taken from the kuges. Next in importance was a class called the daimios or feudal lords. Below the daimios came the samurai or sworded gentry. Next in the descending social scale came the common- ers embracing the artisans, farmers and traders. This class enjoyed many privileges and great security. “Within a limited sphere they were even allowed to develop self-government. Industry and commerce flourished unmolested. Agriculture was specially encouraged, as rice was the medium in which the revenues of the government were taken. It is to the com- moners that we owe the arts and crafts which have made Japan famous. It is to them that we are indebted for our modem drama and popular literature, the color-prints of Torii and Hokusai.” They were, however, segre- gated by the shoguns. Social barriers faced them at every turn and they were sternly forbidden to trespass on what were termed the rights of the classes above them. They were not allowed to own weapons, and were also subject to the espionage of the secret police of the shoguns. Below the commoners and “ostracized entirely from the social scheme, were the out- casts known as Yettas. They were the descendants of criminals, who, in early times. were not allowed to intermarry with other families, and so formed a distinct caste by themselves. Some of them became quite wealthy, owing to their possession of a monop- oly in the handling of leather and hide, an occupation considered unclean, according to the Buddhist canons.” IV. GRAT OP THE DAWN. With one great and beneficent work the shogun despotism must be credited, and that was the introduction of universal education: “Under the rigime inaugurated by Iyeyasu every child in the empire was obliged to learn to read and write, under the instruction of the local priest, thus giving a certain amount of education to even the meanest peasant, while innumerable academies were established throughout the length and breadth of the land.” Owing to the character of the education the shoguns had little fear of its leading to rebel- lion, because the ethics and philosophy of both Confucianism and Buddhism enjoined peace and obedience. Yet the training of the mind of a whole people to think consecutively, and the even partial opening of the doors of literature, art and philosophy to the public mind, could not fail to lead in time to intel- lectual growth, restlessness and change. This fact, which history clearly proves, the shoguns failed to appreciate, and unquestion- ably the universal education thus inaugurated served as a John the Baptist, preparing the way for the master-currents that culminated in the intellectual, moral and esthetic renais- sance of Japan, and later in the political revolution and renationalization of the empire. V. THE THREE MAIN CURRENTS THAT TRANSFORMED JAPAN. It has been the custom of Occidental writers ignorant of the history of Japan, or at least possessing but a superficial knowledge to credit Commodore Perry’s compulsory opening up of Japan to the Western world as the cause of the phenomenal awakening and transformation of the Japanese nation. Yet to thoughtful students of history this explana- tion could not, in the nature of things, be satisfactory. China and India have been brought into intimate relation with Occidental civilization, yet the profound inertia of the Digitized by Google
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The Real Japan: Its Traditions , Ideals and Aspirations. 10S ages remains with them. Not so with Japan, and clearly there were other master-influences at work that prepared the people for this wonderful forward movement. As a matter of fact, the renaissance and revolution wit- nessed in Japan in the nineteenth century reminds us strongly of the renaissance, the reformation and the political revolutions which marked the first three centuries of modem times. It is customary with our Occidental historians to begin the period we term Modem times with the fall of Constan- tinople and the dispersion of Eastern scholars over Western Europe; yet this event was merely the match that lighted the magazine. If Europe had not been prepared for this sudden conflagration and diffusion of the light, the dispersion of the scholars of the East, even though they were the high-priests who carried the ark of the covenant of a holy philosophy and a noble art, would have re- sulted in no splendid moral, intellectual and esthetic awakening. So was it with Japan, and her awakening is only intelligible if we take into consideration three great currents or influences that quietly and subtly trans- formed the nation. “Three separate schools of thought united to cause the regeneration of Japan. The first taught her to enquire; the second, to act; the third, for what to act All were tiny streams at their outset, finding their source in the solitary souls of independent thinkers who nursed them always under censure, often in banishment They even coursed from within the prison-walls and trickled from the scaffold. They were almost hidden beneath the rank vegetation of conventionalism until the mo- ment when they united to leap in cataracts of patriotic zeal inundating the whole nation.” The first of these great currents of prog- ress was the school of classic learning, known as the Kogaku, which “arose at the end of the seventeenth century as a protest against the dogmas of the governmental academies.” “This school for the first time frees the Toku- gawa mind from the trammels of formalism, though its liberalism does not result in any particular conclusions.” The second influence which proved a potent factor in preparing Japan for the great awak- ening was the school of Oyomei. It too rose in the seventeenth century and its disciples embraced the philosophy of action as pro- mulgated by the Chinese sage, Wangyang- ming, who held that “all knowledge was useless unless expressed in action. To know was to be. Virtue was real in so far only as it was manifested in deeds. The whole uni- verse was incessantly surging on to higher spheres of development, calling upon all to join in its glorious advance. To realize their teachings it was necessary to live the life of the sages themselves, to consecrate one’s whole energy to the service of mankind.” The third cause of progress was found in the historical school which familiarized the people with their ancient treasure-house of philosophy, art and history. Early in the eighteenth century this great school became a powerful factor in Japanese civilization, and “toward the end of the century the study of archaeology increased to such an extent that the Tokugawa government and wealthy daimios vied with each other in the collection of rare manuscripts and encyclopedic publi- cations on art, while well-known connois- seurs were appointed to investigate and record the treasures of the old monasteries at Nara and Kioto. All this continued to lift the veil which had hung for so many centuries over the past. This was indeed the era of renaissance in Japan. . . . The historic spirit swept on through the realms of literature, art, and religion, until it finally reached the heart of the samurai. Till then its effects had been brilliant but not momentous, its expressions scholarly and therefore limited in scope. A democratization of this new message is found in the works of the early writers of the last century, among whom the poet-historian Rai-Sanyo stands foremost in rank. It was from his lucid pages that the full meaning of the past dawned on the minds of the young samurai and ronins.” At last the magic influence of this full-orbed renaissance took complete possession of the great samurai class or the sworded gentry of Japan. “Soon as the memory of past ages came over the samurai, the lost glory of the Son of Heaven flashed upon them. They saw the Mikado himself leading his army to victory. They heard their ancestors beating their shields with their swords, as they sang the war-song of Otomo, the terrible joy of dying by the Mikado’s side. . . . The historic spirit now stood sword in hand, and the sword was one of no mean steel. The samurai. Digitized by Google
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104 The Reed Japan: Its Traditions, Ideals and Aspirations. like his weapon, was cold, but never forgot the fire in which he was forged. His impetuosity was always tempered by his code of honor. “Strange whispers traveled from the cities to the villages. The lotus trembled above the turbid waters, the stars began to pale before the dawn, and that mighty hush which be- speaks the coming storm fell on the nation. Oyomei was abroad and the dragon was call- ing forth the hurricane. It was at this mo- ment that the West appeared on our horizon.” VI. THE ADVENT OF UNCLE BAM. Naturally enough, when the ships of Com- modore Perry’s fleet sailed into the waters of Japan, feelings of indignation, resentment and consternation were experienced by die people. Here was a powerful and strange nation demanding friendship and treaty- rights when no intercourse or treaties were desired. Excitement in Japan ran high, and the slogan, “Away with the barbarians!” echoed on every side. “The alarm-bells clanged throughout the country. Foam-covered riders rushed through every castle-gate, spreading the momentous news. Spears were tom from their racks and ancient armor was eagerly dragged from dust-covered caskets. Night and day could be heard the clanging of steel on anvils forging die accoutrements of war. The old Prince of Mito was summoned from his hermitage to take command, and his cannon lined the principal points of defence. Buddhists wore away their rosaries in invoking Kartikiya, the war-god, and Shinto priests fasted while they called on the sea and the tempest to destroy the invader.” Japan as in a day had awakened. The old lethargy was gone forever. The people were united and thrilling with the highest patriotic passion. They faced a future big with possi- bilities for the Orient, and the nation, in the language of our author, “became one and the night of Asia fled forever before the rays of the rising sun.” At length the government came to see that the course of wisdom lay in making terms with Commodore Perry. The success of the mission was doubtless largely due to the tact and patience of the American commander, of whom our author has this to say: “Our sincere thanks are also due to the American admiral, who showed infinite patience and fairness in his negotiations. Oriental nations never forget a kindness, and international kindnesses are unfortunately extremely rare. The name of Commodore Perry has become so dear to us that, on the fiftieth anniversary of his arrival, the people erected a monument at the spot where he landed.” VH. MODERN JAPAN. We now come to modem Japan. Passing over the author’s interesting description of the brilliant things achieved and of the aims and* ideals of the great Unionist leaders, we arrive at the critical period when the present Mikado assumed control of the reins of government: “In 1867, as soon as the Shogun had re- signed his office, the Unionist ministry created two councils, one composed of the leading daimios and kuges, the other of representa- tive samurai from various daimiates. When his Majesty the present Emperor ascended the throne in 1868 and proclaimed the Restoration, he declared the establishment of a national assembly in which important affairs of state should be decided by public opinion. In 1876 a senate was created, to which all contem- plated legislation had to be submitted by the cabinet, and this was soon followed by the establishment of the Court of Final Appeal. . . . Consistent with Eastern traditions, our democracy is an accretion, not an eruption.” One of the first rescripts of the Mikado related to education and in it he emphasized the importance of schooling and encouraged his people to acquire knowledge “from all sources throughout the world.” “We have already mentioned the existence in Tokugawa days of elementary schools for the commoners and academies of learning for the higher classes. These were now sys- tematically organized so that they might furnish the nation with the knowledge neces- sary for carrying out the obligations of its new environment. Elementary education was made compulsory for all boys and girls above six years of age, and normal schools were established in each of the provinces to supply them with teachers. In our educational system of to-day, next above the elementary schools come the middle schools, in which a Digitized by Google
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The Real Japan: Its Traditions, Ideals and Aspirations. 105 liberal education is given and pupils are pre- pared for entering die higher institutions of learning. There are also special schools for those desirous of entering the navy or army, agriculture, industrial science, commerce, or the arts and crafts, while the imperial univer- sity includes colleges of law, literature, medicine, engineering and science. Female education is not neglected, though, in accord- ance with Eastern customs, it is given sepa- rately. A few years ago a ladies’ university was started in Tokio. The study of one of the European languages is compulsory in all except the elementary schools — that of Eng- lish being die one generally required. A great number of Americans and Europeans are employed to give instruction, and thou- sands of young men and women study abroad either at their own or the government’s ex- pense. Our eagerness to acquire Western learning has prompted hosts of our young men to seek menial work in foreign countries, — service, according to Confudan notions, not being considered derogatory. The ethical training given to the rising generation is based on the teachings of earlier days.” Very interesting are the author’s observa- tions relating to women. Here he shows that Japan is indebted in a positive way to Western civilization, though throughout all ages women have enjoyed a higher place in Japanese civilization than in that of most Oriental lands: M Another important feature of the reforma- tion lay in the exaltation of womanhood. The Western attitude of profound respect toward the gender sex exhibits a beautiful phase of refinement which we are anxious to emulate. It is one of the noblest messages that Christianity has given us. Christianity originated in the East, and, except as regards womanhood, its modes of thought are not new to Eastern minds. As the new religion spread westward through Europe, it naturally be- came influenced by the idiosyncrasies of the various converted nations, so that the poetry of the German forest, the adoration of the Virgin in the middle centuries, the age of chivalry, the songs of the troubadours, the delicacy of the Latin nature, and, above all, the dean manhood of the Anglo-Saxon race, probably all contributed their share toward die idealization of woman. “In Japan, woman has always commanded a respect and freedom not to be found else- where in the East. We have never had a Salic law, and it is from a female divinity, the Sun-goddess, that our Mikado traces his lineage. During many of the most brilliant epochs in our ancient history we were under the rule of a female sovereign. Our Empress Zingo personally led a victorious army into Korea, and it was Empress Suiko who in- augurated the refined culture of the Nara period. Female sovereigns ascended the throne in their own right even when there were male candidates, for we considered woman in all respects as the equal of man. In our classic literature we find the names of more great authoresses than authors, while in feudal days some of our amazons charged with the bravest of the Kamakura knights. “We have never hitherto, however, learned to offer any special privileges to woman. Love has never occupied an important place in Chinese literature; and in the tales of Japanese chivalry, the samurai, although ever at the service of the weak and oppressed, gave his help quite irrespective of sex. To-day we are convinced that the elevation of woman is the elevation of the race. She is the epitome of the past and the reservoir of the future, so that the responsibilities of the new social life which is dawning on the ancient realms of the Sun- goddess may be safely intrusted to her care. Since the Restoration we have not only con- firmed the equality of sex in law, but have adopted that attitude of respect which the West pays to woman. She now possesses all the rights of her Western sister, though she does not care to insist upon them; for almost all of our women still consider the home, and not society, as their proper sphere. “Time alone can decide the future of the Japanese lady, for the question of woman- hood is one involving the whole social life and its web of convention. In the East woman has always been worshiped as the mother, and all those honors which the Christian knight brought in homage to his lady-love, the samurai laid at his mother’s feet. It is not that the wife is less adored, but that maternity is holier. Again, our woman loves to serve her husband; for service is the noblest expres- sion of affection, and love rejoices more in giving than in receiving. In the harmony of Eastern society the man consecrates himself to the state, the child to the parent, and the wife to the husband.” Digitized by Google
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106 Books of The point-of-view of Japanese statesman- ship and scholarship differs widely from that of the Occidental world, in that they strive not to mistake the means for the end; not to permit the acquisition of wealth, for example, to become the end of life instead of merely an incident that may be made to help further develop the highest ideals and the happiness of all the people. “ It should be remembered," says our author, "that in Eastern philosophy the poetry of things is more real and vital than the mere facts and events. "The West is for progress, but progress towards what? When material efficiency is complete, what end, asks Asia, will have been accomplished? When the passion for fraternity has culminated in universal co- operation, what purpose is it to serve? If mere self-interest, where do we find the boasted advance? "The picture of Western glory unfortun- ately has a reverse. Size alone does not con- stitute true greatness, and the enjoyment of luxury does not always result in refinement. BOOKS OF The Fishers. By J. Henry Harris. Cloth. Pp. 844. Price, $1.50. New York: John Lane. In The Fishers Mr. Harris has given the reading public a thoughtful and well-written novel, a romance in which the common life of a poop fishing-village is invested with rare charm, while with a few exceptions the ethical ideals evinced are wholesome. It is to us a matter of much surprise, however, to find a writer who while not evincing the bravery of thought or grasp of fundamental principles that mark the writings of advanced economists and great practical idealists among modem social philosophers, is nevertheless far in advance of many conventional religious, ethical and social teachers, striving to justify the gaining of wealth through speculation in Wall street. The day is coming, and that right soon, when the people will see things as they are, will recognize in the great Wall-street gamblers the •Books intended for review in Thi Abbca should be •ddrened to B. O. Flower, Editorial Department, Thi Ajlkka, Boston, Ifass. the Day. The individuals who go to the making up of the great machine of so-called modem civiliza- tion become the slaves of mechanical habit and are ruthlessly dominated by the monster they have created. In spite of the vaunted freedom of the West, true individuality is destroyed in the competition for wealth, and happiness and contentment are sacrificed to an incessant craving for more. The West takes pride in its emancipation from medieval superstition, but what of that idolatrous worship of wealth that has taken its place? What sufferings and discontent lie hidden behind the gorgeous mask of the present? The voice of socialism is a wail over the agonies of Western economics, — the tragedy of Capital and Labor." Such in brief is an outline of the general trend of this remarkable little volume, which must be read in its entirety to be appreciated. Especially thoughtful and convincing is the discussion of the groundlessness and puerility of the cry against the yellow peril by the nations that have proved a "white disaster* to the Oriental races. THE DAY * worst of all gamblers. The great English scientist and scholar. Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, has given voice to a growing senti- ment among men and women of conscience when he characterizes speculations as "but a form of gambling, and perhaps the very worst form, since it impoverishes not the few fellow- gamblers only, but the whole community.’* The great speculators acquire vast fortunes, but this is done through acquisition instead of through earning wealth, and the acquisition is usually the result of indirection. It may be through deceiving the public; it may be through watering stock and thus giving a fictitious value to certain wares; it may be, and frequently is, acquired through sudden depression of stocks far below the actual worth of the property, by means of alarming rumors, after which the speculator buys the stock in at a nominal price. This done he proceeds to inflate it by means of unwarranted promises, and it is disposed of at the abnor- mally increased prices. All these methods of obtaining wealth are of course dishonorable. Digitized by Google
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107 Books of the Day. dishonest and ethically indefensible. And ye t such is the ethical confusion, the pitiable moral anarchy in our present-day life, that modern writers, journalists and, be it said with regret, not a few ministers, so lose all sense of moral proportion as to justify the course of these modem parasites of the com- mercial world, and we find in fiction such imaging examples of lack of right relation- ship in ethics as that of which we are speaking in the present work, where the author presents high ethical ideals and in the same breath justifies the acquisition of wealth through Wall-street gambling, as it enables the son of the gambler to do good with his money. By parity of reasoning one should return thanks to the Italian brigand who waylays and robs the traveling public, but who while living or when dying devotes a portion of his ill-gotten gain to churches, colleges and for the relief of poverty, because without this robbery it would have been impossible for him to have posed as a benefactor to religion, education and the poor. Mental and moral confusion such as is found in this book and in much of our present-day editorial writing as well as fiction, is one of the chief reasons accounting for the alow progress made by the public toward the realization and exercise of true ethics or the fundamental moral verities. Yet if we except such lapses as the above, the moral atmosphere of the work is high and fine. The story deals with life in a poor fishing- rillage in Cornwall. One of the principal characters is Unde Zack, a remarkably well- drawn diameter, who is a liberal and vigorous thinker far in advance of the people of the little fishing-village. He is ever scandalizing the narrow sentiments of the religious secta- rians, who in addition to an unquestioning belief in the old-fashioned devil and his all but omnipotent power, have also retained many of the old superstitions of their pagan ances- tors. Uncle Zack preaches the gospel of light which embraces an intelligent cooperation, progressive practice in work and a rational concept of life dominated by sentiments of justice and fair-play. Two other prindpal characters are Robert Pendean and Mary Vaughan, the lovef and the loved of the story in so far as it is a senti- mental romance. Robert Pendean is de- scended from old Cornish stock. His father fared forth to America, whence he drifted into Wall street, became a great speculator, acquired a vast fortune, and is proudly recog- nized as one of the great representatives of “high finance” in Wall street. His son Robert when at Harvard strangely enough falls under humanitarian influences and developes reform tendencies which are highly distasteful to his father, or at least the father becomes satisfied that he and his son should not be together unless the latter can divest his mind of his Utopian social ideals and develop a taste for “high finance.” Finally, at the suggestion of the father, five million dollars is settled upon the son on condition that he goes to Europe, which he does and finally gravitates to Cornwall, where in the bosom of a family of relatives he finds a congenial abode, ren- dered especially pleasing by the presence of two beautiful, highly attractive and cultured young ladies. One of these, Mary by name and next to Uncle Zack the most charming character in the work — a twentieth-century young woman of penetration and a firm faith in the essential good in the human heart, be- comes the bride of Robert Pendean; and an extensive plan for a practical cooperative enterprise among all the fishermen and the building of a model fishing-village nigh to the wretched old town, engrosses the young people and fills the heart of old Unde Zack with un- feigned joy. Principles of Political Economy . By Charles Gide. Translated from the latest edition and Americanized by C. William A. Veditz, Ph.D.. LL.B. Cloth. Pp. 706. Price, $2.00. Boston: D. C. Heath & Co. This work, like all books on political economy that are popular in the educational institutions of many lands, has many strong points of excellence, and, from our point of view, some fatal defects. It is written in a charmingly lucid manner. The author is almost as felicitous in presenting a subject that in the hands of most scholars is extremely dull as was Henry George. This work has been brought down to the latest date and evidently no pains has been spared, within certain limits, to present the subject in a broad, up-to-date and comprehensive manner. A third excel- lence is found in its concrete presentation of the subject. Few books so ludd are also so condse as this work, and what is more, by the author’s method of presentation the interest in the subject and its intelligibility have gained rather than lost by the concise and direct treatment. This is owing to the fact that he Digitized by Google
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108 Books of avoids long-drawn-out and pedantic argu- mentation and theorizing. The division and arrangement of the work are also admirable and with the fairly good index enable the reader to find anything he desires with little loss of time. On the other hand, this work, though far less open to criticism than many conventional political economies, falls, in our judgment, far short of meeting the demands of an up-to-date political economy that claims to present im- partially the various present-day theories of government. The newer systems of political economy, which own millions of disciples among the most thoughtful and conscientious men and women of Europe and America, are accorded far less space than they rightfully deserve. The economist who would be strictly just and impartial should devote much space to new systems and theories that differ fundamentally from those popularly accepted, when the new have proved convincing to millions of intelligent people; because while the conventional theories are familiar to the public, very few, comparatively speaking, understand the new philosophies and theories or have other than a partial and often a wholly mistaken conception of them, based on *the genera] misrepresentations of conventional and conservative writers and the press, which always assails and misrepresents any new, bold or radical proposition. Again, after an outline of a theory is given, the just, fair and safe writer, if he elects to give the popular objections to the new theory, should at least indicate how the advocates among the innovators meet these conventional objections. In the third place a work pre- tending to merely treat in a thoroughly im- partial manner the theories of political economy should not present the author’s opinions for or against any specific system. In all these particulars this work is seriously at fault. The treatment of the newer political theories and radical measures has not, it seems to us, been given the space that for the reasons given above they should receive; while the claim of the publishers, that the book is im- partial, is not borne out by the facts. If it had been claimed that it was more impartial than most similar works, the contention might have gone unchallenged. But after outlining a new theory and giving the objections of con- ventional leaders, in common fairness the answers to these objections should be at least briefly mentioned, and this our author fails to the Day. do. For example, the treatment of Mr. George’s system of land-taxation is given fifteen lines in elucidation, on pages 616 and 617, while the author gives over fifty lines to combatting Mr. George’s position or offering objections; and after admitting that the un- qualified ownership of land enables the land- holding class to reap an unearned benefit at the expense of the community, he yet holds that the proposed measure is “impracticable in so far as it concerns property already estab- lished.’’ Thus it will be seen that less than one-third the space is given to the outlining and elucidation of Mr. George’s theory that is devoted to an attempt to confute it. while the author fails entirely to indicate how each objection that he urges has been met by the Single-Taxers. To say that such treatment of such a subject is fair or impartial is pal- pably absurd. Again, the author after a brief and to our mind wholly inadequate exposition of the principles of socialism, probably feeling that the little said might cause him to lose caste with the hide-bound schoolmen who are only less intolerantly dogmatic than the conven- tional theologians, hastens to observe, in speaking of socialism, that, “it seems to be neither realizable nor from many points of view very desirable.” These examples are typical and will serve to show how ex parte in nature the work is. Such faults cannot fail to lessen its value with men of broad intellectual vision and truly progressive instincts, while for social reformers and liberal democrats they will be accounted sufficient defects to measurably at least con- demn it. The Man on the Box . By Harold MacGrath. Illustrated. Cloth. Pp. 362. Price, $1.50. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company. If one desires a romantic love-story dealing with present-day life in Washington, written in a bright, breezy and charmingly entertain- ing manner, — a spirited story with plenty of action, unhackneyed in character and very strong in human interest, he cannot do better than read The Man on the Box. It is, we think, Mr. MacGrath ’s best romance and should prove very popular. In it the hero, Robert Warburton, a soldier possessed of twenty-five thousand dollars, renounces the army and sets out to see Europe. In Paris he falls in love with a beautiful American girl Digitized by Google
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109 Books of the Day . before he knows her name, and follows her to New York, vainly striving to secure an intro- duction to the lady or her father, who he learns is a retired army officer by the name of Annes- ley. On ship-board he meets a Russian count, one Karloff by name, the villain of the romance. He is a young man of commanding personal appearance and fine address. He is in the secret-service of Russia, a fact of course not known to the public, as he poses as an attachS of the Russian Embassy, but his real mission is to secure plans of the coast-defences of America — defences which are well known to Colonel Annesley, as he is an eminent strate- gist perfectly familiar with all the Atlantic forts. Colonel Annesley has a penchant for gam- bling and unfortunately knows far less about cards than some with whom he plays. The Colonel and his daughter go to Washington for the winter, which is also the destination of Count Karloff. Thither also goes the hero. He has in Washington a brother and sister in excellent financial conditions. The home- coming is a joyous one to Robert. From his sister he learns the name of the young woman who has unconsciously drawn him from Paris. She was a schoolmate of Miss Nancy War- burton. Robert conceives the idea of playing a practical joke on his sister by exchanging places with the coachman and driving his sister and sister-in-law home from a function at the British Embassy. He is a master horseman but determines to drive the ladies so as to frighten them and then add to their consternation by hugging and kissing his sister before she finds out who he is. Un- luckily— or was it luckily? — for the young Jehu, he gets on the box of the wrong carriage and by a prank of fate starts to drive Miss Annesley home, thinking her to be his sister. The horses which are high-spirited, run some distance. The ladies are terrified. When Warburton stops Miss Annesley steps from the carriage and instantly the pseudo-coach- man springs to the sidewalk and hugs her. Mounted policemen arrive at this juncture and Warburton is ignominiously dragged off to jail, but the next day his fair accuser with- draws the gravest charge and he is fined thirty- fire dollars. This, however the accuser also pays, and at her invitation he accepts a posi- tion as her coachman. His new mistress, who does not recognize exactly who he is, puts him to all kinds of humiliating tasks, not the least of which are trailing behind Miss Annesley and Count Karloff when they ride together and being impressed into the position of serving-man when Count Karloff dines at the Colonel’s. From the time he enters the service of Miss Annesley the plot thickens, and there is .a deep undercurrent of villainy running through the romance. Karloff plays a bold and daring game for the hand of the fair American, and during all this time Warburton’s love for his divinity grows in intensity. At last the very dramatic climax is reached, and then follows what from a literary point-of-view is an anti- climax very similar to that found in Bulwer’s Lady of Lyons , after the joyous recognition of Melnotte by Pauline. The novel is written simply to entertain and is one of the best light love stories of the season. George Eliot, By Mathilde Blind. New edition with supplementary chapters on George Eliot at Work, her Friends and her Home-Life. Illustrated. Cloth. Pp. 360. Price, $1.25. Boston: Little, Brown & Company. The excellent life of George Eliot, by Mathilde Blind, will remain a standard biography dealing with the most illustrious woman novelist of the English-speaking world and one of the greatest, if not the greatest female writer of the nineteenth century. The new edition of this notable work which has recently been brought out by Little, Brown & Company has been greatly en- hanced in value by the introduction of able and carefully-prepared chapters by Frank Waldo, Ph.D., and G. A. Turkington, M.A., in which we have a charming description of the friends and home-life of George Eliot, and a critical estimate of her place in literature, together with an exhaustive bibliography. George Eliot’s works were among the strong literary influences that in no small degree colored the thought-world of thousands of our most re- flective citizens. Her place among the illus- trious representatives of English literature is assured. Her works will long be read, though we doubt if they will ever again be as popular as they were a quarter of a century ago. Her life, though not a particularly eventful or strenuous career, nevertheless possessed a strong human interest, which in the hands of Mathilde Blind becomes an absorbingly fascinating and instructive story. Digitized by Google
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110 Books of forming a capital introduction to the writings of George Eliot. It is a volume that we take pleasure in recommending to our readers as a book which should find a place in all well- ordered libraries and a work that every young person should read as a part of his general culture. Bethink Yourselves! Tolstoi’s Letter on the War Between Russia and Japan. Paper. pp. 59. Price, 10 cents. Chicago: The Hammersmark Publishing Company. This pamphlet merits the widest possible circulation. It is a cry of one of the greatest conscience-voices of any age to the conscience of twentieth -century civilization. It is a trum- pet-call to true Christian men and women to range themselves positively and effectively on the side of Jesus and of all the noblest prophets and leaders of the world in that moral struggle which is bound to be one of the greatest con- flicts of the twentieth century — the war against war. We believe the incoming time will wit- ness the advent of the golden age of peace, and surely such a result will be inevitable if men and women pledged to the cause of human weal unite in the educational propaganda now being vigorously carried on. Such powerful pleas as Count Tolstoi’s will necessarily greatly aid the cause of peace. This little pamphlet is ad- mirably adapted for propaganda purposes. It is printed in clear, pleasing type, on excel- lent paper. The size of the work admits of its being carried in the side-pocket. The Wolverine . A Romance of Early Michi- gan. By Albert Lathrop Laurence. Illus- trated. Cloth. Pp. 338. Price, $1.50. Boston: Little, Brown & Company. The Wolverine will appeal to those readers who delight in the old-fashioned love-story in which little attention is paid to psychical problems, but which abounds in action and is the Day. vibrant with human interest. The heroine in this novel is a beautiful French Catholic, Marie Beaucceur. The hero, Perry North, is a stem Puritan. Religion rises as a barrier between them, and the fear of losing her soul leads Marie to the commission of an act that well-nigh blasts the future of both lovers and that results in years of struggle, battling and estrangement, during which stirring events are transpiring in which the leading char- acters play prominent parts and where some of the situations are strongly dramatic. Especially is this true of the chapters dealing with the disputation over the boundary be- tween Michigan and Ohio, which almost ended in a state of civil war. There are also many other exciting episodes in the novel, but the chief interest from first to last centers in Perry North and Marie Beaucceur. It is a case where the course of true love runs over rocks and rapids, but where the current gains in strength, compelling force and volume as it hastens toward die broad and peaceful plains where the sun shines on the silver surface of the stream that runs joyously through flower- decked fields and fruit-laden forests that ring with the music of love’s sweet melody. Baby Bible Stories. By Gertrude Smith. Cloth. Pp. 171. Philadelphia: Henry Altemus Company. This is a beautff ully-gotten-up book for small children. In it such Bible stories as those of Noah, Joseph, Moses, David, Jonah and the whale, and Daniel and the lions are told in simple language that can easily be understood and appreciated by small children. Here also are some New Testament tales, such as the healing of Jairus’ daughter. The stories are well written, and by those who believe in teaching the little folks the wonder-tales of the Old Testament as part of the divine word of God the book will be highly appreciated. It contains about thirty excellent illustrations and is tastefully bound. Digitized by Google
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NOTES AND COMMENTS RUDOLPH BLANKENBURG'S Forty Yeats in the Wilderness; or, the Masters and Riders of "the Freemen ” of Pennsylvania: In this issue we open a series of papers that we believe will be the most important contribution to the literature of the moral and political renaissance that is dawning which has been made or will be made for some time to come. “Forty Years in the Wilderness*’ will run through seven issues of The Arena. The series has been prepared by the eminent citizen of Phila- delphia, Mr. Rudolph Blankenburg, whose Ttliant service for civic morality has endeared him to all the nobler minds of Pennsylvania. In these papers will be given an authentic history of the rise and domination of corrupt practices in the govern- ment of the Keystone State, which have virtually overthrown republican rule, debauched the elec- torate and well-nigh destroyed high political ideals among the people. This bold, brave, conscientious and authentic story, penned bv one of the great merchants and manufacturers of Pennsylvania, can- not fail to exert a tremendous influence on all high- minded men who love justice and appreciate the priceless worth of free institutions. The opening paper gives a vivid picture of “The Birth of Cor- ruption.** Next month in a powerful contribution the master-spirit in this reign of corruption, graft and political debauchery will be graphically por- trayed in a chapter that will hold the interest of the reader with the compelling power of a great tragedy. It is the duty of every American to read these papers. Nay, more; it is the high duty of every parent to read them aloud to his sons and at the same time to instill lofty civic ideals and principles into the minds of the children. We are at a point in our bistory when, like the Children of Israel of old, we must decide whether we will be counted on the Lord's aide or on the side of Baal; whether we will imitate our heroic patriotic fathers, who were ready to freely sacrifice fortune and life for the principles of democracy, or whether we will become part of the sodden camp-followers of sordid, materialistic com- mercialism and fatal reaction that scoff at the lofty ideals and moral principles which alone can exalt nations and give permanent greatness to a people or happiness and prosperity to the masses. These papers are not unlike the great prophet-messages of olden times that awakened Israel from its sordid ■tupor and not unfrequently so deeply stirred the imagination that great reformative advance steps followed. They come from one of the highest- minded citizens of our day and nation, and we believe they will profoundly impress the conscience of tens of thousands of our citizens. 8L Louis: Sefdom have the American people been treated to so bold, brave or circumstantial a revela- tion of the overshadowing menace to republican government as in Lee Meriwether's powerful and daring story of the shameful conditions that have flourished m St Louis through the union of the pfflara of society and corrupt bosses in the sys- tematicrobbery of toe people of inestimably valuable pnmrnrions by bribing the people’s servants. The keen analysis made by this well-known lawyer, author and publicist of the St. Louis situation and the factors that have rendered such appalling and almost incredible conditions possible, will apply with equal force to other municipalities, to various commonwealths and to the nation at large. These are facts which The Arena proposes to make perfectly plain in a series of papers similar to the above that we shall give our readers from time to time; for the campaign for the restoration of the government to the people and the driving of the cor- ruptionists from the temple of free government has just begun and there will be no cessation until the conscience of America has been so aroused that the victory for democracy and public purity shall become inevitable. Really Masters: Though the recent astounding revelations of wholesale corruption and political debauchery in the United States are well calculated to appall and dishearten friends of free institutions, the very fact that there is a general demand on the part of the people for an accounting with their stewards is a tremendously hopeful sign. More- over, there are other evidences which point to the fact that we are indeed on the eve of one of those great moral awakenings in political life which re- S venate democracy and exalt nations. In “Really asters" Mr. Eutweed Pomerot, President of the Direct-Legislation League, gives our readers in this issue of The Arena accounts of some inspiring recent victories for real democracy on the Pacific coast The magnificent triumph in Wisconsin of the new primary-election law through the able lead- ership of Governor LaFollette is another distinct triumph for good government, as were the election of Governors LaFollette and Mr. Folk and the defeat of Governor Peabody in Colorado. The Savings of the People: The second paper in our series of international discussions on progressive democratic measures appears in this issue and is from the pen of Honorable J. Henniker Heaton, M.P., the eminent English postal authority. In it the author discusses at length the savings of the people and proves how beneficent have been the postal savings-banks to the inhabitants of Great Britain. Our country would undoubtedly have been blessed with a similar system long ere this had it not been for the strenuous hostility of corporate ” the opposition of the s&vings- iese national banks have been wealth and banks. Wherever introduced they have proved a beneficent influence, fostering thrift and stimulating the saving habit, riving to the people an absolutely safe repository for tneir earnings, and also furnishing the government with wealth Dy which it is enabled to develop public utilities and materially increase the nation’s pros- perity. Yet whenever attempts have been made to give our people these advantages, all the ma- chinery of the “system" has been set in motion to prevent the passage of the needed legislation. Mr. Heaton will contribute a. second paper to our international series, in which he wul discuss the parcels-post of Great Britain. Ill Digitized by Google
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112 Notes and Comments. A Christian Woman on Divorce: The question of divorce is one of the uppermost ethical problems before the people, but the discussions as a rule im- press us as being extremely superficial and pitifully inadequate. The writers for the most part seem to mistake an effect for a cause and would imitate the ignorant quack who would place a plaster over an eating sore without cleansing the wound. The remedies they propose would m our judgment im- mensely aggravate the evil symptoms which all thoughtful citizens recognize. It is our purpose to publish several papers during the coming year on this subject of divorce. This series is opened this month by a remarkably thoughtful discussion en- titled “Light versus Legislation,” in which a noble- minded Christian woman makes an extremely thoughtful appeal to the conscience of orthodox Christianity. The writer of this paper, Mrs. Katrina Trask, is, as many of our readers will remember, the author of the fascinating romance of Revolutionary days entitled Free not Bound , which we reviewed m The Arena last spring. She has also written some poetry of exceptional strength and beauty. In the present paper the magnificent intellectual grasp of the subject is only equaled by the lofty ethical plane on which the discussion is held. Henrik Ibsen and Social Progress: In this issue Professor Henderson opens his series of six papers on the great present-day dramatists of the Old World and their art and message. These papers we think will prove of special interest to our readers, coming as they do from the discriminating pen of a thoroughly competent dramatic critic and an educator en rapport with the vital thought and larger view of our age. The Social Message of Emerson: The great Con- cord philosopher is generally held up to the world as an extreme individualist In Rev. Owen R. Loveiot’b thoughtful paper we see him [Resented from another view-point and one which we think reflects in a true way the larger vision of Emerson. This noblest of our philosophers was no iconoclast If his range of vision was cosmic in its scope, his heart kept rhythmic beat with the heart of humanity. The Struggles of Autocracy with Democracy in the Early Days of the Republic: This extremely valuable paper open a senes of four contributions prepared for The Arena byone of our oldest and most valued contributors. They deal in a striking and luminous manner with the four great struggles between autocracy and democracy which marked the history of our nation, including the present battle between privilege and reaction on the one hand and free government on the other. Mr. E. P. Powell is a careful historian and a logical thinker. His volume on N unification and Secession in the United States is a standard work of great value to historical students, and his Our Heredity from Qod is one of the most wholesome and helpful ethical discussions of evolutionary progress that has ap- peared. Justice for the Criminal: Dr. G. W. Galvin continues his series of papers in behalf of the most helpless of our people in this issue with a suggestive and practical plea. In our next number we expect to publish his argument in behalf of the out-of- works. As a dose student of human misery, vice and crime, he has come to the conclusions arrived at by a groat number of our more progressive and altruistic social reformers, vis., that the state is overburdened with enormous expenditures for the maintenance of prisons, asylums, poor-houses and the machinery of law and order, that would and could be easily reduced very materially if a relatively small portion of the money was spent in aiding men to preserve self-respecting manhood by the state giving to each seeker after work employment in same wealth-producing labor. He holds that by sane, rational, humane and far-sighted statesman- ship the commonwealth could greatly reduce her present penal and charitable expenditures while elevating the standard of citizenship throughout the state ana removing a great, haunting fear from the minds of hundreds of thousands of the people. It is the purpose of Dr. Galvin and some other high- minaed citizens to form an association for the furtherance of the six-fold work which he enumerates in his paper in this issue. He holds, with the twen- tieth-century altruists, that in a very real way we are all our brothers’ keepers and that no man can hope to be quit of obligation or responsibility who remains indifferent when so much can be done along wise and practical lines toward bettering ana brightening the fate of the millions under the wheel. All persons who are interested in this great work should communicate with Dr. Galvin, care of the Emergency Hospital, 142 Kingston street, Boston, Mass. A Defence of Walt . Whitman: We call the atten- tion of our readers to the vigorous defence of Whit- man’s Leaves of Crass , by Clarence Cuningham. The author is a citizen of Charleston, South Carolina, and his defence of the work of the Poet of Democ- racy deserves the careful consideration of all readers. Whitman was a great, free soul. In a large way he typified virile democracy that is the antithesis of the pitiful, reactionary, wealth-worshiping, monarchy- aping and sordid, make-believe democracy that is now seeking to usurp the seat made by our fathers for the genius of Liberty and Prpgress which found embodiment in the Declaration of Independence and under whose sway it was believed the United States would become and remain the moral leader of civilization as well as the hope and inspiration of the down-trodden of all lands. “Bari.” of Minneapolis: In our brief paper on “A Pioneer Newspaper Cartoonist” we have given the first of a series of illustrated sketches of the lead- ing newspaper cartoonists of our day which will ap- pear from tune to time during the present year. The cartoonist has not only come to stay, but is becom- ing more and more a real power in the newspapers throughout the land; and the hundreds of thousands of people who enjoy the work of such artists as Beard, Warren, Opper, “Bart.” and Bush naturally desire to know something about the men whose cartoons have awakened so many trains of serious thought and have not unfrequently caused real delight at the humorous yet telling portrayal of current events. We expect our next sketch to deal with the life and work of Warren, the famous cartoonist of the Boston Herald. Digitized by Google
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Photo, by Mora, Boston MATTHEW ARNOLD Thi Arina Digitized by Google
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“ We do not take possession of our ideas, but are possessed by them. They master us and force us into the arena, Where , like gladiators , we must fight for them. 1 1 — Heins. The Arena Vol. XXXIII February, 1905 No. 183 FORTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS; OR, MASTERS AND RULERS OF “THE FREEMEN” OF PENNSYLVANIA * II. THE MASTER-SPIRIT. By Rudolph Blankenburg. Chapter I. “ SPROUTING AND SPREADING.” ON BEING asked a few hours after Senator Quay’s death to express an opinion on his life and career as a citizen and politician for publication in the daily papers, my reply was u De mortuis nil nisi bonurn” — less cannot be said, more should not be said — at this time. It is quite natural to praise or eulogize a deserving fellow-citizen on the announce- ment of his death or while the sorrowing relatives and friends are assembled around the bier; it is, on the other hand, an act of commendable forbearance and friendly regard for the decendent’s family to refrain from criticizing or censuring a deceased friend or foe before he has been laid to rest. .For this reason the writer’s lips kept sealed at that time and would not this early day break silence were it not for the fact that some of the late Senator’s injudicious and precipitate friends call for earnest and emphatic con- •The first of this series of articles appeared in the Jan- uary, 1905, number of Tbs Arena. demnation of their misguided efforts to perpetuate Quay’s much disputed, dubi- ous memoiy by calling a fine new public- school in Philadelphia “The Matthew Stanley Quay School.” This movement was suggested by one of his scintillescent underlings and would probably have attracted little attention had it not been given countenance and endorsement by the Governor of Penn- sylvania. He is reported to have said: “It would be a wise thing to name the new school after Senator Quay. . . . Senator Quay was for years Pennsyl- vania’s most prominent citizen. . . . I know of no man who better represented Pennsylvania than Senator Quay, and to name a school for him would be most fitting.” Governor Pennypacker would have been wise had he heeded the late Senator’s entreaty “ Imploram pacern”; had he permitted the life of Mr. Quay to pass into histoiy for matured minds to analyze, study, profit by and eschew. When he, however, sanctions a movement to place his friend on a high pedestal as a shining light for the children of the Republic to 118 Digitized by Google
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114 Masters and Riders of “ The Freemen ” of Pennsylvania . is too guileless and honest to know much of political knavery, and of too judicially narrow a mind to recognize or admit wrong until it has been legally proved. Besides this he has, alas, succumbed to a strange malady, hitherto unknown in the annals of medical science; this malady has been pronounced by the most re- nowned diagnosticians as an aggravated and almost incurable case of “Quay- phobia.” In a moment of strange delusion Governor Pennypacker pronounced Senator Quay “ a greater man than Clay or Webster,” yet he has never fortified this grotesque pronunciamento with even an attempt at justification. It is to be hoped that upon calm reflection the Governor will modify his estimate of Senator Quay and thus prevent the bones of Clay and Webster from rattling in their graves, in indignant protest. Photo, copyright by Gutekunst, Phila. MATTHEW STANLEY QUAY. “The Master-Spirit.” follow and to worship, he arouses the irrepressible anger and earnest protest of all thoughtful people who place un- selfish consecration to public duty above sordid dedication to an insatiate lust for power, corrupted, and wealth unearned. Let me predict here, if this immoral suggestion should be carried out for the guidance of the present generation, a regenerated citizenship will, hereafter, demolish the tablet and thus redeem the name and the fame of our common schools from an affront that we should never permit to be inflicted. Governor Pennypacker, personally and in private life, is an altogether lovable character; it has been my pleasure and privilege to have known, liked and re- spected him for many years. He oc- cupied an honored position on the bench for thirteen years when, at the instigation of the Quay machine, he was tempted to exchange a judge5* unsullied ermine for a misfit political mantle. The Governor Photo, by Gutekunst, Phila. SAMUEL W. PENNYPACKER, Governor op Pennsylvania, Who Pronounced Senator Quay “ a Greater Man than Clay or Webster.” Digitized by Google
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Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen” of Pennsylvania. 115 The only defensible comparison be- tween Clay, the statesman from Kentucky, and Quay, the Pennsylvania politician, is the fact that both were sons of clergy- men. The closest and warmest friends of Mr. Quay, those who knew him best, have had the good sense never to attribute to him any degree or variety of virtues, such as the virtue of self-sacrifice, temper- ance, high-minded devotion to the right, charity and other characteristics which we may comprise in the general term, “sincere and cordial conformity to the commands of the moral law.” They have lauded him on account of his political prowess, his ability to snatch tainted victory from threatened defeat, his inexhaustible resources in manipulat- ing legislatures, working conventions and carrying elections; his taunting confes- sion that he, a United States Senator, gambled in stocks and did not care who Photo, b y Maclntire, Phila. GEORGE E. MAPES, Loader of the Anti-Riot BUI Organization in the Legislature of 1879. Photo, by Robbins, Bradford, Pa. LEWIS EMERY, JR., Member from McKean County, Active in the Opposition to the Riot Bill, who spumed and exposed compromising offers made by supporters of the Bill. knew it, and many accomplishments of a like character. Others admired him because of his literary tastes, his love of books and the cleverness with which he could dilate on the heavenly bodies, discuss religious questions or intricate scientific problems. Let the reader judge, after perusing this sketch of “ The Master-Spirit ” which aims to be fair and truthful, whether Matthew Stanley Quay should occupy a niche among the great men of the Republic, or whether his memory should be allowed to vanish in generous oblivion. Simon Cameron, the father of machine- politics in Pennysylvania, introduced the corrupt use of money to secure political results, but it was reserved for his most astute lieutenant, Matthew Stanley Quay, to carry organized political corruption Digitized by Google
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116 Masters and Riders of “ The Photo, by Lemer, Harrisburg. CHARLES 8. WOLFE, Representative from Union County, Through whose earnest and untiring efforts the attempted bribery was exposed. and knavery to the highest degree of per- fection and reduce the boodle system in public affairs to one of the exact sciences. Quay was a natural bom schemer, and his childhood education and training failed to save him from becoming one of the most conspicuous characters in shady political life our country has ever pro- duced. The son of a Presbyterian clergy- man, he early learned the value of main- taining appearances. He secured a col- lege education and studied law, was ad- mitted to the bar but never attempted to practice in the courts. He appears, however, to have learned enough of law to enable him to violate it both in letter and spirit, and still avoid its penalties. He enjoyed a short apprenticeship in journalism, sufficient to demonstrate to his fertile brain the value of machine- controlled newspapers in misleading and deceiving the public. His supposed re- Freemen” of Pennsylvania. ligious training — with conscience left out — legal knowledge of how to escape when cornered, and newspaper experience of making the worse appear the better cause, were employed to serve their possessor’s purposes during his entire political career. These early acquirements were the ready tools of Quay’s statecraft. His entrance into political life was at a period favorable for the exercise of his peculiar political gifts. From the time he became of age until his death, with the exception of about three years, he was comfortably bedded in some public berth. He used the power which place and patronage gives for shrewd political machinations and profit, and while he secured the reputation of having resigned many offices, it is a matter of record, that a resignation with him was the stepping- stone to another and better place. He never resigned himself out of comfortable office but once, and that he did in a moment of pique within a few months of the period when his term would expire; this was the only occasion during his long career in which he permitted his temper to cause him the loss of even a month’s salaiy or perquisites. Shortly after becoming of age Quay was appointed Prothonotary of Beaver county by Governor Pollock. This ap- pointment was made upon the joint recommendation of Col. A. K. McClure and Andrew G. Curtin, then Secretary of the Commonwealth. Quay, later on, showed his true character and his idea of gratitude when he deserted Curtin, who had given him the first foothold in public life, for Cameron, and at the very time when his power and influence might have served to make Curtin United States Senator and to destroy the baneful Cameron control of politics in Pennsyl- vania. There was quite a difference in the characteristics of Cameron and Quay. The former would change his party relations once a year, if it served his pur- pose and promised him power and office, while Quay, though ostensibly remaining a Republican, would desert and betray Digitized by Google
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Masters and Rulers of “ The one circle of political associates and form an alliance with a new one at the begin- ning of every campaign, if that best ad- vanced his interests. Originally a Whig, Quay had joined the newly-formed Republican party, and upon the expiration of his appointed term as Prothonotaiy, was elected for a full term, and reelected for a second term. This continuous tenure in one of the choicest offices of Beaver county, gave him his first schooling in constructive political management, for, although still under thirty years of age, he speedily became one of the dominant Republican leaders of that county. He took an active part in the cam- paign of 1860, which made Curtin Gov- ernor of Pennsylvania and Abraham Lincoln President of the United States, attracting Curtin’s attention to his ability as an organizer. With the breaking out of the Civil war, he resigned the Pro- thonotaryship, and helped to raise a company in the 10th Pennsylvania Re- serves, being mustered in as a lieutenant in his company. Before the regiment was sent to the front. Governor Curtin concluded that he needed him to assist in the enlistment and organization of the troops being hurried forward from Penn- sylvania to the seat of war. He, there- fore, appointed him assistant Commissary- General on his own staff, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, and Quay hurried to Harrisburg to enter upon his new duties. When, shortly afterwards, the military staff of the Governor was abolished, he became Curtin’s private secretary, acting in that capacity for a year. The following year he appointed Quay as Colonel of the 134th Pennsylvania Infantry, the latter assuming command in August, 1862. His regiment missed participation in the second battle of Bull Run by a few hours, arriving on the ground after the fighting had ceased. A similar experience befell it at Antietam, after which Quay was attacked by typhoid fever. Never of robust con- Freemen” of Pennsylvania . 117 Photo, by Gutekunst, PhUa. JEREMIAH 8. BLACK, Counsel for the Prosecution, Formerly Attorney -General of the United 8tatea and Member of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. stitution, his recovery was slow, and upon the advice of Governor Curtin, who wanted a military State Agent at Wash- ington to look after the interests of the Pennsylvania soldiers in the field, he resigned his commission the day previous to the battle of Fredericksburg. Learn- ing that a battle was to be fought the next day, he tendered his services as a volun- teer, to General Tyler, the commander of the brigade in which his regiment was included, and served on the staff of the latter in that battle. A quarter of a century afterwards he was awarded by Congress a medal of honor for valor dis- played on this occasion, and although some of his critics ascribe this award largely to political influence, justice de- mands that due credit be given Colonel Quay for undoubted courage displayed during that memorable conflict. He was, immediately afterwards, trans- Digitized by Google
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118 Masters and Rulers of “ The ferred to Washington as military State Agent, by appointment of Governor Curtin. Before the close of the war he was recalled to Harrisburg to again be- come the military secretary of Governor Curtin in which position he materially extended his acquaintanceship through- out the State. He was thus favored by fortune to make many friends, extend courtesies and favors, which he was not loth, later on, to turn to advantage in his political skirmishes and fights. After the downfall of the rebellion, he returned to Beaver county, and asked the Republicans to send him to the Legislature. This request was readily complied with, the fact that he was in favor with the revered War Governor of the State, being a sufficient passport to popular favor at home. Twice reelected, it was during his third term at Harris- burg that he played false to his benefactor, to become the political pupil and final successor of the astute Simon Cameron, as “The Master-Spirit” of the Repub- lican organization of Pennsylvania. The Legislature of 1867 was to elect a successor to Edgar Cowan in the United States Senate. Cameron and Curtin were the leading candidates for the succession and it was evident that the one who could succeed in organizing the House in his own interest, would have a decided ad- vantage in the contest for the Senator- ship. Quay was Curtin’s candidate for Speaker, Cameron putting forward J. P. Glass, of Allegheny. To the great sur- prise of Curtin’s followers, Quay aband- doned the field the night before the House was to meet, and turned in for Glass, who was elected, and the control of the House was thus transferred to Cameron. This was an act of treachery which Curtin never forgave. Quay had already named one of his sons for the War Governor, and perhaps considered this a sufficient payment of the debt of gratitude he owed the latter. At any rate he abandoned his former benefactor and enlisted under the Cam- eronian flag, his first public reward being Freemen” of Pennsylvania. that of the appointment as Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, by Speaker Glass. There were ugly charges to the effect that Quay had secured some- thing more substantial than the leader- ship of the House for his desertion of Curtin, but these charges were never proved in Court. It is a matter of record, however, that Quay soon began to build a $18,000 house which became his resi- dence in Beaver. Shortly afterwards, too, he was accused by the Pittsburg Commercial with trying to persuade Internal Revenue Supervisor Alexander P. Tutton to accept $1,000 per week as the price of suspending legal proceedings against a distillery charged with defraud- ing the Revenue. Quay brought a libel suit against the Commercial which was, as is usual in such cases, never tried, the outcome of this episode being the acquisi- tion of the Commercial by Quay’s friends, who thus took a bond of fate that the charge should never be repeated. This transfer of his fealty from Curtin to Cameron marked the entrance of Quay as a prominent factor into the field of State politics. Cameron had him ap- pointed Secretary of the Republican State Central Committee, and in four years the pupil had become a greater adept in political stratagem than the master. From that time forward Quay became more necessary to Cameron than Cam- eron was to Quay, a fact which was given a vivid illustration a few years later, when the younger Cameron is said to have advanced a large sum to make good the peculations of Quay and some of his associates from the funds of the State Treasury. Quay’s political career was a costly one, but those who profited by his methods could not afford to do without him at any price. Cameron made the use of money an essential of success in politics, but Quay made politics expensive beyond the most extravagant dreams of the founder of the Pennsylvania Republican machine. An illustration of the growing use of money in the carrying on of political compaigns Digitized by CjOOQle
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Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen 99 of Pennsylvania. 119 can be presented in the statement that the cost of the Republican State campaign in 1860, during which Col. A. K. McClure was the Republican State Chairman, was only $12,000. Quay’s election as Republican State Chairman, a position without any visible emoluments, in 1895 was reported, by himself, to have cost more than $200,000. More money was expended in the later years of Quay’s leadership in single rural counties during heated campaigns than was expended in the entire State to carry it for Lincoln and Curtin in 1860. Quay’s first and most substantial political reward as State leader came in 1872, when, after having assisted in carrying the State for General Hartranft for Governor, he was made Secretary of the Commonwealth, at the beginning of Hartranft’s administration, being re-ap- pointed in Hartranft’s second term. At this period Quay’s longing for wealth began to outstrip liis political ambition. The emoluments of the office of Secretary of the Commonwealth did not equal the value of his services to the public, in Quay’s own estimation. The Legisla- ture of 1877, a subservient body, revived a foigotten and discarded office in Philadelphia, called a Recordership, an office notable for its entire uselessness and its big fees, which amounted to not less than $40,000 a year. The ink was not dry on Governor Hartranft’s signa- ture to this piece of graft legislation when Quay’s name was sent to the Senate as the new Recorder of Philadelphia. The Senate, in duty bound, promptly confirmed the appointment and Quay exchanged Harrisburg for Philadelphia as a place of residence, with an increase of emuloments which paid considerable more than moving expenses. Though a rich office had been created purposely for him. Quay’s Philadelphia experience proved disappointing. At Harrisburg as at Beaver he was easily the dominating political influence, in Philadelphia he could hardly find himself in the crowd. Whatever political influence he exerted Photo, copyright by Gutekunst, Phlla. FRANKLIN B. GOWEN, Counsel for the Prosecution, President of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, who brought to bay and exterminated the “ Mollie Maguires." in that city had to be executed by proxy, and this did n’t suit the statesman from Beaver. He was selected as Republican State Chairman during the campaign of 1878, when the State was carried for Henry M. Hoyt for Governor. With the inaugura- tion of Hoyt in January, 1879, Quay promptly resigned the Recordership of Philadelphia to accept his old position as Secretary of the Commonwealth, under the new Governor. It- was during the session of the Legis- lature of 1879, that the famous Pittsburg Riot Bill exposures occurred, which in- volved several of Quay’s friends and made it necessary for them to be saved from the penitentiary through his power- ful intervention as a member and the controlling spirit of the Pardon Board. The history of this Riot Bill, though Digitized by Google
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120 Masters and Rulers of “ The old and forgotten by many, is most in- teresting and instructive and shows how, from the earliest days of Quay’s power and influence, he perverted the talents of which he was undoubtedly possessed to the basest uses. Instead of protecting the interests of the people he made it his business to serve soulless corporations, to whom neither the laws of God or of man are a barrier in the prosecution of their selfish and lawless plans. He did not hesitate to encourage bribery, and after conviction of the criminals secure for them a free pardon and save them from disgracing even the penitentiary! The Pittsburg riots of 1877, had re- sulted in the destruction of property to the value of two or three million dollars, for which, under the law, Allegheny county was liable. The Pennsylvania Railroad was the heaviest loser, and wanted its money. The Allegheny county tax-payers demurred, and a scheme was concocted to have the State assume the bill, with a million and a half thrown in, to be used if necessary in con- vincing reluctant legislators that the measure was a moral and just one. With the introduction into the House of the $4,000,000 riot appropriation, a companion bill had been added taxing petroleum fifty cents a barrel. It was the intention of the Republican leaders in the State to make these two bills party measures, and pass them under the caucus lash. Fortunately for the interest of the oil-producers who were to have been mulcted in the entire sum by means of this oil-tax, about twenty-five oil-country mem- bers constituted the balance of power between the Republican and Democratic wings of the House, and by joining forces with the latter, had the bill at their mercy, as the first two or three test-votes upon the measure demonstrated. They asked Charles S. Wolfe, of Union county, one of the ablest and best Republican members in the House, to assist them in their fight, and proceeded to show that they could defeat the $4,000,000 Riot-Bill grab, unless a dozen or more members Freemen” of Pennsylvania . of the House should be corrupted by the use of money. When the fact had been established that if the oil-country members should hold honestly together and maintain their hostility to the Riot Bill it would be hopelessly defeated, one attempt that might break the delegation was through overtures to log-roll all legislation favor- able to the oil country through both Houses in exchange for enough votes from the members representing the oil coun- ties to pass the Riot Bill, the offer includ- ing also the passage of an interstate commerce bill through Congress then in session at Washington. Another way open was by that most infamous of all temptations placed in the path of weak men — “ bribery.” Fearing that bribery would be attempted, the leaders of the opposition laid a trap for the suspected bribers, into which a half- dozen or more of the latter, including the late William H. Kemble, promptly fell. The representatives from the oil coun- ties had been for several years trying to secure the passage through the Legis- lature of a free pipe-line law and an anti- freight discrimination law, both of which measures were pending in the House at this time. The Oil-Producers’ Union, an association of the leading independent oil-producers, had brought suits against the Pennsylvania Railroad for damages based upon rebates granted to favored shippers, and one of their chief attorneys in these suits was George Shiras, Jr., a high-minded, prominent member of the bar, afterwards one of the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Shiras was also attorney for Allegheny county in its claim before the Legislature for the passage of the $4,000,000 ap- propriation designed to relieve the county from the necessity of paying the riot losses, for which it was liable under the existing law. These details are neces- sary to explain what followed. In the House, the one experienced member from the oil counties was Repre- sentative George E. Mapes, of Venango, Digitized by Google
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Masters and Rulers of “ The who, in consequence of his former legis- lative knowledge was recognized as the leader of the oil-country contingent. His principal associate was Lewis Emery, Jr., of McKean county, a large producer of oil and a man of great personal force of character. The bribery story is too long to relate in detail; a few salient points will dis- close the deep laid plot and the sturdy and honorable efforts of Wolfe, Mapes and Emery to defeat the damnable legislation, instigated by the Pennsylvania Railroad, furthered by Quay, boodled by Kemble and made forever execrable by the more than criminal act of granting a pardon to Kemble and the other conspirators. On the afternoon of April 5, 1879, the following telegram was directed to Mapes and Emery from Pittsburg, by B. B. Campbell, then President of the Oil- Producers’ Union, and living at Parnas- sus, about twenty-five miles north of Pittsburg: “Lewis Emery or George E. Mapes, House of Representatives, Harrisburg: Can you dine with me to- morrow ? Most important business, vital to the success of our suits. You can return on fast line Sunday evening. One or both must come. Answer immediately. B. B. Campbell.” After conferring, Mapes and Emery, although very much in the dark as to what this mysterious telegram meant, replied: “To B. B. Campbell, Pittsbuig: Will see you to- morrow. Mapes & Emery.” Taking a mid-night train they reached Pittsburg on Sunday morning, and after break- fasting at the station, boarded the Alle- gheny Valley train for Parnassus. On board the train they found George Shiras, Jr., with whom they were acquainted, Shiras being, in fact, Emery’s personal attorney. He informed them that he was likewise going to Parnassus to be one of the guests at the dinner. When the train reached its destination they were met by Campbell and escorted to his house. Taking them into his library, Mr. Campbell informed his legislative guests that being in Pittsbuig the day Freemen ” of Pennsylvania. 121 Photo, by OutekunBt, Phila. WILLIAM H. KEMBLE, Who pleaded guilty to the charge of bribing members of the Legislature. Author of the famous expression, “Addition, Division and Silence.” before, he had been requested to go to Mr. Shiras’ office. There he had met J. K. Moorhead, President of the Pitts- burg Board of Commerce and also Representative Frazer, of the Allegheny delegation in the Legislature. He said that these gentlemen told him that they required the assistance of the oil delega- tion to pass the Riot Bill, and that they could assure Mr. Campbell that in ex- change for their votes the legislation so strongly desired by the oil men, namely, the free pipe-line bill and the anti-dis- crimination bill would be passed. They further agreed that, in order to insure good faith in this proposition, the friends of the Riot Bill would agree to postpone their measure until the oil legislation was passed. It was also stated that the same influences would help to secure the pass- age of the Interstate Commerce Bill through Congress. Digitized by Google
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122 Masters and Rvlers of “ The Freemen 99 of Pennsylvania . After dinner the matter was discussed in all its bearings between Campbell and Shiras representing the Oil-Producers* Association, and Mapes and Emery representing the oil-country delegation in the Legislature. Two hours were spent in a stroll along the river bank, and every argument that could be brought to bear upon the two legislators to induce them to accept the proposition was urged. The latter, however, stated that they be- lieved it to be an unjust measure, inde- fensible in principle, that it ought to be beaten regardless of its relation to any other measure, and they declined to entertain the proposition. Campbell and Shiras urged them to return to Harris- burg, call the oil delegation together, sub- mit the proposition to them as a body, and see how the majority of the members were disposed toward it. This they agreed to do, and returning to Harrisburg on the Sunday-night train, they called the score or more of members from the oil counties together on the following day and sub- mitted the proposition with the informa- tion that they had rejected it in toto. The proposition was unanimously declined by the entire delegation, and the decision was telegraphed to Mr. Shiras on Tues- day morning. At the interview at Par- nassus, Mapes and Emery were not specifically told that the real source of this offer for the withdrawal of opposition to the oil-country legislation came from the Pennsylvania Railroad, which was to be the chief beneficiary of the $4,000,000 appropriation, but they strongly sus- pected that it did. This suspicion was confirmed ten days later when Emery received the following telegram : “Pitts- burg, April 15th, 7 P. M. To Lewis Emery, Jr., Lochiel Hotel: I am as- sured by Hampton that the Pennsylvania Railroad will make desired arrangement if time can be given. Can you not secure postponement of Riot Bill until next week. Answer. George Shiras, Jr.’* Hampton was the Pittsburg counsel for the Pennsylvania Railroad. The importance of this dispatch is ex- plained by the fact that the final vote upon the Riot Bill was to take place the following forenoon, the Bill already having been defeated and the pending vote being upon a motion to reconsider which if voted down would defeat the Bill for the session. Emery consulted with the oil delegation in the morning of the following day, and replied as follows : “ George Shiras, Pittsburg, Pa. r Could not get matters arranged in shape, and cannot help you in any possible form. Lewis Emery, Jr.” When Emery took his seat in the House on the morning of April 16th a messenger handed him the following note. “ Harris- burg, April 16, 1879. Dear Sir: I am told Mr. Shiras has telegraphed you in regard to a matter in which your con- stituency are interested. If so, and you have leisure I would be glad to see you at my office. Yours truly, M. S. Quay. To Hon. Lewis Emery, House of Repre- sentatives.” Mr. Quay was at this time Secretary of the Commonwealth, by ap- pointment of Governor Hoyt. The vote was about being taken and Emery replied by note that he would see Mr. Quay as soon as he could get away. While stilt in his seat, however, Representative Frazer introduced an attorney by the name of W. S. Purviance, who handed Emery the following note: “Lewis Emery. Dear Sir: Mr. Purviance may see you in reference to the overtures from the Pennsylvania Railroad Company* looking to the defeat of the Oil-Tax Bill and the passage at Washington of the Anti-Discrimination Bill. No such ar- rangement will be made without full con- sultation, but we need time. In view of this we wish you and a few of your friends to agree to postpone final action on the Riot Bill until next week. Yours truly* George Shiras, Jr.*’ Emery told Pur- viance that the oil men would defeat the Bill, and nothing could be done to save it. While he was waiting the final roll- call, a second note from Mr. Quay was handed him. “Harrisburg, April 16* 1879. My dear Sir: I am told the Digitized by Google
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Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen 99 of Pennsylvania. 123 Allegheny legislation is now up in the House. It will be a finality, of course, if the motion to reconsider is defeated, and it will be difficult to make any ar- rangement with its friends if they are successful. If it is worth while to present Mr. Shiras* proposition to the council, you had better have the vote upon the motion to reconsider postponed until afternoon, and see me after the adjourn- ment. Yours truly, M. S. Quay. To the Hon. Lewis Emery, Jr., House of Representatives.” Mapes and Emery and the other leaders of the opposition to the Riot Bill, however, had com- pared notes and knew that the measure was doomed. Just before the roll-call began, Charles S. Wolfe, of Union county, arose and addressed himself to the Speaker, as follows: “Mr. Speaker: We have evidence that certain members of this House have been offered money or other valuable consideration to vote for this measure. I rise now to an- nounce that after this vote is taken I propose to offer a resolution for the ap- pointment of a committee to investigate charges of bribery in connection with this Bill.” Wolfe sat down, and the roll-call proceeded. His warning had the desired effect. The motion to reconsider was voted down, and the Bill was dead. Mr. Quay’s connection with the matter did not cease, however, at this point. The House took a recess for dinner, and Emery went to the Lochiel Hotel. What followed is given in Mr. Emery’s own words under oath in his testimony before the committee of investigation. He said: “I went to my dinner at the Lochiel Hotel, and as I came out from dinner the clerk in the office told me that Mr. Quay would like to see me, and said, ‘I will send for him.’ He sent to the billiard-room, and Mr. Quay came out, and we sat at the window right next to the big safe where we hang coats behind the door. I said to him that I had received his notes, and he answered that he had received mine in reply and that we were in such a condition that we Photo, by Gutekunst, Phila. LEWIS C. CA88IDY, Counsel for the Defence, Afterwards Attorney-General of Pennsylvania. could not do anything in the proposition that had been made to us. ‘Well,’ says he (Quay), ‘I was at Philadelphia a week ago last Saturday, and I was up to Mr. Cassatt’s office to get some passes, and while there Mr. Cassatt brought up the conversation. He said that he would be very much pleased if he (Quay) would assist in passing the Riot Bill, and that they were very anxious to have it passed, and he (Cassatt) wished he (Quay) could see what he could do with the oil delegation to get their assistance. And he (Quay) said that he would do so, and he said that Mr. Cassatt would see that all the propositions that had been made to us would be carried out, providing we would support the Bill when it came up again.’ Says I, ‘it is dead.’ ‘Well,’ says he, ‘perhaps not. Perhaps it can be revived, and what I would like to know in case it is revived is as to whether we could get any assistance from your Digitized by Google
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124 Masters and Rulers of “The Freemen” of Pennsylvania. country/ And I told him that I thought he could not get it up in the House. He says he did n’t know. Says I, ‘I believe you do know. I believe you cannot pass that Bill in the House. I believe there are too many independent men in the House to pass the measure. It even could not be gotten up again.’ I told him it did n’t matter where it came up, I could not support the Bill in no way. And he said I better take the matter before our people, our delegation, and see if they would not consider it, and I told him I would, and on the evening of the seventeenth, I think it was, I sub- mitted the proposition again to the dele- gation, I think there were ten of them altogether, and they said that they would not consider any overtures whatever, that if they had got to be punished with an oil-tax because they would not support the Bill, why, they would submit, they would not change their front a particle. The Riot Bill could stay where it was.” In answer to a question by Charles S. Wolfe, of the Investigating Committee, as to the extent of the proposition to pass the Riot Bill made to Emery and Mapes at Parnassus, Mr. Emery said: “The arrangement was that these bills (the Free Pipe-Line Bill and the Anti- Discrimination Bill), should be passed, that oil should not be taxed, and the Interstate Commerce Bill should be passed at Washington if possible. That was the promise right out, flat-footed.” On the last day of the session a prose- cuting committee was appointed by the House to bring criminal prosecutions against all participants in the attempt to corrupt the Legislature. Twenty-two members testified to having been offered money or other valuable consideration for their support of the Riot Bill. Prose- cutions were brought in the Dauphin County Criminal Court, with a brilliant array of attorneys, among whom for the prosecution were: Franklin B. Gowen, Jeremiah S. Black and Matthew Car- penter, of Wisconsin; for the defense William B. Mann, F. Carroll Brewster and Lewis C. Cassidy. When all pleas for delay had been exhausted, four of the first five indicted bribers arraigned, namely: William H. Kemble, Charles B. Salter, Jesse R. Crawford and William F. Rumberger pleaded guilty rather than permit the testimony against them to be presented in Court, and the fifth one, Emil J. Petroff, was convicted after a trial. The pleas of guilty and the con- viction took place on March 8, 1880, and the guilty parties were remanded to ap- pear on March 29th, for sentence. Two days before Kemble and his associates were to be sentenced Quay convened the Board of Pardons, of which he was a member, and tried to persuade his fellow- members, consisting of Lieutenant-Gov- ernor Charles W. Stone, Attorney-Gen- eral Henry W. Palmer, and Secretary of Internal Affairs, Aaron K. Dunkle, to recommend a pardon in advance of sentence. Dunkle acquiesced, but Stone and Palmer refused. The following night, Kemble and his associates fled the State, forfeiting their bail. Nearly a month later, they were persuaded to return and appear for sentence, having undoubtedly been promised that the recalcitrant members of the Pardon Board would prove more tractable after . sentence had been pronounced than they were before this had been done. On April 26th, they appeared for sentence before Judge Pearson who in- flicted a fine of $1,000 each and a further penalty of one year at hard labor in the Penitentiary. The Pardon Board was convened the next day and the imprisonment feature of the sentence was promptly remitted, the convicted bribers being constructively in charge of the Sheriff less than twenty-four hours. The shameless audacity of this trans- action caused an outburst of indignation, not only throughout the State, but throughout the whole country, the public sentiment regarding the transaction being concisely expressed in an editorial in the the New York Tribune , in the following sentence: “A more insolent defiance of Digitized by Google
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Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen ” of Pennsylvania. 125 public sentiment has not been seen since Tweed asked the tax-payers of New York, what they were going to do about it.” Religious bodies adopted resolutions de- nouncing the pardon, and even the most hide-bound parly oigans declined to defend it. It is worthy of note in this connection that this is the only important instance in which Quay defied public sentiment and incurred personal odium to save somebody else from going to jail. In his after career, other men were per- mitted to commit suicide, die from worry, or run away to save Quay from going to prison, furnishing examples of self-abne- gation which he never cared to imitate. During the period in which the con- victed bribers were hiding from the penalties of the law. Quay was having troubles of his own. He, in connection with J. Blake Walters, Cashier of the State Treasury, and some others, had been speculating with the funds of the State Treasury. Samuel Butler, a Chester county Quaker, had been elected State Treasurer, and was to assume the duties of the office on May 1, 1880. It was necessary for the retiring State Treasurer, Amos C. Noyes, to turn over the State funds to his successor intact. The Quay and Walters shortage was said to amount to $260,000. Butler, who made an examination of the State of the funds prior to his induction into office, refused to accept the notes of the defaulting speculators. A friend who paid a visit to Quay in his room at the Lochiel Hotel about that time, reported that in reply to his question as to what was going on, Quay answered that “he was debating whether he should cut his throat or jump into the Susquehanna river.” Quay did neither, but let his friend go to Washington and implore Don. Cameron to help make good the deficit, which he did, and the money of the State Treasury was transferred to the custody of State Treasurer Samuel Butler in due time. Quay lived to pass through other trying ordeals of a similar nature with no thought Photo, by UutekanBt, Philo. WILLIAM B. MANN, Counsel for the Defence, For years District- Attorney of Philadelphia. of suicide. Not so with his associate. Cashier Blake Walters, upon whose mind the disgrace preyed so keenly that he took his own life after having written a letter to a friend in which he expressed his sorrow for his acts while Cashier of the State Treasury, and named the persons associated with him in the speculations through which the loss of the money was incurred, charging that a will stronger than his own led him on, meaning Quay. Senator Quay’s State Treasury ex- perience haunted him to the end of his days. The exposures and detailed state- ments about this startling episode in his history, made by leading and responsible papers, did not seem to affect him out- wardly, but intimate friends acknowl- edged that he was chafing beyond ex- pression under these charges, though not on his own account. For reasons suggesting themselves he never took Digitized by Google
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126 Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen ” of Pennsylvania steps to bring to justice his accusers, or to disprove the accusations, steps an innocent man would have taken without delay. He evidently felt assured that his equivocal position would not lose him the confidence and support of his co-partners in political brigandage. When at last a cartoon of Quay was published in Puck that should have aroused even the most callous and brazen and was left unchallenged by the Senator, when he continued his exasperating and self-convicting silence, the following letter was addressed to him: “Philadelphia, August 5, 1890. “ Hon. Matthew S. Quay. — Dear Sir: The charges of embezzlement while State Treasurer of Pennsylvania, brought against you by the New York World, Times , Evening Post , Nation, Puck and other papers of responsibility, have so far met neither reply nor denial at your hands. “It is and has been very irritating to many earnest Republicans to have you ignore these grave accusations, made most pointed and emphatic in last week’s Puck, which undoubtedly you have seen. You are there depicted in a felon’s garb, plainly called a felon, holding the whip and compelling the respectable leaders of the ‘Grand Old Party * to march at the command of a felon overseer. “As you perhaps shun suit for libel against any or all of your accusers on account of the great expense therein in- volved, it has been suggested by some of those Republicans who are indirectly smarting under these accusations, to raise a fund of sufficient amount to institute and push suits for civil and criminal libel against your open accusers. “Please let me know if this plan of vindicating your honor as Chairman of the Republican National Committee and United States Senator meets with your approval and oblige, “Yours respectfully, “Rudolph Blankenburg.” This offer was made in good faith and the required funds had been underwritten, but Quay ignored the liberal proposition and went to his grave with this cloud hanging over him. The one weapon of defence in which Quay excelled was “silence.” He had cultivated the truism, “Speech is silvern, but silence is golden,” until he became a past-master in that art; indeed it was his salvation in many troublesome situations. He was credited with the remarkable linguistic accomplishment of knowing how to “keep silent in sixteen different languages.” Quay’s next exploit was to defeat Ex-Speaker Galusha A. Grow, who had enough votes assured him, for the United States Senate, supporting Henry W. Oliver, of Pittsburg, who was said to have made good a deficit of $30,000 in the last State campaign. Grow’s friends re- sented Quay’s treachery, refused to enter the caucus and created a deadlock, which ultimately resulted in Quay’s defeat, through the election of John I. Mitchell. In the following year Robert E. Pattison, Democrat, was elected Governor, and Mr. Quay retired for three years from the laborious field of “ statesmanship,” being practically the only interregnum from the beginning to the end of his office-holding career. No man better understood the power and influence of the great railway cor- porations and their entire willingness to make liberal contributions to political campaigns in return for legislative and executive protection. Other sources for “campaign” funds were the banks, in return for deposits of State funds; oil, coal, steel and iron interests willingly contributed and were not the losers thereby. Mr. Quay ascertained, however, that out of office he was a rather in- significant citizen and could not com- mand these resources. He, therefore, concluded to sacrifice himself once more on the altar of patriotism and made a bold dash for the State Treasurership! The story of his speculations with the Digitized by Google
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Masters and Riders of “The Freemen 99 of Pennsylvania. 127 Treasury funds had at that time not reached the public ear, and though the pardon of Kemble still left a bad taste in the public mouth he knew that the people, unfortunately, are apt to forget. Quay was elected State Treasurer by a majority of upwards of 40,000. He now became owner and dictator of the Republican State Organization, and thus master of the great corporate interests that had to bow to his imperial will and comply with his demands whenever he needed their assistance. Quay resigned the Treasurership before the expiration of his term and entered the national arena through his election as United States Senator and his subsequent selection, in 1888, as Chairman of the National Republican Committee to conduct the campaign for Benjamin Harrison as President of the United States. He managed this cam- paign with a mastery of his own creation and of a character, which, if generally adopted in the conduct of campaigns, would soon establish a “ national auction- block ” for the sale of office to the highest bidder. His management in this con- test was a mixture of lavish and often questionable expenditure of money and adroit strategy to throw his Democratic op- ponents off their guard, and culminated at the close in bluff “ betting ” on so un- precedented scale that it confounded the Tammany crowd and won for him the laige class of voters who bestride the fence, ready to descend on the winning side. His success as National Chairman made Quay feel “a bigger man than Harrison himself/’ and he soon made himself intolerable to that sturdy, honest, but blunt statesman. When Quay asked for the promotion of his son over the heads of scores of senior officers in the army and Harrison declined to comply with this arrogant and unjust demand, the strained relations between the two culminated, and Quay is said never again to have visited the White House during Harrison’s occupancy. Harrison was one of the brainiest of our Presidents, his administration was clean and creditable and he had earned a re- nomination. Quay, from motives of revenge, not only tried to defeat him at the Minneapolis Convention, but took no part in the campaign of 1892, which resulted in the second election of Grover Cleveland. One of Quay’s character- istics, never fully exposed, was his ex- treme intolerance of opposition and the visiting of swift punishment, no matter at what cost, upon those who had the temerity to cross his path. His thirst for revenge on such occasions was greater than his love of party and was carried to an extent that often resulted in the defeat of candidates of the party to which he professed allegiance. The young politician whose public career began to sprout and put forth its first shoots at the small town of Beaver, had grown until at middle age his power had spread all over the State. His later career is even more remarkable and startling and will be described in another chapter. {To be continued .) Rudolph Blajjkenbubg Philadelphia , Pa. Digitized by Google
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THE EXPANSION OF MUNICIPAL ACTIVITIES: By Clinton Rogers .Woodruff, Secretary of the National Municipal League. ENGULFED as we are in the flood- tide of municipal expansion and development, we fail to appreciate how great has been the growth of municipal functions. Only a month or two ago I came across a summary of the Census Bureau’s investigation of electric fire- alarm and. police-patrol systems, which disclosed the very interesting fact, that out of thirty-eight cities of 100,000 popula- tion and over, only two, Kansas City and St. Joseph, Missouri, had no systems of electric fire-alarm. . The total number of signaling and annunciating boxes was given as 37,832, and 85,070 as the number of alarms transmitted. In all there are 764 systems with a total mileage of wires amounting to 28,202 miles. Here then we have a municipal activity of great importance,— that of giving an alarm of fire by an electrical contrivance, — that was undreamed of a century ago, unheard of fifty years ago, introduced within the past twenty-five years, and perfected .within the past decade. Indeed the matter of extinguishing fires is . a function only assumed within a compara- tively recent period by our cities, and many still depend upon private enterprise and initiative for fire protection. Most people assume that one of the prime duties of a municipality is the protection of life and property, and yet it has been only within the past few decades that there has been anything like adequate provision for protection from fire, and it has only been within a very few years that the practically instantaneous fire- alarm has been introduced. The intro- duction, however, has been so very rapid and so thorough that we have come, not unnaturally, to regard it not only as a necessity, but a long-established custom. Playgrounds and the children’s gar- dens may now almost be said to be an essential adjunct of a properly-conducted school-system. Larger and smaller cities alike, have, within a few years, established them and each year sees the numbers in- creasing ; and yet ten years ago such playgrounds were a rarity and children’s gardens unheard of. The vacation- school has also become an established feature, and yet the first one was founded in Boston in 1885. The public-school system itself, now very properly regarded as a main bulwark of our American civil- ization, is less than a hundred years old. Again, as a New. Yorker in a recent conversation said: ‘-Who would have thought, even twenty . years ago, that American municipalities would be fur- nishing free musical entertainments to the townspeople ? Any one a quarter of a century ago predicting that the public funds would be used to give free baths to urban residents, would . have been laughed to scorn.” .Yet we see many cities having free baths as a regular in- stitution, and public sentiment is not only favorable to the policy, but insistent upon its more rapid development. This same observer hazarded the state- ment that not many decades would go by ere in most cities of the United States there would be found municipal bakeries, run by the municipal government, to sup- ply bread to the people at cost. A munici- pal bakery is not so far a cry as some may think. I was reading only within the past few months in a British consular report of the work of the municipal bakery at Palermo, in Sicily. In Palermo the flour-trade during the last few years has become centered in one private establishment; in fact it has be- come a monopoly. Both bread and macaroni, the staple food of the lower classes, had risen in price. This the municipality tried in vain to check by 128 Digitized by CjOOQle
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Photo, by Oatefcmftt. PbiUdeiphU CLINTON ROGERS WOODRUFF The Arena Digitized by Google
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The Expansion of Municipal Activities. 129 fixing standard rates for both com- modities. Anxious not to ruin the re- tailers, they struck directly at the monopo- lists by undertaking to supply flour to the bakers at a standard price and bread for them to sell on commission. They laid their plans in advance, collected corn from all parts of the island, and set up, not only a mill, but also a bakery of their own. The latter turned out about 20,000 pounds of bread daily; the military emergency ovens were soon added, and supplied 11,000 pounds more. Now the municipal bakeries place daily on the market 44,000 pounds of bread, or enough to supply one-sixth of a population of 325,000, which consumes not only 260,000 pounds of bread, but 110,000 pounds of macaroni. In this way the munici- pality has succeeded in lowering the price of bread a half-penny a pound, and in maintaining the standard rates which it considered fair to the public and to the trade. Moreover, it claims to have made a considerable profit, but on this point there is considerable difference of opinion, as the baking business has been run by officers whose salaries are paid, not out of the earnings, but out of the public purse. The Palermo bakery was unquestion- ably an emergency institution, and may possibly be justified on that ground, but it has pointed a way and established a prec- edent which other communities may not be slow to follow. Two or three years ago, during the scandals incident to the formation of the American Ice Company in New York City, the suggestion was made and urged with great persistence that an ice-plant should be established, among those so urging being the then Controller, Bird S. Coler. Nothing came of the suggestion at the time, but the arguments used are Worthy of repetition, not only as indicating the feeling of the advocates of the plan, but as illustrating the ground assumed by those who believe that the municipality should use its power and authority, not only to promote the health and welfare of the community, but to protect the people from extortion and iniquity. The trend of the argument was that: “The public health would be con- served thereby, because the people of the working-class need ice during the frightful days of heat and sultriness that come upon us every summer, and they could not afford to pay the prices demanded by the combination of natural and artificial ice- dealers. “ The fact that a very large part of the natural ice served in this city (New York) comes from the polluted waters of the Hudson, and contains disease germs that develop in human stomachs at times, was and is reason enough for supplanting it with a wholesome product that could be delivered at every house and at such a price as would bring it within the reach every day of the people of the tenements. * As for the rest of the people, they also are entitled to deliverance from the ex- tortion represented in a charge that has some times gone up to $20 a ton for ice that cost less than a dollar to gather or manufacture; an extortion made possible because competition has been destroyed by the combination named.” The Mayor of Brockton, Mass., in 1901, advocated a municipal ice-plant for that city, and in 1899 Senator Young, of Kansas, introduced a bill authorizing second-class cities in that state to con- struct, maintain and operate ice-plants and public refrigerators; but nothing ever came of the bill or the suggestion. It is but a step from municipal ice to municipal milk, and in 1900 the Rev. Charles F. Dole, of Boston, seriously urged that the city should supply pure milk at cost. In the same year Mr. Nathan Straus, of New York, advocated the city ownership of plants for sterilizing milk. Municipal milk is not unknown in Great Britain. An editorial paragraph in the New York Independent of Decem- ber 26, 1901, thus quotes the facts and argues the ease: Digitized by Google
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130 The Expansion of Municipal Activities . u Now Battersea follows the example of Liverpool, St. Helens and York by under- taking the business of supplying sterilized milk to parents for the purpose of arrest- ing the unnecessarily high infantile mor- tality. It is expected that the under- taking will result in a slight financial loss at first, but the rate-payers will be more than compensated by the knowledge that the expenditure has resulted in lowering the infant mortality. At St. Helens, where the experiment has already proved a success, a loss of $400 was sustained the first year; but, on the other hand, the mortality of babies fed on corporation milk was 105 per 1,000, as against 187 per 1,000 among the children who were not so fed. In a certain sense this move- ment is not in the line of municipal socialism, but is essentially a sanitary measure and therefore naturally falls into that class of undertakings which may legitimately be run at a public loss. The problem of a good milk supply in this countiy also is getting to be a serious one. In our largest cities it is often dangerous to keep a baby in town during the hot weather, not so much on account of the heat as on account of the impossibility of getting milk that can be kept fresh. Any guaranty to the consumer that milk will be fresh and pure is certainly a reform for which to work, whether it be classed under the head of good sanitation or municipal socialism.” There is a tendency for advocates of an enlarged municipal activity to separate into two groups. On the one hand we have the avowed municipal socialists, and on the other those who believe that the .municipality should interfere on moral or sanitaiy or humanitarian grounds, and the two arguments here reproduced show clearly how, what would formerly be considered extreme socialism, is de- fended, nay more, advocated, on sanitary and humanitarian grounds. Municipal markets are not new, and municipal abattoirs are frequently to be found; but city stores are few and far between. The late Mayor Jones, of Toledo, favored municipal lunch-stands in the parks, and Dr. Rainsford, of New York, has expressed his opinion that he has not the slightest doubt but that: “We shall have municipal restaurants here eventually. They are bound to come, and it would pay the city to have them. I am glad the matter has been revived, and would be willing to help along any agitation which may be started to gik the city to take hold of the idea. Twelve years ago I brought the subject of munici- pal restaurants before the public, be- lieving firmly that they would be both a boon to the people and a benefit to the city. I am of the same belief yet. I am as firmly convinced as that I am alive that they would be a paying speculation for the city, and as to the benefit they would be to a vast number of honest working- people who have small incomes, who would be then able to get wholesome, clean food at prices they could afford, there could be no possible question.” In this matter again European prec- edent can be quoted, Grenoble, France, supplying the illustration. The follow- ing statement is based on an official document: “The service it has rendered during a period of years, some of which have been marked by dearness of supplies, has silenced the voices heard in opposition during the early stages of the enterprise, so that to-day, within and without the city of Grenoble, there exists unanimity both in recognizing and proclaiming the utility of this situation. There are nine build- i ings joined more or less to each other, and so arranged as to form a large central court. This court is tastefully decorated with flowers, adorned with statues and fountains, and furnished with tables for those who prefer to take their meals out- side of the regular dining-hall. The eating-rooms are five in number, or if the open court is counted, six. There is an eating-room for the children of the school, situated on the floor above and not seen Digitized by Google
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131 The Expansion of Municipal Activities . by the ordinary visitor. A private ar- rangement also exists by which the as- sistants of the large Vaucanson college are served through another wicket at the great kitchen. This entire school, in- cluding teachers, is fed by the institution, and the service and accounts are kept apart. “The visitor who desires his meals at the special tables first described, enters from the street through the vestibule, as in any public restaurant, and does not purchase metal checks at the wicket, but pays the waiter for his meals. The great mass of frequenters, however, pass through an entrance from the same street and purchase metal checks representing the dish or dishes desired. These checks are sold by the receiver, who stands in the ticket-office, the operation resembling that of buying tickets at a railroad station. The prices and quality of food called for by these checks are as follows* Soup, one quart, two cents; meat or fish, four and one-half ounces, four cents; plate of vegetables, two cents; wine, one-half pint, two cents; bread, four and two-thirds ounces, one cent; dessert, two cents. There are different varieties of soup, meat, vegetables, dessert, etc., which the patron specifies as he presents the checks at the wicket of the kitchen, whither he now proceeds on his way to one of the eating-rooms. According to a stringent rule, which has been constantly observed from the foundation of the restaurant, nothing but the purest articles are pur- chased. To ascertain the permanent, economic and social effects of the institu- tion among produce and cattle-growers in the vicinity of Grenoble, farms at a considerable distance were visited and the farmers questioned. They unani- mously reported that wherever the in- fluence of the establishment is felt it is regarded as beneficial, not so much on account of the higher prices it may offer, as on account of its permanency and business integrity and the high moral standard that it sets. “Although the original object in the formation of this institution was to im- prove the condition of the working-people, who to this day are its most numerous customers, yet numbers of wealthy glove and silk-manufacturers, as well as clergy- men and merchants, are constant in their practical patronage as well as their praise. There is a constant difficulty, not yet adverted to, which besets the cooperative kitchen as a municipal undertaking. It is the opposition it encounters from other restaurants, coffee-houses, saloons, and provision dealers of all kinds existing in this and the neighboring towns. It is due to a strong public opinion and sup- port, as well as the vigorous foothold en- joyed by the institution. Although these people thus competed with succeed in turning opinion to some extent against it, on the other hand they are forced to sell purer articles, and at a lower profit, than those who traffic in the same goods in towns and cities where no such institu- tion exists.” The argument for a municipal restaurant is not nearly so strong as for municipal milk and ice, nor does the emergency in Grenoble appear to have been such as to have afforded an excuse such as might be claimed in the case of the Palermo bakeiy. Municipal farms are coming into vogue; in some instances to protect the water supply; in others to utilize the sewage and garbage; in still others to furnish needed supplies to city institutions. Pasadena, Cal., has a municipal farm which has yielded an annual profit of between $4,000 and $4,500 from English walnuts, and a good profit from the alfalfa crop. More- over, it supports a laige herd of swine. The farm was established as a dumping- place for the sewage of Pasadena. It * performs this function thoroughly, and yields a handsome profit in addition. The activities of the city in behalf of the comfort and welfare of the dependent classes have grown enormously in recent years. As James B. Reynolds, formerly secretary to Mayor Low, pointed out in Digitized by Google
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132 The Expansion of Municipal Activities . an address on the subject: "The munici- pality has experienced a complete change of attitude in regard to its duties to the dependent classes in the last ten years.” We see this in the first place in the recognition of the usefulness of the school-house as a center of advanced civic endeavor. The time was, and that not so veiy long ago, when it was open for five hours a day, five days a week, ten months in the year. Now in New York, for instance, thirty-two schools are open practically all the time, all the year around. In winter, for regular school- work, mothers’ clubs, and meetings and entertainments of various kinds; in summer for manual training. Fifty- three schools arc open all summer for gymnastic and recreation purposes. Many other schools are open in the mornings in summer for mothers with their babies, and in the afternoons and evenings for meetings and recreation purposes. I wonder how many of us appreciate what all this means in the way of whole- some diversion and entertainment to people who have scarcely room enough for sleeping purposes and no money to take them to the parks or the cheapest resorts ? Then let us take the changed attitude of the city in regard to parks. The time was when a few of these in a distant part of the town sufficed. New York had her Central Park and Philadelphia had her Fainnount Park, but what mattered that to the families who had no carfare? Then even though the parks were within reach they were formal things to look upon, but not to use. Now the small parks are taken to the people and ample provision is made for free and wholesome use. Greater New York has one hun- dred and forty-seven such parks; Phila- delphia, sixty-three. What with recreation piers, band con- certs and organ recitals, free lectures, vacation schools, municipal golf-courses and tennis-grounds, free excursions for the sick and ailing, our large communities are availing themselves of the abundant opportunities that lie all about them to help the poor and dependent to make life tolerable and measurably enjoyable. Municipal theaters are increasing in number, but these hardly come within the same class as the activities we have just been considering, as they are erected for the general convenience of the com- munity, to furnish good auditoriums and as a good investment. Only incidentally and occasionally do they serve to afford the means of amusement to those to whom the municipality, in the modern conception of its obligations, owes a special duty. The city, however, has not stopped at affording wholesome recreation and amusement for its inhabitants. It has very properly begun a step further back. It has concerned itself with the housing of the poor. It has insisted, as in New York, that rooms in tenement-houses shall contain a certain number of cubic- feet of air-space for each person, and that they shall be properly ventilated and lighted and supplied with sanitary plumb- ing, and shall have a certain amount of area-space for fresh air and light. It has corrected abuses and sought to make a repetition of them difficult and dangerous to the owner, if not impossible. In some instances it has gone into tenement-house business itself, as in Chicago and Syracuse, thus making sure that the law is com- plied with and the poor classes given better housing facilities. In Great Britain, mu- nicipal lodging-houses are to be found in practically every important city. Municipal laundries, as a necessary corollary of lodging-houses, are quite the vogue abroad and especially in Great Britain; but none has been established in this country so far as I am informed. A municipal pawnshop has been opened in Chicago and a municipal employment bureau in Superior, Wisconsin, and in Toledo. Municipal coal and wood-yards have been strongly urged in Massachu- setts, but thus far unsuccessfully. A municipal grocery-store has been run Digitized by Google
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133 The Expansion of Municipal Activities. for some months at Kenosha, Wisconsin, under the management of one of the aldermen, for the benefit of dependents. A profit of $2,000 was earned during the first six months. Municipal hospitals are rapidly in- creasing in number. Municipal burial- grounds are an old-established institution, although known as potter’s-fields. Mayor Quincy during his administration strongly urged the building of a municipal crema- tory, but Hull, England, has the credit of establishing the first one, which is now in successful operation. According to recent consular reports, German cities now employ dentists who devote their whole time to their duties. As the report of Consul Liefield perti- nently remarks: ‘"That such a movement is necessary can scarcely be doubted when one learns that of many thousands of boys and girls examined, from the ages of 8 to 13, only 2 per cent, had a perfectly healthy set of tekh. To give an idea of the amount of work done in a year at Darmstadt schools it is necessary to quote the figures for 1903. During the year, 1,376 children were examined, and 1,561 teeth were filled, while 1,871 were extracted. In Strasburg 2,666 children were examined, 699 teeth were filled, and 2,912 were extracted. “Another interesting fact is that 40 per cent of all teeth examined were bad. The method of work is very simple; the teacher brings his class to the dentist, who examines each mouth quickly and marks on the card which each child has brought with it whether treatment is necessary. If so, the child must come again on a Saturday. Russia is also joining in the movement, and has already fitted up nine such institutions in St. Petersburg alone, while Moscow has several.” Municipal vaccine physicians are no new thing in America, and now our cities are going one step further in that they are furnishing nurses to the schools. It is not necessary to refer at any length to the expansion of activities along the line of lighting, both by gas and electricity, and of water-supply. While in this matter of municipal monopolies, as in other directions, European cities have gone faster and further; American cities are a good second. In transporta- tion matters, street-railroads, ferries and docks, our cities have not made nearly the same progress, nor in the matter of municipal telephones. America could point for a while to a municipally-owned and conducted news- paper at Webster, Iowa, and can still point to a printing-plant at Boston. Cities are beginning to own and operate their street- paving, cleaning and sprinkling-plants and their own repair-shops. Philadelphia has established a department of supplies which has effected a saving of $150,000 during the first year of its operation. Philadel- phia has also gone into the insurance business. Premiums heretofore paid to private companies for insuring public buildings now go into a sinking-fund and the city will insure its own properties. The municipal activities of American cities are numerous and varied. Prof. Parsons summed them up recently, de- claring that the following-named subjects had been held to be proper public pur- poses and proper subjects of municipal ownership and control: “ Roads, bridges, sidewalks, sewers, ferries, markets, scales, wharves, canals, parks, baths, schools, libraries, museums, hospitals, lodging-houses, poor-houses, jails, cemeteries, prevention of fire, supply of water, gas, electricity, heat, power, transportation, telegraph and telephone service, clocks, skating-rinks, musical entertainments, exhibitions of fireworks, tobacco-warehouses, employment offices.” A remarkable list indeed ! but the following list of additional municipal activities in Great Britain is still more remarkable: Leamington and Harrowgate have Turkish baths, Liverpool has a municipal Digitized by Google
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184 Public Control of the Liquor organ with a salaried organist, and is preparing to erect the largest Hamman in Europe; Nottingham owns a castle, has also an university ; Birmingham has one and Liverpool is about establishing one; Manchester owns shares in the ship-canal, Bristol owns her docks and harbors, and Liverpool and Bradford own hotels; Shef- field owns business premises and Glas- gow a “Municipal Palace ” ; Torquay has a rabbit warren and Colchester an oyster-fishery, while Doncaster and Chester own race-tracks. The growth of municipal activities has not been confined to Great Britain. Dr. Shaw has made us familiar with those of the continental countries, and since his books were re-issued there has been a considerable further growth. For in- stance, by a law passed in 1908, it is possible for municipalities in Italy to engage in the management of water- works, lighting companies, sewerage undertakings, street-railroads, sanitation, funerals, slaughter-houses, markets, night refuges for the indigent, omnibus lines, telephones, public baths, drug stores, mills, baking establishments, and almost every conceivable enterprise. The es- tablishment of direct municipalization must be decided upon by a vote of the municipal council on two different oc- casions, with an interval of twenty days Traffic in Sweden and Norway. between the decisions. These resolu- tions are submitted to all of the admin- istration authorities, and finally to the people by means of a referendum. In case the majority-vote of the electors is against the project, it cannot be proposed again for the space of three years, unless one-fourth of the electors present a re- quest for the re-proposing of the billt when such a reconsideration may take place after an interval of one year. And so goes the story of expansion and development which we do not fully realize and appreciate because we do not have time to pause and consider it; but whether we discuss the subject descrip- tively, as I have in this paper, or statis- tically, the result is the same. We are overwhelmed with the advance and the activity. A hundred years ago (in 1800) Phila- delphia, with a population of 70,287, spent $68,485.92 or 97 cents an inhabi- tant. If the same rate had been main- tained in 1899, when the population (in round numbers) was 1,250,000, the annual expenditure would have been $1,212,500. As a matter of fact it was $80,958,382.88, or $27.78 a person. Is any further illustration needed to tell the story of the growth of municipal activities ? Clinton Rogers Woodruff. Philadelphia, Pa. PUBLIC CONTROL OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC IN SWEDEN AND NORWAY. By M. Alger. THE SYSTEM IN SWEDEN. N MARCH 31, 1864, a proposal was laid before the town council of Gothenburg in which attention was called to the fact that, “ while the city of Gothenburg tended, in so many respects, to become the model of a well-regulated, free, and prosperous community,” yet one was “grieved to see one dark spot that marred a picture otherwise so bright and full of promise of a happy future, this being the existence in this city of a large class of paupers which, far from decreasing, seemed to be increasing in quite a threatening manner.” It was, therefore, proposed that the town council should appoint a committee to inquire Digitized by Google
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Public Control of the Liquor Traffic in Sweden and Norway. 135 into the real causes of pauperism in Gothenburg, and to propose such meas- ures as seemed best calculated to mitigate this evil, unfortunately common to all communities. A committee was accordingly appointed and reported in April, 1865. In this report, the committee stated that, in the course of their investigations, they had " everywhere encountered brann- vin* as a very prominent cause of the present, morally as well as physically and economically deplorable, condition of a great portion of the lower classes of this community.” And, they went on to say, although the abuse of liquor must not be put down to the "cravings of brutish sensuality” only, but might also be due to external causes, yet tins abuse was so pernicious in its effects that a "com- munity might well muster all its forces to conquer an enemy who was followed by poverty, distress, and crime.” The com- mittee held that drinking was not only one of the chief sources of poverty and distress, but that it was greatly encouraged by the existing methods of retailing in- toxicants. Innkeepers and publicans, who made a living by selling liquors, and paid a heavy fee to the authorities for their licenses, naturally had an obvious interest in obtaining as large a sale as possible for their own benefit. For this purpose it was a common practice among them to sell on credit, the consequence being that the workman, after settling his debt to the publican, had often nothing left of his weekly wages to supply his own wants and those of his family. Being refused credit, the drunkard had recourse to the pawnbroker, and many a workman took his most necessary articles of furniture to the publican, who thus not unfrequently made an unreasonable profit in the pawnbroker’s business as well. The Liquor Law of 1855 enacted that food should always be procurable at •Brannvin is a native Swedish spirit, distilled from potatoes, rye or maize, usually colorless, but oocumoaDy of a pale yellow color. every public-house, but many publicans openly evaded this provision of the law. In many places the eating-houses and refreshment -rooms for workmen had degenerated into vile dens, where vice was rife in dark, filthy, and unsanitary localities. The committee, after thorough in- vestigation concluded that the well-being of the community demanded that the whole system of retailing spirits should be re-modeled in conformity with the following programme: 1. That neither the advancers of capital, nor the publicans should derive any profit from the sale of spirits, all temptation on their part to push the con- sumption of intoxicants being thus done away with. 2. That the sale of spirits on credit or publicans acting as pawnbrokers should cease. 3. That the public-houses should be well-lighted and well-ventilated, spacious and cleanly. 4. That wholesome and well-cooked food should be supplied to the customers at moderate charges. The committee also soon came to the conviction that these indispensable con- ditions for a better state of things could never be fulfilled unless the whole of the general liquor traffic were taken over by a bolag (company) formed by persons who undertook the enterprise, not for private personal gain, but for the good of the working-classes. Thus, the committees had not only made a theoretical investigation, but they had proposed a practical scheme for improving the existing conditions. Almost at the same time that their report was handed in, notice was given to the Magistracy that about twenty of the leading firms and citizens of the town had united into a company, with the object of taking over, under the name of the Ooteborgs UtskdnJenings AkHebolag , the entire sale of intoxicants within the Digitized by Google
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136 Public Control of the Liquor Traffic in Sweden and Norway. town, the company binding themselves to pay over to the town treasury the whole net profits to be used for certain public purposes and institutions specified by law. After the bolag was formed, in the spring of 1865, it offered the town authori- ties to take over, to begin with, all the licenses that were to become vacant, ac- cording to the law then in force, on October first of that year, and it reserved to itself the right to take over also those that were to become vacant on October first of the following year, so as finally to place in the hands of the bolag all the licenses that the town authorities could dispose of by law. The town authorities having granted this request, and the confirmation of the Governor of the Province (the repre- sentative of the Crown) having been obtained, the bolag, at the end of June, 1865, elected a Board of Directors who were to cany the new order of things into execution. This was done. Instructions and regulations were issued, tariffs fixed, premises rented, furniture purchased, managers of the drink-shops engaged, etc., and thus, during the first few days of October, 1865, the bolag was in a position to open seventeen new public-houses. The system for selling spirits thus brought into existence is generally called, for shortness, the Gothenburg System, from the town in which it was first practically applied to any extent. The system is based upon the fact that the manufacture and sale of spirits is permitted by the law, and it should be judged entirely from this point-of-view. Its immediate object, therefore, is not, and cannot be, to prevent or prohibit the consumption of intoxicants, but it is directed chiefly against the abuses of the liquor traffic. What the system aims at is partly to regulate this traffic, so as to deprive it of the inducement of private personal gain, with, its desire for an in- creased consumption of spirits, and partly by strict control to see that the traffic is carried on in accordance with the restrictive regulations laid down by the law. The operations of the bolag are, there- fore, in the first place of an administra- tive and controlling nature, its object being to enforce the following funda- mental principles: 1. To prohibit the sale of intoxicants on credit. 2. To prohibit the sale of spirits to persons of tender years and inebriated persons. 3. To provide decent, well-lighted and well-ventilated, premises for the sale of spirits proportionate in size to the traffic. 4. To supply cooked food at moderate charges at the public-houses. But the work of the bolag has another side of no less importance than the one already considered. Being allowed to issue regulations independent of the com- mon legislation, the companies are in a position, within the limits laid down by the law, to regulate the liquor trade within the communes in the interest of morality, so as to render more severe or increase the restrictions of the law, according as the conditions of any particular place may require. By this means the com- munes have been enabled, in an indirect way, to grapple with the increasing con- sumption of spirits more effectively than ever before, and to mitigate the evil effects of drink. In this respect, the endeavors of the bolag have mainly had for their object: 1. To make drink dearer. 2. To lower the percentage of alcohol. 3. To limit the quantity of spirits pro- curable by any one visitor at any one time. 4. To provide premises chiefly in- tended for eating-houses. 5. To raise the limit of age for young persons to whom spirits may not be supplied. 6. To shorten the time for keeping open the shops where spirits are sold for off-consumption. / Digitized by Google
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Public Control of the Liquor Traffic in Sweden and Norway. 1S7 7. To restrict the public-house traffic In 1899 there was a public-house to certain hours in the day, and to turn the public-houses into eating-houses. ‘ 8. To supply good and cheap food to the working-classes . In spite of the opposition it has en- countered from various quarters, the System has fought its way triumphantly, and it is now adopted, although partly modified, in most towns in Sweden, and also in Norway and Finland. Nor can any one who has really acquainted himself with the System and its objects, and who will judge these im- , partially, fail to recognize its superiority over every other method that has hitherto been tried for regulating the sale of in- toxicants. And the harsh and unjust criticism of the System which may still be heard occasionally, not only from its opponents in principle, but from its sincere friends, is no doubt due in most cases to prejudice and to the inability to distinguish between the System and its objects, on the one hand, and the manner in which it has sometimes been applied, on the other. It should also be borne in mind that what is really a defect in the legislation now in force is not unfrequently put down to the System. As such must be designated the fact that the sale of in- toxicating malt-liquors is practically free in this country; and so long as this defect in the legislation remains, no satisfactory result from the temperance ftrork will ever be obtained. At the present stage of legislation in this country, and under the existing social conditions, the System does its work creditably, even though, like every- thing human, it has its defects. No doubt, when it has fulfilled its mission, it will be replaced by other and more perfect organizations; but this should not prevent the philanthropist from gratefully ac- knowledging the great share it has had in the temperance movement of our times. In 1868 there was a public-house (krog) for every 2,293 persons of the population. (krog) for every 8,158 persons. In 1875 there was one shop for retail- ing brannvin for off-consumption for every 8,569 persons of the population. Looking at the net profits, it will be seen that they have amounted, during this twenty-three years, to 16,282,360 kroner 90 ore ($4,363,672.48), these figures representing the sum which instead of going into the pockets of the publican, has been used for the public benefit. Such portions of the above as have gone to the town have been appropriated to ' various institutions for the benefit of the liquor-consuming classes, such as the Slotsskogen Park, the Museum, the fund for providing free legal advice to the working-classes, the Board School-chil- dren’s holiday-fund, reading-rooms for workmen, etc., the greatest part, how- ever having been paid into the town treasury to be used for improving the police, the system for relieving the poor, and the hospital service. In applying the Gothenburg System in Norway, it has been thought more advantageous to distribute these profits differently; however, at the Alcohol Congress held at Christiania in 1891, Mr. Berner stated that the difference was only a formal one, and that the proceed- ing was practically the same in both countries. It is significant of the de- crease in the consumption of brannvin during the period in question that, while in 1876 the gross profits of the bolag were 13.84 kroner her head of the popula- tion, they had gone down to 9.65 kroner in 1898. THE NUMBER, SITUATION AND CHAR- ACTER OF THE PUBLIC-HOUSE8. The number of places where brannvin is sold for consumption on the premises has gone down from 27 in 1868 to 15 in 1900, although the population of Gothen- burg has increased during the same period from 50,000 to 120,000 persons in round numbers. The existing law provides that every Digitized by Google
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138 Public Control of the Liquor Traffic in Sweden and Norway . place where liquor is sold shall be situated openly in public streets, roads or squares, and, moreover, that premises used for public-house traffic, are kept in proper condition. During the last few years, the aim of the bolag has been to lessen the number of small public-houses in favor of fewer and larger ones, situated in suitable dis- tricts of the town, by which means im- portant advantages are gained chiefly with respect to an easier control of the visit- ors and the provision of large and up-to- date restaurants for the working-classes. As regards the situation of these houses, the bolag, while avoiding those districts which are chiefly inhabited by working- people, is anxious to choose places that shall not lie near the great working- centers or in streets leading into them, or in market-places and public squares, such a situation, as it were, inviting the workman who passes by to a visit. On the other hand, the premises must not be placed at too great a distance from the said centers, as experience shows that, if access to the public-house is rendered too difficult for the working- man, this will increase home drinking and induce him to purchase a larger supply of spirits than he would otherwise do, to be consumed out-of-doors in slums and back lanes, evils which no control whatever, be it ever so strict, can prevent, and which are far more pernicious in their consequences than drinking at the carefully-controlled public-house. The public-houses, as a rule, consist of two departments: the “pub.” depart- ment proper (krogafdelningen) and the so-called “better” department ( btittre afdelingen ), the latter being intended for those workmen who wish to partake of their refreshments more in private. In the matter of fittings, decoration, and furniture, the bolag has been particularly anxious to make its premises airy and comfortable, at the same time avoiding unnecessary luxury, as experience shows that the behavior of the visitors is greatly influenced by their surroundings. HOUB8 OF BALE. The existing law enacts that retailing shall take place on week-days only, from 8 A. M. to 7 P. M. As regards the public-house traffic, the law enacts that it shall not begin earlier than 9 A. M. on week-days and generally cease at 10 P. M., and, further, that as a rule, no spirits shall be supplied on Sundays and Holy Days except to persons taking their meals at die public-houses. By restricting these hours of sale from time to time, however, the bolag has endeavored to give a check to public- house drinking. Thus, it has enacted: That all sale of br&nnvin, except as an appetizer with meals, shall cease at the bolag public-house for workmen at 6 P. M. on week-days during October to March, and at 7 P. M. during April to September, except on the eve of Sundays and Holy Days, when it shall cease at 6 P. M. throughout the year: That the said public-houses shall be closed at 8 P. M. during October to March and at 9 P. M. during the other months. That the said public-houses shall be closed on Sundays and Holy Days, ex- cept between 1 and 8 P. M., when brfinn- vin may be supplied only as an appetizer with meals. That on week-days between 12 and 2 the public-houses be turned into eating- houses, where br&nnvin may not be served otherwise than an appetizer with meals, if ordered. The law prohibits such sale to persons under fifteen years, while the bolag has ad- vanced the limit to eighteen years, thus excluding young persons from the public- houses three years longer than the law does. Again, in the contracts made with the managers of the public-houses, the bolag has among others inserted a clause that expressly forbids these persons and their assistants from serving more than two drams to any one person each time he visits the public-house, and enjoins upon them to refuse more drink to persons who Digitized by Google
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Public Control of the Liquor Traffic in Sweden and Norway. 139 ask for several drams successively to be consumed on the premises, or who repeat their visits with short intervals for the purpose of mere dram-drinking. The contracts also enjoin upon the managers and those in their employ carefully to see that no spirits are supplied to inebriated persons and persons of tender years. All these regulations are enforced so severely that offences against them gen- erally result in a dismissal from the company’s service. PROVIDING PUBLIC-HOUSES MAINLY IN- TENDED FOR EATING PURPOSES. The Swedish law provides that cooked food shall always be procurable at places where spirits are sold for consumption on the premises, which provision rests upon a philanthropic principle, science having proved that the alcoholic poison is less injurious to the human organism if taken with food. In order that the public-houses may be converted more and more into restaurants for the working-classes, the bolag, as already stated, has decided that during the dinner-hour, between 12 and 2 P. M., all sale of britanvin shall cease at these places, except when taken as an appetizer with meals. Moreover, the bolag has opened eating-houses in different parts of the town, where cooked food is served throughout the day, and where br&nnvin is supplied, if ordered and at an extra- charge, to persons taking their meals there, only one dram being allowed to each visitor. There are at present four houses of this class in Gothenburg. When these houses were first opened, every visitor, as a rule, took his dram; now more than half the number of visitors take their meals without ordering brknn- vin. The eating-houses are open on week- days from 7.30 A. M. to 9 P. M. and on Sundays and Holy Days between 1 and 3 P. M. and 6.30 and 9 P. M. At these places several kinds of whole- some and well-cooked food is served at cheap rates, meat, fish, and soups, to be chosen from bills of fare posted up on the premises. In 1898, 370,424 portions of food were served at the eating-houses. READING-ROOMS FOR WORKMEN. Since 1883, the bolag has opened reading-rooms in different parts of the town which offer a refuge to the working- man or to any one who, wishing to avoid the public-house, but being in want of a home, does not know where to spend his leisure hours in the evening. At these places, coffee, tea, milk, chocolate, non- alcoholic drinks, sandwiches and other light refreshments are supplied, but neither beer nor spirits of any kind. They are also provided with a goodly selection of books and newspapers as well as materials for letter-writing. Young workmen, especially those excluded from the public-houses by the rules of the bolag, have found these reading-rooms to be an excellent substitute. As a matter of fact, the number of visitors to these rooms has been steadily increasing. In May-December, 1883, it was 145,- 425; in the following year 198,780, and in 1897-98 no less than 314,309 in the city of Gothenburg. At the same time the number of the reading-rooms has been increased from three to seven in that city. Deducting the first four years, when the bolag had not yet the control of the entire sale, it will be seen that, with respect to the sale for consumption on the premises, i. t ., the sale of single drams, the quantity sold is less in 1898 than in 1870. It remains then, an incontestable fact, that during the last quarter of a century the sale of spirits has gone down 50 per cent., it being now not above half of what it was twenty-five years ago; and, further, that the ordinary consumption per individual is about 10 liters a year, or rather less than one liter a month. THE SYSTEM IN NORWAY. It was in 1871 that the so-called Gothenburg System was introduced in Norway. More than thirty years have Digitized by Google
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140 Public Control of the Liquor Traffic in Sweden and Norway. passed since then; thus the time has come when the effects of the System may be defined with some exactness. The main feature of the Gothenburg System is, that each municipality is the owner of all rights to sell spirituous liquors within its jurisdic- tion. An exception is the few life-privi- leges held by private individuals, under special decisions of former days. The spirit generally consumed usually contains from about 40 to 45 per cent, alcohol. Beer is calculated to contain 3£ per cent., wine is reckoned to contain on an average of 10 per cent. The average annual consumption of alcohol per inhabitant, at 100 per cent, alcohol (in spirits, beer and wine), is calculated at about 2.2 liters for recent years. Norway, however, has not always taken up such a favorable position. During die years 1830-40, we find her ravaged by the “ spirits plague,” with its sad results, moral, economic and sanitary. It was then calculated that the consump- tion of spirits was more than 8 liters (at 100 per cent, alcohol) per head. By a law of 1816, any one was allowed to dikill spirits from their owp produce. This naturally resulted in an alarming increase in spirit-drinking. In the ’forties, legis- lation took energetic measures against this, supported by a no less energetic voluntary abstinence movement. The manufacture of spirits was only permitted when it was done by wholesale. At the present time there are only twenty-two distilleries, which together produce on an average of about 3,000,000 liters (at 100 per cent, alcohol), some of which is ex- portedr-while, however, about 1,000,000 liters (finer sorts) are generally imported from abroad. The wholesale and retail sale of spirits was also greatly restricted during the ’forties. The sale of spirits was made an exceptional means of sub- sistence. No one was allowed to retail spirits without a license from the local board and without giving up all other trade. The local board could actually forbid the retail sale of spirits within their municipality by refusing licenses (local option). The sale of spirits was forbid- den on Sundays and Holy Days, and on the afternoons preceding these. The sale of spirits to children and intoxicated persons was prohibited, and also at cer- tain large, popular gatherings, etc. Severe penalties were inflicted for the un- lawful sale of spirits. A heavy tax was laid both on the home production of spirits (with a corresponding duty on imported spirits) and on retail sale. The consequences of this wise legisla- tion were soon apparent. The number of bars decreased rapidly from 1,101 in 1847 to 640 in 1857, and a breaking-off of drinking habits and a consequent decrease in the consumption of spirits were per- ceptible, as well as an increased well- being and improved health. In Norway, the rural districts in particular were almost cleared of spirit-selling, which was concentrated in the towns. By a law of 1871, the local boards in the towns were allowed to make over their retail rights to philanthropic companies (earn- ing), which, instead of seeking to make the largest possible circle of customers, made it their aim to supervise and restrict the drinking of spirits, and whose net profits from the business should be de- voted to “ objects of public utility.” In other words, it was the introduction of the system known as the “ Gothenburg Sys- tem,” which is also in force in Finland. The Norwegian system, however, dif- fers in several points from the Swedish and Finnish, especially in the fact that the profits do not, as in the neighboring kingdom, go to the municipal funds. Norway thus does not tempt the munici- palities to improve the state of their finances by a good “trade in spirits. Finally, the spirit-trade, by a new law of July 27, 1894, was practically monopo- lized by these companies. All men and women over twenty-five years of age were allowed to decide by ‘‘ayes’* and “noes,” whether there should be any sale of spirits in their town for the next five years (vote of the people, or referendum ). Digitized by Google
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Public Control of the Liquor Traffic in Sweden and Norway. 141 In consequence of this, the sale of spirits has been prohibited of late years in a number of towns. Since 1871, the bars in Norwegian towns have been reduced in number from 501 to about ISO, or about one to eveiy 4,000 inhabitants. For the whole country there is now only one place for the sale of spirits to every 16,000 inhabitants. Since 1871-75, the consumption of spirits has decreased still further from 2.8 liters (at 100 per cent, alcohol) per head to 1.8 liters in 1896-98. At the same time, sums amounting to more than 20,000,000 kroner ($5,360,000) have been distributed by the samlag to objects of public utility. Legislation has also to some extent at- tempted to transfer the beer and wine trades into the hands of the samlag. The consumption of beer in 1896 was reckoned at 16.2 liters per head, and of wine about 2.5 liters per head. It follows in the nature of things, that the many millions of kroner saved annually in households by the reduced consumption of intoxicating liquors, have contributed greatly to raise the economic well-being of the people. Crime has also decreased. The number of deaths whose cause was assigned to drink during the years 1856-60 was S3 per 10,000, but since then it has decreased steadily, and for the years 1891-94 was only 10.5 per 10,000. The number of insane also, and suicides, as a result of drink, has been continually de- creasing with the increasing sobriety. This wise legislation and heavy taxa- tion, whose purpose has rather been to raise the price of intoxicating liquors and thus restrict their use than to serve fiscal purposes, have been strongly supported by a voluntary abstinence movement, which has been especially active among the lower-classes. It has been said with reason that the Norwegian people have educated themselves to abstinence. The “Norwegian Total Abstinence Society” (Det norske Total- Afholdsselskab ), found- ed in 1859, now numbers 1,020 associa- tions with 129,259 members. Norway’s Grand Lodge of the I. O. G. T. has 352 lodges, with 17,735 members, besides about 8.000 children. The Norwegian Good Templars Grand Lodge has about 4,200 members, the Norwegian Women’s Total- Abstinence Society ( Norske Kvinders Total - Afholdsselskab) 2,163 members, and the Blue Ribbon about 2,500. The annual report for 1903 of the Christiania Samlag contains information which fairly well illustrates both the working of the company and the system. The Christiania Samlag has been in existence for the last eighteen years. The sales during that year amounted to 1,577,257 kroner ($316,828), of which 1,182,194 kroner came from sales by the glass; the balance from sales by the bottle. Beer, wines and soda-water in- cluded in the above amounted to about 170.000 kroner. The total profit made was 215,218 kroner ($58,150). Taken by measure the amount of spirituous liquors sold was 396,000 liters, 389,250 quart bottles of beer and 300 bottles of wine. The company are allowed to sell Kquors in thirty different places in the city. Fourteen of these are in the company’s own stores; while sixteen have been in- stalled in hotels and restaurants. Besides from nine of the company’s own stores, liquors have been sold by the bottle in thirty-two private stores, of which only two have a life-privilege, while the others have permits from the municipality. Each of these merchants selling liquors by the bottle has to pay an annual tax of $2,680 to the samlag. Beside the samlag, 317 persons have had rights to sell wines and beer, nine by life-privilege, the others under an annual license from the municipality. From the company’s retail stores 27,069 persons have been refused service, because of intoxication or because they were too young. The number of the latter was 872. The sales of liquors in 1903 has de- creased from what they were in 1902 by 26,955 liters, and the sales of beer by 46,745 quart bottles. Digitized by Google
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142 The Impurity of Divorce Suppression . The sum available to distribute for philanthropic purposes of the year’s profit was 158,652 kroner ($42,518). The principal donations were: About TothePoor of the City 28,000 kroner $6,210 “ Children's Hospitals .. . 20,000 “ 5,100 “ Art-Industrial Museum 12,000 “ 8,240 “ Society for Prevention cc M •c of Beggary House Muirion Hospitals Vacation Trips for Poor School-children National Theater Home for Men Out of Work Workingmen's Academy Christiania Sailors* Home 9.000 9,200 9,500 6.000 8,000 5.000 6.000 5,000 C« M «« «< 2,480 2,484 2,585 1,620 2,160 1,350 1,620 1,350 TotheTraining School for About Boys 4,500 kroner $1,215 “ Different Temperance Societies 4,500 “ 1,215 “ Salvation Army 8,000 “ 710 “ Training Ship for Boys 2,000 “ 540 The balance was all used for some kindred purposes, 1,800 kroner being con- tributed for music in public places. During the years 1880-1903, the Christiania Samlag has contributed the sum of 4,662,445 kroner, or $1,249,535, to institutions and for purposes as those above mentioned. M. Alger. Christiania , Norway . THE IMPURITY OF DIVORCE SUPPRESSION. Bt Theodore Schroeder.* AT THE present time many persons il of pretentious respectability are agitating the public by their denunciation of divorce and divorcees. Many of these mistake vehemence of declaration for weight of logic, and rely more upon the vituperative denunciation of easy divorce as impure, than a rational discussion of the social utility of divorce suppression. Being possessed of but little worldly wisdom, these persons are mainly im- pelled to action by religious fanaticism. * [Theodore Schroeder was born in Horicon, Wisconsin, and educated in the University of Wisconsin, graduating from the Department of Civil Engineering in 1885 and from the Law Department in 1889. After leaving the university Mr. Schroeder settled in Salt Lake City, where he practiced law for twelve years. During the last years of his residence in Utah he became rather famous for his strong opposition to Mormonism. In addition to publishing a number of able argu- ments in magazines, newspapers and pamphlets, the prominent part which he took in the prose- cution of the case against Brigham H. Roberts, the polygamist Congressman from Utah, which led to Mr. Roberts' exclusion from Congress, gave Mr. Schroeder a national reputation. Later he re- , moved to New York City, where he is at present engaged in the practice of law. In combatting Mormonism Mr. Schroeder differed in his line of assault from the professional reformers, insisting This appears from the fact that they sup- port their position only by religious dogmas, never by arguments based upon practical observations of human life. Since persistence and vehemence in the denunciation of easy divorce is likely to increase the number of moral perverts, it becomes necessary to refresh our memory as to the genesis and consequences of the marriage ideals of these people with whom “purity” is a profession. Modem opposition to second mar- with great emphasis that polygamy was a special manifestation of the over-sexed condition which he held was a phase of emotionalism that usually ac- companies intense religious enthusiasm. Mr. Schroeder has made a careful and exhaustive study of sex psychology, and his paper may be considered the work of one who is an expert on this subject. We append a list of the standard authorities which have been consulted in the preparation of this con- tribution.— B. O. Flower.] History of Montanism. By Lee (of Oxford). Women, Church and State . By Mrs. Gage. Sex Worship, By Howard (and others). History of European Morals, By Lecky. Studies in the Psychology of Sex, By Havelock Ellis. Psychopathia Sexualis , By Krafft-Ebing. Fathers of the Desert, History of dreumeisum. Digitized by Google
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14S The Impurity of Divorce Suppression. rages, if not the lineal descendant, is at leak a collateral heir to the ideals of the insane desert hermits. The divinely im- posed asceticism is the counterpart of the religious sensualism of the harem. Both are founded upon sexual hypenesthetics. Asceticism, though not a disease of Christian begetting, is one that found new support and associations in Christian environment. Historically, Christian as- ceticism had its begininning with Mon- tanus, a prophet of the first or second century. His sect lasted about four hun- dred years, and its religious enthusiasm famished the salacious foundation for both priestly celibacy and Mohammedan polygamy. As with other prophets, Montanus attracted those who left their husbands to become fellow prophetesses. He had the misfortune to be caught in flagrante delicto with one of the married sisters of his flock, and in consequence thereof some irate husbands relieved him of the sign of his virility. Montanus and his female co-laborers, in making a virtue of their misfortune, discovered the delights of spiritual affinities, and the saving grace of virginity. The added emotions engendered by their sex-sup- pression created a reservoir of religious enthusiasm seldom equaled in modem times. The unavoidable “ virtue ” of the emasculated prophet was eagerly adopted as an ideal by his faithful devotees, who perhaps considered this the most forcible rebuke of those who had sought to injure their God-like leader. In the course of time, as is usually the case in such cir- cumstances, all the intensity of their religious frenzy, evolved mainly from their sexual abnormity, became an in- separable associate of the ascetic ideal, and thus created the epidemic eroto- phobia of the succeeding centuries. As often has occurred, the delirium of man was accepted by the mob as the sign of the presence of God. Maniacal vehem- ence so impressed the multitude that many of the insane were sainted and their anti-natural ideals are even to this day given a verbal endorsement as examples of purity by persons who are too healthy- minded to adopt them as rules of life. The ascetic nuns and monks esteemed the development of their sexual hyperaes- theticism as an evidence of an increasing virtue. Their growing torment of pas- sion and the consequent multiplication of their erotic hallucinations, were inter- preted as Satan’s increasing efforts at their seduction, made necessary in pro- portion to their augmenting power of virtuous resistance. Those, who, through more healthy- mindedness and more natural living, were exempt from these aberrations, were denounced as already belonging to Satan and, therefore, left by him un- tempted. So it is even now. Not to suffer from the unhealthy sex-sensitive- ness of social purists, is to admit one’s self to be already impure. While the more healthy-minded ones regretted their comparative sanity, the desert became well sprinkled with zealous maniacs seeking spiritual exaltation through sex- suppression and bodily macerations. Under the influence of this disease all domestic virtues were denounced and denied. Husbands abandoned their wives, denounced their mothers, and were even willing to kill their own off- spring lest the distracting influence of family ties might interfere with their souls’ salvation. Loving wives and mothers, who made long pilgrimages to the desert in quest of the male fanatics who were related to them by the dearest ties, found their efforts to be vain. Thus, St. Theodorus receives his ab- bot’s permission to deny an interview to his mother and his sister. The mother of St. Marcus persuaded the abbot to command her son to go out to her. He went with his face disguised and his eyes shut. The mother did not recognize her son, nor the son see his mother. Under like circumstances, St. Prior interviewed his sister with closed eyes, for fear the sight of a woman might contaminate him. The deserted mother of St. Poemen and his six brothers found her way to their Digitized by Google
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144 The Impurity of Divorce Suppression. retreat in the Egyptian desert. As she caught sight of them they ran to their cell and shut the door in her face. In vain did she exclaim: “ I long to see you, my sons. What harm could it do you that I should see you ? Am I not your mother? Did I not give you suck? I am an old and wrinkled woman, and my heart is troubled at the sound of your voices.” The saintly brothers, however, refused to open the door, assuring their good mother outside that she would see them after death. The mother of St. Simon Stylites, after twenty-seven years of separation, discovered the whereabouts of her “ pure M and holy son, only to be denied admit- tance into his presence. Her entreaties and tears were mingled with bitter and eloquent reproach. “My son,” she is reported to have said, “why have you done this ? I bore you in my womb, and you have wrung my soul with grief. I gave you milk from my breast, you have filled my eyes with tears. For the kisses I gave you, you have given me the anguish of a broken heart; for all that I have done and suffered for you, you have repaid me by the most cruel wrongs.” It was all in vain. The saintly son could not pollute his soul by allowing his eyes to rest on his loving mother, because she was a woman. After three days and nights of weeping and vain entreaties before the inhospitable door of the saint’s cell, she from grief, age and privation, sank feebly to file ground and breathed her last. The saintly matricide now emerged from his cell, commended his dead mother’s soul to heaven, and re- turned to his devotions. In the eroto- phobia of such unspeakable brutes was bom and reared to respectability the social purist’s conceptions of virtue. To the insane monk and the modem ultra-social purist, all sex relation, per se, is immoral. Originally a first marriage was proclaimed an unavoidable evil, indulged in only by spiritual weaklings and those with lost souls, and a second one was but licensed adultery. Remar- riage was more damning than a first, only because it was a second offence. Coitus was, per se, immoral, and could be relieved of its attendant curse, even within marriage, only when accompanied by a bona fide intention to procreate. Thus marriage was tolerated because it was “the thorny bush from which has come the rose, virginity.” This “ asceticism with limited liability ” is still popular among certain narrow purists. Its influence upon our Presi- dent, who is always verbally strenuous, induced him to say that the “wilfully barren woman has no place in a sane, healthy and vigorous community.” Ob- sessed by the necessity of finding an ex- cuse for any sensual indulgence, he for- gets that the deliberately barren woman may be doing far more toward the eleva- tion of humanity, than is her sister, whose chief virtue Hes in having added three or four to the population. Even a first marriage, as a concession to evil, needed the authority of God’s vice- gerent as a condition precedent to its tol- eration. This notion of marriage as a re- ligious sacrament, had its origin in the Bac- chanalian debauches of our Phallic-wor- shiping ancestors. Notwithstanding this, social purists call those impure who will not join them in this worship of Priapus. Among many Christians, it was in- sisted that the ancient custom of priestly prelibation was an essential to the proper sanctification of marriage. This right became extinguished by two methods. On the one hand, with die ascendancy of the feudal lord it was transferred to him, and received legal protection in England as “gavelkind,” by which the lord of the manor had the right of the first night with the bride of his bondsman. On the other hand, the priests, for a considera- tion in cash, waived their superior right to the bride. This was the immediate ancestor of our present custom of paying coin to have our marriages parsonized. The beginning no doubt is to be sought for in the sacred prostitution of the ancients or in their sensual mysteries. Digitized by Google
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145 The Impurity of Divorce Suppression. These ancient barbarities and their modem “ pure 99 descendants have strange counterparts which would be intensely ludicrous were they not so pathetic. It occurred that women in the interests of “purity” refused to kiss their own sons, or to touch any man. Some of the saints were so “pure” that they never viewed their own naked bodies. One was pro- tected from such a direful possibility by being miraculously carried over a stream across which he was about to swim. Of course, such saints never bathed, nor put on renovated clothes, and announced that dirty bodies were essential to clean souls. The holy evangelist, St. John, Origen and his monks, and the thousands of other purists even now in Christian Russia, find “ pure ” relief from their ex- cessive sex-torments only by self-emas- culation, by becoming “eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake.” So sensitive to everything feminine were the monks of Athos that they ac- cused the monks of a neighboring con- rent with falling away from grace, be- cause they allowed hens to be kept within the convent enclosure. By the same extreme of sexual delicacy, a Roman senator was denounced for inadvertently kissing his wife in the presence of bis daughter. Because of the great corrup- tive tendency of such open osculation to the rising generation, his name was stricken from the list of Patricians. This pathological delicacy of sex has its counterpart in that Puritan Blue-Law, which made it a crime for a man to kiss his wife on Sunday, and in the present occasional purist outbreak against kiss- ing in public places, such as parks and railroad stations. Those polygamists, free-lovers, ascetics and by choice ultra-purists, who, by rea- son of conditions developing within the ego, are impelled to coerce others to adopt and, as a matter of duty, live their extreme ideals, are quite uniformly the victims of sexual hyperesthesia. It is this which destroys their perspective, and induces sex-overvaluation. The anom- aly of the situation lies in the persistence with which the purist protests against the charges of sex-madness in himself. He does not know that erotophobia is as much a disease as erotomania. He pretends that the marriage relation finds its warrant in things higher and holier than sex-functioning. Notwith- standing this, he insists that married persons, without endangering the marri- age status, may violate all these undefined higher and holier relations, but a dis- regard of the monopoly of sex, the so- called lowest thing in marriage, is alone adequate to dissolve it, and invoke the imposition of additional penalities be- sides. In the mind of practically all purists, adultery should be the only ground for absolute divorce. Notwithstanding their protestations to the contrary, this is the conclusive, though unconsciously given, testimony, that to the sex-mad purist, sex-life and sex-monopoly are the only things in marriage, the infringement of which, for that reason, is the sole des- truction of marriage. In the light of this most practical test of their conception of sex-importance as the only thing creative or destructive of marriage, all their talk about the higher and holier than physical things associated with it, vanishes into thin air, as the hollow mockery of meaningless word-mumbling. If marriage may legitimately include business partnership, intellectual com- panionship, or general good-fellowship and mutual helpfulness, why should not a failure to realize these be just as important in insuring divorce as sex-disappoint- ment, especially when the rights of children can be properly protected, or when the union is childless P Why should the woman who finds herself married to an habitual drunkard, or abusive brute, have inflicted upon her as a life-sentence, a choice between submitting to his foul embraces, or living in enforced loneliness ? Only the blissful irresponsibility of ignor- ance, or the cruel paternalism of fanatics could inflict such penalties. Of such Digitized by Google
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146 The Impurity of Divorce Suppression. records has the history of fanaticism ever been made. If anything in the natural sex-relation is impure, surely a compulsory continu- ance of a loveless marriage must be the extreme of that impurity. This, when submitted to for mere support, is the very essence of prostitution, even though done with priestly sanction. To deny persons the right of re-marri- age is but an indirect attempt at legalizing compulsory sex-suppression. The con- sequences, only thoughtless people will fail to foresee. It means increased sex- irregularity, usually with the counten- ancing of concubinage, and especially on the part of women sex-inversion and other perversions still too numerous. These are the impurities which social purists will promote by divorce suppres- sion. What our equally impractical and only a trifle more barbarous ancestors failed to accomplish, by suture, by in- fibulation, and by their girdles and pad- locks of chastity, the visionary purists of to-day hope to enforce by mere verbal denunciation or avoidable statutes. The attempted living of anti-natural ideals, if long persevered in, will almost certainly result either in a breaking down of all social barriers, in a worse substitute, or in disease, which is the usual vengeance of outraged nature. Those who do not know this, should ask their physician to loan them a few books on the psychology of sex, foolishly excluded from public libraries. It is here, as with all other superstitions, those least in- formed are usually the least modest about obtruding their ignorance into the lives of others. The epithetic argument against easy divorce recommends itself to the mental indolence of professional reformers, and is more effective upon the hystericals than any scientific disquisition based only upon social utility. However, when the time comes that there is any real danger of our reverting to the ideals of the insane of the dark ages, the newly-born science of sex-psychology will bear some testimony upon the impurity of “ purism,” which will not be to the taste of either the professional or hystericals; but it will out. In the meantime, let us remember that people are not always as good as their boastings, and that the only excuse for any law is that it increases human happiness without unnecessarily curtail- ing human liberty, or infringing upon our equality of liberty. That marriage-law is best which allows the greatest liberty consistent with equal liberty, and which affords just protection to each individual directly concerned and the state against pauper and degenerate offspring. Society in its collective ca- pacity, cannot be harmed, and if all individuals are protected from harm, from injustice, the social order is perfectly preserved. So then, let us unite to defend the liberty of all to live natural and happy lives through easy divorce and the right of re-marriage. Theodore Schroeder. New York City. Digitized by Google
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THE ARMOUR REFRIGERATOR-CAR CONSPIRACY EXPOSED; OR, A CRISIS IN INTERSTATE COMMERCE REGULATION. By W. G. Joerns. HE AMERICAN nation chances much. It is long suffering. Its nature is essentially empirical. It in- rites great crises. It is often confronted by extremes. It has, withal, been singu- larly fortunate in what it accomplishes and in what, in the finality, it manages to avoid. In every past great public peril it has at last gathered itself together and found a more or less satisfactory solution. It now looks forward with a hope that every good citizen sincerely prays may prove well-founded. The present greatest menace to the permanency of our beneficent institutions is an economic one. It is found in the concentration of wealth and the methods by which this wealth is accumulated, grouped and controlled, and in the manner of its use. There is too much of 14 system” and modernized brigandage in the accumulation, too much of ruthless oppression and disregard of right in the use, and too little of the golden-rule in either. The predatory spirit is not of recent development. The present generation did not witness the absolute beginning, but it has at times been a painfully in- terested witness of its growth. It has, however, now developed into a science, and its master-minds are found among the wealthiest and most influential in the land. Among the more pronounced evils that have threatened public and private wel- fare, the one of railroad discrimination has been rightfully regarded as among the most pernicious and far-reaching. It was on a more favorable transportation rate than was accorded his rivals, the all-powerful rebate, that John D. Rocke- feller founded and developed to per- fection the monopoly of “ Standard Oil.” To counteract the fatal tendency, which also bore hard on other lines of honest endeavor than the independent oil business, a great agitation resulted and culminated in the enactment by Congress of the Act of February 4, 1887, entitled an “Act to Regulate Commerce” and commonly known as the “ Inter- state Commerce Law.” This law was a wholesome step in the right direction. For ten years, and until unexpectedly shorn by United States Supreme Court decision of its most vital feature, it accomplished some substantial good. It has, nevertheless, in many important respects, been found woefully deficient. Honest intelligence and the official body constituted under the law have, almost since its inception, been clamoring at the doors of an unwilling Congress for vital amendments to the law, so that its purpose might be better effectuated and to that end the powers of the Commission increased. Since the unfortunate judicial interpretation in 1897 this demand has become imperative. To the present national executive may properly be given the credit of not only re-vitalizing the Interstate Commerce Commission, which was fast sinking into a moribund condition, but of coercing Congress to additional pertinent legisla- tion. This remained far from being all that was urgently required but is im- portant, as far as it goes, and was evi- dently all that political exigency could wring from the law-making body. The secret rebate, however, still flour- ishes and honest industry continues to pay the penalty even to its own annihila- tion. The always wrong and immoral and now unlawful act is not as promiscu- ous, it is true, and is more carefully con- cealed than in the halcyon days of 147 Digitized by Google
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148 The Armour Refrigerator- Standard Oil, but its devastating and nefarious work goes on. So vast have the accumulations of capital become, so deviously interlocked, so great the incentives to mutuality in E hinder, so varied the intricacies of the iw’s evasion, that supervision and con- trol are becoming matters of seriously increasing difficulty. In other lands either the comparative insignificance of transportation interests or government- ownership and control have simplified the problem. With us it remains one of vital and fearful moment It is well understood that ownership of transportation facilities and excessive transportation charges, which of neces- sity bear hard only on the independent shipper, are in the main responsible for the monopoly, whole or proximate, in the coal and iron industries. Ownership of private-car lines, coupled with the almost contemptible subserviency, if not criminal connivance of transportation companies, is a newly disclosed and startling factor in the breeding of monopoly and special privilege. Private-car lines have reinforced * Standard Oil ” and created the packing- house monopoly, and, waxing greater with what it feeds on, this creation and strong right arm of latter-day business subtlety now threatens to engulf the fruit industry, the butter and egg business, the dairy interest, the poultry business, the fresh vegetable business, the brewing industry, in short every phase of industrial or commercial life that depends for trans- portation facilities upon the private-car lines of the country. In each and every one a monopoly is threatened as exclusive and as oppressive as ever meat or coal monopoly was or could be. It has been estimated by competent authority that, unless the iniquity is checked, in five short years the people of this land will pay humble tribute for the most vital necessaries of life to a small coterie of over-rich ex- ploiters with the Armour and other private-car line interests in the forefront. Car Conspiracy Exposed . There are some 800 private-car lines in the country owning and operating about 180,000 private cars. Some are mere adjuncts to railroad interests for the understood purpose of unlawful discrimi- nation. By far the larger number are small and insignificant and are rapidly be- coming more so. They are being over- shadowed, absorbed and replaced by a few great rivals. The refrigerator-car service, the oil-tank service, the live-stock car lines may be mentioned among the more prominent factors of unlawful and annihilating exploitation and favoritism. The secret rebate is supposed theo- retically to be dead for it is forbidden by the Interstate Commerce Law. Prac- tically it flourishes in more deadly form than ever. Even the forms of the law are only partially complied with, the sub- stance is constantly violated with shame- ful impunity. Discrimination to favored shippers and localities is practically of every day occurrence and the vitals of honest endeavor are being eaten away that monopoly may thrive and fatten. Of what avail to publish rates and even to adhere to them as between com- petitors A, B and C, if A is the owner of a private-car line and B and C must lease his cars at an exorbitant rental, enough to absorb their legitimate profit, and thus recoup A as against his rivals B and C and give him a commanding and fatal advantage over them ? The Armour car-lines own or control about 12,000 private cars. Except on live-stock cars, where the rate is six mills or three-fifths of a cent, they receive from the railroads, over which their cars run, a mileage rate of three-quarter cents per mile each way for every car thus operated, be the same loaded or empty. They are also paid by the railroads in some cases and on some products a percentage on the regular freight rate which has been admitted to have reached as high as 12$ per cent.* The refrigerator rate is ♦See testimony of Manager Robbins of the Armour line before the Interstate Commerce Com- mission. Digitized by Google
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149 The Armour Refrigerator-Car Conspiracy Exposed • assessed to the shipper as an additional charge and flows wholly into the pocket of the private-car company. As if this were not exploitation and discrimination enough, the Armours require from the railroad companies the return of their “empties” at express speed and demand various other concessions and privileges that place them at overpowering advant- age over possible competitors. It is contrary to popular impression, it is true, to find great transportation companies on bended knee; but so controlling has the power of this monopoly become that, according to the recent testimony of Mr. J. W. Midgley, erstwhile commissioner of the Western Freight Association and a reputed authority, no railroad dare refuse them, but all yield abject com- pliance to every demand and wish. Ordinarily ail shipments are inspected as the cars are loaded. The railroads have established a special department for such purpose. If wholesale grocer A or commission merchant B orders a car for loading, an inspector follows it and it is loaded under his supervision. If he happens to be late in arriving and the car has meanwhile been loaded, whole or in part, to what extent he commits fiari kari in “pawing” over the shipment is largely a matter of tact and good-will on his part. A more vital question, how- ever, is, is this an impartial inspection and does it apply to all shippers alike? The answer unfortunately is: No! Dis- crimination also obtains here as in so many other respects. When the Armours for example, load their cars, the inspection is omitted. Chairman Becker of the Western Inspection Bureau has formally admitted that the railroads do not inspect Armour shipments but “ take their books ” as a guide. In other words, the Armour interests do in this, as in almost all other respects, as they please. They are sub- ject to no inspection or control whatever. In 1896, according to Mr. Midgley, the railroads essayed to reduce the mileage rebate on Standard Oil cars to five mills. A dash ensued. The Standard interest rebelled and threatened to use its tonnage as a dub. The railroads beat an ignomin- ious retreat. As a sop to the railroad interests they were informed by the Standard Oil people that they might make any freight rate they saw fit on oil and its products. Divine authority! The railroads took advantage of the generous concession and raised the oil rate five cents per hundred. Any child out of the kindergarten can figure out who finally paid the bill. The mileage rate, however, remained three-quarters cents per mile, going and coming, as before. What possible chance, pray, has the independent shipper under conditions like these ? Yet year by year the private- car line evil is reaching more threatening proportions. Railroad after railroad is entering the private-car line net. Once enmeshed, the vast and annihilating power of the private interest, by virtue of the enormous and growing tonnage which it controls, makes the transporta- tion company the servile instrument of the private monopoly evermore.. So slavishly subservient on the one hand and so wrapped up in the mutuality of the game of grab, on the other, have the railroad interest become, that they even bind themselves by secret contract* to do espionage duty on behalf of the private monopoly, — in the words of one of the contracts, a copy of which lies before me, “to instruct its agents to obtain by wire from the officers of the (railroad) such information as may be requested by the car-line’s representa- tives.” Think of it! Great public-ser- vice corporations, to which the govern- ment, presumably for the public good, has surrendered a portion of its sovereign power, doing spy-duty for the benefit of the private interest! If A, as a shipper, sells a car of apples or B, as a merchant, buys a car of potatoes, of dairy products, or meat, or oil, or what not, anywhere on the line of any road that has business * See evidence before Interstate Commerce Com- mission. Digitized by Google
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150 The Armour Refrigerator-Car Conspiracy Exposed. relations with the Armours, the informa- tion is flashed to the private-car head- quarters and used, shamefully and crimi- nally misused, by the private-car com- pany and its related interests to extend their monopoly and undermine the honest and competitive trade of the country. Going still farther, the private-car line conquers and chains to its chariot, one after another, the transportation interests of the country. They must use no other private-cars but those that the great private-car line interests by contract designate or otherwise graciously permit. If even as great a road as the Illinois Central, for example, in designated terri- tory, happens to run out of Armour refrigerator-cars and uses one of its own in place, it must nevertheless pay the mileage charge to Armour and act as the collecting agent for Armour of the usual exorbitant Armour refrigerator charge of $45.00 per car, even though $15.00 had theretofore been the Central’s regular charge for similar service. As such collecting agent it must also be ruthless. It must threaten the credit of and boycott the shipper if he objects to be thus “ held up,” and refuse to answer every reason- able pertinent inquiry that may be made of it .* In other words, when the Armours enter into a contract relation with any railroad, to the extent of the traffic that their service can command the arrange- ment is exclusive. No other stock or refrigerator-cars but Armour’s, except by special dispensation, can be hauled on that lme. If offered, they must be rejected. If hauled. Armour must be paid as if the car had been his own. If evasion is wilfully persisted in, the heavy hand of the heavy and all-powerful shipper and controller of traffic extends the necessary pressure in no uncertain way. The “straw that broke the camel’s back” may be found in the exactions of the refrigerator-car service. These im- positions have ever been offensive and have occasioned more or less suppressed ♦See testimony before Interstate Commerce Commission. murmur and discontent. Active oppo- sition, however, meant threatened busi- ness ruin, and caution and every con- sideration of immediate personal and family welfare, the circumlocution and uncertain effect of Interstate Com- merce Commission activity and the all- too-prevalent inertia bade the shipper and commission-merchant “ bear the ills, etc.” It remained for a mild-mannered but keen and energetic Duluth merchant of Scotch descent and tenacity to take the initiative in the great struggle against the Refrigerator-Car Monopoly and “break the ice.” Mr. Midgley is making great efforts to pose as the “Moses” in the present movement to escape from the “ House of Bondage,” albeit he claims the backing of fifty millions of dollars for the forma- tion of a great private-car trust But not to Midgley, but to this young David of Duluth, Mr. E. M. Ferguson, is due the credit of initiating the investigation which has disclosed such enormities of fraud, robbery and exaction that the business world is startled and even the calloused transportation interests stand aghast and promise to make amends. The refrigerator-car service has been preeminently a fruitful source of dis- crimination and the creation of monopoly. The three principal refrigerator lines; the Armour Car-Lines, the American Refrigerator Transit Company (Gould), and the Santa Fe Refrigerator Despatch Company, no matter what their profes- sions of competitive struggle, are like “peas in a pod” and practically control the fruit business of the country. Through auxiliary “distributing” and “shipping” companies the “Big Three” effectually monopolize the California fruit-market. It has been estimated that 75 per cent, in value of the California citrus crop is absorbed in the exorbitant freight and refrigerator charges. On a car-load shipment of grapes from Cali- fornia to Duluth, the freight charge, at $1.25 per hundred, was $313.50, while the Armour refrigerator charge was Digitized by Google
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151 The Armour Refrigerator-Car Conspiracy Exposed . $107.50 in addition. The refrigerator chaige to New York would have been $185.00. If the shipment had origi- nated in Oregon or Washington and had been routed over the Northern Pacific or Great Northern (which, as yet, own and run their own refrigerator cars) the re- frigerator charge to Duluth would have been only $25.00, or an amount theo- retically assumed as sufficient to cover and practically known to be in excess of the actual expenditure for “ icing” and attendant service. The freight rate itself was exorbitant. On a shipment of onions or similar product the schedule rate, between the same points, was seventy- five cents per hundred and on green vegetables the rate was ninety cents. As the a distributing ” and “ shipping ” mo- nopoly controlled the fruit output, it is fair to presume that the excess rate was referable to that fact and that in one way or another the all-powerful private- interest became a participant in the excess freight charge. The South, also, is paying heavy tribute to refrigerator-car lines. The average charge for refrigeration on strawberry ship- ments to Duluth amounts to $75.00 per car or fifteen cents per crate of twenty-four quarts. This is more than the usual wholesaler’s profit. The chaige on similar shipments to Cincinnati, as a further ex- ample, in Armour cars is approximately $45.00. Over roads that have not as yet surrendered to Armour the icing charge remains at the comparatively nominal amount of from $10.00 to $15.00 per car. The Armour line obtained control of the refrigerator fruit shipments over the Pere Marquette road, in Michigan, in 1902 and the Michigan Central dropped into line the following year. In 1902, before the Michigan Central began to play handmaid to the Armours, the charge on a carload of grapes from Michigan to Duluth was $98.70. Of this amount $91.20 was for freight at thirty-eight cents per hundred and $7.50 for icing. In the following year, after the refagcrator business over the Michigan Central had passed into the exclusive control of Armour, the charge on a precisely similar shipment and with exactly the same service, was $160.20. The freight rate had meanwhile been in- creased ten cents per hundred and amounted to $115.20 and the Armour charge for icing was $45.00. While the freight rate was thus raised from thirty- eight cents to forty-eight cents per hun- dred on shipments to Duluth, the Boston rate remained at seventy-nine cents, the prevailing rate for ten years past. Does any sensible man doubt for a moment that the additional freight charge, for which no justification whatever was shown, also eventually gravitated to the Armour pocket and was part and parcel of a system of exploitation and discrimi- nation which, to date, has apparently been practiced with impunity ? Another instance of patent and bare- faced discrimination, through the agency of the private-car line, was developed in a complaint before the Interstate Com- merce Commission against the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Com- pany and the New York, Chicago and St Louis Railroad Company (4 I. C. C. Rep., 680). The facts in this case were, briefly stated, as follows: A New York firm of cattle-dealers, who, of course, were heavy shippers, by agreement with the railroad incorporated a private-car line (in their case called an u express company”) and furnished the railroad from 200 to 400 stock-cars. For the use of these cars the railroad: 1. Paid a mileage rental of three-fourth cents per mile going and coming, loaded or empty. 2. Extended extraordinary facilities and rights of way in order to increase the mileage and did so in fact increase the mileage to twice the mileage of ordinary stock-cars. 8. Paid, without reimbursement, the loading charge of fifty cents a car at the cattle-yards in Chicago. 4. Paid yardage to the cattle-firm at Digitized by Google
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152 The Armour Refrigerator-Car Conspiracy Exposed. the rate of three and one-half cents per hundred pounds, for the use of the cattle- firm’s own New York yards, after de- livery, on not only its own but upon all other cattle shipped in such cars, and then deducted this yardage charge from the tariff rate as charged by the carrier against this favored shipper. The amount of these unlawful rebates more than paid the entire cost of the stock-cars furnished, including operating expenses, within two years after the operations commenced. What a commentary on the honest pur- pose and fair-dealing of transportation companies! At an adjourned session of the Inter- state Commerce Commission at Chicago, in October of last year, further evidence of unconsdencable practices and grievous imposition was adduced and for the greater elucidation of the subject some extracts from those proceedings are sub- mitted. The gravity of the situation and the necessity of a dear understanding are offered as a justification for the presenta- tion in detail of this additional matter. Mr. J. T. Marchand, attorney for the Interstate Commerce Commission, form- ally stated: “The making of rates of transportation for packing-house products, for produce and for daily products, is absolutdy within the control of the companies owning the cars in which they compel the railroads to transport these commodities. The result is the creation of iron-clad monopo- lies and the enjoyment of fabulous profits to the sdf-made rate-makers. . . . “Through their power to make trans- portation rates these private concerns are able to control the output of com- modities they are manufacturing and therefore to control the price, which is usually excessive. The amounts which have been wrung from the people for the necessities of life are so enormous as to stagger the imagination.” Mr. John Leverone, a Cincinnati fruit- merchant, testified that Armour & Com- pany sold pineapples in Cincinnati at prices which could not be met by competi- tors in order to coerce produce-dealers into using Armour refrigerator cars. They not only chaige fruit-shippers arbitrarily high prices for the use of iced cars ($45.00 per car from Mobile as against the Illinois Central charge of $11.30 from New Orleans for similar service), but through arrangement with lines like the Louisville and Nashville practically compelled consignees to use their cars. Then, having forced dealers to hold their goods at higher prices to cover the exces- sive transportation cost, the Armours make a practice of underselling in the market to a degree that debarred the ordinary dealer from permanently doing business in that line of goods. Mr. B. 6. Davis, a Chicago commission man, testified that an embargo was placed on his business by the Armours and he was practically forced out of business along some lines because he refused to pay exorbitant icing rates to the Armour Company. Mr. George F. Mead, a Boston fruit- dealer and Vice-President of the National Association of Commission Men, stated that: “Armour & Company have practi- cally demoralized the fruit business east of the Alleghanies. Not only do they charge extortionate prices for icing cars contain- ing deciduous fruits, but they have under- mined the market as well. For instance, they know through private sources (the debasing railroad espionage heretofore referred to in this article) that a car of fruit is to be shipped into Hartford on a certain day and, having, themselves, say two cars of the same fruit at Springfield, run one of them down to Hartford and when the car for the local commission man arrives he finds the market sold out from under him.” Mr. Mead might have added the alternative experience of having his car held arbitrarily back until his market was destroyed or by other unfair practice taken from him. Digitized by Google
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153 The Armour Refrigerator-Car Conspiracy Exposed. Mr. W.W. Summers, of Coyne Brothers, of South Water street, Chicago, testified that he refused to pay a refrigerator charge of $45.00 on a car of melons shipped over the Illinois Central from Poseyville, Indiana, in an Illinois Central car, the usual charge of the Central hav- ing been $15.00 for similar service. He was told by Mr. Bascom, the Assistant General Freight Agent of the road, that if he failed to pay the bill he would be taken off the credit list and his consign- ments would not thereafter be handled unless the charges were prepaid. Hie general attorney for Armour & Company, Mr. A. R. Urion, reiterated the same threat. These threats were carried out in fact, as Mr. Summers later learned from Michigan shippers. These parties in- formed Summers that they could not consign goods to him unless the charges were prepaid. Appeal to the agent of the Pete Marquette Railroad elicited the re- sponse that he, the agent, had his instruc- tions from Armour and had to obey them. Two Grand Rapids merchants, Reed and Vinkemulder by name, testified at the June hearing of the Commission in relation to the abuses of the Armour refrigerator service, from which, until 1903, they had been exempted. Before they left the court-room, they were ap- proached by Superintendent Wolcott of the Armour Lines and he fairly hissed at them the threat in substantially the following words: “You fellows had better staid in Grand Rapids than to come over here and tell your troubles to the Commission. We had you last year where we wanted you. Next year well give you the warm end of the stick.” It seems almost incredible that such brazen brutality could be flaunted under the very nose of the Commission. But these men, though frightened and in- timidated, were brought back to the witness-stand and their testimony on the subject is a matter of record. Coercion and oppression by the private-car line interest had become so common that even the underling was imbued with the lawless spirit of his master. Mr. J. A. Donovan, Manager of the Missouri River Despatch, a Nebraska corporation operating 250 refrigerator cars, testified that his company received a rebate of 12£ per cent, on “net” rates from the Erie road as a “commission 99 in addition to the regular mileage of three-quarters cents, and Mr. S. E. Shane, Freight Traffic Manager of the Erie corroborated the statement and said that the “commission99 was remuneration for icing cars and soliciting traffic and that the agreement was entered into merely to increase the Erie's business. James S. Watson, of the defunct firm of Porter Brothers admitted that he real- ized probably fifty thousand dollars a year in rebates from the Fruit-Growers9 Express Company, an Armour corpora- tion, and J. Ogden Armour could not re- call, until his memory was jogged, that he had loaned Watson $400,000. Mr. Charles A. Prouty, of the Inter- state Commerce Comm mission, says: “ The conditions disclosed by this hearing show such shameful and burden- some imposition upon certain classes of large shippers that I do not see how the publicity given them can fail to incite Congress to take action in the way of remedial legislation.” So much for the evidence in hand, a very small portion of which, of course, has here been detailed. For every one who had been goaded to desperation or has had the inherent moral courage to testify there are scores of others who are already so abjectly in the power or under the influence of this Juggernaut of op- pression that they no longer have the capacity of manly self-assertion. But for the “chosen few" the un-American game of immolation and oppression might have gone on indefinitely and un- rebuked. The way of legal adjudication was assiduously avoided by the great selfish special interest. No suit for the Digitized by Google
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154 The Armour Refrigerator-Car Conspiracy Exposed. unlawful icing charge was ever brought against any shipper or consignee. Every method of intimidation and coercion, short of legal proceedings, was resorted to and, as we have seen, connived at by the railroad companies. If threat, boy- cott and unlawful and illegitimate com- petition failed to shake the determination of an unusually stubborn subject, that ended it. The private-car line pocketed the loss and went on with its nefarious work. The power of the private-car line mo- nopoly, unless the general government makes belated amends and steps in to stay its hand, has become almost irre- sistible. No transportation company so great but it must sooner or later succumb to its will and demand or join hands with it in the plunder of producer and con- sumer alike. No shipper or consignee so insignificant but he invites ruin if he dares to assert his manhood and stand on his lawful rights. No avenue of endeavor but, if and when it can be reach- ed, it must be made to pay its tribute into the ever open and never satisfied maw of the most grasping and offensive of all monopolies. As Mr. Midgley succinctly put it: “These men con- stitute the most remorseless and arbitrary power in the world.” The shock of the summer hearing before the Interstate Commerce Com- mission induced a temporary retreat of the associated interests from the whole- sale fruit and produce business; but the producer, as notably in California, re- mains at the mercy of sampling and shipping companies that are the same sordid purpose under another name. The grasping tentacles are ever reaching out, and exorbitant tribute, blind sub- serviency and ruinous exploitation are the inevitable result. Is there no remedy for these patent and unconsciencable abuses ? There ought to be if we are to remain a free people. But what is the remedy ? The private-car lines say they are not amenable to the Interstate Commerce Law and that they can pursue their ex- actions and discriminations ad libitum. It seems strange that a law which by its express terms, applies to “all the in- strumentalities of shipment or carriage” and is admitted as reaching every inter- state railroad in the land, should not also operate to control the private rolling- stock that in the pursuit of interstate commerce passes over the rails. The claim that the law does not apply seems offensively impudent and disingenuous. But the claim thus made is made for a purpose and carries with it the possi- bility of fatal delay. The Interstate Commerce Commission, in view of its deplorable limitations, cannot effectively cope with the evil, unless perchance the Elkins Bill may have provided a method of at least partial relief by injunction. The demand for immediate and com- plete relief is imperative. Non-action and delay can only mean the irrevocable entrenchment of monopoly. Mr. Midgley proposes a huge private- car trust with the provisions of a more moderate and daily instead of mileage rental. On its face this might seem to work for partial relief, but, uncontrolled, it would also carry within itself the pos- sibility of irreparable injury to the public welfare. Short of government-ownership, there is but one safe way by which the threaten- ed evils might be averted and that lies in the radical amendment of the Inter- state Commerce Law. For years the best informed and best charactered in the land have demanded such amend- ments of the law and increased powers for the Commission and immediate sanc- tion for its official acts. It is now de- manded in addition that no loophole shall be left for the escape from super- vision and control of the private-car lines or any other agency of interstate transportation. These demands have heretofore, except as the Elkins Law may prove of partial relief, been in vain. Railroad and corporation attorneys, in Congress and out, have exerted a potent Digitized by Google
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Matthew Arnold as a Poet . 155 influence in overriding the will and wel- fare of the people and every effort for imperative relief has shattered on the rock of congressional inaction. The time for action, however, has now come. The people will put up with subterfuge and evasion no longer. They are aroused. The recent official dis- closure of transportation piracy has capped the climax and press and people have awakened to the enormity of the im- position, moral and financial, that private greed has imposed and that the coun- try has endured and staggered under. Almost with one voice they demand re- lief. A great convention of the people of the honest business interests of the country, has recently been in session in St Louis and this Interstate Commerce Convention adds its refrain to the clarion- call. Other conventions of outraged shippers and producers, representing hundreds of thousands of earnest and patriotic citizens and millions, yes billions of investment, are being called and held to add their protest to the swelling volume of indignation against private usurpation and transportation iniquity. This is in no sense a party question. It is no longer even a debatable question as to present method. It has resolved itself simply into a question of integrity. It is inconceivable that Congress, no matter what its past delinquency, should again fail the people in their dire emergency. There is a growing conviction that complete relief will never be obtained short of government-ownership; but gov- ernment supervision and control may well be given a fair trial before resort is finally had to the more radical measure. If Congress, however, will persist in re- maining deaf or blind to the vital de- mands and interests of the great body of the people, the w still more radical policy ” referred to by the President in his recent message, is bound to follow. Intense and growing interest centers on the transportation question and the psychological moment for action is rapidly approaching. To persist in ingoring present conservative demands means to sow the wind of popular indignation from which will be reaped the whirlwind of congressional upheaval. There will be an absence of familiar faces in the Halls of Congress when the test of being a real servant of the people is finally applied. W. G. Joerns. Duluth , Minn . MATTHEW ARNOLD AS A POET. By H. W. Peck. Matthew Arnold, the poet, in his ideals and character re- minds us of the noble spirits of Plato, who, having once in a former existence caught a glimpse of the archetypal loveli- ness of Being, can never thereafter be reconciled to the ways of a sordid world. They wander through life in perplexity and sadness — “Exiles mindful how the past was glad; Angels in an alien planet bom,” * * “To a Gypsy Child by the Seashore.” and vainly endeavoring to recall the idea entire and with a sense of the futility of visualizing it for men. Yet the im- maculate vision can never be forgotten. “Ah! not the nectarous poppy lovers use. Not daily labor's dull Lethean spring. Oblivion in lost angels can infuse Of the soiled glory and the trailing wing.” So it is with the early poems of Arnold. They embody aspiration, doubt, des- pondency, and attempts at bravery even more pathetic than despair; the be- Digitized by Google
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156 Matthew Arnold as a Poet. wilderment and unrest of a doubting age. This predominant tone of discontent and perplexity was the product of the tem- perament of Arnold wrought upon by the influences of a transition age. The old order was changing. Science and industry were arising upon the ruins of outworn intellectual and esthetic forms. Science seemed incompatible with the old faith and with what remained of the Hellenic ideal. This conflict of forces drove Huxley into agnosticism and caused Newman’s reversion to Cathol- icism. While Carlyle and Browning were at- tempting to reconstruct the spiritual forces of the age Arnold stood in doubt, “Wandering between two worlds, one dead. The other powerless to be bom.** * This dissonance of forces destroyed his faith, his sense of the permanence of any good, and left him ineffably sad. “The Sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl’d : But now I only hear Its melancholy long withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world. Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams. So various, so beautiful, so new. Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light. Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain. Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight. Where ignorant armies dash by night” f A writer in the Edinburgh Review of October, 1888, characterizes in the follow- ing way three distinct epochs in Arnold’s mental progress: “In the first he expresses the unrest, the bewilderment, the perplexity of a doubting age; in the second he has adopted paganism as his model of artistic composition and his moral rule of life; in the third his esthetic and moral stoicism is leavened by that Hebrew * “Grand Chartreuse.” t “Dover Beach.” element which he affected to despise and strove prematurely to suppress.” The first period of Arnold’s poetic life was especially sad. This was probably due, in part, to his temperament. Sensi- tive and delicate, it lacked the surmount- ing energy of Browning or Carlyle. And then he was placed in circumstances un- suited to his nature, and the result was the note of pain and melancholy that pervades all his verse. “In the rude world which roars hard Ij Be others happy if they can! But in my hapless cradle I Was breathed on by the rural Pan. I, on men’s impious uproar hurl’d. Think often as I hear them rave. That peace has left the upper world And now keeps only in the grave.” t Another reason for Arnold’s sadness was his idealism. He was implacable in his demand for the highest in our nature. A compromise with the ideal was as impossible to him as to Shelley. He could not be disobedient to the heavenly vision. This ruthless aspiration for the ideal, for perfection, he expressed with beauty and pathos in “Longing.” "Come to me in my dreams, and then By day I shall be well again; For then the night will more than pay The hopeless longing of the day. Arnold’s desire was for love, joy and peace; to be freed from that state, “Where just men suffer wrong; Where sorrow treads on joy. Where sweet things soonest doy. Where faiths are built on dust, Where love is half mistrust,” 2 and to witness the time “When bursting through the net work superposed By selfish occupation— -plot and plan. Lust, avarice, envy— liberated man. All difference with his fellow mortal dosed. Shall be left standing face to face with God.” Q Arnold longed for a state of abiding tranquility where the harsh and arbitrary standards of men should be done away; t “Lines Written in Kensington Gardena.” | “Stagirius.” || “To a Republican Friend.” Digitized by Google
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Matthew Arnold as a Poet. 157 where real worth should be known and the gentle spirit rightly appreciated. MWe shall not then deny a course To every thought the mass ignore. We shall not then call hardness force. Nor lightness wisdom any more. How sweet to feel on the boon air. All our unquiet pulses cease! To feel that nothing can impair The gentleness, the thirst for peace.*** A primal source of Arnold’s melan- choly was the belief that we can never attain lasting happiness, abiding peace and joy. “We but dream we have our wish’d for powers. Ends we seek we never shall attain. Ah! some power exists there, which is ours; Some end is there, we indeed may gain.” To use Pater’s characterization of Coleridge, Arnold was seeking to ap- prehend the absolute; to find something constant amid the perpetual flux. Life seemed to him an endless conflict. His desire would always exceed his attain- ment and the discrepancy would be an endless source of regret. He did not, like Browning, exult that a man’s reach exceeded his grasp; that this very fact was a guarantee of infinite growth on into the endless ages. In this Arnold seems to have touched the crucial point in the question whether life is worth the effort and pain or whether it is a tragedy. If the margin of the land of our desire fades forever and for- ever as we move, then the land of Heart’s Desire is but a glimpse of the unattain- able and life is but a watch or a vision. It may be but a means, an opportunity to give our force its bent; but if some- time, somewhere, we cannot reach the goal of our striving, then what does it profit? If we cannot ultimately attain to something that has an intrinsic value in itself, then all our effort seems vain. Upon this question of ultimate attain- ment Arnold fluctuated. If it were certain, endurance would be a virtue. “But now in blood and battles was my youth. And full of blood and battles is my age, * “A Farewell in Switzerland.” And I shall never end this life of blood. Then at the point of death, Sohrab replied — 'A life of blood indeed thou dreadful man! But thou shalt yet have peace : only not now, Not yet! but thou shalt nave it on that day. When thou shalt sail in a high masted ship. Thou and the other peers oTKai Khosroo, Returning home over the salt blue sea. From laying thy dear master in his grave.* And Rustum gazed in Sohrab’s face, and said : — 'Soon be that day, my son, and deep that sea! Till then, if fate so wills, let me endure.**’ t Notwithstanding the force of Arnold’s desire to attain to a spiritual ideal, he saw no way to its fulfillment. The strange disease of modem life, with its sick hurry, its divided aims, had infected him, and the only hope he could hold out was patience and resignation. In his early years, at least, he lacked the “one aim, one business, one desire”; the con- centration of vision that makes the man of action. “Thou waitest for the spark from Heaven! and we Light half believers in our casual creeds. Who never deeply felt, and clearly willed. Whose insight never has borne fruits in deeds. Whose vague resolves have never been fulfill’d. For whom each year we see Brings new beginnings, disappointments new; Who hesitates and falter life away. And lose to-morrow the ground won to-day; Ah! do not we, wanderer, await it too ?” % This chaotic state of mind eventually was resolved into more definite shape and Arnold accepted the ideals of Pagan- ism as the model for life. He adopted the stoicism of Marcus Aurelius as a standard of moral conduct. Feeling bounded by the laws of necessity, and thinking that many of the forces that make or mar life are inexplicable, he left much to fate, and, in die spirit of Sophocles, sought quiet submission to the will of the Gods. “Some are bom to do great deeds and live. And some are bom tone obscured and die.” t Even isolation and loneliness were ascribed to some deity. “A God! a God! their severance ruled And bade betwixt their shores to be The unplumbed, salt, estranging sea.” { t “Sohrab and Rustum.” i “The Scholar Gypsy.” | “Isolation.” Digitized by Google
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158 Matthew Arnold as a Poet. In the poem “To a Friend ” he praises Homer, Epictetus and Sophocles as props for his mind in these bad days. From Marcus Aurelius he learned much of his stoic doctrine. “The aids to noble life are all within." * In “ Self-Defendance ” this doctrine is clearly formulated. He would imitate the calm of nature; the improbability of the stars and the sea. “Unaffrighted by the silence round them. Undistracted by the sights they see. These demand not that the things without them Yield them love, amusement, sympathy. And with joy the stars perform their shining. And the sea its long moon-silver’d roll; For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting All the fever of some differing soul. Bounded by themselves and unregardful In what state God’s other works may be. In their own tasks all their powers pouring. There attain the mighty life we see. O air-born voice! long since severely dear, A cry like thine in mine own heart I hear : Resolve to be thyself; and know that he. Who finds himself, loses his misery.** * From Emerson, Arnold gained much inspiration. He even became rapt for a moment by the influence of that “voice oracular.” “The seeds of codlike power are in us still; Gods are we, bards, saints, heroes, if we will; Dumb judges, answer, truth or mockery f** t He also derived from Emerson the belief that “the only revelation is that prompting which every individual re- ceives.” “Nature’s great law and law of all men’s minds; — To its own impulse every creature stirs; Live by the light, and earth will live by hers!** X From Wordsworth and Goethe also he derived his ideas of isolation and self- culture that fused with his stoic philoso- phy. Yet this ideal was cold, self-centered and required the subversion of the feel- ings to the intellect. Arnold was never satisfied with his own doctrine. Patience was at best a negative virtue and stoicism * “Worldly Place.” t “Written in Emerson’s Essays.*9 t “Religious Isolation.** meant the drying of the springs of warm and generous emotion. “This for our wisest, and we others pine. And wish the long unhappy dream would end. And waive all claims to bliss and try to bear; With close lipp’d patience for our only friend. Sad patience, too near neighbor to despair — ”} And again: “Is the calm thine of stoic souls, who weigh Life well, and find it wanting, nor deplore; But in disdainful silence turned away. Stand mute, self-centred, stern, and dream no more?*’ || Once in “Morality” we find an ex- pression of that sense of social responsi- bility which characterized his active life as an educator. “We cannot kindle when we will The fire which in the heart resides; The spirit bloweth and is still; In mystery our soul abides. But tasks in hours of insight will’d Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled.** f Arnold’s relations to Christianity and and modern science are closely inter- woven. The faith in past dogma had broken down, and evolution revealed a system which in its bruality and indif- ference to the individual, was a denial of a loving father. Men had not been able to reconcile science and faith, and Arnold, as has been said, found the only solace in resignation. In the poem “Stagirius” he calls upon the young monk to show his faith in Christianity by its works, and shows that man is still contentious, blind and unloving. The spirit of Christianity itself was not mani- fested in the church. “Wisdom and goodness, they are God! — what schools Have yet so much as heard this simple lore? This no Saint preacher, and this no church rules, ’T is in the desert, now and heretofore.** ** In “Progress” he declares that to “ think clear, feel deep, bear fruit well ” is the test of a creed’s worth, and so does l “Scholar Gypsy.’’ 1“To a Gypsy CJhfld by the Seashore.” “Morality.** > “The Divinity.” Digitized by Google
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Matthew Arnold as a Poet . 159 not exalt the Christian teaching over the tenets of the sires. Lastly, in “Obermann Once More” Arnold begins to show complaisance toward the faith he tolerated in others but could never accept. Arnold’s views, either of religion or nature, were not always consistent with each other. This was due; perhaps, to the in- fluences to which he, as a scholar, was susceptible. He did not, like Words- worth and Keats, develop a view of life which was based solely upon his own experience and was wholly subjective in nature. He drew his inspiration and beliefs from various sources, — Marcus Aurelius, Sophocles, Emerson, and other great teachers, and so was liable to changes and contradictions. In the last poem mentioned he almost came to belief. "Oh, had I lived in that great day. How had its glory new Fill’d earth and heaven, and caught away My ravished spirit too. No thoughts that to the world belong Had stood against the wave That set so deep and strong From Christ’s then open grave.” But the perplexing doubts return. MThe millions suffer still, and grieve. And what can helpers heal With old-world cures men half believe For woes they wholly fed.” The poem ends again in a more hopeful strain: “One common wave of thought and joy lifting mankind again!” — a prelude to the time when the surging doubts should subside, and Matthew Arnold, the prose writer and critic, the apostle of culture and sweetness and light, should devote himself through many active years to the cause of educa- tion. Arnold, though an admirer of Words- worth, did not share his attitude toward nature. His affinities lay with Coleridge. Nature was but an imperfect reflex of the beautiful vision in the poet’s soul. “Fools that these mystics are Who prate of nature! for she Has neither beauty, nor warmth. Nor life, nor emotion, nor power. But man has a thousand gifts. And the generous dreamer invests The senseless world with them all. Nature is nothing; her charm Lives in our eyes that can paint. Lives in our hearts that can feel” The poem “ In Harmony with Nature ” reveals an attitude toward the new world of science like that which troubled the mind of Tennyson. “In harmony with Nature; restless fool. Who with such heat dost preach what were to thee. When true, the last impossibility — To be like Nature strong, like Nature cool! Know, man hath all which Nature hath, but more. And in that more lie all his hopes of good. Nature is cruel, man is side ox blood; Nature is stubborn, man would fain adore; Nature is fickle, man hath need of rest; Nature forgives no debt, and fears no grave; Man would be mild, and with safe conscience blest” In the exquisite poem “Resignation” Arnold shows the total lack of that soul- stimulus which nature brought so freely to Wordsworth. To Wordsworth nature was the benign, clement mother, the in- spiring teacher, the giver of peace and joy, the soul of his moral being. Arnold can find in her only counsels of endurance. “Enough, we live! — and if a life. With large results so little rife. Though bearable, seem hardly worth This pomp of worlds, this pain of birth. Yet, Fausta, the mute turf we tread. The solemn hills around us spread. This stream which falls incessantly. The strange scrawled rocks, the lonely sky. If I might lend their life a voice. Seem to bear rather than rejoice.” Having thus indicated, in a general way, the character of Arnold’s spiritual outlook, reference should be made to the form and intrinsic value of his poetry. He held the theory that “ classical objectivity is the ideal of modem verse,” and under these views composed his “unrhymed lyrics, a species of verse which though capable of great force and beauty is often hopelessly prose like.” In his ideal of classicism he cultivated restraint and so his verse is massive, con- Digitized by Google
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160 Matthew Arnold as a Poet. centrated and pregnant with force or meaning. The first poem of Arnold, “ The Strange Reveller,” was of this type. It introduces into English a verse form similar to a translation of choric songs in the Greek drama. “Faster, faster O Circe, Goddess, Let the wild thronging train, The bright procession Of eddying forms Sweep through my soul.*' Purely Homeric are the epithets em- ployed when he refers to the “Foamless, long-heaving, Violet ae£” “ Sohrab and Rustum ” also reminds one of Homer in its objectivity and high quality as an epic. But the masterpiece of Arnold’s poems that are essentially classic in structure is “Philomel.” It is unique in the English language and perhaps even ranks above Shelley’s “ Sky- lark” and Keats’ “Ode to a Night- ingale.” It lacks the exquisite cadence of both of the former but makes up in power and concentration. While Arnold has achieved marked success in the imitation of classic models, I think that he has accomplished what would be difficult for most poets of genius. His poetry lacks the lyrical cadence of Keats and Coleridge, and their luxuriance and profuseness of imagery. Though he succeeded in imitating classic models, the value of establishing an objective standard for lyric poetry seems dubious. While restraint is a virtue of the drama, and the more serious branches of art whose office is to impose form upon life, it is of doubt- ful propriety in the lyric. Poetry should be, to some extent at least, “ the sponta- neous overflow of powerful emotions,” and only on this basis can the lyric poet appeal to the universal heart of mankind. If he believes in art for art’s sake; if his aim is to please a limited coterie of dilletante, then he is justified. But if he believes that art is an expression of the richness of personal life and should go again to enrich the life of that great stream of humanity about him, then Arnold, in theory at least, is too limited to pose as that supremely wise man, who, according to Plato, is to be our final judge in all matters. Doubtless to most of us the idea of a restrained nightingale will always remain something of a paradox. But Arnold’s poetry was not always strictly in accordance with his theory. Much of it has strong human interest as well as classic charm. “Parting,” “Separation” and “Requiescat” express tender pathos and lyrical beauty. “Strew on her roses, roses, And never a spray of yew; In quiet she reposes; Ah, would that! did too.** In “Lines written in Kensington Gar- dens ” Arnold almost approaches Words- worth. “Calm sou) of all things! make it mine To feel amid the cities’ jar That there abides a peace of thine Man did not make and cannot mar.** As to Arnold’s achievement. In the earlier years of doubt and unrest he ac- complished little except to voice the un- certainty of a transitive age. As one writer has remarked: “A man who owns to having lost his way is not likely to be chosen as a guide by others.” But when Arnold definitely accepted the ideals of paganism in art and morality he became a power of the time. He stood out resolutely for the life of the spirit in an age of machinery and complacent ma- terialism. His opposition to Christianity doubtless modified it and brought em- phasis upon certain phases that were in danger of being ignored. He opposed the formality of creeds and rituals, caused more emphasis to be placed upon the influence of good working upon the lives of men, and emphasized the application of Christ’s saying that “the Kingdom of God is within you.” } Though his poetry to the end brought the eternal note of sadness in, and though Digitized by •j Google
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161 The Russo-Japanese War. he never achieved the peace he so per- sistently sought, the note of hope rose more frequently in his verse to relieve its strain of haunting sadness. While he was always restless in his search for truth, he came to believe that the best solution of the problem of life lay in 44 unselfish activity for the good of mankind.” This, growing sentiment of his later verses he actively expressed in his work as an educator, critic and reformer when he put into practice his theory that to “think clear, feel deep and bear fruit well ” is what the friend of man desires. H. W. Peck. Oberlin , O. THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR. THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR FROM A PRO-RUSSIAN VIEW-POINT. By Judge Edward Campbell. IF THE larger section of the American press is at the present time a true index of American sentiment on the sub- ject of the present war between Japan and Russia, then American public sentiment and the voice of America as heard in the councils of civilized nations are at vari- ance. On the third day of December, 1900, America declared to all the world that “The policy of the United States in deal- ing with the situation in China, is, to preserve Chinese territorial and admin- istrative entity, and to protect for the world the principle of equal and im- partial trade with all parts of the Chinese Empire.” (President McKinley’s Mes- sage to the second session of the United States Fifty-sixth Congress.) Looking to the American press for some indication of American sentiment on the subject. Professor Maxey of the University of West Virginia, a recognized authority in such matters, has apparently convinced himself that in the dealings with each other, of almost the entire world of nations, during the last ten years, Japan has suffered at the hands of enlightened Christendom some grievous national injury which now entitles her to the deepest sympathy of all civilized people. Speaking of “The Diplomatic History of the Russo-Japanese War,” in The Arena of November, 1904, page 485, the Professor (the italics are mine) says: 44 In our previous article, reference was made to one of the main facts (that is, main causes of the war), viz., the duplicity of Russia in forming a coalition to rob Japan of 4 a certain piece or parcel of land/ under the insincere pretension of a desire to preserve the ‘integrity of the Chinese Empire/ If there is any wrong which is more difficult to forgive or forget than others, it is that of having been- robbed of a piece of land; and to aggra- vate the crime (and hence the Japanesefeel- ing of resentment) the use of the 'plunder was such as to convince Japan, or any- body else, that Russia was acting in bad faith; that instead of championing the cause of decadent China from purely benevolent motives, she was availing her- self of the weakness of China to further her own schemes for self-aggrandize- ment.” Professor Maxey, being in no govern- mental or representative position, must of course be considered as expressing here the intelligent private citizen’s view of the situation — and the sound of his trumpet chords well with the symphony of numerous American journals. The “coalition,” formed of nations, as the Professor says, by the “duplicity of Digitized by Google
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162 The Russo-J apanese War . Russia, to rob Japan of a certain piece or parcel of land/* can be nothing else than the unanimous and still-continuing public consent and approbation of the Western powers in 1894-5, to the diplo- matic intimation then delivered by Russia, Germany and France, to Japan, to the effect, as President McKinley phrases the statement in his message to Congress, quoted above, that ‘‘Chinese territorial and administrative entity must be pre- served” and therefore that Japan must abrogate her Shimonoseki treaty of April 16, 1895, with China, whereby China had ceded to her in fee simple the whole of Korea and the lower part of Man- churia, including Port Arthur and China’s entire Pacific littoral; under which treaty, forced as it was by Japan from China at the sword’s point, Japan had forthwith entered into full military possession of those two provinces as above specified, and was occupying them in the latter part of 1894 and the early part of 1895, as a part and parcel of the Japanese Empire. This action of the Western powers in- formed her that notwithstanding the fact that her then-existing treaty, extorted from China, was still in full force and operation, she would not be allowed to dismember the Chinese Empire by in- corporating Korea or any part of Man- churia with the Empire of Nippon, but that she must forthwith restore all of the Chinese territory forcibly seized by her as spoils of war, to the dominion of China, the ancient and true owner of it. Japan did, thereupon, at this stern bidding of the Western nations, early in 1895, evacuate Korea and Manchuria, thus re- mitting those two provinces to their true allegiance — and this is the whole story of the Japanese-Chinese-Russian trans- action which Professor Maxey calls the “ crime more difficult to forget or forgive than others, t . e., the having been robbed of a piece of land”; and which President McKinley calls in his message of Decem- ber 3, 1900, “preserving Chinese terri- torial and administrative entity.” Can the average American citizen be considered as accepting Professor Maxey as the spokesman of his sentiments con- cerning this point of the Russo-Japanese controversy, or will he give his assent to President McKinley’s interpretation of the situation ? Three years after the Western powers drove Japan from Chinese territory, on the twenty-seventh day of April, 1898, China leased to Russia, for the period of ninety-nine years. Port Arthur, Talien- wan, and 800 square miles of lower Man- churia, upon condition that Russia would construct railroads connecting Port Arthur and some other sea-ports of Manchuria with the trans-Siberian rail- road, and would improve the harbors of Port Arthur and Talienwan, maintaining them for the use of Chinese and Russian war-vessels and for the commerce of the world, but for the war-vessels of no power except China and Russia, and specifying in detail the terms upon which the possession of the leased territory should be surrendered at the expiration of the term. China delivered possession of this leased territory at once to Russia. Russia forthwith proceeded diligently and honestly, fully to comply with the terms of the lease upon her part, and to the present day no complaint has been heard against Russia’s occupation and control of the leased premises from China, or from any nation of the world, except from Japan. Five years after the Western powers had driven Japan from Chinese territory, “Chinese territorial and administrative entity,” to use again Mr. McKinley’s language, was once more threatened — this time by a rebellion of China’s own subjects, calling themselves “Boxers.” On the twelfth day of June, 1900, the rebels, encouraged by the Empress, rose against the Chinese Government, and met with success so sudden and so com- plete, that the division of the Empire into two parts, if not the total disintegration of it, seemed imminent. Instantaneously recognizing such a rupture of China’s national organization as a calamity entailing world-wide dis- Digitized by Google
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163 The Russo-Japanese War . Aster, the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria and Italy, with life-or-death dispatch, hurried annies and men-of-war to the scene of trouble; and what did Japan do but join in this cosmopolitan enterprise, with a military and naval contingent the best drilled, best equipped, and all round best prepared for immediate hard service, of Any force on the scene of action — all to Avert, if possible, the dire consequences of a dismemberment of the Chinese Empire. So efficient was the power of the six Western nations above named, aided by the power of Japan , that on the fourteenth day of August, 1900, Peking, the Chinese capital, was captured by the allied annies — the rebellion was crushed —China was saved from dismemberment —order was restored, and the foreign troops were promptly withdrawn from Chinese territory. What change then came over Japan, that within three short years of this, her very remarkable spurt of zealous concern for the autonomy and the u territorial entity ” of the Chinese Empire she should be found on the twenty-eighth day of July, 1903, beginning her diplomatic campaign of corrupt solicitation of the Czar to induce Russia to join her in the disruption and division of China between them, by slicing therefrom Korea for herself and Manchuria for Russia ? Japan’s cajoleries to Russia to obtain her consent to this capture of Chinese territory continued with ever-increasing intensity until the fifth day of February, 1904, when, finding her proposals steadily either ignored or rejected by the Czar, she abruptly withdrew her minister from St. Petersburg and within a week there- after opened fire on the unsuspecting Russian fleet at Port Arthur. Japan could fight, in the year 1900, to prevent the Boxers from tearing to pieces the map of China, and it seems, according to Professor Maxey, she can also, in 1904, justly go to war with Russia for refusing to allow her to tear off a piece of the same map for herself, although at the same time she offered a liberal fragment of the Chinese Empire to Russia. Japan showed all the fairness that is in her by constantly endeavoring, throughout her six months’ negotiations with Russia, ex- tending from July 28, 1903, to February 5, 1904, to induce Russia to join with her in despoiling China — all that she asked of Russia being to “ recognize by formal treaty the exclusive right of Japan to give advice and assistance in the interest of reform and good government in Korea, including necessary military assistance ,” Japan proposing, thereupon, reciprocally to “ recognize,” also by formal treaty, anything in Manchuria that Russia would claim — in other words Japan be- gan her six months’ negotiations with Russia to make the single point of in- ducing Russia to connive at a ruthless rapine of China’s finest provinces, she simply standing by to witness Japan’s dismemberment of the Chinese Empire by the absorption of Korea into the Japanese Empire, and Japan returning the favor by attesting Russia’s seizure of Manchuria. Because Russia refused any and all part or lot in this bribery and cor- ruption scheme, Japan started this war. Japan has now, temporarily (as the end will show), overrun, and obtained military possession of Korea — and this within three months of the time when she began the war. Inflated with her success she declared a “protectorate” over Korea, which protectorate she now enforces by her military power. She also, consider- ing her hold on Korea permanently established, issued a decree, now being carried into execution, that every vessel leaving Japan for Korea should carry 150 Japanese men and 75 Japanese women to Korea for the purpose of colonizing that province. The Mikado and his highest State officers, by all ac- counts, now proclaim that in order to stop further horrible slaughter of Rus- sians Japan wishes to close the war, she retaining Korea. The above statements concerning the negotiations of 1903-4, between Japan Digitized by Google
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164 The Russo-Japanese War. and Russia, concerning Manchuria and Korea, are taken from Japan’s ex parte official statement of them, as contained in the pamphlet of about seventy pages men- tioned by Professor Maxey in die Novem- ber Arena, prepared by the authority of the Japanese government in March, 1904. This pamphlet is entitled “ Correspond- ence regarding the negotiations between Japan and Russia, 1903-1904. Pre- sented to the (Japanese) Imperial Diet, March, 1904.” It contains the speech of the Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs, Baron Ko- mura Jutaro, in making his official report to the Diet, and also alleged official copies of the correspondence during the negotia- tions, as the same passed between the Baron and Mr. Kurino the Japanese Minister at St. Petersburg, with Baron Komura’s statement of the substance of the Russian replies. It was, beginning in the early summer of this (1904) year, and is now circulated gratuitously from the Japanese Embassy at Washington, and from depdts in Boston, New York and Philadelphia, presumably for the purpose of creating in the United States and elsewhere a popular Japanese sym- pathy and sentiment. Professor Maxey quoted from this Japanese circular, and it is respectfully submitted that a glance at the entire publication, by an impartial reader, will show him that it does not sustain the Professor’s deductions from it. It is also quoted somewhat, in this paper, being quoted a little and cited in full as sustain- ing the writer’s views above given, and as demonstrating, when considered in con- nection with the well-known occurrences of the last ten years in the far East which have now passed into history, that Japan is inexcusably in the wrong in her present avowed political and territorial- expansion purposes and objects, and is radically and criminally wrong in begin- ning and in carrying on this war to sustain them. The reader must judge between the two presentations of the wrong and the right. Surely it is clear that the principal “Powers” of the civilized world, one of which community Japan essays to be, are one and all, singly and collectively, com- mitted as hard and fast as good faith, national honor and plain agreements can bind them, to maintain and “pre- serve Chinese territorial and administra- tive entity.” Can Professor Maxey explain how Japan can seize upon and Japanize Korea consistently with this attitude and action of what may be denominated the whole enlightened world ? Japan’s present military occupation of Korea, her protectorate over it, and her colonization of it, consummate, if allowed to continue, a dismemberment of the Chinese Empire, precisely as she tem- porarily effected China’s dismemberment in 1894. When President McKinley said in his message of 1900 that: “All the powers concurred in emphatic disclaimers of any purpose of aggrandizement through the dismemberment of the Chinese Empire,” did he mean to include Japan in his statement or did he mean that Japan did not unite in such “emphatic dis- claimers ” ? As before remarked, no power except Japan has ever complained of Russia’s Manchurian lease , or of Russia’s occupa- tion of Manchurian territory under her lease, — nor has any power except Japan seized or attempted to wrest from China any Chinese territory. The question whether Japan was or was not a party to the “emphatic dis- claimers ” made by the nations as stated by Mr. McKinley, is, however, really immaterial to the correct solution of the problem. If Japan was a party to those “ disclaimers ” she is violating her faith and murderously destroying her neighbor in waging this war, and it is the duty of all civilized nations to stop her, — but if she was not a party to those disclaimers, can those disclaiming Western powers approvingly or indifferently stand by as witnesses to Japan’s disruption of the Chinese Empire Digitized by Google
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165 The Russo-Japanese War. while their own national faith is publicly pledged by their combined official acts and declarations to prevent that very same fate from falling upon China by or through any or all of their own number ? If it is a proper thing to preserve the territorial integrity of the Chinese Empire every s enlightened nation of the world is by the circumstances of the situation, in all national good faith, duty and honor, naturally bound to prevent, if possible, the destruction of that territorial integrity by any power whatever, and all such nations are consequently bound, of course, to lend to Russia any assistance she may need, should she happen to need any assistance, in this her single-handed at- tempt fully to accomplish this world’s work. President McKinley, after stating the agreement of the nations concerning China, as substantially given above, says: “ These views have been and will be earn- estly advocated by our representatives.” The attitude of the United States in the premises being therefore so firmly and so fittingly fixed, and having been con- sistently maintained ever since this world- crisis occurred, what American would wish now to separate himself from the alignment of his country upon this question ? Japan’s aim in prosecuting this war, whatever she may declare and affirm as her purpose, can be nothing else than her own selfish aggrandizement at the ex- pense of China’s national existence. Can the American people give to Japan their sympathy and approval in such a marauding venture ? Edward Campbell. Uniontown , Pa. A REPLY FROM THE VIEW-POINTS OF THE FACTS IN THE CASE. By Edwin Maxey, M. Dip., LLD. AS JUDGE CAMPBELL has thrown l. down the gauntlet to me by chal- lenging my statement of facts and my con- clusions therefrom, contained in the November Arena, it is not my purpose either to apologize or to retreat from the positions taken therein. Nor would it be in accordance with a reasonable devotion to truth and due respect for the facts of history to let go unchallenged such gross misstatement of facts, even by a professed advocate of the Russian cause, as is to be found in Judge Camp- bell’s arraignment of Japan and defence of Russia. There is no such variance between American official and public sentiment toward the Russo-Japanese war as the Judge calls attention to in his opening sentence. The attitude of the govern- ment is one of non-intervention and the same attitude is taken by the public. No considerable body of American citizens would have their government become a party to the war. And it should hardly be necessary to call the Judge’s attention to the fact that a government must be either a neutral or an ally with reference to a war between two or more other nations. The only difference between the attitude of our government and that of the people is that the obligations of a neutral preclude the former from ex- pressing an opinion with reference to the merits of the controversy, while the in- dividual citizen is free to give expression to his opinion so long as his acts do not violate the laws of neutrality. It is not the fact that I ever looked “ to the American press for some indications of American sentiment . . . that in the dealings with each other, of almost the entire world of nations, during the last ten years, Japan has suffered at the hands of enlightened Christendom some grievous injury which entitles her to the sympathy Digitized by Google
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166 The Russo- J apanese War . of all civilized people.” It has never been my habit to indict a whole company for what three of its members were re- sponsible for, or to rest conclusions upon vague or shadowy grounds. Neither was my usual habit departed from in the article referred to. The coalition men- tioned in that article could by no reason- able interpretation be made to refer to anything other than the concerted action of Russia, Germany and France im- mediately after the Chino-J apanese war. No coalition is needed for the purpose of “public consent and approbation.” It is pertinent to inquire where the Judge gets his evidence upon which to rest the conclusion that the Western powers are unanimous in their approval of what has been done by Russia, Ger- many and France toward preserving the “territorial and administrative entity” of China. To the average person it would seem that the taking of a slice of Chinese territory by each of these three powers could be made to harmonize quite as well with some other intention as with that of a determination to preserve China’s “territorial and administrative entity.” The message of President McKinley, frequently referred to by the Judge, was evidently aimed at Russia, Germany and France and not at Japan, as the Judge would have us believe. Any document of this sort must be interpreted in the light of the circumstances under which it is issued. And at the time this document was issued, Japan was doing nothing which could possibly be interpreted as threatening the “territorial and adminis- trative entity ” of China, while the others were. It is therefore not true that Presi- dent McKinley, in his message, and I, in the article to which the Judge objects, were calling the same thing by different names, but upon the contrary we were speaking of different things, and, naturally, characterized them differently. Equally at variance with the facts is the statement of the Judge that by the “ diplomatic intimation delivered by Rus- sia, Germany and France, Japan was forced to abrogate her Shimonoseki treaty of April 16, 1895, with China, whereby China ceded to her in fee-simple the whole of Korea, and the lower part of Manchuria, including Port Arthur and China’s entire Pacific littoral.” As a a matter of fact the treaty of Shimonoseki recognized the independence of Korea, and while it did cede Port Arthur to Japan it made no such cession of “ China’s entire Pacific littoral.” If the Judge did not draw upon his imagination for the facts in this case, I am at a loss to know the source from which he acquired them. Neither did the mandate of the Western powers inform Japan that “ notwith- standing the fact that her then-existing treaty, extorted from China, was still in full force and operation, she would not be allowed to dismember the Chinese Em- pire by incorporating Korea or any part of Manchuria with the Empire of Nip- pon.” It is not a little strange that the Judge’s legal mind did not enable him to recognize the fact that you cannot dis- member an empire by taking away from it something which does not belong to it. By the treaty of Tien Tsin, entered into by China and Japan, in 1886, the inde- pendence of Korea was recognized by both and it was agreed that neither should send troops into Korea without notifying the other. It is therefore clear that the treaty of Shimonoseki left Korea in the same relation to the Chinese Empire as it found it. “The stem bidding of the Western nations” for Japan to “evacuate Korea and Manchuria, thus remitting those two provinces to their true allegi- ance” may be “the whole story of the Japanese-Chinese-Russian transaction ” but it is a story very inaccurately told. And it is certainly not the story referred to by President McKinley in his message to Congress, of December 3, 1900. Presidential messages are not written with reference to a matter which has been a closed incident for more than five years, but are written rather with reference to matters which are of vital importance and call for an expression of opinion at the Digitized by Google
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167 The Russo-J apanese War . time the message is written. Their pur- pose is to give information to Congress with reference to existing facts and tend- encies, concerning which there may be need for congressional action, not to enlighten them with reference to matters of ancient history concerning which there is no likelihood of their being called upon to act President McKinley’s message read in connection with the diplomatic correspondence of the same year carried on by his Secretary of State, not with Japan, but with those countries claiming “spheres of interest” in China, leaves no doubt but that the message refers to the tendency of certain of those powers to exclude American commerce from those “spheres of interest” — a tendency which was emphasized later by the persistent attempt upon the part of Russia to block the treaty being negotiated between the United States and China, providing for additional American consuls in Man- churia. The Judge is inaccurate in his state- ment of what was included in the lease secured by Russia from China. It is not, as he tells us. Port Arthur, Talienwan (Dalny) and “800 square-miles of lower Manchuria,” but is Port Arthur, Talien- wan and the “adjacent territory.” As to what is meant by “ adjacent territory,” Russia has given no definition except by her acts, and from these it is not difficult to conclude that she intends, or at least did intend, to make it include all of Man- churia, and, if no one successfully con- tested that interpretation, to give to it a more enlarged interpretation later. No one at all conversant with Russian diplo- matic methods would ever suspect her of putting into a contract with China such definite terms as “ 800 square-miles.” She always prefers to use terms upon which a progressive interpretation can be put, and in dealing with China she was wont to insist upon her preferences. That upon acquiring possession of her leasehold estate, Russia “forthwith pro- ceeded diligently” no one will deny; but that she proceeded “ honestly fully to comply with the terms of the lease upon her part” is by no means so certain. Even according to the Judge’s own statement, she was to “ improve the harbors of Port Arthur and Talienwan, maintain- ing them for the use of Chinese and Russian war-vessels and for the com- merce of the world.” Now, no one will deny that Russia made of Port Arthur an exclusively Russian naval-base and that the commerce of the world was ex- cluded from it by Russia some time before the present war begun. In view of what was being done at Port Arthur, it requires either a sublime faith in or a sublime ignorance of human nature to believe that Russia intended honestly to comply with the terms of her lease. The millions of rubles she was expending in fortifica- tions at Port Arthur was not consistent with the theory of temporary occupation. Governments have not yet become so altruistic or profligate in their expendi- tures as to expend millions in the protec- tion of a small leasehold estate from which they intend to peaceably withdraw at the expiration of their lease. .In view of all the facts, the nations and individuals conversant with the situation had been forced to the conclusion that Russia did not intend to abandon Port Arthur, any more than England intends to abandon Gibraltar or than the United States intends to abandon West Point. In other words, the logic of facts had forced the conclusion that nothing but force, and plenty of it, would ever induce Russia to vacate Port Arthur at the expiration of her lease. Not only was it evident that Russia did not intend to turn over the leased territory to China at the expiration of the lease — had that been all, the case would have been a different one — but it was sufficiently clear that Russia’s military and naval forces in Manchuria were not being augmented for the sole purpose of protecting her leasehold estate which was in no danger. Such augmentation of her forces must have been intended for purposes of aggression against China or Digitized by Google
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168 The Russo-Japanese War. whatever other powers should oppose the consummation of her plan to make her- self the dominant power in the Far East. It was these preparations for aggression, not the enjoyment of her leasehold, that precipitated the present conflict. It is true that “to the present day no complaint has been heard against Rus- sia’s occupation of the leased premises from China, or any nation of the world,” but it is not true to say “except Japan/’ for Japan throughout the negotiations recognized the legal right of Russia to occupy the premises leased from China. This recognition, by Japan and the other nations, of Russia’s technical legal right to the leased premises is not indicative of approbation, but is merely evidence that they did not think they had sufficient grounds upon which to bring an action of ejectment Nor is the fact that the other nations did not intervene to prevent the absorption of Manchuria and Korea by Russia conclusive evidence that Japan was not warranted in doing so. No other nation complained of the attempt by France tp absorb Mexico, but the United States did* The same is true in the case of Venezuela. There are times when the necessities of self-defence override the refinements of legal rules and fictions. And so far as can be seen that time had come in the relations between Japan and Russia. The new interpretation put by Judge Campbell upon the Boxer uprising seems to possess the virtue of originality. But does it square with the facts ? The proclamations and the acts of the Boxers show clearly that the Boxer outbreak was aimed primarily against foreigners, and did not threaten the “ territorial and administrative entity” of China. If it were aimed at the government at all, it was with a view to securing a change of rulers and not for the purpose of splitting the Empire into two parts. If, however, the peculiar and irrational course of the Boxer rebellion leaves room for doubt as to its real purpose, there can nevertheless be no room for doubt as to the purpose of the United States in sending troops to Peking. It was not to prevent the Chinese people from having two governments, if they wished, but to protect the lives of American citizens beseiged in the embassy at Peking. Some of the other powers may have had ulterior motives in sending their troops into China, but so far as ap- pears from what was said, the only pur- poses of the relief expedition were: the relief of the embassies, the securing of reparation for injury done to their citizens in violation of international law, and guarantees against like occurrences in the future. The Chinese government was held responsible for the acts of the rebels and left to put down the rebellion and punish the rebels as best it could. There is no evidence that the expedition of the allies strengthened or purposed to strengthen the one faction or the other. It purposed merely the enforcing respect for the law of nations by punishing its violations regardless of the faction to which they belonged. The Judge’s statement that the “for- eign troops were 'promptly withdrawn from Chinese territory ” is true with respect to all the troops except Russia’s. If the statement is to be applied to hers it is not true, unless we either consider Manchuria as not Chinese territory or else put upon the word promptly a con- struction which would be an outrage upon the English language; for three years after the rebellion had been put down Russia had in Manchuria a number of troops variously estimated at from one to two hundred thousand. It was this retention of her troops in Manchuria in violation of her promises to withdraw them that led to the strained relations resulting in the present war. It is not the fact that Japan was found “ on the twenty-eighth day of July, 1903, beginning her diplomatic campaign of corrupt solicitations of the Czar to induce Russia to join her in the disruption and division of China between them, by slic- ing therefrom Korea for herself and Manchuria for Russia.” In addition to Digitized by Google
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169 The Russo- J apanese War. the error of placing Korea as a part of the Chinese Empire, whereas it was at that time and had for nearly twenty years been independent, the above statement of the purpose of Japan in opening negotiations with Russia is purely a fabric of the Judge’s fancy. For there are no facts showing a change of front upon the part of Japan within “three short years.” Even if we grant that what Japan was fighting for in 1900 was the preservation of the “territorial and administrative entity ” of China, and grant further that in 1903 she proposed taking Korea, an independent power, there is up to this point no inconsistency in her action. The inconsistency, if in- consistency there be, is in the next part of her alleged proposition. If the Judge is correct in his allegation that Japan corruptly attempted to lead Russia away from her fixed policy of non- acquisition of territory by dangling before her eyes so tempting a prize as the rich province of Manchuria, she manifestly forsook the policy of preserving the “territorial and administrative entity” of China, to which she and the other nations were committed, and by so doing not only “showed all the fairness there is in her,” but, to be entirely accurate, showed that there is no fairness in her. But there is no evidence, either inside or outside of the negotiations, to show that Japan ever put forth such a proposition or favdred such a plan. The first thing insisted upon by her as a basis for negotia- tions, and adhered to throughout as a part of the irreducible minimum of assurances which she would accept from Russia as a guarantee of the peace of the Orient, was a “mutual engagement to respect the independence and territorial integrity of the Chinese and Korean Empires and to maintain the principles of equal oppor- tunity for the commerce and industry of all nations in those countries.” A faithful search discloses nothing suggested or agreed to by Japan in the diplomatic correspondence that is inconsistent with this demand. If we go outside of the negotiations for evidence, we still find none in support of the theory that Japan ever favored or would peaceably consent to said absorp- tion of Manchuria. Whatever her sen- timent, her national interests would not permit it, — in fact her national life would be threatened thereby. For with Russia firmly planted in Manchuria, Korea would be doomed, treaty or no treaty. And with Korea in possession of Russia, Japan would be at her mercy. To be- lieve that Japan would openly court such an undesirable state of affairs requires a scepticism as to her rationality which few people possess. That the Judge should ever have reached the conclusion that such was the policy of Japan is proof positive that with reference to our mental construction, at least, “we are fearfully and wonderfully made.” The extent of Japan’s proposition with reference to Manchuria was to recognize Russia’s special interests there in railway enterprises and in her leasehold estate, at the same time insisting that Russia agree to withold from taking any steps inconsistent with China’s sovereign rights in the province. Had Russia been will- ing to make this promise, and keep it, the nations of the world would not need to have feared the disruption of China, and it would have saved Russia many a ruble, many a war-ship, many a subject. As against these substantial losses, and, if the war is persisted in, greater losses yet to come, the Pharisaical assurance of the Judge that “Russia refused any and all part or lot in this bribery and corrup- tion scheme” is but a feeble recompense. The charge of duplicity made by the Judge against Japan for “ abruptly with- drawing her minister from St. Petersburg and within a week thereafter opening fire on the unsuspecting Russian fleet at Port Arthur,” is simply an echo of the wail set up by the peace-loving Czar and Count Cassini. There is no merit in this charge. For when Russia persisted that the question of Manchuria was “exclusively one for her and China,” Digitized by Google
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170 The Russo- J apanese War . peaceful negotiations had reached a standstill and Japan had a perfect right, if she felt that her vital interests demanded it, to withdraw her minister; and when in doing so she notified Russia that “ the Imperial Government reserves to itself the right to take such independent action as it thinks best to consolidate its menaced position as well as to protect its estab- lished rights and legitimate interests," the language was sufficiently plain so that there was no excuse for the Russian fleet at Port Arthur being caught “ unsuspect- • _ » mg. That Japan has declared a “ protecto- rate" over Korea is substantially true, and it is very probably true that she will continue such “protectorate” until the end of the present struggle, — the exigencies of war demand it; but that she intends to hold Korea permanently, the proof is yet lacking. The decree referred to has not been promulgated, and would be impracticable if it had. It would amount to a sentence of exile against thousands of Japanese citizens; for suppose, and such a supposition is by no means unreasonable, they refuse to go ? Here again the Judge has drawn upon his imagination, or some other weird source of information, for his facts. As yet there is no more tangible evidence than rumor upon which to base the statement that Japan has, through her “ Mikado and his highest State officers," proclaimed terms upon which she is willing to dose the war. Nor is it at all likely that she will, until Port Arthur has fallen and the fate of the Baltic fleet is decided. It is very true that the pamphlet from which I quoted freely in my November article is an “ ex parte official statement ” by the Japanese government, but the correctness of its statements have never been challenged. If it misrepresents the position taken by either government, it would be easy for Russia to show this by making public the entire correspond- ence, as she has a perfect right to do. Should this exposS convict Japan of an attempt to awaken “popular sympathy” by misrepresentation, it would discredit her with all fair-minded people. Until this is done, and Russia has already had nearly a year in which to do it, it is but reasonable and fair to suppose that the document sets forth truthfully the facts. If such is the case, it is the right, and, I think, the duty of Japan, to distribute the document, gratuitously or otherwise; for, to paraphrase the language of the Declaration of Independence, “a decent respect” for the public opinion of man- kind demands that the causes of going to war be made known to the world. As to whether or not the Japanese cir- cular sustains the deductions which I make from it in my article in the Novem- ber Arena, I am as willing as is Judge Campbell for the impartial reader to decide. No better jury would I ask, and certainly I deserve no better. If Japan is “inexcusably in the wrong," I submit that it is a trifle strange so few besides Judge Campbell should have found it out. It is indeed hard for me to believe that either the ethics of the American people has suddenly become so perverted or their judgments so deranged that the great bulk of them would take the wrong side on a simple question of right or wrong, and it is to such a question that the Judge reduces the present situation. I fully agree with the Judge that the “principal powers of the civilized world, one of which Japan essays to be, are one and all, singly and collectively, com- mitted as hard and fast as good faith, national honor and plain agreements can bind them, to maintain and preserve Chinese territorial and administrative entity." And will also point out the fact that since the message was written, con- taining this wholesome rule of action, the only power that has not conformed to it is Russia herself, who would have us believe and whom Judge Campbell would have us believe is now fighting the battles of China. In reply to the Judge’s direct challenge with reference to Korea, I will say that the seizure of Korea by Japan, or any Digitized by Google
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Garnet Warren: Cartoonist . 171 other nation, would no more be a dis- memberment of the Chinese Empire, nor a violation of her 44 territorial and ad- ministrative entity*’ than would be the seizure of Siam. Undoubtedly President McKinley in- tended to include Japan when he said “ all the powers.” And there is no doubt that Japan was a party to the 44 disclaimers.” She is still a party, and her action is not inconsistent with said 44 disclaimers.” The Judge’s proposition, that it is the duty of all civilized nations to intervene to stop Japan from waging war, is a most remarkable one. It accords neither with good statesmanship nor with good ethics. Take the case of the United States, which is op doubt one of the civilized nations, and which has issued a proclamation of neutrality. Would it be the duty of the United States now to belie that proclamation by interfering in order to prevent a friendly nation from doing just the sort of things we had every reason to suspect, when that proclamation was issued, she would do ? Or, a still stronger case — that of England, another of the civilized nations. In addition to having issued a proclamation of neutrality, England is bound by treaty, not only to not interfere, but to prevent any other nation from interfering. But proclama- tions and treaties apart, whence comes this duty of any nation to interfere in order to prevent a sister-nation from waging war in self-defence ? In his proposition that 44 every enlight- ened nation is bound by all national good faith, duty and honor, to lend to Russia any assistance she may need, should she happen to need any assistance ” the Judge reaches the climax either of humor or folly — I say not which. In answer to the Judge’s final question, 44 Can the American people give to Japan their sympathy and approval in such a marauding venture?” I will say that the American people do give to Japan their sympathy and approval and that they are not accustomed to giving their sympathy and approval in case of marauding ventures. In this connection it might not be out of place to call the Judge’s attention to the fact that epithets are neither arguments, evidence nor proof. Having examined the Judge’s 44 plead- ings” in detail, I shall close by char- acterizing them in general. They fur- nish a pronounced example of 44 special pleading.” No one could ever mistake them for the utterances of a careful and impartial student of history or political science. There is something about them which is strongly suggestive of inspiration from St. Petersburg. Edwin Maxet. Morgantown , W. Va. GARNET WARREN: CARTOONIST. By B. O. Flower. I. YOUTH AND EARLY MANHOOD. GARNET WARREN, whose car- toons in the Boston Herald have been so widely copied that they have familiarized the public on both sides of the Atlantic with that journal, and who is at present doing for the New York Globe what he formerly did for the Boston Herald in popularizing that paper through his powerful and effective cartoons, is one of the five or six newspaper artists whose work is entitled to special commendation, both as to quality and excellence of sub- ject-matter. It is one thing to be able to draw a fine, strong and artistic picture; quite another to possess the requisite imagination and power to seize upon Digitized by Google
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172 Garnet Warren: Cartoonist. Warren, In Boston Herald, INTER VENTION— THE HOPE OP THE WORLD. some theme that is uppermost in the public mind and express it in such a way that it will make more impression than the labored argument of an editorial leader. When the artist is fortunate enough to possess the skill and technique necessary for the production of good work and the power to seize upon a situation and externalize it pictoriaUy so as to drive home some fact or “damn a fallacy with a laugh,” and when in ad- dition to this he possesses the knowledge of literature that enables him to employ in this connection an apt quotation from Shakespeare or some other well-known author, or an epigrammatic phrase of his own, he is bound to rise well-nigh to the top in his chosen work. And it is in the possession of these three essentials for the newspaper cartoonist that we find the secret of Mr. Warren’s success. He was bom in London thirty years ago, but when quite small the family moved to Australia, where all his boy- hood recollections cluster. “ I cannot remember so far back as the time when I was not drawing,” said Mr. Warren recently. “ My first offences were houses with great volumes of smoke pouring from their alleged chimneys. From this it was only a short step to drawing the school-masters, and then trouble began. One day when I had just finished an atrocious effigy of the teacher, he caught me red-handed, and I, ‘like a wretch o’ertaken in his tracks, with stolen chattels on his back,’ trem- blingly awaited my punishment. On this occasion the master, evidently determined to make the punishment fit the crime, compelled me to make one hundred drawings of a certain face. Well, I can tell you that long before that task was finished all the artistic instinct in me seemed dead beyond hope of resurrec- tion; but such was not the case, as a few weeks later I was again at my old pastime. “About that time, when I was still very young, the late Phil. May arrived in Australia and was engaged to furnish regular cartoons for the Sydney Bulletin . I remember his pictures were a wonderful Digitized by Google
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UNDER CONTROL. stimulus to me, as were also the more broadly funny drawings of the American humorist, Livingston Hopkins, who had settled in our midst. Their pictures aroused a deep interest in my mind in politics, and perhaps exerted more in- fluence than anything else in turning my attention toward journalism. Every week I eagerly looked for the cartoons, and though only about twelve years of age I was quite a politician among my com- rades and playmates and was always eager for a discussion with my elders, substituting, no doubt, the assertiveness of ignorance and immaturity for wisdom and logic, as is the way with youth.” At length the time came when the father wished his son to select a profession. It had been his hope and desire that Garnet should follow in his footsteps and become a physician, but this the boy was disinclined to do, lacking the necessary application. Finally deciding to become a dentist, he took service as an apprentice. but after five months the master declined to have the boy with him longer because of lack of interest and application. Next he became a stenographer in a business- office, remaining in that capacity for four years. * ■- “ During this period,” said Mr. Warren, in referring to his early struggles, “my old taste for picture-making led me to join a drawing-class. I was then about twenty. My office-work required my time from nine to five each day, but from seven to ten I spent in the drawing-school ; then I would hasten over to the Parlia- ment House to make sketches of the mem- bers for one of our weekly papers, work- ing there till two in the morning; so my life at that time was strenuous enough to suit the most exacting American taste, and perhaps too strenuous for my con- stitution.” After a time a tempting opportunity was offered Mr. Warren to go to South America on a business venture. He Digitized by Google
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174 Garnet Warren: Cartoonist. Warren, in Boston Herald. BUT WOULDN’T ARBITRATION BB A BETTER WAY? WARREN’S SANE SUGGESTION IN REPLY TO THE PRESIDENT'S CALL FOR A GREATER NAVY. traveled along the whole Western coast and from thence up to San Francisco, California. When in this bustling Ameri- can metropolis of the Pacific, he applied for a position in the art department of the Examiner and was promptly assigned a place; but the well-filled department, with its numbers of young men working away like steam-engines under high pressure, frightened him so that before the morning came when he was to begin his work he had decided to return to Australia instead of remaining in the republic. Arriving home, he secured the position of cartoonist on The Queens- lander, which he held for two years, when again his desire to travel and seek more promising fields overmastered him. Ac- cordingly he set out for London, in which city he remained nine months, drawing some cartoons for the Chronicle , and several pictures for The King and other publications. London, however, seemed to promise less opportunity for advance- ment than America, so he set out for New York. That was about four years ago. He soon obtained a place on the New York Herald , though not as a cartoonist. He remained with the Herald for over two years, when he accepted an offer from the New York News , which position he retained until the reorganization of that paper. He then came to Boston and accepted a position offered on the Boston Herald . At the time of his coming to this city he determined to make cartoon- work his life occupation, and into his labors he has thrown much of that heart- interest which Longfellow tells us “ giveth grace to every art.” His cartoons are widely copied, and though only thirty years of age he to-day ranks with our best American newspaper cartoonists. n. ART WORK AND THE INFLUENCE OF MATERIALISTIC COMMERCIALISM ON THE IDEALISM OF YOUTH. When a dentist’s apprentice, and later a stenographer, Warren clung tenaciously to his drawing as a pleasant pastime, and Digitized by Google
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Garnet Warren: Cartoonist. .ARBITRATION TEUfflY vrmt FRANCE Warren, In Boston Herald. IT SEEMS TO BE IN FASHION. when he was fifteen years of age one of his drawings was accepted and published in the Sydney Punch . In speaking of how he felt when his first picture appeared, Mr. Warren, with his face lighted up by the memory of a golden hour now fifteen years past, said: * I did not receive any pay for my first picture. I was only too proud to find it in the paper. I shall never forget the thrill that went through me when I saw myself in print. I walked through the streets in a daze. I have had the feeling a few times since, but never so strong as the first time. Alas! I never feel it any more; I suppose I am getting too old.” To us this confession was unutterably sad, because it spoke of the dwarfing of the poet’s eternal child-soul in a young man but thirty years of age. It spoke of the crushing of that idealism that is as essential to full-orbed manhood as oxygen is necessary to physical existence by the grinding, wearing pressure of modem business life — the struggle for bread and position, for the right to live in reason- able comfort in a world of marvelous wealth and one wherein, under just dis- tribution and enjoyment of life’s neces- sities, all who were willing to toil would be amply supplied. What a commentary on a social system — on a civilization — which is so brutalizing in its subtile but powerful and almost irresistible influence on the finest side of life that in a few short years it crushes, deadens and all but destroys the poet-soul in man, drying up the fountain of eternal youth that so long as it flows makes existence, with all its perplexities, its problems, its disap- pointments and sorrows, a perpetual source of strength and joy! A social system that dwarfs the divine life in the soul of the child, so that the normal delights bom of achieving honorable success, of creating something, no longer find a response in the heart of the man, is a system that is already condemned. Digitized by Google
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176 Garnet Warren: Cartoonist. Warren, in Boston Herald. WHERE THE BIG 8TICK 18 NEEDED. because it fails to minister to the highest of the germs of death. The rosy glow and worthiest elements in our being, that suffuses its cheek, which the ignorant A system that crushes idealism, destroys and superficial mistake for health, is the the joys bom of lofty aspirations, and hectic flush of approaching death. In one takes from life that mystic charm that way only can it avert certain doom, and only the poet knows, is of necessity de- that is by substituting altruism for egoism, structive rather than constructive in its idealism for sordid desire, concern for all ultimate influence. A civilization thus in place of absorption in self. No truer dominated may burst into dazzling splen- or more needed sermon has been preached dor on its materialistic side, but it is the in recent years than that uttered by our glory of the autumn that presages the matchless poet of social democratic pro- flight of the soul — the gorgeous outward grass, Edwin Markham, in these lines: magnificence of imperial Rome when, rich in gold, corrupt in heart, arrogant in spirit, but smitten in the vitals, she reeled forward to ignoble death. No social system whose dominating note is egoism, no civilization which rests on brutal com- petition or on the combination of the few for the spoliation of the many, can long endure. It necessarily carries the seeds of decay in its own being, and the very ideals that govern foster the growth “Voices are crying from the dust of Tyre, From Baaibec and the stones of Babylon — ‘We raised our pillars upon Self-Desire, And perished from the large gaze of the sun.* Eternity was on the pyramid. And immortality on Greece and Rome; But in them all the ancient Traitor hid, And so they tottered like unstable foam. There was no substance in their soaring hopes : The voice of Thebes is now a desert cry; A spider bars the road with filmy ropes Where once the feet of Carthage thundered by. Digitized by Google
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Photo, by Brayton, Boston. GARNET WARREN Thi Arena Digitized by Google
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Garnet Warren: Cartoonist. 177 Wtnen, in Boston Harold. “▲ HALF FOR THEE AND A HALF FOR THEE.'* A bittern booms where once fair Helen laughed; A thistle nods where once the Forum peered; A lizard lifts and listens on a shaft Where once of old the Colosseum roared. No house can stand, no kingdom can endure Built on the crumbling rock of Self-Desire: Nothing is Living Stone, nothing is sure. That is not whitened in the Social Fire.9* That Garnet Warren is by nature endowed with the artist’s imaginative soul and the poet’s idealism is evidenced not only in much of his work, but is seen in his hank, earnest countenance and his dear, candid eye. And yet in reply to our question, “ Would you be willing to draw pictures representing ideas and ideals that you do not believe?” he hesitated a moment and then said: “I have never been up against that question yet. I do not know. I should be willing to draw for a Republican paper or a Democratic paper, and in the event that I was on a paper that represented convictions which I do not hold, I should try and make my cartoons such as to satisfy my employer and yet do no violence to my convictions. Of course I should prefer to work along the line of my be- liefs, for I have veiy strong beliefs. The convictions I had as a little kid have never changed. I have got them now down in the bottom of my heart, but I must admit that the conflict of life has been too much for me, and I am now simply an adapt- able hireling — a part of the machine, die ‘system.’ But if I could, without too great prejudice to myself, strike a blow for what I believe to be right, I should be glad to do it.” “Would you,” we asked, “be willing to make sacrifices — great personal sacri- fices— in order to be true to your own ideals and convictions in your work ? ” “ Frankly,” he replied, “ I do not know. I have never, as I said, been up against Digitized by Google
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178 Garnet Warren: Cartoonist. Warren, In Boston Herald. THE ONLY WAY. that proposition yet, but I rather think I should.” “ Would you have entertained the idea of drawing pictures representing thoughts contrary to your own ideas of what was true when you were young — when you were eighteen years of age, for instance ? ” “ Now I do not know — I do not know. A person cannot analyze himself really well. After all, he never knows himself until the opportunity for saying yes or no does come, and as it has never come to me, I do not know.” Though we deeply regretted Mr. War- ren’s indecision in the presence of ques- tions which we regard as being so cruci- ally important both to the individual and to society, we could not fail to admire his rare and refreshing candor. Indeed, there is something very boyish, genuine and charming in his personality. We feel and believe that only the subtile in- fluence of an environment of sordid materialism, such as prevails to-day as the legitimate result of social and econo- mic conditions that place expediency and material success before moral ideals and ethical rectitude, could even partially obscure his naturally-fine sense of the high demands which life imposes on all her children. Only the materialism of the market, that is destroying the idealism of our young, could make it possible for such natures as Garnet Warren to hesitate to follow the dictates of conscience — hesitate to choose as Socrates chose, as Christ chose, as the prophets, the mar- tyrs and the moral heroes of all ages who have led civilization forward have chosen, to tread the solitary, thorn-strewn path rather than journey in ease over a way approved by conventionalism and pleas- ing to egoism, when the soul cries out that the lonely path is the highway of justice and right, whose real goal may only be revealed by the light of duty’s torch borne by the foot-sore servants of civiliza- tion. If we read Mr. Warren’s mind aright, there is, unconsciously to himself, perhaps, a battle ever going on between idealism and positivism, between altruism and egoism; and we shall be disappointed if in the end the idealism of the true artist-soul fails to triumph. We be- lieve that there is in him that basic moral virility, which as life’s great problems unfold, will develop until it colors his thoughts, influences his pen and guides his life. III. SOME VIEWS ON SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC QUESTIONS. A newspaper cartoonist of the first rank must be a man in intimate touch with the momentous events and happen- ings of the day throughout the world. He must be a man whose mind is suf- ficiently trained to quickly recognize a logical sequence and the relation of one event or fact to another. He must furthermore possess the imagination of the poet and artist, who at once recognizes the master-thought in the panorama of the day, or that which is most compelling in its sway over the public mind; and he must also be able to effectively externalize it in a quickly-drawn picture. But to be Digitized by Google
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Garnet Warren: Cartoonist . 179 able to thus epitomize contemporary events so as to reflect the views as held by the “ daily ” for which he labors, the artist must be thoroughly conversant with the great living questions of the hour. Mr. Warren has the true instinct of the journal- ist, but he is also far more thoughtful and dear-visioned than many pretentious editorial writers. In the course of a recent conversation the discussion led to the vexed questions of protection and free-trade, and we inquired his views. “Well,” he replied, “that depends. Under some circumstances I should be a protectionist, and under others I should be a free-trader. Let me illustrate. In Australia some years ago the importers were becoming a powerful, wealthy class at the expense of the people of the various colonies. It was impossible to success- fully inaugurate new industries, because the cost of starting the same was so great as to make it impracticable to sell goods in competition with the imported artides, and we were then becoming more and more dependent on other lands, while the various manufactures and other in- dustries that under protection would and later did spring into vigorous life, afford- ing remunerative labor for tens of thou- sands, were out of the question until the state granted protection. Now at that stage in the devdopment of Australia I believe protection to have been wise and necessary. When great businesses, how- ever, have grown up and become so Warm, in Boston Herald. "HOW LONG, 0 LORD, HOW LONG!” Warren, In Boston Herald. LIGHT IN DARKEST RU88IA. powerful as to oppress the people by exorbitant charges, and in order to ex- tend their spedal privileges and gain an additional advance in prices, seek directly or indirectly to corrupt the people’s servants, then I hold that protection is inimical to the best interests of sodety, for the double reason that it oppresses the masses and corrupts the sources of government.” “In other words,” we observed, “your position is substantially that once hdd by Henry Clay, who was called the father of American protection. He strongly favor- ed protecting the infant industries so long as they were in fact infant industries; but ndther he nor his followers in the early days dreamed of extending protec- tion to privileged interests when they be- came powerful enough to oppress instead of benefit the people. Colond Ingersoll, who for years was a strong advocate of protection, at length grew weary of the continuous Oliver-Twist cry of enor- mously-rich interests for more privilege, and on one occasion he declared that while he believed most heartily in pro- tecting infant industries, he was deddedly opposed to extending that protection after the infants wore boots and grew whiskers. So, I take it, you, while favor- ing legislation that would foster and encourage the establishment of new in- dustries and manufactures, would oppose continuing such protection in cases where Digitized by Google
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180 Garnet Warren: Cartoonist. Warren, in Boston Harold. NAKED, BUT UNASHAMED. combinations are becoming a menace to free institutions, and at the same time are placing the American people at a disad- vantage, as, for example, in the case of the steel-trust, which through the in- iquitous protective legislation is enabled to charge the citizens of this republic from six to eleven dollars a ton more for steel than it charges the citizens of Eng- land or Canada.” “Well, Mr. Flower, you have put my views in a very few words much better than I can put them myself,” replied Mr. Warren. In speaking of methods of advancing theories and views which one held to be highly beneficial to a people or a nation, Mr. Warren advocated prac- tical opportunism marked by the spirit of concession within certain bounds. In this way, he holds, far more can be achieved in the end than by uncom- promising adherence to a fixed form- ula. His ideas are similar to those of Jaur6s and the idealistic socialists of France, in contradistinction to those of Bebel and his followers in Germany. In the case of Jaur6s it will be noted that that great orator and civic leader has achieved remarkable reforms, and has placed the republic in an attitude favor- able to a step-by-step rationalistic pro- gramme of social progress, in which the idea of universal secular education and of peace supersedes dogmatic religious training and the domination of the military imperialistic ideal that to-day prevails in Germany, Russia and other reactionary lands. By combining with the republicans, the socialist representa- tives under Jaur£s’ lead have changed the entire drift of the government from reactionary, monarchal and clerical tend- encies to those of enlightened and sane democratic advance; while Bebel and his followers, by refusing to unite with Digitized by Google
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Garnet Warren : Cartoonist. 181 the liberals, have signally failed to win legislative victories and advantages that they might have gained through such a wise policy as marked the French social- ists under Jaur6s, and while following this course the government has been enabled to combine with the reactionary clericals and others, who hold ideas inimical to republican principles, with the result that now the socialists are threatened with having their powers in government materially lessened if not destroyed through restrictive franchise legislation. Now in political matters our artist holds that the general plan pursued by Jaur 4s is the plan that results in victory. On this point he said: “Let me illustrate. In Australia the labor-party finally came to hold the balance of power, and without com- promising the principles they hold to be vital and fundamental, they — wisely, as I think — united with the party that would pledge itself to grant them certain special legislation that was a part of their platform or a demand of the party. In this way they have step by step achieved most amazing victories that could not have been gained had they refused to be practical opportunists.’* In speaking of Australian politics, Mr. Warren observed that in the labor-party there is present a feature not unlike the popular recall or the imperative mandate in character. Every candidate pledges himself to the party that if, at any time during his term of office, a majority of his party demands his resignation, he will promptly acquiesce in that demand. Like all the more discerning and thoughtful men who believe in the ideals of republican government, or the funda- mental principles of democracy, Mr. Warren holds that the most important political need of the day is that of getting the government back into the hands of the people, in order that it may again become in fact, as well as in theory, a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. “STANDING PAT.” Warren’s Idea (in the Boston Herald) of where the People oome in under the Trust-Ruled Republican Party’s Thought. We have strong faith in Mr. Warren’s future. He is a true artist. He pos- sesses ability far in advance of most of his fellow-craftsmen in his special line of work. He is young. He is one of the most candid natures it has been our fortune to meet; indeed, we may say that only on rare occasions have we been so strongly attracted to a stranger as we were to him, and we believe that far more than he himself imagines he is being led unconsciously by the higher promptings of his nature. He is, we think, far more an idealist at heart than he is aware, and if our judgment is correct he will yet become far more than a brilliant cartoonist; for in proportion as moral enthusiasm more and more enters into his work it will become effective and of positive value to civilization. B. O. Flower. Boston , Mass. \ Digitized by Google
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THE POEMS OF EMERSON. HERMIONE. n. Bt Chaslkb Mallot, President of the Boston Emerson Society. "This Hermione absorbed The lustre of the land and ocean. Hills and islands, cloud and tree. In her form and motion." HERMIONE thus absorbed the luster she loved; and is not this verse also an introverted expression for a fact nearer the literal truth, namely, that she absorbed the attention and love of the lover so that he did not see the luster of these objects in nature ? It is a general truth that young people are absorbed in persons and do not until later in life come to a love of natural beauty. This fine selection of natural objects leaves us but little besides until we come to the world oft persons. "In her form and motion.** The concession of the lover that Hermione may not be “fair” does not extend to her form and motion. Emerson says that a beautiful form is better than a beautiful face, and a beautiful behavior is better than a beautiful form. There is much in u beautiful behavior” which can be reduced to manners, and almost every- thing in manners may by a fine analysis be called “ motion.” It would be difficult to conceive of a queenly character as not implying fine behavior in manners. These things stand in the relation of cause and effect. Good manners is to seem good, and to seem good and to sustain the ap- pearance is to be good. An affectation of good is sure to break down at some unhappy crisis. The lover, as we have seen, has found one diversion from his sorrow in an oc- casion to defend Hermione against the animadversions of “they” — the critics. Another sign of convalescence is in the discovery that beauty is left in nature. Hermione has not both absorbed it and carried it away. He is coming to this hitherto neglected enchantment and£so he says: "This Hermione absorbed The lustre of the land and ocean. Hills and islands, cloud and tree. In her form and motion.** Absorbed , and not absorbs . The reader will observe that little is left of nature after all he can gather into these concep- tions. They were worth nothing as beauty to the lover in the presence of Hermione. He saw only beauty, luster, in her while she was with him. This ex- travagant expression is perhaps only an introverted way of saying that Hermione absorbed the attention of the lover and he was not conscious of the luster of land and ocean in the presence of Hermione. When Hermione is gone he comes to nature and finds this luster again, as we shall see in the following lines: "I ask no bauble miniature. Nor ringlets dead Shorn from her comely head. Now that morning not disdains Mountains and the misty plains Her colossal portraiture; They her heralds be, Steeped in her quality, And singers of her fame Who is their Muse and dame.** This charm of luster as often worn by persons and by nature alike has other names. In “ Poetry and Imagination” Emerson calls the quality “ transcend- ency,” as that elusive aspect of beauty which description cannot grasp and hold, and which he gives in delicate hints in his “ Ode to Beauty ” : 182 Digitized by Google
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The Poems of Emerson. 188 "Thee ridinff through the sea of form, like the Katana* through the storm. Somewhat not to oe possessed. Somewhat not to be caressed. No feet so fleet could ever find. No perfect form could ever bind.” But in the case of Hermione the lover sees it in her “ form and motion.” This word 44 motion” may be well interpreted as meaning manners, since there is nothing seen in manners which may not be reduced to motion, as we have said. Of course manners retire by analysis into psychology at last and are lost to the physical eye as purely spiritual phenom- ena. There the beauty that follows them is "Somewhat not to be possessed. Somewhat not to be caressed, by the observer. "Now that morning not disdains Mountains and the misty plains Her colossal portraiture.” Where did Emerson get this wild hyperbole? When I was introduced to Emerson by Theodore Parker, as a young man, very much carried away by his writings, he said with his characteristic sweetness and modesty: 44 I am a great borrower. I read all sorts of books and take what belongs to me.” This no doubt describes his way of reading. He did not read everything in a book. He says somewhere: 44 1 read for the lustre.” And again : 44 1 value in books only what is transcendental and extraordinary.” He says in the chapter on 44 Idealism ” in the little treatise on 44 Nature ” : 44 Shakes- peare possesses the power of subordinat- ing nature for the purposes of expression, beyond all poets. His imperial muse tosses the creation like a bauble from hand to hand, and uses it to embody any caprice of thought that is uppermost in his mind.” He quotes Shakespeare in these words, said by a lover to his maiden : "Ta^e those lip® away Which so sweetly were foresworn; And those eyes— the break of day, lights that do mislead the mom/* And he adds: 44The wild beauty of this hyperbole, I may say in passing, it would not be easy to match in literature.” And indeed it is a “wild hyperbole.” A maiden’s eyes are “the break of day” — an equivalent for morning, and even morning is deceived, misled, by the counterfeit and thinks it is her own proper light There are several points of resemblance between Emerson’s hyperbole in 44 Hermi- one” and this hyperbole from Shakes- peare, which he 44 takes as belonging to him.” There is a lover in each, a maiden in each, a personification of morning in each, and morning in each is an interested spectator of effects given by the beauty of the maiden, as if morning were in full sympathy with the lover, like the swallow in a former line. Nature has now her luster back again and is thus a picture of Hermione. Broad land- scapes, mountains and the misty plains are a “colossal portraiture.” “Steeped in her quality” is a strong and happy ex- pression and comports with the word “genius ” as used above. So as the lover looks upon this larger miniature he asks “no bauble miniature,” no trifling re- minder in ringlets shorn from her 44 comely head.” Many persons are satis- fied with a good complexion and a certain regularity in the features of the face, and do not look or care for a 44 comely head.” Phrenology has not quite fulfilled all it promised, but it has instructed us to look at the head as well as the face. The con- figuration of the head as a whole means more, perhaps, than the technical 44 bumps ” of fifty years ago. "Who is their Muse and dame.” The mountains and the misty plains are the body and Hermione the soul of the scene. Beauty as subjective, or in the form of emotion, is a universal at- tribute and the same when the correlate of very different things. Nature and per- sons often affect us alike. Thus the quality in Hermione and in mountains and the misty plains is Hermione as a figurative or poetical predicate, and is not Digitized by Google
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184 The Poems of Emerson . beyond the bounds of allowable “ double, quadruple or centuple meanings” which the poet sees in words and other symbols. Farther along in the poem the lover calls natural influences his “ kindred ” who have come to “sooth” him. The word “muse” seems to be a personification for certain effects as well as a fiction for persons. Emerson here uses it as an alternative for “dame.” Now comes a perplexing verse of five lines, the interpretation of which de- mands a careful review of what has preceded it: “Higher, deer swallows! mind not what I ray. Ah! heedless how the weak are strong. Say, was it just. In thee to frame, in me to trust. Thou to the Syrian couldst belong?” “On a mound an Arab lay, And sung his sweet regrets And told his amulets: The summer bird His sorrow heard, And, when he heaved a sigh profound. The sympathetic swallow swept the ground.” The lover has now so far recovered from the sorrow at his great loss that the “sighs profound” have ceased, and the low sweeps of the swallow, his only com- panion, are no longer needed, so in his changed mood he says: “Higher, dear swallows! mind not what I say.” Two ameliorations, two signs of con- valescence, have come to the lover. First, he has so far forgotten his sorrow as to notice and reply to the critics of Hermione. He cannot bear any de- preciation of Hermione. Secondly, though Hermione is gone, he still finds beauty in hill and plain — beauty in nature, and it is the beauty, the soul, of Hermione. In this way he has her still, or, out of his love of nature he has a delightful equivalent. Now another “mind cure” emerges. He has not lost her, as we shall see by analysis of these five lines. It is in view of all this, and chiefly of the last happy thought, that he says: “Higher, dear fw&Uows! mind not what I say.” Now the paradox: “Ah! heedless how the weak are strong.” How shall we solve this paradox ? By finding two relations, in one of which Hermione is weak and in one of which she is strong. So the words “ weak ” and “strong” are not used absolutely, but relatively. She is weak in physical power and helpless against the facts of her physical condition, and is utterly unable to escape them. If this may be considered her actual life, then she has nothing besides. She holds her life, in this sense, very largely at the mercy of her husband. He is “ arbiter of her fortunes.” The lover alludes to this sad circum- stance farther on in the poem, as we shall see. “Ah! heedless how the weak are strong.” He addresses Hermione as in apos- trophe, though she may be a thousand miles away: “Say, was it just. In thee to frame, in me to trust. Thou to the Syrian couldst belong?” In reading this poem in the pallors of a distinguished clergyman, he asked : “Who is the Syrian?” I said that it was the man to whom Hermione was married, presumably, without her love and against her will. This, in an Eastern land, is a possibility veiy easy to con- ceive. She is married by the interest and compulsion of her family. “ How do you know ? ” he asked. “Well,” I could only answer, “I read between the lines, as you do in the Bible, and then see how the case as a whole bears me out.” That the Syrian is the husband of Hermione is thus far only an implication. Hermione had “framed” and the Arab lover had “trusted” or believed that she belonged to the Syrian to whom she had never given herself. This is delicate and dangerous ground, and Emerson does not often venture upon it. In his lecture upon books, written perhaps not far from the date of this Digitized by Google
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The Poem * of Emerson. 185 poem, we find the following not irrelevant passage: 44 In novels the most serious questions are beginning to be discussed. What made the popularity of Jane Eyre but that a central question was answered in some sort The question there answered in regard to a vicious marriage will always be treated according to the habit of the party. A person of commanding individualism will answer it as Rochester —as Cleopatra — as Milton — as George Sand do, — magnifying the exception into a rule, dwarfing the world into an ex- ception. A person of less courage, that is, of less constitution, will answer as the heroine does, — giving way to fate, to conventionalism, to the actual state and doings of men and women.” Emerson, I believe, does not return to this theme, too large for settlement by any one mind. He says in “Experi- ence”: “A sympathetic person is placed in the dilemma of a swimmer among drowning men, who all catch at him, and if he give so much as a leg or a finger, they will drown him.” Certainly on this subject it is not safe to give drowning men and women “ so much as a leg or a finger.” Mrs. Deland a few years ago in her story, Philip and Hie Wife , argues the question well for both, and then leaves them. She does not say how they settled it. I should be inclined to leave it as Mrs. Deland did, and so save my head. In a notable case here in Boston, Rufus Choate contended with his usual eloquence against divorce, saying that the man and wife would come together again, and they did. Perhaps they are the best ones to settle it. At any rate, Emerson does not try to settle it, save in the way suggested in our poem, “Hermione,” a settlement in which Hermione agrees, if the Syrian does not. In this settlement Hermione is “strong” and the Syrian is weak and powerless against her. Emerson may have thought in the case of Rochester, in the case of Milton, that without love there is no marriage. The generalization turns out a vexatious one. It soon gets itself tangled up in endless complications. But that old Bible word, “frame,” is a happy choice in the present case. A man once wrote a book to prove that women have no souls. The symptoms at present are rather against such a doctrine. He proved it by the easy argument of the Dutch justice: Six men swore for the plaintiff. They saw the assault com- plained of. But twelve men swore they did not see it, and the justice said there was a decided preponderance in favor of the defendant. The argument of the man who wrote the book to the end that women have no souls proved that the Bible nowhere says they have, and carried the point, as he thought, by this sweeping negation. We have the pleasant and generally harmless fiction in our marriage-forms that the bride is given away by some one. But if a woman has a soul and her soul is her own, we might say that she is the only person who can give it away. The act by herself is marriage; without this it is a “frame” — a piece of mechanism without a soul — an event agreeing with law and custom as society demands, but not with what is essential, namely, love, as the soul demands. And this was the great plea of the Arab and Hermione. For a time they were dazed by the social wrong which had tom the lovers asunder. The lover now sees, and Hermione sees, that in a law superior to “frames” she does not belong to the Syrian. She has never given herself to him. By a logic like this, moreover, the lovers could “frame” or construe themselves as be- longing to each other. Thus in a high and spiritual sense the lover has not lost Hermione. If she loves him still, she belongs to him stiff. She, by the only form of gift having a psychological value, has given herself to him. The “frame” of a marriage to another does not annul this essential marriage. But she must Digitized by Google
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186 The Poems of Emerson . live in " castles in Spain/* to use a modem metaphor. In this Hermione is “ strong ” like her singer — her poet-lover. She is stronger there than the Syrian. She can at any moment leave him. He cannot hinder her. All the troops of the sultan cannot capture her. She can fly away on wings swifter than the swallows, and live delightful hours far away with the man she loves. Our good didactic teachers are wont to disparage revery — an imaginary life; this often without taking into account the thousand cases wherein it seems proper and unavoidable. What would soldiers do in field and camp, waiting often through inactive periods; what would prisoners do, shut up from the world for many years, but that life other than the actual existence meted out to them were supplied by the imagination ? Does one think that Hermione could be kept always in the geometrical or spacial presence of the Syrian. By the laws of the land and by the fact of physical pos- session only she belongs to him. Did not Napoleon live much in his beloved France during those St. Helena years ? “Ah! heedless how the weak are strong.** The lover is not heedless now. He has sung his sweet regrets to some purpose and perceives the bonds of that finer relation by which he and Hermione are one. This is the last and crowning real- ization; so he closes the song with his little friend, the swallow. He does not need the low flights any longer. “ Higher, dear swallows! mind not what I say.** This is the solution of the apparent contradiction, the paradox. Hermione is weak in physical power; she is strong in the power to dream dreams. After this the lovers may be considered the subjects of an ideal life, the tenants of fair Arcady, made by their own fancies. Helen Hunt Jackson has written two poems which may be read as two parts of one poem, in illustration of this dual life, a mixture of the actual and the ideal: L Apart. “One place — one roof— one name — their daily bread In daily sacrament they break Together, and together take Perpetual counsel, such as use has fled The habit of, in works which make No lie. For courtesy’s sweet sake And pity's, one brave heart whoee joy is dead. Smiles ever, answering words which wake But weariness; hides all its ache, — Its hopeless ache, its longing and its dread; Strong as a martyr at the stoke. Renouncing self; striving to slake The pangs of thirst on bitter hyssop red. With vinegar! O brave, strong heart! God sets all days, all hours apart Joy cometh at nis hour appointed.** II. Together. “No touch — no sight — no sound — wide continents And seas clasp hands to separate Them from each other now. Too late! Triumphant Love has leagued the dements To do their will. Hath light a mate For swiftness ? Can it overweight The air? Or doth the sun know accidents ? The light, the air, the sun, inviolate For them, do constant keep and state Message of their ineffable contents And raptures, each in each. So great Their bliss in loving, even fate. In parting them, hath found no instruments Whose bitter pain insatiate Doth kill it, or their faith abate In presence of Love’s hourly sacraments.*’ Emerson and Helen Hunt Jackson were very good friends. He had great respect for her, and she had great ad- miration for him. She addressed to him the following: Tribute. “Midway in summer, face to face., a King I met No king so gentle and so wise. He calls no man his subject; but his eyes. In midst of benediction, questioning. Each soul compel. A first-fruit offering Each soul must owe to him whose fair land lies Wherever God has His. No white dove flies Too white, no wine too red and rich, to bring. With sudden penitence for all her waste. My soul to yield her scanty hoards made haste. When lo! they shrank and failed me in that need. Like wizard’s gold, by worthless dust replaced. My speechless grief the king with tender heed Thus soothed : ‘These ashes sow. They are true seed.* O King, in other summers may I stand Before thee yet, the full ear in my hand.** Is it not possible that “ H. H. ” got a hint for her poem “Two/* from Emer- son’s “ Hermione ” ? She would be quick to read the subtile paradox, the double Digitized by Google
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187 The Building of the City Beautiful. life, one in thoughts, another in things, which appears in much of the subsequent parts of “ Hermione.” Like “ Henni- one,” the poem, “Two,” reverses the meaning of presence and absence. It is here where the heart is, and a life of revery and dreams is the real life. What if this life “ in concepts ” were a hundred times as palp&ble ? Then the mind would be real and nature a dream. This, then, hereafter is life to the lovers. The Arab lover has come to this, and hence the tender appeal: “Say, wa* it just. In thee to frame, in me to trust. Thou to the Syrian couldst belong?” “ Higher, dear swallows! mind not what I say,** he now tells his sympathetic friends. He does not need the low flights any longer. Hermione is with him again. Fate has no power within a world where the mind is its own place and makes its own persons and conditions. “ Either really or ideally,” says Emerson, “we live with superior persons.” What would the exile do without this power ? (To be continued.) Charles Malloy. Waltham , Maes. THE BUILDING OF THE CITY BEAUTIFUL* By Joaquin Miller. Chapter IX. AWAITING THE RESURRECTION AT KARNAK. Loan land of silence, land of awe! Lorn, lawless land of Moslem will, — The great Law-giver and the law Have gone away together. Still The sun shines on ; stul Nilus darkly red Steals on between his awful walls of dead. And sapphire skies still bend as when Proud Karnak’s countless columns propped The corners of the world ; when men Kept watch where massive Cheops topped Their utmost reach of thought, and sagely drew Their star-lit lines along the trackless blue. But Phthah lies prostrate evermore; And Thoth and Neith all are gone; And huge Osiris hears no more Thebes* melodies; nor Mut at On; Yet one lone obelisk still lords the spot Where Plato sat to learn. But On is not. Nor yet has Time encompassed all; You trace your finger o’er a name That mocks at age within the wall Of fearful Karnak. Sword nor flame Shall touch what men have journeyed far to touch And felt eternity in daring such! Jnda Melchi Shishak!” Read The Holy Book; read how that he With chariot and champing steed Invaded far and fair Juaea. Ye, read the chronicle of red hands laid On “shields of gold which Solomon had made.*’ * Begun In the December, 1904, lwue. HE WOULD look once more upon Upper Egypt through her eyes, and then away about his work. She was so infinitely above him that he could only clasp his hands and with lifted face wor- ship her; he could worship her from afar as well as near at hand. He could not love her more, though he sat at her feet forever, and walked at her side even through the shadows of the valley of death. He would not, he could not, love her less though millions of miles away. Did I forget to tell you that her singu- larly intense and perfect mentality took in and absorbed to herself the minds, the in- most thoughts of those who came in con- tact with her ? She knew men’s thoughts, — may I say it, with humbled head ? — as Christ knew men’s thoughts. “There is a tomb, mighty tomb, not far from here,” — and this was at Karnak that she now spoke, — “ which no man has entered since long, long before Christ came to Egypt, and this you should see.” She had been talking of his going, of his plans, his purposes, — talking to him in the same clear, sweet way as in Jeru- salem and at Nazareth, that morning. Digitized by Google
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188 The Building of the City Beautiful. And yet he had said nothing at all of these things to her for a long time. Knowing that she knew his heart, his hopes, his plans, how quietly good, patient, and true he had begun to grow! And why should he tell her anything, since she knew all and more than all that he could possibly find words to utter in all the centuries that are to be? Why shall time be wasted in helpless, inane, and angular words at all ? Let us rather learn to read the soul in silence, and respect it. Their boat was rocking on the Nile as night came on; and, as the boatmen slowly rowed for the sandy shore, which she had indicated with her hand as the place of the hidden tomb, she said to the man at her side, in her quiet and frag- mentary way: “Yes, Christ surely raised the dead. And do you not see that Egypt antici- pated all that? She believed, she knew that some one would some day walk this way so full of the fires of life and im- mortality, so charged with that finer electricity which men call life, about which they talk so much but about which they know nothing at all, as yet, — that they laid their dead away ready to rise up in all their glory on earth after their long waiting for the Master.” More, much more, she said; and all so much more intelligently than what is here so imperfectly recalled and written down! It was a woeful, grewsome spot of bone and stone, of sand and serpents, where they landed, and all tracked about with the tracks of wide-footed and enormous lions. And they had to stoop low, almost kneel, to enter the mouth of the cavern. There was no sign of man’s hand or foot, although she had come to it as if walking a beaten road. He had looked back and down to the men as he stooped to enter the gloomy cavern. The boatmen had anchored in the middle of the river, — were they afraid of lions ? It was soon dark as they passed on and on in a stooping posture; but she assured him that in a little time they would find the cavern lighted. With calm assurance she said that when the great .founder of Babylon had been laid to rest there, thousands of years before, the walls were left lighted; no, not with electricity, but with a phosphorescent light that must endure while the Nile endures. But it was wearisome, stooping and groping so long and so far. He began to fear that she had made some miscalcu- lation and was lost. There were other and deeper passes and many tunnels that intersected this dark and narrow one. He could feel them as he groped forward after her, — feel them, not altogether with his hands, butwith that other and finerfeel- ing which she had, by example, begun to teach him. She paused, put out her hand, took his in hers for the first time since that first meeting in Jerusalem. But now her hand trembled, — it was almost cold. Had she indeed lost her way ? Had she, with her superhuman knowledge and divine gifts, really lost her way in that awful wilderness of tombs? Had she at last lost her strength, her faith ? Suddenly she stopped short, and said, “There is a lion in here.” The man tried to stand erect and take some attitude of defence, if only to en- courage her. Ther£ was no room to rise erect. But now her blood began to tide and flow again. Her hand was warm once more and her heart strong. “ We will go forward,” she said as she again led the way, “for to go back will be to invite destruction. He is not far away; I think he is waiting in one of the side passes. There!” Her hand was again like ice, but only for a time. They stood leaning, looking forward in the fearful darkness at two glittering lights, round, full, flaming lights that broadened and brightened and gleamed and glowed with a fierceness, a hungry, animal fierceness that you could feel. It was something more than light, it was heat. It was heat that chilled. Digitized by Google
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189 The Building of the City Beautiful. tuned you cold and froze you to the marrow. The man, although trained to the use of arms and not without address in danger, had, ever since coming into her higher atmosphere, and especially since that night up the Yellow Nile, despised their use; and so here he stooped and groped, as helpless and unmanned as a babe. But her old faith came back, even as she looked into the burning fires before her, and with a pressure of her warm hand she led forward. The pass widened now and was roomier in every way. It soon became a sort of court, great columns of red and gray and blue granite propping the mountains above. On the outer edge of this court lay the huge lion, his nose on his paws, his eyes, his terribly beautiful eyes only, giving the least sign of life or action. But for those eyes of fire and flame, he, too, might have been counted as one of the thousand images that kept attendance on the great Baby- lonian who sat his throne in robes of state in the vast, wide court far beyond. That distant inner court was still lighted, as she had said, after all the thousands of years; and there the mighty hunter of Babylon had sat his golden and marble and granite throne as time rolled by, resting and resting and serenely wait- ing the resurrection. The shapely col- umns, in all their comeliness and strength, stood out before the far-off light in stately splendor. Miriam did not pause for one moment. She held the man’s hand tight and close, to make certain that he, too, should keep right on as she might lead. The lion did not move; he did not even lift his eyes as they drew near. But suddenly his tail whipped slightly in the dust; then the woman led a little to the left, leaving a column between her path and the paws of the lion. The huge beast seemed pleased with this slight concession; and only noting that they kept straight on, knowing surely that there was but one way out and that he was thrown full length in the only path of exit, he awaited results with that dignity which is bom of boundless strength and absolute assur- ance. He could afford to wait just a little. “ Yes, here is faith for you ; certainly of immortality on earth. Look! Nimrod, the mighty hunter, armed and ready for battle with beasts of the forest, as of old! He has only been resting here all these centuries, ready to rise up and begin life again just as he left off when he lay down to die; as we all shall.” She had forgotten the lion in this supreme moment to which she had looked forward so long, and, possibly at times, with some doubt. But she was now certain that Egypt had been not only the mother of all ancient civilization, but the mother of Babylon’s founder and the burial-place of her mighty dead for ages. Reverently she approached the foot of the lofty throne and kneeled on the polished red granite below, where reached the staff, the long beam of the hunter’s spear, still clutched in his right hand, and ready for use when he should rise again. How long they meditated there, in that soft and hallowed light and holy perfume of the past, no one can say. There are times that despise time, that throw time away as a drunken spendthrift throws coins away; and there is an intoxication of the soul and senses at times like this that puts the intoxication of the body, even from the rarest wines, to the blush. Suddenly there was a low, slow, deep rumble. It seemed as if the cavern, or court of the kingly dead, began to rock, and roll, and shake and tremble; then a roar! It rolled, bounded, echoed, rebounded, filled the place and all places, all the passes, got lost, could not find its way out, came back, bounded from wall to wall, from floor to ceiling, and finally went back and moaned and died in that lion’s monstrous jaws and tawny mane. He rose up, came forward, and then, as if he had only been jesting at first in a sort of suppressed whisper, he roared again, again and again. Digitized by Google
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190 The Building of the City Beautiful. Five steps of polished red granite of the throne of the mighty dead with spear in hand ; but they made it at a single bound, she to the left and he to the right. The man was about to pluck the spear from the dark and dusty hand and do battle for the woman he deified; but she looked him in the face across the face of the king, and he bowed his head and stepped back in silence, as her now burn- ing hand reached further and fell famil- iarly on the outstretched left hand of the mighty hunter where it rested on the arm of the throne. Was it a halo about her head ? Was it divine fire that flamed from her burning hand? Nay, no questions. They can- not be answered here. We may only know that some subtile essence — fire? magnetism ? electricity ? — flowed and swept and shot from her hand, from her body, to his body. And then the mighty hunter was on his feet. As the lion laid his long, strong paw on the third step of the throne, with his tail whipped back in the air and his two terrible hinder legs bent low and gathered for a leap at the man’s throat, the spear was in place; face to face stood the lion and his master, once more and at last after all these thousands of years! And the lion knew his master. He knew him only from tradition; but the stoiy of his powers had come down to him with his very blood, and he knew his kingly master when he met him, even in the house of death. Sullenly, slowly, and with a dignity worthy the occasion and the two mighty kings, the lion dragged, dragged, as if he had to drag it down by force, that great ponderous paw. It literally tore the granite, but he got it down. He got his eyes down from the eyes of the dead; and then sidewise, slowly, gracefully, grandly, with long and stately strides, only the quiv- ering of his flanks telling of his anger, he bowed his head and left the court and crept from the fearful cavern. And when they had ceased to look and listen to make certain he was surely gone, the dead was sitting there as at first. Chapter X. THE VOICE OP TOIL. Come, lean an ear, an earnest ear. To Nature's breast, some stilly eve. And you shall hear, shall surely near The Carpenter, and shall believe; Shall surely hear, shall hear for aye, who will. The patient strokes of Christ resounding still. The thud of loom, the hum of wheel. That steady stroke of Carpenter! And was this all ? Did Goa reveal No gleam of light to Him, to her? No gleam of hopeful light, sweet toiling friend. Save that which burnetii dimly at the aid. That beggar at the rich man's gate! That rich man moaning down in hell! And all life’s pity, all life's hate! Yea, toil lay on Him tike a spell. Stop still and think of Christ, of Mary there. Her lifted face but one perpetual prayer. I can but hope at such sore time. When all her soul went out so fond. She touched the very stars sublime And took some sense of worlds beyond; And took some strength to ever toti wad wait The glories bursting through God’s star-built gate. And He so silent, patient, sad, As seeing all man’s sorrows through! How could the Christ be wholly giaa To know life’s pathos as He knew, — To know, and know that all the beauteous years Man will waste in battle, blood, and tears? Enough of antiquity , of dust , and of the dead; enough of speculation, enough of idleness . Turn we now to toil . Enough , and more than enough of the old; turn we now to the new , — to follow the stroke of the Carpenter* 8 Son , the sound of Mary*s loom , or the voice of the dove in the olive-trees . But one word before bidding a long adieu to the old world and this strange , strong woman of the old. I do not say or even suggest that she was the reincarnation of that Miriam who was made u leprous white ” because of her anger with her brother when he married " tive Ethiopian woman** I know nothing at all about such things. But I am per- mitted to believe that our business is with this world mainly , and with the things of this world; that other worlds have their own , and are and ought to be concerned mainly with their own; that it is a fact, and a very practical fact , that uthe king- dom of heaven is at hand.** Immortality 9 Certain of it. But it is Digitized by Google
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The Building of the City Beautiful . 191 km. Individuality in the next life f Certain of it9 if a grain and not a husk. As no atom of earth perishes , so shall no soul perish or lose its personality. The real acorn, the reed grain of wheat does not perish or lose its identity in dust. It is only the worthless grain and the husk and shell that passes back to the common mould. So, then , if you want immortality, make it. If you want your soul saved , make it worth saving. These thoughts, bear in mind, are not intruded upon any one, and are but timidly and feebly let fall here as “the still, small rain.9* A LARGE solemnity like twilight, almost like night, had settled down on Miriam and the man also, on their return to the vicinity of Cairo. He knew that work was now before him, and he was glad of that. But would she be at his side? No toil could be weary where she was. There could be no rest, no light, no life, nothing for him, save his love for her, where she was not. He tried to be very honest with himself, with her. But think it over as he might, recall each act and utterance, yet in all their intercourse he could find nothing on which to hang a hope that she would be with him to the end, — be his own. And then she was so silent, so sadly silent of late, all the time. True, she was not strong, strong of body; for as her soul grew strong her body grew weak. Even little threads of silver had wound them- selves through her heavy meshes of mid- night hair, and her glorious face was wan and pallid as the moonlight in which they sat by the deep-red Nile this last night in Egypt. But he loved her all the more for that. The more? — how could that have been? Let us say. with a tenderness that was new and holy. But his heart was bursting for some sight, some sound. Would she let him go, and go on alone, with no assurance that she would follow and follow soon, — be with him in heart, and soul too, all the time? He would put the matter to the test at once. As we have seen, he was not given to words any more than was she. “You know I love you, Miriam.” “ I know.” “And you?” Her two hands lifted up and pushed back the great mass of black hair from her fine, white face, and it came out to him like the moon of heaven, and with her face turned full to his she said, slowly, softly, and so very sweetly: “ I love you.” It was the first time she had spoken so. The hands remained above and about the face, framing it like a face of the Madonna. “ You, you will be mine ? ” “Yes.” “ God bless you, Miriam, for that promise. But you know I go now to begin my work in the New World. When will you be mine? Where? At what time?” “Time?” Her hands fell down and lay so heavily in her lap he dared not try to touch them, and she said, looking away beyond, as if at the ghost of Thebes and her hundred gates: “Time? Not in time, — eternity.” He sprang up and threw his arms tightly together across his breast. “And this is your resolution ?” “Why, dare I be idly happy with all this misery on earth before me ? Think of that blind woman with the three naked children yesterday in the street; she had the arms and the mummy-head of some ancestor, selling them for a bit of bread, here in fruitful Egypt! For them, no blame. They know no better. You and I know better. ‘For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.’ The cross and the crown are bound together. Let us go our ways, help to make the crooked straight, and then, in some after life — ” Her voice was inaudible now. Her face sank low and was hidden from his sight; but he saw hot tears falling on her hand; and she was sacred and holy to him as if a halo had descended upon her. Then she rose up slowly, her face still Digitized by Google
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l&i The Building of the Oily Beautiful . bent down, and giving her two hands, said: “ Go; do your work, do good.” * And you?” “ I, I will come to you — sometime; but go, go now.” What a tower, what a pillar of fire was that promise: “I will come to you — sometime! Go, go now. I will come to you— sometime. Good-bye!” It was a Nile night. To those who have lived by the Nile nothing more need be said to describe the sensuous scene and air. To those who have not dwelt there the description would be as idle as un- grateful. There were palm-trees in the ancient garden by which the lion-river crept in all his sinuous and supple splen- dor. The moon made little paths and patches and quivering mosaics of silver all up and down the sands to walk upon. A boat with a single oarsman rocked and rested in the lotus leaves by the level bank above, and at the end of die garden a single nude, black boatman. It was a very quiet place. No boat had landed there in all the time they had lived here. He turned away, passed down the garden with slow step, empty-handed, alone, and with one word “ Good-bye ” on his lips. They could not have uttered more than that one word. His resolution was almost failing him, for his heart was breaking. Then suddenly he turned about, flew back to her, threw out his hands and cried, “Good-bye, Miriam!” Mechanically and slowly and with kindly eyes and half-parted lips, she took his outstretched hands in silence. He pulled hfer to him, pulled her violently, pressed her to his heart as his right hand swept swiftly about her, body, pressed his lips to her proud lips as she struggled and as her head fell back in her effort to escape and then he set her hastily in her place and was gone. ' Intensely, triumphantly beat his heart as he leaped into his boat, sped atoay, and hastened to embark for other lands. And long, long, as he voyaged away, he tried to believe, tried to hope, that there had been at least the faintest thrill of response, and that he had not been entirely a savage. Chapter XI. THE FOUNDATION STONES. Be thou not angered. Go thy way From God’s high altar to the low; Nor think to kneel and truly pray. Till thou art reconciled ana know Thou hast forgiven him; as thou must be Forgiven of the sins that burthen thee. And if thine eye tempt thee to shame Turn thou aside; pluck it away! And with thy right hand deal the same. Nor tempt thy soul to sin this day. Yea, thou art very weak. Thou coiudst not make. One hair turn white or black, for thine own sake. And whosoever smite thy cheek. Turn thou that he may smite again. The truly brave are truly meek, And bravely bear both shame and pain. They slay, if truly brave men ever slay. Their foes, with sweet forgiveness, day by day. And if a man would take thy coat, Give him thy cloak and count it meet Bread cast on waters can but float In sweet forgiveness to thy feet; So thou, by silent act like this, shalt preach Such sermons as not flame nor swora can teach. Lay not up treasures for yourselves On eartn, and stint and starve the soul By heaping granaries and shelves And nign store-houses; for the whole Of wealth is this : to grow and grow and grow In faith ; to know ana ever seek to know. Therefore give not too much of thought For tby to-morrows. Birds that call Sweet melodies sow not, reap not. And yet the Father feedetn all. Therefore toil trusting, loving; watch and pray. And pray in secret; pray notlong, but say: Give us our daily bread this day, Forgive our sins as we forgive. Lead us not in temptation's way, Deliver us, that we may live: For thine the kingdom is, has ever been. And thine the power, glory, and— Amen! ON a huge mass of hills, hills heaped and banked and tumbled, on top of hills by the great sea of seas, and above the Golden Gate, the man at last pitched his tent and began to build his city. Water percolated through the broken rocks here and there and formed little pools, where poor, half-starved cattle and sheep had gathered for half a century and made dismal moan for provender as they trampled the rich, black mould into un- sightly masses of mud. Digitized by Google
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193 The Building of the City Beautiful. It was a doleful, grewsome place indeed, if you looked near about you or down into the mud. But to look up to the stars! To look down to the bay of San Francisco; look out through the Golden Gate on the great sea, to count the moving ships, to behold the fleets of snow-white clouds that drew in at the sunset from the Japan seas, to feel the keen, cool winds of Alaska in July! Ah, it was a glorious place if you could only keep your face toward the sea or up toward heaven, and your heart on your duty to man. And what heaps of stone! — stones from the topmost peak of his hundred acres to the bottom limit of his possessions; stones enough for the material founda- tions of a large d ty indeed! As for its moral foundations, no city ever has been built, or ever can be built, to endure with any other than the precepts at the head of this chapter, — the Sermon on the Mount. Of course it would have been a pleasant thing if this man could have chosen a rich valley by some great river, where com- merce, in the spirit of the age, and enter- prising people with quick discernment of advantage would come his way at once. It would be pleasant to write down the peace and rest and swift prosperity that would have followed such a choice of location. But we have ugly facts, not pleasant fancy, to confront and deal with now. The man took the mountain-top, and at the cost of all he had saved in more than half a life-time, simply because a place in the valley was not to be had for what he had to give. “All the better,” he said “If I suc- ceed on these steeps and heaps of stone, the greater good and the braver will be my lesson to the world. The main thing is to teach and to prove that all men are good or trying to be good; and that all the world and all things in it are beautiful or trying to be beautiful. I shall plant roses here where I find thorns, trees where I find thistles; and if I can make this most barren and most unsightly of all places on earth beautiful, my example will not be lost.” And his heart was all the time with Her, and all the time he kept saying over and over her last words: “ I will come to you — sometime.” His heap of steep hills sloped to the sun and the sea; but back in the rear a deep and wooded and watered canyon bent like a scimitar and shut out all the world behind him. It was a wild and a glorious place; wolves, catamounts, hosts of wild creatures housed there, to say nothing of the birds that sang and reared their pretty broods in the red- wood groves and groves of madrona, willow, and bay-trees. But he built his little house out in the sun with the Golden Gate in sight, and here he began to plant trees, and to plant and to plant and to plant. He would first make it attractive, and then invite thinkers, poets, men of mind who had a mind to rest, to come and sit down and share it with him; then the world would see and learn and live. Then She would come! And why did he begin and toil on so entirely alone? He did not begin alone; or did not pro- pose to do that at first. He had found, after much care, a small party of men with purposes not un- like his own. But when it came to the toil, the privations, the weary prospect of long waiting for roads to be built, for trees to grow up and bear fruit, for the world to come that way and admire and praise, they melted away, one after one, and went down to the city by the sea and left him all alone. It would be tedious, even if it would be credible, to tell how terribly hard he toiled. But there was fierce ex- citement in closing in and making clean the muddy springs of water, in training the pure, trickling streams down the tortuous new roadside where roses were newly set by the newly built wall. To see the response of the roses! real gratitude indeed ! And then the down-trodden grass — how glad it was to lift up its head after forty years! But then at last he must have help. He could earn money in various little ways, and would employ some one to Digitized by Google
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194 The Building of the City Beautiful. help him in his persistent toil. But whom? When we employ a man we must not think entirely of ourselves. We must think of his good as well as our own. He needs this consideration. From far across San Pablo bay, the lights from the watch-towers of the penitentiary shot sharp and continuously in at the door of our silent city-builder. This vexed him sorely at first. It made him miserable to think of the misery there when he so needed rest. But at last his soul ascended to the duty before it. He went to the prison warden and engaged that each month he should send him the first discharged convict who desired work. The first to come was a poor drunkard. It was not quite an ideal life, this sleeping in the same little cottage with an illiterate drunkard. True, the poor, sullen in- ebriate did not know that his history was known to the city-builder, but still he was ugly and cross. He did not like the place; and so he soon disappeared, taking what he could lay hands on. The next was a bright young man who had been a book-keeper, and stolen money from his employer. Thinking his history unknown, he frankly told it the first night. They be- came friends. When he drew his first wages he went down into the city, into the sea, as it were, and was drowned, — drowned first in alcohol and then found dead in the bay. The third was a witless man and an honest man, who insisted on telling his story, hat in hand, before he would sit down. He had been convicted of stealing cattle, and did not assert his innocence till he stood with his month’s wages in his hand to set out for the gold mines of Alaska. Taken altogether, these experiments were in no way fruitless nor discouraging. Now and again he wrought entirely alone. And as he toiled, he took the three con- victs and their conduct under the closest consideration. And the prayer of Jesus Christ, the one prayer, as taught him by that clear-eyed woman from the gates of Jerusalem, kept in his mind and before him always: “ Lead us not into tempta- tion ! Lead us not into tempation ! Lead us not into tempation!” He had tempted the first unhappy con- vict to fall. The poor, weak-minded, and sullen man could not resist the temptation to take the man’s horse and ride away in the night. He was, then, himself the guilty man. As for the second man, he, too, had been tempted, — tempted even to his death by Society and the State. As for the third man, no better man could have been found. By this time vultures began to gather around and sit on the rocks. They said: “This man with his non-resistance and tum-the-other-cheek must fail, die; and some one must pick his bones.” This was an ugly fact, but who was to blame ? “ Be ye wise as serpents, but as harmless as doves.” Would a really wise man have come forward and publicly and continuously declared, in the midst of a people who were devoted entirely to money-getting, that he would give to the man who took his coat, his cloak also ? He was tempting some weak men beyond their power to resist. He was literally calling out to the vultures to come from the four parts of the world and wait on the rocks and crags for him to die, when they should gorge on his remains. People came and went as the years went by, — some queer people, some curious people, and some good people; or rather some people who had had better fortune, better opportunities to be good than those who are called bad. “ Now, look here!” said an honest and observing man one day to the city-builder, digging on his hill, “ all this that you are trying to do has been done before, or at least attempted. You are, perhaps, a good man, a very good man; but you are not the only good man that has been. You may build and build, but the sea of selfishness will roll over your d ty and all Digitized by Google
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195 The Building of the City Beautiful. your enterprises here when you die, before you can be carried to the grave.” This had been said in answer to his complaints about the vultures that con- tinually hovered around. He had, in his distress, cried out to this good man, and said: 44 In the olden time the ravens fed the prophets; but now it seems to me that the prophets must feed not only the ravens, but the vultures also.” And it must be conceded that he had the most substantial reasons for com- plaining. For example: A stout German, whose lands shut him out from the city, nailed up his road, and demanded an acre of land for the right of way. The man gave him a deed for three acres. But this is only one example of his folly and the persistence of the vultures, and we hasten on. And yet these people on this mountain- side were in some sense better than those in the valley below, and those in the valley below were better than those in the city beyond. How pitiful, how piteously pitiful it all is, as things now are! This man, worn out at last, bodily and mentally, sat down and tried to see light beyond. There was no light to be seen. He saw that he would ultimately be ground to dust be- tween the hard and selfish elements that environed him. He might carry his ex- periments forward to the end of his own natural life; he might not be crucified before his time to die; yet he foresaw clearly that his very dust and ashes would be divided among those about him at his death, and all his hopes and plans and persistent toil of body and mind would be as if he had never been. He began to search the book of Nature for some possible solution of the hard problem before him; and he began to see that Nature had in some way or other protected whatever she wished to per- petuate. Even the timid rabbit, that sat with wide eyes and large ears under the trees which he had planted on his hill- sides, was not neglected. His coat turned gray each season as the grass turned gray; and when the winter approached, with a sprinkle of snow on the hillside, the keen- eyed hawk that looked down out of the snow-cloud above saw that the rabbit had a new coat as white as the snows about him, and that it required the keenest of keen eyes to distinguish him from the tufts of grass and snow. 44 Yet I,” said the man to himself, 44 with all the lessons of Nature before me, have dared to lay my breast bare to all men; and they have pierced me through and through.” One day a small man, with a gray beard, came up the hill meekly washing his hands, and in a mild and sympathetic voice said: 44 You seem discouraged. Let me as- sist you. I have watched you and your work with the deepest interest, and now that you seem so weary I have come to save you. Yes, I am a real-estate agent. There are too many real-estate agents in the town, — three hundred of them. There are nearly two hundred lawyers; there are more than, fifty preachers; there are twice as many doctors, — all living on a small city. But I have come to save you. I will sell some of your land. This will give you money to go ahead. I have your permission ? ” The small, gray man had not paused for an answer, nor did he wait for a single word, but again washing his hands and smiling again his sickly smile, and still talking on in a soft and sympathetic tone, he crept backward, and crawled like a serpent down the hill to sell the land. Now, there is nothing in this incident worth telling The only excuse for it is the ugly truth that these idle, cunning men, made desperate by competition, are crowding every city, and plying their trade to the very verge of crime, — most miserable themselves and making others miserable. What a jar of Egyptian vipers is the heart and soul of a city to-day! (To be continued.) Digitized by Google
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Opper, in Boston American. (Reproduced by special permission of W. R. Hears!) DON’T OVERLOOK THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALL, MR. GEORGE. Gas Commissioner George’s Declaration Against the Right of the People to Be Heard in the Gas Trust Capitalisation Pro- ceedings Is Received with Great Enthuslam in Some Quarters, but Mr. George Should Not Permit the Excitement to Cause Him to Overlook the Handwriting on the Wall. From the Boston American. (Reproduced by special permis- sion of W. R. Hears!) IN THE HANDS OF HIS FRIENDS. Opper, In New York American . (Re prod need Jby special permission of W. R. Hears!) STOPPED! The Coal Trust— 11 Hbld him tight, Frosty. These are cold days, and we need the money.” Google Digitized by
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Politics , The People and The Trusts as Seen by Cartoonists. 197 Edgren, In New York World. IN THE MONSTER’8 GRIP. Maybell, in Brooklyn Eagle. THE GO-CART. Hue**— “ I 'm beginning to believe that child has out- grown that contrivance.” Maybell, in Brooklyn Eagle. THE THOUSAND-LEGS. Uncle 8am—” How can I exterminate this monster? Digitized by
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Bengough, in The Public, Chicago. "GRAFT.” Will the Modern Hercules Conquer? De Mar, in Philadelphia Record. THE "LIBERATION” OF THE RUSSIAN PRESS. Leipziger, in the Detroit News. WHEN ALL THE STATUE8 ARRIVE. George W.— " Great Scott, what kind of company is this! Goldsmith, In Boston Herald. BEING GOOD TO THE FILIPINOS. TwftUSTREET. K • ;:5
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Bartholomew, in Minneapolis Journal Walker, in Ann Aibor Arffus. THE CZAR—" Gracious ! You look worse to me then the Jape." THE TROUBLE JUST NOW IS ON HIS LITTLE INSIDE. Google Digitized by (M* sMH - li^KAvi Pw
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EDITORIALS ARE OUR PEOPLE ENJOYING I. ▲ POPULAR FALLACY THAT TENDS TO ENSLAVE THE PEOPLE. PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT in opening his message to Congress said: “The nation continues to enjoy noteworthy pros- perity.” This statement challenges serious consideration, for perhaps there has been no greater single influence that has acted so as to drug the popular imagination into a sense of false security necessary to render possible the rapid growth and continuance of prevailing unjust and oppressive abuses in our commercial and economic life and the growth of political corruption, thaii the thoughtless acceptance on the part of the people of old fallacious saws and cunningly devised phrases wH are either wholly or partially false, but . . ^ are adroitly and plausibly presented by upholders of privilege, reaction and a political oligarchy that is dependent upon the financial support of a commercial feudalism a large proportion of whose unearned wealth has been acquired by privilege granted through legislation or the permission to water stock, inflate securities, deceive the people and gamble with loaded dice. The catch-phrases invented by the special pleaders for privileged classes and reactionary and un-American ideals are echoed and reechoed by the shallow, superficial and unthinking until they are accepted as truisms, and under their protection predatoiy wealth, class-interests and reactionary elements advance from one vantage-ground to another. In this cry about the increasing prosperity of our people that has been shouted from the house-tops so frequently of late years, and which the President now places as the first dogmatic declaration of his message as something to be taken for granted, we find one of these misleading phrases that serve to work great evil by lulling the people into a sense of se- curity that is unwarranted, and at a time “NOTEWORTHY PROSPERITY”? when the weal of the nation no less than the independence, prosperity and happiness of the individual demand that alertness and aroused determination that are vitally im- portant when in the presence of subtile and powerful dangers. That there are certain classes who are prosperous to-day goes without question, as is ever the case, even when a nation is in the most unprosperous and miserable condition. Thus, for example, France under the reign of Loiiis XIV., from the meridian period to the close of the life of that monarch, appeared to the superficial observer acquainted only with the court or observing the nation from - dg marvelously prosperous. Cer- .j cne Grand Monarch, as the historians and apologists for despotism and reaction love to call this king, enjoyed all the pleasures and luxuries which money could procure. The luxurious, sensual and dissolute court was prosperous. The treasury was able to wring blood-money from the masses sufficient to enable the government to conduct great and costly wars and to bribe politicians and rulers in other lands. But the condition of the nation was the reverse of prosperous. The people were desperately poor. Tens of thousands were miserable beyond description, — the prey of privilege and the throne. The wretchedness and misery of the poor of this time were little heeded by the aris- tocracy and the ruling classes; and yet this so-called glorious reign of Louis XIV. rendered the French Revolution well-nigh inevitable. n. WHO ARE THE VERY PROSPEROUS? To-day we have certain limited classes that are marvelously prosperous, as has ever been the case in monarchies and class-ruled lands. But while our nation is unquestion- ably a wonderfully rich land, a country that 200 Digitized by Google
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Editorials. SOI creates an enormous amount of wealth, the exceptionally prosperous condition of the very limited class is due chiefly to exceptional advantages, owing to unearned increment, legally-protected privilege and monopoly rights, and the power to gamble with loaded dice, by which the wealth that might make the nation or the people as a whole prosperous is diverted into a few pockets. Thus, for example, a vast stream of gold is steadily flowing into the coffers of William Waldorf Astor in his English home from unearned increment wrung from the dwellers of New York, because he is enjoying monopoly in land the value of which society is annually enormously increasing. Or again: certain coteries are acquiring millions of unearned money through inflation or stock-watering and gambling with loaded dice. Mr. Lawson has graphically and circumstantially de- scribed the methods by which fictitious wealth is created and the most pernicious form of gambling has been fostered in our land by the ultra-respectable and conventionally pious, in his portrayal of the course of the Standard Oil magnates in obtaining, foisting on' the people and manipulating Amal^ ' Cop- per. Mr. Rogers and William Kot*.v. by the aid of some friends, secured the coppe. properties that made up the Amalgamated for a cost of $89,000,000. This they capital- ized for $75,000,000, or $86,000,000 above its cost and value. Here the public were led to believe that a property that cost $89,000,000 had an actual value of $75,000,000, being entirely ignorant of the fact that $86,000,000 was a fictitious creation. The next step taken was to inflame the public imagination and stimulate the lust for gold by pictures of fabu- lous fortunes to be won by the possession of this stock which was said to represent such in- estimably rich properties. And then followed that game so well known to the great gamblers of Wall street who ever play with loaded dice. The stock was pushed up to $100, and then borne down far below its opening price. Next it was raised to $180, only to be thrown down to $38, while at the going and the coming the mas- ter-spirits reaped their golden harvest. And this example, as Mr. Lawson points out, is purely typical of methods pursued in Wall street to-day. Now these masters of fictitious dollars and great gamblers who play with loaded dice in Wall street are doubtless prosperous. Then there are the magnates that control the people’s highways and who, through watering stock, wrecking roads, charging exorbitant freight-rates, giving secret rebates and con- spiring with other powerful organizations to destroy small competitors and place producers and consumers entirely at their mercy, are also prosperous. So with other public-service mo- nopolies. like the telegraph and telephone, down to the various municipal monopolies such as electricity, gas and the street-railways. The magnates who control such monopolies and public utilities are also prosperous. So are the heads of certain trust interests, like the steel- trust, for example, where legal privilege and protection are given by which the American citizens are being deliberately plundered of from six to eleven dollars a ton in excess of what the same monopoly charges the citizens of Canada and England for the same material. They, too, are prosperous. But how ? By ex- tortion; by taking the hard earnings of Ameri- ' can users of iron, who in turn are compelled to charge higher prices to the producing and con- suming public to cover this extortion rendered possible by tariff protection. ; Then there are the political bosses and ma- chine politicians, as well as secret agents of \t [ 1 Jatory and corporation interests in the mu- nicipal, legislative and national governments, who become rich in a short time and on com- paratively modest salaries. Besides these there are certain well-organized and skilled workers in some trades who have been able to almost if not quite meet the increased expenses of living by the increase they have succeeded in securing from the masters of the bread, but these are very limited in number. Certain of the government officials also enjoy salaries and courtesies that doubtless enable them to feel prosperous. But all these favored ones are a pitiful mi- nority in this nation. They are as the king, court and nobility of France in the days of Louis the Grand compared with the masses. Clearly they cannot be said to be the nation. Nor does a prosperity that depends on wealth acquired through unearned increment, or on the dollars representing no wealth, such as the thirty-six million “made** or acquired dollars referred to above in the matter of the Amalga- mated, which is purely typical of the watered- stock abuse that has been so odious a feature of American corporations and especially of the public-service companies, or yet on the money Digitized by Google
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202 Editorials. acquired by interests which through protection are enabled to extort millions of dollars from American citizens in excess of what the pur- chasers of the same commodities in foreign lands pay the same producers, represent na- tional prosperity. Far from it. It merely represents the ominous centralization of wealth earned by others or diverted through fraud and indirection into the hands of the cunning and unscrupulous few, presenting a phenomenon which reminds us in a startling manner of the prophecy of Charles Fourier, made a century ago in his Theory of Social Organisations , when he predicted that “vast giant stock-com- panies, destined to monopolize and control all branches of industry, commerce and finance,” would “establish an industrial and commercial despotism that would control society by the power of capital, as did the old baronial or mili- tary feudalism by the power of the sword ” and “by monopoly in land.” Clearly no valid claim to national prosperity can rest on the prosperity of small classes, especially when due to such causes. III. THE PROSPERITY OF A PEOPLE. It is obviously a pitiful begging of the ques- tion to try and justify the claims to national prosperity by pointing to the fact that condi- tions are somewhat better to-day than at peri- ods of extreme depression such as periodically overtake all nations through combinations of causes, — such, for example, as our people ex- perienced early in the ’nineties. The criterion by which we must judge the prosperity of a nation is the general trend of life and conditions from generation to generation. When we find that each year the number of unencumbered homes is relatively increasing; when the chil- dren of the land are better and better condi- tioned in clothing and food and in the enjoy- ment of school privileges and that environment that is absolutely essential to the permanency of free institutions in their purity; when we find ever-increasing conditions favoring home- building and no considerable number of wo- men and little ones being driven into factories and mills in order to earn a bare livelihood; when evictions are becoming year by year less frequent; when there are relatively few human beings who are buried in the Potter’s Field; when the great majority of the laborers are moving up from conditions of poverty and dependence to conditions of independence ; and when such conditions represent the gen- eral course or trend of the life of a nation when taken for a period of a generation, for example, then we are warranted in saying that the peo- ple are prosperous, or that the nation enjoys “noteworthy prosperity.” But if the general trend of life for a period of thirty or fifty years is in an opposite direction; if, for example, in considering our present conditions in the light of the trend of events for the past half or quarter of a century, we find that the above conditions do not obtain, the claim that we are notably prosperous is unwarranted. IY. THE OPTIMISM OF IGNORANCE AND ITS GROUNDLESS CLAIMS. It is an unfortunate fact that our nation has never made any serious attempt to collect data or statistics by which it would be possible to accurately estimate the number of persons who are “unable to obtain the necessities which will permit them to maintain a state of physical efficiency”; nor have we figures of pauperism or the great army who, after hanging for a time on the verge of the precipice, have fallen into the depths where self-respecting manhood is lost — the slum-dwellers, the professional tramps, and those who by choice seek to live without work; and the absence of these facts makes it possible for those whose “optimism is bom of ignorance or lack of real concern ” to sneer at the mature conclusions of those whose long personal contact with the poor and whose careful study of their conditions at close range entitles them to speak with authority. It has been the custom with those who are lulling the people into a false and fatal sense of security to denounce and ridicule the statement that the rich are growing richer and the poor poorer. Many of the defenders of the “system” or ad- vocates and apologists for the present trust and monopolistic domination of government syste- matically deride every reformer and conscien- tious student of social conditions who points out the extent of poverty and miseiy in our midst. The attitude of the upholders of the “system ” is precisely the same as that assumed by conventional economists and those who op- posed all radical constructive programmes of progress in England a few years ago. When- ever a thoughtful reformer would point out the fact that the social conditions were bad. the Digitized by Google
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Editorials r. 203 editorial, professional or educational authori- ties would hasten to show that the facts ad- vanced were false or misleading and all evi- dence to show that poverty was anything like so general as was claimed was absurd. So long as there was no absolute data, these advocates of things as they are per- sisted in brushing aside facts which clearly indicated the soundness of the reformer’s position, while with an assumed authority for which there was no just warrant they asserted the contrary to be the case. At last, however, Mr. Charles Booth under- took his colossal work of ascertaining in an au- thoritative manner the actual condition of the people in London, so as to find out what rela- tive proportion of the population were in pov- erty,— that is, were under-clothed, under-fed and compelled to live in unsanitary dwellings, or who were receiving so little renumeration that it was impossible to maintain physical effi- ciency. The result of his exhaustive investi- gations showed that in the great British me- tropolis there were 1,300,000 persons in a con- dition of either poverty or abject want. Thir- ty per cent, of the whole population, it was shown, were thus in the poverty stratum. Mr. Booth’s work was so complete, so clear, detailed and convincing in character, that the advocates of things as they are could no longer sneer at or ridicule the facts out of court But while admitting that the show- ing was very bad, they hastened with multi- tudinous explanations to explain that con- ditions in London were exceptional. It was the greatest city of the world; poverty always sought the great centers; the slums of a large city were always tending to in- crease because of the driftwood that came from other centers. But they maintained that such conditions did not and could not exist in other cities throughout the realm. A few years ago, however, Mr. B. S. Rountree made his thor- ough investigation in York, following the line pursued by Mr. Booth, with the result that the showing revealed that twenty-seven per cent, of the people of that city were in a condition of poverty. Since then the conventional apologists have had little to say on that sub- ject; but with us they yet persist with their general assertions of growing prosperity while seeking to discredit all those who show the appalling extent of tragic conditions present on every side, due to economic inequality and the pressure of poverty. V. SOME SIGNIFICANT FACTS BEARING ON THE PROSPERITY QUESTION. There are certain facts that cannot fail to prove disquieting to patriotic Americans and which tend to discredit the claims of those who insist that we are prosperous. The census reports prove that the unencumbered homes of the nation are not increasing in any- thing like the proportion of the increase in population during the past thirty years, nor are the unencumbered homes increasing in anything like the proportionate increase during the preceding generation. There is going on a constant and an alarming concentration of wealth in the hands of an ever-narrowing class, and a consequent increase in the num- ber of dependent ones, — a concentration that startlingly suggests the conditions that pre- vailed after the overthrow of the Gracchi in Rome, when the imperial and patrician class rapidly absorbed the landed estates of Italy, rendering the masses of the erstwhile inde- pendent Roman citizens and especially the cultivators of the soil of Italy more and more dependent. In many sections of our land during the last two decades great landed estates have taken the place formerly occupied by numerous small farms, and the farmers in many instances have become tenants. In the cities the number of those who own homes, and especially unencumbered homes, is alarm- ingly small in proportion to the number of families occupying tenements. This is in part due to causes other than that of diminish- ing financial ability on the part of the inhabi- tants, which render it impossible for them to own homes within a distance accessible to their places of business. But there can be no question but what a very large proportion of the tenant population of to-day are renters because their financial conditions are growing less rather than more substantial and pros- perous as the years pass. The following figures taken from the census report for 1900 (Vol. II., page 205) are as significant as they are disquieting to those who understand that a nation’s greatness so largely depends upon the number of those who possess homes in which they take a natural pride: Free. Mortgaged. Rented. Allegheny, Pa 4,081 8,884 18,988 Baltimore, Md 19,886 6,960 69,761 Boston, Mass. 9,944 10,896 89,088 Digitized by Google
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204 Editorials. Free. Mortgaged. Rented. Buffalo, N. Y 10,005 11,844 47,298 Chicago, 111 39,246 43,785 258,582 Cincinnati, Ohio 9,725 4,915 56,384 Cleveland, Ohio 16,240 12,246 48,844 Columbus, Ohio 4,445 3,204 17,822 Denver, Colo 5,000 3,114 21,215 Detroit, Mich 12^78 9,17$ 35,178 Fall River, Mass 1,473 2,098 16,711 Indianapolis, Ind 6,741 5,832 25,004 Jersey Cito, N. J 4,569 3,729 34,060 Kansas (Sty, Mo 4,501 3,774 26,466 Los Angeles, Cal 5,969 3,743 12,745 Louisville, Ky 8,361 2,692 31,640 Memphis, Tenn 2,676 607 15,851 Milwaukee, Wis 9,541 11,278 37,466 Minneapolis, Minn 6,287 4,903 28,522 Newark, N. J 4,415 6,517 41,270 New Haven, Conn 2,413 3,598 16,722 New Orleans, La 10,634 1,698 45,129 New York City and boroughs 35,050 48,002 617,474 New York City proper. . 8,948 13,938 384,349 Omaha, Neb 3,127 2,113 13,941 Paterson, N. J 2,016 3,088 17,285 Philadelphia, Pa. 29,033 24,013 196,124 Pittsburg, Pa 9,041 7,178 44,364 Providence, R. 1 4,087 3,708 29,696 Rochester, N. Y 6,001 6,289 20,481 St. Joseph, Mo 3,062 1,352 11,080 St. Louis, Mo 16,097 9,699 90,983 St. Paul, Minn 5,556 2,851 20,266 San Francisco, Cal 10,186 5,139 49,656 Scranton, Pa 4,600 2,583 12,129 Syracuse, N. Y 4,082 5,115 15,439 Toledo, Ohio 6,793 4,990 15,851 Washington, D. C 8,441 4,261 40,753 Worcester, Mass 2,055 3,807 17,877 Here is another fact to be considered in this connection. Our manufacturing monopolies formerly asked for a protective tariff that would enable them to manufacture goods in this country and pay a good living wage to the men employed. The protection would pre- vent Europe from selling manufactures to the millions of America at a much lower rate; so the protection asked was essentially a tax on the whole consuming population, and it was made chiefly on the plea that they wished to maintain a living wage for the head of the family — a wage sufficient to enable the work- ingman to comfortably support his wife and young and to give his children the benefits of that popular education which was held to be so essential to the permanence and greatness of democracy. This protection was granted, and in time the protected interests became so rich and powerful that they felt they could con- trol legislation. What next ? To-day we have in the United States about two million women employed in factories and mills, where they have largely displaced the men for whose protection and interest the protected manu- facturers were once so clamorous. But this is not the worst. There are to-day “over 1,700,000 little children who are forced to become wage-earners when they should be at school.” And the defence which the protected interests make, whenever and wherever at- tempts are made to restore to the child the right to his freedom and his education, is that the poverty of the families make the labor of the children necessary. Thus we see that first the people were taxed by an enormous tariff levied ostensibly to enable the manu- facturers to pay the laborers a sufficient wage to keep the family comfortable and enable the children to be schooled; next the men were gradually displaced in many places to make room for women, because female help could be employed at a much cheaper figure; and now the upholders of the “system” demand the further tribute of 1,700,000 child slaves to displace the fathers and mothers and enable a few more fortunes to rise at the expense of the prosperity, comfort, happiness and education of the many. And the chief plea advanced by the men who cry “Prosperity,” as it is also of every legislator who is the mouthpiece of the protected interests, is that conditions are such that the children’s work is necessary to keep the families from starvation. There are, however, other evidences of the presence of wide-spread poverty in our midst that help to show the hollowness of the claim of the upholders of the “system.” In the Borough of Manhattan in the year 1903 there were 60,463 families evicted from their homes. “This is,” says Mr. Robert Hunter in his in- valuable new work on Poverty , “about four- teen per cent, of the whole number of families in the borough.” Another most impressive indication of the extent of poverty, want and misery in our greatest and most opulent metropolis, which Mr. Hunter emphasises, is the fact that “one in every ten persons who die in New York is buried at public expense in Potter’s Field.” And our author truly ob- serves in this connection : “ Every one familiar with the poor knows how desperately they struggle to give a decent burial to their dead. A poor person will resort to almost any means in order to prevent a member of his or her family having a pauper burial, or, as they say, ’lying in a pauper's grave.’ Even the poorest people have friends, politicians or Digitized by Google
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Editorials . 205 others, who save them, if possible, from this but disgrace.” Mr. Hunter also cites at length the statistics of relief extended in New Yoik and elsewhere to the suffering, to show the extent of misery in our populous centers; while as a careful student of the question, who has spent years in charity work and in the university settlements of Chicago, New York and other cities, he gives his opinion in regard to the extent of poverty in the United States in the following language: “I should not be at all surprised if the number of those in poverty in New York, as well as in other large cities and industrial centers, rarely fell below twenty-five per cent, of all the people.” His mature judgment based on intimate knowledge of poverty in this country, and obtained from exhaustive investigations and personal work, is expressed in these words: “I have not the slightest doubt that there are in the United States ten million persons in precisely these conditions of poverty,” and he adds, “there may be as many as fifteen or twenty million.” Thus he places as the minimum of those in poverty ten million of a population of eighty million. Can a nation with almost inexhaustible material resources be said to be prosperous when those resources are so largely unavail- able for the wealth creators by reason of land monopolization and the private ownership of public utilities, which through excessive fares, rates, etc., discourages suburban life or the development of lands remote from markets, and which is placing the millions of wealth- creators more and more at the complete mercy of small privileged groups or classes ? Another fact which indicates that however prosperous are the trust-magnates and privi- leged-interests, the condition of a very large proportion of the people is not so favorable as it was, say six or seven years ago, is that the cost of living since the trusts have monopo- lised most of the necessities of life and have arbitrarily raised prices is far greater than the increase in wages where wages have increased, while with a very large class there has been no increase in incomes. Thus the profes- sional classes, such as clergymen, doctors, school-teachers, etc., and a large number of those working on salaries, have experienced little or no increase in income since 1807; yet according to Dun’s figures as given in the index for November 1, 1904, the estimated annual cost of living for a family of five was $497.15, or $184.88 more than the cost for the same family at the prices which obtained July 1, 1897. Here we have more than thirty- seven per cent, increase in the cost of living. How many Americans, outside of the privi- leged classes, are receiving thirty-seven per cent, more income or wages than in 1897 ? A man who made $2.00 a day July 1, 1897, would have to make $2.74 a day now to earn enough to live as he lived on $2.00 a day in 1897. It is true that in certain trades that are well organ- ized wages have been materially increased dur- ing the past five or six years, but the number of favored ones as compared with the number of those who have enjoyed but slight if any in- crease is comparatively small. Finally, no student of present-day political life in our municipalities, our states or our national government can, we think, fail to realize the fact that predatory wealth and corporate interests, or the “system,” as it has been aptly characterized, are on every hand preventing the people from enjoying that measure of justice and equality of rights and opportunities that is absolutely essential to a truly pros- perous people. The sweep of life for the many must necessarily be downward under conditions that make the representatives of monopolies, trusts and great corporations prosperous through the acquisition of un- earned wealth or the wealth earned by others. We cannot be prosperous in any true sense of the term while the conditions prevail which Mr. Hunter thus graphically characterizes in his recent work: “The real cause of our present errors of judgment in this matter lies in the corruption of our political institutions. The business and propertied interests have bought the bosses of our political machinery, and at present our laws are made and enforced in the interest of the owners. When the shame of our cities is notorious; when state and national governments are in the hands of cor- rupt politicians, owned by corporate interests; when ‘the laws which should preserve and enforce all rights are made and enforced by dollars’; when ‘it is possible . . . with dollars to “steer” the selection of the candi- dates of both the great parties for the highest Digitized by Google
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206 Editorials. office in our Republic, ... so that the people, as a matter of fact, must elect one of the “steered ” candidates'; when 'it is possible to repeat the operation in the selection of candidates for the executive and legislative conduct and control of every state and munici- pality in the United States, and with a suf- ficient number of dollars to “steer" the doings of the law-makers and law-enforcers of the national, state and municipal governments of the people, and a sufficient proportion of the court decisions to make absolute any power created by such direction’; when the country is being daily betrayed by the 'enemies of the republic,' — it seems utopian to appeal to these powers to do justice to their workers. This may seem a dark view to take of our political institutions, but, considering the great mass of evidence accumulated in the last few years, it is surely warranted. So far as the problem of poverty is concerned, we can perhaps hope for little in the way of justice or reform during the next few years. For, by the help of this corruption, reform is fought at three stages: in the leg- islature, in the courts, and at the time of its enforcement. “In consequence of this temporary per- version of our democratic institutions pessim- ism runs high. Professor Franklin H. Gid- dings, our most distinguished sociologist, says: 'We are witnessing to-day, beyond question, the decay — perhaps not permanent, but at any rate the decay — of republican institutions. No man in his right mind can deny it. Mr. Hunter is correct in regard to the im- mediate causes of the conditions which make for poverty; but behind and beyond these causes is the violation of the fundamental laws upon which a true democracy must rest, a disregard for equality of opportunities and of rights, or the just interests of all the citizens, that has made the present conditions possible. Behind the vast corruption funds, behind the corruptors and the corrupted, is the privilege that made and makes corruption possible. Monopoly in land, extortionate protection, monopoly of public utilities, and the moral sanction of state and society given to the most iniquitous form of gambling known to civiliza- tion— the gambling with loaded dice as it is practiced by all the great combinations of Wall-street magnates and speculators when they make their great moves, — these and kindred abuses that are fundamentally un- democratic, inherently unjust and inimical to free institutions, have rendered the reign of corruption and graft, of class enrichment and the spoliation of the millions, facts so notorious that they can no longer be sneered at or suc- cessfully denied. The evil consequences re- sulting* from statesmen, publicists and editors lulling the people to sleep by fallacious cries of prosperity and other catch-phrases framed to drug the public imagination, must be apparent to all thoughtful men and women, for they are anaesthetizing the public mind while the “system" is making its position more and more impregnable and is also wringing from the wealth-creators more and more of what they produce while levying from the con- sumers exorbitant taxes on what they require; when if all persons who realize the gravity and peril of prevailing conditions would boldly and bravely warn the people, we should soon have inaugurated another moral and political renaissance as glorious as that which gave us the Declaration of Independence and made our republic the leader of the world — a moral and political renaissance that would result in the people demanding and obtaining the right to veto corrupt or vicious legislation, to in- augurate needed laws, and to recall venal, corrupt or unworthy public servants, and which would in all probability be followed by public-ownership and operation of the natural monopolies, so that the public utilities of the city, state and nation should be operated for the mutual benefit and enrichment of all the people. Then would come the abolition of privilege that places the few in mastership over the many and the prohibition of stock- watering, gambling with loaded dice and all the rest of the corrupting, demoralizing and essentially immoral features of present-day commercial, economic and political life as found among those who are acquiring millions of unearned wealth. From step to step the nation would thus move along the highway of pure democracy; move as Switzerland and New Zealand are moving, and we should see a sight that would make glad the hearts of all noble-minded Americans — the spectacle of this great republic once again becoming pre- eminently the moral leader in the family of nations, the day-star and the inspiration of every apostle of freedom, democracy and progress on this old earth. It is toward this end that we are striving; Digitized by Google
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ST. VALENTINF/S DAY. SING, ALL YE. THE ROUNDELAY, AND HAIL TO THE PIPER WHO PIPES TO-DAY! Drawn by Dan. Beard expressly for The Arena. (See Editorial.) 207 Digitized tty Google
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THE SYMBOL OF A PARvENUE PLUTOCRACY. MONEY MAY DRESS A PIG IN ROYAL ROBES, BUT IT CAN NEVER MATTE A MAN OF HIM. Drawn by Dan. Beard expressly for The Arena. (See Editorial.) Google
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Editorials. 209 h is with this ideal before us that we are battling; and such is our faith in the moral virility latent in our people and in the germinal strength of democracy, that we believe the dream will be realized. We believe that the day will come, and that its advent is nearer than most of us imagine, when the people will awaken from their lethargy, unite, educate, agitate and consecrate life’s all, even as did Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, Washing- ton and the other noble fathers who made the republic possible by their courage, their sacrifice and their devotion to the ideal of democracy. THE SYMBOL OF A PAEVENUE PLUTOCRACY. OF ALL would-be aristocracies that com- posed of a parvenue plutocracy is the most disgusting and offensive, for it is as gross and vulgar as it is sordid and brutal. Heredi- tary aristocracies are frequently marked by culture, education and a degree of refinement and ethical sentiment almost wholly absent in a plutocracy based on rapid acquirement of wealth. The master-spirits of the great trusts, corporations and monopolies are not unfrequenUy touched with money-madness, and in their business relations their avaricious- ness leads them to subordinate the nobler, truer and finer instincts to sordid impulses. Hence they may fairly be symbolized by the pig. They may live in palaces costing millions of dollars; they may spend fortunes on palatial yachts and luxurious summer- homes; they may dress in purple and fine THE FALL OF THE new year opened auspiciously for Japan with the fall of Port Arthur, the most impregnable fortress in the world, with the possible exception of Gibraltar. Russia believed it to be absolutely impregnable, and time and again during the past year reports have emanated from Russian sources asserting that the fortress could never be taken; that it was not only impregnable, but was supplied with provisions and ammunition for several years. But Russia has been so given to reck- less statements, to exaggerations and boastings, that sensible people have long since learned to discount her statements and to discredit any linen and adorn themselves with jewels that would buy a dukedom; yet at heart they remain pigs. Especially is this the case in the acquisition of wealth. It is against this pig in man’s clothing, this bejeweled, be- decked and belaced animal of the trough, that the sturdy spirit of American democracy is ranging itself. The cartoonist Nast forever fixed the tiger — “that creature of stripes and rapacity” — as the symbol of Tammany. He also gave the donkey to Democracy. Mr. Beard this month fixes the symbol of American plutocracy in his striking cartoon of the be- jeweled pig. In striking contrast Mr. Beard also gives us a second cartoon this month, embodying the spirit of St Valentine, a cartoon in which he strives to catch and shadow forth the spirit of that day sacred to love and joyous youth. PORT ARTHUR. improbable utterances. This led many per- sons to believe that Port Arthur was far less formidable than it proved to be. The Japanese, however, felt that the moral effect of the capture no less than the importance of the actual possession warranted its capture, let the cost be what it might. And seldom in the history of the world have armies displayed greater valor or determination than those of the Mikado’s forces encamped around the doomed fortress. The capture of Port Arthur is another humiliating blow to Russia and must necessarily greatly lessen her already waning prestige in the Orient. Digitized by Google
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IN THE MIRROR OF THE PRESENT THE RUSSIAN SITUATION. Autocracy’s Evil Hour The People’s Opportunity. TO THE student of history the situation in Russia to-day is as interesting as it is momentous. Not for more than a century has the world witnessed so titanic a struggle in Christendom between the genius of darkness and brutal despotism and that of light and the free aspirations of mighty peoples. The revolutions of ’forty-eight were sporadic and insignificant in comparison with the silent struggle now going on in the Russian Empire. This struggle is in essence the same conflict that is everywhere throughout Western civil- ization being more or less strenuously waged between the friends of freedom and popular government and those of reaction, despotism and class-rule. But Russia to-day is pre- eminently the storm-center in the civilization- wide conflict; hence a glance at conditions there will be helpful to friends of democracy everywhere, for we must remember that Russia’s conflict is ours — that democracy is vitally concerned in the advance of the millions of Russia toward the light of freedom. As times of prosperity and tranquility are not unfrequently periods of supreme peril to free institutions, as they afford opportunities for despotism, reaction and corruption to advance in government — opportunities for dangerous precedents to be established, for official classes and special interests to make aggressive forward movements, and for graft, corruption and venality to silently but rapidly permeate the body-politic; so periods of commercial depression, or of national stress and strain, at a time when foreign wars demand the tools of despots and tyrants to be largely engaged beyond the nation’s borders, afford the supreme opportunity for friends of free institutions and liberal government to press for vantage upon the citadels of govern- mental oppression and reaction. That the Russian people measurably ap- preciate this vital fact is indicated by the great activity being manifested throughout the empire. The students and educators are alert and active. The landed heads of the communes are displaying a greater degree of moral courage than men of property are wont to exhibit where bold or outspoken demands are liable to lead to confiscation of property and imprisonment, exile or death for the patriots. The peasants are everywhere giving evidences of unrest and showing that the long and systematic oppression of the bureaucracy j has driven them well-nigh to despair; while the workingmen in the cities are on all sides showing a growing and settled determination to have a day of reckoning with the criminally cruel oppressors if no reasonable reforms or concessions are granted to the people. Moreover, the foreign groups of Russian patriots — men whose love for freedom and the ideals of democracy and justice has been so great that it has led to enforced or voluntary exile from their fatherland — are busy with the underground railroad by which Russia is being sown with the literature of revolt, free- dom and democracy much as was France in the time of Louis XVI. These things presage a change for the better, but whether it shall come through peaceful methods, by virtue of the wisdom of the Czar, or by forcible revolution depends on the greatness and true statesmanship of Nicholas IE. and his immediate councillors. The Attitude of The Reactionary Autocrats. The action of the zemstvos in boldly petitioning for a constitutional government and other liberal and progressive reforms, the growing restlessness of the people and the rising spirit of insubordination in the presence of brutal treatment that has long been the rule in Russia, are enraging and alarming the autocrats and bureaucrats. Some, it is true, merely express indignant contempt at the pre- sumption of the people in assuming that they exist for any other purpose than to minister to the pleasure and gratification of a few more or less dissolute members of a so-called royal family and the subservient tools of despotism that constitute the bureaucracy. This senti- ment found expression in the recent char- acteristic remade of the Grand Duke Sergius, Digitized by Google 910
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211 In the Mirror of the Present. the unde of the Czar, the Governor-General of Moscow and one of the leading spirits among the reactionaries, when in speaking of the demand of the zemstvos and the mutter- ings of the poor of Russia he said: “These peasants think, I suppose, that Russia exists for them as a dog does for fleas.” While some of the autocrats, however, are affecting contempt for the protests and menacing unrest of the people, others are dis- playing their alarm by their almost frantic defences of the autocracy and by their strenuous efforts to prove that a constitutional government could not exist in Russia because of the ignorance of the people — an ignorance, by the way, for which the church and the bureaucracy are chiefly responsible. Thus we find Prince Mestchersky, who is probably the ablest as he is the most reactionary of the defenders of the autocracy, industriously circulating throughout Western civilization the old, threadbare cry that the people are too ignorant for self-government; that the con- cession to the demand of the zemstvos would merely mean the autocracy of a class, and that the present despotism is the only kind of government that could successfully carry forward the best interests of Russia. This is the old, old cry of tyrants mid despots that has ever rung forth when the people have de- manded justice and a wider measure of free- dom. It was the cry of King George and the reactionaries that brought on the American Revolution. It is the false shibboleth of the enemies of democracy and freedom the world over, by which they seek to justify reactionary innovations and the maintenance of the terror- ism that flourishes in nations where a brutal bureaucracy such as exists in Russia obtains. The most shameful feature of the present propaganda of despotism is the spectacle of American, English and Continental journalists and other reactionaries taking up and echoing these catch-phrases and false pleas of the •pedal-pleaders for tyranny. Russia and Self-Government. Perhaps there is no Russian thinker and expert better able to utter an authentic word in answer to the sophistical cries of selfish up- holders of autocracy in Russia than Professor Paul Milyoukov, the eminent economist, historian and educator, who was imprisoned in 1901 for presiding over a meeting of students and who has recently delivered a brilliant course of lectures in Boston on present con- ditions in Russia. This eminent mid careful thinker, before the Twentieth-Century Club, on December 17, 1904, exposed the hollow- ness of the cry that the Russians were not pre- pared for self-government. He spoke as an expert, having, as he stated, conducted a special inquiry to determine that very question, and in the course of his remarks he pointed out the fact that twenty-five years ago the Czar of Russia granted the Bulgarians a con- stitution patterned after that of the Belgians. “The only changes introduced made it even more democratic than the Belgian constitu- tion, for the Bulgarians got a one-chamber legislature and universal instead of limited suffrage.” And Professor Milyoukov con- tinued: “I am quite sure that the Bulgarians are not a people of higher intelligence than the Russians; yet experience has shown that they choose their representatives very intelligently and in a way quite up to the level of their own interests as a people. Moreover, the Bulgarians received their constitution after being in serf- dom under the Turkish rule. Their consti- tution has proved a sort of school of political life among them, and enormous changes have taken place in Bulgaria altogether owing to the constant practice of political rights which has been given to Bulgaria by the working of that constitution; and if I were to be asked, here or in Russia, whether the vote should be given in my country generally to the people, I should answer in die affirmative.” The claim of the interested reactionaries in Russia is precisely analogous to the positive assertions of those in our own country who were interested in sugar monopolies and other privileges a short time since, when the inde- pendence of Cuba was up for consideration. These would-be fosterers of despotism de- clared that the claim that the Cubans could be entrusted with self-government was pre- posterous. They insisted that our govern- ment ought not to entertain the idea for a moment; yet Cuba is getting along incom- parably better than Russia under autocracy. Moreover, in Russia the people would be led, aided and educated by the educators of Russia and the ablest and most enlightened members of the zemstvos — men in many instances of the widest learning and of the noblest purposes. Signs of Change. The bold and statesmanlike plea of the leaders of the zemstvos, recently made to the Czar, showed the liberal leaders of Russia who Digitized by Google
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212 In the Mirror of the Present. represent the communes to be men of intelli- gence, of moral courage and endowed with a lofty patriotism that argues well for the future of the nation after the baleful spell of an intolerable despotism shall be broken. That it will be broken multitudinous signs indicate. Professor Milyoukov, in one of his Lowell Institute lectures delivered in Boston, well observed that: “ Russia is no longer sub- missive. Political parties are numerous, ag- gressive and better organized than ever be- fore. The men in power cannot grapple with the problem before them. What and how grave that problem is, is to be appreciated by a study of the revolution. “From academic to practical, the new lib- eral movement, dating from the abolition of serfdom, has moved steadily to organization through the instrumentality of the zemstvos, or local assembly, to which were committed the management of local provincial affairs in certain parts of European Russia. The gentry, as already noted, had been brought into personal competition with the lower classes. The gentry had to work — had to descend to what are called in Russia the ‘men of mixed ranks.* In this way the capable element in the gentry became more democratic. The liberals of the gentry recruited their ranks from men of lower orders, organized liberal work, and defined more sharply its pro- gramme of reform and progress. “Growth of liberalism was favored at the same time by the rise of the liberal professions, literature and law having their first firm estab- lishment with this new era. In the zemstvos the share of the lower classes was very slight, yet the educated class which directed the work of the zemstvos remained remarkably faithful to its liberal spirit. Schools, hospitals, medical and asylum service, charities — all the agencies of education and relief were actively pushed. All this work, carried out by ex- ecutive boards or officers, created new voca- tions which many men preferred to the service of the State. First of these were the school- teachers. Next were the zemstvos doctors, generally pioneers of hygiene and sanitation among the village peasants. Perhaps nearest to the lowest classes were the statisticians, who came into intimate touch with every fact of the peasant’s daily life. These, with the teachers of agriculture, the whole group being known as ‘the third element,’ became from the nature of their work rather more radical than the zemstvos itself. “The demand for a constitution has been incessant, and widely varied in form.” The Neue Frets Presss of Vienna, Austria, in commenting on the recent assembling of the zemstvos congress at St. Petersburg, observed that: “It was not summoned, as was the case with the states-general in France and as was the case with the united Landtags in Prussia. It assembled spontaneously, grew out of the ground of itself, as it were, like a thing of necessity, a something not to be held back, a thing pressing forth into the sunlight, de- mental, not needing to be called. These men who came together in the zemstvos congress are heroes and carry their fate in their hands at a word of command that is mightier than all the power of the Russian bureaucracy.” And this journal concludes that “the great historical process has begun. It can be halted, delayed, but scarcely turned back- ward.” Revolutionary Leaders and The People. A number of writers who have dealt with the possibilities of revolution in Russia have insisted that any general revolt would prove ineffectual, because the people would have no capable leaders such as we had in our Revolu- tion or such as the bourgeois class in France. Singularly enough, these writers, who for the most part seem to be making the hope the father to the thought, overlook the facts in the case. Perhaps there has never been a conflict between autocratic despotism and the people wherein there were better prospects for able leaders than in Russia to-day. The present bureaucracy of Russia is made up largely if not chiefly of men who have been picked, as was the late tyrant Von Plehve, from the common walks of life. The master-spirits in Russia have demanded three things of their servants: (1) absolute subserviency to the despotic decrees of the royal family and the councillors highest in authority; (2) intel- lectual ability; (3) courage and the absence of sentiments of humanity, justice and morality that would prevent the execution of the most inhuman, brutal and monstrous decrees that the autocrats desire to issue in furtherance of their supposed interests and for the mainten- ance of an absolute and resistless despotism. Now they have found it far easier to find recruits for offices among the ambitious but morally defective sons of the common people Digitized by Google
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213 In the Mirror of the Present. than among the high-spirited scions of the old aristocracy. Consequently for several dec- ades there has been going on a steady weed- ing out of the aristocracy and a driving of the old nobility into the background. Many of the representatives of these old families are to-day members of the zemstvos; others are in comparative obscurity. Numbers have been exiled to Siberia, imprisoned or put to death, while their sons cannot be expected to show any great love for the bureaucracy if the hour strikes for an onward movement for Russian civilization along the pathway of revolution. Besides these there are the educators and the daring and high-minded students who throng the Russian universities and higher schools. Hence in the event of a revolution, capable, high-minded and devoted leaders, as noble and self-sacrificing as were Jefferson, Franklin, Washington or the others of our great fathers, or as were Lafayette and others in Continental Europe, will not be wanting. The Insatiable Gbeed of The Royal Family of Russia. The misery and indescribable suffering of the peasants of Russia is largely due to the insatiable avarice or greed of the reigning family of Russia. In a recent issue of the Anglo- Russian of London, the editor, Jaakoff Prelooker, in an editorial leader entitled " Insatiable Autocracy’* states that the land owned by the 110,000,000 peasants of Russia aggregates only 85,141,886 acres, while the imperial family alone owns 82,000,000 acres, the remaining 181,606,519 acres being held by the landed aristocracy and the favored nobility. Moreover this writer says in speak- ing of the character of the land : “It must also be understood that the land in the possession of the imperial family and the nobility is of the very richest and most fertile, whilst that of the peasants is of the poorest. Notwithstanding this, the nobleman with an average of some 128 acres, is exempt from ordinary State taxes, whilst the peasant with an average of one-third of an acre, has not only to pay taxes, but is loaded with many other burdens imposed exclusively upon his class alone.’’ Is it strange that from the peasant’s hut, from the workman’s hovel, from the student’s attic, comes the cry for change — a cry which when taken up by the educators and the zemstvos leaders may well create consterna- tion in the breasts of the criminals in high places who with the present unholy and in- defensible war on their hands in the East are unable to mercilessly crush those who have dared to protest, as bureaucracies have so frequently crushed noble and educator, student, maid, matron, peasant and workingman in the past, whenever they have cried for justice, for education and for freedom ? ADVANCE IN PUBLIC-OWNERSHIP. Signal Success of Municipal Tele- phones in Great Britain. MR. E. DAGGER in the course of an in- teresting paper in a recent issue of The Municipal Journal and Engineer gives some highly important facts relating to public- ownership of telephones in Great Britain, in which he shows that the public-ownership and operation has been eminently satisfactory and encouraging to the tax-payers and the com- munity enjoying such service, however un- satisfactory it has been to the great telephone monopolies that strove to deceive, frighten and mislead the people and influence the action of the authorities as they have done so suc- cessfully in the United States. He shows, for example, that in Glasgow there are now 11,500 telephones, the average revenue per telephone being $21. Ten per cent, is paid as a royalty to the post-office department, so the average which the municipality receives is but $18.90. Yet in spite of the small cost to sub- scribers the city meets all operating and main- tenance expenses, pays all interest charges, sets aside a sum for a sinking-fund, and also has an annual surplus for depreciation of over eleven thousand dollars. It is often urged by the owners and .the hired agents of the public-service corporations, and echoed by the unthinking, that public- ownership gives poorer service than private- ownership, in spite of the fact that in every instance of which we have any knowledge of municipal-ownership in the Old World super- seding private-ownership, the service has been Digitized by Google
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214 In the Mirror of the Present. immeasurably improved under the city's operation; and in comparing public-owner- ship with private-ownership, die only fair comparisons are clearly those made where the private and public operations have been employed in the same city, or where cities are compared with cities in the same country. But in the case of the municipal telephones in Glasgow the service seems to eclipse that of the private companies anywhere else in the world. On this point Frederick Adams, after personal investigation, writes in the Brooklyn Eagle: “The Glasgow telephone service is the best I have ever inspected. Mr. Bennett informed me that statistics showed that the average time required to make a connection was less than fifteen seconds. It should be explained that the telephone booth is practically un- known in the office of a Glasgow business man. The instrument is on the edge of his desk, and the receiver and transmitter are in one piece. This aluminum device is con- nected with a wire cord, and the customer may converse leaning back in his chair or walking about the room, as he prefers. It is a most decided improvement over the clumsy and antiquated system which yet prevails in most exchanges in the United States." Some idea of the rapid increase in the net revenues may be gained from the following figures taken from the Corporation Telephone Department's report for the years ending May Slst. In 1902 the net revenue was $68,647. In 1903 it had risen to $170,518; and in 1904 it reached $241,742. Outside of the London post-office telephone system, the Glasgow municipal plant is the largest underground system in Great Britain. In England the public authorities seem more sane and honest than those in America; at least, they are far less subservient to public- service corporations and more loyal to the interests of the people. It has been a fre- quent policy of the private-service corporations with us to secure so-called experts, who either before the people's servants or through the press warned the public against the dangers of loss through public-ownership. Corpora- tions like the Boston Elevated Railway Com- pany which are pouring from three to four million dollars every year into the pockets of a comparatively few over-rich stockholders and their pliant tools, are always very solicitous lest a city should commit the grave folly of taking over the municipal utilities; but these alarmist cries that make the way so easy for the people's servants who wish to see matters through the spectacles of the over-rich cor- porations, have little influence in England, where the municipal authorities place the interests of the people before the interests and emoluments of a few individauls. A striking case of this kind is cited by Mr. Dagger in his story of the success of Portsmouth with municipal telephones. “The results achieved," he tells us, “with this exchange are interesting as proving how worthless are opinions of experts whose evidence is put forward by the monopolies for the purpose of preventing the establishment of municipal undertakings. At the Ports- mouth local Government Board inquiry two witnesses were put forward by the National Telephone Company to oppose the granting of borrowing powers to build the plant. They were J. E. Kingsbury, English manager for the Western Electric Company, of Chicago, a 'Bell' corporation, and Herbert Laws Webb, late engineer to the New York Tele- phone Company (also 'Bell'). The following are extracts from their evidence: “‘Q. In your view, will this business be a financial success? “'A. (J. E. Kingsbury): No; I do not see how it can. “*Q. Do you think it commercially sound? “'A. I think it quite uncommercial. “*Q. Are the (proposed) rates remunera- tive? “‘A. (H. L. Webb): I do not think that they can possibly be remunerative. “‘Q. Will the undertaking be a charge on the rates ? “'A. I think it will be a charge on the rates."' The citizens of Portsmouth were not to be deceived by the testimony of these so-called experts. In spite of their warning, the city installed her own telephone-plant. The receipts for last year, up to March Slst, averaged $17.50 per telephone (the un- » limited service is $28.61; limited, $17.54 and $12.18). After deducting the post-office de- partment’s royalty the telephone receipts averaged $15.79 per instrument, and this en- abled the city to pay operating and mainten- ance expenses, etc. The net revenue amounted Digitized by Google
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215 In the Mirror of the Present. to a dividend of nine per cent on the capital expended, out of which interest and sinking funds were deducted, leaving $6,186 for de- predation fund. These dties furnish examples of the actual practical results of public-ownership of public utilities. How much longer will our people submit to being pi tmdered to make others over-rich, and, what is worse, submit to a spoliation which almost invari- ably leads to the corrupting of the people’s servants? This Result of Municipal Pubuc- Liohtino in Cleveland. The rebultb that have attended the light- ing of the streets of Cleveland by the munici- pality instead of under contract (the method which had obtained) afford another illustra- tion of the saving which a city can and should make by municipal-ownership and control of public utilities. Under the old method the streets were lighted by a private corporation, and the city paid $23.56 per lamp. Under munidpal lighting the cost to the dty is $17.88 a lamp. As there are 6,500 gas-humps at the present time in Cleveland, the saving to the dty is $88,670. The candle-power of the lights is precisely the same as it was when the dty enriched the private corporation to the extent of over $80,000 a year for doing a part of its own business. Only by the power of corrupt wealth is it possible to prevent from year to year the munidpalities of America from enjoying the enormous revenue derived by the various private corporations through ownership and operation of public utilities. Is there any good reason why a dty should turn $88,670 a year, or $886,700 every decade, into the pockets of an over-rich corporation, when this sum can easily be saved to the tax- payers and when the saving, moreover, is favorable to good government? Cleveland, under a genuine reform government, has given the only sane, practical and business- like answer that can be given. Why The Gas-Trust in Two Cities Sees Peril in Yellow Journalism. It is doubtful whether the terrors of yellow journalism have ever before proved such a nightmare to the extortionate gas-monopolies of New York and Boston, and to recreant public officials as of late. During the past few months Mr. Hearst has exposed the shameful and disgraceful methods by which the mayor and comptroller of New York sought to turn over $9,000,000 to the gas- trust. The public servants in the great metropolis strove in every way to consum- mate these iniquitous proceedings, but Mr. Hearst laid bare thdr action in his paper, attacked them in the courts and finally secured a permanent injunction, preventing the payment of the $9,000,000 to the great chagrin of the discredited mayor and the exasperation of the grasping monopoly. In Boston an aggressive movement on the part of the various gas companies that con- stitute the gas monopoly of Boston and her environs was attacked by Mr. Hearst, first in the Boston American and later before the State Commissioners. When the case was brought before the officials Mr. Hearst, through his attorneys, presented the petition of seventy thousand of the citizens of Boston asking that the present exorbitant price of one dollar per thousand cubic feet be reduced to eighty cents per thousand. The trust, as usual, was represented by the ablest legal ability and felt confident in its power to defeat the just demands of a long-suffering and shamefully-plundered public. But Mr. Hearst created consternation in the monopolistic family when he brought from Cleveland, Ohio, Professor Edward Bemis, the famous gas-expert, who after an exhaustive examina- tion made a merciless exposi of the preposter- ous claims of the gas combine. He showed, for example, that from their own figures the Brookline Gas Company, which is one of the gas corporations in the present monopoly, could during the past seven years have paid seven per cent, on its entire capitalization and yet only have charged the public eighty cents per thousand for gas. One of the State Commissioners has from the first displayed a sense of fairness and that judicial impartiality which should always characterize officials acting in the capacity of judges. The other two commissioners, how- ever, have shown a strong bias in favor of the views presented by the gas-trust and its special-pleaders, one of the Commissioners, Mr. George, going so far as to declare, when he refused to call for certain books which the people’s representatives asked should be presented before the Commission, that “the law says that we shall settle this question, and not the community,” thereby displaying that insolent arrogance which has marked the most Digitized by Google
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216 In the Mirror of the Present. offensive and odious puppets of despotism in olden times, but which is not supposed to be exhibited by the people’s servants in a re- public. The cartoons which we present this month bearing on this gas fight are of special interest to the American people because the conflict between these great, oppressive, public-service lighting companies in two of America’s great cities is the same conflict that is being waged between the people and the railroads, the re- frigerator-car trust, the coal-trust, the sugar- trust and other iniquitous combinations that are deliberately plundering the people. The impudent remark of Commissioner George, in which he expresses so much contempt for the will, desire and demand of the community he is supposed to represent, affords another powerful reason why every American voter should place the demand for the enjoyment of democratic government through direct- legislation above all other immediate demands. The people’s servants have come to hold their employers in contempt and too fre- quently act as though they held briefs from the oppressors and plunderers of individuals and communities. However the present case may be settled in Boston, and from the attitude of the Com- mission at the present writing it is doubtful whether the people will gain their just relief in the immediate future, the work done by Mr. Hearst’s campaign has proved of im- mense value and the cause of public-owner- ship of gas has been materially strengthened, m it has been made apparent to thousands of our citizens as never before that the only relief for the people from extortion and op- pression by public-service monopolies lies in our following the wise example of Old World cities and making and selling our own gas at from one-half to one-third less than the American people are now paying the over- rich private corporations. SOCIALISM IN ITALY. Phenomenal Growth or The Socialist Vote in Italy. PRESS dispatches sent out from Italy and published throughout America, purport- ing to give the result of the recent election, were such as to woefully mislead the people. Thus, for example, it was heralded far and wide that the Socialists had met a crushing or over- whelming defeat, and we were gravely told by learned editors that labor in Italy had repudiated the vagaries of Socialism. Then came the positive statement that the great Italian Socialist leader, Enrico Fern, had been defeated. Now what were the facts? In the first place Enrico Fern stood for election in three districts. In one he was defeated; in two he was elected. Secondly, the Socialists elected members from twenty-eight districts, while in 1900 they were successful in thirty-two dis- tricts, so their voting strength in the new parliament will be five less than in the pre- ceding congress. The Socialist vote, how- ever, almost doubled that of 1900, as at the recent election they polled 301,000 votes, while in 1900 the total vote was 162,000. The loss of five seats was due to two principal causes. In 1900 the radical Republicans acted with the Socialists in several districts. supporting their candidates. In the late election the Socialists stood alone, while the Catholic Church, which has for the most part held aloof from elections because the Italian Government antagonizes the absurd claims to temporal power made by the Pontiff, actively assisted the government's candidates in several districts with the hope of defeating the Socialists. Thus, though the Socialists have almost doubled their voting strength they have fewer seats in the parliament But to talk of the overwhelming defeat of Socialism in Italy, or to say that the laborers of Italy have deserted Socialism is in the face of the returns so pitiably false that one would think that this kind of misrepresentation would be resented by the reading public, even that part of it that has no sympathy with Socialism, for people as a rule do not enjoy being mislead as to palpable facts. Another thing should be borne in mind in reference to the Socialist vote in Italy. It is not an ignorant vote, as some papers have striven to prove. Quite the contrary. In Italy no person is allowed to vote who cannot read and write, and in the kingdom fifty-six per cent of the population is unable to vote because of being illiterate. The 301,000 Italian votes given to the Socialist ticket were cast by persons who could read and write. Digitized by Google
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217 In the Mirror of the Present. In 1900 the Socialists polled 12.9 per cent, of the entire vote. In 1904 they polled 20 per cent, of the entire vote. We take pleasure in giving our readers these facts in the interest of common justice and fair play and to correct the misapprehension of those of our people who have taken the press reports as truthful statements. SHADOWS ON THE PATHWAY OP PROGRESS. Social Contrasts The Fruit op Privilege and Inequality of Opportunities. ON THE fifteenth of December the Boston Herald published a note to the effect that Mr. Charles Schwab of steel-trust fame recently had a pair of shoes made to order, and on receiving them with a bill for fifty dollars, “he was so convinced of their superiority that he forthwith ordered five pairs more at the same price.” On the same day the Boston Evening Transcript published the following dispatch from New York: “New York, December 15th. — After trudg- ing through the snow from one end of the city to the other in the vain hope of securing em- ployment, his wife and six children being without food and ordered to leave their home in an upper East-side tenement-house because of non-payment of rent, John Corcoran, a clerk, to-day ended his life by drinking car- bolic add.” These social contrasts are strictly typical of conditions that prevail to-day in our land of almost inexhaustible undeveloped wealth, due to unjust and fundamentally inequitable conditions. Elsewhere we call the attention of our readers to the fact that in Manhattan Borough in 1903 there were 60,463 families evicted from their tenements. That is about fourteen per cent, of the whole number of families in the borough. The agony and misery that attended a large number of the families that were thus driven forth from their shelter can never be adequately described, but the above dispatch may enable us to feel something of the anguish of spirit, the utter despair, which some of these unfortunates experienced. On the other hand, the vast wealth that was so quickly acquired by Mr. Schwab and which has been partly squandered at Monte Carlo, came largely by virtue of that ricious legislation which enables a few men to secure from the government special privileges which have placed the American people at their mercy while they have levied such ex- tortionate or excessive prices for their wares that they have acquired millions upon millions of dollars, and which enable them to-day to still rob the American citizens of from six to eleven dollars on every ton of iron and steel purchased, in excess of what this same preda- tory band charges the citizens of Great Britain and Canada. Legislation of this character cannot fail to produce multi-millionaires or a plutocracy whose great wealth and power have only been possible of attainment through spe- cial privileges and monopoly rights by which the masses have been plundered for the benefit of the few, and such conditions cannot fail to produce increasing examples of social contrasts such as the typical instances cited above. Recrudescence op Medieval Religious Intolerance in Spain. A recent issue of Public Opinion contains a translation of a noteworthy editorial from the Impardal of Madrid, Spain, which merits the thoughtful consideration of our people as it illustrates in a striking manner how easy it is for reactionary elements, when once they obtain power, to reestablish the baleful, soul-shriveling, thought-fettering con- ditions which marked the Europe of the Dark Ages. The Impardal, as the editor of Public Opinion well observes, cannot be suspected of anti-Catholic prejudice. Yet this editorial, after describing the paralyzed condition which prevails in the city of Bilbao, due to the collapse of a speculative boom, passes to the notice of a stagnation more deadly than that of business — the stagnation of the brain and all the nobler and higher sensibilities in man, due to the inflamed condition of the popular mind, the result of the reactionary agitation of the Jesuits and other church fathers in their effort to stamp out free inquiry and the liberal aspirations of the people — a stagnation that is “destroying domestic peace, injuring social relations and transforming the religious senti- ment into a poisoned political weapon. In- tolerance,” the Impardal continues, “has obtained such a form that the inhabitants are divided into two classes, into the ‘good* and Digitized by Google
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218 In the Mirror of the Present. the ‘bad/ that is, into those who with their gold and their votes elected Urquiji — the candidate of the Jesuits for parliament — and those who opposed this candidate or remained neutral. “Most powerful in this element, which is continually plotting against everything with a liberal tendency, are the women. No en- deavor, no sacrifice, is too great where the object is to fulfil the commands of their father confessors. In this crusade against the ‘bad’ every weapon is permitted, while all questions of conscience must be put aside. The vilest pretensions are ennobled when they are used for the glory of God, which in this case con- sists in the utter expulsion of the liberals. Boycotts are declared against merchants, manufacturers, and newspapers, against all in fact, who do not submit blindly to the ruling elements. The sefioras form unions for the purpose of boycotting this or that shop, this or that workman, this or that newspaper, while lists are published of all persons who advertise in the offensive newspaper. The insolent boldness with which the reactionaries proceed in their campaign is only to be com- pared with their lust for battle, while their intolerance is the most supreme of their virtues. All who do not think as they do are lepers, contact with whom will certainly lead to infection; and this unheard-of condition will now be extended throughout the entire kingdom according to the terms of the agree- ment which the government has concluded with the Vatican.” The above statement from the important Madrid journal is a melancholy illustration of the inevitable result which follows when re- actionary and dogmatic religious concepts gain ascendency over reason and enlightenment. When such conditions obtain, all the finest sentiments, all the instincts of justice and humanity, all thought of the Golden-Rule, give place to savage hate, inspiring fanaticism that turns the dial-hand back toward the gloom of the dark ages. A Canard That Proved a Boomerang. Deputy Gabriel Syveton, whose brutal assault on the War Minister of France led to his expulsion from the parliament house and who later committed suicide, was one of the most strenuous of the reactionary element in the French parliament. His attacks on the republican government and on all the liberal measures were such as to delight the most reactionary Clericals. And the immediate cause of his disgraceful assault on the Minister of War was due to the action of the Minister, in seeking to prevent men who were sub- servient to the reactionary religionists that had ever been hostile to free education and the republic from gaining commanding positions in the army. When the news of M. Syveton 's violent death was circulated, the reactionaries in- stantly spread the report that he had been murdered by the Free-Masons, notwithstand- ing that the evidence of suicide was most con- vincing in character. Later it was claimed that he had been houndqd to death by the government because of his loyal and out- spoken defence of the reactionaries and the position taken by the upholders of the Vatican. Subsequently, however, the real cause of the suicide was disclosed in the fact that Madame Syveton was about to demand a divorce on account of the improper sexual relations be- tween her husband and her daughter by a former marriage. The daughter in question had married M. Menard. The Paris dis- patch published in the Boston Herald of December 15, 1904, stated that: “Both M. Menard and Mme. Syveton had accused the deputy of these relations, and a family council took place shortly before M. Syveton ’s death, at which violent scenes were enacted, M. Menard declaring that it was the duty of the deputy to put a bullet through his head, and Mme. Syveton announcing her purpose to sue for a divorce. “This was on the eve of M. Syveton 's trial for assaulting War Minister Andre in the Chamber of Deputies. The deputy foresaw the public disclosure of his relations with his wife's daughter, and thereupon committed suicide for the purpose of averting the dis- closure.” If instead of being a champion of conven- tional reaction and clericalism, Deputy Syve- ton had been a radical republican or a social democrat, the conservative and reactionary press of this and other lands would have given great prominence to the fact and we should have been treated on every hand to long homilies on the evils of secular education, on the menace to morality incident to liberal republican training or the philosophy of socialism. As, however, the statesman was preeminent as a defender of the church and an upholder of reactionary ideals, little has been said on the matter. Digitized by Google
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BOOKS OF THE DAY/ Poverty . By Robert Hunter. Cloth. Pp. 882. Price, $1.50 net. Postage, 12 cents. New York: The Macmillan Company. I. THE AUTHOR. The conscience literature of social prog- ress receives an important contribution in Mr. Robert Hunter’s new work entitled Poverty . The author belongs to that small company of young men who place justice, truth and right above personal considerations or selfish desires and who are justly entitled to be termed servants of light, because it is through the labor of men and women of this class that the success of all great fundamental reform measures and progressive movements is made possible. Mr. Hunter graduated from the University of Indiana in 1896. On completing his academic education he entered the school of practical service. The social problem held for him an overmastering power. He knew, as we all know, that the increasing tide of misery, vice and crime is largely due to pov- erty and the pitiable and crime-breeding con- ditions that environ a large proportion of the very poor in our great cities. Now in order to be able to aid in uplifting these unfortunate ones in so far as lay in his power, and at the same time familiarize himself with all the vital facts and the various phases and prob- lems that need to be understood if one would deal with this question in a large and helpful way, Mr. Hunter determined to engage actively in university-settlement work in various centers. Accordingly he took up his self-appointed task, first settling in one of the districts where the poorest working-people of Chicago were huddled together back of the “yards.” Here, while working with and for the very poor, he was able to make an intimate study of their lives, conditions, problems and perplexities. Next he went to Hull House, and during his stay in Chicago he devoted considerable time to the study of lodging and tenement-houses and was chairman of the Tenement Committee of Chicago. From the great Western metropolis he went to Great 0 Books Intended for review in Thb Arbha should be odd rawed to B. O. Flower, Editorial Department, Thb Ajuou, Boston, Mass. Britain, living for a time at Toynbee Hall and other settlements in England. Returning to this country, he became the head of the University Settlement on the East side of New York and Chairman of the New York Child- Labor Committee, which was responsible for the immensely-important laws that pro- tected 290,000 children. He has made careful studies of social conditions in various centers in Europe as well as America, and is therefore admirably equipped for the task of intelligently discussing the grave and growing question of poverty in our republic. The author is a young man, yet his life has been enriched by a beautiful romance, and since all the world loves a lover we may be pardoned for briefly alluding to it. It was while at work among the very poor of the East side in New York, that Mr. Hunter became acquainted with a young American lady who was also seeking to lighten and brighten the lives of the miserables in that great city. This young woman was the daughter of Mr. Anson Phelps Stokes, a large-hearted, noble- minded man of wealth in New York of whom many of our readers have heard because of his brave stand for Mr. Bryan at the time when self-seeking men of immense fortunes in the Empire City were almost a unit against the incorruptible statesman from Nebraska. Miss Stokes had inherited her parents’ love for humanity and her heart went out in sym- pathy for the unfortunate ones in the great city. Hence she was working with her brother for their relief. After meeting Mr. Hunter a strong sentiment of affection sprang up, perhaps at first due largely to community of sentiment and interest, but in time it ripened into love. The young couple were wedded and their home is to-day one of those ideal firesides where love and service hold sway. n. the book. This work, within certain limits, is strong, fine and deserving of great praise. It contains seven chapters in which are discussed “Pov- erty,” “The Pauper,” “The Vagrant,” “The Side,” “The Child,” “The Immigrant,” and the author’s condusions. The chapter de- voted to “Poverty,” which is a dosdy-rea- 219 Digitized by Google
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220 Books of the Day. Boned discussion occupying more than sixty pages, contains an array of facts which will prove at once startling and disquieting to those ignorant of the true conditions that prevail in our republic, while they will doubtless seem incredible to the vast multitude of echoes of echoes of our complacent metropolitan press that day by day harps on prosperity and the national wealth at the dictation of Wall-street magnates or professional politicians who are eager to preserve conditions through which a few are becoming immensely rich, and their faithful servants, who misrepresent the people in government, are holding lucrative positions which they hope will prove life-long sinecures. The chapters on “The Sick ” and “The Child ” deserve special notice. That on “The Child ” should be read by every parent in America. It cannot fail to produce a profound and last- ing impression. It will make for civic right- eousness and a moral sentiment that when once fully aroused will, we believe, destroy the infamy of child-slavery in our republic. We have quoted extensively from this work in our editorial leader this month and have cited several facts and some data given by Mr. Hunter as embodying the latest authoritative facts relating to certain social conditions, so we will not dwell at length on the work as we otherwise should have done; but we venture the hope that our readers will secure the book and carefully peruse it. You may not agree with all Mr. Hunter’s views; you will doubt- less feel that the measures suggested are hope- lessly inadequate; you will probably wish that he had handled the question along broader lines when he comes to the treatment of poverty; but you should remember that this work is preeminently intended to awaken the sleeping conscience of our conventional society. It is a book devoted mainly to the facts — the grim and terrible facts that must be confronted by thoughtful Christian men and women of America, and nothing is more needed than books that will compel the sleep- ing church and a complacent, self-satisfied and heedless society to take cognizance of the tragic condition of millions of our people. Many who read this work will be led by it into further investigations. They will not rest until they have studied far enough to see where the great underlying social and economic crimes lie which render the misery of the millions not only possible but inevitable. We confess that when we first read the suggestive remedies advanced by Mr. Hunter we felt depressed. After reading the views of the great social philosophers who were the fathers of the liberal and revolutionary movements in England, France and America in the eigh- teenth and nineteenth centuries, and still further after reading the luminous treatises of Henry George and the profoundly sug- gestive social philosophies of Marx and the other great social, democratic and practical but idealistic reformers, we always feel in- spired and filled with a strong faith in the future; but when we read a conventional work on political economy, in which the author performs the tread-mill act, retracing old ideas bom of ages and times when writers sought to bolster up special interests and privileged classes and to avoid any radical position, no matter how fundamentally just or righteous it might be, we always fed pro- foundly depressed and discouraged. So also when at the heels of a noble work dealing with poverty, so compelling in influence and so fine in spirit as is Mr. Hunter’s, when we come to his suggested measures dealing as they do with palliative rather than funda- mental reforms, we experience again the same sense of depression and weariness of spirit as when reading convential economic and politi- cal treatises. But by this we would not dis- parage the palliative remedies when ap- plied as such. Some years ago, when our work entitled Civilization *8 Inferno was first published, a number of friends criticized it on the ground that it devoted too much space to palliative measures; yet it was our aim at all times to insist upon the necessity of funda- mental reforms, but at the same time we believe, and have always believed in doing our utmost to save the sinking while the gtfeat ships of justice are being builded. Mr. Hunter's remedial measures are for the most part sane, reasonable, just and necessary, and they will appeal to tens of thousands who would be frightened if one proposed more fundamental measures. And yet many of those who to-day will become deeply interested in the measures proposed by our author will five years from to-day be clamoring for more fundamental reforms — reforms that will guar- antee equality of opportunities and of rights to all. Books like this work are of immense value at the present period in our conflict against the sordid materialism that is ranging itself with reaction and subtly when not ag- gressively opposing the ideal of democracy and social progress. Digitized by Google
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221 Books of the Day. Handicraft and Recreation for Girls. By Lina Beard and Adelia B. Beard. Illus- trated. Goth. Pp. 357. Price, $1.60 net New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Of late years parents as well as teachers are coming more and more to recognize that in the education of the child the training of the eye and hand plays a part quite as im- portant as that of the brain. This fact is witnessed in the increasing number of manual- training schools and in the revival of many of the old-time arts and crafts. When the eye and hand can be trained, the mind informed, and the child at the same time entertained, a needed work is indeed being accomplished; and in Handicraft and Recreation for Girls , parents will find a valuable aid in accomplish- ing this triple task. The first half of the volume, as the name indicates, is devoted to the handicrafts. Here the most explicit and simple directions are given for spinning, weaving, both on a miniature loom and with pliant grasses and reeds, modeling with day, working with tissue paper, etc., as well as for making com- plete minature copies of a Japanese village, a Russian village, an Indian village and an old Colonial kitchen, fitted out with all the utensils which our grandmothers used in Revolutionary days. Besides these more ambitious undertakings there are numerous suggestions for the very tiny folks, such as weaving dolls’ hammocks, “hoppergrass” houses, napkin rings, etc., from the ordinary fidd-grasses, all of which entertain the child for many happy hours while helping to make the little fingers nimble and skillful. All the directions in the book are so de- tailed and simple, and the illustrations are so copious that the work is far more valuable than many similar volumes, which leave so much to the imagination that even grown people would find considerable difficulty in accomplishing many of the things which are said to be so easy. The second half of Handicraft and Recrea- tion contains many delightful suggestions for Easter and Hallowe’en games as well as for simple amusements for very small children. One would search far to find a book of this kind so varied in its interest and so clear and explidtm its practical directions. Amr C. Rich. A Defective Santa Claus . A Poem by James Whitcomb Riley. Illustrated. Goth. Pp. 78. Price, $1 net. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company. This is a sumptuous little gift-book con- taining almost two score original illustrations by C. M. Relyea and Will. Vawter which are as natural and true to the simple life depicted in the homely poem as is the poet’s charming verse. Of the story here told in rhyme it is only necessary to say that it is worthy of our incomparable poet of the homely and com- mon life in the Middle West In his peculiar field James Whitcomb Riley has no living peer. The poem gives the story of a mem- orable Christmas, told by the child in his simple speech not unmixed with the colloquial- isms of the country-folk of his neighborhood. In it Santa Claus visits the home and the children catch a glimpse of him, but unfortu- nately for the paternal Santa his paraphernalia catches fire and to save his life he is rolled in the snow. Before the flames are extinguished, however, his nose is burned and his arm in- jured. The little ones, however, do not see through the disguise and imagine to the end that it was the real, genuine Santa Gaus of the picture-books who visited them, though they cannot understand how their father's nose comes to be so badly frost-bitten . It is a charming child-tale in verse. Painted Shadows. By Richard LeGallienne. Goth. Pp. 389. Price, $1.50. Boston: little. Brown & Company. Devotees of the realistic school in litera- ture will never enjoy Mr. LeGallienne’s work, but for those who value a story more for its fine literary quality than for its fidelity to the real conditions of life, his beauty of phras- ing and delicacy of imagination hold a charm which never grows old. We have no writer to-day whose work possesses in the same de- gree the shadowy, elusive fascination of Mr. LeGallienne’s best stories, of which the present volume contains several examples. “Poet, Take Thy Lute,” “Old Silver,” and “The Shadow of the Rose” are equal to the best of Mr. LeGallienne’s former work, although this is not true of some of the other stories, as, for instance, “The Woman in Possession,” “The First Church of the Digitized by Google
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222 Books of Restoration ” and “Dear Dead Women.” “Beauty’s Portmanteau” is a delightfully humorous sketch, and “The Youth of Lady Constantia” is one of the most beautiful idealistic tales of the transforming power of love that I have ever read. Amy C. Rich. Love Poem* of Byron. Cloth. Pp. 136. Price, 50 cents. New York: John Lane. Love Poems of Byron is a dainty little vol- ume, bound in flexible violet cloth, stamped in gold, with gilt edges, and of vest-pocket size, contains more than sixty poems and selections from Byron’s verse devoted to love, among which are “When We Two Parted,” “Maid of Athens,” “Stanzas Written on the Road Between Florence and Pisa,” “She Walks in Beauty Like the Night” and “There be None of Beauty’s Daughters.” This volume is one of a series of little works entitled “The Lover’s Library” which con- stitutes a veritable treasure-house of poetry of sentiment. The works which have preceded the present volume, and all of which are, uniform with it, are Love Poems of Shelly, Robert Browning, Edmond Holmes, Tenny- son, Landor, E. B. Browning, Bums, Suckling, Herrick, W. S. Blount, Sonnets of Shakes- peare, and Love Songs from the Greek. Wanted: a Cook. By Alan Dale. Cloth. Pp* 882. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company. Seldom has it been our pleasure to read a more delightful satire on one phase of our present-day urban life than Wanted: a Cook. In this book the well-known dramatic critic who writes under the pseudonym of Alan Dale and who too frequently, in our judgment, sacrifices the demands of honest criticism and a just meed of praise for good work to his own vanity and a desire to say bright things in a cutting way, has treated the servant-girl question in an inimitable manner. Few the Day. housewives in our great cities will faO to ap- preciate the work which, though exaggerated at times as is the wont of the humorist, is from first to last broadly true, and on the whole the story will prove as excellent a cure for the blues as the first reading of Mark Twain’s Innocents Abroad. Ckuggins. By H. Irving Hancock. Illus- trated. Cloth. Pp. 94. Price, 50 cents. Philadelphia: Henry Altemus Company. This story describes the exploits of a boy who leaves the home of his uncle when the war with Spain is declared. He finally reaches Tampa and from thence works his way on a transport to Cuba. After several minor ad- ventures he arrives on the firing-line. Here he finds a dead soldier whose gun and cartridges he takes and forthwith rushes into the thick of the fight, deporting himself like a veteran and attracting the attention of Colonel Roosevelt Later he serves as a water-carrier and aide to a Boston surgeon who is engaged in caring for the dead and wounded on the field. The surgeon, however, is finally seriously wounded, and Chuggins assists him to the hospital and remains with him until they return to New England. The surgeon succeeds in persuad- ing Chuggins* uncle and aunt to allow the boy to return with him to his Boston home, and Chuggins is highly delighted when he hears his benefactor state that he thinks he has sufficient influence to get the lad into West Point. The story is well written and will doubtless appeal to the immature imagination of children. It is prettily bound and well illustrated; but its influence on the mind of the young will be, in our judgment, more vicious than beneficial. It stimulates the war-spirit. The fostering of the savage in the mind of man is bad enough, but to elevate boys of tender years to the position of heroes on the field of blood is, we think, an evil that is only second to that exerted by the yellow- backed tales of bandits and frontier outlaws. Digitized by Google
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NOTES AND COMMENTS rpHE MASTER-SPIRIT IN THE REIGN OF X CORRUPTION : This issue of The Arena opens with Mr. Blankenburg’s thrilling and realistic story of the sinister career of the late Senator Quay, the master-spirit in the reign of undemocratic and corrupt practices which has virtually over- thrown republican government in the Keystone State and has set the downward pace for other com- monwealths, while exerting a baleful influence upon the national government on the one hand and municipal life throughout America on the other. It would be difficult to overestimate the far-reaching influence for evil which has followed the carnival of corruption rendered possible in Pennsylvania by the supremacy of boss and machine-rule, supported and sustained by corporate and privileged interests; and we believe that we are in no wise exaggerating the importance of these papers when we state that, great and serviceable as nave been the numerous exposures of present-day corruption and the evils which have become so deadly a menace to the republic, no series of papers heretofore published are so well calculated to arrest the attention of the more thoughtful and arouse the conscience-element of America to action as this historical survey of almost incredible political turpitude and depravity, written by one whose knowledge of all the facts m the story is only surpassed by the superb courage and high moral rectitude displayed in combatting the aggressions of corruption. We would urge all of our readers to call the attention of every thought- ful friend to Bus series of papers, destined to be- come historic and of far-reaching importance. They are papers that no thinking American can afford to ignore— papers which all patriots should feel it a sacred duty to disseminate. How Scandinavia Hoc Solved the Liquor Prob- lem: The third paper in our series of international contributions dealing with democratic progressive movements and social and economic advance in foreign lands impears in this issue in the masterly presentation ot how Sweden and Norway have solved the drink problem through public-control of the liquor traffic. This paper mis been prepared for us by Mr. M. Alger, the secretary to our Ameri- can Consul at Christiana, a journalist of experience and a painstaking and careful writer. From his discussion it will be noted that there are important points of difference between the uses to which the profits derived from the sale of liquor are put in the two countries, though otherwise the method of control is very similar, and in each instance the supreme aim of the government has been to reduce the crime, misery, poverty and degradation which follow upon an unrestricted traffic. We have wedved^numy imjmries from dffiwmt^parts of the *nd so far as we call to mind the present paper is the dearest, fullest and most comprehensive nugaxine discussion of this question that has yet appeared on this side of the Atlantic. The Expanrion of Municipal Activities: During the last two decades Great Britain has mads ®»rvek>us progress in municipal government City after city has taken over the public utilities that were being indifferently run by private cor- porations whose master-object was to make as great profits as possible for the few who were pecuniarily interested in controlling these mo- nopolies. In every instance, so far as we have been able to ascertain, public-ownership in Great Britain has proved a distinct and in most instances a brilliant success, resulting in reduction of fares and other charges to the citizens, increased pay to employees, reduction in hours of labor, and a sub- stantial profit after paying interest and setting aside a certain sum for a sinking-fund. In many in- stances these sums have been princely in character and by being turned over to the fund known as the Public Good have enormously added to the conveniences, comforts and wee-being of the citizens. In America recently there nave been many signs of the awakening of the people in regard to tneir municipal responsibilities, and though sentiment in favor of municipal-ownership is over- whelmingly strong in many centers, the power exerted over the people's servants, the daily press and other opinion-forming agencies by the aanger- ously rich and powerful monopolies that control the public utilities has been such as to prevent in most instances the people from having an oppor- tunity to take over these public utilities. Tnere has, however, been a wholesome expansion along many lines which has been admirably summarized in the thoughtful paper by the Honorable Clinton Rogers Woodruff, Secretary of the National Municipal League, which appears in this issue of The Arena. The Divorce Question: Last month we pub- lished an exceptionally strong paper giving a dis- cussion of the divorce question from the standpoint of an orthodox Christian. The author, Mrs. Spencer Trask, while discouraging the attempts of the extremists to secure prohibitive divorce legisla- tion instead of appealing to the Christian on the ground of his obligations to literally follow the words attributed to Jesus, nevertheless made a strong plea against divorce from the conventional religious view-point The Arena believes in fundamental discussions of all the great ethical prob- lems and in giving both sides the opportunity for a hearing. This month we publish an exceptionally vigorous plea for liberal divorce laws presented from the view-point of the science of sex psychology. The author in the preparation of this paper baa gone deeply into the subject consulting the ablest authorities on sex psychology and presenting the issue in the vigorous, fearless, thought-stimulating manner of the careful and fundamental scientific student It is a paper that will furnish much food for serious reflection to persons who have only listened to superficial discussions of this question. The Refrigerator-Car Trust - Exposure : The revelations made by Mr. W. G. Joernb, a well- known lawyer and journalist of Duluth, Minnesota, and a contributor to the Annals of the American Academy of Social Science , of Philadelphia, in this issue of The Arena constitute a tale of almost in- Digitized by Google
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224 Notes and Comments. credible infamy — a tale of conspiracy to crush honest industry and plunder the public that has few parallels in the history of modern oppressive acts. That the principal facts were adduced as sworn testimony before the Interstate Commerce Commission makes the revelations all the more im- pressive. Did Mr. Armour see the coming storm when, after satisfying himself that Mr. Roose- velt was bound to be elected, he volunteered the statement to the New York World that he favored the election of President Roosevelt and had contributed to his campaign-fund? And did he hope by obligating the present administration to save himself from the pulblic wrath on account of the iniquitous action of the beef-trust and the refrigerator-car trust? And if he did do this in imitation of the course followed by Mr. Cassatt of the Pennsylvania Railroad, will it avail him any- thing? Tnese are questions that doubtless have occurred to tens of thousands of American citizens since the election. Those who hold that President Roosevelt spoke the truth when be declared that he was m no (way beholden to any interests and that he would carry forward his high obliga- tions to the people regardless of fear or favor, believe that strenuous days are before the oppres- sive, extortionate, law-evading and law-defying railways and trusts. We regret to confess that we do not find in President Roosevelt’s past conduct evidences of persistent moral courage and strenu- osity in assailing entrenched predatory wealth or corporate and monopolistic aggressions that justify us in holding such views. Certain it is, however, that no President ever had so splendid an oppor- tunity to “curb greed and shackle cunning*1 as Theodore Roosevelt; and it is equally certain that the American people realize this. It is within the power of the President to make good his promises and implied promises to the American people and head a crusaae against the plunder of the millions by the privileged few that would make him one of the best-beloved chief-magistrates that has filled the Presidential chair. But to do this he would be compelled to exert a degree of moral stamina and courage that we feel is not an accompaniment of his physical courage. Warren and His Cartoons: This month we give our readers the second sketch dealing with Ameri- can newspaper cartoonists which will be a feature of The Arena for 1906. Next month we expect to devote to the work of the late Thomas Nast, with special reference to the history of the rise, progress and overthrow of the Tweed Ring. Never did the pen of a high-minded and conscientious cartoonist do such faithful service for the cause of good government as was wrought by Mr. Nast in what Tong appeared a hopeless battle against the most powerful and corrupt political ring that ever plundered a city, subsidized a press, degraded moral ideals and disgraced a commonwealth. The Russo-Japanese Discussion: In this issue we publish a spirited discussion of the Russo- Japanese contention by Judge Edward Campbell, of Pennsylvania, and Professor Edwin Maxet, I JLD., M. Dip., of the Univmity of West Virginia, and one of the associate editors of The Arena. Judge Campbell is a strong partisan of Russia, while Professor Maxet is heart and soul in sym- pathy with Japan. These papers, therefore, give the views of 'champions of both sides. Professor Maxet is one of the few Americans who hold the academic degree of Master of Diplomacy. He has made diplomatic history the subject of special study ana is thoroughly familiar with the present status of the great world-powers and problems. Matthew Arnold as a Poet: The recent admir- able paper by Professor Robert T. Kerlin on “ Matthew Arnold: *A Healing and Reconciling Influence*?” is this month supplemented by a delightful paper on the great English writer as a poet. We are glad to note a growing interest in the thought of Matthew Arnold on both sides of the Atlantic, for while we by no means agree with all of his conclusions, we recognize that tne trend and sweep of his thought were upward and toward the high and the noble. He was at all times, to paraphrase Emerson, “harried by the fiend of love of the Best”; and furthermore he was a powerful conscience-force, and there is nothing that present-day civilization more urgently de- mands than the conscience-element in literature and life. Mr. Peck’s paper will appeal to friends of good literature and high ethics, and it also serves to relieve in a way the rather strenuous character of the leading contributions in this issue. Some Notable Papers Crowded Out: We had pur- posed publishing in this issue of The Arena Mr. Gray’s brilliant paper on the cooperative move- ment in Great Britain and Mr. Heweb’ historical survey of Direct-Legislation in Switzerland, but the exposure of the Armour Refrigerator-Car Trust outrage against the American people was a subject demanding immediate attention, and Mr. Blankenburg’s paper was somewhat longer than we had anticipated. Thus we have been com- pelled to carry over both these contributions, together with Mr. Powell’s paper on “The Second Great Struggle Between Autocracy and Democracy in the United States” and the first of two brilliant contributions by Professor Kerlin on “Main Currents of Thought in the Nineteenth Century.” Our New Art Feature: This month we intro- duce a new art feature such as will appear from time to time in The Arena, consisting of a full- page half-tone reproduction, printed in sepia ink on India-tint paper, of photographs of some of the best works of American sculptors and painters who are building up a great art in the republic. The possession of fine pictures of these representative works, will we are confident be highly prized by all our readers. This constitutes one of the many improvements which will be introduced from time to time in this magazine. This series we open by a representation of Mr. Frank Edwin Elwell’s “Little Nell,” a part of the eminent sculptor’s famous Dickens group. This creation was given a place of honor in the section of American Sculpture at the World’s Fair held at Chicago. Later it was exhibited at the Art Club of Philadelphia, where it was awarded a gold medal. Subsequently it was purchased by the Fairmount Art Association of Philadelphia. Mr. Elwell, who is one of the associate editors of The Arena, has for some time been Curator of the Department of Ancient and Modem Statuary in the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City. Digitized by Google
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" We do not take possession of our. ideas , but are possessed by them, They master us and force us into the arena. Where , }ike gladiators , we must fight for them” — Hxun. The Arena Vol. XXXIII March, 1905 No. 184 FORTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS; OR, MASTERS AND RULERS OF “THE FREEMEN” OF. PENNSYLVANIA * II. THE MASTER-SPIRIT. By Rudolph Blankenburg. Chapter II. “ripened and revealed.” HE DISCLOSURES about “the modem financier” which have caused intense interest from ocean to ocean are possibly overdrawn and ex- aggerated, yet we have for years been keenly alive to the fact that Jack Shep- pard and Captain Kidd earned quite an honest and respectable living compared with the “financial highbinders” of to- day. We find, unfortunately, another sphere of public activities even more de- moralizing ana serious than the stock- gambling and lamb-fleecing pirate — the odious political outlaw and spoilsman. It would require the imagination of a Dumas and the genius of a Dickens to adequately fathom and truly picture the depth of political corruption and degrada- tion prevalent for years in many states and municipalities of our fair land, to deservedly decry and denounce the man, who, with patriotic words on his lips but treason in his heart, belies and betrays * The first of this series of articles appeared in the Jan- uary, 1906, number of The Arena. all that is sacred and dear to the lover of his country and its institutions. The corrupt politician and crooked financier are of the same breed of the genus homo; sometimes the qualities of the two are combined in one person, a com- bination which is apt to make its possessor a leader and star performer among his fellow-crooks. The politician, who, by virtue of his profession may also be a law- maker, often has in his keeping the making and moulding of our statutes and he has them so framed that he and his pal, both at times within the shadow of the peniten- tiary, easily escape legal conviction though their moral guilt is as an open book. To the uninitiated it must appear in- credible that we, who are supposed to have the power to correct these , crying evils, languidly permit their continued existence; that we excuse, apologize and even applaud, if cowering transgressors, fearing the coming retribution, make churches, hospitals, educational and charitable institutions the dumping- ground of their burdened consciences, by contributing or willing to them a share of their ill-gotten gains. 225 Digitized by Google
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226 Masters and Rulers of “ The Photo, by Gutekunst, Philo. ROBERT E. PATTI90N, An Honest, Upright Democrat, Who was twice elected City Controller of Philadelphia, and twice Governor of Pennsylvania. We have no one to blame but ourselves if we permit the financial marauder or the political degenerate to take the reins and drive us, like a pack of moral and mental nobodies to pecuniary ruin and into civic bondage. Mr. Quay, after assuming the Sena- torial toga, had no rival to dispute his authority as leader of the Republican party ; it would take volumes to describe his checkered career; allusion can be made only to some of the more important phases of his reign. He understood perfectly that, while it was essential to bestow all important offices upon his chief lieutenants, and minor ones upon his henchmen, the con- trol of legislation was indispensible to his success. He kept a watchful eye upon the legislature and was careful wherever feasible to have candidates named and elected who would do his bidding; this Freemen 99 of Pennsylvania . gave him the power to drive profitable bargains with corporations by having laws passed or defeated as best suited his purposes. The long-distance telephone between Washington and Harrisburg was often kept hot to ascertain Quay’s will when interesting bills were under discussion. To keep his followers well in hand he prevented re-apportionment of the legis- lative districts by defying the commands of the Constitution ; thus Senatorial districts, with marked increase in popula- tion, are as they were thirty years ago, while there has been but one change in the House during the same period. Of course the mandates of the Constitution counted as nothing with Quay and his cohorts, though whole counties have for years been practically disfranchised by being deprived of proper representation. In 1890, when in the zenith of his power, Quay conceived the idea that it might be profitable to control not only the legislative but also the executive branch of the State Government. He said to a distinguished Philadelphia editor, “ I want to know just for once how it feels to own a governor,” and quietly formulated a scheme to bring about the coveted result. The most popular of the aspirants for the Republican nomination for Governor, was Daniel H. Hastings, of Center county, then Adjutant-General of the State, under Governor Beaver. Hast- ings had displayed great executive ability in administering the vast relief-funds con- tributed for the survivors of the dis- astrous flood at Johnstown, and in this way had become widely known and im- mensely popular. Had Quay remained passive, the delegates to the Convention of 1890 would have been instructed for Hastings, without any effort on the part of the latter, in at least two-thirds of the counties of the State. Quay was aware of this, but he wanted a candidate entirely subservient to his own domination, and he distrusted Hastings, who he feared might decline to take orders. Digitized by Google
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Masters and Riders of “ The The candidate of his choice whom he thought he could own, and who ap- parently was willing to be owned, was State Senator George W. Delamater, the son of a former State Senator who had amassed a fortune by a lucky oil-strike. Like so many “ get-rich-quick ” indi- viduals he took up “ statesmanship ” as a pastime, spent money lavishly and ques- tionably, was elected to the legislature and commenced to cast longing glances at the Governorship. Quite a number of the more creditable members of the Repub- lican organization in Pennsylvania re- pudiated Delamater as a candidate, but he depended upon Quay to force his nomination through a reluctant Conven- tion and was not disappointed. Quay had one of his double-faced spells at this time and to the partisans of Hastings he pretended to be for Hastings. A prominent Republican leader from Philadelphia, who knew the deep-seated opposition to Delamater among the better class of Republicans throughout the State, visited Quay at Beaver and warned him, that if Delamater was nominated he would be beaten at the polls. Quay apparently acquiesced in this view, and instructed his visitor to return to Philadelphia and have as many Hastings delegates elected as possible. The latter followed instructions in good faith, only to find later on that Quay was employing federal patronage and every other agency within his power to transfer these Hastings delegates, elected in accordance with his own instructions, to Delamater. Quay was encouraged and urged on in his advocacy of Delamater by State Chairman Andrews who, while he knew the candidate’s weak points, relied upon his fascinating personality to win the fight. After the nomination had been forced through the Convention, Quay attempted to cajole Hastings and his friendis with the promise that the latter should have the nomination four years later. This promise was made not only to Hastings himself, but in the presence Freemen 99 of Pennsylvania. 227 Photo, by Gutekunst, Phi la. GEORGE W. DELAMATER, Quay's Candidate for Governor in 1890. He Ignored charges of “ buying and bribiug voters," and was defeated by Pattison. of several of his warmest friends, Quay at the time going the length of offering to put the compact in writing. Hast- ings was confiding and accepted the agreement in good faith, and even took the stump and made speeches for Del- amater and the State ticket during the campaign. Delamater on the advice of Quay and Andrews, made a personal canvass and took special pains to visit leading re- formers in Philadelphia; he captured quite a number who obligingly extolled his worth and endorsed his candidacy. He made some calls, however, which resulted disastrously, one of them followed by an open letter from the writer of this article, which was widely circulated and is partly quoted here as it discloses Quay’s, as well as his candidate’s, utter lack of political morality: Digitized by Google
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228 Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen, ” of Pennsylvania. Photo, by Gutekunst, Phi 1a. DANIEL H. HASTINGS, Governor or Pennsylvania, Who placed Quay in nomination for President of the United States, at St. Louis, in 1890. “ Philadelphia, August 5, 1890. “Hon. George W. Delamater. — Dear Sir: Absence from my office when you called last week prevented my giving you personally the reasons why I cannot support you and vote for you for Governor of Pennsylvania, and I now do so in writing. “ You were openly and directly charged in April last by ex-Senator Emery, a reputable and responsible citizen, with one of the gravest crimes against our free institutions — * purchasing your election and bribing citizens to vote for you/ etc. — and you were challenged by Mr. Emery to bring an action at law against him so he could set his proof before the people, oath-bound. “ Had you been charged with embezzl- ing money, robbing a widow or orphan, you would as an innocent man not have allowed one day to pass before bringing suit for civil and criminal libel again your accuser; yet here, chaiged with crime much more serious and far-read ing in its consequences, you have rest! silent for months,, whether because y( have no defence, or do not consider ti charge of ‘ bribing voters and purchasii your election * a serious one, I know n< “Crimes against individuals, such larceny, embezzlement, forgery, are i significant compared with crimes again the sacred rights of citizenship and ti elective franchise, which is the bulwai and foundation of our liberties. L every thoughtful man, partisan though ] may be, pause, reflect, and take to hea the earnest call made upon you in Api last by one of the leading Republic! papers of the country, the Philaddjk Press , to meet the charges against yc fully and completely. “ Had you the right appreciation of tl gravity of the accusation against you, yc would not have let four months dap without even as much as a murmur, an were you at this late day to bring an actio against your accuser it would lack fore and weight, as the law’s delay coul easily be invoked by your counsd i defer trial until after election, and thei as is generally done in such cases, hai the suit withdrawn. “ The nomination of ex-Governc Robert E. Pattison, fortunately, makes easy for Republicans who own then selves to exercise their better judgmei by casting their ballots for him. Hi personal character is without blemisl his record whenever the rights of th people were jeopardized by arrogant an powerful corporations is enviable; hi political career has won the admiratio of even his political opponents, as ei pressed in the editorial remarks of th most partisan Republican papers whei he relinquished the Gubernatorial offic four years ago. ...” After an exciting campaign, appeals ti honor and conscience prevailed; Dela mater was defeated by Pattison, a Demo Digitized by Google
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Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen ” of Pennsylvania. 229 & tat Quay, having thus forfeited the -Governorship, took unadulterated pleas- l; i ire in firing a characteristic parting shot at y he guileless reformers whom he had so z opportunely buncoed. He repudiated : ib short but unique alliance with them l ind covered his retreat by proclaiming be hat he had tried to please the reformers . >y nominating and electing a candidate rrf their choice and after their own hearts. l The more experienced of Hastings’ iriends were doubtful of Quay’s sincerity, ind the sequel proved that they were light. Four years later. Quay did every- thing in his power to persuade the leaders jf the Philadelphia delegation, in whose presence ho had made the solemn pledge to Hastings, to abandon the latter and turn in for William A. Stone, on the pound that Stone would not have to be told what was expected of him, but would know by intuition what Quay wanted and be eager to do it. These persuasions to political treachery failed to carry, and Hastings was nominated by the Republican State Convention in 1894, not because Quay desired to keep his promise, but because he could not con- vince enough of the delegates that the violation of a contract of this nature was good politics. He submitted to , the nomination of Hastings because he could not help it. He insisted, however, on dominating the policy and appointments of the Hastings administration until he forced a breach and originated a factional opposition to his leadership, which raged and kept him in constant turmoil and perturbation for the next half-dozen years. Quay had succeeded in securing his reelection to the United States Senate in 1892 because the Independent organiza- tion, which had defeated Delamater in 1890, had not been maintained, being suffered to lapse into disintegration with the dose of that campaign, while Hastings and bis friends remained quiescent, relying on his promise that the latter should not be opposed for the Governor- ship in 1894. Having in this way again DAVID MARTIN, Fob Yeab8 Lkadkb of " The Combine.'* Long one of Quay’s lieutenants, then a victim of his duplicity. Quay denounced him in the United States Senate ; afterwards retracted and apologised. fortified himself in the possession of a place of great power for six years to come. Quay grew, bolder and more uncom- promising and dictatorial in his manner than ever. After Hastings’ election he had alienated by his duplicity and ar- rogance the leaders of the Republican organization in Allegheny county and Philadelphia, who now formed an alliance with the Governor and his ad- ministration and determined to submit to the Quay yoke no longer. The Allegheny leaders were C. L. Magee and William Flinn. David Martin was the recognized head of the Philadelphia organization. The combination was a powerful one in the number of delegates it could control in a State Convention and it was made still more so by the sympathy it secured from the country districts among a large class of the in- Digitized by Google
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230 Masters and Riders of “ The Freemen ” of Pennsylvania. GEN. JAME8 A. BEAVER, Who, after an honorable and brilliant career In the army, served four years as Governor. Now Judge or the Superior Court. telligeni Republicans who had grown restive under Quay’s tyrannical rule. The first dash came in the fight for the control of the Republican State Com- mittee and the election of a Chairman. During the previous campaign, the Chair- man of the State Committee had been B. F. Gilkeson, who received the appoint- ment as Commissioner of Banking upon the installation of Hastings as Governor, in 1895. Gilkeson had always been a Quay partisan, but having accepted a State office which made him a part of the administration, Hastings and his friends decided to make battle for his reelection to the State Chairmanship. Quay, realiz- ing that the combination was too powerful to be beaten by anything short of the most heroic measures, threw himself into the breach and announced his own candidacy for the Chairmanship in op- position to that of Gilkeson. As usual Quay played the game with a double face. He secured large contribu- tions from corporations, moneyed institu- tions and other dependent sources which were under obligations to him, or were made to believe they were. These cam- paign-funds he used extravagantly and, of course, corruptly to secure the election of delegates pledged to his support, while at the same time he pretended to be horrified at the corruption practiced by his op- ponents. He secured the adoption of the following plank in the platform of the State Convention which was to choose the State Chairman : “ We decry the growing use of money in politics, and the corporate control of Legislatures, Municipal Councils, political primaries and elections, and favor the enactment of laws to correct such abuses.” As a matter of fact, he had spent several hundred thousand dollars in electing and purchasing delegates to the Con- vention which he forced to adopt this resolution, by the practice of the very abuses which he decried. The resolution was a ludicrous instance of Satan rebuk- ing sin. His posing as the apostle of reform on this occasion was one of the most enliven- ing chapters of Quay’s career; it was ‘'high comedy.” He had, at that time, lost control of the municipal rings of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh; they had dissolved partnership with him and had to be disciplined ! He declared war against them with this ultimatum : “ That he would fight the battle for ‘good gov- ernment’ (sic) until he was eliminated from Pennsylvania politics or until the lobbyist, contractor, jobber, ballot-thief and franchise-grabber had become a nightmare of the past!” The thought of Mr. Quay leading a political revival was enough to make angels weep and could hardly have been eclipsed by Robert G. Ingersoll conduct- ing a religious revival. Yet his simu- lated candor deceived even as seasoned and cool-headed an observer as Colonel McClure who took Quay’s promises at Digitized by y.ooQle
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Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen 99 of Pennsylvania. 281 face value but found them to be veritable “Chadwick” notes. In an editorial, “ Quay the Republican Tilden,” Colonel McClure used this language in commending the new reform movement launched by the greatest political craftsman of our time and gener- ation: “Senator Quay has assumed the role of Tilden in Pennsylvania” . . . “There is no misunderstanding the at- titude in which Senator Quay stands before the people of Pennsylvania to-day ” . . . “ He stands for better politics, for independent legislation in city and State, the entire freedom of elections” . . . “for proper control of corporate power” . . . “ civil service,” . . . “ overthrow of the lobbyist and jobber!” . . . “And to this cause the Senator is so solemnly and positively committed that for him to falter in the struggle would be to end his public career in infamy and shame!” The political millennium seemed within reach but it was quickly side-tracked and gave way to a regime even more debased, vicious and offensive than that of the past, which in comparison to its successor was a mere kindergarten of infamy. Quay after this “Opera Bouffe Reform Mon- strosity” used money more, profusely than ever to maintain his power; he fathered and encouraged bad and corrupt legislation to an extent hitherto unknown; corporate control assumed intolerable proportions; elections became the merest farce; the jobber and lobbyist reigned supreme! The “ Republican Tilden ” died of inanition; he was carried to an untimely grave; no head-stone marks his mystical abode! It was at this time that Frank Willing Leach, a pronounced reformer in 1882, soon thereafter in Quay’s service, now occupant of a fat place in the Sheriff’s office, resigned his position and enlisted for Quay with these words: “Recently a vicious warfare has been inaugurated against him (Senator Quay), led almost wholly by men who have been raised by ( A* r/ Paolo, by Guiekunst, Phlia. GEORGE B. ORLADY, A Distinguished Jurist. Judge of the Superior Court his influence from ‘ insignificance and penury to prominence and wealth.’ ” What a wealth of information these few words convey! Mr. Leach should have explained by what means Quay raised his henchmen from “penuiy to wealth ” — in what legitimate business enterprise? Was it the iron industry, in cotton or woolen mills, in banking or merchandising, farming or the work- shop, or where? The glaring light of truth was unwittingly thrown upon the dark and devious ways of Quay’s politics which enabled his followers to amass suspicious wealth in what should be the most honorable of all our callings — in public office! Even with his lavish expenditures. Quay would have failed of success except for the audacity with which he claimed delegates who were loyal to his opponents, and the threats of extreme measures to which he resorted for the purpose of Digitized by Google
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232 Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen ” of Pennsylvania . frightening them into a compromise. To explain this it will be necessary to shortly review the situation. A law had been passed creating a Superior Court consisting of seven Judges, five of whom were Republicans and two Democrats. Hastings had appointed these judges, three or four of whom were his per- sonal friends, including former Governor James A. Beaver, George B. Or- lady and Charles E. Rice, all ex- cellent appoint- ments. It was expected that these Republican judges would, following the usual custom, be nominated by the Republican State Conven- tion for the full ten-year terms. Quay seized up- on this condition to play a com- bined game of bluff, coercion and false repre- sentation, which resulted in suc- cess. Calling a caucus of his fol- lowers on the evening before the Convention, at which none of the dele- gates known to be loyal to the Hastings candidate for State Chairman were present, Quay sent out an untrue report to the effect that those attending and pledged to his candidacy constituted a majority of the Convention. This in itself did not deceive the clear-headed leaders of the opposition who were satis- fied that the statement was a false one. It was accompanied however, by a threat that the Quay contingent would hold a separate Convention the next day, and nominate a complete set of new candi- THREE VICTIM8 OF EVIL A880CIATI0N: J. BLAKE WALTERS, CA8HIER OF THE 8 TAT E TREASURY, THROUGH WHOSE CONNIVANCE QUAY SPECULATED WITH STATE FUNDS. HE COMMITTED SUICIDE. A. WILSON NORRIS. AUDITOR-GENERAL, QUAY*8 PARTICU- LAR CRONY. HE DRANK HIM8ELF TO DEATH. JOHN S. HOPKINS, CA8HIER PEOPLE’S BANK, IN WHOSE DESK WERE FOUND THE PAPERS INCRIMINATING QUAY IN MIS- USING THE BANK’8 FUND. HE COMMITTED SUICIDE. dates for the Superior Court Judgeships and that this separate ticket would be maintained in the field to defeat the Judges already on the bench. This cabal of deceit and threat fright- ened Hastings, who did not want to sacrifice his friends, and the result was a proposition for a midnight conference, consisting of three members from each side, to arrange a compromise programme for the Convention of the following day. The main condition insist- ed on by Quay was his own elec- tion as State Chairman, in consideration of the nomination of Hastings’ friends for the Superior Court, Hastings learn- ed, with chagrin, after he had been dragooned into this agree- ment to save his friends, that Quay did not control a major- ity of the dele- gates, and that if he and his friends had maintained a bold front, the bluff would have failed, and Quay would have been unhorsed. It is worthy of note, in this connection, that one of the articles of the compromise agreement consisted of a pledge on the part of Quay and his friends to support Hastings for the United States Senator- ship upon the expiration of Don. Cam- eron’s term, two years later. It is need- less to add that this was a pledge Quay never intended to keep, he having already given a similar promise to two prominent Philadelphians. While it is probable Digitized by LjOOQle
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Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen” of Pennsylvania . iS3 that, at this time, he had not definitely He picked out his candidate and boasted decided which of the two he would prove that he would make not only his nomina- false to, it is beyond question that he tion, but also his election, unanimous, intended to cheat Hastings. On being remonstrated with because the As a sequel to this contest which he candidate was considered an infidel, he had won by an unheard of expenditure sneeringly asked: “What church would of cash, by false pretenses, audacity and you like him to join ? Tell me, and 1 11 coercion. Quay shortly afterwards stated see to it.” Popular indignation at Quay’s to a friend who made the story public, arrogance, at last awakened, knew no that any loyal follower of his who would bounds; there was an uprising of all repay him the hundreds of thousands of classes demanding home-rule and the dollars the State Chairmanship had cost, turning down of Quay’s man. David could have it and welcome, as the only Martin, the City boss, long one of his use he had for the position was to keep it faithful adherents, fearing party defeat, under his control! succeeded in convincing Quay that his In 1895 Quay arrogated to himself the candidate could not be elected, and Quay nomination of a Mayor of Philadelphia, agreed to his being deserted. This Digitized by Google
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234 Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen ” o/ Pennsylvania. Photo, by Gutekunat, Phlla. JAMBS McMANES. President Peoples Bank, Who. rather than have its unsavory affairs exposed, per- sonally paid the deficit of S600,000. created such a storm of fury among the powerful friends of the “betrayed aspir- ant for the mayoralty” that Quay be- came frightened, and, fearful of losing caste and influence, he looked for a scape- goat and selected David Martin as the most convenient and plausible victim. Without the least compunction he charged him with the candidate’s betrayal and made the affair appear like a case of high treason which demanded, if not instant decapitation, prompt and exemplary pun- ishment. Quay took the first opportunity to denounce David Martin on the floor of the United States Senate as the paid agent and lobbyist of the Pennsylvania Railroad, relegated him to the rear and made Israel W. Durham, the present head of the machine, his successor. Not long afterwards Quay apologized to David Martin by openly declaring that he had been mistaken. His accusation had worked like a two-edged sword, and hurt Martin less than it did his alleged employers, whose enmity the Senator could not afford. In spite of his political chicanery, his frequent betrayal of friends when he could no longer use them or could sup- plant them by enlisting the services of former opponents, Quay had the good- will if not regard of many prominent men, especially in the manufacturing industries. This was largely owing to his exertions when the Wilson Bill was before Congress. All branches of the National Government were in the hands of the Democrats who, among other reductions, proposed radical changes in the iron and woolen schedules. Quay defeated them by strategy which would do honor to the lone highwayman holding up a train. He threatened, not to shoot, but to talk to death the unresisting Sena- tors who were, and still are, clinging to that irrational and unjustifiable vagary called “ Senatorial courtesy,” which permits any member to talk ad infinitum on a sub- ject or bill, even if he has nothing to say. Quay read, day after day, speeches of which he was not the author (they were written for him by tariff experts, at the instance of Thomas Dolan), in a tone hardly audible, and continued until he had literally worn out the opposition and until they accepted changes upon which he insisted. This may be called “ states- manship ” by interested parties, but thinking people generally will denounce this manner of legislating as a dangerous precedent which may come home to worry its advocates when they least expect it. It is perhaps admissible here to ex- press the hope that “ Senatorial ar- rogance” will soon be given the quietus by President Roosevelt, by his making Senators understand that the Constitu- tion says : “ The President shall nominate and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate shall appoint ” .... does not mean, by and at the command and dictation of the Senate shall appoint. . . . Digitized by Google
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Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen ” of Pennsylvania . 235 It will be a happy day for our country when the President asserts himself and relegates usurpers of his prerogatives to their proper places. A spectacle which those who witnessed it will never forget was the placing in nomination of Quay for the Presidency of the United States, at the St. Louis Convention, in 1896. He had, by his peculiar methods, secured a majority of the Pennsylvania delegates who were willing to gratify his ambition for an empty honor in the nomination for the highest office in the gift of the people. They knew that he, of all men, had not the ghost of a chance of election, even with Bryan as his opponent. Senator Foraker, of Ohio, in a brilliant speech, which aroused the immense audience to the highest enthusiasm, nominated Wil- liam McKinley, the pure and patriotic man of the people, whose untimely and tragic death was mourned the world over. Pennsylvania followed Ohio and cut a sony figure when Governor Hastings, of commanding presence, ascended the rostrum and attempted to eulogize the man who had duped and cheated him so often, and who he knew would do so again at the first opportunity. It was a distressing sight, from the popular out- break for McKinley to the paid clackers who had been hired and were distributed over the vast auditorium to create en- thusiasm and applause for Quay, but ingloriously failed ! Hastings regretted in after life, that he ever consented to play such a farcical rdle before the country. Quay’s betrayal of official trust in securing a pardon for Kemble; his con- tinued silence on the grave charge of illegally using and speculating with treas- ury funds to the amount of a quarter of a million dollars, remained unavenged; it seemed as if he were immune and that he would never be taken before the bar of justice. His successful evasion of punish- ment made him bolder and bolder until at last, he was caught in transactions which caused the greatest sensation. Photo, by Gutekunst, Phila. P. F. ROTHERMEL, JR., Dwtrict- Attorney of Philadelphia, Who prosecuted Quay on criminal charges. Quay was acquitted. Rothermel was punished by being refused a renomination. Philadelphia was startled one morning by the announcement that John S. Hopkins, cashier of the People’s Bank had committed suicide, by shooting. This bank was owned and controlled largely by politicians who made it a clearing-house for their financial trans- actions and kept enormous deposits of State funds in its vaults. An investiga- tion of the bank’s affairs disclosed the fact that Quay and State Treasurer Haywood had conspired to loan the bank large amounts of State funds which were then used by Quay and his friends for speculating and other purposes. Some of the papers found in Hopkins’ desk incriminated Quay to such an ex- tent that proceedings were instituted against him and he was arrested. The following correspondence throws light upon these unclean transactions: Digitized by Google
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236 Masters and Riders of “ The Freemen" of Pennsylvania. “Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. “Treasury Department. “Harrisburg, Pa., July 31, 1896. “James McManes, Esq., President Peoples’ Bank, Philadelphia, Pa. Dear Sir: On Monday we will mail you check for $100,000, for credit of Commonwealth of Pennsylvania General Fund, which will make a credit to our account of $600,000. The understanding is that I am not to draw against any part of this $600,000 deposit until the Hon. R. R. Quay has paid or arranged satisfactory to you the loan of $100,000, which you are to make to him next week. “Very truly yours, (Signed) “B. J. Haywood, “ State Treasurer .” This was a plain conspiracy which in- volved the Peoples Bank President, James McManes, formerly President of the Philadelphia Gas Trust of unsavory memory, R. R. Quay (the Senator’s son) and the State Treasurer. The most interesting paper found was the now famous “ Shake the Plum-Tree ” telegram: “The Western Union Telegraph Com- pany. “No. Sent by Rec’d by Check “N.P. H.Y. R. 10 Dh. “Received at 10.14 A. M. “Dated St. Lucie, Fla., 4. “ To John S. Hopkins : “ If you buy and carry a thousand met. for me I will shake the plum tree. “M. S. Quay.” Quay’s letter to Cashier Hopkins also is significant: “ 1612 K. Street, Dec. 10, 1897. “Dear John: I have 1000 shares Sugar at Huhns, bot at 142, which I wish you to pay for and take over to the Peoples. I have bot it ‘for keep* but do n’t wish the stock to be placed in my name just yet, as I will sell if I find I can get it in lower. “Gut rid of the Met Scrip & Cen Jersey stock as rapidly as you can at figures fixed. “ Yours truly, (Signed) “M. S. Quay.” Quay’s trial was a “ cause cefebre” It Digitized by Google
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Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen,, of Pennsylvania. 237
JfatW' Mu,*\ If 04 ttPluMj fa* ft*1 4 WA Cl-IKZ (PujU**- *?/l*0€* l' ^’hujuxfo' /W <*W ^ .ydlwfi £lr lU*te4 fU ***/ ****** Jfn^P *jU. 04 J u4^ y* $13 J ^ ~ ^ ( 4i&f- 41$ bfr. ifa* Sh'l&t* •Sh/tfa *• (3tAM ]v^l 9^h uLO-f &/ you (B*t**. " fold- ^ rsOots7 ioooCt^f Vli. J. Scc^t^ lasted nine days, from April 11th to April 20th, 1899. He was defended by the ablest attorneys obtainable and the prosecution was conducted by District- Attorney Rothermel with marked ability. Quay ap- peared before the bar of justice with utter noncha- lance,— one might have thought he was the least interested person in court; and he had good reason to so appear, for his attor- neys held the trump-card which they played at the proper moment. When the District-Attorney offer- ed the papers found in poor Hopkins’ desk and got to the marrow of the charges the defence pleaded die two-year statute of limita- tions, thus excluding the vital proofs of Quay’s guilt. The judge, thanks to the law that throws its safe- guards around the big crim- inal, had to sustain die de- fence ! Quay escaped con- viction, but severe punish- ment was meted out to District-Attorney Rothermel, who had had the temerity to place Quay on a level with the ordinary sinner and had prosecuted him without fear or favor. He was a marked man from that day and was denied a re-nom- ination by the all-powerful organization of Quay adherents at the expiration of his term. When Quay left the court-room he was received by a shouting multitude and escorted to his hotel like a conquering hero. What a sad commentary on the morality of a community! The accused whose guilt was clear, escaped jail only by pleading that which an innocent man would spurn to interpose — “ the statute of limitations”; he is honored and ap- plauded to the echo — what may tins echo have whispered when it reached Quay’s ears ? Thus Quay disgraced perhaps the highest law-making body on earth. When he returned to Washington he was showered with congratulations by many of his colleagues and Pennsylvania, to her eternal shame, later on returned him to the United States Senate for the third time! One of the latest victims of Quay’s treachery was Attorney-General Elkin, to whom the succession to Governor Stone had been promised. Elkin had a majority of the delegates but Quay, fearing a contest and the defeat of the Republican ticket on account of Elkin’s record as a member of the Stone cabinet, ordered his undoing and selected in his Digitized by CjOOQle
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238 Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen ” of Pennsylvania. Photo, by Gutekunsi, Phila. JOHN P. ELKIN. Quay broke faiili with him and prevented his nomina- tion for Governor of Pennsylvania. Lately elected a member of the Supreme Court. place Judge Samuel W. Pennypacker, of Philadelphia. Mr. Elkin, though at first refusing to submit, at last succumbed and was rewarded two years later by being elected as one of the Judges of the Supreme Court. While the one-man power that can shift a candidate from political to judicial office is dangerous, Mr. Elkin is known as a man, still on the sunny side of life, of unusual ability, and it is the hope of his friends as well as his late opponents, that he may win laurels in his high and responsible office that will redound to his honor and credit. The candidacy of Judge Pennypacker was received with feelings of mixed amusement and surprise. Ilis integrity was beyond question, liis sincerity of pur- pose undoubted, but his political wisdom was distrusted. Judge Pennypacker at the head of the machine ticket, to many, seemed as absurd a proposition as would be an orthodox minister at the head of a J. HAY BROWN. Justice of Supreme Court. Entered a dignified protest against elevating Penny- packer to the Supreme Court through a political deal. For this he was viciously attacked by Quay in his last message to “ The Republicans of Pennsylvania." congregation of avowed infidels, or a band of thieves with “Thou shalt not steal ” for their motto. Pennypacker was elected and it was not long until the “gang” found a marked change in the gubernatorial atmosphere at Harrisburg, a change that will be discussed in another article. The politicians who had applauded Pennypacker’s nomination and election soon ascertained that they had made an egregious blunder and looked for relief. They proposed to have Pennypacker vacate the Governor’s chair in favor of Lieutenant-Governor Brown, who was more to their liking. A vacancy in the Supreme Court presented the desired opportunity and Pennypacker was tempt- ed to take the bait; while he never de- clared himself a candidate, he coyed with the allurement for months. Digitized by CjOOQle
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A Pen-Picture of a Great Radical Meeting in Paris. 239 About this time Quay made his last appearance on the political stage in a letter to “The Republicans of Pennsyl- vania” on Pennypacker’s alleged candi- dacy, which disclosed a remarkable change in the Senator’s mentality and penetration. In this letter he treated the Governor as a nonentity who would have to do as he was ordered. He plainly stated that he knew more about the gubernatorial exchange proposal than Pennypacker himself, indeed no one doubted that he originated the brilliant idea of imitating the “ department-store exchange system ” in the political field: “If the governor does not suit, bring him back and I ’ll exchange him.” Governor Pennypacker had the good sense to decline being made a stalking- horse for the purpose of putting in his place a successor who was wanted by the whole machine outfit, although Quay led him up into a high mountain, showed him the chair of the Supreme Court, asked him to worship Satan, and all would be his! Quay in his manifesto made a vulgar and ferocious attack upon Justice Brown, who had entered a thoughtful and digni- fied protest in defence of the honor and integrity of the Supreme Court; he dis- closed the cloven foot when he stated that all officials whether page, door-keeper, governor or judge owed their positions to the “close” organization of which he was the type and master. In short he showed that the frail body and his intel- lectuality were fast approaching dissolu- tion; the letter was written at his winter retreat, St. Lucie, Florida, February 13, 1904, and he died at his Beaver home. May 28th of the same year. Mr. Quay’s friends and admirers who may chance to read this sketch will in all probability condemn it as cold, illiberal and severe. They should not forget that it deals only with the public life and acts of its subject. If there are any misstatements, let them be pointed out; if there are none, let the plainness of speech be ascribed to the pen of one who considers wrong-doing in public life as an unpardonable sin, aggravated to a degree if committed by a man of good blood, bright mind and high education. The seed sown by Quay in early man- hood had matured and ripened, and as the grim reaper " approached it revealed a growth of hurtful, poisonous vines, parasitic and destructive, which, unless uprooted and stamped out, may wither the glorious work of Washington and Lincoln. (To be continued .) Rudolph Blankenburg. Philadelphia , Pa. A PEN-PICTURE OF A GREAT RADICAL MEETING IN PARIS. By Mrs. Frances Hardin Hess, 8pecial Commissioner of Tub Abena in Paris. EVEN though the American, by the recent presidential election, has just had translated for him, into figures, the growth of the Socialist movement in the United States, still it is difficult for the average citizen of the United States to recognize the magnitude of any pro- paganda until it affects his own personal relations. Several months have passed since election-day, and even yet it has not filtered down into the brain of the two controlling parties that a mighty wave of something has swept over the ballot-box, and that this wave must Digitized by Google
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240 A Pen-Picture of a Great Radical Meeting in Paris. henceforth be reckoned with in guiding the ship of state. France can teach them — Democrats, Republicans, aye, politicians of every ilk, — just as the French Revolution taught the world a new rule of conduct, “ Libert et Egalite , et Fratemite”; for Socialism in France has parsed out of the experimental stage and already it is ingrained in the fabric of the body-politic. Indeed, the balance of power in France to-day is held by Socialism, not . because (as in the United States) it is a third political party leaning to the side, that gives it the most hope, but because of the actual representation \n the .governing bodies, — representation put there by the franchise of the people. Then, too, progress is always, .repre- sented by positive t character, and - in France to-day, whatever else may he said of it, Socialism has chosen men jto represent it that are fearless, unequivocal, and uncompromising. Photo, by Catel Farcy, Paris. ANATOLE FRANCE. Photo. by'Gerschel, Paris. . FRANCIS DE PRES8EN8Sfe, The recent Socialist Conference held at the Palais du Trocadero revealed a vitality that,- to say the least, must have irritated the opposing politicians. Various were the estimates as to the numbers present. Some said five thou- sand, others fifteen thousand, but that is irrelevant. The “staying power” was what in- terested me. The house was packed to the roof an hour before the appointed time (8.30 P. M.). Midnight came and went. Still this enormous concourse of people never diminished. Promptly at the hour advertised, amid a storm of applause, came the three speakers of the evening: Anatole France, Francis de Pressensse, and the “man of the hour” — Jean Jaiires. Any propaganda would have been happy to find itself ensconced in .these three types, for here were the mental, the moral, and the physical temperaments, each in its own way proclaiming what Socialism had done and would do. Digitized by Google
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241 A Pen-Picture of a Great Radical Meeting in Paris. Even the French nation itself stood symbolized before one in these three men, all in the prime of life. Anatole France presided. Anatole France, with all the elegant finesse of the Parisian; small, delicate in build; intellectual in feature; suave in manner; brilliant in address, — but why try to describe him? As a member of the “Forty Immortals” he has been por- trayed again and again. He opened the Conference with (as he said) “a few words,” but these few words occupied nearly an hour. He touched upon the meaning of Socialism in the abstract, and on its concrete interpretation in France. As a matter of course it was the latter item that formed the theme of his address. He pointed out the necessity of prosecu- ting the separation of the Church and the State, “so well begun,” and dwelt at length on the Russo-Japanese war. (And here I may note, for the sake of history, that the press gives the impression that all France sympathizes with Russia in the present unpleasantness, but when M. Anatole France passed in review all of the data concerning this war in the Far East, every sentence brought thunder- ing applause. It is not in my province to prejudice the question in any way, but I must state the facts of the evening, as I have said, “for history’s sake”). The newspapers of the following morn- ing (even those opposed to Socialism in all its forms) characterized the address as worthy of Voltaire, so brilliant, so scathing and so convincing was it. Francis de Pressenss4, editor of La Vie Socialists , certainly six feet in height, well proportioned in physique, giving one the impression of the sturdy English type, was more quiet and grave in manner than any Frenchman that I have ever seen. His address was also the most logical of the three, and though delivered in a conversational tone it was yet earnest and convincing. He dwelt on the in- justice of military trials and on the neces- sity of a reform in the “code de justice irtititoire” Freely translated, he said: “I will not speak of the making (!) of officers, nor of the officers hostile to the Republic. I wish simply to call your attention to the ordinary soldier— -the private — and I wish to decry the exploits of military justice (or the military-court trials) — this bad institution which it is necessary to suppress because it is im- possible to have a military justice that will be fust . It is an institution which is absolutely contrary to all democratic gov- ernment.” Then he dwelt on the rise and growth of the idolatry of the army. This latter point recalled to my mind a certain reverence for things military that is creep- ing into the United States. It seemed to me that it would not be a bad move if the Americans would invite M. de Pressenss£ to the United States, for his evidence is eminently in keeping with those who do not believe in a large standing army; with those who believe in anti-imperial- ism; with those who prefer a real democ- racy to a pseudo-empire. Half past ten brought the dose of this able exposition of conditions militaire in France, and of the work Socialism had accomplished in this avenue, and the work that lies before not only the French Socialists but all mankind that would suppress abuse of power. Then came Jaurfes, the idol of the rank and file of France; of the “ masses as op- posed to the dasses.” As he sat in Ins chair, during the other addresses, he im- pressed me as distinctly theatrical; he seemed to me to assume poses; beseemed to make an effort to appear interested in what the others were saying; he seemed to me to be the first to lead applause when the others had scored a point; he seemed to me, in other words, consdous that he was in the lime-light of public appredation. I said all of this to my neighbor, a French workingman. “Ah!” he said, “you misjudge him. He is a man of the people and for the people. He is French and you are American; you ought to understand him* Digitized by Google
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242 The New School of Socialism in Europe. but you don’t. You vriU, when be is through speaking.’’ At this juncture he arose to speak. He did not remain behind the president’s table, as the others had done, but came out to the front of the magnificent stage. All who had sat around him during the evening instinctively moved back to give more room. He had the full sweep of many square feet and this space he utilized to its full extent as he paced back and forth in his opening. I acknowledge that I was more than ever unpleasantly impressed, and I settled back in my chair to listen perfunctorily. But not many words had fallen from the orator’s lips before I began to realize the man and to understand in a measure his power. Not so tall as de Pressenss4, yet as heavily built, his body seemed too large for his lower extremities. His head, larger in proportion than his body, sits on a throat built as a ponderous column between two massive shoulders. Look at his picture, and the heavy jaws show the bull-dog tenacity of never letting go, of keeping everlastingly at detail, — that infinite capacity which Carlyle character- izes as genius. Florid in complexion; hair red-brown, flecked with gray; eyes restless (as are all French eyes) but kind and at limes pathetic — eyes magnetic as are the eyes of every leader of men; full of movement as every man of romance blood, yet by the veiy intensity of every motion swaying the multitude to agree with him in spite of themselves, Jean Jaurfes won my admiration as he has that of everyone who comes in touch with the magic of his power. “The Interior and Exterior Political Life of France” was the thread upon which he strung pearl after pearl of oratory. As I have said, magnetic, earnest to a fault, he played upon the people’s feelings until they could restrain themselves no longer, and burst forth into wild applause. Over and over again did this occur until it seemed that the gamut of human emotions had certainly spent its force; but when the “wee, sma’ hour” of one o’clock had struck, the vast army of people was loath to let him go. After sketching the philosophy of Socialism and its power to settle all human ills in the general, and France’s troubles in particular, he concluded as follows: “ Socialism is no longer groping. That which appeared as a dream has crystal- lized itself into an ideal of reality. The men of my generation will not bequeath to mankind complete justice , but they will bequeath to it un commencement de justice , et la certitude de la justice com- plete Frances Hardin Hess. Pans, France . THE NEW SCHOOL OF SOCIALISM IN EUROPE. By David Graham Phillips. AT THE 1904 Congress of the Inter- XI national Socialist Party, at Amsterdam, every delegation, including that from the United States, was able to report substantial to amazing progress in its own country. That there are now about ten million Socialist voters in the civilized nations; that the Socialists are a great political power in France, Belgium, Holland, Italy and Spain; that they have more members of the lower house of the German parliament than any other party, except possibly one; that their prop- aganda is the most active in the world to-day except that of the Roman Catholic Church — these and many similar facts Digitized by Google
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243 The New School of Socialism in Europe. are interesting and important; but they do not begin to measure the importance of the Socialist movement. Socialism, as a dogmatic system, is the outgrowth of the teachings of that group of French political economists whose writings were so influential in directing the French revolution, who were the intellectual ancestors of Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham and the Mills in England, and who inspired the German Hebrew, Karl Marx, to write — or rather, to begin — Das Kapital, the most famous and probably the most influential work on political economy ever written, the holy book of Dogmatic Socialism. And this latest international congress, like its predecessors, reaffirmed the letter of the creed and frowned on any and all partici- pation by Socialist parties in the govern- ment of their respective countries. Ap- parently the Socialist Party is just where it was at the beginning, is waiting patient- ly until it has an overwhelming majority everywhere, then to reorganize society at a single stroke. But this is apparent, not real. The old-time Socialists, like the eminent orator and writer, Bebel of Germany, who is perhaps the best-known Socialist in the world, still dominate. They stand sternly for no compromise. They fear that the first compromise with the exist- ing order, however plausibly to the advantage of Socialism, would be as the entering wedge to the complete disruption of the movement and the loss of all that has been so hardly won. They know human nature and they fear that, if Socialist leaders accept offices from aristo- cratic or bourgeoise governments, Social- ism will be used by ambitious “ sparrers for positions ” to get themselves the com- forts and the honors they covet, and the cause will go the way of so many other causes of promising beginning. But there is an increasing minority in the International Socialist Party that openly repudiates this policy of aloofness and inaction; and in die majority, bow- ing to the party’s ancestral heroes and to its living hero, Bebel, there is an increas- ing number that is impatient of the old restraints, regarding them as the product of Socialism in its theoretical stage and as out of place now that a practical work can be done. These “ heretics,” as Bebel would call them, represent the Socialism of to-morrrow, the Socialism that is to be the greatest problem the present social order has had to face. It will be these Socialists of to-morrow that the dominant Individualism of the United States will have to meet — and yield to or win over. There are three ideas which may be called the irreducible minimum of the new Socialism as well as of the old. These three are: First . The brotherhood of man. Second . The infamy of war. Third . The community of goods. Bebel preaches these, and so does Jaurfes. Wherever you find a Socialist, there you will find a man who, whether or not he thinks Karl Marx was the giver of a final gospel of political economy, will stand in the last ditch for those three principles. They are Socialism. These doctrines will have a familiar historic sound to everyone who has read the history of the early Christian church, that practiced literally the teachings of Jesus. It at once appears that here, in this great industrial-political-ethical movement, is a modem recrudescence of the early Christian Church, a re- statement to this “ bourgeoise society ” of employer and employ^, of the ideas that shook to its foundations the Roman society of master and slave. There is one radical difference — in addition, of course, to the difference of origin. The early Christian fathers, looking about a world ringing with the anguish of the op- pressions of that day, saw no hope here and pointed the eagerly listening multi- tudes of Rome’s wretched subjects to the life hereafter; the Socialists, finding the human lot vastly ameliorated and seeing in modem scientific advance prospect of Digitized by Google
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444 The New School of Socialism in Europe. vastly greater amelioration, point their hearers to happiness in this life — to the millennium of the universal social- democratic republic, abolishing boundary- lines, class-distinction, pride and power of private wealth. Bebel and the other diminishing though still dominant disciples of Marx and Liebknecht look on the Socialism as form- ulated by Marx and preached by lieb- knecht as a religion, look on any com- promise for any purpose much as an early Christian father looked on the alleged Christianity that erected its altars in the temples of the Olympic gods and trooped to worship with paganism. But not so the new-school Socialists under the leadership of Jaurfes. Beyond question these of the new- school are not less devoted than the old- timers. But they do not regard Social- ism as a religion dealing with a remote millennium of the International Social- Democratic Republic, but as a practical scheme for the gradual renovation of society, step-by-step. That is why those who regard Socialism as a peril are apt to feel that the J&urfes type is as much more dangerous than the Bebel type as a Robespierre was more dangerous than a fiery but dreamy, bookish Rousseau. Every great movement has had the two classes — the men who dreamed and the men who did, the unpractical souls who built and kindled the fire, the practical souls who took its flaming faggots and touched them to the institu- tions that were to be destroyed. And the doctrine, whatever it was, has always undergone strange transformations in passing from the theoretical to the practical stage. The leaders of the old Socialism were men born and bred in poverty, even in misery — its founder was not only a poor man, but also a Hebrew, and a Hebrew in Germany. They began to hate as soon as they began to think. At the doors of an “ employer and employ^ society,” with its inequalities in the dis- tribution of wealth and power, they laid all their misfortunes and wrongs. And they preached its utter destruction. They could see nothing good in it; they would have nothing to do with it except sword in hand and aimed at its heart To speak civilly to one of its functionaries or beneficiaries was to deny the faith. Not of this mettle or manner are the new Socialists to whom the control of the movement must soon pass. They are the children of the present generation — the generation that has begun to benefit throughout by the discoveries of science. They were born either in affluence or comfort, or, at the worst, in not wholly miserable poverty. They were educated well at splendid free schools. Their early associations were formed in the conditions of carelessness of class which ever more and more prevail in a society that becomes ever more and more demo- cratic in spite of the efforts of so many of the “ups” to convince the “downs” that “up” and “down” are not equally human. Thus, these practical Socialists endorse with a mental reservation the Socialists’ battle-cry: “You have everything to gain; you have nothing to lose but your chains.” They feel that, while this was probably true enough fifty years ago, it is considerable of an exaggeration to-day. They would probably modify it to some- thing like: “ Send the rest of your chains to join those you have already lost.” These new Socialists are many of them rich, almost all of them extremely com- fortable, almost none of them what would be called poor. They are skilful in their various businesses, trades, pro- fessions and they reap at least a part of the rewards of skill. They are em- ployers, many of them; and they think they know that there are other reasons for poverty and crime besides the unjust distribution of profits — the four I’s, for instance, Idleness, Incompetence, Ignor- ance and Intemperance. They say: “ Society was originally sacerdotal, be- came military, is now capitalistic. The rule of priest was better than no rule; Digitized by Google
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The New School of Socialism in Europe. the rale of soldier was perferable to the rule of priest; the rule of “ Captain of Industry” is an advance upon the rule of the soldier. What next? Why not this Socialistic scheme? Certainly there will be something — evolution is not over, perfection is not attained. We can’t foresee what that something will be. Let us take this Socialism as a steering hypothesis, as lying in the right direction, even though it be beyond the port we may hope to reach, and let us work heartily for the best we can get from day to day.” Of course, this is a guess at the “esoteric” doctrine of the new Socialism —at what is going on in the minds of its advocates. But the guess cannot be far wrong. As Balzac said: “The essence of party is action.” The essence of action is adaptation to circumstances. And the essence of adaptation is freedom from the tyranny of unchangeable non- essentials of creed. “On the way to the International Republic there are many important fortresses to be captured,” these new Socialists say. “For instance, there are the eight-hour law, compulsory arbitration, confiscatory inheritance-taxes, heavy graduated income-taxes, compulsion upon employers to insure employes, dividends to labor out of surplus during shut- downs, etc. For all these measures * practical’ Socialism,” they urge, “can get many allies who would never assent to any of the fundamental doctrines of Socialism, who would fly from proposals to abolish national boundary-lines or to disarm or to hold goods in common. Why not use these allies ? Perhaps they will like us better, and our doctrines too, after associating with us. We are in no more danger of going back to them than is a child in the fifth reader in danger of forgetting all it has learned by helping a child in the primer with its lessons. Then there are arbitration between na- tions, cutting down armaments, minimiz- ing the powers of privileged classes — would not these be great strides in the direction of what we want? Why not 245 act with those who, while not of our faith, would go at least so far ? ” To go again to the early history of Christianity for a simile — so long as the early Christians stood aloof and spat upon the ground openly whenever they passed a pagan temple, the church grew slowly. But when it became impossible to distinguish Christian from pagan by outside appearance, when Chnstian fe- male slave was proselyting the children of her master or was secretly filling the soul of her mistress with the fire of the new faith, then the triumph began; and before the rulers of Rome realized what was going on, the empire had been won — their very families were of the new faith without their knowledge. It is by some such method, adapted of course to freer modern conditions, that the new Social- ism propagates — and will propagate more and more vigorously from year to year. The criticism of the new Socialists upon the old, of the advocates of action upon the advocates of aloofness, appeals to the universal human instinct for “ doing something.” It appeals also to the rest- less impatience of those who are now inclining to Socialism in the belief that the injustices are an integral part of the present social structure and not a remnant from the past which democratic-individu- alistic progress will gradually eliminate as healthy blood eliminates hereditary weaknesses and diseases. The socialists of action say: “Look at Germany where our party’s open adherents with their families number nearly half of the whole population, where we have 52 daily newspapers and 17 bi- and tri-weeklies and weeklies, circulating 600,000 copies. We are in the majority in Saxony, yet thanks to the policy of inaction Saxony took away universal suffrage without any effective protest from us; and they are about to abolish universal suffrage in the empire. It is Teutonic to dream large dreams and quietly submit to anything reality may bring — it is Teutonic but it is not the way to make successful war upon caste.” Or, to quote Jaurfes: “ Revolu- Digitized by Google
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246 The New School of Socialism in Europe , tion does not precede light. First, light; be reconstructed into a modified social- then, revolution.” And, say the new democratic republic, with the production Socialists, the way to make political and distribution of the necessities of life f light is to enlist in practical political under a state control so rigid as practically action. to amount to Socialization, with heavy The great aids to the “ practical taxes on wealth, with compulsory arbitra- Socialist” propaganda, besides the ex- tion, etc. Whether either of these views cesses of princes and plutocrats, are the has any validity is of no consequence universal increasing intelligence and de- here. The point pertinent is that, in the sire for a higher standard of living, the opinion of the “practical” Socialists, universal free school, college and uni- and, for that matter, of the European versity, the newspaper full of news of the ruling classes, too, our ancient individu- higher standards of living, and the ever- alism is perishing. And the Socialists widening difference in all our modem laugh at the way Americans shy at the societies between the mode of living of the name Socialist. “ Read the platforms [of wealthy classes and that of the professors, both your great parties,” said a French teachers and comfortable classes generally. Socialist recently to an American. “ Read It is not easy for the professor or teacher the speeches of your candidates for office, with their one or two thousand a year to Read the laws proposed and the laws find wholly without flaw a system that en- passed at the last sessions of the legisla- ables men he regards as inferior mentally tures of all your great states. Then tell and morally, to have several palaces and me what you think has happened to your establishments in keeping. The professor cherished dogma of 4 Every tub on on its may not want the ostentations; but he dis- own bottom.9 No* you Americans have likes the sense of inferiority the other done with individualism. You are not man’s ostentations give him and his fellow- profound political reasoners but you are professors — and their wives and daughters, very practical. You think individuai- He will still cling to the sheet-anchor of ism is responsible for the sudden and individualism, but he will admit — and corrupt power of corporate wealth. That will teach and will spread the conviction — is not so, for it came about through that there is “ something 99 in the criticisms laws passed in violation of your great of these Socialists, wrong though they principle of free competition, through are fundamentally. And so, “ practical 99 laws favoring a few individuals at die Socialism has won a missionary, the more expense of the masses. However, we effective because unconscious and un- Socialists are not complaining. It suspected. does n9t matter whether you abandon The “practical99 Socialists look upon your false principle from good or from France and the United States as the two bad logic so long as you abandon it most promising fields for their gospel. America individualist? On the con- In the opinion of the writer, there are trary, it is Socialist. And your corrupt two views of the development of the corporations and your vulgar, ignorant United States widely entertained in moneyed class which your newspapers so Europe. The view of the European patriotically exploit — they are driving ruling classes is that we are rapidly mov- people of every kind, except the vulgar, ing toward an imperial oligarchy, with ignorant rich, into our ranks by the tens our oligarchs chosen by our aristocracy of thousands. They do n’t call them- of wealth through controlled parties, the selves Socialists yet. Most of them still choices being formally ratified by the have a vague suspicion that Socialism has people — just as the Roman Senate used something to do with bombs and assas- to “elect99 the Imperator. The other sinations. But they are socialistic, and view is that we are in the near future to that means that to-morrow they will be Digitized by Google
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247 The New School of Socialists, eager to end by legislation the stupid and cruel inequalities of the present rSgime” There is no denying that an impartial survey of civilization to-day does seem to show that the open and obvious advance of the gospel of Karl Marx does not adequately represent the triumphs of Socialism. Those triumphs, rather, ap- pear in the vague and intangible but portentously substantial results of the activities of the “practical” Socialist — he who shaves and bathes every morning, who does not wear great whiskers nor foam at the mouth, who changes his costume with the fashion, and conceals under the bosom of his immaculate shirt a heart all ablaze with enthusiasm for the cause he so discreetly advocates. Of these new-school Socialists, the most conspicuous and the most powerful is the Frenchman, Jean Jaurfes, states- man, orator, retail clothing-merchant and reputed millionaire. Ten years ago Jaurfes was looked on as an interesting dreamer; and even the old Bourbon aristocracy, clutching des- perately its shadowy claims to long ancestry, used to go to the Chamber of Deputies to hear his passionate eloquence against social injustice and against war and the military spirit. To-day, all the dements of reaction in France-all the aristocrats and all the snobs and all the dreamy theoretical monarchists in and around the French Academy — speak of him with shudders, and would no more go to the Deputies to hear him than they would go to a lazar house in plague-time. The reason is that everyone now sees that the supposed Utopian is a highly shrewd and practical man of affairs, as capable at politics as at' selling clothing. And in die “Bloc,” as they call the combine of sundry groups of radical Republicans v which administer the French Republic just now, while Jaurfes controls directly only the forty Socialist Deputies, he is, not indeed the whole directing force of the combine, but he has the best brain and the best backbone — and the best voice. Socialism in Europe. The citadel of his strength is his oratory. He comes from the South where France gets most of her great cooks, orators, statesmen, soldiers, artists, poets and business men. He has the ardent Southern temperament, but he combines with it calmness of judgment and a capacity to make political fights without bitterness. His opponents are bitter — so bitter that their abuse of him is usually coarse and crass, after the manner of the attacks of bad temper. Jaurfes is without sting — or, rather, he never uses his extremely penetrating and poisonous sting in personalities. His hate is all for error; his cue where persons are concerned is invariably sweet reason- ableness. And his lofty tolerance is really maddening — when you do n’t hap- pen to agree with him. But while he is talking, is pleading whatever cause, it is hard not to agree with him. In the first place, he is most moderate in statement, in that respect as unlike the run of radical talkers as a calm sea is unlike a lunatic sea. Nine-tenths of what he says is — at least, to a person bred in democratic-republican ideas — undisputably true. And he is always talking for and of peace, justice, sim- plicity, high thinking, courtesy — personal, national and international. And how well he does talk! A frank, common face, a beautiful voice, kindly, generous, good-humored eyes that darken to grow sad, not stem; the most ingratiating manner, the clearest of enunciations, the simplest words, the aptest illustrations. The transition from statement of fact to rhetorical fancy is always slow, carrying along the most unpoetic hearer, up and up until — the voice is silent; the dream is ended, and you say: “It was a dream, but such dreams should — and could — come true.” The last International Convention of Socialists, after listening with delight to his eloquence, reluctantly obeyed Bebel and refused to sanction the Jaurfes theory of the way to advance the Socialist cause. That assembly of old warriors Digitized by Google
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248 The New School of Socialism in Europe . against caste really, rather than against the social system, told him to please Bebel — that if the Socialist party in any country acted with any other groups, participated in national policies, accepted administration offices, the result would be simply the old, old story — ambition using the unrest of the masses to lift itself among the classes. And Jaurfes pleaded in vain; henceforth he goes on with his opportunist programme under the frown of the “ International.” But he will go on — and he knows that frown is only for Bebel’s sake. In the work of establishing the republic in France and eliminating the mon- archists and reactionaries from the con- trol of education, the army and the navy, the radical Republicans found that they could not count on one large Republican section. It refused to sanction what the radicals regarded as the vital part of the work, the tearing out of the venerable roots of the old regime , embedded in religion and in the military and naval caste. This “ moderate ” group took as its motto “Nothing arbitrary.” So, Waldeck-Rousseau, the then Prime-Min- ister, turned to Jaurfes and his group of thirty odd votes. He put one of J&urfes’ followers, Millerand, in his cabinet and thus got a majority of eleven for his famous law against the ecclesiastical associations in exchange for radical labor legislation. Ten years ago Socialism was about as unpopular and feeble in France as it is in the United States to-day. And the radical parts of {he Socialist programme, those that are crucially Socialistic, are still without any strong support outside of the artisans and day-laborers — an even smaller proportion of the population in France than with us. But Socialism — as a phrase, as a name — is heard in France now with astonishing tolerance when we consider that the Socialist attack is upon the capitalistic or employing classes and that these are the main classes of the French people. For, France is the land of the small farmer, the small manu- facturer and the small shop-keeper. Why does the bourgeoisie listen calmly and even complacently to the Socialists, why does it act cheerfully with them in politics, why does it consent with only mild murmurings to the adoption of one Socialistic project after another ? The answer is, Jaurfes. He is a Socialist — out and out, with voice ever lifted up against the employing classes, with ever fresh plans for curtailing their privileges, plans which he not merely talks but induces Combes and the Bloc to enact into law. But — Jaurfes is also a shop-keeper, and a mighty successful one. He is a bourgeois of the bourgeoisie, a perfect type. And the others look at him, at his wealth, at his shops, and say to themselves: “True, he does talk in a very unsettling way sometimes, and he urges and secures many laws which operate against his class. But it is his class, after all. He is ‘one of us.’ As he is a mighty shrewd fellow, he probably does these things to head off worse. These are troublesome times, and if there must be a revolutionary movement, it’s a good thing to have a fellow like Jaurfes in control of it, to guide it, to save what he can, to keep down its lunatics.” And further, Jaurfes being a bourgeois, has all the bourgeoisie’s deep predjudice against militarism, imperalism and every- thing else that tends to disturb peaceful toil and trade. And they love to hear him assail these things with eloquent fancy and still more eloquent fact. And they see that, largely through his untiring zeal and fertility of ideas and dauntless courage, the military spirit, so tradition- ally French, the craze for “la gloire ,” is being checked, sobered, shamed. Social- ism in France has its devoted following among the very elements that usually shriek loudest for war and make all the trouble in ticklish times — the class that has strong passions and not much ability to think and no business of its own to think about. It is to that public that Jaurfes has been talking; it is to that public that he has made his pleas for Digitized by Google
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249 The New School of Socialism in Europe. peace, disarmament and universal brother- hood. And the steady, conservative masses of the French, the bourgeoisie, feel that whatever harm he may have done and may be doing by assaults upon “ capitalism ” is more than counter- balanced by the good he has done and is doing as a potently persuasive preacher of peace and peaceful methods. There is no intention in the foregoing to impeach Jaurfes* disinterested sincerity as a Socialist. He is a Socialist, heart and brain, and life, if necessary. And all the time he is working toward the triumph of his Socialistic ideas and ideals. There are many kinds of opportunists. Most of them have no conscience but the expediency of the moment. Of those who start with conscience, few have more than a tattered shred of it or of conviction left after a brief period of trafficking under the dangerous flag of concession and compromise. As our own politics has too often shown, the good man who begins by tolerating evil that good may come, is soon doing evil that good may come, and thence slides easily down into the moral quagmire whence ever rises the steam and stench of hypocrisy to smutch and offend the face of heaven. But once in a while there comes a man with suffi- cient clearness of view and solidity of conviction to realize the opportunist ideal —compromise only to gain ground for principle. Jaurfes seems to be one of these admirable, dangerous men. For a cause, served by such a man, is bound to advance, regardless of whether it is a just cause or unjust. And the progress of Socialism in France is an illustration to the point. While the progress of Socialism in democratic America might be wholly calamitous, and proof of retro- gression from the state of individual free- dom which is America’s precious gift to her children, the same progress in pater- nalistic France might be an easing of the bonds of paternalism and a progress toward liberty. And it may be that France will have to go far toward Social- ism before she finds the road to freedom she has so long, so patiently, so hardily sought. In Europe, in all Europe, there is an inheritance from the past of which we Americans know little — the inheritance of the idea of the overlordship of the State. And that is why Socialism of the unadulterated brand takes so much more readily there than with us. Jaurfes, for example, is talking to a people who say to themselves: “The State must rule. Since that is so, let us take this man’s advice and appoint our own rulers and compel them to administer for our benefit instead of for the benefit of capital only.” Europe looks on the State as a guardian ; America looks on it as a ward. In France, Jaurfes is denounced by reactionaries of all degrees as a master, a tyrant, the actual ruler of the Bloc. “ He has but to lift his hand,” shrieks Paul de Cassagnac, “and Combes, like a well- trained dog, comes running.” At the Socialist International Congress, on the other hand, Jaurfes was denounced as a .slave. “He has made the Socialist party of France the tool of the bourgeois republic,” declared his opponents to the Congress. “ He has tied it to the Bloc." The truth lies between these two. He has kept the Socialist party intact. He has helped the Bloc to do things of which all Socialists approve, and in exchange has got many Socialistic concessions for workingmen. He has not abandoned the “ war upon classes,” but he has helped one class — the republicans — to disarm another, the monarchists. Bebel, and the most of the Socialists at the Congress, asserted that to them a republic run by capitalists was even more offensive than a monarchy, which might hold the balances with some of justice between capital and labor. But Jaurfes had the best of the argument. For, he pointed out that he was gaining ground for Socialism in France under his policy of opportunism while the opposite policy in other countries was keeping Socialism a mere theory. How far will Jaurfes go ? Those who do not wish to see France experiment Digitized by Google
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250 The New School of Socialism in Europe. with the Socialist State fear that he will go very far — and the French pattern will, in this day of the telegraph and the newspaper, not long escape the attention of the masses throughout civilization. Socialism has had thinkers; it has had orators, many orators; it has had able organizers of the converts made by its eloquent missionaries. But never before has it had a statesman . His calmer op- ponents compare him to France's other great statesman from the same South, and of the same mental and moral character- istics, Gambetta. He, too, was a mighty wielder of the difficult sword of opportun- ism— difficult to wield, difficult to oppose. But, as it has been pointed out, while Gambetta used his opportunism for the French republic, Jaurfes uses his for the “ International Socialist Re- public.” And the marvel, and the men- ace, is that he, preaching the abolition of boundary and race-lines, prevails, gains not merely a hearing, but more and more applause among a people so intensely “national” as the French! Preaching internationalism, crying down revenge upon Germany, calling upon France to disarm, he has advanced from mere orator to powerful political leader; and he has taken with him, without their realizing it, a mass of sober, shop-keeping, narrowly French and intensely capitalistic people who would not for an instant admit that they were Socialists or social- istic. When Jaurfes’ socialistic projects are included in their party’s programmes and are put through, they say: “ But that is not Socialism. Does Jaurfes advo- cate it ? Well, then, there ’s another of the many sound ideas he has, mixed in with his Soqalistic dreams.” What is Jaurfes’ programme ? Here is a recent statement of it, made by himself in his own vivid, clear style, which no doubt loses in the writer’s translation: “ In France there is a parly of advanced radicals, of Socialistic radicals. It is not, like ours, a proletarian parly. No more is it an exclusively capitalistic party. It is composed of elements in process of evolution, of workers in small industries, of artisans, of democratic farmers. They don’t understand col- lectivism, but they accept a part of the reforms we wish. This democratic bour- geoisie of Socialistic radicals, now domi- nant in France, believes in secularization, in separation of churches and state, in a heavily progressive tax upon incomes and inheritances; it believes in the gradual nationalization of railways, banks, mines, sugar and other refineries, life and fire and other insurances, in brief, in the nationalization of all the industries that are in the way of becom- ing monopolies. We Socialists do not confuse ourselves with this democratic bourgeoisie, because it is not communistic, collectivist, proletarian as are we. But when, with its assistance, we can pre- vent reaction, can obtain reforms, can develop labor legislation, we should be foolish, criminal, to reject that assistance.” That is, Jaur&s is taking the bourgeoisie into Socialism; but because he is gently backing it, instead of trying violently to pull it, it does not realize that the scenery is changing. Such is the plan and such the progress of Socialism’s first statesman. The situa- tion he is creating in France is not a French, but a world-situation. To deny it is to refuse to read the plain pointing of the vanes in the wind of human destiny. -Universal suffrage; the poor and the toiling overwhelmingly in the majority in the electorate slowly awaken- ing to its power through the ballot; capitalism setting the example of con- centration and of the use of the State for private enrichment through tariff and corporation legislation; the only active and frank propagandists among the masses either avowed Socialists or social- istic— what must be the event ? David Graham Phillips. New York City, N. Y. Digitized by Google
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GERHART HAUPTMANN: SOCIAL IDEALIST. By Archibald Henderson, PhJ). THERE is one figure among con- temporary dramatists who, both by his achievement and by his promise for the future, commands sincere and just admiration. He has escaped Ibsen’s extreme tendency to moralizing, and yet acquired much of his sure grasp of the technical side of dramatic art. Possessed with Ibsen’s deep sympathy and accord- ance with the vital thought-currents of modem life, Hauptmann, nevertheless, always remains the dramatist; he is never the explicit reformer. Mentally unclouded with the intangible imaginings of Maeterlinck, Hauptmann is imbued with the mysticism of sanity and reality. Untrammeled with the labyrinthine philosophy, which, as M. Ferdinand Bruneti&re claims, has made most Ger- man dramatic literature so mediocre, he is yet keenly alive to the profounder meanings in the lowly tragedies of Gorky, the altruistic doctrines of Tolstoi, and the stupendous ideals of Nietzsche. Gifted thus diversely, this fertile and original genius is a master of poetry as well as of prose; poetry as delicate, as impassioned, as tumultuous as his prose is realistic, life-like, natural. A poet whose fancies and images spring from nature, the woodland and the primitive forest; a prosateur , whose pictures and characters body forth the essential linea- ments of the real life of to-day. Charm- ing poet, finished prosateur , yet more — a mystic and a master of that symbolism in art inextricably associated with the names of Ibsen, Maeterlinck, and D ’Annunzio. Thus many of the qualities that make for greatness in the dramatic art of to- day— be it prose or poetic drama — are combined in Gerhart Hauptmann, whose veiy name, “ Captain,” stamps him as a leader in the new literary movement of Young Germany. He it was who wrote the first of the German naturalistic dramas which, in his own and Suder- mann’s hands, have swung the literary activity of the Germany of to-day into the rushing current of modern thought. More than the leader of a movement, he is a genius, a figure of stately and com- manding power. Gerhart Hauptmann is one of those phenomena of which Novalis, the mystic, spoke in the words: “Every person who consists of more than one person is a person of the second power — or a genius.” Byronism was Hauptmann’s youthful nourishment, and his early poems are stamped with the seal of Byron, Hebbel and Schiller. He dreamed of some strangely transforming synthesis of the arts, and studied sculpture in Rome. His youthful epic, “ Promethidenlos,” with all its immaturity, its subjectivity, reveals the first glimpse of the altruistic vision which appears and reappears through all his dramas. The first radical reversion of his views is ruthlessly re- vealed in “Vor Sonnenaufgang.” Since that time the dualism of his nature has perpetually asserted itself. Hauptmann is continually surprising the critics and astonishing the world with some new proof of his versatility, some new illustra- tion of his artistic virtuosity, some new demand for a reconsideration as to his place in contemporary literature. One moment putting literary Germany in a ferment with his “naturalism without fig-leaves,” the next jarring the nerves with his pathologic and neurasthenic types of modem morbidity; now arous- ing imperial opposition to his dramatic presentment of socialistic doctrines; now evoking admiration for his clever studies of local character and provincial humanity; appealing next to poetic instincts and the Christian ideal, he performs the impossible by blending together, in a consistently wrought and 251 Digitized by Google
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Gerhart Hauptmann: Social Idealist. 252 emotionally touching picture, the idealism and realism of our sleeping and waking life. After his bitter disappointment over the failure of his realistic drama of suffering and distress, of fifteenth-century setting, he returns to his idealistic and poetic vein and writes one of the most widely-discussed and highly-praised dramatic poems of the last half-century. Since that time his works have all shown a realistic exterior, often veiling the idealistic and mystic longings of the poet of humanity. Gerhart Hauptmann has been the bold leader in the intellectual movement in Germany in the last fifteen years, and he won the battle against bitterly indignant and virulent critics. From the first he has stood breast deep in the tempestuous flood of modem ideas. The “ Sturm und Drang ” period of Goethe and Schiller in the eighteenth century found its counterpart in the thought-movements and spiritual struggles of Young Germany The stream of the newer intellectual consciousness in Germany gained its volume and impetuosity from three great currents of modem thought. The mighty current from Scandinavia, dam- med to overflowing for a time by the bulwark of German conservatism, finally swept over Germany after the daring production of Ibsen’s “ Ghosts,” in 1889. The great tidal wave of Socialism, which set in from France at almost the same time, carried Hauptmann and others along with it, and left the ineradicable stamp of Zola upon the German con- sciousness. The impetus given to German philosophy and to German thought by the extreme individualism of Friedrich Nietzsche, and of Goethe before him, was profoundly felt and manifested by Haupt- mann. The founder of the Freie Buehne (Free Stage), Dr. Otto Brahms, awoke all intel- lectual Germany in 1889 with the pro- duction of Ibsen’s “ Ghosts,” thus throw- ing open the gates to the most modem German drama. As with Antoine’s Thfatre Libre and Grein’s Independent Theater , interests, battles and contro- versies began to cluster about the Freie Buehne. Hauptmann’s “ Before Sunrise ” — already known to the public in printed form and denounced as an “ accumula- tion of dirt” and the “ apotheosis of the vulgar ” — was produced in 1889. It proved to be a harbinger of the new era in German literature. Hauptmann, like Shaw, after “ Widowers’ Houses” was christened at the Independent Theater, became not a celebrated, but rather a notorious character. Defective in technique, “Before Sun- rise” is nevertheless one of the most perfectly natural and life-like of all the recent German dramas of modem life. Pinero, even in “ The Second Mrs. Tanqueray,” has never written more veracious and appealingly-real dialogue. Although a poet at heart, Hauptmann in this play forsakes his poetic muse, aiming solely at a vital presentation of real life in all its sincere naturalness. He had known from childhood the neighborhood he chose for the milieu of the play. Hauptmann was bom at Salzbrunn, in Silesia, in 1862 — a neighborhood where the peasant-farmers had suffered physical, mental and moral deterioration through the sudden acquisition of wealth dis- covered upon their properly. It was just such a family as those he had known that Hauptmann selected for dramatic study in this play. The millionaire father of the family is a besotted drunkard who has transmitted to his children the ineradicable taint of alcoholism rampant in his blood. His daughter Helene — a flower growing on the surface of a pesti- lential marsh — has so far escaped the hereditary taint. Alfred Loth, an ardent young Socialist, falls in love with her, winning her love in return. The family physician, an old friend of Loth’s, has seen the horrible effects of the immutable law of heredity evidenced in the elder daughter. He plies Loth with merciless logic, warning him of the fatal results of heredity, until Loth, in a frenzy, rushes away from the house without a word of Digitized by Google
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Gerhart Hauptmann: Social Idealist . 258 explanation or parting to Helene. In morbid fear of hereditary taint, crazed by the hopeless horror of her environment, and in despair over her lover’s cowardly desertion, Helene commits suicide. In his next two plays, “Das Friedens- fest” and “Einsame Menschen ” (1890), Hauptmann analyzes certain social prob- lems and aspects of modem family life, where motive and responsibility rather than positive, constructive deeds con- stitute the psychologic basis of the action. While “Before Sunrise” was, in Haupt- mann’s own words, “a social drama,” with lengthy stage-directions and even plans and diagrams, the next two dramas are types of that “bourgeois drama” which Diderot invented but lacked the genius to perfect “Das Friedensfest ” might be called a dramatic exemplifica- tion of Hegel’s profound paradox that “All action is guilt.” Here is depicted a family made wretched and home a place of torment, by the misunderstand- ings and mistakes of its members, one of another. The play teaches, if anything, that disparity of education, training and instruction leads inevitably to dire re- sults: diversity of interests, manners, and even moral standards, subversive of all mutual sympathy and domestic congeniality. In “Einsame Menschen” Hauptmann has treated from the natural- istic standpoint the same moral problem which Maeterlinck so beautifully analy- zes in “Aglavaine and Selysette.” Un- like the play of the Belgian, with its mystic coloring and subtile delineation of the most secret springs of human love, Hauptmann’s play is purely modem in its frankness and artistic sincerity. The problem is set before us in its natural terms, the souls of the characters are revealed in their undisguised nakedness, and the solution is the logical outcome of the social and moral hypothesis. Anna Mahr, the morbid product of modem university education, strangely familiar variant ctf Rebecca West and prototype of Vi vie Warren, infuses into the play some- thing of the true Ibsenic spirit. As in “Before Sunrise,” the end is harrowing — the suicide of a disillusioned and disap- pointed victim of the failure to discover an elective affinity. Hauptmann’s great social drama, “ Die Weber,” (1892) divides with “Die Ver- sunkene Glocke” the honor of having placed Hauptmann in the very front rank of modem dramatists. Indeed, it has given him not only a European but a truly cosmopolitan reputation. Dealing with a pressing problem of labor, it created much excitement in Germany, actually becoming the subject of speeches in the Reichstag. The Emperor William put his veto upon it, forbidding all army and government officials to enter the doors of the Deutsches Theater on the nights when “Die Weber” was produced. Its performance in fact was suppressed by police intervention, for the alleged reason that the play was revolutionary and likely to incite the masses of discontented Socialists in Germany to lawlessness and insurrection. The result of all this op- position is not difficult to imagine. Unusual interest and curiosity were aroused, tens of thousands of copies of the play were sold, and finally a move- ment, inaugurated by Herren Freytag and Virchow, secured the removal of the imperial veto. The people now swarmed to see the play, which received such a recognition as is seldom the lot of a new drama. No drama of modem times is equal to “The Weavers” as a fearful picture of the misery, poverty and wretchedness of the laboring classes. A genuine Volks- drama, it presents before us, in sweeping strokes and with looming background, what we are accustomed to-day to call a “strike.” Through it all runs an under- current of insistence upon universal recog- nition of the social evils of our own time. To suppose, as did the Emperor and others, that the play was endowed with any political intent, betrays a complete misunderstanding of the purpose of the dramatist. Just as Ibsen once dis- claimed any propagandist encourage- ment in “A Doll’s House” to the Fem- inist Movement, so Hauptmann publicly Digitized by Google
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254 Gerhart Hauptmann: Social Idealist. disavowed any political intent in writing “ Die Weber.” He wrote his play under the dramatic impulse, showing therein the influence of Zola’s “ Germinal ” per- haps, but more particularly the ineradi- cable impressions of his boyhood left by the stories told him by his grandfather, himself a weaver, of the misery that stalked through the Silesian mountains in 1844. The drama is of great artistic interests, aside from the history of its production, its connection with the social propaganda, and its blood-relation, if I may say so, with the author. Unlikely as the com- parison may seem at first sight, “Die Weber” has a literary consanguinity with Maeterlinck’s “L’Intruse,” Ibsen’s “ Ghosts ” and Hauptmann’s own drama, “ Vor Sonnenaufgang.” In all these dramas there is a superimpending, adum- brating force which directs the movement of the action, and in whose coils the characters are entangled. It is a power which either drives men to act or leaves them powerless to act; which in all cases controls and determines their destiny. In “ L’Intruse ” there is no main char- acter, neither hero or heroine. Across the gray and somber shades of this im- pressonist picture falls the black shadow of a scythe, a skeleton, a skull — the shadow of Death itself. In “Ghosts” and “Vor Sonnenaufgang,” Ibsen and Hauptmann seem to proclaim, as Maeter- linck has said: “That they have found, in material science, the unknown that surrounds us, the equivalent of ancient fatality — a force of equally resistless predestination.” The great protagonist in these two plays is no imposing human figure; no Uebermensch , no God-man, no Titanic character of flesh and blood; no Lear, no Wallenstein, no Faust, but a pitiless, inexorable law, working out its fatal, inevitable result — the Law of Heredity. In Hauptmann’s colossal drama of elemental instincts, “ Die Weber,” the hero is not a person, but a power; not an individual, but a clamant cause. It is Starvation, Hunger, Want — a gigantic composite, “ type of the hungry weaver face whose shadow is darkening the whole land.” To me, the play depicts more than the historic struggle of the starving weavers of Silesia. Who shall say that it is not the symbol of the gigantic struggle in progress to-day be- tween oppressed Labor and its tyrannical oppressor, Capital ? In all of Hauptmann’s plays up to this time, the pessimistic and tragic sides of life have been put in evidence, and grimness, never lightness, has been the omnipresent mood. In his next two plays, “The Beaver Coat” and “Col- league Crampton,” he evidences his marked ability as a comedy-dramatist. These amusing sketches of local rather than general or universal interest need not detain us here. They add nothing, I believe, to Hauptmann’s cosmopolitan reputation, serving merely to call atten- tion to his versatility — to his ability to write light comedy as well as heart- breaking tragedy. Later, in 1900, he drew, so to speak, a second impression of Mrs. Wolff, the cunning and ingenious thief, first revealed in “ The Beaver Coat.” Neither this play, “Der Rote Hahn,” nor “Schluck und Jau” (1900), an amplification, into a drama or broad farce, of the motive in the introduction to Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew,” show Hauptmann in any save a tentative and experimental attitude. “ Der Arme Heinrich ” (1902), although it has received the extravagant encomiums of Kuno Francke, does not present Haupt- mann in the capacity in which he most excels. This legend of “Poor Hemy,” an epic poem in Hartman von Aue’s hands, becomes with Hauptmann a long and somewhat tedious recital of how a medieval lord, infected with leprosy, was finally healed through the simple faith and self-surrender of a simple peasant- girl. The Hauptmann of European in- fluence and international reputation, how- ever, is to be sought in “Hannele” and “ The Sunken Bell,” in “ Fuhrmann Henschel” and perhaps in “Michael Kramer” and “Rose Bemd.” The radical German critics, who ar- Digitized by Google
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Gerhart Hauptmann: Social Idealist. 255 rayed themselves under the banner of Zolaesque naturalism, had applauded in enthusiastic terms Hauptmann’s fearful pictures of hereditary alcoholism, “ Vor Sonnenaufgang,” and his gigantic epical drama of modem labor, “Die Weber.” His light comedies irritated them, but when “Hannele’s Himmelfahrt” was produced at the Berlin Court Theater in November, 1893, consternation is the only word to describe their feelings. Had Hauptmann betrayed his former ideal? Was he a traitor to naturalism, his erstwhile mistress ? Many wordy critiques and indignant articles were written before the critics and the Ger- man public at large were reconciled to this new manifestation of Hauptmann’s genius. “Hannele,” translated into English by William Archer, impressed me im- mediately, as some of Maeterlinck’s plays do, with the spiritual subtlety and mystic instinct of the genius who created it. In this dream-poem Haupt- mann has made a daring experiment in dramatic art, such as one would fear to see made by a less consummate public genius than Hauptmann. In all of Hauptmann’s other plays flow one or the other of the predominant currents of his art. In “ Hannele ” these two currents — the stream of scientific naturalism and the stream of poetic mysticism — have flowed together and blended in a truly marvelous way. Moreover, Hauptmann has re- conciled these two apparently opposing dements by an application of the princi- ple of symbolism, that makes the drama a unique experiment in dramatic history. In this play Hauptmann has indeed wrought the miracle of the commonplace. In that last fleeting hour, passed between natural and supernatural, when the pulses flicker and “the casement slowly grows a glimmering square,” he has shown us what dreams may come. The veil is lifted, the mist fades from before our eyes, and we look deep into the soul of a little child. Her physical shrinking from the squalor of her surroundings and the brutality of her father, her pathetic longing for the shining raiment, her at- tempt at suicide as the “open sesame” to the gates of heaven, her identification of the Christ with the only truly Christian character she has known, her beloved schoolmaster, her strange blending of Christian story and fairy legend, and her perfectly literal interpretation of them — these delicate, subtile and allusive touches reveal a deep insight into the heart of youth. I shall not attempt to answer the question whether or not this play will live on the stage. Indeed, I shall not even ask the question. The im- portance of “Hannele” consists largely in its revelation of Hauptmann as a true poet of the idealism and mysticism of common life. Fanciful as the resemblance may be, at least it is not absurd to liken Hannele’s dream to that of the poet Hauptmann himself. Environed by coarseness, ugli- ness, harshness all her life long, Hannele in those last moments reveals the subcon- scious longings which have always lain dormant and hidden in her heart At last the moment for utterances comes and with it the revelation of all her longings and aspirations for sweetness and light, beauty and happiness. Is not this, in some faint sense, a symbol of Haupt- mann’s own life? From the very in- ception of his career, the muddy and turbulent thought-currents of his own time have swept over and submerged him. His poetic fire has been extinguish- ed, his lyric cries stifled. His conscience, not his inclination, forced him to write in prose instead of poetry. Not beautiful souls and noble hearts, but the degenerate perverts of his own age have felt the sharp point of his irony. Debased sensualists, hypochondriac egoists, hysterical neu- rasthenics, clever shop-lifters, and pov- erty-stricken nihilists have emerged from his brain in a sordid and repulsive train. Naturalism, with all its pettiness, its dirt, and its sensuality, has for long held in check the spirit of poetry, with all its fancy, its delicacy, its loveliness. In “ Hannele ” Hauptmann seemed to have discovered at last, in Stephen Phillips’ Digitized by Google
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256 Gerhart Hauptmann : Social Idealist. exquisite phrase, “ the late-found child of all his empty dreams and longings” — the dream-child of his poetic fancy, bom to deliver him from the slough of natural- ism into which he had fallen. Upon “ Florian Greyer” (1895), Haupt- mann devoted the most painstaking effort, but the play — built on the founda- tion of the Peasant War of 1525 — proved a failure, due no doubt to the multitude of its interests, and the con- sequent loss in continuity of impression, so imperatively requisite in the drama. It was reserved for “ Die Versunkene Glocke ” to set Hauptmann, as a dramatic poet, alongside of Ibsen, Phillips and Rostand. There are certain qualities which give “The Sunken Bell” (1896) a preemin- ence above the other works of Haupt- mann and mark it as a work of un- questionable genius. In it Hauptmann harks back to primitive nature, with all its elves, gnomes, fairies, satyrs and sprites, for the milieu of the piece. It is a perfect fairy-story, and, like Hans Andersen’s Marchen, might delight any child in the telling. Every element of nature, from its subtlest charm to its weirdest mystery, is caught and crystal- lized in variant types of nature’s children. Rautendelein is a child of light, the im- personation of the glamor and fascination of the forest. Old Wittichen is a sym- bol of the Time-Spirit, bending over the whirring loom, while the Wood Sprite and the Nickelmann seem to represent the coarse, bestial instincts in human nature, — of passion, desire and lust. They stand for those influences in naluie which rob man of his ideals, his strivings for purity and beauty, and which seek to drag him down to the level of his brutish instincts. In the marvelous conjunction of the ideal and the real, the natural and the supernatural, the physical and the spirit- ual in this play, Hauptmann showed a depth of comprehension, a gift of poetic insight, which compel us to rank him with the greatest poets of his own time. As John Firman Coar has said: “If Goethe’s ‘ Faust ’ — philosophically speak- ing— is humanity’s travail at the birth of the new spirit of science, Hauptmann’s ‘ Submerged Bell ’ might perhaps be called humanity’s travail at the birth of the new spirit of intuition.” The perfectly natural charm of the fairy-story, enjoyable by young and old alike, is merely the emanation from the drama. The child might listen with eager rapture to the purely superstitious side of the narrative, but the deeper interest, the heart of the mysteiy, reveals itself, not to the mind of childhood, but to the mentality of experience. In no other drama, not even in Maeterlinck’s “Seven Princesses” or Ibsen’s “When We Dead Awaken,” have I seen sym- bolism so penetrate and envelope the literary structure. Nothing in the whole drama can, by any stretch of the imagina- tion, be interpreted in a purely literal sense, save the one central idea — the struggle of the large man for an ideal beyond possibility of attainment. The drama is one transfigured symbol. It is not the story of the struggle of Heinrich, a Grerman bell-founder; it is a symbol of the aspiration of the individual man, working his way upward to an atmosphere of greater clarity and more searching truth. While Hauptmann in his next play, “ Fuhrmann Henschel” (1899), shows a marked indebtedness to Tolstoi and his “Power of Darkness,” yet this detracts nothing from the somber power of the play. Once more he turns to his native Silesia, the milieu of both “Vor Sonnenaufgang ” and “Die Weber.” Despite its dialect, that of the Silesian peasants, it is almost as easy to under- stand, when either read or played, as any of Hauptmann’s non-dialect plays. “Fuhrmann Henschel” possesses the same remarkable qualities of naturalness, verity and consonance with human nature that were such notable features of “Vor Sonnenaufgang.” Over the whole play hovers the shade of great tragedy. The entire piece leaves indelibly stamped upon the mind the impression of straight Digitized by Google
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Gerhart Hauptmann: Social Idealist . 257 power and compelling strength. Here is the greatness of simplicity, of funda- mental instincts, of elemental passions. Hauptmann once said that he had too much else to do to formulate any philoso- phy of his own. In “ Fuhrmann Hen- schel” he shows that it is impossible for a modern German dramatist to write a true and poignant tragedy without in- fusing into it the perplexing and dis- quieting problems of modem philosophy. Here he reveals, in well-nigh perfect fashion, the incipient faltering, gradual breaking up and ultimate disintegration of a human mind through the pervasive influence of self-accusation and self- condemnation. Moral responsibility is the vulture gnawing at the vitals of this peasant Prometheus. A broken vow, a hapless marriage and the brutal blows of chance effect the dissolution of the wagoner’s mental powers, the wreck of his moral being. A great, simple, un- tutored mind is HenscheFs, stubborn and strong. He has a soul, a warm heart ripe with the juices of humanity. Gentle to his bed-ridden wife, kind to his child, generous and forgiving to his calculating and unideal second wife, he spreads over the drama, in its first two or three acts, a kindly and benignant light. As the action moves forward, as misfortune and a sense of moral guilt lay their hold upon him, his mind becomes diseased, his faculties fall a prey to mad hallucination, he becomes a moral paretic. This drama > is a powerful study in pathology — Huneker calls it a drama of insomnia — interpreted in the mystic spirit of pro- foundly human art. “Michael Kramer” (1900), and “Rose Bemd,” Hauptmann’s latest play, are charged with little of that high, imagina- tive tensity so characteristic of much of Hauptmann’s work. In “Fuhrmann Henschel,” the simple, downright and honest-hearted teamster looms up in something like majesty and tragic great- ness above the depressing, revolting en- vironment that impinges upon him with tremendous force. We see something of the same thing in the pathetic figure of the old artist, Michael Kramer, en- dowed with a soul full of longings for supreme achievement in art, yet ham- pered, retarded, disappointed and dis- illusioned by the unappreciation of his wife, the utter physical lassitude and moral lacune in the character of his son, and by his own failure to achieve great- ness in his beloved art. “Rose Bemd” stretches out to Hardy on the one hand and to Brieux on the other. Rose is vaguely suggestive of Tess of the d’Ur- bervilles, and of that pathetic outcast of society in “ Maternity.” Exception- ally painful and squalid, this last play of Hauptmann’s is also hopeless and pessi- mistic, a tragedy of pity and terrible suffering. There is no triumphant pass- age through the fires of punfication to the heights, as in Tolstoi’s “Resurrec- tion,” but only the piteous struggles and last mad crime of a modem Gretchen. Hauptmann’s three distinct and pre- eminent contributions to modem dra- matic literature are “Fuhrmann Hen- schel,” “ Die Versunkene Glocke ” and “Die Weber.” For its literary beauty “Hannele” was awarded the Grillparzer prize at Vienna in 1897. Yet this play is too novel, too unique, too unlike any other drama ever written, for any just comparison or estimate. “ Fuhrmann Henschel ” is a drama of human nature as well as of artistic naturalism. “Die Versunkene Glocke” is a poem of high and ennobling art, animate with supreme literary grace and beauty. “ Die Weber ” is perhaps Hauptmann’s greatest achieve- ment. If it does not seek to solve social problems, yet it forces those problems upon us for consideration. Above all, it suggests and almost creates, by contrast, certain social ideals — the legitimate func- tion and noble office of the modem drama. “Die Weber” is a sign-post pointing the way to the future. The great drama of the twentieth century promises to be the social drama, pulsating with the warm tides of altruism, charity and justice. Archibald Henderson. Chapel Hill, N. C. Digitized by Google
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THE PRESENT STATUS OF COOPERATION IN GREAT BRITAIN. Bt J. C. Ghat, . General Secretary of the Cooperative Union of Great Britain. THE COOPERATIVE movement in Great Britain which to-day has attained such great importance as an industrial and social force, owes its con- ception, its capacity, and its progress entirely to the genius and energy of work- ingmen. It was bom of their needs, was the outcome of the hard conditions under which they lived and worked; its methods were adapted to their require- ments, and its results have been achieved by their unaided efforts. Therefore the history of the cooperative movement in Great Britain is in no small degree con- nected with the lives of the workers during the last sixty years, and its progress is undoubtedly reflected in many ways in the improvement which the same period has seen in the conditions surrounding industrial and social life. Cooperation in some form or other had been advocated by social reformers for many years before what is now known as the cooperative movement came to be established. The great piopeer of social- reform — Robert Owen — made coopera- tion a principal feature in all his schemes for improvement of the lives of the workers. He founded cooperative socie- ties and established agencies of various descriptions to meet their requirements, long before the present cooperative move- ment was thought of, and, although his plans for the most part failed to attain complete success, the principles which he advocated lived and formed the basis of the future successful movement. The present generation of cooperators have shown their gratitude to Robert Owen, and their appreciation of the great work which he accomplished in preparing the way for their own achievements, by ererting a memorial over his grave and by contributing handsomely to the erec- tion of a public library at Newtown, the place of his birth. The present-day movement is gen- erally understood to date from the estab- lishment of the Rochdale Pioneers’ Co- operative Society, in 1844. It was the first attempt to put into practice new ideas and methods in carrying on co- operative work. These Rochdale work- ers, many of them miserably poor, were anxious to improve their condition. They knew of the many remedies for poverty proposed by various social-reformers of the day, but whilst discussing all these projects with earnestness bom of their needs, they found none to exactly meet their requirements. It was at this stage that a new idea was projected. The cooperation of that day up to that time had been mainly a cooperation of capital and work, but no great progress was possible because the workers had no capital with which to work. It was useless talking to poor men who had no capital, and no security to offer for capital, telling them that they should combine to become their own employers and so improve their conditions of life. Employment required capital, and no capital was forthcoming, so other means had to be thought of. By a stroke of genius there was devised the present well-known and simple sys- tem of cooperation, by which poor people were enabled to create capital for them- selves. They said: “If by reason of our poverty we have no capital which we can use in employing ourselves, we are at any rate bound to spend our scanty earnings in order that we may live. At present we spend those earnings in such a manner that other people profit by our needs, inasmuch as by purchasing those requirements singly we pay more for 258 Digitized by Google
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The Present Status of Cooperation in Great Britain. 259 them than we should if we purchased jointly. Let us therefore use this pur- chasing power which we possess (small as it is at present) and join our forces in a cooperative society which shall purchase for us goods in bulk at wholesale prices, and retail the same to us according to our needs at retail prices. By doing this we pay no more (perhaps less) than we are now paying to the shop-keepers, and the cooperative society which we have founded gains the difference between the retail and wholesale prices after expenses of management have been paid. This difference we will appor- tion amongst ourselves in proportion to our purchases, thus each member of the cooperative society will reap the benefits according to what he has pur- chased from the society, such purchases, on the part of a loyal member, being in accordance with his needs. In this way we shall each be building up and accumulating profits to be capitalized in the society to be used for further de- velopments, either by way of providing better conditions of employment or other- wise for the general well-being of the community.” Thus argued the pioneer cooperators of Rochdale amongst themselves. It resulted in the formation of the Rochdale Pioneers’ Cooperative Society, in 1844. A brief statement of its objects, as pub- lished at the time, may not be out of place here, as showing how far-seeing were these early pioneers, although some of the aims must have appeared very distant and almost impossible to attain. Their programme was as follows: 44 1. The establishment of a store for the sale of provisions, clothing, etc. 44 2. The building and purchasing of a number of houses in which their members may reside. 44 3. The manufacture of such articles as the members may determine upon, for the employment of such members as may be out of employment, or who may be suffering in consequence of repeated re- ductions in their wages. 44 4. As a further benefit and security to the members of this Society, the Society shall purchase or rent an estate or estates of land, which shall be cultivated by the members who may be out of employment, or whose labor may be badly remunerated. 44 5. That as soon as practicable, this Society shall proceed to arrange the powers of production, distribution, educa- tion and government; or, in other words, to establish a self-supporting home colony of united interests, and assist other Societies in forming such colonies.” This was truly an ambitious pro- gramme for a few poor workingmen to adopt, but the results obtained have justified their wisdom and bear witness to their foresight and energy. It was not long before societies of a similar kind became spread all over Great Britain. The Rochdale Pioneers’ Society, com- mencing in 1844 with 28 members, had at the end of 1903, 12,028 members who owned between them £276,471 of share and loan capital. The trade of the Society for 1903 was £260,162 and the profit £49,359. In Great Britain cooperative efforts have been confined mainly to distribution in the retail store, and production in the work-shops of the Wholesale and Pro- ductive Societies, although during the last few years a successful attempt has been made to extend the benefits of the cooperative system to those engaged in agricultural pursuits. For the purpose of this article, how- ever, I propose to deal only with the two best-known phases of cooperative work — distribution and production. I mention distribution first because, although in the natural order of things there must be production before there can be any dis- tribution, in the cooperative programme the natural order was inverted, and dis- tribution preceded production for the reasons previously explained. True, there had, previous to 1844, been many at- Digitized by Google
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The Present Status of Cooperation in Great Britain. 260 tempts made to establish Societies for production but none of them lived long. It was only after the distributive societies had been established for a number of years that cooperative production began to make headway. The distributive societies by their accumulated profits not only find a considerable portion of the capital required to carry on cooperative productive societies, but they also pro- vide a ready and sympathetic market for the goods which they manufacture, there- fore the success of cooperative production is bound up with that of the distributive societies, as is proved by the constant and steady progress which is being made in both directions. As regards cooperative distribution, it is the practice in Great Britain to estab- lish such societies only when and where there is a demand for them on the part of the people whom they are intended to benefit. A society is never forced on the people of any locality, there must in all cases be shown a strong local desire before any society is established. Whenever a strong desire is shown locally then the Cooperative Union (which has been established by the societies of the United Kingdom for the purpose of mutual help and support) steps in and renders what assistance it can to the local people to form their society. At present the largest distributive society in Great Britain is that of Leeds, with 49,S79 members; Plymouth comes next, with 34,647 and Bolton third, with 30,736. These three societies together do a yearly trade of nearly £3,000,000. At the close of 1903 the position of the retail societies was as follows : Number of Societies 1,481 Number of Members 1,987,768 Share and Loan Capital £27,981,697 Sales £57,512,917 Profits £8,993,562 The whole of these societies pay a fixed interest (which is never more than five per cent.) on capital, and the re- mainder of the profit is then divided amongst the members in proportion to their purchases . A considerable pro- portion of the members allow their profits to accumulate as share capital in the society, and thus gradually build up capital for themselves, as was the inten- tion of the original pioneers. It will be seen that this item on the programme of the pioneers has advanced a long way towards attainment, about ££8,000,000 having been accumulated in the societies. This amount, being considerably in ex- cess of the requirements of their ordinary retail business, permits of capital being set free to be used for other purposes and objects included in the cooperative pro- gramme, viz : productive work-shops and factories, building houses for mem- bers, educational work, etc., etc. Following closely on distribution comes production. In former years there was a strong divergence of opinion as to what was the orthodox form of cooperative production. This difference of opinion arose chiefly from the fact that the subject of cooperative production was viewed by different people from different standpoints. Whilst the workingmen of Lancashire and Yorkshire were busily engaged in their project for carrying on distributive societies, which, when suc- cessful, were also to extend their opera- tions into the field of production and employment of their members, the same problem was also being attacked by a band of earnest workers in London who were known as Christian Socialists, and as the result of their efforts many small productive societies were established, none of which, however, now survive. The idea of the Christian Socialists was that productive societies should be started by the workers in the various industries who should either provide the necessary capital themselves, or obtain it from other people on loan, the workmen themselves to control the concern, and after paying a fixed interest on capital to divide the remaining profits amongst themselves in proportion to their earnings as workers. Digitized by Google
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261 The Present Status oj Cooperation in Great Britain . It will be seen that these two forms of cooperative production were widely dif- ferent from each other, and it was in regard to this difference that the battle of opinion raged furiously for many years. Both forms of production grew up and developed in the cooperative movement alongside each other, and although the form of production which is carried on by the federated capital of the distributive societies is perhaps making more rapid headway by reason of the greater cap- ital which it has at its command, some of the older productive societies es- tablished on the lines laid down by the Christian Socialists are still going strongly, and have been eminently suc- cessful. It has become recognized now by sup- porters of both ideas that it is better to work for the material success of their respective societies, rather than split hairs in controversy as to methods, because no matter which form of production be adopted, the condition of the worker is certainly improved, and the work of co- operation is thereby extended. It is also clearly recognized that to a great extent the efforts of cooperative production must follow, and not go in advance of, the the requirements of distributive societies. As a rule outside markets are not sym- pathetic towards cooperative production, the prejudice of traders being very strong against anything having a cooperative name. Therefore, the market into which a productive society can go is practically limited to the cooperative movement; hence the success of distribution leads on to the success of production. The position of the movement in re- gard to production may be briefly sum- marized as follows: I. PRODUCTIVE SOCIETIES. Industries included : cotton, linen, silk, wollen, boots and shoes, leather, metal, hardware, wood-workers, building and quarrying, printing and bookbinding, corn-milling, baking, etc. Number of Societies 146 Capital £1,445.801 Number of Employes 8,467 Sales £8,078,867 Profits £608,659 H. PRODUCTIVE DEPARTMENTS OP THE ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH WHOLE- SALE SOCIETIES. Number of Societies 6 Capital £1,851,605 Number of Employes 15,911 Sales £4,810,288 Profits £188,458 IH. ESTIMATED PRODUCTION CARRIED ON BY DISTRIBUTIVE SOCIETIES. Number of Employes 17,968 Sales £5,000,000 It is sometimes said by the critics of the cooperative movement that although it has been very successful in distribution, its efforts in the direction of production have not been so good. The above figures, however, show that this criticism is not quite correct. It has been shown previously that the trade of the distribu- tive societies was £57, 512,917 for the year 1903. For the same year the sales of productive societies and the value of the goods manufactured by the distribu- tive societies themselves came to £12,- 889,065. It must be remembered in making this calculation that the trade done by the distributive societies is practically the limit of the market which is open to the productive societies. It must also be borne in mind that the amount put down as the sales of the pro- ductive societies and the manufactures of the distributive societies is calculated at wholesale prices, whilst the trade of the retail societies is put down at retail prices. Deducting twenty-five per cent, from the amount stated as being the trade done by the distributive societies for 1903, and allowing for the amount expended on articles of foreign manufacture and growth which must be imported and cannot be produced at home, we obtain the following figures: Digitized by Google
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262 The Divorce Problem: A Suggestion. Trade of the Distributive Societies for HOtmn. 1908 ml retail value £57.512,917 Deduct 25 per cent for gross retail profit 14,000,000 Net Wholesale value £43.512,917 Deduct value of goods purchased abroad 5,600,000 £87,912,917 Sales of Productive Societies and value of manufactures of Dis- tributive Societies £12389,065 £25,028,852 It appears, therefore, that about one- third of the goods and articles sold by cooperative societies of home pro- duction are actually manufactured or produced within the cooperative move- ment. This is a much larger propor- tion than is generally supposed to be the case, but it leaves a considerable margin for the extension of cooperative production. It may not be out of place here to mention what has been done by coopera- tive societies to provide suitable dwelling- houses for their members . The Coopera- tive Union endeavored sometime ago to obtain information on this matter, but only 844 societies furnished any particu- lars. As far as they go, however, these particulars show that the societies have done a great deal in this direction. The 844 societies have built houses, or have advanced money to members for the purpose of enabling them to build, to the following extent: Houses built and now owned by Societies. . . 8347 Houses built and sold by the Societies 5,080 Houses built by members on advances made by the Societies 28,940 KONST. 87367 Expended by Societies on houses owned, £1,658310 Expended by Societies on houses sold to members 1,141367 Advanced by Societies on houses built by members 5387,078 £8,127,155 The above figures and facts relating to the position of the cooperative movement show that it has gone a long way towards realizing the aims of the early pioneers as set forth in that somewhat ambitious programme to which attention has previ- ously been called. They also furnish a striking object-lesson as to what may be done even by poor working people, if they are united in their efforts. Some critics aver that the methods adopted by the cooperative societies are antiquated and altogether unsuited to present-day requirements, but at any rate in Great Britain they have stood the test of time and to-day show a stronger front and a greater amount of success than ever before. Other nationalities are rapidly following on the same lines and are showing equal evidence of success as may be seen by the reports from the various countries submitted to the Con- gress of the International Cooperative Alliance which was recently held at Buda Pest J. C. Gray. Manchester , England THE DIVORCE PROBLEM: A SUGGESTION. By Henry Gaines Hawn.* u T IBERTY in all things, License in Nothing so retards this up-lift in JLj none ” is the perpetual cry of the growth as the placing an embargo upon human, and the words prefigure the ideal die individual conscience in matters condition, civic, intellectual, moral, re- which the experience of the ages, the ligious, towards which civilization tends, impulses common to mankind, show to ♦ [Profeasor Hairy Gaines Hawn was born in the University of Tennessee and at Washington and Richmond, Virginia, in 1862. He was educated in Lee University, Lexington, Virginia. Upon coming Digitized by Google
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268 The Divorce Problem: A Suggestion. be natural, unvarying, and hence — lawful. “Man’s inhumanity to man” has no darker record than that made by the imposing of “pains and penalties” for acts of themselves normal and inherent; it makes innocency, — criminality, not in fact but in effect, and stamps truth with the brand of hypocrisy. To a certain extent the refinements of life, if not civilization itself, are dependent upon the seeming denial, the negation, of truth. We no longer destroy our weaker or less cunning animal brethren in open combat, tear their vitals with tooth and nail and sustain bodily existence by devouring them, but with only a fictitious difference this is just what we do. We pretend to have no organs of diges- tion, assimilation, disposal, generation, in common with the lower animals, whereas we not only possess correspond- ing organs, but employ them in the identical ways for the identical functions. Just at tiie point where the conflict between the needs of the body and the needs of the mind begin, there civilization is born ; but no amount of sophistry can blind the individual or the race to the fact that the “ animal man” must be first considered, its mandate obeyed, if the “spiritual man” which animates the body into a living soul, is to be sustained. All of which means : that body, viewed merely as body, has laws which we dare not disobey, for disobedience means death; has a Holy of Holies which we dare not desecrate; has a dual existence which we cannot ignore. These reflections are occasioned by the timely and all-engrossing discussion of the divorce question; and as no one seems willing to speak the great truth underly- ing the whole matter, to cry it aloud from North be accepted a position as instructor in English in the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute — a position which he held for five years. He is at the present time special lecturer fen* the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. He is also the principal of a lam school known as the Hawn School of the Speech Arts, at Carnegie Hall. New York City, and ii file author of a notable work. Diction for Singer*, the housetops, this is an attempt to do so. Marriage is primarily sexual; it has always been so, and always will be. Here then is one of the sacred, universal, eternal verities of existence which no amount of “ cant” or masking, or make- believe will alter by a hair’s weight. Talk as we may of the “love of soul,” “ unconscious sexual attraction and se- lection,” the truth at the center is — sex. If marriage is pertinent to sex, equally so is divorce; and we can have no solution of this vexed question until we face it squarely and meet it first on the plane of the material where it rightly belongs, and afterwards, on spiritual ground. The attitude of the House of Bishops in the Episcopal General Convention, in Boston, Massachusetts, as expressed by their proposed amendment to the canon on marriage and divorce, is a dear indica- tion that this problem is not met on its legitimate plane. “No minister shall solemnize a mar- riage between any two persons unless by inquiry he shall have satisfied himself that neither person has been, or is, the husband or the wife of any other person then living, from whom he or she has been divorced for any cause arising after marriage.” Is this a pose on the part of the reverend gentlemen; or is it only an index to their lack of world-knowledge ? Have we not the warranty of the Scripture they ex- pound for divorce for at least one cause ? Is not this out-Bibling the Bible ? The church as a whole has for the last two centuries lagged woefully behind the times, with the result that it finds itself at variance with the State. The body-civic, despite a seeming regard and respect for the body-religious, has taken unto itself the regulation of all dealing with the psychology of song. He is also the dramatic instructor of the Cornell University “Masque,” which famous organization is at the time 01 this writing rehearsing nis musical comedy, Anno 1992, for early production. He is a fine representative of the more thoughtful and progros- sive Southern men who have won important positrons among the educators of the metropolis. — B. O. F.] Digitized by Google
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264 The Divorce Problem: A Suggestion. laws pertaining to marriage, birth, death, until nothing but the forms of ceremonial are left to the church. This being the case, the enacting of canons upon divorce, by any religious denomination, in or out of convention, can have no effect upon the ultimate civic adjustment of the married relation other than that which pertains to the individual members of such assemblies, as private citizens. Do the Reverend Bishops think that the race has reached that spiritual plane where marriage is always and only a spiritual compact? Are they ignorant of the workings of the sex instinct, blind to its universality, its malevolence, its beneficence, its essential power? Of all men the priest should be the most inti- mately acquainted with the sex-controlled bondage of mankind. The life lived close to his parish, in hamlet or metro- polis, has taught him nothing if he has not gleaned that one experience, that sex and its regulation is at the foundation of both the civic and the religious life. Have these scholars of divinity had no hard-fought battles with their own sex- natures, battles which taught them the almost superhuman power of this im- pulse? The/ rest of mankind, those not in prirady orders, are so familiar with the cydlonic and innate power of sex that there scarcely remains in their hearts to- day more than a gentle reprimand, coupled with sympathy for those in the toils of its illicit expression. Why not frankly face this condition ? Upon many statute-books we still find unrepealed laws for the punishment of adultery and of pre-marital indulgence; but are these laws enforced? If not, why not? Plainly because such errors of conduct are, deep in our consciences, appraised as incident to human nature, a common heritage. When adultery is proved, and a decree of divorce is granted, is the guilty party arrested, tried, con- victed and punished for his crime ? Not in these days of enlarging sympathy and charity. With this lesson of the centuries, do not the Episcopal Bishops realize that they, as churchmen, and their influence if effectual with state and national laws, would place a premium upon concubi- nage ? The question is not, had men best abstain from the sexual life if divorced and forbidden to re-many; nor is the query “Can they”; but bluntly “Will they?” and all human experience cries out “No.” If not marriage, what? Celibacy ? Ask the fallen woman. No, gentlemen, you either discuss a passion about which you know nothing, or “reckon without your host” — Nature! And yet, something must be done; and something radical. Some sage has said : “ That marriage, for women, is the one form of slaveiy remaining on the earth to-day.” This may fittingly be enlarged to apply to man as well. Let us review the condition : When woman was but a chattel, a piece of household property, divorce was out of the question. Here indeed was slavery, a state of serf- dom where bodily assault was the lawful privilege of one party and the lawful torture of the other. The rebellion of neither soul nor body was of the least avail. As civilization advanced the woman became more and more a con- senting party, until we begin to dream of that ideal condition when, with coequal privileges, both man and woman are the consenting parties in entering, continuing or discontinuing the marital relation. What dark hint looms up here? Does this imply that divorce is to be permitted ? It means more; but it does not even smack of the doctrine of “Free-Love,” that euphonious name for free-lust, but it does open a way to another realm of truth, and cries out that divorce without love is more holy than marriage with- out love. Let us use the word “love” for a moment to denote mere physical passion; shall two people who find themselves mutually physically repellent, be com- pelled to live together ? Nature and nature’s God say “No.” But as love Digitized by Google
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265 The Divorce Problem: A Suggestion. signifies so much more than the physical (this as an outcome of our spiritual growth) let us consider marriage on the higher plane, and what do we find? We find that things of the spirit dominate the physical to such an extent that the fact that “ man does not live by bread alone” is made at once apparent. We find spiritual love so all-compelling that the most unattractive bodies are made mutually beautiful, and that perfect union, body and soul, results. On the contrary, let the physical be never so ideal, in form, stature, texture, age, if spiritual repulsion exists all is chaos, involving body and soul in torturous wreckage. Are such souls mated ? Shall the farce go on forever ? What factor in our civilization is so potent for evil as is unhappy marriage? Nature has laid her curse upon it, and • can we do better than to listen to her denunciations ? Though both parties to such a contract be chaste as Chastity, shall the lives of either or both be sacrificed to a formula ? No passion in the whole gamut can equal in intensity the rancorous hatred which disillusioned love becomes. Even in the rare cases where the man and woman are possessed of that dignity of character which prevents the expressing of this hatred, it is a living presence — and it can- not be hidden, nor its poison nullified. We hear the clamorous voices of the con- servative and the churchly hissing their anathemas upon him who says frankly that marriage is not lawful in the sight of God or man unless the union be mutually gratifying in body and soul. Even the devotion of one party only, does not make a sacrament of marriage — but prostitution to the one who does not love. We have tried the plan of the one man owning many women; of one man own- ing one woman; our last experiment will be that where there is no ownership, but a mutual consenting; marriage will be founded upon this consenting and will cease with the consenting. Preserve the home forsooth ! Preserve the home where j two human beings have every aspiration ) deadened, every ambition thwarted; where sexual contact is loathsome, where ’ children are unwelcome, and if bora are spiritually strangled by the environment of discord and latent hatred? Let us not forget that emotion, intangible, in- visible, inaudible though it be, is the very essence of life, and that this most powerful agent makes directly for health or for disease, for growth or for decline, for re- generation or for degeneration. This fact is now recognized by scientists ; “ Emotion is not a condition of the ex- ternal muscular tissue, but a modification of the viscera, and the internal organs, heart, liver, stomach and glands all participate in it.” Shall we then continue to ignore the great law of life, that spirit is more than body; that what is harmful in the spiritual realm is doubly so in the physi- cal? Mankind has, of necessity, spent its force, thus far in history, in conquering the material world; now that we may cry Victory, we have a new world to invade, the psychic; we have a foot upon the threshold and stand appalled at the glimpse we gain of the mysteries beyond. Let us take heart of grace; this world, too, is ours; and already we have learned that much which we believed purely physical is in fact spiritual; and this is true of marriage. If it be not of the spirit, it is not marriage, but prostitution — whether legalized or not. If, then, divorce of the spirit exists between a man and woman is marriage of the body a holy sacrament ? Is it even desirable viewed as a physical union? An army of living martyrs, men, women, children, cries aloud “ strike off this shackle!” If, then, divorce could be free; without stigma; attainable for the asking; granted for such grounds as “ non-performance of duty,” “ bodily unfitness, unsoundness, incompetency,” “age disparity,” “ in- compatability,” “drunkenness or drug Digiti 'd by Google
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266 The Divorce Problem: A Suggestion. habit,” “ contagious disease,” “ mental delinquency,” u non-support,” “ deser- tion,” * adultery,” and above all u mutual consent,” bondage would be liberty. What an incentive to right living, when each party to a conjugal union realizes that the other is not bound, but free! How about the children? What? that foolish question again? Can any sane man hesitate between the rearing of children in an atmosphere of peace, poise, love, sympathy and encouragement, (even though that environment be supplied by the State) and an atmosphere burdened with distrust, suspicion and rancor ? But the children, except in rare instances, need not be entrusted to the State; the little ones will serve, as they always have served, to keep the marriage intact and this with redoubled force should divorce be easily attainable. It should be self-evident that a co- partnership entered upon with mutual consent should be similarly dissolvable. As to restrictions, let a Marital Court safeguard the home by such required limitations that abuse of divorce becomes well-nigh impossible. Let parties to a desired divorce file their petition a year in advance of the suit; such petition to be kept secret. In this twelve-month time will be granted for the man and woman to fully weigh their differences, ascertain how much of their antagonism is due to temper, pique, or to some flippant cause. At the end of the year advance the petition to a public marital court; the couple to live apart for a year of probationary separation. This will still further test the desirability of the union and give friends and families a chance to act as peacemakers. > During this time of separation of parents the children can be assigned to the more worthy party, or to a consenting out- sider; or, as a last resort, to an institution until such time as difficulties are adjusted. On the filing of a private petition for divorce by either or by both parties, the judge of a marital court could and would suggest a remedy for many of the justifiable complaints above enumerated. To illustrate: the “ non-performance of duty,” is placed at the head of the list with aforethought; an investigation of the unhappy marriages in any personal circle of acquaintances will show that this is a more fruitful source of discord between men and women than all other causes combined. Where duty is mutu- ally performed there can be no friction — so much service, so much wage. Thp gauge of Love is Duty’s Excess. If, then, men and women fail to meet even their obligations in marriage, dis- cord is inevitable. The great majority enter the married state without under- standing its responsibilities, its duties. In such cases a judge can often make dear to either or both just where they “miss or exceed the mark.” Likewise where the plea is “non-support,” the court can decree what constitutes support — and so on, through the list of justifiable causes. Divorce in all cases should be attended with responsibilities; a man should not be allowed to put away a woman for any cause and not be in part responsible for her maintenance ; until such time as she re-marries or is provided with a liveli- hood. The paying of alimony to an- other man’s wife is nothing short of filthiness. These are suggestions made in all good faith; and the far cry of Free- Love will yet make itself heard and lead us, not to. its own goal, but to a com- promise between bondage and license. It would seem that if marriage could be more and divorce less restricted, that the conservation of the home, of human happiness, would be the better served. If the House of Episcopal Bishops would concern themselves more with whom they marry than with whom they re-marry they would deserve and receive the respectful attention of humanity. Henry Gaines Hawn. Brooklyn, N. Y . Digitized by Google
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THE NEVADA REFERENDUM VICTORY AS AN ILLUS- TRATION OF DEMOCRATIC PROGRESS. By Eutweed Pomeroy, A.M., President of the National A EUROPEAN diplomat recently congratulated the Honorable Joseph Chamberlain on the English colonial policy, whereupon the British statesman replied that England had no colonial policy ; that the nation had simply blundered into a great colonial empire. The German Kaiser has labored ceaselessly to build up German colonies, but has miserably failed and cannot understand the reason for this failure. Mr. Chamberlain by his speech and the Kaiser by his acts show how profoundly ignorant they are of the reason of demo- cratic progress. England’s great* colonial empire is the legitimate result of the strong and vital democratic spirit of her colonists. Germany has disastrously failed in her attempt to build tip such an outside empire because the democratic spirit has been hampered and tied at every turn by rules and regulations, so that popular initiative or the power to ex- pand and grow has been unreasonably curtailed where it has not been entirely prevented. The secret of colonial and of all true progress is freedom, which makes possi- ble the development of the power and spirit of individual initiative, so that whenever a new occasion arises the in- dividual is ready to successfully meet it instead of looking to some authority to tell him what to do. Guarantee to men that justice which comprehends equality of opportunities and of rights, and there is little danger but that they will success- fully meet and conquer every crisis that may arise, although their victories may not be spectacular or dramatic in char- acter. Indeed, democratic progress is rarely brilliant or eye-attracting. It con- sists rather of a multitude of small deeds of initiative and creation by a Direct-Legislation League. multitude of men. It is not boastful. It does not surround itself with pageants. The autocratic spirit cannot understand it. Indeed, to it the progress of democ- racy seems little more than a series of petty details and happy blunders. This assumption, however natural though it be to superficial observers, is entirely erroneous. England did not blunder into a colonial empire. Her sons and daugh- ters came to this country; they went to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and to the ends of the earth; and usually the home government left them free to meet and master the problems that confronted them. In this the Mother Country evinced the wisest order of statesmanship, as it fostered the real democratic spirit of the virile men and women colonists, which enabled them to meet each condi- tion as it arose, with the result that great lands and peoples developed out of hard conditions. When the home govern- ment interfered and strove to force its will upon a colony it made a serious blunder — a blunder that divided the Anglo-Saxon world by the American Revolution. The autocratic spirit which to-day possesses the business and industry of our country and largely controls the press, does not see die signs of real democratic progress. It is self-centered, arrogant and blind to the general under- current of discontent and unrest and the quickening of the democratic impulses in the heart of the multitude; and this blindness will lead to its downfall through attempts to overreach itself, just as the blindness of the Russian autocracy led it it into the grave blunder of the Russo- Japanese war. The immediate purpose of this article, however, is to describe what is in my 287 Digitized by Google
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268 The Nevada Referendum Victory. judgment the greatest happening of the November elections — a happening which strikingly illustrates both the method of democratic progress and the blindness of the autocratic leaders of industry, of the press, and of the pulpit. Shortly after the election I wrote to the Secretaries of State in the various com- monwealths, inquiring if there had been any referendums or constitutional amend- ments, and if so, for copies of the amend- ments and the vote on them. Some days later I was surprised to receive from the Secretary of State of Nevada the following: “ Constitutional Amendment for the Referendum in Nevada. “ Section 1. Whenever 10 per cent, or more of the voters of this State, as shown by the number of votes cast at the last preceding general election, shall ex- press their wish that any law of resolution made by the legislature be submitted to a vote of the people, the officers charged with the duty of announcing and pro- claiming elections and certifying nomina- tions or questions to be voted on, shall submit the question of the approval or disapproval of said law or resolution to be voted on at the next ensuing election wherein a State or Congressional officer is voted for, or wherein any question may be voted on, by the electors of the entire State. “Section 2. When a majority of the electors voting at a State election shall by their votes signify approval of a law or resolution, such law or resolution shall stand as the law of the State and shall not be overruled, annulled or set aside and suspended, or in any way made inoperative except by a direct vote of the people. When such majority shall signify disapproval, the law or resolution so dis- approved shall be void or of no effect.” On March 19, 1901, this amendment passed the Nevada legislature, and on March 6, 1903, it passed a second legisla- ture.* It was submitted on Novem- ber 8th, last, and carried by a vote of 4,404 in favor to 794 against; save that in Eureka county the two sections were voted on separately, and the second section received 23 less votes in favor and '5 less against. These are the official figures, and it is a fact that Nevada is the fourth state in the Union to embed the referendum in its constitution. The general ignorance of the people in regard to really important constitutional enactments in the different common- wealths, and the difficulty of obtaining reliable data pertaining to legislative en- actments, find a striking illustration in this case. As President of the National Direct-Legislation League I naturally endeavor to keep in the closest possible touch with the movement all over the country, and in 1902, while searching through the laws passed the year before, I found a report of the first passage of this amendment and printed in the June issue of the Direct-Legislation Record . Last spring I communicated ' with the Secretary of State of Nevada, and he sent me an entirely different amendment modeled closely after the Oregon amend- ment, and stated that it had passed their legislature on March 12, 1903, — that is, six days after the second passage of the amendment recently voted on. Further inquiry of the Secretary of State and of the mover and seconder of these amend- ments brought no reply. I therefore concluded that the earlier amedment had been allowed to lapse so that the better one might pass. But a month after the November election I ascertained that Nevada had actually enacted a referen- dum amendment. I immediately wrote Mr. Shibley at Washington, and he interviewed the Nevada congressmen, but neither of them knew that the amend- ment had been passed. Indeed, I sup- pose I was the first person outside of the state to know of this important item of real * In Nevada every constitutional amendment must pa as two legislatures before it is submitted to the people. Digitized by Google
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269 The Nevada Referendum Victory . news, and I only learned of it incidentally a month after the victory. I do not know, and seem to be unable to find out, who worked for its passage. This procedure is characteristically democratic. A few thoughtful electors see the need of the referendum. They understand that in a republic changed conditions demand modifications and changes in methods, whereby the princi- ples of popular rule may be maintained. They are acquainted with the fact that various cantons in Switzerland, in order, to meet such changed conditions, long ago introduced the referendum, and that it has proved altogether successful, be- coming a bulwark of freedom and democ- racy. They know that it has been suc- cessfully introduced in Oregon and other commonwealths, and they set to work to secure the legislative enactments by which it will be possible to ascertain the wish of the people upon the question. That is all. A need is felt, and it is met by the initiative of comparatively un- known men. There is no blare of trumpets, no loud boasting, no oratory; and yet a far-reaching victory has been won for republican institutions, — a vic- tory affecting the fundamental law of a commonwealth and one that is relatively of far more importance than the choice of a president from among several really good men. Yet probably the readers of this article now hear of this referendum victory for the first time. I feel at times, when I see the rapid concentration of wealth on every side, when I see the manner in which the President, Congress and the central legislative bodies are often unconsciously drawing to themselves power and crush- ing out the opportunities for the develop- ment of individual initiative, that this country is in grave peril, — indeed, that the indications are that it is going the way which all other countries and civilizations have gone when they have become wealthy, and when because of this wealth power has been concentrated, creative ability has been shackled, and corruption and autocracy have been fostered. But on the other hand, as I watch closely the currents of our national life, I see from time to time such incidents as the passage of the Nevada Amendment, quiet, un- talked-of incidents, wherein some un- known men, seeing the opportunity to help mankind in the mass without per- haps benefiting themselves at all, have seized that opportunity and carried to completion some needed work, after which they have sunk back into the ranks, neither expecting nor receiving public praise or reward. And the spectacle of such victories renews my courage and strengthens my belief in the invincibility of democracy. So long as such things can be done, America will make progress, and the kings, the czars and the diplo- mats of the Old World will not understand the reason. They will think, as Mr. Chamberlain said of the English colonial policy, that our success is due to a series of happy blunders. Eltweed Pomeroy. East Orange , N. J. Digitized by Google
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HOW FOUR MEN RESCUED A CITY FROM EN- TRENCHED CORRUPTION; OR, THE RISE, DOMINANCE AND DOWNFALL OF THE TWEED RING. By B. O. Flower. I. THE RING AND THE SOURCE OF ITS POWER. R. ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE has performed a service of in- estimable value to the republic by publish- ing at the present time a detailed story of the rise, progress, domination and downfall of the Tweed Ring.* Especi- ally valuable is this historical sketch because of the clear and comprehensive description of how four men overthrew the most powerful and corrupt political organization in America, attacking it when it was in the very flower of its prestige and power, entrenched in office, controlling public opinion, dispensing favors to its sycophants and aids with lavish hand, and crushing its enemies with the multitudinous weapons at its command. The evil which had become so rank in the metropolis of the Empire State in the early ’seventies of the last century has permeated our body-politic. To a great extent commonwealths, like Pennsylva- nia, Missouri, Delaware, West Virginia, Rhode Island and other states, have fallen under the same corrupting and almost all-pervading combination of evil influences as made Tammany thirty years ago appear invincible. Hence no chapter in history is more important for our citizens than that telling just how the four men who placed all thought of self in subordination to the imperative demand of civic morality, overthrew the Ring and redeemed the city. It was in 1869 that Thomas Nast, who * See Thomas Nast: His Period and His Pic- tures. By Albert Bigelow Paine. Profusely Illus- trated. Cloth. Pp. 639. Price, $6.80 net New York: The Macmillan Company. had returned from fighting in freedom’s glorious cause under Garibaldi and had accepted a position on Harper's Weekly, fired two or three broadsides, in the form of powerful cartoons, at the political cor- ruptionists who were plundering the city and in the form of a ring or machine had begun that systematic reign of loot and graft that has few if any parallels in modem histoiy. The most noteworthy of these cartoons was entitled u The Economical Council at Albany, N. Y.” It was the first drawing in which the members of the Tweed Ring were identi- fied. In it Governor Hoffman, formerly Tammany mayor of New York City and the servile creature of the Tweed Ring, was represented as the supreme pontiff, Pius Hoffman I. At his side, on a dais, sat Peter Sweeny in cardinal’s robes. Before the dais were great chests of wealth, the tax-payers’ and tenants’ From Albert Bigelow Paine’s biography of Th. Nast: HU Period and HU Pictures. Copyright, 1904, by Albert Bigelow Paine. TWEEDLEDSE AND SWEEDLEDUM. 270 Digitized by Google
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271 How Four Men Rescued a City. tribute, wrung from the peo- ple by high taxes and exor- bitant rents. Around these chests and in front of the pontiff stood a mitred throng wherein were pictured in strikingly faithful portrait- ure William Tweed, Richard Connolly and Oakey Hall; also Jay Gould and Jim Fisk of the Erie contingent, who were already working hand and glove with the Ring. This picture proved the open- ing broadside in the most remarkable newspaper cam- paign for sound morality ever waged in America; but it was not until 1870 that the real war was declared. The conditions prevailing are graphically described by Mr. Paine. At that time, we are told, “the government of the City of New York was wholly in the hands of four men”: William Marcy Tweed, known as “The Boss” or “Big Bill”; Peter B. Sweeny, often called the “ Brains ” of the Ring; Richard B. Connolly, popularly and accurately described as “Slippery Dick”; and A. Oakey Hall, whose name was often written by himself as “ O. K. Hall,” and by Nast as “O. K. Haul.” “Their reign,” observes our author, “was as absolute as if they owned every street, public building and park of the city, with most of the inhabitants, body and soul. “They did, as a matter of fact, own or control every public office in New York City, and a working majority in the State Legislature, while the Tammany gov- ernor, John T. Hoffman, was a mere figure-head, elected and directed by the Ring. “Nor did the baleful influence of cor- ruption end with State and city officials. Bondholders, contractors, merchants, artisans — even ’ ministers of the gospel From Albert Bigelow Paine's biography of Th. Nad: Bit Picturet. Copyright, 1904, by Albert Bigelow Paine. Hit Period and "WHAT ARB YOU LAUGHING ATT TO THE VICTOR BELONG THE 8POILB." and philanthropists — were hoodwinked, intimidated or subsidized into aiding those gigantic pilferings which in a period of less than thirty months defraud- ed the city of New York of a round thirty millions of dollars, emptied the treasury and added more than fifty millions to the public debt which, in the form of taxation, we and the generations to follow must pay. “ It is difficult to understand the moral and patriotic impulses of a community in which such a condition could endure. It would almost seem that some dire in- fluence of the planets was operating upon the lives and minds of those who, under normal conditions, would be expected to represent and preserve the city’s moral, political and financial integrity. As an example of the Ring’s supremacy, one has but to refer to the files of that period to \ i Digitized by Google
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272 How Four Men Rescued a City. pN"From Albert Bigelow Paine's biography of Th. Nad: HU Period and HU Pictures. Copyright, 1904, by AlbertBigelow Paine. THB TAMMANY LORDS AND THEIR CONSTITUENTS. learn that, for a time, the great majority of the metropolitan daily press was frankly for the municipal government, while the remainder — to pervert an old line — praised it with faint condemnation, or remained silent, when silence was itself akin to crime. “In that evil hour the blight of the Ring had extended to every comer of the city’s moral and intellectual life. When it is remembered that not only men whose political and financial ambitions rendered them sensitive to its influence were bought or blinded, but that such a ven- erable and justly venerated man as Peter Cooper was for a time misled into public support of Tweed and his associates, it may be con- ceived that the general public was hopelessly confused as to facts and principles, while those whose clearer vision impelled them to reform, re- mained in what seemed a hopeless minority. “Even Parton, who had himself assailed the city gov- ernment, tried to dissuade Nast from his efforts against the Ring, declaring that he could never win the fight and that it was foolish and Quixotic to try. “‘They will kill off your work/ he said. ‘You come out once a week — they will attack you daily. They will print their lies in large type, and when any contradiction is necessary it will be lost in an obscure comer. You can never withstand their assaults, much less hope to win/ “Well, indeed, might Tweed ask in the first days of the exposure, ‘ What are you going to do about it?’ and Mayor Hall, ‘Who is going to sue ? ’ “ The Ring itself was a curious assort- ment of incongruous natures — its single bond of unity being that of sordid self- interest and gain. Tweed, the leader — Supervisor and Commissioner of Public Works, etc., etc. — who had begun his public career as foreman of the Americus (or Big Six) Fire Company, was a coarse and thoroughly ill-bred ward-politician, a former member of the ‘forty thieves’ Board of Aldermen (1860), a drinking, licentious Falstaff, with a faculty for making friends. Sweeny — Park Com- missioner, City Chamberlain, etc., etc. — was a lawyer of education and ability. Digitized by CjOOQle
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THE MADONNA A Twentieth-Century Conception William Ordway Partridge, Sculptor THl ARBNA Digitized by Google
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*78 How Four Men somber and seclusive — a man who loved to control great multitudes, unseen — to direct legislation, unsuspected. Con- nolly, controller of public expenditures (a bank clerk who had early acquired the sobriquet of ‘ SKppery Dick’), was a shifty human quantity without an honest bone in his body; while Mayor Hall — ‘Elegant Oakey,’ as they called him — was a frequenter of dubs, a beau of fashion, a wit, a writer of dever tales, a punster, a versatile mountebank, a lover of sodal distinction and applause. “Tweed was the bold burglar. Sweeny the dark plotter, Connolly the sneak- thief, Hall the dashing bandit of the gang. This curious assembly constituted the great central Ring. Other Rings there were, and rings within rings — each with its subsidiaries and its go-betweens — but all tributary to the motley aggregation of four whose misdeeds have been the one reason for preserving the record of their features and thdr lives.” Such was the Ring and its power in the early ’seventies. Its methods were simple and crude. Since then predatory wealth and political corruptionists have found it advisable to retain and employ the shrewdest lawyers and to proceed with great caution in their campaigns for rob- bing the people of their wealth and so debauching the public as to render pos- sible a reign of graft and the domination of privilege by means of the unholy alliance of political bosses, public-service corporations and trusts ; but in that primitive day of corrupt rule simpler methods were followed. The city gov- ernment was entirely in the hands of the Ring. Controller Connolly refused to show his books. The courts were en- tirely controlled by the Ring, members of the bar were apparently in sympathy with it, and men who were too curious about the way the city’s money vanished found that they had fallen on evil times. On the other hand, “ men with claims against the city — Ring favorites, most of them — were told to multiply the amount Rescued a City . of each bill by five, or ten, or a hundred, after which, with Mayor Hall’s ‘O. K.’ and Connolly’s endorsement, it was paid without question. The money was not handed to the claimant, direct, but paid through a go-between, who cashed the check, settled the original bill and divided the remainder (usually sixty-five, sometimes ninety per cent, of the whole) between Tweed, Sweeny, Connolly and Hall — Tweed and Connolly getting twenty-five per cent, each, and Sweeny, Hall and the underlings the residue.” When the expenditures became the subject of general scandal the people began to complain, and to quiet the rising tide of discontent the Ring had a com- mittee appointed from among the most wealthy and influential citizens of New York, to examine the accounts. On this ill-famed committee we find such men as John Jacob Astor, Moses Taylor and Marshall O. Roberts serving. Thdr report was all that the Ring could desire. In it they stated: “ We have come to the conclusion, and certify, that the financial affairs of the city, under the charge of the controller. That achieved the Tammany victory at the Bocheeter Democratic Convention, October, 1871. Digitized by Google
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*74 How Four Men Rescued a City. are administered in a correct and faithful manner.” Such a report from pillars of society — the ultra-respectables of New York — in the face of the fact that the city was being robbed of millions upon millions of dol- lars, and the further fact that the mem- bers of the Ring were suddenly becoming millionaires, owning palatial country and city residences, seems almost incredible, until it is known that the members of the committee were also being indirectly bribed and were thus, as are so many of the pillars of the church and society to- day, participants in the criminal, immoral and dishonest acts of the more daring thieves, that more than aught else are sapping the foundations of democracy. The key to this amazing white-washing report, signed by John Jacob Astor, Moses Taylor, Marshall O. Roberts, George K. Sistare, £. D. Brown and Edward Schell, is given in the following lines by Mr. Paine: “ Certainly nothing could establish ‘ Slippery Dick’s ’ credit more firmly than such a document as this, and when we begin to look for explanation we cannot help noting the fact that it was not necessary in those days for a millionaire to claim residence in Newport to avoid his taxes. The ac- commodating courts had a habit of vacating assess- ments for what, in certain legal documents, is described as Move and affection* and a modest ‘ sum in hand, duly paid.* “Then, when the notori- ous* Viaduct Job ’came along and we find the names of most of these gentlemen, as well as those of the leading newspaper owners — associa- ted with the names of Tweed, Sweeny, Connolly and Hall, and some seventy other good men and true — as stock- holders and directors, we begin to understand how the Ring, like a great malignant cancer, had sent its fibrous growth through every tendon and tissue of the body-politic, to possess, to poison and to destroy.” One of the chief sources of the strength of the Ring was found in the subserviency of the daily press. Some of the papers, it is true, occa- From Albert Bigelow Paine’s biography of TK Nad: M t Period amd Mi Pidwret, Copyright, 1004, by Albert Bigelow Paine. A GROUP or VULTURES WAITING FOR THE 8T0RM TO “BLOW OVER “ LET US PREY.” Digitized by Google
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How Four Men Rescued a City. 275 EMPTY. s*«»t ut m Mine to m m>r %r.r fllLl. .«m» m MMiav wt tm maitiu that catticdit. ' From Albert Bigei^w Paine’s biography of Tk. Nad: Hit Period and HU Picture* Copyright, 1904, by Albert Bigelow Paine sionally gave space to a sav- age denunciation of the wholesale robbery of the people, but they quickly lapsed into significant silence or suddenly became aggressive champions of the corruptionists. The New York World spoke of Tweed in the following unequivocal terms: “ He thrives on a percent- age of pilfering, grows rich on distributed dividends of rascality. His extortions are boundless in their sum as in their iniquity/9 Later this paper thus championed the Bing: “There is not another municipal gov- ernment in the world which combines so much character, capacity, experience and energy as are to be found in the city government of New York, under the new charter. The ten most capable men in the National Administration at Washington would be no match in ability and sagacity for the best ten in the New York City government, although General Grant has the whole country to select from.” The Bing in those early days of political debauchery and degeneracy seemed to possess a power over many of the greatest daily papers which apparently is not altogether unknown to the great public- service corporations, the trusts and other privileged interests of our time. n. THE FOUR MEN WHO WROUGHT THE RUIN OF THE RING. It was in the face of such conditions that the young David of journalistic art, Thomas Nast, went forth to battle against the Goliath of greed and graft, backed as was the giant power by the governor of the state, the New York State Democracy, the entire city govern- ment of the metropolis, the judiciary of the city, most of the daily papers. Jay Gould, Jim Fisk and the Erie contingent, to say nothing of the eminent respectables, and finally rendered doubly secure in its posi- tion by the complete control of an election machinery that, if we except the present corrupt rigime in Phila- delphia, has probably never been ap- proached in an American city for the manipulation of majorities. Surely it is not strange that James Parton, not being gifted with the moral enthusiasm that burned brightly in the soul of the young man recently under the in- spiring influence of Garibaldi, sought to discourage him from a work that to the superficial observer seemed fore- doomed to failure. The artist, how- ever, was a moral enthusiast. He was young and possessed of the courage of youth. He had been present when Garibaldi’s rugged regiments overthrew the might of monarchal and reactionary churchly power on Italian soil; he had witnessed a people intoxicated with the gladness bora of freedom; he had been baptized anew in the warm light of liberty; hence he feared nothing but the wrong — that which was reactionary, op- pressive and un-American; and week after week he assailed with his terrible pictures the Tweed Bing. At first the members were amused. They felt secure, but later amusement Digitized by Google
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276 How Four Men Rescued a City. Connolly Sweeny Tweed Hall From Albert Bigelow Paine's biography of Th. Nad: HU Period amd HU Pktwru. Copyright, 1904, by Albert Bigelow Paine. gave place to indignation not unmixed with terror, which finally found expres- sion in Tweed’s coarse and uncouth ex- clamation: “Let’s stop them d d pictures. I don’t care so much what the papers write about me — my constituents can’t read; but,d n it, they can see pictures.” On the appearance of an earlier car- toon Tweed’s indignation and fighting spirit were in evidence. It was in 1871 that Harper's Weekly published a picture by Nast entitled “ Tweedledee and Sweedledum.” It represented Tweed and Sweeny looting the people’s treasury and handing some of the stolen wealth to their poorer friends, while they were setting aside the larger share for themselves. When the Boss saw this picture he exclaimed: “That’s the last straw! 111 show them d d publishers a new trick!” “ He had already threaten- ed Harpers with an action for libel. . . . He now gave orders to his Board of Education to reject all Harper bids for school-books, and to throw out those already on hand. More than fifty thousand dollars of public property was thus destroyed, to be replaced by books from the New York Printing Company — a cor- poration owned by the Bing. “The Harper firm held a meeting to consider this seri- ous blow. A majority of the members would have been willing to discontinue the war- fare on so mighty an enemy. Fletcher Harper never waver- ed. When at last the argu- ment became rather bitter, he took up his hat and said : “‘Gentlemen, you know where I live. When you are ready to continue the fight against these scoundrels, send for me. Meantime, I shall find a way to continue it alone/ “They did not let him go, and the fight went on.” Too much cannot be said in praise of Fletcher Harper’s splendid stand. From the first he had proved himself a tower of strength to Nast, encouraging and stimu- lating him to do his best.. He had also given him great liberty in his work. Now he took a positive stand that might easily have meant financial ruin for him- self and his associates rather than sur- render to thieves when surrender meant, almost to a certainty, the complete triumph of political corruption through- out New York State and possibly through- out the nation; for the Ring had already fixed greedy eyes upon the national treasury at Washington. Besides Thomas Nast and Fletcher Harper, two new Richmonds now ap- Digitized by Google
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*77 How Four Men Rescued a City. pe&red in the field, sustain- ing much the same relation- ship to each other as that existing between Harper and Nast. These men were George Jones, the pro- prietor of the New York Times , and Louis John Jennings, the editor of the Times . Mr. Jones was a man of wealth. Mr. Jen- nings was an Englishman of great courage and perse- verance. He abhorred the corruption that flourished throughout the official life of the city almost as much as he loathed the venality and sycophancy of the bench, bar, press, church and society, that tolerated such criminality and whole- sale dishonesty. Mr. Jones shared his editor’s senti- ments and finally he gave the word to attack the Ring boldly and unsparingly. It is to these four men that the honor belongs of crushing the Tweed Ring and exiling or bringing to justice the arch-conspirators against good government and the people. WHO IS )flC£RS0LL? CO?** TRIBUXC. VWO STOWf THtrtOfi.riAWHrr?lDO TfLL.ny.Tu-c*. 'TWA$ HIM. From Albert Bigelow Paine’s biography of Th. Nad: Hi • Period amd Hit Pictures. Copyright, 1904, by Albert Bigelow Paine. III. DRAWING THE LINES OF BATTLE. With Nast pouring broadsides into the Ring each week and Jennings assailing it day by day so boldly and so circum- stantially that the people could not fail to feel that if the charges were not true the editor and' reputable publisher would be quickly arrested for criminal libel, the conditions of the Ring became less and less secure. In vain it sought to silence its assailants by threats and attempts to bribe. The denunciations of the Times appeared day after day, and each week Nast gave emphasis to the charges with his terrible and often brutally telling cartoons. At last the Ring began to strike back, and seldom has the moral turpitude of an urban press been more vividly exhibited than in the attacks on the Times and on Nast. Indeed, one almost feels that he is reading a present- day metropolitan or other great daily paper in its editorial criticisms of Mr. Lawson or some other writer who is ex- posing corruption in high places, when reading such editorial utterances as the following from the New York Herald* published on July 4, 1871, and entitled “ Humbug Reformers ” : “ Every now and then there springs up. Digitized by Google
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*78 How Four Men like mushrooms in a night, a crop of municipal reformers who assail the au- thorities with might and main, until obliged to desist from sheer exhaustion, or other causes which are not at all difficult to explain. These humbug re- formers are organized bands of uneasy people who have been left out in the cold in the matter of some fat contract or other — that of the city printing and advertising being not the least of the causes that arouse their holy indignation. It is with the intention of having their silence purchased by what they call the ‘Ring’ that all this parade of alleged extravagance, over-taxation and fraud is made.” Another characteristic editorial of this class appeared in the New York Sun of February 3 and 4, 1871 : “ The decline of the New York Times in everything that entitles a paper to respect and confidence has been rapid and complete. Its present editor, who was dismissed from the London Times for improper conduct and untruthful writing, has sunk into a tedious monotony of slander, disregard of truth and black- guard vituperation. . . . Let the Times change its course, send off Jennings and get some gentleman and scholar in his place, and become again an able and high-toned paper. Thus may it escape from ruin. Otherwise it is doomed.” Other daily papers either defended the Ring outright or remained discreetly silent, while the general indifference of the people gave courage to the thieves and Mayor Hall cheerfully declared that, “It will all blow over. These gusts of reform are all wind and clatter. Next year we shall be in Washington.” This idea of getting to Washington was a dear dream to the members of the Ring in more than one sense. They cherished it fondly and it proved to be one of the greatest factors in their undoing. The Ring and the Erie contingent planned to secure the nomination of Rescued a City. Governor Hoffman for the presidency, feeling sure that if once elected this pliant tool would virtually turn all offices over to them and their friends. But there was a small, shrewd, keen and inordinately ambitious politician and lawyer that this new plan of the Ring did not please. Samuel J. Tilden, as Chairman of the Democratic State Committee in 1868, “had been hand and glove with Tweed during that notorious campaign.” He had been counsel for the Erie directors when Tweed and Sweeny were on the board and was thoroughly familiar with their villainy; but he was a shrewd politician whose eyes had long been fixed upon the presidency. Now that the Ring had passed him over and settled definitely on Hoffman, he saw no promise of political aid from that direction. If he gained the presidency, it must be over the ruin and not by the aid of the Ring. Thus the dream of Washington, which Tweed and his companions cherished, was going to cost them dear, as we shall presently see. Mr. James O’Brien was an intimate political friend of Samuel J. Tilden. He was the sheriff under the Ring, and it was through Mr. O’Brien that the proofs were secured that precipitated the over- throw of Tweed and his associates. One morning O’Brien repaired to Con- troller Connolly’s office and stated that he had a favor to ask, and he stated this in such a manner that Connolly knew that if the favor asked were not granted, there would be trouble brewing. O’Brien had a friend, one William Copeland, whom he wished given a position then held by one of the bookkeepers in the controller’s office. Connolly had offended O’Brien on a former occasion, and O’Brien was known to be a dangerous man to have for an enemy. At a time when the Times and Harper' 8 Weekly were stirring up the public and creating a general demand for an investigation, it would be pecu- liarly unfortunate to run the risk of hav- ing O’Brien make a confession of what he knew. Still, the controller hesitated. Digitized by Google
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279 How Four Men) Rescued a City. He had grave misgivings. 'The men in his office were tried and true. He knew nothing of Copeland. O’Brien, however, pressed lais case and insisted that he knew Copeland, that he was all right, and that he was safe and could be trusted; so finally Connolly consented, and the Trojan horse entered the controller’s office. No sooner was Copeland at the books than “he began to make a transcript of the items of the Ring’s frightful and fraudulent disburse- ments, mainly charged as expenditures on the court- house, then building. He worked fast and overtime to get these, and within a brief period the evidence of a guilt so vast as to be almost in- credible was in O’Brien’s hands. Another man, one Matthew O’Rourke, in a similar manner had been installed as county book- keeper, and in this position had also fortified himself with proofs of enormous frauds, chiefly in connection with armory rents and re- pairs. O’Rourke had been a military edi- tor and was especially fitted for this job.” Thus in the hour when the members of the Ring, that had defied the public by insolently demanding, when Nast opened his crusade, “What are you going to do about it?” and that had later shown signs of fright only to recover their equilibrium and declare that it “would all blow over,” were planning to move on Washington, a powder mine was being laid under their very seats. IV. JENNINGS RECEIVE8 A MIDNIGHT VISITOR. The power of the Ring was still so great that though every week found more RJEITAII-. Albert Bigelow Paine’* Copyright, 1904, by Albert of Th. Nasi: His Period cmd iw Paine. and more people awakened, to the super- ficial observer the outlook for speedy retribution seemed far from encouraging, especially when he remembered that the great criminals were securely entrenched behind “cunningly devised laws, fraudu- lent voting machinery and an army of accomplices, composed of capitalists, railway magnates, office-holders, prize- fighters, loafers, convicted felons and a subsidized press.” Indeed, as Mr. Paine further observes : “ The Ring had imperial power over every public issue and fran- chise, not only in the city but the State. The Erie Railroad, with Tweed and Sweeny as directors and with Fisk and Gould as its financiers, was simply a Digitized by Google
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280 How Four Men Rescued a City . gigantic highway of robbery and dis- grace.” And yet, as is frequently the case in critical hours when a foriom hope is carrying forward the cause of honesty, justice and right, help was near at hand for the four moral heroes who had re- mained undaunted, undismayed and de- termined. “ Louis John Jennings, who, as we have noted, had maintained an unceasing war- fare, was one night sitting in his office, wondering what move he could make next. Over and over he had branded Tweed and his associates as criminals, pointing out the frauds that must exist, daring the Ring to produce the city ac- counts. His life had been threatened, and more than once he had been arrested on trumped-up charges. Like Nast, he had been accused of almost every crime in the calendar. . . . Pondering as to the possibilities, and the probable re- wards, of American reform, the sturdy Englishman began writing, when the door suddenly opened, and James O’Brien entered. “The men were known to each other and O’Brien remarked that it was a warm evening. “‘Yes, hot,’ assented Jennings. “‘You and Nast have had a hard fight,’ continued O’Brien. “‘Have still,’ nodded Jennings rather wearily. “‘I said you have had it,’ repeated O’Brien, and he pulled a roll of papers from an inner pocket. ‘Here are the proofs of all your charges — exact trans- scriptions from Dick Connolly’s books. The boys will likely try to murder you when they know you ’ve got ’em, just as they’ve tried to murder me.’ “ Jennings seized the precious roll and sat up till daylight, studying it all out. It was only a day or two later that O’Rourke came in with the add- ed documents, and was engaged by the Times to assist in making the great attack.” V. MEN SUPERIOR TO BRIBES. When it came to the ears of the master- spirits of the Ring that the New York Times had obtained the transcript of the controller’s books which would sub- stantiate the criminal charges made by the Times , there was consternation in Tammany Hall, until Connolly hit upon a plan of buying off Jones. Did not every man have his price? All Jones wanted was a big bribe; they were yet safe. And so, judging Jones by other men, Connolly repaired to the office of a lawyer in the Times Building. Later Jones was sent for. Here Connolly offered the proprietor five million dollars if he would not publish the damning evidence. This interview is worth re- cording, for in an age like ours, when the keenest brains are on every hand bring direcfly or indirectly seduced from loyal and single-hearted devotion to the cause of democracy and the interests of the people and are being employed to main- tain corrupt and extortionate corpora- tions, ring-rule and machine domination, it is well to remember that there are men to whom five million dollars is no tempta- tion, when its possession would be bought at the expense of moral rectitude. When Mr. Jones entered the private office of the lawyer who had sent for him, and saw Controller Connolly, he ex- claimed, “ I do n’t want to see this man,” and turned to leave. “‘For God’s sake!’ exclaimed Con- nolly, * let me say one word to you.’ “At this appeal Mr. Jones stopped. Connolly then made him a proposition to forego tiie publication of the documents he had in his possession and offered him the enormous sum of five million dollars to do this. As Connolly waited for the answer, Mr. Jones said: “‘I don’t think the devil will ever make a higher bid for me than that.’ “ Connolly began to plead, and drew a graphic picture of what one could do with five million dollars. He ended by saying: Digitized by Google
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How Four Mm Rescued a City. 281 “‘Why, with that sum you can go to Europe and live like a prince.’ “‘Yes,’ said Mr. Jones, ‘but 1 should know that 1 was a rascal. 1 cannot con- sider your offer or any offer not to publish the facts in my possession.’ ” In this connection we will mention the tempting offer made at a later date to Thomas Nast. We have seen how the Ring strove to silence Harper's Weekly by dealing a crushing blow to the business of the firm; but failing thus and seeing that Nast’s pen, af- ter the exposure of the Ring’s corruption by the Times and the Booth Com- mittee, was growing more and more terri- ble each week, i t determined to buy his si- lence. The story as given by Mr. Paine is as follows: “ The Ring now resorted to new tactics. They determined to buy where they could not intimidate. A lawyer friend one day intimated to Nast that, in appreciation of his great efforts, a party of rich men wished to send him abroad, and give him a chance to study art under the world’s great masters. The friend was probably innocent enough — an un- conscious tool of the Ring. “Nast said very little except that he appreciated the offer and would be de- lighted to go, but for the fact that he had important business, just then, in New York. . . . On the following Sunday an officer of the Broadway Bank, where the Ring kept its accounts, called on Nast at his home. He talked of a number of things. Then he said: “‘I hear you have been made an offer to go abroad for art study.’ “‘Yes,’ nodded Nast, ‘but I can’t go. I have n’t time.’ “‘But they will pay you for your time. 1 have reason to believe that you could get a hundred thousand dollars for the trip.’ “‘Do you think I could get two hun- dred thou- sand?’ “‘Well, pos- sibly. I believe frcm what I have heard in the bank that you might get it. You have a great talent; but you need study and you need rest. Be- sides, this Ring business will get you into trou- ble. They own all the judges and jurors and can get you locked up for libel. My ad- vice is to take the money and get away/ “Nast looked out into the street, and perhaps wondered what two hundred thousand dollars would do for him. It would pay the mortgage on the house in the city. It would give him years of study abroad. It would make him com- fortable for life. Presently he said: “‘Don’t- you think I could get five hundred thousand to make that trip ? ’ “ The bank official scarcely hesitated. “‘You can. You can get five hundred thousand dollars in gold to drop this Ring business and get out of the country.’ “ Nast laughed a little. He had played the game far enough. “‘Well, I don’t think 111 do it,’ he Prom Albert Bigelow Paine’s biography of Th. Nad: HU Period and HU Picture s. Copyright, 1904, by Albert Bigelow Paine. WHAT THE PEOPLE MUST DO ABOUT IT. Digitized by Google
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How Four Men Rescued a City . 282 said. ‘ I made up my mind not long ago to put some of those fellows behind the bars, and I'm going to put them there I9 “The banker rose, rather quietly. “‘Only be careful, Mr. Nast, that you do not first put yourself in a coffin!* he smiled.” VI. AMAZING REVELATIONS. Connolly returned to his companions, terrified and despairing, and “ on July 8th was published the first instalment of those terrible figures that, having once been made to lie, now turned to cry out the damning truth in bold black type — black indeed to the startled members of the Ring. “The sensation was immediate. The figures showed that an enormous outlay had been charged as ‘armory rents and repairs’ which never could have been legitimately expended. Ten lofts, mostly over old stables, had been rented at a cost of $85,000, and though these lofts had not been used, an additional $463,- 064 had been charged for keeping them in repair. Ten other armories had been kept in repair for a period of nine months at (he trifling cost to the county of $041,453.86. The upper floor of Tam- many Hall, worth at that time about $4,000 a year, was charged in the list at nine times that sum. The Times as- serted the absolute truth of these figures, and boldly called on the officials to dis- prove them by producing their books.” On July 22, 1871, the Times exploded its second bomb by publishing Cope- land’s transcript of Connolly’s accounts. These figures more than bore out all the charges made by the Times and Harper's Weekly. They were carefully tabulated, printed in clear, fair type, and showed at a glance how the city had been robbed of millions upon millions of dollars. “Many of the great sums had been charged as repairs or furnishings for the new court-house, and most of them had been distributed through such ‘contrac- tors’ as J. H. Ingersoll & Company, Andrew J. Garvey, Keyser & Company and others, who had ‘arranged’ whatever small part was really due for goods and labor, and deposited the huge balance to the credit of the various members and associates of the Ring. “The new court-house was still far from complete, and miserably furnished, yet it had already resulted in the neat outlay of $11,000,000, when the most liberal estimate placed its value, finished and luxuriously furnished, at less than three millions. “ A few items will be sufficient to show the scale upon which the Ring conducted its financial policy: “ Forty old chairs and three tables had a record value of $179,729.60. “ A charge for repairing fixtures, through J. H. Keyser & Company, was $1,149,874.50. “Thermometers, $7,500. “ Another charge for furniture, through Ingersoll & Company, $240,564.63. “City and County Advertising — paid to the newspapers of New Yoik City, $2,703,308.48 — a large proportion of this vast sum having been paid in the early months of 1871. “A single item of stationery was set down at $186,495.61. What, in heaven’s name, could the .61 have paid for with stationery bought at Ring rates ? Possi- bly it represented the actual cost of the entire outlay. “ Then there were carpets, shades and curtains, also supplied by that marvelous firm, Ingersoll & Company, at the fairly comfortable figure of $675,534.44. Why always these odd cents? It must have been worrisome to make change in those days of opulence. But one cannot help admiring the two liverymen who in a few brief days earned nearly fifty thousand dollars by supplying the aldermen with carriages, mostly for funerals. That must have been a busy season for aider- men, keeping up with all those obsequies. Nor mu^t we overtook one G. S. Miller, a carpenter who was set down as having received $360,747.61 (another .61 — fatal Digitized by Google
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283 How Four Men Rescued a City. XIWMO •»»*CO fO Tak{ C*a^ •• t»* KKifl f,., , VO«». IT HAS BLOWN OVER WANTED REFORMERS T Of THC TAMMAN-Y CLASS WANTED ACrORMERS I EOUCATEO IN THE 1 TAMMANY HALL L SCHOOL Si RE°FORM, / REWARD IT TAKESl A THIEF I OR ONE I WHO HAS 1 ASSOCIATED' WITH THIEVES { TO CATCH/ POLITICAL " CAPITAL” TM * people «r» W » »rry puuird md (Impor. ieni tUU «ff aM ifcwt lb* political ritutwa. »»d Hat, got beyond «*• M»* •» »Wb ihey look for U>* ippearaoc* of lb* ideal »*■■*■■■ amkmg H» pwrwt Mttm *>ik tka hkgbevt .b.lity They mm gm the for* motive*. aod they cut get tha high ab.lt *?« »• •• «hjt drCWMUDCM, (O gm a Ml erba askra botit tau t loading place ia Um govern mam k a week at Mrb ftftcuky (bat mi prop)* km give* it *9 m (far Um frmmi at Watt) a bad Job, and ar* willing to con mzt tWaartrri »*th aay au »bo, for whatever boi!>«, will da gmm *wt k ao Kjppnu, too, that Um work to ba done at ibu mamam k am mat k «hkb cal la tuber for lha bight at order ol , REWARO • AND « bai^ a Hoxs ar a V A man may do it v» —without, la abort, bring * a pray bat ar a bora. Bo boa antbor to IraJ a raw out o( uto atlateaoa The taak before the **"icaa poUtkau of to-day la the via pi* and tom*. hat homrly at prrmtiag public efterre from atoaliag tod dividing the patfh moaay. aod of preecatiog Dm government from cheaiiag Ht crouton ■ aad »Hm a oat offer* bimaelf for tbit work, there ia no Cental <ky»ol«iaa to oak ■ briber kt I* n autraaa of lb* Br,t nak, ar whether hi* political judgment baa alwty* been tur* or hji •oka km atwae* beard oa lb* right aido. ta fact, (bey go ao (a. as ia aay that to make capital ia Urn way ia a good thing to do. and * *• *“*»*• l* It- They are ready to forbcai NO QUESTIONS ASKED. ANYBODY WHO WILL BRINC A FEW PLUNDERERS OF THE state: 3 JUSTICE (tl WILL BE REWARDEO BY TMC HI GHEST OFFICES i C IN THE ; i f t CO. LOffO C0KVCT10. onc or thc or thc COPUt CANAL RING. i* to pal as end to cheating aad aleaiiag. Ia fact, the voter, of Che ewe* try ant flicking naticat up offering the bigbeat after, in ■Mr gift, aad 'no gaattioo* aaaad," to aay body abo win bring ia a few pkaa dartre of the ataie Mr Tithes baa acbieecd hi* prevent aattam dapiy wriag to Ms having, before ao; body elt* of bis data, aadaratond the enact nature at the i. tuition. Re perceived aoooer at tho date bed com* to itop preaching aad aad dm ring op indictments. He now And*, lia a.'uMao* bat rendered bin the aotanliy pUy into hia band*."— Tis TAMMANy HALL SCHOOL Of reform. SCHOLARS WANTED F Oft REFORMERS. TO THOSE AVE ASSOCIATED THIEVES. AND Z STATE LNCE REWARD TO ALL PUBLIC THIEVES WHO HAVE ENOUGH AMO CAN STOP OTHERS FROM CHEATING AND STEALING. THEY WILL BE REWARCED j BY HONORABLE POSITIONS AMO ■AT OFFICES. From Albert Bigelow Jfrine’i biography of Tk. Nad: HU Period and HU Pictures. Copyright, 1904, by Albert Bigelow Paine. TWEED- LE-DEB AMD TILDEN-DUM. Ritobx Tweed.—" If all the people want ia to have aomebody arrested, I 'll have yon plunderers convicted. Too will be allowed to eaeape ; nobody will be hurt ; and then Tildkn will go to the white House, and I to Albany aa Governor.” sum) for one month’s work. ‘Is not/ asks the Times, ‘this Miller the luckiest carpenter alive ? ’ “But Garvey, Andrew J. Garvey, the plasterer! Generations of plasterers yet unborn will take off their hats to his memory! $2,870,464.06 had he earned at his humble trade in the brief period of nine months. Fifty thousand dollars a day was his record for an entire month! Surely never was a month so well plastered as that long-ago June! ‘ As G. S. Miller is the luckiest carpenter alive/ comments the Times , ‘so is Andrew J. Garvey the Prince of Plasterers. His good fortune surpasses anything recorded in the Arabian Nights. A plasterer who can can earn $138,187 in two days (December 20th and 21st), and that in the depths of winter, need never be poor. With a Digitized by LjOOQle
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284 How Four Men Rescued a City. total of $2,870,464.06 for the job, he could afford to donate the .06 to charity.9 “As heretofore stated, during thirty months of Ring-rule, thirty millions of dollars had been stolen out of hand. The city debt had increased more than fifty millions and was doubling every two years. No wonder the shores of Long Island Sound were lined with the elegant homes of the city contractors and financiers. Matthew J. O’Rourke, who since that time has made a careful study of the city’s finances, states that counting the vast issues of fraudulent bonds, the swindling of the city by the wealthy tax- dodgers, by franchises and favors granted, by blackmail and extortion — the total amount of the city’s loss through the Tweed Ring stands at not less than Two Hundred Millions of Dollars.” vn. some of nast’s telling cab- toons. This was the summer-time for Thomas Nast. Picture after picture appeared, each more compelling than the former. Among these notable cartoons was one entitled “ The Tammany Lords and Their Constituents” that was very dis- quieting to the Ring. It showed Tweed, Connolly, Hall and Sweeny luxuriating at the palatial summer home of the first, while the poor attic-dweller in the city was being evicted. Another telling cartoon was entitled “The ‘Brains’ of the Rochester Conven- tion.” It represented Tweed’s body. The head was a money-bag shaped like the head of the Tammany chief, but with the dollar-mark in place of eyes, nose and mouth. Another very striking picture was sug- gested by Mayor Hall’s observation that the reform storm would soon “ blow over.” It represented a group of vultures standing on the prostrate form of New York, waiting for the storm to blow over. The vultures bore the heads of Tweed, Connolly, Hall and Sweeny. A cartoon that did much to cause Protestants everywhere to rally to the support of the public schools was entitled “The American River Granges.” It rep- resented Tweed and his associates throw- ing the children from the public schools down an embankment where, coming up from a river, were a great number of crocodiles, each wearing the mitred hat of a Roman prelate. This cartoon was sug- gested by the constant work of the Ring in the interests of the Roman Church and against the public schools. A picture that created great indigna- tion in the hearts of Tweed and his asso- ciates was entitled “ Why is the Treasury Empty?” It showed on one side the workingmen who had labored for the city, but who were not able to get their pay, standing before the empty vaults of the city treasury, while behind these same vaults were revealed Tweed, Sweeny, Connolly and Hall, reveling in champagne and delicate viands. After certain vouchers had been stolen, all the members of the Ring were quick to declare that they knew nothing of the theft. This suggested an effective car- toon entitled “Too Thin.” But the two cartoons that immediately followed the Times ’ exposure and that created the greatest sensation were en- titled “Two Great Questions.” The first was suggested by Horace Greely’s inquiry, “ Who is Ingersoll’s Company ? ” Nast pictured Ingersoll as introducing Tweed, the Ring and their associates to Greely. The other was suggested by the Times * query, “ Who stole the people’s money ? ” It represented the master- spirits of the Ring and their accomplices standing in a circle. Each man was pointing an accusing finger at his neighbor and saying, " *T was him. ” “Wholesale and Retail” was the title of an accusatory and fearsome picture which was well calculated to make shivers run down the back of the great Boss. It consisted of two pictures, the upper one representing Tweed, Sweeny, Connolly and Hall coming out of the city treasury where they had helped themselves Digitized by CjOOQle
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From Albert Bigelow Paine’s biography of Th. Nad: HU Period and HU Pietwrea. Copyright, 1904, by Albert Bftaelow Paine. “STOP THIEF!” In Use foreground Is the prostrate figure of Connolly. Hard upon his heels are Hall, 8weeny, Tweed and N. Bands. Farther book are Fisk, T. Fields, H. Smith, and others less distinct. in a lordly way. Policemen on either side of the doorway were touching their caps; while just below this picture was another drawing representing the outside of a bakery. A poor, starving man, hunger-crazed, had entered the bakery and stolen a loaf of bread. Two police- men had seized and were clubbing him, and a third policeman was running to their assistance. Among the savage pictures that natu- rally enraged the members of the Ring was that of four tigers behind the bars, bearing the faces of Tweed, Sweeny, Connolly and Hall. It has always been the policy of great rogues and master-spirits in political and commercial knavery to assume to possess superior knowledge and virtue in the presence of public indignation. They strive to throw dust in the eyes of the people, to contemptuously sneer at their critics, or to intimate that they are in- spired by unworthy motives. Not un- frequently they assume the rdle of cham- pions of justice and integrity and insist on the punishment of their own tools. This is frequently the case when they have been able to make some arrange- ments with pliable servants by which the latter are promised a pardon after they have been convicted, provided conviction has been rendered inevitable — something which the leading offenders will if possible prevent. Nast was ever keenly analyti- cal, and many of his cartoons mercilessly exposed such subterfuges as these. A very notable example of this kind was the cartoon which finally led to the arrest of Tweed in Spain. It represented the Boss playing the rdle of moralist. He was arrayed in striped garments, sug- gestive of the garb which the artist held he should be wearing. He had seized two small street urchins, typical of the little offenders whose infractions of law were slight, and was dragging them to justice while privately assuring them that they Digitized by Google
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286 How Four Mm Rescued a City. would be pardoned out. After Tweed had escaped from jail and had fled to Europe, he was detected in Spain by his resemblance to this cartoon, the Spanish officials supposing from the picture that he was a kidnapper of children. The cablegram announcing his arrest declared that Tweed “had been identified and captured at Vigo, Spain, on the charge of * kidnapping two American children.9 " When all the daily papers that had upheld the Ring and various officials were breaking for cover, the members of the Ring began to accuse one another and to join in the general clamor. This sug- gested a cartoon entitled “Stop Thief!" representng the members of the Ring rushing at full speed, each vociferating, “Stop Thief!" But the most powerful of all Nast’s cartoons was the one printed on the eve of the election that proved to be the Waterloo of the Ring. It was entitled “The Tammany Tiger Loose. — ‘What are you going to do about it?*" In this famous drawing Nast utilized a sketch of the Coliseum made when he visited Rome at the time of Garibaldi's triumph. He restored the amphitheater. In the imperial box sat Tweed and his associates. The galleries were filled with the Ameri- can people. In the arena lay the crushed ballot-box and the figure of Columbia, prostrate under the savage daws of an enormous tiger — “ the crea- ture of rapacity and stripes," defiant, desperate and brutally fierce. This is one of the greatest cartoons that has ever appeared in an illustrated publication. After the overthrow of the Ring, Tweed was represented as Marius amid the ruins of Carthage. Yin. THE OVERTHROW OF THE RING. The Ring had met a fatal check when it failed to bribe or buy the silence of Jones and Nast. All the dty was now aroused. Men who had remained silent or who had worked hand and glove with the Ring, now experienced a sudden spasm of virtue. On every side the smaller rogues and the eminently respect- able gentlemen who had long been bene- ficiaries of the Ring were breaking for cover. Samuel J. Tilden was now a star actor in the campaign for reform. He was indefatigable and effective. Mr. Paine thus admirably pictures this pass- age in the history of the collapse of the Ring: “ And just here came Samuel J. Tilden's great moment of entrance. His appearance on the stage was as dramatic as it was effective. It was the moment in the melodrama when the avenger rushes from the wings, holding high the damning proof that makes conviction sure. “The Booth Committee was ready to make its report Through Andrew H. Green, Mr. Tilden knew precisely what that report would be. Two or three days previous he ‘happened causually.* as he says in his affidavit, to drop into Mr. Green’s office, and was there shown some startling figures from the books of the Broadway Bank. Traced through the bank's entries, these figures showed just how an account against the city — a sum of $6,312,641.37 — had netted a dear profit of $6,095,309.17 to Tweed and his friends, and just in what measure the transaction had been arranged. Why the bank had not rendered so important a public service before, does not now matter. Neither does it matter why Mr. Tilden, who later acknowledged that he knew as far back as 1869 that the Ring ‘was opposed to all good government,' should have waited until this particular and supreme instant for strenuous action. It is enough that it was the supreme instant, and with his affidavit and the dear and full statement of the Broadway Bank, Mr. Tilden strode into the lime- light, and the public rose up in a concord of cheers and commendation. . . . “On the next day the report of the Booth Committee removed the last breath of doubt. On that day William Marcy Tweed was arrested, and, though re- Digitized by Google
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From Albert Bigelow Paine's biography of 7%. Nad: BU Period amd BU Picture*. Copyright, 1904, by Albert Bigelow Paine. THIS TAMMANY TIGER LOOSE.-4' WHAT ABB YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT ITT" (The first nee of the fkmooa Tiger Symbol.) Digitized by Google
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288 How Four Men Rescued a City. leased on a million-dollar bond, supplied by Jay Gould and others, that first arrest marked the beginning of the end. Samuel J. Tilden, like an avenging angel, with all the skill and knowledge and ambition of his kind, had linked his legal acumen with the brilliant daring of the Times and the rentless genius of Nast ! The glory of dishonor was waning dim. In its declin- ing day, long shadows of somber prison- walls reached out to enclose the Ring.” Tweed escaped to Spain, where he was apprehended and returned to America, to die in disgrace. a Of all the fortunes acquired by the Ring and its adherents, scarcely the remnants of a single one exist to-day. Less than a millon of the loss was re- covered by the city, but the men who had sold themselves for plunder had not the ability to preserve their ill-gotten price. Some of them died in exile, others in prison. Some were allowed to return and testify against their fellows, and all, or nearly all, have perished from the sight of men, and left only dishonored names hehind.” IX. THE LESSON FOE THE HOUR. This brief sketch of the work wrought by four men for civic righteousness is a mere digest of the admirable chapters in Mr. Paine’s life of Nast that deal with the most important service rendered by the great cartoonist. The lesson it incul- cates is of supreme importance for our people at the present time, showing as it does the compelling power of social righteousness when bravely espoused. When a man imbued with the conscious- ness of his own moral rectitude and singleness of purpose realizes the essential iniquity, the baleful nature and the far- reaching potency for moral disintegration of a crying evil before which conven- tionalism, conservatism and greed main- tain a discreet silence, and with that high and holy consecration that places the cause of right, justice and morality above all thought of self — all thought of wealth, popularity, freedom and even life itself — and with the faith in the eternal power of righteousness that led Socrates to drink the hemlock and Jesus to face Calvary, — in a word, when a man, conscious of his own rectitude of purpose, conscious of the magnitude of an evil that is sapping the vitals of public life, and ready to risk all and if needs be sacrifice even his life for the triumph of virtue, justice and nobleness, enters a conflict, he becomes a host in himself, for he has by his moral courage and enthuasiasm bom of the u love of the Best,” and by his invincible faith in the power of right, leagued him- self with the might of the moral order — has established as it were connection with that cosmic spiritual activity that through all ages makes for righteousness and progress, and from him emanates a power that touches and quickens the latent divinity in his fellowmen. One, two, three or four such men are more powerful than the combined and en- trenched power of sordid greed and vested interests actuated by the self- seeking spirit; for the former are positive and constructive, the latter negative and self-destructive. The indomitable spirits that sink all for a noble cause ever exert an influence that is compelling in char- acter, awakening long-dormant spiritual energy, which when once kindled burns with living flame. The allegory of Gideon and his three hundred men put- ting to flight the hosts of Midian is a striking illustration of this eternal truth, but not so impressive as that emphasized in the above story, in which four men met, battled with and overcame the most powerful and corrupt ring of modem times. B. O. Flower. Boston , Mass. Digitized by Google
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THE POEMS OF EMERSON. HERMIONE. HI. By Chablbb Malloy, PrMident of the Boston Smenon Bocitty. “I am of a lineage That each for each doth fast engage; In old Bassora’s schools, 1 seemed Hermit vowed to bodes and gloom, — Hi-bestead for gay bridegroom. I was by thy touch redeemed; When thy meteor glances came. We talked at large of worldly fate, And drew truly every trait. Once I dwelt apart. Now I live with all; As shepherd’s lamp on far hill-side Seems, by the traveller espied, A door into the mountain heart. So didst thou quarry and unlock Highways for me through the rode.” IN THESE two verses the poet sings the power of love, in the enlarge- ment and rounding out of the character of the young man at a susceptible age. Life all at once becomes a serious thing and is no longer a succession of pleasant trifles. A certain timidity and cowardice begin to disappear and a sense of manli- ness and comradeship with the actors in the world’s affairs grows up instead. This is especially apparent in the society of the other sex, to which new plans and dreams have a definite relation. Carlyle, in Sartor Resartus, has given well the salient features of this experience. The following is part of an episode in the story of his hero, Professor Diogenes Teufelsdrockh: “Next moment he finds himself pre- sented to the party, and especially by name to Blumine ! Peculiar among all dames and damosels, there in her modesty like a star among earthly lights. Noblest maiden! whom he bent to in body and in soul. Blumine was a name well known to him: far and wide was the fair one heard of, for her gifts, her graces, her caprices; from all which vague colourings of Rumour, from the censures no less than the praises, had our Friend painted for himself a certain imperious Queen of Hearts and blooming warm Earth-Angel, much more enchanting than your mere white Heaven-angels of women, in whose placid veins circulates too little naphtha-fire. Herself also he had seen in public places: that light yet so stately form, those dark tresses, shading a face where smiles and sunlight played over earnest deeps; but all this he had seen only as a magic vision, for him inac- cessible, almost without reality. Her sphere was too far from his; how should she ever think of him? O Heaven! How should they so much as once meet together? And now that Rose-goddess sits in the same circle with him; the light of her eyes has smiled on him; if he speak she wifi hear it! Nay, who knows, since the heavenly sun looks into lowest valleys, but Blumine herself might have noted the so unnotable; perhaps from his very gainsayers, as he had from hers, gathered wonder, gathered favor for him ? Was the attraction, the agitation mutual, then, pole and pole trembling toward contact when once brought into neigh- borhood ? Say, rather, heart swelling in the presence of the Queen of Hearts, like the sea swelling when once near its Moon! With the wanderer it was even so: as in heavenward gravitation, sud- denly, as at touch of a seraph’s wand, his whole soul is roused from its deepest recesses, and all that was painful and all that was blissful there, dim images, vague feelings of a whole past and a whole future, are heaving in unquiet eddies within him. “Often, in far less agitating scenes. 289 Digitized by Google
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290 The Poems of Emerson. had our still Friend shrunk forcibly together and shrouded up his tremours and flutterings, of what sort soever, in a safe cover of silence, and perhaps of seeming stolidity. How was it, then, that here, when trembling to the core of his heart, he did not sink into swoons, but rose into strength , into fearlessness and clearness f “It was his guiding Genius (Demon) that inspired him; he must go forth and meet his destiny. Show thyself now, whispered it, or be forever hid. Thus sometimes it is even when your anxiety becomes transcendental that the soul first feels herself able to transcend it; that she rises above it in fiery victory, and borne on new wings of victory moves so calmly, even because so rapidly, so irresistibly. Always must the wanderer remember, with a certain satisfaction and surprise, how in this case he sat, not silent, but struck adroitly into the stream of conversation, which henceforth, to speak with an apparent, not a real vanity, he may say that he continued to lead. Surely, in those hours a certain inspira- tion was imparted to him, such inspira- tion as is still possible in our late era. The self-secluded unfolds himself in noble thoughts, in free, glowing words; his soul is as one sea of light, the peculiar home of Truth and Intellect, wherein also Fantasy bodies forth form after form, radiant with all prismatic hues/9 One will see in this picture some hints for a delineation of the Arab lover as given in the next three verses of the poem. “I am of a lineage That each for each doth fast engage; In old Bassora’s schools, I seemed Hermit vowed to books and gloom, — Ill-bestead for gay bridegroom. I was by thy touch redeemed; When thy meteor glances came. We talked at large of worldly fate. And drew truly every trait Once I dwelt apart Now I live with all; As shepherd’s lamp on far hill-side Seems, by the traveller espied, A door into the mountain heart, So didst thou quarry and unlock Highways for me through the rock.” “I am of a lineage That each for each doth fast engage.** We know the tribal union that prevails in Arabia. If one is murdered his whole family is pledged to wreak vengeance on the murderer. This is a substitute for law and is often the only law that can reach the offender. “In old Bassora’s schools.” Bassora is in Turkey, in Asia. The Arab’s education at this old school would designate his rank as in the class of gentlemen of his country and time. The lines our poet gives us about his hero show him a man of culture and refine- ment. Yet he was shy, timid and solitary, for all that, and was “ill-be- stead ” for a career in society. He was “ vowed to books and gloom ” till he came under the potent charm of Hermione. She saved him. As he said: “I was by thy touch redeemed.” This will sug- gest the young Teufelsdrockh. “When thy meteor glances came, We talked at large of worldly fate. And drew truly eveqr trait.’* Who can talk of life so wisely as a pair of lovers ? Father and mother are back numbers. New theories have come and the dawn of a new world, and they, the lovers, will be leaders in a better order of things. Business, politics, domestic and social economics shall henceforth have them for guides and conductors. Hie reader will see a concealed humor in these lines: “Once I dwelt apart. Now I live with all.” Though he has lost Hermione as a physical presence, he is too wise to seek “books and gloom” again. Whatever befalls, man should be content to lead his life in the society and service of his fellows. No brave spirit will ever yield to grief and bereavement. “ In the loss of my son, now two years since,” says Emer- son, “ I seem to have lost a beautiful estate, no more. I cannot get it nearer to me.” “ Behind us as we go all things assume Digitized by Google
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291 The Poems of Emerson. beautiful forms, as clouds do afar off. The soul will not know either deformity or pain/’ So now says the lover: “ I live with all.” Note the rare simile: “As shepherd’s lamp on far hill-side Seems, by the traveller espied, A door into the mountain heart, So didst thou quarry and unlock Highways for me through the rode.” The shepherd’s lamp on the far hill- side presents an analogy to an opening or a tunnel through the mountain’s heart, the long reaches of solid rock; and the maiden, by the added strength, courage and energy with which she inspires her lover, makes all obstructions and dif- ficulties melt away behind him. One will naturally want at this point to read Mr. Emerson’s “ Essay on Love” in the first volume of essays. This essay was perhaps written out of the same general thought or cognition as the poem “ Hermione.” “The passion,” says the poet in the essay, “remakes the world for the youth. It makes all things alive and significant. Nature grows conscious. Every bird on the boughs of the tree sings now to his heart and soul. Almost the notes are articulate. The clouds have faces as he looks on them. The trees of the forest, the waving grass and the peeping flowers have grown intelligent; and almost he fears to trust them with the secret which they seem to invite. Yet nature soothes and sympathizes. In the green solitudes he finds a dearer home than with men. It expands the sentiments; it makes the down gentle and gives the coward heart. Into the most pitiful and abject it will infuse a heart and courage to defy the world, so only it have the countenance of the beloved object. In giving him to another it still more gives him to himself. He is a new man, with new perceptions, new and keener purposes, and a religious solemnity of character and aims. He does not longer appertain to his family and society. He is somewhat. He is a person. He is a soul.” It is out of the forces of this new and larger life that he makes a “highway through the rock.” The last two verses are an episode, and not essential to the main argument of the poem. We now come back to the story again. The lover now breaks out into apostrophe to Hermione again, though she is still far away. “Now, deceived, thou wauderest In strange lands unblest; And my kindred come to soothe me.” The love-sick young man, deserted of his maiden, does not go to his kindred or relations for consolation. They are the last to appreciate his loss. They do not share with him his exorbitant estimate of Hermione. They wonder, perhaps, from the beginning, at his infatuation, and are there not a hundred left as good as she ? He hears with indignation that she has a peer in the wide world. So the first words of our lover are in reply to what has been said in depreciation of her beauty. So the kindred come to soothe him are kindred only by a figure of speech, and he says: “South wind if my next of blood.” The southwind was a prominent di- vinity in Emerson’s Pantheon. Again and again he refers to the southwind as a muse or power for thought and emotion. How tender the inspiration of the south- wind in “Threnody”: “The Southwind brings Life, sunshine and desire. And on every mount and meadow Breathes aromatic fire; But over the dead he has no power. The lost, the lost, he cannot restore; And, looking over the hills, I mourn The darling who shall not return.” If the southwind in our cold Massa- chusetts has such power, what of the southwind in Arabia ? “Southwind is my next of blood; He is come through fragrant wood. Drugged with spice from climates warm, And in every twinkling glade And twilight nook. Unveils thy form.” Digitized by Google
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292 The Poems of Emerson. We have in the last line an expression of that wonderful power called “visual- ization.” I have not this power in an eminent degree, but once or twice in my life I have been given the vision of one long dead, with such real and tangible emphasis that I saw the living eye. Such apparitions are no doubt sometimes thought to have an objective reality. This power of visualization is strong in many painters, notably in William Blake and in Michael Angelo. How does the south wind bring these strange visitors? By its awakening in- fluence, of course, upon the imagination. Certain places, certain hours of the day, contribute something to this experience, and there are many objects and influences in nature which bring their ministrations to this charming susceptibility. Our lover, in this poem, enumerates several of them and also some contributions from art The “ twinkling glade ” and “twilight nook” are given in this verse. We shall all consent to the adaptation of these places to such phenomena. They, in poetic phrase, “unveil” the “form” for a moment which they seem to bring. “Out of the forest way Forth paced it yesterday." We recall, at this line, the words of Tennyson, in which he seems to sing the power and the condition here given by Emerson. The passage referred to is in his “ Dream of Fair Women,” when he comes to Jephtha’s daughter, who was slain by her father in fulfilment of a vow : “She locked her lips; she left me where I stood. 4 Glory to God,’ she sang, and passed afar, Thridding the solemn boskage of the wood. Toward the morning star. What but a picture given in the imagination ? And what was the “solemn boskage of the wood” of Tennyson but the “ forest way ” of Emerson? And who has not felt this place for dreams and visions on his entrance to a forest ? Here is another favorable condition for the appearance of some bright ap- parition: 44 And when I sat by the watercourse. Watching the daylight fade. It throbbed up from the brook.'* These influences as “kindred” come to soothe the forlorn lover. He has come to them and they are kind. They take his part, however the world may go or whatever others may say. All the predicates of the following verse have respect to these kindred and their kind offices in the interest of the Arab. “All the world loves a lover,” says Emerson in the “Essay on Love.” The mono- logue of the lover thus goes on : “River and rose and crag and bird. Frost and sun and eldest night. To me their aid preferred. To me their comfort plight" And this is what they say: “Courage! we are thine allies. And with this hint be wise, — The chains of kind The distant bind; Deed thou doest she must do. Above her will, be true; And, in her strict resort To winds and waterfalls And autumn's sunlit festivals. To music, and to music’s thought Inextricably hnnndt She shall find thee, and be found. Follow not her living feet; Come to us hersaf to meet" A few lines in this verse will need an- notation. River, rose, crag, bird, frost, sun, eldest night, — these after the south- wind are an enumeration of some of his “kindred” come to soothe the lover. They stimulate his imagination and bring him the seeming presence of Hermione. In a world of dreams he recovers her — he has her still. Nature rather than society gives him the requisite inspiration. “Courage!” say these kindred. “We are thine allies”; and then they give him law, the brief, com- pact like a gem, and in a rhyme he can- not forget: “The chains of kind The distant bind." Digitized by Google
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293 The Poems of Emerson . This of course would mean a mystic, a transcendental union, and something more than geometrical propinquity or an abode together in space. Such a false and unwed union she had and must bear with the Syrian. Still, “The chains of kind The distant bind/' and defy space and defy time also, for the space and time of those thus bound are in the mind, which does not know the “ chains ” of those limitations. They are boundaries in nature but not in the soul and do not prevail where souls are united. So fantasy, dreams, imagina- tions, ideal worlds, castles in Spain, wherein we are creators, world-makers or poets, — these are some of the names for such flights and transcendencies, and one is poor indeed who has nothing but facts to feed upon. This was Martha’s choice, but Mary had chosen the better part. These allies and kindred go on and say of the lovers and to the Arab : “Deed thou doest she must do, Above her will, be true.” That is to say, when the lover seeks Hermione in the world of his own thoughts she is seeking him also, in the same way; and as he is true to her she is true to him, even though she tries to forget him in the “ frame” that she belongs to the Syrian. She may will as much, but “ above her will ” she must be true to the man she loves, and “In her strict resort To winds and waterfalls”— that is, when she goes out all alone into beautiful natural influences — into “ autumn’s sunlit festivals,” into “ music, and music’s thought” — she shall “find” and be “found.” These powers shall make the dreams in which the lovers will be together again. “Music and music’s thought” There are many persons who cannot appreciate fine music. I cannot. I think Emerson could not. But the sus- ceptibility to music in its effects upon the imagination is perhaps not lost by this limitation. Only poorer music will do, but the dreams come all the same. “ Music’s thought ” is better than music. “ Music’s thought ” is one of the kindred and allies, potent in its calling of sunder- ed lovers together. “ Come to us,” say these transcendental friends, these lovers of lovers in all time and space. The southwind, the river and rose and crag and bird and frost and sun and eldest night and winds and waterfalls and autumn’s sunlit festivals and music and music’s thought, — these say to seemingly separated lovers. Come to us and we will give you back the loved and lost. “Follow not her flying feet,” say these all to the poet lover, singing his sweet regrets to his faithful friend, the “summer bird.” Come to us and we will give you back Hermione. Two conceptions have emerged, among several others, in our reading of “ Hermi- one,” which are worthy of further con- sideration. First, the possibility of a quite exten- sive intellectual life, without the aid of new sensations. It is when the mind weaves its web, like the spider, out of threads of its own. These are what Carl Pearson would call “stored sensa- tions.” In the session of the School of Philoso- phy of 1884, devoted to Emerson, several lectures and papers were given upon the subject of immortality. One paper was by William T. Harris. It was published in pamphlet form and Mr. Harris gave me a copy which I keep among my treasures. The view presented in bri ef is as follows: Man is the only creature that forms concepts and accumulates them in the mind. He is thus able to use them again in a mental process without recurrence to the sensations in which they originated. Sensations in the first place cannot occur without impressions from nature or the objective world; but another world, an ideal world, may be Digitized by Google
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294 The Poems of Emerson . constructed out of this second-hand material without the aid of nature again. This is why we can live our lives over again in thought, in reveries, in dreams, and we can make additions, corrections, and in a thousand ways amend the im- perfections of the real life. But Mr. Harris’ principal point was, as I under- stood it, that it gives a rational way in which a very high form of consciousness may continue when what we call death, or the end of our connection with nature, has come. Young men see visions ; old men dream dreams. Nobody but an old man can tell how real and tangible this dream-life becomes. The days of our childhood, our youth, our active man- hood, the folly and sins, left behind. What if this power were a hundred times as strong ? This ideal world would then be real, and the world we once thought real would appear the dream. This second life is the life in which we have left Her- mione and the Arab lover. This is the sense in which “my kindred come to soothe me.” How poor our lives would often be if it were not for these blessed fictions! George Eliot expresses regret in ending one of her stories that she must now take leave of her “ pleasant people,” the ideal people of her own creation. A second thought which we have used by the way, and to which we now return, suggests the practical lesson of this parable of “ Hermione.” “Who of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?” But Beauty may be brought somewhat within the province of the will. It may be cultivated. Keep your heart right and you will look all the better for it. That is a plain way of stating the law. Goodness is a good thing to look at. I had the happiness to stand in a crowded hall for an hour and a half one night and listen to a speech by Abraham Lincoln. Certainly he was die homeliest handsome man I ever saw. Yet there came ever and anon a strange beauty into his face. It was expression from the moods of his mind, and was not there when his was in repose; yet his beautiful lif left a witness which was pernu In this way, if one has not lived a life he loses his beauty as he grow It takes but a slight change in the of some parts of the face to pass beauty to an aspect which is repi You will sometimes see this transf tion easily when one is talking in ai way. I have seen a handsome w made a fright in a moment by bad U or the expression of contempt hatred of another. It is wise alwi keep the face in good nature. I kept a country school one v when young, in a back town in ft We opened the school in the momi reading each a verse in the New *] ment. A boy six feet tall, but ver and nearsighted, had the verse, shall know the truth, and the truth make you free.” He read it, “Ye know the truth, and the truth shall your face.” I did not correct the I thought his version good enough for fifty years I have repeated it, a a little, as — “ Ye shall know the trut the truth shall mark your face.” shall know the good, and the good mark your face.” “Ye shall kmr beautiful, and the beautiful shall your face.” When bad thoughts and bad em< become habitual, they work like sculptors and cut their wicked alp into the face and manners of the su I have often thought of our noble Howe and wondered what her face have been when she wrote the “ B Hymn of the Republic.” She gives hint in two of the lines : “In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born the sea. With a glory in his bosom that transfigures y me?* Would that some Raphael could painted her and given the transfigun I heard Emerson for the first tii 1847. It was in Boston. He ha audience of his own about him, ai Digitized by Google
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295 The Building of the City Beautiful . was at his best. I remember the glory that at times came into his face. Well might an English hearer say: 44 His face became phosphorescent, like the face of an angel/9 We have no picture of that Emerson. We never shall have. A true picture must be distilled from a hundred Emersons. I was acquainted with an old member of congress in my youth. He was present when Webster made his great speech in reply to Hayne. He said: “We have no picture of the Webster of that great hour. He made no gestures, or only a slight movement of the head. But his eyes! O, such eyes! No man could resist the power that was in his eyes.” The man who could wield the thunders of Jupiter in the great voice of his elo- quence did not need gestures. Edward Everett always insisted that there were moments when Webster's eyes emitted sparks of fire. A picture of Webster, as of Emerson, must come from a hundred Websters, each giving a reflection of some mood. “If it be, as they said, she was not fair. Beauty’s not beautiful to me,” but a 44 queenly character.” When you go to sit for your picture, train for beauty as the athlete for strength, by being as you would look. Thus only can we 44 hitch our wagon to a star.” Charles Malloy. Waltham, Mass. THE BUILDING OF THE CITY BEAUTIFUL.* By Joaquin Miller. Chapter XII. THE FIRST LAW OF GOD. Look back, beyond the Syrian sand. Beyond the awful flames that burst O’er Sinai! The first command Outside the gates, God's very first. Was this: “Thou shalt in sweat and patient toil Eat bread till thou returnest to the soil.” 14 \7~ OU have a rough place here, it X seems to me,” said a man with bag and gun and dog as he came around a crag up out of the canyon one evening. There was a tone of derision in the voice of the hunter. He was from the city, and seemed to think the man who was trying to plant a little olive-tree in a deft of the crag ought to not only let him have the shooting of the birds, but a better road to flush them from. Our city-builder was weary, and for a moment was angry. But lifting his face from his work he laid the little olive down, and slowly straightening his back *Befnn in the December, 1904, isms. he looked the man in the face, and then looked about and above, and then said quietly as he did so, 44 Yes, yes, it is rather rough under foot; but it is as smooth overhead as any man's land.” The hunter whistled to his dog, and left the man with the little olive-tree alone in his douds. For he did not understand; and we are always afraid of that which we do not understand. The londy man on the peak kept on planting his olive-trees in the douds. He thought of the dove bringing an olive- branch in its beak, 44 plucked off,” and reflected that the andents must have planted thdr loftiest peaks in olive-trees and made them flourish, and so took heart a little. He finished planting his tree, and being very weary and very lonely he lay down by his mattock, with his face to the glorious Balboa seas bdow, and thought of Jacob on the plains of Shinar as he pillowed his head on a stone and slept and dreamed. Digitized by Google
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296 The Building of the City Beautiful. Lo! on the plains of Bethel lay An outworn lad, unhoused, alone, His couch the tawny mother day. His pillow that storm-haunted stone; The hollow winds howled down the star-lit plain. All white and wild with highborn wintry rain. Yet here God’s ladder was let down, Yea, only here for are and aye! Not in the high-walled, splendid town. Not to the throned king feasting high. But far afield beneath the Syrian stars God's ladder fell from out the golden bars. And ever thus. Take heart! to some The hand of fortune pours her horn Of plenty, smiling where they come; And some to fame and some to wealth are born. And some are born to pomp and splendid ease; But lo! God's shining ladder leans to none of these. The German neighbor on the hillside below saw the weary dreamer through the rift of clouds that came driving in from the sea with the stars, and kindly came up the peak and awoke him. “It von’t pay you to plant olive-trees here. Vy you do dees ? ” “To make my little portion of the world more beautiful.” “Boh! I do n’t believe in beauty; dot do’ n’t pay.” “ Then you do not believe in God ? ” “ Veil, not in dot sort of a God, nohow.” This German had been amazed at the man’s deeding him so much more land than he had demanded. He thought it was a mistake at first; and so for months had said nothing. But at last he could conceal his curiosity no longer. Leaning over the shoulder of the man from whom he had received it, one Sunday as he sat reading, he said; “My lawyer, he say when a deed is recorded it is done mit, and no one can change it. So dot matter he is settled mit. You owe me notting, and I owe you notting. But tell me vy you make it free for one.” Slowly the man opened the Book at the Sermon on the Mount and quietly pro- ceeded to read. He paused a moment when he came to the thirty-first verse; then he read in a slow, low, and kindly voice, and closing the book, he looked his neighbor calmly in the face and repeated : “ Acfed if » man will sue thee at law and take away thy coat, let him have thy c also.” Now this big, hearty German was a bad man; he was, in fact, far frc bad man as the world goes. But strange, new man had tempted him, the end was not yet. Meantime the people for his cit] people his city, did not come, save to on curiously and go away. The Beautiful was building slowly indeec At last one man with much m came and proposed to build and al with all his household. “And you are certain it will pay n “ Perfectly certain that it will pay immensely, sir.” “ Well, if you are so certain I can n money — ” “Stop! Who said money? I sa will pay you. But to make money on these rocks! Why, you might as try to plant God’s altar in corn, c grow wheat on the pinnacle of i Paul’s cross, as to make money on 1 glorious heights. No; you woulc paid, but you would take your pay the heaped-up gold of the golden sui of the Golden Gate; from the silver b of clouds beyond ; from the certificat perfect health from the far-off J; seas; from the satisfaction of ha built or helped to build one, just City of Refuge, where the Jews ha many. From these and the like of I you would be paid ten-thousand-fold friend, but you would make no monej “Well, I will think it over, and I come back.” He did not come back; and sc world kept on going by the other True, crowds came oftentimes, — carri and carriages, on Sundays; for the d were good, the air delicious, the spec of the seas and cities below div glorious. But with the exception painter, a poet, a traveler who can rest for a few days, the City Beai continued to be uninhabited. Finally a friend in Japan sent little Japanese gentleman from Toki Digitized by Google
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297 The Building of the City Beautiful. serve him, to be his companions, to hear his philosophy, to learn Ins interpretation of the story and teachings of Christ And this was good! “At last, at last!” said the hermit. On the third day after they came a big Irishman and his followers came to the hermit’s cottage. “ We are a committee,” said the leader, “for the protection of white labor. You are a laboring man, and of course will stand by white labor. The Japs must go, or they will get the worst of it.” The man tried to protest, but all his protestations were of no avail. The foreigners said their children would stone the Japanese as they went up and down the road if they did not leave. The man told his two little strangers all, and they quietly and with scarcely a word gathered up their books, bowed their heads sadly, and were gone. And so ended the only little ray of sun- light that had broken through the clouds for a long, long time. They had been so humble, so willing to learn, so ready to help, so patient, so filled with that dignity which is the only humility, and that humility which is the only perfect dignity, that he had learned to love them truly and deeply. They had had that spirit of meekness in them that could wash a brother’s feet and yet not seem foolish. And when they went away he bowed his head in his hands at the table and was well-nigh broken-hearted. But he took up the Book after a time and read once more the Sermon on the Mount. Then he read it again. He closed the lids a little bit savagely after this last reading. He spent the next few days in the canyon, cutting out the poison- oak, — a task which none other had ever been willing to perform. How weary in spirit he was! and She had not kept her promise to come. How sore at heart, how sick of it all! He had grown gray here in a little time. The end was not far off. “Ah, if I could only take this deep, cool canyon, with its pleasant waters and its profound woods, and go to some far- away place! But no; that would be turning my back on the battle to which God has set my face. I shall fight it out here. Happily, it will not be long now; whatever comes, I shall not run away.” The next day was Sunday. The big German came, came alone, with his coat thrown leisurely over his arm. The hermit was at his little desk in his study, as was his habit on this day. “Ah, Japs gone, eh? Dot’s right; plenty of good German girls to be had, an’ dem lots better nor Japs. But I vant to see you about you cut down dem shade from der vater in der canyon. Of course it is on your own ground ; but you see der vater runs down by me. I vant der vater kept cool for my ducks and pigs and chickens. Now, if you cut down der bushes, dot lets in der sun, dot makes der vater varm. My lawyer, he say if you do dot you must pay me.” “ How much pay do you want ? ” “Veil, I vill not be hard. Ve can agree, I t’iqk. Can you pay me a little now? Dot will bind der bargain, my lawyer say.” “ Come over into the canyon, and I will pay you there.” “Good, good! ve vill get on. I have always tried to help you, as you vos a new settler; and now you are going to oblige »» me. The man had snatched his overcoat from the wall, and was walking fast; the German ran along at his side. The road was a road of roses; but the man walked too fast to heed the roses, or even hear the many friendly speeches which the garrulous German was making from time to time, as he came puffing on after him. There was a big heap of stones on the high summit just before descending the steep path into the canyon. The sun was warm, hot. He threw his heavy coat against the high mound of stones under the olive-tree he had planted, and hastened on, the German at his heels. Digitized by Google
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298 The Building of the City Beautiful. Chapter XIII. FALLEN BT THE WAY. “How shall man surely save his soul ?” *T was sunset by the Jordan. Gates Of light were dosing, and the whole Vast heaven hung darkened as the fates. . “How shall man surely save his soul’*; he said. As fell the kingly day, discrowned and dead. The Christ said : " Hear this parable. Two men set forth and journeyed fast To reach a place ere darkness fell And closed the gates ere they had passed; Two worthy men, each free alike of sin. But one did seek most sure to enter in. “And so when in their path did lay A cripple with a broken staff. The one did pass straight on his wav. While one did stoop and give the naif His strength, and all nis time did nobly share Till they at sunset saw their city fair. “And he who would make sure ran fast To reach the golden sunset gate. Where captains and proud chariots passed. But lo, ne came one moment late! The gate was dosed, and all night long he cried; He cned and cried, but never watch replied. “Meanwhile, the man who cared to save Another as he would be saved Came slowly on, gave bread and gave Cool waters, and he stooped and laved The wounds. At last, bent double with his weight. He passed, unchid, the porter’s private gate. “Hear then this lesson, hear and learn : He who would save his soul, I say. Must lose his soul; must dare to turn And lift the fallen by the way; Must make his soul worth saving by some deed That grows, and grows, as grows to fruitful seed.” \ S SAID before, the silent man with II set lips cast aside the coat on his arm as he reached the rocky summit where he had planted the olive-tree. It had flourished wonderfully. As he hastily threw the coat beneath its beauti- ful green and gray and dove-colored branches and hurried on down over the high, steep brow of the hill he did not see the symbol of peace at all. His eyes were blinded with rage. He led on and on down the steep and wooded road to the vexy bed of the canyon. The robust German followed close at his heels. His mind was full of specula- tion and expectation. He had become convinced that his neighbor, the die was entirely helpless; that his lands surely slipping from his tired hands; they must fall into the hands of sonn and why not as well into his han thbse of another? “ Yes, down here in the deep cany will make some concessions for the of peace, as he always does, and as will be no witness I can fix it up b myself. And he, of course, will co to whatever I say, for the sake of f Let me see, I must have a little n to biiid the bargain; a little spot ca only one dollar, to bind the bargaii lawyer say — ” Thus, in plain En ran his thought. The big man’s calculations were denly interrupted. They had re the dense redwood grove at the h of the canyon, when the dreamer wl sharply about. His back was b largest of the stately redwood-trees; his face only a few feet from that < robust neighbor. The peaceful brook purled and r along in its bed of rocks and pel birds sang pleasantly from the fi hillside in the sun, but all else was i The place was as secure from inti as a country church-yard. The man drew in his breath and quick and said hastily, betwec teeth: “ You are well to-day ? ” “Yes, yes, never so veil; but varm. I puts on my coat, so I not cold.” “ No! you will not take cold. Yo not have time to take cold!" “ Vy, vat do you mean ? ” “What do I mean? I told 3 would pay you, settle with you, h< the canyon, and I intend to kee] word. Hear me! Jesus said ‘Tui other cheek.’ Well, I turned the cheek, you smote that also. And i am going to smite you. I am goi smite you, hip and thigh, from D Beersheba!” The German was not dull; n Digitized by Google
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299 The Building of the City Beautiful. was he a coward. He saw that there was battle in the eye of his outraged neighbor, and in a second he threw his coat aside and prepared to meet it like a man. With right foot forward mid his big, red fists in rest, he awaited the onset. But his neighbor was not now in such great haste. There was a pause, and the German, who really knew himself all along to have been terribly in the wrong, took quick occasion to say, " Is dees your Sermon on de Mount ? ” "Yes, yes, it is. For I have read it over and over since I read it to you, and I find it is written there that you shall not give that which is holy unto dogs , nor cast pearls before swine” It was too much, that peculiarly per- sonal accent given the allusion to the low creatures named; and the German, sud- denly blinded with rage, struck out terribly with his big, red, right fist. He was a huge man, nearly twice the weight of his neighbor, and not so old. But he had not spent the past five years in wrestling with the elements on a mountain side. His had been a seden- tary life in the city; and so his first blow, which spent its force above the mark, as he stood on ground higher than that of his sinewy opponent, was his last. But he forced the fighting like a good German soldier as he was, and bore down heavily on the man, who stood with his back to the tree, and at last, by sheer weight and force, he bore him to the ground. But, as in the story of old, the earth came to the rescue. The dear old mother earth, whom he had loved and on whose bosom he had rested, or wrought in forms of beauty for years past, came to his help as she came to the help of the shepherd king of old. He sprang to his feet with renewed life. The German again stood before him, formidable indeed to look upon, but almost breathless. Thud! thump! thud! The first landed with terrific force on the big man’s big throat. His head was thrown back by the blow, and before he could recover the first was followed by the second, and the second by the third on the same un- guarded column. The big, red fists fell to the big man’s side. The big mouth opened and the big man gasped helplessly, but could not even find breath to cry out for mercy. The battle was over. "Come, now, and be washed; then go and tell your Dutch and Irish friends that is was poison-oak. What! Do you want more ? Come! and be decent about it, or I ’ll thresh you till you do.” The big man had held back as disdain- ing to accept help from his enemy; but the other man would not be trifled with now, — the rage of battle was on him; and so, accepting the outreaching hand of help, he suffered himself to be led down to the pretty little brook, over which he bowed his big head, gasping and gasping for breath, and was washed as if he had been a new-born babe. Pretty soon he stood erect, then he stooped over, washed his face with his own hands and then rose up and slowly wiped his face and his hands with his handkerchief. At last, lifting his head, he looked his neighbor full in the face as he reached his right hand. The other took it and shook it heartily. "Dot’s all right; you cuts down vot you likes.” With this the German gathered up his coat and took his way down the canyon toward his home. The city-builder looked after him, his heart bursting with shame and humilia- tion. He wanted to run after him, to bring him back, to beg his pardon, to beg his pardon on his knees. But the chill and damp of twilight soon began to creep into his bones, and he slowly ascended to the olive-tree on the high hilltop where he had thrown aside his coat. He gathered the garment about his chilled shoulders, and too weary to go further, he lay with his face to the dust. He had never been so entirely miserable in all his miserable life. Digitized by Google
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300 The Building of the City Beautiful. How continually he had taught all men the wisdom, the duty, the beauty of turning the other cheek! and yet, here he had gone down to the low and bestial level of a poor, ignorant foreigner and fought and fought as a dog might fight. True, he had been tempted, terribly tempted; but he had fallen so low, so foolishly, that he could now no longer hold up his head or have the heart to go forward with his lessons of love and beauty and duty at all. He lay there on his face, and he felt that surely the end of all his hopes and aspirations had come. In his despair his thoughts kept con- tinually turning to her, Miriam. Where was she? What had he done that she had not kept her promise? Five years had swept by. He had missed her presence, her calm counsel, serene wis- dom, so much all the time; and as hope began to falter, and all things to fall away from him, he had come to think of her continually and to wish for her or death. “ I will come to you — sometime.” And now that he needed her so entirely his soul went out to her entirely, — a poor, lone dove on the deluge of waters, that found no place for the sole of its foot. He lay there on the heights in the gathering night, and, as his heart went out to her, he continually repeated: “ I will come to you — sometime ” ; and then he murmured : “ Lead us not into tempta- tion! Lead us not into temptation!” Chapter XIV. UNDER THE OLIVE-TREES. Those shining leaves that lisped and shook All darkness from them, sensate leaves In Nature’s never-ending book; Leaves full of truth as garnered sheaves That hold till seed-time fruitful seed, To grow as grows some small, good deed. How strangely and how vastly still! The harvest moon hung low and large. And drew across the dreamful hill like some huge star-bound, freighted barge; Some strange, new, neighbor-world it surely seemed. The while he gazed and dreamed, yet scarcely dreamed. THE POOR, discouraged dreamer under the little olive-tree on the high peak above the sea was so very sore in soul, and so very sore in body, too! He could have borne with the last; but the two together made him earnestly wish to die and leave it all with the one word “ Failure ” for his epitaph. After a time the ever-welcome winds, warm and balmy as with a healing balm, blew in and on and away down toward the Mexican seas from Japan. “ ‘ Oh that I had the wings of the dove to fly away and be at rest!'” he sighed piteously, as the warm, strong winds went on by, bearing their snow-white fleets and happy voyagers. Surely, these clouds that drove dreamily about, above, were mighty ships that bore sweet souls bound heavenward. From the city and the mountain-side below him came up the song and the melody of closing day. Still further below, many and many a church-spire pierced the warm, white clouds that blew in from the sea and drew softly through the tree-tops above the city. The sound of church bells came up to him through the world of clouds; came up to him there under the little olive-tree, as if they had lost their way, as he had lost his way, there on the stony steeps of his mountain. Beyond all this the bosom of the great bay of San Francisco rose and fell with the sea of seas, and gleamed and glistened and gloried in the face of God as if a living thing. At the Golden Gate, without, the great sea, with its hundred thousand white-clad choristers, the sea doves, sang and shrieked and shrieked and sang. A huge sea-lion from the seal rocks beyond the city of San Francisco rose out of the sea, climbed to the top of his crag, and there lifted his bearded face straight up in the air, and mouthed his doleful monotone till it rolled and rose above the clang of the church-bells and above the songs of the hundred thousand white- clad singers of the sea of seas. And still the soft and balmy winds Digitized by Google
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The Building of the City Beautiful . SOI in continually with their warmth healing from the dreamful seas of a. t the man under the olive-tree was ■able, utterly miserable, for all this iy, all this harmony of sea and song, larmony of heaven and earth. )h, why may I not build a ship of Is and launch it on this strong, : current that flows in so steadily Japan ? Surely, surely science t make a ship to sail these mighty ms of the upper world ! Why, have been sailing their helpless air-ships in the valley, from little towers for centuries; but who has l these brave, big currents that place in heaven like mighty rivers 1 turn not to the right nor left, but straight on ? Surely, when the navigator comes he will launch his ly ships upon these strong and y currents. Man has kept his face b ground in quest of gold; but some some great and good and really Columbus will come, and will launch lips here on these strong, swift, sweet nts of Japan, and sail to the undis- «d continents of heaven.” ch were the weary and desolate s dreamful and confused thoughts e lay there wrapped in the large inity of gathering night. Mean- the countless belts and curves and ents of electric-lights leaped suddenly existence and climbed to the top of itains beyond the city of San Fran- The stars had stood there but >ment before. Now, one could not rhere the lights left off or the stars a. le gorgeous and flaming star of \ had hung just above the grand indescribably pathetic figure of r Mother of Pain,” at whose feet nous and patient men of God, a full try before, had built their holy little ile, the Mission Dolores, strangely brilliant little star was ng down, down, down, straight een the lifted breasts of the Holy Virgin where they lift perpetually, as in the piteous agonies of motherhood. The man’s racked and wearied senses wandered now, and grew confused with the sea of lights in which his star lay drowning at the feet of Our Mother of Sorrows. For now the face and figure of the most divinely glorious being ever seen seemed to be dimly limned out before him; and the Star of Bethlehem was in her wondrous night of hair. It was she! Miriam! that wondrous woman of Jerusalem and of Egypt! “I will come to you — sometime.” She had come. And a ship was there! Was it but a cloud? Surely there was no mistaking the fact of the strong and steady stream from Japan. It seemed to him that no word had been said as he arose from under the olive-tree, entered the ship, and so sailed on and on and on. They sailed by the porch of heaven. It was pavilioned with stars, propped with fearful arches formed of uncompleted worlds. They sailed beneath the Milky Way, that seemed as some great arch above a surging river. They sailed amid the stars, above the drowning moon, above all storms and counter-storms; and the mighty river which, like the Gulf Stream, girdles the world, swept on and on and on. Black and white and storm-tossed clouds were banked below or heaped on either side. These seas and shores of tumbled clouds were bed and banks of this awful Gulf Stream of the upper world, on whose strong and certain currents the air-ship sailed and sailed and sailed. It was full morning when he landed; and he was alone. The ship had rested on a pine-set mountain-top. A vast valley lay below. In the center of tins valley, sand-sown and tawny as a desert of Africa all about its borders, lay gleam- ing like silver in the morning sun a city of indescribable splendor and magnitude. Almost overcome with awe and wonder, the man descended from the car, keeping his eyes fixed on the far-off city amid its groves in the heart of the tawny desert. Digitized by Google
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SOS The Building of the City Beautiful. Descending through the pines a little distance down a well-worn road, he came to a small station. A man approached him, but he kept turning about to look for the silent and serenely beautiful Madonna, who had accompanied him in the glorious voyage above the world. He saw her not, and was sad. Olive-trees, orange-trees, birds, bees, blossoms — a railroad depot in the midst of all this, and yet all things so like one perpetual Sunday. It was as quiet, as flowery here as the entrance of some gorgeous church on some Easter Sunday, — as if the people were waiting for the minister to come in. Yes, there was the music, and such music! No shrieking, soul-tearing sounds — sounds in combat, notes in battle, notes afcwar with notes — such as distract the civilized (?) earth from end to end; no sickening smells and other abominations that hold high carni- val at the average depot in the outer world. Peace, peace, peace! Melody, poetry, Paradise! And yet, this was surely all on the solid earth; for the man who came forward and touched his cap to the stranger was gray about the temples. Surely he, at least, had not yet done with time* People were coming and people were going, just as elsewhere; old people and young people, plain and beautiful. “The train starts exactly on the hour. You see that you have time to take your seat for the city.” The hand indicated a high tower where a great clock hung above the few, brief rules, the set times for coming and going. As the stranger took his seat he could not help missing those ever-present lies that are set up in any depot on earth: “Shortest route!” “Only safe line!” “ Quickest and cheapest line to the city.” In fact, as he looked out through the car, — for the cars were made of malleable glass, transparent as air and indestructi- ble as brass (one of the lost arts restored), — he could not but note the entire absence of the decorative advertisements. The shapely clock-tower, with its girdles of brass and its sides of broad bronze, was a goodly place for “posters,” too. But these enterprising people had not even put up a sign to say that space on this tower for advertising purposes was to be had cheaper than on any other clock- tower on the road. Without a word or sound or sign from any one save from the clock in the tower and the little clocks at the end of each car that indicated not only the time, but the name of each station, they glided out and they glided on. Inquiring of a pleasant-faced priest at his side, he learned, to his great relief — for he had neither scrip nor purse — that as the roads all belonged to the people, the people did not take tribute of them- selves nor of the stranger within their gates who came to honor them with his presence. “ I have surely been here before,” said the man at last, as if to himself, while he sat looking out upon the beautiful groves and roads of roses and bananas and wooded and watered parks, through which the swift and silent cars continually descended. “If you will allow me,” began the kindly monk, “that is a matter, the idea of having been here before, which we have under deep consideration.” “Will you explain?” “ Certainly. Meditative people are almost constantly seeing something in this life that they say they have surely seen before; and that something is always something beautiful or grand or inspiring, appealing to the best that is in us. And this, some of us, at least, take to be one of the tangible and visible evidences of immortality. This, some of us hold to be pretty clear evidence that we not only shall live hereafter, but that we have lived long, long before. No, no, my son, you have never looked on this scene in this life, previous to this; for it is all very new. But it may be that some- where else, in some other world, or at least in some other life, you, in a happy Digitized by Google
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The Building of the City Beautiful. 803 moment of harmony with all things, saw something very like this, under restful and harmonious conditions veiy like to these,” said the priest, thoughtfully. The stranger was dumb with wonder and delight He had at last and for the first time since leaving the lady of Jeru- salem by the Nile come into an atmosphere of thought in which his soul if not his body had been bom from the first. He lifted his hat and sat uncovered in silence. Cottages, fields of com, cane, cotton, a lane of banana-trees shut out the sun from the gliding palaces of glass all along now. “And all this, you tell me, was only an arid sea of gleaming sand and baked mud a few years ago ? ” “ Certainly; we at first found rain hard to produce; but we had been prudent enough to bring with us something better than the natural storms of rain, — intel- ligence, and a colony of scientific men and women. We now have rain when- ever it is needed, but never when it is not needed.” “Indeed! And such cars!” “ Yes,” said the priest, “ we make glass houses, railway ties, railway tracks, and railway cars, as you see here, out of the sands.” “And they never break?” “ Glass is not only elastic, as all know, but glass, by our redemption of a lost art, is made as malleable as gold or copper.” It is hardly known what more the priest said or might have said, as they glided on down under the broad banana- trees; for just then the stranger caught a glimpse of a party gathering bananas. They were girls, up in the trees among the birds, buried in the broad leaves, an arm thrusting up after the yellow fruit, a brown limb thrusting out below, drawn back, bound around and twined about a branch to hold fast! Ah! he forgot that a priest was within a thousand miles of him. Many stations, many short stops, then on and on through the continuous and seemingly endless lane of laden trees. At one of the little, leafy stations the priest put forth his hand and received from a pretty Indian girl two yellow bananas. They were like yellow ears of com, so large were they. And such flavor! “The world, the outside commercial world,” said the priest as he handed one to the stranger, “ has never yet tasted a banana. Those wild things, gathered green by savages of the Cannibal Islands and thrown into the holds of sailing vessels to rot and ripen, ripen and rot, are not bananas. They are disease. They are death, death for little children, old people, young people, all people.” At last they glided over a glass bridge that spanned a bent lagoon. The central railway station, where they now stopped and from which all tracks, trains, pneu- matic tubes, airship-lines, and even streets and highways ran, was simply a palace, a glorious palace of glass, blue above as the sky is blue; and under foot the solid earth, snow-white sand, with fountains bursting up through, blossom- ing trees, and birds in eveiy tree, and a song in the throat of eveiy bird; for all things were so beautiful and all things were so happy the birds could but sing always. Chapter XV. AS WHEN THE CHRIST SHALL COME AGAIN. From out the golden doors of dawn The wise men came, of wondrous thought. Who knew the stars. From far upon The shoreless East they kneeling brought Their costly gifts of inwrought gems and gold. While doualike incense from their presence rolled. Their sweet of flower-fields, their sweet Distilments of most sacred leaves They laid, low-bending, at His feet. As reapers bend above their sheaves — As strong-armed reapers bending clamorous To gather golden full sheaves kneeling thus. And kneeling 90, they spake of when God walked His garden’s sacred sod. Nor yet had hid His face from men. Not yet had man forgotten God. They spake. But Mary kept her thought apart And, silent, "pondered all things in he? heart.” Digitized by Google
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304 The Building of the City Beautiful. They spake in whispers long, they laid Their shaggy heads together, drew Some staineoscrolls breathless forth, then made Such speech as only wise men knew, — Their him, red camels on the huge hill set Outstanding, like some night-hewn silhouette. THE stranger was hungry, — more than hungry, he was famishing. The good priest knew this, — knew it not from words, maybe, not from look, act, or utterance. But so sensitive and re- fined had these people grown here, even in a few years of meditation and unselfish- ness, that they really knew the thoughts and feelings of one another, — as dumb horses, dogs and other lower animals know our desires and designs. More of this, however, later on. Over and across a wide, snow-white, sand-sown avenue of orange-trees, where no cart, car, carriage, or any other rumbling nuisance could pass, the good priest led to a public restaurant by a great fountain. “Not being a strong man,” he began as they sat down, “ I chose the duties of a waiter when I came, and I serve my two hours of daily toil here. However, my toil, I regret to say, must come to an end next year, as I shall then be sixty. This man who will wait on us now is a young Methodist clerygman, or rather he was a Methodist clerygman. But as all roads run in together as we approach any one city or center of any sort, so here, as we attain peace and approach something nearer the common center of more perfect life, we find all religions running in together. We are all walking along so nearly together here, in fact, that we can and do touch hands across the nar- row and dim little lines that divide us.” “Well, well, well! and you say you, a not very strong man, will lay aside the menial employment of a common servant, or waiter, at the age of sixty, with regret ? ” “Certainly. I really and truly like to serve. If Christ could wash his disciples’ feet, might I not give bread to a hungry man; or even wash a hungry man’s plate ? ” The stranger held his peace a moment, and then, as the choice repast was served, ate in silent amazement as the priest continued : “ But of course I cannot be idle. After reaching sixty years I must begin to hold office; so I shall be required to serve the Republic many years still, if I live. In fact, no man or woman who lives long enough can hardly escape serving a term as president.” “May I be permitted to know the mystery of it all?” “ There is no mystery at all. Mystery there may be in other republics, where presidents, and often thousands of other officers are chosen by man’s popular voice, but not so here. God, Nature, elects our every officer. You see, any one coming here from the outer world, and all who are bom here, are registered, — age, occupation, and so on. Well, every one attaining the age of seventy becomes a senator, and the oldest persons in the Senate comprise the Council. The oldest of these is president, and is usually a person of eighty; for we live in the full enjoyment of all our faculties at least ten years longer than in the outside world, where the brain and body are strained and strung till they break from the veiy tension.” “And then you have no elections at all?” “Yes, the election of Nature; the choice of God.” The stranger shook his head at this intensely democratic proposition. “I see you do not entirely approve of leaving the election to God. You fear that some bad or foolish man may by this means attain the head of government. Listen to me. Does not the Declaration of Independence of a certain great nation assert that "all men are bom free and equal’? Now, if we are bom equal, how is it that we become so unequal as we go forward in the great outer world ? Why, you see some are hit, hit hard in the hot and bitter battle of life. Wrong, insult, oppression, hard work, hunger, — ay, hunger, hunger of body and soul, — Digitized by Google
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305 The Building of the City Beautiful . these things dwarf, break down the very best and finest of you. And so it is that you in the outer world, with your lawyers, your politicians, your idle parsons and your idle priests, your lying money- lenders and land-agents, your oppressive middle-men, eleven idle and scheming men to the one slave at work, one man working ten, fifteen, twenty hours, if he can stand up under it — Ah me! no wonder that man succeeds, with all this evil and ill-doing, in making unequal that which God made equal.” They had risen and passed out into the street. The stranger was full of wonder, and entirely silent with awe and admira- tion. And yet he could not help recalling the fact that he had somewhere, far back in life, heard much of this which was being uttered here. His mind went back to a voyage up the Nile, to a night amid the ruins of fearful Kamak, to the glory and the serene beauty of a pathetic and splendid face there. His soul went out continually to the grand and silent woman who had come to him in the clouds only the night before and had carried him away and out of his world of cares, out of himself, to this, her world. “ You are thinking of her ? ” “Of whom?” “Well, no matter about her name. Let us say our guardian angel. I am desirous of leading you to her. Shall we proceed directly to her, or wait till to- morrow? To-morrow were better.” “At once, please God, at once!” cried the man, with elapsed hands, as he saw the kindly man hesitate. “You need rest.” “Indeed, indeed, I jlo not need rest. I am strong as a lion. I need only her — to see her.” A shade of concern and deep sadness swept over the sensitive priest’s face, as if he had something in his mind which he hesitated to tell. At last he said : “ Yes, yes, you are strong.” “ And she — she, my Madonna, Miriam — she is not strong?” “ Far, far from strong my son.” The priest’s head was on his breast as he spoke. Then lifting his face he said pleasantly: “But she forbids all sadness on this score, and so I must obey her and be cheerful.” “ But I may see her to-night ? ” “To-morrow, my son, to-morrow.” (To be continued.) Digitized by Google
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POLITICS, THE PEOPLE AND THE TRUSTS AS SI BY CARTOONISTS. Digitized by Google Campbell, in Philadelphia North American. THUS RISING TIDE. Opper, in New York American. (Reproduced by special permission of W. R. Hearat.) “ALL THIS MUST PASS AWAY.“ Russia's Wolves, and the Den that shelters them. Warren, in New York Globe. LOOKING TOR SOMETHING SOFT TO FALL
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De Mar, in Philadelphia Record. A BATTLE WON AT LAST. , In New York Herald. le 8am— * I am getting just a Uttle bit tired of this game.*’ in Philadelphia Record. THE BIG STICK TO THE RESCUE. Gage, in Philadelphia A 'orth American. THE MAIN SQUEEZE GETS ALL. Digitized by
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Politics, The People and The Trusts as Seen by Cartoonists. 809 Klcka to the right of tham. Complaint* to the left of them. Onward they thundered; Their* not to reaeon why, Thalr* but to charge ’em high, Nobody blundered. of W. B. Heart.) PLUCKING THE PUBLIC.— THE GA8 SITUATION IN BOSTON AND NEW YORK. as Trarr— 1 " Squawk ! squawk I all too will, silly fooee ! I 'll hare your feather* before I let you go I COME IN AND BE WASHED I Digitized by
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EDITORIALS PROFESSOR MUNSTERBERG’S MISTAKE. IT IS by no means a pleasant task to criticise the views of a thinker who writes in so generous and kindly a spirit of America as does the eminent German scholar, Hugo Munsterberg, professor of psychology in Harvard University. His work. The Ameri - cans,* written in German and for the Germans, has recently been translated by another Harvard instructor into English. It is so free from the petty, carping spirit, the absurd exaggerations and the palpable sacrifice of a well-proportioned picture for popular effect, which from the days of Charles Dickens has marked the majority of works written by foreigners for European audiences, that it cannot fail to prejudice the New World reader in its favor from the opening page. Moreover, few American writers possess die charm of style and felicity of expression of this thoughtful German when presenting abstract and speculative theories and matter rather didatic than otherwise. Of all the addresses delivered at the Emer- son Centenary, the one that was most at- tractive and suggestive to us was the plea for idealism delivered by Professor Munsterberg, notwithstanding the fact that we regard as in- correct his views touching Emerson and the Declaration of Independence. So in The American* we have a volume whose seductive charm of style and (within certain limits) breadth of mental vision have scarcely been equaled in a treatise of similar character. But these very qualities, no less than the kindly spirit of the author, which makes the volume so inviting and delightful, also render it one of the most subtly dangerous works that has appeared in years, because the view-point, prejudices and inclinations of the author are those of the aristocrat who believes in class-rulership to such a degree as to blind him to the great fundamental truths in regard to government which are the very foundation upon which the theory of democ- * The Americans. By Hugo Munsterberg. Trans- lated by Edwin B. Holt, Fh.D. Goth. Pp. 619. Price, $2.50 net New York: McClure, Phillips & Company. racy rests. Writing thus from a position inimical to a full-orbed or sympathetic view of true democracy, it is natural, perhaps, that our author should proceed from false premises and ignore certain great basic facts of history and government, or at least subordinate them to facts that are relatively insignificant in character. It is true that Professor Munsterberg could not hope to stand so high in the favor of the essentially despotic and reactionary Emperor of Germany if he expressed views more liberal than those given in this work; but we are un- willing to believe that this gifted author would consciously prostitute his intellectual integrity for personal motives. We rather incline to the conviction that his reasoning and positions which we regard as fallacious are due chiefly to his point-of-view, his prejudices, and a certain un-American intellectual atmos- phere in which he has lived while in the New World. He is, we imagine, in far more hearty accord with the reactionary govern- ment of the Emperor William than with the progressive and truly democratic ideals of such apostles of free government as Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln. Indeed, he takes occasion in his chapter on the self- direction of the American people to observe that: 41 Officially Germany is aristocratic and monarchic through and through, and no one would have it other/9 Here we have an unconscious expression on the part of the author of his contempt for the people. We are told that “no one would have it other,” and yet the Social-Democratic vote in Germany represents an electorate positively, radically and fundamentally op- posed to the present monarchical rSgime , and that vote at the last election numbered 8,112,- 000, and the present membership of the Social-Democratic party in the Reichstag is over eighty. What shall be said of a writer assuming to speak as an authority on popular government, and yet who brushes aside as 810 Digitized by Google
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Editorials. 811 something too insignificant even to be taken into consideration the expressed voice of three million intelligent voters? In so tor as our author sympathises with democracy, it is only with the Hamiltonian or aristocratic ideals of so-called popular govern- ment. Now Hamilton, as our readers know, regarded the constitutional monarchy of Great Britain as an ideal government. He had no faith in the people. He strove with all the power of his commanding genius to make the republic a class-ruled land where property qualifications should bar a large proportion of the people from active par- ticipation in government and where the offices of president and senators should be practically life positions, while the governors of the various states, instead of being elected, should be appointed by the centralised power at Washington. Nothing is dearer than that however sympathetic Professor Munsterberg may be with our people, he is not in active sympathy with democracy or genuine republicanism. Moreover, he has a case to prove. A repub- lican government, though the form that would inevitably obtain in a self-directing nation like our own, he holds would be quite out of place in other lands. “The American democracy/* he tells us, “is not an abstractly superior system of which a European can ap- prove only by becoming himself a republican and condemning, inddentally, his own form of government; it is, rather, merely the neces- sary form of government for the types of men and the conditions which are found here. And any educated American of to-day fully realises this. No theoretical hair-splitting will solve the problem as to what is best for one or another country.** Again he observes: “The American political system, therefore, by no means represents an ideal of universal significance; it is the expression of a certain character, the necessary way of living for that distinct type of man which an historically traceable process of selection has brought together. And this way of living reacts in its turn to strengthen the fundamental type. Other nations, in whom other temperamental factors no less significant or potent or ad- mirable are the fundamental traits, must find the solution of their political problems in other directions. No gain would accrue to them from any mere imitation, since it would tend to nothing but the crippling and estrang- ing of the native genius of their people. “The cultivated American of to-day feds this instinctively. Among the masses, to be sure, the old theme is still sometimes broached of the world-wide supremacy of American ideals. “The cultivated American is well aware that the various political institutions of other nations are not to be gauged simply as good or bad, and that the American system would be as impossible for Germany as the German system for America. “Those days are indeed remote when philosophy tried to discover one intrinsically best form of government.** Elsewhere he tells us that: “The Republic of the United States is so entirely different from all other republics since in no other people is the craving for self- determination so completely the informing force. The republics of Middle and South America, or of France, have sprung from an entirely different political spirit; while those newer republics, which in fundamental inten- tion are perhaps more similar, as for instance Switzerland, are still not comparable because of their diminutive size. The French republic is founded on rationalism. The philosophy of the eighteenth century, with its destructive criticism of the existing order, furnished the doctrines, and from that seed of knowledge there grew and still are growing the practical ideals of France. But the political life of the United States sprang not from reasoned motives but from ideals; it is not the result of insight but of will; it has not a logical but a moral foundation. And while in France the principles embodied in the constitution are derived from theory, the somewhat doubtful doctrines enunciated in the Declara- tion of Independence are merely a corollary to that system of moral ideals which is indis- solubly combined with the American char- acter. “The political ideas which led to the French Revolution had been outlived by the middle of the nineteenth century. A compromise had been effected. The whole stress of the conflict had transferred itself to social prob- lems, and no one earnestly discussed any more whether republic or monarchy was the better form of government The intellectual Digitized by Google
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312 Editorials. make-up of a people and its history must instance democracy was the fruit of br decide what shall be the outward form of its ing intelligence and culture and of the i political institutions. And it is to-day tacitly and inevitable aspirations of an emanc admitted that there are light and shade on brain and a quickened conscience. It either side.” each case fundamentally both ratioi and ethical. The ideal of justice, of b We are republicans, Professor Munster- hood and fraternity was the overma berg assures his readers, because of our self- concept in each instance, and must alw direction, — something absent in many civil- where the democratic ideal prevails; i ized lands. Next he assures us that our proportion as this concept is realised a republic resulted from an entirely different is truly democratic; in proportion as informing influence than that which led to the nation is reactionary and the vie the overthrow of the monarchal order in class-interests and influences. France. “The political life of the United In America the ringing words of T States sprang not from reasoned motives but Jefferson were complemented by the lui from ideals; it is not the result of insight but thought of Benjamin Franklin, T of will; it has not a logical but a moral Paine, the Adamses, and other high-r foundation.” On the other hand the French and self-sacrificing patriots and republic, we are assured, “is founded on thinkers. rationalism. The philosophy of the eighteenth The men who rendered the French E century, with its destructive criticism of the tion inevitable were men who were pc existing order, furnished the doctrines, and by virtue of the justice of their cause a from that seed of knowledge there grew and idealism which vivified their logical still are growing the practical ideals of ments. It was the excesses of the 1 France.” Revolution, bom of the sufferings < This ingenious plea is as thoroughly fallaci- people and the legitimate outcome of g ous as is the author’s assumption that nobody tions of despotism, ignorance, supei would have the German monarchal govern- and misery, that in time produced t ment other than it is. In the first place, the actionary movement in the French g American republic was the fruit of the ex- ment in the meridian period of the nine panding ideals of freedom that obtained in century, and not any giving up on the ] the more thoughtful and liberal minds of the people of the fundamental ide England, France and America in the eigh- democracy, as our author would ha teenth century. Locke, Montesquieu, Dide- readers understand — a fact which t h rot, Rousseau and other liberal philosophers twenty-five years in the history of Franc sowed the seeds of democracy throughout clearly demonstrated. Moreover, whe Western civilization. In America Thomas author intimates that the French pea Jefferson’s Summary View of the Righte of not possess the spirit of self-directioE America embodied these ideas so lucidly and they are not genuine democrats or a succinctly that all men could grasp, under- capable of appreciating the spirit of c stand and hold them. This paper, perhaps racy, he treads upon a path dangerous more than any other single writing in the reputation as a sincere thinker and a New World, served to convince the ration- informed student of political life; for ality and satisfy the moral demands of the recent years the French Republic has d American people, prior to the Revolution, strated in a marked degree not only j as to the essential justice of the fundamental predation of the ideals and genius of c demands of free institutions; but this dis- racy, but its realization that govemn cussion was laigely an epitome of ideas which progressive; that a wider diffusion of ] had long since obtained among the more edge, united with economic emandpat advanced thinkers of England and France. the legitimate demand of present-day c It is true that with the American people the racy, moral ideal probably exerts a greater in- Professor Munsterberg, in striving to fluence than with some of the European peo- the proper sphere of democracy to the 1 pies, but to represent the cause of our democ- States, does violence to the facts of histo racy as being something different from the raises the temperamental characteristic cause which produced the democratic revolt people above the rational instincts ai in France is the height of absurdity. In each universal aspirations and experiences Digitized by Google
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Editorials. 313 ghtened human heart. The history of eminent in a progressive civilization is rked by steady expansion and growth, inge here, as elsewhere in living organisms, le order of life. The aspirations of a peo- move along certain well-defined lines, general intelligence increases, as mental moral growth marks the entire people, e comes the demand for greater freedom a larger measure of justice, and for a ignition of toddy as the true and rightful no e of government instead of some of its [dents, freaks or monstrosities. As men in intelligence out of barbarism, super- on and ignorance, they more and more ignize the absurdity and incomprehen- e folly of resigning their interests, pros- ity and happiness into the hands of some i who happens to be the eldest son in a ain family whose ancestor, through su- ior strength or prowess on the field of con- , or through chance or cunning, gained itership of the people. This offspring 7 be mentally erratic and physically de- ued. He may be a dissipated rout. He 7 possess far less intellectual ability than ^tenths of the educated of the land, and may be morally inferior to nine-tenths of people. He may be at once antagonistic he interests of true statesmanship, hostile ill honest criticism, and contemptuous of rights of the people. And yet, because he be son of some son of some other son who led the scepter, he is confided with the life, th, prosperity and happiness of a great pie. low as general intelligence obtains in any i, the absolute absurdity, the gross in- ice and essential iniquity of such an ar- gement become more and more apparent, I at the same time the principles of democ- Y naturally take deeper and deeper root in public consciousness. Democracy be- gs to no land, no nation, no people. It is ripened expression of the intelligence and awakened conscience of humanity, de- eding that the government shall express the &ciples of the Golden Rule, which epitom- i the noblest dream of ethics as it relates to eminent; shall assert the fundamental th of the law of solidarity; shall, in a word, dow forth justice, freedom and fraternity, ing equality of opportunities to all and rial privileges to none, though being ever dy to extend the hand of loving help to the iker members of society. It is the natural i inevitable evolution of public conscious- ness where education and moral unfoldment obtain, instead of being the product of rational- ism in one land and of moral idealism only in another. Moreover, it moves along certain well-defined lines. It demands the progress- ive extension of the rights, privileges and liberties of all the people. Thus the growth of government is seen from the absolutism of the ancient Oriental despot, slowly, through many changing forms and with a rising and receding tide, but ever groping its way toward freedom, until at length, when enlightenment has loosened the bands of superstition and ignorance, the ideal of democracy breaks upon the vision of the more or less emancipated mind, and the dream of liberty, of justice and of fraternity, based on a recognition of the law of solidarity and the inherent right of society to rulership, dominates the public mind. There is not, nor can there be, anything local, anything ephemeral, or anything station- ary in democracy. It is the legitimate and inevitable evolutionary result due to the broadening intelligence of the age. This is, of course, not saying that democracy as we find it to-day is the realization of the dreams of any or all of the great democrats who have lived. It is the nearest approach to the dream yet actualized in society. The mistake which many democrats as well as upholders of autocratic, monarchal or class-government make is in regarding govern- ment as something that is stationary and not susceptible of growth, change and unfold- ment. Liberals who take this position as- sume that the revolutionary epoch closed the door of growth; that henceforth there is no demand for a progressive constructive move- ment in the political organism. It was too much to expect that the great fundamental principles of democracy could be realized at once. Furthermore, changed conditions demand an expansion of principles which will best meet the requirements of democracy and insure to the people the largest possible measure of freedom, justice and equality of opportunities and of rights. More and more are thoughtful men of all civilized lands coming to see that the fruits of political emancipation cannot be enjoyed in anything like their fullest degree until we have also economic emancipation. Civiliza- tion is marching upward toward the light; there is a constant evolution or development. So, also, with government, and the most progressive lands are yet far from the goal. Digitized by Google
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314 Editorials. The ideal of justice, freedom and fraternity, though more fully embodied in a republic than in class-ruled lands, is as yet only parti- ally actualized, and so long as this ideal floats before us, popular government must continue to expand, unfold and develop. 4s Victor Hugo rightly observes, in speaking of the mission of art and the triumph of democracy: “The human caravan has reached a high plateau; and, the horizon being vaster, art has more to do. This is all. To every widening of the horizon, an enlargement of conscience corresponds. We have not reached the goal. Concord condensed into felicity, civilization summed up in harmony, — that is yet far off.” There is nothing more amazing, and to thoughtful republicans amusing, Qian Pro- fessor Munsterberg’s constant allusion to the cultivated American as an upholder of aristo- cratic government or of an aristocratic re- public. Thus, for example, he assures us that “the cultivated American of to-day” feds instinctively that “the American political system ... by no means represents an ideal of universal significance; it is the ex- pression of a certain character, the necessary way of living for that distinct type of man which an historically traceable process has brought together.” Our author, however, does condescend to admit that “among the masses, to be sure, the old theme is still sometimes broached of the world-wide supremacy of American ideals.” Again he says: “The cultivated American is well aware that the various political institutions of other nations are not to be gauged simply as good or bad, and that the American system would be as impossible for Germany as the German system for America. “Those days are indeed remote when philosophy tried to discover one intrinsically best form of government.” In reading such words as the above one wonders whether it is possible that our Harvard professor has associated entirely with the toady and sycophantic element that justly merits the contempt of all sturdy and robust thinkers, whether they be Americans or Europeans; while his expression in regard to the remoteness of the day “when philosophy tried to discover one intrinsically best form of government,” reveals again how thoroughly and inherently reactionary is his own point-of- view. In regard to the weakness of a democracy Professor Munsterberg says: “The essential weakness of such a democ- racy is rather the importance it assigns to the average man with his petty opinions, which are sometimes right and sometimes wrong, his total lade of comprehension for all that is great and exceptional, his self-satisfied dilettanteum and his complacency before the accredited and trite in thought. ... All ambition is directed necessarily toward such achieve- ments as the common man can understand and compete for — athletic virtuosity and wealth. Therefore the spirit of sport and of money-getting concerns the people more nearly than art or science, and even in politics the domination of the majority easily crowds from the arena those whose qualifications do not appeal to its mediocre taste. And by as much as mature and capable minds withdraw from political life, by so much are the well- intentioned masses more easily led astray by sharp and self-interested politicians and pities made to cater to mean instincts. . . . The seditious demagogue who appeals to passion is less dangerous than the sly political wire-puller who exploits the indolence and indifference of the people; and evil intent is less to be feared than dilettanteism and the intellectual limitations of the general public.” Before noticing this general indictment, let us consider for a moment the author’s conten- tion that it is democracy that is responsible for the money-madness with our adult popula- tion and the craze for athletics with our youth. It is a noteworthy fact that while truly democratic conditions prevailed in America, — that is, before privileged and class-interests united with political rings and bosses to thwart the rule of all the people for self- enrichment and aggrandizement and to de- feat the free and untramelled growth of democracy by various means, not the least of which was the control of nominations, there was no money-madness such as prevails to- day in the republic. It was not until after such sinister influences as the Tweed Ring, operating with Jay Gould, Jim Fisk and the Erie contingent, and Simon Cameron and Matthew Quay, acting with Tom Scott and the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Standard Oil Company, became so masterful as to gain Digitized by Google
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Editorials. 315 in an incredibly short time either overreaching political power or vast sums of acquired wealth as a result of political corruption and privilege, that money became a leading determining factor in securing prestige and power in America. Before this the ideals of the American youth were noble and sturdily ethical, and this lowering of ideals and shifting of the standard of success from personal worth and noble endeavors and attainments to acquisition of wealth came as a result of the subversive and undemocratic influence that was injected into the American democ- racy. It was the legitimate and inevitable result of the ultra-high protective system of tariff, the rise of privilege and of corporate wealth, uniting with shrewd and unscrupulous agents and attorneys in political life to secure selfish ends at the expense of the people. Again. Before the entrance of this prin- ciple of class-government, with its false and artificial standards and ideals, there was no athletic craze or undue emphasis on physical sports present in our educational institutions or among our young. But on the other hand, in the democratic days the literary societies and the debating clubs held the place now occupied by football, baseball and like games. Here the change from a general desire on the part of the young to excel in literary exercises and in forensic art to a passion for physical prowess and power was as marked as the change in ideals and life among the elders, and was doubtless due in part at least to the shifting of standards and ideals that resulted in the placing of the chief emphasis on materialistic rather than idealistic aims and concepts. With the rise of classes or the growth of what Professor Munsterberg terms the aristo- cratic spirit, came a degree of artificiality never before known in America, a diminution in the old sturdy integrity that marked busi- ness life, and a strong reactionary tendency in government and in the ideals of a large proportion of the more successful among the beneficiaries of privilege and class-legislation. Thus as a matter of fact the money-madness and the “athletic virtuosity” of which our author complains are due to the presence of reactionary and undemocratic ideals, or, in other words, to a falling away from the just, sturdy, and equitable ideals of democracy. Passing to a consideration of the general indictment of democracy’s weakness, in which H is held that it assigns to the average man nndue importance, which results in “a lack of comprehension” on the part of the nation as a whole “for all that is great and exceptional” and in a “self-satisfied dilettanteism and complacency before the accredited and trite in thought,” leading to the subordination of art and science and even causing politics to be dominated by individuals of mediocre ability, we find a contention that is on its face specious, and yet, as in the case of gain-getting and physical sports, is thoroughly fallacious. The Professor has allowed himself to be led astray by mistaking the aristocratic or class- rule of the present, with which he so heartily sympathizes, for the result of democracy. What he complains of is the result of class- rulership, the result found in monarchies and all class-ruled lands. As a matter of fact nowhere are true merit and real greatness of character and mind more quickly recognized than in a true democracy. The public mind is quick to discern the worthy, if left free, unhampered and unprejudiced. There is but one exception to this rule, and that is that the advance guard in all lines of research are regarded with more or less suspicion by the people, who are naturally conservative rather than radical in thought But the history of civilization proves nothing more clearly than that theocracies, monarchies and class-ruled lands have been equally slow to recognize any advance in science, speculative thought in government or indeed in any direction except in art and dilettante forms of literature. The pioneer reformers, the radicals and the daring thinkers in the sphere of science have been ostracized, persecuted and not unfrequently slain by the reactionary governments of the past and we think it is safe to say that no government even in this respect has been as liberal to new thought and the enunciation of high and humane ideals as have the democ- racies; while in respect to intellectual and moral greatness, democracy may well stand bonneted in the presence of any other form of government. And if we except art which in the nature of the case cannot be expected to be vigorously fostered in a new land where a nation is in the process of building, we con- fidently assert that no European country can make a better showing of appreciation of her distinguished sons than the United States, so long as the government was in fact a democ- racy. Before the modern plutocracy arose and privileged interests and wealthy corporations succeeded in overthrowing or thwarting the popular will, the halls of state were filled by Digitized by Google
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316 Editorials. our ablest statesmen, — our Jeffersons, Madi- sons, Clays, Websters, Bentons, Calhouns and Sumners. So in literature, it is remark- able what honor, popularity and recognition were accorded to our poets, novelists, scientific workers and inventors; to our Longfellows, Lowells, Bryants, Whittiers, Holmeses, Emersons, Hawthornes, Prescotts, Motleys, Howes, Morses, Edisons, and scores of others, by a people largely pioneers, battling for bread and building homes. There could have been no such marvelous advance as America has made in invention, in scientific discovery and in literature if Professor Munsterbeig’s criticism were even measurably just. It is true, however, that after the Civil war, with the rise in power of the great railways, the Standard Oil and other corporations and the protective system of tariff, a new and powerful influence entered American political life. Privilege, in essence reactionary, in spirit that of class-government, as thoroughly inimical to democracy as it is congenial to aristocracies or class-governments, became more and more a dominating factor in the republic. From the national government down to municipal rule, public-service cor- porations and other privileged interests by various direct and indirect methods began to debauch and corrupt government on the one hand while they systematically secured the nomination to important offices of men who had been attorneys or lobbyists for their interests, and over whom they felt they could exert a controlling influence in all measures in which personal and selfish interests were pitted aganst the interests of the people. As a result our government to-day is honey- combed with men of low ideals or no ideals. and though many of them are men of s intellect, their lack of moral greatness their long subserviency to consdem masters have rendered them as conspicu wanting in the elements of great states ship as they are in those of lofty patri or fidelity to the demands of democracy. In aristocratic governments a large pr tion of the hereditary representatives &r only pledged to the interests of their class therefore place those interests before interests of the nation, but they are freqi mentally far inferior to the men selectc the people. Take England, for exa Who were her great statesmen during th century, or from what rank did they c Gladstone, Disraeli, Bright, Cobden, M — one may run through the list of the : great and those who were nobly endowed moral sentiments, as well as intelleci brilliant, and he will find that the majority were the men whom the peop the electorate at large pushed to the j not the hereditary aristocrats. So as a matter of fact the real evils or s comings of democracy, which Proi Munsterbeig points out, are due to the of democracy or to the reactionary move which resulted from the power of orga wealth dominating political machines thwarting, nullifying or overthrowing wifi of the unorganized masses or the pc The weakness and evil pointed oul present with us, but they are due to too democracy, not to too much democ Just in proportion as the aristocratic, leged and reactionary influences or das have supplanted democracy, the evi which Professor Munsterberg speaks grown apace. A GOVERNOR WHO WOULD SCREEN THE DESTROYERS O THE REPUBLIC. NOTHING more alarms the great thieves, bribers, corruptionists and other wealthy criminals, or is more dreaded by the sleek and well-fed advocates and special-pleaders for the men who, but for the power they wield through ill-gotten gain, would be wear- ing striped prison-suits, than the telling car- toons of the brilliant and courageous American artists. The destruction of the Tweed Ring was rendered possible through the powerful pictures of Thomas Nast. Tweed on occasion said: “Let’s stop them d- pictures. I don’t care so much wha papers write about me; my constit can’t read, but, d — n it, they can sec tures.” And on another occasion h< claimed in rage and alarm on beholding of Nast’s terrible cartoons illustrating striking manner how the Ring was rol the people: “This is the last straw, show them d d publishers a new ti Digitized by Google
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318 Editorials. And forthwith he had all the school-books published by Harper Brothers thrown out of the public-schools. Tweed thus early learned what every great public plunderer, thief and corruptionist since that day has known and felt, — namely, that the fearless and incorruptible cartoonist is the deadly enemy of wholesale corruption, the debauching of public officials, the defying of the laws made to protect the people, and the robbery of the public through the iniquit- ous union of political bosses, partisan ma- chines and the trusts or great corporations. The riot of political corruption and im- morality that has marked the history of Pennsylvania since the great railway, coal and iron industries became the virtual masters of the commonwealth, through the grace of Senator Quay and other corruptors, has long since become a crying shame in the republic. So notorious has become this debauchery of a great commonwealth that the newspapers and cartoonists have of late been active in exposing the wickedness that has too long been allowed to flourish. At last the cor- porations, the venal politicians and other corrupt, immoral and law-defying elements have found a powerful ally in Governor Pennypacker of Pennsylvania, whose warfare against the freedom of the press, and especially against the cartoonists, will probably be his only claim to immortality, unless it be his characterization of the notorious Senator Quay as “a greater man than Clay or Web- ster.” From the days of Tweed those who have feared publicity or the exposure of their evil and criminal deeds, have desired to sup- press the cartoonists and abridge the freedom of the press. A few years ago the New York bosses and political wire-workers at- tempted to enact some restrictive legislation aimed at the cartoonists, but an indignant public prevented their taking away from the people one of the greatest weapons in the battle against bribery, corruption, graft and thievery in general; and it has remained for Governor Pennypacker to win the applause of the enemies of the republic by his recent at- tempts against the cartoonists. If Tweed were living he would hail the Governor of Pennsyl- vania as a second Daniel come to judgment. In his powerful cartoon this month Dan. Beard illustrates the practical effect of Gov- ernor Pennypacker’s action in seeking to shield thieves and corruptionists from the sun of publicity It is a cartoon worthy of Nast and should do much to aid in the move- ment now being made to break up the in- tolerable condition of corporate and corrupt machine-rule in Pennsylvania. THE AUTHORSHIP OF “THE TWO MYSTERIES”: A CORRECTION. IN THE January Arena, Mr. Clarence Cuningham in his thoughtful paper on Walt. Whitman, following the lead of Pro- fessor McAlpine, erroneously quoted the exquisite poem, “The Two Mysteries,” as from the pen of Whitman. This poem has for years, or since the publication of Favorite Poems of English and American Authors, which appeared in the eighties of the last century, been published and re-published as the production of the “good, gray poet;” for in that volume it was credited to Whitman. The following extract from a letter received by us from W. F. Clark, associate editor of St. Nicholas, will serve to correct the error: “My attention has just been called to an article in the January number of The Arena entitled ‘A Defense of Walt. Whitman's “Leaves of Grass,”' by Clarence Cuningham, in which the author follows a mistake of Pro- fessor Frank McAlpine in attributing the poem, ‘The Two Mysteries,’ to Walt. Whitman. “The poem was written by Mrs. Mary Mapes Dodge, the editor of St. Nicholas . It has been several times ascribed to Whitman, but in every instance where this mistake has come to our notice we have endeavored to have it corrected.” This poem first appeared in Scribner's Monthly in the summer of 1&76, and was preceded by the following note, which prob- ably first led to its being attributed to Walt Whitman: “In the middle of the room, in its white coffin, lay the dead child, a nephew of the poet. Near it, in a great chair, sat Walt Whitman, surrounded by little ones, and holding a beautiful little girl on his lap. The child looked curiously at the spectacle of death, and then inquiringly into the old man’s face. ‘You don’t know what it is, do you, my dear?’ said he; adding, ‘We don’t, either.’” Digitized by Google
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IN THE MIRROR OF THE PRESENT A TYPICAL ILLUSTRATION OF THE ARROGANCE AND DESPOTISM OF THE TRUST-SPIRIT. ie People in The Power of The Octopus or The “System.” URING recent years and with increas- ing emphasis from month to month reek to week, the American people have made to feel the essential despotism and aan brutality of the trust-spirit. With a ry that might well be symbolized by the lantern and the gum-shoes, and with >ds that have been marked at every step Tiel injustice not unfrequently accom- d by falsehoods, corrupt practices and hat strike at the very foundation of that I intergity upon which national and dual greatness rest, the trusts have ae masters of the millions. Deriving strength partly from legalized privileges, r from the mastery of political machines he successful pushing to the front of rvient tools, partly from their control of : opinion-forming agencies, and not un- »ntly through evading or defying all laws id to protect the people, they have suc- d in levying enormous tributes from the ring and consuming public, that in turn increased their power for evil while de- ng the power for resistance on the part e millions. The ethics, or rather the >f ethics that has characterized the great and arrogant monopolies that to-day ss the millions of America, has bred in laster or directing minds in many cases one spirit of tyranny and contempt for ghts of others that in past times marked rtions of Charles I. of England, and at a late those of George III. in his treatment le American Colonies. Of the law- ig, government-corrupting and public- ssing actions of the great trusts and cor- ions we have had occasion to speak on il occasions, and shall in the near future numerous other typical examples and ■ations. At the present time we desire dee a recent outrage that affords a start- lustration of the trust-spirit and methods y obtain in American to-day. An Historical Cartoon and a Libel Suit. From time to time fearless and reputable journals not directly or indirectly beholden to the theatrical trust have pointed out the wretchedly insufficient precautions taken by many of the great theater managers and lessees to prevent serious loss of life to the theater-going public in the event of fire. Such agitation has always been extremely offensive to the grasping and avaricious parties responsible for such conditions. Among the fearless papers which have for years merited the gratitude of the citizens of greater New York because of their insistence on proper provisions for the protection of the public and the strict enforcement of the laws relating to exits from public buildings, the weekly journal, Lifey deserves special considera- tion. Therefore Life has not been loved by those who place the acquisition of the dollar above the protection of life. Shortly after the Iroquois Theater holocaust in Chicago, where through the criminal neglect of the re- sponsible parties hundreds of persons were burned, suffocated or trampled to death. Life published a terrible and telling cartoon. It represented one of the many locked exists of the Iroquois Theater. The double doors were padlocked, but had been wrenched open a few inches, and through the aperture were seen numerous hands frantically waving, — hands of the old and the young, some almost baby hands, some those of matrons, and others the graceful, shapely hands of maidens. Smoke and flames were escaping through the aperture, while Death stood complacently in front of the exit. Underneath the picture was a legend an- nouncing that, “Messrs. Klaw and Erlanger Present ‘Mr. Bluebeard,* late of the Iroquois Theater.’* This picture naturally did much to arouse public sentiment in New York which compelled the managers to comply with the law. It also tended to incense the avaricious managers who were hoping that the storm would blow over and that they 819 Digitized by Google
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320 In the Mirror of the Present. would not be compelled to make the changes that had been demanded. And especially did it enrage that part of the theater-trust mentioned under the cartoon — Messrs. Klaw and Erlanger. They brought suit for one hundred thousand dollars damages against TAfe. The case was not heard until the first week in January of this year. At the trial Life showed that not only were Messrs. Klaw and Erlanger the proprietors of “Mr. Blue- beard” and the booking agents for the Iroquois Theater, but that according to the records they were one-fourth owners in the ill-fated theater. The case was tried before Judge Wallace and a jury, the latter promptly rendering a verdict in favor of TAfe. A High-Handed Attempt to Stifle Honest Criticism. After the court had decided that the publi- cation of the cartoon in the interests of human life and the rightful protection of the people was legitimate and right in view of the facts brought out in the case, the Theatrical Managers’ Association passed a resolution barring Mr. Metcalfe from all of the forty theaters which the Association controlled. Here is an overt act so grave in character, so dangerous in its influence as a precedent, that it should not be permitted to go un- challenged. A public journal, true to the high demands of journalism, incurs the wrath of certain members of a well-nigh all- powerful theatrical trust. They seek to silence the paper through a libel suit, but the evidence is so overwhelming in its character that they lose the suit. Then, failing to silence the press where honest criticism is most demanded — that is, where human life is in jeopardy — they go into the Managers’ Association and secure the passage of the odious and un-American resolution bciycctftiisg the dramatic critic of Life . In speaking of how the trust dominates the Association, Mr. Metcalfe, in an interview republished in the Dramatic Mirror observes: “There is no secret about the matter that it is in the power of certain powerful managers in New York to ruin almost any manager in the city. These managers control practically the bookings of every theater of prominence in the entire United States. For that reason many managers hestitate to give public ex- pression to what private opinions they may have in this matter.” Here we have the spectacle of fort York theaters in a conspiracy to dest means of livelihood of the dramatic critic by preventing him from entering the t h The Absurd Pretext Made For Outrage. True, the trust did not dare to atta< and its critic thus boldly and direct evidently did not feel that the America] was yet quite complacent enough to such a high-handed outrage. So the jure up a new issue and give as a reas barring Mr. Metcalfe from the theater Life has criticized certain Jews; and, v pose chiefly because the master-spirits theatrical trust happen to be Hebrew] insist that because Life has assailed < Hebrews, therefore Mr. Metcalfe, th made critic of Life, is to be barred fre theaters of New York. Here an issue is raised entirely fore the real grievance. But even if the coni were true, which is not the case, what American people think of this high-1 outrage and the precedent it estab: Here is the amusement-loving public o York in the hands of an association or of men arrogating to themselves the ri bar citizens from the houses of amusemc depriving a man of his means of live) because it is alleged that the jouma which the party in question is associate assailed a certain race or some memt that race. In referring to the claim pi ward by the theater-trust and its confed Mr. Harrison Grey Fiske, the well-] editor of the Dramatic Mirror , thus th fully observes: “Klaw and Erlanger, as a firm, sue for an alleged libel, assumed to have embodied in a cartoon relating to the Ir Theater fire, and not to Jews, anc Metcalfe’s criticisms of the theater esse have been directed against the methods Theatrical Trust, rather than agains particular member or members of it, or a such persons simply as Jews. As it ha] all the immediate members of that Tn well as many related to it in business, are but they all might be Yankees, or Frenc or Englishmen — or persons of various as they really are — on the merits of thi and without regard for the things i theater that come under legitimate cril “It is a strange fact, too, that the Prc Digitized by Google
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321 In the Mirror of the Present. ie Managers’ Association, Daniel Froh- , in an interview published last week, d in effect that the punishment to be d out to Mr. Metcalfe by the theater sgers was a result of alleged statements ted in IAfe — not essentially dramatic asm — ’against the Jewish race, trades- , financiers and professional men.’ If be so, why should the managers of New c theaters, outside of those whose names been mentioned, combine to defend [eamen, financiers, professional men,’ others on a race-question ? Is the itrical Trust or Syndicate, represented ely by Klaw and Erlanger, powerful gh to align a majority of New York ter-managers in an attack on an individual i on these grounds h And if the trust is srful enough to do this in New York, it not also attempt throughout the country ign theaters in all the cities that it controls ist a critic or critics that may find matter iticiae in the productions and administra- of the Trust, claiming that such criticism attack on the Jewish race ?” it this palpably absurd attempt to divert attention of the public from this effort on >art of the Theatrical Trust to intimidate lalists and prevent the exposure of gross criminal neglect in properly providing Hires for the safety of the public is merely her exhibition of the very familiar tactics ie trusts, the railways and the great corpo- ra— tactics that have been in vogue for » than a quarter of a century and with h all persons familiar with the history of orate aggression in the republic are thor- iy acquainted. Always, when the iniquity crime prompted by die inordinate greed avarice of corporations preying on the ic are exposed, cries are raised to befog popular mind or divert attention from real issue raised. The case of Mr. son’s exposures of the gambling-hell of I street, with its band of unscrupulous biers who play with stacked cards and ed dice, affords a present-day illustration his fact. The multi-millionaires of the dard Oil Trust and other great Wall- ± speculators or gamblers employ the wdest and most intellectually alert at- eys of the land to watch their interests, he specific charges of Mr. Lawson had i false, the Standard Oil crowd would i been the first to prosecute Mr. Lawson his publishers for criminal libel. Indeed, according to the issue of Everybody's Maga- zine for February, its attorneys threatened in so many words to promptly prosecute if Mr. Lawson stated things that were false. Instead of this, the stiletto method of medieval Italy has been substituted for open warfare, and the host of minions of the “system” that has plundered and is plundering every American citizen, through low rates to producers and high prices to consumers and by other methods "of robbery, have joined in a chorus of vitupera- tion and calumny. On every hand the public is being told that Mr. Lawson has been as bad as any he exposes. He is described as a fakir and a charlatan. Attempts at intimidation have been made by the representatives of the “system.” Indeed, their attorneys even went so far as to try and prevent the American News Company from selling the January issue of the magazine containing the articles, by sending them a warning letter; while the most absurd and reckless statements have been circulated by men who claim to be ultra- conservative, all calculated to do one of two things: divert the attention of the American public from the “system” of oppression, robbery and iniquitous gambling that is making Wall street and America a reproach to civilization, or to try to lessen the force of Mr. Lawson’s exposures by belittling him. The arbitrary exclusion of Mr. Metcalfe on the absurd plea made, like the tactics pursued against Mr. Lawson, is a typical illustration of the methods that have been employed by the trusts, the corporations, the railways and other predatory bands with increasing boldness for the past quarter of a century. In all such instances the trusts strive to divert the atten- tion of the people from the real points at issue. We have devoted considerable space to this attempted outrage on the part of the Theatrical Trust and those beholden to it, not merely because this overt act strikes at the most im- portant and vital right of the American people — free criticism of iniquitous action or of dangerous conditions — but also because it affords so striking and typical an illustration of the insolent, arrogant and essentially des- potic spirit evinced by the trust or the “sys- tem” everywhere, and furthermore because it illustrates the invariable method or tactics used by corporate influences to divert atten- tion from the real points at issue. It matters not whether one studies the tactics of the ill-famed Standard Oil Company, the story of the Armour Refrigerator-Car Trust and the Beef Trust iniquity < the stories of the Digitized by Google
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32* In the Mirror great railway corporation* and the express companies in the United States, or the hikoiy of other great public utility companies, — in every case the same sordid, arrogant, despotic and oppressive spirit is present, the same readiness to resort to any kind of tactics that will serve to divert the attention of the people from the evils, iniquities, injustice or violations of law or the rights of individuals, which are the subject of criticism. Moreover, this high-handed action is but one incident in the * great battle being waged between reactionary, predatory classes, trusts and corporations of the Present. against the genius and very life of repu institutions. It is one incident in die pressible conflict upon which the fi democracy depends. Either the people rise and throttle the trusts and corporate or the “ system,” if you please— or the ] will continue in an increasing degree to prey of avarice and greed, banded toj and almost all-powerful through eno wealth, the mastery of political machine influence of public opinion-forming agn and entrenchment behind all the rax dons of government. LIGHTS AND SHADOWS IN FOREIGN LANDS. French Statesmen’s Practical Propo- sition for Solving The Liquor Problem. IN THE February Arena we published a comprehensive and authentic paper de- scribing how Norway and Sweden have grappled with the liquor problem, and the excellent results that have followed public control as compared with conditions prevail- ing prior to this economic departure. This month we desire to call the attention of our readers to a consideration of the liquor problem and the propositions advanced in the recent report of the French extra-parlia- mentary commission on alcoholism presided over by M. Paul Delombre, as in many re- spects that report impresses us as being the most wise, sane and fundamentally sound discussion that has appeared in years. The recommendations of this report do not in any way antagonize the idea of public con- trol of the liquor traffic as so successfully introduced in Scandinavia. Indeed, its pro- visions might be made a complement to a system of public control. The distinguished French statesmen have made an exhaustive study of the whole problem. They advance no remedy as a panacea. They recognize the fact that intemperance is due to a number of causes, and that any system of treatment that ignores these causes will necessarily fail to accomplish the desired result Their dis- cussion is fundamental in character, dealing largely with social and economic conditions, and the remedies suggested would at once change the conditions and vastly improve and elevate the lot of the millions while developing character and exalting the ideals of life. The commission found that amon leading contributing causes of the g intemperance among the workers an poor of France are the following: (1) ance; (2) lack of decent housing; (3) h or lack of sufficient nourishing food; (4 air in factories and shops, and (5) despc Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Each pupil should be taught how to p] food in a nourishing and tempting mi A third contributing cause is ignorance < part of the poor as to the amazing cha of the cheap concoctions that they dhrink. French statesmen believe that if the peopl erally knew the poisons, and indeed the g character of the ingredients of what suppose to be pure liquor, the systems poor men would suffer far less and there be a general diminution in intemper&no Digitized by Google
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828 In the Mirror of the Present. lust not be supposed, however, that M. tbie and his confreres are prohibitionists. 1, they regard the extreme position that men to indiscriminately denounce the \ of wine and fermented drinks of all as unwarranted and calculated to i r retard the progress of a practical pro- ae which if introduced would rapidly 5 the curse of intemperance. But they i in developing the character and will, linating a knowledge of the poisons that into the make-up of cheap drinks, and ng out the baleful effects which they on the human system, and in supple- lg this knowledge with a thorough i g of the girls in the art of cooking, to d that wholesome and nourishing food e found in all homes, prance, however, is only one contribut- use of intemperance among the workers; ccording to these statesmen one of the which is largely responsible for the mg of the cabaret § or saloons at night is nation of the homes of the poor, or a of decent housing. The toilers are id in dark, noisome tenements where rist without any home life worthy of the and without any contributing influence ould make the home a lode-stone. The its, on the other hand, are bright and ely cheerful. They are, indeed, social s that form a striking contrast to the dirty, noisome and forbidding tene- . To meet these conditions the mem- of the commission demand that the pen shall have healthful homes. “Tear all noisome rookeries, dean up the ents, reduce the water-rates, provide necessary for good housekeeping!” in, unsanitary environment in factories, and work-places, the commission holds another important contributing cause, tally is the poor ventilation of these condemned, as here they find that the ts in a large proportion of cases are iUed to breathe dose, heavy and vitiated stores, shops, factories and mills, with tevi table result that the toilers become restless and exhausted. Now to meet vil condition that is one of the real i of intemperance, M. Ddombre’s com- m would in so far as possible make these places healthful by compelling the luction of the best systems of ventilation, er, they would legalize Sunday and also lay afternoon as holidays for rest and ition, and they would have the com- munity provide rapid transit and low fores to the country, while they would also have the dries open parks and gardens in all the con- gested quarters and thus encourage the people to spend every hour possible, when not en- gaged in work, in the pure open air. These things, the committee wisely holds, would tend to greatly lessen the temptation to drink. Further than this, they recommend the distributing of coffee and tea among the employes before they leave the factories or shops, as a means of taking away the tempta- tion to stop at the cabaret on the way home. Another cause is hunger and exhaustion. The food in France is dear and the prepara- tion frequently bad. Too * little food and unsanitary environment in homes and work- places naturally produce general exhaustion, and every means should be employed to bring down to as reasonable a figure as possible the cost of simple and nutritious foods. This committee would allow no criminal trusts to put up the price of life’s necessities, but would rather have the State make the pro- vision of food at the most reasonable figure possible a matter of governmental concern. Further than this, the committee would encourage all places and things that would tend to keep the workers out of the cabarets, such as illustrated lecture courses, singing societies, popular theaters and libraries. Another cause of intemperance is the loss of hope or the creeping paralysis of despair. Thousands of laborers lose their positions. They have little or nothing saved. They see little or nothing in the future for them. They turn to drink and sink to depths from which there is little hope of rescue. Now our twentieth-century statesmen propose societies for saving, insurance against enforced idle- ness and illness, and also the establishment of retreats for unemployed laborers. In a word, they would have the State in so far as possible help to preserve the courage and self-respect of the workers. * The committee also advises the establishment of hospitals for the cure of inebriety, where the victims of drink desire to be restored. And to this splendid plan of moral and social betterment — which apart from all considerations of reducing the causes of intemperance would be richly worth the while, because it would elevate and ennoble the lives of the millions, bringing sunshine and happiness, self-respect and courage, and increased efficiency that would mean greater individual and national prosperity while con- tributing most effectively to a nobler, freer and Digitized by Google
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324 In the Mirror of the Present. truer civilization on the morrow — our French statesmen would add the stringent enforce- ment of statutes governing the sale of liquor9 the enactment of vigorous laws for the suppres- sion of illicit sale of liquors, and such wise supervision of the trade as would approach in effectiveness the public control of Scandi- navia. It is encouraging to see democratic states- manship in the morning hours of the twentieth- century treating these great questions so broadly, so sanely and with such consideration for the highest interests of all the people. The programme as outlined will, we believe, more and more challenge the attention of the most thoughtful people in all progressive lands. More and more will men come to see that the drink curse, as well as other disintegrating factors in present-day civilization, is largely due to society’s neglect in regard to the con- dition of the people, — the failure of govern- ments to secure justice for all and to recognize the supremely important truth that the law of solidarity is such that an injustice done to one hurts all, and that the happiness, pros- perity and elevation of all the people must be the supreme concern of statesmanship in lands that are to flourish and lead in the pro- cession of civilization. The Red Czar and The Massacre of The Innocents. Seldom in recent years has autocracy ap- peared in so hideous a light as on the twenty- second of January, when the Czar of Russia, after previously spuming the petition of the zemstvos for a constitutional government, answered the touching petition of starving men, women and children with a murderous volley from his brutal soldiery. The starving and oppressed poor had been led by the noble priest whom they loved and in whom they had implicit confidence, to believe that the Czar, if he personally knew of their misery and the injustice under which they suffered, would take measures for their relief. Was he not the Little Father? Were they not all in a way his children ? And so the wretched suffering ones, goaded on by starvation’s pangs, sought to lay their woe at the feet of the throne, that they might have justice. They asked for bread; they were given bullets. Seldom was the massacre of men, women and children more unprovoked or brutally inhuman. By that deed the Czar, his savage uncles and his brutal, reactionary councillors, placed themselves bey on pale of civilization. It is idle to talk of the Czar being a h puppet. He is the responsible head government. His word is law. By hi stood Prince Mirsky, ready to upho hands and to gather around him the 1 the high-minded and the conscience el in the statesmanship of Russia. To hi given an opportunity seldom vouchsafe modem ruler. He enjoyed the low respect of a large proportion of his p When he refused the petition of the zei he let pass an opportunity that would won for him an immortality of glory position among the world’s great prog] statesmen and liberators; and wh< refused to frankly meet the poor, un and starving workmen — men, womei children — led by a noble-minded priesl only sought to lay their grievances at hi he proved himself a coward. That, ho might have been overlooked; but wh permitted the order to be given to his sold mow down the starving ones whose only was a desire to lay their woes at the : the Little Father, he became one of th< execrable of the world’s great murdc a wholesale murderer of the innocents, henceforth he should be styled the Red And more than this: This act of indesci inhumanity has widened as has nothin has preceded it, the . breach be twee tyrant and the people. To the cur crushed and despoiled Poland and Fi the anathemas of the oppressed and cuted Hebrews, and the bitter hatred exiles in Siberia and elsewhere throi the world, is now added the deathless i ment of the toilers throughout Russia have learned to think; while the hot this crime will fire anew the passion for j freedom and progress that bums so b: in the brains of many of the students, < tors and foremost Russian citizens, autocracy may crush the present up may apparently succeed for a time, but written its own death-warrant. The Government as a Landloe New Zealand is entitled to be acterized as the nation that dares to This proud distinction long belong* eminently to the United States, but i nation became less and less progress^ more and more subservient to prr Digitized by Google
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325 In the Mirror of the Present. \ and reactionary monarchal ideals, it In New Zealand as- in no other country the e more and more a camp-follower government has concerned itself with meas- \ the great peoples of the earth, electing ures calculated to benefit all the people. > the reactionary policies of class-ruled Here we have more equitable land laws than rather than to adopt, as Switzerland and in any other nation on the face of the earth, nations have adopted, new measures to Here the government owns and operates the changed conditions, to the end that railways, the telegraph and the insurance, ir government might be preserved and Here the enormous loss to the mass of the illy expanded. Thus we find that our people and injury to the nation incident to have long been the victims of the industrial wars and strikes is rendered im- sxpress companies and the railways in possible by courts of conciliation or arbitra- te postal matters, while Great Britain tion, and in various other ways the best ther nations, through the introduction interests of all the people are made the first tal savings-banks, the parcels-post and concern of the State. progressive measures, have extended The latest proposition on the part of the neficent sphere of popular government, government of New Zealand is the destruction g in these respects the government the of extortion by landlords, through the State t of all the people instead of placing competing for tenants. In Wellington, the •ople at the mercy of grasping and capital of New Zealand, the rapid growth of ious private corporations. So also in the city has rendered it possible for the land- ipal -ownership Great Britain has taken lords to reap a rich harvest at the expense of aid among the nations, while through^ the people through charging extortionate rerweening influence of powerful and rents. Now the government proposes to buy ghly corrupt private corporations land and erect buildings of various kinds and ca is lagging woefully behind in the rent them so as to realize a moderate return sion of the nations. Australia, New as interest on the investment. The result, it id, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and is stated, will be to reduce rents at least one- nations have taken over the railways half. The parasite class will of course hold re operating them for the benefit of fill up its hands in horror at the spectacle of the ople, while here again our people are State placing the interests of the people robbed on all sides, not only through the before the unjust extortion of a class; but railway corporations, but by the conniv- when our people begin to think for themselves >f these powerful public carriers with and cease to take their opinions from news- r unscrupulous monopolies, such as the papers and other paid special-pleaders for ird Oil Company, the Armour Refrigera- predatory wealth and privileged classes, they r Trust, the coal trust, the Colorado Coal too will demand that our government fulfil uel Company, and other almost equally that essential condition of democracy — the i and conscienceless organizations that placing of the interests of the people as a whole ;h thwarting and destroying competition before the selfish demands of small privileged een enabled to extort untold millions from interests, such as the railways, the trusts and alth-creators and consumers of America, other corporations. COOPERATION IN AMERICA. b March of Cooperation in The men, America has been until very recently Middle West. indifferent to the subject. It is true that the Rochdale stores on the Pacific coast have rHILE Great Britain, Switzerland, shown steady and healthy growth. There Italy, Belgium, Denmark and other have been many successes in insurance and can nations have made marked progress in banking, and some successful fruit com- ctical cooperation, building up vast busi- ponies, creameries, cooperative stores and which are securing to the coOperators elevators, but on the whole the cooperative iy returns that hitherto have gone into idea has not appealed strongly to the imagina- ffers of great monopolies or the middle- tion of our people until within the past two years. Digitized by
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826 In the Mirror of the Present. Now, however, it seeips to be taking a firm hold on the imagination of the most thought- ful wealth-producers and consumers. Especi- ally is this the case in the Middle West. Tens of thousands of wealth-creators have come so under the influence of this idea that its steady growth is, we think, assured. Moreover, the failures of the past are proving object-lessons to present-day cooperators, while the magnifi- cent success of England, where the cooperators each year are receiving over $45,000,000, and the notable successes of Denmark, Switzerland and Italy are showing our people what can be done. Consequently the movement in America is to-day in a more healthy and vig- orous condition than ever before. Even the great daily papers are taking note of the movement and tradesmen in various cities are becoming alarmed at its growth. The New York World recently published the following dispatch from Sioux City, Iowa, which in- dicates something of the present status of codperation in Iowa: “Sioux Cmr, la., Dec. 15 (Special) — Store- keepers in country towns throughout Iowa, and especially dealers in coal, lumber, live-stock, building materials, etc., are greatly concerned about the remarkable expansion of the co- operative trading movement ifi the State. The tendency to codperation is not confined to trading, for the smaller cities and towns are also building their water-works, steam and hot-water heating, telephone, electric and gas- plants, or buying them from private corpora- tions, in great numbers. “The municipal-ownership movement is not new, though it has never been so vigorous as now. But the development of codperative trading which began in Iowa, with the famous Rockwell Codperative Company, is going on at a pace never before dreamed of. Recently about seventy-five codperative concerns were represented at a convention at Rockwell, and as a result of the inspiration of this meeting scores of others are being organized every month. Another meeting will be held at Rock- well in February, and it is expected to have nearly two hundred going concerns represented. “The Rockwell society began by handling grain and live-stock, merely aiming to elimi- nate middlemen in maiketing products. Later it put in lumber, coal, elevators and a big general-store. Now it does a business of about $700,000 a year in a village of four hundred people.” The Arena was, we believe, the first lead- ing American magazine to advocate coopera- tion and to publish extended papers on the codperative work in the Old World, and it affords us great pleasure to see this movement taking such firm root; for wherever coopera- tive experiments as carried on at the present time in the Old World become firmly grounded their spread and growth are phenomenal, and by disbursing the wealth among the •creators and consumers the baleful influence of great fortunes acquired by trusts and cor- porations, exhibited in corrupted legislation which secures to special privileges practical immunity from punishment and the power to levy exorbitant tribute, is destroyed. So convinced are we of the vital importance of this practical progressive step that we have arranged for a series of papers dealing with the results of codperation in the Old World, for The Arena. The opening contribution we publish in this issue. It has been pre- pared for us by the eminent Secretary of the Codperative Union of Great Britain, Mr. J. C. Gray, who is the real head of the greatest codperative organization in the world. The author gives a brief but graphic outline of the historic development of codperation in England and Scotland, after which he pro- ceeds to describe the present status of co- operation in Great Britain. It is a paper that all who are interested in this great move- ment will find valuable and inspiring. THE REPUBLIC AND THE OPPRESSED OF OTHER LANDS. The Immigration Question. THE RECENT paper by Mr. Ernest Crosby in The Arena has awakened general interest and has called forth a number of letters. We are aware that there are two sides to this important question and that much may be said, and indeed has been said against the practically unrestricted immigra- tion which has been so stimulated by the great transportation companies and covertly by the great employing corporations during recent years. But because this side of the question has been so generally presented, while Digitized by Google
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327 In the Mirror of the Present. ►him ns of many papers and magazines been closed to the immigrant’s view or f position favorable to the immigrant, sre glad to have the old democratic view aagly and succinctly presented as was in the December Arena. Among the letters received by Mr. Crosby and at office, relating to this paper, the two ing are of such interest that we have d to give them to our readers. One its the views of a prominent citizen of York; the other those of a Greek mi- nt. Dear Mr. Crobbt: have read with intense interest your in The Arena of December, ‘The pration Bugbear.’ I trust this article » widely read, and no doubt it will, as it fs most valuable thought and informa- You have put many of your broad in your own inimitable style, and they t fail to make an impression upon the *. I believe entirely with you, and have ided for some time that as our country eminently a country of immigrants, to e our policy would be flying in the face logic of our own history. >ger Williams had the right idea, and eached it 250 years ago. He said (I from memory): ‘When you have d over the blade brook of some soul ge yourselves, leave a plank for dis- 1 souls who come after you.’ remember some five or six years ago coming from Naples there were very rst-dass passengers, but a shipload of yants. I amused myself after dinner ng to the lower deck to distribute some \ and sweetmeats among the children, lay, returning to the upper promenade a gentleman accosted me and said he red me frequently among the immigrants, sked if he might inquire why I did so. ied, because I had found that the best i who came to America were to found ; steerage. He replied: ‘I am com- to agree with you, as I came over that nyself.* The person who spoke to me Professor Yon Holst, who as you know he author of the best constitutional f of the United States, trust that our Statue of Liberty which iates our beautiful harbor shall not be converted into a false god and mock with hollow promises the thousands who every year seek our land of liberty. We have a moral right to turn back criminals and those who have adopted beggary as a profession; beyond this we should never go, and certainly not to the extent of inquiring how much money a man has in his pocket who comes over here. “Sincerely yours, “Oscar S. Strauss.” Although Mr. Strauss wrote this letter with no expectation of its being published, at our request he has kindly consented to its publica- tion. The communication from the Greek im- migrant, which we give below, is published without signature for obvious reasons: “Mr. Ernest Crobbt: “My dear Sir: “I read the article about Immigration writ- ten by you in The Arena of month Decem- ber. I am Greek and only for two years I live in your country. Except the article of Mr. Austin in the North American Review , I read few articles concerning the immigration like yours. In this country it is a great move- ment against the foreigners and especially those of Latin, Slavic and Jewish descent. The Latin and Jew (altruists and senti- mentists) will give in this country some of their qualities that the northern peoples do n’t have. The Americans (egoists and indi- vidualists) need some of our blood to change' their character in the next generation. “I am a young man who reads all the questions concerning the social conditions of the peoples, and I travelled for years through the European continent. I speak also French and Italian, and I work in a factory like com- mon laborer, and I can state this feeling of the American against us. But the result of those prejudices will be that after the coming social transformation in Europe all the young and intelligent Europeans will come back abroad, and this country will remain a pure capitalistic country, without art and music, science and philosophy; only blood-money and par- venues. “I hope that your article will contribute in some way to change the mind of the intelligent American people, and thank you for the defence you make for us.” Digitized by Google
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AN INSIDE VIEW OF SING SING * A Book Study. I. THE BOOK AND ITS AUTHOR. THIS work is an intensely interesting volume. Indeed, few books of short stories will hold the attention of the general reader as will this tale of life in one of our great state-prisons; yet it bears every sign of being a careful, conscientious effort on the part of the writer to present an absolutely faithful and truthful picture and to preserve a strictly judicial frame of mind from first to last. There is no wholesale or indiscriminate criticism, yet abuses are pointed out, though the author insists that conditions to-day are in most respects much better than in former times and he is careful to give what he conceives to be the reasons or causes responsible for the shortcomings, injustice and abuses that pre- vail; yet there is nothing suggestive of special pleading of unjustifiable defence of evil or discreditable conditions. He evidently merely desires to give the reader an all-round, fair and impartial view of things as they are, or as he has experienced them. In his opening chapter he observes: “I have brought out of my imprisonment no bitter, vindictive spirit. I have had the common experience of a convict and his share of harsh and unjust treatment, but, on the whole, what is written here is not informed by any memory of it. It is simply an honest effort to tell the story of my yean in Sing Sing Prison.” As a writer Number 1500 possesses an easy style and has the rare power of seizing upon salient points in a story and investing them with an interest that is seductive and com- pelling. The book is one that merits wide circulation. The author was sent to Sing Sing for a term of ten yean. His strong literary taste and ability were evidenced some years ago when he prevailed upon the prison authorities to allow him to utilize the idle printing-press by publishing a paper for the prisoners. The officials, after some hesitation and many mis- givings, finally consented, and The Star of Hope was founded. This paper, by far the ablest publication of the kind that has ap- • Ufe in Stno 9tno. By Number 1600. Cloth. Pp. 276. Indianapolis : The Bobne-M errffl Company. peered, was edited with marked judgmei discrimination. Many of the editorial contributed papers were surprisingly and the favorable attention it attractec side of the prison, where a limited numl copies circulated, testified to its sterling and the high general character of the pu tion. II. THE BITTER HOURS THAT MAMCUl ADVENT INTO SING SING. The humiliation and misery expert by the prisoner when the gaping throng « at him as he was taken from the priso to the cars at the Grand Central Static vividly set down, as are also the terrible when he first entered the prison. A picture of the bitter period when he d< the prison garb also shows how far our pi fall short of what they should be in respects, we give below his moving recifc “The cells are seven feet by three fee six inches, and six feet high. My own tained, when I entered it, an iron waft a wash-basin, an iron bed-frame hook the wall, with a dirty, lumpy straw mai a filthy straw pillow and two shabby, < blankets which had never been aired which were so dirty and stench-pervade* only fire could have purified them. ' was also a tin cup full of a dark hot li They called it coffee. I was familiar v similar beverage for nearly seven yean the title was unconvincing to the last. 1 only as much like coffee as rank hypoa like pure religion. There was no stool can, nor table, — no other furniture exc few spikes in the white-washed walls. “I did not take note of all these thii once. I came to know them later on; bu hard bleakness and squalor fell on my a if its weight would press out hope and li stood in what was to be my home for si a half yean and gave way to despaii despair that rages impotently and fine pression in curses and imprecations on Ah, well! in that same cell I came to hours of peace and rest, and in the daj I longed for its quiet and privacy. With and with pen and ink, yes, with the ga 828 Digitized by Google
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329 An Inside View of Sing Sing. patience that had been commended to me by the man-slaying gambler, and with like oc- cupations, I forgot the stone walls, the grated door, the narrow space; there, filling the close air with tobacco, I dreamed over and over my plans of life and held delicious reveries with the future. “But those first days and nights! Even now I shudder at their recollection. The prison seemed to draw closer, no longer im- pending, but pressing upon me physically and asserting its grim terrors in my heart, stout enough till then, but haunted now with such forebodings of nameless horror as drive men mad with fear. Oh, to be mad, indeed! to be able to cast aside the awful consciousness that this was no dream, but an appalling reality! For a time, but only for a short time, hope fled away. When she came again it was to depart no more, but with her presence to dispel the phantasmagoria that greeted my entrance as a convict into those horrible Sing Sing dungeons.*' III. 8010B FACTS ABOUT SING SING THAT CALL FOB REMEDY. Speaking of cells calls to mind the author’s observations relating to abuses that are a dying shame in a great and opulent common- wealth like the Empire State. On this point he observes: “The general health in the prisons, good as it is, is, however, not what it could easily be made. The cell life is utterly bad in all ways, the bedding is never aired and it is allowed to wear out filthy and dirty. Vermin in the form of bedbugs is present iff summer-time to an exasperating degree, and nothing is really done to get rid of it. No cell can, by any possibility, be kept free of these pests by any effort for cleanliness on the part of the inmate. The bugs swarm in through the ventilators, are moved about in books, and pass in swarms from cell to cell along the galleries. At this time various improvements are making in the prison, but they do not include a war of exter- mination on vermin, and until that is waged, the cleanliness of the institution must remain the subject of deservedly sharp comment and reasonable complaint. “In speaking of my life at Sing Sing, I am forced to recall these conditions without whose presentations these sketches would be value- less enough. They are the features of the life of the prisoner, which do not belong to his prescribed punishments, but are present among them nevertheless, and continually working to his discomfort. No prisoner expects to live on velvet, but his hardships, as ordered by the intention of his confine- ment, are ample without the additions which vermin in unlimited quantities furnish." That the general health record of the prison is good the author admits, but he points out the fact that it might and would be much better if it were not for the ravages of tubercu- losis, which is unquestionably due chiefly to the impure air and unsanitary condition of the cells. The good health of die prisoners, the author holds, is due largely to obvious causes. “Their method of life," he points out, “tends to preserve it except as the cells act to take it away. They have plenty of rest — no man has had, in recent times, to work hard in the state prison of New York — and they have perforce regular hours for sleep and for taking food. They cannot get drunk or stay out of bed at all hours, they cannot commit any excess whatever, and as a result they are able to resist, in a measure, the evil conditions of the cell system to which they are subject. I say in a measure, for it is an accepted fact that the prisons are an appalling source of tuberculosis. It has been recommended that convict victims be sent to Clinton, where the climatic condi- tions are favorable, and kept there as a pro- tection against spreading the disease not only among their fellows, but in the communities to which they would return when free. So, as a matter of fact, it may be said that our prisons are far from sanitary, and that the small death rate to which the administration points with pride is not to be credited to the vigilant care of their health or the tolerable conditions of the prisons themselves, but to the general high level of health of the incoming prisoners." In regard to the condition of the cells the author says: “Considered from a sanitary standpoint the cells are a disgrace to modem civilization and the boasted science of our day. They were built for safety and solidity; but in making sure that the inmate could not escape from them by cutting the thick walls, another way of getting rid of him was provided by poison- ing him to death with the foul air of the dungeon. The air space is only one-fifth of that required to maintain the occupant in good health; and when the prison authorities point to the fact that the death rate is very Digitized by Google
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380 An Inside View of Sing Sing. small, the answer is that it is so because the convict community is made up of what an insurance company would call selected lives, and its good health is in spite of the conditions in which it lives, not because of them.” There is no valid reason or excuse for modem prisons being thus ill-ventilated, nor is there any good reason why the beds should not be aired and the bed-clothing kept scrupu- lously dean. There is a laundry attached to the prison and plenty of prison labor. The convicts have a right to pure air and clean bedding. Moreover, knowing what we know of tuberculosis, what shall be said of the criminal short-sightedness of a commonwealth that permits conditions to exist in public institutions which foster the sowing broadcast of the germs of this fatal disease, as must necessarily be the case where prisoners are constantly going out from the penitentiary with* lungs poisoned by tuberculosis and destined to carry the contagion into many abodes? IV. A WORLD OF GRAFT. No doubt there has been great advance in many respects in prison management during recent decades, yet it is equally true that there is ample room for improvement; and if the management of Sing Sing is vastly less corrupt than at the time when Ed. Stokes lived luxuri- ously in the hospital department of its con- fines, there are, according to our author, abuses still in existence that cry aloud for correction. Here, as throughout the various ramifications of present-day public life, the slogan of progress, “Crush corruption!” is applicable. Our author holds that the well- meaning but futile efforts of prison reformers fail partly because they ignore the fact that a large number of the prison officials stand in such urgent need of being reformed that it is idle to expect to make dishonest or thieving prisoners honest men while the example of graft and dishonesty is constantly before them, wearing the uniform of government officials. On this point he observes: “In the first place, they seek to reform the wrong man and neglect the keeper who is placed, in charge of the convict It is by a mere chance that a good man fitted by tem- perament and other equipment enters and remains in the prison service. Once there, it is a strong and splendid character indeed that can resist the influences and opportunities to go astray. First among these is ‘graft* After a man has been a prison officer for a little time he loses his perception of ownership, and particularly of that which is owned by the state. He is not sure whether a thing is his or belongs to the department, but the inclina- tion of his belief is that it is his. If the article considered is small enough to carry away there is no doubt about it, it is his, although the fact that it is not easily removed doesn’t affect unfavorably this decision. There are old officers in Sing Sing prison living in rented houses in the village, which they have fur- nished with tables, chairs, bedsteads, cutlery and tinware from the prison; the soap with which their weekly washing is done is similarly obtained, and the oil which they burn is sup- plied in the same way. It does n’t make any difference what it is, they will and do take it: bread from the prison bakery, meat for their dogs from the convict table if it isn’t good enough to eat themselves, pens, paper, pencils, anything and everything; and the whole system of checks, being largely in the hands of convict clerks, is, of course, utterly useless in stopping these predatory abuses. “The convict who gets along best is he who aids them, and the result and influence of such a condition is obvious. As an excuse they say, 'Well, those higher up are at it, and really when it gets down to me tiiere is n’t much left In fact, I have to hustle pretty sharp to get my corner out of it when the bigger thieves get through*; and you will find the prison officers virtuously indignant at the issuance of an order that cuts them off from what they regard as their share of the ‘graft’ These are not temporary ^conditions; they have existed since the foundation of the prison and have almost acquired the dignity of prescrip- tive right with the officers who participate in the custom. From time to time the Superin- tendent of Prisons or the wardens take some steps to cut off the abuses that flourish in one form if destroyed in another. The order is issued that they shall not have their clothing repaired in the prison. The convict is en- couraged to steal material and do the work in his cell. In cases under my own observation, officers stole the material for shoes from the prison and brought them to a convict shoe- maker in his cell, where they were made up 'at night, while the official benefiting by the theft was on night duty and stood watch on the gallery to protect his workman from discovery by any other officer. Digitized by Google
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S31 An Inside View of Sing Sing. "These are not exceptional instances; they are illustrative facts belonging to an existing state of affairs. Reform in prison for con- victs! No wonder the officers familiar with the conditions laugh at the idea and that those who are subject to the burlesque influences called reform go forth from their first imprison- ments accomplished thieves, with dishonesty in every fiber, only to return and return again.” The evil dwelt upon so graphically in the above lines is bound to be the overmastering issue with us if the integrity of free institutions is to be preserved. In our municipal, state and national life, in our various institutions, and in fact in government in all of its depart- ments, there is found to-day the eating cancer erf corruption, destroying the moral integrity of the people, lowering national ideals and necessarily defeating the ends of justice while h threatens the very life of democracy; for no democracy can long endure where corruption is rampant. This evil is so general in its extent and so grave in its character that it demands the most rigid and stringent treat- ment. Let no guilty man escape should be the watchword on the lips of every true man. Let the maximum sentence be imposed in every instance where a public servant has been found unfaithful to his trust. Let it be understood that from to-day forward, every faithless servant of the people, every man who has dealt a blow at the integrity of free govern- ment by being guilty of corrupt practices and betraying his sacred trust, shall be punished to the fufi extent of the law. Not only should he be regarded as a common criminal; he has committed moral treason against his nation and has materially contributed to the lowering of the ideals in national life. The cause of justice, the cause of democracy and the cause of civilization alike demand that these crimi- nals in high places be hunted down on every hand as persistently as the Hon. Joseph W. Folk hunted down the official boodlers of St. Louis. V. EXTREME PUNISHMENTS UNWORTHY OP OUB DAY. Space forbids our dwelling upon our author’s discussion of inequitable sentences and punish- ments, or his discussion of the many little things which, as he says, may appear very small to outsiders, but which are by no means small to the prisoners, in that they materially increase the bitterness of their gloomy exist- ence. We must, however, quote some things he mentions regarding punishments which call for reform. Discipline is of course necessary, but the most humane method of punishment is ever the wisest and best. We should above all things strive to prevent the further brutalization of the criminal and should guard against giving him any just grounds for feeling that he is dealt with un- justly or inhumanely by the great common- wealth which is supposed to represent incar- nate justice and wisdom; for just in propor- tion as we do this we injure him and destroy the rehabilitating or reforming potency of government in so far as it relates to him, and thereby commit a crime against the weak less excusable than the crime of the riminal, for in the former case the offender is the govern- ment, the embodiment of collective justice and righteousness, while the criminal is cursed by heredity and early environment and is largely the victim of conditions over which he has little or no control. The bitterness that comes to prisoners from unjust and extreme punish- ment is treated in a thoughtful and sensible manner in more than one place in the work. We, however, have space only for the follow- ing lines, which appear after the author has given a favorable description of James Con- naughton, the principal keeper of Sing Sing. He points out the fact that in the hands of an officer less humane and reasonable than this man great abuses might easily result from the delegating of autocratic power to individuals. Even under Connaughton’s rule, punishments are often much in excess of the ends demand- ed by discipline. "Even the most steadfast ruler becomes wayward at times, and a discipline that aims to reach the results effected by the rigidity of articles of war, but has no articles to refer to, is at least uncertain. "For example, a man is reported for some infraction of the rules. He goes back to the ‘cooler,* is searched, tobacco, handkerchief and braces are taken from him and he is thrown in a dark cell, where once a day a piece of bread and a cup of water are given to him. He is on a diet called bread and water by the rules, which does not name the amount of either. It is just a piece of the one and a draft of the other, and it is pretty hard fare. In a day or two, or may be not for ten or more days, he is let out. If his stay is long he pre- sents, in his haggard look, evidence of his Digitized by Google
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33* An Inside View of Sing Sing . sufferings. Sometimes if he asks for release, says he is sorry he was bad, and promises to be good for the future, he is let out, but not always. He gets out when they are ready to let him out, and he does not know how long he has to stay until he has stayed. The first part of his punishment is therefore the sport of caprice, tempered, of course, more or less by justice/’ Again, in a chapter on “The Reformation of the Prisoner,” we find the following: “On the other hand, the man who seeks to retain his self-respect must assert it guardedly indeed or his life as a convict will be made hell in fact. “’You/ cried the irate warden to a prisoner before him on some trivial offence, ‘you, damn you! you have a will of your own. Well, IT1 have no wills here except my own. I’ll tame you, damn you. I’ll tame you. If you were a tiger, I’d tame you.’ “ ‘More likely/ said the convict calmly, ‘if I were a tiger you would climb a tree.’ “But they did tame him, and he wasn’t very wild, so far as I could see; and when they had him really tamed he was in Danne- mora Insane Asylum, where he will die a raging maniac.” We have dwelt at length on the more un- pleasant revelations of this work, because they indicate the presence of abuses and evils that call for remedy and that it is the high duty of the state government to abolish. The fact that improvements have been made is no reason for the remission of wise efforts on the part of earnest men and women. So long as such conditions as are here described obtain, our prison managements will be open to censure. Naturally enough, other chapters in the work are far more cheerful in character, and some of them rival romance in interest. This is especially true of the pages devoted to the strange life of Luther Shear, one of the most amazing records known to fact or fancy. The chapters dealing with notable prisoners will hold special interest for many. The great improvement in the management of Sing Sing penitentiary in some respects since the admission of Ed. Stokes may be judged from the following observations on the treat- ment of the murderer of Jim Fisk, if our author’s information has been ad accurate as he believes it to be: “The traditions of these shining lights of convict society take strange and intei forms. It is told that Simmonds and shared apartments on the upper floor hospital, a suite of three rooms, whic furnished without regard to expense, n with a vast ice-box that was always Imp with approved varieties. There the] open house for the keepers and a visitors from the outside; and thither, cover of the night, came also visitoi stole in secretly, holding their skirts t their fmwilUr frou-frou might not be but who, just before morning broke, m out of the prison singing and dancin utter indifference as to who might see o and were carried hilariously away in hi “At other times the prison doors < for a little while to these choice spiri went forth for an evening in civilian It is not related that these enlargement long continued, but it is a part of the of Sing Sing that on the evening of an o of a publican’s fine saloon half a wealthy convicts were brought out escort to add to the festivity by libe penditure, and that nobody was disapp There were strange occurrences in thoc in prison affairs. The bookkeeper prison was a convict named Ellis, a resident of Yonkers and a man of sul and parts. He oiganized a scale of tin a man could get a year off his sentence i two to five hundred dollars. He sold two thousand years, sharing the profi the administration or such part of it as necessary to take into confidence, bef< plot was detected. Men escaped alb of whom no trace has been found; irregularities took place which would possible now, so it is not unreasonable pose that the favored prisoners nam< things very much their own way.” The chapters on notable escapes i terest many, and the pages devoted founding of The Star of Hope are of p interest. Interspersed throughout the are many deeply-thoughtful, ration! philosophical observations relating results of certain grave and evil influe work, together with observations o; certain unfortunate conditions can be re and crime abated. Altogether, the woi thought-stimulating as it is interesting, possesses the fascination of a well- romance. Digitized by Google
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BOOKS OF THE DAY.* The Americans . By Hugo Munsterberg. Translated by Edwin B. Holt, Ph.D. Cloth. Pp. 619. Price, $2.50 net New York: McClure, Phillips & Company. We have devoted several pages in this issue to an editorial criticism of Professor Munsterberg’s attitude toward democracy, as elucidated in this volume, because, as we have pointed out, we regard the work as one of the most subtly dangerous books, if one is not on the alert to detect its fallacies, that has ap- peared in years. Apparently liberal, it is in fact ultra-reactionary in so far as its attitude toward true democracy is concerned. It is generous and cordial in its spirit toward the American people, and great pains has been taken to correct general misunderstandings on the part of Europeans concerning America. Indeed, the author’s desire to make the Americans appear to the best advantage to the aristocratic and cultured of monarchal Germany leads him at times to indulge in the same sophistical special-pleadings that marie his treatment of democracy and the genius of free government which we have dwelt upon in our editorial. One example of this char- acter will serve as an illustration. In defend- ing the Americans from the idea prevalent in the Old World that we are a money-worship- ing people, our author insists that the Americans do not care for money that they have not themselves earned, and he compares the custom of young men in France, Germany and elsewhere in the Old World, of looking for dowries for their wives, with that of American young men, who scorn a dowry. Then he cites the cases of the lotteries. In Europe they are legalized and common. Churtdies, indeed, are frequently erected by money obtained in this manner. In America we wQl not tolerate the lottery. Gambling is placed under the ban, because money thus obtained is not earned. Yet in the presence of Wall street — that gambler’s paradise, in comparison with which Monte Carlo is in- • Books Intended for review in Ths Asina should be addrased to B. O. Flower, Kditorlel Department, The Ahsha, Boston, Maas. significant indeed — our author finds it neces- sary to say something, so he gravely informs us that though the brokers understand that the stock-buying, selling and manipulation is gambling, the people do not so recognize it. In this respect we think our author in his desire to exonerate us from the charge of being a people greedy for gold which we have not earned represents us as far more pitiably ignorant than we really are. Who among the fairly intelligent Americans does not understand that the stock-dealings of Wall street and other speculative centers are gambl- ing, and, what is worse, in many instances gambling of the most dishonorable kind, be- cause the master-spirits who manipulate the various great stocks control those stocks, ar- range for their rise and fall with mathematical certitude, and have matters so completely in hand that the element of chance is almost eliminated in so far as they are themselves concerned, — so much so that their proceedings may be rightly compared to gambling with stacked cards or loaded dice? Again, no one familiar with the history of the American railways and great monopolies like the Standard Oil Company, the beef-trust and other predatory bands, can be blind to the fact that a large proportion of the vast wealth acquired has been unearned and obtained by dishonorable methods, by extortion and by discriminations; yet it does not appear that the Rockefellers, the Morgans, the Rogers, the Stillmans, the Whitneys, the Addickses, or the Goulds possess in a marked degree a scorn of wealth not earned. The shortcomings of the work, due chiefly to the author’s view-point, his conscious or unconscious antagonism to genuine democ- racy, and his false assumptions and fallacious reasoning, that render the volume dangerous, are by no means all that there is in the work railing for special notice. As we have observed. The Americans is written in the most pleasing style and the author, though out of sympathy with real democracy, is in cordial sympathy with the American people, — that is, with those of the American people Digitized by Google
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834 Books of the Day . with whom he is personally acquainted; and this book will, we think, do more to correct many misapprehensions of Germans in re- gard to the Americans than any other work that has appeared. No foreign writer has taken such pains to make our people appear in a favorable light to the aristocracies and the conservative scholarship of the Old World as has Professor Munsterberg. The volume abounds in the most kindly criticisms and lenient judgment of the Americans. Thus, in the chapter on “Literature” we have in the following extracts a fair example of the spirit and style of the author: “ What does the American read P In ‘Jom Uhl,’ the apprentice in the Hamburg book- shop says to his friend: * If I am to tell you how to be wise and cunning, then go where there are no books. Do you know, if I had not had my father, I should have gone to America — for a fact! And it would have gone hard with anybody who poked a book at me.’ In that way many a man in Europe who is long past his apprenticeship, still pictures to himself America: Over in America nobody bothers about books. And he would not credit the statement that nowhere else are so many books read as in America. The American fondness for reading finds clearest expression in the growth of libraries, and in few matters of civilization is America so well fitted to teach the Old World a lesson. “The great difference between Europe and America begins with the libraries which are not learned, but which are designed to serve popular education. The American public library which is not for science, but for educa- tion, is to the European counterpart as the Pullman express-train to the village post- chaise. “The scientific libraries of Boston, includ- ing that of Harvard University, contain nearly two million printed works; but the largest library of all is distinct from these. It is housed on Copley Square, in a renaissance palace by the side of the Art Museum, and opposite the most beautiful church in America. The staircase of yellow marble, the wonderful wall-paintings, the fascinating arcade on the inner court, and the sunlit halls are indeed beautiful. And in and out, from early morn- ing till late evening, weekday and Sunday, move the people of Boston. . . . Here a million and a half books are delivered every year to be taken home and read. A one has to wait; an apparatus carri applicant’s card with wonderful speed stacks, and the desired book is sent h automatic cars. Little children mea wander into the juvenile room, wher find the best books for children. And thing invites even the least patient res sit down quietly with some sort of vol everything is so tempting, so conveni© comfortable, and so surpassingly bei And all this is free to the humblest wc man. “And stiU, if the citizen of Massad were to be asked of what feature of the libraries he is most proud, he would ably not mention this magnificent pal Boston, the capital of the state, but rati 350 free public libraries scattered tl the smaller cities and towns of this which is after all only one-third as la Bavaria. It is these many libraries do the broadest work for the people, little collection, wherever it is, is the cei intellectual and moral enlightenment plants and nourishes the desire foi perfection.” On economic questions as on Ana political ideals, our author is often wide mark in his observations and conclusi a fact which is not surprising whe remembers his view-point and the son exclusive element with which he assc The volume is divided into four parts, d to the political, economic, intellectui social life of the Americans. We doi notice with an extract from the last p the work, in which our author notes the ble renaissance of democracy: “That which has made America’s gre which seemed to be her mission in the was the belief in the ethical worth of i dividual. The doctrines of sdf-dete tion, self-initiative, and self-assertion, a civilization which rested on such a fount have nothing to hope and much t from social differentiation and imper Aristocratic tendendes appear to und this ethical democracy, and the impel symbols of our day mock the traditions past. There will certainly be many re< against these aristocratic tendendes; p they will be only small movements w through the press and at the ball against the encroachments on the spirit __ Digitized by Google
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385 Books of the Day. id against the expansion of office, and ng those aristocratic tendencies which too far from the traditions of the masses. >s, some day, there will be a great re- Perhaps the tremendous power pos- b y the laboring classes in the country id to battles for ethical principles, in the modem aesthetic development will srsed; it would not be the first time on ran soil that ethical reform has pro- social deterioration, for ‘reform’ means the victory of naked, equalizing logic le conservative forces which represent ; differentiation. So the Revolution ted the patrician society of New Eng- vhose aristocratic members survive in rtraits of Copley; and the day may when trades-unions will be victorious lat aristocracy which Sargent is now g. Even the reform which emand- ihe slaves destroyed a true and chival- istocracy in the South.” iline of the Theory of Organic Evolution . Professor Maynard M. Metcalf, Ph.D. trated. Cloth. Pp. 204. Price, $2.50 New York: The Macmillan Com- FE3SOR Metcalf has performed an ant service to the cause of popular in the contribution of this volume on ; evolution. It is a treatise so dear, and fascinating withal, that the subject t only be readily grasped by the most inking reader, but few who peruse the g pages will be content to lay it aside, achers of physical science possess in so degree as does Professor Metcalf that >wer of appealing at once to the imagi- and the reason of the student. It is at the interest in the present volume is strengthened by the number of fine |1 illustrations which assist the mind in ig the facts enunciated, for this work is about one hundred excellent plates ing full pages. Many of them are ully colored. Besides, there are num- unall illustrations, all serving to dud- irious points germane to the subject, work is divided into two parts, the ing devoted to “The Theory of Organic ion,” in which are briefly but very discussed the following subjects: ral Selection,” “Heredity,” “Varia- tion,” “The Struggle for Existence,” “Muta- tion,” “General Prindples in the Operation of Natural Sdection,” “Artificial Sdection,” “Objections to Natural Sdection as a Factor in Evolution,” “Sexual Sdection,” “Objec- tions to the Theory of Sexual Sdection,” “Segregation,” and “The Inheritance of Parental Modifications.” For the sake of brevity, as the author ex- plains in Part II., he reverses the natural order in his treatment of the theory of evolu- tion, discussing the phenomena which first suggested the theory, after he. has eluddated the theory. Thus in his division entitled “The Phenomena Explained by the Theory,” he is able to apply in a striking and effective manner the most compelling evidence from natural phenomena that support the theory. In this division the evidences are supplied from comparative anatomy, embryology and paleontology. The subjects of “ Geographical Distribution,” “Color in Animals,” “Mim- icry,” etc., are discussed at length and their bearing on the evolutionary theory fully explained. The two conducting chapters are devoted to “Man in Relation to Evolution” and “General Considerations.” This book is predsdy the work that general readers need. It is a volume that should be read by every young man and woman in America. We heartily recommend it to our readers. Th. Nad: Hie Period and Hie Piduree. By Albert Bigelow Paine. Illustrated. Cloth. Pp. 600. Price, $5.00 net. New York: The Macmillan Company. We have devoted considerable space in this issue to the crowning event in the life of Thomas Nast as vividly pictured by Mr. Paine in this excellent biography, because we believed that the story of the Tweed Ring and how it was overthrown would prove of deep interest to every reader of The Arena. Moreover, we appreciate the fact that the story of that titanic struggle and the victorious outcome is one of the most important and encouraging lessons for the present, when the conscience of our great nation is preparing to grapple with similar evils in all departments of government. ' The other portions of the work will prove deeply interesting to the general reader. Thomas Nast was the son of an Alsatian Digitized by Google
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336 Books of the Day. whose liberal views in regard to government made America a safer home than the father- land, and so to the New World he emigrated. In the city of New York Thomas Nast received his general education and artistic training. At the age of fifteen he applied to Frank Leslie for a position in the art depart- ment of the latter’s weekly. Mr. Leslie was naturally incredulous as to the youth’s ability, but on the boy’s persistent plea for an op- portunity to show what he could do he gave him a very difficult task of drawing — that of sketching the miscellaneous crowd of a Sunday morning rushing onto the ferry-boat to cross the Hudson River for the day’s outing. On Monday morning the boy returned with a remarkably good drawing. Mr. Leslie was as pleased as he was surprised, and forthwith hired him at four dollars a week. From thenceforth Nast steadily rose in his chosen profession. Finally he was sent to Great Britain to do some special work. While there his New York publishers (not Mr. Leslie this time) failed to send him the promised remit- tance, and being thrilled by the glorious work undertaken by the Italian liberator, Garibaldi, he set out for the Mediterranean, joined the great emancipator and accompanied him on his victorious Italian campaign. Garibaldi was strongly attracted to the young American artist, and the latter ever revered the intrepid liberator, placing him as one of the most ex- alted demi-gods in his pantheon. Before leaving Italy Nast visited the Coliseum, where he made a careful drawing of the ruins. While sketching this scene the artist’s vivid imagination constantly enabled him to re- picture it as the great building appeared in the days of the Caesars. The picture never left his mind, and later was introduced in the greatest of all his cartoons. With Italian unity established the artist turned his face homeward. America was soon to be the theater of the most tremendous civil war in the history of the world, and during the critical years which followed, few if any civilians in the North did more for the cause of union, more to strengthen the hands of President Lincoln and the administration, or more toward educating the people to the point where the North should demand the emancipation of the negro than did Thomas Nast in his powerful cartoons which ap- peared from week to week in Harper fe Weekly. He was regarded by President Lincoln as one of the most efficient thought-moulders of the day. After the war there was a brei spell, for though his pen was still activ themes uppermost in the minds of the ] were not of supreme moment. As the sixties drew to a dose, hoi there appeared in Harper9e Weekly, i form of some powerful cartoons, the first in the great campaign against the Tweed and in the early seventies we find the ar the thick of the fight. After the victi ending of that campagin Mr. Nast add] his attention principally to political carl mercilessly assailing Greeley when the was running for president. Still lab published a number of strong cartoons aj James G. Blaine when Mr. Blaine wc candidate of the Republican party, work in these two campaigns alienated i of his former friends and admirers; yet out doubt in both instances Mr. Nas absolutely honest and loyal to his convic In March, 1902, Mr. Nast, who was a time in a rather needy condition, receive appointment of United States Cons Guayaquil, Educador. The appoin proved most unfortunate, as the artist v poor health when he left this country, s the death-dealing, fever-cursed city to he journeyed he found the grim Destroye succumbed. In this life of Nast Mr. Paine has ei excellent judgment and wise discrimin yet the work is characterised by that ge sympathy that is one of the requisites good biography. It is a valuable worl should be widely read, as its influene make for morality and higher civic ideal: Theodore Watte-DurUon: Poet , Nc Critic. A Biographical and Critical i By James Douglas. Illustrated in ] gravure and half-tones. Cloth. pp Price, $3.50 net. New York: JohnLi In this altogether delightful voluir reader is taken into that circle of rare £ men of letters who contributed so much literary and artistic results of the last 1 the nineteenth century. Theodore 1 Dunton was an intimate friend of Swinl William Morris, Rossetti, Burne-Jones other kindred spirits who constituted i tellectual democracy where friendship mutual helpfulness afforded striking hi what under just and favoring social cone Digitized by Google
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Books of the Day. 387 would be more general than has been possible under the old social and political forms and restrictions. As one of the foremost literary critics of our time and as a poet and novelist of no mean ability, Mr. Watts-Dunton came into dose and in some instances intimate relationship with many of the leading men of letters in the English-speaking world, among whom were Tennyson, Browning, Lowell, Bret Harte, George Meredith, William Black and Whistler. The incidents, reminiscences and ancedotes connected with a life thus richly environed and touching at every turn the lives and works of the men who contributed so largely to the literary development of the England of the last half of the nineteenth century, would in themselves furnish material for a most captiva- ting and instructive volume. But Theodore Watts-Dunton himself ranks among the strong men of letters. As a novelist, as a poet and as a critic he earned a commanding place in literature. His novel, Alwyn , created a deep impression in the literary world on its appearance and elicited many exceptionally strong and favor- able criticisms horn the leading literary judges of the time. It also had a quite a large circu- lation among the people. In America alone more than eighty thousand copies have been sold. His work as a poet entitles him to high rank. Indeed, had he given his time and attention to poetry, it is probable that he would have been one of the greatest, if not the greatest of our Victorian poets, excepting Browning and possibly Tennyson; for he had in a large degree the splendid imagination of the true poet Take, for example, these mangnificent fines entitled “Natura Benigna”: M What power is this? what witchery wins my feet To peaks so sheer they scorn the cloaking snow. All silent as the emerald gulfs below, Down whose ice-walls the wings of twilight beat ? What thrill of earth and heaven — most wild, most sweet — i What answering pulse that all the senses know, Comes leaping from the ruddy eastern glow Where, far away, the skies and mountains meet ? Mother, ’tis I reborn: I know thee well : That throb I know and all it prophesies, O Mother and Queen, beneath the olden spell Of silence, flaring from thy hills and skies t Dumb Mother, rtrugglmg with the yean to tell The secret at thy heart through helpless eyes.” Here is another sonnet, quite different, yet thoroughly characteristic of the poet, dedi- cated to Victor Hugo: “Ploet of pity and scourge of sceptred crime — Titan of light, with scarce the gods for peers— What thoughts come to thee through the mist of years, There sitting calm, master of Fate and Time? Homage from every tongue, from every dime. In {Mace of gibes, fills now thy satiate ears. Mine own heart swells, mine eyelids prick with tears In very pride of thee, old man sublime! And thou, the mother who bore him, beauteous France, Round whose fair limbs what web of sorrow is spun! — I see thee lift thy tear-stained countenance — Victress by many a victory he hath won; I hear thy voice o*er winds of Fate and Chance Say to the conquered world : 'Behold my son!’" His work as a literary critic has been equaled by few writers of our time. Perhaps we cannot do better than to quote one para- graph from his great criticism of the Bible — “the book of wonder”: “A great living savant has characterized the Bible as ‘a collection of the rude imagin- ings of Syria,’ ‘the worn-out old bottle of Judaism into which the generous new wine of science is being poured.’ The great savant was angry when he said so. The ‘new wine’ of science is a generous vintage, undoubtedly, and deserves all the respect it gets from us; so do those who make it and serve it out; they have so much intelligence; they are so honest and so fearless. But whatever may become of their wine in a few years, when the wine- dealers shall have passed away, when the savant is forgotten as any star-gazer of Chaldsea, — the ‘old bottle’ is going to be older yet, — the Bible is going to be eternal. For that which decides the vitality of any book is precisely that which decides die vitality of any human soul — not the knowledge it con- tains, but simply the attitude it assumes towards the universe, unseen as well as seen. The attitude of the Bible is just that which every soul must, in its highest and truest moods, always assume — that of a wise wonder in front of such a universe as this — that of a noble humility before a God such as He ‘in whose great Hand we stand.’ * This is why — like Alexander’s mirror — like that most pre- cious ‘cup of Jemshid,’ imagined by the Persians — the Bible reflects to-day, and will reflect forever, every wave of human emotion, every passing event of human life — reflect them as faithfully as it did to the great and simple people in whose great and simple language it was written.” Digitized by Google
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388 Books of the Day. The volume is precisely what it claims to be — a biographical and critical study, and the subject has been extremely fortunate in his biographer; for Mr. James Douglas is not only a fascinating and discriminating critic, but is in such perfect rapport with Watts- Dunton and his dearest literary companions that the rare sympathy of deep friendship lights up a story that even without warmth would have been fair and fascinating, and gives to it a peculiar charm. It is a work that will necessarily appeal deeply to literary men and women who were en rapport with the literary works and aspirations of that coterie in which Morris, Rossetti, Swinburne and Burne-Jones were leading figures. Daumier and Oavami . Special Winter num- ber of the The International Studio. Profusely illustrated with color prints, photogravures and illustrations in black and white. With critical and biographical notes by Henri Frantz and Octave Uzanne. Edited by Charles Holme. Price, $3 net. New York; John Lane. The publishing house of John Lane de- serves well of the art-lovers of America for the number of fine works that are being issued from its press which, by reproducing master- pieces and typical examples of the work, together with critical and biographical notes of the great artists, illustrators and carica- turists of the Old World, are familiarizing our people with the best specimens of the genius and skill of painters and illustrators, and thus in a very real way are adding to culture and fostering a popular taste for good art. In addition to The International Studio , one of the best art journals published in any land, this firm is from time to time issuing special numbers containing a profusion of illustrations, many of them reproductions in color, by eminent artists. The latest of these specials has recently appeared and is devoted to the work of the two great French humorous draftsmen of the last century, Daumier and Gavarai. In this work there are more than a score of reproductions in color and photo- gravures, together with about a hundred illustrations in black and white. Daumier was a man of marked genius, yet his tendency to exaggerate in art led him naturally into the realm of caricature. He .was a born satirist, a man of marked origi- nality in conception, and of wonderful fei of imagination. He ranked among greatest draftsmen, caricaturists and del tors of powerful though sometimes so and tragic scenes, of the last century. “Many men of talent,” observes 1 Frantz, “may imitate him, he may h father of modern caricature, he may haw a powerful influence upon succeeding ge tions; but Daumier himself had no inline predecessor, and he is all the greater for He stands alone; and is perhaps more n akin to some inspired genius of the m ages, whose ardor and impassioned fait] all his own. Even within the restricted fi lithographic art, Daumier is always huge immoderate; we feel that he could as < undertake some gigantic task, could co building with colossal frescoes; and understand the complete justice of Bal pronouncement when he said: ‘The something of the Michael Angelo in man!*” Gavarni was also one of the greatest trators of the nineteenth century. In adc to making many of the most striking c ings and cartoons of his day, Gavarni peerless as a designer of costumes. O more serious work Octave Uzanne obser “He seized on the wing, and fixed sure and dexterous pencil, the joys of y the graces of lads and lasses, who, wh in the garret or under the vine-leaves o country tea-gardens, love their laugh their Idas and their vin bleu, which the so gallantly styles *le champagne et Vam the pretty duplicates of woman ; the thoui and-one touches of character in the h life; the enfant terrible, and the eq ‘ terrible 9 parents: the villainies of m< lenders and creditors, which provoke justify reprisals; the utterly stupid sufficiency of the landlord; the absurd si all kinds of masters, of husbands, and tidans — all the motley crowd which j< and rubs shoulders day and night in Pai in London. Then, .his inspiration grc more gloomy as his experience increase shows the stages of vice and crime which from the gutter to the bagne at Toulon; horrors of the dregs of English society; versions of feelings and senses; the sordic grotesquely lamentable end of the Digitized by Google
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389 Books of the Day. r, whom he had depicted before in all lliancy of their feverish youth; and at terrible type, ‘Thomas Vireloque,’ ight have been conceived by a Balzac ed with an Edgar Allen Poe— all these i turn or simultaneously across the lantern of the painter and satirist of s. ” volume, though not so attractive to the art-lover as the preceding art issues [ to Corot, Millet and Turner, will be prized by collectors of the works of at satirical cartoonists and illustrators, prove a valuable addition to the art- r’s library. mis of Prose and Poetry. By P. W. H. rs. Edited by his wife Eveleen Myers, trated. Cloth. Pp. 212. Price, London and New York: Longmans, n & Company. *an of the nineteenth century labored aithfully or with greater singleness of nd purpose to demonstrate to a skep- ;e in a manner so scientific as to carry ion, that man does survive the crisis of than did the pure-souled scholar, poet itical thinker, Frederic W. H. Myers, suits of his eighteen years of incessant is one of the master-spirits in the i Society for Psychical Research are ied in the monumental, two-volume entitled Human Personality and Its il of Bodily Death , a work which we as of inestimable value to the cause of : science and one of the best, if not the best and most critical work pub- with a view to giving an affirmative to the age-long question propounded ic who have read Mr. Myers’ Human dity and Its Survival of Bodily and his preceding works, as well as his f friends among the flower of English f and scientific workers, will hail this I with delight; for in it we have a ng autobiographical sketch which re- n a rare manner the true nature and ispirations of Mr. Myers from early x»d. The first fifty pages are devoted fragmentary autobiography in which ce the life-struggle of one of the highest- i scholars of the nineteenth century — ggle with doubt and faith. First the f Hellenism falls compelling around him; next Christianity claims, after which the ag- gressive spirit of the nineteenth century awakens doubts which finally drive him into agnosticism. And then comes faith — faith the result of long, patient, searching personal investigation. Following the autobiography are sixty pages devoted to Mr. Myers’ tributes to various friends who passed before him into the other world, among these being John Ruskin, Professor Henry Sidgwick, Hon. William E. Gladstone, G. F. Watts, and Robert Louis Stevenson. Among these trib- utes are many exquisite wreaths laid on the pallid brow by one who knew what friendship meant. In the short notice of Gladstone Mr. Myers dwells on the interest which the great statesman felt in the work of the Society for Psychical Research, saying to Mr. Myers: “It is the most important work which is being done in the world — by far the most important.’’ The closing section of the volume is devoted to the poems Of Mr. Myers. They are about sixty in number. Many of these appeared in such publications as the Nineteenth Century and the Saturday Review. In the following lines from a poem entitled “A Child of the Age’’ is revealed the life-long aspiration of the writer: “O for a voice that in a single song Could quiver with the hopes and moan the fears And speak the speechless secret of the years. And rise, and sink, and at the last be strong! O for a trumpet-call to stir the throng Of doubtful fighting-men, whose eyes and ears Watch till a burner in the east appears And the skies ring that have been still so long! O age of mine, if one could tune for thee A marching music out of this thy woe!'* The Ctrl and the Kaiser. By Pauline Brad- ford Mackay. Illustrated. Cloth. Pp. 164. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company. The Oirl and the Kaiser is a charmingly bright and unconventional story dealing in a convincing manner with the autocrat of Germany. The heroine is an American girl bom of German parents. She is visiting her unde, who is an admiral in the Germany navy. He has married a wealthy countess many years his junior. The aunt is far more French than German in her tastes, and the union does not appear to be particularly con- genial. The American niece is a beautiful girl who captures the hearts of two German naval officers who haunt the home of the Digitized by Google
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840 Books of admiral, to the delight of the aunt. One of the young officers is a poor man who has a penchant for painting; the other is an army surgeon, the son of a rich gun-maker. He is a deep student and bids fair to rank high in his chosen profession. By nature he is a man of deep, strong, fine emotions, but far less showy than the other suitor, who is at first favored by the girl. He, however, is unable to marry, as the Emperor has issued an edict against his poor officers wedding dowerless girls. The principal scenes of the story are laid at the home of the admiral during a visit made by the Emperor, who is strangely attracted to the American girl. The pen-picture of the autocratic ruler is very excellently drawn, hinting at the light and dark sides of his character in a most effective manner. Out of a situation as embarrassing to the two principal actors as it is original in treat- ment comes the promise of love’s fruition. The Girl and the Kaiser , though by no means a great story, is one of the most clever little romances of the season. A Nation's Idol . By Charles Felton Pidgin. Cloth. Pp. 848. Price, $1.50. Philadel- phia: Henry Altemus Company. This story deals with the life of Benjamin Franklin while in the French Court during the Revolutionary war, and through its pages runs the love story of a young man and woman who are bom and reared in Kentucky. Their parents are at enmity. The girl’s father and unde determine to prevent her marrying her lover at all hazards. To compass this end she is sent to a relative in Paris, her unde ac- companying her. Now it happens that the youth has had an opportunity to go to France as secretary to Dr. Franklin, so it chances that the lovers are both in France at the same time, but many and somewhat exdting are the hap- penings and adventures that fall to their lot before they ate finally reunited in America and ate wedded. The story deals largely with the life of Franklin and on the whole this part of the tale is fairly well treated and is, we think, very superior to the rest of the novd, which has the frame-work of an admirable romance, but the author is not very felidtous in his treatment. He lacks the power to make his readers fed that his characters are real human beings. In a word, he is not convincing in his character- drawing, nor is hib command of language and the Day. composition such as should be possessed by those who essay to write ambitious historical novels. The Millionaire Baby . By Anna Katherine Green. Illustrated. Cloth. Pp. 858. Price, $1.50. Indianapolis: The Bobbs- Merrill Company. While Anna Katherine Green cannot compare with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as a writer of detective stories, lacking his fertility of imagination, his charm of style and his consummate art in the marshalling of in- cidents which culminate in the revelation, she is, we think, the best American author of detective tales of the present, and in The Millionaire Baby we have one of her very best books. It is dever in conception and treat- ment, it holds the interest, and will prove a delight to those who have the mystery-story appetite as well as to many general readers who sddom care to spend time on such fiction save as a rest for the mind. The story deals with the abduction of a beautiful child. The principal parts are played by the real mother, the supposed mother of the child, a certain doctor, and the detective, although numerous other person- ages appear and disappear during the course of the story. Further than this we cannot go, for the value of this tale, as of most detective stories, lies in the story itself and not, as in many other works of fiction, in charm of character delineation, in atmosphere, descrip- tion, idealism, or other characteristics that are frequently the chief features of interest and value. By lovers of mystery stories who are not so fastidious as to demand works possess- ing the imaginative quality and excellence in art of the Sherlock Holmes tales, this book will, we think, be read with interest and pleasure. The Young Man Entering Business . By Orison Swett Marden. Cloth. Pp. 880. Price, $1.25 net New York: T. Y. Cro- well Sc Company. This volume is a compilation of editorials which have appeared in Success and which were addressed chiefly to young men who were ready to start in life and to whom words of ad- vice would prove helpful. The author’s aim and purpose is expressed in these lines from the introductory pages* Digitized by Google
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341 Books of the Day. • has tried to show the young man that [Terence between ‘pretty good’ and ‘ex- between low and high ideals, measures Terence between a mediocre career and a > success. He has tried to show that it easy thing to be a nobody, but a very It thing to be somebody. He has urged te greatest investment a young man can is in himself — that an education and lture pay; that health, good manners, ulness and a genuine interest in others ;at success factors; that character is the ind of capital, giving credit, confidence ippiness. He has tried to show the boy hile seizing an opportunity may lead to s, it will only make him ridiculous if he prepared for it. It is the divine hunger >wth, for perpetual enlargement, that is while. He has tried to show the boy > choose upwards, how to find his right and how to keep it.” re are sixty-three short chapters in the e and eleven full-page illustrations, hapters which impress us as of special Eire those dealing with “ The Danger of iercialism,” “The Divine Hunger for h,” “Character-Building and Mind- ling Through Reading,” and “The Im- ce of Self-Confidence.” On “ The rs of Commercialism” Mr. Marden ob- le of the greatest dangers that threaten can institutions to-day is commercial- Our strenuous life, with its hurrying and f to get rich, tends to foster the spirit of and traffic-hunger; and this spirit, in ends to develop our material and coarser es. Materialism is written all over can life to-day. In the anxious pursuit ars, many feel that they cannot afford > develop their social side. A foreigner l America for the first time, without idge of the business methods of its , would get an idea that nearly every 3s man in the country had lost a pearl, blivious of everything else, was desper- carching for it. te fairest, the most beautiful possibil- our civilization are too often trampled foot in the mad rush for money, as if were the only good. There are desires, s hunger, that cannot be reached by the book. is the coarser side, the more brutal in us, animal in fact — which is satisfied with money, but there is that within us which money cannot minister to — which money does not attract. “This finer character-element feeds on love and service. Fame does not touch it, riches do not appeal to it, nor do houses or lands satisfy it.” There is one criticism characteristic of most books of this kind printed at the present time, and which is to a certain extent applicable to the present volume, and that is the failure on the part of the author to draw the line of de- marcation clearly enough between true success and the false or pseudo-success that present- day civilization accepts for the true coin. When a society or an age is laigely infected with a mania for the acquisition of gold, it is not enough to utter general moral platitudes. It is the dufy of writers who seek to instruct the young and mould the character of the men of the rising generation to definitely and specifi- cally show the difference between those whose lives are such as to merit the approval of the good and the wise, and those who through shrewdness, cunning and unscrupulous prac- tices have amassed vast fortunes at the expense of the wealth-creators. On every hand we see to-day vast fortunes which are due to moral turpitude, corrupt practices, injustice and in- direction; and yet these men, who in a real sense are the brigands of commerce, are too frequently classed with the real benefactors — the men who have exalted the character of the people, ennobled civilization and enriched humanity. At no period in the history of the world has it been so necessary to emphasize this cardinal fact as to-day, when the colleges and the churches as well as the press are con- stantly confusing that which is fundamentally true and good with that which is basically unjust and evil; and we could have wished that this work had laid more emphasis in a specific way upon this important fact. Other- wise the volume is well calculated to be helpful to the young. The Poeme of Henry Abbey. Fourth edition, enlarged. Cloth. Pp. 860. Price, $1.15 net. New York: D. Appleton & Company. The fact that four editions of these poems have been called for at a time when simple, quiet verse is far from popular with the gen- eral reader, indicates substantial merit, for there is nothing sensational or spectacular in the rhymes of this author. • The content-mat- Digitized by boogie
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342 Books of ter consists for the most part of simple ballads, lyrics and poems for special occasions. In the present edition the author has brought together all his verse that he cares to preserve from pre- vious editions, and to these poems he has added a number of new compositions. Mr. Abbey has neither the art of KipEng in string- ing together jingling rhymes and catch-phrases that linger in the mind, nor the power to pro- foundly move the emotional nature. The charm of his work Ees rather in the pleasing Enes that appeal rather to those who love the simple and quiet lays. Many of them are de- lightfully-told legends and ballads that will linger in the memory. The foUowing Ettle waif teaches by suggestion important lessons, while affording an example of our author’s verse: “A widow by her landlord was oppressed To pay at once her backward coin of rent; For he, cursed by the wealth that should have blessed. Forgot that he, too, in a tenement Dwelt, with unpaid arrear; and surely he. More than the widow, Eved in poverty. For they alone are rich who have obtained The love of God, for which no gold can pay. Blind to the peaceful joy he might have gained. The craven landlord, on a winter’s day That pierced with cold and wind-thrust snow and sleet. Drove forth the widow to the roofless street. Her clinging son. with elfin prattle, sought To charm away her grief; yet, in his heart. By the indignant pencil of his thought. The shameful scene was drawn in every part. There Eved the widow’s tears, and hard and base Stood out the likeness of the landlord’s face. Like breaking waves, year after year rolled up. And in their tide the widow’s son became A truthful painter, in whose life’s bright cup A thankful world dissolved the pearl of fame. Then, with his brush, which spoke in every hue, The picture in his heart he strongly drew. Near to the landlord’s home the painting hung. As to his threshold, in a pubEc place; the Day. To view it came the townsfolk, old and young, And said: ’This is our neighbor’s ruthless face. And this the cruel deed he has done To the poor widow and her artist son.’ The landlord brought temptations coined and vast, . And would have given half the wealthy town. To lay the brush-raised specter of his past: No gold availed; the specter would not down; But haunted him thereafter till he died. In looks and words and deeds, on every side.” The Greert Diamond. By Arthur Morrison. Illustrated. Cloth. Pp. SOI. Price, $1.50. Boston: L. C. Page & Company. The popular taste that for a time devoured with avidity the romantic novels of medieval times later turned with equally eager appetite to detective tales. Stanley Weyman was the foremost writer in the latest craze for the swashbuckling novels of feudal days, and Sir Conan Doyle stands without a peer among the writers of detective and mystery-stories at the present time. The popularity of the works of these writers in each instance called forth a flood of similar fiction, some of which was good, much hastily prepared and quite indif- ferent in character, and of still more of which Ettle could be said other than that it was wretched drivel unworthy of the printing- press. Arthur Morrison is entitled to rank among the better writers of mystery or detective- stories of the present time. EEs books are on the whole well written. They hold the reader’s interest from the opening chapter. They abound in exciting episodes and thrill- ing experiences, and for works that have no other purpose than to entertain the reader or take the mind completely off of the cares and perplexities of our too strenuous life, by giving it a change which is in a sense a rest, they are valuable. The Green Diamond is, we think, the best of Mr. Morrison *8 mystery-stories. It is con- cerned with the robbexy of a jewel of fabulous worth from the Rajah of Goona during the Durbar at Delhi when the accession of the first Emperor of India was proclaimed. The Digitized by Google
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Notes and Comments. 343 stone was taken from the jewels of the Rajah, put in a magnum of Tokay wine and abstract- ed in a case of this wine through the conniv- ance of a servant of the Rajah. The wine was forwarded to England by the thief, who placed it in charge of a gentleman to whom he stated that he would be more than satisfied to get a hundred pounds for the case. On board the vessel were a wealthy American and his daughter, who, understanding that the wine had been in the bottle for almost a century and was supposed to be especially delicious, in- sisted on buying it and finally did purchase it from the gentleman for two hundred pounds. The purchaser little suspected the value of the contents, and after drinking one magnum and being disappointed in the taste, sold the other bottles. From this point the story is full of plot s and counterplots, of exciting incidents and dramatic climaxes which carry the reader forward from page to page, much as does Conan Doyle’s Hound of the BaekerviUee . This novel can be recommended as a detec- tive-story that will serve to divert the mind from the cares of the day. It is one of the best mystery tales of the present year. The Happy Average. By Brand Whitlock. Cloth. Pp. 847. Price, $1.80. Indian- apolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company. The Happy Average9 though lacking in the keen and often-times sarcastic epigrammatic dialogue of Her Infinite Variety , is a novel of far more genuine merit than Mr. Whitlock^ former work. It is a realistic story of com- monplace life in a small Ohio town, the real- ism being of that wholesome sort which por- trays the every-day existence, the small joys and sorrows, of the average men and women of the average Western village. The story deals with the struggles of the hero, Glenn Marley, to win a place in the legal profession and at the same time earn enough money to enable him to marry the girl of his choice, who is the daughter of Judge Blair, one of the lead- ing citizens of the town. Marley is a young man of very ordinary ability and is a far less interesting personality than Wade Powell, the dissipated, big-hearted, unsuccessful but talented old lawyer, with his shrewd criticism of men and affairs and his large sympathy and ready aid for the “under dog.” Indeed, the hero and heroine are far less forcible and con- vincing than many of the other characters in the book. Lavinia Blair is rather below than above “the happy average” as a type of womanhood, but possesses a certain gentle obstinacy which seems to serve her in place of other and perhaps more desirable character- istics. The story, however is a faithful pic- ture of life in a conservative Western town and will appeal to those who enjoy the simple recital of unexciting events. Amy C. Rich. NOTES AND COMMENTS. '"pHB RIPENING OP POLITICAL COR- 1 RUPTION IN PENNSYLVANIA: In our February issue Mr. Blanxenbtjrq outlined the rise of Matthew S. Quay and the sinister and bale- ful influence that attended his career, especially after the Pennsylvania Railroad and Mr. Quay found it to their mutual interest to work together for selfish aims against the best interests of the com- munity. In this issue the absorbingly interesting but deeply humiliating story is continued. The corruption that sprouted ana spread in the early career of Quay is represented as ripened ana revealed. We trust all our readers will preserve their copies of The Arena with this vitally important history .for we are entering on a period of moral awakening. Forces are at work to-day which will soon bring about a direct battle or a clean-cut con- flict between the corporations, the rings, the bosses, the corruptionists and representatives of predatory wealth in general on the one hand, and the produc- ing and consuming millions and the friends of republican government and business integrity on the ether. Ana these papers, furnishing as they do an authoritative history written by a leading citizen of Pennsylvania — a man who holds the highest position among the civic leaders and the great merchants of his State, cannot fail to prove a powerful weapon in the hands of friends of civic righteousness in the impending struggle. This history constitutes one chapter in the story of America's shame. It is also valuable as being typical of the rise, growth and prevalence of con- ditions present in various parts of the nation which must be grappled with ana controlled if the republic is not to be entirely subverted. A Pen-Picture of a Great Radical Meeting in Paris: This month we publish the opening paper in our series of contributions from our special commis- sioner in Paris, the gifted author ana lecturer, Mrs. Frances Hardin Hiss. Illness prevented Mrs. Hess from opening her series of papers with the January issue. In this paper we have a graphic and instructive pen-picture of one of those great meetings which so thoroughly reflect the spirit and Digitized by Google
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344 Notes and Comments. temper of the progressive democrats of France to- day. It matters not what views one may hold con- cerning government Only the very shallow and ig- norant are indifferent to the great political currents and undercurrents that are profoundly stirring the public life of European nations; and it is the aim and purpose of The Arena to keep its readers fully acquainted with the drift and trend of the times. Mrs. Hiss’ paper complements in a fitting manner the keen analysis of the progressive social- democratic moverment in France, as given by Mr. David Graham Phillips. The New School of Socialists in Europe: It af- fords us great pleasure to be able to give our readers a brilliant and graphic contribution on the new social-democratic movement in Europe, by one of the strongest and ablest novelists and journalists of our time. Many of our readers are well acquainted with the work of David Graham Phillips, as it has been our pleasure to review at length his power- ful and truly American novels. As a writer of fiction Mr. Phillips is rapidly forging to the fore- front. His stories possess the power of the realist and the imaginative quality of the idealist, and there is also present in them the robust spirit of democracy that unhappily is rare among the present-day American novelists. He is doing for America precisely the work which we hoped Hamlin Garland would have done and which his early works — Main-Travelled Roads , Jason Edwards , A Spoil of Office and A Member of the Third House- led us confidently to expect he would do. But Mr. Phiijjpb is as felicitous an essayist and journalist as he is a novelist. So much are his writings in demand that he is one of the highest-priced of the younger essayists of America to-day. His paper m this issue of The Arena will be read with deep interest. It is, we think, a remarkably accurate pen-picture of conditions as they obtain m Europe, and especially in France, and an admirable sum- mary of the attitude of the Utopian socialists, who in this case are the most practical members of the present-day school of socialism. In our December issue the eminent Secretary of Labor of New Zea- land presented a pen-picture of how New Zealand was solving the question of popular government In the January issue the Honorable J. Henniker Heaton, a prominent member of Parliament and authority of Great Britain, showed how nd had successfully introduced postal saving*- . .Our February issue contained a full, authoritiatve and lucid description of how the Scandinavian nations had solved the liquor problem. And in this issue the progress made along practical lines by the French socialists under M. Jaures is admirably portrayed. A Well-Known Educator on Divorce: This month we publish our third paper on divorce. In January the question was discussed from the orthodox point- of-view. In February it was examined in the light of psychology and history; and in this issue Pro- fessor Hawn presents still another view of the issue, bringing forward a number of fundamental facts that are rarely noticed by superficial writers who are more swayed by misleading shibboleths, preju- dice and emotionalism than by reason or a compre- hension of the wider issues involved. We bespeak for this paper the thoughtful consideration which a frank discussion from an able and conscientious thinker challenges. Cooperation in Cheat Britain: Li this issue our international paper is on the rise, growth and present status of the cooperative movement in Great Britain. This is also the first of our scries of papers dealing with cooperation in various lands ana under various phases. Mr. Grat is the General Secretary of the Cooperative Union of Great Britain and is the masterful head of that great economic movement, which to-day owns and operates many of the largest factories, mills, shops and stores in England and Scotland, which owns and operates a fleet of ocean steamers, and which annually divides over forty-five million dollars among the coOperators. We believe that the co- operative movement holds the promise of a peaceful, rational and equitable adjustment of the great economic problem of the day, so soon as the govern- ments are wise enough to take over all public utilities, which have proved the parent of national, state and municipal corruption, of fraud, unjust discriminations and extortion, and the breeder of unholy trusts, corporations and monopolies which to-day more than almost anything rise threaten the very integrity of free institutions. Gerhart Hauptmann and His Social Ideals: In this issue we publish the second paper in Professor Archibald Henderson’s series of criticisms on die work and ideals of the greatest present-day dra- matists of the Old World. Mr. Henderson's criticism of Ibsen and his message was very favor- ably received throughout the country. He is un- questionably one of the most discriminating among the sympathetic critics of those great, ru^aa modern dramatists whose works have created a storm of criticism only second to that which greeted the roman tist school of dramatic composers in the first half of the last century. This senes of papers will prove of great value to the general reader and will m no small degree broaden his culture. The Nevada Referendum Victory: This month we give our readers an interesting account of the constitutional victory for Direct-Legislation recently won in Nevada. In our judgment there is no issue before the American people to-day so vital as that of Direct-Legislation, ana it is the purpose of The Arena from month to month to discuss the various phases of this question and also to record every notable victory gained and advance step taken. Mr. Partridge's Madonna: This month we give our readers the second full-page picture in our American Art series, representing important works from foremost New World sculptors, painters and cartoonists. In this Madonna we have something more than an exquisite concept in marble. It is essentially the type of twentieth-century woman- hood. Instead of the simple innocence of ignorance which characterized the old-time Madonnas, we have here the awakened soul, — a pure, strong woman who thinks as well as feds. This is the type of the new, enlightened womanhood that must play a large part in be coming victory for civilim- tion — the victory which is to lift humanity from the plane of materialistic commercialism to that of altruism which is the fruit of justice and wisdom. Digitized by Google
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** | Ve do not take possession of our ideas , but are possessed by them , They master us and force us into the arena. Where , like gladiators , we must fight for them,” — Heine. The Arena Vol. XXXIII April, 1905 No. 185 FORTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS; OR, MASTERS AND RULERS OF “THE FREEMEN” OF PENNSYLVANIA * IH. LAW-MAKERS WHO SHAME THE REPUBLIC. By Rudolph Blankenbuhq. HE STRUGGLE of the Czar’s subjects for even a semblance of self-government is one of the most dramatic events in the world’s history and is made an absorbing topic of daily comment by the press of our country. It is the subject of discussion in mill and counting-room, farm and fireside, pulpit and platform, and is watched with keen attention in every household of our land. The despotic power of the Russian Emperor; the Grand Ducal cabal with its even more sinister potentialities; the insolent bureaucracy steeped in graft and extortion, and last, but not least, the Holy Synod led by an intolerant, medieval Procurator-General, will never be superseded by a higher civilization until the demand of the people for popular representation has either been voluntarily granted or accomplished by revolution. The number of patriotic Russians who would gladly sacrifice their lives, to secure redress and alleviation for their down-trodden countrymen is legion; a constitutional monarchy would be wel- •The fint of this mtim of article* appeared in the Jan- nary, 1905, number of The Arena. corned by them with as much acclaim as was the Republic by our own people at the time the Declaration of Independ- ence transformed English subjects into American citizens. Yet, if we dispas- sionately consider conditions at home and abroad, we find millions of people beyond the Atlantic who would freely give their all to obtain the liberty we boast of possessing, while there are millions within our own boundaries who appear utterly indifferent to the heritage that has come to them from the fathers of our republic, the noble minds and ardent patriots who dethroned a king and enthroned man! Are we worthy of them, are we doing our full duty to preserve the blessings their valor, devotion to duty and love of country have bestowed upon us? Unfortunately, our body-politic is more or less permeated with microbes of evil portent. It is impossible to discuss the subject in detail, as public wrong-doing spreads everywhere, and is especially noticeable in our own Commonwealth; we can merely point out some of the more glaring facts near home to even Digitized by Google
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346 Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen ” of Pennsylvania. Photo, by Rogers. JOHN STEWART, President Judge Court of Common Pleas of Franklin County. Independent candidate for Governor in 1882. Member of State Senate in 1883. A man who places high value on citizenship. partially uncover the story of the law- makers who shame American citizenship. We endure Czars more intolerable than he of Russia, and though we are not cursed with hereditary rulers, our dead sovereign’s place is instantly assumed by a self-appointed successor and we, instead of rising in our might to crush his throttling power, bow to him in pitiful subjection. The Grand Ducal camarilla finds its prototype in the vicious partnership of corporate power and lucre — law-defying and alluring, with a political oligarchy — daring, impu- dent, destructive. Our bureaucracy is the creation of the Czars and Grand Dukes we have tolerated and nurtured, and while we have many honest, sturdy, self-respecting men in public place, we may, unless we cry a halt upon the ruth- less masters who decree our laws and sway officialdom, ere long face a crisis of which we little dream to-day. A short retrospect of crooked and in- vidious legislation shows us that under the State Constitution of 1837, special legislation had the widest latitude and the State House at Harrisburg had become little else than a mill grinding out laws and enactments which had for their chief object the enrichment of those who had power and influence to secure their passage. The fundamental law placed so few restrictions upon private or special legislation that the record sometimes constituted a bulky volume, nine-tenths of the measures passed during a session, perhaps, being private or special laws. These abuses became so scandalous during and after the Civil war as to arouse an irresistible public demand for their abolition. This resulted in the Con- stitutional Convention of 1872, a body composed of men of high ability, lofty public spirit and unquestioned integrity. One of the most dangerous features of the system of law-making in vogue was the secrecy with which laws were en- acted, the public not knowing what their representatives at Harrisburg were doing. The Convention adopted a proviso that no special or private bill could be passed until after the insertion of an advertise- ment of the proposed legislation in two or more newspapers published in the locality, to be affected. With this strin- gent provision for the limitation of special legislation, the Convention in addition went to extreme lengths to insure both the utmost care and the widest publicity in the enactment of general laws. The new Constitution required that no bill could be enacted or even considered by the main body until it had been referred to a committee, returned therefrom, and printed for the use of members. Eveiy bill was required to be read at length on three different days and not as theretofore merely by the title — while no bill could be enacted finally except by the affirma- tive votes of a majority of all the members Digitized by Google
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Masters and Rulers of “ The elected to each House, the vote to be taken by yeas and nays and the names of those voting for and against the measure to be entered upon and printed in the Journal. No bill except a general ap- propriation bill could contain more than one subject, which was required to be clearly expressed in the title. It will be readily understood from these restrictive provisions that it was the intention of the members of the Constitutional Convention to make the enactment of legislation an extremely deliberate process. In this way an end would be made to the practice of what had long been known as “ snaking ” vicious laws through the legislative body without the knowledge of the people of the State. For years these Constitutional safeguards proved very effective, and the bulk of the volume composing the session laws shrank to less than one- fourth of its former dimensions. With the gradual growth of the Repub- lican majority in Pennsylvania, under the noxious estate of Quay and his lieu- tenants, these constitutional restrictions began to be evaded in one form or another. To make this evasion effective, however, it was necessary to drive out of the Legislature men of individuality and ability, who possessed the courage of their convictions. During the legisla- tive sessions extending from 1875 until ten years later, there was always a suffi- cient number of this class of Republican members who, with the aid of the Demo- ratic minority, could defeat vicious or unconstitutional legislation, and even enact laws of great public importance. The Legislatures of 1883 and 1885 passed the first anti-discrimination rail- way freight legislation adopted in any important state, as well as a free pipe- fine law, and gave to Philadelphia its present Bullitt Charter. All honor to the men who impressed their forceful individuality upon the legislation of that period, though some of them have since fallen by the wayside and sold them- selves into political bondage. The Freemen ” of Pennsylvania. 347 Photo, by Robbins, Bradford, Pa. JAMES W. LEE, Member of the State Senate, 1883-1885. Leading Attorney for the Independent Oil Producers’ Association. Senate of 1883 and 1885 had among its distinguished members, William A. Wal- lace, Eckley B. Coxe, John G. Hall, John Stewart, James W. Lee, Lewis Emery, Jr., William T. Davies, Louis A. Watres, General J. P. S. Gobin, Simon P. Wolverton, James B. Everhart, George F. Huff, James Gay Gordon, John E. Reyburn, Robert Adams and Morgan B. Williams. In such a body corrupt and illegal enactments were impossible. With the retirement of these men, how- ever, the character and capacity of the Legislatures of Pennsylvania gradually declined. As the Republican majority in the State increased, the mental caliber and conscience of the State’s law-making body decreased, in even greater propor- tion, until the majority of our law- makers is at present composed of a col- lection of mere human automatons, who neither think nor act for themselves, but Digitized by Google
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348 Masters and Rulers of “ The Photo, by Gutekimst, Phila. JAMES GAY GORDON, Member of the 8tate Senate in 1883. Afterwards elected Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia. He advocated the legal suppression of railroad rebates and other corporate abuses more than twenty years ago. simply perform the part of puppets in a “ Punch and Judy ” show. This condition exists to a greater or lesser degree in many of our State legisla- tures, and has gradually extended to the Congress of the United States. Little juntas of self-installed rulers, combined with mighty corporations and merciless nabobs, threaten the very life of the Republic, they fill our halls of legislation with their creatures and unless stayed, an oligarchy of wealth, the most dangerous mastery, may overwhelm our free institu- tions. The earnest and commendable effort of President Roosevelt to curb the ever- growing power of our railroads, to check rebates and discrimination, suppress other abuses, and bring them, if not under the control at least under efficacious supervision of the general government, is Freemen ” of Pennsylvania . most timely and should meet universal approval. The morals of but few States, in their law-making bodies, have been as much debased as those of our own, through the baneful influence and corrupt prac- tices of our transportation companies. In former years it was an almost open barter and sale and purchasable legisla- tors at Harrisburg, when laws affecting railroads were under scrutiny, would ask each other whether the “ yellow envelope ” had been distributed. This envelope contained the valuation of the recipient’s conscience “in cash” and was the argument used to obtain his vote for or against a measure. To-day with ad- vancing civilization more refined methods are in vogue. The conviction of Kemble was a wholesome lesson and direct bribery, though not extinct, rarely sees the light of day. Heavy campaign con- tributions (sometimes to both political parties), the placing of friends or relatives in office, the release of an inconvenient mortgage, letting men of influence in on “the ground floor,” the present of a course of study at the University for the aspiring son of an impecunious legislator, a game of poker — in which the agent or promoter deliberately loses to the crooked law-maker enough money to secure his vote; betting against a certainty with the same end in view ; the purchase of a fifty- cent vase, “as a rare specimen,” for hun- dreds of dollars from an impressionable legislator, are a few of the methods used at this time. One of the avenues freely employed to deaden the judgment of our law-makers and create their kindly interest to further desired legislation is by that genteel bribery, the issuance to them of free passes. The framers of the Constitution of 1874, recognizing the sinister influence of free passes, in their wisdom decreed. Article XVII., Sect. 8: “No railroad, railway or other transportation company shall grant free passes, or passes at a discount, to any persons except officers or employees of the company .” Digitized by Google
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Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen” of Pennsylvania . 349 Photographs of a few passes (names of the holders are for obvious reasons withheld) will prove of interest to the general public who have to pay full fare, while their alleged servants travel free ! This pass is signed by the President of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company and was is- sued to a member of the Pennsylvania Legisla- ture in 1899; it shows, in connection with the one below, that the of- fence is a continuous one. The pass below ex- plains itself; it is in force to-day. On carefully study- ing the section from our State Constitution quoted above this prop- osition arises: The Pennsylvania Rail- road either persistently violates the Con- stitution or it openly acknowledges that the members of the Pennsylvania Legis- lature, as well as Philadelphia Council- men, who are favored with its passes, are employees of the company. You, legislators, who accept and travel on these passes have taken a solemn oath of office (Art. VII., Sect. 1.) . . . “that I will not knowingly receive, directly or indirectly , any money or other valuable thing for the performance or non-performance of any act or duty pertaining to my office, other than the compensation allowed by law.” Your pass represents money; if it was not made a free gift to you, you would have to pay “ cash fares,” therefore, every time you travel on your pass you are presented by the Pennsylvania Rail- road with as many dollars and cents as the distance traversed calls for from regular travelers. Do you, or do you not, violate your oath of office ? If justice was aggressive instead of slumbering, deserved punishment would be inflicted upon you. You would, as ordered by the Consti- tution, be found guilty of perjury and be for- ever disqualified from holding any office of trust or profit within this Commonwealth. The passes shown on the following page, both issued by the Pennsyl- vania Rmlroad to one and the same Philadel- phia Councilman, are of telling interest. OennsylvatviaCailroad Pennsylvania R R. Division. 1905 j I '/Xfrt/it/ftwy 0/ f/wl/vt'ff ts t:rfr/t//tW : In V- - • 3 f -ff " - - 1 mu.»M UP l.t of Itfrymif ntutili ps/^nmsjjhnmiit. w i. PHILADELPHIA % rl fh>'*Z*nrm6rr m I!ZO a*/*.'/***,** "MPH Photographic reproduction of a pass issued in defiance of law by the Pennsyl- vania Railroad Company to a member of the Pennsylvania Legislature in 1905. Photographic reproduction of a pass issued in defiance of law by the Pennsyl- vania Railroad Company to a member of the Pennsylvania Legislature in 1899. Digitized by LiOOQie
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350 Masters and Riders of “The Freemen ” of Pennsylvania. n. knn The courtesy offKZt TRAVEL is extended airia Ifailroad 1904 a iHKMIlrik OF 2 2 II \ Common Council ov Philadelphia., w Pennsylvania R.R. Division, UNTIL DECEMBER 3lfT 1904, unless otherwise ordered. when countersigned by Wm A. PATTON. z / . llantuf+r , . <lVuiiisylvaiiia]{ailrocuO' courtesy oTFRZZ TRAVEL is extended 1905 ! \7o T n z MUMIIKH Ul* 2 c Common Council ofPhiladelphia, jj * Ovw Penns yl va n/a R. R. Division. r I 5 < UNTIL MARCH 31st, 1905, £ unless otherwise ordered, when counteptgnnd by Wm A PATTON ipnnrt 'unfepigned by Wm A PA TTON. ^ frrurm/. t Photographic reproductions of two “courtesies of free travel/* issued by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, in dedance of law, to one and the same Philadelphia councilman. The reader will notice that the lower pass is good only until March 31, 1905. The proof that the Railroad Company expects a quid pro quo from the council- man is made plain by the fact that the pass good for the calendar year 1904 is supplemented by one good only until March 31, 1905, expiring at the very time this councilman’s term of office ends. This conclusively demonstrates that as soon as the member loses his vote he loses his pass! Should he be reelected his influence and vote would again command “the courtesy of free travel.” The granting of passes to legislators is only a small part of the evil ; in its wake follows an irrepressible clamor and de- mand for free transportation at the hands of their friends or con- stituents, many of them in affluent circumstan- ces, who would blush from shame if their names were published. Thus the railroads not only put under obliga- tions the law-makers themselves, but they also gamer the good- will of a large number of the voters who elect them. It would create some commotion and sur- prise to learn how many real-estate assessors are favored with free passes by transportation com- panies. These com- panies are among our largest realty owners and it might be decid- edly interesting to have a valid or moral reason advanced why officials, who assess corporation property for taxation purposes, are given this questionable emolu- ment. The statement that even judges of our courts are given and accept “ the courtesy of free travel” must appear almost in- credible to those of our citizens who still believe in a bench as free from suspicion as Caesar’s wife. Under Federal supervision this vicious system could be quickly obliterated, it would result in larger returns to the stock- holders, an easier conscience to corpora- tion officials and the removal of a mean temptation to legislators. The Pennsylvania Railroad, with its vast ramifications in many states, is not the only offender; other transportation companies are equally guilty. These few examples will suffice to expose one of the potent and corrupting influences of corporate power. Digitized by Google
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Masters and Riders of “ The The issuing of passes “ where they will do the most good ” is not confined to the large transportation companies, their bad example being followed by street-car and trolley lines in all parts of the State. The Philadelphia Rapid Transit Com- pany favors members of the legislature and of councils, as well as other citizens of “ influence 99 with free transportation, as the photograph of a pass given below will show. The possessor of this pass has to hand the conductor for identification and con- trol, a small card with his name, which might properly be made to read as follows : 1. 0. SERVICE Common Counoil d Ward The Pennsylvania Railroad is so anxious to have the rights of the people conserved that it employs agents — maliciously called lobbyists — to attend meetings of Councils and its various committees for the pur- pose of preventing the passage of any bills derogatory to the people’s interests. These agents, sometimes styled “ council- men-at-large,” seem to have the privilege of the floor and also the ear of the pre- siding officers. They appear very much at home and act as if they had a right to be there in the pursuit of legitimate bus- iness. Freemen ” of Pennsylvania . 351 Photo, by Phillips, Phila. ALEXANDER J. CAS8ATT, President of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. One of the ablest and most powerful railway magnates, who could by a stroke of his pen abolish the vicious free-pass system and suppress other corporation abuses. The Pennsylvania Railroad Company and the Standard Oil Company are said to have been the greatest corrupters of Pennsylvania politics, and it is whispered that they have, as yet, not quite seen the error of their ways. Can it surprise the reader that so many law- makers, who enter office with the stigma of civic impurity, are at the beck and call of powerful combinations of capital and unscrupulous polit- ical leaders? It requires a stunted conscience and low conception of public duty to gather tribute from the “diggings,” then betray the people and inflict upon them enactments such as have ^JSS, *190*. nnlf&i otiiarn.* (mUird / M _ Another example of “ courtesy of free travel." Extended to citizens of ’Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company. • influence" by the Phil Digitized by Google
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352 Masters and Rulers of “ The JOHN B. PARSONS, President Philadelphia Rapid Tranbit Company. He rose from the ranks to his present prominent position. been passed in recent years by our law- makers in City and State. The Pennsylvania legislature had for many years been under the more or less absolute dominion of Mr. Quay. He dictated legislation, selected candidates for office, elective or appointed, in short he was the “Pooh Bah” of the realm, when in 1897 he was confronted with an insurrection of threatening proportions. After the triumphant election of William McKinley in 1896 John Wanamaker, who had taken an active part in the campaign, was urged by his friends to become a candidate for the United States Senate. He consented, and Iris candidacy was at first looked upon favorably by Quay and those near the throne. The story goes that Mr. Wanamaker was told one day, that it would require a cash con- sideration of “two hundred thousand dollars” to make him the successor of Senator Cameron ! He spurned the offer, threw down the gauntlet, and entered Freemen 99 of Pennsylvania . upon an open fight with his accustomed vigor and energy and gave the Republican machine a battle royal which it will ever remember and from which it has not yet recovered; it was one of the stoutest, most interesting and prolonged contests ever waged upon the people’s forum. The result of the campaign was that the Wanamaker Republicans in the legisla- ture, together with the Democratic mem- bers friendly to him, formed a phalanx so formidable as to cause the Quayites much loss of sleep and anxious contem- plation how they could carry the day. The position of some of the members being in doubt a prominent Philadel- phian, friendly to Wanamaker, went to Harrisburg to survey the field. He soon ascertained that “itching palms” were stretched out eager to be closed by an argument telling in its character if not its morals. He consulted with some of those high in authority and was assured that by the expenditure of “ four hundred thousand dollars,” in cash, enough doubt- ful members could be “convinced” that the best interests of State and nation, demanded the election of John Wana- maker to the United States Senate. The proposition was indignantly rejected. Wanamaker lost the Senatorship but his fair name, honor and reputation remained untarnished. Boies Penrose was elected Senator. Immediately afterwards the seventy- six unfettered Republican members of the Senate and House organized for the protection of self-respecting citizenship and adopted a platform which might be condensed in what President Roosevelt so aptly calls a “ square deal ” all around. It was a refreshing spectacle to see a considerable number of members assert their manhood, defy the machine and prevent iniquitous legislation. Such a thing had not been witnessed at Harris- burg for years. Venality, fraud and other crimes hidden behind the mask of Republicanism were exposed, and re- vealed to an astounded community the countenances of men who occupied high Digitized by Google
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Masters and Rvlers of “ The Freemen ” of Pennsylvania . 353 seats in party councils. Notwithstanding these exposures, the criminal participants in political debauchery held together their followers, and by means known only to artful politicians, by mock reform promises, unstinted expenditure of boodle, kept intact their forces and again and again hoodwinked the people. Quay and his cohorts hoped the insur- rection would soon be over, but they were sadly mistaken. The “ Spirit of ’76 ” was abroad ! At a meeting held in Philadelphia in February, 1898, fifty-five of the sixty-seven counties being represent- ed, attended by four hundred distinguish- ed Republicans, John Wanamaker was unanimously asked to permit the use of his name as a candidate for Governor. He consented, and the campaign for delegates which followed was the most memorable in the history of the State. But the machine was so strongly en- trenched, had almost inexhaustible cam- paign funds, and all its base resources — bribery, ballot stuffing, wholesale pur- chasing of votes, false election returns — being resorted to, they carried the day. Wanamaker had over a hundred dele- gates, but he declined to be placed in nomination before the Convention and requested his adherents to vote for Charles W. Stone, an anti-Quay candi- date, and, to the surprise of the machine, every man was true to his colors and cast his vote for Wanamaker’s choice. Quay’s man, William A. Stone, whose memory will never be forgotten, was named as the caucus candidate and afterwards elected Governor. One of the sources of revenue for the machine and disreputable legislators has for years been the levying of blackmail upon charitable institutions. This prac- tice was an open secret but hard to establish as the institutions benefited by State appropriations naturally kept quiet for fear of being blacklisted. The truth of these charges was revealed to the writer one day on a journey from Harris- burg to Philadelphia. In the party was one of the managers of an institution that JOHN WANAMAKER, Postmaster-General under President Harrison, Who waged a notable fight against the Quay machine and declined to be made United States Senator by the corrupt use of money. had asked for an appropriation of $15,000. This is the story: The repre- sentative from the district where the institution was located, bluntly demanded “ten per cent.” as his rake-off, or the bill would not go through. On being re- monstrated with, he simply said: “That’s the only way this and many other similar bills can be passed.” When the manager urged that they would have to account for the expenditure of the money, he replied: “All you have to do is to charge it to legal expenses ! ” The demand was scorned and the institution did without the appropriation. An editorial in the Philadelphia Record of February 9th, under the heading “ The Game of Rake-off,” throws further Kght upon this unsavory business: “ As the people of Pennsylvania know, to their sorrow, there has grown up under the nurture of the Republican Machine- Digitized by Google
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854 Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen ” o/ Pennsylvania. For Four Years Governor of Pennsylvania. control a system of bargain and sale in the making of appropriations for chari- table and educational purposes. The amount of appropriation is made subject to drawback or rebate to the political scoundrels who keep a sharp control of all the detail of public expenditure. “It is not infrequently a matter of negotiation, before action by the legisla- ture, not only how much of the total sum of appropriation shall be withdrawn, but at what time, and to whom, the money shall be paid. “‘No rake-off, no appropriation/ is the usual Machine ultimatum.” Even Russia, in its degraded public life, could hardly match the soulless in- dividuals who would fatten on the charities bestowed upon the sick, the blind, the halt, the poor! An individual case of similar turpitude is that of a legislator who headed a com- mittee to investigate the pitiful condition of miners in the Western part of the State. While traveling on a pass and with other free privileges he presented and demanded a large illegitimate expense-bill, was found out, and had to disgorge his plunder. The man who robs while bent on mercy’s mission should be shunned by all decent people, yet this member of our law- making body, a protege of our Senator’s, was recommended by them for a foreign consulate, and to-day enjoys the emolu- ments of that position as a “ Representa- tive American.” We are too apt to forget ! How many of our citizens remember the blushes of mor- tification, their deep indignation, when, before and during the Stone administra- tion, they read day after day of the shame- less actions of our law-makers and how they then determined to aid in over- throwing the dynasty which made possi- ble misgovemment so odious and ab- horrent. The offences crowded each other from week to week, month to month, session after session, until observ- ers of current events grew bewildered and desperate, then became apathetic and gave way to utter hopelessness and at the next election — again voted the regular ticket! While it is an unpleasant duty to recite and comment upon the misdoings and crimes of those in public place, it is a necessary one, too often shunned and neglected. The honest critic is frequently condemned not only by the offenders themselves but also by the thoughtless and indifferent. They upbraid him and thus uphold the ever-active trans- gressors, while other “good” citizens hold up their hands in terror and charge with “defaming” his city or State, the man who exposes evil and tries to better 4 things instead of turning their batteries upon the open and flagrant violators of law and public morality. It would be impossible to recount within the scope of one article even an abstract of the vicious legislation, pro- posed, enacted, or defeated, during the period spoken of. To refresh the memory Digitized by Google
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Masters and Rulers of “ The of readers living in our Commonwealth the mere mention of the titles of some of the laws offered will suffice, while for the general reader a more detailed statement of a few important laws enacted, and the manner of their passage, will be of interest. These distressing examples may be heeded and possibly be used as a deterrent to the law-making bodies of other communities. Among the laws spoken of we find: Substitution of a “ State Excise Board ” for the “ Brooks High-License Law,” or, transferring the power of granting liquor- licenses from judicial to political control and mercy. The so-called “Philadelphia ‘Lexow’ Committee” which caused a waste of 865,000 of the State’s money, and re- sulted chiefly in Senatorial hotel-bills of $23.00 a day. The effort to reduce school appropria- tions to the amount of one million dollars, thus hampering the education of our children. Refusal to appoint a committee to in- vestigate the malodorous State Treasury. The notorious “pool” bill, licensing pool-selling and gambling. Appropriating $10,000 for a fake hospital. The illegal indemnity bond, to hide padded pay-rolls. Junketing and bogus expense-bills, wast- ing over $100,000 of the people’s money. The brewery license bill, permitting breweries to locate next to churches and schools. The Andrews bank bill, protecting dis- honest stockholders at the expense of depositors. The mercantile tax bill, crippling business and industries. The infamous Butler bill, emasculating the Bullitt Charter. The fire-alarm bill, giving a valuable monopoly to state politicians. The Simon electric-light bill, granting almost absolute control to existing com- panies. Freemen” of Pennsylvania . 355 WILLIAM P. POTTER, Justice of the Supreme Court. Paying interest on State deposits. (This bill was persistently fought by Quay members, but ultimately passed.) Exemption of railroads from just taxation. Unwarranted retention of school-funds in the State Treasury, thus delaying, sometimes, for months, the payment of salaries to school-teachers, and causing them inconvenience as well as distress. Defeat of the anti-trust bill. The attempt to steal the State’s coal lands under its rivers. Refusal to reform our ballot laws, one of Quay’s reform pledges of 1895. Strangling the bill for the creation of a State Board of Arbitration. Suppressing the road improvement bill. The passage of the McCarrell jury bill, which deprived District-Attorneys of the long-established right to stand aside suspicious jurors. This bill was passed to help “indicted statesmen” and has Digitized by CjOOQle
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356 Masters and Rulers of “ The JOHN DEAN, Justice of the Supreme Court. He rendered a healthy and convincing opinion on the unconstitutionality of the Pittsburgh Ripper Bill, which was concurred in by the late Chief-Justice McCollom and Justice Mestrezat. worked well in keeping our prisons from overpopulation. Defeat of bills favoring just demands of the miners. The ripper bill abolishing the Board of Revision of Taxes in Philadelphia. This bill would have placed all taxable prop- erty in Philadelphia at the mercy of the gang. (It was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.) Bills granting corporations a vast in- crease of powers. New courts, which were not needed and were asked for neither by judges nor members of the bar. Authority to sell water power, worth millions of dollars, without any return to the State. Defiance of the Constitutional mandate to reapportion legislative districts. These were some of the measures con- Freemen” of Pennsylvania. sidered and acted upon or neglected in the State House at Harrisburg by the honest, reputable and untrammeled ma- jority of the righteous law-makers of our Commonwealth. They were driven like a flock of sheep under the lash of the boss and took pride in wearing the “Quay collar ” while they called themselves “American freemen.” Some of the laws enacted under the Stone administration were of a character , so corrupt and nauseous that they deserve special mention and close inspection; | they enraged and aroused all honest citizens to fever heat — for the time being — and added much to the unenviable reputation Pennsylvania holds among her sister States. The so-called “Pittsburgh Ripper” bill was one of the most brazen attempts of our day to overturn popular govern- ment. The city administration was hostile to Quay and the State machine, but hav- ing been installed through a regular and legal election, nothing but heroic meas- ures could overthrow it. Space will not permit the recounting of the arbitraiy, unconstitutional methods adopted in the passage of the so-called “ripper legisla- tion,” by which the officials of the three cities of Pittsburgh, Allegheny and Scran- ton were legislated out of office, and the citizens of those populous municipalities disfranchised and denied the right for two years of selecting their own local rulers, that power having been conferred upon the Governor of the State. This infamous bill was passed by the legisla- ture and signed by Governor Stone. It may be considered as an advance notice to the citizens of Philadelphia that if her “freemen” should ever dare elect a Mayor who owns himself and is an- tagonistic to the machine, he will, if it has the power, be “ ripped ” out of office, unceremoniously and without delay. The Supreme Court was called upon to decide the constitutionality of the “Ripper bill” and to the utter dismay of an anxious constitutency its decision, by a vote of four to three, upheld one of Digitized by Google
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Masters and Riders of “ The Freemen” of Pennsylvania . 357 the most pernicious acts of usurpation in our history! A distressing occurrence during this time was the equivocal position of Mr. Justice Potter, former law-partner of Governor Stone and by him appointed and since elected to the Supreme bench. He was openly charged by the Philadel- phia Press , a responsible and reputable paper of undoubted Republican standing, with informing the Governor, his former partner, days before the decision was rendered, of the position of the Supreme Court on the " Ripper bill ” ! Both Stone and Justice Potter denied the accusation, but the latter did not fortify his denial either with a demand for retraction or a suit for criminal or civil libel. Stone, who once added the postscript: “I was not bribed ” to a communication, was not expected to go beyond a verbal dis- avowal. The limit of legislative infamy was reached during the session of 1901, when invaluable street-railway fran- chises were made a “ free gift ” — perhaps not “ quite free” — for an indefinite period to a coterie of men who know a good thing when they see it, even “ if garbed in the glistening scales of a large-sized snake.” These franchises, worth mil- lions of dollars, authorized the construc- tion of street-railways, as well as elevated and subway lines, in our cities and were passed with the most flagrant disregard of the letter and the spirit of the Consti- tution. The bills were introduced by Senator Focht of Union and Emery of Mercer county at 3 P. M., on May 29, 1901. They were referred by the Chair to the Committee on Railways and special Judiciary, respectively, and reported back to the Senate within five minutes. It was a physical impossibility for the Committees to have left the Senate Chamber, assembled in the Committee rooms and heard the bills read within that time, as they cover fourteen closely- printed pages in the volume of the Session Laws. They could not possibly have / / / / ( WILLIAM T. MABSHALL, Late Speaker of the House of Representatives, Whose ruling on the “ Absentee ” question out-Herods Herod. given them the least consideration, leav- ing out of the question inviting the public to a hearing upon these important measures. Reported at 3.05 P. M., five minutes after they were introduced, they were printed, and passed first read- ing at an evening session the same day. In short, the bills were read in place, referred to Committees, reported back, printed and read the first time, the same afternoon and evening, a process which the Constitution clearly demands should take at least two days. The following day they passed second reading at an evening session and at the morning session of May 31st, the third day after the intro- duction, they were passed finally by the Senate. The legislature then took its weekly vacation, and on reassembling, the bills were messaged to and received by the House, and referred to the Corporations Committee at 2 P. M., June 3rd. Digitized by Google
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358 Masters and Rulers of “The Freemen ” of Pennsylvania. ANDREW B. DUNSMORE, Member of the Legislature from Tioga County. The luccessful leader against the Machine on the Judges' Pension Bill. Although the country was ringing with denunciations of this method of railroad- ing grab-legislation no public hearing was invited or permitted, and at 5 P. M. the bills were reported from the Committee with an affirmative recommendation, and at 9 P. M., the same evening, passed first reading. In one day they had been received from the Senate, referred to the Committee of Corporations, reported back by the Committee, printed for the use of the members, and passed first reading. The following day they were amended to prevent three-cent fares and the ac- ceptance of provisions in the public in- terest offered by Albert L. Johnson, a public applicant for the franchises, and passed second reading. On June 5th, the next day, the bills were passed finally, the House amendments concurred in by the Senate, and sent to the Governor, who, in the dark hour of midnight on June 7th, signed them. A force of clerks worked all night preparing thirteen charters, virtually covering all the unoc- cupied streets of Philadelphia and Pitts- burgh; these charters were granted to a group of hungry beneficiaries the next day. The local ordinances necessaiy to give effect to these charters were rushed through the Philadelphia Councils with the same indecent speed, and were signed by its notorious Mayor, Samuel H. Ashbridge. The story of these dis- graceful proceedings will be continued in a later article “ Municipal Black Plague.” Flagrant and outrageous as was this exhibition of disregard for imperative Constitutional restrictions upon the pass- age of legislation, the crowning infamy of the session consisted in the passage of an important bill by the votes of members not present and not voting, and the recording of a vote for the bill which had been cast against it. This bill, was an act granting a valuable water-front to the city of Erie. The bill passed the House finally on May 8th, the vote recorded being ayes 106, nays 47. It required 103 votes to pass the bill. On the following day, Representative Ander- son of Washington, Heselbarth of Alle- gheny, and Squibb of Berks county, all three recorded as voting aye, arose in their places, and announced that they were not present the day before when the vote was taken upon the final passage of the bill, and had not voted, and asked that the Journal of the House, which recorded them as voting affirmatively, be corrected. Had this been done the affirmative vote would have been reduced to 103. Representative Hoch of Berks, also arose and announced that while he was recorded as having voted aye, he had voted no, and asked that the Journal be corrected in accordance with his actual vote. Had these corrections been made, the bill would have received but 102 votes and would have been defeated, but the Speaker, W. T. Marshall of Allegheny, Digitized by Google
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Masters and Rulers of “The Freemen ” of Pennsylvania . 359 refused to permit the record to be cor- rected, holding that under the rules of the House, there was no power to correct the record of a roll-call after the verifica- tion had been demanded and made by the clerk before the final announcement of the vote. Law, decency, the Constitution, were trampled under foot! Under this ruling it would be quite possible to pass bills finally with only the Speaker, clerk and three members present, if one of the members was willing to answer aye to the names of 103 colleagues and the two others would call for a verification of the roll-call, which con- sists merely in reading the names recorded as voting in the affirmative and negative, before the final announcement of the vote. Worse than all, the reputation of absent members could be irreparably destroyed by recording them as having voted for infamous measures, and they would be without redress. The Speaker had, on a previous occa- sion, when the Montgomery county court job was under consideration, ruled that the correctness of the roll-call could be challenged only by the very member or members whose vote or votes had, while they were absent , been falsely recorded. Under this ruling, absentees who had been personated were without redress, as the absentees themselves , while still absent, perhaps sick at home, were declared the only ones competent to object to the illegal use of their names and the consequent fraudulent roll-call and vote. As an “ Irish bull ” this decision would create unbounded hilarity wherever re- lated; as a parliamentary ruling, in defi- ance of law and equity, it reaches the climax of infamy! The real law-making power of Penn- sylvania to-day does n’t sit in the State House at Harrisburg. Its office is in a private mansion on the banks of the Susquehanna, from which the Secretary of the Republican State Committee in- structs the members of the Senate and House of Representatives what measures PHILANDER C. KNOX, United States Senator from Pennsylvania. Successor to the late Matthew 8. Quay. they are to pass and which they are to defeat. He is the mouthpiece of three men, only one of whom is a member of either House. These men arc United States Senator Boies Penrose, located at Washington ; Insurance Commissioner Israel W. Durham, living nowhere specially but to be found when his presence is required, and James P. McNichol, Senator from Philadelphia and contractor for building costly filtra- tion-plants. These three men are the real legislators of Pennsylvania. Nearly all the remaining 204 Representatives and 49 Senators, barring 25 Democrats, seem satisfied to register the decrees of the three men, the great “Triumvirate” of modern days whose sovereign power would create the envy and command the plaudits of their Roman colleagues of twenty centuries ago. All hail “Pom- pey” Penrose, “Julius Caesar” Durham, “Crassus” McNichol! Digitized by Google
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860 Masters and Rulers of “The Freemen 99 of Pennsylvania . It seems incredible that American manhood should so far forfeit its dignity and lower its standard as to abdicate its prerogatives in favor of a few sordid politicians who should inscribe upon their banner the motto of Louis XV. “Aprhs nous , le deluge l ” for.they live only for their “to-day” and care nothing for their country’s morrow, A hopeful sign, like a glimpse of sun- light from the clouds, is the attitude of the country members of the legislature who, at this writing, (February 9th) made a successful revolt, under the leadership of Representative Dunsmore of Tioga county, against the Machine on “The judges’ pension bill.” What a blessing it would be to our State if the rugged honesty of the country could be combined against the arrogant dominion of our “Republican” Grand Dukes, who are ever ready, like the Russian Cossacks, to ride down any movement for political emancipation. Little can, at this time, be said about the present legislature. It has been in session but a few weeks. We can record to its credit the election of Governor Pennypaeker’s appointee. Philander C. Knox, as the successor to the late Senator Quay. His election, it is hoped, presages a new era in Pennsylvania’s representa- tion in the United States Senate. The atmosphere of the State capitol has been greatly cleansed since the advent of Governor Samuel W. Penny- packer. Boodling politicians, clamorous lobbyists and their camp-followers, who found a fruitful field for operations during the previous administration, soon ascertained that their vocation was a diffi- cult one to ply with the sturdy, honest, though somewhat quaint, occupant of the Executive chair. The Governor’s last message to the legislature might be called a State paper of the very first rank, were it not for the unfortunate tirade against newspapers with which he burdens the latter part of his communication. While the Governor cannot, in speak- ing of a remedy to curb the press, be taken seriously in his thoughtless allusion to the killing of a South Carolina editor by a cowardly assassin, who was smarting under newspaper criticism, his suggestion has been exploited all over the country to his disadvantage. If his critics knew the Gov- ernor as well as his friends and neighbors, they might, perhaps, feel that he has an inordinate idea and conception of the sanctity and inviolability of public officers, but they would never attribute to him any but the. kindliest and most humane in- tentions towards his fellow men. Some of his relentless critics have com- pared him to the Austrian “Landvogt,” or Governor, Hermann Gessler, who was shot and killed by the hero of Swiss history, William Tell. Gessler had an astounding and high-wrought conceit of his own importance and dignity and went to the extreme of ordering the Swiss to make, during his absence, obeisance to his hat, which was hung up in public. While the hat on the pole may remind one of the obstreperous editor who would have been drawn and quartered and his head stuck upon a pole without the gates in Eng- land a hundred years ago, as mentioned in a previous message, neither the Gov- ernor’s reference to Tillman, who assas- sinated an editor, nor this reference to William Tell, who killed a Governor, should be taken seriously and tempt any- one to murder either governor or editor! If the State of Pennsylvania was as well served in her municipalities by honest, courageous and unfettered of- ficials as she is in the Gubernatorial office and as she trusts to be in the junior Senatorship, we would all be justified to feel hopeful of soon being led “out of the wilderness into the clearing.” (To be continued.) Rudolph Blank enburg. Philadelphia , Pa. Digitized by Google
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CLARA BEWICK COLBY Tub Amina Digitized by Google
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I WHAT THE SECOND CITY OF GREAT BRITAIN IS DOING FOR HER PEOPLE; OR, WHERE MUNICIPAL-OWNERSHIP IS IN FULL FLOWER. By Clara Bewick Colby, Editor of The Woman’ t Tribune. THE THEORY of the municipal- ownership of utilities was con- . sidered as a far-fetched lyceum proposi- tion adapted possibly to the needs of the I small town or homogeneous community, until Glasgow demonstrated its prac- ticability for a very large city, where the industries and population were unusually varied, where vice and disease ran riot, and where every condition prevailed that I would seem to make it difficult to carry | civic reforms to success. Beginning I with its first attempt to enlarge the scope of its civic powers less than forty years ago, by improving the sanitary regula- tions of the city, it has gradually assumed the ownership and management of its tramways, its water-works, its gas, electricity, baths, laundries, lodgings and tenements: and even its schools and | places for recreation have distinctive | features due to this direct municipal I control. We are apt to think of Glasgow, the j second city in size in the British Empire and a part of its earliest history, as having been finished in the dim past, yet there is, perhaps, not another city in the world a hundred years old that has developed and changed as much as has Glasgow in that time. George Square (named after George Hutcheson, who gave it to | a hospital he founded in the seventeenth ! century), was a hundred years ago a pool of stagnant water and a favorite place for drowning cats and dogs. Now around it are grouped a magnificent series of buildings that can hardly be duplicated in the same space in the world. The splendid Municipal Build- ings, the general Post-office, the Mer- chants9 Exchange, the Royal Bank of Scotland and some of the finest hotels in the city around this square show the growth of the business interests of Glasgow. The monuments within the Square commemorate Glasgow’s record in the annals of war, statesmanship, discovery, poetry, and romance, and in these realms its history is the heritage of the civilized world. Looking down upon all this epitome of man’s achievement I saw a modest building that represented even yet a higher step in the world’s progress, a carrying out of the injunction, “Thou shalt love thy brother as thyself.” I had never before seen a “Cabman’s Rest,” where the drivers could wait in heat or rain and eat and make their lunches hot if they wished. This exhibition of the “Golden Rule” in city affairs recalled my purpose of investigation. I reached the Municipal Buildings, as they are modestly called, after the morning hour during which they are shown to visitors. The gentlemanly custodian expressed his regret; but when I explained that it was not the Buildings but the working of the city government I had come to learn about, a look of perplexity spread over his face. I hastened to mention that I had learned that Glasgow had among other civic innovations, public baths and laundries. Instantly light broke. Here was surely a subject of legitimate inquiry for a woman. The custodian at once took me to the General Manager of the Baths Committee, and this gentleman kindly said he would make one of his visits of inspection and take me with him. While waiting for a cab I was given a privileged view of the building which in my memory stands 861 Digitized by UjOOQle
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362 What Glasgow is Doing for Her People. next to our Congressional Library for elegance and beauty. Its exterior deco- ration is in keeping with its ideal of government. Sculptured figures * of Hygiea, Harmony, Piety, Peace, Plenty and Prosperity, adorn the exterior. On the apex Truth holds aloft the Light of Liberty, and Riches and Honor are in her train. Over the keystone arch is the coat of arms of the city with the motto: “Let Glasgow nourish.” The sentence was anciently finished with — “ by the preaching of the Word,” but these words have been erased and their place supplied by three figures: Religion, Virtue, Knowl- edge. Two wide archways lead to the grand staircase of alabaster, and this into a marble hall 164 feet in length from which the Council Chamber opens. Being invited to sit in the Lord Provost’s chair, I did so, saying that it was the greater pleasure to me since there was nothing to prevent a woman sitting there by right as th'e choice of the people. Since 1875 unmarried women house- holders in Scotland have had the legal right to vote for members of the Council, and have been thought of in connection with it, as these gentlemen informed me. The Councilmen elect from their number the Lord Provost and the Bailies, and there is no legal impediment to their electing a woman to any position. Dur- ing the visits of the afternoon and of sub- sequent days to the public baths, the laundries, schools, lodgings and tene- ments, and the committees which control the various departments of the govern- ment, the official cordially opened to me every possible source of information. SANITATION. The first attempt of the Corporation to reform civic conditions was along the line of sanitation. With the almost un- paralleled growth of the city the over- crowding was so great that the death-rate was enormous. There were constant outbreaks of cholera and the average yearly number of typhus fever cases was 8,570. Dr. James B. Russell summed up the situation in his report of 1895 when he said: “A considerable proportion of the population lived in districts in which the houses were so crowded upon the soil as to be beyond the reach of sun or air, and to leave no more space than was necessary for access of the residents to the recesses of those continuous masses of building; that these houses were crowded without consideration either of health or decency, and their inhabitants left uncared for and so shut out from all chance of cleanliness of life as to have reached the lowest depth of physical and moral degradation.” Under a new act of Parliament which enlarged the powers of municipal cor- porations, Lord Provost Blackie carried through a City Improvement Tax and began some sanitary reforms. But at first the public set its face hard against every change, deeming it impious to tiy to thwart the dispensations of Provi- dence. The preamble of one of their Cholera Acts began: u Whereas it has pleased Almighty God to visit the United Kingdom with the disease called Cholera,” etc. And who were they to try to escape the will of the Supreme Being ? So Lord Provost Blackie was defeated at the next election distinctly on this ground, notwithstanding that the ward he represented included many of the worst plague-spots. This was before the day of women’s vote at municipal elections. When next a matter of city improvement was made a test question at the polls, women were voters and the measures were approved. Nothing of a progressive nature since undertaken by the city Corporation has failed of the support of the voters, although some questions, as, for instance, the municipal operation of the tramways, have been made direct issues. Sanitary inspectors were appointed in 1870, and these included five women. In order that poor people might be willing to avail themselves of the special hospital service for infectious diseases, it was found necessary to provide for the free Digitized by Google
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363 What Glasgow is Doing for Her People. Lospital treatment of all classes of versons suffering from infectious diseases, ich and poor alike. The poor in Scot- and resent any special interference with hem or for them. Municipal disin- ecting-houses were established, providing lot only for washing the clothing of all >arties in the house after the disease had ■un its course, but during its progress. Special circulars giving sanitary instruc- ions and offers of assistance are distrib- uted. By these and kindred measures the death-rate was soon reduced one third; the death-rate per thousand going down in the period these measures have covered from 29.9 to 19.9; and the rate of children dying in their first year from 196 per thousand to 130. BATHS AND WASH-HOUSES. Prom taking care of the sick to taking care of the well, from cure to prevention, is a logical step, and thus a special Com- mittee of the Council on Baths and Wash-houses was appointed in 1875. The work began with renting and operat- ing two private baths, while as rapidly as possible sites were secured and other establishments were erected. At the end of ten years there were five large baths, one in the center of the city and one in each of its four quarters, all with public laundries attached, representing a total outlay of $617,310. The first report, issued in 1891, showed that the receipts from the baths paid the working expenses of the establishments and left a considerable margin to be applied as interest on the capital invested; all this with the most moderate charge for the baths. It is not to be presumed that the Scotchman takes to water more than other people; he has established no such reputation in this line as has the English- man, who is said to carry his tub with him wherever he goes. In fact, the Scotch dislike cold water: in the public establishments it is almost invariably the hot bath that is called for, and in the apartment-houses bath-tubs not provided with hot water are often used as coal- bins. Hence the financial success of the Glasgow Baths might be reached anywhere with low rates and good facilities. The charges are: two cents for use of swimming pond until five o’clock; after this, four cents. By card admitting twelve times it is one and a half cents and three cents, respectively. The charges for baths are slightly more on Saturday and Sunday. Private hot baths are eight cents, by card, six cents for men, and six and five cents for women, — the only case I know of where the less- monied sex is charged less than the other half of humanity. Even these low prices are much reduced to large parties who wish the exclusive use of swimming ponds by the hour; and best of all, the Com- mittee cooperates with the School Board and gives the use of the Baths for swim- ming lessons at certain hours free of charge, each class having its regular hour and day. While ^ I was there the Chairman of the Committee received a request from Miss Kate Hunter, superin- tendent of the Boys’ Reformatory, that her boys might have the privilege ex- tended to them. It was granted readily, with the proviso made to all schools, that a teacher accompany the class. Since that time there have been built a number of other baths, to some of which Turkish baths, libraries and gymnasiums are added. One of the plans of ths Com- mittee is to erect swimming baths in each of the five large public parks, as the chairman says, with the hope that by furnishing swimming facilities, of which all young people are fond, to draw children away from the streets and into the parks, that they may learn to like the flowers and the fresh air. It takes a Scotchman to thoroughly blend the practical and the poetical. The number of washing-stalls furnished in the first five establishments erected was 316, and when the report of 1891 was issued it was found that these were used by about 3,000 families and that the receipts had been $12,415. Since then there have been added seven more Digitized by Google
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364 What Glasgow is Doing for Her People. public laundries, and small wash-houses have been added to a number of the corporation tenements. The charge for the use of the stalls is four cents an hour, and this gives the worker two tubs, hot and cold water, a boiler, a wringer and the use of the drying closet; but oddly enough, if she wants to use a washboard she must pay a little more. The average use of the stalls for a family wash is two hours, and if the woman likes to use the steam mangle half an hour at the same rate she can take her clothes home dry and half ironed in two hours and a half at a cost of ten cents. For this she saves the cost of coal at home, the waiting for hot water, the difficulty of diying, the moiling over inefficient appliances, and all the unsanitary conditions which follow doing washing in a small apartment. Nor need she neglect the children for whom she so often toils. Those not large enough to go to school can be taken with her to the wash-house, and I saw a number of such babies in their mothers9 clothes-baskets or running around in great glee. The gain to the individual woman or family is not alone to be con- sidered. The value to the community of having washing done under wholesome conditions and of the increased self- respect of the worker using the best of modem appliances, cannot be estimated; while the value of cooperation is demon- strated in this as in all branches of human effort where it has had a fair trial. LODGINGS AND TENEMENTS. One of the most important phases of public improvement to which the city Corporation has turned its attention is the better housing of the poor. When the Corporation set itself to this problem it had to deal not only with the ordinary difficulties, but with the fact that an Improvement Trust had bought up most of the available property in the districts of the thickly-crowded poor, with a view to putting up model lodging-houses on which the Trust hoped to get a good rental. It erected seven, but not finding as good a market as was desired it allowed the rest of the property to remain in its former unwholesome condition. The city sent its Health Officer after the Trust and after the owners of what may be called the slum lodging-houses so vigor- ously that these became less profitable, and the Trust parted with some of its land to the city and resumed its own building. The Corporation does not interfere with the ordinary tenement, but any dwelling-house with a capacity of less than two thousand cubic feet comes within the province of the Sanitary Inspector to ticket it with a card showing the number of persons that may be allowed to sleep there, 400 cubic feel being the standard space allowed to every individual residing in a ticketed house. Each Inspector has six assistants whose duty it is to keep an eye on these houses and they may enter them at any hour of the night. The common lodging-houses may not necessarily be “ticketed,” but must be registered, and are subject to sanitary regulations and police inspection. One of the regulations is that the upper sashes of windows must be made to open. The washout closet is obligatory and the owner of the building must provide adequate and convenient closet and sink accommodations. Whoever has investi- gated the condition of the slums in our large cities knows how far they are from coming up to these requirements, while there is no class of property which pays its owner so high a rental as “ the slum.” The final responsibility for the sanitary condition of a neighborhood is thrown upon the citizens; for any four house- holders dwelling near the street on which there is an unsanitary dwelling can compel the medical officer to report the same, and if the owner does not comply with the instructions of the Health Com- mittee the place is closed as a nuisance. Four persons may in like manner prevent the erection of an “ obstructive ” building, — that is, one that would stop ventilation or otherwise be injurious to health. Digitized by Google
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365 What Glasgow is Doing for Her People. This is a very important proviso where the population is so dense that what is known as “the back lands/’ the yards back of the houses, are built upon almost as closely as the streets. In Glasgow there were at the last census 69,000 two-room apartment-houses and 36,000 houses constructed in one- room apartments; and in these two kinds of homes 439,598 persons lived. It was found that the amount of infectious disease was fourteen per cent, greater in the one-room apartments than in those on the two-room plan. As hospital service has to be provided for the sick, poor-houses for the dependent, and jail accommodation for the vicious, it is a matter of concern to all how any part of the population is sheltered. “ Crime closely dogs the footsteps of poverty, poverty follows hard on the trail of drunkenness or disease; and these lurk where the population is packed in ill- ventilated and dismal dwellings.” The poet asks: uIs it well that while we range with Science, glory- ing m the Time, City children soak and blacken soul and sense in city slime?*' The question of decent housing of the poor lies in the answer to the question whether sanitary dwellings can be erected and rented at a rate not exceeding on the average ten per cent, of the laborer’s wages, which it is found is aU he can pay and maintain a family, and still bring in a fair profit to their owners. This is the question which Glasgow is answering in die affirmative. The Corporation began with three blocks of apartment houses in different localities. One in the center of the city was composed of one-room apartments which were rented for thirty-six and one-fourth cents per 1,000 cubic feet weekly. Farther away from the center, but still in the business portion, was one of these houses made more attractive by having a balcony all mound. It had both classes of apart- ments which rented for twenty-nine cents a week per 1,000 feet. A man with two other adults in his family and four children under ten would legally require 2,000 cubic feet. He would therefore have to pay fifty-eight cents a week which is well under ten per cent, of the average wage of the working man. Block number three contained fifteen homes of each class. The single rooms, having 1,379 cubic feet, rented for forty-nine cents a week; the double room apartments for seventy-five. Balconies, a closet for each two tenants, and a wash-house for each eight, made these very comfortable abodes. All of these houses are self-supporting, sanitary, convenient, even attractive, yet they rent at a price within the paying capacity of any person having any kind of an em- ployment, and pay two and three-fourths per cent, interest on the investment and one-half per cent, for contingent ex- penses. It has been claimed that when the municipality does so much for the citizen it stops private effort, but this is not justified by the experience of Glasgow. Since the Corporation put up its first tenements the Improvement Trust has been more active; and the Toynbee Hall Association and the Glasgow Work- men’s Dwellings Company, both co- operative, have put up tenements with results nearly as favorable as the enter- prises of the Corporation. The co- operative companies are able to bring their one-room apartments just under the ten per cent, of the wage limit, and their two-room apartments about nine cents a week over the limit. Private proprietors of lodging-houses are governed by the law of supply and demand, the invariable rule of the capitalist. It is, however, often most fallacious from the ethical point of view, as in this case. Houses of this small class are no longer built in these localities and the demand exceeds the supply. The question is not, then, as with the city, how much can the laborer afford to pay and still maintain his family in comfort, but how much can be wrung Digitized by Google
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366 What Glasgow is Doing for Her People. out of him without squeezing him to death ? The result is that the tenant of the private landlord pays for his dreary abode over fifty cents per 1,000 cubic feet, while the one who rents from the city and has far better sanitary conditions, pays twenty-nine cents, and the Toynbee Hall tenant thirty-four. MUNICIPAL LODGING-HOUSES. Beside its apartment-houses the city has several lodging-houses to meet tempo- rary needs of the homeless and unem- ployed. I visited two, one for men and one for women. In the former 365 men were accommodated for seven, nine or thirteen cents a night, according to the grade of berth or alcove. In the latter there were 248 women charged for the same style of beds six, seven and eight cents per night, a little less because of the care which women would take of their rooms. In each case there was everything necessary for existence and health. The rooms were locked up during the day, but there were large rooms where the lodgers could remain and read or work, kitchens where they could prepare their food, and stores where they could obtain the smallest quantity of food at whole- sale prices. This last is most important as it brings the cost of living to the lowest point, yet each person pays for what he gets. Men to enjoy themselves and . be enjoyable must be fortunate. When out of luck too long they become despondent, cowed, and sullen. Their condition is really more hopeless than that of women, for of the applicants registered in the Labor Bureau of Glas- gow nearly three times as many women as men are successful in obtaining em- ployment. In the men’s living-room it was a surly group, but in the women’s kitchen the inmates were cheerily at work washing their clothes and cooking their food; and a cat, petted first by one and then by another, completed the domesticity of the scene. In the living- room the women were mending and knitting or dressing dolls to order. MUNICIPAL STREET-RAILWAYS. It was a new departure for the munici- pal government when it undertook the working of Corporation tramways in 1894. However, the city had constructed the lines in 1870 and had leased them to the Glasgow Tramway and Omnibus Company for twenty-three years dating from July, 1871. For the use of the lines the lessees paid: First, interest on the city’s expenditure for construction; second, a mileage rate; third, a sinking- fund sufficient to amount during this period to the full value of the tramways; fourth, a fund for the renewal of Per- manent Way. These sums amounted in round numbers exclusive of the sinking fund to $2,185,545, so that the city was reimbursed for its full expenditure and received about $95,000 clear profit from merely owning without operating the tramways However, the company had made a handsome profit also and would gladly have renewed the lease, beginning negotiations to this end five years before it expired. Meanwhile the citizens had taken great interest in the subject. It was a question of pounds, shillings and pence which they were able to grasp. It was made a test question in the elec- tions of ’90 and ’91, and the proposition that the Corporation should operate the tramways carried. The city proposed to take the company’s equipment at a fair valuation, but the company insisted on its right to run opposition omnibuses, and the Corporation was obliged to provide the entire equipment of the tracks. Under the new management fares were at once reduced; one-cent fares were adopted for half-mile stages; the length of penny stages was increased ; the hours of labor were shortened; and uniforms were furnished employes at the expense of the city. Notwithstanding all this and the further fact that the old Company was running 175 opposition omnibuses, the decrease of fares *so popularized the service that the credit balance of the Tramway Committee at Digitized by Google
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S67 What Glasgow is Doing for Her People. the end of the year was over $100,000. After deducting a reserve fund for re- newal of Permanent Way and writing off $45,000 capital stock to make up for depreciation, the net fund to place to the “ Common Good” was $41,300, as against a net revenue during the preced- ing year of $£8,300, and an average for the total years of the lease of $13,830. The question: “ Will it pay?” was never more emphatically answered. The sum to be added to the Common Good would have grown larger year by year, but the Corporation fixed $45,000 as the regular annual sum which should thus be counted into that fund, throwing the balance into the funds of sinking, depred- ation and reserve. The net revenue in- creased each year until in 1900 it was over $636,000. Within five years from the time the Corporation began operating the tramways it had reduced the city’s debt more than a million dollars by applying the sinking fund to it while the fund of the Common Good had been promotive of numbers of enterprises for the benefit of the people. The reports show that almost each year fares have been reduced and wages increased. That of 1897 specifies that on account of the increase of salaries the expenses had been increased more than $36,000 a year. It also said that ninety-nine million trips had been made during the year, which if paid for at the rates charged by the former lessees would have cost the public $900,000 more than they did under the Corporation management. In the last few years, notwithstanding the extra expense of extending the tracks and making general the use of electric power, the net revenue has continued to increase, and the amount appropriated to the Common Good has been augmented. Fares have decreased and wages increased yearly, while the hours of employes have been shortened. As a final evidence that this Corporation has a soul, it has ordered that each employ^ who has been twelve months continuously in the service shall be allowed five days during the year. The Council encourages a Friendly Society among the employes by contributing two cents a week to its fund for each member of the Society. Employees who have become incapaci- tated for work, after being fifteen years in the Society, are eligible for an allowance from the fund. WATER, OAS, ETC. One of the greatest hardships the people of Glasgow formerly had to en- dure was the expensive, bad and insuffi- cient water-supply when it was dependent on private parties. Now the city brings the best water in the world by a water- works system, one of the largest and most costly ever constructed, from Loch Katrine, 150 miles distant. The price of water has been reduced one-half to the con- sumers and still the city makes a yearly profit of $300,000. The city owns and manages its own gas and electric-light plants. It fur- nishes gas for 53 cents per thousand cubic feet; electricity for $1.08 a year of seven hours a day for each eight-candle power lamp. Unlimited telephone ser- vice costs $37 a year; while limited is two cents a call. Education in Glasgow is free to all, even to the University, which has been co-educational for a number of years. It is compulsory up to the age of fourteen years, although if a child’s parents are poor and need his assistance and if he is sufficiently advanced to win what is called a Labor Certificate, he may leave school at the age of thirteen. The school system is supported by the rate- payers, and is assessed one-half upon the owner and one-half upon the occupier of the building. The rates are between eleven and twelve pence per pound rental, which are divided as stated. SCHOOLS. Beside the regular public schools and excellent reformatories, known as Home Schools, there are three industrial Day Schools for juvenile delinquents, which Digitized by Google
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368 What Glasgow is Doing for Her People. are for children who have homes but have given some evidence of having started on the down grade. Perhaps they have played truant, or begged on the streets, even if on the pretext of selling some- thing; or they are of vagrant habits or have been caught in bad company or in some petty offence. Any of these short- comings may bring them under the eye of the watchful Truant Officer, when they are sentenced to the Day School. They must be there early in the morning and have a bath and exercise before breakfast and prayers. The day is spent in work and study, half and half of each. They have a lot of good hard play, three hearty meals, and go home clean and tired after an early supper. The effect of these Day Schools upon the child is so good that in many cases he can be re- turned to the public schools within a month. The child is not separated from the family life, but daily takes to his poor home a new regard for order and au- thority, and the results of his ethical and industrial training. This has often a direct and marvelous effect in raising the tone of the whole family. The child who under our system is left to his own devices, or to the neglect of ignorant parents until he is so bad that we have to put him in the Reform School with its degrading stigma, is, under this wise treatment, not only saved but is an evangel in his own circle without becom- ing alien to it. The Day School is a sort of half-way house for the waifs on life’s highway, where they are rested, strength- ened and forwarded in the right direction. The excellent kindergartens attached make these schools available for the smallest child who can get into any kind of street mischief. MUNICIPAL PLAYGROUNDS. We are just beginning in this country to establish public playgrounds for chil- dren, but in most cases they are depend- ent upon private effort and contributions. Glasgow has had its playgrounds for twenty years and a sub-committee of the Council is on the watch to secure suitable spots in the crowded localities to open up for play places. As far back as 1893 the city parks and spaces amounted to 700 acres, of which about thirty acres were laid out in small plots in the most crowded and poverty-stricken localities. Six long- closed graveyards have been opened up and devoted to the gambolings of chil- dren; so that the dead by holding their last resting-places until humanity learned their best and most sacred use, have performed a real service to this and all coming generations and live again in the joyous laughter of the babes. The city has seven recreation grounds beside these, which have been bought and equipped at a cost of over $150,000. In the Phoenix playground, which will serve as an illustration of their gymnastic outfit, there are sixteen sets of swings, three giant strides, twelve see-saws, two parallel bars, three skipping poles, a horizontal ladder and a vaulting horse. A paid caretaker is employed in each play- ground. It is such wholesome and helpful expenditure as this, with enter- tainments such gs the Saturday After- noon Musical Recitals, the Free Museum and Art Galleries, the Winter Gardens, the Park Music, and the People’s Palace, open free to lectures, concerts, etc., which are made possible without increas- ing the taxation of the rate-payers, because the Corporation has applied to the fund, “ Common Good,” so large a proportion of its profits from owning and operating its street-railways and other utilities. It will especially appeal to the American reader that under the management of honest and paid employes of the unpaid Councilmen who consider it their highest honor to serve their fellow-citizens in a public capacity, and all of whom give personal supervision to the departments for which they are Committee members, each of these operations of the city government, except those which provide for health, diversion; and education, must pay for itself and contribute also Digitized by Google
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369 Direct-Legislation in Switzerland . something to the Common Good. Thus no class is benefited at a loss to another; no one is pauperized, or allowed to feel that he can have anything of utilitarian value which he has not earned or paid for. The whole people have chosen their servants, the City Corporation, who with this enlargement of their powers have developed a new civic conscience and sense of responsibility for the good of all. Every public utility is so conducted that it brings the profits into the Common treas- ury, which under ordinary private enter- prise go to swell the coffers of the monop- olist. Such in brief is the story of a city run according to the Golden Rule and struggling up to the realization of the highest municipal ideals. It is the twen- tieth-century’s answer to the question: “ Am I my brother’s keeper ? ” Claka Bewick Colby. Portland , Ore. SWITZERLAND AND HER IDEAL GOVERNMENT; OR, DIRECT-LEGISLATION IN THE * ALPINE REPUBLIC. By O. K. Hewes. GLADSTONE has said: « The Ameri- can Constitution is the greatest work struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose ofjnan,” and no denial of this notable statement is necessary. Nevertheless one is liable to get a false impression therefrom. So it is with M direct-legislation in Switzerland.” In the ordinary sense of the term, direct-legislation means popular law- making through the initiative and the referendum. But in the broad sense of the term, direct-legislation includes legis- lation by the various popular assemblies and other means of law-making in many ancient and modern states. In this latter sense, direct-legislation is an old institution in Switzerland. Moreover, the same can be said of other countries. Prof. E. A. Freeman, in his work, The Growth of the English Constitution , plainly declares that democracy is older than aristocracy or monarchy, that govern- ment by die people is older than govern- ment by a part of the people. By way of introduction, it may be well to say a few words about the geography and history of this nation. " Montani semper liberi”*—** the mountaineer is always free,” — is as well illustrated by the case of Switzerland as by that of any people. For Switzerland is the highest of the highlands of Europe and stretches the snow-white finger-tips of her moun- tains far up into heaven’s blue. And the Swiss have been less subject to foreign and domestic tyrants than perhaps any people that have ever been known. Switzerland is bounded on the north and east by Germany, on the south by Italy, and on the west by France; and is situated between latitude 45 degrees and 50 minutes and 47 degrees and 50 minutes north, and longitude 6 degrees and 10 degrees and 25 minutes east. Thus it has nearly the same latitude as the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Its area is 15,976 square miles, or a little more than one-third that of Ohio. The average area of a canton, or state, is about 700 square-miles, or one-half larger than an average Ohio county. There are twenty-two cantons; or, more strictly speaking, nineteen cantons and six half- cantons. The largest, Berne, 2,657 square miles; the half-canton, which consists of the town of Basle, the smallest, has only 14 square miles. Digitized by Google
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S70 Direct-Legislation in Switzerland . Its lowest elevation is 646 feet above the level of the sea. This is near Lake MaggioFe, in the south. Its highest n^ountain, Monte Rosa, is 15,217 feet high. Two- thirds of the surface of Switzerland consists of lofty mountain- chains and their fertile valleys. The remainder is a table-land 1,300 feet above the level of the sea. This table-land is mainly in the northwestern portion of the country and contains the bulk of the population and wealth of the nation. The Rhine bounds Switzerland partly on the east and north; the Jura moun- tains form a part of its western boundary and the summits of the Alps form a part of its southern boundary. As it was before the French Revolution, the country was a natural fortress. The St. Gothard is the central peak of the Alps; it is the great knot of those mighty mountain- chains. On its eastern slope rises the Rhine, born of glaciers; on its western slope, not far from the other source, springs the Rhone. The one feeds the Lake of Constance, the other feeds Lake Geneva. There are many other large and beautiful lakes in Switzerland, but these are the largest, and perhaps the most famous. The other rivers are com- paratively unimportant. The climate varies greatly in the dif- ferent sections with the altitude and the exposure. In Italian Switzerland winter lasts only three months; at Glams, four months; on the pass of the Great St. Bernard, nine months; and on the sum- mits, eternally. But in its habitable altitudes the climate is generally tem- perate, healthful and invigorating. Its mountains protect it in large measure from the cold winds of Russia, and from the hot winds of northern Africa. The cow is the chief of the domestic animals, — there are but few wild animals. Cheese and condensed milk are exported. It is true of the Swiss, as of their Teutonic ancestors of whom Caesar wrote, “Ger- man* maximum partem lade vivunt” Sheep and goats are pastured during the summer in the sloping pastures of the mountains. Switzerland has no sea- coast, no coal-mines or any other mines of much value. Hence, it is wonderful that the Swiss are becoming rich in their manufacturing and commerce, much of the latter being with foreign nations. But this is largely due to widespread and scientific industrial education, which forms an important part of their school- system. Textile goods, watches, jewelry, carving and other manufactures are ex- ported in considerable quantities. “Switzerland is the play-ground of Europe,” and not a few Americans have enjoyed its pleasures. The magnificent mountain-scenery, the beautiful lakes, the clear, bracing air, together with ex- cellent roads and hotels, make a rare combination of attractions. The people themselves, in their business and home- life, are very interesting to most travelers, especially to those who can speak the native tongues. German is spoken in the central and northern sections of the country; French in the West; and Italian in the South. Generally they are very conservative, very religious, and devoted to popular education and the preservation of their liberties. So both town and country are full of interest to the thoughtful observer. Mount Blanc, “The monarch of mountains, that crowned him long ago. On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds, with a diadem of snow,’* lies just across the Italian boundary. But within its own boundaries Switzer- land holds many famous peaks : the Jungfrau, the Schreckhom, Monte Rosa, and the Matterhorn. / But interesting and inspiring as are the natural beauties and attractions of this land, to us its political institutions, the manner of its self-government, are of surpassing interest. As politics are closely interwoven with history, a few words concerning the history of Switzer- land may be helpful. Tradition has it that the first inhabitants of the country were fugitives from Northern Italy, driven out about 600 B. C. by an invasion Digitized by Google
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S71 Direct-Legislation in Switzerland. of Gauls. But Julius Caesar is the first historian of Switzerland. He found them divided into four cantons, or tribes, one of which, the Tigurini, had previously, in 107 B. C., defeated and slain a Roman consul, and had sent his army under the yoke. Caesar found them prosperous and ambitious to get more renown and more territory. Subdued by this literary conqueror, Helvetia remained a province of Rome as long as the Empire stood; after which it was overrun by Vandals from the Vistula and the Oder and was made a part of their kingdom of Bur- gundy. Other tribes, some from Ger- many and some from Gaul, made settle- ments in the land in these early times. From 550 A. D. to about 870 A. D. it was under the dominion of Gaul, or France. Then another kingdom of Burgundy was formed, with Switzerland as one of its parts, and stood for nearly two hundred years, when Emperor Conrad H. of Germany became by bequest the ruler of its peoples. His successors ruled Switzer- land for two hundred years, at the end of which time it was broken up into petty sovereignties During this feudalists stage of society the people were not, for the most part, burdened by their rulers, their lieges being protectors more than rulers. But at the beginning of the fourteenth century, Albert, the son of Rudolph of Hapsburg, succeeded to the rule of Switzerland. He shamefully op- pressed the people. Switzerland at that time consisted of Schwyz, Uri and Unter- walden. They had been leagued to- gether for many years, it is said, but in 1291 the articles of union were first re- duced to writing, in Latin. So this con- federation has been called “The eternal league of 1291.” The American Union consisted originally of thirteen states ; the Swiss Confederation of three. So the people had learned how to act together against their enemies; and soon, after the careful deliberation of mountaineers, the men of these three forest cantons arose and drove out the emperor’s villainous governors and deputies and tore down their castles. This was the time of William Tell. Some writers regard the story of Tell as a myth, but the Swiss universally reverence his name and yearly celebrate his heroic deeds. An imperial army was sent to subdue them a few years later, at Mogarten in 1815, but it was put to flight and Switzerland became a free and independent nation. Each of these three cantons practiced direct-legislation; the supreme power was retained by the people. It was a young government in more than one sense, as all males over fifteen years were voters. In the celebrated democracies of Greece and in Rome only the free citizens were voters, and there were several times as many slaves as citizens. But slaves could not live in the free air of Switzer- land. There was a Council of Regency and a Landamman, but the laws were enacted and delegates to the Federal Diet were chosen by the Landesgemeinde. In the Federal Diet these delegates voted “ad referendum” on all important meas- ures, as the legislation of the Diet had to be referred to the several cantons. Thus arose the term “ referendum.” The other important business also of each canton was transacted by the Landesgemeinde or yearly open-air assembly of all the voters. This institution had probably then existed for many centuries. There is abundant evidence that the early Germanic tribes had such a town-meet- ing. Tacitus, the Roman historian, writing about the year 100 A. D., thus describes it: “ For the lesser affairs the chiefs make the plans; for the greater, the whole [assembly]; yet so that these matters also which are decided by the people are [first] discussed by the chiefs. They come together, unless something unex- pected and sudden happens, on certain days when the moon is new or full; for they believe this to be the most auspicious circumstance for beginning business. . . . It is a fault arising from freedom, that they assemble, not all at the same time Digitized by Google
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372 Direct-Legislation in Switzerland. nor [as ordered] at the appointed time, but both the second and die third day is spent in the delay of assembling. As it pleases the crowd, they sit armed. Silence is commanded by the priests, who at this time have the power to enforce their commands. Presently the king or a chief, according to their age, or nobility, or warlike renown, or eloquence, are heard, because of their ability to persuade more than their power to command. If the opinion expressed is displeasing, they reject it with a roar; but if it is pleasing, they rattle their spears. The most honorable method of approval is to applaud with arms.” The mountain Swiss alone have been able to follow this good old way through all the changing centuries. To this day, in the four cantons of Uri, Unterwalden, Glams and Appenzell, the institution still lives. It is a magnificent object lesson in pure democracy. On some Sunday in the spring, after attending church services, the voters gather in some grassy spot with their weapons at their side. The meeting is opened with silent prayer. The business is then presented and dispatched soberly in a few hours. There is usually but little discussion. In 1332 Lucerne joined the three can- tons; Zurich came in 1351; Zug and Glams in 1352; and Berne in 1353. The league thus enlarged maintained itsv independence for 128 years, having in 1386 defeated Duke Leopold HI. in the famous battle of Sempach. One of our poets has sung of this fight and its principal hero, Arnold Winkelried. In the years from 1481 to 1798, this brave and prudent league maintained its inde- pendence against powerful nations on the North and the South, and added five more cantons to its number. The cantons had bloody disputes as a result of the preaching of Zwingli of Zurich, Luther, and later, of John Calvin of Geneva. Several years before Luther nailed his ninety-five dieses to the church- door of Wittenberg, Zwingli preached the gospel in Switzerland. Zurich and Geneva not only became headquarters for the Protestants of Switzerland, but also asylums for the persecuted of other lands. The first English edition of the Bible was printed, not in England, but in Zurich, in 1535. John Knox was one of the many illustrious exiles who found a temporary home in Geneva. At the close of the Reformation. Uri, Schwyz, Zug, Unterwalden, Freibourg, Valais, Inner Appenzell and Soleure dung to their ancient Catholic faith; while Bone, Zurich, Geneva, Schaffhausen. Outer Appenzell and Neuchatel became Protest- ant more or less completely. And the situation in this respect has changed but little since that time. Almost the whole of the eighteenth century Switzerland had rest from foreign foes and its domestic quarrels were less bitter. But in 1798 die French Rev- olution overthrew the government of the littie mountain confederation. The French Directory not only overpowered the Swiss in battle, but also forced upon them a new French system of centralized, representative government But the coat did not fit and in 1803 Napoleon, who had become the master of France, allowed the restive cantons to resume much of their old self-government He also added three new cantons to the confederation: St. Gall, Grisons and Ticino. And three new cantons were carved out of the old ones: Aargau, Thurgau and Vaud. After Napoleon had lost his mastery, not only of foreign states, but also of France itself by the battie of Waterloo, the con- gress of Europe at Vienna gave to Switzer- land its present boundaries by adding three more cantons: Geneva, Valais, and Neuchatel. All these had long been allies of the Confederation, but never members. At the same time the ancient political order was largely restored, so that each canton was practically inde- pendent. The condition was very much like that of the thirteen original states of our Union, under the Articles of Con- federation. Digitized by Google
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S7S Dired-Legislation in Switzerland. In 1830 great changes began to take place in the governments of the cantons, largely as a result of the French Revolution of that year. In that year St Gall pro- vided for a popular veto of cantonal laws, which was much like the referendum. The other cantons took up the idea, and in a short time the institution spread throughout the country. The cantonal legislatures were made elective. But the Roman Catholic cantons openly opposed this new order of things and in 1847 seceded from the Confederation and formed a new league, called the Sonder- bund. The other cantons, in a short, sharp war of a few weeks, overpowered the Sonderbund and forced its cantons back into the Confederation. The war of the Sonderbund showed plainly the need of a stronger government for Switzerland. So in 1848 the twenty- two cantons adopted a constitution model- ed after that of the United States and so formed a union and became one nation. Since 1848 the political progress of Switzerland has been rapid and satis- factory. By the year 1874 a majority of the cantons had established direct-legis- lation. Eleven had established the refer- endum and four had retained the Landes- gemeinde. So that very naturally in that year, when a new federal constitution was adopted, the referendum was made a part of the compact. 30,000 voters, or eight cantons, may by petition require the submission of any or all sections of the constitution, unless the matter is declared to be urgent. There is little distinction between constitutional and statutory law. The constitution adopted in 1874, and still in force, differs from the earlier mainly in giving more power to the federal government. There is the usual division of powers into three branches, legislative, executive and judicial. But the distinction between these is not very plain in some cases. The national legis- lature overshadows the other two branches and exercises some of the powers assigned them under our constitution. There are two legislative bodies: The Council of States, composed of two members from each whole canton and elected for varying terms, 44 members in all, and the National Council, chosen by the voters for three years’ service according to population. In 1895 it consisted of 147 members elected from 52 districts. These two bodies constitute the Federal Assembly. There is no one-man power in Switzer- land. Even in the executive department they have a board instead of one man. This board is called the Federal Council and consists of seven members chosen for a term of three years by thfe Federal Assembly. The chairman of the Council is by courtesy called the President of Switzerland. He holds this position among his colleagues for one year only. The national judiciary is a small and, in some important respects, a weak body. It is called the Federal Tribunal and its members are chosen by the Federal Assembly for terms of six years. It con- sists of fourteen active judges and four- teen substitutes. Its headquarters is not Berne, the national capital, but Lausanne in the canton of Vaud. This is an illus- tration of the national dread of concen- tration of power. This supreme judicial body, if such it may be called, has not the power to pass upon the constitutionality of the acts of the Federal Assembly. In general, the national government has less power than that of the United States. The cantons retain a large part of the control of the national army and of taxa- tion. As with us, the schools are con- trolled by the several cantons. Except for foreign affairs, the custom-house, the postal, the telegraph and the railway services, the alcohol monopoly, the poly- technic schools, and the arsenals, the national government has scarcely any direct executive powers, but acts in the way of inspection and supervision. But one important amendment has been made to die constitution, — in 1891 the initiative was engrafted upon the fundamental law by popular vote. 50,- 000 citizens can propose any desired law or amendment Digitized by Google
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S74 Direct-Legislation in Switzerland . At present seventeen cantons have the initiative, at least for amendments to the constitution, which is of greatest import- ance. Seventeen of the twenty-two can- tons have the referendum, either optional or obligatory, both in constitutional matters and in statutory laws. It is obli- gatory in fourteen, of which the large canton of Zurich is one. Four cantons, as has already been noted, retain the Landes- gemeinde. So twenty-one out of twenty- two cantons have some form of direct- legislation. What are the results of the referendum ? Prof. Parsons, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts of Ruskin University, says: “ Fifty years ago Switzerland was more under the heels of class-rule than we are to-day: political turmoil, rioting, civil war, monopoly, aristocracy and oppres- sion,— that was the history of a large portion of the Swiss until within a few decades. To-day the country is the freest and mqst peaceful in die world. What has wrought the change ? Simply union and the referendum — union for strength, the referendum for justice.” The press has been elevated; the pro- vision for public education has been maintained so well that now Switzerland pays more per capita for education than any other country of Europe. Through the referendum, monopoly has been over- thrown and the railways have become public property; the telegraph, the tele- phone, the postal business and the ex- press service under public-ownership have become the best in existence. The mail is delivered everywhere. If you receive money by postal-order, the carrier puts the cash in your hand. Lyman Abbot’s journal. The Outlook , of New York, referring to the strong words of approval of eminent observers like the Hon. Boyd Winchester, ex-Minister to Berne, and Sir F. O. Adams, English Minister to Berne, says: “ Apparently there is no conflict in the testimony.” Experience has completely silenced the objection that the system is cumbersome or too expen- \ sive in time and money. There has been no flood of hasty legislation. Taking New Jersey as a typical member of the American Union and Berne as a typical Swiss state (it is one-third the size of New Jersey), the United States per capita pass sixty laws for every one passed by the cantons of Switzerland. And the referen- dum has seldom been used. The mere possession of the right to veto or approve legislation is generally enough to protect public interests. In the twenty years from 1874 to 1894, the Swiss Federal Assembly passed one hundred and seventy- five laws, only nineteen of which were called to the polls by the referendum. Eight amendments to the constitution were also passed and two more were brought forward by the initiative. So in the twenty years the people of the whole nation voted on twenty-nine questions qnly, ten of which were constitutional amendments. Sixteen of the laws and amendments were rejected and thirteen were approved. . Every one of the ques- tions received remarkably lengthy con- Mderation and calm discussion, the like of which is yet unknown in the United States. In the cantons the record is similar, as noted above in the comparison of Berne and New Jersey. The radicals of Swit- zerland are now inclined to oppose the referendum, claiming that it is too con- servative. Direct-legislation has destroyed the senseless partisanism that now curses America. In the sense in which we use the term, there are no political parties in Switzerland. There are no national com- mittees nor elaborate cantonal organiza- tions. The political “boss” and his machine are not known and the dema- gogue is lean. The three parties, so- called, are natural divisions of thinking men. In the Federal Assembly they are known as the Right, or Clericals; the Center or Conservatives; the Left, or Radicals. The members of the Federal Council, which is the national executive, enjoy practically life-tenure, being re- elected again and again, because of the Digitized by Google
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Emerson’s lack of partisanism. The Swiss are able to distinguish between men and measures. Knowing that experience is especially valuable in public service, and not being at the mercy of their office-holders, they keep them in service year after year, though often disapproving of their work. Garfield said: “All free governments are party governments.” The experience of Switzerland contradicts this popular theory. The truth seems to be that when an electorate becomes practically and actively supreme by the abolition of the “Brahma.” 375 law-making monopoly, makes its legis- lators counselors instead of lords, the voters have but little use for the party organization, and the unpatriotic lobbyist, the boodler and the blackmailer can no longer make use of it. The inability of the legislature to betray its constituents, under direct-legislation , the inability to “ deliver the goods,” makes the party un- necessary for the public protection and useless to the public plunderer. O. K. Hewes. Medina , Ohio. EMERSON’S “BRAHMA”; OR, THE POET-PHILOSOPHER IN THE PRESENCE OF DEITY. By Harvey Whitefield Peck. 44 If the red slayer think he slays. Or if the stain think he is shun, Ther know not well the subtle ways I keep, and pass, and turn again. Far or forget to me is near; Shadow and sunlight are the same. The vanish’d gods to me appear. And one to me are shame and fame. They reckon ill who leave me out; mien me they fly, I am the wings, I am the doubter and the doubt. And I the hymn the Brahmin sings. The strong gods pine for my abode. And pine in vain the sacred Seven; But thou, meek lover of the good! Find me, and turn thy bade on heaven.** WHO THOU art, indeed, that dost voice thyself in this poem of Emerson’s it is difficult to say. For thou, who art unlimited by time and space art also elusive of language. In thy sight near and far, the shadow and the sunlight, shame and fame, are not distinguished. Thou art the one in whom all extremes meet, all differences are reconciled. What, in sooth, shall we name thee who dost tease philosophers out of thought as doth eternity ? Were it not for Mr. Mansel we might call thee First Cause; but no, thou art Being, Motion, Idea, Substance, Monad, Will, Law, the Absolute, God — the great and infinite force behind all things. What thou art in thy entirety I cannot know. “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, behold thou art there. If I take the wings of the morn- ing and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,” still art thou there. Thou art infinite, eternal, unchangeable, perfect. Is it possible for me to know thee in the least? By us mortals all knowledge is acquired by classification and differentia- tion. The basis of classification is the perception of certain attributes which members of other groups possess, but which members of this group do not. In other words, the first step towards knowing what a thing is, is to know what it is not. Thou art infinite and eternal; there is no attribute wanting to thee, so thou must be the Unknowable. What right, in truth, have I to use the second personal pronoun in thy designa- tion? For thou canst not have person- Digitized by Google
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S76 Emerson9 8 “Brahma” ality. Personality is limited by time and space, and implies volition. And will itself implies a desire to be something one now is not, to do something one now cannot, or to possess something one now has not. Or, in a word, will implies im- perfection. If we say: Yes, but thy volition is not like our volition or thy personality like our personality, then we are using terms in a significance with which experience has not clothed them. We are speaking in vain words and empty metaphors. Yet vain would it appear after all our searching to find that we can hope merely to be “ intelligent about the Unknowable.” It is true we cannot grasp thee in thy entirety. Thou art too great. We may box the whole compass of existence and still not apprehend thee. Thou art the sum of all things — past, present and to come. “A thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.” Yet we mortals are able to know in part and to perceive in part. The parts that any two of us may perceive or understand may not exactly coincide, but what we see and perceive is not unreality but only part of reality. Though we cannot know thee entire, the great spirits of the world have sought thee in all ages. ' “The strong gods pine for my abode; And pine in yam the sacred Seven.” The seven wise men sought thee by the way of truth, and to them thou wert a vast enigma. The soul of the prophet thirsted for thee; his tears were his meat day and night, but him thou left desolate. The poet sought thee by the way of the beautiful, and to him thou wert the “ sacred mystery of the universe.” Many have sought thee in vain; but they reckon ill who leave thee out. Some have considered thee as a great ocean of spirit from which, through the clouds that darkly envelop the begin- nings of life, we have come as drops of rain, and whither we shall again return. Men of later years have held that thou, the Absolute, dost live in miniature in every particular object and in every personality. It is a belief in the micro- cosmos or world-in-little, as representing that microcosmos which we cannot know by reason of its vastness. “Flower in the crannied wall, Ipluck you out of the crannies; — Hold you here, root and all, in my hand; Little flower, but if I could underhand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is.” So also art thou, the Absolute, found in each human spirit. Thou, they say, art manifested in three ways — by Beauty, Truth, and Goodness. So also each normal human consciousness has these three great tendencies — to discover and respond to that which is true and good and beautiful. If the great force behind all things is love, which is the message of revelation and inspiration, that again is the greatest power in the life of an in- dividual. Can it be that the great secret we may come to know by searching in the labyrinths of our own hearts and those of others, and like Hawthorne’s Cranfield, find the mystery sufficiently revealed in that which is near at hand ? Profound, indeed, is the significance of the last two lines: “But thou, meek lover of the good! Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.” By heaven we understand each one’s ideal of circumstances. It may be a happy hunting-ground, an abundance of things to eat, five hundred wives, a palace by the sea-shore, or worldly honor and power. But when the meek follower of the good comes to conceive a society of brotherly men under the guidance of "an eternal not ourselves that makes for righteou. :ess,” he follows this new and greater good and turns his back upon what formerly to him was heaven. Harvey Whitefield Peck. Oberlin, Ohio . Digitized by Google
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Photo, by L. Atman & Co., New York. WOLSTAN R. BROWN Thi Arina Digitized by Google
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MUNICIPAL-OWNERSHIP AND LEAGUE ORGANIZATION. By Wolbtan R. Brown. IT IS generally admitted that if each municipality owned and controlled for its citizens the gas, electric-light and street-railroad franchises, and these were managed honestly and economically, the cost of light, gas and car-service would be greatly reduced. It is a well-known fact that, without exception, municipal cor- poration securities are watered, — that is, the bonds and stock are issued for a very much larger amount than the cost of the original properties, and that is the sole reason why gas, electric-light and street- railroad service is maintained at so high a cost in this country, notwithstanding the enormous increase in population. This increase has greatly reduced the proportional cost of production each year, but the result to the consumer has not changed materially, for the reason that additional securities are issued by such corporations, absorbing the in- creased income. There have been two difficult prob- lems to solve before the question of municipal-ownership could be considered from a fair standpoint: First: The method of purchase, on a basis fair to the present innocent holders and just to the citizens of the munici- palities who may purchase these public corporations. Second: The management of these corporations after they have become the property of the municipality. The first question I believe I have successfully solved. For the second I offer a solution. I would purchase the street-railroad, gas and electric-light properties on a basis that would pay to the present holders the exact value of such properties as ascertained, say on the first of January, 1905. In nine cases out of ten it would be a very easy matter to ascertain these values, as quotations are now made for nearly all the stocks and bonds that are issued connected with these public cor- porations. But it will be urged that I am advocat- ing the purchase by the citizens generally of the watered securities from which certain individuals have reaped enor- mous profits. That is true; but we have started out to be fair in this process of purchase, and aside from condemnation and taking over under the right of eminent domain — which would, I think, evoke such a storm of opposition and so much litiga- tion as to render such acquisition well- nigh impossible — the only other means of acquiring public corporations would be by building in opposition. This would not be fair and in the end would not pay. These corporations can be purchased so that no innocent holder will lose any- thing by the purchase, and at the same time the general public will acquire them without cost in this way. The average interest paid for loans, whether in the form of temporary obligations or bonded indebtedness, is five per cent. This is about as low a rate of interest as money can be borrowed at by this class of cor- poration. On the other hand, if these public corporations become the property of the municipality and the municipal securities are issued for them, this money can be had at three per cent, or less. My method of absorbing these proper- ties, so that in the end they will cost the citizens of the municipalities which buy them nothing, is this: We will suppose that the securities of the electric-fight, gas and street-railroad corporations of a certain town are valued at $1,000,000, and that they are paying five per cent, on that amount of money borrowed, — that is, $50,000 a year interest. These properties are purchased at that price by 377 Digitized by Google
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378 Municipal-Ownership and League Organization. the municipality and its bonds or guarantee are issued in place of the securities made by the corporations, and the rate of interest is reduced to three per cent., or $30,000 a year, leaving $20,000 a year saved at once by the purchase and owner- ship under the municipality. This sum of money compounded for twenty-five years would amount to $1,000,000. In other words, the transfer from private ownership to public ownership has created a saving that in twenty-five years would pay for the entire cost of these properties. I feel quite certain that long before that period the economies in the management and the increase in business will warrant a reduction in the price of public service, both for gas, electric-light and street- railroads. The second feature is a league that will lead to many ramifications which eventually will help to dispose, more thoroughly than any other one institution in this country, of the graft in municipal management and city government. This plan is to establish a municipal league, having branches in each city of the United States, with the head office either at Washington or some convenient point that may be chosen, where once a year a representation from each municipality shall meet for general business, and where every day reports from the manage- ment of each municipality shall be forwarded, so that the average cost of management in each city will be on hand at the general office, and the cost of running these plants will be definitely known. In that case, if any governing body, by either recklessness or graft, undertakes to mismanage or steal from the public corporation, the head office will at once be aware of it, and through the system of the league the citizens of that municipality shall be thoroughly informed before election, so that at the next election an honest administration may be elected. This league, primarily organized to concentrate the attention of the citizens of each municipality in the United States on the feasibility of public corporation ownership, shall eventually be a league of the reasoning and upright citizens of each town for the purification of politics. Some statistician has said that eighty per cent, of our population are poor, fifteen per cent, in moderate circum- stances, and five per cent, may be classed among the well-to-do and rich. Without statistics it may be fairly stated that not one per cent, of our population is in- terested in the ownership of the municipal gas, electric-light and street-railroad securities which are watered and from which are wrung the nickels of the other ninety-nine per cent. Why should a poor man, or a man in moderate circum- stances, be compelled to step up to the office of the public corporation each day of his life (and in addition, perhaps, his wife, son and daughter, — say, four mem- bers of his family), and pay fifty per cent more than is necessary to the one per cent, who are watering the public-service corporations year after year, when a remedy is at hand ? Let us take as an example a family of four members, living in the city of New York, and using the elevated or surface cars to and from work daily. This means the daily expendi- ture of forty cents by this family on every working day, and the whole family would generally spend at least an equal amount on Sunday for similar service. Here is a contribution of forty cents per day from this family to a corporation which ought to be owned by the public, and to which it would not be necessary to pay more than one-half of this amount were it owned under the plan suggested above. There are in greater New York, we will say, on an average of 500,000 such families which would mean a saving of $100,000 per day, or $36,500,000 per year to the citizens of the city of New York. The same family is using gas at one dollar per thousand cubic feet which could be profitably sold at fifty cents, provided the original cost of the plant was elimi- nated. Here again we have a saving of fifty per cent, on a single item in the daily Digitized by Google
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Munudpal-Ownership and League Organization. 379 expenses of the family, — an amount which in the course of the year would aggregate many millions more to the citizens of New York. I have laid considerable stress on the saving that can be figured out, but there will be a saving due to honest administra- tion, which may be obtained through the league, that will amount to many times the saving that appears on the surface. It is a well-recognized fact that graft is a prominent feature every year in all work undertaken by municipal governments. If a united league covering the cities of the United States, with a head office as suggested, is supplied with statistics and figures, so that when a municipality undertakes work of any character the cost of such work up to date can be obtained, the darkness that now surrounds such transactions would be replaced by light, and it would reduce the amount of stealing which now takes place in nearly every if not in every municipality. When we consider the amount of energy in talk that has been expended by the working-class man, by the middle- class man and by the rich man, who are not interested in public corporations, during the last fifty years on the subject of the “ devil-fish ” corporation, the “octopus,” the “grinding monopoly,” etc., etc., the energy that has been wasted on nearly every “ism” that can be thought of which has cropped out from time to time, and the small result that has come from those efforts, it is surprising, until we look beneath the surface and find that the one per cent, of the population is leading the ninety-nine per cent. What I mean by that is this: You talk to your neighbor and you find him a fairly sensible, level-headed man. He believes that public corporations are to a very large extent “blood-suckers.” He ought not to use that expression, as these corporations are organized under the law, and while they strictly have no right to issue stock without the property represented, yet it has been the unwritten law and one that is winked at by most of the judges before whom these cases of over-issue of securities come up from time to time. This neighbor believes there should be something done to stop the over-issue of securities and also some- thing done by which the cost of light and railroad service would be reduced in proportion as the population increases. You talk with your neighbor on the other side and he thinks about the same thing. Why is it, when the time comes for municipal action, that the ninety-nine per cent, of the population are defeated in their desire in this direction, while the one per cent, has the municipality in control, the corporation winning out both in regard to increased capitalization as well as the price at which these neces- sities should be maintained ? The ninety-nine per cent know that they have it in their power to elect whomever they may please, when they act against the one per cent. The trouble generally is that the one per cent, is the active, controlling element of our one hundred per cent, of population. The ninety- nine per cent, are content to trail along in anybody’s footsteps, but it is possible for the ninety-nine per cent, to institute a business form of management that will to a very large extent maintain itself without daily effort on their part, and which shall control the municipal situa- tion. The effort should be through a league such as I have suggested, by which all citizens shall act on public questions, to a great extent in unison. Let me give a specific example of the stock and bond-watering method that took place in the county in which I lived and in which for a time I was a figure. I bought the Passaic Lighting Company in 1898. I applied to Hie City Council of the city of Passaic a short time later, in opposition to the Passaic Light, Heat and Power Company, for the municipal lighting for a certain period. I was suc- cessful in getting the contract for the city lighting for the Passaic Lighting Com- pany, then a small plant which had cost me in the neighborhood of $20,000 and, Digitized by Google
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380 Municipal-Ownership and League Organization. was worth perhaps $10,000. After I had obtained the contract for the city lighting Mr. Hayes, then the owner of the Passaic Light, Heat and Power Company, con- cluded to sell that property, as he felt that with the city lighting in our hands and the influence that we had in Passaic, his chances were not going to be good for the future. I bought his property and con- solidated it with the first company, in- creasing the amount of bonds to cover the cost, as I remember it, of both proper- ties, leaving the stock as water. A year later I obtained control of the gas property and made a consolidation under which Senator Hobart, afterward vice-president of the United States, and his friends joined, creating a corporation of $500,000 bonds and $500,000 capital, under which on the gas property a large and modem lighting plant was erected. This, a little property of $20,000, had grown by consolidation and otherwise into a stock corporation of one-half million bonds and one-half million stock. A duplicate of this property at that time could have been elected, I presume, for less than one-half million dollars. Shortly after this Senator Hobart and his friends con- ceived the idea of the consolidation of the companies in Paterson and Passaic. In this consolidation the Passaic properties were put in at a million and a half; the Paterson companies were put in the same consolidation at more than one hundred per cent, increase over the original cost. I do not know the exact bonded floating and stock indebtedness of all these cor- porations consolidated, but I understand that it is in the neighborhood of $9,000,- 000. The whole thing could to-day be duplicated for about two millions. The public is not only called upon to meet the cost of running these plants, etc., but also the charges on an increased valuation of seven millions of dollars. The New York elevated system cost originally in the neighborhood of $7,000,- 000. It was stocked and bonded at once for $13,000,000, and in a consolidation this was increased to $26,000,000, the interest on all of which the public is called upon to bear in daily contribution. This is practically the history of every gas, water or street-railway enterprise in the United States. Corporations are the gift of the people, and yet the people stand by from year to year and allow themselves to be deluded into giving in- creased capitalization to the individuals running these corporations, and then are taxed as a result in an increased propor- tion from year to year to pay the interest necessary to meet the obligations of these corporations, because of their own com- plaisance. There are probably twenty million citizens in the United States who have thought this question over, who, reading this, will say a thousand times: “Yes, yes, we understand all this; but how can we change it ?w First, let us decide definitely on a programme that shall cover what is needed, and then decide on the manner of obtaining it. First: As to the question of the pur- chase of gas, electric-light and water properties, leaving the street-railroads for the future ; these properties to be bought under a plan of accumulating a surplus that shall take care of the municipalities. Let me emphasize the fact, which may not be appreciated unless the subject of interest is studied carefully, that the public, paying tribute to the corporation as it exists, is obliged to pay in addition to the cost of manufacture, five per cent, on the present price; but when the ownership has been transferred to the municipality, and the interest reduced to three per cent., there will be an actual saving which in itself will pay for these properties and under which the public will acquire ownership without ever having paid a dollar for the properties. Second: The organization of an inter- state City League that shall give moral and statistical aid as it may be needed in municipal work from time to time. The statistics gathered by the general office will be of immense aid in all public work. Digitized by Google
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381 Municipal-Ownership and League Organization . The league will have at hand and ready for service certain citizens for every municipality who shall respond to a call for their aid in cities where misrule has taken place. In other words, to be ex- plicit: If Paterson, New Jersey, elects to her council a majority who are dis- honest and disposed to increase the cost of operating public corporations, let high-priced contracts, etc., the league becomes aware of it at once; a warning is sent to the citizens of Paterson for the coming election, Paterson’s own citizens taking the hugest share in this, but to be materially assisted by men in various cities who have had a similar experience in their own municipalities. A week or two of rousing meetings in each ward, previous to election, during which the members of the council in office are held up in their true light, would result in the election of men who would be honest, capable, and the choice of the ninety- nine per cent. Third: A change in the laws. Many states provide for ownership of public corporations by municipalities; but in states that are controlled by railroad corporations, like New Jersey, the rights of the citizens have been abridged by the representatives of the controlling railroad corporations, so that municipalities may not do certain things which might prove awkward and inconvenient to these cor- porations. Under existing laws the mu- nicipalities in New Jersey have not the right to own or operate either gas or electric-light plants. The statutes should also cover more vigorous punish- ment of city officers who are found guilty of any of the various forms of graft. One of the trite expressions in medicine states that “the best way to cure a dis- ease is to remove the cause.” It is a fact recognized by those who study the munic- ipal question, that to remove the public- service corporations from the hands of small groups of over-rich citizens and place them in the hands of the people, will be to remove one of the greatest causes of corruption in our whole social system. Usually the citizen entrusted with an important municipal position by the electorate, especially when he comes from the poorer classes, is actuated by honorable motives when he assumes his duties. He does not think of being dis- honest. The probabilities are that men of his own class would be unable to make him dishonest. But he comes in contact with the president of a bank, a large merchant, or some other rich man whom he has heard of for years and respected. He is no sooner introduced to this distinguished citizen than he becomes aware that this man is the owner of a large interest in gas, electric- light or street-railroad companies, and that this man expects him to be in- fluenced in favor of some contract that is against the city’s interest. His natural inclination is to be honest and faithful to his trust. But here is this man whom he has respected and who tells him that it is part of the game to get something out of these corporations, that no one will know of it, and that under the cir- cumstances it is not dishonest, etc. That man is influenced by the dis- tinguished citizen to do something dis- honest, until he comes to look upon graft as a natural sequence. By removing the subtile but powerful influence of this small but wealthy class from control in corporations, as would be the case in the event of public ownership of public utilities, we would remove the chief source of this kind of demoralization in government; as under municipal-owner- ship of public utilities the bank presi- dents, merchants, financiers and other wealthy men would cease to have a personal interest in corrupting the peo- ple’s servants and they would then no longer wink at graft in city government. On the other hand, they would then naturally wish the officials to be honest, whereas before, when desiring special privileges, they have winked at dis- honesty when they have not directly promoted it. It is not enough, however, for a munici- Digitized by Google
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382 The Quaker and the Puritan. pality to secure its public utilities. Wisdom and tireless vigilance on the part of the people are essential to the enjoyment of the full measure of benefits, — such, for example, as are enjoyed by the citizens of English municipalities, where public-ownership has resulted in such an enormous increase in public revenue on the one hand and decrease in the cost to the public on the other. And this watchfulness is especially neces- sary in our own country, owing to the baleful influence which has been exerted by the respectable and leading citizens in establishing a reign of graft through which public servants have been seduced from allegiance to the interests of the electorate. If the post-office of each city were a law unto itself — that is, if it were operated independently of the central bureau — there would be grave danger of extensive demoralization, graft and corruption creeping into the department in many municipalities. In a very real sense eveiy post-office is under the careful supervision of the department, and when- ever anything suspicious comes to the attention of the watchful eyes at head- quarters, inspectors are sent to investi- gate the accounts of the office in question. Now a similar system, while it would be without authority, would, if all the cities joined together, have the same moral and practical effect in regard to the management of city affairs, particularly in regard to gas, water and street-railroad enterprises, and other public utilities owned and operated by the municipali- ties. Watchful statisticians at head- quarters would know the rise and fall of expenses of these corporations. They would receive copies of bids for new buildings, supplies, and everything else of that nature, and then if there appeared to be a discrepancy, investigation from the central office would be made at once, thus leading to publicity and a new election, as previously suggested. When these matters are left to one man, and when a city acts independently, the result is usually graft in one form or another; whereas in the hands of a com- mittee, especially under the supervision of a general committee, the danger of dishonesty is reduced to a minimum. What we need in this country is not spasmodic but permanent reform; a reform that under a City League, with a central clearing-house for information, would quickly revolutionize and purify our municipal government and in a reasonably short time place America in the forefront of the progressive nations, in so far as her municipal governments are concerned. Wolstan R. Brown. New York City . THE QUAKER AND THE PURITAN: A THRILLING PASSAGE IN COLONIAL HISTORY. Bt Charles Frederick Holder, LL.D., Author of The Pioneer Quakers, Life of Louis Agassis , etc. OUBTLESS there never has ex- isted a religious sect that had so warm a place in the hearts of all the people as the Friends or Quakers, the men and women and their descendants who fol- lowed George Fox. They were and are universally respected by all denomina- tions and tribes of men. If we look for a reason it is that the Friends lived up to their principles. Their doctrines in 1665 were two or three hundred years ahead of the times. They were the pioneers in modem culture, true humanity and virtue, and the equal Digitized by Google
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383 The Quaker and the Puritan. rights of man. They believed in sim- plicity of life and lived it. They kept their word — it was as good as their bond, and in all the history of the Friends it will be found that there was an almost complete lack of criminals, and the Friend in good standing was as near a perfect man or woman, according to the Christian standard, as it would be possi- ble to find. It is a sad fact that these people are passing away. In all England, where there are many distinguished Friends, there are but thirty thousand, and in this country the number in the last census was given as ninety-two thousand five hundred and fifty; and as the years go by a gradual loss is noticed. This number does not include the descendants of Friends, as they are as the sands of the sea, and it can be said that there is not a family in what was really the old Ameri- can aristocracy that has come down from pre-Revolutionary times in New York, Boston or Philadelphia, that is unallied with the Friends or Quakers. The coming of the Friends was a renaissance of culture and refinement, an epoch in civilization. This period was one of the most dra- matic in the history of our country, and singularly enough, the only monument these Quaker martyrs have, is a tomb at Shelter Island, erected by Prof. Eben Norton Horsford, of Harvard, to his an- cestor Nathaniel Sylvester, Christopher Holder, William Rous, Mary Dyer, George Fox, Copeland, William Leddra and other martyrs. The story of these early Friends reads like a gross exaggera- tion, as it is the story of a contest between ten or twelve men and women on one side armed with “ passive resistance,” and the Puritans, clergy and their law-making powers, — in fact all America of 1657, — on the other; yet the Quakers won. The seed of Quakerism was sown when the sensuous splendor of the Romanists found its most elaborate expression in the seventeenth century. The germ broke its bonds during the Protestant reforma- tion, and in succeeding years, like a cross sea on a troubled ocean, swept with singular force over Great Britain and the Colonies bearing the wreckage of intoler- ance to many shores. The doctrine of the Friends, or Quakers as they were called in derision, was the antipodes of the splendid formalism of the time and a reactionary result. The Puritans had fled to Holland, and later to America, to escape the gross intolerance of the era, and in 1657 we find the Friends “ experi- encing a call” to America to carry the Word to the Puritans and restore to Christianity its primitive spirituality and simplicity. For ten years the Friends had been active factors in England, and de- spite the aggressive tactics of their enemies had become an influential body and a thorn in the flesh to the Established Church and the Puritans. George Fox and Christopher Holder had tested many jails in England wherever they preached, and to the Puritan the Quaker had be- come a thing of evil to be plucked from the body-politic at all cost; hence when the ship “ Speedwell ” arrived in Boston Harbor with two Quakers on board con- sternation seized them, and there began a reign of terror which found few apolo- gists and can be explained only upon the ground that the spiritual and legal ad- visers of the Puritans represented the ignorance and bigotry of a period in which clergymen and men of supposed educa- tion accepted witchcraft and demonology as facts. Witchcraft and the crimes committed against the Quakers constitute two black pages in Colonial history. The former, widely known from its sen- sational aspect, has been condoned on the ground of fanaticism, but crimes against the first Quakers are passed over lightly by the historian who finds no excuse for them; hence they are little known except by the modern Friends who have the records of these early martyrs who were branded, scourged, mutilated, hung, ban- ished, robbed and despoiled in a manner only comparable to the acts of the In- quisitors of Spain. In 1655 Mary Fisher and Anne Austin Digitized by Google
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384 The Quaker and the Puritan. went to Barbadoes as missionaries of the Society of Friends, returning by way of Boston, where they were at once arrested as holding “very dangerous, heretical and blasphemous opinions,” confined in jail for five weeks, then shipped to England. Hardly had the “ Swallow ” left the harbor when the “ Speedwell ” dropped anchor off the little town whose homes were strewn along the shore of the bay. Among the ship’s passengers were eight men and women after whose names on the shipping list the master. Captain Robert Locke, had placed a significant “ Q ”. Those in- dicated were Christopher Holder, of Winterboune, John Copeland, Thomas Thurston, William Brend, Mary Price, Sarah Gibbons, Mary Weatherhead and Dorothy Waugh. The “Q” indicated that they were Quaker ministers; and when Bellingham, the deputy-governor of the colony, saw the list he ordered them searched and refused to allow them to land. Their books and pamphlets were burned, and later the Quakers were manacled and taken before Governor Endicott, who, in reply to their demands for cause of their arrest and detention, replied : “ Take heed that ye break not our ecclesiastical laws, for then ye are sure to stretch by a halter”; and after a frivolous examination he committed them to jail and finally banished them. The captain of the “Speedwell” was thrown into jail with them until he agreed to give bonds that he would carry the Quakers back. This he finally was coerced into doing, and after nearly two months in jail the Quakers were sent aboard ship under guard and the “Speedwell” sailed for England. The action of Governor Endicott was illegal and made many sympathizers for the Friends in Boston, who protested against it; but at this time the Puritan clergy was all-powerful; the Rev. John Norton and Rev. John Wilson, pastors of the first church of Boston, were so clamorous in their demands that Endicott readily took their advice, and acting on the suggestion, laws were enacted to pre- vent the coming into Massachusetts colony of Quakers. The first enactment was dated October 14, 1656. It was directed not only at Quakers, but pro- vided a fine for any colonist who should bring or aid them in any way. Thus began one of the most dramatic and in- teresting conflicts in history. The Colonial Puritan government, led by its priests, Norton and Wilson, and its gov- ernor, Endicott, reinforced by the ma- chinery of the law, on one hand, and eight Quakers, armed with the sense of conscientious duty and faith on the other. Never were forces more unequal arrayed one against the other. In justice to the Puritans it may be said that the status of human intelligence in the Colonies at this time was low. Fanaticism had its ex- ponents in governor and priests. Roger Williams, a man of high culture and in- telligence, had been banished in 1665, founding the liberal colony of Rhode Island, which became a refuge for the Quakers and other victims of Puritan orthodoxy. Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, Rev. John Wheelright, Samuel Gorton and others were also victims, having been driven out of the Colony. Witchcraft, demonology, for a century or more had been believed in by these people and their descendants, later reaching an acute stage. The Puritans, while seeking the shores of New England, where they could have religious liberty, represented an accentu- ated type of intolerance. The Colony was essentially religious, and the Puritans surrounded themselves by a maze of rules, regulations and methods of living that were diametrically opposed to the ideas of constitutional rights and freedom of speech, which the Quakers brought and who first planted on American soil the sovereign principles of liberty, freedom and equality. The Puritans stood for intolerance and their own religion; the Quakers for religious freedom and a be- lief that has stood the test of time in its simplicity, its beauty and its dose af- finity to the teachiiigs of Christ. The doctrine of Quakers, if it can be Digitized by Google
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385 The Quaker and the Puritan. called such, is well defined by Joseph John Gurney, who said : “ I should not describe it as die system so elaborately wrought out by Barclay, or as the doctrines, maxims of Penn, or as the deep and re- fined views of Pennington, for all these authors have their defects as well as their excellencies. I should call it the religion of the New Testament of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, without diminution, without addition, and without compro- mise.’9 This in itself was not greatly at variance with the views of the Puritans, but there was a conflict in interpretation of the Word. Again, they pretended to see mysticism in the peculiarities of the Friends, when they refused to swear, insisted upon wearing the hat in the pres- ence of officials, used “ thee ” and “ thou,” claimed to be equals of the king or gov- ernor as men and women. All these eccentricities and more were looked upon as menaces to the true religion as under- stood by the Puritan clergy, and they determined to rid the Colonies of the Quakers at whatever cost. As the “ Speedwell ” sailed, the Colonies were left without representatives of the Friends and the movement was apparently a failure; but the banished ministers, who had been robbed of all their baggage and conveniences by the jailer, immedi- ately began to plan to return, but upon their arrival in London no shipmaster could be found sufficiently courageous to carry them back. Endicott had caused his anti-Quaker laws to be published in England, and ship-masters carefully in- terrogated all would-be emigrants, re- fusing to admit any who were even sus- pected of sympathy with the hated sect. The Quakers were in a quandary, but relief came from an unexpected quarter. Some time previous, in the Holdemess district, a sea-faring man, named Robert Fowler, became identified with the Friends, and while Christopher Holder, who was a man of large private means, was en- deavoring to hire a vessel for himself and friends to take them to America, Fowler was following his avocation of ship-build- ing. He had a small craft on the ways half finished, when he became suddenly impressed that “ he should devote it to some purpose in furtherance of the Truth.” The theory of telepathy was unknown in 1657, but Robert Fowler launched his vessel, little more than a smack, christ- ened her the “ Woodhouse” and sailed her to London, where the impression coming strong again that his vessel was to ac- complish some great spiritual work, he sought out one Gerard Roberts, a ship- ping merchant, who it happened was a friend of Christopher Holder — the leader of the missionary party. The meeting seemed providential. The merchant immediately arranged a meeting between Captain Fowler, George Fox, Christopher Holder and others, and it was finally agreed that the ministers should return and enter the Colonies, despite the decree of banishment. The vessel was entirely inadequate for the purpose, and to add to their difficulties, Robert Fowler was but a coastwise sailor, knowing nothing about navigation. At the last moment the crew selected was impressed and carried off to the British fleet then ready to sail against the king of Sweden, who was threatening Denmark. These obstacles did not deter the Friends. They had hoisted the pennant of Faith to the peak, and on the first of April, 1657, the “Woodhouse” sailed with eleven Quakers, — Christopher Holder, John Copeland, Dorothy Waugh, Humphrey Norton, Richard Doudney, Maiy Weatherhead, Sarah Gibbons, Maiy Clark, Robert Hodshon, William Brend and William Robinson. The crew consisted of two men and three boys, none of whom had any knowl- edge of the ocean, and with this equip- ment the “Woodhouse” sailed upon one of the most remarkable voyages in history, not only for the methods employed, but for the far-reaching results, as aboard the craft were the founders of the Society of Friends in America, destined to establish a sect that for two centuries should have a dominant influence in the growth and de- Digitized by Google
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386 The Quaker and the Puritan. velopment of a great nation. Knowing nothing of navigation, the captain looked to his spiritual-minded passengers for guidance, and we have the singular spectacle of a vessel being sailed across the Atlantic, the helmsman each day tak- ing his orders from the ministers, who daily held a silent Quaker meeting for this purpose. During this period one or more of the Friends would invariably re- ceive an impression as to the course to pursue, which at the dose of the meeting was conveyed to the captain, who laid the course until the following day. Early in the voyage they were threatened by a foreign fleet which attempted their cap- ture, Humphrey Norton announcing in advance that they would meet with this danger; but he calmed the alarm of the captain by saying, “Thus saith the Lord, ye shall be carried away as in a mist.” This was literally true; a fleet soon ap- peared and chased them, but the wind sud- denly changed, and in a fog the “Wood- house” escaped. One of the ministers then received word: “Cut through and steer your straightest course and mind nothing but me.” This they did, hold- ing a meeting each day and having such good fortune that but three meetings were omitted during the long voyage on ac- count of storms. Every day the course wa$ laid according to the results of the meeting of that day, and never did abso- lute faith find a greater reward, as on the twenty-ninth of May one of the ministers at the meeting of that day felt a conviction that “there was a lion in the way,” and on the following day they sighted land, and at the meeting word came to Chris- topher Holder that they were on the road to Rhode Island. A short time later a boat came off and verified the communica- tion. The “Woodhouse,” despite this re- markable method of navigating without knowledge of latitude or longitude, had sailed into Long Island Sound, and a few days after, two months from England, landed all the ministers at New Amster- dam, with the exception of Christopher Holder and John Copeland, who, not- withstanding the decree of banishment, determined to go to Boston. They visited Martha’s Vineyard first, but were thrust out of the church and ordered to leave the island, every house being closed upon them; whereupon the Algonquin Indians entertained the Quakers and finally landed them upon the mainland, where they walked to Sandwich on their way to Boston. Here the first labors of the Friends in New England began. Here was held the first meeting and the first meeting-house erected. As the re- sult of the ministration of Christopher Holder and John Copeland, eighteen families of Sandwich became the nucleus of a great movement which was to become so important and influential a factor in the development of America. The Friends held the meetings in private houses, but the spirit of intoler- ance was abroad; the orders of Governor Endicott had been cried in the town, and so great was the excitement that the two English Friends went to Plymouth where they were arrested, being finally released with orders to “ begone out of the colony.” They were followed by the constable, who insisted upon their walking to Rhode Island; but they turned south to Sand- wich where they were arrested and re- turned to Plymouth, from which place they were again sent to Rhode Island. The presence of these two ministers in New England occasioned much excite- ment, and Governor Endicott addressed a communication to the commissioners of the United Colonies, requesting them to ask the cooperation of Rhode Island in expelling the Quakers. But Rhode Island was still dominated by the liberal principles of Roger Williams, and her reply was that “none be accounted a delinquent for doctrine” — a decision which speaks for the intelligence of the Rhode Islanders, who by this decree virtually officially offered a haven for the oppressed Quakers. Christopher Holder and John Copeland now moved slowly north, holding meetings Digitized by Google
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387 The Quaker and the Puritan. in every town and rapidly making con- verts, and in July, 1657, Christopher Holder preached the first Friends’ sermon in the First Church of Salem, which is still standing. As he proceeded, an official seized him by the hair, jerking him backward, and would have choked him had it not been for the quick inter- vention of one Samuel Shattuck, who threw the constable* aside. Holder and Copeland were arrested as ranters and Quakers, taken to Boston and thrown into jail with Samuel Shattuck, who was charged with the heinous crime of aiding a Quaker. Now began what was virtually to the Quakers a reign of terror. Every Friend — man, woman or child — was under the ban, and those who aided or entertained Quakers were held equally guilty. Yet the Quakers paid no attention to these un- just and dogmatic laws. They believed they were entitled to freedom of speech and conscience. Christopher Holder and John Copeland were brought before Gov- ernor Endicott, and after a short examina- tion were sentenced “ under the law against Quakers” to receive at the hands of the hangman thirty lashes with a knotted cord. The two men were taken to what is now the Common, their hands lashed to posts, their backs bared, and the blows inflicted with such force and brutality that women fainted and brave men turned pale at the spectacle. With backs bleed- ing, torn and lacerated, they were taken to a damp jail and kept without straw to rest on and without food for three days, and the jailer, it is said, marveled at them, as no groan or complaint came from them at any time. In this dungeon they were kept for nine weeks, during which time the town of Boston was aroused as it never before had been,- a strong anti- Endicott faction making itself apparent. Samuel Shattuck was tried for being a friend of Quakers, and while the three men were in prison it was discovered that Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick, of Salem, had entertained Christopher Holder at their house ; forthwith they were arrested and thrown into jail. The husband was soon released, but on the person of Cassandra was found a declara- tion of faith, the first of the kind issued by the Quakers in England or America, written by Christopher Holder while in jail. For having this document in her possession, Cassandra Southwick was confined for seven weeks and publicly whipped. friendship for Christopher Holder ac- complished the complete ruin of this family, the enmity of Endicott literally following them to the grave. The prop- erty of the Southwicks was seized, and they were banished, finding shelter at the house of a Friend, Nathaniel Sylvester, of Sylvester Manor, at Shelter Island, where they died from the effects of the continued brutal treatment they received. Their children were arrested later for neglecting the Puritan church for the meetings of Quakers. As they would not pay the fine, Provided Southwick was offered for sale as a slave by Governor Endicott on the public docks of Boston; but for the honor of the town no sailing- master could be found who would buy her, or even carry her to Virginia or Bar- badoes. Whittier has described this scene in his poem “ Cassandra South- wick.” Doubtless Governor Endicott believed that the experience of Holder and Cope- land would warn other Quakers; but the friends of the maltreated men began to gather from Rhode Island and New Amsterdam to protest. Richard Doud- ney was arrested in Dedham and brought before Endicott, and after an examina- tion received thirty lashes and was thrown into prison with his two companions, where he signed the declaration of Faith which Christopher Holder prepared. Just previous to the expiration of their term of imprisonment, Christopher Holder and John Copeland prepared a paper showing how contrary to the teach- ing of the New Testament were the actions of Endicott and his magistrates. When accused of the authorship they did not Digitized by Google
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388 The Quaker and the Puritan . deny it, and Endicott said that they de- served to be hung for it; and as adequate punishment for writing a logical argu- ment against crime the prisoners were ordered to be “ severely whipped twice a week, the hangman to begin with fifteen lashes and to increase it by three at every whipping/’ As a result of this the three ministers were repeatedly flogged upon the bare back; but this was not enough. The Quakers uttered no protest and still came to Boston, whereupon in August, 1657, the famous ear-cutting and tongue- boring law was promulgated against the “cursed sect called Quakers.”* First, there was a fine of one hundred shillings for entertaining a Quaker, and forty shillings fine for every hour of such entertainment. Second, any Quaker caught in the jurisdiction was to have an ear cut off, then kept in the house of correction at hard labor until he had earned a sufficient sum to pay his passage away. For the second offence he or she should lose another ear. Every Quaker woman was to be severely whipped, and finally for a third offence “ they shall have their tongues bored through with a hot iron , and be kept at the house of correc- tion, there to work till they be sent away at their own charge.” Such was free- dom and liberty of conscience in Boston in the year of our Lord 1657. The Declaration of Faith defining the so-called doctrine of the Quakers, written by Christopher Holder and issued from the jail, was the most important docu- ment issued in America up to this time. It defined the position of the Friends and by its clear logic, its eloquence and the evident earnestness of its purpose became the means of making many converts to the cause of Quakers among the Puritans. The paper was the first declaration of American independence, in this instance ♦According to Evans in his Exposition of the Faith of the Religious Society of Friends, the first Declaration of Faith in England was that of Rich- ard Farnsworth in 1658; hence the Holder Declar- ation is the first issued by Friends. Christopher Holder was the seventh great-grandfather of the author. ecclesiastical rather than political, and its opening lines recall the famous dec- laration of American liberties written one hundred and twenty years later. They are: “Whereas it is reported by them that have not a bridle to their tongues that we, who are by the world called Quakers, are blasphemers, heretics, and deceivers, and that we do deny the Scriptures, and the truth therein contained; therefore, we who are here in prison, shall in few words, in truth and plainness, declare unto all people that may see this, the ground of our religion, and the faith that we contend for and the cause whereof we suffer. There- fore when you read our words let the meek spirit bear rule and weigh them in equal balance, stand out of prejudice, in the light that judgeth all things and measureth all things. As (for us) we do believe in the only true living (rod, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all things in them contained and doth uphold all things that he hath created by the word of his power,” etc., etc. The repeated beatings, now twice a week, which the Quakers were receiving, aroused so strong a public feeling in Bos- ton against Endicott and Bellingham, his deputy, and the priests, that in August, 1657, they were released and taken before the court, where, scarcely able to stand they were sentenced ; Christopher Holder, John Copeland, Richard Doudney and Mary Clark to banishment, while Cas- sandra Southwick was sent to her home in Salem. In the meantime Humphrey Norton, another of the “Woodhouse” passengers, was arrested and banished, and a few months later having been caught preaching in Connecticut, he was heavily ironed and cast into jail, without light or fire in midwinter. Despite this and other outrages perpetrated against the Friends, they refused to remain away from New England, and in 1657 another decree was passed by which any one who should entertain a Quaker would have to Digitized by Google
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389 The Quaker and the Puritan . pay twenty-five dollars, or in default be whipped by the hangman. There were now in the colonies, besides those who came in the “Woodhouse,” John Rous, William Leddra and Thomas Harris from Barbadoes, making ten men and women who refused to leave and who in- sisted upon continuing their ministry, which was being repaid daily by acquisi- tions to the ranks of Friends or Quakers. As a consequence the persecutions were increased. When trying to defend him- self in court, Humphrey Norton was gagged with an iron key and in enforced silence sentenced to be taken to the public common of New Haven to be whipped with the scourge, branded upon the hand with the letter “H” (heretic), fined ten pounds, then banished. This punish- ment was carried out before a large con- course of people. Norton, so far from shrinking under the torture, said to the executioner after he had received thirty- six strokes, that his body was as if it had been “ covered with balm.” His hands were fastened to the stocks, and his friend John Rous said that the letter “ H ” was burned into his hand “ deeper than I ever saw an impression upon any living creature.” At Shelter Island, Professor Eben Norton Horsford, of Harvard Uni- versity, has erected a monument to Nathaniel Sylvester, Christopher Holder, Norton, and these Quaker martyrs, many of whom when banished retired to Sylves- ter Manor at this place and received sympathy and succor from his kinsman, Nanthaniel Sylvester, a staunch Friend or Quaker. Even the Puritan clergymen were moved at the noble spirit displayed by these men, one remarking: “On my con- science, you are men of noble spirits. I could neither find it in my heart to stay in court to hear and see the persecutions, nor come to the stocks to see your suffer- ings.” The outrages perpetrated upon refined and educated men and women is beyond belief. Sarah Gibbons and Dorothy Waugh walked through the snow from Providence, Rhode Island, to Salem, sixty miles, through what was then a wilderness, to preach. Here they were arrested, and by order of Endicott, whipped in public. When before the curious crowd, their bare backs raw and bleeding, they astonished the lookers-on by offering praise and thanksgiving. In 1658 there were fifteen Friends or ministers in the colonies, and as they were all continually reappearing in the places of their arrest the rage of their enemies passed all bounds. William Brend and William Leddra were kept five days with- out food; when told that they must pay fines or work for it, they refused on the ground of injustice. William Brend was then fettered around the neck and on each leg, then given ninety-seven blows with a tarred rope by the jailer. Brend was evidently dying when he was found by a physician. The story becoming known, the populace threatened the jail, and Endicott was forced to issue a hand-bill to the effect that the jailer would be pun- ished. This appeased the people for a while, but the whippings continued, and Endicott was amazed at the spectacle of men continually returning to punishment. Christopher Holder, who had been ban- ished with John Copeland, now felt a call to return to Boston. On the way they visited Sandwich, where they were ar- rested and then taken to Barnstable, tied to a stake and given thirty-three lashes each, which so injured and reduced them that they were forced to return to Rhode Island; but as soon as they could make the journey they returned to Boston, where they were promptly arrested and where John Rous joined them. Chris- topher Holder was a refined and culti- vated man, a gentleman’s son, of means and influential in England, related by marriage to Sir Christopher Wren. John Rous was a son of Colonel Rous, of the British Army, also a gentleman’s son; yet for insisting upon their rights as British citizens they were each sentenced to have an ear cut off. Christopher Holder appealed to Cromwell, who had shown undisguised interest in Quakers; Digitized by Google
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390 The Quaker and the Puritan. but Endicott replied that if more appeals to England were made the prisoners would be gagged as well as manacled. Fearing public opinion, Endicott ordered the law executed in private, and as the executioner began the mutilation the officials turned away their heads, but were rebuked by the prisoners who, far from flinching, evidently glorified in suf- fering for the cause which they repre- sented. What was supposed to be a reign of terror for Quakers was now at its height. Women were exposed in public and beaten, and the jails were filled with suspects. Every one who publicly claim- ed to be the friend of a Quaker came under the ban. The maltreatment of Holder and Copeland brought numbers of Quakers to Boston to protest against it, among them Katherine Scott, of Provi- dence, a descendant of Dryden the poet, a sister of the celebrated Anne Hutchinson, the leader of the anti-nomians and later mother-in-law of Christopher Holder. She publicly protested against the act, was thrown into jail and subjected to ignominious torture at the “ lash.” Despite the acts of Endicott, the Friends were increasing in numbers. Several magistrates joined them, and William Coddington and Nicholas Easton — both ex-governors of Rhode Island — joined the society. The inhabitants of Boston began to protest against Endicott’ s brutal- ity, and finally in a public meeting, raised money to pay the fines of Quakers confined. In 1658, two years after the first sermon of Christopher Holder, almost the entire town of Sandwich joined them. Norton, the famous rector of First Church, now petitioned the legislature to banish Friends on pain of death, and the colonial officials set aside the rights accorded them by the Magna Charta and passed the bill. William Brend, Nicholas Philips, Joshua Buffum, Samuel Shattuck, Lawrence and Cassandra Southwick and their son Josiah, were the first to suffer from this illegal and tyrannical measure, dated May 11, 1659. It was believed by Governor Endicott that this was the end of Quakerism in the colonies ; that fanatical as were these people, they would not face death; but to his surprise it had no effect upon them. William Robinson went to Boston, Chris- topher Holder to Salem, and we find them all apprehended a short time later. They, with Marmaduke Stevenson, were sent to jail in Boston. William Thurston was in jail in Maryland. Peter Pearson and William Leddra were confined in Plymouth, and it is doubtful if a single Quaker of the original party was at liberty. Nathaniel Sylvester had closed the eyes of Cassandra and Lawrence Southwick at his home at Shelter Island, while Samuel Shattuck, obeying the edict of banishment, went to England to inter- cede with King Charles for his friends. Such was the situation in May, 1659. Mary Dyer, who had gone to Boston to visit Christopher Holder in jail, was arrested with Mary Scott, Hope Clifton, Daniel and Provided Southwick, and Nicholas Upsal, and while they were in jail a strange procession wended its way from Salem. Marmaduke Stevenson and William Robinson had been released and ordered out of the colony on pain of death, but instead went to Salem, and after preaching there announced their return to Boston, which meant execution, believing that their death would probably do more to attract attention to the right- eousness of their cause than anything they could do. The two ministers led the way, followed by Daniel Gould, of Providence, Hannah Phelps, William King, Mary Trask, Margaret Smith and Alice Cowland, who were virtually mourn- ers and who carried linen shrouds in which to wrap the dead. No more singular spectacle is seen in history than this — two ministers walking sixteen miles through the forest to their own unbidden execution, followed by friends and sym- pathizers bearing the panoply of death. Agents of Endicott in Salem ran on ahead and carried word of the approach of the Quakers, and on the outskirts of Boston they were met by a mob, scoffed, ridiculed Digitized by Google
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391 The Quaker and the Puritan. and hurried off to jail, where soon seven- teen Quakers were confined. Four were subject to death — Christopher Holder, William Robinson, Marmaduke Steven- son and Mary Dyer. The former was, on account of some unknown influence, probably the intervention of Cromwell at the instigation of his family in England, overlooked, but the other three were sentenced to death. The passage to the Common was made with beating of drums and flying flags, the prisoners being the objects of a hooting and shout- ing mob, urged on by the Rev. John Wilson. Were not the colonial records still in existence these things could not be believed; yet these three Quakers were executed, Mary Dyer later, and the bodies of the two men thrown into a pit on Boston Common, food for wild beasts. Edward Wharton, a looker-on, protested, and was seized, given thirty lashes and fined twenty pounds. Of the Quakers in jail, Daniel Gould received thirty strokes, Robert Hooper and William King fifteen, Margaret Smith, Provided Southwick and Mary Trask ten strokes on the bare back on the open Common before the crowd. Christopher Holder was banished. The remaining women were delivered to the governor for “ad- monishment,” which meant banishment. The restoration of Charles the Second gave the Quakers in England and America new hope. Christopher Holder, now banished to England, was using his influence, to offset which Governor Endi- cott and the magistrates formulated an address charging the Quakers with many crimes, which was taken to England by some of the leaders; but Edward Bur- roughs, a prominent English Quaker, had presented to the king the other side. Christopher Holder, maimed and broken, and Samuel Shattuck his friend, who had once saved him, were there, as well as mutilated John Copeland. These min- isters and George Fox were given audi- ence by the king, who immediately issued orders to Endicott to release all Quakers in Angelica; and to make the matter more humiliating, Samuel Shattuck, the scourged and banished Quaker, out- raged and scoffed by Governor Endicott and the Boston magistrates, was selected as the king’s messenger, the incident forming the subject of the graphic poem by Whittier, “The King’s Missive.” The release of Shattuck was dramatic. Quaker, man of peace, though he was, it was with unfeigned satisfaction that he accepted the office. The English Friends chartered a ship that no time should be lost, and in six weeks they arrived in Boston harbor. The captain refused to allow any one to go ashore or communi- cate with it, but a boat came off and re- turned, reporting to the consternation of the colonial authorities, that there was a “load of Quakers” in the bay, led by Samuel Shattuck who had been banished on pain of death. Soon after this Samuel Shattuck and the captain went ashore and reached Governor Endicott’s home un- molested, and after some questioning were shown to Endicott himself. “Off with his hat,” shouted the irate governor, observing that the Quaker retained his head-gear. Shattuck did not resist and permitted the servant to snatch the hat from his head, but said, with fine humor, evidently enjoying the situation: “Is it thus that his Majesty’s officers are re- ceived in the colonies?” “What mean you?” asked Endicott, amazed and in- dignant at the bearing of the Quaker. “I mean,” answered Shattuck, looking him keenly in the eye, “ that from now on his Majesty’s subjects, of whatever per- suasion, are to have liberty of conscience in the colonies. I am the king’s messen- ger. Here are your orders from his Sovereign Majesty, Charles the Second.” Endicott sat for a moment, dum- founded. The Quaker he had maltreated and thrust from the colony, stood before him his superior. He glanced over the orders, then taking off his own hat in deference to the presence of his sover- eign’s messenger, ordered an attendant to hand Shattuck his hat, which we can imagine the Quaker replacing with grim Digitized by Google
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392 Ryan Walker: A Cartoonist of Social Protest. satisfaction at the utter confusion into which Endicott was thrown. The latter immediately released the jailed Quakers in America, and for the first time in American history true liberty of con- science reigned. Such was the first victory of this sect, and in all their later troubles, as they were attacked time and again, they invariably won by passive resistence. The Quaker was the embodiment of modern culture cropping out two hundred years ahead of its time. They stood for everything that is held to be best to-day. They believed in simplicity of life, in the Bible, in Christianity. They held that a man and woman should be devout or good every day. They believed in the political equality of all men. They held that every citizen had a right to his religious opinions. They denounced slavery in 1660. They held up war, the killing of man, as an evidence of barbarism. In fact, to obtain an idea of the belief of the little-understood Quaker, as his enemies called him, it is only necessary to select to-day the best in life and religion as held and believed by the greatest number of Christians, and that will be the belief of the Quaker. If this is true, why is it that the Quakers are dying out ? The old meeting-houses are not used in many places; member- ship if not falling off, is just holding its own, and the question is whether the Quaker is to pass, live or die. There is hardly an old family in America to-day that is not allied to them, and no people are held in such esteem. Their gentle lives stand forth in the bright light of history, and if the Quaker shall pass it will be a reflection upon the times. The peculiar dress of the Friends may pass away with the present generation, but it is believed that the sect will live, as all along the line efforts are being made to create new interests; and it is hoped that a sect that filled so important a niche in the i history of America, a denomination that | stood for all that is best in the twentieth century two hundred years ago, will live long to witness its triumphs. Chables F. Holder. ; Pasadena , Cal . RYAN WALKER: A CARTOONIST OF SOCIAL PROTEST. By B. O. Flower. I. THE MEN AND IDEAL8 THAT MOVE CIVILIZATION UPWARD. WE THINK it is safe to say that the majority of our young men at some periods in youth are profoundly stirred by moral enthusiasm. They come under the magic spell of the ideal. The divinity resident in the soul, or as Epicte- tus would have expressed it, “the God within,” is awakened and calls for recognition. At such moments the good, the noble and the true appeal to the inner vision in a compelling way, and the spiritual eye catches a glimpse of Justice in her peerless gloiy and of the broad spirit of altruistic love which is all- compelling and all-exalting in its in- fluence over the higher and finer sides of life. At such moments one feds some- thing of what Shelley felt when from the fullness of his soul he cried: “I will be wise. And just, and free, and mild, if in me lies Such power, for I crow weary to behold The selfish and the strong still tyrannize Without reproach or check. * These are supreme and crucial mo- ments in the life of youth — moments when the divine essence in our being struggles for mastery; but unhappily for civilization and the elevation and Digitized by Google
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Photo, by Pacii Bros., New York. RYAN WALKER Thi Arena Digitized by Google
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39S Ryan Walker: A Cartoonist of Social Protest. happiness of the race, few as yet there be who are wise and strong enough to make the great renuncia- tion,— the renunciation of the lower for the higher, which alone can lift the soul into rapport with the cosmic intelligences that are work- ing for the supremacy of the eternal moral verities — for the establishment of justice, freedom, brother- hood, peace and equity on earth. Few indeed are they to whom the vision of the ideal is sufficiently compet- ing to make them so in- different to personal ease, fame, fortune and life itself that they unhesitatingly place the cause of justice and human rights, or the weal of all, above every consideration of self. Few Ryan Walker, in The Comrade. are great enough to make the choice that lifts the soul to the peerage of the immor- tals who have helped the world onward. Ryan Walker, In Broekton (Mass.) Enterprise. TETE ACCIDENT OF BIRTH. Few are they who are willing to find life by losing it, to accept as a divine truth the words of the great Galilean, when he said : “ Whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it”; or again: “He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.” Yet in the realm of the Higher Law we believe that there is no profounder truth than that implied in these declarations. He who places higher value on personal ease and the gratifica- tion of the sensuous life than upon the demands and needs of those who are under the wheel and are vainly crying for justice, he who elects to attain power, fame, gold, position or worldly success rather than be loyal to the high demands of the moral order — the divine ideal of truth, justice and human brotherhood for which Jesus stood, will shrivel, dwarf , and imperil his spiritual being or higher . nature while living this little moth-like or adder-Hke existence, which at best is fleeting as the passing days; and when Digitized by Google
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Ryan Walker, In Mew York Times. “THE ANNXXER’LL GIT YOU EF YOU DON’T WATCH OUT.” the august summons comes, he leaves behind him no “ trailing clouds of glory/9 no benignant influence, fair as the parting smile of a summer day. He goes, and is forever forgotten, unless he leaves behind an immortality of infamy. He has allowed the sordid and the selfish to choke the divine and the enduring. He has sought to save and gratify the fleeting whims of his little physical being at the expense of his real or soul-life. He has been untrue to the eternal fundamental law of solidarity, and he has lost where he might have splendidly won. Yet it is not altogether strange that so few of our young men and women re- spond to the bugle-call from the heights, for church, home and school have con- cerned themselves far too little with the inculcation of fundamental morality and the development of the passion for justice, truth and the rights of others, or the maturing of full-orbed character, while a thousand influences are conspiring to lure the young from the heights, a thousand voices plead with them to shun the rugged peaks that seem to promise so little and that demand so many sacrifices at the outset. A thousand voices cry, “Conform!” and in this chorus too often are heard the voices of church, of home and of school. Hie glory-bathed peaks of the eternal ever glisten far above the struggling millions in the broad valleys and the few who essay the toilsome paths up the slopes. Moreover, the way is steep. It is strewn with shards and fringed with brambles; while below are the broad and fruitful plains, laden with food and rich in glittering baubles for those who in the mad race thither first win entrance and who possess the strength to hold and further acquire. Yet the victories of the world on the moral plane, which con- tribute to permanent civilization, the hap- piness, prosperity and elevation of the race, have been won by the few who have chosen the upward path, who have placed the cause of all or the cause of justice, truth and brotherhood above all other con- siderations, and who, turning a deaf ear to Digitized by Google
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Ryan Walker: A Cartoonist of Social Protest. 395 Ryan Walker, in New York Timet. Little Sammy—'* Please, Mr. Santa, yon are the sophistries of sordid, selfish and sen- suous influences, have fastened their eyes on the ideal and have bowed unquestion- ingly to duty’s august demands, even though knowing that the path led to the prison and the hemlock, to Calvary or the stake, to confiscation of property, the impoverishment of the loved ones, im- prisonment and death. The immortal ones to whom the world owes her greatest debt have been the chosen few who have followed the ideal, reckless of thought of self. When Eliot, Hampden and Pym made their splendid stand for human rights and the liberty of future generations they knew full well that the probabilities leaving me a lot of presents I do n't want." were that the Tower and dishonorable death lay before them; yet they faltered not, and through their superb courage, their power and their inspiring examples they won priceless blessings and helped to lay broad and deep the foundation principles of popular government. It was this spirit of loyalty to the Higher Law that led Patrick Henry to utter those words that thrill us even to- day— words which imperilled his life, yet which were the source of unfailing in- spiration to the struggling patriots in the darkest hours that preceded the founda- tion of our nation. It was loyalty to the cause of freedom that compelled Thomas Jefferson to write his Summary View , t Digitized by Google
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396 Ryan WaUcer: A Cartoonist of Social Protest. Ryan Walker, In The Comrade. NO RACE-SUICIDE HERE which electrified the American colonies and made thousands of friends for the cause of liberty in England, though it also caused the name of the intrepid patriot to be placed on the list of those whom the Crown proposed to punish for high treason. It was this loyalty to the august demands of human right and justice that made Samuel Adams and John Hancock such towers of strength to the cause of democracy, and led despotism to single them out as the two New Englanders to whom no pardon would be granted. And so at every crucial moment in the advance of civilization the forlorn hope of humanity has rested with the few who have dared to lose their lives that all might be made the happier, who have placed the cause of justice, right and truth, or the interest of the oppressed, above all thought of self. Sometimes they have been men of high position and great influence; not unfrequently they have been poor and unlettered; often they have not known where to lay their heads; usually they have been held beneath contempt when their lives or freedom have not been sought by the powerful, the rich and the popular who occupied so large a place in their little orbits for a few years, but whose very names were soon forgotten, while those of the moral heroes — men who placed principle and the interests of others before concern for self — live on and on in the heart of love of the ages. It is to the young men chiefly that a nation or a civilization must turn in its crucial hours, and happy that people who possess a goodly number of youths of the moral stamina of which heroes are made. A few single-hearted, well- balanced and disinterested natures can rescue a nation, even when its face seems set toward the night; and usually the men who achieve the greatest victories for enduring civilization are those of whom society takes little account. When William Lloyd Garrison, poor and lonely, began the publication of The Liberator, few men imagined that he would awak- en a nation, crystal- lize public sentiment, and so fan into flame the moral enthusi- asm of a people as to sweep chattel slavery forever from the land. He was a man of very limit- ed education ; he was Ryan Walker, in The Comrade. THE SLAVE OF THE LAMP. A very modem version of an old story. Digitized by Google
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897 Ryan Walker: A Cartoonist of Social Protest. extremely poor; he had no social position or business prestige; but he had moral enthusiasm and strength of conviction, and he had made the great renunciation — the renunciation of all that was alluring for his physical being that life held, in order to be absolutely true to the moral ideal that claimed him as its apostle. And therefore the obscure young man who had consecrated his life to a great cause be- came one of the mightiest moral forces of the New World. To-day America calls as she has called but twice before in her history for the union of brain and heart under the mastership of the moral ideals that are the bed-rock of justice, — for young men and women who shall consecrate life’s richest gifts and sacrifice all if need be for the advancement of the ideal of human brotherhood and for the furtherance of the basic principle of free institutions — equality of opportunities and of rights for all. We are in the midst of a period of unparalleled reaction from the ideals and principles that made the republic the ethical leader among the nations of earth — the greatest of all moral powers in the world. On every side we are bearing to-day precisely the same sophistries as those advanced by the apologists for Ryan Walker, in NaahTille America*. Little Sajoct— “ Dedham ! You not only elide down on my sled, hat you make me pall yoa ap hiu again.” King George III. and his despotic acts, that were vigorously combatted by Jeffer- son, Adams, Franklin, Henry, Hancock and other leaders of the Revolution, and on every hand we see the interests of classes placed above the interests of the people. Just legislation is thwarted or emasculated when it runs counter to the Ryan Walker, In Girard (Kan.) Appeal to Reason. A Colorado Mourn “ To Hell With the Coksrtutioiv.” Deported. A SOCIALISTIC VIEW OP THE COLORADO SITUATION. Digitized by Google
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898 Ryan Walker: A Cartoonist of Social Protest. interests of the immensely powerful trusts, corporations or predatory bands. Even laws which are enacted for the protection and relief of the people are evaded with impunity. Political parties have become the slaves of partisan machines controlled by unscrupulous bosses, who in turn are subservient to the corporations, the great trust-magnates and the Wall-street gamblers. On every side sordid wealth and materialistic commer- cialism are arrogantly setting aside and sneering at the fundamental demands of democracy and the inherent rights of the people. The present, therefore, calls for men of strong moral fiber to do yeoman’s service for the cause of pure democracy. It demands the consecration of heart and brain, of body and soul, to the highest interests of justice and human rights. Happily on eveiy hand young men are again coming to the front, brave, fearless and loyal. True, their number as yet is small, but the need and the growing Ryan Walker, in Fbbry Stories fro* » Beal Lift. "Yes,” said the Ogre to his son, “I have a most won- derful magician in that shop there. He produces every- thing that the heart can desire and the brain imagine. Then I take all he produces and sell it, and, as the beauti- ful picture will mow. I divide this wealth with him. Being a veiy shrewd Ogre, my son, I manage to get his share alao/r 41 Now, my son, it 's your business to keep this wonder- ful producer working for you when I die." " But suppose he won't work," said the son. "Oh, get out one of those United States injunctions and make him," smiled the Ogre. But do n't be alarmed. All I have to do is to change myself into a federal judge, and hand this pieoe of paper ■ him, and if he should n't get right down on his knees the taxpayers will furnish us with soldiers to shoot him." appreciation of that need will, we believe, cause a steady augmentation in their numbers. n. A CARTOONIST DOMINATED BY MORAL IDEALS. Among those who are thus pledged to the cause of Democracy are to be found men of letters, artists, journalists and statesmen, and it will be the purpose of The Arena to present from time to time pen-pictures of these men of our new age. In this paper we desire to notice the career or rather the work of one of America’s popular newspaper car- toonists who belongs to those who place principle above policy and whose passion for human rights and the social and economic emancipation of the wage- workers of the world is an overmastering influence in life. Digitized by Google
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399 Ryan Walker: A Cartoonist of Social Protest. Ryan Walker, like the late Thomas Nast, like Dan. Beard and Homer Davenport, is never so strong as when exposing some crime against society or some wrong against human rights. Everything that smacks of injustice or despotism, or corruption or reaction, is his legitimate prey ; and though his pictures (largely because he draws so much and is taxed to the limit of his powers) are valuable for their thought- compelling power rather than for their artistic execution, frequently being little more than outline drawings, they possess that moral quality which made the poetry of Whittier so powerful during the anti- slavery crusade. Whittier’s meter was often deplorably lame, but his poems were instinct with that moral enthusiasm and noble purpose which speak to the Ryan Walker, In Fairy Stories from Beal Life, “1 if son,*' said the modem Ogre, “with this wand, horn behind yonder rook of poverty, I can produce young girts for your lust, who will sell their bodies for bread. “ Have no fear of our Giant They are his daughters, but he can do nothing so long as I touch him with this wand." Ryan Walker, in Fdry Stories from Beal Life, Onoe the Ogre and his son were in a great forest The son said: 44 How wild and desolate it is here." But the Ogre said : 44 Never fear, my son. I have my wand, and our Slave will change this forest into culti- vated lands, teeming with crops. He will open mines for us, build great cities and factories, and make railroads for you to inherit you who have never soiled your hands with work. Our Slave does all this for the poor board and clothes I give him." divine in man and compel a recognition of the priority of moral excellence over selfish expediency and slothful oppor- tunism. Had Ryan Walker the technical skill and artistic finish of the great Socialist artist and cartoonist of England, Walter Crane, he would, we think, stand with- out a peer among our great present-day progressive American cartoonists, for the work of few of our young men is more thought-stimulating or instinct with imaginative quality than is his. Since his early boyhood he has been busy attempting to express the multi- tudinous thoughts which flood his mind, by means of the artist’s pencil. When only thirteen years of age he submitted two sketches to Judge. The drawings Digitized by Google
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400 Ryan Walker: A Cartoonist of Social Protest. Ryan Walker, in Ratbry 8torietfrom Real lAfe. The Ogre's daughter drew her dainty skirts about her and said : “I do n't like to come in contact with such loathsome creatures as the workers." Then her Papa waved his little wand and said : “ Be- hold, my daughter, how I change these people you loathe into beautiful bargains for you to select from and to adorn your precious, perftunea person with." were crude, but the ideas were recognized by the editors as possessing real value. Zimmerman re-drew these pictures, using one as a double-page cartoon and the other as a back page cartoon, and the young artist received a check for fifteen dol- lars for his ideas, while Mr. Gillam wrote him urging him to stick to cartoon work. After completing his schooling, Mr. Walker spent much of his time in manual labor, while as occasion offered he cul- tivated his artistic powers. In recent years his services as a cartoonist have been more and more in demand. From early boyhood he has been profoundly interested in social and economic reform work and has been an intelligent agitator for a juster economic order, like Charles Dickens, having personally known what poverty was, he has been able to fully sympathize with the poor, and he has beheld with increasing ap- prehension the steady and alarmingly rapid increase in the acquisition and control of the sources of wealth, by privileged interests and predatory wealth. His keen vision early led him to see that class-legislation, monopoly-rights and other forms of privilege bestowed upon small classes, must inevitably result in giving to the favored few advantages not unlike those that long held the masses of wealth-creators in vassalage through the fiction of “divine-right ” and the assumption of superiority advanced by hereditary aristocracies, against which Ryan Walker, in Fairy Starlet from Real Uft, “ Labor thinks he can frighten us, and imagines he will amount to something, my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. But if you notice, this little wand will fill up any old landscape with soldiers, deputies, polios and scabs in short order, who will obey my every com- mand and become human machines." Digitized by Google
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Ryan Walker: A Cartoonist of Social Protest. 401 Bfaa Walker, In IV Social HeU. Ryan Walker, In The Social HdL HL In this HeU the Master tied the hands and feet and tagged many people who talk and write and think, and they .laid nothing against him because their work, which he controlled, was the means by which they lived. IV. A man out of employment went along rough ways, hunting for work. On every hand prosperity in big let- ten stared him in the ffcoe, out his way led over a higher and rougher road, and it was the “ Advance in Living" way. Digitized by Google
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402 Ryan Walker: A Cartoonist of Social Protest . the great revolutionary epoch was a pro- found protest. He saw plainly that when the rich treasure-house of nature, essen- tial to the very life of the children of earth — the land with its multitudinous mineral resources — was seized and mo- nopolized by the few, the many were placed at a cruel disadvantage — a dis- advantage that virtually amounted to a form of slavery, because they were made dependent on the few who possessed these common gifts of the common Father to His common children. He also saw that when, through legal privilege the few were enabled to control the great arterial and circulatory system in the social organism, another class of masters was formed whose power would enable them to levy unjust tribute upon the people, and that through these two privileged classes the work of monopoly could be carried on until the consuming and producing millions would be placed more and more at the mercy of the privileged few, and an aristocracy of wealth, having power equal to or greater than the feudal lords of the Middle Ages, would find expression in the New World, where under the mask of a republic privileged classes would again become the real masters of the millions. The more he investigated our present social conditions, and the more he pondered upon the perils of democracy, the more he came to see that the cure for the evils that confronted free government was more justice and greater freedom — freedom from class-rule and the domina- tion of privilege, the extension of govern- ment in the interests of all the people and under a purely democratic regime. He felt that the key-note of present-day civilization was union or cooperation, and that the old competitive order was as impossible for the future as it had been wasteful and war-breeding in spirit. He believed that the great question before popular government was whether the union or cooperation that was inevitable should be that of all the people for the mutual benefit, enrichment and happiness of all, along the lines of fundamental justice and equity — a union that would result in the supplementing of political emancipation with economic emancipa- tion, or whether the union or combination should be that of the shrewd and un- scrupulous few for the mastership, exploitation and spoliation of the millions. On this point he recently said: “My aim, hope and life-work is the betterment of my brother man. Nothing else counts. I believe the present eco- nomic system is cruel, unjust and essen- tially wrong, and wrong is wrong, no matter how it may be disguised; and I believe that the wrong is to be combatted whenever and wherever it is found. I am a Socialist because I believe that Socialism will lead to the development of the greater self, to the out-blossoming of all that is finest and highest in the individual life, and that it will secure for all the people a measure of prosperity, happiness and freedom to grow and enjoy that to-day is the heritage of but a few. I have been actively interested in social agitation since I was a boy, and I shall continue to battle as long as I live.” Now in those words, we think, is found the key-note of the character of Ryan Walker. He belongs to that small band who in every age have furthered civiliza- tion because they have placed the cause above all thought of self. Mr. Walker is, we believe, the only Socialist among the American cartoonists. Much of his work, however, appears In Republican and Democratic papers. His most finished drawings have appeared in Life , St Nicholas and The Bookman* among weekly and monthly publications, and he has contributed numerous drawings to such great dailies as the New York Times , the New York Mail and Express , the New York Commercial Advertiser* the Kansas City Times , the St. Louis Republic and the Boston Globe. He also contributes a great number of cartoons to the International Newspaper Syndicate of Baltimore and to the Newspaper i Digitized by Google
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408 Ryan WaUcer: A Cartoonist of Social Protest. Rymn Walker, to The Social BdL V. In this Social Hell men, women end children were foroed for their breed Into occupations that meant their death, miserably Rjran Walker, in ThQSodal BdL VI. Outlined on a background of stygian black, I be- held and understood thererils of a Working OirL Ryan Walker, in The Social HeU. VIL In the bowels of the earth, men toiled for the Coal Demon, and the little he paid them they gave back to him for provisions and clothes and house-rent He made the consumer bring him vast quantities of Money for the coal these men produced. It never occurs to the miner and the consumer that they (society) should own the coal vdnee. Ryan Walker, in The Social HdL Vm. There was fuel for the use of all the world, and the helpless and the poor hose. There were provisions enough for all— and the poor starved. There were houses enough for all, and the poor lived in hovels or in tene- ments. Digitized by Google
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404 Ryan Walker: A Cartoonist of Social Protest. Ryan Walker, in The Social HOI. IX. In this dismal hell was another part, more dismal than all the rest Rich men who had old and horrible houses rented them as tenements. In these houses the neat demon. Want, had his Sweat-Shops, where hungry Labor toiled for a starring pittance, making goods Tor Bargain Sales, making goods for Exclusive Stores, where my Lady goes to buy. Disease and Woe went forth with every garment Enterprise Association of Cleveland. It is, however, among the Socialist papers that one finds his most telling cartoons. He has contributed largely as a labor of love to many of these papers. III. CARTOONS THAT UNMASK DES- POTISM AND INJUSTICE. Despotism and injustice the world over are favorite subjects for Mr. Walker. He exposes in a striking manner the essential absurdity and criminality of the " divine-right ” idea and the idea that dollars or might make right. Among his cartoons relating to Russian despotism is one, recently published, that in a few lines carries a great thought home to the mind — a picture that is one of those silent but potent forces that undermine thrones and overthrow hoary wrongs. It represents the Czar, the weak, arro- gant autocrat of Russia, whose hands have recently been stained with the blood of innocent and starving men, women and children. He is seated in comfort before a glowing fire, while underneath is another picture showing a vast plain of desolation wrapped in a shroud of snow. A flag indicates the place as Port Arthur. In the foreground is seen the skeleton of a Russian soldier, one of the tens of thou- sands slain through the criminal rapacity of the Russian autocracy. Underneath the cartoon appear the words: “The Accident of Birth.” A few years ago, when the Russian church sought to weaken Tolstoi’s in- fluence by excommunicating him, it was rumored that the Czar had determined to banish the great writer. At that time Mr. Walker drew a striking cartoon representing Tolstoi as a sower, scattering broadcast the seeds of liberty, and calling upon himself the venom of the despotic church and the equally despotic govern- ment. These pictures are typical of our artist’s methods in handling world-themes. W H* ofKtrMe Jt crw*,,. Ryan Walker, In The Social HdL X. Then Taxpayer oame by with hideous War on his shoulder*. The demon waved the flax of 11 Patriotism ” and the sword of Conquest, and mankind formed vast armies, and followed and slew one another. The neater the murder done, the greater the general who claimed the glory. Digitized by Google
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Ryan Walker: A Cartoonist of Social Protest. 405 In the New York Times have appeared some of his best cartoons. Two of these we give in this issue, one entitled “ The AnnexerTl Git You ef You Do n’t Watch Out,” and the other representing the Republican party in the rdle of Santa Claus, to the great distress of Little Sammy. An exceptionally excellent cartoon ap- peared in The Comrade and was suggested by a newspaper item announcing that at the last quarterly dividend of the Standard Oil Company, John D. Rockefeller’s share was $8,000,000. This cartoon is entitled “The Slave of the Lamp, a Very Modem Version of an Old Story,” and shows in striking symbolism how the people of the United States are being bled of their wealth to swell the over- flowing coffers of the few men who have by various means — not unfrequently by force and fraud — acquired a practical monopoly of God’s great gift to all the - _ , _ _ , people, but which in the hands of these^ yan **’ few has been used to extort immense sums from the people and to debauch the public servants. lay the rotting skulls of the multitude. Ryan Welker, in The Social HeU. XL In this Social Hell was a great juggler— employed by the Master of the place. It was bis duty to entertain and delude Labor, while Capital stole away Labor's rights and what he produced. Another excellent cartoon was sug- gested by Mr. Roosevelt’s solicitude about race-suicide. In it the President suddenly encounters the Grand Old Party, with her numerous brood of trusts. It is entitled “ No Race-Suicide Here.” In a recent number of the Nashville American appeared an admirable car- toon representing Uncle Sam as a little boy, compelled to drag his sled, on which is seated the ponderous bulk of the Trusts, up the hill of High Cost of Living. Underneath appears these words, uttered by Little Sammy: “Dadbum! You not only slide down on my sled, but you make me pull you up hill again.” The Colorado outrages, under the Peabody-Bell rSgtme , called forth some of Mr. Walker’s most powerful cartoons in outline drawing. No more flagrant outrages, in our judgment, have been perpetrated against the constitutional rights of individuals or the fundamental principles of free government than were Digitized by Google
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406 Autocracy and Democracy in the Republic. certain acts for which the governor and adjutant-general were responsible. It will be remembered that when Adjutant- General Bell, whose brutality to the toilers was only equaled by his sub- serviency to the Mine Owners* Association was charged with committing uncon- stitutional acts, he profanely exclaimed: “To h with the Constitution!” Seldom, we think, has a cartoonist better symbolized the type of man which Bell’s words and actions indicate him to be than has Mr. Walker in his cartoon of Bell. Among the unconstitutional acts, it will be remembered, was the virtual breaking up of the court by the soldiers, the wholesale arrest of men charged with no crime, and their in- carceration for weeks and months with- out the semblance of a trial in the Bull Pen. And these outrages were sup- plemented by the wholesale arrest of innocent persons, charged with no crime whatever, but who were forcibly taken from their homes to the borders of the state and forbidden to return, the soldiers carrying guns furnished by the United States government. The picture of an American citizen, charged with no crime, thus deported at the point of the bayonet, forms the subject of another admirable cartoon by Ryan Walker which is well calculated to arouse the industrial mil- lions of America to the peril of the present capitalistic aggression. The most effective of all Mr. Walker’s Socialistic and reform propaganda car- toons are two series, one entitled “ Fairy Stories from Real Life,” and the other depicting scenes in “The Social Hell” of the present day. We reproduce six of the “Fairy Stories from Real Life,” with foot-notes descriptive of each pic- ture. They are cartoons that are well calculated to make the slowest-thinking of our people awaken to the palpable iniquity and inequity of our present-day economic system. In his “Shadows of the Social Hell” our author describes in a series of striking pictures the most vivid impressions of scenes which were borne in upon his con- sciousness as he journeyed through civil- ization’s inferno. We give our readers twelve miniature reproductions of these cartoons, with explanatory foot-notes. Such are some of the typical examples of the work of this young cartoonist, who as yet is only approaching the threshold of manhood’s prime. B. O. Flower. Boston, Mass. THE SECOND GREAT STRUGGLE BETWEEN AUTOC- RACY AND DEMOCRACY IN THE REPUBLIC. By E. P. Powell, Author of Nuttytcatim and Sa cation in the TMted 8Udct, Our Heredity from Qod, etc. THE SECOND struggle to deprive the common people of control over their own affairs began immediately after the war of 1812-14. The close of that war found New England transformed, from being almost entirely agricultural, into a community of manufactures. The people had run their mills and filled their stores with products on war-prices; and if foreign competition were suddenly let in, they would be undersold. Their cry for help filled the land. The response was generous. The Southern and Mid- dle States agreed to a tariff that should bar out foreign competition and retain the home-market at higher prices than would otherwise prevail. This was the real beginning of protection as an Ameri- can working principle. It was nowhere recognized as a permanent affair, but as a Digitized by Google
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407 Autocracy and Democracy in the Republic . temporary measure, to build up or to sustain young industries. Calhoun said that, although it would injure his section of the country, he believed that his con- stituents would cheerfully endure some losses for their New England brethren. Randolph’s voice was almost alone in unyielding opposition. He said: “I will never agree to lay a duty on the cultiva- tors of the soil to encourage manufact- ures.” He insisted that any such meas- ure as was proposed would create a lobby at Washington that would grow more and more powerful as the country grew older. There was a tinge of protection in the tariff of 1789, and Madison had strongly opposed it. Yet even Gallatin and Madison waived their objections, holding that a very limited protection might be allowed as a war measure and to cover industries in their infancy. Con- trary to public opinion. Clay was very moderate in his advocacy of the principle of protection. But the tariff of 1816 totally faded of doing for New England what was ex- pected. On the contrary, it led into manufacturing a horde of those who sought its fostering aid; and for that purpose forsook the other industries. The percentage of agriculturists went down from ninety-six per cent, to seventy per cent, of the population; wages of farm-laborers went up enormously; thou- sands forsook their farms; and a glut of all sorts of manufactures filled the markets. The remedy proposed and demanded of Congress was a higher tariff. The apostle of protection, Carey, declared that the United States was a hundred years behind Russia; for the latter country positively prohibited, under penalty of confiscation, all articles that her own people could manufacture. He forgot to add that China did still better, for she refused all trade with all outsiders. In 1820 the passage of a higher tariff failed by a very small majority. Great business prosperity followed. The peo- ple began to go back to their farms. But in 1824 protection was baptized as the American System; and Henry Clay announced that in his opinion Napoleon was right and Jefferson was wrong. A higher tariff was enacted, and capital at once followed the same route as in 1816. Another glut of over-production shut half the mills. Urged on by a powerful lobby, in 1828 Congress raised the duty on raw wool to thirty-five per cent.; while all wool costing anywhere from ten to forty cents per pound was to be rated as costing forty. Agriculture was not only growing poorer, and capital investing more and more heavily in manufacturing, but it was drifting, by a law of political economy into fewer hands. A purely economic question had become an intensely politi- cal question. The country divided over the question of tariff. Political con- ventions took up the rdle of constructing tariff schedules. The irritation and in- dignation of agricultural States was growing in intensity. Governor McDuf- fie, of South Carolina, declared that two- thirds of Congress was actuated by motives that had their origin from the lobby. Then began an agitation that pro- duced a terrific upheaval; which even came near severing the Union. Several of the States declared the tariff laws unconstitutional. South Carolina and Georgia threatened to forbid the enforce- ment of the recent acts within their limits. South Carolina went farther than threatening, and declared that Congress was enacting laws for local interests and not for the United States, and that such laws, being unconstitutional, were not binding upon the States — that the true remedy was nullification. Although no other State would go as far as South Carolina, yet the crisis was dangerous in the extreme. The South Carolina Cir- cular said : “ If we do not at once seize on the strong ground of principle, with the determination never to quit it, our cause is lost. Protection was never meant to become a permanent tax on the consumer, but to give a start to a new undertaking for a few years. Are our domestic Digitized by Google
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408 Autocracy and Democracy in the Republic. manufactures to continue in perpetual infancy? Our national pad is broken .” It was asked: “Are we to exist in the Union merely as an object of taxation? What is to be the end of the American System?” The nullification ordinance said : “ Congress, exceeding its just power to impose taxes and collect revenue, which the Constitution of the United States authorizes, has raised and collected unnecessary revenue, for objects un- authorized by the Constitution.” An appeal was issued to the people of the United Spates, urging that: “Almost the entire cotton crop of South Carolina is ultimately exchanged for foreign manu- factures, subject to protecting duties. The natural value of that crop would be all the manufactures which we could obtain for it, under a system of unre- stricted commerce. The artificial value, produced by unconstitutional legislation, leaves us only such part of those manu- factures as remains after paying a duty of fifty per cent. . . . We appeal to your candor and to your sense of justice, to say whether South Carolina has not a title as sacred to the full enjoyment of her productions as New Jersey can have to the like enjoyment of productions acquired by the process of manufactures. Yet a duty, on an average of fifty per cent., is imposed upon the productions of South Carolina; while no duty at all is imposed on the similar productions of New Jersey.” The action of South Carolina had turned the discussion from the right of Congress to enact legislation obnoxious to the interests of agriculture, to the right of a state to refuse to obey such legisla- tion. Here the parties shifted ground. Those who protested had now become the aggressors, and the centralizers began immediately to pose as defenders of the Union. President Jackson, who was a Democrat in name but an autocrat in temperament and measures, immediately threatened war on the aggrieved nullifiers. His hate for Calhoun was suspected to intensify his bitterness towards the friends of that statesman. Calhoun, one of the purest and ablest men America had pro- duced— a boon friend of John Quincy Adams — had become a special object of virulent hatred, owing to his opposition to the “Kitchen Cabinet” of the Presi- dent and his refusal to endorse an ad- ministration scandal. Jackson hastened to collect troops, and ordered General Scott into South Carolina. Suddenly, without consulting either party. Clay rose in the Senate and offered a com- promise bill. This bill proposed to reduce the rate of duties “ to that revenue standard for which our opponents have so long contended.” Charged with de- serting his own principles, he replied that protection had been fairly tested as an economic principle, and was produc- tive only of instability. “Before one schedule was fairly in operation another was demanded.” He said: “I think South Carolina has been rash and greatly in the wrong; but I do not wish to dis- grace her, or any other member of this Union. As I stand before my God, I have looked beyond party and regarded only the vast interests of the united people .” He coolly gave up the whole principle of protection, and propounded a scaling down of all duties to reach the old twenty per cent, or revenue basis. Bis friends pleaded with him not to throw away his chance for the Presidency. He replied, in letters that shine on the pages of American history: “I would rather be right than be President.” Calhoun responded in a noble speech, saying that he was as willing as ever to lend a hand to any section of the country; but he would not assent to the establish- ment of a principle that robbed the whole people of an equal right to secure the results of their labor. The action of Mr. Clay did not settle the constitutional question of the right of Congress to tax one industry for the benfit of another, but it closed the contest between the government and the people — and the people came out ahead. Meanwhile Edward Livingston, Sec- Digitized by Google
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409 Autocracy and Democracy in the Republic . retaiy of State, and one of the ablest men this nation has produced at any era, issued, in Jackson’s name, a proclama- tion to the people of South Carolina. This is probably the ablest document ever issued from our State Department. It settled forever so far as logic could settle it, the relation of the states to the general government, and the right to nullify or secede. He said: “I consider the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one state, is incom- patible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed.” It is not within the purport of this article to discuss the nullification or secession question.* What we wish to consider is the struggle of the people with the tendency to centralize power and to enact laws obnoxious to large sections of the country, or to special industries. Congress flatly backed down, and the people were reunited. For the next twenty years business prosperity was better balanced between the lines of industry, so that in 1850 we may say that the balance of industry was almost com- plete. Agricultural products were ten per cent, ahead of manufactures; while our commercial marine had a tonnage of 5,800,000 tons against an English ton- nage of 5,700,000 tons. Yet the central question — that of democracy versus aristocracy — gained * I have done this fully in my History of Nttlli- ficatton and Secession in the Untied States, where will be found all the documents to which I have referred. nothing more than a temporary victory. Jackson’s administration was Jackson’s reign. He established personal power, in some directions monarchal. He dic- tated his successor as arbitrarily as he settled the question of a national bank. Power was concentrated at the White House as it never before had been. The “Kitchen Cabinet” ruled like the Doges of Venice — in secret Amos Kendall was the power behind the throne. This man is unique in American history. Miss Martineau tells us that he rarely showed himself in public. He fitted nicely to Jackson’s character. Judge Taney was also discovered by Jackson; and for the first time the Supreme Court was packed to do the behest of the Executive. Van Buren was another truc- ulent servant, although intellectually superior to his master. As we study this period, we are satis- fied to recognize the fact that autocracy did not gain one inch of ground relatively to the will of the people. Could Hamil- ton have come to life he might have re- peated, with slight modification, his toast, — “The People — it is an unconquerable Beast.” A lover of republican liberty would have been convinced that the people never can be conquered. Gallatin said wisely, that we could “rest on the people as a full security against every endeavor to destroy our republic.” In the words of Disraeli: “The People, Sir! are not always right! “The People! Mr. Gray, are seldom wrong!” E. P. Powell. Clinton, N. Y. Digitized by Google
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THE FIRST GREAT ARBITRATION TREATY. By Edwin Maxey, M.Dip., LL.D., Of the Law Department of the University of West Virginia. THE TREATY of Washington marks an epoch in the history of arbitration and a new era in Anglo- American relations. The oppressions leading up to the Revolution and the bitterness of that struggle produced a very natural and widespread hatred of Eng- land by the colonists. This feeling was too deep-rooted to be entirely wiped out by the liberal terms of peace Contained in the treaty recognizing our independence. The liberality had come too late to pro- duce its fullest effect. Furthermore, its beneficent effects were soon destroyed by the overbearing, pig-headed policy which resulted in the war of 1812. The bitter- ness engendered by this war had not entirely given way to a consciousness of our common interests when the Civil war broke out. The unfriendly attitude of the British government toward the United States during that critical period in our national history caused a revival of the old feeling and came near resulting in a dash of arms. Had not a policy of conciliation been adopted by the states- men in control of both governments, it is difficult to see how the calamity of another war could long have been postponed. But such strained relations between two great people whom nature intended should be friends was clearly contrary to the best interests of both. The logic of a policy of conciliation was so overpower- ing that the passions of the hour were compelled to give way to it. The practical instincts of the Anglo-Saxon race are such that in a conflict between interests and passions the former generally triumph. The initiative toward a settlement of all differences was taken by Great Britain, and properly so for by this time (1870) the majority of her people, the Queen and her ministers had come to recognize the fact that the United States had a just cause of complaint. I say all differences, for although the most pressing were those growing out of the assistance rendered by England to the Confederacy during the Civil war, there were others which were as old as the American nation itself. It was decided that in order to reach a complete and perfect understanding and thus remove in so far as possible all barriers to a firm and en- during peace between the two nations, the best method of procedure was by way of a Joint High Commission to meet in conference at Washington and discuss freely and frankly all matters of differ- ence with a view to reaching the desired understanding. The Commission was made up of some of the ablest men of both nations, for England had learned by this time that in diplomacy the Americans were not to be matched by third-rate men. The Ameri- cans were represented by Hamilton Fish, Robert C. Schenck, Samuel Nelson, Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar and George H. Williams; the English by Eari Grey, Stafford Northcote, Sir Edward Thorn- ton, Sir John MacDonald and Professor Montague Bernard. In looking over these names it will be noted that the American list includes eminent repre- sentatives of the diplomatic service, the bench, the bar and the Congress of the United States; while in the English list are found the names of the President of the Queen’s Council, an ex-Minister and member of the House of Commons; the British Minister at Washington; the Premier of Canada; and a representative of the Universities. It would be difficult to find an international conference com- posed of a more truly representative body of men. Great as was the task, the ability and strength of character of the Commission was even greater. A peaceful settlement was therefore assured 410 Digitized by Google
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411 The First Great Arbitration Treaty. bom the very time of the appointment of the Commission. By May 8, 1871, they had agreed upon a treaty which was promptly ratified by their respective governments. The matters for which a settlement was provided by the treaty were: The claims growing out of the acts committed by the Confederate cruisers fitted out, armed and equipped in the ports of Great Britain; other claims for injuries by either government to the citizens of the other during the Civil war; the Atlantic coast fisheries; navigation of certain rivers, including the St. Law- rence, canals and Lake Michigan; the boundary between Vancouver Island and the mainland of the United States. My discussion of the treaty and its results will deal principally with the settlement of the Alabama Claims, partly because it was the most urgent matter which came before the Commis- sion and partly because the advanced principles of international law enunciated in it constitute a distinct advance in the development of the law of neutral rights and duties. For as the United States and Great Britian specifically agreed to be bound by them in the future and to bring them to the attention of other Maritime Powers and invite them to accede to them, their effect has been and will continue to be most potent. Article I. of the treaty is as follows: “Whereas differences have arisen be- tween the Government of the United States and the Government of Her Britannic Majesty and still exist, growing out of the acts committed by the several vessels which have given rise to the claims; and whereas Her Britannic Majesty has authorized her High Com- missioners and Plenipotentiaries to ex- press, in a friendly spirit, the regret felt by Her Majesty’s Government for file escape, under whatever circumstances, of the Alabama and other vessels from British ports, and for the depredations com- mitted by these vessels: Now in order to remove and adjust all complaints and claims on the part of the United States, and to provide for the speedy settlement of such claims, which are not admitted by Her Britannic Majesty’s Government, the High Contracting Parties agree that all the said claims, growing out of acts committed by the said vessels and generically known as the ‘ Alabama Claims,’ shall be referred to a Tribunal of Arbitrators, to be appointed in the following manner: One shall be named by the President of the United States; one by Her Britannic Majesty; His Majesty the King of Italy, shall be re- quested to name one; the President of the Swiss Confederation shall be requested to name one; and His Majesty, the Emperor of Brazil, shall be requested to name one.” Vacancies on the tribunal were to be filled by the original appointing power, but in case of their failure to act within two months, the King of Sweden was to be requested to make appointments to fill such vacancy or vacancies, as the case might be. In accordance with this article the King of Italy appointed Count Fredric Sclopis; the President of Switzer- land, Mr. Jacob Staempfli; the Emperor of Brazil, the Viscount Itazuba; the Queen of England, Sir Alexander Cock- bum; and the President of the United States, Mr. Charles Francis Adams. Count Sclopis was made president of the board, and Geneva was chosen as the place of meeting. There was a peculiar appropriateness in this choice of place, as it is the capital of the State least entangled in the meshes of European politics. In other words it is par excellence the land of neutrality. Article H. of the treaty laid down the following rules, which together with the “ principles of international law not in- consistent therewith,” were to be ap- plied and to govern the arbitrators in the decision of the case: “A neutral Govern- ment is bound — First, to use due diligence to prevent the fitting out, arming or equipping, within its jurisdiction, of any vessel which it has reasonable ground to believe is intended to cruise or to carry on war against a power with which it is at peace; and also to use like diligence to Digitized by Google
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412 The First Great Arbitration Treaty. prevent the departure from its jurisdic- tion of any vessel intended to cruise or to carry on war as above, such vessel having been specially adapted in whole or in part, within such jurisdiction, to warlike use. Secondly, not to permit or suffer either belligerent to make use of its ports or waters as the base of naval operations against the other, or for the purpose of the renewal or augmentation of military supplies or arms, or the re- cruitment of men. Thirdly, to exercise due diligence in its own ports and waters, and, as to all persons within its juris- diction, to prevent any violation of the foregoing obligations and duties/’ With these instructions it is difficult to see how the jury could do otherwise than find for the plaintiff. And this they did. The character of the decision is therefore due quite as much to the diplomatic victory won by the framers of the treaty at Washington as to the devotion to legal duty manifested by the jury at Geneva. The award was a lump sum of $15,- 500,000 in full satisfaction of all claims generically known as the “Alabama Claims,” this money to be divided by the Government of the United States in such manner as it should see fit. Sir Alex- ander Cockbum was the only dissenting arbitrator. The other claims by the citizens of either State against the government of the other were referred to a commission of three, one to be appointed by the President of the United States, one by Her Britannic Majesty and the third to be chosen by them acting conjointly, and in case of their failure to agree within a period of three months the appointment to be made by the Spanish Minister at Washington. A similar provision was made for the settlement of the fisheries question. The free navigation of the rivers St. Lawrence, Yukon, Stikine and Porcu- pine, and of the Welland, St. Clair Flats, St. Lawrence and other canals by the citizens of both countries, subject only to such laws and regulations of either country within its own territory as are not inconsistent with the privilege of free navigation, was provided for in Articles XXVI. and XXVII. of the treaty. Article XXV ILL. provided for the free navigation of Lake Michigan by subjects of Her Britannic Majesty for the period of ten years and “further until the ex- piration of two years after either of the High Contracting Parties shall have given notice to the other of its wish to terminate the same.” By Article XXXIV. the Emperor of Germany was made arbitrator for the purpose of determining whether the boundary line between Vancouver Island and the United States should be run through the Rosario Straits, as claimed by Great Britain, or through the Canal de Haro, as claimed by the United States. The securing of the submission of this question to arbitration was equivalent to a decision in favor of the United States, as no tribunal could, under the treaty of 1846, decide otherwise than in her favor. Thus by peaceful diplomacy all out- standing questions, some of which were a severe strain upon the friendly relations between the two nations, were settled in a way sufficiently favorable and entirely creditable to the United States. So firm and universal has been the conviction in the wisdom of the treaty that during the lapse of three decades there has been no revival of any of the controversies settled by it. To such an extent did it remove the cause of friction between the two nations and thus pave the way for a good understanding between them that under its cementing influence they have for a generation drawn closer and closer to- gether, so that notwithstanding the absence of any formal alliance, there can scarcely be found two nations between whom there is a firmer entente cordiale , Such has been its strength that not even the belligerent message of President Cleveland could cause more than a temporary riffle in the smooth current of their relations. But not only have the parties to the treaty been sharers in its beneficent results, others as well have reaped sub- Digitized by Google
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Is Divorce a Forward or a Backward Step ? 418 st&ntial benefits from it; for it cannot be doubted for one moment that the extent to which it made use of arbitration as a means of settling international con- troversies makes it a precedent, the salutary influence of which has enriched all nations. True there are some nations that have not profited as they should by the example, as the blood and treasure now being poured out in the Orient amply testify, but the fact that it did not accomplish all things should not blind us to the fact that it did accomplish some things, and that those some things are of such a character that they will always be a credit to the framers of the treaty. In view of all the facts, I am inclined to think that Caleb Cushing, who was probably more familiar with the treaty than any one else save its framers, was correct in saying that it “ has already at- tained the dignity of a monumental act in the estimation of mankind; and is des- tined to occupy hereafter a lofty place in the history of the diplomacy and the international jurisprudence of Europe and America.” Edwin Maxey. Morgantown , W. Va. IS DIVORCE A FORWARD OR A BACKWARD STEP? By Kate Richards O’Hare. MINISTERS* Alliances in various cities have voted that no member may officiate at a wedding where either of the contracting parties have been divorced. There is no doubt but that these men are honest and sincere in their desire to mitigate the growing evil of divorce, but it would seem that they are working from a false premise. Sex attraction existed long before there were ministers and minis- ters’ alliances, and it seems scarcely reasonable that the veiy basic principle of life will be materially affected by the resolutions of these good men. In Mexico, when the vast holdings of the Church were confiscated by the government, the priests found them- selves not in a state of “ notable pros- perity.” To replenish the depleted church coffers, marriage fees were raised to twenty dollars. The average peon never possessed one-twentieth of that amount at any one time in his life. Hence it is perfectly clear that the clergy placed a premium on illicit unions, and as a matter of fact the lads and lasses loved as of old. Notwithstanding that no marriage-bells rang for the poor, the average number of new homes was established and the birth-rate showed no diminution. Race-suicide is not yet fashionable in Mexico. If Love laughs at locksmiths, it is doubtful if he be duly impressed when ministers frown. Hoary heads have long sought to subdue the little god, but he has snapped his fingers in their faces, and the Ministers’ Alliance will have no better luck. Every right-minded man and woman is heartily in sympathy with these good gentlemen in their endeavors, but since divorce is an effect and not a cause, it would show greater wisdom on the part of these followers of the Nazarene if they would seek the cause of divorce, and possibly in the cause they might find the hand of the Creator working out the plan for the universe. That divorce is increasing no one denies; but may this not be accounted for by the fact that the world moves, and in moving sometimes gets out of perfect adjustment ? We do not feel that we as a family are retrograding when our im- proved financial condition enables us to move into a new and more commodious house, but our tempers may be sorely Digitized by Google
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414 Is Divorce a Forward tried by the upheaval and it may be some months before the wheels of domes- tic machinery move smoothly. The whole human family is moving out of an old, outworn social, economic and theo- logical house into a new one, and family jars are bound to result. Time was when there were no divorces, and for a very good reason. The wife was not a wife in the modem sense of the word, but a chattel slave. In Biblical times the one-sided arrangement of a man putting away his wife simply meant that a poor slave was turned out on the highway at her master’s caprice. “ When knighthood was in flower” the wife, at least among the leisure classes, was still a slave; “lord and master” really meant something in the old days. As women were considered in this light and were educated, or rather miseducated, to suit their position, with every law, custom and prejudice directed toward keeping them in mental, moral and physical subjection, the reason for their not ’ rushing into the divorce court is apparent. Not because they were better than twentieth-century women did they sub- mit to brutal husbands, but because there was no way in which they could make their voices heard. The world moves forward, and in moving, life and opportunities for women have completely changed. With the working man, she has passed from the position of slave to that of serf and now enjoys “freedom of contract.” She goes to the public school with her brother; works behind the counter with him; has displaced him as a teacher in the public school; is admitted to the bar on terms of equality with the masculine practitioner, and in fact enters every field of endeavor that men have entered. This advent of woman into the field of affairs could have but one effect. It has broken down her feeling of inferiority to the male. She has hesitatingly tried her wings and they have sustained her, and with the knowledge of her own powers has grown up a sense of her rights, and one of her rights is the right to be happy. or a Backward Step? We shall never know the honors of the old slave marriages. There is no word in the Bible that tells of the heartaches of the mothers of the Jewish race; their wail is not recorded. It was not cus- tomary to note the plaint of slaves. Only the free or masters were heard in the synagogues or through the written records, and the women were neither free nor masters. It does not follow, however, that the women of that day were too happy to complain; beyond doubt the reverse was true, but the power to complain lay wholly with one side of the house. More women apply for divorce to-day than in the fourteenth century, for they could not apply for divorce then and may do so now. Then if they protested their voices were probably muffled with a club or in the castle hold, and their daring was rebuked by the parish priest If their masters sent diem to the guest’s bedchamber at night, they had no choice but to submit. At least there is no protest recorded, though we read of some women daring enough to despatch their lords in lieu of a divorce. To-day the divorce court exists as a place where women may register their protests, and they are not slow to make use of it. That it is the best place of protest I do not for a moment claim. It is only a makeshift, and a sorry one at that; but seemingly it must be en- dured until society has moved into its new quarters, when the necessity for divorce will be eliminated or a less dis- graceful method devised. Growing pains are uncomfortable, but they are indications that we are attaining the stature of manhood and womanhood. The travail of birth means suffering, but it is the forerunner of the joy of mother- hood, and we count that joy ample com- pensation. The present disorganized state of society portends the birth of a new social system, and we can but endure and labor for a quick and easy transition from the old to the new. Kate Richards O’Hare. Chandler , Okla. Digitized by Google
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THE BUILDING OF THE CITY BEAUTIFUL.* By Joaquin Miller. Chapter XVI. BEHOLD, THE CITY BEAUTIFUL! The sun lay molten in the sea Of sand and all the sea was rolled In one broad, bright intensity Of gold and gold and gold and gold AS THE rosy fingers of morning l. reached out of heaven, laid aside nights9 somber mantle from the mountain- tops and lightly touched the tawny bosom of the desert, a vision of indescrible splendor rose up from the far-off levels of boundless yellow sands to the east. Golden sunlight and glittering yellow sands were warp and woof, and all woven into one. You could not say which was sunlight and which was sea, which was gold or golden sun. But the miracle of it all was the forest of spires, minarets, towers, pyramids, obelisks and the like that rose, a mirage, above the levels of the desert The cross, the crescent the fire-worshiper’s glowing signs of the rising sun, all were here in amazing magnitude; and all in gorgeous gloiy and harmony of form and color. Far away they seemed, like the dim and distant outlines of some glorious New Jerusalem, or an inspired dream of a prophet of God in Israel. “Beautiful! Beautiful! Beautiful! Oh, that is indeed my dream of the City Beautiful! Would to God it could be real!" sighed the man as be turned away his eyes a moment to rest them from the splendid sight. “ It is all real,” said the priest, gently. He had come in with the sun to see what he might do to serve the stranger; for here there was no occasion for locks or dosed doors, for clerics or call-boys. “All real? That, that all real ? Then you found the City of the Sun on coming to this wilderness. You surely found one of the fabled cities of gold that the daring * Begun in the December, 1904, lane. Spaniard searched for so persistently,99 said the man, as he turned again and looked upon the glorious spectacle. “No, we built it all. We still are building; for our work is only begun." The man threw out his hand and caught the priest desperately by the arm. “Let me go back to the hard realities of my rocks, for I shall go mad if I see more of these splendid visions, and then after all have to waken and see them fade to nothing." The priest sat down beside him, hold- ing him tenderly by the hand which had been thrown out so wildly toward him. “ I assert it is all real,” he said. “You see, at first, when we came and settled here where the old Toltec ruins lay, we had not progressed in science so far as we now have. Then our learned men had not emancipated themselves, and so were busy breaking the shackles; and then it took time to experiment and give full play and practice to their designs. But now they can build a city in the desert almost in a day." The stranger looked at the priest a moment hard and steadily. A gentle and reassuring pressure of the hand was his only answer. Finally the priest said: “If you will look toward the right of the loftiest obelisk you will see a most stately pyramid. That was the first thing built by their new process, as a sort of experiment.” The man looked, and beheld what seemed to him a pyramid more noble than that of Cheops. The priest went on: “Of course there was nothing new in this building a pyramid out of desert sands. This was rather an acknowledgement to the Egyptians. We claim only to have restored a lost art" “How, what?99 The man had hastily pressed the fingers of his left hand hard against his 415 Digitized by Google
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416 The Building of the City Beautiful. burning forehead; for a strange and sudden thought had pierced his brain. The priest continued: “There must have been great inunda- tions of sand from Sahara in the olden time. And this sand had to be disposed of. They could not continually pour it into the Nile, and so they cemented it and built the pyramids out of it, — yes, carried it up on their backs, perhaps, and there fused and cemented and melted it into shapely blocks as they desired by the use of chemicals. And so they got rid of the sand and had the shapely pyramids to look upon and perpetuate the story of the lost arts of immortal and glorious old Egypt” By this time the man had laid his left hand on the hand of the priest which held his own. But he was too eager to listen, and to learn, to do more than this, or to even move his lips. “But,” continued the priest with en- thusiasm, “ our scientists have done more than restore this lost art in the building of cities. There are no beasts of burthen here as in Egypt. In free- dom, where men can really follow their natural and wholesome desires, labor is free to choose its vocation and its hours. Necessity does not force a man to do the most menial work. The hardest toiler gets the best pay with us, and the pleas- antest tasks the lightest pay. This naturally leads to the employment of science to make labor’s tasks light and pleasant, rather than merely profitable to the employer. I spoke of the fusing of sand with chemicals. Well, now, an elevator is not a pretty thing, nor a poetical thing, nor is it quite what I mean; but if you keep in your mind the idea of an elevator, such as is used in the loading of wheat, you will have some idea of the way in which we gather up sand from the desert and carry it to the tops of our tallest edifices, and then melt it into column and spire and dome, as readily and easily as you can write your name in the sand with a walking-stick.” The man turned his face once more to look at tower and tomb, minaret, cross, crescent, and all the numberless works before him under the glowing sun, in the buildings of the City Beautiful. With grateful heart he cried: “'And the desert shall blossom as the rose.’” “The desert,” said the priest, “is the place for the rose. The only real place for the rose is in the fervid sands of the desert. Warm sands above, artesian water below, and you have such roses as the world has not seen since the Garden of Eden. As for cities, we simply could not build, never could have built as we have built, but for this beautiful sea of desert sand.” “ I observe that you have the symbols of all religions,” said the man, medita- tively, after looking once more far out and under the newly-risen sun. “ No, we have but one religion.” “Then why do I see all these various symbols ? w “These are but harmonies and tradi- tions, histories in the air.” “ Then what is this one religion, pray ? ” The priest was silent for a long time, still holding to both the hands that had been thrust with eager inquiry into his. At last he said: “ I should like to coin a new word. I should like to find some fusing and melt- ing chemical, such as they use out yonder in melting and fusing together the sands in building temples and shrines in all religions. But I am not cunning in speech. Let me say, then, that our one religion is to love truth, to love country, to do good.” “And what, then, do you worship ? ” Again the good priest was a long time silent He looked down to the floor and then up and out and far away. At last he said slowly, humbly, and hardly above his breath: “We worship Truth, Duly, Beauty. Blend these three, this trinity, and all religions together, as they blend yonder sands, and then call it God. We worship that— God.” Digitized by Google
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417 The Building of the City Beautiful. Chapter XVII. IN HER PRESENCE AT LAST. He wauled the world with bended head. “There is no thing/* he moaning said, “That must not some day join the dead.9* He sat where rolled a river deep; A woman sat her down to weep; A child lay in her lap asleep. The waters touched the mother’s hand. He blessed the babe. He passed from land. But left it laughing in the sand. That one kind word, that one good deed. Was as if you should plant a seed In sand along death’s sable brcde. And looking from the farther shore He saw, where he had sat before, A light that grew, grew more and more. He saw a growing, glowing throng Of lumpy people white and strong With faith, ana jubilant with song. It grew and grew, this little seed Of rood sown in that day of need. Until it touched the stars indeed! And then the old man smiling said. With youthful heart and lifted head, “No good deed ever joins the dead.” “ r I ^HE world is too much with us.” X We must turn back to some of the old beliefs. We can’t get to heaven on a railroad car, no matter how fast it runs. O my preachers, this railroad leveling of all things is terrible, mon- strous; for it is making monsters of men, leveling them down so that their roads can cross over all religion into heaven. You have explained away the parable of the rich man down in hell. My friend, who was this Jesus Christ ? There was but one Christ, a poor car- penter, who said : “ Sell all that thou hast and distribute unto the poor, and come, follow me.” But you are preaching another Christ entirely. Several times Spain arose and turned out the priests who had got hold of the gold. I implore you, teach the true Christ. Tell your splendid paymasters that the people can rise up as easily as of old and turn the rich people out, as the rich priests were turned out. They can even go out, out in the wilderness as the Jews went out, and build new worlds, if their taskmasters continue to oppress them. As the priest and the stranger ap- proached her wide-open door under the olive-trees, she came forward to meet them. The same ardent sincerity, the same eloquence of silence on her pale and passionless lips! Ah, how pale she was! Her once black hair had whitened with her beautiful face. The care, toil, en- durance of other days had taxed her terribly. She was now paying that tax with her precious life. And yet, she was so beautiful still! But it was the beauty of the grand old battlements of Rome in the moonlight, the majestic and mighty ruin of Kamak on the Nile at night. Her great, pathetic eyes fooked at the stranger as if looking out from another world for a moment, and then she threw her two hands out as if throwing them across the years that had rolled between them. The years were spanned, swept aside, and the two were as of old. The priest went on his way without words. There are times, and they are very frequent, when words are an im- pertinence. People here, as in other parts of the semi-tropics, did not live in houses much. Without a word she slowly led out and along by the fountains and trees where the birds sang. There were no servants, indeed no noise or friction of any sort anywhere. It seemed as though he had at last found a land on earth that had some sense of heaven. Here it seemed as if it were one eternal Sabbath. And right and left, up and down the long wooded and watered streets, people were coming and people were going; pausing now to speak to one another in a soft and restful fashion, lingering to listen, turning about to catch a last look or word, but that was all; there was no haste, and the chattering was all left to the birds. Passing on and up and around through Digitized by Google
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418 The Building of the City Beautiful. lanes of perfumed woods, by sparkling fountains and pleasant porches, they came to the summit, or, rather, the center, where the great trout-pools bubbled and boiled up through the massive blocks and broken ruins of some prehistoric Toltec city. She paused here to rest a moment, and turned to look below. She put out her hand. He comprehended her thought. She had indeed built a city, her City Beautiful in the desert This, where they stood, was the hub of a wheel; in eveiy direction ran the spokes; at the tips of the spokes and far out and around at the foot of the mountains ran a track of glass, around which cars of glass kept gliding, as spiders glide along, around and over their own little world of curious and intricate web, in silence and har- monious perfection. “But the title-deeds to it all? The world will come this way some day, and then—” “Ah, that I have provided for. You are a dreamer, I am a builder. You are of heaven, but I am only of earth. I bought the whole fifty leagues of desert for a small sum. And so you see I have in this, at least, lived up to the Lord’s Prayer: ‘Lead us not into tempation’; for no man will be tempted to try to take this land from us. I, in turn, have given all, by irrevocable will, to our people. There is not a human being here, from the priest who brought you here to the babe bom within this hour, who is not a full partner in all the real interests of this city of the desert. We have no disinherited. The coming together of my people does not enrich some without toil. The landless do not pay tribute to the landlords. All are equal owners in natural and social values. “The curse of all society is the grant- ing of special privileges which are the survivals of the divine right of force and fraud. I determined that my city should exist for the granting and preserving of equal rights. I determined that there should be no privileges granted to the few. We have no monopoly laws; we have no patent-rights, or copyrights, even.” “But is that just?” said the man. “ Has not a man a right to his book?” “ He has a right to sell his book once, but not for a half-century. It is just, when all privileges are abolished together. Then each man invents for all and all the rest invent for him. It is a free ex- change of benefits.” The man’s face shone. “I see!” he said. “The incentive to invention is the love of it; the reward is the pleasure of creating.” She arose and they walked on, his mind exalted with the new idea. “ And they are all so happy and prosperous ! ” he exclaimed, his mind turning back to the brown girls he had seen gathering fruit among the broad leaves as he glided down from the mountain the day before. “ So happy, so healthy, and so beauti- ful,” she continued, as they entered a retreat where she threw herself on a lion’s skin that covered a broad, silken couch. He sank at her side. He put out his hand to touch and take hers to his heart She did not repel him. She did not take her hand away. She did not disdain his touch; but somehow her soul seemed far, far away, above him, so far above him. So much larger she seemed as he sat there in his narrow vanity and selfish- ness, that he left like crouching down on the floor at her feet. How tranquilly grand she was in all her silent splendor. Time had only made her more glorious, glorious in body as in soul it seemed now, now as she sat there all aglow and flushed with the excite- ment of their meeting. But it was only momentary with her, this flush and glow and glory of form and face. Beauty there was, and glow and color, fervor and fire even; but it was the fire and glow of the dying sun. The kindly old priest came back after a time to take the stranger with him. They wandered away together, and inja Digitized by Google
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419 The Building of the City Beautiful . quiet way he talked when requested, very earnestly of himself to the stranger, and as nearly as can be recalled as follows : “As for being a priest, I am a priest; and yet I am not now all priest. It did not seem good to me that the people should be ignorant and dependent to the end of time. If the world is to lay aside the sword and turn to the plough- share it must be done intelligently if done permanently. Love must be in the hearts of the people as well as in the hearts of the priests. Religion must be a fact, not merely a form. The people are good, the world is beautiful, and God is love. Let the child that comes laughing down out of heaven to us, clapping its tiny hands with delight all day in the open fields, not be told that it is sinful, and that the world is wicked, and that God is angry with this beautiful world which he has made for man. No, no! God has made each child happy, and it should be forbidden that man, priest or layman, should make it unhappy. What evangelist has ever yet gone forth preaching faith in man ? Not one. But man is and ever has been preaching the depravity of man. Man seems even to by to show the goodness of God by publishing his own wickedness. It is high time to stop this. You cannot make even a child good by forever forcing it to believe it is bad. “Let man go into the desert, having faith in God as Moses had, but above all faith in man; and with the gospel of peace and good-will he can, in this age, when savage men and savage beasts have ceased to be, build such a New Jeru- salem as the world has never dreamed of. " Look at Salt Lake, — ignorant leaders, a degrading religion, the lowest of Europe for a following, one-tenth to the church, much time and hard toil to the temple; and yet the Union to-day con- tains no better, happier, or more pros- perous people. Therefore preach that man is good, open the sea-doors and let hungry Europe come to people our deserts.” The City-Builder found himself being irresistibly drawn toward this thoughtful man. He asked him to tell how it was that he came to walk out and down from his high place and take up his home in the desert. Very deliberately he began, after some reflection, and spoke, as nearly as can be remembered, to this effect: “There is a sort of Free-Masomy, as it were, among men in the world of thought; a sort of common ground, com- mon sense, in upper worlds of thought. The eminent theologian is not neces- sarily a more religious man than the eminent mathematician. The eminent mathematician is not of necessity a wiser man than the eminent theologian. But in this age of advancement all thinkers of all creeds or callings have a community of thought on the common ground of common-sense. And looking out and down from this, oftentimes with their gray heads laid close together, they have had their hearts torn continually at the contemplation of the misery of men. The eminent and thoughtful theologians, most especially, have de- plored and continue to deplore this misery, so inseparably interwoven, in the present order of things, with false- hood practiced in the name of Jesus Christ. Now, of these eminent men of the church there are, and long have been, two distinct kinds: one the kind that pities the misery and deplores the ignor- ance and deceit, but at the same time sees no way out of it all, and believes that the misery and the ignorance and the deceit are inseparable, and that the best thing to do is to leave things as they are and go right along with all the false- hoods and all the forms and all the fees. The other kind of man among the emi- nent theologians ifc the one who desires to despise forms and ceremonies and shams, and to walk in the footprints of the meek and lowly Nazarene, without pay or price. Of course there is a third class, or kind of theologians, so-called, and this is, by far the most numerous. Digitized by Google
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420 The Building of the City Beautiful. But remember, I have been speaking of eminent men, of thinkers, not of men who enter the church as they enter the army, merely for the money and to escape that one first command of God when man was driven out of Eden, which was, ‘ In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread/ But as this large class weighs nothing in the world of thought, I need not speak of it again. The second kind referred to, however, is more numerous than one would at first believe. So, when I learned that an attempt was to be made somewhere in the deserts of America to found a community as an example to the world, on the plain, brief precepts, principles, example and sermons of Jesus Christ I turned my back on forms and begged to be of it. And then I wanted to help destroy gold and silver, the root of so much evil; and having long had a theory that gold and silver grow, as mosses or even as potatoes grow, I wanted time and room and place to put it to the test.” “And it is you, you who made all this gold and silver that glitters everywhere in such profusion? So much gold, and yet a waiter!” “A waiter has simply combined some of God’s elements and put them in favorable place to grow. The potato which Magellan found in Brazil was not fit to eat. Now it feeds half the world; and I can pave the whole world with gold.” “ But,” exclaimed the startled stranger, “this discovery will upset the whole commercial world.” “There is a God,” answered his com- panion, gravely; “and this discovery, like the discovery of America, like the discovery of the properties of steam, electricity, all great and good things, came in its full season. The pursuit of wealth, like the ancient pursuit of war, has had its uses as well as its abuses. The world in its swift progress is fast leaving the latter far behind, — though there are still those who think the butchery of their brothers a noble pursuit and a fair expression of that law of nature which insists on the sur- vival of the fittest; and it may be cen- turies still before the dull and unthinking masses cease to regard hoarding as the highest and chief est of pursuits. But now, since we know the secret of making gold grow in the recesses of rocks, as mosses grow on the outside, they will no longer hoard gold. And that is the death-blow to the miser and the money- lender. “ You know, when gold was first found in California, English bankers sent com- missions to America, urging that silver only be made the commercial basis. So you see that we have only to find gold in such masses as we have silver, a thing still possible, even in the mountains of Russia or the Americas, to destroy it as a basis of trade. And ah, what a triumph, what a day of emancipation when we shall proclaim our discovery to the world, and Russia shall let loose her millions from the mines in the Ural; when the bravest and best men of our great land shall cease to destroy rivers and forests and come out from the Rocky Mountain caverns to the sun and the plains and — ” “ And commerce shall cease ?” “ Commerce, in its best estate, will begin.” “And your currency?” “Will be honor; as it is now, in nine case out of ten, nine dollars in ten. A merchant of long standing and stainless name only gives his name, his cheque, in payment. Is a nation less than a man? I tell you that commerce, free and open interchange between men and nations, will only begin when honor is made a basis, instead of base metal, — when this mighty nation of United States shall say to the nations of the earth, as it said to its own people in the great Civil war, Here is my honor, my promise to pay; I have done with shifting and varying values that wreck and impoverish and make miserable my people — ” “But if— ?” “ There should be no such words. We have only to insist on it, to persist in it, and then how eagerly other nations Digitized by Google
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421 The Building of the City Beaubifvl. will follow! and the poet's dream, 'the federation of the world.’ ” Chapter XVIII. GIVE us THIS DAT OUR DAILY BREAD. The Dat sat by with banner furled; His battered shield hung on the wall; One great star walked the upper world. All purple-robed, in Stately Hall; Some unseen reapers gathered golden sheaves. The skies were as the tree of life in yellow leaves. God's poor of Hebron rested. Then Straightwav unto their presence drew A captain with his band of men And smote His poor, and well-nigh slew. Saying, M Hence, ye poor! Behold, the king this Comeslforth with torch and dance and loud delight” Hispoor, how much they cared to see! How begged they, prone, to see, to hear! But spake the captain angrily, And drove them forth with sword and spear, And shut the gate; and when the king passed through. These londy poor— they knew not what to do. Lo, then a soft-voiced stranger said: “Come ye with me a little space. I know where torches gold ana red (Beam down a peaceful, ample place; Where song and perfume fill the restful air. And men speak scarce at all. The King is there.” They passed; they sat a grass-set hill — What king hath carpets like to this? What king hath music like die trill Of crickets 'mid these silences — These perfumed silences, that rest upon The soul like sunlight on a hill at dawn ? Behold what blessings in the air! What benedictions in the dew! These olives lift their arms in prayer; They turn their leaves, God reads them through; Yon Hues where the falling water sings Are fairer-robed than choristers of longs. lift now your heads! yon golden bars That build the porcn of heaven, seas Of silver-sailing golden stars — Yea, these are yours, and all of these! For yonder king hath never yet been told Of aflver seas that sail these ships of gold. They turned, they raised their heads on high; They saw, the first time saw and knew. The awful glories of the sky. The benedictions of the dew; And from that day Hispoor were richer far Than all such longs as keep where follies are. THE stranger, having turned aside from the meditative priest, felt himself drifting again into Miriam’s presence. The sun had gone down; the stars were out, and yet it was not night, or at least, it was not dark. Light, light everywhere! Not jets of light, like gas, or electric-lights, but level sheets of light, soft, large, and luminous as the face of the moon. But more of this hereafter. * You will dine with us now ? ” He wanted to say that he would like to sit and hear her and her only, forever and forever; for that had been the truth. He could not have dared to lie to her, even in compliment; but he assented in silence, and she led on through the luminous woods and ways of glass. They finally entered what seemed to be a grove, with a great table reaching far down and out of sight under broad- sweeping leaves. He sat at her right hand. Grave and learned men, beautiful and silent women, brown and black and pearly white, were here and there between the men, like fruit among the foliage overhead. He could see the stars and the moon in the blue sky through the leaves. “What will you do if it rains?” With a finger partly raised to her lips, for the music and dancing were about to begin, she said kindly, as she leaned her face so close to his that he breathed the perfume of her hair: “ The sky which you see is seen through a dome of glass.” The musicians, some distance back and up in the boughs, like singing birds, were not of the old and tired type, bald and exhausted from bad air and bad lights, and broken by care and anxiety; they were ruddy and meny and full of the music of their own high spirits, — girls here, boys there, middle-aged men and middle-aged women; yet all young, young with the eternal youth of love and content and kindliness. A note! a bar! a breath of warm wind in the trees! Zephyrs? birds? dEolian harps ? a far-off call of cooling waters ? What was it, and what did it all mean ? Can you conceive of silent music? Well, this was silent music. At least, it Digitized by Google
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422 The Building of the City Beautiful . was music without noise. We need say no more now, we might be misunderstood were we to say less. It was music with- out the noise that so insolently attends ordinary music. May we say it was noiseless melody ? It was not die music of the civilized city, it was the new music of the new order that is to come, — the wild, free, far-off, and effortless melody of the desert and of the silent children of the desert; of love, peace, pleasure, rest. Suddenly, on a glass stage to the right and left and among the great banana-leaves and lofty ferns with fronded palms that pushed against the sky of glass in heaven, the dancers glided. And they too were noiseless, and they glided as if in the air. The glass was so perfect that, like the artificial sky overhead, it was invisible. To and fro, forward, back, bowed or erect, singly or in couples, they sang and sang in the movements of their most perfect bodies. The leaves and ferns were very abundant and very broad, and these dancing girls were natural. Then slowly all sound, all movement of all things ceased. Slowly and un- obtrusively a white-haired man, far down among the trees, rose up and solemnly bowed his head. Then all heads were bowed with his; each one present repeated the Lord’s Prayer, and that was all. As he took Ins seat, a beautiful woman arose and slowly proceeded to read the Sermon on the Mount. Meantime the dinner went on as if no stranger were present. In fact, the stranger was not allowed to feel that he was a stranger. And such a dinner! — such milk and honey, such fruits, such oils ! Surely the wearied man had come at last upon the land of milk and honey. The Lord had surely led him through the green pastures by the still waters. And what a continual melody of melodies, even after the girls had melted away one by one from among the ferns and banana-leaves, and the musicians and all had settled into place at table! — a sort of melodious silence! No rattling of knives on rattling plates, in the carving and handling and mutilation of meats, no coming and going of servants; no rattling and rasping of feet on marble floors, they sat with their feet on the soft, white, natural sands of the desert. But this one dining-hall, or temple to melody, was only an example of a con- stantly increasing number of a similar and yet very dissimilar character ; for while the people had their individual homes, they loved to come often to these pleasant dining-clubs or halls. This dining-hall which was devoted to serious themes, and was preferred by venerable men and women of earnest thought, was a smaller and less preten- tious place. Yet even here, peace, re- pose, the perfect good-manners, a low voice, an equanimity of soul and serenity of all things, all things keeping har- monious melody with lisping leaves over- head and soft, warm sands underfoot. The hall where the men and women who were entirely devoted to science loved to meet and dine was also peculiar to itself, as were those of poetry and painting. But each and all had this dominating preference for nature's har- mony of color, harmony of source, har- mony of soul. And now let us mention one thing here before it is quite forgotten. He had been here many days, had sat at many dinners; yet one day, when passing with an English clergyman through a herd of fat cattle, he suddenly remembered that he had not tasted roast-beef since coming to the place. “You have not tasted roast-l>eef nor any other kind of meat. Olive-oil, butter, eggs, cream and so on, have been your closest approach to meat-eating,” said the good man, smiling. “ And you do not eat animal food ? ” “We do not want animal food here, and we do not need animal food here; and so, of course, we do not eat our sleek and mild-eyed companions." “ Of what use, then are your herds ? " “For milk, butter, cheese; besides Digitized by CjOOQle
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423 The Building of the City Beautiful. that, when these cattle grow so old that they are helpless, they are driven to a remote place and relieved of life by a painless death; then we permit ourselves to use their hides/’ 44 Yes, you must have shoes.” 44 Not at all necessary, not at all. Did ever man see such pretty feet as Indian women have? There have never been seen on earth such small and pretty feet as the American Indian women have always had. And yet they, even in the North, are and have always been, so far as possible, a barefooted people. And here it is not only possible for our women as well as men to go barefooted, but it is even desirable for comfort. No, we do not really need much leather here,” added he. 44 Now, when I work in the field — ” In his surprise at the idea of the Established Churchman working in the fields the stranger must have suddenly turned his head; for he looked at him inquiringly for a second and then con- tinued: 44 As I was going on to say, when I work in the fields I always go barefooted, for I like the touch of the soft soil and the warm sand. It makes my blood run like wine, and I live in my feet as well as in my head at such time. My wife, how- ever, still wears shoes when she does her weaving or spinning.” “Your wife? weaving? Pardon me, you are jesting.” 44 Nay, you shall see her at her weaving some day, and soon. With us the abolition of all special privileges has made it necessary for all to toil. But when all men toil, no man need work hard or beyond his strength. Work, in fact, has become a recreation, a neces- sity of perfect enjoyment.” 44 But even when all toil, work must be a hardship.” 44 Not at all. Two hours a day at any employment will support one nicely.” 44 But do the rich work also? What pressure brings them to toil ? ” “There are no rich in the sense in which you use the word. Of course some men care more for wealth than others, but as they must earn it they must work for it. The State does not equalize possessions, but it equalizes opportunities; and there are no wide differences in possessions such as the outside world shows. Ponder well on this, my son. Inequalities in condition are born out of special favors granted by the State to a few. There are two ways to cure this evil: Extend the same favors to all, or withold them from the few. We believe in the latter method, which is more truly in harmony with the Declaration of Independence. With us, possession is dependent upon personal toil or the free gift of friendship.” The man pondered. 44 It is wonder- fully simple, but it does not get back of natural differences.” 44 We do not propose to question na- ture,” said the preacher, with a lofty look on his face. 44 The powers of the human brain are infinitely varied. The dullard in one direction may be wondrously skil- ful in another. Men differ from each other very little more than birds of the same species. Equality of chance will prove this. Freedom is the magic word, and has been through all ages. We are nearing the fulfilment of its prophecy.” The man now spoke hesitatingly; he had another question to ask: 44 But are there not unpleasant tasks which all shirk ? Is not some force necessary?” 44 1 see the question,” said the preacher. 44 There is no force in our colony to con- trol the action of the individual, save only when the action interferes with the equal freedom of the rest. We have no slaves on whom to throw our menial tasks. All menial service has disappeared.” 44 But there must be unpleasant tasks,” persisted the man. 44 There were at first; but as all were free to do them or not, the most un- pleasant soon commanded the highest wages, and the employers were forced to abolish them altogether or make them pleasant. It was marvelous bow soon invention turned itself in the direction of making heavy tasks light, and changing or Digitized by Google
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424 The Building of the City Beautiful. abolishing whole industries. 4 Any in- dustry which depends upon the slavery of a single one of my people,’ said our great leader, ‘will be abolished, because all my people must be free.’ This law of freedom has made every mine light as day, every factory silent and sunny, and every menial task a source of forward movement, freedom to freemen.” The good man’s face glowed as hespoke. His smile had tender sympathy in it. The man caught at the preacher’s arm. “Tell me more!” he cried. “The light is breaking for me.” “ Go see for yourself,” smiled the clergyman. “ You will not find one noisome workshop, not one dark and damp mine, nor one fumace-like place of toil in the city. There will be a lack of many things which have been con- sidered necessary to civilization; but we say that any industry or enterprise which is based upon the enforced toil of our fellow-men is not civilization; it is the infamy of civilization. Come with me. You will not find a toil-worn face, nor a gnarled and trembling, work-scarred hand in this city of ours. Every man, woman, and child in this colony can throw the head back and laugh with joy of life and an unclouded future. Come — to see is to be convinced.” The bewildered man rose and followed. “It is like the law of gravity, it reaches everywhere, this law of equal freedom.” Chapter XIX. THE TOIL OF GOD. Behold the silvered mists that rise From all-night toiling in the com. The mists have duties up the skies, The skies have duties with the mom; While all the world is full of earnest care To make the fair world still more wondrous fair. More lordly fair; the stately morn Moves down the walk of golden wheat; Her guards of honor did the com In golden pathway for her feet; The purpled hills she crowns in crowns of gold. And Goa walks with us as He walked of old. AH, the mother’s love here! the . lover’s love here! the love in the hearts of all here! the God in the hearts of all! Our unfortunate city-builder, who had wrought so hard on his mountain-side by the sea and yet had failed so signally, sought out, at every opportunity, the silent and wonderful woman who had done all this since they parted in Egypt He wanted to sit at her feet and learn. How helpless he was, he now began to know too well. Would she only teach him, tell him how to go on! They sat one day by the fountain in the Toltec ruins. The birds were busy, the bees were busy. “Yes, it is always just like that hoe,” she said at length. “ We all work together and bring our sweets to the common hive, — not because of law, but because of liberty.” He bowed his head in meditation for a time, then said: “You have succeeded, I have failed. It is but right that you tell me why it is that I, the strong man, should have failed, while you, the woman, and not so strong in body, succeeded. You will tell me?” After some hesitation she began and went on slowly; for she was very far from strong: “ In the first place you failed by tempt- ing men to leave you and turn back to the task-masters and the flesh-pots of Egypt. Why, had Moses himself set his children down on a mountain-side in sight of some beautiful city and offered them the choice to stay or go, how many would have remained with him and gone forward to build Jerusalem? William the Conqueror burned his ships behind him, and so kept his sixty thousand at his side. Even the Pilgrim Fathers would have returned, could they have consistently done so, as William Penn re- turned.” There was a long silence. The bees and the birds and the grasshoppers that sung in the grass at their feet had it all their own way. Then she went on: “No, we here, removed from almost every temptation, do not allow ourselves to come and go and evade the first great law of God that you allowed to the lowest Digitized by Google
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The Building of the City Beautiful. 425 of the low, the weakest of the weak, and in the midst of every temptation.” * And that first great law of God is — ?” “ * In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou retumest to the ground.’ ” He caught his breath and said: “Why, I thought the first great law of God was the love of God and to 'love thy neighbor as thyself.’ ” “ Hear me, hear me,” she said. “ The very first, last words of God to man, as the gates of Paradise closed behind, were these: 'In the sweat of thy face — not in the sweat of the face of another — shalt thou eat bread till thou retumest to the ground’; and we search the Bible in vain for any single exception in favor of any human being, be he priest, prophet, president, or king. Why, even the em- peror of the heathen Mongol must plow and sow his field in the sweat of his face. And so firmly fixed is this law of God, established in the laws of nature, that the experience of six thousand years testifies that this is the only path to perfect health. This is a positive law, the first law, and a positive law that admits of no equivocation. It fell from the voice of God centuries before Moses reached up his hands to receive the tablets where His finger, amid thunder and flame, had traced the negative laws of the Decalogue.” “The negative laws?” “As I said before, this one first law, that thou shalt eat thy bread in the sweat of thy face, is a positive law. The Decalogue is almost entirely negative. But only let the one, first, great com- mand be strictly observed and the Decalogue will never be broken. It is the one continual effort to escape this one first command that brings man in collision with the laws of Sinai. As for the law of love, it is as natural as nature; though the true reading is not as you read it. After the love of God, which is inseparable from all goodness, you are commanded to 'love thy neighbor as thyself.’ Do you understand?” “Certainly, and so I have tried and tried to do.” “But have you not tried to love him more? Mark you, you are to 'love thy neighbor as thyself’; not more than thyself, but as thyself. Now as you love the good that is in you, so shall you love the good that is in your neighbor; as you hate the evil that is in you, so shall you hate and abhor the evil that is in your neighbor, — yea, hate it and abhor it.” A long time he held his head low in thought now, and she sat listening to the birds, bees, grasshoppers, God. Then he said: “ Why may not any resolute souls, if wise enough and strong enough, step out from the world and into this unpeopled middle-land, anywhere, anywhere from here up to Canada, or even down to Patagonia, and do much as you have done here, with this example of yours before them?” '' It should be done and it will be done, over and over again. The mistake has been in man’s not believing in man. Man has said man is had; kings, poli- ticians, creedists, have kept man arrayed against man since the dawn of history. To-day Europe keeps millions and mil- lions of men standing with guns and swords in hand to slay their brothers — Christians! But this nation has grown beyond that; and now the people of of this city have grown beyond the idle lawyers, idle politicians, and idle creedists who continually tell us that man is bad, evil, weak, worthless, and cannot be trust- ed to go forth from slavery, as Moses went forth to found his own city in the wilderness.” “Then I shall abandon my mountain- side above the city, and lead my people as Moses led his people, and build my city in the wilderness as you have built yours.” He was very much in earnest, but she raised her thin hand in protest as she said: “No; 'what man putteth his hand to the plough and looketh back?’ Go forward to the end as you began. An example of great effort, even a great failure, is worth much to the world now. Digitized by Google
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426 The Building of the City Beautiful. The foundations of cities planted by man in mud and malaria are shaken. Take New York, for example, once a small city of great men, now a great city of small men, who contend and strive and struggle; a city continually divided against itself. And so we know that it shall one day have no place on the map of the world. No, not wars or earth- quakes, nothing of that sort as of old when walls were built, but that lowest of all low pursuits and the coarsest of all human qualities, commerce, money-get- ting, — this is in her heart to her ruin; this is the baneful wooden horse holding destruction within. “You should not have planted entirely for profit. Go back and plant as God planted. Remember the Bible says : ‘And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden wherein he caused to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.’ “Observe that the trees ‘pleasant to the sight,9 came first. Far back in the morning of the world, before man was, God planted a garden in which the beautiful, ‘pleasant to the sight,9 was preferred to the useful, that which is good for food. Yet man in his arrogant domain over the earth is ever ready to destroy that which is pleasant to the sight and set up in its place that which is good for food. “Man seems to think that the trees were made for man. The truth is man was made for the trees. The trees came in the order of creation on the third day, age or cycle, while man was left to the veiy last. Man was never thought of until long after the trees were in full glory. Long after, ages perhaps, after the planting of the garden eastward in Eden man was created. Man was created for the express purpose of taking care of the trees pleasant to the sight and good for food. He was placed ‘in the garden to tend it and to keep it.9 It looks as if man might have been quite forgotten had he not been needed to take care of the trees in ‘the garden eastward in Eden.9 “We are in the habit of calling this Pacific sea-bank, this garden with its white wall of snow and world of trees pleasant to the sight, the new garden of Eden. Yet we fly right in the face of Holy Writ, God, Nature, and strip our garden and sell the garments of our good Mother Earth for gold. “There is nothing plainer in all the pages of the Bible than the truth, that man was made to tend and keep the trees. There is nothing truer in all the pages of history than that where man destroyed the trees he himself has been destroyed. “America owes ever so much to the Indians for their care and skill in forestry. But for the savage, so-called, we would have found but a barren waste along the Atlantic sea-bank. One of the oldest books touching on American forests, in the British Museum, has this statement in quaint old English, that ‘the squats (squaws?) do in the moist St. Martin’s summertime, when the leaves have fallen, set fire to the leaves, and so do not only prevent great fires in the dry season, but they do bum away the underwood so that you may ride to the hounds as in an English park.9 “ When the great American poet comes he will lift his face to the trees that are pleasant to the sight and sing as never sang man since the seers of old, who saw and knew the Cedars of Lebanon. “ Consider if you can the sublime, the simple, imperial dignity of a single great tree that is pleasant to the sight, and there is no tree great or small that is not pleasant to the sight; fronting the four winds of Heaven, sun or rain, flame or frost, lifting his arms in attitude of prayer through all the centuries, drawing his shapely presence up and up and up, his thousands tons of weight. By what hard and terrible toil we may not know, but we must surely know that there can be no hard toil, no weighty work like the work of a great tree to climb up and up and up toward the sun through all the battling elements and to hold his place there, as if to prop the very porch of Heaven, the House of Him who caused ‘every tree to grow that is pleasant to the sight.9 Digitized by Google
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The Building of the City Beautiful. “ And when the great tree falls, observe that it is not in battle, not in storm, but in days of absolute calm and stillness. It is veiy strange, but only in days of calm can you hear the thunder of a falling King of the forest. And how he falls, an emperor to the last, silent as Csesar. “ You will stay on your steeps of stone to the end, planting and planting till you have a forest of trees * pleasant to the sight.’ You will make pleasant resting- places for the poor who will come from out the city for a breath of air. You will give work to the poor by heaping of the stones into towers, pyramids, monu- ments to love. These white tombs and towers bursting up through your green forest will be beautiful, beautiful, so beautiful that people will want to rest there and rest there. Give them a place to rest, the living and the dead.” “Yes, yes; I will. But what a miracle has been wrought here!” “It is not a miracle,” she hastened to say; “ I simply removed all friction. As for that stupendous work which is being done,” and she lifted her face toward the glittering sea of spires and towers beyond, “it has cost scarcely a thought; and it has cost no man any waste of time. The eminent humanitarians who gathered about me here had time, as never before in the history of man, to really think, and really be humanitarians. There was an old mercenary saying that time is money. We esteem the man who saves time to man as the only real millionaire. He is not only a millionaire, he is the emanci- pator of the human race.” “Yet Ruskin has said that man should first set man to work, then the cattle, then the machine.” “ Yes, and Morris taught that we should turn back to the old pastoral times, and live as the shepherds lived.” She said this with a sad shake of the head. “Why, this,” she went on, “is like as if the two great captains of Moses had turned back to the flesh-pots of Egypt. But at the same time these teachings show us that the world is ripe. 427 ready for open revolt against the hard and bitter conditions of its people.” She paused, and he took the occasion offered to look her in the face, and with bitter remembrances ask her again why he had failed so sadly; why his long endeavor to build up a city on the moun- tain-side should have been so despised; for he felt she had not told all. At last she said slowly, sadly: “Why, then, in the second place, you failed because of your vanity, your painful and most pitiful vanity.” The sudden flush of pain that swept over his face as his eyes fell before her told how truly the probe had gone to the heart, and how necessary was the cruel surgery. After a pause, and leaning forward her face, she said in the kindest and most pitying manner: “Your vanity made you choose a con- spicuous place, where you could daily proclaim from your housetop how good and humble and industrious and unselfish you were. You thrust yourself and your new ideas in the midst of hard men who had but the one old idea of getting and getting; and then you proclaimed by word and deed that if a man smote the one cheek you would cheerfully turn the other, and that if a man took from you one garment you would not only give another, but the whole suit; and so, right in the face of the Lord’s Prayer, you led men into temptation.” The weight of her truth bowed his head low before her once more; for he saw that he had, after all, been but a boastful Pharisee. Finally she went on: “The world is dotted all over with good men who are trying to do good in secret ; but he who proclaims it, — ‘verily, he hath his reward.* Yet go forward. You have not failed; you only have not yet succeeded.” Then from far away, as if from that other world, came her words, His words: “ Be ye wise as serpents, but as harmless as doves. ... I leave my peace with you.” (To be continued.) Digitized by Google
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IllfilSfe k*V»*M . , , » 1»*«\ ' •• '.Wnt'* ^ ^1!*mV' k> t mm mm mm VtAMKJmW Opper, in New York American. (Reproduced by special permission of W. R. Hears!) THE CAVE OF DESPAIR. 11 All Hope Abandon, Ye Who Enter Here/* 428 Digitized by Google
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Politics , The People and The Trusts as Seen by Cartoonists. 429 igUssi Opper, l n Boston American. (Reproduced by special per- mission of W. R. Hearst.) ONE TYPE OF AMERICAN ” LAW MAKER.” The People Elect Them, Bat the Trusts Control Them. From the Neva Voice, Chicago. The Shades—” Beware ! ! We went that way. Opper, in Boston American. (Reproduced by special per- mission of W. R. Hearst.) THEY ALL DOIT. ” What ’■ a Little Thing Like the Anti-Free-Pass-Law Ryan Walker, in Aim Artor Argue. Ship Subsidy Bill— “Seeing that I hare such a big gun and yon haying money I might be induced Between Friends?” to hold yon up.” Digitized by Google
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mm |fflg Vg},. XSt m~'- Ilfci Tfc
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Bengough, in The PubUc, Chicago. FARMER AND PLUTOCRAT, Fabhbe— ' " Look here, whet do yon mean by telling me that taxation of land-ralnes would hurt the farmers 7 The lend in theee two cities alone is worth more than all the farms in the country ! ” Plotocrat— “ Oome away— that's Terr injurious read- ing matter for simple minds like yours r* Bartholomew, in Minneapolis Asrnsl. REGULATING THE TRUSTS. Uncle 8m— “ Now, James, if you could lust get this on him, too, I would feel safer/ Bartholomew, in Minneapolis Journal, WHY HE WAS WHIPPED. Ths Bia&—“ WelL you see, I was just t dinner, while he was fighting for l (Apologies to dSsop.) Gory, in New York World. HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF— THE OIL SITUATION IN KANSAS Digitized by Google
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EDITORIALS A TRUE DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT— THE SUPREME DEMAND OF THE HOUR. THERE Is no more important question before the American people than that of preserving democratic government in its essential elements. In the past republic after republic has flourished for a time, but as age crept on one of three deadly evils ap- peared: the republic went down before the sword of force wielded by ambition; or it was transformed into an oligarchy such as prevailed in Venice, where power became practically supreme and permanent in the hands of cer- tain families; or wealth and privilege in the) hands of the shrewd and the cunning slowly1 and silently but with Unswerving determina- tion advanced from one vantage-ground to another, until the republic, once proud in its own strength, became the servile tool of privi- leged interests, as in the case of Florence, after the de Medici family became the supreme masters of the republic without holding any office or interfering in the slightest degree with the republican shell, though the soul of freedom had been as effectively strangled as it was in Milan after the triumph through the sword of Sforza. The only way in which a republic can main- tain the essentials of pure democracy is to meet changed conditions with changes that will effectively preserve the government in fact as well as in theory to the people — effect- ively make the people at all times the head and fount of authority, to whom their servants must be amenable and whose power to sanc- tion or reject legislation must be recognized. In the early days of our republic, before powerful privileged interests and enormously wealthy corporations had arisen, furnishing the sinews of strength to corrupt and con- scienceless political leaders and partisan machines, the provisions made to secure to our people the blessings of a government of the people, by the people and for the people were carefully guarded by the people's servants. •To-day all this is changed. Powerful vested interests, acting in unison with masterful political bosses who operate or dominate the partisan machines, make or unmake the peo- ples' servants, defeat legislation demanded for the protection of the millions, and thwart the ends of republican government. To meet these changed conditions three things are of paramount importance: the insistence on the part of the people on the enjoyment of the rights which differentiate a democracy from an autocracy, a monarchy or any other form of class-government, expressed in the resolute demand for (1) the right to veto or refuse to ac- cept laws which the electorate regards ae inimical to the public weal or which the voters believe to have been purchased by privilege, (2) the right to make laws or initiate legislcUion which their ovm public servants have refused to place upon the statute books , and (3) the right to dismiss corrupt or unworthy public servants. The first and second of these measures are almost as old as the virile settlements that made New England an invincible citadel of moral power and the cradle of freedom. From the far-distant colonial days the New England town-meeting has preserved in more or less purity the principles of popular law- making and popular sanction of proposed regulations. The same principles have long existed to some extent among the sturdy, liberty-loving children of the Alps, but since a half-century ago, when the Swiss statesmen beheld the imperative need of measures which would preserve their republic from going the way of the various republics of the past, definite and well-considered measures for maintaining democracy through the sanction or rejection of proposed measures , through the inauguration or initiation of legislation , and in some cantons through the recall and retire- ment of unfaithful servants, were enacted; and these measures have proved unqualifiedly successful, and because of her far-seeing and wise statesmanship Switzerland is in many respects to-day the most ideal republic to be found on the fece of the globe. It is idle to talk of the need of this or that measure so long as corrupt and powerful corporations and a “system" built on privi- lege and corruption dominate political ma- chines and systematically defeat or thwart the enacting of any truly salutary laws or the 488 Digitized by Google
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434 Editorials. carrying out of any measures which are cm the any great reformative measures be won. The statute-books that would in effect place the salvation of the republic from the corruption, interests of the people above the interests of oppression and moral degradation incident to the privileged few. Not until the people the mastership of the government by corpora* make the destruction of class-rulership or the and predatory wealth depends upon the plac- despotism of corporation-controlled party- ing of the government again, in fact as well as machines die supreme object in their battle in theory, in the hands of the people. TVs for pure, just and republican government can is the supreme demand of democracy to-day. THE ANARCHISTIC TRUSTS: MASTERS BY GRACE OF THE PEOPLE’S IN THIS issue Mr. Beard’s picture sym- bolizes the condition of the American people, at the complete mercy of the railroads, the trusts and other illegal and oppressive combinations which are plundering the people at every turn and fattening on child-labor and the misery of the millions, by grace of Con- gress, the Senate and the executive depart- ment of the government. During the speakership of Thomas B. Reed, Congress ceased to be a deliberative body, the Speaker and the Committee on Rules being the real masters, while the once- powerful and commanding body has become more and more subservient, content to {day its insignificant part either as the echo of the demands of the executive department or as an inferior, ever ready to yield to the corporation- dominated Senate when the vital interests of the people were at stake. The Senate is so largely composed of political bosses and special-pleaders for public-service corpora- tions, trusts and privileged interests, that it stands to-day as a stone wall between corrupt predatory wealth and practical relief measures for an oppressed and exploited people. And the executive department, though brave in words, is as pitifully weak in action as is the trust-dominated Senate. It is true, the head of the executive depart- ment has proved as felicitous as ex-president Cleveland in employing high-sounding plati- tudes. He has even declared that: “All I ask is a square deal for every man. Give him a fair chance. Do not let him wrong anyone, and do not let him be wronged.’’ But, to use his own language, “words are good when backed up by deeds, and only so.” SERVANTS. And in this connection we remember that he held in office as attorney-general and as trusted friend and counselor, the whilom railroad and trust-attorney. Philander Knox, and that the urgent pleadings of the people, who were being mercilessly robbed by the lawless coal and railway trust, were persist- ently ignored by this man whose sworn duty it was to enforce the laws against illegal com- binations; and it remained for William Randolph Hearst to hale , the law-breakers into court. We remember that the President has recently renominated to a cabinet position Paul Morton, a confessed law-breaker, a man who under oath admitted having deliberately indulged in criminal acts, knowing them to be illegal at the time when he committed than for the enrichment of a railroad corporation, — acts by which the beef-trust and other plunder- ing corporations were enormously enriched, while competition was stifled and the public robbed. We remember, furthermore, that the President has entrusted the investigation of the beef-trust to the charge of the confiding Mr. Garfield, whose report has made him the laughing-stock of the nation, being, as has been well observed, little more than a brief for the beef-trust; and we remember that so well was the President pleased with this amazing report that he forthwith employed the same gentleman to investigate the Standard Oil-trust. These are typical things which compel us to include the executive department with the House and the Senate as responsible for the oppression and exploitation of the producing and consuming millions by the anurrhal public-service corporations and privileged wealth. Digitized by Google
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IN THE MIRROR OF THE PRESENT THE BATTLE OF A COMMONWEALTH AGAINST THE CRIMI- NALITY, RAPACITY AND EXTORTION OF A GREAT CORPORATION. I. A STATE DEDICATED TO FREEDOM. IN THE day of her birth the State of Kansas was dedicated to freedom. A large proportion of her people were the bravest and sturdiest champions of progress and advancement from the older states. Her schools have ever been a chief glory of the Com- monwealth. She has not unfrequently been called the Massachusetts of the West, because her people were never slow to initiate or assume the aggressive when great perils confronted them or great moral issues were to be met. When the Atchison, Topeka & Santa F6 Railroad imitated the example of the Erie, Pennsylvania and other lines in an attempt to gain mastership over the state government through domination of partisan machines, the citizens of Kansas rose in their might and not only overthrew the overwhelming ma- jority that had made the commonwealth a banner -state for the Republican party, but gave a majority to the friends of pure govern- ment and political and economic emancipation of about eighty thousand, if our memory serves us aright. When the reformers failed to measure up to the high ethical demands of the hour on the one hand, and when the vast wealth of the old political organization and the still more potent but silent and secret in- fluence of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe mad systematically set out to again control public opinion, the state again became Republican. But no sooner had the machine begun to manifest its old subserviency to corrupt corporations, than the freemen of Kansas revolted. The present governor is a man far from acceptable to the corrupt and law-defying railways and other corporations, but the people have begun to awaken to the fact that if their will is to be respected they must pledge their candidates before election to measures of supreme importance where gmat wealth will be pitted against the public weal. It is the glory of Kansas that her people pouess in a large measure the old-time spirit that marked the republic of early days; the old love of justice and freedom and die ancient courage to do, to initiate and to lead, where other states bow in craven submission before enthroned, unjust and rapacious greed. Now Kansas, like Pennsylvania, possesses great oil-fields, and no sooner had it been dis- covered that there existed this vast treasury of natural wealth than the Standard Oil Company set to work to acquire control of the same in the manner in which they had acquired a monopoly of the oil wealth of other states throughout the nation. n. A HISTORY OF UNPARALLELED RAPACITY. This great corporation, the earliest and most sinister and powerful of all the trusts, has a history stained with deeds of injustice, iniquity and criminality, which is we believe without a parallel in the history of commercial brigandage of modern times. The plain story of its rise and irresistible onward march is the story of the victorious march of masterful brains, innocent of ethical principles; the story of great daring, divorced from moral convictions. Indeed, the simple, unvarnished narration of facts affords in numerous in- stances such examples of moral turpitude that they would be incredible were not the evidence in large part the sworn testimony brought out before Congressional and State investigations. It is a history of unparal- leled rapacity, merciless as it is bold and morally criminal; the history of the insatiable greed of John D. Rockefeller and his associa- tes; a history extending over almost a half a century, strewn at every step with the wreck of the fortunes and the lives of honest, hard-working men who by fair means had built up great business enterprises, only to have them destroyed through secret and criminal conspiracies entered into by the Standard Oil Company and the great rail- road corporations — conspiracies by which the independent operator who furnished his oil to the market was charged exorbitant rates by the public carriers; and out of these overcharges the Standard Ofl Com- as Digitized by Google
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486 In the Mirror of the Present. pany received a princely sum, although it was not in any conceivable manner entitled to a cent of this money of which the innocent shipper was deliberately robbed, for his own destruction and the building up of an ir- resistible monopoly. Now in this manner scores upon scores of men were robbed and ruined that Mr. Rockefeller and his asso- ciates might reap millions of unearned wealth and establish a monopoly that should place every American home completely at the mercy of the few master-spirits in this corporation, so that they could reap at will un- told millions from the necessities of the people. in. ONE TYPICAL EXAMPLE OF HOW A WHOLE PEOPLE WAS ROBBED. In 1902 the Standard Oil Company was charging 7$ cents a gallon at wholesale for illuminating oil. This figure, owing to the low price which the company paid the pro- ducers, and the small cost incident to refining and marketing oil at the present time, repre- sented a very handsome profit to the company that held a monopoly of the illuminating oil. But it happened that through the coal-strike and the Coal-Trust’s refusal to arbitrate, millions of American people found them- selves without their winter’s supply of coal. The demand for oil immediately increased, and as the months passed and it became im- possible in many instances to get coal, while in other cases the price rose to three and four times its previous cost, the demand for oil enormously increased. At 7$ cents a gallon the poor were enabled to enjoy a measure of heat; but the helplessness of our millions was the opportunity of the oil-trust, and on the twentieth of September the price of oil was advanced one cent a gallon. This meant millions of dollars wrung from poverty to further enrich multi-millionaires. One cent a gallon increase, however, did not satisfy the rapacity of these modern cormorants of capital, and so another advance was made on the twentieth of October, still another on the twentieth of November, and on December the twentieth the wholesale price of oil had risen to 11$ cents — an advance of four cents on eveiy gallon sold at wholesale. Thus while the poor were buying their oil in Septem- ber at nine and ten cents a gallon, by the latter part of December they were paying thirteen and fourteen cents in and near the great metropolitan center. On December twentieth the New York Journal published a table showing what tikis increase of four cents a gallon meant to the Standard Oil Company, based on the annual sale of oil for the last year. According to this table, the refined oil sold by the company for the year was 2,337,000,000 gallons. The value of the same at 7$ cents a gallon was $175,312,500. The value of the same at 11$ cents was $245,487,500, or an increased profit per year of $98,500,000. Here we find one of nature’s most beneficent provisions for the people, and one which should be the property of all, not only being controlled by a small handful of men so as to make multi-million- aires of the monopolists, but also being em- ployed as an instrument of oppression in the hour of the people’s need and misery, to ex- tort mere than ninety millions of dollars m excess of the prices that were yielding man# millions of profit prior to the hour when this helpless poor became a further prey to the ail- trust's rapacity. IV. SEIZING UPON THE VIRGIN WEALTH OF KANSAS. Aftr oil had been discovered in Kansas, the Standard Oil Company, by methods both fair and foul, such as marked its entire history, set out to secure such control of this great reservoir of wealth as would place all the people of Kansas at its mercy. In order to perfect its scheme it was necessary to secure the cooperation of the great public carriers, as has always been the case. The railways during the past fifty years have been not only a chief factor in building up the trusts, but t hi freight discriminations, secret rebates, and the paying to rapacious bands of part of the plunder extorted from their rivals, have served to destroy competition and make them mighty engines of oppression and spoliation, through which such organizations as the Standard Oil and Beef-Trusts have been able to extort at will millions upon millions from the producers and consumers. Now through secret bargaining Mr. Rocke- feller and his associates have ever been aide to enlist the great railways against the people, and in Kmism tactics not unlike the infamous means pursued by the Erie, Pennsylvania and the New York Central in destroying competition, seem to have been employed, as the following extract from charges filed by Congressman Campbell on the eighteenth of February with the Department of Commerce and Labor would indicate: Digitized by Google
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437 In the Mirror of the Present. “The charges are as follows and are signed by R. C. Bawling and William £. Connelly, members of the advisory committee of the Kansas Oil Producers9 Association, under date of Chanute, Kan., February 15: “‘The Kansas oil producers charge the Standard Oil Company with discriminations in violation of the laws of the United States regarding interstate commerce and specify herein a few instances of such violation: “‘First — We charge: That die Standard Oil Company has endeavored to secure a monopoly of ml business of this state from the beginning of its development; that it has pre- vented other companies from entering this field to compete for the Kansas oil trade. Also that there exists a conspiracy between the Standard Oil and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa F4 Railroad to prevent other parties from handling oil or purchasing oil in Kansas.9 “In support of these charges we submit the following facts and figures shown by the books of I. N. Knapp in his office at Chanute, Kan.: “‘Mr. Knapp, when he began the produc- tion of oil in Chanute, bought a number of tank-cars in which to ship his oil to Kansas City and other points to be used for feul and for the manufacture of gas. The cars are of the capacity of 7,500 gallons. When Mr. Knapp began the shipment of his oil, the rate was (48 per car from Chanute to Kansas City. “‘This rate was based on the capacity of the car reckoned at 10 cents per 100 pounds, counting a gallon of oil at six and four-tenths pounds. The same rate was charged to Emporia and other Kansas points, the same distance from Chanute. Thu rate was out- rageous, for the rate on a car of stock, cattle or hogs was $95.50, and on a car of strawberries, a very perishable product, was but 980. “‘In June, 1904, notice was given Mr. Knapp that on August 15, 1904, the rate on crude oil would be raised to 17 cents per 100 pounds in carload lots from Chanute to Kansas City — an increase of 70 per cent., and the Standard’s pipe-line to Kansas City was completed about August 15, 1904; please remember that. The increase made it cost 981.00 to ship a car-load of oil from Chanute to Emporia or Kansas City. The rates on car-loads mentioned above were increased by the Santa F4 in counting the weight of a gallon of oil seven and four-tenths pounds, thereby raising the 948 rate to 955.50 and the 981.50 rate to 994.85. “‘These rates are prohibitive and were made to prevent the shipment of crude oil out of the Kansas oil-fields and to force the pro- ducers to sell their oil to the Standard for any price it might see fit to pay. These are facts shown by the books of Mr. Knapp. They establish the fact of the existence of a league between the Santa F4 and the Standard to crush the oil producers of Kansas.999 V. THE YOUNG DAVID FROM THE WEST AGAINST THE CORPORATION GOLIATH 07 THE AGE. The above was, however, only one of die many acts of the Standard Oil Company that aroused the civic spirit of Kansas, and last autumn the candidate for governor and the people’s representatives were pledged by the electorate to an aggressive policy calculated to break the oppressive power of the oil monopoly and to secure to the people their own oil at a price which should represent merely a fair profit on the refining and marketing of the same. When the legislature assembled, a movement was inaugurated to build and operate a state refinery, similar to the state twine-factory now in operation; for it must be remembered that when the binding-twine trust sought to oppress the fanners of Kansas by extortionate charges for twine, the state established a twine industry at which it employed a part of its convicts. The pre- sumption of Kansas in daring to oppose the Standard Ofl Company, aroused the indigna- tion of the trust-magnates and of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa F£ Railroad— that great and corrupt system which has apparently long since sought to imitate fire example of the Pennsylvania Railroad in its tactics. Accordingly great lobbies for the Oil Com- pany and the railways appeared at Topeka. The baleful and sinister influence of the cor- rupters of the people’s servants was under- stood by the voters of Kansas. They, how- ever, had one advantage: their representatives had been pledged before election to place the people’s interests above those of the corpora- tions in the pending struggle. Kansas, how- ever, has not as yet introduced those all- important safeguards to popular government and pure political conditions — the initiative and referendum, as has been done in the state of Oregon, else the corrupt lobbies would have been powerless, for the people could have vetoed their work or initiated such legislation as they desired. But failing to Digitized by Google
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438 In the Mirror enjoy these safeguards of democracy, the electorate understood that special efforts would be required to insure the state refinery upon which die people’s heart was set Accordingly monster petitions from various sections of the state rolled into the legislature, the farmers as well as the oil producers vying with each other in their imperative demands. Not a few of the legislators, judging from their own confessions, would have liked to harken to the seductive voice of the Standard Oil and railroad lobbies, but they dared not in the presence of the imperious and determined demand of their constituents. When the news reached die oil-fields that the lobbies were at work, the producers to the number of several hundred, it is said, journeyed to Topeka, and public feeling ran very high. Something of die temper of a number of the people may be gleaned from the following despatch from Topeka, dated February 6th, and published in the Boston Evening Record: “T. B. Murdock, who stands dose to the state administration, fired the producers with incendiary threats. He said: “‘After a little the people of the country will rise up and hang a few Rockefellers and other kinds of buzzcuds who rob the people, not forgetting to indude in the general hang- ings a squad or two of high court judges, when all this plundering and robbing, all these “technical” court proceedings will stop. For my part, I would like to see the hangings commence to-morrow. “‘Everything we eat, everything we drink, is either controlled by a trust or is adulterated. Congress will do nothing, so it is time for the people to begin to get ready to do something.’ • “Murdock’s further suggestion of tar and feathers for the Standard Oil lobbyists was warmly received.” VI. ▲ BRAZEN ATTEMPT TO COERCE A STATE. Finding that the lobbies were not meeting with their usual success in “convincing” the people’s representatives, the Standard Com- pany proceeded to play a bold game, which was none other than to coerce the state into abdicating in its favor, by compelling it to drop the proposed legislation. This was done by the company refusing to buy any Kansas oil. It was thought that it could so terrify the producers by this action that they would induce the legislators to drop the proposed of the Present. refinery bill. That such was the purpose of the oil-trust is indicated from the foOowing charges lodged with the Department of Commerce and Labor, before alluded to: “Second. — We charge: That the Standard Oil Company is now blacklisting Kansas ofl for the purpose of preventing the legislature of Kansas from passing such measures as will give the producers relief and allow honest competition in the oil business of Kansas, and submit the following facts: “On or about February 8, 1905, the Kansas House of Representatives made the said measure a special order for February 15th. They had already passed the same. On Thursday, February 9th, the Standard Ofl Company issued an order to its Kansas officer* to buy no more oil in Kansas. As this order was for the purpose of throwing the oil -field into a panic and causing the producer* to appeal to the legislature to go no further with the legislation, we submit the following statement of R. W. J. Young, President of the Prairie Oil and Gas Company, the Kansas branch of the Standard. “The statement is as follows: ‘The legis- lature of Kansas has passed an act appropriat- ing $400,000 for a state oil-refinery and is now framing laws for the establishment of a pipe- line. It is said convict labor is to be used and that the state in this way will compete with the Standard Oil Company. “‘The dosing of the plants and shutting down of the pipe-tines wOl let the legislature and people see what adverse legislation would do to tiie industries of the state, and wiD probably create sentiment abandoning the plan of entering the oil-fidd.’” VII. A STATE GOVERNMENT THAT REFUSED TO BE CORRUPTED OR COERCED. The high-handed action of Mr. Rockefeller and his associates had precisdy the opposite effect from what the trust desired. It crystal- lized public sentiment and aroused such intense indignation on the part of the people that all thought of yidding, even on the put of the beneficiaries of the railway or corpora- tion interests, had to be abandoned. The biD passed providing for the state refinery, and was signed by the governor. Thus the first step in the great battle of a commonwealth against corrupt corporate wealth was taken, and already Kansas has electrified the nation and created something akin to consternation Digitized by Google
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480 In the Mirror in the circles of the oil-trust; for Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma and Missouri are all contemplating following the example of Kansas, and certain it is that if the oil-trust cannot thwart the state in its experiment, the probabilities are that numerous other common- wealths will throw off the joke of bondage and imitate the sane, wise and statesmanlike course of Kansas in the near future. vra. PERILS BEFORE KANSAS. No one who has studied the dark and devious methods of the Standard Oil Com- pany, or who is even cursorily acquainted with its iniquitous history, will imagine for a moment that the state of Kansas will be per- mitted to peacefully carry out her own law or the manifest desire of the electorate of the commonwealth. The statute-evading, law- defying and corrupt corporation long since determined to be the absolute master of the oil wealth of this nation and that the people of the country should not enjoy the benefits of this immensely valuable gift of the common Father to His common children without pay- ing extortionate tribute to the conscienceless trust. In pursuance of this settled policy and through the powerful and all-necessary aid of the corrupt railway systems, the trust has heretofore been able to thwart every effort made in the interests of the millions of America or of the honest competitors among the oil producers and refiners. We have already referred to the infamous species of commercial brigandage by which the Standard Oil Company rendered competition impossible and a mastery of the oil-fields inevitable, while enormously enriching itself, through the assistance and connivance of the railways which robbed every independent producer and turned the money over to the Standard Oil Company. This exhibition of criminal ra- pacity in commercial life bore precisely the same relation to open warfare as the methods of medieval assassins who dared not meet their enemies in the open, but who under shelter of night emerged from dark alleys and drove their stilletoes into the vitals of their enemies from behind. Now among the grave perils which Kansas will have to grapple with, perhaps nothing will be more serious than the influence of the great railways of the state. These corpora- tions have means of influencing citizens greater, more far-reaching and irresistible than any other source of power save that of an of the Present. aroused and united public sentiment. They can injure or aid, often make or nnmalrw citizens. Secret rebates, favoritism, illegal discrimination, and other morally criminal acts so long practiced are but a few of the means at their command by which they are able to thwart or circumvent the interests and welfare of the people, when such interests run counter to their own rapacity or the greed of their allies. One of these influencing factors is the lawyers all over the state who may be retained, and especially the ambitious and aspiring attorneys. The editors also can be easily made to feel the influence of the railroads* smile or frown; so with statesmen and various business interests dependent upon the railways. Now knowing what has been the settled policy of the Standard Oil Company from its beginning, we naturally expected that in the presence of the pending conflict it would seek to ally itself more closely with the great railway octopus of Kansas, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa F£ Railroad; and we were therefore not surprised to read in the daily papers on the seventeenth of February the announcement that H. H. Rogers, the present active head of the Standard Oil Company, had been elected to the directorate of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa F6 Railroad Company, together with H. C. Frick of the Steel-Trust. No one knows better than the people of Kansas how baleful has frequently been the influence exerted by the Atchison road in compassing ends inimical to the best interests of the producing and consuming masses of the state. Its influence is everywhere felt over the commonwealth. Its power is only second to that of public opinion when the latter is fully aroused and the people are organized; while the Atchison*s staying powers are not unlike those of the Standard Oil Company. Now the election of Mr. Rogers, the virtual head of the Standard Oil Company, to the directorate of the Atchison road is ominous. It indicates that in the war that the Standard proposes to wage, the Atchison will throw all its immense power against the commonwealth and for the oil octopus. This is but one, however, of the agencies which may be expected to be brought to bear to defeat the purpose of Kansas. Let the citizens of this brave and patriotic Western commonwealth study well the history of the Digitized by Google
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440 In the Mirror of the Present Standard Oil Company as given by Mr. in which Miss Tarbell shows the change of Henry Demarest Lloyd in his masterly work, front on the part of Governor Hoyt of Ptenn- WeaUh Against Commonwealth, and the sylvania. Let them read of the blowing op recently published History of the Standard of the Matthews works and of the confenknis Oil Company, by Ida M. Tarbell. Let them and suits which followed. And let them also especially note the chapters in Miss TarbelT* follow the amaring revelations of the various history showing the change of heart of gov- Congressional, State and other investigations eraors, state attorneys, judges, editors and of the Oil-Trust, so that they may be prepared others when die fruits of the rapacity and in- to battle successfully with the most dangerous ordinate greed of the Standard Oil Company aggregation of corporate wealth that to-day were imperilled. Let them read the chapter menaces republican institutions. ECONOMIC EVILS THAT SHAME THE REPUBLIC. Child-Slavery in New York. WHENEVER children are taken from school and the conditions essential to healthful growth and development of body and mind, and are confined in mills, factories and shops where they toil for long hours, a double crime is perpetrated — a crime against the young life and a crime against the society of to-morrow. Moreover, wherever society becomes so sordid as to permit this inhumanity the conditions of the little ones become in many respects inexpressibly tragic and the general tendency in their treatment is down- ward rather than upward. Some recent disclosures of the Factory Inspectors in New York reveal conditions that are well calculated to stir the blood of even our complacent, money-worshiping masses whose optimism is largely the fruit of ignor- ance. In two instances cited by the inspec- tors against manufacturers who were haled into court indicate to what extent the crime against die young is being carried in the most opulent and populous city of the New World. It was shown at this investigation that girls respectively thirteen and fourteen years of age had been compelled to work sixty-eight hours a week, or over eleven hours a day, and for this they received but three dollars. The judge before whom the case was brought characterised such treatment as criminal and as in effect being slavery. In her testimony Miss Foster, the inspector responsible for bringing these outrageous facts to public at- tention, stated that she also found that the children employed by this firm were fined ten cents each time they spoke while working, and two cents for each five minutes they were late. There is a general movement at the present time looking towards arousing the dormant conscience of our people against this form of slavery, and it should receive the active and earnest support of all friends of human progress. While we hold that the abolition of child-slavery in itself is of small importance in comparison with the inauguration of great fundamental democratic and just political and economic measures, it is a movement in the right direction and as such should receive the cordial aid of die conscience element of our society. THE WORLD AT LARGE. The Assassination or Seroitjs: Another Attempt to Temper The Despotism of Russia. The ASSASSINATION of the Grand Duke Sergius of Russia at Moscow by the bomb of one of the revolutionists, marks the taking off of the second person in a list of seven or eight of the more prominent and offensive of the responsible reactionary despots that have answered die aspirations of a great people for a constitutional government with murder, imprisonment and exile, and that the revolutionists have slated for death, provided the government still refuses the demands of the people. Next to the late minister Von Plehve Digitized by Google
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441 In the Mirror of the Present. and M. Pobiedonostseff, die present head of the Holy Synod, Sergius has long been the most bated man in all Russia. His brutality to the students and inhumanity to the Jews were such as to sicken the heart of every dvOiaed person acquainted with his atrocities. When in command of Moscow he constantly committed outrages that should have led to his life imprisonment in the salt mines of Siberia. For example: when the students gathered in the city, he would frequently order the Cossacks to ride them down and saber them. Upon the Jews his innate hate, intensified by his religious fanaticism, found constant and terrible expression. He created a veritable reign of terror among a large pro- portion of the best inhabitants of the ci ty, and finally his crimes became so unbearable that the government was compelled to remove him from command. He Haw been one of the chief of the baleful reactionary influences that are responsible for the Czar’s refusing the moderate and just demands of the zemst- vos and which later led the autocratic ruler to order the murder of hundreds of his starving subjects — men, women and children, who were unarmed and merely sought to peaceably acquaint him with their wretched condition. Sergius, Pobiedonostseff, — the latter acting directly and also through the Czar’s mother who is said to be completely under the priest’s baleful influence — and the Grand Duke Vladimir are credited with having overruled the wise counsel of Prince Sviatopolk-Mirsky, the Czarina and other leading liberal in- fluences, so that the Czar lost forever one of the most splendid opportunities of winning an immortality of glory for himself and the love and gratitude of the truly civilized of the Western nations, by establishing a constitu- tional form of government. On every hand reactionary journals and correspondents at the present writing are talking of a reign of terror being feared in Russia; and in this connection it is well for thoughtful people to bear in mind the fact that in the history of Christian civilization no reign of terror has been known, that came from the people, which was not preceded by a long and far more terrible reign of terror from the throne and the classes, that system- atically oppressed and destroyed the people. Wherever and whenever a reign of terror has come, it has been but the swinging back of the pendulum — but the reaping of the previous rowing. Take Russia for example. The riding down and sabering of the students at the command of Sergius; the despoliation, persecution and slaughter of the Jews; the long practice of arbitrarily arresting and without any due form of trial sending to the salt-mines or other dismal prison-colonies of Siberia Russian nobles, educators, and the cultured sons and daughters of the nobility, for no crime save that of being suspected of working for a constitutional form of govern- ment or of teaching the serfs to read,** the wholesale arrest and deportation of the Finnish patriots for resisting die despotism of Russia, rendered possible through the perfidy of the present Czar; the wholesale massacres at Kishineff; the recent shooting down of unarmed men, women and children, who under the leadership of their loved priest sought to lay a petition at the feet of the “Little Father,” as they had been taught to lovingly designate the Czar, — these and scores upon scores of similar outrages, stretch- ing back through many decades, have made a veritable reign of terror, which in its infamy, its cruelty, its injustice and inhumanity dwarfs the French Reign of Terror into pitiful insignificance. If a reign of terror comes from the victims of Russian despotism, it will be brought about by and be wholly a result of the long-continued brutality, tyranny and inhumanity of the Czar, his family and the bureaucracy. Under a republican form of government there is no justification for assassination, for the people have it in their power to organize and overthrow the most powerful and corrupt influence, whether it be entrenched in govern- ment or manifested through corporate wealth * The experience of the great Russian educator, Professor Paul Mflyoukov, words a striking illustra- tion of this common practice of the Russian bureau- cracy. Professor Mnyoukov was a leading educa- tor, loved and respected, a man of brood culture and refinement He presided at a students’ meeting and expressed his sympathy with the aspirations <3 young Russia for a constitutional government and that huger measure of freedom which favors moral and intellectual growth in a people; and for this he was arrested and condemned to exile in the salt- mines of Siberia. He escaped and came to this country, where during the past winter he delivered a notable course of lectures at the Lowell Institute Course, in Boston. Another typical illustration was the case of Katherine Birtsttevaky. She was the daughter of one of the large landed proprietors of Russia, and her commiseration for the ignorance and misery of the peasants led her to teach them to read, and for this teaching she was condemned for a number of years to exile, where she suffered aD the horrors of the Siberian prisons. Digitized by Google
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442 In the Mirror of the Present. acting outside of and subtly through govern- ment channels. Outrages may exist under constitutional government for a time* but a united people can always end the abuses when they organize and vote as a unit against their oppressors. In an autocracy it is different As has been truly said, Russia is a despotism tempered by assassination. The present government has had every possible oppor- tunity given it to be just and to conform to the spirit of the age. Moderate and meagre indeed have been the demands of the nation, but its demands have been spurned, and when the starving have asked for bread they have received bullets instead. Under such con- ditions it is not strange that assassinations continue, nor do we imagine they will cease until the tyrants yield or until the marked despotic reactionaries have all been removed and a full-fledged revolution has developed. The Railways as Factors in a Popular Educational System. '^^TEW ZEALAND furnishes many striking II illustrations of the difference between a government of the people, by the people and for the people, and a government dominated by privileged interests, predatory wealth and political machines, where the interests of powerful corporations and of professional politicians and bosses are of first concern and those of the millions of wealth-creators and consumers are a matter of secondary con- sideration in the practical workings of the various departments of government. In New Zealand the people’s servants, from Prime Minister Seddon down, for more than a dec- ade, or since the Liberal Party gained com- plete control of the government, have made the interest, prosperity, betterment, develop- ment, and happiness of all the people the supreme aim and end of government. That the government may have erred at times or may have placed too much emphasis on some reforms and too little on others is possible. Indeed, it would be almost impossible for it to be otherwise, but any such errors have been the result of human fallibility and not of sordid- ness or an aim to subvert the functions of government for the furtherance of ambitious desires, of personal interest, or of the interest of any special class. And this high and noble passion for the commonweal has led to numer- ous innovations that America would have in- augurated long ere this but for the fact that greed and cunning instead of lofty disinter- ested statesmanship have been allowed to corrupt government and so far dominate political machines and public opinion-forming agencies as to defeat necessary legislation that would have fostered equality of opportunities and of rights — the touchkone of a free republic. Among the numerous innovations that have been successfully introduced into New Zea- land and that aim at broadening and develop- ing the life and character of die rising genera- tion is a provision by which school-children of town and country are enabled to travel to and from their homes under conditions that are favorable at once to the fullest measure of innocent enjoyment, while the children are being unconsciously educated in the most practical manner. Under this provision at intervals the teachers in the country schools take the children to the cities on excursions, when they visit the libraries, museums, printing-offices, manufacturing establish- ments, gas-plants, and other interesting features of urban life, as well as the shipping in the harbors. During these excursions the teachers explain everything to the children. At night the excursionists return with minds full of information and stored with a fund of food that shall stimulate the imagination for weeks and months to come. In like manner the children in the cities are taken into the country to see nature in her varying moods. The beauty of spring, the splendor of summer, the glory of autumn, and the wonderful natural scenery of New Zealand embracing mountains, magnificent waterfalls, glaciers, geysers and other natural wonders, are brought to the attention of the urban children and so explained that in a few hours’ time more of helpful and wholesome truth relating to geology, botany and other natural sciences is imbibed than could otherwise have been inculcated in months. To make it possible for the children to enjoy these educational excursions, the government- owned and operated railways furnish round- fare tickets for all children under fifteen years of age at fifty cents per trip of one hundred miles in length; while the teachers and older pupils pay one dollar for the same round-trip tickets. These prices, as the government officials state, do not quite cover the expense of the trips in dollars and cents, but they regard the slight loss thus sustained as a part of the money wisely invested for the Digitized by Google
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443 In the Mirror of the Present. maintenance of the popular educational sys- tem. Here we have a splendid illustration of the practical idealism that is the true flower of pure democracy. The children’s lives are thus at a trifling expense to the state wonderfully enriched through not only having their joy increased in a pure and wholesome manner, their love of the government and their pride in the nation fostered, but their general education has been furthered in a positive and helpful manner. Another blessing flowing from the state- owned railways of New Zealand is found in the manner in which the government has been able to foster and stimulate home-building and development for miles around each center of population. One of the reasons why the most ambitious of our own working-people feel a reluctance to going outside of the thickly-settled parts of the cities is because their children will not have such good school advantages as if they remained in the city, while the cost to them in going to and coming from labor is prohibitive. Now New Zealand’s railways cany children for the primary grades to and from school free, while older children can buy a three-months’ season ticket for $2.60 or $5.00, according to age, within a radius of sixty miles of the city, which, as Professor Parsons points out in his unsurpassed history of New Zealand, gives them a possible ride of 120 miles a day for three or six cents in round numbers. Hie roads also favor the workingmen in such a way as to encourage the building of suburban homes, by selling them tickets good for one week, within any reasonable distance of the city, at twenty-eight shillings, the only restriction being that they must take trains leaving their home before 8 A. M. They can return at any hour in the day. These wise provisions are doing much toward making New Zealand a commonwealth of happy home-builders, and in so doing are also pre- serving the true, simple, pure life that the artificial and abnormal conditions in over- crowded cities tend to destroy. When the people own and operate the rail- ways, they are run in the interest and for the benefit of the people. When private com- panies own and operate the railways, they are run in the interest and for the rapid enrich- ment of a relatively few privileged individuals, the master-spirits being Wall-street gamblers or speculators and multi-millionaires who have used and are using their powers to directly or indirectly corrupt government and prevent the legislation that would protect the people from discriminations and extor- tions. The question that our people must settle, and that shortly, is whether the people shall own the railways and enjoy the benefits of such ownership, or whether the railways shall own the government and make it more and more an instrument for the enrichment of privileged classes and giant corporations by the spoliation of the many. New Zealand points the way. THE IRREPRESSIBIJ2 BATTLE BETWEEN INDUSTRY AND DEMO- CRATIC PROGRESS, AND PRIVILEGE AND REACTION. Popular Government and Reaction. THE WORLD-WIDE and irrepressible conflict now assuming gigantic pro- portions in various lands, between the genius of democracy or popular rule on the one hand and privilege and reaction on the other, is in essence the same as the great revolutionary struggle that marked the dosing quarter of the eighteenth century. In the December issue of The Arena the Honorable Edward Tregear, the eminent New Zealand statesman and author and the present Secretary of Labor for the Commonwealth, showed how the industrial classes in the cities and the country united at the polls, elected statesmen pledged to a democratic progressive platform, won the government, and inaugurated the political revolution that has raised New Zealand out of comparative obscurity and placed her in the forefront of the truly demo- cratic lands, while bringing to the people a degree of happiness, freedom and prosperity that would have been impossible had not the wealth-creators placed at the helm of govern- ment men who were pledged to place the in- terests of the whole people above all considera- tion of the demands of classes or privileged interests. In our March number Mr. David Graham Phillips gave a graphic picture of the Digitized by Google
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444 In the Mirror rapid advance which France is making toward a true democracy in which political equality will ere long, unless a reactionary movement sets in, be complemented by economic equality. This movement of the awakened masses in favor of democracy or a government truly popular in its spirit, — one in which the chief concern of the statesmen shall always be the highest interests of all the people, as opposed to the clearly reactionary movements in which autocracy, monarchy, theocracy, predatory wealth or privileged interests in various guises are seeking to regain the reins of govern- ment, is the most profoundly important con- flict in the political world to-day. It is our purpose to notice this struggle in different lands from time to time, in order that our readers may be kept in intimate touch with a conflict which, whether in Russia or Australia, Germany or New Zealand, Italy or Great Britain, France or the United States, Spain or Belgium, is the same in spirit and essence; though in different lands the reactionary classes march under different flags, as for example, a czar, a bureaucracy and a medi- eval church, as in Russia; an emperor, a hereditary aristocracy and a reactionary clerical party, as in Germany; an imperial- istic, clerical and economically reactionary class, as in Great Britain; the degenerate and broken-down scions of an old Bourbon rSgime and a reactionary clergy, as in France; or a plutocracy and a reactionary party of self-seeking politicians, subservient to preda- tory wealth and corporate interests, as in our republic. It matters not, however, what are the dominating influences that mark these reactionary classes; the genius of each is the same. They all represent that spirit of class- rulership, of despotism, oppression and op- position to free thought and the general expansion of human life, which battled against the revolutionary forces and the genius of democracy in the last great conflict. The New Progressive Democratic Party in Great Britain. This month we wish to notice the new movement, representing industry and progress, which promises to supplant the decadent Liberal party and become the great liberal, progressive and truly democratic party of Great Britain. In the January issue of the English Review of Reviews for 1908, Mr. W. T. Stead published an extended paper on of the Present. “The Party of the Future and Its Programme.” This contribution was remarkable for die keenness with which the versatile editor analyzed the political conditions and die drift of progressive and reactionary thought, and for the accuracy of his predictions as to the political future. In speaking of the reaction that had come as a result of die disorganized and moribund condition of the old Liberal party, Mr. Stead said: “In England we have witnessed the over- throw one by one of the principles of legisla- tion which the liberals of the last century believed to be established on unassailable foundations. A Parliament which has levied an export duty on coal, an import duty on bread, and which has reimposed religious tests and redacted church rates in disguise, is portent enough to alarm all moderate men.” The editor next showed that this reaction- ary course had been rendered possible on account of the paralysis of the Liberal party, because it had exhausted its mandate and lost its leaden, so that the rank and file were “a leaderless mob, without a general, with- out a creed, without even a plan of campaign.” But though Mr. Stead beheld nothing but disaster for the old Liberal party, he believed the hour approached when a re-alignment along the lines of labor and social progress, in harmony with the truly democratic ideal, would make a strong and vigorous new party which should become the legitimate successor of the old Liberal party and which should carry forward the work of democracy. On these points he observed: “The Liberal party must experience a glorious resurrection as the Party of Progress with the Condition of the People Question — the 'material improvement of the individual citizen by the use of all the forces at the disposal of the State — as its battle-cry. The liberal party, in short, must become a Social party, with a Social programme so broadly defined as to make it practically indistinguish- able in its immediate aims from the Labour party, whether that party is labelled I. L. P. or S. D. F. or bears no label. When that metamorphosis is accomplished the old his- toric name of liberal will take its place beside the not less historic and illustrious name of Whig, and hand over its glorious traditions and its party organization to a successor, whose name will spring naturally Digitized by Google
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445 In the Mirror of the Present. from its creed. The Party of the Future, which is the Party of Progress, will be the Progresii es, and against it will be arrayed the serried ranks of the champions of reaction. “ Mr. Gladstone in his dosing years saw the coming division and regrouping of parties when he used the memorable phrase about the Liberals being the party of the masses as distinguished from the Conservatives, who were the party of the dasses. The Progres- sive party will be, even more than the Liberal party ever was, the party of the masses, for it will be the party of Labour, and its supreme mandate will be the amelioration of the con- dition of the people. It will seek the material betterment of the lot of the poor by the use of the power and resources of the State/* Before Mr. Stead wrote those lines — indeed, as far back as 1000 — a practical attempt had been made looking toward uniting various labor and reform movements in such a manner that a practical programme could be adopted by which the industrial masses and the re- formers of England in general could compel something like adequate recognition from the law-makers. At the great Trades-Union Council in 1900 it was ably pointed out by representatives of the Labor party that so long as the workers divided their votes, little real progress could be hoped for. The Liberal was becoming more and more an opportunist capital party, and the Conserva- tives, emboldened by the disorganized and programmeless condition of the Liberals, were forcing England into a most reactionary position, which, while necessarily the source of great satisfaction to the Emeror William, the Czar of Russia and other extreme re- actionaries, was alarming to all friends of democracy. At first the efforts at union seemed futile. The cottperators had from the start confined their work to an economic programme. The Social-Democratic Federation was unwilling to accept the step-by-step programme as proposed by the Labor leaders, while the trades unions at the first seemed reluctant to adopt the policy that had made the reactionists and capitalists powerful in government — namely, that of uniting at the polls to secure the election of statesmen pledged to the demands of Labor and of the industrial classes in general. But ere long one by one the great trades-union organizations were won over. A systematic educational agitiaton was carried forward which rapidly produced a strong sentiment in favor of political union for practical results. The laborers saw that in England and America, where the Labor leaders had refused to unite on a definite programme and where the capitalists and reactionary elements had united, legislation inimical to the principles of democracy, and which in some instances threatened the foundations of free government, was being enacted; while reactionary laws and vicious precedents were on every hand imperilling the rights of labor, which had heretofore been unquestioned. On the other hand it was seen that by union of the industrial masses in New Zealand, the Commonwealth had been reclaimed from the mastership of classes and privililege and made in deed and in fact a government of the people, by the people and for the people, worthy of twentieth-century civilization. As a result the trades unions have one by one declared for the new party, until it is believed that there are now about one millions trades-unionists and progressive labor men pledged to the organization. The general election of 1900 came too soon to enable the Labor party to develop any strength, but since then the number of can- didates representing the Labor party and the extreme Liberals, who had been successful at the by-elections affords some indication of the great progress that has been made, and even more surprising and signal have been the Labor votes recently developed in mu- nicipal elections. It is confidently believed that at the next general election from twenty- five to fifty Labor members will be returned, probably enough to hold the balance of power; and from then on there will be a rapid growth in the party, because it embodies in its general demands the vital requirements of progressive democracy to-day, just as the liberal party embodied the vital demands of progressive democracy in the last century. Among the leading of these demands for which it is claimed Che new party will stand will be: The nationalization of the railways and other public utilities that are not already in the hands of the people; the taxation of land values or public-ownership of the land; a legal eight-hour day; a free secular public- school system ; public support of poor children; public employment of the unemployed; aid or pensions for the aged poor; opposition to imperialism and to protection. Digitized by Google
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446 In the Mirror of ike Present. The programme will be opportunistic in character and socialistic in spirit Hie plan of procedure in all probability will be by the step-by-step method, which will seize the reform most easy of accomplishment con- centrate on it, and when victory has been achieved take up another measure, making it the rallying point until it also has become a part of the organic law of the realm. This was the most successful plan of the liberals of England during the past century, and the men at the head of the Labor party in Eng- land are men of wisdom and trained to act in a practical manner without sacrificing any vital principle for which they are battling. Owing to Mr. Chamberlain’s forcing the protection issue, the probability is that the liberals will win at die next election, but a large number of their candidates will weak with the Labor party on most question*, while, as pointed out by Mr. Stead, owing to the fact that the liberal party has fulfilled its mission and has no constructive programme, no masterful leaders, and no consistent general policy around which it can rally its forces, it will go to pieces, and the greater number of its members will join the Labor party, while the reactionary element will unite with the Tories or Conservatives. The outlook for future success for a progres- sive, constructive democratic programme in England is, we think, brighter to-day than ever before. Certainly the cause of liberal- ism, which with the passing of Gladstone suffered eclipse, shows signs of re-birth in the new party of progress and extended popular rights. THE ADVANCE OF WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY. T 7HEN wireless telegraphy was first dem- VV onstrated to be practical, under very limited conditions, most persons, even among electrical experts held that its benefits must be in the very nature of the case restricted in character. It would be possible to use it suc- cessfully at sea between the ships of a fleet or passing vessels, and it would be thoroughly practicable to use it within thirty or sixty miles of the coast; but beyond such utiliza- tion little, it was thought, could be hoped for from the discovery and invention. The progress along practical lines, though not so rapid or complete as Mr. Marconi confidently predicted some time since, has nevertheless been of a most surprising and on the whole satisfactory character. Messages have been transmitted with ease to vessels fifteen hun- dred miles from the shore, and evidences are not wanting that indicate the possibility of wireless telegraphy some day girdling the globe. The latest and in many respects moot notable victory for Marconi was the successful exchange of wireless messages between the station of his company in Cornwall, England, and the station of the Italian Government at Acona, Italy. The messages sent from Cornwall, after going across France, over some of the highest of the Alps, and across** portion of Italy, were received by the Italian Minister of Marine, whose reply in like man- ner was received at the Cornwall station. This success is in our judgment more remarkable than the sending of a message across the ocean. The transmitting of a message over thickly- settled countries and over great mountains for the distance of one thousand miles suggests vast possibilities for wireless telegraphy. We are certainly still in the halcyon age of inven- tive genius and wonder-working discoveries. Digitized by Google
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BOOKS OF THE DAY.* I A History of the United States and Its People. B y Elroy McKendree Avery. In Twelve Volumes. Vol. I. Illustrated. Cloth. Pp. 404. Price, $6.25 net per volume. Cleveland, Ohio: The Burrows Brothers Company. At last we have the promise of a history of the United States that shall be worthy of the republic — a history upon which the author has spent almost twenty years of tire- less research and in which all mooted or doubtful facts have been submitted and re- submitted to able critical authorities in history, in order that the first and most important requisite of any history — accuracy — may be insured. The work is intended at once for the student and the general reader, and it will, we think, judging from the opening volume, fairly meet the exacting demands of this double purpose. The author. Dr. Elroy M. Avery, is a careful and painstaking scholar who happily possesses in more than ordinary degree the faculty of presenting his subject-matter in the best of and in an interesting manner. His work on Physics , a scientific text-book for schools, has enjoyed great popularity, the sales amounting to many hundreds of thou- sands of copies. It was about twenty years ago that Dr. Avery was commissioned by Messrs. Burrows Brothers to prepare a history of the United States. At that time it was expected that the work would require eight years. Instead more than eighteen years were devoted by the author to its prepara- tion before the first volume was put into press, and it will be four yean before the twelfth or concluding volume will appear. After the author began his work he realised as never before that if he was to prepare a history of this nation extending back to the earliest times of which we have any trace or record, and which should worthily present the fruits of the latest research, he must devote to it the best yean of his life. Patiently, toilsomely and yet with the joy of the true scholar, he pursued his task, assisted at every turn by his publiahen and a band of historical authorities who have been consulted on all * Books intended for review in Ths Ajlxiva. ahoold be eddr— ed to B. O. Flower, Editorial Deportment, Thx Ajlkka, Boston, Mem. dubious points. As a result, if the opening volume is a fair example of the work to follow, we are to have a genuine addition to our historical literature of which our people may well be proud. Of course it is too early to pass judgment on the work as a whole. Many scholars can write history admirably when they describe remote events; yet when they come to issues that are very personal or to events that are contemporaneous or in which they have had active participation, their prejudices and strong convictions render impartial judgment difficult and with some temperaments im- possible. The brilliant but prejudice-tinged history of Froude furnishes a striking case in point So, though our author is highly satisfactory as a historian in the present volume, we shall not be in a position to judge of his ability to rise above passion, prejudice and the influence of environment until we come to that part of the history dealing with the great men and measures that have pro- foundly moved the life currents of the New World during the past fifty years. It is therefore of the present volume alone that we can speak in an unqualified manner. This work opens with four chapters devoted to prehistoric America. They are entitled “The First Americans,*9 “The Neolithic Americans,** “Mase and Myth,** and “The Norsemen.** The discussion of the antiquity of man in America is a treatise of great value and interest, displaying wide research and being an epitome of the latest results in in- vestigations and their legitimate conclusions. We are glad to observe that Dr. Avery gives full credit to the inestimably valuable scientific research and discovery of one of The Abena*b valued contributors. Dr. Charles C. Abbott, in the following paragraphs: “Not very long ago it was held that no truly scientific pfoof of man’s great antiquity in America exists; but such proof was supplied in 1875 by Dr. Charles C. Abbott’s discovery of paleolithic implements in the gravel terrace at Trenton, New Jersey. These implements are rude stone objects, shaped by chipping so as to produce cutting edges, and are usually pointed at one end. They seem to have been chiefly weapons used in hunting. When itfis remembered that some of them bear thirty 447 Digitized by Google
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448 Books of or forty planes of cleavage, equally weathered, it is difficult to doubt that they are the results of intelligent, intentional action. From other remains discovered in the Trenton gravels with these relics of early man, we infer that the North Americans' of the glacial epoch must have been familiar with the mastodon, walrus, Greenland reindeer, cari- bou, moose, and musk-ox. Perhaps man and animals had been forced southward by the encroaching ice. “These implements could not have been in the gravel where they were found unless they were left there by the forces that laid the gravel beds, and the Trenton gravels were 1 deposited by the torrent that came from the melting glacier. Besides these paleolithic implements, the Trenton gravels have yielded one human cranium and parts of othero. In November, 1899, Mr. Ernest Volk, exploring the valley of the Delaware for traces of glacial man, found a fragment of a human thigh-bone in undisturbed stratified glacial gravels. While distinguished ethnologists still deny that there exists any evidence of a pre-glacial America, the general opinion among archaeologists is that the primeval American antedates the close of the glacial epoch. In 1888, paleolithic implements were found in a red-gravel deposit near Claymont, Delaware. This Claymont gravel is a glacial deposit and is regarded as some thousands of years older than that at Trenton. It thus appears that man was in the Delaware valley at a period far earlier than that indicated by the discoveries at Trenton. “An antiquity vastly greater than the actual age of the Claymont gravels has been assigned to man in America. ‘Of necessity he must have been in existence long before the final events occurred, in order to have left his implements buried in the beds of debris which they occasioned.’ Moreover, ‘the dose of the glacial period’ is a very in- definite expression. ‘The glacial period was a long time in dosing.* In his History of the Niagara River , Mr. Gilbert tells us that, from first to last, man has been the witness of its toil. The human comrade of the river’s youth ‘told us little of himself. We only know that on a gravelly beach of Lake Iroquois, now the Ridge Road, he rudely gathered stones to make a hearth and build a fire; and the next storm-breakers, forcing back the beach, buried and thus preserved, to gratify, yet whet our curiosity, hearth, ashes and charred sticks. In these Darwinian the Day. days, we cannot deem primeval that man possessed of the Promethean art of fire, and so his presence on the scene adds zest to the pursuit of the Niagara problem. Whatever the antiquity of the great cataract may be found to be, the antiquity of man is greater.’ i Encouraged thus and otherwise. Dr. Abbott joyfully proclaims: ‘There was a time when to all appearances, American archaeology would have to be squeezed into the cramped quarters of ten thousand years; but we are pretty sure of twenty or even thirty thousand now, in which to spread out in proper sequence and without confusion the long train of human activities that have taken place.’*’ We have given the above quotation as a hint of the character of the opening discussion and also to permit our readers to become acquainted with our author’s style of writing, i After the valuable presentation of scientific proofs and evidences of man’s inhabiting America prior to the glacial epoch. Dr. Avery proceeds to discuss, in so far as discoveries and known scientific facts warrant, the cliff- dwellers and mound-builders of prehistoric days. Next we enter a period which our author admirably characterizes as that of “Maze and Myth.’’ Scientific research has given us much solid ground on which to stand when considering man before and after the glacial epoch, but when we pass beyond the mound- builders to consider the vague pretensions of European discoverers before the undoubted explorations of the Norsemen, we have little but legendary matter of a doubtful character on which to base any conclusions. This chapter is thus admirably introduced by Dr. Avery: “On our hurried way into the firm paths of demonstrable history we pass into a field thickly strewn with bewildering fact and fancy. After Columbus had glorified Spain and Cabot had magnified England in ways of which we shall soon tell, it was to be ex- pected that other nations would seek to gratify their pride by pointing out their own priority of honor. Thus Basque and Nor- man, Welsh and Irish, sun-tinted Italian and snow-bleached Scandinavian appear in the forum with Arabian and Chinese and attorneys for almost every race of Eastern Asia, each claiming his share in the gift of a new world to the Old. The offered evidence is of vary- ing worth. little of it is of a character to carry conviction, and all of it has been dis- Digitized by Google
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449 Books of puled. Naturally enough, the claimants offer a multitude of inherent possibilities, some of which are made picturesque by accompanying probabilities. Moreover, there is something fascinating in fairy-tales of travel that struck the imagination of our ancestors, and ‘a charm in any evidence which goes to show that Pliny and Polo and the author of Sindbad’s voyages were not liars.’ Duty and pleasure thus detain us in this court of claims, ante- chamber of our labyrinth.” We have classed the discussion of the Norsemen’s discoveries as prehistoric, though perhaps we are not warranted in so doing, as the records show to a certainty that America was discovered and partially explored by the Norsemen and that many voyages were made from Iceland, which at that time was a flourishing Norse colony. But the sagas that tell us of these voyages were for some time handed down orally before being re- duced to writing, and the oral tales of sea- faring people in uncritical ages cannot be relied upon as of much historic value. The fifth and sixth chapters of the volume are devoted to preparing the way for an ap- preciation of the Columbian epoch of dis- covery, one chapter dealing with “Early Geographical Knowledge,” and the other being devoted to “Prince Henry the Navi- gator.” These chapters are interesting and valuable treatises, though the salient points necessary to the subject in hand might have been condensed into a few paragraphs. Thirteen chapters are given to Columbus’ great work and to the Spanish and Portuguese discoveries and explorations that followed the sailing of Columbus, though the Cabots also come in for a share of attention. This division contains an admirable survey of this immensely important period of history, being literally crowded with facts germane to the subject, presented in a lucid manner. True, at times the general reader will be somewhat tried at the author’s dwelling unduly on facts of minor importance to the theme, and his citations from certain historians are, we think, sometimes wholly superfluous. Yet it must be remembered that these delays as it were in the progress of the story are occasioned by the fact that conflicting tales of the events have been advanced, and it is the author’s desire and purpose to establish what seems to be the historic fact in the case. Chapter Twenty is devoted to “Pioneers of New France”; Chapter Twenty-one to the Day. the English pioneers, — Drake, Hawkins, Raleigh, etc. The concluding pages are given to the consideration of “The Indians of North America.” This volume comprises the period of dis- covery. Volumes Two, Three and Four will treat of the Colonial period after 1600, and the remaining eight volumes will deal with the United States and her people from 1776 to 1902. Dr. Avery cannot be said to have the charm of style of a Macaulay. He does not make history as fascinating as romance, but that is only possible when a gifted writer leaves argumentation and the discussion of mooted points out of the body of a story, and with a continuous narrative in hand swerves neither to the right nor the left in order to investigate rival claims or to verify facts when conflicting opinions are present. A writer who pre- supposes that the reader possesses a general knowledge of the history of the period of which he writes, and who has satisfied himself on mooted questions, may, if he possesses rare descriptive powers and a faculty for making events seem real, write history as absorbingly interesting as powerful fiction. But this is impossible in a work like the present, that is intended for students of history as well as the general reader, unless extensive appendices accompany the story. On the whole Dr. Avery has succeeded in an eminent degree in writing an authoritative and for all practical purposes of the general reader a sufficiently comprehensive history in an interesting style. We incline to the belief that on the whole no treatment of the period of discovery has been more satisfactorily prepared. The typography, illustrations and make-up of the work also deserve the highest commendation. Rarely have illustrations been introduced with such judgment, while the numerous maps are admirable examples of the map-maker’s art. If the succeeding volumes equal in excellence the present book, this history will be the best complete history of our country yet written. The Country Home . By E. P. Powell. Illustrated with over twenty full-page half- tones. Cloth. Pp. 886. Price, $1.50 net New York; McClure, Phillips & Company. The Country Home , by E. P. Powell, is one of the most valuable and practical works of recent months, — a volume that we could heartily wish might be placed in the hands of Digitized by Google
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450 Books of the Day. every thoughtful young man and woman in our republic. It stimulates as do very few other books of its character that normal hunger of the child of earth for access to the land-— for closer relationship with the great Mother. And in our judgment one of the most hopeful signs of the day is the increasing trend of life to the country. Men are again becoming land-hungry. Up to a very few years ago the current was almost wholly toward the city, at least in the Eastern half of the republic; but with the general introduc- tion of the telephone and the rural free mail delivery, and the extenison of the trolley lines, life in the country has taken on new charm, and there is no life so normal or wholesome as a well-ordered existence under one’s own vine and Ag-tree, near to nature’s heart. Now Mr. Powell presents country life in such a manner as to make one fall in love with it, nor is he the impractical theorist, the urban critic who views and describes a subject through the rose-colored spectacles of romance, for in this book the author is merely telling the story of his own experiences and the result of many years of practical tilling of the soil. Many years ago he was compelled to give up the Christian ministry on account of failure of health. He was a man of broad culture and refinement, and he was resourceful. But the question of making a living was a serious problem. He had nine acres of land and a very little capital, and with this start he set to work to regain health and earn a liveli- hood. Not only has he succeeded in making a good living and in recovering his health, but his farm of nine acres near Clinton, New York, is to-day worth $25,000. Thus the story told within these pages is the narrative of a man who knows from actual experience the facts he sets forth, and it is the work of one gifted with the seeing eye, whose delight in all his labor has been that of the true poet who joys in the beautiful, the true, the normal and the good; and |not the least excellence of the work is. found in the author’s ability to convey something of his own enthusiasm to the mind of the raider. With the witchery of the poet’s art he leads us from page to page, until all too soon the end of the volume is reached. But real as is the value of the book as a volume that cannot fail to greatly increase the land-hunger in the normal man, seductive as is the author’s pleasing style, the crowning merit of the work is found in its preeminent practicality. Here, in as definite and cir- cumstantial a manner as the prosiest of writers would present them, are facts of paramount importance for all to know who would make a home of joy and worth. On the presumption that the reader knows little or nothing of country life, but that he honestly desires a stake in the land, that he yearns to make a home, however humble it may be, and that he wishes to enjoy as well as live by, or at least partially live by, the land, Mr. Powell leads him step by step from the hour when he goes on the trolley into the country and selects his plot of land to the hour when he has builded and equipped his home, cellar, bam and outhouses, and to the time when he has planted and brought to bearing value his orchard, his garden, his poultry-yard and his fields, — aye, and made of his home a thing of beauty to minister to the idealistic and poetic tastes as well as to furnish sustenance. It is a book for the man who, working in the city, would nevertheless obtain from one to five acres and live in the country, and on this land make a home where through intensive gardening he could in a large way reduce his living expenses while increasing his wealth by making a valuable home for his age; and it is a volume equally valuable to die man who would go farther into the country and make a good living by giving all or almost all his time to the cultivation of the soil. The book contains twelve chapters, in which the author treats of such themes as “Selecting a Home,’’ “Growing the House,” “Water Supply,” “Lawns and Shrubberies,” “Windbreaks and Hedges,” the orchard, “Strawberries and their Kin,” grapes, flowers, “Our Rivals — the Insects,” our allies, “Culti- vating the Beautiful,” “Happy Animals” and “Nooks and Comers.” Mr. Powell, as our readers know, is a valued contributor to The Arena. He has also written some very notable works, the most important being Our Heredity from God and Nullification and Secession in the United States. But had he written no other work than The Country Home , his life would have been richly worth the living. The Common Lot . By Robert Herrick. Cloth. Pp. 409. Price, $1.50. New York: The Macmillan Company. Among American novels that depict phases of present-day urban life in our greater cities, no romance of the past year is comparable to The Common Lot . With the strong, firm Digitized by Google
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451 Books of the Day. touch of the true artist thoroughly conversant with his subject, Mr. Herrick has given us a picture of life as thoroughly true as any realist could demand, yet free from morbidity or aught that is objectionable, if we except one or two phrases uttered when the speakers are under the stress of great excitement If the novel possessed no merit other than the above, its excellence as a portrayal of present-day life, given in good English, would entitle it to an honorable place among our best novels; but it possesses the added virtue of depicting boldly and dearly yet without undue obtrusiveness the great present-day struggle between sordid egoism and a noble ethical idealism. Seldom has a romancer given a better presentation of the struggling, gold-crazed life of the present, in which multitudes are battling for the acquisition of wealth and are compromising their honor, prindple and sense of right at every turn to attain the coveted end — the great multitude who consciously or uncon- sciously are under the spell of sordid material- ism. It matters not whether out of the abundance of their wealth acquired by in- direction they build churches, endow colleges, teach Bible-dasses, or deliver long homilies on ethics, the acts that mark their business career, the lives they live in the world of commercial activity, stamp them as sordid materialists who have turned their backs on the ideal — the conscious or unconscious materialistic egoists against whom Christ pronounced the most terrible woes. Jackson Hart is a strikingly typical figure of this class, and his mad struggle to quickly acquire wealth affords a vivid picture of the insane conflict of tens and hundreds of thousands of our people — a struggle in which the absence of all sense of moral proportion is followed by the destruction of moral ideals which are the well-springs of the soul — the bread of life. In Helen, Jackson's wife, we have a splendid portrayal of the finest type of twentieth- century womanhood — the strong, fine soul, so dominated by moral ideals that she is not only ever true to her highest, but after a time, when the reaping-time has come for the husband who has made the gold-god his deity, she has the strength and power to lift, redeem and save him; and at last, in the ranks, experienc- ing the "common lot," the hero and heroine enjoy the pleasures of a true, normal life, based on integrity and loyalty to high ideals. The Common Lot is worthy of wide circula- tion. It cannot fail to do good. THE UNIT BOOKS. Life of Jesus. By Ernest Renan. Cloth. Pp. 451. Price, 68 cents net. New York: Howard Wilford Bell. Domestic Manners of the Americans. By Frances M. Trollope. Cloth. Pp. 898. Price, 64 cents net. New York: Howard Wilford Bell. National Documents. State Papers Illustrat- ing the Growth of the Country from 1606 to the Present Date. Cloth. Pp. 496. Price, 72 cents net. New York: Howard Wilford Bell. The Study of Words. By Richard Chenevix Trench. Cloth. Pp. 812. Price, 56 cents net. New York: Howard Wilford Bell. The above little volumes belong to what are know as the Unit Books, a series of stand- ard works published on a plan that has long proved popular in the Old World, of charging a certain amount for a certain number of printed pages. The books are neatly bound in green cloth, with letters stamped on side and back in gold. The paper is of a better quality than is found in most cheap reprints. It is light weight and the volumes are small and compact, making them convenient to cany and read. As the works are reprints of older works on which there is no copyright, they can be sold at a much lower figure than would be otherwise possible. Many of the volumes in the series, like Renan’s Life of Jesus mentioned above, are books of great value to thoughtful people. The Life of Jesus , by Ernest Renan, is a volume that should be found in the libraries of all broad-minded people. The great French Liberal was particularly well-fitted to write a life of Jesus from the view-point of one who saw in him a great prophet, but a son of the Infinite only in the sense that the noblest and purest of earth can be termed the sons of God. Renan was bom into a Catholic home and was reared for the priesthood. He made a profound life-study of the Hebrew and other ancient languages. He was one of the great masters of the Hebrew tongue, and the re- ligion of the Jews and that of the early Chris- tian church were subjects that engrossed many of the best yean of his eventful life. He became in time a rationalistic deist. He was always deeply religious in the broad sense, of the term. When he decided to write the Life of Jesus , in order to come en rapport with the subject and to know the land as Jesus Digitized by Google
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452 Books of the Day. knew it, he journeyed in company with his sister to Palestine and traveled from city to town, from north to south, throughout the lands over which the great Nazarene trod. Thus he became thoroughly familiar with the outer appearance of Palestine and he was able to come en rapport , to a certain degree at least, with his subject. Here it was that he penned his great work, which was copied page by page by his sister. Scarcely was the work com- pleted, however, before both the travelers were stricken with the eastern fever. The sister died. The following extract from the beau- tiful dedication by Ernest Renan to this sister fittingly expresses the author’s sense of loss: “In the bosom of God, where you are now at rest, do you remember those long days at Ghazir, where, alone with you, I wrote these pages which drew their inspiration from the places we had visited together ? Sitting silent by my side, you read over every page and copied it as soon as written; at our feet stretched the sea, the villages, the ravines, the mountains. When the overpowering light of day had given place to the unnumbered hosts of the stars, your cautious doubts and subtile questions led me back to the sublime object of our common thoughts. One day you told me that you would love this book, because it had been written with you, and because it was after your own heart. If, at times, you feared for it the narrow judgments of the man of frivolous mind, you were always full of assur- ance that souls truly religious would end by finding pleasure in it. In the midst of these sweet meditations the Angel of Death smote us both with his wing; the sleep of fever seized us at the self-same hour; I awoke alone! ” This work will ever remain the loving and masterful labor of one of the bravest, ablest and most honest thinkers and scholars of the nineteenth century. National Documents is a valuable little volume containing important state papers, from the Charter of Virginia, given in 1606, to the Panama Ship-Canal Treaty of 1004. Among the important documents in the work are the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Rights, the Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress, the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, Constitution of the United States, Washing- ton’s First and Second Inaugural and his Farewell Address, the Missouri Compromise, the Monroe Doctrine, the numerous principal treaties with foreign lands, the Kansas- Nebraska Act, Lincoln’s First Inaugural Ad- dress, Constitution of the Confederate States of America, the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, Recognition of the Independence of Cuba, Reciprocal Com- mercial Convention between the United States and Cuba, and the Convention between the United States and the Republic of Panama. Domestic Manners of the Americans , by Mrs. Frances M. Trollope, is a work whose contents are too well known to call for notice here. It is, as our readers know, a standard work written in a charming style and will long be popular among book lovers who desire to possess the views of various European travelers who have visited our land since the establish- ment of the republic. The Study of Words is a reprint of Arch- bishop Trench’s best-known and probably his most-popular work. Originally published in 1851, the fact that it passed through not less than twenty-two editions in the author’s life- time (he died in 1886) and is to-day in constant demand among all English-speaking peoples certifies alike to its usefulness to the student and to its exquisite charm of style for the thinker. The reader of this work will learn many curious truths concerning the growth of language and will find his grasp very much strengthened on those oral children of the intellect — words, — which to many will then for the first time cease to be “mere words” and will become living, breathing, powerful genii. TheSearWclf. By Jack London. Illustrated. Cloth. Pp. 866. Price, $1.50. New York: The Macmillan Company. This romance is one of the strongest and most original stories by an American novelist that has appeared in recent years. In some respects it is not so good as The Call of the WUd by the same author, though there are situations that are more powerful than any- thing in that remarkable work describing the return of a great and noble dog to a condition of savagery. The Sea-Wolf is also more dramatic and more gloomy than the other romance. It is, in so far as the great central character is concerned, a study of a morbid phase of life. In Wolf Larsen, the hero, we have a man of remarkable brain power, who with scarcely any education has mastered or at least familiarized himself with the works of Darwin, Spencer, Shakespeare and other Digitized by Google
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453 Books of great thinkers, ye t who has not been human- ised, ennobled or civilised in any degree by their influence, and who therefore represents the primal man in all his savagery, but divested of the superstition which is usually present in primitive minds. He is a material- ist whose masterful brain is' only at rare intervals touched by the spirit of idealism. To him this life is all there is of life. Each human being represents so much yeast, moving, expanding, and where possible always absorbing the lesser particles of yeast in its vicinity. His philosophy no less than the rough, coarse life of the seamen slowly transforms him into one of the most brutal and cruel of men, with the result that the seal- hunting ship on which the narrator finds himself an unwilling prisoner, is the theater of ever-recurring scenes of savagery, brutality and often of revolting tragedy. The effect of this savage life on others, and especially on the dilettante journalist who chronicles the story, is vividly pictured. The last half of the novel is enriched by a romance which begins shortly after the vessel takes on board a shipwrecked maiden, who happens to be gifted authoress. She and the journalist fall in love with each other, but the autocratic captain also becomes passion- infected. The girl is naturally placed in the gravest peril — a peril that reaches a climax in an attempted assualt by the captain, which leads to a fierce struggle, after which the lovers succeed in escaping in an open boat on the sea. Their experiences, privations and hardships, first on the ocean and later on a barren island, are set down in the dear, forcible and striking manner characteristic of all Mr. London’s work. In the end the lovers are rescued. The story, though powerful and quite out of the ordinary lines of romance, is not a novd that we can heartily recommend to the general reader, as we believe these morbid studies and presentations in fiction, which are unfortunate- ly becoming very common, are not calculated to benefit the reader or furnish that kind of mental recreation that ministers to moral and intellectual vigor. We are all largely creatures of our own thoughts and ideals. We all live in a thought-world that gives shape, hue and character to our lives; and the persons with whom we come most in- timately en rapport and the books we read, fill that thought-world with imagery and ideals that powerfully affect life’s currents, giving to it a normal or an abnormal impetus the Day. and exalting or depressing the spiritual energies. For this reason our fiction should be strong, pure, fine and true. When gloomy or depress- ing, it should have for its excuse some power- ful and vitally needed lesson, such as Mr. Norris impressed in The Octopus , and such as Zola drove home in such works as Labor , FecondiU , Lourdes , Rome , Paris and Truth . Rachd Mart. By Moriey Roberts. Cloth. Pp. 468. Price, $1.60. Boston: L. C. Page & Company. This is one of the most powerful novels of the year. It is a gloomy and tragic tale, but compelling in its interest for the three-fold reason that it contains some of the best psycho- logical studies in recent fiction, while the pic- tures of nature are unsurpassed in recent novels, and the handling of the principal characters is the work of a master. The story has been severely criticised on account of its alleged immorality. It is certainly uncon- ventional and deals with the consequences following on the rash and irrational act of Anthony Perrin in marrying a girl for whom he entertains nothing but contempt instead of Rachel Marr, whom he has long loved. Rachel has behind her a bad heredity, but at the opening of the story is a woman of splendid promise, while her contact with nature in its glory serves to hold her for a time up to her best. The cruel, crushing, blasting blow which falls when her lover marries another, however, works a great change in her nature, serving to develop the latent bad hereditary elements that but for this tragic blow of fate would probably have remained dormant. In Rachel Marr we have a deeply-suggestive psychological study, and in the splendid pic- tures of nature we also find genuine delight; yet for all this, the book contains so much that is ugly and repulsive, so much that is more than gloomy and tragic, that it is not a volume that one would care to read a second time. A New Paolo and Francesca . By Annie E. Holdsworth. Cloth. Pp. 800. Price, $1.60. New York: John Lane. As the title of this volume would indicate, the plot is a modern variation of the old story of Paolo and Francesca. The heroine, “Janice of the laugh and the sad eyes,’’ has promised her father on his death-bed that she will wed the elder of her twin cousins, to whom her father’s title and estates will Digitized by Google
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454 Books of pass. The girl has never seen either of the young men, but meeting the younger first she falls in love with him, believing him to be the elder. The brothers both come to love her, but through a mistaken sense of what she owes her dead father’s memory she keeps her promise and weds the one who is supposed to be the elder, thus causing untold misery to four persons, — her husband, her lover, herself, and her dearest friend, Heriot, who is deeply in love with the young heir. Out of this tangle nothing but unhappiness for all can result, and the last chapters of the story are filled with tragic happenings. The fact that the supposed elder brother is in reality the younger, the two having been changed in their infancy, only adds to the hopelessness of the situation. Nothing but praise, however, is to be said for the art of the author. In description, in delineation of character and in that subtile and compelling power by which the imagination of the reader is held enthralled, the work is noteworthy. It is to be regretted that a story so charming in its style, so fascinating in its atmosphere and so powerful in the handling of the theme should be so depressing in its influence on the mind. Amt C. Rich. Socialism Made Plain . By Allan L. Benson. Cloth. Pp. 185. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Social-Democratic Publishing Company. We abe constantly receiving letters asking where it is possible to obtain some work giving a simple explanation of the principles of Socialism as advocated by American Socialists — a work suited for the busy man on the farm, in the shop, the factory and store, who has little time to give to abstract treatises. The above work most admirably meets the demands of all such individuals. The author, Mr. Allan L. Benson, whose dear and incisive paper in the September Arena on “The President, His Attorney- General and the Trusts” was so widely and favorably noticed, has been until recently editor of the Detroit Daily Times . He is a strong and lucid writer who possesses in an eminent degree the happy faculty of presenting political, social and economic subjects in a thoroughly interesting manner. This work contains fifteen chapters devoted to the following discussions: “The Wrongs that Demand a Remedy”; “The Poor Grow- . ing Poorer and the Rich Growing Richer”; “The Causes that Make the Wrongs”; “Socialism, the Inevitable Remedy, Defined”; the Day, “Why a New Medium of Exchange is Needed”; “Why All Forms of Useful Labor are Equally Valuable”; “The Incentive to Individual Effort Under Sodalism”; “What the Fanner Has: What He Might Have”; “What the Wage-Worker Has: What He Might Have”; “What the Capitalist Has: What He Might Have”; “The Private-Ownership of Land and Machinery a Moral Crime”; “Capitalism the Curse of Womanhood and Childhood”; “Capitalism the Cause of Modern Wars: Socialism the Cure”; “Other Remedies than Socialism Worse than Futile”; and “How Socialism Will Come.” In these chapters the various phases of Socialism are so elucidated as to be easily grasped by the individual. The work, with all its excellencies, shows some regrettable haste in preparation, and we are sorry that it has not been brought out in a more fitting style; yet in spite of these shortcomings the treatment of the subject is so admirable that we take pleasure in recommending it to our readers. The Battle Against Bribery. By Claude Wetmore. Paper. Pp. 206. Price, 50 cents. St. Louis: The Pan-American Press. This interesting and timely volume com- prises a complete narrative of the warfare of Governor Joseph W. Folk, when Circuit Attorney, against the corruptionists of die St. Louis city government and the public- service corporations. Here, in the compass of thirty short chapters, we have a complete history of one of the most amazing and in- spiring passages in the great conflict now being waged by the American people against the rule of the corporations and the partisan machines — the battle of democracy against privilege and graft. It i9 a book that every thoughtful American should read. Two in a Zoo . By Curtis Dunham and Oliver Herford. Illustrated. Cloth. Pp. 150. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company. This is the most delightful story-book for very little folks we have read in years. With- out being a fairy-story it has al| the fascination of those charming tales that enthrall the imagi- nation of the young. The story deals with a little lame boy and a beautiful girl companion called the Princess by the little boy, who in turn is lovingly nick-named Toots by the little lady. These children have wonderful times in the zoological garden, because the boy pos- sesses the power of hearing and understand- Digitized by C google
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Notes and Comments. 4 56 ing all that the animals say to one another and all that the little sparrow, the gossip and veri- table newspaper of the zoo, tells the animals. The story is most charmingly told and cannot fail to prove a source of endless delight to the little boy or girl of six or eight years who is fortunate enough to possess it. At Home With the Jardinee. By Lilian Bell. Cloth. Pp. 815. Price, $1.50. Boston: L. C. Page & Company. Ik this volume the heroine of Miss Bell’s former novel. Abroad With the Jimmies, ap- pears in the rdle of a young matron seeking to establish a home in New York City. The efforts of herself and her husband to secure anything approaching domestic peace and quiet amid the vicissitudes of flat-life in the great metropolis prove so futile that at last they conceive the idea of withdrawing to a beautiful little town on the Hudson, where they find a delightful old-fashioned house which they transform into an ideal country home. The Jimmies, the heroine’s sister Bee, and others who figured in the former story appear in this; but perhaps most interesting of all the characters is old Mary, the cook, a new type of servant, whose many shortcomings and peculiarities are more than counter- balanced by her affectionate care and concern for the inexperienced young couple whose joys and sorrows form the theme of the story. The book is written in a bright, breezy style and abounds in humorous situations. It is just the volume for an idle summer afternoon. Amt C. Rich. NOTES AND COMMENTS. - T AW-MAKERS WHO SHAME THE RE- 1 j PUBLIC**: In this issue of The Arena we publish one of the most important political papers that has appeared in many years, in Mr. Blanxxn- bxjbq’s masterly unmasking of the amazing condi- tions of political corruption that have marked the rule of the corporations through the political of Pennsylvania in recent decades. This paper wfll prove a veritable bomb in the camp of the oonuptionists and will serve to open the eyes of thousands of citizens who have heretofore slept in the presence of this great and growing evil in the republic. a The fact that the author is himself a conservative thinker— one of the most prominent and universally-respected citizens of Pennsylvania — gives additional value and significance to this amazing expoet. Municipal Government a Paramount Issue: The Arena aims to be indispensable to the large and growing nmnber of serious-minded Americans who are determined to rescue our republic from the rule of the grafters and the corporations. In order to do this it is of paramount importance that the great cities or municipalities be freed from the spoilers, — be emancipated at the earliest possible moment from the domination of the grasping public-service corporations which have long corrupted the people’s servants and through the mastery of political machines have been enabled to despoil the citizens on every hand of millions upon millions of dollars annually. In order to do this it is necessary (1) to arouse the electorate to a consciousness of the magnitude and the far-reaching influence of the corrupt practices that exist and are growing within our midst; (8) to show a more excellent way, by giving concrete examples of what has been achieved where the people own and operate public utilities; and 9) to indicate some feasible ana practical plan by which public utilities can be transferred from private to public-ownership and control. These questions are hnmnoudy treated in the article on Glasgow, by Mrs. Colbt, and in the paper by Mr. Bbowh. Mrs. CoQnfe Brilliant Paper Descriptive of Glas- gow, or Where Municipal-Ownership is in Full Flower: The paper by Mrs. Clara Bewick Colbt is, we Deueye, the most fascinating and illuminating description of Glasgow and her unique pioneer experiment in securing for all the people the benefits of pubjioownership of public utilities, and also in administering the government with a view to elevating the standard of citizenship and increasing the happiness and prosperity of all the people, that has appeared on tius side of the Atlantic. Mrs. Colbt has long been recognized as one of the most brilliant lecturers and journalists among the more thoughtful American women. She is a woman of education and broad culture. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin and receiving the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy, she engagea largely m public work, lecturing in import- ant centers. Later she established The Woman* e Tribune , which for many years she successfully conducted in the nation’s capital. Recently she traveled extensively throughout Europe in order to study social, economic and political con- ditions on the other ade of the Atlantic. When in Glasgow she was treated with distinguished con- sideration by the officials of that great municipality, the second m size in Great Britain, and during a two or three weeks* sojourn she made an exhaustive study of the municipal life of the city. The result is set forth in the paper which we give our readers this month. A Practical Paper on the Acquisition of Public Utilities by the American Municipalities: We desire so call special attention to Mr. Brown’s paper entitled ‘^Municipal-Ownership and League Organization.” The author of this contribution offers a plan by which he contends that the munici- palities may in a thoroughly feasible manner quickly obtain the ownership of public-service companies, without the risk of long and expensive litigation such as would be liable to follow in the event of condemnation proceedings under the right Digitized by Google
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456 Notes and Comments . of eminent domain. This paper should challenge the thoughtful consideration of every earnest American. The author is a thinker peculiarly well qualified to discuss the question in a thoroughly intelligent manner, having taken a large and im- portant part in municipal affairs as councilman and mayor, while he has also had much experience in the management of various public-service corporations. At the age of twenty-five he was elected councilman in the city of Passaic, New Jersey, serving in this capadtv from 1886 to 1800. In 1891, at the age of thirty, he was elected Mayor of Passaic, serving in this capacity for four years. Later he served as one of the three commissioners for the city of Passaic in the readjustment of taxes under the Martin Act, passed by the New Jersey legislature. Thus he served the municipality in various capacities for a period of twelve years. In 1900 he raised capital and built the first electrical railroad, except the experimental one at Asbury Park, in New Jersey. In 1896 he purchased the electric-light plants and afterward the gas company, and with Senator Gasket A. Hobart, afterwards Vice- President of the United States, consolidated these various interests in a large corporation which was later joined with the Paterson properties in a large county consolidation. Mr. Brown at this time was made president of the Eighth Avenue Bank, New York City, which afterwards by consolidation became absorbed by the Produce Exchange Trust Company; he was elected treasurer of the latter company, resigning after two years' service to be- come the head of the American Street Railway Bonding Company of New York. Thus it will be seen that the author has had twenty years of the closest association with the workings of municipal government, as well as with the organisation and reorganization of the class of corporations known as public-service corporations, sumdying gas, electric-light and street-service; ana so far as familiarity with details is concerned, both from a citizen and corporation point-of-view, is especially Qualified to appreciate the situation “enjoyed” by the citizens of these municipalities. This month Mr. O. K. Heweb describes the little Alpine republic and the manner in which it has safeguarded the fundamental principles upon which a democracy must rest. According to the demo- cratic theory, the people must be the fountain- head and the ratifiers of government This, indeed, is a vital dement which differentiates a democracy from class-ruled peoples, and nothing; is more im- portant, if a republic is to be preserved in its purity and integrity, than that watchful statesmanship meet changed conditions in such a manner as to mainiAin the free and untrammeled will of the people as the governing and determining influence m the making and unmaking of all legislation. This is the one thing which Switzerland alone has done. It is the supreme excellence of this republic, which gives it today preeminence among the nations which are striving for a fuller and truer recognition of the ideal of free government For this reason the paper by Mr. Heweb will prove of special interest to our readers and will be a fitting intro- duction to the very important paper by the eminent educator and economist. Professor Charier Borgeaud, of the University of Geneva, who next month will give our readers “The Assured Results of Direct-Legislation in Switzerland. Dr. Holder on the Quaker in America. : No reader of The Arena can afford to slight the intensely interesting and at times thrilling chapter dealing with the faith, the essential heroism andthe consecration to high ideals which marked the smuggle of the Quakers In the early days of our history. Dr. Holder is one of the most gifted and finished essayists in our land. He is a descendant of the heroic Christopher Holder whose sub- lime faith and superb courage are so fittingly de- scribed in this paper. The Second Cheat Struggle Between Autocracy and Democracy in the United States: We trust tint every reader of The Arena is perusing Mr. Powell's vitally-important series of papers on the struggles between autocracy and democracy in the United States. The four discussions widen make up this series of papers wfll be invaluable to aB friends of true democracy. Mr. Powell is one of the most versatile essayists of our time. The Pioneer Arbitration Victory: At the present time when there is such a general interest in arbitra- tion, and when various nations are coming more and more to understandings which promise to avert wars in the future, it is interesting to call to mind the first great victory of arbitration as dis- cussed by Phrfessor Matey in this issue of The Arena. The treaty of Washington may be called the morning-star which heralded the red dawn of arbitration as we find it to-day in the tentative victories being won on every hand, and which will, we confidently believe, be followed by a universal arbitration convention long before the dose of the present century. ■ The Influence of Emerson's Thought: In Mr. H. W. Peck’s brief but highly suggestive interpretation of Ralph Waldo Emerson's philosophical poem, “Brahma,” we give our readers another paper which like Mr. Malloy's luminous analyses of the great philosopher's profound poetical murines cannot fail, we think, to stimulate interest in the writings of Mr. Emerson; and to do this will be to achieve much, for we believe that no man can come en rapport with the thought-world of this great American philosopher without being made nohler, j purer and better by the contact The Concord philosopher was a man of broad mental vision and of profound contemplation. He stirs the intel- lectual depths of those to whom metaphysical con- cepts appeal in even a alight degree. But far more important than this nTwlyiniH quickening is the ethical exaltation that comes from mmmnnvw with his thought The effect of Emerson's reasoning and invigorating influence exertedNofi the pljyiicS senses by the pure and rarified air of the mountain heights. For this reason we ever seek to encourage our friends to cultivate a more intimate acquaint- ance with Emerson. We take pleasure in announc- ing that we shall shortly publish two detightfal papers by Mr. Charles Malloy, embodying his personal reminiscences of Emerson, and also an extremely interesting and valuable paper by Pro- fessor J. R. Mosley, PhJD., entitled “The Charm of Emerson.” Digitized by Google
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GEORGE F. PENTECOST, D.D. The Arena Digitized by Google
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i . ’ We do not take possession of our ideas y but are possessed by them, They master us and force us into the arena. Where , like gladiators , we must fight for them.” — Heute. The Arena Vol. XXXIII May, 1905 No. 186 FORTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS; OR, MASTERS AND RULERS OF “THE FREEMEN” OF PENNSYLVANIA .* IV. PHILADELPHIA AND THE FREEMAN’S BALLOT. . By Rudolph Blankenburo. IF THE children of Israel at the time of Moses had lived under a Repub- lican form of government, the great law- maker and prophet, discerning the future, would in all probability have given an additional or eleventh commandment, “Thou shalt not prostitute jthe ballot.” Many centuries have passed since the ten commandments were made the moral code of the Israelites, and it is ofily since the establishment of representative gov- ernment, of which the Republic is the most advanced form, that the eleventh commandment suggested above, if honestly enforced, would have proved of far-reaching value. “ The purity of the ballot is the corner- stone of the Republic” is an axiom to which even the ballot thief and his aider and abetter must during momentary fits of moral consciousness subscribe. Yet we find that through the indifference of those who repudiate any connection or sympathy with political miscreants this corner-stone is jolted, undermined and loosened until the Republic itself is ♦The first of this series of articles appeared in the Jan- uary, 1906, number of The Arena. threatened with disintegration, perhaps destruction! A true and complex history of “ The Ballot and the Republic^” would ‘have to embrace more or dess alKour States and many municipalities. Ballot cringes are most rampant and least combatted in our large cities and among them Phila- delphia, to her shame, takes a most humiliating place. There, is Ho . use in mincing words or hiding facts, as the conspiracy against the purity of elections has become of such proportions that it is imperative to speak out boldly and emphatically, even at the risk of being called a “defamer of the city” by those drowsy and listless citizens who, by their callousness, contribute a large share to the city’s disgrace. Having for the last quarter-century made this vital question a careful, study, and having acted during nearly all reform movements since the organization of “ The Citizens Committee of One Hundred” in 1880, as Chairman of the respective sub-committees for the prosecu- tion of election frauds, the writer is quite familiar with this subject. In exposing 457 Digitized by Google
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458 Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen ” of Pennsylvania. Photo, by Gutekunst, Phil*. GEORGE & GRAHAM, For Eighteen Years District- Attorney of Philadelphia. A tenor to the ballot thieves oi whom he convicted scores during his administration. He prepared the in- dictment upon which Senator Quay was arrested and placed under 150.000 bail. The trial was carried beyond Graham’s term, through the intervention of the Supreme Court, and by motions of a dilatory character. It is gen- erally believed that if Graham had been permitted to prosecute the case Quay would not have escaped con- viction. Mr. Graham’s magnificent courage as Public Prosecutor will ever redound to his credit. this, one of the gravest crimes, in all its hideousness, let me express the hope that these disclosures may touch many hearts, and especially the young people, who have that ardent, uncontaminated love for their country which would welcome and appreciate to the fullest extent an “eleventh commandment” embracing a subject so essential to the future of our nation. The experience of Philadelphia may not be a startling revelation to com- munities similarly affected, but in others where the evil has not, so far, taken too deep root, it may awaken the civic spirit of the citizens and prompt them to call a peremptory “Halt!” before this octopus throws out its poisonous tentacles and overwhelms the body-politic beyond re- trieve. In the Mayoralty election of 1874, Col. A. K. McClure made a notable fight and though declared defeated it was generally conceded that his opponent was counted in. In 1877 Joseph L. Caven, a man of strong characteristics, was the reform candidate for Mayor, and after a rousing campaign came within about 3,000 votes of beating William S. Stokley. Ballot-box stuffing and false returns were resorted to at that election to a then un- precedented extent, and were the means employed to defeat Mr. Caven, a fact afterwards freely and gleefully acknowl- edged by his opponents. In February, 1881, the famous “Com- mittee of One Hundred” made its first fight against the ring and succeeded, with the help of the Democratic party, in not only electing but having the “ Gas Ring" acknowledge the success of Samuel G. King as Mayor and John Hunter as Re- ceiver of Taxes. In this election the cor- ruption of the ballot assumed proportions beyond belief. King was credited with 5,787 majority, though he had at least 15,- 000. Hunter had to his credit 26,586, while he was entitled to not less than 40,- 000. A striking incident, proof positive of wholesale cheating, was an unguarded message of election returns sent over the wires near midnight to the Mayor’s office to the effect that “their (the reformers’) majorities are too large; we can’t beat them ; we have to give it up.” The Reformers as well as the “Gas Ring” strained every nerve during the Mayoralty campaign of 1881 to bring out a full vote, the total cast aggregating about 131,000. Philadelphia, according to the Census of 1880, had a population of 847,170, which had increased in 1900 to 1,293,697 indicating a voting strength at that time (if we take the battle royal of 1881 as a criterion) of about 231,000. Let us add 39,000 names as a liberal allowance for omissions, oversights and laggards, and we have 270,000 voters with Digitized by Google
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Masters and Rulers of “ The a legal right to cast their ballots against the 370,000 names placed upon the lists by careless, reckless or criminal assessors. It has for years been accepted by careful observers that the fraudulent names num- ber not far from 100,000 and this obser- vation seems to be borne out by facts. Immediately after the election a com- mittee for the prosecution of election frauds was appointed, and through the able and earnest efforts of the Republican District-Attorney, George S. Graham, forty-seven offenders against the election laws were, in due course, convicted and sentenced to fines and terms of imprison- ment. This deterred the criminals for the time being from plying their wicked trade, and elections were quite honestly conducted. Offers of rewards for the arrest and conviction of guilty election officers were made by the Committee and had a salutary effect. The Committee of One Hundred disin- tegrated in a few years ; they had aroused public distrust and suspicion because, with one or two exceptions, they wanted neither office nor reward for their unselfish work, but labored simply for good government. This attitude was something unheard of and almost unthinkable in the minds of the “ dear public ” who ceased to support them and again placed in power the men at that time called “ ringsters.,, Spasmodic efforts for reform, always accompanied by earnest exertions for an honest ballot, have been made ever since with sparse results. In 1897 the unsavory “political com- bine ” called the “ hog ” combine was over- thrown and gave place to the more detestable, now all-powerful, “ Organiza- tion.” The capacity of the two as far as “hogging” things is concerned may be measurably compared as a pint to a hogshead ! Under the “Organization” the prosti- tution of the ballot has been reduced to a fine art, commencing with the padding of the assessors’ lists. These assessors, largely creatures of the machine, have to canvass their respective election divisions Freemen ” of Pennsylvania. 459 Photo, by Qutekunst, Phila. JAMES P. McNICHOL, Favorite Contractor, State Senator, and aide-de-camp to Israel W. Durham. and register the names of male inhabitants entitled to vote. Practice has made them such experts that they can reduce or in- crease the population of Philadelphia at will, and if they are given full sway there will be no danger of “ race suicide ” in our city. If we take the ratio of legal voters to inhabitants as 1 to 5, (1 to 5£ is generally accepted) with 1,298,697 inhabitants (Census 1900) we should have had 258,739 legal voters, but in December, 1902, the assessors returned in round numbers 370,000 voters. This showed an annual increase at the rate of fourteen per cent . as compared with the assessment for September of the same year, indicating a population of not less than 1,850,000 at that time. The possibilities -of Philadelphia’s future under the guiding care of its election officers is best demonstrated in this table: Digitized by Google
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460 Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen ” o/ Pennsylvania. Photo, by Meynen & Co., Phila. JAMES L. MILES, Sheriff of Philadelphia, Boss of the 13th Ward, which produces more bogus voters to the square foot than any other bailiwick of the “ Organization." Population Computed from Assessors’ Returns. (In Round Numbers). December 1902, 1,850,000 14 p. c. annual increase. . “ 1903,2,110,000 14 p. c. annual increase. . “ 1904, 2,400,000 14 p. c. annual increase. . “ 1905, 2,740,000 and if this ratio is continued the popula- tion of Philadelphia in 1915 will be 10,400,000! All honor to the patriotic and high- minded assessors who would rescue Philadelphia from decay and restore her, not only to the first place in population she once occupied at home, but make her within ten years outstrip the whole world ! Chicago would be an insignificant village, New York would burst with envy, and even London would have to surrender the palm to the city on the Delaware! The census man should be discharged as in- competent. It takes him ten years to add a quarter million people to our popula- tion, a feat accomplished under pressure by ^‘Organization” assessors at the present time in less than one year! Even more remarkable revelations are made through recent returns from some of the most corrupt wards, — the tenth (presided over by Contractor James P. McNichol) and the thirteenth (controlled by Sheriff James L. Miles). Here are the figures: Ward Population, 1890 Vote, 1882 Tenth 21,514 4,047 Thirteenth 17,923 3,409 Total 39,437 7,456 The curious change in voting strength which has taken place within a decade under the fostering care of the “ Organ- izationis shown as follows: Ward Population, 1900 Vote, 1904 Tenth 19,967 7,267 Thirteenth 17,427 7,029 Total 37.394 14,296 This table discloses one per cent, decrease in population within ten years and one hundred per cent . increase in voters during the same period . If the vote had kept pace with the decrease in population since 1890 there should have been in 1904, in these two wards, 7,068 voters instead of 7,456, or a falling off of 388, but notwithstanding the loss in population 14,296 voters or double the number in 1902 were mustered by the “Organization.” Words fail to express honest indignation at such unblushing fraud ! To carry this scheme of cheating to a mathematical conclusion it would take but a few years to have the bailiwick of the two of the prominent leaders of the “Organization” return more voters than inhabitants! A successful plan and one that may in the future prove of practical value was put in operation a few years ago by calling for assistance on the United States Government through its Post-Office Department. The trial was made on a small scale and proved most satisfactoiy. Digitized by Google
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Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen ” of Pennsylvania. 461 Registered letters were addressed to all Number 805 Race street held under its persons on the assessors’ lists in a number protecting roof 122 voters, among them of election divisions and mailed in an envel- 9 agents, 9 machinists, 9 gentlemen, 9 ope, a facsimile of which is shown below, waiters, 9 salesmen (why not the “ nine This canvass resulted in the return of tailors of Tooley street ” as well ?) 4 bar- an astounding proportion of undeliver- bers, 4 bakers, 14 clerks, 3 laborers, 1 able letters. For example : Number 250 architect, 2 bartenders, 1 Engineer U. S. North Ninth street was said to harbor A., 1 milkman, 1 optician, 1 piano mover, thirty-six legal voters; of the thirty-six 2 showmen, 2 electricians, 1 window- registered letters sent to that address cleaner, 1 advertising agent, 1 nurse fifteen were returned, marked by the and 27 other occupations too numerous letter carrier, “not at” (see facsimile) to mention. ONE OF THE LETTERS THAT CAME BACK. 11 “removed,” 2 “not known,” 1 “at What a revelation it would be if the almshouse” and 2 “home at night.” ballot-box in this division were opened In other wards Uncle Sam ascertained and a subpoena issued to each one of the that twenty-nine of the thirty-six names alleged voters to appear in court and registered were fictitious or fraudulent! establish his identity! The house, number 151-153 North Even the “Organisation ’’leaders have a Ninth street, was alleged to shelter wholesome fear of United States Courts sixty-two legal voters of most democratic and Judges, and they would hardly dare proclivities. Their number comprised attempt any crooked work with the “ professors, bricklayers, gentlemen, United States mails. Irrefutable evi- moulders, cashiers, barbers, ministers, dence of padded assessors’ lists could as bakers, doctors, drivers, bartenders, outlined be secured in a perfectly legiti- plumbers, clerks, cooks, merchants, mate manner, and if in the registered stevedores, bookkeepers, waiters, florists, letters were enclosed a return stamped boiler-makers, salesmen, soldiers, electri- envelope with a card requesting a reply dans, printers, book-agents and restau- by mail for whom the addressee had voted , rant keepers.” If the assessor had added correct returns might be secured, the a few millionaires and bank presidents, people come to their own and dethrone an admiral and a general or two, his assort- the “Organization” with its myriad of ment of voters would have been complete, mercenaries and ballot thieves. Digitized by Google
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462 Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen” of Pennsylvania . The hud- dling together of masses of humanity as unearthed by the assessors should be ta- lc e n up by the Board of Health ; if cat- tle or pigs were treated in this manner popu- lar indignation would soon de- mand the arrest and punish- ment of the owners for cruelty to ani- mals. The assess- ors sometimes, when falling short of names as they collect their phantom voters, resort to graveyards and register those of people long dead, and they have been known to have used those of dogs and to have gone so far as to copy names from the shaving cups in barber shops. Photographs of a few abodes of “American Freemen ” in the “City of Homes” will present a more graphic picture of the disgraceful prostitution of the ballot in Philadelphia than whole chapters could describe. A laudable and unusual effort to purify elections and punish offenders, but one little appreciated by the general public, was initiated in November, 1900, by John Wanamaker. He deposited fifty thou- sand dollars in a Trust Company, payable to a committee of five citizens whom he asked to accept the trust and House at No. 805 Race street, from which 122 voters were registered. undertake the task of exposing and bringing to justice the criminals who pollute the ballot and trample under foot the dearest rights of the American citizen. This remarkable offer by a private citizen to help the work of civic regeneration was in but a few isolated instances recognized and commended by word of mouth or by letter ; it disclosed a character- istic lack of public appreciation; indeed, an item in the papers about a dog fight or a drunken brawl would have attracted wider attention. The committee worked assiduously for many months and uncovered thousands of fraudulent or illegal votes, as many as eighty-five in a single precinct, and had the suspected parties arrest- ed. True bills were returned by the Grand Jury and about four hundred and fifty indi- vidual cases were turned over to the District-Attor- ney’s office. After much delay they were called for trial, when a flaw in the in- dictments, at- tributed to the negligence of an official, was di scovered and prevented the cases from reaching court and jury. Election cases generally have a hard road to travel and from some mysterious House at No. 809 North Ninth street, from which 44 voters were registered. Digitized by Google
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Masters and Riders of “ The Freemen ” of Pennsylvania . 463 causes are apt to miss connection, and — conviction. And if convicted at all, in nine cases out of ten, the gravity of the crime fails to bring adequate punv ishment. While a poor vagabond who has stolen a loaf of bread to appease his hunger, or a ragged coat to keep from freezing, is given the full extent of the law, the ballot thief is likely to be dealt with leniently or he may escape altogether, owing to the powerful help of the “ Organ- ization,” which has at its disposal a variety of legal talent, some of it even in the employ and pay of the city. In the autumn of 1904, when padded lists again attained unusual proportions, a number of public-spirited citizens, lawyers, ministers, laymen, in their des- pair addressed a petition to the board of judges asking them to depute one of their number to sit as a committing mag- istrate, so as to reach the bottom of this evil. In an opinion handed down this request was refused and the reasons as- signed were of a nature to appal even the stoutest hearts. In the answer to the petitioners Judge King is quoted: “That there are but few exceptions when criminal courts of their own motion call attention of grand juries to and direct investigation, viz ., ‘the suppression of general and public evils affecting communities rather than individuals, such as riots’ — ‘ general public nuisances affecting the health and comfort’ — ‘multiplied and flagrant vices tending to debauch public morals ’ — but this course is never adopted in cases of ordinary crimes charged against in- dividuals” Judges who call the padding of assessors’ lists to the tune of 75,000 or even more votes ordinary crimes should resign and become as extinct as the “Dodo.” With all the facts as an open book the judge’s opinion concluded: “That no general and public evil had been placed before them of a nature so un- usual and portentous as to demand the abrogation of a practice necessary to the due administration of justice.” The Photo, by Gutekunst, Phila. ISRAEL W. DURHAM, Owner and Proprietor op Philadelphia, Insurance Commissioner of Pennsylvania, with emolu- ments of $10,000 to $15,000 and duties performed by Deputies. Cognomen “ The Peerless Leader," conferred upon him by Mayor Weaver. usual practice which the petitioners de- sired supplanted to secure honest returns had been found entirely inadequate; as- sessors cared nothing for the ordinary police magistrates; witnesses refused to attend hearings for fear of offending the “Organization”; those attending were likely to be browbeaten ; the plaintiff citi- zens had to bear all expenses of summon- ing and paring witnesses, attorney fees, printing, etc., and then were utterly unable to accomplish anything as ex- perience had shown for years past. One of our distinguished Judges, Hon. Thomas K. Finletter, voluntarily sat, a few years ago, as a committing magistrate to inquire into “policy-play- ing,” which was carried on openly and boldly, and his course did much to re- press the evil. It is humbly submitted to the “Court of Public Opinion” that Digitized by Google
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464 Masters and Riders of “ The Freemen" of Pennsylvania . Photo, by Gutekunst, PhiJa. JOHN WEAVER, Promoted from District- Attorney to Mayor of Philadelphia. He would, If he dare, like to do what Is right. “ What will the harvest be?” padded assessors’ lists and fraudulent voting which nullify the people’s will, are evils compared to which policy- playing falls into utter insignificance. If the Judges could have advanced as an excuse that they were overworked , or that the request was unconstitutional , the blow their decision gave would have been somewrhat softened, but the way it was administered will be felt for years to come. The question has been asked why, with the vast normal Republican ma- jority and a Democratic party cither in- nocuous or for sale, the “ Organization ” should continuously resort to wholesale frauds. The answer is that some day there will be an awakening amounting to a revolution when the “ Organization ” will have to take recourse to the vast num- ber of fraudulent names to combat popu- lar wrath. For this purpose the lists are kept padded, the repeaters drilled, and majority and minority election officers trained to remember that, whether they are Republicans or Democrats, their first allegiance is to the “ Organization.” The possible results of a revolution are plainly disclosed by the election returns of February', 1904. Of 383,806 persons vouched for by the assessors as qualified voters, only 171,334 took the trouble to go to the polls, among them, of course, the hordes of ballot thieves; while 212,472 re- frained from voting. In other words, out of every hundred voters forty-five cast their ballots and fifty -five disgraced Ameri- can citizenship by staying at home. The fifty-five per cent, stay-at-homes are really responsible for the election of the “Organization” candidates; if these “foreigners to their duty” had even a spark of American manhood and civic pride the battle for honest government could soon be won. These laggards probably wonder why the Russian people have such foolish notions about wanting representative government and the elective franchise, — why they are restive and unwilling to live under the benign rule of an autocrat. A remarkable result obtained at the city election in February of this year. Magistrate Jermon had offended “the gang” by obeying his oath of office and not their behests. He was refused a renomination but became the candidate of the new reform organization, the “Committee of Seventy,” on the “City Party ” ticket. The Democrats polled for Brennan, the head of their ticket, for City Solicitor, 24,817 votes, showing that number as the full party strength. Jer- mon, the leader of the City Party ticket, polled 37,633 votes for Magistrate, or fully fifty per cent, more than Brennan. The “Organization” recognized the danger of the new reform movement and though they claim to be Republicans and while they subject to political ostracism every independent Republican who dares of his own volition vote for a Democrat, they commanded from fifty to sixty thousand Digitized by Google
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Masters and Rulers of “The Freemen ” of Pennsylvania. 465 of their servile henchmen and ready ballot thieves to vote for the Democratic Magisterial candidates. Thus Jermon with his 37,633 independent votes was slaughtered by the 24,817 Democratic votes reinforced by the scores of thou- sands of “ Republican Hessians ” thrown to them by order of the “ Organization.” The entire vote polled at this election was near 215,000 from a total registra- tion of about 380,000. Comment is un- necessary. The second stage of “ the Rape of the Ballot” begins at the polls on election day and is often accompanied by scenes of disorder and violence that baffle description. They remind us of events that took place during and shortly after the Civil war when the contending parties had at least the plausible excuse of passion aroused by honest partisanship, while at the present time patriotic motives have given way to a debasing scramble for place and plunder. In the November election, 1900, the “ Organization ” had decreed the defeat of William McAleer, representing the Third, or Samuel J. Randall’s old Congressional District. McAleer had made a very acceptable record but he was a Democrat and his scalp was wanted for a Republican adherent of the machine. Orders were issued to defeat him at all hazards and on turning to Philadelphia papers of those days we find therein a revolting tale of police interference, ballot stuffing, black- jacking, false arrests and other methods, all under direct orders of the city ad- ministration and its infamous Depart- ment of Public Safety. McAleer was defeated and all efforts to punish those guilty of the crimes perpetrated to ac- complish his defeat failed, largely on account of the extreme conservatism (mildly expressed) of- a judicial power which is “a stickler for the letter and a stifler of the spirit of the law.” In November, 1901, a successor to District-Attorney Rothermel had to be elected. Rothermel, who was doomed because he had vigorously prosecuted Pboto. by Gutekunst, PbiUi. SAMUEL SALTER, The Organization Pet, Who after his triumphant acquittal on charges of stuffing the ballot-box as the cook would a turkey, was rewarded with a $2,000 public position. Senator Quay on criminal charges, was nominated on an Independent ticket and John Weaver, at that time quite un- known in public life, was made the “ Organization ” candidate. After a me- morable battle and the expenditure of vast sums of money the gang “ elected ” Weaver and he was sworn in as District- Attorney. At this election the opposition was “permitted” to count 94,622 votes, while the “ Organization ” by theft, fraud and false counting, appropriated to itself 138,177. It is an open secret that if a fair election and an honest count had been allowed Rothermel would have carried the day. Weaver served as District-Attorney until April, 1903, when, having been elected Mayor, he “assumed” the office of Chief Magistrate of Philadelphia. Only a few weeks ago, while the “ Organ- ization ” was battling to maintain its almost Digitized by Google
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466 Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen” of Pennsylvania. Photo, by Gutekunst, Phila. JUDGE G. HARRY DAVIS, An Implacable Foe of Corruption, Who presided at the Salter trial and dismissed the ac- quitting jury with ill-concealed disgust. absolute control of Councils, a dastardly assault was made upon a reputable citizen by “guardians of the peace.” “About half an hour after the polls closed (January 20, 1905) Peter Brennan, one of the Independent leaders, was standing at the polling place, when fourteen patrolmen arrived on the scene — eight in uniform and six in plain clothes. “ Suddenly one of the policemen struck Brennan on the side of the head with a blackjack. As he fell over another policemen struck him in the face. Then two others seized him by the neck and dragged him to the patrol-box, whence he was taken to the station. “After ten minutes in a cell he was released by Magistrate Ackerman for a hearing next morning, when Magistrate Pullinger discharged him.” Such are the methods the machine followers use to perpetuate their power; they hire thugs to assault citizens who oppose them; they do not even hesitate to have a fire alarm sounded to disperse an opposition audience with all the possi- ble consequences of a stampede; space forbids further details of their shocking system. It is quite common for election officers to place fifty or more ballots in the box before the polls open; when opportunity offers they will hand half a dozen or even more ballots to a crooked voter at one time and permit him to vote them ; at the last election six or seven repeaters from New York voted as many as six times each in one precinct and it is not uncom- mon to have a gang of repeaters change hats, coats, wear spectacles or mufflers and present themselves in such disguises and vote unmolested at the same polling place as often as they can change their appearance. At the November election, 1904, it was ascertained that, in a certain precinct, persons loyal to the “ Organization ” were allowed to vote without having paid their poll-tax; that the books were doctored to suit the men in charge and about fifty names were entered in the books as though the men had voted. When re- marks were passed about entering these names the leader said : “ That ’s all right, we covered that this morning before the polls opened,” meaning that ballots had been put into the box before any one had voted. Important arrests were made in the Thirteenth ward, Sheriff James L. Miles’ bailiwick as a result of the election of January 21, 1905. Four “ Organization ” workers were charged with stuffing the ballot-box, before 7 A. M., so full that when the first man came to vote they had to pound the ballot in with their fists and even then it stuck out. It is alleged that of the 371 ballots counted at night not less than one-half were bogus. The ac- cused were held in heavy bail for court, and yet it is doubtful whether when the trial takes place, the presiding judge will order the ballot-box opened ! Digitized by Google
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Masters and Riders of “ The Freemen ” of Pennsylvania . 467 This case is similar to the notorious “ Salter case ” which attracted the atten- tion of the whole country a few years ago, and as it leads to the third stage of “ the Rape of the Ballot” or “the ballot thief in court” a more detailed recital may prove of general interest. Samuel Salter was arrested on the evening of November 7, 1899, together with a number of alleged accomplices, on an affidavit sworn out by George Kirk- land, a reporter on the North American . They were charged with depositing 215 fraudulent ballots in the ballot-box, and were released on bail. When called for trial, it became known that they had fled to foreign parts. Their bail was declared forfeited, but through wily tricks employed by unscrupulous lawyers and supported by unprincipled officials, only a small part of the forfeited bail found its way into court at the expiration of four years and then only through the persistent efforts of District-Attorney John C. Bell. It is well known that the “Organiza- tion ” cared for the accused during their exile. Funds were forwarded to them in an indirect way amounting, it is said, to over $30,000. But they longed to return to their old camping grounds and the “ Or- ganization” had to prepare the way for their “ vindication.” Their return, trial and acquittal con- stitute one of the pages of our City’s history that will leave a black mark which can never be effaced and will remain a blot upon the fair name of Philadelphia for all time. It was indispensable to secure a jury which would through the triumphant acquittal of Salter et al . also acquit the “Organization,” so steps were taken ac- cordingly. A complete panel had to be fixed. With the Sheriff’s office friendly, the task was not a serious one. When the proper time arrived the exiles returned and surrendered, but instead of being sent to prison for safe keeping until the trial, as fugitives from justice should have been, they were held in $2,500 bail each and released. JOHN R. K. SCOTT, Assistant City Solicitor, At a salary of $2,000 a year, the favorite attorney of a certain class of offenders whom citizens of Phila- delphia would be glad to favor with free board and lodging for a term of years. What followed is taken from the Public Ledger , a paper known for its conserva- tism and the careful editing of all its statements. It says, December 4, 1904: “ Having secured a jury panel that was in every way satisfactory the Organiza- tion notified Salter et al ., to prepare to come into court* for their vindication. Durham, according to report, then called upon District-Attorney Weaver, and is alleged to have said: “ ‘ We are going to bring Salter and the other fellows back, and I want them tried before Judge Davis, and during the May term, without fail.’ “ ‘ Why, I cannot prepare to try such an important case as theirs in so short a time.’ “‘You must.’ “‘Why?’ “‘You do not want to know why; but it must be done.’ Digitized by Google
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468 Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen ” of Pennsylvania. Photo, by Outekuast, Phlla. REUBEN 0. MOON, Leading Counsel for Samuel 8alter et al. Promoted to Congress. “ ‘ I can ’t, Iz. ; this is awful ! ’ “ ‘ Do n’t preach. You have nothing to do with this but to try the case at the time I say. You can make all the fight you want. You can say what you please and do as you like, but you must not ex- haust the jury panel by challenges under any circumstances. This is the first thing I have asked of you, and it will be the last while you are District-Attorney, but this one thing must be done.’ “‘The people won’t stand it.’ “‘You come into court and fight like h — 1. That will let you out. Will you do this for the Organization and for me ? ’ “‘I will do it for you, Iz., but it is certainly awful.’ ” While it would be unfair to accept the Ledger storv as authentic in all its details, and while Mr. Weaver has emphatically denied the truth of the story, a wide- spread belief prevails that there is more truth than fiction in the statement This belief is strengthened by the fact that Mr. Weaver, though he has made a fewr feeble attempts to show some self-asser- tion and independence, displays,when the crucial time arrives, such a pitiful spirit of submission and subserviency to the “ Organization ” that his position has aroused misgivings in the minds of his friends and the compassion of even his most severe critics. Mr. Durham, when asked whether the story was true, is said to have replied: “ If I were placed upon the stand, under oath, I would swear that it is not true. ” On the other hand, Mr. Weaver is alleged to have begged and implored Mr. Dur- ham to openly state that no such inter- view’ ever took place, but that the latter has repeatedly declined to do so. It seems impossible to pass, at this time, final judgment on this mysterious incident, and the reader, after he has had all the light available, will have to form his own conclusions. When the “ Organization ” was ready for the case it was on May 19, 1902, called for trial before Judge G. Harry Davis. There was method in the apparent madness of “the gang” to have the case tried before Judge Davis, who, elected in November, 1901, on the Reform Ticket, had just taken his seat. The “ Organiza- tion ” wisely reasoned that with a judge on the bench who had always been its implacable foe, any suspicion of pre- arranged compacts and tricks would, in a measure, be disarmed, while his being new to the bench and unfamiliar with the ruses and stratagems of the machine and its attorneys would be of great ad- vantage to them in carrying out their well-developed plans. It is charged that the jury was selected long before their names were drawn and called in court ; that for weeks the defence and their counsel had rehearsals at which they and their witnesses were put through a regular drill, so everyone would know his or her part. The defence was represented by John R. K. Scott, an Digitized by Google
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Masters and Rulers of “ The Assistant City Solicitor who draws a salary from the City Treasury, and Reuben O. Moon, since promoted to Congress. District-Attorney Weaver prosecuted the case with vigor and apparent sin- cerity that won for him general applause. Unfortunately for him, this favorable impression has since given place to a feeling that he was, and is, a reluctant victim of some deeply contrived con- spiracy from which he could not then and has not since been able to extricate himself. Some of the appendages of the case have not before been published, among them one that, even at this late day, requires a clean-cut explanation to clear Mr. Weaver from the suspicion that, as some papers expressed it, “he was playing to the galleries during the whole trial.” John J. McKenna, then city editor of the Public Ledger , a most honorable, careful and painstaking member of the profession, ascertained, when the panel of jurors was published, that William J. Ryan, one of the men drawn on the jury was a fugitive from justice. He sent one of his reporters to Manayunk to look into the record of William J. Ryan ; he ascertained that Ryan was under indictment and had not been at home for months. After hearing the reporter’s statement, Mr. McKenna in- vestigated and corroborated it further and when he had all the facts he called on District-Attorney Weaver and laid them before him, so the latter could take action accordingly. Mr. Weaver took notes and told McKenna he was very much obliged for the information. Notwithstanding this information Dis- trict-Attorney Weaver, who had thanked Mr. McKenna for calling his official attention to the criminal character, moral unfitness and legal disqualification of Ryan, permitted this legally and morally- disqualified juror to continue on the jury and partake in the acquittal of Salter! The alleged demand of Durham “but you must not exhaust the jury panel by Freemen ” of Pennsylvania . 469 Photo, by Gutekunst, Phila. JOHN C. BELL, District- Attorney of Philadelphia, Who adopted a a his official “ Holy Trinity ” the “ Pro- tection of the Jury," the "Ballot,” the '* Public Schools.” challenges under any circumstances ” may not be a connecting link in this remark- able incident of Salter’s trial, but it calls for an explanation, clean and emphatic, and not a sullen or “ bravado ” silence. After the set up jury had been ac- cepted, the Commonwealth presented its case and disclosed the fact that a private detective agency in Washington had given the first intimation that a gang of re- peaters had been organized in that city to help along the “ gang ticket ” in Philadelphia. Kirkland testified that be- fore seven o’clock on election morning, November 7, 1899, 200 of the 215 bogus ballots were marked and folded in Salter’s house and that they were stuffed in the ballot-box in the Thirteen Division of the Seventh Ward before the polls opened, that he assisted in this work and ac- cepted $15.00 for his services. Along in the afternoon when it became apparent Digitized by CjOOQle
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470 Masters and Riders of “ The Freemen 99 of Pennsylvania . that the number of votes polled, together with the 200 bogus ones, would be so large as to try even the nerves of the “staffers” and create uneasiness on the part of their employers they handed “ specimen ” ballots to unsuspecting voters which, being invalid, were naturally not counted. In all 339 regularly printed ballots were deposited (including 215 fraudulently stuffed in the box “for, of and by the ‘ Organization 9") ; how many voters were tricked by having issued to them “ specimen 99 ballots could not be ascertained. The ballot staffers were so sure of never being molested that they registered the bogus votes alphabetically. In other words, they first used names commencing with the letter “A,” then “B” and con- tinued on through the alphabet until the bogus voters had answered to their names in alphabetical rotation as at a roll-call in Congress! The prosecution had as one of its star witnesses a man by the name of Thomas J. Blair who had previously acted with reformers and had suffered on this account at the hands of the “ Organization.” His treachery and unblushing repudiation of testimony he had sworn to previous to the trial, — testimony sufficient to send Salter et al. to the penitentiary, — showed the all-powerful resources of “ the gang.” They had to clear Salter at all hazards or run the risk of having an expose of one of the elements of the election deviltry practiced by them for years, with the probability of being sent to jail them- selves, an alternative that will sooner or later take place unless justice becomes extinct. Blair was called as a witness for the Commonwealth, consequently it was bound by his testimony. When asked whether he looked in the ballot-box when the polls were opened he answered, “Yes”; whether he saw anything in it, “No”; was it empty, “Yes”; was it still empty when the lid was put back? “ Yes ” ! Thus Blair who had assured the prosecution that he could send Salter and his accomplices to prison, swore directly opposite to what he had promised and helped the Organization in its hour of need. He was, immediately after testify- ing, arrested by order of the court and held in $1,200 bail on the charge of perjury, preferred by District-Attorney Weaver. A few weeks afterwards he was appointed on the police and is to-day on the force. District-Attorney John Weaver arrested this man for perjury, Mayor John Weaver permitted his ap- pointment “as a guardian of the peace” and the charge for perjury has never been pressed. Thus does the “ Organization 99 take care of its own and Philadelphia quietly submits ! The defence evidently had read The Pickwick Papers . It accepted the advice of the elder Weller and resorted to the ever faithful “alibi.” It must be remembered that Salter had been arrested in November, 1899; that he fled the jurisdiction of the court and never returned until two and a half years afterwards, the trial taking place in May, 1902. An alibi is commonly supposed to be most readily proved when the memory of the witnesses is fresh, when their minds are not diverted by interven- ing happenings or by occurrences of moment that overshadow those of a trivial character. An “ ‘ Organization * alibi ” is quite different from the ordinaxy one. It apparently took its witness not days, weeks or months, but several years to refresh and fortify their memories about the minute and hour, when on a certain day Salter left a certain house to go to the polls and exercise his freeman's right to deposit just “ one ” ballot. At any rate the defence produced seven well-rehearsed witnesses who swore that Salter could not have been at his home or at the polls at or before seven o’clock in the morning of election day, because he did not leave the house 407 South Eighth street, nine squares distant, until after 7.15 A. M., while Kirkland had placed him at his own home between 6.30 and 6.45 A. M.! Digitized by CjOOQle
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Masters and Riders of “ The Freemen ” of Pennsylvania. 471 After this cunningly-planned alibi had been established for Salter, he, himself, upset it in a manner that should have convinced even a jury of “ idiots ” of his guilt. On the stand he testified as follows : “ ‘ What time did you get to the polling place on election day ? ’ “ ‘ I got there about twenty minutes of eight.’ “‘About what, about twenty minutes of what?’ “‘Eight.’ “ ‘ Where is the polling place ? * “ ‘ At Sixteenth and Lombard streets.’ “‘Which way did you approach the polling place?’ “ ‘ I came from my own home.’ “‘How long had you been in your house before you went to the polling place ? ’ “ ‘ Over an hour.9 ” The defence was thunderstruck as Salter himself gave the lie to his own witnesses and corroborated Kirkland’s tes- timony which fixed the time of preparing the ballots and stuffing them in the box at before seven o’clock. Salter evidently had forgotten his lines, for he testified that he reached the polls about twenty minutes of eight and that he had then been at his home for over an hour, or since twenty or more minutes before seven o’clock, while his “alibi provers” swore that he was nine squares distant from his home as late as 7.15! With perjury thus plainly established, with the bogus ballots in the box, the flight of the defendants after their arrest a telling argument of their guilt, the im- possible lining up of 200 voters in alpha- betical order at the polls, the testimony of Kirkland, and other collateral evidence, the jury returned a verdict of “Not guilty.” They would have returned the same verdict even if Salter had admitted his guilt! A more shameless miscarriage of jus- tice has rarely been recorded. Salter’s acquittal brought in its wake the “ vindica- tion ” of the “ Organization ” ; if convicted he would in all likelihood have “ peached ” and carried with him behind penitentiary walls the real culprits who have made the ballot a farce and a mockery of the temple of justice. A startling sequel to this case, which has since come to light, and calls for investi- gation, explanation and action, is told by Ryan himself in a sworn statement, which, in its essentials, is confirmed by later de- velopments. In his confession, at which the writer was one of half a dozen persons present, Ryan said in substance: “I was told several weeks before the trial was called that I would be one of the jurors, and was, in course of time, summoned and sworn in. When the trial was over and Salter had been acquitted, I was taken to the Betz Building, where one of the leaders told me I was a hero, etc., etc. On leaving I met my lawyer in front of the building and I asked him when my trial would take place. He told me to go about my business, not to bother about it ; ‘ We ’ll eat these bills up! ”* On making inquiry of the District-At- torney within a day or two, it appears that, upon examining the dockets, three indictments were found against William J. Ryan to the September Sessions, 1901, and that after a somewhat careful search for the indictments, the District-Attorney has as yet not been able to lay his hands upon them. He says: “Apparently they have been lost or mislaid.” It must be remembered in tliis connec- tion that John C. Bell, our present Dis- trict-Attorney, had no connection what- ever with the Salter case. Were the indictments against Ryan eaten up, and if so, who ate them up ? It is to be hoped that the matter will not be allowed to rest here. If anyone connected with either prosecution or de- fence has so far forgotten himself as to betray justice in her own temple, an ex- ample should be made, — so severe that it will deter others from ever following such nefarious practices. This seems to be a proper question for Digitized by Google
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472 Masters and Rulers of " The Freemen” of Pennsylmmda. investigation by either the Board of Judges fugitives and after their acquittal, the or by the Board of Censors. bail bonds were remitted as is shown in the As if the gaping wounds thus inflicted following letter* of Mr. Weaver’s suc- upon an indignant community were not cessorin reply to one addressed to him bv sufficient to satiate the voracious and the writer: defiant gang, soon after the trial they rubbed the wounds with salt and vfn- “ District- Attorney’s Office,] egar until- the public fairly squirmed by “Philadelphia, appointing Salter, the chief defendant, to a “ November 27, 1903. $2,000 city office while they found places “ Rudolph Blankenburg, Esq. : of profit and “ honor” for the other “ My Dear Sir: — In reply to your letter defendants and also took care of the of the 25th inst. with reference to the jurors ^who had so accommodatingly collection of the forfeited bail bonds acquitted them. against Samuel Salter et a/., I have made The promotion of District-Attorney certain investigations and have dis- Weaver to the Mayoralty of Philadelphia covered the following facts: and the advancement of some of his assist- “ In the Case of Com. vs . Samuel ants to more lucrative and prominent Salter, the forfeiture .entered on the bail places cannot directly be chargeJ to their bond was remitted by the Governor of connection with the Salter case, although the State upon Petition presented to him, it is thought in discerning circles that a on the 12th day of January, 1903. little more circumspection and delay in “In the case of Com. vs . Clarence their preferment would have shown good Measer, the forfeiture was Similarly re- judgment and tact on the part of the mitted on the same date, and also in the “Organization.” case of Com. vs. Joseph Rodgers. A collateral incident of this trial shows “ In the case of Com. vs. James F. the almost criminal insensibility of offi- Sheehan, E. E. Jackson alias Cook, cials to their duty. Salter et al. when first Henry Clark, alias McCabe and Edward arrested had been placed under bail, P. Macken, where bail was entered in the which was instantly furnished by mem- sum of $5,400, two-thirds of the forfeiture bers of the ‘^Organization/’ * After their was remitted by the Governor on the flight the bail was declared forfeited but above date; the balance of $1,800 was never collected and on the return of the not then remitted, and remained unpaid until this date, Novem- ber 27, 1903. On this date, in response to a previous written demand made by me on Francis Shunk Brown, Esq. , counsel for Edward P. Macken, for this bal- ance, he and his coun- sel called at my office and paid me the said balance of $1,800, which sum I have this day, by leave of P. J. Mayer Sulzberger, paid into court, for distribution Are Real Estate Assessors employees of the Pennsylvania Railroad? according to law. Pennsylvania Constitution, Art. XVII., 2 8: “No railroad, railway or other « T * * 4.U* transportation company shall grant tree passes, or passes at a discount, * trust tills commu- to any persons except officers or employees of the company Digitized by CjOOQle
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Photo. by Colo ft Holladay. Durham. N. C. ARCHIBALD HENDERSON, Ph.D. The Arena Digitized by Google
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Masters and Rulers of “ The nication will give you the information you desired. Thanking you for the interest you have taken, I am, 44 Very sincerely yours, 44 John C. Bell. 44 District-Attorney” What a sad commentary on the official act of the Governor of a great Common- wealth who, countenanced by the District- Attorney, remits bail on which judgment had been entered by Judge Sulzberger, in favor of the State, against the bonds- men. This judgment, on appeal, was confirmed in an opinion by President Judge Rice of the Superior Court, but the bail-goers were relieved by the action of Governor Stone! A premium is thus offered to criminals who, able to secure bail, flee from justice, and return when important witnesses are dead, evidence against them has been destroyed, the prosecution weakened and 44 alibis’9 manufactured. Thus ended one of the most important cases of 44 the people against the corrupters of the ballot,” with the corrupters far in the lead and no immediate prospect of their suppression and annihilation, owing largely to the moral and civic torpidity of officials who should fire broadsides in the corrupters’ ranks and proclaim in trumpet tones that crimes against the ballot are high treason against the Republic. Friends of an honest ballot have for years striven to secure personal registra- tion as the first step to overthrow fraud at the polls. An amendment to the Con- stitution of Pennsylvania was introduced in the legislature in 1897 but defeated. It was again introduced in 1899 and pass- ed by both Houses but Governor Stone, always ready to exercise his evil influence, had the audacity to veto the amendment, an unheard of assumption of power in which he was ingloriously defeated and overruled by the Supreme Court The amendment was adopted in November, 1901, by a vote of 214,798 in its favor to 45,601 opposed. Not- withstanding the ratification of the amend- Freemen” of Pennsylvania . 478 ment by a vote of nearly five in favor to one against, our law-makers have so far failed to pass necessary legislation to put it in operation, although Gov- ernor Pennypacker in his last message recommended prompt action. We have to wait until Penrose, Durham and McNichol, the guardians of our liberties, the demi-gods of the 44 Organization,” condescend to decree the fate of the Constitutional amendment! Will there ever be an awakening or shall we in despair join Jeremiah in his Lamentations, chapter 1.1: uHow does the city sit solitary , that % oas full of people! how is she become as a widow / she that was great among the nations , and princess among the provinces , how is she become tributary /” Yes, she was full of people at one time, full of men, of real men, who were proud to be called citizens of no mean city, proud as the Roman who exclaimed 44 Civis Romanus sum ” when he wished to. express the feeling of quickened ex- ultation at the distinction of being a part of that grand citizenship. We were great among the cities, our name honored and revered, but since we have become tributary, since we have lost our independence, and worship an 44 Organ- ization ” Baal, the name and fame of our city will remain a byword of reproach until such time as manhood ah*dl again assert itself. The statement made in the April number of The Arena that real estate assess- ors are provided with free passes by the Pennsylvania Railroad has been question- ed and called almost incredible. Proof positive is furnished herewith. The pass shown on page 472 tells its own story. It is in force to-day. It is not surprising that people should hesitate to believe the Pennsylvania Rail- road guilty of acts so forbidding and so demoralizing in their tendencies. This action unblushingly violates the Constitu- tion, disregards all rules of order, integrity and public morals, and plainly indicates Digitized by Google
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474 Stephen Phillips: Poet and Dramatist. that real estate assessors are provided with passes to place them under obliga- tions to the Company. The Pennsylvania Railroad Company is, perhaps, the largest realty owner in Philadelphia. Whether the judgment of assessors is, on account of favors receiv- ed, likely to be warped when they assess railroad property for purposes of taxa- tion, may safely be left to the judgment of the reader. Those concerned in this iniquitous busi- ness are probably church-goers, call them- selves good citizens and are looked up to on account of their social and financial position, but they certainly are net made of the material that strengthens the Re- public. (To be continued.) Rudolph Blankenburg. Philadelphia , Pa. STEPHEN PHILLIPS: POET AND DRAMATIST. By Archibald Henderson, Ph.D., Of the University of North Carolina. “A deliberate rebellion against the Elizabethan tradition is the best hope for English poetic drama. That, at any rate, has always been my view; and I have tried to act up to it, and enfranchise myself from the Shakespearean ideal.*’ — Conversation: Stephen Phillips and William Archer. THE HISTORY of criticism, it has been said more than once, teaches the salutary lesson that the judgment of current literature laid down by con- temporaries is not, in many cases, the judgment posterity has seen fit to ap- plaud. In especial, the judgment of literary aspirants by their fellow-country- men has proven fallible so many times that skepticism is not to be wondered at in the critic of current literature. Did Shakespeare’s contemporaries and fellow- workers, in the spacious days of Queen Elizabeth, suspect that the author of “ Hamlet,” “ Macbeth ” and “Lear” was the greatest spokesman of Anglo-Saxon, nay, of the world’s civilization? Did literary France in the reign of the grand monarque believe that, in “ Les Predeuses Ridicules,” Moli4re had changed the face of society? For how many years was the distinctive and remarkable genius of Edgar Allen Poe obscured by sectional prejudice and local indifference! A dis- tinguished French critic — Jules Lemaitre, was it not ? — once said that contemporary criticism is not criticism, but conversation. Much modern criticism is even less than conversation. It is gossip. And yet the effort to fix the position, to paint definitive portraits, of literary contemporaries goes on unchecked. To-day the drama, that noblest of the literary arts, offers the most fertile field for the inspection of the critic. Ibsen’s work is done, his “dramatic epilogue” is already written. But how many other figures stand not far below his own, crowding the secondary plane of dramatic genius! Have we a modem Goethe and Schiller in Gerhart Hauptmann and Hermann Sudemiann ? Are Paul Heyse and Ernst von Wildenbruch the heralds of a new day? Will Victorien Sardou, with supreme mechanical dexterity and consummate mastery of stagecraft at his command, ever succeed in striking the deep, full chords of the human heart? Can Edmond Rostand, whose heart pulses with lyric beat and romantic throb, succeed in bringing to perfection the ideal of Regnard, De Musset and Victor Hugo ? Can Paul Hervieu, Henri Lavedan, Maurice Donnay and Octave Mirbeau summon again the glory of Corneille, Racine and Moliere? Is it perhaps true that Pinero and Jones, Esmond and Carton, are something more than “brief and abstract chro- Digitized by Google
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475 Stephen Phillips: Poet and Dramatist. nometers of the time?” Are George Bernard Shaw, Henri Becque and August Strindberg only the demented spokesmen of the modern irreverence mania ? Have Heijermanns and Verhaeren, Echegaray and Estebanze fulfilled the hope for a drama that will survive the corrosive tests of time ? Does Gabriel d’An- nunzio, with all his polished verse, his immaculate prose, and his perfect style, only delve into the abjured and for- bidden secrets of sex, passion and lust? Has that exotic flower of a new-century mysticism, Maurice Maeterlinck, set up the theory and practice of a new dramatic art that will supersede the human art of Shakespeare? Has that hardy Norseman, Bjomstjeme Bjornson, builded an in- destructible palace of art upon the solid concrete of modem life ? Can we credit Zola, and Howells after him, in the statement that Giacometti, in “ La Mort Civile,” has created the greatest drama of modem times ? Has Stephen Phillips, with his entrandngly beautiful verse, crystallized the drama into poetic form for all time to come ? Futile as it may seem to attempt to give the answer to these and a thousand other disquieting questions of con- temporary dramatic literature, it is at least the duty of the critic to record not only the facts of the lives, but also his individual impressions of the work, of his contemporaries. If we first examine the facts of the life of the poet and dramatist whose name is linked with the renascence of poetic drama in English literature, we shall find little explanation of the secret of his marvelous power in the evocation of the most enrapturing strains of poetic music. He has not gone down into the Inferno with Strindberg, searching for God and finding the devil. Unlike Ibsen, he learned no early and bitter lesson of the hollowness and in- sincerity of society. He has not thrown himself as has Bernard Shaw, into the dusty and pitiless arena of modem life, to joust against all comers. He has not learned in suffering, to teach in song. His life has been sheltered from the wrangle and strife of conflicting social orders. The meagre biographical details of his career testify to no great material or spiritual crises. The autobiography of bus mind, written so exquisitely in the volumes of his poetry and drama, reveals him to us, not as the contempor- ary of Morris, Kipling and Whitman, but as the companion of Virgil, Dante, Mar- lowe and Milton. Bom on the twenty-eighth of July, 1868, Stephen Phillips showed in his early boyhood wholesome contempt, rather than passionate admiration, for things metrical. Claiming descent from the Wordsworths through his mother, it was but natural that he should attribute his love of verse to her influence. The reading of “ Christabel ” to him by his mother, when he was ill at school, at about the age of fifteen, wrought the transformation in his spirit. He re- solved from that hour to be a poet, and devoted himself for some years thereafter to constant writing, seeking always to perfect his talent. At the end of his first term in Cambridge, in 1886, he was so enthused by the performances of Mr. Frank Benson’s troupe of Shakespearean actors that he resolved to go on the stage. Although he was only taken on proba- tion, he continued to be a member of the company for six years. It has been stated that, while Phillips never made any reputation as an actor, he once played the Ghost in ‘‘Hamlet” with a dignity so awful that he was positively called before the curtain, a distinction probably in this r6le unparalleled. Like Pinero, Phillips owes much of his talent for situation and dramatic crisis to his apprenticeship to the stage. It was during the sojourn of Mr. Benson’s company at Oxford, several years later, that Phillips once more turned his mind to poetry. The result of his association at this time with his cousin, Lawrence Binyon, and a talented young Indian, named Ghose, was a little pamphlet of neglected verse. Digitized by Google
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476 Stephen Phillips: Poet and Dramatist. “Frimavera,” published in Oxford in 1888. After leaving Mr. Benson’s com- pany, 1 in 1893, Phillips turned to the Greeks and to Milton for inspiration. It became his fixed determination to restore blank verse to its old dignity and variety. His first independent publica- tion, entitled “Eremus,” appeared in 1894, and has not been reprinted. None of his contributions to “Primavera” seemed to him worthy of preservation, and “ Eremus,” which he regards as an experimental work, has, I believe, been suppressed. Concerning this piece, Mr. Gosse wrote: “ 4 Eremus ’ contains pass- ages of much ingenuity and beauty, but it is diffuse, it is ill-constructed, and it lacks precisely that quality of intensity and concentration which is the signal grace of this poet in our over-fluent age. It is a sort of autobiography of a mysteri- ous hermit or solitary, told on the top of a peak to two kind persons who have carried the dying man up to that cold elevation. It is written in blank verse of a careful but somewhat conventional type, and it is interesting as showing that the secret of that marvelous lyrical movement of unrhymed iambics which is Mr. Phillips’ particular glory, had not, in 1894, been revealed to him.” It was in 1896 that “ Christ in Hades ” first appeared, and with it came to light the finest English poet of the younger generation. It gave rise to the highest hopes for the author’s future. These hopes were realized when, in 1897, ap- peared the collection called “ Poems,” crowned with the initial award of the British Academy, and with the en- thusiastic praise of English critics. The blank-verse tragedy, “ Paolo and Fran- cesca,” Phillips’ first poetic drama, ap- peared in the winter of 1899. It was dedicated to Mr. George Alexander, the celebrated English actor, who had asked Mr. Phillips to write him a play. One is reminded of Coquelin’s request of Rostand to write a play for him, the result of the request being the world- renowned “Cyrano de Bergerac.” The unusual panegyric of praise which greeted this play is without a counterpart in our time. Even that very careful and dis- criminating critic, Mr. William Archer, expressed his praise in the words: “A thing of exquisite poetic form, yet tingling from first to last with intense dramatic life. Mr. Phillips has achieved the impossible. Saidou could not have ordered the action more skilfully, Tenny- son could not have clothed the passion in words of purer loveliness.” Following upon “ Paolo and Fran- cesca” came three other poetic dramas, “Herod,” “Ulysses” and “The Sin of David.” All of these except the last- named, which is now vexing the minds of the critics, have been put on the stage in London with a success that is remark- able, considering that these plays are poetic dramas, wholly without the stream of modem tendencies, the main currents of modem thought, which flow through the dramas of our time. i. The gift of dramatic imagination, which stamps the author of “Christ in Hades,” makes that poem a marvel in stately seriousness and lofty beauty. Dante summons the shades, in the “Inferno,” to his side, and holds such sad converse with them that he swoons with sorrow over their hapless fate. Phillips’ poem, with its image of the doomed shades, hovering in inarticulate woe about the strange visitant, is remi- niscent of that divine fifth canto of the “Inferno.” It differs in that Christ speaks no word, gazing in infinite and immeasurable pity upon these lost spirits, speciously pleading their cause, lamenting their irremediable fate. The successor of Tennyson speaks in the lines: “Just as a widower, that dreaming holds ' His dead wife in his arms, not wondering. So natural it appears; then starting up With trivial words, or even with a jest. Realises aO the uncolored dawn. And near his head the young bird in the leaves Stirring; not less, not otherwise do we Want m this colorless country the warm earth.” Digitized by Google
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477 Stephen Phillips: Poet and Dramatist. The very opening lines of the poem, an exquisite simile of faultless form, reveal the individual quality of Phillips’ style: “Keen as a blinded man, at dawn awake, Smells in the dark the cold odour of earth; Eastward he turns his eyes, and over him A dreadful freshness exquisitely breathes.*' Less like imagination than pure vision seems this gift of pictorial evocation, this power to summon to the mind this image of Christ, the “pale Brilliance,” moving with divine and silent pity through the serried hosts of the damned. One fault alone mars the unity and calm of the phantasy: the sudden arrest of Christ when the scent of the blood of Prome- theus is borne to him by the wind. Of all Phillips’ poems, none is com- parable to “ Marpessa ” for consistent and unfailing beauty, inevitable ap- positeness of expression to mood, and wealth of impassioned feeling. The mine of classic myth gives up again its store of riches, long since deemed exhausted, and the gold is re-minted into a fresh and shin- ing currency of lasting intrinsic value. Where else do we find such exquisite expression of exalted and impassioned emotion as that conveyed in the lines of Idas: “I love thee then Not only for thy body pecked with sweet Of all this world, that cup of brimming June, That jar of violet wine set in the air, That palest rose sweet in the night of life; Nor for that stirring bosom all Besieged By drowsing lovers, or thy perilous hair; Nor for that face that might indeed provoke Invasion of old cities; no, nor all Thy freshness stealing on me like strange sleep.” And the very topmost pinnacle of the poem is scaled in the closing lines: “Not for this only do I love thee, but Because Infinity upon thee broods; And thou art full of whispers and of shadows. Thou meanest what the sea has striven to say So long, and yearnld up the cliffs to tell; Thou art what all the winds have uttered not. What the still night suggesteth to the heart Thy voice is like to music beard ere birth. Some spirit lute touched on a spirit sea; Thy face remembered is from other worlds, It has been died for, though I know not when, It has been sung of, though I know not where. It has the strangeness of the luring West And of sad sea-norisons; beside thee I am aware of other times and lands. Of birth far-back, of lives in many stars. 0 beauty lone and like a candle dear In this dark country of the world! Thou art My woe, my early light, my music dying.** The remaining poems of Phillips fall into three divisions. First, in the class of “Christ in Hades” and “Marpessa,” fall those poems which are the projec- tions of a vision, phantasies of imagina- tive clairvoyance. Next may be men- tioned the poems, rooted in die morbid- ness of modernity, in which squalid and even impure themes are garbed in the rich robe of a stately poetic fabric. There are also a few poems in which lurks philosophic meditation — the rarest mood of this poet of grace and passion. None approach the transcendent beauty of “Marpessa,” while a number possess faults of a very definite character. In the naturalistic study, “The Wife,” such lines as "A blind man passes that doth sound With shaking head the hollow ground.*’ and “‘He is not dead,’ she cried, *1*11 think it not 1 shall go mad to see my darling rot,'” of which the last-named are deleted in the second edition of “Poems,” may serve as glaring illustrations. But after all shortcomings are taken into account, there remains a rich treasury of poetry, much essentially fine, all essentially dramatic. This dramatic quality in his poems, combined with his experience as an actor, furnish something like an adequate explanation for the success of Stephen Phillips in that form of poetry most alien to the spirit of our time — the poetic drama. h. It is difficult to approach Phillips’ “ Paolo and Francesca ” without a strong inclination to use superlatives. This play stands right alongside Rostand’s “ Cyrano de Bergerac” and Hauptmann’s “Die Versunkene Glocke,” and these three are Digitized by Google
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478 Stephen Phillips: Poet and Dramatist . the most exceptional of the poetic dramas of recent years. Phillips’ play came at the end of the century in England — the England that had known no great poetic drama in the nineteenth century, save perhaps that of Browning and Shelley — and has already taken its place as an achievement of exquisite beauty, dra- matic power and sustained poetic effort, worthy of this or indeed of any age. William Archer, it may be mentioned, had presaged the success of “ Paolo and Francesca.” In an article on the “ Poetic Drama ” he had advised any young would-be dramatist to “ plunge his drama entirely in one element, in one convention, creating from it an ideal atmosphere of pure poetry.” And this indeed is a very definite description of what Phillips has done. He purposely rejects the in- strumentalities of local color and racial psychology; his characters are not me- dieval Italians of the thirteenth century, but are English and modem, and, for that reason, all the nearer to us, with the subtile tinge of modernity that so clearly colors their thoughts and actions. The play as a whole is not in any sense Shakespearean, although here and there are light Elizabethan touches. The simple directness of the treatment has lifted the play above the cheaper tricks of dramatic convention, and this same directness has carried the author safely over the melodramatic pitfalls, so amply afforded by the circumstantial basis of the action. The Author has gone still further and rejected even Boccaccio’s “ tale of coarse deception and substitution,” employed in the dramas of Boker and d’Annunzio. Not only has Phillips plunged his drama in one element, creating for it an ideal atmosphere of pure poetry, but he has surcharged the atmosphere with the sense of fatality, the immanence of destiny. Each character is marked out by some broad trait, the method of characteriza- tion the author has revealed in all his subsequent plays; consciously or un- consciously, each character becomes “ the accomplice and the instrument of Fate.” In this respect the motive and appeal are essentially Greek, revealing all the re- straint of classic traditions. As in the Greek drama, the act of bloody retribu- tion is done “off the stage,” contrary to the practice of Boker, d’Annunzio, Maeterlinck and Crawford. And after paying tribute to the marvel- ous beauty, unrivaled felicity and “per- sistent loftiness ” of poetic expression sustained throughout this play, one must pay one still further tribute to the tense dramatic power revealed in every scene. Phillips’ apprenticeship to the stage is revealed most clearly in this play, whose dramatic effectiveness is die clearest proof that there has come out of England, at the close of the nineteenth century, not only a great dramatic poem, but also a great poetic drama. Phillips has revealed his inventiveness in the creation of Giovanni’s widowed cousin, Lucrezia deg’l Onesti, a new personality associated with the tragic story. Her early wail of regret over being a childless woman — a burst of passionate confidence which may surprise the auditor by its apparent irrelevance to the action — proves to be full of significance in the subsequent development of the plot. Since Dante, no one has equaled Phillips in his evocation of the exquisite scene of nascent love, crowned with the kiss of the youthful lovers. Overmastered by the tyranny of his passion for Francesca, “all dewy from her convent fetched,” Paolo resolves to “see her, hear her, touch her,” ere he dies. In the hush just before dawn, Francesca has come out into the garden, with lamp and book, to read the ancient tale of Lancelot and Guinevere. Paolo enters, and in the melodious stillness of that prophetic hour, when might almost be heard “The sigh of all the siegers in the world; And aO the riven running to the sea," the two lovers hold sweet converse in lines of surpassing loveliness. Their dialogue is soon exchanged for an Digitized by Google
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470 Stephen Phillips: Poet and Dramatist alternate reading to each other from the book in a text of quivering, trembling beauty of Phillips’ own invention. This scene, whose beauty cannot even be suggested, closes upon the fatal kiss. Admiration for " Paolo and Francesca ” must not be construed as blindness to its faults. Indeed, it seems to me that Phillips has sacrificed too much in his effort to create for the play an atmosphere of pure poetiy. The play is modern and makes its appeal to the moderns. There is nothing to localize it in Italy, to time it to the thirteenth century, to image in it the psychological traits of medieval Italians. Lucrezia, the strongest and most virile character, the "only man in the piece,” is transformed in an instant, by a dubious miracle of the poet’s art, from a plotting conspirator into a tender and pitying mother. If Lucrezia is in- formed with the true spirit of modernity, so also is Giovanni, for he is always self- analytical, subjective, introspective. The play might be called "The Slaughter of the Innocents,” for Paolo is always boyishly youthful, and Francesca is never more than a child; her nurse’s words are illuminating: M She hath but wondered up at the white clouds ; Hath just spread out her hands to the warm sun; Hath neard but gentle words and cloister sounds.*’ Despite its blemishes, "Paolo and Fran- cesca” is, all in all, a work of high and ennobling art For it is everywhere animate with what Baudelaire called " la grace suprSme littSraire .” in. Predestination, Fate — these are the watchwords of the dramas of Phillips. Each motive, each event, is linked with some fateful prophecy, some symbolic suggestion of dire denouement. The doom of Paolo and Francesca is fore- shadowed in the vaticinations of the blind Angela: “He shall be Not far to seek; yet perilous to find. Unwillingly be comes a wooing; she Unwillingly is wooed ; yet shall they woo. His kiss was on her lips ere she was born.” And in "Herod,” Phillips’ next play, which was produced with great magnifi- cence at Her Majesty’s Theater, London, on October 31, 1900, by H. Beerbohm Tree and his company, the Greek motif is carried to absurd and exag- gerated extremes. A great astrologer, long before the opening of the play, had foretold: “Herod shall famous be o’er all the world. But he shall kill that thing which most he loves.” This gives us the presage of the death of Mariamne, and foreknowledge of the identity of her slayer. In similar fashion is d’Annunzio’s "Francesca da Rimini” filled with presages of symbolic intent, notably Bannino’s cry, "Open! Fran- cesca. Open!” at the close of the first act, and Francesca’s words to Paolo, when she hands him the cup of wine: “O brother of my lord, drink of the cup Thy brother drinks of ... ” " Herod ” is marred by the fore- shadowing of every material and spiritual crisis of the action. Mariamne fore- warns Herod of the possible extinction of her love, even suggesting the mode of Aristobulus' death. Herod prophe- cies the coming of Christ, he who shall “ . . . still that old sob of the sea. And heal the unhappy fancies of the wind,” that gentle sovereign "whose power in gentleness we dream not of.” This note of timely warning, as it were, prepares us for every catastrophe; not character, but the will of whatever gods may be, is destiny. "Herod” is moreover a play of two acts; the final act simply offers us a spectacle, the cataleptic trance of the broken sovereign, the "last sunset-cry of wounded kings.” It must be granted that Phillips has taken advantage of every theatrical situation, charged every crisis to the full with emotion and passion. And the tide of emotion swells to a very crest of passion in the words of Mariamne: “And most for this I love you, and have loved. That when you wooed, behind you dries crashed. Digitized by Google
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480 Stephen Phillips: Poet and Dramatist. Those eyes that dimmed for me flashed in die breach, And you were scorched and scarred and dressed in spoils. Magnificent in lrrisy of ruin. You swept denial off and all delay. You rushed on me like fire, and a wind drove you, Thou who dids’t never fear, Herod, my Herod. Now clasp me again as thou dids’t clasp me then. When like a hundred lightning brands upsprung In the night sudden. Then did you laugh out And whirled me like a god through the dark away.” The trend of Phillips’ art as a poet and dramatist follows a course of progressive deterioration. Beerbohm Tree’s gorgeous production of ‘‘Ulysses” on February 1, 1902, at Her Majesty’s Theater, London, was a magnificent succes cT estime. Charles Frohman’s production, at the Garden Theater, New York, in Septem- ber, 1903, with Rose Coghlan in the rdle of Penelope, was a very qualified success, not even a splendid failure. These pro- ductions brought out only too clearly the indubitable fact that “ Ulysses ” is pano- ramic rather than dramatic; a series of eye-delighting spectacles rather than a firmly-knit drama of character and action. That conflict of human wills, which M. Brunetifere has declared to be the quintes- sential trait of genuine drama, is here almost wholly lacking. Again and again does Phillips struggle to image and pro- ject this conflict upon the scene. The opposition of Telemachus to the in- vincible effrontery of the suitors of Penelope, and Penelope’s struggle to avoid a decision, are futile: their im- potence is exposed by the arrival of the long-awaited Ulysses. He is successful, not through any splendid exercise and triumph of human will, but only through the protection and aid of the beneficent Athene. Nor does the scene in Hades carry with it conviction: the issue of that conflict, foretold, foreordained to our knowledge, robs the brave struggle of Ulysses of its poignancy and pathos. The one scene in the play which gives the impression of true dramatic validity is the tense struggle of contending human wills, exhibited in the first act. Calypso and Ulysses struggle nobly together for the mastery, she for love and Ulysses, he for home and Penelope. His fine poetic declamation, delivered to Calypso striving vainly to chain him to her side, measures the talent of Phillips on the side of rhetorical poetry, while sounding the weakness of the entire play, indeed, of Phillips’ whole achievement. “Then have the truth; I speak ss a man speaks; Pour out my heart like treasure at your feet. This odorous, amorous isle of violets. That leans all leaves into the glassy deep. With brooding music over noontide moss. And low dirge of the lily-swinging bee, — Then stars Gke opening eyes on dosing flowers, — Palls on my heart Ah God! that I might see Gaunt Ithaca stand up out of the singe. Yon lashed and streaming rocks, and »g crags. The screaming gull and the wild-flying cloud: — To see far off the smoke of my own hearth. To smell far out the glebe of my own farms. To spring alive upon her precipices. And nurlthe singing spear into the air; To scoop the mountain torrent in my hand. And plunge into the midnight of her pines; To look into the eyes of her who here me. And clasp his knees who ’gat me in his joy. Prove if my son be like my dream of him/* A spectacle-drama, with a commentary in verse, as Arthur Symons has said, at its best “Ulysses” reaches only “what Coleridge, contrasting Schiller with Shakespeare, called ‘the material sub- lime.’ It has not flowered up out of a seed of hidden beauty; such beauty as it has, and it has beauty, i$ wrought from without, and presents itself to us as decoration.” “The Sin of David,” the new play of Phillips, is in all respects inferior to the three poetic dramas which preceded it. The story of David and Uriah is given a modem setting in the period of the English Commonwealth. This is the first step Phillips has taken toward our own time, and it is a false step. Miriam, a creature all compact of passion and pathos, is like Francesca in that she is wedded, when yet a child, to one who in age might be her father. Like Francesca, her heart turns resistlessly to a gentle and gallant lover — to Sir Hubert Lisle, com- mander of the Parliamentary forces in the Fenland. Maddened by his love for Digitized by Google
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* Stephen Phillips: Poet and Dramatist. 481 Miriam, Lisle, like David, sets the husband of Miriam, the modem Uriah, in the “forefront of the hottest battle,” where he is smitten and dies. Five years later, the child of Sir Hubert and Miriam, now man and wife, languishes and dies of fever. “Vengeance is mine,” saith the Lord. “ I will repay.” Over- whelmed with this stroke. Lisle confesses to his wife his guilt in sending her husband to his death. At first a momentary recoil of horror, then determination on separation, then a sudden, unconvincing reversal of decision. Miriam remains with her husband, because he has the eyes of her dead child! The denouement, as well as the whole action of the play is insufficiently motived, carrying with it neither emotional con- viction nor the surety of its truth as a representation of life. The one strong scene is the close of the second act, but it is theatric, not dramatic like the reading of the book in “Paolo and Francesca,” of which it is a marked reminder. Sug- gestive of Ibsen’s “Little Eyolf ” solely on the narrative side, Phillips’ play is however wholly lacking in that ethical and altruistic content which gives breadth and depth to Ibsen’s play. There are very few lines which remind us of the poet Phillips of other days — of Paolo’s panegyric on immortal love, Mariamne’s glorification of Herod’s godlike passion, or Ulysses* apostrophe to “ gaunt Ithaca.” It is noted with regret that Phillips here is guilty of that most grievous of all defects, self-imitation. The fine line, “ Her face was dose to me and dimmed the world," is not imitated, but rather mocked, in "That smile hath made a mist of all the world," and "That smOe that made a mist of the great world." Yet once or twice the old poetic fire flames up again, as in “We, by bereavement henceforth are betrothed. Folded by aspirations unfulfilled, And clasped by irrecoverable dreams." IV. Stephen Phillips has not fulfilled the expectations to which “Marpessa” and “Paolo and Francesca” gave rise. He once admitted that his {days contained no underplot, no philosophic embroidery, no minute development of character. He sought to make dramas without these things, to denote character, not as subtile and complex, but as large and simple. “ I may yet come to do more in the way of characterization than I have hitherto attempted ” is a surmise unverified in his latest play. In “ Marpessa ” and “ Paolo and Francesca" Phillips has realized his ideal of unity of effect, “compression, not expansion, — surface calm, even quie- tude, with a glow of passion beneath it.” His later plays hold us less and less by force of their representation of reality; the fragile philosophy they contain is hopelessly obsolete, action is less and less inevitably motived, and even the decora- tive beauties are fading, reappearing in colorless imitations of each other. But after all, as someone has recently said, “there is always the miracle of youth to comfort us; and there is, for remem- brance, the miracle of Phillips’ youth, when from his pen came lines as classic in their beauty and as glowing in their fire as any Tennyson wrought with patient care, or Shelley flung upon the page in his days of flaming dreams.’’ Archibald Henderson. Chapel Hill, N. C. Digitized by Google
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PRACTICAL RESULTS WHICH HAVE ATTENDED THE INTRODUCTION OF THE REFERENDUM IN SWITZERLAND. By Professor Charles Borgeaud, Of the Univenity of Genera. HEN in 1869 Direct-Legislation entered the constitutions of the two leading states of the Swiss Con- federation, Zurich and Berne, and later, in 1874, the constitution of the Bund itself, many among the men of 1848 who had framed the federal houses, the National Council and the Council of States, on the American plan, found hard words for that novelty which they deemed altogether destructive of the representative system of government and full of dangers for the welfare of their country. These men belong to the radical party, who after our war of secession, which resulted in the victory of the Protestant Cantons, transformed the old “ Staatenbund ” into the present * Bundesstatt,” and who have ever since retained power. When they framed the federal constitution, in the constituent Diet of 1847, they did inscribe in the same that the people ought to be con- sulted in the case of a future revision. This also was in conformity with the American practice which the French Revolution had brought to Switzerland. But they had no idea of proceeding farther in that way and thought that if constituent power ought to be left with the sovereign, legislative power, granted under the constitution to the representa- tives of the people, ought to remain entire with those representatives. In 1874 the great revision took place. The legislative Referendum entered the Federal Constitution as a concession to minorities and a counterpoise to the new powers which the revised articles took away from the states in order to lodge them with the Union. Believers in advanced democracy and champions of cantonalistic traditions united in demand- ing for the people the right of pronounc- ing in last resort on any point of import- ance for the country, the previous question about such importance having to be settled by the signature of thirty thousand qualified voters. They suc- ceeded, and thus a new step in the path of democracy accompanied and balanced a new step in the path of national unity. From that time the Cantons that did not already precede the Bund in the intro- duction of the novelty successively fol- lowed its example. The practice of the Referendum, to which was soon joined the practice of the popular Initiative for constitutional amendments and even for ordinary legislation, became a charac- teristic of Swiss democracy. The limits of this paper and the time at my command at this writing make it advisable for me to confine my discussion in this contribution to a consideration of the Referendum. It has won its case. Unquestionably it has proved a boon to Switzerland and has no more enemies of any following in the generation of to-day. Let me give one instance to illustrate what I advance. In one of the Cantons, that was among the last to introduce the Referendum — the Canton of Geneva— where the bill bears the date of 1879, both parties. Conservative and Radical, are just now quarrelling in lengthy articles and in political speeches about the real promoters of the same. The novelty of twenty-five years ago is such an unqual- ified success that every party feds inclined to boast of being the country’s benefactor who introduced it in the cantonal consti- tution. As a matter of fact it was inaug- urated at Geneva by the Conservatives, who from that time really deserved the name which they assume, of Democrats. 482 Digitized by v^poQle
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Practical Results of the Referendum in Switzerland. 488 Now why is that institution so popular in Switzerland that no one would dream of proposing that we should do away 'with it and go back to the purely repre- sentative system of 1848? Because it Has proved an efficacious remedy, meeting in a large measure the evils which may be consequent upon that form of govern- ment. First, and above all, it prevents the representatives of the people from losing touch with public opinion. This does not mean that they never come out of that touch, or never ought to be allowed to go ahead of their constituents and be leaders in the political field, but simply that, if it comes to a standing disagree- ment between representatives and repre- sented, that disagreement shall not result in legislation contrary to the will of the people. In order to attain such desirable end, some theorists propose the impera- tive mandate, which is the very negation of legislative mandate. An assembly* of delegates elected under such restriction can act as an electoral body; it cannot pretend to make law. With the rigime of the Referendum, either obligatory — viz., applied to every bill, as in some Cantons, or facultative, — on the demand of a given number of qualified voters, as in most States and in the Confedera- tion, the delegate will take his part in the legislative work according to the dictates of his reason and conscience, knowing that it shall or may have to stand the test of the people’s judgment. But this implies nothing else than that he shall have the duty to explain his votes before his constituency and submit to a free trial of what he has freely done. The Swiss member of a legislative body is always obliged to submit in the end to the opinion of his constituents, but he has always the chance of con- vincing them. The fundamental differ- ence between such submission and that which is supposed from the proxy under an imperative mandate is that it is not anticipated, that it follows, not precedes, legislative action, and leaves free scope to the activity, to the personality of all concerned. The liberty of thought, speech and votes which the Referendum system al- lows to the Swiss representative may be inferred from the fact that, when it happens that he has found himself definitively at variance with his con- stituents in important debates of a legis- lature, if they have nothing else to re- proach him with than a casual difference of unprejudiced opinion, they very often return him to the next legislature. Carefully elaborated statistics of re- elections to the Federal legislative coun- cils, covering more than a quarter of a century, show that the introduction of the Referendum did not materially alter the composition of these bodies. Even when the important issue was settled by the electors so as to reverse the decision of the legislature in the very year of a general election, the old majority was nevertheless returned to the new councils. The average Swiss voter thinks that, since he has the right to say the last word in any political matter of importance, he may as well, notwithstanding an occasional divergence of opinion, con- tinue to support the man whom he has always considered trustworthy. Thus it is to be explained why a Frenchman, who was the correspondent of the Journal dee Dibats and the wittiest professor of the University of Geneva, once having to report a general election which, in spite of a former negative plcbisdt, had been a general reelection, wrote: “Les Suisses sent un peuple singulier . Ils desavoueni leurs representants; aprisquoi , ils les renomment” A lawyer may object to a definition of the law in a democracy, even in a pure democracy, which would amount to making the law identical with the tran- sient will of the people; but that the law, in a democracy, ought to be avowed by the majority of the people who represent the sovereign, few would deny. Now if a bill, made by an assembly of representa- tives, can be legally proved to be against Digitized by Google
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484 Practical Results of the Referendum in Switzerland . the will of the majority of the qualified voters of the state, it ought not to become law. Adversaries of direct-legislation say the framers of the* bill fully represent the people for the time of their mandate, and, before the next election, there ought to be no means of legally proving against them. At that time the people shall have the opportunity of enforcing their will. This argument would hold if there were only one bill voted on in the legislature and if the men returned in the election' represented necessarily in any given case the real majority of the people. Every one knows that, with the multi- plicity of bills in which modem legisla- tors indulge and with the pafts played by party organizations in the electoral con- test, this is seldom the case. To theorists, who like to admit that the opinion of a fairly elected assembly is to be taken as representing, at least roughly, in all its votes the opinion of the country, the following example from the latest expe- riences in Swiss politics might be cited. At the end. of 1899 both houses of the Federal Assembly adopted a bill which organized compulsory insurance against sickness and accidents, without being fair to the numerous existing associations for mutual help and without guaranteeing sufficiently how the means would be found for their scheme in future budgets. In the Council of States the bill was carried unanimously; in the National Council one lone member voted No. On the twentieth of May, 1900, the Swiss people voted the bill down by 842,114 suffrages against 148,022. In one Canton only, Glaris, was there a majority for acceptation. This instance of the working of the Referendum gives me an opportunity to say a word about the negative tendency which is sometimes attributed to popular vote in Switzerland. It has often been said that it blocks the way to labor laws and measures designed to improve the condition of the working classes. There is truth to be found in this assertion, provided one does not mistake the mean- ing of that block in the way. It is a pillar, not a fence. What our people dislike is not social legislation; it is hasty legislation on social matters. They are accustomed to insist on very mature consideration* and up to date I do not see that the country has had much cause to regret these Fabian tactics. The bill on compulsory insurance against sickness and accidents aroused a triple opposition: the peasants, who are easily frightened by new taxes: the mutualists, who would not give up their free associations; the citizens of the Roman Cantons, who are adverse to any extension of what they call M Federal bureaucracy.” All these adversaries started the demand for a Referendum, but their vote, if remaining alone, would probably have been insufficient to kill the bill. The work of the houses was refused even in the large industrial towns of German Switzerland, like Zurich or Basel, and in Basel the workingmen’s quarter gave thelargest majority against it. Is this, then, the end of social legisla- tion with us on the matter of insurance? Certainly not. Statesmen are as busy as ever with that question. A few State legislatures are considering new schemes in which the criticisms have been care- fully taken into account and metT It is probable that some Cantons will legislate for themselves. The first that is success- ful will be imitated by others, and within a few years the Bund also will have its federal law, which undoubtedly will be more acceptable to all than the rejected one of 1902. One of the best informed among Swiss writers, Theodor Curti, now editor of the Frankfurter Zeitung, who was for years a member of the government of his Canton, St. Gallen, being at the same time a prominent member of the Federal Assembly, and who remains the best authority to quote on the subject, wrote in his valuable work. Die Schweizerischm VoUcerechte , 1848-1900:* * Bern : K. Z. Wju, 1900. A French transla- tion is announced in Paris. Digitized by Google
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Practical Results of the Referendum in Switzerland. 485 M Die Rechts — und die Sozialgesetzgeb- ung haben unter der Herrschaft des Ref- erendums gross Erfolge zu verzeichnen, zumal die letstere. Dem Fabrikgesetz und dem ersten Haftpflichtgesetz folgte eine ganze Reihe von Arbeiterschutz- gesetzen, welche vom Referendum un- angefochten blieben oder gebilligt wurden und ihre Fortsetzung in erg&nzenden Arbeiterschutzgesetzen der Kantone fanden. Das Alkoholgesetz mit dem Alkoholzehntel, der Verfassungsartikel iiber das Banknotenmonopol, der Gesamt- riickauf der Eisenbahnen, welcher bald dem Scheitem des nur teilweisen Riick- kaufs gefolgt ist, und die verschiedenen Gesetze zur Forderung der Forstwirth- schaft, der Landwirthschaft, und der Gewerbe: alle diese Schopfungen sind Schopfungen des Referendumstaates. Was aber die Rechtsgesetzgebung an- betrifft, welche mit der Sodalgesetzgeb- ung in enger Verbindung steht, so konnten, vom Referendum unbestritten oder anerkannt, die wichtigsten Rechts- materieu vereinheitlicht werden, deren Vereinheitlichung die Verfassung von 1874 in Aussicht genommen hat: Civil- stand und Ehe, personliche Handlungs- fahigkeit, Obligationenrecht mit Handels und Wechselrecht, Urheberrecht, Betreib- ung und Konkurs, civilrechtliche Ver- haltnisse der Niedeigelassenen. Dariiber hinaus wurde das Thor flir Vereinheit- lichung des gesamten Civil- und Straf- rechtes aufgethan, und hierbei offenbart sich, das^ das Referendum im Grunde mehr ein Mittel zur Rechtseinheit als ein Hindemis derselben ist. Die Bundesver- aAmmlnng hatte sich nie herausnehmen diirfen, ein schweizerisches Civil- und Strafrecht zu dekretieren, w&hrend seine Schaffung jetzt dadurch mbglich wird, dass das Schweizervolk, weil die einzelnen Rechtsbiicher ihm erst vorgelegt werden milssen, diese von den RUten lieber entgegennehmen will.9’* * [ “Under the Referendum, law and social legisla- tion, and more especially the latter, have great progress to record. The factory law and the first detention law were followed by a line of labor protective laws which remained unchallenged or Thus is shown how an institution, which at first glance appears to theorists as purely negative, worked in reality as a powerful factor of legislative action. This positive side of popular veto makes it differ widely from any other. As a safeguard against surprises and mistakes of the legislator, for instance in the field of economics, the Referendum has shown itself most valuable. I will quote only the following example, which was sufficient to endear it to Swiss economists and business men: the rejection of the projected Federal State Bank, in 1897. That bank was planned under the fascinating influence of political con- siderations. Private capital and private cooperation were strictly excluded from the scheme. It was a pure State Bank, with all its well-known dangers; an institution of the Russian type, wholly confusing the credit of the Confederation with the credit of the Bank. The Swiss people voted it down on the twenty- eighth of February, 1897, by 255,985 suffrages against 195,748. Since 1874 about 250 * Federal bills (“ Gesetze und BundesbeechlUsse") were passed in Switzerland. The people were were approved by the Referendum and found their continuance in the supplemental labor laws of the cantons. The alcohol law with the alcohol tithe, the constitutional article on the bank-note monop- oly, the entircteMMirchaae of the railroads fol- lowing dose adBUd upon the but partial purchase, and the difiHpt laws for the furtherance of forestry, agrisBpire and the industries; they all are creations W the State Referendum. But with reference to those law enactments that stand closely allied with social-legislation unchallenged or ap- proved by the referendum, the most important law points could be unified as contemplated oy the con- stitution of 1874; civil station and marriage, per- sonal responsibility, the law of obligations with commercial and banking law, founders law, pur- suit and bankruptcy, civil station of the colonist Moreover, the door was thus opened to a unifi- cation of the entire dvfl and criminal code, and herein is shown that instead of being an obstacle to a unison of laws, the Referendum ruraishes the means for it The Federation Parliament would never have dared to decree a Swiss civil and penal code, whereas, on the other hand, its creation is now made possible because whilst the different en- actments must be first submitted to the Swiss peo- ple they yet prefer to accept them from their rep- resentatives.’*] Digitized by Google
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486 America in the Philippines. consulted on twenty-eight constitutional amendments, half of which were rejected. The Referendum was demanded on thirty bills only. Two-thirds of the same were ultimately defeated. I need scarcely point out that it would not be right to conclude from that proportion that the Referendum, having said No twice while saying Yes once, is an in- strument of reaction. In politics, some- times a conclusive No has more real creative power in itself than a Yes . One may think that it is not necessary to ask the people for such decisions. Other constitutions than the Swiss have devices to the same effect, without having recourse to the plebisdt. My answer is that in a democracy no one can speak over the head of the legislature with such authority as the people. The Referen- dum alone shows the real will of the majority, cuts every political knot and ends all controversies. After such voca- tion the country enjoys quiet and relief. Charles Borgeaud. Geneva , Switzerland. AMERICA IN THE PHILIPPINES. Bt George F. Pentecost, D.D. IDO NOT approach this question from the point-of-view of the geogra- pher, the enthologist, the merchant, or the politician, but from that of a patriotic American Christian who recognizes the hand of God in the fact of our being in these Islands, as the sovereign rulers and responsible stewards, for their political, social and religious welfare. I. PROVIDENTIAL ORDER. More and more thoughtful students are coming to recognize a providential order in the history of the nations Mid the various peoples of the earth, both civilized and uncivilized, Christian and Pagan. The horizon of God’s imman- . ence is steadily widening under the pro- founder and more scientific observation of the world which in these later days students are bestowing upon it. The doctrine of God’s providence as loosely held by most people limits His care to individuals, and especially to those who are supposed in some peculiar way of grace to be His people. It is indeed admitted that in very early ages His providence extended to and over the Hebrew people to the exclusion of all the surrounding nations; and now and again we hear of the Divine Providence as having overshadowed and guided our Pilgrim and Puritan fathers across the Atlantic to the bleak and inhospitable shores of the New World where a new theocracy was to be established beyond the influence and power of the Stuarts. But latterly we are all more or less coming to believe that God cares for and extends His providence over all nations and peoples. That His moral providence is coextensive with that physical providence which gives His sunshine and rain alike to the just and the unjust. “Is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also.” Has He not “made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and determined the times before appointed and set a bound to their habitation; that they should seek the Lord if haply they might feel after Him and find Him; though He be not far from any one of us.” We see how the physical and moral providence of God over all men works together for the great end of the world’s salvation, to fill their hearts not only with food and gladness that comes with temporal blessings, but also with the joy of life eternal. If for Digitized by Google
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487 America in the Philippines . long ages He winked at their ignorance and paganism. He now calls all men everywhere to repent, and to this end He has commanded His servants to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. It is impossible for us not to believe that, with the supreme purpose of the world’s salvation in His hearty God has been and still is actively guiding and ruling in the political, social and religious history of the world; that He was present and active in the affairs of the most ancient civilizations as He is in those of to-day. That He even cares for and is guiding in the affairs of the Turks and Russians. In other words, that both the providential and moral order covers all time and all nations and peoples; and that we may truly say and believe that the complex conditions of the nations of the earth are working together for the good of the whole world, especially for them that love God and are looking for and hastening the coming of His kingdom. What special good the Spaniard wrought in the Old World or the New or in the Philippines for three hundred years or three centuries ago in Japan I do not know; or what the Turks have ever done in Europe or Asia, or the Russians in Poland, the Caucasus, in Finland or in any other place, I do not know; or what good the Roman Catholic hierarchy has done for the Philippines for three hundred years of domination I cannot see: nevertheless I believe that God has had and still has a purpose and a benevolent and beneficent purpose in all these matters. II. THE AMERICANS IN THE PHILIP- PINES. In 1898 the providence of God and the fortunes of war, without any purpose and plan of ours threw these islands upon our bands and with them the responsibility for their better civilization and the evangelization of eight millions of people. For America this meant and still means more than expansion of territory; more than the widening of the American nation into a great world-power; more than an increase of national glory; more than the extension of our sphere of com- mercial influence. All these things are only the incidental, though for the present the more immediate and obvious results of our possession of this far Eastern Island Empire. For the Christian Church it means more than the opening of a new field for foreign missionary enterprise to be carried on by a hundred missionaries and teach- ers at an expense of a few tens of thou- sands of dollars; more than the found- ing of half a hundred Protestant churches and the gathering into those churches of a few thousand converts for a semi-pagan people. What then may be the possible wider interpretation of the providence that has established American sover- eignty in the Philippine Islands ? I trust it will not be considered presump- tion on my part to venture an answer to this pressing question. I am sure that the present heated discussion going on between the two great political parties in their strife for the control of the government does not cover or even measurably touch the vital point involved. If I have rightly read the matter, the Philippine Islands with all their actual and potential material wealth and politi- cal possibilities have been given over to us that we might cany to seven or eight million Asiatic people American civiliza- tion, including universal education, political freedom (which is something quite different from political independ- ence) the modern mechanical arts and sciences, for the development of their vast material resources ; better social ideals and conditions, better commercial methods and especially a better and larger knowledge of the love of God and His great salvation; and that in so doing we might place an object lesson in higher Christian civilization at the front door of Asia and in the face of seven hundred millions of Asiatic people just now being awakened out of centuries of slumber and stirred into new life by the impact on the Digitized by Google
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488 America in the Philippines. one hand of Western commercial and political oppression and on the other hand by die active aggressive work of Western missionary enterprise. And further that, as a great world-power, when the supreme psychological and political moment in the history of China, with her four hundred millions of people, shall have arrived, we shall be on hand and near by to play our part and do our work or at least our share of the work in the settlement of the great Eastern question. If we Americans are not in the Philippines for that ultimate purpose then I know not the meaning or reason for our being there at all. To fall back on the old cry, that it is the fixed policy of the American people to keep out of and avoid all entangle- ment with foreign powers, European or Asiatic, is both inconsistent with our whole past history, and certainly in- congruous with our present position as a leading, if not the dominant factor in the commercial and diplomatic affairs of the world. Even if our fathers sought to fix and bind us to such a policy, the progressive march of the world would render such a policy untenable. Besides it is essentially un-American to suffer the political dead hand to control the policy of a living nation. But moreover we have always been more or less mixed up with foreign powers. We began our political history with a war with England and a treaty of alliance with France. We vindicated our right to and the inviola- bility of our flag on the high seas by an another war with England. We as- serted our right to interfere in the affairs of foreign nations by our little war with Tripoli. We have interfered with Mexico and acquired from her a large and most important share of our home territory. We to-day claim a practical protectorate over all the South American continent. We were present with our ships, and with England took part in opening the port of Canton in China to the commerce of the world. Alone we opened up the hermit kingdom of Corea and created the open door in Japan and have done more than any other nation to bring about the wonderful awakening of that wonderful people. We took part with other Western powers and with Japan in suppressing the Boxer rebellion and compelling China to observe the sanctity of diplomatic relations. It may safely be said that, if it had not been for the fact that we had an army in the Phil- ippines and, at that crisis, five thousand soldiers to spare, the disaster impending over the white race in Asia could scarcely have been averted. It was given to an American missionary to be the chief engineer in the defences of the foreign legations, and to an American soldier to win the high honor of bring the first over the walls of the Forbidden City and to lead the van of the victorious composite army of the West. To our State Department it has been given to initiate the policy of the open door in the far East and practically in the present crisis to save China from partition among the several great states erf Europe — notably Russia, Germany and France, and by necessity in that case, England. In the face of these facts, not to mention our recent victorious war for the deliver- ance of Cuba from the oppressions of Spain, how shall anyone say that we are stultifying ourselves and trampling under foot our most cherished traditions of non- interference in the foreign policies of the world. We never have had such a policy except in an academic sense. As a matter erf fact, we have from the beginning been foremost among the nations in far Eastern question and always up to our very necks in Eastern affairs. That we have yet much to do in the far East is certain; and our presence in the Philippine Islands — where the providence of God and not our own desires have placed us — is die intimation that the Anglo-Saxon Ameri- can holds a high commission under the Providential Order of the World. How should it be otherwise? We are next- door neighbors to China and her millions, Digitized by Google
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‘ f f ■0 Photo, by Purdy, Boston. KIICHI KANEKO Digitized by Google
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America m the? Philippines . 489 having a more ready access across the Pacific ferry than that of any European nation. We are nearer even than Eng- land is to India with her three hundred millions of subjects. It can scarcely be doubted that we are destined not only largely to feed and clothe China’s millions, and to carry to them the better advan- tages afforded by Western civilization, but especially to be the chief agents in China’s evangelization. m. THE ANGLO-SAXON AND THE EASTERN QUESTION. Speaking of the American in the Philippines and their ultimate relation to the vast Asiatic population on whose borders we have come to be, I, of course, do not mean even to intimate that we alone are destined to settle the Eastern question; but as a part — the younger and larger part — of the Anglo-Saxon race, we must have our large share in that great work. Therefore, we must learn our place and duty by a large and careful study of the whole question in its relation to the Anglo-Saxon Race. If the question be asked, who are the Anglo-Saxon people, the answer in a general way is, the great English-speaking people of the world, whose cradle and ancestral home is in England, where they came into being mid where for centuries they have been in training. The Anglo-Saxon is a strain out of the best blood of all the Northern races of Europe. For more than a thousand years he has been in formation and train- ing, and in the course of that time has assimilated and dominated the blood of many other peoples, moulding it with his deathless, liberty-loving spirit and cultur- ing it for righteousness and free self- government. That in those years he has assimilated the Normans who were the conquerors of Saxon England and is now doing the same for the Scotch, Irish and Welsh Celt; just as in this country we are struggling with the larger task of Anglo-Saxonizing the vastly greater multi- tudes of foreign people who come to our shores. In the third generation at farthest the European, of whatever race, who comes to us is Anglo-Saxonized. He thinks and feels and speaks the language of the Anglo-Saxon. In a word, for the lack of space in which to discuss this great question, we may say that the Anglo-Saxon is the man who thinks in the English language, the highest and best product and chief working instrument of the Anglo-Saxon man. We speak of German, Irish, French and Swedish-Americans, but no matter how long an American may live abroad he is never spoken of as American- Frenchman, or American-German, or American-Irishman, or American-Swede. His blood does not run that way. He is an assimilating man, but refuses himself to be assimilated. The dominant characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon man is his self-conscious, free, personal individuality, his deathless love of political and religious liberty. For these great possessions he counts all things but loss that he may defend and enjoy them. His greatest work is seen in the construction of free self-government, to which, though ever asserting and defending his personal freedom and individual liberty, he renders a loyal support Indeed, the Anglo-Saxon is the most loyal man to government that the world contains, whether it be under the administration of king or president. No anarchist was ever bom or bred on Anglo-Saxon soil. It would be difficult for an Anglo-Saxon to become a loyal citizen of either Germany or Russia, or to loyally render allegiance to either Czar or Kaiser. With the Anglo-Saxon, sovereignty resides in himself and not in his ruler, king or president, who is but his servant and the executor of his will. He is the author and maintainer of free self-government which recognizes the inherent right of all men and every man to the possession of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, under laws of his own making Digitized by Google
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490 America in the Philippines. and for the benefit of all people. In America, more than in any other Anglo- Saxon country these great principles and ideals have been and are still more and more being realized. The Anglo-Saxon’s home is chiefly in the British Isles, in America, Canada, Australia and South Africa; but his presence like his language has gone forth into all lands. His language is spreading more rapidly than that of any other tongue and is rapidly becoming the universal language. Especially is this so among Asiatic peoples. One hundred years ago there were not more than 25,000,000 English-speaking people. To- day there are no fewer than 150,000,- 000, and, as remarked above, there is not a country in all the world where his speech is not heard. The Anglo-Saxon is the only great and successful colonizer. It is not that other races have not colonized, but that he is the only successful and beneficent colo- nizer. The Spaniards centuries ago were great colonizers, but they only colonized to curse the lands and people into and among which they came. The French have utterly failed as colonizers. Germany with her mailed fist is making disastrous failure, and naturally. You cannot colonize with “ the mailed fist.” Nor have the Italians succeeded better than the French or Germans. It is a noticeable fact that neither German, French or Italians in any considerable numbers follow their flag into other lands; yet they emigrate by thousands and millions into Anglo-Saxon countries and colonies. On the other hand, the English colonists do colonize, carrying with them their families, great or small, and all their household gods; they take with them their Bibles and their love and worship of God; they take with them their school-houses and their churches, and cany into their new homes their lofty Anglo-Saxon ideals and their great free political, social and religious institutions, under which they were bom, bred and trained, and establish New Englands wherever they go. We have only to look at the great Anglo-Saxon colonies and compare them with the colonies of other nations to be convinced that they and they only have the God- given genius of colonization. Witness these United States which is only a great Anglo-Saxon colony come of age, having set up government and domestic house- keeping for themselves. It is true that our greatness has been worked out in- dependently, but always and only on Anglo-Saxon lines. And witness also Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. India is not a colony except in a political and technical sense, yet in all history there is no such splendid example of a conquering and victorious people governing a subject race with such justice and benevolence as is seen in England’s administration of India. One needs only to contrast India with the Congo State, the French and Italian colonies in Africa, the French in Cochin China, and even the Dutch in Java, to see the radical difference in the genius of the people for colonization and govern- ment. And now comes America’s turn to attempt colonial government and settle- ment. That she will succeed, enough has been demonstrated in Porto Rico and the Philippines to cast out all fear on that score. It seems almost needless to say that the Anglo-Saxon people are the greatest evangelizers. That other countries have sent out and are maintaining noble bands of missionaries is not denied or over- looked, but these altogether represent but a corporal’s guard of that mighty missionary force of the world. The Anglo-Saxon is a Protestant by inherit- ance and conviction, and the superiority of his methods and ways, not to say his spirit, over those of the Roman Catholic missionary, may by even a casual glance upon the missionary fields be seen, e. y., in Mexico, all South America, in China, and centuries ago in Japan, and for three hundred years in the Philippines, Digitized by Google
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491 America in the Philippines. and at present in Corea. In all his missionary enterprises the Roman Catho- lic is essentially a politician and is constantly intriguing and meddling in the political affairs of the countries in which he lives and works. It was this habit of his that led to his expulsion from Japan and the banishment and massacre of many thousand native Chris- tians in that country during the last century. It was that same habit that aroused the hatred of the Mandarins in China toward the white man and so far as it went toward Christianity and all Christians, during the late Boxer rebellion. That the Anglo-Saxon race has as really been raised up by Divine Provi- dence to be the paramount agent in the final civilization of the worid, as the Hebrew people were raised up to be the custodians and ultimate disseminators of religious truth, in my mind there can be no doubt. Without irreverence I think it may be said to the Anglo-Saxon as it was said to Abraham of old: “In thee and thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” More than two centuries ago the great Anglo-Saxon family were divided; the smaller part, a mere remnant, driven by persecution and the denial of their Anglo- Saxon inheritance of liberty of conscience in matters of religion, came to this country and established on these shores the first Anglo-Saxon colony. We need not review the facts which led to the estrangement of the American Anglo- Saxon from the homeland and people from whom they came out. For a century and a half there was bitter strife and enmity between the two branches of this great family. They were geogra- phically separated by three thousand miles of stormy North Atlantic sea. Happily within the last decade the strife has ceased, the enmity allayed and the century-long breach has been healed, I believe permanently healed, and the great people are again one in amity and common accord as they are one in blood and language and in their high ideals of free self-government and love of righteous- ness and liberty. It is significant that in all this time of enmity the American branch of the family moved steadily westward until they reached the shores of the Pacific. Within the last six years the Americans have leaped the Pacific ocean and established themselves in the Philippines within almost a day’s sail of their British brethren in the crown colony of Victoria in China. Divided two and a half centuries ago by the stormy Atlantic, they now clasp hands across the narrow belt of water that separates Manilla from Hong Kong. The Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes float practically side by side in the far East. God has brought us together there that together we may play our several and united parts in effecting the better civilization of the seven hundred millions of Asiatics who are already feeling the quickening and renewing influence of our presence. If a universal and lasting peace is to come to this war-swept world of ours, it must come through the combined and united action of the Anglo-Saxon people. England is moving for federation with her colonies. Would not the federation of the whole Anglo-Saxon race be a nobler aspiration and enterprise ? In the last year of our Civil war, John Bright, on the floor of the House of Commons, said in effect: “If our American cousins across the Atlantic shall succeed in settl- ing their difficulties and reestablishing their Union and we shall be so fortunate as to win their friendship, then there shall not in all the world and for all time, a hos- tile gun be fired without the consent of England and America.” That was a prophetic utterance by a great statesman. The first half of it has come true. We have settled our internecine difficulties. We have reestablished our Union. May we soon in union with the rest of the Anglo-Saxon worid become the actual peace-keepers of the worid, the irresistible leaders of the civilization and evangeliza- tion of the worid. Digitized by Google
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492 America in the Philippines. IV. CHRISTIANITY AND THE FAB EAST. It is not the political and commercial Anglo-Saxon who is to be the potent factor in bringing about that coming new Asiatic civilization for which all good men are longing; but the Christian Anglo-Saxon, missionary, statesman, trader and soldier. No doubt politics with selfish ambition of empire and trade, stained with corruption and greed of gain, will have their part to play, but their part is and will be only incidental. Christianity only and alone is able to break down the age-long race antagonism between the white man and his brown and yellow brothers. It is Christianity and Christianity only that can lay broad and deep the foundations and effect the stately edification of that new and coming civilization. Lord Salisbury never com- mitted himself to a more grievous mis- take than when he publicly declared that the most unpopular man who came to the foreign office was the missionary. Gladstone never said a truer or nobler thing than when he declared that the only justification for England’s being in India was that she might give to her three hundred millions of people a Christian civilization and the gospel of the Son of God. Sir Charles Elliot, then Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, some years ago, when I was in the Far East, said to me: “The greatest asset that England has in India is the mission- ary bungalow.” Sir Robert Hart, the greatest Englishman in the Far East, recently said in effect, that the only hope for China was in the miraculous spread of Christianity. I do not think many people know what a profound influence Christianity is having upon Japan and the Japanese people. Her Christian statesmen, soldiers and naval officers in high places, the Christian English governess in the family of the Crown Prince, the hundreds of Christian soldiers in the ranks now fighting in Manchuria, with their New Testaments in their knapsacks and their Christian chaplains in their regiments are doing for that wonderful people what the Christian soldiers in the early centime did for the Roman Empire. “What has Christianity to do with this matter?” recently said to me in China, a non-Christian and dissolute Anglo-Saxon trader. My answer to him and to all who similarly inquire is this: “What has Christianity had to do with Europe — France, England and Germany, and with American civilization ?” When Paul in obedience to the call from the man from Macedonia crossed over from Asia into Europe he introduced into pagan Europe that new spiritual and revolutionary force that has made Europe what she is and saved her from the hope- less decay and rot into which she was fast falling under the dominance of pagan ideas and pagan ethics. The crossing from Asia into Europe of that obscure Christian Apostle effected the greatest social, civil, political and religious revolu- tion in the whole history of the world’s civilization. By a last analysis it will be found that it is Christianity and Christianity only that differentiates in its broadest and best sense the civilization of Europe from that of Asia. We may epitomize the matter by saying that it was Christianity that made all the dif- ference there was between the late Queen Victoria, the sovereign ruler of England, and the present Empress Dowager, the inspirer of the Boxer movement and the head of the present corrupt, dissolute and decaying Chinese Empire. Many of the great cathedrals of Eng- land are built upon the sites of ancient Roman Pagan temples. Fancy if we can what England would be if in turn again these cathedrals and her ten thousand churches were turned into pagan temples, either for the worship of the Greek and Roman classic gods or the gods of the Hindoos or those of the corrupt Buddhists of China and Japan or the nature gods of the Shintos. It is beyond question true that every great Digitized by Google
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49S Japan as Viewed by principle that underlies every political constitution, every best and saving ideal that conserves and preserves the purity of our social life, every fundamental prin- ciple of righteousness that saves our com- mercial life from absolute dishonesty, is the outgrowth of Christianity. If as a great people we are not only a Native Socialist . to carry the white man’s burden, or do the work of the world’s civilization, which comes to the same thing, for this is our burden, then we must count upon Christianity as our chief asset and most powerful weapon. George F. Pentecost. New York City , N. Y . JAPAN AS VIEWED BY A NATIVE SOCIALIST. By Kiichi Kaneko, Correspondent of the Betmfn Toklo, Japan. IN THE first place, I must ask my readers to remember that I am not going to treat my subject as a patriotic Japanese, such as you usually meet with, but as a citizen of the world, as a man of no country, — in short, as a Socialist I call your attention especially to this point because there are a great many people whose interpretation of their country is invalidated because so clouded by their personal prejudice and partiality. Naturally enough, their interpretations are far from being impartial, their deductions are not true, and the result can only be a false picture drawn with their extreme patriotic colorings. Japan has received treatment at the hands of two classes of interpreters, that I may say are equally untrustworthy. One is the missionary type. This type belongs rather to the past, and we do not see many of its representatives to-day. These critics have pictured Japan as a semi-civilized and sometimes as a bar- barous country. They have appealed to the religious sentiment of Western people in order to get contributions to build their churches and mission-schools; to publish their religious tracts and to support themselves, — and I may add, often to live lives of luxury which they could never have hoped for had they entered any other business. They take some custom which is very peculiar and strange to foreign eyes, and which is but a remnant of our old era civilization, and they exclaim: “Such is the Japanese civilization of the present day; these people are barbarous; they need Chris- tianity; they need the gospel of Jesus Christ.” But not a word of that which is good in us. This type of critic is gradually passing away and does not call for further comment here. The second type of interpreter is of later origin, dating, say, from the Japanese- Chinese war of 1894-95. They were the natural products of the wave of patriotic enthusiasm which followed the victory over China. They think the Japan of to-day stands in the very first rank of the world-powers, especially since the begin- ning of the present conflict with Russia. There are various representatives of this type. The first I would mention is the American newspaper — the capitalist paper more particularly. While I find some papers which appear to be against the Japanese interests, it is safe to say that nine out of ten are for Japan. When the war was first declared I was in New York City, and there had an excellent opportunity to watch some strange developments. As almost every- one knows, among the New York papers the Hearst American assumed a very enthusiastic attitude toward Japan. It employed a Japanese (who was a friend Digitized by Google
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494 Japan as Viewed by a Native Socialist. of mine) to collect the war pictures and to translate the Japanese war songs which appeared in the Tokio dalies, one after another. It printed in its columns anything which was sympathetic to the Japanese side and nothing which was against it. Thus the Hearst papers helped to make Japan great in your eyes — to make the American people praise her up to heaven; but how absurd to observe that the very same papers have changed their attitude toward Japan of late and are talking of something else to-day! Another paper that attracted my atten- tion in New York was the New York World . At the beginning of the war the World prophesied the victory of Russia, but with the news of a great Japanese naval victory at Port Arthur its views immediately changed and it began to favor Japan; although I understand that it has since reverted to its original atti- tude. Of the other prominent New York dailies (with the single exception of the Evening Post) I can positively say that their views are those of the time-server and not of the candid critic. They sim- ply tell you something because they ob- serve that public opinion is inclined that way, — because they see there business — money . Then, again, I would speak of the so- called lecturers and magazine writers, both Japanese and American, but particu- larly of certain Japanese lecturers who are distorting the facts greatly in inform- ing you about Japan. Only a few months ago a Japanese lecturer was giving a series of lectures on the prob- lems of the Far East before the Twen- tieth Century Club of Boston. When he came to compare the West and the East, he said in part that Japan in twenty-five hundred years had only had three outside wars, while the United States in a little more than a century has had four and one revolution. Yes, that is correct enough; but this patriotic lecturer on Japan forget to mention that there were more than a thousand small wars with innumerable fightings and killings inside of Japan. Indeed, any one who reads the history of Japan in its original text knows that the history of our country, in spite of few records of outside wars, is full of civil or rather internal wars. One might say that Japanese history is a history of war, of bloodshed, of warriors. No nation ever existed in the world’s history with such a sanguinary record as Japan. The Japanese originally imported swords and other weapons from China and Corea, but after a time they made them much better than they could obtain them in these countries, and they also made much superior fighters themselves. Again, the same lecturer said that there are no strikes and no saloons in Japan. These statements are incorrect. Now I am not merely trying to point out the other’s faults, but I want you to be in- formed as to the true condition of the people of Japan. If any one says there is no sake (which is our rice-beer) in America, does it necessarily mean there is no liquor? Sake is not beer and shochu is not whiskey, but both are liquor all the same. Just in this way we have saloons under the name of beer- halls, of Sakaya, and the machiai , which is very much worse than the American saloon. We also have many strikes now-a-days, going on much of the time. One of the most surprising strikes which has re- cently occurred in Japan, and which was most successful, was the great dock-strike at Kure in July, 1902, when nearly five thousand workmen went on strike. The object of this strike was the removal of a manager who had made and enforced many harsh and restrictive rules. After three days’ stoppage of work the work- men won their victory and had the tyrannical manager removed; they also received an increase in their wages which they did not expect. Within the past few years I remember that there was a jinrikshamen’s strike at Osaka in 1902, a strike in the Tokio arsenal, and even a Digitized by Google
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495 Japan as Viewed by a Native Socialist. strike of the fudges , who are appointed for life on good behavior, on account of the bill for the increase of their salaries which failed to pass the Imperial Diet in 1901. There have also been many small strikes which it is unnecessary to dwell upon. I may mention one other noteworthy instance of this kind of extreme patriot- ism. A Japanese who is at present residing in Boston wrote a book called The Awakening of Japan , in which he tried to explain the Japanese civilization, without duly emphasizing Western in- fluences, dwelling mainly upon the point that her civilization is her own and not that of the West. But this exaggeration is altogether absurd. No one can ex- plain the Japanese civilization of to-day without tracing the foreign influences, especially those of the West, which she has been constantly receiving, even when she seemed entirely isolated. Japan also owes much to her neighbors as well as to the West. What she has made herself is largely the outcome of her outside in- fluences; it is the total result of the summed-up foreign influences which she has ever enjoyed from era to era. I mention these interpreters because they are typical of the Japanese and American newspaper contributors, lect- urers and authors. In addition to these, the Japanese government has sent out two accredited representatives to speak for the government, — one for England and one for this country. The former is Baron K. Suematsu, the latter, Baron K. Kaneko. Now these gentlemen are to speak of Japan’s greatness, of her civilization, of the Japan of the world. They are giving dinners and entertain- ments to the so-called influential people, to the men of position, in order to en- courage a cordial feeling toward Japan. They are contributing patriotic articles to the magazines and papers. They are trying to prove Japan’s superiority over Russia, not only in fighting but in every- thing. But is Japan as pictured by these influential gentlemen and these patriotic writers and lecturers, the real Japan? Is it the Japan of to-day? If all their claims be well founded, Japan must truly be an ideal country, where no trouble exists, where no social problems confront, where there are no strikes, no saloons, no social vice and no discontent of any kind. Is this the truth about Japan? Let us go to the facts and so determine what the real Japan is. In Japan to-day the great national problem confronting us in the most serious way is the problem of population. The rate of increase of our population is veiy rapid. The regis- tered population in the whole of Japan numbered about 35,929,060 in 1880, and in 1899 — nearly twenty years later — it had increased to 44,260,604. Thus you see that our population is increasing at an annual rate of five hundred thousand or more. Where shall we send this growing population ? Our small area is not large enough for their sustenance. It is already too densely inhabited. Here comes the problem of emigration, the prob- lem of overcrowding, the problem of the unemployed, the problem of poverty. In the year 1900 the number of Japanese who were staying abroad was estimated at about 123,971, the greater part being in this country, — say, about ninety thous- and. But this is only about one-fourth of our annual increase in population. Moreover, our agricultural products are not enough to support our people. We are importing Chinese rice nearly every year. The consumption of rice and wheat is estimated at 3,350,000,000 bush- els, while the production in Japan may be said to be about 1,123,000,000 bushels. Twenty years ago the importation of raw material food-stuffs, cotton, wool, rice, flour, beans and oil cakes was not at all a subject of serious attention; but now we have to secure these things from abroad at the value of more than one hundred and seventy million yen,*Jor * One yen equals approximately 99}cents of American money. Digitized by Google
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496 Japan as Viewed by a Native Socialist. 54 per cent, of the total value of the imports of Japan. These figures tell us distinctly that Japan is changing from an agricultural country to an industrial one; and our government has done nothing so far to solve these problems. There is, however, no better way to understand a country than to examine the condition of the people. In other words, we must know the real life of the majority of the people, — that is, their economic condition and the degree of civil rights they enjoy. The condition of the workingmen in Japan is a most miserable one. They are yet in a state which may be described as wage slavery. In 1899 we had £80,- 9££ workers employed in the various factories in Japan. Of these 184,111 were female workers. They are working generally twelve hours a day, and some- times fifteen hours. Ordinary workmen receive from 1£ to £0 sen* a day; skilled laborers from 80 to 40 sen; girls earn from 10 to £0 sen, and children only a few sen per day. Even skilled mechanics receive but 50 sen per day; seldom do they get as high as 60 to 80 sen. Street- car drivers and conductors receive 10 or 1£ yen per month, while American conductors and motormen receive fifty or sixty dollars a month. Your policemen receive one hundred dollars a month, while Japanese policemen get only 1£ yen per month. While our carpenters earn 75 sen per day, your carpenters receive three or four dollars per day. Here you see the great difference between the American and Japanese scale of wages. This means misery for the laborer. To be a workman in Japan is to be a life slave. There is no chance to get ahead, no chance to enjoy life. I learned from one of the Tokio printers that there are thousands of printers in Tokio alone, and that there are not more than twenty of all these who are receiving enough to support families. So they must remain single as long as they ♦ One sen is equal to one-one hundredth of a yen, or about one cent of American money. remain printers. What a pity is this! Is this not misery in living ? Let me note an interesting actual instance of the inner life of Japanese laborers, which was investigated by the editor of the Labor World of Tokio. The editor examined about one hundred dwellings in Tokio, but I will cite one typical case. House, two rooms, with kitchen; the family, —man (27), wife (25), boy (6), girl (2); business, iron-worker. Daily wages Overtime income for one month, Monthly income Monfiily expense, House rent, Rice, Fuel and light, SCf?..::::::::::::::::::::: Shoyn and miso, Tobacco, Pin money, Sundries, including interest on debt,. $0.25 150 8J8 9.44 .75 SJ5 .41 .90 .00 .23 .25 SS M .60 257 From the above statement of facts you can easily conceive what manner of life the Japanese workers are leading. Their food consists mainly of rice, with a little fish and vegetables, and for that fish they pay only 60 sen a month. How do they find the means to educate their children ? And it must be remembered that the common school education in Japan is not absolutely free, as it is in this country. While the cost of living is increasing year by year, the workmen’s wages are not increased accordingly. In 1889 the rent of a house in Tokio was ££ yen per month. The rent of the same house in 1899 was 5 yen per month. The price of cleaned rice increased from 4$ yen to 7 yen during the same period. Such a rapid increase in the cost of living in our country, especially after the Japanese-Chinese war, drove our poor workingmen into hunger and misery. Not only this: further investigation will reveal how these helpless Japanese workers are suffering under the present conditions. According to the Heimin Shimbun of Tokio there have been £,749 Digitized by Google
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497 Japan as Viewed by a Native Socialist. orkmen who have become sick directly r indirectly through their work, while 810 workmen were injured in a single lonth in 1904 in the Tokio arsenal, ist think of this horrible fact! They re making one hundred or more sick r wounded persons every day, and the uns and ammunition thus manufactured re killing thousands of unfortunate souls i Manchuria to-day. What an awful usiness it is! In addition to this, we are informed tirough the Tokio newspapers that two r three persons die daily of hunger and old in the veiy heart of die city of Tokio, rhere one millionaire keeps thirty dogs ind is spending three thousand yen per nonth for their food, employing one ‘ook, two men, three boys, two gills and me veterinary to wait on these animals. Not only this: there were four or five lundred unemployed walking up and iown the streets of Tokio on the first day of January, 1904, seeking for work, when the rich people of the same city were joyfully celebrating a happy New Year! And when one of the Tokio post-offices wanted thirty letter-carriers, seven hun- dred men applied. Perhaps you have already read in the papers that there are more than three thousand unemployed in the city of Manchester, England, to-day, suffering and struggling for the bare ^necessities of their daily existence. Just compare this with the above facts! The same thing going on all over the world to-day. The condition of labor in Japan may he understood from the above-mentioned facts and instances. Yes; these are real pictures of the condition of the working- men in Japan to-day. And do not forget that while the poor laborers are fighting these miserable conditions under the most helpless circumstances, stockholders and capitalists are receiving dividends of from ten to twenty per cent, per annum regularly. Now let us turn our attention to the ethical aspects of Japanese internal poli- ties, especially as they relate to freedom of speech and of the press. Is there real freedom of speech in Japan to-day? Is there true liberty of the press in Japan ? Unfortunately I must answer both ques- tions negatively. When we make a comparison with Russia we may say that we have a condition somewhat better than that of our neighbor country; but when we come to compare Japan with England or the United States, we cannot but feel ashamed that we are so far be- hind both these countries. In Japan it is absolutely impossible to criticize or even to talk about the royal family. Some years ago, when a pro- fessor of history in the Imperial University endeavored to investigate something about the royal family of a by-gone period, he was instantly compelled to resign his position and was deprived of all honors he had obtained from the government. Another instance of a similar sort was the so-called Tetsugakkan affair, which occurred in 1903 in a college where a professor of ethics used Muirhead’s Elements of Ethics as a text-book, and so caused such a sensation that he could not remain a professor of the college, and as a further result the college lost all the regular privileges offered by the govern- ment. The same work which has been used as a text-book and read by anybody here in America as well as in England, could not be used in a Japanese college. In this respect it seems to me that there exists a great gulf between Japan and her political ally, England. Was it not in England that the great Italian patriot, Mazzini, found refuge? Was it not in England that our great teacher, Karl Marx, found his permanent home when he was driven from his fatherland ? Was it not the English people who extended such warm sympa- thy to that great fighter-novelist, Emile Zola of France, and gladly welcomed him to their country ? Was it not in England, again, that the Russian anarchist. Prince Peter Kropotkin, found a refuge when he could live no longer in Russia ? Digitized by Google
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498 Japan as Viewed by a Native Socialist. A short time since I received a letter just stop to think for a moment that it is from a friend, the editor of a Socialist Russia that has produced such great weekly in Tokio, in which he stated that men as Tolstoi, Kropotkin, Dostiefski, he was sentenced to five months’ im- Turgenieff, Herzen and Bakounm. prisonment for his writings which he Where shall we find our Japanese great published in his paper, and also that the men to compare with these Russian paper was prohibited sale instantly, and brains and hearts ? Could we find them this simply because the paper contained in any volume of that two-thousand- some words to the public teachers five-hundred-year-long history of Japan ? together with the Japanese translation Probably you will point out to me that of the Communist Manifesto, which is well-known politician, Marquis Ito, the translated into almost all European greatest statesman of the present Japan, languages and is a matter of popular An American writer said some time ago, information in Western countries. noting the wonderful progress of modern Another editor of the same paper has Japan, that “ the modem Japan, in other served two months in jail on account of words, is Marquis Ito.” Yes, Ito is a his severe criticism of the government’s great statesman in this sense, for it was proposition of a new land-tax. he who wrote the constitution of new It was in the early part of last Novem- Japan. We must not forget his good ber that a Socialist meeting was held in service thus rendered to our country, the Y. M. C. A. hall of Tokio, and about but at the same time we must not excuse one thousand people assembled to hear the bad influence which he has imparted Socialist speakers; but as the first to our national life and for which he is speaker was welcomed with enthusiastic gravely responsible. Indeed, he is per- applause he was prevented from speaking sonally the worst type of statesman. He by the chief of police who was present, is great, but in the same sense that Then, with no adequate reason and to Crispi of Italy was great, the great disappointment of those present, I saw a cartoon in the Boston American the police ordered the dissolution of the some time since, drawn by John Bariy- meeting. The audience, having become more, showing a public man, who, proud excited, refused to withdraw, and de- of his success in life, is standing before a manded that the police official explain his looking-glass, supposed to be public action. The audience finally became opinion, and who is frightened when he enraged at this high-handed action and discovers his own ugly, wild-beast reflec- struck the officer to the floor and trampled tion in the mirror. on him. Other policemen who came to This is the very cade with the great his rescue met the same fate. Cries Marquis Ito of Japan. Of his private such as “Down with despotism!” and life I am ashamed to tell you — of his “Despotism like the Russian!” were immorality, of his degraded character; heard. no high-minded person in Japan can ever Such is the freedom that we Japanese respect him as a man, despite his long are enjoying in our country to-day, in the political career. most civilized country in the Far East, You may ask, however, why we give in the land of the “ Yankees of the East.” him such a high position — a man who is The newspapers, the lecturers and the not worthy. The answer is simply magazine writers inform you that Japan that the Japanese government system is is the great country of the Far East, the make-believe system. It is not by where perfect liberty is enjoyed, where the people, of the people, for the people, true freedom is entertained; and they It is the government of the few, of the also tell you that Russia is the most nobles, of the titles, and above all, of the barbarous of all countries. But, friends, figure-head — the Mikado. There is a Digitized by Google
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499 Japan as Viewed by a Native Socialist. strange line drawn in the society of Japan. It extends a little higher than the heads of the people, and once you get within this line you are assured of perfect safety all your life; your condition is insured for life; nobody can disturb you; no criticism will affect you. That line encloses the aristocracy, the titles, the confidants of the Mikado. You can not hope to prevail against a man within that line. No matter how incapable or unworthy he may be, you must be contented with him; otherwise your life is no longer safe. Who can prove that Ito is greater than Witte, that the Imperial Diet is better than the Russian zemstvo ? I am of the opinion that these differences of political institutions are not of much importance when it comes to the actual strength of the people. Some critic has said that the Japanese are playing with their toys, namely, the constitution and the parlia- ment. Indeed, this criticism in a certain sense is very true. Now in the present conflict with Russia the Japanese are showing their great united patriotism to the world; but what does that patriotism really mean? Ask the average Japanese: “Why do you love your Mikado?” He will answer uniformly that it is because he is taught as a subject to be loyal to the Mikado, and never will be satisfactorily explain- ed why he should respect the Mikado. This is the sort of patriotism which so strongly dominates the Japanese mind. It is what I term make-believe patriotism. Does this kind of patriotism really deserve American praise or sympathy ? Will this unreasoned patriotism challenge the approbation of the people of a true democracy ? Most certainly not, be- cause first of all we must be self-conscious, rational, directed by intelligence in what- ever thing we undertake. In the altruist’s eyes, after all, there is no particular nation. “ All are our fellow sufferers,” as the great German philosopher, Schopenhauer said; “we are all friends and comrades.” We must not hate anybody because he is a Russian or a Chinaman; but we should hate the oppressor, the liberty-destroyer, the enemy of humanity. To be sure, our common enemies are not Jews, Chinese or Russians; but they are the capitalists the aristocrats, the privileged classes, that are always trying to thrust us down- ward to the bottom. We must all there- fore, regardless of nationality, unite in a conflict for the realization of justice for all. In conclusion, I would ask you once more to keep in mind the fact that the things which you are learning about Japan through your daily papers, public lectures, and various magazines and books, are not at all true pictures of that country; they are misleading because partial in character; they never tell you how the common people are struggling, how the high-minded are suffering, how the workingmen are leading their miser- able lives under the present system of society. Kiichi Kaneko. Cambridge , Mass . Digitized by Google
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THE KANSAS STATE REFINERY BILL AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE. By Philip Eastman. ONE HOT day in July, of last sum- mer, while the wheat harvest was well under way, a little group of farmers met quite by accident at Independence, in southern Kansas, and the conversation drifted into a discussion of the situation regarding the oil-field. These farmers, who owned land on which wells either had been or would be sunk, and who had seen visions of a steady and bountiful income by reason of their royalties on the oil taken from beneath their farms, were worried, for the price of crude oil had been steadily falling for weeks and months. One of the farmers of this group, who had felt the grip of the binding-twine trust when he harvested wheat on his farm before the State had installed a binding-twine plant at the Kansas penitentiary, and had forced the twine- trust to stop levying tribute on the farmers of the state, made the remark: “Why can’t we get after the oil-trust as we did the twine-trust ? ” One member of this little group of farm- ers was Samuel M. Porter, of Caney, who had just been nominated on the Republi- can ticket to be State Senator to represent Montgomery county in the legislature. “ We will have to establish a State oil refinery,” remarked Mr. Porter. The conversation of this little group of farmers was the begining of the agitation in Kansas for a State refinery and legis- lation which would free the oil-field of the state from the clutch and absolute control of the Standard Oil Company. On the train going from Independence to his home at Caney that night, Mr. Porter talked with Hon. Mark Tulley, a director of the State penitentiaiy, as to the use of convict labor in the binding- twine plant, and in a proposed State refinery. As Mr. Porter owned two wheat farms, he had opportunity to ap- preciate the good the State binding-twine plant had done the wheat raisers of the state. Being also a lawyer he knew that the Constitution of the State pro- hibited the State from engaging in com- mercial enterprises, but he saw the opportunity to keep within the line of constitutionality by establishing a branch penitentiaiy, for the State could lawfully give employment to convict labor. The Kansas penitentiaiy at Lansing is for from the oil-fields, and a new branch penitentiary would have to be established in the center of the field. When Senator Porter went to the legislature, at Topeka, he carried in his pocket the State Oil Refinery Bill which has since caused such a wide-spread agitation against the Standard Oil mo- nopoly as was never before known. This was Senator Porter’s first legislative experience and the first bill he had ever drafted or introduced. Oil was, and is, comparatively new to Kansas. Before this session of the legis- lature, held in January and February, there had never been a committee on oil and gas in the Senate or the House of Representatives. During the two years between the legislative sessions of 1903 and 1905 the oil industry in the State had been rapidly developed. Senator Porter was made a member of this new and most important committee. When the State Refinery Bill was introduced there were not more than half a dozen Senators who favored the measure. There had been considerable scattered agitation during the few months preceding the session of the legislature on account of the tactics of the Standard Oil Company in the state in cutting the prices paid for crude oil. The Republi- can State platform contained an oil plank. Governor Hoch in his message 500 Digitized by Google
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The Kansas State Refinery Bill and Its Significance. 501 to the legislature had called attention to the fact that legislation was needed on this subject, but not until the annual Kansas Day Club banquet, an event celebrating the. birth of Kansas as a State, on January 29th, when Governor Hoch said: “Take that monster, the Standard Oil Company, by the throat and compel it to be decent,” did sentiment crystallize. About this time the Standard’s price for crude oil had reached the minimum of 78 cents a barrel, which was 60 cents less than was paid two years ago. The out- put of crude oil in the state had exceeded 20,000 barrels a day. The Standard Oil Company’s pipe-line from the southern Kansas oil-field to the immense refinery near Kansas City, Missouri, had been completed and the railroad freight rates on oil had become prohibitive as soon as the pipe-line was completed. During all these changes and events the price in Kansas for refined oil had not fallen. The Standard was cutting the market price on the crude product, the railroads were advancing the rates on crude oil, but Kansas, with oil enough beneath the surface of her prairies to light the homes in the state and furnish fuel to the factories for years to come, was paying as much for the refined product as when the illuminating oil was shipped into the state from fields thousands of miles away, and the producers could not ship their crude oil to the factories of other towns and cities to be used for fuel, as the sudden advance in railroad rates had prohibited this disposition of the product. The producers and the con- sumers found themselves in the clutches and at the mercy of the Standard Oil Company, and they felt the tightening of the tentacles of the octopus and found no mercy. The senators heard from their constituents. The press of the state had become practically unanimous for the State Refinery Bill. The wave of public sentiment spread over the state and swept all opposition before it. The voters had been heard from and they were for the refinery, and soon Senator Porter found that his support of half a dozen senators had increased and gathered to him all but a half a dozen senators who opposed the bill. Then Senator Porter and other sena- tors from the counties in the oil-field decided that there must be other legisla- tion to support the State Refinery proposi- tion, and the result was general legislation on the subject. Senator Porter pointed to the fact that freight rates must be adjusted and that pipe-lines should be brought under control. The result was that a maximum freight-rate bill, a bill prohibiting discrimination in the market price of refined oil between various localities in the state, a bill making pipe- lines common carriers and placing them under the control of the State Board of Railroad Commissioners, were drafted and introduced in the senate. Under a special order these four oil bills were placed on the senate calendar for con- sideration on the same day — “oil day.” The morning of the day the refinery bill came up for consideration in the senate the newspapers printed, under a New York date-line, the news that the Atchison, Topeka & Santa F6 railroad, the rail- road which grew up with and aided in the development of Kansas, had passed under the control of the Standard Oil Company. When the State Refinery Bill came before the senate for consideration. Senator Porter opened the debate on the bill, with a speech which very aptly summarized the situation in Kansas. Senator Porter said, in part: “ During the last two years, and since the former session of the legislature ended, there has come to the people residing in certain parts of this state, a wealth in oil more vast in extent than was comprehen- ded in the visionary dreams of Cortez and Coronado. A wealth far more extensive in fact, than was contained in the fabu- lous hopes and imagination of De Soto. “This measure is especially proposed Digitized by Google
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The Kansas State Refinery Bill and Its Significance . 502 for the benefit of the people of Kansas. I am not here to make, at this time, any harsh or hostile assaults upon the methods of the Standard Oil Company. We can legislate for our own people, and get the benefit of our own products and re- sources, regardless of the Standard or any other oil company. “Beneath the surface of our soil are stored vast quantities of crude oil, and yet the price for refined oil has been held up by the Standard Oil Company the same as though the oil consumed by our own citizens had been transported hither from distances thousands of miles away. The time has come for what the doctors call ‘heroic measures.' “It has been asserted by those who have doubts about, or who are opposed to this measure, that it is purely socialistic. This I deny. The purposes and princi- ples involved contain more federalism than socialism. It is more a measure of simple democracy, proposing the greatest good to the greatest number. Federalism proposes a strong central force of government protecting all citizens. “ A state oil-refinery, we believe, will be of greater benefit to the consumers of refined oil, than to oil operators or pro- ducers. We should start forth fearlessly in an effort to benefit all the people of this great State. Fellow Senators, the vehicle of opportunity stands waiting at the doors of this State-House. It has rolled hither from the vast prairies of this great Commonwealth. If, according to the homely adage ‘we have our ears to the ground,' we cannot fail to compre- hend its significance. “ The hour and occasion are here, and there should be no hesitation in proceed- ing to the performance of a well-defined duty, which will result in untold benefit to every hearth-stone in Kansas." The Refinery Bill and the other meas- ures directed at the Standard Oil passed the senate. About this time the Standard cut the price of refined oil in Kansas four cents a gallon. This brought forth the senti- ment that if talk of a state refinery will bring a reduction in the price, what will be the result of an established refinery? The orders were issued by the Standard to take no more Kansas oil, and the pipe- line from the Kansas City, Missouri, refinery through the Kansas oil-fields, a distance of 200 miles, carried no more Kansas oil. The pipe-line extends across the Southern Kansas line into the Indian Territory for 25 miles, and while the order was in force, and there was agita- tion for the passage of the Refinery Bill by the lower house of the Kansas legis- lature, Indian Territory oil was being transported through the pipe-line, across a corner of the State of Kansas and to the Standard refinery, but Kansas oil was excluded. The Kansas House of Repre- sentatives refused to be frightend by the action of the Standard Oil Company, and the representatives followed the lead of the senate and passed the Porter Refinery Bill and the other oil measures. Senator Porter's Refinery Bill, which is now a law and has caused immediate steps to be taken toward the building of the state refinery, provides in part: “For the purpose of providing proper employment for convicts confined in the State penitentiary, the warden of the Kansas State penitentiary is hereby em- powered, by and with the advice of the Board of Directors of said penitentiary, to purchase a site for the erection of a branch of the State penitentiary at Peru, in the county of Chautauqua, Kansas, and to construct and maintan and operate thereon an oil refinery as a depart- ment of the State penitentiary for the refining of crude oil, and to market the same and its by-products, and to keep such refinery in repair, and furnish therefor the requisite machinery and equipment, and necessary facilities for receiving, manu- facturing, storing and handling crude and refined oil and its by-products. “ For the purpose of constructing, maintaining and operating such branch Digitized by Google
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The .Kamos State Refinery Bill and Its Significance. 508 penitentiary and oil refinery, said warden and Board of Directors are hereby authorized to employ convicts in the State penitentiary, and to provide at said branch penitentiary and refinery suitable and humane facilities for the housing, feeding, guarding and overseeing of said convicts and the work to be performed by them. “ For the construction of said branch of the State penitentiary and for the con- struction of suitable quarters and facilities for housing, feeding, guarding and over- seeing said convicts, there is hereby appropriated out of any funds in the State Treasury not otherwise appropri- ated, the sum of $10,000, or so much thereof as may be necessary. For the construction and equipment of said plant, there is hereby appropriated out of the funds in the State Treasury not otherwise appropriated, the sum of $200,000, or so much thereof as may be necessary. For the operation of said plant and keeping the same in repair, and for the purchase of crude oil and the expense of receiving, storing and handling the same and marketing its products, there is hereby appropriated, out of funds in the State Treasury not otherwise appropriated, the sum of $200,000, which shall be denominated a ‘ revolving fund.’ “The said sum of $10,000 for the erection of necessary buildings and houses for feeding, quartering and overseeing said convicts, and also the said sum of $200,000 for the construction and equip- ment of such branch penitentiary and oil refinery plant, shall be known and designated as ‘the construction fund’; and for the purpose of raising said amount of money, being a total of $210,000, the State of Kansas, through its State Treasurer and warden of the said peni- tentiary, is hereby authorized to issue and sell the bonds of the said State in denominations of $1,000 each, payable in ten years from date, with interest at a rate not exceeding four per cent, per annum, payable semi-annually and for the purpose of paying such bonds at maturity and interest thereon a tax shall be levied annually and collected as other State taxes are levied and collected, sufficient to raise a sum equal to the annual interest on said bonds and one- tenth of the principal thereof, and the one-tenth of said principal so raised shall be set apart as a sinking-fund for the redemption and payment of such bonds.” The counties of Chautauqua, Mont- gomery, Wilson, Neosho, Elk, Allen and Labette, constitute the Kansas oil-field, with the greatest output coming from the first four counties. The development of this field during the last two years has been wonderful, and the possibilities of the field and the area of it have been by no means reached. In 1900 the pro- duction of crude oil in Kansas was 74,- 714 barrels; in 1901 it was 179,151 barrels; in 1902 it was 331,749 barrels; in 1903 it was 1,071,015 barrels and in 1904 the production of the Kansas field was 5,559,054 barrels. These figures are based on the amount of oil sold, and as the Standard Oil Company has never taken all the oil that could be produced daily the output might be much larger. At present the Standard Oil Company is taking about 14,000 barrels a day. The price paid by the Standard Oil Company for crude Kansas oil in 1903 touched a maximum of $1.38 a barrel and a minimum of $1.14. In February, 1904, the maximum price paid for crude oil was $1.31. In March the price was $1.28; in April, $1.13; in June, $1.03; in July, 88 cents; in September, 90 cents; in October, 87 cents ; in December, 80 cents ; and in January, 1905, it was down to 78 cents a barrel. The pipe-line from the Kansas fields to the Standard Oil refinery at Kansas City was completed about October, 1904. Before the pipe-line was opened the flat rate from the oil-fields to Kansas City for the transportation of crude oil by the railroads was ten cents a hundred pounds. Immediately after the opening of the pipe-line the freight rate was advanced to seventeen cents, — a prohibitive tariff. This dearly proved a conspiracy between Digitized by Google
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504 The Kansas State Refinery Bill and Its Significance. the railroads and the Standard Oil Com- pany. The Kansas producers sum up the situation in this way; that as soon as the oil-field was developed the Standard Oil put the price for crude oil down and the railroads, in league with the Standard, put up the price for transportation. Following quick upon the action of the legislature in passing the Porter Refinery BUI, and the other oil bills, the Kansas OU Producers* Association employed ex- Attomey-General F. S. Monett, of Ohio, and retained other counsel, and brought proceedings under the Kansas Anti-Trust law, which had been upheld in a decision by the United States Supreme Court handed down during the session of the legislature when the anti-trust bills were under consideration. These proceedings asked for a writ of ouster, and an injunc- tion and receivership. At the same time the Attorney-General of Kansas brought quo warranto proceedings in the Kansas Supreme Court against the Prairie OU and Gas Company (the Standard’s name in Kansas) asking for a restraining ordeV and for a receiver to be appointed. .The charge is made in the suit * that the Standard is in a combination with the raUroads to control the ^oU business, and is violating the*Kansas Anti-Trust law. Senator -Porter, • the author * of the refinery bUl which precipitated the con- test betwdentbe people of Kansas and the Standard ’OU ‘ Company, is • extensively interested in oil and gas in Montgomery county. In speaking ;of the agitation in Kansas agaihst the ’ Standard and the action H of the legislature, . Senator Porter said: * ' . • .* ! , - ' •* “Kansas ‘is on the' threshold of in- dependent' refineries. Up to this time there Has been but one 'independent refinery in 'the State, and that at Hum- boldt. The production of oil in Kansas kept on increasing month by month and outgrew the Standard OU Company’s ability to handle it, and this cause gave rise to a decline in prices. The real sentiment as it came from the people of the State was that the price for erode oil was going lower, while the Standard preserved the present high prieefop the refined product. If the Standard -people had been good diplomats they would have lowered the price of the refined product before the Refinery BUI was introduced and this agitation would not likely have developed. The people of Kansas knew that under the surface of the state, are great quantities of crude oU but they had to pay the same price for refined oU as before the crude oil was found in the state. “Soon after I introduced the bill to establish a state refinery the price of refined oU dropped four cents. That reduction in the price will save the people of Kansas, in less than a year, more money than will be expended on the state refinery, and I do not hesitate to say that the State will not lose, even if the refinery is not operated a single day and all the money is spent for its construction. “I believe that the people of Kansas are going to be largely benefited by a saving to the consumers of oU by a reason- able reduction in the cost.” ■ When Senator Porter was advocating the state refinery measure, the Standard OU representatives seemed to forsee some of the results if such a biU passed, and they suggested to Senator Porter that such a move on the part of a State would be something the Standard had never had to deal with, and that it might lead to serious- consequences. Tie Standard felt the -Sovereignty of the State. There has been but one independent refinery in Kansas, the Webster refinery at Humboldt. ’ The Standard OU estab- lished a refinery at Neodesha some eight years ago. In the last year the capacity of the Neodesha refinery was doubled to 3,000 barrels a day. The new Standard refinery at Sugar Creek, near Kansas City, Missouri, cost between four and five millions of dollars and has a capacity of 8,000 barrels a day. At Caney the Standard tank farm consists of 400 acres, which is room sufficient for 100 tanks Digitized by Google
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Photo, by Leonard, Topeka, Kan* SENATOR SAMUEL M. PORTER The Arena Digitized by Google
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505 Out Policy Toward China . with a total capacity of 3,500,000 gallons. There are other tank farms at Altoona, Neodesha and Humboldt. The Standard has millions of dollars invested in Kansas, and the competition is now but one small independent refinery. Since the passage of the Porter Re- finery Bill many independent refineries have been proposed and investors an- nounced their intention of engaging in the refinery business in a State which offers protection from the piracy of the Standard Oil Company. Philip Eastman. Topeka , Kansas. OUR POLICY TOWARD CHINA. By Professor Edwin Maxey, M. Dip., LL.D., Of the Law Department of the UniYenity of Weat Virginia. THE UNITED STATES is the only first-class power that has not used the bullying method in diplomatic nego- tiations with China. Our policy has uniformly been that of a friend willing to render assistance to a weaker neighbor while others have pursued the policy of the big bully who coerces his smaller playmate into giving him candy, or the usurer who profits by the necessities of his less fortunate associates. Let us see which has been the more successful. By the middle of the sixteenth century the Portuguese and Spanish had by their overbearing diplomacy and apparently hostile intent so incensed the Chinese that the door of that kingdom was closed against them, and by the middle of the following century the English and the Dutch had by the same methods brought about the same results. Thus by an ill-advised attempt to force themselves upon China regardless of her wishes or welfare, the nations of Europe had caused themselves to be excluded from a trade which all of them desired. This commercial and diplomatic exclusion lasted for two centuries, or until about the middle of the nineteenth century. During this period of exclusion new actors had come on the stage and some of the old ones had passed off. Portugal and Spain had dropped out of the ranks of first-class powers, France and Russia, which in the earlier period had given no heed to China, were now seeking com- mercial and territorial empires in that direction. The United States, which in the former period had no national existence, had entered the lists of those who were seeking new commercial worlds to conquer, and her geographical position naturally suggested to her that such an inviting commercial field as China should not be left for exclusive European cultivation. The treaty between the United States and China negotiated by Caleb Cushing, in 1884, was in some respects the most favorable treaty entered into by China up to that time and the same is even more true of the Anson Burlingame treaty of 1868. And this notwithstand- the fact that the concessions made in these treaties were dictated by friendship, whereas the concessions in the treaties with England, France and Russia were dictated by fear, — for by this time these had, either singly or by coalition, forced her at the point of the bayonet to make concessions. In most, if not all, cases the justification for these successive attacks would require a peculiar standard of ethics. But disregarding, for the moment, the ethical question I think it can be shown that the American method has been conducive to better results commercially. In 1875 die total imports into China from all foreign countries amounted in Digitized by Google
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506 Our Policy Toward China. value to 69,995,000 haikwan taels and of this 1,016,000 came from the United States. Ten years later the total im- ports had increased to 89,407,000 while those from the United States had in- creased to 3,315,000. In 1895 the im- portations from the United States amounted in value to 5,182,093 haikwan taels out of a total of 179,947,000. In 1900 the imports from the United States had grown to 16,724,000, while the total had increased to but 211,070,000 haikwan taels. By 1902, which is the latest official report available, the total had increased to 315,363,905 haikwan taels in value while the imports from the United States now amounted to 30,- 138,713. In taking these figures as found in the Chinese Customs reports it must be remembered that the Chinese report goods as coming from the country from which they are shipped, so that a large amount of American goods which are transshipped from English, German, Dutch and French ports are credited to those countries. They also report 133,- 524,169 as being the value in haikwan taels of the imports from Hong Kong, but in a foot-note we find that “the imports from Hong Kong come originally from Great Britain, America, Australia, India, Straits Settlements and the coast ports of China.” Hence the share of Chinese imports actually coming from the United States is considerably more than ten per cent of the total imports of China. But upon the showing of the above figures it is evident that our commerce with China has had a very healthy growth. For while in 1875 the imports from the United States constituted less than one and one-half per cent, in 1902 they constituted but a fraction less than ten per cent While at the earlier date it was among the lowest on the list of countries from which China received her imports it is now third on the list, being surpassed only by Japan and Great Britain. And from the present rate of increase it appears that within a few decades we will be second only to Japan. For while since 1890 Great Britain’s share of the total has fallen from 19.1 to 17.7 per cent, that of the United States has increased from &9 to 9.3 per cent Since 1895 the imports from Great Britain into China have increased 34 per cent, while from the United States they have increased 500 per cent. China now imports more goods by half from the United States than she does from the entire continent of Europe, notwithstanding the “commissions" which certain of the European countries, to wit: Russia, France and Germany, have extorted from China by methods which would reflect no credit upon a highwayman. Not only has American diplomacy in our dealings with China manifested a most commendable spirit, but our diplo- matic efforts in behalf of China have been at once able, honorable and effective. It may be putting it too strongly to say that China would have been dismem- bered but for the masterly diplomacy of John Hay, but there are many able statesmen on both sides of the Atlantic who are convinced that such is the fact That but for the stand taken by the American Secretary of State, China would have been in a worse position than she is to-day does not admit of doubt When Russia, Germany and France were being rewarded for their “labor of love" in behalf of China at the dose of the Chino-Japanese war and English diplomacy was speaking in but feeble and uncertain tones in the Orient, the United States was becoming more and more convinced that, unless something was done, American goods would soon become unwelcome visitors in those newly-created and ill-defined spheres of interest in China. This growing senti- ment, not to say suspicion, was crystal- lized by John Hay into a diplomatic request for information from the archi- tects of those “spheres.” His request took the form of a note to each of the Digitized by Google
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507 Our Policy Toward China. powers having " spheres of influence” in China asking that they give assurances that each within its respective sphere of whatever influence: " First, — Will in no way interfere with any treaty port or any vested interest within any so-called 'sphere of interest’ or leased territory it may have in China. Second, that the Chinese treaty tariff of the time being shall apply to all merchandise landed or shipped to all such ports as are in said 'sphere of interest’ (unless they be 'free ports’), no matter to what nationality it may belong, and that duties so leviable shall be collected by the Chinese Govern- ment. Third, that it will levy no higher harbor dues of vessels of another nation- ality frequenting any port in such ‘ sphere ’ than shall be levied on vessels of its own nationality, and no higher railroad charges over lines built, controlled, or operated within its ‘sphere’ on merchan- dise belonging to citizens or subjects of other nationalities transported through such 'sphere’ than shall be levied on similar merchandise belonging to its own nationality transported over equal dis- tances.” Replies signifying a willingness to adhere to these principles, known as the "open-door” policy, were made by each, conditional upon a like agreement by the other interested powers. By March 20, 1900, favorable replies were received from England, France, Russia, Italy and Japan,— all the powers having " spheres,” and upon that date Secretary Hay notified the powers that all the governments concerned had accepted the proposal of the United States thus fulfilling the con- dition upon which each had consented and making their consent final. In other words, their several offers had now become contracts. While the end at- tained was not an entirely unselfish one, as the benefit resulting from the contracts was shared by the United States in com- mon with other commercial powers, yet inasmuch as it removed the main incen- tive for extending the "spheres of influ- ence” it helped to prevent the territorial disintegration of the Chinese Empire. China has therefore ample reason to be grateful to the United States for this successful diplomatic effort in her behalf. The attitude of the United States toward China and the confidence of China in the United States is well ex- pressed in a circular note of John Hay to the powers, a message from the Emperor of China to the President of the United States and the reply thereto by President McKinley. The first of these bears date of July 8, 1900, and is as follows: "In this critical posture of affairs in China it is deemed appropriate to define the attitude of the United States as far as present circumstances permit this to be done. We adhere to the policy initiated by us in 1857 of peace with the Chinese nation, of furtherance of lawful com- merce, and of protection of lives and property of our citizens by all means guaranteed under extra-territorial treaty rights and by the law of nations, ff wrong be done to our citizens we propose to hold the responsible authors to the uttermost accountability. We regard the condition at Pekin as one of virtual anarchy, whereby power and responsi- bility are practically devolved upon the local provincial authorities. So long as they are not in overt collusion with rebellion and use their power to protect foreign life and property, we regard them as representing the Chinese people, with whom we seek to remain in peace and friendship. The purpose of the President is, as it has been heretofore, to act concurrently with the other powers; first, in opening up communication with Pekin and rescuing the American officials, missionaries, and other Americans who are in danger; secondly, in affording all possible protection everywhere in China to American life and property; thirdly, in guarding and protecting all legitimate American interests ; and fourthly, in aiding to prevent a spread of the disorders to the other provinces of the Empire and a recurrence of such disasters. It is of Digitized by Google
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508 Our Policy Toward China . course too early to forecast the means of attaining this last result; but the policy of the Government of the United States is to seek a solution which may bring about permanent safety and peace to China, preserve Chinese territorial and administrative entity, protect all rights guaranteed to friendly powers by treaty and international law, and safeguard for the world the principle of equal and impartial trade with all parts of the Chinese Empire.” “ Hay.” One of the surest evidences of con- fidence and friendship is the direction in which one turns when in trouble. The following message of the Emperor of China is therefore significant: “ China has long maintained friendly relations with the United States and is deeply conscious that the object of the United States is international commerce. Neither country entertains the least suspicion or distrust toward the other. Recent outbreaks of mutual antipathy between the people and Christian mis- sions caused the foreign powers to view with unwarranted suspicion the position of the Imperial Government as favorable to the people and prejudicial to the mis- sions, with the result that the Taku forts were attacked and captured. Con- sequently there has been clashing of forces with calamitous consequences. The situation has become more and more serious and critical. We have just received a telegraphic memorial from our envoy, Wu Tingfang, and it is highly gratifying to us to learn that the United States Government, having in view the friendly relations between the two coun- tries, has taken a deep interest in the present situation. Now China, driven by the irresistible course of events, has unfortunately incurred well-nigh uni- versal indignation. For settling the present difficulty, China places special reliance in the United States. We ad- dress this message to your excellency in all sincerity and candidness, with the hope that your excellency will devise measures and take the initiative in bring" ing about a concert of the powers for the restoration of order and peace. Thefavct of a kind reply is earnestly requested and awaited with the greatest anxiety.” The reply of President McKinley a characteristic of the man as well as a good mirror of the sentiment of the people of the United States: “ I have received Your Majesty’s mes- sage of the nineteenth of July, and am glad to know that Your Majesty recognizes th< fact that the Government and people d the United States desire of China nothing but what is just and equitable. The purpose for which we landed troops in China was the rescue of our legation from grave danger and the protection of the lives and property of Americans who were sojourning in China in the enjoyment of rights guaranteed them by treaty and by international law. The same purposes are publicly declared by all the powers which have landed military forces in Your Majesty’s Empire. “I am to infer from Your Majesty’s letter that the malefactors who have disturbed the peace of China, who have murdered the minister of Germany and a member of the Japanese legation, and who now hold besieged in Pekin those foreign diplomatists who still survive, have not only not received any favor or encouragement from Your Majesty, but are actually in rebellion against the Imperial authority. If this be the case I most solemnly urge upon Your Majesty’s Government to give public assurance whether the foreign ministers are alive, and if so, in what condition. To put the diplomatic representa- tives of the powers in immediate and free communication with their respective Governments and to remove all danger to their lives and liberty. “3. To place the Imperial authorities of China in communication with the relief expedition, so that cooperation may be secured between them for the liberation of the legations, the protection Digitized by Google
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509 Our Policy Toward China . of foreigners, and die restoration of order. “ If these objects are accomplished it is the belief of this Government that no obstacles will be found to exist on the part of the powers to an amicable settle- ment of all the questions arising out of the recent troubles, and the friendly good offices of this Government will, with the assent of the other powers, be cheerfully placed at Your Majesty’s disposition for that purpose. “William McKinley.” Nothing done by the United States during the negotiations or since has been inconsistent with these assurances by Secretary Hay and President McKinley. Our diplomacy was not only more generous in spirit but more effective in securing results than was that of the European powers. Had we as they treated the Chinese Government as hostile it would no doubt have resulted in the destruction of the legations and much unnecessary bloodshed. While upon the other hand by treating the government as friendly, we got into com- munication with our minister, saved the lives of those who were besieged in the legations and accomplished at relatively little cost everything which we set out to accomplish. While it is impossible to say exactly what the results of the other policy would have been it is clear to any one at all conversant with the situation that they would have been far less satisfactory. When the Boxer rebellion had been put down by the allied forces and a settlement with the powers became necessary, China was at their mercy. On the part of some of them two things seemed to be impor- tant: (1) an immense indemnity and (2) placing things in such a condition that interference would again be necessary in the near future. Throughout the negotiations the United States exerted a powerful influence toward cutting down the amount of the indemnity, the remov- ing of the causes which were responsible for the outbreak and erecting safeguards against similar outbreaks in the future. Due largely to this influence, the amount of the indemnity was very materially reduced. In fact it was cut down to about one-half the original demand and the terms of payment were made as easy as possible. The negotiations developed very clearly the fact that the aim of the United States was to make arrangements to which China could conform, while the aim of some of the powers was exactly the opposite. By overcoming the Russian opposition to the opening of additional treaty ports in Manchuria, the United States con- ferred a favor upon China and upon the whole commercial world as well. It was an additional victory in behalf of the “open-door” in China. It loosened, in so far as peaceful diplomacy could loosen, the strangle-hold which Russia had upon Pekin. The results of the move upon the part of the United States to limit the sphere of hostilities in the Russo-Japanese war have already been sufficient to justify this apparently bold diplomatic intrusion. It has tended not only to lessen the hard- ships which an extension of the sphere of hostilities would necessarily have entailed upon China, but also lessened the chances of her being drawn into the war. Even Europeans, who are ordinarily not given to applauding the acts of the Government at Washington, have acknowledged the wisdom of this move. Equally well-calculated to protect China was Secretary Hay’s reply to Count Cassini’s protest against violations of neutrality coupled with a threat of retaliation. Count Cassini was told in effect that his charges were a mere subterfuge to furnish an excuse for Russian aggression; that Russia should keep her own skirts clean and that then no fear need be apprehended of aggres- sion upon the part of China. In the language of diplomats, this was a slap in Russia’s face; but, in view of her advance upon Kashgar in Chinese Turke- stan and her raids into neutral territory Digitized by Google
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510 Is Trial by Jury, in Criminal Cases, a Failure f in other parts of China, it was a slap which was richly deserved. To Russia’s protest the Chinese Gov- ernment replied by denying that she had violated the duties of a neutral. In other words, China insisted that the Russian allegations were not in accordance with the facts. When Count Cassini urged upon Secretary Hay that it was an in- justice to Russia for the powers to credit the Chinese story, the Count was politely told that as the issue was clearly one of fact it would be well to have die facts investigated by a disinterested commis- sion. This method of arriving at the facts, although entirely rational and fair, was not at all enthusiastically received by the Count. His dampened ardor was a tacit recognition of the truthfulness of the Chinese reply. Indeed it would be difficult for any one to refrain ffom^admitting the skill and broad-mindedness which has character- ised the work of John Hay in preserving for China an opportunity to adjust her- self to changed environment. Tested by results, as well as by the highest standards of Christian ethics, the policy has been successful. As a result of it there is not one of the Western nations in whom China has the confidence, and for whom she has the friendship that she has for the United States, notwithstanding the Anti-Chinese legislation of Congress. Edwin Massy. Morgantown , W . Va. IS TRIAL BY JURY, IN CRIMINAL CASES, A FAILURE? By F. J. Cabot. The DISCUSSION aroused by the surprising verdict rendered in the recent Tucker murder trial in Massachu- setts, has once more brought to the front the question of the merits of the jury system of trial itself. That there are grave defects in the present system is un- deniable, and there are many who believe that, because of these defects, the system itself, at least in criminal cases, is worth- less. On the criminal side of the law, trial by jury is based upon these four prin- ciples : ' 1. A defendant is presumed to be in- nocent until he is proved guilty. 2. A defendant is entitled to a trial by a jury of his peers. 3. The defendant’s guilt must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. 4. The jury shall consider nothing but the evidence presented in open court All other considerations and influences must be excluded from its deliberations. Jury duty is equally incumbent upon every citizen. Yet it is notorious that the citizens who arrogate to themselves the title of the best class, but who neglect their civic duties until good government becomes almost impossible, evade jury duty in every possible way. The jury panels as originally drawn may incluck many competent and intelligent citizens. But before trials actually begin, the majority of this class have their names stricken from the jury-list and the few that then remain are usually assigned to civil cases. The maxim that a defendant is en- titled to a trial by a jury of his peers is one of great antiquity. It dates back to a time when education in England was the possession of but few. The dis- tinctions in social rank and life were more sharply defined and more rigidly maintained. The principle was a most wise one and it was scrupulously observed. To-day it exists only in theory, since in the eyes of the law, all men are presumed to be equal. A presumption rarely in Digitized by Google
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511 Is Trial by Jury , in Criminal Cases , a Failure? yccoid with the facts, for a visit to any criminal court session will establish the act that the average criminal jury is >dow the average of the general intel- igence and integrity of the community, rhc first great defect in the juiy system s the character of the jurors themselves. The class of men whence city criminal juries are drawn is by no means a high one. There are exceptions to this rule, of course, but the average is ordinarily a low one. Furthermore, the city criminal jury has another defect. It is frequently corruptible. In the language of the street, you can “do business’* with it, if you have the money and the desire to use it in that way. Because of this fact the scandals that frequently attach to criminal juries are rendered easy. An unscrupulous attorney, a de- fendant with means and the average city jury, furnish all that is essential to pro- duce a miscarriage of justice and a pub- lic scandal. f The country jury is rarely corruptible. It is, however, densely ignorant and stubbornly bigoted in the conception of its duties. Many of its members are of limited education and intelligence, living in sparsely-settled districts more or less removed from the influences of civiliza- tion. Newspapers and magazines have no attractions for them, and, in conse- quence, these people are almost totally out of touch with the trend of modern fife and thought. Which explains per- haps, why gold-brick artists and “green- goods" men reap such a rich harvest among them. To such men, the town- meeting, the circus, election (lay and attendance at court, constitute the only breaks in a monotonous round of daily vegetation. For these men cannot be said to live. They vegetate. And although their peculiar views on jury duty grievously wrong a defendant and practically destroy the essentials of trial by jury, they are totally unconscious of such deficiencies, and rather pride them- selves on the superior manner in which they have discharged their duties. The principle that guilt must be shown beyond a reasonable doubt, is sometimes violated by city juries. Its violation by country juries is so frequent that one- fourth of their convictions might properly have been acquittals. To the bucolic mind jury duty is a great honor conferred by the government, in return for which the juror believes that his verdict should accord with the wishes of the district- attorney, whose utterances he regards as oracular, lest otherwise crime might be encouraged. Furthermore, he firmly believes that every defendant is guilty. “If he is n’t guilty, what’s he here for?’’ — is the juror’s argument. The fact that the defendant is now on trial is sufficient as the juror sees it, to destroy any legal presumption of innocence. Although 9 le juror’s oath requires that he shall say upon the evidence, that the defendant is guilty or not guilty and no more, the country juror is heedless of this require- ment as he is anxious to side with the apparent majority. Contrary action on his part would make him a marked man among his associates. Never again would he be asked to serve as juror, fence-viewer, fire-warden, pound-keeper Or in any of those important positions so dear to the average country man. f To this general rule of action there is a notable exception, which occurs when the defendant is a neighbor or a friend of the juror. Then, by some mysterious process, a light breaks in upon his dim field of intelligence, and the guilt of that particular defendant must be proved well beyond a reasonable doubt, to secure a conviction. In such a case the jury is “agin" the government from the start But woe betide the stranger whose fate is placed in the hands of a country jury. Veteran criminal lawyers agree that in- dictment in such cases is almost certain to be followed by conviction on subse- quent trial, regardless of the evidence produced at the trial. Furthermore, the defendant’s exercise of his legal right of challenge is, to many jurors, a personal affront The aspect of virtuous resent- Digitized by Google
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512 Is Trial by Jury , in Criminal Cases y a Failure? ment presented by the accepted jurors in- \ impossible to secure a juror that has not dicates a prejudice against the defendant been influenced in some degree by the from the start. newspaper articles on the subject. The courts are for the protection of the community not simply in the way of detecting criminals, but in guarding the reputation and honor of the citizens as well. The law is not an instrument of oppression. A man accused of crime has the right of every safeguard to prove his innocence and to see that his every right is protected. It is the office of the government to compare the truth, to mete justice, to protect the innocent as well as to secure the conviction of the guilty. With many persons, the ability of the prosecuting officer is to be meas- ured by his success in securing convictions. That is, “ it is the duty of the prosecuting officer to obtain the conviction of the accused.” A more dangerous doctrine than this could hardly be conceived, because it engenders a false professional pride in many prosecuting officials, who make use of every expedient to offset and to discount and to render fruitless the evidence of the person who is under even the most slender suspicion. No matter how respectable the witness is, how evidently sincere and truthful, every effort must be put forth to entangle him. In a word, the witness is to be worried, not to get at the truth, but to score a point for the government. Such methods are degrading and totally unworthy of the legal profession. The attitude of the public press to- wards pending criminal actions accentu- ates the defects in the jury system. A criminal case of any note is discussed in its minutest details by the leading journals, long before it comes to trial. These papers acquit or convict the accused as seem s' most proper to them. And because of the enormous circulation and influence of the press, the jury’s function in many cases is limited largely to affirming the judgment previously recorded in the newspapers. This evil is more prevalent in the large cities, especially in New York where it is almost The defects m the jury system bear hardest upon those defendants concerning whose guilt there is grave doubt, and upon defendants who are before a jury for the first time. To remedy the present defects four measures are suggested: 1. Compel the attendance of those best fitted to serve as jurors, but who, at present, are rarely secured. 2. Exclude from jury service the in- competent and undesirable element. 3. Cultivate an enlightened public opinion which shall insist that prosecuting officials discharge their duties in a spirit more truly in accord with the true ends of justice. 4. Destroy the harmful influence of the newspapers. This last object may be secured by adopting the English law which permits the press to publish little concerning a criminal case sub judice , beyond the mere announcement of the arrest and the alleged cause. Violations of this law are rare, and are severely punished. To secure the most desirable jurors, enact a law confining exemption from jury duty within the narrowest possible limits, at the same time repealing all present laws on the subject In addition, make imprisonment in the county jail the mandatory penalty for evasion of jury duty. Finally, the additional require- ment that no names shall be dropped from the jury list as originally compiled, save by the presiding justice in the trial court. With these provisions in force, evasion of jury duty would be a rare occurrence. To exclude incompetent and undesir- able jurors, establish some simple educa- tional tests. It seems reasonable in the highest degree that some standard should be estabhshed by which a low order of intelligence and integrity would be ex- cluded from the jury-box. There is hardly any position in the public service Digitized by CjOOQle
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513 Celebrated Prophecies of History. to-day, which is not guarded by an ex- amination or test of some sort. Even the ordinary day-laborer in the employ of the city must in some way demonstrate his fitness for the humble position he seeks. In business and in private life this rule is almost universal. Yet when it comes to jury duty, in matters where fortune, liberty and even life itself may be at stake, it frequently happens that men who are sadly lacking in intelligence and common- sense, who are barely able to read and write their own names, and who, in some cases, are lacking in morality and in- tegrity,— these men are eligible and actually serve as jurors. If die defects in the jury system are remedied in these, or similar ways, trial by jury will regain its position as a bulwark of our liberties. F. J. Cabot. Boston , Mass . CELEBRATED PROPHECIES OF HISTORY. By Chables Kassel. PLANTED deep in human nature is a love of the mystical. Since time beyond memory the imagination of man has been stirred by tales of charms and . talismans, of wizards and conjurers. A strong fondness for the improbable has characterized mankind in all ages. Where is the land without its fairy-lore, and where the people about whose origin there have failed to gather myths rich and beautiful ? The lofty imagination of the Greeks made a faith and creed of the wondrous tales of gods and men with which their mythology abounded, and the gorgeous coloring our own literature has received from their fancies attests the deep hold which the marvelous exercises upon the mind and heart of man. Among the beliefs which have touched the deeper chords of the human soul is that which ascribes to some of the grander figures of lay and sacred history the prophetic ken. Nothing so quickens our interest as the vaunted power to lift the veil sundering the future from our gaze. The wisest of old consulted oracles and soothsayers, and many in these latter days try to read their destiny in the stars. It is both curious and instructive to search among the annals of time for prophecies well attested in their origin and undoubted in their fulfilment. We have been accustomed to believe that the instances of authentic prophecy are bound up within the volumes of our sacred writings, but the page of histoiy affords a rich store of prophetic utterances, and it is with some of these we mean to deal. We shall advert first to the words of Chesterfield and Voltaire, with their fore- glimpse of the French Revolution, and to those of Franklih, Du Chatelet and Liv- ingstone, with their fine prevision of the American Revolution. In 1753 the Ear! of Chesterfield wrote: “ I think I see in France that before the end of the century the trade of both king and priest will not be half so good a one as it has been. ... All symptoms which I have ever met with in history previous to great changes and revolutions in govern- ment now exist and daily increase in France.”* How well Chesterfield fore- saw that mighty upheaval, and how nearly he divined die hour when it should flame forth, even so long before its occurrence, no one familiar with the history of the event need ask. Thus, too, wrote Voltaire, in April, 1764 : “ Everything that I see is scattering the seeds of a revolution which will come inevitably. Light has so spread from * Bancroft’s History of the United States , Apple- ton & Co., Vol. II., Ep. 1, Ch. 4, p. 376. Digitized by Google
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514 Celebrated Prophecies of History . neighbor to neighbor that on the first oc- casion it will kindle and break forth. Happy are the young for their eyes shall see it.”* And in October, 1766, in a letter to d’Alembert upon the same subject, he inquires: “ Can you tell me what will come within thirty years of the revolution which is taking effect in the minds of men from Naples to Moscow ? I, who am too old to hope to see anything, commend to you the age which is forming. ”f But a scant seven years remained of the period fixed by Voltaire’s insight when, on the fateful fourteenth of July, 1789, the Bas- tQe was stormed and the mightiest social cataclysm in the chronicles of time had begun. So, also, a few minds had caught fore- gleams of the American Revolution, its incidents and outcome. Franklin, writ- ing from England regarding the probable mult of a war for independence, foretold its exact duration when he said: “New England alone can hold out for ages against this country, and if they are firm and united seven years will win die day.”! Du Chatelet, who was the agent in America of the French Government, wrote to Choiseul in 1768: “A great number of chances can hasten the revolu- tion which all the world sees without daring to assign its epoch. I please my- self with the thought that it is not so far off as some imagine. ... To make themselves independent the inhabitants want nothing but arms, courage and a chief. If they had among them a genius equal to Cromwell, this republic would be more easy to establish than the one of which that usurper was the head. Per- haps this man exists; perhaps nothing is wanting but happy circumstances to place him upon an exalted theater.” § He little dreamed that the imposing figure about which that historic struggle should center was not afar, and that when the hour should strike the destined leader would appear! * Bancroft, Vol. HI., Ep. 2, Ch. 7, p. 75. t Bancroft, Vol. III., Ep. 2, Ch. 17, p. 229. i Bancroft, Vol. IV., Ep. 3, Ch. 7, p. 118. J Bancroft, Vol. HI., Ep. 2, Ch. 21, p. 282. Equally striking is the glowing predic- tion by William Livingstone of the great- ness and grandeur of the American Re- public. As early as 1768 we have from him this noble passage, sprung from a rich and vivid imagination: “Liberty, religion and the sciences are on the wing to these shores. The finger of God points out a mighty empire to your sons. The land we possess is the gift of heaven to our fathers, and divine Providence seems to have decreed it to our latest posterity. The day dawns in which the foundation of this mighty empire is to be laid by the establishment of a regular American con- stitution. All that has hitherto been done seems to be little besides the collection of materials for this glorious fabric. *T is time to put them together. The transfer of the European part of the family is so vast and our growth so swift that before seven years roll over our heads the first stone must be laid.” f The splendor of our history stamps with prophetic char- acter this fine utterance, nor can it fail to strike the curious mind that Livingstone foresaw almost to the hour the beginning of the Revolution. More wondrous, however, than any thus far mentioned in their lofty anticipa- tion of events destined to leave a lasting impress upon the history of man are some notable prophecies of Thomas Jefferson, Tycho Brahe and Schiller. These far transcend in their accurate forecast any of those in scriptural narrative which have exercised the tongues and pens of theolo- gians, and which, if wholly authentic in origin, are quite as doubtful in meaning as the ambigous oracles of ancient Greece. Jefferson, pondering deeply the prob- lem of chattel slavery, uttered the solemn warning: “Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. ... It is still in our power to direct the processes of emancipation and deportation in such slow degree as that the evil will wear off insensibly and their way be pari passu filled up with free white laborers. If, on If Bancroft, Vol. IIL, Ep. 2, Ch. 21, p. 283. Digitized by Google
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515 Celebrated Prophecies of History . the contr&iy, it is left to force itself on, human nature must shudder at the pros- pect held up.” Viewed in the light of the awful contest which rent the nation a few decades after, these words seem as if spoken by lips inspired from on high. We might fancy that before Jefferson’s mind, as these thoughts were penned, there loomed the vision of the mighty con- flict with all its dread and tragic incidents. The prophecy of Tycho Brahe, who is mentioned in Chambers’ Encyclopedia as *' one of the most distinguished names of which astronomic science can boast,” is one which bears no little interest for the curious in things occult. We quote from the writer of the article “Astrology” in the Encyclopedia Brittanica : “We may notice a very remarkable prediction of the master of Kepler. That he had carefully studied the comet of 1577 as an astrono- mer we may gather from his adjusting the very small paralax of this comet to prove the assertion of the Aristotelians that a solar sphere enveloped the heavens. But besides this we find him in his character of astrologer drawing a singular predic- tion from the appearance of this comet It announced, he tells us, that in the North, in Finland, there should be bom a prince who should lay waste Germany and vanish in 1582. Gustavus Adolphus, it is well known, was bom in Finland, over- ran Germany and died in 1582. The fulfilment of the details of this prophecy was, of course, nothing but a lucky hit but we may convince ourselves that Tycho Brahe had some basis of reason for his prediction.” Far the most striking of all, however, is an utterance of Schiller anticipating the outcome of the revolution in Fiance, the transformation of the French Republic into a monarchy and the marvels which should be wrought by the genius of Napoleon, then but an obscure officer of artillery in the French army. A reference to this truly remarkable prediction is found in Edwin Emerson’s History of the Nineteenth Century (Vol. I., p. 141), where we find the following: “As early as 1794, he [Schiller] gave this forecast of the main results of the French Revolution, then at its height: ‘The French Republic will pass away as suddenly as it arose. It will pass into anarchy and this will end in submission to a despot who will ex- tend his sway over the greater part of Europe.’ ” Hie question can not but urge itself upon the thoughtful mind, are these in- stances mere happy guesses? Or, in some mystic way, do lofty spirits bear the prophetic faculty veiled within the magic chambers of the mind? Or, again, are great souls during their highest moments, — as, indeed, many of the world’s sages have taught, — within the silent touch and presence of earth’s noblest departed and in unconscious communion with them, — those who, for tens of centuries since their entrance into the richer life, have ponder- ed nature’s mysteries, have unlocked her secret lore and have folded aside the veil which shrouds the dim and distant future? We do not know. “There’s more in heaven and earth than’s dreamt of in your philosophy,” says Horatio to Hamlet in the play, and the words are as full of truth to-day as when, three cen- turies ago, they were uttered by the im- mortal dramatist. Charles Kassel. Fort Worth , Texas . Digitized by Google
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GEORGIAN ECONOMIC IDEALS AND SOCIAL JUSTICE. By J. Pool. TWO SCHOOLS of thought are arising out of the monstrous in- justice of our present industrial system. One school holds that in the removal of restrictions lies the road to freedom; a statement so self-evident that it requires no proof. This school is headed by Henry George, who claims that his system will bring about automatically the largest production of wealth com- bined with its fairest distribution. The other school is headed by Karl Marx and is known as the Continental or Socialistic or German School. It holds that the State should own all the means of pro- duction and exchange, so that employ- ment shall be provided for all, and every- one shall be secured from want; and tins is to be accomplished by government regulation and direction, which would extend ultimately to the most minute commercial concerns. The basic difference between the two schools is in the way they view competition. Karl Marx and his followers say that competition is an evil and should be abolished, and that cooperation should be substituted; such cooperation to be compulsory if necessary. On the other hand Henry George’s proposal is clear, practical, simple and direct. It is to place a tax upon the selling value of land. and gradually increase it until the selling value disappears. This very competition which now works such evils would then become the most automatic and elastic system of cooperation that it is possible to conceive. It will simplify the functions of the State so that we would get the best of all governments, — namely, that which is felt the least ; whereas the German or Marxian system would establish a gov- ernment that would be felt at every turn. To state the case briefly: the modern world is called upon to decide whether it will remove restrictions and thereby go on to industrial freedom and security, or whether it will go on to further restric- tions and land itself in industrial stagna- tion and anarchy; for every thinking man will admit that our present industrial conditions cannot last. The Georgian system would under- mine the monopoly value of railways, water-works, etc., and at the same time would provide a fund that could easily purchase these large works from their present owners at their full intrinsic or improvement value, and thus transfer the ownership to the State without any shock or jar to commerce. J. Pool. Broken Hill, Australia. THE MORPHINEUSE. By William Lee Howard, M.D. SHE WAS twenty-one years old, and had been married three years. Her husband was sixty-three in years, and older in body and tissues. She was well educated, refined, sensitive; he was rich, coarse and senile. It was one of those marriages of blood and boodle which the church sanctifies and the physician views with horror, for he knows it will result in physical abase- ment, psychic riot or adultery on the part of the young woman, according to her 616 Digitized by Google
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517 The Morphineuse. physiologic attributes or psychic activi- ties. Here follows the story of such a marriage as I knew it. The young woman had been dragged to a large and fashionable hotel on the sea-coast. Here she met a young man of her own age and culture. One morning her husband was brutally in- sulting to her in the presence of this young man. She retired to her room and from that moment her sad, short life began. Up to this period it had been uncharacterized. It had been of a child- nature, in that it had not been utterly bad nor beautifully perfect. She had not wanted to think of, had not cared to realize her position, so her existence up to this morning had been a disorderly jumble of impulses, each pushing itself upward in lively contest with the others, some toward recklessness, others toward what was good. This motley group of tendencies had been purposely indulged and fostered, and any attempt to place them under moral cultivation, selecting, arranging or carrying them into a beauti- ful whole, had been pushed aside as labor- ious and useless. Louise had been afraid of herself, and always shrank from any knowledge of that self. She was now fearful of some moral calamity, perhaps an explosion of too long pent-up nature, the rumblings of which she was only too conscious of. She sat by the window and watched the approaching storm, grateful for some diverson from her tormenting thoughts. The storm increased, the rain no longer came direct from the clouds, but was hurled in strata with wild and frightful vigor. On the southeastern horizon were clouds of inky blackness driving before them lower forms of mist and rain which met the waves’ spindrift in angry combat. Weird and dismal grew the sea; its voice was low but tense, and ominous of suppressed anger. The storm became fascinating to Louise, and she drew her chair to the window to watch its development, for it appeared sympathetic — in harmony with her agita- tion. The peaceful waters of yesterday, whose life of ebb and flow contentedly and unmurmuredly passed on, were now lashed and goaded into anger. As these ideas arose in the distressed woman a cynical smile appeared on her features, dimly reflected by the wet window-glass. To the tears on her cheeks succeeded an uncontrollable impulse, and she sobbed emotionally for the first time in her married life. She ran to the bed, and throwing herself upon it, hid her face in the pillow. She tried to evade new thoughts that pushed themselves up- ward, but they would not leave her. A strong gust of wind, sharp and decisive, slammed the shutters of her window, and breaking their hinges sent them noisily rolling down the verandah’s roof. The crash aroused her, and again she went to the window. The black clouds were coming toward her in an unbroken bank. Every moment the sea increased its anger. It had ceased to rumble and roar, and now hissed; its cadence was high-pitched, its moanings breathless. Every note of the rolling, surging waves struck a sympathetic chord in die woman and a response in her troubled mind. There was tumult of soul, indecision of thought, yet an understanding of the storm’s turbulent message. It had en- grossing interest for her and she became fascinated with the turbulence of the scene. Suddenly her attention was turned to a material struggle. She saw out to sea a virile tug tenaciously strug- gling with a huge and clumsy barge, the bodily remains of what had been in years past a proud-bowed clipper whose spread of canvas and speed of keel had been a joy to gaze upon. The struggle of the powerful tug to pull its senile mate absorbed the attention of Louise. Only at momentary intervals could the vessels be seen, for they tossed now on the crest of a surging, whistling billow, now rolled in cavernous seas. Again would the strong breathing craft rise and pull with titantic force the Digitized by Google
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518 The Morphinevse. wallowing bows of its encumbering charge, struggle out at sea, and again the woman’s The struggle seemed useless and cruel senses were strained, her thoughts acute, to the willing, active partner, for the as she eagerly scanned the waters for the plunging bows of the decrepit hulk tossing vessels. The heavy clouds scurry- , could not respond to the efforts of its ing overhead were spread around in mate. The storm was at its height, thickening confusion and cast a deaden - and the waves were being pounded and ing aspect over the watcher’s room, compressed into huge and treacherous But the seas were lighted by the cheerful seas. The noisy clamor of the dements life to the eastward, and joy entered seemed to be the outburst of environed Louise’s heart as she discerned the passion as their wrathful stridor or deep faithful tug. Yes, it was alone now; roar followed each after the other, and strongly pushing its way into the huge the waves were hurled into mountainous seas, and determinedly making for safe i crests, ridge beyond ridge, rising in anchorage. Its aged and usdess com- tumultuous fury to sink in blackness panion was rolling in the trough of die behind the foam of anger. waves, hdpless, devoid of pride, impotent Could the plucky and straining tug hold in action. Its short life was sounded by its impotent consort until the storm had the combers, and those insatiate Molochs passed ? Oh! why did it not cut loose roared out to their advancing fellows the and go safdy on its way ? Why should feast to come. Only for a moment did this strong, young, panting and virile Louise give thought to the death and little vessd have to go down ignominiously burial of the approaching wreck. It was because it was tied to an old, useless enough to know that it would have hulk ? Such were the thoughts of Mark carried into oblivion its brave and strong Boyd’s wife. She could now only faintly protector without a thought of its real discern the two vessels, for the clouds duty, with a knowledge of its senile lowered and became one dark shroud, selfishness. She saw the tug, stern down. Yet Louise kept her eyes seaward and holding its course true and steady. It watched the black pall pass. Rapidly was free — it was youthful, it was strong, the dftrlmftfla lessened and a light like the and had its life and usefulness before it. faint break of dawn appeared in the east Oh! was this lesson for her? Was this Anxiously she strained her gaze for her a prophecy, or was it only the common little hero — for such had the tug seemed incident of a storm ? She then returned to her — and unconsciously her hands to the bed and threw herself on it were tightly clasped as she offered a mute During her short life she had had bat prayer for its safety. The rain ceased; few serious thoughts, her mind had the light, becoming brighter, brought wavered as it liked. It could not formu- out in startling distinctness all the late any distinct action, any decision — features of the storm, and every wave she only knew she was miserable. There seemed transmuted into towers between was no holiness in her marriage; she felt which lay dark and gruesome caverns, that. Had she lost respect for self? and the spindrift shooting from their Did anyone respect her? summits caused each to wear a robe of The psychic storm passing over her variegated light. seemed to have tom asunder her hidden For a moment Louise forgot the soul, to have caused forceful waves to struggle of the brave little steamer as wash away the shifting sands covering the power of nature was forced upon her her woman’s nature and to bring forth mind and her imagination swelled in in all their strength and beauty her unison with the sublimity of its awful physiologic attributes. Her youthful grandeur. This state lasted but a mo- blood went tearing through the heretofore ment, for her thoughts reverted to the unreached activities, and her heart and Digitized by Google
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519 The Morphinewe. mind lived in virginal serenity. She had been bound in a life of indifference and disgust, but now the springtime had come, and, like the sap in budding trees, her veins were carrying new, strange and voluptuous thoughts to her brain. Love, life; to be loved, to love, were the thoughts, were the words, that now overpowered her. “Your life has been one of torture, misery,’* insulted Nature cried out to her. “No longer flog or tease me,” it demanded. Her spirit cried: “Release me, I must also go with Nature. I am hungry, starved; and must break from you.” A voice calmly but forcibly whispered to her: “Live and love; be a woman,” and then the spirit in her became free, and lo! something quick- ened and lived in her heart and she rose from the bed bom a woman. Five years after this eventful psychic storm I was called to see her, and the scene I shall never forget. She sat upright in a high chair of dark oak. Her head, surrounded by glisten- ing black hair, rested against the ex- quisite carving of the wood which formed a sympathetic frame for her pallid pose. Her white, thin hands rested on her full limbs; her small feet, placed slightly apart, were on a golden .hassock. She was gowned in black, not the somber dullness of mourning, but a rich, scintil- lating black. The waist was cut low, showing the bosom in its incipient and premature process of decadence, a dull, blue-white; the rhythm of its rise and fall being uncertain, uneven. A small diamond star glistened at her forehead, and tiny buckles of the same jewels were on her black satin shoes. Her arms were bare, and the flesh of the same colorless hue and want of tone as the bosom. Her face and neck were also of a deathly, poppied white. By her side was a small table of the same wood and design as the chair, and on it a French novel, a finely spun, aromatized hand- kerchief, and a small, green leather bag. What little of the chair’s seat projected beyond the woman’s thighs was also of the same dark green shade. The thick velvet carpet, over which feet would noislessly tread, gave the same color- effect to the eye and made a weird but pleasing and quiet contrast to the maroon paper on the walls. The ceiling had a peculiar, uncanny effect on the stranger, lor it was of spider-web design, done in forceful lines and dominant colors ; black, silver and ghoulish green. Heavy, dark green — almost blackish green — curtains, relieved by golden embroidery, hung against windows and doors. With the exception of the dominant ceiling all the colors seemed to be suggested rather thmi pronounced. You realize the greens, gold, maroons, the intense black of the gown and the grewsome whitness of the woman’s skin, yet each seemed a part of the whole blended with a peculiar, sweet odor — the nauseous effect of which soon disappeared. But few paintings hung on the walls, and these were of a realistic and soul-repelling nature. They were in harmony with the room and its silent occupant, and gave out pain or pleasure according to the psychic responses of the observer. One, a magnificent piece of technique and coloring, represented a beautiful woman gowned for a ball. It was deceptive in its appearance of normality, for it represented a soul of a woman, the dose observer being able to see through the gown and look upon the naked woman of flesh and passion. On approaching the portrait, this translu- cency merged into transparency, and then one saw the beautiful form and sensuous flesh. It was startling in its vividness, caused virile ideation, and one could feel the hot blood of desire pulse in harmony with the original of the painting. You unconsciously approached nearer this tempting, desirous woman, looked closer at the beautiful skin, and then the blood rushed to your head and eyes. But for a second only were you enthralled, for your heated blood sud- denly surged inward, leaving your skin cold, your flesh trembling, your body Digitized by Google
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The Morphineuse . 520 weak, your soul ashamed. But the eyes remained fixed on one horrible thing painted beneath the skin, for even this now became transparent. They saw a sinuous serpent whose tongue was the needle and the body the barrel of a hypodermic syringe. This gracefully poised snake lay over the heart, his head wakefuUy resting between the skinless breasts, his tail encircling the quivering flesh of waist and hips. The bright, shining scales of the pictured snake were morphine ciystals. One shuddered and turned, disillusioned, horrified, but only to meet the meaning eyes of the portrait which directed your gaze to another portrait on the opposite wall. This was a picture of a beautiful girl. Her face depicted joyous adolescence, the eyes were those of enigmatical longing, and beneath the skin showed the rich, red blood of health — the evidence of the springtime of womanhood. Only the eyes of desire and jetty black hair gave any clue to the relation of the original to the horrible portrait opposite, or to the living picture, the statuesque, chilling occupant of the chair. The face of the sitting woman was immobile, the head Juno-poised, the dry lips slightly parted. The eyes were greyish blue and appeared to stare into vacancy, or perhaps they subconsciously saw into the dim, ancestral past. Wide, wide open were the fibrillating lids, and from them hung the frail bars of the soul, the even, long lashes. Tense, gracefully rigid, sat the drug-controlled woman as her eyes peered into the fascinating unknown. Not a sigh of regret, not a murmur of anguish or remorse, not a symptom of psychic consciousness emi- nated from the dreamer. She sat death- like, and one imagined he could hear the fluttering Azrael departing, leaving her hopeless, damned. Still she was magnif- icent in her introspective poise; she looked the Goddess of Negativenes, for neither limb nor bosom showed blood or passion. Her stream of life had rushed furiously on, and she knew it had left her but the dregs. For a moment a tired smile pressed the hot lips together, then they relaxed, and her stare became intense, piercing, as though the dissolu- tion of body and life had taken place and the river of consciousness had passed out, and some sub-human entity was entering and holding her entranced in a life of the past that “hath elsewhere had its setting.” The curtains parted, and at the same moment the woman’s attitude changed to one of forced interest. She rested her arm on the table and slightly inclined her body toward her visitor. “ Well, Doctor, how do you find baby to-day?” she asked, as the venerable family physician reached her side. “Badly, Mrs. Boyd, badly. He does not respond to any treatment; but cries — desperately cries, as though fiends pos- sessed him. Oh! the poor thing suffers much, much. I have never seen a case like his; it is a puzzle to me. He is in torture every minute. I wish to call in a specialist; something must be done.” The woman had again relapsed into her former attitude, and appeared to be searching space, but a dose observer would have noticed that she heard and understood every word the doctor said, for when he admitted he could not diagnose her little one’s trouble, a smile of half pity, half scorn, flitted over her pallid features. She acquiesced in his wish to bring a consultant, and com- menced to discuss the case when she was interrupted by several successive yawns, and became restless and absent minded. She picked up the little bag, hurriedly excused herself, and left the room. An hour later she was again* in the room, and now her gaze was fixed upon a delicately made cradle in which lay a tossing, screaming child. Not pity, but interested decision seemed to dominate the mother, for her attention was devoted to watching every ' sign of agony and listening to each distressful cry of the little one. Gradually the painful dis- tortions of the baby became less violent. Digitized by Google
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521 The Morjthinewe. he facial twitchings ceased, the cries adenced to moans, and the tortured nother saw for the first time a smile of ontent on the child’s face. She ap- proached the cradle and bent over the ittle one, kissed him; then dried the ears flowing down her cheeks. Then ihe stood over the cradle, her eyes strangely regarding the emaciated, tiny ‘ace, now quiet, gruesomely still. Semi- xmsciously she uttered her thoughts as though whispering to a wronged and tielplesssoul: 44 It’s true; true. My God! but it *s true. Oh ! what a blessing I kept the kind, old doctor. No, no, baby, baby darling, you’ll no longer suffer. You must go to Heaven where peace reigns. Your life here would be a tor- ture, useless; Hell. All the furies of the damned, all the hate, disgust and cruelty of this world would be your constant companions on this earth. Innocent of all, you would be accused by all, cursed by all, helpless little one. Your mother will mete out her own punishment, will sign the death-warrant of her soul; her life departed the day it entered your poisoned, unconscious brain. My God! I tried to do it then, but your soul would not be denied, and cast you out a weak, tortured body to give me pain — oh! such heart-pain. But now, you’ll be free, free. This, darling, I can do for you.” She left the room, but soon returned with the nurse who was directed to watch the child. Peacefully he lay, peacefully for the first time. Ihe woman took up a book and read, not noticing the slowing respirations of the infant. Night came on and the dull, tiny lights concealed in the spider-web ceiling gave a ghastly glow that well harmonized with the morbid color-effect of the room. The mother entered and directed the nurse to go to her dinner. Then she went and gazed at the portrait that depicted her joyous, innocent childhood. This gaze was for a moment only, for she rapidly crossed the room and stood transfixed at the allegory of herself. She looked at the face, the pose, the translucent gown; then, like the fascinated bird which help- lessly but surely approaches the undulat- ing head and scintillating eyes of the charming snake, she went nearer the picture and stood transfixed before the sireneal thing whose shimmering scales fascinated and pleased her. For several minutes she stood immovable; then, slowly, automatically, approached her child. Its respirations had ceased. Without any visible signs of emotion she lifted the delicate eyelids, struck a match and examined the pin-head pupils. Gently closing the baby’s eyes she rose and went to the table, a long sigh being the only evidence of great psychic dis- turbance. Picking up the small bag, she entered her dressing-room. In a few minutes she returned, glanced at the quiet child, and resumed her seat in the oak chair. The French novel was taken up, but allowed to remain in her lap. Her head sank back, her eyes closed and she remained immobile, except for her lips, on which was a faint smile of content. Deep breathing followed, and with it came a slight color to the former hueless cheeks. The bosom rose and fell rhythmically, and seemed to have taken on the tone and fullness of virginity. The neck became plump and throbbing, and the active process of rejuvenation was apparent. The face and body had a strange appearance, for a new person- ality had entered, and the good soul was being driven out by a joyous, sensuous, controlling one. The eyes opened wide, and showed that harmony and peace reigned. The second personality had unfolded its damned soul and recognized the happy end of the babe, but not the cursed act of the murderess. William Lee Howard. Baltimore , Md. Digitized by Google
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COMMON-SENSE ON THE RAILROAD QUESTION. By Linton Sattebthwait. I This, then, is an attempt to state the actual legal situation as it must first be j THIS is not an attempt to solve the railroad problem; nor is it an effort to state anything concerning the railroad question that is not perfectly dear to all who understanding^ think upon the subject It is, however, an endeavor to suggest a way of stating the primal conditions of the problem, with the view of assisting the average mind in- telligently to consider the reasons urged for and against governmental ownership or control of railroads. With an intelli- gent grasp of those conditions one can weigh arguments to some purpose, while without such grasp one is likely to grope blindly amid a confusion of conflicting statements and half-understood reason- ing. A few casual conversations with such individuals as one may meet by chance will convince one that the average man has no dear conception of the real nature of a railroad or canal, as an instrument of transportation, or of the true rotation winch either sustains to the sodal body or State. That a groat railroad corporation is a great business corporation, carrying on a great business enterprise, which busi- ness its managers are privileged to con- duct on “business principles ” similar to those which control in large industrial enterprises, is, doubtless, essentially the view of multitudes of average intelligence, yet this conception of the legal and com- mercial position of our great carrying companies is as far from the real position as, in any matter, the false is from the true. So long as men hold to it, however, their judgment cannot be appealed to for any rational determination of the question pressing upon us, as to what we shall or, perhaps, must do, with regard to the granting by railroads of rebates and other favors to certain shippers. seen before the bearings of the question can be understood, since we cannot grasp the rotations of things until we see them as they really are. Let us, in imagination, go back to the time, within die memory of men still living, when the transportation of goods and persons was almost exdusivdy over two kinds of highways — natural water- ways and ordinary roads, more popularly known as highways. Over either kind of highways every one, without exception, was legally and practically free to carry J his own or another’s goods without let or 1 hindrance. The only condition — and 1 this was not imposed by law or by the decree of other individuals — was that he possess the necessary vehicle, however crude, to carry his property. Even though he should possess no means of carriage he was, of course, free to trans- port on the highway his own person and goods by his own physical exertions. This substantially must have been the condition of the transportation system in our country less than a century ago. It offered absolute equality of opportunity to all in the way of transportation. Doubtless the better-equipped might carry goods more cheaply, but this greater economy in transportation would necessarily be due to the possession of better facilities by some, and not to any advantage connected with the highway over which the well-equipped and ill- equipped alike were free to convey their goods. Under our social system no one could, with reason, complain of such inequality. The same highway surface offered passage equally to the rich and to the poor, and alike to the commercially great and to the financially small. What- ever inequality in transportation might exist between business rivals already 522 Digitized by Google
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523 Common-Sense on the Railroad Question . risted when, with their goods, they titered on the highway, and was not re&ted by those in charge of the highway. Thus was realized practical equality mong shippers. If the above is substantially descriptive »f the legal and the practical condition >f the water and wagon transportation >f a century ago, it is no less a fairly accurate description of the legal status, hough not of the practical condition, of he railroad transportation of to-day. For the legal status of the dirt highway 3f the eighteenth century is, in a broad sense, the legal status of the railroad of the twentieth century. The modern rail- road is no more a business concern to be exploited by its owners for their profit, than was or is the common road highway. The public has the same definite claims on, and similar rights in each. These old highways were largely owned and “ operated ” — that is, cared for — by the public. The cost of maintenance was raised by public tax and the use was free. As a taxpayer the user would con- tribute to the cost, but the use, as such, was without charge, while to w the stranger within the gates” the highway was in fact free to use without price. Along with this free-highway system, however, a different system was some- times adopted, in pursuance of what ap- peared to be good public policy. Fran- chises were granted to individuals, au- thorizing them, sometimes, to take over highways already existing, sometimes to construct new ones, and in return for the cost of improving and maintaining up to a prescribed standard of excellence the highways thus granted to them or to be constructed by them, they were authorized to collect reasonable tolls from those actually using the highways. Thus came the toll-road or turnpike. The public at large were spared the cost of maintenance, which cost was paid by ! the persons actually using the highway, I in the shape of tolls. Presumably they I received the benefit of better roads than would under then-existing circumstances have been maintained by the public at large. The public convenience, there- fore, was the justification of the toll-road or turnpike. A reasonable profit to the individuals who possessed the franchise was regarded as only fair compensation for the employment of their capital in road improvement and maintenance. Now, these toll-roads or turnpikes were and are — where they still exist — as truly public highways as were and are the streets and roads which the public open, improve and maintain at the public expense. No one ever dreamed, or now dreams, that any individual whose busi- ness or pleasure calls for the use of such highways is not entitled to the same service as every other individual having like occasion to use the highway. No one would have thought, no one would now think, of tolerating for a day any form of favoritism by the directors or managers of a turnpike or toll-road, in the way of rebate or discrimination in tolls, so that one business man might carry his goods to market more cheaply than his rival. If perchance, in the days of exclusive wagon-transportation on land, a coal- deposit should exist along the line of such a toll-road, any system of toll-rates by means of which some of the owners of that deposit could mine and transport to market their coal while others similarly situated could not do so with profit, would have raised, would now raise, under such conditions, such a storm of indignant protest from an outraged public that the offending corporation would be disciplined by the courts or legislature, or by both, as soon as the facts could be brought to official notice. If the managers of such a toll-road should themselves, either as individuals or through the medium of another cor- poration, become themselves the owners of part of the coal-beds along the line of their road, and while keeping the road open as a public highway to all other traffic, should by some scheme — by ex- cessive tolls or otherwise — make it prac- Digitized by Google
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524 Commofir Sense on the Railroad Question . tically impossible for other individual owners of coal-lands along their road to mine and sell coal, they themselves meanwhile mining their coal and trans- porting it over their road to the nearest town at monopoly prices, such a condi- tion would be suffered to continue only long enough for the fact that it did exist to permeate the public mind. In short, the public understood, now understand, that the ordinary highway or the public toll-road, is a highway created by and maintained for the public, that every one of the public has a right to use it, absolutely on the same terms accorded to every one else, and that a denial of that right by any official having charge of such highway or toll-road would be an outrage so gross as to be unthinkable. Now but for the invention of the steam-engine, we might still be trans- porting our goods and persons over highways of the character described, with no rebate question, no railroad problem, to vex us. With the discovery that steam could be applied through the locomotive to the transportation of goods and persons on a grand scale and at a rapid pace, a new kind of public highway was called for and a new development of our highway system became a necessity. No change in principle, however, was involved. Expediency alone would dictate the phase of that development. The public already owned and “ operated ” a part of its highways; others it had turned over to private individuals incorporated as turnpike companies, to be maintained and “ operated ” solely for the public use and convenience, for the use of which a reasonable toll might be exacted from all the users alike. It was open to the public — that is, the State — to say that it would pursue the same policy in the opening, construc- tion and operation of the new kind of highway suitable for transportation by / steam-power. It might, if deemed ex-/ pedient, build, equip and operate some/ and grant — exactly as in the case of the turnpikes or toll-roads — franchises to individuals, as railroad corporations, au- thorizing them to construct, equip and maintain a steam-power highway, com- monly known as a railroad, to be operated solely for the public use and convenience, for the use of which, precisely as in the case of the turnpike, a reasonable charge might be exacted from all users alike. If the former plan should be adopted it would be an extension or development of the free-highway system — save, per- haps, in the matter of charges for use. If the latter, it would be an extension or development of the toll-road system. In some countries the public met this new condition of the transportation problem by extending their system of publicly-constructed and publicly-main- tained highways through the building and operating of their own railroads, just as they build and maintain the simpler forms of highways, though maintaining the steam highways by charges to those using them rather than by general taxation as in the case of the other highways. This was, as has been observed, no real change of system. It was merely a development of the system to meet the requirements of changed conditions of transportation. Our country might have pursued the same policy and been perfectly consistent with its past. A different course was, however, deemed expedient, or at all events was adopted, and its justification must rest on expediency. We chose to extend, not the system of our publicly- maintained and publicly-operated high- ways, but the system of toll-roads con- structed and operated with private capital by corporations composed of private in- dividuals. This likewise, as above ob- served, was no change of system. This also was merely the extension and develop- ment of an existing system to meet the requirements of the changed conditions of transportation. Thus a privately-owned railroad is not a business establishment. It is the Digitized by Google
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Common-Sense on the Railroad Question. ancient toll-road, evolved from trans- portation conditions and brought down to date. The railroad managers relatively and legally sustain exactly the same relation to all of the public having occasion to make use of their steam- power highways as the managers of the toll-road sustain to all of the public having need to travel over their turn- pike road. Whatever difference of re- lation may exist in practice is due to a perversion, not to a development of the system. Here, then, is the key to an under- standing of the underlying principles or conditions involved in the railroad problem. If one is perplexed by state- ments of railroad magnates or by argu- ments of attorneys, let him but apply to the railroad question under discussion the test here suggested of the turn- pike road and its public functions, and he can not go far astray. This will be a safe guide so far as the railroad company’s relations to the public and to shippers are involved. For let the fact never be lost sight of that a railroad is nothing more nor less than a public highway, specially constructed by public authority, solely for the pur- pose of enabling the public to make use of a special method of travel and trans- portation. Were it not a practical im- possibility in operation, there would seem to be no reason in principle why railroads should not be open to every one to run his private car over the tracks just as every one may run his private vehicle over the ordinary highway or sail his own craft on the natural waterway or on the artificial water-highways known as canals. What is above said concerning rail- roads will apply substantially to canals. They are but supplementary to the natural water-highways and have been constructed, in some instances by the public and in some instances by private capital through public grant of franchise. They must sustain the same relation to the public making use of water transpor- tation. 525 If the views above set forth are correct — and proof of their unsoundness is challenged — any one who accepts and comprehends them will see very clearly certain things. He will see that railroad rebates cannot on any principle of public policy be defended. He will see that any kind of freight discrimination is an offence against public law. He will see, beyond the power of sophistry to blur his vision, that restriction of, or any interfer- ence in, the mining and sale of coal by railroad corporations is a crime against society and against natural law. And seeing these things clearly, he will be much more likely to think straight. He will probably be led in his thinking to the conclusion that unless a sure way can be found to make the railroad service to the public equal and just to all, then govern- ment-ownership and operation of the railroads, in spite of undoubted objections, is as inevitable, as necessary, as with the advent of steam-power was the construc- tion of the railroad itself, and for the same reason, — to wit: that all the public may, subject to proper and uniform rates, have the free and equal use of steam- power highways for the transportation of their goods in that interchange of commodities which, under natural laws, should lead to an increase of wealth among the many rather than to the gathering of that wealth into the hands of the few. It is not meant to be here suggested that government-ownership is necessarily the solution of this problem. Another way out may be found. But it follows from what has here been shown, that the objec- tion so often made to state or government- ownership of railroads that such owner- ship is “ socialistic 99 is without merit. The term “socialistic,” as thus used, doubtless implies the employment of gov- ernment powers and the use of public re- sources for the benefit of a part, only, of the public, or the taxing of property for the benefit of the propertyless. In this sense, however, a state-owned railroad is less “socialistic9’ than are our city streets Digitized by Google
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526 The Building of the City Beautiful. and free country roads. More especially is this true of the modern stone roads. For the free public roads are maintained as highways by a tax on all property for the benefit — it might be said — of a part only, who drive over them, while the expense of maintaining a state or government-owned steam-power highway, doubtless, would be collected of those who actually should use it. If, then, one will but view the railway, not as a great business enterprise but as a public highway it will be easy to laugh at the specter of “socialism” which is sometimes conjured up to fright- en people from the exercise of their rea- soning powers and it will be plain that the old-time highway is, in sober fact, more “ socialistic,” more “ paternalistic 1 than a state-owned railroad. But it is meant to show here whq must be the test of any remedy offered m a satisfactory solution and that that tea is: will the proposed remedy secure foi the public using the railroads the s&na service, relatively speaking, which tin public gets from a public toll-road ; The test is simple and its applicaiioi will, it is submitted, clear up the mind of many who have but vague ideas m to the legal status of railroads and thei relations to the public. Linton Sattebthwait. Trenton, N . J. THE BUILDING OF THE CITY BEAUTIFUL.* By Joaquin Miller. Chapter XX. and the large intelligence of your people.” WHEN MAN IS NOT WATCHING MAN. I think the bees, the blessed bees, Are better, wiser far than we. The very wild birds in the trees Are wiser far, it seems to me; For love and light and sun and air Are theirs, ana not a bit of care. What bird makes claim to all God's trees? What bee makes claim to all God's flowers? Behold their perfect harmonies. Their common hoard, the common hours! Say, why should man be less than these. The happy birds, the hoarding bees? The birds ? What bird hath envied bird That he sings on as God hath willed? Yet man — what song of man is heard But he is stoned, or cursed, or killed? Thank God, sweet singers of the air, No sparrow falls without his care. O, brown bee in your honey-house! Could we like you but find it best To common build and peace espouse, To common toil, to common rest. To common share our sweets with men — We sorely would be better then. “ npHREE other things I constantly X wonder at here,” was his remark to her one morning: “The marvelous growth of your groves; the law and order; * Begun In the December, 1901, tone. “In the first place, to answer you in order, we have here three hundred and sixty-five days in the year, in which to toil, fashion, build. Besides that, these trees, plants, cereals, and all things that spring from the earth, have twelve full and fervid months in which to grow, while in most places they have but four, six, or seven at the farthest So you see that we have three or four times as many days and months in the year here as in many places. All that this desert, so- called, was waiting for came when we brought the rain and led the water down from the trout-streams or up from our artesian wells. The water followed these channels and furrows down through the dust and mud, the dust was watered, the mud was drained, all by means of this same force, and in this same furrow we planted the banana-slip, the olive-branch, the mulberry-tree, and all other sorts of trees from all lands. Then we had only to widen and duplicate the furrows, and sow them with rice, then dam the furrow, and it was flooded and brought to per- Digitized by Google
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527 The Building of the City Beautiful. fection without further effort Cane, wheat, maize, all things under the sun in fact, came to us and nourished us almost without a stroke or a bit of help from our hands. And now here is one thing I must beg you to note distinctly. We not only have had all the time that God has given us because of a kindly dime, but we have husbanded it We have cherish- ed and housed and husbanded time as others do gold." He looked into her face inquiringly. * I will explain," she said. “ Civilized man, so-called, spends his time in watch- ing his fellow-man. How many men in deven are really at work? One! Yes, in the greatest dty of earth, London, it takes ten men to watch and keep that one man at work. In the country the pro- portion of workers and watchers is about evenly divided. Sometimes these English take it into their heads to hang one of their number. They actually spend a lifetime, or what would fully aggregate a long lifetime, in taking that one man’s life. But we have no bankers, no land- lords, no brokers, no soldiers, no jailers, no idlers indeed of any sort set to watch ourselves. So you see we have to our- sdves all the time that God and a genial dime can give. And this answers, in some sort, at least, your first inquiry. “ As for the second, our law and order, we found that here, here with the savages, so-called. It is true they had only the germ; we have given the germ growth. They had laid the ked of our ship of State; we have hdped to launch it, that is all. You see the Indian is and always was," she went on, “the truest and most perfect communist. All the lands, horses, products of the Adds and chase, every- thing but the bow in his hand, was as much the property of his brother as him- self. And so there was no stealing; there was no temptation to robbery or murder for money or property. With this millstone of temptation taken from about a man’s neck, see how tall and erect he would stand! Take away the temptation to lie from the derk who sells goods, from the grocery-man, the poli- tician, all people, in fact, who live in idleness upon the toil of others, and see what a long and a strong step forward man has made, and how little friction will then be found in the machine of law and order. We have conserved all that was good in the Indian’s life, and dis- carded that which was outgrown. We have continued the common ownership of nature’s storehouse, and left to the individual the fruit of his own toil. “And now as to the third object of your wonder,” she said. “We had, as you well know, long contemplated a colony in Palestine, but we finally saw that this would be only a garden for the thistles, and when the crisis came we were quite ready. “I had at hand the material for the new order of things, so far as brave hearts and ready hands could make it. All we had to do was to transfer ourselves to the spot where we were to set up our taber- nacle of pure worship, like the Pilgrim Fathers. True, we were not nearly so numerous then as now, but all the time our friends have been coming; and now, of course, since all things flourish so wonderfully, they will come in astonishing numbers. And they will be, as they have been from the first, of the very best, — men and women who believe in man and his glorious destiny; men and women who care for man, and are content to let God take care of himself; men and women who dare not presume to speak for God, but keep silent and let him speak for himself; men and women who devoutly adore all that is good and beautiful, — lovers, believers; men and women who here have time to meditate and see more clearly; men and women who with that dignity of soul which is the only true humility, and that humility of soul which is the only true dignity, begin to see, and to say lovingly, one to another: * The Infinite God is “the aggregate man." ’” Chapter XXI. LESSONS NOT IN BOOKS. Mam's books are but man's alphabet; Beyond and on his lessons fie — The lessons of the violet. The large, gold letters of the sky. Digitized by Google
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528 The Building of the City Beautiful . ONE day, in his quiet rounds through this new Eden on earth, and when quite alone, he came upon a group of gray-haired and serene men and women of most venerable aspect. They were gathered in a grove by a fountain near a field of com. Not far away were herds of cattle ruminating on the sloping brown hills. Farther on and still up toward the higher land were flocks of sheep under the yellow pines, white and restful as summer clouds. As he approached this quiet group of venerable people, they, rather by act than word, made him one of their number, and he sat down in silence on a little hillock of wild grass in the shadow of a broad palm-tree. How perfectly serene, how entirely satisfied they all seemed ! how unlike the garrulous and nervous and never-satisfied old bodies of the social world in the great cities in which he had dwelt, were these tranquil and serene old women here! They were beautiful women, beautiful in body as in soul. They literally made man in love with old age, even before they had opened their lips to speak in their low, sweet fashion. And these benign and restful men ! He began to recall the old men, old beaux, roues, whom he had encountered in London, Paris, Rome, — their wrinkles, powder, paint; their terror at the ap- proaches of time; their dismay at the thought of death; their lies, lies on their lips, lies in every act of their lives, their lustful lies to women, — their whole foul and most despicable existence. “Ah me,” thought he, “why may a man not grow in grandeur as he grows in years, like the mighty trees of the forest ? Is a man less than a tree ? Shall a man who is made in God’s image make him- self less than a tree ? ” “We meet here, or in some other like pleasant place daily,” began one of the most venerable men, “to take lessons. We are children at school, you see”; and he smiled pleasantly on the group of gray heads under the palms round about. “But you have no books.” “We desire thought rather than books. If Shakespeare found in the books of his day only ‘words, words, words,9 what shall be said of the books now that deluge the earth?” “ But we have books every now and then that gleam like lightning through a cloud.” “Yes, there are veins of gold in almost eveiy mountain, glints of light in almost eveiy storm-cloud, as you suggest; but why have the storm at all ? Why labor with the mountain of old errors or take light from the cloud, when the world is all light if we will but see the light ? ” “And books will not help you to see the light?” “ Hold a book up before your face con- tinually, and how much of the sun can you see?” asked the old man, earnestly. “ No, the world has run all to words, as a luxuriant garden runs to weeds in the autumn; the press, the pulpit — nearly all words, words, words!” said the old man finally. The stranger could but recall the pro- test of Christ, as the kindly old man con- cluded and was silent. He remembered that enduring truths have been bom in the desolate places; that the Ten Com- mandments came down to us out of the most savage mountain ever seen; that Christ grew to manhood in the woods of Nazareth; that the Koran was written on storm-bleached bones in a cave; that the face of God was seen in the desert only of old, and that it was only to a houseless boy on the plains of Shinar, where he found a stone for a pillow, that the ladder of heaven was let down. “The one main duty of man to man is to convince him that death is a thing not to be feared, but, in its ordinary course, to be desired above all things,” said the master of the quiet little school; and he continued : “ To convince him of this he must be convinced of his immortality. He must not only be convinced of his immortality, but he must be convinced that he begins life, the next life, precisely where he attains to in this; that in this way, and this way only, is it possible for a man to really lay up treasures in heaven. Digitized by Google
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529 The Building of the City Beautiful. And to convince a man of his immortality and of the preservation of his treasures in heaven is to develop the best that is in him and all that is in him. In order that all his senses may be developed, he must return to nature and nature’s God. Why should the silly sheep have sense of sight, smell, taste, superior to our own ? Why should even a dog be able to look a man in the face, or smell his foot-prints, and know more about him in a minute than a man may learn in a year? Not long ago, while spending the night among the cattle, so that I might leam from them, I saw some rise up and move aside and look, as if they saw God or angels pass; or as if Christ had come again to companion with the beasts of the stalls.” The master was silent a time; then, as none of his companions spoke, but all seem- ed inclined to listen further, he went on: “Thousands of years ago, we know man met God and the angels face to face; but in grasping after gains, going out to battle, cultivating only the sense of acquisition and of destruction, man has fallen behind even the brute in the finer senses of vision and apprehension of the beautiful and good. But here, at last, after all the ages of blackness and brutality, man finds place and time to sit down and meditate in silence and soberness, and to live by the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount.” He again rested, and waited for the words of others. As no one spoke, the master said to them: “ You do well to meet daily, to meditate continually; for never had man such responsibility; because never had man, since that other Eden, such opportunity. You do well to leave behind you all books, the dreary history of continuous crimes and bloodshed on the one hand, and the weary round of lengthened prayers for impossible things on the other hand. You have a right to be happy, continually happy, as you are here. Nay, more; I assert that it is not only your right to be happy, but it is your duty to be happy; and beyond this lies the boundless duty to the world. Let us follow the footprints of Christ, so that we may in some fair day overtake Christ, and then will the sad and weary world follow in our footprints and be glad and be good. Let us cultivate our senses by pure and peaceful and unselfish lives, till we at length have the discernment at least of dumb brutes. Let us teach the world that if it will only lift up its face from money-getting on earth it may see God in heaven.” Chapter XXII. THE TRULY BRAVE. And what for the man who went forth for the right. Was nit in the battle and shorn of a limb? Why, honor for him who falls in the fight, Fills wounded of limb and crippled for life; Give honor, give glory give pensions for him. Give bread and give shelter for babes and for wife. But what for the hero who battles alone In battles of thought where God set him down; Who fought all alone and who fell overthrown In his reason at last from the hardness and hate? Why, jibe him and jeer him and point as you frown To that lowly, lone hero who dared challenge fate. God pity, God pardon, and God help us all! “That young man of promise," wherever he be, “That young man of promise," wherever he fall, — For fall, he must fall, ’t is a thousand to one, — Let us plant him a rose; let us plant a great tree To hide his poor grave from the world and the sun. I tell you *t were better to cherish that soul — That soldier that battles with thought for a sword. That climbs the steep ramparts wnere wrong has control. And falls beaten back by the rude, trampling horde. Ay, better to cherish his words and his worth Tnan all the Napoleons that ever cursed earth. “ T AM going to the hospital before X breakfast to-morrow ; it lies some forty miles out in the mountains. We go by electric train. Will you go?” “Gladly.” “But adi,” and here she was sad and thoughtful, “this is a sad case I am going out to look after. The woman is a friend of mine, a princess by birth, and when in the world, the struggling world as you know it, she was always very ambitious of distinction. Thinking herself cured of that, or rather hoping to become quite cured of it here, she came to me only a year ago. But alas! In less than a year after her arrival she grew again ambitious* Digitized by Google
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530 The Building of the City Beautiful. and, desiring a high place as director, she grew so desperate as to tell a falsehood to some others, who, like herself, had newly come and had not yet grown strong.” 44 And she was detected?” 44 Oh, no; not detected; not nearly so bad as that. She came and told me the next day; and she then went and told all to whom she had talked; and when the court sat in judgment she stood up and made public confession. Then she condemned herself to the hospital for half a year. I begged the judge that she should not be permitted to sentence her- self so severely; but the judge thought the punishment none too hard, and so let her go to the hospital the full time for which she had sentenced herself.” 44 For which she had sentenced herself ? ” 44 Yes. You see our hospital here for mental maladies and physical ailments is the same. We try to be even more gentle with those who have maladies of the mind than those who have ailments of the body; for a man may lose a limb and yet, if his mind is dear, he does not suffer nearly so much as one with an afflicted mind. Besides, a mental ailment, rare with us, fortunately, is much more subtile and hard to master than a physical one. Take this case for example. For genera- tions back, her family, a most noble Polish one, had been bitterly impover- ished; and you can easily see how with their pride and poverty together they transmitted their misery to this poor friend of mine who is now serving out her time in the hospital.” He found the 44 hospital” a sort of summer watering-place; not a Newport or a Saratoga, however. It was a Chris- tian place, neither noisy in the least nor devoted to any sort of folly to attract attention. All the invalids, mental or physical, from down in the valley were here. The new mothers were in a similar retreat further on. He found many people coming and going, these fragrant pine-groves being cooler and the air more invigorating than in the great valley bdow. All the mental sick, 44 convicts ” we call them in Christian lands, kept themsdves at some sort of work in attend- ing on the physical sick. And yet the numerous visitors kept heaping attention on the 44 convicts ” ; more attention, in- deed, did they receive than those who had only bodily ailments. He was so enchanted with the humanity, the heart, the real Christianity in all he saw here, that his whole soul was filled with exultation at the possibilities of the future. 44 You will have a city here, such a city, in magnitude and glory, as the world has never seen,” he said, as they walked the hospital grounds together. Pausing for a moment, she raised her head and answered: 44 It is possible. But cities, great cities, as a rule, should not be.” Then she said, after a moment’s silence: 44 True, we must have centos. Each division of the earth, natural or artificial, great or small, must have a common center, a heart The hands, the feet, all have their functions and they all have laws of health; but with the means of transportation without cost within the reach of all, great cities will not be built. Population in the outside world is growing denser because of the greed of landlords and the folly of grant- ing railway privileges, which makes transportation difficult. With our rapid free transit, our railways supported out of the rental value of our land, we keep our city like a garden, as you see. No, I would sweep great cities like New York and London from the face of the earth. We know that sword and flood and flame have been against cities from the first dawn of history. Pestilence, the very hand of God, has ever been turned against all great cities. Children die in cities, men and women are dwarfed in cities. No great man has ever yet been bom in a great city. A city is a sin and a shame, a crime against the human race. Each man must have his acre, his vine and fig-tree, his place of retreat, his grove, his temple, his shrine where he may pray, may meditate, may be all himself.” In the cool of the evening they took the cars for the city. (To be concluded.) Digitized by Google
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"GET THEE BEHIND ME, SATAN!” MR. BEARD in his cartoon this month gives emphasis to one of the most stupendous issues that has been raised in recent years, — namely, whether it is right for the church of God to accept hush-money or bribes from those who “devour widows’ houses and for a pretence make long pray- ers.” Nothing has more clearly or start- lingly disclosed the influence of modern com- mercialistic materialism in lowering the moral ideals that differentiate the teachings of Jesus from those of the Pharisees of his age, than the acceptance by religious bodies of dona- tions of money from the master and domina- ting spirit of die Standard Oil Company. The immoral history of the Standard Oil Company, from the time when it began to mercilessly crush out all competition to the hour when as a triumphant monopoly it held the citizens of the republic completely in its power, is a matter of unimpeachable eviden- tial record. The facts have been brought out in. the sworn testimony presented before congressional, legislative and other author- ized investigating committees, as well as in the admissions and signed statements of offi- cials in the company and in the conspiring railways. Furthermore, Mr. Rockefeller has been the master-spirit who at any period could have prevented its morally criminal career. And now, when there are on every hand evi- dences of a moral renaissance, a general awakening on the part of the people to the deadly peril to the republic of trusts and mo- nopolies of which the Standard Oil Company is the most odious example, Mr. Rockefeller adroitly comes forward with small donations to churches, knowing full well that their ac- ceptance will practically gag the pulpit and make numbers of ministers apologists for the evil methods which more than anything rise have corrupted government and imperiled free institutions. That he was not mistaken in his surmises is amply borne out by the whole- sale attempt to gloss over the glaring moral crimes, and by the attempt to ignore the vital question involved, to shift the issue and to befog the public mind by those high up in the religious councils whose greed for tainted gold seems to have blinded their moral perceptions. How Mr. Rockefeller must laugh in his sleeve to see leading religious lights and prom inent so-called religious journals advising the acceptance of bis gifts, and either express ing ignorance of the immoral practices of the Standard Oil Company or justifying its in- iquity. One can imagine him chuckling over the small cost of the outlay that has woo over scores of clergymen and silenced others. He gave one hundred thousand dollars to the American Board of Foreign Missions, while his share of plunder gained in the shameful extortions against our people practiced by his trust during the coal-strike must have amount- ed to millions. At the time of the great coal-strike the Stand- ard Oil Company was wholesaling oil in New York City at a handsome profit at seven and one-half cents per gallon. When the stress of the people compelled them to turn to oil for fuel, the company raised the price four cents per gallon; and, as pointed out at the time by great metropolitan journals, this in- crease in price alone (based on the number of gallons sold the previous year) amounted to more than ninety million additional dollars wrung from the misery and distress of Amer- ica’s millions by the richest trust in the world, simply because through unfair means and corrupt practices this great company had been able to crush opposition and place the people completely at the mercy of its extortions. Mr. Rockefeller, as the heaviest stockholder in the company, reaped the lion’s share of this blood-money. We repeat, when the master-spirit of the Standard Oil Company compares his enor- mous booty gained during this single exhibi- tion of the beneficence (?) of monopoly with the pitifully small amount which he has paid to silence die pulpit and win apologists in the religious press at the present critical period when the conscience of the nation is awakened to the iniquity of his corporation and its spoli- ation of the people, he must conclude that the so-called custodians of the conscience-thought and moral energies of the nation have more elastic consciences and yield more readily to the seductive influence of gold than any other class of individuals. 682 Digitized by Google
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POLITICS, THE PEOPLE AND THE TRUSTS AS SEEN BY CARTOONISTS. Powers, in the New York World. 11 BLEEDING KANSAS.” All OomlDf In and Nothing Gotag Out of the Billionaire’s Memphis (Tenn.) Nnm Scimitar. THREE HARD KNOCKS. 088 Digitized by CjOOQle
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534 Politics, The People and The Trusts as Seen by Cartoonists. McDougall, in Philadelphia North American, THE IMPOVERISHED BEEP-TRUST MAT COME TO THIS. Aooording to Commissioner Garfield's report, baaed on trust book-keeping, the firms in the combine make only 2 per cent, on their sales, and in some de- partments suffer considerable loss. McDongall, in Philadelphia North American, LAYING THE DU8T ON THE 8TRAIGHT AND NARROW PATH. aJNV'Wv McDougall, in Philadelphia North American. The Cannibal Cook—*' Take him away I He ’s flavored with Standard Oil I" Digitized by
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Politics , The People and The Trusts as Seen by Cartoonists. 585 Bush, in New York Hfcrtd. .Campbell, in Philadelphia North American . THE DISCOVERY OP RU88IA BY JAPAN, A. D. 1906. OYAMA AND THE MANCHURIAN APPLE. “ There is n't going to be any core.” 'MACINARY M | LE ACt ; a< ui w»iu»V v' •'HltlKTMlVM Aj/ Bartholomew, in Minneapolis Journal. Bartholomew, in Minneapolis Journal. THE SENATE HAS ARRANGED FOR A COMMITTEE TO 8IT ON THE R. R. RATE PROPOSITION THIS SUMMER. PORK COMES HIGH. The Attempted Congressional steal. (See “ In the Mirror of the Present") Digitized by
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De Mar, in Philadelphia Record. UNDER THE BULLITT BILL THE XATOB IS Ryan Walker, in Cleveland (Ohio) World Uncl* Sam (to Europe)—** I have a welcome for every hon- est, healthy immigrant, bat yon must keep these at home.” (According to the Government estimate, 1,000,000 immi- grants will land In the United 8tates during the fiscal year.— News Item.) ■Mack, in Johnstown (Pa.) Democrat HOW TO 8AVB THE CORPORATIONS. Williamson, in London Punch. “ The first step in the solution of that problem is, that government obtain a full grasp of the whole subject-matter ; and this, in mv Judgment, can adequately be done only by put- ting azide the pot and forty bewildering date handi, for the one groat national hand.”— Judge Peter 8. Qroascup, on ** How to save the Corporations,” in McClure' t Magazine. FINANCIAL NOTE. Running np a long biU.' Digitized by Google
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EDITORIALS BULWARKING DEMOCRACY THROUGH PRACTICAL EDUCATION. I I. LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF THE PRESENT. IN SPITE of the many strong reactionary currents and influences that are inimical to the fundamental principles of democracy, and the amazing revelations of recent years indicating the presence of graft, corruption and general decadence of political morality throughout the various ramifications of government which has paralleled this steady drifting away from the old moorings of true democracy, the thoughtful patriot finds strong grounds for encouragement in the general signs of an awakening on the con- science side of public life; for he remembers that in the history of Anglo-Saxon civilization these moral awakenings have almost invariably been followed by revolutionary reforms that have met and counteracted the sinister evils that threatened the progress of national life and the moral integrity of the people. More- over, there is everywhere apparent an in- creasing recognition of the importance of fundamental remedies — remedies that shall meet present conditions in such a manner as to restore and maintain the basic principles of democracy, or give back the government in fact as well as theory to the people, and at the same time resurrect the old-time civic pride and sense of duty or responsibility on the part of individual citizens, which is as essential to the normal life of a republic as is oxygen necessary to a healthy physical organism. The systematic defeat of the will and in- terest of the people through the union of privileged interests and political machines controlling the people’s mis-representatives, ran and must be met by the general intro- duction of measures in accord with the funda- mental demands of democracy, which, as Webster aptly put it, recognizes the supreme power as “retained and directly exercised by the people.” This can be readily and suc- cmsfully achieved by the introduction of such ideal democratic measures as the initia- tive, the referendum, the right of recall, and proportional representation. But while in our judgment the union of all friends of free institutions in a determined battle for these vital measures is supremely important at the present crisis in our national life, something further is demanded to reawaken the civic conscience and so impress the rising genera- tion with the solemn responsibilities devolving on every citizen to steadfastly perform his civic duties, to the end that a real or true democracy shall be preserved and handed down to future generations and that newer and grander achievements shall mark the higher and nobler ideals which an ethically enlight- ened free government shall conceive. For many years the more profound students of our political institutions have realized that school, church and home alike are failing in maintaining the high and fine civic spirit in the young which marked the early days of our history. Our fathers, rightly recognizing that democracy demanded an intelligent electorate, introduced our great system of free popular education, which it was intended should not only train the intellect, but fit the young for the high and solemn duties which a republic justly demands from her children. That in this respect their cherished hopes have failed of realization is everywhere ap- parent, as nowhere are civic obligations more ignored than among the educated — they who by union and consecration could easily have held the ethical standard in party and nation so high that it would have been impossible for the interests of the nation to be sacrificed as they have been during the past quarter of a century, through the government being aban- doned to rings, machines and conscienceless party-bosses, who through conspiracy or partnership with public-service corporations and other privileged interests have so sub- verted the government that the millions of America are being systematically plundered on every hand by the new feudalists com- mercialism, while the very principles of democracy are being undermined. These facts have of recent years given grave concern to many of our high-minded patriots, but it remained for Mr. Wilson L. Gill, of the Franklin Institute, of Philadelphia, to clearly recognize the cause of this weakness and to perfect in a practical manner a plan by which 687 Digitized by Google
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538 Editorials. the public schools of America shall awaken a deathless civic spirit in the young and not only fit them for the exercise of good citizenship, but so habituate them to perform their duties that it will become as natural as the perform- ance of any other serious obligation of life. By his well-considered and practical plan the chil- dren early become inculcated with a knowledge of public duties, while through their daily practice they are indelibly impressed upon the plastic brain so that the pupils go forth from the public school with a quickened civic spirit which shall make democracy a part of the religion of life. II. THE PHILOSOPHIC REASON FOB CIVIC DECADENCE. In considering the comparative failure of present education to awaken the civic spirit, Mr. Gill, in common with other serious students, was impressed with the fact that in the early years of our history there was a general independence, a wholesome fearless- ness of thought, an impatience at anything that was fundamentally unjust, a moral stamina and courage that made men dare all for the defence of the principles of justice, equity and the essential rights of man. He noticed also the general recognition on the part of the individual that the nation had certain claims upon him; that there were duties which were incumbent upon all true friends of republican institutions that could not rightly be ignored or shifted to others’ shoulders. He also perceived that in those early days the children were during the greater part of their formative years under the home influence, and the home life was a dominant power in impressing the plastic mind. Here was developed character and rugged inde- pendence of thought and spirit very impatient with arbitrary customs, especially when those customs were conceived to be unjust. Later the conditions of life were revolu- tionized. The factory and mill arose, and other revolutionary changes due to invention and the introduction of steam changed the old order; and these new conditions made the old home life more and more impossible in so far as many were concerned. To meet the changed condition the extension of the school terms and the general improvement or elaboration of the schools were resorted to. The friends of popular education, however, failed in two vital particulars. They laid too much stress on mere intellectual training, not recognizing that with the lessening of the home life of the child the development of character, the sturdy republican ideals and the civic spirit would receive less emphasis than heretofore. They failed to recognize that under the new order the home was no longer the dominant moulding factor in child-lift Hence no adequate provisions were made far the proper development of the civic spirit u the school system; while a second error was made in transplanting the old system of autocratic rule that had been in practice in monarchal lands, instead of instilling into file management of the school the democratic spirit or giving the young that large share in the maintenance and carrying forward of school-government that should awaken and hold in vigorous life the moral enthusiasm of die young, encouraging at once the initiative on the part of the pupil while developing the knowledge of government and impressing the grave sense of the duty and responsibOitv which it imposes. To Mr. Gill as perhaps to no one before him came the force of this fact, so strangely over- looked by democratic educators. He saw a* by inspiration that the autocratic spirit of the present educational system, however admir- able for the training of those destined to be ruled by monarchs and classes, was un- favorable to the making of democrats. The child-mind through several years was habitu- ated to be unquestioningiy ruled by other minds. The formative period was spent under the domination of the autocratic spirit, and the multitude of the young were trained to un- quesfioningiy obey, to do as they were told,— in a word, to accept the orders given. They were trained to be subjects, not sovereigns; to be ruled, not to be a part of the ruling force. Here, then, was the key to the strange phe- nomenon that the educated left school with little or no adequate sense of civic duty or of the obligations which devolved upon them: and having been taught and habituated to obey in government during the formative period, they had naturally enough become so accustomed to act on the initiative of others or under orders, that they fell into the political grooves and followed the dictates of the boss or the machine. Thus the politics of cities, and later of the states and of the nation, came more and more under the control of the uneducated, and especially of those unschooled in the fundamental ideals and vital demands of Digitized by Google
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Editorials. 539 democracy. Men innocent of ethics, domina- ted by egotistic or selfish motives, became the master-spirits in government and in commer- cial life, exercising their masterful influence for personal advancement or gain. The recognition of these two fundamental weaknesses in our public-school system and the realisation of the fatal result to free institu- tions, led Mr. Gill to seek a rational and prac- tical plan by which the school should nobly per- form the high and to a republic most essential function, — that of fostering a fine civic con- science and habituating the child to the prac- tice of civil or political duties in school, so that it should become a part of his after-life; a duty not for a moment to be ignored or neglected. He at once set to work to perfect a plan by which the civic spirit and the practical duties of a democratic citizen should become real and vital parts of the American child’s education. in. THE SCHOOL CITY AS A PRACTICAL BUL- WARK FOB DEMOCRACY. The results of his labors were at length laid before a number of the most progressive educa- tors and high-minded patriots, and they quickly recognized in the proposed plan a real remedy for the grave defects of democratic education. The plan elaborated by Mr. Gill comprehended making every public-school the theater for a municipal government. In fact, every school that adopts this method receives a charter from the board of education, and thenceforth the children govern, aided from time to time by the sympathetic suggestions of the teacher. Un- der their charter they form a complete city government, each room corresponding to a ward, the government of the whole being ad- ministered by a mayor, board of councilmen, judges, policemen and other officials, all elected for term of ten weeks by the free and full franchise of all the pupils of the School City. In referring to the need and practicality of the School City movement, the manual recently issued by the Board of Public Education of Philadelphia says: “ The duties of citizenship are so simple, easy, few and far between where citizens in general are faithful, that statesmen and scholars have failed to recognize that: “The habit of performing the few duties of citizenship is an art, and must be learned as other practical arts, by a long apprenticeship under competent instruction . Conducted with the right spirit, this is both simple and easy and a joy to all concerned, but the right habits of life cannot be formed except by long prac- tice. “Since the development of great factories and other establishments which separate boys during the character-forming period of their lives, from their parents, successful civic appren- ticeship can be carried on in the schools and nowhere else so well, if at all.'9 IV. PRACTICAL SUCCESS OF THIS IDEAL MEAS- URE FOR FOSTERING GOOD CITIZENSHIP. The first practical experience in the plan carefully elaborated by Mr. Gill was made in 1807. It proved even more successful than its friends dared to anticipate. Since then it has been successfully employed in normal schools, in public schools of various grades, from the lowest to the highest, and also in Cuba when the public-school system was introduced; for so marked had been the success in Philadelphia and elsewhere that when the United States gov- ernment occupied this island. General Wood employed Mr. Gill to introduce his method into the Cuban public-school system at the expense of the United States government of occupation. The success was most gratifying and pro- nounced, proving that the child-mind, even when it has had no educational advantages, is quick to catch the high, fine enthusiasm of die teacher and soon takes great pride in the government and discipline of the school in which it is a part of the responsible govern- ment. The manual to which we have referred, after describing the success in Cuba, says: “There are many successful School Cities in the United States, and the movement is develoDuur elsewhere. “In July, 1898, the Philadelphia Board of Public Education authorized the establishing of one School City. In 1908 they authorized its introduction into all schools applying for the privilege, and thirty schools availed themselves of it before June, 1904. In the fall the revised charter was authorized and the Board began the systematic introduction of the method, with a view of putting it into all schools as soon as practicable.99 It is interesting to note that where the movement has been in practical operation for a number of years it has steadily grown in favor. Thus we find Professor Myron T. Scudder, the head of the State Normal School at New Paltz, New York, thus testifying to the result in his own school: Digitized by Google
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540 Editorials. “The School City organized in this school five years ago is in more rigorous operation than ever, and is a powerful factor in our daily work. To me it is simply indispensable as an aid in school management, and I would not think for a moment of dropping it, or of substituting some other form of oiganization. The partici- pation of students in the management of the school is essential in any scheme of American education where children are to be trained and fitted to carry out the kind of government and to fill the responsibilities outlined in Lincoln’s Gettysburg address, and I consider the School City the best scheme ever devised for giving to our young people the kind of training that they need so much in these particulars.’* Professor Charles R. Drum, the principal of the Prospect School, of Syracuse, New York, writes as follows: “ From the time of your organizing the School City in my school, five years ago, to the present, we have gotten thoroughly satisfactory moral, civic and pedagogical results, such as previ- ously we knew nothing about. As you assured me we would — I not believing it possible — we have gotten equally good results from the first primary grade to the fourth grammar. Good organising always requires skill and thought, both in the inception and afterwards, but it is amply paid for by the better results and im- proved comfort of all concerned. The School City is no exception to this rule. It saves time, effort and friction for all our teachers. It en- ables us to maintain a good and kindly spirit throughout the school, and this a benefit to every feature of our work and school-life.’* Hugh Sutherland, Associate Editor of the Philadelphia North American , says: “I doubt whether there has ever been a new idea in the training of children that has won justification so rapidly as the School City plan which you evolved. The theory commends itself, while practice has demonstrated its use- fulness.” The Hon. Henry R. Edmunds, President of the Philadelphia Board of Public Education, in writing Mr. Gill, says: “You may rest satisfied that the movement you are making in favor of the School City has not only my sympathy but my wannest sup- port” * Friends of President Roosevelt will be pleased to know that he is also in hearty accord wifi the movement as in a letter written to Wiffias J. Justice, of Germantown, Pennsylvania, President Roosevelt observes: “I hear with satisfaction that an earnest movement is well advanced in Philadel- phia to establish in the schools of that city the teaching of civics by the admirable plan originated by Wilson L. Gill in the School City as a form of student government. 1 know of the work of Mr. Gill, both in thii country and in Cuba, where Mr. Gfll inaugu- rated this form of instruction upon the invita- tion of General Wood. Nothing could offer higher promise for the future of our country than an intelligent interest in the best ideals d citizenship, its privileges and duties among the students of our common schools. I wish for your efforts in this direction the utmost success.” V. THE CHARTER OF THE SCHOOL CITT. In the manual published by the Board of Public Education of Philadelphia is found the charter such as is given to each school apply- ing for it This charter was prepared with great care, after many leading educators, statesmen, clergymen and students of social and political science had been consulted, and as a result it is an admirable paper of its kind, very clear and explicit; and though it neces- sarily amplifies and explains some provisions at length, in order that the child may dearly grasp their import, the document is a marvel of conciseness, considering its scope. In ref- erence to it the manual says: “As it is necessary that this document, while in the legal form of an ordinary municipal charter, should be educational as well as man- datory, it has been thought best, even at the expense of an undesirable lengthening of the matter, to introduce considerable explanatory data, such as the statement of the object of the School City and of the principles of citizenship and of the explanation of such suggested im- provements in government as the ’initiative,’ ’referendum,* and ’proportional representa- tion.’” The following provisions will prove of special interest to our readers, and they also show that the friends of the School City are imbued with true democratic ideals: Digitized by Google
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Editorials. “Article III . — The Initiative . "* Section 1. Any citizen may draft a pro- ofed law or ‘bill* in the exact words in which e wishes it adopted. If ten per cent, of the tizens sign a petition asking that this bill be it>mitted to a vote of the citizens, the City lerk shall post a copy of the bill and shall give otice of an election to be held six school- ays later. The said petition shall name iree citizens who shall act as a committee > see that the ballots are correctly counted. l! this election voters who favor the bill ball vote ‘yes’; voters who oppose it shall ote ‘no/ The City Clerk shall count the votes n the presence of a committee of three citizens a provided for above, and declare the result, is in other elections. If a majority is found a opposition it shall be rejected and no similar >ill shall be again presented for three months. “Article IV. — The Referendum. “Section 1. Every bill adopted by the City l^ouncO shall become a law and go into effect nx school-days after receiving the Mayor’s sig- ftsture. As soon as it is signed by the Mayor, it shall be posted in a public place. If within four school-days a petition signed by ten per oent. of the voters shall be presented to the City Cleric, asking that such a law be submitted to a vote of the citizens, the City Clerk shall issue a notice of a special election to be held two school-days later. The said petition shall name three citizens who shall act as a committee to see that the ballots are correctly counted. At this election voters who favor the law shall vote 'yes’; voters who oppose it shall vote 'no.’ The City Cleric, in the presence of a committee of three citizens as provided for above, shall count the votes and shall announce the result. If a majority votes 'yes’ the law shall go into effect. If a majority votes 'no,* the law shall have no effect.” % The provision for proportional representation is not mandatory. Each school may or may not employ the following relating to this means for giving all parties a voice in government: "Sec. 4. Proportional representation is per- 541 mitted, in which case the following directions should be used: "All the election judges of the different par- ties shall meet with the City Clerk as an election board. They shall count the votes and pub- lish the results of the election as follows: " (1) They shall prepare a list of candidates and find the total number of votes cast for each candidate. " (2) They shall add together the votes for all the candidates on the same party ticket, in order to find the number of votes cast for each party. "(3) They shall add together the votes of all parties in order to find the total number of votes cast. "(4) They shall divide the total number of votes cast cast by the number of candidates to be elected. The result shall be known as the 'electoral quotient.’ " (5) They shall then divide the vote of each party as ascertained above by the electoral quo- tient. The result shall indicate the number of candidates elected by each party. In case this division does not come out even, the candidate of the party having the highest remainder shall be declared elected. "(6) The number of candidates to which a party is entitled, being determined as above, the successful candidates on a party ticket are the ones who have the largest number of votes on that ticket. "Sec. 5. Voting may be by viva vocet raising right hands, standing, written or printed ballot, white and colored beans or balls, or other means.” V. ▲ MOVEMENT THAT SHOULD BE ENCOUB- AGED BY EVERT PATRIOT. Next to the introduction of the initiative and referendum into the organic law of our land, we know of no movement so vitally or urgently demanded for the restoration and perpetuation of the fundamental demands of democracy as this splendid measure which fosters the civic spirit, inculcates the ideal of free institutions and habituates the child to perform the duties and requirements of a citizen of a true republic. Digitized by Google
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IN THE MIRROR OF THE PRESENT RUSSIA AND HER CHIEF CITADEL OF DESPOTISM. THE DEATH-BREEDING GENIUS OF NIGHT THAT BROODS OVER RUSSIA. THE NIGHT that broods over Russia and rightly places her without the bounds of enlightened civilisation, the night of ignorance and superstition marked by savage injustice and contempt for the rights of man, the night of irresponsible autocracy whose savagery is equaled only by its cupidity and corruption, is primarily due to the presence of the powerful religious hierarchy, at heart wholly pagan, yet which masquerades under the name of Christian and whose malignant head is the cruel, light-hating, justice-scorn- ing, reactionary, fanatic Constantine Petro- vitch Pobiedonostseff. The brutal bureaucracy would long since have gone down before the spread of intelligence and the enlightening influence of Western civil- isation, had it not been for the ceaseless vigi- lance and pernicious activity of the Grecian hierarchy in stifling all the aspirations of the people for light and learning. DOGMATIC RELIGIOUS HIERARCHIES THE AGE- LONG BARRIER TO FREEDOM, JUSTICE AND HUMAN RIGHTS. He who follows the history of nations will find that whenever great religious hierarchies exist which claim to be the vicegerents of Divinity or the sole receptacles of divine wisdom and its accredited interpreters, the priesthood becomes the most powerful bar to progress, the most effective bulwark of despotism, the most in- surmountable barrier to human freedom and the emancipation of the brain and body of the people. In ancient Egypt, the priesthood shackled thought and circumscribed learning within narrow limits, making their schools the only centers of knowledge and destroying the free and courageous minds, as foes of the gods, who dared to think and express their thoughts outside the prescribed or orthodox limits. The history of Israel furnishes another strik- ing example of the blighting influence of dog- matic religious hierarchies. Here as elsewhere the priesthood was the ultra-conservative ele- ment that bulwarked ancient wrong, and the outspoken enemy of the prophets of God, the champions of freedom, human rights and a nobler life. The hierarchy persecuted and dew the true apostles of light all through the ancient days down to the advent of Christ, who fitting- ly characterized the baneful influence over the mind and heart and life of the people; and it was again the hierarchy that compassed the death of the great Galilean. So through every age and land where a hier- archy has assumed infallibility and arrqgated to itself the sovereign right of Deity, the people have come under the bondage of fear, becoming slaves to the power that claimed the right to thunder anathemas against all who challenged its dogmas, while the high-priests of humanity, of science and of progress have been slain, im- prisoned, ostracized or exiled. Thus it was the hierarchy that slew that noble and austere child of exalted religion and liberty, Savonarola; the hierarchy that burned Bruno; the hierarchy that imprisoned Galileo; the hierarchy that established the Inquisition, that frightful engine of the pit, responsible for the most cruel murder of the noblest, finest and best of earth's children through generations of time. So in Russia to-day, it is the hierarchy dial has excommunicated and anathematized Count Leo Tolstoi, the loftiest and most Christ-like great man of the nation; while there can be little doubt but that, were it not for Tolstoi’s preach- ing of non-resistance to the peasants making him more useful to the bureaucracy living than dead, he would long ere this have shared the fate of his ill-starred brother. It is the hier- archy that represents the supreme incarnation of eclipse; for after centuries of absolute sway we find her millions wrapped in ignorance and craven, superstitious fear. And for generations throughout this vast empire the finest, noblest and bravest sons and daughters of the realm, whenever 'they have pleaded for the suffering ones, whenever they have asked for the light of learning, whenever they have appealed for jus- ter social conditions, have been seized and with- out trial condemned to dungeons, to death, or to the living death in the prisons and mines of far-away Siberia; while throughout the govern- ment that is everywhere responsive to the hie- rarchy, we find a prevalence of corruption, deg- 642 Digitized by Google
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543 In the Mirror of the Present. nutation and brutality such as exists in no other land to-day, with the possible exception of Turkey, and the cry of the starving is answered by the brutal massacre of hundreds. Such is the nation which to-day in greater degree than any other country is under the influence of a religious hierarchy — a religious hierarchy that has as its master-spirit a man who is of all men known to history the most perfect and colossal type of the arrogant head of a dogmatic theo- logical hierarchy. THE MOOT FATAL FIGURE IN RUSSIA. Constantine Petrovitch Pobiedonostseff has for a quarter of a century been the real, but not the nominal, head of the Russian church, and he is to-day by far the most powerful as he is the most fatal personage in the empire of the Czar, not merely by virtue of his position as Procurator-General of the Holy Synod, but as the man who has moulded the minds of two gen- erations of the Romanoffs as completely as ever priest, confessor, teacher or guardian moulded the plastic mind of youth. By Akxander.il., Pobiedonostseff was made the tutor of his sons. They became as clay in his hands, and thus Alexander HI. and the grand dukes, his broth- ers, came to reflect the thoughts, ideals, wishes and desires of the hard, medieval religious bigot. On the accession of Alexander HI., Pobied- onostseff was summoned to the court and made the special adviser and councillor of the auto- crat. Of his influence over this emperor, Man- fred Lilliefors, in the course of a discriminating analysis of the life and character of Pobiedo- nostseff which recently appeared in the Boston Transcript , says: “His first advice to the young Czar was to tear to pieces the constitutional programme which his father had left behind him as an evidence of his intentions, and the second was like unto it, to strenghten the foundations of the realm on the basis of autocracy, the nation and orthodoxy with all the powers at his command. Subsequent history shows that, although Alexander HI. may have wavered at times, the policy dictated by Pobiedonostseff was carried out in all its details.” To-day, continues Mr. Lilliefors, “He is the same invincible foeof freedom and reform, the same fanatical bigot that he always has been. Emperors and ministers may be assassinated, the streets of St. Petersburg be covered with the blood of innocent citizens; commerce and industry may cease and the cries of hunger, starvation and violence be heard from one end of the country to the other, as the result of the policy of despotism, but the man in the Procurator-General’s chair remains unshaken.” The influence which this genius of reaction and night exerts over the present Czar is all but supreme. Nicholas time and again has turned his face toward the light. He has even for a little time given ear to noble men who represent in some degree the spirit of enlightened civili- zation; but always when he has seemed about to hearken to the cry of justice and the plead- ings of the people, the great religious reaction- ary has thundered anathemas upon all the pro- gressive programmes and reform movements, and the Czar has forthwith bowed to the will of his real master. This fact was never more strikingly illustrated than recently when Prince Mirsky sought to save Russia from revolution and anarchy, when the zemstvos petitioned the Czar for a constitutional government, and when Count Tolstoi addressed his earnest epistle to the autocrat. All these influences were fav- orable to the cause of freedom and human progress, and for a moment it seemed that the Czar was about to yield, when Pobiedonostseff addressed a letter to his slave-master which wrought the desired result. The Czar became again the puppet of the priest. This letter, translated by Mr. Lilliefors, is given below as furnishing a key to the character of the man who to-day is the real master of Russia, and also as showing how easy it is for such a fanatic to influence a weak, superstitious and unstable man like Nicholas H., who from infancy has been taught to heed and be guided by the priest. “Gracious Ruler! Our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, has committed to thee the holy mission of establishing the orthodox cross in the Far East amid a people who worship idols and know not God, and who are therefore not like God’s image, but filthy apes. It is indeed no easy task to bring the cross thither, still less to plant it among the enemies of faith. Severe trials have been endured not only by our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, but even by the Apostles and thy forefathers, the Czars. But the hour of vic- tory is nigh. Through thy sovereign will hun- dreds of thousands of the sons of the Orthodox Church who are devotedly loyal to thee have been sent out to defend the Fatherland and the orthodox faith, and every day innumerable armies of these loyal subjects are hastening thither. Digitized by Google
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544 In the Mirror of the Present. “And it is at such a time. Czar, that thy ser- vants and thy noblemen dare to disturb thy holy and orthodox soul with their foolhardy machinations for the diminishing of thy absolute power and the establishment of a national convention! All these intrigues have arisen because thy enemies are envi- ous of thee and because they feel that to thee is committed the glorious historical mis- sion of introducing the orthodox faith in the Far East. Thou, as autocrat and the Lord’s anointed, hast the right to do everything ac- cording to thine own judgment and the desire of thine own heart. Thou hast the right to sentence to death or to pardon thy faithful subjects. Thou hast the right to show mercy or wrath according to thine own good pleasure. Thou rulest to honor the name of Russia and to slay thine enemies with fear. But thou, our Czar, hast not the right to break thy holy oath which thou gavest before the Lord thy God to keep the promises of thy forefathers to maintain the Autocracy, and the orthodox faith, which is closely allied to it. “Forget not, oh Czar, that thou art the Lord’s anointed. Remember how thy noble countenance shown in the cathedral when thou utteredst the holy promises to the Lord our God, when thou camedst thy crown, thy scepter, and the emblems of thy power, which have been given to thee first by thy forefathers, and then by thy orthodox people. Fear not the counsels of those who are near thee, and break not thy oaths. For if thou, oh autocrat, breakest thine oath, all those who are near thee will begin to break their oaths, and then the Church, the State and the Holy Synod will lose their prestige, and the Orthodox Faith will dis- appear, swallowed up in the victory of the other ft race. M. Pobiedonostaeff is the author of several works. His principal book is largely an attack on democracy, parliamentary government, lib- erty of the press, popular education, jury trials, or, in a word, the things which in modem tones have given wings to civilization — freedom to the brain of man, happiness, development and en- richment to the lives of the millions. One of the pet aversions of M. Pobiedonostaeff is popular education, which he rightly discerns to be the mother of freedom and democracy. Without the baleful influence of this man there is little doubt but that Rilssia would long since have become a comparatively free power, with a constitutional form of government and with liberty of the press, liberty of association and liberty of oiganization enjoyed by the people. In the nature of things, this midnight of au- tocratic and religious oppression must soon give way either before the fires and bloodshed of sanguinary strife, of anarchy and revolution, forced upon the people by the despotism and perverseness of a reactionary church and a selfish autocracy, or through concessions made by the crown while yet there is time. And certain it is, when the change does come, the recreant church, so long the bulwark of op- pression, injustice, ignorance and superstition and long since weighed in the balance and found wanting, will find herself bereft of the power and influence which, had she been true to her trust, would have made her the strength, the glory and the light-bearer of Russia. SOCIAL, ETHICAL AND ECONOMICAL PROBLEMS. Professor Giddings’ Defence of Divorce. ROFESSOR FRANKLIN H. GID- DINGS, who fills the chair of sociology in Columbia University, has recently given his views on divorce; and coming from one of the most careful thinkers and eminent sociologists of the New World, his opinions are worthy of special consideration. Professor Giddings’ reasoning is free from that hysterical emotionalism that has marked so much of the recent clamor for restrictive divorce legislation and which is frequently a strong characteristic of minds which respond to superficial appearances and arguments without seeking the fundamental causes which affect the subject under discussion, and also of think- ers who are more dominated by prejudice and preconceived opinions than by reason and the obvious workings of natural law. After noting with satisfaction the request of President Roosevelt that Congress should authorize a new statistical investigation of the extent, condition and causes of divorce in file United States, Professor Giddings observes: “It is to be anticipated, however, that the Digitized by Google
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545 In the Mirror of the Present. >eople that are so greatly exercised over what .hey are pleased to call ‘the divorce evil,’ will >e as grievously disappointed by the results of his investigation as they were in 1880. The nvestigation reported at that time was in- stigated by persons who believed that the >pportunity which dissatisfied persons enjoyed* » go from one state to another for the purpose >f obtaining a dissolution of marriage ties, was m important factor in swelling the number of divorces, and that the situation called for a national law of marriage and divorce. The statistics obtained by Colonel Wright demon- strated to the great disappointment of the anti- divorce element that only a small percentage of all divorces were obtained through a change of residence, and showed, furthermore, that while some divorces were obtained through fraud the vast majority were granted for causes that most sensible people regard as legitimate.” Our author next shows that some years ago, owing to the laxity of divorce-laws in some states it was possible for an unprincipled man or woman to secure a divorce without the other contracting party knowing of the divorce suit when it was pending; but he shows that that abuse has ceased, as the courts everywhere re- fuse to recognise the validity of decrees with- out proof of personal service of notice on the defendant. He also shows that the laws have been made much more stringent in various states during the past decade. In discussing the question of the attempt to restrict divorces through national legislation or more stringent state laws. Professor Giddings* words reveal the broad-minded moral philosopher who is the reverse of the prejudice-swayed emotion- alist. On this important theme, among other things, he says: “As to the more difficult question, whether divorce ought to be made more difficult and of less frequent occurrence than now, I am unable to share the fears of the alarmists or the views of the reactionary element in eccle- siastical circles. “ It is true that divorces are more numerous in the United States in proportion to popu- lation than they they are in other countries. But it will not do to assume that the American people are, therefore, more immoral in sexual matters than are the people of other lands. The exact contrary may turn out to be the truth, and my own opinion is that such is, indeed, the fact. I believe that a really se- rious investigation of the subject would show that one of the chief causes of the high rate of divorce in the United States is to be found in the high standard of decency, intelligence, and high-spirited character maintained by American women. To be explicit, I mean that American women will not put up with immoral or brutal conduct on the part of their husbands that the women of other lands, willingly or unwillingly, endure, and that, I fear, the Christian Church in other lands has more than once, in its horror of divorce, winked at and condoned. “The opponents of divorce talk as if any- body could get a divorce in the United States by merely asking for it. Their talk is insin- cere, because they know perfectly well that divorces are granted only by courts of justice that on the whole are presided over by upright and sensible judges, and that practically there are only three grounds for divorce, namely, adultery, intolerable cruelty and desertion. “Those who object to divorce on any of these grounds may be divided into two classes, first, those who insist that married persons, having entered into a covenant for life, or, as some of them would say, a sacramental rela- tion, must make the best of it, however wretch- ed their state, until death releases them; and, secondly, those who, unwilling to take quite so extreme a position, would allow a legal sepa- ration, but not an absolute divorce with the right to remarry. The first of these positions the Protestant world has regarded as both cruel and inexpedient, and the second posi- tion is demonstrably immoral. Legally to separate married persons and forbid them to assume new marital relations is deliberately to incite and condone adultery. The man who teaches otherwise is either ignorant of the actual facts of life and of human nature or he has argued himself into a belief that concubinage and prostitution are less evil than divorce. “The most unwarranted assumption that the opponents of divorce are making, and always have made, is that the alternative of divorce is an actual life-long monogamy. Any man at all familiar with social conditions ought to know that this assumption will not bear examination. In the evolution of marriage, all possible relations of the sexes, including polyandry and polygamy, have been tried, and we are in the habit of con- congratulatmg ourselves that the Christian world has arrived at monogamy. What Digitized by Google
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546 In the Mirror of the Present. it has actually arrived at is a nominal monog- amy, which too often in reality is a clandes- tine polygamy. . . . The opponents of di- vorce are opposing progress. Human nature being what it is at present, they will not make the world monogamous by refusing redress of domestic grievances. They will merely keep it a while longer in the stage of clan- destine polygamy. “We should understand this whole sub- ject better if, instead of asking why there are now so many divorces, we should turn the question about and ask why, until re- cently, there were so few. In all countries until now, and in most countries except the United States to-day, the economic struggle for existence has been so severe for the vast majority of human beings that they have had little leisure and less energy for any con- cern in life except material provision for themselves and their children. If they have been able to get enough to eat and to wear, to accumulate a little property, and to give their children some rudiments of education, they have achieved all the success and happi- ness that they could reasonably expect. In this struggle woman has borne an altogether disproportionate share of burden and sor- row. She has been made to feel that life is made up of a good deal more than ninety per cent, of duty to ten per cent, of happiness. The unfaithful, brutal, or uncongenial hus- band lias been accepted by her as merely a part of the primitive curse pronounced upon her by an all-wise God. Happily, in some sections of the human race the economic struggle is becoming less severe, and some thousands of women, as well as men, are finding time and strength to begin to be in- telligent human beings, and to think occa- sionally about the possibility of obtaining happiness, as well as bread and butter. “The marriage relation is now the only social relation remaining in which a mistake once made is regarded by large numbers of serious-minded persons as irremediable.” It seems to us a cause for deep regret that a number of Protestant clergymen have followed the lead of the reactionary Roman priesthood in this clamor for restrictive leg- islation, instead of broadly considering the question in its relation to fundamental mor- ality and the weal of the oncoming genera- tion. It is a noteworthy fact that on this subject certain Protestant divines are far more reactionary than great thinkers among the Protestant leaders of earlier times, as Professor Giddings thus points out: “On the whole question many of the lead- ers of the Protestant Reformation and of the Puritan reform were far wiser than the ecclesiastics of to-day. The soundest trea- tise on the subject of divorce ever written is John Milton’s Tract. Clerical reactionaries are not as fond of quoting Milton “On Di- vorce” as they are of invoking his poetical account of creation against the evolution- ists. Their answers to his arguments never get beyond a petty textual interpretation of the Scriptures. On the broad grounds of humanity and common-sense they have never yet squarely met him, and I venture to pre- dict that they never will. “On the whole, the wisest divorce law ever enacted was the ordinance drafted by the Swiss reformer, Huldreich Zwingli, and adopt- ed by the Municipal Council of Zurich in 1525. It provided as follows: ‘Since . . . some by nature or other shortcomings are not fitted for the partners they have chosen, they shall nevertheless live together as friends for a year, to see if matters may not better themselves by the prayers of themselves and of other honest people. If it does not grow better in that time they shall be separated and allowed to marry elsewhere.* “The' American commonwealths could not do better than to conform their divorce legislation to this standard.” We believe that a vast majority of our more thoughtful people share Professor Giddings* views. There are a few degenerates, chiefly in the frivolous society and parvenue-rich element of metropolitan life, whose lives are a disgrace to civilisation. When some of these parties go to court, the scandal-mong- ering press makes a great sensation of the facts, and reactionary priests and clergymen treat these exceptions as though they were the common ground of divorce, or as if the great majority of those who seek separation did so for frivolous or insufficient reasons; while, as a matter of fact^atf previous inves- tigation has shown — and wte are confident that all honest investigation at the present time will show — that the vast majority who seek divorces do so only after life together has become virtually intolerable. The shallow emotionalists never seem to reflect that there Digitized by Google
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547 In the Mirror of the Present. are things far worse than divorce — things that are incomparably more evil in their influence on the life of the rising generation and the society of to-morrow; and it is to escape such evils that the great majority of those who seek divorce ask for it only after conditions have become unbearable without a sacrifice of self-respect and degradation of spirit. One of these things is enforced parenthood when it means cursing the future by bringing into the world children of drunken fathers or those so diseased that they are destined to transmit the seeds of terrible maladies to the unborn. Another is the evil condition which compels a woman to live with a man after his cruelty has made life a hideous nightmare, or the enforced maternity after love is turned to loathing, and the rearing of children in homes of hate. These things are incomparably worse than divorce, — worse for the present generation and indescribably worse for the generation of to-morrow. Some Facts About High Protection, Reaction and Militarism. THE ADDRESS of the eminent English publicist, Mr. Russell Rea, delivered some time since before the National liberal Club of London, should command the thought- ful attention of all true patriots who are open- minded enough to rise above prejudice and to dare to think for themselves. In this address Mr. Rea went into an extensive and carefully prepared statistical account of protection in various leading nations; also of the tonnage of ships engaged in foreign trade, in relation to the number of inhabitants in the countries mentioned. He showed that under the auto- cratic government of the Czar, protection has reached its apogee. In this land, where mil- lions are starving and millions of others never know what it is to enjoy a decent meal, the ad valorem percentage of duties charged is 181. The nation that comes next to Russia in the scale of high protection powers is the United States, with an ad valorem percentage of 78; while the percentage of Austria-Hungary is 95; of France, 34; of Italy, 27; of Germany, *5; of Sweden, 28; of Norway, 12; of Holland, 9; and Great Britain has no protective tariff. The high protectionists who are reaping Bullions upon millions of dollars from the pockets of the American producing and con- suming public, by protective tariffs which en- able the corporations to charge much higher prices to the American people than they would think of charging foreign nations (as, for ex- ample, the steel-trust, which compels the American iron-users to pay from six to eleven dollars a ton more for steel than the Canadians or the English pay the same company for the same steel), and the same interests which are now clamoring for further plunder of the Amer- ican people by the granting to corporations, that they would control, of princely subsidies for an American merchant-marine, will find no comfort in Mr. Rea’s masterly exposition; as he points out the significant fact that the commercial. success of foreign trade is in “in- verse proportion to the intensity of protection,” — that is, considering the merchant-marine on a per capita basis and comparing the tonnage of vessels engaged in foreign trade, we find that when basing the estimates on the number of inhabitants in the lands mentioned, the order in the tonnage of ships engaged in foreign traf- fic is as follows: Norway, Great Britain, Hol- land, Sweden, Germany, France, Italy, Aus- tria, the United States, and Russia. It will be noticed that this is almost an exact reversion of the order of the nations rated in proportion to the amount of protection levied; and from his statistics Mr. Rea concludes that the greater the freedom of trade the greater the proportion of general commerce. He further shows that subsidies do not seem to make any especial difference in favor of the subsidized nations. For example: France and Italy both have a subsidy-system in active force; yet their merchant tonnage engaged in foreign trade is only about one-half that of Ger- many, which has no subsidy system There are other thoughts suggested by Mr. Rea’s statistical showing. It is interesting to to note that the three things most marked in the political, social and economic condition of Russia are (1) the autocratic character of the government, resulting in oppression, persecu- tion and general contempt for the rights of the people; (2) widespread poverty, misery, star- vation and wretchedness, not only among the eleven millions of peasants, but also among the workers, whose wage is pitifully inadequate to meet the enormous prices rendered possible by the exorbitant protective tariff, which places the millions of Russia, as it places our millions, at the mercy of the capitalistic exploiters who enjoy the high protection; and (3) militarism and insatiable greed dominating the ruling class. Digitized by Google
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548 In the Mirror In our country, since the old-time theory of protection for infant industries merely until they had been established gave place to pur- chased protection by trusts and special classes, which placed the millions of wealth-producers and consumers completely at the mercy of the avaricious monopolists, we find a general and rapid rise of a reactionary spirit absolutely inimical and indeed destructive to democratic institutions, a spread of imperialistic militarism and the rule of class and privileged inter- ests through political machines, by which the rights of the people and the rights of the producing and consuming classes are systematically subordinated to the selfish in- terests of corporate wealth. And with this domination of purchased protection we note the rapid waning of the old-time democratic simplicity and purity in government, and in their place a steady, rapid and sinister central- ization and usurpation of power by the ruling classes not comprehended or intended by the Constitution or the fathers of the republic. Nothing is more ominous in our present political life than the steady attempts at usurpation of the legislative and judiciid functions by the executive department of government, unless it be the usurpations and abuses of the power of injunction by a portion of the judiciary be- holden to corporate wealth. Thus it is a sig- nificant fact that as privileged interests have more and more gained unjust protection and power for the exploitation of the people, there have come on gradual usurpations in the inter- ests of the ruling and the privileged classes, who through control or mastery of political machines have placed the electorate at their mercy; and as a result we find a steady reaction away from the old ideals and principles of democracy. In a general way we believe that high protec- tion, militarism and reaction will be found going hand-in-hand, animated by the spirit of self- ishness and class-interests; while true democ- racy will ever tend toward a broadening of freedom in trade as in other things, and a fos- tering of peace, progress, justice and brother- hood. Something Worse Than Yellow Journalism. TO THE student of passing events in the republic, few things are more obvious than the persistent and aggressive manner in which certain interests and their tools are striv- of the Present. ing to create an hysterical paroxyism of reason- less emotionalism among the so-called respect- able element” of society which shall result in a general clamor against the newspapers of America that are exposing the corruption and extortion of the public-service companies and predatory wealth, which are to-day rendered possible through the mastership of political machinery by great corporations and leading gamblers of Wall street These papers, cry the controlled press and its echoes and sycho- phants, are yellow; they are not respectable; they manufacture news; they are given to ex- aggeration; they are not to be trusted. And so the indictment is glibly parroted off with tire- some monotony, but not without a settled purpose on the part of the real or chief insti- gators of the clamor — the venal political bosses, the recreant public servants, the cor- rupt public-service companies, the trusts and other privileged interests, and the great gamblers of Wall street that promote bubble ship-companies, inflated steel-trusts and other schemes that are stocked for far more than their legitimate value warrants and which can only be made to pay dividends by flagrant robbery of the people. There is nothing these enemies of the re- public so fear as the so-called yellow journals. They have been unable to buy, control, or browbeat them into silence. Moreover, when the government officials have refused to give the people redress, and when the pockets of the millions were being depleted by criminal trusts and law-defying public-service compan- ies, these same yellow journals have time and again haled the criminals into court, until they have created consternation in the strongholds of the modem commercial feudalism. The yellow journals are to-day the most formidable obstacle in the way of the absolute triumph of the despotism of corporate wealth — a despot- ism which through ownership of political bosses and party-machines has rendered pos- sible such sickening carnivals of political de- bauchery, public plunder and treason against the people as are being vividly described by Rudolph Blankenburg in The Arena, by Lincoln Steffens in McClure's, by Thomas Lawson in Everybody's, and by other well- known writers. Silently but with unchecked tread corporate wealth has steadily advanc- ed from vantage-ground to vantage-ground. One by one, it has captured the party-machines and political bosses, and through these cap- Digitized by Google
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549 In the Mirror tures H has been enabled to replace the incor- ruptible statesmen and true servants of the people by servants and beneficiaries of priv- ileged wealth. Simultaneously with this steady increase in power throughout municipal, state and national government, has gone forward its equally sinister increase in power over a large proportion of the press, the pulpits and certain American colleges, notably those that have been subsidised by corporate wealth. But at the moment when it seemed as if the people were being bound securely, hand and foot, there suddenly arose the great popular press, which is at the present time daily speak- ing to several millions of the American people and whose editorials are day by day laying before the public the real inside facts relating to the way in which they are being plundered, and which is also exposing the corrupt practices of the people’s mis-representatives. And so rapidly have these voices of democracy gained the public ear, so enormous has been their suc- cess, that the enemies of the republic are be- coming alarmed. Hence the constant, per- sistent and increasing efforts to discredit the so-called yellow journals. This method on the part of the corporations is nothing new. It has long been their policy to seek by slander, misrepresentation and calumny to prejudice the multitudes against the incorruptible, un- sullied and high-minded reformers who have been denounced as cranks, as anarchists, as sensational alarmists, unworthy to be taken seriously, precisely as at the present time the yellow journalists are being denounced. Yet while freely granting that there are fea- tures about the popular daily press that we regret to see present, while admitting that there is far too much space given to crime, to prise fights, to sports, to the ostentation of wealth, and to kindred subjects, to us these weaknesses and faults of the so-called yellow journals are insignificant indeed compared with the injury wrought by the controlled press — those dailies and weeklies that are dominated by corporate influences and that cater to privi- leged wealth while posing as the exponents of respectability and integrity — journals that pretend to have the interests of the people at heart while doing the bidding, as abjectly as the political bosses, of the real masters, thepub- hc-aervice corporations and privileged inter- ests, and in so doing are through specious ugument and special pleading misleading the people on subjects vital to their interest and of the Present. welfare and seeking to discredit and injure the work of those who are single-heartedly fighting for the principles of justice, right and civic integrity. These newspapers and peri- odicals are like pirate-craft that sail under false flags in order that they may deceive and lure the unwary to ruin; their real flag is the black rag with the skull and cross-bones. So this treason to nation, to principle and to the well-being of the people on the part of the controlled press merits the title of black journalism. Papers of this class are sailing under false flags. They are posing as being highly respectable. They sneer at and assail individuals who have laid bare the corruption of America’s modern Monte Carlo, Wall street, and the great corporations, without attempting to answer in a straightforward manner die amaring revelations of moral turpitude on the part of the enemies of the republic, and they become hysterical over yellow journalism; or in other words, they do precisely what the alarmed corporations wish done, and they systematically seek to foster reactionary and class-rule ideals in the minds of their readers. These Pharisees who pose as respectable and seek to cast the mantle of respectability over the greatest enemies of the republic, while the latter pur- sue their systematic plunder of the people and corruption of the people’s servants, are in fact the pirates on the high seas of modem journalism, whose sinister influence in the republic cannot be overestimated. They are the moral black plague that stifles the intelligence and conscience of the nation to such a degree as to render possible such car- nivals of graft, corruption and moral degra- dation as are to-day being witnessed in Penn- sylvania and Colorado, in Philadelphia and New York. A Referendum Victory in Municipal Government. THE MUNICIPAL election recently held in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, re- sulted in a distinct victory for the principle of popular sovereignty. Johnstown, like most cities in Pennsylvania since the corporations have gained complete control or ownership of the Republican party of the Keystone State, has been a Republican stronghold. The hour is approaching, however, when the lines of battle will not be drawn between those Digitized by Google
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550 In the Mirror who are nominally republican or nominally democratic, but rather between the friends of popular government or the fundamental princi- ples which differentiate a republic from a class- ruled land, and the upholders of reactionary ideals which seek to foster imperialism, autoc- racy, or an industrial feudalism acting through corrupt political machines to defeat the in- terests and wishes of the people. And as one of the opening skirmishes in this irrepressible conflict which is bound to soon become na- tion-wide in scope and upon the issuance of which depend the life or death of true de- mocracy or free institutions, the election at Johnstown is significant and inspiring; for the battle was a clear-cut contest upon the acceptance or rejection of the referendum by the electorate. The Democratic candidate for mayor, Mr. Charles Young, fought his campaign purely on the issue of Direct-Legislation. This was the one clear-cut and all-dominating issue insisted upon. The Republican can- didate cheerfully accepted the issue and fought the principle of majority rule as whole-heartedly as did the upholders of the Stuarts fight the principles for which Eliot, Pym and Hampden contended, or the Tories of New England fought the just demands advanced by Otis, Adams and Hancock. Nothing is so dreaded by the corrupt and the corrupted in government as the popular initiative and referendum, guaranteeing as they do a truly democratic government; for their success necessarily depends on the de- gree in which they can destroy the genius of democracy and replace it by class domination. Nothing is more distasteful to the corporations which are robbing the people than the idea of the people having the opportunity to veto their wholesale steals which are constantly being consummated through purchased legis- lation. The Republican candidate for mayor knew that the nominal Republican majority in Johnstown was 800. He knew that the cor- porations and the machine influence were behind him, and he as well as his real masters doubtless felt that the opportunity was in every way a most favorable one to deal a hard blow to the cause of popular sovereignty in Johnstown, by an overwhelming defeat of the referendum. So he accepted the issue made by Mr. Young and his supporters and a most vigorous battle was fought which resulted in of the Present. the election of Mr. Young by a majority of 514, or a change of over 1800 votes in the mu- nicipality. The hour is ripe for pushing this all-im- portant provision for the protection of the people from the spoilers and the preserratka of free institutions. Active organizations, leagues or associations should be formed m every city, town and county, even though they consist of but two or three members at the time of their oiganization; and these bodies should so far as possible keep in touch with all other Direct-Legislation groups. The genius of free government never more ur- gently demanded the servants of progress to enlist in a great moral campaign than she to- day demands true patriots to range themselfes actively in the battle for the restoration of the republic from the rule of corrupt politician* and party machines controlled by public-ser- vice corporations and privileged interests. Successful Co6peration in Kansas. CALIFORNIA has long been the banner- state in the republic for successful co- operative stores. The Rochdale oottperators in that commonwealth own and operate a large wholesale store and about sixty flourish- ing retail stores. Kansas ranks second in suc- cessful cooperative stores conducted on the general plan of the Rochdale coftperatore. At the fourth annual meeting of the Kansas State Cooperative Union, held on March fink, reports from all parts of the state showed the societies to be in an exceptionally flourishing condition, while six new stores have been added during the past year. These are lo- cated at Wichita, Cunningham, Parsons, Kins- ley and Lamed. At the last-named {dace the cooperators also own an elevator and a flour-mill. The growth of the business in the older stores was most gratifying. Thus, for ex- ample, it was shown that the cottperators* association of Reno county numbers five hun- dred members. Its capital is $28,000, and though the store is but two years old, last year it did a business of $182,000 and paid eight per cent, interest and eight per cent rebates on trade. The cooperative store at Kingman is less than two years old, but it numbers two hundred members, has $15,000 capital, and from its oiganization has paid eight per cent, interest and seven per cent Digitized by Google
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551 In the Mirror of the Present. rebates on sales. Several other stores made surprisingly good showings. There are a number of successful cooperative enterprises besides the stores in Kansas, the elevators being especially in evidence, while at Blue Rapids a farmers’ cooperative machine fac- tory has recently been established. Two things are essential to the success of cooperative movements. One is the wise and judicial selection of managers for the stores or whatever business the cobperators engage in, and the second is moral enthusiasm among the codperators which leads them to carry into the work something of that zeal and mis- sionary spirit which in a good cause is irre- sistible; for the heart of man no less than the brain quickly comes under the spell of lofty ideals or ideals in which the spirit of justice dominates, whenever the brain is convinced that the proposed plan is practicable. And the record of cooperation is a record of won- derful success whenever wisdom has been exercised in securing the right kind of man- agement and when the members have been enthused with the true cooperative spirit. We believe cooperation to be one of the most powerful constructive movements of our age* as important on the economic plane as is Direct-Legislation in the sphere of practical politics. THE AMAZING MORAL TURPITUDE OF THE I-AST CONGRESS. PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT’S “ CONSTRUCTIVE ” RECESS. SELDOM in the history of moral obloquy in high places has there been a more brazen or amazing attempt to rob the people by the nation’s representatives than was ex- hibited in the closing hours of the last Congress. It will be remembered that among the dis- creditable exhibitions of sharp practice on the part of President Roosevelt, by which from time to time, he has sought to circum- vent constitutional limitations through the cunning aid of that whilom trust and railroad attorney. Philander Knox, was the invention of an imaginary recess which was supposed to exist between the falling of the gavel in the hand of the president of the Senate, which marked the dose of the extra session, and the rapping to order which immediately fol- lowed and signalized the opening of the reg- ular session of congress. This “construc- tive” or imaginary recess was invented by the president and his attorney-general to en- able Mr. Roosevelt to retain in office certain officials who, he had reason to believe, were obnoxious to the Senate. Happily the Sen- ate has rightfully forestalled any further attempts to ignore the spirit and letter of the Constitution in a similar manner, by declar- ing that no such “constructive” recess exists; in the language of the resolution adopted: “The evident intent of the framers of the Con- stitution was that ’recess’ should mean some- thing real, not something imaginary; some- thing actual, not something fictitious. They used the word as the mass of mankind then understood it and now understand it.” MILEAGE THAT HAS NOT PREVENTED BRIBERY OF CONGRESSMEN BY PASSES. In the early days of the republic provisions were made for each congressman, in addition to his salary, to receive mileage to and from his home for the journeys necessitated by the attendance at the sessions of Congress. This was to cover what it was expected he would be compelled to pay for his transportation and was made as a just provision for the mem- bers, and it was supposed that it would also take away all temptations to bribery of mem- bers by transportation companies. In later years, however, congressmen have been in the habit of accepting bribes in the form of passes or courtesies from the railways, and in return they certainly have been good to the railroad interests. That such courtesies are regarded in the nature of bribes by the great railroads was clearly shown by the emphatic testimony of so great a railway-magnate as the late C. P. Huntington, who was a past- master in corrupt practices when it came to betraying the people’s interests for the ben- efit of his railway corporation. In a letter written by Mr. Huntington to General Colton Digitized by Google
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553 In the Mirror of the Present. on January $9, 1876, and later placed in evi- dence when General Colton’s widow sued Mr. Huntington for money alleged to be due her husband, Mr. Huntington thus signifi- cantly referred to the influence of railway- passes in the hands of Tom Scott of the Penn- sylvania Railroad, who was then interested in the Texas Pacific: “Scott is making a terrible effort to pass his bill, and has many advantages, with his railroads running out from Washington in almost every direction, on which he gives free passes to everyone that he thinks can help him ever so little. The Texas Pacific seems to own almost everyone in the whole country.” Now the moral degradation that has come as a part of the practical ownership of gov- ernment by the railways and the corporations has resulted in a reign of graft in all depart- ments of government. The numerous evi- dences that in recent years have been con- tinuously cropping out would be sufficient to prove this, even if there was no equally dear evidence in the acts of the people’s servants in defeating or emasculating all legislation which would give the people relief from the oppressions and extortions from which they are suffering through public-service corpor- ations and monopolies, and in shielding and protecting from punishment corrupt corpor- ations. This condition of affairs, and especially this bribery of the people’s representatives with passes and courtesies, while the same officials have greedily taken from the gov- ernment the sums appropriated for their mile- age, has apparently blunted every sentiment of integrity and morality on the part of many congressmen not hitherto supposed to be the mere tools or puppets of public-service com- panies and privileged interests. THE LATE ATTEMPT BY CONGRESS TO STEAL $190,000 OF THE people’s MONEY. The most striking and shameful example of the depths of moral degradation to which the people’s national representatives have fallen was seen in the recent attempt to steal from the people a large sum to which the congressmen could be in no wise entitled. Sddom has more flagrant dishonesty or moral turpitude appeared in so brazen a manner as in the attempt of the last House of Representatives to secure mileage for its members from the government to cover their imaginary trips from the national capital to their homes and the return, during Presi- dent Roosevelt’s “constructive” recess. The fact that in reality there was no recess was a matter of no consequence to these recreant public servant a who sought to deliberately rob the tax-payers of the United States. The steal failed of consummation only be- cause the Senate threw it out. Congress- men so blind to all sentiments of integrity and moral rectitude foster contempt for hon- esty and upright dealing on the part of the people and necessarily greatly aid in in- creasing the burdens of the State. They are moral criminals, recreant to their trust, and should be driven forever from public service by an outraged electorate. So important is it that the voters bear in mind this high-handed offence against pub- lic morality, that in order to specially em- phasize the subject we reproduce below a part of an able editorial from the Boston Herald, in which the genesis and story of the attempted steal is succinctly described and the names of the leading advocates are given. It will be noticed that the two Massachusetts congressmen who went on record in favor of the grab were Mr. Sullivan, who recently assailed Mr. Hearst when the latter was ably striving to secure for the people relief from the criminal oppression of the railways, and Mr. McNaiy. Both these recreant congressmen are Boston Dem- ocrats, and this act alone should forever de- stroy all future political prospects for these gen- tlemen. “The attempt of the House of Repre- sentatives to secure payment for mileage for the second session of the Fifty-eighth Congress was artfully worked. The meas- ure did succeed in passing the House, but it was thrown out in the Senate. Its purpose was to secure payment of mileage to the members of Congress for going to their homes and returning during die alleged ’constructive recess,’ between the end of the first session and the beginning of the second session of the Fifty-eighth Congress, when there was no actual recess and no member did any traveling between his home and Washington. The members, in fact, did not leave their seats. One session ended and the other began in the same Digitized by Google
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553 In the Mirror moment, 12 o’clock noon. This is the most audacious and unreasonable raid on the treas- ury for their own pockets that congressmen have made in some years. In certain of its features it is more reprehensible than the fa- mous increase of salaries more than thirty years ago, which ended the political life of many of those who were responsible for it, and has prevented any increase since, so sharp was the popular condemnation. “The story of the last raid is worth telling in some particularity. There was a disposition to go for this money, a total of $190,000, last summer at the close of the second session. But -an election was coming on, and they dared not vote themselves this money. The proposition was made and debated, but, in view of the election, congressional virtue was triumphant, and the steal was not accomplished. The purpose was not given up, however. The greedy fellows lay low for the opportunity, which came on Wednesday. The general deficiency bill had been under consideration in committee of the whole during most of the day, and was nearly concluded. The hour was late. Mr. Sherman, of New York, sprang an amend- ment ‘to pay the mileage due senators, members and delegates for attendance on the second session of the Fifty-eighth Con- gress, $190,000/ “ These had all been paid their mileage both ways for attendance on the first session, which was merged into the second session. They merely wanted double pay for the same journeys, and thought they could get it under the law, although it was plainly a violation of it a spirit and intent. Mr. Underwood raised the point of order that the amendment was in violation of existing law, but the chair- man of the committee, Mr. Mann, ruled in favor of the amendment. It was opposed by Mr. Underwood, Mr. Baker, Mr. Littlefield and Mr. De Armond in brief protesting speeches. It was supported by Mr. Sherman and Mr. Rodey. On a division in committee the amendment was accepted by a vote of 69 to 49. A call for tellers was withdrawn with the understand- ing that there should be a separate vote on the amendment when the bill was reported to the House. “It was reported soon. All other amend- ments made in committee were adopted together. The first vote on this amendment of the Present. was by a division, 68 to 42. Mr. Underwood demanded the yeas and nays, and they were ordered, 22 to 74 (more than one-fifth of those voting). It was evident that no quo- rum was present, and the speaker ordered the doors to be closed and the sergeant-at- arms to bring in absentees. The vote by yeas and nays gave the following result: Yeas, 90; nays, 80; answered ‘present/ 26; not voting, 188. Those who answered present did so to make up a quorum, without going on record on either side. The speaker was one of these. The only Massachusetts members who voted yea were McNary and Sullivan. The Massachusetts members who voted nay were Greene and Roberts. The rest did not vote at all. Messrs. Lawrence, Gillett, Tirrell, Keliher and Thayer were announced as paired with other members for this vote, but it is not stated how they would have voted. It will be noticed that the yeas and nays together do not equal the non-voters. Those who answered present, whether or not they so intended, practically aided the ninety yeas to secure their victory. No Massachusetts members were included among them. Messrs. Ames, Gardner, McCall, Powers and Lovering are recorded simply as ‘not voting/ Probably they were all absent, and it may be that they had standing pairs which were not recorded in connection with this vote. “It is to be regretted that the state had even two representatives who were willing to vote for this wanton grab from the treas- ury. It is almost equally unfortunate that only two were present to vote against the grab/’ This exhibition of moral turpitude is typ- ical of the conduct of the class of men who have shamed the government of the United States since the public-service corporations and privileged interests, through political bosses and partisan machines, have gained control of the government. There is but one simple and effective method of overcoming and destroying these corrupt conditions which are undermining republican govern- ment— a method which would peacefully bring back the rule of the people and replace dishonest and recreant tools and agents of privileged interests by real representatives of the people, and that is the introduction, on the same plan as is employed in Switzer- land, of the initiative and referendum. Our Digitized by Google
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554 In the Mirror of the Present. people have slept over-long. Corporate in- terests and predatory wealth are all but supreme in control. The exigencies of the hour demand that every patriotic American should enlist in an aggressive warfare for the prompt introduction of those ideal demo- cratic measures which will preserve die fun- damental principles that differentiate democ- racies from class-ruled governments, and which will guarantee to die people protec- tion alike from the corruptors and the cor- rupted. LUTHER BURBANK AND HIS LATEST TRIUMPH. A TWENTIETH -CENTUBT VICTORY J OR* THE WORK Or A GREAT BENEFACTOR. AMONG the real benefactors of our time is he who through patient toQ and tireless research and experimentation so improves and transforms the wild food- products of nature that fruits and vegetables which were poisonous or of little service are made staple articles* nourishing and sustain- ing the lives of millions, and he who through loving care and the witchery of science trans- forms the insignificant little weed of moun- tain, valley and roadside into gorgeous, world- beautifying flowers. On the Pacific coast to-day there lives a veritable wizard, whose wand* however, has never been waved save for the purpose of beautifying or enriching the earth — a man who has taken the little, small wild brambles and transformed them into great* luscious, life-sustaining berries; who has taken the little wild plum and by cross-breeding has made numerous varieties of giant fruits that have materially increased the food-stock of the nation; and through whose latest triumph the wild and comparatively worth- less cactus has been changed into a plant of inestimable potential value. It is a singular fact that throughout re- corded history man has almost invariably accorded the chief meed of praise to the destroyers of life and property, to the great military and martial figures, the victors who have conquered through brute force, rather than to the noble benefactors who, working on the spiritual, mental and mate- rial planes, have steadily raised the condition of mankind and advanced the civilization of the world. The career of Mr. Burbank fur- nishes a striking illustration of the true victor who through conquering on the material plane wins noble triumphs, but who nevertheless receives small comparative recognition for his services. Here we find, while the press and public have been engrossed with the consid- eration of the men of force — the Csesan* the Alexanders, the Napoleons and the leaders in the last three wam--this servant of science* this benefactor of his nation, has quietly and per- sistently wrested from the great Mother secret after secret and has supplemented her work in a manner more marvelous than the achieve- ments described by the vivid imagination of the most daring romancer. While our press has been engaged in controversies on the relative virtues and merits of Sampson and Schley, of the British leaders and the Boer chieftains, of the Russian generals and the Japanese leaders, Mr. Burbank has been contributing to the world’s wealth dis- coveries that mean millions and hundreds of millions of dollars to the nation* and through the transformation and improve- ment of fruits and vegetables and through utilization of plants that have hitherto been worthless, but which grow on land which will sustain no other form of vegetation. In the transformation of the cactus it is highly probable that Mr. Burbank has achieved a victory which will mean more in the increase of material wealth to the United States than all possible revenue that can come to us from colonial territories; and this victory and enrichment has come without the sacrifice of principles, without the lowering of ideals, without entailing any sorrow* any misery or any wrong to a single soul. A TRIUMPH THAT PROMISES TO MAKE PRO- DUCTIVE MILLIONS OF ACRES OF DESERT WASTE. The common cactus, which flourishes all over Mexico and in various portions of the United States, notably in the desert regions of Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, has Digitized by Google
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555 In the Mirror of the Present. long been regarded as well-nigh worthless. It is true that the fruit of this plant has been utilised by the inhabitants of the districts in which it grows, but for the most part the plant has been considered comparatively worthless and an encumberer of the soil, owing to the fact that it is covered with cruel iplkes and thorns and also that the leaves are filled with spicules — a fibrous or woody substance which of itself would render it unfit for food for ani- mals, even if the plant had not been protected by the long spike-like thorns. Now Mr. Bur- bank has so transformed the cactus that he has eliminated the spikes or thorns and also the spicules or woody fiber from the leaves, making the rejuvenated ' cactus one of the most delicious, succulent, and nutritious food- products for cattle and other stock, as well as an important article of food for man. The young leaves, when cooked like egg-plant, form a delicious vegetable, while the improved fruit will doubtless become an important article of diet. There are two varieties of this fruit, the pulp of one variety being crim- son, the other golden in color. In each in- stance the pulp is filled with seeds, like the fig. The fruit is slightly add, very refresh- ing and of delirious flavor. The New Bur- bank cactus, like its ancestors, flourishes well in the desert regions. Its growth is rapid. In the course of three years it reaches gigantic stature and it will grow far in the north as well as in the southern countries. Mr. Bur- bank believes that on account of its thriving so well in various desert regions this cactus can be made to produce food sufficient for double the present population of the world. Each full-grown plant is stored with hundreds of pounds of food products, and thus it is not unlikely that in the course of a few years millions upon millions of acres of arid land in the southwest, as well as throughout other parts of the Rocky mountains and far down through Mexico and South America, will be covered with the new cactus and afford sus- tenance for countless herds of cattle and stock. And if half the anticipations of Mr. Burbank in this respect are realized, he will by this victory alone have contributed ines- timably to the real material wealth of the world, and contributed in a manner wholly beneficent. Digitized by Google
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BOOKS OF THE DAY.* The Spanish Conquest in America. By Sir Arthur Helps. New Edition. Edited by M. Oppenheim. Four volumes. Cloth. Price, per set, $6.00 net. New York: John Lane. Among the many important contributions made to historical literature by Anglo-Saxon scholars in the nineteenth century. The Spanish Conquest in America, by Sir Arthur Helps, deserves an important place, in spite of its many faults; for here as in few similar histories dealing with the Spanish discov- eries, conquests and colonization in the New World, we have the bold facts, in so far as patient industry and scholarly research at this late date are able to gather them, mar- shaled before the reader in an interesting if not a particularly brilliant manner. More than forty years have elapsed since the last volume of this famous history was first published, and yet so careful was the historian in verifying his facts that M. Oppen- heim, the present editor, has found but few amendations necessary, and most of his notes “are in the nature of expansions rather than corrections.” Nor is this sur- prising when we remember that this history was the fruit of long, patient and conscien- tious research, concerned almost wholly with the original sources of historical information relating to the period discussed. The au- thor enjoyed exceptional advantages, having access to the Spanish repositories which held the reports, annals and histories of the monk- ish scholars, officials and travelers whose records offer practically the only accounts we have of the history of the Spaniards at this period in the New World. It was not the original intention of Sir Arthur to write a history of the character of the present work. He was engaged in the study of the slave-trade in Latin America, but in obtaining his data for that work the fascination which this most marvelous chap- ter in history exerted over his imagination led to his self-surrender to a subject that must ever be most enthralling to the imagination of the historian. With a treasure-house of original data thrown open to him, it is not strange, perhaps, that the author gave him- *Books intended for review in The A reha should be addrewed to B. O. Flower, Editorial Department, The Aexha, Boston, Mam. self up all too wholly to the historical mentors who lived and wrote in an age when rehgioe fanaticism was at its apogee and when all that was wrought in the name of the Church was to the monkish writers justified, until his thought became colored by the amazing views of the clerical writers who found nothing but praise for the monarchs who established the Spanish Inquisition and who despoiled, ex- iled and were directly responsible for the slaughter and miserable death of hundreds of thousands of Jews and the despoliation of their daughters, — monarchs who sought to crush out free thought and honest investiga- tion as they crushed the Moorish crvilizatkHL These priestly writers who pursued their vocations under the shadow of the throne and, so to speak, lived by the favor of the Most Catholic Queen and her consort, found no cause for complaint in the infamous acts of the Inquisition. Now while it is perhaps not surprising that such writers constantly indulged in adulation of Queen Isabella, and that they constantly sought to justify or apologize for crimes committed in the New World by those who carried the Cross in one hand and the sword in the other, we cannot refrain from wonder that a nineteenth- century historian could so allow himself to be influenced by the thought of writers of the sixteenth century as has Sir Arthur Helps. Here, it seems to us, lies the great weakness of this author — a weakness which we imagine was due mainly to that strange psychological influence which writers not unfrequently exercise over the thought of sensitive and receptive brains who are in a sympathetic attitude, and which seriously impairs the critical or judicial quality so important in an historian. He who would faithfully represent an age, era or people, must have at his command all the authentic data obtainable. He must be acquainted with the acts of the master- spirits in the scenes described, as narrated by eye-witnesses and contemporaneous writers. But this is not everything. He must be able to rise above the narrow range of vision that ever limits those in the presence of actions described, and he must be able to absorb the facts of history without allowing the pre- judices and bias of the writers to influence his judgment. He who would write con- Digitized by Google 666
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557 Books of the Day. vmcmgly of the sixteenth century must in addition to the possession of the stories as told by the various annalists, from Columbus down through the period of conquest and col- onization, have the twentieth-century range of vision which will give him a sense of historical proportion absolutely impossible to the writers of the sixteenth century. And he must rise above the limitations of creed and bigotry, of dogma and prejudice, and in the full light of succeeding generations be able to picture the age he describes with the broad vision of a philosopher and the impartiality of a jurist. This is what it seems to us that Sir Arthur Helps has failed in many instances to accom- plish. He was apparently afraid lest the modem view might influence his thought and has, as it were, allowed the thinkers of the sixteenth century to describe his mental horizon when it comes to the consideration of many things — notably the life and action of Isabella, and the partial justification of slavery as made by the theologians and other opportunists of the elder age. Had he studied the history of the sixteenth, seven- teenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries more broadly, and even read the able works of the more modem historians who have written on the same subject, his work would have been incomparably better proportioned; but he himself confesses that he so far as possible closed his eyes to the work of the more modem historians. Thus in a prefatory note to Volume HI. he says: “The reader will observe that there are scarcely any allusions in this work to the kindred works of modem writers on the same subject. ... I felt, however, from the first that my object in investigating this portion of history was different from theirs, and I wished to keep my mind dear from the influence which these same persons might have exercised upon it. Moreover, while admitting fully the advantage to be derived from the study of these modem writers, I thought that it was better upon the whole to have a work composed from independent sources, which would convey the impression that the original documents had made upon another mind.” It has seemed to us necessary to emphasize this serious fault in an otherwise admirable historical work, that the reader might peruse it with a knowledge of its limitations. Thus, while en joying its wealth of facts and infor- mation, he would be on his guard against the influence of unwarranted condusions and opinions which are merely the reflex of those of the writers of the Isabellan time. In most other respects the history is an extremely valuable one. It is well written. Its facts are marshaled with skill. The story, while having spedal reference to the history of slavery in connection with the Spanish conquests and colonizations, deals with the whole series of facts embraced in the discovery of America by Columbus and the explorations, conquests and settle- ments by die Spaniards. Indeed, this his- tory should find a place in all libraries where special attention is given to the early dis- coveries and conquests in the New World. The work was divided by Sir Arthur into twenty-one divisions or books, embracing the period extending from Columbus’ dis- coveries to the conquests of Pizarro and deal- ing with the most wonderful and fairy-like passages in the annals of the ages — a passage which, sad to say, is darkened at every turn by deeds of savagery, treachery and brutality by the men who claimed to be Christians. The present edition, which has been ably edited by M. Oppenheim, is illustrated with numerous maps which very materially add to the importance of the work. Love Triumphant . Poems by Frederic Law- rence Knowles. Cloth. Pp. 168. Boston: Dana Estes & Company. Thib volume is one of the very few books of poems that have appeared on this side of the Atlantic in recent years that is really worth possessing. The author is a poet of genuine power, a singer who we believe will become a worthy successor to our greatest singers of the last century; for in addition to real poetic imagination and an excellent com- mand of language, here also is found that moral note that though not peculiar to our singers must be present in the songs of any American bard who would gain a permanent place in literature. The American public demands that its poets shall be prophets; that they shall be in deed and in truth bearers of messages from the Infinite. There must be present the ethical note and that atmos- phere of true democracy that speaks of jus- tice, breadth of spirit and the soul of brother- hood. In many other lands, since Grecian literature was in her glory, grace of style, rhythmic cadence and beauty of expression Digitized by Google
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55 8 Books of the Day. and imagery have been sufficient to give poets high places in literature. Not so in a land of democracy in which the ethical note has ever been strong. During recent years, while the republic has been wandering after strange gods and aping the imperialistic and despotic spirit of monarchal lands, too fre- quently making the gauge of success the acquisition of gold rather than rectitude of purpose and beneficence of action, several versifiers have striven to gain the popular ear by singing little nothings or composing pretty verses that are wanting in any moral enthusiasm, nobility of purpose or ethical force, but that have signally failed to receive anything like popular recognition; while our greatest living poet of democracy, Edwin Markham, whose work is instinct with lofty moral enthusiasm and the spirit of brother- hood, has gained a foremost place among the true poets, as well as enshrining himself in the affections of America’s millions. In Mr. Knowles’ poems we find the im- aginative genius of the true poet, the grace of the accomplished versifier and the prophet's high and noble appeal to the reason and sense of right in man, all in so eminent a degree that his work holds for us a special charm — a charm indeed greater than that of any other recent poetic work except Mr. Markham's two volumes. Love Triumphant , as its title indicates, is devoted to love in its multitudinous mani- festations. It is pitched in a high and op- timistic key, but is free from that vicious pseudo-optimism that closes its eyes to the evils on every hand or that tries to see good in tendencies and manifestations that are essentially evil and retrogressive. Thus in that division of his poems which deals with patriotism or love of country, we find the following from a little poem entitled “The Christmas for America": If thou shouldst come once more to men In this, the later Promised Land, Would not thy great heart break again To find these wrongs on every hand: Labor, heart-smitten, left to die. Beneath the feet of conquest hurled. Or, lifting hatred's torch on high. Wreaking revenge upon the world? 0 galaxy of virgin Staffs, White coostrtfation of all time! — What blackness as of death awaits If these pure stars grow dark with crime! 1 have no holy land but thee. Nation whose hills and pw wait The new, the last Nativity, — That justice which shall make us great! Vast wide-stretched land! Though w long. When Love's great ends are served in us, We shall be dean as well as strong. Kind as we are victorious! ” In a poem entitled “Dives and Lazarus, 1904," Mr. Knowles, after a metrical render- ing of the parable of Jesus, turns to the Dives of our day with stem words that sound not unlike those of the prophets of earlier times: “Sleek and plunder-fed. Dives of to-day. Hoard your wine and bread While you may! Gorge in kingly state! — But that gaunt and grim Lasarus at your gate — What of him! Call your thefts ‘a trust' — Words can have no weight With the always just Scales of Fate. Hospitals and schools Built on public fraud Are a sop that fools Throw at God!" “I hear no angels in the skies, I hear the toiler mourn his lot, — I catch a thousand mingled cries: ‘Fate rules,' ‘God is/ and ‘God is not.' I see no hillsides gray with sheep, I meet no Mari on the road; I see the crippled beggar creep. Striving to stand beneath his load. O Nazareth Caipenter who cursed The pride ana avarice erf thy day, We would observe thy birth, but first Thy Sermon on the Mount obey. How refreshing and true to the call of the New Time are these words, pregnant with that moral virility that gives vitality to a literature no less than to a people: “We have sonnets enough, and songs enough And ballads enough, God knows! But we want to-day that comic stuff Whence primitive feeling glows. Grown, organised to the needs of rhyme Through the old instinctive laws. With a meaning broad as the boughs of time And deep as the roots of cause. Digitized by Google
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559 Books of It is passion and power that we need to-day. We hmt grace and taste fuD store; We need a man who will say his say With a strength unguessed before: — No tips that sing at a patron’s nod For the price of a jester's crust. But a woke whose sagas shall lire with God When the lyres of earth are rust; — A soul, though dean of the stains of hist. Which loves all God calls fair, With feet that are soiled with the common dust. And nature honest and bare; — A man who will heed the cry of the poor Clutched fast in the daws erf greed. Who will fight to the death for the sound and sure In the smoky battles of creed; — A spirit deaf to alluring sounds More siren than Troth’s command, God’s athlete, wrestling with all that wounds Home, honor, and native land; Whose lines shall glow like molten sted Rom being forged in his soul, TOl the very anvil shall burn to fed The breath of the quenchless coal! Your dainty wordsters may cry, ’Uncouth!* As they shrink from his bellows’ glow, But the fire he fans is immortal youth. And how should the bloodless know!” Turning from the poems in which the writer appeals for justice for the poor and less fortunate ones to those that reflect his religious ideals, we find that here, even more dearly than in the other rhymes, the ethical note rings forth dear and strong. Mr. Knowles' verses reveal lofty spirituality and a noble faith absolutely free from the soul- trammel s of dogmatic theology and narrow creedalism. There is nothing reactionary about his verses, no cringing to ancient forms and rites or outgrown creeds. That pitiful shrinking from the exercise of reason — God's noblest gift to man — which so marks the drift of present-day religious thought, is wholly absent from his lines. Indeed, we see him in perfect rapport with the high, fine and true concepts of our wonderful new age. Something of this splendid breadth of thought may be gleaned from the follow- ing poem entitled "The Larger View": "In buds upon some Aaron’s rod The childlike ancient saw his God; Less credulous, more believing, we Read in the grass — Divinity. From Horeb’s bush the Presence spoke To earlier faiths and simpler folk; But now each bush that sweeps our fence Flames with the awful Immanence! the Day. To old Zacchwua in his tree What mattered leaves and botany? His sycamore was but a seat Whence he could watch that hallowed street But now to us each ehn and pine Is vibrant with the Voice divine. Not only from but in the bough Our larger creed beholds Him now. To the true faith, bark, sap and stem Are wonderful as Bethlehem; No hill nor brook nor field nor herd But mangers the Incarnate Word! Far be it from our lips to cast Contempt upon the holy past— Whate’er the Finger writes we scan In Sinai, prophecies, or man. Again we touch the healing hem In Nazareth or Jerusalem; We trace again those faultless years; The cross commands our wondering tears Yet itj&a the Spirit writes On morning’s manuscript and Night’s, Li gospels of the growing min. Epistles of the prod ana plain. In stare, in atoms, as they roll. Each tireless round its occult pole. In wing and worm and fin ana fleece. In the wise soil’s surpassing peace, — Thrice ingrate he whose only look Is backward focussed on the Book, Neglectful what the Presence saith. Though He be near as blood and breath! The only atheist is one Who hears no Voice in wind or sun. Believer in some primal curse, Deaf in God’s loving universe!*’ This poem reminds us of Whittier’s beau- tiful lines: “O friend! we need nor rode nor sand. Nor storied stream erf Morning-Land; The heavens are glassed in Merrimack, — What more could Jordan render back ? We lack but open eye and ear To find the Orient’s marvels here; — The still, small voice in autumn’s hush. Yon maple wood the burning bush.” Indeed, Mr, Knowles constantly suggests Whittier’s thought and his moral and spirit- ual enthusiasm, though the younger poet is broader and freer in his religious concepts, and his rhymes are far more perfect than were those of the elder singer. In the fol- lowing lines from "Credo" we have a fine expression of the poet's religious ideals: Digitized by Google
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560 Books of the Day. “I know no sin except the lade of love, I recognise the victory in defeat; No gulf divides life here from life above, I spell perfection in the incomplete. A foe to dogma, still I hold a creed. For I believe that all life brings is good. That sharing bread and winewitn men who need Is the new sacrament of brotherhood. I know the way we tread is rough and long. And yet to toil and bleed am nothing loth, And thus I -journey homeward with a song. Since in the very struggle lies my growth. Joy! only joy! for love is there and here — Peace, only peace! though desperate my dis- tress; I find no foeman in the road but Fear — To doubt is failure, and to dare, success!” Here also, in the little waif entitled “The Answer,” we have a beautiful ethical lesson: ‘“Make of my heart,’ I cried, ‘a lyre whereon The wind of man’s desire shall sweep some string Into immortal music; utterly gene My dearest hopes unless I gain this thing'; Then the calm Voice: ‘Nay, son, thy prayer is wild. But thou mayest feed, for Me, an hungry child.’ ‘Give me to die in some supreme emprise. And, falling, shout, “They flee, the field is ours”; When Stephen raised to Heav’n those angel eyes. The stones that crush’d his body seem’d like flowers; A martyr’s or a warrior’s death be mine!’ ‘Nay, dreamer, thou must learn to serve, not shine.’ ‘Yea, let me serve; be mine the holy wrath Which deals the hurt erf Vice its deadliest thrust, Better a thousand perils in my path Than such sad safety where the roads are dust’; ‘Nay, child, thy peril is thy restless will, — Thy task is patience; suffer and be still!’ ‘O Infinite Love, I lean my heart on Thine! The humblest task Thou hast my joy shall be! Behold, the sandiest pathways grow divine If so these leagues erf desert lead toward Thee; Come joy or pain, Thy will not mine be done.’ 'At last thy prayer is answered, O my son!'” In “Love Immortal” is found a further expression of the author's religious convictions. He seems to us to strike the keynote of the living faith of the future as clearly as any of our great singers of the new epoch — the omnipresence of Deity and the all-compel- ling and exalting power of Love. “Churches, nay, I count you vain, — lifting high a gloomy spire, Like some frozen form of pain Aching up to meet desire; Standing from God's poor apart — Granite walls and granite heart! Sects, ye have your day, and die, Eddies in the stream of truth, — The great current, sweeping by. Leaves you swirled in shapes uncouth. Born to writhe, and glint, and woo — Broken mirrors of the Blue. Creeds! — O captured heavenly bud. Fluttering heart and folded wing! Shall ye see those pinions stirred? Can your caged Creation sing? Will ye herald as your prize What was bred to sou1 the skies ? Hites and pomp, what part have ye In the service of the heart ? Rituals are but mummery. Faith's white flame is snuffed by art; Candles be but wick and wax. Aims have grown the temple-tax. Yet the East is red with dawn. Like a cross where One hath bled! And upon that splendor drawn — Gentle eyes ana arms outspread — See that figure stretched above! As God lives! its name is Love! Love that lights the fireless brands. Love that cares for world and wren. Bleeding from the broken hands — Crowned with thorns that conquer men; Only Love's great eyes inspire Church, sect, creed to glow with fire. Yet our lips shall have no sneer For the mire, the mosaue, the ark. Broken symbols shall be aear If they point us through the dark, — Laws and scripture served our youth Who have grown the sons of truth!” Many of the poems dealing with personal love and sentiment are exquisite and will be treasured by all who appreciate what the highest and truest thing vouchsafed to man really means. The following is, in our judgment, one of the sweetest little senti- mental waifs of our time: “Helenas lips are drifting dust; Ilion is consumed with rust; All the galleons of Greece Drink tne ocean’s dreamless peace; Lost with Solomon’s purple show Restless centuries ago; Stately empires wax and wane — Babylon, Barbary, and Spain; — Only one thing, undefacea. Lasts, though all the worlds lie waste And the heavens are overturned. — Dear, how long ago we learned! There’s a sight that blinds the sun, Sound that lives when sounds are done. Music that rebukes the birds. Language lovelier than words. Hue ana scent that shame the rose. Wine no earthly vineyard knows. Silence stiller than the shore Digitized by Google
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561 Books of the Day. Swept by Charon’s stealthy oar. Ocean more divinely free Than Pacific’s boundless sea, — Ye who love hate leara'd it true. — Dear, how long ago we knew!” One of the best poems in the volume is the following sonnet entitled “If Love Were Jester at the Court of Death’*: M If Love were jester at the court of Death, And Death the king of all, still would I pray, ‘For me the motley and the bauble, yea. Though all be vanity, as the Preacher saith. The mirth of Love be mine for one brief breath!’ Then would I kneel the monarch to obey. And kiss that pale hand, should it spare or day; Since I have tasted love, what mattereth! But if, dear God! this heart be dry as sand. And cold as Charon’s palm kilning Hell's toll. How worse, how worse! Scorch it with sorrow’s brand! Haply, though dead to joy, ’t would feel that coal; Better a cross, and nails through either hand. Than Pilate’s palace and a frozen soul!” Here, too, are some tender sentimental verses worthy of our poet. .Our rushing, materialistic, money-crazed world sneers at the holiest and sweetest things of life and in so doing lowers the ideals, blunts the finer sensibilities and takes from existence the most exquisite and refining influence and that which is susceptible of yielding the purest and truest pleasure. Hence we hail with gladness all poems that deal in a fine way with love. The love of a lover, the husband or wife; the love of the parent, and that of man for man and of man for the Infinite, — all, all are elevating and worthy — all are refining and ennobling. “When Memory was a desert And life a dungeon wall. When Hope became a harlot That lured me to my fall. When June had lost its old perfume And Poetry its glow — There flashed a sense of wings and bloom — Of ioys that stir and grow! The thorns became a chaplet Upon my bleeding brow, — Night fled; the world was sunrise! — 0 dearest , it was thou! My heart was lost to feeling, 1 could not weep nor smile, I had no joy of music, — O 'twas a weary while! I lived within a sodden trance That knew nor faith nor fears. My soul was blind as sightless Chance, A ghost that mocked the years; When lo! a gentle whisper, A kiss upon my brow! The arms of love were round me! — O dearest, it was thou! And though 'tis still a marvel — The rapture and the wings. My heart has learned the wonder Of love that serves and sings. Now can I welcome June again And watch her roses blow. Once more I find the world of men A conflict, not a show. From worse than death awakened. Whence came the spell and how ? God’s angel must have touched me — Nay, Sorting , it was thou /” We close this notice with a tender and poetic little waif describing the coming and the going of one of those rare, sweet buds of earth and heaven that are with us but a day ere the summons comes: “He came to her in the early dawn. And lived in her arms one day. But the little baby soul was tired. It had fared such a long, long way. She thought it was only an earthly flower. Though the sweetest ever blown. Nor guess'd how in that blossoming life Was an angel made her own. But a whisper grew at the lips of the world. The sun rode, hush’d and high. She look’d, and caught the eye of God As the sorrowing winds went by; And her heart lay dose to the Heart of All, While the morning held its breath, Ah me! the messenger stole so near. And the name on bis wings was Death! And in the silence the truth grew plain — How a finer soil than ours Is needed to ripen the fairest souls For the garden erf heavenly flowers. And the child, when the summons came at dusk. Looked up with its eyes erf blue Straight into the vision, as though to say, ‘How long I have watched for you! Then fell back cold on its mother’s breast — And she knew, though her eyes were dim. While this meant torturing grid for her. It was endless peace for him. And the flowers they sent to the lonely room Wither’d beside her bed. But her little immortal flower was safe; — She smiled when they call’d it dead!” We have quoted freely from this volume because we believe the poems will give pleasure to our readers, and also for the pur- pose of acquainting them with this young poet of promise. Africa from South to North Through Marat - sdand. By Major A. St. H. Gibbons, _ F. R. G. S., R. C. I., author of Exploration and Hunting in Central Africa . With Digitized by Google
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56* Books of the Day. numerous illustrations from Photographs, they were sickening in character. Aft other together with Maps. Two volumes, times he found whole villages and com- Price, $7.50 net New York: John Lane, munities perishing from starvation and <&- It is said that the Arctic explorer in quest of the Pole, who passes a certain limit, is bitten by the genius of the North and hence- forth, let him return to his native home never so many times, after a period of waiting the old fever returns, the passion for the North overmasters him so completely that he fares forth again and again until at last he returns no more. Since Livingstone’s time Africa has held a spell almost as compelling as the Arctic region for those daring spirits who have once penetrated into the heart of the Dark Continent Almost invariably, after a brief sojourn in their homes, the call of the tropic jungle rings so insistently in their ears that there is no rest for them until they obey the summons. The author of this fascinating and inter- esting work of travel. Major A. St. H. Gib- bons, had previously traveled extensively in Africa, and on his return he had published an important work on the Dark Continent. But his former travels only served to intensify his desire to penetrate into unknown regions and to perform an important service for his country and the world in correctly mapping that large region of Africa lying north and west of the Transvaal, known as Marotseland. Then, too, the late Cecil Rhodes was ex- tremely desirous of having reliable and expert information that would materially assist England in deciding the course for the Cape-to-Cairo railway. Accordingly, primarily in the interest of geographical science and secondarily for the furtherance of British development in Africa, Major Gibbons made the extensive tour covering a distance of more than thirteen thousand miles, largely through unexplored regions. The present work, which contains the result of this extensive travel and exploration, is written in a charming style, simple, direct and convincing. The story abounds in interesting incidents, some of which are highly exciting. On more than one occa- sion the author was in great peril from hostile natives and wounded wild beasts. Some of his experiences were depressing in the extreme, as for example, when he came upon the wrecks of villages which had been the theater of deadly conflicts between rival and warring tribes, and where the scenes of carnage and desolation were as gruesome as But such gloomy and depressing scenes were relieved by many experiences which afford the explorer and the huntsman the keenest pleasure. Much of the country traversed revealed a vast empire of inesti- mable potential wealth, a continent that will doubtless some day be the theater of as great a civilisation as humanity has ever known. The descriptions of the natural scenery, the vegetation and the animal life, and the various native bands and tribes are given with delightful simplicity and directness* possessing the charm of a personal narra- tion by an admirable story-teller. Persons who enjoy well-written works of travel m little-known lands will be delighted with these volumes; while for the Englishman interested in the daring scheme of develop- ment outlined and inaugurated by the late Cedi Rhodes, and which comprehends the settlement of the Continent along the Hue of the proposed Cape-to-Cairo railway, this story will hold a peculiar charm. Quite apart from its interest and special worth to the Englishman, is its value on account of the new and interesting geo- graphical information it contains. The author traversed the Zambesi to its source and found that all previous map-makers have been misled in regard to the direction of the river near its source, owing to their following the report of Dr. Livingstone based on the statements given that pioneer ex- plorer by the natives. Other observations, such as the probable height of certain moun- tains, will do much to settle mooted ques- tions, while the author’s reports on the soil, vegetation and animal life of the various regions are of course informing and valuable. The work is handsomely gotten up, carry- ing a great number of half-tone illustrations made from photographs taken by Major Gibbons. Each volume contains a pocket in which are maps of the author’s journey- ings and the countries traversed, mounted on doth. Altogether Africa from South to North is one of the most important worb of travel of recent years. The Demoniem of the Agee and Spirit 0b~ eeeeion. By J. M. Peebles, M.D., AJL j Cloth. Pp. 882. Price, $1.00. Battle Digitized by Google
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568 Books of the Day. Creek, Michigan: The Peebles Medical Institute. Until very recently the field of psychic ienoe has been the dark continent in the ahn of scientific research. Only along the inge of its outer shores have men attempted » explore, and their conclusions and apecu- ktaons have been so bewflderingly contra- krtory and at times mutually exdusive than ot at few of earth’s greatest scientists have logically concluded that this was a forbidden aid — a realm of impenetrable darkness. This treason to the sacred demands of ciencc, this abdicating of the high duties onposed by reason in the presence of difficult nd perplexing problems, is unworthy of our tge and time; and more and more are the 'real thinkers and the men of faith and ourage realising this fact Psychology and >aychic science have during the past quarter >f a century received a greater degree of rritkal and sympathetic attention from emi- nent men in various walks of life than ever before in the history of civilisation. Now as at no previous period are master-minds coming to feel as did William Ewart Glad- stone, when in conversation with the late Frederic W. H. Myers he said, concerning the work of the English Society for Psychical Research; “It is the most important work being done in the world to-day — by far the most important.” In the presence of such a growing interest in psychic problems it is perhaps not strange that the first edition of Dr. J. M. Peebles’ new and* extremely thought- stimulating and suggestive work entitled The Demonism of the Agee , should be ex- hausted within a few months of its publi- cation, and that the sale of the second edition was well advanced before its issuance from the press. Dr. Peebles is and has long been a prom- inent Christian Spiritualist and a leading thinker of erudition and courage — a man of broad vision and ever actuated by a passion for the truth. He has faithfully studied psychic phenomena and the views, theories and speculations advanced by master-think- ers of every age and land. He has made four journeys around the world, spending much time in China, Japan, Ceylon, India, and other Oriental lands, studying the phenomena popularly known as demonism with something of the same painstaking care with which Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace and other great physical scientists have studied the phenomena of life. His conclusions are widely at variance with those of a large number of Spiritualists, and in- indeed we doubt whether his writings have been more severely criticised in any quarter than in the household of his own faith. But being thoroughly convinced in regard to the accuracy of his theories, he has not hesitated to boldly and exhaustively discuss this prob- lem in the light of history and present-day happenings, marshaling a vast array of facts and treating the subject in an exceptionally able manner. Among the chapters that constitute this work are the following that will afford some intelligent idea of its scope and character: “Evil Spirits and Their Influences,” “Chinese Spiritism,” “Demoniac Possession in Japan and Korea,” “Demoniacal Obsessions and Possessions in India,” “The Demonism of the Ancient Greeks,” “Judean Obsessions and the Actions of Demons in Jesus’ Time,” “Obsessions of the Early Methodists and Others,” “Obsession, Witchcraft and In- sanity,” “Swedenborg and His Obsessing Spirits,” “Spiritism and Demonism vereue Spiritualism,” “Rescue Work on the Border- land,” and “Spiritualism as It Is, and the Message It Has for the World.” The subject of demonism is as old as civ- ilisation. Among the Greeks, those who heard voices and whose conduct was seem- ingly governed by influences supernormal in character were supposed to be in intimate relationship with the gods and were as a rule treated with great consideration and tender- ness. For this reason the abnormal or insane of Greece received kind consideration and gentle treatment that contrasted most boldly with the treatment accorded those similariy affected among other nations, and especially in the Christian world, up to the birth of the last century. Among the Jews, owing to the law relating to witchcraft, those who were not recognized as prophets were characterised as having demons and were ostracized in many instances. At the time of Jesus, many were brought to him and by the majesty of his command, it is said, were cured. During subsequent ages all persons mentally abnormal or who were gifted with psychic power, if they offended the church, were regarded as having devils, and as a result underwent horrible cruelties and outrages. Indeed, there is no passage in Christian history so black as that which deals with the treatment of the insane as well as Digitized by Google
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564 Books of the Day. those who were abnormal in regard to psychic powers. It was not until well into the second quarter of the nineteenth century that the subject of psychic science began to receive scientific attention. The great wave of psychic phenomena that followed the Roches- ter rappings gave rise to modem Spiritual- ism, which has numbered among its outspoken advocates or those who have accepted its central claim such distinguished thinkers as Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, Sir William Crookes, Camille Flammarion, Victorian Sar- dou, William Lloyd Garrison, Rev. Heber Newton, Rev. Minot J. Savage, Rev. I. K. Funk, Professor Joseph Rodes Buchanan, and scores of other thinkers who have stood in the fore-front of the world’s advanced thought. But perhaps the interest in psychic phenomena of all kinds has been more stim- ulated by the distinguished services of the English Society for Psychical Research and other learned bodies composed largely of the most eminent psychologists and working scientists of the world. As has already been observed, the theory of demonology is rejected by many. A large proportion of the more materialistic thinkers within and with- out the churches, as well as a goodly propor- tion of Spiritualists, reject the belief in ttito. On the other hand there is a large and, we think, growing number who, like Dr. Peebles, accept the belief and hold that there is valid evidence upon which to base their theories, if, indeed, the evidence is not of a thoroughly conclusive character. No person who wishes to study the new psychology or psychic science in an exhaust- ive manner should fail to read this volume, which is unquestionably the ablest work of the kind that has appeared. Mysterious Mr. Sabin. By E. Phillips Oppenheim. Cloth. Pp. 398. Price, $1.50. Boston: Little, Brown & Company. To the host of novel-readers who enjoy stirring, romantic fiction of the general char- acter of Dumas* Count of Monte Cristo , this ingenious story by Mr. Oppenheim will afford keen delight. It is one of the most clever mystery tales of recent years, abound- ing in highly dramatic situations, with a strong and well-sustained love interest The absorbed attention of the reader is assured from the opening chapters, unless he be a stickler for the element of probability, which here, as in the romances of the elder Dumas and in some of the most exciting tales by Conan Doyle, is conspicuous by its absence We mention Conan Doyle with the elder Dumas, as both these writers will frequently come to mind when reading this romance, though there is nothing that even remotely suggests imitation in the work of Mr. Oppen- heim. We think that the present work is not so admirable a novel as A Prince of Simms. for the reason that in the preceding romance the elements that were out of the common or that would especially impress the casual reader as being most improbable, were in all instances conspicuously true to what might and indeed most probably would have result- ed under the conditions described, as any student of advanced psychology will agree But in the present story there are many situ- ations and happenings that are highly im- probable, and in some instances practically impossible; so the illusion that is a vital factor for many critical lovers of good fiction is absent. Barring this grave fault, however, the story is almost all that the lover of romantic fiction could desire. It is well written, quick in movement, and so exciting m character that the weary mind of the reader is rested because taken for the time being completely out of consciousness of its present environment, while the ending of the tale is pleasing, especially as it relates to the hero and heroine. The novel is chiefly concerned with a mysterious personage who under the pseu- donym of Mr. Sabin hides his real identity. He is one of the elder representatives of the royal family of France. His prefers and niece, Helene, belongs to the Bourbon family and is betrothed to another representative of the same house. A plot is under way to deliver Eng- land, through the sale of full information as to her coast-defences and lack of defences, the strong and weak points in her navy, and other knowledge of vital interest, to an enemy — either Russia or Germany — on con- dition that the power that purchases the secrets shall overthrow the French republic and reinstate the Bourbon prince and prin- cess on the ancient throne after England has been conquered. Germany accepts the offer. In the meantime the beautiful princess has fallen in love with an English nobleman whose house her unde, Mr. Sabin, is rifling in search of papers written by the lord’s father descriptive of the weak points is England’s coast defences. Around these Digitized by Google
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565 Books of the Day. rt» is woven a tale abounding in plots and plete with unexpected happenings. ho Monk's Treasure. By George Horton, doth. Pp. 891. Price, $1.50. Indian- apolis: The Bobbs-Memll Company. Thom who love a story for the story’s sake ill be sure to enjoy Mr. Horton’s latest imance of love and adventure among the lea of Greece. The hero, a young Ameri- m, is sent by his unde, the manufacturer f a famous brand of baking-powder, to scare if possible a monopoly of all the argols reduced in the wine-making regions of the ountry, the argols being an important in- gredient of cream of tartar. The uncle’s tarting injunction to his nephew is not to How himself to become interested in any if the women he may meet in his joumeyings. Phis the young man readily promises. His allure to live up to this promise and his iccidental discovery of an enormous treasure which he has reason to believe has been dis- honestly acquired by the inmates of a mon- astery on one of the small Greek islands, lead to some highly exdting and melodramatic adventures, in which the hero, the monks, a jealous Greek lover and a beautiful Greek servant who proves to be an Italian princess of high rank, figure prominently. The story is written solely to entertain, and anyone desiring a few hours’ mental relaxation cannot do better than to take up The Monk's Treasure. Amy C. Rich. Her FiancS. By Josephine Daskam. Illus- trated. Cloth. Pp. 164. Price, $1.00. Philadelphia : The Henry Altemus Com- pany. The title of this book is taken from the first of the four stories that make up the volume, which are tales of girl-life in college. They are well written, bright and interest- ing and will be highly appreciated by college girls and those who have recently left educa- tional institutions, but they will also enter- tain many lovers of readable fiction. “Her little Sister” and “The Adventures of an Unde” are especially commendable. In “Her Little Sister” the author has impressed a lesson of great value for young wives. The conduding chapter is composed of a school- girl’s letters and for general readers will hold leas interest than the more connected and coherent stories. The Pearl of the Antilles. By Professor Frederic M. Noa. Cloth. Pp. 84. Price, 75 cents. Boston: The American Unita- rian Association. This little volume by Professor Noa is a painstaking, ludd and interesting narration of the causes which provoked the last Cuban insurrection and the aggravating circumstances that led to the United States dedaring war with Spain. The author shows how per- sistently blind, arrogant, merciless and un- just was the policy of the Spanish govern- ment toward this once marvelously rich por- tion of her domain. He shows that though Cuba remained faithful when one by one almost every American dependency broke away from the Spanish throne, her fidelity was rewarded by increased oppression and the most cruel exploitation. One by one the rights formerly enjoyed were taken away. The lives of her citizens were rendered in- secure and their property was constantly falling a prey to the cupidity of the foreign masters and their favorites; while every protest was met with the most cruel punish- ment, and revolts were either mercilessly crushed or the rebels were led to believe that favorable terms would be granted them, but the moment their position became defence- less all promises were abrogated. Though a small work, this is an important historical record, possessing far more than ephemeral interest and value. Uncooked Foods and How to Use Them . By Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Christian. Cloth. Pp. 246. 151 West 23d Street, New York: The Health Culture Company. The authors of this work contend that man in his simple state, when living on nuts, grains, fruits, etc., was far healthier than at the present time, because he was conforming much more nearly to natural laws and re- quirements than since he began to cook his foods and adopt all kinds of artificial and made dishes, many of which contain chemi- cals that are antagonistic and which, when in combination, tend to neutralize the nutri- tive effect through weakening the action of the digestive fluids. Other foods are so com- bined as to overtax the stomach. Then again, the authors claim that healthful com- binations of natural uncooked foods are quickly and easily assimilated, favoring a normal and healthy body and a sound mind as natural resultants. In the third place the Digitized by Google
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566 Books of saving of time and drudgery for the housewife and tiie partial solving of the vexatious ser- vant question are urged with great force and reasonableness. Following the arguments are full direc- tions for the preparation of various articles of diet from uncooked foods, menus, and hints for the guidance of those who would give this diet a fair trial. The authors feel absolutely confident that he who faithfully and earnestly makes the experiment of living on uncooked foods for a reasonable time will be so benefited in health that he will not return to the old way. On the day on which we received this volume for review, a letter came from a friend in New York, a prominent journalist and magazine writer. In it he said: “I have requested Mr. and Mrs. Christian to send The Arena their book on Uncooked Foods for notice in your magazine. I have been using this diet for several weeks and I am greatly improved in health and have already gained twenty pounds in flesh since I made the change to a diet of uncooked foods.*’ Self-Budding Through Common-Sense . By Corrilla Banister. Cloth. Pp. 205. Bos- ton: Lee & Shepard. One of the most interesting books of its kind that we have come across during the past year is Self-Building , by Corrilla Ban- ister. We had the pleasure of seeing Mrs. Banister often at Greenacre. She commended her- self to our favorable opinion by some very good work in the form of dialect poems, tiie diversions of some years of residence in Texas. She now comes in a different rdle, and in prose. She thus illustrates the Emersonian dictum, “Come down to your work from higher ground” — from poetry to prose, as was true of Plato, though he did not write in the form of verse. Mrs. Banister’s book abounds in fine touches given by the insight of a poet It has respect, as the title implies, to the treat- ment of mind and body. The author has spent the recent years in lecturing, chiefly in the South. Her illustrations consist largely of concrete cases coming under her own observation. She rarely indulges in dull abstractions and sonorous platitudes about the Infinite, — that overworked word which the Day. means nothing. She speaks of what die knows. Self-building is the finest of the fine arts. It has many poor workmen and they are apt to strike, leaving their tasks half done. But the grandest work in all this world is self, builded into the perfection of which oar ideals are the models. Chabi.es Mallot. A SouTs Love Letter . By Mabel. Cloth. $1.00. Westwood, Maraachusetts: The Ariel Press. A book that one will read through, and then read again, is this letter by Mabel to her imaginary Arthur. There is a strange magnetism about it; a fascination not to be analyzed. It is literature. Mabel is not only a sincere believer in humanity, but she is more. She has power. She wields the pen of an artist She has insight deep and true. She has toiled, suffered, felt the world’s heartache and found salvation through service. A stroke here and there, seemingly care- less, sometimes crude, and there stands before you an individual character, always true, always alive. Her power to delineate in few words is, for an untrained writer, little short of marvelous and reminds one of Maupassant, Walt. Whitman, a Hebrew ode-writer. Her quotations, selected from the truest thinkers, are apt and show wide reading as well as strong powers of assimilation. Her bits of philosophy prove an intuitive sense of truth, and her demands for social justice reveal the reformer. The book is made up of a series of sketches for the most part real, some few ideal. Events in the author’s own life from childhood to middle-aged widowhood afford the subjects. The following paragraph depicts the agony resulting from a child’s first conscious sin, and incidentally reveals a characteristic of the author’s father: “From my mother I had heard about the lake of fire awaiting the bad ones of earth. I trembled with fear. Then I remembered my father had said the place was a hoax, like all the other doctrines taught by chicken- eating preachers. And while I hoped mj father was right, I was in hell, but I did n’t know; I did n’t recognize the place because I thought blisters were only made by literal fires. Poor human-kind!*9 Digitized by Google
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Notes and Comments. 567 Between such lines one can read a volume. And here is a sketch of a “hobo,” which suggests as much as some entire treatises on sociology: 44 1 went to the city by trolley yesterday and some more experiences came to me that I feel like telling you. One concerned chiefly a certain hoboish-looking individual who sat at the further end of the seat 1 had chosen. There were three passengers when I boarded the car, but it began to fill rapidly as we approached the city. As time passed your democratic sister was pushed along into closer relations with brother hobo. One seating-place was left and I peeked out of the comer of my eye at my neighbor. Hat slouched, coat shiny and frayed, as were the pants; shoes rusty and full of holes — out of one great hole protruded a toe, taking wisely nature’s line of least resistance. The hands, neck and ears, so near brought to mind the advertisements overhead, telling of porce- lain baths and ivory soap that floats. Un- shaven face, teeth, hair, nails — but just here came the fat woman, one of the typical kind loaded with shopping utensils and an umbrella to poke into your ear and knock against your hat. Puffing, panting, per- spiring and red in uncomfortable clothing, yet under all ^mirngtAnnw smiling and beaming. God bless fat women! The lady must be seated. My right-hand neighbor, of the wizzen, thin-lipped variety, looked at me menacingly and nudged me along. Closer proximity to my friend on the left brought into operation other sense centers. Olfactory nerves were carrying up messages and up went the nose in revolt Auditory nerves told of the wheezy, rattling breathing, and I counted the blocks to the next transfer- station. No, Arthur, I did n’t for a moment shift my basic idea of brotherhood. To be consistent does not necessarily mean that one must eat sleep, converse upon art or philosophy with a black man, a hobo, or a woodchuck. Just be merciful. Don’t put your heel upon their necks. In due time great evolutionary forces sweeping round about will take care of them. Hands off! That hobo has all eternity and all space to clean up in.” For this unknown Mabel there is a bright future in the literary world if she will con- tinue true, simple, sweet and write only when she has a message which she feels that she must express. R. E. Bisbbe. NOTES AND COMMENTS. » ■ «HE MOST ASTOUNDING REVELA- 1 TION OF PROSTITUTION OF THE BALLOT ON RECORD: In this issue of The Arena, under the title of “Philadelphia and the Freeman's Ballot,” Mr. Rudolph Blankenburg publishes what we believe to be the most astound- ing and sickening record of systematic political corruption, of crimes against the ballot, of infamous collusion of political officials with the worst kind of criminals that can infest a republic, and erf a re- public so far lost to all sense of moral rectitude as to tolerate, — nay, more, to completely acquiesce in, the political exaltation to positions of rulership and guardianship in the city, when their proper place and only proper place is in the penitentiary. Mr. Blankenburg has for about a quarter of a century been one of Philadelphia's greatest civic leaders, a man who has resolutely and bravely fought for the honor of the Quaker City and the integrity of her government He is one of the great Pennsyl- vania merchants, a man who in civic matters, in social life and in the business world is recognized as a leader without reproach or blemish. Furthermore, he is a leading Republican, and it is against his own party that he feels compelled to make this terrible indictment — a compulsion that speaks volumes for his moral courage, rectitude and sense of civic duty and j«?ponsibifity. This paper is another char- acter on the wall which the aroused conscience of the noblest American patriots is writing — a part of that message that will, we believe, spell the doom of the present unholy alliance for the master ship of the republic, — the union erf corrupt political machines and privileged interests, a union that has corrupted ana overthrown free government in many cities and commonwealths erf the republic. Stephen Phillips: Poet and Dramatist: The dis- criminating criticism erf Stephen Phillips which Professor Archibald Henderson contributes to this issue cannot fail to prove a genuine delight to lovers of good literature. Our modem feverish life, with its rush, its bustle and its excitement, has im- parted so much of its spirit to literature that that calm, judicial criticism which marked the writings of earlier days is becoming more and more rare. Professor Henderson happily rises above the loose newspaper-methods so much in vogue, and while at all times investing his subject with living interest, he is never careless, flippant or wanting in the true judicial or critical spirit This paper will prove of special value to students of the great modem dramatists and poets. A Cheat Swiss Educator and Economic Authority on the Actual Results of the Referendum in Switzer- land: One of the most important contributions to our series of international papers on successful practical measures for the preservation and further- ance of pure democracy in foreign lands, appears Digitized by Google
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568 Notes and Comments. in this issue from the pen of one of the leading mem- bers of the faculty of the University of Geneva, Professor Charles Borgeacjd, who, as educator and economist, ranks among the foremost thinkers of Switzerland. Professor Borgeaud shows not only how admirably the referendum has worked throughout the Alpine Republic, but how popular it has become. Even in his own conservative canton all parties are posing as the earliest cham- pions of this ideal measure for the preservation of the vital or fundamental demands of democracy under the changed conditions of the present Dr. Pentecost on the Philippines: Personally, as our readers are well aware, we are unalterably opposed the present imperialistic course of our republic and regard with abhorrence the war of criminal aggression waged by America in the Phil- ippines. We see anything but the hand of an all- loving Father, whose supreme rule of conduct for His children is found m the simple command, “Whatsoever ye would that men mould do unto you, do ye even so unto them,’* in the ruthless crushing of natives who sought to realize the long- cherished dream of independence, and whose in- spirations were so largely due to our own Declara- tion of Independence that the publication and dis- tribution of that document throughout the islimds was adjudged to be criminal by the American government in the Philippines. But we desire to give our readers the strongest possible presentation of the case from the view-point of the militant orthodox missionary, and in order to do this we publish the paper from the pen of Dr. George F. Pentecost, one of the ablest orthodox clergymen of the Anglo-Saxon world. During the past forty years Dr. Pentecost has been continuously en- gaged as pastor of leading metropolitan churches m America and England, when not engaged in active evangelization and missionary work. He has traveled extensively in India, China, Japan and the Philippines, and is more familiar with Oriental conditions than most clergymen or essay- ists who have written on this subject A Native Socialists View of Japan: Mr. Khchi Kaneko’b paper will be found to he, we think, one of die most impartial pen-pictures of the real Japan that has yet appeared. As a Socialist, Mr. Kaneko’b view of his country is free from the strong bias of the professional patriot who sees little to condemn and everything to praise within the narrow limits of national life. This writer secured his English education in the Yokohama Mission School. His collegiate studies in his native land were pursued at Yokohama and Tokio. After leaving college he accepted a position in a bank which he held for some years, though he devoted considerable time during this period to literature and later became editorial chief of a Japanese magazine, giving all his time to editorial work, to writing, and to trans- lating from the English and French. In 1899 he came to this country, largely for the purpose of further studying Occidental civilization. Apor- tion of his time was spent at the Meadville Theo- logical Seminary, and at the present time he is at Harvard University taking a special course in The Kansas State Refinery Bill and Its Signifi- cance: In Mr. Easiwan’b authoritative story of the Kansas State Refinery Bill, our readers will find die record of one of the most inspiring pamagn m the history of state government in recent yon. Nothing has been more calculated to kps friends of republican institutions than Hie prtid servility that has marked national, state and inw ipal legislative and executive bodies during recta* years. On almost every hand there has bea unquestioning yielding to the most corrupt pofitxal bones and the most insolent and oppressive de- mands of corporate wealth— demands which low resulted in pouring untold millions of dollars into the hands of an ever-narrowing group of gamblers and exploiters of the people, thus not only robbing industry of its rights but lowering reverence lor government and creating a general contempt m u>e minds of the more thoughtful for the recreant officials who mis-represent the American electorate. Happily for the republic, there are to-day ererr- where signs of a moral awakening; but it remained for Kansas to again take the lead in the battle against the intolerable bondage of corrupt erv- porate wealth. And though we greatly fear that no positive victory will be won lor the people st the (Resent time, on account of the tremendous in- fluence which the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad still exerts over the legislators of Kansu, we believe that the revolt that has already com- menced in the Sunflower State will be followed by a political upheaval that will ultimately place Kansas again in the fore-front in the battle far emancipation. Bulwarking Democracy Through Popular Edu- cation: We desire to call the attention of afl our readers to the immensely important work being performed by Mr. Wilson L. Gill, which we de- scribe at length in our editorial department. Be- fore all else. The Arena stands for the mainte- nance of democracy, for the establishment and furtherance of equality of opportunities and of rights for all the people, and for that large measure of justice that when attained will result in die happiness, prosperity and upliftment of every in- dustrious citizen in the land. We realize that in the present crisis, when injustice, privilege and corruption are so firmly entrenched throughout all the departments of government, the fearless expos! of evil conditions is imperatively demanded; yet on the other hand it is equally important that at all times the friends of democracy present a way out, a practical programme through which the funda- mental demands of free institutions shall be peace- fully realized. In the School City we have a thoroughly practical plan by which the failures of the past public educational system wiD be righted and the children will become patriotic and habitu- ated to the exercise of civic duties. Papers Crowded Out: Owing to lack of space we have been compelled to cany over the ex- tremely thoughtful and valuable paper by Professor Frederic M. Noa, on “Our Commerce with Latin America,” announced to appear in the May number. This paper, however, will be a feature of the June issue and will be accompanied by as excellent portrait of the author taken expressly for The Arena. We have also been compelled to cany over to the June issue our illustrated sketch of Frederick Burr Opper, the cartoonist, which had been prepared for this issue. We expect to publish the Opper sketch in June, and in July a sketch of Homer Davenport and his work. Digitized by Google
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Copyright, 1899, by J. E. Purdy & Co., Boston. BENJAMIN PAY MILLS The Arena Digitized by Google
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'* We do not take possession of our ideas , but are possessed by them. They master us and force us into the arena , Where, like gladiators, we must fight for them.” — Heine. The Arena Tol. xxxiii June, 1905 No. 187 FORTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS; OR, MASTERS AND RULERS OF “THE FREEMEN ” OF PENNSYLVANIA * VI. MUNICIPAL BLACK PLAGUE. By Rudolph Chapter I. LIGHT IN THE MIDST OF DARKNESS. IT WAS A. D. 1902, the 126th year of the Declaration of Independence from the tyranny of personal rule, when a characteristic exhibition of the genius of self-government that now blesses us was given in the private office of Senator Penrose, in the Arcade building, Phila- delphia. Scene 1. Present, Boies Penrose, Uni* ted States Senator, who is trying to fill the shoes of the late Senator Quay; In- surance Commissioner Israel W. Durham — Mayor Weaver’s “peerless leader” — the head, front, back and index-finger of the “ Organization ” ; James P. McNichol, State Senator, and the city’s chief “ filter,” who used to be glad of beans in July, but now can afford to eat strawberries in January. After a momentary silence, a trialogue, of which this is believed to be a synopsis, is said to have taken place: “ Well, boys, we are up against it ; we ’ll •The first of Nils aeries of articles appeared in the Jan- nary, 1906, number of The Abbna. Blankenburg. have to come to time in great shape, or we ’ll lose the next Mayoralty sure.” “Do you consider conditions as des- perate as all that ? ” “You bet your life! The ‘deal* we have had to put up with for the past three years is enough to knock spots out of a combination of saints, and may prove too much for us under the most promis- ing circumstances; it is sufficient to try the nerves of 4 Old Nick* himself.” “I know the people are simply exas- perated; we will have to placate them, somehow.” “ How are you going to fool them this time ? ” “ I have carefully considered that prop- osition. We must name a candidate who is not in the remotest way connected with the present administration ; but as we dare not run any risks, we will have to nominate a man whom these pestiferous reformers can ’t antagonize, and who, on the other hand, will not be able to cope with us.” “ I have it! Let ’s elevate John Weaver from District-Attorney to Mayor! He is a member of church, and I believe also a Sunday-school teacher.” 569 Digitized by CjOOQle
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570 Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen " of Pennsylvania . Photo, by Gutekunst, Philo. UNITED STATES SENATOR BOIES PENROSE. He is writing his own record. “ Great head!” “ That ’s capital ! ” “ You see, even the most persistent re- formers have sung Weaver’s praises ever since he so ‘vigorously and vehemently’ prosecuted Sam. Salter for ballot-box stuffing, and I ’ll bet thirty cents that they will almost tumble over each other to endorse, embrace and elect him.” “Ha, ha! Ha, ha! — Salter, Sam. Sal- ter!” “ What ’s the matter, ‘ Iz ’ ? ” “ Oh, I was just thinking.” “ Let ’s ring him in — I mean ring him up.” ( They call over the 9 phone.) Scene 2. {Enter District-Attorney Weaver.) “Good morning, gentlemen. This is an unexpected pleasure.” “ Good morning, John. John, we have decided to make you the next Mayor of Philadelphia.” “Mayor?” “Yes, Mayor. We are, by circum- stance, compelled to nominate a successor to Ashbridge who has some standing in the community, who would n’t arouse the reformers, and we think you are ju< the man for the job.” “You really honor me beyond ini deserts; I feel hardly competent to under take such a task.” “We are well aware of that, but you need n’t worry, — what you lack we *11 supplement.” “Of course, you will not require am pledges or promises that might harass me in the discharge of my duties ? ” “None whatever, John. We know what we are about and you can truthfully proclaim that you are entirely untram- melled by any pledges, promises or pre- tences.” “Gentlemen, I hardly deserve ” “That’s all right, John. Keep mum for the present.” (Exit Weaver.) Scene 3. “ This is great work.” “ Now I ’ll be able to sleep.” “And I ’ll go back to Florida.” (Exeunt.) While this is not intended as a ver- batim report of how three men rule us with an iron hand and dictate and force upon us candidates for office — how they insolently humble and terrorize a million and a half of people, who are supposed to be civilized, enlightened and free — it comes so near to reality that it may be accepted as typical and true. The re- sults of such autocratic power are made painfully manifest wherever the people have relegated their rights to the hands of a set of political bandits who banish virtue, throttle liberty and smite inde- pendence. A deplorable fact is that analogous conditions, though hardly as dispiriting as those depicted, exist in many com- munities and are fostered and encour- aged through the apathy and remissness of a self-satisfied citizenship that adu- lates liberty’s shadow and neglects its substance. Let the reader, who lives beyond the boundaries of the “ Keystone I Digitized by Google
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Masters and Riders of “ The State,” ask himself how near this narra- tive pictures the political situation at his own home, and if he is imbued with the spirit that gave us the “Declaration of Independence,” let him lift a lance, bravely enter the arena and fight for the perpetuation of its blessings! We are too prone to overlook wrong- doing in public life if it does not at the time personally affect us; we slight it as we do a mild cold, and we may not regret our neglect until the cold has developed into an insinuating malady that may worry and disturb us for life. The effort to hide political corruption is as mis- chievous as would be, — in a case of measles, — an attempt to prevent the erup- tion from coming to the surface. Medi- cal men agree, and experience teaches, that the safety of the patient depends upon the blotches seeing the light of day, while their being kept in darkness under cover of the skin may lead to serious and perhaps fatal results. So in the case of political disease. If the proper reme- dies are used when the germs of disorder first become noticeable, the ailment may be quickly cured. If we permit them to grow and spread, heroic remedies, even, may fail to conquer the evil. Graft and hunger for spoils are not the growth of a day; their origin can be traced to earliest history. They have prevailed and do prevail more or less to- day in many countries, civilized or bar- barian, Christian or heathen, rich or poor, but they are more apt to assume threat- ening proportions where abundance and riches offer a fruitful field for exploita- tion. This is one of the causes that has placed American cities under the ban. If we were not so abundantly blessed — perhaps handicapped would be better — with wealth untold and opportunities unmatched, we might be forced to put the grafters and spoilsmen out of busi- ness and compel them to earn an honor- able living, for the simple reason that, while we might have sufficent to reward honest toil, we would not have enough to feed and enrich the parasite and drone. Freemen ” of Pennsylvania. 571 ’ . ; kft JL t 1 Photo, by Guiekunst, Phila. PHILIP C. GARRETT, Chairman Citizens’ Committee of One Hundred. A member of the Society of Friends, who devoted his time and means to the rescue of Philadelphia from banded spoilsmen. Philadelphia’s political affairs during the past twTenty-five years have been oscillating from conditions encouraging and bearable to those disheartening and insufferable, the latter culminating dur- ing the Ashbridge administration. They remain most disappointing and distress- ing at the present time under Mayor Weaver. In passing judgment, we should not forget that even our best mayors have been hampered in their official life by spoilsmen, hungry and unscrupulous, who wielded vast pow er in Councils, as well as in city and county offices. In fact, the ex- ecutive and legislative branches of the city government have been more or less antag- onistic under all mayors of clean personal and official records, largely owing to the often mediocre and worthless composition of Councils. The powers of the “con- spiracies and combinations for plunder” that have ruled Philadelphia under vari- Digitized by Google
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572 Masters and Rulers of “ The xiioto. by Uutekunst, Phila. FRANCIS B. REEVES, Prebident Girard National Bank, Vice-Chairman Citizens’ Committee of One Hundred. On his wise and well-considered motion, candidates, to secure the Committee’s endorsement, had to sign its Dec- laration of Principles. Mayor Stokley, after his nomina- tion, defiantly refused to sign the declaration The Com- mittee withdrew its endorsement and elected Samuel G. Ring, Democrat, after a most spirited contest ous titles since the Bullitt Bill became operative, proved an annoying obstruc- tion to the first two executives under the new charter, both men of most excel- lent personal character, high ideals of public duty, and an earnest desire to give the city a clean, progressive and honest administration. A short retrospect of some of the abuses in municipal affairs, which the Committee of One Hundred was organ- ized to combat, will be of interest. It seems strange, indeed, that an uprising of the people at a time when wrong- doing was not so general, though far too prevalent, should be followed by splendid victory; while at the present time, under the dominion of an “Organization ” steeped in iniquity in all its branches, it is almost impossible to arouse our citizens from Freemen ” of Pennsylvania . an inexplicable unconcern and sinful contentment. Political power at that time centered in the “ Gas-Trust,” of which Jame> McManes was the presiding genius. The principal source of revenue to the polit- ical managers of the gas-works (they were called “trustees”) was a drawback of one dollar a ton on coal ; the stealings here, all told, amounted to about a mil- lion dollars a year. How this “pelf” was divided could never be ascertained. The City Treasurer’s office was another “ fountain of wealth,” and was much sought after; the emoluments derived from “interest on deposits” and other dubious returns were princely and laid the foundation of more than one colossal fortune. It took years to secure legis- lation that turned two or more per cent, interest on bank-deposits from the pock- ets of the City Treasurer and his makers into the people’s strong-box. The office of Tax Receiver held out alluring tempt- ations, and was one of the prizes at the disposal of the “bosses and ringsters” of pre-Durham times. It was not only the compensation that the occupant could pocket without entangling himself in the meshes of the law; there were many opportunities to turn “an honest penny” by overlooking the collection of taxes on properties that were in “ friendly and responsive” hands. The acme of shame and odium con- verged in the office of “Collector of De- linquent Taxes,” a position created to provide an easy and lucrative berth for a haid and unfeeling occupant on whom tears of poverty and distress made no impression. This official squeezed blood-money out of widows and orphans, and the unfortunate poor, who, unable to pay their taxes when due, were placed on the delinquent-list, and under a law for which the “ Ringroosters ” were re- sponsible, heavy penalties were added and the unfortunates sold out. It is estimated that the revenue from this “confederacy for prey” approached a quarter million dollars annually, or twice Digitized by Google
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Masters and Rulers of “ The as much money as a grateful nation paid Lincoln for saving -our country and seal- ing this glorious consummation with his life’s blood! Another nest of iniquity was the alms- house, where even the paupers were rob- bed by a systematic collusion and artful combination, that finally landed the superintendent, Major Ellis P. Phipps, in jail. It seems almost impossible that the depravity depicted could be surpassed, and in some respects it cannot; but after perusing this and the next chapter, the reader will agree that while public affairs at that time were in “spots” shocking beyond belief, they have for the past six years in many respects be- come even more oppressive and forbid- ding. The “ Organization ” at this hour feels so powerful and invincible that it passed through a legislature, slavish in its conduct, crouching in its attitude and without conscience in its actions, bills, which if approved by the Governor will open wide the door and add to the miseries of the present the afflictions of the past. Philadelphia will always owe a debt of gratitude to the intrepid, devoted, public-spirited members of the Com- mittee of One Hundred, who, freely giving their time and means, with the assistance of a thoroughly-aroused com- munity overthrew the “ Ringsters and Roosters ” who then robbed the city. While the Committee of One Hundred, as stated in the April Arena, dissolved after a few years of active and successful work, its influence for good is felt to this day. One of its influential and honored members, George D. McCreary, was nominated and elected City Treasurer. He inaugurated a new era in that office by returning fees amounting to a fortune, to which he might have laid legal claim. His fine conscience and sense of duty told him that while a thing may be consid- ered legal, it is not necessarily moral. His example has resulted in the return of large amounts of fees by his successors. Freemen 99 of Pennsylvania . 573 Photo, by Gutekunst, Phila. JOHN FIELD, Chairman Campaign Committee, Citizens’ Committee of One Hundred. An earnest, indefatigable and consistent worker in the cause of good government, whose eloquent and tell- ing campaign speeches were eagerly listened to by applauding multitudes. at times voluntarily, at others under com- pulsion. The unconscionable leeches, who had bled the tax-payers by pocketing and dividing with their masters and sponsors vast sums of money filched from the pub- lic under the guise of law, were put to flight through the persistent and insist- ent efforts of McCreary. An ordinance was passed in 1892, at his instigation and demand, under which a two per cent, interest-charge on bank-deposits now finds its way into the city treasury in- stead of enriching hungry politicians. The treasuiy has been made richer by approx- imately two million dollars since the pass- age of this ordinance. There was light, indeed, in the midst of darkness! The Bullitt charter, which concentrates power in the hands of the Mayor, was heartily endorsed by the Committee of Digitized by CjOOQle
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574 Masters and Riders of “ The Photo, by Qutekunst, Phila. GEORGE D. McCREARY, Re-elected Member of Congress. One of the leading spirits in the Citizens’ Committee of One Hundred. He was elected City Treasurer and returned to the Treasury enormous fees which his predecessors used to pocket. One Hundred. It went into effect in 1887, under Mayor Edwin H. Fitler. He was a man of sterling integrity, of posi- tive character, and for that reason not always over amiable. General Louis Wagener was his efficient Director of Public Works, while ex-Mayor Stokley was Director of Public Safety. Mayor Fitler, following William B. Smith, “the ‘Dandy* Mayor,” left his impress upon the community, and it is a genuine pleasure to bear testimony to his personal worth and honorable public career. Mr. Fitler was followed by Edwin S. Stuart, who served from 1891 to 1895. Mr. Stuart represented the young Re- publican element in all that is best in an organization of young men, who, while as a body they have not yet ad- vanced to the ideal of separating party politics from municipal government, be- Freemen ” of Pennsylvania. lieve in pure administration, an honest and uncorrupted ballot, and manly qual- ities in public as well as private affairs. His directors, James H. Windrim, Pub- lic Works, and Abraham M. Beitler, Public Safety (since elected Judge of the Court of Common Pleas and an ornament to the bench), strengthened Mayor Stuart’s administration, though he was at times pestered with unreasonable re- quests and demands and threatened with dire results unless he would accede to the wishes of his tormenters. He hewed to the line and left the Mayor’s office honored and respected by all in a high degree. He had the rare distinction of having addressed to him this engrossed letter: “ Philadelphia, February 3, 1894. “To Hon. Edwin S. Stuart, “Mayor of Philadelphia: “As your fellow-citizens, deeply in- terested in all that concerns the welfare of our city, we have observed with in- creasing satisfaction your administration of its affairs. We desire to express our high appreciation of the honesty, impar- tiality, courage and fidelity with which you have performed the duties of your high office. We appreciate the great difficulties that surround the position you occupy and realize the obligations which rest upon all good citizens to sus- tain the civil authorities in well-doing. We, therefore, come to commend you for the faithful manner in which you have administered the trust in the past, and to encourage you to go forward in your most excellent course and thus, more than ever, make Philadelphia what we believe it already is, one of the best gov- erned cities of the country, if not of the world. “ As loyal citizens, we promise to stand by you in your every effort to suppress vice and immorality in the various forms in which it may show itself in our midst. We trust that you will be eminently suc- cessful in your efforts, so to administer our municipal affairs as to afford a prac- Digitized by Google
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Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen” of Pennsylvania . 575 tical solution of the difficult problem which is now the subject of most anxious consideration, viz., How is good and efficient government for our large cities to be best secured ? “ In the path which you have chosen to pursue we beg leave to extend to you our most hearty support.” This letter was signed by a number of the foremost of our citizens, among them: O. W. Whitaker, John Field, Thomas Gillespie, Alexander Brown, William Beaumont Whitney, D. Hayes Agnew, William V. Keating, George C. Thomas, John H. Converse, Robert C. Ogden, David Scull, D. C. Gibboney, and H. L. Wayland. Such appreciation must be an ever- increasing pleasure and satisfaction to its recipient. But how does the miscre- ant in office feel whose memory is execra- ted by all good citizens and will remain a by-word of shame and disgrace for all time? Charles F. Warwick followed Mr. Stuart. He was an eleventh-hour can- didate, and took the place which Senator Quay had reserved and intended for Boies Penrose. David Martin, at that time leader of the “Combine,” ascer- tained that sure defeat would follow the nomination of Mr. Penrose, and shortly before the convention met changed front and had Warwick nominated. This pre- cipitated war between Martin and Quay, — the latter designating Israel W. Dur- ham as his representative, and thus arose to hitherto unmatched power the “peer- less leader” who holds Mayor Weaver in leading-strings as a nurse does a help- less child. Mayor Warwick’s administration was from the start embarrassed by bitter factional fights and his political bed was not one of roses. Municipal Black Plague commenced with the accession to the Mayoralty of Samuel H. Ashbridge. Ashbridge brought about his nomina- tion through a protracted, carefully-con- Photo. by Gutekunst, Phila. EDWIN 8. STUART, Mayor from 1891 to 1895. He bad the confidence of the entire community during hla administration and occupies to-day a high and enviable position among his fellow-citizens. ducted, well-planned and cunning cam- paign at Sunday-schools, prayer-meet- ings, singing societies, socials, smokers, revivals, charities, church suppers, com- mercial gatherings, masked balls, lodges, and, whenever opportunity offered, he made speeches “loaded” with highly- sentimental utterings and of a patriotic “smack” that gained for him a quite unique reputation and the sobriquet “ Stars-and-Stripes Sammy.” He util- ized the years spent in the laborious work of “baiting for a catch” and grew so strong with the good people that the “ Organization ” feared to turn liim down and he was nominated. He had for several years served as cor- oner, and changed from attending upon the dead to the more congenial occupa- tion of devoting his abilities to the living, with much alacrity. While Ashbridge had succeeded in Digitized by Google
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576 Masters and Riders of “ The Freemen ” of Pennsylvania. Photo, by Gutekunst, Phila. THOMAS L. HICKS, One of the Ablest of Philadelphia’s Postmasters, under whose administration a largely-increased basin ess was done at materially-reduced expenses. Ash bridge was satisfied with making a perfunctory de- nial of Hicks’ charge that the former had declared to him he was going to make out of the Mayor's office all there was in it for Samuel H. Ashbridge. Hicks failed of re-appointment because he refhsed to obey the immoral beheBts of the “ Organization ” and its backers. attracting the support of many excellent people, there were some who did not take him at par and he made, during the cam- paign, calls on a number of doubting Thomases to assure them that they could accept him without discount, at full “face” value. As the campaign pro- gressed, ugly rumors of shady financial matters continued to grow and created misgivings in the minds of many people who had been “taken in” before. A letter was addressed to Ashbridge by a number of prominent clergymen, asking him what would be his policy in case of election. This is a copy of his reply : “Office of the Coroner, “Philadelphia, Februaiy 16, 1899. “Rev. C. T. Brady, Mervin J. Eckels, T. T. Mutchler, W. H. Anderson, Robt. M. Green, Hughes O. Gibbons, Charles Roads. “ Gentlemen: “Replying to your communicatioD of the 13th inst. requesting me to define my attitude in event of my election as Mayor of this City, respectfully beg leave to say, that in event of my being honored by my fellow-citizens as the Executive Officer of our City, I will execute every mandate of Law, perform every duty and keep eveiy obligation and promise. “ I remain “ Very respectfully yours, “S. H. Ashbridge.” This letter was dated February 16, 1899; Ashbridge was inaugurated the first Monday in April, when he began his career as the one Chief Magistrate of Philadelphia whose name will always be remembered as the man whose duplicate does not exist and is not looked for. It wras not long after his inauguration until Ashbridge, having forgotten his letter and pledges to the ministers, showed the cloven foot. At a meeting with Thomas L. Hicks, at that time post- master of Philadelphia, and a man whose word is as good as his bond, the Mayor, according to Mr. Hicks, said: “Tom, I have been elected Mayor of Philadelphia ; I have four years to serve; I have no further ambitions. I want no other office when I am out of this one, and shall get out of this office all there is in it for Samuel H. Ashbridge.” Mr. Hicks remarked: “This is a very foolish thing to say. Think how that could be construed.” Ashbridge replied : “ I do n’t care any- thing about that. I mean to get out of this office everything there is in it for Samuel H. Ashbridge.” The Mayor entered a perfunctory de- nial of this story, but, for reasons best known to himself, he did not haul Mr. Hicks into court on a libel charge. Digitized by Google
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Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen” of Pennsylvania . 577 The climax of municipal robbery by connivance of officials, and for the bene- fit of favorite contractors and their silent partners, official and otherwise, was reached during the administration of Mayor Samuel H. Ashbridge. This car- nival of robbery had been prepared for in advance by the political junta which had come into power. A great public improvement in the shape of a water- filtration system, which, at the best, would cost millions of dollars had become a necessity, owing to the increasing pollu- tion of the Schuylkill river. A typhoid epidemic occurring during the previous administration had forced this necessity upon public attention, and a loan of $3,700,000 with which to begin the work had been voted. Before a dollar of it could be applied to the purpose intended, however, bogus injunction proceedings had been inaugurated in a local court upon the initiative of a couple of private citizens, who, it transpired afterwards, were merely dummies of Israel W. Dur- ham and his associates, the whole pur- pose of this proceeding being to delay the inauguration of the work until a new administration had been installed, which these arch-conspirators hoped to control. The proceedings proved to be merely dilatory, being without justification either in law or fact, and were, so declared by the court when pushed to final issue. They had served the conspirators’ real purpose, however, in throwing the in- itiative of the great filtration enterprise into the Ashbridge administration, giv- ing it the control of the expenditure of this vast, as well as of a much greater, sum which was voted by the taxpayers for the carrying on of the proposed work. When we consider that thousands of homes were at that time invaded by dread diseases that traced their origin to the polluted waters we were compelled to use, that hundreds and hundreds of fam- ilies were made desolate by the taking away of dear and loved ones from typhoid and diphtheria, it appears incomprehen- sible how any body of men, with even Photo, by Gutekunst, Phi la. SAMUEL H. ASHBRIDGE, He has written and sealed hU own record. the slightest instinct of humanity, could be so cruel, so unnatural, so diabolical, as to delay the construction of filtration plants that were to bring relief and save life, for the sake of placing the contracts in favored hands. On April 20, 1890, Councils adopted a resolution creating a Board of Water Commissioners, to be appointed by the Mayor, to investigate and recommend the best system for the purification of the city’s water-supply. The members of the Commission appointed by the Mayor were Rudolph Hering, Joseph M. Wilson and Samuel M. Gray. These Commissioners were widely-known, skilled engineers, one of them being at the time, and another had been, a resident of Philadelphia. They were acquainted, therefore, not only with the extent of the existing water-plant, but with the topog- raphy of the city and its surroundings, and could estimate intelligently and with expert knowledge the engineering diffi- culties to be encountered. Furthermore, Digitized by Google
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578 Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen” of Pennsylvania . they were familiar with the existing sand-filtration plants, both in this coun- try and abroad, and had access to all necessary information as to cost of con- struction and length of time necessaiy for the complete installation of the plant. In addition to information derivable from their own personal knowledge, they had the competent assistance of Mr. J. C. Trautwine, Jr., then Chief of the Water Bureau, who had already carefully studied the subject of purifying the city’s water-supply, and made at least two previous reports to Councils embodying his recommendations. The Commissioners were expected, if not actually instructed, also, to be liberal in their estimates of the cost. The report of the Commission was made after four months, and was, therefore, not hastily compiled. It recommended four slow sand-filtration plants of a capacity of 150,000,000 gallons of filtered water daily, and a rapid or mechanical plant, at East Park Reservoir, of a capacity of 50,000,000 gallons daily, making a total daily capacity of 200,000,000 gallons. These plants were estimated to cost in round figures, including land, $10,974,- 000. It was also proposed that $3,290,- 500 should be spent for the improvement of the existing plant, including new pump- stations, reservoirs and distributing mains, raising the entire estimate for the filtration plant, and the improvement and extension of the distributing service, to $14,365,000, an item of $100,000 hav- ing been added for waste restriction. Three years were regarded as the time necessaiy to install these improvements and put them in complete operation. In making these estimates, the Com- missioners had the benefit of the expe- rience of the cities of Lawrence, Massa- chusetts, and Albany, New York, each of which had sand-filtration plants al- ready in operation, of sufficient capac- ity to furnish an abundant supply of pure water to its residents. The plant at Albany was the one upon which the Philadelphia plant was modeled, and the Commissioners, taking the cost of that plant as a basis, added an avenge of 37 per cent, to their estimate of the cost of the Philadelphia plant, to provide for any possible increase in wages, cost of materials and unforeseen difficulties of construction. This estimate was con- sidered exceedingly liberal, both by the engineers who had constructed the Albany works and by Mr. Trautwine, the Chief of the Water Bureau of Philadelphia, as well as by other competent engineers who had carefully studied the report. Having secured this report and a pop- ular indorsement of the plan, including an additional loan of $12,000,000, the Ashbridge administration proceeded at once to adopt a course which should make the project as costly as possible, and which has, in point of fact, resulted in the expenditure of twice the original es- timate, and required in construction a good deal more than twice the time set by the Commissioners as necessaiy for the completion of the work. Six years have already transpired since Samuel H. Ashbridge was inaugurated; less than a hundred million gallons of fil- tered water are being furnished; $25,- 000,000 have already been expended or placed under contract, and the lowest estimate now furnished by the city gov- ernment indicates that at least $5,000,- 000 more will be required to complete the undertaking. The first step towards making the filtration enterprise a carnival of graft for politicians and contractors, in short a scheme for filtering money from the treasuiy, rather than a sensible method of filtering impurities from the water, was the dismissal of the engineers who had made the report, as well as the com- petent engineer who was Chief of the Water Bureau, who assisted in its prepa- ration, and the appointment in his place of an engineer brought from another city, whose only practical achievement in water purification had been the con- struction of a filter-plant which is said to have proved a failure. At Albany, Allen Digitized by Google
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Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen 99 of Pennsylvania . 579 Hazen, who had been employed to make the preliminaiy estimates for the filtra- tion plant at that place, was retained to superintend the work, wdth the result that when the plant was completed and in working order, his original estimate had been exceeded less than five per cent. >iote the difference: John W. Hill, brought from Cincinnati to carry out plans made by other engineers, upon a basis of 37 per cent, more than the Albany estimate, has, at the end of twice the time estimated by the Commission, furnished less than one-half the water the original estimates required, and expended and planned to expend twice the amount of the original estimate, and for this brilliant achievement he has just been awarded an increase in his annual salary from $12,000 to $17,000. A few items by way of comparison will indicate the dif- ference in the cost of construction. The Albany plant cost completed, including land, $499,890.42; the plant at Upper Roxborough, which in its number of filters, size of filter-beds, and daily capac- ity of filtered water, is exactly the same as that at Albany, cost $1,055,054.71, according to Chief Hill’s report con- tained in Mayor Weaver’s message for 1903, page 236; in other words, the Upper Roxborough plant, with the same capacity as the Albany plant, and with no essential difference that should have cost a dollar in excess, except in the mat- ter of land, actually cost more than twice as much. The other completed plant at Belmont, in proportion to its capacity, has cost at a still greater ratio, while the greater plant at Torresdale is still incom- plete, but is certain to cost more than double that at Albany in proportion to its capacity. One more comparison wTill be suffi- cient to indicate the extent of the extrav- agant graft which has characterized this costly undertaking. At both Lawrence and Albany, the sand and gravel con- stituting the filtering materials, were placed in the beds for $1.00 per cubic yard. The average cost of these mate- Photo. by Gutekunst, Pbila. J. C. TRAUTWINE, Jr., Chief of the Water Bure&a at the time the filtration con- tract was awarded and who had assisted in the prep- aration of the plans ! An able, honest and competent engineer who, however, was not satisfactory to the “ Organisa- tion" and ws8, in conse- quence, 41 beheaded.” rials in Philadelphia has exceeded $3.00 per cubic yard. The cost per acre of six feet of filtered materials at Lawrence and Albany was about $8,000. The cost per acre in Philadelphia of filtering materials less than five feet has averaged probably $25,000. No one has ventured to claim that the sand and gravel used in the Philadelphia filter-beds is superior to that used at Albany and Lawrence, or furnished the public with any plausible reason why these very common and pro- saic materials should have cost any more, let alone three times as much. The methods by which these extrava- gant prices were rendered possible con- sisted originally in juggled specifications, which few could understand, and in the award of contracts to favored bidders, with a total disregard as to whether they were the lowest bidders. This policy Digitized by Google
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580 Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen” of Pennsylvania . was pursued until one firm of bidders whose bid, while a low one, had been rejected, a higher bidder being given the contract, took the case into court, secur- ing the annulment of the award. This compelled an appearance of compliance with the law, which proved to be an appearance only. The fighting firm of contractors were given one contract, which seems to have satisfied them, as they at once became high bidders upon all future contracts. The award of con- tracts to the high and favored bidders in the early stage of the filtration proceed- ings served to discourage outside bidders, and with the one fighting-firm taken care of, real competition ceased. It is an astonishing feature of the bidding for the sand contracts, which were the largest that had ever been awarded in Philadelphia or elsewhere in the United States that not a single firm of sand- dealers participated in the bidding, al- though there were a dozen or more of reputable and thoroughly-competent dealers in this article in the city. The method by which one firm was induced to refrain from bidding bordered on the criminal. Notwithstanding that the original esti- mated time-limit has already been ex- ceeded by one-half, care was taken dur- ing the Ashb ridge administration to award all the important contracts so that the firm of favored contractors should reap the enormous profits even though the work might extend through two future administrations. The McNiehols and the Ryans and Kellys secured these contracts at extravagant prices, including one for a costly conduit which was an engineer- ing blunder in the first place, and which, since its completion, has proved so faulty in construction that it will neither hold water when filled from within, nor shed water from without when it is empty; in other words it leaks both ways, just ac- cording to whether the inward or outward pressure is the greater. Such a piece of costly and useless hydraulic construction as the Torresdale conduit, built at a total cost of $1,350,000, could not be duplicated in the wide universe. But the extravagant and long-drawn- out filter job was not the only, nor even the worst, project of graft for which the Ashbridge administration was respon- sible. The building of a costly boule- vard three hundred feet wide and ten miles long, through open farm-lands, which could for a half a century to come be of no practical benefit to anybody except a lot of real-estate speculators, and which is likely to cost at least $10,- 000,000, was fastened upon the tax- payers of the city in the closing days of the Ashbridge administration. By a juggled set of specifications prepared before the ordinance authorizing the opening of a foot of the proposed boule- vard had been passed, bids were invited for all the work of opening and improv- ing this expensive driveway to nowhere in particular, and the ordinance, which was passed after the bids had been opened, made the contract a continuous one, giving contractor McNichol, to whom it was awarded, a blanket-mort- gage on the whole undertaking, whether the time necessaiy for its completion should be two years or twenty-five. These omnibus specifications pre- vented the competition of contractors whose business was that of grading; of others who devoted themselves to paving and sidewalk construction, as well as of nurserymen, who make a profession of tree and shrubbery planting and land- scape gardening. As a result of this suppression of com- petition, contractor McNichol gets eighty- three cents per cubic yard for grading, the ordinary price of which is about thirty cents. The contract includes, also, a tree-and-shrubbery item, which will ultimately amount to $250,000 at the contract rates, and which any one of a half a dozen competent nurseiymen located within a few miles of Philadel- phia would have been glad to have fur- nished for half the money, and even less. As an illustration of the graft in this Digitized by Google
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Masters and Rulers of “ The feature, the section of the boulevard already completed contains several plots of California privet, for which the con- tractor gets sixty cents a plant, while the nurserymen’s catalogued prices for these same plants in large quantities are only fifteen to twenty cents. The same extravagant prices were awarded for paving, macadamizing, sidewalk and curbing, sewer and bridge construction, and practically every feature of the work. By lumping the entire work into one con- tract, individual competition was elim- inated, and in consequence Philadelphia is paying for an ornamental boulevard for which the vast majority of people will never have any use, at least twice what such a work would have cost if con- structed at the expense of a private in- dividual or corporation. The Torres- dale boulevard was conceived for graft purposes solely, and when completed will be one of the most striking, as well as costly, monuments of the phenomenal graft administration of Samuel H. Ash- bridge. One other illustration will suffice to demonstrate the expensive favoritism which characterized eveiy feature of public expenditure during the Ashbridge period. The contract prices for oats, hay, straw, bran, etc., for the use of the horses of the Fire and Police Depart- ments for the year 1903, as shown by the schedules at the office of the City Controller, contracts which probably ex- ceeded $200,000 were awarded to a high instead of the lowest bidder, at rates from fifty to seventy-five per cent, above the lowest bid. For example, oats, for which the lowest bid was forty-four cents per bushel, were furnished at seventy-two and seven-eighths cents. Baled hay, for which the lowest bid was ninety-nine cents per 100 pounds, was furnished at $1.60$ per 100 pounds. Rye straw, for which the lowest bid was ninety-five cents, was furnished at $1.48j per 100 pounds. Wheat bran, for which the lowest bid was ninety-nine cents per 100 pounds, was furnished at $1.55$ per 100 Freemen 99 of Pennsylvania . 581 Photo, by Gutekunst, Phila. JOHN W. HILL, Chief of the Water Bureau, Successor to J. C. Trautwinb, Jr. pounds, and so on to the end of the chapter. The lowest bidder was a re- sponsible dealer who would have made from ten to fifteen per cent, above whole- sale rates if he had been awarded the contract. His bid was rejected, how- ever, for that of a favored contractor, whose profits ranged from fifty to eighty or ninety per cent. These instances of costly favoritism to filter, boulevard, and feed-contractors were not isolated ones; they are cited simply as examples of the policy of illegal, as well as unjus- tifiable, favoritism and extravagances which characterized every department of public expenditure during the period in which Samuel H. Ashbridge and his coterie of boodling politicians and con- tractors rioted with the public funds. It is interesting to diverge at this point from our story and pay attention to an important bill just passed at Har- risburg. The Legislature adjourned on April Digitized by Google
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582 Masters and Rulers of “ The Freemen ” of Pennsylvania. 13th, and it is no exaggeration to say that it is impossible to find its counter- part in any State of the Union. For cowardly submission to the “three-man- power” that wields a political bludgeon unparalleled in our history, the vast majority of our “so-called” legislators cannot be matched. In the place of a deliberative body with high aims for the public good, we find an aggregation of cringing tools, who, lower in abject servitude than “Helots” — because more intelligent — obeyed their masters’ be- hests without flinching. Their votes were ever at the command of the leaders, and when the small number of the “ un- shackled” was at times reinforced by enough casual “insurgents” to endanger the passage of a bill, recourse was had to the padding of the roll-call, in which the participants are experts. An interesting story might be told of the “ins-and-outs” at Harrisburg; of the allurements — including the next Gov- ernorship— held out to the presiding officers and “division” chiefs to keep them in line, but we are at present mainly concerned in a bill that is of vital im- portance to Philadelphia, and which, if approved by Governor Pennypacker, will perpetuate “ Municipal Black Plague” indefinitely. A few weeks before adjournment (March 27th), the “Organization” ap- peared like “ a thief at night,” and sneak- ed into the Legislature a bill of which no one outside the few initiated masters had any knowledge. This bill was in- tended to shear the Mayor of Philadel- phia of all power, by taking from him and conferring upon Councils the ap- pointment of the four Directors of “Works,” “Safety,” “Health,” and “Supplies”; under this bill he would not even be head of the Police Depart- ment! It required unanimous consent to introduce bills at that stage of the session, and if the object of the bill had been known it could not have been placed upon the calendar. This clan- destine, contemptible action on the part of the “masters” in itself showed that they knew the bill could not bear the light of day, and that they could pass it only by whipping into line the mem- bers who depended upon the “ Organ- ization ” for appropriations of money to their respective districts. The bill was rushed through in regular machine fash- ion; no speeches were made in its favor and the opposing minority was impotent to prevent its adoption. The question why “Julius Caesar” Durham wanted this bill passed is easily answered. No man knows better than Durham that a day of reckoning is com- ing, and he is fully alive to the fact that as Tammany Hall had its “Waterloo/' so the “Organization” will have its “Sedan.” The general uprising will be as irresistible here as it was there, and will be as successful if it is all along the line. Durham fears a concentrated fight with the Mayoralty as the objective point; he knows that if the fifty- five per cent . “stay-at-homes” go to the polls, reinforced by the respectable minority who cast their ballots at every election no matter how great the discouragement, he will lose the Chief Magistracy, with all its power and influence. Like a wise general, therefore, he looks for position, and this he secures in cover- ing and fortifying the skirmish-lines in the forty-two wards of the city. Skir- mishes in nearly 1,100 thoroughly-offi- cered divisions, and in all wards, are more promising to him on account of the mas- terful “Organization” which he is daily perfecting and in which his opponents are weak and deficient. If he elects a majority of Councils, and with scores of thousands of bogus voters in the river- wards and other parts of the city his chances are good, he can, under the “Ripper” bill, elect the four Directors and will be as powerful as he is now. This is what gave birth to the “Phila- delphia Ripper,” the infamous bill forced through the Legislature and now before Governor Pennypacker for approval or veto. Digitized by Google
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583 Frederick Opper: A Cartoonist of Democracy. It is years since Philadelphia has been aroused as now; a delegation composed of leading men of all professions, represent- ing many bodies, will appear before the Governor on April 19th and urge a veto. The advocates of the bill are quiescent; they are burrowing in the dark. It is said that the Governor has received a number of “personal” letters indorsing the bill; that among the writers are several Philadel- phia “ Colonels ” who have never smelled powder, but who are always ready to fight in the rear with their retreat well-covered. Philadelphia’s government in the near future, for good or for evil, will depend upon Governor Pennypacker. His friends hope and pray for a veto; the syco- phants and mercenaries surrounding him importune the Governor to sign the bill; if he does he will be sorry but once — and that for the remainder of his life. (To be continued .) Rudolph Blankenbubg. Philadelphia , Pa. FREDERICK OPPER: A CARTOONIST OF DEMOCRACY. By B. O. Flower. I. THE CARTOONIST AS AN EDUCATOR. THE STUDENT of history will con- stantly be impressed with the power exerted by ever-changing factors in dominating and moulding public opin- ion. In one period one influence will prove irresistible and compelling; in an- other, one or more quite different and perhaps diametrically opposite factors will hold the throne of power. Thus we find, after that great period of moral and religious stimulation and awakening known as the Reformation, the pulpit became the most powerful schoolmaster throughout Protestant lands. It swayed the conscience and guided the intellect of millions, especially throughout Teu- tonic and Anglo-Saxon lands. New England affords a most striking illustra- tion of this all-mastering influence in public and private life during her colonial period. With the American Revolution came an era of broadening thought, dur- ing which there was a distinct reaction from the narrow, austere, arbitrary eccle- siastical dogmas and assumptions that had previously prevailed. Much of that which had long been accepted as “Thus saith the Lord,” in the days when the Mathers were in their glory, was unhesi- tatingly rejected by a large proportion of the noblest of our people, and the bud of liberalism grew until it burst into the full blossom of Unitarianism in the first half of the nineteenth century, expressing a breadth of thought and toleration of spirit that had been previously embodied in the views and teachings of Thomas Jefferson and several other of the master- minds who laid the foundation of our re- public. As the influence of the pulpit waned, the town-meeting, debating club and pub- lic discussions largely took its place, and these influences were supplemented by leaflets and tracts; but nowhere and at no period, perhaps, was public opinion so influenced by tracts and leaflets as in France prior to the Revolution and in England during the early years of the Corn-Law agitation. In the first instance the newspapers had not yet become a great popular educator, nor would it have been possible for editors of regular peri- odicals to carry on radical or revolution- ary agitations in such a manner as was accomplished by the pamphleteers. It is stated that in France the police author- ities would no sooner gather up and de- stroy the great mass of pamphlets em- bodying democratic ideals as promulgated Digitized by Google
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584 Frederick Opper: A Cartoonist of Democracy. Opper, in Chicago American. (Reproduced by special permission of William Randolph Heant ) JCST PLAIN ATAVISM. Atavism, as the dictionary will tell you, indicates a tendency to £0 back and look like your old ancestors. If you never saw atavism illustrated in your life, you may see it now. by the most advanced friends of free gov- ernment, than Paris would be deluged with a fresh crop of these philosophical but essentially incendiary arguments. In this manner and through the numerous secret societies which sprang up at this period in France, people were educated and prepared to make definite demands absolutely inimical to the age-long des- potism of the throne and the nobility and the fundamental claims upon which class- government necessarily rests. In the early years of the Anti -Corn-Law agitation in England there were many powerful papers which exerted a far- reaching influence over the popular im- agination, but these, without a single ex- ception, closed their columns to the prop- aganda of the Anti-Com-Law League. In the absence of such important educa- tional aid as they might have furnished, the wise, high-minded and determined young men who were the master-spirits in the Corn-Law and Free-Trade move- ment, decided upon two methods for edu- cating, informing and enthusing the na- tion. One was the holding of great eco- nomic meetings, not unlike the religious revival meetings which ever exert so com- pelling an influence over a large propor- tion of the people, especially in arousing their latent moral enthusiasm. These meetings were to be seconded by a sys- tematic distribution of tracts and leaflets. “ We will sow England knee-deep in tracts if necessary,” exclaimed one of the en- thusiastic leaders; and accordingly great presses were set to work. At the large meetings each person received a package of leaflets and pamphlets containing ar- guments, parables, songs or stories, all calculated to enlighten the mind and in- -Digitized by CjOOQle
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58 5 Frederick Opper : A Cartoonist of Democracy . 9uence the moral sentiments. This sys- tematic propaganda ere-long set England iblaze with popular interest and enthu- siasm. In our own country, political speakers and orators discussing general questions of interest were long prominent factors in general education, while the public- schools became the dominant and over- shadowing educational influence for the young. Later came the weekly paper, supplementing the school, the pulpit and the rostrum, and still later the daily paper. With the advent of the cheap or penny daily came a new era in public education. Especially was this true after the intro- duction of illustrations Then the cheap daily became second only to the public- schools as a public instructor, and it was an educator greatly needed in order to influence, stimulate and inform the great tide of immigrants which were month by month arriving on our shores from distant lands, repre- senting the very poor and for the most part ignorant. But a large proportion of these people were stur- dy and ambitious. Their ignorance was not due to doth or indifference, but rather to the absence of opportunities for educa- tion in their native land. When they came to Amer- ica they desired to learn, but their school-days were over and their money was scarce; and because their minds had not been train- ed to study, their thoughts moved slowly. Here is where the cheap illustra- ted paper became a most potent influence in pop- ular education, and in this field the cartoonist gradually became a com- manding factor in the ele- mentary education of the electorate who had never enjoyed the ad- vantage of school privileges in their native land. He also became an aid and mentor to hundreds of thousands of native-born citizens to whom reading was a difficult task, owing largely to long years of inces- sant toil with the hands and little leisure for reading and recreation. To all these per- sons the large type, the pictures, and especi- ally the cartoons and humorous sketches, served as a lure, arresting the attention, directing the mind to a certain subject, and stimulating interest and curiosity sufficient to lead the reader to seek the subject-matter as discussed in the edito- rials or chronicled in the news-columns. More than this: on the principle of in- fluencing the slow-thinking by the line upon line method, a series of cartoons will in time drive home a vital truth so that it never leaves the mind. Opper, in New York American. (Reproduced by special permission of William Randolph Meant) ONLY A DREAM— AS YET, But Dreams Sometimes Come True. Digitized by v^oooLe
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586 Frederick Opper: A Cartoonist of Democracy. Opper, In Boston American, E^prodno^M&yi^eeUl permlailon of William OUR MODERN INFERNO. , The Oil Deportment Thus the cartoonist if he be true to convictions of right and bravely, loyally and faithfully holds to the fundamental principles of democracy, of justice and fraternity, becomes one of the greatest forces for good in the land — one of the most far-reaching and positive influences in the elementary education of hundreds of thousands if not of millions of people; and to-day as never before in the history of this land, and as in no other quarter of the globe, the cartoonist is one of the greatest educators. n. FREDERICK BURR OPPER. Among the many gifted and resource- ful comic illustrators and cartoonists in America, probably no individual is wield- ing so great an influence as Frederick Opper, and fortunately for the republic that influence is being exerted for the cause of all the people in the titanic battle now being waged between organized greed or the gambling, priv- ilege-fattened plutocracy on the one hand, and the great producing and consuming masses on the other, and in the corollary conflict — that of reaction and class-rule, in which wealth is striving to supplant the fundamental ideals and principles of dem- ocracy with the imperialistic and old-time theories of priv- ileged classes versus the masses. Mr. Opper was bom in Madison, Ohio, in 1857. He was educated in the pub- lic-schools until he reached the age of fourteen. Then he accepted a position in a village newspaper office, where he remained for one year; but the ambition to rise and succeed in a larger field, which is so character- istic of the normal youth in a free country who has been reared near to nature’s heart, soon took possession of him. He determined to make a success in life and fixed his eyes upon the nation’s great me- tropolis as the theater of his endeav- ors. Thither he journeyed, securing a position in a store, but holding to the idea of ultimately entering the fields of art or literature. While engaged in the store he submitted several drawings to Wild Oats and other humorous and illus- trated papers, which were promptly ac- cepted and paid for. This success led to his determination to adopt illustrating as a profession. Accordingly he devoted all his spare time to drawing, in order to better fit himself for his life-work, and in the course of a short time he secured a position on the art staff of Frank Leslie's Weekly , the same magazine which years before had given a start to Thomas Nast. Digitized by Google
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587 Frederick Opper: A Cartoonist of Democracy. This position he held for three years, leaving it to join the staff of Puck as a prominent artistic contrib- utor on that important humorous weekly. For eighteen years his pictures appeared regularly in Puck, and during this time he won a foremost place among the most effective humorous car- toonists and illustrators of America. At the end of this period he severed his professional relations with Puck in order to accept a position offered him by Mr. William R. Hearst, who was determined to make his daily papers great popular educators, and with the quick instincts of a true journalist realized the im- portant fact that the re- Opper. In New York American. (Reprodaoed by special permlarfon of William Randolph HeeretT) OUR MODERN INFERNO— THE BEEF DEPARTMENT. (With apologies to Dante.) sourceful and original cartoonist was one of the greatest of educators and that his work also contributed in no small degree to the success of a daily. Since entering the ser- vice of Mr. Hearst, Mr. Opper has been daily appealing to an increas- ing multitude — a multitude which now numbers many millions of peo- ple— in the New York American and Journal, the Boston American , the Chicago American , the San Fran- sisco Examiner, and the Los Angeles Examiner. Barring the influence exerted by the extortions, lawless oppressions and corrupt practices of the trusts and corporations, we doubt whether any single influence has been more potent in arousing the American people to the essen- tial criminality, oppression and peril to the public of die trusts, the priv- ileged interests and the political allies by which they have been able Digitized by Google
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(Reproduced by special permission of William Randolph Hearn.) Opper, in Chicago Examiner. THE GOOD LINE AND THE BAD LINE. “ The bread-line is a noble charity, but the pie-line ought to be abolished." Digitized by Google
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589 Frederick Upper: A Cartoonist of Democracy. to plunder the people, than the cartoons of Frederick Opper. m. mb. opper’s work. Mr. Opper’s work is marked by strong individuality. He is in no sense an imi- tator. He rarely caricatures individuals, preferring to employ original figures to typify certain evil classes, and it is rare indeed that his drawings do not at first appeal to one’s risibilities, creating a smile while conveying some important truth. In this respect he differs as radically from Mr. Homer Davenport as did Michael Angelo differ from Raphael. Daven- port’s work is almost always savage. He rarely makes one even smile. IBs draw- ings are often colossal, but they are sin- ister and tragic in character. We cannot better explain the difference between the work of these two famous cartoonists Opper, In Chicago Examiner. (Reproduced by special per- mission of William Randolph Heant.) “DIVINE RIGHT/’ than by repeating an incident related to us by a gentleman in New York at the Opper, In Chicago Examimer. (Reproduced by special permission of William Randolph Heant) THE OFFICE BOY. “He and My Bon.” “Little Father” of the Russian People. time when both artists were em- ployed on the New York Ameri- can and Journal . Our informant, a man who is a close observer and delights in studying men and things, noticed on one occasion some foreign-born workers intently studying the cartoons of Davenport and Opper in the New York Journal. The picture by the former on this occasion impressed our friend as being particularly forcible, and he ventured to say: “That is a great picture.” The workman looked up quickly, nodding his head but at the same time shrugging his shoulders in a manner which indicated that it was a doubtful acquiescence. So, point- ing to Opper’s cartoon which another worker was looking at, my friend said: “You like his work best ? ” The laboring man’s counte- nance brightened as he replied: “Yes.” Then pointing to Da- Digitized by Google
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590 Frederick Opper: A Cartoonist of Democracy. Opper, in New York American. (Reproduced by special permission of William Randolph Hears!) A GENUINE “SPOOK PICTURE,” No Humbug About It apparently so powerful that the outlook seems hopeless, tend to enrage the indi- vidual. With Opper the case is different, because he always has as the butt or foot- ball of incarnate greed the ridiculous figure of the Common People; contempt- ible only because they themselves elect to be contemptible; despoiled only be- cause they themselves permit despolia- tion; weak and powerless only because, while holding sovereign power in their own hands, they abdicate in favor of corrupt party-bosses and machines, con- trolled and manipulated by privilege- fattened and law-defying corporations and over-rich protected classes. Seldom does our artist draw a picture innocent of humor. That he can make powerfully symbolic illustrations and savage car- toons, laying bare the absurdity of the deceptive shibboleths that enslave man- kind is evidenced by two typical examples venport’s picture he said in quaint phrasing: "This man, his pictures make me mad — too mad to think — fighting mad sometimes. But this man, why, you see, he make me laugh first, then he make me think. I like his picture the best.” On hearing this incident we felt that the worker had expressed a very vital truth. There are millions of peo- ple in our land who are gloomy, unhappy and dis- pirited. The outlook for the future is no longer bright. They are slow-thinking, yet they want to understand. Mr. Davenport’s sledge- hammer strokes, his sinister and savage pictures, fur- ther depress and tend not unfrequently to make such people almost despair. His pictures of the brutal and masterful trusts, expressing savage determination and Opper, in Boston American. TOffCS ecial permission of William Randolph Heam.) THE TRU8TERDOODLE RAILROAD. They All Have Passes but the 8mall Man on the End Beat. Digitized by Google
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Frederick Opper: A Cartoonist of Democracy. 591 which we reproduce. One pic- tures War and Peace and car- ries the legend, “ War for Lib- erty, bound in the end to win, eventually will remove war of all kinds from the face of the earth.” The other cartoon is entitled “Divine Rights” and represents the Czar as crouch- ing while his soldiery, obedient to his murderous command, are shooting down starving men, women and children who came unarmed to lay their grievance at the feet of the ruler. Underneath this highly- suggestive cartoon we have the words, “The Little Father of the Russian People.” Such pictures as these, how- ever, are the exception. For the most part Mr. Opper’s drawings illustrate enthroned jjsassb Opper, in New York IT MAKES HIM SMILE. Who Is This Profawor Osier, Wbo 8ay» a Man Is Old at Forty, and Ought to Be Eliminated at Sixty? Opper, in New York America*. (Beproduoed by special permisrion of William Randolph Hears!) THE MENACE TO OUB COURTS OF JUSTICE. Shall We Have This Sort of u Gentlemen of the Jury*’? and oppressive iniquity by well- considered symbolic figures, all bearing the same general resem- blance, while the picture of the Common People is none the less appropriate. The trusts, the millionaire tax-dodger, the cor- poration magnate, the great Wall- street gamblers, the venal offi- cials, betraying the people and accepting graft from privileged interests, — these are typified by figures that well represent gross, sordid, avaricious, sensual, insati- able materialism, innocent of lofty thoughts, noble emotions or high ideals; well content be- cause confident of the power to acquire and still acquire the earnings of others; joyous rather than gloomy, because of a sense of security bom of their confi- dence in the power of money to shield them from ruin and save them from the penitentiary, while it will enable them to con- tinue to obtain special privileges special permission of Digitized by Google
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Frederick Opper: A Cartoonist of Democracy presence of corporate wealth enthroned greed. The artist h been severely criticized for so dr- 1 lineating the supreme sovereign-. y of the republic, but it seems to us a happy inspiration. It is well that the Common People be pictured as they are in reality instead of in theory, until they become sufficiently aw akened t \ arise, unite and in their might overthrow the arrogant and giw* ing oppression of privileged wealth and the law-defying corp- orations. If instead of portray- ing our people, the artist had been picturing the masses of Russia, his cartoons would ha^* been less apt and more open to the charge of being unjust; be- cause in Russia the people^ : * • JUST A LOv£ SANT* CLAUS American. (Reproduced by special permission of William Randolph Hearat.) CHRISTMAS MORNING. Little Trusty Did n’t Get Left. through legislation, and immunity from the re- sults of law-breaking. Believing in the omnipo- tence of the dollar, be- lieving they possess a sufficient amountof wealth to break down or circumvent all at- tempts of the people to gain justice and enjoy equality of opportunities and of rights, and living solely on a gross, sensual or materialistic plane their proper symbol is the masterful self-satis- fied biped portrayed bv Opper. The symbol of the Common People is that of a foolish, cowed, insignificant and con- temptible pigmy in the produced by special permission of Opper, in New York American. William Randolph Heam.) THE GIANTS PATH Bat entry path stoat bane an and. Digitized by
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The Benjamin Fay Mills Movement in Los Angeles . 598 not possess the power of peaceably right- ing their wrongs. Indeed, every attempt to secure justice is met with execution, exile, or a living death in terrible prisons. But in a republic there is no good reason why the lawlessness, the extortion and the high-handed robbery of the railroads, the oil, beef, coal, grain and other trusts should be allowed to continue. Hence the artist is right in picturing the people as they really are. In this issue, through the courtesy of Mr. William R. Hearst, we are able to present a number of Mr. Opper’s typical cartoons drawn for the Hearst dail- ies, and that have already served an im- portant educational purpose, illustrating the iniquity of the trusts and other para- sites that are fattening on the people. That the American people are awaken- ing to the peril of present conditions due to the controlling influence in government of Wall-street gamblers, the trusts, mo- nopolies and public-service corporations, is everywhere becoming evident. That a mighty moral awakening is taking place must be apparent to the most casual ob- server, and that the awakening will result as have all such moral uprisings in the history of Anglo-Saxon peoples we be- lieve is probable if not inevitable. Among the great popular educators who are directing the attention of the masses to the oppression, corruption and essential despotism of corrupt parly- machines and political bosses acting under the orders and for the enrichment of privileged interests, Frederick Opper is justly entitled to be considered as one of the leading factors. He is fighting Democracy’s battle and fighting it in a conspicuously effective manner. B. O. Flower. Boston* Mass . THE BENJAMIN FAY MILLS MOVEMENT IN LOS ANGELES. By W. A. Corey. LOS ANGELES, California, is at present the scene of what is per- haps the most significant and remark- able religious movement in the world to- day. It is the most significant because the most expressive of advanced religious thought and the spirit of the age, and it is remarkable for the success that has attended it from its inception. Reference is made to the Los Angeles Fellowship, which was organized about the beginning of the present year by the Rev. Benjamin Fay Mills, the famous evangelist of other days, and the members of his family. Los Angeles welcomed the Fellowship heartily, and the popu- larity of the movement has grown with every passing day. Beginning a few months since with only a handful of de- voted individuals and a great idea, with no organization, no money, no meeting- place, no prestige or leverage of powerful influence, the Los Angeles Fellowship has grown into a compact organization of over one thousand contributing mem- bers, with twenty-five working commit- tees, with activities along many lines, with a cash asset of fourteen thousand dollars, with a hearing in the public press, and with universal enthusiasm and lim- itless hopes and purposes. The entire membership seems to be imbued with the moral enthusiasm of the leader. The head of the Fellowship is, of Digitized by Google
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594 The Benjamin Fay Mills course, its founder, Mr. Mills. “Per- manent Minister ” is his official title. Working with him as “Associate Min- ister” is his wife, Mary Russell Mills, the well-known student and teacher of Emerson; and working under the direc- tion of Mr. and Mrs. Mills are other members of their family and a large num- ber of committees, secretaries, assist- ants, etc. The fellowship is a many-sided in- stitution,— as many-sided as is the human society which it attempts to serve. It is not simply a talking institution; it works as well as talks. One of its many activ- ities is in connection with helping to care for the city’s poor and unfortunate. It has its sewing-society to provide clothing for the needy, and other relief commit- tees. It has its “Graduate Jolly Boys’ Club” for the benefit of graduates from the Juvenile Court and the city Deten- tion Home. It has its evening classes, and it is planning educational work on a large scale. It is providing free legal advice to protect the unfortunate from the rapacity of conscienceless lawyers and to discourage contentious litigation. The Fellowship is caring for its chil- dren and young people in a thorough and intelligent manner. Besides its Sunday- School, Children’s Church and Young Men’s Club, it is meeting the amusement question not only with regular social gatherings, but by providing at a moder- ate expense dancing-lessons by a com- petent instructor. There is also a Fel- lowship Dramatic Club that has already given several creditable public presen- tations. All these amusements are of a high order. The good is cultivated ; the bad is eliminated. In the matter of music the Fellow- ship has been peculiarly fortunate. Not only have some of the best resident mu- sicians contributed their talent, but vis- itors from abroad have done the same. Members of Mr. Elleiy’s famous Royal Italian Band have played in the public meetings, and among others from abroad Movement in Los Angeles. who have sung and played may be men- tioned Mrs. Mary linck Evans, the prima donna, and Jean de Chauvenet the pianist. There is a Fellowship Or- chestra, and a great Fellowship Choral .Union is being organized for future re- citals. A recent feature of the singing has been a “ Fellowship Hymn,” the words of which were written expressly for the Fellowship by Ella Wheeler Wil- cox, who is one of the charter-members. The attendance at Mr. Mills* public meetings has been phenomenal. The difficulty has not been to get the people to come, but to get halls large enough to hold them. Within a few weeks after the movement was started the attendance at the Sunday meetings had to be limited to ticket-holders, up to a certain hour. Hall after hall has been given up as too small, and “ standing-room only” signs are common in the Mills meetings. Flans are now being perfected for the ereetkm of a great building to accommodate the various activities of the Fellowship, in- cluding a hall for public meetings, amuse- ment halls, business headquarters, com- mittee rooms, publication offices of the Fellowship Magazine, etc. The qualifications for membership in the Los Angeles Fellowship are unique and characteristic of Benjamin Fay Milk’ personal attitude and opinions. The matter of religious belief is altogether eliminated. At the door of the Fellow- ship no questions are asked as to abstract theological opinions. All are welcomed on equal terms — orthodox and unortho- dox, Jew and gentile, agnostic, infidel Christian, heathen — all are given the same hand-shake and smile of welcome. But there is a pledge. Besides the agree- ment to make a weekly cash payment of any amount from one cent upwards, the prospective member must pledge him or herself to encourage “trustful and un- selfish living.” Let the reader think twice before smiling at this pledge; for to obligate one’s self to live trustfully and unselfishly in this commercial and com- I Digitized by Google
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The Benjamin Fay Mitts Movement in Los Angeles . 595 ititive age is a far more serious matter L&n may appear at first sight. It in- >lves the living up to the very highest hristian ideal. It involves die prac- cing of peace in the midst of war. It ivolves the holding of one’s self from xife 'when strife is almost a necessary andition of existence. It means not imply a hearing of the Word, but a oing of it as well — a far more difficult bing. Mr. Mills, as all the world knows, has iroken finally and definitely with the ild theological dogmas. He does not >eKeve in die fall of man or in the old heories of the Atonement. He does not relieve in the literalness of hell or heaven,* 3T in the personality of God or the devil. Like all advanced thinkers, he has no creed, no definitely-setded statements of belief. He believes that truth is an un- foldment, and, being a student, he is constantly learning. His belief accords with the findings of science: that man, like the universe he lives in, is a develop- ment; that man is and always has been rising; that heaven and hell are not places but conditions in his upward struggle; and that “God” and “devil” are but names of opposing influences, hke the negative and positive poles of a magnet. He believes in the universality of human salvation. He is an optimist. like Tennyson he believes 44 That good wiH fall, At fiat, far off. at last, to aU, And every winter change to spring.” His religion is one of trust. It has the spirit of Whittier when he sings: “ I know not where His islands lift Their bonded palms in air; I only know I cannot drift Beyond His love and care." He has the same faith in humanity and its destiny that the Quaker poet had when he sang, in “ The Angels of Buena Vista ” : 44 Not yet wholly lost, O Father, Is this evil work! of ours; Upward, through its blood and ashes. Spring afresh the Eden flowers." The success of the Fellowship is due, it seems to the writer, to two things, — namely, to the essential character of the movement, and to the personality of its founder. It fills a want that if not long felt is at least deeply felt. It harmonizes with the spirit of the age, which is liber- alism in religion. There is a necessity for such a movement; it answers a call; it comes at the opportune moment; it is the flood-tide that leads on to fortune. The very fact of its newness is an advan- tage. It has no traditions to cumber it. The orthodox churches are like a man trying to swim with one hand tied behind his back; their traditions hamper them. Not so the Fellowship. The other influence that is making the Fellowship is the personality of Benjamin Fay Mills himself. He is a many-sided man, and a great one on every side. He is not only a great thinker and orator, he is a man of action. He is a phenom- enal organizer. In less than four months’ time he has created an organization that in many respects equals the strongest church organizations in the state. Then, again, he will not quarrel. The ultra- orthodox portion of the community can- not bait him into any show of ill-humor. If they publicly pray for him one week and publicly abuse lfim the next, he only smiles and goes his way, doing the Mas- ter’s work. W. A. Corey. Las Angeles , Cal . Digitized by Google
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MUNICIPAL OWNERSHIP METHODS. By Prof. Frank Parsons, Ph.D. MR. BROWN’S article in the April Arena, discussing methods of securing and guarding municipal own- ership, seems to me a very valuable con- tribution to the literature of the subject He shows more clearly perhaps than it has ever before been shown, that the pub- lic is losing money every day the public- franchises are in private hands. On every million of capitalization that pays six per cent, dividends, or sixty thousand dollars a year, the people could save one- half, or thirty thousand dollars a year, at once, by borrowing at three per cent, and taking over the monopolies. In many instances the dividends are more than six per cent. There is no question but that the people could buy the street-rail- ways, the gas, electric and telephone plants, water and all, and manage them so that they would pay off the whole cap- italization in thirty or forty years, with- out one dollar of taxation anywhere in the process. Instead of buying, however, at the value proved to exist on a specified date, as Mr. Brown suggests, I would prefer purchase at a value corresponding to the average net returns for the preceding five years. This is the plan adopted in the transfer of private monopolies to municipalities in Great Britain, and it has proved to be workable and reasonably fair to both parties, much fairer than purchase at the value existing on a specified date, espec- ially when the date is within the period of agitation for or discussion of the pur- chase, so that the value may be infi by the prospect of obtaining a large p from the city. The heartiest endorsement is due Brown’s proposal for a National Asa ation of Municipalities and a n ad< clearing-house of municipal statistics safeguard the people of every city aga extravagance, inefficiency and graft means of publicity, expert knowledge i the power of enlightened public opini Such a central office, gathering and a paring data relating to municipal ind tries in this country and in Europe, wo undoubtedly be able to detect at once i jobbery or serious incompetency in a department of any city management, 4 by notifying the city of their condusi and the reasons for them could put 1 people on their guard and lead to the c rection of the trouble. Why could 1 our cities join at once in such a movem in respect to water-works, roads, schtx fire-departments, gas, electric-light, stn railways, etc. ? In the name of good g< eminent and progress, may I not venti to request the mayor of every city twenty-five thousand or more inhabits! to bring the matter before the councils his city; and in order that all may kn< what progress is being made in die matt may I not further request each mayor send The Arena a brief statement of tl results of the council's deliberations c the subject ? Frank Parsons. Boston, Mass. sw Digitized by Google
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RISE, MIGHTY ANGLO-SAXONS! By Katrina Trask. O mighty Anglo-Saxons! You assert With conscious pride the kingship of your race. Rise! Prove that kingship in a purblind world By your high likeness to the King of kings; Proclaim yourselves the champions of Peace, O mighty Anglo-Saxons! Break your swords. Disband your armies and destroy your arms; Stand forth for Peace and win a deathless name. Peace is not peace that sings its battle-songs. And sets its cannon on a hundred hills; That points its guns North, East, and West and South, Toward friendly harbors, ready at a word To call friends, enemies and targets — No! Peace is the great affirmative of God; It knows no armies, arms or armaments; For armies, arms and armaments deal death. And Peace holds conquest in the strength of Hfe; Its crown immortal is unconquerable; Reach forth and claim the laurel for your own. Hath not the revolution of the years Brought sons of God a few steps nearer God than this — That they shall stand arrayed in uniform To march, at sudden call, to mutilate Their brothers, and to mar and mangle men • Framed in the image of the God of gods? 597 Digitized by
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598 Rise, Mighty Anglo-Saxons l Hath not the cycle of the centuries Made manifest a clearer light than this — That man should compassed be by his own State And see no farther than its boundaries ? O foolish, vain, and perishable man! Latin or Anglo-Saxon, every race Is but one unit in a universe; And brotherhood should circle round the world. Rise, mighty Anglo-Saxons! Rule by right divine, No sword but found at last its Nemesis In all the records of the splendid past Rome, Greece and Babylon in turn drew sword, Then each before a stronger power went down. O mighty Anglo-Saxons — break your swords, Disband your armies, and destroy your arms! And in God’s name have done with barren lies, For you are hypocrites — yea, whited sepulchres, O mighty Anglo-Saxons, full of dead men’s bones; — You preach a gospel when you live it not; You trick yourselves with honeyed words of Peace While every oath of office echoes war; You prate of arbitration to the tune Of clanging hammers, ringing on the steel That shapes your battleships and armaments. On two great continents the churchly towers aspire Toward the deep azure and the silent stars, And rising peans from the multitude intone The Anglo-Saxon’s worship of the Christ. The Christ! O canting hypocrites, have done! Christ’s way is peace; His one command is Peace; His final will and testament is Peace. Digitized by Google
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Rise, Mighty Anglo-Saxons l 599 You cannot serve Him and deny Him both. Be honest, Anglo-Saxons! And be true! Pull down your ministers; hush the swelling hymn; Throw to the winds the sacramental bread — The holy bread of life and brotherhood — Or, with a common human honesty, Cease to shed blood; and cease to teach your sons The code of battle and the code of death. While — dressed in your ensanguined livery — They wait the opportunity to kill; Cease to build battleships and death’s grim enginery; Cease to pay tribute to the god of war; And cease — O Pharisees! — to pray “Thy kingdom come,” While you are voting means to make a hell In some vain-boasted cause of righteousness. Haste, Anglo-Saxons! Ere it be too late, And that sure prophecy the Master spake Shall find fulfilment in your overthrow. O mighty Anglo-Saxons! Break your swords, Disband your armies and destroy your arms. Rise to your destiny and learn a godlike strength, A power from Peace those nations never knew Which flourished for a glorious yesterday To lie beneath to-morrow’s desolating dust. O mighty Anglo-Saxons! Seek a way That will be unto immortality; And conquer with a conquest unto life. O mighty Anglo-Saxons! Ere it be too late, Rise, break your swords, and rule by right divine! Katrina Trask. Trayadio , Tuxedo Park , New York . Digitized by Google
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IN PRISON AND IN EXILE: THE EXPERIENCE OF A RUSSIAN STUDENT * Edited by William IN 1897 I was studying law in the Uni- versity of Moscow. After passing the necessary examination in the spring, I left the city for my home, which was about eight hundred miles away. The country over which I traveled was beau- tiful. It was when spring is in its finest garb. The trees were blossoming, and the nightingales were filling* the air with their song. I cannot forget those nights on the train listening to the concert of those tiny musicians. Their song filled my heart with joy and happiness. I traveled in the company of several stu- dents,— all joyful and happy. After journeying three days with the students I left them, and wishing all a happy va- cation, started on the journey to my broth- er’s house. After two days’ riding on horseback I reached my destination. I needed rest, and hoped to get it, but peace and rest seldom enter a home in Russia that har- bors. a student. As I greeted my brother, a police-officer came in and asked me if I was F. M. I knew the man personally, as I had spent my vacation a year ago in this town, his behavior surprised me. He requested me to go to the police-station, but I remonstrated, and told him there probably was some mistake. “ I am really F. M.,” I said, 44 but I have just arrived; so do n’t see what I have to do with the police. Probably you want somebody else.” * [The young man who related to me the follow- ing facts came to me for treatment of a broken-down nervous system, the result of his prison honors His condition was pitiable, and so strong were the vivid memories of nis imprisonment that only after Lee Howard, M.D. 44 No,” said the officer, 44 1 want you.” 44 What for?” I asked. 44 Come, and you will see,” he replied. I followed the officer, and upon enter- ing the first room at the police-station I noticed in the next room gensdarmes hold- ing my overcoat and valise. Now I un- derstood. I was then searched and told that I was arrested in the name of the law. I was asked what was in my bag. I said there were books. I saw a look of pity and sadness come over my questioner, and he dolefully shook his head, thinking, apparently, that I was lost Books are regarded by the Russian police as dan- gerous things. After my examination, I was placed in a carriage and carried to another town, where gensdarmes were awaiting my arrival. I cannot say that I was afraid; I took it as something that must happen some day; for students, in particular, must always be prepared for their arrest, and really are. However, as I was innocent of any act that would be regarded else- where as criminal, I was not ashamed. There are many conditions that are not criminal in other parts of the world that are so under the laws of the Russian gov- ernment. During that night in the car- riage I could not sleep, so I thought about my arrest and wondered at the cause. For a long time I had worried about a letter I had written to a friend, a Lithu- anian, who used to receive books from abroad by the underground method. I had not received an answer to this letter, and suspected it might have gotten into the hands of the police. This last sup- position was correct. After spending two hours in a prison- cell, I was brought to the office and tried. The gendarme asked me if I knew a Mr. 600 Digitized by Google
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In Prison and in Exile . 601 w 44 No,” was my answer. I was told ) put my statement in writing. I did o. Then, with a sarcastic smile, the endarme presented my letter written [> Mr. S. This man was then in the Jnited States, and this fact was important vidence against him. He had been sus- pected of having been connected with an asociation, the aim of which was to read Lithuanian literature, as well as to dis- ribute among Lithuanians books written n their language. I was accused of be- onging to this association. I was not i member, but my denial was of no ivail. They now searched my valise. Among various books printed in the Russian language, they found two books in the Lithuanian language. But the main purpose of the search was to find letters. Fortunately for me, I had burned all my letters. I really enjoyed seeing the dis- appointment of the police. But my joy was premature. My parents’ house was searched, and letters were found, written in my boyhood days when I was not think- ing about police or gensdarmes. These letters were shown to me after some time, and I knew how much trouble they would make. It is difficult to describe how I spent my time in prison. I walked from one comer of the cell to another, and tried to count my paces. At first I got some relief, but the monotony told on my ner- vous system. I felt some kind of pain that seemed to be physical, though it could not be located. I thought of the sunny days of spring, of my friends who were free and enjoying fife, but these pleasant thoughts only aggravated my sufferings. I examined the insects on the floor. I wrote with a finger on the mould that covered the walls. On going to bed, I at once felt a burn- ing pain all over my body. I lighted a candle that I was permitted to have in the cell, and found that the boards of my bed were covered with a layer of insects, various in kind, color and character. After a while I laid down, and as my thoughts were about my friends, I soon foigot the insects. I could not go to sleep during the night. Two or three times a day I was per- mitted to walk in the yard, which was about fifty feet long and twenty-five feet wide. I was allowed to use only half of it. A fence about fifteen feet high concealed the outside world from sight. I spent day after day, week after week, in the same manner. O, the horrible monotony of this prison life! The object is to cause a mental breakdown, and it does not take long to produce this result The only change was when I was brought to the office of the gensdarmes, where I learned new facts concerning my criminal actions, and a new letter was shown me. I was told that if I would tell all I knew about a particular person, also give them infor- mation concerning an association, I would be released, thus avoiding further pun- ishment It was the only time in my fife that such a high price was proposed for telling the truth. I did not accept their proposition, and accordingly had to remain in prison. I was accused not only of reading and distributing literature printed abroad, but of belonging to a secret association whose aim it was to overturn the present system of govern- ment in Russia. After four weeks of confinement in the prison I have described, I was sent to a larger one. This was an old dilapidated building, having been built about a cen- tury. The food was slightly better, though not so good that it could be heartily eaten. Prisoners were allowed about three and a half cents a day for their food. The wooden bucket in which the food was distributed had an odor peculiar to leather in process of tanning. A peculiarity of this prison was an orthodox chapel. It had been construc- ted by the government and dedicated to Saint Agafon, who used to steal horses with his father. The field for these dep- Digitized by Google
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602 In Prison and in Exile. relations was located in the countiy in which the chapel was built The old people of the neighborhood still remem- bered him. He went to war with the Russian army, and during the war with Turkey he was taken prisoner. The Turks ordered him to shoot the Chris- tians, and upon his refusal he was killed. He was made a saint by the orthodox Russian church. When I arrived in the prison, I found that many Lithuanians were held there as political prisoners for the same offence as mine. Some of them had smuggled books, and others had sold them. One fellow had bought books from a police- man— a stool pigeon — and another had caught him. Nearly all of them were released after presenting necessary bonds. I was regarded as dangerous, because I had been a university student, and was kept in prison until tried. (Cases of political crimes are never brought to a civil court, or given a jury trial. The police try them, and foe tyfinister of In- terior is the judge. I My trial continued for eight months. Most of that time I spent in my cell. Once a day I had an opportunity to walk in the yard for a half hour. Communi- cation with other prisoners was strictly forbidden, particularly with political prisoners. Even ordinary prisoners were kept from me. When I walked down to the yard all other prisoners were locked in their cells, though when I was locked up they had comparative liberty in the building and yard. After eight months of solitary im- prisonment, it was announced that my trial was over, and I was to remain in prison until sentenced. I was placed in a cell with a young man who had been a student in the University of St. Peters- burg. For three days and nights we did nothing but talk. We talked about everything, — past, present and future. We talked of our boyhood days, our studies, friends, teachers, all, all. We felt completely happy. My life began to appear brighter, and the cell lost its gloom. But after several weeks we got tired of each other, though, I must ex- plain, my friend was a bright young mu with a fine character. It is difficult to see every day the same person without any change in clothes, environments or ideas. In a short time the fellow wi* released, and I was left alone in the cdL I felt slightly jealous at his release, but I needed rest and I knew I could now get it. We wished each other good luck, and he left with freedom ahead, while I remained to live a life that was slowly dulling my moral and mental feelings. The protocob of my crime were sent to the Attorney-General, and he studied them carefully for four months. They were then sent to the Governor-General of Warsaw, who studied them with the same care for four months. They were then forwarded to the Minister of Inte- rior, in St. Petersburg, who kept them for six months, and the Minister of Jus- tice also examined them. I waited with patience and hope at first, then a des- perate feeling took hold of me. I wrote petitions to various departments, ex- plaining that my health was failing, and that I could not undergo the prison-life much longer; that I ought to receive my sentence at once. The only reply I got was: “Your petition has been left with- out results.” I again pleaded with them for a decision, but even tins was passed over without any answer. My health failed every day. Bad food, lack of pure air, of light, and particularly freedom, completely ruined my nervous system. Ifoigotthepast; I had no hope of the future. I did not give thought to another life. I had given up all hope of eveiything, God and the devil. I only thought fate had decreed that I was to die in that prison amid miseries, insults and degradation. All hope and expect- ancy vanished. At first, the uncertainty of my fate made me unhappy; later, a heavy feeling of dejection, of despond- ency, came over me. Occasionally, while Digitized by Google
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In Prison and in Exile. 60S eeping, I would dream about my parents, ty home, and other various drcum- ances connected with my previous life, iftien dreaming of the picturesque gar- en at my home, and of the joy and hap- iness I formerly spent there, I was sud- enly controlled by a heavy feeling that aused me to be veiy melancholy, and I 'ould. awake frightened and with a fast- eating heart I had these or similar reams almost every night As the dole- ill nights passed on, vivid dreams merged ato dismal, colorless impressions, and nded in my seeing nothing but dirt be- ore my eyes. Sometimes I saw myself v&Uring down the street up to my breast n mud. I had cramps at night some- imes in one part of my body, sometimes n another. These pains kept me from leeping. Nights now brought nothing >ut torture; I could partly forget my situation during the day, but not at night. My mind became dull, my sight impaired, ny skin yellow — I was a living body in % coffin. Days after days, weeks after weeks fled away, and my condition re- mained the same. In the fall — when at home I used to leave my parents for the school — I could hear the voice of the railroad engine, the wheels of the train striking the rails like the sound of horses* hoofs. And when holidays came, they brought me reminiscences of boyhood and happy days of freedom. The chief of the guard was an old Pole. He spoke the Russian language with difficulty and seemed to always fear the higher officials, who frequently visited the prison. He was afraid of everybody, particularly of political prisoners, — not because he regarded us as dangerous people, but because of the responsibility. He preferred to have in the prison ten criminals of the worst type th*n one political prisoner. He forbade the guards to talk to us and tried in every way to prevent the communication of political prisoners. Notwithstanding this strict confinement and supervision, we found ways to communicate with each other. One was the telegraphy system of knock- ing with the fingers on the wall. This code is simple, and when once learned, communication with the prisoners is rapid and complete. The alphabet is divided into five groups. The letters in the groups run consecutively, each group having five letters, with the exception of the fifth group, which has six. Thus, the first group is made up of the letters A, B, C, D, E. To spell the word bad, the prisoner would make one knock — thus indicating the first group. After an interval, corresponding to the dash in the Morse code, he would knock twice, meaning the letter B, then one knock for the letter A, and four knocks for the letter D. After two years of confinement, the resolution arrived from the Minister of Interior, with the signature of the Czar, announcing that we were sentenced to be exiled to Siberia for three years. But announcement of the resolution did not mean immediate release. We had to wait for direct orders from the police de- partment before we could be deported to our respective destinations. These orders did not arrive for two months. The anticipation of seeing other peo- ple, of communicating with them and getting fresh news, took away some of the hardships and mental agony of those extra two months in prison. At the end of this time, we left the prison, escorted by the police, and when outside of the walls I felt like a new-born babe. Trees, fences, houses, people moving along the streets, all seemed novel to me. My brain refused to receive so many sights at one time. Such a moment is worth being experienced, but not at such sac- rifice as I now realize I made. We traveled by railroad, stopping at the main prisons on the way to rest and wait until tiie parties being collected at certain points were ready to be moved with us to the next important prison. We were given fifteen copecks a day with which we had to secure all our necessaries of life. Digitized by Google
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604 In Prison and in Exile. In every prison, political prisoners were separated from die common ones. In the course of two months our party ar- rived at a small town in Siberia, where I was to spend the balance of my Hfe, for it was not expected that I would outlive the three years’ sentence. As soon as we arrived at the place of exile, I was taken to the police-station and told that I was allowed freedom within the boundaries of the town. Le- gally, I was not exiled, but was placed under the supervision of the Siberian police. For u supervised ” persons cer- tain rules exist. These regulations are principally to prevent the exiles from communicating with the citizens of the town. The exiles are forbidden to Iteave the town. The suburban villages ad- joining the town are particularly guarded from them. The politicals are not allowed to prac- tice medicine, to teach, to be legal ad- visers, or to belong to any associations or dubs, or to hold any government posi- tion, and are forbidden to take part in any theatrical performance. All these rules were given me to read at the police-station, and, after telling the police I had read and understood them, I was directed to the houses occu- pied by political exiles. I went to the homicilium of several political exiles. They lived four in a room, calling this manner of living commune , a name that came into use under the old rSgime when the exiles used to live together, holding all property in common. Each one of us contributed our sharer toward the household expenses. The room that represented the parlor was very gloomy. In the large room was a small quadrilateral table on unstable legs, two or three chairs, and windows without curtains. The inhabitants of the commune with which I lived consisted of a student, a printer, a bricklayer and his wife. I was invited to stay in the commune with these individuals, and I consented to remain with them until the arrival of my brother who also had been exiled to this town. 1 also made the acquaintance of severa workingmen, of various trades, who hac been exiled from the huge cities of west era Russia. Most all of them were brigh young men, with developed minds anc mental culture. Each of them had < small library, composed of classical works principally of a politico-economical na ture. J. S. Mill, Darwin, and various French and Russian authors were to be found on the shelves of these young men The first things I learned from mj exile-mates was about the life they led The facts were by no means encouraging. Most of them claimed that they felt bet- ter in prison than in exile. Tins I could not understand, but a few months of the Hfe soon convinced me that they were correct. Personally I would prefer ten years of exile to one year in prison, but remember I left prison a complete psy- chical and physical wreck. In exile, the door of your little house is always open; you may go about town, even to the woods — inside the town-limits — and how may such freedom be compared with prison- life? But by experience later I learned that the complaint made by the exiles was, to a certain extent, true. Most of the exiles, with the exception of the Poles and Lithuanians, had spent only about a year in prison. Their nervous sys-j terns had not been completely ruined by confinement, but were being ruined in exile. In young people of energy and good desires, this Hfe of compulsory idle- ness was the cause of breaking down mental health and morals. I did not care much for the people 1 met in exile. I had no desire to hold any conversation with them. I walked in the woods and there spent most erf my time, going to our house for my meals only. Before my imprisonment, I cared very Uttle for the beauties of nature. Here I found them everywhere — in the woods, on the hills, the river, all were full of beauty. Digitized by Google
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In Prison and in Exile. 605 I spent about two months in the com- mune trying to gain health by walking about the country. I could not read; con- centration of thought was impossible. A bright and clever story would be put aside after reading two or three pages, for my mind could not retain any connection between words and ideas. I could not interest myself in my former studies, nor could I get any mental occupation. Vil- lagers avoided exiles; we were looked upon with fear and distrust. We lived in our own circle and had little or nothing to do with the people. As the months passed on, people ar- rived from various parts of Russia, and brought new life to the colony. Regular meetings were organized, and discussions of our position followed. The prospects of the Russian revolution were also de- bated. These meetings were very inter- esting. Almost all the exiles were acquainted with politico-economical questions, and had a fair knowledge of the literature and political life of their country. Most of them were socialists. The discussions were between the older revolutionists with nationalistic tendencies in theory and rough measures in practice, and a new type who confessed a belief rather in evolution than revolution, and would not advise any drastic measures toward the government. This latter party was in the majority. It decided to work among the workingmen, to disseminate among them the principles of socialism and the necessity of a struggle against the government. The older party was. quickly suppressed, and social democ- racy took control. At the meetings we did not discuss murder or dynamite; we were for the weapon that would free Rus- sia, education. The important question was: “Who would accomplish the rev- olution: peasants or workingmen?” The local police made no objections to our meetings, as long as we did not communicate with the citizens. We en- joyed complete freedom of speech. The debates were interesting, and life became more natural. But the past life began to tell on some of us. The Polish printer began to show marks of irritation. He became suspicious of eveiyone, and imagined he saw spies eveiywhere. His treatment in prison was now having its effect. His histoiy was not different from that of hundreds of poor fellows who want to learn. He had been arrested in the streets of Warsaw, and had been treated very badly in prison, where he had been confined for more than two years. Several times he had been placed in a dark, damp cellar, with only a shirt on his body. Bread and water were all they gave him to eat. Under these con- ditions he had to spend many days at a time. When he first joined the commune he seemed rational, but as time went on his condition became pitiable. He had the delusion that the exiles were spies. One day three of us walked together down a street, with a newly-arrived exile. There was a conversation between us about general matters, and during the course of the conversation the printer was asked if he had ever been in love. This question seemed to enrage him, for he broke out in a tirade, and I saw he was mad. The next day at a meeting he became excited and accused the whole colony of being spies. This accusation aroused the members of the colony against him. The following day a meet- ing was to be held to discuss the accusa- tion. He came to me, and I noticed the poor fellow was ill. I warned my com- rades that the man was insane, and that it would be fruitless to discuss his irre- sponsible words. The following morn- ing he broke our windows, chairs, and everything he could get hold of. He tried to kill everyone who approached him. All we could do was to tie the fel- low by force and send him to the hospital. Some of the exiles became affected by his insane acts. The student became so distracted that it became impossible to understand him. After some time Digitized by Google
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606 In Prison and in Exile. the incident was forgotten and our life again attained a normal course. The death of an exile was usually a source of much trouble. After a year of exile my brother died. On his coffin was placed a band of ribbon, with the inscription: “To a Fighter for liberty.” The police-officer in charge of the funeral had been drunk the night before and slept too long, and did not appear when the funeral cortege was ready to start, so the procession reached the cem- etery without any interruption. Had he been present the coffin would not have been allowed to have been decorated with the band, and there would have been trouble. After leaving the ceme- tery the police stopped the covering of the simple casket and tore off the bands of ribbon from garlands of flowers that were being buried with the coffin. It is extremely difficult to characterize the life of political exiles. The life is without striking incidents, without hope, without occupation, but rich in its ulti- mate consequences. The banishment is planned very carefully by the government, with a perfect knowledge of human na- ture. In modem prisons, as well as in exile, there are horrors, — not the horrors of whips or tortures that strike the human imagination with fear and indignation, but the horrors of loneliness and absence of mental and physical occupation. There is no longer the knout for political prisoners, but the punishment is horrible, just such as the designer of the plan in- tended. In political cases, the police have the power to arrest without any restrictions from the court. This gives promptness to their actions. The solitary confine- ment which one undergoes ruins the ner- vous system, and the useless life in exile finishes the work. The places of exile are selected very wisely in order to accom- plish the mental ruin of the politicals. The government allows the political exile five copecks a day, but he has to wait about a year before receiving it The police avoid conflicting with the politicals as much as possible. It is the stagnation, the impotence of their seclu- sion from the surrounding people, that keep the exiles restless and dangerous. The exiles live in their own circles, — circles of neurotics, — and fed and know their abilities and energy, but are nnaMf to put them into useful activity. This pent-up energy breaks out in quarrels and fights with each other. I have known people who were the best of friends for ten years, who, after two months of liv- ing together in exile, ceased to recognize each other. Thus, men who were at first the best of friends became in one year deadly enemies. It is almost im- possible to avoid such results, and it is the policy of the government to cause this state of affairs. This life eventually leads to a strong repugnance to every- thing, to themselves as well as their fel- low-men. No great astonishment is ex- pressed by these men at the suicide of one of their acquaintances, or of the mur- der of a state official by an exile. This life is a logically-deducted scheme, skil- fully planned and carefully executed by the Russian government One day in the spring of the year, a transport brought two Poles from War- saw. These men had been dose and intimate friends, but the system of pun- ishment carried out by the Russian gov- ernment in the course of time blasted this friendship, and both men looked upon each other with abhorrence. At the time of their arrival in this town they could scarcdy bear each other’s presence, and hatred was shown in every glance. This system of punishment, the confining of two friends in a single cell, keeping them confined for several years before exiling them, is a horrible example of the Rus- sion government’s knowledge of psycho- logical matters. While confined in jail these suspects were subjected to tortu- ring punishment. They had been con- fined in the same cell and abused in the most atrocious manner. They were Digitized by Google
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In Prison and in Exile. 607 augked and scoffed at, cursed and ridi- ruled, and many other refinements of noral teasing were practiced. It scarce- y seems possible that one man could be so inhuman as to wantonly inflict such torture upon his fellow-man, but this was lie duty of the prison officials, and those under the Russian government must per- Form efficiently and in every detail their obligations. Every morning, at two o’clock, the guards would inspect the cells, and if on their arrival at the cell of tbese two men they had not gotten from their beds, the guard would pull them by their feet from the bed to the floor. The food these men received was very poor, as well as unclean. They complained to the chief of its impurity, and, as a con- sequence, they were put into a cellar for three days and nights. The floor of this cellar was of stone, covered with the ex- creta of punished prisoners. They had no light whatever, and for three days and nights the men could not sit down or sleep, but walked in the lake of filth. Their food was bread and water. Upon another occasion, when they complained to the inspector of the prison, the chief, to revenge himself, put diem into the cel- lar for five days. But, fortunately, the transport was ready to sail for Siberia, and as they had been sentenced to exile, they had to spend only two days in this foul cellar. One of these men wrote the Minister of Justice all the facts concern- ing the manner in which they were treat- ed in prison, but whether or not the matter was investigated I cannot say, for in a few months the complainant escaped. In the commune it was very easy to conceal his absence. The police did not notice his disappearance until after he had been gone a week, and by that time I have no doubt the man was many miles away. The other exile remained with us only six months. He had to support his mother and sister, when he scarcely could earn enough for his own living. The young man was very sensitive and refused all proffered assistance. At last he borrowed some money and escaped. He was a mechanic; he made some took and kept a shop, but had veiy little work. He resolved to leave all his business (which did not amount to much) behind, telling his landlord to be silent as he was going to leave town for a few days with- out permission of the police. The com- mune detective did not suspect the me- chanic’s absence, for upon looking daily in the windows of his shop he could see all the took. But the landlord, after some time had passed, told the police that he feared something had happened to the exile, and after they hunted for him without avail they apparently gave up all hope of ever finding him. Several other men escaped while I spent my pe- riod of exile here, but the percentage of those who escaped was less than those who died or committed suicide. A woman in the fourth year of her exile, and a half year after her marriage, cut her throat An old man — a neurasthenic — committed suicide after finishing his term of banishment Many of those with whom I divided my lot are now dead in various parts of Russia, and all were young men. Those whom I have called old men were 45 and 46 years old. At the end of the last year I noticed some changes in the opinions of the new exiles. Some were pessimistic in their discussions, and, in a manner, colored with the philosophy of Nietzsche. A new party arose which advocated open revolution with arms. A son of an exile arrived from the university, bringing a pamphlet of a new terroristic party. He was ridiculed by the older revolutionists, as the book was childish; so was the party. His father was very serious in his denunciation of the matter, and scold- ed and reproached his son; he explained what all this would mean should he be detected instigating the men to revolu- tion. After spending his vacation with his father, the young man returned to Digitized by Google
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608 Beauty and Light. the university. He did not profit by his father’s advice, for we all heard that he had been concerned in students’ riots and had been exiled, and later on was drafted into the army. The father re- ceived a letter, saying that the son re- fused to take the oath of allegiance, had been imprisoned and was to be court- martialed. This information was not correct, having been sent by the govern- ment to worry the old man and his wife. This boy was her only love, and her only ambition and aim in life had been to see him successful; and when this informa- tion was received, the poor woman was thrown into a condition bordering on insanity. At times she imagined him happy, married, and with all the attri- butes of happiness that a mother’s im- agination invites, at the same time she feared that something serious must hap- pen to him. I consoled the poor mother as much as I could. If the boy was im- prisoned, I explained, this was nothing to worry about, for all of us Russians must pass through prison en route to our ambition. I escaped about the time the old man was released. A month later I read in a newspaper that his son had shot down the Minister of Interior, at St. Peters- burg, and had been hanged. A year la ter I learned of the father’s death. Baltimore , Md. BEAUTY AND LIGHT. Bt Kenton West. SEVERAL of the plays recently given here by Madame R6jane and Mrs. Patrick Campbell, and the last farce from the pen of Mr. Pinero, have excited con- siderable discussion and brought up the ever-vital question of stage ethics. Last year certain plays given by Madame Dus£ excited similar discussion. It is an an- nual affair. Every season when objec- tionable plays are produced in this coun- try by gracious foreign artists, or when our own artists act in plays of foreign dramatists which are a disgrace to Amer- ica, we hear a few ptotests from the higher order of critics. But, with few excep- tions, these protests are feeble and in- effectual. They lack earnestness. As for the people, it takes an undeniable offence like Clyde Fitch’s “ Sapho ” to rouse them from their lethargy. As a rule, people are either long-suffering, com- placent or carelessly indifferent. It must be acknowledged that with these discussions of the subject of stage ethics there is sometimes apt to be ming- led much cant, especially from those whose experience of the stage is limited, or who have an inadequate appreciation of the scope and range of dramatic art. The protest of the narrow, puritanic spirit that can see no good where good undoubtedly exists, does much harm. It is scarcely less harmful than the atti- tude of the ordinary writer on the stage who “ takes the drama as he finds it” and does not go deeply into the question of influence, moral responsibility' and other things which afflict the deeper thinker, the more earnest student of life and of art. The time has come when the theater can no longer be ignored by the Puritan or by the thoughtful student of sociology. Its place in the community is of the ut- most importance. In our modem life it is a factor more and more to be reck- oned with whenever the subject of ethics comes up for consideration. For man has an irresistible instinct for play. He must be amused and taken out of himself or he becomes a useless member of society, a mere machine or a Digitized by Google
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609 Beauty and Light. hopeless hypochondriac. A great writer say s that it is play rather than toil that is most germane to our true nature and that lies closest to the Divine intention. But man in his play as well as in his work, in his pleasures as well as his duties de- mands care and direction. The respon- sibility of the playwright, the actor and the theatrical manager who minister to this unconquerable desire, to this irre- sistible instinct for amusement, is there- fore almost overwhelming. It is the duty of the playwright, the actor and the man- ager to furnish that form of amusement which will not disgrace themselves or be a source of danger to the people. In spite of the strident voices of certain so-called emancipators and reformers who make a loud cry about there bring a rad- ical distinction between art and ethics, humanity knows that the two are closely connected. Even if we wished, we could not divorce art from ethics. It would not exalt art if we could. We cannot escape from the ethical responsibility nor from the ethical difficulty. Charles Lamb felt the need of escape from the pressure of daily cares when he wrote his essay in praise of the artificial comedy of the Restoration. He deplored the reasons why that old comedy could not be tolerated in his time, the moral test bring applied too rigidly. Were Charles Lamb living now, he would feel that the conditions of our modem life being what they are, it is still more im- possible to avoid the moral test. He himself would be the first to acknowledge that in the course of human events, the stage has come to that point in its devel- opment when it can no longer be viewed as a means of mere amusement. Its mission is a higher one than that. The stage is a means of increasing one’s knowledge of life; of studying character in its many diverse and contrasting man- ifestations; of getting vivid and in some cases accurate ideas of history; of repro- ducing past epochs and far-away places. The stage is a means of widening one’s sympathies, of gaining broader, more liberal opinions. Henry Irving even con- siders it an important factor in interna- tional politics. Dr. Parkhurst says that: “As a means of intellectual stimulus and of moral uplift there is nothing, with the possible exception of the pulpit, that could stand alongside of it as an enginery of personal effect, provided only it would maintain itself in its proper character as the dramatized incarnation of strength, Personally, I would like at least once a week to get out from under the incubus of ordinary obligation and to yield myself up intellectually and emotionally to the domination of dramatic power. I could live with a fresher life and could write and speak with a more recuperated vigor, I am sure.” The power of the stage for good, as well as for evil, cannot be overestimated. Its power for evil is to be reckoned with, to be fought. Its power for good is to be emphasized. Considering the important place the stage occupies in the community, it must therefore, be viewed with a serious and thoughtful attention. And this is not at all incompatible with the idea of its being a source of recreation and pleasure. Re- creation really means to create anew, to refresh and relieve the mind. We do not gain refreshment by means of that which harms and blights. Was it not Stendhal who said that Beauty is a promise of happiness ? All art springs from the instinctive de- sire of man for beauty. That art min- isters to him the most richly which opens out to his perceptions the largest number of means by which beauty can be ob- tained. And one of the results of culture is that perceptions themselves become more acute according to the degree of training they receive. Of all the arts, the drama opens out the widest field for the presentation of what the trained mind demands for its complete satisfaction. The trained mind will find beauty in classical and romantic forms ; in the som- bre gloom, the appalling grandeur of the Digitized by Google
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610 Beauty and Light. tragedy; in the sparkling humor and the tender sentiment of the comedy; in the delicate fancy of the poetical rhapsody; in the caustic wit of the satire. Beauty will be found in the dramas of observa- tion of contemporary Hfe, in those deal- ing with history or with the charm of romance. Sometimes it will be found even in the farce. But beauty will not be found in the mud of the streets. Emerson says indeed that the good botanist will find flowers between the pavements, that even in the mud and scum of things is something always, always sings. But we must remember that it is the flower, it is the song that we are seeking, it is the flower and the song that are beautiful. We hear much these days in praise of the drama of observation. It is said that it will soon take the place of the romantic drama which stirs our pulse and makes the blood flow and dance in our veins, which takes us out of ourselves and gives us brief respite from the stress and the fret of life. But we must not forget that in this drama of observation, observation of the tragedies and the pains of life as of its joys and its hopes, there must be a strong appeal to the higher nature of man. While not obtruding a moral lesson — a crude expedient, indeed — it will nevertheless not ignore the con- science of man, nor make a jest of sym- pathy, justice, pity, remorse, truth, fidel- ity. And in this drama of observation there must be conspicuous the great prin- ciple of selection which lies at the foun- dation of the creation of beauty. There are of course differences of opin- ion in regard to what themes shall, be chosen for dramatic representation and elucidation. But evil does not consist merely in the theme. It is the manner in which the theme is developed and un- folded which repels a healthy mind. There is an infirmity of moral judgment in some plays of modem society which is deplor- able. No plea that they are based on accurate observation of life, that they are written in obedience to the formula, now become such a cant phrase, — “ait for art’s sake,” — no cleverness of con- struction, no brilliant, sparkling dialogue, no skilful acting can make atonement for their cynicism. There is a thirst for realism which is feverish and unnatural There is a point beyond which realism should not venture. Life is full of the sordid, the vulgar, the debasing, full of the grim horror of sin. It requires a great genius to transmute this into that which will serve the noble purposes of art, — and great geniuses are veiy rare. The ordinary dramatist need not flatter himself that he is obeying the high behest of art when he observes these sordid and debasing phases of Hfe and reproduces them upon the stage. The realistic ar- gument breaks down sadly when it is supported by the work of certain modern playwrights. The stage is a battle-ground for many varied emotions, thoughts and passions; vices must be depicted — treacheries, cruelties; many problems must come up for solution ; what the Germans call the Welt-Schmerz, the pain of the world must be analyzed But all this can be done in a manner to elevate the mind, rather than to debase it. The vivid representation of vice can be made to serve a high and noble pur- pose, to make a potent appeal to the con- science. The great masterpieces of dra- matic art serve this high and noble pur- pose. That is one reason why they arc masterpieces, and why they Hve. One of the essential things in the for- mation of healthful plays is that while nothing pertaining to man is forbidden to the dramatist, the worst aspects of human life should not be presented and assigned such a prominent place in the dramatic scheme as to appear to be dom- inant, prevailing, uni vernal; while the lovely, the pure, the noble acts and thoughts and emotions in reaHty more common are made to appear as “little better than iridescent dreams.” Many of our modem plays are not only morbid and depressing, but they are misleading. Digitized by Google
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611 Beauty and Light . luman nature is not a moral wreck, a estering mass of disease. Our minds should not dwell constantly upon disease. There is health, — glowing, radiant wealth in human life and in human nature. But we are told that health cannot be made as interesting as disease, that happy, *ane lives make no history. It is true that bo depict happiness, sanity, normal condi- tions requires a finer literary skill, a subtler Insight than to analyze hideous sin, sen- sational conditions, abnonnal conditions. The coarse, rough touch may succeed in attracting attention where the finer skill is passed by. But we should get over the delusion that disease is more interesting than health. Let us escape from this stifling atmosphere of the sick-room. Let us get out into the sunlight, out upon the hills where the breeze is fresh, like that blowing in from the sea. For, as we do not gain re-creation, re- freshment and relief of mind by means of that which harms and blights, neither do we gain it by that which discourages us and takes away our hope and enthu- siasm. Nothing which leaves us de- pressed is a true work of art, says Swin- burne. From even the great masterpieces of tragic art there emanates an influence which exalts and expands the spirit. The glorious tragedies of Shakespeare or of Schiller do not harm us, do not take away our hope. But how depressing are some of the plays which have recently been seen upon our stage! And this is one reason why many of Mrs. Fiske’s sincerest admirers are glad that she has ceased to act in “ Hedda Gabler.” Such a play takes the heart out of men. Mrs. Fiske’s influence is too precious, her art too lovely and gracious, her mission too benign for her to spend her energies upon plays like “ Hedda Gabler.” To be sure, it is skilful as far as form is concerned. It has unity of thought, compactness of construction. But it lacks the ethical value of “ Ghosts.” It has no tragic depth and it lacks those elements of beauty without which there can be no great art. The soul is not thrilled by it. The heart is not made tender, the imagination is not fired by it. It has no warmth, no light. I know that the adherents of Ibsen would smile at an opinion hke this, and would attribute it to a lack of intellectual perception. They would say that as a study of character “ Hedda Gabler” is masterly, and therefore it is beautiful; that he who denies its beauty is not one of the elect. But it is useless to repeat the many con- flicting opinions about Ibsen. It is not useless, however, occasionally to empha- size the necessity of a play being an uplift and a refreshment, a stimulus and a joy rather than a depressant. Clyde Fitch made a great mistake years ago with his “ Sapho.” He lost prestige by it. But the other day he published these words: “To create a character whose person- ality, views and words shall bring sunlight into the hearts and lives of hundreds of audiences is certainly as high a goal as any art-worker can ask for. There have been many definitions of art; but Words- worth said: ‘That is good art which makes the beholder wiser, better or hap- pier.’” That is excellent doctrine. A few years ago. Dr. Slicer in an ad- dress before the Nineteenth Century Club spoke of the moral ministry of pure de- light. “The most of the people in this world,” he said, “have no pure delight. Heart must be put into men. . . . I think there is a moral ministry of the stage that serves the purpose of pure delight from highest to lowest.” Since that memorable speech many plays have been produced in America which take the heart out of men. Worse than that, their influence is to weaken the hold upon the imagination of that which uplifts and ennobles. This is what is meant by saying that it is not in the theme of a play that evil may consist, or even in the language employed. It is in the man- ner in which the theme is developed, in Digitized by Google
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612 Beauty and Light . the moral standpoint of the dramatist. Evil may be so presented as to do great good. It may strike terror to the heart, inspire pity and sympathy, and at the same time it may be full of light and hope. The finest art is full of light and hope. But much of the so-called art given on our stage and in our books has in it darkness and hopelessness, cynical mockery of that which is best, most worth while. “With the fever of the senses,” says Joubert, “the delirium of the passions, the weakness of the spirit; with the storms of the passing time, and with the scourges of humanity — hunger, thirst, dis- honor, disease and death — authors may go on as long as they will making novels which shall harrow up our hearts; but the soul says, all the while, * you hurt me.’ ” The ordinary melodrama which makes the development of character subordinate to situation, which violates probability, and presents tawdry sentiment in a man- ner which gives little satisfaction to the lover of high art, receives more encourage- ment from the mass of the people than these cynical plays that hurt the soul. And one reason why the drama of com- mon life in which the moral point is every- thing has so firm a hold upon the sympa- thies and the attention of the public is that common life is full of happiness as well as misery; full of humor, that glor- ious gift of the gods, as well as pathos; full of kindly deeds as well as meannesses and cruelties. As for the farce, we all believe in it. It is because life is so real, and grief and care so sure, that we must sometimes escape into a fantastic region whose whimsical- ities are out of touch with realities. What would we do without the laughter which liberates the soul ? We need the ministry of pure delight. Nonsense is refreshing and essential. But when the farce becomes a hybrid composition, a mixture of the fantastic and the serious, then it cannot escape the penalty of being brought before the same tribunal which passes judgment upon the drama in its more pretentious forms. The majority of our modem farces possess this mixed qualify. Therefore, it is always safe to remember that no farce is healthful when it rubs off the bloom of delicate feeling; when it chills the sympathies and throws a blight over one’s impulses of trust and reverence; when it makes ridiculous or parodies the holiest feelings of the human heart, the noblest aspirations, travesties sentiment and dignify; when the sacredness of human ties is made to appear contempt- ible,—in brief, when it treats in a flippant manner those subjects which should be treated with respect. There is no reason whatever why a play cannot be exhilarating, sparkling, thor- oughly laughable, thoroughly interesting, without the laughter being directed against truth and honor and conjugal loyalty. From the Restoration down, France has been responsible for much of the deg- radation of the English stage. England has much to be ashamed of, due to herself alone, but there is a certain strength of moral fiber which seems to be the birth- right of the English and the American people. The French do not possess it The American, with all his accessibility to ideas, his catholicity of taste, his free- dom from insular prejudice, is untrue to his birthright when he accepts too readily the French mode of presenting certain things. Many of the light comedies and farces which have come from France are unworthy of the attention they have re- ceived here. They have a lightness of touch, a cleverness, a sparkle of wit which are peculiarly alluring, but they are un- healthful, pernicious. Our playwrights should not strive to model their own work upon them. Eng- lish vulgarity is too awkward and clumsy to be artistic, and there is not so much danger in it. But from England came Mr. Pinero's latest farce, which, happily, has proved a failure in this country. If Mr. Pinero would but remember his own words and interpret public taste at its high* est. “We must never think of writing down to the public,” he said, several years ago, “we should always write up, and it Digitized by Google
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613 Beauty and Light. will rise with us. There are two ways of interpreting that mysterious quality known as public taste: there is interpret- ing it at its lowest and there is interpret- ing it at its highest. Interpret it at its highest.” Mr. Pinero is not the first man whom delicate, illusive sophistry has deceived. Dr. Parkhurst once wrote: u My ac- quaintance with the drama in its present condition is derived from statements of theater-goers, from newspaper criticisms and from the bill-boards. I have also recently had the opportunity to discuss the whole matter thoroughly with one of our most distinguished English actors, who has frequently made professional visits to America. These four authori- ties, each in its own way, tell substan- tially the same story, and leave upon my mind the distinct impression that if the American theater were suddenly to omit all its vicious Accompaniments, and to come out frankly upon the ground of un- equivocal purity, the theater-going world would withdraw in impatient disgust and the whole business go into the hands of a receiver inside of a month.” I hope Dr. Parkhurst was wrong. I believe he was. I believe that the majority of the 44 higher classes” in America patronize certain objectionable plays because of these plays having something to recom- mend them besides their vulgarities, evident or subtly suggested. Skilful act- ing, the fame of actors, the prestige of fashionable theaters, gorgeous scenery, attractive music — all these cause the large audiences. In this country we have no censorship of the stage, other than an enlightened and refined press-criticism. Let us in- sist that that criticism does its duty. Ed- ucate the people to be less complacent in regard to the evil. The majority of peo- ple do not like it. Teach them to be less indifferent to their moral obligations. Every season some of our magazines are most hospitable to summaries of cur- rent theatrical offerings. The majority of these summaries emphasize the busi- ness-side of the subject, and pay less attention than they should to the literary, artistic and ethical qualities of the plays produced. When a writer emphasizes this business-side to the extent of assert- ing that a dramatic critic* is not expected to speak the whole truth about a certain production, when that production is ad- vertised exclusively in the periodical in which his criticism will appear, then it is time that the public should pause in its careless acceptance of what others choose to offer it and think seriously of this ques- tion of stage ethics. There has recently been manifest a tendency on the part of a few writers to deal with the duties and obligations of dramatic criticism. No subject could be of greater importance; and it is an auspicious sign of the times that it is con- sidered worthy of discussion. By such discussion its range will be widened, its standard will be raised and it will take higher rank in the estimation of the public. Mr. Dithmar once said that the dra- matic critic usually writes with the under- standing and tastes of his readers in view and to say therefore that the aim and tone of current dramatic criticism should be higher and more serious is simply equiva- lent to saying that the general public ought to be more serious and more refined. This is begging the question, reasoning in a cir- cle. The critic should lead the public, not be influenced by the public’s indif- ference and complacency. I do not agree with Mr. Archer that the critic must be an opportunist and take the drama as he finds it. No reform was ever effected by the opportunist. He is a useless dog on the wheels of progress. The critic should never cease to use all his powers of reasoning and persuasion, even his powers of satire, to bring the drama up to a higher plane. The responsibility of dramatic criticism is indeed great. It must be strenuous, exacting, free from frivolity and flippancy. Let it assert the sovereignty of the spirit rather than the tyranny of the flesh. Let it insist that our dramatists take a health- *Th$ Forum, July, 1908. Digitized by Google
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614 Beauty and Light . ful view of things, that their interpreta- tion of life be such as will lift up rather than debase, as will guide as well as in- form; taking account indeed of the sin and shame of this sad and weary world but presenting that sin so there will not be contagion nor hopelessness in it. Let it insist that our plays have not only con- structive skill and literary charm, lumi- nous beauty of thought and of expression, the imaginative and the poetic quality so essential to perfect works of art; but that they take heed to a certain command written in an ancient letter, — a command that we are to think on the whatsoever things that are true, that are honest, that are just, that are pure, that are lovely and are of good report. There is virtue, and there is praise in these things. To do this is not to show weakness. We want our dramatists to show strength. James Huneker does well to warn against what has been called feminism in litera- ture. Our dramatists need to have a firm, manly grasp of life; but having this grasp, being called a realist, does not necessarily imply that dark unbeau- tiful themes alone should occupy the attention and these themes be dealt with in a sordid manner* unrelieved by those flashes of light without which there can be no convincing truth. Life in all its phases must be used, but it must be treat- ed from the high standpoint of the man with large vision, not from the narrow slit in the dark cell of the mocking cynic whose view is limited by the dust heap in front of that narrow slit. Bronson Howard said recently that he did not know what would be the future history of the American drama, but it would anyway have a tremendous power and it would reflect the feelings of a great people. The stage, he insisted, should be as broad as the needs of the people and the people could reform it or not as they choose. The people have the right to look to the managers that the masterpieces of English dramatic art be not neglected; that that which is best and brightest and most beautiful in foreign drama, — in fact the best that is thought and said in the whole world, — should receive hospitable welcome; and that American interests, American life, American history should receive the emphasis of their approval; not the problems peculiar to Russia, Germany, Italy, but the problems arising out of die conditions and needs of the American life that touches us so closely. The people have it in their power to lend their support to those actors, play- wrights and managers whose artistic, literary and ethical standards are the highest, whose offerings are die most worthy. In America the drama will not be seen in its noblest form until the management of affairs is not monopolized by a few men, especially when these men are dom- inated by the commercial spirit, and are not men of wide culture and high ideals. The more managers there are and the more independence they have, the better will it be for the drama; the better will the people be served. Over ten years ago, Madame Modjeska began talking earnestly and forcibly about an endowed theater. Since then it has been discussed a great deal. Many sug- gestions have been made, some wise, others wild and impractical. If an endowed theater ever becomes a reality it certainly ought to be under the management that will be in harmony with American ideals and needs. May the Fates speed the day when the Drama will be seen in its noblest form; when it will not fail to be the great in- terpreter of great literature, the vivid representation of great art; when its humor will be honest, clean, not lacking in dignity; its reproduction of human life and human character, truthful, based on keen observation and yet pos- sessing what Wordsworth called the “breath, the finer spirit of all know- ledge"; when it will afford genuine and healthful recreation to a discriminating and refined public that has been guided and inspired by a scholarly, sincere and independent press criticism. New York. Kenton West. Digitized by Google
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THE COMMERCE OF LATIN AMERICA: A MAGNIFI- CENT FIELD NEGLECTED BY THE UNITED STATES. By Prof. Frederic M. Noa. THE RECENT annoucement in the public press that the Hon. John Barrett, United States Minister to Pana- ma, has offered various sums, to be de- rated to prizes for the best essays on the his- tory and development of the southern half of the New World, known under the gen- eral name of Latin America, is a forcible reminder that there exists another Amer- ica, besides the English-speaking one of the United States and Canada, well worthy of serious, intelligent and sym- pathetic study. The people of the United States have only awakened since the close of the late war with Spain to the fact that there lies to the south of the Rio Grande of Texas a continental area of the New World greater by 1,511,567 square miles than the United States, Canada, Alaska and the Hawaiian Islands combined, and inhabited by 60,000,000 souls, in other words, by a population three-fourths as large as that of die United States. With- in recent years there has been a quick- ened interest in the affairs of Mexico, Central America, South America and the West Indies, or, in other words, in Latin America, which may boast of a Spanish and Portuguese civilization more than a hundred years older than that of Eng- land in the United States. Chief among the influences, besides the late war with Spain, which have brought this result about, are the far-seeing prophecy and agitation of that great American states- man, the Hon. James G. Blaine, the famous Venezuelan message of President Cleveland, resulting in arbitration be- tween Great Britain and Venezuela; the Pan-American Exposition of 1901 in Buffalo, and the beautiful farewell ad- dress of the lamented and martyr Presi- dent William McKinley. That the commerce of Mexico, South America, and indeed the whole of Latin America, is of immense and constantly- growing value, was clearly foreseen by Mr. Blaine, then Secretary of State, who, in his address of welcome, on the second of October, 1889, to the delegates of the International American Conference, as- sembled in Washington, D. C., said: “ You come in response to an invitation extended by the President, on the special authorization of Congress. Your pres- ence here is no ordinary event. It sig- nifies much to the people of all America to-day. It may signify far more in the days to come. No conference of nations has ever assembled to consider the wel- fare of territorial possessions so vast and to contemplate the possibilities of a future so great and so inspiring. Those now sitting within these walls are em- powered to speak for nations, whose borders are on both the great oceans, whose northern limits are touched by the Arctic waters for a thousand miles beyond the Strait of Behring, and whose south- ern extension furnishes human habita- tions farther below the equator than is elsewhere possible on the globe.” The foregoing warning of Mr. Blaine, not to neglect Pan-American commercial relations, was still further emphasized by President McKinley, as follows, in his memorable farewell address: “We must not repose in fancied secu- rity that we can forever sell everything and buy little or nothing. Reciprocity is the natural outgrowth of our wonder- ful industrial development under the domestic policy now firmly established. “The period of exclusiveness is past. The expansion of our trade and commerce 05 Digitized by Google
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616 The Commerce of Latin America . is the pressing problem. Commercial wars are unprofitable. A policy of good- will and friendly trade relations will pre- vent reprisals. Reciprocity treaties are in harmony with the spirit of the times; measures of retaliation are not. If, per- chance, some of our tariffs are no longer needed for revenue or to encourage and protect our industries at home, why should they not be employed to extend and promote our markets abroad ? “ This (Pan-American) Exposition would have touched the heart of that American statesman whose mind was ever alert and thought ever constant for a larger commerce and a truer fraternity of the republics of the New World. His broad American spirit is felt and mani- fested here. “He needs no identification to an as- semblage of Americans anywhere, for the name of Blaine is inseparably asso- ciated with the Pan-American movement, which finds here practical and substan- tial expression. “Let us ever remember that our in- terest is in concord, not conflict; and that our real eminence rests in the vic- tories of peace, not those of war.” In spite of these words of admonition from two of the greatest statesmen of America, it is highly mortifying to turn to the latest report, that of 1904, of the United States Bureau of Statistics, and to perceive how utterly unsatisfactory American commercial relations are with the whole of Latin America, a vast ter- ritory lying close at hand, on the won- derful American continent and its ad- joining islands. It is astonishing that the keen and alert Yankee should fail to realize the importance of Latin-Ameri- can commerce, the more so, since it may be had without the shedding of one single drop of human blood, and without the wholesale butchery and murder now raging in the purple-stained Far Orient According to the latest available compar- ative statistics, the total foreign trade of Latin America with the entire world was. in round numbers, for the year 1902, $1,198,000,000 against $7128,000,000 for the Far East, namely, China, Japan and the Philippines, or, in other words, over sixty per cent more valuable than that coveted trade which has plunged two of the great powers of mankind in deadly conflict The foreign commerce of Latin America is nearly one-half that of the United States, while that of the Far Orient is less than one-third. More- over, Latin American commerce is des- tined to become infinitely more valuable when the Panama canal shall have been completed and opened, and shall make the two Americas, Anglo and Lafin- American, the great industrial emporium of the world. The following graphical charts, care- fully based on the statistics of the report mentioned above, will convey a very clear idea of the volume of Latin-Amer- ican foreign trade for 1902, and the pro- portion handled by the United States. The first chart submitted below is a comparative table of the total foreign commerce of the United States ($2,370,- 423,000) as contrasted with that of Latin America ($1,198,000,000) and that of the Far East ($728,000,000). The table speaks for itself, and shows the greater value of Latin-American foreign trade as compared with the combined inter- national commerce of China, Japan and the Philippines. The second chart shows the total ex- ports and imports of Latin America, for 1902, and the United States trade with that continent and adjoining islands. The third chart, which is self-explan- atory, reveals, for the year 1902, the total exports of the leading Latin-American republics and the export trade of each with the United States. The fourth and last chart showing the total imports, for the same year, of these republics, and the imports from die United States into each, also needs no explanation These charts plainly reveal, so far as the United States are concerned, a most Digitized by Google
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Photo. by Purdy, Boston. FREDERIC M. NOA * \ The Arena Digitized by Google
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The Commerce of Latin America. 617 COMPARATIVE TABLE SHOWING THE TOTAL FOREIGN COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES, LATIN AMERICA AND THE FAR EAST (CHINA, JAPAN AND THE PHILIPPINES). 1902. (From the United States Bureau qf Statistics, 190L) Foreign Commerce of the United State*. Foreign Commerce of Latin America. Foreign Commerce of tlie Far East. unsatisfactory commercial balance-sheet To guard, however, against any possi- ble error, it is worth while to analyze, in detail, the figures of the United States Bureau of Statistics. The total ex- ports of Latin America for the year 1902 were, in round numbers, $713,384,000. Of this tremendous export trade with the world, $286,792,000, or only about one-third, came to the United States. Dur- ing the same year, the im- ports into Latin America reached the enormous figure of $484,660,000, of which amount the United States HH contributed only $114,636,- 000, or less than one-fourth. Taking a rapid survey of the leading Latin-American countries, — one may be- gin with Mexico, — the statistics of 1902 being used as a basis of analysis. The exports of that highly-prospcrous country i were $75,575,000, of which $57,473,000, or 76 per cent, were exported to the United States. The imports of Mexico from all countries were $62,229,000, the United States contributing $39,017,000, 1 or 63 per cent. This is a fairly satisfac- tory showing, although there is room for much-needed improvement, considering that Mexico lies in dose proximity to the United States, with which it is linked by several inter- national railway-lines, while others are now under con- struction on the Mexican Pa- cific seaboard. The bulk of the foreign trade of Cuba (justly called “the key to the Gulf of Mexico”) is natur- ally, for geographical and political reasons, with the United States, Cuban sugar and tobacco being mainly consumed in that great market. The entire ex- ports of Cuba were $77,- 849,000, 80 per cent, of which amount, or $62,758,- 000, came to the United States. The total imports of Cuba were $58,826,000, the United States contributing $23,714,000, or 44 per cent. The area of that magnificent Latin- American republic, Brazil, of the tropical and South Temperate zone, is almost as vast as the United States and Alaska combined. The total exports of Brazil with all countries were $177,323,000, of which there came to the United States $71,583,000, or considerably less than Seder A nbumiwW tilt,—,—, or, epeee ImlidtaM COMPARATIVE TABLE SHOW- ING EXPORTS AND IMPORTS OF LATIN AMERICA, AND UNITED STATES TRADE WITH THAT CONTINENT. 1902. Exports of Latin America. Portion exported to the U.S. Imports of Latin America. Contributed by the U.S. Digitized by Google
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618 The Commerce of Latin America. COMPARATIVE TABLE SHOWING TOTAL EXPORTS OF THE LEADING LATIN-AMERICAN REPUBLICS AND EXPORT TRADE OF EACH WITH THE UNITED STATER 19S2. (From Urn XMo& Statm Bureau qf aatotin.) Sotlo: 1 centimeter to 00,000,000 worth of exports. Exports of tbe Argeatlse RepolfHc Porttoo exported to If . R
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619 The Commerce of Latin America . one-half. The imports of Brazil were $113,388,000, of which the insignificant fraction of $11,156,000, or less than 10 per cent, was contributed by the United States. The next largest Latm-American re- public to Brazil is the splendid south tropical and temperate Argentine Re- public, in extent nearly twice that of Alaska, and about one-third of the con- tinental part of the United States. Out of its area, four states as large as the state of Texas might be conveniently carved. The total exports of the Argentine Re- public were $173,205,000, of which $9,- 687,000, or only about 5 per cent., reached the ports of the United States. The entire imports of Argentina were $99,- 433,000; of this profitable commerce the United States supplied $12,838,000, or less than 13 per cent. This showing is all the more deplorable when one takes into account that the Argentine Republic, like its energetic neighbor Chile, is justly regarded as one of the most progressive, prosperous and enlightened republics of Latin America. Eminent authorities have frequently and conclusively proved that American manufactures require, for their fuller development, all the raw hides and wool Argentina can supply, while ' 5,000,000 Argentines, largely of the best stock of Europe, would be only too glad to have American-manufactured products in exchange, if only offered to them on as advantageous terms as those of Euro- pean competitors. Chile, another extremely prosperous and progressive South American country, has an area considerably larger than the state of Texas. In 1902, she sent to all the lands of the world $67,846,000 worth of exports, of which amount the United States received $3,775,000, or a trifle over five per cent. Her entire imports were $48,336,000, of which the United States contributed $5,254,000, or less than 10 per cent. The Republic of Uruguay, not without reason called 44 The Switzerland of Latin America/’ possessing, like its great neigh- bor, Argentina, an abundance of raw hides needed in American industries, which, with equitable trade arrangements, she would readily exchange for American manufactures, sends $33,656,000 worth of exports to all foreign countries, of which the United States receives $2,004,- 000, or about six per cent. The entire imports of Uruguay are $24,565,000, the United States contributing $2,148,- 000, or less than eight per cent. The trade of the Central American Republics, in view of their close geo- graphical position to the Panama canal route, is destined to become highly valued and coveted. At present, their total exports amount to $22,321,000, of which only $9,400,000, or 42 per cent, reach the United States. The combined im- ports of these five republics amount to $13,914,000, of which the United States contributes $6,027,000, or 43 per cent As regards the balance of Latin Amer- ica, it has a total export trade of $85, 609,000, only $20,112,000, or consider- ably less than one-fourth, reaching the United States. The imports of the same portion of Latin America have a value of $60,069,000, the United States furnish- ing $12,482,000, or about one-fifth. To the reflecting and patriotic Ameri- can, the deplorable neglect of his com- mercial opportunities with twenty repub- * lies of the New World, who are his next- door neighbors, cannot fail to be morti- fying to his pride. Some of these coun- tries already possess railroads across the highest chains of the lofty, snow-dad Andes which are among the greatest triumphs of engineering skill. Other extensive and difficult railway-systems are either under construction in various parts of Latin America, or, in the course of a few years, will be commenced and as rapidly as physical obstades will per- mit, be pushed on to completion. When once the Panama canal shall have been opened, it will become the main artery of the vast and growing commerce of the southern half of the New World, the lion’s share of which will still remain in Digitized by Google
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620 The Commerce of Latin America. the hands of Europe, unless the United States shall bestir themselves vigorously and intelligently to capture at least a fair proportion of it. To understand clearly why Europe, and not the United States, is in almost abso- lute control of the foreign commerce of Latin America, one must not shrink from facing certain disagreeable truths. Itisan unfortunate fact that most Americans are watching too closely the gigantic con- flict in the Far Orient, to the complete neglect of their interests with Mexico, South America and other parts of Latin America, the control of whose ever-ex- panding commerce would be of infinitely more value to the United States than that of the Far Asiatic East Anglo-American conceit is not yet ready to admit that, in spite of adverse circumstances, a noble civilisation is steadily and silently devel- oping in the portion of the Western Hem- isphere originally colonised by the Span- ish and the Portuguese. There exists among Americans a wholly unwarranted distrust as to the general honesty and sense of fair play of their Latin American brethren. The latter are keenly, and even absurdly, sensitive in matters of honor. Their methods are often lax, but they will beggar themselves to the point of starvation in order ultimately to pay every cent of their honest debts. It is quite true that their environment and centuries of evil training and condi- tions render too many Latin-Americans unpunctual in keeping appointments, extravagant and lavish in their tastes, easy-going in their ways, and dilatory about the repayment of their obligations. Such habits are the cause of endless friction in business dealings with their English-speaking neighbors of the United States, whose brusque manners and direct ways make them impatient with the Lat- in-American temperament. As an in- evitable result of mutual misunderstand- ings, and for want of ordinary tact, valu- able trade is lost because American ex- porting and commission houses are simply too careless and indifferent to exert them- selves to take the necessary steps to secxm it, and, accordingly, their competitor? in Europe profit enormously by sud colossal blunders. American manu- facturing and commercial firms general!; send down to such a metropolis as Buena Ayres, which has nearly a million inhab- itants, representatives, drummers and traders who have no proper training, are wholly ignorant of the Spanish language, or have a very superficial, smattering knowledge of it, are lacking in tact and courtesy, and receive such a small, pitiful salary that they can scarcely eke out a respectable living. When they endeavor to catch some of the profitable trade con- stantly flowing into European coffers, they find themselves tied down by rigid instructions to do no business except on a strictly cash basis. The British, French or German representative, on the other hand, who is a sharp and expert judge of human nature, conforms to the customs of the country in which he is stationed, extends to a reputable firm in Buenos Ayres or Valparaiso a year’s credit, if necessary, and brings to the home estab- lishment in Great Britain, France or Germany a rushing and extremely prof- itable business with Latin America. In addition to having carte blanche to con- duct affairs in whatever manner he thinks will best promote the interests of his firm, he receives a large salary, not only that he may properly advertise his wares, but live in a style befitting his position. Another very serious obstruction to the expansion of American trade with Latin America, is the extremely unsci- entific customs tariff of the United States. Reflecting protectionists have long rec- ognized the heavy handicap it places upon American commerce, and are well aware that Germany and France, highly pro- tective countries like the United States, are far-sighted enough to arrange their tariffs so that the duties fall upon finished products, while raw materials, such as wool and hides, are admitted free of duty, the very reverse of the policy of the Uni- ted States. The feeling in favor of ray Digitized by Google
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621 The Commerce of Latin America. Lbesal reciprocity both with Canada and be Latin-American republics is gaining trength every day. Within the last wenty-five years, the greatest American rtcttesmen have repeatedly brought the subject to the attention of Congress; unong these statesmen are Presidents Sajfidd, Arthur, Harrison, McKinley, Roosevelt, all Republican, and President Cleveland, Democratic. In spite of the persistent action of the United States Senate in rejecting or shelving Pan-Amer- ican reciprocal treaties, the tide cannot be much longer stemmed, and the day will not be far distant when the United States will have equitable and mutually advantageous trade arrangements with both of these vast sections of the West- ern Hemisphere. As most English-speaking Americans have veiy vague and hazy ideas of Latin America, it may be well to define the term exactly. By Latin America is meant that greater and southern half of the New World, stretching from below the Rio Grande, the boundary-line between the United States and Mexico, through eighty-five degrees of latitude, or more than six thousand miles, down to Cape Horn at the southern extremity of South America. It comprises the enormous area of 8,698,938 square miles, a conti- nental territory vaster by over 1,500,000 square miles than the combined areas of the United States, Canada, Alaska and Hawaii. Its northern limit, in Mexico, lies in the North Temperate Zone; its southern extremity, at Cape Horn, in south latitude 56 degrees below the equa- tor, almost touches the frozen waters of the Antarctic ocean. Latin America, therefore, lies in four zones, North Tem- perate, North Torrid, South Torrid and South Temperate. Its geographical position, and varied surface and topog- raphy give it an infinite variety of climate. It is bathed by the Gulf of Mexico and by the two great oceans, the Atlantic, on the east and the Pacific, on the west Its greatest width, across Peru and Brazil, is some five thousand miles. Along the western or Pacific slope, the Rocky Moun- tain system of Canada and the United States is continued through Mexico and Central America down to the Isthmus of Panama. From the Isthmus, still skirt- ing the Pacific coast, the towering Andes, in magnitude and loftiness rivaling the Himalayas of India, take their origin and extend 4,500 miles, until they terminate in the rock-ribbed and dangerous Straits of Magellan, and in Cape Horn, at the southern extremity of South America. Their snowy and inaccessible peaks are many, chief among them being Mount Popocatapetl in Mexico, Chimborazo in Ecuador, Sorata (27,000 feet above sea- level) in Bolivia, and Aconcagua, between Chile and Argentina, 25,000 feet From the eastern slope of the Andes, stretch, for several thousand miles, to- wards the Atlantic, the dense, extensive tropical plains and valleys and forests of Brazil and Venezuela. In that region flow the Orinoco and the Amazon river, which, with its tributaries, is about four thousand miles long, and next to the com- bined Missouri and Mississippi, the long- est river in the world. Farther south- ward in South America, lying partly in the South Torrid Zone, and partly in the South Temperate, also east of the Andes, extend the vast pampas or prairies of Ar- gentina, Uruguay and a portion of south- ern Brazil, a region teeming with wheat- fields, extensive cattle and horse-ranches, sheep-farms, and, in the tropical part, with sugar-plantations. Here, mainly from north to south, an immense region is drained by the river system of the ma- jestic Rio de la Plata, near the mouth of which are situated the two great commer- cial and maritime emporiums of Buenos Ayres and Montevideo. Such a continent as Latin America, with that dream of the centuries, the Panama canal, within the realm of prac- tical realization, has a wonderful future before it, exceeding the golden dreams of the Spanish and Portuguese conquerors. Its geographical position and varied sur- face render it capable of raising all the Digitized by Google
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622 The Commerce of Lafon America . agricultural staples and productions of both the tropics and the temperate zones. Its gigantic mountains, as yet only im- perfectly explored, are an inexhaustible storehouse of all the metals, both precious and common, such as gold, silver, iron, copper, lead, zinc, quicksilver, manganese and tin. The diamond mines of Brazil are world-famed, while the extensive nitrate beds of Chile constitute one of the chief sources of wealth of that prosperous republic. Coffee, india-rubber, hard woods, capable of a high polish, cocoa, tobacco and sugar are annually exported, in enormous quantities, from Latin Amer- ica. The progress of that vast continent in industry and enlightenment is far more advanced than the average American, owing to his inherited prejudices and complete ignorance of the subject, is will- ing to concede. The sixty million in- habitants of Latin America are very far from being, for the most part, wild sav- ages, barbarians, or mongrels, although it is true that, in the most backward and unexplored portions of that extensive region, there are an undetermined num- ber of savages and others low down in the scale of civilization. This is a con- dition from which even the United States are by no means free. Whatever other shortcomings Latin Americans may have, they are free from the reproach of lynchings, they have no governors so be- nighted as to be ashamed of permitting negro military companies to attend pres- idential inaugurations, and they would not dream of refusing hospitality and hotel accommodations to a noble bene- factor and cultured philanthropist like Booker T. Washington, simply because his skin happens to be black instead of white. The problem of the races is be- ing satisfactorily solved in Latin America, to whose shores a constant stream of Eu- ropean immigrants is annually arriving. Compulsory public education is accom- plishing wonders in' lifting up the Latin- American masses. The chief rulers of Latin America find something more im- portant to claim their earnest attention than the taking of steps to prevent col- ored troops, entrusted with the protec- tion of life and property, from attending the inauguration of a president Even the thoroughly-abused President Castro of Venezuela is so deeply interested in universal education that he has success- fully established schools in the tropical plains and jungles of that republic, over a territory where towns are often several hundred miles apart so that to-day the children of the rugged Ucmera or plains- men are enjoying the advantages of a common-school education. Civilization, learning, the arts and in- dustries flourish in portions of Latin America where the majority of the in- habitants have colored skins. A strik- ing example of this is Mexico, whose thirteen million inhabitants are quite largely Indians, or with Indian blood. On the other hand, the two progressive, virile, and prosperous republics of Chile and Argentina, with a combined popu- lation of over eight million inhabitants, contain mostly a pure white race of Span- ish descendants, reinforced by the con- stantly increasing flood of immigrants from Italy, Spain, Germany and other European countries. According to the most authentic fig- ures obtainable, Latin America has an urban population of 8,000,000. She has two great metropoli, Buenos Ayres and Rio de Janeiro, whose combined popula- tion is equal to that of Chicago, or nearly half that of Greater New York. No less than four of her cities of the second rank, each with over £50,000 souls, have a united population about equal to that of Philadelphia. Of important seaports and cities each having from 100,000 to 175,- 000, she possesses seven. She has also no fewer than twenty-one cities, some of them important ports and centers of trade, with a population ranging between 50,000 and 80,000. Finally, of those below 50,000 and not less than £0,000 each, there are within her confines as many as thirty-seven. Digitized by Google
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623 The Commerce of Latin America . The chief cities of Latin America com- pare most favorably with the best of the United States and Canada. Buenos Ayres, the metropolis of the Argentine Republic, with a cosmopolitan popula- tion gathered from the four comers of the earth, has dose upon one million souls, and, on account of its general culture, is sometimes called the Paris of Latin America. Its commerce with the en- tire civilized world is tremendous, its wheat, hides, wool and frozen meat reach- ing as far as Australia. It is connected by railway with the most distant parts of the Argentine Republic, which may be reached in luxurious Pullman cars, and it has every promise of becoming a great manufacturing dty. The capital of Brazil, Rio de Janeiro (750,000 inhabitants), is situated on the splendid bay of the same name, and is fast becoming a dty of diversified indus- tries. In 1900, it had forty-three cotton factories, with 10,100 looms and 288,066 spindles. Its woolen-mills for cloths, flannels, rugs and felts are important. At Petropolis, near Rio, there are two silk-mills. In addition to its domestic in- dustries, Rio is the largest and finest of the fifty-two maritime ports of Brazil, and has a tremendous international commerce. Valparaiso, situated on the Pacific, and the prindpal port of the republic of Chile, is another center of civilization, and has an energetic population of 182,- 941, engaged in 417 industrial establish- ments which in 1895 consumed $7,000,- 000 worth of raw material, and employed 12,016 operatives; these factories had 162 steam-engines of altogether 1,766 horse-power. The most important of these establishments were sugar-refineries, gas-works, breweries, carriage and cart- works, sawmills, and works for machine- making. In 1902, an English company started a cotton-factory. The Washington City of Latin Amer- ica is, perhaps, Santiago de Chile, the capital of that republic, with magnificent parks and avenues, and the palatial res- idences of millionaires. The marvelous progress of Mexico City within recent years is so familiar to most intelligent Americans that there is no need to dwell upon it at length. No one who has carefully and impar- tially studied the history and develop- ment of Latin America can fail to be im- pressed that, in spite of her admitted defects and shortcomings, she is worthy of the respect, sympathy and even ad- miration of all liberty-loving Americans. Less than a hundred years ago, she came out of Spanish and Portuguese medieval- ism, misrule and oppression; for fifteen years, from 1810 to 1825, fought a titanic and colossal struggle for her liberty and independence, and, once politically free, grappled bravely with the problems of her destiny. She successfully solved the race question, learned by bitter experi- ence the value of orderly, strong and con- stitutional government, overcame im- perialism and absolutism of the worst sort, developed her industries to a won- derful extent, gave encouragement to the builders of railways which are tri- umphs of engineering skill, welcomed learning and the arts, and finally paved the way for the universal education of the masses. She stands to-day in the forerank of the advocates of peace and arbitration, Chile and Argentina, as brave in war as they are strong in peace, having within recent years taken prac- tical steps to submit a vexatious boundaiy dispute of seventy years’ standing con- cerning their respective frontiers to ar- bitration, and having already materially reduced their armies and navies. Frederic M. Noa. Midden , Mass. Digitized by Google
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JUGGLING WITH FACTS AND FIGURES ABOUT TRANS- PORTATION; OR, HOW THE RAILWAY INTERESTS AND THEIR SPECIAL-PLEADERS ARE SEEK- ING TO DECEIVE THE PEOPLE * Br W. G. NUMEROUS interviews and articles on the railroad rate question in advocacy of the ultra-railroad side of that controversy have of late appeared in press and magazine. Of these, three, for widely different reasons, have been brought to more or less prominent notice and are here specially referred to because of the opportunity furnished by their dis- cussion to elucidate some phases of the “ rate question " that ought to reach pub- lic notice. The first in order and importance was an interview with Mr. James J. Hill, President of the Great Northern Rail- road. Mr. Hill's expression on any sub- ject, because of his unquestioned ability and the commanding position which he occupies, is always a matter of interest. In the pending discussion, his views com- mand special attention because they typify the position of those who resent any and all governmental interference with the autocratic power of the railway magnate, and who would abolish the Interstate Commerce Commission and all attempts at governmental supervision and regulation. President Spencer, of the Southern Railway, who recently appeared on behalf of numerous railroads before a congressional committee, may be considered as a milder edition of the ♦Railroads, in common with their stocks, are the subject of constant manipulation by Wall-street gamblers, among whom may be classed many of the controlling forces of the transportation interests. Owing to this deplorable fact, stock-quotations are likewise subject to constant fluctuations. As con- siderable time must of necessity elapse between the preparation of an article for a monthly magazine ana its publication, it is suggested, in the interest of accuracy, that wherever m this article a presat stock-quotation is given, it be taken as referring to the high-water-mark quotations for the present year. JOERNS. foregoing which does not openly go far- ther than to affect to believe that rates are low enough, are fairly distributed and “ are substantially maintained," and that there is no occasion to give the Interstate Commerce Commission enlarged powers. The second were a series of articles by Joseph Nimmo, Jr., in Freight* a pub- lication devoted to transportation ques- tions. Mr. Nimmo’s articles showed considerable shrewdness and intellectual merit, if not ultimate substance, but may be said to have been prominently distin- guished by such evident bias in favor of the appreciative vested interest as to rob them of all scientific value and render idle any suspicion of pro bono publico . The third and latest communication on the subject appeared in the North America Review for February and was credited to W. Morton GrinneU. It derives its main sanction from the sub- stantial character of the magazine in which it appeared. i. Mr. Hill, among other interesting statements, was credited with the follow- ing statistical comparison of 84 Great Northern" traffic and the plausible but misleading suggestion therein contained: 1882. 1901 Miles of road 1,007 5,596, Tods of freight hauled 1,007,538 16,148^73 Revenue per ton mile 251 cents .857 cents Average tons per train 117.37 44178 Average tons per car 6.70 1106 a Based on the 1903 per ton mile, Mr. Hill figures out a reduction in freight rates for the year on the per ton mile of 1882 of some fifty-nine million dollars. The past quarter century, however, 624 Digitized by Google
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625 Facts and Figures About Transportation. has been particularly replete with the development of vast economies in pro- duction and distribution everywhere, and in no field greater than in that of trans- portation. This has quite generally, es- pecially in the case of Mr. Hill’s road, been coupled with a marvelous develop- ment of tributary territory. The enor- mous increase in tonnage shown, over- whelmingly referable to the territory covered by the original mileage, is proof positive of the wonderful growth, while the increased car and train load are dem- onstrations of the mechanical progress of the age and yet are but an incident in transportation improvement. No wonder the average rate per ton per mile was reduced from 2.51 cents in 1882 to .857 cents in 1903. The remark- able fact, however, remains that, not- withstanding these vast improvements and economies have been particularly and increasingly marked in the latter part of the period named, there has, since 1890, been, in the main, no com- mensurate reduction of rates on either Mr. Hill’s own road or those parallel roads over which he exerts a controlling influence. The tendency to hold firmly to the old rates is even more marked with reference to the tariffs in the older sections of the country. Indeed, the general aver- age of freight-rates has been substantially increased in the last five or six years. What reductions have obtained are largely to be found under the sub-head of com- petitive rates and hardly at all under the head of the so-called “ local ” rates. For a substantiation, in part, of this claim, reference is made to a report of the Inter- state Commerce Commission entitled “Railways in the United States in 1902” •and in particular to “Part EL” thereof, entitled “ A Forty-Year Review of Change in Frright Tariffs.” Mr. Hill, like other great magnates, has a habit of influencing newspapers. An evidently inspired editorial of the Minneapolis Tribune , on January 10th, last, said: “ In the three years (since the Merger) the gross earnings of the Burlington in- creased from fifty to sixty-five millions; those of the Great Northern from thirty to forty-one millions; and those of the Northern Pacific from thirty-two to forty- six millions. In spite of the increase of wages and cost of operation, the net earn- ings of the three roads increased in these three years sixteen million dollars, nearly equally divided.” The purpose of this ebullition was to bolster up the insincere claim that the Merger was not “in restraint of trade,” and was, of course, in no way intended to have any bearing on interstate com- merce regulation; but even men of Mr. Hill’s signal practical ability cannot at one and the same time successfully ride two horses going in opposite directions. Any accredited manual will show that, after paying operating expenses and maintenance and all fixed charges and a seven per cent, dividend on stock, the Great Northern earnings for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1901, developed a surplus of $1,938,854.50, and for the year ending June 30, 1902, the still greater surplus of $6,763,889.97. The Northern Pacific surplus for 1901, after paying a four per cent, dividend, was $1,002,618.54 plus $2,011,285, set aside for “Betterments, etc.,” and for 1902, after paying a five and a half per cent, dividend, was $1,547,286.18 plus $3,000,000 for “ Betterments.” The “ Burlington ” surplus , after allow- ing for interest on the “Joint 4s,” or the equivalent of eight per cent, on the par value of its stock, was $1,263,388.76. The Northern Securities Company was incorporated on November 13, 1901, and the issue of its stock for both Great Northern and Northern Pacific stock was on a basis of a four per cent net earning capacity as presumably a fair return on that sort of an investment. It is evident, therefore, that if the net earnings of these three roads increased Digitized by Google
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626 Facts and Figures About Transportation . sixteen millions since the date of the foregoing showing, which already dem- onstrates more than a fair income on unquestionably an overcapitalisation, Mr. Hill's systems are earning more than on any fair and legitimate basis would be their due, and that the transportation charges on the same should be corre- spondingly reduced. As only one of many instances at hand of oppressive exaction and discrimina- tion, it may not be amiss to cite a special case in which Mr. Hill’s roads are directly interested, as an indication of how little in common fairness can be expected from the tender mercies of transportation companies if the strong arm of govern- mental control cannot be invoked against them, namely: The Northern Pacific and the St. Paul and Duluth Railroads (the latter road having been absorbed by the former some five years ago in dear defiance of state law) in the early days jointly obtained some wonderfully valuable terminal facil- ities at Duluth as a gift. Since the Mer- ger, notwithstanding the resulting sim- plification of terminal work, the switch- ing charges at Duluth have been oppres- sivdy raised, in many cases more than doubled, and recently it was even pro- posed to raise them still farther. The energetic protest of local business inter- ests, coupled with the suggestion of some possible drastic remedies, did manage to call a halt in the iniquitous proceeding and a compromise arrangement has been arrived at. The compromise schedules prove on analysis, however, to have little to commend them and do not give the relief that Duluth is entitled to. On the other hand glaring discriminatory prac- tices in the competitive cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis, that a high interested railroad official has recently himself characterized as little less than criminal, have obtained and been freely connived at by the railroads and at this writing continue as before. The Duluth, Mesabe and Northern Railway is one of the subsidiary com- panies of the United States Steel Cor- poration and is wholly in St. Louis county, Minnesota, extending from the Mesabe iron range to its terminus on the water-front at Duluth. It furnishes reports to the Minnesota Railroad and Warehouse Commission. According to its such returns on file (see report of Commission for 1908, subdivision 11, and for 1902, pages 241-266) it has a mileage of 161.88 miles and a total cap- italization of $10,885,500, or at the rate of $67,164 per mile. Of this capitalisa- tion $8,328 is its bonded debt, while $2,512,500 is the par value of its outstand- ing capital stock. The gross earnings of this road for the year ending June 80, 1908, are given at $5,116,580.01, the operating expenses (including, in more than half the amount, renewals, repairs and maintenance of roadway, docks and equipment) at $1,- 901,284.88, and the total net income at $8,215,245.68. The surplus for the year, after the payment of fixed charges, taxes and $256,195.55 of “ other deductions,” is given as $2,89 6,655. In addition there was carried forward from June SO, 1902, a surplus balance of $3,581,590.92, being what remained at that time after the declaration of a sixty per cent divi- dend on the stock or at the alleged rate of fifteen per cent a year for four years. The total surplus on June 30, 1908, was therefore the comfortable sum of $5,978,- 682.75. Of the gross earnings aforesaid, $4,- 554,617.91 were for the transportation of iron ore, which in the report is classed as “interstate business.” The record of the Duluth and Iron Range Railroad, practically a parallel' road to the D., M. and N., and likewise one of the constituent companies of the “ Steel-Trust,” is very much like that of the sister company, so that on broad lines the statement of one will suffice for the other. The iron-ore traffic of the East- ern Minnesota, a part of Mr. Hill’s Great Digitized by Google
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6*7 Facts and Figures About Transportation. torthern system, shows similar enormous unings. The foregoing showing as to excessive weight charges is by no means peculiar > the roads mentioned. A condition, a many respects identical, prevails in he ctnihracite region, only there the sur- dus is absorbed by an over-capitaliza- ion so bald that he who runs may read, indeed, wherever monopoly has fastened ts grip the inevitable tendency, in the absence of stringent regulation, is to ex- ploit the situation for all that it will stand. Of course every man, woman and child in the United States helps to pay the bill. Mr. Hill loves to dwell on the com- paratively low “ per ton mile in the United States,*’ which, in his reported interview, he gives at .76 cents. The per ton mile on his own road, it will be remembered, was .857 cents. The euphonious claim has been reiterated by innumerable sat- ellites and is wholly misleading, proves nothing and is open to the serious charge of being knowingly disingenuous. A comparison is made between the American per ton mile and that of Russia as the suggested “ lowest European rate.” The American rate is given at forty-two per cent, of that of Russia, where, as Mr. Hill says, “ the conditions of long hauls are more like our own.” On this basis the Russian rate would therefore be 1.61 cents. The comparison invites attention, for if the conditions were really identical, the Russian figure might be indicative of grievous oppression. As a matter of fact the conditions are anything but identical and the burden of proof as to where the oppression, if any, really lies, may, by investigation, be emphatically shifted from the Russian 1.61 to the boasted American .76. We are indebted to Mr. Chase S. Osborn, for many years Commissioner of Railroads for Michigan, for some in- teresting data on Russian railroads as the result of quite recent personal inves- tigation. The average car-capacity of the Trans- Siberian railroad, it would appear, is about eight tons and the train-load in pro- portion. Many American freight-cars now have a capacity of fifty tons and the American train-load is likewise in pro- portion. The Russian rail weighs 50 pounds to the yard. We are laying 100- pound rails. The Russian locomotives bum oil or wood and, as also the rolling- stock generally, are practically obsolete. The distance from Moscow to Vladivos- tock is about 5,300 miles and is cov- ered by their “fast” trains “if they have good luck” in eighteen days. We cover a like distance regularly in less than a week. In 1903 the Trans-Siberian railroad transported one million tons of freight and its capacity was fully taxed and much of product awaiting shipment was left unhauled. During the same period the Pennsylvania road, with about the same mileage, handled upwards of seventy million tons. If under such disadvantageous circum- stances an average of 1.61 cents per ton mile can be reached, it would seem that, with the like benefit of “long haul,” the most modem equipment and intelligent operation, density of population and enormous traffic, the American rate ought by comparison to be materially reduced below the much vaunted .76 cents per ton mile. The rate per ton mile in Germany in 1900 was 1.40 cents, according to Prof. Frank Parsons, than whom there is no more reliable authority. The average haul per ton is 60 miles against 130 miles in the United States and, as is well- understood and was emphasized by Mr. Hill in his reference to the long haul in Russia, the terminal charges absorb an increasing proportion of the rate as the haul is shortened. On this basis, in comparison with Germany, our rate per ton mile ought not to be over .65 cents. When, among other advantages, we take into consideration again our enormous traffic, the relatively greater amount of low-grade freight and our modem equip- ment, even granting that our wage-scale Digitized by Google
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628 Facts and Figures About Transportation. is higher, it is evident that, to be on a par with the German state-owned roads, our average transportation charge should be far below the last-named figure. It also must not be forgotten that passenger- rates in Germany and on the Continent generally are much lower than with us. the stated German rate per ton mile, the state of Prussia had, in the fifteen years prior to 1900, realized a profit of $500,000,000 over and above all proper charges, maintenance, renewals and a sinking-fund that by 1950 will have ex- tinguished every vestige of railroad debt, whereas, from year to year, and particu- larly with each successive reorganization, we have added to the already enormous over-capitalization of our transportation interests and persist in using this fraud- ulent basis as an argument for the con- tinuance of excessive transportation charges^— While considering this matter of the rate per ton mile proposition, it may prove of interest to inquire how far the so-called local rates have participated in the general reduction to .76 cents per ton mile, (.857 cents on Mr. Hill’s road) to which attention is so frequently and so unctiously called. By reference to the Interstate Com- merce Commission report before men- tioned, we will find on page 188 the local tariff of the Northern Pacific from St. Paul, Minneapolis and Duluth to inland points west, the Northern Pacific being one of Mr. Hill’s “ Merger” roads. The average per ton mile rate to Brainerd, Minnesota, a distance of 138 miles, fig- ures out at 3.51 cents. Think of this as compared to the boasted .70 cents! The average to Billings, Montana (a com- petitive point), on a haul of 891 miles is 2.78 cents. On page 180, the average rate per ton mile from Milwaukee to Appleton, Wisconsin, over the “ Mil- waukee ” road, — distance 100 miles, — is shown as 3.11 cents. These rates have remained practically unchanged since 1890, and in the Apple- ton case, since 1882. On page 184 is a table of local rates over the Chicago and Great Western Railway, from Chicago to Minnesota points 345 to 418 miles distant. The average per ton mile rate is about 1.50 cents. Mr. A. B. Stickney, the wide- awake president of this railroad, has ex- pressed himself in favor of government regulation of rates and increased powers for the Commission, and by a strange coincidence we also find here the per ton mile local practically cut in half. On pages 199-202 of the Interstate Commerce Commission report aforesaid, will be found a table of local rates in force on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, with which President Spencer’s Southern Railway stands in the closest affiliation. Here also the rates have remained prac- tically unchanged since 1890. The aver- age per ton mile rate from Cincinnati to Crescent Hill, Kentucky, 106 miles, or the same distance as from Milwaukee to Appleton above mentioned, figures at about four cents, and to Belmont, Ken- tucky, a distance of 135 miles, or approx- imating the distance to Brainerd afore- said, at about 4.10 cents. Further comment along this line would seem unnecessary. It is a fitting refrain to President Spencer’s assumed agree- ment with President Roosevelt that “the highways of transportation must be kept open to all on equal terms.” It will take more than *the mere statement of the Southern Railway magnate, however, to convince the protesting citizens of Atlanta, for example, that the millenium of fair and equal dealing on the part of trans- portation companies is at hand. n. Mr. Grinnell’s article would not chal- lenge serious attention but for the oppor- tunity that it gives to demonstrate the utter unsoundness of the average “rail- road ” argument. To begin with, the measure of his ac- curacy of statement and the substantive value thereof may well be taken from Us Digitized by Google
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629 Facts and Figures About Transportation. ^marb relative to the government’s peration of the Post-Office Department, rhich are herewith reproduced, as fol- >ws: ** It is a matter of common notoriety hat the Post-Office Department, which rosts the public several millions a year n addition to the ‘tax’ represented by it&mps, could be run at a profit by a private corporation and the third and fourthrdass matter carried free, and so with all other departments of govern- ment, whether Federal, State or Munic- ipal.” The third and fourth-class matter above referred to is, roughly speaking, all printed-matter (except newspapers and periodicals) and all merchandise — limit four pounds — the rates on same being respectively one cent for each two ounces or fraction and one cent for each ounce or fraction. To meet such a statement, seriously made, is embarassing. It might not, however, be amiss to suggest, as the con- census of authoritative opinion, that but for the abuse of the second-class privi- lege and the extortionate charges made by the railroads for carrying the mails (one of the numerous matters demand- ing the attention of our active and honest executive), letter-postage could be safely reduced to one cent an ounce. But for the effective opposition of the selfish private interests a parcels-post would long ago have been established and express rates cut at least in half. Mr. Grinnell attempts a statistical comparison between the relative advance in the cost of commodities and railway rates. His comparisons are of the year 1902 with 1899 and 1898. Such com- parison in reality proves nothing. So many other much more important items, as for example the capital investment, relative tonnage, character of equipment, etc., enter into a question of a proper charge at a given time that the mere mat- ter of the cost of commodities in any given year can cut but a slight figure at best. The comparison, however, is doubly misleading when the particular year selected as the basis of computation develops an abnormal condition. This is so with reference to the year 1 902 , which showed the high-water mark of prices for the last twenty years. It is strange indeed that Mr. Grinnell should, with- out apology or explanation, have con- fined himself to the year 1902 when 1903 and 1904 were equally available. Referring to Dun’s Review and the statistical report of the American Iron and Steel Association, both incorporated in the Statistical Abstract of the United States, we find that the high level of prices in 1902 was in almost no instance ap- proached since 1882-3. The general average for 1902 was (in whale numbers) 101 per cent In 1903 it had already fallen to 99 per cent, and in 1904 it was still lower, namely, only 97 per cent Manifestly, if there was anything to the presentation at all, it would have been fairer to have selected 1904 as the basis of comparison, the railroad rates having admittedly remained at least as high as in 1902. The general average for 1899 was, it is true, only 85 per cent ; but by the very next year it had risen to 91 per cent. Iron and steel products were actu- ally higher in 1899 than in 1903, and by 1904 the prices had been still farther re- duced. The railroads are buying prac- tically everything in that line that goes into their equipment at a much lower figure than in 1899. Coal, it is admitted, is higher in price than it was in 1899; but who is so chidish as to believe that the great railroads of the country are paying the market-price for coal ? As bearing on the necessity of the higher freight charges as a just offset to increased cost of operation bora of higher cost of material and a higher wage, a comparison between the earnings in 1898 and 1903, gross and net, will be instructive. In 1898 the gross earnings of all the railroads in the United States were 1,249 millions. They increased by leaps and Digitized by Google
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630 Fads and Figures About Transportation. bounds, year by year, until in 1908 they totaled the enormous aggregate of 1,908 millions. During the same period the net earnings increased from 898 to 592 millions. The significant increase of almost sixty per cent in the annual earn- ings, gross and net in five short years is due to the revival of business, the natural development of tributary territory and also to some extent to higher freight-rates. For the last-named item, under this show- ing, there would seem to be no excuse whatever. Mr. Grinnell furnishes some figures to support the claim that the increase in freight-rates was justified by the rise in wages. These figures purport to show the “ Increase for 1908 over 1902 in wages paid ” by the Pennsylvania Railroad. There are also some more general esti- mates in this regard with reference to the Illinois Central and the “St. Paul/9 His deduction is “that -in one year the increase in the cost of labor is about ten per cent in the Pennsylvania, and in the Illinois Central and St. Paul nearly as much.” Again the showing made proves noth- ing. The greater expenditure for wages in the latter year may be wholly owing to the employment of a larger force or to working overtime, due to increase of traf- fic. That there was such increase of traffic is evidenced by the data hereafter given. If there has been an increase in the individual wage, it will appear that the roads are still earning more than in fairness they are entitled to. The total earnings of the Pennsylvania system (east of Pittsburgh) for the years ending December 81, 1902, and 1908, were 112 and 122 millions respectively. The net earnings, without data at hand to show how much of the increased opera- ting expense was property chargeable to maintenance and renewals, were respec- tively $87,612,000 and $87,858,000. The total net income of the Eastern Division was respectively 46.6 and 48.5 millions, and after paying all fixed charges and a six per cent . dividend on stock on a capi- talization of about $62,000 per mile, there remained a surplus in the last-named year of over twelve million dollars. The gross earnings of the entire system in 1898, with 9,287 miles of road, were, in round numbers, 186 millions. In 1902, with 10,788 miles of road, they had in- creased to 219 millions. During the same period the net increased from 41 millions in 1898 to 67 millions in 1902. The figures for 1908 for the entire system are not at hand; but in 1902, after the payment of a six per cent dividend, in- terest rentals, maintenance, betterments and all other charges, there remained a net surplus of about three million dollars. Aside from the question of the very liberal capitalization, a six per cent, div- idend is too high a return on that kind of investment as a fair basis for transporta- tion charges. This is evidenced by the fact that recent new issues of stock were offered to the stockholders at 120, and emphasized by the further fact that Penn- sylvania stock is now quoted in the market at about 145. The total earnings of the Illinois Cen- tral for the years ending June 30, 1908, and 1904, were respectively $45,186,000 and $46,881,000. The net earnings for 1908 were $18,488,000, and after the pay- ment of all fixed charges and a six per cent, dividend on stock there remained a surplus balance of over $5,000,000, all but $45,000 of which was applied to bet- terments, etc. The operating expenses for 1904 were larger than in 1908 and the net was in consequence decreased by $1,- 898,000. The appropriation for better- ments was also correspondingly less. The gross earnings of this road increased from 27 millions in 1898 to 45 millions in 1908, the net from eight millions to thirteen millions. Its stock is now sell- ing at about 160. The “ St. Paul ” road, which is capital- ized on the comparatively low basis of $83,615 per mile and pays a seven per cad. annual dividend on its stock, developed gross earnings for the year ending June SO, 1908, of 47 millions against 48 millions Digitized by Google
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Facts and Figures About Transportation. 631 or the year following. The net earnings or 1908 were $16,064,000 and for 1904 tl<},458,000. The surplus for the two ^ears was $$,817,000 and $3,399,000 re- spectively. The gross earnings for 1898 vere but 84 millions and the net about LS millions on a mileage of 6,191 as com- [Muned with 6,88$ in 1904, the figures for which year are given above. The stock is selling at about 180. The foregoing showing would seem to effectually dispose of the excuse ad- vanced by Mr. Grinnell for the raise in freight rates — the additional “tax” that was thus arbitrarily imposed upon the public by the private interest. It is difficult to understand how good men can seriously advance propositions of such inherent unsoundness or triviality or con- tend for conditions that are so palpably inequitable. It must be self-interest or association that blinds them and renders them callous to the dictates of common justice. In Mr. GrinneU’s case we find an explanation for his point-of-view in the suggested fact that “he is a director in the Illinois Central Railroad Company, the Rio Grande, Sierra Madre and Pacific Railroad Company and other important corporations.” m. In his article in the January Freight , Mr. Nimmo endeavors to show: (1) Why there should be no additional railroad legislation ; and, ($) That there is no real substantial public opinion back of this agitation for the radical amendment of the interstate commerce law; but, if nevertheless the public pressure should actually become so great that it cannot be safely ignored by the national law-makers, the inevitable should be deftly postponed by the thread- bare subterfuge of a “thorough and im- partial investigation.” In support of the first proposition, Mr. Nimmo, also, goes into the per ton mile mystification and endeavors to excuse the raise in freight rates since 1899, not- withstanding the enormous increase in especially the Mgber-grade traffic, by the suggested “increase in the wages of la- bor” and “in the cost of material.” Practically every railroad in the coun- try for which there was a legitimate ex- cuse was in 1899 earning more than a liberal return on not only a legitimate capitalization but also upon a vast amount of “water” in addition. Reference to any manual on the subject will substan- tiate this claim. The railroad traffic, already large in 1899, increased astonish- ingly from year to year until in 190$ the railroads were practically “ swamped ” by the overwhelmingly prosperous con- dition. To raise the rates in the face of such circumstances, albeit the employ^ demanded and received an additional crust and the price of material had in- creased, was as flagrant an exercise of arbitrary power as modem finance records. While referring to the Statistical Ab- stract for 1908 (page 40$), Mr. Nimmo might, in all fairness, have called our at- tention to the figures on page 400, which show: (а) The relative earnings per mile of railroad in operation in 1899 and 190$ as: Gross $7,161 and $8,696 and Net $$£7$ and $$,880; (б) The percentage of expenses to earnings as 68.$7 and 67.45; and, (c) The dividends on stock (good, bad and indifferent; watered, more watered and most watered) at 1.90 and $.93 per cent. The fancy earnings of Mr. Hill’s roads and of the “ Steel-Trust ” roads have already been referred to. The Union Pacific, for 190$, paid four per cent, on over $$18,000,000 of common and preferred stock, that in the reorgan- ization had cost the reorganizers but a comparatively nominal amount, set aside $$,000,000 for “Betterments” and still had a surplus for the year of $4,315,960. The stock is now quoted at about 135. The Missouri Pacific paid a five per cent, dividend, charged $1,608,656 to “Betterments” and showed a net surplus Digitized by Google
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632 Fads and Figures About Transportation* of $2,306,063. Its stock is selling for about 110. The Chicago and Northwestern paid eight per cent . on preferred and seven per cent . on common stock, charged $4,697,- 055 to “ Betterments ” and still showed a surplus of $1,348,302. The common is quoted at about 240. The New York Central, on a much larger capitalization per mile, paid a five per cent, dividend and had left a surplus of $2,055,306. Its stock is about 165. Mr. Nimmo was particularly emphatic in his second proposition, which was ob- viously intended by way of “ authorita- tive” suggestion to such of our public- servants as might wish and might other- wise fail to find “a way out” of the diffi- culty of serving two masters at one and the same time. He says: u Congress will never confer such pow- er upon an administrative board until it ascertains the sentiment of the commer- cial and industrial interests of the coun- try as the result of its own inquiries.” Of course this suggestion is wholly lacking in sincerity. There is not even the shadow of excuse for it Congress has had all the ins and outs of this sub- ject drummed into it at the session just ended, the previous session and sessions innumerable before, until there is no hon- est excuse for any ordinarily endowed mortal in it to plead ignorance on the matter of federal regulation of interstate commerce or the necessity of the suggested amendment of the law. A very respect- able body, a creation of Congress, to wit: The Industrial Commission, quite re- cently went exhaustively into the question and added its recommendation to the general, almost universal, disinterested suggestion of the law’s amendment. Washington is proverbially a bad place to feel the public pulse and the people’s representatives in Congress may have their grave shortcomings; but to be deaf to the unmistakable rumble, fast growing into a roar, of outraged public sentiment is not one of their defects. It is part of their stock in trade, if so conmMtiMftbase may be used with reference to'aff&gust a subject, to have their ear *daH Hfc the ground ” and they know that if nt act now and act right they nmjMMtlteve an opportunity again. Indeed the house, at the late shat ses- sion, did act with commendatte speed and with fair credit to itself in tbs sub- stance. Granted that membes% here- tofore strangely recalcitrant, h mm vied with each other in their esprearion of fiery patriotic fervor, and that it has been unkindly hinted that the mamfaal pur- pose of such scintillations has hesn to disabuse their faithful constituent* at any suspicion of their divided allegiance, yet that part of Congress most responsive to the popular will has acted and has almost unanimously passed a measure which, if finally matured into law, promises sub- stantial relief from transportation in- iquity. The measure thus passed did notreach everything and it was by no meant revo- lutionary; but the so-called Esch-TVmn- send bill was apparently an honest and substantial forward step. In giving the Commission the rate-making power, un- der expressed limitations, it shoppy •de- clared what practically everybody, even the railroads, thought it had, ™1 the Supreme Court surprised the country by its adverse decision in 1897. In this rate to go into immediate effect it voiced the demand of even most conserv- ative, honest and disinterested authority. In the incorporation of the provision for the Interstate Commerce Court it took not one jot or tittle from the substantial remedies the railroads have in court to- day, except only the opportunity for un- reasonable and unwarranted delay. It has been broadly suggested that while the House has thus shown itself responsive to popular demand, the con- servative Senate will prove the stumbling block in the way of this urgent and legit- imate reform; that it is much farther re- moved, by law and custom long since fossilized, from both contact with and Digitized by Google
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ALFRED TENNYSON WILLIAM ORDWAY PARTRIDGE, SCULPTOR The Arena Digitized by Google
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Facts and Figures About Transportation. 688 control of the people; that the heartbeats of individual senators are more in unison with the sordid pulse of “high finance” than with the throb of husbandry or the hum of industry; and that the private interest will find in those once hallowed halls its champion in its onslaught on the public welfare. There arc those who are earnest advocates of the popular elec- tion of senators or some other sound meth- od of re-popularizing this once most hon- ored branch of American government, yea! those who charge that this historical body has outlived its usefulness, who, in the present active and discriminating condition of the public mind on the “ rate question,” are indulging the fond hope that the Senate may fail the people in this emergency and thus hasten the hour of its own constructive change or possible relegation to the ash-heap of public in- stitutions that have outlived the day of their beneficent usefulness. There is, however, room for substantial doubt that this wise and sedate body is going to dig any such pit-falls for itself. If some somewhat sensational current reports are true, there are those among the senators whose control of rotten bor- oughs is so absolute as to render them indifferent to public opinion, but not so with the most of them. The present is a poor time indeed for a public man to tie or remain tied to the special interest, or for ultra and untimely conservatism. No public question since the Civil war has so thoroughly taken hold of the public mind and the people are terribly in earn- est on the subject and on some others, for that matter, that are more or less closely allied to it. This fact must, by this time, have percolated down or pene- trated up, as you will, to even the digni- fied members of the so-called higher leg- islative body. And after all, these great men of the Senate are human. In the final analysis they will not in a great emer- gency either imperil their own political existence or the ultimate welfare of their constituents. They may or may not act with fair dispatch. They may notr con- sider it as comporting with the pedestal of dignity on which they find themselves, to act otherwise than with impressive deliberation. There happens, however, to be a strenuous executive who will see that they do n’t get away from the ques- tion; and we may rest fairly well assured that when final senatorial action does come it will correspond, except in point of dispatch, with that of the lower codr- dinate body. The present is not an opportune time for the apologists for transportation ex- ploitation. There is something “in the air” that bodes ill for that system of op- pression, legalized or penalized, that a few years back was rather forbearingly greeted as “ benevolent feudalism.” We are a great democracy and the people are just beginning to realize that not in a backward step to the middle ages, but in progress along the lines of equality and justice, must lie our individual and na- tional salvation. W. 6. Joernb. . Duluth, Minn. Digitized by Google
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THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS OF AMERICAN SHIPPING. Bt William W. Bator. TO JUDGE by the treatment accord- ed by Congress to American ship- ping for the last forty years, the average citizen would not suspect that it had any constitutional rights. This is a case where appearances cannot be trusted, for there is no industry of the country better cared for by the constitution than navi- gation— the building and running of ves- sels. It is dereliction of governmental duty that has brought down the propor- tion of our carriage in our own commerce from nearly ninety to leu than nine per cent, since 1829. High insurance, de- struction of vessels and sales abroad dur- ing the Civil war, occasioned much loss of our carrying; but it may be shown that if the war had never come, our shipping policy is such that our navigation employ- ed in foreign trade would have landed where it is now — high ahd dry on the beach. That this policy is not the same that was initiated in 1789 is not generally known to the present generation. A most injurious change was made in 1828, the effect of which was to vastly increase the competition of foreign vessels. At that time the vessels of foreign nations competed with American in their own ports and ours only. The law of 1828, and the conventions made under it, al- lowed foreign vessels of different flags to come with cargoes, not only from their own countries but all the countries of the world. In ports abroad, where formerly vessels of but one foreign nation com- peted for freights to the United States, the vessels of a dozen nations might com- pete,— this being the case still. Under this extremely competitive pol- icy down to the initiation of the Civil war, our proportion of carriage in foreign trade had fallen 24 per cent., showing that the policy was operating for the benefit of foreign nations and to the damage erf our navigation. The advent of the war pre- vented attention being given by Congress to the evil-working of our changed system; and at no time since has our statesman- ship risen to the occasion of correcting the error of 1828. Our carrying has dwindled away from year to year; we have become dependent on rivals and possible enemies for shipping; have be- come a “debtor nation/’ and a people without control of their own trade and transportation, subject to the political dictation of cabinets in Europe. Much of our real independence has been lost and will never be recovered, — without the recovery of our foreign carrying-trade. A few years ago our standard of money was changed from bimetallism to gold, owing to interference of foreign interests, due to the employment of foreign vessels in place of our own in our own commerce, and to no other situation. Our produc- tion of gold and silver, and much wealth besides, all goes to remunerate foreign shipowners for their part played in our commerce. If we had statesmanship at Washington, we would have shipping of our own; and our gold and diver, if ex- ported, would bring to our feet the riches of the world. We would call no nation master, as now we must, for he is master who drains our treasure. Now our gold goes to pay debts that with shipping of our own would not be made. Our change of policy in 1828 was & serious mistake. It was more: it was a violation of the constitutional rights of our shipping interest. It is indisputable that in the Constitutional Convention, it was declared and acknowledged that an essential condition of the Union then to be formed was the empowering of Con- gress to regulate our foreign commerce, Digitized by Google
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The ConstittUional Rights of American Shipping . 635 o that we might create and maintain an American marine. The need for this emulation, for the purpose stated, was tie of the principal causes for the assem- bling of the convention. It was conceded »n all sides, that failing a stipulation for commercial regulations, the constitution v'ould lack advantage to the shipping (tales, and would therefore be rejected. Mr. Gorham, of Massachusetts, asserted n debate that his state could protect its a&vigation if there were no Union; why ihould it enter a Union having neither power nor inclination to protect its citi- zens in a most important industry ? The same argument could be urged by several other of the most populous states, con- sequently it was then and there agreed that “ navigation laws ” for the protection of shipping should be enacted by the Fed- eral government, in lieu of those exist- ing in most of the states, which would necessarily become void. This agree- ment became a vital compact between the several states and the United States, which Congress has no right to nullify or set aside — and especially in the interest of foreign nations and which good faith re- quires shall ever be honestly observed. An honest observance of this memorable compact would, mean no subsidies to freighting vessels in the foreign trade . Congress did not mean to injure Amer- ican shipping in 1818; its majority sup- posed that, after thirty-nine years of fairly good protection, it could meet the “ com- petition of the world ” as a winner. This has proved a mistaken notion. Compet- ing with the world is like a game of cut- throat euchre — not very winning. But Congress had no business, no right what - ever, to put American shipping to hazard on any speculative theoiy, sound or un- sound. It had its duty lined out in the Constitutional Convention; nevertheless, and notwithstanding the express cove- nant of the convention, ratified and stip- ulated in clause 8 of section 8 of article I. of the constitution, concerning the reg- ulation of foreign commerce, in 1815, the government usurped authority and set aside, conditionally, the laws which, in the case of direct navigation, had govern- ed as to all nations until then; and in 1828 did also set aside, conditionally, the laws which, in the case of indirect navi- gation, were in force then by suspending these laws through acts of Congress and by conventions as demanded by foreign nations from time to time. That these changes of policy were erro- neous— the last a fatal blunder — is amply proved by the ruin that has resulted to our ocean carrying-trade, it being indis- putable that, whereas, our proportionate participation in our own commerce in 1829 was nearly ninety per cent, the fig- ure of late has been below nine per cent This consequence is not surprising, but might have been expected from the greatly increased competition created by giving foreign vessels in our trade a footing, the same predsdy as our own, whether they brought goods from their own or other countries. Built up and defended by discriminative regulations of necessity, our marine has perished from their sus- pension. Manifestly it is unjust to the shipping interest and of continuous dam- age to the country for the government to pursue a policy fraught with such results, and it should be reformed. But the ruling party does not propose to reform it, notwithstanding our govern- ment has no warrant in law or equity for depriving the shipping states or their people of even the least particle of their rights under the constitution, and the comity of nations does not call for it Protective “ navigation laws ” were prom- ised; the country needs that promise car- ried out; eveiy honest citizen demands it; and a good government would not shrink from its duty in such a case — yet Congress does shrink from it! Substi- tute legislation — “ subsidy,” “ subven- tion,” or “bounty,” without warrant in the constitution — is not performance of duty. Moreover, any measure tolerating continuance of the present policy, of equal Digitized by Google
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686 The Building of the City Beautiful. rights to foreign vessels and no prefer- ence to our own, cannot possibly prove effectual in rescuing our carrying trade, and should not be accepted by the Ameri- can people, even if it aid not improperly squander their taxes. When the late “Marine Commission” was appointed all the friends of American shipping hoped that the time had come at last when, not “ something,” but the prop- er and unfailing law would shortly be en- acted. But in this there has been dis- appointment. The measure recom- mended by the majority, instead of in- voking the power to “regulate” our for- eign commerce, is but a “subvention” scheme in avoidance of the constitution, proposed for the short term of “ten years.” The rights of our shipping have been ignored; the privileges of foreign shipping continued; and our ship-own- ers, instead of being protected in their rights, by navigation laws according to compact, have been made objects of lib- erality for a little time. Americans! it is not “bounty,”, but business, that is essential to the recovery of our carrying trade. The carrying of freights belonging to our vessels is wanted. A preference to obtain this is necessary. That preference will abate the excessive competition in the carrying trade which was created by the adoption of the pres- ent policy, and which inevitably attaches to it Foreign shipping admitted to oar trade must again be handicapped by reg- ulations— extra tonnage and tariff duties — to the point where our own may be pre- ferred. Justifiable discrimination at the custom-house will secure employment to our vessels now, as it did a century ago, and there is no other principle available for a system of ship encouragement that can be relied on continuously, without violation of the constitution. It is, as we have shown, the bounden duty of Congress to apply this principle now, as it did a century ago, but having just re- fused to do so, it is necessary and urgent for the patriotic of our country to exert themselves to cause a change of disposi- tion and the execution of duty, if not by the ruling party, then by a change of rulers. The American ship must come forth again; our dependence on foreign shipping has long been so costly, disad- vantageous and disgraceful, as to stir the ashes of every signer of the Declaration of Independence, and of every patriot that helped frame our constitution, and planned, as they all thought, to secure for- ever an American marine for American commerce. William W. Bates. Denver , Colo . THE BUILDING OF THE CITY BEAUTIFUL. By Joaquin Miller. Chapter XXII. — ( Concluded .) THE TRULY BRAVE. “AS TIME goes by,” said the good an- II gel on their descent to the city, “ we shall have much less mental sickness. Take for example this poor friend of mine, who, happily, is now about to be restored to us entirely healed. Had she, and her ancestors as well, been bom and reared in these restful ways, no such sickness would ever have overtaken her. As for bodily sickness, that is partly our own fault; but death, all know, is not to be avoided and should not be undesired. Yet I surely think that mental sickness can be swept from the earth. You remember the poor, nude idiots who used Digitized by Google
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637 The Building of the City Beautiful . to swim out to us every few days as we sailed up the Nile? They call these poor creatures God’s people there, you remember, and the boatmen feed them and care for them as best they can. We, that is, civilized Europe and America, lock them up! Out here we hope to go back to first causes and help nature to make the crooked straight. “And bodily illness,” she continued, “is not to be wondered at when we con- sider what man has done, and is still doing in most of the world, to destroy himself. look at France! Russia! Sixteen hours of toil in all sorts of weather, and such food! food that is scarcely fit for wild beasts. Still man must have exercise if he would have a healthy body. I observed, when in prison with my poor father, that all who were confined esteemed a few hours of exercise in the open air above their bread. Every man, as a rule, who is shut up in prison, spends from four to ten hours daily in pacing up and down. So it became clear to me that man’s body demanded at least six hours of exercise. Less than this would be fatal to his health. A great excess of this would weary him, tax him too heavily, and so leave a loophole by which disease might enter. Now we find here that two hours of work in the fields and gardens by each man will more than feed his family. This amazes you, I know.” “ He may work twenty-four hours in a week, twenty-fours days of a European laborer’s work in a whole year and have all the rest of the year for study, for art, for development ? ” asked the man. “If he does that work daily, yes. But we allow no taskmasters here; all is voluntary. After each day of public work a man goes back to his house, among his bees, birds, roses, vines, with his children, and all the other delightful things that go to refresh mind and body and make interesting the spot he has set apart as his home.” Shortly after this delightful day, as the weather grew warmer in the city, they once more visited the pleasant and refreshing pines on the mountain-side. And here they walked and they talked as before. “Would you care to walk a little further on among the pines ? ” She said this seriously, looking in his face in a quiet and inquiring way, and for answer he moved on at her side in silence. Half an hour, up the hill and over the hill, through the tall, open pines, and he saw before them, in a wooded depression of the landscape through which a little mountain stream wound in the long, strong grass, a few scattering graves where roses grew in careless profusion. Some deer were feeding on the slope of the hill a little beyond, and beyond these, higher on the sloping hill where the pines stood dark and dense, he saw what at first seemed to be several large, old- fashioned marble tombs. “No, they are not tombs,” she said softly. “ These are simply heaps of sweet-smelling pine-wood kept ready for men and women of advanced thought whom we have among us.” “ Funeral pyres ? ” “Even so. You will understand that here with us in this new order of things there is nothing arbitrary. Minds have different degrees of development. Some have ascended high, some higher still; while many of us stand at the bottom of the hill and see the plain of life only from the dead level of custom. And so each looks at life, and death also, from his or her own standpoint. Some of us still want priests to lean upon; some of us still at times are weak enough to want to worship idols or even the golden calf; and so, equal freedom is accorded all, for out of freedom will come real develop- ment, and every secure step upward must be of gradual ascent ; because there is danger of the weak growing weary and of faltering by the way or turning back.” “ Ah, I see,” he said. “ Here conspic- uously in the front are the graves of those who claim attention even in the tomb.” “ That is it,” she sadly answered, as she Digitized by Google
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688 The Building of the City Beautiful. looked about and on up the hill beyond into the deep, dark shadows. “ But up yonder, in the silence and obscurity, the remains of those who have outgrown such folly, like Charles Dickens, Lord Houghton, and others who begged for simple burial, are laid on the fragrant wood as soon as may be after the breath has left the body, in the same garments, in the garments in which death finds them. A flash, a flame; and they are of the clouds and ashes.9’ Chapter XXIII. GOING. What if we all lay dead below; Lay as the grass lies, cold and dead In God’s own holy shroud of snow, With snow-white stones at foot and head, With all earth dead and shrouded white As douds that cross the moon at night? What if that infidel some night Could then rise up and see bow dead. How wholly dead and out of sight All things with snows sown foot and head And lost winds wailing up and down The emptied fields aim emptied town ? I think that grand old infidel Would rub his hands with fiendish dee. And say: "I knew it, knew it well! I knew that death was destiny; I ate, 1 drank, I mocked at God, Then as the grass was, and the sod.” Ah me, the grasses and the sod. They are my preachers. Hew them preach When they forget the shroud, and God Lifts up these blades of mss to teach The resurrection! Who shall say What infidel can speak as they? NEARLY half a year had swept by. “ You are thinking of going away,99 she said, as they walked together by the great fountain that burst up from the old Toltec ruins near her door; for she was not strong enough to walk further now. It was in the afternoon. “ You knew my thoughts, then ? 99 * You are going away if, — if I go.” "Yes." “I will go with you." She said this, not sadly, but almost cheerfully, as she leaned heavily on his arm on turning to her door. There were those here who made one in love with old age; but this woman was making him in love with death. “ You are going back to the work that is before you! I will go with you.” And that is all she said about his going or staying; but he felt that it was her desire that he should go. “I know so many weak and weary people who would be glad to come to this Paradise," he said. “As for myself, I am strong now. I will go back to my work, but shall I not be permitted to send some whom I know, out of the shadow, to this fervid sunlight of yours ? 99 She raised her hand with effort, and, pointing to some pale weeds that grew in a dark and shaded comer beneath the broad banana-leaves, she bade him, more by sign than word, to pull them from the ground and lay them before her in the sun. He did so, and they laid their drooping heads down on the hot sands and died. “You see," she said; “and yet our choicest flowers are only cultivated weeds. Pull them up and place them in the sun suddenly, and you do not help them; you simply kill them. It is well to have great examples like this, our City Beauti- ful, but the world must improve itself slowly, naturally, by force of the example we have set of freedom, truth, and justice. No, we must have strong pillars, like the Pilgrim Fathers, and God willing, we shall have a temple reared in time that will shelter all." She rested for a long time now. Finally she said: “You will go up to the hospital and remain — remain until you see a sign.99 He bowed silently in assent; for she was too near the other world for him to question now or make any protest Then she said: “I like those people up there; I like the guilty ones, those whom you call convicts; but we do not call them that Why, when one of your poor unfortunate Digitized by Google
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639 The Building of the City Beautiful. people is accused of crime, the State, the State’s attorney, the whole power of the State is exerted, and no pains or money spared to prove that man guilty, — as if it were a good thing for the State to have a guilty man! Ah, how you forget that ‘it is better that ten guilty ones escape than that one innocent man should suffer.’ With us the attorney for the State does his best to make it appear that the accused is not guilty.” She was exhausted now and breathed with effort. Yet it seemed as if with her last breath she must teach this most im- portant lesson. After a time she added: “ What a pity that all the State should array itself against one man, bound in irons, in an iron tomb, as if it were a glorious thing for the State to find one of its people with mind so weak or morals so weak that he fell into the pit of tempta- tion.” She was silent a long time, then said: “You will go now. Good-bye again; good-bye.” He arose and stood before her. He fell on his knees and took her hand. “You feel certain, confident, confident that Christ is the Savior of the world ? ” he cried; for he felt that she was surely dying. Steadily, and with a strange light in her eyes, as if it might be the light of another world, she looked him long and silently in the face. Then she said slowly and in a voice so soft and low: “Yes, yes, Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world; but Jesus Christ died to save man from man, — not to save man from God.” He kissed her hand tenderly in silence, and in tears passed out. Chapteb XXIV. PUT UP THY SWORD. And who the br&rest of the brave; The bravest hero ever bom ? T was cme who dared a felon's nave. Who dared to bear the soora of scorn. Nay, more than this; when sword was drawn And vengeance waited for His word. He looked with pitying eves upon The scene, and said: “Put up thy sword." Oh God! could one be found tcnday As brave to do, as brave to say ? "Put up thy sword into his sheath." Put up thy sword, put up thy sword! By Cedron’s brook thus spake beneath The olive-trees our valiant Lord, Spake calm and king-like. Sword and stave And torch, and stormy men of death Made clamor. Yet he spake not, save With loving word and patient breath. The peaceful olive-bougns beneath : "Put up thy sword into his sheath." ABASHED that he had remained so long, knowing as he did that this inspired soul was about to enter upon another life, the man hastened to take the first conveyance to the mountains of pine. “You will remain there till you see a sign.” He kept saying this as he went his way speaking to no one. He had been with her. His soul, his whole self, this day at least, must be his own and inviolate. He did not go directly to the hospital, to men, but to the woods, to God. Some scarlet berries, red with the blood of dying autumn, wreathed the moss- made tomb of a prone monarch of the mountains, on which he sat. All was silent, so silent, save a far, faint melody that came up the mountain-side through the pines, came fitfully on the wind, as one that is weary and would go home to rest. The tawny carpet of pine-quills grew golden as the sun lay level and in spars and bars and beams about him. The huge and lofty trunks of the mighty pine-trees on the mountains round about took on a hue of gold as the sun fell down. The foliage all about grew red, then gold, then yellow. The carpet of pine-quills, reaching miles and miles away on either hand far up the mountains beyond, became gold, a broken, billowy sea of molten gold. And as he sat there, throned amid this mobile sea of fragrant yellow, of color so perfect that it was not only color, but form; form, perfume and melody also; he not only saw this color, he heard it An hour passed. Digitized by Google
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640 The Building of the City Beautiful. Then suddenly, as he thought of her , he saw a form, at first vaguely, dimly, the yellow form and comely shape of a desert lion standing waiting, removed from him but by a little space. I know not why this type of strength , defiant of custom and restraint, should have again appeared. I only say that it was so, and pass on. All things in life and death lie in circles. A woman9 s weakness is her strength. And even as he looked, the sinking sun came softly through the forest boughs, a long, slanting shaft of light, and laid a sword of fading fire at his feet. Day had surrendered to night, light to darkness, mortality to immortality. He remained alone all night in the warm woods, but saw no further sign. It was enough. With the dawn there came up the mountain-side the sweetest, saddest melo- dies ever known. It was the funeral train. He took an old man aside. They rested a time beneath the pines. He implored him to tell all, all. “What did she say ? What did she do ? All, all, — tell me all!” But the old man seemed dazed. He kept silent for some time. At last he spoke: “ I went to her immediately as you left her. I can hardly recall her words. They were words of fire and gold. * Prove to me, to the world, that man shall surely rise/ I cried. She half turned away her face as in reproach at first, but soon, looking tenderly at me, she said in a low, firm voice: ‘Nay, I cannot quite prove to you that man shall rise after death. I cannot quite prove to you that yonder setting sun will rise to-morrow; but I surely, surely believe it will rise9; and then she made a sign that I must leave her to meet God, alone. After a little time young musicians came as had been their custom, and played before her door under the palm-trees. And then there came many singers, and they sang, sang as the musicians played, and the sun went down. Then suddenly we heard her voice, like a thread of gold in the woof of harmony, woven in with a most cunning hand. We had never heard her sing before. It was, perhaps, her first as it was her last song: die dying swan. “There are many birds and of many hues, as you well know, in the foliage of the court there. Well, as the song ceased and the music died away, an old man, older and better than I, and so able to see more of better things than I can see, saw a bird, a wide-winged bird, and white like snow. And after circling above oar heads, it flew out through the wide, high trees into the falling night. That was all. We bowed low our heads and wept in pity for ourselves.99 Our city-builder of the mountain-side remembering having heard her deplore the sad habit of the world in staring at the wan, worn faces of the helpless dead, over- came this last desire, as he had overcome others through her teachings and ex- ample, and saw her face of day never more. And yet he felt, knew, knew positively all the while, that she would come to him, sooner or later, if he only kept his soul refined and fit to see her; and more than that, he knew that she would come to him in her perfection, as she was when she touched the high-tide marie of health and perfection of form and face; for this is in the order of nature. The tide shall ever touch its topmost limit. The human soul shall not be less than the sea. Knowing all this, knowing that she would have given back to her all that had been taken away, and that she, and all others who love sincerely, would begin the next life at the high-tide mark in this, and knowing, surely knowing that he should see her thus, how careful was he to say naught, do naught that would make him less worthy to lift his face to hers. They bore her form up, up to her mountain-side, mantled dose in the robes in which she died, and none were cruel Digitized by Google
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The Building of the City Beautiful. 641 enough to seek to look into her tired face. There was a depression in the great heap of sweet-smelling pine that lay furthest up the hill beyond the hospital, and here they laid the body. A flame, a long, vapory cloud of smoke tossing to the pine-tops, and all turned away. No more cost and no more care, — a little heap of ashes! and around the edges of this little burned spot tall, slim grasses came to stand in circle soon, and shy, wild flowers joined their hands and drooped their heads there tearfully when the rains had come. “So you are going away to-night? Well, the Gulf Stream of the upper seas is reversed at this season. The Japan currents flow towards us in the first few months, but later in the year, as now, Alaska draws on us for heat and things are reversed. You will have quite as pleasant sailing back as when you came.’9 This was the venerable man who had seen the cattle’ rise up in the Adds at night, as if God was walking by. So fine were his senses that he had only to come into your atmosphere to know your thought. They were walking up the mountain. Without a word the man lifted his eyes. The car of the air-ship swung graceful as a pine-cone in the gathering wind at the high platform from which he had descended on coming to the place. They passed up together in silence. What need of words ? Grasping the old man9s hand he stepped within the car and was about taking his seat when, with a boom as if being propelled by sound, the car bounded away above the clouds and hdd her course strong and steady toward the north. He sank into his seat, bowed his head, and moaned: “She said she would be with me!" After a time he lifted his face, for he felt that he was not alone,' and lo! there she sat before him, in all the splendor of youth and strength and divinity of presence. All the majesty of perfect womanhood was with her now. Never, indeed, had he seen her so radiantly, so imperiously beautiful. The same sweet touch of tenderness, the same pathos and pity in the Madonna face, it is true; but over and above this there was a sense of strength and directness and immortality, such as you feel when the sun is rising. She did not speak; for oh, how futile, lame, harsh, and angular are words! The use of words shall pass away, is passing. Why, know you not soul speaks to soul ? I saj the use of words shall pass — Words are but fragments of the glass. Hut silence is the perfect whole. She did not speak, but her soul con- tinually said to his soul : “ The kingdom of heaven is at hand.99 And it was said as if in a great court of woods and falling waters, with walls of sapphire, where hung, in letters of fire and gold, the Sermon on the Mount and the Lord’s Prayer. He did not mistake their meaning. He would go forward and these should guide him still. All Israel was forty years in the wilderness, and he had been but five. Surely he should, he could, and he would gather strength and go forward. For she had annihilated the vast space that had been so long between heaven and earth and had brought them almost together — “ The kingdom of heaven is at hand." She did not speak; and yet her soul spoke as certainly in its calm, sweet fash- ion, wisely, silently; the wisdom of earth in earthly things, the glory, the beauty, the peace of heaven over all. “I leave my peace with you." “The kingdom of heaven is at hand." And her soul said to his soul: “Service is the handmaiden of heaven. Let the Christian run forward with the Sermon on the Mount in hand, swift-footed to meet her. Only see to it that the newly- emancipated slave does not fall into a deeper servitude. For man, intoxicated Digitized by Google
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642 The Building of the City Beautiful . with opportunity, still believes that opu- lence is happiness. They are fastening again the broken chains, and gathering gold as never was gold gathered before. “It was the toiler, not the money- changer, who taught the lightnings to talk, created light out of space, and from the airy, white vapors of heaven called into existence the thundering black cavalry of commerce by land and by sea* Take care that this emancipated toiler is not made the slave of his own creations by blind, intoxicated money-changers. See to it that all toil, that none but the helpless live on the toil of others." Such were the woman’s thoughts, words, as they seemed to sail and sail by the porch of heaven above the clouds as before. Then they passed down, down and through the clouds, and it was almost light And daring to look full in her face by the coming light he saw a star, then the star only, die bright and beautiful morning star to the east, through the dove-colored leaves of his olive-trees. Then as he grew stronger and looked more steadily he saw the star fade into a dim halo from out of which appeared the divinely beautiful, earnest and prophetic face of his venerable mother. She was looking at him as one who sits at a bed- side and tenderly watches the face of some poor sufferer. Then, as if taking up in the full dawn the word Failure where he had laid it down in darkness, she said, softly: “My son, there is no failure, there can be no failure for those who really try. The only failure possible in life is the failure to try, and persistently try, for the best The good, the glory, the consolation of it all is in the enno- bling effort Let us bravely leave results to Him” The man at once arose and stood by the beautiful mother with die soft voice and deep, seer eyes and was filled and thrilled with her patient strength and splendid courage. And he joyed there on his stony steep and went to his toil with content and courage and a broad, deep charity in his heart A dove sang from an olive-tree, the dove and the olive-branch together as of old, and the man sang with die dove that day and all days. For had he not seen her ? Whether she was of heaven or of earth, who should say? But surely he had been with her entirely, and this was the unuttered song of his heart. He sang silendy, for what human voice can approach the plaintive and tender voice of the dove? But here is the song of his heart: Come listen, O love, to the race of the dove, Come hearken and hear him aav : "There are many to-morrows, my fore, my km; There is only one to-day.” And all day long you can near him aay : "This day in purple is rolled; And the baby stars of the Milky Way: They are cradled in cradles of gold.” THE END. Digitized by Google
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Carter, in New York American. (Reproduced by special permission of W. R. w**;"*) “HOW WILL YOU KILT, THIS BBASTT” You Can 't Do It with Pin Pricks or Kind Words. Public-Ownership, Backed by Good, Strong lan^ Will Do It. CHICAGO Rogers, in New York Herald. ONE THING TO DO— AND UNCLE SAM IS GOING TO DO IT. Bush, In New York World. Digitized by Wm '»S Igj
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Politics, The People and The Trusts as Seen by Cartoonists. 645 \ I MfLuuY immigration Powers, in New Tork World. AIR 18 FRER— EXCEPT FROM THE GAS-TRUST. Air-Preesare Is What Makes Tour Gas-Bill Go Up. The Gas-Trust Puts On the Air-Pressure at 6 o’clock in the Erenlng and Keeps It On Until Midnight Handy, in Duluth Ncw+TrQnme. SHOULD NOT THE OPENING BE SMALLER T Digitized by ■ LIgj.fi
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Gege, In Phlledeiphta North America*. UP GOSS THE BLACK FLAG AGAIN. Thorndike, in Philadelphia Prm. HALTED! RUIN ROAD. Welker, in New Age, Auguste, Me. THE OFFICE-BOY HAS A DREAM. Payne, in Pittsburgh OaeetU. ONE THING THE CZAR'S MONEY CAN’T BUY. Digitized by CjOOQIc
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Politics, The People and The Trusts as Seen by Cartoonists. 647 Gory, in New York World. Campbell, in Philadelphia North American. PROM THE FIRST THE MAYOR BECAME A CZAR. —The Philadelphia Inquirer. HARMONY AT LAST. Gage, in Philadelphia North American. Nikdy Nicholas—* ‘ Lady, will you help me with another loan?” Mia. BufcoPA— “ Saw that wood orer there flnt I ” Warren, in Boston Herald. “ HOW LONG CAN THE RUSSIAN GIANT BEAR THE LOAD. Digitized by
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IN THE MIRROR OF THE PRESENT. A BATTLE BETWEEN CIVIC RIGHTEOUSNESS AND SORDID) EGOISM IN THE NEW WORLD. 1 A Prophet-Voice in The Hour or The Nation's Peril. IN ALL crises in the history of nations and civilisations there have arisen great pro- phet-souls, men gifted with the seeing eye, who by virtue of their knowledge of history, their broad intellectual grasp and their logical fac- ulties, united with that clarity of vision that comes to those who live above the sordid and sensuous life, are enabled to see the inexorable results that follow certain well-defined symp- toms or causes. These men are the watchers on the walls of Zion whose warning holds the potential salvation of national life. But for their message and the heeding of their warning on the part of the people from time to time, Israel would have degenerated and died, as did all the nations that environed her. But for the Samuels, the Elijahs, the Isaiahs, the Jeremiahs, the Daniels and others of their noble fellowship who chose to be the high- priests of progress and rocks of offence to conventionalism, conservatism and the powers that were in church and state, and who chose to imperil their lives and become outcasts in order to save the nation, Israel in her desire to imitate her more opulent neighbors would have gone unchecked in her decadent tendencies, adopting the oppressive measures of the pagan kings and the low moral ideals of the idola- trous nations, until she would have ceased to be a distinctive people long ere the Roman eagles were lifted over the Holy City. So in various crises in the history of Chris- tian civilisation, the great prophet-souls have aroused the conscience of the people and set in motion exalted moral impulses that have checked the outflowing currents of corruption, despotism and oppression. Savonarola and Erasmus, Luther, Zwingii and Mel&ncthon, Eliot, Pym, Hampden and Milton, are types of the true prophets who have been saviors of nations and civilisations. In our time these voices are happily again being heard in the hour of America's ra peril; and among the recent warning m ances from the real prophets, perhaps ■ deserve more thoughtful coaridentiot I those of that great educator, author and J and political economist. Professor Jobs fl com, LL.D., who since 1855 has been si serving the cause of collegiate education m capacity of professor or president in led institutions and who during the whole m honorable career has been apositiveoonsaJ force whose thought has wrought muck I civic righteousness. Professor Bascom, ill be remembered, was called from the hell of Williams College in 1874 to the position president of the University of Wisconsin, position he held until 1887. After resigns the presidency of this institution he retans to the faculty of Williams College and has »( been a lecturer on sociology in that institatu He is the author of a number of stands works, perhaps the most important of wkx are Political Economy , Philosophy of Engb Literature, Problems in Philosophy, PM* phy of Religions, Ethics, Natural Tksolc g Science of Mind, Sociology , Historical pretations of Philosophy, and The New Tk ology. With & vigorous mentality and a dear mot vision this patriarch and prophet views tl present and its portents and promises for tl future from the vantage-ground of one wi has three-quarters of a century tying behn him, and who from manhood’s morning, no more than fifty years past, has played a nob part in the republic, ever a child of faith si ever guided by high moral ideals. H thoughts therefore challenge the serious atto tion of all our people. In the course of h paper on "Social Forecast," which appeal* in a recent issue of the New York Indep* dent. Professor Bascom, in speaking of tl menace of multimillionaires who have reads their financial eminence largely through then quisition of wealth they have not earned, s* J 648 Digitized by Google
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In the Mirror of the Present. 649 “The multimillionaire cannot be the mem- ber of a free state, on equal terms with his fellow-citisens. This would be true under any circumstances, but is still more true when this wealth has been acquired in abuse and in defiance of economic and civil law. This additional fact shows that the tyrannical tem- per is present, which, opportunity favoring, will disregard all rights in behalf of personal power. “The most obvious and immediately ser- viceable of equalities, which go with free in- stitutions, is equality in economic opportuni- ties. No other equality concerns so many actions, or actions on which so large a share of welfare depends. The wealth of which we are speaking has been accumulated at the expense of this equality, and now threatens utterly to destroy it.” In speaking of the irresistible march and mastery of monopoly, unless promptly brought to check. Professor Bascom observes: “No competition and no fear of competi- tion accompany the development of business of this order, and unless the conception itself was a piece of folly the profits of a monopoly accrue to it at every stage. This wealth may have been gained with a hard struggle, and at the expense of the rights of many, but once acquired there need be no farther trespass in its use. Legitimate as well as illegitimate forms of business feel at once this accumula- tion of power. Whether it is steel production or the stock market that is under considera- tion, the multimillionaire creates the condi- tions under which he operates. Equality of opportunity in business relations has suffered a sudden overthrow which the future will easily complete. “It was at one time felt that a large prop- erty would ordinarily be scattered in the next generation. This expectation does not apply to the magnitudes now contemplated, but vice, prodigality, indolence, can all shelter them- selves in these immense fortunes like birds that nest in the carvings of a cathedral.” So great has become corporate wealth and so overshadowing its influence over the press and political parties, that the government has in feet became the tool of the money-changers and the acquirers of wealth through special privileges. In this connection our author pertinently observes: “This accumulation of wealth has already destroyed political equilibrium. Political in- fluence is won by a contribution to the ex- penses which attend on gaining political power. “The hold which perverted business re- lations have on politics is seen in the railroad question. When the Interstate Commerce Commission was established it was supposed to have been granted a control which it has since lost and is struggling in vain to recover. The Commission was instituted to govern rates in behalf of the public welfare. It has sunk into a Board of CouUdl, whose sugges- tions may or may not be followed. The offi- cers of railroads to whose unfair terms much of the mischief of araimnlfttad wealth has been due are left in control. “Here is a square issue between a method that has signally failed and a better one which the people, nearly twenty years since, intended to put in its place. And yet the commercial and political worlds were never fuller of plaus- ible reasons why the railroads, and not the people, should assign the conditions of traffic.” In a republic social inequality which be- comes more and more marked as the years pass is the surest possible symptom of the decay of democracy and the disintegration of the moral ideals which make free institutions ef- fective. On this point Professor Bascom says: “Social equality cannot hold its ground while this abuse of privilege prevails in pro- duction and in politics. A wealthy class be- gins to act in vigorous modification of society. “Any approach to social equality must be united with some equality in the conditions of life. Collective production now bears this burden of unusual accumulation and expend- iture, and is borne down by it. The aggre- gate gains, waiting to be distributed in many channels, are diverted into a few deep cations. Ordinary effort meets with increasing obsta- cles and diminished returns. That sejtara- tion in society between wealth and indigence, those afloat and those submerged, sets in; a separation which is itself a decay of society, which is increased by its own action, and Digitized by Google
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050 In the Mirror of the Present. which, so far, civilization has never escaped.” In the presence of this eclipse of the genius of democracy, in this turning from those old demands which are as vital to a true republic as is oxygen to the physical organism — equal- ity of opportunities and of rights — the School and the Church, as well as the State, have suf- fered irreparable injury, which in turn is re- acting in a baleful way on the social organism and the ideals of the individual. After show- ing that under the new order education is more a “means of wealth” than a “means of man- hood ” or the development of good citizenship, Professor Bascom thus continues: “Citizenship is the disk which should carry all the florets in the composite flower of our civilization. “In connection with the tendency to turn education into training there comes a growing demand for large endowments, and the college becomes a petitioner at the feet of wealth. In- dependence is sacrificed, commercial stand- ards displace ethical ones, and civic principles adapt themselves as best they can to the new allegiance. The banner of success is borne to the front, and those who march must march behind it.” Nowhere is this waning of high ideals, this abandonment of the ethics of Christ more strongly marked than in the church since Mr. Rockefeller and other moral criminals began systematically to buy the silence of the pulpit and religious editors and educators by throw- ing into the treasury of certain churches and schools a few crumbs from the vast storehouse of their acquired and largely unearned wealth. On this decadence of the church our author makes these timely observations: “Hie strongest antagonism to social decay should be found in Christian faith, but faith slowly bends to the conditions which surround it. Hie Greek Church brings Russia no lib- erty. Our own religion goes but a little way in carrying sympathetic aid to the working class, or in arousing a sense of the service due from those who lead business. It has been no strange spectacle with us to find one order- ing his economic activity in a method utterly subversive of the Kingdom of Heaven, and yet cherishing some detached notion of find- ing his way into that kingdom.” Is the outlook, then, hopeless ? Most our republic continue to tread the downward path which Rome trod after great wealth and tk dream of imperialism Minded the moral per- ceptions of the nation and destroyed the old. sturdy ideals of the people? If we conthne in the path we have been treading during re- cent years there can be but one answer. So surely as our pathway follows the pathway of the ancient civilizations which tie in rum, through the abandonment of moral ideals for material advancement and dominion, so surrir will our fate be a repetition of the doom that overtakes all peoples that turn from the tight and by surrendering the high birthright of en- lightened civilization, the domination of the ethical verities, for sordid gain, material power and physical gratification, plant the seeds of death in the social organism. But history is not wanting in illustrations of peoples and civilizations that have awaken- ed whole yet there was time, and through a moral renaissance have renewed their youth Herein lies our hope — a hope that holds such inestimable potency for the emancipation of humanity and the development of civilisation that he who remains indifferent in its presence is recreant to the high demands of manhood to such a degree that he becomes an accessory in the overthrow of democracy. Of the peril and promise of the present Professor Bascom says: “The Republican party is fast becoming the bondman of plutocracy. Its motto is to 'stand pat,* careless of discussion or vindication. It has so long prospered by concession that in- quiry and resistance are foreign to its spirit Hie temper of President Roosevelt, alien to this attitude, may make slight fissures and chip off thin flakes. Hie Democratic party has broken midway, one extremity plutocratic, the other democratic. There is as yet much hammering here and there, and seandiing the face of the rock, but the moment a workable seam shall appear many wedges are ready to be driven home. This is made obvious by the unrest of workmen, by scattered revolt in many states, as in Wisconsin, by the number, radical character and large vote of secondary parties at the last Presidential election. Our forecast is that one of those sudden changes, which are sure to arise in times of wide pressure, will combine these forces of resistance, and with them sweep the field for another deal in human Digitized by Google
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651 In the Mirror of the Present. rights and one more approach toward the Kingdom of Heaven.” These words from the spiritually-illumined brain of one of the noblest educators and wisest economists of our land should serve to arouse our sleeping people to a realization of the au- gust demands of the hour, and lead both young and old to consecrate life and all it holds dear- est to the restoration and preservation of de- mocracy. Chicago’s Great Popular Victory. ON APRIL 4th the citizens of Chicago won the most important and decisive mu- nicipal victory for progressive democracy that has been achieved in recent years, — a victory that virtually means a new Declaration of In- dependence, a positive popular assertion of the right and the intention of the people that their interests shall henceforth take precedence over the selfish, arrogant demands of privilege which has over-long exploited the citizens and corrupted their servants. This victory has already electrified the true patriots throughout the republic and will crystallize public senti- ment much as did the battle of Lexington crys- tallize the sentiment of the revolutionary fathers in favor of our great magna charta There can be no mistaking the meaning of this pronounced verdict of the Chicago elec- torate. The story is one so rich in promise and encouragement for the people in other American municipalities that it calls for special notice. At the last presidential election Theodore Roosevelt earned Chicago by one hundred thousand majority against Mr. Cleveland’s "safe and sane” candidate, and the Socialist vote readied forty thousand. Thus the general opinion prevailing at the time of the mayoralty nominations was that the Republicans would sweep the city by a substantial majority. No- where were these views more strongly enter- tained than among the Republicans and the public-service companies. The latter, real- izing that the sentiment of the city favored municipal-ownership of the street-railway lines, mcognized the necessity of nominating a man who was not too pronounced a friend of public- corporation interests and one who would pre- sumably appeal to the independent vote as well as to the straight Republican electorate. and yet who would oppose immediate public- ownership and operation of the street-car service. The companies believed that if they could delay matters the people would become wearied of the fight. Moreover, they would find devious methods, as they have found so many times in the past, of convincing the pub- lic-servants that the public-service companies knew what was best for the people far better than did the voters themselves. The Republican candidate, Mr. John M. Harlan, appeared the most available man, being a politician of standing among the inde- pendents, a man who it was thought could easily befog the voters and confuse die issues, and a man who was quite ready and willing to echo the cry of the public-service corpora- tions for delay. By the interests, at the time of his selection, John M. Harlan’s nomination was considered equivalent to his election. Hie Democratic party failed to live up to its traditions in regard to its capacity for blun- dering, and wisely selected a straightforward and radical candidate, a man who scorned to blow hot and cold, and who was unreservedly committed to immediate action in favor of public-ownership along the radical lines that Hearst’s Chicago American and Examiner had boldly demanded. Though when the campaign opened the public-service companies and the reactiona- ries were in a thoroughly comfortable frame of mind, feeling that in view of the last Novem- ber vote and the fact that Mayor Harrison had only carried the city by eight thousand major- ity when the normal Socialist vote was at least ten thousand lower than at the present time, there could be little danger of defeat. But with the nomination of Judge Dunne on a ring- ing platform demanding immediate action in favor of public-ownership, the whole situation changed as by magic, and it soon became evi- dent that unless something was done to stem the tide, the people would triumph over cor- porate interests. All the old and oft-repeated tactics of the Pharisees who “devour widows’ homes and for a pretence make long prayers” were employed. Judge Dunne was character- ized by Mr. Harlan as the special protegi of the Chicago “Assam*,” the reference being to Mr. Hearst’s Chicago American; and not content with this, the Republican candidate went out of his way to assail the character of Mr. Hearst. He knew, as do all the great predatory interests and public-service corpor- Digitized by Google
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652 In the Mirror of the Present. ations of America, that the Hearst papers ate to-day the greatest menace to the reign of plun- der and rule of graft that have marked munici- pal, state and national life since political ma- chines have become the virtual property of corporate interests; and as the organs of the “interests” and their mouthpieces have for years been making a bogie-man of the so- called “yellow ” journals (classing as “yellow” almost every paper that places the interests of the people before the interests of predatory and corporate wealth), he imagined that these disgraceful tactics would win him votes. But unhappily for the would-be exploiters of the city of Chicago, the day had passed when the sonorous warnings of the Pharisee- class or the vituperations of the men and the papers, that, while pledged to the interests of the plunderers of the people, mantle their shame under the robings of conventional re- spectability, could frighten the awakened voters. They had too often allowed the real thieves to escape when they had joined in the general outcry of “Stop thief!” Moreover, they had come to realize the fact that had Mr. Hearst made common cause with the public- service corporations, the corrupt political ma- chines, the trusts and other privileged inter- ests, there would have been no outcry against him. But his haling the coal-trust into court, his putting the gas companies in various cities on die rack and his fight all along the line for the rights of the people and against their con- tinued spoliation — these were the unpardon- able sins that aroused the alarm and hatred of the interests or the “system.” Now one of the fatal mistakes that Mr. Harlan made was in failing to realize that the people had come to recognize the source and animus of the assaults on Mr. Hearst and his journals, and the further fact that millions of the American people are coming to love the man for the enemies he is making, because they know those enemies to be the greatest foes of the republic, the exploiters and oppressors of the people and the corruptors of the people's servants. Hence the more Mr. Harlan vitu- perated against the Chicago American, the more the people became convinced that he was owned body and soul by the pubilc-service corporations whose calumnies, abuses and epithets he was so freely employing. As the campaign advanced it became more and more evident that the people had deter- mined to take over the street-car service. Then Mr. Harlan sought to pose as a fnmd of public-ownership and to confuse the puhik mind on the real issue. He desired to have the voters understand that both candidate were in favor of munkapal-owiiership, but k would save the city from litigation by maJriag amicable terms with the corporations, Chi- cago was not just yet ready for the step; they should proceed in a safe and conservative way. These and many other sophistical catch-phra- ses were played upon in order either to alarm or to confuse the voters. Judge Tuley, how- ever, had in the Chicago American dearly shown that the time for pubtic-owneiahip wa§ the present Judge Dunne stood for imme- diate action. Moreover, all the corporation! were for Mr. Harlan. Vain was the lavnk expenditure of corporate funds in the interests of the Republican candidate; vain the attempt to create groundless prejudices against the friends of the people; vain the effort to came a panic by alarmist cries. The people had at the head of their ticket a man in whom they had confidence. They knew what they want- ed, and they knew that in the ballot they had an effective weapon, and they used it. Judge Dunne received the largest vote ever given to a mayoralty candidate in Chicago, 161,059 ballots being cast for him. His plurality was over twenty-four thousand votes. Thus Chi- cago declared in unmistakable voice for imme- diate municipal-ownership, and in so doing she has become the way-shower for other mu- nicipalities. In commenting on his election Judge Dunne said: “In view of the revolution it portends in the operation of public utilities in America, and of the magnitude and power of private inter- ests arrayed against us, I regard the result of the election as a distinct triumph for the peo- ple. It means a new departure in America in the management and operation of street- cars and other public utilities. If Chicago puts municipal-ownership in force other cities of America will follow its lead.” MUNICIPAL-OWNERSHIP MEANS A DDUNUIIOH AND NOT AN INCREASE IN CORRUPT PRACTICES AND MACHINE-RULE. There are two arguments relied upon by the public-service companies and their special pleaders to frighten the people and prevent Digitized by Google
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653 In the Mirror their taking over the enormously-valuable pub- lic utilities. One is the claim that the cities are so corrupt that public-ownership would result in building up a vast and increasingly- corrupt political machine. In reply to this it should be pointed out in the first place that the head and front of all of our political cor- ruption in the United States is found in the public-service companies. They have been the chief offenders in debauching the people’s servants, and not only that, but in defeating honest statesmen and driving from power in- corruptible public servants, while through the lavish expenditure of funds they have been able to (dace their minions in positions of pub- lic trust. Hence if they were wholly frank they might with truth frame their objection to municipal-ownership somewhat as follows: M We have corrupted your public-servants; we have driven the old-time honest and upright statesmen into retirement; we have filled the offices, from the United States Senate down to small municipal positions, with our willing servants, tools, special-pleaders and agents or those ready to listen to our convincing appeals. Now that we have thus corrupted your govern- ment, it would be folly to turn over the public utilities to such public-servants.” The first fatal flaw in the position of the pub- lic-service companies is found in the assump- tion that an aroused electorate which deter- mines to end a reign of plunder and political debauchery, by taking over the public utilities, is in danger of retaining corrupt and recreant servants in office. As a matter of fact, sensi- ble and thoughtful men know full well that when the power of special privilege is with- drawn from politics, there is little danger of corrupt practices prevailing. The reign of loot, graft and bribery, direct and indirect, the betrayal of the people and the spoliation of the millions from which the American people are suffering to-day, have been due to privileged interests— chiefly the public-service companies of the land. The experience in Glasgow, Liverpool, Birmingham and scores of other European cities proves that public-ownership and operation of natural monopolies results in a higher standard of morality in public offi- cial life, economy in operation of the public util- ities, and a vast increase in benefits and reve- nue enjoyed by the people. Mayor Dunne, of Chicago, at the great New York public-ownership meeting held in Cooper Union on the evening of April 7th, in noticing of the Present . the two serious objections which were raised in Chicago during the recent struggle of the public-service companies to prevent the people taking over the street-cars, thus referred to the first bogie raised by the corporation interests, — namely, that public-ownership would tend to build up a great political machine: “None of the friends of municipal-owner- ship in Chicago, or elsewhere, advocates the ownership and operation of any utility by mu- nicipalities unless in connection therewith there is a civil-service law under which all applicants for position, irrespective of their politics, will be treated exactly alike, and under which just and reasonable tests will be applied to public servants to ascertain their fitness to perform the work entailed upon them. “We have such a law in the city of Chicago, under which, for several years past, it has been practically impossible for any man to place a friend in the Police Department, Fire Depart- ment or Water Department. Where a public utility is controlled by private capital in the city of Chicago, any alderman who votes ‘right’ has an unlimited field in which he can anchor his political henchmen.” MUNICIPAL-OWNERSHIP DOES NOT IN- CREASE TAXATION. The other principal argument advanced by public-service companies to alarm the tax- payers has been that public-ownership would necessarily increase taxation. This has been a stock argument relied upon by the corpora- tions in their desperate battle for privileges that enable them annually to take millions upon millions out of the pockets of the citi- zens in every great municipality, often in re- turn furnishing inferior commodities or inad- equate service, as has been the case with the gas-companies in New York, Boston and other cities, and as has been the case with the street- car service in Chicago and other municipalities. The Boston street-car service is claimed to be exceptionally good, yet a large proportion of our traveling public every morning and even- ing are compelled to put up with strap-service in a way that would not be tolerated for a month under public-ownership, simply be- cause of the cupidity of the public-service company and the subserviency of the daily press. Yet the annual net earnings of this corporation are from three to four million dollars. Digitized by Google
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654 In the Mirror of the Present. When, however, the demand for public- ownership is made, the Wall-street gamblers and other multimillionaires who are the con- trolling powers in most of the public-service companies, and their special-pleaders in the press, cry that such innovations would mean increased taxation; that they would add to the people’s burdens. They know or ought to know that this claim is false. They know full well that any acquisition of public-service properties on a just or equitable basis would entail no burden of taxation, but on the con- trary would ultimately be the source of a great reduction in taxation. Ex-Mayor Brown, in the April Arena, pointed out a method of acquiring public utilities that meets with the approval of many distinguished authorities; while Judge Dunne, in his explanation of the Chicago plan, showed how, by a simple but practical method the citizens of the second great municipality in the republic proposed to acquire the street-railways without a particle of increase in tax-burdens. This plan, with the exception which we point out below, is at once so practical and statesmanlike that it must appeal with convincing force to all pa- triots and all thoughtful persons not retained by privileged interests or otherwise pecunia- rily interested in the further plunder and ex- ploitation of the people for the further enrich- ment of the real enemies of the republic. On this point Judge Dunne said: “The only other serious objection urged in Chicago against the operation by the public of its own utilities was that the municipality had no money. That cry is always raised everywhere, and I presume it will be raised in New York when you start, as I understand you have under contemplation the operation of your municipal lighting-plant. “There is no force whatever in the objec- tion. The operation of these utilities, either by public or private persons, is a valuable privilege. They can only be operated by per- mission being given to some one to use the public streets. This privilege is of priceless value, and when any public or private corpor- ation furnishes light, furnishes power, fur- nishes street-railway transportation, or any of these utilities, the right to use the streets is of untold wealth to these. “We in Chicago propose to raise all the money necessary to purchase an up-to-date street-car system upon certificates which are special or limited promises to pay out of the income collected from the system. They are not general promises to pay which will entail taxation. Under the law of the State of Illi- nois these certificates are termed street-car certificates. They should more property be called income bonds. They are secured under our law in three ways: “First, l>y the pledge of all of the income of the municipal street-railway plant, this income being unlimited as to time; in other words, when the City of Chicago commences the oper- ation of its street-car system its right to do so is not limited to twenty, thirty, fifty or one hundred yean* time; it may operate until the crack of doom, and all its receipts in perpetuity from this source are pledged for the payment of these securities. “Secondly, these certificates are secured under our law by a mortgage, which mortgage conveys afi of the tangible property in the transportation department of the city, both real, personal and mixed; power-houses, rail- way-tracks, street-can, sprinkling-carta and every kind of property used in the transporta- tion department “Thirdly, these certificates are secured by twenty-year franchise; in other words, there is a provision in the law under which, if default be made in the payment of street-car certifi- cates, or of interest thereon, for the period of one year, then and in that case the holders of the certificates may apply to a court of chan- cery to foreclose all the tangible property used by the city in its transportation department, and at the foreclosure sale there shall be knock- ed down to the bidder the franchise, commenc- ing to run upon the date when the purchaser buys the property and running twenty years thereafter. “This security, in my judgment, is much better security than the private companies in the past have been able to offer, either to their stock or bond-holders. Their stock was ab- solutely unsecured; their bonds were secured by the tangible property and an unexpired franchise, which at no time ran for full twenty years. “Under the provisions of our law the secur- ity offered to the holders of the street-car cer- tificates is a full twenty-year franchise begin- ning at the date of the foreclosure sale. Pri- vate companies in the past have been able to sell stocks and bonds aggregating $117,000,- 000, when their tangible property was worth Digitized by Google
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655 In the Mirror of the Present. leas than $27,000,000. If they could raise four times the value of the tangible property upon an expiring franchise, can any sensible man for a moment hesitate as to what amount of money the City of Chicago can raise upon the security hereinbefore mentioned? “I have no hesitation in predicting that if these bonds, secured in this manner are offered upon the financial market that the financial syndicates of this nation will be tumbling over each other to get possession of these securities; and even if the financial powers that be should combine together to discredit them, the citizens of Chicago have three or four times as much money as may be necessary to purchase, re- equip and modernize all the plants of their city, deposited in the savings-banks in the city of Chicago drawing three per cent, interest and having no other security than the faith and the credit of the banks.” A SERIOUS FLAW IN CHICAGO’S PLAN. There is, it seems to us, a serious flaw in the Chicago programme, and that is in not prop- erty safeguarding the citizens* rights from pos- sible betrayal by public-servants. Before any foreclosure should be permitted, the people should be accorded the privilege of giving mandatory instructions relating to meeting the city’s obligations to the bondholders. Otherwise the public-service corporations may easily gain control of the party-machines, se- cure the election of a number of their tools, as they have in the past in Chicago, in the Illinois legislature and in Philadelphia, and these tools can so manipulate the affairs of the street-cars as to allow the interest or principal to go by default, simply to enable the real masters — the corporations — to again secure the street- car system. This is something the citizens of Chicago cannot afford to overlook, especially in the light of the gross betrayal of the city’s interest in the matter of gas-lighting in Phila- delphia by corrupt tools of corporate interests. Pensioning Public Servants: Brook- line Leads The Wat. IT HAS been the custom of certain journals and publicists to raise the cry of “social- ism ” whenever propositions have been made to pension public officials. Brookline, Massa- chusetts, however, though the richest town in the world,, has not allowed these shallow and ill-considered outcries to blind its judgment or influence its sense of justice or civic wisdom, as at the adjourned annual town-meeting, held on March 29th of this year, the voters in a most emphatic manner approved the prop- osition to pension the members of the fire and police departments. This important action calls for more than passing notice, as it estab- lishes a precedent of greater significance than appears on the surface. Brookline, as our readers are aware, is still under the ideal democratic government known as the town-meeting, and in conformity with this form of municipal government all the vot- ers were fully informed by warrants left at their homes, in regard to the final action to be taken on this important question, — a question, how- ever, which has been thoroughly discussed in previous meetings. Indeed, it was Brookline that petitioned the legislature to pass an act enabling the towns to pension their fire and police officials; and the board of selectmen and committee of twenty-five representative citizens had recommended the acceptance of this innovation. At the town-meeting more than three-fourths of the voters present ap- proved the action. The provisions of the measure are as follows: “Section 1. The Selectmen of every town which accepts this act shall retire from active service and place upon the pension-roll any permanent member of the police department and any permanent member of the fire depart- ment of such town found by them to be per- manently incapacitated, mentally or physi- cally, for useful service in the department to which he belongs, by injuries received through no fault of his own in the actual performance of his duty. They may also retire and place upon the pension-roll any permanent member of either of said departments who has per- formed faithful service in the department for not less than twenty-five years continuously, and is not less than sixty years of age. Every person retired under the provisions of this act shall annually receive as a pension a sum equal to one-half of the annual compensation re- ceived by him at the time of his retirement. Such pensions shall be paid by the town, which shall appropriate money therefor. “Section 2. The Selectmen of any town which accepts this act are hereby authorized, Digitized by Google
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656 In the Mirror in case of an emergency, to call upon any per- son so pensioned by such town for such temp- orary service in the department from which be was retired as they may deem him fitted to perform, and during such service he shall be entitled to full pay. “Section 3. This act shall take effect upon its passage so far as to allow any town to vote upon the acceptance of the same, but shall not take full effect in any town until it has been accepted by a vote of two-thirds of the voters of such town present and voting thereon at an annual town-meeting.’9 The United States government has been more generous than any other nation in regard to pensioning her soldiers, yet every proposi- tion that has been advanced for pensioning the heroes of our life-saving service and the faithful postal employees who have grown old in honorable service, has been bitterly opposed by the imperialistic, reactionary, unrepublican and privileged interests. The men who are clamoring most loudly for ship-subsidies, for trust-breeding high protection and for class- legislation that places the millions of producers and consumers at the mercy of greedy and ex- tortionate monopolists, have been most savage in their opposition to pensions for faithful ser- vice for those whose salaries have not been sufficient to enable them to make reasonable provisions for age. Thus while New Zealand has placed her needy aged citizens upon her pension-rolls, and while some of the most emi- nent and conservative statesmen of Europe have strongly advised old-age pensions, Amer- ica has lagged behind, lavish in her wraith for rich privileged interests, but niggardly in her treatment of her faithful employees who oc- cupy subordinate positions. Happily the people are beginning to awaken to the fact that while the republic has been preserved in form, the nation has as a matter of fact become more and more a class-ruled land, thanks to the conspiracy of corporate wealth, the public- service companies, the political bosses and partisan machines; and through this treason to the principles of democracy the interests of the masses have more and more been ignored. A realization of this important fact is naturally creating a nation-wide restlessness on the part of the electorate and a growing demand that the nation shall cease to give paramount con- sideration to over-rich privileged interests and shall concern itself with reasonable legislation of the Present. that shall favor all the people, creating again equality of opportunities and safeguarding the equal rights of the people, while in so far as possible it shall also strive to lift the load of fear and dread of want from aged public-serv- ants, and indeed from all those who through a long and honorable career have wrought faithfully and honestly for the enrichment and upbuilding of the nation. The Church in America at The Part- ing or The Wats. AT NO time in the history of Christianity in the New World has the old injqpc- tion, “Choose ye this day whom ye will serve,” been more applicable than to-day. We are in the midst of a great moral awakening. From the Atlantic to the Pacific the people are awaking to a realization of the double peril of the present Everywhere they are begin- ning to see as never before that free institutions are in deadly danger through graft, corruption, bribery, and the destruction of moral ideals in political and business life, due to the surrender of party machines to conscienceless political bosses and the privileged interests — interests that have been systematically plundering the millions and with a part of their extortion have been buying immunity from punishment and further protections and privileges with prince- ly campaign-funds, free passes, courtesies and other forms of bribery, direct and indirect, and that through the aid of political bosses and the domination of political machines have been enabled to place their own representa- tives and trusted servants in the seats supposed to be held by the people’s representatives. Everywhere the people are preparing to assert themselves as they asserted themselves in Wis- consin and Missouri last autumn, in Kansas during the past winter, and in Chicago in April. Everywhere, we repeat, there are un- mistakable signs of a moral renaissance, a re- awakening and reassertion of the spirit of free- dom and justice. And at this crucial hour the man of all men in America who stands forth in the public im- agination as the most odious incarnation of the evils against which the present protest is being made, has adroitly tempted religious organizations here and there with tenders of money, knowing full well that wherever such gifts are accepted the pulpit and press of die Digitized by Google
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657 In the Mirror denomination that thus receives this money will cease to be aggressive champions of moral righteousness, and in many instances will be- come apologists for the moral crimes against which there is such widespread revolt. To Mr. Rockefeller the pittances with which he has bought the silence of so many clergymen and has won apologists in so many quarters, mean nothing. He can at will by the increase in the price of oil, in which through unfair means the Standard Oil Company enjoys a monopoly, acquire in a few months a million dollars for every hundred thousand he gives. But it means everything to the church if at this crucial moment in her history she allows herself to be seduced by those who echo the tempter's sophistry and advise the taking of tainted gold, even though it comes from the class that most nearly corresponds to those whom Jesus denounced as the devourers of widows’ houses, who for a pretence make long prayers. Happily, aside from the disheartening moral recreancy and viciously sophistical opportun- ism present in the pulpit and the religious press, the present crisis has also revealed great moral heroes — men worthy to rank with the old-time prophets and leaders who in all great crucial moments in human history have be- come the forlorn hope of civilization’s advance and humanity’s uplift. These men have thundered against the seduction of the church when that seduction meant the destruction of its moral power. On Sunday, April 9th, the Rev. George F. Pentecost, from die pulpit of the Madison Avenue Baptist Church of New York, the wealthiest Baptist church in the metropolis, denounced in unequivocal terms the attempt to buy the silence of the church, declaring that if the conscience of the church approved and accepted the gifts of trusts and corporations, either the trusts would stand in spite of all efforts to overthrow them, or the church would sink out of sight as a maker of national conscience. On the other hand, he asserted that if the conscience of the church should condemn and refuse to be made rich by the gains of the trusts, deemed to be wrong- fully acquired, no power on earth could pre- vent those trusts from being overthrown. The Rev. Josiah Strong, president of the American Institute of Social Service, in voicing the convictions of those who give more than a perfunctory acceptance to the teachings of Jesus, said: of the Present. “It is not true, as is so commonly said, that to reject the Rockefeller gift would compel the board to reject the gifts of most business men, because the money of all is more or less ‘tainted.’ There are many business men whose methods are honorable and righteous. There is such a thing as legitimate competition, and to denounce the Standard Oil trust is not to condemn the men who have won success by legitimate competition. The critics of the Standard Ofl trust condemn it because it has resorted to illegitimate competition. “Modem civilization, and especially Amer- ican civilization, is beset by no greater peril than the worship of wealth. It is corrupting both business and politics; it is commercial- izing the very atmosphere we breathe; it is * drowning men in destruction and perdition.’ This peril is growing with the enormous in- crease of wealth. We are now every year creating more surplus wealth than the entire assets of the nation eighty-five years ago. This god. Mammon, is become only less than omnipotent, and his glory is dazzling and blinding even the churches. “The conscience of the church touching wealth profoundly needs quickening. The new conditions of society demand higher ethi- cal standards. This is a most favorable time to respond to the new need. We love the American Board for the services it has render- ed to the Kingdom of Christ in other lands. Here is an opportunity to render a signal ser- vice to the Kingdom of Christ in America, by refusing to serve even as trustee of ‘cankered heaps of strange achieved gold.”’ Mr. Robert Hunter, the well-known uni- versity-settlement worker and author of the remarkable book entitled Poverty , speaks for the new conscience in the following stirring words: “I believe the Boston clergymen were right in their action. In my opinion corruption took root in the church at the moment it began to accept tainted money. Corruption will not be rooted out of the church until the church prefers poverty and godliness to wealth and insincerity. Good cannot come out of a church which subsists on the patronage of the rapacious.’’ The Rev. Reuben Thomas, one of the lead- ing Congregational clergymen of New Eng- Digitized by Google
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658 In the Mirror of the Present. land, adds his voice to the general protest in these words: “Mr. Rockefeller stands before the whole country as the representative of un-Christian, oppressive and cruel business methods. Cler- gymen cannot consistently endorse monopoly, tyranny, heartlessness. The effect of ap- plauding success of this kind before young men everywhere is morally disastrous." In commenting on the action of the Pru- dential Committee of the American Board of Foreign Missions, Dr. Washington Gladden makes the following severe strictures: "The Prudential Committee has placed itself on the broad and intelligible position that all gifts must be received, no matter what may be the character of the giver, nor by what immoralities or crimes his gains may have been gathered. "No discrimination is henceforth to be made. The pirate or the train-robber may bring his booty to the treasury of the American Board and it will be thankfully received, and if sufficiently large will be described as a ‘mag- nificent gift’ "By the decision the Prudential Committee rejects the word of Him who said, ‘I hate rob- bery for burnt offerings,’ and reverses the ethical judgment respecting the rewards of iniquity which has guided Christendom hith- erto. It openly proclaims that money to which the giver has no moral right may be rightfully given to a missionary society if only his motive is to do good with it; and it assumes the power of judging the motive of the giver. "It knows and declares to the world that there can be no motive but that of benevolence in the bestowal of this gift. "That is a great testimony from such a high authority. From this decision the appeal will now be taken to the conscience of the Con- gregational churches and the conscience of Christendom.’’ These quotations from leading representa- tive Protestant clergymen are typical of the protests that have come from scores of those who represent the conscience-element in the church, since the brave, able and convincing stand was taken by Dr. Gladden against the action of the Prudential Committee of the American Board of Foreign Missions. The action of that board, however, in accepting the gift, as well as the action of the Baptist church in accepting similar gifts, cannot fail to work great moral damage to the church and further alienate a large proportion of the most moral men and women from the church. The Equitable Life-Insurance Scandal. THE EXPOSURE of conditions in the administration of the Equitable In- surance Company, made by the charges and counter-charges of those in the high councils of the company and who are cognizant of all the financiid crookedness that has been prac- ticed by those in authority, fully confirms the accuracy of the strictures made by Professor Whittlesey and other competent insurance critics when they claimed that the interests of policy-holders were not property safe-guard- ed by the Big Three companies of New York. So grave have been the revelations incident- ally brought out by the Alexander-Hyde con- test that the multimillionaire directors have evinced great alarm lest there be a genuine and searching investigation into the conditions and workings of the company, and all possible efforts are now being made to hush up die scandal. Sufficient to say that the charges made will confirm the impressions produced by the exposures in the Era magazine and those of Mr. Lawson in Everybody* $ as to the necessity for a genuine, thorough and honest investigation, with an incorruptible inquisitor like Governor Folk at the head. The Standard Oil Company at Bay. HE REVELATIONS of moral crimi- nality and rapacity by which John D. Rockefeller, H. H. Rogers and their associates have acquired untold millions that could not have been obtained had it not been for unfair practices, moral crimes and monopoly rights, have at last aroused the conscience of the better portion of society. On every side there are signs of a moral renaissance, and so strong are these signs that through scores of avenues the "interests’’ or the "system,’* of which the Standard Ofl Company is the most powerful single representative, are striving now to si- lence the rising tide of moral righteousness. John D. Rockefeller is at his old practices of seeking by donations to buy the silence of Digitized by Google
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659 In the Mirror the pulpit and the religious press or to gag with hush-money the supposed moral leaders of the people by giving a moiety of his vast stores of wealth to different religious organi- zations. He recognizes the fact that it is all- important to either silence or win over a large proportion of the clergy and the religious papers. Hence from the Baptist and the Methodist the master-spirit of the 31-famed Standard Oil Company has turned to the Congregational church, seeking with the lure of gold to buy the silence of the pulpit. Hut this is not all. Mr. H. H. Rogers has found it necessary to give Mr. Rockefeller a dean bill of moral health — something that is amusing though not edifying, all that is needed to complete the farce being a similar bill of health for Mr. Rogers signed by Mr. Rocke- feller. Mr. Rogers in his defence betrayed such amaring absence of moral ideals and re- vealed so perfectly the dominant thought of a certain class of modem commercial brigands — that nothing is reprehensible, no matter how morally criminal, if it is not technically illegal — that the Standard 03 Company found it necessary to call another Richmond into the field. Mr. S. C. T. Dodd comes out in a brief for his clients. The picture he paints of the Standard 03 Company deserves to be placed side by side with Mr. Garfield’s picture of the of the Present. philanthropic Beef-Trust. In the case of Mr. Dodd, as with that of Mr. Garfield, however, the special-pleader has made the mistake of painting so angelic a figure that the intelligence of the nation is insulted, and thoughtful peo- ple feel disgust to think that the hirelings of plutocracy dare to so presume upon their ig- norance. These direct attempts to silence the church and check the rising tide of righteous indigna- tion by donations or special pleadings by Standard 03 magnates and their attorneys, are being complemented by circulars sent out to editors by a so-called Civic Association, written in behalf of the Standard 03 Company and carrying editorials from different papers fa- vorable to that corporation. But as we desire to say something more of this Civic Association and its work for plutocracy in a future issue, we merely allude to it at present as one of the many silent and less obvious instruments being employ- ed by the alarmed corporate interests to check the rising tide of public indignation which threat- ens to destroy the reign of graft, corruption, ex- tortion and oppression which has grown up as a result of corporate domination of partisan machines, or the union of predatory wealth and special privilege with party-bosses and false public-servants, for the exploiting of the people and the subversion of free institutions. THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC AWAKENING IN ENGLAND. The Liberal Reaction in Great Britain. EVIDENCES are multiplying on every hand which show that Great Britain is rapidly recovering from the imperialistic and reactionary debauch which has marked the government of that island since the day when Chamberlain’s malign influence became dom- inant in the Salisbury cabinet. From that time the noblest traditions, ideals and prac- tices of modem England— ideals, traditions and practices that made her one of the fore- most moral, liberal and inspiring powers of the world — have given place to reactionary and Bourbon measures and policies such as marked the reign of the Georges. After the passage of the Reform Bill in the early thirties, and especially after the repeal of the Corn- Laws and the inauguration of Free Trade in the later forties, England became imbued with the spirit of progressive democracy and was preeminently the land of toleration, of peace and of Free Trade, being marked by a degree of prosperity, growth and development such as had rarely if ever before been known in her history. But with the passing of Gladstone and the ascendency of Chamberlain came the baleful spirit of militarism, with war hard on its heels; wh3e treading in the wake of war came widespread suffering among the people. Meanwhfle the military and imperialistic pol- icy of the government had shown its reaction- ary tendencies in other directions, notably in Digitized by Google
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660 In the Mirror the passage of the infamous Education Bill — a measure as thoroughly in accord with the autocratic spirit that dominates Russia as it is inimical to the genius of democracy. And lastly came the promulgation of the dogma of protection and the proposal for the reimposi- tion of the bread-tax, which formerly had fos- tered privileged interests and created such widespread want and misery in England in the dawn of the Victorian age that the present misery of her people, so largely incident to the Chamberlain policy, is as nothing compared to it. If we except the general arbitration treaties which have come since the tide toward liber- alism has so strongly set in as to frighten the reactionaries, almost every notable measure and positive stand taken since Chamberlain became a positive factor in the Salisbury cab- inet, has been reactionary in spirit and char- acter. Balfour, though less daring than Chamberlain, has been content to echo the real master’s sentiments in so far as he has felt it safe to do so. Seldom in history has a government drifted from high, noble and inspiring ideals, such as prevailed in the days when Gladstone was the greatest power in her political life, as has Eng- land during the last decade. But as in Amer- ica, so in England, the people are at last awak- ening to the peril of the situation; and with this awakening, even though they have no great leader, they are expressing themselves in the most positive and unmistakable tones. During the past two or three yean a great number of the seats that have been vacated have been filled by Liberal or Labor candi- dates. Rarely indeed in the history of the nation has the tide set in so strongly against the dominant party. The latest Conservative defeat is the most unexpected and amazing of recent years. Brighton has for a score of yean been re- garded as one of the great Conservative strong- holds. No matter how the country went, this district could be relied upon to return Con- servative members. When it became neces- sary for Mr. Balfour to appoint a Junior Lord of the Treasury, he looked for a member from some district which was so overwhelmingly Conservative in its majority that there would be no danger in the appeal to the constituency that necessarily follows the appointment, and he decided that by the appointment of Gerald W. E. Loder, one of the representatives of the of the Present. Brighton district, he was making a sdcctia where the candidate was certain to be returned by a handsome, even if a reduced, majority. Neither the Conservatives nor the Liberals imagined that there was a probability’ of the defeat of Mr. Loder; yet when the votes were counted it was found that the liberal candi- date had won by a majority of eight hundred votes. Just as the news of this amazing over- turn had reached London, Mr. Balfour en- tered the House of Commons, whereupon he was greeted by shouts of M Resign! Resign!” The Prime Minister on hearing this ommocs demand turned on his heel and without a word left the House. None knew better thaa he that those tumultuous shouts of the mem- bers represented the voice of the nation, but as in his policy he has proved himself to be thoroughly Bourbon, so in his contempt far the wishes of the electorate he further evinces the spirit of the reactionaries and the imperi- alists in refusing to appeal to die country, so long as he can by any means muster a majority. We are far from believing that this exhibi- tion of the reactionary spirit is unfortunate, as it shows the English people die dangers of enthroning in power undemocratic men and parties; and die longer the government re- fuses to acquiesce in the known wish of the nation, the more overwhelming will be the defeat when the appeal is made. Moreover, with every passing month the truly democratic temper is gaining. The liberal members who will be successful at the .next election wiO be far more radical, outspoken and progressive than would have been those elected six months ago. The tide of progressive democracy is steadily rising in England. The reactionary government is proving, through its Bourbon course, a powerful ally of radical Liberalism, as events in the near future will demonstrate. The Countess of Warwick and Heb Work Among The Poor. A NUMBER of years ago the Countess of Warwick, one of the most beautiful, gifted and cultured women of the tided aris- tocracy of Great Britain, had her attention called to the miserable condition of the poor in rural England. Especially did the com- paratively hopeless outlook of the poor boys and girls appeal to her sympathies. She im- mediately set to work to lighten, so far as lay Digitized by Google
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661 In the Mirror in her power, the load of the very poor within her reach, and especially were her efforts di- rected to aiding the young. She founded a home at Warwick for crippled children, and a hostel at Reading in connection with the College, training daughters of professional men in horticulture, dairying, bee and poul- try-keeping. She became president of the Essex Needlework Guild and an active mem- ber of other industrial and helpful societies; and the work she wrought in feeding the hun- gry, aiding the unfortunate and lightening the burdens of the overburdened very poor en- deared her to the hearts of tens of thousands within and without the sphere of her immedi- ate influence, as well as made her one of the most loved women in England. Her interest in the condition of the poor, however, was neither ephemeral nor super- ficial in character. The more she studied the question and came into intimate relation with the submerged classes, the more the piti- ful inadequacy of all palliative measures be- came apparent. She saw what all of us must sooner or later see who have labored in the alums or among the very poor: that there are fundamentally unjust conditions operating in present-day society which contribute in an appalling manner to the sum total of poverty, misery, vice and crime. Those who have read Pilgrim's Progress will remember that Christian was perplexed on seeing a fire before which stood a man steadily pouring quantities of water upon the flame, which, however, instead of being quenched grew in volume and intensity. At length the mystery was solved by his being shown that back of the fire stood one feeding the flames with oil. So with the problem of uninvited poverty, and, indeed, with the larger questions of poverty, vice and crime. He who seriously studies these grave questions will soon understand that fundamentally unjust conditions are at present so operating as to feed the flames of poverty and misery, quite apart from the weaknesses of the poor. He will see that however much water may be poured on the flame, in the form of palliative remedies, the fire will gain in volume and in- tensity untO the evfl conditions are replaced by measures that are fundamentally just and righteous. These are predesly the conclusions which were forced upon the Countess of Warwick after her long and earnest labor in relieving of the Present. the sufferings and the unhappy condition of the poor around her. These convictions led her to make a deep study of social questions and philosophies, the result being very similar to that which was arrived at by the poet-artist, William Morris, in England, our own novelist, Howells, in this country, and Emill Zola in France. She became, partially at least, a convert to the tenets of progressive Social Democracy. THS COUNTESS OF WARWICK AS A PROPA- GANDIST OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY. When the recent International Congress of Socialists was held at Amsterdam, the Count- ess attended, and in common with scores of others, many of whom went thither highly prejudiced through the false, misleading and slanderous attacks which had been made by the reactionary press of various lands, she was impressed by the presence of an interna- tional spirit of fraternity, the unanimity of the opposition to war and to militarism in every form, and the passion for justice and that economic emancipation that should render starvation, want, involuntary prostitution and crime impossible. Here were delegates from all the great nations of the civilised world , from Russia to Japan, knowing no petty partisan- ship, no racial prejudices, no barriers of caste; all united as brothers battling in a common cause for the triumph of the ideal of universal brotherhood based on justice, freedom and fraternity. And these things appealed to her in a compelling way. The spectacle of a Rus- sian Socialist putting a motion which was im- mediately seconded by a Japanese Socialist, and the picture of these two men clasping hands and symbolizing the new spirit of fra- ternity at the time when the autocracy of Rus- sia and the monarchal power of Japan were in deadly combat, revealed to her as to others, how wide indeed was the chasm between the new twentieth-century spirit of fraternity and the reactionary, selfish, egoistic spirit that has dominated civilization in the past. It also showed how pitifully false and misleading were the attacks made by privileged interests and reactionary classes against those who were battling for a broader, nobler, juster social order. Shortly after this great convention the Countess applied for membership in the Social- Democratic Federation, and since her entrance Digitized by Google
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662 In the Mirror into that body she has been a zealous and in- fluential worker in a practical and effectiTe way, especially in London. To a representative of the New York World who recently called upon her, the Countess, in speaking of her present interest in social work said: “I have quite given up what we describe as society. Society is divided into two parts, those who bore and those who are bored. I have always tried not to belong to the first sec- tion, and have decided not to belong to the second. On the other hand, I am doing all I can in a quiet way to assist the Socialist cause. For instance, I have taken a flat in Victoria street. Mrs. Bridges Adams, for yean the only labor representative on the London School Board, is always there, and I call nearly every day. There earnest workers of the various sections of the great Labor and Socialist move- ment in England frequently gather in homely fashion and talk over questions bearing upon the welfare of the people. Of course there are many people who give dinners, and pri- vately entertain politicians, but this is not the same thing as our informal gatherings. Some- times Sir John Gorst or Mr. Winston Church- ill, or some other politician not identified with the Socialist propaganda, comes in to join in the conversation. “The conference which was held at the Guildhall in the city of London the other day is symptomatic of the progress which we are making. Just think of it! The meeting was convened by the London Trades Council, the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress, and the Social Democratic Federa- tion; yet the Lord Mayor opened the meeting and the chairman was a leading Conservative. of the Present. Years ago the notion of the children who attend State schools being fed by the State was thought to be dreadfully socialistic, yet now the notion has the support of some Conserva- tive statesmen! “I am hoping that we may see a revival of Socialistic sentiment among the young men of Oxford and Cambridge, and, indeed, in all the universities throughout the world.*' In reply to a question. Lady Warwick said: “Lord Warwick does not go so far as I do in my opinions upon labor questions, but he helps me in every possible way." THE PLATFORM OR DEMANDS AS SUMMAR- IZED BT THE COUNTESS. In discussing the positive demands or the platform for which she and her co-laborers are working. Lady Warwick enumerated the following twelve demands: 1. Abolition of land monopoly. 2. Taxation of land values. 3. Democratization of governmental ma- chinery. 4. Abolition of the House of Lords. 5. Adult suffrage, irrespective of sex. 6. Abolition of indirect taxation. 7. Free maintenance of children in State schools. 8. Abolition of school-rates. 9. Nationalization of the land. 10. Control of labor on cooperative princi- ples. 11. Forty-eight hours the maximum of a week’s woric. 12. Disestablishment and disendowment of all churches. Digitized by Google
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“THE PLUM-TREE”: THE MOST IMPORTANT NOVEL OF THE YEAR. A Book-Study. i. David graham Phillips* latest novel. The Plum-Tree, is for Ameri- cans the most important story of the year, or, indeed, of recent years — by far the most im- portant. Not that considered simply as lit- erature it is so strong or so finished as many romances of recent decades. % Not that it is so strong in plot or so dramatic in character as many works of fiction; for plot it has none, and though it contains some strong dramatic situations, there are many present-day novels that would rank far above it in this particular. Not that it is remarkable for wealth of back- ground or the love interest, for in these par- ticulars The Plum-Tree is inferior to Mr. Phil- lips* preceding romance. The Cost. And yet it is in our judgment far and away the most important novel of recent years, because it unmasks present political conditions in a man- ner so graphic, so convincing and so compel- ling that it cannot fail to arouse the thoughtful to the deadly peril which confronts our people. Here as never before, with the fidelity of a historian and with the power of a man who is a trained journalist and a dose observer of political life in all its aspects, Mr. Phillips has given the most faithful and vivid pen-picture of the overthrow of our republic and the estab- lishment of a commercial despotism by the money-controlled machine that has been writ- ten. So true is it to the actual conditions that the historian of the future will find no more realistic portrayal of the present degradation of political life, from the munidpality to the graft-permeated, corporation-owned and con- trolled state and national governments, than is given in The Plum-Tree; while to Ameri- cans who have slept over-long under the brain and conscience-deadening spell of party fealty, it will come as a disquieting revelation that in many instances will lead to an investigation, and such an investigation can only show that in this instance the novelist is also the historian, and that he has not one whit overstated the facts. If anyone doubts this, let him become a pa- • The IhnfrTrm. By David Graham PhUllpa Dltu- tratod. Cloth. Pp. 890. Prioa IL60. Indianapolis: The Bobbe-Merrill Company. tient student of the literature of the past quar- ter of a century which has dealt with the legal evidence and indisputable facts relating to corporation and public-service influence in public life. Let him read the amaring reve- lations of debauchery and control of congress- men, senators and other government officials by railroad influences, as disclosed in the fam- ous Huntington letters written to General Colton and afterwards put in evidence in the suit brought by General Colton’s widow against Mr. Huntington. These letters were at the time of the legal proceedings published verbatim in the San Francisco Chronicle. Let him then read the evidence brought out by the New York legislative committees that inves- tigated the Erie Railroad, and later the New York Central Railroad, in the seventies. Let him read Henry D. Lloyd’s Wealth Againtt Commonwealth and Ida M. TarbeU’s Hietory of the Standard Oil Company. Let him ex- amine the reports of the Interstate Commerce Commission, revealing the systematic defiance of law by the over-powerful masters of the people and of the government — the railways and such lawless monopolies as the Armour Refrigerator-Car Trust. Let him read the reports which the grant) juries of St. Louis and Missouri have brought in in recent years, revealing the carnival of corruption through the influence of public-service companies and privileged interests in controlling the legisla- tion of St. Louis and the State of Missouri. Let him carefully peruse the masterly and circumstantial expoeU of the political domi- nation of the great state of Pennsylvania dur- ing the last forty years, as described by Ru- dolph Blankenburg in The Arena, of this year. Let him read the admirable papers by Lincoln Steffens that have been running in McClure' e, and other absolutely authentic reve- lations, all showing how completely in reality the republic has passed from the control of the people to the absolute domination of privi- leged interests. The congressional, state and other author- ised investigations and the authentic literature dealing with these, and the history of public- service companies, trusts and monopolies in recent years, are such as to establish beyond 66S Digitized by Google
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664 “ The Plum-Tree”: The Most all cavil the accuracy of Mr. Phillips* pen- picture of American politics of to-day, — a fact which shows only too vividly how the great republic has been overthrown by a com- mercial despotism as absolutely and com- pletely as was the republic of Florence over- thrown by Cosimo di Medici. Here as in Florence the overthrow has been accomplished without any interference with the shell of re- publicanism. Ostensibly the republic is as it was before the privileged interests, or the “system,** became the reed masters of the na- tion. Indeed, by change of name and num- ber, it would be difficult to find a more graphic description of the transformation that has been wrought in America than that given by the distinguished historian. Professor Vallari,* of the Royal Institute of Florence, in the follow- ing pen-picture of the overthrow of the Flor- entine republic through the subtile work of Cosimo di Medici: “He succeeded in solving the strange prob- lem of becoming absolute ruler of a republic that was keenly jealous of its liberty, without holding any fixed office, without suppressing any previous form of government, and always preserving the appearance and form of a pri- vate citizen.** The great importance of this book is found in the fact that it uncovers the evil conditions in so convincing a manner that it cannot fail to appeal to the imagination of every thought- ful reader. With the power, genius and art of the novelist, Mr. Phillips has tom aside the mask revealing the real inside conditions of present-day American political life; he has shown the enemies of the republic at work under the panoply of democracy, the new des- potism in its secret conclaves, with its puppets, its machines, its minions and its multitudinous agents through which it has become the master of the millions — the virtual or real autocrat in what was once the world’s greatest and truest republic. In this book we see the republic stricken in its vitals by corrupt wealth acting through money-controlled machines and venal bosses who for the lure of wealth or ambition for gold or place, play the part of lackeys to corporate wealth and traitors to their nation. Indeed, the shameful use of money in politics has never before been more impressively described in fiction. In Mr. Bl&nkenburg’s history of the Republican machine in the state of Pennsyl- ♦ Enqfdopedia Brkanmoa. Ninth edition. Important Novel of the Year. vania and its control of Philadelphia sjncrflhg morning of the Quay rSgime we have a con- crete and typical historical example of die conditions that Mr. Phillips describes as ob- taining throughout the nation. But our novelist is not didactic in his meth- od. He does little moralizing. He simply relates the whole story of the rise to absolute mastership of the nation of privileged wealth acting through political bosses and party ma- chines. To thoughtful persons the value of this book will be apparent, for nothing to-day is so nec- essary as such an unmasking of conditions as to arouse the conscience and reason of the American electors to a realization of the dead- ly peril that confronts our nation — a work that shows exactly how the people are being syt- tematically exploited and plundered by trusts, monopolies and public-service corporations; for the history of the Anglo-Saxon race shows that when once the people are thoroughly aroused and are made to clearly apprehend the nature of the evil that confronts them, they become as strenuous as they have been apa- thetic. The spirit of justice and right finds temples in its Hampdens and Cromwells, its Hancocks, Otises and Adamses, its Jeffersom, Henrys, Paines and Franklins. They become the high-priests of progress whose voices find answering chords in the mind of the multitude, who in turn arise in their might and overthrow their enslavers. So to-day the first and most important thing is to show the dangers that confront the people and to make plain the methods by which the victories of the Revo- lution are being wrested from the people; and this is precisely what David Graham Phillips has accomplished in The Plum-Tree. The tale is written in the form of an auto- biography and considered simply as a romance is a capital story that is sure to hold the read- er’s interest from cover to cover, as it is written in that simple, direct and spirited style so characteristic of all this author’s work; and its human, realistic and dramatic qualities are sufficient to meet the demands of the mere seeker after a good tale. n. In the opening of the story we catch a glimpse of one of those heroic struggles that made the rider days of our republic so glorious — struggles against grim poverty, with every- thing seemingly pitted against youth, and with the lure of success offered and scorned because Digitized by Google
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“ The Plim-Tree” : The Most Important Novel of the Year. 665 its acceptance could not be obtained without sacrificing the high ideals of ennobled man- hood. The hero who is the narrator of his life- story has an idolized mother to support, and he is deeply in love with a high-minded girl who has moved from the western town in which he lives to Boston, but of whose loyalty the youth entertains no doubts. The struggle for success and a livelihood grows desperate. Starvation confronts the mother and son. The paD of debt hangs over them. At this juncture an escape through politics is offered the young man, but he shrinks from the prof- fered life-plank, extended as it is by the cor- rupt and depraved boss of his party, and his mind reverts to a memorable scene in his early life, when his father, a high-minded statesman of the old order, was defeated by the corruptionists. He calls to mind the scene when in his father’s office he witnessed the first crude beginnings of the money-ma- chine in the politics of his native town. *T can shut my eyes and see that court- house yard, the long line of men going up to vote, single file, each man calling out his name as he handed in his ballot, and Tom Weedon — who shot an escaping prisoner when he was deputy sheriff — repeating the name in a loud voice. Each oncoming voter in that curiously regular and compact file was holding out his right arm stiff so that the hand was about a foot dear of the thigh; and in every one of those thus conspicuous hands was a conspicu- ous bit of white paper — a ballot. As each man reached the polling window and gave in his name, he swung that hand round with a stiff- armed, circular motion that kept it dear of the body and in full view until the bit of paper disappeared in the slit in the ballot-box. . . . I was witnessing the crude beginnings of the money-machine in politics, — the beginnings of the downfall of parties, — the beginnings of the overthrow of the people as the political power.” He remembers that his father lost the elec- tion, and in commenting on this episode says: "My father was defeated. He saw that, in politics, the day of the public servant of pub- lic interests was over, and that the night of the private servant of private interests had begun.” Politics had gone from bad to worse since then. A corrupt machine had been built up with one Dominick as master, — a low and brutal but masterful man. At length the re- spectables revolted, but the boss and his broth- er boss of the opposition party united (as have the bosses of New York and other tides so often worked together) and practiced such flagrant frauds (even such as are so graphic- ally described by Mr. Blankenburg in the May Arena) that the corruptionist ticket was elected, but not before the opposition boss had been caught red-handed in his corrupt prac- tices. The public compelled the prosecuting attorney to proceed against the criminal. He did so and the offender was convicted. But, "of course, following the custom in cases of yielding to pressure from public sentiment, he made die trial errors necessary to insure re- versal in the higher court.” It is after this episode and while the hero, Harvey Sayler is fating starvation, that he en- counters the temptation which he thus de- scribes: "Buck Fessenden appeared in my office one afternoon in July, and, after a brief parley, asked me how I *d like to be prosecuting attor- ney of Jackson county. Four thousand a year for four years, and a reelection if I should give satisfaction; and afterwards, the bench or a seat in Congress! I could pay off everything; I could marry! "It was my first distinct vision of the plum- tree. To how many thousands of our bright- est, most promising young Americans it is shown each year in just such circumstances!” That night Sayler repairs to Dominick’s headquarters in a beer-garden in the lower part of the town. On entering he finds the boss surrounded by his creatures and those desirous of securing further favors and privi- leges from the people’s servants. "On one side of him sat James Spencer, judge of the circuit court, — ’Dominick’s judge’; on the other side Henry De Forest, principal owner of the Pulaski Gas and Street Railway Com- pany.” The boss is thus described: "He was a huge, tall man, enormously mus- cular, with a high head like a block, straight in front, behind and on either ride; keen, shifty, pig eyes, pompous cheeks, a raw, wide mouth; slovenly dress, with a big diamond as a collar button and another on his puffy little finger. He was about forty years old, had graduated from a blacksmith too lazy to work into a prize-fighter, thence into a saloon-keeper. Digitized by Google
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666 “ The Plum-Tree”: The Most Important Novel of the Year. It was as a saloon-keeper that he founded and built his power, made himself the local middle- man between our two great political factors, those who buy and break laws and those who aid and abet the lawlessness by selling them- selves as voters or as office-holders.” After Dominick is satisfied that Sayler has no “reform germs” in his system and that he will be loyal at all times to the party — which was the euphonious way of expressing servility to the all-powerful boss — he sends him away with the expectation of being made prosecuting attorney. Later, however, the boss finds a more available man for the place and compels the impecunious young lawyer to accept in- stead the position of state representative. Sayler shows great disappointment at losing the four-thousand-dollar position and obtain- ing an office that will give him but a thousand dollars a year. But the boss9 henchman thus consoles or rather seeks to enlighten him in regard to modern politics, since the money- controlled machine has come to rule the peo- ple: 1 “‘The pay ain't much,* confessed Buck, ‘but there ain’t nothing to do except vote ac- cording to order. Thai there 9s a great deal to be picked up on the side, — the old man un- derstands that others have got to live beside him. Salaries in politics do n’t cut no figure nowadays, anyhow. It ’s the chance the place gives for pick-ups.’” Here we have the degradation of state poli- tics touched upon in a manner that reminds us of Mr. Blankenburg’s amazing revelation in his powerful paper in the April Arena. Arriving at the capital the young legislator is soon filled with disgust. “I had not been long in the legislature be- fore I saw that my position was even more con- temptible than I anticipated. So contempt- ible, indeed, was it that, had I not been away from home and among those as basely situated as myself, it would have been intolerable, — a convict infinitely prefers the penitentiary to the chain-gang. Tben, too, there was con- solation in the fact that the people, my fel- low-citizens, in their stupidity and ignorance about political conditions, did not realize what public office had come to mean. At home they believed what the machine-controlled newspapers said of me — that I was a ‘manly, independent young man,’ that I was ‘making a vigorous stand for what was honest in public affairs,’ that I was the ‘honorable and dktia- guished son of an honorable and distinguished father.’ How often I read those and similar eulogies of young men just starting in public life! And is it not really amazing that the peo- ple believe, that they never say to themselves: ‘But, if he were actually what he so loudly professes to be, how could he have got public office from a boss and a machine?’ “I soon gave up trying to fool myself into imagining I was the servant of the people by introducing or speaking for petty little popu- lar measures. I saw dearly that graft was the backbone, the whole skeleton of legislative business, and that its fleshly cover of pretended public service could only be seen by the blind. I saw, also, that no one in the machine of either party had any real power. The state boos of our party. United States Senator Dunkirk, was a creature and servant of corporation*. SOliman, the state boss of the opposition party, was the same, but got less for his services be- cause his party was hopelessly in the minority and its machine could be useful only as a sort of supplement and scapegoat “With the men at the top, Dunkirk: and SOliman, mere lackeys, I saw my own future plainly enough. I saw myself crawling on year after year, — crawling one of two roads. Either I should become a political scullion, a wretched party hack, despising myself and despised by those who used me, or I should develop into a lackey’s lackey or a plain lackey, lieutenant of a boss or boss, so-called — a de- risive name, really, when the only kind of boss- ship open was head political procurer to one or more rich corporations or groups of corpor- ations.” At length he rebels, defies the boss, and re- turns to private life. Here the boss sets about to ruin him, and succeeds. Again starvation confronts him, while his mother has aged rap- idly and is now in feeble health. At this junc- ture the tempter appears to him in the guise of an old college class-mate, the son of a rail- way magnate. The father has recently died, and the son, Edward Ramsay, is now called upon to take charge of the great busineas. He, in company with his mother and sister ha* come to the town to look after some corpora- tion interest 8 that they have in the place. In the course of a conversation young Ramsay suggests that he will be able to secure for Say- ler the law business of the Power-Trust Uni corporation is one of the most powerful mo* Digitized by Google
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“ The Plum-Tree The Most Important Novel of the Year. 667 nopolies in America, with the great financier, Roebuck, at its head. Sayler is incredulous. He lias been fighting the Power-Trust vigor- ously, and indeed has given it considerable trouble; and he is too young to understand that the corporation policy is to buy up those lawyers who show marked ability and who are persistent in their fight for the people’s rights. Young Ramsay explains that they have no lawyer in this town at the present time, as Mr. Roebuck had secured the circuit-judgeship for their former lawyer, feeling it necessary to have a safe and sane man on the bench to look after their interests. Sayler soon sees that Ramsay and his mother are desirous of bring- ing film into the family by having him marry young Ramsay’s sister Cariotta. He does not love the girl, she does not love him; but she sees in him a brilliant, masterful mind, ambitious and destined to rise, and therefore she wants him. Without Cariotta, Ramsay’s and Roebuck’s support will vanish. Yet for a time Sayler shrinks from the proposition, as it would be one of those hideous, debasing unions of convenience that conventional so- ciety smiles on and the church winks at, and yet which is one of the most degrading forms of prostitution. For any union without love is a shameful form of prostitution which no priest or law can sanctify. But in the end the ideals and noble dreams of youth are sacri- ficed, and the rich daughter is taken as a wife, after which, naturally enough, the young law- yer launches out boldly upon the high seas of modem commercial piracy as a procurer of corporate wealth and a powerful political boss. He is soon guilty of far greater treason than ever blackened the character of Benedict Arnold. He poses as the people’s friend and a master-spirit in a political party of moral ideals, while he conspires with corporate wealth to turn over the people’s servants body and soul to the interests. He undertakes to secure for the “system” or for privileged parties and classes any and all special legislation they de- sire, though in so doing he knows that the re- public ceases to be a government of the people and becomes in fact a despotism of corporate interests masquerading in the livery of democ- racy and in which a few men who for protec- tion (knowing the magic of words) style them- selves the business interests, plunder the pro- ducing and consuming millions at will in the most brazen and merciless manner, and secure from the purchased mis-representatives of the people in city, state and nation, franchises and privileges that by right belong to all the people and which are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, merely paying the bosses and machine manipulators bribe- money, which is euphoniously termed cam- paign-funds or “necessary expenses for party- services.” On almost every page Mr. Phillips gives luminous pen-pictures of methods that have been pursued and the view-point of the ex- ploiters, corrupters and plunderers of the na- tion— the real assassins of the republic. Thus for example, when Harvey Sayler, aspiring to be a master-boss, determines to undermine the old boss of die state, Senator Dunkirk, who while serving the people has become a multimillionaire and who has been so avari- cious that the greedy corporations are becom- ing restive under his rule, he goes to Roebuck, the typical colossal, money-mad trust-magnate, and shows him that Dunkirk is strong only because he is the master of the machine by virtue of the money the corporations give him, and being master of the machine, the voters follow his dictation. “‘Take Dunkirk, for example,’ I pushed on. ‘His lieutenants and heelers hate him because he does n’t divide squarely. The only factor in his power is the rank and file of the voters of our party. They, I ’m convinced, are pretty well aware of his hypocrisy, — but it doesn’t matter much what they think. They vote like sheep and accept whatever leaders and candidates our machine gives them. They are almost stone-blind in their partisanship and they can always be fooled up to the necessary point. And we can fool them ourselves, if we go about it right, just as well as Dunkirk does it for hire.’ “‘But Dunkirk is their man, is n’t he?’ he suggested. “‘Any man is their man whom you choose to give them,’ replied I. ‘And don’t you give them Dunkirk? He takes the money from the big business interests, and with it hires the men to sit in the legislature and fi- nance the machine throughout the state. It takes big money to run a political machine. His power belongs to you people, to a dozen of you, and you can take it away from him; his popularity belongs to the party, and it would cheer just as loudly for any other man who wore the party uniform.’ “‘I see,’ he said, reflectively; ‘the machine rules the party, and money rules the machine. Digitized by Google
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668 “The Plum-Tree”: The Most Important Novel of the Year. and we supply the money and do n’t get the benefit/” The upshot is that a secret combine of a dozen big corporations is formed, with Harvey Sayler as the master-spirit, though of course this is known only to the inner circle. Sayler finds an inestimably valuable aid in one Doc. Woodruff, a man who burrows underground but leaves no trail; a master as a lobbyist and corruptionist; a bom general with keen and brilliant intellect, and innocent of conscien- tious scruples. These men soon gain com- plete control of the machine and the local bosses. Sayler is elected to the United States Senate and becomes the master-spirit of the party. He then sets to work to make a presi- dent who shall be a puppet. One Burbank, a congressman, is selected and put in training. Finally he is made governor and as such, after satisfying the interests by the favorable con- sideration of many of their outrageous meas- ures, at Sayler’s command he calls a halt on the rapacity of corporate wealth and vetoes some of the most iniquitous bills, accompany- ing the vetoes with ringing messages calcu- lated to thrill and enthuse the people, who are already so exasperated that they are turning their eyes to the opposition party whose mas- ter-spirit, Senator Scarborough, is absolutely incorruptible, bold and fearless. Burbank’s summersault makes him in a day the popular idol of the party, but the interests are enraged and seek to have a safe mid sane man nomi- nated in his stead. Then ensues a battle be- tween two bosses, one seeking to secure the nomination of a man wholly acceptable to Wall-street, while Sayler pushes Burbank to the front. Southern delegates have been se- cured for the safe and sane Wall-street can- didate, but Sayler buys them right and left mid finally succeeds in nominating Burbank. Then the interests refuse to give money to the campaign until Sayler, working with several purchaseable opposition bosses, succeeds in gaining a general demand for Scarborough the incorruptible, and he is nominated by the opposition party; and inasmuch as the inter- ests fear him more than any other man in public life, Sayler feels safe after this nomina- tion takes place, being confident that he will be able to throw the Wall-street gamblers, the grafters and the wholesale corrupters of the people’s servants into a panic. This he does, largely through his controlled press, through adroit interviews, and by convinc- ing the interests that Scarborough cannot be bought or influenced. With an enormous corruption fund that alarmed Wall-street and the privileged interests have contributed, be buys the election of Burbank by turning the tick in a few doubtful states. Burbank, how- ever, has become alarmed lest the interests may desert him, and has made his peace with a corrupt eastern boss, pledging many of the offices and practically mortgaging himself to the interests. He is therefore more completely under their thumb than Sayler intended him to be, and a rupture finally takes place between the once all-powerful boss and the president he has made. Sayler sails for Europe and leaves matters to take their course. At die next election Scarborough is chosen presi- dent Never before has our literature given a finer or truer picture of the maze of political crookedness,' indirection and corruption which has marked the last quarter of a century of American history and by which the master- ship of the republic has been gained by politi- cal machines managed by men like the Quays, the Hannas, the Platts, the News, the Gor- mans, the Belmonts, the Hills, the Taggarts and the Cortelyous, all working under or eager to work under the direction of Wall- street and the interests, provided the latter furnish campaign-funds sufficient to enable them to become masters of the elections and viceroys of the commercial despotism. On almost every page are to be found illuminating facts and details well-known to newspaper men mid all those cognizant of present-day political life. Here, for example, are a few quotations which illustrate this and throw impressive sidelights on the inner workings of the “system” which to-day is the real master of the republic. Roebuck, who often suggests Rockefeller, but who is in reality a colossal figure, a composite of Rockefeller and other well-known personages that have been baleful influences in American public life, is thus de- picted: “He appreciated that Roebuck was one of those unconscious hypocrites who put con- science out of court in advance by ammimng that whatever they wish to do is right or they could not wish to do it He led Roebuck on to show off this peculiarity of his, — a jumbling, often in the same breath, of the most sonorous piety and the most shameless business per fidy.” Digitized by Google
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** The Plum-Tree” : The Most Important Novel of the Year. 669 One of the typical bosses thus describes the venal sub-bosses and their hired voters secured to battle for the party and win victories for the machine-ticket: 44 We must have money to run our organi- zation, and to run our campaign. Our work- ers can ’t live on air; and to speak of only one other factor, there are thousands and thou- sands of our voters, honest fellows, too, who must be paid to come to the polls. They would n’t vote against us for any sum; but, unless we pay them for the day lost in the fields, they stay at home. Now, where does our money come from? The big corporations are the only source, — who else could or would give largely enough ? And it is necessary and just that they should be repaid. But they are no longer content with moderate and pru- dent rewards for their patriotism. They make bigger and bigger, and more and more unreasonable, demands on us, and so under- mine our popularity, — for the people can ’t be blinded wholly to what ’s going on. And thus, year by year, it takes more and more money to keep us in in control.” The independent press has only an inkling of the extent of the mastership of the people by privileged wealth. This fact is admirably touched upon in these lines: 44They had not found out the worst things that were done; nor had they grasped how little the legislature and the governor were doing other than the business of the big cor- porations, most of it of doubtful public benefit, to speak temperately. An hour’s study of the facts, and I realized as never before why we are so rapidly developing a breed of multi- millionaires in this country with all the oppor- tunities to wealth in their hands. I had only to remember that the system which ruled my own state was in full blast in every one of the states of the Union. Everywhere, no sooner do the people open or propose to open a new road into a source of wealth, than men like these clients of mine hurry to the politicians and buy the rights to set up toll-gates and to fix their own schedule of tolls.” When the corporations are alarmed they allow the bosses to make meaningless conces- sions to the people to catch the popular vote; for, as the boss puts it, 44the people must have their way before election, Senator, if the inter- ests are to continue to have their way after election.” Why are the people robbed and despoiled ? Why have the railways and the trusts been able to fill the United States Senate with political bosses, railway and corporation lawyers, and other tools of the “system,” so that it is im- possible for the people to obtain relief from the carnival of graft and the reign of plunder and extortion carried on by the railways and corporations ? This question is admirably answered in the following: “The people are scattered; the powers con- fer, man to man, day by day. The people are divided by partisan and other prejudices; the powers are bound together by the one self- interest. The people must accept such polit- ical organizations as are provided for them; the powers pay for, and their agents make and direct, those organizations. The people are poor; the powers are rich. The people have not even offices to bestow; the powers have offices to give and lucrative employment of all kinds, and material and social advancement, — everything that the vanity or appetite of man craves. The people punish but feebly — usually the wrong persons — and soon forget; the pow- ers relentlessly and surely pursue those who op- pose them, forgive only after the offender has surrendered unconditionally, and they never forget where it is to their interest to remember. The powers know both what they want and how to get it; the people know neither.” Below we have a strong characterization of present corrupt political conditions and the in- capacity of the average American citizen to realize the extent of the prevailing moral deg- radation among the masters of the republic — the oligarchy of corporate wealth: 44 And I have no doubt that to the average citizen, leading a small, quiet life and dealing with affairs in corner-grocery retail, the stu- pendous facts of accumulations of wealth and wholesale, far-and-wide purchases of the poli- ticians, the vast system of bribery, with bribes adapted to every taste and conscience, seem impossibilities, romandngs of partisanship and envy and sensationalism. Nor can he understand the way superior men play the great games, the heartlessness of ambition, the cynicism of political and commercial pros- titution, the sense of superiority to the legal and moral codes which comes to most men with success.” Nothing is more amazing to thoughtful people than the continued lethargy of the Digitized by Google
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1 670 “ The Plum-Tree”: The Most Important Novel of the Year . voters in the presence of the systematic rob- bery of the people of franchises that are worth millions and hundreds of millions of dollars, by the corporations. For these franchises the real owners — the people — get nothing; but the traitors they have elected to represent them, and the bomm9 are rewarded by fat bribes given directly or indirectly for betray- ing the interests of the public and robbing communities and commonwealths of legiti- mate sources of income, which, if enjoyed by the people, would reduce the taxes to a mini- mum. On this point the hero of The Plum- Tree, in describing a young man who happened to be the son of one of these modem commer- cial brigands, says: “He had just succeeded, through the death of his father, to the privilege of levying upon the people of eleven counties by means of trolley-franchises which the legislature had granted his father in perpetuity in return for financial services to ‘the party.* It is, by the way, an interesting illustration of the human being’s lack of thinking power that a legislature could not give away a small gold-mine belonging to the public to any man for even a brief term of years without causing a revolution, but could and does give away far more valuable privileges to plunder and to tax, and give them away for- ever, without causing any real stir.” There are many bright epigrams in the vol- ume, of which the following are examples: “Public sentiment, — so easily defeated if it be not defied.” “Our people always reason that it is better to rot slowly by corruption than to be fright- ened to death by revolution.” “I ’ve won by playing on the weaknesses and fears of men which my own weaknesses and fears enabled me to understand.” “A man may lose his own character and still survive, and even go far. But if he lose belief in character as a force, he is damned. He could not survive in a community of scoun- drels.” * There are some bright lights. The glimpses of Scarborough at the convention and the wife who idolizes him, and the description of the incorruptible statesman’s lofty and ennobling ideals as enunciated after he has been elected President of the United States, are among the most charming and inspiring passages in the volume and show in a true way how, even is the midst of a sordid night of materialistic commercialism, the great moral verities are all that hold the potentiality of eternal life, of true happiness and of enduring success and growth. So also, the fine, true character of Elizabeth Crosby, with which the story deals in its opening chapter and with which it is con- cerned in its dosing paragraphs, gives not only a beautiful glimpse of a noble type of American womanhood, but also enables Mr. Phillips to impress again the fact that only they who hold to their high ideals are the reed victors or the really happy of earth. And scattered through the work are high, fine moralizings that shine forth effectivdy from the dark setting. Here, for illustration, is a typical example: “No man of trained reasoning power could fail to see that the Golden Buie is not a piece of visionary altruism, but a sound principle of practical self-interest Or, could anything be clearer, to one who takes the trouble to really think about it than that he who ad- vances himself at the expense of his fellow- men does not advance, but sinks down into the class of murderers for gain, thieves, and all those who seek to advance themselves fay injustice? Yet, so feeble is man’s reason, so near to the brute is he, so under the rule of brute appetites, that he can not think beyond the immediate apparent good, beyond to-day’s meal.” This book should be read by every parent in America, and every parent should place it in the hands of his son and discuss with him the vital truths with which it deals, while striv- ing to show the boy the eternal obligations wfauch patriotism, justice and manhood im- pose upon the American voter of to-day. He should strive to show him that a supreme duty devolves upon every young man in the republic — the duty not only of holding true to high ideals, but of working ceaselessly to destroy the domination of corrupt wealth through machine-rule and to restore the republic to the people, — a victory that can be won peacefully and speedily through the adoption of the in- itiative, referendum and right of recall. Digitized by Google
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BOOKS OF THE DAY/ The Struggle for Existence. By Walter Thomas Mills, AJd. Goth. Pp. 640. Price, $£.50. Chicago: The International school of Social Economy. New England Agents, W. W. Winegar, 64 £ Washington street, Boston, Mass. The dat has passed when any one who wishes to be considered fairly intelligent can remain ignorant in regard to the real tenets of Socialism. Until recently, it is true, those who knew nothing of its philosophy could and frequently did hide their ignorance by indulg- ing in unpopular epithets, coupling Socialism with anarchy, and denouncing both as breed- ers of forcible revolution, whose promoters were seeking to establish reigns of terror while they trampled under foot the fundamental demands of justice and morality. But those days are happily past. None but the very ignorant or those who have lost all concern for moral rectitude to-day indulge in such tirades to mask their ignorance or in lieu of arguments they cannot meet Now the ordinarily intelligent man knows that Socialism and anarchy are at the two ex- tremes in political economy. The Socialists demand a fraternal state, where all members who toil shall be recipients of the wealth cre- ated and of the bounty of nature, and where no able-bodied man shall reap where he has refused to sow, or gather the harvest that is due to another’s industry; a state where the happiness, prosperity and development of each is the concern of all; where economic inde- pendence shall supplement political independ- ence; where there shall be no involuntary pov- erty, no child robbed of its childhood-rights by being forced to labor, and where all women shall be so economically free that there shall be no enforced degradation of womanhood, no involuntary prostitution within or without the marriage-bond, for with economic independ- ence no woman would be compelled to marry for a home, for support or for any other cause than for love; a social order in which it would •Book* Intended for review in The Arena, should be eddnaed to B. O. Flower, Editorial Department, The Arena, Boston, Mesa be possible for man to yield to society the best that was in him, amid conditions that would foster the highest possible physical, mental and moral development; or, in a word, a social order in which society should make all environ- ing conditions so just, equitable and free for each as to favor the highest possible develop- ment of all. The Socialists stand unswervmgty against militarism and war. They are me one great body in every Christian land that demands disarmament and universal arbitration. They are a unit against child-labor, insisting that every child shall have a right to his childhood, to healthful and proper freedom and to the best educational advantages during the formative period, and that the State that is so criminally negligent that it permits children to become the victims of capitalistic greed and avarice foredooms itself and curses the oncoming gen- eration. In the third place. Socialists are the un- swerving advocates of conditions that must more than other external influences make for true sexual morality in regard to woman. But this is not all. Socialism would pro- vide for the liberal maintenance of the aged and those incapacitated in the performance of duties. Therefore it would lift the awful pall of fear that to-day canopies the mental horizon of the majority of mankind in civilised lands. These are a few of the cardinal results that Socialists claim would follow the introduction of their scientific theory of government, — merely results that would be inevitable in an organization of society where justice and bro- therhood were the all-dominating theories and which provides for no parasite class, rec- ognizing the right, the duty and the moral ne- cessity of every able-bodied person contribut- ing to the support, enrichment, happiness and development of the social organism. To understand Socialism one must study its philosophy, and until he has dime so he has no right to express an opinion on the question, much less to parrot the fallacies, falsehoods and stupid utterances of men employed to mislead the people on the subject The stu- m Digitized by Google
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072 Books of dent who ha a time at his command and the inclination to thoroughly master the philoso- phy of a great subject, should study the writ- ings of Karl Marx as well as those of the later apostles of Sodalirm. The very busy readers who are not especially interested in the sub- ject and yet who wish to have a fair and just conception of Socialism, should by all means peruse the article on Socialism in the Ninth Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica , as it gives a brief but impartial outline of the tenets of Socialism. There are, however, tens of thousands of earnest men and women who desire a dear, full exposition of Socialism — an exposition that shall be at once as simple as a primer of the philosophy can be made, and yet so full and complete that every point for and against the system is touched upon and the subject is treated in the light of man’s evo- lutionary advance and the evolutionary growth of the social organism. To such persons we heartily recommend this volume by Walter Thomas Mills, A.M. It is by far the most comprehensive yet thor- oughly popular exposition that we have seen. It is a work that though primarily intended for students or those in sympathy with Social- ism who desire to familiarise themselves thor- oughly with all its tenets, so as to be able to discuss it intelligently, is nevertheless admir- ably adapted to the general reader who merely wishes to possess a clear knowledge of the the- ory of Socialism and the views advanced by American Socialists in answer to objections made by upholders of the capitalistic system. In it the author constantly makes comparisons between the two mutually exduaive theories of government, and in a dear, succinct and orderly manner unfolds and advocates the theory of society based on the recognition of the law of solidarity and the mutual depend- ence and obligations of every unit in the social organism. There is no abstruse reasoning, there are no lengthy arguments. Perhaps we cannot in a few words give a dearer idea of the contents of the work than by mentioning the following prindpal extended discussions as found in the volume: “ Capitalism and Socialism,” “ Primitive life,” “Order of Primitive Progress,” “Slav- ery,” “Serfdom,” “The Wage System,” “The Era of Invention,” “The Trust and the World Market,” “The Collapse of Capitalism,” “Collectivism, Democracy and Equality,” “The Ownership of the Earth,” “Religious and Political Democracies,” “Modem Srience the Day. and Socialism,” “Machine Production," “Utopias and Cooperative Sodety,” “Growth of Sense of Solidarity,” “The Irrepressible Conflict,” “Collapse of Capitalism the Tri- umph of Sodalism,” “The Purposes of the State,” “Assumptions in Economics,” “Theo- ries of Value,” “The Money Question," “Theories of Population,” “Rent, Interest and Profit,” “The Fine Arts and Socialism," “Religion and Socialism,” “Education and Socialism,” “The Farmer and Socialism," “The Middle Class and Socialism,” “The Trust, Imperialism and Sodalism,” “Labor Unions and Sodalism,” “Municipal Misrule and Socialism,” “Unjust Taxation and So- cialism,” “Public Ownership and Socialism,” “Civil Service and Sodalism,” “Status of Women and Socialism,” “The Race Problem and Socialism,” “The Traffic in Vice and Socialism,” “Charity Organizations and So- cialism,” “The Nature of a Political Party,” and “The Socialist Party.” All these subjects are dearly presented and discussed in a manner entirely comprehensible even by the young. How real and general is the interest in practical expositions of Social- ism is seen from the fact that this work, which was only published a few months ago, is al- ready in its fourth edition, ten thousand copies having been issued. This for a large volume costing $2.50, is at once a striking indication of the general interest in the subject and also that the work is one which meets a real popu- lar want. We can heartily recommend it to all wishing to know just what the American Socialists believe in order to be able to intelli- gently consider the philosophy and to discuss its tenets. John Brown the Hero . Personal Reminis- cences by J. W. Winkley, M.D. Illustrated Cloth. Pp. 126. Price, 85 cents net Boston: James H. West Company. This charming little volume by Dr. J. W. Winkley contains in a series of graphic pen- pictures the personal reminiscences of the author on the plains of Kansas as a soldier of freedom under the leadership of John Brown, when the first great fight was made to check the extension of slavery, — the conflict that proved the prelude to the greatest civil war of modem times. The author’s admiration far John Brown is very marked. The moral heroism of the stem old man, who reminds one of the old Hebrew prophets and leaders, will Digitized by Google
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673 Books of ever exert a compelling influence over lofty imaginations, even though such persons dep- recate the use of force in waging the war for what are believed to be the highest principles of justice and morality. We are glad Dr. Winkley has set down his personal experiences and impressions in so interesting and vivid a manner, as they are a valuable addition to the all-too-meagre authentic facts of this strange and terrible passage in the history of the Maw- achusetts of the trans-Mississippi region. Dear Fatherland. A novel by Ex-lieutenant BOse. Cloth. Pp. 258. Price, $1.50. New York: John Lane. This novel is by the author of Life in a Oar - risen Town, a story which consisted largely of the writer’s own experiences in the German army, and which, being at once a true picture of present-day garrison-life and a most shame- ful revelation of arrogant and despotic action, of shameful abuses and gross immoralities, — in a word, a picture of despotism and degra- dation, created a profound sensation in Ger- many; and the author was court-martialed and driven from the service, though the dis- graceful exposures of the book were expressly admitted to be true by the Minister of War in the Reichstag. The infamous treatment ac- corded this brave young author and the sup- pression of his work by the Emperor failed to daunt him, as the present romance, though it contains two or three politic references to the Kaiser which, 'however necessary to prevent its suppression, one regrets to see, is another terrible arraignment of German garrison-life. Seldom has the morally disintegrating in- fluence of military life been so dearly outlined as in Dear Fatherland. Here the absolute despotism exercised by officers who are fre- quently indolent, cruel, vain, shallow and sub- ject to whims and caprices, is painted in vivid colors, and the effect of such rule on the sol- diers, together with the life of routine and monotony and the contagious influence of certain disreputable characters are shown in the series of catastrophes that fill a large part of the novd. The destruction of ideals, the progressive degradation of life, the commission of crimes that reach their climax in murder and suidde — all these things serve to impress in a truly realistic maimer the essentially de- grading effect of barrack-life — the moral edipse that must sooner or later mark the lives of professional man-slayers, those indi- the Day. viduals whose trade or calling is an affront to Christ and Christianity. Besides being an interesting story of the realistic school, the work has a two-fold value. It presents a striking picture of preset-day garrison-life in Germany and illustrates how degrading and subversive of all that is worthiest in man is such an existence. Famous Men of the Old Testament. By Mor- ton Bryan Wharton, D.D. Cloth. Pp. 884. Price, $1.50. New York: E. B. Treat & Company. In this work the author presents biograph- ical sketches of the following prominent and typical characters of the Old Testament: Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Jephthah, EH, Saul, David, Solomon, Elijah, Jonah, Danid, Balaam, Absalom and Nehemiah. The work is from the pen of an orthodox thinker of the old school, but there is greater clarity of vision in the discussions than in most works by scholars who take the Old Testament literally, and there is present a degree of frank- ness and fearlessness in condemning evil and immoral acts among the great Biblical char- acters that renders the work wholesome and helpful to persons who share the author’s views. To us these views are at times amaz- ing, when we remember that we are living in the twentieth century. Thus, for example, Dr. Wharton appears to accept as a literal fact the story of Jonah being swallowed by a fish and living in its body for three days. If, however, one is prepared to accept as literal history the wonder-stories of the Old Testa- ment, he will find this work satisfying; and by virtue of its sturdy ethics it is far superior to most volumes which from a similar view- point deal with Old Testament men and mir- acles. Hie author possesses a dear and vigorous style. He is a good story-teller and the vol- ume bears every evidence of the writer’s sin- cerity. Rebels of the New South. By Walter Marion Raymond. Illustrated. Cloth. Pp. 294. Price, $1.00. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Company. In this story Mr. Raymond has set forth clearly and with admirable spirit the ethics of Socialism as they relate to the sex question. Digitized by Google
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674 Books of while boldly and strikingly contrasting the fundamental ethics, as they relate to social and economic conditions, of Socialism and the present reactionary capitalistic and imperial- istic politico-economic rSgime. The book is an excellent answer to the absurd and viciously unjust novel of a one-time preacher, who seems to be pandering to the blind prejudice of the unthinking by false, distorted or partial views of Socialism and of certain passages in our own history. Mr. Raymond shows very dearly and truth- fully the strong points in common between the ethics of Jesus and those of Socialism, and he also shows how inherently antagonistic in spirit is the present arrogant, conscienceless capitalistic order to the exalted social com- munion established by the Great Nazarene. Barring the introduction of some phrases, mostly expletives, on the part of the central characters, which we could wish were omit- ted, little criticism can be made against the ethics presented in the work, which indeed deals with some delicate questions in so ex- ceptionally wholesome and vitally normal a manner that it would be difficult to over- praise the author’s method of treatment or the views he advances. From a purely literary standpoint the story is not so strong. Indeed, if the cunning of the literary craftsman had been in keeping with the ethical excellence of the novd, the story would be entitled to rank as a distinctly great romance of social progress. As it is it deserves wide circulation as a social and ethi- cal propaganda novel, and the romance inter- est is sufficient to make it read with deep in- terest by thousands who would not peruse a similar work in the form of abstract discus- sions. Socialists would do well to give this book wide circulation. It is a book that it will do them good to read as well as one that will enlighten and tend to place other readers in a sympathetic attitude toward Socialism. Immortality . By William Colby Cooper, M.D. Cloth. Pp. 172. Published by the author at Cleves, Ohio. This volume merits the consideration of thoughtful people. It is a serious and very able discussion, from the purely philosophi- cal viewpoint, of the logical arguments for and agairat the theory of the persistence of life after the crisis of death. In Frederic W. H. Myers’ great work. Human Personality the Day. and Its Survival of Bodily Death, and in Alfred Russel Wallace’s Miracles and Modem Spiri U ualim , the English-speaking world has two inestimably valuable contributions to die affirmative side of the question, in which the principal arguments are adduced from psy- chical phenomena as witnessed during the past seventy-five years. But in this work die author chiefly relies upon philosophical argu- ments and upon logical deductions rather than physical manifestations of a psychical char- acter. We are all familiar with the religious arguments that have proved satisfactory to so many but which are wholly inconclusive to a growing number of inquiring minds, and to such searchers after truth this book will, we think, prove of real value. It represents the ripest thoughts and conclusions of a well- known physician who for many years has been a deep student of life in its many aspects. Hie philosophical arguments against the theory of immortality or life after death, are stated with strength, dearness and conspicuous impar- tiality; after which the arguments advanced in answer to these positions are presented. Seldom has an author with strong convic- tions maintained so judicial a mental attitude or evinced so little of the special-pleader's art as has Dr. Cooper. He holds that the weight of philosophical argument favors the belief in a future life, and he presents his reasons in a dear, dispassionate and logical manner that cannot fail to arrest and hold the attention of those interested in the subject treated. The exacting duties of a busy life have pre- vented the author from giving the time and attention to the literary presentation of the work that would have marked it had the de- mands upon his time been less onerous. He has, as he observes in his preface, been more deeply concerned in presenting a well-reasoned argument that should appeal to logical think- ers than in the form of his presentation, and though the work is lucid, there are places where the choice of words would have given a finish or setting more in keeping with the marked ability of the production as a logical argu- ment. The method of presentation, however, is less open to criticism than the typography. The volume is one that is as valuable as it is timely, and it should have been brought out by a well-established book-publishing house where the art of book-making receives the attention that is due books that are worth the making. A work published by the author Digitized by Google
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Notes and Comments. 675 goes out with a certain handicap, because there is in the popular mind a prejudice against such works — a prejudice, indeed, that is in most cases not without warrant; but in ex- ceptional instances some really great or ex- tremely valuable books are thus published, and in this instance we have a work worthy of a far better presentation in type than it has received. We can recommend this discussion to think- ing men and women who are desirous of hav- ing presented, dearly and in easily under- standable language, the arguments for and against the theory of life after death from a purely philosophical point-of-view, by an able reasoner who through' rationalistic methods and long and careful investigation has come to believe in the reality of a life after death. NOTES AND COMMENTS. Municipal corruption and ns APOLOGISTS: In Mr. Blakxenburo’b paper in this issue we have a record of municipal corruption that seems almost incredible. It is dif- ficult to imagine, even in a state where republican government has been overthrown and where the despotism of a machine as corrupt as the bureau- cracy of Russia, in partnership with public-service companies that are innocent of all moral scruples, has reduced free institutions to a farce, that the peo- ple who once enjoyed political liberty and free gov- ernment could be so degraded, so lost to all senti- ments of manhood and self-respect, as to tolerate for a month the carnival of political debauchery so circumstantially described by our author. These papers of Mr. Blankenburg’b should be carefully filed. They are among the most important his- torical records of the present time ana should be saved for reference in the great pending struggle which shall determine the fate of the republic. Our Commerce with Latin America True friends of American commerce will find in Professor Noa'b papa* in this issue of The Arena a contribution of special value. The author is a graduate of the Mass- achusetts Institute of Technofogy, holding the do- me of Bachelor of Science from that institution. For several years Professor Noa has been promi- nently engaged in educational and reformative work in connection with such leaders as William Lloyd Garrison, Mary A. Livermore, Julia Ward Howe, and Rev. Charles G. Ames, striving to further such movements as universal peace, aboli- tion of capital punishment, prison reform, woman's suffrage, free trade, and the abolition of the spoils- system through rigid civil-service examinations and tenure of office during good behavior. Few Amer- ican scholars have given more time in recent years to a careful study of historical, social and economic conditions in the Latin-American states than Pro- fessor Noa. He has traveled extensively in Cuba, making an intimate study of the people, their con- dition, their history and their needs. His studies of the South American republics impressed him with the immensely valuable field for American commerce, if our republic is great and wise enough to take advantage oi the opening and by a policy of conciliation, of peace, liberality and the spirit of en- lightened twentieth-century civilization to foster and encourage the most friendly and reciprocal relations. On this and kindred subjects he has lectured extensively in leading cities before im- portant bodies. He has also lectured extensively before educational institutions, his last course being delivered before the visiting Porto Rican teachers at Harvard University in last July. The paper which we present this month should receive the thoughtful consideration which it merits, and be productive of much good. A Russian Student Throw a Strong Light on the Deepotiem of Russia: This month we publish a paper of special interest, being the personal narra- tive of a Russian studoit, which has been taken down and edited by our valued contributor, Dr. William Lee Howard. In perusing this story the reader should bear in mind that this youth, who in the flush of health and with brain full of high, patriotic and noble thoughts was seized and thrown into prison for two years, and then exiled for three years, for merely receiving books published in the Polish language and writing to friends in a foreign land of his patriotic aspirations, is but one of many. The story which he mates is in substance the story of the fate of thousands of Russia’s high-minded young men and women, with somewhat varying ultimate results. Many have died in prison ana exile; others, perhaps a larger proportion, have become insane; while the survivors are physical and nervous wrecks. And this blasting ana de- stroying of the best life of young Russia, for no moral crime, for nothing, indeed, that would be accounted an offence in a civilized land, renders it easy for us to understand how the educators, the students, and indeed the highest and noblest-minded of Russia are the bitterest foes of the inhuman and despotic government of the Czar. The recital also should serve to stimulate a deathless passion in the hearts of our own young—a holy determination to jguard the fundamental principles of freedom and justice from the subtile encroachments of reaction, privi- lege and centralization, which are already at work in our government Ryan Walker's u Faint Stones The admirable series of "Fairy Digitized by Google
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676 Notes and Comments, life,** which appeared in our sketch of Ryan Walker in the April Arena, were taken from The Socialist, of Toledo, Ohio. They would have been duly credited, but at the time we were under the impression that The Socialist had been discontinued. We make this special announcement, as it is the desire of The Arena at all times to fully credit the publications from which cartoons are taken. An Able ExposS of the Fallacies of the Railway Apologists: In the February Arena Mr. W. G. Joerns exposed the shameful robbery of the con- sumers and producers by the Armour RefMgeimtor* Car Trust In the present issue this careful rea- soner takes up the three principal pleas that have been made by the railway interests and their rep- resentatives, and shows how pitifully fallacious and misleading they are. This paper is a valuable con- tribution to the solid literature that is preparing the public mind for radical reform measures that will m a few years be rendered inevitable. Mrs . Trask's Appeal to the Conscience of the Anglo-Saxon World: There is something of the high moral enthusiasm of the true prophet in the noble appeal of Mrs. Trask to the conscience of the Anglo- Saxon peoples in her stirring poem. If the English- speaking world would throw aside its hypocrisy and cant, and boldly, bravely and earnestly set out upon a persistent campaign for the creation of a public sentiment that would render compulsory arbitration inevitable, in a few yean civilized na- tions would no more think of appealing to the ar- bitrament of force than they would to-day think of sanctioning the slave-trade, which was once justi- fied in mum the same manner as the present apolo- gists justify war. And with the strong peace tend- encies of King Edward, if the republic had at its head a true statesman and a man of broad, enlight- ened spiritual sensibilities, — such, for example, as Charles Sumner,— there would, we think, be little doubt but that within the next four years advance along these lines would be so positive as to render war among civilized nations extremely improbable if not impossible. Unhappily our President is far more enamored of the “big stock” than of the olive- branch. The Emperor William rather than Gro- ttos, Gladstone, Victor Hugo or Charles Sumner is his ideal. Professor Parsons on Municipal-Ownership: We have few thinkers in America so well qualified to speak authoritatively on municipal-ownership as Professor Frank r arsons. He has intimately and exhaustively studied various municipal and state experiments in public-ownership ana opera- turn, in Great Britain and various Continental na- tions during his extended travels in the Old World. He has also made an exhaustive study of the prac- tical results of public-ownership in Australasia. The views, therefore, which he embodies in fan brief but highly suggestive paper are worthy of special consideration, and we earnestly trust that those actively interested in public-ownership w3 act on die suggestions contained therein. We are in the midst ofa political, social and economic cririi, and no true American can afford to prove a laggard in the present battle of the people against corporate domination. Mr. Partridge's Head of Tennyson; In this sne we present another of our art pictures representing the typical work of leading sculptors, artists ana architects of America. Mr. Partridge's head of Tennyson is one of a series of busts made by thn eminent sculptor representing leading men of fett en of the English-speaking wand. It is our purpow to publish a paper on tins phase of Mr. Pabtejdge*i work in an early issue of The Arena, which wffl cany photographic reproductions of a number d these interesting heads. Mr. Partridge posse— i the genius of the true artist which enables him to give a life-like effect to his sculptured work. He catches the soul, as it were, of the subject, and as s rule his busts also express in an eminent degree the the subtile mental and spiritual qualities that domi- nated the life and work of the subject in question. Important Papers Crowded Out of this Issue: There are a number of exceptionally interesting and important papers which have been unavoidably crowded out of this issue. Among these we especi- ally mention “The Charm of Emerson.” one of the most discriminating and fascinating essays on the great Concord philosopher that has been written in recent years, prepared for The Arena by Professor J. R. Mobley, PhJ)., of Macon, Georgia; “The Divorce Question : A Lawyer’s View,” a timely dis- cussion of tiie subject by Ernest Dale Owes; “Yellow Journalism,” by Lydia Kinosmux Com- mander, in which the excellent as well as the ob- jectionable features of the modem popular pren which has proved the terror of the rich and power- ful evil-doers are dwelt upon in a manner that w9 commend the discussion to the unprejudiced and judicial; “The Identity of Socialism and Christian- ity,” by Jameb T. Van Rensselaer. This very scholarly paper will appeal to a large number of conscientious and thoughtful persons in the church and out, who recognize the disintegrating infloenee of present materialistic commercialism on the mill- ions of the nation and the prosperity and hapnimM of the multitude. Digitized by Google
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INDEX Advance of Wireless Telegraphy, The, 440. Alger, M., Public Control of the liquor Traffic in Sweden and Norway, 184. Amaring Moral Turpitude of the Last Congress, 561. America, The Church in, at the Parting of the Ways, 656. America in the Philippines, 486. American Shipping, The Constitutional Bights of, 664. Arbitration Treaty, The First Great, 410. Are Our People Enjoying “Noteworthy Prosper- ity?” 300. Armour Refrigerator-Car Conspiracy Exposed. The; or, A Crisis in Interstate Commerce Itanuatioii, 147. Arnold, Matthew, As a Poet, 155. Arrogance and Despotism of the Trust Spirit, A Typical Illustration of the, 810. A?fIff»Arti8anship the Key to Japan's Commercial Greatness ana Prosperity, 08. Assassination of Sergius, The: Another Attempt to Temper the Despotism of Russia, 440. Attempt to Coerce a State, A Brazen, 488. Attitude of the Reactionary Autocrats, The, 210. Authorship of “The Two Mysteries,” The: A Cor- rection, 818. Autocracy, The Struggle of, With Democracy in the Early Days of the Republic, 18; The Second Great Struggle of. With Democracy in the Repub- lic, 406. Autocracy’s Eyfl Hour the People’s Opportunity, *10. Autocrats, The Attitude of the Reactionary, 210. Ballot, The Reign of Boodle and the Rape of the, in St. Louis, 48. Bates, William W., The Constitutional Rights of American Shipping, 684. Battle of a Commonwealth Against the Criminal Rapacity and Extortion of a Great Corporation, The, 485. Beard, Dan., Cartoons by, 82, 207, 206, 817, 482, 581, 648. Benefactor, The Work of a Great, 554. Benjamin Fay Mills Movement in Los Angeles, The, 508. Beauty and Light, 608. Blankenburg, Rudolph, Forty Years in the Wilder- ness; or. The Masters ana Rulers of “The Free- men” of Pennsylvania, 1, 118, 225, 845, 457, 560; The Master-Spirit, Sprouting and Spreading, 118; The Master-spirit, Ripened and Revealed, 225; Lawmakers Who Shame the Republic, 845; Mu- nicipal Black Plague, 569. Boodle, The Reign of, and the Rape of the Ballot in St Louis, 48. Books of the Day, 106, 219, 888, 447, 556, 671. Book Studies, 100, 828, 668. Boomerang, a Canard that Proved a, 218. Borseaud, Charles, Practical Results Which Have Attended the Introduction of the Referendum in Switzerland, 482. “Brahma,” Emerson’s; or. The Poet-Philosopher in the Presence of Deity, 275. Brazen Attempt to Coerce a State, A, 488. Bribery of Congressmen by Passes, Mileage That Has Not Prevented die, 551. Brown, Wolstan R., Municipal-Ownership and League Organization, 877. Building of the City Beautiful, The, 71, 187, 295, 415/ 526, 686. Bulwarkm^ Democracy Through Practical Educa- Burhank, Luther, and His Latest Triumph, 554. Cabot, F. J., Is Trial by Jury, in Criminal Cases, a Failure? 510. Campbell, Edward, The Russo-Japanese War from a Pro-Russian View-Point, 161. Canard That Proved a Boomerang, A, 218. Cartoon, An Historical, and a Libel Suit, 819. Cartoonist, A Pioneer Newsp@©^, 59. Cartoonist: Garnet Warren, 171. Cartoonist of Democracy, A? 588. Celebrated Prophecies of History, 518. Change^ Signs of, 211. Chicago’s Great Popular Victory, 651. Chicago’s Plan, A Serious Flaw in, 655. Child-Slavery in New York, 440. China, Our Policy Toward, 505. Church in America at the Parting of the Ways, The, 656. City Beautiful, The Building of the, 71, 187, 295, 415, 526, 686. City Where the Ballot is a Farce, A, 90. Gean Sheet, Resident Roosevelt and the, 88. Geveland.The Result of Municipal-Lighting in, 215. Colby, Clara Bewick, What the Second City of Great Britain is Doing for Her People; or. Where Mu- nidpal-Ownership is in Full Flower, 861. Comments, Notes and. 111, 228, 848, 455, 567, 675. Commerce of Latin America, The: A Magnificent Field Neglected by the United States, 615. Common-Sense on the Railroad Question, 522. Coyness, Amazing Moral Turpitude of the Last, Congress, Late Attempt by, to Steal $190,000 of the People's Money, 552. Congressmen, Mileage That Has Not Prevented th e Bribery of, by Passes, 557. Constitutional Rights of American Shipping, The, 684. “Constructive” Recess, President Roosevelt's, 551. Cooperation in Great Britain, The Present Status of, 258. Cooperation in Kansas, Successful. 550. Cooperation in the Middle West, The March of, 825. Corey, W. A., The Benjamin Fay Mills Movement in Los Angeles, 598. Corporation Goliath of the Age, The Young David from the West Against the, 487. Corrupt Practices and Machine-Rule, Municipal- Ownership Means a Diminution and Not an In- crease in, 652. Countess of Warwick, The, and Her Work Among the Poor, 660; As a Propagandist of Social De- mocracy,661; The Platform or Demands as Sum- marized by, 662. Criminal, Justice for the, 58. 677 Digitized by Google
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678 Index. Criminal Rapacity and Extortion of a Great Corpor- ation, The Battle of a Commonwealth Against the, 48 5. Crisis in Russia, The, 06. Cuningham, Clarence, A Defence of Walt Whit- man's “Leaves of Grass," 55. David from the West, The Young, Against the Cor- Doration Goliath of the Ace, 4o7. Death-Breeding Genius of Night That Broods Over Russia, The, 642. Democracy, Bulwarking, Through Practical Edu- cation, 537. Democracy* Frederick Opper, A Cartoonist of, 583. Democracy, The Struggle of Autocracy With, in the Early Days of the Republic, 18; The Second Great Struggle of Autocracy With, in the Repub- lic, 406. Democratic Government, A True — The Supreme Need of the Hour, 433. Democratic Party in Great Britain, The New, 444. Democratic Principles, Fundamental, Three Tri- umphs for, at the Recent Election, 88. Democratic Progress, The Nevada Referendum Victory as an Illustration of, 267. Desert Waste, A Triumph that Promises to Make Productive Millions of Acres of, 554. Destroyers of the Republic, A Governor Who Would Screen the, 316. Direct-Legislation in the Alpine Republic, 869. Divorce, Is it a Forward or a Backward Step? 418; Professor Giddings’ Defence of, 544. Divorce Problem, The: A Suggestion, 262. Divorce Suppression, The Impurity of, 142. Dogmatic R®il|pous Hierarchies the Age-Long Bar- rier to Freedom, Justice and Human Righto, 542. Duty of the Hour as Viewed by Victor Hugo, The, 70. Eastman, Philip, The Kansas State Refinery BiD and Its Significance, 500. Economic Ideals, Georgian, and Social Progress, 516. Editorial Notes, 200, 810, 433, 537. Education, Bulwarking Democracy Through Prac- tical, 537. Educational System, The Railways as Factors in a Popular, 442. Emerson, The Poems of, 65, 182, 280. Emerson, The Social Message of, 38. Emerson's "Brahma"; or, The Poet-Philosopher in the Presence of Deity, 37 5. England, How the Government of, Fosters Saving Among the Poor, 31. Equitable Life-Insurance Scandal, The, 658. Expansion of Municipal Activities, The, 128. Fall of Port Arthur, The, 209. Farce, A City Where the Ballot is a, 90. First Great Arbitration Treaty, The, 410. Flag, Forbidding Free Speech Under Our, 92. Flaw in Chicago's Plan, A Serious, 6 55. Flower, B. O., A Pioneer Newspaper Cartoonist, 69 ; Editorials, 88, 200, 310, 433, 537; In the Mir- ror of the Present, 88, 210, 319, 435, 542, 648; Book Studies, 100, 328, 663; Notes and Com- ments, 111, 223, 348, 455, 567, 675; President Roosevelt and the Clean Sheet, 83; Three Tri- umphs for Fundamental Democratic Prindples at the Recent Election, 88; The Victory for Pop- ular Government in Wisconsin, 89; Toledoi Partial Victory fear Honest Government, 99; A City Where the Ballot is a Farce, 90; ForfciM^ Free Speech Under Our Flag, 92; Artist-Aitam- ahip toe Key to Japan’s Commercial Greatnen and Prosperity, 93; The Magazines and Sorai Progress. 94; The Crisis m Russia, 96; Mmio- pal-Ownerahipi in Iiverpool : A Former CStim’i views, 08; The Real Japan: Its Traditions, Ideals and Aspirations, 100; Garnet Warns: Cartoonist, 171 ; Are Our People Enjoying "Note- worthy Prosperity?" 200; Tnc Symbol of a Pw- venue Plutocracy, 209; The Fall of Port Arthur, 209; Autocracy's Evil Hour the People's Oppor- tunity, 210; The Attitude of the Reactionary Au- tocrats, 210; Russia and Self-Government, 211; Signs of Change, 211: Revolutionary Leaden aim the People, 212; The Insatiable Greed of the Royal Family of Russia, 213; Signal Success of Municipal Telephones in Great Britain, 218; The Result of Municipal Public-lighting in Cleveland, 215: Why the Gras-Trust in Two Cities Sees Pod in Yellow Journalism, 215; Phenomenal Growth of the Socialist Vote in Italy, 216; Social Con- trasts the Fruit of Privilege and Inequality of Op- portunities, 217; Recrudescence of Medieval Re- ugious Intolerance in Spain, 217; A Canard That Proved a Boomerang, 218; How Four Men Res- cued a City from Entrenched Corruption; or. The Rise, Dominance and Downfall of the Tweed Ring, 270; Professor Mlinsterberg’s Mistake, 810; A Governor Who Would Screen the De- stroyers of the Republic, 816; The Autbonhip of f,The Two Myrteries”: A Correction, 818; The People in the Power of the Octopus or the “System/" 819; An Historical Cartoon and a Libel Suit, 819; A High-Handed Attempt to Stifle Honest Criticism, 320 ; The Absurd Pretext Made for this Outrage, 320; French Stateonen’s Prac- tical Preposition for Solving the liquor Problem, 822; The Red Csar and toe Massacre of the In- nocents, 324; The Government as a Landlord, 324: The March of Cooperation in the Mkfcle West, 325; The Immigration Question, 320; An Inside View of Sing Sing, 328; Ryan Walker: A Cartoonist of Social Protest, 392; A True Demo- cratic Government — The Supreme Need of the Hour, 433; The Anarchistic Trusts : Masters by Grace of the People's Servants, 434 ; AState Ded icated to Freedom, 435; A History of Unparal- leled Rapacity, 435; One Typical Example of How a Wlide People Was Robbed, 436; Seising Upon the Virgin Wealth of Kansas, 486; The Young David from the West Against the Corpor- ation Goliath of the Age, 437; A Brazen Attempt to Coerce a State, 438; A State Government tint Refused to be Corrupted or Coerced, 488; Peris Before Kansas, 439; Child-Slavery in New York, 440; The Assassination of Sergius: Another At- tempt to Temper the Despotism of Russia, 440; The Railways as Factors in a Popular Educations] System, 442; Popular Government and Reaction, 443; The New Progressive Democratic Party in Great Britain, 444; The Advance of Wirelen Telegraphy, 446; Bulwarking Democracy Through Practical Education, 597; The Death- Breeding Genius of Night that Broods Over Rus- sia, 542; Dogmatic Religious Hierarchies the Age-Long Barrier to Freedom, Justice and Hu- Digitized by Google
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Index. 679 man Rights, 542; The Most Fatal Figure in Rus- sia, 548; Professor Giddings’ Defence of Divorce, 544; Some Facts About High Protection, Reac- tion and Militarism, 547; Something Worse than Yellow Journalism, 548; A Referendum Victory in Municipal Government, 549; Successful Co- operation m Kansas, 550; President Roosevelt's 4 Constructive” Recess, 551; Mileage that Has kt . m . in s n ° « tv 551; Hie Late Attempt by Congress to $190,000 of the People’s Money, 552; A Twen- tieth-Century Victory; or, The Work of a Great Benefactor, 554; A Triumph that Promises to Make Productive Millions of Acres of Desert Waste, 554; Frederick Opper: A Cartoonist of Democracy, 588; A Propnet-Voice in the Hour of the Nation’s Peril, 548; Chicago’s Great Pop- ular Victory, 651; Municipal-Ownership Means a Diminution and Not an Increase in Comipt Practices and Machine-Rule, 652; Munidpel- Ownerahip Does Not Increase Taxation, 658; A Serious Flaw in Chicago’s Plan, 655; Pensioning Public Servants : Brookline Leads the Way, 655 ; The Church in America at the Parting of the Ways, 656; The Equitable Life-Insurance Scan- dal, 658; The Standard Ofl Company at Bay, €58; The liberal Reaction in Great Britain, 659; The Countess of Warwick and Her Work Among the Poor, 660; The Countess as a Propaganda of Social Democracy, 661 ; The Platform or De- mands as Summarized by the Countess, 662; The Plum-Tree: The Most Important Novel of the Year, 668. Forbidding Free Speech Under Our Flag, 92. Forty Years in the Wilderness; or. Masters and Rulers of “The Freemen” of Pennsylvania, 1, 118, 225, 845, 457, 569. Frederick Opper: A Cartoonist of Democracy, 588. Freedom, A state Dedicated to, 485. Freedom, Justice and Human Rights, Dogmatic Religious Hierarchies the Age-Long Barrier to, 542. Freeman’s Ballot, Philadelphia and the, 457. “Freemen” of Pennsylvania, Masters and Rulers of the, 1, 118. 225, 845, 457, 569. Free Speech, Forbidding, Under Our Flag, 92. French Statesmen’s Practical Proposition for Solv- ing the Liquor Problem, 822. Fundamental Democratic Progress, Three Tri- umphs for, at the Recent Election, 88. Galvin, G. W., Justice for the Criminal, 58. Garnet Warren: Cartoonist, 171. Ge€€|pan Economic Ideals and Social Progress, Gerhart Hauptmann : Social Idealist, 251. Get Thee Behind Me, Satan, 582. Giddings, Professor, His Defence of Divorce, 544. Government as a Landlord. The. 824. Governor Who Would Screen the Destroyers of the Republic, A, 816. Gray, J. Cn The Present Status of Cooperation in Grreat Britain, 258. Great Britain, The Postal Savings-Banks of, 81; Signal Success of Municipal Telephones in, 218; The Present Status of Cooperation in, 258; What the Second Cfy of. Is Doing for Her People; or. Where Muniaptl-Ow»e«Mp is in Full Flower, 861; The liberal Reaction m, 659. Hauptmann, Gerhart: Social Idealist, 251. Hawn, Henry Gaines, The Divorce Problem: A Suggestion. 262. Heaton, J. Henmker, The Postal Savings-Banks of Great Britain; or. How the Government of Eng- land Fosters Saving Among the Poor, 81. Henderson, Archibald, Henrik Ibsen and Social Progress, 26; Gerhart Hauptmann : Social Ideal- ist, 251; Stephen Phillips: Poet and Dramatist, 474. Henrik Ibsen and Social Progress, 26. “Hermione,” 65, 182, 289. Hess, Frances Hardim, A Pen-Picture of a Great Radical Meeting in Paris, 289. Hewes, O. K., Switz^iand and Her Ideal Govern- ment; or, Direct-Legislation in the Alpine Re- public, 869. High-Handed Attempt to Stifle Honest Criticism, A, 820. Historical Cartoon and a Libel Suit that Proved a Boomerang, An, 819. History, Celebrated Prophecies of, 518. History, A Thrilling Panage in Colorado’s, 882. History of UnipiSehriSnacity. A, 485. Hoar, George Frisbie: An Appreciation, 11. Holder, Charles Frederick, Hie Quaker and the Puritan: A Thrilling Passage in Colonial His- tory, 882. Honest Criticism, A High-Handed Attempt to Stifle, 820. Honest Government, Toledo’s Partial Victory for, 90. Howard. William Lee, The Morphineose, 516; edi- tor, In Prison and In Exile: The Experience of a Russian Student, 600. How a Whole People Was Robbed, One Typical Example of, 486. How Four Men Rescued a City from Entrenched Corruption; or. Hie Rise, Dominance and Down- fall ot the Tweed Ring, 270. Hugo, Victor, Hie Duty of the Hour as Viewed by, Ibeen, Henrik, and Social Progress, 26. Immigration Question, The, 826. Impurity of Divorce Suppression, The, 142. Innocents, The Red Car and the Massacre of the, 824. In Prison and in Exfle: The Experience of a Rus- sian Student, 600. Insatiable Greed of the Royal Family of Russia, Hie, 218. Inside View of Sing Sing, An, 828. Interstate Commerce Regulation, A Crisis in, 147. In the Mirror of the Present, 88 , 210, 819, 485, 542, 648. Is Divorce a Forward or a Backward Step? 418. Is Trial by Jury, in Criminal Cases, a Failure? 510. Italy, Phenomena] Growth ot the Socialist Vote in, 216. Japan as Viewed by a Native Socialist, 498. Japan, The Real : Its Traditions, Ideals and Aspi- rations, 100. Japan’s Commercial Greatnem and Prosperity, Art- lst-Artisanshipthe Key to, 98. Joerns, W. G., The Armour Refrigerator-Car Con- spiracy; or, A Crisis in Interstate Commerce Reg- ulation, 147; Juggling With Facts and Figures About TrimsncsrtaSon; or. How the Railway In- terests and Hieir Special Pleaders are Seeking to Deceive the People, 624. Digitized by Google
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680 Index, Juggling With Facts and figures About Transpor- tation ; or. How the Railway Interests and Tneir Speck] Pleaders are Seeking to Deceive the Peo- ple, 624. Justice for the Criminal, 58. Kaneko, Kiichi, Japan as Viewed by a Native So- cialist, 488. Kansas, Seizing Upon the Virgin Wealth of, 486; Perils Before, 480; Successful Cooperation in, 550. Kansas State Refinery Bill and Its Significance, The, 500. Kassel, Charles, Celebrated Prophecies of History, 518. Landlord, The Government as a, 824. Late Attempt by Congress to Steal $190,000 of the People’s Money, The, 552. Latin America, The Commerce of: A Magnificent Field Neglected by the United States, 615. Lawmakers Who Shame the Republic, 845. League Organisation, Municipal-Ownership and, 877. “Leaves of Grass,” A Defence of Walt Whitman’s, 55. “Lebendig,” The Duty of the Hour as Viewed by Victor Hugo, 70. Legislation, Light versus, 16. Libel Suit An Historical Cartoon and a, 810. Liberal Reaction in Great Britain, The, 650. Light Beauty and, 608. Light versus Legislation, 16. Liquor Problem, French Statesmen’s Practical Rep- osition for Solving the, 822. liquor Traffic, Public Control of. In Sweden and Norway, 184. Liverpool, Municipal-Ownership in: A Former Citizen’s Views, 08. 1 Los Angeles, The Benjamin Fay Mills Movement in, Lovejoy, Owen R., The Social Message of Emerson, 88. Luther Burbank and His Latest Triumph, 554. Magazines and Social Progress The, 04. Malloy, Charles, The Poems of Emerson, 65, 182, March of Cooperation in the Middle West The, 825. Massacre of the Innocents, The Red Czar and the, 824. M&xey, Edwin, George Frisbie Hoar: An Appreci- ation, 11; The Russo-Japanese War from the 'View-Print of the Facts in the Case, 165; The First Great Arbitration Treaty, 410; Our Policy Toward China, 505. Medieval Religious Intolerance in Spain, Recrudes- cence of, 2l7. Meriwether, Lee, The Reign of Boodle and the Rape of the Ballot in St Louis, 48. Mileage that Has Not Prevented Bribery of Con- gressmen by Passes, 551. Militarism, High Protection, Reaction and. Some Facts About, 547. Miller, Joaquin, The Building of the City Beautiful, 71, 187, 205, 415, 526, 686. Mills Movement in Los Angeles, The Benjamin Fay, 508. Mirror of the Present In the, 88, 210, 810, 485, 542, 648. Mistake, Professor Mtinsterbefg’s, 810. Moral Turpitude of the Last Congress, Tlae Amaz- ing, 55 1. Mornhineuse. The. 516. Most Fatal Figure in Russia, The, 548. Municipal Activities, The Expansion of, 128. Municipal Black Plague, 560. Municipal Government A Referendum Victory in, 540. Municipal-Ownership in Liverpool : A Former CSft- isen’s Views, 08; and League Oigankation, 877; Methods, 506; Means a Dnmnut£on and Not an Increase in Corrupt Practices and Machine-Rule, 652; Does Not Increase Taxation, 658. Municipal Public-Lighting in Cleveland, The Result Municipal Telephones in Great Britain, Signal Suc- cess of, 218. i Miinsterberg’s Mistake, Professor, 810. Nation’s Pent A Prophet-Voice in the Hour of the, 648. New School of Socialism in Europe, The, 242. New York, Child-Slavery in, 440. Noa, Frederic M., The Commerce of Latin America : A Magnificent Field Neglected by the United i States, 615. “Noteworthy Prosperity” ? Are Our People En- I joying, 200. Notes and Comments, 111, 228, 848, 455, 567, 675. Octopus or the “System,” The People in the Power 1 of the, 810. ! O’Hare, Kate Richards, Is Divorce a Forward or a ! Backward Step ? 418. Opper, Frederick: A Cartoonist of Democracy, 688. Our Policy Toward China, 505. Outrage, The Absurd Pretext Made for This, 820. Parsons, Frank, Municipal-Ownership Methods, 596. Parvenue Plutocracy, The Symbol of a, 200. Peck, H. W., Matthew Arnold as a Poet, 165; Em- erson’s “Brahma”; or. The PbetrPhiloeoplier m the Presence of Deity, 275. Pennsylvania, Masters and Rulers of “The Roe- men” of, 1, 118, 225, 845, 457, 560. ! Pen-Picture of a Great Radical Meeting in Pkri, A, 280. Pensioning Public Servants: Brookline Leads the Way, 655. Pentecost, George F., America in the Phitippmrs, 486. People, Revolutionary Leaden and die, 212; The, in the Power of the Octopus or “System,” 810. People’s Money, The Late Attempt by Congress to Steal $100,000 of the, 552. People’s Opportunity, Autocracy’s Evil Hour t be, 210. Perils Before Kansas, 489. Phenomenal Growth of the Socialist Vote in Rafr, 216. Philadelphia and the Freeman’s Ballot, 457. Philippines, America in the, 486. Phillips, David Graham, The New School of Social- ism in Europe, 242. Phillips, Stephen : Poet and Dramatist, 474. Pioneer Newspaper Cartoonist, A, 50. Plum-Tree, The: The Most Important Novel of the Year, 663. Plutocracy, The Symbol of a Parvenue, 200. Poems of Rmerson, The, 65, 182, 280. Policy Toward China, Our, 505. Digitized by Google
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Index. 681 Politics, The People and the Trusts as Seen by Car- toonists, 84, 190, 306, 428, 633, 644. Pomeroy, Eltweed, Really Masters, 61 ; The Nevada Referendum Victory as an Illustration of Demo- cratic Progress, 267. Pool, J., Georgian Economic Ideals and Social Progress, 616. Popular Educational System, The Railways as Fac- tors in a, 442. Popular Government, The Victory for, in Wiscon- sin 89; and Reaction, 443. Popular Victory, Chicago’s Great, 661. Port Arthur, The Fall of, 209. Postal Savings-Banks cl Great Britain, The; or. How the Government of England Fosters Saving Among the Poor, 81. Powell, E. P., The Struggle of Autocracy with De- mocracy in the Early Days of the Republic, IS; The Second Great Struggle of Autocracy with Democracy in the Republic, 406. Practical Results Which Have Attended the Intro- duction of the Referendum in Switzerland, 482. Present Status of Cooperation in Great Britain, The, 268. President Roosevelt and the Clean Sheet, 88. President Roosevelt's “Constructive” Recess, 661. Pretext Made for this Outrage, The Absurd, 320. Privilege and Inequality of Opportunities Social Contrasts the Fruit o f, 217. Professor Miinsterbeig’s Mistake, 310. frogreas. The Magt Jiites and Social, 94. hophedM of Hkfery, Celebrated, 618. Prophet-Voice in the Hour of the Nation’s Peril, A, igious Intolerance in Spain, Recrudescence of ledieval, 217. Republic, A Governor Who Would Screen the De- stroyers of the, 316. Result of Mimlctpal Public-Lighting in Cleveland, The, 216. Revolutionary Leaders and the People, The, 212. Rights of American Shipping, The Constitutional, Rise, Mighty Anglo-Saxons! 697. Roosevelt and the Clean Sheet, President, 83. Roosevelt's “Constructive” Recess, President, 661. Royal Family of Russia, The Insatiable Greed of the, 218. Russia, Hie Crisis in, 96; and Self-Government, 211; The Insatiable Greed of the Royal Family of, 213; and Her Chief Citadel of Despotism, 642; The Death-Breeding Genius of Night that Broods over, 642; The Most Fatal Figure in, 648. Russian Situation, The, 210. Russian Student, The Experience of a, In Prison and in Exile, 600. Russo-Japanese War, The, 161; from a Pro-Rus- sian View-Point, 161; from the View-Point of the Facts in the Case, 166. Satan, Get TheeJBehind Me, 632. Satterthwait, Linton, Common-Sense on the Rail- road Question, 622. Schroeder, Theodore, The Impurity of Divorce Suppression, 142. Seizing Upon the Virgin Wealth of Kansas, 486. Sett-Government, Russia and, 211. Sergius, Hie Assassination of, 440. Serious Flaw in Chicago’s Flan, A, 666. Protection, Reaction and Militarism, Some Facts Shipping, The Constitutional lights of American, About, 647. 634. Public Control of the Liquor Traffic in Sweden and Signal Success of Municipal Telephones in Great Norway, 134. Britain, 213. Puritan, The Quaker and the: A Thrilling Passage Signs of Change, 211. in History, 382. fling Sing, An Inside View of, 328. Quaker and the Puritan, Hie: A Thrilling Passage Social Contrasts the Fruit of Privilege and Inequal- in Colonial History, 882. ity of Opportunities, 217. Radical Meeting hi Paris, A Pen-Picture of a Great, Social Democracy, The Countess of Warwick as a 289. Propagandist of, 660. Railroad Question, Common-Sense on the, 622. Railways as Factors in a Popular Educational Sys- tem, Hie, 442. Rapacity, A History of Unparalleled, 486. Reaction, Popular Government and, 443; High Protection, and Militarism, Some Facts About, 647. Reactionary Autocrats, The Attitude of the, 210. Real Japan, Hie: Its Traditions, Ideals and Aspi- rations, 100. Realty Masters, 61. Recrudescence of Medieval Religious Intolerance in Spain, 217. Red Czar and the Massacre of the Innocents, The, 324. Referendum in Switzerland. The Practical Results Which Have Attended the Introduction of the, 482. SodalMessage of Emerson, The, 38. Social Progress Henrik Ibsen and, 26; The Maga- zines ami, 94; Georgian Economic Ideals and, 616. Social Potest, A Cartoonist of, 892. Socialism in Europe. The New School of, 242. Socialist Vote in Italy, Hie Phenomenal Growth of the, 216. Some Facts About High Protection, Reaction and Militarism, 647. Something Worse Than Yellow Journalism, 648. Spain, Recrudescence of Medieval Religious Intol- erance in, 217. Standard CHI Company at Bay, The, 668. State Dedicated to Freedom, A, 436. State Refinery Bill and Its Significance, The Kan- sas, 600. Referendum Victory, Hie Nevada, as an Rhistra- tkm of Democratic Progress, 267; A, in Munici- pal Government,. 649. Reign of Boodle and the Rape of the Ballot in St Louis, Hie, 48. Religious Hierarchies, Dogmatic, The Age-Long Barrier to Freedom, Justice and Human Rights, 642. State Government that Refused to be Corrupted or Coerced, A, 488. StephenHiilllpi : Poet and Dramatist 474. Successful Cooperation in Kansas, 660. Sweden and Norway, Public Control of the liquor Traffic in, 134. Switzerland and Her Ideal Government; or, Direct- Legislation in the Alpine Republic, 369; Fracti- Digitized by Google
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682 Index. cal Results Which Have Attended the Introduc- tion of the Referendum in, 482. Symbol of a Panenue Plutocracy, The, 208. '‘System," The People in the Power of the Octopus or, 810. Taxation, Municipal-Ownership Does Not Increase, 682. Three Triumphs for Fundamental Democratic Prin- ciples at the Recent Section, 88. Toledo's Futial Victory for Honert Government, 00. Transportation, Jugghng with Facts and Figures About: or, How the Railway Interests and Their Special-Pleaders are Seeking to Deceive the Peo- ple, 024. Trask, Katrina, Light tarsus Legislation, 16; Rise, Mighty Angte4%^ms! 607. Treaty, The Rwt Great Arbitration. 410. Trial by Jury in Criminal Cases a Failure? Is, 610. Triumph that Promises to Make Productive Millions of Acres of Desert Waste, A, 664. True Democratic Government— The Supreme Need of the Hour, A, 488. Trust-Spirit, A Typical Illustration of the Arrogance and Despotism of the, 810. Tweed Ring, The Rise, Dominance and Downfall of the, 270. Twentieth-Century' Victory, A, 664. "Two Mysteries, The," The Authorship of : A Cor- rection, 818. Typical Example of How a Whole People Was Rob- bed, One, 486. Typical Illustration of the Arrogance and Despot- ism of the Trust-Spirit, A, 810. Victory for Honest Government, Toledo's Partial, 00. Victory for Popular Government in Wisconsin, Th* .Walker, Ryan: A Cartoonist of Social Protest, 801. Walt, Whitman's "Leaves of Grass," A Defence of, 66. Warren, Garnet: Cartoonist, 171. Warwick, The Countess of, and Her Work Among tike Poor, 660; as a Propagandist of Sodsl De- mocracy, 061 ; tiie Platform or Demands as Sum- marized by,’ 062. Wealth of Kansas, Seizing Upon the Virgin, 486. West, Kenyon, Beauty ami Light, 608. What the Second City of Great Britain is Doing for Her People; or. Where Munkapal-Ownenbp is in Full Flower, 861. Whitman's "Leaves of Grass," A Defence of Walt, 66. Why tile Gas-Trust in Two Cities Sees Peril in Yel- low Journalism, 216. Wikkroess, Forty Years in the; or, The Masters sad Rulers of "The freemen" of Pennsylvania, 1, 118, 226, 846, 467, 660. Wireless Telegraphy, The Advance of, 446. Wisconsin, Tne Victory for Popular in, 80. Woodruff, Qinton Rogers, The Rxpanmnn of Mu- nicipal Activities, 128. Work of a Great Benefactor, The, 66 4. Yellow Journalism, Why the Gas-Trust in Too Cities Sees Peril in, 216; Something Worse then, 648. Digitized by Google
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B .O. FLOWER ; EDITOR trenton. ALBERT BRANDT: PUBLISHER ^ boston
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THE ARENA ADVERTISER Tourist Cars Popular The Idea that ao Inferior class of people patronize the tourist sleepers Is an error. On many trips only the best class of travelers are found. sense who would rather travel TO CALIFORNIA In this manner and save a snug sum of money to be used elsewhere. It Is beginning to be understood that It Is by no means necessary for the traveler to spend a large sum of money In order to enjoy a trip to the Pacino Coast. If you cross the continent In one of the tourist sleepers of the UNION PACIFIC You will enjoy your trip and save considerable money. Inquire of E. L. LOMAX, G. P. & T. A. . OMAHA, NKAHASKA Henry Romeike, Inc. The oldest and most reliable BUREAU of PRESS CLIPPINGS The Preei Cutting Bureau founded by the late Henry Romeike reads through its hundreds of employees every newspaper and periodical of im- portance in the United States and Canada, and through the European Branches all the leading papers published on the civilised globe. We read and cut notices on any subject, no matter what it may be or In what part of the world it may appear. Clippings oollected from these thousands of papers are mailed to our subscribers day by day. Terms, 95.00 for 100 clippings ; cheaper terms on large orders. Write for circulars, terms, etc. H. ROM BIKE, Inc. 33 Union Square, NEW YORK CITY Branches in London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Home and Sidney.
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vol. xxxm. THE ARENA Rsv. R. Hnn Nkwton.D.D. Rtr. H. W. Thomas, D.D. Edwin Markham Prof. Prank Parsons, Ph.D. B. O. FLOWER: EDITOR •OARD OP ASSOCIATES Eltwksd Pombrot, A.M. Edwin Maxry, M.Dip., LL.D. Prof. John Ward Stxmson Herman E. Kittridgi, M.D. Grorcr McA. Millbr, Ph.D. F. Edwin Elwbll Rev. E. P. Powell Prof. Robbrt T. Kbrun, A.M. NO. w. J. J. Ennbkxno dolton Hall Ernbst Crosby Dan. Bbard SPECIAL CONTRIBUTORS Chief Justice Walter Clark, LL.D., of North Carol jus Dr. Charlbs F. Holdbr, LL.D. Hbnrix G. Pbtbrsbn, M.D., Joaouxn Millbr William Lbb Howard, M.D. Hob. Edward Trbgbar, Secretary of Labor for die Commonwealth of New Zealand CONTENTS FOR JUNE, 1905 ’ Pan PORTRAIT OF Ret. BENJAMIN FAY MILLS, facing 569 FORTY YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS; OR, MASTERS AND RULERS OF “THE FREEMEN” OF PENNSYLVANIA. — V. . Municipal Black Plague. — Chap. I. Light in the Midst or Darkness, Rudolph Blankenbubg 569 Illustration* — U nited States Senator Boies Penroee — Philip C. Garrett — F rancis B. Reeves — John Field— GeorjeD. McCreary — Edwin S. Stuart — Thomas L. Hicks — Samuel H. Ashbridge— J. C. Trautwine, Jr.— John W. Hill. FREDERICK OPFER: A CARTOONIST OF DEMOCRACY, B. O. Flower 588 Illustration* by Frederick Opptr— Just Plain Atavism— Only a Dream, As Yet— Our Modern Inferno, The Oil Department — Our Modern Inferno, The Beef Department— Sinbad the Taxpayer— The War for Liberty, Bound in the End to Win Everywhere, Will Remove War of All Kinds From the Face of the Earth— The Good Line and the Bad Line — The Office Boy — “ Divine Right** — A Genuine “ Spook Picture’*— The Trust erdoodle Railroad — It Makes Him Smilfr— ' The Menace to Our Courts of Justice — Christmas Morning — The Giant*s Path. PORTRAIT OF FREDERICK OPPER, facing 584 THE BENJAMIN FAY MILLS MOVEMENT IN LOS ANGELES, . . W. A. Corey 588 MUNICIPAL-OWNERSHIP METHODS, Prof. Frank Parsons, Phi). 596 RISE, MIGHTY ANGLO-SAXONS ! Katrina Trask 597 IN PRISON AND IN EXILE; THE EXPERIENCE OF A RUSSIAN STU- DENT, Edited by William Lee Howard, MD. 600 BEAUTY AND LIGHT, Kenyon West 608 THE COMMERCE OF LATIN AMERICA: A MAGNIFICENT FIELD NEG- LECTED BY THE UNITED STATES, . . Prof. Frederic M. Noa 615 Four comparative tables showing exports and imports of Latin America. PORTRAIT OF FREDERICK M. NOA, facing 617 JUGGLING WITH FACTS AND FIGURES ABOUT TRANSPORTATION ; OR, HOW THE RAILWAY INTERESTS AND THEIR SPECIAL-PLEAD- ERS ARE SEEKING TO DECEIVE THE PEOPLE, . . W. G. Joerns 624 PARTRIDGE’S “ALFRED TENNYSON,’’ ........ facing 682 THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS OF AMERICAN SHIPPING, William W. Bates 684 THE BUILDING OF THE CITY BEAUTIFUL ( Concluded ), . Joaquin Miller 686 “CHOOSE”: A Cartoon, Dan. Beard 648 POLITICS, THE PEOPLE AND THE TRUSTS AS SEEN BY CARTOONISTS : (With Sixteen Illustrations ), 644 IN THE MIRROR OF THE PRESENT, Editorial Comment 648 A Prophet- Voice in the Hour of the Nation’s Peril — Chicago's Great Popular Victory — Municipal-Ownership Means a Diminution and Not an Increase in Corrupt Practices and Machine-Rule — Municipal-Ownership Does Not Increase Taxation — A Serious Flaw in Chicago's Plan — Pensioning Public Servants: Brookline Leads the Way— The Church in America at the Parting of the Ways — The Equitable Life-Insurance Scandai — The Standard Oil Company at Bay — The Liberal Reaction in Great Britain — The Countess of Warwick and Her Work Among the Poor — The Countess as a Propagandist of Social Democracy — The Platform or Demands as Summarized by the Countess. “THE PLUM-TREE”; The Most Important Novel of the Year, . . A Book-Study 668 BOOKS OF THE DAY, Reviews of New Works 671 The Struggle for Existence — John Brown the Hero— Dear Fatherland — Famous Men of the Old Testament- Rebels of the New South — Immortality. NOTES AND COMMENTS Editorial Chat 675 INDEX, 677 ▲ co rani, te index for prerion, .amber, will b. found la th. Rudw’i Qnld. to Periodical Liter. tor. which ma , b. ooaaoltcd la am, Ubrar,. ALBERT BRANDT: PUBLISHER Broad Street, Trenton, N. J. 5 Park Square, Boston, Mass. TERMS : jki.50 a year in advance : 95 cents a number. Foreign subscriptions, xas. 6d., or 15 francs. Subscribers may remit to ns by post-office or express money-orders, or by bank cheque, drafts, or registered letter. Money in letters is at senders risk. Renew as early as possible in order to avoid a break in the receipt of the numbers. Booksellers, Newsdealer and. Post-masters receive subscriptions. MSS. for Thb Arena should be addressed to our Boston office. Sained ee seeoad-elaM matter, Marsh 21 1104, at the poet-oflloe at Treatoa, N. J., under the Aet of Generate? MeOaMBVIS Qwyrifht, 1200, by Albert Braadft. While extraota may he need (when due oredit is givea), the right to reprint entire arttelee is reserved. Digitized by V jOOQie
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TT.l-IE, ARENA ADVERTISER MIRABEAU AND The French Revolution BY Hon. Charles F. Warwick Illustrated. 8vo. Cloth, gilt top, rough edges $3.50 net. Postage, 13 cents extra VIVID historical study of the varied causes which led to the French Revolution, and of that exciting period of the Revolution in which Mirabeau was the dominant figure. The oppression of the people by Church and State for centuries preceding the Revolution is skil- fully portrayed, and its effect upon the people clearly shown. Mr. Warwick has brilliant chapters upon this subject, upon the reigns of Louis XTV., Louis XV., and Louis XVI., and especially upon the series of events which ended in the calling of the States General. His portrait of Mirabeau at once fastens attention by its unusually strong delineation of the characteristics of this remarkable man and his position during the uprising of the French people. Starting with Mirabeau’s ancestry, the author follows him during his younger days and manhood, strongly portraying his turbulent spirit and his disregard of social amenities and paternal authority, until the meeting of the States General gave the needed opportunity for his genius and patriotism to blaze out. The book, as a whole, gives an unique view of the Revolution, of the character of the man who controlled it in its early years, and of its far- reaching influence upon French life and thought. It is a new and valuable contribution to the literature of that stirring period and a rare portraiture of its leading spirit. It is conceived in a spirit of temperate judgment and scholarly regard for historical accuracy, and is presented in a dignified style, which at the same time has a vitality and warmth that make it eminently readable. J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY Publishers Philadelphia Digitized by Google
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TT1-IE, ARENA ADVERTISER AMONG JOHN LANE’S NEW BOOKS LIFE AND LETTERS OF ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER Sometime Vicar of Morwenstow BY HIS SON-IN-LAW, 0. B. BYLES With numerous Illustrations by J. Ley Pethybridge and others Containing much new material, newly-discovered letters and an interesting account of Tennyson's visit to the Vicar and their conversation 8vo. " One of the most Interesting literary records of die nineteenth century." — N. Y. Evening Post $5.00 net LIFE of CERVANTES By Albert F. Calvert Author of “The Alhambra/* “Im- pressions of Spain/* etc. IVith numerous Illustrations from portraits and title Pages <f earlier editions , etc. Tercentenary Edition 12mo. $1.25 net THE M0RAL8 OF MARCU8 ORDEYNE A NOVEL BY WILLIAM J. LOCKE Author of " Where Lore Is," •• The Usurper,” ••Derelicts," "Idols," •• The White D<jve," " Shadows," etc. 12mo. $1.80 WITH THE PILGRIMS TO MECCA THB GREAT PILGRIMAGE A. H. 1319 A. D. 1909 By Hadji Kahn. M.B.A.B. (Special correspondent of the London Morning Post) and Wilfrid Sparroy Authbr of “ Persian Children of the Royffl Family ” With an Introduction by Professor Vambcry Illustrated from the Pilgrims' Photographs • Far superior to any other (account) in English." — Dr. TaUott Williams. $3.50 net IMPERIAL VIENNA AN ACCOUNT OF ITS HISTORY, TRADITIONS AND ARTS By A. 8. Levetns With 150 Illustrations by Erwin Puchdcger " Pleasing to the eye in every way.**— N. Y. Evening Post. 8vo. $5.00 net A PRINCE TO ORDER A Romance by Charles Stokes Wayne The adventures of an involuntary preten- der to the throne of an Imaginary king- dom. ia-mo. $1.50 "A stirring romance.**— Washington Evening Star . NAPOLEON : The First Phase SOME CHAPTKR8 ON THB BOYHOOD AND YOUTH OF BONAPARTE. 1769-1793 By Oscar Browning The youth aad upbringing of the first Napoleon has never be- fore been attempted in detail and the undertaking by such an eminent authority as Mr. Browning will be welcomed by all Interested in the great emperor. With Portraits. 8vo. $2 80 net DAUMIER AND GAVARNI The Greatest qf French Humorous Draughtsmen Special Number of the INTERNATIONAL 8TUDIO With upwards of twenty photogravures, color plates and zoo black and white reproductions With an Essay on Daumier by Henri promts and an Essay on Gauami by Octave Usanne Large 4to. Wrapper*, $2.00 net. Cloth, $3.00 net " Exceptionally beautifhl and desirable." — N. Y. Even' 'g Post. The Women of SHAKESPEARE’S FAMILY BY MARY ROSE Curator of Shakespeare’s Birthplace at Stratford oa Avon. Illustrated. 16mo. Cloth, . 80 cent* net Leather, 78 oenta net THEODORE WATTS-DUNTON POET— NOVELIST— CRITIC A Biographical and critical study by JAMES DOUOLA8 Including Letters from George Meredith, Thomas Hardy and other distinguished men with intimate recollections of Swin- burne. Whistler, The Rossettis, Tennyson, Browning, Lowell, Bret Hsrte, etc. Profusely illustrstttl in photogravure and half-tone. " A volume no serious student of our contemporary literature can afford to neglect." — Sidney Low in The Standard. 8vo. $3.50 net BOOKS AND PERSONALITIES H. W. NE VINSON Included in these criticisms sad studies is a notable appreciation of Heine. John Lane WRITE FOR NEW COMPLETE LISTSL ^ . 67 FIFTH AVENUE New York Digitized by Google
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SenatorLodge Copyright, 1904, Cllnediost. Contributes an important article on American History The H ouse of a Thousand Candles A Spirited Serial Story by Meredith Nicholson Begins in this Number Illustrated by Christy The Reader for June 2$ cents , at your newsdealer's The Bobbs-Merrill Company : Publishers : Indianapolis : U S A Digitized by CjOOQle
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The Brandt Books A SHORT HISTORY OF monks and monasteries By ALFRED WESLEY WISHART SOMETIME FELLOW IN CHURCH HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO THIS WORK, as the Boston Globe says, gives a better idea than was ever before presented between a single pair of covers what a strong part mouasti- cism has performed in the world’s history. Mr. Wishart brings the advan- tages of a trained mind and the scholarly instinct to this work. Hermits, beggars, diplomatists, statesmen, professors, missionaries, pontiffs, ascetic organizations and the rise and fall of empires are eloquently portrayed. He has sifted his authorities so carefully, says the Philadelphia Times , that the book lias the stamp of truth in every statement placed there, however so deftly, that the literary grace of the work is fully preserved. It is a captivating theme, says the New York Times , and the pic- tures the work presents are vivid and clear. His list of authorities and excellent notes will be found helpful to both student and general reader. It emphatically ought to take rank among the favorite volumes in the libraries of students of the middle ages, says the Philadelphia North American . The original edition of this work will give pleasure to those who love a book for its intrinsic beauty. The paper is a noble quality of “ dose-wire ” laid “ feather-weight ” with deckle-edges, and was printed while wet — a process fatal to papers made from substitutes for cotton and linen fibers. The margins' are liberally broad. The types — generous size — are the old- style Dutch face, cut originally by Caslon, of London, about 1725, after the Elzevir models. The lines are well opened, and the ink is a deep, full-bodied bluish-black. The size is royal octavo. The work is thoroughly indexed and contains 454 pages, besides four true photo- gravure plates. The price is $3.50 net; by mail, $3.68. 10* A new (12mo.) edition of this work, without the illustrations, has been issued in response to a demand for a popular cheaper edition, containing in the appendix an extended note dealing with the Philippine friars. The price is $1.50; by mail, $1.62. ORDER THROUGH YOUR BOOKSELLER, OR ALBERT BRANDT: PUBLISHER TRENTON. N.J. & BOSTON, MASS. Digitized by Google
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“THE TRUTH IN ITS PROPER USE” Few of the daily newspapers — and certainly no specialized newspaper — are more widely quoted, for their editorial opinions, on business or political topics, than THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Respect for its views is bora of a knowledge that it voices the interests of con- servative investors and looks far above the special pleading which characterizes 44 court circular ” financial journalism. An independent study of facts, sanity o i judgment and candor of expression mark its treatment of all problems affecting the interests of an investor. Its aim is expressed in the motto heading this announcement: 44 The Truth In Its Proper Use.** A subscription is cheap insurance on investments. $1 A MONTH $12 A YEAR Make checks to the order of DOW, JONES & CO. 44 BROAD ST., NEW YORK. «t Tam NEW THOUGHT POLITICAL. STUDY SOCIALISM The Movement of the Twentieth Century. HERE ARE SIX PAMPHLETS THAT WILL HELP YOU! [ntrodnction to Socialism, by N. A. Richardson Jocialism : A New World-Movement, by E. Untermann. What is Yours and How to Get It, by E. L. Rigg. Che Economic! of Socialism and Capital- ism, by C. C. Hitchcock. principles and Program of Socialism, by Carl D. Thompson. Che Ideal Republic, by A M. Dinner. Phase Six Pamphlets sent Postpaid for only 25c. APPEAL TO REASON, Girard, Kan. Please mention The Arena. CONSTRUCTION NEWS PRESS CLIPPINGS ontractors, material-men. builders, MANUFACTURERS, in fact ANYBODY Interest- ed in Construction News of all kinds, obtain from our Daily reports QUICK RELIABLE INFORMATION. Our special correspondents all over the country enable us to give our patrons the news in advance of their compet- itors and before it has become common property. Let us know what you want and we will send you samples and quote you prices. PRESS CLIPPINGS on any subject (torn all the leading current newspapers, magazines, trade and tech- nical journals of the United States and Canada. PUBLIC SPEAKERS, WRITERS, STUDENTS, CLUB WOMEN can secure reliable data for speeches, essays, debates, etc. Special facilities for serving Trade and Class Journals, Railroads and large industrial corporations. WE READ, through our stall of skilled readers, a more comprehensive and better selected list of publi- cations than any other Bureau. WE AIM to give prompt and intelligent service at the lowest price consistent with good work. Write os about it Send stamp for booklet. United States Press Clipping Bureau Republlo B’ld'g, State and Adams Sts. CHICAGO, ILL. Digitized by Google
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The June Outdoors will interest all who intend to spend any time out of doors. C&3 .Summer. It will give you just the sort of reading you want for the vacation season^nd ppt you thoroughly in touch with the great summer world, the play-places of America* and of remoter parts of the globe. The text of its articles and stories will give you new ideas, bring to you new places, and new outdoors people; and its perfectly-reproduced illustrations will put these before you as words cannot HAS there been a more marvelous movement in America than the present tendency of all to be interested in the outdoors, to get outside of cities, towns and buildings, and to live as Nature meant we should ? Has there been a saner tendency, a more healthful one or one with the possibilities of greater benefit for the race and the individual ? One does not want to answer such questions off-hand even for himself. If you desire information on the subject, subscribe for OUTDOORS and become familiar with the various phases of this epoch-making tendency and movement. Many consider the trend one merely of recreation and vacations. It is more than that, very much more, and it springs from near the very roots of life and living. It is a great life-hunger and no mere pleasure impulse. SUMMER brings to every one the longing for the outside and the outdoors, and we all get more real Nature at this time than at any other season. We are more interested in Nature when the earth re-awakes, blooms, and entices us to her. There is a call from without as well as the impulse from within. June has been called the brides9 month — it is also the season when die house-bound city-dweller returns to his first love, Dame Nature, and spends with her his annual honeymoon. He plans his vacation in June, at any rate. If you need a little urging, a little more enthusiasm, read the June OUTDOORS. IN ITS PAGES will be found outdoor news of the month from all over the world. There are articles of life among mountains, rivers, lakes and the plains. The work-a-day outdoors is there also with idyls of the farm, outdoor pursuits, and of everyday life on the frontier, writ- ten by writer-wanderers, who see so much with their trained eyes and tell us so well what they see. The Traveling Parson, D. A. Willey, Gara Shepherd Reid, J. Alden Loring, Frank Farrington, are some of the contributors to June OUTDOORS. OBTAIN IT from the nearest newsdealer, or write to the publishers. Ten cents a copy. One Dollar ayear. , ’ THE ARTHUR FULLER CO. ISO FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK Digitized by Google
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The Arena for Jul HE JULY ARENA will open our thirty-fourth voli and it is our purpose to make it an issue in every worthy of the anniversary. There are many strong ; tractions that will be features of this issue. At pr ent, however, we mention only six of these: I. THE DIVORCE-LEGISLATION OF SWITZERLAND By Professor Louis Wuarin, of the University of Geneva. An cj tremely important contribution to the divorce literature of the present tiffl prepared expressly for The Arena by a leading member of the faculty < the University of Geneva. H. 1. THE POINT-OF-VIEW. By Hon. J. Warner Mills. The opening paper of Mr. Mills’ notab] series of articles on COLORADO’S ECONOMIC STRUGGLE. Thi series of papers no friend of free government can afford to ignore. The are being prepared with great pains and after exhaustive research by one c the ablest legal authorities and authors of America, and one of the mos prominent members of the Denver bar. They will be fully as important a Mr. Blankenburg’s series of papers on Philadelphia politics. m. THE CHARM OF EMERSON. By Professor J. R. Mosley, Ph.D. One of the most fascinating am illuminating essays on the great Concord philosopher that has appeared ii years, and a paper that all friends of Emerson will wish to possess and t lend among their friends. IV. MUNICIPAL BLACK PLAGUE.— Part Two. By Rudolph Blankenburg. A continuation of the expose of th appalling condition of municipal corruption in the Quaker City. V. THE IDENTITY OF SOCIALISM AND CHRIST IANITY. By James T. Van Rensselaer. A strong and scholarly paper show ing the ethical agreement between the social ideals of Christianity and o modern Socialism. VI. HOMER DAVENPORT: A CARTOONIST DOMI NATED BY MORAL IDEALS. A character sketch, by B. O. Flower. Illustrated with a number ol Mr. Davenport’s best drawings. ALBERT BRANDT: PUBLISHER TRENTON, N. J.' & BOSTON, MASS. HUE A MAGI Digitized by Google