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PEOPLE AND PROBLEMS

PEOPLE AND PROBLEMS

A Collection of
ADDRESSES and EDITORIALS

BY

FABIAN FRANKLIN

Editor of Tht Baltimore Ntws, 1895-1908;
Somttimt Professor of Mathematics in the Johns Hopkins University.

NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

1908

Xm. .,t.A YORK

PUBLIC LIBRARY

AfTOR. LF.NOX AND
TiLDEN roU'OATiONS.

COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY
FABIAN F5RANKLIN

BALTIMORE, MD., U. 8. A.

I

^

CONTENTS
Newspapers and Exact Thinking i

( Commencement Address, Johns Hopkins University, 1895)

James Joseph Sylvester 11

(Memorial Address, Johns Hopkins University, 1897)

The Intellectual Powers of Woman 28

(From the North American Review, 1898)

A Defect of Public Discussion in America 49

(Address to Johns Hopkins Alumni, Chicago, 1899)

Editorials from The Baltimore News

(Vi^ 1894-1895

'Zl Severn Teackle Waixis 64

A Memorable Campaign 68

The Venezuela Issue 74

1896

" Imperial Free Trade " 78

Ancestor- Worship in Finance 83

^^ A SoaAL Need 88

\{) The Nightmare Campaign 93

/Populism and Socialism 98
1897

Drawing the Line in Luxury 102

" Both the Article and the Cash " 107

Grover Cleveland iii

Decency and the Stage 123

1898

^ The Ferment IN Paris 128

^ Why Some Honest People are not Prohibitionists. 131

The Peace- War Message 137

wiluam ewart gladstone i43

VI CONTENTS

The Bellamy Utopia 149

The Saving Remnant in France 154

Thomas F. Bayard 160

The Realities of the Expansion Question 166

1899

A Statesmanlike Position 169

" A White Man's City "; 173

Chicago's Wonderful Health 178

A Leader of Men 183

England and the War 189

1900

Women and the Johns Hopkins University 193

The Sad Plight of the State of Maryland 197

The Mediaevausts and the Baltimore Schools 202

The News in the Campaign 207

William L. Wilson 211

1901

At the End of Four Years 215

The Sermon on the Mount and the Charity

Organization Society 220

The Benevolent Despotism of the Billionaires 224

The Economic Interpretation of History 230

1902

A Quarter-Century of the Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity 233

Mediocrity and Greatness 236

Cecil Rhodes' Nightmare 240

End of a Heroic Struggle 244

The Ethics of Inflation 248

1903

The Logic of Industrial Development 253

Roosevelt and the Monroe Doctrine 257

One Lesson from Theodor Mommsen 260

Honor and the Army 264

CONTENTS vii

1904

The Fire 267

Quay and America 271

Mr. Roosevelt's Notification Speech 276

Doctor Osler Leaves Us 281

1905

The Work of Secretary Hay 285

Osler on Old Age 289

Roosevelt on the Eve of His Second Term 295

The Fundamental Difficulty in Railroad Rate
Regulation 300

1906

Carl Schurz 304

Ibsenism and Truth 308

The Tainted Money Question 312

PiCQUART 316

The Indeterminate Sentence 320

1907-1908

The Strain on the Constitution '. 324

High Interest Rates and the Gold Supply 329

The American Hotel Men and Their Hotels 334

The Individual and the Mass 337

Government by Crusade 341

NEWSPAPERS AND EXACT THINKING*

When President Gilman did me the honor to ask
me to address you on this occasion, I felt some
reluctance in undertaking the role of a Johns
Hopkins Commencement orator. But upon con-
sidering that this is not only the first, but in all
probability the last occasion on which I am to
appear before the students and friends of the Johns
Hopkins University, I felt that I could not let it
go by.

As most of you probably know, I am about to
make a change in my occupation — in one aspect
perhaps the most extreme change that it is possible
for a man to make in his mental atmosphere.
Mathematics is the domain of the most exact and
rigorous thinking of which the human mind is
capable ; I fear you will agree only too readily with
me in pronouncing journalism to be the field in
which loose and inexact thinking is most at home.
This is in a great measure unavoidable from the
nature of the case; and yet the contrast I have just
mentioned seems to give appropriateness to the sub-
ject to which I shall venture to ask yotu* attention
for a few minutes — the need of exact thinking in
the discussions of actual life.

Mathematics has been from the most ancient times
the best exemplar of exact reasoning that the human
race has possessed; physics and chemistry and the

* Address delivered at the Commencement of the Johns Hopkins
University, June 13, 1895.

2 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

Other natural sciences have in modem times ap-
proached as nearly to the perfection of mathematics
as the nature of their subject matter permits ; scien-
tific philology and archaeology have demonstrated
how much can be accomplished by rigorous meth-
ods in domains more nearly related to man's daily
interests ; but in the discussions which bear directly
upon himian affairs, which determine the action of
legislatures and the votes of citizens, it can hardly
be said that the requirements of sound thinking
are as a general rule fulfilled in a greater measure
in our time than in the days before science had won
its splendid modem conquests.

And indeed any near approach to the exactness
of scientific methods can not be expected. Time is
an essential element in the development of scientific
knowledge. Scientific tmth can afford to wait
indefinitely for its discovery and its proclamation.
A space of twenty years intervened between the
writing of Darwin's first unpublished notes on evolu-
tion and the publication of his Origin of Species;
and he was neglecting no duty to the world by
occupying that period in perfecting and enlarging
his knowledge of the facts bearing on the doctrine
of natural selection. Every one knows how long
Newton allowed his discovery of the principle of
gravitation to remain unpublished on account of an
apparent discrepancy in his data. In politics all
this is totally different. Ten years from now Mr.
Cleveland's opinions on the silver question will
possess very slight interest; today they constitute
perhaps the most potent single force now at work in
determining the material welfare of this country.

NEWSPAPERS AND EXACT THINKING 3

To veto or not to veto is a question that has to be
decided not in ten years but in ten days; and if
the question turns upon profound economic con-
siderations, some kind of pronouncement has to be
made upon them, however profound they may be,
within that specified time. Nor can the journalist
shirk the duty of taking sides in the matter; if he
is convinced that the welfare of the country demands
a certain course of action he must advocate that
course by such arguments as he can command, and
can not afford to wait for more perfect knowledge.

But while considerations of this kind excuse some
things they do not excuse everything. There is no
excuse for making use of arguments when human
interests are concerned which, employed in any other
domain of intellectual activity, would stamp a man
as an utter incompetent or charlatan. We may not
be able to command demonstration; but we should
know what demonstration is. We may not be able
to test our conclusions by following them out to
their remotest consequences ; but we should at least
be warned that there is something wrong in them,
if they lead at once and obviously to absurd results.
We may not be able to obtain and to compare statis-
tical data in sufficient completeness to settle a ques-
tion definitely; but it is a reproach to our own
intelligence and a disparagement of that of our
readers if we do not refrain from drawing wide-
reaching conclusions from manifestly insufficient
data.

We have not to go far to find illustrations of all
these faults, committed too not merely by common
scribblers but by men of intellect and force, men

4 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

who, in reasoning upon anything else than the great
questions which affect human interests and passions,
would be quite incapable of such shallowness. Take
as an example the course of an able advocate of the
gold standard on the silver question. When many
years ago it was proposed to coin from two to four
million silver dollars a month, this authority warned
the country that if this legislation was passed we
might very speedily find gold going to a premium
and our whole financial system disturbed. A num-
ber of years passed by; we kept on coining from
two to four million silver dollars a month, and our
financial system showed no sign of injury. Then,
strange to say, this same authority actually ridiculed
the advocates of silver for attempting to bring us
down to a silver standard by such means, and said
they might as well give up the attempt, since experi-
ence had shown that the purchase and coinage of a
few million silver dollars a month would never
disturb the gold basis of our currency. The observ-
ance of the simplest requirements of exact thinking
would have prevented this blunder ; there had never
been any means of estimating how soon the effect
of the restricted coinage of silver dollars would be
felt as a disturbing factor in our system; and the
experience of the first ten or twelve years showed
absolutely nothing. In point of fact, at the end of
fifteen years the effect came with great suddenness,
and all opponents of the silver standard insisted on
the imperative necessity of an immediate stoppage
of silver purchases. All that at any time could have
been justly asserted was that this coinage had a
tendency to bring us down to a silver basis, and that

NEWSPAPERS AND EXACT THINKING 5

if continued long enough it would have this effect.
That it had not done so and had not shown any
perceptible sign of doing so at a given time was no
more proof of the falseness of this position than
the fact of a seed not sprouting in a week is proof
that it will always remain unfruitful.

Another instance of precisely the same kind may
be given in connection with the same question. The
provision of law for the purchase of silver was re-
pealed under pressure of the panic and with a view
to restoring prosperity. Prosperity did not return
immediately, and indeed we are all agreed that it has
been very slow in returning. Does that show that no
good was accomplished by the repeal ? Is there any
telling how much worse our situation might have
been had the repeal not been effected? Obviously
when the arrangement^ of industry and commerce
have become so profoundly disturbed as they were
during the crisis of 1893, a considerable time must
go by before things can be restored to their normal
condition. And yet not only the humble wielders
of the pen, but Senators of the United States and
other exalted persons, were not ashamed of going
about with the puerile claim that experience had
demonstrated that the repeal had been useless. In
any branch of science anyone who had no better
idea than this implies of the nature of proof and of
what is meant by the terms force, tendency, cause,
would be laughed down, not replied to.

It is the signal merit of the founders of the
classical English political economy, which it has
recently been so much the fashion to belittle and
deride, that they kept constantly before their minds

6 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

the play of economic forces as distinguished from
the actual historical outcome of the confused inter-
mingling of these forces. It is their example which
has naturalized exact thinking in the domain of
social phenomena. The Ricardian doctrine of rent,
the Malthusian doctrine of population, the theory of
value, the law of the flow of metallic money from
country to country — not only are these things solid
landmarks in the midst of a tangled maze, confused
and apparently without a plan, but the student who
has attained to a thorough understanding of the
economic discussion of these subjects is sure to feel
a consciousness of the nature of sound thinking on
the play of social forces which will be the strongest
possible safeguard against the crude errors that
so easily befog undisciplined minds.

But no amount of discipline seems to be sufficient
warrant against crude thinking when human inter-
ests or preferences or prejudices are concerned. The
history of the discussion by scientific men of the
question of the mental equality of the sexes furnishes
many singular examples of a ludicrous disregard of
the rules of scientific inquiry. It seems hardly
credible that for a long time high authorities were
in the habit of regarding the whole question settled
by the amazingly crude test of the absolute weight
of the brain. Later the relative weights of the brain
as compared with the height or the weight of the
body were looked upon as fairer tests ; it happened
fortunately that one of these comparisons gives the
advantage to men and the other to women, so that
not much could be made of this comparison. But
perhaps the most amusing incident in this little

NEWSPAPERS AND EXACT THINKING 7

history pertains to the distribution of the brain
matter between the front and the sides of the brain.
The frontal regions had always been regarded as the
seat of the loftiest functions of the intellect; and
investigators found, as was very natural, that men's
brains were decidedly more developed in these
regions than women's. Now, more accurate investi-
gations in recent years have shown the reverse of
this to be true; but, to quote Mr. Havelock Ellis,
" while it has recently become clear that women
have some frontal superiority over men, it has at the
same time been for the first time clearly recognized
that there is no real ground for assigning any speci-
ally exalted functions to the frontal lobes." Doesn't
this sound remarkably like politics? The fact is,
when it comes to our desires and prejudices it goes
against the grain to say we don't know ; and if we
are unwilling to say that, we are not in the attitude
of the scientific man, and we are not likely to do
exact thinking.

But of all forms of bad thinking the worst is
that which makes a parade of the language of science
and undertakes to settle difficult problems relating
to mankind by the use of phrases which are supposed
to have a magical efficacy in untying all kinds of
knots and exorcising all kinds of troublesome spirits.
There are people who think that instead of solving
a problem by the patient and honest exercise of
common sense they can dispose of it in a moment
by appealing to some grand generalization of science.
The doctrine of evolution and the theorem of the
conservation of energy are the two main feeders of
this kind of pseudo-scientific discussion. A writer

8 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

in the last number of the Popular Science Monthly
gravely informs us that women have lagged behind
men in the process of evolution, they being still at
that low stage in which dress is worn for ornament
and not exclusively for utility. It does not occur
to this writer, apparently, to consider that only
a hundred years ago gentlemen wore embroidered
waistcoats, silk stockings and silver buckles, and that
it can hardly be the slow process of evolution which
has transformed them in this short time into the
highly unpicturesque beings they now are, whose
aspirations after the beautiful find their extreme
limit in a swallow-tail coat. A distinguished pro-
fessor of political economy in a recent work has
apparently fancied that he was adding something to
his argument when he said that his opponents were
" denying the most obvious application of the con-
servation of energy to economic forces," whereas
in reality any one who understands the doctrine of
the conservation of energy knows that it is absurd
to apply it outside of the domain in which it has a
definite meaning and bears in a precise manner upon
masses and velocities. And in another passage we
find this author actually making the ridiculous asser-
tion that elections " are not a source of energy, and
therefore can not cause anything at all." I once had
the pleasure of reviewing a book entitled Statique
des Civilisations, by a graduate of the Ecole Poly-
technique. The author had succeeded in solving the
problem of the progress of civilization from region
to region and from age to age. One would think
this problem was a vefy complex one indeed, but
our friend had succeeded in getting its solution into

NEWSPAPERS AND EXACT THINKING 9

2L single delightfully compact mathematical formula ;
the state of civilization at any time and place was
proportional to the square of the cosine of the lati-
tude multiplied by a certain power of the sine of the
latitude ! He had apparently never heard the story
of the visitors to whom Mr. Babbage had exhibited
and explained his wonderful calculating machine.
" This is all extremely interesting," said one of the
party when Mr. Babbage had finished, " but there is
one thing I am not quite sure I understand. If you
put the question in wrong, will the answer come out
right?"

But it is time that this talk should be brought to
a conclusion. After all there is little to be said in
general terms, except that we should not be content
to argue on politics or economics or social questions
in a manner in which a business man would be
ashamed to argue on his own business, a lawyer on
law, a physician on medicine, or a chemist on chem-
istry. And among the intellectual benefits of a
general nature which a young man should carry
with him from a university, none ought to be more
surely found, and none is more important, than his
elevation above the reach of puerile arguments on
the great questions of the day. His college discipline
has helped him little if it has not taught him to
discriminate between honest thinking and wordy
generalities however brilliant. I trust that all the
young men who go out today with the degree of this
University will help to raise the level of thought on
public matters, not by insisting on impossible stand-
ards of accuracy, for after all we must remember
that the struggle of life is too rough and too rapid

10 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

to admit of the perfect work of science ; -still less by
attaching value to the form, as distinguished from
the spirit, of scientific inquiry; but by expecting
from others and showing themselves such responsi-
ble, coherent and essentially exact thinking as is to
be looked for from men in whom intellectual train-
ing has come to the aid of native good sense and
honesty.

JAMES JOSEPH SYLVESTER*

We have come together to do honor to the memory
of the great man whose work in initiating and for
seven years conducting the mathematical department
of this institution will always remain one of the
proudest traditions of the Johns Hopkins University.
To me, as one who was long his pupil, and who owes
so much to his inspiration, has been assigned the
task of saying something about the work and the
genius of Sylvester, and especially about the influ-
ence which he exerted, while in Baltimore, upon the
study of mathematics here and upon the advance-
ment of mathematical research in America.

Since his death there has appeared in the English
journal Nature, and has been reprinted in the Johns
Hopkins University Circulars, a review of his life
and work by Major MacMahon ; and in 1889, when
that work was well-nigh ended, Sylvester's great
compeer and friend. Professor Cayley, contributed
to the columns of the same journal a sketch of Syl-
vester's labors. One of his Baltimore pupils, too.
Professor Halsted, of the University of Texas, has
given in the columns of Science an account of his
life and achievements. It is therefore the less neces-
sary to undertake here to give anything in the nature
of an enumeration of even his most signal contri-
butions to mathematics.

His influence upon the development of mathe-

* Memorial address delivered at the Johns Hopkins University,
May 2, 1897.

12 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

matical science rests chiefly, of course, upon his
work in the Theory of Invariants. Apart from Sir
William Rowan Hamilton's invention and develop-
ment of Quaternions, this theory is the one great
contribution made by British thought to the prog-
ress of pure mathematics in the present century,
or indeed since the days of the contemporaries of
Newton. From about the middle of the eighteenth
century until near the middle of the nineteenth,
English mathematics was in a condition of some-
thing like torpor. The second half of the eight-
eenth century was one of the most brilliant periods
in the history of mathematics; but the magnificent
achievements of Euler, Lagrange, Laplace, awak-
ened no response on the other side of the narrow
seas. It seems almost incredible that the com-
placent conservatism of Cambridge went so far that
even the notation of mathematical analysis as used
on the Continent was untaught there until about
1820. Babbage tells us, in his " Passages from the
Life of a Philosopher," how he, together with
Herschel, Peacock, and a few others, founded in
1812 the " Analytical Society " for promoting (as
Babbage humorously expressed it) " the principles
of D-ism in opposition to the Dot-age of the Uni-
versity." It is from the translation by these three
men (in 18 16) of Lacroix's Treatise on the Differ-
ential and Integral Calculus, together with the pub-
lication by them four years later of two volumes
of illustrative examples, that the first impulse to-
ward a revival of mathematics in England is usually
dated. Nothing could show more thoroughly the
insular and retrograde condition of English mathe-

JAMES JOSEPH SYLVESTER 13

matics in the early part of this century. The stick-
ing to Newton's fluxions and dots, and the barring
out of Leibnitz's differentials and d's, may be set
down as a consequence of the great Newton-Leibnitz
controversy; but, whatever the cause, so complete
a separation from the great current of European
thought implies stagnation deep-seated and not easily
to be removed. And accordingly it proved to be the
case that in the magnificent extension of the bounds
of mathematics which was effected by the Conti-
nental mathematicians during the first four decades
of the present century, England had no share. It
is almost literally correct to say that the history of
mathematics for about a hundred years might be
written without serious defect with English mathe-
matics left entirely out of account.

That the like statement cannot be made in regard
to the past fifty years is due pre-eminently to the
genius and labors of three men : Hamilton, Cayley,
and Sylvester. Hamilton was a high and solitary
genius, who constructed and developed unaided a
great mathematical method. Great as was this work,
it lay so entirely apart from the general line of
research that it did not, in his own time at least,
awaken widespread activity on the part of others
either at home or abroad. On the other hand, the
Theory of Invariants had a history of what may
be called the normal type. Its origin is to be found
in Boole's discoveries of isolated instances of invari-
ance; these led Cayley to institute a systematic
investigation of this remarkable and significant phe-
nomenon; and Cayley's researches awakened the
ardent interest of Sylvester. Under the hands of

14 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

these two great masters, a new and important prov-
ince was rapidly added to the domain of algebra.
Not only did other English mathematicians join in
the work, but Hermite in France, Aronhold and
Clebsch in Germany, Brioschi in Italy, and other
Continental mathematicians seized upon the new
ideas, and the theory of invariants was for three
decades one of the leading objects of mathematical
research throughout Europe. It is impossible to
apportion between Cayley and Sylvester the honor
of the series of brilliant discoveries which marked
the early years of the theory of invariants. Their
names are linked together as the creators of a new
and beautiful development of algebra, the ideas of
which have profoundly influenced the progress also
of geometry and of analysis generally. " The theory
of invariants," says MacMahon, " sprang into exist-
ence under the strong hand of Cayley, but that it
emerged finally a complete work of art, for the
admiration of future generations of mathematicians,
was largely owing to the flashes of inspiration with
which Sylvester's intellect illuminated it." It is
pleasant to know that the triumphs of neither were
marred by any dispute as to personal claims or by
anything even approaching jealousy. On the con-
trary, these two men of genius, antipodes of each
other in temperament and habits of work, were alike
in the constancy of their mutual friendship, regard,
and admiration.

I have dwelt thus long on Sylvester's connection
with the creation of the Theory of Invariants, be-
cause it is by that chiefly that he left his trace upon
the history of mathematics in its large outlines. But

JAMES JOSEPH SYLVESTER 15

his genius is quite as strikingly shown in researches
of a more isolated character. Ten years before the
date of his work in invariants, he wrote in quick suc-
cession several remarkable memoirs on algebraic sub-
jects, especially on Sturm's functions and on elim-
ination. His researches in the Theory of Partitions
of Numbers are among the most original and re-
markable of his works. In the Theory of Numbers
he was especially interested in Ternary Cubic Forms.
The question of the distribution of prime numbers
had a great fascination for him ; and he succeeded
while in Baltimore in making an impression upon
this recondite problem in that he contracted the lim-
its found by Tchebycheff for the number of primes
contained within a given range. His work seldom
touched on geometry, but his "theory of residua-
tion " in connection with cubic curves is a beautiful
structure, to which he made some remarkable addi-
tions while in Baltimore. I am not, however, at-
tempting to give a survey of his work ; suffice it to
add that, in adidtion to the subjects named, he made
contributions to astronomy, to dynamics, and to the
theory of link-motion, besides other special subjects.
One of the most striking of Sylvester's achieve-
ments was his demonstration and extension of New-
ton's unproved rule concerning the number of the
imaginary roots of an algebraic equation. Newton
had left no trace of the process of thought by which
he had arrived at his rule, nor had he given any indi-
cation of the basis on which it rests. All attempts of
later mathematicians to establish it had proved futile.
It was characteristic of Sylvester to set himself the
task of filling up this lacuna in mathematics. The

l6 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

things that attracted and fascinated him were of two
kinds, which may be called opposite to each other.
On the one hand, he revelled in any new and prolific
method ; the feeling of creation, of abounding pro-
ductiveness, was to him as the breath of his nostrils.
It was largely this that made the Theory of Invari-
ants so congenial to him. To see a whole new world,
full of unexpected and harmonious relations, ex-
panding before him, was to fill him with an absorb-
ing and exuberant enthusiasm. In the case of
invariants, it may be said that his joy in this sense
of creation was not even confined to the discovery
of theorems; the algebraic forms themselves were
to him as living beings, and the processes, invented
largely by himself, for causing these creatures of
the mathematical intellect to generate their kind,
were to him a source of genuine delight.

Alongside of this love of prolific creation, another
intellectual bent, on the surface at least of quite the
opposite character, was equally strongly marked in
Sylvester. Any crucial problem, especially one that
was associated with the name of one of the great
masters, if once it attracted Sylvester's attention,
fastened itself upon his mind with a grip that seemed
never to slacken its tenacity. It kept coming up
again and again for years, and as long as it re-
mained unsolved seemed to become periodically a
source of unrest and discomfort to his mind. He
had not the serenity which belonged to many other
great mathematicians, and notably to Cayley, and
which in a great measure permitted them to choose
among the possible subjects of thought such as they
deemed most profitable to pursue. With Sylvester

JAMES JOSEPH SYLVESTER 1/

such tranquil and deliberate choice was entirely out
of the question. His temperament was essentially
poetic, and it would have been as impossible for him
to concentrate the powers of his mind on one subject
when the current of his thought was setting toward
another, as it would have been for Burns to decide
in cold blood to write a poem like Highland Mary
or The Daisy when the inspiration of Tam O'-
Shanter was upon him.

It was the mention of Sylvester's demonstration
of Newton's rule that suggested these reflections.
We who knew him well in later years can find no
difficulty in understanding the hold this problem had
upon him. It was the good fortune of his early
hearers in this University to be present when he
came into the lecture-room flushed with the achieve-
ment of a somewhat similar task. A certain funda-
mental theorem in the Theory of Invariants which
had formed the basis of an important section of
Cayley's work had never been completely demon-
strated. The lack of this demonstration had always
been to Sylvester's mind a most serious blemish in
the structure. He had however, he told us, years
ago given up the attempt to find the proof as
hopeless. But upon coming fresh to the subject
in connection with his Baltimore lectures, he again
grappled with the problem and by a fortunate in-
spiration succeeding in solving it. It was with a
thrill of sympathetic pleasure that his young hearers
thus found themselves in some measure associated
with an intellectual feat by which had been overcome
a difficulty that had successfully resisted assault for
a quarter of a century. Nor was this the only

l8 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

instance in which we had an opportunity of observ-
ing the tenacious hold upon his intellect of any prob-
lem that had come to assume in his mind the aspect
of a challenge to the powers of mathematicians.

I have said that Sylvester's powers were set in
motion by two opposite kinds of stimulus; that of
abundantly rewarding results, and that of the stub-
bom resistance of concentrated difficulty. In both
these kinds of endeavor he achieved many and signal
triumphs. That intermediate kind of effort which
slowly and patiently builds up and improves and
perfects one's own work, and which gives minute
and prolonged study to the work of others, he did
not command in any notable degree. He seemed
incapable of reading mathematics in a purely re-
ceptive way. Apparently a subject either fired in
his brain a train of active and restless thought, or
it could not retain his attention at all. To a man
of such a temperament, it would have been peculiarly
helpful to live in an atmosphere in which his human
associations would have supplied the stimulus which
he could not find in mere reading. The g^eat mod-
em work in the Theory of Functions and in allied
disciplines he never became acquainted with. No
one who witnessed the flaming up of his energies
when at the age of 62 in Baltimore he felt himself
for the first time among a band of enthusiastic young
workers pursuing pure mathematics for its own sake
can doubt what the effect would have been if in the
prime of his powers he had been surrounded by the
influences which prevail in Berlin or in Gottingen.
It may be confidently taken for granted that he
would have done splendid work in those domains

JAMES JOSEPH SYLVESTER 19

of analysis which have furnished the laurels of the
great mathematicians of Germany and France in
the second half of the present century.

Cambridge, his natural intellectual home, would
have been far less helpful, since it was examinations
and not research that gave tone to the mathe-
matical life there. But Cambridge would of course
have been immeasurably better than the situations
in which he actually found himself for forty years
after his winning of the Second Wranglership.
From a career at Cambridge, to the great loss of that
University, of himself, and of mathematics, he was
debarred by the religious tests then obtaining in the
old English Universities. Professor Halsted in his
account of Sylvester's work already referred to
points out how the vicissitudes of his career were
reflected in the richness or the meagreness of his
mathematical production from period to period.

The life and work of Sylvester illustrate in a
striking way the futility of the dispute as to the
relative importance of native qualities and of ex-
ternal circumstances in determining the achieve-
ments of great men. If any man was ever an
original genius, with consuming ardor for one intel-
lectual pursuit, with love and devotion to it burning
in youth and undiminished in age, Sylvester was
such a man. If any province of thought is open to
every worker in it, to work in as he pleases, unin-
fluenced by the doings of those who happen to be
in his neighborhood, in his university, in his country,
one would say that mathematics is that province.
Yet no one could know Sylvester without feeling
that, g^eat and original as was his genius, environ-

20 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

ment must in his case exercise an extraordinary
influence on its activity. He was sensitive, passion-
ate, fiery; the glowing language in which he habit-
ually indulged in the midst of his mathematical
memoirs was but a reflection of his ardent and
excitable temper. Such a man must needs be keenly
subject to depression and exaltation, to fits of apathy
and ardor, according to the nature of his surround-
ings and experiences. Those who knew him can-
not fail to be convinced that eminent as were his
actual achievements they do not aflEord a true meas-
ure of his mathematical powers, in comparison with
those of his great contemporaries. For he was at
once less advantageously circumstanced then they,
and in an exceptional degree subject to the influ-
ence of his surroundings.

Of his work as a teacher I can speak only upon
the basis of his activity in this University. The
one thing which constantly marked his lectures was
enthusiastic love of the thing he was doing. He had
in the fullest possible degree, to use the French
phrase, the defect of this quality; for as he almost
always spoke with enthusiastic ardor, so it was
almost never possible for him to speak on matters
incapable of evoking this ardor. In other words, the
substance of his lectures had to consist largely of
his own work, and, as a rule, of work hot from the
forge. The consequence was that a continuous and
systematic presentation of any extensive body of
doctrine already completed was not to be expected
from him. Any unsolved difficulty, any suggested
extension, such as would have been passed by with
a mention by other lecturers, became with him

JAMES JOSEPH SYLVESTER 21

inevitably the occasion of a digression which was
sure to consume many weeks, if indeed it did not
take him away from the original object permanently.
Nearly all of the important memoirs which he pub-
lished while in Baltimore arose in this way. We
who attended his lectures may be said to have seen
these memoirs in the making. He would give us on
the Friday the outcome of his grapplings with the
enemy since the Tuesday lecture. Rarely can it have
fallen to the lot of any class to follow so completely
the workings of the mind of the master.

Not only were we thus privileged to see " the very
pulse of the machine," to learn the spring and
motive of the successive steps that led to his results,
but we were set aglow by the delight and admiration
which, with perfect naivete and with that luxuriance
of language peculiar to him, Sylvester lavished upon
these results. That in this enthusiastic admiration
he sometimes lacked the sense of proportion cannot
be denied. A result announced at one lecture, and
hailed with loud acclaim as a marvel of beauty, was
by no means sure of not being found before the next
lecture to have been erroneous ; but the Esther that
supplanted this Vashti was quite certain to be found
still more supremely beautiful. The fundamental
thing, however, was not this occasional extrava-
gance, but the deep and abiding feeling for truth
and beauty which underlay it. No young man of
generous mind could stand before that superb gray
head and hear those expositions of high and dear-
bought truths, testifying to a passionate devotion
undimmed by years or by arduous labor, without
carrying away that which ever after must give to the

22 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

pursuit of truth a new and deeper significance in his
mind.

As is well known, Sylvester had an extraordinary
faculty for the coinage of words, which, indeed, was
merely a part of his remarkably keen sense for lan-
guage in general. In this matter of the coinage
of words, he doubtless went to extremes, as he did
in other things ; but there can be no question of the
g^eat service he rendered to the new science of in-
variants by the creation of a whole vocabulary which
rendered possible the crystallization of thought in
what would otherwise have been a comparatively
amorphous mass. There are doubtless other depart-
ments of mathematics which would be made more
manageable by the skilful application of just such
a name-creating faculty. Any mathematical con-
ception with which Sylvester had much to do had
to be equipped with a name. He justly felt that the
absence of it impeded thought, and he could not be
comfortable in this state of things. His hearers will
not forget how, after getting along for some time
with the notation <^ (»), by which mathematicians
had been content, from the time of Legendre, to
designate the number of numbers less than a given
number and prime to it, he came into the lecture-
room one afternoon and began in his most emphatic
manner thus : " Gentlemen, I am about to introduce
to you a name that has been struggling for birth
for a century I " I may mention here an instance of
his delicate sense for words — and indeed for things
— which occurred during a walk I was taking with
him. We were speaking of Mitchell, then a fellow
in mathematics here, and I said that he impressed

JAMES JOSEPH SYLVESTER 23

me as having a resemblance to Abraham Lincoln.
He seemed struck with the idea, and after a mo-
ment's silence said, "Yes, there is a certain not
inelegant stiffness about him which reminds one of
Lincoln." Where Sylvester got his impression of
Lincoln I do not know ; but surely it would have
been difficult to hit oflE the outward eflEect of the
man in words more accurately chosen.

Another direction which his talent for expression
and his love of the niceties of language took was that
of versification. He made some excellent transla-
tions from Horace and from German poets, besides
writing a number of pieces of original verse. The
tours de force in the way of rhyming which he per-
formed while in Baltimore were designed to illus-
trate the theories of versification of which he gives
indications in his little book called "The Laws of
Verse." The reading of the Rosalind poem at the
Peabody Institute was the occasion of an amusing
exhibition of absence of mind. The poem consisted
of no less than 400 lines, all rhyming with the
name Rosalind (the long and the short sound of i
both being allowed). The audience quite filled the
hall, and expected to find much interest or amuse-
ment in listening to this unique experiment in verse.
But Professor Sylvester had found it necessary to
write a large number of explanatory footnotes, and
he announced that in order not to interrupt the
poem he would read the footnotes in a body first.
Nearly every footnote suggested some additional
extempore remark, and the reader was so interested
in each one that he was not in the least aware of
the flight of time, or of the amusement of the audi-

24 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

ence. When he had dispatched the last of the notes,
he looked up at the clock, and was horrifled to find
that he had kept the audience an hour and a half
before beginning to read the poem they had come to
hear. The astonishment on his face was answered
by a burst of good-humored laughter from the
audience ; and then, after begging all his hearers to
feel at perfect liberty to leave if they had engage-
ments, he read the Rosalind poem.

Sylvester was quick-tempered and impatient, but
generous, charitable, and tender-hearted. He was
always extremely appreciative of the work of others,
and gave the warmest recognition to any talent or
ability displayed by his pupils. He was capable of
flying into a passion on slight provocation, but did
not harbor resentment, and was always glad to
forget the cause of quarrel at the earliest oppor-
tunity. I have it on extremely good authority that,
in his intercourse with Professor Cayley, toward
whom he maintained a lifelong and devoted friend-
ship, and his admiration of whom might be said to
amount to reverence, little episodes of this kind were
not absent. Some fancied injury would lead Syl-
vester to write Cayley an angry letter ; Cayley, who
was as serene and tranquil as Sylvester was passion-
ate and excitable, would quietly leave the letter
unanswered. In a few days another letter was sure
to come from Sylvester, written as though nothing
whatever had happened. The mention of Cayley
leads me to recall an incident of the farewell recep-
tion given to Cayley in Hopkins Hall at the close of
his residence here, which affords another illustration
of Sylvester's felicity of expression. The platform

JAMES JOSEPH SYLVESTER 2$

was abundantly decorated with flowers, and Cayley,
who was extremely shy and retiring, looked* very
uncomfortable in his conspicuous position upon it
while Sylvester was speaking. Referring to Cayley's
modesty, Sylvester suddenly turned toward him and
said, "There he sits, like a victim decked with
flowers I "

Sylvester did not, I believe, like to speak about
religion. He was bom a Jew, and was buried in the
Jewish cemetery at Dalston. I am sure that he
would not have subscribed to any formulated creed ;
but he was a man of truly reverent mind, and a sin-
cere theist. It was notable that, in speaking of
designs for the future, he quite habitually used the
phrase " please God," with an accent that showed it
was not a mere form of words. Once, when I asked
him what was his estimate of QiflEord, he said, with
great earnestness : " CliflEord is a very great genius ;
I only wish he would stick to mathematics instead of
talking atheism."

Of Sylvester's influence upon this University, not
only through his teaching, through the foundation of
the American Journal of Mathematics, and through
the constant stimulation of mathematical interest
here by his incessant productiveness, but also
through the infection of his enthusiasm which was
felt in every department of the University, it would
be impossible to speak too strongly. His aggressive
and singular personality seemed to act the part of a
ferment which spread itself through the entire body
of the University. In its prosperity and progress
and fame he took the deepest interest, and his attach-
ment to it was not weakened when he returned to

26 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

his native land at the call of the University of
Oxford.

Professor Sylvester's residence at the Johns Hop-
kins University constitutes an episode quite unique
in the history of mathematics and of education. Up
to the time when he came to America, the study of
the higher pure mathematics may be said with
almost literal truth to have been non-existent in our
country. He came, a man who had almost filled
out what is usually spoken of as the allotted span of
life, and at once inspired zeal and activity in a
field which had been left almost uncultivated among
us. The earliest outward effect of his ardor was the
foundation of the American Journal of Mathematics,
the first mathematical journal of any importance ever
published in America, and almost the first journal
devoted to any scientific specialty. It may truly be
looked upon as the father of that army of scientific
journals which have since overspread the country
and testified to the growth of the higher learning
among us. The prestige of his name and the fertility
of his work could not do otherwise than excite emu-
lation in other American centers of learning. While
there doubtless would, in any case, have been pro-
gress in this direction, it must be set down as
preeminently the result of Sylvester's presence in
Baltimore that mathematical science in America has
received the remarkable impetus which the last
twenty years have shown. American names are no
longer absent from the record of mathematical prog-
ress. We have not yet produced one of the heroes of
mathematics; but there are now among us a dozen
universities in each of which something, be it much

JAMES JOSEPH SYLVESTER 27

or little, is being added to that splendid monument
of human thought which bears the record of con-
quests made by so many of the intellectual giants of
the race.

Among these giants Sylvester has without ques-
tion the right to be reckoned. In the history of
mathematics, his place will not be with the very
greatest; but his work, brilliant and memorable as
it was, affords no true measure of his intellectual
greatness. Those who came within the sphere of
his personality could not but feel that, through the
force of circumstances combined with the peculiari-
ties of his poetic temperament, his performance,
splendid as it was, had not adequately reflected
his magnificent powers. Those of us who were
connected with him cherish his memory as that of
a sympathetic friend and a generous Critic. And in
this University, as long as it shall exist, he will be
remembered as the man whose genius illuminated
its early years, and whose devotion and ardor fur-
nished the most inspiring of all the elements which
went to make those years so memorable and so
fruitful.

THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS OF WOMAN*

The North American Review for September con-
tains a spirited discussion by Mrs. G. G. Buckler
of several aspects of the woman question. Of
these it is the object of the present paper to consider
one only: that which Mrs. Buckler presents in the
form of the inquiry, Has woman ever produced, or
is she likely to produce, anything first-rate in the
higher branches of literature, science, or art?

After a rapid survey of the field Mrs. Buckler
answers the first half of this question with a decided
negative; on the second half, in the only formal
statement she makes concerning it, she holds to a
position of judicial doubt. " Women have never
yet attained," she says, " the highest rank in science,
literature, or art. Whether they ever will do so is,
of course, a mere matter of opinion and here it is
well carefully to discriminate facts from theories."
And she proceeds to reject with something ap-
proaching contempt the a priori arguments which
have been advanced to show that women are of
necessity precluded from high intellectual achieve-
ments.

Did this passage represent the whole drift of the
article, the present writer would have no quarrel
with it. It is true that woman has never yet attained
the highest rank in science, literature, or art. It is
also true that the question whether she ever will or
not is a mere matter of opinion — or rather of

* From the North American Review for January, 1898.

INTELLECTUAL POWERS OF WOMAN 29

purely speculative conjecture. But the formal dis-
claimer thus made of any decision as to the possi-
bilities of the future is not in agreement with the
judgments expressed with emphasis at various
points in the article. No reader can lay it down
without the feeling that the author holds the facts
of history to be conclusive as to the limitations of
woman's intellectual powers. Thus, after speaking
of women mathematicians, Mrs. Buckler says:
" Yet, taken all in all, these few individual instances
of female achievement in science serve only to prove
the rule that women as discoverers are inferior to
men." So far as literature is concerned she is
even more explicit when she says : " Probably
woman's kind in literature will always be found to
be the humbler species, the lyric and especially the
h)min, letter-writing and domestic novels." But
what is more to the purpose is the general drift of
the whole article, which is clearly and emphatically
to the effect that, in literature at least, women have
had ample opportunity to show their powers, and
that the result of the test has been a demonstration
of hopeless inferiority; and that a similar test, not
quite so conclusive, yet practically sufficient, has
established the same result in the other two great
departments of intellectual activity.

That the facts of history are not only not con-
clusive, but cannot properly be regarded as establish-
ing even a presumption concerning the limitations of
the intellectual powers of woman, it is the object of
the present paper to show. Strange as the assertion
may at first blush appear, it is nevertheless true
that the presumption that women are incapable of

30 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

the highest intellectual achievement may far more
reasonably be based upon mere ordinary impressions
than upon anything which historical experience has
thus far been able to furnish. If a man feels it in
his bones that no woman could possibly write a poem
as great as " Paradise Lost " or evolve a body of
mathematical doctrine like that of the " Disquisi-
Hones Arithmeticce/' his state of mind is the result
of a vast array of experiences, for the most part
absorbed unconsciously, but not the less valuable
on that account. A conviction arrived at in this way
it is difficult to dislodge or weaken. But when the
position is taken, as it has been taken by so many
previous writers, as well as by Mrs. Buckler, that
women have historically demonstrated their incapac-
ity for such triumphs by not yet having achieved
them, it is not difficult to show that the argument is
thoroughly unsound.

The first and most vital defect in all these dis-
cussions is their total neglect of the question of
numbers. " No woman has attained the highest
rank in science, literature, or art " — ^granted. But
in all the ages of the world there have been but a
handful of men who have attained this rank; and
only an utterly insignificant fraction of the female
sex can be regarded as having been in any sense in
the running for these high honors. Among the
writers who hold Mrs. Buckler's view, one never
finds the slightest attempt to take into account the
relation of these numbers. With all but an insignifi-
cant fraction of the sex ruled out, would not women
have contributed more than their quota if they had
furnished even one. name to the list of immortals ?

INTELLECTUAL POWERS OF WOMAN il

The force of this inquiry will become much more
apparent if we turn aside for a moment from the
woman question. Take our own great country, and
ask whether any American has attained the highest
rank in science, literature, or art. We have had no
Newton, no Darwin, no Gauss; there has not only
been no American Shakespeare or Dante, but no
American Goethe or Burns ; and neither Beethoven
nor Michael Ang^lo has even a distant relative on
the roll of American glory. Does it enter any one's
mind to infer, hence, that Americans are intrinsically
incapable of the greatest triumphs in science, in
literature, or in art? And yet the number of Ameri-
can men who have in the past hundred years been
placed in circumstances conducive to the accomplish-
ment of great work is incomparably larger than that
of all the women who have ever been so placed.

Other examples will point the moral quite as
strikingly. Take the history of German literature.
Between the romances and songs of chivalry which
were produced in the twelfth and thirteenth cen-
turies, and the revival of German literature in the
eighteenth century, there lies a dreary interval of
five hundred years during which Germany produced
not a single literary figure of importance, to say
nothing of " the highest rank." And all this time
her universities were keeping up the love of learn-
ing; she had ancient capitals and historic courts;
she went through the stimulating experience of the
Protestant Reformation, and it was within her
bounds and during this period that the art of print-
ing was invented. Or, again, take Scotland. An
Englishman writing in the year 1750 could far more

32 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

justly have said of Scotchmen than any one can
to-day say of women, that historical experience had
proved that we could not expect from them writings
capable of attracting the attention or influencing the
thought of the world. Yet the next half-century
found Scotland furnishing to philosophy the pre-
eminent name of Hume, to political economy the
illustrious Adam Sn:\ith, to poetry Burns, and to
prose Walter Scott.

One is tempted here to introduce examples in
which the course of history has been the reverse of
this — cases where a period of glory has been fol-
lowed by ages of utter insignificance. Of these,
incomparably the most striking is that of Greece, or,
let us say, of Athens. But the phenomenon pre-
sented by the magnificent flowering of Greek genius
in a single century, followed by two millenia of
obscurity, illustrates much more than this lesson of
numbers, and may well serve to introduce the second
great defect of the historical argument against the
capabilities of women. For not only has almost the
entire mass of womankind, in all historic ages up
to the last two or three decades, been practically
placed completely out of the running, but the
extremely small minority from whom high achieve-
ment might possibly be expected have been wholly
cut off from those influences which have, in the case
of men, so great a share in the stimulation of ambi-
tion and the development of genius. Men who
have had the spark of genius or even of talent in
them have been spurred to effort by all their sur-
roundings, by the traditions of the race, by rivalry
with their comrades, by the admiration which the

I

INTELLECTUAL POWERS OF WOMAN 33

Opposite sex accords to brilliant achievements, by
the dread of disappointing the high expectations of
relatives and friends, by the thousand nameless
forces which impel and animate to exertion. What
of all this has there been for women? How many
have been so placed as to even think of an intel-
lectual career as a possibility? Of these few, how
many have been otherwise than solitary in their
youthful aspirations and efforts ? None has had the
goad of the humiliation of failure to urge her on,
for from none was anything great expected or
looked for. And the very absorption in a high
intellectual interest, which in the case of a boy would
be hailed with delight even by the humblest parents
as an earnest of future greatness, was, in the case
of girls, up to the last two or three decades, uni-
versally condemned and repressed and thwarted
even in the most cultivated families.

There is, of course, a very easy answer to all this.
Genius, it will be said, rises superior to all obstacles,
and will manifest itself in spite of all disadvantages.
The widespread acceptance of this comfortable doc-
trine is an interesting example of the way in which
opinions which, when examined, are seen to be
mutually contradictory may jog along together in
the same mind without inconvenience. The same
persons who hold this view of the infinite resources
of genius will accept without hesitation the current
explanation of the brilliant periods in the intellectual
history of the world, or of a particular nation. But
if the greatness of English literature in the time of
Elizabeth is to be explained by reference to the
glories of her reign in arms and adventure and

34 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

statesmanship ; if it is not to be considered an acci-
dent that Italy's pre-eminence in art and literature
was coincident with the period when her rival states
were at their highest point of wealth and political
importance and civic pride ; if Augustus had some-
thing to do with the Augustan age, and we find it
quite natural that Virgil and Horace wrote then,
and not in the reign of Augustulus ; if we find a line
of succession like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, or
like iEschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and recog-
nize in it something most impressive, indeed, but
nothing abnormal or miraculous ; if we see nothing
strange in the failure of the Greek race to produce
a single world-name in two thousand years, after
having, within the compass of a century and a half,
furnished a considerable fraction of all the names
on the brief list of the world's greatest men — if all
these things are so, what becomes of the notion that
inborn genius will triumph over all adversity of
circumstance? In one breath we recognize that
intellectual glory can be looked for only when the
spirit of the time and the conditions of the national
life are favorable to it; shall we say, the next mo-
ment, that genius is sure to assert itself under all
circumstances? Evidently the two positions are
incompatible.

So much for the inconsistency of the notion that
" genius will out " with the all but universally
accepted view that great things are, as a rule, done
only in times somehow favorable to greatness. That
it is the first, and not the second, of these doctrines
which is at fault may easily be shown almost to
demonstration ; one has only to run over any list of

INTELLECTUAL POWERS OF WOMAN 35

the world's intellectual heroes, and strike out those
who belonged to some great period. Leave only the
solitary giants who arose unheralded and alone, who
wrote noble verse in an ignoble time, or made im-
mortal works of art for a down-trodden or mean-
spirited people, or extended the bounds of human
knowledge at a time when learning was held in
contempt. Is it necessary actually to go through
the task? Is it not plain at once that, if it were
performed, the splendid roll of immortals would
shrink almost to nothing? And yet, if this be so, it
is clear that, far from being sure to triumph over
all the obstacles of circumstance, native genius de-
pends almost invariably for its fruitful development
upon influences to which it, along with meaner en-
dowments, is subjected. By this is not to be under-
stood any approval of the evolutionary cant which
at one time was so prevalent and which asserted that
works of genius were a mere " product '' of the
environment. The environment cannot make a gen-
ius, and cannot " evolve " his work. On the other
hand, however, genius is not endowed with omnipo-
tence, but, as common sense would indicate, and as
historic experience amply demonstrates, it may be
powerfully helped or fatally hindered by the atmos-
phere which it finds itself compelled to breathe.

But the ordinary diflferences of atmosphere be-
tween one age and another, which we thus readily
recognize to have an influence so powerful upon
literature and art, are insignificant in comparison
with the diflference between the atmosphere which
has surrounded women and the atmosphere which
has surrounded men in all times. To suppose that

36 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

absolute exclusion from the opportunities of culture
is the only important factor that has to be taken into
account would be to overlook in this question what
all acknowledge as of predominant importance when
we are considering the history of civilization at
large. Most vital of all the adverse influences, ex-
cept such absolute exclusion, has been the prevalent
sentiment as to what is fitting and commendable, as
well as the prevalent estimate of what is possible,
for women. The eflfect of such influences has been
well expressed by Colonel Higginson : " System-
atically discourage any individual, from birth to
death, and they learn, in nine cases out of ten, to
acquiesce in their degradation, if not to claim it as
a crown of glory. If the Abbe Choisy praised the
Duchesse de Fontanges for being ' beautiful as an
angel and silly as a goose,' it was natural that all
the young ladies of the court should resolve to
make up in folly what they wanted in charms."

Only those of us who are very young have any
need of historical research to assure ourselves that
up to an extremely recent date there was not one
person in a hundred, of either sex, who did not look
upon a really learned woman as a monstrosity. And
yet it is instructive to take an occasional glance
farther back and find, for instance, that when, in the
sixteenth century, Francoise de Saintanges wished
to establish girls' schools in France, she was hooted
at in the streets and her father called together four
doctors learned in the law to decide whether she
was not possessed by the devil to think of educating
women ('^'pour /assurer qu'instruire des femmes
n' it ait pas un oeuvre du dimon") ; or that Fenelon

INTELLECTUAL POWERS OF WOMAN 37

held virgin delicacy to be almost as incompatible
with learning as with vice ; or that Dr. Gregory, in
his book A Legacy to His Daughters, which seems
to have been regarded as a standard work on female
propriety at the end of the eighteenth century,
utters such warnings as this : " Be cautious even in
displaying your good sense ; it will be thought you
assume a superiority over the rest of the company.
But if you have any learning, keep it a profound
secret, especially from the men, who generally look
with a jealous and malignant eye on a woman of
great parts and a cultivated understanding." Every
one knows that the two women who in our century
have won most distinction by their mathematical
work had to acquire the elements of the science
surreptitiously and in the face of unyielding parental
opposition, though both belonged to families of cul-
ture and high social standing. No one fails to see
that this was getting knowledge under difficulties;
but few realize the more important lesson that it
teaches. For who shall say how many girls may
have had mathematical powers greater than Mrs.
Somerville's or Madame Kovalewski's, without pos-
sessing those other qualities which braced these two
to fly in the face of what they had been steadily
taught from infancy to regard as right and becoming
in a woman ?

One might go on almost indefinitely, pointing out
the vast differences between the motives and ideals
of the two sexes. But these considerations will
easily occur to every one. The youthful dreams and
aspirations of a gifted boy cluster arou|id high
achievement and resounding fame, because all that

38 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

he hears and reads tends to arouse in him such
ambitions; from earliest childhood, a girl learns to
look forward to quite other things as her ideal.
Beginning with the fairy tale and going on through
poetry and romance and the talk of real life, the
only thing which is held up to her as praiseworthy
is the tender ministering to the needs of those
around her ; and it is the conquest of men by beauty
and charm which is presented to her imagination
as the one triumph that a woman prizes. The very
girls who are most capable of great work, those
possessing an abounding vitality, high spirits, the
pride of life, are sure to go in for the g;reat prize
of happiness, and they cannot unite the winning of
that prize with intellectual work so long as intel-
lectual work is regarded as unfeminine.

But it is not my purpose to make an exhaustive
list of the hindrances to woman's intellectual
achievements. I have wished merely to fasten atten-
tion upon them, and to show their bearing upon that
matter of numbers, which, while it is the vital ele-
ment of the whole question, is so strangely ignored
by the supporters of the view maintained in the
article under discussion. Let us quote one or two
passages from it. "Taking literature as our first
topic, we find women from the earliest days ex-
pressing their thoughts in verse and prose. Yet
as real poets we can only mention the half mythical
Sappho, and possibly, in our own day, Mrs. Brown-
ing and Christina Rossetti." "Women from the
earliest days " ; yes, but how many, and under what
circumstances ? " In physics and mathematics we
find feminine enthusiasts at quite an early date. . . .

INTELLECTUAL POWERS OF WOMAN 39

Yet, taken all in all, these few individual instances
of female achievement in science serve only to
prove the rule that women as discoverers are in-
ferior to men." In such a dictum the fact is entirely
lost sight of that the whole number of women who
acquired the elements of the infinitesimal calculus,
in the two centuries from its creation by Newton and
Leibnitz to the opening of Vassar College in 1865,
was probably less than the number of mathematical
honor men the single University of Cambridge
turns out in a single year. Yet of the ten thousand
men or so whom the University of Cambridge has,
within the past hundred years, stamped with her
certificate of honor, after a course of training upon
which that stronghold of English mathematics con-
centrates all her powers, only two, or at most three,
have achieved high rank as discoverers in pure
mathematics.

In drawing conclusions like those just cited,
writers continually forget that great distinction is,
ex vi termini, an extremely rare thing. The truth
is, that they are impelled to their conclusion not so
much by the facts which they cite in support of it
as by a predisposition to believe it. Of this pre-
disposition they may themselves be entirely un-
conscious ; but that it exists is shown by their failure
to draw like inferences from similar and indeed
much stronger premises, where there is no foregone
conclusion to point the way. Almost every word,
for instance, that is said of the failure of women to
achieve the very highest distinction in science, liter-
ature, and art, may be said with equal truth of
Americans, and with vastly greater emphasis of the

40 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

inhabitants of almost any of our great States, say
Pennsylvania; yet no one thinks of inferring from
this that Americans or Pennsylvanians are utterly
barred by inherent defect from ever attaining the
highest intellectual glory. It will be a long time
before women may be truthfully said to have had a
test in comparison with men anything like as fair as
that which Americans have had, or perhaps even
that which Pennsylvanians have had, in comparison
with the world at large; but because America has
produced no Dante, no Newton, no Beethoven, it
does not enter any one's mind to conclude that the
middle heights of fame must be the limit of an
American's ambition.

But this is not the only way in which the pre-
disposition to a foregone conclusion manifests itself.
I have freely granted the literal correctness of the
assertion that women have not in any department
achieved the very highest distinction; but when it
comes to drawing a much lower line than this, and
asserting that women have never come up to it, the
case is very different. Writers adopting the view
which Mrs. Buckler holds are very apt to betray the
kind of bias that shows itself in the famous jeu
d' esprit about German scholarship written before the
days of Germany's pre-eminence in philology :

The Germans in Greek
Are sadly to seek ;
All save only Hermann —
And Hermann's a German.

Work which, if done by a man, would be regarded
as falling little short of the highest, takes on in the
minds of these writers a feminine littleness or limi-

INTELLECTUAL POWERS OF WOMAN 41

tation, for no discoverable reason except that the
author of it was a woman. Why, for instance, does
Mrs. Buckler repeatedly speak of the " domestic "
novel as marking the limits of woman's possibilities
in the art of fiction? Could anything be more
gratuitous? Is Romola a domestic novel? I take
Brockhaus^ Encyclopcedia, which happens to be at
my side, and find that this German authority de-
scribes it as " a picture of the Italian Renaissance of
the last half of the fifteenth century, drawn with a
master hand." We all know that it is this and
much more; and evidently the writer omitted to
mention specifically, in so condensed an account, its
other high qualities only because he had just given
the following characterization of the earlier novel,
Adam Bede: " Its excellences are a development of
character as profound as it is brilliant, true epic
force and richness, a style of extraordinary indi-
viduality and purity, and a highly original represen-
tation of English provincial life." Does one speak
in this way of a mere " domestic novel " ? In what
derogatory sense can any of George Eliot's novels
be so designated ? And yet the belittlement implied
in the words is heightened by the context; for we
find hymn-making, letter-writing, and the compos-
ing of domestic novels put together as constituting
that " humbler species " in literature which " wom-
an's kind " not only has always been, but " probably
will always be found to be."

This underestimation of woman's achievement in
a direction in which many women have been distin-
guished and a few have been truly great is so re-
markable, and is so instructive as showing how large

42 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

a part unconscious bias may play in these judgments,
that I shall dwell upon it a moment longer, and
forego all criticism of estimates of feminine per-
formance in other fields, which, though not open to
so strong an objection, are yet vitiated in the same
manner. In a passage other than that just quoted
we again find " letter-writing and novels of domestic
life '' coupled together on an apparently equal foot-
ing; and here we find women's excellence in these
departments ascribed to " their special demand for
the feminine qualities of quick emotions and ready
observation." Let me place alongside of this unfa-
vorable etimate some words about George Sand
written by the greatest of English critics :

Whether or not the number of George Sand's works —
always fresh, always attractive, but poured out too lavishly
and rapidly — is likely to prove a hindrance to her fame, I
do not care to consider. Posterity, alarmed at the way in
which its literary baggage grows upon it, always seeks to
leave behind it as much as it can, as much as it dares —
everything but masterpieces. But the immense vibration of
George Sand's voice upon the ear of Europe will not soon
die away. Her passions and her errors have been abund-
antly talked of. She left them behind her, and men's
memory of her will leave them behind also. There will
remain of her to mankind the sense of benefit and stimulus
from the passage upon earth of that large and frank
nature, of that large and pure utterance — ^the large utter-
ance of the early gods.*

The object of this article was stated at the outset
to be a negative one. Its purpose was to show that
" the facts of history are not only not conclusive, but
cannot properly be regarded as establishing even a
presumption concerning the limitations of the intel-

* Matthew Arnold : Mixed Essays.

INTELLECTUAL POWERS OF WOMAN 43

lectual powers of woman." The positive proposition
that women are capable of doing such work as has
been done by a few score only of all the thousands
of millions of men in the world's history, I have
made no attempt to establish. But that the absence,
up to the present time, of supreme pre-eminence on
the part of any woman cannot be allowed any logical
weight in support of the conclusion that the sex is
incapable of such distinction, I think the foregoing
considerations sufficiently show. I have pointed out,
in the first place, that those who draw such an
inference entirely fail to pay regard to the all-
important question of numbers ; they forget for the
time being how very rare the kind of achievement is
upon the absence of which they base their con-
clusion. Great nations have gone on for hundreds
of years without producing a single important liter-
ary figure ; and it must be plain to any fair-minded
person that the whole number of women in all
nations and all times who may be said to have been
so placed as justly to be considered in the com-
parison is far less than that of the men so placed in
any great nation in a single century. It is only
within the last few decades that any considerable
number of girls have grown up with any other
notion than that serious intellectual work in their
sex is a monstrosity; and only in England and
America has a different view of the matter been
widely entertained even in our time, the " woman
movement " having attained an important character
in Germany only within the past five or ten years.

In the second place, I have endeavored to empha-
size the fact that even this numerical exclusion of

44 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

all but an extremely small fraction of the sex does
not begin to measure the disadvantage of women
in the comparison. Every one must recognize that
the minute fraction which may properly be con-
sidered at all has not been surrounded by the
atmosphere, affected by the agencies, impelled by
the stimuli, which exercise so incalculable an influ-
ence upon human achievement; but there is a not
unnatural tendency to think that after all there ought
to have been some women who had risen superior
to all these things. It is for this reason that I have
dwelt on the utter absence of intellectual greatness
in periods of national decadence, and on the uni-
versally acknowledged influence of general condi-
tions upon the flourishing of literature, art, and
science. But surely the ordinary differences in these
conditions which have been uniformly found suffi-
cient wholly to prevent the emergence of genius
among men are insignificant in comparison with the
unfavorable difference which has always existed in
the conditions surrounding women, in every direc-
tion of intellectual effort.

A final word as to the importance or unimportance
of the whole discussion. There would be no harm
in leaving the question entirely open ; what is to be
deplored is an erroneous belief that it has been
settled. In a matter of keen human interest — ^how-
ever unsubstantial or speculative that interest may
be — any error is to be deplored, simply as error.
But in this case there is another and more special
reason for regret. It is that the conclusion which
I have been engaged in controverting is sure to be
understood by the generality of people as meaning

INTELLECTUAL POWERS OF WOMAN 45

vastly more than in its exact terms it professes to
convey. Even those who are not " the generality "
slide imperceptibly into this exaggeration of its
purport. The most that could be claimed as shown
by history, even were the considerations adduced in
the present article wholly ignored, would be that
women cannot reach the highest heights ; yet we see
the very able and gifted writer of the article to
which this is a reply belittling achievements of
members of her own sex which are of undeniable
greatness, a thing which can hardly be ascribed to
anything else than the bias due to a preconceived
theory. Whether or not any woman can be as
great as the greatest men, it is quite certain that
some women can be as great as very great men ; for
some women have been.

The capacity for doing excellent work in the
most difficult departments of university study, pos-
itive experience has now shown to be no more
abnormal among women than among men. Yet
we see surviving to our own day — ^and probably,
if the truth were known, still very widely enter-
tained — ^the notion that, leaving out a possible lustis
naturcB here and there, women are incapable of
doing high university work. In a recent number of
a prominent Review, I find a Lecturer on History
in the University of Cambridge making the utterly
ridiculous statement that he had "never seen a
woman's papers equal to a man's " ; which, if under-
stood literally, would mean that the ablest of the
women whose papers have ever come under his eye
was not equal to the most stupid of the men. This
doubtless is not what he meant to say, but the

46 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

expression shows the persistence in his mind of
an utterly baseless belief in woman's essential in-
feriority. Any one whose memory extends back
twenty-five years will remember the time when the
belief was practically universal that women were
incapable of mastering the higher mathematics. Go
back a little farther, and we find a schoolmaster in
one of the principal towns of Massachusetts set
down as a visionary because he proposed to under-
take to teach girls fractions. A century ago no less
a man than Kant declared the unfitness of women
for the study of geometry. " It is generally believed
in Germany," writes Professor Klein,* one of the
greatest of living mathematicians, " that mathe-
matical studies are beyond the capacity of women " ;
but he assures us that the women who have attended
the mathematical courses at Gottingen " have con-
stantly shown themselves from every point of view
as able as their male competitors." And it may be
remarked that the mathematical work here referred
to is as far beyond anything that was taught in
America before the opening of the Johns Hopkins
University as the work in our best colleges in those
days was beyond that of a country school.

It is because the view combated in this article
not only is lacking in foundation, but tends to
strengthen the hold of beliefs which still cling to
the majority of persons, though they have been
amply proved to be erroneous, that I feel it to be
important that it should be opposed. It is impos-
sible to determine the relative powers of men and

* " Les Femmes dans la Science" By A. Rebiere. Paris,
1897. (Page 318.)

INTELLECTUAL POWERS OF WOMAN 47

women ; it will be long before experience can show,
even with a moderate degree of probability, what
limits there may be to the possibilities of woman
in the realm of intellect. Let us not, in the mean-
while, belittle the actual work of women, in pursu-
ance of a baseless dogma of essential inferiority.
Let us refrain, for instance, from saying, with Mr.
Gosse, that women cannot write poetry requiring
art "because they lack the artistic impulse," when
we know not only that they have written such
poetry, but that paintings like those of Miss Mary
Cassatt or Mme. Demont-Breton, not to speak of
older names, show the possession of an extremely
high artistic impulse. Let Americans, at least, not
talk glibly of women's power in scientific discovery
being essentially inferior to men's, until such time
as some American mathematician receives as high
recognition as that bestowed by the French Academy
on the work of Sonia Kovalewski, the judgment
being pronounced without knowledge of the writer's
sex. Let us not regard the results of women's
attempts in poetry and music as utterly fatal to
aspirations however high, when we remember that
our country has thus far produced neither a great
composer nor, in the high sense of the word, a
great poet. Let us not lay too great stress on the
fact that " in dramatic literature no woman has ever
gained for herself any lasting fame," when it is
remembered that America has never produced a
drama of even moderate excellence; while, on the
other hand, I find Professor Kuno Francke, of
Harvard, saying in The Nation a few weeks ago,
of a drama recently written by a German woman,

48 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

Gisela von Arnim, the wife of Hermann Grimm,
that its chief scene is "one of the most affecting
in dramatic literature," that the personages of the
play are "characters of genuine grandeur," and
that in it the longings and aspirations of the author
have " found a supreme poetic expression." In a
word, as to what woman may do in the future, let
us frankly acknowledge that the future alone can
decide, the experience of the past being far too
slight to furnish the materials for a forecast; and
as to what women have done in the past, or are
doing in the present, let us recognize it as what it
is, and not as what, in accordance with an unproved
generalization, we imagine it must of necessity be.

i

A DEFECT OF PUBLIC DISCUSSION IN
AMERICA*

When I received from the president of this asso-
ciation of Johns Hopkins comrades a letter of invita-
tion so cordial and expressive of so much affection
and regard that I could not think of declining it, I
found that invitation coupled with a request which
I am sure was meant to be the easiest one possible
to grant. He said that all that would be expected
of me was that I should simply say a word to you on
whatever might be uppermost in my mind at the
moment. But there is only one subject that is upper-
most in the minds of all Americans at the present
time; and it happens that upon that subject it is
more difficult for me than for probably most of my
fellow citizens to say the word that would be at
once true to my thoughts and feelings and fitting
for this occasion. I cannot truthfully say that I
share either the gloomy forebodings of the ardent
opponents of expansion or the buoyant optimism
of its aggressive supporters. To define a political
position of this kind with accuracy is surely not an
appropriate aim in an after-dinner speech at a reun-
ion of University friends ; and I shall not attempt it.
Neither shall I on the other hand evade the ques-
tion altogether; though the subject I have chosen
for the few remarks that I am going to make is " A
Defect of Public Discussion in America."

* Address delivered before the Northwestern Association of the
Johns Hopkins Alumni, at Chicago, February 22, 1899.

so ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

The defect to which I have reference is to my
mind very marked and very important, though I
feel strongly that in its exhibition by the best of
our journals and public men it is an instance of
what the French would call the defauts de leurs
qucdites. The history of party struggles and of
reform activities in our country has been a history
of movements on large lines, of battles in which at
least one of the opposing sides has been constantly
animated by the feeling that it was fighting either
for a great moral principle, or for the defence of
fundamental constitutional rights, or for the preser-
vation of the integrity of the coimtry. The grand
struggle over state rights and over slavery came to
its final close in a gigantic civil war, and not many
years after that the problems incidental to recon-
struction fell into the background. Since then, and
leaving out the past twelvemonth, the subjects that
have most engaged the eflforts of the best leaders of
opinion in America have been civil-service reform,
the currency, and the tariff. The civil-service re-
form movement has had all the marks of a genuine
moral propaganda ; the sound-money fight has been,
in its essence, a fight against dishonesty, or what
was regarded by its leaders as dishonesty ; and even
the tariff fight has been carried on chiefly as an
attack upon protection as being in the first place a
spoliation of the many for the benefit of the few,
and secondly a breeder of corruption in legislation
and politics. There was, indeed, one most memor-
able presidential campaign that was fought upon
entirely different lines; but the peculiar issue then
at stake was even more distinctly a moral one than

PUBLIC DISCUSSION IN AMERICA 51

was the case in any other election ; and it is to the
honor of the American people that there were
found so many noble and high-minded men who
were willing to sacrifice tranquillity and friendship
and old political associations in order to make their
protest against any lowering of the standard of
personal fitness for the chief magistracy of the
nation.

Now, I am so far from being an opportunist that
the conviction which I feel more profoundly than
any other in regard to the needs of a democracy is
that unflinching courage on the part of its leaders
is the one quality that is most to be prized and
the presence or absence of which is most likely to
be decisive of its salvation or its downfall at some
time of vital trouble. To put the matter in a nut-
shell, it is the Cleveland type, not the McKinley
type, that I admire and cherish. But I cannot help
feeling that the spirit of the Crusader and the Cove-
nanter is not adequate to the grappling with all the
problems of government and of national policy.
The habits of thought and expression bred in a life-
long championship of principles the recognition of
which one holds to be essential to political salva-
tion, and the opponents of which one sets down as
mere children of darkness, are fine and noble habits,
but they have their evil side. And it is largely to
this source, I take it, that the weakness in American
political controversy to which I have had reference
is to be traced. Not every question can be effectively
disposed of by an appeal to one or two simple and
abstract principles; nor is the acceptance of those
principles themselves likely to be best furthered by

52 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

that sort of advocacy which rides roughshod over
all difficulties, which refuses to recognize any possi-
bility of even incidental or subsidiary merit in the
opposite camp, which ignores instead of overcoming
adverse arguments, and which fails to acknowledge
any distinctions of degree, massing together all
things that it condemns in one hopeless category of
irreclaimable blackness, holding each as big as any
other with infinite disaster.

Let me illustrate what I mean by a few examples.
We had for a number of years an excess of revenue
over expenditure in the Federal Treasury. This was
an abnormal and improper condition of affairs, the
consequences of which were injurious in more ways
than one. But it was a conditon which gave no
occasion for intense apprehension, or for white-hot
exhortations on the follies and vices of the time.
Yet it was customary in the quarters most repre-
sentative of tariff-reform sentiment to speak of the
treasury surplus as a tremendous national problem,
and to point to it as the just punishment of Heaven
for the stubborn wickedness of the protectionists.
So far did this feeling go that the Republican party
was pictured, and I believe honestly pictured by
many, as placed in the terrible position of being com-
pelled, in case it returned to power in 1889, to swal-
low the ugly dose of tariff reduction in order to save
the country from being ruined by hypertrophy of
the treasury. Well, the Republicans did return to
power in 1889, and the surplus did not bother them
a particle ; they simply spent most of it on pensions,
and cut off the rest not by lowering duties but by
raising them. I am far from saying that this was

PUBLIC DISCUSSION IN AMERICA 53

right ; but no one can deny that it was exceedingly
easy. And the free-traders would have known that
it was easy, and would have acknowledged that it
was easy, and would have fought their fight on the
ground that it was very bad though it was easy,
had they not been so filled with the conviction that
the way of the transgressor is hard, and that there
never were on earth wickeder transgressors than the
protectionists.

There was not much of an interval between the
disappearance of the surplus and the arrival of the
deficit. That a deficit is a bad thing requires no
setting forth at all; and it was disastrously bad at
the particular time when it came, because it was
continually depleting the gold reserve, and thus
undermining the security of the currency. It was
justly made the occasion of emphasizing the need of
economy, the folly as well as wrongfulness of reck-
less expenditure. But these exhortations on econ-
omy, both as matter of duty and as matter of
expediency, would have made, I feel sure, a stronger
impression, not a weaker one, had the exhorters been
less violent, less alarmist. A member of Mr. Cleve-
land's cabinet wrote an article in one of the Reviews,
entitled " Retrenchment — or Ruin." Now, I have
not a word to say against the motive of such an
article, nor a word to say against its object; on the
contrary, I have the highest respect for the first and
the greatest desire for the attainment of the second.
But we all know that nothing is more injurious to
a cause than an attempt to prove what is palpably
and obtrusively too much. Would it not be better,
in dealing with hard-headed people like the Ameri-

54 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

cans, to tell them that they are being taxed beyond
what is necessary and right — which is a truth — than
to tell them that the nation is in danger of being
taxed into bankruptcy — which is a mere bugaboo?
It is the want of measure, the recklessness of such
talk that is what troubles me, when I think how
much of the like we are so constantly treated to
from the best quarters. How reckless in this par-
ticular instance may perhaps best be realized when it
is noted that France spends nearly two hundred
million dollars a year for interest on her debt and
nearly two hundred million dollars for her war
establishment; so that her annual expense before
she spends a cent for civil purposes is considerably
larger than was the entire expenditure of the United
States government at the time Mr. Sterling Morton
warned us of impending ruin. When it is remem-
bered that the population of France is only about
half that of the United States and that the scale of
individual incomes in that country is again only
about half the scale prevalent here, it is plain how
easy an answer might have been made to any argu-
ment designed to prove that there was no alternative
for this country but retrenchment or ruin. Since
then we have had occasion to show how unheroic
are the remedies which suffice to cover increased
expenditures in this country when the necessity
arises for them. We may dislike to stick two-cent
stamps on bank-checks, and we may harbor unpleas-
ant suspicions as to the amount of foam that is given
us in our glass of beer ; but neither of these distresses
is of a tragic character, and they must surely be
regarded as an extremely welcome substitute for
national bankruptcy.

PUBLIC DISCUSSION IN AMERICA 55

I am not sure that I am making my point perfectly
clear, and I am afraid my next illustration will be
no better, unless I point its moral in advance. What
I have in mind is not a thing than can easily be
formulated in definite terms ; but perhaps it can be
expressed with some approach to accuracy by saying
that the dispositon I am trying to illustrate is that
of importing into every question that simplicity
which marks any great question of right and wrong,
that sharpness of contrast, that inspiriting confidence
that one's own side is in every respect good and that
the opposing side has not a redeeming feature
which, to the champion of righteousness and the
fighter against iniquity, is the very breath of his life.
The two instances I have already cited indicate the
temptations and pitfalls of this reductio ad sim-
plkem. In the great contest on the silver question
the same thing was illustrated in very glaring ways.
It was as though the gold-standard champions had
deliberately adopted as part of their creed the dogma
that every thing which was maintained by the silver
men must of necessity be false. Accordingly, it was
declared with a thunder of many voices that silver
was not demonetized by the act of 1873, though it
was a mere quibble to say that it was not ; that the
demonetization of silver by Germany and other
nations did not lower its value because the value of
silver depends on " demand and supply," though
clearly the cutting off of its use as money was a
diminution of demand; and furthermore that there
is nothing in the " quantity theory " of money,
though the great majority of the persons so declar-
ing had never doubted that there was a great deal

56 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

in the quantity theory of money until it happened
that that theory became a handy thing for the silver
men to use. All this being laid down to begin with,
of course it was exceedingly easy to handle the
silverites, for they had not a leg to stand on; but
then it is not a very glorious wrestling match in
which a man, instead of grappling with his oppo-
nent, chops off his legs with an axe.

Now the intellectual habit which I have endeav-
ored to indicate, and in some slight measure to illus-
trate, does not stop with methods of discussion; it
is natural that it should manifest itself in methods
of action likewise. There are fights that must be
fought with reference only to the single question,
what is right? But there are contests in which we
must also ask the question, what can be done? It
is possible to be as highminded and as heroic while
striving for what is right with constant reference to
what can be done, as in insisting upon what is right
and refusing to consider what can be done. A great
struggle on the part of an oppressed nation, which
half a century ago deeply engaged the attention of
Americans, furnished two men who represent, each
upon a magnificent scale, these two types of action.
Louis Kossuth would accept for Hungary nothing
short of absolute independence. Francis Deak was
the statesman who guided his country to the attain-
ment of constitutional liberty as a coequal member
of the dual empire of Austria-Hungary. But no
one would think of placing Deak on a lower plane
than Kossuth morally or in any other respect. He
won the title of the Hungarian Aristides; and his
austere patriotism and stern integrity seem rather

PUBUC DISCUSSION IN AMERICA 57

to belong to the grand traditions of antiquity than
to the doings of our own day. In America we have
not yet learned to look for or to esteem statesmen of
the Deak type. This is due in part, no doubt, to the
happy conditions in which we have thus far lived,
conditions in which no complicated dangers have
pressed upon us ; and in part to the intellectual habits
of which I have been speaking. But be the cause
what it may, there is, at the present time, an almost
total lack of public men who, when the nation is
confronted with a new and difficult problem, feel that
it is their business to contrive means for dealing with
it. Their language is yea, yea or nay, nay; but
there are situations in which the vocabulary of the
statesman has need to be more extensive than that.
Such a situation arose at the close of the war with
Spain. Before Congress assembled, it had become
practically certain that the commissioners sent to
Paris by Mr. McKinley would negotiate a treaty
under the terms of which the Philippine Islands
would fall into the hands of the United States. This
being the case it would seem that the very first
question to enter the mind of any person who re-
garded the permanent annexation of those islands to
this country as a national calamity would be the
question, what can be done about this grave matter?
Here was the Administration proposing annexation ;
here was a Senate with probably more than one-
third of its members opposed to expansion, but it
was to be followed in a very few months by a
Senate with so large a Republican majority that the
Administration was practically sure to command in
it a two-thirds vote for the ratification of the treaty.

58 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

As for public sentiment, it was certainly in a plastic
state, but the experience of several months had
shown that no effective popular response could be
had to appeals of a purely negative character. There
might be, and my own opinion is that there has been
all along, an enormous mass of public opinion which
looks with profound misgiving and dislike upon the
whole expansion scheme; but the utter failure of
this great body of opinion to manifest itself in any-
thing like adequate fashion has been the most strik-
ing of all the phenomena of the past six months.
Before Congress met, it was as plain as anything
could be that no aid in solving the treaty problem
could possibly be had from any pressure of public
sentiment based on general opposition alone. Unless
something more specific than mere negation were
found for a rallying cry, the game was up.

The Senate assembled. There were two or three
Republican Senators who were heart and soul
against the expansion program in every feature, who
dreaded it as the beginning of the end of our great
republican institutions. There were several other
Republican Senators who, while not taking quite
so serious a view, were heartily opposed to expan-
sion, and would have welcomed any practicable plan
for preventing it. The Democratic Senators were,
almost all of them, ardent anti-imperialists. All
were agreed that the question before them was one
of the most momentous, perhaps altogether the most
momentous, with which the country had ever been
confronted. It was plain that if anything was to
be accomplished there must be concert of action
among these men, and action upon a definite line.

PUBLIC DISCUSSION IN AMERICA 59

It was evident that if anything was to be extorted
from the Administration, there must be insistence
from the start upon something which the Adminis-
tration men could possibly grant. But was there
ever so much as a conference among the conserva-
tive Senators to agree upon a plan of campaign? I
have never heard of one. Was there even so much
as a general understanding that some one of the
half-score or so of anti-expansion resolutions offered
in the Senate represented the specific demand of the
opposition? No one can say that there was. To
fight against the treaty with mere denunciatory and
hortatory speeches, made by individual Senators,
each fighting on his own line, was like fighting Krag-
Jorgensen rifles with bows and arrows.

I honor the Senators who protested against the
annexation of the Philippines because in their judg-
ment it is unconstitutional, and those who protested
against it because it contravenes the principles of
the Declaration of Independence. Whatever else
they might have done, or might have suffered to be
done, it was their duty to protest and to protest with
all their might. But it is to me almost incom-
prehensible that they should have regarded the duty
of protesting as the whole of their duty as states-
men. The more they held it an iniquity, the more
they held it a calamity, for the nation to enter upon
this new course, the less should they have felt ab-
solved from the task of measuring all the resources
that were within their reach for preventing or
obstructing it, the task of contriving what could be
contrived, for the purpose of compassing what could
be compassed. Of effort of this kind, there was not.

6o ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

to my knowledge, the faintest trace. I do not pre-
tend to be able to say what might have been an
effective program ; I do say that an adequate concep-
tion of the problems of statesmanship would have
led to a serious attempt on the part of the opposition
Senators to construct such a program. And some
idea of what might have been accomplished is fur-
nished by what actually took place. Had the opposi-
tion concentrated at an early day in the session upon
a resolution like Senator Bacon's, declaring that our
occupation of the Philippines was to be temporary,
and that when a native government could be estab-
lished we were to withdraw upon just and reasonable
terms ; had they made it perfectly plain that unless
a joint resolution of this character were passed by
both houses and signed by the President the treaty
would be defeated, but that if it were passed the
treaty would be ratified, I think it can be asserted
with great confidence that the opposition would not
only have had its way in the matter, but that it would
have been able, through this proposition, to bring out
a most powerful public sentiment which has utterly
failed to come out in response to the most passionate
appeals and the most indignant denunciations. To
conclude from the failure of the constitutional argu-
ments to make much impression on the country
that the constitution has fallen into contempt, would,
I feel convinced, be an error. Had there been thirty
years before us instead of thirty days to fight out
the constitutional controversy, as there was in the
state-rights struggle, there would have been atten-
tion enough given to it. As it was, everybody felt

PUBLIC DISCUSSION IN AMERICA 6l

that insistence upon a particular inference from the
Constitution was utterly unfitted to play a decisive
part in the immediate decision of a pressing problem.
And the like explanation holds, I believe, for the
inefficacy of the speeches, however earnest and
ardent, made upon other lines. The speakers, how-
ever exalted their principles, were intent not so
much upon achieving something as upon freeing
their own minds and recording their individual
protest. There was no action behind their words;
and it was said long ago that the very essence
of oratory is " action, action, action."

I should regret it deeply if anything I have said
should leave upon your minds the impression that I
either admire or approve the spirit which leads a
politician to follow the line of least resistance; to
watch for the signs of what is coming, and make
his peace with it ; to talk glibly about great principles
but dismiss them as useless lumber when their appli-
cation comes to involve difficulty or sacrifice. Con-
tentment with such a spirit in a democracy would be
a fatal vice ; what I have been speaking about is only
a failing. Better, a thousand times, to run the risk
of mistakes and failures from too simple a devotion
to great causes than to have the certainty of civic
degeneracy from the lack of such devotion. If I
have dwelt upon what is to my mind a defect in our
political habits and standards, it is because, in
addressing a body of men of high intellectual train-
ing, I have no fear that the part will be taken for
the whole, or that what is recommended as a sup-
plement to high endeavor will be understood as a

62 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

substitute for it. No one feels more deeply than
myself the conviction that courage and firmness are
the attributes which, in our public officers and our
public teachers, we must prize above all others ; all
the more am I concerned, for that very reason, that
the exhibition of these high qualities shall not fail
of its due respect through being associated in the
public mind with a want of such discrimination as
circumstances from time to time imperatively de-
mand. There are times when everything must be
staked for the naked assertion of a principle; and
there are principles in defence of whose sanctity
everything must be staked at all times. I have never
felt prouder of the brotherhood of university men
than I have in following the course of that noble
fight in France for justice and liberty which has
owed its vitality in so large a measure to the devotion
and the sacrifices of French men of learning and
men of science. What so many noble-hearted men
have done in that distracted country, giving up the
loved seclusion and peace of the closet and the
laboratory to lay their sacrifices on the altar of
justice and civil liberty and freedom of opinion, that
I trust our American scholars will be found ready to
do if our country should ever have the misfortune
of being threatened with such madness as a year ago
held possession of the populace of France. The
motto of our university is " Veritas vos liberabit " ;
but, while the avowed object of universities is the
discovery and the preservation of the truth, a still
prouder tradition of the men who have represented
that aim has been the fearless utterance of the

tnnli. Of all the v«^es in thai pneckxt* linte b>-
product of cniv^ratv life, the Gentian KvXtiuKT^Si-
badu diere are none that move me like the line*^

W<r die Waihrheit bennet end $;ft$et $ie niohi*
Der tst tinrahr «a ertdrtttticher Wich:.

I trust that uni\'errfty men will alway^s^ respowd
instinctively to that sentiment: anvi that iK>ne will
be foond more steadfast in any time that nviy in the
fntare try men's souls than the alumni of that
university which we all cherish so dearly, and whose
impress has been so deeply felt in even* uni>*ersity in
the land.

SEVERN TEACKLE WALLIS

(AprU II, 1894)

In the death of Mr. Wallis, Maryland has lost
her foremost citizen. His title to this eminence
did not rest so much upon his distinction in any one
direction as upon the significance of his whole life,
of his manifold activity, of his lofty personality,
to all that is best and highest in the community.
Great as was his eminence at the bar, important
and distinguished as were his services to the cause
of pure politics in this city and State, brilliant as
were his achievements as an orator — all these taken
together are inadequate to account for the rever-
ence with which he was regarded by all of those
in the younger generations of Baltimoreans who
cherish high ideals and who hope for the attain-
ment of a higher and a purer public life. He has
constantly furnished to such men faith and
strength, in the face of the discouragement and
doubt which every-day experience spread about
them, not only by his steadfast aid to every high
and worthy cause, but by the inspiration of his
presence, of his high and chivalrous bearing, of his
unwavering devotion to noble ideals.

That we should have had in our community a
man so exceptionally fitted by moral no less than
by intellectual endowments to adorn the highest
stations in our country's councils, and did not avail
ourselves of the rare privilege of engaging such
a man in the public service, is food for melancholy

SEVERN TEACKLE WALLIS 65

reflection. The Senate of the United States was
so distinctly the proper field of his activity that in
any sound condition of political life, and of general
opinion on civic matters, his selection for the
Senatorship would have been a matter of course,
and the only obstacle to be feared would have
been his own possible unwillingness to give up
his professional activity for a Senatorial career.
His constant and intense interest in politics, not
only from the point of view of the local reformer,
but also from that of national statesmanship, gave,
however, sufficient evidence of his willingness to
accept the honor of the Senatorship if it had been
offered to him, as it should have been, by the free
choice of the people of Maryland. Not only would
his presence in the Senate have reflected lustre on
his native State, but it would have gone far to
stem the current of degeneration which has so rap-
idly deprived that once most honored body of
nearly all the dignity and authority with which, in
its better days, it was clothed. The deprivation of
the State and nation of the splendid service which
Mr. Wallis might have rendered is not the least of
the sins for which the ignoble crew of political
manipulators who have so long kept their grip on
our public affairs are responsible; and many will
feel more disposed to forgive their grosser offenses
than the more subtle one of preventing this high
and strong nature from asserting itself in the im-
portant and influential station to which, by every
natural right, it belonged.

Yet nothing could be more mistaken than the
idea that his public exertions have been unfruitful.

66 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

Not only did they bear fruit during his life in stem-
ming the aggressions of unscrupulous politicians
and giving heart to those reform movements which,
however imperfectly successful, have at least
forced upon the politicians some degree of improve-
ment in our electoral methods; but the enthusiasm
and the devotion to good and pure government
which he instilled into his younger contemporaries
are forces whose beneficent effect will be felt long
after his departure from the scene of his labors.
There is not one who has been familiar with his
life, who has been his follower in the forlorn hopes
which he has led, who has derived inspiration from
the high character stamped upon every lineament
of his face as well as upon every utterance of his
lips, but will be a better and a braver man to the
end of his days for having known Severn Teackle
Wallis.

Nor is it only as an actor in our public life that
the community has reason to mourn the death of
Mr. Wallis. He was an example of a type that
has been rare at all times, and which, we fear, is
becoming rarer than ever in our day of hurry and
bustle and rapid material progress. The very ideal
of the "gentleman and scholar," he was not less
prized as a speaker upon occasions of literary or
educational interest than as a pleader at the bar or
an orator on the hustings. Whether delivering a
memorial oration on George Peabody, or address-
ing the Johns Hopkins University on its anniver-
sary day, or presiding at a public dinner, he was
always the embodiment of the qualities which
characterize the highest culture. It is most sad to

SEVERN TEACKLE WALLIS 67

think that we have no longer among us his courte-
ous and dignified figure ; that we shall never again
have the privilege of listening to him whose keen
wit and comprehensive knowledge and perfect dic-
tion it is so rarely possible to match. The presence
of such a man among us was an ennobling and ele-
vating influence to thousands who had not the
privilege of his acquaintance ; and it is some conso-
lation at this time to reflect that that influence will,
at least in some degree, be continued as long as the
memory of his life and character endures.

A MEMORABLE CAMPAIGN

(November 2, 1895)

The campaign which has now all but come to a
close will long be memorable in the history of Mary-
land politics. It has differed from previous cam-
paigns in which the power of the Democratic ring
has been fiercely attacked, in the universal interest
which that attack has excited. Baltimore has been
fortunate in having had, throughout the long reign
of the vulgar despotism which seems now about to
be overthrown, a body of determined and ardent
upholders of true Democracy who have risen up
again and again, undiscouraged by defeat, and
fought battle after battle for honesty and freedom
against corruption and boss rule. More than once,
the battle has been won at the polls but has been
turned into apparent defeat by frauds upon the
ballot-box. This time it seems evident that, in the
first place, the people have shown so determined a
front that the election thieves will be largely held in
check by fear, and secondly that the honest majority
against the ring will be so great that even wholesale
fraud cannot wipe it out.

The reasons for the difference between this and
former campaigns are not far to seek. In the first
place, the ground was ready for the seed which has
been sown during this agitation. By victories in our
own and in other cities over the powers of misrule,
the masses of the people had become familiar with
the idea that submission to the autocratic govern-

A MEMORABLE CAMPAIGN 69

ment of ward tricksters was not a fatal necessity,
but could be thrown off at will. The success of
New York City in throwing off the yoke of Tam-
many last year was a stimulus and encouragement
to the progressive movement all over the country.
Nearer home, the defeat, by a decisive majority, of
an unfit candidate for a judgeship, though no cam-
paign of personal detraction was waged against him,
showed the strength of the independent sentiment
in our own city. Again, the wholesome effect of the
investigation of the City Commissioner's Office — an
investigation which never would have taken place
had not the " regular " Democratic control of the
City Council been broken — taught the people that
agitation of reforms, even when very imperfectly
carried on, may be extremely fruitful. The steady
progress of civil service reform, both in the National
Government and in such striking local instances as
that of Chicago, has been an object lesson which has
been worth a thousand sermons in teaching the truth
that it is worth while to fight for good government,
however strong the forces arrayed against it may
seem.

In addition to these general and rather indefinite
influences affecting the public temper, there was
another of a more specific kind, and productive of
more intense emotion — ^moreover one which had
been entirely absent upon former occasions. This
was furnished by Gorman's impudent and unprin-
cipled conduct in the tariff fight. The deep disgust
and indignation with which the people of Maryland
overflowed when they were compelled to look on
helpless while their accredited representative in the

70 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

United States Senate was playing the part of a
traitor to the party to which he professed devotion
had not disappeared in the short space of a year.
The best Democrats in the State were the men who
resented Gorman's conduct most intensely and most
enduringly. Such was the state of mind of the
Democratic party, such was their impatience at the
idea of having their affairs managed by a man who
had thus brazenly shown his want of principle, and
by that other man who had never, by his best friends,
been suspected of knowing what political principle
is, that the mouthpieces of the ring were assiduous,
for months before the nominations were to be made,
in spreading through the community assurances that
this year Gorman and Rasin would keep their hands
off, and let the people nominate. They themselves
felt that it was necessary, for the nonce, to reckon
with honest public sentiment, and they undertook
to " pander to the moral sense of the community "
to the extent of promising the people that they
would forego, this time, their prescriptive right to
dictate the names of the candidates for whom the
people would be allowed to vote.

How was that promise kept? It would be idle
to go over the history of what has been, for the last
three months, in everybody's mouth. The nomina-
tions were dictated with more audacity and assur-
ance than ever before, by the two men whose insolent
domination the people were determined to tolerate
no longer. On July 31 the issue was made, which
no clap-trap talk of negro domination, no wicked
revival of war-time memories and animosities, no
silly noise of any kind has been able to drive out of

A MEMORABLE CAMPAIGN 7^

the field. The fight has been a fight to put down
Gorman and Rasin, and it has been nothing else.
The rejection of Hurst will not be a defeat of that
gentleman, but of the two men who appointed him
their nominee. The election of Lowndes will not be
a victory for the Republican party, but a victory for
free government, for reform and progress. It is not
any difference between the character of Mr. Lown-
des and Mr. Hurst, or even of the Republican and
Democratic politicians in this State, that is the es-
sential thing. It is the forces behind them which
make the significance of this contest. The people
know that the election of Hurst would mean the re-
habilitation of the power of the discredited pair of
political manipulators whom we have so long suf-
fered to rule over us. They know that the election
of Lowndes would mean a staggering blow to this
disgraceful domination, and an earnest effort, which
has been promised by Lowndes, and which will be
imperiously insisted on by his Democratic support-
ers, to inaugurate a better condition of things in
our State.

The events of the campaign have been in keeping
with the nature of the contest The desperate situa-
tion which the ring saw confronting it led to frauds
in the registration on a scale unexampled even in our
history. The high-handed treatment of the watchers
in the registration offices, the exposure of the meth-
ods of the Board of Supervisors of Elections, Gov-
ernor Brown's impotent course in dealing with them,
all served to intensify the public determination to
destroy the' organization responsible for this state of
things. The defenders and apologists of the organi-

72 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

zation, instead of recognizing the appalling character
of the registration frauds which have been dem-
onstrated beyond the possibility of doubt, and join-
ing in the effort to frustrate these frauds, have
attempted to throw dust into people's eyes by talking
about Reconstruction days and force bills and mixed
schools, and other things about which the people are
not at all in the humor of being entertained just
now. Not a word have they said which indicated a
consciousness that these great frauds had been abso-
lutely shown to exist, or a sincere desire not to profit
by them. Apart from these silly cries, which have
constituted the chief feature of the campaign, there
has been carried on, by Senator Gorman himself, a
campaign for the restoration of his own reputation
as a Democrat, the failure of which has been almost
pathetic. He began by making great claims for him-
self, apparently expecting that he would be able to
get eminent and sound Democrats to back them up.
These expectations have had for net result the ex-
traction of one extremely lukewarm sentence, in the
midst of a long speech, from Senator Gray. And
in the latter part of the campaign, Mr. Gorman
himself has subsided from the Glenelg and Snow
Hill level to that of his Cross-Street Market and
Broadway Hall speeches.

The whole campaign on the part of the " regular "
Democrats has been a sorry exhibition of utter fail-
ure to present any claim whatever to public confi-
dence. Blind partisanship, sectional animosity, race
prejudice, are the only sentiments to which they have
been able to appeal. Fortunately all these have had
their day, and are now potent only with the very

A MEMORABLE CAMPAIGN 73

ignorant and the very narrow-minded. Especially
have the young men of the country got far beyond
the range of appeals which are so little addressed
to their reason and conscience. The great body of
our people know that the time has come to take a
forward step in the government of our cities and
States. They know that if they fail to do their
utmost on Tuesday to break the degrading and cor-
rupt combination which has ruled Baltimore and
Maryland for twenty years, they will fail in their
foremost duty as citizens. Ancl realizing this, they
will throw all minor considerations, all personal
predilections, all party prejudices, to the winds, and
make the coming fifth of November a day of deliver-
ance for our city and State, and a day of rejoicing
for the friends of good government all over the
Union.

THE VENEZUELA ISSUE
(December i8, 1895)^

The stand taken by the President in his message to
Congress submitting the correspondence between
our own and the British Government on the Vene-
zuela boundary question, if backed up by Congress,
as it now seems certain to be, makes war apparently
the only alternative to a humiliating retreat on the
part of one or the other of the two countries. The
President proposes that the boundary be determined
by a Commission appointed by the United States,
and that the boundary so determined be insisted on
by us as the limit of British rule. The notion that
this proceeding would be a way to " make sure we
are right before we go ahead " is entirely without
warrant, so far as we can see. The question to be
determined is not one of engineering, like the run-
ning of a parallel of latitude by Mason and Dixon.
It is a question whose settlement depends largely on
historical evidence, documentary and other. Of
course, if Great Britain continues to decline arbitra-
tion, she will all the more surely refuse to submit
her side of the case to our Commission, and the
judgment of that body would have to be based
entirely on a one-sided presentation of evidence. If,
in this state of things, our Commission should come
to a conclusion favoring Venezuela's claim, the
justice of that claim would be but little more clearly
ascertained than it is at the present moment.

%

THE VENEZUELA ISSUE 75

The plan of the President, therefore, while it may
be an excellent means of gaining time, and may thus
serve the purpose of letting down one or the other
side easily, is not a logical way out of the difficulty.
The merits of the question remain what they were
before. We must confess that those merits do not
seem to us so clear on either side as they evidently
are to most of our contemporaries. That the Monroe
doctrine does not on its face apply to the pending
dispute seems perfectly plain. No such question
was contemplated when President Monroe made
his famous declaration, as anyone can see by refer-
ring to its language, which will be found in another
column of this page. However high-handed it may
be thought by us for Great Britain to insist on her
own view of her rights, instead of allowing the
boundary to be determined by international arbitra-
tion, no one can say that the act constitutes on its
face any such extension of the European system as
was contemplated by President Monroe, or as has
been resisted in former assertions of the Monroe
doctrine. This view is strengthened rather than
weakened by the instances cited by Secretary Olney,
each of which involved the actual government of an
American State, and not a mere question of disputed
boundary. On the other hand, that the doctrine
itself, not unduly stretched or made a mere pre-
text for the indulgence of bellicose propensities, is
founded in sound reason and the highest expediency,
we believe. But that the position of Great Britain
really involves an infraction of that doctrine, either
as enunciated by Monroe, or as hitherto understood
by sound American statesmen, or as interpreted in

76 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

the light of the needs of the present and future, we
confess seems to us to admit of most serious doubt.
But on one point we have no doubt whatever.
That it would be not only wicked, viewed morally,
but most calamitous and deplorable from the stand-
point of politics and history, for us to engage with-
out unmistakable necessity in a war with the great
mother of free government in the modem world,
the country from which we derive our laws, our
language, our literature, our most precious tradi-
tions — of this we feel no manner of doubt. We have
no fault to find with those who take the stand that,
if the preservation of our just position on this conti-
nent requires us to go to war, we must not shirk the
duty or count the cost. But is this the spirit in
which we are going about the matter? Is it not
plain, rather, that the great majority of those who
are applauding the President's stand are simply glad
of the chance to show our strength, and to whip the
Britishers? Is it likely that people who go about
saying that " nothing would give them more happi-
ness than to lead a division into Canada " have care-
fully weighed the merits of the case, and are favor-
ing war simply as a last resource in a just cause?
To our minds, the readiness to go to war for the
sake of war, and especially the ignorant and narrow
hatred of England which has seemed to grow so
rapidly in the last ten or twenty years, is one of
the most deplorable features of our recent political
history. It has been sedulously stimulated by selfish
and flashy politicians, especially in the Republican
party, and in the interest of protectionism. It is
sad to think that for the base and paltry objects of

THE VENEZUELA ISSUE 77

politicians so large a number among us have been
led to cherish feelings of bitterness and hostility
toward that nation which is not only most akin to
our own in all its greatest interests, but which for
eight hundred years has held up in Europe the
standard of rational self-government, and which is
even today — though France is a republic while she
is not — the surest reliance of those who love liberty
but hate anarchy. If we have to fight England, let
it be because we must, not because we are glad of
the chance. Before we can say we are right in our
position, we must at least be sure that we are right
in our spirit and purpose. The long period of time
which the operations of the proposed Commission
is sure to consume cannot be better employed than
in the cultivation of a spirit of justice and in the
contemplation of the frightful calamity which a war
between the two great branches of the English-
speaking race would constitute, for the whole
civilized world.

"IMPERIAL FREE TRADE"

(April 8, 1896)

The doctrine of free trade, which has been so
firmly entrenched in British law and policy for half
a century, has not been free from attacks more or
less formidable during that period. There were
superficial signs of considerable vitality in the so-
called Fair Trade movement, which came into gen-
eral notice some six or eight years ago, made quite
a little stir in the way of speeches and magazine
articles, and then died a natural death. Its name is
heard no longer, and its apostles are doubtless find-
ing a new sting in the old question " what's in a
name?" A more taking name than Fair Trade
could certainly not have been devised as an antith-
esis to Free Trade. But the Fair Trade cry was
based essentially on a crude fallacy, and the eco-
nomic education of the English people — or at least
of the leaders of opinion among them — ^had ad-
vanced beyond the point at which such a fallacy
could pass muster. They knew the fundamental
facts of commerce too well to be caught by the
plausible notion that countries which levied import
duties on British products did not deserve to have
their products admitted duty-free into Great Britain ;
they knew that these products were admitted free
for the benefit of the British buyer, and that it
would be folly for Great Britain to throw away
half the advantage of free trade with a given country
because she couldn't get the other half. In justice

IMPERIAL FREE TRADE 79

to the Fair Traders, it must be acknowledged that
they often admitted this, but advocated their policy
on the plea that it would exert a pressure upon the
other countries to compel the abolition or reduction
of duties on British products in order to secure the
like favor from Great Britain in return. But this
did not commend itself as a practical policy any
more than the Fair Trade notion in the abstract did
as a theoretical truth. What life there was in the
movement was due doubtless chiefly to the mere
superficial attractiveness of the tit-for-tat idea indi-
cated by the name. That idea, as we have said,
could not stand examination, and was easily shown
to mean nothing else than cutting off your nose to
spite your face. The Fair Trade propaganda seems
accordingly to have practically expired some time
ago.

A very different notion, and one much better
calculated to appeal to British sentiment, was
brought forward by Mr. Chamberlain in his recent
speech at the dinner of the Canada Club. The
project advanced by him looks to the union of all
the British colonies with the mother country on a
free-trade basis — ^that is, on a basis of free trade
within the Empire. In return for the abolition of
all protective duties now levied by the colonies upon
imports from the United Kingdom, there is only one
thing which the mother country can do for them.
It can impose protective duties on some of the prod-
ucts in which the colonies are interested, these
duties to be levied on these products when coming
from countries outside the Empire, but not when
imported from the colonies. Most of the colonies

8o ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

being on a pretty strongly protectionist basis, they
are in a position to discriminate in favor of imports
from the United Kingdom; the United Kingdom,
on the other hand, can only put itself into a position
to discriminate by first introducing protective du-
ties, and thus abandoning its long-settled principle
of free trade.

In its strictly economic aspect, this programme
presents little or no greater attraction than has any
former assault upon the free-trade policy. Its special
attractiveness lies altogether on its political side.
The London Times is inclined to foster the idea on
grounds of broad and far-seeing statesmanship.
While not distinctly committing itself to the scheme
— indeed, fighting shy of discussing it in detail —
the Times distinctly manifests a yearning for the aid
which it supposes that such a plan as that indicated
by Mr. Chamberlain would lend to the cohesion
of the various parts of the Empire. Its leading
article upon Mr. Chamberlain's speech opened thus :

Mr. Chamberlain's stirring speech at the dinner of the
Canada Club last night departed, upon a point of vital
importance, from the traditional commonplaces of Im-
perial officialism. The Secretary for the Colonies struck
boldly the keynote of " free trade within the Empire." The
bonds of patriotic sentiment which link the colonies with
the mother country are strong and real, but practical men
cannot avoid asking themselves whether it is safe to leave
the vast interests involved in the maintenance of the Im-
perial system dependent upon a sentiment, however vig-
orous and healthy.

But the Times, and Englishmen generally, might
well pause before calling to the aid of a sentiment
which is " vigorous and healthy " the forces of a

IMPERIAL FREE TRADE 8l

spirit which, however vigorous, is known all over
the world to be anything but healthy. There is no
denying that the bonds between a country and her
colonies are made stronger by the growth of trade
relations, other things being equal. But how if
this growth is secured . artificially, by legislative
higgling? The Englishman, free for fifty or sixty
years from the protectionist squabbles which have
been the bane of other governments, may well pause
in affright as he conjures up visions of Australian
log-rollers and Canadian pipe-layers introducing
the din of tariff controversy into the proceedings of
Parliament. Is it not as certain as anything in the
future can be that the tariff question, the moment it
was introduced, would be a constant source of fric-
tion and dissension? If the policy of sublime in-
difference to which the English have so resolutely
adhered has omitted the forging of commercial
chains with which the colonies might have been
bound more firmly to her for a time, so, too, has it
failed to breed the jealousies and quarrels and pet-
tinesses which any attempt at protectionist concilia-
tion will be sure to generate. A natural sentiment,
"vigorous and healthy," will surely stand the test
of time better than an artificial arrangement which,
standing from the first on the level of a commercial
bargain, would be sure to develop weak points of
a thousand kinds, and would probably complicate,
far more than it would strengthen, the relations now
connecting the mother country with her colonies.
When to this are added the enormous economic ob-
jections to a departure from the free- trade policy
which England has so successfully pursued for fifty

82 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

years, it is not rash to predict that Mr. Chamberlain
will have great difficulty in keeping his " Imperial
Free Trade " idea out of the limbo to which " Fair
Trade " has so recently been consigned.

ANCESTOR-WORSHIP IN FINANCE

(April 14, i8p6)

The little controversy upon the money question
which sprang up yesterday in connection with^he
Democratic pilgrimage to Monticello should serve
to emphasize the absurdity of the shibboleths and
rallying-cries which have done so much to confuse
the actual issues with the unthinking. In point of
fact, any sober-minded person must see at once that
it is a matter of extremely little consequence what
Jefferson or anybody else thought about the double
standard a hundred years ago. The course of history
since that time has entirely altered the question in
a hundred ways. At the time of the formation of the
Republic, the relative values of gold and silver had
never been subject to such violent fluctuations as
have prevailed in our time. If Jefferson did say, in
a letter to Hamilton, " I concur with you that the
unit should stand on both metals," it by no means
follows that he would still be in favor of attempting
to make it so stand when it was demonstrable that
that was a quite impossible undertaking, and that
the unit would not stand, but would tumble. Again,
a hundred years ago we had few banks, the clearing-
house was of course an institution of the distant
future, and in general those instrumentalities which
the refined machinery of modern credit provides for
making one dollar do the work of many were as
nothing in comparison with what they are now. To
quote Jefferson, as Mr. Daniel did yesterday, by way

84 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

•
of settling a modern financial question, is about as
pertinent as it would be to quote him as to the
relative importance of land and water transportation.
We might as well appeal to " the fathers " to guide
us in determining whether we should undertake the
building of a canal from the Great Lakes to the
seaboard, ignoring the existence of railroads, as
quote their dicta on the currency question as furnish-
ing conclusive guidance for our present action.

But the most curious thing that is done in the
way of substituting a superstitious ancestor-worship
for the operation of reason, common sense, and the
rules of honorable dealing, is the appeal that is made
for silver on the ground of gold and silver being the
" money of the Constitution." Listening to a true-
blue silver ite on this subject, one would imagine that
the injunction to use both gold and silver as money
was one of the most explicit and most solemn of
all the directions contained in the Constitution of the
United States. Senator Daniel yesterday referred
in a most pathetic manner to his reading " the
plighted words ' gold and silver ' in the Constitution
of the land which he has sworn to support," and in
listening to him one might have felt that the aban-
donment of silver was little short of treason. One
might have felt so, that is, in the absence of any
knowledge of the Constitution. The fact is that in
defining the functions and powers of the Federal
Government, neither the word gold nor the word
silver is used at all. What is said about the powers
or duties of the Federal Government in connection
with money is contained in the single clause which
provides that Congress " shall have power to coin

ANCESTOR-WORSHIP IN FINANCE 85

money, regulate the value thereof and of foreign
coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures."
The words gold and silver occur in the Constitution
in one place only ; namely, in the enumeration of a
series of things that the separate States are for-
bidden to do the provision occurs that " no State
shall make anything but gold and silver coin a tender
in payment of debts." This is, to begin with, no
injunction at all upon the Federal Government;
secondly, it is not a command upon the States to
make any legal tender laws at all, but only a prohi-
bition against their making any other than a certain
kind of such laws; and thirdly, it does not say
anything whatever about using both silver and gold,
but only excludes anything else than silver and gold.
If the States had been forbidden to use any form of
capital punishment but hanging and beheading, it
would hardly be argued that every man that was
sentenced to death would have to be both hanged
and beheaded, or even given his choice between the
two. Such a provision, if it existed, would have
been designed to exclude burning or breaking on
the wheel, and not to insist upon both hanging and
beheading. And so it is obvious that the prohibition
relating to everything but gold and silver coin was
meant, not to insist on both of them, but to shut
out paper or base metal tokens.

The money question now confronting us is a great,
living, practical question. The thing we have to
decide is whether existing debts shall be paid in the
money in which they were contracted, or shall be
scaled 40 or 50 per cent, as the 16 to i people de-
mand, or shall be kept in doubt and uncertainty, as

86 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

the compromisers would have us do. Again, taking
another side of the question, we have to consider
whether we shall maintain our currency on the
basis which is now established in all the great com-
mercial nations of the world, or shall adopt as our
basis the metal that has been discarded by them all ;
for to keep both metals as standards is evidently
absolutely impossible without international combi-
nation. None of these questions were before " the
fathers " when they were doing the great work of
building up this nation. If they had been, the fath-
ers would have acted the part of men of sense, and
grappled with the realities of the situation confront-
ing them, just as they did with those problems which
really did constitute the difficulties of their time.
It must be remembered that these men were not
" fathers " when they lived and moved and did their
work. They have only come to take on that unreal
and melodramatic character since cheap politicians
have found it convenient to cover up their own
want of solid thought by appealing to their shadowy
authority. No one would have looked with
greater scorn than Jefferson or Hamilton or
Madison upon men who should attempt to settle
great and living questions of practical affairs —
not questions of broad or general political prin-
ciple — ^by galvanizing the passing utterances of
men who belonged to a remote and very differ-
ent period into a life which is no longer in
them. The men who, by their profound sagacity,
laid the foundations of our Government were as re-
mote as possible from the character which these pre-
tending ancestor-worshipers are not ashamed to as-

ANCESTOR-WORSHIP IN FINANCE 87

sume. Those men would have considered such a
performance as the clinging to silver on the ground
that the phrase " gold and silver " occurs somewhere
in the Constitution as on precisely the same intellec-
tual level as the performances of those fanatical
bibliolaters who decided their action, in disregard
of all truth and justice, by a stray sentence in the
Bible, taken apart from its context and from any
rational interpretation. When the hero of Scott's
" Old Mortality " fell into the hands of a body of
such fanatics, his doom was pronounced on the
ground that they had just read the sentence from
Joshua, "What shall we say when Israel tumeth
their backs before their enemies ? " Does the silver-
ite argument for the sanctity of silver, based on the
presence of the phrase " gold and silver " somewhere
in the Constituion, stand on a much higher level ?

A SOCIAL NEED

(May 12, 1896)

The opening of the summer concerts in Music Hall
last night suggests some reflections on a subject the
importance of which is not adequately recognized
by our i>eople. It is one of the mysteries of organ-
ized human life that the customs of one country are
so slow to be introduced into another, no matter
how thoroughly they may recommend themselves
both by argument and by observation. A standing
example, of a most striking character, is furnished by
the persistence of the British in not checking bag-
gage on their railways. They do not have to cross
the broad Atlantic in order to find the better way
practised; they are divided from it only by the
narrow seas, and every year a swarm of English
men and English women travel over the Continent
and enjoy the benefit of the simple plan of having
their various pieces of luggage identified by num-
bers pasted on them. But they return to their
island home, and, in spite of that propensity for
making a fuss if anything is wrong, of which the
British people are so justly proud, they quietly fall
back into the good old English plan of each man and
woman trusting to his or her own vigilance and
care to secure his or her own property. Why sick
people and old people and delicate people and nerv-
ous people submit to the worry attendant upon the
pouncing on their own baggage the moment the
train arrives at its destination, when a simple

A SOCIAL NEED 89

paper label or brass check would save them from
it all, is one of the mysteries of sociology, and we
respectfully suggest its thorough investigation to
the attention of such young men as may now be
casting about for a thesis in that rather hospitable
science.

If, in so small a matter as this, national habits
are thus persistent, we need not be surprised that
they are hard to change in the broader concerns of
social intercourse. And, in a general way, no one
endowed with the historical sense can regret that
this is so. That national peculiarities may not en-
tirely die out must be the earnest wish of any one
who dreads the blight of uniformity, and who feels
how essential the preservation of the picturesque
is to the beauty of life. But there are cases in which
regard for historical continuity can not for a mo-
ment be weighed against the benefits of an innova-
tion from abroad, and especially is this true when
that innovation introduces life and variety and
gaiety where before there was dullness and vacuity.

To an American or an Englishman who has so-
journed on the Continent of Europe, there is one
element of social life there which, more than all else,
must impress him as distinguishing it from the
social life of his own country. This is the oppor-
tunity aflforded for free-and-easy sociability by the
abundant gardens, sidewalk restaurants, and large,
airy halls where great ntunbers can congregate to
eat and drink and talk, without either crowding or
stiffness and formality. It is these which make
travel on the Continent of Europe so refreshing to
the tired American. He enjoys the inspiriting sight

go ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

of hundreds of people — ^men, women and children —
with pleasant faces, resting from the labors of the
day not in vegetative silence, each in his own petty
"castle," but in the enjoyment of lively chat with
neighbors and friends; he enjoys this sight as he
might enjoy a spectacle on the stage, but he does
not realize what it means to the population who
take part in this recreative form of social inter-
course. He does not realize that at the very mo-
ment when those people are unbending from the
strain of business and household care, and refresh-
ing themselves in this easy and inexpensive way,
benefiting by the contagion of ease and good humor
which spreads about naturally in such an assemb-
lage, his own countrymen and countrywomen are
being bored to death because there is nothing for
them to do but spend the whole evening over their
newspapers or make a stiff " call " upon somebody,
with the mitigating possibility of finding them not
at home. The beauty about the open-air restaurant
or large, airy concert hall is that it offers the
OMnfort of home and that peculiar ease which, as
long as men and women are flesh and blood, can
be furnished only by the presence of food and drink,
without imposing upon anyone the duties either of
host or of guest. No one is the caller and no one is
the called upon. You meet by chance, and you see
at once whether you want to join forces or not.
There is no obligation about the matter. The pre-
sumption is, of course, that you are not in a specially
misanthropic mood, else you would be keeping to
yourself; a presumption which cannot be said to
hold uniformly when your dear friends call upon

A SOCIAL NEED 9^

you at home and have the happiness of finding you
within.

How needful this cheerful, wholesome, simple, re-
source of social life is to the strenuous, nervous,
ambitious American worker and his family, ought
to be evident to any reflecting person. The very
recreations of Americans of both sexes are too often
a strain upon them, instead of a relief. The formal
dinner, the afternoon tea, the society reunion, are
all good in their place, and will certainly not be
driven out even if the Continental restaurant and
music hall should gain ever so strong a foothold
among us. But none of these things provide thor-
ough relaxation. All of them involve more or less
planning beforehand, more or less trouble in getting
ready for them, and more or less strain during their
performance. Even the theatre, excellent as it may
of course be, has the drawback of long sitting in a
constrained position, in vitiated air, and with no
opportunity for general sociability. The open-air
or music hall restaurant is ready to receive you
the moment you find yourself in the humor to go.
You are tired and fretful, and feel that you must
have a change ; instead of putting on your hat and
going off alone for a half-sulky evening at the club,
you ask your wife and perhaps your children to go
with you and have music and refreshments, where
other people are assembled on the like errand, and
where you are pretty sure to meet some persons
with whom it would be a mutual pleasure to chat.
The atmosphere of the place is hostile to business
talk and to grumbling. You come home with your
brain and your body rested and refreshed. You are

92 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

distinctly farther off from nervous prostration than
you would be if you had either stayed at home and
sulked, or gone to the club and left your wife behind
with the blues, or paid a visit to a friend whom you
didn't care to see, who probably was not in the
humor for seeing you, and who, at all events, offered
you the luxury of his handsome parlor furniture
instead of the honest cane chairs and little tables
with something on them which your physical and
moral nature really stood in need of. It will be a
slow work, educating the American public to under-
stand the importance of an admixture of the easy,
gregarious Continental life with those pleasures
which, like the English, they so often take sadly.
But that it is important, and that it would do a
great deal to diminish the physical ills under which
we labor, as well as to make our lives more pleasant
and more picturesque, we are entirely convinced.

THE NIGHTMARE CAMPAIGN

(October 9, 1896)

The people of the United States are now looking
forward with confidence to the crushing defeat of
Bryanism in less than four weeks. A cartoon in the
Chicago Times-Herald represents Uncle Sam with
an expression of strained resignation on his face,
looking at the calendar and noting that there are
" 2y days more " to election day. " These days go
awfully slow," says Uncle Sam; and the people of
his country say the same. We are all anxious to
have done with it, and to relegate this campaign, so
diflferent from any previous American Presidential
contest, to a past which we shall endeavor to forget.

When the campaign of 1896 does go down to
history, it ought to be known as the nightmare cam-
paign. Surely neither the log cabin nor hard cider
can have played a greater part in the contest of 1840,
which has since been popularly remembered as the
"log cabin and hard cider" campaign, than have
the various nightmares of the silverites in the present
struggle. First and foremost, there is the nightmare
of the gold standard itself, crushing the poor by its
deadening weight, strangling them in its contracting
folds, pressing down upon their brow a crown of
thorns, and inflicting upon them every other cruel
and unusual punishment that the Populist imagina-
tion can conceive. All this is nightmare, pure and
simple. The people that talk this stuff never try
to present any facts whatever to substantiate what

94 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

they say. They have been challenged thousands of
times to talk about the facts of wages, and they
have never accepted the challenge. They cannot
deny that under the gold standard the wages of
workingmen, even as measured in money, have
shown a remarkable increase, and that, in conse-
quence of the greater purchasing power of money
caused by increased facilities in production and trans-
portation, the real wages of labor have risen more
than would be shown by their money wages. But the
very trouble with a nightmare is that it refuses to
yield to facts. In the nightmares of sleep, you are
in a state of terror over something which you
could get rid of by merely lifting your hand, but
you don't lift your hand. In this nightmare about
the gold standard the victim is in a state of terror
which he could get rid of by merely opening his
eyes, but he doesn't open his eyes. The only thing
to do is to wake the sufferer up, and that is what the
election is going to do next month.

Next to the gold standard itself the " foreign-
domination " nightmare has been worked more vig-
orously than any other by the silver candidate. In
one respect this is even more thoroughly a night-
mare than the gold-standard delusion is. For at
least the gold standard exists, while this foreign-
domination bugaboo is made out of absolutely noth-
ing. It is as pure a delusion as the snakes that a
man sees when he is suffering under delirium
tremens. Nobody has ever made the slightest at-
tempt to show that foreign influence is being in any
way exercised to affect our financial policy. The
only approach to anything of the kind has been

THE NIGHTMARE CAMPAIGN 95

Prince Bismarck's recent letter, and that was evoked
by a silverite and has been used by the silverites to
help their cause. The Governments of Europe are
not bothering about the matter at all. The public
press there takes only such interest in it as a contest
of this extraordinary character and importance in a
great commercial country must necessarily arouse.
But the main point is — and this every intelligent
person knows — ^that there is not a soul in this coun-
try who thinks of such a thing as voting one way or
the other on the matter because foreign nations
wish us to do so. We wish to be on a good financial
footing, as good as any in the world; we wish to
keep our currency sound, as sound as any in the
world ; but we wish to do it because it is honest and
because it is wholesome. The idea that because we
want to do as other enlightened nations do therefore
we are slaves to those other nations is a nightmare
idea. You might as well say that because we don't
go about naked, we are slaves to the monarchical
nations of Europe. Why don't we adopt an Ameri-
can policy on the subject of clothing? Clearly it is
because we have been reduced to a condition of
serfdom by the aristocrats of the Old World.

We cannot attempt to consider all the nightmares
this campaign has been filled with by the Populist
candidate. There is the scarce-dollar nightmare. Mr.
Bryan keeps talking as though the number of dollars
in circulation had been steadily diminishing under
the gold standard, but never mentions the figures.
He spoke the other day as if it were almost incon-
ceivable that "dollars ever could be much scarcer
than they are now." In another speech recently he

96 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

spoke of dollars being so scarce that the only chance
the people had to see them was by looking through
an iron grating at a pile that didn't belong to them.
Lately, he has taken a particular fancy to talking
about the " balloon dollar " and saying that, like a
balloon, it is going out of sight. Now, we submit
that, in view of the facts, this talk is not mere
exaggeration ; it is nightmare talk. For dollars were
" much scarcer than they are now," not only some-
times but always during the happy years before " the
crime of 1873 " ; and Mr. Bryan (when he is awake)
must know it perfectly well. There never were so
many dollars per head of the population in circula-
tion in this country before 1873 as there are now.
In 1874 we had a per capita circulation of $18.19;
in 1894 it had risen to $24.33, ^^ increase of 33
per cent. It is slightly less now than in 1894, owing
to the hard times produced by silverite agitation;
but still it is much higher than it was in the good old
times before 1873. Yet Bryan racks his resources
of speech to find images to convey the notion that
dollars are disappearing, are taking wings, and what
not. The balloon idea is a very good one, for it is
nightmarish physically, as the whole thing is night-
marish mentally.

These are only a few of the Bryanite nightmares.
The " cornering of gold " is another one ; the con-
spiracy of bankers to force the Government to issue
bonds is another ; the people who flourish on the dis-
tress of their countrymen are still another. Never
before has an American Presidential campaign been
conducted on such a basis. Never before has an
American candidate for the Presidency tried to pro-

THE NIGHTMARE CAMPAIGN 97

duce among the American people that state of mind
which leads not to rational political discussion, but
to such outbreaks of mad delusion as the witchcraft
craze in early Massachusetts* or the no-popery frenzy
in London a century ago. His failure will not be
the failure of a mistaken currency scheme half so
much as it will be the failure of an attempt to substi-
tute blind passion for reason and sobriety, and the
terror of hobgoblins for the persuasion of facts.

POPULISM AND SOCIALISM

(October t9» 1^96)

The Populist party, which virtually absorbed the
Democratic party as represented at the Chicago
Convention, is not avowedly a Socialist party. A
large portion of its members are unaware of any
leaning toward Socialism, and many of them doubt-
less have no idea what Socialism is. Nevertheless,
thoughtful men, on the Bryan side no less than on
the McKinley side, recognize that the animus of the
Bryanite campaign is essentially Socialistic. In the
hottest of the fight, it is not the question of silver
but the question of general social reform that is
found uppermost. The most intense appeals are
made and the most intense feelings are aroused,
not in behalf of a mere financial measure, but in
behalf of a cause whose triumph, its adherents be-
lieve, will bring us a long step nearer the millennium.

What, then, is the difference between Populism
or Bryanism on the one hand and Socialism on the
other? The difference is that between a blind, ill-
considered, impetuous rush and an orderly march.
The difference is that between undisciplined and
thoughtless discontent and a deliberately reasoned
scheme of social improvement. The Populists are
Socialists in a raw state, and are revolutionists with-
out knowing it. They are at heart loyal to Ameri-
can institutions and traditions; it is in their heads
that the trouble lies. They think that things are not

POPULISM AND SOCIALISM 99

as they should be ; that the poor should get more of
the wealth of the country; that many things ought
to be easier for those who toil. But they do not
realize that as long as the institutions of society are
not radically altered, improvement of this kind must
take place by slow and orderly progress, and not by
violently laying hands on the first thing that offers
itself to the notice of a lot of glib-tongued agitators.
Just now it is the banks that they are most excited
about ; and they have come to feel as though bankers
were the very emissaries of Satan. The notion that
it is the banks which are at the bottom of the
poverty of the poor and the wealth of the rich
would be noticeable only for its absurdity and child-
ishness, were it not for the deadly earnestness with
which so many poor deluded men have taken hold
of it.

The practical aspect of this matter of the differ-
ence between Populism and Socialism is obvious
enough. Those good people who are going to vote
for Bryan on the vague general ground that his
election would result in a step toward a more ideal
condition of society, a less complete sway of competi-
tion, a diminution of the distance between rich and
poor, would, if they elected their candidate, be the
ones who would most bitterly rue the result. While
we are opposed to Socialism in the abstract, and
not only as a matter of practicability, we know that
thoughtful persons are to be found in the country
who favor it in the abstract. But surely nobody can
be found who pretends that the United States is
ripe for a plunge into Socialism at the present time.
And a Bryan victory would not mean an experiment

4165^3

100 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

in Socialism. It would mean a series of Populist
"monkeyings" with everything that makes the pres-
ent social order work as well as it does, without the
substitution of anything in the nature of a different
social order. It would mean, over and above free
silver — which would be disastrous enough in itself
as an attack upon confidence — the adoption of such
a hostile attitude toward the conductors of great
enterprises as would paralyze the energies of the
great " captains of industry " who keep this wonder-
ful machine of commercial and industrial civilization
going. They would never know what was coming
next. They would feel that they were playing a
game of " heads you win, tails I lose." They would
know that when high profits were being made in
good times, the half-baked Socialists in control of
our politics would cry out for legislation that would
cut oflf those profits, but that when they were running
at a loss no Governmental succor would be forth-
coming. The consequence of the prevalence of this
state of mind would be such acute and widespread
distress among all classes, and especially among the
poor, as this country has never witnessed. And the
game would end- — ^perhaps after two years, perhaps
four, perhaps six — in such an overwhelming demand
for a return to safe and conservative methods as
would put a stigma on all the proposals of social
reformers for generations to come. The inveterate
optimists who look forward with such steadfast hope
to the rapid betterment of mankind through legis-
lation could do nothing worse for their ideals than
to introduce a regime which, through its incompe-
tence and crudity, would so disgust the whole com-

POPULISM AND SOCIALISM lOl

munity that they would welcome the restoration of
sobriety in government, even though the real evils
of concentrated wealth which we now bear were to
return in redoubled force as the price paid for our
reckless investment in amateur Socialism.

DRAWING THE LINE IN LUXURY
(February 6, iS^t)

A couple of weeks ago, a New York clergyman
expressed his condemnation of an approaching
social festivity which was to be marked by extraor-
dinary lavishness of expenditure. The expressed
ground of his condemnation was the stimulus to
discontent and unrest which such a display of ex-
travagance would produce at this time, when, in
consequence of several years of depression in busi-
ness, suffering among the poor is intense and wide-
spread. But the discussion which was called forth
by Dr. Rainsford's sermon has naturally taken
broader ground, and covered the general question
of luxury and extravagance in its moral, social and
economic aspects.

The out-and-out defenders of the Bradley-Martin
type of luxurious expenditure are very apt to at-
tempt to close the whole question, on its moral and
social side, by simply pointing out that it is impos-
sible to draw the line; that what is luxury today
is matter-of-course tomorrow ; that what is extrav-
agance to one person is mere ordinary expenditure
to another ; in short, that no definition can possibly
be laid down which would discriminate between rep-
rehensible luxury and legitimate indulgence. And
this is certainly true ; it is quite impossible to draw
the line upon any abstract principle. But this is
equally true of almost everything upon which we
base a judgment of human conduct. We draw the

DRAWING THE LINE IN LUXURY 103

line somewhere in practice, though it would be im-
possible to lay down any general principle for doing
so. We say that a person is obstinate or even pig-
headed if he passes a certain line, whereas the self-
same qualities exercised in greater moderation win
for him the praise of firmness. We say that a man
is a fop or a dude if he devotes excessive attention
to his person, unhindered by the circumstance that
our own niceness about the same matter would be
branded with the same epithet by a cowboy. We call
a man a gourmand if he makes the excellence of
his fare too absorbing a subject of care, though
almost every one of us cares far more about the
nature of his food than is at all called for by the
law of self-preservation. The common-sense of the
community draws the line somewhere in practice,
in these and a thousand other things, without being
in the least troubled by the impossibility of laying
down any rule for drawing it, or by the fact that the
line was drawn far otherwise in former times, or
is drawn quite otherwise in other parts of the world.
And precisely the same thing should be true of
profligate expenditure for senseless luxury. More-
over, it is true of it. Even the persons who plant
themselves so firmly on the doctrine that the line
cannot be drawn, and that the man who indulges
in the luxury of a gold watch has no right to object
to any luxury, however extreme, which may be in-
dulged in by anybody else — even they would balk
at things too atrociously excessive, and give up their
doctrine at some point. It is not for nothing that
history has preserved for two thousand years the
story of the golden vessels out of which Caligula's

104 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

favorite horse was fed, and has placed this story on
a level with that of his phenomenal atrocities. It
is an instinctive and just requirement of our moral
sense that great expenditures should have as their
result something which seems in some measure to
justify the outlay.

And a healthy public opinion on the subject is by
no means insignificant in its effect. A large part
of the pleasure — ^indeed very often the chief part —
which the wealthy derive from their expenditure
arises from the general admiration, or esteem, or
regard of some kind, which accompanies it. There
can be no question that the habit of giving to public
objects, which is so marked a feature of the use of
great wealth in America, is due in great part to the
well-established and steadily growing public senti-
ment on the subject, which not only applauds the
givers, but has reached the point of regarding those
who do not give some respectable amount out of
great fortunes as deficient in their duty as members
of the community. And there can likewise be no
doubt that the degree to which senseless luxury
will be carried in the country will be largely de-
pendent on the view taken of such conduct by the
people at large. People will take very little pleasure
in parading their mere ability to spend money with-
out stint upon showy luxuries, if their doing so is
generally regarded as a combination of vulgarity,
selfishness and folly.

As to the economic aspect of the question, it
ought to be clear that, speaking of normal condi-
tions, and of the result in the long run, it is not the
expenditure of money, but its investment in pro-

DRAWING THE LINE IN LUXURY 105

ductive enterprises, that furnishes the support of the "
laboring class. The only way in which luxurious
expenditure can be shown to be connected with the
maintenance of laborers is by the argument that
were it not for the prospect of such expenditure in
the future, nobody would care to pile up a big for-
tune, and consequently the accumulation of capital,
and the resulting employment of labor, would be
checked. Unfortunately for this view, it is an
almost universal rule that the accumulators of great
fortunes do not live in ostentatious luxury. It is
almost always those who come after them that do
the immoderate spending. There is no particular
reason to suppose that men would be less ambitious
to get rich if the notion that they were more or less
responsible to the community for a rational mode of
using their wealth should become more and more
deeply rooted; and it is their willingness to make
money — that is, to embark in productive enterprises
— ^and not to spend money, that makes their wealth
useful to the poor.

It is nevertheless true that at a time of depression
expenditure should not be checked ; if anything, one
ought to spend more than his usual amount at such
a time if he can afford it. This is not because in-
dulgence in expenditure is normally good for the
community, but because of the abnormal condition
existing, namely, a failure of the usual demand in
the various lines of business. But it must be re-
membered that there are plenty of ways of spending
besides self-indulgence. Even in giving to down-
right charities, it must not be overlooked that the
amount thus expended does not stop at the pockets

8

I06 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

of the poor who are relieved, but immediately goes
into the channels of trade. The sum of the eco-
nomic part of the matter is this: Don't think you
are a public benefactor because you habitually spend
lots of money ; but, on the other hand, don't choose
a time of distress to cut down your expenditures,
for that is the very time your keeping them up
does some good.

"BOTH THE ARTICLE AND THE CASH"

(February 19, 1897)

We are rather surprised to find the Washington
Post taking up the cudgels for the crude protec-
tionist fallacy to which we referred the other day,
and which had been revived by the New York Press.
The fallacy is contained in the following statement,
which, for some unguessable reason, the Press had
attributed to Abraham Lincoln :

When an American paid $20 for steel rails to an English
manufacturer, America had the steel and England had the
$20. But when he paid $20 for the steel to an American
manufacturer, America had both the steel and the twenty.

The Post, after very fairly quoting the comments
of The News upon this, plants itself squarely on the
same ground with the Press, for it says :

Despite the sneers of the free-traders it is a fact that
when we buy an article abroad we have the article and a
foreign country has the money paid for it, but when we
buy the same thing here we have both the article and the
cash.

In view of the fact that a clever journalist thus
falls into this logical trap, it seems worth while to
point out precisely where the fallacy lies. We re-
sorted, the other day, to the more interesting form
of analogy ; but it would seem to be necessary to go
straight at the matter in a b c fashion.

The thing, then, that is overlooked in the remark
just quoted from the Post, and likewise in the alleged
Lincoln quotation, is that when we buy an article

I08 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

abroad we do not also expend the labor and capital
necessary to its production at home. When we pay
$20 for steel rails to an English manufacturer, we
get those rails for the $20 (or rather, for that is the
truth, for $20 worth of other goods) , but the labor
and capital that would have been necessary to the
production of those rails has been free to employ
itself in other ways. It is true, to be sure, that
" when we buy a thing here we have both the article
and the cash," but then it must not be forgotten that
we had to make the thing; when we buy an article
abroad, the foreigners have gone to the trouble and
expense of making the article for us, and we have
presumably utilized for the making of something
else those resources which we should otherwise have
had to expend on the making of the imported
article.

This grave and sober argumentation over the prop-
osition that two and two do not make five is really
very like breaking a butterfly on the wheel. But
this particular butterfly seems to be miraculously
tough. And perhaps, after all, another attempt at
analogy may be helpful. Suppose that some genius
in Pittsburg, say, were to startle the inhabitants
some fine morning by the great discovery that when-
ever they buy cotton cloth at Fall River they get
the cloth but the Fall River people get the money,
while if they buy the same thing in Pittsburg the
Pittsburg people have "both the article and the
cash." The announcement would certainly be most
important if true, and the Pittsburg people would
doubtless appoint a committee at once to look into
it. The committee, however, would not be long in

BOTH THE ARTICLE AND THE CASH 109

reporting. They would report that, in the first
place, they couldn't have " both the article and the
cash" unless they first made the article; that the
capitalists of Pittsburg had been perfectly well
aware all along that it was physically possible for
them to erect cotton mills instead of iron foundries,
and to employ labor for the making of cotton cloth
instead of the making of steel billets ; that the busi-
ness men of Pittsburg had deliberately chosen to
put all their energy into lines other than cotton
manufacture, and that they could not put any of it
into cotton without taking some of it away from
steel or something else; and the committee would
doubtless wind up with the remark that the next
time anybody asked them to investigate a proposi-
tion which contemplated the making of something
out of nothing, they begged to be excused from
wasting their time upon its consideration.

One word more in regard to the Washington
Post's article. Apart from its defense of the childish
fallacy we have been exposing, it makes some re-
marks on the actual merits of the steel-rails question.
With this we had not at the time, and have not
now, any concern. We were far from intimating
that the whole cause of protection was bound up
with the fate of one simple fallacy. " The intima-
tion," says the Post, " that buying steel rails or any
other product of iron from England is getting them
from steel-rail makers and that to make them our-
selves is getting our shoes from a watchmaker is
absurd, it is nonsense." This observation is in itself
quite correct ; the only trouble is that we never made
any such intimation as that referred to. Our suppos-

no ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

ititious case of watchmakers and shoemakers was
not intended to be at all like that of England and
America in concrete details ; it was chosen precisely
because the result of applying to it the reasoning in
the so-called Lincoln quotation was so glaringly
absurd. If that reasoning were correct, it would
follow that watchmakers had best make their own
shoes; but this is a very different thing from saying
that the American policy of protection does actually
lead to results so nonsensical. If the practice of
protection were as absurd as this particular argu-
ment used by some of its supporters, it would have
disappeared from the earth long ago.

GROVER CLEVELAND
(March 3, 1S97)

At noon tomorrow, Grover Cleveland will cease to
be the President of the United States. For twelve
years and more, he has been the most important
figure in the public life of our country. His return
to private life is instinctively felt by serious-minded
men to mark something far more impressive than
the mere close of an official term. His individuality
has so stamped itself on the history of the time,
his influence on the character of our administration
and on the shaping of public policies has been so
profound, that the removal of this powerful element
from among the political forces acting immediately
upon the country is recognized as closing an epoch
of the greatest interest and significance. In some
sense a man without a party, he yet looms larger in
the public eye as he retires from the Presidency than
most men have done when entering upon that high
office amid the enthusiastic huzzas of their victorious
party followers.

Friend and foe alike feel this largeness and im-
portance of the man. As has been well said, it is
not that his powers are extraordinary in kind, but
that they are made upon a grand scale. The qualities
that have brought him to his high estate and have
upborne him in playing the great part which has
been his during two Administrations and during the
four years' interval between them are qualities which
many people possess in a degree sufficient for com-

112 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

mon purposes, but which almost none exhibit on a
scale adequate to the high occasions that confront
the chief executive of a great country fully sensible
of his mighty responsibilties. Unflinching courage,
a profound conviction of duty, the insight that recog-
nizes the one vital thing which must be adhered to
at any cost, and untiring industry — ^these are the
qualities which, from the time he first attracted
notice as Mayor of Buffalo to the close of his second
term as President of the United States, have been
the foundation of his strength, the source of his re-
markable public services, and the secret of his ex-
traordinary command of the respect of his country-
men.

If any one should for a moment feel inclined to
doubt the justice of the estimate which places him
high above all the other public men of the time, let
him imagine any other of our political celebrities
placed in the circumstances which have confronted
Cleveland, and consider whether there is the least
likelihood that he would have been equal to the
ordeal. Entering upon his first term as the success-
ful candidate of a party which had not tasted na-
tional power for a quarter of a century, he was
confronted at once with the problem of combining
fidelity to civil-service reform with the retention of
a sufficient party following to enable him to carry
on the Government effectively. The difficulties of
the situation were overwhelming. The public ser-
vice as he found it was almost completely partisan.
The idea of the merit system was still a novelty, and
in practice it had not yet undergone the test of a
change of parties. Very few indeed of the men of

GROVER CLEVELAND 113

influence in the Democratic party were in sympathy
with it. Mr. Cleveland himself was new to the
responsibilites of national government, and he was
well aware of the need of support in bearing them,
conscious though he may have been of his own
strength. In view of all these elements, there can
be but one verdict as to his success in grappling with
the civil-service problem in his first Administration.
It is easy to find flaws in his performance as regards
appointments. But he never left it for one moment
doubtful that the merit system was safe in his hands,
and would pass through its first great and crucial
test not only unimpaired, but strengthened and en-
larged. He did not, it is true, oppose a rigid and
invariable denial to the demands of spoils politi-
cians, but he resisted these demands sufficiently to
secure great progress to the cause, while at the same
time retaining his power and prestige, not only as
President, but as leader of the Democratic party.

But even before he received the onset of the office-
seeking hordes in Washington, he was called upon
to meet another question, which, like that of the
civil service, was destined to occupy a large share
of his attention throughout his two administrations.
He was invited by Mr. A. J. Warner and other
Congressmen friendly to free coinage to define his
position on the silver question. To do this clearly,
firmly, without evasion, was to Mr. Cleveland a mere
matter of course. The reply which he wrote on Feb-
ruary 24, 1885, opens with the almost naive state-
ment that the letter of the Congressmen " invites,
and, indeed, obliges " him to give expression to his
views upon the grave necessities of the situation.

114 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

" although in advance of the movement when they
would become the objects of my official care and
partial responsibility " ; and after reviewing the facts
of the case, he laid down the principle, which he has
ever since strenuously maintained, that the mainte-
nance of the parity of all forms of our money with
gold was a paramount necessity, and that the only
way to insure this parity was by a suspension of
the coinage of silver. How many men, assuming for
the first time the duties and trials of the Presidency,
would thus, before induction into office and under
no political stress, have invited trouble by boldly
declaring themselves on a subject upon which their
party was divided? How many would have failed
to avail themselves of the obvious plea that pressing
duties prevented adequate consideration of the sub-
ject, and thus put off the evil day of conffict?

Yet another matter, apparently of far smaller
dimensions, but in reality of hardly less critical na-
ture, called for the exercise of Cleveland's charac-
teristic qualities from a very early period in his first
Administration. His numerous vetoes of private
pension bills, accompanied by the reasons for their
rejection, which were based on fixed and sound
principles, have constituted from the beginning a
peculiar feature of Mr. Cleveland's activity. His
scrupulous sense of duty, his extraordinary industry,
and his civic courage have all been manifest in a
very high degree in this part of his conduct. On the
face of it, there might seem something trivial in the
expenditure of much personal care, and the writing
of many special messages, by the Chief Magistrate
of this great nation upon matters involving expendi-

GROVER CLEVELAND 115

tures utterly insignificant in comparison with the
general expenses of the Grovemment. But these
vetoes of private pension bills have never impressed
the country as ridiculous. In his first Administra-
tion, they educated public sentiment on the subject
of pensions, and prepared the way for his veto of
the Dependent Pension Bill, February ii, 1887,
which saved the Government for the time being from
that disastrous and demoralizing pension profligacy
which has since been the source of incalculable evil.
In vetoing this bill, and still more in his persistent
vetoes of private pension bills, he has set an example,
unfortunately almost unique, of deliberate offense to
a large and well-defined body of voters, in strict
pursuance of the dictates of public duty.

One more instance of high courage and of saga-
cious statesmanship must be mentioned as marking
Mr. Cleveland's first term as President. The Demo-
cratic party, before the beginning of his term, had
drifted into an almost hopeless state of incoherence.
The break-up produced by the war, the subsequent
exclusion of the Southern States for many years
from genuine participation in Federal affairs, and
other causes, had led to a want of definiteness of
purpose or meaning in the party. It had lived rather
upon oppositon to the arrogant and sometimes cor-
rupt perversions of power by the Republican party
than upon any clear purpose of its own. In 1876,
Tilden had infused strength and reality for a time
into the party's life, but after the disappointment of
its hopes upon the seating of Hayes, it seemed to
have lapsed into its former condition. There was
always, indeed, a pervading spirit in the party.

Il6 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

inherited from the days of its greatness, and kept
alive in the bosoms of millions of the " plain people "
who had been brought up in the doctrines of opposi-
tion to centralization and paternalism. But the most
portentous embodiment of paternalism which had
fastened itself upon our national polity was the
system of protection; and yet the party had dealt
for years in a halting and half-hearted way with
this concrete and living issue, upon which its prin-
ciples demanded aggressive action. Mr. Cleveland
realized that his duty to the party, no less than
his duty to the country, would have been left un-
fulfilled if he laid down his office without recalling
the nation's attention to the principle that taxation
must be levied only for the supply of the Govern-
ment's needs, and not for the support of private
interests. His tariff message of December, 1887,
was recognized by all as a most daring stroke. It
is not improbable that that message, which created
the issue of the campaign of 1888, was the cause of
the Democratic defeat of that year. But it made the
Democratic party once more real, living, aggressive.
It added a new and most formidable contingent to
the " enemies he had made," in the shape of the
great protected interests of the country ; but it con-
firmed the judgment and heightened the affection
of Americans of all shades of political opinion, who
admire and honor sincerity, firmness, courage and
foresight.

To some persons of short memory, language like
this may seem at the present moment in some degree
extravagant. Nothing succeeds like success, and it
cannot be denied that at this juncture Mr. Cleve-

GROVER CLEVELAND 1 17

land's popularity is far from universal. No less a
man than Napoleon is quoted as saying that after
you have made all your calculations, taken every
precaution, made sure of every advantage, one more
element is still necessary to victory — ^good fortune.
Mr. Cleveland's second Administration has been
coincident with a period of profound business de-
pression and widespread distress. However illogical,
it is yet natural that a large proportion of the people
should associate this distress with the man who
has held the helm of State during its prevalence.
It could not be expected that the feelings which
were entertained toward Mr. Cleveland in times of
prosperity by the people should be unimpaired when
their thoughts were preoccupied above all things else
by the anxieties and complaints attendant upon the
hard times through which we have been passing.
But it requires only a moment's attention to recall
the extraordinary hold which for eight years Mr.
Cleveland enjoyed upon the loyalty and admiration
of the people. This it was which, in spite of the
enmities he had fearlessly aroused, made his nom-
ination in 1888 and again in 1892 inevitable in the
face of the dislike of nearly all the party magnates.
The people trusted Cleveland, and they would have
no one else. Some wanted him the more for his
position on the silver question; others wanted him
in spite of that position. But the sentiment that
Cleveland was the one man for President was almost
universal in the rank and file of the Democratic
party; and confidence in his integrity, courage and
patriotism was hardly less general even in the Re-
publican party. We believe it is not too much to say

Il8 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

that such a state of feeHng has not been paralleled
in the history of the country in the case of any man
whose services had been purely of a civil character,
and had not been rendered at a time of national peril.
It is not the purpose of this article to present a
survey, or even a sketch, of the events of Mr.
Cleveland's two Administrations. Its object is only
to recall, upon this farewell occasion, a few of the
acts most characteristic of the man, and to point to
some leading features of his public career. No
episode in that career was more remarkable than that
which occurred precisely in the middle of the period
that separated his two Administrations. On Feb-
ruary lo, 1891, he addressed a letter to the Reform
Club of New York, expressing his emphatic opposi-
tion to the free-coinage bill then pending in Con-
gress. This letter was regarded at the time by
nearly every Democratic politician as utterly putting
an end to the possibility of his receiving the Demo-
cratic nornination for the Presidency. Contrasted
with the conduct of all the Republican leaders early
last year, from Reed down, this act of Cleveland's
shines out as an example and rebuke to other public
men. Nothing could have put his popularity with
the " plain people " to a sharper test. Before this,
he had not only alienated the politicians, but offended
the " soldier vote," frightened everybody interested
in protection, and refused at all times to win favor
by departure from his strict principles of administra-
tion. Now he flew in the face of a widespread popu-
lar movement, owing to his conviction that it was
based upon a delusion and would lead to ruin. The
politicians felt that they had him prostrate at last.

GROVER CLEVELAND 1 19

But nothing of the kind. He kept on quietly with
his law practice, and without stirring a finger, with-
out any manipulation of caucuses or capturing of
delegates, he received for the third time the nomina-
tion of his party to the Presidency, in the face of all
the efforts which the most adroit politicians of his
party put forth.

In Mr. Cleveland's second Administration, the
financial question has overtopped all others so com-
pletely that it is a. false perspective which does not
see in his services to the country upon that head the
crowning achievement of his career. It is true that
the Venezuela aflfair led to action upon a broader
field, and that the negotiation of the general arbitra-
tion treaty with Great Britain is an achievement
which will probably be more conspicuous in the
historical school-books of the future. In both these
things, Mr. Cleveland certainly displayed high quali-
ties. The Venezuela message resulted in an extraor-
dinary diplomatic triumph, and showed a boldness
and masterfulness greater, perhaps, than has been
exhibited by Mr. Qeveland in any other matter.
Its success, however, was the resultant of causes
over some of which this country had no control,
and was purchased at a cost which can never be
estimated — ^a cost consisting not of dollars and cents
alone, but of the demoralization of the financial
and political situation due to a setback of business
occurring at that sensitive period when it was on
the upward slope after a long time of acute depres-
sion. It must not be forgotten, however, that the
President had " Congress on his hands," and it
would be presumptuous to assert dogmatically that

I20 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

he could have cleared the air in time to prevent
trouble, by any less violent means. Of the arbitra-
tion treaty, great as the achievement is, it is unneces-
sary to say more than that, whether confirmed at
once or negotiated again in the near future, it will
always be set down as in reality brought about by
Mr. Cleveland's Administration, and as one of his
greatest titles to the country's gratitude.

But it is the financial trouble that has really tested
to the utmost the strength of our President during
the term just closing. It pressed upon him with
crushing weight from the moment of his second
inauguration. With diminished revenue, with expen-
ditures enormously increased by the profligate pen-
sion act passed during Harrison's Administration,
and with the steady increase of currency based on
silver through the operation of the silver-purchase
act of 1890, the death-grapple with the silver issue
could not be expected to be long deferred. The
closing of the India mints to silver precipitated the
collapse. A great banking panic, accompanied by
unparalleled currency stringency, supervened. It
was only by tremendous efforts that the President
was able to secure the repeal of the silver-purchase
measure. We believe that it must be admitted that
Mr. Cleveland used the patronage of the Govern-
ment to secure this end. We believe that with men
like Voorhees in high places in the Senate, he felt it
his duty to sacrifice his opposition to the spoils
doctrine in order to compass what he considered
absolutely vital to the country's highest needs.
Whether he could have succeeded without attempt-
ing to conciliate these men, no one can say with
certainty. It is possible that the added moral force

GROVER CLEVELAND 121

which would have resulted from such a heroic stand
might have secured the victory through the pressure
of public sentiment alone. But he must be a very
righteous man indeed who will venture to condemn
Mr. Cleveland out of hand for doing, for the nonce,
in the interest of what he regarded as his country's
supreme need, what other public officers have been
doing constantly in the pursuit of petty ends of self
or of party.

Nor was it by any means in connection with legis-
lation only that the President's powers had to be
exerted with constant vigilance and insistence. The
state of the Treasury was such, and the laws regu-
lating its policy so imperfect, that the maintenance
of the national standard of value depended some-
times from month to month, sometimes almost from
day to day, upon a rigid adherence to a fixed policy
directed toward the prevention of currency debase-
ment. The President, supported by an able Secre-
tary of the Treasury, never flinched. The history
of the bond issues is too recent to require much
reminder. What was necessary to be done, the
President did. Unawed by clamor and by factitious
and sensational accusations, he negotiated the loans
necessary to protect the Treasury, by public bidding
when he could, by private arrangement when the
pressing emergency would have made any other
course disastrous. He tided over the time of storm
and stress. He and his faithful Democratic coadju-
tors held together the forces of sound money in both
parties, when the cowardice of the Republican lead-
ers left them without their natural support in that
party. And after four years of this splendid display
of courage and strength, he had the satisfaction of
9

122 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

seeing the opposition party literally forced to the
unequivocal adoption of his own principles and
carrying those principles to victory at the election
which marked the close of his own Presidency.

The foregoing is by no means a catalogue of Mr.
Cleveland's achievements. His extension of the civil-
service rules to cover almost the entire Federal
service except the small postoffices is certainly one
of his most beneficial acts. On the other hand, we
do not pretend that there are no flaws in his record.
Minute examination is not to the present purpose.
For, on the occasion of his departure from the
scene of his labors, it is fitting that the people of
this country pause for a moment and recognize with
gratitude that they have been given the services of a
man of high character, of lofty patriotism, of un-
bending integrity, of unflinching courage. We might
distinguish and define all his qualities with the
utmost niceness; we might weigh and measure his
services with accuracy, placing here what was good
and successful, and there what was mistaken or
unsuccessful; and we might form a higher or a
lower estimate of each particular one of his achieve-
ments. But after all this, we should miss the one
chief thing if we did not recognize that greater than
all his specific services, more precious than any
concrete thing he gained for his country, is the
legacy of the fame of one more great American, one
more name to stand to the youth of coming genera-
tions as an example of strenuous work, of lofty
endeavor, of high statesmanship, and of heroic stead-
fastness in the midst of all the obstacles and difficul-
ties of a time of trial and trouble.

DECENCY AND THE STAGE
(November i8, 1897)

The drift of the American stage toward the level
of the Parisian concert hall is not only one of the
most marked and one of the most deplorable, but
also one of the most curious phenomena of the time.
We say it is curious, because, as one looks at the
audience which sits in apparently unalloyed enjoy-
ment of the unmitigated indecency of such a piece
as " The Girl From Paris," one finds that it is com-
posed, not only in part, but almost entirely, of per-
sons of both sexes evidently representative of
American families of the best type. The women,
indeed, are probably in the majority, and their faces
are the faces of modest women, who would certainly
be sincerely shocked at the most remote approach,
outside the theatre, to such indecencies as form the
entire staple of the piece to which they lend their
countenance, and from which apparently they de-
rive enjoyment.

Now if, in the year i860, say, any one had ven-
tured to predict that within a comparatively short
period it would become a mere matter of course for
plays of this nature to be attended by self-respecting
and well-bred American women, taken to see them
by their husbands and brothers and fathers, such
an assertion would have been either resented as an
insult or laughed at as an absurdity. We have been
going down hill in this matter in an astonishing
fashion during the past twenty or thirty years. Not

124 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

that there was ever any difficulty in finding lewd
plays to go to for those who wanted them. Young
men sowed their wild oats just as much then as
they do now, and a part of that process consisted
in their frequenting of low theatres, in which las-
civious performances were given for the sake of
the lasciviousness. But they knew what they were
doing just as well when they went to a "variety
theatre " as when they went to a gambling hell or
any other resort of vice. The peculiarity about the
present drift of representations in respectable thea-
tres is that the audience, to all appearance, does not
know what it is doing. A play of which the entire
substance consists in the display upon the stage of
all the arts of a Parisian courtesan, with the sensual
allurements of them heightened by every possible
device of the stage, is looked upon, apparently, by
hundreds of innocent and healthy-looking American
women and men as though it were nothing more
than a pleasing little jest

The question naturally suggests itself, has there
been a radical change in the prevalent American
standard of decency ? We do not believe there has
— as yet. Strange as it may appear, we neverthe-
less believe it is true that this lowering of the tone
of the theatre has thus far been a mere matter of
vogue and fashion, and an outcome of the easy-
going American habit of taking things as they come.
It is a curious thought, but we believe it will be
borne out by observation, that the majority of the
women who go to these plays are in the same frame
of mind about them as is the lad of eighteen who is
getting his first taste of fast life in the company of

DECENCY AND THE STAGE 125

the maturer youth of twenty-two, and who is
ashamed to own that he is ashamed or disgusted at
anything he witnesses. It cannot fail to strike any
modest woman who has not become indifferent
through repetition of the experience, that the carry-
ings-on in these plays are full of vulgarity, inde-
cency and bad suggestion. But she sees those
around her, who are older or who know more of the
world, looking on with apparent pleasure and satis-
faction, and she checks her impulse of disgust or con-
demnation, thinking it must arise from a foolish
squeamishness on her own part. After a while she
comes to look upon the whole thing as a matter of
course, and she in her turn becomes a g^ide to
others in the same direction.

Now, this sort of thing can go on for a consider-
able period without producing a marked effect on
the national character and habits. But not indefi-
nitely. The thing is not yet fully naturalized in
America ; but when it shall have been, America will
no longer be the America of a generation ago.
Everyone can understand what a calamity it would
be if the youth of the nation were brought up on
the typical novels of France in place of the noble
and manly novels of our own tongue. No less a
calamity will have befallen us when we shall have
completely recognized the standard of the Parisian
Boulevard as one which is suited to the tastes and
the desires of the American family. If that calamity
is to be averted, it is high time a stand were made
in the matter.

Here we run up against that great stumbling
block whenever an evil is discussed : " What are

126 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

you going to do about it? " We are certainly not
going to have any " blue laws " that will deal with
it. We are not even going to have — or at least it
is to be hoped we shall not have — any crusade after
the Salvation Army fashion against it. The ques-
tion is not one of the extirpation of vice or even of
the suppression of something which allures to vice.
There are plenty of low theatres where things on
their face more grossly indecent than the class of
performances we have in mind are presented, and
will doubtless continue to be presented, for those
who want them. But we have a right to expect
that these things shall be kept where they belong.
It may be either impossible or inexpedient to sup-
press the Police Gazette, but everybody will agree
that it is not to be recommended as good family read-
ing. And precisely the same feeling ought to be en-
tertained in regard to theatrical performances whose
very essence is the exploitation of a kind of inde-
cency more offensive in reality, even if less crude
in its grossness, than those of the avowedly low
theatres. Those who care to preserve the standards
of decency which are traditional with the English-
speaking race should distinctly show their condem-
nation, not only by their own absence from such
performances, but by speaking their minds about
them to their friends. To go to them should be
looked upon as disreputable, and theatrical houses
which desire to be regarded as reputable should be
made to feel that they cannot afford to produce
them. The consequences may very safely be left to
take care of themselves. The plays in question may
possibly receive just as much patronage as if they

DECENCY AND THE STAGE 127

were not condemned by reputable persons; though
we think that extremely doubtful. But the great
thing that would be accomplished would be the pres-
ervation of the distinction between what is whole-
some and decent and what is noxious and indecent.
It is only so that we can prevent an insidious poison
from undermining the very foundations of social
health ; for it is only so that we can prevent it from
spreading throughout that portion of the community
upon which it has thus far relied for keeping un-
soiled and uninjured the sense of purity and of
delicacy.

THE FERMENT IN PARIS

(January 19, J898J

If the capital of any other great country than
France had been giving the world such an exhibi-
tion as Paris is now furnishing in connection with
the Dreyfus case, the natural supposition would be
that something very terrible was impending, and
that the excitement over the friends of Dreyfus was
but a symptom of an appalling national disorder,
which would soon manifest itself in the most gen-
eral and disastrous manner. The thing which led
to the outbreaks, it would be argued, was utterly
inadequate to the production of such effects if the
people were not on the brink of a revolution. For
it must be remembered that it was not the friends
of Dreyfus who got up riots by way of protesting
against what they regarded as the infliction of a
most cruel punishment upon an innocent man, con-
demned by a secret trial. That would be intelli-
gible ; but the rioting arose entirely from the other
side, and it is difficult to imagine sane people in-
flaming themselves to the point of riot because the
friends of an officer convicted of selling information
to a foreign government wish to have his case re-
considered. And, as we have said, outside of Paris
doings like those of the past few days would be
looked upon as a sign and portent of a tremendous
national catastrophe.

In point of fact, some able observers on the spot
do interpret the Paris excitement as the forerunner

THE FERMENT IN PARIS 1 29

of real revolution. Of course, they may possibly
prove to be right, but what has thus far taken place
can hardly be looked upon as justif)dng such a
conclusion. It must never be forgotten — and yet
it is hard to bear in mind at the moment of trouble
— that the Parisian students and the Parisian popu-
lace flare up in this manner upon very slight
provocation ; and while the present is a more serious
case than usual, there is no good reason to suppose
it to mean that the organization of society in France
is tottering to its fall. The trouble may possibly
grow to great dimensions, but more probably it will
go the way of so many Parisian outbreaks in the
past, whether they be started by the suppression of
an extravagantly indecent exhibition at a students'
ball, or by the revelation of all-embracing rottenness
furnished by a Panama Canal investigation.

What does, however, give an ominous coloring
to the affair, whatever may be its outcome, is the
anti-Semitic side of it. Anti-Semitism is the shape
which, for the past decade or two, it has been the
fashion for discontent and obscurantism to take on
the Continent of Europe. It furnishes a convenient
and simple rallying-cry for those who want to break
up something, they hardly care what. It is so
much easier to get a rabble excited over Jews, who
can be imagined to be supplied by nature with some-
thing peculiarly diabolical, than over a class defined
simply by wealth, or by opinion, and whom the
masses know to be after all of the same blood as
themselves. Anti-Semitism is essentially a super-
stition, and a peculiarly low and mean superstition ;
but it is a superstition which comes in remarkably

I30 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

handy for the fomenters of class discontent. In the
present instance, a touch of humor is given to the
situation by the circumstance that the Anarchists
have been fighting against the anti-Semitic stu-
dents, and so have in a sense ranged themselves on
the side of the Jews. The real reason for this is
doubtless not that the Anarchists either love the
Jews or are special sticklers for justice, but that,
while they hate the Jews, they hate the army still
more and they want the Dreyfus case reopened for
the sake of hurting the army. The reason they
themselves assign is interesting; it is substantially
that they are opposed to looting merely the Jewish
stores and banks, because all stores and banks ought
to be looted. Possibly they fear that an anti-Se-
mitic outbreak would serve to prevent an attack
upon property generally, somewhat as varioloid
gives immunity from smallpox. If so, their logic
is more refined than practical. Wherever anti-
Semitism has become rampant. Governments, how-
ever much they might have seemed disposed to
coquette with it at first, have found it necessary to
do all in their power to curb it, for it contains within
itself the germs of some of the most serious dangers
which threaten modern civilization.

WHY SOME HONEST PEOPLE ARE NOT
PROHIBITIONISTS

(February 8, 1S98)

We print in another column a letter from a
most highly esteemed correspondent, in criticism of
a recent editorial in The News entitled " Prohibi-
tion and the Press." That article was a comment
upon the very extravagant — ^though doubtless per-
fectly sincere — ^attack made by a clergyman, in a
letter to The News, upon the conduct of the press
in general in not advocating prohibition. The rev-
erend gentleman having assumed that the press is
" suborned " by the liquor interest to maintain this
attitude, we took occasion to point out that the
state of mind of many Prohibitionists, even those
less extreme than the gentleman in question, was
based upon an error, in that " they are apt to take
it for granted that everybody agrees with them in
thinking that liquor-selling is the root of all evil,
that it ought to be suppressed by law, and that
its suppression would usher in a reign of universal
happiness and goodness." That this is an error is
a simple matter of fact. There are scores of mil-
lions of human beings — namely, nearly all the popu-
lation of the chief countries of the Continent of
Europe — who, so far from agreeing with them in
their view, look upon the idea of suppressing the
drinking of wine and beer in public places as a
monstrosity, and a thing which would go very far
to make life dreary for millions of most excellent

132 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

people. This view is held not only by light-minded
or selfish persons, but by the best and most earnest
and most high-minded men, including certainly a
very large proportion of the clergy, without dis-
tinction of sect. How many or whether any of
these excellent and conscientious persons have ever
in any explicit way laid down the doctrine that
" the evils springing from excessive drinking do
not overbalance the benefits arising from moderate
drinking," or the doctrine that " even if these evils
are greater than the benefits, the restraint upon
individual freedom involved in prohibition is wrong
in principle, and would work a greater injury upon
mankind, though in a very different way, than does
the evil which it attacks," we confess that we have
no means of determining ; but evidently it is a plain
inference from their conduct and conversation that
they must hold one or the other or both of these two
views.

And of course these views are not confined to
Europe. So far, at least, as the second of them is
concerned, not only is it held by some millions of
American citizens of German birth or descent, for
instance, but it is also certainly held by many mil-
lions of citizens who are American by long descent.
But our correspondent challenges us to justify our
statement that we find that there is very great force
in these positions. The subject is too great to be
covered in a brief editorial article, and we shall not
attempt more than to indicate in outline what may
be said in support of them. It is impossible, to be
sure, to make a " parallel column " exhibit of the
benefits that the upholders of drinking may claim

HONEST OBJECTORS TO PROHIBITION 133

as arising from it, which should match the un-
doubtedly frightful record of harm done by drunk-
enness. The evils are very startling and impressive
in each individual instance ; the good is of a far less
tangible kind, and cannot be reckoned up in any-
thing like statistical fashion. Most prohibitionists
would doubtless deny its existence, in toto. For
what we have reference to is by no means a mere
physical gratification. In all ages of mankind,
drinking has been a promoter of sociability and
through this a means of relaxing the strain of hard
every-day life, which nothing else has yet been
found to replace. Many people feel no need of this
relief ; many others feel no need of any other socia-
bility than that which can be got from the gravest
kind of conversation in a library or a drawing-
room. But not everybody is cast in the same mold,
and it is fortunate they are not. To vast multi-
tudes of persons, the easy, friendly sociableness that
accompanies drinking is one of the few things
which brighten life and make it something else than
a dull monotonous grind ; and for many persons the
flashing out of warm and generous sentiment at a
convivial gathering now and then is not a mere
pleasure of the moment, but is a great element in
preserving the picturesqueness and the poetry of
life.

Before going further on this first branch of the
question, it will be best to take up the second. The
question of the restraint upon individual freedom
is not a question of constitutional right, and cannot
be answered in the way which our correspondent
adopts. To hold that any one has an " inherent

134 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

right to sell intoxicating liquor by retail " — or, for
that matter, by wholesale — we freely grant is quite
absurd. The State has a right to regulate the liquor
traffic, and, if it pleases, to abolish it. The question
at issue is quite a different one ; not in the least a
question of the rights of the government, but of
the ends sought to be accomplished. The object
and intent of prohibition is not the prevention of
selling, but the prevention of drinking. The indi-
vidual freedom which is trenched upon is the free-
dom to enjoy one's self in one's own way so long
as one doesn't interfere with the safety or peace or
welfare of other persons. The right to employ the
means — prohibition of sale — is not questioned; the
serious opponents of prohibition do not raise a fac-
titious issue as to the means used, but a real issue
as to the end sought. That end is substantially an
infringement of individual freedom, of the kind
above defined. We do not say that under no cir-
cumstances can such an infringement be justified.
But we do say that it is a most serious thing to do,
and further that all cases like those cited by our
correspondent are of a totally different nature. You
are prohibited from building a frame house because
you would thereby introduce a danger to other peo-
ple's property which they have no means of avert-
ing; not because it tempts your neighbor to burn
down his own house, but because the burning of
yours may, without any contributory act on his
part, cause the destruction of his. Shooting and
fast driving are obviously in the same category.
In all these cases, the object is to prevent one man
from injuring another, not to prevent a man from
injuring himself by his own voluntary act.

HONEST OBJECTORS TO PROHIBITION 135

In regard to both aspects of the matter — the pres-
ervation of individual freedom and the benefits act-
ually supposed to arise from drinking — ^the great
argument on the anti-prohibition side, from the
point of view of society as a whole, is that it is of
the first importance to the world to permit diversi-
ties of taste and temper and desire to develop freely,
so far as that can be done with safety to society.
Just where to draw this line of safety, it may some-
times be difficult to decide; but, roughly speaking,
it has been thought, in the most enlightened ages
and countries, that it is not wise to interfere with
the actions of one man except on the ground of his
injuring another either without that other's consent,
or under a consent obtained by fraud or constraint.
Prohibition would be a violation of this principle,
on a great scale. And if the contention is true that
it would be felt by vast numbers of people as a great
restriction of individual freedom, and if the further
contention is true that these people would lose
something very important in the brightening and
sweetening of life to them, the loss to the world
would be extremely difficult to calculate. For it
would be a loss affecting not them only, but all
mankind. A chief ground of objection to Socialism
is its tendency to reduce all the world to something
like a single type, to crush out peculiar and indi-
vidual ambitions, to close the thousand avenues
which the present constitution of society opens to
the restless cravings and aspirations of mankind.
By the presence of these multitudinous varieties of
character we all profit, even the most normal and
humdrum of us; and so do we all profit by what-

136 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

ever gives free play to the development of the vari-
ous dispositions of the children of men. In the case
of drinking, it is quite possible that this is purchased
at far too high a price, and the prohibitionists may
be right. But they should recognize that those
opposed to them are not necessarily either sensual
or venal or selfish ; and that, while they may be en-
tirely wrong, they have respectable and rational
grounds for their convictions.

THE PEACE- WAR MESSAGE
(AprU 12, 1898)

One merit should be unanimously conceded to the
President's eagerly awaited message of yesterday.
It is that which was assigned to one of our best-
known Northern universities by a Japanese student,
some years ago. Being asked how he was pleased
with the institution, the Japanese replied : " It is
admirable. The teaching is so bad that we are
compelled to do all our own thinking." If the
President's object was to say just enough to set
Congress and the people to thinking very hard, and
not enough to show them either what they ought to
think or what he thinks himself, he has succeeded
to a nicety.

On the primary aspects of the question, to be sure,
the President is clear enough. He does not hesitate
to tell us, in strong and unequivocal language, what
we all knew already. He repeats the oft-told tale
of the barbarities of the present struggle. He says
again, and, it must be admitted, with the added
energy which the present critical situation demands,
what both he and his predecessor had previously
said, that these horrors must come to an end. On
the subject of the destruction of the Maine, also, he
speaks out in. plain language. His declaration that
" the destruction of the Maine, by whatever exterior
cause, is a patent and impressive proof of a state
of things in Cuba that is intolerable" is exactly
right.

138 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

There is one other portion of the message which
is sufficiently clear and strong. That is the part
relating to the recognition of the belligerency of the
insurgents or the independence of the so-called
Cuban Republic. The President reiterates the reas-
ons that have been heretofore urged, upon general
principles, against either of these steps. These
reasons are, to our mind, conclusive; and, what is
much more to the purpose, they are likely to have a
very powerful influence upon Congress on account
of a circumstance which has come, one is tempted to
say providentially, to the President's aid. What no
amount of the severest logic could have accom-
plished, the voluble Mr. Rubens has brought about
by a little offhand talk. It can hardly be doubted
that the disposition now manifested by the war wing
of the Republican party in the House to agree with
the President in his opposition to the recognition
of the present insurrectionary government is trace-
able to the wholesome shock given to Americans
generally by the Rubens manifesto. If we are to
intervene in Cuba, we should intervene with our
hands free, and not with our action subordinated
to that of a set of guerilla leaders about whom we
know little or nothing, whose title to the control of
Cuba we have no ground for asserting, and for
whose humane or competent use of that control we
are utterly unable to vouch. These elementary facts
of the situation were brought to the front with great
vividness by Mr. Rubens' manifesto, and have come
powerfully to the aid of the President's strong argu-
ment, written before the Cuban " counsel " had been
heard from.

THE PEACE-WAR MESSAGE 139

So much for what we have called the primary
aspects of the question. But when it comes to the
intricacies of it, the perplexities which confront us
at the moment, the character of the diplomatic trans-
actions which have led up to the present situation
of affairs, the demands that have been made upon
Spain, the points that have been granted and those
that have been refused, the value or significance of
such concessions as have been made, the light
thrown upon these things by the President is very
scanty. And the same is true as to the steps it is his
desire to take if entrusted with the discretionary
power for which he asks. His intention has to be
gathered by inference from a phrase picked out here
or there. In an able article in one of our New
York contemporaries, for instance, we observe that
much is made of the circumstance that the President,
in speaking of the kind of government of which it is
our duty to secure the establishment in Cuba, defines
it not only as a stable government capable of main-
taining order, but also as one capable " of observing
its international obligations " ; the argument being
to the effect that, since none but an independent
government can have international obligations, this
expression pledges Mr. McKinley to secure the
independence of Cuba if he is entrusted with the
power he asks for. But upon such a slender thread
as this. Congress will certainly not hang any issue
so weighty; and what little strength there might
be in the view is taken from it when we recall that
the phrase is sufficiently accounted for as a mere
allusion to the failure of the Spanish Government to
prevent the destruction of the Maine, which had

140 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

been emphatically dwelt upon in the former part
of the message.

The obscurity of the message in regard to the
matters most in need of illumination is enormously
aggravated by the nature of the postcript, written
after the receipt of the information that a suspen-
sion of hostilities had been decreed by Spain. In
the body of the message the President refers to
Spain's previous answer in these words :

With this last overture in the direction of immediate
peace and its disappointing reception by Spain, the Execu-
tive was brought to the end of his effort.

In the postscript he says, referring to the suspen-
sion of hostilities :

If this measure attains a successful result, then our
aspirations as a Christian, peace-loving people will be real-
ized. If it fails, it will be only another justification for
our contemplated action.

If this language means anything, it means that
the President considers it our duty to give the sus-
pension of hostilities a trial, and see whether it will
effect, without forcible intervention on our part,
that " full and final termination of hostilities " and
that " establishment of a stable government " which
form the burden of the main body of the message.
If this be so, we are no longer to regard the reception
of our overtures by Spain as " disappointing " ;
and accordingly it is difficult to see on what ground
we are called upon at the present moment to an-
nounce to Spain and the world that the United States
Congress has authorized the President to use the
war forces of the country at his discretion, to enforce
our demands. According to the body of the mes-

THE PEACE-WAR MESSAGE 141

sage, Spain has disappointed our just expectations
and refused our just demands ; according to the post-
script, she has adopted a measure which, if it " at-
tains a successful result," will realize " our aspira-
tions as a Christian, peace-loving people." Having
given Congress this very pretty little problem to
consider, Mr. McKinley complacently signs his
name, doubtless comforted by the reflection that it
will be a very good mental exercise for the Repre-
sentatives and Senators to puzzle it out. Our Japan-
ese friend could have been treated to nothing better
in this line at the university to which he gave so
singular a form of praise.

What the net outcome of the message must be can
hardly be doubtful. The President has practically
confessed his inability or unwillingness to assume
the responsibility of any positive action. That re-
sponsibility will have to be assumed by Congress.
Something in the line of the President's recommen-
dation should be, and probably will be, adopted;
but the discretionary powers of the President cannot
be made as wide as asked for in the message. Had
the President shown a stronger touch, or a firmer
grip of the situation ; had he presented a satisfying
record of the diplomatic efforts heretofore made, or
marked out a clearer programme for the future, Con-
gress might well have given him an entirely free
hand. But now, this would seem to be out of the
question.

As it is, if the conservative members of the two
Houses show wisdom as well as firmness, much lati-
tude may still be given to the President with a view
to the possibility of avoiding war. But the country

142 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

has a right to know the general purpose for which
the President's powers will be used. He has failed
to indicate this himself; it must be indicated for him
by Congress. Mere suspension of hostilities is, in a
situation like that of Cuba today, a meaningless
thing, for the simple reason that there are not, in
any true sense of the word, any hostilities to sus-
pend. It will not do for the conservatives to en-
trench themselves behind the vague phrases of the
President's message; somebody must decide upon
a real policy, and if the President does not. Congress
will have to do it. Precisely what that policy should
be, it will require the best judgment and greatest
wisdom of the strongest minds in Congress to deter-
mine; but clearly it must be something which every-
one will recognize as imquestionably looking toward
the independence of Cuba, instead of leaving that
object to be mistily inferred from a few phrases
picked out here and there in the midst of a volum-
inous document.

WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE
(May 19, 1898)

The death of Mr. Gladstone closes one of the
most remarkable careers in all political history. In
the distant future, it may be difficult for students
of the history of our century to discover precisely
wherein lay the greatness of his actual achieve-
ments in statesmanship, though the greatness of his
intellect, and his marvelous powers of abundant and
successful work, will always be sufficiently manifest
through a mere summary of the events of his long
life. The man who, for the better part of half a
century, was, through his hold on the public mind,
incomparably the greatest political power in Eng-
land; who, as an orator, combined a marvelous
power of clear statement of the most intricate
questions with a wonderful persuasiveness and fas-
cination of manner ; who won his most signal Par-
liamentary triumphs as a financier, and yet whose
voice was the great trumpet call against inhumanity
and barbarism, whether in Naples in 1851, in Bul-
garia in 1876, or in Armenia in the closing years of
his life ; whose rest from his enormous labors in the
public service consisted in the accomplishment of
literary and scholarly tasks adequate to represent a
lifetime of work on the part of a man of ordinary
powers ; — ^that such a man was one of the greatest
figures of his age will never be subject to serious
doubt.

That his influence on the course of history was
really a great one is, however, even now not so easy

144 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

to demonstrate if anyone were disposed to question
it. He was not one of the world-compelling breed
of men. Bismarck formed to himself in early life
a great design, and pursued it with inflexible pur-
pose, with indomitable will, and with keenest state-
craft, until it was accomplished in the fullest meas-
ure in the creation of the German Empire. Not
only had Gladstone no such achievement to point
to, but the great measures of progress with which
his name is associated were espoused by him only
gradually, often after a previous record of obstruc-
tion or even of bitter opposition. And yet it is a
shallow view which would fail to recognize the
greatness of the part he played in their accomplish-
ment. That he was no time-server is evident, not
only from that loftiness of soul which is the unmis-
takable source of his greatest speeches and writings,
but from more than one incident in his career, when
he deliberately sacrificed political advantage to the
dictates of his conscience even upon matters not of
cardinal importance. His conservatism at the outset
of his career, and his steady advance toward radical
liberalism in almost every direction throughout his
public life, were due to one and the same cause —
his profound sympathy for the institutions of his
country, his keen intuition of what was demanded
by their safety on the one hand and their develop-
ment on the other. During the debate on his first
bill for the extension of the suffrage, in 1866, reply-
ing to a taunt of Disraeli's, Gladstone turned the
tables completely against his opponent, and gave
the key to his own political history, when he said:
"He (Disraeli), a Parliamentary leader of twenty

WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE 145

years' standing, is so ignorant of the House of
Commons that he positively thought that he got a
ParHamentary advantage by exhibiting me as an
opponent of the Reform Bill of 1832. It is true,
and I deeply regret it. But I was bred under the
shadow of the great name of Canning and under
the shadow of the yet more venerable name of
Burke. My youthful mind and imagination were
impressed just the same as the mature mind of the
right honorable gentleman is now impressed. I had
conceived the fear and alarm of the first Reform
Bill in my undergraduate days at Oxford which
the right honorable gentleman now feels."

Gladstone's service to his country did not consist,
then, in the origination of any great lines of policy
or in the advancement of any body of political doc-
trine which he had made peculiarly his own. Indeed,
it should be admitted that he did not possess those
qualities which mark what we call most distinctively
the man of genius. But he was probably the most
remarkable example in all history of the type of
statesman which peculiarly belongs to and adorns
such a scheme of government as that under which
the English people now live and which they have
made a beacon to all the peoples of the earth. It
is the type which Tennyson has enshrined in his
splendid lines " To the Queen " :

And statesmen at her council met
Who knew the seasons when to take
Occasion by the hand, and make

The bounds of freedom wider yet

By shaping some august decree
Which kept her throne unshaken still.
Broad based upon her people's will

And compassed by the inviolate sea.

146 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

It may be held that such statesmanship is mere
drifting with the tide, and that there is no more
merit in its practice than in the floating of a boat
down a smoothly-flowing stream. It ought not to
be necessary to refute such a view. During Mr.
Gladstone's public career, England passed from the
condition of an aristocracy to that of an almost com-
plete democracy, the Irish Church was disestab-
lished, free public education was introduced and
developed, free trade became a fixed national policy,
a humane and liberal attitude toward Ireland was
gradually substituted for one of ignorant and prej-
udiced coercion, and other equally marked changes
in the same direction have been made in a score of
other things. If all this has come about without
shock to the English Constitution, and has been
accompanied by a steady growth of material pros-
perity, who shall say to what extent this beneficent
record is due to the wise and provident statesman-
ship of the great man whose life ended this morn-
ing? That the voyage has been smooth does not
prove the simplicity of the course; father does it
call for a tribute to the skill of the pilot.

The leading traits in Mr. Gladstone's character
and temperament were a boundless enthusiasm for
his work in all its manifold variety, a high sense of
public duty, a passionate abhorrence of inhumanity,
and, probably rarest of all in our time, a steady and
unfaltering optimism. Just as the remembrance of
his youthful opposition to the Reform Bill did not
chill his ardor when^ in middle life, he began the
work of extending the suffrage to all classes of the
population, so his early opinions on the Irish Church

WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE 147

did not stand in the way of his being the author of
its disestablishment, nor his record in regard to Ire-
land prevent his closing his career as the champion
of a radical measure for Irish Home Rule. From
first to last his changes were always in the same
direction, that of progress toward those liberal ideas
and liberal policies of which both the justice and the
expediency were gradually unfolded to his view.
Of all his endowments, it is perhaps his never di-
minished capacity for optimism which many of us
have had most reason to envy him. And yet, on
casting one's eye back to the time when, sixty-five
years ago, Mr. Gladstone first entered Parliament,
his optimism is not much to be wondered at. He
saw changes take place a tithe of which, in those
early days of his career, were considered by reason-
able men sufficient to sweep away the very founda-
tions of government and society. They have been
accomplished, and England is more prosperous,
more orderly, and infinitely more honestly governed
than she was in the early part of the century. The
corrupt system of patronage has been completely
swept away. From the shameful state of having
no public provision whatever for elementary educa-
tion, England has advanced to the possession of an
admirable system of free schools. The wise old
man saw how the salutary forces of the nation were
constantly at work mending what was bad, shoving
aside what was dangerous, laying the ghosts which
a natural conservative dread successively raised in
the anticipation of each new measure of reform.
Whether the optimistic view will continue to hold
good in the future, time alone can tell ; and no fitter

148 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

tribute can be paid to the g^eat statesman who " was
bred under the shadow of the great name of Can-
ning and under the shadow of the yet more vener-
able name of Burke," than that the most serious
apprehension for the future, of those lesser souls
who cannot fully share his optimism, springs from
the doubt whether, in the days of complete democ-
racy, there shall continue to be bred statesmen of
the large and noble quality of William Ewart
Gladstone.

THE BELLAMY UTOPIA

(May 24, 1898)

The death of Edward Bellamy has given rise to
a great amount of comment on the suddenness of
his leap into fame upon the publication of "Looking
Backward," the rapid growth of a literary and
journalistic propaganda for the promotion of the
ideas advanced in that book, and the quick sub-
sidence of the activity and interest thus aroused to
very small proportions a few years later. The view
that seems to be generally taken of these phenomena
is that Bellamy's book stirred an immediate and
worldwide interest because of the fascination of his
picture of a society in which all hardships arising
from material want had been abolished, in which
there was just enough work to do to furnish healthy
exercise, and all men and women had leisure and
opportunity for the gratification of their higher
tastes and desires; while the rapid decline of in-
terest in the scheme was due to the realization,
which came with sober second thought, of the im-
possibility of its execution.

We do not believe that this explanation, in either
branch of it, really explains the case. The mere
drawing of a fascinating picture of what might be
could not have centered the attention of millions in
all parts of the world as did Mr. Bellamy's book.
There were in it, apart from its conception of the
future, several elements drawn from the very centre
of the economic discussion of the present day, that

ISO ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

gave a reality to his discussion without which it
never would have taken the hold it did on current
thought. The enormous cheapening of production
which has been taking place in the past two decades
through the introduction and the more thorough
exploitation of modern processes; the sudden rise
of gigantic trusts, seeming to menace the very life
of the competitive system, and at the same time
drawing attention to the waste which is a necessary
accompaniment of that system; the new vista
opened up in the field of invention through the
applications of electricity in the telephone, in the
transmission of power, and in other things ; all these
supplied for Mr. Bellamy's structure a basis in the
most familiar talk of the day. If the labor-saving
processes were going forward by leaps and bounds,
why should not the world's work be done in a few
hours of the day? If electricity was capable of
annihilating nearly every obstacle opposed to a
scheme of universal comfort, why not make use of
it to procure universal comfort? If the mutual
strife of contending manufacturers is suddenly
swallowed up in the embrace of a colossal trust
" without our special wonder," why not carry the
process a step farther, and swallow up all the
wrangling and jangling competitors of industry and
trade in one comprehensive, beneficent, co-operative
whole? The very reason that Mr. Bellamy's work
was so successful was that it advanced no sudden
new conception, but appropriated and combined
and skillfully embellished a number of economic
thoughts which, taken separately, were not only
current but were in the very forefront of the active
discussion of the time.

THE BELLAMY UTOPIA 151

As to the reasons for the subsidence of the in-
terest he aroused, these may perhaps not be assigned
with so much confidence. Of course, much is to
be set down to the very natural reaction arising in
all such cases. Fast as our age is in producing
changes, it is not so fast as a sanguine or youthful
temper may be inclined to suppose. The course,
even of trusts, does not run absolutely smooth, and
there is an immense lot of life in the competitive
system yet. The combinations are able to get and
keep control of certain great lines of production,
owing to peculiar and favoring circumstances; in
other lines they manage to get control, but hold it
on a most precarious tenure ; and there still remains
the great mass of occupations in which the old order
holds its own, untroubled by trusts or combines.
People who fancied that the trusts would rapidly
make such headway that we should before long see
the Bellamy State looming up before us as the
logical and inevitable next step, the thing that must
swallow up the trusts as they had swallowed up
everything else, have had time to cool off and take
a more tranquil view of things. And, in other
directions also, while changes have been rapid, they
have not gone on with that degree of swiftness
which would have been necessary in order to keep
up the kind of enthusiasm that Mr. Bellamy's book
at first awakened in not a few minds.

But we are inclined to think that the true cause
of the decline of interest in the Bellamy Utopia lies
much deeper than this; and we suspect that it is
not the impracticabilty of the scheme which has
stood most in the way of the propaganda for it.

152 ADDRESSES ANtn EDITORIALS

Difficulties may daunt the greay mass of people, and
slowness dampen the ardor of I'.he shallow and the
lightminded, but, if an ideal is su^l^h as to excite the
ardent devotion of serious and streri;«ious spirits, the
obstacles in its way will not prevent u^e keeping up
of an eager and persistent fight for it. ^e believe
the fact to be that to most men of heali^y nature
and vigorous mind, the trouble about ft^ellamy's
ideal was not that it was impracticable, but \ that it
was unattractive. Few people are drawn to^vvard
Heaven by imagining it as literally made uV) of
nothing but harps and golden pavements; and\ to
men of hearty constitution, mental, moral and ph>^
ical, life in Bellamy's perfect State could not.hel\
seeming almost as unsuited to human beings with^
such faculties and emotions and aspirations as we
now call normal, as such a Heaven. No amount of
Wagner music by telephone in your bedroom, and
no reduction of hours of work, could compensate
in their minds for the absence of free initiative, of
self-assertion, of struggle, triumph, and, if it must
be, failure. The great thing that Bellamy wished
to abolish was anxiety for the future, which he
spoke of as one of the greatest of human hardships.
So it is, but it is also the greatest source of human
effort, and thence of human character and of the
interest of human life. We believe that it was be-
cause that smooth and easy existence which Bel-
lamy pictures failed to furnish such an ideal for
humanity as could inspire a loyal aspiration in
earnest men, that interest in it has languished.

But it cannot be said that " Looking Backward ''
has been without effect on its time or on the future. '

THE BELLAMY UTOPIA 153

It has been one of the many strong influences
that have directed attention to the evils and draw-
backs of the existing condition of society, and has
set hundreds of thousands to thinking seriously,
and in the humane spirit which inspired its author,
on the means that might be employed to better the
lot of the poor, and to put an end altogether to the
most extreme forms of poverty.

II

THE SAVING REMNANT IN FRANCE

(August 20, J898)

It is now about two years that the Dreyfus case,
with its accompaniments of mob fury, of chauvinist
proscription, of anti-Semitic rage, has called down
upon France bitter and foreboding judgments from
other nations, and especially from the English-
speaking peoples. A recent editorial in the London
Times, speaking of the condemnation of Zola in his
second trial, referred to it as the close of another
act " in the squalid yet tragic farce known as the
Dreyfus case." There has been only too much justi-
fication both for contempt and for grief in the
history of it. Yet there is a side of the matter which
should give rise to far other emotions, and which
will not only redound to the honor of the French
nation when the whole story of this extraordinary
episode shall have been recorded upon the pages of
history, but which even now affords ground for
hopefulness through the assurance that the best
minds and highest souls of France hold sacred the
great ideals of justice and liberty, and are ready to
make the greatest personal sacrifices in a cause
which appeals to them solely from the standpoint of
abstract principle.

We pride ourselves on the fact that under our
institutions and traditions the overriding of law
and justice which has been carried on by the French
governmental authorities would be impossible. And
indeed it is difficult to conceive circumstances under

THE SAVING REMNANT IN FRANCE 155

which, in England or America, a parallel to the
Dreyfus proceedings could be enacted. But grant
for a moment that such a thing did take place ; grant
that the injustice were done and that the tension of
the public mind were — as it has been in France —
such as to cause any one attacking the proceedings
of the military authorities to be classed at once as
a public enemy. Can we feel confident that under
these circumstances there would have been found
among us such an array of eminent men as have
arisen in France, and, with no interest whatever in
the individual concerned, have lifted up their voices
for justice and have shaken France from centre to
circumference in the effort to redress the wrong
done to that one lone prisoner on the He du Diable?
The roll of honor is a long one. There may be
differences of opinion as to Zola's place in it, since
it may be held that he was following what may be
called his professional instincts as a writer in creat-
ing the sensation which his protest produced. But
no such doubt is possible in the case of the others
who have been foremost in the defense of the right
of every Frenchman to a fair trial. First of all
stands Scheurer-Kestner, one of the vice-presidents
of the French Senate, a man of wealth, of high
culture, of great influence, enjoying the highest
respect throughout France. Having absolutely no
connection either with Dreyfus individually or with
Jews in general, he was the prime mover in the
agitation to reopen the case, and through his ardent
efforts in this direction sacrificed his political future.
Along with Scheurer-Kestner should be named M.
Trarieux, Senator and former Minister of Justice,

15^ ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

who has made an equal sacrifice of his political
prospects. Perhaps an even more striking figure,
when all the facts are known, is that of Colonel
Picquart. This brilliant young officer was chief of
the military secret service at Paris, and in the course
of investigations arising in the ordinary line of his
duty he came upon evidence pointing to the inno-
cence of Dreyfus and the guilt of Esterhazy. He
made every effort to make these facts known to the
proper authorities, and through his activity in fol-
lowing up the clues he found and in testifying to
the facts which came to his knowledge has brought
upon himself the loss of his rank in the army arid
destroyed his prospects of a brilliant future. When
it is added that with Picquart military ambition is
known to have been in an unusual degree absorbing,
that he had already won, for his age, exceptional dis-
tinction, and that, far from having a leaning favor-
able to Jews, he was strongly anti-Semitic in his
prejudices, it will be seen that this man has shown
no common merit and made no common sacrifice.
Another army officer of high rank who has suffered
through his allegiance to principle is Commandant
Forzinetti, who had for years been in charge of the
Cherche Midi prison and was in charge of it when
Dreyfus was confined there. For his testimony in
favor of Dreyfus he has been removed and retired
from active service.

But it is especially among men of letters and men
of learning that the movement for the reopening of
the Dreyfus case has had its strength. And here,
too, the participants in it have been called upon to
make sacrifices. M. Grimaux, member of the Insti-

. THE SAVING REMNANT IN FRANCE 157

tut€ — ^the highest scientific honor in France — ^and
for twenty-two years professor in the Ecole Poly-
technique, was removed from his professorship as
the punishment for his eloquent plea for justice as a
witness in the Zola trial. In other cases no such
gross and immediate penalty was exacted, but never-
theless, the whole University system being in France
under the control of the Government, every pro-
fessor who lifted up his voice knew that he was
risking his career, and doubtless scores of them
have felt the consequences in the cutting off of
chances of advancement. Among the most distin-
guished of the scholars who made themselves heard
in behalf of the right were M. Duclaux, the succes-
sor of Pasteur; M. Paul Meyer, director of the
Ecole des Chartes ; MM. Reville and Havet of the
College de France, and M. Gide, the eminent polit-
ical economist, of Montpellier. According to a
letter of M. Guerlac of the Paris Siecle, in the New
York Nation, almost all of the students and profes-
sors of the great Ecole Normale Superieure entered
into the movement for revision. That M. Brune-
tiere, instead of joining this legion of honor, should
have chosen the unworthy part of sneering at the
agitation of " the intellectuals " will have been
heard with special regret by Baltimoreans who
admired his lectures here last year.

The names we have given afford but a very im-
perfect idea of the roll of honor. A striking case
is that of one of the foremost of French writers.
Anatole France, " the gentle philosopher, the ex-
quisite ironist and rare writer," to quote from M.
Guerlac's letter, who, though " a stranger to all per-

158 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

sonal activity " theretofore, " dared to face the wrath
of the mob and offered his testimony for Zola."
And, to make an end where the list is far too long
for us to begin to do justice to it, we must mention
the names of M. Yves Guyot of the Siecle and M.
Clemenceau of the Aurore, who have been mighty
champions of the cause in the journalistic arena, and
finally of M. Jaures, the Socialist leader, long known
as the greatest orator in his party, and one of the
greatest in France ; he planted himself firmly on the
platform of the right of the citizen to a fair trial,
in the face of the almost unanimous opposition of his
party, with the result of losing his seat in the
Chamber of Deputies at the next election.

To appreciate all this, we must remember that the
question about which the controversy raged was not
a question of general public policy, but a question
of a single individual act of injustice. That that
injustice has not been redressed, in spite of the
noble efforts made to bring about that result, will
ever remain a blot on the history of France ; but that
so great an effort should have been made, and such
sacrifices incurred, in such a cause will as surely be
set down as a testimony to the high qualities exist-
ing in the nation. It must not be forgotten that,
had the men who have given themselves with such
ardor to this cause been less singleminded in their
devotion to principle, the world would have heard
little more than an occasional murmur concerning
the Dreyfus case. In the showing that has been
made of the depth and strength of such devotion in
the best minds and hearts of France, and in the
response which has been given to their appeal, must

THE SAVING REMNANT IN FRANCE 159

be seen the hope of the ultimate triumph there of a
nobler spirit than that with a rampant militarism
has for the time being made dominant. That re-
sponse must have been widespread indeed to have
been able to shake the whole nation as it has been
shaken, and to have caused the movement for re-
dress of the wrong- done to one man to gain head-
way in the face of repeated defeats in the halls of
justice as well as of legislation. And the whole
story should serve, in other countries than France,
to teach anew the lesson that there is no principle
which should be guarded with greater jealousy or
cherished with more unremitting zeal than that of
the freedom of opinion and freedom of speech.
That it is especially the men of university training
who have been in this critical time in France the
exponents of freedom of opinion should be a source
of pride and gratification to the friends of the
higher learning throughout the world.

THOMAS F. BAYARD

(September 29, 1898)

In contemplating the loss which America has
suffered in the death of the eminent statesman whose
career came to a close yesterday, the thought that
comes uppermost to every one, without distinction of
party or opinion, is that of the pre-eminent nobility
of his public life. Not in the palmiest days of the
country's history can a record be found of more
steady, unfaltering and uncalculating devotion to
high principles than that which marked the career
of Mr. Bayard from his early days to the very close
of his public labors. Not a recluse or a theorist, but
a most active and strenuous participant in the great
struggles of national life, he yet preserved through-
out his life a completeness of personal independence
and a consistency in the support of his profound
convictions which we are apt to regard as impossible
among those who go down into the arena of practical
politics. The little State which he represented so
long in the United States Senate derived lustre from
the eminence of his ability and the acknowledged
loftiness of his character ; and in spite of the wof ul
lapses Delaware has since made in connection with
her representation in that body, it may be said to her
credit that there never was any doubt of Mr. Bay-
ard's continuous retention of his seat as long as he
might choose to remain. What is more significant,
however, of the recognition which high qualities
command, and of the error of those who think that

THOMAS F. BAYARD l6l

easy pliancy and vulgar political arts are the only
avenues to success in public life, is the prominence
of Mr. Bayard, upon at least three successive occa-
sions, as candidate for the Democratic nomination to
the Presidency. It may be set down as certain that
his failure ever to get the nomination was due to the
attitude he had assumed at the outbreak of the Civil
War, upon the question of the right of the Federal
Government to compel the seceding States to remain
in the Union. It was felt by the Democrats for
many years after the war that a man who was on
record as having passionately opposed the coercion
of the seceding States and advocated the peaceful
recognition of the Confederacy could not command a
sufficient vote in the North to make his election
possible. That a statesman of the high type of Mr.
Bayard, a man so completely above the reach of
political bargains and intrigues, should have been
kept from nomination for the Presidency only by
the remembrance of his position on the question of
the war for the Union, and should have come near
it in spite of that formidable obstacle, is a thing to
be remembered with gratification and should ever
serve as an incentive and encouragement to high-
minded public conduct.

Mr. Bayard's service in the Senate was productive
of an amount of good which it would be exceedingly
difficult to estimate. In the days of rampant carpet-
bagism, when the Senate was almost unanimously
Republican and there seemed to be no limit to the
high-handedness of " reconstruction " legislation,
the presence in that body of a handful of sturdy
Democratic conservatives was of incalculable im-

l62 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

portance; and that in this small knot of men were
included two men of commanding ability — Bayard
and Thurman — was a piece of good fortune for
which the country has lasting reason to be grateful.
It is a very comfortable doctrine that, whatever
mistakes we may make, or whatever excesses we
may indulge in, these things are sure to be corrected
in time by reason of the underlying virtue and intel-
ligence of the people. The doctrine may be true, in
a sense ; but what as to the amount of mischief that
shall have taken place in the interval, and what as
to the insensible change in the character of the
people themselves which would come of the adoption
of this easy-going notion of government? Mr.
Bayard and his sturdy fellow-workers gave them-
selves over to no such facile views of the duties of
statesmen. They made a gallant and persistent
stand for the preservation of constitutional rights
and constitutional restrictions; and the ability with
which they did it was such as to make their numeric-
ally feeble band a powerful barrier to reckless legis-
lation until such time as, with recovery from the
passions and prejudices of the war, there came a
restoration of the Democratic party to numerical
equality or preponderance in the councils of the
nation.

Upc«i Mr. Cleveland's accession to the Presidency
in 1885, he chose Mr. Bayard for the office of Sec-
retary of State. It has been rather a custom to
charge Mr. Bayard with weakness in the conduct
of that office; but we have never- seen any reason
assigned that would give weight to the charge. Mr.
Bayard was not engaged in seeking quarrels with

THOMAS F. BAYARD 163

other nations, nor did he conceive that the greatness
of this country was in any way dependent upon an
exhibition of readiness to get into hot water upon
every available opportunity; but he conducted the
affairs of the Department of State with dignity and
firmness. In connection with the foreign relations
of the country, however, his most conspicuous part
was played when, in Mr. Cleveland's second Ad-
ministration, he was our Ambassador to England.
Not only did he there continue the long and honor-
able tradition of our representatives at London, and
especially that which had grown up during the terms
of Mr. Lowell and Mr. Phelps, but it happened that
his presence at the British capital was of signal im-
portance in calming the troubled waters which arose
upon the issuance of President Cleveland's famous
Venezuela message. Mr. Bayard's admiration of
President Cleveland and his faithful devotion to
him were well known ; those who heard his powerful
speech at the Academy of Music in this city, in the
campaign of 1892, could not fail to be struck with
the extraordinary depth and sincerity of the personal
tribute paid to the ex-President by the man who,
as Secretary of State, had been thrown into such
close relations with him. But Mr. Bayard did not
hesitate for a moment as to the part which the situa-
tion arising from the Venezuela message called upon
him to play. He had always felt and had always
avowed the warmest sentiments of attachment to
England, the strongest conviction of the essential
unity of traditions, ideals and purposes between that
country and his own. When the critical moment
came at which there was danger of a violent rupture

l64 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

between the two great English-speaking peoples,
Mr. Bayard felt that what he could do by the
reiteration of his life-lcmg sentiments should be done
to avert bad feeling and to make so disastrous a
strife impossible. His protestations of the friend-
ship and kinship of the two peoples may have been —
they probably were — overdone; but it was a good
fault. There can be no question that his presence
and activity in London contributed most powerfully
to the allaying of British susceptibilties, to the facili-
tation of the successful settlement of the trouble,
and to the promotion of that good understanding
with England which is so prominent a feature of the
present international situation.

Mr. Bayard was a man of fine presence, and a
most pleasing as well as most impressive speaker.
What contributed most of all to the effect he pro-
duced as a speaker was the conviction of his abso-
lute sincerity with which every hearer was sure to
be impressed. That it was not only the knowledge
of his admirable public life which caused him to
produce this impressicm upon his audience, but some-
thing intrinsic in the man, was abundantly attested
by his reception in England. Not preceded, as was
Mr. Lowell, by a distinguished literary reputation,
or, as was Mr. Phelps, by high rank as an authority
in jurisprudence, and not having in an eminent de-
gree the lighter gifts which count for so much in
social intercourse, Mr. Bayard was subjected to a
hard test when he went to London. Yet so success-
fully did he stand the test, that no American has
been the recipient of more honor or greater admira-
tion than he. As the Saturday Review said upon

THOMAS F. BAYARD 165

his departure : " It is within the truth to say that no
American minister has held so high a place in Eng-
lish esteem as Mr. Bayard. He came to England as
a simple gentleman with no adventitious recom-
mendaticwis, and Englishmen at once recognized
what he was and honored him accordingly." It is
gratifying to feel that, in spite of all divisions of
party or section or opinion, it can be said of the
American people too that they recognize what he
was and honor him accordingly. There is but one
feeling in America today concerning the high-minded
statesman and chivalric gentleman whose long and
distinguished and stainless life has now come to an
end.

THE REALITIES OF THE EXPANSION QUESTION

(December 13, 1898)

In bringing forward, at the very opening of the
session, his emphatic oppositicMi to the " imperialist "
programme. Senator Vest has set a good example
to fellow Senators and other public men opposed to
the expansion policy. Whether the treaty is to be
ratified or not, the time for discussing most effec-
tively the fundamental issues raised by the Philip-
pines question is while the treaty is pending, not
after it has become an accomplished fact. The senti-
ment of the nation, if it is to be tested at all, must be
appealed to most strongly at this incipient stage of
the new policy.

Whether the line adopted by Senator Vest — which
is also, judging by his past utterances, that which
will be taken by Senator Hoar — is the one best
calculated to accomplish results, is open to serious
question. That the Constitution could be invoked
with irresistible power to prevent the annexation if
'annexation could be shown to be in clear conflict
with the Constitution, we entertain no doubt. The
American people are not so bent upon taking in
those islands that they would sanction, for a moment,
an overriding of the fundamental law of the land for
the sake of getting them. It is doubtful whether the
majority, or even any large fraction of the people,
want them at all. We feel pretty well assured, for
our own part, that the great bulk of the people are
simply in a state of suspense on the subject. The

REALITIES OF EXPANSION QUESTION 167

belief that the Constitution was to be violated for
the purpose of acquiring the Philippines would con-
vert this great mass of doubters into ardent oppo-
nents of annexation.

The trouble is that the strictly Constitutional ob-
jection has not enough definiteness or solidity to
operate as an effective force. You cannot rouse
public sentiment to the point of action by declaring
that in your judgment the Constitution would be
violated by a certain course of action, unless you are
able to make it plain to the way-faring man wherein
the violation consists. The Constitution does not
forbid the acquisition of territory ; nobody pretends
that it does. It is only contended that the Consti-
tution does not empower the United States to
acquire territory except for the purpose of ultimately
adding it to the group of States of the Union. Un-
fortunately, it is impossible to rest this contention
upon any words of the Constitution itself. High
judicial authority may be cited in support of it;
strong public men of today may declare it to be their
own view; but after all, it must remain a mere
matter of personal opinion, and cannot be laid down
with that impressiveness which would be necessary
to produce a real and vital effect on public opinion.
It is interesting to recall how completely the alleged
unconstitutionality of a protective tariff was rele-
gated to the rear when the real fight on that issue
came on in President Cleveland's time.

A real leader in the anti-expansion fight must take
it up from the point of view of the actual effect that
the carrying out of the " imperialist " programme
may be expected to have upon the institutions and

l68 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

the traditions of the country. His cause would be
strengthened, not weakened, by throwing away the
clumsy shield which the Constitution is supposed to
furnish in the shape of an inferential limitation of
power. Let the objection be based, not upon what
it may be argued that the fathers intended, but upon
what it may be expected that the sons will feel to
be a real danger to the inheritance which those
fathers handed down. It is true that Senator Vest
essays to do this also, to some extent, in his speech.
But he is encumbered by the weight of a Constitu-
tional argument which is more marked by heaviness
than by strength. Let the next Senator who speaks
against expansion take it on its merits, pure and
simple. Let him show how the government of such
a dependency as the Philippines would tend to de-
stroy the simplicity of our political principles, to
burden us with tasks to which we are unsuited, to
impose on us vast expenses for which the returns
are extremely doubtful, to complicate our domestic
problems and to invite foreign difficulties, to weaken
our position in American affairs as embodied in the
Monroe Doctrine. Let these and other objections to
annexation be put forward on their merits, with all
the logic and all the eloquence that can be com-
manded, and let Ihe expansionists be challenged to
meet them if they can. If you tell them that their
policy is not permitted by the Constitution, all the
reply practically necessary is a denial of your as-
sertion ; if you waive your right to a Constitutional
challenge, and attack their policy on its merits, they
are bound to meet you on your own ground and
make real answer to your arguments.

A STATESMANLIKE POSITION

(January ig, 1899)

Of all the opponents of the policy of territorial
aggrandizement, it is Senator Bacon of Georgia
who has struck the truest note. Both in the resolu-
tion which he offered a week ago and in the speech
which he made yesterday in support of it he ad-
dressed himself, in the spirit of a statesman, to the
realities of the case. Not by a mere appeal to ab-
stractions, nor by the proposing of a short cut which
disposes of difficulties by ignoring them, does Mr.
Bacon attempt to effect real work in a real crisis.
The resolution which he offered would, we are con-
vinced, be strengthened strategically, and not weak-
ened in its moral effect, by the omission of the
third declaration; but it is in the first, second and
fourth that its gravamen lies, and these are admir-
ably to the point. The first declares that the war
with Spain was not waged for conquest, but " solely
for the purposes set forth in the resolution of Con-
gress making the declaration of said war, the acqui-
sition of such small tracts of land or harbors as may
be necessary for governmental purposes being not
deemed inconsistent with the same." The second
declares that " in demanding and in receiving the
cession of the Philippine Islands it is not the pur-
pose of the Government of the United States to
secure and maintain dominion over the same " or to
incorporate their inhabitants as citizens of the

12

I70 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

United States, or to hold them as " vassals or sub-
jects." The fourth declaration is as follows:

That the United States hereby disclaim any disposition
or intention to exercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or con-
trol over said islands, and assert their determination, when
an independent government shall have been duly erected
therein entitled to recognition as such, to transfer to said
government, upon terms which shall be reasonable and
just, all rights secured under the cession by Spain, and
to thereupon leave the government and control of the
islands to their people.

Senator Bacon's speech was conceived in the
same spirit as his resolution. It was the speech of
a man whose primary purpose was not to protest,
but to accomplish something. He laid stress not
upon limitations of power which may be inferrible
from the letter of the Constitution, but upon the
effect which the actual undertaking to impose our
sovereignty upon the Philippines would have upon
the whole spirit of our national polity. He appealed
to the deep-rooted feelings of the American people,
not as embodied in allegiance to a formula, however
noble, but as they would be excited by contemplation
of the use of force against a foreign people aspiring
to be free. He pointed out further that a policy of
extension for the sake of dominion — ^not, as in for-
mer instances of acquisition, for the sake of settle-
ment and natural growth— could not end with its
first step. " The logic of the situation," said Sena-
tor Bacon, " will be to acquire more Asiatic terri-
tory, and after that to reach out for still more.
There is no reason for the acquisition of the Philip-
pines which will not apply to the acquisition of other
parts of Asia, each acquisition furnishing a reason

A STATESMANLIKE POSITION l?^

why another part still beycMid should be also ac-
quired. . . . This reaching out for empire will in-
evitably lead to wars, not such wars as the little
one, with its trifling sacrifices, through which we
have just passed, but great wars with all their sac-
rifices. It means vast armies, composed in large
part of our young men, ready on a day's notice to
cope in bloody conflict with the great military
powers of the earth."

Some may doubt the practical value of such a res-
olution as that offered by Senator Bacon. Of course
there can be nothing absolutely binding about it;
but, for our own part, we regard the adoption
of a resolution of that nature as likely to be of the
utmost service. Mr. Bacon pointed out the imme-
diate influence it would have upon the situation in
the archipelago ; the removal of distrust of our pur-
poses upon the part of the natives might reasonably
be expected to dispel the danger of a collision
which, as matters now stand, is a possibility of
every passing day. But that is not all. Just now,
there is a disposition, which it is hardly too much
to call astonishing in view of the swaggering tone
that prevailed a few weeks ago, to take the view of
our duty embodied in the Bacon resolution. The
Georgia Senator said in his speech that he was glad
to have the assurance of Senator Foraker that " of
his own knowledge the position stated by him is the
position of the President of the United States." If
that position can be assured, said Senator Bacon,
"there is little difference or contention between
us." But we all know that any day may bring forth
events with which the President will deal at his

172 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

discretion, and his dealing with which may start us
on the other course again, and with great impetus.
What is wanted as a check upon these evident pos-
sibilities is a deliberate declaration of the purpose
of the United States, duly embodied in a resolution
of Congress signed by the President. Of course
this would not be an insuperable obstacle to a de-
parture in the wrong directic«i; but it would be a
most powerful anchor, on which conservative men
could rely to keep the ship of state from drifting
into strange waters at the first touch of an unfavor-
able wind. And for this reason Mr. Bacon's reso-
lution and his speech deserve the most earnest
attention of the country.

"A WHITE MAN'S CITY"

(April 8, J899)

The Democratic party made an admirable begin-
ning of its campaign by nominating for Mayor a
man whose name is a guarantee of official integrity
and energetic devotion to the public interest. It
followed up this excellent beginning by nominating
for the two offices next in importance to the Mayor-
alty gentlemen whose fitness for them was equally
indisputable, and for seats in the Second Branch of
the City Council eight men all of whom are thor-
oughly satisfactory candidates. It also named candi-
dates for the First Branch most of whom are entirely
acceptable. There has been no time in the past thirty
years when a ticket of anything like so good a quality
has been presented by either party for the suffrages
of the citizens of Baltimore.

With so excellent a beginning, it was to be hoped
that the campaign in the city would be waged in such
a spirit as to give promise of permanent good results
from its successful issue. There was no need of
resorting to claptrap. There was no need of appeal-
ing to class prejudice or to race prejudice. There
was no need of alienating those men — and there are
many of them in every walk of life, and in every
ward of the city— who, while thorough Republicans
in national politics, are too much concerned in the
issue of economy and efficiency in city government

174 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

to let a party label prevent them from voting for
the best candidates for municipal office.

We regret to observe, however, that, within the
past day or two, there have been signs of a tendency
to raise a cry which we do not hesitate to pronounce
pernicious in its immediate effect, and charged with
the seeds of the gravest evils in the future. If the
party makes its fight upon the cry " this is a white
man's city," it cannot also make its fight on the
issue of good city government. As surely as the
sparks fly upward, if the " white man's city " flag be
adopted as the banner of the Democratic party in the
fight, it will be used as a cloak to cover Democratic
party sins after the fight is over. If the Democratic
party is to win not because it is more worthy of
support but because the Republican party contains
the colored vote, we shall have a brutal and insistent
demand for a clean sweep of Republican employes
of the city, no matter how faithful and efficient they
may have been, on the same plea. And experience
teaches what kind of influences determine the char-
acter of the new appointees that any party puts in
when it engages in the business of a clean sweep,
whether it be called by the name of " spring clean-
ing " or by any other name.

We wish to remind the people who are inclined
to raise this cry of a " white man's city " that we
had a " white man's city " for twenty-five years
prior to 1895. What kind of city government did
we have? What kind of politics did we have?
What did Severn Teackle Wallis — that high-minded
Southern gentleman, who had suffered in a Federal

"A WHITE MAN'S CITY" 175

prison for his sympathy with the South — say about
our political condition at that time? He said that
he felt as if the hoof of an unclean beast were upon
his neck, and that he must shake it off if he died.
As to the city government, we do not admire that
of Mr. Malster, but it is impossible to point to any
such scandalous condition of things in the present
administration as was notorious and rampant in the
old Democratic days. We are having no Gay street
pavement scandals, and we are having no corrupt
favoritism in the Appeal Tax Court. As for elec-
ticMis, every election since the political revolution of
1895 has been perfectly orderly and as nearly fair
as possible, while every hotly-contested election be-
fore that time had been full of disgraceful disorder
and of equally disgraceful fraud.

From the deplorable and demoralizing condition
of things then existing, we were saved by the possi-
bility of turning to another party for improvement.
The News did so, and expects to do it again if the
occasion should demand such a course. The Repub-
lican party has not lived up to what we regard as
the fair demands of good citizens, but it has made a
decided improvement on the preceding state of
things. The Democratic party, not only by the char-
acter of its nominations, but also by the utterances
of Mr. Hayes, Mr. Wilmer, and others prominent
in the party, promises another decided step in ad-
vance. We trust that, if returned to power, it will
carry out that promise. But our confidence in such
a result would be greatly weakened if the responsible
leaders of the party were to give countenance to the

176 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

deplorable and demoralizing race cry which so many
unthinking persons are disposed to raise.

Senator Wellington spoke out manfully and loy-
ally wheti he said at last night's Republican meeting :

This is not a white man's city. It is not a black man's
city. It is not for the rich nor for the poor, for the Catho-
lic nor the Protestant, for the Gentile nor the Jew. Every
man, black or white, high or low, Protestant or Catholic,
Jew or Gentile, shall, bowing before the majesty of the
law, have weighed out to him the quantity of justice to
which he is rightly entitled.

There are States in the South where the question
of negro domination is a real one. In those States,
it has been felt to be an unfortunate necessity to
resort to means which are in themselves repulsive
and hateful, for the purpose of preventing the affairs
of the community from being inefficiently and cor-
ruptly carried on by a section of the population pos-
sessing little either of property or of intelligence.
But every thoughtful Southerner has regarded the
recourse to such means as a great misfortune, mor-
ally and politically. Baltimore is in no such condi-
tion. It can safely allow to the negroes of the city,
constituting one-sixth of the voting population, the
untrammeled exercise of the right of suffrage. It
is the part of good policy, as well as of humanity, to
act toward them with entire good will and fairness.
And as to making the race issue a reason for pro-
scribing one of the two political parties and giving
to the other carte blanche to do as it pleases on the
pretext of this being " a white man's city," we know
by long experience the rascality and rottenness which

"A WHITE MAN'S CITY'* 177

may be covered by such an appeal, if once it is
allowed to gain headway.

No newspaper in the city has given the Demo-
cratic city ticket in this campaign as hearty support
as has The News. Our anxiety for its success has
been due to our conviction that it would conduce
to the welfare of the whole people of Baltimore.
But we shall not lend ourselves to any hue and cry,
nor shall we, so far as it lies in our power to prevent
it, permit a campaign which ought to be conducted
on rational lines, and lead to an intelligent and aus-
picious inauguration of the New Charter regime, to
degenerate into a contest between opposing appeals
of rival demagogues. We had a word to say about
the silly class-cry the other day, and we have a
more serious word to say about the pernicious race-
cry today. The first is the more contemptible, in a
sense, because it is purely a piece of campaign clap-
trap, with no substance in it at all ; the second is the
more dangerous, because it appeals to a real senti-
ment, and one which has been used in the past, and
may be used again, in the interest of a corrupt party
ring. There are some things which should not only
not be countenanced but should be distinctly de-
nounced, whether they are done in the interest of the
one party or the other ; and one of them is the raising
of the standard of race prejudice, to obscure the real
issues, to excite evil passions, and to endanger the
benefit which might otherwise be expected to accrue
permanently to the community from the success of
such a movement and such a ticket as that of the
Democratic party in the present campaign.

CHICAGO'S WONDERFUL HEALTH
(May 23, 1S99)

" So remarkable are the statements as to the in-
creasing duration of life in Chicago contained in the
last bulletin of the Health Department," says the
Chicago Times-Herald in an editorial under the
above caption, " that they need all the authority of
the statistics accompanying it to silence incredulity.
These demonstrate beyond dispute that the average
duration of life in this city has more than doubled
during a single generation." The man who is quick
to snuff something wrong when a startling result
is announced on the basis of statistics — ^and we trust
his name is legion — ^will at once suspect that this
extraordinary statement finds its origin in an in-
flated computation of the population of the Windy
City, of the kind that cities less obstreperous and
nearer home are familiar with, in the years between
Uncle Sam's sober enumerations. But in this sus-
picion the skeptic will find he is mistaken.

In point of fact this conclusion as to the doubling
of the average duration of life in Chicago is not
based on figures of population at all, but solely on
mortality returns. As the Times-Herald says, " no
disputed question as to the reliability of a national
or school census or any other estimate of the popula-
tion of Chicago enters into the computation. The
record of deaths and their causes in Chicago is cer-
tain and definite. No dead body can be buried in or

CHICAGO'S WONDERFUL HEALTH 179

removed from the city without a permit from the
registrar of vital statistics. The report on which
this permit is based must give the exact age of the
decedent in years, months and days." It is from
these statistics of death exclusively that the infer-
ence, so extraordinary and so favorable to Chicago,
is deduced.

The number of deaths in Chicago in 1869 was
6488 and the aggregate of the ages of the decedents
was 90,336, being an average of 13.9 for each person
who died in Chicago in that year. In 1896, there
were 22,897 deaths, with an aggregate of 672,540
years of life, or an average for each decedent of 29.4
years. " Thus the average duration of life," says
the Times-Herald, " is shown to have more than
doubled in thirty years." And the intermediate
years show a steady tendency in the same direction,
the average at death of those who died in Chicago
in the various years cited being as follows :

1869 13.9 years

1872 15.2 years

1^2 19.6 years

1892 22.7 years

1898 .294 years —

certainly a remarkable showing.

But, after all, is it true that these figures " demon-
strated beyond dispute that the average duration
of life " in Chicago " has more than doubled during
a single generation " ? Is not the skeptic's instinct
right, in this instance as in so many others, where
statistics seem to lead to queer results? We fear
that it is. The thing that is overlooked in this
supposed absolute demonstration is that the average

l8o ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

age at death in a given city is not necessarily the
same thing as the average duration of life. Imagine
a new and rapidly advancing city in which practi-
cally the entire population consisted of young and
vigorous unmarried men and women, and young
married couples with their children ; a city in which
there were few persons above 50, almost none above
60, a very large proportion between the ages of 15
and 30, and a considerable proportion of infants and
young children under 10. It is plain that in this
community almost all the deaths that occurred would
occur among the little children. The average age
at death would be extremely low, but it would indi-
cate nothing as to the average duration of life of the
entire population. Those who died would die young,
but there would be nothing to tell how long, upon
the average, those who had not died were likely to
live.

And what would be the history of mortality rec-
ords in this city as it grew older? The original
settlers, the men and women of twenty and thirty
and forty, who had formed the bulk of the popula-
tion in its early years, would die off at ages which
practically were not represented at all in the popula-
tion of the city in its earlier stages. Deaths at the
age of seventy necessarily cut a very small figure
in a city in which hardly a person of that age is to
be seen. When you begin to get deaths at such
ages you raise the general average very heavily;
and at the same time, along with this change, there
is a change which produces the same effect in the
smaller proportion of young children to the whole
population.

CHICAGO'S WONDERFUL HEALTH l8l

That this sort of thing has taken place in Chicago,
and on a large scale, there can be no doubt. That
it does away with the gratifying conclusions as to
improved health conditions in Chicago drawn from
the Health Department's figures, we are far from
asserting. On the contrary, we are quite sure that
those figures, upon thorough investigation, would
still show a very remarkable improvement in the
health prevailing in the great Western metropolis.
But that they do not show any such marvelous
progress as has been inferred from them is evident
enough from what we have said. And it happens
that in the Times-Herald's own editorial there are
contained statements which might have warned the
writer that there was something wrong, and have
shown in what direction the error was to be sought.
The percentage of decedents whose age at death
was above 70 rose from 2,y per cent in 1872 to 8.8
per cent in 1898. This shows a gain of 226 per cent
" among those whose lives are now prolonged in
Chicago beyond the Scriptural limit of three score
years and ten," says the Times-Herald, quoting from
the Health Department's report. But unfortunately
it is added that "the average age of the Chicago
decedents reaching the Scriptural limit was 77.5
years in 1872, 77.8 years in 1882, 74.7 years in 1892,
and 77.7 in 1898." Thus it appears that those who
are septuagenarians in Chicago today have no better
chance of life than those who were in the same
stage of existence twenty-six years ago. Is it not
clear, then, that the reason why so many more
people die above the age of seventy in Chicago than
formerly did so is simply that a lot of young and

l82 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

middle-aged people have had time to get old in the
interval? So long as all your population is young,
it is impossible that those of them who die should
die old; and we must conclude that, excellent as
the work of the Health Department of Chicago has
doubtless been, it has not produced the miraculous
results claimed for it. There is still room there, as
elsewhere, for the Elixir of Life — ^and, by the way,
it is Chicago that told us, the other day, that she
had found it.

A LEADER OF MEN

(November 6, 1899)

Two or three days ago, the simple announcement
was made in the New York Evening Post that,
owing to impaired health, Mr. Edwin L. Godkin had
retired from active participation in the conduct of
that journal. To the vast majority of those who
read that statement as copied in the newspapers of
the country, it came as a mere item of everyday
news, having at most a mild interest, and calling
forth far less emotion than a score of other things
which they read of in the same issue of their paper.
But there are those to whom few announcements
could have given a keener pang; for it marked the
close of thirty-five years of a public activity unique
in its character and in its results ; an activity of the
highest kind, the influence of which has been no less
profound and no less pervasive than it has been ele-
vating and inspiring.

The Nation was established by Mr. Godkin in
New York in 1865 ; with him was associated, as its
literary editor, Mr. W. P. Garrison. Viewed even
upon its literary side alone, the service rendered by
the Nation to American civilization and culture is
quite incalculable ; it has drawn upon the best talent
and the highest scholarship of the country for its
contributions, and the unerring taste of its literary
editor and his unfailing fidelity to his standards have
secured a uniformity of excellence which can prob-
ably not be matched in any periodical in the world.

l84 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

But it is upon its political and general side that the
work of the Nation has been most notable and most
potent; and in that work, however able his coad-
jutors, the Nation — ^and the Evening Post since its
absorption by the Nation — has been the product of
the intellect and the will of Mr. Godkin. From the
moment of its establishment, it became a powerful
agency in the formation not only of public opinion
but of something that lies far deeper than mere
opinion. It stirred the thought of the most serious
and the most high-minded men and women in the
country, and it stamped indelibly upon the minds of
thousands of earnest young men standards of po-
litical thinking and of political conduct which would
otherwise have existed for them but as vague ideals.
While its immediate circle of readers was never
very large — its subscription list seldom exceeding
10,000 — it was read with care in every respectable
newspaper office, and the strong doctrine so mightily
poured out at the fountain-head filtered through, we
may be sure, in a thousand ways, and slowly but
steadily made itself felt by the multitude. Improb-
able as it may seem to many readers, we have no
hesitation in saying that, taking the entire period
of thirty-five years, the influence of the Nation and
the Evening Post upon the history of the time has
been incomparably greater than that of any other
American publication.*

To attempt, in a brief newspaper article, to give
any idea of even the chief objects to which the Na-
tion (and the Evening Post) has been devoted dur-
ing this long period would of course be absurd;
but it may not be out of place to recall a few of the

A LEADER OF MEN 185

most striking and most important of them. Coming
into existence immediately after the close of the Civil
War, the Nation, though animated by the fullest
sympathy with the great purposes for which the
Republican party stood, was distinguished, from the
outset, by its vigorous protests against carpet-bag
misrule, its ardent desire for the promotion of good
feeling between North and South, and its champion-
ship of the rights of the Southern States as against
the centralizing and militarist tendencies of the Re-
publican party. From the close of the war to the
last flutterings of the "bloody shirt," the wicked
policy which sought to make political capital out of
sectional animosity found nowhere a more persistent
or more formidable enemy than in the columns of the
Nation. Another cause which enlisted the champion-
ship of the Nation from its earliest days was that of
civil-service reform, and few things would be more
interesting than to contrast the situation when the
Nation was almost alone in its advocacy of that salu-
tary measure with that now existing, when it has not
only been carried out upon a large scale, but when
there is hardly an important newspaper in the coun-
try which does not support it. In the education of the
public mind to this point, much as was done for it by
others, and especially by George William Curtis,
the leading part was played by the Nation. The
keenness of its wit, the unending resources of its
ridicule, no less than the force of its arguments,
ever repeated yet so admirably varied as to be ever
fresh, gave a life and impetus to the agitation such
as nothing else could have imparted. Perhaps next
in importance to these services should be named the

13

l86 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

splendid work done by the Nation for the mainte-
nance of a sound currency ; a work in which, while
the part played by the Nation was less unique than
in the two causes already mentioned, it was marked
by the same extraordinary energy, ability and eflFec-
tiveness. A less continuous, but perhaps even more
striking example of the Nation's activity was its
leadership, in 1884, in the struggle against the nom-
ination and election of Blaine, and in favor of the
election of Cleveland. To it must be assigned the
first rank among all the many strong forces which
were arrayed against the lowering of the standard
of honor of the Presidential office.

Such are a few of the great causes in which the
Nation has done signal service. But even if we were
to make a much fuller list of them, this would convey
no idea of the nature of the paper. It is the ele-
vation of purpose, the high moral tone, and the
splendid intellectual quality of the Nation which
distinguish it even more than its specific achieve-
ments. Not that it is free from faults ; far from it.
The very ardor of conviction which is behind all that
it says is the source of a defect which, especially in
recent years, has reached such dimensions as to go
far toward undermining its influence with a large
portion of the very class to which it is chiefly ad-
dressed. In its early years its main* energies were
devoted to the furtherance of great causes upon
which the combatants were separated as goats from
sheep : in such questions as that of the merit system
against the spoils system, or that of hard money
against greenbackism, the foes the Nation was fight-
ing represented either low morality or crass ignor-

A LEADER OF MEN 187

ance or both. The practice of treating its enemies
with contempt, natural enough in such cases, seems
to have bred habits of contemptuous disregard of
whatever may be advanced, upon any question, on
the side to which the Nation is opposed. » Splendid
as has been the fight of the Nation against protec-
tion, against silver, against imperialism, all of these
have been marred by frequent and glaring unfairness
toward the opposing side, and the same thing is true
in many other instances. Such unfairness is doubt-
less the product of genuine zeal in behalf of a cause
held to be not only right but vital, and of genuine
contempt for those who are arrayed against it; but
it has none the less had the effect of alienating many
of those whose allegiance it would be of most con-
sequence for the Nation to retain.

But to say this is only to say that no human insti-
tution is perfect. The young men who, in the '6o's
and '70's, sat at the feet of Mr. Godkin, and drank
in his words of wisdom, and gathered inspiration
and courage from his teachings, have now passed
the meridian of life. Few indeed of them have been
able to continue that undivided allegiance which, in
the golden days of youth, they gave with such un-
falteringf heartiness. Some have diverged from him
on one line, some on another. But on all of them his
influence has left an impress which will remain as
long as life endures. Many of them feel that it is
to their early reading of the Nation that they owe
a large part of what is best in their habits of thought
and in their ideals of conduct. To be brought, week
after week, into contact with those utterances, in
which it would be difficult to say whether the moral

l88 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

fervor or the intellectual glow was the more re-
markable, was to have one's whole nature quickened
as few things could quicken it. Five and thirty
years have brought about many changes; but the
Nation has continued to stand for these high things.
Its old disciples, whatever may be their diver-
gences from it, feel toward it the old attachment.
The news that Mr. Godkin is no longer to be its
active head is to them like the announcement of the
close of a great chapter in their own lives. Whether
as individual men and women or as American citi-
zens, they feel that they owe him the most profound
gratitude. He has been to them individually a con-
stant aid and inspiration ; and no man has a better
title than he to say, with Othello, " I have done the
State some service, and they know it."

ENGLAND AND THE WAR
(December 15, 1899)

In the midst of the discouraging news which has
been accumulating during the past few days, the
people of England have shown the solid and sterling
qualities which distinguish them as a nation. The
reverses suffered by the British arms at Stormberg
and Magersfontein have not, indeed, in themselves,
been of great magnitude, but taken in connection
with all the circumstances they have been calculated
to produce greater consternation than far heavier
defeats sustained in a war against a different foe.
To be repeatedly out-manoeuvered, thwarted, and
severely punished by an enemy who, but a few
weeks ago, was regarded with contempt, is an ex-
perience calculated to upset the equanimity of any
people. Nor is this all; for the bare possibility of
ultimate defeat — faint as that possibility is, even
now — ^brings into view vistas of disaster appalling
in scope and in significance. The people of Eng-
land see a war which was entered upon as a mere
" incident " in the general sweep of British expan-
sion suddenly assuming the proportions of a contest
on the issue of which the integrity of the British
Empire may possibly turn, and this owing to military
reverses which might apparently have been avoided
by the exercise of proper military skill and precau-
tion. To the humiliation of repeated defeats by an
adversary regarded as inferior is superadded the
feeling of unexpected danger of the gravest kind

190 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

brought on apparently through a combination of
diplomatic short-sightedness and military rashness ;
and it must be admitted that a sharper test of a
nation's capacity for calmness and self-restraint
could hardly be devised. Yet London, though of
course profoundly stirred, has given no sign of any-
thing even approaching hysterical excitement.
There are no frenzied cries for the instant removal
of anybody from his post, either civil or military.
The Government is made to understand, sternly
enough, that its account is being grimly cast up by
thousands of indignant critics; but there is no
demoralizing crusade, no wild and unreasoning
excitement.

What the present situation — even though it may
at any moment be entirely changed by a decisive
British victory — ^must bring home, with melancholy
emphasis, not only to every thoughtful Englishman,
but to every person whose natural inclination is to
wish well to England, is the utter needlessness of
the war, and the combined wickedness and folly of
the policy which brought it on. It is one of the
weaknesses of human nature that the force of any
injunction, either of morals or of prudence, is never
felt to the full until the transgression of it has
brought on some painful consequence. It is difficult
to see how anything could have been plainer, a few
months ago, when this war was in the air, than that
the condition of things in the Transvaal was not
such as to make war a necessary recourse for the
remedying of it. It was absolutely clear that Eng-
land had no more right, under the convention of
1884, to interfere in the domestic affairs of the

ENGLAND AND THE WAR 191

South African Republic than in those of Brazil or
Argentina; a fact which Chamberlain virtually ad-
mitted when he set up the preposterous plea that
the convention of 1881 was, in such part as suited
his purpose, still in force. It was equally clear that
the wrongs of the Outlanders were not such as
called for immediate redress as offending the in-
stincts of humanity; they were paying high taxes,
but they were extracting the wherewithal to pay
them out of the bowels of the earth, from under soil
which the Boers had made their own. What was
still more clear was that Kruger had offered to con-
cede almost everything that Chamberlain had asked
for, and that the spirit in which the Birmingham
statesman had refused to accept these offers could
only be interpreted as meaning a settled desire to
force matters to extremities. The only thing that
was not clear then, and has become clear now, was
that there was a point at which the Boers had de-
termined to draw the line, and that they were pre-
pared to maintain their cause in right Dutch fashion
when driven to defend their independence. Had
this one thing been known as it is now, we should
have seen " the gambler Chamberlain " — ^to use the
just appellation bestowed on him by the London
Star — ^playing a very different game. It is wonder-
ful what a different light this one circumstance
sheds on all that went before ; the pity is that public
opinion is so seldom capable of being stirred pro-
foundly by considerations of a higher kind. Had
the voice of " aunties " like John Morley, James
Bryce, Sir William Vernon Harcourt, and Sir Ed-
ward Clarke had the weight with the people to

192 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

which it was justly entitled, the Birmingham
plunger would not have been given carte blanche to
provoke the most wanton war that has been waged
since Napoleon III sent poor Maximilian into
Mexico.

WOMEN AND THE JOHNS HOPKINS
(January 26, 1900)

In connection with the question of an appropria-
tion by the Legislature toward the support of the
Johns Hopkins University, the subject of the admis-
sion of women to the graduate courses of the Uni-
versity has been brought forward somewhat promi-
nently. An effort has been made to make the open-
ing of graduate courses to women a condition of
the Legislative grant. To such a movement we are
distinctly opposed, and it is gratifying to observe
that a number of members of the Assembly have
expressed their purpose to vote for the appropria-
tion without any reference whatsoever to the
woman question. Indeed, it would be most un-
reasonable for the Legislature to impose upon the
University, as a condition for making a two-year
g^ant of aid, the requirement that that institution
shall adopt a change in so important and perma-
nent a matter of academic policy as is involved in
the admission of women. Whatever one may think
of the merits of the question itself, the University
has so clear a title to the support of all thinking
people in this city and State that there is only one
thing that can properly be done in the circum-
stances. That thing is to make the grant which is
so necessary to the maintenance of the character
and standing of the institution, without exacting in
return the adoption of any scheme of education
which is not the free choice of the governing
authorities.

194 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

Having said thus much on the question of Legis-
lative compulsion, we feel all the more free to ex-
press our own judgment as to the merits of the
question itself. The policy of the University in
excluding women from admission to its graduate
courses is an anomaly which we have always found
it difficult to understand. That old and conserva-
tive institution, Yale University, opened all of its
graduate classes to women years ago; Harvard has
for years admitted them to a very large proportion
of its graduate classes. The doors of the German
universities, in spite of the prevalence in Germany
of ideas as to woman's place in nature which have
long been outgrown in this country, have been
steadily thrown open more and more freely to prop-
erly qualified women students. Johns Hopkins is
almost alone among the important educational insti-
tutions of the world in refusing to serious and
earnest women students all participation in its
advantages.

This fact is, of course, not in itself conclusive of
the question. Johns Hopkins might be right even
if it stood absolutely alone. But the trouble is that
one looks in vain for a substantial argument of any
kind against the admission of women to the gradu-
ate courses of the University; and the remarkable
headway which has been made by the movement in
Germany, in face of the well-known backwardness
of general public opinion in that country on ques-
tions relating to women, is due to this total absence
of any solid argument that can be made for exclud-
ing from university privileges a woman who wishes
to pursue serious advanced study in any specialty.

WOMEN AND THE JOHNS HOPKINS 195

and who has qualified herself to do so. What has
had to be overcome is not reason, but inertia ; and,
with all due respect to the Johns Hopkins authori-
ties, the only conclusion to be drawn from their
course is that their fund of inertia in this particular
matter is exceptionally large.

To talk of the question as one of " coeducation "
is to use a misnomer. Upon the " coeducation " of
boys and girls opinions differ widely, and obvious
reasons can be urged against it. The question at
issue is not whether it is well for boys and girls to
get their college education in each other's company,
but whether there is any harm in grown men and
women, engaged in serious and special study, at-
tending the same lectures and working in the same
laboratories. We have yet to see an articulate and
intelligible argument in support of such a position.

In the case of the Johns Hopkins, it is urged that
many of the men who are graduate students find it
necessary to supply deficiencies by attending some
undergraduate classes also, and that women would
find themselves under the same necessity. But the
answer to this plea is extremely obvious. If it be
admitted that the presence of a few women grad-
uates in undergraduate classes would be disorgan-
izing to the undergraduate department — an admis-
sion which many will feel is negatived both by
theory and by experience — what can be simpler
than to admit women to graduate classes only?
If this makes the path of the woman graduate more
difficult, or if it excludes all except those who are
especially well prepared, so much the better, surely,
in the eyes of those who dread the influx of the sex.

196 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

It is strange, certainly, to hold that all women must
be excluded from all graduate classes because some
women have a need for some undergraduate classes.
Indeed, this objection affords indication rather of
that inertia of which we spoke above — and which
is a most natural and human quality — than of any-
thing else. Law or no law, it can hardly be that
the time is far distant when the Johns Hopkins
University will recognize so reasonable and unob-
jectionable a claim as that which women graduates
have to participation in its academic opportunities.

THE SAD PLIGHT OF THE STATE OF
MARYLAND

(March 19, 1900)

A little over a quarter of a century ago there died
in Baltimore a very wealthy man ; one who, begin-
ning as a poor Anne Arundel county boy, had
amassed a great fortune through his own successful
efforts. This man, having never married, was led to
conceive the strange notion that a good way to dis-
pose of his great estate upon his death would be to
devote the bulk of his wealth to two great public in-
stitutions ; and, looking over the field of opportunity
in that direction, he came to the deliberate conclusion
that the best thing he could do was to give half of it
for the foundation of a hospital, and half of it for
the foundation of a university. This, accordingly,
was the disposition he made of the bulk of his
fortune.

But this is not the strangest of the things that
happened through the death of this man. In Amer-
ica, the leaving of large fortunes to universities and
hospitals had been a very common thing, long be-
fore those days ; and, though the amounts in this case
were unusual, and indeed unprecedented as far as
single gifts were concerned, yet cumulative gifts
in other places had been so great that there was
nothing in the mere magnitude of the bequests to
make a very great stir in the world. What did
bring about this result was the curious notion that
possessed the trustees of both institutions to make

198 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

them surpass in excellence anything up to that
time known in America, and to make them, if pos-
sible, worthy the attention and regard of the highest
authorities in these matters the world over. And,
stranger still, they succeeded in doing so. The
university had not been established half a dozen
years before it was recognized as the foremost of
American universities in its standards, in the kind
of work it turned out, in the kind of scholars it
attracted; its graduates were sought after to fill
professorships in the colleges of the country from
Maine to Texas, and from New York to California ;
the great old foundations, like Harvard, were waked
up to follow its example; in every great new founda-
tion since made, whether it be Clark University in
Massachusetts, or the University of Chicago in
Illinois, or the Leland Stanford University in Cali-
fornia, its methods and purposes have served as the
chief model ; and in Europe the pre-eminence of the
new university among our American institutions of
learning was promptly acknowledged. The success
of the hospital was hardly . less striking ; it has
been one of the most perfect institutions of the
kind in the world, and, while doing a g^eat work
of humanity in the community in which it is situated,
has done most important service in the advancement
of medical science. Moreover, it has made possible
the brilliant success of the Medical School of the
University, which, established only a few years ago
through the liberality of Miss Garrett and others,
has at once taken rank as the foremost of the medical
schools of the country.
All this sounds very fine, does it not? But there

SAD PLIGHT OF MARYLAND 199

is a dark side to the picture. Through the failure
of the investment upon which the founder chiefly
relied to carry on the work of the University, that
institution finds itself called upon to ask aid from
the State. This shows the undesirability of such
displays of misdirected public spirit as the founda-
tion of universities. We were very well off in this
community without the Johns Hopkins University;
nobody asked Johns Hopkins to leave his money for
any such purpose. So long as his money was sufii-
cient to carry it on, well and good ; but when it comes
to asking for public aid, that is quite another matter.
Then look at the amount they ask for ! If it were a
matter of five or ten thousand dollars, the State
might be expected to grant it just out of good
nature, as it does grant it to scores of little charitable
and educational institutions that few persons ever
heard of; but fifty thousand dollars! Why, it's
monstrous. Fifty thousand dollars a year is actually
one-sixth the amount Wisconsin spends on her State
University, or Michigan on hers, and to ask Mary-
land to come as near as that to the absurd coddling
of the higher education which goes on in those
States is really ridiculous. It is true that the amount
expended on the various branches of the Johns Hop-
kins foundations is about $400,000 annually, and that
the State is asked for only $50,000 in order to main-
tain unimpaired that one of them which has had the
most brilliant history, and has done most to add to
the fame of our State and city, as well as to stimulate
the intellectual advancement of our own community ;
but the plain English of it is that these things are
not worth $50,000 a year. Besides, if they were,

200 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

all the University has to do is to cut its coat accord-
ing to its cloth, and if the present professors won't
stay with salaries cut down, it can get others who
will. Everybody knows there are lots of persons
hanging round throughout the country just waiting
for a chance at a professorship.

But the worst of all remains to be told. When
folks once get " notions " into their heads, there is
no telling what you may be in for. One of the most
annoying features of the situation is that a lot of
people — plain people, too, right here in Baltimore —
have become possessed with the idea that for the
Maryland Legislature to let the Johns Hopkins
University run down for want of $50,000 a year
would be a blow to the city and State, a sort of nega-
tive advertising which it would be worth while to
pay many times that amount to avoid. And the
worst of it is that there is certamly a great deal of
truth in this. Of course, neither the distinction nor
the benefit of possessing one of the foremost uni-
versities of the country is a thing of any real value
to a State or city. But unfortunately, while we
know this very well, the rest of the world labors
under an obstinate delusion to the contrary. We
may regret this as much as we please ; but we can-
not change it. It is unquestionably a fact that by a
large and influential part of the civilized world, in-
difference to the fate of such an institution as the
Johns Hopkins University will be interpreted as a
sign of lamentable backwardness and phenomenal
want of spirit on the part of the people of this State;
and, reluctantly as we come to the conclusion, we
are compelled to admit that this consideration seems

SAD PLIGHT OF MARYLAND 20I

to make it worth while to throw that $50,000 away
on the University rather than incur the injury to our
reputation that would come from not doing so. It
is a great pity the Legislature ever allowed the
pesky thing to be chartered.

14

THE MEDIAEVALISTS AND THE BALTIMORE
SCHOOLS

(May 8, 1900)

If, Upon judicial inquiry, it shall appear that the
law makes it impossible for this city to employ the
services of a citizen of another city for the Superin-
tendency of our schools, that will end the legal
aspect of the question of Mr. Van Sickle's appoint-
ment. Upon this question of law, we do not ven-
ture to assert any opinion of our own ; the point is
strictly technical, and none but professional lawyers
are competent to pass judgment on it.

But the occasion is one which should not be al-
lowed to pass without the utterance of some very
plain language on a matter infinitely broader than
the interpretation of the word " official " or " officer "
in a statute. The opportunity has not been allowed
to pass unimproved by those who represent mediae-
val narrowness or villagelike prejudice and exclu-
siveness; and it is eminently desirable that those
who take a more enlightened view of the interests
and aspirations of a modern city of 600,000 in-
habitants should make their sentiments upon the
subject clearly understood. The obscurantists have
hardly ventured so far as to come out in plain
language and declare that, in entering upon a new
phase of school organization in this great city, the
School Board's first concern should be to give a
good $4000 job to a Baltimorean, however much the
hundred thousand children in the schools might be

MEDIAEVALISTS AND SCHOOLS 203

benefited by securing the services of an outside man.
But they have been unable to conceal their delight
in the difficulty which seems to confront the Board
in consequence of its enlightened action. They have
not the courage to attack the principle; but they
give voice to their fourteenth-century satisfaction
by chuckling over any phase of the situation that
seems to give an opening to their petty spite.

One form which this dignified warfare has taken
is that of an attack upon the Board for its want of
" publicity." Now, everybody with a grain of sense
knows that in the discussion of such personal ques-
tions as were inextricably bound up with the ap-
pointment of a new Superintendent, secret sessions
were absolutely indispensable. The session in which
formal action was taken might have been public,
but the sessions in which the question was really
decided, if they were to be of any use, were neces-
sarily private. The choice was simply between sham
publicity and sham discussion. You either had to
have your real discussion in private, or not have it
at all. No one believes more strongly in real pub-
licity, wherever real publicity is practicable, than
does The News ; but we do not believe in buncombe
publicity, and we believe still less in buncombe
clamor for publicity.

Another phase of the mediaeval protest against the
utilization for the rising generations of Baltimore of
the best talent, training and experience available, is
more interesting than this, because it is more char-
acteristic. The talk about publicity is mere sham,
representing no feeling whatever, and is taken hold
of only as a stick accidentally lying around handy,

204 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

to give the Board a whack with. On the other hand,
the curious fling that has been made at the Johns
Hopkins University in connection with the episode
comes straight from the heart of the — we were
going to say mediaevalists, but that is far too good a
term, since the people of the Middle Ages were not,
so far as we can recall, anywhere hostile to universi-
ties. It is most singular, we are told by these wise-
acres, that, although the Johns Hopkins University
has been here twenty-five years, no one of the requi-
site training, capacity and attainments for the post of
Superintendent of Schools is to be found in the city.
We can imagine quite a little congregation of old
women of both sexes chuckling with a rare pleasure
at this brilliant attack. We dislike to interfere with
their mildly malignant enjoyment ; but it is possibly
worth while to .remind them that of the several
hundred Baltimoreans who have graduated at the
Johns Hopkins, nearly all are either lawyers, physi-
cians, clergymen, or business men ; and of the small
remainder who are engaged in teaching, all but the
merest handful are college professors in one spe-
cialty or another. It may have been very wicked in
them to engage in these callings, but the bitterest
enemy of the Johns Hopkins can hardly blame that
institution for permitting them to choose law or
medicine instead of school-teaching as a career.
That the University has made some pretty decent
successes out of Baltimore boys is generally ad-
mitted; one, for instance, has been professor at
Harvard and at the University of Michigan, and
has returned to hold one of the principal professor-
ships in the Johns Hopkins Medical School ; another

MEDIAEVALISTS AND SCHOOLS 205

has recently been chosen, at an extraordinarily early
age, for a most responsible Government position,
solely on the basis of the qualities he developed in
his University work; still another was for many
years chief of one of the most important divisions
of the United States Patent Office, giving up that
position only to take up a highly lucrative practice
as patent attorney; and there are many similar in-
stances, not to speak of the majority who have had
honorable careers here at home. But the University
has not sent out many young men to teach in the
public schools of Baltimore; and we don't blame
any old woman who pounces upon the opportunity
to point to this fact as proof of the utter unworthi-
ness of the institution.

To the snarling of the mediaevalists we have de-
voted more attention than it deserved. But upon the
principle really involved in this question of the
Superintendency too much stress cannot be laid. We
want to get for the headship of our schools not the
best man among a possible half dozen Baltimore men
who may be more or less fitted for the post, but the
best man among the thousand or ten thousand whom
the country affords. We want this most particularly
now, when, for the first time, a serious effort is
being made, by serious men, to bring the schools
up to a better state of efficiency. It would be the
next thing to a miracle if there were in Baltimore
just the man who is needed to put life into this
work; from the nature of the case, new blood is
required for it. The School Board acted in the spirit
of conservatism as well as in the spirit of progress
when, while they determined to choose for Superin-

206 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

tendent a man combining personal ability and energy
and tact with long training elsewhere in successful
school methods, they retained as Assistant Superin-
tendents the efficient and conscientious gentlemen
who had been so long identified with our own
schools. For this enlightened policy— dictated, as
every one knows, solely by the desire to promote the
welfare of the children of Baltimore — ^they deserve
the thanks and the cordial support of every public-
spirited citizen. Their every success should be
greeted with appreciative recognition ; any difficulty
with which they may meet should be felt a matter
for public regret, and should be lightened as far as
possible. That there should be evinced in any re-
spectable quarter a disposition the opposite of this
is just cause for chagrin and shame to any patriotic
Baltimorean.

THE NEWS IN THE CAMPAIGN
(September 26, 1900)

The Presidential campaign is settling down to
its final stage. The preliminary fighting has been,
in the main, on extremely curious lines. So far as
regards the Eastern section of the country, and
particularly Maryland, the attempt has been made
on the Bryan side to shout up imperialism as not
only the " paramount " but practically the only
issue; while on the Republican side it has been
sought to deny that there is anything at all in the
issue of imperialism, and to maintain that the issue
of the currency was the only thing to be considered.

The News has not subscribed to either of these
views. It has been opposed all along to the attitude
of the Administration toward the Philippines, and
it has neither belied that opposition during the cam-
paign, nor denied that the question was one of pro-
found importance to the country, and one that
legitimately entered into the campaign. It would
have heartily welcomed a Democratic candidate
representing views which it could approve on the
most vital issues of government at home, and at the
same time representing opposition to the present
tendencies toward a policy of dominion and con-
quest. On the other hand, it has denounced as ridic-
ulous the pretensions made by some extravagant
anti-imperialists that the re-election of McKinley
would mean the indorsement of a "would-be dic-
tator" or the subversion of our free institutions.

208 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

The issue of imperialism is an important one, but
it is not of such a nature as to rule out the con-
sideration of all other dangers which may beset the
country.

Of those dangers, by far the most pressing is
that of a revival of the silver menace in any form ;
and there is no form in which that menace could
be revived which could compare in seriousness with
the election to the Presidency of the man who em-
bodies in his own person all the fanaticism and all
the persistence of the most uncompromising advo-
cates of the i6-to-i doctrine. The idea that, in the
event of Bryan's election, the Senate is sure to
protect us from the peril of free silver has been
shown again and again to be unfounded ; but even
were this otherwise, a very small modicum of fore-
sight should be sufficient, one would think, to en-
able any one to realize that the occupancy of the
Presidential chair by Mr. Bryan would not only
revive the silver issue, but place it upon a footing
more formidable and more menacing than it has
ever before occupied. That this would mean in-
calculable injury to the country, it is difficult to see
how any one can deny who took the Cleveland
side in his long fight on silver during his two
administrations, or who left the Democratic party
on the silver issue in 1896.

All these things The News has repeatedly said
during the campaign; and one thing more it has
said which is of the most vital bearing on the mat-
ter. The danger from Bryan on the currency ques-
tion is not to be looked upon merely in the light of
an offset to the merits of his position on imperial-

THE NEWS IN THE CAMPAIGN 209

ism; it throws the gravest possible doubt on his
being in a position to accomplish anything ^ven for
the cause upon which his position is, in our judg-
ment, sound. As we said early in the campaign:
" If confidence were unsettled, business depressed,
and employment of labor greatly diminished, is it
to be supposed that the resulting reaction against
Bryan would be limited to economic matters? That
is not the way public feeling works in this country
— or in any other, for that matter. If a man has
clearly identified himself in the public eye with the
cause of repudiation, and has thereby made a mess
of the home aflfairs of the country, it may be set
down as a certainty that no line of demarcation will
be drawn by which his policy on colonial matters
will be made exempt from the general snowing-
under to which he and his party will be subjected at
the first opportunity."

Time and the course of the campaign have but
served to emphasize these considerations. We re-
gret very much to find no alternative from McKin-
ley that holds out any substantial expectation of
furnishing a remedy for the evils with which the
McKinley Administration is identified. We regret
very much that a protest against those evils at the
polls on the sixth of November can be made only
at the cost of introducing dangers most serious in
themselves, and of such a character, moreover, as
to preclude any genuine hope that the author of
them will be able to accomplish substantial good
in any direction. But this is the conviction which
has been more and more forced upon us.

Nevertheless, we are not going to throw up our

2IO ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

cap for McKinley. Two or three readers of this
paper have written to express their dissatisfaction
with the coldness of The News in the present cam-
paign, and with the appearance in its columns of
editorials commenting adversely on both sides.
But that was just what we have felt compelled to
do by the situation. Half-heartedness is certainly
not a fault to which The News is at all addicted.
But there are times when, to do justice to the reali-
ties of the case, one cannot adopt the language of
advocacy. We believe that the best interests of the
country will be served by the defeat of Bryan ; but
we realize that, in the minds of many conscientious
persons, thinking as we do, but forming a different
estimate of the elements involved, the objections to
an apparent indorsement of McKinley are of such
a character that they cannot reconcile their con-
science to a vote for him under the circumstances.
We shall not endeavor to cram McKinley down the
throats of these people. We have pointed out, and
shall continue to point out, the realities of the case
as we see them. That in the light of those reali-
ties — as distinguished from the merely abstract
merits of platform declarations — the election of
Bryan would be by far the greater of the two evils
between which the country has to choose, we are
more and more convinced ; and that conviction may
become still further strengthened by the develop-
ments of the remaining weeks of the campaign.
But we cannot see our way to satisfying readers
who desire from The News a " hurrah " campaign
for McKinley and a suppression of serious criticism
of the Republican candidates or of Republican
advocates upon due occasion.

WILLIAM L. WILSON
(October i8, 1900)

In the death of William L. Wilson at Lexington
yesterday a life was closed which, for purity, ele-
vation of purpose, and self-sacrificing devotion to
public duty, may well challenge comparison with that
of any American of our time. The commanding
position in his party which came to Mr. Wilson at a
critical period in its history came to him solely as
a tribute to his ability, his sincerity, his zeal for the
principles he represented, and the personal regard
and confidence which he so universally inspired. In
some respects, his attainment of such a position was
literally unique. Not only did he practise none of the
arts of the professional politician, but his person-
ality was devoid of most of those attributes which are
usually thought necessary to the acquiring of high
political eminence in our country. He was a man of
extremely slight physique, and of little or no " mag-
netism." There was an engaging friendliness, sim-
plicity and good humor about him that was certainly
attractive, and the total absence of any kind of pre-
tension went far to making those with whom he
came in contact feel kindly toward him ; but he was
anything but effusive, and indeed was given to
expressing far less than his real feelings in personal
intercourse. Moreover, he was the " scholar in
politics " in a far truer sense than that in which these
words are usually applied ; for he was not merely a
man in politics who had once been a scholar, but a

212 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

man who retained the tastes and habits of a true
scholar and industrious reader throughout his career.
That, without the aid of qualities which are so nearly
indispensable to the acquiring of a wide and power-
ful influence over a large mass of men, he should
have become the enthusiastically followed leader of
a great party on the floor of the House of Represen-
tatives was due to the fact that, in addition to his
intellectual ability, his unflinching integrity, his de-
votion to his work, and the manifest sincerity of his
character, he possessed two qualities which gave
volume and force to the impression which those
sterling attributes produced. These were, first, a
quiet geniality which made him popular wherever he
was personally known; and secondly a gift of elo-
quence which made his speeches upon all great occa-
sions not only the utterances of a keen thinker but
the moving appeals of a true orator.

The work with which Mr. Wilson's name will be
specially associated in history is the framing and
passage of the Tariff Act of 1894. His exhausting
labors in the preparation of the tariff bill, and in the
conduct of the long debate upon it, were, it can
hardly be doubted, the real cause of his untimely
death. Coming, as they did, shortly after the strain
incident to his leadership of the Democrats in the
House during the intense struggle over the repeal
of the silver-purchase clause of the Sherman act,
these labors undermined a constitution never very
robust, and wrought the damage which culminated
fatally yesterday morning. It was a cruel fate that
caused the experiment of that reform in the tariff
which had so long been the object of Democratic

WILLIAM L. WILSON 213

endeavor to be made at a time when conditions were
such as to make an immediate favorable showing
quite impossible. Under any circumstances, a re-
form of the tariff would naturally bring about at first
some disturbance and loss ; but in 1894 the country
was in the early stages of a business depression
which required years to run its course, just as the
business depression started by the panic of 1873
required years to run its course. Popular dis-
content resulted in defeat of the Democrats in the
elections; demoralization of the Democratic party
and its surrender to the silver element followed. In
1896, the Republicans gained control of Congress
and the Presidency, and immediately undid the work
of the Wilson act. Time had not been given for
anything like a fair trial of its working, and there is
not a shadow of reason for the assertions so glibly
made that it was a failure. Normal conditions of
prosperity did not set in until long after the passage
of the Dingley act, and the increase of manufacturing
exports which has been so much commented on
began, on a great scale, during the Wilson act
period. The depression beginning with the panic of
1893 was precisely parallel, in character and dura-
tion, with that which began with the panic of 1873 ;
and yet glib and shallow writers will doubtless con-
tinue to set down this depression as proof of the
disastrous character of the tariff legislation of 1894.
No tribute more striking to the high worth of Mr.
Wilson could be cited than the universal respect in
which he has been held in spite of the belief honestly
entertained by so many that he represented not only
a mistaken but an infinitely disastrous economic

214 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

policy. No better proof can be given than this to
the youth of America that character and solid
ability can triumph against all odds, and achieve
a reward far more gratifying than can be attained
by the most specious qualities or by the most
skillful intrigue. To those who knew Mr. Wilson's
life well, however, this but expresses a small part of
what his career signifies. The modest simplicity of
his life when he was one of the leading men of the
nation; the total lack of ostentation with which he
devoted himself to the welfare of the republic, not
sparing himself even when his very life was evi-
dently at stake ; the steady pursuit of duty, whether
in public office or in private station — these are the
things which Mr. Wilson represented and in which
he was most distinguished from the general run of
men who are in the public eye. In the example of
such men, and in their emulation by the rising gen-
eration, lies the chief hope of this great Republic;
for it is the example of stainless integrity, unflinch-
ing courage, and steady devotion to the truest ideals
of American citizenship.

AT THE END OF FOUR YEARS
(March 4, 1901)

When Mr. McKinley succeeded to the Presidency
of the United States, four years ago today, a fairly
definite impression of the man's qualities was cur-
rent among his fellow-citizens of both parties, other
than extreme partisans on either side. He was a
man whose personal traits aroused neither enthusi-
astic admiration nor impassioned enmity. He was
careful, moderate — on everything except the tariff
— conciliatory, diplomatic, prudent. On no great
question upon which the ground was difficult to
tread had he at any time figured as a leader.
Throughout the intensely interesting period which
preceded his nomination — the period during which
the Chicago platform was incubating, and the
Bryanization of the Democratic party was fore-
shadowed — ^his voice had been conspicuous by its
silence. Although the leading candidate for the
Republican nomination, no appeals were adequate
to induce him to declare his attitude on the one
great question of the day. Not until, through the
recognition by others of the clear path at once of
duty and of party policy, it had become established
that the Republican party must anticipate the un-
compromising declaration of the Democrats for free
silver by an equally uncompromising declaration
for the gold standard, did Mr. McKinley make it
known where he stood on that vital question. And
it was as the exponent of this issue, which he had

2l6 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

done his utmost to evade, that he was elected Presi-
dent in one of the most exciting campaigns in the
country's history.

Coming into the White House with this record,
it was very generally expected that he would make
a dull and commonplace President, signalizing his
Administration by no marked exhibition either of
the qualities of leadership or of high powers in the
management of affairs. Looking back over the
quadrennial period which has now expired, many
will revise the judgment formed at its beginning,
either for better or for worse. Fate has placed Mr.
McKinley in the centre of great and stirring events,
and he is, for better or worse, of necessity a larger
figure than anyone could have anticipated when he
first entered upon the chief magistracy of the nation.
That he has shown adroitness in management, an
ability to shoulder heavy burdens, a power of going
through new and unexpected tasks of great com-
plexity and difficulty, a skill in avoiding blunders
when there was ample opportunity to make them —
all this in such a degree as to raise one's estimate
of his general ability far above that which prevailed
even among his friends four years ago — we think
cannot be fairly denied. Few American Presidents
have been confronted with problems so strange and
complicated, and Mr. McKinley has stood the strain
of them in a way which shows the possession of
remarkable administrative ability.

But, after admitting all this, the question remains,
Was not the old estimate of the man fundamentally
correct ? Has not Mr. McKinley's time-serving dal-
liance with the currency question proved to be the

AT THE END OF FOUR YEARS 217

true index of his character and career ? Is not the
country now reaping the legitimate fruits of having
a man of that type at the head of its affairs in a time
of crisis ? Has not the Ship of State been under the
guidance of a captain skillful, indeed, in avoiding
the rocks or shallows which may beset his course
from day to day, but sailing without a chart and
drifting hither or thither as the wind may blow
from one quarter or another? And what shall it
avail us though we gain all the islands of the sea
if we shall have lost the gliding principles which
have been the soul of our national life?

Mr. McKinley drifted into the Cuban war, and
he drifted into the policy of imperialism. Many
extravagant accusations have been made against
him, and it may indeed be said to have been his good
fortune that some of those who might have been
his most formidable opponents have discredited
their authority by the fantastic exaggeration of their
charges. Mr. McKinley is not a Nero, or a Caesar ;
neither is he the truckling and obedient servant of
Mark Hanna. He is neither the despotic master
of Congress nor a trembling weakling, anxious to
turn all responsibility over to that body — ^though
both these accusations have often been made by the
same person, and almost in the same breath. Wil-
liam McKinley the President is, in essentials, just
what William McKinley the candidate was — ^an
adroit politician playing his game with an undevi-
ating devotion to his one principle, opportunism.
When driven into a very close comer, he is capable
of going so far as to take both sides of the question
at once — as he did on one most momentous occasion,

15

2l8 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

when he sent to Congress that famous war message
with a peace postscript which marked the end of
his efforts to stave off the Spanish war. But when
the situation is less critical than this, he is capable
of far more pronounced conduct. He is not a weak-
ling. Having felt his way for a sufficient length of
time on the question of expansion, he took the entire
responsibility of dictating the terms of peace; and
a little later on, he issued that proclamation of
" benevolent assimilation " which was the real cross-
ing of the Rubicon in our imperialist policy. It is
not in capacity or willingness for action that he is
lacking; where he is wanting is in the possession
of a fund of abiding principle upon which he can
draw in time of need, and upon the possession of
which by its chief executive the preservation of the
character of the Republic must largely depend.

The inauguration ceremonies today will doubtless
be the most imposing that have ever been witnessed
in Washington. The scale on which the festivities
are to be carried on will be typical of the growth of
the nation in numbers, in wealth, in trade, in mate-
rial prosperity, and in many things which are better
than material prosperity. America has much to be
proud of today; in some directions, more to be
proud of than ever before. But as President
McKinley is about to enter upon his second term
in the White House, he does so with more doubt in
the minds of his countrymen as to the integrity of
the American ideal than has existed in the minds
of the people since the Civil War. With a staunch
Republican paper in Chicago declaring that the
Cuban conditions just adopted "have written hy-

AT THE END OF FOUR YEARS 219

pocrisy and shameless perfidy like a blister across
the hitherto fair and untarnished brow of American
honor " ; with another staunch Republican paper in
Philadelphia inclosing in mourning rules its com-
ment on the same act ; with the last Republican pred-
ecessor of Mr. McKinley expressing the gravest
forebodings as to the consequences of our present
policy — with these and other signs of the doubts
which beset so many earnest men as to the direction
in which we are moving, it is fitting that any Ameri-
can, however unquestioning his patriotism, should
look upon this day as one rather for serious reflec-
tion than for mere rejoicing. The President him-
self, we feel very sure, is not unmindful of this
aspect of the situation. No- more loyal service can
be rendered to him as he enters upon another four
years of arduous work and high responsibility than
to impress upon him that, whatever may for a time
appear on the surface, the American people are still
animated by a profound devotion to the grand prin-
ciples upon which this Republic was founded, and
that, whenever the issue may be fairly joined, they
will insist that these principles shall prevail.

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT AND THE

CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY

(March ii, 1901)

Last Sunday the Rev. W. A. Crawford-Frost, in
his sermon, made this reference to the work of the
Charity Organization Society, and of others who
act in accordance with the general principles of that
association :

Organized pride says to the tramp: "Go away. Do
not bother me. Go to 309 South Sharp street and saw
wood. You say you have been there for three days and
had to leave. No matter. You say you have heart trouble
and cannot saw wood. No matter." " Send him away, for
he crieth after us."

Yesterday, he returned to the subject, and intro-
duced his discussion of it with these words:

Let me say at the outset that I have the highest regard
for the good intentions of prominent workers in organized
charity. The fact that they are engaged in this work
shows them to be good men, but that does not blind me
to the fallacies in their position. The stand which they
take may be sane. It may be expedient, but it is in direct
opposition to the command of Jesus. This can be seen
from a comparison of the following parallel columns:

"Give to him that asketh "Homeless men should
thee, and from him that receive neither money nor
would borrow of thee turn food at the door. Such aid
not thou away." — Sermon only increases the number
on the Mount, Matt, v., 42. of drunken and vicious

loafers who live in volun-
tary idlen^ess," etc., etc. —
Charities Reference Card,
Edition of 1899.

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 221

It is satisfactory to note that in using the expres-
sion " organized pride " Mr. Crawford-Frost did
not deliberately intend to stigmatize the spirit of
the Charity Organization people ; he now expressly
recognizes their "good intentions" and bases his
condemnation on "the fallacies in their position."
We hope to show, before we get through, on which
side the fallacy lies.

The position of the reverend gentleman is stated
in these questions, relating to the two quotations in
parallel columns above:

Question i. How is a man to obey both these injunctions
at once?

Question 2. If he has to disobey either, which shall it be,
God's or man's?

Question 3. Which breathes the more noble spirit?

The third question may be answered at once. The
Sermon on the Mount is the noblest and most in-
spiring appeal to what is highest and purest in man's
nature that the human race has ever received; the
directions in the Charity Organization Society's
card are rules for practical guidance as to how —
in the opinion of the framers of them — ^the least
harm and the most good can be accomplished in a
certain definite class of contingencies. It is absurd
to condemn a set of practical rules because the Ser-
mon on the Mount " breathes a more noble spirit " ;
there is not a law or regulation of any kind in force
in any country in the world which would not be
open to precisely the same condemnation.

But the kernel of the reverend gentleman's case
is in the other two questions; and the fallacy im-
plied in them can be very plainly pointed out. He

222 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

assumes that the choice people actually make is
between following the injunctions of the Sermon
on the Mount just as they stand and following the
rules of the Charity Organization Society. But he
must know very well that not a single person of his
congregation does actually make that choice. To
give a little dole now and then to a beggar is not
a fulfillment of the injunction " Give to him that
asketh thee " ; neither is lending a half-dollar once
in a while to a poor devil the carrying out of the
injunction " From him that would borrow of thee
turn not away." Probably not a single person who
heard Mr. Crawford-Frost had ever so much as
entertained the idea of acting upon the advice he
gave them yesterday, " If they steal your overcoat,
let them take your cloak also," though they had
read a thousand times the corresponding precept in
the Sermon on the Mount. The alternative the
reverend gentleman discusses is not at all the alter-
native with which the men and women whom he
was addressing are confronted. The question with
them is simply whether they shall yield to their
benevolent impulses and do a little act of immediate
material good to the beggar before them, without
considering the future consequences of their con-
duct, or curb that impulse because they have learned
that they can do more good and less harm to the
poor in other ways. Not one of them is going to
act upon the doctrines of the Sermon on the Mount
regarded as literal rules of practical conduct; not
one of them is even going to try to do so. What
the best of them will do is to endeavor to act in
something of the beautiful and unselfish spirit con-

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 223

veyed in that inspired utterance. To assert that he
who gives a pittance to every beggar who asks it —
at extremely little sacrifice to himself, which is the
case in at least nine-tenths of all instances — is neces-
sarily displaying more of that noble spirit than he
who does not give unless he knows something of
the circumstances of the case is to take an extremely
low view of the meaning of that lofty teaching.

Those who have given serious thought to the
problem of poverty do not advise people to give
less ; they only advise them to give with more care.
They do not say, despise the poor ; on the contrary,
they say, consider the poor worthy of your careful
thought and not merely of an occasional sixpence.
They do not say, do less good to the needy; they
say, take care lest, in indulging your impulse of
kindness, you gratify yourself at the cost of the
permanent welfare of those whom you shove along
the road of pauperism, and to whom, after giving
your dole, you never give a second thought. Most
of us can easily find in the circle of our immediate
knowledge enough objects of well-placed charity to
absorb all that we are in the habit of giving, and
more; and in doing this, the Charity Organization
Society bids every one of us Godspeed. What they
ask us not to do is to give to every comer a little
alms which costs us no sacrifice, but which makes
easy to those weak in spirit that downward path the
following of which means a lasting farewell to self-
respect, to decency, to honesty, to all that makes life
worth living.

THE BENEVOLENT DESPOTISM OF THE
BILLIONAIRES

(November 14, 1901)

Another great step toward the control of the
leading economic interests by a few small groups of
financial potentates was taken yesterday. By the
incorporation of the Northern Securities Company,
capital $400,000,000, preparation was made for the
full control by the Morgan-Hill combination of the
Northern Pacific and the Great Northern Railways,
and of their leased lines, including the Burlington.
That this object, which is now immediately in pros-
pect, does not define the limits of the movement may
be set down as practically certain. The bringing in
of the Union Pacific and the Southern Pacific, thus
completing the control of the entire trans-Missis-
sippi railroad system of the United States, is un-
doubtedly contemplated as the goal to be arrived
at in a not distant future.

These gigantic transactions, designed and exe-
cuted by men of the highest order of financial genius,
have so many bearings, and are of such profound
significance and importance, that it would be an act
of temerity for almost anyone to undertake to discuss
them in all their aspects. There are two respects,
however, in which they obviously appeal to the
general interest, and call for some words of com-
ment. On the stock-brokering side they present
phenomena such as, only a few years ago, would
have been regarded as almost fabulous. The mere

DESPOTISM OF BILLIONAIRES 225

recasting of the organic connections of these vast
interests — just as has been the case with the great
industrial corporations, of which the United States
Steel Corporation sets the high-water mark — ^has
given opportunities for those engineering the deals
to make colossal fortunes at a stroke of the pen.
Great consolidations are effected for the promotion
of the future profits of the capitalists involved ; and
it is the public, not the profiting capitalists, who are
asked to pay the bonus for this golden transforma-
tion. Just as soon as Mr. Morgan gets his hand on
the machine, every one of its parts becomes en-
dowed — ^at least for the time being — with a new
value in the market. The public pay the price, and
those in the secret get the profit. Whether the in-
vesting public will come out unscathed in the end
remains to be seen. Everything is charming just
now ; but who knows how long the skies will remain
so smiling? The prices which rule today for securi-
ties, lifted as though by magic to a sudden height,
may not prove to be justified when experience shall
have covered not months, but years. When a
change to the bad sets in, and the drop comes, the
great operators will be standing from under, and
the little people, and the not very big people, will
have to suffer the consequences.

As for the interests of the public at large, it is
plain that, in the great central requisites of trade and
industry — ^transportation, coal, steel and the rest —
these interests are being relegated more and more to
the control of a " benevolent despotism." Any des-
potism which is not absolute is of necessity more or
less benevolent; it must be so for the sake of self-

226 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

preservation, if from no other motive. Moreover,
in the case of an economic despotism, conduct which
is directed toward the welfare of the commercial
world at large is often dictated as an essential to the
continuance of economic opportunities. Whatever
may have been the exact inside history, for ex-
ample, of the action by which the Morgan interests
and the Kuhn-Loeb interests averted a panic last
May, through permitting the Northern Pacific
" shorts " to settle their unperformable obligations
upon a reasonable basis, certain it is that this action,
while humane and merciful in itself, was essential to
the continuance of the grand financiering projects
of the parties who performed this act of clemency.
Such a panic as would have resulted had the enforce-
ment of obligations been insisted on would have
knocked the bottom out of the great projects of the
financial kings, as surely as it would have brought
ruin to hundreds of lesser operators, and distress to
the country at large.

It cannot be denied, then, that in many ways the
concentration of financial and industrial power in a
few potent hands is of direct and unmistakable
benefit. In matters less dramatic than this of the
averted panic, claims of similar benefit have been
made, and made with much appearance of reason.
Thus the New York Times, a day or two ago, in an
able editorial on " The Steel Corporation and
Prices," points out very forcibly that the present
situation in the iron and steel market would, under
the normal play of free competition, justify and
actually bring about extraordinarily high prices for
iron and steel. The Steel Corporation, says the

DESPOTISM OF BILLIONAIRES 227

Times, has steadily refused to permit prices to be
raised to a figure which it could easily have exacted
for the time being under the extraordinary pressure
of the present demand. " It requires no great im-
agination," the Times argues, "to describe what
would have happened in the iron and steel markets
at any time within the past six months, and especi-
ally within the past six days, if the Steel Corporation
had not been formed. We should have seen a rapid
advance in prices of raw material and finished prod-
ucts, and a great speculative activity in pig-iron,
billets, sheets, tinplates and merchant steel. Dealers
would have placed all the orders which they could
get accepted, and prices to consumers would have
taken a rocket flight. Then would have begun a
brief era of speculative importations. Meanwhile,
consumers would have begun to lose confidence,
enterprises predicated upon the use of iron and steel
in large quantities would have been postponed, rail-
roads would have delayed purchases, and a feeling
of uncertainty would have taken possession of all
in interest. This would have checked the advance
and perhaps turned the movement in the opposite
direction. What would have happened then every
one who has been through an iron boom in previous
years will know without telling. For those who
have not, we need only say that the market would
have suddenly and utterly collapsed, and for an un-
certain period we should have had the ' hard sled-
ding' so freely predicted but not yet experienced,
nor in sight."

That a regulating and restraining influence such
as can be exercised, and upon occasion has been

228 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

exercised, by these great repositories of industrial
and financial force may often be highly beneficial
will, we believe, be conceded by candid critics. But
there is more thafi one reason why this circumstance
cannot be accepted as a satisfactory recompense for
the evils and the dangers attendant upon this tre-
mendous concentration of power. It is not in accord
with the healthy instincts of a virile people to permit
their welfare to be parceled out to them through the
good will, or the good sense, of a few individuals,
even if the possession of these qualities could always
be counted upon. Moreover, great as is the power
possessed by those who make and unmake these vast
financial combinations, the natural conditions upon
which, in the last resort, even they must depend
for success are still mightier in their potency. The
control of the transportation facilities of half a con-
tinent involves the dealing with forces and conditions
too complex and various to be held tightly in the
grooves of any syndicate's financial policy. Finally,
it is yet to be seen whether, in the skillful averting
of financial panics and even in the prolongation of a
period of bustling activity, the calculated policy of
the magnates will prove better in the long run than
would the rough-and tumble of ordinary competition.
The great engineers have strengthened retaining
walls and prevented floods, where lesser people
might have been unable to cope with the waters;
but are they not only putting off the evil day? Is
it not their policy to prolong a boom so long as there
is any chance of keeping the market high? Will
not the pressure at last .become too heavy even for
them to hold back? And then, when the break

DESPOTISM OF BILLIONAIRES 229

comes, will it not be disastrous beyond all prec-
edent? These are questions which cannot be waved
aside by mere general optimism, and which the
future alone can answer.

THE ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY

(December 31, 1901)

At the close of the joint session of the American
Economic Association and the American Historical
Society at Washington last night, a few remarks
were made by Professor Cheyney of the University
of Pennsylvania, which were received with evident
relish and approval by a very large part of the audi-
ence present, representing the scholarship of the
country in these departments, and were greeted with
unusually hearty applause. The subject under dis-
cussion was " The Economic Interpretation of His-
tory," a phrase by which is generally understood
that view which seeks to explain every important
phenomenon in human history as an outcome of
economic forces, as well as to discover an economic
thread which is the clue to the development of man-
kind as a whole. The theory had been outlined
in a previous paper by Professor Seligman of
Columbia in a form so cautious and moderate
as almost completely to disarm criticism; but Pro-
fessor Cheyney took it not as it might be when
shorn of all its aggressiveness, but such as it is in
actual practice by those who are under the sway of
its influence. And he proceeded to insert into the
theory a few swift and piercing stabs, which, while
leaving the theory in a decidedly damaged condition,
appeared to afford very considerable mental relief
to the audience. In a word. Professor Cheyney
declared that the way to interpret history is to go to
the facts of history and find out what they mean ; not

INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY 231

to approach them with a ready-made explanation,
and then arrange the facts to fit the explanation.
The historian, he said, confronted with any particu-
lar historic epoch, goes to the facts of it, and tries
to ascertain what is the order in which they marshal
themselves when subjected to intelligent and im-
partial examination ; the economic-interpretation
man goes to them with his mind made up as to
which class of facts come first and foremost, and
the whole array of evidence is consequently twisted
out of shape, individual facts lose their natural
significance or are lost sight of altc^ether, and the
truth of history is essentially sacrificed to the de-
mands of a preconceived notion.

What Professor Cheyney said- — and it is to be
regretted that a verbatim report of his trenchant
remarks is not available — ^about the errors of a set
of doctrinaire scholars is unfortunately applicable
to the attitude of a large number of persons ex-
tremely influential in public affairs and in the mould-
ing of public opinion. The world has been swept,
during the past decade, by a wave of economic
thought which is so distinctly doctrinaire and so
imperiously dogmatic as to be comparable almost to
some of those waves of religious fanaticism which,
from time to time, have so profoundly affected the
history of the world. There is something of fascina-
tion in the bizarre picturesqueness, something of a
dominant quality in the brutal simplicity, of the doc-
trine that all of the great tableau of human history
is merely a by-product of economic struggle; that
the sacrifices of heroes, the aspirations of saints,
the intrigues of ambitious tyrants, the resistance of
inflexible patriots, have served indeed to make the

232 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

story more interesting and to keep alive the spir-
itual nature of man, but have had hardly more
influence on the course of history than do the
bubbles on the surface of a rushing stream upon
its sure progress to its destined outlet. It may be
said that this is an extravagant statement of the
doctrine, and that nobody holds such an opinion.
Whether the statement is accurate or not, as repre-
senting opinions which, for instance, Mr. Chamber-
lain or Captain Mahan would be willing expressly to
avow, is of very little consequence ; it is the doctrine
which underlies their attitude toward the great
questions of the time, and which has had a mighty
effect, through the acts of the one and the words of
the other, upon the conduct of the two great English-
speaking peoples. It is a doctrine which has just
enough of truth in it to make it terribly dangerous ;
while it has so much falsehood in it that it leads to
absurd and monstrous delusions as to the facts of
the past, and to confident forecasts of the future
which are utterly untrustworthy. No better service
could be rendered by a keen historian than to expose
to the destructive analysis of genuine history some
of the glittering generalizations that have been
the fuel upon which this flame of false doctrine has
been fed, and help the public at large to estimate at
its true value the rampant materialism of the day.
Secretary Long's speech at the launching of the
Missouri is the latest illustration of the pernicious
and blinding effect of this false attitude; but the
atmosphere of every country is impregnated with it,
and it prevails as much in once-idealist Germany
as in the land of Joe Chamberlain or in that of the
illustrious Beveridge of Indiana.

A QUARTER-CENTURY OF THE JOHNS
HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

(February 22, 1902)

When an advance is made in any field of intellec-
tual endeavor, it is almost invariably the case that
the award of the honor due to the originator of it is
involved in more or less uncertainty. Too often
it is made the subject of prolonged and acrimonious
controversy. Even when this is not the case, the
honor seldom falls with entire definiteness upon a
single recipient, but is divided among several. In
the field of invention, the steamboat, the telegraph,
and the telephone furnish familiar examples; the
promulgation of the great doctrine of the origin of
species by natural selection was prevented only by
the magnanimity of both Darwin and Wallace from
being made the source of such a personal contro-
versy as would have dimmed the lustre of that
epoch-making achievement; the sublimated atmos-
phere of mathematical research did not make New-
ton and Leibnitz immune from the bitterness of rival
claims to the creation of the calculus. That these
things so often arise is due, of course, to the fact
that, great as a given forward step may be, it is
seldom taken until the ground is prepared for it;
and when the ground is prepared, there is generally
more than one man of power or genius ready to
make the advance.

In the case of the Johns Hopkins University, it
is a notable fact that no dispute has arisen in any

16

234 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

quarter as to the uniqueness of her special title to
glory. This is the more remarkable because, as in
those other cases of which we have been speaking,
the time was ripe for the new achievement, and for
a number of years there had been stirrings in the
direction of it, at various seats of learning in
different parts of the country. The Johns Hopkins
University was the first in America to embody the
ideals, the spirit and the methods of true university
work ; but there had been, at half a score of colleges
and universities in the country, special courses for
graduates, giving university opportunities in one
direction or another. It is to the credit of the older
universities that they have never, so far as we are
aware, pointed to these fragmentary efforts at uni-
versity work as belittling the title of the Johns Hop-
kins to the position of leadership which is her due.
On the contrary, they have manifested from the first
the most whole-hearted and generous recognition
of the splendid service which our Baltimore Univer-
sity has done for the cause of learning in America.
She has been accorded, with one voice, the signal
honor of having lifted the plane of university edu-
cation in America to a new elevation; of having
placed it, for the first time, alongside that of the
universities of the Old World in which the advance-
ment, and not the mere dissemination, of human
knowledge is the aim constantly held in view. How
complete is the recognition of this grand service,
how thoroughly the pride that we in Baltimore take
in the great work of the Johns Hopkins is echoed
in the appreciation of the representatives of learning
throughout America, has never been so impressively

QUARTER-CENTURY OF JOHNS HOPKINS 235

shown as in the celebration now in progress of the
completion of the University's first quarter-century.
The history of the Johns Hopkins is, in its broad
lines, too well known to Baltimore readers to require
rehearsal at this time; and the significance of that
history has been too often pointed out in these col-
umns to call for renewed exposition now. Her
splendid record is familiar to us all; it is not a
novelty to see her laurels displayed. To lovers of
the Johns Hopkins, here in Baltimore, the most
moving feature of this celebration has been the
gathering together of the faithful sons of the Uni-
versity from every quarter of the country. As
emphasizing the national character of her influence,
this might be regarded as of sufficient interest ; but
the same conclusion could be easily drawn from a
table of statistics. What the gathering of Hopkins-
ians, old and young, from North and South and
East and West, signifies is something more than the
intellectual influence which all know she has exer-
cised. It attests the depth of the sentiment which is
felt by these fellow-workers in the cause of learn-
ing toward the institution in which their highest
ideals and standards of intellectual striving were
formed. Mere piling up of knowledge would be
almost as dreary a pursuit as mere piling up of
money, were it not informed with genuine sentiment ;
and the gatherings of this week have given signal
evidence that such sentiment is not wanting among
the soldiers of science and learning.

MEDIOCRITY AND GREATNESS

(March 17, 1902)

The remark recently made by a prcwuinent college
president to the effect that the Twentieth Century
was opening upon a race devoid of great men has
led to the usual variety of comments upon such as-
sertions. The remark, as quoted in the Boston
Transcript, is that the Twentieth Century has
dawned upon a very mediocre race. " But medioc-
rity," says our Boston contemporary, " is a relative
term; as much so as superiority. The superiority
of one period may be the mediocrity of a succeeding
or subsequent period. It is undoubtedly so in this
case. It is unquestionably true that there is not
such a widely separating chasm between the great
and the small in the present year of grace as there
was a hundred or even fifty years ago. There may
be as many intellectual Mont Blancs now as then,
but the inferior elevations have advanced in stature
and reduced the lordly proportions of the monarch
of the range by the process."

This expresses a view which is widely accepted,
but which is, in our judgment, radically false. There
is no valid reason to suppose that the gap between
the truly great man and the mediocre man is any less
today than it ever was, nor that, given the same
quality of greatness, and an equal stimulus and
occasion for its exercise, the man who measures up
to the historic standard of greatness would not be
marked out with the same distinctness, and recog-

MEDIOCRITY AND GREATNESS ^Z7

nized with the same honors, in the Twentieth Cen-
tury as in any previous age. What is true in regard
to persons of what may be called mediocre distinc-
tion is not that they f each a higher standard than
the* corresponding class of former generations, but
that there are more of them. Where there was one
clever novelist fifty years ago, there are perhaps a
score today; where there was one scientific dis-
coverer or inventor, there are a hundred; where
there was one capable essayist and journalist, there
are dozens now. But all this does not lessen the
difference between the author of the last " boom "
novel and Thackeray; between the merely talented
and assiduous experimenter and Faraday; between
a fine writer in the magazines and Carlyle. Indeed,
in the comparison of the mountain range, there is a
lurking fallacy ; what has risen is the general level
of the knowledge and opportunities open to us all,
not the height to which individuals rise in their .own
achievements.

A single example is almost sufficient to show that
the essential place of individual greatness is the
same as it has ever been. Take a glance at the
literary figures that came into general notice in the
English-speaking world during the last quarter of
the Nineteenth Century. There was precisely one —
one and no more — that was recognized as a great
and original force. This was Rudyard Kipling.
There were no end of good writers in the field, but
not one of them was regarded as more than an able
literary worker — an object of admiration and a
source of pleasure, no doubt, but not a centre of
influence, a factor to be reckoned with, a man or

238 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

woman the appearance of whose every succeeding
work was to be looked upon as an event of import-
ance. We need not investigate the source of this
feeling; it might be difficult to analyze or account
for it. The one thing certain about it is that it em-
anated from individual power; from that kind of
personal quality which is essential to greatness, and
which, when it exists in sufficient measure, consti-
tutes greatness.

Now, we have not the least notion that the final
verdict on Kipling will rank him with the great
names of English literature ; but this only increases
the force of the argument. He had something of the
mountain about him, and there was not the slightest
difficulty in distinguishing him from the surround-
ing hills. It is unfortunate that the nearest approach
to a great figure that has recently been produced in
the world of English literature should be one that
falls so short of the highest standards. But the
obstacle to his achieving an illustrious rank resides
not in the circumstance that his contemporaries are
too great, but that he is not great enough. The
distinctive quality of genius was swiftly recognized
in him ; it needed but the thin little volume of " Plain
Tales From the Hills " to establish that. And, in
spite of the sad disappointment to which he has since
subjected us, he still retains something of the pe-
culiar prerogative that has always attached to the
man of genius — ^to what Carlyle calls the hero. The
world is as much in need of the hero as ever it was ;
there is as much room for him as ever there was ;
and whenever he appears, he will be found to tower
above his fellows just as distinctly as he did when

MEDIOCRITY AND GREATNESS 239

there were no telephones or electric lights, and when
thousands of young people, whose descendants now
have access to all the books in the world, felt it a
rare and precious privilege to pore over the pages
of Plutarch and Bunyan and Shakespeare.

CECIL RHODES' NIGHTMARE

(April 10, 1902)

A great deal has been said, and justly said, of
Cecil Rhodes' wonderful dream, and of the still
more wonderful rapidity with which, largely through
his efforts, that dream approached realization dur-
ing his lifetime. It was not destined to be a happy
dream to the last, for it began to be seriously dis-
turbed and troubled at the time of the Jameson
raid, and it was covered with a mist of blood and
shame during the years of the Boer War. But he
had reason to feel, even to the last, that his dream
of a new Africa, a South Africa vastly enlarged
and all British, was to be made a reality, and he
died in the assurance that he had not dreamed in
vain.

The " political last will and testament " of the
" empire-builder," which is about to appear in the
American Review of Reviews, and of which copious
extracts were published yesterday, shows that Mr.
Rhodes, besides being the possessor of a grand
dream, was himself possessed by a tremendous
nightmare. This was nothing less than the belief
that all the world was engaged in a deadly struggle
to destroy England by cutting her off from the
possibilities of trade, and that the only way to pre-
vent her annihilation was that of a federation of the
English-speaking people the world over. Not only
so, but that the way to secure such a federation was
by England making desperate and relentless com-

CECIL RHODES* NIGHTMARE 241

mercial war upon America. " I note with satisfac-
tion," he wrote — this was in 1890 — " that the com-
mittee appointed to inquire into the McKinley tariff
reports that in certain articles our trades have fal-
len off 50 per cent. Yet the fools do not see that
if they do not look out they will have England
shut out and isolated, with 90,000,000 to feed and
capable of internally supporting about 6,000,000. If
they had a statesman they would at the present
moment be commercially at war with the United
States, and would have boycotted the raw products
of the United States until she came to her senses ;
and I say this because I am a free trader." And
again : " I believe that England, with fair play,
should manufacture for the world, and, being a
free trader, I believe that, until the world comes to
its senses, you should declare war — I mean a com-
mercial war — with those trying to boycott your
manufactures. That is my programme. You might
finish the war by a union with America and uni-
versal peace after a hundred years." It does not
seem to have occurred to " the Colossus " that this
plan for forcing a union essential to England's ex-
istence but non-essential to America's welfare might
not prove to be the very best device for bringing
about America's willingness to enter into it.

Once possessed by this nightmare, it is not sur-
prising that Mr. Rhodes pursued it into nightmare-
like ramifications. Since the stupidity of Parlia-
ments would prevent them from adopting sponta-
neously the plan of economic coercion for effecting
a world-wide Anglo-Saxon union, another resource
would have to be brought into requisition. A coa-

242 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

lition of multi-millionaires, forming themselves into
a firmly-disciplined secret society carried on upon
the system of the Jesuits, would be absolutely irre-
sistible. As to any interference with the successful
working of such a league of hundreds of millions
of dollars which might come from the insignificant
hundreds of millions of mere human beings, the
diamond-mine empire-builder seems never to have
regarded that as worthy of notice. Nor did it ever
seem to cross his mind that it is only by the com-
mon consent of mankind, based upon the common
sense of the world, that the possessors of great
wealth are enabled to enjoy in peace such power
as is now theirs, not to speak of the arrogation of
such extravagant functions of world-rule as Rhodes
fancied in his nightmare scheme.

At the end of the nightmare comes the bright
dream again ; the dream of an Anglo-Saxon world,
a world unencumbered with incompetent and use-
less peoples, peoples that potter along with life,
enjoying themselves in their own fashion, develop-
ing their own tastes, creating their own peculiar
trifles of art or literature or amusement, but not
accomplishing the one thing needful — ^the maximum
of industrial production, the greatest development
of wealth. To some minds, however — and to not
a few " Anglo-Saxon " minds — ^this is the worst
nightmare of all. There are those who are grateful
for the variety of human ideals and aspirations that
springs from the individuality of different races and
peoples; who thank God not that we are unlike
other peoples, but that other peoples are unlike us —
that there is some room still left for variation from

CECIL RHODES' NIGHTMARE 243

the dominating type, some scope for other things
being placed uppermost in the scale of living than
those by which we happen to set most store. Long
before Kipling, there was an English poet who had
something to say on the Rhodes-Kipling ideals:

The world is too much with us: late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers

said Wordsworth, thinking of the commercialist
absorption of his own time; and he would exclaim
today, more fervently than he did then, that he
would

rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn

than a denizen of a world-empire in which the all-
pervading sound was the shrill and deafening note
of Anglo-Saxon industrialism.

END OF A HEROIC STRUGGLE

(June 2, 1902)

After a magnificent contest against overwhelming
odds, more than two and a half years in duration,
the sturdy little Dutch republics of South Africa
have succumbed to the power and resources of the
British Empire. During the first six months of that
period, the attention of all the world was riveted
upon a struggle that recalled the days of Ther-
mopylae and Marathon, and made real to the people
of this age the deeds of Winkelried's Swiss peasants
on the field of Sempach. For a time, it almost
seemed as if the impossible were to be accomplished
by the little army of undisciplined farmers who
repulsed, again and again, the trained soldiery of
Buller and Methuen. Even now, one is tempted
to speculate on the results that might have followed
if Cronje, instead of doggedly entrenching himself
in the river bed at Paardeberg, relying on what he
imagined to be the limitless ineptitude of the British,
had taken counsel of ordinary prudence and escaped
before he was hopelessly surrounded. His surrender
was a staggering blow, not only through the loss
of numbers, but through its moral effect both on the
Boers and the British. Yet, after a short period of
comparative inactivity, the war was resumed upon
the basis of that irregular but wonderfully effective
fighting which has given the names of De Wet and
Delarey an undying lustre. With small and steadily
diminishing numbers, the remains- of the Boer army

END OF A HEROIC STRUGGLE 245

have been giving the British such trouble as to tax
to the utmost the skill, the endurance and the
resources of that powerful enemy. What terms they
have succeeded in exacting from England is not
known at this writing; but there is good reason to
believe that they are such as the Boer fighters can
look upon as no mean tribute to their still remaining
prowess.

That the English will endeavor to conciliate the
Boers by a liberal policy may be taken for granted.
They will do their utmost to restore tranquility and
establish normal conditions. Civil government will
be well administered. There will be a vast revival
of activity. in the gold mines. We shall probably
soon be hearing of the wonderful prosperity of the
region, and the extreme satisfaction with which the
capitalists who own the mines, and the engineers
who operate them, and the speculators who traffic
in the stocks of them, look upon the substitution of
British for Boer control. Possibly even the Boer
farmers themselves — as many as are left to reoccupy
their desolated homes, and gather together the sur-
viving members pi their families — ^will be having
rather more bread to eat, a few years hence, than
they were accustomed to in the days before the
war. To a considerable class of minds, facts like
these will constitute a justification of England's
aggression. There are doubtless millions of honest
English people who have all along considered Eng-
land to be in the right chiefly because they thought
that the Boers, in their comparatively primitive
methods, did not give such opportunities for modem
" development " as would come with British rule.

246 ADDRESSES AXD EDITORIALS

Against such hopeless Philistinism we have no dis-
position to argue. Here was a people of heroic
strain, clinging with unparalleled devotion to the
preservation of its own national individuality, pre-
senting such a store of antique virtue and sturdy
health, physical and moral, as the world can at the
present day ill afford to spare ; when it is crushed out
of existence, its aspirations cherished during three
generations of sacrifice and endurance blotted out,
its individuality uprooted by the mammoth machine
of modem commercialism, any addition that may
thereby be made either to the resources of European
wealth or to the merely physical comfort of the
Afrikanders themselves counts as mere dust in the
balance.

It would not be just to omit a word in recognition
of the high qualities shown by the English in the
war. Wicked as the war was in its inception, and
cruel as were some of the means resorted to in its
prosecution, three things stand out conspicuously
to their credit. One is the uniform bravery of offi-
cers and men throughout the history of the war.
Another is the honest publication of the facts in
regard to the concentration camps, a publicity which
led — through the efforts, to be sure, of fearless home
critics of the Government — ^to a great amelioration
of the horrible conditions there. The third is the
frank and chivalrous recognition, not only of the
splendid fighting qualities, but of the humane con-
duct, of the Boers, which so many British officers
have given. This last consideration, however, serves
as a reminder of one of the most melancholy feat-
ures of the whole tragic story. Before the war

END OF A HEROIC STRUGGLE 247

began, and for months after hostilities opened, the
British public, and indirectly the world at large, had
its mind poisoned with the most outrageous and
unfounded stories of Boer barbarism, and the im-
pression thus produced was a powerful factor in
creating and preserving the war sentiment. It was
long before the truth came out — ^a truth which is
now undisputed. Instead of being cruel, treacherous,
or barbarous, the Boers have been exceptionally
humane, honorable and considerate in their conduct
throughout the war — a showing which, when we
consider that they were not disciplined troops, but
a general levy of the population, is simply marvel-
ous. The record they have made in this respect will,
along with their magnificent feats of courage and
military skill, redound to their everlasting honor :

'Tis not in mortals to command success,

But we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it.

Never were men entitled more proudly to utter
this sentiment than are the worn and battered com-
mandoes, with Botha, Delarey and De Wet at their
head, who yesterday laid down the standard which
they have not been able to carry to victory, but which
they have covered with imperishable glory.

THE ETHICS OF INFLATION

(November lo, 1902)

We find in the Springfield Republican the fol-
lowing editorial remarks:

" The United States Treasurer, Ellis H. Roberts,
appears to be an inflationist and cheap-money man
of the first order. He says in his current annual
report, after referring to the recent great increase
in the production of gold:

The mines are thus confirming the gold standard steadily
and invincibly. They are creating an inflation of currency,
which keeps pace with the enterprise and industry of the
country. They are contributing to an advance in prices in
general commodities, and add impetus to the prosperity of
our people.

" This was precisely what the silver men were
aiming at, and for which they were so roundly
denounced as repudiators. That the same result
has been reached in another way makes no dOfer-
ence in its essential character. Depreciation of
money is always of course measured by the rise in
commodity prices, and there is as much actual dis-
honesty in relation to debts and business contracts
about a gold dollar whose purchasing power has
been reduced 33 per cent within half a dozen years
as there is about any other dollar similarly depre-
ciated. And there can be no moral difference be-
tween a public policy which deliberately permits of
such a depreciation under a previously established
monetary arrangement and one which seeks to
change an old arrangement purposely to effect the
depreciation." (The italics are ours.)

THE ETHICS OF INFLATION 249

If this view of the ethics of the free-silver move-
ment had obtained general currency in the days
preceding 1896, Bryan would have had a walk-over
for the Presidency. That a great number of honest
and intelligent persons believed it to be correct is
unquestionable, and that these same persons were
accused by superficial writers and speakers of being
necessarily either knaves or fools is likewise true.
But there is a radical difference between the ques-
tion of the personal honesty of the advocates of a
particular policy and that of the intrinsic integrity
of the policy itself. That the Springfield Republi-
can should have had its ever-present and ever-active
sense of justice aroused to defend honest and intel-
ligent silver men against charges of knavery or
imbecility is in no way surprising, but it is a pity
that so strong and keen-sighted a paper should
itself subscribe (as it has done repeatedly) to a
doctrine inherently vicious, a doctrine which upon
analysis proves to have no justification in practical
ethics, and which, if it obtained general currency,
would be incalculably demoralizing. An intellectual
oversight which unquestionably was the source of
the failure of many intelligent and upright persons
to see the wrongfulness of a deliberate change of
standard by Governmental action is not surprising
in the case of the average citizen; but when it is
made by one of the ablest and most influential
papers in the country, it seems worth while to point
out the fallacy.

To correct the error, it is only necessary to con-
sider what is the nature of the understood relation-
ship between Government and the monetary stand-

17

250 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

ard. When a contract is made under which A is
to give and B is to receive a certain number of dol-
lars, or pounds sterling, or marks, it has been un-
derstood, at any time during the past quarter-cen-
tury at least, that what B was entitled to at the
time of maturity was either a certain weight of
fine gold or something which passed current in all
business transactions for that amount of gold. That
the dollar, or the pound sterling, or the mark, was
to be, or to be equivalent to, that amount of gold
was the extent of the Government's guarantee,
whether tacit or express, in the matter. Nobody
ever imagined that the Government of the United
States, or of England, or of Germany, would con-
cern itself with the interest of either the debtor or
the creditor in the purchasing power of the gold.
Fluctuations in that purchasing power are inevita-
ble, under any circumstances that have ever yet
existed on this planet ; indeed, no way has yet been
devised for even measuring such fluctuations with
any confidence, not to speak of preventing them.
Both parties to the contract understand always that
prices may be higher or lower at the time of its
maturity than at the time of its creation, through
the operation of natural or business causes. If the
creditor loses, and the debtor gains, as a conse-
quence of this play of forces perfectly understood
to exist from the beginning, there is absolutely no
" actual dishonesty " whatever in the matter. It is
not an ideal readjustment of the debt on the lines
of abstract equity that was contemplated in the bar-
gain ; both parties were taking risks, and so long as
the Government permits the game to be played out

THE ETHICS OF INFLATION 25 1

on the basis upon which it was entered into, the
play is fair, and no one has a right to complain.

Far different is the " essential character " of the
proceeding when the Government steps in and says
that the dollar shall be something else — not some-
thing else in value, but something else speciftcally,
from what it was understood to be when the bar-
gain was made. The dishonesty consists not in the
hardship inflicted on either side, but in altering the
terms of the bargain. The whole of our commercial
and financial morality is built up on the feeling of
the sanctity of contracts. If we were to attempt
to substitute for that feeling a sort of humanitarian
regard for the interests of the several parties to a
contract, we should be plunged into a bottomless
morass. And yet this fundamental departure is
made by the Springfield Republican when it finds
in a loss sustained by creditors through deliberate
Governmental alteration of the monetary standard
a proceeding of essentially the same character as
a similar loss occasioned by the operation of causes,
always known to be in existence, affecting the value
of the monetary unit. In the latter case there may
be hardship, but there is no dishonesty ; in the for-
mer case there is dishonesty even if there be no
hardship whatever.

Nor is the difference important in its abstract
aspect only, important as this is. Practically, the
effect of an admission that there is no dishonesty
in Governmental interference with the standard
would be disastrous to the last degree, for there
would be no practical limit to the application of the
principle thus established. In the case of the silver

252 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

agitation, there was some ground for the proposed
change aside from the claim that equity toward
debtors demanded the readjustment in question,
and furthermore it was contended by many that
under free coinage the parity of the silver dollar
with the gold dollar would be maintained. But if
we were simply to consider a Government readjust-
ment of debts to be of essentially the same char-
acter as the readjustment that is taking place every
day through natural and scientific and business
causes, what would there be to prevent a debase-
ment of the currency at any time that a plausible
argument for such a step could be made to secure
a popular majority in its favor? If the simple
principle were not recognized, and upheld by the
overwhelming sentiment of thinking people, that a
change of the monetary standard by Governmental
fiat is an act of dishonesty, the times and the extent
of such changes would become a mere question of
the taste and fancy of the majority for the time
being. That such a state of things would work its
own cure is true enough ; but this would come about
solely through conditions becoming intolerable, as
they did in the days of the French assignats or our
own Continental currency. Of course, at the pres-
ent time there is no danger of any departure from
sound principles. But the days of free silver, and
even those of greenbackism, are not so far behind
us as to make us indifferent to the promulgation of
a doctrine which was at the bottom of most of the
mischief in both those movements.

THE LOGIC OF INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT

(March 21, 1903)

In an address before the Commercial Club of
Boston, on Thursday night, Mr. F. A. Vanderlip,
formerly Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, pre-
sented in the striking manner which is habitual with
him some of the salient features of the recent indus-
trial and commercial development of the country as
a whole, and of various sections of it. The ultimate
aim of his address was to impress upon his hearers
the idea that, in a future no longer remote. New
England will have to look to foreign trade as its
chief recourse in the maintenance of a high standing
in the industrial and commercial world. Time was
when the West and South afforded a clear field for
the disposal of the manufactured products of New
England enterprise, but the development of manu-
factures in both those sections has been going on at
so rapid a rate that every year shows a notable in-
crease in the range covered by the home industries
of those regions, and a corresponding narrowing of
the field left open there for the expansion of New
England's trade. " The South and the West," said
Mr. Vanderlip, " are now in a large degree equipped
with the machinery of civilization. They are no
longer under tribute for men or products, and in
great measure are also becoming financially free, the
last few years of prosperity having discharged vast
indebtedness. The position which New England
held as a manufacturing source to supply the wants

254 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

of the West and South has in turn been contested
and in large measure lost. The great cities of the
West and South have changed their distinctive char-
acter as distributing points, and have become manu-
facturing centres in turn. The remarkable expan-
sion of the cotton industry in the South, the rapid
growth of leather manufacture in the West, taking
from New England its prominence in both fields,
are but two illustrations among many .... A de-
velopment of signal significance to the future pros-
perity of New England can be found in the rapid
expansion all through the West of the manufacture
of all sorts of highly finished goods .... The
lines in which the manufacturers in the East, and
particularly New England, had until recently a con-
trol approaching to monopoly are now being dif-
fused over the very territory which these factories
of yours once almost exclusively supplied."

All this has been said, in various forms, many
times within the past few years, but the fact that it
is made the central matter of his discourse by a man
of Mr. Vanderlip's position, in an address before a
leading business organization of Boston, lends the
words a special interest. What we desire to draw
attention to, however, is not the facts, now so famil-
iar, which were dwelt upon in Mr. Vanderlip's re-
marks. There is a lesson conveyed in them which
is of larger import than the specific application he
had in mind. No belief, perhaps, is more widely en-
tertained in America than that which ascribes to
the operation of the protective tariff the remarkable
change which has taken place in the relations be-
tween our country and Europe along industrial lines.

INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 255

Even those who believe that protection has on the
whole been an evil are prone to admit that, what-
ever wrongs or mischiefs it may have brought
about, it must be given the credit of having pro-
duced the tremendous growth of manufacturing in-
dustry in America. Look at the figures, they say.
See where we were ten or twenty or thirty years
ago in iron and steel production, and in manufac-
tures generally, and see where we are now. If it
isn't the tariff that has brought about the change,
what is it?

The answer is ready to our hand, and the only
strange thing is that it should be so generally over-
looked. What has brought about the change
(though we are not denying that in some measure
it may have been accelerated by the tariff) in the
relations between the United States and Europe is
the same thing as has brought about and is bringing
about the change in the relations between the South
and West on the one hand and New England on the
other. It is the natural development of a country
tremendously rich in natural resources passing from
the stage of agricultural activity and little accumu-
lated capital to the stage in which manufacturing
industry with large available capital is added to the
agriculture. The South and West are in the same
unprotected state, as against New England manu-
factures, that they always were in ; yet, though dec-
ade after decade passed in which their industrial
development was slight, they have come, in the full-
ness of time, to that stage so graphically described
by Mr. Vanderlip. Change " South and West " into
United States" and "New England" into " Eu-

256 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

rope," and Mr. Vanderlip's description of the
changed relation of things becomes exactly that
which protectionists are continually pointing to as
demonstrating the marvelous transformation of the
status of our country brought about by their tariff
legislation. Until the protectionists can point out
some legislation " equally as good " which has done
the trick for the South and West, free-traders who
keep their heads level can aflford to smile at the big
figures that record the natural industrial evolution
of this great country.

ROOSEVELT AND THE MONROE DOCTRINE

(April 3» 1903)

Considering President Roosevelt's love for a fight,
it is not surprising that he should measure this
country's future standing among nations by the size
of the club we are able to wield. The club which
the President refers to particularly is the United
States Navy. And it is in the interest of the Mon-
roe doctrine that we must carry about with us this
stout hickory to impress our enemies, according to
the best usages of the far-famed Donnybrook fair.
President Roosevelt, in his speech in Chicago last
night, was so explicit and withal so picturesque on
that point that we reproduce his words here :

I believe in the Monroe doctrine wth all my heart and
soul; I am convinced that the immense majority of our
fellow-countrymen so believe in it; but I would infinitely
prefer to see us abandon it than to see us put it forward and
bluster about it, and yet fail to build up the efficient fighting
strength which in the last resort can alone make it
respected by any strong foreign Power whose interest it
may ever happen to be to violate it. There is a homely
old adage which runs : " Speak softly and carry a big
stick; you will go far." If the American nation will speak
softly, and yet build, and keep at a pitch of the highest
training a thoroughly efficient navy, the Monroe doctrine
will go far. I ask you to think over this.

To be sure, it is well that President Roosevelt
feels his responsibility. But he must pardon others
for not feeling so insecure. We should be inclined
to smile at the Irishman who would carry his stout
black-thorn cudgel through the streets of Baltimore

2S8 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

in order to protect himself from attack. The cow-
boy in New York city, loaded down with big guns
and long rifles, would be an object of tolerant curi-
osity. Yet either would probably need the "big
stick " as badly as America needs an overwhelming
naval force today in order to protect itself and the
Monroe doctrine. President Roosevelt should not
forget that the Monroe doctrine has about eighty
years to its credit, and during all of that period it
has never been assailed successfully. The United
States was a nation of but ten millions of inhabi-
tants when it coolly announced to the world that
the nations already here could and would take care
of the Western Hemisphere. No big club was pre-
pared in anticipation of this announcement.

And the Monroe doctrine has been tried. France
and England once challenged it in concert in con-
nection with Cuban affairs. But the United States
was ready and the Europeans did not press the chal-
lenge. Louis Napoleon actually broke into our
preserve when we were engaged in more important
business than enforcing the Monroe doctrine, but
when we looked around and found him he moved
on. England again talked boldly about what she
would do with territory claimed by a weak South
American State; but when President Cleveland
drew his chalk line, John Bull promptly placed his
toes to it. In none of these instances was our " big
stick " ready. At the time that President Cleveland
issued his Venezuelan message, our navy would
have been anything but a terror to "the mistress
of the seas."

A mild suggestion on the part of President

ROOSEVELT AND MONROE DOCTRINE 259

Roosevelt was sufficient to stay the mailed fists of
England and Germany in their recent assault upon
Venezuela. More than that, they gave to the Presi-
dent in that connection the first important European
recognition of the Monroe doctrine when "both
Powers assured us in explicit terms that there was
not the slightest intenticm on their part to violate
the principles of the Monroe doctrine, and this as-
surance was kept with an honorable good faith
which merits full acknowledgment on our part."
It was not because of the size of our naval "big
stick " that they halted. The combined fleets of
these two Powers would have overmatched our sea
force five to one. They respected our strength, our
resources, our general fighting power — if, indeed,
they ever had any designs upon South American
territory. As a matter of fact, England has given
the United States a hostage for good behavior.
Canada is an all-sufficient assurance that Great
Britain will cross swords with the United States
only in the last extremity. And while Great Britain
is our friend no other Power is likely to try con-
clusions with us. Our resources are so vast that it
would be suicidal for any Power whatever to make
a wanton attack upon us. It is better that we
should never be in position to make a wanton attack
upon anybody else — ^and the " big stick " is always
a temptation. Let us have a navy — a strong, re-
spectable, efficient navy — capable of meeting legiti-
mate demands ; but if we load ourselves down with
a barbarous club bigger than our neighbors can
carry, we ^hall simply handicap ourselves needlessly
in the race of civilization.

ONE LESSON FROM THEODOR MOMMSEN
(November 3, 1903)

We habitually conceive of the typical German
scholar as a man completely wrapped up in his
specialty, a recluse, a devotee who thinks his life
well spent if he has " settled hoti's business " ; and
so far as single-minded devotion to the pursuit of
the particular department of learning or science in
which he is engaged is concerned, the generally re-
ceived notion of the German Gelehrter is entirely
correct. His absorption in his work is complete,
sincere, unqualified. He has not one eye on his
manuscript or his retorts and the other on the stock
market or the doings of " the 400." His personal
ambitions, aspirations, hopes, all lie in the field of his
vocation. But no mistake would be greater than to
suppose that this attitude of mind, so far as indi-
vidual desires and ambitions are concerned, involves
any narrowness of vision or limitation of interest as
to the large questions of literature and life, and espe-
cially public life. The German scholar, specialist
though he be in his work, has plenty of psychic
energy to spare for the large concerns of mankind,
both in speculative thought and in action. And,
best of all, the history of German universities testi-
fies abundantly to the fact that these noble nurseries
of learning have also been the stronghold of liberal
thought, and furnished the germ of political freedom
for their country.

Seldom has the compatibility of enormous learn-

LESSON FROM THEODOR MOMMSEN 261

ing and scholarly power with effective and coura-
geous participation in the molding of public senti-
ment been more signally illustrated than in the case
of the great scholar whose death Germany is now
mourning as that of her most illustrious citizen.
Theodor Mommsen, by common consent first among
German scholars, whose productive activity covers
no less than thirty-five published works, aggregating
more than one hundred volumes relating to the life
and laws and languages of antiquity, was not so far
removed from the struggles of his own time and of
his own people as to fail to do his full share in the
work of liberal progress. He threw himself into
the revolutionary movement in 1848, and through-
out the ascendency of Bismarck he maintained, in
face of all the prestige of the man of blood and
iron, the principles of political freedom for which
he had always stood. He was none the less a firm
upholder of the idea of a great German empire, and
that his patriotism was not impaired by his resist-
ance to despotic tendencies may safely be inferred
from the tribute which the Kaiser yesterday paid to
his memory. Last, but by no means least among
his public services which call for special mention,
we must not overlook the way in which the vener-
able historian interposed all the prestige of his
name and personality between the German people
and that mad wave of anti-Semitism which at one
time threatened to cover the name of the German
nation with the deepest disgrace. It is at such
times of unthinking and deluded popular emotion
that men of light and leading like Mommsen can
be of priceless service to their country and to the
world.

262 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

It is because of the inestimable value of independ-
ent thought and untrammeled expression on the part
of those who by their training and position are capa-
ble of exercising peculiarly weighty and salutary
influence upon their fellow-citizens, that the idea of
free speech in universities should be so jealously
upheld. In the forced resignation of President An-
drews of Brown University on account of his views
on the silver question, and in the series of resigna-
tions which the authorities of Leland Stanford
brought about as a consequence of the free expres-
sion of opinions on the part of professors, a large
portion of the American press, greatly to its credit,
recognized an evil not only serious, but truly dan-
gerous. It is undeniable that, though such gross
violation of the principle of free speech as is com-
mitted in such cases is rare, yet there prevails in
American colleges and universities enough feeling
that it is well to be " prudent '* and " conservative,"
to make it an extremely rare thing for our profes-
sors to take a bold and commanding position in any
public emergency, or upon any great subject of con-
troversy which involves the prerogatives of wealth.
A noted German economist, when on a visit to this
country, stated that he had been asked by an Ameri-
can publisher to write a work on the labor question
in America. The publisher told him that it was im-
possible to get from an American professor of high
standing a thoroughly frank and fearless discussion
of the subject. This publisher doubtless went to
an extreme in his estimate of the situation, but the
fact remains that few American professors, while
retaining their academic standing and continuing

LESSON FROM THEODOR MOMMSEN 263

their. scientific activities, take such part in public dis-
cussion as to bring to bear upon it the full weight of
bold and independent conviction. Whatever tends
to foster among them the spirit of fearless independ-
ence should be sedulously cultivated ; and whenever
an attack is made upon that spirit, such as was so
flagrantly made at Leland Stanford University, it
should bring down upon the institution guilty of it
such punishment as came in that instance — a punish-
ment from the effect of which the Leland Stanford
will not recover for years.

HONOR AND THE ARMY

(November 27, 1903)

It has never struck us as peculiarly hard that a
man who has had the maximum of incitement to
honorable conduct and the minimum of temptation
to appropriate to himself money that belonged to
the Government he has sworn to serve should suf-
fer the penalty which, every day in the year, is
meted out, in severer measure, to human beings
who have had none of his advantages and have
been subjected to a hundredfold his temptation. It
is a painful spectacle, the sight of a man who has
worn the honored uniform of the United States
Army, and who has enjoyed association with those
most highly placed in social and official life, con-
demned, as Capt. Oberlin M. Carter was, to serve
a term of imprisonment in a penitentiary, and
doomed to bid farewell forever to all that life had
meant for him. But the necessity of such retribu-
tion for faithlessness on the part of a trusted offi-
cer — its necessity not only for the protection of the
Government, but still more for the preservation of
the honor that attaches to the name of " an officer
and a gentleman " — is too manifest to warrant any
indulgence of sentimental weakness in connection
with such a case. Failure to convict and to sentence
this offender, and to carry out his sentence to the
letter, would have been nothing short of a calamity
to the army and to the country.

There is, however, one feature connected with

HONOR AND THE ARMY 265

the case of Captain Carter at which one is inclined
to wince when it is brought to his attention. This
former officer of the army will tomorow be again a
free man ; but there is one part of his punishment —
aside from that which no law can impose and no
law can wipe out — which, under the articles of war,
will follow him as long as he lives. Under those
regulations, no officer of the army is permitted to
associate with a man who has been dismissed from
the service for fraud, and such an act constitutes
scandalous conduct for which the officer is liable
to trial by court-martial. There is something of the
tragic and the cruel about the idea of this inexorable
ostracism from which, with our modern softness in
matters of crime and punishment, we are apt to
recoil. No one would like, personally, to bear his
share in the infliction of this punishment. Every
man with a conscience, knowing how much he him-
self has done that is wrong, must feel that he would
shrink from helping to put a stigma upon one who
is, after all, a man and a brother. Nevertheless, the
army's regulation is eminently right. Nothing that
is worth having in this world can be had without
sacrifice. The idea that the officers of the army
are men of honor and gentlemen is a precious pos-
session of the army and the nation ; and, like other
possessions, it is one that cannot be preserved unless
we are willing to pay the price of its continued ex-
istence. If we treat it as merely a pleasant notion,
to be adhered to as long as all is smooth sailing, and
to be conveniently ignored when its assertion calls
for sacrifice of inclination on the part of one and
submission to hardship on the part of another, it

18

266 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

will assuredly become as unsubstantial in its essence
as we shall have made it ineffective in its demands
upon our stern and rigorous allegiance.

Indeed, it is not a relaxation of the army code
in its exactions in matters of honor that is wanted,
but some approach to similar standards in other
fields. Social ostracism in flagrant cases of " high
finance " is a weapon that the world stands much
in need of, for its defense against the agency which
is today more potent for demoralization than any
other — one is tempted to say than all others com-
bined. The idea of commercial honor has done
more than laws and prisons to preserve honesty and
right dealing in business, and to protect each man
against the temptations that beset him. The
charity — if it be charity, and not mere weakness —
that would relax the standard in this matter, is the
diametrical opposite of charity to the men who have
not yet offended; and these are a thousand to one
as against those who have actually fallen. The
thing which, above all others, protects the trusted
official against temptations to betray his trust, and
the business man against temptations to dishonor-
able practice, is the realization that to yield is to
forfeit forever the respect of those with whom he
has lived his life. Whatever we have of such pro-
tection, whether in the army or elsewhere, let us
prize as one of the solid results of ages of trial and
effort.

THE FIRE

(February 8, 1904)

Since II o'clock yesterday morning there has been
blotted out of existence in our city an amount of
property, in the shape of business buildings, mer-
chandise, and plants, which may safely be estimated
at about $50,000,000. The fire is still raging, and
it is impossible to state precisely what will be the
boundaries of the region that will have been ravaged
when it finally subsides. But as to the destruction
of property of enormous value, we are warranted in
believing that we have come to the end of that.
Further extension of the fire, though it may add
considerably to the area of the region covered, will,
according to all indications, add only a relatively
insignificant amount to the aggregate value of the
property destroyed. How much of the loss which
the destruction covers will fall upon Baltimore own-
ers it is, at this hour, too early to estimate. Incom-
plete insurance leaves a margin between loss and
compensation which, in some cases, is very serious,
but there is every reason to believe that the amount
to be added to this deficit by failure of insurance
companies to meet their liabilities will be but a
trifling percentage. The wise practice of distribut-
ing insurance among a large number of outside com-
panies so subdivides the burden that in only a very
small proportion of the whole amount will any weak-
ness in the underwriting companies be developed by
our disaster.

268 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

However calmly the field be surveyed, it is im-
possible for any Baltimorean to contemplate the
situation today with feelings other than the most
serious. There are, to be sure, two aspects of the
disaster which give cause for profound gratitude.
First, that the tremendous conflagration has brought
with it almost no loss of life; and secondly, that
several great buildings on the very edge of the
flames, and especially our noble courthouse, have
escaped destruction. But the very heart of the great
business section of our city has been eaten out. The
spring trade, which was just opening, has been cut
off, and the resulting disorganization of business
connections is a matter of most serious moment.
The financial loss comes almost on the heels of the
trust-company embarrassments which recently came
as so painful a shock to our people. It would be
mere hypocrisy to pretend to belittle the magnitude
or the gravity of the blow that has fallen upon
our city and its business interests. The first feeling
of everybody must be a feeling that Baltimore, in
being made just at this time the victim of the third,
or possibly the second, greatest fire loss in the history
of America, is subjected to a terrible blow.

The first feeling, but not the last. Heavy as the
loss is, it carries away, after all, but a small part of
our total material resources; and it will be of no
consequence if it leaves unimpaired the capital that
is the real basis of the city's greatness — ^the spirit
of the people. And to suppose that the spirit of
our people will not rise to the occasion is to suppose
that our people are not genuine Americans. Chicago
dates her greatness from the great fire of 1871 ;

THE FIRE 269

Boston's fire in 1872 — ^more like our own, in that it
swept away the most valuable business property in
the city — stimulated Boston's improvement and
development ; even little Galveston, overwhelmed by
a flood which seemed calculated to wipe out all hope
and courage in that town, rose up after her calamity
more vigorous and more aggressive than ever. Bal-
timore will do likewise. We shall make the fire of
1904 a landmark not of decline but of progress.
With the call for aggressive energy so suddenly
sounded in our ears, many who have been inclined
to let well enough alone will be roused into ambi-
tious enterprise that they otherwise would not have
thought of. We must remember that, along with
perhaps a score of splendid buildings, there have
been destroyed hundreds of mean and incongruous
houses which lined our chief thoroughfare and filled
up a large portion of the adjacent land. These will
be replaced by buildings of a solidity and value cor-
responding to the natural character of their location.
And the spirit and energy whicTi this process will
develop is not going to stop at mere building of
houses. It will give tone to the whole business life
of the town. The vitality and pluck that are de-
manded by the emergency will remain after the
emergency is over, and it will be said ten years hence
that along with the flames that swept over Baltimore
on that memorable Sunday in February, 1904, an-
other flame was kindled — ^the flame of enterprise,
energy, pride in the ability to overcome obstacles,
ambition to stand alongside the best American cities
in everything that makes a city strong, attractive,
and prosperous. Such are the uses to which adver-

270 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

sity has been put by other American cities ; such
is the use which must be made of it here. And
every good Baltimorean must determine today that
he will do all that in him lies to bring about this
consummation.

QUAY AND AMERICA

(May 30, 1904)

It is not imperatively necessary, upon the occa-
sion of the death of a man like Quay, for a news-
paper that has spoken its mind about him during
his life to enter upon a minute survey either of his
career or his characteristics. His private life is not
matter of public concern ; his public career has been
the subject of comment, from time to time, through-
out its duration. To dwell upon personal virtues or
attractions, by way of escape from treatment of the
nature of his political acts and of those personal do-
ings of his which were connected with politics,
would be to confuse counsel. What is of import-
ance to the public is his relations not to his family or
his personal friends, but to the government of his
State and of the country. If his career is to be re-
viewed, it must be reviewed from this standpoint.
But, as we have said, such a review, though it
might be useful, is hardly necessary, in a newspaper
whose opinion of the nature of Quay's public career
has been frequently and emphatically expressed.

One thing, however, forces itself upon our mind
as the word in season upon this occasion. The pecu-
liarity of Quay's career which is of the first import-
ance to Americans is that it is a distinctively Ameri-
can career ; and it behooves us all to consider what
is the significance of this salient fact. In no other
of the great nations of the world that are in the en-
joyment of parliamentary institutions would such a

2y2 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

career be possible. Let any one read the obituary
notices, and the editorial articles, on Quay that have
appeared since his death on Saturday — ^and it does
not matter whether he reads them in his own organ,
the Philadelphia Inquirer, or in the paper most op-
posed to Quay — ^and he will find that there is not a
solitary thing in the record which could, by any con-
ceivable chance, have made him a great figure in
England, or France, or Germany. No British poli-
tician, no public man in France or Germany, has
risen to power or importance except in one of two
ways — either conspicuous service in administrative
affairs or genuine and open leadership in parliamen-
tary politics. Nobody claims either of these things
for Quay. He held no administrative office of im-
portance, and those that he did hold he left under a
cloud. He hardly ever made a speech in the Senate.
The one achievement in this line that is referred to
in the biographical sketches — ^and it is pointed to
with pride by his adherents — ^was his performance
in blocking the course of the Wilson tariff bill by
arming himself with Government reports, contain-
ing interminable tables of statistics, which he
threatened to continue reading so long as the breath
remained in his body. Nor is the absence of public
utterance the only negative element marking the
career of Quay in national politics. It is not claimed
that he ever made an impress upon the course of
public policy through the propagation in any other
way of his own views or opinions upon public ques-
tions. His power in the Senate was solely the
power of " management " and intrigue.

If this were the whole case, it would be sufficient

QUAY AND AMERICA 273

to establish the contention we began with — ^namely,
that the ascendancy of a man with a career like
Quay's, as a figure of high importance in the public
life of the nation, would be utterly impossible in any
of the great parliamentary countries of Europe.
But it is not the whole case, nor the most conclusive
part of it. Long before Quay entered the Senate his
name had, in his own State, and in a large part of
his own party in the State, been a byword for politi-
cal corruption and for malfeasance in office. The
Philadelphia Press, the leading Republican paper of
Pennsylvania, had declared, long before, that if the
transactions connected with his occupancy of the
State Treasurer's office were laid bare the exposure
would be such as to strike Republicans dumb. The
facts, or alleged facts, thus referred to were repeat-
edly published in papers of the highest standing
and of the most ample pecuniary responsibility.
Quay never sued these papers for libel, nor did he
demand an investigation. And this was only one of
the many scandals springing from his connection
with public office and with banking institutions hav-
ing dealings with the State Government. Alongside
of all this was the system of fraudulent elections
which has made the name of Pennsylvania, and
especially of Philadelphia, a term of reproach to the
institutions of this Republic; and Quay and his
machine have persistently refused to permit the pas-
sage of laws that would put an end to the rotten
election system. As for the franchise steals, the
Legislative bribery, the means by which, when in a
tight place. Quay managed to win over enough anti-
Quay Legislaturemen to secure his re-election to

274 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

the Senate — we need not enter into details on any
of these points. One of the chief claims made for
him — and it may cheerfully be granted — ^is that he
was not a hypocrite; and this, being interpreted,
means that he never pretended not to carry on poli-
tics in about the way that has been here indicated.
Now, we are not engaged in determining how bad
a man Quay may have been, whether others in the
same walk of life are better or worse, or whether
persons in other walks of life would or would not do
as he did if they had a chance. When Dr. Living-
stone spoke to a certain African chief about good-
ness and badness, the noble savage declared that
there is no such thing as goodness — ^that the only
persons who are good are those who are not strong
enough to be bad. As many as choose to take
this view of ethics are welcome to continue in it
We do not propose to go so deep into the mysteries
of human life. What we are talking about is a sim-
ple matter of fact. Of all the great countries in the
world, our own is the only one in which great pub-
lic eminence could be attained by a man who practi-
cally never made a speech in Congress, who never
administered an important office, whose name has
never been identified with any significant views of
public affairs, who has been the centre of a great
amount of unrefuted scandal connected with the use
of public moneys, and who is absolutely known to be
at the head of a great mechanism for the corruption
and falsification of elections and the debauching of
legislative bodies. This is not an opinion, not a
speculation ; it is a fact. And it behooves Americans
to consider how long they can afford to look upon

QUAY AND AMERICA 275

this phenomenon with complacency. To do so is to
admit that the plane of honor and the plane of intel-
lect upon which our public affairs are conducted is
one that we are content to have vastly below that of
England, or France, or Germany, or Italy ; that our
young men are to be told perfunctorily, from time to
time, that this sort of thing is very bad, but are to
grow up in the belief that it is inevitable ; and that
they are to adopt this last conclusion in spite of the
fact that no such standard as we here permit is for
a moment tolerated in any country with which we
are willing to place ourselves in comparison. If it
be unpatriotic or over-righteous to demand for
America as high a standard of honor and as true a
criterion of leadership as that which prevails in
other countries, we are very willing to bear the
brand of over-righteousness and lack of patriotism.

MR. ROOSEVELT'S NOTIFICATION SPEECH

(July 27, 1904)

It is in no spirit of caviling that we find our-
selves constrained to pronounce Mr. Roosevelt's
speech in reply to the formal notification of his
nomination a poor performance. Without the
youthful dash that not infrequently enlivens his
utterances, it is yet marked by that curious fondness
for exaggerated or irresponsible statement which is
even more frequently to be found in his utterances.
Coming from an ordinary stump-speaker, there
would, perhaps, be nothing to censure in the state-
ment with which, after his brief but sweepirig intro-
ductory laudation of the Republican party, he opens
the attack on the Democratic party which forms
the staple of his speech ; coming from the President
of the United States, the case is very different.
" In all of this," says Mr. Roosevelt, " we are more
fortunate than our opponents, who now appeal for
confidence on the ground, which some express and
some seek to have confidentially understood, that
if triumphant they may be trusted to prove false
to every principle which in the last eight years they
have laid down as vital." The reckless inaccuracy
of this charge is so patent as almost to take away
its off ensiveness ; nobody who stops to think what
Mr. Roosevelt means by this assertion can fail to
perceive at once that it is a grotesque exaggeration.
The only principle on the abandonment of which
Mr. Roosevelt can, with any show of reason, pre-

ROOSEVELTS NOTIFICATION SPEECH V7

tend that the Democrats appeal for confidence is
the principle of bimetallism or free coinage of silver.
This is not " every principle " ; nor is its abandon-
ment disgraceful. No party can be supposed to
fight indefinitely in behalf of an issue which, in the
course of events, has been settled; nor is it dis-
creditable for any party to avow its acquiescence in
accomplished facts. In the case of the gold ques-
tion, the pity is only that that avowal was not ex-
plicitly made by the Convention in its platform.
But, aside from this, why should the President of
the United States be so little regardful of the
weight that ought to attach to his words as to say
" every principle " when he can mean at most one
principle ? Elsewhere in his speech he refers to the
protection question and the Philippine question,
and appeals for condemnation of the Democratic
party because it has not abandoned its principles
in these matters ; how does this square with the wild
charge made at the beginning of his attack?

Similar superficiality and inaccuracy crops up
throughout the speech. " In dealing with the great
organizations known as trusts," says Mr. Roosevelt,
" we do not have to explain why the laws were not
enforced, but to point out that they actually have
been enforced, and that legislation has been enacted
to increase the effectiveness of their enforcement."
This is a piece of cheap boasting which so strenu-
ous a doer of things as the President should be
superior to. If one swallow makes a summer, then
perhaps the dissolution of the Northern Securities
Company may be regarded as justifying the asser-
tion that the anti-trust laws "actually have been

278 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

enforced " ; but even in that case the upholders of
the last Democratic Administration could show Mr.
Roosevelt a Roland for his Oliver by pointing to the
institution by Mr. Qeveland's Attorney General of
the suit against the Trans-Missouri combination
(after the matter had been abandoned by the Har-
rison Administration) which resulted in the very
decision by the Supreme Court that formed the
chief precedent for the Government in the Northern
Securities case.

Coming to explicit treatment of the money ques-
tion specifically, Mr. Roosevelt certainly had an easy
chance to make effective exposure of the opposing
party's weakness without resorting to a particle of
distortion or exaggeration. But apparently that
sort of thing does not satisfy the requirements of
his sanguine temperament. He is not content with
saying that the Democrats are unsound on this
question, while the Republicans have done well
with it; he must claim for his party a degree of
merit to which it is notoriously not entitled. " We
know what we mean," says Mr. Roosevelt, " when
we speak of an honest and stable currency. We
mean the same thing from year to year." We shall
probably all "mean the same thing from year to
year " hereafter ; at least the indications are that
the gold standard will be acknowledged by every-
body, before long, as " firmly and irrevocably estab-
lished " — to use Judge Parker's words. But during
the time of trial and trouble, did the Republicans
" mean the same thing from year to year " ? When
Mr. McKinley — not so very long before he became
President — denounced Cleveland for striking at one

ROOSEVELTS NOTIFICATION SPEECH 279

of our precious metals (something like that was
his phrase), did he mean the same thing as Mr.
Roosevelt does now? When, in the anxious days
of the spring of 1896, after Cleveland had brought
the gold standard safe through its worst trial, the
country wanted to know where McKinley stood on
the question of silver, did his silence mean what
Mr. Roosevelt means now? When, in 1890, the
Republican Congress passed the famous silver-pur-
chase act whose repeal in the fall of 1893, under
Cleveland's leadership, was the first step toward
the establishment of sound money, did it mean the
same thing as it does now ? The Republican party
finally slid into its position on the gold question
after eighteen years of most discreditable drifting
and temporizing; and this is what Mr. Roosevelt
describes by saying that on the subject of an honest
and stable currency " we mean the same thing from
year to year."

Other instances of like character might be cited,
and we look in vain for a single utterance of a
nature calculated to impress one with a sense of
thorough-going thought on the part of the speaker.
By this we do not, of course, mean to imply that
none of the claims made by the President are sound ;
more than one is quite justified by the facts. In
particular, Mr. Roosevelt points with just satisfac-
tion to the results of our policy in Cuba when he
says : " In the Caribbean sea we have made good
our promises of independence to Cuba, and have
proved our assertion that our mission in the island
was one of justice and not of self-aggrandizement" ;
and it would, of course, be hypercriticism to find
fault with him for making no reference to the cir-

28o ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

cumstance that the credit of the achievement should
be divided between the passage of the Democratic
Teller resolution on the one hand and the excellent
management of affairs by the Republican Adminis-
trations on the other. Nevertheless, it is a fact
open to little doubt that, but for the Teller resolu-
tion — which was opposed by the Republicans, and
especially by McKinley — there would have been no
Cuban independence.

Mr. Roosevelt points with equal pride to the
Panama canal achievement, but he lays it on pretty
thick when he says that " we conducted the nego-
tiation for its construction with the nicest and most
scrupulous honor, and in a spirit of the largest
generosity toward those through whose territory it
was to run." Nobody will deny the generosity of
our payment of $10,000,000 to the over-night little
Republic of Panama, but there are quite a number
of persons who think they have seen more signal ex-
amples of " the nicest and most scrupulous honor "
than that furnished by the Colombia-Panama
transaction as a whole. But Mr. Roosevelt must
be pardoned his superlatives — ^he cannot think, ap-
parently, in terms of anything less intense. And
for one thing we may all be sincerely thankful;
neither " strenuous " nor " the weakling " finds a
place in the entire production. Those who had
come to regard these apparitions in Mr. Roosevelt's
speeches as no more escapable than Charles the
First in poor Mr. Dick's petitions may take heart of
hope and look forward to the possibility of these
poor battered words being given a sufficient rest to
permit of their once more being placed on the
active list in the vocabulary of Americans generally.

DR. OSLER LEAVES US

(August IT, 1904)

To many a man in Baltimore today, professional
man and layman, the news that Doctor Osier is to
resign the professorship that he has adorned, and to
depart from the city which he has done so much to
illumine as well as to help by his presence, will
eclipse in interest all the other news of the time.
World-wide problems are being fought out in the
Orient, the campaign for the Presidency is being
developed, happenings of important and startling
character are being recorded on all sides, and we are
all interested in them. But when we are suddenly
brought face to face with the loss of a man such as
Doctor Osier, those of us who know what he is per-
sonally as well as scientifically, not only as physician
and teacher and scholar but also as a man among
men, are confronted with a keen realization that
nothing so comes home to the heart of a man as does
the feeling for an individual human being who
realizes one's cravings for what is best and most
beautiful in character and mind and spirit. To think
that Doctor Osier is no longer to be with us is to
feel that the light of our Baltimore sky has grown
dimmer. Foremost among American physicians, his
presence here conferred lustre on the city; but it
was not the cold light of mere scientific distinction
that he shed about him. His genial and poetic
nature, his unfailing and charmingly playful humor,
his kindliness and humanity, his utter superiority to

19

282 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

everything that is mean or sordid or selfish, made
him, in combination with his intellectual eminence,
a unique figure; and the feeling of loss that op-
presses hundreds here in Baltimore today — ^those
who have been associated with him professionally,
those who have had the benefit of his counsels,
those who have in any way been brought into close
contact with him — is a feeling to which it would be
difficult to do justice in words.

Upon the Johns Hopkins Medical School, whose
brilliant success and extraordinary influence on the
development of medical education in this country
has been in so large a measure due to the presence
of Doctor Osier in its faculty, the loss will bear with
peculiar weight. Fortunately, the work of the
School has now been so long and so firmly estab-
lished that even this loss is one that it will be able to
bear. The staff contains so much admirable ma-
terial — first and foremost Doctor Welch, who from
the beginning has been a tower of strength for the
Medical School — ^and the spirit in which its work
is pursued has found such secure lodgment, that we
may be well assured it will come as near as possible
to going on in the same way as though Doctor
Osier had remained. It had been hoped that the
services of its great Professor of Medicine might
continue with it throughout his active life ; and no
temptation of a material kind would have served to
draw him away from an institution to which he was
so deeply attached. But the combination of dis-
tinction and charm which the Regius Professorship
of Medicine at Oxford must hold out to a man like
Osier was naturally irresistible. Though devoting

DR. OSLER LEAVES US 283

himself with rare zeal to the welfare of the people
among whom he had made his home — most notably,
but far from solely, in the warfare against tubercu-
losis — Doctor Osier had never become a citizen of
the United States ; and to a man of his scholarly and
poetic tastes, as well as of his traditional feeling
toward England and all that makes her greatness,
the attraction of Oxford must be quite overwhelm-
ing. So far as the Johns Hopkins University is con-
cerned, she may feel proud that her great men,
though insistently sought after by universities ready
to offer the greatest pecuniary inducements, have
never been tempted away by them. Osier, like Syl-
vester before him, leaves Johns Hopkins only for
Oxford; our Baltimore university has been ex-
changed, by the two illustrious Englishmen whom it
has honored and been honored by, only for that ven-
erable and noble institution which has been the ideal
of a score of generations of English scholars.

In all this, we have been talking of Doctor Osier
from the Baltimore point of view. From the point
of view of the profession of medicine in the United
States, the loss of Doctor Osier will be felt through-
out the length and breadth of the country. To be
sure, science is cosmopolitan, and the impulses com-
ing from Osier's teachings at Oxford, and from
his published writings, will be felt in America also.
Nor, let us hope, will his residence at Oxford pre-
clude occasional sojourns of considerable length in
the country in which he has spent all of his mature
manhood, and especially at the University to which
the flower of his years has been devoted. But all
this is different from the feeling that he is with us

284 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

and of us — ^part of the national possession. His
professional colleagues, North, South, East and
West, will feel that a peculiar gap has been made in
their circle, a gap which no newcomer can fill. But,
after all, it is here at home, in Baltimore and in
Maryland, that the feeling of loss will be truly acute.
Not only among his compeers in professional rank,
but with the humblest country practitioner. Doctor
Osier was a stimulating, encouraging, friendly pres-
ence. In practice and precept alike, he fulfilled the
type of the high-minded and generous physician,
the broad and polished scholar, the humane and pub-
lic-spirited man, the spirited and delightful com-
panion. Wherever he goes, he will be sure of the
love as well as the respect and admiration of those
among whom his lines are cast ; and we wish him
Godspeed in his new life at the ancient university
that has invited him to take part in her labors.

THE WORK OF SECRETARY HAY

(January 20, 1905)

The part played by the United States in the entire
course of the great and history-making develop-
ments which have been taking place in the Far East
during the past five years is one that must inspire
Americans with patriotic pride in the honorable
work accomplished by their country. This remark-
able record has extended over the administrations
of two Presidents, but the presiding genius of it
has been one and the same man — Secretary Hay.
Equally during the Presidency of Mr. McKinley
and that of Mr. Roosevelt, the policy of the United
States in reference to China has been marked by
such serenity of mind and firmness of grasp, such
adherence to a constant purpose and such tact and
skill in pursuing it, as must give to Mr. Hay endur-
ing rank among the foremost masters of interna-
tional statecraft. During the period of terrible un-
certainty and ominous unrest brought on by the
Boxer troubles, the United States Government
alone kept its head, and refused to give unquestion-
ing credence to the repeated tales of annihilation of
the foreign missions which had inflamed European
sentiment to the point of hysteria ; in the subsequent
history of that affair it was the United States and
Japan that alone set the example of humanity and
self-restraint in dealing with the subdued Chinese;
and at the close of the episode it was Mr. Hay's
diplomacy that secured international recognition for

286 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

the open-door policy — a policy which, even if par-
tially conformed to, tends to promote the possi-
bility of a preservation of Chinese territorial integ-
rity. At the opening of the present war between
Japan and Russia, it was our Government that ad-
dressed the Powers with a view to securing their
approval of the proposition that Chinese neutrality
should be respected by both belligerents. That this
step was taken at the suggestion of Germany does
not diminish the credit of it; rather does it testify
to the strong position which the United States Gov-
ernment is recognized as holding in relation to the
great problem of limiting the area of the war in
the Far East, and of preserving the existence of
China. The proposition of the United States was
assented to by all the Powers, including Japan and
Russia, and it cannot be doubted that this has had
a powerful moral effect upon the conduct of both
belligerents.

The latest step taken by Mr. Hay has been in con-
tinuance of the consistent purpose which has ani-
mated him throughout, and has been attended, it
seems, with the same remarkable success which has
in so extraordinary a degree accompanied his efforts
all along. Reports had been received by the State
Department which indicated that, at the conclusion
of the war, whatever the terms made by Japan and
Russia as between themselves, the opportunity or
pretext was likely to be seized by several of the
European Powers to pounce upon a portion of the
territory of China, each for itself, by way of pre-
serving the balance of power. The inherent proba-
bility of such action was quite sufficient to give

THE WORK OF SECRETARY HAY 287

weight to the reports. The European Powers are
in a state of constant readiness, and constant eager-
ness, to grab at such chances as a country like China
from time to time affords. A general onslaught
of this sort at the close of the present war would
mean the beginning of troubles whose duration no
man can predict. Mr. Hay proposes to avert this
if he can. He has accordingly addressed a circular
note to the Powers other than the two belligerents,
in which he asks them to give assurances that at
the close of the war the integrity of Chinese terri-
tory shall be respected. It is stated that favorable
answers have been received from the British,
French, German and Italian Governments — ^pre-
sumably all the Powers addressed. While it would,
of course, be a rose-colored view that should regard
this paper defense of Chinese territorial integrity
as an impregnable bulwark, there can be no doubt
of the importance of the obstacle which it will pre-
sent to any scheme for the dismemberment of China
that may be brewing in the minds of European
diplomats. It is infinitely easier to slip into a posi-
tion of aggression when you have the excuse that
you are only doing what you have every reason to
suspect your neighbor will do than it is to brazenly
assert a claim which you have explicitly renounced
in advance, your competitors in the land-grabbing
game having done likewise, and the facts having
been published to all the world. Mr. Hay has been
carefully watching this great world-game, and he
seems to have made the right move at the right time
all through it. If, through the instrumentality of
this latest international assurance, he shall have

288 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

prevented the disintegration of China and its parcel-
ing out for European exploitation at the close of the
Russo-Japanese war, he will have crowned his re-
markable career at the head of our foreign relations
with a most memorable and historic achievement.

OSLER ON OLD AGE

(February 25, 1905)

It must be matter for sincere regret to the ad-
mirers of Doctor Osier that, if he added any state-
ment whatever to the remarks in his recent address
on the subject of the potentialities of men above
forty or above sixty, the addition should not have
taken the shape of a caveat against taking his re-
marks too literally. Instead of this, he assures us
that what he said was precisely what he meant;
and, in particular, he reiterates without qualifica-
tion the assertion concerning the little value of
what has actually been achieved by men after reach-
ing the age of forty. " Take the sum of human
achievement," said the distinguished physician in
the passage which he reaffirms, " in action, in sci-
ence, in art, in literature — subtract the work of the
men above forty, and while we should miss great
treasures, even priceless treasures, we would prac-
tically be where we are today. It is difficult to
name a great and far-reaching conquest of the mind
which has not been given to the world by a man on
whose back the sun was still shining. The effective,
moving, vitalizing work of the world is done be-
tween the ages of twenty-five and forty." It will
be seen that in the leading sentence of this passage
human accomplishment is covered in practically its
entire range. Whether in the field of action or in
that of thought, the work done by men after pass-
ing the age of forty might, if we are to take Doctor

290 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

Osier's word for it, have been wiped out without
seriously affecting the progress or the history of
the race. And yet the proposition is one that can-
not be seriously considered for a moment without
being dismissed as utterly discordant with the facts.
It was on Washington's birthday that Doctor
Osier made his speech. At the outbreak of the
War of the Revolution, Washington was 43 years
old ; can any of us be quite sure that the outcome
of that epoch-making struggle would have been the
same — that the world would be just where it is,
as Doctor Osier says — if in the field of action some
other than Washington had occupied Washington's
place ? Nor is this all. The successful termination
of the war by no means insured the successful
establishment of the American Republic; and it is
the judgment of sober historians that it was Wash-
ington's wisdom, virtue, foresight, influence over
men, which, throughout the six desperately trying
years between the end of the war and the adoption
of the Constitution, was the great and controlling
factor in making the formation of the Union pos-
sible. Is it quite certain, again, that, if the active
career of Bismarck and of Moltke had closed at the
age of forty, the dream of the German Empire
would have been realized, and would the world be
just where it is now had this been otherwise?
Surely, in the domain of " action," the past century
and a quarter can show no more lasting results, and
at the same time none achieved more distinctly by
the commanding superiority of single individuals,
than are shown in the record of Washington from
the age of 43 to that of 57, of Bismarck from 47 to

OSLER ON OLD AGE 291

58, of Moltke from 66, his age at the time of the
Austro-Prussian War, to 70, the time of his life
when was fought a war without parallel for superb
originality and completeness of direction in all the
history of the world. And in the field of action
these things are not exceptions; they can be
matched by scores of lesser cases. How many in-
stances of equally signal and lasting achievement
can be pointed to in the same period as the work
of men of action under forty?

In the domain of thought, equally striking illus-
trations of the error of Doctor Osier's assertion
can be pointed out in abundance. It won't do to
mention minor things, because the answer would
be that these, while precious and important, made
no difference in the long run. Let us, then, take
one overshadowing instance. If there be a single
case in which it can be asserted with confidence
that the world is not "just where it would have
been," it is the impressive case of the great succes-
sion of Greek philosophers, Socrates, Plato and
Aristotle, each the disciple of the preceding. The
dominion of Aristotle over men's minds is measured
in its duration not by centuries, but by millennia,
and the completeness of its sway during a consider-
able part of that time is something quite without a
parallel in the history of Western civilization. Nor
will anybody, we believe, deny the vital and vitaliz-
ing relation of Socrates to Plato and of Plato to
Aristotle. But Socrates was 41 when his disciple
Plato was born, and Plato was 45 when Aristotle
first saw the light. We fancy that Doctor Osier
would be the last to say that it would have made no

292 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

serious difference to the world if Socrates had de-
sisted from his activities before Plato was bom, and
31 years before the actual close of his own career;
if Plato had ceased to think and teach and write
before Aristotle was born, and 41 years before his
own death; or even if Aristotle had undertaken to
make his last contribution to the thought of the
world 22 years before the time which actually
marked the close of his vast labors.

To these and scores of other instances that might
be adduced in the world of intellect the answer may
be made that what was meant was something not
inconsistent with any of this ; that the idea in Doctor
Osier's mind was that the initiating impulse, the
setting forth along a new line, the vitalizing concep-
tion of a great thought, seldom fails to take place
in the mind of its originator before he reaches the
age of forty; that what is done after that age is
almost always in pursuance of some line of thought
upon which the mind had fastened at an earlier
period. But who would deny such an assertion as
this? Reduced to this harmless condition, the as-
sertion would be almost as lacking in novelty as,
in its original form, it was wanting in correctness.
Doctor Osier, many persons in his audience must
have felt, was putting in pointed, piquant, telling,
interesting, unguarded form a thing which — so far
as it is true — most persons would be ready to admit,
but which few persons, perhaps, adequately realize.
It is worth while to dwell on the preciousness of
the years of bold and enthusiastic and creative intel-
lectual impulse. One consequence of doing so, in
the university world, ought to be a better utilization

OSLER ON OLD AGE 293

of the powers of gifted young men for the kind of
work which they would seize upon with eagerness,
and from which they are too often turned aside to
do the work of mere routine. But in the assertion
itself there is nothing either novel or startling. It
would have been strange, indeed, if Darwin had
lived to the age of forty without having taken on
the impulse — that of an extremely simple though
infinitely prolific idea — which guided the work of
his whole life. And, having once become absorbed
in that thought, and devoted to it, we require no
hypothesis of semi-senility to account for his not
having got out some other equally important theory
in his later years. The bent of a man's life is de--
termined before forty ; he is less apt after that time
to start out upon new ways ; who has ever doubted
this? But while we render unto the young man
the things that are the young man's, there is no
reason why we should withhold from the older man
the things that are his.

There are other things in the world — even in the
world of thought — that are great besides scientific
discovery; and even in the domain of scientific
discovery there are other things that are great be-
sides the original or seminal idea of the discovery.
The world is full of mute inglorious Newtons and
Darwins as well as Miltons; men who have had
the initial thought, the impulsive conception, but
have not attained the high mastery, the comprehen-
sive grasp, the lucid and mature judgment, that
make the discovery real and substantial. Which of
the two endowments is the more precious? The
question is as idle as would be the question whether

294 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

it is hydrogen or oxygen that is most essential to
the composition of water. Darwin thought acutely,
at an early age, of the doctrine of the Origin of
Species ; in his later years he collected, massed and
analyzed the vast body of facts which he published
in that work (at the age of fifty) and in his subse-
quent writings. Which of these two parts of his
achievement argued the rarer, the more important
quality — the quality that made Darwin Darwin?
There can be but one answer. And that answer is
of itself sufficient to take the bottom out of the
statement which Doctor Osier, we regret to see, has
put so unqualifiedly, not before a scientific audience,
but before a general public which he cannot expect
to make the allowances and interpretations that
are necessary in order to free his assertion not
only from objection but from possibilities of real
mischief.

ROOSEVELT ON THE EVE OF HIS SECOND TERM

(March 4, 1905)

It is much to be doubted whether any President
has entered upon his term of office, either for the
first or the second time, the object of a degree and
kind of popular admiration such as that which
greets Theodore Roosevelt today. The comparison
which most readily suggests itself is that of Andrew
Jackson. The hero of New Orleans and of the
fight against the Bank of the United States evoked
a kind of popular idolatry not unlike that which
President Roosevelt commands, and it was very
much more intense. But along with it there was
an equally intense party and personal feeling di-
rected against him; and his defeated opponent,
Henry Clay, was a man who commanded such en-
thusiastic, devotion on the part of his followers and
admirers as has probably not been paralleled in the
entire history of American politics. Moreover, there
was something of a class division there — Clay ap-
pealing rather to the intellect and wealth of the
country, Jackson to the instincts of the masses. In
Roosevelt's case, the remarkable phenomenon is
presented of a man bom to wealth and high family
connections, a scholar and author, first conspicuous
nationally as an advocate and promoter of that
"aristocratic" measure, civil service reform, who
is nevertheless above all a favorite with the great
masses of the people, while remaining almost
equally a favorite with the class in which he would

296 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

himself naturally be placed; and, to complete the
picture, he is a man who, while a thorough-going
Republican partisan, enters upon his second term
with Democratic party feeling against him reduced
to such small dimensions as to be almost a negligi-
ble factor.

If other comparisons were desired, the first to
present itself, going backward in point of time,
would be Cleveland. For our own part, we believe
that if the popularity of a man could be weighed in
some authentic way, instead of being merely indi-
cated by count, no man in our time — Roosevelt not
excepted — has had so great a measure of popularity
throughout the country, and irrespective of party,
as that commanded by Grover Cleveland from the
close of his first to the opening of his second Ad-
ministration. There was toward him something of
the same popular appreciation of simple, sterling
and cardinal qualities which forms the basis of Mr.
Roosevelt's hold upon the people; atid the feeling
in Mr. Cleveland's case was more deep-seated, went
farther down into the roots of character. But it
was not so nearly universal as in Mr. Roosevelt's
case, nor was it a feeling so naturally manifested
upon the surface. The cases of Grant and Lincoln
present, of course, the anomaly of a divided, or
recently divided, country, which puts them out of
line for a direct comparison. And when we go back
to the instance of George Washington, we are con-
fronted with the phenomenon of a feeling wholly
different in kind from any that could be evoked by
services other than those sublime and immortal
works which the Father of His Country devoted

ROOSEVELT ON EVE OF SECOND TERM 2^7

to the making of the nation, in war and in peace.
It is true he had bitter enemies and unrestrained
maligners ; but the feeling toward him on the part
of the typical American was a feeling that trans-
cends mere popularity, and has something in it
which can hardly be called a personal feeling at all.
The tap-root of the remarkable popularity of Mr.
Roosevelt, we feel sure, is the absolute conviction
that there is nothing about him that is mean or
sordid. All his feats of physical prowess, his Rough
Rider exploits, his youthful ardor and effervescence,
would be quite unequal to captivating the American
people were there not behind these qualities, attrac-
tive as they are to the multitude, something that
appeals more strongly to the national heart and con-
science. The primary thing the people want in a
President, before they will give him their hearty
applause or liking, is honesty ; but that is not suffi-
cient. They wish to feel that he has something
about him that will not quietly accommodate itself,
in a sordid spirit of comfortable ease, to things as
they happen to be. The people feel about Mr.
Roosevelt not only that he is honest but — we wish
he had not himself so abused the word as to make
it almost impossible to use — that he is strenuously
honest. They feel that he is ready to assert himself
in the face of the forces of plutocracy, so nearly
omnipotent in the councils of his own party. They
feel that there are other great national questions
upon which he is thoroughly in earnest, and in
behalf of which he is ever ready to work with en-
ergy and enthusiasm. They like him in his capacity
as a man, as the head of his own family, as an

20

298 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

exponent of vigorous and youthful Americanism;
but all this would not avail to make him the national
favorite that he is without the solid foundation of
a belief in sterling qualities which place him above
the common level of political thought and action.

One reflectipn that is forcibly suggested by these
considerations has a significant bearing upon the
status of the national parties. That Mr. Roosevelt
was stronger than his party — as well as that Mr.
Parker was weaker than his — in the recent election
is a proposition hardly open to dispute; but it is
perhaps not sufficiently recognized that the reason
that he is stronger than his party is by no means
wholly a personal one. Mr. Roosevelt's special
strength lies largely in that part of him in which he
is in marked opposition to the dominant tendency
of his own party. The people are not so delighted
with the prospect of a millionaire millennium as
the Republican magnates have often seemed to im-
agine. Mere wallowing in prosperity — especially
when that prosperity is so peculiarly distributed —
does not content all the aspirations of the American
nature. Whether wisely and ably, or only vigor-
ously and emphatically, Mr. Roosevelt has certainly
entered an energetic protest against a complacent
acceptance of things as they are. He has defied
the " oh, well " sentiment of Wall Street magnates
and their Senatorial representatives. He stands for
many of the things which, only a short time ago,
when proposed by Mr. Bryan, were howled down
as anarchistic. And the people like him the better
for it — not only the people who have been clamor-
ing for a change all along, and not only the people

ROOSEVELT ON EVE OF SECOND TERM 299

who are beginning to see that something must be
done sooner or later, but very many of the people
who think Mr. Roosevelt is specifically wrong but
believe that the spirit of what he is doing is whole-
some. The great god Prosperity is not a god
whose worship can be continuously and completely
satisfying. A few years of it was quite enough
to give soundly constituted people a surfeit of it.
Mr. Roosevelt has been supplying something less
gross to occupy the attention of the nation, and the
nation is thankful for it. The Republican party will
either permit itself to be affected by the virus that
he has put into it or will find itself less surely in
possession of national power than it imagines.

THE FUNDAMENTAL DIFFICULTY IN RAIL-
ROAD-RATE REGULATION

(December I2, 1905)

However strong may be the reasons in favor of
Gk>vernment regulation of railroad rates, it would be
mere blindness to ignore the difficulties it will in-
volve, and especially to ignore the one fundamental
difficulty. President Roosevelt, in his message, ad-
mits that the difficulties will be formidable, but he
does not indicate a realization of the character and
the scope of the one central difficulty. He rests con-
tent with the assurance that the doctrine of the
square deal will be adequate for guidance, and that
faith in American courage and in American ability
to pull through will be adequate for strength. But
before we reach the stage of action upon the lines of
the President's recommendation it will be necessary
for the satisfaction of rational and responsible men,
dealing with a mighty and complex question, that
this central difficulty be, at least in some measure,
cleared up.

The difficulty to which we have reference lies in
the absence of any established principle, or set of
principles, for the determination of a reasonable rate.
It is quite true that the Inter-State Commerce Com-
mission now has the power, and has exercised the
power, of determining that a given rate is unreason-
able ; but the reasons that guide it in so doing are
reasons based upon a comparison of the rate under
criticism with other rates that are in force, and the

RAILROAD-RATE REGULATION 3^1

action taken by the Commission is thus in the nature,
one may say, of the correction of some specific de-
parture from a general rule or system that it finds
existing, and not in the nature of a determination
of that general rule itself. In the prevention of dis-
criminations, either as actually accomplished by the
Commission or as contemplated by the law, this
character is still more evident. The Commission is
guided by an existing state of facts — vaguely de-
fined, to be sure, but still ascertainable with more or
less precision — ^and makes no attempt at a funda-
mental determination of rate reasonableness.

Before Congress grants to the Inter-State Com-
merce Commission, or to any administrative body,
the power to fix rates, the question ought to be thor-
oughly considered whether the principles on which
such fixing is to be based are sufficiently evident to
permit of the application of them by a small set of
administrative officers, whether subject to judicial
review or not, without grave danger. A most in-
teresting illustration of the kind of discretion that is
contemplated was furnished the other day by Attor-
ney General Moody in his annual report, in a sug-
gestion which was approved by President Roosevelt
in his message to Congress. This suggestion was
that if the power of fixing a maximum rate were
conferred upon the Commission, that body would
have in its hands a weapon which would be most
powerful in the suppression of rebates. The Attor-
ney General stated that the Commission would, in
his opinion, not be exceeding the power that it
would then have, if it adopted the policy of taking
the net rate that it found to be given to any favored

302 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

shipper and established it as the maximum rate
permissible. Now, this policy would in itself prob-
ably be a most excellent one ; but is it not evident
that so fundamental a point should be settled by
legislation, and not by the arbitrary act of an ad-
ministrative board? It is certainly not self-evident
that the rate given to a favored shipper is the maxi-
mum reasonable rate; indeed, Mr. Moody himself
rests his recommendation not upon this assumption,
but upon the salutary preventive effect that he
thinks the policy would have. If the lawmakers of
the country direct the Commission to embody this
rule — B, rule not for the scientific determination of
a reasonable rate, but for the exemplary punish-
ment of a railroad company guilty of favoritism —
well and good; but surely it is contrary to all
principles of responsible government that an ad
ministrative body should have the power of insti-
tuting any such rule.

This, however, is only a curious reminder, in a
single sharply defined matter, of a difficulty which is
present all along the line when we consider the
question of rate-fixing. What are the principles upon
which it is to be done ? Are they sufficiently evident
to make the actual performance of that act a merely
administrative duty? If not, is Congress prepared
to lay down a set of principles roughly or approxi-
mately adequate to the guidance of the administra-
tors? Or are Congress and the people willing, for
the sake of making a beginning of some kind, to en-
trust powers of a non-administrative and non-judi-
cial kind — ^powers involving the discretionary adjust-
ment of great material interests where no definite

RAILROAD-RATE REGULATION 303

principles exist for general guidance — ^to an admin-
istrative body, whether subject to judicial review or
not? These are questions which lie at the thresh-
hold of the railroad-rate inquiry, and which it would
not be fitting that intelligent public opinion should
ignore.

CARL SCHURZ

(May 14, 1906)

With the death of Carl Schurz there passes away
one of the few remaining figures signally associated
with the events connected with the great Civil War.
His departure from the scene makes an even more
striking severance of ties with the past in that it
takes away one of the rapidly dwindling number of
men who formed part of the revolutionary move-
ment which stirred all Europe in 1848. According
to the usual method of reckoning these things, it may
be said that two generations have made their en-
trance upon and their exit from the stage since the
time when young Schurz enlisted in the German
revolutionary uprising. The nearly three-score
years that have passed since then have been years of
vast and profound changes, material, intellectual and
spiritual. Not the least of these changes is that
which has affected the subject-matter of political
thought, and the attitude of the world toward politi-
cal issues. The grapple with the complex problems
of economic adjustment has crowded away from the
front of the stage those simpler and more ideal striv-
ings which then engaged the thoughts and filled the
souls of fiigh-minded men, young and old. Carl
Schurz grew up with a firm belief in and an enthu-
siastic devotion to those principles of human rights
and of constitutional liberty which formed the com-
mon creed of European liberals and which found
their chief embodiment in the doctrines that lay at

CARL SCHURZ 305

the foundation of the institutions of the great young
American Republic. When the breakdown of the
revolutionary movement in Germany made him an
exile from his native land it was natural that he
should seek a field for his activities in our country ;
nor was it surprising that the birth of the Republi-
can party, representing the movement for the
prevention of the extension of slavery, and for its
ultimate extinction, should have enlisted the ardent
interest of the young liberal. His remarkable powers
in argument and oratory soon made him one of the
prominent figures in that party; and he took his
share in the political campaigns preceding the Civil
War and served in the Union Army throughout the
struggle.

After the war, he made his mark first in journal-
ism and then as one of the foremost members of the
United States Senate. Nothing was more remark-
able about his course in that body than the quickness
with which he perceived the dangers involved in the
arbitrary exercise of executive power in the recon-
struction days. The unfaltering firmness with which
he took his stand against his own party upon this
matter was only one manifestation of that absolute
devotion to principle which characterized his career
from its beginning in the German struggle to its
close, when he stood out as one of the leading pro-
testants against the new policy of imperialism ; but
the magnificent power which he put forth in the
speech in the Senate in which he denounced General
Sheridan's invasion of the Louisiana Legislature
marked perhaps the highest point of his oratorical
achievements. His retirement from public office

306 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

dates from the close of his term as Secretary of the
Interior imder President Hayes; but his loyal ser-
vice to the highest interests of his adopted country
continued in the form of journalism, of public
speeches, and of weighty written utterances upon
momentous subjects of national concern, until near
the close of his life. He was one of the two or three
men who did most effective service to the cause of
honest money, throughout the thirty years' struggle
which began with the greenback movement and
ended with the collapse of silverism; and probably
to no man except the late George William Curtis
and the late Edwin L. Godkin did the cause of civil
service reform owe so much as to Carl Schurz.

This, however, is not the place for a particulariza-
tion of the events, or even of the leading features, of
Schurz's career. A sketqh covering the main lines
of his history was given in The News of last Sat-
urday, and from this readers may have gathered the
most remarkable points of his life and character.
It was a character of singular unity and constancy,
a life dominated in a degree rare in our days by a
clear and consistent ideal. Though a close thinker
and a diligent student, and therefore anything but a
man whose activities or whose position can be
stunmed up in any mere formula, the grand imderly-
ing principles to which he was faithful throughout
his long career form a connecting thread which
makes the record, long and complex as it is, a sim-
ple whole. Those who, while far from having
reached the age at which Schurz died, are old
enough to remember the days of those more elemen-
tal questions which were to the fore in his prime,

CARL SCHURZ 3^7

and of that simpler political faith which gave light
and guidance to the leaders of that epoch, cannot
avoid a feeling of deep sadness at the thought of
the passing away of one of the last exemplars of a
noble type of thought and action. Spotless in char-
acter, ardent and devoted in the pursuit of the high-
est ends, a keen thinker and a hard fighter, an exam-
ple at once of the best European culture and of the
truest American democracy, he leaves no one behind
him to fill the peculiar place that he has occupied in
the public mind. But, like our own Wallis in the
narrower field which he occupied, Carl Schurz's life
has borne precious fruit not only in its direct results
upon the causes he served so well, but in the inspir-
ing and bracing influence of his example upon thou-
sands of the men who have grown up in the past two
generations.

IBSENISM AND TRUTH

(May 26, 1906)

The death of Ibsen has called forth on all sides
the tribute due to one of the greatest of the literary
figures of his time. There is in his dramas a titanic
power, and in mis attitude toward life a mordant
intensity which set him apart on a lonely eminence.
His influence on the dramatic art of our age, and on
literature outside the drarpa, has been as potent as
it has been widespread. Jjlxi his searching exposures
of human weakness and selfishness, of depravity and
hypocrisy, he has thrown the light of truth upon the
dark places of life. In the conflict of his heroic
characters with the compromises upon which the es-
tablished order of human existence is built, he por-
trays the tragedy that must result from that naked
assertion of the prerogative of individuality which is
the centre of his doctrine. Whether depicting feeble-
ness or strength, weak sensualism or heroic striving,
selfish greed or noble sacrifice, it is in an atmosphere
of gloom that he lives and moves^

There are souls on which this darkness in the
life of the present, illumined as it is by the lightning
of such a spirit as Ibsen's, has not a depressing but
an inspiriting influence. Accepting the picture as a
true portrayal of the evil of today, they but see in
him who thus bares the truth to their eyes the guide
toward a higher and better state of the world. To
the great majority of mankind, however — ^and we
believe this is just as true of the most intellectual

IBSENISM AND TRUTH 3^9

as it is of the simplest of Ibsen's readers — Ibsen's
dramas produce an effect of unmitigated depression.
If the world today is such as he paints it, they can-
not console themselves with the belief that any re-
volt of the human spirit can make it over into a tol-
erable shape. The only thing that can make such
pessimism as Ibsen's endurable is an equally intense
optimism ; those who find the world of " Ghosts "
and " The Pillars of Society " and the rest of the
Ibsen dramas a world in which they can continue to
be hopeful and active and buoyant are the few whom
nature has endowed in an exceptional degree with
that elastic and self-confident temper that is the
great source of unreasoning optimism. As for the
rest of us, if we are to retain our hold upon hope,
and cheerfulness, and interest in mankind, we must
put Ibsen behind us ; in other words, we must reject
(Ibsen as giving an essentially false view of life and
the world J

Is, then, the Ibsen view of life and the world a
false view? We are firmly convinced that it is ; and
we believe that the (essence of its untruth lies in its
utter failure to take in the beauty and sweetness and
goodness that there is in the simple daily acts and
thoughts and words and feelings that constitute all
but a small fraction of the life of the race. That
men and women are imperfect, that "we are all
miserable sinners," that we are a bundle of contra-
dictions — ^all this is as old as written or spoken
thought. If we are to look upon humanity as a
mass of rottenness because there can be found on
every side hollowness and dishonesty and sensuality
and unscrupulous greed, or because each one of us

3IO ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

knows in his own person how far he falls short of
his own standards of conduct, it needs no genius like
Ibsen to bring us to that conclusion. What Ibsen
does is to throw the fierce light of his genius so in-
tensely, first on this evil spot and then on that, that
we forget to consider how large or how small a
space it occupies ; we are so fascinated by the exhibit
then before us that we overlook the question of its
relative importance.

Nor is this the only way in which our sei\se_oi
the real relations of things is thus blinded. iThe
great mass of mankind — and this is true of learned
and unlearned alike — are not engaged in looking
into their soul and inquiring whether life gives
adequate expansion to its possibilities ; and there is
no reason in the world why they should. Life is
not a mere spiritual exercise ; it is a vast and subtle
web of relations, the inheritance of ages of human
history and development. The simple affections /
with which we grow up, and which we exercise
without analysis or introspection, are worth infinitely
more, and constitute an infinitely larger part of life,
than all the self-conscious cravings of aggressive in-
dividualism. To make a good home for wife and
children; to cherish old attachments; to tend your
loved ones in sickness and trouble, and to be tended
by them in turn ; to walk in the fields, and see the
green things growing every spring; to watch little
children at play; to hear of good and noble deeds
done by plain people — ^and they are done every day
without a thought of reward, as is shown at every
fire and in every railroad disaster ; these and a thou-
sand other simple things make up a part of human

IBSENISM AND TRUTH 2il

life in comparison with which all that part with
which Ibsen deals dwindles into insignificant pro-
portions.

Of all this you feel nothing in Ibsen. And the
absence of it constitutes more than a mere ordinary
error; it amounts to what may almost be: called a
logical fallacy. If the radical individualist could
make the world over according to his views, we sus-
pect that he would find it far less tolerable than the
world as it is, with all its imperfections on its head.
For it is upon the unreasoning attachments, and
habits, and weaknesses, and prejudices, and conven-
tions which make the web of life what it is that not
only the sweetness of life, but also its interest, is de-
pendent. It is highly stimulating to the militant in-
dividualist to try to tear the web asunder; but he
does not pause to consider the want of interest there
would be in the emptiness that would take its place.

. THE "TAINTED MONEY" QUESTION

(June 26, 1906)

There have been, within a short time, two very
striking cases of testifying by works, not words,
against the acceptance of "tainted money." One
of these occurred several weeks ago, when the pro-
fessor of astronomy at Smith College, a woman,
resigned her post on account of the College having
accepted an addition to its endowment from Mr.
Rockefeller. The news of the other comes in to-
day's dispatches. While the first was a matter
affecting the position of only one individual, the
second is concerned with a great sum of money, and
concerns a large philanthropic enterprise. Noth-
ing similar to the rejection of an offer of $5,000,000
for the establishment of the work of a " National
Juvenile Improvement Association " has yet been
recorded in the course of the tained money agita-
tion. What makes it more remarkable is that this
was not done as the result of the judgment of one
man, or of one particular body, but was brought
about by the peremptory refusal of the various
individual workers who were to give the movement
its start to go on with the work if it was to receive
its financial foundation at the hands of the Standard
Oil magnate.

On this whole subject there is room for a great
deal of difference of opinion. It constitutes one of
the most delicate and puzzling questions of applied
ethics that have claimed the interest of the public

THE "TAINTED MONEY" QUESTION 313

in our time. There are many persons who dismiss
the position of the objectors as nonsensical. If you
are doing a good work, they say, what sense is
there in refusing help for it? Are not Rockefel-
ler's dollars just as valuable, will they not do just
as much good, as any other dollars? And again,
if you reject his money, where are you going to
draw the line? Have you any assurance that other
rich givers are any better than Rockefeller? The
only logical position, say these critics of the squeam-
ish, is either to take all money that is offered for a
good cause and " no questions asked," or to refuse
all money unless it is proved that it was honestly
and honorably come by ; and this last is of course a
reductio ad absurdum.

But the matter is not so simple as all this. The
question is not as to some ideal taint that attaches
to the money, but as to the actual moral effect that
may be expected to flow from its acceptance. To
appreciate this phase of the matter, it is necessary
to turn back a few months, or a year, in our
thoughts. The change that has recently taken place
in public sentiment toward the great men of the
financial world has been so startling that it is diffi-
cult to realize the condition of the moral atmos-
phere in this regard when the " tainted money "
agitation was started, short as is the time that has
passed since. What gave importance to the protest
of Mr. Washington Gladden and the other Congre-
gationalist ministers who objected to the acceptance
of Mr. Rockefeller's money for mission work was
the fact that Rockefeller was one of the great fig-
ures of the land. The unscrupulous practices, the

314 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

remorseless rapacity, upon which the success of
the Standard Oil Company had been built up
were well known ; but they were apt to be thought
of in very much the way in which an operation
of Nature — ^an earthquake, or a flood, or a cyclone
— is thought of; as a tremendous and more or
less appalling phenomenon, but as a thing to
which moral considerations are not practically appli-
cable. Now, the objection of the Congregational
ministers was a solemn and indignant protest
against this attitude. It was a declaration to all
the world that those at least in whose custody is
placed the cause of religion would not regard with
indifference the question of how cruel or lawless
may have been the methods by which the greatest
fortune in the world had been amassed. Whatever
may have been actually in the minds of Dr. Gladden
and his associates, the effect upon the world was
that of a pronunciamento that between these rep-
resentatives of religious ideals and a fortune built
up as Mr. Rockefeller's had been there could be no
association.

So great is the change that has taken place in
the atmosphere since that quite recent day, that to
reject Mr. Rockefeller's money now actually has an
air of hitting a man when he is down. We no
longer hear paeans of praise for our " captains of
industry " ; the whole caste of which Mr. Rocke-
feller has been one of the most remarkable mem-
bers is, for the time being, thrust down into a very
low place before the people. But no one can say
that this mood of the national mind is to be per-
manent. A succession of buffets has knocked down

THE "TAINTED MONEY" QUESTION S^S

idol after idol that had long been the object of pop-
ular worship ; but there is no telling when they, or
others like them, may be set up again. It happens
that just at this moment the earnest men and
women who have been carrying on work among the
poor and degraded in city slums, and who have
projected a national organization for improving the
condition of the young, are confronted with the
question whether they shall found their enterprise
upon millions given by Rockefeller, or depend upon
their own exertions to raise the necessary funds.
They decide upon the sterner and more difficult
course, and their decision is based, no doubt, upon
the feeling that they cannot go among these poor
and ignorant young people and inspire them with
right ideals of life if they labor under the conscious-
ness that the means to which they owe the possi-
bility of their work were supplied by a man whose
colossal material success was due to the pursuit of
ideals which are to them, and which ought to be to
everybody, utterly abhorrent. In doing as they
have done, they may possibly be making an error
of judgment; but who shall say that the example
of idealism in conduct which they are setting may
not be worth many times what the five million dol-
lars might have accomplished?

PICQUART

(October 29, igo6)

" God's in his Heaven — all's right with the
world." To millions of people, in every quarter of
the earth, this sentiment of Browning's has,
whether consciously or not, been brought home by
one wonderful drama of our time as it has not been
brought home by anything else that has happened
on the world's stage within living memory. There
has been many a transaction on an infinitely grander
scale, many a change and development involving
issues which, measured by ordinary standards, were
incomparably bigger than those that entered into
the Dreyfus affair ; but there has been nothing that
has been so clearly a conflict between the higher
and the lower elements of human nature and of
national life. It was the everlasting struggle be-
tween Ormuzd and Ahriman, between the spirit of
light and the spirit of darkness. And not only has
Ormuzd triumphed, not only have noble souls been
found in France to fight the good fight as it has
seldom if ever been fought in the whole range of
history, but — as though to give the lie to pessimists
of every shade who lament that commercialism has
drowned out all that is higher and better in life —
the whole human race, during all the time the battle
was raging, gave to it an absorbed attention, an
intensity of interest, such as even the mighty strug-
gle between Japan and Russia hardly aroused. On
its face a mere question of justice or injustice to a

PICQUART 317

single individual — one out of thousands who suffer
wrong in the rough course of human law and gov-
ernment every day — some sure, deep instinct in
mankind recognized in this case the character that
it really had ; a test of the soul of France, a trial in
which it was to be decided whether a great and
proud nation had fallen down to the worship of the
lower gods or whether, when probed to her heart's
core, she would prove capable of asserting her alle-
giance to truth and justice. And in the outcome
of this trial all the world instinctively recognized
that there was wrappecj up an issue alongside of
which a trial of strength between a hundred Dread-
noughts sinks into insignificance and the building
of twenty Panama canals becomes a commonplace
affair. It was not a question of armor-plate versus
torpedoes, it was the Powers of Darkness against
the power of Truth — and the gates of Hell did not
prevail against her.

When the complete restoration of Dreyfus to
his place in the army was accomplished a few
months ago, and Picquart, too, was restored to the
rank he had forfeited, it was felt that the last act in
this drama of poetic justice had been played. But
it has remained for Clemenceau, the remarkable
man who is now at the head of the French Ministry,
to add another chapter to the story. In making
Picquart Minister of War, he has given to the story
of the Dreyfus case an ideal completeness such as
one does not expect to encounter in the world of
working realities. Of all the figures in this extraor-
dinary drama, that of Colonel Picquart shines out
pre-eminent, great and noble as were the deeds of

3l8 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

so many other high-souled Frenchmen who acted
well their part in it. That the man who quietly
sacrificed the ambition of his life, the brilliant future
which his splendid abilities clearly held out to him
in the profession he loved, should now be placed
at the head of the great military establishment
whose whole weight, only a few years ago, had been
pressed upon him and apparently crushed him to
earth forever — ^this is indeed a spectacle to look
upon with the keenest interest and gratification.

Picquart is a man who has occupied no more
space in the public eye than was necessary to record
his specific acts ; he is not a talker or a poseur; he
has acted and he has suffered in silence. But when-
ever his figure emerges on the scene, we see always
one and the same character — ^a character of inflexi-
ble uprightness, of heroic firmness, of ideal single-
ness of mind. The first thing that is reported of
his conduct as Minister of War is of a piece with
all that has gone before. He was the victim of a
cruel and deliberate persecution, brought upon him
as punishment for his assertion of the truth about
Dreyfus; and one of the officers implicated in the
conspiracy to banish him to the border of the Sa-
hara comes before Picquart, now the all-powerful
superior, to stammer out an explanation. It was
unnecessary. "I know only one thing," Picquart
tells him, " and that is that you have been an ex-
cellent officer. You may be sure that I shall not
forget that." From some men this might seem a
mere form of words, an outward assumption of
superior virtue. But this man calmly sacrificed all
that he held dearest in life, not out of love for

PIC QUART 319

Dreyfus, who was distasteful to him, not out of
solicitude for the Jews, whom he disliked, but in
the simple pursuance of his conception of his plain
duty ; and it may be counted as certain that he will
be as faithful an embodiment of truth and justice
now that he has been amazingly vindicated and set
in the highest place of the army as he was when
he submitted without hesitation to degradation and
obloquy rather than swerve a hair's breadth from
the path of right. It is a great moral lesson, this
of Picquart; the most impressive that has come
into the view of this generation; one of the most
inspiring that the annals of all history can show.

THE INDETERMINATE SENTENCE

(November 21, igo6)

The News is glad to have received from Dr.
Samuel J. Barrows, President of the International
Prison Congpress, the very interesting comment
upon its editorial apropos of the sentence of Stens-
land, the Chicago bank-wrecker, which appears in
our correspondence columns today. The subject of
the indeterminate sentence is, from every point of
view, one of unusual interest. It involves the most
fundamental questions both of the theory and the
practice of legal punishment. That there is much
to be said in favor of it no one can deny. That it
is highly desirable to apply it over a large range of
cases of criminality few, we believe, will question
who have given attention to the arguments ad-
vanced by its advocates. But that it should be
adopted as a universal principle we are not pre-
pared to admit; and cases like that of Stensland,
and in general of unfaithful bank officials or other
depositories of important trusts, serve to bring out
what, to our mind, is a fundamental defect in the
principle of the indeterminate sentence if that prin-
ciple is designed to cover the whole range of legal
punishment. What that fundamental defect is we
shall endeavor to point out presently ; but first it is
necessary to take up some of the specific points
made by Mr. Barrows.

In the first place, then, it should be noted that
the objection made by The News against the use

THE INDETERMINATE SENTENCE 321

of the indeterminate sentence did not rest upon its
mildness, but upon its indefiniteness ; and moreover,
even if we had objected to it simply as too mild,
the argument made by Mr. Barrows in reply would
still be illogical. It does not in the least follow, as
Mr. Barrows appears to imagine, that every time a
person objects to a given punishment as too mild
for the crime he commits himself to the doctrine
that " the severest penalty would be the best deter-
rent." That position could at once be overthrown
by citing, as Mr. Barrows does, the failure of the
brutal criminal laws of England prior to the Nine-
teenth Century ; but it would be every bit as logical
to say that any man who believes those savage pun-
ishments to have been ineffective is thereby com-
mitted to the doctrine that the less the punishment
the more effective, as to say that any man who
thinks some very mild punishment to be ineffective
is thereby committed to the opposite dogma. The
thing is not a matter of a simple arithmetical pro-
portion, but of such wisdom and judgment as ex-
perience and native good sense can furnish. A
second fallacy that runs through Mr. Barrow's let-
ter is the notion that you can tell, for instance, what
the effect of a judge's sentence in a given case may
be by watching the statistics of crime in the next
two or three weeks or months; for this is the
utmost basis that we can imagine Mr. Barrows to
have for the statetment he makes about the failure
of an occasional exemplary sentence to repress
stealing. And thirdly, we object entirely to the
drawing of any inference from what we said upon
the question either of probation, at one end of the

3^2 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

criminal line, or, at the other end, of the treatment
of habitual or professional criminals; an inference
that could only be justified if we had made an argu-
ment against the indeterminate sentence in general,
which we were far from doing or wishing to do.

The fundamental defect in the indeterminate-
sentence principle, if that principle be advanced as
covering the whole range of crime, is one that goes
deeper than any question of immediate effect. It
reaches down into the very foundation of the feel-
ings of mankind in regard to crime and punishment.
If it came to be the habitual feeling of men and
women that the object of imprisonment was noth-
ing more than, on the one hand, the protection of
society from the particular criminal during the term
of his confinement, and, on the other hand, his ref-
ormation, the feeling of the solemn and awful na-
ture of a conviction for crime would be in danger
of being fatally undermined. The deterrent effect
of punishment does not come about only, or chiefly,
through a cold-blooded calculation of the nature of
that punishment; it comes about, most of all,
through the feeling that when the judge sentences
a man to prison he is placing upon him the brand
of society as a man who has incurred the penalty of
the law, and who must, in justice, suffer that
penalty — not merely be kept out of harm's way, not
merely be given a chance to reform, but must
undergo a degree of suffering which, according to
some kind of rough arithmetic, expresses in a man-
ner the measure of his guilt. You may dispense
with this idea in a great many cases, in a great
many classes of cases ; but if you dispense with it

THE INDETERMINATE SENTENCE 3^3

altogether, you take away the very prop upon which
rests the moral effectiveness of punishment as a
deterrent. It is the moral impressiveness, vastly
more than the actual severity, of a punishment that
is the efficient agent in making it fruitful for the
repression of criminal instincts. The motive of
legal punishment is not vengeance ; it is prevention.
But you cannot serve the ends of prevention with-
out keeping alive the idea that it is not only defense
and not only protection, but also the meting out of
justice, which presides over the administration of
the criminal law.

THE STRAIN ON THE CONSTITUTION

(January 7, 1907)

The Constitution of the United States is being
tugged at nowadays in a way that has not been
paralleled since the great struggle of the Civil
War. The question how far the Federal Govern-
ment can go in the regulation of the industrial,
commerical and transportation interests of the
country, as a consequence of the " inter-State com-
merce clause " of the Constitution, is constantly to
the front. This has, indeed, been the case ever
since the passing of the inter-State commerce law
in 1887, and of the anti-trust law in 1890; but never
has it occupied a position of anything like the
prominence, or anything like the urgency, that now
characterize it. That this is so is due not only to
the active exertions of political leaders like Mr.
Bryan and Mr. Roosevelt, but even more, of course,
to the stupendous expansion of our great corpora-
tions, the menace of monopoly, and those amazing
exhibitions of one-man power of which the disclos-
ures concerning Mr. Harriman's operations fur-
nish the latest example. In the face of a situation
so wholly unlike anything that the framers of the
Constitution could possibly have contemplated, and
in view of the obvious fact that it is a situation with
which the separate States are inherently unable to
cope, it is not surprising that the effort has been
made to exploit to the utmost such power as the
Constitution of the United States places in the

THE STRAIN ON THE CONSTITUTION 3^5

hands of the Federal Government to deal with the
pressing questions of our present economic life.

The basis of all the inter-State commerce legisla-
tion of the United States is to be found in just
four words of the Constitution. Among the powers
granted to Congress by that instrument is included
the power " to regulate commerce with foreign na-
tions, and among the several States, and with the
Indian tribes." The original inter- State commerce
law, the anti-trust law, the recently enacted rail-
road-rate law, the pure-food law, and all the rest
of our Federal legislation affecting conditions of
manufacture, trade and transportation stand upon
this foundation. Just how much weight it can be
made to carry must depend on the decision of the
United States courts, if we assume a disposition on
the part of Congress and the President to press its
possibilities to the utmost. At the present moment
a most interesting stage has been reached in the
determination of this most critical issue. On the
one hand, the Senate has under consideration Sen-
ator Beveridge's bill prohibiting the inter-State
transportation of any goods in the manufacture of
which the labor of children under fourteen years
of age has been employed — a bill which manifestly
extends the scope of the inter- State commerce
clause far beyond any previous application ; and on
the other hand, two United States District judges
have independently declared the Employers' Lia-
bility act recently passed by Congress unconstitu-
tional. If the decisions of these judges are sus-
tained, on appeal, by the Supreme Court, this event
will mark the drawing of the line very much on the

326 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

hither side of legislation of the character of the
Beveridge bill ; if, on the other hand, the constitu-
tionality of the Employers' Liability act is sustained
by the Supreme Court, and if at any time in the
near future such a bill as that of Senator Beveridge
shall be passed by Congress, it would be impossible
to assign any limits to the extension of Federal
power, not simply under cover of those four preg-
nant words of the inter-State commerce clause,
but under cover of any of a dozen other phrases in
the Constitution.

In his opinion holding the Employers' Liability
act unconstitutional. Judge Evans said:

A most patient consideration of the question in this in-
stance has led to the conclusion — we think to the inevitable
conclusion — ^that the act of June ii, 1906, only creates and
imposes liability upon certain common carriers to their
employees and in no way prescribes rules for carrying on
traffic or commerce among the States, and consequently in
no way regulates such commerce. If the operation of the
act could in any way affect commerce among the States, it
would do so in a manner so remote, incidental and con-
tingent as in no proper sense to afford a factor of any
value in determining the question now in contention.

The last sentence here quoted puts the crux of the
matter in a nutshell. It is a matter of common
sense and statesmanlike sagacity to decide just how
far " incidental and contingent " effects are to be
taken into account in interpreting Constitutional
powers. It has been a wholesome, and even a neces-
sary, practice on the part of our courts not to rule
out such effects, and to give them a wide and rea-
sonable consideration ; but if they are to be regarded
as forming a factor in the case no matter bow re-

THE STRAIN ON THE CONSTITUTION 3^7

motely and by how strained a construction they
enter into it, the limitations of the Constitution
might as well be wiped out altogether. It is all, to
be sure, a question of degree ; but when you ignore
all limits in questions of degree you have, to all
intents and purposes, made a difference in kind and
not in degree.

Take, for example, such a proposition as that con-
tained in the Beveridge bill. To prohibit the trans-
portation, in inter-State commerce, of goods in the
making of which child labor has entered is to use
the power over inter-State commerce simply as a
weapon of coercion in the regulation of conditions
of industry in the several States. The purpose may
be ever so laudable, but the point is that it is a pur-
pose having none but the most accidental — inci-
dental is not a strong enough word — ^and far-
fetched connection with inter- State commerce, or
commerce of any kind. If the power to regulate
inter-State commerce be held to justify an applica-
tion so remote, what is to hinder its being used to
prohibit the transportation of goods of any kind
from a State in which child labor is allowed, or in
which the sale of alcoholic liquors is permitted, or
which does not maintain a State university? It
may be that between the Beveridge proposal and
such fantastic propositions as we have here im-
agined there is a wide gulf; but the point is that
unless it be recognized that the power to regulate
inter-State commerce is to be construed as having
such limitations as a reasonable attitude toward
the meaning of written language would impose, we
are landed in a situation in which the power of the

328 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

Federal Government to coerce the separate States
upon any point of internal policy would be prac-
tically without limit. And even if it be admitted
that the necessity of a great stretching of Federal
power in industrial and commercial matters is a
necessity of the times, it should be borne in mind
that the process of changing the Constitution by
orderly amendment is open to the nation. That
this process is only a paper possibility, but is in
practice out of the question, is a belief widely enter-
tained, but it is in reality little better than a super-
stition. It is high time the question were being
seriously considered whether the unlimited stretch-
ing of the Constitution can be justified by the un-
warranted assumption that legal amendment of that
instrument is an impossibility.

HIGH INTEREST RATES AND THE GOLD SUPPLY

(January 22, 1907)

Since the publication of Mr. J. J. Hill's recent
letter to the Governor of Minnesota, pointing out
the diminished rate of construction of new track
by the railroad companies of this country, and de-
claring that more than five billion dollars ought to
be expended on new track and terminals during the
next five years, there has been a great deal of dis-
cussion as to the underlying causes of the present
congestion in railroad facilities and of other anal-
ogous features of the economic situation. That
the agitation directed toward a more severe regu-
lation of railways has done something to diminish
the amount of capital that would otherwise have
gone into railroad construction can hardly be
doubted, but, as we pointed out when Mr. Hill's
letter appeared, it is impossible to accept this as an
explanation, or the chief part of an explanation, of
what has taken place, seeing that unprecedentedly
large masses of capital have actually been put into
other railroad improvements during the very years
in which the trackage has undergone so little in-
crease. But, without going into this particular
question, the facts stand out prominently that the
demands on railroad resources have been growing
at a tremendous rate, and that the increase of their
facilities for meeting them has not kept pace with
the growth of the demands. There is in this, one
would say, nothing astonishing; it is but a natural

22

330 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

part of the situation in all the leading- lines of
activity during the past few years, a " boom " period
probably unparalleled in economic history. Still, in
the case of railroads, the question of the possibility
of raising money on securities at acceptable terms
enters more seriously into the situation than in the
case of ordinary industrial enterprises, and thus the
problem is brought into connection with that of the
long-prevailing tightness of money and the rise in
the rate of interest, the world over.

There are doubtless many causes that contribute
to the creation of an economic situation in which
the leading features are an intense strain on indus-
trial and transportation capacity, a sharp demand
for money, and high interest rates. But there is
one cause which, we feel sure, is more fundamental
and pervading than any other — ^the increased sup-
ply of gold. It may seem at first blush absurd to
assert that an increasing supply of the money metal
causes the rate of interest to go up and makes it
difficult for the supply of money to keep pace with
the demand. But it must be remembered that the
first effect of the increasing supply of gold is a rise
of prices. The enormous output of the world's gold
mines in the past few years has resulted in an ex-
traordinary rise of prices from year to year. When
prices are rising in this way, the men of enterprise,
the great industrial producers, profit by it. What-
ever they bought in the way of raw materials a
year ago would cost decidedly more to replace now,
and the price they can get for their finished product
corresponds to the price of the raw material today,
not the price of a year ago. If wages are rising.

INTEREST RATES AND GOLD SUPPLY 331

as we all know they are, in response to the rise in
the cost of living, the labor-cost put into the prod-
uct is also a source of profit upon the same principle.
And finally, in the repayment of money raised on
credit for the enterpise, its owners have only to
give back a definite number of dollars, or pounds,
or francs, which means a smaller actual amount,
measured in their product, than it did when the
money was borrowed. In all these ways, the
profits of enterprise are swollen beyond their nor-
mal amount during a period of rapidly rising prices.
How can this help raising the rate of interest ? The
increased profit stimulates enterprise and makes an
increased demand for money; and, on the other
hand, the man who has the money to lend sees all
around him opportunities for investing it profitably
in other ways than lending, at a time when not
only is business enterprise profitable, but when
almost anything he puts his money into will, in the
mere process of time, become worth a greater num-
ber of dollars than he paid for it. Thus a rapidly
increasing gold supply brings about, other things
being equal, abnormal profits for enterprise, a
heightened demand for money, a certain degree of
indisposition to lend — and hence naturally higher
rates of interest and a tight money market.

Another aspect of a situation like this is that
which has relation to the question of panic and
general disaster. It is idle to prophesy anything
in regard to the probability of such a thing at any
particular time. But the abnormal stimulation of
industry through a factitious cause such as is fur-
nished by the steady fall in the value of gold — or,

332 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

what is the same thing, the steady rise of prices —
undoubtedly contains within it the germs of this
danger. Up to a very high limit, it is possible for
this kind of prosperity, factitious though it be, to
feed upon itself. The fact that you count more dol-
lars at the end of the year than you had at the
beginning would mean nothing if it happened to
all persons alike, reflecting a uniform rise of prices
and a uniform increase of mere nominal wealth.
But such is not the case. It is, as we have ex-
plained, the men of enterprise — who, by the way,
are the real " debtor class," though they are not
what the silver agitators used to mean by that
term — that reap the big money profits coming from
the fall in the value of gold; the increase in the
amount of money, or of the money-value of pos-
sessions of various kinds, is not spread about uni-
formly ; the lion's share of it falls to the men who
carry on great business undertakings. Now, this
is a state of things which has much greater signifi-
cance than a mere taking from one man's pocket
to put into another's ; it means a heightened activ-
ity in the whole productive energy of the country.
It means more complete employment of labor, more
intense utilization of every resource of nature and
invention. Thus it actually increases production,
and it is through this increase of production that
the real gain — the general prosperity — is realized
and maintained. But evidently this process of
stimulation of actual production is not capable of
indefinite continuance at an arbitrary rate. A con-
stant rise of prices such as we have been witness-
ing, if continued sufiiciently long and at a suffi-

INTEREST RATES AND GOLD SUPPLY 333

ciently rapid rate, ultimately tends, by the stimulus
of abnormal profits, to stretch enterprise and credit
to the breaking point. And then, if past experi-
ence may serve as a g^ide, we may expect the old
phenomena of panic and commercial depression.

THE AMERICAN HOTEL MEN AND THEIR
HOTELS

(May 17, 1907)

The phrase " ancient and honorable," as applied
to various time-honored organizations, has become
a mere conventionality and is often used in ridicule.
But it certainly applies in all seriousness to the
vocation which the Hotel Men's Association rep-
resents. The ancient and honorable calling of the
inn-keeper may well challenge comparison with any
other that exists as to the value of its contribution
to human happiness. " There is nothing," says Dr.
Johnson, with that tone of finality which is one of
his chief attractions — " there is nothing which has
yet been contrived by man by which so much hap-
piness is produced as by a good tavern or inn."
It ought to be a peculiar satisfaction to the men
who carry on any business that the measure of
their success is at the same time a measure of the
comfort, and cheerfulness, and happiness, of those
whom that business serves. Of what other calling
could anything be said at all similar to what the
good Doctor says about the work of the inn-
keeper ?

Dr. Johnson, to be sure, was not talking about
American hotels. Boswell records this fine dictum
as having been delivered, as it happens, in the year
1776, the birth-year of our nation. Had he seen,
in his mind's eye, hotels with a thousand rooms
and twenty stories high, flooded with a tremendous
glare of electric light, and removed as far as pos-

AMERICAN HOTELS 335

sible from the notion of simplicity and coziness,
he might have made an addition to his dictum of a
very different character. In spite of all this, it
still continues true that the hotel, the well-managed
hotel, plays a most important part in promoting
the world's happiness. As for American hotel-^
keepers, they are a fine body of men, and show in
a remarkable degree the cordiality and bigness of
spirit that properly belongs to the inn-keeper's call-
ing. They are enterprising, generous in expendi-
ture, and energetic in keeping up their standards,
and they have made the material comforts and
luxuries of American hotels a standard for the
whole world.

But, while our hotel-keepers are first-rate men
in carrying on the business as it has come to be
understood in this country, there must be thous-
ands, and tens of thousands, of persons in America
who long for the recognition of a wholly different
ideal of hotel-keeping from that which our hostel-
ries aim at. An opportunity, of indefinite scope,
exists for the man who will aim at quiet and
unobtrusive excellence rather than showy pro-
fusion, at coziness and the sense of privacy and
personal care rather than wholesale magnificence
and the glare of publicity. To cite only one
simple instance: Nobody is benefited by having
twice as much electric light as there is any need
of; everybody would feel much more comfortable
and more restful with a careful adjustment of
light to actual needs. But this is symbolic of the
whole idea of the American hotel — ^provide every-
thing in overwhelming abundance, and let the
consequences take care of themselves. Perhaps

336 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

this principle is inseparable from the running of
enormous hotels; but, if so, why should there
not be a number of small hotels which, instead
of trying- to ape the big- ones, would make their
strong point in careful attention to details, per-
sonal solicitude for the tastes of guests, the pro-
viding of an attractive place of inn-like comfort?
Europe is covered with such hotels, and more than
half the charm of European travel for a large pro-
portion of our tourists consists in the pleasure of
the sojourn at these inns. You can't become a
Rockefeller or a Carnegie by carrying on a hotel of
that kind, but there is a very pretty income in it
for the man or woman that knows how and will
take the trouble. Indeed, with our American ten-
dency to big expenditures, there is doubtless room
for a number of hotels of moderate size and un-
obtrusive character which, having established a rep-
utation for exceptional excellence, could command
prices higher than those of the Waldorf-Astoria or
the St. Regis, and whose proprietors would make a
fortune. But what we are vastly more interested in
is the idea of a hotel at moderate prices, with little
show but with solid merit, which would carry on
the honest old tradition of genuine inn-keeping.
We are a traveling people. We knock around a
great deal. We are all apt to need all the comfort
and solace we can get in the process. And there
are many of us who look wistfully for the kind of
inn of which Shenstone's famous and pathetic lines
were written:

Whoe'er has traveled life's dull round,
Where'er his stages may have been,

May sigh to think he still has found
His warmest welcome at an inn.

THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE MASS

(November i6, 1907)

What has become of the doctrine that the world
has got beyond the stage where single individuals
count for much? Ten and twenty years agxD, no
notion was more frequently aired, or met with more
general acceptance among people — and their name
is legion — who are ready to believe that the world
can be made over in a generation or so. Time was,
so the story went, when a man of remarkable
powers towered so high above the general level that
he filled the public eye and dominated the national
landscape, or, it might be, the world-scene; but
that was long ago, before the days when the railway
and the trolley and the telephone had penetrated
into the remotest corners of the earth, when public
education had raised the standard of the common
intelligence to unheard-of heights, and when the
penny newspaper and the cheap magazine had con-
verted almost into a practical reality the idea that
all men are equal. No longer was was there that
enormous difference which formerly existed be-
tween the big man and the average man ; and such
as it was, the difference was no loijger magnified
into awe-inspiring dimensions by the glamour that
surrounds the unknown. The time when single
personal figures would play a part of overshadow-
ing importance in the world's affairs, either prac-
tical or ideal, was past.

Such was the legend of the new earth, so familiar

338 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

a few years ago. What has become of it? Who
ever hears of it now? Did ever a widespread no-
tion get so sudden and complete an eclipse? The
fact is, there was never any reason to believe any
such thing. The possible potency of an individual
has not been affected in the least by the changes
that modern science and invention have brought
about. Time was when it was a great feat to
be able to read; now that everybody can read, it
is no feat at all, and the ability to do so does not
in the slightest lessen the difference between the
ordinary man and a Helmholtz or a Darwin; it is
just as great as the like difference was in the days
of Newton or of Aristotle. But there are always
periods when highly notable personalities do not
emerge into great conspicuousness ; and it happened
that, such a period coinciding with an enormous
development of modern conveniences and improve-
ments, those who are prone to forget the depth of
the deeper things of life jumped to the conclusion
that the day of the great man, or the big man, was
past. But then came a series of years in which,
for one reason or other, it can almost be said that
the world got to talking about individuals and noth-
ing else; and the idea of the new earth in which
the average man was everything and the excep-
tional man simply did a little more than the ordi-
nary man to help things along has quietly disap-
peared.

How general this change has been it is almost
laughable to notice. In our own country, the air
has been so full of Roosevelt that one might think
that there was no room for another; and yet the

THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE MASS 339

forces other than Roosevelt that have had to be
reckoned with have also been personal forces. The
phenomenon of William J. Bryan is, in some ways,
indeed, even more remarkable than that of Roose-
velt ; the staying power of a prestige that can stand
an unbroken record of defeats and still keep its
possessor far and away the biggest figure in his
party for twelve successive years is something that
it would be very difficult to match. Even the case
of Hearst is a contribution to the same story ; here
is a man outside all parties — except that which has
been personally organized by himself — ^and who yet
has to be dealt with as a formidable political power.
As for the growth of Governor Hughes into a great
national figure by sheer force of character and
ability quietly manifested in the work that came to
his hand, the significance of Governor Johnson of
Minnesota or of Mayor Johnson of Cleveland, and
other things that might be mentioned, it is too early
to say just what they will amount to on a national
scale; but certainly all these things emphasize the
possibilities of the power and importance of the
individual.

And the story is the same across the water. Not
only has the German Emperor for many years been
a figure of absorbing interest to the entire European
world, but the interest in President Roosevelt and
the feeling of his importance have been, everything
considered, far more striking in Europe than even
in his own country. Nor is that all ; for no sooner
did King Edward ascend the throne than it began
to be perceived that even this quiet elderly gentle-
man, with a past anything but impressive, and with

340 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

abilities by no means commanding, was going to
exercise, through the possession of personal quali-
ties peculiar to himself, a highly important influence
on international relations in Europe. And he has
done so. Moreover, before and after that time there
was for a number of years a phenomenon which,
in its way, illustrated the same thesis of the possi-
bilities of personal power even more strikingly —
the phenomenon of Kipling. Finally, not to make
too long a tale, and to wind up with that which
points the moral more strongly than any other in-
stance, there is the story of the Dreyfus case. Had
not this man stood out with Roman firmness for his
vindication; had not his devoted wife and her
friends consecrated themselves to the task ; had not
a few heroic individuals — Scheurer-Kestner, Zola,
Picquart — thrown themselves with uncalculating
self-sacrifice and undismayed ardor into what
seemed an impossible undertaking; — ^had any one
of these personal acts been wanting, the world
would have not gone through the most intensely
dramatic episode of recent times, and the history of
France in the Twentieth Century would have been
different from what it has been and is to be.

GOVERNMENT BY CRUSADE

(February i, 1908)

Nothing is easier than to dispose of President
Roosevelt's extraordinary message to Congress
yesterday, if you are either his loyal follower or his
bitter opponent. For the essence of the message is
the essence of Rooseveltism, and the details, from
the point of view either of staunch adherence or
of settled enmity, are of absolutely no consequence.
If the way to attack the evils of the time is to start
crusade after crusade, and carry the entrenchments
of the enemy by the force of an irresistible wave
of vague public opinion, and if the function of the
President of the United States is to make himself
the head and front of the agitation out of which all
this commotion proceeds, then this message of Mr.
Roosevelt's is the strongest thing that he has
ever done; for into no previous utterance has he
infused the fiery zeal or the rhetorical power with
which this flaming appeal is filled. If, on the other
hand, the business of the President of the United
States is to promote careful and maturely-thought-
out schemes of improvement in government, and
to commend them to Congress and the people by
discussions and recommendations which, however
forcible, are marked by the restraint and dignity
traditional with the office, then yesterday's message
was the greatest violation of sound method the
President has yet committed.

It is not necessary, however, to view this extraor-

342 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

dinary phenomenon of Theodore Roosevelt ex-
clusively from either of these standpoints ; and
some minds, indeed, are so constituted that they
cannot help taking in both aspects of the case. Put
yourself, for the moment at least, into that attitude ;
what do you see as to the past achievement of Pres-
ident Roosevelt, and what as to the prospect of
the future? The first and most undeniable fact
in the whole situation is that President Roosevelt
has brought about a radical change, and a most
wholesome change, in the attitude of the people
of the United States toward wealth as a political
power. It is almost literally true that six years ago
no proposition to which the great corporation inter-
ests of the country were strongly opposed was
looked upon as having any practical chance of being
realized — so long at least as the Republican party
remained in power, and that seemed a practically
endless period. The killing or maiming or stifling
of bills of this kind in committee was a foregone
conclusion and the only answer to protests was
Tweed's old query " What are you going to do
about it?'' Mr. Roosevelt has changed all that.
He has driven into Congress the idea that measures
behind which can be massed a powerful public
sentiment can be forced through Congress by a
resolute President. And the moral effect of this
political emancipation has been far more important
than its political or economic effect; it has,
throughout the country, strengthened the convic-
tion that the right or the wrong of a proposition,
and not the power of the purse, is what must decide
its fate in the last resort. For the courage and

GOVERNMENT BY CRUSADE 343

power which Mr. Roosevelt has manifested in
bringing about this change he is entitled to the
profound gratitude of the nation.

But many questions remain, and chiefly these
two: At what cost has this gain been purchased?
To what future does the country tend if these
methods are to be accepted as normal, are to receive
the unqualified sanction of the people, and are to be
continued in coming Administrations? Mr. Roose-
velt, however high his aims, has shown in a hun-
dred ways his lack of scruple as to means; his
impatience of legal and traditional restraints, his
intemperateness of language, his inaccuracy of
statement, his unrelenting injustice to individuals
are things that can be passed over only at the cost
of throwing away standards of criticism which,
rightly or wrongly, have been held to be an indis-
pensable element in the conduct of Constitutional
government as long as such government has ex-
isted in the world. Nor is this all, or the worst.
The greatest danger in the Roosevelt method lies
in the unchecked appeal it makes to the emotions.
It does not depend on an examination of facts or
of consequences, but rests its case almost exclus-
ively on the emotional sympathy it is calculated to
arouse. It could be used with equal effect to advo-
cate a law fixing a minimum wage, a law to pro-
vide work for the unemployed, a law for old-age
pensions, a law for any project of socialistic
change. And what is more, it will be. Suppose
that all the reforms the President has now in hand
were to be accomplished tomorrow; we should still
not have the millennium, the President himself

344 ADDRESSES AND EDITORIALS

would not claim that. There would still be rich
and poor, and the poor would still suffer hard- i

ships — aye, and hardships that would not seem one J

whit the less because there had been a change in S

the law concerning injunctions. The prophets and
the saints would still be abroad in the land de-
nouncing the selfishness of the rich and crying out
against the oppression of the poor ; and if there is
to be no difference between the function of a re- ;

vivalist exhorter and that of a President of the
United States, there would be as much room for a
blast from a Rooseveltian President at every stage ^

of the game as there is today. In other words,
whatever the merits of the Roosevelt method in
arousing the nation from lethargy, its establishment
as a normal agency of government would be dis-
astrous to those standards of conservative action
which constitute the chief bulwark of the indi-
vidualist regime against the onslaughts of senti-
mental socialism.

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