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ANNALS

AMERICAN ACADEMY

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE

ISSUED BI-MONTHLY

VOL. XVIII

JULY, iQOi— DECEMBER, 1901

Editor :

HENRY R. SEAGER

Associate Editors:
Emory R. Johnson. Samuel McCcnb Lindsay

h^'^

o'U

PHILADELPHIA:

American Acade;my of Politicai, and Social Science

1 901

CONTENTS

PRINCIPAL PAPERS

PAGB

BI.UE, Leonard A. Recent Tendencies in State Ad-
ministration 434

Coan, Titus Munson, The Natives of Hawaii : A

Study of Polynesian Charm 9

Cook, Waldo Lincoln. Present Political Tendencies 189

DuBois, W. E. Burghardt. The Relation of the Ne-
groes to the Whites in the South 121

Herbert, Hilary A. The Race Problem at the.

South ^^. 95

^ KlEENE, G. A. Bernstein z'^. " Old-School" Marxism 391

Miller, Oliver C. The Semi-Civilized Tribes of

the Philippine Islands 43

Pepper, Charles M. The Spanish Population of

Cuba and Porto Rico 163

Pierce, Charles C. The Races of the Philippines —

The Tagals 21

Platt, OrvillE H/ Our Relation to the People of

Cuba and Porto Rico 145

Ross, Edward A. The Causes of Race Superiority . 67
— RowE, L. S. The Supreme Court and the Insular

Cases 226

Sawin, William Grant. The Profits and Volume

of Capital 420

Simons, Sarah E. Social Decadence 251

Smith, J. Russell. Western South America and its

Relation to American Trade 446

Winston, George T. The Relation of the Whites

to the Negroes 105

(iii)

Annals of the: American Academy

COMMUNICATIONS

PAOB

Alden, George H. The Evolution of the American System of

Forming and Admitting New States into the Union .... 469

Bemis, Edward W. The Columbus Attempt to Secure Three-
cent Fares 479

G1.ASSON, Wii^WAM H. The State Military Pension System of

Tennessee 485

Kei^EY, Cari,. The Importation of Dependent Children ... 278

KiRKBRiDE, F. B. Banking Among the Poor: The Lighthouse

Savings Fund Experiment 286

Nbrincx, A. Compulsory Voting in Belgium 275

Wai^ker, JIv., Lewis. Abuses in the Grain Trade of the North-
west 488

PERSONAL NOTES

Allen, W. H., 302.
Boyd, W. K., 504.
Brown, W. G., 297.
Cook, W. W., 500.
Cruikshank, B., 290.
Cushing, H. A., 494.
Coray, G., 304.
Dabney, C. W., 503.
Dowd, J., 505.
Ellwood, C. A., 300.
Fetter, F. A., 295.
Folks, H., 499.
Ford, G. S., 505.
George, J. E., 302.
Goode, J. P. , 502.
Goodell, C. E., 298.
Goodknight, J. L., 298.
Hagerty, J. E., 303-
Halsey, J. J., 498.
Harding, A. S., 303.
Hawkins, D. E., 303.
Hull, C. H., 295.
Jameson, J. F., 492.
Jenks, J. W., 291.
Jones, E. D., 498.
Johnson, A. S., 492.
Johnson, J. F., 501.
Loeb, I., 300.

Macdonald, W., 491.
Maltbie, M. R., 494.
McLain, S. J., 491.
Meyer, B. H., 304.
Miller, K., 297.
Nichols, W. H., 493.
Norton, J. P., 305.
Pilcher, J. E., 296.
Prevey, C. E., 301,
Raper, C. L., 302.
Reinsch, P. S., 304.
Ripley, "W. Z., 299.
Ross, E. A., 301.
Sayles, Miss M. B., 492.
Schaper, W. A., 299.
von Scheel, Hans, 505.
Scott, G. W., 503.
Sherwood, S., 495.
Smith, T. C, 502.
Sprague, R. J., 498.
Thomas, S. E., 495-
Tuckey, E. N., 306.
Van dor Smissen, E., 506
Veditz, C. W. A., 290.
Whipple, E., 304.
Willcox, W. F., 294.
Willis, H. P., 504.
Young, A. A., 305.

Contents
book department

Conducted by James T. Young and Predbkick A. Cleveland

REVIEWS.

PAGB

Brannon, Hon. Henry. A Treatise on the Rights and Privileges
Guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitu-
tion of the United States. — L. S. Rowe 523

Chapin, Chari^eS V. Municipal Sanitation in the United
States. — William H. Allen 524

Demolins, E. Les Grandes Routes des Peuples. — C. W. A.

Veditz 525

Devine, E. T. The Practice of Charity. — Hugh F. Fox . . . 527

Eberstadt, Rudolph. Der Ursprung des Zunftwesens und die
alteren Handwerkerverbande des Mittelalters. — W. E. Lin-
gelbach 530

Guerrero, J. La Genesis del Crimen en Mexico. — W. F.Weyl 2,3^

HoFFDiNG, Harald. A History of Modem Philosophy.— /yaac
A. Loos 531

KEI,i,y, E. Government or Human Evolution, Individualism

and Collectivism. (Vol. II). — IF. G. L. Taylor 332

Ki.oTr, E. Die Proportion alwahl in der Schweiz;' Geschichte,

Darstellung und Kritik. — E. P. Oberholtzer 337

Lavisse, E. Histoire de France, depuis les origines jusqu'ala

Revolution. — D. C. Munro 340

Lea, H. C. The Moriscos of Spain : Their Conversion and Ex-
pulsion. — Ferdinand Schwill 532

Levasseur, E. The American Workman.— :/. E. George . . 533

McCrackan, W. D. The Rise of the Swiss Republic— Zf. P.

Oberholtzer 536

V. PosCHiNGER, Margaretha. Life of the Emperor Frederick.
Edited by Sidney Whitman. — C. M. Andrews . . . 342

Spears, J. R. The American Slave Trade. — IF. E. Biirghardt

Du Bois 344

TuNEivl,, George G. Railway Mail Service : A Comparative

Study of Railway Rates and Service. — Walter E. IVeyl . . 539

Washington, B. T. Up from Slavery. — W. S. Scarborough . . 539

Willis, H. p. a History of the Latin Monetary Union. — Wni.

A. Scott 541

Wood, Henry. The Political Economy of Humanism. — H.

Parker Willis 543

vi Annals of the American Academy

NOTES.

PAGE

Avirett, J. B. The Old Plantation: How We Lived in Great

House and Cabin 509

Bancel, a. D. L,e Cooperatisme 521

BiDDLE, A. J. D. The Land of the Wine 509

BtACKMAR, F. W, Charles Robinson, the First Free-State Gov-

erner of Kansas 312

Bryant, E. E. The Constitution of the United States .... 510

BiJCHER, C. Industrial Evolution 510

Bureau of American Ethnology, Seventeenth Annual Report.

Part II 312

Butler, J. W. The Story of Paper Making 510

Cary, M. B. The Connecticut Constitution 313

Coiner, B. S. Municipal Government 314

Davis, A. McF. Currency and Banking in Massachusetts Bay . 510
Desmars, J. Un Precurseur d' A. Smith en France: J. J. L.

Graslin 314

Desmond, H. J. Mooted Questions of History • • 315

Drahms, a. The Criminal: His Personnel and Environment . 315

DuMONT, A. La Morale Basee sur la Demographic 316

Evans, Robi<ey D. A Sailor's Log — Recollections of Forty

Years of Naval Life 317

Garner, J. W. Reconstruction in Mississippi 511

Goodhue, W. F. Municipal Improvements 317

DH Greef, G. Problemes de Philosophic Positive. L'Enseigne-

ment Integral — L'Inconuaissable 511

Griffis, W. E. Verbeck of Japan 511

HAI.SEY, F. W. Old New York Frontier 318

Hansen, J. Zauberwahn Inquisition und Hexenprozesz im Mit-

telalter und die Entstehung der grossen Hexenverfolgung . 512

Hauser, H. L'Or 513

VON Helfferich, K. Handelspolitik: Vortraege gehalten in
Hamburg im Winter 1900-01 im Auftrag der Haniburgischen

Oberschulbehoerde 514

HoERNE, M. Primitive Man • • , . . 514

Knopf, S. A. Tuberculosis as a Disease of the Masses and How

to Combat It 318

KuHNS, O. The German and Swiss Settlements of Colonial

Pennsylvania 319

Latimer, Mrs. E. W. The Last Years of the Nineteenth Cen-
tury 320

Lawrence, T. J. The Principles of International Law .... 515

Contents vii

PAGE

LEF^vee, a. Les Gaulois, Origines et Croyances 516

Lewis, A. H. Richard Croker 516

Lodge, R. The Close of the Middle Ages, 1273-1494 517

Lynch, Hannah. French Life in Town and Country 321

MAI.TBIE, M. R. Street Railways of Chicago 517

Mathews, S. French Revolution 517

McCarthy, J. and J. H. The Four Georges and William . . . 321

Mereness, N. D. Maryland as a Proprietary Province .... 518

MiCHAUD d'Humiac, L- Les Grandes L^gendes de I'Humanit^ 521

Montgomery, D. H. Leading Facts of English History . . . 322
MoRMAN, J. B. The Principles of Social Progress: A Study of

Civilization 518

The Natives of South Africa 519

Murray, J. O'K. The Catholic Pioneers of America 322

Neve, J. F. L'Administration d'une Grande Villa (Londres) . . 322

The Nineteenth Century, a Review of Progress 323

Paris : Deuxieme Congres general des Organisations socialistes

franjaises, tenu a Paris du 28 au 30 Septembre, 1900 . 324
Cinquieme Congres Socialiste International, tenu a Paris

du 23 au 27 Septembre, 1900 325

The Progress of the Century 325

DE PouvouRViLi^E, A. L' Empire du Milieu 516

Ravenei., Mrs. St. Juwen. Life and Times of William

Lowndes, of South Carolina, 1782-1S22 326

Restivo, F. E. II Socialismo di Stato dal punto di vista della

filosofia giuridica 326

RiCHET, C. Les Guerres et la Paix 521

Robinson, A. G. The Philippines, the War and the People . . 519

RousiERS, P. de. Le Vie Americaine, 1' Education et la vSoci^te 327
Sanger, C. P. The Place of Compensation in Temperance

Reform 520

Servant, S. La Pr^histoire de la France 521

Sieurin, E. Notre Globe 516

Smithwick, N. The Evolution of a State, or Recollections of

Old Texas Days 328

Sociale Verwaltung in Oesterreich am Ende des 19 Jahrhunderts 328

Taylor, H. O. The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages . . 329

VandervelOE, E. La Propri^t^ fonciere en Belgique 330

Waite, C. B. History of the Christian Religion to the Year Two

Hundred 330

Wahace, a. R. Studies, Scientific and Social 522

viii Annals of ths American Academy

NOTES

I. MUNICIPAI, GOVERNMENT

Conducted by I,. S. ROWE and WILI^IAM H. ALLEN

PAGE

Biddeford, Me 354

Brooklyn 356

Colorado 552

I^enver 357

Duluth 54g

Havana 363

Minnesota 550

Montreal

359

Nebraska . . 558

New Orleans 352

New York

35 T

Pennsylvania 547

Providence 548

Wisconsin 352

Wyoming 556

II. SOCIOLOGY

Conducted by J. E- HAGEI^TY

Alsea Indians of Oregon 561

Determining of Genius 560

Gaming Instinct 368

Mathematical Method and von Thiineu 368

North American Indian 560

Theory of Imitation in Sociology 366

III. PHILANTHROPY, CHARITIES AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS

Conducted by EDWARD T. DEVINE

Accident Insurance in Holland 370

Attachment of Wages in France 370

Boards of Children's Guardians in Indiana 372

easier Judiciaire in France 372

Canadian Conference 567

Change in Character of Insanity 567

Charities of Porto Rico 565

Chicago and Northwestern Pensions 371

Contents ix

PAGE

Child Labor in the South cgj

College Settlement Fellowship ,^,

Conference on Poor Relief and Charity in Germany ...... 567

Employment in New York C64

Exemption of Hospital for Injuries to Paying Patient 563

Glasgow Family Home eg,

Illinois State Board of Charities 566

Insurance of Paupers and Child Insurance 564

Lack of Bathing Facilities in Chicago 566

List of Charity Organization Societies 566

Municipal Sanitation in the United States 371

National Conference at Washington 373

The New York Summer School in Philanthropic Work . . . • • 375

Organized Charity in Hawaii 563

Psychopathic Hospitals 373

Recent Appointments in Charitable Societies 370

Report on Penal Codes of France, Germany and Japan 565

Special Schools for Crippled Children 372

State Activities in Relation to Labor . . 374

Tenement House Exhibit at the Pan-American Exposition . . . 379

Warfare Against Consumption 378

IV. COLONIES AND COLONIAL GOVERNMENT

Conducted by JAMES T. YOUNG

Philippines 386, 568

Porto Rico 383

V. INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE

Conducted by EDWARD SHERWOOD MEADE

American Invasion of Europe 577

Amount of Small Coal Saved in the Anthracite Region .... 390

Federal Industrial Commission's Report on Trusts 575

Militant Trades Unionism in the United States 388

Recent' Movements of Prices in the United States 574

JULY 1901

ANNALS

OF THE

American Academy

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE.

America's Race Problems.

Addresses at the Fifth Annual Meeting of the American

Academy of Political and Social Science,

April 12-13, 1901.

SPECIAL ANNUAL MEETING NUMBER.

Note. — In order to preserve the unity of the discussion
of "America's Race Problems" and to prevent
the undue lengthening of this number, the usual
Departments have been omitted. They will be
resumed with the September issue.

(2)

CONTENTS.

Part I.

The Races of the Pacific.

The Natives of Hawaii : A Study of Polynesian Charm
Titus Munson Coan, A. M., M. D., New York City . . .

The Races of the Philippines— The Tagals. Rev. Charles C
Pierce, D. D., Chaplain United States Army

The Semi-Civilized Tribes of the Philippine Islands. Rev,
Oliver C. Miller, D. D. , Chaplain United States Army

Part II.

The Causes of Race Superiority.

Edward A. Ross, Ph.D., University of Nebraska 67

Part III.

The Race Problem at the vSouth.

Introductory Remarks by Col. Hilary A. Herbert, ex-Secre- 95
tary of the Navy, Washington, D. C

The Relation of the Whites to the Negroes. President
George T. Winston, LL. D., North Carolina College of
Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, Raleigh, N. C 105

The Relation of the Negroes to the Whites in the South.
Professor W. E. Burghardt DuBois, Ph. D., Atlanta Uni-
versity 121

Part IV.

The Races of the West Indies.

Our Relation to the People of Cuba and Porto Rico. Hon.
Orville H. Piatt, United States Senator from Connecticut . 145

The Spanish Population of Cuba and Porto Rico. Charles
M. Pepper, Esq., Washington, D. C 163

Report of the Academy Committee on Meetings 181

(3)

I. The Races of the Pacific.

(5)

The Natives of Hawaii: A Study of
Polynesian Charm.

By Titus Munson Coan, A. M., M. D., New York.

(7)

JUL Y 1901

ANNALS

OF THE

AMERICAN ACADEMY

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE

THE NATIVES OF HAWAII : A STUDY OF
POI.YNESIAN CHARM.

By Titus Munson Coan, A. M., M. D.,

Of New York.

The eastern or brown Polynesian race, the Savaioris as
they have been called, to distinguish them from other
Oceanic races, have very definite characteristics, physical
and mental. They are most nearly related to the Cambojan
group, " their true aflSnities being with the Caucasians of
Indo-China" (Keane). They are in noway, however dis-
tantly, related to the negro. Their habitat is in the southern
and eastern Pacific Ocean, where they occupy Samoa, Tahiti,
Tonga, the Marquesas, Tuamotu, Tokelau, Ellice, Rotuma,
New Zealand, the eastern Fijis, Tarawa, Manega, Phoenix
and Lagoon Islands, Easter Island, and in the north Pacific
the Hawaiian group.

In all these islands and groups, however widely separated
geographically, we find a people that is essentially one in
blood, language, usages, traditions and religion. They rank
high among races. Keane says: "They are one of the
finest races of mankind, Caucasian in all essentials; distin-
guished by their symmetrical proportion, tall stature, aver-

(9)

lo Annai^ of the American Academy

aging five feet ten inches, and handsome features. Cook
gives the palm to the Marquesas islanders, ' who for fine
shape and regular features surpass all other natives.' "
Lord George Campbell remarks: "There are no people in
the world who strike one at first so much as these Friendly-
Islanders [Tongans]. Their clear, light copper-brown col-
ored skins, 3^ellow and curl}- hair, good-humored and hand-
some faces, — their tout ensemble formed a novel and splendid
picture of the geiiits homo; and as far as physique and appear-
ance go the}' gave one certainly an impression of being a
superior race to ours. ' ' The Savaioris are similarly described
by most of the leading observers. They are also among the
kindest, most gentle-mannered and generous people in the
world, and but for the oppressions of their priests and kings
would have been the happiest.

What are the causes of this exceptional development?
Under what conditions, material and psychical, has that
development taken place? Only the briefest answer can be
attempted here, and that only for one typical group, the
Hawaiian. Some of the main conditions of this develop-
ment were the following:

1. Geography, orography. — The largest island, Hawaii,
has an area of four thousand square miles; the group
stretches four hundred miles from northwest to southeast,
and all the principal islands had rival kings. Frequent
wars, naval excursions and invasions were the result. The
islands are all mountainous, offering secure fastnesses to the
contending factions, and the ancient Hawaiians developed
a good fighting physique.

2. Climate. — The Hawaiian climate is the most equable
tropical climate in the world. It is never, as in other
tropical islands, excessively hot. The usual range of tem-
perature is from 70° to 80° Fah. ; at the sea level it never
falls below 55° Fah., nor does it ever exceed 90°. Hurri-
canes and typhoons are absolutely unknown. This uniform-
ity and this immunity are due to an ocean current from the

The Natives of Hawaii ii

north, which tempers the winds and laves the island coasts
in an ever-flowing stream at a temperature of about 70°.

The innocent Hawaiian climate favored the habit of outdoor
life, which was almost universal, the native huts being used
only for sleeping places and for protection from the rain. It
also developed aquatic and seagoing habits. The nearness
of the islands to each other, the gentle winds, the sea,
never violently tempestuous, though often rough, these made
the natives the most powerful and daring swimmers in the
world, trained them in fishing and seagoing, and tempted
them away on long ocean voyages — as far as to the Society
Islands, 2,000 miles to the southward. In fishing, too, thej^
became great experts.

3. The soil was in large part fertile. This, with the favoring
climate, made but a few weeks' labor in the j^ear necessar^^
The natives did not exert themselves toilsomely in agricul-
ture. Their principal food was the root of the taro; this
being nearly all starch, it produced great obesity, especially
in the chiefs, who, having much to eat and not much to do,
grew excessively fat.

4. Negative Conditioyis. — The total absence of wild beasts
and noxious vermin, as well as of destructive tempests and
temperatures, was favorable to the psychical development and
the genial content of the islanders. Nature had no ter-
rors for them; even the great volcanic eruptions of Mauna
lyoa and Kilauea, exceeding in magnitude all others on
record, were ver}' seldom destructive of human life; nor did
the violent earthquakes do more than jostle the grass cot-
tages of the dwellers in this lotos land.

The Hawaiians thus enjoyed, in the main, very peaceable
conditions of existence. They were indeed harassed by the
tabu and by the wars of their chieftains; but the struggle
for life, as known in more densely populated countries, was
not known to them. They found time for some forms of
culture. They had no plastic art; metals were unknown,
and they never attained more than a limited skill in mechani-

12 Annals of the American Academy

cal arts: but in poetry there was an interesting development,
in the form of sonorous chants or meles couched in a peculiar
poetic diction; in these were embodied the exploits and the
lives of their heroes, as well as their traditions, mythol-
ogy-, and even their astronomical, botanical and animal
lore.

The}' had a ver}'- acute eye for nature. Their language is
full of terms for all visible things and doings; but it was
little capable of expressing general conceptions, such as time,
goodness, temperance, virtue; thus there were many syn-
onyms for rain and sunlight, calm and storm, but no word for
weather. This deficienc^^ caused much trouble to the mis-
sionaries in the task of translating the Scriptures into the
native tongue. The things most valued by the natives in
old times were the sticks of Oregon pine, which at long
intervals came drifting to the islands from the northwest
coast, and were eagerly seized to be fashioned, into war
canoes. It is said that when the translator came to the pas-
sage in the Epistles, reading: ' ' Add to 3^our faith knowledge,
and to your knowledge temperance, and to your temperance
virtue, ' ' he appealed to his native assistant for the Hawaiian
word for virtue, which he described as the most desirable of
all possessions. The native was puzzled; neither the con-
ception of virtue, as we understand it, nor anj' correspond-
ing word, existed in Hawaiian; but at last he said: " I
understand j'-ou now, ' ' and gave the missionary a word which
made the passage read: " Add to your faith knowledge, and
to knowledge temperance, and to temperance a stick of
Oregon pine."

Here then we have a community under most favoring
conditions for happiness, a good climate and soil, an abound-
ing sea, and freedom from the terrors of nature. Supported
by a few days' labor in the month, the natives had leisure to
cultivate poetry, dancing, games, and the social pleasures,
together with the virtues of kindness, courtes}^ and gener-
osity. "The social and family affections," says Fomander,

The Natives of Hawaii 13

"were as strong in the old Hawaiians as in any modern
people, Christian or pagan. ' ' They divided their possessions
with their friends, and took pleasure in doing it. I,azy and
greedy persons were not wholly unknown among them ;
but they had their punishment — they were stigmatized by
such terms as hoapili viea ai, a friend for the sake of a dinner.

Briefly, here were a happy people. Andwh}'^? Because
they were exempt from the regime of competition — there
was food for all; in time of peace at least there was no strug-
gle for life. But why, again, was this? why this exemption
from the usual fate of man ?

The usual answer is that which we may seem to have given
already — the fertile soil, the genial climate, the abounding
sea, the entire absence of noxious natural forces. But
this, like other usual answers, explains nothing; it is no
answer at all. In countries like Java, Ceylon, and large
parts of India and China we find natural conditions not
indeed absolutely so favorable as these, yet nearly so ; but
these are the very countries that have suffered terribly from
overcrowding and famine. In Hawaii the conditions are
those which elsewhere have produced over-population, and
its resulting degradation ; yet in Hawaii there was no
over-population; although they had their hard times they
had no destructive famines. During the nineteen years of
my residence there, there were sometimes shortages in the
taro dnd sweet potato crops ; the natives went into the
woods, and dug up a kind of fern that had a succulent,
starchy root, and with this and a little fish they eked out
an existence; but destructive famines are not in their record.

What then is the explanation of the Polynesian immunity
from the struggle for life, and from the misery and debase-
ment that accompany it? Why were not these islands
crowded, like countries under the old civilizations, with mil-
lions of people whose entire energies are spent in the effort
to earn, not a living, but half a living or less?

The data for the answer have long been before the student,

14 Annals of the American Academy

3'et the true answer as I think has not yet been given. The
ancient Hawaiian's exemption from the struggle for life,
and the effect of this exemption on his character, v.-ere not due
to climate, or to soil, or to any physical conditions ; none of
these things gave the Samoan, the Tahitian, the Tongan,
Hawaiian, his joyous temperament, his winning manners, his
generous heart.

Throughout Polynesia the strzcggle for life was evaded by
restricting the natural increase of population. By this restric-
tion the population was kept down to the means of comfort-
able subsistence ; there was food enough for all ; the com-
munity lived under no economic stress ; and in consequence it
attained, as we have seen, this remarkable development of
genial and generous traits and of material happiness.

Now this has a direct illustrative bearing, as it seems to
me, on the greatest of social problems — the lessening of
human suffering, the augmentation of human happiness.
No sane thinker would advocate a resort to the barbarous
and wasteful infanticide of the Polynesians; but in all over-
populated communities to-day, and throughout the world
in the not distant future, the great question must be this:
How to limit the mere quantit}^ and how to improve the
quality of the population.

To some this problem seems to lack actualit}', as long as
any corner of the world remains un crowded; and emigra-
tion is proposed as a cure. But, in the first place, emigra-
tion on a sweeping scale is an impossibilit}-. Imagine the
population of a great city being called upon to emigrate;
where are the means to come from ? What would become
of the people if deported in masses ? Few of them could
attach themselves to the soil. In a word, the relief of
emigration is not feasible except on a limited scale; for more
reasons than one, it is impossible in a majority of cases.
But suppose emigration were possible. How long would
the relief thus given endure ? Only for a few years. As
commonly after wars and famines, the population would

The Natives of Hawaii 15

spring up more rapidly than before, and the gap would soon
be filled. Neither in the old world nor the new has the
poverty of crowded cities ever been cured by emigration.

Now consider other schemes of alleviating miserj^ poverty,
crime; put any other theory of reform to the test, and you meet
the same difficulty. Some theorists regard a better education
as a cure-all; some would seek relief in improved legislation,
others in a better knowledge of the laws of health; others in
finding employment for the poor, in wisely directed chari-
ties; others say in morals, the Sermon on the Mount; others
in religion, culture, philosophy. All of these are good and
desirable, but none of them touch the essential point; none
would prevent the ov^ercrowding of the poorer population.
Suppose an}' of these reforms actually carried out. Would
au}' of them, would all of them together, materially check
the multiplication of the unfit ? The eternal law of Malthus
survives; its cruel action is little hindered by any of the
popular philanthropies. They have been ineffectual in the
past, they will be found inejffectual in the future. The
only effective relief of human suffering will be found in
checking the multiplication of the unfit — in the intelligent
limiting of mere numbers, and the consequent improve-
ment of quality. It is the most difficult of reforms, because
both State, Church, and popular opinion (especiallj- among
men), are against it, 3'et it is a problem that grows in im-
portance with each new generation. The restriction of
population in France, while it is disadvantageous as long as
a nation's virtue is measured by the size of its armies, is a
step in the right wa5^

The reform that is most needed in the world is one
of a distant future; it is to look for qualitj^, not mere
quantity of life, and to put humane and scientific checks
upon over-population. Only in this way will the cruel
struggle for existence ever be lessened; only thus will future
generations suppress poverty, disease and crime, the vicious
circle which is the despair of civilization.

i6 Annals of the American Academy

At the conclusion of Dr. Coan's address the following col-
loquy took place between him and persons in the audience:

Dr. Martin: Has that restriction of population to the
means of subsistence in the islands been continued ?

Dr. Coan: No. Since the islands have passed under
modern civilization, the condition which I mentioned no
longer exists. For other reasons the native population is
not increasing, but there is no longer that artificial restric-
tion. Indeed, the native government of no long time ago
encouraged the raising of large families.

Mr. McGibboney: I have a friend who spent a number
of years in Hawaii, who says they not only have no name
for sexual virtue, but none of the principles of virtue. Is
that true ?

Dr. Coan: Technically that would be true. That is to say,
the Polynesian idea of virtue is different from ours. Some
one has said that virtue in Polynesia was regarded as an
elegant accomplishment, but not as a necessity,

Mr. McGibboney: Did that circumstance cause the
decrease in population since the arrival of the whites ?

Dr. Coan: I would not say that was the cause; it was
due, as Darwin has pointed out, to infertility resulting from
changed conditions of living. But the point that Mr. Darwin
inquired about was regarding the prevalence of infanticide,
and whether male or female children were more frequently
sacrificed.

Mr. Croxton: I would like to ask if the present decrease,
or lack of increase of population, is not partly chargeable to
their having put on clothing ?

Dr. Coan: Undoubtedly; that was one of their changed
conditions of living. The mischief came about in two ways.
The docile natives were delighted with the idea of wear-
ing clothes, and nothing gave them more pleasure than the
bright-colored calico prints; these would not wash, so they
W'Ould throw them off when the rain came down, and run into
the church half-naked, or more than half, and nobody thought

The Natives of Hawaii 17

anything of it. But they wore their clothes quite irregu-
larly; their skins became tender, and, thej^ were constantly
catching cold. In my father's great church there was often
such a tempest of coughing and sneezing that you could
hardly hear his strong voice. Another vice of the clothes-
wearing habit was that the natives would not take off their
garments when they got wet, and illness resulted from
that cause. Epidemics of small-pox, measles, influenza,
decimated the people. Pax vobisciini, said the priest to the
native; pox vobiscuni, said the sailor and trader. Yet these
diseases were not the essentially destructive agencies ; they
are not now more prevalent there than elsewhere, and the
climate is exceptionally healthy. The passing away of the
Hawaiians and of the other Polynesians was inevitable from
the moment that the first European visitor stepped under the
coconut groves. The island character, with its faults, its
follies, and its charms, is disappearing under the total regime
of the white man . Not until the world shall learn how to
limit the quantity and how to improve the quality of races
will future ages see any renewal of such idyllic life and
charm as that of the ancient Polynesian.

The Races of the Philippines: The Tagals

By Rev. Charles C. Pierce, D. D. Chaplain U. S. Army

(19)

THE RACES OF THE PHII.IPPINES— THE
TAGALS.

By Rev. Charles C. Pierce, D. D.,

Chaplain U. S. Army.

The program for this session is unusually accurate in com-
parison with custom ar}' announcements, in that it refers to
" The Races of the Philippines " rather than to " The Fili-
pinos." The word " Filipino " is a misnomer unless it is
used in the sense prevalent in Manila. Strictl}^ speaking, a
Filipino is one born in the Philippine Islands, regardless of
parentage. The word is not definitive of race or nationality.
In accurate use it merely marks the place of birth.

In the same way it is inaccurate to refer to the ' ' Filipino
people,'" as has so often been done, with a display of vocal
pyrotechnics, in the campaign against the American occu-
pancy of the islands. When we speak of a " people," there
is involved in the term some idea of political cohesion or
national fusion. Such a condition may be developed during
future decades if the paternal government shall foster the
idea, but at the present time there is such a heterogeneous
array of tribes, about eighty in all, that a " Filipino people ' '
cannot be said to exist.

" The Races of the Philippines " is, then, a much more
fitting denomination of the inhabitants of our far-off posses-
sions, and in the debates upon the wisdom of annexation
with which our people will amuse themselves for months to
come, it were well to have this distinction between a people
and an aggregation of races kept constantly in mind. For,
given " a people," we are well on the road toward a discus-
sion of the question of self-government; but, as in the
present case, where the premise is unable to state the exist-
ence of " a people," the argument for popular sovereignty
cannot logically proceed.

(21)

22 Annals of the American Academy

There is a Tagal people, and it is of the Tagals that I am
asked to speak, as one of the races of the Philippines; a
people among whom I have lived for two and a half years.

I do not remember having heard of any discussion of the
desirability of granting independence to the Tagal people.
So far as I have noted the alleged argument, it has been
practically one in behalf of the propriety of giving the
Tagals the right to govern all the tribes in the archipelago.

In every discussion, the diversity of tribes and dialects
must be borne in mind, as well as intertribal prejudices, and
animosities.

So wide is the gap between the Tagals and the Macabebes,
for instance, as to make the hatred hereditary, and our
government, in using the latter as scouts, has but adopted a
rule of warfare which racial antipathies have made advan-
tageous and by which Spain had formerly profited.

One of our house-bo3'S at the headquarters house of the
Fourteenth Infantry, who belonged to another tribe,
accounted it a gross insult to be mistaken for a Tagal.
Between the Visayans and the Tagals no love is lost.

The Igorrotes, those mountaineer neighbors of the Tagals
in Luzon, were so little influenced by the glimmer of Aguin-
aldo's dictatorship that they steadily refused to make com-
mon cause with him. When found, with their bows and
arrows, facing American troops at the beginning of hostili-
ties, they declared that this alleged Washington (?) had
deceived them; having invited them down to a feast, only
that they might encounter American bullets and so commit
and entangle themselves as to be drawn into battle. The ruse
failed and the breach between Tagal and Igorrote widened.

The Tagal is not even the original possessor of the land.
He is a Mala}^ or of Malay descent; an alien. This con-
sideration is also important, as it deprives him of the right
to the sympathy sought in his behalf by those who have
never seen him, on the ground that our government of the
archipelago robs him of his political birtb right.

The Races of the Phii^ippines 23

The Tagal tribe is not aboriginal. The first known inhab-
itants were the Aetas or Negritos; a race of small stature,
but otherwise much resembling the African negro. And the
present tribes are the result of Malay incursions and prob-
ably amalgamation between the native and the immigrant.

If sympathy is to be shown on the ground of original claim
to territory, it should be given to the Negritos, who still may
be found, with their nomadic habits, or serving as menials
in Tagal families.

The fact that the Tagals were intruders, or the product of
such intrusion, may deprive them of the right to some
measure of sympathy heretofore accorded them in certain
quarters, and yet their appearance on Philippine soil was
doubtless one of the first steps leading to ultimate civiliza-
tion; the Spanish conquest was another; and now the
American occupation, with its breadth of ideas, its advance
in ethics, and its adaptation to the wants of an aspiring
population, is destined, we believe, to complete the evolution
of civilization, and to weld a people, to prepare them for
sufirage and to lead them on to the highest of civic attain-
ments — the ability to govern themselves.

The Tagals are not alone in the possession of the single
island of Luzon. There are the Pangasinanes, numbering
300,000; the Pampangoes, with quite or nearly equal num-
bers, the census of 1876 quoting their population as 294,000;
and others. The Tagal population, mainly in Luzon, though
found in some other islands also, numbers 1,500,000. The
Visayan population in 1877, exclusive of the less domesti-
cated tribes in the Visayan group, was 2,000,000. So that
the right of the Tagal to dominate the politics of the archi-
pelago must be further modified by the consideration that
his race, with all its degrees of mixture, constitutes only
one-sixth of the population.

The discussion of native traits is made difi&cult by the fact
that it is hard to find the original Tagal, unmixed in blood
or influenced by racial environment.

24 Annals of the Amkrican Academy

The advent of the foreigner has added a new factor to the
racial problem, and the Mestizos, or people of mixed blood,
are found in considerable numbers. It is a curious ethno-
logical study, this mixture of Malay and Mongol, and the
racial amalgamation which combines European and Asiatic
characteristics in the same personalit3^

The Mestizo-Espanol, or the mixture of Spanish and
native blood, numbering not less than 75,000, and probably
very man}^ more, presents the type of native aristocracj^ —
the people who measure their superiority by the lightness
of their complexion, and who habitually refer to the pure-
blooded natives in disdain or commiseration as ' ' Indios ' ' or
Indians.

Foreman, in a few words characterizes them: "We find
them on the one hand striving iu vain to disown their afiinity
to the inferior races, and on the other hand jealous of their
true-born European acquaintances. A morosity of disposi-
tion is the natural outcome. Their character generally is
evasive and vacillating. They are captious, fond of litiga-
tion, and constantly seeking subterfuges. They appear
always dissatisfied with their lot in life and inclined to foster
grievances against whoever may be in office over them."

The Mestizo-Chino, or the mixture of Chinese and native,
who represents a population of half a million in the archi-
pelago and fully one-sixth of the population of the cit}^ of
Manila, ma}' be referred to as the commercial type, although
many of the Spanish Mestizos have likewise achieved suc-
cess in business.

The Mestizo-Japones, or Japanese mixture, while repre-
sented in much smaller numbers than either of the other
classes, presents a famous type of quaint Oriental beauty.

But it seems to be the ethnologic law that miscegenation
involves an eclecticism in vices, and it is not strange to read
from the pen of a Spanish writer that these mixtures have
not yet accomplished much for the moral welfare of the
people. He says: "We have now a querulous, discou-

The Races of the Philippines 25

tented population of half castes, who, sooner or later, will
bring about a distracted state of society and occupy the
whole force of the government to stamp out the discord."

Aside from the Mestizo element, it is hard to find the
original characteristics of the Tagals. For instance, they
are referred to as being an innately religious people, but the
Roman Church has been among them for four hundred
years, and it is not easy to say how much of this religious
habit has been acquired. Certainly the form of its mani-
festation is markedly so. The law under which the Tagal
has lived has for centuries been either Spanish or that of
the Roman Church, and the most gradual change must, in
the lapse of these centuries, under this environment, have
produced mighty modifications of native character.

American opponents of annexation have in a few foolish
cases painted the Tagal as measuring up with Washington,
Jefferson, Franklin, Penn or Lincoln, those phenomenal
products of the highest civilization on earth. These men
have seen a vision in some "iridescent dream." Life in
the Philippines will dispel it.

On the other hand, some who have sufiered severely will
proclaim ever^-thing bad in native character; that they would
not believe a Filipino upon oath, nor trust him in a trifle.

No race is as bad as its worst member nor as good as its
best. The true type of Tagal, as we find him, is a com-
posite of the good and the bad traits of character, either
inherent or imitated.

Looking at the subject more in detail, let us consider the
Tagal:

I. Socially. — Entering a native dwelling, the stranger is
alwaj^s impressed with the hospitable spirit of its inmates.
He is made to feel that his presence is an honor. And so
universal is this trait of native character, that one always
meets it, whether in the more pretentious case of the wealthy
Mestizo or the little nipa shelter of the poor. All that the
family can afford is ever at the disposition of the guest.

26 Annals op the American Academy

Cigars or cigarettes are in ever}- house, and with a few
exceptions, are used by every native, regardless of sex or
age, and an abundant supply will at once be forthcoming.
Chips of the betel nut, wrapped in buyo leaf and smeared
with lime (the native substitute for tobacco chewing) , will
ordinarily be presented unless it is known to be distasteful
to the visitor. " Dulce," a generous name which covers
every variety of sweets, preserves or confections, will also
be provided beyond the capacity of the guest. Then some
form of drink, — cervesa or beer, certain of the wines of
Spain or Portugal, or anisada, that vile product of Philippine
fermentation, will be placed before him.

It will be a profitable reflection for those who are engaged
in a laudable effort to prevent the bestialization of native
races by foreign alcoholic importations, to consider that the
gratification of Bacchanalian proclivities is very rarely
dependent upon the question of importation. Most races
have discovered for themselves some method of producing
alcoholic stimulation. The Japanese make merry with their
saki ; the Russians, with their vodka ; the Mexicans, wnth
mescal and tiswin ; the Cheyennes, with a red berry which
they guard most jealously ; the Apaches, with their
too-dhlee-pah-ee ; the Igorrotes, with fermented cane-juice ;
the Pampangoes, with a fermentation of the nipa palm ; and
the Tagals, with this vicious fire-juice that bodes as great ill
to the American as foreign liquors do to the Tagals. But
regardless of the value of the offering, the spirit of
generous hospitality is there and it is universal.

The visitor is always impressed with the beautiful, glossy
black hair of the natives, which, in the case of the women,
is commonly very long, as well as with the regularity of
their pearly teeth, the latter, alas, ruined in symmetry and
soundness in the case of the inveterate betel-chewer, and
taking on, successively, a stain from red to black.

Great care is given to the hair, which is frequently washed
with a native weed well worthy of American importation,

The Races of the Philippines 27

and afterwards glossed copiously with cocoanut oil. The
latter imparts a rather disagreeably rancid odor to the hair,
but is undoubtedly of value, as the natives claim, in check-
ing the ravages of an insect which has a short English name,
but among the natives, is as formidable as the technical
name of Pediculus Capitis would suggest. The sight is so
commou as to lose all novelty, as natives everywhere recipro-
cate in attention to each other's hair, and without any sense
of shame, in the communistic effort to suppress the ravages
of this pest. The picture is so close a reproduction of the
action of the monkeys, which likewise abound, as to suggest
a Simian ancestry or tutorship for man. I have known
Tagal women to manifest profound surprise when told that
our American ladies are not all similarly beset, and to
laugh most heartily at an intimation that they w^ould be
likely to go into mortified seclusion if one poor pest should
trouble them.

The beautifully erect carriage of the women, which
attracts the attention of the traveler, is largely a contribution
to their physical welfare by the character of their labor ; the
custom of carrying water jugs and other burdens upon the
head, necessitating the stiffening of the spine and a throwing
back of the shoulders, as well as a proper elevation of the
head.

The Tagal woman goes to the opposite extreme from her
Chinese sisters, and gives to her naturally small feet full
play and development by wearing sandals that do not bind
at any point. And, unlike the women of the Occident, she
does not bind herself at the waist, nor is she physically
injured by the fickle goddess of the fashion-plate, which
requires her to change her shape every four or five years to
fit the dresses w'hich are built for her. Alwaj^s erect and
unfettered, nature builds her form, and her loose, flowing
costume, while there may be variety in texture and adorn-
ment, is of unvaried shape and will leave her at the end to
go back into the hands of her Maker undeformed.

28 Annals of the American Academy

I doubt if ever more quaintl}^ beautiful costumes or a more
attractive scene have been witnessed than at the Mestizo
reception given by the first American commission at their
home in Malate ; the scintillation of countless diamonds
adding to the tropical splendor.

These natives are great bathers, and while it would con-
duce to more universal cleanliness if soap were alwa5'S used,
they stand, as a race, as close to godliness as water alone can
place them. They seem almost to be amphibious. The washer-
women stand waist deep in water all day long. The fisher-
men walk about in the water, sometimes neck deep, as they
ply their trade. The fish must have taught the people to
swim, so naturall}- do they glide through the stream. Even
the boys and the girls are often expert divers, and consider it
an easy waj' to earn monej', to dive for coins that are thrown
in the water. I have seen the men descending a ladder from
their boats to the bottom of a stream, with buckets for
dredging, and emerging only when these were filled with
mud. It has been reported of them that they have dived
under ships to ascertain whether the keels have been dam-
aged, and that in case of trouble they have gone under the
water to repair defective sheets of copper, driving in two or
three nails each time before emerging for a breath of air.

The imitativeness of the people is both a tribute to their
quickwittedness and also an acknowledgment of the supe-
riority of the races whom the}^ cop3\ The lavish use of face-
powder, which, on occasion, turns perspiration into paste,
has often seemed to me a pitiful appeal from the women for
deliverance from racial inferiorit}-.

No sooner had American troops appeared, than the Tagal
soldiers, by watching them, had learned our drill tactics and
were applying them in the instruction of their recruits. The
children, everywhere in the streets, were doing the same
and many of them were soon able to faultlessly execute our
manual of arms.

This imitative ability, which is a very marked character-

The Races of the Philippines 29

istic of the people, is an evidence of a lack of originalit}'
and suggests a present inability for the duties of self-govern-
ment, and at the same time it is a most hopeful factor for
the United States in the effort to exemplify' the form of liberal
government and to tutor the people until they shall be able
to practice it.

The gambling propensity of the people is not indicative of
a desire to take life very seriously. They are exceedingly
fond of games of chance. lyOtteries and raffles are popular.
I have seen their so-called billiard halls crowded with men
da}' after day, w^hile the women toiled at home to make
good the monetary deficiency. Racing is everywhere preva-
lent, not only on the race-courses but also on the streets.
The ordinary native coachman cannot resist the temptation
to have a race on the streets, even though his conveyance be
a public one. But it is in cock-fighting that the native finds
his most engrossing amusement, and the ' ' galleras " or cock-
ing-mains are always scenes of intense excitement and spirited
betting. It is the commonest of sights to see the native
carrjang his favorite rooster with him when he goes to his
place of work or for a visit. My own cochero, having invested
in a game-cock of apparently good points, deemed me incom-
prehensibly fastidious because I objected to riding through
the streets of Manila to the palace of the governor-general
with the bird perched on the dash-board in front of him. He
afterward told me that his rooster had killed several combat-
ants and had won $300.

The old Spanish law permitted marriage between girls of
twelve years and boys of fifteen. I know of one case where
one of these young husbands became disgusted because his
wife persisted in taking her doll to bed with her, and he
broke the habit and the doll at the same time. The court-
ship as a rule takes place in the presence of a chaperon.
There is an unwritten law that a young man and woman
must not ride in the same vehicle unattended, but the natives
were quick to commend the liberal spirit prevailing among

2fO Annals of the American Academy

Americans in these matters, as soon as their astonishment
had passed away.

Civil marriage, though once decreed, was by some influ-
ence rendered inoperative, and the ceremony always took
place when, where, and as the priest willed. Each of the
parties gave to the other a ring, and coin was also used
symbolically in the ceremony to indicate the bride's endow-
ment b}^ her husband.

It is somewhat puzzling to the American who may have
legal dealings with the natives, that the married women
customarily sign their maiden names. Should the husband
die, the woman frequently adds to her own maiden name the

vv'ords, ' ' widow of . ' ' A man adds his mother's maiden

name to that of his father, after his own Christian name.
Thus the recently captured dictator vv'rote on the visiting card
which he gave me the name ' ' Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy. ' '

Family ties are very dear to these people and their home
life is of such sweet simplicity as to captivate the stranger.
At the sounding of the vesper bell and the lighting of the
tapers, the children all come to kiss the parents' hands and
say good evening. Even as you ride along the streets, if it
becomes dark enough to light the side lamps of j-our
vehicle, so soon as they are lighted, even though he has
been conversing with you a moment before, your coachman
will lift his hat to you and say " good evening, sir."

Just as I was leaving Manila it began to be noised abroad
that the Americans, wearied with the vacillation and treach-
ery of many of the surrendered insurrectos, and determined
to end the inordinately long rebellion, were about to adopt
the deportation policy and send the offenders to Guam. So
great was the native consternation at the mere rumor, that
it was very easy to foresee what has since become evident,
that this threatened rupture of famih^ ties would be most
effective in promoting peace.

2. hidustrially . — Industrially considered, the Tagal often
proves a vexing person. That the land is not all cultivated,

The Races of the Philippines 31

the existing industries fulh' developed and new ones started,
and that the natives are not rushing with American energy
to get at their tasks, are all facts, but there are ameliorating
considerations w^hich must lighten the severity of their con-
demnation for indolence and shiftlessness.

Their Malay ancestry w^ould not naturally be prophetic of
great phj'sical vigor, and the climatic consequences of long-
continued life in the tropics inevitably appear in a disposi-
tion to take things easy. There is always a tropical
tendency to make haste slowly, and to adopt the " manana
spirit ' ' of putting off till to-morrow everything which inter-
feres w'ith present comfort. It is ver}^ easy, and equally
wise, to fall into the siesta-habit and doze away in some
protected spot the hours from noon till 2 p. m. When we
first entered Manila and until the American energy forced a
change, the stores were all closed during these hours and it
seemed as if the world had gone to sleep.

There must also be added to a consideration of the depres-
sion and enervation of climate the fact that there was no
incentive to industry under the old regime. So heavy was
the tax upon improvements that the native did not care to
make them. The land was made to enrich adventurers who
were clothed with brief authority. The histor}- of the
tobacco monopoly from 1781 to 1882, more than a centurj^,
had we the time to relate it, would show a despicable
brutality on the part of Spain and at the same time suggest
a reason for the native failure hitherto to make much of the
natural resources of the country'.

The people have my sympathy in their lack of industrial
development, and I am sure that the next decade will wit-
ness a marvelous advance because thej^ are permitted to
profit from their own labor. The substitution of paternalism
for piracy on the part of the government will open the way
for the development of industrious habits.

And yet there has been industry already, commensurate
with the promised gain. Various fabrics are manufactured,

32 Annals of the American Academy

as well as hats of fine texture and quality. The culture of
tobacco and the manufacture of cigars and cigarettes has
already reached large proportions. The laborious culture of
rice, when it is considered that every little blade in the
paddy fields must be transplanted by hand, speaks volumes
for the native patience. The fisher-folk, with their immense
contributions to the popular diet, are worthy members of
their craft. There are mechanics, too, — wheelwrights, black-
smiths, turners, carvers, carpenters, painters, stonemasons,
machinists, engineers, shoemakers and others — bread win-
ners, and demanding recognition by the student of industrial
capacity and development among this people. And, as else-
where, woman has her function in the industrial salvation of
her race, and, whether we find her as a fisherwoman, or
vending the products of sea and land; taking her place in the
padd}^ fields or assisting in the culture of tobacco and its
preparation for sale and use; as seamstress, or bending from
early morning till late at night over the low frames in which
her exquisite embroidery and drawn work are done; she is
doing what she can and will do more when it becomes worth
while.

3. Poliiically. — Viewing the Tagal politically we fail to see
on what basis men can predicate his capacity for self-govern-
ment. The idea of independence was unknown in the earlier
insurrection, when Aguinaldo sold himself to Spain in the
treaty of Biaknabato. That insurrection was caused simply
by an overmastering desire to accomplish certain reforms,
such as the ejection of the friars and the secularization of
education, and yet there was no proposition to lower the
Spanish flag.

If the Tagal is capable of self-government, the knowledge
must be intuitive, for he has had no tutorage, having been
kept always in most subordinate places. He has had no
example. There has been before him no type of enduring
government. He has seen only a government that was fall-
ing by the weight of its own clumsiness, and losing its grip

The Races of the Philippines 33

on every colonial possession in the on-coming pals}^ of its
own corruption. As a result of it, the native has never
gotten beyond the idea of quid pro quo in government. He
expected always to pay the American officials for every act
of justice or consideration, as he had paid the Spaniards, and
in so far as the insurrectionary Tagal has had control in
lyuzon, the policy has been one of loot and taxation and
oppression worthy of the da^^s of Spain. He lives in the
typhoon area, and even aside from the hopelessness of his
governing the other tribes, his moral atmosphere is such as
to produce revolutions within his own territory, — as may be
inferred from Aguinaldo's changes, from general to dictator,
from dictator to president, assassinating Luna to cut short
his rivalry, and again becoming dictator before his capture.
It is never wise to build theories and try them on men, but
rather to measure the man and make theories that will fit
him.

4. Religiozisly . — Formerly the natives were pagans, but
nearly all are, at least nominally, members of the Roman
Church.

There is everywhere manifested a fatalistic spirit, and the
native, when told that his friend must die, will shrug his
shoulders and say " Dios quiere," "God wills," and that
ends the discussion.

Man}' superstitions cling to the people. The more igno-
rant native trusts implicitly in some form of " n'ting n'ting,"
or mysterious hieroglyphic which, if worn constantly on his
person, will ward off disease and death. The Roman custom
of wearing scapulars seems in some way connected in their
minds with this primitive belief, and the women particu-
larly, will often deck themselves with a half dozen scapulars,
with an evident reliance on numbers.

There must have been a popular belief that Aguinaldo
possessed some choice bit of "n'ting n'ting," for I have
been told bj- Tagals, with utmost solemnity, that he was
absolutely impervious to bullets; that they would be deflected

34 Annals of the American Academy

by his anatomy as readily as by a stone wall. His head-
quarters have always been so far to the rear as to render
tests impossible.

Great reliance is placed on images and relics. One of my
first ofiices was to secure for a native nun the hand of San
Vicente, which had been placed in the custody of the provost
marshal general for safe keeping. It has since been within
reach of the people, who attribute to it miraculous ministry
in behalf of the sick. Pilgrimages, too, frequently take
place, the Tagals visiting mainly, although there are others,
the Virgin of Antipolo, in search of certain physical and
spiritual relief.

It is not surprising that at least a nominal Christianity
is prevalent. Ramon Reyes L,ala, a native and a Roman
Catholic, writes that he has " often seen delinquent parish-
ioners flogged for non-attendance at mass." And the
supreme court edict in 1696 imposed a penalty of twenty
lashes and two months' labor upon the Chinese-Mestizos and
others who failed " to go to church and act according to the
established customs of the village." The female delinquent
endured a month's public penance.

Many of the Tagals share the belief of the Tinguianes
that the soul absents itself from the body during sleep, and
that sudden awakening must be avoided, through the fear
that the soul might fail to get back in time and so be com-
pelled to wander alone.

Like all partially civilized people, these are fond of display,
adornment, and ceremonial, and the Roman Church has been
thoughtful in this respect in providing a patron saint for
every puebla and in arranging frequent fiestas.

5. Morally. — Morally, the Tagal has puzzled manj^ stu-
dents by his peculiar freaks. Foreman quotes from the
testimony of a priest who had spent many years in Batangas
province. He says: " A native will serve a master satisfac-
torily for years and then suddenly abscond, or commit some
such hideous crime as conniving with a brigand band to
murder the familj' and pillage the house."

The Races of the Philippines 35

Duplicity, falsehood and theft abound. That the native
conscience has not been better educated along these lines, is
probably due to the fact that the Spanish colonial govern"
ment, as they saw it, was constantly exemplifying the same
vices.

The Oriental characteristic of extortion is nowhere better
illustrated than among the Tagals, who understand the
"pound of flesh" theory, that they are to be paid exactly
as nominated in the bond, and who are content with such
payment, but when the indulgent emploj-er offers even a
trifle beyond, will clamor loudly for a great deal more. For
any sort of service or commodity it is still the custom to
make a racial distinction in prices. A native coachman once
told me with smiling suavity that he should charge me one
dollar for my short ride; that he would have charged a
Spaniard fifty cents, and a native forty cents — ever}^ man
according to his means; that Americans had plenty of money
and could pay more. Under the Spanish law he was entitled
to exactly twenty cents.

The modesty of the women is marked, and yet there is no
false modesty. Their attitudes are always decorous. Guests
must never see them without the customary panuela or neck-
erchief. And yet they talk innocently of many subjects that
would shock the propriety of parlor gatherings in America.

The pride of the women in child-bearing is notable, and
a discussion of the matter among acquaintances is not at all
inappropriate.

Marital fidelity, at least on the part of the women, is the
rule. Prostitution is not unknown, and instead of the civ-
ilized system of divorce, they have a substitute, in the system
of marriage by contract, under which the parties remain
together, month by month, just so long as each is satisfied
and the bills are paid. People living in this state are not
looked upon with the same degree of disfavor as the ordinary
prostitutes.

Cruelty to animals is an unfortunate blot upon native

36 Annals of the American Academy

character. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals has fallen heir to a magnificent mission beyond the
Pacific.

6. Ediicatioyially . — Reference has frequently been made in
America to the slight percentage of illiteracy among the
Tagals, and while it is true that large numbers of the people
can read and write, it is also true that the whole educational
system under Spanish auspices was very much of a sham.
Very little of the ordinary common school curriculum in
America found its way into a Tagal school. With a total
outlay of $238,650 in 1888, for educational work in the whole
archipelago, and the payment of about fifteen dollars Mexi-
can, for a teacher's monthly stipend, it would seem that the
real work of education had scarcely been attempted. The
teaching of doctrine was the main result of the system,
although there are three or four schools of excellent grade
under the control of the church.

The deficiency in the line of popular education is not due
to any defect in the Tagal mind. Brilliant men were for-
merly in danger of death or deportation.

The desire of the Tagal children for a knowledge of Eng-
lish is one of the most encouraging signs, together with the
hope of the parents that they may be tutored to the very
limit of their ability; a hope whose fulfilment is being pro-
vided for by the very liberal appropriations of the Taft Com-
mission and the able planning of the superintendent, Dr. F.
W. Atkinson.

The Tagals want the American public school, and it is
destined to prove a mighty factor in their evolution and our
peace.

7. Artistically. — The native wood-carving in the Jesuit
Church in Manila and elsewhere, gives evidence of much
abilit3\

I have often looked at Luna's celebrated painting, " The
Blood Compact," which became the property of the Spanish
government, and could not wonder that his people regarded

The Races of the Philippines 37

him as a master. Another masterpiece from this Tagal
hand was purchased by the city of Barcelona, after having
been awarded the second prize at the exhibition in Madrid.

I have alwaj^s held that no one can be regarded as hope- ,
less who loves music. If this be true, there is everything
to hope from the Tagal people, for their love of music is
universal and their musical genius extraordinar3\ Herein
is large opportunity for their imitative powers, and they
make extensive use of it. A great many of them have
learned to play by note, but a multitude of others make
marvelous progress in simply playing what they hear.
American and European ballads are heard in the majority
of native homes. Occasionally one is found with some-
thing of the genius of a composer, and if only the training
could be added that would help the man to realize his con-
ception, the world would begin to know it. Bands and
orchestras everywhere abound. The bass drummer is the
leader, and the ability to play by ear enables the musician
to do as good work in the dark as in the light.

One of my pleasantest remembrances of ante-insurrection-
ary days is of a serenade from the Pasig Band of some seventy
pieces, as they stood around the house in the dark and
played for our pleasure one difficult selection after another,
and as faultlessly as the most fastidious could desire.

There is often a shortage in musical taste, as when an
orchestra plays ' ' The Star Spangled Banner ' ' at the elevation
of the host daring mass, or when the band at a funeral strikes
up ' ' There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town To-night. ' ' But
it is all-important to have so universal a musical instinct.
The matter of taste will receive attention and education from
American enthusiasts later on.

8. Pathologically. — The ravages of disease among the
Tagals often result from lack of care, lack of knowledge and
neglect of the simplest principles of sanitary science.

Small-pox has always been a scourge during the hot sea-
son, or at the close of winter, but there was formerly no

38 Annals of the American Academy

system of quarantine, and one might as easily meet a case
in the street car as anywhere else. The American occupa-
tion has resulted in greatly reducing the sick rate from this
cause.

I^epros}^ has been of more frequent occurrence than was
necessary. For, while certain leper hospitals were estab-
lished, there was no very earnest effort at segregation. The
Emperor of Japan sent a cargo of lepers to the islands at
one time. The American authorities have been arranging
for a leper settlement on one of the smaller islands and with
careful handling of the subject will doubtless check the
spread of the disorder.

Death in child-birth is ver>' common, and infantile dis-
eases, during the first month, prove fatal in about 25 per
cent of cases.

Intestinal disorders are particularly to be dreaded because
of their virulence and stubbornness.

Anaemia and its results among women is a fruitful source
of danger. In so many cases disordered menstruation fol-
lows and its neglect saps the very foundation of health.

Pulmonar}'- disorders are of more frequent occurrence than
is ordinarily supposed.

Cutaneous diseases are exceedingly common, whether pro-
duced by the prevalent fish diet, as is often claimed, or not.
I have heard it stated many times that syphilitic disorders are
very widespread. But I have seen so many of these alleged
syphilitic sores healed by a free use of soap and water, or by
some simple antiseptic preparation, as to convince me that
in a majority of cases, they are caused by scratching mosquito
bites or abrasions of the skin with an unclean finger-nail.

Dobee itch — the name being derived from the Hindu word
dhobi, signifying a w^asherman — is probably a common
cause of the scratching habit among the natives, and has
harassed many Americans of scrupulously cleanly ways. It
is truly a w^asherman's itch, and is transmitted to the for-
eigner by the hidden germs in his laundered clothing, clean

The Races of the Philippines 39

as it ma}^ appear when it returns from the wash. The
washer- folk, despite all advice to the contrar)^ will persist
in using cold and often dirty water for all laundry purposes,
and will not subject the linen to the boiling process. The
result to the wearer of the clothing is often a maddening
irritation of the skin, which will spare neither low born nor
those of high degree.

Verily, laundry in the Philippines is a lottery, and one
never knows whether the remnants of his underwear which
are brought to him after they have been clubbed and pound-
ed on the rocks by his native laundryman are bringing him
a heritage of cutaneous irritation and muscular activity or
not.

When American methods prevail, as one day they will,
in lyuzon, the itch of the dobees, like the oppression of 'the
Dons, will be but a dream of long ago.

Much remains to be done for the Tagal from a medical
point of view, but he has already been blessed with wonder-
ful sanitary improvement since Manila became an American
city.

Conclusion. — Without anj^ attempt at exhaustive treat-
ment, for a very great deal remains to be said, I have
endeavored to give some hints that may be helpful in form-
ing an estimate of Tagal life and character.

And now a final word as to this newest baby in our polit-
ical famih^ We didn't expect him, but we have him. We
don't like his complexion or his features, but he may out-
grow them. He hasn't been a good baby thus far, and
we've lost a lot of sleep on account of him. He's been a
costly mortal, but that is not unusual. And, after all, we
begin to like him just a little, and look forward to the time
when we may take paternal pride in his achievements.

The Semi-Civilized Tribes of the
Philippine Islands

By Rev. Oliver C. Miller, A. M., Chaplain U. S. Army

(41)

THE SEMI-CIVIIvIZED TRIBES OF THE PHILIP-
PINE ISLANDS.

By Rev. Oliver C. Miller, A. M.,

Chaplain U. S. Army.

Having spent over a year with the advance guard of our
army in the Philippines, I had an opportunity to see much
of the natives. From my deep interest in them, I always
esteem it a privilege to write anything that will tend to
make their condition better understood, and advance them
in that development for which I have found them eminently
fitted. It must be remembered that one cannot see the
best of a people after they have been actively engaged
for over four years in trying to throw off the oppressive Span-
ish yoke, and who were, at the time I v/as among them, for
the lack of a right understanding of the kindly intentions of
our government, in a state of rebellion against our own flag.

To see the people of any country one must go beyond the
seaport towns, far into the interior. This I had an oppor-
tunity of doing; often being with the first American troops
that had been seen in the land, from Northern Luzon to the
Sulu group.

I want to state at the very beginning of this article, that
I have become very fond of the races of the Philippines.
And, after traveling both in China and Japan I can truth-
fully say that I prefer them to any foreigners I have ever
visited. What makes them so interesting is that one is
relieved of that sameness which is so manifest in other
foreign countries. Each tribe, and, indeed, each section of
the same tribe, presents something new.

Our brave General Lawton, whose chaplain it was my
privilege to be, well understood and loved these people. No
man could fight them so hard, and none could excel him in
their protection and right treatment when once they were

(43)

44 Annals of the American Academy

subdued. He saw with prophetic eye the splendid suscepti-
bilities of the people of the Philippines. And their love
for him is still unceasing. The following incident tells of
their devotion to him: A few months ago, while the writer
was standing at his grave in our beautiful Arlington, a num-
ber of visitors gathered around, and while speaking of our
fallen hero there was no heart more moved with sorrow
than that of a Filipino student who happened to be there.

The races of the Philippines have their failings, but they
have been dreadfully misrepresented. No one who has
made a study of the human heart and acquired a God-like
sympath}^ and compassion for the frailties of mortals, or who
at all understands the Fatherhood of the race in God, or the
brotherhood in His Son, can fail to see the uplifting, Divine
mission of America in the Philippines. Our greatest danger
is with ourselves, lest we fail in those excellencies of char-
acter which qualify us to teach and lift up those who have not
had the same opportunities. Our greatest need in these days
of territorial expansion is charaderial expansion. The
maintenance of our own integrity and uprightness of char-
acter must qualify us to be teachers of others. The Spanish
government has made mistakes enough along these lines to
last for ages.

While speaking of the semi-civilized tribes, we must not
fail to mention the thousands of uncivilized people who look
up to us for their first lessons. These are scattered over all
the islands, and usuallj' dwell upon the mountain tops.
Chief among them are the Negritos, supposed to be the
aborigines. They are very dark, with curly hair — a puny,
stupid race of Negroid dwarfs, and capable of but little
development; most likely destined to disappear before the
advance of civilization. To this rule, however, the Igorrotes
are likely to prove an exception, as they are a splendid race
physically. In some localities they are already asking for
English schools. These uncivilized tribes vary in different
parts of the archipelago, and are usually of a low order; but

Skmi- Civilized Tribes of the Philippines 45

rarely ever hostile to strangers, though frequently at war
among their own tribes. They are found in great numbers,
and are compelled by the semi-civilized tribes to seek the
mountain tops for places of abode.

Since the Igorrotes form the link between the uncivilized
and the semi-civilized tribes it may be well for us to give a
brief description of them. They are scattered about the
mountain tops of the northern half of L,uzon. They are of
a copper color, wear their hair long, have high cheek-bones,
broad shoulders and brawny and powerful limbs. The men
have strong chests and well-developed muscles of great
strength and power of endurance. The women have well-
formed figures and rounded limbs. Both sexes wear their
hair cut in a fringe over their foreheads, reaching down to
the eyebrows and covering the ears, and left long enough
in the back to be gathered up into a knot. Their dress
varies from a mere apron to a handsome jacket of blue, crim-
son or white stripes. While the word Igorrote has come to
be synonymous with heathen highlander, it must not be
forgotten that this tribe in many places manifests some degree
of civilization. Tattooing is very common among them,
and in central Benguit, where they worship the sun, one
can hardly find a man or woman who has not a figure of
the sun tattooed in blue on the back of the hand. They
manufacture quite a number of crude-looking articles, such
as short, double-edged swords, javelins and axes.

They are great smokers, and drink a beer made of fer-
mented cane-juice, but have not adopted the Malayan custom
of chewing buyo. There is a settlement of Christian Igor-
rotes on the coast of Ilocos Sur. This, however, is the one
exception to their constant determination to resist anj^ effort
on the part of the Catholic Church to convert them to Chris-
tianity. They express no desire to go to the same heaven
as the Spaniard, since the officers and men composing the
expedition sent against them in 1881 so abominably abused
their women.

46 Annals of the American Academy

The richest man among them is usually made chief, and
the wealthier families vie with one another in a display of
wealth at their great feasts; the common people among
them not being invited, but only allowed to assemble at beat
of drum. Their houses are built upon posts above the
ground, or supported by four trunks of trees, and thatched
with canes or bamboo and roofed with elephant grass.
They are much inferior to the houses of the domesticated
natives, having no chimneys or windows; only a small door,
the ladder to which is drawn up at night for protection
against their enemies. Though superior in some respects to
the Tagals, they are much inferior to them in regard to
cleanliness. They neglect to wash their clothing or clean
their houses. Each village has a town -hall, where the
council assembles to attend to the litigation for the commu-
nity, such as administering punishment to the guilty and
hearing requests for divorces. At this place also the public
festivals take place, and are very unique and interesting.
Their language consists of several dialects, and some of their
head men coming in contact with the Ilocanos have learned
to speak and write their language for the purpose of trading.
Some twenty years ago they conducted seven schools in
Lepanto, which were attended by six hundred children, of
whom one-sixth could read and write. Writers w^ho know
them best give them credit for great industr}^ and skill in
everything they undertake. They possess many manufac-
tured articles, embracing uniforms, weapons of war, sword
belts, medicine pouches, accoutrements for their horses,
beautiful woven garments for the chief women, ornamented
waterpots, great varieties of hats, and waterproof capes
made of the leaves of the anajas. Thej^ aboimd in orna-
ments, such as necklaces made of reeds, the vertebrae of
snakes, colored seeds, coronets of rattan and of sweet-
scented wood. The " chachang " is a plate of gold, used
by their chiefs to cover their teeth at feasts or when they
present themselves to distinguished visitors. They excel

Semi- Civilized Tribes of the Philippines 47

in the manufacture of household articles and musical instru-
ments.

The Tinguianes dwell in the district of Elabra, Luzon ;
and were under the Spanish control. In their advance
toward civilization they surpass the Igorrotes, and are
entitled to be classed among the semi-civilized tribes. They
prefer to make their own laws and usually abide by them.
The head man of the village is the judge, and upon assum-
ing his ofl&ce he takes the following oath: ' ' Ma}^ the destruc-
tive whirlwind kill me, may the lightning strike me, and
may the alligator devour me when I am asleep if I fail to do
my duty." As a race they are very intelligent and well
formed, many of them being reall}^ handsome. They are
supposed to have descended from the Japanese, shipwrecked
upon the Philippine coasts; like the Japanese, they wear a
tuft of hair on the crown of their heads, tattoo their bodies,
and blacken their teeth. They are very fond of music,
and are pagans without temples, it being their custom to hide
their gods in the mountain caves. They believe in the
efficacy of prayer to supply material needs, — are mono-
gamists, and their children are generallj^ forced to marry
before the age of puberty. The bridegroom or his father
must purchase the bride. They live in cabins on posts or
in trees, sometimes sixt>^ feet from the ground. When
attacked thej^ throw down stones upon their enemies, and
by this method of protection they can dwell quite securely.
Like all head hunters, they adorn their dwellings with the
skulls of their victims, carry a lance as a common weapon,
and are without bows and arrows. They appear to be as
intelligent as the ordinary subdued natives; and are by no
means savages, nor entirely strangers to domestic life. Thus
far their conversion to Christianity has proven impossible.

In the Morong District of Luzon there is a race of people
who are supposed to be descendants of the Hindoos who
deserted from the British army during their occupation of
Manila, and migrated up the Pasig River. Their notable

48 Annals of the American Academy

features are black skin, aquiline nose, bright expression
and regular features. They are Christians, law-abiding, and
more industrious than the Philippine natives. They were the
only class who paid their taxes, and yet, on the ground that
generations ago they were intruders on the soil, they were
more heavily laden with imposts than their neighbors. In
addition to these a few Albinos are to be seen on the islands.

The Pampangos are a most interesting tribe, dwelling
mainly in the provinces of Pampanga and Tarlac. In 1876
they numbered 294,000. Their language differs from that
of the Tagal, and many of the better class speak both lan-
guages. This tribe is much like the Tagal in character,
and the difference comes largely from environment and
occupation. The Pampango excels in agriculture, is a good
organizer of labor, rides w^ell, is a good hunter, and makes
a bold and determined sailor. The Spanish used them to
great advantage as soldiers in fighting against the Moros,
British and Dutch. They have many fine houses, and are a
good class of natives. The traveler will never fail to find
them hospitable. Their principal industry is the cultivation
of sugar, and from it they make considerable money,
notwithstanding the great disadvantages experienced on
account of the unfavorable conditions imposed upon them by
the government of Spain. When peace is once restored,
hardly any people in the archipelago will be found to excel
them in thrift, with the favoring opportunities given under
American occupation. The}^ are classed among domesticated
natives, are converts of the established church, and manifest
a considerable degree of civilization. These people and the
surrounding half-savage tribes are, perhaps, the largest
dealers in the most important product, nipa palm, used so
extensively in house-building as a thatching, both for sides
and roof. The juice of the plant is also fermented and dis-
tilled, and produces abundant alcohol in the strongest form.

The Pampangos may well be accounted the best horsemen
among the natives. Some of them hunt the deer on ponies,

Semi-CiviIvIzed Tribes of the Philippines 49

and chase at full speed up or down the mountains, no matter
how rough, and often get near enough to throw or even use
the lance in hand. Their saddles are of a miniature Mexi-
can pattern, and their ponies, about twelve or thirteen hands
high, are strong and enduring, as was shown by their carry-
ing the heavily accoutred American cavalrymen, over what
might be termed impassable roads, with almost as much
ease as the large American horses.

The women of this tribe deserve a w^ord of special mention.
So great is their faculty for business that the men rarely
venture upon a bargain without their help. They are fine
seamstresses, very good at embroidery, and excel in weaving
silk handkerchiefs with beautiful borders of blue, red and
purple. The}^ produce the celebrated Manila hat in its best
form and texture, together with many other useful and
beautiful articles of this kind. Their houses are kept clean,
and are quite spacious ; the floors being made of close-
grained hard wood, which makes them very desirable for
dancing after having been polished.

The Pangasinanes, dwelling in the province of Zambales,
lyUzon, number about 300,000. They are not as hard
working as the Ilocanos, and were subjugated by Spain and
brought into the established church. They are a hardier
race than the Tagals. Their chief occupation is the cultiva-
tion of rice, which is the lowest class of agriculture and
practiced by the poorest people. A little sugar is produced
by them, but it is of poor quality. At one time they
exported indigo and sapan wood. Their chief industry is
the manufacture of hats, hundreds of thousands of which
have been sent from Calasias to this country; they are made
from " nito," or grass. The mountain streams are washed
for gold by the women; but only a meagre supply is found.
A writer who has studied them rather closely says: "Their
civilization is only skin deep, and one of their decided
characteristics is a propensity to abandon their villages and
take to the mountains, out of reach of authority. "

50 Annals of the American Academy

During all the time I was with the advance guard of our ar-
mies in Luzon, under Generals McArthur, Young and Law-
ton, I found no people I liked as well as the Ilocanos. The
following incident will show how teachable and trustworthy
they are : While with the Fourth Cavalry guarding the
town of Carringlan, a mountain pass separated by many
miles from any other command of our army, two hundred
bolo men came in to recapture the town; but they were soon
taken by our men, disarmed and quartered in the village
church. By means of interpreters I began to talk with them,
told them of our kind intentions, and encouraged them to
hold religious services according to their form. This they
did regularly and devoutl5^ Before two daj^s had passed
the}' were our allies. And when fifty per cent of our men
were taken ill with the dengue fever they proved very val-
uable and willing helpers.

The Ilocanos are a hard-working race dwelling in north-
western Luzon, extending over the province of Ilocos Norte,
Ilocos Sur and La Union, and branching into the surround-
ing country. They are classed among the domesticated
natives, and have for three centuries been under the control
of the Catholic Church, to which they are verj^ devoted.
They are less inclined to insurrection, and it can safely be
said that they have given the authorities of our country the
least trouble. They are verv* tractable, and will doubtless
excel most of the tribes of the archipelago when brought
under the just administration to be given by the American
people. The Ilocanos also make nets for fish and for deer
and pigs; baskets of all sorts, and salacots or hats.

They grow two kinds of cotton for textiles — the white
and the coyote. Another kind, a tree cotton, from the
boboy, is only used for stuffing pillows. They extract oil
from the seeds of all three kinds. Like the other natives,
they live principally on rice and fish, which they capture in
large quantities. They have fine cattle, which they sell to
the Igorrotes. It will be noted that the Tinguianes, on the

SEMi-CnaLizED Tribes of the Philippines 51

other hand, sell cattle to the Ilocanos. The ponies of Ilocos
are highly valued in Manila, where there is a great demand
for them. They are smaller than the ponies of other prov-
inces, but are very hardy and spirited and travel at a great
pace. Tulisanes formerly infested these provinces and found
a read}'' refuge in the mountains when pursued by the cua-
drilleros, or village constables, who were only armed with
bolos, lances and a few old muskets. But the creation of
the civil guard, formed of picked officers and men, who were
armed with Remingtons and revolvers, and whose orders
were, " Do not hesitate to shoot," made this business very
dangerous, and the three provinces now suffer little from
brigandage.

Even in this hasty review the Cagayanes are worth}' of
mention. They inhabit the Babuyanes and Batana Islands,
and the northern coast of I^uzon from Point Lacaytacay to
Punta Escarpada and all the country between the Rio Grande
and the summits of the Sierra Madre as far south as Balasig.
They are spoken of as the finest race in the islands, and as
having furnished the strongest resistance to the Spaniards.
They were, however, early conquered and converted to
Christianity.

Of all the tribes the Macabebes are best known to the
Americans, on account of their eagerness at the first oppor-
tunity to fight under the Stars and Stripes. Their territory
lies directly north of Manila Bay in the Province of Pam-
panga. An old feud existing between them and the Tagals
has to this day kept the tribes in bitter enmit5^ This has
doubtless in a great measure influenced them in taking up
arms with the Americans against the Tagals. They did
excellent service as scouts in the advance made bj' General
Ivawton, under the leadership of Major Batson, proving
themselves fearless and efficient. Many of them having
been in the Spanish army were already drilled. They have
proved themselves loyal and trustworthy, and now constitute
a most efficient command known as the Philippine Cavalry.

52 Annals of the American Academy

They are somewhat difi&cult to control when once they have
their enemy within their power, having a propensity to loot
and to inflict cruelties not justifiable according to the rules
of war. They are very enduring and, going barefoot, can
excel the American in mountain climbing and fording rivers.
Physically they are a well-formed race and present a fine
appearance as soldiers. They are so dreaded b}- the insur-
gent soldiers that the notification of their approach is apt to
result in a panic on the part of their enemies. They are an
agricultural people and have no marked distinguishing
characteristics, being in many ways like neighboring
tribes. The tribe could not furnish more than 2,500 able-
bodied soldiers. The women are very loyal to our govern-
ment and esteem it a privilege to give their sons and hus-
bands to our army. The Macabebe priests also have shown
loyalt}^ to the Americans. We should not forgot what it
means for this people to take a stand for us, surrounded as
they are with those at enmity with us.

We speak of the domesticated natives in contradistinction
to the wild tribes of the mountains and the people springing
from intermarriage with them. The origin of the former is
uncertain. The generallj^ accepted theory is that the}' first
migrated from Madagascar to the Malay Peninsula. Some
trace their origin as far as Patagonia; others say they de-
scended from the aborigines of Chile and Peru. This idea is
rendered plausible by the fact that people have been carried
westward by east winds and currents, while there is no record
of their having been carried in a contrar}- direction toward
the archipelago. The most universally accepted theory is
that they came from Milesia to these islands, and in course
of time supplanted the aborigines in control of the coasts and
lowlands. These people number about five millions. They
proved a most tractable race in the hands of their
oppressors.

A proper estimate of these people cannot be formed by
seeing them in the seaport towns, where they have been

Semi-Civilized Tribes of the Philippines 53

changed by coming in contact with other nations. Thej^ can
only be successfully studied by abiding with them in the
interior. For instance, much of the native population of
Manila has descended from prisoners released b}^ the Span-
iards on the promise that thej^ would serve them without
remuneration. The natives of the interior are a most inter-
esting study for the ethnologist, ever varying in moods and
localities. In judging of their character it is only just to
remember that with any people violent oppression brings out
lawless resistance. We cannot tell how far this trait has
been developed by the Spaniard, or b}^ the direct raj-s of
the tropical sun, which frequentl}^ causes the native to excuse
himself for infidelity or cruelty by saying, " My head was
hot." Many who have dealt with the natives in the interior
have found that confidence begets confidence, and that to
confide in them and show them by kind and just dealings
that they can trust you, is to develop trustworthiness in
them. Surely the teaching of the Spanish was especially
calculated to develop traits of suspicion and treachery, and
even to make such impression pre-natal.

"Whether it be a peculiarity of the race, or the result of
education, it is quite true of the Filipino that if you " give
him an inch he w411 take an ell," but when treated with jus-
tice, tempered with kindness, he becomes an apt pupil in
learning the better way. In every transaction with the Fil-
ipino one must constantly keep in mind the disadvantageous
surroundings under which he has become as good as he is.
He surely started with a considerable amount of integrity to
have any left at all, after more than three centuries of cinch
and grind from a nation whose object seems to have been to get
all out of their colony and give back little or nothing. The
native is not apt to return anything he has borrowed unless
demanded. He regards a debt more as an inconvenience
than as an obligation, and will often, when loaded down
with debts, make a great show of riches to impress his neigh-
bors. They are fairly honest, and as a general thing steal

54 Annate of the American Academy

only when pressed by need. Their courtesy approaches that
of the Japanese. Often when paying a visit to a friend they
spend as much as three minutes in complimentary dialogue
before entering. It is considered a gross violation of the
rules of etiquette to step over a person while asleep on the
floor. They are much opposed to awaking any one from
sleep, actuated by the idea that during sleep the soul is
absent from the body, and if one be suddenly awakened it
might not have time to return. For this reason a native,
when told to awaken you at a certain hour, is loath to do it,
and goes about it with much caution. Often when calling
upon a person the ser\^ant tells j^ou he is asleep, that is con-
sidered sufficient reason either for 3'ou to wait or call later
on. The foreigner soon finds that it is best for him, on
account of climate, to fall into the habit of the native in
enjoying a siesta from twelve to two o'clock daily.

The clashing between Europeans and the natives is often
caused by the difference in mental cast and impulse, and if
one constantly makes allowance for this he will soon find
that he can get along very well with them. One finds in
the native a lack of sympathy. The Tagalog, however, is
more sympathetic than the Visayan, who usually exhibits a
frigid indifference to the misfortunes and sorrows of others,
bearing his own with great composure. Mr. Foreman states
that wherever he has been he has found the mothers teach-
ing their children to regard the Europeans as demoniacal
beings, or at least as dreaded enemies. If a child cries it is
hushed by the exclamation " Castilia " (European). This
dread for the approach of the European was intensified
in the case of Americans by the accounts given the natives by
the Spanish. The native in the interior, when approached
by the American soldier, fell upon his knees and begged for
mercy, expecting to be at once put to death, and could hardly
be induced to arise. When ill, they could not be persuaded
to take medicine from the hands of the American soldier
until convinced that the surgeon did not mean to poison

Semi- Civilized Tribes of the Philippines 55

them, by his taking in their presence the same kind of med-
icine he offered them. When our soldiers would approach a
native mother with her children she would gather them
around her, and the whole group fall down trembling and
close their eyes that they might meet their death without
seeing the supposed murderers. It will take time to clear
away these misunderstandings, but when once they give
way to the truth, and the native sees for himself and believes
in the kindness and justice that exist for him in the American
heart, it will be a great step toward a peaceful relationship
between the two nations.

Like most Orientals, the Filipino is more imitative than
original, and readily changes from one occupation to another.
His cruelty to animals is manifest in all his dealings with
them, and he is generally unfeeling to a fallen foe. The
mutilation of a vanquished enemy is a common occurrence.
He is credulous and easily imposed upon, transmits a report
with amazing rapidity, and often fails to keep a secret; not in-
clined to joke, he is quite festiv^e in his nature. If angered he
does not show it, but calmly awaits his time for revenge.
If convinced by his own conscience of his wrongdoing he
will receive punishment without the least resentment, but if
not convinced of his guilt he cherishes his wrath and awaits
opportunity for resentment. They, as a general thing, do
not regard lying as a sin, but rather as a legitimate and cun-
ning device which should be resorted to whenever it will
serve the purpose. This same trait is found among the
Spanish in the Philippines. Whether the native receives it
by instruction or inheritance is a question. The priests say
that the natives carry their disregard for the truth even into
the confessional. Both sexes are very fond of litigation.

Of the more advanced races, the Tagalog has made
greater progress in civilization than the Visayan of the
south. This is due most likely to the fact that they have
been brought more into contact with the European. They
also exceed the Visayans in disinterested hospitality, and

56 Annals of the American Academy

are more cheerful and pliant where they have not been
brought under the influence of the bitter spirit of rebellion-
The tribes of Northern lyUzon are perhaps the most tract-
able. The natives of the southern islands are more resent-
ful, conceited, unpolished, and manifest a sullen defiance,
which is not found so much in their northern neighbors.
They, however, are more self-reliant and manifest quite as
much or more strength of character than the Tagalogs, and
are not so emotional and easily influenced. When once you
win their confidence they are likely to be more stable in their
friendship. The Visayans exceed the Tagalogs in avarici-
ousness and fondness for display, especiallj^ in the line of
jewelry. The women, as a rule, are very reserved, especially
in the south, but throughout the archipelago they maintain
a high standard of morals. Infidelity on the part of the wife
is rarely found.

The Visayans are the people inhabiting the six islands
lying betv.-een Luzon and Mindanao, known as the Panay,
Negros, Cubu, Bohol, L,eyte and Samar, and quite a number
of smaller islands. They diSer in many respects from their
northern and southern neighbors, and have made less pro-
gress in civilization than the Tagals. The cold hospitality
of the Visayan, often tempered with avarice, forms a sharp
contrast with his more open-hearted Tagal brother. The
Visayan women care far less to become acquainted with a
stranger, especially if he be a European. When such a one
calls at their home they will saunter off" and hide; however,
if the caller be well known, they are quite genial. If met
by chance they are not likely to return a salutation, and they
seldom indulge in a smile before strangers, or have conver-
sation with them. They have had no advantages in instruc-
tion beyond that of music and the lives of the saints. They
impress the traveler with an insipidity of character which
does not at all correspond with the air of superiority and
disdain they exhibit.

It must, however, be observ^ed that these characteristics

Semi-Civilizkd Tribes of the Philippines 57

apply to the Visayans in the interior more than to those in
the coast towns, where they have been brought in contact
with foreigners and are decidedly more genial. But it must
be acknowledged that the Visayan is more tenacious of the
customs of his forefathers and slower in taking up with new
ideas and customs than the Tagalog. This is not altogether
a racial peculiarity but a result of not being geographically
situated so as to be brought in contact w'ith the outside
world, as are their northern neighbors. This conservative
trait of Visayan character finds an illustration in the follow-
ing narrative: A wealthy European merchant had married a
beautiful Visayan wife and taken her to a home elegantly
furnished according to European standards. But the
Visayan beauty' found such surroundings uncongenial, and
it was with difficulty that she could be induced to put in an
appearance when European visitors were to be entertained.
She would often decline to sit with them at the table, prefer-
ring to sit on the kitchen floor and eat, after the custom of
her people. The Tagal women are very apt imitators of
European customs, and often make ludicrous efforts in this
direction. The same contrast is presented by the men of
the two races.

The importance of the Visayan people is destined to
increase, not only on account of the great resources and fer-
tility of the islands they inhabit, but on account of their emi-
gration to Mindanao, where any amount of rich land awaits
the coming of the husbandman. These people are sure to
be a great factor in the development of resources and the
improvement of opportunities to be found nowhere else in the
world. Owing to the unprogressive spirit of the Spanish no
census of these people has been taken since 1877, at which
time they were found to number over two millions, the
population of Panay being the largest. The Visayan
Islands contain fewer heathen than any other part of the
Philippines. The above estimate of the population of the
Visayan Islands does not include the Negritos, Munaos

58 Annals of the American Academy

and Carolanos, wild tribes whose numbers are increased
by a number of fugitives from justice and others who are
inclined to a savage life and given to the love of plunder.
The Province of Iloilo is said to contain half a million people
of the domesticated native type. The mountains of the
Visayan Islands, not being as numerous or high, do not
furnish the same refuge for the wild tribes as those of
Northern Luzon, therefore these tribes are fewer in number.

The most numerous and, after the Tagals, the most
important race in the Philippines is that branch of the
Visayan, formerly called Pintados or painted men, from the
blue painting or tattooing which was prevalent at the time
of the conquest. They form the mass of the inhabitants of
the islands called Visayas, and of some others.

Another branch of the Visayans, distinguished by a darker
color and by a curliness of the hair, suggesting some Negrito
mixture, occupies the Calamianes and Cuyos Islands and
the northern coasts of Paragua or Palawan as far as Bahia
Honda.

In appearance the Visayans differ somewhat from the
Tagals, having a greater resemblance to the Malays of
Borneo and Malacca. The men wear their hair longer than
the Tagals, and the women wear a patadion instead of a
saya and tapis. The patadion is a piece of cloth a yard
wide and over two yards long, the ends of which are sewed
together. The wearer steps into it and wraps it around the
figure from the waist downward, doubling it over in front
into a wide fold and tucking it in securely at the waist.
The saya is a skirt tied at the waist with a tape, and the
tapis is a breadth of dark cloth, silk or satin, doubled round
the waist over the saya.

In disposition they are less sociable than the Tagals, and
less clean in their person and clothing. They have a
language of their own, and there are several dialects of it.
The basis of their food is rice, with which they often mix
maize. They flavor their food with red pepper to a greater

Semi-Civilized Tribes of the Philippines 59

extent than the Tagals. They are expert fishermen, and
consume large quantities of fish. In smoking and chewing
betel they resemble the other races of the islands. They
are great gamblers, and take delight in cock-fighting.
They are fond of hunting, and kill numbers of wild pig
and deer. The^^ cut the flesh of the latter into strips and
drj' it in the sun, after which it will keep a long time. It is
useful to take as provision on a journey, but it requires
good teeth to get through it.

The Visayans build a number of canoes, paros, barotos,
and vintas. They are very confident on the water, putting
to sea in their ill-found and badly-equipped craft with great
assurance, and do not come to grief as often as might be
expected. Their houses are constructed similarly to those
of the other inhabitants of the littoral.

Early writers accuse the Visayan women of great sensu-
alit)' and unbounded immorality, and give details of some
very curious customs w-hich are unsuitable for general pub-
lication. However, the customs to which I refer have long
become obsolete among the Visayans, although still existing
among some of the wilder tribes in Borneo. The Visaj-an
women are very prolific, many having borne a dozen children,
but infant mortality is high, and they rear but a small portion
of them. The men are less sober than the Tagals; they
manufacture and consume large quantities of strong drink.
They are not fond of the Tagals, and a Visayan regiment
would not hesitate to fire upon them if ordered. In fact,
the two tribes look upon each other as foreigners. When
discovered by the Spaniards they were to a great extent
civilized and organized in a feudal system. Tomas de Comyn
formed a very favorable opinion of them. He writes: " Both
men and women are well mannered and of a good disposition,
of better condition and nobler behavior than those of the
island of Luzon and others adjacent."

They had learned much from Arab and Bornean adven-
turers, especially from the former, whose superior physique.

6o Annals of the American Academy

learning and sanctit}^, as coming from the countrj^ of the
prophet, made them acceptable suitors for the hands of the
daughters of the rajahs or petty kings. They brought
with them the doctrines of Islam, which had begun to
make some converts before the Spanish discovery. The old
Visayan religion was not unlike that of the Tagals. They
called their idols Dinatas instead of Anitos. Their marriage
customs were not very different from those of the Tagals.

The ancestors of the Visayans were converted to Christi-
anity at or soon after the Spanish conquest. They have
thus been Christians for over three centuries, and in constant
war with the Mohammedan pirates of Mindanao and Sulu,
and with the Sea Dayaks of Borneo. However, in some
localities they still show a strong fondness for witchcraft,
and practice secret heathen rites, notwithstanding the vigi-
lance of the parish priests.

The Moros now extend over the whole of Mindanao and
the Sultanate of Sulu, which comprises the Sulu Island
(thirty-four miles long from east to west and twelve miles
in the broadest part from north to south) and about one
hundred and forty others, more than half of which are in-
habited. The population (according to Mr. Foreman) of
the Sulu Sultanate alone is about 110,000, including free
people, slaves, and some 20,000 men at arms under orders
of the Dattos. The domains of the Sultan reach westward
as far as Borneo. The Sultan of Sulu is also feudal lord of
two vassal Sultanates in Mindanao Island. Only a small
coast district of this island was reallj' under Spanish empire,
although Spain claimed suzeraint}^ over all the territory
subject to the Sultan of Sulu, by virtue of an old treaty,
which was never entirely carried out. There is also a half-
caste branch of Moros in the southern half of Palauan
Island (Paragua) of a ver>' peaceful nature, nominally under
the rule of the Sultan of Sulu. The United States forces
have not yet been sent to these islands. They were gratui-
tously ceded to Spain by the Sultan about 1730 at the request

Semi-Civilized Tribes of the Philippines 6i

of the Spaniards. The only Spanish possession at the time
of the evacuation was the colony of Puerta Princesa on the
east coast, which is a good harbor and affords a fine outlet
for the products of the fertile land surrounding it.

The Moros also inhabit the Tawi Tawi Islands, the most
southerly of the Sulu group, h'ing only five degrees north
of the equator. The Spanish assaulted these islands in
1751 under a decree ordering them " to exterminate all the
Mussulmans with fire and sword, to extinguish the foe, burn
all that was combustible, destroy the crops, desolate their
cultivated lands, make captives and recover Christian slaves. ' '
The captain and his men went ashore, but their retreat was
cut off and they were all slain. The ofiicer in command of
the expedition was so discouraged that he resigned. The
entire assault proved a great failure, and shows that the
inhabitants of these islands possess the same warlike traits
as the Moros of the other islands. The Moros were for
centuries among the sea pirates of history, the most uncon-
querable. They defied the Spanish sailing men-of-war with
their light " prahus " and " vintas " by keeping in the
shallow water, where they could not be approached, and
awaiting opportunity to cluster around a solitary man-of-
war and take her by boarding. It was the introduction of
steam gunboats in i860 that broke the power of the Moro
pirate fleets. Their towns, like the city of Brunei, are
mostly built in the water, and have bamboo bridges, which
can be removed, to connect them with the shore. Their
"cottas," or forts, are built on rising ground near by and
protected by reefs that make the approach by water diffi-
cult. The stockades are made of trunks of trees; some
of their walls being twenty-four feet thick and thirty feet
high, are defended by brass and iron guns. An attempt to
storm these cottas is met by the Moros, who mount the ram-
parts and make a brave defence, firing grape from their
cannon until the enemy comes near enough, when they hurl
their spears upon them from a surprising distance and with

62 Annals of the American Academy

accurate aim, manfully fighting till they drive oflf their
assailants or die in the attempt. When once they have put
their enemies to flight they fall upon them in a dreadful
hand-to-hand conflict in which quarter is neither asked nor
given.

If the history of the Spanish-Moro wars were written it
would be of great interest and would show many a Homeric
combat. It must be said of the Spanish soldiers that they
meet their dreadful foes with equal courage. Sometimes the
priests with crucifix in hand would bravely lead their half-
savage converts against their oppressors amid showers of
spears and bullets. The head of a priest was considered a
great prize by the Moro warriors. The soil of Mindanao has
been literally drenched in the blood of Moro, Spanish and
native in this long-drawn-out and awful conflict between the
Cross and the Crescent. The malaria of the Moro land
seems to fight for its inhabitants bj^ exempting them from its
attacks and setting furiously upon all others who invade the
mangrove swamps and flooded jungle. In all justice it must
be said that not superior valor, but the invention of modern
weapons of warfare, checked the ravages of the Moro, and
that the Spanish opened the way and made possible peaceful
American occupation. It is strange but true that to-day a
man may carry the American flag with greater safety through
the land of the Moros than through any other part of the
Philippine Archipelago. Mr. Sawyer in his new book gives
the following interesting statements: " It is a striking instance
of the irony of fate that, just as modern weapons have
turned the scale in favor of the Spaniards in this long
struggle and brought the Moros within measurable distance
of subjection, when only one more blow required to be
struck, Spain's oriental empire should suddenly vanish in
the smoke of Dewey's guns and her flag disappear forever
from battlements where (except for the short interval of
British occupation, 1762-63) it has proudly waved through
storm and sunshine for three hundred and twenty-eight

Semi-Civilized Tribes of the Philippines 63

years. Such, however, is the case; and it now falls to the
United States to complete the task of centuries, to stretch
out a protecting hand over the Christian natives of Mindanao,
and to suppress the last remains of a slave-raiding system as
ruthless, as sanguinary, and as devastating as the annals of
the world can show."

11. The Causes of Race Superiority

ANNUAL ADDRESS

By Dr. Edward A. Ross, Professor of Sociology in the
University of Nebraska

(65)

THE CAUSES OF RACE SUPERIORITY.

Annual address by Dr. Edward A. Ross,
Professor of Sociology in the University of Nebraska.

The superiorities that, at a given time, one people may-
display over other peoples, are not necessarily racial. Physi-
cal inferiorities that disappear as the peoples are equalized
in diet and dwelling ; mental inferiorities that disappear when
the peoples are levelled up in respect to culture and means of
education, are due not to race but to condition, not to blood but
to surroundings. In accounting for disparities among peoples
there are, in fact, two opposite errors into which w^e may
fall. There is the equalitj' fallacy inherited from the earlier
thought of the last century, which belittles race differences
and has a robust faith in the power of intercourse and school
instruction to lift up a backward folk to the level of the
best. Then there is the counter fallacy, grown up since
Darwin, which exaggerates the race factor and regards the
actual differences of peoples as hereditary and fixed.

Just now the latter error is, perhaps, the more besetting.
At a time when race is the watchword of the vulgar and
w^hen sciolists are pinning their faith to breed, we of all
men ought to beware of it. We Americans who have so
often seen the children of underfed, stunted, scrub immi-
grants match the native American in brain and brawn, in
wit and grit, ought to realize how much the superior effec-
tiveness of the latter is due to social conditions. Keleti,
from his investigations in Hungary, has come to the conclu-
sion that in most of the communes there the people have
less to eat than is necessary to live and work, the result being
alcoholism, weakness, disease and earl}' death. Atwater,
on the other hand, has found that the average wage- worker
in New England consumes more food than health requires.

(67)

68 Annals of the American Academy.

What a host of consequences issue from this one primary
contrast !

A generation ago, in the first enthusiasm over the marvels
of heredity, we were taught that one race is monotheistic,
another has an afiinity for polytheism. One race is tem-
peramentally aristocratic, while another is by instinct demo-
cratic. One race is innovating and radical, another is by
nature conser\'ative. But it is impossible to characterize
races in respect to such large complex traits. A keener
analj'sis connects these great historical contrasts with a num-
ber of slight specific differences in bodj' or temperament. For
example, four diverse traits of the greatest social importance,
namely, progressiveness, the spirit of adventure, migranc}'-
and the disposition to flock to cities, can be traced to a
courageous confidence in the unknown coupled with the
high ph^-sical tone that calls for action. Similarly, if we
may believe Signor Ferrero, of two equally gifted races the
one that is the less sensual will be inferior in aesthetic output,
less apt to cross with lower types, more loyal to the idea of
duty, better adapted to monotonous factory labor, and more
inclined to the Protestant form of religion. It is only by
establishing fixed, specific differences of this kind that we
can hope to explain those grand race contrasts that enchant
the historian.

The first cause of race superiority to which I invite your
attention is a phj-siological trait, namely, climatic adaptability .
Just now it is a grave question whether the flourishing and
teeming peoples of the North Temperate zone can provide
outlets for their surplus population in the rich but unde-
veloped lands of the tropics. Their superiorit}', economic
and militar}^ over the peoples under the vertical sun is
beyond cavil. But can they assert and profit by this supe-
riority save by imposing on the natives of the tropics the
odious and demoralizing servile relation? Can the white
man work and multiply in the tropics, or will his role be
limited to commercial and industrial exploitation at a safe

The Causes of Race Superiority. 69

distance by means of a changing, male contingent of soldiers,
officials, business agents, planters and overseers ?

The answer is not ^-et sure, but the facts bearing on
acclimatization are not comforting to our race. Immunity
from the fevers that waste men in hot, humid climates seems
to be in inverse ratio to energy. The French are more suc-
cessful in tropical settlement than the Germans or the
English. The Spanish, Portuguese and Italians surpass the
French in almost equal measure. When it comes to settling
Africa, instead of merely exploring or subduing it, the
peoples may unexpectedly change their r&les. With all their
energy and their numbers the Anglo-Saxons appear to be
physiologically inelastic, and incapable of making of Guiana
or the Philippines a home such as they have made in New
Zealand or Minnesota. In the tropics their verj?^ virtues —
their push, their uncompromising standards, their aversion
to intermarriage with the natives — are their destruction.

Ominous, on the other hand, is the extraordinary power of
accommodation enjo^'cd by the Mongolians. Says Professor
Ripley: "The Chinese succeed in Guiana where the white
man cannot live; anJ they thrive from Siberia where the
mean temperature is below freezing, to Singapore on the
equator." There are even some who believe that the
Chinaman is destined to dispossess the Malay in south-
western Asia and the islands of the Pacific, and the Indian
in the tropical parts of South America.

There is, indeed, such a thing as acclimatization; but this
is virtually the creation at a frightful cost of a new race
variety by climatic selection. We ma}^ therefore regard
his lack of adaptability as a handicap which the white man
must ever bear in competing with black, yellow, or brown
men. His sciences and his inventions give him only a tem-
porary advantage, for, as the facilities for diffusion increase,
they must pass to all. Even his educational and political
institutions will spread wherever they are suitable. All
precedence founded on the possession of magazine rifles, or

70 Annals of the American Academy.

steam, or the press, or the Christian religion, must end as
these elements merge into one all-embracing, everywhere
diffused, cosmopolitan culture. Even the advantage con-
ferred upon a race by closer political cohesion, or earlier
development of the state, cannot last. Could we run the
coming centuries through a kinetoscope, we should see all
these things as mere clothes. For, in the last analysis, it is
solely on its persistent pltysiological and psychological quali-
ties that the ultimate destinies of a race depend.

The next truth to which I invite your attention is, that
one race may surpass another in energy. The average of indi-
vidual energy is not a fixed race attribute, for new varieties
are constantly being created b\^ migration. The voluntary,
unassisted migration of individuals to lands of opportunity
tends always to the upbuilding of highly energetic commu-
nities and peoples. To the wilderness go, not the brainiest
or noblest or highest bred, but certainly the strongest and
the most enterprising. The weakling and the sluggard
stay at home, or, if the}' are launched into the new condi-
tions, they soon go under. The Boers are reputed to be of
finer physique than their Dutch congeners. In America,
before the days of exaggerated immigration, the immigrants
were physically taller than the people from which they
sprang, the difference amounting in some instances to an
average of more than an inch. By measurements taken
during the Civil War the Scotch in America were found to
exceed their countrymen by two inches. Moreover, the
recruits hailing from other states than those in which they
had been born were generally taller than those who had not
changed their residence. The Kentuckians and the Texans
have become proverbial for stature, while the surprising
tallness of the ladies who will be found shopping, of an after-
noon, on Kearney street in San Francisco, testifies to the
bigness of the ' ' forty-niners. ' ' Comparative weights tell
the same tale. Of the recruits in our Civil War, the New
Knglanders weighed 140 pounds, the Middle State men 141

The Causes of Race Superiority 71

pounds, the Ohians and Indianans 145 pounds, and the
Kentuckians 150. Conversel}', where, as m Sardinia, the
population is the leavings of continued emigration, the
stature is extraordinarily low.

This principle that repeated migrations tend to the crea-
tion of energetic races of men, opens up enchanting vistas of
explanation in the jungle of history. Successive waves of ,
conquest breaking over a land like Sicily or India may |
signify that a race, once keyed up to a high pitch of energy j
by gradual migration from its ancient seats, tends to run /
down as soon as such beneficent selections are interrupted I
by success, and settlement in a new home. Cankered by a
long quiet it falls a prey in a few centuries to some other
people that has likewise been keyed up by migration.

Again, this principle may account for the fact that those
branches of a race achieve the most brilliant success which
have wandered the farthest from their ancestral home. Of
the Mongols that borrowed the old Babylonian culture, those
who pushed across Asia to the Yellow Sea, have risen the
highest. The Arabs and Moors that skirted Africa and
won a home in far-away Spain, developed the most brilliant
of the Saracenic civilizations. Hebrews, Dorians, Quirites,
Rajputs, Hovas were far invaders. No communities in
classic times flourished like the cities in Asia created by the
overflow from Greece. Nowhere under the Czar are there
such vigorous, progressive communities as in Siberia. By
the middle of this century, perhaps, the Russian on the
Yenesei or the Amur will be known for his ' ' push ' ' and
"hustle" as is to-day the American on L,ake Michigan or
Puget Sound. It is perhaps on this principle that the men
who made their way to the British Isles have shown them-
selves the most masterful and achieving of the Germanic
race ; while their offshoots in America and Australia, in
spite of some mixture, show the highest level of indi-
vidual efficiency found in any people of the Anglo-Saxon
breed. Even in America there is a difference between the

72 Annals of the American Academy

• East and the West. The listlessness and social decay
noticeable in many of the rural communities and old historic
towns on the Atlantic slope, are due, no doubt, to the loss
of their more energetic members to the rising cities and to
the West.

There is no doubt that the form of society which a race
adopts is potent to paralyze or to release its energ}-. In this
respect Americans are especially fortunate, for their energies
are stimulated to the utmost by democracy. I refer not to
popular government, but to the fact that with us social status
depends little on birth and much on personal success. I
will not deny that money, not merit, is frequently the test of
social standing, and that Titania is often found kissing "the
fair long ears " of some Bottom ; but the commercial spirit,
even if it cannot lend society nobility or worth, certainly
encourages men to strive.

Where there is no rank or title or monarch to consecrate
the hereditary principle, the capillarity of society is great,
and ambition is whetted to its keenest edge. For it is hope
not need that animates men. Set ladders before them and
they will climb until their heart-strings snap.

Without a social ladder, without infection from a leisure
class that keys up its standard of comfort, a body of yeomen
settling in a new and fertile land wull be content with
simplicit}'- and rude plenty. A certain sluggishness prevails
now among the Boers, as it prevailed among the first settlers
beyond the Alleghenies. If, on the other hand, there
is a social ladder, but it is occupied by those of a military or
hereditary position, as in the Spanish communities of the
southwest, there is likewise no stimulus to energy. But if
vigorous men form new communities in close enough touch
with rich and old communities to accept their exacting
standards of comfort, without at the same time accepting
their social ranking, each man has the greatest possible
incentive to improve his condition. Such has been the
relation of America to England, and of the West to the East.

The Causes of Race Superiority 73

This is why America spells Opportunit3^ Inspired by-
hope and ambition the last two generations of Americans
have amazed the world by the breathless speed with which
they have subdued the western half of the continent, and
filled the wilderness with homes and cities. Never has
the world seen such prodigies of labor, such miracles of
enterprise, as the creation within a single lifetime of a vast
ordered, civilized life between the Mississippi and the Pacific.
Witnessing such lavished expenditures of human force, can
we wonder at American "rush," American nervousness and
heart failure, at gray hairs in the thirties and old age in the
fifties, at our proverb "Time is money ! " and at the ubiqui-
tous American rocking chair or hammock which enables a
tired man to rest very quickly!

Closely related to energy is the virtue of self-relia7ice.
There is a boldness which rises at the elbow touch of one's
fellows, and there is a stout-heartedness which inspires a man
when he is alone. There is a courage which confronts reso-
lutely a known danger, and a courage which faces perils un-
known or vague. Now, it»is this latter quality — self-reliance
— which characterizes those who have migrated the oftenest
and have migrated as individuals. On our frontier has
always been found the Daniel Boone type, who cared little
for the support of his kind and loved danger and adventure
for its own sake. The American's faith in himself and con-
fidence in the friendliness of the unknown may be due to
his enlightenment, but it is more likely the unapprehensive-
ness that runs in the blood of a pioneering breed. Some-
times, as in the successive trekkings of the Boers from Cape
Town to the Limpopo, the trait most intensified is indepen-
dence and self-reliance. Sometimes, as in the settling of the
Trans-Mississippi region, the premium is put on energy and
push. But in any case voluntary migration demands vieii.

Even in an old country, that element of the population is
destined to riches and power which excels in self-reliance
and enterprise. Cities are now the places of opportunity

74 Annals of the American Academy

and of prosperity, and it has been shown conclusively that,
in the urban upbuilding now going on in Central Europe,
where long-skull Teutons and broad-skull Celto-Slavs are
mingled, the cities are more Teutonic than the rural districts
from which their population is recruited. The city is a
magnet for the more venturesome, and it draws to it more of
the long-skulled race than of the broad-skulled race. In
spite of the fact that he has no greater wit and capacity than
the Celt, the Teuton's superior migrancy takes him to the
foci of prosperity, and procures him a higher reward and a
superior social status.

Wherever there is pioneering or settlement to do, self-
reliance is a supreme advantage. The expansion of the
English-speaking peoples in the nineteenth century — the
English in building their Empire, the Americans in sub-
duing the West — seems to be due to this trait. Self-reliance
is, in fact, a sovereign virtue in times of ferment or dis-
placement. In static times, however, other qualities out-
weigh it, and the victory may fall to those who are patient,
obedient, and quick-witted, rather than to the independent
in spirit. If this be so, then the great question of the hour.
What is to be the near destiny of the Anglo-Saxon race ?
involves the question w^hether we stand on the threshold of
a dynamic, or a static epoch. If the former, well for the
Anglo-Saxon; if the latter, it may be the Latins who, renew-
ing their faith in themselves, will forge ahead.

I think there can be no doubt that we are entering a
tumultuously dynamic epoch. Science, machinery and
steam — our heritage from the past century — together consti-
tute a new economic civilization which is destined to work
in the world a transformation such as the plow works among
nomads. Two centuries ago Europe had little to offer Asia
in an industrial way. Now, in western Europe and in
America, there exists an industrial technique which alters
the face of society wherever it goes. The exploitation of
nature and man by steam and machinery directed by techni-

The Causes of Race Superiority 75

cal knowledge, has the strongest of human forces behind it, ;
and nothing can check its triumphant expansion over the j
planet. The Arab spreads the religion of Mahomet with the I
Koran in one hand and the sword in the other. The white \
man of to-day spreads his economic gospel, one hand on a \
Gatling, the other on a locomotive. '

It will take at least two or three generations to level up
the industrial methods of continents like South America or
Africa or Asia, as a Jamaica, a Martinique, or a Hawaii
have been levelled up; and all this time that race which
excels in energ>^, self-reliance and education will have the
advantage. When this furiously dynamic epoch closes,
when the world becomes more static, and uniformism recurs,
self-reliance will be at a discount, and the conditions will
again favor the race that is patient, laborious, frugal, intelli-
gent and apt in consolidation. Then, perhaps, the Celtic j
and Mediterranean races will score against the Anglo-Saxon.

For economic greatness perhaps no quality is more impor-
tant than foresight. To live from hand to mouth taking no
thought of the morrow, is the trait of primitive man gener-
ally, and especially of the races in the tropical lands where
nature is bounteous, and the strenuous races have not yet
made their competition felt. From the Rio Grande to the
Rio de la Plata, the laboring masses, largely of Indian breed,
are without a compelling vision of the future. The Mexi-
cans, our consuls write us, are ' ' occupied in obtaining food
and amusement for the passing hour without either hope or
desire for a better future." They are always in debt, and the
workman hired for a job asks something in advance to buy
materials or to get something to eat. ' ' Slaves of local attach-
ments ' ' they will not migrate in order to get higher wages.
In Ecuador the laborer lets to-morrow take care of itself
and makes no effort to accumulate. In Guiana, where
Hindoos, Chinese, Portuguese, and Creoles labor side by
side, the latter squander their earnings while the immigrants
from the old economic civilizations all lay by in order to

76 Annals of the American Academy

return home and enjoy. In Colombia the natives will not
save, nor will they work in order to supply themselves with
comforts. In British Honduras the natives are happy-go-lucky
negroes who rarely save and who spend their earnings on
festivals and extravagances, rather than on comforts and
decencies. In Venezuela the laborers live for to-day and all
their week's earnings are gone by Monday morning The
Brazilians work as little as they can and live, and save no
money; are satisfied so long as the}'- have a place to sleep and
enough to eat.

Since, under modern conditions, abundant production is
bound up, not so much with patient toil, as with the posses-
sion of ample capital, it is evident that, in the economic
rivalr}^ of races, the palm goes to the race that discounts the
future least and is willing to exchange present pleasures for
future gratifications most nearly at par. The power to do
this depends partly on a lively imagination of remote
experiences to come, partly on the self-control that can deny
present cravings, or resist temptation in favor of the thrifty
course recommended by reason. We may, in fact, distin-
guish two types of men, the sensori-motor moved by sense-
impressions and by sensory images, and the ideo-motor moved
by ideas. For it is probable that the provident races do not
accumulate simply from the liveliness of their anticipation of
future wants or gratifications, but from the domination of
certain ideas. The tenant who is saving to build a cottage
of his own is not animated simply by a picture of coming
satisfactions. All his teaching, all his contact with his
fellows, conspire to make " home " the goal of his hopes, to
fill his horizon with that one radiant idea. So in the renter
who is scrimping in order to get himself a farm as in the
immigrant who is laying by to go back and ' ' be somebody ' '
in the old country, the attraction of a thousand vaguely
imagined pleasures is concentrated in one irresistible idea.
The race that can make ideas the lodestars of life is certain
to supplant a race of impulsivists absorbed in sensations, and
recollections or anticipations of sensations.

The Causes of Race Superiority 77

It is certain that races differ in their attitude toward past
and future. M. Lapie has drawn a contrast between the
Arab and the Jew. The Arab remembers; he is mindful of
past favors and past injuries. He harbors his vengeance and
cherishes his gratitude. He accepts everything on the
authority of tradition, loves the ways of his ancestors, forms
strong local attachments, and migrates little. The Jew, on
the other hand, turns his face toward the future. He is
thrifty and always ready for a good stroke of business, will,
indeed, join with his worst enemy if it pays. He is calcu-
lating, enterprising, migrant and ambitious.

An economic quality quite distinct from foresight is the
value sense. B}^ this I mean that facility of abstraction and
calculation which enables a man to fix his interest on the
value in goods rather than on the goods themselves. The
mere husbandman is a utility perceiver. He knows the
power of objects to keep human beings alive and happy, and
has no diflBculty in recognizing what is good and what is not.
But the trader is a value perceiver. Not what a thing is
good for, but what it will fetch, engages his attention.
Generic utilities are relativelj^ stable, for wine and oil and
cloth are always and ever}- where fit to meet human wants;
but value is a chameleon-like thing, varying greatly from
time to time and place to place and person to person. The
successful trader dares form no fixed ideas with regard to his
wares. He must pursue the elusive value that hovers now
here and now there, and be ready at any moment to readjust
his notions. He must be a calculator. He must train him-
self to recognize the abstract in the concrete and to distill the
abstract out of the concrete. Economically, then, the trader
is to the husbandman what the husbandman is to the hunter.
The appearance of cities, money, and commerce puts a
premium on the man who can perceive value. He accumu-
lates property and founds a house, while his less skillful rival
sinks and is devoured by war and by labor.

All through that ancient world which produced the Phoe-

78 Annai^ of the Americais Academy

necian, the Jew, the Greek and the Roman, the acquisition
of property made a difference in survival we can hardly
understand to-day. Our per capita production is probably
three or four times as great as theirs was, and hence the
grain-handlers of Buffalo are vastly more able to maintain a
family than were the grain-handlers of old Carthage or
Alexandria. All around the Mediterranean trade pros-
pered the value perceivers, and that type tended to multiply
and tinge more and more the psychology and ideals of the
classic world. In ancient society the difference in death
rates and in family-supporting power of the various indus-
trial grades exceeded anything we are familiar with, and
hence those who were steady and thrifty in labor or shrewd
and prudent in trade vastly improved their chances of sur-
vival. Thus the economic man multiplied, and commer-
cial, money-making Byzantium rose on the ruins of the
old races. ' ' Long before the seat of empire was moved to
Constantinople," says Mr. Freeman, " the name of Roman
had ceased to imply even a presumption of descent from
the old patricians and plebeians." "The Julius, the
Claudius, the Cornelius of those days was for the most part
no Roman by lineal descent, but a Greek, a Gaul, a Spaniard
or an Illyrian."

Between the economic type and the military type there is
abrupt contrast, and the social situation cannot well favor
them both at the same time. The warrior shows passional
courage and the sway of impulse and imagination. The
trader is calculating, counts the cost, and prizes a whole
skin. From the second century- B. C. the substitution of this
type for the old, heroic, Cincinnatus type went on so rapidly
that a recent writer finds congenital cowardice to be the mark
of the Roman Senate and nobility during the empire. We
all know the brilliant picture that Mr. Brooks Adams, in
his "Law of Civilization and Decay," has given of the
replacement of the military by the economic type in western
Europe since the Crusades.

The Causes of Race Superiority 79

If this h5-pothesis be sound, the value perceiving sense is
to be looked for in old races that have long known cities,
money and trade. The Jew came under these influences
at least twelve centuries earlier than did our Teutonic ances-
tors and has therefore had about forty or fifty generations
the start of us in becoming economic. Equal or even greater
is the lead of the Chinaman. It is, then, no wonder that the
Jews and the Chinese are the tvi'O most formidable mercan-
tile races in the world to-day, just as, in the Middle Ages, the
Greeks and the Italians were the most redoubtable traf-
fickers and money-makers in Europe. The Scotchman, the
Fleming, and the Yankee, minor and later economic varieties
developed in the West, can, indeed, exist alongside the Jew.
The less mercantile German, however, fails to hold his own,
and vents his wrath in Anti-Semitism. The Slav, unsophis-
ticated and rural, loses invariablj' in his dealings with the
Jew, and so harshly drives him out in vast numbers.

May we not, then, conveniently recognize two stages in the
development away from the barbarian ? Hindoos, Japanese,
North Africans and Europeans, in their capacity for steady
labor, their foresight, and their power to save, constitute
what I will call the domesticated races. But the Jews, the
Chinese, the Parsees, the Armenians, and in general the
peoples about the Mediterranean constitute the economic races.
The expurgated and deleted Teuton of the West, on the
other hand, is more recently from the woods, and remains
something of the barbarian after all. We see it in his migra-
toriness, his spirit of adventure, his love of dangerous sports,
his gambling propensities, his craving for strong drink, his
living up to his standard of comfort whether he can afibrd it
or not. In quest of excitement he betakes himself to the
Far West or the Klondike, whereas the Jew betakes himself
to the Board of Trade or the Bourse. In direct competition
with the more economic type the Anglo-Saxon is handi-
capped by lack of patience and financial acumen, but still
bis virtues insure him a rich portion . His energy and self-

8o Annals of the American iVcADEMY

reliance locate hiai in cities and in the spacious, thriving
parts of the earth where the economic reward is highest.
Born pioneer, he prospects the wilderness, pre-empting the
richest deposits of the precious metals and skimming the
cream from the resources of nature. Strong in war and in
government, he jealously guards his own from the economic
races, and meets finesse with force; so that despite his less
developed value sense, more and more the choice lands and
the riches of the earth come into his possession and support
his brilliant yet solid civilization.

It is through no inadvertence that I have not brought
forward the martial traits as a cause of race superiority. I
do not believe that the martial traits apart from economic
prowess are likely in the future to procure success to any
race. When men kill one another by arms of precision
instead of by stabbing and hacking, the knell is sounded for
purel}' warelike races like the Vandals, the Huns and the
Turks. Invention has so completely transformed w^arfare
that it has become virtually an extra-hazardous branch of
engineering. The factory system receives its latest and su-
preme application in the killing of men. Against an intelli-
gent force equipped with the modern specialized appliances
of slaughter no amount of mere warlike manhood can pre-
vail. The fate of the Dervishes is typical of what must
more and more often occur when vien are pitted against
properly operated lethal machinery.

Now, the war factory is as expensive as it is effective.
None but the economic races, up to their eyes in capital and
expert in managing machiner>'', can keep it running long.
Warfare is becoming a costly form of competition in which
the belligerents shed each other's treasure rather than
each other's blood, A nation loses, not when it is denuded
of men, but when it is at the end of its financial resources.
War is, in fact, coming to be the supreme, economic touch-
stone, testing systems of cultivation and transportation and
banking, as well as personal courage and military organ-
ization.

The Causes of Race Superiority 8i

At the same time that war is growing more expensive
it is becoming less profitable. The fruits of victory are
often mere apples of Sodom. A decent respect for the opin-
ion of mankind debars a civilized people from massacring
the conquered in order to plant its own colonists on their
land, from enslaving them, from bleeding them with heavy
and perpetual tribute. Fortunate, indeed, is the victor if
he can extort enough to indemnify him for his outlay.
Therefore, at the very moment that the cost of war increases,
the declining profits of war stamp it as an industry of
decreasing returns. Wealth is a means of procuring victor}-,
but victory is no longer a means of procuring wealth. A
non-martial race may easily become victorious by means of
its prosperity, but it will be harder and harder for a non-
economic race to become prosperous b}^ means of its vic-
tories. Even now the Turks in Europe are declining in
numbers, and in spite of Armenian massacres the industrial
races of the empire are growing up through the top-dressing
of oppressors. It would seem safe to say that the purely
war-like traits no longer insure race survival and expan-
sion, and that in the competitions of the future the traits
which enhance economic eflSciency are likely to be most
decisive.

In the dim past when cultures were sporadic, each develop-
ing apart in some island or river delta or valley closet, no
race could progress unless it bore its crop of inventive
genius. A high average of capacity was not so important
as a few Gutenbergs and Faradays in each generation to
make lasting additions to the national culture. If fruitful
initiatives were forthcoming, imitation and education could
be trusted to make them soon the common possession of all.

But when culture becomes cosmopolitan, as it is to-daj', the
success of a race turns much more on the efl&ciency of its
average units than on the inventions and discoveries of its
geniuses. The heaven-sent man who invents the locomotive,
or the dynamo, or the germ theory, confers thereby no exclu-

82 Annals of the American Academy

sive advantage on his people or his race. So perfect is
intellectual commerce, so complete is the organization of
science, that almost at once the whole civilized world knows
and profits by his achievements. Nowadays the pioneering
genius belongs to mankind, and however patriotic he may
be he aids most the race that is most prompt and able to
exploit his invention. Parasitism of this kind, therefore, tends
to annul genius as a factor in race survival. During the cen-
tury just closed the French intellect has stood supreme in its
contributions to civilization; yet France has derived no
exclusive advantage from her men of genius. It is differ-
ences in the qualities of the common men of the rival
peoples that explains why France has not doubled its popu-
lation in a century, while the English stock in the meantime
has peopled some of the choicest parts of the world and more
than quadrupled its numbers.

Henceforth this principle of cosmopolitanism must be
reckoned with. Even if the Chinese have not 5^et van-
quished the armies of the West with Mauser rifles supplied
from Belgium, there is no reason why that mediocre and intel-
lectually sterile race may not yet defeat us industrially by the
aid of machines and processes conceived in the fertile brains of
our Edisons and Marconis. Organizing talent, of course, —
industrial, administrative, military, — each race must, in the
long run, produce from its own loins ; but in the industrial
Armageddon to come it may be that the laurels will be won
by a mediocre type of humanity, equipped with the science
and the appliances of the more brilliant and brain-fertile peo-
ples. Not preponderance of genius will be decisive, but
more and more the energ}', self-reliance, fecundity, and
acquired skill of the average man ; and the nation will do
most for itself that knows how best to foster these winning
qualities by means of education and wise social institutions.

How far does moral excellence profit a race? Those who
hold that Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht tell us that
the weal or woe of nations depends upon morals. Indeed,

The Causes of Race Superiority 83

every flourishing people laj'S its prosperity first to its religion, \/
and then to its moral code. Climatic adaptation or economic ^j
capacity is the last thing to be thought of as a cause of '■'
superiority. __

The chief moral trait of a winning race is stability of
character. Primitive peoples are usually over-emotional
and poised unstably between smiles and tears. They act
quickly if at all, and according to the impulse of the moment.
The Abyssinian, for example, is fickle, fleeting and per-
jured, the Kirghiz " fickle and uncertain," the Bedouin
"loves and honors violent acts." The courage of the
Mongol is " a sudden blaze of pugnacity ' ' rather than a cool
intrepidity. We recall Carlyle's comparing Gallic fire
which is "as the crackling of dry thorns under a pot," with
the Teutonic fire which ri.ses slowly but will smelt iron. In
private endeavor perseverance, in the social economy the
keeping of promises, and in the state steadfastness — these
are the requisites of success, and the}' all depend on stability
of character. Reliability in business engagements and
settled reverence for law are indispensable in higher social
development. The great economic characteristics of this age
are the tendency to association, the growth of exchange, the
increasing use of capital and the greater elaborateness of
organization. They all imply the spreading of business
over more persons, more space, and more time, and the
increasing dependence of ever\' enterprise upon what certain
persons have been appointed to do or have engaged to
do. Unreliable persons who fail to do their dut};- or keep
their promises are quickly extruded from the economic
organization. Industrial evolution, therefore, places a
rising premium on reflection and self-control, the founda-
tions of character. More and more it penalizes the childish-
ness or frivolousness of the cheaply- gotten-up, vianana
races.

As regards the altruistic virtues, they are too common to
confer a special advantage. Honesty, docility, faithfulness

84 Annals of the American Academy

aud other virtues that lessen social friction abound at every
stage of culture and in almost every breed. The economic
virtues are a function of race; but the moral virtues seem rather
to be a function oi association. They do not make society ;
society makes them. Just as the joint secretes the lubricat-
ing synovial fluid so every settled community, if undisturbed,
secretes in time the standards, ideals and imperatives which
are needed to lessen friction. Good order is, in fact, so little
a monopol}^ of the higher races that the attainment of it is
more difficult among Americans at Dutch Flat orSkagway
than it is among Eskimos or Indians. Sociabilit}' and sym-
pathy are, indeed, serviceable in promoting cohesion among
natural men ; but they are of little account in the higher
social architecture. The great races have been stern and
grasping, with a strong property sense. More and more the
purposive triumphs over the spontaneous association ; so that
the great historic social edifices are built on concurrence of
aims, on custom or religion or law, never on mere brotherly
feeling.

Indeed, the primary social sentiments are at variance with
that sturdy self-reliance which, as we have seen, enables a
race to overrun the earth. It w^as observed even in the
California gold diggings that the French miners stayed to-
gether, while the solitary American or Briton serenely roamed
the wilderness with his outfit on a burro, and made the
richest "strikes." To-day a French railway builder in
Tonkin says of the j-oung French engineers in his emplo}-:
" They sicken, morally and physically, these fellows. They
need papa and mamma ! I had good results from bringing
them together once or twice a week, keeping them laugh-
ing, making them amuse themselves and each other, in spite
of lack of amusement. Then all would go well." It is per-
haps this cruel homesickness which induces the Frei:ch to
restrict their numbers rather than expatriate themselves to
over-sea colonies. Latin sociability is the fountain of many
of the graces that make life worth living, but it is certainly

The Causes of Race Superiority 85

a handicap in just this critical epoch, when the apportion-
ment of the earth among the races depends so much on a
readiness to fight, trade, prospect or colonize thousands of
miles from home.

The superiority of a race cannot be preserved without
pride of blood and an uncompromising attitude toward the
lower races. In Spanish America the easygoing and
unfastidious Spaniard peopled the continent with half-breeds
and met the natives half way in respect to religious and
political institutions. In East Africa and Brazil the Portu-
guese showed toward the natives even less of that race
aversion which is so characteristic of the Dutch and the
English. In North America, on the other hand, the white
men have rarely mingled their blood with that of the Indian
or toned down their civilization to meet his capacities. The
Spaniard absorbed the Indians, the English exterminated
them by fair means or foul. Whatever may be thought of the
latter policy, the net result is that North America from the
Behring Sea to the Rio Grande is dedicated to the highest
type of civilization; while for centuries the rest of our
hemisphere will drag the ball and chain of hybridism.

Since the higher culture should be kept pure as well as
the higher blood, that race is stronger which, down to the
cultivator or the artisan, has a strong seiise of its superiority .
"When peoples and races meet there is a silent struggle to
determine which shall do the assimilating. The issue of
this grapple turns not wholly on the relative excellence of
their civilizations, but partly on the degree of faith each
has in itself and its ideals. The Greeks assimilated to them-
selves all the peoples about the Mediterranean save the Jew^
partly because the humblest wandering Greek despised "the
barbarians," and looked upon himself as a missiouar}'^ to the
heathen. The absorbent energy of the United States prob-
ably surpasses that of any mere colony because of the stimu-
lus given us by an independent national existence. America
is a psychic maelstrom that has sucked in and swallowed up

86 Annals of the American Academy

hosts of aliens. Five millions of Germans, for instance,
have joined us, and yet how little has our institutional
development been deflected by them ! I dare say the few
thousand university-trained Germans, and Americans edu-
cated in Heidelberg or Gottingen, have injected more Ger-
man culture into our veins than all the immigrants that ever
passed through Castle Garden. There is no doubt that the
triumph of Americanism over these heterogeneous elements,
far more decisive now than eighty years ago, has been has-
tened b)' the vast contempt that even the native farm-hand
or mechanic feels for the unassimilated immigrant. Had he
been less sure of himself, had he felt less pride in American
ideals and institutions, the tale might have been different.

One question remains. Is the Superior Race as we have
portraj'ed it, able to survive all competitions and expand
under all circumstances ? There is, I am convinced, one
respect in which very foresight and will power that mark
the higher race dig a pit beneath its feet.

In the presence of the plenty produced by its triumphant
energy the superior race forms what the economists call ' ' a
Standard of Comfort," and refuses to multiply save upon
this plane. With his native ambition stimulated by the
opportunity to rise and his natural foresight reinforced by
education, the American, for example, overrules his strongest
instincts and refrains from marrying or from increasing his
family until he can realize his subjective standard of comfort
or decency. The power to form and cling to such a standard
is not only one of the noblest triumphs of reason over
passion, but is, in sooth, the only sure hope for the eleva-
tion of the mass of men from the abyss of want and struggle.
The progress of invention held out such a hope but it has
proven a mockery. Steam and machinery, it is true, ease
for a little the strain of population on resources; but if the
birth-rate starts forward and the slack is soon taken up by
the increase of mouths, the final result is simply more peo-
ple living on the old plane. The rosy glow thrown upon

The Causes of Race Superiority 87

the future by progress in the industrial arts proves but a
false dawn unless the common people acquire new wants and
raise the plane upon which they multiply.

Now, this rising standard, which alone can pilot us toward
the Golden Age, is a fatal weakness when a race comes to
compete industrially with a capable race that multiplies on a
lower plane. Suppose, for example, Asiatics flock to this
country and, enjoying equal opportunities under our laws,
learn our methods and compete actively with Americans.
They may be able to produce and therefore earn in the or-
dinary occupations, say three-fourths as much as Americans ;
but if their standard of life is only half as high, the Asiatic
will marr}^ before the American feels able to marrj-. The
Asiatic will rear two children while his competitor feels able
to rear but one. The Asiatic will increase his children to six
under conditions that will not encourage the American to
raise more than four. Both, perhaps, are forward-looking
and influenced by the worldly prospects of their children ;
but where the Oriental is satisfied with the outlook the
American, who expects to school his children longer and place
them better, shakes his head.

Now, to such a competition there are three possible
results. First, the American, becoming discouraged, may
relinquish his exacting standard of decency and begin to
multiply as freely as the Asiatic. This, however, is likely
to occur only among the more reckless and worthless ele-
ments of our population. Second, the Asiatic may catch up
our wants as well as our arts, and acquire the higher stand-
ard and lower rate of increase of the American. This is just
what contact and education are doing for the French Cana-
dians in New England, for the immigrants in the West, and
for the negro in some parts of the South; but the members
of a great culture race like the Chinese show no disposition,
even when scattered sparsely among us, to assimilate to us
or to adopt our standards. Not until their self-complacency
has been undermined at home and an extensive intellectual

88 Annals of the American Academy

ferment has taken place in China itself will the Chinese
become assimilable elements. Thirdly, the standards may-
remain distinct, the rates of increase unequal, and the silent
replacement of Americans by Asiatics go on unopposed until
the latter monopolize all industrial occupations, and the
Americans shrink to a superior caste able perhaps by virtue
of its genius, its organization, and its vantage of position to
retain for a while its hold on government, education,
finance, and the direction of industr)^ but hopelessly beaten
and displaced as a race. In other words, the American farm
hand, mechanic and operative might wither away before the
heavy influx of a prolific race from the Orient, just as in
classic times the Latin husbandman vanished before the endT
less stream of slaves poured into Italy by her triumphant
generals.

For a case like this I can find no words so apt as
"race suicide." There is no bloodshed, no violence, no
assault of the race that waxes upon the race that wanes.
The higher race quietly and unmurmuringly eliminates itself
rather than endure individually the bitter competition it has
failed to ward off from itself by collective action. The
working classes gradually delay marriage and restrict the size
of the family as the opportunities hitherto reserv^ed for their
children are eagerly snapped up by the numerous progeny
of the foreigner. The prudent, self-respecting natives first
cease to expand, and then, as the struggle for existence grows
sterner and the outlook for their children darker, they fail
even to recruit their own numbers. It is probably the visible
narrowing of the circle of opportunity through the infiltra-
tion of Irish and French Canadians that has brought so low
the native birth-rate in New England.

However this may be, it is certain that if we venture to
apply to the American people of to-day the series of tests of
superiority I have set forth to you at such length, the result is
most gratifying to our pride. It is true that our average of
energy and character is lowered by the presence in the South

The Causes of Race Superiority 89

of several millions of au inferior race. It is true that the
last twenty years have diluted us with masses of fecund but
beaten humanity from the hovels of far Lombardy and Galicia.
It is true that our free land is gone and our opportunities
will henceforth attract immigrants chiefly from the humbler
strata of East European peoples. Yet, while there are here
problems that only high statesmanship can solve, I believe
there is at the present moment no people in the world that
is, man for man, equal to the Americans in capacity and
eflSciency. We stand now at the moment when the gradual
westward migration has done its work. The tonic selections
of the frontier have brought us as far as they can bring us.
The testing individualizing struggle with the wilderness has
developed in us what it would of body, brain and character.
Moreover, free institutions and universal education have
keyed to the highest tension the ambitions of the Ameri-
can. He has been chiefly farmer and is only beginning
to expose himself to the deteriorating influences of city and
factory. He is now probably at the climax of his energy and
everything promises that in the centuries to come he is
destined to play a brilliant and leading role on the stage of
history.

III. The Race Problem at the
South

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The Race Problem at the South

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
By Col. Hilary A. Herbert, ex-Secretary of the Navy

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THE RACE PROBLEM AT THE SOUTH.
By Col. Hii^ARY A. Herbert,

Ex-Secretary of the Navy.

This is a land of free speech. Americans may now discuss
anywhere, North or South, even their Negro question in all
its bearings. This it has not always been easy to do even
in this historic city, which claims the proud distinction of
being the birthplace of American liberties. In 1859 George
William Curtis became temporarily a hero by an anti-
slavery speech in Philadelphia. A mob had gathered to
prevent him, but themaj^orof the city, backed by the police,
succeeded in protecting the speaker, who delivered his
address in spite of the missiles that were hurled into the
room where he spoke. The next year, however, so violent
were the passions of the day that the friends of that great
orator could not hire a hall in this cit^' for Mr. Curtis to
lecture in, even on a subject totally disconnected with the
Negro, or with politics.

In those days the Negro question was full of dynamite,
because we then had in this country two systems, I might
almost say two civilizations, one founded on free and the
other intimately interwoven with and largely dependent upon
slave labor. They were in sharp conflict with each other,
and therefore it was that free discussion of the slavery
question, or Negro problem, was then sometimes difiicult at
the North, while it was everywhere impossible in the South.
Abolition sentiment was proclaiming in the North that
slavery must go, no matter at what cost. In the South,
therefore, the stern law of self-preservation demanded the
rigid suppression of free speech on this question, lest discus-
sion should incite insurrection, and light the midnight torch
of the incendiary. In the North the motive of the mobs
which, like those who gathered around Mr. Curtis here in

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96 Annals of the American Academy

1859, and who called themselves Union men, was to pre-
vent abolition speeches because the}' saw in them disunion
or civil war, or it might be both civil war and disunion.
The civil war came; it was terrible; more terrible than
dreamer ever dreamed of. But it is over, and there will
never be disunion; no one fears it now, because now no one
desires it. Slavery is dead, and can never be resurrected.
So, therefore, there is now nothing to hinder free speech,
here or elsewhere in our country, about the race problem
in the South. We are all here to aid, as far as we
may, in its correct solution. The city in which this meeting
is convened, the auspices under which we are met, the start-
ling contrasts in the antecedents of those who are to take
part in the discussion, all are propitious. This Academy is
seeking knowledge.

But let us not lose sight of the fact that many years had
rolled away after our Civil War, before a meeting comprising
so many divergent elements as this became possible, even in
the city of Philadelphia. If in 1861 there was dynamite in
the Negro question, so when that dynamite had exploded,
and when states had been wrecked and social and economic
systems shattered, the problems that grew out of the Negro
question were quite as exciting when up for discussion as
had been slavery itself.

^ The most acute form in which this many-sided question
then presented itself was suffrage, and every student now
knows that political science played no part in its solution,
that the reconstruction acts were passed and the Fifteenth
Amendment was adopted when party spirit was more intol-
erant than it had ever been before, and the passions of war
were still blazing fiercely. The Constitution of the fathers
was framed in this city after mature deliberation behind
closed doors. The Fifteenth Amendment, changing that
instrument fundamentally, was formulated after heated
debate in Congress, on the rostrum, and in the newspapers
throughout the land . In debating the question of granting

The Race Problem at the South 97

suffrage by law to millions of ex-slaves, and then of clinch-
ing the right by a constitutional provision intended to secure
it forever, whether it worked for good or evil, the funda-
mental proposition for consideration should have been the
fitness of the Negro. Was he intellectually, by training and
antecedents, competent to take part — often a controlling
part — in the great business of government ? But the case
did not turn on that point, the discussion was always wide
of that mark. The nearest approach to the question of the
fitness of the ex-slave for the ballot was this argument: Did
not the government free the Negro ? Was he not the ward
of the nation ? Did not the government owe him protec-
tion ? And how could he protect himself without the
ballot?

This, though fitness was assumed without argument to
support it, is the most defensible of all the grounds on which
the Fifteenth Amendment became part of the Constitution.
If the Negro had only possessed the qualifications which
political science tells us are essential in those on whose
shoulders rest the burdens of republican government, with
the ballot in hand he would not only have protected him-
self, but he would have given to the Southern States, and he
would have helped to give to the nation, the blessings of
good government. But the fitness for the ballot that had
been taken for granted did not exist. The political struc-
tures based on Negro ballots, like the house of the unwise
man in the Scriptures, fell because they were builded upon
sand.

Out of reconstruction and the Fifteenth Amendment have
come many of the peculiar phases, and nearly all the aggra-
vations which now beset the ' ' race problem at the South," the
subject before you for discussion this afternoon. In the days
of reconstruction the teachings of political science as such, and
of ethnology, its handmaid, had made but little impression in
America. Political science had been taught, it is true in Wil-
liam and Mary College, to Jefferson and other Virginia states-

98 Annals of the American Academy,

men prior to the Revolution, and there were, prior to i860,
in a few scattered American colleges, solitary professors lectur-
ing occasionally on the subject, but great schools of polit-
ical science and great academies like this are of recent
growth.

/ This Academy and its co-laborers did not come too soon;
they did not enter the field before the harvest was ripe. As
our country expands it has need for wider knowledge. It
is dealing now not only with its Negroes in the South, but
with Cuban and Porto Rican and Philippine populations,
and it needs not only accurate knowledge of all these peo-
ples, but, facing as we do a future that will bring to us
questions as momentous as they will be novel, the time has
come when we must search carefully for and familiarize our
people with the lessons of our own history, that our experi-
ence may be a lamp to guide our feet. You gentlemen of
this Academy have set yourselves to that work, and I am very-
sure you will do it fearlessly. The task you have set your-
self requires high thinking and bold speaking. Where
our fathers acted wisely you will hold up their example to
imitation. Where they made mistakes, you will not hesi-
tate to point them out.

Professor Cope, the great naturalist of your Universitj'-,
was a pioneer in the field you are exploring. A few 5''ears
ago he made a notable contribution to the discussion of the
race problem you are to consider this evening. It was a
series of articles published in the Open Court, a Chicago
periodical, discussing, from the standpoint of a naturalist,
the differences between the white man and the Negro. He
showed the inferiority of the Negro, and contended that the
Mulatto was in many respects, which he carefully pointed
out, inferior to both his parents. Then he left the firm
ground of science on which he was at home, and surmised
that intermarriage would hereafter become common in the
South. If this surmise should be correct, then there would
follow, as he had proven, the destruction of a large portion

The Race Problem at the South 99

of the finest race upon earth, the whites of the South. To
prevent this result he argued that the government could
well afford, whatever might be the cost, to deport all the
Negroes from the South. This admixture of the races let us
hope will not take place, and deportation is impossible.

If these articles had been written and published in i860
who can estimate the opprobium that would have been
heaped upon Professor Cope and the University of Pennsyl-
vania. But in the nineties the publication excited no
comment. It was simply a scientific contribution to the
discussion of the Negro question. The day of free thought
and free speech even on our race problem had come.
/ So I am free here and now to saj^ to you, and yo\x will
consider it for w^hat it is worth, that in my opinion the
granting of universal suffrage to the Negro was the mistake
of the nineteenth century. I sa\^ that, believing m3^self to
be a friend to the Negro, willing and anxious that he shall
have fair play and the fullest opportunity under the law to
develop himself to his utmost capacity. Suffrage v.-ronged
the Negro, because he could only develop by practicing
industry and economy, while learning frugalit3^ It was a
mistake to tempt him away from the field of labor into the
field of politics, where, as a rule, he could understand
nothing that was taught him except the color line. Negro
suffrage was a wrong to the white man of the South, for it
brought him face to face with a situation in which he
concluded, after some years of trial, that in order to preserve
his civilization he must resort to fraud in elections, and fraud
in elections, wherever it may be practiced, is like the deadly
upas tree ; it scatters its poisons in every direction. Uni-
versal suffrage in the South has demoralized our politics
there. It has created a bitterness between the present
generations of whites and blacks that had never existed
between the ex-slave and his former master. These are
among the complications of the problem 5'ou are studying.
Another crying evil that has resulted to the people of the

loo Annals of the American Academy

South and of the whole Union is that we now have an abso-
lutely solid South, where the necessity for white supremacy
is so dominant that no political question can be discussed on
its merits, and whites do not divide themselves between the
two national parties. What we need in the Southern States
to-day, above all things, is two political parties, strong
enough and able to deal with each other at arms' -length.

The Negro's prospects for improvement, his development
since emancipation, his industrial conditions, his relation to
crime, the scanty results of the system of education that has
been pursued, how that system can be bettered — all these
questions as they exist to-day are before you for debate. Here
and there, among Southern people, are some who in despair
are advocating that no more money be spent by the whites for
the education of the blacks. This, I am glad to say, is not the
prevailing sentiment. The Southern people, as a rule, believe
that we should continue to strive for the development of the
Negro and the lifting of him up to a higher plane, where he
may be more useful to himself and to the state. Most of us
are looking hopefully to that system which is now being so
successfully practiced in different Southern schools, and
notably at Tuskegee, Alabama. Booker T. Washington, the
president of that institution, is one of the remarkable men
of to-day. A paper from his pen was to have been read
before you.^ Unfortunately it has not reached you j-et, but
it will come. Every opinion he may express, and every
fact he may state, is entitled to most careful consideration.
Two eminent speakers are here to discuss the questions
which I have only attempted to indicate, and I will detain
you no longer.

This meeting is open for business.

Our next speaker is Dr. George T. Winston, president of
the North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic
Arts. President Winston is a Southerner, a native of North

^ This paper was uot received in time for publication iu this volume, but will
appear in a later issue of the Annals. — Editor.

The Race Problem at the South ioi

Carolina, his father was a slave owner ; he himself is a
graduate of Cornell, and there were two Negroes in his class.
He has enjoyed exceptional opportunities for study and for
understanding the subject of which he will speak to you,
which is " The Relation of the Whites to the Negroes." I
introduce Dr. Winston.

The Relation of the Whites to the Negroes

By President George T. Winston, LL. D., North Carolina
College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts

(103)

THE RELATION OF THE WHITES TO THE
NEGROES.

By President George T. Winston,
North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts.

Since the abolition of slaver^' a great change has taken
place in the relations of the whites to the Negroes in the
Southern states. This change has been one not merely of
ownership and legal authority, but of personal interest, of
moral influence, of social and industrial relations.

To-day there is practically no social intercourse between
the two races, excepting such as exists between the Negroes
and the most degraded whites. It was far different in
slavery. Then the two races mingled freely together, not
on terms of social equality, but in very extended and
constant social intercourse. In almost every household the
children of the two races played and frolicked together, or
hunted, fished or swam together in the fields, streams and
forests. During my childhood and boyhood the greater
portion of my play-time was spent in games and sports with
Negroes. Scarcely any pleasure was so great to a southern
child as playing with Negroes. In the long summer evenings
we would play and romp until bed-time in the spacious yard
surrounding the house, or in the garden or neighboring
fields. I remember well how the evenings would fl)^ by,
and how my mother would grant repeated extensions of
time, "just to play one more game of fox-and-geese, or hide-
the-switch." Some of the songs that we sang and some of
the games that we played, part singing, part acting, part
dancing, still linger in my memory and carry me back to the
happiness of childhood. Always in my childhood memories,
especially in happy memories, I find associated together my
mother, my home, and the Negro slaves.

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io6 Annals of the American Academy

During the winter evenings, when it was disagreeable out
of doors, I would get permission for four or five Negro boys
and girls to play with me in the library, or in the nursery^
Here we would play indoor games ; jack-straws, blind-man's-
buff, checks, checkers, pantomime, geography puzzles, con-
undrum matches and spelling bees. Frequently I would
read the Negroes fairy stories, or show them pictures in the
magazines and books of art. I remember how we used to
linger over a beautiful picture of Lord William Russell
bidding adieu to his family before going to execution ; and
how in boyish way I would tell the Negroes the stor)^ of his
unhappy fate and his wife's devotion. Another favorite
picture was the coronation of Queen Victoria. How we
delighted in "Audubon's Birds " and in the beautifully
colored plates and animals in the government publications
on natural history'. The pleasure was by no means one-sided.
To our hotch-pot of amusement and instruction the Negroes
contributed marvelous tales of birds and animals, which
more than offset my familiar reminiscences of Queen Victoria
and Lord Russell.

It was a great privilege during slavery for the white
children to visit Negro cabins at night and listen to their folk
lore. Those delightful stories immortalized by Joel Chandler
Harris, in the character of Uncle Remus, I heard many times
in my youth, and many others besides equally delightful.
There is a marvelous attraction between a white child and a
Negro ; even between a little child and a grown Negro. I
alwa3-s found it a pleasure to sit in the cabins and watch
them at work. It was a pleasure just to be with them. I
have eaten many a meal with my father's slaves in their
cabins, always treated with consideration, respect and affec-
tion, but not greater than I myself felt for the master and
mistress of the humble cabin. My mother would have
punished severely any disrespect or rudeness on my part
toward the older Negroes. I would not have dared to call
them by their names. It was alwaj'S ' ' Uncle Tom ' ' or

Relation of the Whites to the Negroes 107

"Aunt Susan," when I addressed them. This form of
appellation was common in the South between whites and
blacks. Even a strange Negro, w^hose name was not known,
however humble he might be, was saluted on the high road,
when passed by a respectable white person, with the friendly
greeting of " Howdye, Uncle," or " Howdye, Auntie."

Social intercourse between w^hite and black during slavery
was not confined to children. Not infrequently the Negro
women would come to the " White House " to see the mis-
tress, often in the evenings, sitting and chatting in the nur-
sery or the ladies' sitting room. Visits to the slave cabins
were made regularly, oftentimes daily, by the white women
of the household, who went not merely to visit the sick and
inspect the children, to advise and direct about w^ork and
household matters, but to show their personal interest in
and regard for the Negroes themselves, not as slaves, nor
workers, but as individuals, as human beings, and some-
times as dear friends. In short, a social visit was made ;
not upon terms of social equality, but still a social visit, dur-
ing which the news of the plantation or neighborhood, and oc-
casionally of the larger world, w^as exchanged and discussed.
This custom existed to some extent even on large planta-
tions, where the slaves were more isolated and herded to-
gether in larger numbers. On small farms, where the races
were about equal numerically, and in all households there
was constant and very familiar contact between white and
black. The white women in Southern households usually
aided and directed the work of the Negroes. The mistress
sewed or cut garments in the same room with the slave seam-
stresses. The lady's maid slept upon a couch or pallet in
her lady's chamber, or the one adjoining. The cooks,
dining-room servants, nurses, laundresses, coachmen, house-
boys, gardeners, shoemakers, carpenters, blacksmiths and
mechanics generally were in daily enjoyment of a very con-
siderable degree of social intercourse with the white race.
They entered into the traditions and spirit of the family to

io8 Annals of the American Academy

which they belonged, defended its name and its honor, ac-
cepted in a rude way its ideas of courtesy, moralit}' and
rehgion, and thus became to a considerable degree inheritors
of the civilization of the white race. It was this semi-social
intercourse between the two races, without any approach to
social equality, this daily and hourly contact producing per-
sonal interest, friendship and affection, added to the industrial
training of slavery that transformed the Negro so quickly
from a savage to a civilized man.

The one great evil connected with race familiarity, the
evil of licentiousness and miscegenation, while degrading
to the white race was not entirely harmful to the Negro.
Nearly all the leaders of the Negro race, both during slavery
and since, have been Mulattoes ; and the two really great
men credited to the Negro race in the United States have
been the sons of white fathers, and strongly marked by the
mental and moral qualities of the white race. The Mulatto
is quicker, brighter, and more easily refined than the Negro.
There is a general opinion among Southern people that he
is inferior morally; but I believe that his only inferiority is
phj'sical and vital. It cannot be denied that the Negro race
has been very greatly elevated by its Mulatto members. In-
deed, if 3'ou strike from its records all that Mulattoes have
said and done, little would be left. Wherever work requir-
ing refinement, extra intelligence and executive ability is
performed, you will find it usually directed by Mulattoes.

But the social intercourse between the races in the South,
which was so helpful to the blacks, has now practically
ceased. The children of this generation no longer play and
frolic together. White ladies no longer visit Negro cabins.
The familiar salutation of "Uncle" or "Auntie" is no
longer heard. The lady's maid sleeps no more by the bed-
side of her mistress. The Southern woman with her help-
less little children in solitary farm house no longer sleeps
secure in the absence of her husband with doors unlocked
but safely guarded by black men whose lives would be freely

Relation of the Whites to the Negroes 109

given ill her defence. But now, when a knock is heard at
the door, she shudders with nameless horror. The black
brute is lurking in the dark, a monstrous beast, crazed with
lust. His ferocity is almost demoniacal. A mad bull or a
tiger could scarcely be more brutal. A whole community
is now frenzied with horror, with blind and furious rage for
vengeance. A stake is driven ; the wretched brute, covered
with oil, bruised and gashed, beaten and hacked and maimed,
amid the jeers and shouts and curses, the tears of anger and
of joy, the prayers and the maledictions of thousands of civil-
ized people, in the sight of school-houses, court-houses and
churches is burned to death. Since the abolition of slavery
and the growing up of a new generation of Negroes, crimes
that are too hideous to describe have been committed every
month, every week, frequently every day, against the help-
less women and children of the white race, crimes that were
unknown in slavery. And, in turn, cruelties have been in-
flicted upon Negroes by whole communities of whites, which,
if attempted during slavery, would have been prevented at
any sacrifice. I do not hesitate to say that more horrible
crimes have been committed by the generation of Negroes
that have grown up in the South since slaver}' than by the
six preceding generations in slavery. And also that the
worst cruelties of slavery all combined for two centuries were
not equal to the savage barbarities inflicted in retaliation
upon the Negroes by the whites during the last twenty years.
This condition of things is too horrible to last. In must grow
better ; or else grow worse, and by its own fury destroy both
black and white.

Between the older generations in the South there is still
warm affection. Whenever I visit my old home, all the
Negroes that are able, come to see me, many traveling con-
siderable distances. The last time I was there my nurse and
playmate, a woman of fifty years, about six years my elder,
threw her arms around me and wept like a child, completely
overcome with emotion. She was honest, virtuous, industri-

no Annals of the American Academy

ous, intelligent, affectionate and faithful. She had been
raised from childhood by my mother and had slept every
night in my mother's bed room. I am sure that every
member of my father's family would have risked his life to
protect her. An& she would have greatly preferred death
to seeing misfortune or disaster visit our family. ]\Iy youngest
brother's nurse, dying about ten years after emancipation,
made her will and left her little store of goods and property,
worth perhaps a hundred dollars, to her white nursling,
' ' little Master Robert. ' ' A few days ago a Negro man was
pardoned from the State penitentiary in North Carolina, by
the Governor. The following letter secured his pardon. It
was written by his former master and playmate, a captain in
the Confederate army, an ex-member of Congress, a Demo-
cratic member of the recent State Legislature :

To His Excellency Honorable Charles B. Aycock, Governor of
North Carolina.

Dear Sir : I respectfully and earnestl}' petition you to pardon
William Alexander, a Negro convicted of burglary in the year 1889, in
Mecklenburg County. William was born on my father's plantation,
and is about fifty-eight or fifty-nine years old, one or two years my
junior. I need only state that his father was our coachman and his
mother our cook, to show you my opportunity was good for knowing
him. He was my slave, and his father and mother died on my plan-
tation. William was not smart, or, to use a plantation term, was less
bright than any of the young Negroes on the plantation. Knowing
both of the Negroes connected with him in the burglar}', I feel no
hesitation in assuring you that I believe that they persuaded him to
join them. William has now served about twelve years. This is an
excessive punishment for a Negro of a low order of intelligence. If
he came of a bad family, I would not ask his pardon. His family is
as good as any Negro family in this state. He is the only one that
has ever been indicted for crime. I could get others to sign a petition,
but it would be a favor for me, not him, for an ordinary Negro con-
fined in the penitentiary for twelve j'ears is a forgotten man. Gov-
ernor, I pray you to pardon William Alexander ; and, if he will, he
can return to my plantation where the friend of his boyhood will give
him a home.

Very respectfull)',

Raleigh, N. C, March 26, 1901. S. B. Alexander.

Relation of the Whites to the Negroes hi

The industrial relations of the races have also undergone
great changes in the South, though not so marked as the
changes in social and personal relations. Under slavery
almost all the labor of the South was performed by Negroes,
or by Negroes and whites working side by side. The South
was lacking in manufactures, and used little machinery.
Its demand for skilled labor was not large, but what de-
mand existed was supplied mainl}^ by Negroes. Negro
carpenters, plasterers, bricklayers, blacksmiths, wheelwrights,
painters, harnessmakers, tanners, millers, weavers, barrel-
makers, basketmakers, shoemakers, chairmakers, coachmen,
spinners, seamstresses, housekeepers, gardeners, cooks,
laundresses, embroiderers, maids of all work, could be
found in every communit}', and frequentlj^ on a single plan-
tation. Skilled labor was more profitable than unskilled,
and therefore every slave was made as skilful as was possi-
ble under a slave system. The young Negroes were brought
up to labor, from an early age. The smartest girls were
trained to domestic service in its various branches, and
became practically members of the family, so far as careful
training was concerned. Many of them could sew, knit,
crochet, embroider, cut, fit and make garments, clean up
house, wash and iron, spin and weave, even more skilfully
than the mistress who had taught them. All the garments
that I wore in childhood were made by Negroes or by my
mother, with the single exception of the hat. Negro lads
who showed aptitude for trades, were hired out under a sort
of apprentice system, and taught to be skilful as carpenters,
masons, smiths, and the like. The Negro artisans were
very jealous of their rights, and stood upon their profes-
sional skill and knowledge. I remember, one day, my
father, who was a lawyer, offered some suggestions to one of
his slaves, a fairl^'-good carpenter, who was building us a barn.
The old Negro heard him with ill-concealed disgust, and
replied: "Look here. Master, you'se a first-rate lawyer,
no doubt ; but j^ou don't know nothing 'tall 'bout carpenter-

112 Annals of the American Academy

ing. You better go back to your lawbooks." The most
accomplished housemaid, maid-of-all-work, laundress, nurse,
dining-room servant, in our household was a woman named
Emily, and the most accomplished man-of-all-work, carpen-
ter, coachman, 'possum-hunter, fisherman, story-teller, boy
amuser, was Emily's brother, Andrew. The}' had been
given to my father in his youth by my grandfather, and had
attended him to college, W'orking in the dining-room, to pay
for his education. They were present at my father's wed-
ding, and for twenty years remained members of the house-
hold, exceedingly useful and skilful ; and, I may add, ex-
ceedingly privileged characters. They far surpassed in
efficiency and versatility any white laborers in the county.
I remember, one Sunday, the family came home earlier than
usual from church, there being no services on account of the
illness of the minister. On entering his bed room my
father beheld a strange and yet familiar looking Negro
arrayed in dress-suit standing in front of the mirror, with
arms akimbo, and swallow-tails of the coat switching from
side to side in token of pride and satisfaction. It was
Emily, arrayed in her master's best suit', enjoying a new
sensation. No punishment was inflicted on her. Nor do I
remember that any of my father's slaves were ever punished,
except such switching as was given the children, on which
occasions I was usually present, a most unwilling partici-
pant and fellow-victim.

When emancipation came at the close of the Civil War, it
was understood by the average Negro to mean freedom from
labor. Freedom, leisure, idleness was now his greatest
pleasure. How delightful it was to tell old master now that
he had business in town and couldn't work to-day ; to leave
the plow and hoe idle ; to meet other Negroes on the streets,
to spend the day loafing, chatting, shouting, oftentimes
drinking and dancing or quarreling and fighting. Sambo
was now a gentleman of leisure, and he enjoyed it to the
full. It was easy to live in the South. The mild climate

Relation of the Whites to the Negroes 113

and fertile soil, the abuudance of game in forest and stream,
the bountiful supply of wild fruits, the accessibility of forests
with firewood free to all, the openhanded generosity and
universal carelessness of living made it possible for the
average Negro to idle away at least half his time and yet live
in tolerable comfort.

The national government, to guard against distress among
the Negroes and to prevent oppression by the whites, neither
of which was at all possible, now established throughout the
South, for the distribution of food and clothing and the
administration of justice between the races, the Freedman's
Bureau. This institution w^as in every respect most unfortu-
nate. The Negro ran awa}' from his old master's cornfield
and his appeals to work in order to enjoy the free bounty of
the federal government. I knew a Negro to walk one
hundred miles in order to obtain half a bushel of corn meal
from the bureau. In the time required he might have
earned by labor four and a half bushels, or nine times what
he got by begging. But the evils of idleness, although
great, would soon have passed away, if the two races had
been left alone. The Southern whites were familiar with
and very tolerant of the Negro's weaknesses and petty vices.
They looked upon him with sympathy and sorrow, with
friendship and affection, rather than with anger, resentment,
and hostility. They were anxious to see him go to work
even more diligently than in slavery, acquire property, and
improve his moral and physical condition. The races still
remained very close together, in their daily lives, interests
and affections. Thej^ might have worked out a future along
lines far different from those they are now following. It
was decreed otherwise by fate.

The bestowal of political rights upon the Negro, the
disfranchisement of almost every prominent white man in
the South, the migration from the North of political carpet-
baggers and their manipulation of the Negro vote, the Civil
Rights Bill, the Force Bill, the zeal of educational and

114 Annals of the American Academy

religious missionaries, most of whom preached and practiced
the social and civil equality of the races ; in short, the dark,
dismal and awful night of Reconstruction, following swift
upon the storm of Civil War with its unparalleled destruc-
tion of life and property, now threatened the very founda-
tions of civilization in all the Southern states. The bonds
between the races were broken at last. The Negro did not
endorse all the demands that were made in his behalf. He
knew the}^ were impossible. Still he was profoundly in-
fluenced by them. In slaverj^ he was like an animal in
harness ; well trained, gentle and affectionate ; in early
freedom the harness was off, but still the habit of obedience
and the force of affection endured and prevented a run-away.
In Reconstruction came a consciousness of being unhar-
nessed, unhitched, unbridled and unrestrained. The wildest
excesses followed. The machinery of government was
seized in every Southern state by men recentl}'- slaves, now
guided b}^ political adventures. Southern halls of legislation,
once glorified by the eloquence of Patrick Henry, the
wisdom of Marshall, or the patriotism of Washington, now
resounded with the drunken snorings or the unmeaning
gibberish of Cuffee and Sambo. Negro strumpets in silks
and satins led wild orgies at inaugural balls in marble halls
that blushed and closed their e3^es. ' ' Uncle Tom ' ' and
"Aunt Susan" were now entirely vanished. The family
cook now demanded to be known as Mrs. Jackson, and the
chambermaid as Miss Marguerite. I know an unmarried
Negress, about twenty-five years of age, the mother of three
illegitimate children, who requires her own children to call
her on all occasions, " Miss Mary." It was not a time for
the learning of new trades by the emancipated race. It was
not a time for new industries, or increased efficiency of labor.
The Negro was intoxicated with the license of freedom ; the
North was blinded by sentimentality and the passions of
war ; the South was fighting for civilization and existence.
It is all over now. I forbear to characterize it further.

Relation of thk Whites to the Negroes 115

Some day the historian, the poet, the painter, the dramatist
will picture Reconstruction, and will make the saddest
picture in the annals of the English-speaking race.

But Reconstruction is ended at last. For the first time
since 1870 the National House of Representatives contains
not a single Negro.

For the first time in our history the American Negro is
almost friendless. The North, tired of Negro politicians
and Negro beggars, is beginning to say : " We have helped
the Negro enough ; let him now help himself and work out
his own salvation." The South, worn out with strife over
the Negro and supporting with difficulty its awful burden of
Negro ignorance, inefficiency and criminalitj^ is beginning
to ask whether the race is really capable of development, or
is a curse and a hindrance in the way of Southern progress
and civilization.

The two races are drifting apart. They were closer
together in slavery than they have been since. Old time
sympathies, friendships and affections created by two
centuries of slavery, are rapidly passing away. A single
generation of freedom has almost destroyed them. Unless a
change is made, coming generations will be separated by
active hatred and hostilit3\ The condition of the Negro is
indeed pitiful ; and his prospects for the future are dark and
gloomy. There is no solution of the problem, unless it is
dealt with from the standpoint of reason and experience,
without prejudice or fanaticism.

The Negro is a child race. If isolated from the world and
left to himself, he might slowly grow into manhood along
separate lines and develop a Negro civilization ; but in the
United States such isolation and such development are quite
impossible. The Negro here is bound to be under the
tutelage and control of the whites. No legal enactment, no
political agitation, no scheme of education can alter this
fact. It is better for the Negro that it should be so ; better
that he should be dispersed among the white people, living

ii6 Annals of the American ACx\demy

with tbein and learning their ways, than to be deported to
Africa, or segregated somewhere in America, to work out
slowly a separate and distinct Negro civilization.

The tutelage of the Negro is not yet complete. It lasted
through six generations of slavery, directed by Southern
whites. It has continued through one generation of freedom,
directed by Northern whites, acting through Federal
legislation, through Federal courts, through political, edu-
cational and religious missionaries working among the
Negroes in the Southern states. The foil}' and the futility
of Northern tutelage is now fully demonstrated ; and the
Negro is again under the tutelage of the South, to remain
there until the race problem is finally settled.

The real question is not one of tutelage versiis self-
development, but whether the necessary tutelage of the
Negro under the white race shall be one of friendship and
S5-mpathy or one of prejudice and hostilit}'. To such a
question only one answer is possible. It would be a cruelty
greater than slaver}^ to leave this helpless race, this child
race, to work out its own salvation in fierce and hostile
competition with the strongest and best developed race on
the globe. The Negro can expect no peculiar development.
He must aim at white civilization ; and must reach it
through the support, guidance and control of the white
people among whom he lives. He must regain the active
friendship and affection of the Southern whites. He will do
so if let alone by the North. The South once liked him and
loved him, and will do so again if he will permit and deserve
it. The North, through force of arms and legal enactment,
has given him physical freedom ; but moral and intellectual
freedom must come through the help of the descendants of
his former masters. If this help be not given, there is no
hope for the race. Against the prejudice and passion, the
neglect and oppression, the competition and hostility which
will inevitably result from a continuance of the relations
now existing: between the two races in the South the Negro

Relation of the Whites to the Negroes 117

will be ground to powder. His progress depends absolutely
upon the restoration of friendl}^ relations to the whites.
Nor is this a matter of easy accomplishment. Two things
are requisite ;

1. The withdrawal of the Negro from politics.

2. His increased eflScienc}' as a laborer.

The withdrawal of the Negro from politics is now being
accomplished by legislation in the various Southern States.
If this is interrupted by the North, and the old battle of
Reconstruction fought again, the result will be the complete
and final estrangement of the two races, with prejudice and
hostility too intense to permit their living peaceably
together.

Greater industrial efficiencj^ would prove an everlasting
bond between the races in the South. It is the real key to
the problem. Let the Negro make himself indispensable as
a workman, and he may rely upon the friendship and
affection of the whites. But the best energies of the race
since enjancipation have been diverted from industrial fields
into politics, preaching and education. Until recently its
leaders have not regarded industrial effort as a means of
progress. But public sentiment in the South still w^elcomes
the Negro to every field of labor that he is capable of
performing. The whole field of industry is open to him.
The Southern whites are not troubled by his efficiency
but by his i^efficienc3^ For a full generation the Negro has
had opportunity to control every industry in the South.
Had he devoted himself, upon emancipation, to manual
labor and the purchase of land instead of to politics, religion
and education, he would own to-day at least one-half the
soil of the Southern states.

There is abundant room for Northern philanthropy in
helping to uplift the Southern Negro. A Hampton Institute,
or a Tuskegee, should be established in every congressional
district. But this alone will not suffice. The Negro laborer,
like the white laborer, needs the industrial training of his

ii8 Annals of the American Academy

daily employer. He needs, daily and hourly, the sj^mpathy,
encouragement, instruction, admonition and restraint of his
white employer. These are given to the white boy or girl ;
and are received usually with willingness and profit. But
such help is not given to the Negro ; nor is it desired.
Negro children are less courteous to white people now than
white children were to Negroes during slavery.

The Negro race is a child race and must remain in tutelage
for years to come ; in tutelage not of colleges and universi-
ties, but of industrial schools, of skilled and efficient labor,
of character building by honest work and honest dealing, of
good habits and good manners, of respect for elders and
superiors, of daily employment on the farm, in the house-
hold, the shop, the forest, the factory and the mine. Slavery
gave the Negro a better industrial training than he has
to-day. Freedom has increased his zeal and his opportunity,
but diminished his skill. The door of his opportunity will
not always be open. He must enter now. If he do not,
he will remain for a while among the races of the earth a
dull and stupid draught animal ; and finally will pass away,
incompetent. But, with the help of the white race he may
obtain opportunity to develop his powers, he may subdue
his animal passions and cultivate his gentler emotions, may
train his physical strength into skill and power, may grow
from childhood into mature manhood ; and in the providence
of God may yet add strength to the civilization of a people,
who, through the tutelage of slavery, with sorrow and tears,
with labor and anguish, with hope and charity brought
him from barbarism to civilization, from heathenism to
christianitv.

The Relation of the Negroes to the
Whites in the South

By Professor W. E. Burghardt DuBois, Ph. D.,
Atlanta University

(119)

THE RELATION OF THE NEGROES TO THE
WHITES IN THE SOUTH.

By Professor W. E. Bukghakdt DuBois, Ph. D.,

Atlanta University.

In the discussion of great social problems it is extremely
difficult for those who are themselves actors in the drama to
avoid the attitude of partisans and advocates. And yet I
take it that the examination of the most serious of the race
problems of America is not in the nature of a debate but
rather a joint endeavor to seek the truth beneath a mass of
assertion and opinion, of passion and distress. And I trust
that whatever disagreement may arise between those who
view the situation from opposite sides of the color line will
be rather in the nature of additional information than of
contradiction.

The world-old phenomenon of the contact of diverse races
of men is to have new exemplification during the new
centur\'. Indeed the characteristic of the age is the contact
of European civilization with the world's undeveloped
peoples. Whatever we may say of the results of such
contact iu the past, it certainly forms a chapter in human
action not pleasant to look back upon. War, murder,
slavery, extermination and debauchery — this has again and
again been the result of carrying civilization and the blessed
gospel to the isles of the sea and the heathen without the
law. Nor does it altogether satisfy the conscience of the
modern world to be told complacently that all this has been
right and proper, the fated triumph of strength over weak-
ness, of righteousness over evil, of superiors over inferiors.
It would certainly be soothing if one could readily believe
all this, and j^et there are too many ugl}' facts, for everything
to be thus easily explained away. We feel and know that
there are many delicate differences in race psychology,

(121)

122 Annals of the American Academy

numberless changes which our crude social measurements
are not yet able to follow minutely, which explain much of
historj^ and social development. At the same time, too,
we know that these considerations have never adequately ex-
plained or excused the triumph of brute force and cunning
over weakness and innocence.

It is then the strife of all honorable men of the twentieth
century to see that in the future competition of races, the
survival of the fittest shall mean the triumph of the good,
the beautiful and the true ; that we may be able to preserve
for future civilization all that is really fine and noble and
strong, and not continue to put a premium on greed and
impudence and cruelty. To bring this hope to fruition we
are compelled daily to turn more and more to a conscientious
study of the phenomena of race contact — to a study frank
and fair, and not falsified and colored by our wishes or our
fears. And we have here in the South as fine a field for
such a study as the world affords : a field to be sure which
the average American scientist deems somewhat beneath his
dignity, and which the average man who is not a scientist
knows all about, but nevertheless a line of study which by
reason of the enormous race complications, with which God
seems about to punish this nation, must increasingly claim
our sober attention, study and thought. We must ask :
What are the actual relations of whites and blacks in the
South, and we must be answered not by apology or fault-
finding, but by a plain, unvarnished tale.

In the civilized life of to-day the contact of men and their
relations to each other fall in a few main lines of action and
communication : there is first the phj'sical proximity of
homes and dwelling places, the way in which neighborhoods
group themselves, and the contiguity of neighborhoods.
Secondly, and in our age chiefest, there are the economic
relations — the methods b}^ which individuals co-operate for
earning a living, for the mutual satisfaction of wants, for
the production of wealth. Next there are the political

Relation of the Negroes to the Whites 123

relations, the co-operation in social control, in group gov-
ernment, in laying and paying the burden of taxation. In
the fourth place there are the less tangible but highly
important forms of intellectual contact and commerce, the
interchange of ideas through conversation and conference,
through periodicals and libraries, and above all the gradual
formation for each community of that curious tertimn quid
which we call public opinion. Closely allied with this come
the various forms of social contact in every-day life, in
travel, in theatres, in house gatherings, in marrying and
giving in marriage. Finally, there are the varying forms of
religious enterprise, of moral teaching and benevolent en-
deavor.

These are the principal wa3-s in which men living in the
same communities are brought into contact with each other.
It is my task this afternoon, therefore, to point out from my
point of view how the black race in the South meets and
mingles with the whites, in these matters of every-day life.

First as to physical dwelling, it is usually possible, as most
of you know, to draw in nearly every Southern community
a ph^^sical color line on the map, to the one side of which
whites dwell and the other Negroes. The winding and intri-
cacy of the geographical color line varies of course in differ-
ent communities. I know some towns where a straight line
drawn through the middle of the main street separates nine-
tenths of the whites from nine- tenths of the blacks. In other
towns the older settlement of whites has been encircled by a
broad band of blacks ; in still other cases little settlements
or nuclei of blacks have sprung up amid surrounding whites.
Usuall}' in cities each street has its distinctive color, and
only now and then do the colors meet in close proximity.
Even in the country something of this segregation is mani-
fest in the smaller areas, and of course in the larger phe-
nomena of the black belt.

All this segregation by color is largely independent of that
natural clustering by social grades common to all commu-

124 Annals of the American Academy

nities. A Negro slum may be in dangerous proximit)- to a
white residence quarter, while it is quite common to find a
white slum planted in the heart of a respectable Negro dis-
trict. One thing, however, seldom occurs : the best of the
whites and the best of the negroes almost never live in any-
thing like close proximity. It thus happens that in nearly
every Southern town and city, both whites and blacks see
commonly the worst of each other. This is a vast change
from the situation in the past when through the close, contact
of master and house-servant in the patriarchal big house,
one found the best of both races in close contact and sympa-
thy, while at the same time the squalor and dull round
of toil among the field hands was removed from the sight
and hearing of the family. One can easily see how^ a person
who saw slavery thus from his father's parlors and sees free-
dom on the streets of a great city fails to grasp or compre-
hend the whole of the new picture. On the other hand the
settled belief of the mass of the Negroes that the Southern
white people do not have the black man's best interests at
heart has been intensified in later years by this continual
daily contact of the better class of blacks with the worst rep-
resentatives of the white race.

Coming now to the economic relations of the races we are
on ground made familiar by study, much discussion and no
little philanthropic effort. And yet with all this there are
many essential elements in the co-operation of Negroes and
whites for work and wealth, that are too readily overlooked
or not thoroughlj' understood. The average American can
easily conceive of a rich land awaiting development and
filled with black laborers. To him the Southern problem is
simply that of making efiicient workingmen out of this ma-
terial by giving them the requisite technical skill and the
help of invested capital. The problem, however, is by no
means as simple as this, from the obvious fact that these
workingmen have been trained for centuries as slaves. They
exhibit, therefore, all the advantages and defects of such

Relation of the Negroes to the Whites 125

training ; the}' are willing and good-natured, but not self-
reliant, provident or careful. If now the economic develop-
ment of the South is to be pushed to the verge of exploitation,
as seems probable, then you have a mass of workingmen
thrown into relentless competition with the workingmen of
the world but handicapped by a training the very opposite
to that of the modern self-reliant democratic laborer. What
the black laborer needs is careful personal guidance, group
leadership of men with hearts in their bosoms, to train them
to foresight, carefulness and honesty. Nor does it require any
fine-spun theories of racial differences to prove the necessity
of such group training after the brains of the race have been
knocked out-by two hundred and fifty 3-ears of assiduous edu-
cation in submission, carelessness and stealing. After eman-
cipation it was the plain dut}- of some one to assume this group
leadership and training of the Negro laborer. I will not stop
here to inquire zvhose duty it was — whether that of the white
ex-master who had profited by unpaid toil, or the Northern
philanthropist whose persistence brought the crisis, or of the
National Government whose edict freed the bondsmen — I will
not stop to ask whose duty it was, but I insist it was the duty
of some 07ie to see that these workingmen were not left alone
and unguided without capital, landless, without skill, with-
out economic organization, without even the bald protection
of law, order and decency ; left in a great land not to settle
down to slow and careful internal development, but destined
to be thrown almost immediately into relentless, sharp com-
petition with the best of modern workingmen under an eco-
nomic system where every participant is fighting for himself,
and too often utterly regardless of the rights or welfare of his
neighbor.

For we must never forget that the economic system of the
South to-da}'- which has succeeded the old regime is not the
same system as that of the old industrial North, of England
or of France with their trades unions, their restrictive laws,
their written and unwritten commercial customs and their

126 Annals of the American Academy

long experience. It is rather a copy of that England of the
earl)' nineteenth century, before the factory acts, the England
that wrung ipity from thinkers and fired the wrath of Carlyle.
The rod of empire that passed from the hands of Southern
gentlemen in 1865, partly by force, partly by their own
petulance, has never returned to them. Rather it has
passed to those men who have come to take charge of the
industrial exploitation of the New South — the sons of poor
whites fired with a new thirst for wealth and power, thrifty
and avaricious Yankees, shrewd and unscrupulous Jews.
Into the hands of these men the Southern laborers, white
and black, have fallen, and this to their sorrow. For the
laborers as such there is in these new captains of industry
neither love nor hate, neither sympath)^ nor romance — it is
a cold question of dollars and dividends. Under such a
system all labor is bound to suffer. Even the white laborers
are not yet intelligent, thrifty and well trained enough to
maintain themselves against the powerful inroads of organ-
ized capital. The result among them even, is long hours of
toil, low wages, child labor, and lack of protection against
usury and cheating. But among the black laborers all this
is aggravated, first, by a race prejudice which varies from a
doubt and distrust among the best element of whites to a
frenzied hatred among the worst ; and, secondly, it is aggra-
vated, as I have said before, by the wretched economic
heritage of the freedmen from slavery. With this training
it is difficult for the freedman to learn to grasp the oppor-
tunities already opened to him, and the new opportunities
are seldom given him but go by favor to the whites.

Left by the best elements of the South with little protection
or oversight, he has been made in law and custom the victim
of the worst and most unscrupulous men in each community.
The crop-lien system which is depopulating the fields
of the South is not simply the result of shiftlessness on
the part of Negroes but is also the result of cunningly
devised laws as to mortgages, liens and misdemeanors which

Relation of the Negroes to the Whites 127

can be made by conscienceless men to entrap and snare
the unwary until escape is impossible, further toil a farce,
and protest a crime. I have seen in the black belt of
Georgia an ignorant, honest Negro bu}^ and pay for a farm in
installments three separate times, and then in the face of law
and decency the enterprising Russian Jew who sold it to
him pocketed money and deed and left the black man land-
less, to labor on his own land at thirtj^ cents a day. I have
seen a black farmer fall in debt to a white storekeeper and
that storekeeper go to his farm and strip it of ever}' single
marketable article — mules, plows, stored crops, tools, furni-
ture, bedding, clocks, looking-glass, and all this without
a warrant, without process of law, without a sheriff or
officer, in the face of the law for homestead exemptions,
and without rendering to a single responsible person any
account or reckoning. And such proceedings can happen
and will happen in an}^ community where a class of igno-
rant toilers are placed by custom and race prejudice bej-ond
the pale of sympathy and race brotherhood. So long as the
best elements of a community do not feel in duty bound to
protect and train and care for the weaker members of their
group they leave them to be preyed upon by these swindlers
and rascals.

This unfortunate economic situation does not mean the
hindrance of all advance in the black south, or the absence
of a class of black landlords and mechanics who, in spite
of disadvantages, are accumulating property and making
good citizens. But it does mean that this class is not
nearly so large as a fairer economic system might easily
make it, that those who survive in the competition are
handicapped so as to accomplish much less than they
deserve to, and that above all, the personnel of the success-
ful class is left to chance and accident, and not to any
intelligent culling or reasonable methods of selection. As a
remedy for this, there is but one possible procedure. We
must accept some of the race prejudice in the South as a

128 Annals of the American Academy

fact — deplorable in its iutensit}-, unfortunate in results, and
dangerous for the future, but nevertheless a hard fact which
only time can efface. We cannot hope then in this genera-
tion, or for several generations, that the mass of the whites
can be brought to assume that close sympathetic and self-
sacrificing leadership of the blacks which their present
situation so eloquently demands. Such leadership, such
social teaching and example, must come from the blacks
themselves. For sometime men doubted as to whether
the Negro could develop such leaders, but to-day no one
seriously disputes the capabilit}^ of individual Negroes
to assimilate the culture and common sense of modern
civilization, and to pass it on to some extent, at least, to
their fellows. If this be true, then here is the path out of
the economic situation, and here is the imperative demand
for trained Negro leaders of character and intelligence, men
of skill, men of light and leading, college-bred men, black
captains of industry and missionaries of culture. Men who
thoroughly comprehend and know modern civilization and
can take hold of Negro communities and raise and train
them by force of precept and example, deep sympathy and
the inspiration of common blood and ideals. But if such
men are to be effective they must have some power — they
must be backed by the best public opinion of these com-
munities, and able to wield for their objects and aims such
weapons as the experience of the world has taught are
indispensable to human progress.

Of such weapons the greatest, perhaps, in the modern
world is the power of the ballot, and this brings me to a
consideration of the third form of contact between whites
and blacks in the South — political activity.

In the attitude of the American mind toward Negro suff-
rage, can be traced with singular accuracy the prevalent
conceptions of government. In the sixties we were near
enough the echoes of the French Revolution to believe
pretty thoroughly in universal suffrage. We argued, as we

Relation of the Negroes to the Whites 129

thought then rather logically, that no social class was so
good, so true and so disinterested as to be trusted wholly
with the political destiny of their neighbors ; that in every
state the best arbiters of their own welfare are the persons
directly affected, consequently it is only by arming every
hand with a ballot — wnth the right to have a voice in the
policy of the state — that the greatest good to the greatest
number could be attained. To be sure there were objections
to these arguments, but we thought we had answered them
tersely and convincingly ; if some one complained of the
ignorance of voters, we answered : " Educate them." If
another complained of their venality we replied: "Dis-
franchise them or put them in jail." And finally to the
men who feared demagogues and the natural perversity of
some human beings, we insisted that time and bitter experi-
ence would teach the most hardheaded. It was at this time
that the question of Negro suffrage in the South was raised.
Here was a defenseless people suddenly made free. How
were they to be protected from those who did not believe in
their freedom and were determined to thwart it ? Not by
force, said the North ; not by government guardianship, said
the South ; then by the ballot, the sole and legitimate
defense of a free people, said the Common Sense of the
nation. No one thought at the time that the ex-slaves
could use the ballot intelligently or very effectively, but
they did think that the possession of so great power, by a
great class in the nation would compel their fellows to edu-
cate this class to its intelligent use.

Meantime new thoughts came to the nation: the inevitable
period of moral retrogression and political trickery that ever
follows in the wake of war overtook us. So flagrant became
the political scandals that reputable men began to leave
politics alone, and politics consequently became disreputable.
Men began to pride themselves on having nothing to do
with their own government and to agree tacitly with those
who regarded public office as a private perquisite. In this

130 Annals of thk American Academy

state of mind it became easy to wink at the suppression of
the Negro vote in the South, and to advise self-respecting
Negroes to leave politics entii'ely alone. The decent and
reputable citizens of the North who neglected their own civic
duties grew hilarious over the exaggerated importance wuth
which the Negro regarded the franchise. Thus it easily
happened that more and more the better class of Negroes
followed the advice from abroad and the pressure from home
and took no further interest in politics, leaving to the careless
and the venal of their race the exercise of their rights as
voters. This black vote which still remained was not
trained and educated but further debauched by open and
unblushing bribery, or force and fraud, until the Negro voter
was thoroughly inoculated wath the idea that politics was
a method of private gain by disreputable means.

And finally, now, to-day, w'hen we are awakening to the
fact that the perpetuity of republican institutions on this
continent depends on the purification of the ballot, the civic
training of voters, and the raising of voting to the plane of
a solemn duty which a patriotic citizen neglects to his peril
and to the peril of his children's children — in this day when
we are striving for a renaissance of civic virtue, what are we
going to say to the black voter of the South ? Are we
going to tell him still that politics is a disreputable and
useless form of human activity ? Are we going to induce
the best class of Negroes to take less and less interest in
government and give up their right to take such an
interest without a protest ? I am not saying a word against
all legitimate efforts to purge the ballot of ignorance, pauper-
ism and crime. But few have pretended that the present
movement for disfranchisement in the South is for such a
purpose ; it has been plainly and frankly declared in nearly
every case that the object of the disfranchising laws is the
elimination of the black man from politics.

Now is this a minor matter which has no influence on the
main question of the industrial and intellectual development

Relation of the Negroes to the Whites 131

of the Negro ? Can we establish a mass of black laborers,
artisans and landholders in the South who by law and
public opinion have absolutely no voice in shaping the laws
under which they live and work. Can the modern organiza-
tion of industry, assuming as it does free democratic govern-
ment and the power and ability of the laboring classes to
compel respect for their welfare — can this system be carried
out in the South when half its laboring force is voiceless in
the public councils and powerless in its own defense ? To-day
the black man of the South has almost nothing to say as to
how much he shall be taxed, or how those taxes shall be ex-
pended ; as to who shall execute the laws and how they shall
do it ; as to who shall make the laws and how they shall be
made. It is pitiable that frantic efforts must be made at
critical times to get lawmakers in some states even to listen
to the respectful presentation of the black side of a current
controversy. Daily the Negro is coming more and more to
look upon law and justice not as protecting safeguards but
as sources of humiliation and oppression. The laws are
made by men who as yet have little interest in him ; they
are executed by men who have absolutely no motive for
treating the black people with courtesy or consideration, and
finally the accused lawbreaker is tried not by his peers
but too often by men who would rather punish ten innocent
Negroes than let one guilty one escape.

I should be the last one to deny the patent weaknesses
and shortcomings of the Negro people ; I should be the last
to withhold sympathy from the white South in its efforts to
solve its intricate social problems. I freely acknowledge
that it is possible and sometimes best that a partially unde-
veloped people should be ruled by the best of their stronger
and better neighbors for their own good, until such time as
they can start and fight the world's battles alone. I have
already pointed out how sorely in need of such economic and
spiritual guidance the emancipated Negro was, and I am
quite willing to admit that if the representatives of the

132 Annals op the American Academy

best white southern public opinion were the ruling and
guiding powers in the South to-day that the conditions
indicated would be fairly well fulfilled. But the point I have
insisted upon and now emphasize again is that the best
opinion of the South to-day is not the ruling opinion. That
to leave the Negro helpless and without a ballot to-day is to
leave him not to the guidance of the best but rather to the
exploitation and debauchment of the worst ; that this is
no truer of the South than of the North — of the North than
of Europe — in any land, in any country under modern free
competition, to lay any class of weak and despised people, be
they white, black or blue, at the political mercy of their
stronger, richer and more resourceful fellows is a temptation
which human nature seldom has and seldom will withstand.
Moreover the political status of the Negro in the South is
closely connected with the question of Negro crime. There
can be no doubt that crime among Negroes has greatly in-
creased in the last twenty years and that there has appeared in
the slums of great cities a distinct criminal class among the
blacks. In explaining this unfortunate developement we
must note two things, (i) that the inevitable result of eman-
cipation was to increase crime and criminals, and (2) that the
police system of the South was primarily designed to control
slaves. As to the first point we must not forget that under
a strict slave regime there can scarcely be such a thing as
crime. But when these variously constituted human particles
are suddenl}^ thrown broadcast on the sea of life, some swim,
some sink, and some hang suspended, to be forced up or down
by the chance currents of a busy hurrying world. So great an
economic and social revolution as swept the South in '63
meant a weeding out among the Negroes of the incompetents
aud vicious — the beginning of a differentiation of social
grades. Now a rising group of people are not lifted bodily
from the ground like an inert solid mass, but rather stretch
upward like a living plant with its roots still clinging in the
mold. The appearance, therefore, of the Negro criminal was

Relation of the Negroes to the Whites 133

a plienomenon to be awaited, and while it causes anxiety it
should not occasion surprise.

Here again the hope for the future depended peculiarly
on careful and delicate dealing with these criminals. Their
offenses at first were those of laziness, carelessness and
impulse rather than of malignity or ungoverned viciousness.
Such misdemeanors needed discriminating treatment, firm
but reformatory, with no hint of injustice and full proof of
guilt. For such dealing with criminals, white or black, the
South had no machinerj^ no adequate jails or reformatories
and a police system arranged to deal with blacks alone, and
which tacitly assumed that every white man was ipso facto a
member of that police. Thus grew up a double system of
justice which erred on the white side by undue leniency and
the practical immunity of red-handed criminals, and erred on
the black side by undue severity, injustice and lack of dis-
crimination. For, as I have said, the police system of the
South was originally designed to keep track of all Negroes,
not simply of criminals, and when the Negroes were freed
and the whole South was convinced of the impossibility of
free Negro labor, the first and almost universal device was to
use the courts as a means of re-enslaving the blacks. It was
not then a question of crime but rather of color that settled a
man's conviction on almost any charge. Thus Negroes
came to look upon courts as instruments of injustice and
oppression, and upon those convicted in them as martyrs
and victims.

When now the real Negro criminal appeared and, instead
of petty stealing and vagrancy, we began to have highway
robbery, burglary, murder and rape, it had a curious effect
on both sides the color line ; the Negroes refused to believe
the evidence of white witnesses or the fairness of white juries,
so that the greatest deterrent to crime, the public opinion
of one's own social caste was lost and the criminal still looked
upon as crucified rather than hanged. On the other hand
the whites, used to being careless as to the guilt or inno-

134 Annals of ths American Academy

cence of accused Negroes, were swept in moments of passion
beyond law, reason and decency. Such a situation is bound
to increase crime and has increased it. To natural vicious-
ness and vagrancy is being dailj^ added motives of revolt
and revenge which stir up all the latent sa\'agery of both
races and make peaceful attention to economic development
often impossible.

But the chief problem in any community cursed with
crime is not the punishment of the criminals but the pre-
venting of the young from being trained to crime. And
here again the peculiar conditions of the South have pre-
vented proper precautions. I have seen twelve-year-old
bo3''s working in chains on the public streets of Atlanta, di-
rectly in front of the schools, in company' with old and hard-
ened criminals ; and this indiscriminate mingling of men,
women and children makes the chain-gangs perfect schools
of crime and debaucherj^ The struggle for reformatories
which has gone on in Virginia, Georgia and other states is
the one encouraging sign of the awakening of some commu-
nities to the suicidal results of this policy.

It is the public schools, however, which can be made out-
side the homes the greatest means of training decent self-
respecting citizens. We have been so hotly engaged recently
in discussing trade schools and the higher education that the
pitiable plight of the public school system in the South has
almost dropped from view. Of every five dollars spent for
public education in the State of Georgia the white schools
get four dollars and the Negro one dollar, and even then the
white public school system, save in the cities, is bad and cries
for reform. If this be true of the whites, v.iiat of the blacks ?
I am becoming more and more convinced as I look upon the
system of common school training in the South that the
national government must soon step in and aid popular edu-
cation in some way. To-day it has been only by the most
strenuous efforts on the part of the thinking men of the South
that the Nearro's share of the school fund has not been cut

Relation of the Negroes to the Whites 135

down to a pittance in some half dozen states, and that move-
ment not only is not dead but in many communities is gain-
ing strength. What in the name of reason does this nation
expect of a people poorly trained and hard pressed in severe
economic competition, without political rights and with
ludicrously inadequate common school facilities? What can
it expect but crime and listlessness, offset here and there
by the dogged struggles of the fortunate and more deter-
mined who are themselves buoyed by the hope that in due
time the countr}' will come to its senses ?

I have thus far sought to make clear the phj^sical eco-
nomic and political relations of the Negroes and whites in
the South as I have conceived them, including for the rea-
sons set forth, crime and education. But after all that has
been said on these more tangible matters of human contact
there still remains a part essential to a proper description of
the South which it is difficult to describe or fix in terms easily
understood bj' strangers. It is, in fine, the atmosphere of
the land, the thought and feeling, the thousand and one little
actions which go to make up life. In an^^ community or
nation it is these little things which are most elusive to the
grasp and yet most essential to any clear conception of the
group life, taken as a whole. What is thus true of all com-
munities is peculiarly true of the South where, outside of
written historj^ and outside of printed law, there has been
going on for a generation, as deep a storm and stress of hu-
man souls, as intense a ferment of feeling, as intricate a
writhing of spirit as ever a people experienced. Within and
without the sombre veil of color, vast social forces have been
at work, efforts for human betterment, movements toward
disintegration and despair, tragedies and comedies in social
and economic life, and a swaying and lifting and sinking of
human hearts which have made this land a land of mingled
sorrow and joy, of change and excitement.

The centre of this spiritual turmoil has ever been the
millions- of black freedmen and their sons, whose destiny is

136 Annals of the American Academy

so fatefully bound up with that of the nation. And yet the
casual observer visiting the South sees at first little of this.
He notes the growing frequency of dark faces as he rides on,
but otherwise the days slip lazily on, the sun shines and this
little world seems as happy and contented as other worlds he
has visited. Indeed, on the question of questions, the Negro
problem, he hears so little that there almost seems to be a
conspiracy of silence ; the morning papers seldom mention
it, and then usually in a far-fetched academic way, and
indeed almost every one seems to forget and ignore .the
darker half of the land, until the astonished visitor is
inclined to ask if after all there is any problem here. But
if he lingers long enough there comes the awakening : per-
haps in a sudden whirl of passion which leaves him gasping
at its bitter intensity ; more likely in a gradually dawning
sense of things he had not at first noticed. Slowly but
surely his eyes begin to catch the shadows of the color line;
here he meets crowds of Negroes and whites ; then he is
suddenly aware that he cannot discover a single dark face ;
or again at the close of a day's wandering he may find
himself in some strange assembly, where all faces are tinged
brown or black, and where he has the vague uncomfortable
feeling of the stranger. He realizes at last that silently,
resistlessly, the world about flows by him in two great
streams. They ripple on in the same sunshine, they ap-
proach here and mingle their waters in seeming carelessness,
they divide then and flow wide apart. It is done quietly, no
mistakes are made, or if one occurs the swift arm of the law
and public opinion swings down for a moment, as when the
other day a black man and a white woman were arrested for
talking together on Whitehall street, in Atlanta.

Now if one notices carefully one will see that between
these two worlds, despite much physical contact and daily
intermingling, there is almost no community of intellectual
life or points of transferrence where the thoughts and feelings
of one race can come with direct contact and sympathy with

Relation of the Negroes to the Whites 137

the thoughts and feelings of the other. Before and directly-
after the war when all the best of the Negroes were domestic
servants in the best of the white families, there were bonds
of intimacy, afifection, and sometimes blood relationship
between the races. The}' lived in the same home, shared in
the family life, attended the same church often and talked
and conversed with each other. But the increasing civiliza-
tion of of the Negro since has naturally meant the develop-
ment of higher classes : there are increasing numbers of
ministers, teachers, physicians, merchants, mechanics and
independent farmers, who by nature and training are the
aristocracy and leaders of the blacks. Between them, how-
ever, and the best element of the whites, there is little or no
intellectual commerce. They go to separate churches, they
live in separate sections, they are strictly separated in all
public gatherings, they travel separately, and they are
beginning to read different papers and books. To most
libraries, lectures, concerts and museums Negroes are either
not admitted at all or on terms peculiarly galling to the pride
of the very classes who might otherwise be attracted. The
daily paper chronicles the doings of the black world from
afar with no great regard for accuracy; and so on throughout
the category of means for intellectual communication; schools,
conferences, efforts for social betterment and the like, it is
usually true that the very representatives of the two races
who for mutual benefit and the welfare of the land ought to
be in complete understanding and sympathy are so far
strangers that one side thinks all whites are narrow and
prejudiced and the other thinks educated Negroes dangerous
and insolent. Moreover, in a land where the tyranny of
public opinion and the intolerence of criticism is for obvious
historical reasons so strong as in the South, such a situation
is extremely difficult to correct. The white man as well as
the Negro is bound and tied by the color line and many a
scheme of friendliness and philanthropy, of broad-minded
sympathy, and generous fellowship between the two has

138 Annals of the American Academy

dropped still-born because some busy-body has forced the
color question to the front and brought the tremendous force
of unwritten law against the innovators.

It is hardly necessary for me to add to this very much in
regard to the social contact between the races. Nothing has
come to replace that finer sj'mpath}' and love between some
masters and house servants, which the radical and more
uncompromising drawing of the color line in recent years
has caused almost completely to disappear. In a world
where it means so much to take a man by the hand and sit
beside him ; to look frankl}' into his eyes and feel his heart
beating with red blood — in a world where a social cigar or a
cup of tea together means more than legislative halls and
magazine articles and speeches, one can imagine the con-
sequences of the almost utter absence of such social ameni-
ties between estranged races, whose separation extends even
to parks and street cars.

Here there can be none of that social going down to the
people ; the opening of heart and hand of the best to the
worst, in generous acknowledgment of a common humanity
and a common destiny. On the other hand, in matters of
simple almsgiving, where there be no question of social
contact, and in the succor of the aged and sick, the South,
as if stirred b}- a feeling of its unfortunate limitations, is
generous to a fault. The black beggar is never turned
away without a good deal more than a crust, and a call for
help for the unfortunate meets quick response. I remember,
one cold winter, in Atlanta, when I refrained from con-
tributing to a public relief fund lest Negroes should be
discriminated against ; I afterward inquired of a friend :
"Were any black people receiving aid?" "Why," said
he, ' ' they were all black. ' '

And yet this does not touch the kernel of the problem.
Human advancement is not a mere question of almsgiving,
but rather of sympathy and co-operation among classes who
would scorn charit3\ And here is a land where, in the
higher walks of life, in all the higher striving for the good

Relation of the Negroes to the Whites 139

and noble and true, the color line comes to separate natural
friends and co-workers, while at the bottom of the social
group in the saloon, the gambling hell and the bawdj'-house
that same line wavers and disappears.

I have sought to paint an average picture of real relations
between the races in the South. I have not glossed over
matters for policy's sake, for I fear we have already gone too
far in that sort of thing. On the other hand I have sincerelj'-
sought to let no unfair exaggerations creep in. I do not
doubt but that in some Southern communities conditions are
far better than those I have indicated. On the other hand,
I am certain that in other communities they are far worse.

Nor does the paradox and danger of this situation fail to
interest and perplex the best conscience of the South.
Deeply religious and intensel}^ democratic as are the mass of
the whites, they feel acutelj^ the false position in which the
Negro problems place them. Such an essentially honest-
hearted and generous people cannot cite the caste-leveling
precepts of Christianity, or believe in equality of opportunity
for all men, without coming to feel more and more with each
generation that the present drawing of the color line is a flat
contradiction to their beliefs and professions. But just as
often as they come to this point the present .social condition
of the Negro stands as a menace and a portent before even
the most open-minded : if there were nothing to charge
against the Negro but his blackness or other physical
peculiarities, they argue, the problem would be compar-
atively simple ; but what can we say to his ignorance,
shiftlessness, poverty and crime : can a self-respecting group
hold anything but the least possible fellowship with such
persons and survive ? and shall we let a mawkish sentiment
sweep away the culture of our fathers or the hope of our
children ? The argument so put is of great strength but it
is not a whit stronger than the argument of thinking
Negroes ; granted, they reply, that the condition of our
masses is bad, there is certainly on the one hand adequate

140 Annals of the Amkrican Academy.

historical cause for this, and unmistakable evidence that no
small number have, in spite of tremendous disadvantages,
risen to the level of American civilization. And when by-
proscription and prejudice, these same Negroes are classed
with, and treated like the lowest of their people simply
because the}^ are Negroes, such a policy not only discourages
thrift and intelligence among black men, but puts a direct
premium on the very things you complain of — inefficiency
and crime. Draw lines of crime, of incompetency, of
vice as tightly and uncompromisingly as you will, for these
things must be proscribed, but a color line not only does not
accomplish this purpose, but thwarts it.

In the face of two such arguments, the future of the
South depends on the ability of the representatives of these
opposing views to see and appreciate, and sympathize with
each other's position ; for the Negro to realize more deeply
than he does at present the need of uplifting the masses of
his people, for the white people to realize more vividly than
they have yet done the deadening and disastrous effect of a
color prejudice that classes Paul Lawrence Dunbar and Sam
Hose in the same despised class.

It is not enough for the Negroes to declare that color
prejudice is the sole cause of their social condition, nor for
the white South to reply that their social condition is the
main cause of prejudice. They both act as reciprocal cause
and effect and a change in neither alone will bring the desired
effect. Both must change or neither can improve to any great
extent. The Negro cannot stand the present reactionary
tendencies and unreasoning drawing of the color line much
longer without discouragement and retrogression. And the
condition of the Negro is ever the excuse for further
discrimination. Only by a union of intelligence and sym-
pathy across the color line in this critical period of the
Republic shall justice and right triumph, and

" Mind and heart according well,
Shall make one music as before,
But vaster."

IV. The Races of the West Indies

(J4I)

Our Relation to tlie People of Cuba and
Porto Rico

By Hon. Orville H. Piatt, United States Senator from
Connecticut

(.143)

OUR RELATION TO THE PEOPLE OF CUBA AND
PORTO RICO.

By Hon. Orville H. Platt,
United States Senator from Connecticut.

We have undertaken the soUition of a very diflScult
problem in Cuba. When we went to war with Spain we
declared that the people of Cuba ought to be free and inde-
pendent, and we therefore disclaimed any purpose to acquire
the island, and promised that when its pacification should
be accomplished we would leave it to its people. To this
declaration and promise we are solemnly pledged as a
nation. Reduced to its simplest terms our pledge is this :
that the United States becomes responsible for the establish-
ment and orderly- continuance of republican government in
Cuba. If, as some seem to suppose, the full performance of
our obligation only requires us to see that a so-called
republic is organized there, the task is comparatively easy,
but if we are also bound to provide for the orderly continu-
ance of a genuine republic it is by no means easy.
That the latter duty is as imperative as the former, can
scarcely be questioned. Indeed, it seems to be questioned
only in a technical way. Certain self-constituted and viru-
lent critics try to maintain that our promise to leave the
island to its people as soon as it should be pacified meant
that when we should have driven out Spain we would
ourselves retire and have nothing further to do with its
affairs, either by way of guiding the Cubans in the establish-
ment of their government, or assisting them to maintain
their independence.

In other words, it seems to be supposed by these carping
people that the United States has no interests to protect in
the Island of Cuba and that no matter what its people may
do, we are only to look on. But even these critics admit

(145)

146 Annals of the American Academy

that if conditions under the new government shall become
intolerable, intervention will again be justifiable and imper-
ative. They would have us at once terminate our military-
occupation leaving the future uncared for with the expecta-
tion that, should troubles arise there, either by reason of for-
eign demands or internal disorders, by which our interests
are imperiled, we will return in force to set matters right
again. It seems scarcely possible that such a policy should
find advocates in any quarter. Unless we provide now for
continued independence and peace in the Island of Cuba there
is no way in w^hich they can be assured unless, in case the
necessity arises, we declare war and enter upon the business
of subjugating and annexing it. It must be seen by all
who have the real welfare of our country at heart that our
only true policy is to see that a republican government is
now established under conditions which recognize our right
to maintain its stabilitj^ and prosperitj'. Cuba has menaced
our peace quite too long, and having once undertaken to
remedy an intolerable condition there it would be inexcus-
able folly to ignore the possibilit}' and indeed probability of
future trouble, or to fail to guard against its recurrence.

All rights acquired by the act of intervention exist except
so far as they are limited by the resolution of Congress, and
the only limitation imposed b}- that legislation rightly con-
strued is that we will not claim Cuba as a part of the United
States. We took temporary possession of the island with a
self-imposed trust which requires us to allow its people to
establish a free and independent government, and also to
assist in its maintenance as an orderl}', stable, and beneficent
one. The difficulty of the situation arises from the fact that
it would be improper for the United States to dictate the
provisions of the constitution which is to be the basis of
the new government, except to an extent necessary for its
own self- protection, and the discharge of obligations grow-
ing out of its intervention. We have a right to insist that
there shall be provisions in the constitution of Cuba, or

People of Cuba and Porto Rico 147

attached to it b}- way of au ordinance, which will clearly de-
fine the relations which are to exist between the two coun-
tries, but all matters relating to the system and detail of
government should be left to the people of Cuba alone. For
instance, although we may feel that universal sufifrage will
result in trouble and difficulty, we manifestly have no right
to prescribe the elective franchise.

The framework of government must be left by us to the
constitutional convention without dictation or mandatory
suggestion. So far as the rights of the people are concerned
the}^ must be left absolutely free to declare them. So far as
our rights are concerned, we may insist on their recognition
without in any way impairing or interfering with the inde-
pendence of Cuba. The war with Spain was undertaken to
put an end to intolerable conditions not only shocking to
humanity, but menacing our welfare, and our work was but
half done when the authority of Spain was destroyed. We
became responsible to the people of Cuba, to ourselves, and
the world at large, that a good government should be estab-
lished and maintained in place of the bad one to which we
put an end. The practical question then is, in what way
can the United States provide for a government in Cuba
which shall not only secure the blessings of liberty there in
their full exercise, but shall also secure to the United States
the results of good government in a country so closely
adjoining us ?

The right to intervene for the abolition of a bad govern-
ment, and the right to inter\'ene for the maintenance of a
good government in Cuba, rest upon the same foundation.
It is as much our duty to exercise our power in the mainte-
nance of an independent, stable and peaceful government
there as it was to exercise it in the destruction of a mon-
archical, oppressive and inhuman one. Duty and self-inter-
est coincide in this respect. The extension of the principles
and institutions of free government, wherever possible and
practicable, is no less our duty than the protection of our

148 Annai^s of Tii^ American Academy

own citizens iu all their rights aud interests in a foreign
country. By every consideration, then, which can bind a
nation, we are committed and pledged to the policy of per-
mitting the people of Cuba to establish, for and by them-
selves, a republican government for the continuance and
maintenance of which we are to be responsible.

If the element of our responsibility were eliminated from
the problem, it would be quite safe to say that the experi-
ment of free government has never been attempted in the
world under circumstances less favorable to permanent, suc-
cess. To insure the success of free government, certaiti con-
ditions seem indispensable. There must be a homogeneous
people possessed of a high degree of virtue and intelligence.
A sentimental longing for liberty will not of itself insure the
maintenance of a republic. Liberty is a word of quite elas-
tic meaning. License is not true liberty. It is orderly lib-
erty only which constitutes the sure basis of free govern-
ment. That government only is really free and indepen-
dent where liberty is restrained and buttressed by law, and
where the supposed rights of the individual are limited by
the rights of all. To establish such liberty there must be an
intelligent understanding of the social system and a compre-
hension of the just principles upon which true government
must always rest. The consent of the governed must be an
intelligent consent. Where the capacity to consent does not
exist, no government can be permanently maintained upon
such consent. Where a majority of voters neither under-
stand nor respect the true principles of government, there
may be a republic in name, but in fact it will only be a dic-
tatorship, in which the purpose and power of its president
control rather than the consent of the governed.

Social, racial and economic conditions iii Cuba do not at
first sight promise well for the permanence of republican
government. In passing, we must remember the fact that
none of its people have had any experience in self-govern-
ment, and the further fact that all their notions of govern-

People of Cuba and Porto Rico 149

ment have been framed and moulded b}' the history and
administration of one of the most arbitrarj^ and corrupt the
world has ever known. The lines which mark the divi-
sion of classes are most distinctly drawn, and the interests
of the different classes are most diverse.

The census of Cuba recently taken fails to give us statis-
tics in many important particulars. It informs us as to the
proportion of the white and colored population, and of the
native and foreign born. It shows that the number engaged
in gainful occupations is somewhat larger comparatively
than in the United States, but it fails to give us any statis-
tics as to propert}^ and wealth.

Cuba is essentially an agricultural state. Its soil is very
fertile and its climate is such that a failure of crops is seldom
known. It has hitherto had the disadvantage that its agri-
culture industry was mainly concentrated in the production
of two crops only, sugar and tobacco. While there is oppor-
tunity for great diversification of agriculture, the profits
arising from sugar and tobacco have been such that other
products have been neglected. The foreign trade of the
island, exports and imports combined, has amounted to
$100,000,000 annualh'-, and when we reflect that this foreign
trade is from an island containing only a million and half of
people, it is easy to see how profitable these two products
have been under favorable conditions. As a result of these
industries, there was, before the war with Spain, great wealth
in Cuba. The distinction made between Spaniards and
Cubans is simply that of birthplace, persons born in Spain
being classed as Spaniards, and all persons born in Cuba,
being classed as Cubans.

The Spaniards are the wealthy class. They are commer-
cial people. They carry on trade and business, loan money,
but do not as a class acquire landed property. They are
merchants, bankers, traders, money lenders ; they have all
the commercial instincts and characteristics of the Jew,
derived perhaps from the Jewish population of Spain in

I50 Annals of thk American Academy

former times. The proportion of Spaniards to the entire
population is small — 130,000 onl}' in round numbers, at the
time of taking the census, out of a total population of
1,600,000, were Spaniards. About sixtj' per cent of this
number, under the treaty of Paris, retained their alle-
giance to Spain. The proportion of adult males among
Spaniards is ver}^ much greater than that of any other class
of the population, 86,000 out of 130,000 being males over
twenty-one ^'■ears of age. Most of the read}^ money of the
island is controlled by these Spaniards.

The land of Cuba is owned, generally speaking, by white
Cubans. The number of land-owners in proportion to the
population is not given, but their number is comparatively
small. Considerable quantities of land are owned by persons
residing in Spain and other countries, but the cultivated
part of the island has been owned ver\- largely by these
Cuban planters. In recent times, some Americans and
other foreigners have acquired estates, but the percentage of
land thus held is small. It may then be said that the wealth
and property of the island is concentrated in the hands of
the Spaniards and a comparatively few white Cubans. Small
holdings by persons cultivating land, as in the United States,
are practically unknown in Cuba. The larger proportion of
the inhabitants, both white and colored, are not property-
holders and have no direct interest in the soil or in the busi-
ness of the island.

The classes controlling wealth and property took little
or no part in the revolution. The Spaniards, of course,
were loj^al to Spain, and most of the Cuban land-owners tried
to preserve their neutrality as between the revolutionists and
the Spanish government, often paying tribute to both sides
in the hope of saving their estates from destruction. There
is little sympath}^ between the wealthy and land-owning
classes in Cuba and the great bulk of its population. The
active revolutionary element consisted of white Cubans,
who, as has been said, have little or no property interests

PEOPI.E OF Cuba and Porto Rico 151

at stake ; they were the officers of the insurgent forces ;
the mulattoes constituted the rank and file, or fighting
element of the revolution.

Naturally the conservative and property-holding class, and
the radical and revolutionary class, thoroughly distrust each
other. Property owners think property will not be safe if
the revolutionary element shall be in control, and the radicals
think that the property-owning and business element secretly
favors annexation, in which it is encouraged by the United
States. For this reason principally the radical leaders
exhibit symptoms of hostility toward us. Those who own
property in Cuba do look to the United States for protection;
quite likely they are annexationists at heart. While there is
little or no annexation sentiment in the United States, it is
almost impossible to convince Cubans of that fact. The
radicals think that we are not sincere when we tell them
that annexation is the last thing desired by the United
States, and the conservatives hope that in the end events
may necessitate annexation.

If the present Cuban leaders can be brought to understand
and realize that the United States is as much opposed to
annexation as they are, full^^ sj'mpathizes with them in their
desire for independence and has no intention of limiting or
impairing that independence, their objection to the propo-
sitions submitted to them by Congress, defining our future
relations, will doubtless be modified. Cuban property own-
ers felt the oppression of Spain but feared a government
which would be established if the revolutionists succeeded,
quite as much as they did the Spanish government. Such
fear still continues, and as they are in a minority, they
have hitherto refrained from anj^ participation in the effort
to establish a new government, confidently expecting the
United States to protect them in the enjoyment of life,
liberty and property.

Politically, the people may be divided into five classes.
First, Spaniards, including both those who have retained

152 Annals of the American Academy.

their Spanish allegiance and those who have become Cuban
citizens ; second, Autonomists, or white Cubans, who re-
mained loyal during the war and undertook the task of
organizing government under the autonom}^ at last conceded
b}^ Spain ; third, white Cubans, who tried to preserve their
neutrality ; fourth, white Cuban revolutionists ; and fifth,
the colored class, a large proportion of which participated
in the revolution. Between these different classes there is
little of sympathy, much of distrust. Even the Spaniards
and the Autonomists do not afiiliate, and at present there
seems little prospect that there can be any political union
among those who may be called the conservative people of
Cuba. Their interests would lead them to unite, but their
prejudices and suspicions forbid.

There remains, then, the larger proportion of Cuban citi-
zens who may be classed as radical revolutionists. In the
United States they would be called agitators. Delegates
representing this class of the population appear to be in
control of the Cuban constitutional convention. They seem
to feel that by reason of the fact that they were revolutionists
they alone are entitled to take part in the establishment and
management of a new government.

They have very imperfect ideas of the practical duties or
responsibilities of a free government, but are intensely
devoted to liberty as the)^ understand it. Instead of being
grateful to the United States for the part it took in the
liberation of Cuba, they appear to cherish a spirit of hostility
towards us because they have not already been put in actual
possession of the government. Under the military govern-
ment of the island they have held and still hold nearly all of
the civil oflBces, but recognize very little obligation to that
government. One thing must be understood. Every Cuban,
whether a revolutionist or otherwise, is essentially Spanish
in all his traits and characteristics. There are as yet no
well-defined pol'itical parties in Cuba. The conservatives
have not been able to aflSliate sufficiently to organize a

People of Cuba and Porto Rico 153

conservative party, and party divisions among the revolu-
tionists are not based upon difierent policies or principles,
but rather upon individual leadership. The social and
economic conditions, thus briefly outlined, do not on their
face promise much for permanence of republican govern-
ment, but as time progresses, necessity and mutual interest
may wear away prejudices and distrust, and permit some-
thing like united effort by the more conservative classes.

In addition to the difl&culties enumerated, there is the
inevitable race problem. There is not as yet a race issue in
Cuban politics. Whether there will be, time onl}^ can
determine. Prejudice on account of color is either less than
in the United States or of a different qualit3^ Certainly
neither blacks nor mixed bloods are regarded as inferiors to
the same extent as with us, and in the matter of social
distinction color plays but a comparativel}' unimportant part.
"White and colored laborers work side b}^ side without
friction or contention. Maceo was honored and esteemed as
perhaps the ablest revolutionary general, and Gualberto
Gomez is regarded as one of the ablest delegates in the
constitutional convention. Universal suffrage was adopted
in the proposed constitution without a suggestion and pre-
sumably without a thought that a colored man was not as
much entitled to be a voter as a white man.

The colored people, including blacks and mixed bloods,
constitute about one-third of the population of Cuba. In
some of the provinces like Santiago and Matanzas, the
proportion is much larger ; in Santiago fortj^-five per cent,
in Matanzas forty per cent, while in some of the provinces
it is comparatively small, in Puerto Principe only twenty
per cent. It is an illiterate population. Only twenty-eight
per cent of the colored population of the island can read.
True, the white population is also illiterate, only forty -nine
per cent of wh-ich can read. These facts are ver^^ suggestive
when we consider the possibilit}'- of maintaining a republican
government. In the ascertainment of these statistics of

154 Annals of the American Academy.

illiteracy it is assumed that all children under ten 3-ears of
age attending school can read, so that the proportion of adult
males who can read will be somewhat less than indicated.

The colored population of Cuba differs essentially from
that in the United States, or in the other West India Islands.
The number of pure blacks is not given in the census. The
proportion is small. In appearance they differ essentially^
from the negro of the United States. They are absolutely
black, but their features are more European in cast. They
are not thick-lipped, and, except for color, would be taken as
splendid physical types of the Caucasian race. How this
physical difference is to be accounted for we can onl}' conjec-
ture bj" assuming that the slaves imported into Cuba came
from different sections of Africa than those imported into the
United States. The blacks in Cuba appear to be of a supe-
rior type as to capacity and efi&cienc}-, but the mulatto com-
pares less favorably with the mulatto in the United States.
This is accounted for probabh' both by blood and environment.
Mulattoes in the United States are a mixture of the Anglo-
Saxon and negro ; in Cuba, of the Spaniard and negro. The
negro imitates the whites with whom he is brought up, so in
the United States he imitates the character of the Anglo-
Saxon ; in Cuba, the character of the Spaniard.

In the United States he therefore naturally aspires to par-
ticipate in government ; in Cuba he seems to have very little
such aspiration. He is industrious, docile, quiet, and
cares for little bej-ond his immediate domestic and industrial
surroundings. The colored voter in Cuba is not likely
to be a disturbing political element, unless under a sense of
wrong and injustice his emotions are excited, then, indeed,
he becomes a good fighter, as was proved in the late revolu-
tion. He may possibly be influenced by the agitator and dema-
gogue, but it will require a very deep realization of injustice
to make him a dangerous factor in the politics of the island.
That he will vote intelligently can scarcely be expected. His
vote may aid in putting dangerous men in power, but he will

People of Cuba and Porto Rico 155

not greatly interest himself in the aSairs of the govern-
ment.

The colored population of Cuba presents a most interest-
ing sociological problem. The admixture of blood in his
veins exceeds, perhaps, that of the mulatto in any other part of
the world. The Spaniard himself is the result of an admixture
of blood running through centuries, and the difference in
appearance of Spaniards in Cuba is so great that the type is
hardly perceptible. The race problem, as it appears in the
white Cuban population, is quite as interesting as when con-
fined to the colored population. The Spaniards in Cuba have
come from the different sections of Spain, and the same is true
of the ancestors of the white Cubans. Spaniards differ in
appearance and characteristics more than the inhabitants of
almost any other country. The history of Spain for a thou-
sand years was that of conquest, of colonization and assimi-
lation of its native people with its conquerors and colonies.
Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Goths, Moors and Jews suc-
cessively occupied Spain, and with the exception of the Jews
controlled its government and amalgamated with its people.
Its different provinces have developed different types of
manhood, and Cuba has received its immigration from every
province. Its generals, officials, nobility, soldiery and its
peasantry alike peopled Cuba. In the veins of the Cuban
mulatto it is thus possible that there runs an infinitesimal
current of the blood of Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Gothic
and Moorish ancestors transmitted through its Spanish pro-
genitors. We are ourselves becoming a very mixed popu-
lation, and yet hardly more so than the population of Cuba
which we have been wont to call Spanish.

It will be seen, therefore, that the different classes of Cuban
population have little in common, except a desire for liberty,
as yet scarcely understood, and a pride of countr5^ Whether
these two common ties will be strong enough to insure an
orderly, well-balanced, peaceful government remains to be
seen. The elements of discord are in full play now, and if

156 Annals of the American Academy

tliese aloue were regarded the outlook would not be very-
hopeful. It is by no means certain, however, that the
colored citizens in Cuba ma)' not in the end ally themselves
with the conservative rather than with the revolutionary and
turbulent forces. A hopeful indication of this is found in the
fact that in the province of Santiago, where the colored ele-
ment is numerically stronger than in any other province,
delegates in the convention have been instructed at mass
meetings called for that purpose to accept the amendment
proposed at the recent session of Congress.

The results of education will not be immediately manifest,
but perhaps the most hopeful sign of responsible and perma-
nent government in Cuba is to be seen in the educational
work already begun there. If the next few years can be
tided over successfully, intelligence will doubtless come to
the rescue. At present there is discord, ignorance, and,
among the masses of the people, indifference. We must
hope that prejudice and suspicion between those who have
most at stake will be allayed, that the intelligent and con-
servative element will more and more assert itself, and that
the great need of Cuba for independence, peace and prosperity
will unite a majority of its people to labor for that end.

But the real hope for a free Cuba is to be found in the
friendly advice and guidance, and, if necessary, the assist-
ance of the United States. There will be no American
colonization there in the strict sense of the word. That
American capital will go there as soon as there is a govern-
ment under which its safety is assured, there is no question ;
that our American laborers will go there to any considerable
extent is improbable, not that climatic conditions are such
that it is impossible for them to work and live there, but that
industrial conditions will not, for a long time at least, be such
as to furnish inducements to the American who desires to
support himself by his own labor to emigrate to Cuba. The
island may easily support a population of five millions, or,
as many think, a much larger number ; but the question of

People of Cuba and Porto Rico 157

its increase of population depends largely upon where its
laborers are to come from.

There is little prospect that the colored race will increase
proportionately from natural causes. The labor required
to fully develop its agricultural industries must come from
abroad. The American negro is no more likely to go
there than the white laborer of the United States. Indus-
trially, then, as well as politically, the future of Cuba depends
largely upon its immigration, which at present comes from
Northern Spain and the Canary Islands. These immigrants,
amounting to 40,000 or more last year, are still Spaniards,
but may be classified as Spanish peasantry. They seem
adapted to the climate, and the wages which they can
command far exceed what they can obtain in their home
country. They are industrious, peaceable and domestic — in
a word, calculated to make good citizens. If properly treated
by the capitalists who employ them, they are liable to consti-
tute not only a stable, but an influential part of the popula-
tion. Four things, then, seem to promise good results : The
guidance and aid of the United States, the education of Cuban
children, the probable conservatism of the colored population,
and the industrial and peaceful character of probable immi-
grants. The revolutionary class will not at once abandon
the idea that they alone are entitled to govern, and there
will doubtless be more or less friction, contention and dis-
turbance, but as time wears on, it is to be hoped that out of
confusion order may come.

The hands of the United States are indeed partially tied.
There is a limit beyond which it may not go, and yet within
the legitimate limits which it has prescribed for itself it can
do much. It may not interfere with the liberty of the people
of Cuba to establish an independent government, republican
in form and fact ; it may, and must, for its own protection,
and in the discharge of obligations from which it cannot
escape if it would, see to it that the independence of Cuba
shall not be overthrown, no matter from what quarter it may

158 Annai^ of the American Academy

be assailed, and that life, property and individual rights
shall be as secure there as in the United States.

That the relations which are to exist between the United
States and the new government of Cuba must be closer than
those between us and any other foreign country will be
apparent to the dullest comprehension. So long as any
doubt exists of the abilitj^ of Cuba to stand alone, the United
States must be ready to support her. We must protect her
against any demands which will impair her independence,
and against any internal dissensions which may threaten the
overthrow of republican government. In thus standing
ready, and insisting upon our right to protect Cuba, we do
not at all contemplate the establishment of a protectorate in
any sense in which that term has been used in international
law. Our relations with Cuba will be unique. We may
best express them by saying that we claim the right to be
recognized as the guarantor of Cuban independence and of
the stability of its government. To require less than this
would be an abandonment of both self-interest and duty.

We propose to leave Cuba free to make treaties with
foreign powers not inconsistent with her independence ; to
enact all legislation which a free and independent government
may enact, to manage her own affairs in her own wa}^,
provided onlj^ that she does not thereby imperil her own
safety and our peace. And yet our right to intervene to save
Cuba even from herself must be recognized. We cannot
permit any foreign power to obtain a foothold in Cuba. We
cannot permit disturbances there which threaten the over-
throw of her government. We cannot tolerate a condition
in which life and property shall be insecure. In all this our
position is that of unselfishness. We do not seek our own
aggrandisement ; w^e do not ask reimbursement for the lives
and treasure spent in the effort to secure the blessings of
liberty and free government to Cuba.

We have undertaken to do for her people what no nation
in all history has ever undertaken to do for another, namelj-,

People of Cuba and Porto Rico 159

to overthrow an inhuman and iniquitous government in
order that a just, humane and beneficent government may be
estabhshed and maintained in its stead. Half of our work
is accomplished, half of it remains to be done. We have no
doubt that the remaining half of our duty will be performed
in the same spirit and with the same unselfishness which has
characterized our work from its commencement. Having
put our hand to the plow, we may not, and will not, look
back. It ■ is a great and glorious work which we have
undertaken. The difficulties and intricacies which confront
us should only stimulate us to a more conscientious perform-
ance of duty. In spite of all discouragement we look for
a free and regenerated Cuba, for which we may with self-
respect and even pride stand sponsor.

The Spanish Population of Cuba
and Porto Rico

By Mr. Charles M. Pepper, Washington. D. C.

(I6i)

THE SPANISH POPUI.ATION OF CUBA AND
PORTO RICO.

By Mr. Charles M. Pepper,

Of Washington, D. C.

In any discussion of the natives of Cuba and Porto Rico,
it is not possible entirely to separate the I^atin from the
African race. They exist together in those Islands and
their future is woven together inseparably. Each race has
kept its own identity, yet there has been a reciprocal or a
mutual influence. The African has benefited by the toler-
ance and kindlier consideration, the less pronounced antip-
athy, of the Spaniard as compared with the Anglo-Saxon.
Conversely the Negro has had a steadying influence, if I
may so call it, on the Spaniard. I do not mean to say that
this has been the result of racial intermixture, but rather
that the Negro living side by side with the Latin race has
modified the Latin temperament.

It is well to have this knowledge at the outset as it also is
well to recognize the status of the Negro. That the advance
which has been made may be lost by a disproportionate
growth of black population is the spectre of a brooding imagi-
nation. Porto Rico has no room for newcomers of the
laboring class. The present-day problem there is to find an
outlet for an overcrowded population. Cuba can support six
times the existing number of inhabitants, but economic and
political causes have combined to discourage schemes of
Negro colonization, while white immigration from Spain has
been in progress for the last two years and is certain to con-
tinue. With a perception of these facts it is not necessary
to controvert the presumption of the Caucasians in Cuba
and Porto Rico being smothered by a black cloud. There
will be no smothering of the African either, but there will

(163)

164 Annals of the American Academy

be a white prepouderance large enough to settle the race
question.

We may analj'ze and study the natives of Cuba and Porto
Rico who are of Spanish stock with better understanding
when we know that in each Island they comprise substan-
tially two-thirds of the inhabitants, a little less in Porto
Rico and a little more in Cuba. This is shown in the census
compiled under the direction of the War Department by
experts. It is a pleasure to refer to a government publica-
tion so comprehensive, so well digested and so trustworthy
as these volumes. They furnish an example of the value of
utilizing trained intelligence.

By this census we find that in Porto Rico out of a total
of 953,243 the native-born inhabitants number 939,371, of
whom 578,000 are white and 361,367 colored. In Cuba the
proportion is 1,067,354 whites to 505,443 blacks and mulat-
toes. That means a full million persons of Spanish birth or
descent.

"We all know," says Walter Bagehot, "how much a
man is apt to be like his ancestors." This observation
applies to the natives of both Islands, but with greater force,
I think, to those of Cuba. In both instances we may be
sure they take after their ancestors from Spain and its
adjoining possessions. Nor is the ancestry remote. " Two
hundred years," said a chronicler nearly a century ago in
describing Porto Rico and her people, ' ' are lost in obscurity. ' '
For an understanding of the inhabitants of the present day it
is not necessary to grope in darkness seeking to recover
those lost pages of history. We know that as in Cuba the
Indian race is extinct and that the Indian mixture of which
some travelers have discoursed is an imaginary one.

The ancestr>^ of the present generation of Porto Rican
natives need not be traced back more than a century and a
quarter. Originally the immigration was from the southern
part of Spain, Andalusia and Castile having the right to
people the Island to the exclusion of the other provinces of

Population of Cuba and Porto Rico 165

the Peninsula. Andalusia furnished the larger number and
left the stronger impress, but in time the prohibition was
raised and the emigrants mingled in one stream, which had
its sources in all parts of Spain. Ultimately the stream
became a swollen one and the little Island, through immigra-
tion and natural increase, had all the inhabitants she could
sustain. This happened a good manj^ years ago, so it may
be said that the major proportion of the natives of Porto
Rico are of Spanish blood two or three generations removed.
The result we have to-da}^ is a thin-blooded people, living
chiefly on vegetable diet and physically degenerated from
their sturdy ancestors. It is an agricultural population, the
bulk of which is called peons. The majority of the peons
live worse than the field laborers, so far as I have been able
to observe, anywhere else in the West Indies. Their dwell-
ings are very small, thatched huts raised two or three feet
from the ground and rarely containing more than one room,
though sometimes there is a board or a canvas partition.
The number of inmates seldom is less than half a dozen and
more often is ten or twelve. They are prolific in their pov-
erty. Most of them do not own their huts. These belong
to the coffee, tobacco or sugar planters. It is a consequence
of the old political conditions, which kept the peons practi-
cally as serfs of the soil.

The more general term for the Porto Rico countrj^men is
gibaros. The name implies a larger degree of personal
independence than applies to the peons, for the gibaros often
are small land owners. Both peons and gibaros are a peace-
ful, easygoing people, guileless and trustful. As I have
found them they are obliging and hospitable, though the
population is too crowded for unstinted hospitality. The
observer from the north always calls them lazy. Usually
they are pictured by travelers as lolling in hammocks or
twanging the gourd guitar while waiting for the bread-fruit,
the orange or the cocoanut to drop from the overhanging
tree into their mouths. Their amusements are sedentary,

1 66 Annai<s of the American Academy

the cocking main being the chief one because it requires the
least exertion. I am not going to lighten the shades of this
picture, j^et one or two observations may be in point. The
indolence of the tropics is inherent. The visitor from the
temperate zone who has had previous experience, if he
wants to do anything calling for effort is wise enough to do
it at once, for as the days pass he has less inclination for
exertion, even where pleasure or entertainment is the object.
If the reservoirs of energy stored up by the native of the
north are so soon exhausted, how much should be expected
from a people who must go back fifty, one hundred or one
hundred and fifty years for their original storehouse of
energy ?

During the Spanish rule the government was placed so
far above the people of Porto Rico that they are not to be
blamed if, in the beginning, they abuse the broader privi-
leges which have come to them under American institutions.
Their first tendency was intolerance. When elections were
held they applied literally the doctrine that the spoils belong
to the victors. Perhaps American politicians w^ould take
this as evidence of a highly developed capacity for self-
government. Tliej^ proposed not only to fill the offices with
their own friends, but also to make their enemies paj^ all the
taxes. It was simply the rebound from conditions under
which the}^ had no part in filling the offices and no share in
raising the taxes.

The tendency to political abstractions may be noted as a
part of the Latin temperament. An outcropping of it was
seen in Porto Rico. When the American Congress remitted
two million dollars of revenue to the Island, one enthusiast
proposed that the sum should be expended in erecting a
magnificent Temple of Justice. The practical American
officials spent the money in building roads and school-
houses.

In Cuba native-born persons, whether white or black, or
of foreign parentage, are called CrioUos, or Creoles. How-

Population of Cuba and Porto Rico 167

ever, in common usage the term more often is applied to the
white Cubans, and this means chiefly the inhabitants who
are of Spanish descent. In the fierce protests against bad
government the line between the Spaniards of to-day — that
is those born in the Peninsula and its adjacent Islands —
and the Spaniards of yesterday — that is those whose fathers,
grandfathers and great-grandfathers were born there — some-
times used to be drawn as if they were alien and antago-
nistic races. But it does not need a scientific analysis to
caution us against mistaking passing and justifiable political
passion for racial antipathy when the race is one.

Here I am reminded of what James Anthony Froude, the
English historian, said when in his despairing survey of the
British West Indies he turned aside to contrast them with the
Spanish possessions. "We English," he wrote, "have
built in those Islands as if we were but passing visitors
wanting only tenements to be occupied for a time. The
Spaniards built as they build in Castile and they carried
with them their laws, their habits, their institutions and
their creed. . . . Whatev'er the eventual fate of Cuba,
the Spanish race has taken root there, and is visibly destined
to remain. Spanish, at any rate, they are to the bone and
marrow, and Spanish they will continue."

We must go back to Catalonia, Andalusia and the shores
of the Mediterranean ; to the Canaries and the Balearic
Islands ; to Asturias, Galicia and the Basque provinces of
Spain for the customs, habits, traditions, creed, amusements,
language and tendencies of the natives of Cuba. Prefer-
ably we should give the most attention to Catalonia, Galicia
and Asturias, for it is from these three provinces that the
major portion of the later immigration has come.

A certain village in the far interior of Cuba was a hot-
house of revolutionary agitation. I visited it at the close
of the war when the American military authorities were
concerned over the threat of reprisals against the Spaniards.
The Cubans professed to hate the whole race and in those

1 68 Annals of the American Academy

days when long-restrained passion was finding vent they
thought they did hate their own parent stem. They told
me the two classes had nothing in common. Yet they had
everything in common. The well from which the children
were drawing water was of even more ancient origin than
Spanish, for it was of the older Moorish construction known
as the noria. That day there was ?i fiesta or church holiday.
The baile, or dance, which was a feature of the evening cele-
bration, and which I witnessed, varied only a shade from the
representation of the customs of Galicia, which I had seen
at the leading Spanish theatre in Havana a few evenings
previously. The music was an air which had floated over
from the Gulf of Biscay. The entertainment provided me
at the posada, or inn, was such as I had read of in the pages
of Gil Bias. The houses were like those in an eighteenth
century print of Don Quixote. On a later day mass was
celebrated by the priest for the repose of the soul of Antonio
Maceo and other Cuban insurgents, and the ceremonial was
that of the Spanish Church in the middle ages. After see-
ing these things I did not give much heed to the Cuban's
talk that they hated the whole Spanish race. Root and
branch were too much alike for the hatred to endure.

Then there is the g'uajzro, or countr3'man, seated at the
door of his dokz'o, or palm-thatched cabin, playing his guitar.
Usually he is portrayed in his broad straw hat with fringed
edges, the front turned in a flap and exposing his honest face
while the back slopes down over his neck. The hat is
known as the sanjuanero, because of its universal use on
the feast day of St. John the Baptist, a popular Spanish
holiday. To the accompaniment of the guitar is sung a
ballad, called a decivta, or a cancion. All this is a character-
istically Cuban picture. The traveler will see it wherever
he goes throughout the Island. Yet it is a Spanish picture,
too, and the decimas and canciones, though the subjects are
local, are frequently mere repetitions of the provincial songs
and ballads heard among the Spanish peasantry.

Population of Cuba and Porto Rico 169

Differences are noted in the natives of the different prov-
inces of Cuba, due chiefly to the immigration from which
was drawn the original stock. The Spanish strain of blood
is preserved in its greatest purity in the central region of
Puerto Principe or Camagiiey. Though sparsely settled,
three-fourths of the population of this section is white. For
half a century the Camagiieyans were the most intense
revolutionists. They vindicated their Spanish fighting ances-
try by their armed opposition to Spanish government. Their
free, open-air life and their isolation from the rest of the
Island strengthened their independence of a governing coun-
try across the seas, yet they kept unchanged Castilian tradi-
tions and usages. Sometimes it has seemed to me that
among these people could be traced the Moorish blood and
a survival of the customs of Granada. The men are
stronger phj^sicall}' and more responsive mentallj' than in
other parts of Cuba, and of the women it has been said that
they present the Spanish type slightly modified and perhaps
embellished by the soft skies of the tropics. The inland
city of Puerto Principe, with its narrow streets and over-
hanging balconies is a perfect reproduction of many towns
in Spain. I have been told by travelers that the houses
might be mistakened for those of Seville or Cordova. And
it must be said that heretofore the inhabitants of Camagiiey
have shown themselves as unprogressive in public improve-
ments, and as strongly opposed to innovations as the old
towns of Spain. They have inordinate pride, a true Spanish
trait, the mark of ignorance and isolation. This quality is
redeemed by their courtesy and hospitality.

We may be asked to believe that all the sturdy qualities
of the Spanish peasantry have been lost in the transfusion
of the tropics, like a flower that has gone to seed; but while
allowance must be made for the modifications of tempera-
ment due to climate and environment, I think we will find
that the native Cuban of to-day, when the depths of his
nature are sounded, is not materially different from his Cas-

lyo Annals of the American Academy

tilian forbear. It has been well said that the peasantry were
the secret of Spain's greatness in the past, and perhaps may
be the secret of her greatness in the future; a peasantry who
were noted for their freedom, independence, endurance and
native nobility. In Asturias every toiler was a prince; in
Castile every man was an hidalgo. Says a recent writer in
treating of the Spanish people: "Proud, self-respecting
dignit}'; simple, sober habits; native good manners and
kindness are the characteristics of all classes of the nation."

How far have these characteristics been changed by trans-
plantation to tropical surroundings ? The Spaniard in Cuba
still prides himself that he is 7i7i Jiombre serioso, a serious-
minded man. As for the native Cubans, during the last four
years I have had the opportunity to observe them under all
conditions, though more frequently in adversity than in
prosperity. The traits described are of an agricultural
people, and the Cubans are essentially an agricultural people,
and must continue so. Of their hospitality no one who has
traveled over the Island can entertain a doubt. It is simple
and genuine. No conventional hypocrisy gilds it. It has
been said that hospitalit}^ wanes as civilization advances. If
that be true, whoever has known country life in Cuba will
rejoice secretly over the slow advance of a supposedly superior
civilization.

Politeness and courtesy go with this hospitality. Then
there is an obliging disposition and a goodnature which is
one of the defects of character. The Cuban does not like to
hurt 5^our feelings b}^ telling you unpleasant truths, so he is
apt to agree with you. Though he knows 3'ou are wrong
and will carry away wrong impressions, he will let you do
so rather than contradict you.

Another example of goodnature is seen in the blunted
moral sensibility which has come from long training under
corrupt government. The Cuban or Spaniard does not fully
subscribe to the saying "to rob the state is not to rob."
When he knows of some one who is stealing he may remon-

Population of Cuba and Porto Rico 171

strate privately with the thief. He even may give a hint of
the peculation, yet he shrinks from open denunciation and
from the inconvenience which ma}' be caused to himself and
to the thief by a public exposure. It is his goodnature that
makes him recoil from the penalty of wrongdoing just as it
causes him to sanction the wasting of public funds for the
benefit of individuals. This goodnature is one of the obsta-
cles to man)^ reforms in government, or measures which
appear to American eyes as reforms. To my own mind it
always will be a question whether the jury system is a real
palladium of liberty among a goodnatured people.

The temperance and sobriety of all classes of the Cuban
population are parti)' due to climatic influences, yet there is
a moderation in methods of living and in recreation which is
a Spanish inheritance and is not due to climate. It requires
an effort on the part of the strenuous American to be temper-
ate in an3'thing, but the Cubans are temperate without effort.
Their peaceful disposition is universal. They are not
quarrelsome among themselves or with strangers. A darker
shade of their character maj^ be found in the revengefulness
with which supposed injuries are righted ; hence some-
times the ambush, the knife in the dark, even the assassina-
tion, and the burning of the sugar planter's cane for
revenge.

There is also the duplicity which is employed to foil
policies and purposes. Duplicity is the weapon of the
weak. Without it revolution against the superior power of
Spain never could have succeeded. While it exists among
native Cubans to an unpleasant extent it is offset by a high
degree of trust in those who gain their goodwill. This is
another trait of a people who can be led but not driven.
Distrust and suspicion once aroused the sullen characteristics
appear. These are one manifestation of passive or moral
resistance. They are worthy the study of statesmen, for it
was the passive resistance of the Cuban people, the natives
of Spanish origin, which thwarted the government of Spain

172 Annals of the American Academy

in the djang years of the nineteenth centur>' and ended the
glorious pageant of colonial history which was ushered in
with the discoveries of Columbus.

This positive resistance was illustrated in its highest form
during the period of insurrection which was marked by the
Weyler reconcentration. There is in the Spanish nature an
indifference to physical suffering, of which the Inquisition,
the cruelties of the Conquistadores, the extermination of the
native Indians, are the black monuments of history. The
passive manifestation was seen during the reconcentration,
and was seen in heroic aspects, too. Stoic philosophy,
inflexible determination were shown by a people conscious
of their own doom of extinction, giving their moral support
to a revolution which they were too weak to abet ph\-sically,
and offering a passive opposition to the military measures of
the Spanish government which was more potent than could
have been an arm}^ in the field. When the carnpesinos^
guajiros, or countrymen, endured all this, they were desig-
nated as pacificos. The country inhabitants of Cuba to-day
rightly might be called pacificos, for with anything like
good government they are the most peaceful people in the
world.

Often I witnessed this same stoicism or physical endurance
among the Spanish soldiers. The recollection of it causes
me to smile when the effort is made to draw a fundamental
distinction between the native Cubans and their Spanish
ancestors. Seeing the peasant lads of Spain bearing the
neglect and abuse of their officers with the patience of dumb
brutes; watching them die by the thousands from the fevers;
observing their distress scarcely less keen than that of the
reconcentradoes, I wondered at their failure to mutiny and
speculated on the processes which through the centuries had
produced this docility, yet the one point always stood out
and this was their capacity to sustain suffering. Cuban
reconcentrado and Castilian soldier lad alike showed it, but
on the part of the soldier it was passive endurance alone,

Popui,ATioN OF Cuba and Porto Rico 173

while with the mass of the Cuban population it was passive
resistance. Moreover, on their side always were some bold
leaders among whom the spirit of revolt was active, and
with the Negro infusion they kept up an insurrectionary
movement which dragged t\i& paci/icos, half doubtingly and
half sympathetically, after them. Kindred to these quali-
ties of endurance, which perhaps is only one form of fatalism,
are others. They are apathy, lethargy, inertia, lack of the
initiative faculty.

It may excite surprise to characterize as sentimental a
people who in their endurance and their resistance have so
many elements of stoicism, yet the Cubans of all classes are
sentimental in the highest degree. By sentiment I do not
mean merely lyatin emotionalism, which is temperamental.
With these people there is the deepest affection for their
land. No one who has dwelt under its kindly skies, and
who has experienced the impressiveness of the palm-tree
landscape, can fail to sympathize with that feeling. The
sentiment now is seeking for the realization of aspirations
and ideals in the symbolism of a Cuban flag. That sym-
bolism the United States is striving to guarantee under the
lightest of restrictions and without thwarting the patriotic
Cuban aspiration for independence which, however disap-
pointing in its first results, is worthy of respect.

From what has been stated of the characteristics and traits
of the natives of Cuba, an idea may be had of the lines
along which their development should be sought. It should
not be by doing violence to customs, traditions, laws and
institutions which have been inherited from their Spanish
ancestors, or to sentiments which have sprung from the soil
and have become part of their own being. The develop-
ment of the Cuban people that is to be a homogeneous
people is even more a social and industrial problem than a
question of political government. Here we are likely to be
met with the usual off-hand assumption that the indolence of
the tropics bars progress. I think a more correct definition

174 Annals of the American Academy

of this indolence of the tropics was that given by a Porto
Rican author. He called it ' ' the negative inclination to
work." When we approach the sociological side we may-
have repeated to us Mr. Ingersoll's famous word picture of
a colony of New England preachers and Yankee school-
ma'ams established in the West Indies and the third genera-
tion riding bareback on Sunday to the cock fights.

On the industrial side it is the old idea of slave labor and
later of coolie labor as the only mechanism which is capable
of working under a burning sky. Leaving out the human
element in this manner, naturallj^ we must exclude the stim-
ulus and incentive to greater enjoyment and greater comfort
in living. I am one of those who, from somewhat limited
observation, believe that the negative inclination to work
can be turned into a positive disposition to labor. In Hawaii,
in Cuba, Porto Rico and other West India Islands it alwaj'S
has seemed to me a question of the management of men rather
than of abstract deductions regarding labor in the tropics.
That the human energies shall be exerted with the same
fierce zeal or the same sustained effort as in the north we
do not expect, but sustained effort is not impossible.

Philosophical generalizations in dealing with this subject
are so easy that I hesitate to descend from that high plane
to the level of concrete instances which may controvert phi-
losophy. Yet here are a few illustrations.

We hardly need be told that in Porto Rico most of the
natives go barefoot. An American ofiicial who was charged
with penitentiary administration was distressed by the idle-
ness of the convicts. He set them to work at various use-
ful occupations. One of these occupations which they
learned most readily w^as making shoes. Few of these con-
vict shoemakers ever had worn foot-leather. When some
of those whose sentences were light were released their
first move was to seek work in order to earn money with
which to buy shoes. The American official did not pretend
to be a political economist, but when he got to thinking it

Population of Cuba and Porto Rico 175

over he reached the conclusion that the Porto Rican natives
would work harder whenever they became possessed with
the notion that there was more comfort in wearing shoes
than in going barefoot. I think he was right. American
contractors who were building bridges, constructing roads
and doing other work of that kind, always complained of
the laziness of the natives, yet some of them would admit
that when they put the incentive of more comfort before the
peons or laborers they got better results.

In Havana last winter an electric railway was being con-
structed and much of the work had to be done under high
pressure. It was in charge of a shrewd j'-oung American
engineer who at one time had 2,700 men under him. Every-
body predicted his failure in completing the contract. Ever}'-
body was sure that the white and the black Cubans and
the Spanish peasants could not be relied on. The engineer
did not argue the proposition. He knew human nature and
he knew how to select good subordinates. They in their
turn knew how to handle men. They urged the laborers by
example and they set forth the inducements for hard work.
The electric railway was finished on time. The young
American told me that the labor capacity of the Havana
individual workingman was as high as the labor capacity of
the individual workingman in Pittsburg. On that calcula-
tion he completed his contract.

Some of us who had known Cuba in the days when the
torches of the insurgents and the torches of the Spanish
troops were rendering it a charred wilderness, were surprised
this season to note everywhere the evidences of recupera-
tion. All the planters were ruined and few of them were
able to get the money with which to replant their estates,
yet the sugar crop this year is larger than it has been for
six years past. The bankers in Havana and the railway
managers all over the Island, knowing the poverty of
resources, have been surprised at the extent of the cane
planting. Many of them told me that they hardly knew

176 Annals of the American Academy

how it was done, but that the country people somehow man-
aged to do it. They wanted their homes again and they
wanted some of the comforts of life. That was the induce-
ment. An indolent people, without incentive to shake oflF
tropical lethargy, never would have done it. I could give a
dozen similar cases in which these Cuban countrymen were
aroused from their apathy, but the recital would take too
long.

Can we forecast the future from these scattered instances?
Probably the philosopher will say no, but I believe
Cuban guajiro and the Porto Rican gibaro can be made to
want more to eat; to desire a larger cabin with something
besides a palm thatching; can develop an ambition to provide
for his housewife more kitchen utensils than the single pot
or kettle which is hung over the charcoal fire; can be induced
to long for straw mattings and chairs for his humble dwell-
ing; to emulate his neighbor in procuring an extra calico
dress for his wife and daughters, and something besides a
ragged pair of duck or linen trousers and a cheap cotton
shirt for himself. In my mind's eye I also see the time
when through some neighbor's example he will want to have
his children going to the country school, and his pride will
cause him to exert himself laboriously so that they may be
clothed with more garments than has been the custom in the
tropics. These are homely illustrations and may carry no
profound truths, yet let this condition of emulation apply to
a million people and let the inducements to higher living be
set forth, is it certain then that the ease of supplying the
bare needs of existence in a warm country will clog all the
incentives and the stimulus to labor ?

Of what might be called the political traits or the charac-
teristics for self-government I shall have to treat briefly.
Something of them may be learned from what has been said
of the habits, customs, traditions and environment. For a
century only the destructive tendencies of the Cubans could
find expression ; hence conspiracies, revolts, insurrections

Population of Cuba and Porto Rico 177

and active or passive revolution. The great Nation which
has most to do with the future development of Cuba and her
people, of all perils will beware of arousing their passive
resistance. A discerning observer from Spain at the begin-
ning of the last insurrection, told his countrymen that
passive resistance was the characteristic of the Island. Does
the country produce it? he asked, and then continued.
Perhaps it is the climate ? Perhaps it is the child of tropi-
cal influences ? He did not answer his own question of its
origin satisfactorily, but he noted that this passive resistance
was the hidden rock against which the strongest will and the
most resolute purpose were shattered. I,et the United
States avoid the hidden rock.

While the Cuban character for a century was shown in its
destructive tendencies, a final judgment cannot be formed
of its constructive and administrative capacity by a trial of
two or three years. On the part of any people centuries of
the lack of training in political education and of practice in
popular and representative government cannot be corrected
in the experience of a twelve-months. It is easy to point
out the defects and vices of the Spanish nature and their
inheritance and modifications in the Cuban character. No
great exertion of the intellect is required to sneer at racial
weaknesses which are patent and which proclaim themselves.
But human progress is not along these lines. It is advanced
by appealing to the virtues, not by exploiting the vices of a
people. In their present experiment, to realize their aspira-
tions there should be stretched out to the Cubans not the
strong hand, but the helping hand, of the United States.

Following the topic assigned to me, I have sought to con-
fine myself closely to the natives of Spanish blood and their
influence in the future of the two West India Islands with
which the United States is most intimately concerned. I
would not be understood as ignoring the effect of immigra-
tion from this country, for there will be an immigration and
a commingling of the two peoples. Cuba will be benefited

178 Annals of the American Academy

b}' the presence and the example of man}- Americans who
will settle in the Island. Yet for years, the bulk of the
arrivals, following the course which is indicated, will be
from Spain. This will reinforce the existing two-thirds of
the population which is of Spanish stock. It means a rein-
forcement of the Castilian language, of Spanish traditions,
religious faith, customs, manners, habits of thinking and
methods of living. In other words it renews and refreshes
the Spanish strain among the native Cubans. In all our
dealings with the Cuban people this must be kept in mind.

"The luxuriant zone of the tropics," says Humboldt,
' ' offers the strongest resistance to changes in the natural
distribution of vegetable forms." The analogy holds in
political and social institutions. Tenacious of everj^thing
that has been his, the Spaniard transplanted to the tropics
acquires greater resistance. Pushed, he becomes stubborn
and unyielding. Persuaded, he may be led if too great
violence is not done to his convictions. To lead and guide,
not to drive, is the American solution of the race problems
in the West Indies.

Appendix

(179)

Report of the Academy Committee on Meetings.

FIFTH ANNUAL MEETING

OF THE

American Academy of Political and
Social Science.

Philadelphia, April 12 and ij, igoi.

"AMERICA'S RACE PR0BI.EMS."

The Fifth Annual Meeting proved to be the best attended
and most successful the Academy has yet held. The time-
liness of the topics discussed and the exceptionally even and
high standard of excellence of the papers presented through-
out the meeting called forth many words of praise from
those present, and were reflected in the newspaper comments
upon the various sessions.

The meeting was called to order by the President, in the
Assembly Room of the Manufacturers' Club, on Friday
afternoon, at 3 o'clock. Dr. Talcott Williams, of Philadel-
phia, was introduced as the presiding ofl5cer. He spoke
briefly upon the topic of the session, namel}^ The Races of the
Pacific, and upon the particular qualifications of the speakers
announced on the program. He then introduced Dr. Titus
Munson Coan, of New York City, who gave an address upon
the Natives of Hawaii. Dr. Coan is the son of a missionary
to Hawaii, and was himself born on the island and resided
there for over nineteen years. He spoke most entertainingly
of the personal impressions of a native-born, of the char-
acteristics of the people and of their habits and customs.
He dwelt at some length upon the Polynesian checks to popu-
lation practiced in the Hawaiian Islands as in other sections
of Polynesia.

(181)

i82 Annals of the American Academy

Following Dr. Coan the Rev. Charles C. Pierce, D. D.,
United States Army Chaplain, now stationed at Fort Myer,
Virginia, who has recently returned from over two years of
service in the Philippines, spoke upon the Tagals, giving a
very vivid picture ot these people in their relation to the
other tribes in the Philippine Islands. He emphasized
especially the fact that the Tagal is an alien in the Philip-
pines and that his influence and capabilities are much over-
rated. One incident of this session which is deserving of
mention, occurred in the discussion following these papers
when Rev. Dr. Charles Colman, of Philadelphia, bore wit-
ness to the efficiency of Chaplain Pierce's services in the
Philippines. Dr. Colman said that he had two sons in the
war, of whom one died in Cuba while the other returned
from the Philippine Islands a physical wreck. Speaking of
the latter he said, "In those long and weary days w^hich
followed his home-coming, he often talked wdth me of the
brave deeds of his companions in the tropical campaign and
of his experiences in the hospital after he was stricken with
disease. But, sir, there was one man about w^houi he fre-
quently spoke — one whom he held in the highest regard and
esteem. He has told me of his unfaltering courage and of his
unshaken faith, of the comfort which he brought and of the
cheering words he spoke to the sick and lonely, of his loving
ministrations to the dying and of the patience and persist-
ence with which he attended the affairs of the dead; no
soldier passed on his way from those foreign shores to await
the final reveille whose body was not taken in charge by
this all-powerful man, and there is no case on record of an
unidentified body in the province of his duties." Dr.
Colman further declared that he did not know Dr. Pierce,
but was very glad to have this opportunity of publicly
expressing his appreciation of the man. The incident pro-
duced a marked impression upon the meeting and, along
with other expressions of admiration for Dr. Pierce's work,
lent peculiar interest to what he had to say.

Appendix 183

A paper by Rev. Oliver C. Miller, A. M., Chaplain of the
United States Army, upon the Semi-Civilized Tribes of the
Philippines, was read by title, and is printed in the volume
of Proceedings. Dr. Miller is now stationed at the Presidio,
San Francisco.

The second session was called to order by the President
of the Academy at the New Century Drawing Room, on
Friday evening, at 8 o'clock. The President reviewed the
work of the Academy during the year since the last annual
meeting, calling attention to the large demand for a wide
circulation of the Academy's publications during the 3^ear,
and especially of the volume on " Corporations," contain-
ing the addresses at the last annual meeting. He also
described the encouraging growth of the Academy in
numbers and influence, and showed how, through the publi-
cations, work done by the Academy at its local meetings,
was extended throughout the countrj'. The ueed of a larger
measure of co-operation among the members of the Academy,
in securing the facilities for making its work permanent, and
the peculiar responsibility resting upon an organization of
this character, when public education on social and economic
questions is so imperative, was emphasized. Professor
Lindsay then introduced, as the orator of the evening,
Professor Edward A. Ross, of Nebraska University, who
delivered the annual address. The subject which Professor
Ross treated ably in the course of an hour's address was
" The Causes of Race Superiority." Following the annual
address an informal reception was held, at which the
members and their friends and invited guests were
given an opportunity to meet the speakers of the annual
meeting.

On Saturday morning, April 13, many of the out-of-town
visitors assembled by invitation at 9.30 at the Museum of
of Science and Art of the University of Pennsylvania, where
they were received b}'- the Curator, Dr. Stewart Culin, who
personally conducted the party and described the valuable

184 Annals of the American Academy

collections of the Museum. In the Assyrian department Dr.
Clay, who is associated with Professor Hilprecht, gave a very
interesting explanation of the tablets recently excavated at
Nippur and constituting the earliest record of civilization
which has yet been found. Another party gathered at the
Philadelphia Commercial Museum at 10.30, where Mr.
Tingle, one of the ofl&cers of the Museum, was in waiting.
After a brief address on the consular service of the United
States, he conducted the party through the Museum and
explained the large and valuable collections of industrial
products from all over the world, which the Museum has
collected.

On both days a large number of members and guests
gathered for luncheon at the Manufacturers' Club, which
extended to the Academy throughout the meeting the free-
dom of its club house, as did also the Art Club of Philadel-
phia and other social organizations.

The third session was called to order at 3 o'clock on
Saturday afternoon, and Colonel Hilary A. Herbert, of
Alabama, ex-Secretary of the Navy, was introduced as the
presiding oflScer, the topic of the session being " The Race
Problem at the South." Colonel Herbert gave an eloquent
address presenting a typical Southern white man's view of
the relations of the whites to the negroes. He then intro-
duced President George T. Winston, of the North Carolina
College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, who addressed
the meeting on the same topic. During the course of his
remarks President Winston pictured the conditions existing
before the war, and claimed that the social relations between
whites and negroes at that time were far superior to those at
present, and that of late the races had been drifting apart
rather than coming together.

The third and last address at this session was given by
Professor W. E. Burghardt DuBois, of Atlanta University,
who analyzed with peculiar calmness and ability the
' ' Relation of the Negroes to the Whites. ' ' By many present

Appendix 185

this address was regarded as the feature of the whole
program, A paper by President Booker T. Washington, of
Tuskegee, upon the same topic, was read by title.

A peculiar interest centered in the closing session, at which
Senator Orville H. Piatt, of Connecticut, chairman of the
Senate Committee on Relations with Cuba, and author of
the Piatt amendment which was then under discussion in the
Cuban Constitutional Convention — reports of which seemed
to indicate that it had been rejected — addressed the Academy
on " Our Relations to the People of Cuba and Porto Rico."
Also at this session Mr, Charles M. Pepper, author and
journalist, who has recently been appointed as one of the
delegates of the United States government to the Pan-Amer-
ican Congress which will assemble in the city of Mexico in
October, gave an address on ' ' The Spanish Population of
Cuba and Porto Rico," Both of these addresses were list-
ened to by a large and attentive audience. At the conclusion
of the meeting, on Saturday evening, the Manufacturers'
Club gave a reception to the speakers at the annual meeting
and other invited guests, among whom were many of the
members of the Academy.

The Committee desires to take this opportunity to express
its thanks, as well as those of the officers and members of
the Academy, to the Provost and authorities of the Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania, to the President and Directors of the
Manufacturers' Club, to the Director and Board of Trustees
of the Philadelphia Commercial Museums, to the Union
League, University and Art Clubs, and to many individuals
who cannot here be mentioned by name who co-operated
with the Committee in extending hospitality to the speakers
and visiting members of the Academy on the occasion of
the Annual Meeting. The Manufacturers' Club, as on
previous occasions, gave us the use of its Assembly Room
and practically of its Club House during the two days of
our sessions.

The expenses of the meeting were met in part by an

i86 Annals of the; American Academy

appropriation from the treasury of the Academj- and in part
b}^ a special fund, to which leading citizens, interested in
the educational purpose of the meeting and recognizing its
importance, contributed.

As a matter of record the Committee desires in conclusion
to note the other scientific sessions of the Academy held
during the interval between the Fourth and Fifth Annual
Meetings, as follows :

November 20, 1900, Sixty-Seventh Scientific Ses-
sion.

Subject. — " The Causes of the Unpopularity of the For-
eigner in China."

Addresses by — The Chinese Minister, His Excellency Wu
Ting-fang, Washington, D. C; Rev. WilHam A. P. Martin,
D. D., Lly. D., President of the Imperial University of Pekin,
and the Honorable George F. Seward, Ex-Minister to China.

December 18, 1900, Sixty-eighth Scientific Session.

Subjed.—''T\ie Problem of the Tropics."

Addresses by — Professor John H. Finley, Princeton Univer-
sity; Honorable Frederico Degetau, Commissioner from
Porto Rico to the United States, and General R03' Stone,
member of General Miles' Stafi" in Porto Rico.

January 15, 1901, Sixty-ninth Scientific Session.

Subject. — "Recent Tendencies in Free Political Institu-
tions. ' '

Addresses by — Honorable J. L. M. Currj', L,E. D., Ex-
Minister to Spain and General Secretary of the Peabody
and Slater Educational Funds, on " Centralization in Gov-
ernment and the Causes of the Present Decay in Local
Government and Some of Its Remedies ;" Dr. Albert Shaw,
Editor of the Review of Reviews, and Dr. James T. Young,
University of Pennsylvania.

Appendix 187

February 19, 1901, Seventieth Scientific Session.

Subject. — * ' The Isthmian Canal. ' '

Addresses by — Professor Emory R. Johnson, University of
Pennsylvania, on " The Political and Economic Aspects of
the Isthmian Canal,'' and Colonel Peter C. Hains, Corps of
Engineers, U. S. A., on "The Military Value of the Canal."

Finally, the Committee on Meetings takes pleasure in
expressing its gratitude to the speakers who have taken part
in the various meetings of the year and who have given us
generousl)^ of their time and service, without other compen-
sation than the sense of satisfaction which comes from
having performed a public duty and having had a part in
the educational work which the Academy is doing.

The social features of our meetings have added much to
their pleasure and profit and the Committee begs to thank
the following ladies who have served upon one or other
of the Reception Commitees during the year : Mrs. Charles
Custis Harrison (chairman), Mrs. DeForest Willard (vice-
chairman), Mrs. Leverett Bradley, Mrs. John H. Converse,
Mrs. Stephen W. Dana, Mrs. Theodore N. Ely, Mrs.
Adam H. Fetterolf, Mrs. Samuel McCune Eindsay, Mrs.
Edward M. Paxson, Mrs. Charles Roberts, Mrs. Henry
Rogers Seager, Mrs. Talcott Williams, Mrs. Owen Wister,
Mrs. Clinton Rogers Woodruff.

Respectfully submitted,

Samuel McCune Lindsay,

Chairman.

Simon N. Patten,

^^ * ^ ' \ Committee on Meefinzs.

Henry R. Seager,

Clinton Rogers Woodruff,

SEPT. 1 90 1

ANNALS

OF THE

AMERICAN ACADEMY

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE

PRESENT POLITICAL TENDENCIES
I

BRYANISM

Energy cannot be destro5^ed. It may change its form,
some of it may be dissipated, but none of it can be annihi-
lated. While guarding one's self, in accord with Huxley's
warning, against analogies drawn from the field of science
for use in the very human field of politics, it seems that what
is loosely known as Brj-anism, considered in its broader
aspect, is really a form of energy. Some of it has been dissi-
pated. But the remainder has not gone through a trans-
formation from one form of energy to another such as prob-
ably would have taken place had Mr. Bryan been elected
President of the United States and incurred those heavy
responsibilities of government which tend to bring a leader
and his part}^ under conservative influences.^

The history of the Democratic party reveals the fundamen-
tal character of Bryanism. John Adams once said,^ in
describing the colonial origin of our political parties, that

1 " It is a proverb that to turn a radical into a conservative there needs only to put
him into office." — James Russell Lowell.

* See " The Significance of the Democratic Party in American Politics," by Pro-
fessor A. D. Morse, of Amherst College, in International Mo?ithly, October, 1900,

[189]

2 Annals of the American Academy

"in New York, Pennsjdvauia, Virginia, Massachusetts and
all the rest a court and country part}^ has always contended."
That ' ' countr>^ ' ' party was the democrac}^ of the colonies,
as opposed to the colonial aristocracy, and it generated the
rebellious impulse that made the triumphant Revolutionary
War. What Eldridge Gerry called ' 'an excess of democracy, ' '
after the war, permitted a conservative reaction to set in.
Reactions are often beneficial, and the undying glory of that
particular reaction was the Federal Constitution of 1787.

Hamilton, the leader of the conservative party,, pro-
foundly distrusted popular institutions. And, as Professor
Morse^ has written, the clear tendency of his constructive
statesmanship, in President Washington's cabinet, " was to
foster the growth of a moneyed aristocracy and to make it
the permanent ally of the government." Against tenden-
cies of that character arose the movement of the Jeflfersonians,
w^hich proved successful in 1800. That the uprising was
primarily against what the Jeflfersonians believed to be the
menace of plutocratic aristocracy to democratic ideals cannot
be doubted.

The tendency of radicalism to be mastered by conservative
influences, when it has assumed the immense responsibilities
of government, was illustrated by the " Jefferson iau period."
Within twenty years after Jeflferson's first inauguration the
' ' Jacobin ' ' party became the abiding place of a large part
of the conservatism and wealth of the country; and in
twenty-four years it elected as President a statesman who
w^as no other than the son of John and Abigail Adams.
There had been a transformation of energy from radicalism
to conservatism, but the radical force was still existent. And
it proved itself again supreme when the Jacksonians over-
threw the later Jeflfersonians in 182S.

Much that Andrew Jackson did is condemned by historians,
yet he was the accepted political champion of the more

' See " The Significance of the Democratic Party in American Politics," by Pro-
fessor A. D. Morse, of Amherst College, in Iniernational Monthly, October, 1900.

[190]

Present Political Tendencies 3

democratic portion of the people and he incarnated a radical
force that viewed with deep distrust the moneyed and aristo-
cratic influences of the time. Essentially, the uprising of
the Jacksouians against the later Jeffersonians was the same
in character as that of the early Jeffersonians against the
Hamiltonians.^ But, like the Jeffersonian movement, that
of the Jacksonians was soon mastered by conservative
influences. In less than a generation it had been degraded
into a political machine for the protection of the Southern
slaveholders and their financial allies in the mercantile and
manufacturing North, while during the acute slavery conflict
and the Civil War period its normal and primary characteris-
tics were lost to view. Abraham Lincoln became the
' ' defender of the faith, ' ' the great democrat of the age.

In the twenty-five years after Appomattox the party
called Democratic tended slowly to reassume the character
which the slavery struggle had so distorted. The wage-
earning classes in the North, especially in the large cities
and towns, had clung to it with surprising tenacity. Both
Mr. Tilden and Mr. Cleveland were conserv^ative leaders and
their popular successes in 1876 and 1884 were due to the
errors, corruption, and popular weariness of prolonged
Republican rule. Mr, Cleveland's second election in 1892,
however, showed that the Democratic party was again
growing radical in the same sense that the democracy in
1800 and 1828 had been radical. Not only had the great
strikes of that year embittered labor organizations, but in
1890 there had appeared one of the most extraordinary
movements recorded in American politics, the uprising
among the farmers of the Western and Southwestern States.

Populism was based on discontent. Even in a party sense
it was democratic if you accept Professor Morse's definition
that "the Democratic party is the political champion of

I It is almost amusing now to read that the Whigs always maintained that the
party of Jackson was not the party of Jefferson. " It was in their eyes a new and
dangerous party which had filched the name of the party of Jefferson." — See
" Political Parties in the United States," by Jesse Macy, page 34.

[191]

4 Annals of the American Academy

those elements of the democracy which are most democratic. ' '
Jackson himself, to quote Professor Morse again, ' ' stood
forth as the champion of the poor, and made war in their
behalf against the rich." And this Populist movement
should be called democratic, using the word in its broad,
philosophic sense, simpl}- because it emanated from the
more common of the common people and was an expression
of discontent with prevailing conditions.

That the Populist movement made its coming felt origi-
nally in the Republican party of Kansas and Nebraska,
eleven 3^ears ago, was due to the Civil War. The great
conflict over secession had left a strong sectional impress
upon parties in the West so that as late as iS88 Kansas and
Nebraska, which contained great numbers of Union veter-
ans, were Republican by enormous majorities. Yet in that
preponderantly Republican population there was a large
class who, under certain conditions, would passionatel)'
support a crusade against w^ealth. With their old war preju-
dices against the Democratic part}^ their revolt speedily took
the form of a new, independent political organization. In
the South the essentially democratic nature of the Populist
movement was demonstrated by the speed and ease with
which the old party organization of the ruling class was cap-
tured by the " poor whites," led by such leaders as Tillman,
or with which the older leaders like Morgan and Daniel
acquiesced in much of its political program.

Silverism, it is true, became the leading point in the Pop-
ulistic program, although Populism had very much in com-
mon with the contemporaneous uprising of the Australasian
democracy. But that was because the issue had * ' avail-
ability " in politics, owing to the conditions peculiar to this
country. Silver had been demonetized less than twenty
years before the elections of i8go, and its "restoration"
had been openly encouraged in Congress and out by promi-
nent leaders of both the Republican and Democratic parties.
Add to that the facts that the United States was a silver-

[192]

Present Politicai, Tendencies 5

producing country, that it was a " debtor nation," and that
such economists as the late General F. A. Walker were
apostles of bimetallism, and you have an explanation of the
final concentration of the radical movement in the United
States upon " 16 to i," whereas, in Australasia the radical
movement, although agrarian, largel}^ took an entirely
diflferent course. Silverism gained a " paramountcy " as an
issue, yet it was onl}^ a passing manifestation of a force
groping for weapons with which to wage its conflict with
conditions that inspired discontent.

The Australasian radical movement, which was the result
of the same world-wide economic depression which produced
American Populism, ought to be considered in this connec-
tion. Both movements were democratic in the broad sense
of the word, the main difference between them being that
the one succeeded in dominating the political situation in
its field, while the other did not. The reason for the suc-
cess in Australasia and the failure in the United States is
made clear by a New Zealand statesman, Mr. W. P. Reeves,^
who has written in a recent article:

" He (the Australasian farmer) must have cheaper money if he is to
live. If this be so when prices are at an average level, it is easy to
understand that in years like 1893, 1S94 and 1S95, when depression
was extreme, the bitter cry of the indebted farmer was heard very
loudly indeed. Now the farmer and sheep-owner are not only rela-
tively a more important economic element in the colonies than here
(England) but they are more powerful in politics. The British globe-
trotter is told in Australasian clubs that the working men rule the
colonies. The artisan and the shearer no doubt have their say in
public affairs. But, one j^ear and another, they are less powerful than
the tillers and graziers. When, therefore, the latter were pressed to the
wall in the bad times of 1893-95 it was natural that their governments
should cast about for means to help them. In Australasia govern-
ments are, rightly or wrongly, expected to be of use in public emer-
gency, and under the head of public emergency dull times are
included."

1" Colonial Governments as Money Lenders." — National Review, December,

1900.

[193]

6 Annals of the American Academy

The result was that in Australasia the governments became
direct money-lenders to the farmers at cheap rates of inter-
est and did various other interesting things of a radically
socialistic nature, and are still doing them, all of which, in
substance, our American Populists had desired their govern-
ment to do for them/ Populism won in Australasia because
Australasia is a new, undeveloped country, where capital
and vested financial interests are still comparatively weak
in politics. Populism lost in the United States because
capital and vested financial interests are grown relatively
very powerful here. The essentially democratic quality of
the movement in each country, however, remains the same
whether in victory or defeat.

In 1890 and 1892 American Populism displayed great
political strength. Mr. Cleveland, although a conservative
man of the most orthodox New York associations, profited
by the Populist disaffection in his third campaign for the
presidency. His political manager, Mr. W. C. Whitney,
who was able to carry New York only by a plurality of
45,000, and without a majority over all, made astute use of
the Western Populists by arranging fusions with them
wherever there seemed to be a prospect of diverting electoral
votes from General Harrison to General Weaver. How
powerful that radical movement was in 1892, following the
political upheaval of 1890, we can now appreciate by
merely recalling the fact that the Populist candidate for
President polled over a million popular votes and outdid all
third party precedents by the strength he displayed in the
electoral college.

Even independent votes were cast in the East for Mr.
Cleveland on the ground that ' ' predatory wealth ' ' was
becoming intrenched in the national government.^ Mr.

1 See also H. D. Lloyd's " Newest England," besides Mr. Reeves' Xational Review
article. The platforms of the farmers' alliance in the early 'go's may be referred
to as well.

* " It is not surprising that labor, believing itself to be oppressed, soon rose in
revolt, and civil war has actually raged this summer in four different sections of

[194]

Present Political Tendencies 7

Cleveland, too, permitted himself to show sympathy with
that feeling by his denunciations of the "sordid" phases
of a high tariff and by his public references to the Home-
stead strikes. The conservative Democratic stump that year
was a hot place for ' ' robber barons. ' '

It may truthfully be said that the wave of discontent,
which started with such tremendous momentum in the
elections of 1890, swept Mr. Cleveland into his second term
as President. Both from circumstances and personal tem-
perament, Mr. Cleveland was unable to satisfj^ the radicalism
that had placed him in power. He might have succeeded
had his administration not been so terribly weighted with
the world-wide industrial depression of 1893-97. As it was,
even tariff reform, on which Mr. Cleveland had set his heart,
was betrayed by the capitalistic group of the Democratic
senators, and his administration finally' stood at bay. It was
violently condemned, on the one hand, by the Republican
opposition as responsible for hard times, and on the other, it
faced the furious radical force that had created it without a
single achievement that could cause a glow in radicalism's
soul. Even the income tax, which was a genuine concession
to radical feeling, was overthrown by the Supreme Court.
The mighty defence of the gold standard alienated the
silverites, while the great railroad strikes of 1 894 completed
the political misfortunes of the Cleveland regime by making
the Democratic administration the sponsor for certain drastic
military' and judicial measures which, however necessary
they might have been, could not fail to be regarded with
suspicion by a democracy already filled with jealousy of
what it believed to be plutocracy's growing power in the
state.

the country. And, of course, the farmers, paj-ing more for what they buy and get-
ting less for what they sell, grow poorer day by day; and excellent farms in some
of the most fertile sections of this most highly protected state will hardly bring
the cost of the buildings upon them."— Wayne MacVeagh's letter, in October,
1892, to J. W. Carter, Secretary of the Massachusetts Reform Club, announcing his
intention to vote for Mr. Cleveland.

[^95]

8 Annals of the American Academy

The complete overthrov/ of the conservative wing of the
Democratic party at the Chicago convention of 1896, and the
ensuing alliance between the radical wing and the Populists
was now a matter of course. For the forces of discontent
had been disappointed in the Democratic administration.

Now the history of the Democratic party not only shows
that Democratic leadership, when in office, becomes conser-
vative, but that when the leadership has grown markedly
conservative the restless element of the party periodically
asserts its supremacy over it and attempts to gain control of
the government in behalf of the more democratic portion of
the American people. The uprising of the early Jefferson-
ians against the Hamiltonians, which originated party
government under the Constitution, the overthrow of the
later Jeffersonians by the Jacksonians and, in our own time,
the tremendous political phenomenon known as Bryanism
seem to justify the statement of a principle that is peculiar
to democracy. It is simply this, that democracj' tends to
burst conservative bonds, especially when plutocracy appears
to threaten a suspicious democracy's instinctive ideals. It
was Hamilton's aristocracy of wealth that the early Jeffer-
sonians rose against; it was the power of wealth that the
Jacksonians assaulted so furiousl}^; and certainly enough is
now known of the antecedents and characteristics of Bryan-
ism to make it clear that the heart and soul of its grievance
is the alleged menace of plutocracy. The three movements
led respectively by Jefferson, Jackson and Bryan were
spiritually the same. Whatever their excesses and crudities,
all were anti-aristocratic and anti-plutocratic, and therefore,
the}- were all essentialh* democratic.

The substantial identity of the Democratic uprising under
Bryan with those under Jefferson and Jackson being recog-
nized, a most important fact must now be faced. While the
earlier movements attained success at the polls and became
invested with all the responsibilities of government, this one
has been repulsed at two presidential elections in succession.

[196]

Present Poi^iticai, Tendencies g

Without the joy of victory, without the satisfaction of
achievement, without the responsibilities of power, such as
the Jeflfersonians and the Jacksonians had, to soften its
crudities and modify its radicalism, this force remains at
large and the problem of its disposition or destination is one
of the most interesting of our political future.

Br3^anism is more than " i6 to i "; it is a state of mind.
Even prosperity can do no more than quiet it for a time, while
it can no more be annihilated by presidential defeats than
can electricity or candle power.

The peculiar significance of Mr. Bryan's second defeat,
then, appears as soon as we attempt to answer the question,
what is to become of Br^^anism ?

A steadily-baffled radicalism may dissipate some of its
energy, but the residuum of force must tend to grow more
radical. That is where psychology steps in. If a dog finds
his bone pulled constantlj- from under his nose he finally
may become furious enough to plunge through a picket fence.
It is noteworthy that some of the leading Populists of the
early '90's have already become outspoken socialists.

Notwithstanding that he has been charged with being a
socialist, Mr. Bryan, however, had not shown up to the last
presidential election any tendency in his thinking toward
socialistic ideas. The leader of the discontent movement, so
far as it has had real force in the field of practical politics,
Mr. Bryan, curiousl}^ enough, has been thoroughly old-
fashioned in his theories. His own statement not long ago,
that he did not hold a single political principle that was not
one hundred 5'ears old, can be demonstrated by an analysis
of his opinions on public questions. It is extraordinary
that he should have been hotly denounced as socialistic by
men who were in reality more socialistic in their conception
of competition and trusts, for example, than he ever has
been. Even Mr. Brj'an's bimetallic theories, which are at-
the basis of his silverism, are old-fashioned and out of date
rather than socialistic. And in the matter of " government

[197]

lo Annals of the American Acade^iy

by injunction," or the power of equity courts to punisli for
contempt, his position is the one that was generally held by
English and American jurists only thirty years ago. As a
president, Mr. Bryan, burdened with the responsibility of
power, would probably have remained far more conser\'ative,
however, than he will now in the r61e of free lance. ^

But Mr. Br3'an personally can be left entirely out of
consideration. He may or may not have a political future.
He may or may not maintain a position of leadership in the
Democratic party. Eliminate him entirely. The important
point is that what is loosely known as Br>'anism, and which
is really a radical impulse based on human discontent,
continues in a state of intellectual fluidity, which is the
prime requisite of the acceleration characteristic of radicalism.

II
influence of imperialism

In order to sense the future from the standpoint of the
present, it is necessar^^ to extend one's view over the world-
wide field of contemporary- politics so that political influences
of a world-wide character may be detected and examined.

Broadly speaking, the general elections of 1900 in both
the great English-speaking countries were a triumph for
what has come to be generally known as imperialism." And
the result seems to have been logical since it expressed the
predominant spirit of the time. The imperialistic movement
is world-wide and thus far has been irresistible, owing to
the combination in its favor, whether in Germany, France,
England, or the United States, of such might}^ influences as

1 This is already shown to be true by Mr. Bryan's public endorsement of an
independent "municipal ownership" candidacy for the office of mayor of St.
Louis in the spring of the present year, 1901.

2 The writer will use this word, " imperialism," because it is used by all parties
in Great Britain without protest ; it is necessary also to have some one word to
describe the expansion movement in the various countries of Europe and America
to which reference will be made. No other word meets the requirements so well
as this one.

[19S]

Present Political Tendencies ii

the popular sentiment for the flag, modern finance and the
missionar}^ impulse of the Christian religion. Finance has
demanded new markets, and the church, new or broader
fields of evangelization. As for the flag, "who will haul
it down?"

So far as the United States is concerned, the radical
Democratic movement led by Mr. Br3'an beat in vain against
this imperialistic combination. The flag sentiment was
against it ; the evangelical church was against it on foreign
missionary' grounds, and "business" was against it because
" business " was entirely content with the present situation
and fearful of any change. Business interests in our time
have grown proportionately stronger in politics than they
were when they unsuccessfulh' fought Jefferson the century
before. Von Holst^ says that the Jeffersonians " were far
inferior to the Federalists in the numbers and abilitj^ of their
leaders ; and moreover, the great moneyed interests of the
Northern States were the cornerstone of the federal party."

In order, now, to project the future of the radical move-
ment in America we must first consider the effect of
imperialism, assuming it to continue unchecked, upon the
party of the opposition.

There are signs that the party of the opposition along the
old lines must suffer permanent disintegration. Two forces
are attacking it, one economic, the other political. It is
being disintegrated, from an economic standpoint, because
the imperialist trade argument for territorial expansion,
even with an accompanying militarism, is not being easily
and readily controverted by those who adhere to the ortho-
dox views of capitalism and competition. Business is
always a practical, immediate question. The pressing
problems in the world of industry and finance are the next
dividend and the current rate of interest. In reality,
" finance " never takes what is called a far look ahead for
the simple reason that it must preser\^e itself in the imme-

1 "Constitutional History of the United States,'' vol. i, page 179.

[199]

12 Annai^ op thk American Academy

diate future. If, therefore, owing to high industrial
development at home, the interest rate has fallen to a low
point in western commercial countries, and the field for the
investment of the rapidly accumulating surplus of capital
has become at the same time much narrowed, it follows that
capital will seek at once fresh opportunities for investment,
anywhere and everywhere, in order to keep itself employed
and prevent the rate of interest from falling. In doing this
capital will not look a century ahead ; it will consider its
own immediate prospects.

Now it is perfectly clear, as some imperialist writers
assert, that under the old order of things capital has reached
a point in Europe and America when the home field for
profitable investment is narrowing. The savings bank
interest rate has fallen so low that in the eastern part of the
United States no family man earning a small salar}' can hope
to put by enough in the average working life to live on the
income of his savings, when the time comes for him to retire
because of advanced j-ears or impaired vitality. These
facts are universally admitted. And when the commercial
imperialist, living in a world where high tariffs are still a
w^eapon of trade rivalry between nations, presents his
argument for territorial expansion, wdierever extended
sovereignty or government control may bring new markets —
or preserve old ones — and bring new fields for investment
within the grasp of capital, he bases it on those facts. How
does the anti-imperialist, w'hose economics are of the same
orthodox competitive school, meet the argument? Usually,
he does not meet it at all, from the viewpoint of economics ;
usually, he plants himself on certain moral principles hostile
to war, conquest, militarism and on abstract political doc-
trines regarding freedom, self-government, the rights of
man, and the right of nationality. But, when he does
meet it, from the viewpoint of the old-fashioned political
economy, does he meet it effectively ? His answer fails,
apparently, to sway the modern capitalist and manufacturer

[200]

Present Poutical Tendencies 13

because it projects the argument into the remote future,
while "business" is thinking of the immediate future.

For example, the anti-imperialist, in answering the com-
mercial imperialist, points out that the extension of our rule
by force will entail such heavy expenses of war and admin-
istration upon the people at home that ultimately all the
commercial profit from such adventure will be balanced by
losses, and, in reality, the country as a whole will not be
the gainer. Again, the anti-imperialist answers that while
the commercial exploitation of such regions as China will
probably open up new fields of investment for western
capital, and thus tend to keep up the rate of interest, the
time will come when those fields also will be exhausted, and
then whither will capital turn ? Again, he answers that in
opening up these new fields of exploitation in the Orient the
capitalist will so develop those countries that they will in
time become manufacturing and capitalist countries them-
selves and, with their cheap labor, will surely begin a fright-
ful industrial competition with our own people. The anti-
imperialist answer, in short, while possessed of real strength,
deals almost entirely in futures more or less remote. To
everj' one of these points "business" is disposed to sa}',
' ' sufficient unto the day is the squeezed lemon thereof, ' '
while it follows the law of its being by looking out for the
main chance now. It cannot stop to theorize or prognosti-
cate about ultimates when its chief concern is to provide for
the next quarterly dividend. Nor will it be much disturbed
over war taxes which the whole people, rather than any one
set of interests, must bear.

At any rate, it is a startling fact that the old political op-
position, whether in Germany,^ Britain or the United States,
is now split, or practically destroj^ed, along the line of the
economic argument for imperialism. The anti-imperialist
answer has no potency in Britain as a part\' life-preserver.

1 The old liberal partj' of Germany has practically disappeared, and the only
strong political force there opposed to imperiaiism is socialism.

[201]

14 Annai^ of the American Academy

Nearly the whole body of liberals who followed Mr. Cham-
berlain into the coalition with the tories in i8S6 have
become strong imperialists; indeed, none surpasses Mr.
Chamberlain himself in the intensity of his imperialistic
sentiment, although in his j^ounger days he was a radical
of the radicals in politics. Among the liberals of to-daj'-
the strong section which looks to lyord Rosebery for leader-
ship is avowedly imperialistic. The political strength of
anti-imperialism in Britain is now represented by an earnest
wing of the old Gladstonians and the members of the Irish
and social labor parties, in all having a comparatively weak
influence at the present time upon British politics. The
disintegration of the liberal party on this issue is complete,
and probably one of the chief reasons for it — as clearly
appears from the fact that I^ondon and all the great English
industrial centres have become hotbeds of ' ' Chamberlain-
ism " — is the catchiness of the commercial argument for
expansion and imperialism.

As for the United States, nothing has been more inter-
esting than to observe that the gold Democrats, who are the
capitalistic wing of the old Democratic part}', have quickly
developed strong imperialistic tendencies. It were an easy
matter to mention influential newspapers of the gold Demo-
cratic and anti-Bryan character, such as the New York
Times and Brooklyn Eagle, as well as prominent men,
formerly supporters of Mr. Cleveland's two administrations,
who are avowed advocates of the imperialistic policy on
commercial grounds. It were also easy to show that in the
South, where Mr. Bryan received all but thirteen of his
electoral votes in the last presidential election, the commer-
cial argument for imperialism has met with much favorable
response. In view of the South's attitude toward the black
race the response promises to be more favorable in the
future.

One hazards nothing in saying that the former Democratic
party of the United States, that is, the party which carried

[202J

Present Politicai, Tendencies 15

Mr. Cleveland to victory iu 1892, must remain hopelessly-
rent on the issue of imperialism.

Everywhere, also, the old opposition partj^ is subject to
the disintegrating, or paralyzing, effect of political forces
that are peculiarly active during an imperialistic era.
Approach this phase of the question i\ priori or inductively,
as you please, and the conclusion is the same. Imperialism
means the predominance of questions of foreign affairs in
the politics of a nation, and the predominance of foreign
affairs, for any length of time, means a weakening of party
government through the weakening of the parliamentary
opposition and the corresponding strengthening of the ex-
ecutive. For issues pertaining to foreign relations are
always difficult for an opposition to handle owing to the feel-
ing that party spirit should not pass beyond the three-mile
limit. Criticism is more bitterly resented by those in power
in matters of exterior policy than in affairs of domestic
concern. The almost menacing cry, "Stand by the gov-
ernment" — right or wrong — is invariably heard when the
government clashes with a foreign people or ruler. If such
a crisis reaches actual war, however wicked the war may be,
criticism of the party in power always shrinks in volume
and the opposition as a whole becomes paralyzed. The
slightest questioning of the government's policy is then
construed as "unpatriotic" or "treason." In England
Mr. Chamberlain, during the Boer war, has maintained ex-
actly that attitude toward the critics of the government's
policies.

That the national spirit should rise above party spirit in
the stress of w^ar time should be cordially conceded, yet no
amount of patriotism can blind the clear thinker to the fact
that the natural and most vital function of a parliamentary
opposition grows atrophied while such a period lasts. Con-
tinue indefinitely, or for many 3^ears, a period in which in-
ternational competition in its various phases enthralls the
attention of a people, and it follows that party government

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must suffer. It is probable that, owing to the problems
connected with the opening of China, for example, the
western nations, including the United States, have already-
entered upon such a period of prolonged attention to foreign
affairs. A priori, party government in such a period must
decline; are there any signs that it has actually begun to
decline ?

'* It does not admit of doubt," writes Professor Paul S.
Reinsch,^ " that modern imperialism tends to withdraw
public interest from the fields within which party govern-
ment can best exert its influence. ' ' Running over the great
imperialistic powers of Europe, what do we find ? In
Russia the advantages of an absolutism for competing with
rival powers in the new^ race for empire have been so clearly
realized that the movement for more liberal political institu-
tions has almost disappeared, outside the nihilistic groups, as
an appreciable force. ' ' Now that all the national energies
(of Russia) are concentrated upon the expansion of the im-
perial domain," writes Professor Reinsch, " the growth of a
party system on western models is less likely than ever — in
fact, it is an impossibility." And Alfred Rambaud,'* the
French historian of Russia, has but lately written:

' ' Russia is the only European power which has an absolute gov-
ernment. Its autocratic feature, so fiercely assailed upon the acces-
sion of Nicholas I. by the ' Constitutionals ' or ' Republicans ' of 1825,
and under Alexander II. by the Nihilist conspiracies, seems to have
taken on a new life in the estimation of the Russian people, because,
according to the expression of Prince Oukhtomski, it is the necessary
condition of the greatness of their nation and of her ' supernatural '
and providential mission in Asia."

M. Rambaud notes that this despotism is at least " thought-
ful of the economic interests and the well-being of the Rus-
sian people, blending its ambitions with the legitimate
aspirations of the nation. " With the popular imagination

1 " World Politics," page 32S.

' " Expansion of Russia," page 85.

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Present Poi^itical Tendencies 17

heated by the fascinating dream of world empire for the Slav
race, the practical paralysis of the liberal movement in
Russia has come as a matter of course. ^

As for Germany, it did not require the Kaiser's act in
sending an army under Count Von Waldersee to China
without consulting the Reichstag to show that recent years
have marked a decline in Parliamentarj^ government.^ Bis-
marck had succeeded before his retirement in breaking up the
old German party system by his attacks on the Roman Catho-
lics, his persecution of the socialists, his abandonment of the
national liberals and his later affiliations with the agrarians
and high protectionists. The Kaiser's speeches, since he
assumed his aggressive role in building up a colonial empire,
have been a kind of bugle call to the German people to
range themselves "in serried ranks" behind him, repudi-
ating the party system, in order that German interests abroad
might not suffer from dissensions at home.

The degeneracy of party government in France, owing to
external ambitions, is well summed up by Professor Reinsch.'

Is there also a decline of party government to be obser^^ed
in the countries where it has flourished most, since the rise
of democracy ? The wreck of the great Liberal party of
Gladstone would seem to afford an afl&rmative answer, so far
as Britain is concerned, and that the wreck is due in no
small degree to the imperialistic lurch of the past twenty

1 The disturbances, chiefly in the universities, reported from Russia this spring
(1901), nia3- seem to contradict this view. The writer, however, cannot discern
that those disturbances, in the main, were other than students' outbreaks due to
the harsh administration by the late minister of education, M. Bogaliepoff. (See
dispatch from St. Petersburg in New York Times on April 21, 1901. See also the
letter of Colonel W. R. Holloway, U. S. Consul General at St. Petersburg, to the
editor of the Indianapolis Joiirnal, reprinted in the New York Times, April 25,
1901.) The excommunication of Count Tolstoi may also have been a contributing
cause of the disturbances.

* See "Governments and Parties in Continental Kurope," by A. Lawrence Lowell,
vol. ii, page 54; " World Politics," by Professor Reinsch, page 329; also a letter by
Professor Theodore Mommsen — " Militarism and Bisraarckism have thoroughly
driven out of them (Germans) all desire for self-government " — as quoted in a
Berlin letter, dated October 15, 1900, printed in the New York Evening Post.

3 " World Politics," page 330.

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1 8 Annals of the American Academy

years is clear. The Liberal party became great and master-
ful in Britisb politics only when the Napoleonic struggle had
been so far forgotten as to permit the people to turn their
attention to domestic affairs, and it has declined again as
soon as the empire found itself confronted with a desperate
international rivalry in the outside world. Party govern-
ment in Britain reached its culmination in the middle and
later periods of the nineteenth century when politics was
almost exclusively devoted to questions of domestic reform.
Parliamentary institutions certainly entered upon a golden
age after the English reform bill of 1832 and never was -che
House of Commons more powerful or more splendid than in
the days of Cobden, Bright and Gladstone.

When King Edward VII. opened his first Parliament there
were no seats and scarcely any standing room for the mem-
bers of the House of Commons in the chamber where the
royal spectacle was unfolded. This was cause for complaint.
While petty as an issue, it seemed to some obser^^ers ^ to
signify " a foretaste of a more serious depreciation." The
revived importance of the crown was, indeed, a favorite topic
of discussion in Eondon papers after Victoria's death, and it
is worth observing that the notion sprang from the fact that
the crown is the visible link between the dependencies an^
the United Kingdom, In an imperialistic age, therefore,
even the crown, to say nothing of the cabinet, gains in
prestige.^

In examining the forces making for the disintegration of
the opposition w'e ma}^ not omit certain other considerations
of importance. Students of the effect of modern imperial-
ism upon democratic institutions agree that an actual neces-
sity wall be manifested for the concentration of great powers

' I,etter bj' Professor Gold win Smith to Manchester Guardian, March 6, iqoi.

2 Agreement on this point seems general in England. The Spectator not long ago
said: " The power of government is nearly everywhere visibly passing to the
cabinet." Professor James Bryce in the Manchester Guaxiian, April 5, 1901,
declared: "Since 18S0 the cabinet has grown in power at the expense of the
legislature."

[206]

Present Political Tendencies 19

in the executive. The tendencj' in that direction is noted by-
two observers who are not in sympathy with each other on
pohtical issues. Professor Goldwin Smith ^ has written:
' ' The tendency of imperialism to an increase of the power
of the executive at the expense of the representative is
already seen in England, where the House of Commons has
of late been manifestly losing power while the ministry has
manifestly been gaining it." The Spectator notes the same
tendency and it intimates that such a tendency is toward
absolutism.^ The Spectator might well have noted not only
the actual tendenc\', but the necessity for such a development
in an imperialistic era chiefly characterized by intense com-
petition between nations for political and commercial pres-
tige. Imperialist testimony is not lacking, however, as to
this requirement of the imperialistic system.'

Nor can an3'one deny the real advantages in international
competition which an absolutist government possesses. ' ' No
Parliament, therefore, no questionings, no blue or yellow
books," writes M. Rambaud on this point in his " Expansion
of Russia. " "A restricted liberty of the press closes with
respect the indiscreet lips of reporters and interviewers.
Hence secrecy in both planning and executing is possible.
T|jere is no need of throwing dust in the eyes of Parliaments,
of the newspapers and of the people; nor is there any need
of brag, optimistic proclamations and of oratorical heroics.
Great conquests can be accomplished silently." England
was never more feared or more potent in foreign affairs than
when she was ruled by the despot Cromwell. We must
agree that concentration of power is an essential condition
of the most successful international rivalry; and it follows
that during an imperialistic era there will be a growing
pressure, even in a democracy^, to bring about all the concen-

1 "Commonwealth of Empire."

- " Resolute opposition and the -widest criticism of executive policy is not only-
legitimate but necessary; but the pulverizing of the parliamentary institution
itself can make only for despotism."

3 " The United States as a World Power," by Charles A. Conaut, the Forum, 1900.

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20 Annals of the American Academy

tration of power iu the executive necessarj^ to successful
competition.

Judge Simeon E. Baldwin/ of the Connecticut Supreme
Court, points out that the powers of the president of the
United States ' ' have been steadily growing ever since that
great oflBce was created," and it is his opinion that they will
continue to grow, as new occasions for their exercise arise.
Already, he says, the President's great powers "make us
fitter than most republics to play the part of a great power
in large questions of diplomacy."^ But there certainly can
be no further concentration of powers in the executive of
this republic without weakening parliamentarj^ prestige and
party opposition.

And, as a final consideration in this branch of the inquiry,
we must remember that the old opposition must remain out
of power substantially all the time while imperialism repre-
sents the nation's chief aspiration. It is no new thing in
parliamentary'- government for one party to hold power for
thirty, forty, even sixty 3^ears with only slight interruptions.
The Democratic party of the United States held firmlj^ the
reins of government from 1800 down to iS6owith onlj' such
unimportant breaks as were occasioned by the Whig victories
of 1840 and 1848, neither of which enhanced the strength
of the Whigs nor weakened their opponents. From i860 to
the present day the Republicans have held power without
more serious interruptions than the two terms of President
Cleveland. The whole nineteenth century in American
politics is thus seen to be divided into two grand divisions of
time during which respectively one party or the other was
practically supreme.

Under parliamentarianisni, English politics have shown

1 Article in 'i'ale Review, 1901.

2 An extension of the executive powers already under way is embodied in the
so-called " Piatt Amendment," providing for the organization of the government
of Cuba. As the medium for intercourse with foreign governments, and as the
enforcer of treaties the President will gain more power than will Congress from
the arrangement.

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Present Political Tendencies 21

the same phenomena. There was a long period of Whig
ascendency after the revolution of 1688, extending down to
the accession of George III. and after, and then followed the
Tory supremacy, beginning with the 5'ounger Pitt's ministry
in 1783, and lasting until the political revolution of which
the reform bill of 1832 was the culminating legislative
expression. Then arose the modern Liberal party of England
whose period of domination in British politics was but little
broken for sixty years.

Viewed in the perspective of the tw^o centuries of parlia-
mentarj' government since the flight of King James 11. it is
evident that government by any one party broadly tends to
run in cycles of many 3'ears' duration. Intelligent people
scarcely need to be told that this tendenc)- has a reason for
being. In the evolution of nations the people in certain
periods have different activities, different opportunities,
different aspirations from those in other periods. After the
flight of James II. with the ghost of monarchical absolutism,
the party which was the special advocate and defender of
parliamentary rule inevitably and logically had possession
of the government most of the time until the reaction arose
against the corrupt Whig aristocracy. During the first half
of the eighteenth century the Whig nobles, whose political
philosopher was lyocke, represented the aversion to monarch-
ical despotism and "popery," then the leading political
instinct or idea of the English people. The later Tory
domination represented not only the reaction against Whig
rule and Whig corruption, but the popular spirit of antago-
nism to the exterior Napoleonic system, which England
conceived to be hostile to English growth, and English
freedom. The great Liberal supremacy during the larger
portion of the nineteenth centur>' was the expression of the-
Democratic impulse toward ecclesiastical, criminal law and
fiscal reform, modern industrial development and the
political emancipation of the masses.

In the United States, the respective periods of supremacy

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22 Annals of the American Academy

enjo^-ed by the opposing parties for so many years, have
manifestly been but expressions of the prevailing spirit of
the American people — democracy showing more the particu-
larist, centrifugal and anti-aristocratic tendencies not un-
natural in the earlier part of the republic's life, and the
Republicans of the later era responding to the passion for
strong nationalit}", and to the demands of the prodigiously
expanding industrial power of a j^oung and favored people.

That the occasional interruptions in these long periods of
party supremacy, caused by the passing of power for a brief
stage to the opposition, have been of slight significance
appears in the fact that at such times the opposition's lease
of power has often been attended by highly important acts
in harmony with the general policy of its great antagonist.
Sir Robert Peel, who found himself at the fag end of the
Ton," period, was put into office as an anti-Catholic, but he
carried Catholic emancipation. He was the leader of the
English protectionists, but he carried free trade. So, too,
Disraeli, another leader of the Tories, once "dished the
Whigs ' ' by carr5dng a liberal measure extending the fran-
chise. John Tyler's nominal Whig presidency was notable
for its designs upon Texas, which were as far as possible
from Whig principles. Mr. Fillmore's administration pro-
tected slavery. And the supreme achievement of the
presidenc}^ of Mr. Cleveland was the successful defence and
maintenance of a monetary system which was at heart
antagonized by the majority of his own party in Congress
and supported by a majority of the part}' to which Mr.
Cleveland was opposed.

What are the ultimate eflfects of these long periods of
supremacy for one party upon the party of the opposition ?
Our historical perspective through two centuries of English
and American politics cannot leave us in doubt. The eflfects
are disuse, division, decay. The old party, reduced for a
prolonged period to opposition, has had to be regenerated,
often with a new name, before beginning a fresh era of

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Present Political Tendencies 23

domination. Glance backward and observe certain facts.
The English Tories who succeeded the English Whigs in
power late in the eighteenth century were by no means the
same party, in working program, as the Tories who had
supported the Stuarts in their claims to rule bj^ divine right.
The Liberals who, early in the nineteenth century, snatched
away the supremacy of the Tories, were different from the
old Whigs from whom they had descended. And the con-
servatives, or unionists, in our own day who have finally
brought, as it appears, the long period of Eiberal ascendency
to an end, are not the same, in domestic politics at least, as
those stout old Tories, their forbears, who believed that the
reform bill and free trade and Catholic emancipation would
throw Britain into unspeakable ruin. Coming to the United
States again, we find that during the long period of Demo-
cratic ascendencj' from 1800 down to i860 the party of the
opposition disintegrated and changed its name no less than
twice — Federalist became Whig, and Whig became Repub-
lican before the party of I,incoln, Grant and McKinley
began its prolonged lease of power.

So the disuse of a party leads to its decay; while parlia-
mentary history in England and America seems to teach that
the assumption of power for a lengthy period, during w^hich
a party must be the organic expression of a dominant
national feeling or aspiration, presupposes a distinct change
in the character of the party as compared with what it was
in former periods of ascendency.

If these principles be applied to the political situation in
America to-day — granting that imperialism is to be the
dominant idea in the immediate future — then it is highly
probable, if not inevitable, that the party which has been
pretty steadily in opposition since the Civil War will suffer
still further disintegration from its prolonged inactivity in
responsible government, and will finally undergo an impor-
tant transformation in character before again becoming the
organized political expression of the national life.

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24 Annals of the American Academy

The cumulative effects of the new American imperialism
upon the opposition party are now seen to be broadly
destructive from various viewpoints, economic, political and
historical. In politics, however, as in nature, deca}' ma}* be
coincident with growth. The decay of vegetation means
the deposit of beds of coal. Energy ma}' change its form,
but it cannot be destro5"ed. While an old political party in
democracies is undergoing dissolution, 3'ou may be sure that
at the same time a new one is springing into life. Now, two
things are manifest: first, however prolonged ma^- be the
supremacy of the imperialistic spirit, it must sometime burn
itself out and be succeeded by some other; second, the field
will then be open to the party — fresh in vitality although it
maj' be old in name — which will have grown into being and
slowly have swelled with vigor during the imperialistic
regime, and which will have become the expression of the
newly developed longings of the people.

Ill
THE SHADOW OF SOCIALISM

That the new party entity of the future — dimly forecasted
perhaps — will be distinguished for socialistic proclivities
must by this time have been suggested to the discerning
mind.^ In order to appreciate the full power of socialism

1 Professor Edward Dicey, referring to British politics, has made this forecast:
"Thus, if I ata not mistaken, the liberal party of the future, under whatever
name it may be known, will be a radical party with socialist proclivities. Such a
party, whatever may be the predilections of its individual members, must of
necessity be anti-imperialistic." — "The Downfall of Liberalism." Fortnightly
Review, November, 1900.

Mr. John Morley has said " that the day when the Liberal party forsook its old
principles (referring to anti-imperialism and anti-militarism) the Liberal party
would have to disband and to disappear. . . . The socialists would take its place.
He had in the past set his back to the wall against the socialists, but if he were
to choose between the socialist and the militarist with all his random aims, his
profusion of the national resources, his disregard of the rights and feelings of
other people he considered the socialist's standards were higher, and his means
were no less wise." — Address before the Palmerston Club at Osford, 1900, as
reported by the London Chronicle.

As for the United States, the New York .San, Republican and conservative, said

[212]

Present Political Tendencies 25

to attract those who are always sure to be out of sympathy
with the imperialistic spirit, it must be scrutinized without
prejudice, and, if anything, with a touch of sympathy. In
such a spirit, therefore, without attempting any profound or
comprehensive analysis of socialism as a philosophy of
humanity or a system of economics, let us briefly suggest its
possible points of potenc}^ as the}' may present themselves
in the minds of the scattered opposition.

Socialism seems to be the only sj^stem that can or will
aggressively combat the economic argument for imperialism.
Reduced to the lowest terms, that argument is the necessitj^
for widening markets. Under the present order of society
in the most civilized and most populous portions of the
western world, the new markets must be found, it seems,
almost anywhere but at home; 5'et no fact is more obvious
than that the real coyisiiming power, as contrasted with the
purchasing power, of our own people has never been tested.
When the products of American looms seek purchasers in
China is it because there are no people left in America who
desire or need those products, no people who would bu}'-
them if they could pay the price asked for them ? The
truth is that every great city has tens of thousands, and
every town its hundreds, who have an enormous capacity
for consumption which the}'' cannot begin to satisf}'; while
the whole United States contains millions of people whose

editorially, January 3, 1901: "The Democratic party can never again be what it
was before. . . The issue of imperialism may assume a shape which will be less
artificial than that it had in the last campaign, but it will be joined with radical
social theories or be subordinated by them and made incidental only. It seems
inevitable that the Democratic party of the future should become the expression
of popular discontent with the conditions of material progress established and of
resistance to them.''

The Washington correspondent of the New York Evening /bi^ wrote, Novem-
ber 23, 1900: "J. G. Shanklin, who has long been prominent in the Democratic
politics of Indiana, proposes that the party should at once invade the field of
Socialism. 'It should declare,' he says, 'for the initiative and referendum, for
government ownership of all public utilities, for bimetallism, for an income tax,
and for the election of United States Senators and other officers of the government
by direct vote of the people. . . . Socialism seems to be the coming policy of gov-
ernment. If the Democratic party does not take it up, I believe there will be a
new partj'.' "

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26 Annals of the American Academy

poverty aloue prevents them from consuming very many
times more of the products of the nation than it is now their
lot to consume even in the heyday of prosperity. During
seasons of hard times we are famihar with the spectacle of
production being curtailed while the army of the unemployed
grows like a mushroom and the soup houses cannot be
opened fast enough to keep honest and able-bodied folks
from starving.

Socialism may be all wrong, but in meeting the economic
argument for imperialism it will at least be able to point to
the undeveloped consuming power of the people at home as
an answer to the demand for new markets abroad that must
be appropriated and held through the costly and bloody
sacrifices of the sword. Socialism at least will not be timid
in charging this under-development of the home market
upon the old industrial order, and in attempting to show
that commercial imperialism is itself essentially a confession
of the economic failure of the old industrial sj^stem.

And socialism will also show that imperialism is but a post-
ponement of the final reckoning among the great forces of
international and national competition, that it offers no ulti-
mate solution of the industrial problem which the competi-
tive system has left to us. The world does not contain an
endless round of new foreign markets, or virgin fields for
the investment of surplus capital. The earth is but 25,000
miles in circumference and the era of " commercial exploita-
tion ' ' in strange lands is as sure to end as the age of geo-
graphical exploration. The present " undeveloped " coun-
tries will before long be developed and then we shall see
surplus capital again racing ahead of its opportunities for
investment. Give to China the utmost value as a field for
commercial exploitation, and you must still face the time
when China, so far as foreigners are concerned, will be in
the condition of a squeezed lemon. And finally we must
face a China transformed into a commercial competitor of
untold power bv the introduction of this same capital and

[214]

Present Political Tendencies 27

these same mechanic arts on which the West now bases its
own supremacy. What must happen when the "jumping
off place ' ' in the hunt for new markets abroad has been
reached? Must not an economic philosophy of the inten-
sive rather than that of the expansive in industry then capture
the field?

The socialistic assault upon commercial imperialism will
not be weakened, meanwhile, by the insistence of the im-
perialistic writers^ upon the highest possible development
of the trust as a necessary' agency in a successful struggle
for supremacy in foreign markets. It amounts to this, the
imperialists propose to destroy the principle of competition
at home in order the more successfully to meet the condi-
tions which the principle of competition imposes upon them
abroad.

How far do they think they could go in such a process
without pulling the whole house down over their heads ?
By the time the imperialists had reached the limit in the
hunt for new foreign markets — and reach it they would even
if the United States should become supreme in ever}' market
of the world — surely, the transition from the reign of
private monopoly to the reign of public monopoly, or to
the reign of socialism, would have been rendered all the
easier. For consider the moral and intellectual effect
upon the people of such a spectacle as this — an eco-
nomic system destroying itself at home in order to main-
tain itself abroad. The sight of it could hardly be used as
an argument to withstand the assault of socialism upon the
entire regime of private monopoly. The economic process

1 See " The United States as a World Power," by Charles A. Conant, the Forum;
also, especially, " The New Industrial Revolution," by Brooks Adams, the Atlantic
Monthly, February, 1901. Mr. Adams writes: " The trust must be accepted as the
corner-stone of modern civilization, and the movement toward the trust must
gather momentum until the limit of possible economics has been reached. . . .
Should America be destined to prevail in the struggle for empire which lies before
her, those men will rule over her who can best administer masses vaster than
anything now existing in the world, and the laws and institutions of our country
will take the shape best adapted to the needs of the mighty engines which such
men shall control."

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28 Annals of the American Academy

would too much resemble a hungry suake swallowing itself
by the tail, to be lost upon the humorous instincts of the
American people.

Socialism at another point may prove capable of attract-
ing the opposition because it is antagonistic to militarism
and the processes of military conquest. According to all
experience, imperialism involves militarism. Socialism,
therefore, will be in a position to profit by the popular
reaction against military burdens and losses, military influ-
ences and ideals. Itself humanitarian and idealistic regard-
ing the masses of the people, socialism at least furnishes a
strong contrast to the materialistic, coercive and often
bloody phases of imperialism, and, therefore, it may easil}'
draw to it the humanitarians and idealists who can never find
their conceptions of life and government embodied in the
moral philosophy of the stock exchange. Machiavellian
diplomacy and the rapid-fire gun.

Socialism, furthermore, is not antagonistic to the prin-
ciples of the Declaration of Independence, It demands
equality in the broadest sense — whether or not it could
bestow it — in the industrial as well as in the political world.
As for liberty, it asserts that no economic liberty is possible
under the regime of private monopoly which the imperial-
istic writers regard as the next step in the progress of the
age. Nor does socialism denj^ like the imperialist philoso-
phers, that just government rests upon " the consent of the
governed."

The celebrated "consent" doctrine, which is associated
so closely with the American Declaration of Independence,
is necessarily repudiated by all imperialists. To lyincolu
that doctrine was more sacred than any religious creed.
But American imperialists in our time treat it as an out-
worn or discredited piece of ' ' eighteenth century philo-
sophy," ^

1 " Governtneuts," said Senator Piatt of Connecticut, " derive their just powers
from the consent of ' some of the governed.' " Senator Lodge refers to it as a

[216]

Present Political Tendencies. 29

While the exact philosophic and scientific significance of
the " consent " doctrine, as a principle of government, may
be hard to determine^ it must still be recognized as a perma-
nent force in affairs. It is an error to sa}^ that it originated
with Rousseau. We can readily trace ' ' the consent of the
governed" doctrine back to the English philosophers,
Locke and Hooker. The truth is that the doctrine of
' ' consent ' ' is inseparable from the doctrine of ' ' the sove-
reignty of the people. ' ' And the doctrine of popular sove-
reignty is historically at the base of Democratic institutions.^
If the "consent " doctrine has no future then Democratic
institutions are doomed to perish.^

The "consent" doctrine, in short, is not onlj^ as old as
the idea of democracy itself ; it must always find earnest
protagonists in people who are most sincerely devoted to
democratic principles and institutions. It is a matter of
some consequence, therefore, that while imperialism minim-
izes or denies the vitality of the doctrine, socialism must
recognize it as being a sound and living principle. On that
account, socialism will become the more attractive, or toler-
able, to the true adherents of democratic ideals during an
imperialistic regime.

No consideration of the "drawing" power of socialism
would be complete or satisfactory, in this connection, without
calling special attention to the close relation in so many
minds between imperialism and plutocracy. It is not

mere " aphorism," a " fair phrase that runs trippingly on the tongue. " The New
York Outlook has thrown it over entirely, sa5'ing, " We do not believe that govern-
ments rest upon the consent of the governed ;" w^hile a Chicago clergyman, Rev.
Dr. P. S. Henson, has been quoted as damning it beyond hope of resurrection in
these vigorous words: "There never was a greater falsehood palmed off by the
devil on a credulous world."

1 See Gierke's " Political Theories of the Middle Age," translated from the Ger-
man by Maitland, pages 37-4S and 92-93.

' See " English Political Philosophy," page 62, byWilliam Graham, Professor of
Jurisprudence at Queen's College, Belfast. Commenting on Locke's theory of
"consent," which was borrowed and amplified by Rousseau, Professor Graham
writes: " It is true that unless they (governments) finally rest on the unforced and
willing consent or agreement of the people or the majority they are not free
governments."

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30 Annals of the American Academy

necessary, of course, to show that plutocracy supports
imperialism, when imperialistic writers in America make so
much of foreign markets and defend the development of
trusts as requisite to industrial and diplomatic supremacy
abroad. The notorious facts of the time in China, South
Africa, the Philippines and other fields of imperialistic
activity reveal the zest and " go " that commercialism gives
to imperialism. When Germany began establishing her
colonial empire Bismarck frankly declared that these new
possessions were regarded not so much as fields for German
colonization as markets to be developed for the products of
German industry.

The growing power of this imperialistic plutocracy is
alarming a great many people.^ Wealth, historically' con-
sidered, has never been in cordial sympathy with democratic
aspirations. Its social cravings have been for privilege and
aristocracy, an illustration of which to-day is the growing
social alliance between American millionairedom and the
old world nobility. Nor is history without examples of
the subjugation of democracy by mere wealth." Since
plutocracy is the main objective of socialism's assault,
it seems reasonable that socialism, under an imperialistic
regime, would attract those who regard the imperialistic
movement as essentially plutocratic, and who hold that
plutocracy instinctively and inevitably threatens popular
institutions.

And now let us pass in review some of the evidence as to
the antagonistic relation actually existing between imperial-
ism and socialism. " In Germany to-day," writes Theodor
Barth,^ " the Social Democracy appears as the most numerous
political party of the German empire," and its growth, he
adds, "has taken place mainly at the cost of the old Liberal
party, and has been chiefly responsible for that partj-'s

1 Professor Surauer, of Yale University, has said that the great issue of the future
is " plutocracy against democracy."

2 See "Commonwealth or IJnipire," by Professor Goldwin Smith.

s " Modern Political Germany," International Monthly, August, 1900.

[218]

Preisent Political Tendencies 31

remarkable loss of immediate influence in Germany. ' ' This
great Socialist party is- anti-imperialistic and from its ranks
comes the great bulk of, as well as the harshest of, the German
criticism of the Kaiser's adventures of aggression in such
countries as China. It is a striking fact that German social-
ism has grown most since the government embarked upon its
colonial policy. Although Ferdinand Lassalle founded the
Social Democratic party as early as 1862, the German social-
ists were many years in making any real impression upon
parliamentary life. In 1871 the Socialists elected but three
members to the Reichstag ; in 1887, eleven. But in October,
1900, there were fiftj—eight Socialist members, and recent
predictions' are that in the next general election the Socialist
party in Germany will win 100 seats out of the total of 397,
and poll at least 3,000,000 popular votes. The modern
colonial policy of Germany was founded substantially in the
decade ending in 1890. Ever since the election of 1887 the
German Socialists have made steady and alarming gains."

The case of Italy is also of interest. The Italian Social-
ists are anti-imperialistic, being opposed to foreign adven-
ture and a burdensome militarism. In the elections of 1892
their candidates for Parliament polled only 27,000 votes; in
1895 they polled 80,000. Crispi's world-power ambition
with its ruinous expenditure was now in full progress, and
twelve Socialist deputies soon appeared in Parliament. The
Italian military disaster in Abyssinia came in March, 1896,
and since then Italy has had much of the expense but none
of the glory of a " spirited foreign policy. ' ' The Italian
Socialists, meanwhile, have been gaining ground steadily. In
thelastelectionsthey scored a real triumph, and, with the small

1 Berlin dispatch to London Chronicle in October, igoo.

* See Berlin letter, dated October 15, 1900, in New York Evening Post, which
quotes Professor Hans Delbrueck as saying: "The most interesting among the
German political parties to-day is unquestionably the Social-Democratic. It is
the only one harboring problems, the only one holding out a probability of
future development ; and it also is, to judge by the number of votes cast for it at
the Reichstag elections, by far the strongest numerically. The other parties are
all more or less in a state of petrifaction."

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32 Annals of the American Academy

groups of republicans and radicals, increased the strength of
the ' ' extreme left ' ' in Parliament to about one hundred
deputies. And it has come to pass that Victor Emanuel III.
has welcomed " radicals or socialists " in the cabinet.^ The
influence of this auti -imperialist, Socialist party in Italy is
so great that the Zanardelli ministrj-, coming soon after King
Humbert's assassination, has made the reduction of taxes,
particularly militar\- burdens, a leading point in its program.
Nor is the relation between imperialism and Socialism
any less distinct in France. In the general election of
October, 1S77, there were elected to the French Chamber
of Deputies 96 Monarchists, 112 Bonapartists and 325 Repub-
licans. The writer can find no mention of Socialists being
returned at that time, and it is certain that as a part}', or
group, they had not then made an appearance in the parlia-
ment of the republic. The curious fact, alreadj' observed
in German and Italian politics, is now plainly discernible
in French politics, namely, that the rapid increase of the
parliamentar}' strength of Socialism is coincident with the
development of the imperialist or colonial policy. The
modern French colonial empire, in the main, was founded
in the 'So's of the nineteenth centurj'. With the Socialists
scarcely an appreciable or known factor in the Chamber of
1880, the Jules Ferry policy of forcible territorial enlarge-
ment began in 1S81 with the French invasion of Tunis.
French aggression in Indo-China came in May, 1883, and
the placing of Madagascar under the French protectorate
in December, 18S5. The Marquesa group of Pacific Islands
was seized in September, 1888. In April, 1892, came the
expedition against Dahomey in West Africa. From the
Tunis invasion of 1881 down to the Fashoda collision with
England in 1899 France was constantly at work extending
Iter colonial empire, and not without serious and costly
wars in Tonquin and Madagascar.

1 " The Situation in Italy," by Salvatore Cortesi, iu The Speaker (London),
February 23, 1901.

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Present Political Tendencies 33

Professor lyowell/ in his brief history of French parties
under the Third RepubHc, does not mention the Socialists
as a party until the election of 1S93 is reached. Tabu-
lating the results of that election a French authority ^ credits
the Socialists with 49 members of the Chamber of Deputies,
as distinguished from the Radicals who won 122 seats.
Therefore, French parliamentary Socialism had risen from
substantially nothing, during the twelve years of foreign
aggression, to a membership of 49 and an established status
in French politics. The spring election of 1898 witnessed a
further increase of Socialist strength, the composition of the
Chamber after that test of the electorate being as follows:
Republicans, 254; Radicals, 104; Radical-Socialists, 74;
Socialists, 57; Rallied, 38; Reactionaries, 44; Nationalists,
10. Together the Socialists and Radical-Socialists, closely
allied groups, made the largest party in the Chamber, except
the Republicans. And this was seventeen j^ears after the
colonial policy was put in operation.

In the elections of 1898, it is of interest to recall that M.
Meline, the conservative Republican leader, expressed con-
fidence that the French people would choose deputies ' ' firmly
resolved to fight with vigor and without compromise the
social revolution ar}' part5\" Yet he was mistaken. Social-
ism gained ground. And the parliamentary situation in
the winter of 1900-01, nearly twenty years after the invasion
of Tunis, revealed a ministry, that of Waldeck-Rousseau,
which rested partly upon Socialist votes, and which had a
Socialist, M. Millerand, as one of its members. The French
Socialists, like the others, are anti-imperialistic, or anti-
colonial and anti-militarist. Pierre de Coubertin ^ complains
of that in discussing the Waldeck-Rousseau ministry and its
program. " Together with Roman Catholicism," he writes,
* ' military institutions and colonial expansion were denounced
as the Republic's most dangerous enemies."

1 "Governments and Parties in Continental Europe," vol. i, page 94.
'Daniel, "L'Ann^e Politique " for 1893, page 281.

8 " France on the Wrong Track," American Review of Reviews, April, 1901.

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34 Annals of the American Academy

Socialism in Britain, while much less powerful, is no less
anti-imperialistic than on the continent.^ The Social Demo-
crats, led by Hardie and John Burns, were intensely opposed
to " Chamberlainism " in the recent parliamentary elections
and they managed to hold their seats in the House of Com-
mons, notwithstanding the war fever that prevailed in the
countr3\ Kier Hardie looks forward to the final struggle
between liberalism and socialism for the supremacy in the
opposition.* So far as Britain is concerned, also, not only is
the existing political group that is called socialistic hostile
to imperialism, but a portion of the old I^iberal part}' is
already socialistic.^ While it is true that most of the
strongest liberal anti-imperialists are opposed to socialism,
John Morley's attitude^ indicates that thej' would finally go
with the socialistic wing as a last resort to fight imperialism.

In the United States we must again observe the fact that
all the socialistic parties are anti-im.perialistic. The labor
unions are anti-imperialistic, notably the American Feder-
ation of Labor, the most influential of them all. The Populist
part}' has had anti-imperialistic alongside its socialistic
tendencies. In 1896 the Populist national platform adopted

1 See "Election Issues," The Labor Leader and SociaHsl Herald of London and
Glasgow, September 22, 1900.

2 " Whatever amiable and good-hearted members of the Liberal party may think,
those who control its destinies see clearly that between the commercialism of
liberalism and the socialisni of the Independent Labor party there can be no
union . . . The struggle which is going on to-day is really one for supremacj-.
Either commercialism must swallow and absorb the socialist movement, or the
socialist movement must gather to itself those sections of the community on which
liberalism depends for its support, and thereby become the dominant factor." —
Kier Hardie.

8 a member from Edinburgh, William McEwan, a free trade liberal of the old
school, and also an anti-imperialist, declared about four years ago: "Ten years
ago the party became tainted with the new Liberalism, which is really Collectiv-
ism ... It is evident that we have now in the Liberal party two antagonistic
forces — the one the old Liberalism, based on Liberty, the other the new Liberalism,
based on Collectivism, based on Socialism and tyranny. These two forces can no
more be blended or harmonized than water with oil. Sooner or later thej- will
come into collision, and when that day comes, I am afraid a reconstruction of
parties will be inevitable." — Quoted in National Jieview, January, 1901, in article
on "The Political Transformation of Scotland."

^See Morley's Palmerslou Club speech.

[222]

Present Political Tendencies. 35

at St, Louis called for postal savings banks, government
ownership and operations of railroads, government ownership
and the operation of the telegraphs, and the initiative and
referendum — which showed the socialistic tendency. In
1900, the same party denounced the extension of American
sovereignty to the Far East — which showed its hostility to
imperialism.

The influence of Populism upon the old Democratic party
must necessarily be socialistic, after successive campaigns of
close alliance between the two. The trust and plutocracy
issue in the presidential campaign of 1900 was pressed by
Mr, Bryan on old-fashioned lines of individualism and
competition without gaining any apparent response from the
electorate. Yet one of the inner managers ^ of the Democratic
campaign tells us that when certain Democratic nominees for
Congress (1900) frankly advocated the destruction of mo-
nopoly by government assumption of monopoly enterprises,
' ' in each case such candidates ran far ahead of their part)'-
tickets." This is a significant fact if it reveals in America
that tendency of anti-imperialistic democracy toward social-
ism, which this discussion had already led us to expect,
rather than toward individualism.

" It looks," says a conservative political observer,' " as if
the line of divergence between the two parties would take
this direction : The Republican party would become imperial-
istic and the Democratic party socialistic. Just what form
these tendencies will take in another campaign cannot be
foretold, but evidence is abundant that this will be the basis
of the line of division.'" But let us be cautious and say

1 Willis J. Abbott, in the Forum, February, 1901.

2 Washington correspondence of New York Evening Post, January 15, 1901.
*The results of the spring municipal elections of 1901 in Toledo, Cleveland,

Chicago and St. Louis are a confirmation of this forecast. In the two cities first
named Democratic mayors, Jones and Johnson, were elected on municipal owner-
ship platforms, Mr. Johnson even advocating the single tax theory. In Chicago,
Harrison, Democrat, was elected largely because of his opposition to the street
railway company's demands in franchise matters : while in St. Louis, the bolting
Democratic, or Bryan, candidate for mayor, running on a municipal ownership

[223]

36 Annals of the American Academy

simply that the opposition party, sooner or later, will
probably develop on socialistic lines, provided that the
regime of imperialism has its run.

The supremacy of the South in the present Democratic
party cannot be considered much of a bar to that party's
socialistic development since the imperialism of the Republi-
can party, with its now necessary doctrine of inferior races,
is calculated more than anything else to win support there
for the Republican organization. Imperialism will end the
' ' Solid South ' ' if ever anything can do it. For the negro
has been the primary cause of political solidity in the old
slave states. Now that the Republican party, turned
imperialistic, has virtually accepted the South' s view of the
negro race, the centripetal force of Southern political life
must disappear.^

Looking through the vista of years in both Europe and
America, socialism seems to be the logical antithesis, with
its domestic radicalism, to the imperialistic spirit with its
financial burdens, its military conquests and its race domina-
tions abroad. The old Democratic party of 1874-92 in the
United States can no more be restored than it was possible
for the House of Bourbon to revive the ancicn regime after
the downfall of Napoleon. The Revolution had left an
impress upon France which no extreme of reaction could
remove. And so the revolution of Bryanism has left
ineffaceable marks upon the Democratic party.

While imperialism continues to embody the chief aspira-
tions of the American people the opposition will probably
be unable to develop a political organization which will for
long be intrusted with government. But out of the wreck

platform, polled about 30,000 votes as againt 43,000 and 35,000 respectively for the
two leading candidates. In Kansas City, too, the Democrats carried the city on
the municipal ownership issue, and it was their first victory in years.

1 " I find we have passed the point where the white people from necessity were
arrayed on one side to protect their civilization, with the negro race on the other,
and can now afford to divide on paramount political issues, as in other states." —
Kx-Senator M. C. Butler, of South Carolina, as reported in the Baltimore Sun,
April 22, 1901.

[224]

Present Politicai. Tendencies 37

of the present opposition there will spring, as conditions may
determine, a party of' great and growing vitality that some
day will dominate the land, simply because it will meet the
requirements of a new age, "It is no longer possible to
mistake the reaction against democracj^" Professor Wood-
row Wilson ^ has recently written concerning democratic
institutions. There will, however, be a reaction to democ-
racy again in good time.

If we must concede that the present imperialistic move-
ment is inevitable as a stage in evolution, the socialist more
than any other, perhaps, can see in it the forerunner of his
ideal universally applied in the world's affairs. While com-
pletely antagonistic to socialism under present conditions,
imperialism may break a path for socialism to follow along.
Imperialism may tend to bring the various nations into a
closer knowledge of and community wnth each other. By
consolidating small states, reorganizing the undeveloped
and eliminating the decrepit ones, it may do for the world
in politics what competition has ruthlessly done for our most
advanced industrial societies. The world is very far from pre-
paredness for socialism, even if it be a coming system; no one
nation could adopt it successfully unless the world as a whole
had attained some quiescence from military or commercial
wars. It may be, as Mr. Roosevelt predicts, that imperialism
will finally command universal peace. In that event, social-
ism would find more favorable world conditions for trial.

But whatever the ultimate results may be, socialism
promises to grow as a protest to imperialism, as the force
which offers the most available and central rallying point
for the opposition, as the ideal which most fully focuses all
forms of human discontent. If there must be imperialism,
its antithesis, it would seem, must be socialism. Such is the
conclusion, however unwelcome it may be to many minds,
to which this examination of present political tendencies
now brings us. Waldo IvINCOLn Cook.

Springfield, Mass.

^ Ailantic Afonih!y, March, igoi.

THE SUPREME COURT AND THE INSULAR CASES.

The decisions in the Insular cases mark the most extra-
ordinary' division of opinion in the history of the Supreme
Court. In the two most important cases — De Lima vs. Bid-
well, and Dowries vs. Bidwell — the conclusions of the court
were announced \iy Mr. Justice Brown. In the former he
was supported by The Chief Justice, and Justices Harlan,
Brewer and Peckham ; in the latter his concurring associates
were Justices White, Shiras, McKenna and Gray; The Chief
Justice and Justices Harlan, Brewer and Peckham dissenting.
To add to the complexity of the situation the conclusions
reached by Mr. Justice Brown in the Downes case are sup-
ported by a totally different course of reasoning by the con-
curring Justices. In fact, in the concurring opinion of
Justices White, Shiras and McKenna it is distincth- stated
that while concurring in the decree affirming the judgment
in the Downes case, the grounds upon which the judgment is
based are "different from, if not in conflict with those"
expressed in Mr. Justice Brown's opinion.

The series of opinions brings up in acute form the question
of the desirability of elaborate dissenting opinions. If cer-
tainty is the highest desideratum of law, there can be no
doubt that the criticism by the minority, of principles laid
down by the majority of the members of the court, hardly
conduces to this end. It furthermore tends to reduce the
dignity of the decisions of the tribunal, and to that extent
diminishes their authority. In the income tax cases this
danger first became clearly apparent, but it is greatly
increased in the Insular cases, owing to the fact that the
majority of the court is divided four to one in the reasoning
supporting their conclusions.

The decisions have served to bring out w'ith great clearness
the peculiar position occupied by the Supreme Court. Unlike
an 5' other tribunal, it is at times called upon to pass on

[226]

Supreme Court and Insular Cases 39

questions which, while legal in form, are political in sub-
stance, profoundly affecting the fabric of our institutions.
Dissenting opinions on such questions are usually character-
ized by a tone of criticism which is not calculated to foster
respect for the Constitution nor to increase the stability of
our institutions. It is true that "government by discus-
sion ' ' might suffer by the failure to present both sides of
every important question, and it is likely that most of the
objections to the present form of dissenting opinion would
disappear if the dissenting Justices would confine them-
selves to the more positive exposition of their views
rather than attempt a destructive rebuttal of the reasoning
of the majority.

The court distinguishes three periods in the status of
Porto Rico. The first is embraced between the date of mili-
tary occupation and the ratification of the treaty of peace,
during which time the Island remained foreign territory so
far as the revenue laws are concerned, and customs duties
could therefore be imposed under the war power. The
second period begins with the ratification of the treaty and
closes with the passage of the Foraker Act. In the opinion
of the court the effect of such ratification was to make Porto
Rico domestic territory, and to take it out of the class of
'■'■foreign countries,''' within the meaning of the Dingley
Revenue Act. The collection of customs duties on Porto
Rican products during this second period is therefore
declared to have been illegal. These two questions were
decided in the De Lima and Dooley cases.

The third period begins with the establishment of civil
government, and was the svibject of consideration in the
Downes case. The court here makes a distinction between
"those prohibitions of the Constitution such as go to the
verj^ root of the power of Congress, to act at all, irrespective
of time or place, and such as are operative only ' ' throughout
the United States or among the several states. Porto Rico,
it is held, while belonging to the United States, is not a part

[227]

40 Annals of the American Academy

of the United States within the meaning of the Constitution.
The court clearly intimates that the power of Congress with
respect to the territories is not absolute. All those provisions
which specifically restrict the competencj^ of Congress are
quite as applicable in the territories as in the states. ' ' Thus,
when the Constitution declares that no bill of attainder or
ex post facto law shall be passed, it goes to the competency
of Congress to pass a bill of that description." This would
seem to make the bill of rights contained in the first eight
amendments applicable to Porto Rico. In order to avoid the
appearance of passing definitely upon this point the court
says: "We do not wish, however, to be understood as
expressing an opinion how far the bill of rights contained
in the first eight amendments is of general, and how far of
local application."

To appreciate the full import of the decisions and the
radically divergent views presented in the majority and
minority opinions, it is necessary to make a brief analysis
of each. The three cases — Dooley vs. United States, De
Lima vs. Bidwcll and Doivnes vs. Bidwell — present in logi-
cal order the questions examined by the court.

The case of Dooley vs. United States was the first involv-
ing the validity of duties collected prior to the ratification of
the treaty of Paris. It also involved duties collected subse-
quent to such ratification, but as this question is more fully
discussed in the De Lima and Downes cases, it is only
necessary to examine the Dooley case with reference to the
one question, namely, the validity of customs duties col-
lected prior to the eleventh of April, 1899. On this point,
and on this point alone, the court is unanimous. The ex-
action of customs duties during this period is justified as an
exercise of the war power. "Upon the occupation of the
country by the military forces of the United States the
authority of the Spanish government was .superseded, but
the need for a revenue did not cease. The government
must be carried on, and there was no one left to administer

[228]

Supreme: Court and Insular Cases 41

its functions but the military forces of the United States.
Money is requisite for that purpose, and money could only
be raised by order of the military commander. The most
natural method was by the continuation of existing duties. ' '

The validity of duties collected subsequent to the ratifica-
tion of the treaty of Paris, but prior to the establishment of
civil government, was involved in the De I,ima case. Mr.
Justice Brown delivered the opinion of the court; The Chief
Justice, Justices Harlan, Brewer and Peckham concurring.
Two dissenting opinions were filed, one by Mr. Justice
McKenna (Justices Shirasand White concurring), the other
by Mr. Justice Gray.

In comparing the majority and minority opinions the most
striking difference is in the relative importance given to the
factor of " expediency." The majority opinion adopts
certain hard and fast rules of interpretation, and shows an
evident disinclination to give anj- weight to the inconveni-
ence which might result to the political organs of the gov-
ernment because of such interpretation. The minority
opinion, on the other hand, contains a broad treatment of
the relation between the different departments of the gov-
ernment, and it is easy to detect a settled determination to
leave to Congress and the Executive a free hand in dealing
with our new possessions. The minority seems to be im-
pressed with the fact that the power and influence of the
Supreme Court of the United States has been largely main-
tained through well settled traditions of judicial self-control,
which has led the court, whenever possible, to avoid placing
obstacles in the way of the political organs of the govern-
ment when dealing with great questions of public policy.

To the majority, the question to be decided turns upon
the meaning of the word "foreign," i.e., whether Porto
Rico after the ratification of the treaty of Paris remained
' ' foreign territory ' ' within the meaning of the tariff laws.
To the minority, it is one of public polic}^ as well, to be
viewed broadly with reference to the altered circumstances

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42 Annate of the American Academy

in the development of the countrj' and also with a view to
the probable effect upon the power of Congress and the
Executive, if the rules as formulated by the majority pre-
vail.

Whether Porto Rico is a " foreign country " within the
meaning of the tariff laws presents itself as an extremely
simple one to the majority of the court. The definition of
Mr. Chief Justice Marshall: " A foreign country is one ex-
clusively wdthin the sovereign t}- of a foreign nation, and
without the sovereignty of the United States "Ms accepted
as conclusive.

The first difficulty which the court meets in attempting to
reconcile this conclusion with the established precedents is
the case of Fleming vs. Page^ which was an action to recover
duties on merchandise imported from Tampico (Mexico)
during the occupation of that port by the troops of the
United States. In that case the court laid down the rule
that until Congress brought such port within the customs
lines, by establishing a collection district, Tampico remained
a foreign port so far as revenue laws of the United States
are concerned. The majority of the court in the De Lima
case, while accepting the conclusions of Fleming vs. Page,
qualify its application by regarding as dictum that portion of
the opinion which relates to the establishment of collection
districts.

The case upon which the court chiefl}^ relies is Cross vs.
Harrison, ^ which involved the validity of duties paid at the
port of San Francisco upon merchandise imported from
foreign countries into California between February 2, 1849,
— the date of the treaty of peace between the United States
and Mexico, and November 13, 1849, when the collector
appointed by the President under an act of Congress passed
March 3, 1849, entered upon his duties. In this case the

1 The Boat " Eliza," 2 Gall. 4.

2 9 Howard 603.

3 i5 Howard 164.

[230]

Supreme Court and Insular Cases 43

court held that " after the ratification of the treaty, Califor-
nia became a part of the United States, or a ceded, con-
quered territory " and that ^' as there is nothijig differently
stipulated in the treaty with respect to co7nmerce^ it became
instantly bound and privileged by the laws which Congress
had passed to raise a revenue from duties on imports and
tonnage." The italicised clause is important as it enables
the dissenting justices to invoke the same opinion in support
of their view.

But, even in the absence of all precedent, the conclusions
of the court would remain unchanged : ' ' Were this
presented as an original question, we would be impelled
irresistibl}^ to the same conclusion." Under the Constitu-
tion, treaties and laws of the United States are of equal
force and effect. One of the ordinary incidents of a treaty
is the cession of territory, and it follows from this " that
by the ratification of the treaty of Paris the Island became
territory of the United States, — although not an organized
territory in the technical sense of the word." The theory
that ' ' a country remains foreign with respect to the tariff
laws until Congress has acted by embracing it within the
customs union presupposes that a country xn.z.y be domestic
for one purpose and foreign for another. ' ' The conclusion
of the court is therefore that ' ' at the time these duties were
levied, Porto Rico was not a foreign country within the
meaning of the tariff laws but a territory of the United
States, that the duties were illegally exacted and that the
plaintiffs are entitled to recover them back."

It is important to note that the military government was
in operation more than a year after the ratification of the
treaty of Paris. Under the decision in the De Lima case,
however, all duties collected after the ratification of the
treaty, whether under military or civil rule, are invalid.
While the military arm might continue to govern the Island,
the ratification of the treaty of cession made it domestic

' The italics are not in the original.

[231]

44 Annals of the American Academy

territory, and the power to exact further customs duties
therefore ceased. This principle is laid down in Dooley vs.
Uiiited States and reasserted in the De Lima case.

Between the majority and minority in the De Lima case,
there exists an irreconcilable difference of opinion as to the
meaning of the words ' ' foreign country ' ' as used in the
revenue laws. The minority unqualifiedly accepts the
interpretation of Fleming vs. Page. "We submit" says
Mr. Justice McKenna ' ' that the principle upon which Fleyn-
i7igvs. Page was based is still a proper principle for judicial
application. Does it not make government provident, not
haphazard, ignoring circumstances and producing good or
ill accidentally? Does it not leave to the Executive and the
Legislative Departments that which pertains to them ? Did
it not stand as a guide to the Executive — a warrant of action,
so far as action might affect private rights ? Indeed, what is
of greater concern — so far as action might affect great public
interests? It should, we submit, be accepted as a precedent.
It is wise in practice; considerate of what government must
regard, and of the different functions of the Executive,
Legislative and Judicial departments and of their indepen-
dence. Why should it then be discarded as dict2ini? If
constancy of judicial decision is necessary to regulate the
relations and property rights of individuals, is not constancy
of decision the more necessary when it may influence or has
influenced the action of a nation ? If the other departments
of the government must look to the judicial for light, that
light should burn steadily. It should not, like the exhala-
tions of a marsh, shine to mislead."

In the interpretation of Cross vs. Hat'fison the minority is
no nearer the majority than in regard to Fle7ni?ig vs. Page.
Extracts from the opinion are quoted to show that no auto-
matic application was given to the tariff laws in that case, but
that their extension was made dependent upon the action of
the President. To remove any further doubt the difference
between the treaty with Mexico and the treaty with Spain

[232]

SuPEEME Court and Insular Cases 45

is pointed out. The former provided specifically for the
incorporation of the ceded territory into the United States;
whereas the latter expressly declares that the status of the
ceded territory is to be determined by Congress.

Finally, the views of the majority as to the effect of
treaties of cession upon our domestic institutions, are
examined. If by such treaties, all newly acquired territory
must be regarded as domestic, and all the laws of the United
States automatically applicable thereto, consequences of the
gravest nature may result, particularly to the revenue
system. ' ' Its entire plan may be impaired or be destroyed
by change in any part. The revenues of the government
ma)^ be lessened, even taken away bj^ change; the industrial
policy of the country may be destroyed b}^ change. We
are repelled by the argument which leads to such conse-
quences, whether regarding our own country or the foreign
country made ' domestic' If ' domestic ' as to what comes
from it, it is ' domestic ' as to what goes to it, and its
customs laws as well as our customs laws may be cast into
confusion, and its business and affairs deranged before there
is possibility of action. Under the theor}^ of automatic and
immediate incorporation neither we nor the conquered
nation would have anj^ choice in the new situation, — could
make no recommendation to exigency, would stand bound
in a hopeless fatality. Whatever be the interests, temporary
or permanent, whatever might be the condition or fitness of
the ceded territory, the effect on it or on us, the territory
would become a part of the United States with all that
implies. ' '

In the opinion of the minority Porto Rico occupies a
relation to the United States, ' ' between that of being a
foreign country absolutely, and of being domestic territory
absolutely." Such a view "vindicates the government
from national and international weakness. It exhibits the
Constitution as a charter of great and vital authorities,
with limitations indeed, but with such limitations as serve

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46 Annals of the American Academy

and assist governmeut, not destroy it; which, though fullj'-
enforced, yet enable the United States to have — what it was
intended to have ' an equal station among the Powers of the
earth, ' and to do all ' Acts and Things which Independent
States may of right do. ' ' '

Mr. Justice Gray in a separate dissenting opinion points
out that the majority opinion is irreconcilable with the
unanimous opinion of the court in Fleming vs. Page, and
with the opinions of the majority in Downes vs. Bidwell.

The De L,ima case only settled the question of the applica-
bility of the tariff laws of the United States during the
period between the ratification of the treaty of Paris (April
II, 1899) ^^^ the establishment of civil government (May
I, 1900). The Downes case which was made the subject of
the most exhaustive analysis, by both the majority and the
minority, involved the question of the validity of customs
duties collected subsequent to the establishment of civil
government.

In the De lyima case the court was only called upon to
decide whether Porto Rico was a " foreign country " within
the meaning of the tariff laws. For the decision of this
question it was not absolutely necessary to discuss the
applicability of constitutional provisions to the territories.
The onl)^ question to be passed upon was whether the rati-
fication of the treaty had taken Porto Rico out of the
category of " foreign countries " within the meaning of the
enacting clause of the Dingley Tariff Act, which reads :
"There shall be levied, collected and paid upon all articles
imported from foreign countries," etc. As was contended
by the minoritj^ the word "foreign" as used in that Act
must be examined with reference to the intent of Congress
in framing the tarifi" laws, and, that to hold that Porto Rico
was not ' ' foreign ' ' in the same sense that German)^ or
France is ' ' foreign " does not answer the question at issue.

It is true that the court in the De Lima case took up the
question of the applicability of the Constitution to the ter-

[234]

Supreme Court and Insuear Cases 47

ritories, but it did not give the subject the exhaustive treat-
ment which we find in the Downes case. In the De Lima
case the court held ' ' that upon the ratification of the treaty
of peace with Spain, Porto Rico ceased to be a foreign
country, and became a territory of the United States, and
that duties were not legally collectible upon merchandise
brought from that Island." In the Downes case the court
was called upon to determine whether Porto Rico became a
part of the United States within that provision of the Con-
stitution which declares " that all duties, imposts and excises
shall be uniform throughout the United States." The
judgment of the court, answering this question in the nega-
tive is concurred in by Justices Brown, White, Shiras,
McKenna and Gray, But while the majority of the court
is agreed as to the validity of duties collected on goods
coming from Porto Rico, subsequent to the act establishing a
civil government, there is, as has already been pointed out,
a marked divergence in the reasoning supporting this con-
clusion. We have, in fact, three opinions to deal with.
One by Mr. Justice Brown, in which he announces the con-
clusions of the court, another by Mr. Justice White, concurred
in by Justices Shiras, McKenna and Gray, and a dissenting
opinion by The Chief Justice, concurred in by Justices
Harlan, Brev/er and Peckham. In the judgment, therefore,
the court is divided five to four, but if we disassociate the
judgment from the supporting opinions we find a different
grouping, — Mr. Justice Brown stands alone, the other eight
Justices being equally divided.

In an analysis of the opinions it is evident that the
opinion written by Mr. Justice White deserves first place
inasmuch as it has the support of three of his colleagues, —
Justices Shiras, McKenna and Gray. The leading premise
in the reasoning of Mr. Justice White is that Congress, in
governing the territories, is subject to the Constitution; in
other words, that ' ' every provision of the Constitution which
is applicable to the territories is also controlling therein. ' '

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48 Annals of the American Academy

After a considerable preliminary discussion, Mr. Justice
White formulates the real question at issue: "Had Porto
Rico, at the time of the passage of the act in question
(Foraker Act), been incorporated into and become an integral
part of the United States?" In answer thereto the court
invokes the principles laid down in American hisuratice Co.
vs. Canter, that " if conquered territory be ceded by treaty,
the acquisition is confirmed, and the ceded territory becomes
a part of the union to which it is annexed, either on the
terms stipulated in the treaty of cession or on such as its new
master shall impose. ' ' As Mr. Justice White cogently says,
' ' to concede to the government of the United States the
right to acquire, and to strip it of all power to protect the
birthright of its own citizens and to provide for the well-
being of the acquired territory by such enactments as may
in view of its condition be essential, is, in effect, to say that
the United States is helpless in the famil}' of nations, and
does not possess that authority which has at all times been
treated as an incident of the right to acquire. ' '

If the treaty-making power has the right to effect the
absolute incorporation of new territory into the United
States, the representative organ of the government, — the
House of Representatives, — would be stripped of its most
important powers. ' ' Although the House of Representa-
tives might be unwilling to agree to the incorporation of
alien races, it would be impotent to prevent its accomplish-
ment, and the express provisions conferring upon Congress
the power to regulate commerce, the right to raise revenue —
bills for which, by the Constitution, must originate in the
House of Representatives — and the authority to prescribe
uniform naturalization laws, would be in effect set at naught
by the treaty-making power."

In the view of Mr. Justice White, the United States at
the adoption of the Constitution consisted not onl)- of States
but also of territories, but that subsequently acquired terri-
tor)^ whether by purchase or by treaty could not be incor-

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Supreme Court and Insular Cases 49

porated into the United States, except by the express or
implied assent of Congress. " It is then, as I think," says
Mr. Justice White, ' ' indubitablj^ settled by the principles of
the law of nations, by the nature of the government created
under the Constitution, by the express and implied powers
conferred upon that government b}^ the Constitution, by the
mode in which those powers have been executed, from the
beginning, and by an unbroken line of decisions of this
court, first announced by Marshall and followed and lucidly
expounded by Taney, that the treaty- making power cannot
incorporate territory into the United States without the
express or implied assent of Congress, that it may insert in a
treaty, conditions against immediate incorporation, and that
on the other hand when it has expressed in the treaty the con-
ditions favorable to incorporation, they will, if the treaty be
not repudiated by Congress, have the force of the law of
the land, and therefore by the fulfillment of such condi-
tions cause incorporation to result. It must follow, therefore,
that where a treaty contains no conditions for incorporation,
and, above all, where it not only has no such conditions but
expressl}^ provides to the contrary, that incorporation does
not arise until, in the wisdom of Congress, it is deemed that
the acquired territory has reached that state where it is
proper that it should enter into and form a part of the
American family."

While, therefore, at the time these duties were collected
(November, 1900) Porto Rico w^as not a foreign country
in an international sense, " since it was subject to the
sovereignty of and was owned by the United States, it was
foreign to the United States in a domestic .sense, because the
Island had not been incorporated into the United States, but
was merely appurtenant thereto as a possession. As a
necessary consequence, the impost in question assessed on
merchandise coming from Porto Rico into the United States
after the cession, was v/ithin the power of Congress, and that
body was not, moreover, as to such imposts, controlled

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50 Annals of the American Academy

by the clause requiring that imposts should be uniform
throughout the United States. ' '

In the opinion written by Mr. Justice Brown there is an
evident intention to prove that the territories have never
been considered a part of the United States within the mean-
ing of the Constitution. He deduces this from the character
of the Articles of Confederation, the wording of the Consti-
tution, and the nature of the territorial government estab-
lished in the Northwest territory. The practice of the gov-
ernment in dealing with the territories during the present
century is examined with considerable detail, with a view
to showing that Congress has recognized the fact ' ' that
provisions intended for the States did not embrace the terri-
tories unless especially mentioned." Mr. Justice Brown
then proceeds to examine the precedents established by the
Supreme Court and admits, at the outset, that the decisions
of the court upon this subject have not been altogether har-
monious. Before examining these cases he is careful to lay
down the rule established in Coheyisxs. Virgmia, (6 Wheaton
264, 399) that ^' it is a maxim not to be disregarded that gen-
eral expressions in ever}^ opinion are to be taken in connec-
tion with the case in which those expressions are used. If
they go bej'ond the case, they may be respected, but ought
not to control the decision in a subsequent suit when the
verj- point is presented for decision."

Having reached the conclusion that the territories are not to
be considered parts of the United States within the meaning
of the Constitution, Mr. Justice Brown proceeds to establish a
distinction between such prohibitions as are operative only
throughout the United States or among the several States,
and such as go to the very root of the power of Congress
to act at all, irrespective of time or place. "When the
Constitution declares that no bill of attainder or ex post facto
law shall be passed, and that no title of nobilit}' shall be
granted b}'' the United States, it goes to the competency of
Congress to pass a bill of that description." On the other

[23S]

SupREMK Court and Insular Cases 51

hand when the Constitution simply states that a certain
rule shall be established throughout the United States, such
as that relating to the uniformity of duties, imposts and
excises, it only becomes necessary to inquire whether there
be anj'- territory over which Congress has jurisdiction,
which is not a part of the United States, " b}^ which term
we understand the States whose people tinited to form the Con-
stitution, and such as have since been admitted to the Union
upon an equality with them. ' ' The fact that there maj' be
such territory is proven to the satisfaction of Mr. Justice
Brown by the wording of the Thirteenth Amendment which
recognizes a distinction between the United States and ' ' any
place subject to their jurisdiction."

In order to quiet any apprehension as to the danger of
placing the inhabitants of a territory at the complete merc}"-
of Congress, Mr. Justice Brown endeavors to strengthen the
distinction between the two classes of Constitutional provi-
sions above referred to, by resurrecting the ' ' natural rights
theory ' ' so dear to one of his former colleagues — ^Justice
Field. "We suggest, without intending to decide, that
there may be a distinction between certain natural rights,
enforced in the Constitution by prohibitions against inter-
ference with them, and wdiat would be termed artificial or
remedial rights, which are peculiar to our own sj'Stem of
jurisprudence. Of the former class are the rights to one's
own religious opinion, and to a public expression of them,
or, as sometimes said, to worship God according to the
dictates of one's own conscience; the right to personal
liberty^ and individual property- ; to freedom of speech and
of the press; to free access to courts of justice; to due
process of law and to an equal protection of the laws; to
immunities from unreasonable searches and seizures, as well
as oruel and unusual punishments; and to such other im-
munities as are indispensable to a free government. Of the
latter class are the rights to citizenship, to suflfrage, and to
the particular methods of procedure pointed out in the Con-

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52 Annai^ of the American Academy

stitution, which are peculiar to Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence,
and some of which have already been held b}' the States to
be unnecessary to the proper protection of individuals. ' '

The conclusion reached by Mr. Justice Brown is that the
right of the national government to acquire foreign terri-
tory once established; the presumption arises that its power
with respect to such territories is the same as other nations
have been accustomed to exercise with respect to territory
acquired by them, or as he forcibly puts it: "Choice in
some cases, the natural gravitation of small bodies to large
ones in others, the result of a successful war in still others,
may bring about conditions which would render the annexa-
tion of distant possessions desirable. If those possessions
are inhabited by alien races, differing from us in religion,
customs, laws, methods of taxation and modes of thought,
the administration of government and justice, according to
Anglo-Saxon principles, maj' for a time be impossible; and
the question at once arises whether large concessions ought
not to be made for a time, that, ultimately, our own theories
maj'' be carried out, and the blessings of a free government
under the Constitution extended to them. We decline to
hold that there is anything in the Constitution to forbid such
action."

Mr. Justice Gray, in filing an additional concurring
opinion, agrees with Mr. Justice White and presents no new
considerations of importance.

In comparing the opinions of Justices White and Brown,
the main difference in the reasoning is to be found in the
fact that Mr. Justice Brown does not regard anj^ of the ter-
ritories as part of the United States within the meaning of
the Constitution, and therefore holds inapplicable those pro-
visions which refer to a uniform rule "throughout the
United States." Mr. Justice White on the other hand
regards such provisions as applicable the moment newly
acquired territory is incoi-porated into the Union by act of
Congress, but holds that the treaty-making power cannot

[240]

Supreme Court and Insular Cases 53

effect such incorporation. Congressional action is necessary
in order to make acquired territory a part of the United
States within the meaning of the Constitution. In one
sense therefore, Mr. Justice White places narrower limits
to the power of Congress than Mr. Justice Brown, for ac-
cording to the latter, Congress in dealing with the territories
is not bound by the provisions of the Constitution which
refer to the " Utiited States,'' even after such territories
have been incorporated into the Union by Congressional
action. In the opinion of INIr. Justice White, on the other
hand, all provisions of the Constitution which are in any
way applicable to the territories acquire full force and effect
therein, the moment such territory is incorporated into the
United States by act of Congress.

The dissenting opinion in the Downes case is pre-
sented by The Chief Justice, Justices Harlan, Brewer and
Peckham concurring. The opinion rests upon a strict
interpretation of the provisions of the Constitution relating
to the powers of Congress. To the minority, the case of
Loughboro2igh vs. Blake (5 Wheaton 317) is conclusive.
Mr. Chief Justice Marshall's definition of the term " United
States"^ as used in the Constitution is accepted without
reserve, and the view of the majority that such definition
was obiter is unqualifiedly rejected.

The rule of interpretation being settled, there can be no
doubt as to the limitations on the power of Congress. The
attitude of the dissenting justices is well illustrated in their

1 The power then to lay and collect duties, imposts and excises may be exercised,
and must be exercised throughout the United States. Does this term designate the
whole, or any portion of the American empire? Certainly this question can admit of
but one answer. It is the name given to our great republic, which is composed of
States and territories. The District of Columbia, or the territory west of the
Missouri, is not less within the United States, than Mar\'land or Pennsylvania;
and it is not less necessary, on the principles of our Constitution, the uniformity
in the imposition of imposts, duties and excises should be observed in the one,
than in the other. Since, then, the power to lay and collect taxes, which includes
direct taxes, is obviously co-extensive with the power to lay and collect duties,
imposts and excises, and since the latter extends throughout the United States, it
follows that the power to impose direct taxes also extends throughout the United.
States." — Marshall, C.J., in Loughborough vs. Blake.

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54 Annals of the American Academy

apDroval of the doctrine, that the Constitution "neither
changes with time nor does it in theory bend to the force of
circumstances. It maj' be amended according to its own
permission; but while it stands it is a law for rulers and
people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the
shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times and
under all circumstances. Its principles cannot, therefore,
be set aside in order to meet the supposed necessities of great
crises. ' ' The question is whether Congress having created
a civil government for Porto Rico, having constituted its
inhabitants a body politic, and having given it a governor
and other officers, a legislative assembly, and courts, with
right of appeal to this court, can in the same act and in the
exercise of the power conferred by the first clause of section
eight of the Constitution, impose duties on the commerce
between Porto Rico and the States and other territories in
contravention of the rule of uniformity qualifying the
power. " If this can be done, it is because the power of
Congress over commerce between the States and an}' of the
territories is not restricted by the Constitution."

While concurring in the dissenting opinion of the The
Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Harlan in a separate opinion,
offers reply to some of the doctrines laid down by the major-
ity. The principle upon which he rests his view is that
Congress has no existence and can exercise no authority
outside of the Constitution. "This nation is under the
control of a written Constitution, the supreme law of the
land and the only source of the powers which our Govern-
ment, or any branch or officer of it, may exert at any time
or at anj' place. Monarchical and despotic governments,
unrestrained by written constitutions, may do with newly
acquired territories what this Government may not do con-
sistently with our fundamental law. To say otherwise is to
concede that Congress may, by action taken outside of the
Constitution, engraft upon our republican institutions a colo-
nial system such as exists under monarchical governments."

[242]

Supreme Court and Insular Cases 55

In answer to the suggestion of Mr. Justice White, that
conditions may arise when, with the annexation of distant
possessions we will have to deal with an alien race, unpre-
pared for the administration of government according to
Anglo-Saxon principles, Mr. Justice Harlan says: " Whether
a particular race will or will not assimilate with our people,
and whether they can or cannot with safety to our institutions
be brought within the operation of the Constitution, is a
matter to be thought of when it is proposed to acquire their
territor}^ by treaty. A mistake in the acquisition of territory,
although such acquisition seemed at the time to be necessary,
cannot be made the ground for violating the Constitution or
refusing to give full effect to its provisions. The Constitu-
tion is not to be obeyed or disobeyed as the circumstances of
a particular crisis in our history may suggest the one or the
other course to be pursued. ' '

An}' attempt to discuss opinions of such far-reaching
political importance from an exclusively legal standpoint,
must necessarily meet w-ith consideralDle difl5culty. Their
relation to our public policy is so intimate, that their true
significance can only be appreciated when examined in the
light of the constitutional development of the countr5^ The
opinions, themselves, fail to separate considerations of public
policy from strictly legal principles. Not that this is surpris-
ing; it lies in the nature of the questions involved. In
passing on an issue such as this, the court is brought face to
face with the broadest of political questions, — namely, — the
adaptation of an instrument of government to an entirely
new set of problems.

The legal controversy waged before the Supreme Court in
the Insular cases is but a chapter in that larger struggle, whose
successive stages are marked by such questions, as, — the
right to purchase Louisiana and Florida, the right to charter
a United States bank, the right to enact a protective tariff,
the right to govern the territories and the right to issue legal
tender. Not only do the arguments in the cases involving

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56 Annals of the American Academy

these questions, bear close resemblance to those used in the
Insular cases, but the division of opinion in the court is
traceable to the same divergence of view as to the nature of
our constitutional system. That the final result of the cen-
tury of constitutional controversy is expressed in wider
national powers, and in an ever-increasing ability of the
national government to cope with great and new questions
of public policy is not without significance for the questions
now under consideration.

Whenever the Supreme Court has been called upon to
decide questions relating to the power of the executive and
legislative departments of the government over territory
belonging to the United States, but not situated within any
of the States, the Court has, as a rule, decided in favor of
the plenary powers of the political organs of the govern-
ment. The desire not to hamper the political organs of the
government in the choice of means, when confronted with
great problems, has at times led the court to resort to the
most advanced form of legal dialectics and even to legal
fictions. It is true that, in the course of its opinions, the
court has often indulged in expressions tending to give sup-
port to both parties in subsequent controversies, but the
final judgment has, as a rule, broadened rather than limited
the discretionary power of Congress and the President. The
case oi Fleming vs. Page, which the minority of the Court in
the De Lima case attempts to qualify, but which is accepted
vmreservedly hy the majority, and is invoked by four of the
Justices in the Downes case, is one of the most striking
illustrations of this attitude of the Court. The expressions
of opinion as to the power of Congress over newly acquired
territory in this and in subsequent cases clearly shows a set-
tled purpose on the part of the Court to leave such status to
be determined by the political organs of the government.

When the Court in Morition Church vs. United States (136
U. S. 42) says, — "the territory of Louisiana when acquired
from France, and the territories west of the Rockv Moun-

[244]

Supreme Court and Insular Cases 57

tains when acquired from Mexico, became the absolute prop-
erty and domain of the United States, subject to such con-
ditions as the government, in its diplomatic negotiations
had seen fit to accept, relating to the rights of the people
then inhabiting these territories " it is simply giving expres-
sion to a rule which was not, and could not, be embodied in
the Constitution at the time of its adoption, because the cir-
cumstances which called forth the rule were absent. Fortu-
nately, however, the provisions of the Constitution were
framed in such general terms, and the absolute prohibitions
upon the central government were so few, that when a new
situation arose, it was possible to formulate the new rule
without doing violence to any constitutional provision. The
same attitude of the Court is illustrated in National Ba7ik vs.
County of Yankton (loi U. S. 129), in which the Court says, —
" the territories are but political subdivisions of the outlying
dominion of the United States." Even in the case of Cross
vs. Harriso7i^ so strongly relied upon by the majority of the
Court in the De Lima case, the expressions bearing on the
specific point at issue, viz. , duties paid after the ratification
of the treaty with Mexico and prior to the admission of
California as a State, tend to show the desire of the Court to
place California, prior to its admission, under the complete
control of Congress.

As to the reasoning of the Court in the Insular cases, it is
interesting to note how largely the element of ' ' expediency ' '
enters into all the opinions, but especially in the dissenting
opinions in the De Lima and Dooley cases. In the latter,
Mr. Justice White, after examining in detail the inconveni-
ence which would result if instantly, on the ratification of a
treaty, articles coming from a newlj^ acquired territory should
be entitled to free entr^' into the United States, says: "All
these suggestions however, it is argued, but refer to expedi-
ency, and are entitled to no weight as against the theory
that, under the Constitution, the tariff laws of the United
States took effect of their own force immediately upon the

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58 Annals of the American Academy

cession. But this is fallacious. For, if it be demonstrated
that a particular result cannot be accomplished without
destro3'ing the revenue power conferred upon Congress by
the Constitution, and without annihilating the conceded
authority of the government in other respects, such demon-
stration shows the unsoundness of the argument which
magnifies the results flowing from the exercise, by the treat}'-
making power, of its authority to acquire, to the detriment
and destruction of that balanced and limited government
which the Constitution called into being."

The majorit}' in the De Lima case (The Chief Justice,
Justices Brown, Harlan, Brewer and Peckham), and
the minority in the Downes case (The Chief Justice,
Justices Harlan, Brewer and Peckham) express themselves
as strongly opposed to giving anj' weight to the element of
expediency, and j-et, a careful analysis of these opinions
will show that while this class of considerations is not given
the same prominence as in the opinion quoted above, the
Court is unable to avoid the discussion of the influence of
its conclusions on the powers of Congress and the President.

A comparison of the opinions in .the Insular cases will
show that in spite of the great divergence in conclusions,
eight of the nine Justices are agreed as to at least one impor-
tant principle of constitutional interpretation. This fact
has been obscured by the undue prominence given to Mr.
Justice Brown's opinion in the Downes case. Mr. Justice
White (Justices Shiras, Gra}' and McKenna concurring)
and The Chief Justice (Justices Harlan, Brewer and
Peckham concurring) are agreed that Congress, in govern-
ing the territories, derives its authority and is subject to all
the limitations of the Constitution applicable thereto. In
other words eight of the nine Justices lay down the rule
that Congress cannot withhold the Constitution from terri-
tory- under its control after such territory has been incor-
ported into the United States. As Mr. Justice White tersely
puts it: — " In the case of the territories as in ever}' other

[246]

Supreme Court and Insular Cases 59

instance, when a provision of the Constitution is involved,
the question which arises is not whether the Constitution is
operative, for that is self-evident, but whether the provision
relied on is applicable. ' ' This principle is of transcendent
importance, as it sets at rest much of the uncertainty
aroused bj' some of the earlier decisions of the Supreme
Court of the United States.

The opinions of the four concurring and four dissenting
Justices in the Downes case diverge in the interpretation of
the effect of the treaty of cession and the establishment of
civil government, upon the status of Porto Rico. In the
opinion of the four dissenting Justices the ratification of the
treaty made Porto Rico a part of the United States, and
therefore no act of Congress or of the Executive, nor even
their combined action could treat Porto Rico differently
from other parts of the United States. It is interesting to
note that the same view is presented by Mr, Justice Brown
in the De Lima case. On the other hand. Justices White,
Shiras, Gray and McKenna take the view in the Downes
case, which is likewise consistent with their view in the De
Lima case, — that a treaty of cession cannot make newly
acquired territory a part of the United States in a domestic
sense; that is, it cannot incorporate an alien people into the
United States without the express or implied approval of
Congress. They expressly repudiate the theory that the
' ' Union of the United States " is a union of states only,
and hold that the term "United States" within the mean-
ing of the Constitution embraces the states and such terri-
tories as have been made part of the United States by the
express or implied assent of Congress. The logical result
of this rule is that Congress may insert in a treaty condi-
tions against immediate incorporation. The view of Mr.
Justice Brown is that the Union is a union of states alone,
and that the territories do not form a part of the United
States within the meaning of the Constitution. We there-
fore find three gradations of opinion as to the scope of the

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6o Annals of the American Academy

term "United States" as used in the Constitution. The
Chief Justice and Justices Harlan, Brewer and Peckhata
take the view that the moment new territory is acquired,
no matter under what conditions or circumstances, such
territory becomes a part of the United States, within the
meaning of the Constitution and all constitutional guar-
antees and limitations immediately become applicable. On
the other hand, Justices White, Shiras, Gray and McKenna
hold that such newly acquired territory does not come
within the constitutional provisions until the political organs
of the government, namely, — Congress and the President,
have given their express or implied assent to the incorpo-
ration of such territory into the United States. Finally,
Mr. Justice Brown leans strongly to the opinion that the
term ' ' United States ' ' as used in the Constitution refers to
the union of states and does not include the territories.

Testing these three views by the strict canons of legal
precedent, we find that they all have a basis in expressions
of opinion by the court in earlier cases. This is largely due
to the fact that the question of the applicability of the Con-
stitution to newly acquired territory has never presented
itself in such definite form. The precedents cited in the
Insular cases should be examined in the light of the prin-
ciple laid down by Mr. Justice Taney in the Genesee Chief
case (i2 Howard 443), when, in justifying a departure from
a principle laid down in an earlier decision, he said "the
great importance of the question as it now presents itself
could not have been foreseen, and the subject therefore
did not receive the elaborate consideration which at this time
would have been given it."

The consciousness that a new situation confronts the
country seems particularly evident in the opinion of Mr.
Justice White in the Downes case. His views give evidence
of a desire to formulate a principle at once simple and
readily intelligible. Whether we agree or disagree with his
conclusions, they furnish a clear and definite rule by which

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the political organs of the government ma}' guide their con-
duct in dealing with newly acquired territory. The prin-
ciple of interpretation as laid down gives to them complete
power over such territory until, by express legislative enact-
ment or by acquiescence in a rule contained in a treaty of
cession, such acquired territory is made a part of the United
States. Until such action is taken by Congress, the terri-
tor}' remains subject to the jurisdiction of the United
States, but does not become a part thereof, and the only
limitations upon the power of Congress are those prohibi-
tions of the Constitution which go to the very root of the
power of Congress to act at all, irrespective of time or
place; or, as Mr. Justice White says: "by those absolute
withdrawals of power which the Constitution has made in
favor of human liberty, and which are applicable to every
condition or status."

Although this view receives the assent of but three of his
associates, it seems likely from the reasoning of the dissent-
ing Justices, that it will furnish the basis for the Philippine
decision, unless some radical change be made in the make-
up of the court. The great merit of the principle as thus
laid down lies in the fact that it enables the political organs
of the government to deal with the newly acquired territory
in accordance with its requirements.

It is fortunate, both for the immediate needs of our public
policy, as well as the future expansion of the countr}^, that the
doctrine of immediate, irrevocable, automatic incorporation
through mere cession has been repudiated. If the views of
the four dissenting Justices in the Downes case had pre-
vailed, both Congress and the Executive would have found
their hands tied in dealing with our new possessions in such
a way as to make eflBcient government almost, if not quite,
impossible. No instrument of government no matter how
perfect, can long withstand such a strain. In all the crises
of our national life, the Constitution has been found adequate
to meet new situations as the}^ presented themselves. In

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62 Annals of the American Academy

spite of some uncertainty as to the view of the court on a
number of important questions relating to the government
of acquired territory, a rule of interpretation has now been
formulated, sufficiently broad to enable Congress to deal
with the immediate necessities of the situation. Anj^ inter-
pretation which falls short of this requirement must react
injuriously upon the authority of the Constitution. To
preserve its authority the principle pronounced b}^ Mr.
Justice Storj^ in Martin vs. Hzmter's Lessee (i Wheaton 326)
must ever be kept in mind. " The Constitution unavoida-
bly deals in general language. It did not suit the purposes
of the people, in framing this great charter of our liberties,
to provide for minute specifications of its powers, or to
declare the means by which those powers should be carried
into execution. It was foreseen that this would be a perilous
and difficult, if not an impracticable task. The instrument
was not intended to provide merely for the exigencies of a
few 3'ears, but was to endure through a long lapse of ages,
the events of which were locked up in the inscrutable pur-
poses of Providence. It could not be foreseen what new
changes and modifications of power might be indispensable
to efiectuate the general objects of the charter; and restric-
tions and specifications which at the present might seem
salutary, might in the end prove the overthrow of the sj'S-
tem itself Hence its powers are expressed in general terms,
leaving to the legislature, from time to time, to adopt its
own means to effectuate legitimate objects, and to mould and
model the exercise of its powers as its wisdom and the public
interests should require. ' '

L. S. RowE.

San Juan, Porto Rico.

SOCIAL DECADENCE.

There are three kinds of decadence liable to occur in human
society, namely, personal, racial, and social. Personal
decadence needs no explanation. When this species of
degeneration becomes prevalent, the phenomenon of racial
decay occurs. Since the development of civilization depends
on the character or mental constitution of the race, and since
any degeneration of the race in physique is always accom-
panied by corresponding weakening of mental powers, it
follows that racial decay finally entails social dissolution.
Yet though racial decay causes social disintegration the
converse is by no means true. With social decadence there
is often no sign of race deterioration. Eighteenth century
France, for instance, experienced a period of social deca3\
Yet the French race was then, perhaps, more strong,
healthful, and capable than ever before. The mechanical
framework of a social system based on institutions and
customs which had long since survived their utility, enclosed
within its bounds millions of individuals who were just
beginning to be conscious of themselves in relation to their
fellow men. "Sire," said the Marshal de Richelieu, who
had seen three reigns, addressing Louis XVI., " under Louis
XIV. no one dared utter a word ; under Louis XV. people
whispered ; under 3^our majesty they talk aloud. "^ Opinion
begins to war with tradition. Divine prestige which had for
centuries wrapped ancient institutions in its protecting
embrace, is suddenly withdrawn, revealing only skeletons.
Authority yields to investigation, revelation lies prostrate
before science. Skepticism, the necessary antecedent of
progress, becomes the ruling principle of thought and action.
The critical, comparative method introduced by Buffon,
La\'oisier and Lalande is applied by Montesquieu, Diderot,
and Voltaire to the political and social questions of the day.

1 Taine, The Ancient Regime, p. 125.

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64 Annai^ of the American Academy

The theories of the thinkers, adopted and carried into action
bj' the Revolutionists, caused such a public sentiment against
authority of all kinds that, during the early days of the
Revolution, France presents to the world the spectacle of
a nation of separate individuals, each so infatuated with his
own "rights" that his duties to others are convenientlj^
ignored. On all sides social structures collapse. So far
have the people forgotten the value of association that all
literary societies, academies of science, schools, seminaries,
colleges, even those of the Sorbonne, are suppressed. This
presents a state of disintegration — a perfect picture of social
decay. Yet so strong, so vigorous is the race that, in but a
few 3-ears, the liberty-intoxicated people of the Revolution,
recovering their balance, erect a new France on the ashes of
the old.

Having characterized personal and racial decadence the
question remains, What is to be understood by social deca-
dence? " Whatever else a stable society is," says M. Tarde
in his Logique Sociale, . . , " it is, above all, an inter-
lacement of sympathetic sentiments." The vital elements
in every society are the subtle, invisible bonds which make
possible association and co-operation and it is to the decay
of these that attention must be directed. Social decay,
therefore, means the perishing of these vital elements which
hold the members of society together.

Now what does the word decadeyit imply ? First of all the
idea of a former high degree of excellence. Decadent which
implies a has been, must therefore be distinguished from
primitive which suggests a to be. The old man and the
infant are alike bald, toothless, weak, ' ' childish ' ' in thought;
but these characteristics are due in the one case to worn-out
capacities, in the other to undeveloped powers. Just so the
primitive group and the decadent group often have much in
common. Each is marked by disorder and consequent
resort to force to maintain the statjis quo of the classes. But
in the primitive tvpe this control by force indicates an

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Social Decadence 65

advance from the tribal to a higher organization of the group;
in the decadent type it signifies the dissolution of the vital
forces of a once prosperous society.

Thus declining Rome used measures of control just as
severe as those employed by any primitive society. Personal
liberty was as little respected then as at any period in
the world's history. Ammianus Marcellinus, writing in the
fourth century A. D., of the reign of the Emperor Constan-
tius, says : ' ' For if any one of his military officers or of those
who had ever received marks of honor ; or if any one of
high rank was accused on the barest rumor of having
favored the faction of his enemy, he was loaded with chains
and dragged about like a beast ; . . . every one who
was informed against or in any way called in question was
condemned either to death or to confiscation of his property
or to confinement in a desert island. ' ' ^ Still for all this
reign of violence, the Romans of this period must not be
placed on the same round of the ladder of civilization wnth
the Scotchmen of the fourteenth centur}'-, the Corsicans of
fifty years ago, or the early Califomians. Strictly speaking
a society is never retrogressive. Nations may and do
decline, but the descent is always made on the other side of
the hill. If we liken the course of advancing civilization to
the tortuous path of a loop railroad up to the crest of a
mountain, we may compare the movement in social decline
to the course of a landslide down the further slope. If in
respect of violence the England of Henry I. stood about on
a level with fourth century Rome let us remember that the
one society had the promise and potency of functions which
the other had enjoyed and lost.

Again, the word decadent embraces the idea of movement.
Hence it must be distinguished from non-progressive. In a
decadent society, therefore, destruction of social bonds is
taking place — the group is moving toward ruin. Between
the decadent and the non-progressive types of society there

^Ammianus Marcellinus, p. 12.

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66 Annals of the American Academy

are similarities just as striking as those between the decadent
and the primitive groups. A great caking of custom over
social life, that pre-eminent characteristic of the non-pro-
gressive type, is often displayed in the decadent societ}-, A
strong conservative spirit governs affairs domestic and
public. lyove of the past, hatred of change, and satisfaction
with the present condition are, moreover, common to both.
But the non-progressive group can last indefinitely. Its
civilization is arrested, its energies lie dormant. Yet it is
holding its own, in spite of the fact that, compared with the
progressive societies of its day, it may seem to be retrograd-
ing. It is only awaiting an impulse vigorous enough to start
it from the rut in which it has lain for centuries. In the
decadent society on the other hand, certain forces are at
work dragging it ever further from a state of equilibrium.
The group cannot continue as it is.

Modern China and modern Spain may be cited as instances
of the above types. In both these countries authority and
antiquity sway all things, investigation and innovation are
not tolerated. But though China " is shrouded in etiquette
like a mummy in its wrappings," ^ Arthur Smith, the
American missionarj', says: " If the teaching of history as
to what happens to the fittest is to be trusted, there is a
magnificent future for the Chinese race." The self-preser-
vative instincts of society dominate all the institutions and
traditions of the Chinese. Regard for parents and ancestors
and respect for peaceful industries are the controlling influ-
ences in their life. ' ' No man is a hypocrite in his amuse-
ments," says Dr. Johnson. The play activity in human
beings is spontaneous and indicates innate race qualities.
This is certainly true in the case of the Chinese, whose
favorite games, chess, flying kites, and fantan are an index
of their peaceful character. We notice the absence of
gladiatorial combats and duels in their scheme of pleasures
and a detestation of all warlike achievements. The popular

1 Taine, The Ancieut Regime, p. 123.

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Social Decadenck 67

proverb, ' ' Good iron is not used for nails, nor are good men
for soldiers," expresses their contempt for the military pro-
fession. The Chinaman's inborn respect for life is shown by
the fact that life is seldom taken for political crime, and that
human sacrifices have never been demanded by his religion.
But patriotism and idealism are utterly lacking in his make-
up, and until these two sentiments are supplied there will be
little progress possible for him. As Dr. Patten says, "To
insure continuous progress each race must receive from other
races ideas not developed by its past conditions, ' ' ^ and the
Chinese must assimilate foreign ideas to such an extent that
love of country and desire to work for ideals will become a
part of national character. The Chinaman is essentially
practical and utilitarian, and perhaps by appealing to his
economic sense he may be taught the advantages of truth
and co-operation; he may be led to take a broader view of
things; he may be aroused to evince an interest in what is
beyond his immediate environment. Then he will see that
the system of political corruption, in the meshes of which
China is held fast to-day, is alone responsible for her
stagnation, — a system which from the lowest to the highest
office, in both military and civil life, puts a premium on lying
and discourages, nay, even punishes, honest endeavor.
Offices are purchased and promotions in the army go to the
highest bidder. There is a large number of unpaid em-
ployees in both the military and civil service. These men
become parasites on the paid ofiicers and the public at
large. Chinese officials are skilled experts in the misappro-
priation of public funds and stores. Takea single instance.
The Viceroy of the Course of the River, whose special duty
it is to protect and keep in order the banks of the Yellow
River, knowing that promotion is always conferred on the
viceroy under whose administration the embankment is
repaired, has so often caused floods to be produced by arti-
ficial means that the popular saying runs: " The best cure

1 The Development of English Thought, p. i8.

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68 Annals op the American Academy

for the Hwang-Ho and the best safeguard against floods,
would be to behead all the oJB&cials and leave the river to
itself. ' ' Moreover, much of the fund appropriated for the
control of the flood finds its way into the private pocket of
the viceroy. This universal system of corruption checks
trade and enterprise. Boatmen have to pay such heavy
duties to the police for plying that they soon cease to go
abroad. All along the line at searching stations goods are
examined, and unless a heavy bribe is paid they are destroyed.
If a bottle of oil is found on which duty has been paid and
the certificate mentions only oil, the merchant will be im-
prisoned on the charge of smuggling glass and released only
on the payment of a heavy fine. Over ten years ago a
company was formed in Canton for the establishment of
water works, but the ofl&cials demanded such enormous
bribes for granting the privilege that the scheme was aban-
doned. In the same way a fertilizer company, projected for
the purpose of cleaning the streets of Canton and convert-
ing the refuse into manure, fell through.

There is, however, no doubt that China has turned in her
sleep of ages and will soon arouse herself to action. The
Reform party of China, including the best element of the
Chinese race both at home and abroad — men who have been
educated in European and American schools — is fully aware
that the time for action is not far off. Thej'- realize intensely
that under the present regime development is impossible —
that the construction of railroads and the introduction of
schemes for the development of China's internal resources,
under the present system, would merely open up new avenues
for corruption. Therefore their aim is the destruction of
the government as it exists — which the}^ consider a foreign
institution brought by the Tartars — and the substitution of
another native system. With the change in government
must come the regeneration of the army. When the Chinese
soldier feels confidence in his leaders and in his pay, the
army will cease to be a " paper army, ' ' and will stand as an

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Social Decadence 69

organized power for good in national development. General
Gordon said of the Chinese soldier that ' ' he was easily led,
easily fed, and fearless of death. " Is there any reason, then,
why the Chinese army, properly fed and paid, should not
become a creditable institution ? The unprecedented dura-
tion of the Chinese nation in spite of its weak army and
unexampled system of corruption — a system which really
began when Muh (1000-947 ^- C.) promulgated a penal
code, under which punishment was made commutable into
fines — is doubtless due to the sterling race character of the
people. Their genius for association, their habit of mutual
responsibility, their indefatigable industry, their respect for
property and life, their temperance — all these qualities which
have acted as preservative forces for the Chinese nation,
when joined to the progressive, acquired characters of
patriotism and idealism will be responsible for the great
change for the better which must soon take place in China.
But the Reformers must remember that this new China wnll
not be born in a day; it will be the result of evolution
rather than revolution, of slow adaptation owing to the in-
herent dislike of the race for innovation. Let the would-be
reformer of China take warning from Kipling's "fool who
tried to hustle the East."

With Spain, however, the case is quite the reverse. She
is, without doubt, one of Lord Salisbury's " dying nations."
Owing to widespread and inveterate ignorance, due entirely
to the control of the people for centuries by the church, the
Spanish race has deteriorated from an active, enterprising,
independent people to the inert, servile race we know to-day.
One needs but reflect upon the attitude of the Spanish people
themselves — not the politicians — towards the late war with
the United States and towards the peace negotiations, to
realize the degeneracy of the race and nation. E. J. Dillon,
in the September, 1898, number of the Contemporary Review,
calls the Spaniards "an impoverished, resigned, and hope-
lessly lethargic population. ' ' Peace at any price was the cry

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yo Annals of the American Academy

of the Spanish masses. War meant to them hunger and
other species of physical suffering. So engrossed were they
in the struggle for personal, vegetative life, so indifferent to
everything not connected with their individual interests, that
Mr. Dillon goes on to assert that they would not object even
if the United States were to declare a protectorate over
Spain. The territorial sacrifices, at the cost of which peace
was being purchased, meant nothing to the masses. The
talk of the politicians about ' ' blots on the scutcheon ' ' touched
no responsive chord in the mind of the masses. National
honor has no longer a place in the soul of the people. An
article in the London Daily Telegraph, August 13, 1898,
says: "How stands the case with Spain? Her disastrous
defeats and the assured loss to her of her foreign possessions,
both in the Eastern and Western hemispheres, have left the
great body of her citizens absolutely unmoved. The devotee
of the ' pundonor ' does not feel his honor touched by being
beaten to his knees in an international duel; the former mis-
tress of the Indies suffers nothing in her imperial pride at
the certain prospect of seeing one of the last remnants of
her transatlantic empire wrested from her failing grasp.
Large numbers of her common people seem ignorant of the
ver}' existence of the West and the East Indian possessions;
while those who are aware of it regard them apparentl}' as
burdens of which Spain would be well rid. Anyhow it is a
matter for politicians to wrangle over, and a sensible
Spaniard, with plenty of bull fights to amuse him, will not
trouble his head about any such irrelevant matters. The
verj'' sentiment of national pride is to all appearance extinct
among the Spanish people at large, and with the extinction
of national pride it is certain that national life, in the true
sense of the word, must sooner or later cease to exist. . . .
It (the nation) is dissolved into a fortuitous concourse of
traders, pleasure seekers, idlers or what-nots, who acknowl-
edge no other bond of union among themselves than such
as each man's personal interests in the matter of business or

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Social Decadence 71

amusement have created and may temporaril}^ sustain. Such
a descent in the order of civiHzation .... points to
the alread}^ realized degeneracy and presages the not remote
extinction of the race of which so humiliating a story can be
told."

Any consideration of the subject of social decay must
bear in mind the important fact that social decadence is not
inevitable. It is a disorder, not a decrepitude. We are all
familiar with the theory that societies, like human beings,
pass through the stages incident to human life. ' ' The
infancy of the Republic," "the youth of the nation," its
"old age" are all trite expressions. But there is this
important difference to be noted between the life of a group
and that of the individuals composing it. Decay, so inevit-
able in human life, is by no means necessary in social life,
because the continuity of society is pS3^chical not phj^sical.
When a society has reached the stage of intelligent group
consciousness there is no reason why it should not continue
its existence for an indefinite period. There is no cause at
all for thinking it must finally decay and die.

Again, social decadence must be distinguished from the
fluctuations of vitality experienced by healthy as well as
diseased societies. Just as there are variations in the physical
condition of a healthy person, so sound societies have their
periods of relaxation or depression. Allowance must accord-
ingly be made for such a condition of relaxation, and care
must be taken not to confound it with the state of actual
disease for which we should reserve the word ' ' decadent. ' '

In view of the foregoing may not a decadent society be
defined as a society which is not capable of maintaining a
fo7'mer level of excellejice in social products f

Disease is defined by pathologists as a condition in which
the functions of the organism are improperly discharged.
Disease is recognized by its symptoms. Among human
beings the symptoms of the same disease in different indi-
viduals while showing an essential resemblance will always

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72 Annals of the American Academy

be modified and sometimes to a confusing degree by pecu-
liarity of temperament. Much more in the history of nations
the essential elements of decay will be influenced by racial
peculiarities.

Yet the signs of decay in all degenerate societies are suffi-
ciently law-abiding to admit of two well-marked types
which may be called the institutional and the i7idividualistic.
In the one case degeneration is due to the overpowering
growth of institutions — in the other to the extreme develop-
ment of individualism. The one is marked by the crush-
ing out of all individual effort, the excess of social control,
the growth of institutions at the expense of the individual,
— the other by the weakness of social control, the domina-
tion of the individual over institutions. Both of these types,
starting though they do from opposite poles, eventually
manifest the same symptoms of social decadence, — the loss
of social ideals, the perversion of the social spirit, the loosen-
ing of the ties of sympathy which unite the great classes of
the governors and the governed. Under institutional deca-
dence society is burdened with institutions, customs, and
traditions which have long outgrown their usefulness and
have become calcareous deposits in the social body. Or
there is an abnormal domination of one institution over
others, as in the case of Spain, where the church controls
all. In the last analysis we find the individual of the institu-
tional type of the decadent group, a cringing, ignorant time-
server, utterly lacking in independence and initiative, will-
ing, nay, anxious to be led, his horizon bounded by his ego,
his one aim self-preservation. Anarchy reigns supreme in
the last stage of the individualistic type of decadence, how-
ever. Each man is a law unto himself. Institutions, cus-
toms, traditions, the preservative forces of society are utterly
shattered. Too much license for the individual, ultra
development of personality, extreme realization of the ego
have done their work. Thus we see that the free play of
individual effort, so necessar>' to progress, so indispensable

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Social Decadence 73

a factor in civilization, defeats its own ends if allowed too
wide a range, if not controlled b}- the group for whose
development it is in so large a measure responsible.

An analysis of the phenomena accompanying social deca-
dence — both institutional and individualistic — may be made
through the study of Spain, which stands as a type of the
first, and of Greece and Rome, which stand as types of the
second.

Spain has been suffering from a mortal disease since the
seventeenth century. The eighteenth century, indeed, pre-
sents an attempt at regeneration from without. But as the
effort was fruitless there is little doubt that we to-day are
witnessing the expiring gasps of the once proud mistress of
the Indies.

The spirit of blind obedience to unquestioned authority,
credulity, and superstition, the leading character traits of the
Spaniard, were inculcated and fostered by the peculiar cir-
cumstances surrounding Spain's early struggles for civiliza-
tion. What could eight centuries of religious wars do but
develop religious fervor to the exclusion of all other
passions? The Spaniards considered themselves soldiers of
the cross and became accustomed to supernatural manifesta-
tions. "Their young men saw visions and their old men
dreamed dreams." Poverty and ignorance, the necessary
results of these long wars, served as aids in developing that
absolute lo3'alty to king and priest which soon became the
prominent characteristic of the Spanish people.

Therefore Spain was ready to take precedence among the
nations in the sixteenth century, under the leadership of
such strong, determined rulers as Charles V. and Philip II.
The people, formed all in one mould, did the absolute bid-
ding of the sovereign, who in turn worked for the church.
A contemporary of Philip says: "The Spanish do not
merely love, not merely reverence, but absolutely' adore him
(Philip) and deem his commands so sacred that they could
not be violated without offence to God."

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74 Annals of the American Academy

Under these rulers religious wars were carried on success-
fully. The Reformation was crushed at home and retarded
in Germany. Philip aimed at the empire of Europe, so that
he might restore the authority of the church. It was the
boast of his emissary Alva, in the Low Countries, that he
had put to death in five or six years eighteen thousand per-
sons besides those slain on the battlefield.

The feeling of contentment with their condition, pride in
their old beliefs, contempt for innovation soon became fixed
in national character. When this sentiment of satisfaction
settled down upon the race the death knell of progress was
sounded. This harmony of mind, evenness of thought, fet-
tering of capacity was the result of centuries of church dis-
cipline. By expulsion, emigration, oppression or exter-
mination of the original, progressive element of the nation
the demand of the church that all should think alike was
satisfied. But with what result? Thanks to the forced
emigration of the Jews, the expulsion of the Moors and the
Inquisition, the nation succeeded in getting rid of all orig-
inal thinkers — of all the unlike, variant factors — hence the
resulting population through generations of inheritance was
moulded all in one form.

The glor>- of Spain was, therefore, short-lived, for a
people accustomed to being led, as they were, would follow
unhesitatingly any leader, the ignorant or foolish as readily
as the wise or intelligent. Consequently there occurs a
marked deterioration during the next three reigns. As the
power of the throne weakens that of the church increases.
Spain's decline may be said to begin with the disturbance in
the balance of power in her institutions caused by the
abnormal development of the church in the seventeenth cen-
tury. At a time when the power of the ecclesiastics all over
Europe was deca5'ing the church tightens her grip on Spain.
Laymen in great numbers enter the church. The highest as
well as the lowest intellects are dominated by its influence.
Cervantes three years before his death became a priest. Lope

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SociAi, Decadence 75

de Vega was a priest and officer of the Inquisition. San-
doval, the historian and the authority for the reign of
Charles V., was a Benedictine monk. Antonio, the most
learned bibliographer Spain ever produced, was a canon of
Seville. Zamora, the poet, was a monk, and Calderon,
called the poet of the Inquisition, was chaplain to Philip IV.

Owing to church control the condition of Spain in the
seventeenth centurj^ became truly pitiable. The strongest
symptoms of decay were everywhere discernible. Even the
upper classes were unacquainted with science or literature,
and knew nothing of the commonest events of their own
times out of their own country. Books, unless books of
devotion, were considered worthless. No one collected
them — no one consulted them. Until the eighteenth cen-
tury Madrid did not possess a single public library. Due de
St. Simon, the French ambassador at Madrid (1721-22),
sums up the state of education by saying that "in Spain
science is a crime and ignorance a virtue." The military
spirit was completely lost. Most of the troops deserted. The
few who remained faithful were clothed in rags, received no
food and little money. The navy, if possible, was in a
worse state than the army. In 1656 it was proposed to fit
out a small fleet, but the fisheries on the coast had so
declined that it was impossible to procure sailors enough to
man the ships required. Charts were lost, and the ignor-
ance of the Spanish pilots became so notorious that no one
would trust them. In the cities suffering and want pro-
duced the inevitable revolt from control. Madrid tradesmen
organized into bands, broke open private houses, robbed and
murdered in the face of day. In 1699 Stanhope, the British
minister, writes that never a day passed in which people
were not killed in the streets scuffling for bread. His own
secretary had seen five women stifled to death by the crowd
before a bakehouse.

All industries were now degenerate; the soil remained
untilled, the arts were soon lost. Seville, which in the six-

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76 Annals of the American Academy

teenth century had sixteen thousand looms, which employed
three thousand persons, at the accession of Philip V., 1700,
could not boast of three hundred. Toledo in the sixteenth
century had fifty woolen manufactories — in 1665 it had only
thirteen. And this story was repeated throughout the whole
of Spain. There was also a marked decline in population
during this miserable seventeenth century. Madrid, which
at the beginning of the century had four hundred thousand
inhabitants, at the end had but two hundred thousand.

A temporary relief at least, came to the wretched, discon-
solate, poverty-stricken Spaniards during the next century.
The improvement w'as, however, only superficial as all the
reforms were introduced from without and did not spring up
spontaneously from the people. In fact the Spaniards were
then beyond the possibilit}' of self-regeneration. The
seeming success of Spain for a while was due to the fact that
all her affairs were now in the hands of foreigners. National
spirit there was none. Social ideals had long since vanished.
There was such a dearth of capable men that in 171 1
Bonnac mentions that a resolution had been formed to place
no Spaniard at the head of affairs because those who had
hitherto been employed had proved incapable or unfaithful.
In the war of succession* the Spanish troops were led by
foreigners. The Duke of Berwick, an Englishman, became
generalissimo of Spain. Finance was administered by Orry
who was sent from France and who became the real minister
of war. Alberoni, an Italian, and Ripperda, a Dutchman,
were in time the most powerful men in Spain. Ripperda
tried to reanimate Spanish industry. He established a large
woolen manufactory at Segovia, once a busj^ city. The
commonest processes had been forgotten by the Spaniards,
so that he had to import workmen too. Charles III. invited
thousands of workmen to settle in Spain hoping to invigorate
the nation. By his personal power he brought Spain almost
up to the first rank again, but since all his improvements
were political and not national in origin the country collapsed

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Social Decadence 77

at his death, and Charles IV., a pure Spaniard in thought,
easily brought about the reaction against the artificial prog-
ress of the century. He restored the power of the clergy
which had been somewhat lamed in the preceding reigns,
and again darkness falls over all. The mind of Spain was
gone. The Spaniards did not want to improve ; they were
satisfied with their inheritance ; they were and still are
unable to doubt. And this is the work of the church.

And now a short review of the history of the two nations
which stand as types of the individualistic species of social
decadence. The germ of Greece's decadence may be detected
already in the time oi Euripides. The most significant fact
of the age is the growth of that individualism which if con-
trolled leads onward and upward but which in Grecian
history reached such an extreme development that it caused
the decline of the nation. At first, realization of personality
in all — others as well as self — leads to great progress in
civilization. For a time it seems as though humanity were
broadened. The great care for the individual manifests
itself in an organized dispensary system in which the ablest
physicians received fixed salaries from the state to care for
the poor. Charity is enjoined. The poor have rights and
dignities. Even women and slaves are not treated with
contempt. "For even a slave," says Philemon, "is our
flesh and blood ; no one was ever born a slave by nature;
fortune has but enslaved his body."

But after a while self-aggrandizement becomes the leading
motive of conduct. Striving for power becomes the fashion
of the day, and the jealousy, deceitfulness, and acuteness of
intellect which this begets are the striking character traits in
the prominent men of the age. The ego becomes the centre
of interest and the intellect is cultivated at the expense of
morals. Impatience with old customs and institutions is
manifested so strongly that they rapidly decay. In this age
of democracy, opinions change so frequently that the rising
generations find themselves out of sympathy with their

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78 Annals of the American Academy

fathers. Hence it is a common complaint in the literature
of the day that old age is little respected. Sophocles in
Oedipus speaks of old age as " feeble, unsociable, friendless,
the constant object of reproach when all the woes of woes
are the partners of our habitation." And Antiphanes
exclaims : ' ' Age is like wine ; leave but a little in j'our
vessel and it turns to vinegar. ' ' Too much respect for age,
as in China, impedes progress, but utter disregard of the old
in the end also defeats progress, for the undermining of
tradition and the maiming of custom which naturally
result from contempt of the old, seriously weaken the pre-
servative forces of societ}'. As a consequence of this we
discover in the Greek life of the succeeding epoch the
unmistakable symptoms of social decadence — disintegration
of common bonds, sentiments, and spirit.

Evidence that the fatal germ of decay has already begun
its work in the Euripidean age, is furnished by the literature
of the day. Even in the tragedies of Euripides we discover
that striving after effect and novelty, that desire to show the
ingenuity of the author, and that extreme self-consciousness
which are incontrovertible symptoms of decaying art. The
chorus which was originally the medium for the expression
of awe and reverence has become a mere instrument for the
invention of melodies. These false principles dominate all
literary eflfort. As the people care less and less for what is
beyond and above themselves the poet disregards the canons
of true art in order to please.

While the art of this period is great and can b}^ no means
be called decadent even in the epoch following, yet a change
in the direction of its aim is to be noticed. Thought,
actuated no more by the great social ideals of the Age of
Pericles, expresses itself in art of a domestic character.
Imitating the life around, art ceases to be public and
religious. Religion is losing its hold upon the people. The
Greek feels no more an instinctive faith in his gods. Un-
consciously at least, his attitude toward the belief of his

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Social Decadence 79

fathers is influenced by his private judgment. Hence the
expression of that faith in temples ceases to be the goal of
art.

In the next epoch, or that of decadence proper, the ego is
the all-absorbing thought ; faith of all kinds is gone — faith
in one's self, faith in others, faith in the destiny of the
nation. Hence the aim of conduct is how to get the most
out of the short space of years allotted to the individual.
His comfort is the first consideration. Teachers, influenced
no more by social ideals, abandon public life and make
private life the object of study and precept. The Greek's
former high sense of honor and keen love of libert}'-
are gone. Hence he pays to have his land defended.
Mercenaries constitute the army. ' ' How much better it is
to be under a good master than to live in poverty and be
free," exclaims Menander. And again, " He who fights
and runs away, will live to fight another day." Politics
were abandoned by the best classes. The talented retired
to schools of philosophy. Discussions flourished as actions
ceased. The Greek religion of this period has no real
meaning. It is full of ceremonies and foreign gods. In
literature the desire to startle which was detected in the
preceding epoch is now carried so far that in the Cassandra
of I^ycophron of Alexandria there is a riddle in every line.
Illustrations are given for their own sake, not for the
purpose of making clear a point. lyiterature steps beyond
its proper sphere and encroaches upon the domain of paint-
ing. With the exception of the poems of Theocritus who
goes to the country for his themes (an innovation), and the
epigrams, there is nothing original in the literature of the
period.

The art of the period follows the bent it had already taken
in the preceding age, becoming more and more domestic and
less and less public and religious. Though no great monu-
ments or temples are erected, house architecture continues to
develop. The sphere of art is narrowed to suit the tastes of

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8o Annals of the American Academy

the day. But still it is a great art. Who could impugn an
art which produced a Venus de Medici, a Farnesian Bull or
a Laocoon ?

Now what conclusion can be drawn from this rapid sur-
vey of Grecian decadence ? Was not ultra development of
individualism responsible for that dwindling of social pride,
that fading of a common faith and vanishing of ideals, that
treatment of the present as the all-engrossing time, that
adoption of personal comfort and luxury as the end of living,
that substitution of theorists for men of action which led to
the ultimate decline of the nation whose culture the world
has never been able to surpass ?

What now is the story of Rome ? ' ' The ancient Roman, ' '
says Momrasen, " felt the glory and might of the community
as a personal possession to be transmitted to posterity by
every individual. ' ' This collective sense of pride held the
state together. When the Roman citizen lost it Rome
became degenerate. In the time of Cato the Elder occur
the first symptoms of decay in the peculiar institutions,
traditions, and customs of the Romans. Foreign ideals are
beginning to sway conduct and life, and Roman relig-
ious identity soon loses itself through the rapid assimi-
lation of strange cults. Greek fancies and customs are
eagerly adopted, among them drinking the health, or "play-
ing the Greek" as it was called. Indeed, the Romans are
soon playing the Greek in all concerns of life both domestic
and public. The imitative capacity of the Roman soon
leads to a cosmopolitanism which results ultimately in the
loss of patriotism, the disappearance of national feeling
and the growth of an extreme individualism, which here,
as in the case of Greece, proves the nation's bane. At this
time religion has already become ossified into theology.
The native gods and observances have been supplanted
or modified by foreign cults. The cultured cease to believe
in the old gods and the government uses the national
religion as a superstition for imposing upon the public

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Social Decadence 8i

at large. Corruption enters politics and administration
too, at this time. The following instance illustrates the
degeneration into which the old customs had fallen : Fromy
early times it had been the custom to dismiss a polit-
ical gathering if a thunderstorm arose. Now, a law was
enacted by which a popular assembly was to be dismissed
if it should occur to a high magistrate to merely look up at
the sky for the approach of a storm. In this way it was possi-
ble to prevent the passage of any law, and the power of the
ofi&cials thus became immeasurable.

This state of things continued to increase until the period
marked by the striving for one-man power is reached — the
time of Catiline, Pompey, Cicero and Caesar. The old
pride of the Roman in his state is now almost gone. Selfish
aims dominate politics. The great men of the day are as
individualistic as the Greeks ever were. Social ideals are
supplanted by selfish ones; the bonds uniting the citizens
of Rome as Romans are much weakened.

Then comes the story of the empire. Under the emperors
the taste for luxury, fostered by Augustus, grows until it
reaches its climax during the reign of Nero. As the Roman
became more and more cosmopolitan, he became more and
more lax. Pleasure grew to be the main business of life.
The number of national games and festivals was greatly
increased. Gladiatorial combats in which human blood was
shed became the chief amusement. Trade with the East
was increased for the sake of indulgence in personal luxury.
The great revolution in manners and life produced an eco-
nomic revolution. Residence in the city was now more
desired. As the people flocked in from the country rents
rose. In consequence of the overcrowding of the towns a
large unemployed class arose. Therefore many took to
plundering, cheating, usurious trading in money. Dice
playing had to be checked by legislature. When we con-
template the extent to which vice and luxury were spread
abroad, we are astonished that the empire endured as it

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82 Annals of the American Academy

did, and most of all that it had vitality enough left to
recover somewhat from the depths into which it was plunged
by Nero.

But such was its vigor that a period of what Gibbon calls
" general felicity " follows. During the eight reigns extend-
ing over one hundred and ten years, from Vespasian to
Marcus Aurelius, prosperity did seem to smile once again
on Rome. The people, profiting by the experience of the
early empire abandoned luxurious living. Frugal manners
and habits were approved at court. Vespasian once rebuked
a candidate for office who entered his ante-chamber highly
perfumed, saying: " I had rather you had smelt of garlic,"
Wealth was no longer the highest object of desire. Learn-
ing was encouraged. But in spite of these facts the period
w^as, after all, but an effort at recuperation. No permanent
good resulted from it. The Romans were too far along the
road to ruin to be called back. For even in this period of
temporary brightness the religion, literature, and art show
unmistakable signs of decay. The fear of the barbarians
and the horror of plagues and famine led the people to resort
to ancient religious ceremonies. The renewed faith in
dreams and astrology, partly due to the reaction against the
skepticism of the first century, restored the oracle to his
sometime post of honor. New shrines to the deities of earth,
air and water w'ere erected. Sacrificial worship was insti-
tuted for the gods supposed to have an influence over
health. As a consequence of this renewal of old customs
which the intellect of the race had outgrown, pretenders of
all sorts arose. Thus religion was characterized by fanati-
cism on the one hand and by insincerity on the other.

In art the aim was not beauty but novel effects. All was
sacrificed to this idea. Hence the erection of such build-
ings as the temple of Hadrian in Ajzicus, Bithynia is a sign
of the times. This temple was of such gigantic propor-
tions that Aristides in his dedicating speech says : ' ' Your city
is the only one which does not need lighthouses or high towers

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Social Decadence 83

to guide mariners to its harbor. The temple fills, as it were,
the whole horizon and marks the situation of the city. Every
block of marble is as a complete temple." The use of stucco
work instead of stone for decoration, and brick and cheap
materials in parts not intended to be seen, are other proofs
of the insincerity of their art. The sculptor, too, strove to
make an impression and stamped with self-consciousness all
his work. Realism is attempted in portrait statues clothed
as in real life. The sphere of one art encroaches upon that
of another. This is seen in the bas-reliefs, which appro-
priate principles both of sculpture and painting.

In literature, from the time of Augustus to that of Marcus
Aurelius, the individualistic tendency is noticed. As in the
corresponding period in Grecian history, all canons of art
are subordinated to the effort to please and astonish.
Applause of his contemporaries was the author's goal.
Hence the literature of the day is marked by lawlessness in
the choice of subjects, violence of expression, mannerisms
of all kinds. We do hear a protest against this sort of thing
from Quintilian. He was, however, out of sympathy with
his times and so his protest was in vain. " Almost all our
speech is metaphor, " he says. The antique, the remote, the
unexpected was the fashion. Satire and epigram were the
characteristic form of literary production. Seneca, Statins
and Martial were all time-servers. Juvenal, however, paints
the social vices of his age, and I^ucian ridicules the super-
stition of the people.

After the death of Marcus Aurelius the decay of the
Romans went steadily on without conscious effort at recoil
until it culminated in the fall of Rome. Loss of
national identity, resulting in intense individualism, is the
feature of this last stage of Roman decadence. Indeed
Rome became the rendezvous for adventurers from all over
the world. It was dangerous to venture abroad in the
streets even in the daytime, so full were they of desperate
characters. Ammianus Marcellinus, speaking of the fourth

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84 Annals of the American Academy

century, says: " But of the lower and most indigent class
of the populace some spend the whole night in the wine
shops. Some lie concealed in shady arcades of the theatres
or else they play at dice so eagerly as to quarrel
over them; or (and this is a favorite pursuit of all others)
from sunrise to evening they stay gaping through sunshine
or rain, examining in the most careful manner the most ster-
ling good or bad qualities of the charioteers and horses." '
The rabble of the capital, accustomed to being fed by des-
potic rulers, cried ' ' Give us bread for nothing and games
forever. ' ' Even in the age of Trajan Juvenal made one of his
characters say: "I cannot bear this Greek city. But the
Greeks are not the worst feature, for the Syrian Orontes has
long since emptied itself into the Tiber."

Among the signs of the times are the withdrawal of gold
and silver from circulation, the unequal distribution of
wealth, the rapid depopulation of the empire, the frequency
of fires, famines, and epidemics, the degeneracy of the soldier
class, the loss of respect for learning, and the substitution
of frivolous amusements for the more dignified ones of early
days. Says Ammianus Marcelliuus: "Those few houses
which were formerly celebrated for the serious cultivation of
becoming studies are now filled with the ridiculous amuse-
ments of torpid indolence, re-echoing with the sound of
vocal music and the tinkle of flutes and lyres. Lastly,
instead of a philosopher we find a singer; instead of an
orator some teacher of the ridiculous arts is summoned, and
the libraries are closed forever like so many graves; organs
to be played by water power are made, and lyres of so vast
a size that they look like wagons; and flutes and ponderous
machines suited for the exhibitions of actors. ' ' " The Roman
had at this time utterly lost his personal pride in the glory
of the community and his doom was sealed.

From the foregoing review of these two ancient civiliza-
tions it is evident that excessive individualism caused their

1 Ammianus Marcellinus, p. 21.
^Ammiauus Marcellinus, p. 19.

[272]

Social Decadence 85

decay. In Greece the analytical turn of mind led to extreme
individualism, while in Rome the Roman's iraitativeness led
to the loss of national character and the consequent growth
of individualism. In both cases the rise of individualism,
while beneficial at first, proved fatal because it was not con-
trolled and moderated by the group. When individualism
fosters the consciousness of one's self to the exclusion of
group consciousness it becomes destructive, for in societies
an exaggerated self-consciousness of the unit is destructive,
group consciousness is preser\^ative. The only individualism
which can exist permanentl}' in a progressive society is that
which is controlled bj^ group consciousness, that in which
the individual personalit)' is brought to completeness and
freedom under control of group ideals. This is the lesson
the ancients failed to master in their struggle for world
powder. Are we moderns any wiser ? Dr. Lester F. Ward
says: " As yet only the individual is rational. The way to
counteract the evil effects of mind operating in the indi-
vidual is to infuse a larger share of the same mind element
into the controlling power of society. Such a powerful
weapon as reason is unsafe in the hands of one individual
when wielded against another. It is still more dangerous in
the hands of corporations, which proverbially have no souls.
It is most baneful of all in the hands of compound corpora-
tions, which seek to control the wealth of the world. It is
only safe when emploj^ed by the social ego emanating from
the collective brain of society and directed toward securing
the common interests of the social organism." ^

To sum up. A healthy social life, which consists in the
maximum of individual freedom, enterprise and ambition,
coupled with a hearty and generous cherishing of common
or group interests and concerns, must be .steered between
Scylla and Charybdis. The one danger is institutional
decadence, due to a dying out of energy, enterprise, and power
of co-operation by reason of an overgrowth of traditions and

1 The Psychic Factors of Civilization, p. 276.

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86 Annals of the American Academy

institutions which fetter the individual without serving group
interests. The other danger is individualistic decade7ice, due
to the suflfering of all common or group interests bj^ reason
of the dissolution of common faiths, ideals, and undertakings
and the hypertrophy of private consciousness, private feel-
ings, and private aims. Strange as it may seem, the final
stage of each disease is the same. Toward the end of either
type of decadence we have people who are egoistic without
being strong in individual character, selfish without being
ambitious, unscrupulous without being enterprising, depend-
ing on one another, yet without the capacity of co-operation,
sociable yet powerless for effective association, too indifferent
for great corporate achievements, yet too feeble for splendid
individual achievements.

Sarah E. Simons.

Washington. D. C.

COMMUNICATIONS.

COMPULSORY VOTING IN BELGIUM.

With the institution of the plural vote and the compulsory vote,
established in 1893, and of proportional representation, adopted in
1899, the system of a practically universal suffrage as applied in the
little kingdom of Belgium has reached a standard of intelligent
organization as yet unequaled in any other country. The principles
of the whole organization which is more intricate in its appearance
than in reality, the operation of the s}'stem and its justification alike
from a theoretical point of view and from its practical results are fully
discussed in the very learned, concise and clear study recently pub-
lished by Professor L^on Dupriez.*

The plural vote, which gives supplementary voting power to the
better qualified members of the communit}', such as the heads of
families, landowners, government bondholders and people of educa-
tion, was adopted contemporaneously with a constitutional revision
which had for its principal object a more than ten-fold extension of
the franchise which would make the suffrage nearly if not quite
universal. The danger attending the latter change was that the
more responsible and sounder classes of the community, irrespective
of social standing, might be swamped, electorally at least, by the
sudden rush of radical, socialist, and collectivist voters, especially in
the thickly populated industrial areas and in the large cities of the
country. Plural voting was thus intended as a careful counterpoise,
and not as a check to democratic reforms; and statistics show clearly
that it has worked as a balancing-pole or ballast to public opinion, not
to impede its progress, but to steady its movements and make them
less hazardous, less fitful and less dangerous to the welfare of the
country.

Proportional representation was voted several years later, after a
long and painful struggle against various sections of opinion. Some
opposed it as they had opposed universal suffrage and plural voting,
because they distrusted all political novelties. Others opposed it
because they felt that an equitable distribution of political power
amongst parties would inevitably lessen their power or do away
altogether with seats traditionally held by themselves or by their friends
in particular constituencies. The reform, however, went through,

'^ D organisation du Suffrage Universel en Belgique; Vote Plural; Vote Obligatoire;
Representation Proportionelle, By L:feoN Dupriez, Professor at the University of
Louvain. Pp. 260. Price, 3.50 francs. Paris : L,arose, 1901.

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88 Annals of the American Academy

and, so far as a first experiment enables one to judge of its effects, it
is undoubtedly a success; it has strengthened the part}' organization,
it has greatly diminished the bitterness of political campaigns
and it has raised the parliamentary standard. Together with the
plural vote, proportional representation may be taken as the crowning
feature in the organization of a very democratic franchise, and the
political and social condition of Belgium rendered the adoption of
these advanced reforms as imperative as they have proved beneficial.
Not so, however, with countries in a different stage of political
development. The plural vote would certainly be looked upon as a
step backwards wherever the franchise has already been made gen-
eral, and a proposal to establish it would surely be opposed as giving
unjustifiable privilege to some classes of voters. Proportional repre-
sentation on the other hand, is not an urgent need in countries where
public opinion is almost evenly divided between two great parties who
come into power alternately, nor in countries where the theory gener-
ally prevails that to the victor belong the spoils and that the defeated
party has no right to complain because it is left out in the cold, waiting
for its turn to break into the house triumphantly, while the others
revel inside.

But the compulsory vote appears to the student of political science
as the alpha of electoral organization. The greatest evil in a democ-
racy is the indifference of its best people towards public business, and
the worst form of that indifference is electoral abstention, because it
leaves the government of the country and the power of the legislature
completely in the hands of the professional politician and his dis-
reputable supporters. Now it is a fact that unless the quieter people
are made to vote, by some artificial machinery, it is very hard to bring
them to the polls in the necessary large numbers, even where party
organization is strong and when a vital question is at stake. Statistics
show that in countries such as England, the United States, Belgium
and Switzerland, where the natural organization of political life is far
ahead of the rest of the world, abstentions still range from 14 to 30 or
40 per cent of the electoral body. Before 1S93 in Belgium 16 per
cent of the voters used to stay awa}-, notwithstanding the exertions of
the party leaders. After the adoption of the compulsory vote the
average rate of abstention fell suddenly to between 4 and 5 per cent
and it is sure to decrease still more owing to the increased chance of
success that proportional representation gives to all parties interested
in the political struggle. This small rate of abstention does not even
represent the real number of voters who might have voted and did
not attend the polls. This is because, first, a certain percentage of
voters on the register are dead when the elections come round, and

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Compulsory Voting in Belgium 89

second, some more are prevented from attending through illness, age
or absence from the country. The records of the police courts, where
the cases of non-attendance are tried, show that out of a total of
1,058,165 voters called to the polls in 189S, 5,551 failed to attend with-
out giving previous notice of the reason to the courts and were
prosecuted ; 2,621 of these, however, were excused by the magistrate
on legal grounds such as illness, age or absence. This leaves 2,930
who were fined, which represents a rate of unexcusable or guilty
abstention of not quite 3 per cent of the electoral body, or exactly
2.76 out of every thousand. How was this wonderful success achieved?

The theoretical question whether the suffrage may be rendered
compulsory by statute would scarcely have been raised in parliament,
but for the personal antagonism of a few prominent members to the
then prime minister and head of the conservative party, Mr. Burnaert.
This difficult}', however, was easily put aside, since the franchise has
generally ceased to be looked upon purely as a right which a citizen
is at liberty to make use of or to neglect, and is on the contrary
regarded as a civic duty, which he is bound to perform scrupulously in
the interests of the community for which every citizen is a trustee in a
general way.

The main objection of most political thinkers to the compulsory
vote is the practical difficulty of enforcing the obligation efficiently.
Obviously public opinion would not brook severe penalties such as a
heavy fine or a term of imprisonment for an infringement of duty
slight in itself and which becomes prejudicial only when it becomes
customary and involves a large section of the electoral body. And if
the penalty is but light, who will be afraid to incur it, if one derives
more profit from attending to one's business or one's pleasure than
from voting? The answer to the problem was found in a particular
kind of penalties at once light but such as are not risked lightly by
responsible citizens, ranging from a mere warning in the case of first
ofienders, to a small fine of 25 francs and the suspension of political
rights for a period of ten years in the case of obdurate offenders.
This suspension precludes the offender from being, during that term,
a candidate for any office or promotion whatsoever in the public
service, and from public honors and deprives him of his franchise for the
same time. To some it looked ridiculous to punish a man by taking
from him a right precisely because he did not care to exercise it. But it
is one thing to wilfully neglect a privilege under certain uninteresting
circumstances, and another to be deprived of it altogether for ten years.
The facts, as shown by statistics, fully bore out the soundness of the
confidence which the framers of the revised constitution of 1893 had put
in the compulsory vote. Its immediate success might perhaps not be

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go Annals of the American Academy

quite so great iu some other countries, because, as we know, absten-
tions were never very common in Belgium, owing to the keenness of
political struggles, the organization of parties and the high standard
of political education of the people. But, there is every reason to
think that, everywhere the obligation would breed the custom of
attendance and that this in turn would awaken a new interest in
political campaigns. If democracy is to redeem its magnificent
pledges to the people, as we fondly hope, it can only do so by the
co-operation of the more honest, the more responsible, in a word, the
better citizens of the country, and this must be secured at any cost,
either voluntarily by education — and history shows that mere educa-
tion, example and persuasion are not always a match for the scheming
professional politicians and the machine bosses — or by the compulsory

vote.

A. Nerincx.

Brussels.

THE IMPORTATION OF DEPENDENT CHILDREN.

In recent years there has been a growing hostility toward the
practice which has long prevailed of sending dependent children
outside the borders of the state in which the}' become dependent to
place them in foster homes. This sentiment is rapidly crystallizing in
laws either forbidding the practice or restricting it. The following
study was made in the hope of getting at the facts in the case and in the
further hope that some of the principles which should apply might
appear. To this end letters were sent to persons throughout the states
involved who were in positions to know local conditions and local
sentiment.

The legislation now in existence, so far as can be learned, is as
follows:

In 1895 Michigan (Act No. 33, Public Acts, 1895; App. Mar. 26,
1S95) passed a law requiring all associations or individuals wishing to
place a child from without the state in a home within the state to file
a bond of |i,ooo, before the judge of probate of the county in which
the child is to be placed; that such child shall not become a town,
county or state charge before it shall have reached the age of twenty-
one. In case the child becomes dependent the bond is forfeited and
placed in the general fund of the state treasurer. ' ' Any person who
shall take such child indentured, apprenticed, adopted or otherwise
disposed of, to him or her, except in the manner herein provided,
shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor."

Minnesota in 1899 (Chapter 138 — S. F., No. 244, App. Apr. 17, 1899)
required associations bringing in children to file an indemnity bond

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The Importation of Dependent Children 91

of $1,000, conditioned as follows: That they will not bring in any
child that is incorrigible or unsound in mind or body; that they will
remove any child which becomes a public ward within three years;
that they will maintain a supervision of the children placed out, visit-
ing them at least once a year; that they will make such reports to the
State Board of Charities and Corrections as that body may require.
The state board mentioned has charge of this work, and may make
additional regulations.

Indiana, in an act approved February 13, 1899, forbide any associa-
tion or individual, including residents of the state, to bring in
children without first obtaining the written consent of the Board of
State Charities, conforming to its rules and filing an indemnity bond
of ^10,000, that said child shall not become a public charge, and
agreeing to remove the child on thirty days' notice from the board,
with a forfeit of |i,ooo if the child is not removed. Relatives are
exempt from the provisions of the act. Violation of the act is a
misdemeanor.

Illinois (Senate No. 269, sec. 17, App. April 22, 1899) enacted that
no association incorporated under the laws of any other state shall
place a child in a family home, within the borders of the state, unless
said association shall have furnished the State Commissioners of
Public Charities with such guarantee as they may require; that no
child shall be brought in having any contagious or incurable dis-
ease, or having any deformity, or being of feeble mind, or of vicious
character; and that said association will remove any child that
becomes a public charge within five years. Any person placing a
child in violation of this act shall be imprisoned in the county jail
not more than thirty days or fined not less than ^5.00 or more than
$100, or both.

Kansas (March, 1901), Missouri (March, 1901) and Pennsylvania
(1901 ) copied the Illinois act.

In addition there is an active agitation for restrictive laws in Iowa,
Wisconsin, Nebraska and the Dakotas. A similar section in a bill in
Ohio failed of adoption because of opposition to other features of the
bill.

From the answers to the inquiry it appears that the opposition to
the practice of importing children is wide-spread. The testimony is
practically unanimous that the starting point of this opposition was
the poor work of the pioneer organizations in this line in their earlier
years. Children were dumped by the carload till at length an outcry
was made. The present opposition seems to be based on three points :
(i) It is generally believed that children placed by outside societies
are not so carefully placed nor supervised as is for their interest, and

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92 Annals of the American Academy

that frequent!}' this lack of supervision amounts to gross neglect and
opens the way for great abuse. (2) Through this neglect and, some-
times, because of the undesirable character of the children imported,
they become in man}- cases wards of the new state, and must be
supported at public expense if not cared for by private charity. (3)
The importation of children tends to hinder the work of finding
good homes for the dependent children of the state, particularly
when those imported do not do well, as this causes many who are
perhaps thinking of taking a child to decide in the negative.

In regard to the first point there is no question that many organiza-
tions, even to-day, place children without careful investigation of the
proffered homes, sometimes without any investigation, and then
neglect the children after they are placed. These organizations are
not confined to any one locality, but are to be found in many states.
The chief offenders are commonly supposed to be in New York and
Chicago.

A few cases may be cited to show the justice of the complaints. It
is to be remembered that these are recent complaints. " I learned of
a seven-year-old girl who was not allowed to come into the house to
eat or sleep, and who, when the weather was cold, crawled in with
the pigs to sleep, and who went so nearly naked that quite a coat of
hair developed over her body. As a punishment they made her
kneel with bare knees on a dust-pan of gravel, and hold up an iron
sledge with which they drove fence posts. It was hard to get the
child to sleep on a bed, for she had never known one." " Another

boy was taken by a Mr. . His teacher missed him from

school a few days, and when he came one eye was swelled shut and
his face bruised. Teacher asked him how he got hurt and he was

afraid to tell, but gaining his confidence he told her that Mr.

struck him, knocking him senseless, and he lay on the floor for some
time and was not able to come to school for several days." Eye-wit-
nesses have told a friend of the writer that a number of little children
sent to certain foreigners in Wisconsin already tagged with the names
of their new parents were the cause of free fights on the platform
when certain families were displeased with the children allotted to
them. About a year ago a child was taken from a gang of profes-
sional thieves at Cincinnati by the court. She had been placed in
the family of the leader by a certain large institution. An experi-
enced worker writes: " Probably seventy-five cases of misplacement
have come under my notice within the past five years. In one town
of three thousand people notice had been given that a car with boys
would be in from New York at a certain hour, and families were
asked to be on hand and take the children. Old residents told me

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The Importation of Dependent Children 93

that twenty-three families came to take hoy?,, not one-half of ivhom
were fit to care for any child.'' Residetits of a little town in Texas
told a friend of mine within a month that five or six of a company
of boys placed near there had drifted away from the homes selected
within a couple of weeks.

That the second charge is not without foundation is also capable of
proof. " I took a child a week ago said to have been sent in from
Illinois a year before, also two, a month ago, from Missouri. From a
carload lot one was in a charitable institution within two weeks of
arrival." " A few years ago the institution sent out a degen-
erate who gradually grew worse till it became necessary to send him
to an institution. The county commissioners wrote to the insti-
tution asking them to take him back, but they refused and employed
an attorney to watch the case and notifj- them if he were sent to

■. This the commissioners did, but were met at the depot by an

agent, who threatened arrest if he attempted to abandon the boy, as
he had acquired a residence in South Dakota. The result was that he
was brought back and the county will have to pay the institution he
is in sixteen dollars a month as long as he lives." Of two boys in
another state it is reported: " The older one ran away and eventually
came before the county judge to be sent to the reform school." In
another state a correspondent says: "We have some of them in the
reform school and some in the penitentiary."

The third objection may be stated in two ways. Some claim that
there are only so many homes into which children may go and that
if outsiders take these homes there will be just so many less for the
children of the state. To the writer this point is not well taken. The
number of homes open to children is not fixed but variable. If the
children placed in a locality do well many other homes are opened
because of this fact. If the children do poorly the reverse is true. It
frequently happens, too, that people prefer children coming from a
distance, as there is less likelihood of interference from relatives and
busybodies. If very large numbers of children were placed in one
locality the objection would have more force. The fact that it is still
possible to find homes for the dependent children of the state in Wis-
consin, Illinois and Iowa refutes the objection, for these are the states
in which large numbers of Eastern children have been placed. It
must be granted, however, that children might be imported in over-
whelming numbers.

The second form of this third objection is more valid. It is said
that the poor placing and the lack of supervision often bring the
placing-out method into disrepute and make it harder to get good
homes for the dependent children of the state. This is the com-

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94 Annals of the; American Academy

tnon experience of all home-finding societies and needs no other
proof.

The weight of these arguments being admitted, the practical
problem confronts us as to the proper attitude toward the subject.
Our discussion may practically be confined to agencies outside of the
state, as it will seldom happen that local agencies import children.
The home supply keeps them busy. Two courses are possible :
(i) The practice may be forbidden or such onerous restrictions
imposed as to practically prohibit it ; (2) a certain standard of excel-
lence may be established and outside organizations compelled to do
their work in accordance therewith.

Indiana and Michigan have taken the former course. Few organi-
zations will file a $10,000 bond as required in Indiana (as a matter of
fact none has done so), nor will any organization file a ^1,000 bond
for each child as required in Michigan. Really, then, the importa-
tion of any children by outside agencies (or home agencies) is stopped
unless the law is disregarded. Nor will many residents of the state
obey such laws. The authorities in the states mentioned profess great
satisfaction with the results. It unquestionably stops importation in
carload lots and in so far is good. The writer happens to know, how-
ever, that persons resident within these states are constantly going
outside the borders of the state and taking children back with them
in entire disregard of the provisions of the law.

The other states have taken the latter course. Minnesota, for
instance, requires fifteen days' notice prior to the time when the
child is to be placed. Such notice must show the names of the foster-
parents, their residence, the full name of the child, date and place of
birth, physical history and the present physical, mental and moral
conditions ; the facts relating to the history of its parents ; when,
where and how the child was received, etc. Not more than twenty-
five children are to be received in any one quarter. The organization
placing the child must visit it yearly. The New York Foundling
Asylum and the Minnesota Children's Home Society have filed bonds
as required by the law. In Illinois, to cite one institution, the New
York Juvenile Asylum is limited to ten children per month, and
these must not have been committed to the institution for crime.

It seems to me that the tendency to draw state lines in child-saving
work is very unfortunate and ill-advised. I agree with him who
writes : "A free-born American child, healthy in every particular,
ought to be welcome in ever}' state in the Union, provided it has, or
is offered, a home free from immoral influences." It will be generally
admitted that it is not right to dump on other communities the
defective and diseased, including the morally imbecile. These may

[282]

The Importation of Dependent Children 95

be left out of consideration. The real point in the present discussion
is not whether the children from Cincinnati should be placed in Ohio
rather than across the river in Kentucky, etc., but whether the children
are to be placed in the best homes oflFered where they shall be trained
for useful citizenship. The question is far broader than a state ques-
tion, be the state large or small. It is ultimately the welfare of the
nation which is under discussion. If this is true the welfare of the
children of New York City is just as important to the residents of
Indiana as is the welfare of those much nearer the state house at
Indianapolis.

At the same time it will be granted, as a rule, it is better that the
wards of any society should be placed as near the central office as is
practicable. It will be easier to judge of the fitness of the homes and
easier, as well as cheaper, to supervise them and to replace them when
necessary. This last is important, for, probably, at least one-third of
the children placed in foster homes are replaced once or more before
they come to self-support. Again, the fact that most of the work is
done at home will tend to make the institution careful in its methods,
as those who support the organization will quickly learn of improper
work and be influenced thereby. When the evil results are at a dis-
tance they do not come home with the same force. This, however, is
not the same as saying that state lines should be the final boundaries.
Various organizations of Massachusetts are placing their wards in sur-
rounding states without evil results so far as I am able to learn. The
Cincinnati Children's Home and the House of Refuge can much
better care for their wards across the river in Kentucky than were
these same children in Northern Ohio. An impartial and well-
informed observer, Mr. J. J. Kelso, of Toronto, writes : "It seems to
me that the various states are rather severe on each other in prohibit-
ing the exchange of children from one state to another. Some of the
legislation that has been passed is too drastic and practically means
prohibition." It is interesting to note his statement regarding the
importation of English children into Canada. " Some four years ago
legislation was introduced in this province regulating the importation
from Great Britain. This was owing to the popular impression that
an undesirable class was being brought out. There is still a good deal
of feeling on this subject, but my own impression is that the work is
not detrimental, but is a decided help both to the children and the
country."

It should not be forgotten that the evils mentioned are not confined
to the work of foreign societies. Every objection urged against their
careless work applies with equal force to the common methods of
placing out children by home agencies. It is not at all difficult to

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96 Annals of the American Academy

find certain classes of institutions which place out a good many chil-
dren from one year to another who never attempt any supernsion of the
children placed and make but little, if any, preliminary investigation.
Many an instance of gross neglect could be cited where the child in
question had been placed within five miles of the home ofl&ce.
Children of the state are no less subject to abuse than children from
without the state. The native children are to be found in jails and
reformatories in no small numbers. The matter of fact is that the
placing-out work of the country at large has not been done as care-
fully as could be desired, nor has the supervision been such as com-
mends itself to-day. Much of this was inevitable, but it should not
be overlooked in discussing the importation of children. I do not
know of an organization in the Middle or Western States whicTi visits
all of its wards who are out in homes at least once a year, though
some of the state agencies come somewhere near this. These things
being so, it will not do to put too much odium on the foreign society.
There would seem to be more reason for the attempt to exclude
children, usually boys, who have been committed to an institution for
some offence. I question, however, even the wisdom of this in most
cases. To begin with, the writ of commitment in a given case is by no
means a sure indication of the real trouble. I have been told of a
Wisconsin law that children committed to a certain institution for
incorrigibility were to be supported at the expense of the county from
which they came, while if the commitments were on the ground of
petty larceny the expense was borne by the state. Commitments for
incorrigibility are said to be almost unheard of. I have known a
young man sent to a reformatory' for walking on the railroad track,
though the real cause of the commitment was that he was suspected of
petty thieving. I have known boys of less than twelve years sent to
a city reformatory who had merely been truant from school. If the
penology of to-day stands for anything it is that such boys should be
given a chance under proper conditions and away from the old
environments. The experience of the Pennsylvania Children's Aid
Society indicates that such a course with careful supervision of the
boys leads to good results. Why then should we draw a line between
the states and say that such a boy shall not cross this line to enter
some good family ready to receive him ? There is a need for common
sense in dealing with boys of this class. To take a boy of fourteen
to sixteen from one of the old style institutions, or new style, and
place him in the first shop or on the first farm offered and then leave
him without oversight is to invite trouble. This will be true whether
the new home is within or without the state. Many such boys are
placed out from Massachusetts, and complaints are few, but the work

[2S4]

The Importation of Dependent Children 97

is not done in the hit or miss fashion. In a word, the point of attack
with regard to this phase of the question, recognizing that the com-
plaints are often well founded, is not the child's previous record nor
his previous home, but the method under which he is placed in a new
environment and the means taken to adjust him to this change.

It being granted, then, that dependent children of all states are
usually of the same species; that it is to the interest of the entire
country that they be placed in the best possible homes, usually away
from the old environment; that, if this is done, the chances are that
self-supporting and self-respecting men and women will be developed;
the writer must confess that he sees no necessity for legislation specially
directed against those who become dependent outside of any particular
state. If the Indiana plan is to prevail, interstate comity would seem
to require that Indiana enact a law forbidding the placing of its
dependent children outside of the borders of the state. I do not
remember to have heard this advocated. Instead of attempting to
hinder the bringing in of children it seems to me that the point of our
efforts should be to guarantee that good homes should be selected and
proper supervision exercised for all children who are placed out in
foster homes by all the agencies. This means state inspection and
supervision of the work of local agencies. Indiana has taken a long
step in this direction by requiring the placing out organizations to
report to the State Board of Charities and in having the foster homes
visited by an agent of this body. This means that an agent of the
state is given an opportunity to learn at first hand the character of the
work being done by home agencies. Some such method as this under
a board of charities or a state board of children's guardians, the board
being given large discretion, should furnish a reasonable guarantee that
all the children were properly cared for. It seems to me, then, that
the proper method of procedure is to establish a certain standard of
excellence and to bring the work of all agencies up to this standard.
I am heartily in favor of wise regulation of the placing out work, but
I am not in sympathy with the spirit which would close good homes
to needy children.

It is to be admitted that there will be failures no matter what the
system. Boys and girls brought into Illinois sometimes do badly, but
that is no reason for keeping out others who may do well. The
ability to place children in other states has frequently been of great
value. The Illinois Children's Home and Aid Society has often
turned over some of its children to organizations in other states, these
other organizations assuming the control and responsibility, with
splendid results. One cause of the feeling of general antagonism to
outside agencies has been the great development of placing out work

[285]

98 Annals of ths American Academy

in the states under discussion. This has sometimes led to a narrow-
minded view of the general situation. This short-sighted prejudice
against outside agencies coupled with righteous indignation against
the bad work of many of them has produced the opposition. It is to
be hoped that the more liberal legislation will prevail. Another fact,
which throws a side light upon the general question, is that from the
neighboring states, say Michigan, go more unmarried mothers to be
delivered, to have the children and often themselves cared for b}- the
charitable agencies of Chicago, than there are children placed b}- all
the agencies of Illinois in Michigan during the same period. The
world is too small for glass houses.

A final point of the greatest importance is the question as to how
much of the attempt to regulate the importation of children, that is,
the attempt to draw artificial boundaries over which certain classes of
normal people may not pass nor be passed, is constitutional. There
are those who do not hesitate to declare that certain provisions of
the Indiana law, for instance, are unconstitutional. This is a point
which the courts must determine and one which I am not competent
to discuss, but it has a vital bearing on the question. In this connec-
tion see Charities Review, April, igor, p. 279.

Carl Kei^EV.

Chicago, III. Harrison Fellom in Sociology, University of Pennsylvania, Phila.

BANKING AMONG THE POOR: THE I.IGHTHOUSE SAVINGS FUND
EXPERIMENT.

The principal reason why the poor do not save is undoubtedly that
they have so little to spend. At the same time, the experience of the
Lighthouse Savings Fund of Philadelphia demonstrates that another
important reason is the lack of savings agencies in which the poor
have confidence. The above institution was opened in June, 1900, in
a crowded manufacturing district in Kensington, and is the outgrowth
of a "stamp centre" of the Theodore Starr Savings Bank conducted
for several years in the same locality. Its success has been truly
remarkable. The balance-sheet showed about ^7,000 in deposits at
the end of the first month. At the end of nine months this figure
had risen to nearly $17,000. And this growth has interfered but little
with the prosperity of commercial savings institutions in the same
vicinity. It is to be explained principally by the personal confidence
which people in the neighborhood have in Miss Kelly, one of the
organizers of the Savings Fund. The importance of this factor was
illustrated when the business was moved to its present site, at the
corner of Lehigh Avenue and Mascher Street, and a run was only

[286]

Banking Among the Poor 99

averted by assuring anxious depositors that it was still "Miss Kelly's
bank." On the other hand, many of the mill-workers of the district
have refused to have anything to do with a neighboring financial
institution, supported largely by the capital of their employers,
because, as they say, if mill-owners suspected that their employees
were saving they would promptly cut down wages. Both facts illus-
trate that the development of providence among the poor depends in
large measure on the establishment of personal relations of mutual
confidence between the banker and his prospective customers.

The Lighthouse Savings Fund has been conducted during its first
nine months at an average monthly expenditure of about one hundred
dollars. During this time it has helped more than five thousand
people to save, and in this way has done as much for the physical and
moral well-being of its patrons as any possible preventive agency
could hope to do. Its business is steadily growing, and gives promise
of eventually reaching very considerable proportions. While it is
not yet self-supporting, its cost is but trifling when compared with the
benefits it already confers. Moreover, instead of showing an increas-
ing deficit, like many an old-fashioned charity, the figures point to an
opposite result, and to its becoming almost, if not quite, self-supporting
in the not very distant future.

The belief that this little institution is rendering valuable social
service, and the hope that it may be copied by similar institutions in
other localities, leads me to give the readers of the Annai^ a some-
what technical description of its business methods.

The bank has been organized on a plan which admits of almost
indefinite expansion, but which is simplicity itself. With over
900 book depositors and more than 3,200 stamp-cards outstanding, its
business is easily handled by the cashier and two youthful assistants.
It is now open every day and on two evenings in the week, so that
opportunity is given to get to the bank, however long the depositor's
working hours may be.

The bank receives two classes of deposits: book deposits, on which
interest is allowed at the rate of 2 per cent per annum, and stamp
deposits, which do not bear interest. In the former class, the first
deposit must be at least two dollars, and no amounts of less than ten
cents are entered in the bank books. In the latter class, deposits of
any amount are received.

Entering the bank, one sees three windows which are lettered,
respectively: "Book Deposits," "Withdrawals," and "Stamp De-
posits." The last window always seems the most popular, and par-
ticularly on Friday and Saturda}' afternoon and evening is constantly
surrounded by large numbers of children.

[287]

lOO ANNAI.S OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

One week's notice is required in order to make a withdrawal. A.
the time this notice is given, the depositor is required to leave his
bank book, and is given in exchange a small receipt card. A week
later the money is payable on surrender of the card, and by signing
a receipt. The use of consecutive numbers on the receipt cards makes
the finding of any particular item exceedingly easy. All the money
represented by a stamp-card has to be drawn at one time, no payments
on account being made in this class of deposits. These withdrawals
are treated in the same way as book withdrawals, except that the
deposit being to bearer, the money is simply paid out on surrender of
the receipt card.

The work of the bank is divided into three distinct parts — the
receipt of book deposits, the sale of stamps, and the payment of
withdrawals. All book deposits are entered in the receiving teller's
scratcher at the same time that they are entered in the depositor's
book. At the close of the day all the deposits are entered in the indi-
vidual depositors' ledger. The form of ledger used is a "loose leaf"
book, with columns for dates, deposits, withdrawals and balances.
Book withdrawals are treated in the same way as deposits, with the
exception that a week's notice is required before the cash is paid out.
This permits the cashier always to provide for a week in advance, and
enables a small force to handle easily a large amount of current busi-
ness. Interest is paid on these book accounts, and is calculated by
transferring each month to a card index, the monthly balance on
which interest is allowed. At the end of the year the interest is com-
puted by a short method, and is added to the bank book and ledger
in the same way as an ordinary deposit.

A signature book is kept, in which the depositor signs his name on
opening the account, or, where this is not possible, owing to illiteracy
or the tender years of the customer, the name is noted by the cashier
with some description of the depositor.

An alphabetical card index of the depositors is also kept.

In a community such as that in which the Lighthouse Savings Fund
transacts its business, many active book accounts are opened without
getting the depositor's signature. Often a single child will do the
banking for a whole street, and it is a matter of wonder that a child
of eight or nine can remember the amounts of perhaps a dozen diflfer-
ent deposits and withdrawals without so much as a scrap of paper to
aid in the feat of memory.

The only other book used by this department is the " Withdrawals
of Deposits" scratcher. In it the amounts to be withdrawn are
entered in numerical order, and the depositor signs for the sum
received.

[288]

Banking Among the Poor ioi

The stamp business requires less bookkeeping; a balance-sheet
showing the number of stamps on hand, and the " Stamps Redeemed "
scratcher comprising the entire outfit of this department. A settle-
ment is made at the close of each day's business, and it is always
possible to tell the exact amount of stamps outstanding and the
number of cards on which they are placed. Extreme accuracy has to
be observed in the handling of stamps, as a mistake once made is
irretrievable.

Monthly balance sheets are taken off by the cashier of the bank>
and his accounts are audited each month. In addition, the cashier
and his assistants are bonded in a surety company.

The funds of the bank are deposited in a trust company, which is
its active depository, and a special reserve is kept in another large
banking house.

A list of the books used by the bank and a copy of the rules in
regard to deposits, etc., would still further explain its methods, but it
is believed that the above description contains in general the infor-
mation indispensable to anyone who desires to establish a similar
institution. Should a more detailed account of the operations of the
bank be desired, its ofl&cers will be very glad to supply it.

F. B. KiRKBRIDE.
Philadelphia.

Correction. — The clause on page 77, line 7, in this department of
the May Annates (Vol. XVII), reading, " a two-thirds vote of"
should be corrected to read " a majority of all of the members elected
to." The "two-thirds" requirement was a feature of the revised
constitution submitted to the voters of Rhode Island in 1899, but was
rejected.

PERSONAI. NOTES.

Bates College. — Dr. C. William A. Veditz has beeu appointed
Acting Professor of Historj' and Economics at Bates College, Lewis-
ton, Me. He was born at Philadelphia, November i8, 1872, and
received his early education in the public schools and the Philadel-
phia Central Manual Training School, from which institution he
graduated in 1889. The same year he entered the ^\^larton School
of Finance and Economy of the University of Pennsylvania, where he
received the degree of Ph. B. in 1S93. From the fall of 1S91 until the
early part of 1895 Dr. Veditz studied in Germany, principally at the
universities of Berlin, Leipzig and Halle, graduating from the latter in
March, 1895, having specialized in economics and sociology. From
the middle of 1S95 until the end of 1S99 he continued his studies in
France, principally at the Paris Law School, the School of Anthro-
pology-, the Sorbonne and the College of Social Sciences. In 1900 he
studied and traveled in Italy, returning to America the beginning of
190J, and in April was appointed Honorary Fellow in Sociology at
the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Veditz is a member of the American Academy of Political and
Social Science. He has been a frequent contributor to French, Ger-
man and American newspapers and has written:

" Thiinen's Wertlehre verglichen mit den Wertl ehren einiger
neuerer Autoreti.'" Halle, a. S., 1896.

•^ Nezv Academic Degrees at Paris.'" Annals of the American
Academy of Political and Social Science, March, 1S96.

'■'' Rcznie des Periodigtces^^ in the Paris Revue Internationale de
Sociologie, 1S96.

^^Sociological InstruciioJi at Paris." American Journal of Soci-
ology, 1897.

Cogswell Polytechnic College, San Francisco. — Mr. Barton
Cruikshank has been elected President of Cogswell Poh'technic Col-
lege. Mr. Cogswell was born February 5, 1866, at Albanj-, N. Y.,
and received his early education in the Brooklyn public schools and
at Adelphi Academy and Adelphi College, in Brooklyn, also at the
Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. He received the degree of IM. S. at
Francis Xavier College, New York, 1S99, and since 1S86 has been
connected with a number of manufacturing concerns as engineer. He
was Instructor in Graphics, Kinematics and Valve Gearing at Prince-
ton University in 1891-92, and was head of the Department of
Graphics and Metal Work of the Manual Training High School of

[290J

Personal Notes 103

Brooklyn from 1S93 to 1S97. From 1S97 to 1901 he was President
of Clarkson School of Technolog)-, Potsdam, N. Y. Mr. Cruikshank
is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers,
American Forestry Association, the American Academy of Political
and Social Science, the American Association for the Advancement of
Engineering Education, and the International Association for Testing
Materials. He has published an article in the Engineering Magazine
for July on " Repetitive Parts Manufacture," and he is the author of
other articles in the American Machinist, and in the publications of
the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Cornel! University, — In the reorganization of the Department
of Political Economy, Sociology and Political Science at Cornell
University, Professor J. W. Jenks, the head of the department, takes
the Chair of Political Economy and Politics in the place of that of
Political Economy and Civil and Social Institutions. A personal
and biographical note of Professor Jenks and his work will be found in
the Annai^ for July, 1891.^ Since that time the record of Professor
Jenks' activity comprises the following interesting facts:

The academic year, 1892-93, was speut by Professor Jenks in Europe
making a special study of practical political methods followed in the
leading European states, especially with reference to the methods of
legislation. This time was spent mostly in the capitals, Loudon,
Paris, Rome, Berlin and Berne, and the work was done in connection
with the officers of the government rather than in connection with the
universities. Professor Jenks has also served ( 1895-97) as secretary of
the American Economic Association, and for several years was sec-
retary and then chairman of the Committee on Finance of the Ameri-
can Social Science Association.

In February, 1899, he was appointed Expert Agent of the United
States Industrial Commission and was put in charge of their investi-
gation of Industrial Combinations. In that position he has had under
the general direction of the Commission the task of selecting the wit-
nesses to be heard, of questioning the same, of editing their testimony
and of making special studies on the general subject. In the summer
of 1900, in connection with that work, he visited Europe and investi-
gated the conditions regarding Industrial Combinations in England,
France, Germany and Austria.

He was, in August of this year, appointed Special Commissioner
of the War Department to investigate economic conditions in the
Orient, particularly the currency systems and conditions regarding
labor, internal taxation and police in Burmali, the Straits Settlements
and Federated Malay States, and Java, and to report to the Secretary
1 Vol. ii, p. 105.

[291]

I04 Annals of the American Academy

of War and to the Philippine Commission on these questions. He is
to spend his sabbatical 3'ear in this investigation. The result of this
work on Industrial Combinations in Europe is now in press and will
be published immediately by the Commission.

The following is a list of Professor Jenks' more important publica-
tions since 1S91:

" University Extension in Btdiana.'" Book News, May, 1891.

''Land Transfer Reform.^'' Annals of the American Academy of
Political and Social Scence, July, 1891.

" Trade Unio7is and IVa^es." Journal of Social Science, October,
1891; also reprinted with additions in the Inlander, 1891.

"A Word to Trade Uniofts.^^ Charities Review, December, 1S91.

" The Trusts in the United States.^' Economic Journal (English),
March, 1892; rewritten with additions from the Jahrbiicher fiir
National-Okonomie und Statistik, January, 1891, where it appeared
under the title " Die ' Trusts ' in den Ver. Staaten von Amerika."

" School Book Legislation.''^ Political Science Quarterly, 1891.

" Practical Economic Questions.'" Syllabus of Lectures, 1892.

"Critique 0/ Educational Values.'' Educational Review, Jan-
uary, 1892.

" Railway Profit Sharing.'" Charities Review, May, 1892.

'' The Peace Movement in Europe.'" Christian Union, October 8,
1892,

" 3foney and Practical Politics.'' Century Magazine, October, 1892.

"■ Economic Legislation." Syllabus, 1893.

" The Moral Bearing of Good Roads." Congregationalist, June
22, 1893.

" Electoral Corruption: Its Cause and Cure." Cornell Magazine,
1894.

"Present Aspect of the Silver Problem." Journal of Social Sci-
ence, 1894.

"A Greek Pritne 3finister, Charilaos Tricoupis." Atlantic
Monthly, March, 1894.

" The Suppression of Bribery in England." Century' Magazine,
March, 1S94.

" Practical Politics." Public Opinion, March 7, 1895.

'' Capitalistic Monopolies and their Relation to the State." Polit-
ical Science Quarterly, September, 1894.

" Political Methods." Syllabus of Lectures, 1894.

" 77^1? Guidafice of Public Opinion." American Journal of Soci-
ology, September, 1895.

" The Social Basis of Proportional Representation." Annals of
the American Academy of Political and Social Science, November, 1895.

[292]

Personal Notes 105

"Bill to Establish a System of Proportional Representation in
Cities.^' The Proportional Representation Review, December,

1895-

Editor ''■ Handbook of the Atnerican Economic Association,'''' (1895,
1896, 1897,) with reports of the annual meetings. Publications of the
American Economic Association.

'^^ Political Party Machinery in the United States.'''' Chautauquan,
1896.

" Traiyiing for Citizenship.''' National Herbart Society, 1896.

"Political Questions,'" Syllabus of Lectures, 1S97.

" Causes of the Fall in Prices Since iSy2.'" Bankers' Magazine,
October, 1897. The same revised, the Journal of Social Science,
December, 1897.

"Society as an Organism." Discussion, Journal of Social Science,
December, 1898.

"Recent Legislation and Adjudication on Trusts.'" Quarterly
Journal of Economics, July, 1898.

"France," two articles in the Chicago Record's " Governments of
the World of To-day," February 8 and 15, 1899.

" Necessity of Teaching the Duties of Citizenship in the Public
Schools." Regents' Bulletin, May, 1899.

" Trusts and Industrial Combinations," a Statistical Study . Bulle-
tin of the Department of Labor, July, 1900. Government Printing
OflSce, Washington.

" The Trusts, Facts Established and Problems Unsolved." Quar-
terly Journal of Economics, November, 1900.

" Essays in Colonial Finance." Publications of the American Eco-
nomic Association, August, 1900, chairman of editorial committee
and author of essays on English Colonies in the Far East. Articles
in Johnson's Encyclopedia: especially Ballot Reform, Caucus, Polit-
ical Science, Monopolies; articles in Palgrave's Dictionary of Political
Economy: especially Homestead and Exemption Laws in the United
States, Local Government in the United States, Trusts in the United
States.

" The Trust Problem," July, 1900. McClure, Phillips & Company.
Pp. xix, 281. l2mo.

Editor Prelim,inary Report of the Industrial Commission, Vol. I,
and author of the chapter on the " Effects of Combinations 07i Prices,"
large oct., 264, — 1,325; editor of Report of Industrial Cotnmis-
sion. Vol. II, large Oct. Pp. 2gi; Parti, "Statutes and Decisions of
Federal States and Territorial Law on Trusts and Industrial Combi-
nations," editor; (Final Report on Trusts — editor and author of

[293]

io6 Annals of the American Academy

chapter on " Capilalization and Securities of Industrial Combina-
tions'^ — in press); (Report of Industrial Commission ^'■Industrial
Combinations in Europe,^' author and editor — in press).

An ^'Act for the Incorporation and Regulation of Business Com-
panies " (Bill prepared for the Ne\y York Senate, Albany, 1900).

" Elemetits of the Trust Probletn,'''' (Chicago Conference on Trusts,
1900),

" Publicity a Remedy for the Evils of Trusts.'" Review of Reviews,
April, 1900.

^'Professor 3Ioses Coit Tyler, a biographical sketch, the Michigan
Alumnus, March, 1901.

^^ How Trusts Affect Prices.^' North American Review, June, 1901.

"Social Effects of the Consolidation of Wealth. " Address before
the Congress of Religions, June, 1901. Published in Unity, July 18,
1901.

Professor Walter F. Willcox, upon his return to his academic
duties at Cornell, in September, 1901, will take the Chair of Politi-
cal Economy and Statistics. A notice of his former appointment
in Cornell University appeared in the Annals for September, 1899,*
at which time he entered upon the duties of Chief Statistician in
charge of the Division of Methods and Results in the Census Office
at Washington. He received a leave of absence to enable him to
carry on this work, but now returns to his academic duties, retaining
his connection with the Census Office. Since September, 1899, Pro-
fessor Willcox has published the following papers and monographs:

" 3fe>norandu!>i on Efforts to Determine the Area and Population
of the Philippine Islands.''' American Statistical Association. New
Series, No. 47, September, 1899. Pp. 34, Vol. 6, p. 346.

" Address, Race Problems of the South.''' Report of the Proceed-
ings of the First Annual Conference held under the auspices of the
Southern Society for the Promotion of the Study of Race Conditions
and Problems in the South, at Montgomery, Alabama, May 8, 9, 10,
1900.

" A Difficulty with American Census-Taking-.'" Quarterly Journal
of Economics, Vol. XIV. August, 1900.

"The Census of New York City." New York Evening Post,
August 24, 1900.

"American Censjis Methods.'" The Forum, September, 1900.

" War Department, Report of the Census of Cuba, 1S99.'' Wash-
ington, 1900. (Statistical Expert and Joint Author. )

" War Department, Report of the Census of Porto Rico, iSpg."
Washington, 1900. (Statistical Expert and Joint Author.)
1 Vol. xiv, p. 221.

[294]

Personal Notes 107

" Negro Criminality.'''' An address delivered before the American
Social Science Association at Saratoga, September 6, 1899.

Professor Frank A. Fetter has been appointed to the newly estab-
lished Chair of Political Bconomy and Finance. Professor Fetter
goes to Cornell from Lelaud Stanford Jr. University, where he held
the Chair of Economics from 1898 to 1900, serving as acting professor
in the first year, a notice of which appointment, together with a bio-
graphical sketch of Professor Fetter, appeared in the Annals for
September, 1S98.* The appointment was made permanent in 1S99, and
in May of 1900 Professor Fetter was granted a leave of absence for a
year, which he has spent in travel and study. He served as Professor
of Economics at Cornell University in the Summer School of 1901,
and will begin his duties as Professor of Economics and Finance in
September of this year.

Among his recent publications are the following:

" The Essay of Malthus:" a Centennial Review. Yale Review 7:
153 (August, 1898).

' ' Politics in the Charitable Institutions of the Pacific Coast. ' ' Pro-
ceedings of the National Conference of Charities for 1899.

^'' Social Progress and Race Degeneration.'''' Forum 28: 228 (Octo-
ber, 1899).

" Recent Discussion of the Capital Concept." Quarterly Journal of
Economics, 15: I (November, 1900).

" The Next Decade of Econo7nic Theory.'''' Publications of the
American Economic Association. New Series, Vol. 2, No. i, p. 236
(January, 1901).

" The Passing of the Old Rent Concept.''' Quarterly Journal of
Economics, 15 (May, 1901).

'^ Public Subsidies to F^ivate Charities.'''' Proceedings of the Na-
tional Conference of Charities and Corrections for 1901.

"yi« American Economist " (J. B. Clark). International Monthly.
July, 1901.

" The Maps, Diagratns, Data, and Statistical Tables on Housing
Conditions " {circa 100 pp. ), embodied in the report of the City Homes
Association on " Tenement Conditions in Chicago." R. R. Donnelly
& Sons Company. Chicago, 1901.

Professor Charles H. Hull, who has, since the last personal note
relating to him was published in the Annals in May, 1893,' con-
tinued in his work as Assistant Professor of Political Economy at that
institution, was recently offered the option of a promotion to full
professorship of Political Economy, or to the professorship of Ameri-

1 Vol. xii, p. 260.
'Vol. iii, p. 810.

[295]

io8 Annals of the American Academy

can History. He has chosen the latter alternative and will begin
his work as Professor of American History- at Cornell in September
of this year. Since the last note was published, Dr. Hull has pre-
pared an edition of the Economic Writings of Sir IVillia^n Pettyfy
which was printed by the University Press in Cambridge in 1899.

Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa. — Dr. James E. Pilcher has been
recently elected Professor of Sociology and Economics at Dickinson
College. He also holds the Chair of Medical Jurisprudence in the
Dickinson School of Law and is Professor Emeritus of Military
Surgery at the Ohio Medical University. Dr. Pilcher was born March
18, 1857, at Adrian, Mich. He studied at the Detroit High School
and graduated from Michigan University with the degree of B. A. in
1S79. He received the degree of M. A. and Ph. D. from the Illinois
Wesleyan University in 1S87, and the degree of M. D. from the Long
Island College Hospital, Brooklyn, N. Y., in 1880. He was appointed
lecturer on Military Hygiene at Starling ^Medical College in 1896, and
was Professor of Military Surgery at the Ohio Medical University in
1896-97, and held the same chair at Creighton Medical College in
1897-98, and the Chair of Anatomy and Embrj'ology at Dickinson
College in 1899-1900. He is a fellow of the American Academy of
Medicine and a member of a number of medical associations, being a
life member and Secretary and Editor of the Association of Military
Surgeons of the United States. He is also a member of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the
American Medical Association. He has served in the United States
Army Medical Department, ranking as Lieutenant in 18S3, Captain in
1888, Major in 1898, and retired in 1900. He has also been a member
of the editorial staff of several professional periodicals from 1881 to
1901. Some of the more important of his publications are as follows:

" First Aid in Illness and Injury; " 8vo, pp. 322. English edition,
London, 1892.

American editions, New York, 1S92, 1894, 1897, 1898, 1899.

''Life and Labors of Elijah H. Pitcher.^'' Royal 8vo, pp. 142. New
York, 1893.

'■'Columbus Book of the Military Surgeons.'''' 8vo, pp. 100. Colum-
bus, 1897.

"Transportation of the Disabled.'^ Reference Handbook of the
Medical Sciences. Same subject in Supplement to the same.

"The Uniform of the West Point Cadet.'''' Journal Military Serv.
Inst. 8vo., pp. 16.

" Transportation of the Disabled.'''' Journal Military Serv. Inst.
8vo, pp. 28.

"A Nezv Field of Honor.'''' Scribner's Magazine, pp. 16.

[296]

Personal Notes 109

" The Methods of Instruction in First Aid.'" Crans. Association
Military Surg. Svo, pp. 20.

" The Building of the Soldier." United Service Magazine. Royal
Svo, pp. 20.

*' Place of Physical 1 raining in Military Service." Svo, pp. 12.

" Chauliac and 3londeville.'" Annals of Surgery. Svo, pp. 24.

^^ Some Sixteenth Century Surgery.'" Annals of Surgery. Svo,
pp. 36.

Harvard University. — Mr. William Garrott Brown has been
appointed lecturer on American History Since the Civil War.

Mr. Brown was born in Marion, Ala., April 24, 1868. He was
prepared for college at the private schools of Marion and Selma, Ala.,
entering Howard College, at Marion, in 1883, and taking his A. B.
degree in 1886 with first honor. He took the A. B. degree at Harvard
College in 1891, with highest honors in History, and has been a student
in the Harvard Graduate School from 1891 to 1S93, taking his A. M.
degree in 1892. From 1S92 to 1896 Mr. Brown has been Assistant in
the Harvard Library in charge of the archives and has been Deputy
Keeper of the University Records of Harvard from 1896 to 1901,

Among Mr. Brown's recent publications are articles for the Atlantic
Monthly and the Youth's Companion and also for the New Englajtd
Historical and Genealogical Register. He has edited the " Official
Guide to Harvard University,'^ and has published a '■'■ Life of An-
drew Jackson" (Riverside Biographical Series) and a. *^ History of
Alabama" (University Publishing Company, New York). In his
studies Mr. Brown has specialized in American politics and in Southern
political history.

Howard University, Washington, D. C— Mr. Kelly Miller has
been recently appointed Instructor in Sociology in addition to the
professorship in mathematics which he has held in this institution
since 1S90,

Mr. Kelly Miller was born July 23, 1863, in Fairfield County, South
Carolina. His early education was received in the local county
schools and at the private academy, after which he entered Howard
University at Washington, taking the degree of A.B. in 1886. He
pursued graduate studies at the Johns Hopkins University in 1888 and
1889, and became teacher of mathematics in the Washington High
School in 1889. He was appointed Professor of Mathematics in How-
ard University in 1890, which position he still holds. Professor Miller
has given considerable study to the principles of theoretical sociology,
and especially to the negro question, having specialized on the sub-
ject of negro education. He is the First Vice-President of the Ameri-

[297]

I lo Annals of the American Academy

can Negro Academy, and President of the Graduate Club composed
of colored college graduates. He is also a member of the Ameri-
can Academ}' of Political and Social Science, of the National Edu-
cational Association, and of the Walt Whitman International Fellow-
ship. Among Professor Miller's recent publications are the following:

" Primary Needs of the Negro of Negro Race^ iS pp.

" The Function of the Higher Education.'" 12 pp.

'^ The Educational Value of Geometry." Proceedings of N. E. A.,iS9S.

"^ Sensible Political Policy for the Negro." Outlook, December,
189S.

" T/ie Political Status of a Backward Race." Liberia, 1S99.

" Lyfichifig and Its Remedy." Hampton Workman, 1S99.

" The Modern Land of Goshen." Hampton Workman, 1S99.

"77z^ Effect of Imperialism Upon the Negro Race." Broadside
No. II, 1900.

'■'■Education and the Negro." Forum, 1901.

"■ Euclid and His Modern Rivals." Education, 1901.

Kansas State Agricultural College, Manhattan, Kan. — Mr. C. E.
Goodell ^ was appointed in the fall of 1900 Professor of History and
Economics in the Kansas State Agricultural College. He had previ-
ously held for two years a fellowship in Political Science in Chicago
University. He has in preparation for press a " History of the City
Government of Indianapolis."

Lincoln College, Lincoln, 111. — Rev. Dr. James L. Goodknight has
been elected President of Lincoln College at Lincoln, he having
been President of Lincoln University during the past academic j-ear.
Lincoln University has now become the James Millikin University of
Lincoln, and has another branch at Decatur, 111., known as the
Decatur College and Industrial School. Dr. Goodknight was born
August 24, 1S46, in Allen County, Kentucky. He received his early
education at the country schools and at a private academy and school.
He graduated from Cumberland University with the degree of A. B.
in 1S71, and took the degree of B. D. from the Union Theological
Seminary in New York City in 1879. He has also the degree of
A. M., received from the Cumberland University in 1897, and the
degree of D. D. from Waynesburg College, Pennsylvania, in 1S91.
He has pursued graduate studies at the University of Edinburgh in
Scotland and at Jena in Germany. Dr. Goodknight was President of
the West Virginia University from 1S95 to 1S97, since which time he
has been connected with Lincoln University. He has been a frequent
contributor to newspapers, periodicals and school journals.

1 See .\NNALS, vol. V, p. 5S9, January, 1S95.

[298]

Personal Notes hi

riassachusetts Institute of Technology.— Professor Williata Z.
Ripley ^ has been advanced to the position of Professor of Economics
and Sociolog}' at the IMassachusetts Institute of Technology. He is
for the present year on leave of absence serving as Expert Agent for
the United States Industrial Commission. Among his recent publica-
tions on economic topics may be noted the " Capitalization of Public
Service Corporations," in the Quarterly Journal of Eco7iotnics for
November, 1900. Professor Ripley is preparing for the American Citi-
zen Series, published by Messrs. Longmans, Green & Company,
edited by Professor Albert Bushnell Hart, a volume on Railway
Economics, which will attempt to outline the more recent develop-
ments since the enactment of the Interstate Commerce Act, and will
be confined to the experience of the United States.

University of flinnesota. — Dr. William A. Schaper has been ap-
pointed Instructor in Political Science at the University of Minne-
sota.

Dr. Schaper was born April 17, 1869, at La Crosse, Wis., and was
educated in the public schools of that place and at the vState Normal
School at River Falls, W^is., where he was in attendance from 1SS6 to
1891. From 1S93 to 1895 he was a student at the University of Wis-
consin, taking the degree of B. L. in 1895, and continuing in graduate
work at Wisconsin in 1895-96; at Columbia 1896-98, when he took
his M. A. degree and then went abroad, spending the year 1900-01
at Berlin, and returning to take his Doctor of Philosophy ^degree at
Columbia in 1901.

Dr. Schaper has been teacher of History and Economics at the
Dubuque High School, at Dubuque, la., and was connected with the
United States Census Office during the summer vacation of 1901, work-
ing in the Population Division. While at Columbia, Dr. Schaper held
a scholarship in Economics in 1896, and a fellowship in Sociology in
1898. He was appointed^Instructor in the University of Minnesota in
1900, with leave of absence, however, for the academic year 1900-01,
for the purpose of spending this time in study abroad. He will enter
on his duties at the University of Minnesota in September of this
year. Among his recent publications is the following: " A Paper on
Sectionalism and Representation in South Carolina;'^ a sociological
stud}', which makes from 250 to 300 pages in print, and will appear in
the Proceedings of the American Historical Association for 1900. This
essay was awarded the Justin Winsor Prize, given for the best mono-
graph in American History, based on original research. The prize
was awarded by a Committee of the American Historical Association
at its last meeting in Detroit.

1 See Annals, vol. xvi, p. 279, September, 1900.

[299]

112 Annai<s of the American Academy

University of Missouri, Columbia, — Dr. Isidor Loeb has been
advanced from the position of Assistant Professor of History to
that of Professor of History at the University of Missouri. A bio-
graphical note relating to Professor Loeb appeared in the Annals for
September, 1896. ' Since that time it is interesting to note that
Professor Loeb received a leave of absence in September, 1900, spend-
ing the year in study in Europe, part of the time in attendance at the
University of Berlin. In February, 1901, he received the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy from Columbia University, and in April, 1901,
his title at the University of Missouri was changed to that of Professor
of History and Administration. He has published recently " The
German Colo7tial Fiscal System,'" publications of the American Eco-
nomic Association, Third Series, Volume I, No. 3, August, 1900; and
" The Legal Property Relations of 3Iarried Parties," a study in
comparative legislation, Columbia University Studies in History,
Economics and Public Law, New York, 1900.

Dr. Charles A. EUwood was appointed Professor of Sociology in
April, 1900, the Chair having been established largely through the
influence of the Missovuri State Board of Charities, and the work
of the Department was considered very successful during the first
year. Dr. EUwood was born near Ogdensburg, N. Y., January 20,
1873. He studied at the Ogdensburg Free Academy from 1888
to 1S92, and at Cornell University from 1892 to 1896, taking the
degree of Ph. B. at Cornell in 1896. He was a graduate student at
the University of Chicago during 1S96-97 and at Berlin 1897-98, and
was Fellow in Sociology at the University of Chicago during 189S-99,
taking the degree of Doctor of Philosophy {magna cum laude) at the
University of Chicago in 1S99. He was appointed General Secretary
of the Charity Organization Society of Lincoln, Neb. , and at the same
time an Instructor in Sociology at the University of Nebraska, from
which place he went to Missouri University. Dr. EUwood is a
member of the National Conference of Charities and Correction,
Secretary of the Missouri Conference of Charities and Correction, and
a member of the Western Philosophical Association. Dr. Ellwood's
thesis for his Doctor's degree was entitled: ''^ Some Prolegomena to
Social Psychology," and was published by the Uuiversity of Chicago
Press in 1901. It appeared separately in a series of four articles in
the American Journal of Sociology for March, May, July and Septem-
ber, 1S99. The titles of these articles are: (i) The Need of the Study
of Social Psychology" (2) The Fundamental Fact in Social Psychology';
(3) The Nature and Task of Social Psychology; and (4) Concept of

1 Vol. viii, p. 361.

[300]

Personal Notes 113

the Social Mind. He is also the author of an article on the " Theory
of Imitation in Social Psychology ' ' in the American Journal of
Sociology, May, 1901.

University of Nebraska. — Professor Edward A. Ross, who held
the Chair of Economic Theory and Finance at Leland Stanford Jr.
University from 1893 to 1897, and the Chair of Sociology at the same
institution from 1897 to 1900, has been appointed Professor of Sociology
at the University of Nebraska. He was Lecturer in Sociology in the
same institution from February to June, 1901, and will assume his
duties as Professor in September of this year. A personal note
relating to Professor Ross will be found in the Annals for May, 1893,^
since which time he has published the following papers and books:

" 7^(? Tendencies of Natural Values.''^ Yale Review, August, 1893.

" The Total Utility Standard of Deferred Payments.^'' Annai^S,
November, 1S93.

" The Unseen Foundations of Society." Political Science Quarterly,
December, 1893.

" The Location of Industries.''^ Quarterly Journal of Economics,
April, 1896.

" Uncertainty as a Factor in Prodtution.^'' Annates, September,
1896,

^'' Honest Dollars.''^ Chicago, 1896. 64 pages.

" Our Financial Policy. ^^ Review of Reviews, January, 1897.

" The Roots of Discontent.^* The Independent, January 28 and
February 4, 1897.

" The Mob Mind.'' Popular Science Monthly, July, 1897.

"■The Educational Function of the Church.''' Outlook, August,
1897.

" The Sociological Frontier of Economics." Quarterly Journal of
Economics, July, 1899.

" England as an Ally.'" Arena, July, 1900.

" The Causes of Race Superiority." Ann ai,s, July, 1901.

' * Social Control. ' ' Twenty Articles, American Journal of Sociology,
March, 1896-March, 1898; January, 1900-January, 1901.

^^ Social Control." 463 pages. The Macmillan Company, New
York, 1901.

rir. Comadore E. Prevey has been appointed Lecturer in Sociology
at the University of Nebraska.

Mr. Prevey was born December 30, 1871, at Elroy, Wis. He grad-
uated from the public high school of that place in 1888, and studied
at the University of Wisconsin 1891 to 1895, taking the degree of

1 Vol. iii, p. 810.

[301]

114 Annals of the American Academy

B. L. at that time. He was a graduate student at Yale in 1897-98,
and at Columbia 1898-1900, taking the degree of A. M. at Columbia in
1900. Mr. Prevey has held the position of General Secretary of the
Associated Charities at Ft. Wayne, Ind., and was a member of the
Tenth District Committee of the Charity Organization Society of
New York City from 1898 to 1900. He was Lecturer in Sociology at
the University of Nebraska in 1900-01 and became General Secretary
of the Charity Organization Society of Lincoln, Neb., at the same
time. Among Mr. Prevey 's recent publications may be noted:

" Comparative Statistics of Railroad Service Under Different
Kinds of Controls Quarterly publications of the American Statisti-
cal Association, September, 1898.

^'Economic Aspects of Charity Organization. '' Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Science, July, 1S99.

New Jersey State Charities Aid Association. — Dr. William H.
Allen who held the position of Instructor in Political Science in the
University of Pennsylvania, has recently been elected Secretary of
the State Charities Aid Association of New Jersey. Dr. Allen's active
interest and participation in practical efforts at social reform will here
find a large field for work. He has already identified himself, as a
member of the Summer School for Philanthropic Work in New York
City, with the best educational work along the lines of modern phi-
lanthropy.

A personal note relating to Dr. Allen appeared in the Annals for
September, 1900,' since which time he has written "The Election of
1900. "2 Annals, November, 1900.

He continues as one of the editors of the Department of Municipal
Notes in the Annals, in which work he has shown a wide range of
sympathies and good critical judgment.

University of North Carolina. — Mr. Charles Lee Raper^ has re-
cently been appointed Associate Professor of Economic History in the
University of North Carolina.

Northwestern University. — Mr. John E. George, formerly
Instructor in Economics, has been made Assistant Professor of Eco-
nomics in Northwestern University. A personal note relating to Mr.
George appeared in the Annals for January, 1901,* since which time
he has published an article in the May number of the Quarterly Journal
of Economics on " 77i^ Chicago Building Trades Conflict of igoo.^^

1 Vol. xvi, p. 2S2.

* This study was outlined and prepared with the assistance of the Senior Arts
Class in Practical Politics, in the University of Pennsylvania.
3 See Annals, vol. xvi, p. 446, November, 1900.
*Vol. xvii, p. 107.

[302]

Personal Notes 115

Ohio State University. — Dr. James E. Hagerty has been appointed
Assistant Professor of Economics and Sociology at the Ohio State
University, Columbus, Ohio.

Dr. Hagerty was born at La Porte, Ind., and received his early
education in the public schools of that place, graduating finally from
the Northern Indiana Normal School. He entered Indiana Univer-
sity in 1888, graduating in 1892 with the A. B. degree, and then
taught mathematics in the La Porte High School for four years. He
entered upon graduate work at the University of Chicago in 1896-97,
and was subsequently appointed Honorary Fellow at the University of
Wisconsin for the year 1S97-98. He then went abroad and spent
the j^ear 1898-99 in study at Berlin and Halle, and was subsequently
appointed Harrison Fellow in Sociology at the University of Penn-
sylvania. He took the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania in 1900, and was appointed Senior Fellow for
the year 1900-01.

Dr. Hagerty has in preparation for press a volume on the '''Social
Aspects 0/ the Distribution 0/ Economic Goods. ^'

South Dakota Agricultural College. — Mr. Albert Spencer Hard-
ing, formerly Assistant in History and Economics in the South Dakota
Agricultural College, has been advanced to the position of Professor
of History and Civics.

Professor Harding was born November 30, 1867, at Janesville, Rock
County, Wis. He received his early education in the public schools
of Janesville, and in 1889 entered the South Dakota College, from
which he graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Science, in 1892.
His M. A. degree was taken at the University of Nebraska in 1897,
where he studied from 1892 to 1894, and again from 1895 to 1897,
holding the fellowship in American History in the University of
Nebraska in the academic year 1896-97. He was also a student in
the Graduate School of the University of Wisconsin in 1898.

Syracuse University. — Mr. Delmer E. Hawkins has been ad-
vanced from the position of Instructor in Political Economy to that
of Associate Professor at Syracuse University. Mr. Hawkins was
born June li, 1868, at Mooers, N. Y., and received his early education
at Mooers High School and at Cazenovia Seminarj', at Cazenovia, N. Y.
He entered Syracuse University in 1890, taking the degree of A. B.
in 1894, A. M. in 1896, and LL. B. in 1898. He was a student at
the summer school held at the University of Pennsylvania in 1894
and he also studied at Columbia from 1898 to 1900. He held the
position of Instructor in Political Economy at Syracuse University
from 1894 to 1896, and again in 1900-01.

[303]

ii6 Annals of thr American Acadeiviy

University of Utah. — Professor G. Coray has been appointed Pro-
fessor of Economics and Sociology'. A biographical note relating to
Professor Coray was published in the Annai^ for September, 1895,^
since which time he has engaged extensively in public lecturing and
has read a paper before the State Historical Society.

Wheaton College, Wheaton, 111.— Professor Eliot Whipple has
been appointed Professor of History, Civics and Economics. A per-
sonal note relating to Professor Whipple appeared in the Annai^S for
September, 1894,^ since which time he has published a series of arti-
cles on Secret Societies and Civil Government, appearing in the
monthly issues from June to September, 1896, of a periodical entitled
Christian Cynosure, published in Chicago.

University of Wisconsin. — Professor B. H. Meyer, of the Univer-
sity of Wisconsin, has recently been appointed Professor of Institutes
of Commerce at that institution. This change has come about through
some reorganization of the work of the department, and in future
Professor Meyer will specialize in the subjects of Commerce and
Transportation rather than in Sociology and Transportation as in the
past. A biographical notice of Professor Meyer, with some account of
his work, was published in the Annai^ for November, 1899.^ Since
that time he has written the following articles and monographs :

^'' Railway Charters.'''' Proceedings American Economic Associa-
tion, December 27-29, 1899.

" Railway Charters^ Railroad Gazette, January 5, 1900.

" The Problem of the Small Town." Modern Culture, June, 1900.

" Four Synthesis ts : Cross Sections from Comte, Lilien/eld, Schaeffle
and Spencer.'" American Journal of Sociology, July, 1900.

^'Fraternal Beneficiary Societies in the United States." American
Journal of Sociology, March, 1901.

'''■ Frateryial Insurance in the United States.'" Annai„s of the
American Academy of Political and Social Science, March, 1901.

" Fraternal Societies and the Saloon.'^ A contribution to a volume
on " Substitutes for the Saloon," by Raymond Calkins.

"■Railway Regulatioti Under Domestic and Foreign Laws.'" A
Report to the United States Industrial Commission. (In press.)

Professor Paul S. Reinsch, formerly Assistant Professor of Politi-
cal Science at the University cf Wisconsin, has been made Professor
of the same subject. A notice of Professor Reinsch and his work

1 Vol. vi, p. 2q8.
«Vol. V, p. 282.
»Vol. xvi, p. 353.

[304]

Person Ai, Notes 117

appeared in the Annals for November, 1899,* since which time his
chief written work has been as follows:

" World Politics at the End of the Nitieteenth Century.'''' New
York: Macmillan, 1900.

" China Against the Worlds The Forum, September, 1900.

" The Meeting of Orient and Occident.^'' Modern Cultm-e, Sep-
tember, 1900.

" Cultural Factors in the Chinese Crisis.'''' Annals of the Ameri-
can Academy of Political and Social Science, November, 1900.

" Friedrich Nietzsche.''^ Modern Culture, November, 1900.

" The Political Spirit of the Last Half Century.'' Conservative
Review, December, 1900.

"Political Changes of a Ce?ttury.'' The World's Work, Decem-
ber, 1900.

" The New Industrial Conquest of the World.'' The World's Work,
February, 1901.

" French Experience with Representative Goveriitnent in the West
Indies.''^ American Historical Revnew, April, 1901.

" Governing the Orient on Wester^i Principles." The Forum, June,
1901.

" The Policy of Assimilation.'''' Modern Culture, July, 1901.

Mr. Allyn Abbott Young has been appointed Assistant in Econom-
ics in the University of Wisconsin. He was born September 19,
1876, at Kenton, O., and received his early education at public and
private schools in Sioux Falls, S. D. In 1891 he entered Hiram Col-
lege receiving the degree of Ph. B. in 1894. During the next four
years he was engaged in journalism, and in 1898 entered the Univer-
sity of Wisconsin. During 1899-1900 he was engaged in work in
connection with the United States Census Office in the Division of
Methods and Results. Mr. Young is a member of the American
Economic Association and of the American Academy of Political and
Social Science. He has written:

" The Comparative Accuracy of Different Forms of Quinquennial
Age Groups." Publications of the American Statistical Association,
March, June, 1900.

" The Enumeration of Children." Publications of the American
Statistical Association, March, 1901.

Yale University. — Mr. John Pease Norton has been appointed
Assistant in Political Economy in Yale College, and will offer courses
next year on Trade Statistics and on the Statistical Theory of the

1 Vol. xiv, p. 354.

[305]

ii8 Annals op the American Academy

Bvolutiou of Man. He has specialized along the lines of Mathemati-
cal and Statistical Economics and of Sociology.

Mr. Norton was born in Suffield, Conn., July 28, 1877, and received
his early education in the West Middle District School of Hartford.
He also studied three years at the Hartford High School, and later at
the Los Angeles High School. He graduated from Yale University in
1S99, receiving the B. A. degree and delivering the valedictory address.
He took his Doctor of Philosophy degree at Yale in 1901, the subject
of his thesis being " Contribution to the Theory of Money and Credit,''
with some statistical investigation of the weekly statements of the
New York Associated Banks covering twenty-two years.

Dr. Norton is a member of the American Economic Association and
of the Political and Social Science Club of Yale.

rir. Edson Newton Tuckey has been appointed Instructor in Politi-
cal Science in Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University.

Mr. Tuckey was born at Belle Plain, Minn., February 7, 1870. He
was educated in the public schools of Eden Prairie and Mankato, and
also in the Preparatory and College Departments of Hamline Univer-
sity, in which institution he was matriculated from 18S6 to 1S93,
taking his B. A. degree in 1893. He was a graduate student in the
University of Minnesota from 1895 to 1898, during which time he taught
in the Minneapolis schools. He has received the degree of M. S. from
the University of Minnesota, and in the years 1899 and 1900 spent
fourteen months abroad studying at the London School of Economics
and at the University of Berlin. He has been a graduate student at
Yale University in the academic year 1900-01. ]\Ir. Tuckey was
also Principal of the Richfield (Minn.) graded schools from 1S93 to
1895, and Principal of the Graceville (Minn.) High School, and
Superintendent of Grades in 1898-99. He has specialized in the
study of Public Service Monopolies.

In accordance with our custom we give below a list of the students
in political and social science and allied subjects on whom the degree
of Doctor of Philosophy was conferred at the close of or during the
last academic year.^

Adrian College. — Haughton Kost Fox, A. M. Thesis: The Place
of Irving in American Literature.

^ See Annals, vol. i, p. 293, for academic j-ear, 1SS9-90; vol. ii, p. 253 for iSgo-gi;
vol. iii,'p. 241, for 1891-92; vol. iv, p. 312 and p. 466 for 1892-93; vol. v, p. 2S2 and p.
419, for 1893-94; vol. vi, p. 300 and p. 482, for 1894-95; vol. viii, p. 364, for 1895-96;
vol. X. p. 256, for 1896-97; vol. xii, p. 262 and p. 411, for 1S98-99; vol. xiv. p. 227, for
1899-1900; vol. xvi, p. 283, for 1900-ot.

[306]

Personal Notes 119

University of Chicago. — Sophonisba P. Breckenridge, S. B., Ph. M.
Thesis: Legal Tender: A Study in English and American Monetary
History.

Charles Joseph Bushnell, Ph. B. Thesis: The Development of the
Corporation in England in Relation to the Se?itiment of Antago7iisnt.

Frank George Franklin, L. B. Thesis: Natziralization in the
United States, with Especial Reference to its Legislative History
from the Declaration of Independence to the Civil War.

John Morris Gillette, A. M. Thesis: The Culture Agencies of a
Typical Manufacturing Group, South Chicago.

Norman Dwight Harris, Ph. B. Thesis: The History of Negro
Servitude and the Slavery Agitatio?i in Illinois.

Robert Samuel Padan, A. B. Thesis: Studies in Interest.

John Olaf Sethre, A. M. Thesis: The Political History of Minne-
sota Prior to her Admission into the Union.

Edwin Erie Sparks, A. M. Thesis: The Cumberland National
Road as a Union-Making Factor.

Columbia University. — Alfred Lewis Pinneo Dennis, A. B. Thesis;
Eastern Problems at the Close of the Eighteenth Century.

Alexander Clarence Flick, A. B. Thesis: Loyalism in Nezv York
During the American RevohUion.

Arthur Cleveland Hall, A. B. Thesis: Civilization and Crime.

Isidor lyoeb, A. B, The Legal Property Relatiotts of MarHed
Persons.

William August Schaper, B. L. Thesis: Sectionalism and Repre-
sentation in South Carolina.

Louis Don Scisco, B. S. Thesis: Political Nativism in New York
State.

Allan Herbert Willett, A. B. Thesis : Economic Theory of Risk
and Insurance.

Edwin Campbell Woolley, A. B. Thesis : The Reconstruction
of Georgia.

Columbian University. — William Hamilton, A. M. Thesis: The
Expatision of Russia to the Eastward.

Chohei Shirasu, A. M. Thesis: The Cotnmerce of fapan and Its
Relation to Civilization.

Cornell University. — Nathan Austin Weston, M. L. Thesis: A
History of the Land System of the State of New York, with Especial
Reference to Financial Administratioji.

Georgia Laura White, Ph. B. Thesis: The Part taken by Women in
the Charily Work in Prussia.

Harvard University. — Don Carlos Barrett. Thesis: The Origin
and Supposed Necessity of the United States Notes.

[307]

I20 Annals of the American Academy

Henry Camp Marshall. Thesis: The Currency and the Movement
of Prices in the United States front i860 to 1880.

Jonas Viles. Thesis: The Privy Council of Elizabeth.

Arthur Herbert Wilde. Thesis: The Administration of the Schools
of Gaul from the Fourth Century to the Reform,s of Charlemagne.

Heidelberg University,— Charles S. Haight, A. M., B. LL. Thesis:

Benedict Arnold — The Man.

Johns Hopkins University. — William Elejius Martin, A. M.
Thesis: Internal Improvements in Alabama.

University of flinnesota. — Adolph O. Eliason, A. M. Thesis:

History of Banking.

Elias Rachie, A. M. Thesis: Taxation of Quasi- Public Corpora-
tions ifi Minnesota.

University of Pennsylvania. — Caroline Colvin, A. B. Thesis:

The Invasion of Bruce; and Its Place in Irish History.

John Paul Goode, B. S. Thesis: The Influence of Physiographic
Factors upon the Occupations and the Economic Development of the
United States.

Henry John Harris, A. B. Thesis: The Problem of the Stnall In-
dustrial Producer in Germany.

Lolabel House, A. M. Thesis: The Twelfth Amendment.

William Ezra Lingelbach, A. B. Thesis: The Organization and
Govertiment of the Merchant's Adventurers.

Roswell Cheney McCrea, A. M. Thesis: Taxation of Transpor-
tation Corporations.

University of Wisconsin. — Louise Phelps Kellogg, B. L. Thesis:
The Colonial Charter: A Study in English Colonial Administra-
tion.

Charles McCarthy, Ph. B. Thesis: The Anti-Masonic Party.

Yale University.— Ernest H. Baldwin, A. M. Thesis: foseph Gal-
loway — A Biography.

Silas W. Geis, Lly. B. Thesis: The Colonial Agent in New Eng-
land.

Mar)' C. Hewitt, A. B. Thesis: The Political Philosophy of the
Ainerican Revolution.

Jessie M. Law, A. B. Thesis: Cromwell's Major-Generals.

Eugene L McCormac, B. S. Thesis: White Servitude in Mary-
land.

John P. Norton, A. B. Thesis: Contribution to the Theory of
Money and Credit, with Some Statistical Investigation of the Weekly

[308]

Personal Notes 121

Statements of the New York Associated Batiks, Coveritig Twenty-
two Years.

Alexander Pratt, Jr. , A. B. Thesis: Doctrine of Social Resistance.

Peter Roberts, B. D. Thesis: An Economic Study of the Anthra-
cite Coal Fields of Northeast Pennsylvania.

Clifford J. Thorn, LL*. B., A. M. Thesis: Priticiple versus Prece-
dent.

For the academic year 1901-02, appointments to fellowships and
post-graduate scholarships have been made in the leading American
colleges, as follows:

Amherst College. — Roswell Dwight Hitchcock Fellowship in
History and Social a?id Ecotiomic Science, Preserved Smith, A. B.

Bryn Mawr College. — Fellowship in History, Lois Anna Forn-
ham, A. M. Scholarship in History, Ruthella B. Mory, A. B. Ph.M.

University of QM\c2iZO.— Fellowships, in History, Mayo Fesler,
Elmer Cummings Griffith, Edgar Holmes McNeal and David Yancey
Thomas; in Political Economy, Stephen Butler Leacock, Svant God-
frey Lindholm, Walter Dudley Nash and Robert Samuel Padan; in
Political Science, Burton L. French, Augustus Raymond Hatton and
Francis Mitchell McClenehan; zw Sociology, Romanzo Colfax Adams,
Edward Casey Hayes, Victor Lathrop O'Brien, Thomas Jeflferson
Riley and Howard Brown Woolston.

Columbia University.— C^or^^ William Curtis Fellowship in
History, James W. Garner, B. S.; Schiff Fellowship in History,
Ulrich B. Phillips, A. B.; University Fellowships, iii American His-
tory, Walter L. Fleming, B. S. ;?'« Eco7iomics, Henry R. Mussey, A. B.;
in Finance, Royal Meeker, B. S.; in History, David Y. Thomas,
A. B.; in International Law, Samuel B. Crandall, B. S. ; in Socio-
logy, James M. Williams, A. B.

Cornell University. — Fellowships in Political Economy, Judson
George Rosebush, A. B. and Harrison Standish Smalley, A. B. ;
President White Fellowship in Political and Social Science, Joseph
Alexander Tillinghast, B. S., A. M.

Harvard University. — Edward Austin Fellowship in History,
Francis Samuel Philbrick, A. M.; Parker Fellowship in History,
George Hubbard Blakeslee, A. M.; Ozias Goodwin Memorial Fellow-
ship in History and Goverttment, '^z.nxQS Augustus George, A. B.;
Henry Lee Memorial Felloiuship in Political Economy, Robert
Morris, A. M.; Robert Treat Paine Fellowship in Political Economy ,
Andrew Light Horst, A. B.; South End House Fellowship in
Social Science, Rosswell Foulk Phelps, A. B.; Toppan Scholarship in

[309]

122 AnxALS of the AMERICAN ACADEMY

Classics and Political Economy, David Taggart Clark, A. M.; James
Savage Scholarship in £lhics and Sociology, William. Henn- Lough;
Austin Scholarship in History and Government, Everett Kimball,
A.M.; Thayer Scholarship in History, William Stearns Davis, A. B.;
Townsend Scholarship in History, Walter Lichtenstein, A. B.; Ufii-
versity Scholarship in History, V<l3\do GifFord Lelandj^A. B.; Austin
Scholarship in Political Economy, Carroll Warren Doten, A. M.;
Ricardo Prize Scholarship in Political Econojny, Roland Greene
Usher; University Scholarship in Political Economy, Leon Carroll
Marshall.

Johns Hopkins University. — Fellozvships, in History, James War-
ner Harry, A. B. ; in Political Science, Charles Oscar PauUin, S. B.

University of flissouri. — Fellowship in History and Administra-
tion, Minnie Organ, A. M.

University of Nebraska. — Fellowships, in European History,
Carl H. Meier; in Political Economy and Sociology, Harry T. John-
son.

Oliio State University. — Emerson McMillin Fellow in Economics,
Frederick E. Butcher, Ph. B.

University of Pennsylvania. — Harrison Fellowship in American
History, George D. Luetscher, B. L. ; Senior Fellowship in Atneri-
cafi History on the Harrisori Foundation, Claude Halstead Van Tyne,
A. B., Ph.D.; Harrison Fellozvship in European History, James
Field Willard, B. S. ; Harrison Fellozvship at Large in European
History, Charles L. Burroughs, A. B.; Harrison Fellozvship in Eco-
nomics, William Backus Guitteau, Ph. B. ; Senior Fellowship in Eco-
nomics on the Harrison Foundatiott, Roswell Cheney McCrea, A. M.,
Ph. D. ; Harrison Fellowship at Large in Sociology, Carl Kelsey,
A. B. ; Honorary Fellozvship in Sociology, Charles William Augustus
Veditz, Ph. D., LL. B.; Harrison Scholarships in Econotnics, Lewis
E. Coles, B. S., and Arthur D. Rees, B. S.

State University of Iowa. — Fellozvships, in History, Frank H.
Garver, A. B.; in Political Science, Kiyoshi Kawakami; /« Sociology,
George L. Cady, A. B., and Milton L. Kephart, A. B.

University of Wisconsin. — University Fellows, in American His-
tory, Orpha Euphemia Leavitt, A. B. ; in Economics, Selden Eraser
Smyser, Ph.B. ; in European HistoryjUiaurence INIarcellus Larson, A.B. ;
in Political Science, Edwin Maxey, Ph. B.; Alumni Fell ozvitt Politi-
cal Science, Lewis Albert Anderson, B. L. ; Honorary Fellozv in Politi-
cal Science, Yasugo Sakagami, M. L.; University Scholarships, in
American History, Robert Carlton Clark, A. B.; in Etiropean His-

[310]

Person Ai, Notes 123

tory, Florence Beatrice Mott, A. B,; in Economics, Max Otto Lorenz,
A. B., and Thomas Warner Mitchell, A. B.

Yale University. — Eldridge Fellowship in History and Economics,
R. K. Richardson, A.B.; University Fellowships in History, K.
Asakawa, A. B. ; John B. Kelso, A. B. and William S. Robertson
M. Iv. ; Robinson Fellowship in Social Science and Economics, E. N.
Tuckey, A. B. ; University Scholarships in History, G. G. Benjamin, Ph.
B., J. B, Chamberlain A. B. and C. H. Walker, A. B.; in Political
and Social Science , F. R. Fairchild, A. B. ; z« Social Science, James E.
Cutler, A. B. and T. Takahashi, A. B,; Clark Scholarship in History,
S. D. Powell, A. B.

BOOK DEPARTMENT.

NOTES.

Professor Frank W. Bi,ackmar, of the University of Kansas,
has made a contribution to the literature of the Free Soil-Slavery
Contest under title, " Charles Robinson, the First Free-State Governoi
of Kansas." This biographical sketch appears in pamphlet form in
the Twentieth Century Classics Series.^

The PtJBLiCATiONS of the Bureau of American Ethnology are the
admiration of ethnologists and sociologists the world over, and stu-
dents in these fields look forward with interest to the appearance of
each report. In the latest issue ^ there are two papers on the Amerind
of the southwest. In the first, Mr. Cosmos Mindeleff tells of the Navajo
houses, rare examples of the most primitive types of domestic archi-
tecture. Mr. Mindeleff has the geographic point of view, and it is
gratifying to find him giving specific examples of the way in which a
geographic environment reacts upon the institutions of a people. To
quote him: " As the architecture of a primitive people is influenced
largely by the character of the country in which they live, a brief
description of the Navajo country is deemed necessary. Similarly
the habits of life of a people, what a naturalist would term their life
history, which, in combination with their physical en\nronment prac-
tically dictates their arts, is worthy of notice, for, without some knowl-
edge of the conditions under which a people live, it is difl&cult if not
impossible, to obtain an adequate conception of their art products."
The treatment of his topic shows that his position is well taken.

The second and longer paper is a report on an " Archsological
Expedition to Arizona in 1895," by Mr. Jesse Walter Fewkes. In this
expedition, which was undertaken to collect material for the National
Museum, Mr. Fewkes obtained over five hundred examples of decorated
mortuary pottery. The paper gives descriptions of ruins in Verde Valley
and in Tusayan, In the latter place the great finds of pottery were
made, and, judging by the magnificent lithographs in color, art in cera-
mics had made some remarkable strides among the women of ancient
Sikyatki. The controlling element in the decoration was always
symbolism rather than realism.

1 Pp. 115. Published by Crane & Company, Topeka.

2 Seventeenth Annual Report, Part II, Bureau of American Ethnology, J. W.
Powell, Director. Washington, 1898.

[312]

Notes 125

M. B. Gary's book, " The Connecticut Constitution," * if some-
what tractarian in its tone, sheds a good deal of light upon cer-
tain old-fashioned features still adhering to the government of that
state. The constitutional history of Connecticut is rather distinctive.
The people of the state continued to live under the old English
charter for more than forty years after the Declaration of Indepen-
dence. Finally, in 1818, chiefly because of some provisions limiting
religious liberty, a convention met and drew up a constitution which
has survived to this day despite several well-organized attempts to
return it to the crucible and recast it. It was the Connecticut
Convention of 1818 which originated the method of amending state
constitutions by the legislature with a subsequent vote of the people,
and the same body made other historic reforms and modifications in
our constitutional practice.

Now the time has come, it seems, when further change is necessary,
and Mr. Melbert B. Cary, the author of this little study, is a strong
advocate of an immediate revision of the constitution. The chief defect
appears to be in the method of representation, and the system, we are
told, is " without any support in reason, justice or common sense." It is
a fact that there is in it little semblance of equality, and it is actually
true that 15 per cent of the population can elect a majority of the repre-
sentatives in the legislature. The representation is by towns. In
1818, when the constitution was adopted, these were rural communi-
ties while many now are large cities. No town may have more than
two representatives and New Haven, Hartford and Bridgeport, con-
taining more than one-fourth the population of the whole state, may
send only six representatives out of a total of 252 to the lower house
of legislature. A "rotten borough," called Union, polling 96 votes,
has as many members as New Haven, which polls 15,309. There are
several towns, it is said, in which every citizen has " run for the legis-
lature once and they are now on the second lap." In the senate,
which is sometimes spoken of as the popular branch, much inequality
exists also. One county, Tolland, has one senator for every i2,oco
people and New Haven city only one for every 62,000.

Mr. Cary notes other defects in the present constitution of Con-
necticut, the chief of which are that the governor and other state
officers must receive a majority instead of a plurality vote; the exces-
sive power of the legislature; unequal taxation, and of course civic
corruption, of which no democratic community seems to-day to
be quite blameless. It is sad to think that "of all the states in the
Union not one is more notorious " in this respect than Connecticut,

^The Connecticut Constitution. By Melbert B. Cary. Pp. 140. Price, $1.25. New
Haven: The Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor Co., 1900.

[3^3]

126 Annals of the American Academy

and it is a sweeping allegation to which many, no doubt, would not
agree. Mr. Gary is a pamphleteer and he uses the words " iniquitous,"
"outrage," "despotism" and the like far too frequently for a scien-
tific treatise. He has forcibly called attention, however, to grave
constitutional irregularities in his state, and the conditions which he
points to might be profitably studied in connection with that period
of English history before the Reform bills were passed.^

The volume of nine essays, by Controller Coler, of New York
City,* contains much practical information with reference to adminis-
trative problems in our great cities, and numerous suggestions as to
the remedies for present evils. The subjects covered are as follows:
The City Charter, Public Charity, Charity Regulated, Income and
Expenses, Water Supply, Transportation, City Development, The
Church in Politics, Political Machines. The striking characteristic of
the volume is its positive tone. Reforms are shown to be not only
desirable, but practicable. The abuses of charity are cited only to
teach the proper rules of control. The importance and the possibility
of introducing business methods into city bookkeeping are demon-
strated. The ability of the city to supply its own water is proved. A
primary election law is proposed. Churches are exhorted to substitute
education for denunciation. "The most iudiflFerent voter maybe
made to take a new and commendable interest in public affairs if
taught that he will be directly benefited by good government."
. . , . " The first step is to reach the man; the second to interest
him, and the proof of the method is to hold his interest." The
church should begin at the bottom as do the bosses, and establish
social clubs, which " places should not be cold, cheerless, conventional
lecture halls where superior knowledge is exhibited on a pedestal of
pride and superiority Every man who crosses the thresh-
old should be made to feel that no matter how humble his station
in life, the public welfare is in some measure committed to his keep-
ing."

The mania for discovering precursors of eminent authors, which
continues to be a favorite amusement for the historians of philosophy,
was for a time equally popular among the historians of economic
doctrine. Now, however, there seems to be a widespread con\nction
that the discovery of facts and the study of existing conditions is more

1 Contributed by Dr. Ellis P. Oberholtrer, Philadelphia.

2 Municipal Government. By Bird S. Coler. Pp.200. Price, ;Ji. 00. New York
D. Appleton & Co., 1900.

[314]

Notes 127

important than the laborious resuscitation of obsolete doctrinal errors.
There are, nevertheless, periods in the history of economic theory
which constitute so radical a change in the attitude of men towards
their economic environment, that a detailed study of the leaders of
opinion, and the new points of view which they represented seems
perfectly justifiable. Thus, M.J. Desmars' recent volume ' on Graslin,
whom the author maintains is the most important, immediate pre-
cursor of Adam Smith, is of considerable interest to the economist.
Certainly M. Desmars' book makes it possible for the student to
familiarize himself much more readily with the work of the French
critic of Baudeau, Turgot, Mirabeau and the other disciples of Ques-
nay, than if he were obliged to read Graslin in the original. From a
merely literary point of view, Graslin 's writings are intensely unat-
tractive, but the emphasis he placed upon the economic factor " labor,"
and his sound advocacy of the inductive method, entitle him to be
rescued from oblivion. ^

In "Mooted Questions oe History"' the author discusses
twenty-seven subjects, in regard to which Roman Catholics have been
aspersed, or have not received due credit. He attempts to state the
facts, to give a just estimate, and to quote authorities to prove that
his opinions are correct. The greater portion of the volume is made
up of extracts from the so-called authorities. The book would be of
more value if written in a less partisan spirit, and if the authorities
had been selected with greater discrimination. Carlyle, Maitland,
Stubbs, Comte, Cantvi, Mosheim, Schlegel, Voltaire, Lingard, Dr.
Johnson and many others are pressed into service. The result is
interesting.

•'The criminal:* His Personnel and Environment" is a
scientific study by August Drahms, the Resident Chaplain of the State
Prison at San Quentin, California, of an extremely interesting subject
that has received in the United States better practical treatment
than theoretical discussion.

Mr. Drahms brings to his task a vast amount of practical experience
in this country with apparently a thorough familiarity with the best

1 Un Pricurseur d'A. Smr'th en France: J. J. L. Graslin ( 17 27- 171)0.) By J.
Desmars. Pp. xxii, 257. Paris : L. Larose, iqoo.

2 Contributed by Dr. C. W. A. Veditz, Philadelphia.

3 Revised Edition. By Humphrey J. Desmond. Pp. 32S. Price, 75 cents.
Boston: Marlier & Co., 1901.

*With an Introduction by Cesare Lombroso, Professor in the University of Turin,
Italy. Pp, xiv, 402. Price, 52. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1900.

[315]

128 Annals of the American Academy

foreign literature on criminology. His work is the first attempt in
English to present systematically and within reasonable compass the
results of the new school of criminologists. He does this critically,
because he is not in entire sympathy with the idea that there are uni-
versal criminal types and special criminal types, of which Lombroso and
the Italians generally have made so much of late. The book is just
such a one as many a teacher, who would like to present the subject
in a short course, will want to use.

It is unfortunate to note a few slips in terminology, such as, for
example, the use of the term "socialistic" instead of Sociological,
which the author evidently means. Etymologically the word " social-
istic " would be a better word, but unfortunately, in the connection
in which he uses it, it is misleading.

The book as a whole, however, admirably supplements another book
in the same general class: Wines' "Punishment and Reformation"
which treats the problems of criminology chiefly from the institutional
side, while the present work views them in their personal and indi-
vidual aspects.

In the preface to his little book on ' ' Morals Based on Dem-
ography," M. Arsene Dumont* declares that his primary object is "to
indicate a criterion of good and evil. " His ethical science is based on
demography, ' ' which alone has the means of measuring the value of
populations. ' ' The perfection of our statistical and other demographic
methods will lead to a more perfect knowledge of the social conse-
quences of certain kinds of conduct — such as alcoholism, for exam-
ple.

In considering the ethical justification or condemnation of any
particular habit, we must first study its ethnography, says M. Dumont ;
we must observe how different peoples — savage, barbarous and civ-
ilized — conduct themselves in this respect, and as far as possible
discover how they reason with regard to their conduct. Such an
investigation will have two consequences : first, to show the univer-
sality or localization of a custom ; secondly, to demolish the prejudices
which have been nurtured in us by education and environment.

Then, in the light of results shown by demography, we must establish
what should be done, what are the advantages of one line of conduct
and the evil consequences of the opposite behavior ; these advantages
and disadvantages, however, must not be estimated with regard to the
individual, but with reference to the aims of society as a whole. The

1 La Morale Basee sur la Dimographie. By Arsexe Dumont. (Bibliotheque des
Sciences Sociolog^ques. ) Pp. x, iSi. Price, 3fr. 50. Paris: Schleicher Fr^res,
1901.

[316]

Notes 129

social purpose and chief aim is always the same : to possess the greatest
possible population having the greatest possible value.

A certain line of conduct being recognized as advantageous, it is
next necessary to find means for leading individuals to conform to it.
If its reasonableness is made evident and comprehensible to the minds
of all citizens, they will adopt it of their own accord. Constraint can
only be made necessary by the resistance of individuals, and resistance
can only result from their being insufficiently convinced.

This is, in brief, an outline of M. Dumon+'s rationalistic ethics. It
need scarely be pointed out that two of his fundamental ideas — that
social good supersedes individual good, and that men need but to
know what is good and they will do it — have long been, and still are,
subject to debate.

"A Saii,or's Log — Recoi,i.ections of Forty Years of Naval
Life," * is written in a simple and interesting style. From the char-
acter of the composition, as well as the content, one might conclude
that Rear Admiral Evans had in mind the American boy as a reader.
Incidents are related that suggest the reflections of a hero writing at an
age when the oft-told stories of younger days — the experiences that
thrill and entertain — alone remain written on the figment of memory.
Beside stories of adventure, comment on the political situation and
other men of his generation, may throw some light on events asso-
ciated with the upbuilding of our modern navy. As to this part of the
work, however, controversy is already begun and it remains for
future research to demonstrate the correctness of the views of the
sailor.

Students and friends of municipal reform are glad that
" Municipal Improvements " ^ is already in its third edition. Seven
new chapters have been added, among which the author mentions the
following as specially due to the progressing thought of the past
decade: Elevated TraflSc vs. Subways, Civil Service Appointments and
Municipal Ownership. The book continues to be a serviceable guide
to the public official whose entrance to positions of responsibility is so
often due to political skill rather than to education in political needs
or administrative methods. The author is essentially practical, and is
most successful when stating uncontrovertible facts of a simple nature.
Whenever he undertakes to present the theoretical aspects of disputed
problems, the result is less satisfactory. The chapter on Municipal

1 Pp. 467. Price, $2.00. New York : D. Appleton & Co., igoi.

2 Municipal Improvements. By W. F. Goodhue. Pp. 207. Price, I1.75. New
York: John Wiley & Sons, 1900.

[317]

130 Annals of the American Academy

Ownership, for example, does not indicate intimacy with either later
theoretical discussions or practical applications. Especially com-
mendable are the numerous tables which give the average reasonable
cost of conducting the various departments in towns, as well as in
small and large cities.'

Halsey's " Old New York Frontier, "^ is one of the most read-
able books on local colonial history that has appeared in recent years.
The work is scholarly throughout. As a history it is replete with bio-
graphical sketches of leaders in the pioneer movements in the settle-
ment of the Empire State. The author has also woven into his
account many incidents that lend interest. The writing bears evidence
of research for the sake of truth, rather than from sordid motive.
Too often state and local histories bear the stamp of commercial
instinct, or of selfish devotion to ancestry and local pride.

" Tuberculosis'' as a Disease of the Masses and How to Com-
bat It " is the topic of a prize essay recently awarded the international
prize by the International Congress to Combat Tuberculosis as a Disease
of the Masses, which convened at Berlin, May 24 to 27, 1899, and
awarded this prize to Dr. S. A. Knopf, of New York City, through its
committee on July 31, 1900.

This is a most compact, practical and generally helpful treatment
of a problem in sanitation that has yet appeared. It should be in the
hands of every worker in social settlements, charities and municipal
movements. It is a book that can be wisely circulated in the homes
of the masses of the working people. It is so well illustrated and so
free from technical terminology that any one can read it without
difficulty. The sanction which its doctrines have received from the
foremost medical authorities in the world are sufficient guarantee for
its scientific accuracy. It would seem, however, to the layman who is
even partially converted to the practical expedience to counteract
germ diseases, that Dr. Knopf has been overzealous in his advice
concerning precautionary measures. If, however, even a small part
of the sensible and thoroughly practical plans he proposes to combat
the spread of consumption are adopted, there can be no doubt that
his optimistic conclusions in regard to the ultimate eradication of this
deadliest foe of the Anglo-Saxon race may be realized.

1 Contributed by Dr. W. H. Allen.

*By Francis Whiting Halsev. Pp. 433. Price, $2.50. New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1901.

*Pp. 86. Price, paper, 25 cents; cloth, 50 cents. Published by M. Firestack, 200
West Ninety-sixth street, New York, 1901.

[318]

Notes 131

Mr. Kuhns dedicates his book' to the memory of his ancestors,
George Kuntz and Hans Herr, pioneer settlers of Lancaster County,
Pennsylvania, and his brief preface is dated Bern, Switzerland. He
thus shows the inspiration of his work, first his reverence for his
ancestors, and next his study of modern German historians, in whose
pages he has found many evidences of the hard conditions under
which in colonial times, Germans and Swiss sought refuge in
America. The haven they found here gave them shelter, and helped
them make their homes the birthplace of a generation from which
have sprung many notable characters. Wisely limited to the colonial
period, this book has the merit of being a brief and suggestive sum-
mary of the times and of the lives of men that gave to this country
one of the best elements of its varied nationality. For many years
"Pennsylvania Dutch" was a term of reproach, due largely to the
bitter hostility evolved by their persistent loyalty to the Proprietary
party, while Franklin and his adherents were trying to wrest control
from the Penns. For years the Pennsylvania Dutch were charged
with many faults, notabl}' their hostility to education and to political and
social progress, but all this has gradually changed; a large and grow-
ing literature is devoted to the praiseworthy part that German settlers
have played in the development of a strong national life. Mr. Kuhns
sketches the historic background, the wars and desolation that drove
the Germans from the Rhine, the Palatinate and Switzerland. lathe
new world, Pennsylvania gave them a welcome, good homes and fair
treatment. He sketches the hardships of their long and difficult
journey — of their voyage across the ocean, their indomitable industry
and frugality, and their rapid recovery from adversity. The prosperity
of the counties where they settled bears evidence of their intelligence as
farmers, as citizens, as fathers and heads of families and as church
members. They clung to their language, to their religion, to their
customs, with a fervor that found little favor at the hands of those
who ultimately secured and maintained ascendancy here for the clos-
ing years of the eighteenth centurj'. Their religioiis life is treated of
in a chapter replete with useful details of their forms of faith and their
adhesion to the tenets for which their ancestors had made such sacri-
fices at home.

"In Peace and War " is a chapter showing that from the hundred
thousand Germans settled in this country before the Revolution, have
sprung between four and five millions of the people of the United

i The German and Swiss Settlements of Colonial Pennsylvania : A Study of the
So-called Pennsylvania Dutch. By Oscar Kuhns, member of the Pennsylvania
Society of the Sons of the Revolution, of the Pennsylvania-German Society and
of the Lancaster County Historical Society. Pp. 268. Price. $1.50. New York:
Henry Holt & Co., 1901.

[319]

132 Annals of the American Academy

States to-day, and at least two millions of the inhabitants of Pennsyl-
vania. Their numerical representation in the patriot army and in the
conventions and congresses and other bodies that guided the Revolu-
tion to a successful issue, was in even greater proportion. An inter-
esting appendix analyzes the German patronymics; an exhaustive
bibliography and a good index enhance the value of the work.^

Mrs. Ei<izabeth Wormei^EY Latimer does not pretend to study
history seriously, and insists that her books should not be judged
from too scientific a standpoint. This disarms criticism and leaves the
reviewer little else to do than to comment in friendly fashion upon
her collections of historical notes and anecdotes, and her naive, gos-
sippy confessions regarding her historical methods and their many
shortcomings.

Her last book on the closing years of the nineteenth century, ^ is a
veritable pot-pourri of all sorts and kinds of information gathered
from many sources, all of it interesting and most of it reliable. The
point of view is strongly British, though at no time violently partisan,
the tone is always optimistic, and the attitude one of appreciative
sympathy for those of her characters in whom she has faith. A
genial thread of satisfaction with her former books runs through the
"work and to them she frequently refers. There are, too, occasional
threads of reminiscence and personal comment, so much of the latter,
indeed, that a respectable account of Mrs. Latimer's life and family
connections might be written from the information furnished in
casual references and foot-notes.

The volume will doubtless have a wide sale among those who
never take history any more seriously than does Mrs. Latimer. But
such readers will obtain from this as from the other of Mrs. Latimer's
books little idea of the great problems of the nineteenth century or
the trend of present-day events. There is neither proportion nor
perspective in her treatment, no sense of tl^e relative importance of
events, or of the reliability of her sources of information. Unity,
continuity and movement are all lacking and events are selected
for narration largely because they are interesting, while frequently
facts are omitted or rapidly passed over because Mrs. Latimer does
not understand their bearing and is incapable of explaining them.
The most flagrant instance of this is to be seen in her remarks in the
preface regarding Germany. To a query as to why she had not
included a "Germany in the Nineteenth Century" in her series she

'Contributed by J. G. Rosengarten, Esq., Philadelphia.

2 The Last Years of the Nineteenth Century. By Elizabeth Wormeley Lati-
mer. Pp. 545. Price, $2.50. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co., 1900.

[320]

Notes 133

replies that she would have done so but that she had used up all her
material in writing of France and Italy ; that she was unwilling to
say anything about the Emperor William II. because she did not
understand him ; and that inasmuch as the history of Germany since
1888 has been made up of nothing but factional struggles in the
Reichstag and Reichsrath {sic, Bundesrath ?) and of the activities and
plans of the emperor she has omitted all mention of Germany in the
present volume. Shades of German patriotism ! a history of Europe
in the nineteenth century with Germany practically omitted, when to
the average German that same history for the last thirty years is the
story of Germany with the rest of the world left out. But strangest
of all is the fact that throughout this volume scarcely a word is said
of the great commercial and industrial transformations taking place
in the countries of the continent or of the mighty world conflict
taking place among the powers. INIrs. Latimer should not even with
apologies call her books History.*

"French I,ife in Town and Country"' begins a series of
special studies of the social and domestic relations of "Our European
Neighbors." Much attention is given to details of home life and
social intercourse among aristocratic and bourgeois circles. The author
emphasizes two dominant characteristics, frugality and courtesy, and
two dominating ambitions, to owe no man anything and to provide
for a rainy day.*

Volumes three and four of McCarthy's "The Four Georges and
William," * completes the series of writings covering a period of Eng-
lish history from Queen Anne down to Edward VII. The first publica-
tion in this series was " The History' of Our Own Times." This was.
followed by McCarthy's " Gladstone." Volumes one and two, under
the title of "The Four Georges," appeared some time since. In this
latest series Justin Huntley INIcCarthy is associated with his father.
The literary finish of these writings, the introduction of court gossip ,
of anecdote and interesting personality, all combine to make history
entertaining. McCarthy combines with his broad understanding of
political and social movements a sense of humor and an appreciation of
romance seldom found in a writer. History is popularized, but at the
same time it is made virile by the strength portrayed in all its parts.

The writer has a distinct bias on matters of religious controversy

1 Contributed by Prof. C. M. Andrews, Bryn Mawr College.

'B3' Hannah Lynch. Pp. viii, 311. Price, $1.20. New York: G. P. Putnam's
Sons, 1901.
3 Contributed by Anna F. Brush, Chestnut Hill, Pa.
*Pp. 349, 338. Price, $1.25 a volume. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1901.

[321]

134 Annals of the American Academy

and imperial relations pertaining to Ireland. He is keenly sensible
to the hardships suflfered by his countrymen without properly appre-
ciating the political necessities involved in the larger purposes of the
nation. On the other hand, he is the more frank, and the better able
to see the true character of many of the men and measures discussed,
by reason of the absence of a blind patriotism which would avoid
comment on relations harmful to imperial interests.

Montgomery's "Leading Facts of English History '"■ is so well
known to both students and teachers that further comment on the
content and merit of the work is unnecessary. The new edition
brings the subject down to the death of Queen Victoria.

A NEW EDITION of "The Catholic Pioneers of America," by John
O'Kane Murray, M. A. ,2 has appeared. The author has written from
the Roman Catholic standpoint, and besides the dramatic interest of the
adventures which it relates, his book rescues from obscurity or oblivion
the noble deeds of many a hero who received from historians but a scant
tribute of praise. Among many almost forgotten men we may mention
Adam Daulac, who checked the advance of the fierce Iroquois and saved
Montreal from an attack which would probably have been fatal to all
the colonists of Canada. With but sixteen young Frenchmen and a
few friendly natives (these dwindled to only four Algonquins towards
the end of the struggle), he kept at bay twelve hundred Iroquois,
and, when at last he and his companions had succumbed, it was found
that they had killed one-third of their dusky assailants. This terrible
loss of life deterred the Iroquois from continuing their advance, and
gave Canada a breathing spell.

We wish the author, while praising with due enthusiasm the self-
sacrifice of Daulac and the heroic valor of his pioneers, had been
more severe in scoring the excesses of some of the conquerors of South
America — Francis Pizarro, for instance. The reappearance of this
work will probably revive old controversies and raise new ones; but
■when the testimony shall have been carefully sifted, the history of this
heroic but blood-stained period will be more complete and more thor-
oughly understood.*

In his " Administration d'une Grande Ville " (Londres),* M. Joseph
Neve, Advocate of the Court of Appeals of Ghent, has given us a

1 Pp. 420, 79. Price, J1.25. Boston : Ginn & Co., 1901.
*Pp. xiv, 434. Price, ;Ji.oo. Philadelphia: H. 1,. Kilner & Co.
•Contributed by Rev. R. I. Ilolaiud.

* V Administration d'une Grande Ville {Londres). By Joseph E. Neve. Pp. 278.
Gand, Soci4t6 Anonyme, 1901. {^coiedes Sciences Politiques et Sociales de Louvain.)

[322]

Notes 135

very readable account of London's present city government. The
standpoint of the author throughout is that of the continental admin-
istrative official, a fact which gives the brochure its chief interest to
English and American readers. But he is far from being incapable of
understanding the genius of English local political institutions as his
frequent references to recent political movements in London abun-
dantly show. The treatment of the private water and gas companies
of London co-ordinatel}' with the various branches of the local
government, reveals the continental point of view of the writer, though
few of his readers in England and America would regard its inclusion
as unessential to the study. A chapter on the London Government
Act of 1899 brings the work thoroughly up to date. The outline map,
showing the principal administrative districts of London, and a brief
bibliography, containing the usual number of errors made by com-
positors in dealing with foreign titles, add considerably to the value
of M. Neve's study.*

Opinions m.\y differ as to what constituted the chief departments
of human activity in the nineteenth century, but there can be no
doubt that a list which omits organized religious effort and the
relations between church and state has failed to take into account
a phase of human activity that had something more than a nega-
tive influence. In "The Nineteenth Century, a Review of Prog-
ress," * a series of essays originally printed in the New York Evening
Post, the most striking feature is the omissions. No one can
find legitimate fault with the essays that are produced; all are good,
some are admirable, notably those of Professors Munro Smith,
on Germany; Heilprin, on geographical exploration; Hadley, on
railroad economy; Carter, on higher education, and the various
scientists on their respective subjects. But a work that pretends to
cover nineteenth century progress and says nothing of the progress
of organized religion, of law, except international law, of jurispru-
dence, of constitutional systems, except that of the United States; that
includes under Sociology essays on explorations, the gold standard,
steel manufacture, libraries, life insurance, woman's rights, and says
nothing of social progress, the relation of classes, of capital and labor, of
industrialism versus agrarianism, or of individualism versus state social-
ism; that under History deals only with England, Germany, Russia,

1 Contributed by Robert C. Brooks, Cornell University.

2 The Nineteenth Century, A Review of Progress during the Past One Hundred
Years in the Chief Departments of Human Activity. Pp. 494. New York ; G. P.
Putnam's Sons, 1901.

[323]

136 Annals of the American Academy

Canada, Mexico, China and Japan; that has an essay on Russian ex-
pansion and none on British, an essay on British internal history, but
none on Russian, that omits entirely Australasia and in general leaves
out any adequate review of political, social, constitutional and com-
mercial progress, can hardly be said to justify its title. What has been
done is well done; but the editorial plan has either failed of execu-
tion or was faulty in its conception, while the editorial selection and
distribution is slipshod. Why should "steel manufacture" and
"gold standard" be classed as Sociological, or "printing" as Ap-
plied Science ? It would have been better had the group divi-
sions been omitted entirely, and the essays printed without classifica-
tion under some such modified title as " A Few Aspects of Nineteenth
Century Progress."

There has recently been a tendency among the diverse factions
of French socialists to unite upon some common doctrinal basis and
make a more systematic effort to secure the political influence to which
their total numerical strength would entitle them. Though they are
apparently willing to overlook differences in doctrine, it would seem
that the problem of party tactics and, to a still greater degree, the
circumstance of personal likes and dislikes, keeps them apart and
makes a preconcerted uniformity of conduct impossible.

The first national congress, held in December, 1899, was the begin-
ning of the realization of a scheme for united action — a modest, feeble
beginning, it is true, but, nevertheless, a beginning sufficient to
encourage the hope of some day approaching the discipline and
solidarity of the German Socialist party. This hope, however, has
been shattered by the second French Congress of Socialist Organiza-
tions, held in September, 1900. The official stenographic report* of
its meetings is filled with purposeless discussions of side-issues and
with personal abuse varying in intensity from the emplojrment of
such epithets as " coward " and " assassin " to actual blows.

Of all the congresses held during the Paris Exposition, and there
were many, — this one, the avowed purpose of which was to establish
solidarity and harmony, stands pre-eminent for tumultuousness and
discord. To restore order and permit the warmth of debate to subside
it was necessary on one occasion to suspend the meeting for twenty
minutes. It is only fair to add, however, that a committee was
appointed to prepare " a project for the complete unification of the
party."

1 Contributed by Professor C. M. Andrews, Bryn Mawr College.

- Deuxiime Co7igyis gineral des Organisations socialisies fraufaises tenu a Paris du
sSau JO Sepiembre, igoo. Compte rendu st^nographique officiel. Pp. ix, 3S9. Price,
3 fr. Paris: Librarie Georges Bellais, 1900.

[324]

Notes 137

The International Socialist Congress, at which twenty-two nations
were represented and which immediately preceded the French con-
gress, offered a strong contrast to the latter, inasmuch as its proceed-
ings, according to the official report ^ were expeditious, business-like
and peaceful. Ever since the exclusion of the anarchists from these
congresses, the elements of discord which formerly characterized them
have disappeared. One of the most important resolutions passed was
that providing for the organization and support of an international
socialistic labor bureau, to keep the socialist parties of the various
nations in constant touch with one another, to publish reports on labor
questions of international importance, and to perform the preliminary
■work incident upon each international congress of socialists. Brussels
was chosen as its location. The bureau has also been authorized to
collect books, documents and reports bearing on labor problems.

Resolutions were passed in favor of international legislation pro-
viding for an eight hours' day and a minimum wage; in favor of
the socialization of the means of production; in condemnation of
standing armies and colonial expansion; in favor of the organization
of maritime laborers; advocating universal suffrage and direct popular
legislation; in favor of municipal socialism; recognizing that trusts
are the inevitable consequence of the present productive system.'

It is SELDOM that a book, covering such a wide range of subjects of
popular and scientific interest as does "The Progress of the
Century,"' is ably written and edited. Such works are usually pub-
lished by subscription companies, are catchy, spectacular and mis-
leading. Harper and Brothers have recognized the demand for a
first-rate resume of the progress made in the last hundred years.
They have selected manj' eminent writers in their respective fields
to do the work. Names like Alfred Russel Wallace, William Ramsay,
William Mathew Flinders-Petre, Sir Joseph Norman Lockyer, Thomas
Convin Mendenhall, Captain Alfred T. Mahan, and Cardinal James
Gibbons give authority and unusual interest.

Nearly every department of science and material progress is
included. The style is simple and direct, such as will appeal to the
general reader. The work will do much to popularize science, and
drive out of the market the trash that is being circulated by irrespon-
sible and unreliable publishing and distributing agencies.

1 Cinquihne Congris Socialiste International tenu a Paris du 2j au 27 Septembre,
igoo. Compte rendu atialytique officiel. Pp.121. Price i//-. 25. Paris, I<ibrairie
Georges Bellais, 1901.

2 Contributed by Dr. C. W. A. Veditz, Philadelphia.

3 Pp. 583. Price, $2.50. New York : Harper and Brothers, 1901.

[325J

138 Annals of the American Academy

Mrs. St. Jui^iEN Ravenei., in her "Life and Times of William
Lowndes, of South Carolina, 1782-1822,"! has made a distinct
contribution to American biography. Lowndes took a prominent part
in the affairs of both nation and state. In portraying the life of the
man she has given a lively historic setting. The relations of North
and South as well as the international controversies of the time are
woven into the work in an interesting manner.

The "Library of Social and Political Sciences" pub-
lished at Milan has recently been increased by a suggestive volume'
on state socialism from the point of view of legal philosophy. The
author traces the evolution of modern socialism and individualism,
with special reference to the problems of ethics and of legal organiza-
tion which these theories involve ; he points out that the economic
doctrines of modern socialism are in the main the logical outcome
and development, the continuation, as it were, of classical political
economy. There is a strange parallelism between Ricardo and Karl
Marx, between Quesnay and Henry George, between J. B. Say and
Saint-Simon.

Various theories concerning the complex problem of the primary,
fundamental factors of social evolution, are discussed in the first part
of the book, which also characterizes the attitude of the "organic,"
biological school of sociologists towards the increased sphere of state
activities in the interest of social peace and the prevention of class
conflicts. There is also an examination of the economic interpreta-
tion of history as proposed by Marx, Loria and others. The second
part is devoted to a consideration of the points of difference between
"Utopian" and "scientific" socialism; Utopian socialism preaches
an ideal, a state of affairs which is ethically desirable and which we
should consequently strive for ; while scientific socialism is positive
and propounds a law of economic and juridic evolution, not a scheme
of social reform. Part III contains a detailed account of the tenden-
cies in the history of social philosophy which have contributed to the
development of the idea of state socialism (Holbach, Hegel, Leroux,
Blanc, Dupont- White, Sismondi), particularly the doctrines of the
German historical school of law (Savigny, Ahrens, Gans, Lassalle).

The author concludes with a sketch of various criticisms of the
social activity of the state and of the theory of state intervention,
beginning with the views of Kant and the eighteenth century phi-

^ Pp. 249. Price, $1.50. Boston : Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1901.

^ Tl SociaHsrno di Stalo dat pitnto di vista delta filosofia giuridica. By F. Empe-
DOCLE Restivo. Pp. xiv, 410. Price, 3 lire. Milano-Palermo: Remo Sandron,
1900.

[326]

Notes 139

losophers, and terminating with Spencer and Nietzsche. The book as
a whole is historical, comparative and critical, rather than positive
or doctrinal.

M. de; Rousiers, in his " La Vie Americaine, I'Education et la
Societe," ^ reaches the following conclusion: " The world seems to be
divided to-day into two very distinct groups, one placing its hope on
individual eflfort, uniting its forces only when necessity demands,
following forms of union varying with the needs of the moment,
staking everything on private initiative, and dreading restraint; the
other, on the contrary, placing its confidence in collective effort, in
administrative groups, permanent, diflScult of transformation, depen-
ding on regimentation, and fearing above all things the initiative of
the individual will." He then proceeds to ask the question, "To
which of these two groups will the future belong?" He answers it as
readily, " The future belongs to the race in which man, freed from all
useless fetters, and trained by individual effort attains the maximum
of intensity in that effort. This will be true, not only in the material
world, but also in the moral."

The author is a shrewd observer, has traveled widely in America and
has an insight into our social conditions which is rare for a foreigner.
He notices at the outset the great freedom our education and home
life give to our boys and girls, encouraging individual initiative from
the start. He sees the strenuous life in every phase of our daily
routine, and calls attention to the fact that we even go on our last
voyage to the cemetery " au trot."

He sees clearly that the wealthy and " progressive Yankees form
a natural aristocracy which plays an effective role in the social consti-
tution of the American democracy. Thanks to them the United States
continues in its progressive march in spite of the politicians."

Seeing as he does our political corruption, he is no pessimist, for he
sees at the same time that American society is better than its politics,
and that when this natural aristocracy shall transfer a share of its
attention from business to politics abuses will begin to disappear.

The widespread undercurrent of religious feeling is apparent to
him, which even respects the street corner performances of the Salva-
tion Army, yet he is struck with an equally extended indifference to
religion, for he says: "Nine times out of ten an American, speaking
of religious questions, says with simplicity, ' I belong to no church.' "
He sees in the Protestant churches all the elements of efficient social
clubs, but is inspired with no religious feeling in their perfectly
appointed buildings.

1 By Paul de Rousiers, pp. 336. Paris: Firmin-Didot et Cie.

[327]

140 Annals of the American Academy

The author finds quite a number of economic disorders, such as the
instability of employment, indifierence of patrons to workmen, abuse
of speculation, the presence of trusts, the fact that divorce is carried
to a form of " legal prostitution," the government too largely in the
hands of unscrupulous politicians and justice badly administered, —
yet he judges a society not by its evils, but by the force of the resist-
ance opposed to the evils. And in this force of resistance he finds
an equally large list of virtues : a great aptitude to surmount crises,
discouragement practically unknown. " To be and remain American
one must consider life a struggle and not a pleasure." " That which
makes the American a success, that which constitutes his type — is his
moral courage and personal energy — an active, creative energy."

" In social development the progress of the United States is au ex-
ample and a lesson. The Americans are not behind the Europeans;
it is not they who should come tons, but we who should goto them."
"There is a newness in the methods of labor, in commercial relations,
in the system of education, in government, and in international rela-
tions." All this makes pleasant reading. The book is to be recom-
mended as an antidote for pessimism.^

Another work is added to the fast-growing historical literature
of Texas. " The Evolution of a State, or Recollections of Old Texas
Days "^ records the personal reminiscences of Mr. Noah Smith wick.
The story begins while Texas was under Mexican rule, 1827, and
ends in 1S61, when the author moved to California. Its value is found
in its vi\'id narrative and description of pioneer life.

A THOROUGH AND AUTHORITATIVE Survey' of social administra-
tion in Austria, at the end of the nineteenth century, has been pub-
lished in two large volumes by the Austrian Ministry of the Interior
for the recent Paris Exposition. The first of these volumes, bearing
the sub-title "Social Economy," treats of the public insurance of
laborers against accidents and sickness, labor contracts, industrial
statistics, co-operative labor associations, the condition of laborers in
the employ of the state, the status of agricultural laborers, agricul-
tural credit, savings banks, and the housing of laborers. The second

1 Contributed by Dr. J. Paul Goode, Illinois State Normal School.

'Pp. 340. Price, $1.50. Published by the Gamiuel Book Co., Austin, Tex.

^ SocialeVerwallung in Oesterreich am Ende des \^. Jahrhunderts. Aus Anlass der
Weltausstellung Paris. 1900 herausgegeben. Band I. Socialokonoiuie. Pp. ix, 725
(not numbered consecutively). Price, 24 wj. Band II. Hygiene und ciffentliches
Hilfswesen. Pp. x, 455 (not numbered consecutively). Price, 16 »j. Wien and
Leipzig (Deuticke), 1900.

[328]

Notes 141

volume, entitled " Hygiene aud Public Assistance," treats in the
main of sanitary problems, the laws regulating the practice of medi-
cine, special institutions for convalescents, the blind, the insane, the
deaf and dumb, etc., the care of the poor, pawn-shops, alcoholism,
epidemics, mortality statistics, Austrian systems of public water supply,
and regulations concerning food adulteration.

Many of these sections are contributed by well-known authorities in
each field, such as Dr. Victor Mataja, Professor Philippovich and Dr.
Schullern-Schrattenhofen. The names of such men as these are a
guarantee of the high standard of the work as a whole, which it is
of course impossible to analyze in a short notice. It may be stated,
however, that every section is brought up to date and treated with
a thoroughness, compactness and wealth of statistical material which
should make these volumes invaluable to the student of economic
and social conditions in Austria. The experiences of Austria in
such matters as the organization of bureaus of labor statistics, the
regulation of credit operations among farmers, the improvement of
laborers' homes in cities, and the combat against alcoholism, form
valuable object-lessons for other countries.

Henry Osborn Taylor, the author of " Ancient Ideals," has con-
tinued his task in a volume entitled "The Classical Heritage of the
Middle Ages. ' ' i He attempts to show how classical methods of
thought and presentation changed and developed into the medieval.
He is mainly concerned with the period extending from the fourth
to the seventh centuries. This work is a logical continuation of
"Ancient Ideals " and is marked by the same excellencies. It is
impossible to indicate its many merits in a brief notice. The value
of the book would be enhanced by a recapitulation summarizing
•what the mediaeval world retained of the classical elements and how
it transformed them. A full and excellent bibliographical appendix
will enable students to follow out any subject in which the book has
stimulated interest, as it is certain to do along many lines.

One; of the essential arguments in Karl Marx's system of " scien-
tific" socialism is the declaration that wealth is everywhere and
constantly being concentrated in the hands of a few — that while the
mass of capital is increasing, the number of its possessors is decreasing.
The growth of colossal enterprises, factories, trusts, large stores, is
evident even to the most superficial observer of economic evolution.
Marx, however, maintained that the same law of concentration is as

1 Pp. XV, 400. Price, $1.75, net. New York: The Columbia University Press, The
Macniillan Company, Agents, 1901.

[329]

142 Annals of the American Academy

valid in agriculture as in industry and commerce; and it is especially
upon this point that many economists have joined issue with him.
Indeed, this feature of the socialistic doctrine has not only caused
much theoretical discussion, but it has likewise been a serious impedi-
ment in the way of socialist propaganda in countries like Frauce,
■where small land holdings are prevalent, and the abolition of private
property in land is no welcome creed.

M. Emile Vandervelde has in his latest book * undertaken the study
of this question so far as Belgium is concerned. He is a socialist of
the school of Marx and is consequently disposed to admit the validity
of arguments, in favor of the socialistic claim, which an unprejudiced
investigator will accept only with a grain of salt. His conclusions,
moreover, though they may be perfectly true for this country, cannot
be generalized as a universal economic law.

In a series of monographs forming the first part of his book, and
devoted to the various provinces of Belgium, M. Vandervelde investi-
gates the origin of large estates, and the traces of feudal and ecclesi-
astical ownership. In the last part of his book, he gives a decided
affirmative answer to the question : Is property in land concentrating
with the rapidity which certain (mostly socialistic) authors claim?
But it should be objected that the simple increase, during the past fifty
years, of the number of those who possess no land, is by no means a
convincing argument for the thesis that the average size of estates has
increased. Happily for M. Vandervelde's reputation as a scientist,
his other arguments are better than this. His book will no doubt be
read with great interest by students anxious to test the validity of
economic theories by comparison with the facts of economic evolution
observed in Belgium.^

Judge Waite has recently published a fifth edition of his well-
known " History of the Christian Religion to the Year Two Hun-
dred."' In its main outlines it is unchanged from the preceding
edition, but it contains about one hundred more pages. The chief
additions are discussions in the appendix as to whether Jesus was an
Essene, and as to the origin of the inquisition. The former the author
answers affirmatively; the latter he derives from the teachings of Paul
as interpreted and amplified b}' Saint Jerome and Saint Augustine.
The work has not been revised in the light of our present knowl-

"^ La Propriiti fonciire en Belgique. By Emile Vandervelde. Pp.327. Price.
10 fr. Bibliothique internationale des Sciences Sociologiques. Paris : Schleicher
PrSres, igoo.

8 Contributed bj' C. W. A. Veditz, Ph. D., LL. B., Philadelphia.

» By C. B. Waite, A. M. Pp. xxvi, 556. Price, J2.25. Chicago: C. V. Waite &
Co., 1900.

La Genesis del Crimen en Mexico 143

edge; e.g.. Judge Waite is apparently ignorant of the discovery of
the "Gospel according to Peter," which he discusses as a lost docu-
ment. In many places he betrays the fact that he has not kept up
with the progress of the last decade. But many will welcome a new
edition of a work which aroused so much interest, found so many
admirers and excited such keen animosity.'^

REVIEWS.

La Genesis del Crimeii en I\Iexico. Estudio de Psiquiatria Social.

By Juuo Guerrero. Mexico and Paris (Bouret), 1901.

There is so great a dearth of literature bearing upon social condi-
tions in the Valley of Mexico that we are inclined to consider any
book upon the subject as a valuable coutribution, and, as in the case
of gift-horses, to refrain from being critical. The present book,
however, despite certain faults of structure, and a certain laxity of
statement, is an acute and masterly analysis of certain phases of social
conditions in Mexico, and for that reason does not require any special
leniency of judgment.

The chief factor in moulding the character of the inhabitants of the
City and Valley of Mexico is stated to be the high altitude. The very
great elevation of this plateau, combined with its tropical situation,
causes an extreme rarification of the atmosphere and a great diminution
in the amount of oxygen contained in a given volume of air. This
has led to an organic laziness upon the part of the inhabitants, to a
confirmed quietism and a consequent distaste and contempt for work.
To the same cause Guerrero assigns the lack of civic valor, the political
quiescence in the face of governmental or private oppression. The
enervating effect of an extremely rarefied atmosphere is aggravated
rather than assuaged by an excessive use of stimulants, notably of
alcohol, coffee and tobacco, and in the dry season, the nervous tension
becomes so great that no action is felt to be extravagant or extraordi-
nary. In the dry season the nervousescitability of the inhabitants of
the plateau is at its height, and for these months the statistics of
crimes, especially those against persons, to which Mexicans are
peculiarly liable, are considerably greater than during the rainy
season of the year. To this nervous tension under which people on
the plateau live, and which all physicians attest, Guerrero attributes
in great measure the prevalent tendencj' toward hysteria, especially
on the part of the women, and the strain of melancholy, which is
reflected in all the poetry, music and art of the Mexicans.

In the second part of his book Guerrero deals largely with the
effect of the nature of the territory upon the development of civiliza-
1 Contributed by Professor Dana C. Munro, University of Pennsylvania.

[331]

144 Annals of the American Academy

tion on the plateau, and it may be said that from this point on, he
almost entirely loses sight of his subject and incontinently wanders
into frequent digressions, -which though interesting, are not justified
b}' the title of the book. In the part dealing with the territory of the
Republic, the author shows how the policy of the Spanish Govern-
ment to turn Mexico into a series of mining camps led to the concen-
tration of the people and of the wealth and intellect of the country
into a few widely separated cities, between which there was none but
the worst conceivable means of communication. This isolation led to a
comparative barbarism in the smaller cities, and above all as regards the
rural populations furthest removed from the capital, to a low civiliza-
tion, to an anarchical and irresponsible local government and to abuses
of all sorts, while in repiiblican times it induced revolution and disin-
tegration, as was seen in the case of Texas. In the cities where pop-
ulation grew largely from natural increase, and from a fear of the
insecure conditions prevailing in the country, the supply of labor
became greater than the demand, wages fell, alimentation became
poor, the standard of life was not raised, the population became
degenerate, and the number of crimes rapidly increased. In a series
of brilliant chapters Guerrero describes the classes of the city popu-
lation, from which the criminals are largely recruited, comparing
them with the other and non-criminal elements of the population.
Another interesting portion of the book deals with the clash between
the Roman Catholic Church and the spirit of skepticism, and the
effect of this conflict upon the morals of the population.

The book is valuable as a series of brilliant but semi-independent
essays rather than as a unified discussion of a single subject. The
author possesses an admirable style, has great insight, and as a rule,
good judgment, but the book suffers from being structureless and
invertebrate.

Walter E. Weyl.

Philadelphia.

Govermnent or Human Evohition, Individualism and Collectivism.
By Edmond KELtY, M. A., F. G. S. Pp. xv, 60S. Price, I2.50.
New York : Longmans, Green & Co., 1901.

The second volume of Mr. Kelly's work consistentlj- follows out the
methods and purposes of the first. The word " Government " in the
title is not descriptive of the contents of the book, if the ordinary
acceptation of that word be understood. However, it approaches
nearer to a description of the contents of this volume than of the first,
when allowance is made for the peculiar sense in which the word is
used. Government covers " the whole field of human interference

[332]

Government or Human Evolution, 145

with nature " (p. 8). It is necessary to recall that Mr. Kelly devoted
a large part of his first volume to the thesis that Nature is cruel and
generally stands in the way of man's progress, while the mind of man
is not a part of natiire and is engaged in incessant conflict with it ( Cf .
Vol. II, Bk. I, Ch. 2, Sec. 4). Government is thus taken to include
the whole field of man's conflict with nature, whether in the thought
of the isolated individual or in the family or in voluntary associations
or in what are termed "governments" in ordinary language. The
idea of compulsion is usually associated with government ; nor does
Mr. Kelly hesitate to recommend compulsory measures. But he
nowhere attempts to draw a line between self-control and compulsion,
nor does he even make any technical use of the technical definition
he has assumed for the purpose of giving a definite title to his book.
On the contrary, the method and style are essentially popular, and,
with the exception of the peculiar definitions of "natural" and
"just," words are used in their popular sense.

The second volume is intended to show that the course of history
so far has resulted in little progress, that all of the apparent advances
have been lost again, and that such will continue to be the fate of
mankind so long as it acts in accordance with nature (pp. 69, 70, 92,
93, 151). The latter and by far the larger part of the volume is
devoted to an indication of what the author considers to be the
proper social and economic arrangements whereby man may triumph
over nature and attain to justice. In a general way it must be said
that a better plan than the author's may be read into his book, and
that the mere appearance of a book dealing with the domination of
mind over matter shows tendencies in the right direction. Those
tendencies, however, are very different from what the author imagines
them to be. He pictures to himself a static society. Like other
socialists he has made little advance upon Sir Thomas More. What
these volumes really prove, if they prove anything, is that progress
lies rather in a more psychic direction, and that it is motion that we
need rather than a fixed condition. But this is far from the author's
thesis.

The way in which he has involved himself by his peculiar termi-
nology of "natural" and "just" is highly interesting. Everything
turns on the distinction between the natural and the non-natural or
the mental, and with the exposition of this distinction the author
feels that his work is finished. It is not necessary to show that there
is any law of the action of the human mind. It is merely sufiicient
to show that the mind is capable of acting and of controlling. If once
we grasp firmly this power of the mind, we shall cease to be selfish,
and there is no necessity for any analysis of how the mind works.

[333]

146 Annals of the American Academy

The utmost approach to an analysis of this mental or human ' ' evolu-
tion," which forms the sub-title of the volume, is found in the state-
ment that the non-natural force is "strange" and "inexplicable"
(p. 180), and that it consists of elementary selfishness, found in certain
nattiral automata, like the tiger, and of elementary unselfishness,
found in certain other natural automata, like ants and bees, and that
these two forces, under guidance of a higher mind or inner conscious-
ness known to students of hypnotism, are tending with progress
toward a medium type or equilibrium (p. 190). No explanation or
analysis of this second and controlling mind is offered.

The first di%asion of the volume is largely taken up with a " history
of individualism." By this is meant a succession of extremely racy
and well-written essays on the course of history, with a special
view to the influence of the Mohammedan and Christian religions.
This is by far the most readable part of the book and presents a keen
criticism from the author's point of view. Mr. Kelly is apparently a
gentleman whose personal associations would hardly lead him to
revolutionary propositions. There is nothing, however, in his habit
of thought to save him from the extreme conclusions of socialists.
We must ascribe the moderation which usually tempers the logical
severity of his conclusions to early associations that have taught him
that after all we live in a competitive world. He makes some very
sane and temperate statements and gives some excellent partial
analyses, e. g., " For when ferocity discovered that its rights in the
product of labor were respected, it tended by disuse to disappear ; and
when the servile automaton recognized that the more it labored, the
more it enjoyed, there grew up in it a nascent selfishness which was
to substitute for the unconscious altruism of the ant, the latter-day
individualism of the working man. The struggle for life went on
very much as before, but instead of tending toward opposite results
in different races — toward ferocity in the carnivore and toward ser-
vility in the ant — it operated in the same species to diminish ferocity
on the one hand and servility on the other ; and to develop the social
mind which conceives of society not as an end in itself to which the
individual should be sacrificed, but as a means toward the develop-
ment of the individual into a man and master of his fate " (p. 95).

Starting with the other members of the City Club of New York as a
believer in laissez /aire, the author was caused to right about face by
contact with laboring men in the Good Government Clubs. The pecu-
liarities of the socialistic mind are evident thus in action and in thought.
The broad characteristics of socialistic thought are sialics and idealism.
Static thought naturally adopts the method of contrasts and ignores
the method of continuities. The static process was at once in e\-idence

[334]

Government or Human Evolution 147

in the first volume. It is no less manifest in this volume. The keen
criticism of past history does not relieve this volume from this imper-
fection. Dynamic thought is not destructive, it is essentially con-
structive; it explains a process of progress, it never describes an
elysium. Static thought, on the contrary, jumps from a criticism of
the past and of the supposedly static but really ever vanishing present,
to a visualization of the opposite of the social facts criticised and
condemned. Thus criticism raises up a contrasted ideal. Such
visualization is necessarily weak, even when attempted by the philoso-
pher equipped with the tools of d3^namic thought; how much weaker
it must be in the comparative absence of those tools, the two-thirds of
Mr. Kelly's book that remain after the history of individualism,
abundantly testify.

This portion of the book merely states, with some modifications due
to what may be imagined to have been the author's advantages of
early personal environment, the usual socialistic propositions for labor
warrants, gradual absorption of monopolized industries, atrophy of
bank organization, etc. In fact, he is in theory a communist and
more than a communist, for the organic principles of distribution
worked out with infinite pains by such objective philosophers as
Alfred Marshall into a perfected system of analogy to equilibration,
are wiped out as with a sponge.

The chief difference between the socialists and the economists con-
eists in their definitions of "efficiency;" but Mr. Kelly will have
nothing to do with efficiency at all, nor does he stop at the communis-
tic conception that men are to be rewarded according to their needs.
He goes further and claims that each person should receive the same
income by physical standards. The argument in favor of this claim
is that mental progress is assisted by favorable environment. Doubt-
less, as a general proposition, this is true; but it is also true that
mental progress is under many and perhaps the majority of circum-
stances, retarded by an environment of carelessness and plenty. Of
this complementary truth he takes no account. A little touch, show-
ing how completely he neglects dynamic equilibria, is offered by his
explanation of monasticism. Monks and nuns shut themselves up in
order to escape from the evils of competition (p. 220). This doubtless
was the reasoning of the church and he adopts it. In other words,
collect a body of people of the same sex, shut them off from the
world, give them plenty to eat, relieve them from care, and contrive,
if you can, to get them to contemplate kindness and charity, and you
will obtain as a result not only kindness, charity, and unselfishness,
but progress and strong character! It must be said in justice to the
consistency of Mr. Kelly, that the word " character " hardly appears

[335]

148 Annals of the American Academy

in his volumes. It is perfectly apparent that character is developed
by competition and a moment's reflection will show that kindness and
unselfishness can only flow from strong character. He does indeed
say (p. 186), " It became inevitable, therefore, that those who had
most power became masters of those who had most willingness; and
as the faculty of power coupled with selfishness, inevitably goes to
make up the lowest type of individualists, so the faculty of power
coupled with unselfishness, goes to make up the highest type of
socialist. We have thus within the same community, two kinds of
social mind, one of which is by nature equipped to enslave the other."
Of course, the unselfish ones are the many: "The docility and
unselfishness of the many have delivered them over to the imperious-
ness and eagerness of the few " (p. 1S6). Statements of this' sort are
apt to correct themselves, and we find on page 188 that " the human
environment by showering its blessings on the few rich has reduced
the multitude to a condition of poverty which tends to promote
neither a high standard of intelligence nor a high standard of
morality." Can the multitude possess a low standard of morality and
yet be unselfish ? We are told (note i, p. 225) that "selfishness" is
used in the popular sense, not in any technical sense. The evolution
of unselfishness backwards from the rich to the poor is rather hard to
work out, as a theoretical proposition.

Turning to Mr. Kelly's economic ideas, we find that he considers
that it is possible to regulate wages effectively (p. 107); that he
considers the individual to be ground down by the "tyranny of the
market" (p. iii et passim); that competition lowers wages (p. 113); that
liberty of contract leads to industrial slavery (p. 214) (this statement is
made with reference to trade unions. Suppose trade unions raise
wages ?) ; that competition causes wars (p. 124); that it keeps prices and
wages also down. The wage-earners, how-ever, obtain no advantages
from the low prices (p. 126). He thinks that competition causes partial
overproduction, not clearly distinguished in this case, however, from
total overproduction: in other words, he holds the socialistic theory
of crises, that it is necessary for undertakers constantly to increase
production in order to lower prices in order to escape competition
(pp. 128, 129, 131, 149, 159). Further, the theon,' that workmen can
change from occupations in which there is a falling demand to those
in which there is an increasing demand, is untrue (p. 133); cheap
foreign labor can undersell domestic labor (p. 136); the attainment of
the altruistic or collectivist state is hindered by competition (pp. 155,
199). by militarism (p. 151), and by corruption, (p. 164).

What the author says on the subject of corruption is interesting and
■well worthy of attention. He lavs special stress on the point that

[336]

DiK Proportion ALWAHi, in dkr Schweiz 149

" business interests make bad politics." It is doubtless this state of
affairs in the city of New York that has thrown him clear over into
ultra-communism as an ultimate ideal. He suggests that general
education and enlightenment, accompanying his so-called collectivism,
will cure corruption; but a more hopeful view of the case would be
that education of the masses along the specific line of specialization
of function is what is necessary in order to obtain civil service reform;
and his elaborate collectiNnst machinery is nothing but straining at a
camel in order to swallow the gnat of the merit system. Commer-
cialism teaches selfishness (p. 195); in order to be free we must be
economically free. Economic freedom, according to Mr. Kell}-,
consists in being sure of a living in return for four hours' work a day !
Under the title "economic," the Standard Dictionary defines "eco-
nomic freedom " as "a state in which one would not be obliged, in
order to gain a livelihood, to do anything distasteful." Under this
definition, is a man more likely to be free in Mr. Kelly's Collectivist
Utopia or in wicked, competitive New York ?

W. G. lyANGWORTHY TaYLOR.

University of Nebraska.

Die Proportionalwahl in der Schweiz; Geschichte, Darstellung und
Kritik. Von Dr. Emii, Ki:.6ti. Pp. 4S0. Price, 6 marks. Berne:
Schmid & Francke, 1901.

Switzerland, which is so often called the political laboratory of
Europe, constantly puts the rest of the world under a debt of gratitude.
The experiments which are going on in that compact little state may
be studied profitably everywhere, and a democracy like our own can
ill afford to close its eyes to the methods there being employed in the
solution of great problems. No study in foreign government is likely to
yield better returns to the investigator; and although the last few years
have put us well forward in this work, we still have much to learn
about the Swiss political system. The initiative and the referendum
have claimed the attention of many students. Switzerland is pointed
to by friends of proportional representation. The Swiss achievements
in respect of this important reform are well set forth in the work
under revnew. Dr. Kloti treats the subject with the greatest thor-
oughness and detail. He enters into each historical phase of the
movement to introduce the reform in the various Swiss cantons. His
minuteness, indeed, in this regard is so great that the book is made
rather too ponderous for the foreign reader, and one yearns for a
chapter somewhere which would bring the study into narrower com-
pass. The work must for this reason have an interest that is in great

[337]

150 Annai^ of the American Academy

degree local, i. e. , Swiss, although as a book of refereuce for students
everywhere it will be of value.

The Swiss have not come to their present development in propor-
tional representation without a struggle. For many years clubs and
societies of reformers were actively making propaganda for a system
which would give minorities a just share in the government. They
have achieved success in eight out of the twenty-two cantons, and are
busily planning to capture the others whenever opportunity favors it.
Very recently the people voted upon a '* double initiative " to reform
the federal electoral system in this respect. Signers were secured in
favor of the submission of two different constitutional amendments,
which, if they had been approved in the referendum, would have
introduced the proportional system of representation into the federal
practice. The vote was taken November 4, 1900. There were 169,-
008 yeas and 244,666 nays at the polling. Three-fifths of the citizens
and eleven and one-half of the twenty-two cantons declared against
proportional representation. It is a curious fact that two cantons,
Neuchatel and Solothurn, which already use the system in cantonal
matters, disapproved. As far as the nation is concerned, therefore,
the movement has had a setback from which it is not likely to recover
for several years.

Dr. Kloti distinguishes several systems by which it is aimed to give
representation to minority parties, not only in the legislative but also
in the executive and judicial departments of the government. Minor-
ity representation in the strict sense of the term he looks upon as a
compromise, and its defects are clearly pointed out. There are two
principal methods by which minorities may secure representation,
by the non-proportional system: (i) limited voting; (2) cumulative
voting. By the first method every elector votes for a definite propor-
tion of the whole number of candidates who are to be chosen as one-
third or one-half. The minority then is guaranteed a certain repre-
sentation though what number is given it is purely a voluntary matter.
It presumes only two parties, and, in our author's opinion, lacks
" necessary elasticity." By the second-minority system — cumulative
voting — every elector may dispose of as many votes as there are can-
didates to be elected, but he may distribute them at will. While the
first system is regarded as an artificial weakening of the majority, the
second is an artificial strengthening of the minority. Cumulative
voting is also not without its disadvantages, for if a party overesti-
mates its strength and puts forward too many candidates, the minority
may sometimes gain a representative in the government out of pro-
portion to its rights.

It is in the true proportional system that the author puts his faith;

[338]

Dm Proportionalwahl in der Schweiz 151

his explauation and defence of this system, especially as it has
•worked out in the Swiss cantons, fill many pages of the volume. He
discusses Hare's system of quotients and eventual candidates, and
concludes, as most others have done, that without modification, it is
much too complicated. The Swiss have introduced these modifications
and have put the reform on such a footing as to recommend it for gen-
eral adoption in other countries. It would seem still to be far from
simple, and it is doubtful if it will make very rapid headway in the
United States until certain organic difiiculties are cleared away.
Nevertheless, it is to be remembered that we have lately made the
most revolutionary changes in nearly all the states in the direction of
ballot reform, and we seem to be on the eve of another great change,
i. e., from the paper ballot to the automatic machine. Ballot reforms
touch only the surface. These reforms in the systems of representa-
tion go deep down to the root of the whole problem of suffrage. Is
it fair and just that more than one-half of the electors should speak
for the whole electorate? Would it not be more just and at the same
time more expedient to give the various groups and parties in the
electorate a representation in the government in proportion to their
numerical strength ? If this can be done conveniently and satisfac-
torily most people will favor the adoption of the proportional system
of representation.

When only one officer is to be elected in a district as a governor in
a state or a maj'or in a city, it is manifest that the minority must be
unrepresented. It is chiefly in the election of members of legislatures,
councils and boards that proportional representation can be applied.
The injustice of the present arrangement does not yet appeal to the
great body of Americans. They are engaged in trying to correct
other evils in the political body which press upon them more heavily.
If there were powerful minority groups of socialists or ultramontanes
or parties held together by ties of blood and race the injustice would
seem more manifest. We may develop these and they may advocate
proportional representation as a means of securing a voice in the leg-
islatures, but the Anglo-Saxon solvent works so expeditiously in this
country that our political differences are of other kinds.

" The present system," Dr. Kloti says, " is born of a spirit of intol-
erance. We do not feel it so in the manner and to the extent that
it may be felt in some parts of Europe." It was Mirabeau who
declared in 1789:

" I,es assemblees representatives peuvent etre compardes ^des cartes
g^ographiques qui doivent reproduire tons les elements du pays avec
leurs proportions, sans que les Elements les plus considerables faissent
disparaitre les moindres."

[339J

152 Annals of the American Academy

This is an extremely democratic view born of the time of the French
Revolution. Mirabeau and a large body of publicists not only in
France, but also in America, in the latter half of the eighteenth cen-
tury convinced themselves that all would be right if there were one
large legislative assembly in which all classes were represented. No
notion in government is farther from the truth. While it is desirable
that the diflferent classes should be properly voiced in the government
it is a great deal more to the purpose that the representatives should
embody wisdom, character and virtue in their own persons. They
may represent whatever you choose, but if they do not have charac-
ter within themselves, they will be of little credit to the constituency
that sends them out or to the state in the larger sense. None of the
world's great statesmen became great because he represented some
particular faction in the electorate. Dr. Kloti is quite right, there-
fore, in his conclusion that it is self-evident (selbstverstandlich) that
proportional representation can create ' ' no political Eldorado. ' '

Ei<i<rs P. Oberhoi,tzer.

Philadelphia.

Histoire de France, depuis les origines jusguW la Revolution. Par
Ernest Lavisse, publiee avec la collaboration de MM. Bayet,
Bloch, Carre, Coville, Kleinclausz, Langlois, Lemonnier, Luchaire,
Mariejol, Petit-Dutaillis, Rebelliau, Sagnac, Vidal de la Blache.
Paris : Hachette et Cie, 1901.

There has been no satisfactory history of France. It is not necessary
to point out in detail the faults of the existing works; no one of them
represents in any way the results of the careful study of the last
decades. There was an imperative necessity' for the history- to be
rewritten in the light of our present knowledge.

This task has been undertaken by Lavisse with the assistance of the
able scholars named above. It will be published in sixtj'-four
fasciculi, and usually two of these will be issued each month, except
during the summer vacations. The complete work will consist of
eight volumes of about Soo pages each or, rather, sixteen half-volumes
of 400 pages each. The price is only six francs a half volume. Thus
far one-half of Volume I, the second half of Volume II, and the whole
of Volume III have been published. These four half volumes average
430 pages each. The whole work will be completed probably in 1903.
M. Bloch in Volume I treats of "The Origins, Independent Gaul,
and Roman Gaul." Nearly three- fourths of the space is given,
fittingly, to the last subject. In reading this volume we are impressed
by the skill with which the author has succeeded in condensing an
enormous mass of material into what is relatively so small a space.

[340]

HisToiRE DE France 153

For instance, in eight pages he discusses very clearly and in detail
the history, theory and system of direct and indirect taxation.

M. Luchaire has written the second half of Volume II and the first
half of Volume Ill.which cover the periods from 987 to 1137 and 1137
to 1226, respectivel}^ It would be a work of supererogation to point
out his pre-eminent fitness for this task. B}- his previous study
and writings he has made this field peculiarly his own. Volume II,
part 2, is divided into two books: " Feudalism and the Church
(eleventh century)" and" The French Renaissance (end of the
eleventh and beginning of the twelfth ceuturj')." In reading this
volume the present reviewer has noted section after section as espe-
cially worthy of remark. But on running over his notes he has found
that it would require a long review even to mention the subjects thus
noted. The same statement is true of the two succeeding volumes.

Volume III, part i, is divided into three books: "Louis VII.,"
"Philip Augustus and Louis VIII.," and "French Society (end of
the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth century). " The evolution
of the Capetian monarchy is naturally the main subject and Philip
Augustus is the central figure; to him 200 pages are given. The
battle of Bouvines and its results occupy thirty-seven pages.

In Volume III, part 2, M. Langlois writes of the period from 1226
to 1328. The first two books discuss the political events from 1226
to 1285, and 1286 to 1328 respectively; the third book, about one-
quarter of the volume, institutions and civilization. M. Luchaire has
withstood temptation, and the heroic and saintly Louis IX. receives
less space than Philip the Fair — as it is proper that he should. A
quotation will illustrate the character of the last section of this volume,
which is the most interesting. Detix fails dominent Vhistoire de
Vadivitk intellectuelle au XIII" siecle : la decadence de Pidialisme et
de la litterature artificielle, et le developpenient de l' esprit scientifiqtie.

II y avail eu, au XII^ siecle, dans les Scales, une renaissance des
lettres qui n^ est pas sans analogie avec le ^nouvenient plus celebre,
plus cornplet et plus fecond, de la Renaissance proprenient dite . . .

Le X/I^ siecle finissant avail paru desesperer de la raison : jamais
les mystiques, contempteurs de la science et de la curiosite scientifique,
n''ont etc plus nontbreux qu'aic temps oh Vecole theologique du monas-
thre de Saint-Victor de Paris fut dans sa gloire. Le XIII^ siecle, au
contraire, leplus '•'■ intellectualiste''^ du nioyendge, a eu passionnement
confiance dans la raison; it a essaye de savoir; il a voulu tout
demontrer (p. 387).

All of the volumes are characterized by an extreme lucidity of state-
ment, by a logical analysis which makes them easy to read and study.
Cross-references which bind the various parts together are frequent

[341]

154 Annals of the American Academy

and are indicative of the careful editorial work. For each section a
select bibliography of sources and secondary works is given. Thus
this history becomes an invaluable guide to further study. There is a
■wealth of illustrative material from contemporary sources which
emphasizes the general statements of facts. France is never treated
as an isolated land, but its associations with the surrounding countries
are kept constantly in mind. In particular much attention is given
to institutions, literature, art, the life and thoughts of the people.
The authors have succeeded in making the work tin tableau complet,
Men que forchnent abrege, de la civilisation frangaise.

The most important defect, in our opinion, is that some statements,
which seem open to doubt, are made absolutely and without reference
to authorities. For example, M. Luchaire (Vol. Ill, part i, p. 338)
says: A coup stir, la corporation generate avail dejci son chef ou son
directeur {capitate) en 1200, annie oh elle regut du roi de France son
premier privilege connu, car, dans cette charte, Philippe- Atiguste
co7nprend evidemment sousle nom de scolares, tout le personnel de la
grande ecole parisienne, mattres et etudiants. Rashdall and others
deny that capitate in the privilege of Philip Augustus means the chief
of the students, and hold that it probably refers to the chattels of the
students. In this, and in similar cases, the statement stands in need
of defence, or a foot-note should be given indicating that other
authorities do not hold the same view.

Although the collaborators have been, as a whole, so well chosen, we
miss the names of some French scholars who seem especially fitted to
participate in this work. The volumes have greater unity because
each is written by a single author, but occasionally we regret that
some special topic has not been treated by the student who is best
fitted to discuss that particular theme. Some subjects which seem per-
tinent have not been treated as yet, but possibly, as in the case of the
history of Christianity in Roman Gaul, these will find a place in a
later volume. As a whole the history thus far is worthy of the highest
praise. It represents the most accurate scholarship of the present
day and is an absolute necessity to every student of French history.

Dan.\ Cari<eton Munro.

University of Pennsylvania.

Life of the Etnperor Frederick. Edited from the German of
Margaretha von Poschinger, with an Introduction. By Sidney
Whitman. Pp. xiv, 460. Price, ^^2.50. New York : Harper and
Brothers, 1901.
In 1900 Margaretha voii Poschinger published the last of three

volumes devoted to the life of Frederick III., German emperor, and

[342]

Life of the Emperor Frederick 155

embodying new information gathered from private and ofloicial docu-
ments. Of this work Mr. Sidney Whitman has issued an edition in
one volume, omitting such portions of the original as seemed of little
interest to English readers or savored too much of German patriotism.
The result is a convenient and compact biography containing large
numbers of original letters and papers, hitherto unprinted, and con-
veying an impression of the emperor's personality and political
attitude that is in large measure new.

One-half of the volume is given up to purely domestic and personal
details relating to the emperor's early life, his courtship and marriage,
his historical and artistic activities, and his travels. Another quarter
is given up to his military career. This leaves but a quarter of the
work for a discussion of his political ideas and influences in which the
reader will expect to find sensational revelations, if he has believed
all the tales, which, as the outgrowth of the dramatic scenes of the
emperor's brief reign and tragic death and the publication of his
diary by Dr. Geflfcken, have been current in the newspapers of the past
thirteen years. But in this he will be disappointed. The book con-
tains no "revelations." The reader will look in vain for evidence
to support those traditions of the emperor's earlier career which
accredited him with personal hostility for Bismarck, with attempts to
thwart his policy, with a preponderating share in the erection of the
German empire, or, in general, with the desire to inaugurate either
openly or secretly a pro-English or parliamentary form of govern-
ment. On the other hand he will find that Frederick, except when
regent or emperor, though actively and eagerly interested in all that
concerned the political welfare of Prussia and Germany, abstained at
all times from interfering in affairs of state.

That Frederick had strong and definite opinions is of course to be
expected. He was in the years of conflict in Prussia, from 1S62 to 1865,
a constitutionalist, distrustful of Bismarck and hostile to his policy ;
he was opposed to the annexation of Schleswig-Holstein by Prussia,
and even after the close of the Danish war supported the cause of
Augustenburg, largely on personal grounds ; he voted against war
with Austria, at the council meeting of February 28, 1866, and did all
in his power to preserve peace ; and at first objected to the revival of
the imperial title. But after the Austro- Prussian war his attitude
underwent a change ; he upheld Bismarck in the latter's desire that
Austria should receive generous treatment, joined him in persuading
the king to issue a complete political amnesty, after 1867 gave up his
opposition to the assumption of the title of emperor by the king of
Prussia, and after 1869 abandoned his objections to Bismarck's policy
for German unity. He became, in fact, the champion of imperialism,

[343]

156 Annals of the American Academy

declared that he was ready to assume all the added responsibilities
that it might entail, and put forth as his political program "a
powerful German empire under the enlightened government of the
HohenzoUerns. ' '

During the regency of 1878, though called upon to govern accord-
ing to his father's ideas and often to act contrary to his own convic-
tions, he maintained a strictly correct attitude, and only in his dealings
with the papacy was he able to outline a personal policy. His influ-
ence in inducing William I. to sign the treaty of 1S79 with Austria,
commonly thought to have been considerable, is in this work reduced
to a minimum, though the only evidence given by the author in sup-
port of her statement is the already known comments of Bismarck in
his "Reflections and Reminiscences." The story of Frederick's
three months' reign is simply told, without any attempt to rehearse
the unhappy quarrels and recriminations arising from the emperor's
sickness. A little space is devoted to the forced resignation of Bis-
marck's kinsman, von Puttkamer, because of official interference in
the elections, but beyond that nothing is said. The book ends
abruptly without summing up or general conclusion. But so ample
is the information furnished in the body of the work that the reader
is able readily to arrive at his own conclusions and to form, without
further assistance, an admirable idea of the man whom the world has
always admired and will admire none the less for this book.

Charles M. Andrews.

Bryn Mawr CoUege.

The American Slave lyade. An Account of its Origin, Growth and
Suppression. By John R. Spears. Illustrated by Walter Appleton
Clark. Pp. x\-i and 232. Price, $2.50. New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 19CO.

That history in which exact and painstaking scholarship is linked
with a readable and interesting style seldom sees the light of day.
One has usually the choice between a dry catalogue of facts and a
" popular " treatise. Mr. Spears book is distinctly popular, written
in an easy, almost careless stvle and embellished with pictures, some
striking and some curious, it is a volume which people will read. Its
tone is high and the general impression given is a true one. Never-
theless one cannot help regretting that the element of scholarship was
not more marked. Th.ere is a dogmatism about some alleged facts, an
irregular massing of material and a lack of perspective and proportion
in the work which is disappointing. For instance, we are told that
" not one act passed bj-a colonial legislature showed any appreciation
of the intrinsic evil in the [slave] trade or tended to extirpate it from

L344]

The American Si,ave Trade 157

the seas — not one" (p. 97); that it was wholly political policy, with
no touch of philanthropy, that prohibited slavery in the new colony
of Georgia (p. 96), and that Oglethorpe was " one ot the most active
participants" in the slave trade "known to his age." Again, some
chapters, like the one on the international phase of slave-trade sup-
pression, are more like catalogues or extracts from a note-book than
careful essays.

The most valuable parts of the work are the anecdotes and tales of
the trade, which are attractively written and calculated to interest.
Such chapters as relate to "Old Time Slaver Captains and Their
Ships," "The Slaver's Profit," "Tales of the Earlier Smugglers,"
etc., are much more readable than the historical chapters. There is
a dangerous blending of history and fiction in the book that makes
the reader not always certain of his ground.

W. E. BURGHARDT DU BOIS.
Atlanta University.

C345]

BOOKS RECEIVED FROM APRIL i, 1901, TO AUGUST i, 1901.

Aal, A., Das Preussische Rentengnt. Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta. 4m.

American Economic Association, Papers and Proceedings of the Thirteenth

Annual Meeting. Macmillan. f 1.25.
L'Ann^e Sociologique (1S99-1900). Bibliotheque de Philosophic Contemporaine.

Felix Alcan. lo/r.
Armstrong, M. K., Early Empire Builders of the Great West. St. Paul: E. W.

Porter. $1.25.
Aupetit, A., Essai sur la Th^orie gengrale de la Monnaie. Paris: Guillaumin et

Cie. 10 /r.
Aulard, A., Histoire Politique de la Revolution Fran5aise. Paris: Armand. Colin.

I2y>-.
Avirett, J. B., Old Plantation. F. Tennyson Neely Co. $150.

Bancel, A. D., Le Coop^ratisme. (Third Edition.) Paris: Schleicher Freres. i.soyr.
Belgique— Economic Sociale. Rapport General. Exposition universelle Inter-
nationale de Paris, 1900. Bruxelles- Alired Vromant & Co.
Bernstein, E., Zur Gescliichte and Theorie des Socialismus. Berlin: Dr. John

Edelheim. sm.
Bernstein, E., Wie ist Wissenschaftlicher Socialismus Moglich? Berlin: Verlag

der Socialistischen Monatshefle.
Binet, A., La Suggestibility. Paris: Schleicher Freres.

Birkmeyer, K., Encyclopadie der Rechtswissenschaft. Berlin: O. Haring.
Blum, L., Les Congres Ou%Tiers et Socialistes Fran9ais. (Two Volumes.) Paris:

G. Bellais. 0.50 /r each.
Bourgin, H., Proudhon. Paris: G. Bellais. o.$o/r.
Boyd, J. P., Triumphs and Wonders of the Nineteenth Century. Philadelphia: A.

J. Holman & Co. J2.50.
Brannon, H., A Treatise on the Rights and Privileges Guaranteed by the Four-
teenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Cincinnati: W.

H. Anderson & Co.
Brown, A., English Politics in Early Virginia History. Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

$2.00.
Bryant, E. E-, Constitution of the United States. Madison: Democrat Printing

Co. ^2.50.
Biichner, L.. A I'Aurore du Siecle coup d'oeuil d'un Penseur sur le Pass6 et

I'Avenir. Paris: Schleicher Fr6res.
Butler, J. W., Story of Paper Making. Chicago: J. W. Butler Paper Co. Ji.oo.
Callahan, J. M., Diplomatic History of the Southern Confederacy. Baltimore:

Johns Hopkins Press, ^i.sa
Carlile, W. W., Evolution of Modern Money. Macmillan. J2.5a
Central Poor Law Conferences, Report of Proceedings of Twenty-ninth Annual

Poor Law Conference. London: P. S. King & Son. zs.
Challomel, J., Compte Rendu et Documents du Congrfes International des Habita-
tions a Bon March6, tenu h. Paris, Juin, 1900.
Chandler, J. A. C, History of Suffrage in Virginia. Johns Hopkins Press.
Chapin, C. V., Municipal Sanitation in the United States. Providence: Snow

& Farnham.
Coen, G., La Questione Coloniale e I Popoli di Razza Latina. Livorno: Rafiaello

Guisti. 3/.

[346]

Books Received 159

Cohn, G., Zur Geschichte und Politik des Verkehrswesens. Stuttgart: Ferdinand

Knke.
Cordier, H., Histoire des Relations de la Chine. Felix Alcan.
Davis, A. McF., Currency and Banking in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay.

American Economic Association. $1.75.
Demolins, E., Comment la route cr^e le type social: les routes de I'antiquit^.

Paris: Firmin Didot et Cie. s-SoyV.
Devine, E. T., Practice of Charity. Nevy York: Lentilhon & Co. $0.65.
Dormer, F. J., Vengeance 'as a Policy in Afrikanderland. London: James Nisbet

& Co. 6s.
Dumont, A., La Morale Bas4e sur la Demographic. Schleicher Freres. 3.5oy>.
Dunbar, C. F., Chapters on the Theory and History of Banking. (Second

Edition.) Putnams. ^1.25.
Eberstadt, R., Der Deutsche Kapitalmarkt. Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot. ym.
Estee, D. M., Principles of Civil Government. (Fifteenth Edition.) Rochester,

N. Y.: Educational Gazette Publishing Co. $0.60.
Evans, R. D., A Sailor's Log. New York: D. Appleton & Co. |2.oo.
Fagniez, G., Documents Relatifs a I'Histoire de 1' Industrie et du Commerce en

France. (Two Volumes.) Paris: Alphonse Picard et fils. g.^o/r. a.ud lo/r.
Federici, E., La Prevenzione dei Suicidio da Parte della Societa. Venezia: G. B.

Monauni.
Ferri. E., Socialism and Modern Science. New York: International Library Pub-
lishing Co. $1.00.
Flick, A. C, Loyalism in New York During the American Revolution. New

York: Columbia University Press. $2.00.
Fourniere, E., Essai sur I'lndividualisme. Felix •A.lcan.
Francotte, H., L'Industrie dans la GrSce Ancienne. Bruxelles: Soci6t6 Beige de

Librairie.
Garner, J. W., Reconstruction in Mississippi. Macraillau. Jj.oo.
George, M. M., Editor, A Little Journey tothe Philippines. Chicago: A. Flanagan

Co. Jo. 15.
Gooch, G. P., Annals of Politics and Culture (1492-1S99). Macmillan. $2.25.
Gunton, G., and Robbins, H., Outlines of Political Science. Appleton. $0.75.
Guyot, Y., La Question des Sucres en igoi. Paris: Guillaumin & Cie. 3/r.
Halsey, F. W., Old New York Frontier. Scribners. $2. 5a
Hansen, J., Zauberwahn, Inquisition und Hexenprozesz im Mittelalter. Miinchen:

R. Oldenbourg. 10m.
Harper, W. R., The Prospects of the Small College. Chicago; University Press.

$0.25.
Hauser, H., L'Or. Paris: Nony et Cie.

Helfferich, K., Handelspolitik. Duncker & Humblot. 4.60OT.
Henderson, C. R., Introduction to the Study of the Dependent, Defective and De.

Hnquent Classes. (Second Edition.) Boston: D. C. Heath & Co. J1.50.
Henderson, J. B., Jr., American Diplomatic Questions. Macmillan. ^3.50.
Hobson, J. A., The Social Problem, Life and Work. New York: James Pott & Co.

$2.00.
Hodder, A., The Adversaries of the Sceptic. Macmillan. $1.50.
Holt, H., Talks on Civics. Macmillan. $1.25

Hopkins, J. C, Story ot the Dominion. Philadelphia: JohnC. Winston Co. $2.50.
Ilbert, C, Legislative Methods and Forms. New York: Oxford University Press.
Jellett, J. H., and Meyerstein, J. C, Pacific Coast Commercial Laws. San Fran-
cisco: (By Authors). $5.00.
Jellinek, G., The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens. Henry Holt

& Co. Jo. 75.

[347]

i6o AnnaIvS of thk American Academy

Kaerger, K., Landwirtschaft u. Kolonisation im Spanischen Amerika. (Two Vol.

umes.) Duncker & Humblot. 42.So»2.
Kelly, E., Government or Human Evolution. Volume II. New York: Long-
mans, Green & Co. $2.50.
von Korosy, J., Die Finanziellen Ergebnisse der Actiengesellschaften. Berlin:

Puttkammer & Miihlbrecht. 1.50m.
Kuhns, O., The German and Swiss Settlements of Colonial Pennsylvania. New

York: Henry Holt & Co.
Landry, A., L'Utilite Sociale de la Propri6t6 ludividuelle. Paris: Soci6t6 Nou-

velle de Librairie et d'Edition. ".y/r.
Langlois. Ch. V., Manuel de Bibliographie Historique. Paris: Hachette et Cie.
Lapeyre, P., Le Catholicisme Social. (Three Volumes.) Paris: P. Lethielleux.

Z-yfr. each.
Lavisse, E., Histoire de France. (Three Volumes.) Hachette et Cie.
Lawrence, T. J., Principles of International Law. (Third Edition.) Boston: D.

C. Heath & Co. $3.00.
"Abe " Lincoln's Yarns and Stories. New York: W. W. Wilson. $2.25.
London Board of Trade — Seventh Annual Abstract of Labour Statistics of the

United Kingdom. London: Darling & Son. is.
Lowery, \V., The Spanish Settlements Within the Present Limits of the United

States(i5i3-i56i). Putnams.
Lynch, H., French Life in Town and Country. Putnams. $1.20.
Maass, L., Der Einfluss der Maschine auf das Schreinergewerbe in Deutschland.

Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta. 3W.
Martin, R., Anthropologic als Wissenschafl und Lehrfach. Jena: Gustav Fischer.
Matteotti, M., L'Assicurazione contro la Disoccupazione. Torino: Fratelli Bocca.

McCarthy, J. and J. H., A History of the Four Georges and of William IV. (Vols.
Ill and IV.) Harpers. ^1.25 each.

Michaud d'Humiac, L., Les Grandes L^gendes de I'Humanit^. (Fourth Edition.)
Schleicher Freres. i.$o/r.

Misonne, O., Une Region de la Belgique. Tournai: H. & L. Casterman.

Montgomery, D. H., The Leading Facts of English History. Ginn & Co. $1.25.

Morris, C, The Life of Queen Victoria. Philadelphia: J. C. Winston Co. ?2.25.

de Mortillet, G. & A.. Le Prehistorique. Origine et Antiquite d'Homme. (Third
Edition.) Schleicher Freres.

Murisier, E., Les Maladies du Sentiment Religieux. Felix Alcan. 2.50/r.

Murray, J. O'K., The Catholic Pioneers of America. (New Edition.) Philadelphia:
H. L. Kilner & Co. $1.00.

Natives of South Africa: Their Economic and Social Condition. London: John
Murray. 125.

Neve, J. E., L' Administration d'une Grande Ville — Londres. Gand: A. Huyshau-
wer & L. Scheerder.

New York— Eighth Annual Report of State Charities Aid Association. (Second
Edition.)

Nossig, A., Revision des Socialismus — Erster Band. Berlin: Akademischer Verlag
fur Sociale Wissenschaften.

Nuttal, Z., Fundamental Principles of Old and New World Civilizations. Cam-
bridge, Mass.: Peabody Museum.

Palante, G., Precis de Sociologie. Felix Alcan. 2.50/r.

Pangborn, J. G., Side Lights on Management World Systems Railways. Balti-
more: (Author). $1.00.

Paris — Cinquieme Cougres Socialiste International, tenu 3. Paris, September, 1900-
G.eorges Bellais. 1.25 fr.

[348]

Books Received i6i

Paris— Deuxi^me Congres General des Organisations Socialistes Franyaises, tenu a

Paris, September, 1900. Georges Bellais. 3/r.
Perry, F., Saint Louis (Louis IX of France). Putaams. $1.50.
de Pouvourville, A., L'Fmpire du Milieu. Schleicher Freres. 2 fr.
de .Pouvourville, A., La Chine des Mandarins. (Second Edition.) Schleicher

Freres. 2fr.
Price, L. L., A Short History of English Commerce and Industry. London:

Edward Arnold. 3J. 6rf.
Public Papers of George Clinton, First Governor of New York. (Vol. IV.) Albany:

James B. Lyon.
Quanter, R., Die Schand- und Ehrenstrafen in der deutschen Rechtspflege. Dres-
den: H. R. Dohrn.
Randolph, C. F., Joint Resolution of Congress Respecting Relations Between

United States and Cuba. Reprinted from Columbia Law Review.
Ravenel, Mrs. St. J., Life and Times of William Lowndes of South Carolina.

Houghton, Mifflin & Co. fi.50.
Reclus. E., L'Afrique Australe. Hachette et Cie.

Redlich, J., Englische Lokalverwaltung. Duncker & Humblot. 20 m.
Reinsch, P. S., French Experience with Representative Government in the West

Indies. Reprinted from American Historical Review.
Reformers' Year Book. Wallasley, Cheshire: Joseph Edwards, u.
Richet, C, Les Guerres et la Paix. (Sixth Edition.) Schleicher Freres. 1.50/r.
Righini, E., Antisemitismo e Semitismo nell' Italia Politica Moderna. Milano:

Remo Sandron. 3 /.
Robinson, A. G., Philippines: the War and the People. McClure, Phillips & Co,

$2.00.
Robinson, C. M., Improvement of Towns and Cities. Putnams. $1.25.
Rolofl!", G., Die Kolonialpolitik Napoleons I. Miiuchen: R. Oldeubourg. ^m.
Ross, E. A., Social Control. Macmillan. J1.25.
Rentier, G., L'Industrie et le Commerce de I'Espagne. (Third Edition.) Paris :

H. Le Soudier. s/V.
Rutten, Le P. G. C, Nos Greves Houilleres et 1' Action Socialistes d'Aprds une

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Sanger, C. P., Place of Compensation in Temperance Reform. London: P. S.

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1 62 Annals of the American Academy

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NOTES.

I. MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT.

New York. — "Consolidated Electionsy^ "Consolidated elec-
tions" is a term which has recently come much into vogue in the up-
state districts of New York, and which is perhaps best defined by
saying that it means the opposite of separate municipal elections.
Until recently the city of Ithaca held its municipal elections in the
spring. Ostensibly because of the extra expense involved in holding
these elections separately, the Republican City Committee in the
early part of this year called upon the assemblyman representing the
Ithaca district at Albany to secure the passage of a bill "consolidating "
or combining the city election with other elections. As it was under-
stood at the time that the city election would be put in the fall of the
odd years, and would thus be combined with the election of the
short state ticket only, little or no opposition was made to this move-
ment. But when the bill, which was of course a special measure and
as such had to be submitted to the mayor and council of the city
before final action was taken upon it, reached Ithaca, it was discovered
that the city election had been shifted to the fall of the even years
and would thus coincide both with elections for the full state ticket and
with national elections.

Considerable opposition to the bill in its new form was immediately
made manifest, and at a public hearing held on April lo, by the
mayor and council, there was a very lively discussion regarding the
bill itself, its origin and the circumstances under which the above-
noted change was made. Those favoring the bill pointed out the
saving to be effected by it, which was estimated at about six hundred
dollars on each municipal election — no inconsiderable item in the
budget of a city so small and with a tax rate so high as Ithaca. To the
objection that city interests might be jeopardized if decision upon
them were to be made at a time when the voters were under the influ-
ence of strong party feeling engendered by a hard-fought national or
state campaign, the reply was that the voters of so enlightened a
place were perfectly competent to keep the issues of the three-ringed
political circus — national, state and municipal — sharply distinct in
their minds and at the ballot-box. It was further argued that
while the machine-led mass and the venal element could always
be counted on to be on hand at any and all elections, there
was, under the separate election system, a strong tendency among

1 Contributed by Robert C. Brooks, Cornell University.

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164 Annai^ of the American Academy

the best element of the city's voters to remain away from the polls
during municipal elections, owing to the false notion that such elec-
tions are of small importance in comparison with state and national
elections. This fact, it was claimed, gave the party boss greater power
over the city under the separate system than he could hope to attain
with combined elections.

The issue was decided in the council by a strict party vote and the
bill has since received the signature of the governor. Similar move-
ments have occurred recently in a number of other smaller munici-
palities in the state. Since most of these cities are normally
republican, and since combined elections would usually favor that
party in municipal affairs which had the larger regular following
during national campaigns, there is more than a suspicion among
those who uphold the separate system of elections that the movement
was started " by authority."

New Orleans. 1 — The wharves of New Orleans have for many years
been leased to contractors who collected dues for wharfage and kept
the wharves repaired, lighted and policed.

The lease has expired and the wharves have been placed under the
management of a commission who propose to make New Orleans as
near a free port as possible, and at the same time give good facilities
for loading and unloading. The month of June, the dullest in the
year, is the first month of the new administration.

The following comparative statement shows earnings of the Board
of Commissioners of the port of New Orleans from wharfage dues on
vessels arriving during the month of June, 1901, and the amount that
would have accrued to the wharf lessees from said arrivals under the
former rates :

— wharfage Accounts — Reduc-

Old Rate. New Rate. tion.

Sea-going vessels . . $17,658 56 |io,i55 55 $7,5^3 01

Steamboats 1,048 32 786 24 262 08

Miscellaneous . . . 692 84 519 63 173 21

Luggers 185 60 139 20 46 40

Transportation barges 1,033 28 774 96 25S 32

Total |2o,6iS 60 |i2,375 58 ^8,243 02

Wisconsin.^ — Municipal Charter Legislation in Wisconsin. We
have in Wisconsin what is known as the League of Wisconsin Munici-
palities. More than sixty cities, through their mayors, are connected
with this organization. The city of Milwaukee stands in a class by
itself and is not connected with the League of Municipalities. Our

1 Contributed by B. R. Forman, New Orleans.

2 Contributed by C. E. Monroe, Milwaukee.

[352]

Municipal Government 165

cities generally operate under special charters, many of which are
quite old. They date back to a time when it was easy to get the peo-
ple out to vote and almost all of them provide for annual elections
of mayor and aldermen. The powers of mayors are very limited.
These features are true almost universally, but there are two cities
— La Crosse and Oshkosh — whose charters give their aldermen a
four years' term of office. In other features the various charters diflFer
greatly among themselves. Feeling the disadvantage of these
diversities in their organic laws and feeling also the weakness of
many of their common features, an attempt was made to remove
these disadvantages by means of a bill, which should be of uniform
operation throughout the state. This provided for longer terms
for municipal officers and added to the powers of the mayors. The
first tentative bill was introduced in both houses of the legislature,
and, when a discussion of its merits had shown its inapplicability
to some of the municipalities affected by its provisions, a carefully
drawn substitute was offered in its place. Curiously enough there
were, in many quarters, objections to the extension of the terms of
aldermen and mayors from one year to two. The final result of the
eflfort of the League of Wisconsin Municipalities was the passage of an
act extending the terms of elective administrative officers to two years.

Two bills were introduced in the Assembly which deserve mention.
One of these proposed an amendment to that provision of the consti-
tution of the state which limits the indebtedness of municipal corpora-
tions to 5 per cent of the value of the taxable property therein, so as
to permit the incurring of additional indebtedness of 5 per cent for the
purchase or construction of water or lighting works and such other
public utilities as the municipalities may be authorized by law to own
and operate. The bill was killed. The second bill, general in its
application, was too novel and too good to succeed, and, consequently,
suffered the fate of the other. It provided that " No ordinance for
granting a franchise to perform a public service, or make use of
public property, or for the extension of any existing franchise, shall be
operative in any city in this state until after sixty days from the date
of its passage; and if during such period of sixty days a number of
qualified voters equal to 5 per cent of the total number of votes cast
at the last preceding election in such city shall demand that the ordi-
nance shall be submitted to a direct vote of all the voters, such
ordinance shall not be valid or operative until it shall have been so
submitted and approved by a majority of those voting upon it."

Another bill was introduced, the material section of which is as
follows: "Power is hereby given to the common councils of cities
and to the trustees of incorporated villages to alter franchises hereto-

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i66 Annals of the American Academy

fore or hereafter granted by such cities and villages to persons
or corporations." The purpose was to put into the possession of
municipalities a power of amendment of franchises which would
enable them to overcome the plea of contract rights so generally
urged by the donees of public grants. It was killed, of course.

A common provision of our municipal charters requires the publica-
tion of the terms of proposed grants of public franchises for a certain
length of time in advance of action upon them by the common coun-
cil, and where substantial amendments have been made in the original
franchise, these also are required to be published in the same way.
An effort has been made to do away with this requirement so far as
it relates to the amended franchises, but this measure has failed to pass.

A certain class of bills, which is generally received with favor in our
legislature, has met the unusual fate at this session of receiving the
governor's veto after successfully running the gauntlet of both houses.
These are bills through which the legislature attempts to interfere
with local government by fixing or raising the compensation of local
officers. A number of these were introduced at the present session
coming principally from the city and county of Milwaukee. The
governor has put his veto upon the ground that matters, like these,
of purely local interest should be decided by the local legislative
authority.

Biddeford, Me. — Non-partisan Municipal Government.'^ — Bidde-
ford has a population of 16,500, about 2,800 voters and a valuation of
^7,000,000. The principal industries are the construction of cotton
manufacturing machinery, giving employment to 1,200 men, and
the manufacturing of cotton goods, in which about 3,500 people are
employed.

Up to March, 1S96, state and national politics entered largely into
our municipal elections, first one party and then the other exploiting
the city for party purposes. Contributions to the election fund were
expected and received from party members, offices and profitable
contracts naturally finding their way into the hands of the liberal
contributors. Corruption at the polls and vote buying had become
notorious. One man told me that he had helped put out f 2, 200 in
buying votes in one w^ard, and he thought the opposition had put out
as much more in the same ward for the same purpose — that as much
as f 100 had been paid for a single vote — and I50 had frequently been
paid. In the scramble, vote-sellers had come to number about 20 per
cent of our voting population, while election days were noted for
drunkenness and disturbances at the polls were not infrequent.

On January 31, 1896, according to our treasurer's report we had out-

1 Contributed by Howard Hamilton, Secretary Citizens' Municipal Association.

[354]

MuNiciPAi. Government 167

standing notes and bonds amounting to 1486,300, or $139,000 indebt-
edness beyond the legal limit of five per cent. In addition to the
above, a large balance account was carried into the next year, and there
were thousands of dollars worth of open accounts held against the city,
the amount of which it took some time to ascertain.

In February, 1896, previous to our annual March election, a few of
the leading men of both parties met to devise some means of ridding
the city of the evils of partisan government, and formed a preliminary
organization, which later became the Citizens' Municipal Association.
This organization demanded that state and national politics should be
absolutely eliminated from municipal affairs; that city officers be nom-
inated and elected solely on account of their honesty and efficiency,
and that municipal affairs should be conducted upon non-partisan and
strictly business principles. The movement grew rapidly in numbers,
nominations were made, equally divided between the best men of the
two old parties, and endorsed b}- the Democratic party. After an
exciting campaign, at an exciting election, the " citizen " candidate
for mayor was elected by a good majority, while the ticket was
elected in four of the seven wards, thus giving the " citizens " control
of municipal affairs.

At the first inaugural of our ''citizen " mayor he said in his
address, " instead of a debt of ^86, 000 we have a debt of nearly
|;6oo,ooo, or 8>^ per cent of our valuation." We were in condition to
repudiate a large amount, but, to the credit of our citizens, repu-
diation was not thought of. It is not necessary to go into details as
to the ways and means that were used to extricate the city from this
predicament, but suffice it to say that every succeeding election has
shown increasing faith in the principle of administering municipal
government on a non-partisan and business-like basis.

In March, 1897, we re-elected our mayor by an increased majority
and carried six of the seven wards. In 1898 and 1899 the " citizen "
mayor was elected and all seven wards carried. In 1900, and again in
1901, there was no opposition to the " citizen " candidates, all officers
of 1900 being re-elected in 1901. On January 31, 1901 — the end of the
fifth year of non-partisan administration — our treasurer stated in his
annual report that the city's net indebtedness was $355,400. Deduct
this last amount from f6oo,ooo debt, as estimated by our mayor in
March, 1896. and we show a reduction of our debt, in five years, of
about $245,000. During that same time the tax rate has been reduced
20 per cent.

In addition to the financial benefits that have been derived from
this non-partisan movement, there are moral benefits resulting from the
abolition of corrupt practices at the polls. Our example is being fol-

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1 68 Annals of the American Academy

lowed by other cities of the state. Our neighboring city, Saco, has
this year elected its first non-partisan city government, and the follow-
ing towns in York County have also fallen into line and elected offi-
cers belonging to both the old parties, viz. : Old Orchard, Alfred, Leb-
anon, Shapleigh and Waterboro. It is proposed to extend this move-
ment to the election of county officers.

Brooklyn. — Special Legislatioti} The legislature of 1901 passed
many bills affecting the city of New York as a whole, and a few
measures applying exclusively to the borough of Brooklyn. Of
the latter may be mentioned a bill pro\dding for the depression
of the tracks of the Long Island Railroad Company in Atlantic
Avenue, partly at public expense. When Brooklyn was an independ-
ent municipality legislative authority for depressing the tracks was
secured, but the expenditure of public money on the work was condi-
tioned on the acquirement of a franchise for a tunnel to connect the
existing terminal of the railroad with a point in Manhattan. There
were difficulties in the way of getting the franchise, and the law was
amended later so as to separate the track depression feature of the im-
provement from the tunnel scheme. Further amendments were pro-
posed both last year and this. Mayor Van Wyck has vetoed all the
amendments because he is opposed to the use of public money for the
relief of the railroad. But the people of Brooklyn have insisted on
the improvement of the street through which the railroad runs, and
have persuaded the legislature to overrule the opposition of the city
government. This is legislative interference from Albanj'- at the
earnest solicitation of the community interfered with. It is appeal
from the home government to the government in Albany. The law
as it now stands has removed all known obstacles in the way of
improving the street.

Then again, the legislature has passed a bill providing for the open-
ing of Bedford Avenue through a new district, on conditions different
from those provided in the charter. The opened street will be some-
thing like a boulevard for the benefit of those who want to reach the
sea by the most direct route. The owners of adjoining property
thought that the city should pay a larger proportion of the cost of
opening it and paving it with asphalt than was permitted by the
charter, so they asked the legislature to provide that the city should
pay two-thirds of the cost of the improvement. Again, in spite of the
mayor's objections, the legislature granted the request of the inter-
ested people.

Charter Revision. The general revision of the charter has affected
the borough of Brooklyn more than any of the special bills passed for
1 Contributed by George William Douglas, Brooklyn.

[356]

MuNiciPAi, Government 169

specific purposes. Under the new charter, which is to go into effect
next year, Brooklyn will have a greater degree of independence than
under the old system of borough government. The borough president
will be practically a commissioner of public works for the borough.
He will appoint a commissioner of highways and a building commis-
sioner, who will superintend the inspection of buildings and the lay-
ing of pavements. The local members of the Board of Aldermen will
constitute a local board of improvement, and will have power to auth-
orize various improvements, subject to the approval of the Board of
Estimate and without consultation with the general Board of Aldermen.
The plan provides for something like a confederation of municipalities
rather than for an extremely centralized government. It is experi-
mental and no one knows just how it will work in practice. There is
hope, however, that it will facilitate the transaction of public busi-
ness. While there has been decentralization in the exercise of the
powers of the Board of Aldermen, there has been centralization of
the control of the schools. There was strong objection to this plan in
Brooklyn, and it is feared that it will not work satisfactorily because
it puts the management of the local schools in the hands of men who
can know little about their needs.

Denver. — State Boards.'^ According to the charter of the city of
Denver, as at present in force, the Board of Public Works and the
Fire and Police Board are appointed biennially by the Governor of the
State of Colorado.

The Board of Public Works has " exclusive management and control
of the construction, reconstruction and maintenance of all public and
local improvements," including streets, sidewalks, sewers, bridges,
viaducts, tunnels and the like, except " buildings used exclusively for
fire and police purposes, or for hospitals or workhouses." For these
purposes the Board has in charge the expenditure of money voted by
the city council, the assessment of private property for local improve-
ments and the issuing of bonds and warrants.

At the general city election of April, 1899, the tax-payers of Denver
voted to authorize a bond issue of $400,000 for the purpose of build-
ing an auditorium. The bonds were declared invalid by the Supreme
Court on account of defects in the ordinance passed by the city council
in March, 1899.

At a special election held on November 6, 1S99, a bond issue of
$4,700,000 was voted for the purpose of acquiring a municipal water
plant. The Board of Public Works proceeded to sell the bonds and
obtained a first payment of $100,000 on October 15, 1900. Before the
second payment of $100,000 became due the Board was served with an

1 Contributed by Prof. J. EJ. Le Rossignol, University of Denver.

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170 Annals of thk American Academy

injunction by the United States Circuit Court at the instance of the
Denver Union Water Company. The injunction has been sustained
for several reasons, and it is probable that the water bonds are
invalid.

For these miscarriages the Board of Public Works has been severely
blamed. It is claimed by the advocates of "home rule," who are
many and influential, that state and federal politics are too inti-
mately connected with the municipal affairs of Denver. They say
that the Board of Public Works is notoriously wasteful, that taxa-«
tion is too high, that there is much corruption, that local interests are
sacrificed to political expediency, and that the general administration
of the Board is bad and could hardly be worse.

The Fire and Police Board has control over the fire and police de-
partments, grants liquor licenses and has power to suppress gambling
and disorderly houses.

It is generally admitted that the fire department is efficient, but it
is asserted that the police department is grossly incompetent and cor-
rupt. On February 6, 1901, a detective on the police force was
accused of having secured the release from prison of two women pick-
pockets. While denying the charge, the detective proceeded to accuse
a police captain and two detectives of systematically protecting
saloons, gambling places and disorderly houses, and of receiving
money in return for this protection. The President of the Fire and
Police Board at once ordered an investigation into the basis of these
■charges. The investigation continued daily from February 8 to Feb-
ruary 16. In the course of the investigation sufficient evidence of a
more or less incriminating character was adduced to show that there
was no little corruption in the force. Captains, detectives and patrol-
men were accused of the most flagrant neglect of duty, of complicity
with criminals, of receiving money as blackmail from people of this
class, and even of entering into partnership with them. The Board
gave its decision on February 19. The members of the police force
who had been accused, including two captains, three detectives and
two patrolmen, were dismissed or asked to resign. The Board did
not think the evidence sufficient to warrant the prosecution of the
accused persons, but thought it wise to dismiss them for the sake of
the efficiency of the force. It is possible that the charges were made
largely at the instance of the political enemies of the Board, and it
is not improbable that the investigation was made somewhat search-
ing because of the approaching city election.

At the election, the regular members of the police force, together
with special policemen enlisted for the occasion, were very active as
partisans on the side of the ' ' Fusion ' ' or Democratic candidates.

[358]

Municipal Government 171

Nevertheless, a majority of the Republican candidates, including the
mayor, were elected. There is, therefore, now a division of execu-
tive power between the Republican mayor and Council and the Demo-
cratic Board of Public Works and Fire and Police Board. There will
be a good deal of friction in the administration on this account, but
the opposing forces may perhaps be trusted to watch one another
closely, and thus to prevent or punish any flagrant misuse of power.

Home Rule. — The advocates of "home rule " succeeded in having
two measures submitted to the State Legislature during the past session.
One of these, the Rush bill, was passed. The other, the Parks bill,
failed to pass. The latter bill proposed to give immediate home rule
to Denver, by giving the mayor power to appoint the Board of Pub-
lic Works and the Fire and Police Board. This measure was opposed
by the politicians for obvious reasons. The Rush bill, which is now
law, provides for submitting to the people of Colorado, at the next
general election, an amendment to the constitution of the state, pro-
viding for the consolidation of the city of Denver with the county
of Arapahoe, the whole to be known as the " City and County of Den-
ver." This corporation is to have almost complete control of its own
aflFairs. It is probable that the people will not vote in favor of this
change.

riontreal.^ — Framework. The municipal framework of Montreal,
as it exists to-day, plainly indicates a copying of English models
modified somewhat by American ideas and conditions. At the
same time there are one or two points which remind one very strongly
of German methods.

To begin with, so far as its relationsto the Provincial Parliament are
concerned, the city is subject to the same vicious interference in every
petty detail as are municipalities in most of the states. The distribu-
tion of power to the several provinces of the Dominion, instead of its
centralization in the Dominion government itself, is probably respon-
sible for the absence of the sound, sane, indirect governmental regu-
lation of municipal affairs from central boards, which is so character-
istic of Great Britain, as a similar decentralization is responsible for
the presence of the evils which are so common in American cities.
The Provincial Parliament can amend any section of the city char-
ter, and more than that, can grant franchises without safeguard-
ing the city's interests in any way. At the present time it is
much more feared than the city council. The source of all power
within the limits of the provisions of the city charter is the city

1 Contributed by Francis H. McLean, General Secretary Charity Organization
Society, Montreal.

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172 Annals of the American Academy

council or board of aldermen. As in English cities the various
departments of the city government are managed and controlled
by aldermanic committees, which are of course responsible to the
entire council. All officers are appointed through the council. The
mayor, exercising a supervisory power, may suspend any officer for
misconduct, but must immediately report his action to the council.
There is not the slightest tendency obser\'able to concentrate power in
the hands of the mayor or to have the departments administered by
separate boards or commissioners. City councils in Montreal have not
been as superior in personnel as have those in England. There have
been scandals and jobs and rings in them. Nevertheless, they have
never dropped entirely below the plane of respectability and have
done fair work, with some notable exceptions, through administrative
committees.

Electoral Qualifications. The voting franchise in city elections is
conditioned by property or rental qualifications, in addition to the usual
limitations. Ownership of property assessed at fooo, or rental of prem-
ises which brings in a sum of thirty dollars per year or more is required
of all. Tenants are given the same rights as proprietors because they
are subject to a water tax amounting to 7^ per cent of the rental
value of the property they occupy. Owing to the low rental value
necessary to qualify, practically every tenant is a possible voter. The
classes which are definitely excepted are lodgers, roomers, boarders,
guests in hotels, etc. It will be seen that the possibility of coloniza-
tion is reduced to zero. A tenant cannot qualify unless he has occu-
pied his rented premises for a number of months previous to the
election. All paid employees of the city are debarred from voting,
thus doing away with another possible source of corruption. Any one
whose property, water or business license tax becomes overdue cannot
vote during the term of such delinquency. If any such tax is remitted
the disqualification continues until a subsequent tax is paid. Most
interesting of all, a property owner may qualify as a voter in every
ward in the city if he has sufficient immovable property in each. If
he qualifies in more than one ward he can vote for mayor only once,
but may vote in each such ward for the aldermen. This reminds one
strongly of German municipal electoral systems.

At the general municipal election property owners and rent payers
may vote. In special elections, principally affecting property rights,
the city council may limit the voting lists to property owners or not
as it chooses. If, however, it asks for a special loan in excess of the
funded debt limit only property owners may vote. To emphasize the
basic principle that the franchise comes through the ownership or
rental of property — spinsters and widows may qualify, and husbands

[360]

MuNICIPAIv GOVERNMEJNT 1 73

who cannot qualify may vote for their wives, who can. As a matter of
fact very few women attempt to vote.

Qualifications for Office. In order to be eligible for the position of
mayor, the assessment rolls must show that the candidate owns im-
movable property to the value of |;io,ooo above encumbrances. For
alderman, property to assessed value of ^2,000 is required. Not only
must the assessment rolls show title to property so valued at the time
of election, but any such officer is subject to immediate removal, if at
any time during his term of office it can be proved that he does not
still possess the qualification.

Montreal's Debt. Montreal's funded debt at the end of 1899
amounted to eighteen and one-tenth per cent of the total assessed valua-
tion of all the taxable property on the rolls. This extraordinarily heavy
debt burden is largely caused by the undertaking of very extended
street improvements not justified by the rate of increase in the tax
rolls; and also because the tax rate upon immovable property is
limited to one per cent. As to the first cause. The street laws of
Montreal are peculiar in that the brunt of the burden of widening and
paving streets is borne by the city as a whole and not by the adjoining
property. Even after the reforms in this regard introduced in the
new city charter of 1899, the following unfavorable conditions
remain :

I. Expropriation of property and widening of any street may be
declared by a three-fourth's vote of the Council, with the approval of
the mayor, to be a general improvement. If so declared the costs are
met from the General Fund. Other widenings may be ordered upon
petition of a majority of the property owners and then the costs are
borne entirely by them. The assessment district plan appears to be
unknown. 2. In paving the streets it is permissive for the council to
order half the expenses to be borne by the adjoining property. As a
matter of fact it has never yet been done but the entire costs are paid
from the city's funds. 3. One-half costs of pennanent sidewalks falls
upon property owners, one-half is assumed by the city. 4. For ordi-
nary street mains and laterals the costs are borne entirely by the
property owners.

That in the main the responsibility for street improvements
is considered to rest upon the city is indicated by the fact that
it acts as a surety or endorser for property owners delinquent
in the payment of street assessments. Instead of forcing the con-
tractors to obtain judgments through the courts it pays them the full
amount of the delinquencies by means of floating bond issues and
then itself sues. How serious a burden this is, is indicated by the fact
that on December 31, 1S99, the citv was endeavoring to recover

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174 Annals of the American Academy

througli the courts over ^762,000, due from owners and covered by
bonds.

What might be expected under this system actually happened. It
furnished the opportunity for the satisfaction of a wild craze for street
improvements which took hold of the city council in 1888 and did
not leave it until 1895. During that short period of seven years the
funded debt of the city rose from $11,270,101 to f 25, 046, 341. No
large public improvements were undertaken outside of street work.
It is certain that the increasing valuation of real estate did not justify
the very large accretions to the city's debt and that the temptation
afforded by a system which so often obviated protesting property
owners and in many other cases appeased them by hberal assistance
from the city was one quite likely to result in lavish expenditures.

It may be claimed that as this over-liberality embodied itself in the
shape of permanent improvements it will in the end justify itself.
The trouble, however, is that it has piled up such a heavy debt
against a permanent fixed tax-rate, that the city since 1895 has
had to be administered with destructive parsimony. Renewals
and repairs have not been made when they should, and the result
has been very costly to the city. In 1S96, two-fifths of the income
of the city went to meet interest charges on bonds. Besides that
it has not left opportunity for normal growth as the local con-
ditions change. Improvements have been made in some quarters
years ahead of time while in fast-growing localities necessary bet-
terments have been postponed to the indefinite future. The rage
has been all the more costly because of the peculiar race condi-
ditions. The east end of the city is practically a French section and
the west end an English-speaking section. There is still much
jealousy existing between the two sections and in the council the
only way it can be allayed is by balancing the improvements made by
the city in each quarter. If a street is widened or paved in one
quarter, that improvement must be offset by the widening or paving
of a street in the other quarter. Such a policy may furnish an object
lesson in diplomacy but it is not economical. Certain wise amend-
ments have been made in the new city charter but it will be some
time before property owners are educated up to the new ideas. They
are realizing, however, that their heavy debt so suddenly increased is
responsible for filthy, unkempt, unswept streets, for sewers in bad re-
pair, for a badly equipped fire department and for numerous other evils.

Revenues. The funded debt might not have increased to suca
proportions had it not been that the city was committed to a one per
cent limit on the taxation of real property exclusive of school tax —
a limit maintained in the new charter. This is the chief tax imposed

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Municipal, Government 175

but there are two other very important ones — a tax of 'jyi per cent
of the annual rental value of all occupied houses and buildings for
water rates and a tax of "]% per cent of the annual rental of busi-
ness premises known as the business license tax. In the year 1899
these three taxes yielded the following sums :

1% per cent on real property (general and school tax) . J^i, 666, 690.77
Water Tax — 7^ per cent of annual rental values .... 721,036.32
Business License Tax — "]% per cent of aunual rental val-
ues (including personal property taxes) 268,927.74

As to present financial condition. Under the terms of the new city
charter all the various funded debts were combined into the Consoli-
dated Debt of ^27,000,000. This was fixed as the permanent debt
limit until such time as that sum shall not exceed 15 per cent of the
assessed valuation of the taxable property of the city. Then 15 per
cent shall be the limit. As was indicated above, this point has not
yet been reached, the debt still exceeding 18 per cent of the total
valuation of real property which in 1S99 was ^149,248,485. In the
interim the council may issue bonds to a limited amount based on 10
per cent of the annual increases in the assessment valuations from
year to year, for permanent improvements only. This power shall
cease when the 15 per cent limit above mentioned has been first
reached. The city council is also empowered to take a vote of the
property owners as to whether bonds shall be issued for other special
purposes. It is doubtful if this power will be of much practical value
as the extravagance of preceding years in street improvements has
been followed by an absurdly extreme conservatism. Only a short
time ago a proposition submitted for the issuance of bonds to the
amount of $100,000 for adequately equipping the Fire Department
was defeated at the polls, the total vote representing less than 10 per
cent of the property owners — this despite the fact that fire insurance
rates have been advanced very heavily latel}' in the business section
owing to the condition of the department.

Havana. — Organization of the City Goverttmeftt} The municipal
government is regulated at present by the municipal law of 1878, with
the amendments to the said law ordered from time to time by the
military governor. The Municipal Council (Ayuntamiento) is com-
posed of twenty-four councilmen {Concejates), being elected by
popular vote. Minority representation (limited vote) and the Aus-
tralian ballot have been adopted. Electors registered in May, 1901,
numbered 27,305. Voters at the municipal elections must possess the
following qualifications: (i) The voter must be a native male Cuban,

' Contributed by Senor don Antonio Covin, Professor of Administrative Law in
the University of Havana.

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176 Annai^ of the American Academy

or the son of a native male Cuban, born while his parents were
temporarily residing abroad, or a Spaniard included within the
provision of Article IX of the Treaty of Paris, who has not made
declaration of his decision to preserve his allegiance to the Crown of
Spain. (2) He must be of the age of twenty-one years or upward on
the day preceding the day of election. (3) He must have resided in
the municipality at least thirty days immediately preceding the first
day of registration; and in addition to the above he must possess any
one of the following qualifications: (a) Ability to read and write,
(b) Ownership of real or personal property to the value of $250,
United States currency, (c) Service in the Cuban Army prior to
July 18, 1S98, and honorable discharge therefrom, whether a native
Cuban or not. No person shall be qualified to vote who is insane or
an idiot, or who is a resident in, or supported by, any public charitable
institution, or who is deprived of, or suspended from, the exercise of
his political rights by sentence of a court, except in cases where the
conviction is for a crime of a political character. No person shall be
a candidate for office in any municipality, unless he is a qualified
elector of that municipality and is able to read and write.

Municipal Council. The term of office is one year and all the
councilmen retire from office at the same time (on July i). The office
is gratuitous, obligatory and honorary. At its first meeting the new
Municipal Council proceeds with the election of two councilmen who,
under the name of Advocate-Syndics {Procuradores Sinduos), are to
represent the corporation in all the suits which may be instituted in
the defence of the municipal interests, and revise and audit all the
local accounts and budgets. At its second meeting, the Municipal
Council fixes thfe number of standing committees into which it is to be
divided, entrusting to each one of them all the general business of one
or more of the branches which law places in its charge. There are
four committees: Budget and Accounts; Ways and Means; Urban
Police; Charities and Correction. The Municipal Council is a finan-
cial administrative body and may only exercise the functions entrusted
to it by law. The government and administration of all special
municipal interests are under its jurisdiction. It appoints and removes
all the employees and clerks paid with municipal funds and which are
necessary for the fulfillment of the services entrusted to it. The coun-
cil has a secretary, selected by the corporation, which office is incom-
patible with all other municipal offices, the salary being $3,500 a }-ear.

The Executive. The mayor [Alcalde) is elected by popular vote.
The term of office is one year, the salary, $6,000 a j-ear. Five deputy
mayors [Fenientes de Alcalde) are selected by the Municipal Council,
from among the councilmen. The office is honorary. The mayor is

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Municipal Government 177

the representative of the government and as such is to exercise all the
powers entrusted to him by the laws under the direction of the gov-
ernor of the province in all that refers to the publication and execution
of the laws and general provisions of the Central Government. The
mayor, who is the president of the Municipal Council, bears its name
and represents it in all matters with the exception of the powers
granted to the Advocate-Syndics. Furthermore, as the chief of the
Municipal Administration, he has the following powers and duties:
to publish, execute and order the approved resolutions of the Municipal
Council; to suspend the execution of resolutions of the Municipal
Council when questions are involved which, according to law, do not
come under its jurisdiction; to direct all that relates to the urban and
rural police; to direct and supervise the conduct of all the employees
of the urban and rural police, punishing them with suspension from
office and salary, not to exceed thirty days; to exercise all the duties
proper to the office of supervisor and chief of the investment of
municipal funds and of its accounting system. Deputy mayors, in
their respective sections, should always act by delegation and under
the direction of the mayor. The city is divided into forty wards. In
each ward there is a prefect, who is appointed and removed by the
mayor. He must possess the qualifications of an elector.

Finance. There is a treasurer, elected by popular vote, with a
salary of $3,000 a year. He draws up the annual budget, the report
of the Advocate-Syndic being required. The Municipal Board may
propose amendments to the budget. This body is composed of the
Municipal Council and of associate members in equal number with
councilmen, appointed from among the taxpayers of the municipal
district. The budget must be approved by the Municipal Council.

Budget 1901-02. Expenditure: ^2,248, 197.83, United States currency.
Revenue (main branches): municipal property, 1139,143.38; land tax,
I750.251.94; trade tax, 1752,600. Tax rate, three per cent on rural
real property; nine per cent on urban real property. Debt, ^12,253,-
931.22. The collection and administration of the municipal funds are
in charge of the Municipal Council and take place through their
agents and delegates. The distribution and investment of the said
funds are resolved upon every month by the Municipal Council,
subject to the budget. Payments are ordered by the mayor.

Centralization. According to the Cuban constitution, there is no
relation between the city administration and the Republican Legisla-
ture. The local government is to be regulated by general laws. The
municipality is autonomous.

Population. The population of Havana according to the census of
1899 was 242,055.

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178 Annals of the American Academy

II. SOCIOLOGY.

The Theory of Imitation in Sociology.— In an article contributed
to the April number of Mind by Sydney Ball, and in another to
the May number of the American Journal of Sociology by Dr.
Ellwood, recent contributions to sociological literature are analyzed
and criticised. Dr. Ellwood considers the theory of imitation in
social psychology, and after discussing and comparing the work
of Professor J. Mark Baldwin and Mr. Tarde, he concludes that
the shortcomings of the theory of imitation as the method of social
organization and progress are: "(i) It cannot suflBciently explain
the manifest limitations in the process of imitation without intro-
ducing other factors in the method of development; (2) it creates
a gulf between human society and the societies of the animal world
which are organized upon a basis of instinct; (3) it makes no allow-
ance for the process of natural selection to bring about gradual changes
in human societ}-; (4) it rests upon no sufficient basis of ascertained
facts, but has apparently been built up b}- a fallacious method of rea-
soning. In general, our criticism of the imitation theory is that it
makes the social process something apart from the life process. It
does not link, in any definite way, the forces which are moulding
human society to-day with the forces which have shaped evolution
in the past."

Sydney Ball discusses current sociology based upon the recent con-
tributions of Alengry, Tarde, Baldwin, Bosanquet and Giddings. He
considers the question " Is it (sociology) really a science, or is it more
than a name for a science which may or may not some day come into
existence?" Giddings believes " that the time has come when its
principles, accurately formulated and adequately verified, can be
organized into a coherent theorj'." This the writer denies, claiming
that the contributions to sociological theory have been merelj- essays
"to find the handle of a science." Alengry comes out with a cry
back to Comte. He criticises Comte's point of view, claiming that
his great error consisted in emphasizing the laws of succession as
compared with those of coexistence. In the diverse character of the
sociological literature of the present the author finds the only thing
in common to be the rejection of the biological method. Emphasis is
now put upon the psychological interpretation of social phenomena,
and the writer devotes considerable attention to Baldwin and Tarde.
The work of the latter is mentioned as a protest against the identifica-
tion of sociology with the philosophy of history. The work of the
psychological school is described as an endeavor to find a unifying

[366]

Sociology 179

principle to which the complex social phenomena may be reduced.
Tarde looks for imitation to do for sociology what the infinitesimal
calculus does for mathematics. Giddings finds the fundamental
sociological element to be consciousness of kind. The writer argues
that the theories based upon imitation or consciousness of kind are
theories rather of association, or of contact between individuals, than
of society as such or of society organized as a state. " The process of
social organization is not one of imitation, but of adjustment of mem-
bers in and to a social whole." In answer to the question propounded
at the outset the author concludes that " a careful study of professedly
sociological literature, interesting and suggestive as it often is, has
only confirmed my conviction that sociology has still got to make
good its scientific pretensions, and more especially its claim to absorb
ethics and economics, to say nothing of other studies."

After such a careful canvass of sociological literature one is not a
little disappointed at the conclusion expressed b}' the writer. The
answer to the question as to whether sociology is or is not a science
naturally depends upon what we mean by science. The representatives
of the so-called exact sciences have always doubted the propriety of
dignifying by the name of science any other body of knowledge
than that represented by themselves. As a matter of fact different
degrees of certainty exist in different fields of knowledge, and the
degree of certainty necessary to delimit " science " from speculation is
a question of terminology, that is an academic question of little or no
consequence. Sociology is now going through the stage which all
sciences have or must pass through. It is generally recognized that
there is a great field for investigation here, and that the most suc-
cessful methods employed must be determined by a process of
elimination. This process is going on now in sociology, and to a
greater or less extent in all sciences. There is nothing new in this, and
it is to be regretted that so much effort is wasted in an endeavor to
determine whether sociology is or is not a science. In this connection
it is interesting to compare the aims of the writers of the articles just
considered. Dr. EHwood considers a contribution to sociological
theory, endeavors to give it due credit, and criticises its shortcomings
without bothering himself about whether sociology is or is not a
science. Mr. Ball considers contributions from different schools of
sociology', endeavors to state their shortcomings, and then upon the
basis of this he solves the problem for himself as to whether sociology
is or is not a science. Granting that sociological investigations will
be pursued until it is generally agreed that sociology is a science, it is
not at all likely that future writers will waste much effort in determin-
ing at just what stage their study achieved its enviable position.

[367]

i8o Annals of the American Academy

The Gaming Instinct is the title of an excellent article by Dr. W.
I. Thomas, in the May number of the Atnerican Journal of Soci-
ology. Locomotion is described to be "primarily to enable the
animal to reach and grasp food, and also to escape other animals
bent on finding food." With "the survival of the most efficient
structures," there is developed on the psychical side an interest
in the conflict situation as complete and perfect as is the structure
itself." Further on we are told that "there could not have been
developed an organism depending on ofiensive and defensive move-
ments for food and life without an interest in what we may call a
dangerous or precarious situation. " Since the cultural period of life
is short in comparison with the prehistorical epoch, there has been con-
sequently but little structural change in the organism to be recorded.

The experience of the reader is appealed to as evidence that con-
flicts such as matches, games and fights contribute our chief amuse-
ments. In frontier districts feuds are still resorted to, not so much
because there are no other means of settling disputes, but because they
are the most interesting methods. In the development of culture,
when skill and cunning came in to supplement brute force in combats
the interest was in no wise diminished. In social rather than in indi-
vidual contests an increasing interest centres. The aim in mechanical
inventions is to secure an advantage over nature, and primitive man
took almost as much interest in them as in the direct contests them-
selves. From this point of view the interests of such men as Newton,
Helmholtz and Darwin are considered to be identical with those of
the inventors of primitive force appliances.

As long as man was in a state of nature his activities were not
irksome. The new adjustments which the scarcity of game and the
density of population brought about, made his activities more mechani-
cal, habitual and tiresome, but his existence became less precarious.
While the habits of industrial society are painful, the consumption of
the products of labor is pleasurable. How superficial these race
habits are may be seen in the occasional relapse of rich men's sons
with the removal of the pressure of need. Tramps and criminals have
failed to adjust themselves. Gambling is fascinating because it keeps
up conflict activity without drudgery. In business the gaming instinct
is expressed in the preference for work where shrewdness is involved,
and where there is great uncertainty of success. The gaming instinct
is still more expressed in practically monopolizing man's attention
during periods of recreation. The article is suggestive and interesting
throughout.

The Mathematical Method and von Thiinen. — At the Inter-
tiatioual Congress of Instruction in Social Sciences held at Paris last

[368]

Sociology i8i

year, Dr. Leon Winiarsky, of the University of Geneva, read an inter-
esting report on the Teaching of Theoretical Economics in Switzer-
land. Dr. Winiarsky maintains that Cournot was the first rigorously
scientific economist, inasmuch as Cournot, iu 1S38, first clearly indi-
cated the application of the mathematical method to political econ-
omy. Although the matter of priority on this point is scarcely of
primary scientific importance, yet credit should be given to whom
credit is due; Johann Heinrich von Thiinen certainly deserves to be
mentioned with Cournot, and perhaps before Cournot, as introducing
mathematical methods of investigating social problems.

The first edition of the first part of Thiinen's remarkable ^^ Isolirter
Staat 171 Beziehung auf La7idwirthschaft und Nationalokononiie''' was
published in 1S26. It was characterized b}' all the essential qualities
which since then have earned for its author the uniform appreciation
and praise of the historians of economic doctrine. As Rodbertus
declared, "von Thiinen brought two things into political economy:
figures, a.x\^ forntulcs , and heart; he united the most exact method with
the most humanitarian sentiments — gifts which are rarely joined."
Far more important, however, than Thiinen's methodological atti-
tude, is the nature of the theories to which his formulae led him. In
an essay published in 1S96 on Thiinen's theory of value, I attempted to
show that he not onlj', with the aid of mathematics, developed the
theory of final utility in all its essential parts as determinative of econ-
omic value, but proceeding further upon this theory as a basis, built up
a complete doctrine of distribution, including theories of rent, wages,
interest and profit — theories which bear a remarkable likeness to the
doctrines propounded by modern economists of the marginal utility
school.

The historians of economic doctrines have generally made no men-
tion of these Thiinen theories; they have, as a rule, confined them-
selves to a eulogious mention of his more accurate formulation of the
Ricardian land-rent theory and a cursory criticism of Thiinen's theory
of ideal wages. Indeed, some of them, like Roscher, have confused
Thiinen's theory of ideal wages (wages as they would be regulated iu
an ideal economic state) with his entirely diflferent and independent
theory of actual wages, as they are determined under existing circum-
stances,*

1 Contributed by Dr. C. W. A. Veditz, Philadelphia.

i82 Annals of the American Academy

III. philanthropy, charities and social

PROBLEMS.

Accident Insurance in Holland.— The American Minister at The
Hague reports to the Department of State a measure which has passed
the States General of the Netherlands and has received the royal
sanction pro\dding that employers in certain branches of labor shall
insure their employees against pecuniary losses consequent on acci-
dents which may happen to them in the execution of their trade.

The costs in the first instance are advanced by the State Treasury.
The employer, however, is to contribute according to the class in
which his trade is placed toward the working expenses of the State
Insurance Bank in proportion to the wages of his employees.

Attachment of Wages in France.— The French Office du Travail
has supplied one of the American Consuls with information concern-
ing the attachment of workingmen's wages in that country. The
Minister of Commerce has recently had occasion to make an inquiry
among large employers as to their opinion of the law now in force on
the subject under which law the wages of workmen can be attached
only to one-tenth of their amount. Some of the employers were in favor
of entirely abolishing the attachment of workmen's wages, in view of
the fact that, no matter how simplified the mode of procedure might
be, the costs are heavy and are at the charge of the debtor. It appears
that the expense sometimes reaches one thousand per cent of the
amount involved. Many of the replies received by the Minister of Com-
merce insist upon the pecuniary and moral advantages which would
result from the decrease of credit if the possibility of attachment were
removed. The facilities and temptations of spending would be much
reduced and the workmen would learn habits of order and economy.
Those in favor of the law argue that the attachment of wages is the
financial basis of credit for the workman. Out of Si 7 replies 69 only
■were in favor of maintaining the law as it stands ; 57 more were in
favor of maintaining the law, but proposed other reforms ; for
instance, that the attachments should be possible only for debts
contracted for necessities.

Recent Appointments in Charitable Societies. — Among recent
appointments in charitable agencies have been the following :

Mr. Charles F. Weller, General Secretary of the Associated Charities
of Washington, D. C.

Mr. Lawrence Veiller and Mr. James F. Jackson, Assistant Secre-
taries of the New York Charity Organization Society, the former in
special charge of the work of the Tenement House Committee, and

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Charities and Social Problems 183

the latter in special charge of the work of the Committee on Depend-
ent Children.

Mr. S. H. Stone, Superintendent of the State Board of Children's
Guardians of New Jersey.

Dr. William H. Allen, Secretary of the New Jersey State Charities
Aid Association.

Dr. S. H. McLean, Superintendent of the Illinois State Asylum for
Feeble Minded Children.

C. and N. W. Pensions. — The Chicago and Northwestern Railway
Company have adopted a plan for pensioning employees who have
fulfilled certain conditions, entirely at the expense of the company.
In this respect it is unlike all beneficiary or insurance plans to which
employees are contributors.

The plan provides for the retirement upon a pension of all employees
seventy years of age or older, who have been at least thirty years in
the ser\'ice of the company. All emplo\-ees sixty-five years of age and
under seventy, who have been employed by the company for thirty
years or more, and who may become incapacitated, may be retired and
pensioned at the discretion of the company's pension board.

The amount of the pension will depend upon the length of service
and the amount of pay received by the employee. The monthly allow-
ance to each pensioner will be for each year of service one per cent
of the average regular monthly pay for the ten years next preceding
retirement. Thus no person will receive less than thirty per cent of
his salary. A man whose average monthly pay for the ten years next
preceding his retirement was $ioo, and the years of whose .service
■were 31.5, would receive a monthly pension amounting to 31.5 per
cent of $100, or $31.50.

riunicipal Sanitation in the United States. — Dr. Charles V.
Chapiu, the Superintendent of Health, of Providence, R. I., has just
published a book of some nine hundred and fifty pages on " Municipal
Sanitation in the United States." This book is comprehensive in its
scope, and should be of value to local health officers in different parts
of the country as well as to all persons interested in sanitary matters.
Among the different topics dealt with are the following: The best
methods of collecting and keeping birth, marriage and death statis-
tics; methods of dealing with nuisances of every kind; full references
to the different laws in different states throughout the country, in
many cases with samples of the blanks and forms used in the different
health departments. One chapter is given up to the subject of organi-
zation of boards of health and similar bodies; another to the question
of plumbing, going into plumbing codes, the licensing of plumbers,
state and municipal laws, etc.; another deals with the question of

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184 Annals of the American Academy

water supply, impurities of water, municipal ownership, river pollu-
tion, sewage disposal, etc.; another is given up to the inspection of
food supplies and the question of adulterated food; while another
entire chapter is devoted to the question of dairy products, milk in-
spection, etc.

Boards of Children's Guardians in Indiana. — The legislature of
Indiana has passed a bill authorizing the establishment of Boards of
Children's Guardians in all counties of the state. Such boards have
been in existence in the four largest counties of the state, but their
establishment has heretofore been limited to the four counties having
a population of more than fifty thousand. Each board is to consist of
six persons, three of whom shall be women. They are to be appointed
by the County Circuit Court and serve without compensation. Their
duties are very similar to those exercised elsewhere by societies for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

Special Schools for Crippled Children. — Superintendent E. G.
Cooley, of the public schools of Chicago, states that there are two hun-
dred crippled children in that city, of whom but forty are at present
receiving instruction. It is the hope and intention of the Board of
Education to provide schools which may be accessible to all these un-
fortunates. At present there is one school of this kind, consisting of
three rooms, and having a membership of forty-three pupils. The
children are transported to and from the school by means of 'busses fur-
nished by the Board of Education. The teachers have general super-
vision of the physical wants of the children. Similar facilities are
already provided also in New York, but not as a part of the public
school system.

The easier judiciaire in France, — Ferdinand Dreyfus, who is a
leader in various philanthropic societies in France, has published a
recent volume entitled Mis^res Sociales et Etudes Historiques, in
which he pays much attention to various aspects of crime and men-
dicity; he writes not as an indifferent observer, but as one who is
practically grappling with the problems he discusses. One chapter is
devoted to the Casier judiciaire, the technical term in French for the
judicial record of every citizen. Whenever a French citizen is con-
demned to any penalty by a tribunal the clerk sends to the court of
the place in which the person was born a statement of the offence and
the penalty. This is filed alphabetically for ready reference. Any
future condemnations are recorded on the same paper, so that the
criminal record of any person may be seen at a glance. This method
is of undoubted value for police purposes, and also in giving the
judges the information they need as to the previous career of any
accused person. But the record, having been hitherto accessible to

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Charities and Social, Problems 185

the public, has been used greatly to the detriment of men who have
made mistakes in early life. The public has not been permitted to
forget it in later years. Many pathetic instances are related by Mr.
Dreyfus of the way in which lives have been blasted through the per-
secutions made possible by access to the Casier judiciaire. Recent
changes have been made in the law for the protection of discharged
prisoners who have become re-established in society and are living
honorable and industrious lives. Under the revised law the original
information is accessible only to certain designated authorities, and
when a discharged prisoner, or one placed on probation, has lived a
certain time without incurring a new condemnation he may be restored
to his full rights as a citizen and the early record may be effaced.

College Settlement Fellowship. — The College Settlements Asso-
ciation has established a fellowship of I400 for the year 1901-02. The
object of this fellowship is to open to a well-qualified person the oppor-
tunity afforded by settlement life for investigation of social questions
or for training in philanthropic and civic work, or both. No require-
ments are made beyond residence in a settlement during the academic
year, and the pursuit of some clearly-defined line of work, scientific
or practical, under the general guidance of a special committee of the
association and of the headworker of the settlement selected. The
time may, with the approval of the association, be divided between
different settlements. The Fellowship is awarded solely on the basis
of the promise of future usefulness. Miss E. G. Balch, Prince Street,
Jamaica Plain, Mass., is Chairman of the Committee in charge of the
Fellowship.

Psychopathic Hospitals. — Minnesota has taken the lead in estab-
lishing a detention hospital for doubtful cases of insanity. A psycho-
pathic hospital of this kind will be likely to have doubtful cases which
are of great clinical interest, requiring careful observation and treat-
ment.

There is a proposition to turn over the detention hospital, which is
now attached to Bellevue Hospital in New York City, to the State
Lunacy Commission with the purpose of affording the Commission a
similar opportunity for clinical study of doubtful cases, but Dr. P. M.
Wise, late president of the Lunacy Commission, in a letter to the
Charities Review for June, attacks this measure.

The National Conference at Washington. — The National Confer-
ence of Charities and Correction, which convened in Washington, D.
C, May 9-15, was attended by more than six hundred registered
delegates. The papers and discussions in all departments of the work
of the Conference were interesting and profitable ; and the Conference
as a whole must be regarded as one of the most successful yet held.

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1 86 Annals of the American Academy

The exceptionally intelligent conception of the function of the Con-
ference shown in the address of welcome delivered by Honorable H.
B. F. Macfarland, president of the Board of Commissioners of the
District of Columbia ; the election of the Chinese minister to honor-
ary life membership in recognition of his address at the closing
session ; and the appointment of a committee to co-operate with the
Census Bureau in securing such modification of the law as will permit
the collection of statistics of charities and corrections, are among the
incidents of the Conference worthy of special mention.

At the opening session the principal addresses were delivered by Rev.
S. G. Smith, of St. Paul, and Mr. Jacob A. Riis, of New York. Dr.
Smith sought to demonstrate that environment, i. e., physical
environment, has been "overworked," as accounting for degeneracy,
and insisted upon the psychical features of the environment as of
greater moment for good or for ill.

In the conference sermon, Rev. George Hodges traced the coming
of the Era of Compassion. The heart of the new progress was
declared to be the recognition of the individual. The essential thing
is friendship. The chief thing that can be accomplished by the
discussions of the Conference is the betterment of friendship, so that
men shall go back to their work in a more fraternal spirit, putting
their hearts into it, and lifting up those who are down, as Jesus did,
by giving them a friendly hand.

One of the most useful features of the national conference is the
reports from states prepared by Mr. H. H. Hart, the secretary of the
conference, in correspondence with state secretaries throughout the
United States and Canada.

The Charities Review for June contains a concise report of the
Washington Conference, and a summary of the charity legislation of
the current year.

State Activities in Relation to Labor.— Dr. W. F. Willoughby,
of the United States Department of Labor, has revised and brought
into a single monograph various reports and papers on the subject of
state activities in relation to labor in the United States, and has pub-
lished them as one of the Johns Hopkins University Studies in His-
torical and Political Science. The papers constituting this monograph
present in an interesting way the action of the American states in rela-
tion to labor.

This action is divided into two distinct classes, viz, one in which the
intervention of the state is limited to the mere enactment of laws, and
that in which the state itself undertakes through the executive branch
of its government to perform certain work. The present monograph
is restricted to a consideration of the second of these two classes. The

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Charities and Social Problems 187

chapters deal successively -with Bureaus of Statistics of Labor, Em-
ployment Bureaus, the Inspection of Factories and Workshops, Regu-
lation of the Sweating System, the Inspection of Mines and Industrial
Conciliation and Arbitration. The most important fact noted in the
legislation of all of the states in connection with the last mentioned
subject is that not the slightest attempt has been made to introduce
the principle of compulsory arbitration. Although the Boards of
Conciliation and Arbitration have not obviated strikes and may even
not have been as effective as it was hoped that they would be, the
author appears to share the general opinion that the boards have
proven to be useful institutions. The following estimate is quoted
with approval:

"They (the boards) accomplish much more than they actually
decide. Their work is largely preventive. They remove the last
excuse for gratuitous resort to industrial warfare by employer or em-
ployee. They lend ofBcial dignity to all important principles of
peaceful negotiation. They menace the guilty with the displeasure
of public opinion, which is nowadays more and more backed by
money as well as morals, and they strengthen the weak with the hope
of aid against oppression. They stand for a generous recognition of
industrial liberty as opposed to class theories of compulsion. In the
official organ of impartial investigation they also remove the last
excuse for unwise and unintelligent meddling on the part of public
opinion."

The New York Summer School in Philanthropic Work, — The
Summer School in Philanthropic Work, conducted by the New York
Charity Organization Society, closed its fourth annual session on
July 26. The course, which continued six weeks, included a series of
morning addresses, in which specialists from leading cities took part,
practical studies into social conditions in New York City, visits to
families, under the direction of the agents of the Charity Organization
Society, visits to typical institutions illustrating the topics discussed,
and the preparation of a series of reports by members of the school
upon the several problems involved in charity work. Among the
speakers who presented the point of view of the Charity Organization
Society were the general secretaries from several cities: Miss Zilpha D.
Smith, of Boston; Mr. Frederic Almy, of Buffalo; Miss Mary E.
Richmond, of Philadelphia; Miss Mary Willcox Brown, of Baltimore.
From the point of view of state boards and departments: Dr. Jeffrey
R. Brackett, president of the Department of Charities and Correction
in Baltimore; Honorable John W. Keller, president of the Department
of Public Charities in New York, and Mr. Robert W. Hebberd,
secretary of the State Board of Charities, New York. From the point

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1 88 Annals of the American Academy

of view of care for neglected and delinquent children: Mr. Homer
Folks, Mr. Charles W. Birtwell, Mr. Charles Loring Brace, Mr. H. H.
Hart, Mrs. Glendower Evans, and Mr. David Willard. From the point
of view of societies organized for a specific purpose: Mr. Frank
Tucker, superintendent of the New York Association for Improving
the Condition of the Poor; Dr. Lee K. Frankel, secretary of the
United Hebrew Charities, and Dr. David Blaustein, superintendent of
the Educational Alliance. From the point of view of medical charities:
Dr. John S. Billings, Dr. George B. Fowler, Dr. William Hallock
Park. From the point of view of churches in charity work: Dr.
William R. Huntington, D. D., rector of Grace Church; Rev. Henry
Mottet, D. D.; Rev. John B. Devins and others. Mr. Charlton T,
Lewis spoke on "The Means of Effective Reform in the Lives of
Prisoners," and Mr. Robert W. deForest upon "The Extension of
State and Municipal Action Involving the Welfare of the Crowded
Sections." The students, thirty-four in number, came from seven-
teen cities in fourteen different states; half of them are graduates
from colleges and universities and the other half have had practical
experience in philanthropic work, six coming from settlements and as
many more from the district work of the Charity Organization
Societies.

The school marks a step in the advance of philanthropy as a profes-
sion. During recent years a large number of young men and women
who have imbibed a broad interest in social conditions from the uni-
versities, have given their lives to practical work among the poor in
the tenement districts, either as settlement residents or as agents of
charitable societies. That these and all new workers in philanthropy
need special training has become more and more apparent. The fact
that so large a number, usually at their own expense, came to New
York for even the brief course of six weeks which was offered in the
summer school, shows that to this extent the new workers themselves,
even college men and women, feel the inadequacy of their preparation.
The task of adjusting the needy family to its environment so that it is
lifted from degradation and becomes self-supporting and of good
habits, is a deliberate one, for which preparation is needed of the same
stern type that the physician needs to fit himself for practice among
the sick. The learner should have at least two years of training under
experienced agents, before undertaking unaided the responsibility of
solving the intricate problems in the families before him, or conducting
the complex affairs of a charitable society. When one considers how
varied are the needs of the poor, involving their character as well as
their material help, — for no improvement is permanent unless it is a
character improvement, — and the extent of the problems involved in

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Charities and Social Problems 189

the care of the poor, thirty million dollars having been expended last
year for charitable work of various kinds in New York State alone,
the need for this training becomes evident. It is hoped that the
present summer school may grow into this larger movement and that
the means for it may be provided.

The persons registered in the school this summer and their topics
for special report were as follows:

Miss Mina L,. Acton, New York City : Charitable Agencies Needed
in New York. Dr. William H. Allen, Philadelphia : New York State
Charities Aid Association. Miss Anna Lowell Alline, New York City :
Financial Management of Charitable Institutions, with Special Refer-
ence to Hospitals. William R. Camp, Palo Alto, Cal, : The Causes of
Dependence. Joseph Aubrey Chase, Brooklyn, N. Y. : Employment
and Industrial Agencies. Sister Dora Dawson, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Miss Emily W. Dinwiddle, Greenwood, Va. : Conditions among the
Negro Population in New York City. Mrs. E. E. Dreyfous, New
York City : The Conditions of Failure and Success in Volunteer
Friendly Work among the Poor. Miss Elizabeth Dutcher, Brooklyn,
N. Y.: The Part of the Church in Charity Work. Miss Caroline M.
Eichbauer, New York City : Treatment of Families in Emergent
Need. Mrs. William Einstein, New York City : The Topics in a
Course of Philanthropic Study. Miss Elizabeth LeBaron Fletcher,
Amherst, Mass. : Homes for Working Women. Professor J. C. Free-
hoflf, LaCrosse, Wis.: Report upon a West Side Tenement Block,
Miss Laura B. Garrett, Baltimore, Md. : A Study among the Italians
in New York City. Miss Laura E. Gilman, Boston, Mass.: Immigra-
tion, with Special Reference to Italians. Miss Bertha Adeline Hol-
lister. Winter Park, Fla. Miss Edith C. Irwin, New York City :
Causes of High Rents in Tenement Houses in New York City.
Richard H. Lane, New York City : A Study of Delinquent Children.
Eugene T. Lies, Buffalo, N. Y. : A Study of Neglected Children. Mrs.
Mattie J. Megee, Philadelphia : Some Methods of Investigation and
Decision in New York. Edwin A. Palmer, Chicago, 111. : Municipal
Care for Vagrants. Daniel Lawrence Peacock, Richmond, Ind.: The
Education of Immigrants. W. Frank Persons, New York City : The
Department of Charities in the City of New Y''ork. Rudolph R.
Reeder, New York City, Mrs. Clara L. Reeds, New York City :
Social Conditions in the Twenty-third and Twent}--fourth Wards.
Miss Anna E. Rutherford, Baltimore, Md. : Methods of Placing Out
Children as Seen in New York. Miss Mary Bi:ell Sayles, Montclair,
N. J.: A Study of the Syrian Population in New York. Mrs. Anna
McCune Schenck, St. Louis, IMo. : Medical Charities. Mrs. Nettie C.
Schwerin, New York City : A Brief Survey of the Street in Which the

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iQo Annals of the American Academy

Hudson Guild is Located. Miss Lily E. Taylor, Toronto, Can. : The
Co-operation of Churches in Charitable Work. Miss Helen D.
Thompson, New York City : A Study of the Twentieth and Twenty-
second Assembly Districts. Miss Zaidee M. VanBoskerck, Plain field,
N. J.: The Relation of the Government to the Poor in Small Cities.
Miss Mary Verhoefif, Louisville, Ky. : The Savings of the Poor. Miss
Jessie J. Wheeler, Cincinnati, O. : Burials among the Poor. J. O.
White, Boston, Mass. : A Study of a Tenement Block on the West Side.

For a portion of the course : Miss Mary Morrison, New York City.

The Warfare Against Consumption.— Among the significant
indications of increased activity in the crusade against tuberculosis is
the establishment of two periodicals, one in Germany and one in
England, devoted exclusively to this subject. The Zeitschrift fur
Tuberkidose und Heilstattenwesen publishes original scientific articles
on the medical aspects of the disease and notes upon its literature, and
records progress in the establishment of sanatoria and other agencies
for checking the ravages of the disease.

Tuberculosis, the journal of the (British) National Association for
the Prevention of Consumption, is of a more popular character and is
perhaps on that account more useful since an essential feature of the
present campaign is the alliance between medical and lay agencies
in the securing of suitable legislation and the formation of sound
public opinion. In the medical profession itself there is the greatest
possible contrast between the spirit of utter hopelessness which pre-
vailed twenty-five years ago and the present prevailing note of hope-
fulness as to the curability of the disease and the possibility of
removing it from the class of epidemics as completely as smallpox
and cholera have been removed.

There is abundant evidence of a widespread interest in the subject
at the present time, but unfortunatel}' there is as j-et little practical
result in the United States so far as the adoption of definite pre-
ventive measures are concerned. Dr. John H. Pryor, of Buffalo, has
summed up in cogent phrases the duty of the state, declaring that it
should care for the consumptive at the right time, in the right place,
and in the right way until he is cured, and not as at present, at the
wrong time, in the wrong place, and in the wrong way until he is
dead.

The Congress on this subject held in London in Jul)-, was notable
for the declaration by Dr. Robert Koch, to whose discoveries is due so
much of the recent progress in the treatment of tuberculosis, that the
disease is not communicated to human beings by means of meat or
milk — a view not shared by other equally competent authorities.

The Legislature of Connecticut had under consideration, during its

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Charities and Social Problems 191

long session, a proposition for the establishment of a hospital for the
treatment of incipient cases, and seemed repeatedly on the point of
taking favorable action on the measure; it was finally decided, how-
ever, to appropriate $25,000 to a Hartford hospital instead, and this in-
stitution is to erect a special building ou the pavilion plan. It is now
two years since a preliminary appropriation was made for the establish-
ment of a similar hospital in the Adirondacks, but disgraceful politi-
cal and selfish considerations have delaj-ed its actual erection.

The Commissioner of Immigration has decided to attempt to ex-
clude consumptives in earlj' stages, as well as those whose disease is
well advanced, the latter having been excluded under earlier rulings
usually on the ground that thej' are likely to become public charges.
It is doubtful whether this decision will have any other practical effect
than to advertise still further the dangerously contagious character of
the disease, and thus perhaps impose additional hardships upon those
who are suffering in incipient stages, and who are not provided with
the means for seeking a cure under favorable conditions.

In the same class of doubtful expedients should be placed the deci-
sion of the New York State Health Department, to take an enumer-
ation of the people in the state aflBicted with tuberculosis. No such
census can possibly approach completeness, and there is ample knowl-
edge already to justify far more radical action b}' state and local gov-
ernments than is likely to be taken.

Among the positive contributions of private philanthropy to the
real remedy, especial notice is due to the opening of the Country
Sanitarium for Consumptives, maintained by the Jewish Montefiore
Home of New York City. The sanitarium will accommodate one
hundred and fifty patients, and while the situation is within less than
two hours' ride of the city it has all of the climatic conditions essential
to the proper treatment of the disease.

The Tenement House Exhibit at the Pan=American Expo=
sition. — The beauty of the exterior of the Pan-American Exposition
so far overshadows all of its other features, except its remarkable
array of amusements, that comparatively little attention is likely to be
given to its serious exhibits.

Hidden awa}- in an interior enclosure in the building devoted to
Manufactures and Liberal Arts, there is a very creditable charities
exhibit representative of all of the great groups of charitable activities
and geographically of nearly all sections of the United States. Hos-
pitals, children's institutions, almshouses, homes for the aged, institu-
tions for the insane, relief societies and charity organization societies
are all in evidence.

Immediately adjoining is an interesting exhibit of sanitation,

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192 Annals of the American Academy

hygiene and housing conditions. The most conspicuous feature of
this department, as of the corresponding section at the Paris Expo-
sition, is the exhibit of the Tenement House Committee of the
Charity Organization Society of the City of New York.

This exhibit includes three models —

(i) A block of existing tenement houses in the city of New York,
as it stood on January i, rgoo.

The block bounded by Chrj-stie, Forsyth, Canal and Bayard streets,
containing 39 tenement houses, with 605 different apartments for
2,781 persons. Of these 2,315 are over five years of age, and 466
under five years. There are 1,588 rooms, and only 264 water closets in
the block. There is not one bath in the entire block. Only 40
apartments are supplied with hot water. There are 441 dark rooms,
having no ventilation to the outer air and no light or air except that
derived from other rooms. There are 635 rooms getting their sole
light and air from dark and narrow air-shafts. During the last five
years there have been recorded 32 cases of tuberculosis from this
block, and during the past year 13 cases of diphtheria. During the
past five years 665 different applications for charitable relief have come
from this block. The gross rentals derived from the block amount to
^113,964 a year. This block is not one of the worst in the city, but
merely tj'pical.

(2) A block of typical tenement houses built in accordance with
the laws in force January i, 1901, showing almost the entire block
occupied by these buildings. Each tenement house in this block
contains accommodations for four families on each floor, in fourteen
rooms, making 22 families in each building, and 704 families in the
whole block, a total of 4,000 persons in the block. The new tenement
house law, just passed as a result of the work of this committee,
prevents the erection of such buildings in the future.

(3) A model of an entire city block of model tenements designed
by Ernest Flagg, architect, 35 Wall street. New York, showing large
courts for light and air. Three different groups of improved tenement
houses have been built on this plan in New York City, one located in
Sixty-eighth street west of Tenth avenue, another located in Sixty-
ninth street west of Tenth avenue, and a third located at Forty-second
and Forty-first streets and Tenth avenue.

Another portion of the exhibit consists of two winged frames
containing photographs illustrating tenement house conditions in
America. These photographs show first some views of the Tenement
House Exhibition held by this Committee in New York in February,
1900. Then follow pictures of the different model tenement houses
•which have been erected in New York City; the Tower Buildings of

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Charities and Social Problems 193

Mr. Alfred T. White in Brooklyn, erected in 1878; the Riverside
Buildings of Mr. White in Brooklyn, erected in 1890; the buildings
of the Improved Dwellings Association, at Seventy-first street and
First avenue, erected in 1879; the City and Suburban Homes Com-
pany's buildings, at Sixty-fourth street and First avenue, erected in
1899, and at 217-233 West Sixty-eighth street, erected in 1896.

Following the model tenements in New York are shown photo-
graphs of old bad tenement houses which have now been destroyed,
and following these are a series of photographs, showing existing bad
conditions in New York's tenement houses, illustrating the small,
dark, narrow, uuventilated air shafts, the evils of lodgers in the tene-
ments, unsanitary "back to back" rear buildings, playgrounds in
tenement districts, street scenes in tenement districts, and other views
illustrating similar conditions in New York City.

The rest of the exhibit illustrates housing conditions in other
American cities, beginning with Boston and showing first the differ-
ent model tenements in that city. Then follow a few photographs
showing tj-pical bad housing conditions in Boston. Following these
are shown the typical and the worst housing conditions in the fol-
lowing American cities: Albany, Baltimore, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Cleve-
land, Dayton, Chicago, Detroit, Hartford, Kansas City, Oakland,
Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Providence, San Francisco, St. Paul, Wash-
ington and Wilmington, Del.

The exhibit closes with a number of photographs illustrating differ-
ent model small houses, most of which have been built by employers
for their employees, the houses of the Willimantic Linen Company,
at Willimantic, Conn.; the Howland Mills Corporation, at New Bed-
ford, Mass. ; the Washington Sanitary Improvement Company, at
Washington, D. C. ; the Industrial Colonies of the Baron de Hirsch
Fund, at Alliance and New Orange, N. J.; the houses of the S. D.
Warren Companj^, at Cumberland Mills, Me. ; the exhibit concluding
with the model houses of the Draper Company, at Hopedale, Mass.

The Tenement House Committee of the Charity Organization
Society of New York City is a special committee of that society which
seeks to improve the living environment of the working people by
providing proper living accommodations. It seeks to accomplish this:
(i) by securing the enactment of wise restrictive legislation prohibit-
ing the erection of bad types of houses and by seeing that such legis-
lation is enforced; (2) by encouraging the building of improved
tenement house? as commercial enterprises; and (3) by presenting a
study of the tenement house problem in such a way as to arouse the
community to the necessity for reform. Through the efforts of this
committee the state appointed the Tenement House Commission of

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194 Annals of the American Academy

X900 to investigate this subject in New York and Bufialo, and the new
Tenement House Law, which has just been passed through the
efforts of the legislature and Governor Odell, is one of the results of
this committee's work.

Bad housing conditions have resulted in nearly every case in differ-
ent communities because of failure on the part of the commuuit3^ to
appreciate the fact that these conditions were growing up around
them and that the consequences would be serious. Had the condi-
tions been met in time, the serious consequences could have been
prevented. It is important for every growing city in this country to
see to it that housing conditions such as are shown in the models and
photographs in this exhibit, and which exist in New York, shall not
be allowed to grow up in their communitj-.

Persons desiring to take steps to prevent the growth of bad housing
conditions in any city will find the Tenement House Committee of
the Charity Organization Society ready to assist them in any way in
their power in helping to check the growth of these bad conditions,
and for that purpose should communicate with Mr. Lawrence Veiller,
Assistant Secretary of the Society, at 105 East Twenty-second street.
New York City.

Colonies and Coloniai, Government 195

IV. COIvONIES AND COLONIAL GOVERNMENT.

Porto Rico. — A little over a year has now passed since the system
of government for Porto Rico, established by the law of April 12, 1900,
was put into operation, and the first annual report of the governor
shows a remarkable record of progress achieved during this time. As
provided by the law of 1900, the most important powers of govern-
ment are vested in the executive council, and the work of that bod}^
during the past year has necessarily been of a decisive character in
determining the precedents for future years. One of the principal
powers conferred upon the council was the granting of franchises, sub-
ject to congressional approval, and during the last year over fifty-
three applications for important public concessions have been submitted,
covering railroads, wharves, water rights, telephones, tramways, tel-
egraphs, ferries and automobile lines. Comparatively few have as yet
been granted. The most important of this class of questions which
has recently been decided by the executive council is the franchise of
the so-called French Railroad Company. The company enjoyed a
government guarantee of an 8 per cent dividend upon the cost of con-
struction under the Spanish regime. This guarantee was discontinued
by the United States, and it became necessary to make a complete
readjustment of the relations between the company and the insular
government. The importance of the railroad to the economic devel-
opment of a large part of the island was recognized by the
executive council, but, on the other hand, the council did not feel
justified in continuing a guarantee which would in all probability
prove a serious burden to the finances of the insular government.
After protracted negotiations a plan was agreed upon to the satisfac-
tion of both parties. The company has reorganized as an American
corporation and has waived all claims for guaranty of its dividend,
in return for which it has been exempted from taxation for twenty-five
3-ears, has received franchises for the construction of branch lines and
a lease of land in the city of San Juan for fifty years at a nominal
rental. In the meantime a new compau}-, with American capital, has
secured the necessary franchise for a railroad and is planning to
begin construction work in the near future.

In the administration of justice an important advance has been
made by depriving the ma5'ors of municipalities of their jurisdiction
in criminal cases and establishing police courts, one in each munici-
pality. Until the last session of the legislature persons arrested for
petty offences were tried before the mayors of the various municipios.
This led, it was claimed, to the introduction of politics into the.

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196 ANNAI.S OF THE AMERICAN AcADEMY

trial of such petty criminal cases; the legislature has accordingly pro-
vided for a system of police magistrates for the trial of such cases.
The magistrates are appointed by the governor, one in each of the sixty-
seven municipalities, and are thereby removed from the disturbing
influences of local politics. In addition to these magistrates' courts
there are municipal courts with a limited jurisdiction. The island is
also divided into five judicial districts, with a district court composed
of three judges in each district. The decisions of these courts ma}- be
reviewed by the Supreme Court of Porto Rico sitting as a court of
cassation. A large majority of the cases coming before the district
courts are criminal cases, a fact which is attributable to the unrest
caused by the change of sovereignty, the lack of employment follow-
ing the hurricane and other disturbing influences.

The treasurer's department, in particular, shows the remarkable
progress made during the past year. A system of internal taxation,
based in the main upon the general property tax, has been adopted,
and affords the opportunity provided for by the Foraker law to abolish
the customs duties on trade between the United States and Porto
Rico. On July 4 of the present year the legislative assembly in extra
session passed a resolution pointing out that the revenue system of
the island was sufficient to meet insular expenditures, and asking the
President to issue the proclamation of free trade between Porto Rico
and the United States, contemplated by the Foraker act. With the
adoption of this change, which took place on July 25, it is expected
that the American markets for Porto Rican products may be consider-
ably enlarged. It is especially hoped that coffee and tobacco exports
will be increased. A glance at the census of Porto Rico will show
that coffee is one of the principal, if not the principal, product of the
island. The coffee and tobacco lands, however, are situated in the
interior and are difficult of access. The high cost of transportation,
together with the duties levied upon these products when imported into
the United States, have unduly limited their natural markets in
America. One of the immediate results of free trade with the United
States was the introduction of a large quantity of Brazilian coffee by
way of New York. Considerable indignation was manifested, and a
boycott organized, whereupon the coffee was reshipped to New
York. An interesting feature of the financial system adopted in
Porto Rico has been the central control over municipal finances. The
necessity for this control has been clearly shown by the experience
of the last year. A large percentage of the municipal budgets sub-
mitted to the central authorities have contained many defects to
which attention is called in the governor's report. The most impor-.
tant of these are illegal taxation, the falsification of assets or receipts,

[384J

Colonies and Colonial Government 197

and the excessive expenditure for salaries. In sixty-five of the mu-
nicipal districts 23 per cent of the total expenditure was devoted to
salaries.

Next to the change wrought by the abolition of the American tariff,
the greatest impetus to the economic development of Porto Rico may be
expected from the system of roads now under construction. The
military government pursued the plan of road-building in various
parts of the island, not only for the purpose of affording means of
communication, but more especially to provide employment for the
poorer classes after the hurricane. The Department of the Interior,
under the civil government, is now directing its attention primarily
to the development of certain trade routes, from which it is thought
that a permanent change in the accessibility of the interior lands will
result, and Ishereby, also, a perceptible diminution in the cost of
production of insular products.

The work of the Department of Education has been perhaps the
most interesting of all that has been undertaken by the insular govern-
ment. The illiteracy of Porto Rico is well-nigh discouraging and the
funds at the command of the Commissioner of Education have been
limited. Previous to American control there were no buildings erected
for school purposes on the island, and the absence of good roads has
continually rendered the task of supervision difficult, while there was,
as the commissioner has pointed out, a lack of active public sentiment
to sustain the public-school sj-stem. The number of children admitted
to the schools in October, 1900, Avas 40,000. This was, of course, a very
small percentage of the population of school age. According to the new
school law passed by the legislature at its last session, not less than ten
per cent nor more than twenty per cent of all moneys received by each
municipality must be set aside as a school fund. Within these limits
the amount devoted by each municipality to educational purposes is
determined by the municipal council. The management of schools in
each district is entrusted to a school board of three members elected
by the people. The power of supervision is retained b)'^ the Com-
missioner of Education as provided by the organic law. The interest
and efiiciency of the teachers have been stimulated by a series of
teachers' courses held during the summer at San Juan, for which over
seven hundred and fifty teachers and persons in preparation for the
teaching profession were registered.

In the preservation of order the insular government has made
an interesting departure from the methods heretofore in vogue
upon the mainland by establishing a corps of police entirely under
the control of the Central Government. This body, composed
of 664 oflBcers and men, distributed throughout the island, includ-

[385]

198 Annals of the American Academy

ing nearly all of the cities, has supplanted the municipal police
forces and resulted in a considerable saving to the local governments.
The standard of efficiency has been raised, and it is safe to say that
the rapid improvement in the order of the island is due in no small
degree to the thorough and systematic organization of the insular
police. Another interesting development in American administrative
methods is seen in the bureau of charities. The insular board of
charities has been superseded by a single director of charities who
possesses not only extensive powers of inspection and supervision over
the charitable institutions of the various municipalities, but also a
complete control over the charitable institutions of the insular govern-
ment. A similar change toward a greater concentration of power
has been made in the management of correctional institutions, by
the substitution of an insular director of prisons for the board of
prison control.

The Philippines. — The commerce of the Islands is steadily increas-
ing, the imports having reached the highest point known in the his-
tory of the archipelago. Until recently the poor condition of the ship-
ping facilities at Manila has caused long delays in the unloading of
goods destined for that port. This in turn led to high freight rates to
cover the time lost by large vessels in port. The improvement in the
shipping facilities has now reached a point where these delays are being
rapidly reduced and a corresponding increase in the direct shipments
to Manila is observable. It is expected that with the consequent lower-
ing in the freight rates the prices of American goods may be reduced
to such an extent as to increase their consumption in the Philippine
markets. While the total value of merchandise, gold and silver
exported from the Philippines during the calendar year 1900, shows
an increase of more than one-third over the exports for the year 1S99,
the exports to the United States have increased only one-quarter.
On the first of July the civil government as planned went into opera-
tion. The Philippine Commission was succeeded by a governor and
a cabinet composed of heads of executive departments. Judge Taft,
the president of the former commission, was appointed governor,
while the other members of the commission have been made chiefs
of the several departments.

An interesting question relating to the executive organization of our
new possessions has presented itself, viz., should the power to appoint
the heads of departments be vested in the President of the United
States or in the governor of the territory or dependency ? It seems
probable that with the gradual evolution of a distinct form of govern-
ment for the new dependencies the power of choosing the heads of
the departments may be vested in the governor. There is a vast dif-

[3S6]

Colonies and Colonial Government 199

ference between the powers exercised by the executive in the new
possessions from that exercised by the governor of a territory upon
the mainland. In the latter case the governor is seldom required to
perform functions of a highly important character, whereas in the
new possessions the governor's position is iu many respects the deter-
mining factor in the government. The greater the powers of the
executive department, the more sharpl}' defined must be the respon-
sibility, and, after the most urgent necessity for control by the Presi-
dent of the United States has passed, it may be expected that a form
of organization looking to a greater concentration of responsibility
and power within the insular governments will be developed. In this
respect the governments of Hawaii and Porto Rico present a sharp
contrast to each other. The heads of departments in Porto Rico are
nearly all appointed by the President of the United States, and are
therefore placed in a position of considerable independence with ref-
erence to the governor, whereas the Governor of Hawaii appoints all
the heads of departments, even including the auditor and assistant
auditor. In the case of Porto Rico the peculiar organization was
doubtless justified by the undeveloped political condition of the island
and by the necessity that the President should exercise a direct con-
trol over the introduction of the new governmental system; but, as
the insular government becomes firmly established, a closer approxi-
mation to the Hawaiian form would seem desirable.

200 Annals of the Asierican Academy

V, INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE.

riilitant Trades Unionism in the United States.— The Iron
Age, of May 30, 1901, gives a detailed account of the circumstances
which led up to the recent strike in the works of the National Cash
Register Company of Dayton, Ohio. This company has been con-
stantly cited as a model establishment in respect to the relations ex-
isting between employer and employed. High wages were paid, free
baths, libraries and facilities for exercise were provided; studied cour-
tesy from superior to inferior was the rule. The narrative of the
recent disturbances as given by the Iron Age, shows that this consid-
erate and kindly treatment of the employees was not appreciated by
them, but that it had rather the effect of " spoiling " them. One of
the many points of dispute between the management and the hands
concerned the question of the washing of the towels supplied to the
lavatories. The labor union men in the shops complained that these
were washed by women not connected with any union, and they
demanded that the work should be done in a union laundn.-. The
management settled this difficulty by stopping the supply of towels.
It was then discovered that the compressed air-springs on the doors of
the polishing department were manufactured by a non-union shop in
Connecticut. The springs were removed. Questions of wages and
employment soon came to the front. In 1899 the shop had been
unionized, and from the beginning this formal recognition of the
union led to serious trouble. A few examples will illustrate: The
Local Metal Polishers' Union about this time was worsted in a conflict
with the Dayton Manufacturing Company, and was therefore left with
a number of idle men on its hands. The committee of the union
in the works of the Cash Register Company insisted that whenever a
vacancy occurred in their shop it should be filled by one of these dis-
charged employees of the Dayton Manufacturing Company. The
management acceded. The foundry department was the next and
final cause of disagreement. Of the thirty-two foundrymen sixteen
were union men, the foreman being a non-union man and peculiarly
obnoxious to the unionists because of his connection with an unsuc-
cessful strike in another factory eleven years before. A year and a
half ago this foreman discharged two men for cause and refused
to take them back, although the union demanded their restoration
through its international officers. The company, however, paid the
men fifteen dollars per week for three months to assist them in finding
other employment. At the end of that time the international officers
allowed the pensions to be discontinued after a long discussion. The
next act of the union, which had now been formally recognized by the

[388]

Industry and Commerce 201

company, was to anuounce that no employee should earn more than
$4. 50 per day — some of the hands had been earning $7 per day on piece
work. The company acceded to this rule, and as a result of the addi-
tional hands from other works which were forced upon them by the
union, the working force was so much increased that many of the
moulders finished their allotted tasks by noon, and the shop during the
afternoon became a lounging and smoking-room. The result was a
new arrangement of work by which the moulders did a full daj'^'s work
for I4.50, suflfering to the extent of the difference between this sum
and their former wages, from the advent of the union into the shop.
In January last three men were laid off because there was no work for
them to do. After a hearing before the international committeeman
the company was sustained. In March and April three more men
were laid off, two for lack of work and one for cause. One of these
secured other employment, leaving five men out of work. The local
union, in the latter part of April, in spite of the previous reference to
the officers of the general organization, and in spite of the statement
of the company that there was no work for the men to do, made a
formal demand for their reinstatement, and on the company refusing
to employ them ordered a strike in the moulders' department. On
April 29 all the moulders went out. A few daj's after the demand was
reiterated by a committee of metal polishers. A second refusal was
followed by a strike of all the polishers. As a result of these two
strikes the company was forced to close the works.

A sequel to this struggle is the securing, by the Dayton Manufac-
turing Company above-mentioned, on June i, 1901, of a perpetual
injunction, restraining the Metal Polishers, Buffers, Platers and Brass-
Workers' Union, No. 5, of Dayton, from in anyway interfering with their
business. The petition charges that the defendants, since seven-
teen employees in the polishing and buffing departments of the Day-
ton Manufacturing Company were discharged on October 9, 1899,
for unsatisfactory work, "conspired together to prevent the plaintiffs
from having their polishing and buffing done in the city of Dayton
by others engaged in the same business; that they threatened the
remaining employees and others who were subsequently employed
by the company to take the places of those discharged with force and
violence to compel them to leave the plaintiffs' service; that they
threatened and intimidated certain persons from dealing with the
plaintiffs; that they ' picketed ' the plaintiffs' factory for the purpose
of intimidating their employees, and caused disturbances which made
it necessary to call in police assistance to preserve the peace." In the
Court of Common Pleas of Montgomery County, Ohio, these acts as
alleged were found illegal, and Judge Kumler granted a perpetual in-

[389]

202 ANNAI.S OF THE AMERICAN AcADEMY

junction as prayed for in the petition. In summing up his decision
Judge Kumler said: " If the defendants would live within the objects
and purposes of their organization as expressed in their constitution
and by-laws all would be well, and we would never hear of any trouble
between the employer and the employees. But where the members of
the union go beyond conceded right to peacefully persuade or arbi-
trate, and resort to threats, intimidation and violence to accomplish
their ends, they must expect to face the courts, which have always
and always will condemn such conduct." — Iron Age, June 6, igoi.

Amount of Smal! Coal Saved in the Anthracite Region. — The
Pennsylvania Coal Waste Commission, in its report in 1892, recom-
mended, as a most important means of economy, the better utiliza-
tion of the small coal, i. e., the sizes below chestnut coal. Until a
few years before the date of this report, most of this small coal went
to the culm bank, the commission estimating the total amount of coal
lost in this way, from 1823 to 1S92, at 315,000,000 tons. Of late the small
sizes are in large demand and the following tables show the large
proportion of the total output which is now consumed in the small
sizes which were until recently thrown away:

, Per Cent of Total.

Lehigh Coal and Girard

Navigation Company. Estate.

Large sizes, chestnut and above . . 49.20 57-41

Pea coal 14- 13 13-98

Buckwheat 16,34 21.10

Rice 20.33 7-51

Total small or steam sizes . . . 50.80 42-59

Totals 100.00 100.00

The statistics of other companies are not available, but the records
of these two large coal mines are probably indicative of the general
situation. The special significance of these figures, apart from their
revelations of increasing care and economy b}- producer and consumer,
is the danger to the anthracite mining industry which is presented by
the increasing use of bituminous coal. This is preferred by steam
raisers, on account of its superior heating value, in spite of the lower
price at which the smaller sizes of anthracite are sold. Let the smoke
nuisance be once overcome and the anthracite companies, already so
largely dependent upon the manufacturing demand, will have a hard
struggle to maintain their position.

NO V, 1 901

ANNALS

OF THE

AMERICAN ACADEMY

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE

BERNSTEIN VS. " OIvD-SCHOOI. " MARXISM.

In the year 1862, the energy and ambition of Ferdinand
Lassalle sought an outlet in an agitation in behalf of the
laboring class. In 1863 this wonderful man created the Uni-
versal German I^aborers' Union (^Allgemei7ier Deutscher
Arbeiterverehi), the first organization of German social
democracy. Killed in a duel in 1864, he left a small, and
not altogether harmonious, group of followers. In the same
decade, lyiebknecht and his young disciple, Bebel, began to
preach to the German laborer the ideas of Karl Marx, ideas
differing in important respects from those of Lassalle. The
latter' s aims were idealistic, national and state socialistic ;
the socialism of Karl Marx was based on materialism, was
international or cosmopolitan, and hostile to the existing
state and to state socialism. In the seventies followers of
Marx and Lassalle united to form the Sozialistische Arbei-
terpartei, as the German Social Democratic Partj^ was then
called, and the first platform of the party, the Gotha Pro-
gram, contains indications of a compromise between the two
groups. As time passed, the doctrine of Marx became pre-
dominant. Marx, not Lassalle, is to-day the recognized

[391]

2 Annai^ of the American Academy

master of German socialists. Within the past few years,
however, Marxism, as a theory and a political method, has
entered upon a crisis that perhaps indicates its dissolution,
while in the movement represented by Bernstein, the editor
and biographer of lyassalle, but long known as a Marxist,
there has come to the front a socialism that bears closer
resemblance to that of Lassalle, than to that of Marx. lyas-
salle is not invoked as its leader; the cry " Back to Lassalle "
has not been raised, but there is, nevertheless, a turning
from Marxian materialism to idealism, from Marxian dis-
like of patriotism and the national spirit to an acknowledg-
ment of the importance of national interests, from Marxian
hatred of the present state to a recognition of what govern-
ments, as organized to-day, have done and can do for the
laboring class.

The authoritative statement of the faith of the German
Social Democratic Party is given in the Erfart Program,
adopted in 1891. Some of its most significant utterances
may be here quoted :

" The economic development of industrial society tends inevitably
{^mit Naturnotwendigkeit) to the ruin of small industries, which are
based on the workman's private ownership of the means of production.
It separates him from the means of production and converts him into
a destitute member of the proletariat, whilst a comparatively small
number of capitalists and great landowners obtain a monopoly of the
means of production.

" Hand in hand with this growing monopoly goes ... a gigan-
tic increase in the productiveness of human labor. But all the advan-
tages of this revolution are monopolized by the capitalists and great
landowners. To the proletariat and to the rapidly sinking middle
classes, the small tradesmen of the towns and the peasant proprietors,
it brings an increasing misery, oppression, servitude, degradation and
exploitation.

"Ever greater grows the mass of the proletariat, ever vaster the
army of the unemployed, ever sharper the contrast between oppressors
and oppressed, ever fiercer that war of classes between bourgeoisie and
proletariat which divides modern society into two hostile camps.

"Nothing but the conversion of capitalist private ownership of the
means of production . . . into social ownership can effect such a

[392]

Bernstein vs. " Old-Schooi, " Marxism 3

revolution that instead of large industries and the steadily growing
capacities of common production being, as hitherto, a source of misery
and oppression to the classes whom they have developed, they may
become a source of the highest well being. . .

"This social revolution involves the emancipation, not merely of the
proletariat but of the whole human race. . . But this emancipa-
tion can be achieved by the working class alone

"It must be the aim of social democracy to give conscious unan-
imity to this struggle of the working class and to indicate its inevit-
able goal {naturnotivendiges Zier^).

The view presented in the Program of present industrial
society tending inevitably toward socialism is connected with
Marx's "materialistic conception of history," a theory of
social development w^hich leaders of the Social Democratic
Party apparently consider a necessary article of faith. The
most complete and authoritative statement of this theory
from the pen of Marx is that in the preface of his Kritik der
Politischen Oekonomie, published in 1859. It is obscure and
involved in expression and a rather free translation must be
given :

" As producers, the members of industrial society enter into certain
necessary relations to one another, relations independent of the
human will and, in their totality, making up the economic struc-
ture of society. This economic structure corresponds to the stage of
development reached by the productive forces {Produktivkrdfte) , and
forms the basis for a legal and political superstructure. Corresponding
to it is the mental life of society. The manner of production for
man's material life determines {bedingi) the social, political and
mental life. It is not the mind of man that determines his life in
society, but this life that determines mind. At a certain stage in their
development the productive forces of society get into conflict with the
existing economic structure, or, in other words, with the social organi-
zation based on property (the legal aspect of economic structure).
Ceasing to be the channels within which the productive forces move
freel}', the economic structure and law of propertj^^become hin-
drances. Then ensues a period of social revolution. } Corresponding
to the revolution in the economic basis of society, there is a more o r
less rapid change of the en tire superstruc ture. In the study of such
revolutions we must always distinguish between the changes in the
material conditions of production, which are the subject of scientific

[393]

4 Annals of the American Academy

observation, and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic and philo-
sophical activities — the mental life — in which man becomes conscious
of, and takes part in, this conflict. We do not in judging a man accept
his opinion of himself. No more in the study of a social revolution
ought our judgment to be based on men's opinions of it, but rather
ought we to seek the explanation of the thoughts and feelings of those
living in such a period in the contradictions of their material life, in
the conflict between production and organization. A society never
dies until all the prod uctive forces which can flnd scope within it have
reached theirfull development, and a new and higher form of social
life cannot taEe^ts^lace until the material conditions of existence of
the new society have been given birth by the old. ... In broad
outlines, we can trace the following periods of economic and social
development: the oriental, the ancient, the feudal, the bourgeois. The
bourgeois organization is the last ayitagonistic form of the productive
process, antagonistic ... in the sense of an antagonism growing
out of the social and economic conditions of individuals. The pro-
ductive forces growing up within the bourgeois society, however, are
creating the material conditions for the solution of this antagonism."

We find in this passage, stated explicitly, a theory of
social development basing all social life on economic factors.
We find implied a theory of knowledge which regards man's
mental activity as a reflection of physical conditions, and a
monistic philosophy which denies freedom of will and looks
upon human life, individual and social, as a part of nature
and in a process of evolution. In the use of such terms as
contradictio7i and ajitagonisvi, in the announcement of an
antagonism created by forces within a given society and its
solution b}' forces arising within the same society, there is an
echo of the Hegelian dialectic. Hegel, as usually inter-
preted, regarded the world as an evolution of mind, in
which thought in its development creates a contradiction
within itself, but develops also a solution of the contradic-
tion, a reconciliation of opposites in a higher unity — a pro-
cess of logical evolution marked by the phases thesis — anti-
thesis — S}^n thesis. Marx saw only a material development,
but this he was disposed to view as a dialectic process, a
constant development of contradictions to be solved by some

[394]

Bernstein vs. "Old-School" Marxism 5

synthesis. This leaning to the methods of the Hegelian
dialectic distinguishes his theory from the modem idea of
evolution. Applied to an interpretation of the present
industrial system, it attains its greatest interest. It beholds
the development of a contradiction in this system that will
lead, with inevitable logic, to its own solution, to a " sj^n-
thesis " in socialism.^

Socialism is not advocated on moral grounds by Marxists.
Why apply ethics to the course of nature ? Socialism is as in-
different ethically and yet as certain as the rising and setting
of the sun. Unable to meet the objections that may be urged
against any conceivable collectivist regime, the Marxist
might say, with a shrug of his shoulders: " It is coming,
whether we like it or no. It is fate." He might choose
not to exert himself for its realization, because it will come
of itself. Such consistent inaction, however, is repugnant
to the normal man, and gives no scope to political ambition.
To the proletariat there would be at least an intellectual sat-
isfaction, if not also a tactical advantage, in the conscious-
ness of the inevitable part it is to play in the great historical
drama. There is, to the joy of the Marxist, a class conflict.
The contradictions within a society that compel its over-
throw manifest themselves in a struggle between economic
classes, and every great revolution in history appears as
the work of some one class. The issue of the present strug-
gle between bourgeoisie and proletariat will be the triumph
of the latter, the ' ' dictatorship ' ' {Diktatur) of the prole-
tariat. It is notj^ however, until the contradictions of the
present system have fully developed, not until capitalism
has run its course, that the new order can take the place of
the bid. Hence the need of patience, and all the greater
need because there is no ground of hope for any great
improvement of the laborer's condition under the present

1 This thought finds its clearest expression in the writings of Engels. See his
Duhring''s UmwaJzung der IVissensckaft, 1S78, and the chapters taken from that
•work and published under the title Entwickehing des Soctalistnus. (English trans-
lation: Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, in Social Science Series.)

[395]

6 Annals of the American Academy

system. In fact it is a question whether, from the Marxian
point of view, all attempts to improve the laborer's condi-
tion mider the existing system ought not to meet the stern-
est opposition. Such partial reforms, it might be argued,
weaken that antagonism within the present order that drives
us on to socialism, and, in attempting to make conditions
more tolerable, only prolong the agony and postpone the
coming of the better order of society. This, apparently,
not illogical conclusion has been drawn by some followers
of Marx, but, to the leaders of a political party, such con-
sistency is out of question. The laborers' vote is not won
by opposing measures giving him some immediate relief,
and the social democracy, a laboring man's part)'-, has there-
fore given a prominent place to reforms in taxation and to
factory legislation.

To the materialistic conception, sketched above, must be
joined the theory of value and distribution developed in
Das Kapital to obtain the complete Marxian creed. This
creed is at the basis of the Erfurt Program, and may be
regarded as more fundamental and authoritative for the
Social Democratic Party than the Program itself. To the
student of the history of thought it appears scarcely credible
that a system so comprehensive as that of Karl Marx
could maintain itself for a single generation except as
an object of blind devotion. More than half a century,
however, has passed since, in a time of political excitement
and intensest mental activity, there came to the mind of
Marx, in outline, the characteristic features of his system.
For about {ox\x years he and Friedrich Engels labored to
extend and complete it. After the death of Marx in 1883,
Engels continued alone the work until death, in 1895, re-
moved him also from his still unfinished task. Whatever
Marxism may have been in the minds of these co-operating
thinkers, their followers certainly fell into confusion. The
chief elements in the thought of Marx can be easily stated ;
it is the connection between them that presents difficulties.

[396]

Bernstein vs. "Old-School" Marxism 7

It may be doubted whether Marx himself ever completely-
unified his thought. His followers certainly have proved
unequal to the strain of holding together, in bonds of logic,
the scattered ideas found in his works. Marxism as an
historical phenomenon, as a general movement of thought
and not as the opinions of an individual thinker, has been a
group of loosely connected ideas of which first one and then
another has been emphasized according to the exigencies of
political controversy.

Increasing the confusion due to the difficulty of inter-
pretation, is the insu fficiency of the M arxian system in
the face of new knowledge and changed conditions. Mate-
rial that is now antiquated was built into it at the begin-
ning. The intellectual atmosphere has undergone a
change. Ricardo and Adam Smith, in the forties and fifties,
still exercised such authority that the labor theory of value
could be taken, almost without question, as one of the
premises of economic reasoning. Hegelianism had not yet
spent its force. Though largely rejected or given a material-
istic turn, as by Feuerbach and Marx, it had yet entered so
deeply into German thought as to be used unconsciously.
To the German of the latter years of the nineteenth cen-
tury it has become unintelligible. Among the younger
Mar xists the di alectic process, with its automatic move-
m ent, ha s been given up in favor of a theory of social evo-
lut^n based on a conscious class struggle. The Hegelian
lingo of Marx and Kngels is still piously repeated, but it is
little understood. Furthermore, the political atmosphere
has changed. Marx's early manhood was spent in the midst
of the agitation for constitutional reform of the forties, of
the revolutionary excitement of 1848, and of the gloom that
set in with the reaction of the years following '48. There
settled into his thought a revolutionary spirit, a hatred of
governments that does not appeal to the generation grown
up since general manhood suffrage brought government
under the power of popular opinion. Industrial conditions

[397]

8 Annai^ of the American Academy

also have changed, and that sufl&ciently to suggest a correc-
tion of several socialistic tenets.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly , the faith of the Social Demo-
cratic Party has been moving away from the earlier formula-
tions. Orthodoxy is breaking down. Of this the declarations
made by Eduard Bernstein and his sympathizers give
the clearest evidence. There is not much that is
altogether new in Bernstein's writings. Indeed the
bitterness of the controversy his views have given rise
to within the party is not easily explained. In part the
intense interest may be due to the general recognition of
Bernstein's ability and importance. He has been ranked
with Kautsky and Conrad Schmidt among the ablest living
leaders of German socialism, has enjoyed the friendship of
Friedrich Engels, has contributed extensively to the social
democratic press and edited the works of Eassalle, has written
scholarly articles on the English labor movement, and has
been identified with Marxism for twenty years or more. For
a long period he was banished from Germany. These years
of exile were spent in London, and probably broadened his
views and saved him from a crabbed Marxist orthodoxy.
Very recently he has received permission to return to Ger-
many. In the years 1896 to 1S98 he published in the Neiie
Zcit, under the title ' ' Probleyne des Socialismiis, ' ' a series of
articles criticising current interpretations of Marxian social-
ism. A lively discussion followed in socialistic circles.
From what may be called the ' ' Old School Marxists ' ' his
views met with sweeping disapproval. One writer, "Parvus, '
w^ent so far as to remark in the Sdchsische Arbeiterzeihtng, that
these views, if true, would mean the end of socialism. To
bring matters to a head, it appears, Bernstein sent an address
to the annual convention of the party held in Stuttgart, Octo-
ber, 1898. Further controversy followed, leading to the publi-
cation of Bernstein's Voraussetztinge7i des Socialismus, in the
spring of 1899. Articles for and against his views then ap-
peared in rapid succession in the Neiie Zeit and in the

[398]

Bernstein vs. ' ' Old-Schooi. ' ' Marxism 9

Socialistische Monatshefte} Most conspicuous among the de-
fenders of Old School Marxism is Karl Kautsky, whose little
book, Bernsteiyi u. das Sozial dernokratische Programing 1899,
was published with the avowed hope of disposing of the
annoying subject of Bernsteinism, and may be regarded as
the ablest recent exposition and defence of the views attacked
by Bernstein. Iru, a collection entitled Zzir Geschichte u.
Theorie des Sodalisnius, Bernstein has republished some
articles in reply to attacks on his Voraussetzungen. The
latter work with some of the controversial papers in Zur
Geschichte u. Theorie des Socialismus, may be taken as the
ripest expression of his thought, and will be made the basis
of the summary of his views given below.

The question, Is Bernstein a Marxist? will puzzle the
reader of his works. In his departure from current inter-
pretations of the faith he often appears anxious to lean on
the authority of Marx and Engels^ On other occasions he
flatly contradicts Marx himself. He distinguishes between
pure and applied theory. The former, consisting of propo-
sitions of general validity, constitutes the relatively perma-
nent portions of a science. The latter, made up of
applications of the general theory of a practical and detailed
nature, is more subject to change. The pure theory of
Marxism includes the materialistic philosophy of history
(and implied in this the doctrine of class conflict), the theory
of surplus value and of the tendencies of present industrial
society. This careful distinction between pure and applied,
permanent and variable, lead to the expectation that Bern-
stein, the old Marxist, would direct destructive criticism
against the applied theory only. The pure theory of Marx-
ism, however, receives corrections that amount to an aban-
donment of some of its fundamental propositions.

1 The Monatshefte are the organ of the Bernstein socialists and may be consid-
ered the ablest and most scholarly of socialistic periodical publications.

[399]

lO Annai^ of thk American Academy

II.

It will be convenient to begin the summary of Bernstein's
views with the more theoretical portions of Marxism, taking
up first the theory of value and surplus value. His discus-
sion of this subject constitutes one of the least important and
least satisfactory chapters in the Voraussetzungen. It shows
keen thought, but reaches no very definite conclusions. In
the third volume of Das Kapital, published in 1894, Marx
declared market value eq ual to cost of pr oduction, tEe aver-
age rate oTprofit being one of the elements of cost. He
appeared thus to have surrendere d the labor theory of value,
upon which the reasoning of the first two volumes was based,
and which had become an article of faith to his followers.
The third volume brought confusion into the Marxist camp
as regards the theory of value, and Bernstein's skeptical
attitude toward the Marxian treatment of this problem
is not, therefore, especially significant. If commodities
exchange in proportion to the cost of production what
becomes of the view that the exchange takes place in pro-
portion to the average, socially necessary labor time devoted
to their production ? Is the old labor theory of value to be
regarded as a description of conditions existing prior to, or
at the beginning of, the modern capitalistic period and pro-
jecting their influence into the period ? This view, suggested
in the third volume of Das Kapital, and later amplified and
defended by Engels in an article in the Neue Zeit, Bernstein
rejects. Or is the labor theory to be taken as a mere device
of thought, a means of analysis and illustration employed to
show the operation of exploitation and the rise of surplus
value ? The _labor t ime jised in the product iorL of the total
of commodities is, accor ding to Marx's third volume, th eir
so cial v alue. The excess of the total product over total
wages gives us total socTaTsurptus. Marx, in assuming that
a givencommoditysellsln proportion to its labor value, uses
the given single instance to picture what takes place in pro-

[400]

Bernstein vs. ' ' Old-School, ' ' Marxism i i

duction as a whole and viewed collectively. So Bernstein
interprets Marx, but admits that this surreptitious introduc-
tion of the concept of collective social production into the
discussion of the existing system is rather arbitrarJ^ The
theory of labor value, he further states, is misleading in that
it tempts us to take labor value as a measure of the exploita-
tion of the laborer by the capitalist. It does not give a cor-
rect measure, even if we take society as a whole and place
over against total wages the total of other forms of income.
The theory also gives no measure of the justice or injustice
of distribution. In taking justice into consideration Bern-
stein departs widely from the Marxian point of view. Marx
held that t he laborer does not receiv e the en tire product of his
labor, that he is being robbed. His socialism, however, was
not a demand, made in the name of justice, but a forecast of
the course of evolutio n .

In this chapter on the theory of value, it appears that
Bernstein has knowledge of the Austrian theory of value
and finds some truth in it. His attitude towards it aroused
the ire of Karl Kautsky and perhaps not without reason. If
the Austrian theor}^, through the attention called to it by
Bernstein, gains adherents among socialists, it may go hard
with the Marxian views of value and distribution. Bern-
stein, it may be remarked in this connection, unlike most
socialists, is not unwilling to learn from the "bourgeois"
economists and shows acquaintance with their works.

Befor e the appearance of the thir d volume of Das Kapiial,
a largepart of e conomic literature conveyed th e impression
that the theory- of surplus value was the essential element of
Marxism. Since its appearance, andTTh'e^confusion it has
wrought in the views of German socialists on value, discus-
sion is turning more about the materialistic conception of
history, and this is regarded as par excellence Marx's con-
tribution to socialistic thought. None will deny, says^Bern-
stein, that the most fundamental part of Ma.rx|sm isjts the^
cry of history. With it the whole system stands or falls.

[401]

12 Annai^ of the American Academy

To the extent that it is subjected to limitations all remain-
ing portions are aflfected. Now the question as to the truth
of the materialistic conception of history, he continues, is the
question of the degree of historical necessity. According to
materialism everything is the result of necessary movements
of matt^, everything is determined and a link m a chain~of
causatiOEL The materialist is a Calvinist without God.
Applied to history, materialism means the affirmation of the
necessity of all history. The onlv^^ uestion the mat erialist
need consider is through what chan nels necessity takes its
cours^what part must be assigned to nature, what to eco-
nomic factors, to legal institutions, or to man's ideas. Marx
considers the productive forces and organization (^die mate-
rielle7i Produktivkrafte ti. Produktionsverhalt7iisse^ the deter-
mining factor. Bngels, however, states that productive
forces are only the Jmal cqmsq. The mental life also is a
cause. "The political, legal, philosophic, religious, literary
and artistic lines of de velopment re st on the economic. But
they all react on one another and on the economic ' ' (I^etter
of Engelsin Sozialistischer Akademiker ^ October, 1895). The
>jrc[uestiou at issue is to what^xt ent non-e conomic factors con-
'' tr ol^ETstory i The economic are on the whole predominant,
in Bernstein's opinion, but mental forces are controlling life
to an increasing extent. As their power increases a change
takes place in the sway of so-called historic necessity. On
the one hand we have an increasing insight into the laws of
development, and especiall}'' of economic development, and on
the other, a resulting growth of ability to direct and control
this development. Society has greater freedom theoreti-
cally with reference to economic factors than at any time
before, and it is only a conflict of interests that prevents the
practical realization of this theoretic freedom. However,
the ^ommonj _as opposed to private, interests, are gaining
ground and, to that extent, economic forces cease to be ele-
i nental pow ers. Their development's anticfpated and, there-
fore, takes place more readily and rapidly. Individuals and

[402]

Bernstein vs. " Oi<d-School " Marxism 13

nations are thus withdrawing an ever greater proportion of
their life from the influence of a necessity acting without or
against their volition. Necessity is less absolute. This
view of history, which he regards as the developed form of
Marx's thought, Bernstein names economic conception, in
preference to materialistic conception. The Marxian theory
of history, unlike philosophical materialism, he claims, does
not involve determinism. It does not attribute to economic
factors absolute power.

This view of Bernstein seems to rest on a misconception of
the Marxian system of thought. Marx certainly was a
determinist and Engels, while admitting that the economic
factor is only final cause, did not intend to represent it as
one of several co-ordinate causes, nor to deny necessity in
the action of forces other than the economic. Bernstein in
his Voraussetzungen looks at the immediate causes of his-
torical phenomena only. These may indeed be predomi-
nantly mental or ideal rather than economic. Behind these,
however, according to consistent Marxism, lie others, reach-
ing back t o the fu n. dament al cause, the economic factorT^the
pro ductive proce ss. By lengthening the process ot causa^
tion, by inserting mental forces in the chain that extends
from the economic condition up to given historical phe-
nomena, we do not diminish the "degree of necessity."
The inserted mental forces themselves are determined. They
are a part, not an interruption of, the chain of causation. It
may be questioned, too, whether it is possible to conceive of
degrees of necessity. In philosophy, Bernstein is clearly not
a disciple of Marx. It ma}^ be stated, however, that he
evades or overlooks the philosophic question, the problem of
the ultimate principle. He is, in fact, not pre-eminently a
philosopher. The fundamental issue between mental and
economic forces, in the Marxian view of history, is not their
relative weight as immediate causes of historical events, but
the question of priority in the evolution of life. From the [
beginning of human life they have acted and developed side

[403]

14 Annals of the American Academy

by side. The question, therefore, is one of the origin and
nature of mind. This problem of origin, however, is not
one that Marxists have generally recognized as the funda-
mental one. Marx did not complete his sj'stem, and Engels
only partiall}^ worked out a philosophic theorJ^ Woltmann^
appears to be the only recent social democratic writer who
gives evidence of philosophical training and has attacked the
fundamental problem. Claiming that Marx, the philoso-
pher, is as great if not greater than Marx the economist,
he aims to show what is necessary to the completion of his
system.

In the confusion prevailing among the professed followers
of Marx and in the mind of Bernstei n, it is diflScult to state
precisely how widely the latter has diverged from the true
Marxists in the field of philosophy. It is noteworthy, how-
ever, that he assigns greatei ^importance to ethical ideal s_as
forces in the socialistic m ovement than has been custom ary
antong ^erman socialiits? He appeals to justice . He urges
the need of a moral elevation of the proletariat. His teach-
ings, if they prevailed, would give a tone to social democratic
agitation very diflferent from that which it has received from
Marx's almost contemptuous attitude towards ethical con-
siderations. Bernstein's ethical idealism may rest on feeling
rather than on a well-reasoned philosophy, or he may have
found his way unconsciously into the current of a new phil-
osophic movement. To place the bases of Marxism in the
crucible of criticism, or to evolve new systems of thought
will be the task of others who are better fitted, but whatever
faith one may have in the mission of the philosopher and in
the compelling power of logic, a man like Bernstein is cer-
tain to exert a more immediate and obvious influence on a
political movement than a more profound and less popular
thinker. Bernstein's idealistic tendencies, therefore, may
yet prove to be of the greatest significance.

1 Der kisiorische Afaierialismus. DarsUUungen und Kritik der Marxistischen
IVeltamchauung , i<)oo.

[404]

Bernstein vs. " Old-SchooIv " Marxism 15

Passing now to problems of a less general and theoretic
nature, the M arxian diagnosis of modern industrial ten-
dencies with its affirmation of an irre sistible movemen t
toward socialism may be taken up first. According to
Marx, Engels and the Erfurt Program, capitalism is doomed
because capital, the means of appropriating the product
of society, is falling into the hands of an ever smaller
number of great capitalists, while the concentration of indus-
try is effecting the organization of the constantly growing
proportion of rebellious humanity that constitutes the pro-
letariat. This Bernstein designates the theor>' of collapse,
die Ziisajnmeiibruchstheorie. It implies that the middle
classes are disappearing, the rich diminishing, and the poor
growing in number. Closely related to it is the so-called
Verelendungstheorie, the pauperization theory, which holds
that the masses are sinking into ever deeper poverty.
Bernstein's argument controverting the Zusa7nvienbruchs-
theorie has proved especially unpalatable to the ' ' old
school." He argues first that capital is not falling into
the hands of a diminishing number of capitalists. The
corporate organization of production makes possible a wide
diflfusion of capital in the shape of stocks and bonds.
Immense wealth in the ownership of a few capitalists is not
necessary for the construction of large business units. Capi-
tal can be concentrated by bringing together the lioldin gs of
a l arge number of small stockho lders. Control over, not
ownership of, large capital is necessary^ to the captains of
industry'. Statistical data are incomplete, but show that the
securities of the great "trusts" of to-day are scattered
among a very considerable number of holders. More com-
plete evidence that the propertied classes are not diminiehing
in number can be obtained from income tax statistics. Not
only are the propertied classes not diminishing^ Bernstein
concludes, but they are increasing both absolutely and
relatively.

The same conclusion ca n be reach ed deductive ly. Modem

[405]

1 6 Annals of the American Academy

methods of production have brought about an immense
increase in the per capita product. It is not possible for a
few capitalists and their families to consume all of this increase.
Its consumption can be accounted for only on the assumption
that it goes either to the proletariat or to the middle classes.
It is the latter that in Bernstein's opinion, are receiving a
larger share of the social dividend. If the proletariat,
beguiled by Marxian predictions, expects to wait until the
great capitalists have ruined the lesser ones before it expro-
priates the entire capitalist class, it must content itself to
wait an indefinitely long time. But, sa ys Berns tein, it is
time to abandon the superstition that^ Jthe_^ealization of
socialism depends onThe concentration of capital in the
own ership of a few. Whether the social surplus is appro-
priated by ten thousand monopolists, or is distributed in
various amounts among half a million, is a matter of
indifference to the great majority, the nine or ten million
families who lose by the transaction .

The attack on the theory of collapse is continued by
statistical evidence to show that industry is not becoming
consolidated in large concerns at a very rapid rate. Although
in an increasing number of industries production on a large
scale is displacing the small producer, there is a considerable
number of industries in which production on a small or
medium scale is holding its own. Not all industries develop
in the same manner, not all are destined soon to become
centralized in a few immense organizations. Manufactures
and commerce show a less rapid centralization than socialistic
theorists have assumed. In agriculture in Europe, and in
part in America, there is a movement directly counter to
socialistic predictions. Large farms are decreasing in num-
ber, small and middle sized farms are increasing. It is not
true, therefore, that a rapid centralization of production is
gathering together as a wretched proletariat the great mass
of humanity, organizing men as producers in large work-
shops and on large farms and making the expropriation of a

[406]

Be;rnstein vs. " Old-Schooi, " Marxism 17

small group of capitalists and the collective management of
the highly centralized economic system an easy and inevit-
able matter.

Some what vague expectations of a collapse of capitalism xt
are, in the minds of German s ocialists, associated with
indu strial c rises. These hasten the ruin of the smalf~
capitali st and the disap'pearance ot the middle class. THey
are regarded as ominous indications of the impossibility of
capitalism, of its inability to control its own productive
forces. ' ' The contradictions inherent in the movements of
capitalist society," wrote Marx in 1873, " impress themselves
upon the practical bourgeois most strikingly in the changes of
the periodic cycle through which modern industry runs and
whose crowning point is the universal crisis. That crisis is
once again approaching, although it is but yet in its prelimin-
ary stage. "^ The extension of the world's market, socialists
are disposed to hold, merely increases the scope and intensity
of the contradictions of capitalism. Engels states in one place
that improved methods of transportation and the extension
of the field open to investment of the excess of European
capital have weakened the tendencies toward a crisis, but
later remarks that all factors striving to prevent a repetition
of former experiences are merely preparatory' to a greater
crash. The time between crises has lengthened, but the
delay of the next crisis indicates the coming of a universal
crash of unparalleled violence. Another possibility, however,
admitted by Engels, is that the periodic appearance of acute
distress will give way to a more chronic trouble, short
periods of slight improvement in business being followed by
long, indecisive periods of depression. In the years that
have elapsed since Engels wrote, his expectations have not
been fulfilled. There are no indications, remarks Bernstein,
of the great catastrophe, nor can business prosperity be
characterized as especially short-lived. There is a third
possibility. The extension of the market, the increasing

^ Preface Second Edition of Das Kapiial.

[407]

1 8 Annals of the American Academy

facility of transportation and communication, may equalize
or diffuse disturbances, while the increased wealth of indus-
trial countries, the greater elasticity of credit, and the action
of trusts may diminish the action of local and special
disturbances on the general course of industry. General
crises in that case need not be expected for years to come.
Reckless speculation is less certain to make trouble now than
in the past. Speculation is determined by the proportion of
knowable to unknowable factors. It is most dangerously
active when the unknown plays a large part, as at the begin-
ning of the capitalistic era, in new countries, and in new
industries. The older the use of modem methods in any
industry the weaker is the speciilative element. TEe~move-
ments of the market are better EiitJwaT-its changes more
accurately estimated. Of course, competition and the possible
appearance of inventions preclude an absolute control of the
market and, in some degree, overproduction is inevitable.
Overproduction in a few industries is, however, not synony-
mous with general crisis. To lead to a general crisis the
industries immediately affected must be such large consumers
of the products of other industries that their suspension
causes a wide-spread stoppage, or the effect on the money
market must be such as to result in a general paralysis of
business. It stands to reason, however, that the greater the
wealth of a country and the stronger its organization of
credit, the less is the likelihood of disturbances in a few
industries bringing about a general crisis. Bernstein con-
cludes in regard to the possibility of avoiding crises that the
problem cannot be solved at present. We can only point
to what forces tend toward a break down, and what
forces tend to prevent it. What the resultant will be
we do not know. Local and partial depressions are inevi-
table. Unforeseen external factors, such as wars or an
unusually widespread failure of crops, may cause a universal
industrial crisis, but, aside from such possibilities, there is
no conclusive reason for expecting a general stoppage of the

[408]

Bernstein vs. " Oi.d-Schooi. " Marxism 19

world's industry. Socialists need base no hopes upon a
universal crash.

A condition precedent to the accomplishment of socialism,
according to German socialists, is the crushing out of the
small manufacturer and farmer and the centralization of
industry. This is to be the mission of capitalism, Capi-
tali sts, in short, are to organize production and then t o be
tur ned out by the proletaria t. Th e latter is to gain contro l
of the government while the work of the capitalistic con-
solidation is still proceeding. As, however, the centraliza-
tion of production is taking place rather slowly, Bernstein
argues, it will be a long time ere the government can under-
take the management of all industry. It could not deal
with the enormous number of small and middle-sized pro-
ducing concerns. The proletarian state would, therefore, be
obliged to leave their management in the hands of their
present capitalist owners, or, if it insisted on turning these
out, to entrust all productive concerns to co-operative organ-
izations of laborers. It is mainly through th e gradual
extens ion of co-operation, not through t he^ssumption of
direct co ntrol of all production by a central pol itical power,
that Bernstein expects to see the socialisj ^sideal fulfilled.
In this he depart§, widely from Marx and the old-school
social democrats. If socialism is to be the work of the co-
operative movement it will be long in coming. Productive
co-operation, Bernstein points out in an especially interesting
chapter, has made but slow progress. Distributive co-ope-
ration has been successful. Socialists have not generally
been very eager advocates of such organizations of buyers.
Bernstein, however, holds that their work is well worth
doing. They serve to retain in the hands of the laboring
class a considerable portion of the social dividend that
otherwise would be diverted to the middleman's profit and
would thus strengthen the position of the propertied classes.
The large profits gained by such organizations in England
show that the socialistic doctrine that the laborer is exploited

[409]

20 Annals of the; American Academy

as producer rather than as consumer must suffer considerable
limitation. Productive co-operation has achieved less. The
larger concerns that have tried it usually failed to secure
able leadership and discipline among the workers. Demo-
cracy in the workshop is a failure when the scale of
operation is large. The idea that the modern factory
trains the laborer for co-operative work is erroneous.
'The most successful co-operative producing concerns are
those that are financed by some trades union or some organ-
ization of consumers and thus are producing, not primarily
for the profit of their own employees, but for some larger
body, of which their employees are, or may become, mem-
[bers. It is by such combination, with distributive co-opera-
ion, that productive co-operation may yet prove its feasi-
ility. It has a future, but necessarily its development will
be slow. In agriculture the problem of making the laborers
capitalists and of organizing them as a democracy of co-
operating producers is especially difl&cult, and yet it is a
problem the Social Democratic Party cannot afford to
neglect.

The first c ondition t r pon which, in the Marxian program,
the realization of colle ctivism depends is the centraliza tion
of_jndiistr y. A sernnd condition is the seizure of the
supr eme political power by the proletariat. This step may
be taken by legal means or by violence. Marx and Kngels,
until late in life, were disposed to think that some violent
measures would be necessary. There are socialists who are
still of this opinion. Violence is, at least, often declared to
do quicker work. The thought that the laboring class is
numerically the strongest easily suggests that it can force
itself into power and at once effect a radical change. Those
who derive no income from property or privilege constitute
indeed the majorit}^ in all advanced countries, but this
" proletariat," Bernstein points out, consists of very diverse
elements. They may, under the existing system, have
common or similar interests, but, if the present propertied

[410]

Bernstkin vs. " Old-Schooi. " Marxism 21

and ruling classes were once deposed, diflferences in interests
would soon appear. Th e modern wage-earners are not the ^
homogeneous mass sugg ested by Marxian phrase ology. In
the most advanced industrial centres especially there exists
the greatest differentiation. Diversity of occupation and
income result in diversity of character. Even if the in-
dustrial workers were not thus broken up into groups of
differing interests, there are other dissimilar classes, such as
public officials, commercial employees and agricultural
laborers. The employees of factories and house industries
constitute in Germany less than half of those engaged in
earning a livelihood. The remaining classes include the
greatest social contrasts. In the_rural_ district§ there is no
evi dence of a class consciousness or of a class struggle s uch
as that waged \)y the organized factory labo rer with his
capitalist employer. To the majority of agricultural labor-
ers socialization of production can be little more than an
unmeaning phrase. Their cherished hope is to become
landowners. Even among factory workers the desire for
collectivism is not universal. There has been a steady
increase of votes cast for the Social Democratic Party, but
not all of these voters are socialists. In Germany, the
country in which the party has made its greatest advance,
social democratic voters number somewhat less than half of
the industrial workers. Over one-half, therefore, of this
class are indifferent or hostile to socialism. It is still a far
cry to the day predicted by Marx and Engels when a united
proletariat, conscious of its mission, deposes the few capital-
ists still remaining, and inaugurates an era in which there
shall be no classes and no class wars.

To exercise the hoped for " dictatorship," the proletariat,
Bernstein holds, is not yet sufficiently matured. Unless
workingmen themselves have developed strong economic
organizati ons, and through training in self-gove rning bodies
have at tained a high degree of self-reliance, the rule of the
proletar iat would be the ru le of petty orators^nd litterateurs.
~" " [411]

22 Annals op the American Academy

There is a cant in regard to the virtues and possibilities of
the laborer against which Bernstein earnestly protests.
Socialistic hackwriters and demagogues have given a thor-
oughly false picture of the class. The workingman is
neither the pauperized wreck some socialistic phrases depict,
nor, on the other hand, is he completely free from prejudices
and foibles. He has the virtues and vices incident to his
economic and social position. These cannot change in a day.
The most sweeping revolution can raise the general level of
a nation only a little. Economic conditions enter into con-
sideration. Eng els confes ses that not u ntil what would
to-day be con sidere d a very high develop ment o f productive
capacity has been reached, can the tot al product be so large
that t^ejab olition of classes would not result d isastrously.
Meanwhile, Bernstein urges, the proletarian needs to cherish
the homely virtues of thrift and industry. The cheap con-
tempt for what they style ' ' the bourgeois virtues ' ' affected
by socialist litterateurs is fortunately not entertained by the
leaders of the trades union and co-operative movements.
For these organizations the shiftless, homeless proletarian is
poor material. It is not surprising that in England so many
labor leaders, whether socialists or not, favor the temperance
movement. Everything tending to confuse the moral sense
of the worker is an injury to the cause of labor. It is
deplorable, therefore, that part of the labor press affects the
tone of the literary decadents. A class that is striving to
rise needs a vigorous morality, not cynicism. The proleta-
riat needs an ideal. The view that material factors are
omnipotent, that they alone can lead to a better social order,
is false.

Democracy Is both means and end of the socialistic move-
ment — industrial democracy in the trades union and co-opera-
tive movement, and political democracy, through legislation,
aiming to realize the same ideals. Democracy, Bernstein
states, implies the absence of class oppression. It is not the
tyranny of the proletariat mob over other classes. The fears

[412]

Bernstein vs. "Old-School" Marxism 23

of its revolutionary tendencies felt by conservatives prove to
be groundless as democracy develops. It is only at the
beginning of democratic movements that conservatives are
chilled and radicals cheered by visions of blood and flame.
The majority will not oppress the minority, because the
majority of to-day may be the minority of to-morrow. Nor
can democracy perform miracles of rapid reform. Kings
and ministers of state have often moved faster than the gov-
ernments of the most democratic countries. The latter have
the advantage of not being subject to reaction. They go
steadily, though often very slowly, forward in the direction
of the ideal. Mu ch already has been accomplis hed. The
material condition of the laboring class has been improved.
Exploitation on the part of the capitalist is being checked.
Class privileges are being abolished. The proletarian is
made a citizen and gradually raised to the level of the bour-
geois. There is a great movement that is reconstructing
society and realizing socialistic ideals as they become prac-
ticable. This movement, in Bernstein's mind, ought to be
the chief care of the socialist. The collectivist goal is in
comparison a matter of indifference.

The Social Democratic Party ought not needlessly to
antagonize classes other than the proletariat. The opposi-
tion of these classes would delay the achievement of that
political democracy that must precede the realization of
social democracy. Germany is not yet democratic in the
political sense. Some socialists would object that German
institutions cannot be reformed except through violence,
inasmuch as the German bourgeoisie is growing more reac-
tionary. For the time being this maj' be the case, although
there are many facts pointing to the contrary view. It can-
not long continue to be true. What is called the bourgeoisie
is of a composite character. Its diverse elements can be
fused into a reactionary mass only through their fear of
social democracy as their common enemy. Some bourgeois
behold in the socialistic party a menace to their material

[413]

24 Annals of the American Academy

welfare, others an enemy to religion, others still oppose it on
patriotic grounds as the party of revolution. Such fears
ought not to exist. The leaders of the social democracy
ought to make it plain that it does not menace all and that
it has no fondness for violent measures. Many of the bour-
geoisie feel an economic pressure that might lead them to
make common cause with the working class, but the\^ are
repelled bj^ violent utterances.

L,et the Social Democratic Party, Bernstein urges, appear
in its true colors as a party of socialistic reform. lyCt it
discard its revolutionar}^ phraseology. Let it be consistent.
Its efforts for immediate and partial reforms are not consist-
ent with the expectation of a great smashing of the present
industrial order. Socialism will not come all in a moment
amidst scenes of horror. There will be no sudden rising of
enslaved masses against a handful of capitalist tyrants. If
such were in truth to be the coming of socialism, it would
be folly for the party not to promote in every way the accu-
mulation of capital and power in the hands of the few
instead of proposing the exact reverse, as it does, for exam-
ple, in its policy regarding taxation. Socialism, however, will
be attained gradually ; its blessings will not be withheld from
mankind until the great day of the wrath of the proletariat.
Whatever its cajit may indicate, the party is to-day a party
of reform, not of revolution. Recent occurrences prove
this. Bebel, one of the old school, with reference to recent
anarchistic plots, protested earnestly against the idea that
the party approved of violence. All the party papers
quoted approvingly^ Not one dissented. Kautsky, also of
the old school, makes suggestions, in his work on the agra-
rian question, that are entirely in the direction of democratic
reforms. The municipal program adopted by social demo-
crats at Brandenburg is one of democratic reform. The
representatives of the party in the Reichstag have expressed
themselves in favor of boards of arbitration as a means of
securing industrial peace. In Stuttgart social democrats

[414]

Bkrnstein vs. "Old-School" Marxism 25

joined with a bourgeois democratic group to form a fusion
ticket. In other towns in Wurttemberg their example has
been followed. Socialistic trades unions are advocating the
establishment of municipal employment bureaus represent-
ing employer and employee. In several cities, Hamburg
and Blberfeld for instance, socialists and trades unionists
have formed societies for co-operative distribution. Hvery i
wh ere it is a movement for reform, for democracy, for social
progress.

Bernstein is opposed to the anti-national attitude of his
party. The oft-quoted statement of the Communistic Mani-
festo that the proletarian has no fatherland he declares to be
false. It may have been true of the proletarian of the
forties who was without political rights, it is not true of the
workingman of to-day. There are national interests, the
importance of which, in his enthusiasm for a cosmopolitan
labor movement, the socialist should not disregard. If the
Social Democratic Party gets into power it will need a
foreign polic3\ The part}' rightly objects to the irresponsi-
bility of the executive in foreign affairs. It is in favor of
international arbitration; but it ought not to sacrifice national
interests. Germany, for instance, has interests in China
and should be in a position to defend them. In an article
in the Sozialistische Monatshefte, it may be added, Bernstein
gives a qualified approval to a policy of expansion, even
conceding under certain circumstances a right of conquest.

III.

From the above summary of Bernstein's views it appears
that he is not an orthodox Marxist. He is still a socialist and,
in a sense, a believer in the class conflict, although hoping
that in the future this conflict will be waged with less bit-
terness and alwaj'S by legal means. He cannot be called
the originator of an entirely new movement within the Social
Democratic Party. In rejecting materialism he was preceded
by Konrad Schmidt (in Sozialistischer Akademiker, 1896),

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26 Annals of the American Academy

the first apparently among German Marxists to urge a return
to a Kantian standpoint in philosophy, a movement that now
has a respectable following among German socialists.^ The
pauperization theory received severe criticism from Brmio
Schmilank a few years ago, and seems at best to have had
only a weak hold on the better informed members of the
party. In his protests against violence Bernstein has many
predecessors, among them Engels and, in^ degree, Marx
h imself That agriculture was not iully bearing out Marxian
predictions in regard to centralization of production, and
that special tactics were necessary in agitating for socialism
in the rural districts, had not altogether escaped the notice
of the part>" leaders. In urging a conciliatory policy towards
\/ classes other than the proletariat and towards other politi-
cal parties, Bernstein had the example of Georgjvon VoU-
mar, leader of the Bavarian socialists. In fact, the " com-
promise " or "opportunist" policy, the policy of tempo-
rary coalitions with other parties, has of late been seriously
agitated in the leading countries of the continent. It is of
course bitterly opposed by the grim, old agitators of the
class conflict. In Belgium, however, socialists have com-
bined with liberals against clericals ; in France the socialist
Millerand is a member of the cabinet under a "bourgeois "
government ; in Austria social democrats and liberals have
together been tr^'ing to hold back Christian social conserva-
tives, and in Bavaria, social democrats have combined with
the Catholic party against so-called liberals. A change is
taking place in the attitude of European socialists. Social -
is tic p ar ties pre no longer so exclusively the cham jpions of
the proletariat, nor the irreconcilable enemies of other classes
and ^rti^s] Jsieanwhile misgivings in regard to doctrinal
matters are appearing even among the Marx-ridden socialists
of Germany, and almost every tenet of the social democratic
faith has suffered some limitation.

Why then did Bernstein's calm and scholarly articles call

1 Woltmann, above mentioiied, also takes a " Neo-Kantian " view.

[416]

Bernstein vs. " Old-Schooi. " Marxism 27

forth such bitter attacks ? His only important addition to
the heresies troubling the ' ' old^^chool^asj he demon stra-
tion of the persistence of the middle class. In this there was
nothing new, of course, to the bourgeois economists. To
Marxists it was perhaps a disagreeable novelty. The bitter-
ness of the controversy arouses the suspicion that personal
rivalries among leaders and would-be leaders have enven-
omed the discussion. Much also may be due to the fact that
Marxism is to many a religion, an object of faith, in whose
defence they will fight. Bernstein representing the scien-
tific, critical spirit, naturally arouses their anger. The con-
troversy grows out of differences of temperament. The two
schools, the old and the new, the grim, old irreconcilables,
Kautsky, Liebknecht, Bebel, on the one hand, and the
more modern and practical Bernstein, Vollmer, David, Heine,
Auer, and Schippel on the other, are affected differently by
current political and industrial events. The Kaiser's
speeches and the blunders of the government are enough to
keep an irascible nature like Kautsky's stirred to constant
fury against government and bourgeoisie. At the time the
controversy arose the government's ill-advised attempt to
secure Draconian legislation against criticism of religion,
monarchy, the family and private property, was still being
discussed. Kautsky sees in such attempts proof of the incur-
ably reactionary character of the present government and
ruling classes. Bernstein regards them as merely a passing
phase, a bubble floating on the great current setting towards
democracy. Kautsky cannot reconcile himself to the admis-
sion into the Social Democratic Party of elements other than
the proletarian. Writing in the Neue Zeit, just before the
party convention of 1899, he pointed to two tendencies within
the party, the proletarian and the democratic. The approach-
ing convention, he maintained, would have to choose between
them. If the democratic tendency for which Bernstein stood
prevailed, the proletariat, although still occupying the lead-
ing position, would not be carrying out an independent class

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28 Annals of the American Academy

policy, and a split would soon appear in the party. At about
the same time, an article by Bernstein appeared in the Vor-
wdrts, in which he proposed to change the clause in the
Erfurt Program stating that socialism can be brought about
only by the proletariat (^kann nur das Werk der Arbeiterklasse
sein) to must be 7nainly the task of the proletariat {inuss in
erster Linie, etc. ) .

The question to which Kautsky expected a definitive
answer at the convention received but an ambiguous reply.
Re solutions, brought in by Eebel, adopted by the conven tion,
and subscribed by Berns tein and his followers, perm it coali-
tion s with~other political parties on special occasio ns. They
also declare that the party maintains a neutral attitude
towards the co-operative movement, but attributes no great
importance to it. These are concessions to the Bernstein
wing. This group desired more, no doubt, but, in any case,
the resolutions are as far removed from Marxism as from
Bernsteinism. Bebel declared himself pleased that by sub-
scribing to the resolutions the erring Bernstein had returned
to the fold. That the old leaders of the party, however, had
yielded somewhat to the new movement is revealed by the
action of a few extreme Marxists who refused their assent to
the resolutions.

Recent events and present tendencies give some ground
for the expectation that social democracy on the Continent
will become a democratic rather than a purely proletarian
movement. If such proves to be the case, if the party no
longer represents one class, it must become moderate and lay
less stress on class war. Then, perhaps, as some have sug-
gested, the most bitter outbreaks of class conflict will take
place, not in the political arena, but in the struggle between
trades union and employer. With strong social reform par-
ties representing the common people in local and national
politics, and with vigorous trades unions and co-operative
societies, the social movement on the Continent may come
to resemble more closely than before that of the great Bug-

[418]

Beirnstein vs. " O1.D-SCHOO1, " Marxism 29

lish-speaking democracies. In any case, the practical tone
of English socialists, of the French possibilists, and the Bern-
stein wing of the German social democracj^ indicates that
the best talent in the service of the socialistic cause to-day is
opposed to violence and to class hatred, and is comparatively
moderate in its expectations and methods.

G. A. Kleene.

Peoria, III,

— ^f ' 7 —

THE PROFITS AND VOLUME OF CAPITAL.

Are the profits of capital regulated by natural law, and
what determines the volume of capital in a country ? Why
are the profits of capital greatest among people the least
civilized, and why greater in new countries than in old ?
What prevents the gains from compound interest absorbing
again and again the wealth of the world ? And lastly,
should the land and franchise values of a country be
included in its stock of capital ? The purpose of this paper
is the attempt to answer these questions and to apply some
of the conclusions to present day problems.

Three terms require definition and consideration — nature,
man, and that which man makes from nature. Nature and
her powers may be called land. Man's activities may be
designated labor. Labor applied to land produces capi-
tal.* In reasoning concerning these elements they must be
kept separate, and their products distinct. Rent arises from
the use of land. Wages proceeds from labor. Profits (or
interest) accrues to the owner from the use of capital.

Rent is that marginal product attributable to location on
the earth's surface. It is a free gift of nature or of the
"indestructible properties of the soil." Wages are the
product resulting from man's activities, whether mental,
moral or physical. Profits, or interest, is a product attrib-
utable to capital as certainly as rent is the product derived
from land and wages from labor.

1 The author of this paper reached his conclusions concerning the theory of
interest and capital here presented, and had partly written the manuscript of the
paper before he saw Professor Clark's " Theory of Distribution." Mr. Sawin states
that "as far as I know I am not under obligations to the work of Clark."— The
Editor.

• Karl Knies in " Das Geld," p. 47, defines the capital of a community as its
available stock of goods (whether for consumption, acquisition or production)
which may be applied to satisfying wants in the future. " Capital is an immedi-
ate product of nature and labor, nothing more." — Bohm-Bawerk in "Positive Thtory
of Capital.''''

[420]

The Profits and Volume of Capital 31

Capital means either the concrete objects that man has
made for his gratification, or the "value" instead of
"volume" of exchangeable commodities, the second mean-
ing always having reference to a ratio of exchange. In the
first sense, a ship is the same capital the day it loads its
first cargo as it is the day it discharges its last cargo. In
the second sense, it may be a capital of half a million dollars
the first day, whereas on the last day its capital is its value
as junk. Concrete capital is objective. It remains the
same from the day it is made to the day it is discarded as
of no more use. Value capital is subjective, springing
entirely from the mind of man as shown in his desire to ex-
change his products or supply his needs. Its value is infinite
if it is the crust of bread that saves a life, although the
crust might have been thrown away by another for whom
it had no value. A thing may be worth a million dollars
one day, the next day be worthless because something better
has been invented to take its place. The use of one term
to cover two entirely diSerent conceptions has prevented
right conclusions in economic research ; and it is only by
keeping apart these two forms, and tracing the laws govern-
ing each separately that one can avoid current economic
confusion and answer the questions just propounded.

Concrete capital, the simplest form, is the first in historic
development and furnishes the basis of the second concept.
Its most notable characteristic is its perishability. It is
constantly turning back to nature, and varies in endurance
from that possessed by foods, by clothing, by implements,
by buildings, and by coined money, which is, probably, the
most durable of useful capital. Nothing man can make
endures forever.

In order to study the characteristics of concrete capital,
observe its functions, and deduce the laws governing its
profits and volume, it will be well to choose an article for
illustration the use of which is not influenced by the factor
rent We will assume also that when the article is once

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32 Annals of the American Academy

made, no repairs will be put upon it, since that would intro-
duce fresh capital, and confuse the reasoning. In order to
obviate the interference which invention makes with eco-
nomic adjustment it will furthermore be assumed that the
same kind of article will be used without improvement dur-
ing man's passage from savagery to civilization. We w'ill
first study the functions of the single article during its term
of usefulness, then include the human factor and see why
and to what extent man will increase the number of such
articles. By correctly analyzing simple conditions, we may
correctly judge of the complex ones of to-day, and feel a con-
fidence in our final conclusions.^

Let it be assumed that in an Indian village one man con-
ceives the idea of making, from wild hemp, a net to aid him
in fishing, nets not having previously been used by his tribe.
After he has made the net he finds that he can catch one
hundred fish with the effort previously used to catch ten.
Obviously ten fish is still his wages as before and ninety fish
is the gross profit of his net. He will not let another use it
except he receives ninety fish in paj^ment as it would earn
him that much if he used it himself As long as the capital
in nets is restricted to one, his wages will remain ten fish
and ninety fish will be the gross profits derived from the net.
If the ownership passes to another person the division of the
results between profits and wages will remain the same.

It may now be assumed that the net would last five j'ears,
and that it would depreciate in quality at a uniform rate.
The beginning of the second 3'ear the user could catch only
eighty fish instead of one hundred, the gross profits having
shrunk to seventj^ fish. The beginning of the third year
he could catch but sixtj^, and his gross profits would be fifty.
At the beginning of the fifth year he can catch but twenty,
with a gross profit of ten fish; and nearing the end of the

1 " In dealing with complex problems of an advancing economy, the key to suc-
cess is the separate study of the static forces that constantly act within it."— y. B.
Clark in his " Distiibulion of U'ealih" p. 6i.

[422]

The Profits and Volume of Capital 33

first six months of the year he can catch only eleven, but he
will still use the net, for without it he can catch but ten. At
the beginning of the seventh month of the fifth year there
will be no advantage derived from the use of the net.
The owner may use it, but if he does, he will quit when it
fails to catch him ten fish; the net having then passed
beyond the margin of use. The margin of use is the initial
point in the law governing the profits of capital.

The margin of use of capital is perfectly analogous to
the margin of cultivation in the law governing the rent of
land. The fishing net might be used till near the end of the
five years, when it could catch but one fish; likewise land
could be cultivated to the desert's edge and yield practically
nothing; but such land would be beyond the margin of
cultivation, as such net would be beyond the margin of
use of capital.

When the gross profits of the new net are seen to be great,
other nets will be made; but the gross profits of each net
will be the excess of what could be caught without its use
until the wants of the tribe for fish can be entirely supplied
by fish caught by nets. After this, as nets increase in num-
ber, the margin of their use — the marginal nets — will be
determined in another manner, viz: by the necessities of
the tribe for fish. Four-year-old nets that catch twenty fish
will be for a time the poorest ones that it will be necessary
to use. They will be on the margin of use, and wages will
have risen to twenty fish, the increase of ten fish being ac-
coimtableto the increased use of nets. The number of nets
may now increase until a net more than three 3- ears old will
be discarded as not needed. As they are on the margin
of use furnishing no profit, their catch of forty fish will
be the wages of all those engaged in fishing, and all above
forty fish that other nets can catch will be gross profits.

The law of marginal capital may be stated as follows:
capital on the margin of use is the least productive capital
— the poorest capital that the needs of society forces produc-

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34 Annals of the American Academy

tion to make use of. (The margin of cultivation of land
is that land the poorest in use to which the needs of society
force production.)

The growth of capital as governed or influenced by
man's nature may be traced as follows: the great positive
deterrent to the accumulation of capital, either as an aid to
production or for direct enjo3-ment, is the shortness and
uncertainty of life. To accumulate capital requires labor in
excess of that necessary for present needs, and in man's
nature there will alwa3-s be a reluctance to labor when there
are uncertainties of enjoj'ing the fruits of it. Although this
feeling is modified by a desire to accumulate something for
old age, also to provide for family dependents, the great body
of humanit}^ is dominated by a stronger impulse to enjoy
capital than to replace it.

There are two other reasons why profits are required of
capital, the failure to properly judge future wants, and the
lack of will-power to enforce judgments.^ With uncivil-
ized man these are the main causes why large profits are
insisted upon; but these causes decrease as man becomes
civilized, and will disappear should he become strictly
economic. In this may be seen the explanation of the large
profits of capital in lower civilizations. The interest rate
in old countries is a measure of their progress.

The term " gross profits " requires examination. As it
has cost labor to make a net, something must evidently be
deducted from the gross profits that will be equivalent at the
time the net is discarded to the labor emploj^ed in making it;
or as business men would say, it must provide a sinking
fund to replace itself when worn out. It wnll be observed
that as the margin of use of capital rises, this sinking fund
must be a larger proportion of the gross profits; as we have
seen, wages have risen and therefore the cost of making has

1 Read Bohni Bawerk's ^'Positive Theory of Capital" p. 254 ; Professor Smart's
translation for somewhat similar views, and to whom the writer acknowledges
obligation,

[424]

Thk Profits and Volume of Capital 35

been increased; at the same time the period of usefulness of
the article has been shortened.

If at the end of two years the total profits of a net will
exactly paj^ for the cost of making a new one, the point of
the reproduction of capital from its earnings has been
reached. If the needs of society force the production of
fish no further than those caught with two-year-old nets,
profits, or interest on capital in nets, will have disap-
peared; for wages will have risen to sixty fish, and all above
that caught by the nets will but pay for the cost of making
new ones. It is conceivable that nets might be so plentiful
that those more than a year old could be dispensed with, but
we see that the total profits in this case would be much less
than the cost of making the nets. Eighty fish would be
the wages of labor, the total catch of one-year-old nets, while
it would require all the fish above sixty that could be caught
for two years to pay for the nets.

The natural limit to the production of capital has now
been determined. It is the point of the reproduction of
capital from its earnings, as modified by the nature of man
in considering the shortness and uncertainties of life, and
his poor judgments of his future needs and weak will in exe-
cuting them.

It will be profitable to make some experimental applica-
tions of the principles laid down. If all the profits of capital
go to reproducing capital, leaving all w^ages and all rent to
go to other purposes, the volume of capital will quickly grow
to the point of the complete reproduction of capital. It
cannot go above it, as the waste from discarding capital too
soon will send it down again. It cannot stay below it, as
the net profits of capital longer used (necessitating lower
wages) will quickl}' raise the volume again. If the volume
of capital is stationary all the net profits of capital are being
absorbed in consumption. If the volume of capital is grow-
ing the net profits, less the net growth, gives the amount
absorbed in consumption.

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36 Annals of the American Academy

If the net profits of any capital, however small, be con-
stantly turned to the reproduction of more capital, time
alone is required to bring all capital to the reproductive
point; i. e., such sum of capital will itself absorb the wealth
of the world. It is the partial application of this principle
that has brought to its present magnitude the great Roths-
child fortune and is producing in our own country the
billion-dollar trusts.

In a strictl}^ economic society, and after the volume of capital
has adjusted itself, every improvement in machinerj- increases
wages through the rise in the margin of use, due to the
increased product. We may know this, but we cannot
measure its amount and determine its permanencj' until we
ascertain its effects upon the volume of consumption, and
how it will affect the numbers of population. If consump-
tion remain the same as before the total increase goes to
wages. An increased consumption means a relatively less
increase in wages. If consumption increases in the same
proportion as increased product (it cannot go above it) wages
cannot rise from this factor. If population remains the same
the whole increase will go to wages. If population rises
relatively with increased product (it cannot go above it) the
rise in wages will be proportionately less. The actual
change wnll be a composite resulting from these two effects.

A large part, possibly 90 per cent or more, of present
wages was originally the profits of capital, but upon the
increase of capital it has gone to wages by the rise in the
margin of use. To realize this it is but necessary to imagine
what the effect upon labor would be were the results of past
labor to be suddenly destroyed.

If this analj^sis of capital is correct there is no " surplus
value," as Karl Marx supposed, and no exploitation of labor
in the way the Socialist would have us believe. The analysis
reveals, however, a scientific reason for the socializing of
capital. The life of the individual is short and uncertain.
This justifies him, in any situation in which he may find

[426]

The Profits and Volume of Capital 37

himself, to demand a surplus profit on anj' capital he may
wish to accumulate; for if capital is at the reproductive
point, and yields no interest, his income from wages alone
would be as much as if he owned a million dollars' worth
of capital also. The life of the nation being so nearly per-
petual when measured by individual life the nation could,
without violating economic law, maintain the volume of cap-
ital at the reproductive point. The individual's ignorance
of his needs, and his lack of will privately to maintain the
requisite supply of capital, would be rectified by the greater
knowledge and power of the state. This, however, is but
one side of the account. It must be balanced by a public
civil service as perfect and economical as private emplo}''-
ment and a public honest}- equal to private honesty. These
two things having been secured the socializing of capital
may properly be considered. Public ownership could then
accomplish more than private ownership.

The value form of capital is of a more complex nature.
Its simplest manifestation is in the exchange of ' ' consump-
tion goods." The normal .static value of these is their
labor cost of production from land on the margin of cultiva-
tion with capital on the margin of use. It being, however,
impossible to forejudge the volume of production, because as
the result of favorable or unfavorable seasons, the ignorance
of what others are doing to supply the demand, or the
changes of fashion in consumption, the market price will
fluctuate with approximate equality above and below the
cost line.

If the world's wheat crop is large in any 3-ear the total
wheat values for that season may be less than thej^ would
have been with a two-thirds crop. To capture these addi-
tional values, it is said, whole cargoes of spices have been
dumped overboard at sea, the owners, controlling the total
output, having bought at prices governed by large supply.
Trusts are not a disadvantage to the public because they
produce cheaply, but because, by controlling the output,

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38 Annai^ of the American Academy

they can limit production and thereby extort scarcity values.
These acts being anti-economic are immoral, and should be
made criminal. Since the evils of monopoly arise from
the private ownership of natural elements, the simple remed}^
is the public ownership of those elements, thereby allowing
free enterprise and the most abundant production.

The normal static value of ' ' tools of production ' ' when
new is the same as that for consumption goods, and in addi-
tion to this it must agree \Yith their future earning power,
discounted in proportion to their productive qualities during
their term of usefulness. When tools cease to be new the
cost rule ceases to apply and their earning power governs
their value. The value of a locomotive or a mill will be its
future earning power, discounted for the waiting; but w^hen
they are new this value must also equal their cost of pro-
duction, otherwise they would not have been made.

Coined money is a tool that on first thought appears to be
value capital, but it belongs to the concrete variet}\ Its
value, in the long run, is its labor cost of production at mar-
ginal mines by the use of marginal machinery. It is perish-
able in that it is always liable to be lost in handling and by
abrasion. A hammer or a shovel may be emploj^ed for a
dozen useful purposes, but a coin can perform but two uses,
act as a common measure of value or effect exchanges. The
value of all other things, being measured by the value of
the coin unit, makes the coin appear as value capital, when
in fact it is concrete capital. Being used as the tool that
facilitates almost innumerable exchanges, the coin and
its representatives conveniently assume the minute sub-
divisions necessary to do the work in the most economical
manner. As the tools of railroad construction are accumu-
lated where railroads are being built, so the tools of exchange
are accumulated where there is the most use for them, as in
the markets of great cities.

This discussion has now reached the point where " inter-
est " may properly be defined. When the net profits of

[428]

Thk Profits and Voi^umk of Capitai, 39

capital are spoken of as bearing a certain ratio to the parent
capital, computed for a definite time, the ratio is properly
expressed decimally as a certain per cent of interest. The
term interest alwaj^s presupposes the comparing of two quan-
tities for]a period of time. The value of concrete capital,
sinking as its future earning power decreases, makes the
interest of value capital approximately the same in the same
market. The time element in the profits of capital has a
negative side as well as a positive one. The positive side
we may express in this way : time is necessary for the profits
of capital to show themselves. Negativel}-, we maj- say :
time, together with wear, destroys all capital.

" Capital " is used here with a more comprehensive mean-
ing than economists generally give it, but the term, never-
theless, has a relatively restricted scope. Capital springs
only from labor (man's activities) applied to land (nature's
gifts) . Furthermore, a thing to exist at some future time
onl}^ cannot be said to exist to-day. We recognize this
truth in the homely caution, "Don't count your chickens
before they're hatched." It is a true axiom that "Like
things only can be measured by like. ' '

When a man had the power to take for his own use the
surplus earnings of another, he could sell that power and its
value was computed in the way we now compute the value of
a tool — i. e., the value was the probable future net earning
power discounted by the owner to recompense him for wait-
ing for the enjo3'ment of the product of his slave's labor.
The slave might be worth ^2,000 ; or, if he had been taught
a trade, $4,000. A slave-owner shipwrecked and naked on
a desert island with ten companions, his slaves, in the same
situation as himself, and about to be rescued by a passing-
ship, might be worth $40,000 and have all his "capital"
according to the old idea, with him. Labor applied to land
did not make his slaves, and could not, therefore, be capital
according to our ethical conception of the term. The prod-
uct of the slave's labor must exist before it can be called

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40 Annals of the American Academy

capital. Man's power over another cannot be measured in
shovels or axes, wheat or dollars. An advance in ethics
was made, a great moral idea prevailed ; ' ' capital ' ' in
slaves was destroyed.

A parent educates his son to follow successfully a very
profitable trade or profession. His proficiency is not capital ;
it is himself. He is a more perfect man than he would other-
wise have been or than his early uneducated playmate is.
No labor has been spent on land. If he does something that
his ignorant mate could do equally well, it is of no more
value than if the other had done it. Knowledge cannot be
compared with plows or hoes ; but only with ignorance.
Developing man's latent powers is not producing capital ;
it is making the man.

A patent is a grant of power, by government, giving a
monopoly of the making of an article to presumably the first
inventor or his representatives. The plan of the article is
not a product of land, but of the inventor's mind. To be-
come capital it must first become embodied in material. The
idea may have a value but it is not a thing. The granting
of one power by government can only compare with the
granting of other powers by government. However wise
or unwise the grant of a patent may be, it is only the power
to transfer wealth from the slower-minded to a fortunately
quicker-minded one. The people might possibly be better
served by directly rewarding inventors from the public
treasury, and granting no monopoly to any one.

A man of business builds up, by fair dealing and progres-
sive methods, a valuable reputation for his firm. The ad-
vantage he derives thereby is not the profits of his capital, but
the wages of his labor. It is his pay for the exercise of his
moral qualities of honesty and enterprise. Enterprise can be
compared onh^ with the lack of it, and honesty with dishonesty,

A railroad furnishes transportation facilities for a certain
section of country'. With its building goes a natural monop-
oly of the freight and passenger servnce of its territory. No

[430]

The Profits and Voi^ume of Capitai, 41

other road, unless for speculative purposes, will be built if
one is sufl&cient to do the business, for a competitor would
only divide the trafl&c and might reduce the rates. A reduc-
tion in rates might be an economic loss to the owners. A
division of the traffic might be to the disadvantage both of
the owners and the public. The maintenance of two roads
where one was sufficient could not be otherwise than an
economic loss — both in the building and in the operating.
The rates, it will be seen, representing the profits of capital,
are not governed by the laws that regulate the profits and
volume of capital, but by that of "all the traffic will
bear." This may be in extreme instances several times
the normal profits on the labor spent in construction and
maintenance. This monopoly power, allowing a higher than
the normal rate of interest, is the foundation for the issu-
ance of watered stock, so prominent a feature in all private
corporations performing public functions through natural
monopolies, also of those performing private functions
through the private ownership of natural elements.

Is watered stock capital ? It springs not from labor but
from the power of appropriation. It represents not things
in existence but that which may be in existence at some
future time. Rights to things can only originate with
things, and must by nature lie with him that produces them.
Watered stock accordingly cannot be capital/

1 Economics has its basis in ethics. Until man's right to personal liberty was
recognized there could be no freedom of contract— the hypothesis which Adam
Smith used in his fVeaiih of Nations, and which Ricardo and Malthus further
employed in their determination of the Law of Rent and of Population. If we may
judge of the future by the past, we may expect the future extension of economic
knowledge to be the result of a further and closer determination of the rights of
man in and to propertj\ Property rights will become more sacred. The wages
of labor will belong, without division, to the laborer, be he superintendent or
superintended; whether he exercise his muscles, his mind, or if you please, his
morals. The profits of capital will belong, without division, to those who have
the right of ownership in capital, whether they be individual, corporation, city,
state or nation. Wealth, the product of social growth (economic rent), will
belong, without division, to the society whose presence produces it, and those
tilings that are planted in the earth by nature to serve man's wants will belongi
by right, equally to all God's children.

[431]

42 Annals of the American Academy

It onl}^ remains to make application of the foregoing prin-
ciples to laud to ans\Yer whether land values should be
included in the capital of a country. L^and values are the
reflex on land of the normal interest rates on value capital.
As the uncertainties of life will cause man to require a net
profit on concrete capital, or a rate of interest, the same
influences will govern the man having the power of appro-
priating to his own use the economic rent of land. If his
capital earns him lo per cent he will consider the land rent
he receives to be the same ratio to the laud's value. If he
wishes to ' ' sell his land ' ' he will expect to receive ten times
the yearly rental. If the interest rate is 5 per cent he will
expect to receive twenty times the annual rental. Stating
it in another way, we may say the " right " of land owner-
ship being a right to the perpetual rental, its " value " will
be the sums of the perpetual rental discounted at the pre-
vailing rate of discount to the present worth at the present
time.

Free gifts of nature cannot be a product of labor, nor have
they an}^ relation to labor products. They cannot be meas-
ured by the units employed in the measurement of capital,
because, having different sources and natures, they are
entirely different in kind. To assert otherwise is to claim as
sensible such queries as, "Which has the greatest cost of
production, a cucumber or a sunbeam, a sewing machine or
Niagara Falls, a bushel of v/heat or a town lot?" If the
items of capital must exist before they can be enumerated,
how can the products of nature or of labor that will appear
upon the earth as long as man inhabits it be claimed and
listed as present day capital? They cannot, and land values
have no proper place in an enumeration of capital.

1 lu Professor Hadley's Economics, par. 320, he saj's : " Economic rent is
chiefly due to foresight in investment." But suppose that the institution of pri-
vate property in land did not exist, there could then be no investment. Would a
rich gold or iron mine then be of no more value than a sand bank ? Would the}'
yield no economic rent in proportion to their richness or barrenness? Would
there be no diSerence in the productive powers of a fertile valley and a desert
plain?

[432]

The Profits and Voi^ume; of Capitai, 43

The United States census report of total wealth must be
analyzed and the different items segregated before it can be
properly understood. If half the eighty billions of wealth
represents the value of concrete labor products the balance,
or forty billions, simply represents future expectations.
These forty billions are the capitalized yearly earnings, from
land and franchises, at the prevailing rate of interest.
Another country, having the same population and labor prod-
ucts, and with equal natural and franchise advantages, but
whose people require double the rate of interest, would list
this value at twenty billions. Another country, with the
same population and labor products, and with equal natural
and franchise advantages, but whose people were satisfied
with half the interest rate, would put down this item of
their wealth at eighty billions. If a large stock of national
capital is desired we have but to forego the natural right to
personal freedom, re-establish slavery, have the number of
slaves about half the number of people. We might then put
our stock of national capital at about double the present
inflated figures.

W1L1.1AM Grant Sawin.

San Francisco, Cal.

RECENT TENDENCIES IN STATE ADMINISTRA-
TION.

The utterances of the governors of several of our states
within recent j^ears have called the attention of the public
to what has become the chief distinguishing characteristic of
modern state administration, viz: the tendency to conduct
administration by means of an appointed board or commis-
sion. Few Americans realize the extent to which this has
gone. In a general way it is known that there are a great
many commissioners and trustees of various sorts in our
states, and that the care of certain public institutions is
given over to them. But it is not so well known that many
of the most important interests with which the state has to
deal are in the hands of such boards. Thus we have Boards
of Health and Charities in nearly all of our states. The
numerous questions arising out of the modern system of
transportation, questions affecting commerce and agricul-
ture, the control of our penal and reformatory institutions,
are all made the subject of commission government.

These boards and commissions have arisen in response to
a well-defined demand for some agency which would carry
us over an experimental period in administration, and can
hardly be said to be the final answer to the question how
best to care for these various interests. They must be con-
sidered as having been created especially to meet the wants
of social and economic conditions consequent upon a rapid
increase in population and wealth, and as first attempts to
solve questions which are not yet fully answered.

Having thus been created to meet the exigencies of the
moment, they have often apparently been established with
little regard to efficiency or to their proper relation to the
administrative machinery which alread)' existed. There has
been a consequent multiplication of such boards and com-
missions until New York has to-day nearly one hundred dif-

[434]

Tende;ncies in State Administration 45

ferent bodies of commissiouers and boards of trustees, while
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and the other more populous
states have a like number, many of which are unnecessary.

These boards fall into three divisions, depending upon
the nature of their duties. Certain of them have only
power to investigate and report upon their findings; others
have semi-judicial powers; and a great deal of the executive
power of the state has been placed in the hands of a third
class.

It is not questioned here that for the purposes of investi-
gation and recommendation a board may be an ef&cient organ
of administration. Nor is it the intention to criticise
boards with semi-judicial powers, in so far as they perform
the work of a court. But where the board has only or
chiefly, executive and administrative powers, as is the case
in many instances, its necessity and usefulness in our state
governments may be questioned. The suggestions in this
paper go rather to the abuse than to the use of the idea of a
board in the government of the state.

The appointment of the boards of the third class has re-
acted upon the organization of executive power in our states
in two ways. It has seemingly increased the governor's
power in that to him has generally been given the appoint-
ing of the members of the boards; and this has to a certain
extent prevented this branch of the governing power from
becoming overshadowed by the legislative and judicial
branches. While this is true, it has given to the executive
but little real power; for though he is able to appoint the
members of the boards, he has no voice in the management
of the affairs which are entrusted to them. Once appointed
they pass from his control and become irresponsible, and
their conduct can only be questioned by judicial processes.

The number and complexity of these commissions has
become so great that students of politics may well give some
attention to their usefulness as governmental agencies.
Indeed, such an investigation has been suggested by four

[435]

46 Annals of the American Academy

of New York's governors within the last fifteen j-ears, and
by two governors of Massachusetts. The suggestion has
also been made by writers upon legislation and administra-
tion that a reorganization in the field of government covered
by such commissions would be in the interests of good gov-
ernment and public economy.^

Any system of dealing with public interests in order to
justify itself before the bar of present-day public opinion,
must meet at least three requirements, i. e. , those of effi-
ciency, economy and accountability. Systems which can-
not meet these may live. But it is either because the people
are not aware of their failure, or know of no better way to
deal with the matters with which the}'- are entrusted. The
people of the states are to a great degree dependent upon the
state government for safety and happiness, for libertj', prop-
erty and general welfare. It touches them at each of these
vital points; and it is to their immediate interest that the
form of government which the state provides should be of
the highest efficiency, and at the same time should be eco-
nomical and responsible. The more complex these duties
become, the greater becomes the necessity that the power
which administers them should be restrained by such official
responsibility as will keep it alwaj'S within the control of the
people. "The first requisite of efficient administration is
power, with responsibility which can readil}' call it to ac-
count."

Present-day methods of administration through a commis-
sion are neither economical, efficient nor responsible. On
the contrary, from the evidence before us they seem to be
most extravagant methods, having a great lack of efficiency
and being responsible to no one. Their creation, too, has
taken a part of the executive power from where it logically
belongs and transferred it to them in a manner which greatly

1 Governors Hill, Morton, Flower and Odell in New York, and Russell and
Greenhalge in Massachusetts, have referred to these matters in recent messages.
Fairlie, Whitten, Webster and Goodnow, in published discussions, have also dealt
with the subject.

[436]

Tende;ncies in State Administration 47

weakens executive power and authority, while it does not
inure to the benefit of the people.

A commission, generally speaking, is not as efficient as a
single executive officer, for several reasons. In the organi-
zation of many of them there are seen to be a number of
ex-officio members. These cannot be counted upon for active
work, and are a source of weakness rather than of strength. If
in addition to this the members live at a distance from
each other, and meet only occasionally, they cannot have
that grasp of affairs which is necessary to efficient adminis-
tration. Such a commission is also subject to all the weak-
ness of a deliberative body. In many cases the members are
unpaid, and this causes a lack of interest unless they are
stimulated by patriotism or some personal interest which may
be wanting. The charge is also made that these commis-
sions have on them men who have been appointed for politi-
cal reasons, the commission being considered a place "of
comfortable retirement for once active politicians whose
occupation is gone, and whose usefulness to the common-
wealth is measured only by their admitted uselessness to
political parties or to business circles. " It is not here claimed
that all these sources of weakness are present in all commis-
sions; but if any of them are, they are in so far rendered
incapable of giving that efficient service which the public
business ought to receive.

"Aboard," says Governor D. B. Hill, "consisting of eleven
persons (aside from its ex-officio members) scattered in
various parts of the state, and which only occasionally meets,
is a cumbersome and unwieldy bod3\ It cannot perform its
duties as efficiently or satisfactorily as a single responsible
head. Its functions cannot be discharged as economically or
expeditiously as when in the hands of one controlling execu-
tive officer. ' ' ^ Governor Hill recommends the abolition of the
State Board of Charities and the Commission in Lunacy, and
the creation of a single commissioner, who should be vested

1 Public Papers of D. B. Kill, iSS6, p. 38.

[437]

Annai^ of the American Academy

with the powers of both boards. He also recommends the
abolition of the State Board of Health of ten members, and
the substitution of one ofl5cer competent to assume the sole
general charge of the preserv^ation of the public health.
This officer should be as " potential and responsible ' ' in his
department, as are the other single departmental heads in
theirs.

Another fact should be mentioned in this connection. The
members of these boards in many instances have other busi-
ness to which they must give the greater part of their atten-
tion, public service being to them onlj^ incidental. From
the nature of the case efficient service cannot be expected
from such members, if, as is true in many instances, the
affairs to be dealt with are of a complex nature. Even such
commissioners as those on the Board of Fish, Game and
Forestry in New York, in the opinion of Governor Roose-
velt should be woodsmen, and have no outside business.^

The great multiplication of boards and commissions has
tended to increase public expenditures very rapidl3^ This
tendency was noted in 1892 by Governor Flower, of New
York, in his annual message. The following table of ex-
penses incurred by some of the boards in that state will
indicate this with sufficient emphasis:

Name of Board.

When
Established.

Cost FirstYear.

In 1891.

Board of Health

Bureau of Labor

Dairy Commission

Forest Commission

Arbitration

Lunacy Commission ....

1880
1883
1884
1884
1886
1889

$11,700

7,090

41,503

2,954

14.552

16,146

;?28,832
35,506
91,842
58,478

15.093
20,895

A great many commissions have been established since this
message was written; but the warning which it contains is
even more applicable to present conditions than it was to
those of the time when it was written. The Governor further

1 Message, 1900.

[438]

Tendencies in State Administration 49

said: ' ' Undoubtedly a large part of this legislation was wise
and the commissions or bureaus created have accomplished
many beneficial results; but some of them, I fear, have failed
to justify the expenditure on their behalf, and the tendency
in nearly all of them has been toward constantly increasing
expenditures."*

This indication of the tendency to expense has not been
overlooked by later governors of the Empire State. Of
somewhat sterner nature is the following from the message
of Governor Morton in 1895: " A great extravagance arises
from the multiplicity of commissions which have increased
so rapidly in number and expense since about the 3'ear 1880.
From an expenditure for the duties covered by these com-
missions of less than $4,000 in 1880, we have seen the
growth from year to year until the cost of these commissions
alone amounted last year to nearly a million and a quarter
of dollars."

The fullest treatment which the question of expense in
commissions has received at the hands of a public servant is
contained in the recent utterance of Governor Odell in
January, 1901. Governor Odell calls the attention of the
legislature to the fact of the great growth of government by
commission, and points out clearly the importance of doing
away with many of them which have outgrown their useful-
ness. His treatment of this question is so masterly a setting
forth of the facts as to commission government in New York
that I quote at some length from it:

" lyCgislation," he says, "in recent years has enlarged
and in many cases duplicated the work until the many
officials with their accompanying salaries, expenses and
other incidental outlays have grown to proportions inconsist-
ent with a due regard to the interests of the taxpayers. The
Board of Mediation and Arbitration received an appropriation
(in 1900) of $17,800 for salaries and office expenses. The
Bureau of Labor Statistics received an appropriation of

> Public Papers of R. G. Flower, New York, 1892, p. 20.

[439]

so Annate of the American Academy

$32,942. The State Factory Inspector's department received
an appropriation of $121,551; making a total appro-
priation for these three departments of $172,293. It would
seem that by a consolidation of these three departments
into one, to be known as the Department of I^abor, the
work done by each of the present departments could be
more efficientlj^ performed and at a very much less expense
than is now possible. In my opinion at least $72,000 would
be saved by such a union and the great interests of labor be
better conserved." The State Board of Charities is com-
posed of twelve members each of whom receive ten dollars
per day for their service. The appropriation during 1900
for this purpose was $51,620. If these duties were given to
a single commissioner appointed by the governor it is
estimated that a saving of $25,000 per year could be effected.
A like saving might be effected by doing away with the
Prison Commission, in the opinion of Governor Odell, of
$10,000. In discussing the State Forestrj^ Preserve Board
and Forestr>% Fish and Game Commission he says, " There
was appropriated by the last legislature for the salaries and
office expenses of the Forestry, Fish and Game Commission
the sum of $82,875. This includes the expenses of printing
and publication of reports, salaries of commissioners and
employees and other expenses incidental to the maintenance
of such a department, but not the maintenance of hatcheries
and legal expenses. Aside from the sum of $250,000
appropriated for the purchase of lands and expenses of the
Forest Preserve Board, there were expended for other salaries
and office expenses over $14,000 and paid for additional
counsel about $12,000. The saving of expenses which
would undoubtedly follow consolidation would amount to
probably $35 , 000. ' ' ^

The experience of New York in this matter has not been
exceptional. The evils complained of there might be dupli-

^ Message of Governor Odell, New York, 1901.

[440]

Tendencies in State Administration 51

cated in any one of a half dozen of our more populous
states, and in all of them to some degree.

Following these vigorous recommendations of Governor
Odell the Forest, Fish and Game Commission, and the
Forest Preserve Board were consolidated and put under a
single commissioner. The Bureau of Labor Statistics,
Board of Mediation and Arbitration and Department of Fac-
tory Inspection were likewise consolidated under a single
commissioner. The Prison Commission, consisting of eight
members, and the Board of Health, consisting of three mem-
bers, were each reorganized and put under single commis-
sioners. It is too early yet to speak of results, but if the
experience of our cities and of commission government
generally is any criterion, the outcome cannot but be a happy
one for New York.

The experience of Iowa in the matter of control of her
public institutions is a case in point. Previous to the estab-
lishment of the Board of Control, the public institutions of
that state were under the control of separate Boards of Trus-
tees. With the establishment of the Board of Control these
were abolished and thirteen institutions passed under a
single management. The Board of Control made its first
biennial report in 1899, which includes a statement of the
expenses of carrying on the institutions for two years, one
under the old plan and one under the new. It shows that
for the eleven charitable, penal and reformatory institutions
there was expended for the year ending June 30, 1898, a total
of $1,148,126.80. For the same institutions the expenseof
the following year was a total of $966,492.95, this being
$181,633.85 less than for the previous year. The saving of
expense was eflfected at no sacrifice to efficiency, but the
universal verdict in that state is that the service was greatly
improved. The board in its report says: " A full apprecia-
tion of this reduction in expense cannot be understood with-
out reference to the fact that there has been an advance in
the prices of supplies of all kinds during the last year of

[441]

52 Annals of the American Academy

from twenty to thirt}' per cent, as is shown by the commer-
cial reports. Had the prices of two years before prevailed,
it is safe to say that there would have been a reduction of
$150,000 more than the above. It is but stating a fact that
the board has not in a single instance endeavored to reduce
the cost of support of the institutions at the expense of effi-
ciency of service to the inmates." ^

The experience of the State of Washington corroborates
the above. In 1897 Washington's public institutions, five
in number, passed from the control of separate Boards of
Trustees under the care of a single Board of Control. The
cost of maintaining these institutions under the old plan of
directors for the four ^-ears ending in March, 1897, was
$1,021,531, or an average daily cost for all institutions of
fifty-two cents per capita. For three and one-half years,
under the Board of Control, the cost was $799,303, or an
average per capita cost of forty cents per day.'^

What is shown to be true in these states is true of commis-
sion government everywhere. The people of the state uni-
versally get less service for the monej^ expended, from this
form of administration, than from any other. And this is
true, irrespective of the integrity and carefulness of the
individual members. It is the defects of the system which
are here complained of — a system under which the best
intentioned officials cannot work efficiently and economi-
call^^

The boards are practically irresponsible bodies. They
are beyond the control of the people, or of any one who is
responsible to the people for their actions. Appointed as
they are for definite terms of office, they cannot be removed
during that term except after an investigation, which
amounts to an impeachment. The governor who appoints
them in many cases can only appoint a single member, the
terms of the others extending bej'ond his own, so that he

* First Biennial Report, Iowa Board of Coutrol, p. 27.

* Bulletin, Iowa Board of Control, October, 1900, p. i.

[442]

Tendencies in State Administration 53

can neither mould the poHcy of the board nor can he be
held responsible for it. ' ' The people of the state might
have a most decided opinion about the management and
work of the departments and give emphatic expression to
that opinion, and yet be unable to control their action.
The system gives great power without proper responsibility,
and tends to remove the people's government from the
people's control. All must agree that the safe and demo-
cratic form of government is to make these administrative
ofl&cers in some way responsible to the people." ^

Massachusetts furnishes us with an instance of the power-
lessness of the people to control these commissions. Gross
mismanagement was complained of in the prisons of that
state. But upon investigation it was ascertained that the
prison commissioners could not be reached after their appoint-
ment except at the trouble and expense of a judicial inves-
tigation, and nothing was done. The Board of Supervisors
of Statistics of Massachusetts was organized in 1877, com-
posed of certain ex-ofl5cio officers, its duties being to have
general supervision over all matters relating to statistics.
It was required under the law to meet regularly at the state
house at least once a month. But in the course of fifteen
years it met but once, and then did nothing. There being
no one to whom the board was responsible nothing could be
done to arouse it from its apathy.

Hon. Seth I^ow, who certainly speaks with authority upon
this question, says: "State commissions for any other pur-
pose than for inquiry are the most dangerous bodies, because
they exercise authority without responsibility. Power with-
out responsibility is always dangerous, but power with
responsibility to a constituency, which can readily call it
to account is not dangerous. It is the first requisite of effi-
cient administration." The fact that these commissions are
thoroughly irresponsible is more readily appreciated when
we call to mind that under the law of appointed offices,

1 Messages of Governor W. E. Russell, 1S91, 1892, 1893.

[443]

54 Annals of the American Academy

where the appointing power must have the consent of any
other body to make the appointment vaHd, the same power
must consent to the removal of the ofl&cer so appointed, in
the absence of express statutory provision to the contrary/
The constitutions of seven of our states provide that the gov-
ernor ma}^ remove for cause anj' officer appointed b}- him ;
but the force of such provisions is largely broken when it is
considered that the rule of law in such cases is that where
removal is to be had for cause, the power cannot be exer-
cised until after the officer has been duly notified and an
opportunity is given him to be heard in his own defence.'
This has been recognized in some of the later legislation, and
definite provision is often made for the removal by the gov-
ernor of the officers appointed by him under the acts. But
this leaves a large number of commissioners and boards who
are out of the reach of anything short of what virtually
amounts to an impeachment.

While it is believed that the foregoing is a correct state-
ment as to the present weaknesses of commission govern-
ment, it should not be concluded that there is not a place
for some use of the commission in our administration. In
the period when we began their appointment, the questions
with which they had to deal were new and untried. Kxperi-
ments had to be made, information gathered, and sugges-
tions offered. And for these purposes there can be no doubt
as to the efficacy of a commission. We are no longer in the
tentative stage in a great deal of our state administration,
and, it would seem, need no longer adhere to tentative
methods. We are able to say with definiteness what we
desire with reference to a great manj' questions about which
in the past we have been inquiring and experimenting. Is
it not time for us to reorganize our system of administration,
and inaugurate a policy which has unity and system cou-
pled with a proper responsibility to the people ?

1 People vs. Freese, 76 Cal. 733.

* Am. & Etig. Encj'. Law, v. 19, p. 562.

[444]

TENDENCIES IN State Administration 55

It was suggested in the beginning of this paper that this
system had taken power which is properly executive and
placed it beyond the reach of the executive department of the
government. This has resulted in a comparative diminution
of the power of that department in comparison with that of the
legislative and judicial departments. The condition of affairs
in the present is such that the rights of the people can only
be guaranteed to them by a restoration of at least a part of
this power to the executive. It is manifestly unfeasible to
elect all the officers of the state administration. They must
be appointed. But if appointed, the)'' must by some means
be held accountable for their actions. This might be secured
by giving to the governor of the state the power to appoint
heads of departments who should be at all times responsible
to him and subject to his removal. Under them the various
interests which are now taken care of by commissions could
be cared for through deputies at less expense and with much
gain in efficiency over the present system. Then if the gov-
ernor were held responsible for the whole of the administra-
tion of the state, as he should be, the people would be pos-
sessed of an effectual check upon its conduct. This principle
is familiar to us in the government of most of our large cities
of to-day, and though the wisdom of the system has been
questioned by many, it nevertheless seems to present the
only feasible plan under our present conditions,

Leonard A. Blue.

Chicago.

WESTERN SOUTH AMERICA AND ITS REI.ATION
TO AMERICAN TRADE.

The current discussion of the Isthmian Canal project
justifies a careful study of Western South America. Our
present commerce with that section is almost insignificant,
comprising less than five-tenths per cent of our exports last
year, nevertheless, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and
Chile include a large section of a continent having natural
resources capable of contributing abundantly to the world's
commerce. Indeed, forces are now at work whose operation
will in time make these resources available. The purpose
of this paper is to consider the geography and commercial
relations of Western South America with reference to
American trade.

Western South America comprises the part of the conti-
nent commercially dependent upon the Pacific. The area of
a region so defined cannot be a definitely prescribed one,
because it must vary with the development of the means of
transportation to and from the ports of either coast. The
centres of South American population are all near the coasts,
and the coasts to the north of the Tropic of Capricorn are
separated by natural barriers that will always cause the
commerce of both shore regions to depend for transportation
upon the oceans toward which they front.

The interior of the South American continent is a vast
plain so level that small boats can pass from the Orinoco to
the Amazon, and at the season of floods go from the head
waters of the Amazon to those of the Plata. This interior
level plain is covered by an impassable jungle, through
which the rivers are the only highways. Great areas of the
country are annually flooded. The conditions not only
prohibit settlement, but also debar commercial communica-
tion between the coasts except by means of the steamers on
the Amazon River, which must wind their way through

[446]

South American Trade. 57

three thousand miles of unhealthy and unexplored forests
to reach the foothills of the Andes. The Pacific Ocean is,
and must remain, the commercial highway for the Pacific
Coast plain, the Andean plateau, and probably for a large
section of the eastern slope of the Andes.

The ordinary Mercator's projection wall map of the world
makes North America seem much larger than South Amer-
ica, and gives the impression that the western part of the
South American continent has a small area. The length of the
Pacific shore line of South America is 5,000 miles, a distance
great enough to reach from the Nicaragua Canal into the
Arctic Sea beyond Baffin's Bay. Even the part of it that is
to-day engaging in the foreign trade is 3,200 miles long, the
distance from Cuba to the latitude of Northern Iceland.
The Andean Highlands are in places 500 miles wide. South
America lies in two habitable zones, while the commercial
part of North America comprises only the best part of one
zone, the North Temperate, where the degrees of longitude
are shorter than in torrid latitudes. The distance from the
Everglades of Florida to the unexplored woods north of
Ottawa, Canada, is less than 1,500 miles. Sonth America
extends north and south an equal distance in the correspond-
ing South Temperate latitudes, and in addition, more than
2,000 miles across the Torrid Zone.

The area of Western South America is about 750,000
square miles, twice that of the original thirteen states of
North America, and more than three-fourths as large as the
states to the east of the Mississippi River. The climatic
variations run the full gamut. The plateaus lift their
mountains in equatorial latitudes bej'ond the snow line, and
the range of humidity is such as to produce tropic morasses,
and arid deserts. The variety of production corresponds
with the range in climate.

Western South America is separated into six regions
possessing distinctly different industrial characteristics.
These industrial subdivisions are the Cauca Valley of South-

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58 Annals of the American Academy

western Colombia, the Ecuadorean coast plain, the Peruvian
coast plain, the mineral desert of Chile, the Chilean agri-
cultural belt and the Andean Plateau. The greater part of
Western South America lies within the Torrid Zone, but
owing to its elevation, the climate is chiefly that of the
Temperate Zone. Onl)^ two of the six industrial units of
Western South America, the Ecuadorean coast plain and
the Cauca Valley have a tropical climate possessing the
temperature and humidity of Cuba and Porto Rico, and
they are the smallest of all the divisions, containing less
than a million people. A third division, the Peruviancoast
plain, lying within the Torrid Zone, is by its aridity saved
from the malaria of the usual tropic climate.

The total population of Western South America is about
10,000,000, more than twice as large as that of our own
Pacific and Rocky Mountain States, but possesses such
difierent characteristics as to preclude comparison on a
numerical basis. A large part of the South American
population under discussion is native Indian, another large
part is mixed Indian and Spanish, and but a small proportion,
not exceeding one-fourth, is of the dominant Spanish race.
In South America, the white men have not driven out the
Indian, who is industrially superior to the North American
Indian, and may be compared with our negro. All authori-
ties agree in stating that native South Americans are a
peaceable race that can be successfully utilized for industrial
purposes. In many plateau sections, these Indians own
their homes and the small tracts of land from which
they glean their living by crude methods of agriculture. In
the tropic plain of Ecuador, the labor conditions are less
favorable, and the debt laws are such that in a country
where theoretic freedom prevails, the ordinary' laborer is
held in a condition of financial and industrial servitude by
his creditor.

The several industrial divisions of the continent vary
widely in their typical exports. The agricultural products

[448]

South American Trade. 59

include, among other articles, the cocoa and rubber of Ecua-
dor, the wheat of Chile, and the sugar, cotton, and skins
and hides from Peru. Among the minerals are the unique
desert products, nitrate of soda and borax, the coal of Chile,
and the copper, tin, silver and gold of the Andes.

Western South America has two broad phj^sical divisions,
the Andean region and the Coast plain. The Pacific Coast
plain includes four of the most widely contrasted of the indus-
trial regions. Two are within the tropics : the Ecuadorean
coast plain, with abundant moisture for tropic agriculture,
and the arid Peruvian coast plain, where all animal and
vegetable life depends upon the water from the snow fields
of the Andes. The dryness of the atmosphere and the
absence of fresh-water lakes give this section a more health-
ful climate than most parts of the tropics possess, and make
it suitable for the white races to inhabit. Between this
region of irrigation and the agricultural belt that lies in the
temperate region of Chile, is a desert, difiering from other
deserts, however, in that it contains wealth. The rainless
climate has caused the accumulation and retention in the
soil of large quantities of salts that are elsewhere dissolved
and carried to the ocean. The most important part of these
minerals is the nitrate of soda, which is found in a continu-
ous deposit paralleling the seashore for 150 miles, and esti-
mated to cover 220,000 acres and contain 228,000,000 long
tons — a quantity sufficient to last the world for many decades.
The nitrate lies close to the surface under a layer of sand,
but the deposits are at the elevation of 3,300 feet, and must
be reached by railroads built for the purpose. It is now
being exported in large and increasing quantities, and gives
rise to a mining industry requiring much capital and employ-
ing many men. The crude product is boiled down and
chemically treated in large plants requiring expensive
machinery.

Water to supply the towns on the rainless nitrate coast is
brought to the cities in pipe lines from the Andes, 150 to

[449]

6o Annals of the American Academy

200 miles away. Every other article necessary for sustain-
ing the life of man or beast must be brought b)- sea from
some more favored region. The imports come from many
countries, but chiefly from the agricultural districts farther
south, where the products are similar to those of our Pacific
Coast States, with which Chile possesses some points of
similarity.

Chile is long and narrow, but her area is large, larger, in
fact, than that of France, Germany or the United Kingdom,
or the combined area of the New England and Middle At-
lantic States with Maryland and the Virginias added. Her
length of 2,600 miles would reach from New York to Utah.
The country extends from a tropic desert to Terra del Fuego
where the latitude and climate are like those of Scotland, or
of Alaska.

The temperate shores of the Pacific in North and South
America, show a succession of corresponding geographic and
climatic features. These resemblances would appear plainty
if Chile could be inverted beside the coast of North America.
The lower end of the inverted Chile would be opposite the
City of Mexico, and Terra del Fuego would be about the
latitude of Sitka, Alaska. The 800 miles of Chilean desert,
with its nitrates, would lie along the arid coast of Mexico
with its silver mines. Patagonia would be opposite British
Columbia and Alaska, both regions being damp, fringed
with rugged islands, and cut into sharp fjords walled in by
forest-clad mountains with snow fields on their summits and
glaciers on their sides. The tropical and cold sections can
produce little except raw materials, but in the temperate belt
of each region, civilization and diversified industry are pos-
sible. The climate is that of Western Europe, and the
United States.

It is by comparing the productive region of the North
Temperate Pacific with the South Temperate Pacific that the
greatest geographic resemblances of the two coasts appear;
likewise their only difference. This difference is due to the

[450]

South American Trade. 6i

absence of a South American duplicate for the State of Wash-
ington, California and Oregon are reproduced, but the
Antarctic current, sweeping up the coast of South America,
shortens the temperate section of Chile .so much that the
region corresponding to the State of Washington is replaced
by a longer continuation of the rugged and forest-clad coast
similar to that of Alaska and British Columbia.

Near the Mexican boundary of the United States and in
latitude 29°, the resemblances to the corresponding agricul-
tural parts of Chile are obvious. In Chile, the arid country
by means of irrigation produces grapes, raisins, citrus and
other fruits, and alfalfa, the alfalfa being used as supplemen-
tary fodder for the cattle pa.stured on the higher hills. The
arid belt extends several hundred miles, and is succeeded on
the south by wheat fields and general agriculture. The
Chilean forests corresponding to those of Central and North-
ern California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia,
exist in the lower half of the Chilean agricultural region and
along the extensive coast of Patagonia.

The best section of the western slope of both Chile and
the United States is found in a great interior valley. The
valley of California, bounded on the east by the Sierra
Nevada, on the west by the coast range and drained by the
Sacramento and the San Joaquin rivers, is widely known
because of its fertility. Chile also has a valley similar to
this, but larger and superior to it in several particulars. It
is enclosed by the Andes on the east and by coast ranges
near the shore of the Pacific; but these coast ranges are not
so continuous as those of California, being broken at fre-
quent intervals where rivers make their way to the ocean.
Instead of being drained by two rivers flowing lengthwise
and having one outlet to the sea, the Chilean Valley has
several small rivers flowing across it and discharging into
the ocean. The basins of these rivers are not separated by
high divides, but are practically continuous, so that the
whole district is properly spoken of as one great valley.

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62 Annai^ of the American Academy

The Andes are higher than the Sierra Nevadas, and the
westerly winds bring a larger amount of moisture than
California has. The streams have a larger and more con-
stant flow of water from the mountain snows and furnish an
abundant supply for irrigation, and in some places provide
good power. The conditions and crops here are essentially
Californian, and the population of two and a half millions
of people is equal to the entire population of our Pacific
Coast States.

The mountain systems of the Andes form the two remain-
ing industrial units. The less important of these is the
valley of the Cauca River in Southern Colombia, where the
ranges of the mountains separate to come together again
farther north. The ranges toward the Pacific are lower
than those north of this valley, and the only commercial
outlet of the valley lies across them. The valley is as large
as New Jersey. Half a million people live there, at an
elevation of from 3,000 to 6,000 feet, in a climate that is
tropical and sub-tropical. Southward from Colombia the
mountains become higher and widen into the Andean
plateau which extends through Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia
for a distance of 1,500 miles to the Argentine boundary.
This plateau, the sixth of the industrial divisions above-
named, contains as great an area and population as do all
the others combined. It has a cool climate, a fair labor
supply, pastoral and mineral resources, and the possibility
of taking an important place in the world's trade, from which
it is at present almost entirely cut off by the lack of means
of communication over the high and steep ranges of the
Western Andes.

The foreign trade of Western South America is with
Europe and the United States, and amounts to about
$160,000,000 per annum — an average of sixteen dollars per
capita, or slightly more than half of our average. Com-
parisons of per capita foreign trade do not, however, throw
much light on industrial conditions. Western South America

[452]

South American Trade; 63

exports only raw materials and imports nearly all of the
manufactures used. The United States having a great
variety of resources and industries supplies most of her own
wants, and her imports consist not only of special manufac-
tures, but also of material needed b}^ American industries.
Our foreign trade of thirty dollars per capita represents a
small part of our industrial activity, while in Western South
America the foreign trade of sixteen dollars per person
represents almost the entire commercial activity of a popu-
lation industrially undeveloped.

The nature of the resources of Western South America is
such that the region is likely to continue permanently in
the extractive stage of industry, or at least till a period too
remote for present consideration. Pacific South America is
now but half of an industrial unit, the other half, the manu-
facturing complement, is in Europe and the United States,
and can be reached only by a long and dangerous route.
Each one of these industrial half units needs better facilities
for marketing its produce in the other. One important ser-
vice of an isthmian canal will be to unite these separated
commercial and industrial complements.

Western South America bears the same relation to the
manufacturing centres of Europe and the United States
that New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming, with their raw
products, bear to the manufacturing states along the Atlantic
Coast. The countries of the North Atlantic need, and are
bujang, the export products of the west coast of South
America — the nitrate and the ores of silver, gold and cop-
per, cotton, sugar, cocoa, coffee, hides, wool, rubber, woods
and grain. In return for this export these South American
Republics are importing from many countries, but chiefly
from the United Kingdom, all kinds of manufactures, from
pig iron to watches and silks. By increasing this trade,
both parties will be benefited. The production of raw
material will be stimulated no less than the production of
manufactures. For any gain that comes to South America,

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64 Annai^ of the American Academy

the rest of the world must receive an equal and complemen-
tary advantage.

The South American exports are about a third greater
than the imports, the export surplus being in part an in-
terest payment to the foreign creditors who have furnished
the money for all the leading enterprises in this part of the
continent. A small portion of the trade comes and goes
by way of the Isthmus of Panama, but the bulk of it passes
around Cape Horn or through the Straits of Magellan.
European countries control the greater part of the trade,
buying nine- tenths of the exports, and furnishing a slightly
larger share of the imports. On the surface this is a dis-
couraging showing for the United States, but our small
influence there is the result of several causes which may be
regarded as temporarj^ and which will probably have dis-
appeared before the year 1920.

The first cause of Europe's trade superiority is the
diligent care European merchants have taken to please their
South American customers. Goods have been manufactured,
packed, shipped and paid for in accordance with the desires
of the purchaser, and this polic}' has been steadily pursued.
Until recently the first concern of the American manufac-
turer has been the home market, and he has regarded the
foreign trade mainly as an avenue for disposing of an un-
desired surplus. Scant attention has been given to the
demands of foreign purchasers, and the American consuls
all over the world have constantly repeated the complaint
that our goods were not made or packed to suit the require-
ments of the markets to which they were sent. The past
three years have witnessed a remarkable change in our
attitude toward the foreign trade. Our exports have sud-
denly increased until we find ourselves leading the world,
and commercial journals in Europe and America seem to be
fearful of American supremacy. Accompanying this is the
changed attitude of our manufacturers. They have come
to realize their ability to export goods to all countries., and

[454]

South American Trade 65

are everywhere enlarging their business and studying the
conditions necessary to win the foreign market.

The results of this change are noted by foreign consuls,
who are now beginning to report to their governments that
the American goods are shipped in the best form and are
securing the trade. An example of this is the displacement
in Chile of the heavy and expensive English threshing
machines by the cheaper and lighter machine of American
manufacture. This change of attitude, this focusing of our
attention and effort on the export trade will produce great
results in the next two decades.

A second cause of the present European superiority in the
South American trade is the lower freight rates. For the
last forty years the European exporters have been able to
get their goods carried to Western South America at rates 15
to 50 per cent lower than those secured by the Americans.
American exports are frequently sent to Europe for reship-
ment to South American ports. Europe imports largely
from South American ports, and the outgoing vessels carry
European goods ver^^ cheaply, and to the detriment of the
American exporter. The effect of heavy imports on export
rates is well illustrated in the competition of the European
countries with each other. German shippers sometimes
have an advantage of 25 per cent over the English on rates
to Chile, because Germany is the largest importer of Chilean
nitrate. British goods are sometimes shipped by way of
Hamburg. The British commissioner, appointed to in-
vestigate the Chilean trade in 1898, pointed out this dis-
parity of rates as one of the causes of the stationary' trade of
the United Kingdom with Western South America and of the
growing trade of Germany with that section. Europe has
better rates to South America than we have and more regu-
lar, frequent and rapid connections. We have the short cut
across the Isthmus, but the rates charged by the Panama
Railroad greatly restrict its use. For many decades our only
other direct connection has been by sailing vessels, and in

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66 Annals of the American Academy

this age of rapid transactions the}- are too slow and irregular
to be depended upon in commercial competition. In 1899,
our exports to the west coast were no more valuable than in
1875, 3^et the total of our exports to all countries is two and
two-fifths times what it was twenty-five years ago. It is
less than ten years since the starting of the first of two lines
of steamers from New York. They have not caused much
growth in our South American trade, neither have they
reduced freight rates to the European level, and our consuls
and merchants in Chile, Peru and Ecuador are still com-
plaining of the inadequacy of our connections in com-
parison with those of Europe. The New York steamers have
shown their superiority over sailing vessels by securing
nearly all the goods carried by the sailers in 1890. They are
always full loaded on leaving New York, and the recent
addition of more steamers to the lines shows the prosperity
of the firms that operate them under charter from their
British owners.

South America lies so far to the east of North America
that the New York merchant is at a disadvantage as com-
pared with the European shipper in securing the South
American trade. The meridian of Washington cuts through
western Peru and passes out into the Pacific. The nitrate
ports of Chile have the longitude of Boston, and the coast
of Brazil is 2,600 miles east of New York. As the vessels
from New York to the west coast must round this easterly
point, steamers from New York have no advantage over the
vessels from the English Channel. The ports of southern
Europe are nearer to Brazil than is New York. Prior to
1890 we carried all our commerce to the west coast in sailing
vessels, whose course from our Atlantic seaboard must be
eastward to the vicinity of the Azores before the ships can
get into the trade winds that will carry them past the
Brazilian capes. This detour has placed a ten days' handi-
cap upon the greater part of our trade with Western South
America. The future will be different. Any European

[456]

South American Trade 67

advantage of rates, steamer connections or distance may be
expected to disappear not long after the opening of a canal
across the American isthmus.

By the present route it is farther from New York to
Guayaquil than from New York to China. With the new
highway in use, the Pacific shore of South America will be
as accessible as our own Pacific Coast. If the Panama Canal
is built, Guayaquil will be 180 miles nearer to New York
than is I^iverpool. By the Nicaragua Canal, it will be
1 , 200 miles farther from New York to San Francisco than
from New York to Callao, Peru, and the distance from New
York to San Francisco will be only fifty-four miles less than
that from New York to Valparaiso, Chile. New York will be
farther from the cities of Puget Sound than from any Pacific
port of South America. Our Gulf ports of New Orleans and
Mobile are 800 miles nearer to the Pacific than is New
York, while the canal gives all our ports from 2,000 to
3,000 miles advantage over the commercial centres of Europe
when trading through the same waterw'ay.

This great reduction in distance will affect rates and lead
to the establishment of direct and adequate steamer connec-
tions. Moreover, our export trade will probably be sought
for by outgoing European vessels calling at our ports on
their way to South America. A steamer from Liverpool to
the entrance of either canal can call at New York by adding
only 320 miles to her voyage, a day and a third for a ten-
knot steamer. At the rate of $250 per day, that detour
would be paid for by a difference of fifty cents per ton on 666
tons of coal, and American coal is cheaper than British. It
therefore seems reasonable to expect our export rates to be
more favorable than those of Europe. A great growth in
our Western South American trade will follow from these
advantages of transportation ; because no other part of the
world has more fundamental reasons than Western South
America has for the growth of commercial exchanges with
this countr3^ Our South American trade is of a more

[457]

68 Annals of the American Academy

complementary- character than that of Europe with that
continent, or than that of our own trade in any other part
of the globe. We export to many countries, but it is
only from South America that our imports exceed our
exports.

Our factories need the raw materials produced in Western
South America, and we will continue to need, in increasing
quantities, the nitrates, the ores, the wool and hides, the
sugar and cacao and cotton. In return, the producers of
these articles require supplies almost identical to those we are
now sending to Montana and Colorado, all kinds of drj-
goods, groceries, and agricultural and mining machinery
and supplies. South America is an agricultural and mining
frontier, and our resources of iron and wood, and our mechan-
ical skill place us in good position to furnish the appliances
needed to develop such resources. The demand for raw
materials in this country and for bulky manufactures in
Western South America, will furnish cargo both ways for
the ships engaged in the trade. Such constant employment
for the ship means lower rates both ways, an advantage now
possessed by the countries of Europe, but not by the United
States.

The basis for the growth of commerce between this
country and Western South America, can be shown
plainly by an examination of the trade conditions and
resources in some of the industrial sections of this part of
the continent.

The foreign commerce of Chile now amounts to about
$100,000,000, and is increasing. In 1899, the exports were
$59,000,000, and the imports $39,000,000; about nine-tenths
of the imports came from Europe, while nineteen-twentieths
of the exports went to that continent. Our trade is slight
compared with that of the United Kingdom, Germany
or France. An examination of the elements of the trade
of Chile reveals why the United States is particularly
interested in it, and why the canal will increase our share.

[458]

South American Trade 69

Of the Chilean exports, nitrate of soda comprises nearly 60
per cent, although the percentage is slightly declining owing
to the increased export of copper and copper ores. Next
in the order of importance comes silver and silver ores, then
wheat and barley, wool, hides, and other scattering agricul-
tural and mineral products, most of which are needed in the
United States. We need the nitrate for our fertilizers and
chemical manufactures, we have the coal to smelt the copper
and silver ores, we need the wool for our carpet manufactures
and the hides to furnish raw materials for our leather
manufactures. Of course, the grain products are needed
only in Europe.

Of the Chilean imports, cotton manufactures comprise by
far the largest part. Then comes machinery of all kinds,
kerosene, woolens, coal, bagging and all kinds of miscella-
neous manufactures and supplies. The cotton manufactures
are made of the raw material that grows in the southern
part of the United States, and is carried to Europe for
manufacture whence the goods are shipped through the
Straits of Magellan. Much of that cotton cloth will in
the future go direct from American mills via New York,
Charleston, Mobile or New Orleans and save transshipments,
and seven thousand miles or more of transportation.
We have the materials and manufacturing ability to furnish
the Chileans their machinery; we are now furnishing them
with kerosene, and, when the canal is opened, ^we will
probably be able to send the coal and many miscellaneous
manufactures.

The reduction in freight rates that ma}- be expected to
follow the opening of the canal will not only extend the pres-
ent lines of our trade with Western South America, but will
change the character and increase the number of the articles
entering into it. With a few exceptions, the goods Chile
secures in this country are those which we produce under
especially favorable circumstances: lard, lumber, kerosene,
breadstuffs, patented articles such as medicines, firearms,

[459]

70 Annals of the American Academy

electrical appliances, farming machinery and improved hard-
ware. These articles can be sold more readily in Chile after
the canal has been opened. We have just begun to send
iron and steel to Chile. The bulk of the pig, bar and hoop
iron, and rails and castings now come from Europe, although
we can make them more cheaply than our European rivals
can. The railroads of Chile have iron rails that must soon
be changed for steel which the mills of the United States
will be in the best position to supply. We are already
sending locomotives and cars. The towns and cities of
Chile will use an increasing amount of structural iron for
building purposes, and this will naturally come from our
country and by the same route as the steel rails and
machinery. The growing use of electricity in a country
having many mountain streams for water power, will open up
a demand for electrical machinery which American manufac-
turers are already able to supply. We are sending small
quantities of many other articles in the cost of which trans-
portation is a large factor, viz : earthenware , glass and
glassware, cordage, paper and coal. Our cotton exports
to Chile consist mainly of one or two plain staple grades
made without reference to the Chilean market, and shipped
in bulk as chance opportunities occur. With canal transpor-
tation and attention given to the demands of the market,
that business can be greatly extended.

Less than half of the tillable surface of Chile is culti-
vated, but its new territories are being developed. For
three-fourths of the agriculture improved plows and farm-
ing machinery are used, two-thirds of the supply being
furnished by the United States. The other fourth of the
work is done with the prehistoric wooden plow; the wheat
being threshed by treading it out with horses. The near-
ness of the country- to water transportation makes the intro-
duction of foreign improvements easy and increases the
possibilities of foreign trade. With improvements in the
means of connection with other countries production will

[460]

South American Trade 71

increase and the population will grow, and the United States
will be in a position to profit by it. Chile has one-third of
the population and two-thirds of the commerce of Western
South America, her per capita commerce being four times
as large as that of the tropical countries of Western South
America, She has also more domestic manufactures, and
their increase promotes foreign trade.

The northern half of Western South America has lagged
behind Chile. Revolutions and civil wars have been fre-
quent, the governmeuts are weak, and, owing to the insta-
bility of affairs, capitalists have been frightened away.
These conditions will gradually disappear as industry' and
prosperity increase. The Argentine Republic, Mexico and
Chile are examples of Spanish- American peoples who have
secured fairly stable political conditions and are improving
their industries. Ecuador and Peru are now enjoying a
period of quiet and prosperity that has lasted several years,
and foreign capital is being invested in moderate quantities.
Permanent peace cannot safely be predicted, but as pros-
perity increases, and more capital comes in, the forces that
make for stable political conditions will be stronger. Cap-
italists have in the past been deterred from utilizing many
valuable opportunities. However, the managers of foreign
corporations in Peru report that their actual losses are sur-
prisingly small. Political disturbances do not often seriously
interfere with the foreign corporations engaged in the
extractive industries of agriculture and mining, or in trans-
portation. With the merchant it is different, because pur-
chases are stopped during periods of political disturbance.

Western South America, like all new countries, depends
upon foreign capital for its progress. To the use of foreign
capital has been due the development of Australia, South
Africa, the western commonwealths of this country, and
what progress there has been made in South America. For-
eigners, mostly Europeans, own the steamers of the Amazon,
the railroads of Brazil and Argentine, the nitrate works of

[461]

72 Annate of the American Academy

Chile and the sugar plantations of Peru. Frenchmen own the
coffee estates of Brazil, Scotchmen own the flocks of Argen-
tine and Terra del Fuego, and German merchants control
the wholesale trade of many South American cities. The
foreign capital must be managed by foreigners for the present,
at least, and probabl}' for many j-ears to come.

The supply of capital for South America w-ill in the future
come from the United States as well as from Europe. We
have become large exporters of the iron and steel and
machinery needed by new countries. Our increasing wealth
and population will furnish money and men for industrial
enterprises in foreign lands. American ownership and direc-
tion of railroads, mines and other enterprises in Mexico
have been chiefly responsible for the industrial revolution
in that country during the past twenty years, and for the
accompanying expansion of her commerce, the chief part of
which has been with the United States. This work is still
going steadily forward in Mexico, but we shall welcome the
opportunities lying bej^ond the Isthmus of Panama that will
be made accessible to us by the isthmian canal.

The capitalistic development of Western South America,
particularly of the northern part, has barelj^ begun. It has
great stores of natural wealth, but obstacles in the way of
their exploitation have thus far delayed the development of
the section. Large organizations of capital are necessary;
indeed, successful enterprises in the Andean region must be
on a larger and more comprehensive scale than on the level
plains of Argentine. In Argentine the European owner
cultivates his grain and pastures his flocks on a level plain;
but in Peru irrigation is necessary to agriculture. There is,
however, no business more surely profitable than agriculture
under irrigation, notwithstanding the necessarily heavy out-
lay of capital. The construction of a railroad across the
level pampas, to carry away the wool and grain of Argen-
tine, is a very much easier task than building a line up the
defiles of the Andes to tap the mineral wealth of the plateau.

[462]

South American Trade 73>

Operations on the east side can be conducted with moderate
capital, but on the west side the large capitalist, the mining
expert and the complicated machine are necessary. But the
return promises to be all that can be desired. The efficiency
of consolidated capital in Western South America has already
been shown, as it has produced the greater part of the com-
modities now exported. Chile exports one and a half mil-
lion tons of nitrate of soda per year, and it has been mined
by firms that own the nitrate fields, the reducing plants, the
railroads and the piers from which it is shipped to Europe.
The irrigated sugar plantations of Peru are equally complete.
Nearl}' all of the existing and projected plans for develop-
ment of the resources in this part of the continent include
also some system of improved transportation, without which
exploitation is impossible.

Among the many opportunities for such large investments
of capital, two may be mentioned — mining in the Andes
and agriculture by irrigation on the coast of Peru. This
coast section has a dry climate, a rich soil, a good supplj'-of
water and room for a considerable extension of cultivation.
At the time of the Spanish Conquest the population was
several times as great as it is at present, and a much larger
proportion of the soil was irrigated. Many crops are
grown, but sugar and cotton are the chief exports and both
come to this country. Sugar cane is cut eight or ten times
without replanting, and the annual crop is over ioo,cxx)
tons and is increasing. It is claimed that sugar can be
produced more cheaply there than in any other country.
American machinery and American capital are already in use.

Peruvian cotton is a special product with a brown color
and a curly fibre, useful for mixing with wool. It is called
* ' vegetable wool ' ' and has a high value. The cotton
plant reaches the size of a small tree, lives for years, pro-
duces two crops per annum, the present small output being
grown, with practically no cultivation, in the moist soil near
the streams. With the establishment of proper irrigation

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74 Annals of the American Academy

works the cotton crop, like the sugar crop, will bo greatly-
increased, and another raw material furnished to Oi:r facto-
ries. Our present imports come via London or Liverpool.

The Andean plateau is the greatest untouched source of
wealth in all South America. This section is as long as our
Rocky Mountain region from Mexico to Canada, has an
equal or greater number of mountain ranges, contains the
same general geologic formations, probably has greater
mineral resources and has a population between three and four
times that of the North American plateau. As the climate
of the whole section is temperate the population can be made
fairly efficient industrially.

At present nearly all of this plateau region is cut off from
the outside world except by such connection as is afforded
by the pack-mule traversing Andean trails. Foreign trade
consists only of a small export of wool, hides and valuable
ores sent out at great cost in return for miscellaneous manufac-
tures. The people raise their own food, often spin their own
thread, make their own clothes and live in huts built without
nails. Yet this is the region that furnished the greater part of
the bullion supply of the world for three hundred years.
During this century it has been left behind by the development
of more accessible fields. The crude and wasteful mining
methods of the old Spanish taskmasters still prevail. The
Indian burrows through the veins of silver, tin or copper
ore, carrying out the best of it in a rawhide sack, breaking
it with a hammer, and sending the richest of it on muleback
to the seacoast for shipment to Europe. The mines are un-
ventilated, and when water is struck they must be aban-
doned, unless they can be baled out by a bucket brigade.
The famous mines of Potosi reported to have jdelded three
billion dollars in silver, are reached only by a bridle path,
and in this particular they are like the other great metal
producers of the past.

The simplest mining operations require heavy machinery
that can be carried only by rail or water transportation.

[464]

South American Trade 75

With the extension of the Andean railroad lines improved
machinery like that used in Colorado and Montana will be
introduced. Drowned mines can be pumped out and with
hoisting and ventilating machinery worked to five or ten
times their present depth. Low grade ores can be handled
by the mills and crushers and transported by rail. By the
present wasteful methods silver ores worth thirty dollars per
ton are thrown away in Peru, when ores one-fourth as rich
are profitably worked in the United States. Copper ore
under thirty per cent pure is left at the Peruvian and Boliv-
ian mines, while fortunes are being made in this country by
smelting ores with three or four per cent copper. The rich
heaps of refuse ore left by the Andean miners of the past
four centuries, and thousands of abandoned mines can be
profitably re- worked by using modern machinery-. The
mines of Cerro Pasco, Peru, are said to contain enough low
grade copper ore to fully employ the railroad that is now
planned to develop them. This vicinity and Northern Peru
have coal deposits also, but fuel for power plants will gene-
rail}^ be scarce on the plateau. Fortunately the mining
companies can use electricity generated by water power, of
which the melting snows furnish a steady and abundant
supply. The streams descend from an altitude of 14,000
feet to the plains below and give opportunity for the instal-
lation of widely distributed plants.

The building of these railroads and the establishment of
electric and mining plants will be much easier after the
isthmian canal has opened a shorter highway to the North
Atlantic. It will also give the United States the chance to
furnish the machinery and smelt the ores. We are already
beginning to get some of the ore which our cheap coal sup-
ply enables us to smelt to good advantage.

The improvements in mining methods described above
have actually taken place near the two lines of railroad that
have reached the edge of the plateau in the region of Lake
Titicaca. Large corporations have run mines after the plan

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76 Annals of the American Academy

prevailing in our Western States. The plateau needs only
the continuation and multiplication of processes that are
now in operation in its southwestern corner. One of the
two railroads is being extended and the other is surveying
for an extension.

The food supply of the plateau is limited to wheat, beans,
potatoes and other temperate zone products. Tropic prod-
ucts come from the lower valleys on the eastern slope, and
since much of the plateau is treeless there is a large trade
in wood as well as food products. All the freight comes up
by pack animals, an expensive process that will be replaced
by electric railroads when the demand grows to larger pro-
portions because of the industrial development of the plateau.
Many of these eastern valleys have rich, fine soil, a subtrop-
ical climate and valuable deposits of gold. These districts
will be developed from the plateau and will export any sur-
plus by way of the Pacific. This slope already sends over
the Andes some coffee, cocoa and hides, and a large share
of the world's supply of coco leaves for the manufacture of
cocaine.

In the northern part of the Andean region is the Cauca
Valley. Its elevation gives it a warm climate, but the sec-
tion is truly Andean, inasmuch as it is cut off" from the ocean
by a range of mountains and has to depend upon pack-mule
transportation for all of its commerce. The people do a little
gold mining, but live chiefly by agriculture, importing nearly
all of their merchandise except some domestic manufactures
of straw hats, coarse cloths and utensils. The skill of the
artisan is attested by their fairly neat homes and wooden
bridges with spans as great as eighty feet in length.

All the internal traffic of the valley as well as its foreign
trade is carried on over trails so bad that oxen are some-
times preferred to the less sure-footed mule. The load that
the American farmer puts on a two-horse wagon is there
divided up into packs for twenty-five animals. The exports
of agricultural products are limited to the most valuable

[466]

South American Trade 77

articles, such as coflFee and cocoa of the best grades, although
corn, sugar, tobacco and fruits are cultivated, and cattle are
raised.

Concessions have been given for a railroad to go through
the valley from the port of Buenaventura and twenty miles
of the line have been built, but the enterprise is now in
suspense. The completion of this line and the opening of
an isthmian canal will bring the producing districts of the
valley thousands of miles nearer to the commercial world.
At present, Buenaventura, its port, is in the traffic territory
of the Panama railroad and steamship lines. This is de-
clared by commercial writers to be sufficient to stagnate the
trade of the Pacific Coast. During the high steamer rates
of the year 1900, such typical articles as wire and nails were
taken from New York to China for $8 a ton, but it cost $15
a ton to land them at Buenaventura, 7,000 miles nearer.
From there the costs were $8 per ton to the end of the rail-
road, and $40 per ton additional by pack-mule over the pass
of the Andes, 6,000 feet in elevation, to Cali, seventy-seven
miles from the ocean. The mule transportation cost seventy
cents per ton per mile. After reaching Cali some of the
goods had to double the freight charge of $63 per ton b}^
being carried many miles up and down the valley. At the
same time the steel manufacturers of Pittsburg were paying
an unusuall)' high freight charge of $3.60 per ton to the
seaboard.

The opening of the isthmian canal, the building of the
railroad, and the introduction of foreign capital will be revo-
lutionary in their effect upon the trade of the Cauca Valley.
The first effect of the building of the railroad will be the
importation of machinery for agriculture and the smaller
industries, and the valley will export coffee, cacao, animal
products and raw sugar.

Western South America is an undeveloped agricultural
and mining region offering an opening for American capital
and promising by its industrial growth to increase the pro-

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78 Annai^ of the American Academy

portion of its trade with the United States. An isthmian
canal will furnish the avenue for marketing the products
and supplying the machinery needed to utilize the resources
of large territories that now carry on their internal commerce
in a fashion more primitive than prevailed in our Great
West in the period when the prairie schooner was the only
land transportation agent west of the Missouri River,
Western South America is certain to need a great variety of
the manufactures we can produce to advantage, and no
other division of the world will furnish us more of the raw
materials needed by our industries.

J. RussEi.1, Smith.

Washington, D. C.

COMMUNICATIONS.

THB EVOI,UTlON OF THE AMERICAN SYSTEM OF FORMING AND
ADMITTING NEW STATES INTO THE UNION.

Our system of carving new states out of the public domain and
incorporating them into the union is one of the contributions to
political science which the American people have worked out for
themselves. In the beginning of our independent existence Congress
gave no consideration to the question of the formation or admission of
newstateswest of the Alleghany Mountains, at least there is no recorded
evidence of it. The Articles of Confederation ignored the possi-
bility of their existence. Even Franklin, who previously had given
considerable thought to western governments, considered in his
draught of the Articles the possibility of admitting to the union cer-
tain then existing British colonies only.^ The idea of forming new
colonies in the west, subject to the British crown, was not a new one,
and indeed attempts were soon made actually to establish new gov-
ernments in that region; ^ but these attempts were unsuccessful, and
through the Revolution the west remained de facto with the claimant
states.

As the Revolutionary war progressed the idea gained ground that
the western lands might be made to pay the war debt. In June, 1778,
the Rhode Island delegates in Congress wished to have the Articles of
Confederation amended so as to secure to Congress the crown lands,
" reserving to the states within whose limits such crown lands may
be the entire and complete jurisdiction thereof."' New Jersey also
objected to the Articles on this ground.* Alexander Hamilton, in
September, 1780, suggested that Congress be invested with the whole
or a part of the western lands for revenue purposes, "reserving the
jurisdiction to the states by whom they are granted. "^ Other ex-
pressions of the same kind « might be cited, but this is sufficient to
show that, with the exception to be noted below, the small states

1 Franklin's Works (Bigelow), v, 553.

2 See Turner's Western State-Making in the Revolutionary Era in American Histor.
teal Review, i, Nos. i and 2; also, the writer's New Governments West of the Allegha-
nies before lySa — Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin. Economics, Political
Science, and History series, ii,No. i.

^Journals of Commerce, iv, 370.

^Journals, iv, 377.

s Letter to James Duane, quoted by Adams, Maryland' s Influence, p. 34.

'See American Archives, fifth series, iii, 1020.

L469]

8o Annals of the American Academy

without claims to western lands themselves were distinctly admitting
that states having such claims should retain at least the jurisdiction
over them. We see also that so pronounced a nationalist as Alexander
Hamilton held, at this time, that the old states should have individual
jurisdiction over the west.

The most persistent declarations in favor of Congress using the back
lands to defray the expenses of the war came from Mar)-land. Vir-
ginia claimed a vast extent of the western country"- for herself, and if
she should retain it the Marylanders felt that it would be a serious
menace in various ways to their prosperity.^ In apprehension of the
growing power of her already powerful neighbor, Maryland, through
her delegates in Congress, moved October, 1777 that Congress have
the right to fix the western boundary of states claiming " to the Mis-
sissippi or South Sea." ^ Maryland alone was in favor of this. ■ Nev-
ertheless the Virginia delegates were alarmed: the Articles of Con-
federation had not yet been sent to the states for ratification, and they
secured the insertion of a clause providing that " no state shall be
deprived of territory for the benefit of the United States."

It was iust this western land question which caused the long delay
in putting the Articles of Confederation into effect. The other states
ratified them with little difficulty, but Maryland positively refused to
do so till that question should be settled to her satisfaction. It was
not till the demands of Maryland were backed by a growing public
opinion and the request of Congress " that the determined opposition
of Virginia gave way, and she offered to the United States both soil
and jurisdiction of the territory northwest of the Ohio river.* It was
more than three years afterwards that the cession was finally accepted,'
but Mar)'land was satisfied that she had gained her point. Her dele-
gates were instructed to sign the Articles of Confederation.^ which
were then put in force.

About the time of the large cession of Virginia came the smaller
though important ones of New York,^ Massachusetts and Connec-
ticut, and Congress was confronted with the necessity of adopting
some system of organization and government for the western coun-
try. It was indeed decided that it should be cut into separate and
independent states. That had been a part of Maryland's contention

1 See Maryland's Subsequent Declaration, yoM^na/i, v, 210.
-Journals, iii, 435.

3 September 6, ly^, Journals, \\, 180.

* By act of Assembly passed January 2, 1781, Hening's Statutes, x, 564.
^Journals, ix, 67.

« Act of Maryland Assembly, laid before Congress February 12, \-fli. Journals,
vii, 32.
''Journals, vii, 45.

[470]

Forming and Admitting New States 8i

in the beginning,^ when elsewhere the apparently universal crj- was
that the old states should retain at least the jurisdiction over the west.
It seems to have been regarded as a rather secondary matter. Mary-
land desired that Virginia be deprived of both soil and jurisdiction;
so, as a natural corollarj^ she proposed the formation of new states.
When asking for cessions Congress 2 promised such formations, prob-
ably in order to quiet any fears some may have had that a more objec-
tionable use would be made of the land. Moreover, Virginia had
made it a condition of her cessions. That much then was settled. It
remained for Congress to provide the system by which it should be
brought about.

The first action taken by Congress having any reference to new
states was in the resolve of October 10, 1780, already noted. Con-
gress then guaranteed that land which any state might cede to the
United States would "be settled and formed into separate republican
states, which shall become members of the federal union, and have
the same rights of sovereignty, freedom and independence as the other
states; that each state which shall be so formed shall contain a suitable
extent of territory, not less than 100 nor more than 150 miles square,
or as near thereto as circumstances will admit."' This would mean
about twenty-five new states east of the Mississippi, providing each
were 150 miles square. With 100 miles square to each state nearly
sixty new states could have been expected east of the Mississippi, or
over 300 in the present United States, exclusive of Alaska and insular
possessions. Until the passage of the Ordinance of 1784 Congress
took no further action regarding new states, although an attempt was
made in May, 1782, to limit the size of new states to a maximum of
130 miles square.*

Meanwhile propositions and attempts at the formation of definite
states were being made. As already indicated, the idea of new west-
ern governments was by no means new.

Probably the earliest expressions of the idea of forming trans-AUe-
ghany governments by the united action of the old ones were in the
plans for the union of the colonies, proposed in the Albany Conven-
tion in 1754.^ The President-General and Grand Council, represent-
ing the union, were to make new settlements in the west, and also to

1 See Declaration of Maryland's First Constitutional Convention, American
Archives, fifth series, iii, 178, cf. Journals, iii, 436, v, 210; also, Hening's Statutes,
X, 549-556.

^Journals, vi, 213.

''Journals, vii, 362.

5 Plan for union of the Northern Colonies, Collections of the Massachusetts Hisior.
ical Society, first series, vii, 203. Franklin's plan in his Works (Bigelow), ii, 355.

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82 Annals of the American Academy

"make necessary rules and orders for the well regulating and man-
aging such new settlements till the Crown shall see fit to form them
into particular government or governments. " Franklin, in his com-
ments on this scheme, thought distinct governments might be formed
when the new colonies "become sufficiently populous."^ The plans
as we have them say nothing about their admission into the union in
due time, but probably that was expected. "We find then in embryo
the present system of organizing and conducting new territorial gov-
ernments by a union as far back as the middle of the eighteenth
century.

The Transylvanians, in 1775, elected a delegate to the Continental
Congress. He went to Philadelphia with the petition from his con-
stituents "that Transylvania may be added to the number of the
United Colonies," and met with some encouragement. The settlers
in western Pennsylvania tried to organize as a separate government,
and get recognition by Congress as a separate state, but there is no
evidence that Congress even considered their request. ^ The people of
Franklin made greater progress in organizing their state government,
but were also ignored by Congress.

These three inchoate states illustrate the fact that it was the accepted
idea on the frontier at least that new governments chould be formed in
the west. They show the tendency of the early western settlers toward
independent local government and the formation of new states for
themselves. Perhaps the best illustration of this is in the case of Ver-
mont, then practically a frontier state, successfully maintaining her-
self against the opposition of the claimant states. The pioneers of
those days had not sufficient loyalty to the states claiming their alle-
giance to prevent their attempting to create new commonwealths in
the territory of their mother states. Congressional action in this
direction came too slowly for them. With the session of the lands
and the formation of liberal state governments by Congress it could
be expected that the new organizations would receive the unqualified
support of the impatient settlers.

Probably the first plan looking to the formation of a definite state
by congressional initiative was that of Silas Deane. It was in a letter
to the secret committee of Congress in December, 1776, proposing that
the western land be made to pay the expenses of the war and that a
settlement be made at the mouth of the Ohio to enhance its value.
He thought a tract of two hundred miles square, between the Ohio
and Mississippi should be given to a company of Americans and Euro-

1 Franklin's Works (Bigelow), ii, 369.

' For a full discussion of Transylvania and Westsylvania, see the writer's JVew
Governments West (^ the Alleghanies, chaps, iv and v.

[472]

Forming and Admitting New States 83

peans who should engage to establish a ' ' civil government regulated
and supported on the most free and liberal principles, taking therein
the advice of the honorable Congress of the United States of America."
After reaching the size of one thousand families the new state should
be taxed for " the publick expenses of the Continent or United States,"
and should then " be entitled to a voice in Congress."^ It can be
seen at once that this scheme foreshadoM'ed territorial government by
Congress, and admission to the union upon the condition of a certain
number of inhabitants. One thousand families in a new country would
mean a total population of not over five thousand — a rather small num-
ber for statehood.

Thomas Paine's plan ^ came out in 1780. He proposed that a new
state be formed in about the region of the proposed Vandalia colony,
or modern West Virginia. In this connection he made some significant
and interesting suggestions concerning the establishment of new state
governments as follows :

" The setting ofi" the boundary of any new state will naturally be the
first step, and as it must be supposed not to be peopled at the time it
is laid off, a constitution must be formed by the United States as the
rule of government in any new state for a certain term of years (per-
haps ten) or until the state becomes peopled to a certain number of
inhabitants ; after which the whole and sole right of modelling their
government to rest with themselves. A question may arise whether
a new state should immediately possess an equal right with the pres-
ent ones in all cases which may come before Congress. This experi-
ence will best determine ; but at first view of the matter it appears
thus : that it ought to be immediately incorporated into the union on
the ground of a family right, such a state standing in the line of a
younger child of the same stock ; but as new emigrants will have
something to learn when they first come to America, and a new state
requiring aid rather than capable of giving it, it might be most con-
venient to admit its immediate representation into Congress, there
to sit, hear, and debate on all questions and matters, but not to vote on
any till after the expiration of seven years."

Is not this a clear indication of the later territorial government and
the territorial delegate to Congress, showing the territory as a recog-
nized part of the United States, admitted regularly into the Union in
time?

Three years later came what may be called the army plan," brought
forward by General Rufus Putnam and other leading ofl&cers. They

' American Archives, fifth series, iii, 1021.

* Paine's Public Good, p. 31.

8 Cutler's Life 0/ Cutler, i, 156-9, cf. Pickering's Life 0/ Pickering, i, 457.

[473]

84 Annals of ths American Acade:.iy

proposed that a new state be established in the region which is now
Ohio, and the land given out to the oflacers and soldiers of the Revolu-
tionary army, the United States government giving them also full
farming equipments, transportation, and entire support for three years.
It was expected that this would be a military state protecting the coun-
try against the northwestern Indians. Before setting out for their new
homes the settlers, or "associators" as they were called, were to have
a meeting to form a constitution for the new state, and at this meet-
ing ' ' delegates ' ' were to " be chosen to represent them in the Congress
of the United States, to take their seats as soon as the new state shall
be erected." The thirteenth article of the plan provides "That the
state so constituted shall be admitted into the confederacy of the United
States and entitled to all the benefits of the union in common with
the other members thereof."

How much progress was made with the army plan we do not know.
It was intended to get the opinion of officers and soldiers concerning
it and then apply to Congress for the grant. ^ It seems likely that it
was merged into the officers' petition, ^ which was a somewhat different
scheme. The latter was dated June i6, 1783, and signed by 2S5 officers
of the Continental line. Most of them were northern men, the
majority being from Massachusetts. They asked for nearly the same
land that the army plan contemplated, saying that "this country is of
sufficient extent, the land of such quality, and situation such as may
induce Congress to assign and mark it out as a Tract or Territory suit-
able to form a distinct government (or colony of the United {States)
in time to be admitted one of the Confederated States of America."
The tone of this petition is decidedly more modest than that of the
army plan. Notice the dependent, even " colonial " relation proposed
before admission to statehood.

These schemes were of course suggestive. While there was no
more immediate outcome than the formation of the Ohio Land Com-
pany, ^ still it was probably because of the attention the question of
new states was receiving that Mr. Bland, about the same time, brought
the question before Congress. His motion not only provided for the
soldiers, giving each one thirty acres for each dollar of arrearages due,
but also proposed that the western country be laid off into districts
not larger than two degrees in latitude. Any district was to be admit-

1 Pickering to Hodgdon, Pickering's Life of Pickering , i, 457.

-The petition in full is found in Bancroft's History of the Constitution of the
United States, i, 314; in Ohio Archaological and Historical Quarterly, i, 38, and
Cutler's Life of Culler, i, 159, cf. I. W. Andrews in Magazine of American His-
tory, August, 1SS6, p. 136.

<* Report of House Committee, quoted in Ohio Archaological and Historical Quar-
terly, i, 38.

[474]

Forming and Admitting New States 85

ted into the union as a state, and on an equality with the original
states, as soon as it reached a population of 20,000 male inhabitants.
One-tenth of the land was to be reserved to the United States, the
returns from which land to be appropriated to the payment of the
United States civil list, erecting frontier forts and seminaries of learn-
ing, building and equipping a navy, " and to no other use or purpose
whatever." If this scheme had been applied to the territory north
of the Ohio river there would have been eight or ten states in that
region. Requiring 20,000 resident males before admitting to state-
hood means a requirement of something less than a total population
of 40,000, as the number of males is generally greater than that of the
females in any new state. The Bland motion was referred to a com-
mittee, and seems to have gone no further.

The various propositions thus far seem to have been without definite
outcome in the individual cases, but certainly they must have had
some bearing on the system which was being gradually worked out,
reacting perhaps on the public opinion whose trend they exhibit.
Thus far the only congressional action concerning new states was in
the resolve of October 10, 17S0, promising that such states would be
formed from ceded territory, of a size not over 150 nor less than 100
miles square, and admitted into the union with " the same rights of
sovereignty, freedom and independence as the other states." Con-
gress concluded that the time had come to take some definite steps
toward fulfilling this promise and so it was decided, October 15, 1783,
to appoint a committee to draw up a plan of organization and govern-
ment.^ It was evidently this committee that reported the scheme
which became the ordinance of 1784.

As a landmark in the historj' of state making the ordinance of 1784
deserves consideration second only to the ordinance of 17S7. The
scheme adopted in it has been called Jefferson's plan because he was
chairman of the committee, the other members being Howell, of
Rhode Island, and Chase, of Maryland. A great part of the territory
west of the Alleghanies still remained unceded to Congress, but it
was taken for granted that the states would give up their claims, and
the whole region as far as the Mississippi was cut up into proposed
new states. The odd parallels of latitude formed their northern and
southern boundaries, while a meridian passing through the "lowest
point of the rapids of the Ohio" divided the west into two tiers of
states. Another through the "western cape of the mouth of the
Great Kenawha " cut off the tier of the old states. It was intended
that the smaller states of the central tier should hold the balance
between those lying on the seaboard and those along the Mississippi —

"^Journals, viii, 442.

[475]

86 Annai^ of the American Academy

at least that is the explanation given by Mr. Howell/ member of the
committee. He explained, too, that while Virginia and North Caro-
lina were cut off on their western sides by the Kenawha meridian,
South Carolina and Georgia were to extend to that of the falls of the
Ohio, "as their Atlantic coast falls off west." Jefferson's plan pro-
vided for fourteen new states. He gave rather strange names {e. g.,
Cheronesus, Assenisipia) to ten of them, and it was thought that these
ten would be organized first.*

Each of these districts was to hold its own convention, Congress
appointing time and place, and adopt the constitution of some one of
the old states, subject to alteration afterwards by the regular legisla-
ture. Between this time and the admission of the state a delegate
might be kept in Congress with the right of debating, but not of
voting. When any district attained a population of 20,000 free inhab-
itants a convention might be held, Congress appointing time and place
as before, "to establish a permanent constitution and government;" *
but admission "by its delegates into the Congress of the United States
on an equal footing with the original states " should not be granted
any state till it " shall have of free inhabitants as many as shall then
be in any one of the least numerous of the thirteen original states." *
There was some discussion in Congress on the question of what vote
to require for admission of a state. The first report provided that the
consent of nine states should be necessary, but it was amended to
read, "Provided the consent of so many states in Congress is first
obtained as may at the time be competent to such admission."

So Jefferson's plan as embodied in the ordinance of 1784 finally
passed Congress,^ and was a law of the land for three years. The
settlers in the trans-AUeghany regions of North Carolina were encour-
aged by it to organize the government of Franklin, conceiving that
with the territorial cession of that state the time had come for some
of the state making contemplated. But when North Carolina repealed
her act of cession Congress could give no encouragement to the Frank-
lin movement and it was soon crushed out by the mother state. The
ordinance of 1784 was as short lived as the state which it seemed to

1 David Howell to Jonathan Arnold, Staples' Rhode Island in the Continental
Congress, 479.

i Pennsylvania Packet, September 30, 1785, cf. Barrett, Evolution of the Ordinance
of 1781, p. 20, cf. McMaster's History of the People of the United Stales, i, 165,
who speaks of seventeen states, with eight of them named.

3 Merriam {Legislative History of the Ordinance of ijSy, p. 12) says that 20,000
was the requisite number for admission, as does also McMaster, History of the
People of the United States, iii, 93.

* About this time Delaware was thought to have a population of 37,000. Dexter's
Estimates of Population in the American Colonies, p. 19.

6 The ordinance in full is found in Journals vs., 153.

[476]

Forming and Admitting New States 87

call into existence, and in 1787 it was superseded by the far more
famous ordinance of that year.

A desire for fewer new states seems to have been the main reason for
setting aside the law of 1784. Soon after its passage Jefferson left Con-
gress and Monroe became the leading figure in the movement to organ-
ize the west. He visited the western country and came to the con-
clusion that in the future there would be a diversity of interests between
the east and west, making it desirable from the eastern point of view
that the west should not get too much political power.^ He thought,
moreover, that much of the territory was so " miserably poor " that
some of the districts would " perhaps never contain a sufficient num-
ber of inhabitants to entitle them to membership in the confederac)-."
He succeeded in getting the matter referred to a committee which made
reports favoring the division of the territory northwest of the Ohio
into not less than two nor more than five states. At one time William
Grayson, of Virginia, moved a definite division of the territory into
five states, but this was defeated by the opposition of the northern
members. It was expected that the northwest would be settled from
the south and have agricultural interests like the south.' It was con-
sidered that the political interests of the new country required many
and small states ; therefore the south, on the whole, supported that
plan. JeflFerson seemed much disappointed that his scheme of many
small states had been set aside, and remonstrated vigorously in long
letters from Paris to Monroe and Madison,' fearing that this, together
with the disposition to close the Mississippi, would produce "the sev-
erance of the eastern and western parts of our confederacy." How-
ever, three states, with a possibilitj' of five, was the decision for the
northwest, as made in the ordinance of 1787.

A committee appointed to report a form of temporary government,
Monroe being chairman, proposed two stages of territorial govern-
ment with chief officers appointed by Congress and a congressional
delegate with half powers. This was adopted. The second stage was
authorized in any district on acquiring " five thousand free male in-
habitants of full age." The idea of the territorial delegate we have
seen in most of the plans described above, beginning with that of
Thomas Paine.

The question of the population requisite for admission to the union
met with more discussion. The committee, under southern influence,
proposed to retain that part of JeflFerson's plan, i.e., to require a popu-

1 Monroe to Jeflferson, Bancroft's History of the Fot-mation of the Constitution, i,
480.

* Notice Madison's opinion. Elliot's Debates, iii, 313.
•Jefferson's Writings (Ford), iv, 333.

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88 Annals of thb American Academy

lation as large as the least numerous of the original thirteen states. *^
After some southerners on this committee had been replaced by
northerners, a report was made raising the admission requirement to
a population equal to one-thirteenth part of the citizens of the original
states (to be computed from the last enumeration), besides the con-
sent of Congress. But before considering the admission requirements
laid down in the ordinance of 1787, let us review some of the proposi-
tions previously made on this point.

Silas Deane in December, 1776, suggested an admission requirement
of something less than five thousand inhabitants.

Thomas Paine (1780) proposed admission in seven years after terri-
torial organization, leaving open the question of numbers.

By the army plan (April, 17S3) the new state was to come in at one
jump under no condition of time or of numbers.

Mr. Bland's motion (June 5, 1783) proposed something less than a
total population of forty thousand.

The officers' petition (June 16, 1783) was indefinite, merelj' pro-
posing admission "in time."

Jefferson, at the head of a congressional committee, proposed
(March, 1784) admission of a new state when its population became
equal to that of the least numerous of the original ones, and with the
consent of nine.

The ordinance of 1784 (adopted April 23) merely changed the nine
states requirement to consent of so many " as may at the time be
competent."

A committee under northern influence reported (September 19,
1786) that a population equal to one-thirteenth that of the original
states be required, besides the consent of Congress.

And now we come to the final decision. The ordinance of 1787,
referring to the new states proposed in the northwest, declares as
follows :

"Whenever any of the said states shall have sixty thousand free
inhabitants therein, such state shall be admitted by its delegates into
the Congress of the United States on an equal footing with the original
states in all respects whatever ; and shall be at liberty to form a per-
manent constitution and state government : Provided the constitution
so to be formed shall be republican and in conformity to the principles
contained in these articles ; and, so far as it can be consistent with the
general interest of the confederacy, such admission shall be allowed at
an earlier period and when there may be a less number of free inhabi-
tants in any state than sixty thousand."*

1 Winsor's Narrative and Critical History, vii, 537.
* The ordinance in full is In Journals, xii, 85.

[478]

Three- Cent Fares 89

It would be interesting to follow the development of this system of
forming and admitting new states in some of its later details, but with
the adoption of the ordinance of 17S7 and its ratification by Congress
under the Constitution the outlines of the system were definitely estab-
lished. The enabling act, a somewhat uniform set of conditions for
admission, and other interesting outgrowths could be easily traced, but
the purpose of this paper has been sufBciently accomplished perhaps
without it, by showing the rise and development of the idea of new
state organization, and a relation between the new governments and
that of the United States culminating in admission to the Union as
provided by the ordinance of 1787.

George H. Ai,den.

Carleton College, Northfield, Minn.

THE COI.UMBUS ATTEMPT TO SECURE THREE-CENT FARES.

The year has witnessed at least three notable evidences of a growing
interest in the proper relation of the people to their street railways.
One has been the widespread interest in the scandalous treatment of
the question by the State of Pennsylvania and by its largest city.
Another incident of note has been the able report of the Chicago
Street Railway Commission, and a third has been the occurrences at
Columbus, Ohio. Of the last, only, is it proposed here to write.
For months the capital of the state was stirred to its depths by the
agitation on the subject. The papers throughout the state often
discussed it. The issues raised led to a political overturn in the city,
and undoubtedly increased the majority cast for the present mayor of
Cleveland at the same spring elections. As the situation contains
lessons for the whole country and has never been fully presented
outside of Ohio, a brief account may be here given.

The Columbus Railway Company came before the city council of
that city in January, 1901, to secure an extension of its franchises for
twenty-five years. The company possessed franchises on many streets,
which were to expire at various periods during the next few years,
and it claimed perpetual rights on other streets — and those the most
important and profitable — although there was a serious doubt whether
the latter franchises were valid. The company was not willing to
concede its claims regarding the grants that were without time limit,
but proposed, in the sought-for franchises, to secure rights on all the
streets for twenty-five years, which would be binding even if the courts
should declare that the so-called perpetual franchises are invalid. In
return for all this, the company was at first willing to concede but
little. Cash fares were to continue at five cents, but with larger
privileges of transfer: the previous rates, six tickets for twenty-five

U79]

■90 Annax3 of the American Academy

-cents and twenty-five tickets for $i.oo, were finally, in response to a
vigorous demand from the people, changed to seven tickets for twenty,
five cents in the proposed ordinance. The average rate of fare in
1900 was 4.54 cents.

Before this concession was secured. Honorable Tom L. Johnson, of
Cleveland, who had not at this time entered the race for the mayoralty
of his city, visited Columbus at the request of a body of citizens, and
addressed both them and the city council, opposing a new franchise
for twenty-five years on such terms. When pressed to make as good
an offer himself as he claimed the company could do, he made the
city a remarkable proposition. He agreed upon the following:
"(i) Three-cent fares with universal transfers. (2) A limit of profits
to the owners of the road of six per cent upon actual cost. (3) That
any earnings from the three-cent fare in excess of operating expenses
and six per cent upon cost of construction must be applied toward
retiring the capital and thus reducing the interest charge. (4) An
option to the city to acquire the property at any time and to operate
the road, paying therefor only the actual net cost at that time. (5) A
reserved right to the city to reduce fares below three cents as fast as
earnings would warrant, after paying six per cent on cost of construc-
tion; the six per cent in all cases to be figured only upon the cost of
the property not yet retired. ' ' Thus whenever the cost of the road
should have been returned to the owners, the city would have the
option either to take the road for nothing or require the company to
operate it at a rate of fare which would cover operating expenses only.
Mr. Johnson claimed this would be less than two cents per passenger.

He proposed, as he explained at the mass meeting, that the council
should assume that the franchises are invalid and have already expired
on all the streets wherein there is at least a plausible reason for that
contention. The city government should then order the old company
off" from those streets and give him a franchise on the basis of a
straight three cent fare, higher wages, shorter hours, compulsory
arbitration of labor disputes, as good service as at present or even
better, etc. The ordinance would also provide that he should have
similar rights on the other streets for a period not to exceed twenty-
five years from now. He would endeavor to secure possession by
purchase at a valuation to be determined by arbitration. The next step
would be for either Mr. Johnson or the city government to begin the
tearing up of the rails on some street where it was plain that the fran-
chise had run out. Of course it would not be intended to proceed fur-
ther than to provoke the company to issue an injunction, and it might
easily be arranged for this to be done before a single rail had been
removed. Then the matter would be referred to the courts, the

[480I

Three-Cent Fares 91

operation of the railway would go on as now, and Mr. Johnson would
bear the expense of maintaining his rights under the ordinance.

He says that he thinks final decision could be reached within two
years, and attorneys of good standing scout the idea that it would take
any such long period of five to ten years as is claimed by friends of the
company. This experienced street railway magnate holds that, if the
proposed new company won a victory in the courts with regard to pos-
session of the streets upon which the rights of the old company are
most doubtful, and which happen to be by far the best paying lines,
the latter would soon be willing to sell out all its tangible property,
and then to sell existing franchises at such a fair valuation as might
be fixed by the board of arbitrators. Further, Mr. Johnson declared
on his honor as a gentleman that he stood ready to put up any bond
that the council might order for the full performance of the above and
other terms of the ordinance that he presented. These terms included,
as just observed, not only full guarantee of better treatment of em-
ployees than now, but also complete publicity of accounts and the
ultimate turning over to the city, through sinking fund payments in
either low fares or otherwise of all the profits of the enterprise after
the retirement of the capital, which would never be allowed to have a
return of over six per cent.

Mr. Johnson's ordinance, it was shown at the time, could be im-
proved in certain minor particulars, especially with reference to the
control by the city government of the number and heating of cars and
other matters relating to the comfort and convenience of the traveling
public, and he expressed himself as ready to iucoi-porate such im-
provements. In all respects, however, his proposed ordinance was far
superior to that of the existing company.

The friends of the Street Railway Company at once raised three
objections to these very attractive propositions, as follows:

1. Mr. Johnson probably was ambitious to be the United States Sena-
tor from Ohio, and his proposition was for political effect. The reply
that seemed to be conclusive was that while, in view of the past history
of Senatorial contests in the Buckeye State it might be evidence of
criminal intent or of bad character to run for the United States Sen-
ate, yet this was no particular concern of the people of Columbus, pro-
vided Mr. Johnson were willing, as he claimed, to furnish any bond
that the city might require as evidence of his good faith. No one
doubted his extensive and successful street railway experience and
possession of sufficient capital to carry out his proposition.

2. It was again objected that he would inevitably lose money and
throw up his contract, and at the same time hypnotize the city council
into relieving him of any forfeit. This was too serious an indictment

[481]

92 Annals of the American Academy

of their own capacity for self-government to have much weight among
the people of Columbus. With regard to the possibility of making
money on three-cent fares, it was truly said that the street railway
traffic in Columbus had grown 72 per cent in ten years, without any
material reduction in fares, and would almost certainly grow at least
50 per cent in the next five years with a reduction of one-third in fares
and the removal of the necessity of bothering with tickets. Such an
increase of 50 per cent in traffic occurred in Toronto in the six years,
1893-99, without any change of fares, and with a cost of operation
and taxes per passenger, for the 10,611,930 new passengers, of only
;^i 12,728 per year, or 1.06 cents per passenger. This brought down
the average cost for the entire number carried in this Canadian city from
2.53 cents in 1893 to almost exactl)' two cents in 1899. '^^^ operating
expenses and taxes in 1899, in Columbus, were only 2.4 cents per pas-
senger, with seven more miles of track than in Toronto, and with two-
thirds as many passengers per year. Such increase of traffic as would
come from a large reduction of fares would be in the short rides which
are the most profitable to the company and in the more extensive use of
all of the track, and would not call for increase of capital expenditure,
save to a moderate extent in equipment. There is every reason, there-
fore, to believe that such a company, carrying 20,000,000 passengers for
2.4 cents per passenger, could carry another 10,000,000 for one cent
per passenger. This would bring the average below two cents. Be-
cause of its level area and comparatively little snow and only moderate
wages, the Columbus street railways can be operated at much less
expense per passenger than in the smaller Eastern cities.

3. A third objection raised against Mr. Johnson's proposition, and
the one that influenced many, was the enormous depreciation in the
stocks and even the bonds of the present company that would result
if it were not given a new franchise upon practically its own terms.
The most careful investigation that the writer could make, aided by
some excellent expert engineering assistance, showed that the road
could be duplicated to-day for about $25,000 a mile, or $2, 500,000.
This low figure need not surprise any who are familiar with the official
inventories of the Massachusetts companies. The admirable plant at
Springfield, Mass., for example, whose output, cars, power plant, etc.,
seem to be superior, per mile of single track to those at Columbus,
has been valued by the highest authority, the expert of the Massachu-
setts Railroad Commission, at about 133,000 per mile, and has capital
stock and funded and other indebtedness of only 130,000 a mile. On
the other hand, the Columbus road is stocked and bonded for |;i 15,000
per mile. The way this arose is one of the most interesting and instruc-
tive chapters in stock watering. The road, in its present shape, was

[482]

Three-Cent Fares 93

practically organized in 1892 by the purchase for 12,250,000 of the only
road of any importance then existing in the city. The old road had
cost scarcely one-half what was paid for it. The other half was pay-
ment for franchise, but bonds were issued to cover the entire amount
of purchase, and on top of that, |3,ooo,ooo of stock was issued, partly
as a bonus for the buyers of the bonds, or for the syndicate that floated
them, and partly for the promoters. Thus the road started, not only
with all its stock watered, but with half its bonds of the same character.
The defence for this financiering was twofold: First, it was necessary
to issue this stock in order to float the bonds, and it was necessary to
float the amount of bonds actually issued in order to buy the road, but
of course it was not necessary to buy the road, and hence the issue of
either stock or bonds was not, in the last resort, obligatory upon the
existing company. In the second place, it was urged that the stock
was issued in order to obey the Ohio law that forbids the issue of any
more bonds than there is stock. In other words, with charming
naivete, this company claims that it issued the watered stock out of its
supreme desire to obey the existing law. A more delightful illustra-
tion of the willful perversion of the meaning of a statute could not be
imagined. The franiers of the Ohio law, of course, did not mean to
compel stock watering, but to restrict it. The result well illustrates
how corporation attorneys often play ducks and drakes with laws that
are inconvenient to them, and then insist that they are eager to obey
the law.

This Columbus company, which in 1892 had just paid 1:2,250,000 for
its property, took oath to the tax assessors through its vice-president,
that it was worth only f 144,000. Even as late as May, 1S99, when it
had outstanding $6,500,000 of par value of securities worth fully that
in the market, the company declared under oath that its property was
worth only $417,074, and in 1900, shortly before it sought the new
ordinance, it declared to the assessors that its physical property, apart
from its franchise, could not be sold for $375,000. Yet real estate in
the city in the hands of private individuals is in general assessed for
one-half of its value.

In order to buy out other roads that had started in the city, the
company after 1892 issued other bonds with which to pay not only for
physical property, but for franchises, or for improvements to take
the place of old equipment which was discarded, but whose cost was
not written ofi" the capital account. Hence at the present time the
bonds of the company amount to ^5,372,000, while through the same
interesting obedience to Ohio law, as above described, the stock has
been increased to |6, 000,000. Not one dollar of the entire stock has
ever been paid into the treasury of the company out of the pockets of

[483]

94 Annals of the American Academy

the stockholders, while the bonds as indicated, are more than double
the value of the physical property of the road. Yet not only have
the bonds been sold at par, but the ^3, 000,000 of preferred stock was
selling at nearly 100 when a new franchise was sought, and the
13,000,000 common stock was selling at over 35. The entire value of
this stock represented not the worth of their existing franchises, but
the gamble of the investors that new franchises of enormous value
would be soon freely given away by the city in return for very
moderate concessions, as proved to be the case.

Mr. Johnson argued that the nearly 21,000,000 passengers carried in
1900 would increase to fully 31,000,000 within three or four years if
the fare was reduced to three cents. He then held that the profit per
passenger would be at least one cent, which would be equal to six per
cent on over $5,000,000, and with the prospect of still further increase
long before the twenty-five years of the new franchise had expired,
while he assumed that this $5, 000,000 would not only pay for the
present structural value of the old plant, but would pay over ;?i, 000,000
for the value of any franchises they still possessed, and leave another
JPi,ooo,ooo for the improvement of the track, rolling stock and power
plant.

The company, however, secured the passage of the ordinance it
desired. Seven tickets for twenty-five cents, with universal transfers,
were conceded. This would mean, if everyone bought tickets, an
average of only 3.56 cents, and if three-quarters of the people bought
tickets, an average of 3.92 cents. Columbus, therefore, has secured
the lowest rate of fare of any city on the continent, although this is
fully three-fourths of a cent higher than was offered by the present
mayor of Cleveland.

When the ordinance extending the franchises came up for final
passage in the city council, February 4, last, it was well understood
that the council were determined to pass it. Rumors were rife of
bribery, and threats of violence against those suspected of receiving
the same were in the air. The then mayor, who believed in the
extension of the old franchise, not only filled the lobby with police
but had a militia company drilling overhead, and declared that it
would remain there until the council had adjourned.

Since the passage of the ordinance cases have been instituted in the
courts by one or more Columbus citizens to test the legality of the new
franchise and of the claims of the company to perpetual rights on the
most valuable streets. It is proposed to carry the suits up to the
United States Court, if necessary, and the briefs that have been filed
on both sides constitute perhaps the most exhaustive treatment of the
legality of unlimited franchises that ever has been prepared. What-

[484]

Mii^iTARY Pension System of Tennessee 95

ever the outcome, it is clear that the people would have been far better
satisfied and their rights would have been far better preserved, had
the law given the voters, on petition of a certain percentage, the right
of approval or disapproval of the ordinance as it passed the council.
The whole history of the case has been a great education to the people
in the profitableness of these great franchises and the weakness of our
city councils, as now organized, to cope properly with such matters.

Edward W. Bemis.

Superintendent of Water IVorks, Cleveland, Ohio.

THE STATE MILITARY PENSION SYSTEM OF TENNESSEE.

The maintenance of a military- pension system in the United States
is usually considered to be one of the functions of the Federal Govern-
ment. But it is by no means an exclusive function. The national
system provides only for the Union soldiers of the Civil War, and
expressl}' bars from its benefits those who fought in the Confederate
armies. For this reason, the individual southern states have very
generally established pension systems for the aid of the disabled or
indigent Confederate veterans among their citizens. Some of these
systems are based upon provisions in the constitutions of the states
concerned and others upo!i statutory enactments. In comparison
with the heavy expenditures of the national government, the pay-
ments made by these states are small. But the considerable amount
expended by some of the states in proportion to their resources is
shown in the case of Georgia, which, in the years 1893 to 1900, paid
out between four and five million dollars to Confederate pensioners.

A recent report (August 10, 1901) on the Confederate pensioners of
Tennessee furnishes some interesting information with regard to the
operation of the pension laws of that state. The present pension
system of Tennessee owes its existence to a law of 1891. It is admin-
istered by a Board of Pension Examiners, consisting of the Comp-
troller and Attorney-General of the state and of three ex-Cou federate
soldiers " suggested by the Tennessee Division of Confederate vete-
rans," appointed by the Governor, and holding office for two years
without pay. This board has full and final power to hear and determine
all applications for pensions, and to strike from the rolls at any time,
after due notice and hearing, any names which may be improperly
there.

Nominally, the Tennessee law provides for Federal and Confed-
erate soldiers alike. But since it must appear that applicants "are
not pensioners entitled to pension under the laws of the Federal
Government or of any other state," the benefits of the act are in fact
confined to Confederate soldiers. The national laws are more liberal

[485]

96 Annals of the American Academy

than those of Tennessee, both as to requirements and rates.' Hence,
all citizens of Tennessee who fought in the Federal armies look for
pensions to the Federal system rather than to the state system. Appli-
cants for pensions must also have been bona fide residents of the state
for one year before making application, their characters as soldiers
must have been free from dishonor and they must not be already in
possession of a competency. Pensions are not allowed unless it clearly
appears that the applicant's disabilities resulted from some injury re-
ceived while engaged in the military ser\'ice, and while in the line of
duty, or in prison.

The law of 1891 provides for three classes of pensioners, as follows:

" I. For total disability, such as the loss of both arms, both legs or
both eyes, or the use of the same, either in battle, skirmish, or on
picket, or from sickness, exposure or other injuries received during
the war, in prison or on the way home, ^25 per month.

" 2. For partial disability, such as the loss of one arm and one leg,
either in battle, skirmish, or on picket, or one of the aforesaid limbs
lost in battle or skirmish, or on picket, and the other so disabled as to
since render it useless or make amputation necessary, %\o per month.

' ' 3. For smaller disability, such as the loss of one leg or one arm, or
the use of the same, either in battle, skirmish or on picket, or in
prison, |8.33>^."

The pensions allowed under this Act are payable quarterly. No
arrears payment is allowed beyond the date of making application,
and in no case for more than one year. If any pensioner acquires a
competency sufficient for his support, ceases to be a resident of the
state or dies, it is the duty of the Board of Pension Examiners to
strike his name from the roll. In certain cases, applicants for pen-
sions, having no families, are allowed a support in the Confederate
Soldiers' Home in lieu of a pension. It is the duty of the board to
withhold pensions from those who habitually waste the state's bounty
in dissipation or other dishonorable manner. Where there exists a
doubt as to the worthiness of a pensioner, or where charges have been
preferred by reputable persons, the law directs the secretary of the
Board of Examiners to visit the pensioner and to fully investigate his
condition, both physical and financial, and to submit a report of this
investigation to the board for appropriate action.

The recently published report on the Confederate pensioners of
Tennessee contains the name of every man on the roll with the county
of his residence. Objections to names improperly on the roll are
invited by the Board of Pension Examiners from all parties interested.
The board says: " The character of the Confederate soldiers and the
stability of the pension law are involved in keeping the rolls free

[486]

Military Pension System of Tennessee. 97

from dishonor, and we urge that all parties in interest may transmit to
us such information as will enable us to act justly and according to
law — punish none through malice, nor reward any through sympathy."

The number of pension applications filed to August lo, 1901, was
3,584. Of this number, 2,133 applications have been rejected or
passed without final action, there are now 1,2