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,^      THE  GLOBE. 


NO.  LIII. 


MARCH,   1904. 


THE  CHAMBERLAIN-BALFOUR  BLUFF. 


We  might  omit  both  proper  names  and  call  it  simply  the  Bluff, 
or,  the  greatest  British  Bluff  of  Modern  Times.  Everybody  would 
know  who  the  bluffers  were,  and  that  our  paper  had  reference  to 
the  so-called  fiscal  programme  of  Chamberlain,  Balfour  &  Co.,  at 
the  present  hour  the  chief  cacklers  of  the  British  Empire,  but 
without  laying  the  golden  Qgg. 

About  fifty-five  years  ago,  when  my  father  went,  along  with  other 
voters  of  our  village,  in  the  band  wagon,  to  old  Ilchester,  in  Somer- 
setshire, to  cast  his  vote  for  the  Tory  candidates  for  Parliament, 
who,  as  I  recollect,  were  successful ;  and  when  in  the  late  twilight, 
after  his  return,  our  modest  hallway  became  the  receptacle  of 
various  broken  and  rusty  tin  cans,  and  kettles  and  potsherds, 
hurled  thither  by  the  aggressive  and  indignant  village  representa- 
tives of  the  people,  who  were,  of  course,  "Liberals,"  I  was  some- 
what excited,  and  I  well  remember  shouting  with  the  "Liberals," 
I  think,  for  the  following-named  candidates,  "Escott  and  Bovery 
forever,  throw  Wood  and  Moody  in  the  river." 

The  English,  ever  since  they  had  a  language  of  their  own,  have 
always  concentrated  their  convictions  on  any  leading  man  or  meas- 
ure, in  some  brief,  poetic  expression.  As  usual,  the  rhyme,  in  this 
case,  was,  like  the  naughty  girl,  when  good,  she  was  very,  very 
good,  and  when  she  was  bad,  she  was  horrid. 

I  feel  pretty  sure  about  the  names  in  this  case,  though  I  am  not 
sure  as  to  the  date.  It  might  have  been,  and  it  probably  was,  more 
than  fifty-five  years  ago.  The  names  can  be  looked  up.  That  was 
my  first  political  experience.  I  found  myself,  instinctively  arrayed 
against  my  father,  politically,  and  in  sympathy  with  the  under  dog 
— ^the  common  people.    My  sympathy  has  carried  me  in  the  same 


J 


2  THE  GLOBE, 

direction  for  more  than  half  a  century.  Only,  of  late  years,  in 
British,  French  and  American  politics,  I  have  been  obliged  to  sub- 
stitute abstract  justice  for  the  people,  finding,  as  I  have  found, 
beyond  all  cavi^  that  in  France,  England  and  the  United  States, 
since  the  people  have  acquired,  or  seem  to  have  acquired,  a  domi- 
nating voice  in  pu1>iic  affairs,  that  voice  is  far  more  frequently 
raised  in  favor  of  the  vilest  and  most  unjust  oppression.  And  as 
I  have  never  changed  my  primal  convictions,  that  justice  and  truth 
are  the  strongest  safeguards  of  any  nation,  or  any  part  of  a  nation, 
I  am  no  more  in  sympathy  with  injustice  and  tyranny  when  advo- 
cated and  perpetrated  by  the  masses  than  when  they  were  and  are 
advocated  by  the  classes,  by  aristocracy  and  kings. 

From  a  child  I  have  mingled  with  what  is  known  as  *'the  better 
classes,"  while  always  familiar  with  the  direct  needs  of  the  poor 
and  oppressed  and  at  heart  always  in  sympathy  with  them. 

From  the  hour  that  I  became  a  Christian,  I  have  never  attempted 
to  decide  any  question  in  my  own  mind,  or  to  advocate  one  side  or 
the  other  of  any  controversy  between  individual  men  or  nations 
without  bringing  said  questions  to  the  criticism  of  the  principles 
announced  by  Jesus  Christ,  though  seldom  getting  credit  for  such 
action  or  such  advocacy,  and  frequently  to  arouse  the  hatred  of 
those  most  dear  to  me  in  the  world. 

Having  thus,  early  and  late,  contracted  the  habit  of  making 
Christ  and  His  justice  the  criterion  of  my  thought,  my  sympathy, 
my  advocacy  and  my  own  action,  and  having  early  become  a 
preacher  of  His  gospel,  I  have  to  the  latest  hour,  in  judging  and 
writing  of  men,  of  books,  and  of  politics,  felt  obliged  to  test  and 
judge  every  being  and  thing  by  its  moral  quality,  even  the  intellect 
of  man,  the  soul  of  man,  and  every  word  of  man  being  tested,  first 
of  all,  by  the  law  of  Christ. 

Now  it  is  difficult,  and  it  may  be  impossible  for  persons  who  are 
constantly  judging  of  life,  any  and  all  life,  by  what  is  called  the 
financial  standpoint,  by  the  question  of  ordinary  success  in  life,  by 
what  is  called  the  smartness  of  an  action, — like  Roosevelt's  recent 
steal  of  Panama, — I  say  it  is  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  for  the 
average  man  of  business,  the  average  politician,  to  understand,  or 
even  believe  in  the  standpoint  I  have  indicated. 

Ninety  per  cent,  of  the  intellect  of  the  present  day  is  devoted  to 
the  problem  how  to  get  rich,  and  how  to  get  rich  quickly.     But 


THE  CHAMBERLAIN-BALFOUR  BLUFF.  3 

taking  a  view  of  human  history  past  and  present,  I  have  seen  the 
rich,  the  very  rich,  die  in  disgrace,  soon  forgotten  and  eventually 
dishonored  and  despised.  At  the  same  time  I  have  seen  the  poor, 
the  very  poor,  by  some  heroism  of  scholarship,  piety  or  truth,  die 
honored,  crowned,  loved  and  even  worshipped  for  ages,  as  divine. 

This  view  of  life  has  justified  to  myself  the  Christ  standard, 
not  merely  to  be  advocated  as  poetry,  but  to  be  applied  to  every 
action  and  thought  of  man,  and  when  I  heap  of  a  fledgeling  like 
Senator  Lodge,  proclaiming  that  we  need  higher  standards  than 
any  we  have,  to  settle  the  problems  between  labor  and  capital,  I 
say  to  myself,  and  does  the  poor  fool  know  what  he  is  talking 
about  ?  Has  he  never  read  the  Old  Testament  or  the  New  ?  Has 
he  ever  understood  or  tried  to  understand  and  apply  the  law  of 
Christ  to  his  own  life,  or  to  the  question  of  labor  and  capital? 
What  does  he  mean  by  a  higher  law  than  we  have  ? 

All  this  is  simply  to  indicate  that  having  pursued  or  tried  to 
pursue  and  apply  the  law  of  Christ  to  all  questions  in  the  world,  I 
think  I  understand  something  of  His  meaning  when  He  said  who 
hath  made  me  a  divider  of  the  finances  of  fools,  between  rascals 
and  knaves,  and  to  indicate  that  it  is  not  my  habit  either  to  view 
life  from  its  financial  standpoint  especially  or  exclusively;  hence, 
the  so-called  fiscal  problem  of  England  is  somewhat  out  of  my 
sphere,  but  England,  it  seems  to  me,  is  too  great  to  be  dominated 
by  such  weaklings  as  Balfour  or  such  bluflFers  as  Chamberlain,  and 
it  seems  necessary  that  some  poor  man  should  try  to  say  something 
to  pluck  the  British  Empire  from  the  petty  handling  of  weaklings 
such  as  these. 

Both  men  are  pretty  well  known  to  the  modem  world.  About 
ten  years  ago,  Mr.  Balfour  published  a  book,  called  "The  Founda- 
tions of  Belief."  The  work  was  quite  in  the  line  of  that  of  many 
previous  English  statesmen.  He  was  a  Tory  and  an  aristocrat, 
and  it  seemed  good  to  him  to  show  that  a  Tory  and  an  aristocrat 
could  write  a  book  on  a  serious  theme,  as  well  as  a  Liberal  leader 
like  Gladstone.  Mr.  Balfour's  book  was  neither  profound  nor 
scholarly.  It  was  evident  to  thinkers  and  scholars  that  the  author 
had  never  gone  to  the  depths,  had  never  studied  the  real  founda- 
tions of  belief,  but,  taking  advantage  of  his  position,  had  given 
serious  thought  to  the  question  in  hand  without  ever  having  under- 
stood it.    His  title  was  popular,  the  treatment  sincere,  but  the  title 


4  THE  GLOBE. 

was  so  much  deeper  and  broader  than  the  man  or  the  treatment 
that  the  book  soon  fell  out  of  the  popular  mind  and  failed  to  make 
'the  author's  reputation  either  as  a  great  scholar,  a  great  thinker,  or 
a  great  writer. 

Mr.  Balfour's  face  is  the  face  of  a  dilettante.  I  have  known 
such  faces  among  American  writers.  They  are  smooth  and  clever 
writers,  but  the  foundations  of  belief  are  as  heaven  and  hell,  too 
deep  and  too  high  for  such.  They  are  the  men  to  write  clever  and 
seemingly  wise  editorials  in  daily  papers  to  suit  the  "newspaper 
civilization"  of  our  times. 

Mr.  Balfour's  book  was  like  his  face,  the  book  of  a  would-be 
pious  and  serious  dilettante.  The  gentleman  who  wrote  a  review 
of  the  book  for  the  Globed  Re:vie:w_,  an  ex-clergyman  of  the  Epis- 
copal Church,  was  a  much  abler  man,  but  not  a  strong  man,  and 
his  review  was  too  kind  for  the  merits  of  the  book  or  the  author. 
The  book  was  generally  well  received  in  this  country.  We  have 
no  aristocratic  writers  here, — except  Roosevelt.  The  books  of  his 
own  that  he  sent  to  the  venerable  Leo  XIII,  might  have  hastened 
the  old  man's  death,  that  is,  if  he  tried  to  read  them.  Balfour  was 
and  is,  an  English  dilettante  of  aristocratic  tastes  and  very 
mediocre  abilities.  He  was  not  born  great,  he  never  will  achieve 
greatness :  he  has  simply  had  greatness  thrust  upon  him,  and  he 
cannot  be  expected  to  understand  questions  of  doctrine  and  finance. 

Edward  VII,  with  all  his  admitted  old-fashioned  worldliness, 
now  happily  forgotten,  had  always  a  good  head  for  common 
sense.  He  was  and  is  much  like  his  mother,  and  the  English  papers 
have  only  recently  reported  that  many  years  ago,  when  Edward 
was  Prince  of  Wales,  he  had  the  good  sense  to  notice  and  criticise 
the  dilettante,  mediocre  prettiness  of  the  author  of  "The  Founda- 
tions of  Belief,"  the  premier  of  England. 

The  ex-Right  Honorable  Joseph  Chamberlain  was  made  of 
higher  sounding,  though  not  half  so  well  seasoned  timber.  Note 
the  face  of  him,  the  pose  of  him,  the  career  of  him ;  it  is  all  loud 
as  Bob  Ingersoll,  or  the  little  Bloomingdale  Asylum  man  the  gut- 
ters call  Elbert  Hubbard. 

As  a  Liberal  in  the  days  when  that  party  was  led  by  Gladstone, 
Chamberlain  was  more  trusted  than  believed  in  or  respected,  but 
no  right-thinking  Englishman  will  ever  blame  him  for  quitting  a 
party  whose  leader  was  willing  to  disrupt  the  British  Empire  in 


I 


THE  CHAMBERLAIN-BALFOUR  BLUFF.  5 

order  to  confer  what  he  called  "home  rule"  upon  a  set  of  people 
who  have  ever  been  more  than  willing  to  disrupt  the  Empire,  and 
by  any  means  at  hand. 

As  a  Tory  Colonial  Secretary,  Chamberlain  was  much  blamed 
for  forcing  the  Boer  war,  and  my  judgment  is,  that  throughout  all 
that,  he  showed  more  pig-headed  aggressiveness  than  sense,  reason 
or  charity.  In  truth,  it  was  Edward  VII,  not  Chamberlain,  who 
closed  that  bloody  and  needless  war.  At  its  close,  however,  the 
loud,  aggressive  Joseph  came  home  to  England,  and  was  so  hon- 
ored by  the  foolish  English — ever  ready  and  anxious  to  fall  and 
worship  some  man — ^that  the  fellow  seemed  to  lose  his  wits,  all 
modesty  flew  from  him,  what  little  reason  he  ever  had,  deserted 
him,  and  he  began  to  pose  not  only  as  victor  of  the  Transvaal  war, 
but  as  a  god  in  Old  England — a  sort  of  Solon,  Cicero,  Henry  Clay 
and  Daniel  Webster,  in  one.  Ye  gods !  what  has  become  of  Eng- 
lishmen, that  such  a  rooster  should  ever  seem  to  be  cock  of  the 
walk,  and  director  of  the  British  Empire  ? 

We  must  not  condemn  a  man  unheard.  As  Cleveland  said 
recently  of  Bryan,  "He  has  the  stage,  let  him  go  it."  So  we,  of 
Chamberlain.  He  has  had  the  stage  for  many  months,  and  we 
have  been  watching  his  antics  pretty  carefully :  now  we  assert  that 
his  so-called  "fiscal  policy"  is  a  disgrace  to  the  British  Empire,  and 
to  the  men  whose  wisdom  and  heroism  in  the  past  have  made  it 
famous  and  immortal.  His  assertion  that  the  British  Empire  is 
financially  on  the  verge  of  ruin  or  collapse,  is  an  astounding  false- 
hood. His  so-called  warning  or  his  proposed  tariff  policy,  is  mere 
contradictory,  untaught  nursery  verbosity,  without  true  reason, 
void  alike  of  logic  and  insight,  contradictory  and  schoolboyish 
beyond  all  endurance;  and  can  we  believe  that  the  solid  sense  of 
Old  England  will  be  upturned  and  overturned  by  such  flimsy, 
so-called  arguments  as  Chamberlain  has  used  and  is  using  ? 

For  many  years,  there  came  to  my  office  in  New  York,  one  of 
the  most  scholarly,  and  one  of  the  poorest,  unfed  and  uncared  for 
Enghshman  that  I  have  ever  known.  Long  ago,  he  thought  he 
had  found  in  the  editor  of  the  Globe  a  solid  and  true  man,  who 
understood  what  he  was  doing,  and  who  was  a  persistent  teacher 
of  the  true  principles  of  government  and  belief,  hence  a  reactionist 
from  times  and  conditions  such  as  those  in  which  we  live.  He 
continued  to  come  and  so  to  speak  till  another  foreign-born  Ameri- 


J 


6  THE  GLOBE. 

can,  of  slyer  and  more  duplicate  ways,  poisoned  the  sympathy 
between  us. 

•  To  this  man  I  grew  occasionally  to  speak  with  some  plainness 
as  to  my  fundamental  convictions  of  ancient  and  of  modern  life 
and  ways,  and  to  him,  in  reply  to  such  thoughts  as  I  have  just 
indicated,  I  would  say,  *'but  what  is  the  use  of  showing  the  false- 
hood of  the  present  and  the  virtues  or  truths  of  the  past  ?  England 
is  becoming  Americanized  more  and  more  every  year,  and  will 
grow  so,  till  it  also  is  tariff  blinded  and  tariff  fed,  and  go  to  the 
devil  as  we  are  going  in  this  land." 

This  he  would  not  hear  to:  ''there  might  be  individuals  in  Eng- 
land, crazy  as  TvlcKinley  &  Co.,  but  the  solid  head  and  heart  of 
England,  never." 

Chamberlain  and  Balfour  are  trying  to  prove  my  words  true. 
The  most  noticeable  distinction  and  peculiar  characteristic  of 
Americanism  is  "Blui^f/"  the  entire  word  printed  with  capitals  and 
underscored.  Not  that  all  Americans  deal  in  bluff  or  emphasize 
this  contemptible  quality  or  habit.  There  are  thousands  and  thou- 
sands of  Americans  in  all  lines  of  business  and  in  the  professions, 
who  are  old-time  men  of  honor  and  integrity,  but  the  national  habit 
is  bluff,  from  the  stupidest  and  coarsest  negro  who  may  be  dining 
with  the  President,  to  the  President  himself,  the  habit  is  ''bluff" : 
That  is,  to  pretend  to  be  more  of  a  person  than  you  are ;  to  pre- 
tend that  your  position  in  the  world  is  of  more  importance  than 
it  really  is ;  to  pretend  that  any  enterprise  you  may  be  engaged  in, 
whether  preaching  a  sermon,  writing  an  article,  trying  a  case  at 
the  bar,  giving  judgment  as  a  judge,  going  on  a  journey,  or  stay- 
ing at  home,  to  emphasize  your  own  importance,  and  the  impor- 
tance of  your  work,  on  your  own  account,  instead  of  waiting  for 
others  to  honor  you ;  to  magnify  beyond  the  truth  everything  con- 
cerning your  own  person  and  the  occupation,  calling  or  business 
of  your  life,  and,  of  course,  with  both  eyes  staring  steadily  to  watch 
for  the  main  chance,  and  with  both  hands  ready  to  grab  it  and 
devour  it. 

Maybe  all  this  is  one  of  the  results  of  democratic  civilization, 
wherein  every  man  is  trying  to  be  equal  to  and  with  his  fellow 
man,  whether  he  is  so  or  not,  or  maybe  it  is  one  of  the  results  of  a 
wide  spread  and  spreading  general  infidelity  of  the  age,  wherein 
men  have  lost  the  old  standards  of  belief  and  practice ;  ceased  to 


THE  CHAMBERLAIN-BALFOUR  BLUFF.  7 

trust  in  God  or  His  laws ;  think  themselves  as  a  rule,  far  superior 
to  the  Almighty,  and  always  inclined  to  condemn  and  criticize  His 
ways,  and  to  defy  all  authority.  A  cheap,  every-day  dentist  of  a 
man,  said  to  me  not  long  ago,  that  he  knew  as  much  about  God 
and  His  laws  as  any  minister.  Of  course,  he  was  a  free  mason,  and 
had  he  been  honest,  would  have  said  that  he  knew  more.  It  is  the 
insufferable  and  conceited  bluff  of  the  American  people. 

England  has  always  had  lots  of  this  among  her  scoundrel  popu- 
lation, but  until  recently  it  has  hardly  claimed  to  occupy  the  high- 
est positions  in  politics  or  in  her  literature.  With  me,  it  is  always 
a  settled  proposition  that  a  statesman,  so  called,  or  a  writer,  so 
called,  who  has  no  serious  belief,  no  sense  of  eternal  justice 
derived  from  a  belief  in  the  existence  and  rule  of  an  eternal  and 
just  Almighty  God,  has  no  more  right  to  be  a  statesman  or  teacher 
of  any  kind,  than  a  tom  cat  has  to  disturb  a  whole  neighborhood 
at  midnight,  by  its  horrible  music.  So  I  think  of  my  friend,  the 
dentist,  whose  mechanic  theology  is  about  equivalent  to  that  of 
the  average  American  female  bluffer,  who  knows  it  all,  and  a 
great  deal  more  and  better. 

Well,  what  has  all  this  to  do  with  the  Balfour-Chamberlain 
Bluff,  or  the  English  fiscal  system?  Simply  this,  I  claim  that 
Chamberlain  is  a  simple  bluffer :  no  statesman  at  all :  that  he  either 
does  not  believe  in  his  own  statements  and  claims,  relative  to  the 
decline  in  British  trade  and  influence,  and  hence  is  a  bluffer  for 
pretending  to  represent  the  truth  when  he  is  making  and  repeating 
false  statements  and  for  reasons  and  selfish  reasons  of  his  own 
looking  to  his  own  advancement,  or,  that  he  is  simply  a  shallow 
and  showy  fellow,  utterly  ignorant  of  the  facts  regarding  the  sub- 
ject he  is  treating,  and  therefore  not  only  a  bluffer,  but  the  worst 
kind  of  a  bluffer;  that  is,  an  ignorant,  Americanized,  and  noisy 
one. 

In  its  issue  of  October  3,  1903,  Harper's  Weekly  published 
the  following  editorial : 

''Exports  versus  Imports. — The  fiscal  inquiry  has  brought  one 
lasting  benefit  to  England:  it  has  cleared  up,  once  for  all,  the 
cloud  of  mystery  which  for  years  has  hung  over  that  most  mys- 
terious matter,  the  balance  of  trade.  We  have  all  read  a  hundred 
times  that  England  was  going  to  the  dogs,  because  her  imports 
every  year  enormously  exceeded  her  exports,  which  showed  that 


8  THE  GLOBE, 

she  must  be  living  on  her  capital,  and  drifting  fast  towards  bank- 
ruptcy. The  famous  Balfour  pamphlet,  the  royalties  on  which  are 
already  a  party  issue,  and  the  big  Blue  Book  which  accompanies 
it,  have  finally  set  that  matter  at  rest,  and  hushed  all  doubts  and 
fears  forever.  Lord  Avebury,  better  known  to  the  world  as  Sir 
John  Lubbock,  has  furnished  the  necessary  commentary,  and  the 
mystery  is  a  mystery  no  more. 

"Far  from  taking  a  pessimistic  view  of  Britain's  trade,  Lord 
Avebury  is  fairly  enthusiastic  over  the  whole  matter,  in  gross  and 
in  details.  He  tells  us  at  the  outset  that  the  total  of  England's 
exports  and  imports  last  year  was  'the  largest  volume  of  com- 
merce ever  transacted  either  by  England  or  by  any  other  country 
in  the  history  of  the  world." 

"Yes,  says  the  objector,  as,  for  instance,  Mr.  Balfour  in  his 
pamphlet;  but,  since  the  imports  greatly  outstripped  the  exports, 
this  only  shows  that  England  is  every  year  getting  more  hopelessly 
into  debt.  Nonsense,  replies  the  genial  patron  of  bank  holidays; 
it  shows  nothing  of  the  sort.  Our  imports  indicate  our  purchasing 
power ;  and  it  is  surely  a  good  sign  to  have  that  as  large  as  possible. 
The  truth  is  we  pay  for  these  imports  not  only  by  our  exports,  but 
in  at  least  four  other  ways  of  the  most  importance. 

"First  comes  service,  and  especially  the  service  rendered  to  the 
whole  world  by  British  shipping :  a  service  valued  at  not  less  than 
half  a  billion  dollars  yearly.  Then  come  the  immense  sums  of 
English  money  invested  in  foreign  government  stocks,  in  bank 
stocks,  railways,  and  the  like,  abroad.  These  immense  sums  earn 
interest  abroad,  which  also  goes  to  pay  for  a  part  of  Britain's  im- 
ports. Next  we  have  the  further  immense  sums  invested  in  foreign 
lands,  in  mines,  mills,  factories,  plantations,  and  so  forth,  also 
earning  money  abroad,  which  is  available  to  pay  for  Britain's  pur- 
chases. Then  there  is  the  not  inconsiderable  sum  spent  in  England 
by  foreign  tourists  and  visitors  from  America,  probably  fifty  mil- 
lion dollars  a  year,  which  must  also  be  credited  on  England's  bal- 
ance-sheet. These  three  sources  cannot  total  less  than  the  earnings 
of  English  shipping,  making,  on  the  whole,  about  a  billion  dollars 
yearly,  available,  and  lawfully  and  rightly  available,  for  the  pur- 
chase of  imports,  and  a  good  deal  more  than  covering  the  great 
excess  of  imports  which  has  been  the  cause  of  so  much  wailing. 


THE  CHAMBERLAIN-BALFOUR  BLUFF.  9 

The  old  mystery  of  the  'unfavorable  balance  of  trade'  has  died 
hard,  but  it  is  dead,  this  time  without  a  doubt. 

"When  we  look  at  the  figures  for  British  shipping,  the  result  is 
indeed  startling.  Taking  the  average  tonnage  during  the  five  years 
from  1862  to  1867,  we  find  that  the  United  Kingdom  totalled  less 
than  eight  thousand  tons.  Twenty  years  later,  the  figures  were 
about  four  million  tons.  At  present  they  are  more  than  eight  mil- 
lion. Here  is,  in  truth,  an  industry  in  which  Great  Britain  has  'an 
overwhelming  ascendency,'  as  a  recent  writer  says. 

"Still,  there  are  those  dwindling  exports  which  so  grieve  Mr. 
Balfour.  Quite  without  cause,  retorts  the  sound  student  of  econo- 
mics. Here  is  a  little  table,  from  the  Fortnightly  Review,  which 
puts  the  matter  clearly.  It  shows  the  value  of  the  exports  per  head 
of  the  four  great  trading  countries  of  the  world : 


Average  for  the 
Period  : 


1875-1879 
1880-1884 
1885-1889 
1890-1894 
1895-1899 


United 

France. 

Germany. 

Kingdom . 

£    s.    d. 

£ 

s.     d. 

£ 

..     d. 

600 

3 

14    II 

3 

3      0 

6    13       2 

3 

13      5 

3 

8      8 

638 

3 

9      3 

3 

5      6 

6      2     II 

3 

II      4 

3 

2      9 

5    19      5 

3 

14      8 

3 

7      2 

United 
States 


s.  d. 

16  3 

5  II 

II  10 


19 

18 


"Therefore  we  see  that,  year  by  year,  for  quarter  cf  a  century, 
the  exports  per  head  of  the  United  Kingdom  are  nearly  double 
the  exports  per  head  of  all  the  other  great  commercial  countries 
in  the  world,  and  have  for  long  periods,  namely,  from  1880  to 
1894,  been  more  than  double  the  exports  per  head  of  the  United 
States. 

"British  exports  are,  therefore,  in  a  highly  flourishing  condition ; 
while  her  imports  so  far  exceed  them  in  value  that  good,  timid 
Englishmen  like  the  Premier  feel  that  there  is  something  uncanny 
about  it  all,  something  which  must  be  stopped.  We  see  now  that 
the  excess  of  imports  is  paid  for,  and  more  than  paid  for,  by  the 
enormous  sums  earned  by  Britain's  mercantile  marine,  which  does 
the  bulk  of  the  carrying-trade  of  the  world,  added  to  the  immense 
earnings  of  British  investments  and  industrial  enterprises  in  for- 
eign lands.  It  was  worth  all  the  fuss  over  the  fiscal  inquiry  to  get 
this  great  point  made  clear." 


lo  THE  GLOBE. 

Articles  like  the  foregoing,  thought  out,  culled,  and  put  together 
by  a  man  like  Sir  John  Lubbock,  cast  more  credit  upon  the  British 
nation  than  ten  thousand  vaporings  of  folly  such  as  Chamberlain's 
speech  at  Glasgow  or  elsewhere — and  afterwards  by  all  the  arts  of 
Anglicised-American  bluffery,  published  in  the  newspapers  and 
periodicals  of  England  and  America.  The  article  needs  no  com- 
ment or  explanation.  It  explains  itself,  like  all  good  literature, 
sacred  or  secular,  in  poetry  or  prose.  It  contradicts  in  toto  Joseph 
Chamberlain's  poor  position,  and  annihilates  his  co-called  reasons 
and  arguments. 

There  are  people  in  both  hemispheres  ready  to  say,  "but  it  was 
published  in  in  Anglo-American  newspaper;"  said  newspaper 
being  like  all  the  rest  in  the  United  States,  anxious  that  England 
shall  not  take  any  retaliatory  measures  in  a  fiscal  direction,  because, 
as  they  say  in  England,  such  measures  will  or  may  endanger  the 
cordial  sympathy  now  existing  between  the  mother  country  and  the 
United  States,  and  as  the  same  order  of  people  in  the  United  States 
say  "sympathy" — yes,  but  we  will  show  her  that  we  can  beat  her, 
even  if  she  engages  in  the  tariff  business.  This  sort  of  sympathy, 
gentlemen,  is  the  robber's  sympathy,  whether  it  be  used  in  the 
family,  or  in  the  greater  family  of  nations.  That  is,  the  sympa- 
thetic fellow  will  treat  you  kindly  and  well  if  you  will  only  allow 
him  to  pluck  you  of  your  birth-right  and  your  future.  And  it -is 
strange  that  a  person  so  thoroughly  Americanized  as  Joseph 
Chamberlain  has  not  wit  enough  to  see  this  American  side  of  his 
fiscal  system,  and  at  the  same  time,  that  such  a  man  would  or 
should  aim  to  be  the  leader  of  a  movement  that  most  certainly 
would  antagonize  the  commercial  set,  in  the  United  States.  He  is 
a  queer  mixture  of  shrewdness  surrounded  by  gross  opacity;  but 
we  will  not  hasten  to  conclusions. 

During  the  Boer  war,  as  we  said,  Chamberlain  was  largely 
blamed  for  precipitating  the  same.  I  have  held  from  the  start  that 
he  and  Paul  Kruger  were  about  equally  to  blame;  that  the  war 
might  have  been  avoided  had  not  Chamberlain  hungered  for  larger 
fame  and  Kruger  for  more  wealth  and  power.  My  further  opinion 
regarding  that  war  is  this,  that  if  Kruger  and  Chamberlain  could 
have  been  well  furnished  with  Colt  revolvers  of  suitable  killing 
capacity,  and  tied  to  posts  thirty  feet  apart,  and  commanded  to  fire 
and  to  keep  firing  till  one  or  both  were  dead,  there  would  have 


THE  CHAMBERLAIN-BALFOUR  BLUFF.  ii 

been  enough  sane  and  healthy  men  left  in  Britain  and  the  Trans- 
vaal to  have  settled  all  matters  and  questions  between  the  two 
peoples  without  the  silly  and  infamous  bloodshed  and  suffering 
caused  by  that  war.  During  the  war,  Chamberlain  was  one  of  the 
best  hated  men  in  Britain.  But  the  English  are  so  glad  of  a  war 
victory  of  any  sort  that  when  the  war  was  ended  by  the  common 
sense,  and  the  common  human  kindness  of  Edward  VII,  Chamber- 
lain not  only  claimed,  but  was  accorded  the  victory,  and  the  Eng- 
lish, as  usual,  made  enormous  fools  of  themselves;  and  Joseph, 
from  that  day  to  this,  has  been  making  every  effort  to  sustain  his 
stolen  honors,  and  to  pose  as  the  greatest  and  most  important  man 
in  all  England,  as  if  England,  all  the  time,  was  a  circus  of  fools. 
Not  quite,  Joseph,  as  you  will  see. 

If,  at  the  close  of  the  Boer  war,  Mr.  Chamberlain  had  been 
willing  to  accept  all  the  due  and  questionable  honors  that  England 
was  ready  to  confer  upon  him,  and  to  go  on  as  Colonial  Secretary ; 
to  do  this,  and  to  encourage  some  such  veiw  of  the  British  Empire 
as  Sir  John  Lubbock  has  pointed  out  in  his  statistics  regarding  the 
United  Kingdom,  then,  English  men  of  future  ages  would  have 
called  him  blessed.  But  he  resembled  Woolsey  of  old,  in  this  par- 
ticular only — that  he  craved  and  coveted  and  sought  and  hungered 
for  too  much  honor — the  poor  shallow-headed  and  unphilosophical 
''gentleman." 

What  was  needed  in  England  then,  and  what  is  needed  in  Eng- 
land now,  is  a  man  who  has  thoroughly  and  exhaustively  studied 
all  the  resources  of  the  British  Empire,  and  who  has  considered 
and  mastered  the  vital  powers  in  all  the  inventions  of  modem 
machinery — knows  all  the  soils  of  the  Empire,  and  how  best  to 
develop  their  resources,  like  a  christian  statesman,  and  not  as  a 
mere  clap-trap  bluffer  who  must  first  show  what  a  deplorable  state 
England  is  in,  in  the  hope  of  making  gods  and  men  more  ready  to 
be  gulled  by  his  pretentious  bluffery.  Of  course  Chamberlain  is 
not  large  enough  for  this,  and  how  far  the  curse  of  democracy  is 
responsible  for  finding  and  placing  such  small  men  to  fill  large 
places  in  the  Empire,  God  only  knows  :  But — England  is  not  bank- 
rupt, nor  on  its  last  legs.  There  is  enough  potential  food  in  the 
British  Empire  to  feed  the  world,  only  said  Empire  needs  bigger 
men  than  Chamiberlan  and  Balfour  to  understand  and  guide  her 
destinv. 


12  THE  GLOBE. 

We  have  shown  by  Sir  John  Lubbock's  statistics  that  Chamber- 
lain's pretension  and  position  are  false  and  foolish.  Let  us  now 
show  that  Chamberlain's  own  statements  and  arguments  are 
schoolboyish  and  sillier  still,  and  then  try  to  point  out  what  Eng- 
land and  the  British  Empire  really  need  to  turn  down  Chamberlain 
and  all  men  like  him,  and  to  go  on  preserving  the  great  Empire 
her  industry  and  statesmanship  have  won,  and  to  make  it  a  perma- 
nent blessing  of  civilization  to  the  world. 

Joseph  Chamberlain's  address,  delivered  in  St.  Andrew's  Hall, 
Glasgow,  October  6,  1903,  was  printed  first  in  the  National  Reznew, 
and  later  repeated  in  the  Living  Age,  Boston.  We  shall  quote 
from  the  latter :  "My  first  duty  is  to  thank  this  great  and  repre- 
sentative audience  for  having  offered  to  me  an  opportunity  of 
explaining  for  the  first  time  in  some  detail  the  views  which  I  hold 
upon  the  subject  of  our  fiscal  policy.  I  would  desire  no  better 
platform  than  this." 

This  is  pretty  good  taffy,  but  it  is  a  good  while  since  mature 
Scotchmen  were  caught  with  candy.  In  fact,  as  I  recollect,  they 
were  never  overly  fond  of  it,  and  the  Glasgow  election,  a  few 
months  after  this  speech,  showed  that  their  nature  has  not  changed. 

"Mr.  Balfour  in  his  position,  has  responsibilities  which  he  cannot 
share  with  us,  but  no  one  will  contest  his  right — a  right  to  which 
his  high  office,  his  ability,  and  his  character  alike  entitle  him — ^to 
declare  the  official  policy  of  the  party  which  he  leads,  to  fix  its 
limits,  to  settle  the  time  at  which  application  shall  be  given,  to  the 
principles  which  he  has  put  forward.  For  myself,  I  agree  with  the 
principles  that  he  has  stated." 

This  is  meant  to  uphold  Mr.  Balfour,  and  states  pretty  clearly 
for  so  insincere  a  man,  that  he  means  to  stand  by  the  Premier.  To 
my  mind,  it  overstates  Mr.  Balfour's  position,  his  rights,  and  his 
abilities,  but,  neither  Scotchmen  or  intelligent  Englishmen,  will  be 
thus  deceived. 

Having  thus  made  himself  persona  grata  with  the  Scotchmen 
and  with  Balfour,  Mr.  Chamberlain  goes  on  with  quasi-clearness 
to  state  his  position,  and  we  will  quote  this  part  of  his  speech 
entire. 

"I  tell  you  that  it  is  not  well  to-day  with  British  industry.  We 
have  been  going  through  a  period  of  great  expansion.  The  whole 
world  has  been  prosperous.    I  see  signs  of  a  change,  but  let  that 


THE  CHAMBERLAIN-BALFOUR  BLUFF.  13 

pass.  When  the  change  comes  I  think  even  the  Free  Fooders  will 
be  converted.  But  meanwhile  what  are  the  facts  ?  The  year  1900 
was  the  record  year  of  British  trade.  The  exports  were  the  largest 
we  had  ever  known.  The  year  1902 — last  year — was  nearly  as 
good,  and  yet,  if  you  will  compare  your  trade  in  1872,  thirty  years 
ago,  with  the  trade  of  1902 — the  export  trade — you  will  find  that 
there  has  been  a  moderate  increase  of  twenty-two  millions*  That, 
I  think,  is  something  like  seven  and  a  half  per  cent.  Meanwhile 
the  pppulation  has  increased  thirty  per  cent.  Can  you  go  on  sup- 
porting your  population  at  that  rate  of  increase,  when  even  in  the 
best  of  years  you  can  only  show  so  much  smaller  an  increase  in 
your  foreign  trade  ?  The  actual  increase  was  twenty-two  millions 
under  our  Free  Trade.  In  the  same  time  the  increase  in  the  United 
States  of  America  was  1 10  millions,  and  the  increase  in  Germany 
was  fifty-six  millions.  In  the  United  Kingdom  our  export  trade 
has  been  practically  stagnant  for  thirty  years.  It  went  down  in 
the  interval.  It  has  now  gone  up  in  the  most  prosperous  times.  In 
the  most  prosperous  times  it  is  hardly  better  than  it  was  thirty 
years  ago. 

Meanwhile  the  protected  countries  which  you  have  been  told, 
and  which  I  myself  at  one  time  believed,  were  going  rapidly  to 
wreck  and  ruin,  have  progressed  in  a  much  greater  proportion  than 
ours.  That  is  not  all;  not  merely  the  amount  of  your  trade  re- 
mained stagnant,  but  the  character  of  your  trade  has  changed. 
When  Mr.  Cobden  preached  his  doctrine,  he  believed,  as  he  had  at 
that  time  considerable  reason  to  suppose,  that  while  foreign  coun- 
tries would  supply  us  with  our  food-stuffs  and  raw  materials,  we 
should  remain  the  mart  of  the  world,  and  should  send  them  in 
exchange  our  manufactures.  But  that  is  exactly  what  we  have 
not  done.  On  the  contrary,  in  the  period  to  which  I  have  referred, 
we  are  sending  less  and  less  of  our  manufactures  to  them,  and 
they  are  sending  more  and  more  of  their  manufactures  to  us. 

*'Now  I  know  how  difficult  it  is  for  a  great  meeting  like  this  to 
follow  figures.  I  shall  give  you  as  few  as  I  can,  but  I  must  give 
you  some  to  lay  the  basis  of  my  argument.    I  have  had  a  table  con- 

*The  figures  given  in  the  recent  Board  of  Trade  Blue  Book  are  as 
follows : 

1872.     Total  exports  of  British  Produce,  256  millions. 
1902.    Total  exports  of  British  Produce,  278  millions. 


14  THE  GLOBE. 

structed,  and  upon  that  table  I  would  be  willing  to  base  the  whole 
of  my  contention.  I  will  take  some  figures  from  it.  You  have  got 
to  analyze  your  trade.  It  is  not  merely  a  question  of  amount ;  you 
have  got  to  consider  of  what  it  is  composed.  Now  what  has  been 
the  case  with  regard  to  our  manufactures?  Our  existence  as  a 
nation  depends  upon  our  manufacturing  capacity  and  production. 
We  are  not  essentially  or  mainly  an  agricultural  country.  That 
can  never  be  the  main  source  of  our  prosperity.  We  are  a  great 
manufacturing  country.  Now,  in  1S72  we  sent  to  the  protected 
countries  of  Europe  and  to  the  United  States  of  America,  iii6,- 
000,000  of  exported  manufactures.  In  1882,  ten  years  later,  it  fell 
to  £88,000,000.  In  1892,  ten  years  later,  it  fell  to  £75,000,000.  In 
1902,  last  year,  although  the  general  exports  had  increased,  the 
exports  of  manufactures  to  these  countries  had  decreased  again  to 
£73,500,000,  and  the  total  result  of  this  that  after  thirty  years  you 
are  sending  £42,500,000  of  manufactures  less  to  the  great  protected 
countries  than  you  did  thirty  years  ago.  Then  there  are  the  neu- 
tral countries,  that  is,  the  countries  which,  although  they  may  have 
tariffs,  have  no  manufactures,  and  therefore  the  tariffs  are  not 
protective — such  countries  as  Egypt  and  China,  and  South 
America,  and  similar  places.  Our  exports  of  manufactures  have 
not  fallen  into  these  markets  to  any  considerable  extent.  They 
have  practically  remained  the  same,  but  on  the  whole  they  have 
fallen  £3,500,000.  Adding  that  to  the  loss  in  the  protected  coun- 
tries, and  you  have  lost  altogether  in  your  exports  of  manufactures 
£46,000,000. 

"How  is  it  that  that  has  not  impressed  the  people  before  now  ? 
Because  the  change  has  been  concealed  by  our  statistics.  I  do  not 
say  they  have  not  shown  it,  because  you  could  have  picked  it  out. 
but  they  are  not  put  in  a  form  which  is  understanded  of  the 
people.  You  have  failed  to  observe  that  the  maintenance  of  your 
trade  is  dependent  entirely  on  British  possessions.  While  to  these 
foreign  countries  your  export  of  manufactures  has  declined  by 
£46,000,000,  to  your  British  possessions  it  has  increased  £40,000,- 
000,  and  at  the  present  time  your  trade  with  the  Colonies  and 
British  possessions  is  larger  in  amount,  very  much  larger  in 
amount,  and  very  much  more  valuable  in  the  categories  I  have 
named,  than  our  trade  with  the  whole  of  Europe  and  the 
United  States  of  America.     It  is  much  larger  than  our  trade 


I 


THE  CHAMBERLAIN-BALFOUR  BLUFF,  15 

to  those  neutral  countries  of  which  I  have  spoken,  and  it 
remains  at  the  present  day  the  most  rapidly  increasing,  the 
most  important,  the  most  valuable  of  the  whole  of  our  trade.  One 
more  comparison.  During  this  period  of  thirty  years  in  which 
our  exports  of  manufactures  have  fallen  46  millions  to  foreign 
countries,  what  has  happened  as  regards  their  exports  of  manu- 
factures to  us?  They  have  risen  from  63  millions  in  1872  to  149 
millions  in  1902.  They  have  increased  86  millions.  That  may 
be  all  right.  I  am  not  for  the  moment  saying  whether  that  is  right 
or  wrong,  but  when  people  say  that  we  ought  to  hold  exactly  the 
same  opinion  about  things  that  our  ancestors  did,  my  reply  is  that 
I  daresay  we  should  do  so  if  circumstances  had  remained  the  same. 

**But  now,  if  I  have  been  able  to  make  these  figures  clear,  there 
is  one  thing  which  follows — that  is,  that  our  Imperial  trade  is 
absolutely  essential  to  our  prosperity  at  the  present  time." 

There  is  so  much  that  is  seeming  fair  in  these  figures  as  quoted 
that  one  is  apt,  at  first  sight,  to  be  carried  away  with  them.  But  in 
the  first  place,  taking  Mr.  Chamberlain's  statement  here  quoted,  it 
gives  the  man  away.  He  must  generalize  over,  an  assumed  and 
utterly  impossible  state  of  affairs ;  that  is,  the  utter  loss  of  trade 
between  Britain  and  her  Colonies.  Instead  of  pointing  out  such 
an  utter  impossibility,  as  if  it  were  a  possibility,  in  order  to  make 
strong  his  claim  that  it  is  not  well  with  Britain  to-day,  and  instead 
of  at  first  setting  the  figures  touching  British  exports  in  compari- 
son with  the  exports  of  Germany  and  America  during  the  past 
thirty  years,  because  such  comparisons  seemed  to  favor  his  cry  of 
wreck  and  fire,  why  did  not  this  shallow-wise  Englishman  relate 
briefly  what  Britain — I  mean  the  United  Kingdom  of  England, 
Ireland  and  Scotland,  and  shall  so  use  the  term  here — had  done 
during  the  last  thirty  or  fifty  years  to  form  these  colonies  with 
men  of  brains  and  enterprise,  to  build  up  their  various  industries 
and  to  develop  prosperous  commercial  relations  between  one 
another ;  and  why  did  he  not  note  the  fact  that  all  British  Colonies 
and  establishments  of  commerce  rule  and  trade,  not  only  in  Canada, 
Australia,  New  Zealand,  India,  South  Africa,  Egypt  and  a  score 
of  Islands  of  the  seas,  have,  during  the  very  period  he  obtrudes, 
been  peopled  with  Englishmen,  thus  taking  much  of  the  surplus, 
but  winning  and  excellent  vitality  of  Britain,  out  of  Britain,  only 
to  make  a  larger  Britain  all  over  the  world  ? 


i6  THE  GLOBE. 

Notice,  now,  when  this  smart  Joseph  quotes  figures  to  make 
them  He,  the  true  heart  of  England  is  already  world-wide,  and 
•  does  not  this  blind  man  see  that  the  only  true  comparison  of 
exports  to-day  is  not  between  Britain  and  the  United  States  and 
Germany,  but  between  the  British  Empire  and  Germany,  free  trade 
or  tariff,  either  way  you  please. 

England  is  now  the  British  Empire :  It  is  this  that  she  governs 
and  can  defend :  she  has  made  the  Empire  largely  out  of  her  own 
wit  and  genius  and  power ;  while  the  United  States  has  grown  to 
her  present  population  and  her  present  manufacturing  power  by 
stealing  of  the  best  she  could  get  of  all  nations  of  the  earth,  and 
by  subsidizing  all  their  manufacturing,  covering  them  with  ras- 
cally robber  tariffs  in  every  direction  of  industry,  until  a  mere 
wheelbarrow  man  in  an  iron  mill  in  Scotland  could  come  here 
thirty  or  forty  years  ago,  and  by  shrewdly  and  constantly  utilizing 
said  robber  tariff,  accumulate  so  many  millions  of  dollars,  that  he 
now  finds  it  difficult  to  give  away  even  his  income,  twenty-five  or 
a  hundred  millions  at  a  time,  to  found  useless,  senseless,  godless, 
deluding  public  libraries. 

Compare  the  exports  of  Britain  for  the  last  thirty  years  with 
a  robber  nation  like  the  United  States,  and  while  England  has 
been  peopling  other  nations,  and  the  United  States  has  been  steal- 
ing from  all  other  nations  in  the  world.  It  is  simply  infamous. 
Again,  fifty  years  or  forty  years  ago,  when  England  was  a  strong 
commercial  and  exporting  country,  the  Germany  of  to-day,  or  of 
the  last  twenty-five  years,  was  not  known.  Prussia,  the  head  of  it, 
was  a  smart,  imperious,  advancing  little  section  of  it,  doing  far 
more  fighting  than  trading,  and  continuing  to  do  this  until  she  had 
conquered  and  united  many  of  the  old  German  sovereignties  in  one 
Imperial  Germany,  and  had  taken  a  slice  of  France  besides.  In  a 
word,  the  Germany  of  to-day,  and  the  United  States  of  to-day,  both 
represent  what  Britain  has  been  doing  these  last  fifty  years,  and 
it  is  the  British  Empire  alone,  and  altogether  that  must  be  com- 
pared in  the  matter  of  commercial  exports  or  of  war,  with  either 
one  of  the  nations  named. 

That  Britain's  imperial  trade  is,  in  some  sense  necessary,  may 
be  granted,  but  why  put  the  matter  in  such  light  ?  The  Empire  is 
Britain,  and  Britain  is  the  Empire. 


THE  CHAMBERLAIN-BALFOUR  BLUFF.  17 

The  same  sort  of  comparison  must  be  made  in  regard  to  terri- 
tory and  population.  The  State  of  Pennsylvania  alone  is  nearly 
as  large  as  England ;  Pennsylvania  and  New  York  larger  than  all 
Britain,  and  the  United  States,  as  existing  to-day,  is  something 
enormous,  alike  as  to  population  and  territory.  Beside  all  this, 
she  is  the  greatest  robber  nation  in  the  world.  She  has  increased 
three  hundred  per  cent,  in  population  and  about  the  same  in  ter- 
ritory since  I  have  known  her,  and  this  mouthing  American- 
Englishman  would  compare  the  exports  of  little  England  during 
the  last  thirty  or  forty  years  with  such  a  piled  up  conglomeration 
of  tariffized  infamy  as  the  United  States. 

If  you  want  to  be  a  reformer,  understand  the  essential  facts  of 
your  own  nation ;  put  together  all  the  facts  and  figures  that  shall 
display  the  truth  in  regard  to  her  genius  and  power,  and  then 
make  your  comparison  fairly  and  seriously — not  merely  as  to  dol- 
lars, but  as  to  merit  and  power  in  a  dozen  directions,  and  find  out 
whether  the  mind  and  heart  of  England  spread  over  this  world  is 
not  worthy  of  a  better  man  than  you  ? 

The  figures  of  Sir  John  Lubbock,  and  the  figures  of  the  Board 
of  Trade  Blue  Book,  look  steadily  into  the  eyes  of  the  oily  and 
windy  upstart  Chamberlain,  and  show  him  plainly  that  his  posi- 
tion, his  figures,  and  himself  are  all  wrong ;  wrong  in  spirit,  wrong 
in  ambition,  and  unworthy  the  life  of  the  poorest  and  meanest 
Englishman  alive. 

As  to  Chamberlain's  comparison  of  the  value  of  exports  from 
the  foreign  nations,  he  quotes  in  1872  and  1892.  What  has  that 
to  do  with  the  prosperity  of  Britain  ?  Does  he  expect  thirty  mil- 
lions of  fairly  well-to-day  but  careful  English  people  to  eat,  drink 
and  wear  as  much  costly  stuff  as  ninety  millions  of  tariff-protected, 
lavish  and  wasteful  people  elsewhere? 

It  is  true  Mr.  Chamberlain,  by  little  stages  and  degrees,  comes 
to  acknowledge  that  English  exports  to  all  foreign  nations,  plus  to 
her  colonies,  do  climb  up  and  reach  a  pretty  good  showing,  but 
the  seeming  reluctance  to  do  this,  the  way  it  is  done,  and  the  spirit 
in  which  it  is  done,  as  if  it  were  a  "save  me  or  I  perish"  situation, 
I  consider  infamous. 

Here  is  a  specimen  of  what  I  call  Mr.  Chamberlain's  school-boy, 
"so-called  reasoning :" 


,g  THE  GLOBE. 

"I  will  give  you  an  illustration.  America  is  the  strictest  of  pro- 
tective nations.  It  has  a  tariff  which  to  me  is  an  abomination.  It 
is  so  immoderate,  so  unreasonable,  so  unnecessary,  that,  though 
America  has  profited  enormously  under  it,  yet  I  think  it  has  been 
carried  to  excessive  lengths,  and  I  believe  now  that  a  great  number 
of  intelligent  Americans  would  gladly  negotiate  with  us  for  its 
reduction.  But  until  very  recent  times,  even  this  immoderate  tariff 
left  to  us  a  great  trade.  It  left  to  us  the  tin-plate  trade,  and  the 
American  tin-plate  trade  amounted  to  millions  per  annum,  and 
gave  employment  to  thousands  of  British  workpeople.  If  we  had 
gone  to  America  ten  or  twenty  years  ago  and  had  said,  'If  you  will 
leave  the  tin-plate  trade  as  it  is,  put  no  duty  on  tin-plate — you 
have  never  had  to  complain  either  of  our  quality  or  our  price — we 
in  return  will  give  you  some  advantage  on  some  articles  which 
you  produce,'  we  might  have  kept  the  tin-plate  trade.  It  would 
not  have  been  worth  America's  while  to  put  a  duty  on  an  article 
for  which  it  had  no  particular  or  special  aptitude  or  capacity.  If 
we  had  gone  to  Germany,  in  the  same  sense  there  are  hundreds  of 
articles  which  are  now  made  in  Germany  which  are  sent  to  this 
country,  which  are  taking  the  place  of  goods  employing  British 
labor,  which  they  might  have  left  to  us  in  return  for  our  conces- 
sions to  them." 

I  am  very  fond  of  the  Germans  as  scholars,  writers,  poets,  and 
gentlemen,  but  I  know  little  of  them  as  business  men.  Having 
grown  up  in  America,  and  having  mingled  with  all  sorts  of  Ameri- 
cans in  various  parts  of  the  United  States  these  last  fifty  years, 
and  always  looking  out  for  characteristic  facts,  I  say,  unhesitat- 
ingly, that  had  England  any  time  these  last  fifty  years  made  any 
such  proposition  as  Mr.  Joseph  Chamberlain  suggests,  the  Ameri- 
can of  any  pious  creed  might  have  given  a  close  pressed  smile  of 
apparent  approval,  but  would  straightway  have  consulted  with  his 
partner  as  to  the  quickest  and  most  profitable  and  sure  way  of  cir- 
cumventing that  soft  Englishman,  and  putting  the  tariff  on  tin 
plate,  so,  if  possible,  to  run  the  English  firm  out  of  business.  In 
a  word,  I  find  that  Mr.  Chamberlain  is  as  weak  in  his  reasoning  as 
he  is  false  in  his  figures,  and  were  the  voting  men  of  England  to- 
day as  limited  in  numbers  as  they  were  fifty  years  ago  I  should 
have  no  fear  of  the  final  result  of  such  a  poorly  supported  scheme, 
but  when  you  bring  into  the  sphere  of  politics  the  masses  of  what 


THE  CHAMBERLAIN-BALFOUR  BLUFF.  19 

Carlyle  long  ago  called  ''beer  and  balderdash"  and  turn  it  loose  in 
a  parliament  of  ''tongue  fence"  there  is  no  telling  what  party  will 
play  foul,  embrace  the  Irish  contingent,  and  win  by  a  foul,  as  the 
Congressional  gamblers  are  apt  to  do  in  Washington,  D.  C. 

Now  a  few  words  as  to  the  American  tariff.     It  is  not  merely 
an  "abomination  and  immoderate,"  it  is  bare-faced,  legalized,  sys- 
tematic and  wholesale  robbery,  and  that  under  the  assumed  name 
of  "protecting"  the  wage  earner  of  America.     That  it  gives  him 
higher  wages  than  his  fellow  worker  in  the  same  line  in  England 
nobody  questions ;  that  it  changes  the  character,  the  pose,  the  posi- 
tion of  the  wage  earner  is  not  so  clearly  seen  and  understood ;  but 
it  really  does  all  this,  so  that  the  ordinary  mechanic  considers  him- 
self as  good  a  man  as  the  congressman,  and  perhaps  better — which 
is  often  the  fact — ^and  that  by  apparently  elevating  the  common 
standard  it  cheapens  real  manhood  and  real  ability  in  all  lines, 
people  do  not  as  readily  see  or  understand.    That  it  panders  to  a 
few  wily,  shrewd  and  unprincipled  smart  men  of  business,  and 
establishes  a  habit,  not  of  seeking  fair  play  or  fair  competition  in 
business  or  commerce,  but  of  encouraging  a  plan  of  business,  of 
any  and  all  business,  that  seeks,  works  for  and  expects  protection, 
and  so  is  a  destroyer  of  all  fair  play,  no  matter  what  legal  way  you 
take  to  secure  an  "open  door,"  is  to  me  as  plain  as  daylight.    In  a 
word,  that  our  robber  tariff  is  above  all  things  else,  responsible  for 
the  smart  and  bluff-like  advantage   seeking  and  taking  of  the 
American  public  to-day  as  compared  with  the  American  public  of 
a  hundred  years  ago,  or  as  compared  with  any  other  public  to-day. 
I  have  no  doubt  whatever,  nor  have  I  any  doubt  that  if  England 
adopts   Chamberlain's   fiscal   plan,   England   will   be   as   bad   as 
America  a  hundred  years  hence;  and  I  am  quite  sure  that  Eng- 
land,  that   is,   the   British    Empire,    including   all   her   colonies, 
Americanized,    and    the    American    Empire    being    united,    the 
English  speaking  community  of  the  whole  world,  would  be  master 
of  the  earth,  but  as  the  devil  would  be  master  of  the  Union.    Much 
as  I  enjoy  the  English  speech,  I  would  want  to  retire  to  some 
Choctaw  village  where  they  conversed  with  and  scalped  people 
honestly,  without  the  aid  of  a  tariff  at  all,  and  get  out  forever  of 
the  sunshine  of  the  splendid  Anglo-American  prosperity. 

In  a  word,  Mr.  Chamberlain,  you  cannot  rob  your  fellow  men 
by  means  of  a  legalized  tariff,  and  remain  exempt  from  the  devil- 


20  THE  GLOBE. 

made  consequences,  any  more  than  you  can  rob  them  against  law, 
and  remain  exempt  from  penalty.  The  tariff  increases  the  income 
^nd  wage  of  a  few,  but  increases  the  price  of  living  for  everybody, 
makes  false  standards  of  wealth  and  of  so-called  character,  swamps- 
manhood,  honesty,  learning,  gentility,  lifts  rascality  into  power, 
into  position,  and  binds  the  chains  of  the  devil  of  falsehood  about 
the  human  race.    God  save  England  from  such  destiny. 

Writers  generally  ignore  the  teachings  of  Christianity  in  treat- 
ing this  and  all  commercial  questions.  I  hold  that  the  ten  com- 
mandments and  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  that  is  the  spirit  of 
those  teachings,  is  as  applicable  to  the  manufacture  and  sale  of 
steel  rails,  and  tin  plate,  and  beet  sugar,  as  the  spirit  of  them  is 
applicable  to  our  domestic  and  social  life.  I  do  not  pretend  to 
say  that  England's  theory  of  free  trade  is  a  fulfillment  of  the 
Golden  Rule,  but  I  do  affirm  that  it  is  nearer  to  it  by  a  million 
diameters  than  the  robber  tariff  of  America  ever  has  been  or  ever 
can  be,  and  I  am  and  always  have  been  a  free  trader  on  the  ground 
of  its  higher  morality.  Now,  if  the  world  has  reached  a  position 
where  to  live  it  is  necessary  to  turn  robber  I,  for  one,  prefer  to 
die ;  nor  will  I  advocate  robbery  even  in  retaliation  of  the  admitted 
robbery  of  others.  This  is  on  general  principles.  When  Mr. 
Schwab  or  the  library-slinging  Carnegie  want  my  opinion  as  to 
how  to  act  in  a  special  case,  I  will  sell  it  to  them  at  a  price  corres- 
ponding with  the  price  they  get  for  their  own  products,  but  I  will 
not  ask  Roosevelt  to  put  a  tariff  on  opinions. 

As  to  Mr.  Balfour's  proposition  of  tariff  for  retaliation,  though 
not  for  protection,  I  assert  that  the  spirit  of  a  tariff  is  the  same,  no 
matter  from  what  motive  enacted,  and  that  its  results  on  the  morals 
of  national  character  are  the  same ;  moreover,  that  no  matter  how 
or  for  what  nominal  motives  introduced,  the  essential  evils  of  its 
essential  principles  remain  the  same.  Some  six  years  ago  I  pointed 
out  in  this  magazine  the  marvel  that  a  community  of  nations  like 
Europe  should  quietly  stand  by  year  after  year  and  see  a  single 
nation  like  America  rising  and  spreading  to  their  injury  without 
uniting  to  crush  such  one-sided  robbery  by  retaliatory  tariffs.  I 
still  wonder  that  so  little  retaliatory  European  tariff  legislation  has 
been  enacted,  and  if  England  and  the  whole  of  Europe  would  unite 
to-day  for  the  purpose  indicated,  England  might  be  excused, 
though  I  think  she  had  better  give  the  robber  rope  enough  and  he 


THE  CHAMBERLAIN'BALFOUR  BLUFF,  21 

will  hang,  or  at  least  choke  himself  in  due  time.  In  truth,  within 
the  past  few  years  there  have  been  numerous  indications  that  for 
very  shame,  more  than  one  Republican  statesman — so-called — has 
grown  weary  of  the  robber  system  he  has  helped  to  rear.  Blaine 
and  McKinley,  a  little  while  before  their  death,  advocated  a 
generous  encouragement  in  the  line  of  reciprocity;  and  after  the 
*'beer  and  balderdash"  of  Congress  had  tongue-fenced  for  two 
years  over  reciprocity  with  Cuba,  an  emasculated  law  was  passed. 
Meanwhile  Cuba  had  learned  to  court  European  rather  than 
American  trade,  and  that,  united  with  the  beet  sugar  trust  and  our 
American  tobacco  traders  worked  so  that  now  the  land  is  at  peace 
and  nobody  murdered. 

In  the  same  line  Grover  Cleveland  announced  himself  in  favor  of 
tariff  reform,  and  should  the  Democrats  again  get  into  power, 
which  is  doubtful,  they  would  advance  tariff  reform.  At  least  half 
the  voters  in  the  United  States  are  in  favor  of  tariff  reform, 
eventually  looking  to  free  trade  principles.  Give  the  robber  rope 
enough,  Mr.  Chamberlain,  and  he  will  hang  himself  sure,  but  con- 
sult with  him  in  his  knavery,  and  he  will  settle  down  to  beat  you 
every  time.  Either  unite  with  all  Europe  in  a  scheme  to  thwart 
him,  and  let  it  be  a  thorough  scheme,  or  let  him  play  with  the  rope 
'till  his  neck  breaks,  and  meanwhile  look  out  for  your  own.  Under 
the  existing  conditions  of  trade  and  commerce  in  the  world  and 
the  fact  that  America  is  wedded  to  the  devil  of  protection,  let  some 
Englishman  or  men,  either  in  England  or  in  the  colonies,  or  better 
still,  from  England  and  all  the  colonies,  unite  a  dozen  or  twenty  of 
the  ablest  men  in  the  British  Empire,  or  fifty  of  them,  representing 
all  the  great  interests  of  the  Empire;  let  them  unite  for  three 
months  or  longer  in  discussion  of  said  interests ;  let  them  determine 
which  is  most  important,  and  which  is  and  likely  to  be  least  import- 
ant to  all  England  spread  over  the  World ;  and  also  which  interest 
is  most  endangered  by  American  tariff- fed  competition;  and, 
again,  which  resource  of  any  part  of  the  British  Empire  is  most  in 
need  of  subsidizing  in  order  quickly  to  make  it  better  its  American 
rival.  In  a  word,  as  we  hinted  earlier  in  this  article,  let  every 
available  brain  force,  every  available  inch  of  ground,  every  product 
of  the  soil  and  of  the  mines  of  the  vast  Empire,  be  sought  out  and 
utilized  to  further  the  total  prosperity  of  the  British  Empire  on 
the  lines  mainly  of  England's  old  trade,  and  yet  without  putting 


23  THE  GLOBE. 

any  check  upon  the  independence  of  colonial  action,  but  mutual 
help  among  all  Englishmen  of  all  the  colonies  to  aid  each  other, 
'and  the  mother  country  as  well,  in  a  sort  of  trade  league;  and 
without  raising  any  false  and  mere  demagogue  shout  of  wreck 
and  despair,  let  the  entire  Empire  resolve  to  trade,  as  of  old,  on 
the  principles  of  fair  play  and  human  honor,  regardless  of  what  the 
American  tariff  robber  may  do,  and  I  doubt  not  that  England  and 
the  Empire  will  still  be  able  to  live,  and  that  by  fair  statistics  her 
millions  will  be  as  prosperous  and  happy  twenty-five  years  hence 
as  the  offspring  of  the  tariff-ridden  and  pampered  slaves  of  the 
United  States. 

I  do  not  like  to  quote  Scripture  in  the  face  of  men  who  have 
denied  all  its  claims,  but  in  the  long  run,  I  believe  it  better  not  to 
resist  evil,  or  to  avenge  ourselves,  and  still  to  hear  the  great  God 
say,  ''avenge  not  yourselves ;  vengeance  is  mine:  I  will  repay,  saith 
the  Lord,"  even  in  commerce  as  in  the  soul's  deepest  cares. 

As  I  view  the  case  of  England  to-day,  what  she  needs  is  not 
tariff  for  retaliation,  or  for  mere  revenue,  but  men,  great  enough  to 
comprehend  her  vast  resources  and  to  further  them  in  good, 
straightforward,  old-fashioned  English  ways  of  uprightness  and 
unsuJilied  honor.  She  can  do  without  a  single  repetition  of  the  late 
Whitaker  Wright;  she  does  not  need  one  instance  of  Pierpont 
Morganism;  she  does  not  need  one  of  Carnegie's  libraries;  the 
Ship  Trust  having  cut  off  its  own  Quaker  head  is  going  back  to 
England  for  guidance ;  the  robber  is  usually  a  spendthrift,  and  is 
apt  to  end  in  prison. 

In  my  judgment  Joseph  Chamberlain  is  but  little  better  than  a 
lunatic,  and  Mr.  Balfour,  we  have  already  defined.  The  United 
States  have  an  immense  acreage  of  splendid  soil,  with  infinite 
variety  of  climate.  England  cannot,  alone,  expect  to  compete  with 
us  in  production,  but  the  total  British  Empire  can  compete  with 
us,  and  the  eyes  to  see  this,  and  the  hand  to  guide  it  is  all  the 
Empire  needs. 

To-day,  March  first,  it  looks  as  if  Chamberlain  and  Balfour 
would  soon  be  retired  to  private  life,  but  it  did  not  look  so  when 
this  article  was  begun. 

William  Henry  Thorne. 


A  DEFENSE  OF  THE  BRITISH  MONARCHY.  2j 

A  DEFENSE  OF  THE  BRITISH  MONARCHY. 


We  have  often  been  carried  into  literary  sewers  while  in  search 
of  hidden  literary  abortions.  Recently  we  discovered  one  under 
the  pseudonym  of  "Anglo-American,"  in  the  pages  of  the  Novem- 
ber issue  of  The  North  American  Review.  This  writer  affects  an 
erudition  which  it  is  plainly  to  be  seen  he  does  not  possess,  never- 
theless he  had  the  impudent  insensibility  to  write  an  article  in  that 
number  of  the  review  under  the  pompous  title  "An  Indictment  of 
the  British  Monarchy."  The  article  at  times  degenerates  into 
femininity,  and  perhaps  the  writer  may  be  a  woman ;  if  so  we  will 
forgive  her  much,  but  assuming  that  the  writer  is  of  the  male 
gender  we  shall  proceed  without  much  circumlocution  to  dissect 
him  and  to  expose  his  pretenses.  The  article  shows  throughout 
that  the  writer  is  without  knowledge  of  the  history  and  genius  of 
the  British  people,  and  still  less  is  he  acquainted  with  the  history 
and  genius  of  the  people  of  the  United  States.  To  read  history 
intelligently  we  must  know  intimately,  and  thoroughly  understand 
the  "genus  homo,"  otherwise  we  cannot  to  any  advantage  follow 
the  inconsistencies,  contradictions,  and  tergiversations  of  that 
versatile  animal.  The  state  is  but  the  reflection  of  the  genius  and 
character  of  the  people  who  go  to  make  up  that  state.  The  most 
strongly  marked  characteristics  of  the  people,  if  not  reflected  in 
their  government,  will  make  that  government  unstable,  and  un- 
suited  to  those  people.  To  understand  rightly  the  British  monar- 
chical government  we  are  bound  rightly  to  understand  the  strong- 
est characteristics  of  the  British  peopile,  and  this  the  writer  in  the 
North  American  Review  clearly  fails  to  do.  To  understand  the 
characteristics  of  the  British  people  we  must  be  thoroughly  con- 
versant with  the  geographical  position  of  the  British  Isles,  their 
climate,  their  geological  and  topographical  formations,  their  fauna 
and  flora,  and  the  varied  origin  of  their  people,  and  we  must  be 
able  also  to  trace  the  history  and  progress  of  those  people  from 
their  primitive  state  to  the  exalted  position  which  they  now  com- 
mand, not  omitting  one  single  link  in  that  chain  which  binds  epoch 
to  epoch.  We  must  thoroughly  understand  how  the  British  people, 
from  their  insular  position  and  freedom  from  political  connection 
with  their  continental  neighbors,  were  permitted,  uninfluenced  by 


24  THE  GLOBE. 

any  foreign  innovation  or  imitation,  to  build  up  their  own  state, 
through  long  years  of  domestic  struggle  and  travail,  so  that  it  now 
furnishes  a  complete  reflection  of  their  genius  and  of  their  chief 
characteristics.  To  enter  upon  an  indictment  of  the  British  mon- 
archy without  such  prepossessed  knowledge  would  be  like  attempt- 
ing to  translate  Sallust  without  having  first  a  knowledge  of  Latin. 
The  British  government  stands  alone  in  the  world  without  a 
counterpart  and  without  a  peer ;  she  has  never  borrowed  from  any 
other  government;  all  existing  Christian  governments  have  bor- 
rowed and  copied  from  her.  She  cannot  be  duplicated  because 
to  duplicate  her  we  must  of  necessity  duplicate  her  geographical 
position,  her  climatic  influences  and  the  distinctive  origin  and  his- 
tory of  her  people;  this  is  obviously  an  impossibility.  All  other 
governments,  in  their  growth  and  production,  have  been,  directly 
or  indirectly,  influenced  by  the  actions,  character,  genius,  and 
political  complexion  of  their  neighbors.  Great  Britain  alone,  of 
all  nations,  has  been  allowed  to  carve  out  her  own  destiny,  unaided 
and  uninfluenced  by  any  of  her  powerful  continental  neighbors. 
Nothing  in  the  early  history  of  Great  Britain  indicated  the  great- 
ness which  she  was  destined  to  achieve,  when  first  she  became 
known  to  navigators  of  Phoenicia,  her  inhabitants  were  not  much 
higher  in  the  social  scale  than  the  South  Sea  Islanders  of  to- 
day. (  ?)  After  the  Norman  conquest  of  1066  had  given  the  realm 
her  first  six  French  kings,  England  began  to  appear  in  history  as  a 
distinct  country ;  under  her  first  six  Norman  princes  she  was  simply 
an  appendage  of  Normandy.  During  the  reign  of  King  John  Eng- 
land became  dissevered  from  Normandy,  and  from  the  year  of  the 
Magna  Charta  she  has  been  allowed,  unaided  and  uninfluenced  5y 
any  other  nation  as  nations,  to  develop  her  own  genius  and  her 
own  government,  which  is  after  all  the  reflection  of  the  character 
of  her  people.  There  has  never  been  a  revolution  in  England  since 
then  that  has  not  been  a  revolution  undertaken  for  preservation, 
and  not  a  revolution  undertaken  for  reformation.  True  her  revo- 
lutions have  incidentally  brought  about  reforms,  but  they  have 
never  been  undertaken  for  the  purposes  of  reform,  they  have 
always  been  undertaken  for  the  preservation  of  some  right  already 
existing,  but  encroached  upon  by  kingly  power.  The  same  truth 
may  apply  to  the  revolution  of  the  British  North  American 
colonies;  that  revolution  was  undertaken  not  for  reform,  but  for 


A  DEFENSE  OF  THE  BRITISH  MONARCHY.  25 

the  preservation  of  certain  inherent  rights  of  Englishmen,  that 
were  denied  them  in  the  colonies.  Where  the  grave  blunder  was 
made  indeed  at  that  time,  was  in  the  fact  of  the  colonists  con- 
verting a  revolution  undertaken  for  the  preservation  of  certain 
inherent  right,  into  a  revolution  entirely  one  of  reform ;  in  doing 
so,  too  much  was  done  for  reformation,  and  too  little  was  done 
towards  preservation.  The  colonists  failed  to  preserve  much  that 
would  have  been  of  unquestionable  value  to  them,  much  for  which 
the  wit  of  man  can  find  no  suitable  substitute. 

While  in  England  to-day  the  liberties  and  rights  of  the  indi- 
vidual subject  are  bound  indissolubly  together  with  the  rights 
of  the  reigning  sovereign  and  dynasty,  so  that  nothing  can  imperil 
the  rights  and  liberties  of  the  subject,  that  does  not  of  necessity 
imperil  the  rights  of  the  reigning  sovereign  and  dynasty.  In  the 
United  States,  on  the  other  hand,  inaugurated  by  the  revolutionary 
war,  a  citizen's  rights  remain  within  himself;  if  his  liberties  and 
rights  are  imperiled  he  is  perforce  obliged  to  protect  them  him- 
self;  to  successfully  do  this  he  has  to  count  upon  the  favor  of  his 
fellow  citizen,  and  to  court  their  sympathy  and  influence,  either  by 
his  personal  qualifications,  his  wealth,  or  his  social  standing.  If 
the  courts  decide  against  him,  no  public  interest  is  aroused  beyond 
the  interest  that  he  can  personally  command.  Hence  we  see  the 
frequent  and  outrageous  violations  of  individual  rights,  as  shown 
in  the  frequent  lynchings,  not  to  mention  burnings  at  the  stake, 
and  the  utter  disregard  of  public  rights  by  the  corporation  and  trust 
and  railroad  magnates.  Here  are  two  fundamental  facts  which 
Anglo-American  and  others  should  endeavor  to  get  into  their 
cranium  and  keep  there;  first,  that  the  British  subject's  rights  and 
liberties  are  bound  for  weal  or  woe  with  the  rights  of  his  sover- 
eign and  the  reigning  dynasty,  and  vice  versa,  the  sovereign's 
rights  are  bound  indissolubly  with  the  rights  and  liberties  of  his 
subject;  secondly,  that  the  rights  and  liberties  of  the  citizen  of  the 
United  States  lie  entirely  within  himself,  self  contained  and  inde- 
pendent, with  the  imperative  necessity  of  defending  them  himself, 
whether  he  does  so  or  not  is  merely  a  matter  of  expediency ;  it  has 
ceased  to  be  a  matter  of  fundamental  principle.  It  is  nobody's 
business  but  his  own,  and  if  he  does  not  elect  to  defend  them  whose 
business  is  it,  anyhow!  Should  the  fundamental  rights  and 
liberties  of  the  meanest  of  British  subjects  be  encroached  upon, 


26  THE  GLOBE. 

immediately  thousands  of  stalwart  champions  spring  into  the  field, 
the  question  ceases  entirely  to  be  an  mdividual  one,  and  becomes 
then  and  there  a  national  one.  Parliament  is  called  upon  to  investi- 
gate the  matter,  and  the  sovereign  feels  that  his  interests  are  at 
stake,  as  wdl  as  those  of  his  humblest  subject,  so  indissolubly 
bound  are  they  together;  parliament  may  pray  his  majesty  to 
appoint  a  royal  commission  to  thoroughly  sift  the  question.  Take, 
for  example,  the  case  of  the  Irish  soldier  who  upon  St.  Patrick's 
day  wore  a  shamrock  in  his  coat.  He  was  reprimanded  by  the 
Colonel  and  given  some  light  punishment.  The  matter  was  im- 
mediately brought  to  the  attention  of  parliament,  and  the  secretary 
of  state  for  war  was  obliged  to  make  an  exhaustive  enquiry  into 
this  trivial  occurrence  and  present  the  actual  facts  to  parliament, 
and  thus  to  the  public ;  the  facts  in  this  case  were  these,  the  colonel 
had  forbidden  the  wearing  of  any  floral  decorations  on  parade  on 
any  occasion,  and  had  previously  severely  reprimanded  some 
English  soldiers  for  wearing  a  rose  on  some  national  holiday,  and 
warned  the  men  that  the  next  breach  of  this  rule  would  be 
punished.  The  Irish  soldier  was  not  discriminated  against,  but 
simply  punished  for  disregarding  a  rule  of  regimental  discipline. 
Here  indeed  was  a  trivial  matter,  but  it  arrested  the  attention  of  the 
whole  machinery  of  the  people's  government  and  the  interest  of 
the  public.  There  might  have  been  some  fundamental  principle 
of  the  subject's  right  at  stake,  hence  the  interest  displayed,  and  the 
determination  to  see  that  the  soldier  should  not  be  discriminated 
against  on  the  score  of  nationality.  The  knowledge  of  these  safe- 
guards of  his  inherent  rights  and  liberties  gives  the  Briton,  that 
feeling  of  calm  security  and  composure,  a  self-complacency  and 
possibly  an  appearance  of  self-conceit  and  self-satisfaction.  The 
British  subject  is  the  best  protected  man  the  world  over.  An 
injury  and  insult  to  the  most  humble  of  British  subjects  abroad  is 
an  injury  and  insult  directed  at  the  sovereign  himself.  The  proof 
of  the  pudding  is  in  the  eating,  and  not  in  mere  self-laudatory  pane- 
gyrics and  meaningless,  bombastic  utterances,  anent  liberty,  free- 
dom, independence  and  other  humbuggery.  The  Sovereign  of 
England  is  no  more  secure  in  his  rights  and  in  his  possessions 
than  his  humblest  subject,  nor  are  the  peers  any  more  so.  The 
authority  of  the  law,  the  security  of  property,  the  freedom  of 
individual   discussion   and   of   personal   action,   the   freedom   of 


A  DEFENSE  OF  THE  BRITISH  MONARCHY.  27 

religion,  of  conscience,  and  of  commerce  and  trade,  are  the  cardinal 
rights  of  the  British  subject  the  world  over,  the  system  that  has 
effectually  secured  the  rights  of  the  subject  against  the  encroach- 
ment of  kingly  power  has  produced  in  its  turn  a  train  of  abuses 
from  which  absolute  monarchies  are  exempt.  Nothing  human, 
however,  can  be  perfect;  it  can  be  only  relatively  so.  There  are 
abuses  in  the  British  government,  undoubtedly,  but  they  are  in 
no  wise  attributable  to  the  throne,  as  the  writer  in  the  North 
American  Review  would  have  his  readers  believe.  He  incidentally 
stumbles  on  some  truths  and  defects,  but  he  is  utterly  unable  to 
divine  the  cause  of  these  defects,  so  he  writes  an  "Indictment  of 
the  British  Monarchy,"  abounding  in  torrents  of  words,  stereo- 
typed rhetoric  and  wild  statements,  but  singularly  wanting  in 
perspicuity,  and  utterly  sterile  of  truthful  application,  indicating 
throughout  a  profund  ignorance  of  his  subject  in  particular,  and 
of  mankind  and  government  in  general. 

Let  us  go  back  for  a  moment  to  the  American  citizen.  We  have 
seen  the  Briton  surrounded  with  his  safeguards.  What  are  the 
safeguards  of  the  citizen  of  the  republic,  the  palladium  of  his 
liberties,  so  to  speak  ?  We  have  said  that  in  the  attempt  at  radical 
reformation  the  revolutionists  failed  to  preserve  much  that  was 
invaluable  to  the  rights  and  liberties  of  the  individual  citizen,  and 
had  instead,  during  the  process  of  reformation,  dragnetted  in  much 
that  was  baneful.  The  citizen  became  free,  self-contained,  with 
his  rights  bound  within  himself,  he  was  thenceforth  compelled  to 
shoulder  these  additional  responsibilities ;  by  himself  he  has  had  to 
stand  or  fall.  If  unfortunate  enough  to  be  drawn  into  trouble 
with  the  State  he  had  to  do  his  own  fighting.  This  involves 
expenditure  of  time  and  money,  to  say  nothing  of  the  anxiety  thus 
engendered.  Some  commotion  and  strife  may  be  caused  in  the 
neighborhood,  which  seldom  extends  far  beyond  the  city,  town  or 
locality  in  which  he  dwelt.  Sometimes  his  case  may  cause 
a  general  interest,  but  this  would  be  rather  from  sensational 
features  than  from  the  fact  of  any  fundamental  principle  being 
involved  or  at  stake.  By  some  he  may  be  regarded  as  a  hero,  by 
others  as  a  knave,  and  by  most  as  a  fool. 

Every  man  being  the  custodian  of  his  own  rights,  as  it  were, 
develops  within  him  an  excessive  individuality,  an  excessive  self- 
care,  an  excessive  cautiousness,  a  fanatical  cunning,  a  heartlessness 


28  THE  GLOBE, 

and  a  selfishness  unseen  in  any  other  race  under  the  sun;  con- 
currently is  developed  a  power  of  individual  initiative  unknown 
except  among  the  nomadic  races  of  the  East.  We  are  often  told 
that  there  is  the  constitution  upon  which  every  citizen  can  stand 
pat.  This  is  rather  virtual  than  real,  the  right  of  the  citizen 
to  stand  pat  upon  the  constitution  undoubtedly  exists,  but  he  will 
have  to  do  so  unaided.  If  he  has  neither  money,  influence  or 
friends,  as  in  the  cases  of  the  niggers  hanged  and  burned  at  the 
stake,  nobody  will  trouble  themselves  about  the  constitutional 
rights  of  these  unfortunate  people.  They  have  been  outraged,  it 
is  true,  but  who  is  going  to  punish  the  perpetrators  ?  It  is  a  mat- 
ter that  lies  entirely  with  the  outraged  parties  themselves,  and 
nobody  else's  business,  anyhow !  If  the  good  name  of  a  town  or 
district  is  hurt  by  the  perpetration  of  such  outrage,  the  citizens 
may  make  some  eflforts  to  bring  the  perpetrators  to  justice,  other- 
wise the  demons  are  permitted  to  go  scot  free,  rejoicing  in  and 
congratulating  themselves  upon  their  diabolical  actions.  These 
remarks  apply  to  the  fundamental  rights  of  the  personal  liberty 
and  safety  of  the  individual  citizen,  in  regards  to  property  rights, 
the  American  can  be  depended  upon  to  preserve  these,  "he  can 
put  his  case  in  the  hands  of  his  lawyers,  he  can  have  the  thing  put 
right."  Is  it  not  funny  how  spending  one's  money  will  make  the 
lawyers  fight  ?  Anybody  who  has  lived  for  any  time  in  the  United 
States  and  in  England,  must  admit  that  there  is  not  a  fraction  of 
the  personal  liberty  in  the  United  States  that  exists  in  England. 
Nor  is  this  surprising,  for  the  reasons  already  stated.  Should  a 
citizen's  personal  liberty  and  rights  be  encroached  upon  here  by  a 
State,  city  or  municipal  or  corporate  body,  the  onus  of  redressing 
the  wrong  is  thereon  entirely  upon  the  citizen,  and  if  he  is  plenti- 
fully supplied  with  money  and  friends  he  may  succeed  in  getting 
redress.  It  is  a  matter  that  concerns  himself  alone;  there  is  no 
fundamental  principle  at  stake  involving  the  rights  of  his  fellow 
citizens,  their  turn  may  come  later  on,  but  another  man's  trouble 
they  are  not  going  to  make  their  own ;  why  indeed  should  they  go 
out  of  their  way  to  fight  another  man's  battles  ?  If  the  wronged 
one  should  be  minus  money  or  friends,  he  had  better  give  in  and 
grin  and  bear  it;  his  chances  of  redress  will  become  smaller  and 
smaller  as  his  pocket  book  becomes  lighter.  With  the  subject  of 
Great  Britain,  on  the  other  hand  an  encroachment  upon  or  infringe- 


A  DEFENSE  OF  THE  BRITISH  MONARCHY,  29 

ment  of  personal  rights  and  liberties  carries  with  it  an  encroach- 
ment upon  the  fundamental  personal  liberties  of  every  subject 
within  the  empire,  Thus  it  at  once  becomes  a  burning  public  and 
national  question  which  is  not  settled  right  unless  settled  in  accord- 
ance with  the  spirit  and  letter  of  those  fundamental  rights  and 
liberties  dear  to  every  Englishman.  This  has  been  dealt  with  at 
some  length  because  it  clearly  empnasizes  the  point  of  cleavage 
and  the  subsequent  differentiations  of  character  and  mental  habit 
of  the  two  English  speaking  races.  To  further  illustrate  our 
meaning  let  us  take  an  English  citizen,  as  representing  the  work- 
ing classes.  Now  an  artisan's  first  concern  is  to  master  his  trade 
and  then  to  make  a  living  at  it,  his  personal  rights  and  individual 
liberties  being  already  placed  upon  a  sure  basis,  his  making  or  not 
making  a  living  does  not  add  a  jot  to  or  take  a  tittle  from  these 
securities.  Having  made  a  living  and  having  satisfied  his  impera- 
tive demands,  he  can  now  find  time  and  leisure  to  interest  him- 
self in  politics  and  in  public  affairs  generally,  he  soon  makes  the 
discovery  that  he  is  himself  a  powerful  unit  in  a  vast  and  progres- 
sive commonwealth.  In  all  the  large  cities  of  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland,  and  in  the  country  districts  as  well,  the  most  active  and 
wide-awake  politicians  are  to  be  found  among  the  horny  handed 
sons  of  toil.  An  artisan  may  entertain  political  ambitions  himself, 
and  being  a  man  of  good  understanding  and  intelligence,  a  man  of 
application,  industry  and  frugality,  with  an  unblemished  personal 
reputation,  he  may  soon  be  recognized  as  a  leader  in  politics  and 
can  aspire  to  office  and  be  returned  by  the  suffrages  of  his  fellow 
citizens.  Many  are  thus  returned  to  parliament,  winning  the  suf- 
rages  of  the  people  often  over  the  head  of  a  scion  of  an  aristo- 
cratic family  The  artisan  may  strive  himself  to  become  an  em- 
ployer of  labor.  And  all  large  manufacturing  towns  in  England, 
Scotland  and  Ireland  abound  with  these  self-made  men,  men  who 
have  risen  to  great  wealth  and  prominence  from  very  humble 
beginnings.  There  has  been  no  necessity  on  their  part  to  batter  at 
locked  doors  or  to  flounder  in  blank  alleys;  they  have  been,  in 
short,  men  who  have  ''made  their  career."  To  deny  the  existence 
of  these  self-made  men  is  to  deny  the  prodigious  expansion  of 
England's  trade  and  commerce  during  the  last  half  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  and  to  exhibit  a  deplorable  ignorance  of  the  subject 
in  hand.     High  character,  industry,  application,  and  intelligence 


30  THE  GLOBE. 

will  make  their  mark  as  surely  in  England  as  in  the  United  States, 
more  surely  we  trow,  for  these  are  the  attributes  that  a  man  must 
possess  to  secure  recognition  and  success  in  England,  while  in  the 
United  States,  though  these  attributes  are  prized  and  appreciated, 
they  are  not  sine  qua  non,  as  cunning,  scheming,  chicanery,  pre- 
tense, and  dishonesty  will  often  ensure  mediocrity  and  inefficiency 
a  higher  reward  than  the  sterling  qualities  enumerated,  which  may 
often  indeed  materially  handicap  the  possessor  thereof.  The 
United  States  is  decidedly,  from  the  very  nature  of  its  quick  and 
rapid  development,  the  paradise  of  the  mediocre  and  the  ineffi- 
cient, for  these  can  always,  if  they  chose,  obtain  an  easy  recogni- 
tion by  sham  and  pretense.  The  agriculturist,  however,  must  be 
excluded  from  these  considerations,  for  in  England,  as  in 
America,  a  hard  working  and  painstaking  farmer  will  earn  his 
due  reward.  The  agricultural  resources  being  infinitely  greater 
here  they  will  and  do  ensure  a  livelihood  and  competence  and 
wealth  to  a  vastly  greater  number  of  people  than  in  England. 
Should  the  people  not  have  taken  up  these  fertile  lands  in  the 
United  States  it  would  have  been  greatly  to  their  discredit;  that 
they  have  done  so  and  so  rapidly  furnishes  an  example  of  their 
indefatigable  industry.  The  same  rush  to  take  up  public  and  cheap 
lands  is  now  going  on  in  British  North  America,  and  everything 
else  being  equal  they  will  yield  a  similar  competence  and  similar 
wealth  there  as  here,  kingship  or  no  kingship.  There  are,  how- 
ever, no  office-hungry  citizen  loafers  hanging  for  months  around 
the  centers  of  political  activity  and  influence  in  England  waiting 
for  a  change  of  administration  in  order  to  secure  some  fat  sine- 
cure and  to  fasten  upon  and  participate  in  the  public  spoil  and 
plunder.  An  artisan  is  a  politician  in  England,  either  from  natural 
predilection  or  from  a  high  sense  of  public  and  civic  duty.  All 
appointments  are  under  civil  service  rules,  and  are  usually  held 
for  life  or  during  good  behavior,  such  as  the  postal,  telegraph, 
excise,  municipal  and  other  public  offices.  All  these  appoint- 
ments are  open  to  public  competition,  and  the  son  of  an  artisan 
is  as  likely  to  win  an  appointment  as  the  son  of  a  clergyman  or  a 
retired  army  or  naval  officer.  To  keep  intact  the  thread  of  my 
remarks,  I  must  quote  from  the  article  in  question.  It  asks,  ''What 
is  it,  at  bottom,  that  makes  the  English  atmosphere  so  difficult  for 
an  American  to  breathe  in  freely?    It  is,  I  believe,  that  he  feels 


A  DEFENSE  OF  THE  BRITISH  MONARCHY.  31 

himself  in  a  country  where  the  dignity  of  Ufe  is  lower  than  in  his 
own,  where  a  man  born  in  ordinary  circumstances  expects  and  is 
expected  to  die  in  ordinary  circumstances,  where  the  scope  of  his 
efforts  is  traced  beforehand  by  the  accident  of  position,  where  he 
is  handicapped  in  all  cases,  and  crushed  in  most,  by  the  superin- 
cumbent weight  of  caste,  convention,  good  form  and  the  deadening 
artificialities  of  an  old  society." 

Now  I  think  that  in  regard  to  the  working  man  I  have  exploded 
the  outrageous  nonsense  of  this  wild  statement,  and  shall  proceed 
further  to  show  the  innumerable  avenues  open   in  the  British 
Empire  to  courage,  intelligence,  honesty,  hard  work  and  personal 
worth.     To  proceed  therefore.     Enlistment  in  the  ranks  of  the 
army  and  navy  are  about  the  same  in  England  as  in  the  United 
States,  good  moral  character  and  the  standard  physical  qualifica- 
tions being  necessary.     In  England's  immense  navy  there  are  in- 
numerable petty  officerships  filled  from  the  rank  and  file ;  so  too  in 
the  army  non-commissioned  officers  are  not  so  badly  off,  but  in 
addition  a  certain  number  of  commissions  are  reserved  for  those 
who  prove  worthy  of  them  in  the  ranks  ;  not  as  many  as  they  should 
be,  I  admit.    That  the  technical  schools  have  not  quite  kept  pace 
with  the  vast  increase  of  the  nation's  population,  trade  and  com- 
merce is  true,  but  the  British  people  have  found  that  out  them- 
selves, and  they  can  be  depended  upon  to  supply  the  deficiency. 
It  is  true  also  that  general  education  is  not  so  diffused  in  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland  as  it  is  in  the  Eastern,  Northern  and  Western 
States,  but  there  is  infinitely  more  concentration  of  knowledge  in 
England  than  here.    But  the  abridgement  of  this  difference  in  the 
diffusion  of  knowledge  has  been  given  a  great  impetus  in  Eng- 
land by  the  compulsory  educational  act  of  1887,  and  the  more 
recent  one  of  last  year,  so  that  in  the  next  decade  this  inequality 
will  have  completely  disappeared.     Trade  and  commerce  being 
free  in  England,  a  British  subject  can  get  what  he  deserves,  and 
what  is  more,  he  can  demand  it.     We  now  come  to  the  middle 
classes.     The  opportunities  for  great  commercial  gains  are  more 
limited  in  England  than  in  the  United  States,  though  only  rela- 
tively so,  gigantic  fortunes  cannot  be  so  readily  acquired  there  as 
here ;  they  are  slower  from  necessity,  there  are  not  those  great  and 
rapidly  occurring  opportunities  in  commerce  as  here,  but  that  has 
nothing  to  do  with  kingship  or  no  kingship.     England  has  made 


32  THE  GLOBE. 

gigantic  strides  in-  commerce  during  the  last  century,  and  though 
much  handicapped  during  the  last  thirty  years  by  a  rigid  adherence 
to  free  trade  principles,  and  the  prohibitive  barriers  erected  against 
her  commerce  by  the  protective  policies  of  all  the  other  commercial 
nations,  she  has  at  least  held  her  own.  She  may  now  have  to 
resort  to  a  protective  barrier  herself  to  meet  the  exigencies  of  the 
times,  and  when  she  does  this  she  will  at  one  bound  distance  all 
her  commercial  rivals.  Intense  commercial  rivalry  with  the  crea- 
tion of  protective  barriers  against  friendly  nations  may  not  at  first 
appear  to  be  on  high  ethical  ground,  but  the  policy  seems  to  be 
compulsory  from  pure  expediency  and  self  protection.  It  would 
be  better,  of  course,  that  all  the  world  should  have  free  tr^de,  than 
that  all  the  world  should  adopt  protective  policies,  but  if  the  rest 
of  the  world  elects  to  adopt  protective  policies  and  to  raise  protec- 
tive barriers,  it  would  in  the  end  be  fatal  to  England's  commerce 
if  she  did  not  follow  suit. 

The  men  who  fill  the  commission  ranks  of  the  army  and  navy 
are,  generally  speaking,  drawn  from  the  upper  and  middle  classes. 
Entrance  into  the  army  and  navy  being  by  open  competitive  exam- 
ination, large  numbers  of  successful  tradesmen's  sons  compete  for 
these  appointments  and  enter  these  services.  They  are  by  no  means 
exclusive  services,  though  the  great  majority  of  those  that  enter 
are  members  of  the  aristocracy,  sons  of  professional  men,  clergy- 
men, lawyers  and  doctors,  the  sons  of  army  and  navy  officers  and 
the  sons  of  successful  merchants  and  bankers.  The  educational 
system  absorbs  a  large  number  of  men  from  all  classes  in  England, 
but  generally  from  the  middle  and  lower.  So  do  the  professions  of 
medicine  and  law,  which  is  equally  as  lucrative  as  in  the  United 
States  and  far  more  respected  and  respectable.  They  are  more 
difficult  to  enter  and  a  higher  proficiency  demanded.  Then  the 
Church,  in  all  her  branches,  absorbs  a  large  number  of  educated 
men  from  all  classes.  Then  those  who  aspire  to  political  and  dip- 
lomatic and  administrative  fame  and  honor  can  find  ample  oppor- 
tunities, for  the  demand  for  such  services  are  great  in  a  great 
colonial  empire  like  that  of  the  British,  where  personal  integrity, 
intelligence,  merit  and  faithful  service  always  meet  with  due 
reward;  more  so  in  the  British  Empire  than  anywhere  else,  I 
imagine,  because  such  services  are  often  inestimable  to  the  state. 
So  all  things  considered  the  ordinary  Britisher  is  not  in  so  sickly 


A  DEFENSE  OF  THE  BRITISH  MONARCHY.  33 

a  state  as  Anglo-American  would  have  us  believe.  Then  again, 
there  is  England's  gigantic  maritime  commerce  to  consider,  com- 
pared with  which  all  other  maritime  powers  and  commerce  sink 
into  insignificance.  Any  able  bodied  seaman  can  procure  his 
master's  certificate,  provided  he  has  the  application  and  industry 
to  pass  the  necessary  examinations  of  the  Board  of  Trade.  Taking 
all  these  open  avenues  of  a  life's  work  into  consideration,  the  ques- 
tion is,  does  it  benefit  a  boy,  educated,  energetic,  ambitious,  with 
powers  of  application  and  with  high  character,  to  migrate  to  the 
United  States  to  gain  a  position  in  life?  Does  he  lose  or  gain 
by  coming  here?  We  are  convinced  he  is  vastly  the  loser.  But 
when  such  stuif  is  written,  as  that  written  by  Anglo-American  in 
his  article  in  the  North  American  Review,  it  is  hard  to  resist  the 
temptation  to  completely  encircle  such  wide  statements  with  a 
**zona  pellucida"  of  actual  truths.  Listen;  let  us  further  quote 
this  smart  alec.  He  says,  ''That  unconquerable  buoyancy  which 
infects  the  American  air  like  a  sting  and  a  challenge  and  braces 
every  American  with  the  inspiration  that  he  has  a  chance  in  life, 
that  here  are  open  opportunities  and  unreserved  possibilities;  no 
battering  at  locked  doors,  no  floundering  in  blank  alleys,  but  that 
in  short  it  is  the  man  himself  who  makes  his  career,  is  something 
which  the  English  have  so  utterly  lost  as  to  be  incapable  of 
realizing  it."  Was  there  ever  such  tommy  rot  written  ?  We  will 
admit  the  opportunities  and  unreserved  possibilities,  but  the 
unconquerable  buoyancy,  the  sting  and  the  challenge,  may  be  para- 
phrazed  thus,  "by  the  exercise  of  sharp  arts,  by  unconquerable 
effrontery,  by  cunning,  duplicity,  chicanery,  trickery  and  knavery, 
open  opportunities  may  be  embraced  and  monopolized  and  unre- 
served possibilities  achieved,  vide  the  Standard  oil,  the  railroad 
steals,  the  express  and  telegraph  hold  up  companies,  the  steel  trust 
and  the  sugar  trust,  the  post  office  thieves,  and  all  other  public  and 
private  thieves  in  and  out  of  hell  'ad  infinitum.'  "  Yes,  Englishmen 
and  Britishers  are  so  utterly  lost  as  to  be  incapable  of  realizing 
that  such  a  damnable  condition  of  affairs  can  be  at  all  possible; 
it  surpasses  the  understanding  of  ordinary  men.  The  British 
Empire  contains  her  quota  of  rogues  and  thieves,  but  they  are 
generally  in  the  long  run  run  down  and  given  their  just  deserts, 
they  are  not  enthroned  as  they  are  here,  and  sit  in  high  places. 


34  THE  GLOBE. 

What  has  been  the  matter  with  Anglo-American  is  that  since  he 
has  come  over  here  and  joined  the  ranks  of  American  grafters 
■  and  probably  made  his  ''pile,"  he  has  been  afflicted  with  a  moral 
turpitude  and  obliquity  that  it  is  no  longer  possible  for  him  to  see 
things  in  their  right  aspect,  and  he  has  been  so  badly  taken  with 
an  attack  of  swollen  head  that  he  has  the  impudence  to  write  an 
insufferably  stupid  Jefferson  Brick  sort  of  article  abounding  in 
Fourth  of  July  bluster,  with  the  bombastic  and  high-sounding  title, 
"An  Indictment  of  the  British  Monarchy."  Who  is  he,  anyway? 
Why  does  he  not  come  out  in  the  open  and  let  us  know  who  he  is  ? 
To  proceed,  however,  with  our  story,  the  avocations  of  the  British 
aristocracy  are  numerous  and  varied ;  many  are  profound  scholars, 
scientists,  and  literati,  many  go  in  for  political  and  diplomatic 
careers,  many  enter  the  services,  the  army  and  navy,  a  few  enter 
the  Church,  and  a  few  the  professions.  Some  take  to  travel  and 
research,  and  many  devote  their  energies  to  the  improvement  of 
their  tenantry  and  estates,  and  such  country  duties  that  fall  to 
their  lot,  often  holding  county  magistracies  under  the  crown. 
Averaging  them  up,  they  are  as  busy,  highly  honorable,  intelligent 
and  educated  a  body  of  men  as  can  be  found  anywhere  on  the 
face  of  the  globe.  I  doubt  indeed  whether,  all  considered,  their 
equal  can  be  found.  There  may  be  found  among  them  dunder- 
heads, debauchees,  rascals  and  scoundrels,  but  they  are  few  and 
far  between,  but  so  fierce  is  the  light  that  is  thrown  upon  them 
that  it  is  only  those  among  them  who  are  utterly  insensible  to 
shame  that  can  percist  in  a  career  of  indolence  and  immorality. 
Besides  we  must  remember  that  there  is  a  constant  percolation  from 
the  aristocracy  towards  the  people,  the  younger  sons  of  nobles 
are  commoners,  and  their  sons  again  are  indistinguishable  from 
the  commoners,  and  furthermore  there  is  a  constant  ascension  to 
the  peerage  from  below.  Most  of  the  nobles  have  been  created 
but  a  few  generations  back,  and  a  fair  percentage  of  these  have 
been  created  since  Queen  Victoria  came  to  the  throne.  Successful 
statesmen,  profound  legal  lights,  and  scientists,  admirals,  great 
generals,  and  all  those  who  have  rendered  signal  service  to  the 
well  being  of  the  people  and  the  state  go  to  recruit  the  peerage  and 
to  make  the  British  peerage  the  finest  body  of  men  on  the  earth  to- 
day. For  the  peerage  has  grown  for  years  through  a  process  of 
natural  selection  and  survival  of  the  fittest.    We  shall  pass  on  to 


A  DEFENSE  OF  THE  BRITISH  MONARCHY.  35 

the  sovereign  to  complete  the  zona  pellucida.     The   Sovereign 
reigns,  but  does  not  govern,  is  a  phase  that  has  become  of  common 
utterance  during  the  last  few  years.     It  is  of  course  hard  to  dis- 
criminate between  reigning  and  governing,  one  presupposes  the 
other,    A  more  truthful  interpretation  of  the  adage  would  be,  the 
British  Sovereign  reigns  and  governs  through  his  ministers  and  by 
the  houses  of  Parliament.    The  sovereign  generally  watches  very 
closely  the  career  of  public  men  and  eminent  servants  of  the 
crown,  and  has  the  prescriptive  right  to  intimate  a  disapproval  of 
the  selection  of  any  prospective  member  of  the  cabinet,  who  may 
be  ''persona  non  grata."    The  late  Queen  exercised  this  preroga- 
tive only  once,  I  believe,  during  her  long  reign  of  over  sixty 
years.     Here  are  some  more  wild  statements  from  Anglo-Ameri- 
can: ''that  the  peerage  and  its  offshoots,  the  great  land-owning 
class  and  county  families  form  a  sort  of  governing  class  and  come 
to  look  upon  public  office  as  a  birthright     .     .     .     that  outsiders 
like  Disraeli  and  John  Bright  and  Mr.  Chamberlain  may  from  time 
to  time  force  their  way  into  the  charmed  circle  by  sheer  weight 
of  genius ;  these  instances  are  rare  and  are  becoming  rarer     .     .     . 
thus  in  every  British  ministry  you  find  a  wholly  disproportionate 
nurrtber  of  places  reserved  for  the  aristocracy,  whose  title  to  them 
is  based  solely  on  the  non-essentials  of  birth,  manners  and  social 
position,  nobody  pretends  that  they  are  the  best  men  for  the  office." 
Really  this  man  makes  one  nauseated.    Why  does  he  not  acquaint 
himself  with  the  history  of  England?     Such   display  of  utter 
ignorance,  and  such  transparently  false  statements  have  hardly 
ever  appeared  in  a  journal  of  such  high  standing  as  the  North 
American  Review,  but  one  can  now  expect  almost  anything  from 
the  North  American  Review  since  it  printed  such  demoralizing 
articles,  advocating  foeticide  and  abortion,  as  the  articles  written 
by  such  creatures  as  Edith  Hustid  Harper  and  by  "A  Paterfami- 
lias."   This  paterfamilias  had  the  decency,  however,  to  cover  his 
name.    Perhaps  we  ought  for  the  same  reason  to  commend  Anglo- 
American.    The  article  goes  on  with  such  grotesquely  false  state- 
ments and  jumps  at  such  wild  conclusions  that  I  have  hardly 
patience  to  proceed ;  however,  he  stumbles  on  some  truths,  but  is 
totally  unable  to  perceive  their  cause.    There  does  exist  in  England 
now  a  national  despondency,  a  strong  tendency  to  self-research; 
something  has  gone  wrong  somewhere;  England  has  undoubtedly 


36  THE  GLOBE. 

lost  prestige  from  her  humiliations  and  disasters  of  the  Boer  war, 
.and  there  has  been  a  standing  still  in  commerce  during  the  last 
two  decades.    There  has  been  no  advance  in  trade  and  commerce 
commensurate  with  the  increase  of  population.    Abuses  have  crept 
into  the  army ;  abuses,  not  dishonesty,  but  simply  gross  incompe- 
tency which  threw  unnecessary  hardships  and  humiliations  upon 
the  soldiers  fighting  in  South  Africa.    These  abuses  have  grown 
up  unnoticed  during  a  long  period  of  peace  under  a  peace-loving 
Queen,  whose  wishes  were  always  for  peace,  and  the  love  her 
subjects  bore  her  caused  them  to  respect  her  wishes  on  more 
than  one  occasion,  although  it  went  sorely  against  their  grain. 
But  not  even  the  deep  loyalty  and  deference  to  the  wishes  of 
their  Queen  could  prevent  the  nation  resenting  the  deep  insult 
cast  upon     the   country  by     Oom  Paul   Kruger.    The   Queen's 
long  reign  may  be  justly  designated  a  republican  era,  because 
the  Queen  deferred  in  all  things  to  her  ministers,  and  it  was 
during   the    latter    half   of    this    semi-republican    administration 
that  abuses  crept  in.    These  were  in  no  wise  due  to  the  throne; 
rather  were  these  abuses  due  to  the  fierce  animosities  and  rivalries 
of  opposing  political  parties,  they  were  due  to  a  desire  on  the  part 
of  both  parties  to  appear  before  the  constituents  as  the  only  party 
of  economy;  hence  a  false  economy  was  exercised,  with  a  conse- 
quent starving  of  the  sea  and  land  forces  of  the  Empire.     Silly 
sentimentalists,  like  John  Morley  and  Mr.  Gladstone,  were  even 
ready  to  dismember  the  Empire,  so  as  to  go  down  in  history  as 
peace-loving  statesmen ;  it  was  the  golden  age  of  silly  sentimental- 
ism  run  riot,  a  virtual  republic  was  parading  under  the  garb  of  a 
monarchy,  this  age  it  was  in  which  abuses  multiplied.    The  Boer 
war  clearly  showed  the  English  people  that  they  could  no  longer 
afford  to  experiment  with  silly  sentimentalists,  and  that  no  longer 
could  the  destinies  of  the  Empire  remain  in  the  hands  of  such 
men.    Queen  Victoria  governed  with  the  precepts  of  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  ever  before  her,  and  the  world  owes  her  an  inesti- 
mable debt  of  gratitude  for  her  doing  so,  even  if  England  had  to 
pay  the  price  in  humiliation  and  disaster  in  the  Boer  war,  for  the 
long  term  of  peace  granted  the  world  through  the  noble  Queen's 
influence ;  she  died  with  the  blessings  of  all  mankind,  at  least  of  all 
those  who  were  not  altogether  lost  to  sensibility  and  imagination. 
But  the  Anglo-American  utterly  fails  to  see  this,  but  rushes  to 


A  DEFENSE  OF  THE  BRITISH  MONARCHY.  37 

print  with  an  article  entitled  "An  Indictment  of  the  British  Mon- 
archy."    He  feels  assured,  I  verily  believe,  that  his  article  will 
raise  a  storm  of  reform  in  England,  if  indeed  it  does  not  lead  to  a 
bloody  revolution,  during  which  King  Edward  the  Seventh  will 
be  driven  from  the  throne  and  will  probably  have  to  seek  refuge  in 
New  York,  build  a  mansion  on  Fifth  Avenue,  beg  for  admission 
into  the  sacred  precincts  of  the  New  York  Four  Hundred,  and 
join  Pierpont  Morgan  in  some  gigantic  graft,  such  as  floating  a 
shipbuilding  trust,  or  a  billion  dollar  steel  combine,  or  perhaps 
Anglo-American  may  be  able  to  give  him  some  valuable  points  in 
grafting  himself.     I  firmly  believe  that  Anglo-American  is  egoist 
enough  to  conjure  up  these  scenes  in  his  fervid  imagination,  upon 
which  he  has  so  largely  drawn  when  seized  with  the  inspiration  to 
write  his  stupid  article.    I  may  further  state  that  looking  at  Eng- 
land's monarchy,  seeing  the  great  hold  upon  her  people,  seeing 
the  intense  affection  of  the  people  for  their  monarch,  and  seeing 
the  deference  paid  the  monarch  by  the  people,  it  would  appear  that 
the  government  of  England  was  wholly  that  of  an  absolute  mon- 
archy.   Then  on  the  other  hand,  when  we  observe  a  powerful  and 
hereditary  class  of  nobles,  with  hereditary   seats   in  the   upper 
House  of  Parliament,  the  great  respect  and  deference  shown  them 
by  the  people,  their  great  historical  and  political  prestige,  it  would 
again  appear  that  England  was  governed  by  a  powerful  oligarchy. 
Then  we  look  at  the  composition  of  the  House  of  Commons,  its 
foundation  lying  upon  manhood  suffrage,  its  almost  paramount 
influence    in    the    state,    its    absolute    control    of    the    national 
finances,  its  sole  power  of  leveling  and  raising  tones,  it  would 
appear   that   the   government   of    England   was    entirely    demo- 
cratic:  again,   when   we   look   at   the   vast   organization   of   the 
established  Church,  her  bishops  occupying  seats   in  the  Upper 
House  of  Parliament,  its  many  ramifications,  its  powerful  influence 
upon  the  education  of  the  youth  of  the  country,  its  high  political 
standing,  its  great  historical  influence,  it  would  appear  that  eccle- 
siasticism  had  a  preponderating  influence  in  the  government  of 
England;  all  these  statements  and  conclusions  are  relatively  true, 
but  so  harmoniously  blended  are  the  interests  of  class  with  class 
in  England  that  an  injury  to  the  one  class  is  an  injury  to  all  the 
classes ;  never  in  the  history  of  the  world  have  the  different  and 
varied  interests  of  the  different  classes  of  a  people  been  so  beauti- 


38  THE  GLOBE. 

fully  and  harmoniously  blended,  one  intertwined  with  the  other 
the  joys  of  one  are  the  joys  of  the  others,  and  the  sorrows  of  one 
are  the  sorrows  of  the  others.     The  English  people  have  been 
allowed  for  nearly  a  thousand  years,  uninfluenced  by  any  foreign 
intrusion,  to  build  up  this  state,  and  nature  now  points  to  the 
British  government  as  her  masterpiece,  and  says  to  the  rest  of  the 
nations  of  the  world,  "go  and  do  thou  likewise."  Having  effectually 
disposed  of  the  extremely  stupid  statements  of  Anglo-American 
anent  the  British  monarchy,  let  us  return  for  a  moment  to  consider 
the  position  of  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  and  endeavor  to  find 
a  fundamental  and  logical  basis   for  his   present  personal  and 
national  characteristics.     To  go  over  well  ploughed  ground  and 
to  state  what  we  have  fully  stated  before,  we  have  said  that  the 
revolution  of  the  North  American  colonists  was  essentially  in  its 
cause  and  in  its  intention  a  revolution  for  the  preservation  of  cer- 
tain inalienable  rights,  and  that  the  revolution  subsequently  de- 
generated into  a  revolution  entirely  of  reformation.    In  attempting 
this,  much  of  value  to  the  personal  rights  and  liberties  of  the  indi- 
vidual was  not  preserved,  and  the  wit  of  man  could  devise  nothing 
to  put  in  place  thereof;  we  have  said  that  the  onus  of  defending 
his  personal  liberties  and  right  was  thrown  upon  the  individual. 
This  produced  a  power  of  initiative,  an  egoism,  a  selfishness,  a 
self-consciousness,  a  self-cautionsness,  a  self-dependence,  and  these 
were  naturally  productive  of  an  intense  activity,  and  a  restless 
energy  and  eagerness,  first  towards  the  acquirement  of  means,  i.  e., 
money,  for  the  protection  of  these  rights.     A  man's  individual 
rights  being  dependent  upon  the  extent  of  his  power  to  protect 
them,  the  one  thing  absolutely  necessary  to  protect  these  rights, 
and  of  those  near  and  dear  to  him  is  money.    When  a  citizen  is 
known  to  have  money  wherewith  to  protect  his  rights,  his  rights 
are  respected;  the  more  money  he  has  the  more  secure  are  those 
rights,  hence  money  assumes  an  undue  value.    It  became  essential 
that  men  should  acquire  money  or  its  equivalent  in  property.    "Get 
money ;  honestly  if  you  can,  but  get  it,"  is  the  motto  of  the  country. 
The  accum.ulation  of  money  under  those  conditions  gives  a  further 
intensity  to  individuality,  it  adds  security  and  power,  and  with 
security  and  power  and  pride  of  ownership  comes  cupidity.    This 
cupidity  prompts  a  desire  to  infringe  upon  the  rights  of  weaker 
neighbors,  who  have  no  money  whereby  to  defend  their  rights. 


I 


A  DEFENSE  OF  THE  BRITISH  MONARCHY.  39 

Public  and  private  rights  are  being  perpetually  trampled  upon  and 
ignored  by  those  in  possession  of  most  wealth.  If  the  people  have 
rights  why  do  they  not  defend  them?  say  the  railroad,  trust  and 
corporation  magnates ;  the  public  be  damned  says  Vanderbilt.  The 
utter  apathy  of  the  people  is  apparent  to  all  ;they  have  been  too  long 
accustomed  to  look  just  after  their  own  individual  rights;  it  has 
become,  as  it  were,  a  second  nature  with  them,  a  public  right  has 
ceased  to  interest  them,  so  utterly  selfish  have  they  become,  that  the 
only  right  that  would  cause  them  to  spend  money  to  defend,  is 
their  own,  their  very  own.  This  intense  sense  of  individual  respon- 
sibility for  defence  of  personal  rights  has  given  birth  to  a  spirit  of 
cupidity  seen  nowhere  else  in  the  world  in  such  an  intense  national 
form,  any  appeal  to  cupidity,  is  readily  accepted.  The  ''Americans 
are  the  most  gullible  people  in  the  world,"  said  Bamum  and  none 
disputed  him,  but  few  indeed,  have  divined  the  fundamental  cause 
of  that  gullibility.  It  is  really  no  fault  of  the  citizen  of  the  United 
States  that  he  is  what  he  is ;  he  is  in  fact  compelled  to  be  what  he 
is.  Any  other  race  of  men  would  have  developed  the  identical 
traits  under  the  same  environments  from  the  very  natural  work- 
ings of  the  human  mind.  The  political  status  accorded  him  after 
the  revolutionary  war,  is  the  fundamental  basis  for  his  present 
characteristics.  The  ball  was  set  rolling  then ;  all  this  selfishness, 
heartlessness  and  this  cupidity,  all  this  striving  after  the  almighty 
dollar,  all  this  worship  of  mammon,  are  but  the  natural  conse- 
quences of  a  leap  in  the  dark.  Everybody  rails  against  the  citizen 
of  the  United  States  for  possessing  these  characteristics.  This  is 
manifestly  unfair.  He  can  no  more  help  him.self  than  the  Ethio- 
pian can  help  his  dark  skin,  or  the  leopard  his  spots.  They  are  the 
inevitable  and  inexorable  working  from  cause  to  effect.  One  hears 
of  reformers  by  the  score.  Was  there  ever  a  reformer  known  to 
reform  in  the  United  States?  All  the  reformers  in  God's  green 
earth  could  not  reform  us.  If  they  attempted  to  do  so  from  now 
to  the  crack  of  doom,  unless  our  fundamental  status  was  altered, 
and  who  indeed  is  going  to  take  this  country  back  a  hundred  years 
and  place  the  people  back  again  on  sound  fundamental  principles  ? 
We  cannot  retrace  the  course  and  steps  of  history.  There  is  no 
help  for  us ;  we  must  work  out  our  own  destiny  along  the  lines 
that  we  have  elected  to  go,  and  the  further  we  go  the  worse  we 
will  get,  and  the  deeper  into  the  mire,  our  wild  scramble  for  Avealth 


40 


THE  GLOBE. 


and  the  picking  of  each  other's  pockets,  our  unscrupulosity  and 
our  rascaHty,  will  intensify,  decade  by  decade.  Where,  indeed,  is  it 
all  going  to  end  ?  Stop  we  cannot ;  go  on  we  must,  and  may  God 
have  mercy  upon  us. 

E.  H.   FiTZPATRICK. 


THE  WANE  OF  GREATNESS. 


Charles  Lamb  once  v/rote  a  charming  essay  on  "The  Decay  of 
Beggars  in  the  Metropolis."  It  might  give  a  better  heading  to  this 
paper,  if  it  were  explained  to  be  on  the  "Decay  of  Greatness  in 
the  Republic."  Its  seed-germ  of  thought  lies  in  the  following 
extract  from  the  Boston  Transcript,  copied  by  Portland  Evening 
Express,  whose  editor  was  evidently  impressed  by  its  force.  In 
fact,  it  has  more  sorrowful  intensity  than  at  first  appears,  more 
than  its  originator  himself  was  aware  of.  It  is  a  wail  from  New 
England,  the  more  piteous,  perhaps,  for  its  note  of  dauntless 
courage : 

A  Chance  for  Nezu  England. — It  is  of  course  to  be  regretted 
that  for  consideration  of  "practical  politics"  no  New  England  man 
may  be  considered  seriously  for  the  presidency.  At  the  same  time 
it  ought  to  be  possible  for  this  section  to  develop  a  man  so  strong 
that  he  must  be  considered.  Dearth  of  great  men  is  a  crying  evil 
of  American  Democracy  at  the  beginning  of  this  century. 

The  transformation  New  England  has  undergone  of  late  years  is 
but  too  patent;  its  causes  being  two- fold.  One,  the  great  and 
marvelous  development  of  the  whole  country;  the  other,  the 
immense  immigration  from  Canada,  flooding  all  New  England 
with  her  surplus  population.  This  influx  is  practically  that  of  a 
foreign  nationality — the  new-comers  being  of  French  extraction ; — 
so  that  in  factory  towns,  like  Lewiston,  in  Maine,  French  is  widely 
spoken,  and  the  French  population  remains  clannish,  having  its 
own  views,  patronizing  its  own  shops,  and  refusing  the  right  hand 
of  fellowship  to  the  Irish  despite  the  staunch  Catholicism  of  the 


THE  WANE  OF  GREATNESS.  41 

latter.  The  localities  where  these  Canadians  live — and  they  are 
bent  on  herding  together — are  untidy  to  a  degree,  forming  little 
foreign  colonies  in  Yankee  cities.  The  leading  tradesmen  in  such 
places  are  forced  to  employ  a  French-speaking  clerk  or  lose  an 
important  part  of  their  patronage. 

Throughout  the  farming  regions  and  in  the  deep  woods  French- 
Canadians  seek  employment  as  farm  hands,  or  woodsmen  for  the 
logging  camps,  or  icemen  in  the  river  gangs,  or  wherever  else 
brave,  hardy  service  is  required.  They  are  valuable  men,  in  their 
own  lines,  and,  though  as  yet  unassimilated,  the  Northern  states 
will  find  them,  in  the  end,  a  worthy  asset  in  the  count  of  popula- 
tion. 

None  the  less  their  presence  and  that  of  the  Irish,  together  with 
the  emigration  of  native  New  Englanders  to  the  South  and  West, 
enfeebling  the  North  to  build  up  these  other  sections,  is  working 
a  strange  transformation,  politically  and  religiously,  in  what  was 
once  Puritan  New  England.  The  immense  Democratic  vote  of 
Boston,  for  instance,  speaks  for  itself. 

The  first  cause  alluded  to,  the  general  growth  of  the  country, 
affects  other  parts  of  our  land  besides  New  England.  All  the 
older  states  feel  it; — ^the  original  Colonial  thirteen,  with  those 
settled  immediately  after, — are  pushed  back  in  the  scale  by  the 
gigantic  growth  of  the  West.  The  phenomenal  advance  of  the 
region  known  as  the  Northwest,  in  population  and  wealth,  the 
development  of  California  with  her  Oriental  trade,  together  with 
our  recent  acquisitions  of  Porto  Rico  and  the  Philippmes  and  the 
opening  up  of  Alaska,  have  so  altered  material  conditions  that  we 
cannot  tell,  even  now,  precisely  where  we  stand.  One  thing,  how- 
ever, is  certain ;  each  political  re-apportionment  throws  New  Eng- 
land further  back.  The  centres  of  wealth  and  population  move 
westward  perpetually  and  no  wave  of  reaction  heaves  in  sight. 
New  York,  as  a  commercial  and  financial  metropolis,  and  Phila- 
delphia with  her  great  manufacturing  and  railroad  interests,  hold 
their  own  as  yet.  But  poor  New  England,  despite  her  magnificent 
Atlantic  harbors  which  must  always  command  steamship  lines,  is 
getting  steadily  pushed  to  the  wall,  her  sea-wall.  Left  behind  in 
the  great  race  for  material  prosperity  and  too  intelligent  not  to 
know  this,  her  press  and  people  have  hard  work  to  show  a  brave 
front. 


42  THE  GLOBE, 

The  writer  of  the  Transcript  paragraph  is  but  "whistling  to  keep 
his  courage  up.''  His  expedient  for  leading  a  forlorn  hope  in  a 
lost  battle  has  a  touch — nay,  more  than  a  touch — of  the  pathetic. 
"Develop  a  man  so  strong  that  he  must  be  considered."  It  sounds 
like  that  ancient  cry  of  the  Fathers,  "In  God  we  trust,"  as  know- 
ing that,  humanly  speaking,  rescue  has  grown  impossible. 

Undoubtedly,  in  the  history  of  the  world  the  strong  man,  the 
hero — the  military  leader  often — in  any  case,  the  king  of  men, 
has  frequently  saved  a  nation  and  created  his  own  throne.  Yet 
amid  the  complexities  of  modern  civilization  we  see  less  and  less 
of  this.  "Knowledge  comes,  but  wisdom  lingers."  With  knowl- 
edge of  many  things,  arts  and  crafts,  politics  and  money-getting, 
the  divine  wisdom,  which  makes  the  true  greatness  of  the  great 
man,  grows  increasingly  rare. 

It  is  of  very  doubtful  advantage  to  this  country  as  a  whole  that 
the  moral  and  intellectual  supremacy  of  New  England  should 
decline.  "If  one  member  suffers,  the  others  suffer  with  it."  This 
is  true  of  the  body  politic,  as  of  the  Church.  But  facts  are  stub- 
born things.  The  Eastern  States  are  declining  and  even  the  great 
man,  should  he  by  any  chance  appear,  could  not  arrest  the  process. 
Therefore  her  outlook,  though  brave,  is  sorrowful. 

In  a  recent  work  entitled  "Boston,  the  Place  and  the  People,"  by 
M.  A.  De  Wolfe  Howe,  the  author  sums  up  the  causes  which  go 
to  make  Boston  what  it  is  to-day.  He  does  not  fail  to  mark  the 
extraordinary  changes  in  the  character  of  its  population.  In  1845, 
of  the  four  elements  in  the  population,  Mr.  Frederic  A.  Busbee  said 
that  "those  born  in  other  parts  of  the  United  States  ranked  first, 
those  born  in  Boston  of  American  parentage  second ;  the  foreign- 
born  come  next,  and  the  children  of  foreigners  last."  In  1899,  on 
,the  other  hand,  says  Mr.  Howe,  "the  foreign-born  rank  first,  the 
children  of  foreigners  second,  persons  born  in  other  parts  of  the 
United  States  come  next,  and  the  old  Bostonians  are  last."  The 
agencies  by  which  the  diverse  elements  are  amalgamated  into  a 
common  citizenship  are  then  briefly  described.  This  change, 
which  is  not  confined  to  Boston  but,  as  we  have  said,  reaches  all 
the  Eastern  States,  means  at  present,  pure  deterioration. 

That  our  original  stock  as  a  nation  was  fertile  in  great  men  we 
all  proudly  affirm.  Wisdom  and  intellectual  supremacy,  that  "fear 
of  God"  which  the  Psalmist  avers  is  "its  beginning,"  actual  power 


THE  WANE  OF  GREATNESS,  43 

controlled  by  duty, — these  characterized  Washington  and  grew 
up  in  Abraham  Lincoln.  They  permeated  the  first  thirteen  colon- 
ies, laid  firm  the  foundation  of  this  land  and  their  general  hold 
on  the  masses  led  to  a  fruitage  of  great  men.  The  agnosticism  of 
to-day  has  no  such  outcome.  ''Out  of  nothing,  nothing  comes." 
Zero  temperature  freezes  out  life.    Nihilism  brings  annihilation. 

As  are  the  unseen  roots  of  a  tree,  in  breadth  and  depth,  so  is  the 
spread  of  its  branching.  As  is  the  faith  of  a  nation,  its  unseen 
spiritual  life,  so  is  its  output  of  greatness.  The  attitude  of  the 
masses,  especially  in  cases  of  enormous  population,  settles  many 
mooted  points — among  others,  the  production  of  great  men. 
Statesmen,  musicians,  poets  and  rulers  are  said  to  be  the  product 
of  their  age.  A  truism  that  means,  not  the  product  of  the  upper, 
but  rather  of  the  lower  classes, — of  the  unconsidered  masses — 
from  which,  indeed,  they  often  directly  spring — and  of  the  general 
conditions,  good  or  bad,  of  faith  or  discontent,  sunshine  or  French 
Revolution  blackness,  exasperation  or  prosperity  and  peace,  which 
affect  these  masses. 

Faith  and  integrity,  generally  pervasive,  gave  us  Washington 
and  John  Quincy  Adams.  Doubt  and  corruption  give  us  Rockefel- 
ler and — Senator  Quay. 

Take  the  case  of  the  poets.  The  greatest  of  all,  Shakespeare, 
was  he  not  the  product  of  the  English  nation  itself  ?  Surely  not  of 
its  upper  classes  nor  wholly  of  the  Elizabethan  age — not  merely 
of  his  own  time,  but  the  consummate  flowering  of  all  time,  of  the 
best  in  the  English  character  to-day,  of  its  best  a  thousand  years 
hence.  For  the  wisdom  that  is  Divine,  the  blossom  of  righteous- 
ness, is,  of  necessity,  eternal. 

The  music  that  sung  itself  forth  in  the  Ages  of  Faith  voices  that 
faith  still.  The  Beethoven  and  Bach  and  Handel  compositions, — 
the  "Messiah,"  "Israel  in  Egypt"  and  the  like, — have  not  been 
superseded  and  will  not  be.  It  is  the  great  music  of  earth  and 
controls  men.  The  Divine  wisdom  inspired  it  and  the  eternal 
of  divinity  dwells  therein.  The  Holy  Spirit  abides  and  sways  the 
hearts  of  men  to  love  of  righteousness.  It  moves,  even  now,  on 
the  face  of  the  waters.  Should  they  overwhelm  us,  in  these 
United  States,  will  it  not  be  from  our  love  of  darkness  rather  than 
light  and  because  our  deeds  are  evil  ? 


44  THE  GLOBE. 

"  Dearth  of  great  men  is  a  crying  evil  " — right  you  are,  good 

Transcript!     Now,  what  brings  it  about  ?     General  deterioration 

.in  the  whole  body  politic — this,  first.     Then,  changed  conditions, 

springing  from  a  more  complex  life,  on  a  gigantic  scale  as  to 

numbers. 

This  second  point  brings  up  many  new  things,  to  be  taken  into 
account.  Education  has  changed  greatly.  In  olden  times  the 
country  school-house  took  in  all  the  children — the  community 
being  small,  it  was  well  in  hand.  The  instruction,  though  simple, 
was  thorough.  The  teacher  taught  from  pure  love  of  his  calling, 
his  slender  wage  repelling  the  mercenery .  The  boy  or  youth  who 
showed  superior  aptitude,  whom  it  was  hoped  might  attain  great- 
ness, had  his  chance /r^we  the  first.  The  teacher  had  time  to  culti- 
vate in  him  the  germs  of  that  greatness,  to  tend  and  foster  them, 
giving  the  gentle  nurture  which  young  hearts  need.  Even  now, 
our  smaller  schools  and  colleges,  despite  inferior  equipment,  do 
more  of  this  personal  work  and  are  more  successful  accordingly. 

The  immense  size  of  our  public  schools  prevents  the  teachers  of 
to-day  from  wielding  their  influence  to  best  advantage.  The  indi- 
vidual pupil,  lost  in  the  mass,  loses  touch  with  his  teacher,  who 
must,  perforce,  * '  seek  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number.' ' 
The  beautiful  inspirations  of  boyhood — which  Longfellow  under- 
stood— for  he  well  sings, 

"  The  thoughts  of  youth  are  long,  long  thoughts," 

— these  are  ignored  in  the  over-crammed  curriculum  of  modern 
training,  the  seed  germs  of  all  greatness  being  treated  as  a  negli- 
gible quantity. 

Such  school  advantages  as  even  our  present  system  presents 
are  not  within  reach  of  all.  Thousands  of  children,  in  every  one 
of  our  great  cities,  slip  through  the  meshes  of  our  educational  net. 
These  go  to  swell  the  ranks  of  juvenile  depravity  and  the  present 
awakening  of  the  Christian  world  to  effort  in  their  behalf  has  not 
come  a  moment  too  soon. 

Our  complex  system,  too,  "muddles"  the  mind  of  the  pupil;  a 
thousand  things  are  learned,  but  none  are  clear.  It  needs  a  world 
of  simplifying.  The  text-books  now  in  use  are  enough  to  puzzle 
the  typical  "Philadelphia  lawyer."  They  give  doubtful  aid  to  the 
poor  student,  leaving  him  more  "muddled"  than  before.  He  is 
discouraged,    leaves  school  before  half  completing  a   grammar 


THE  WANE  OF  GREATNESS.  45 

course,  his  best  years  wasted ;  he  is  disgusted  with  learning,  eager 
to  enter  a  business  career,  or  in  some  way  to  begin  making  money. 
Lucky,  indeed,  if  he  has  acquired  no  vicious  habits  during  these 
school  years. 

In  most  of  these  matters  the  private  and  definitely  religious 
schools  show  to  advantage,  though  more  and  more  hampered  by 
the  demand  that  they  "keep  up  with  the  public  schools." 

Meanwhile,  there  is  bitter  complaint,  outside,  of  boys  and  girls 
who  can  not  spell, — having  lost  the  good  old  habit  of  dividing 
words  into  syllables,  mastering  suffix  and  prefix, — who  are  poor 
readers — or  saucy  would-be  elocutionists, — who  can  not  handle 
vulgar  fractions  or  the  simple  mental  problems  of  Colburn's 
Arithmetic — and  this,  perhaps,  after  some  extended  course  in  the 
''higher  branches."  Defective  elementary  training  brings  them 
into  the  plight  of  the  lad,  ''who  remembered  the  exceptions,  but 
forgot  the  rule!"  The  English  language  seems  the  last  thing 
taught,  if  one  can  judge  from  the  inelegant  and  ungrammatical 
conversation  everywhere  overheard,  the  prevalence  of  "slang"  and 
the  imperfect  MSS.  sent  to  the  press. 

The  education  which  produced,  or  helped  to  produce,  Daniel 
Webster  and  Charles  Sumner  is  not  good  enough  for  Massachu- 
setts to-day — hence,  perhaps,  these  tears !  Harvard  College, 
which  once  had  a  share  of  greatness,  is  many-millioned  now  to  be 
sure,  endowed  to  repletion,  but  where  are  its  "superior  men,"  as 
the  heathen  Chinese  call  them?  Agassiz  and  President  Felton, 
Longfellow,  Lowell  an4  Parsons,  with  many  others  of  like  type, 
men  whom  the  whole  country  and  the  world  itself  revered,  have 
passed  away  in  a  sunsetting  full  of  glory.  And  their  places  remain 
unfilled ; — the  small  men  who  occupy  their  chairs  being  only  fit  to 
sit  at  their  feet.  "Dearth  of  great  men"  is  indeed  come  upon  us. 
The  change  in  methods  of  education  at  Harvard  is  to  blame  for 
this  in  some  degree.  The  enlarged  university  with  its  immense 
body  of  students  is  harder  to  handle;  the  task  of  reorganization, 
even  on  its  enlarged  money  basis,  being  a  mighty  work.  Results 
at  present  scarcely  indicate  its  successful  accomplishment.  The 
old-fashioned  thoroughness  went  out  with  the  old-fashioned  relig- 
ious power.  This  process  began  years  and  years  ago  and  acceler- 
ates mightily.  In  the  course  of  a  discussion  as  to  the  value  of 
college  education,  says  John  Albee,  in  his  "Remembrances  of 


46  THE  GLOBE. 

Emerson,"  that  philosopher  happened  to  remark  that  most  of  the 
branches  were  taught  at  Harvard.  ''Yes,  indeed,"  interjected 
•  Thoreau,  ''all  branches,  but  none  of  the  roots,"  at  which  Emer- 
son was  vastly  amused.  Deterioration  has  long  passed  the  stage 
when  the  looker-on  could  be  amused,  the  descent  to  Avernus 
being  easy. 

Individual  greatness  is  crushed  out  by  over-pressure  of  unwor- 
thy things,  in  educational  light ;  its  asperation  made  matter  of  ridi- 
cule, its  earnestness  derided,  its  spiritual  light  quenched.  Japanese 
lanterns  and  electric  lights  blind  it  to  the  stars,  though  these  still 
crown  the  mountain-tops. 

President  Butler,  of  Columbia  College,  said  in  an  address  the 
other  day  at  a  dinner  of  the  Harvard  Club,  New  York :  "Another 
important  thing  is  that  the  American  College,  from  the  Atlantic  to 
the  Pacific  Slope,  shall  send  our  men  who  can  think  straight  and 
feel  straight  on  the  fundamental  principles  of  civilization." 

"Might  he  not  have  added  still  another  important  thing,"  quer- 
ies the  keen  editor  of  the  Freeman's  Journal,  "namely,  men  who 
can  act  straight  ?" 

A  good  little  bit  of  old-fashioned  teaching,  this,  as  to  the 
ancient  and  eternal  law  of  uprightness,  which  not  even  Harvard 
University  can  supersede. 

The  potential  hero  or  statesman,  should  he  be  among  us,  will 
find  it  far  harder  to  rise  from  the  ranks  than  did  his  predecessors. 
Both  the  element  of  numbers  and  the  force  of  wealth  make  them- 
selves felt.  It  is  extremely  difficult  in  our  older  states  to  rise  satis- 
factorily in  any  one  of  the  learned  professions,  or  even  in  the 
modern  pursuits  of  engineering,  electrical  work  or  decorative  art. 
The  case  is  put  truthfully  and  with  much  vividness,  by  one  of  the 
personages  in  a  recent  story  which  graced  th^  Cosmopolitan.  The 
spokesman  is  a  young  barrister.  "Why  look  here,  Apgar,"  he 
exclaimed,  "do  you  know  that  nine-tenths  of  the  law  business  is 
in  the  hands  of  one-tenth  of  the  lawyers  ?  This  is  an  age  of  con- 
centrated effort  and  the  corporations  have  gobbled  up  the  law 
business  of  to-day.  Look  at  the  title  companies  and  the  trust 
companies  and  this  legal  concern  and  that.  And  every  insurance 
company  and  every  mercantile  concern  and  every  rilaroad  has  its 
own  legal  department,  hired  as  mere  clerks  upon  a  salary.  And 
after  that,  what  is  there  left  for  the  individual  practitioner? — 


THE  WANE  OF  GREA  TNESS.  47 

Why,  look  here,  Apgar,  here  am  I,  a  man  of  good  ordinary  abiUty, 
with  a  father  whose  name  when  he  Hved  was  a  name  to  conjure 
with,  and  a  fine  office  and  a  good  Hbrary  and  a  fair  amount  of 
brains  and  common  sense,  and  nothing,  by  George,  against  me — 
and  what  happens  ?  I  sit  in  my  chair  and  rot,  day  after  day,  day 
after  day.  And  why?  Because  I'm  not  in  with  the  ring.  Because 
I'm  not  related  to  a  single  corporation  man.  Because  my  father 
didn't  have  a  fortune  and  because  I  didn't  marry  rich.  That's  why 
and  you  know  it. — And  I'm  not  the  only  one.  Look  at  Harris. 
Look  at  Peterson.  Look  at  yourself.  Why,  what  can  you  or 
Harris  or  Peterson  or  I  make  a  year  out  of  the  business  there  is 
in  this  old  one-horse  town?  And  yet  there's  law  business  here 
and  good  business.  But  we  don't  get  it,  and,  what  is  more,  we 
never  shall  get  it." 

"That  may  be  said  of  other  vocations,  too,"  Apgar  quietly 
responded. 

Now  this  state  of  things  is  not  favorable  to  the  development 
of  your  great  man.  He  is  depressed  and  discouraged ;  crushed  by 
the  combined  forces  around  him  and  driven  on  to  dishonesty,  or, 
at  best,  to  cheap,  clap-trap  ways  of  gaining  notoriety.  Instead  of 
a  great  man,  we  get  a  mere  politician,  a  wire-puller — in  short,  a 
man  to  whom  means  are  more  than  ends.  Experience  gives  him 
skill  in  arts  and  tricks.  He  makes  money  and  is  advertised  far 
and  wide  as  a  successful  man.  But  real  greatness  he  has  bartered 
away  forever,  to  our  infinite  loss.  The  blue  skies  are  overhead  as 
of  old,  only  he  has  dropped  his  gaze  to  the  earth.  ''As  is  the 
earthy,  such  are  they  also  who  are  earthy."  It  is  the  decay,  the 
decadence  of  soul  and  spirit,  despite  its  gaudy  crimson  of  outer 
show.    The  man  is  a  Dead  Sea  apple. 

The  hero  of  olden  time  had  a  thousand  obstacles  to  conquer,  a 
thousand  foes  to  meet,  but  never  anything  like  our  present  trusts 
and  combines.  He  met  innumerable  checks,  but  met  them  one  by 
one.  Now,  they  come  in  solid  battalions.  The  great  man  of  to-day 
has  a  harder  fight  before  him,  to  win  success  and  power  without 
lowering  his  moral  standard,  than  was  ever  known  in  the  world's 
history. 

In  our  political  world  the  competition  is  unprecedented.  The 
fine  man,  the  superior  man,  is  counted  as  "less  than  nothing  and 
vanity."    The  available  man  is  the  man  sought  for.     So  great  is 


48  THE  GLOBE. 

the  struggle  for  office,  that  to  be  a  mere  **boss"  or  a  ward  politi- 
cian implies  the  possession  of  money  and  the  outlay  of  it,  together 
.  with  no  small  degree  of  shrewdness ; — we  say  shrewdness,  or  cun- 
ning, for  *'push,"  of  this  cheap  kind,  however  admired  or  success- 
ful, is  the  direct  opposite  of  greatness. 

Yet  how  much  does  the  kind  differ  as  you  rise  in  the  scale  ?  In 
the  higher  walks  of  political  life,  do  we  not  find  the  same  intrigue, 
the  same  use  of  base  methods  ?  In  fact,  the  man  trained  to  corrupt 
ways  from  the  very  outset  of  his  career,  is  not  likely  to  drop  them, 
as  a  snake  his  skin — and  he  does  not  drop  them.  You  have  edu- 
cated a  politician,  not  a  statesman,  a  demagogue,  not  a  patriot, — 
why  expect  grapes  of  thorns,  or  figs  of  thistles  ?  Is  it  any  wonder 
that  our  great  places  are  filled  by  small  men?  Mere  cheap  Jack 
partisans,  of  mediocre  talents  and  attenuated  conscience? 

True  greatness  refuses  overmuch  tribute  to  Caesar  and  will  not 
yield  him  the  things  that  are  God's.  Wherefore,  it  must  forever 
stand  back  in  the  race  for  worldly  honors. 

In  all  this  matter,  two  things  make  for  our  encouragement — we 
would  fain  be  optimists,  after  all.  First,  the  general  dissatisfac- 
tion, as  voiced  by  the  press  and  expressing  that  of  the  people,  at 
this  untoward  state  of  things ;  and,  next,  the  fact  that  dearth  of  any 
one  thing  is  not  a  total  lack  of  it. 

So  long  as  the  public  conscience  remains  in  healthy  condition, — 
and  moans,  like  this  of  the  Transcript,  do  rise  from  time  to  time 
— there  life  is  and  hope.  The  beauty  of  holiness  has  its  grasp 
eternally.  We  cry  with  Browning,  "God's  in  His  heaven — all's 
right  with  the  world." 

To  be  sure,  the  public  conscience  in  this  land  is  dulled  and 
blunted.  The  demoralization  rife  in  New  York  and  Washington 
permeates  the  whole  country,  so  that  each  rural  hamlet  has  its 
political  "bosses,"  its  trickster,  its  defaulter  and  swindler.  Yet  the 
love  of  the  hamlet  does  not  go  out  to  these.  Ask  each  inhabitant 
who  is  its  great  man ;  he  will  scarcely  mention  these !  Rather  will 
he  instance  some  high-minded  man,  of  no  great  wealth — perhaps, 
even,  some  soul  of  whom  he  will  declare  that  the  man  or  woman 
thus  singled  out  is  "too  good  for  this  world."  Somehow,  the 
community  feels  the  sweetness  of  that  strange  aloofness,  which 
surrounds  him  "whose  conversation  is  in  heaven."  What  is  true 
of  the  hamlet  is  true,  in  a  wider  sense,  of  the  whole  land.    Despite 


THE  WANE  OF  GREATNESS.  49 

its  lax  morality,  its  lowered  standard  of  right  and  wrong,  its  heart 
beats  warm  and  true.  It  means  well,  despite  errors  of  judgment. 
No  man  can  be  "seriously  considered  for  the  Presidency,"  good 
Transcript,  who  is  an  open  or  gigantic  scoundrel.    No,  not  yet ! 

The  race  is  not  always  to  the  swift,  in  this  land — a  Presidential 
nomination  being  matter  for  extreme  doubtfulness.  The  "strong" 
candidate  may  be  set  aside,  and  some  new-comer  appear  as  by 
miracle  sweeping  on  to  success.  Great  crises  in  national  affairs, 
also,  create  their  own  leaders,  the  moneyed  wire-puller  sinking 
out  of  sight — for  all  which  Heaven  be  thanked ! 

New  England  has  had  no  dearth  of  greatness  in  years  past.  She 
has  nurtured  fine  men,  unselfish  and  retiring,  men  who  walked 
humbly,  in  touch  with  the  Divine.  Has  Concord  forgotten  Emer- 
son ?  A  man  so  utterly  unworldly  that  a  dollar  looked  to  him  like 
a  penny.  He  who  advised  the  young  man  of  his  day  "to  hitch  his 
wagon  to  a  star"  will  be  admired  and  revered  for  that  bit  of 
advice,  when  the  millionaires  we  are  bedaubing  with  praise  "at  the 
beginning  of  this  century"  are  clean  gone  and  forgotten.  We  still 
honor  Agassiz,  who  "had  no  time  to  waste  making  money,"  and 
Whittier,  and  Charles  Sumner,  marked  in  the  Congress  of  his  day 
as  "incorruptible" — a  stumbling-block,  even  then,  to  his  fellows. 
These,  and  such  as  these,  are  New  England's  great — nay,  her 
greatest,  men ! 

H  another  great  man  is  born  to  her,  he,  too,  may  be  found 
standing  with  bared  head,  gazing  up  into  heaven.  Instead  of  being 
an  "available"  man  for  cheap  promotion,  he  may  have  the  stars 
for  his  own  and  the  world  at  his  feet. 

The  papers  and  politicians  will  be  disappointed  then  and  bitterly 
vexed,  as  the  Jews  at  the  course  of  Him  of  Galilee. 

Dearth  of  greatness  in  any  one  party,  or  even  in  the  Republic, 
as  a  whole,  does  not  mean  the  total  lack  of  it.  Hunger  is  not 
starvation  :  we  would  not  exaggerate  evil.  The  elements  of  great- 
ness, Hke  the  nebulae  that  go  to  make  stars,  exist  everywhere.  We 
daily  jostle  men,  "of  whom  more  might  have  been  made,"  to  quote 
the  "Country.  Parson."  There  are  quiet  citizens  who  shun  noto- 
riety, unassuming  and  unpraised,  in  every  college  circle,  in  the  pro- 
fessions and  in  private  life,  who  could  come  to  the  front  if  need 
were.  These  are  the  salvation  of  the  Republic.  These 
are     the     "Mugwumps,"     who     will     not     support     the     party 


50  THE  GLOBE. 

candidate,  if  they  deem  him  unworthy.  These  are  they,  whose 
calm,  unbiased  judgment  carries  weight  with  the  rest.  These 
are  the  leaders  who  appear  in  sharp  emergencies,  controlling 
the  situation  because  men  of  all  parties  have  faith  in  them.  Such, 
for  instance,  is  General  Chamberlain,  of  Maine,  scholar,  soldier 
and  gentleman.  See  him  leaving  his  quiet  college  to  take  supreme 
authority  at  a  time  when  anarchy  threatened  that  state,  left  with- 
out government  or  governor,  controlling  all  serenely,  withdrawing 
when  the  temporary  need  was  over,  as  if  nothing  had  been  done, 
bearing  with  him  the  heartfelt  thanks  and  perfect  confidence  of  all 
men.  Is  not  the  career  of  such  a  man  touched  with  the  splendor 
of  greatness  ?    How  gainsay  its  silent  dignity  ? 

No,   not   yet   do   we   despair   of   New    England — nor   of   the 
Republic. 

Caroline  D.  Swan. 


WAR  IN  THE  FAR  EAST. 


Until  Wednesday  morning,  February  loth,  my  sympathies,  as 
far  as  I  had  allowed  myself  to  feel  any  sympathy  with  either  side 
of  the  banded,  barbarian  butchers,  now  fighting  in  the  Far  East, 
were  with  Japan,  based,  however,  upon  valid  reasons.  Pirst, 
because  after  the  recent  war  between  Japan  and  China,  and  when 
the  little  brown  men  had  shown  their  capacity  and  pluck,  and  had 
vanquished  the  Celestials,  Russia  and  Europe  generally,  but  espe- 
cially Russia,  bore  down  upon  the  Eastern  islanders,  dictated 
terms,  and  prevented  Japan  from  acquiring  the  full  benefits  of  her 
victory ;  and  Secondly,  because  Japan,  being  the  smaller  boy  of  the 
two  contestants,  all  the  world  seemed  to  think  that  Russia,  being 
such  an  enormous  Empire,  it  would  be  easy  for  her  to  swallow  the 
little  island  nation,  and  look  about  for  other  game. 

I  hate  it  all,  and  count  it  damnable  that  any  two  nations  or  men 
should  resort  to  pistols  to  settle  a  dispute,  and  especially  infamous 
that  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  men  can  have  their  man- 
hood drilled  and  driven  out  of  them  till  they  are  ready  without  any 


fVA/?  IN  THE  FAR  EAST. 


51 


quarrel  between  them  to  shoot  each  other  into  eternity,  in  cold 
blood  simply  at  the  dictation  of  an  admiral,  a  general,  or  any 
other  fellow  who  happens  to  be  in  what  is  called  command  at  the 
time;  but  admitting  and  having  to  admit  war,  with  all  the  bar- 
barities thereof,  there  is  always  one  side  or  the  other  which  has 
the  greater  claim  to  sympathy,  based  upon  a  true  interpretation 
of  all  the  facts  of  God's  eternal  justice,  as  applied  to  these. 

On  the  morning  of  February  10,  1904,  however,  all  sympathies 
with  either  side  went  to  the  winds,  and  from  that  hour  I  have 
desired,  above  all  things,  that  both  Russia  and  Japan  would  unite 
and  turn  upon  the  United  States  and  pound  it,  that  is  the  govern- 
ment thereof,  till  they  had  driven  all  insane  self-assertion,  arro- 
gance, self-conceit,  self-deception,  impudence,  pretense,  hypocrisy 
and  overbearing  ignorance  out  of  our  heart  and  soul  and  words. 

The  consummate  impudence  of  the  United  States  in  sending  the 
following,  as  telegraphed  from  Washington,  on  the  morning  of  the 
date  named,  and  the  utterly  contradictory  rot  of  this  so-called 
Christian  statement  sent  across  the  world,  is  as  amusing  as  Mr. 
Hay's  diplomacy  on  the  Panama  Canal  question. 

If  I  were  a  pagan  I  should  hate  and  despise  the  stuff  called 
Christian  diplomacy,  as  it  is  vomited  from  the  seared  consciences 
of  ^o-called  Christian  nations.  Here  is  the  amalgamation  of 
refuse  and  hell  quoted  from  bushels  and  quarter  sections  of  such 
— as  it  is  piled  up  daily  in  the  black  and  yellow  journalism  of  the 
North  American  of  Philadelphia: 

''Washington,  February  9.  President  Roosevelt,  represented  by 
Secretary  Hay,  has  taken  steps  to  limit  the  horrors  of  war  between 
Russia  and  Japan,  and  to  secure,  if  possible,  an  international  agree- 
ment for  protection  and  preservation  of  China. 

"While  other  nations  are  hesitating,  the  United  States  has  taken 
the  initiative,  and  has  called  upon  the  other  Christian  countries 
to  follow  its  example. 

"Secretary  Hay  has  addressed  notes  to  both  the  Russian  and 
the  Japanese  governments,  tending  the  good  ofiices  of  the  United 
States  to  bring  about  an  agreement  by  which  the  field  of  hostility 
may  be  limited.  The  exact  terms  of  these  notes  are  not  known, 
nor  will  they  be  until  replies  shall  have  been  received. 


52  THE  GLOBE. 

♦*TO   CONFINE   THE   FIGHTING    ARKA. 

"The  general  suggestion  contained  in  them  is  that  the  actual 
fighting  will  be  confined  to  Manchuria  and  Korea.  Copies  of 
these  notes  have  been  sent  to  all  the  European  powers  with  a 
suggestion  that  the  powers  agree  to  do  everything  possible  to 
have  China  preserve  an  attitude  of  entire  neutrality,  and  that 
Russia  and  Japan  be  notified  that  as  a  result  of  the  conflict  there 
is  to  be  no  dismemberment  of  the  Chinese  Empire. 

''It  is  apparent  to  the  world,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Administra- 
tion, that  a  desire  to  enrich  themselves  at  the  expense  of  China 
animates  the  belligerents  upon  each  side,  and  in  the  interest  of 
civilization  it  is  held  that  China  should  not  be  made  the  victim 
of  the  victor's  greed. 

"It  is  beheved  the  latter  proposition  will  be  generally  agreed  to 
by  the  other  powers,  and  that  China  will  be  protected  against  both 
Russia  and  Japan. 

"To  this  extent  the  United  States  has  pointed  out  the  moral 
duty  of  the  other  nations. 

**A   PROCI<AMATlON   OF   NEUTR AI,ITV . 

"Respecting  the  limitation  of  the  field  of  hostile  operations. 
Secretary  Hay  had  paved  the  way  for  this  suggestion  by  corres- 
pondence with  the  two  belligerent  governments.  He  is  exceed- 
ingly hopeful  that  his  proposition  may  be  accepted,  and  that  much- 
suffering  by  innocent  persons  will  be  prevented. 

"The  attitude  of  the  United  States  will  be  that  of  entire  neu- 
trality, and  (Continued  on  Page  Three)."  etc. 

Only  a  few  months  ago  this  same  Christian  United  States 
forced  a  bloody  and  unequal  war  upon  one  of  the  weakest  and 
most  Christian  nations  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  Of  course  we 
conquered  Spain,  and  have  ever  since  been  boasting  of  the  infamy 
that  we  call  anglo-saxon  civilization. 

Suppose  that  Russia  or  Germany  within  twenty-four  hours 
after  we  had  opened  war  with  Spain  had  sent  such  a  bullying 
dispatch  to  us  as  we  have  now  sent  to  Russia  and  Japan.  We 
would  have  rightly  resented  it,  th6ugh  wrongly  pursuing  a  foul 
war.  Men  will  not  be  interfered  with  when  engaged  in  a  fight, 
much  less  nations.  We  confined  our  war  with  Spain  to  the  con- 
fines of  the  earth  and  the  seas.    Our  strenuous  lad,  since  president^ 


IVAR  IN  THE  FAR  EAST.  53 

went  everywhere,  trampling  on  the  Monroe  doctrine  to  the  con- 
fines of  Asia,  all  the  while  prattling  the  foolish  Monroe  babble  at 
home ;  and  now  this  contradictory  man,  with  his  obedient  secretary 
of  state,  in  less  than  twenty-four  hours  after  the  first  bloody 
shots  were  fired  between  Russia  and  Japan,  sends  an  impudent 
so-called  Christian  note  to  Russia  and  Japan,  virtually  stating 
that  we,  the  almighty  dollar-Uncle  Sam-Theodore-Ha3^-Taft  &  Co. 
mean  to  confine  the  quarrel  to  certain  limits  and  save  China,  that 
We,  Us  &  Co.  may  pluck  her  more  conveniently  later  on.  To  such 
insufferable  impudence  and  inconsistency  has  anglo-saxon  Ameri- 
canism grown  in  the  dawning  of  this  twentieth  century. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  Sir  Mortimer,  the  English  minister  to  this 
country,  and  formerly  English  minister  to  Russia,  is  to  be  credited 
with  this  astute  blunder  on  the  part  of  Uncle  Sam.  It  is  plainly 
the  policy  of  England,  while  seeming  to  wish  otherwise,  to  pit 
Japan  against  Russia,  and  now  also  to  pit  the  United  States 
against  Russia.  Japan  understands  the  scheme,  but  it  never  would 
or  could  have  originated  in  such  thick,  or  thin  and  inexperienced 
heads  as  Roosevelt's  or  Hay's.  England  and  her  wily,  shrewd 
and  farseeing  Sir  Mortimer  are  to  blame.  But  the  game  is  not  yet 
ended.  The  man  who  interferes  in  a  family  quarrel  is  apt  to  get 
his  own  head  broken. 

Should  Russia  for  territory  offered,  induce  France  and  Ger- 
many, including  the  triple  Alliance,  to  unite  with  her  in  protest 
against  this  irrational  action,  then  one-half  the  world  would  be 
united  against  the  other  half,  the  area  of  war  would  be,  within  a 
year,  as  we  have  often  predicted,  in  the  Mississippi  and  Missouri 
valley,  up  and  down  the  great  stretch  of  western  hill  and  valley 
land  between  the  Rocky  and  Allegheny  mountains.  Roosevelt, 
Root,  Taft  and  Wood  are  young  men  yet,  lots  of  fight  in  them,  but 
when,  it  comes  to  leadership  between  such  ambitious  boys  and 
older  men — we  shall  see. 

The  foregoing  was  written  on  Wednesday,  February  loth,  the 
same  day  that  the  news  of  the  war  appeared  in  the  Philadelphia 
papers.  Judging  from  the  papers  of  the  nth  of  February,  com- 
menting on  the  monstrous  action  of  the  United  States  government 
in  presuming  to  dictate  the  locality  of  the  fighting,  it  seems  to  have 


54  THE  GLOBE. 

been  received  in  France  and  Germany  with  an  indignation  similar 
to  my  own,  as  will  appear  from  the  following  quotations  from  the 
Philadelphia  North  American : 

"Paris,  February  lo. — The  Hay  note  to  the  powers  emphasizing 
the  necessity  for  neutrality  of  both  belligerents,  before  and  after 
hostilities,  toward  China,  is  a  veritable  red  rag  to  Europe.  The 
Figaro  declares  nothing  is  more  imprudent,  and  that  it  might  be 
a  possible  firebrand,  involving  all  Europe  in  a  conflict. 

"The  note  is  all  the  more  forced  and  unnecessary,"  says  Figaro, 
"as  Russia  already  has  proclaimed  neutrality  toward  China." 

"Even  America's  declaration  of  non-interference,  after  a  Cabinet 
meeting,  is  regarded  as  an  unsatisfactory  offset  to  Mr.  Hay's  note. 
It  is  asked  if  America  is  really  and  entirely  disinterested,  why 
initiate  the  note  at  all." 

"Special  Cable  to  The  North  American.     Copyrighted,  1904,  by 
the  New  York  Herald  Co. 

"Berlin,  February  10. — The  Berlin  Press  is  very  bitter  in  its 
comment  on  the  action  of  the  United  States,  which  is  accused  of 
secretly  backing  up  Japan. 

"It  is  pointed  out  that  at  first  America  asked  only  for  an  'open 
door'  and  then  extended  this  to  demanding  guarantees  of  the  in- 
tegrity of  China.  Now,  it  is  declared,  Mr.  Hay  intends  proposing 
that  the  powers  should  take  measures  to  limit  the  area  of  hos- 
tilities. According  to  the  Vossiche  Zeitung,  Mr.  Hay's  proposals 
amount  to  an  unmistakable  "hands  off"  on  the  part  of  the  United 
States. 

"The  success  of  the  Japanese  has  made  a  deep  impression  in 
Berlin,  in  spite  of  the  German  sympathy  for  Russia.  The  courage, 
audacity  and  resource  shown  by  the  Japanese  forces  arouse  ad- 
miration in  military  and  naval  circles. 

"Most  newspapers  reprint  with  credit  the  Herald's  account  of 
the  Japanese  attack  on  Port  Arthur,  which,  up  to  the  present,  is 
the  only  account  from  an  eye-witness. 

"To-day  I  paid  a  visit  to  the  Russian  Embassy,  and  found 
great  bitterness  there  on  account  of  the  behavior  of  Japan.  It  was 
declared  to  be  contrary  to  all  international  law  that  she  should 
thus  assume  the  offensive  without  a  declaration  of  war." 

It  has  been  evident  from  the  start  that  the  prevailing  sympathy 
of  Americans  is  the  same  as  was  my  own,  for  the  reasons  men- 


IVAI^  IN  THE  FAR  EAST.  55 

tioned.  But  I  am  a  firm  believer  in  the  sacredness  of  fair  play, 
and  no  underhanded  and  deceptive  business.  I  could  tolerate  the 
man  Funston,  and  forgive  him  his  robbery  of  the  altars  of 
Catholic  Church  in  the  Philippines.  That  seems  so  natural  to  the 
untaught  American  barbarism,  but  when  appealing  to  the  sacred 
laws  of  hospitality  he  at  first  betrayed  and  then  captured  Aguin- 
aldo,  I  despise  him  more  than  I  would  a  dog. 

Theodore  Roosevelt  promoted  him  for  this  rascally  action,  and 
then  wisely  advised  him  to  keep  quiet.  The  same  Theodore,  when 
assistant  secretary  of  the  Navy,  under  Secretary  Long,  wanted  to 
do  what  Japan  at  the  breaking  out  of  the  present  hostilities  did,  but 
his  superiors  restrained  him.  There  is  an  international  code  of  hon- 
orable warfare,  and  there  is  a  border  ruffian  and  pirate  code — catch- 
as-catch-can,  and  the  sooner  the  better.  The  young  men  now  in 
power,  do  not  care  a  button  for  any  international  code  of  peace  or 
of  war,  and  of  course  the  young  people  of  the  nation  feel  very 
much  as  the  whoope  officials.  That  cannot  be  helped  at  present, 
but  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  the  old  standards  of  honor  must  again 
prevail,  no  matter  how  many  Japs  or  Roosevelts  ignore  and  violate 
them.  There  are  certain  conditions,  without  the  observance  of 
which  civilized  society  is  impossible. 

Beyond  question  Russia  has  for  a  very  long  time  been  exceed- 
ingly exasperating,  especially  with  Japan.  All  nations  of  the  world 
were  as  bound  to  prevent  her  from  doing  what  she  has  been  doing 
in  the  far  East  as  was  Japan,  but  nobody  wanted  to  face  the  music. 
All  nations  have  become  so  used  to  broken  and  to  breaking  treaties 
that  one  more,  like  Rip's  last  drink,  never  counts ;  and  Russia  has 
always  been  so  plausible,  always  appearing  fair,  but  always  leaving 
some  way  of  escape ;  that  is,  of  pushing  southward  without  really 
a  vicious  and  absolute  breaking  of  her  treaties.  Japan  was  not 
used  to  the  subtleties  of  Christian  diplomacy,  and  she  could  not 
stand  Russia's  double  dealing  any  longer,  and  even  for  this,  all 
fair  minded  men  respect  and  honor  her ;  but  to  hide  Russia's  last 
word  of  diplomacy  or  to  lose  it  purposely,  and  not  let  on  that 
she  had  seen  it,  like  a  foul  abductor  of  sacred  letters — and  at  the 
same  hour  to  stab  and  shoot  her  enemy  unawares,  and  without 
any  declaration  of  war  on  either  side,  and  to  run  in  on  the  enemy's 
ships  under  search  lights  in  imitation  of  the  enemy's  own — that  is 
all  the  vilest,  cat-like,  wildcat-like,  tiger  and  snake  action;  and 


56  THE  GLOBE. 

though  we  cannot  help  admiring  the  quick  and  rapid  movements 
of  the  Japs,  on  the  other  hand  we  cannot  help  respecting  still 
more  the  words  of  the  Czar  in  his  declaration  of  war  before 
beginning  it,  and  in  my  judgment  a  few  successes  of  Russian  arms 
will  reverse  the  present  bearing  of  preference ;  but  every  civilized 
man  and  nation  must  at  heart  feel  and  think  the  same  regarding 
America's  premature  and  arrogant  action. 

At  this  date,  February  27th,  the  situation  is  not  materially  dif- 
ferent from,  what  it  was  two  weeks  previously.  Russia's  appeal  to 
the  Powers,  touching  Japan's  action  as  here  criticized,  fell  flat 
on  the  ears  of  the  nations.  ''Christian"  nations  are  growing  used 
to  such  deceptions,  and  Russia  not  being  exempt  from  similar 
action  cannot  win  sympathy  on  that  ground.  At  this  writing  the 
only  change  in  the  situation  is,  that  Korea  is  reported  as  having 
ceased  to  be  a  friendly  neutral  and  has  become  an  ally  of  Japan. 
Probably  before  this  issue  is  printed  China  will  follow  the  example 
of  Korea,  and  then  the  Emperor  William's  scare-crow,  jim  crow 
sentence  regarding  the  ''yellow  peril"  will  be  visible  in  all  the 
skies,  so  that  blind  men  like  Michael  Davitt — the  escaped  sham- 
rock, will  be  able  to  see  it,  and  will  probably  make  fools  of  them- 
selves while  gazing  thereon. 

New  men,  raw  men,  new  to  history,  are  writing  with  much 
green-horn  wisdom  about  the  threatened  war  between  Asia  and 
Europe.  It  was  fought  out  and  won  by  Europe  nearly  twenty-five 
centuries  ago,  and  is  not  now  a  question  before  the  world. 

New  worlds  have  been  discovered  since  then,  new  nations  bom, 
and  the  outlook  -is  no  longer  a  question  of  Asia  against  Europe, 
nor  is  there  any  more  question  of  England  absorbing  China,  as 
terrified  Irishmen  are  predicting,  than  there  is  of  Ireland's  absorb- 
ing the  United  States.  These  are  wild  dreams,  Mr.  Davitt.  The 
question  immediately  pressing  is,  whether  or  not  the  yellow  men 
of  China,  Japan,  Korea,  the  Philippines  and  their  half-brothers, 
the  Turks,  all  of  them,  with  civilization  in  many  respects  superior 
to  the  European  and  American — and  in  all  respects  except  the  art 
of  warfare,  in  which  Japan  and  the  Turks  are  very  close  to  us — 
whether  these  peace-loving  and  cultured  peoples  shall  be  bullied 
and  turned  out  of  house  and  home,  evicted  and  laughed  at  by  the 
white  men  of  Russia,  Europe  and  the  United  States. 


IVAJ?  IN  THE  FAR  EAST. 


57 


Japan,  though  immediately  standing  up  for  herself,  is  really 
fighting  for  the  rights  of  all  the  yellow  and  brown  races  of  the 
world.  Could  Japan  get  hold  of  and  drill  the  American  Indian, 
she  would  yet  make  the  United  States  understand  that  Uncle  Sam 
could  not  and  should  not  trample  to  death  the  red  man,  unavenged.^ 

China  will  soon  have  to  learn  to  fight  and  then  China  and  Japan 
holding  Asia  for  the  Asiatic,  will  not  be  as  foolish  as  was  Cyrus 
of  old,  but  will  be  glad  to  stay  at  home  and  practice  on  the  piano 
and  go  to  horse  races,  after  the  brilliant  example  of  fashionable 
Christians  in  New  York  and  Boston. 

The  truth  is  that  Rothschild,  Morgan  &  Co.  will  determine  the 
extent  and  continuance  of  this  war.  If  the  pugilists  now  engaged 
in  it  and  others  yet  to  be  engaged  in  it  can  get  credit  enough  the 
war  will  go  on  till  a  good  many  thousands  of  brave  men  will  be 
ofifered  on  the  block  of  Molock,  and  many  very  spurious  pre- 
tensions of  civilization  will  be  exposed,  the  fittest  surviving  to 
replant  the  world  anew ;  and  the  bankers  of  the  world  who,  as  we 
have  long  said,  carrying  the  world  in  their  vest  pockets,  will 
extend  their  loans  just  as  far  as  they  know  it  to  be  safe,  and  no 
further. 

If  the  action  of  Korea  in  becoming  an  ally  of  Japan  should 
move  or  justify  France  in  asserting  an  active  alliance  with  Russia, 
of  course  England  will  be  involved  and  will,  with  all  her  united 
and  improved  naval  and  military  power  take  a  hand  also,  and  all 
this  may  be  without  involving  Germany  and  America.  But  with 
England  and  France  involved,  Turkey  and  the  Dardanelles  become 
active,  and  end  in  an  open  door  till  all  doors  are  opened  for  the 
world-wide  conflict  that  all  nations  have  been  preparing  for. 
Where  is  the  use  of  building  navies  and  drilling  armies  except 
to  fight  with  them?  but  with  nihilism  and  infidel  socialism  ram- 
pant in  all  modem  nations  our  strenuous  young  gentlemen  at 
Washington  may  yet  find  their  hands  more  than  full. 

WiLUAM  Henry  Thorne. 


58  THE  GLOBE. 

SHALL  MORMONS   BE   EXCLUDED   FROM 
CONGRESS? 


The  United  States  Senate's  Committee  on  Privileges  and  Elec- 
tions has  been  considering  the  eligibility  of  Senator-elect  Reed 
Smoot,  of  Utah,  an  Apostle  of  the  Mormon  Church.  Due  to 
Chairman  Burrows  and  Senators  Hoar  and  Overman,  of  the 
committee's  hypothetical  and  searching  questions  as  to  dogmatical 
and  disciplinary  matters,  the  Smithian  system  of  revelation  has 
been  given  a  most  revelative  airing  and  the  Utah  theocracy  of 
Mormons  has  been  stirred  to  its  utmost  depths.  The  investiga- 
tion has  taken  a  wide  range.  It  is  not  alleged  that  Mr.  Smoot  is  a 
polygamist  or  even  a  man  of  questionable  character,  or  that  he 
has  violated  the  law,  nor  even  that  he  is  an  *'apostle"  of  the  Mor- 
mon Church  and  bound  by  an  oath  inconsistent  with  allegiance 
to  the  United  States  and  his  duty  as  a  senator.  The  indictment 
is  much  broader  and  goes  to  the  root  of  the  revelations  of  Mor- 
monism  to  the  civil  government.  Substantially  the  indictment, 
so  far  as  the  hearings  before  the  committee  have  elicited  is  that 
despite  the  ''revelation"  of  1890,  by  which  plural  marriages  ceased 
to  be  commended  and  urged  by  the  Church,  and  despite  the 
acceptance  of  the  law  admitting  Utah  to  Statehood,  by  which 
polygamy  became  a  criminal  offense,  the  Mormon  Church  does 
to-day  in  fact  defy  the  law  by  upholding  and  honoring  those  who 
continue  to  maintain  polygamous  relations ;  and  that  as  a  hier- 
archy it  controls  and  dictates  the  political  actions  of  its  members, 
so  much  so,  that  it  is  a  foregone  conclusion  that  an  official  high 
in  its  counsels,  as  is  an  "apostle,"  must  place  first  and  above  all 
things  the  power  and  supremacy  of  the  "Church  of  Latter-Day 
Saints." 

The  present  head  of  the  Mormon  Church,  First  President  Smith, 
in  his  long  examination  before  the  committee,  admits  practically 
all  that  is  charged  in  the  indictment.  He  denies,  however,  that 
any  new  polygamous  marriages  have  taken  place  by  the  approval 
of  the  Church  since  the  State  of  Utah  was  admitted  into  the 
Union;  he  frankly  confesses  that  he  has  himself  lived,  and  that 


SHALL  MORMONS  BE  EXCLUDED  FROM  CONGRESS?    59 

scores  of  other  old  men  have  Hved,  since  Utah's  admission,  in 
continuous  polygamous  relations  with  plural  wives  whom  they 
took  before  that  time.  He  justified  this  course  on  the  ground  that 
it  was  not  polygamy,  which  is  the  taking  of  an  additional  wife, 
which  he  denied  having  done,  but  that  it  is  polygamous  cohabita- 
tion. While  conceding  that  this  was  in  violation  of  the  law  of 
Utah,  for  the  sake  of  the  peace  of  his  families  he  took  the  risk 
and  trusted  to  the  forbearance  of  his  fellow-citizens,  perhaps  in 
too  many  instances  themselves  of  not  any  too  strong  ideals  on 
even  promiscuous  cohabitation, — not  to  enforce  the  law  against 
him.  Besides  he  felt  justified  in  that  he  did  not  think  it  right  to 
throw  his  wives  and  children  to  the  mercy  of  chance  or  perhaps 
worse.  While  he  has  not  taught  others  to  disobey  the  law,  as  he 
contended  repeatedly,  he  for  these,  seemingly  to  himse]f,  good 
reasons  thus  remained  in  husbandly  relations  with  the  wives  he 
had  had  prior  to  the  promulgation  of  that  law.  In  fact  he  main- 
tained earnestly  that  the  Mormon  Church  had  in  good  faith  car- 
ried out  the  manifesto  or  "revelation"  of  1890,  and  that  as  a 
consequence  the  vast  majority  of  his  people  are  to-day  monoga- 
mists, and  the  polygamists  are  dying  off,  and,  being  now  old  men, 
in  a  few  years  there  will  be  none  left.  Mr.  Smith  frankly  admitted 
Chairman  Hoar's  summing  up  of  the  Mormon  position,  viz. :  that 
polygamy  is  right  and  innocent,  but  that  since  the  Woodruff 
manifesto  suspended  the  command  to  practice  polygamy,  the 
faithful  may  properly  obey  the  law. 

It  has  been  also  stated  in  the  press,  with  somewhat  of  a  basis  of 
creditability,  that  the  present  investigation  is  more  political  than 
moral.  Certain  it  is  that  in  1896  the  State  of  Utah  was  carried 
for  the  Democratic  electors  and  "Free  Silver"  by  a  decisive 
plurality.  This  was  somewhat  of  a  surprise  at  the  time.  The 
"Edmonds  Law,"  which  was  promulgated  abolishing  polygamy 
when  Utah  was  admitted  to  Statehood,  was  the  result  of  a  com- 
pact entered  into  between  the  powers  at  Washington  and  the  Utah 
politicians.  This  compact  was  intended  to  secure  Utah  to  the 
Republicans  and  abolish  polygamy  in  the  State,  with  the  proviso, 
however,  that  those  who  had  already  contracted  plural  marriages 
would  be  allowed  to  continue  their  relations  with  their  wives.  To 
prevent  a  recurrence  of  1896,  it  has  been  stated  in  the  press  and 
has  not  been  denied,  that  by  virtue  of  a  bargain  made  by  the 


6o  THE  GLOBE. 

Secretary  of  the  National  Republican  Committee,  Mr.  Perry  S. 
Heath,  and  certain  leaders  of  Utah,  the  State  would  be  influenced 
to  .f;ive  its  vote  for  the  Republican  electors  in  the  Presidential 
election  of  1900,  the  consideration  being  that  a  Mormon  would 
represent  the  State  in  the  United  States  Senate.  Be  this  as  it  may, 
the  State  of  Utah  in  the  election  of  1900  went  against  the  Demo- 
cras  and  "Free  Silver"  as  decisively  as  it  went  for  them  in  the 
election  four  years  before.  Doubtless  the  present  investigation, 
largely  instigated  by  one  of  the  Senators  of  the  State  of  Idaho,  is 
therefore  due  to  this  fact  and  evidently  hopes  to  focus  public 
opinion  on  this  bargain,  while  at  the  same  time  the  power  of  the 
Mormon  Church  in  the  politics  of  Utah  will  become  evident  to  all. 
There  is  therefore  far  more  playing  of  "politics"  than  awakening 
of  the  American  conscience  in  the  present  investigation. 

At  the  date  of  this  writing  (March  15)  the  hearing  has  ended 
temporarily  and  a  recess  of  perhaps  two  weeks  has  been  taken  to 
await  the  appearance  of  additional  witnesses  and  the  receipt  of 
books  and  documents  that  have  been  called  for.  Since  President 
Smith,  the  first  officer  of  the  Mormon  Church,  has,  during  his 
long,  exhaustive  examination,  practically  pleaded  guilty  to  the 
indictment,  the  awaited  evidence  can  be  but  merely  cumulative. 
As  a  vast  amount  of  admittedly  hearsay  testimony  has  been  heard 
during  the  proceedings,  which  could  have  been  excluded  in  a  court 
of  law,  the  question  arises  whether  the  Committee  on  Privileges 
and  Elections  will  act  arbitrarily  in  response  to  the  public  clamor 
which  has  already  been  heard  and  felt,  and  thus  deprive  Mr.  Smoot 
of  his  seat  in  the  United  States  Senate  simply  because  he  is  a 
Mormon,  or  whether  it  will  view  the  case  judicially  and,  casting 
aside  deep-rooted  prejudices,  determine  it  upon  the  weight  of  the 
evidence  presented  and  the  precedents  established  under  the  Con- 
stitution. In  either  case,  the  Senate,  should  it  unseat  the  senator- 
elect,  the  committee  will  practically  deny  the  right  of  the  Mormons 
to  send  to  the  Senate  any  of  their  high  Church  officials,  nominated 
and  elected  in  the  interest  of  the  Church,  so  long  as  that  body 
openly,  even  under  the  color  of  religion,  upholds  illegal  practices. 

The  direct  effects  of  this  action,  we  may  admit,  are  not  likely 
to  be  serious.  In  itself,  whether  one  man  or  another  is  admitted 
to  a  seat  in  the  Senate  is  not  of  such  vast  moment,  except,  possibly, 
to  the  man  himself,  his  party  or  his  friends,  and  it  can  not  very 


SHALL  MORMONS  BE  EXCLUDED  FROM  CONGRESS?    6i 

long  or  very  deeply  concern  even  them.  But  in  the  precedents 
thereby  established  extremely  dangerous  tendencies  may  possibly 
lurk.  A  dangerous  Constitutional  precedent  may  be  confirmed  by 
this  contemplated  action  of  the  United  States  Senate.  We  say 
"confirmed"  for  the  same  cause  as  Senator-elect  Smoot,  a  Repre- 
sentative in  Congress  was  excluded  from  the  lower  House  four 
years  ago,  and  the  Senate  appears  now  to  be  on  the  point  of  fol- 
lowing that  precedent.  We  admit  that  one  of  the  baffling  difficul- 
ties in  the  way  of  meeting  the  Mormon  question  on  Constitutional 
grounds,  and  preventing  another  accumulation  of  dangerous  pre- 
cedents is  the  really  dangerous  character  of  the  Mormon  organi- 
zation. In  the  face  of  two  dangers,  the  lesser  one,  if  concrete  and 
immediate,  is  apt  to  seem  more  dangerous  than  the  greater,  if  that 
is  abstract  and  remote.  First  President  Smith,  of  the  Mormon 
Church,  frankly  admits  that  his  Church  is  truly  a  concrete  and 
immediate  menace  to  popular  government.  For  does  he  not  in  his 
examination  declare  that  in  the  past,  openly,  and  in  the  present, 
covertly,  and  his  Church  not  only  justifies  polygamy  but  makes  it 
a  religious  institution  ?  Does  he  not  also  admit  that  his  Church 
is  not  satisfied  with  ruling  its  members  in  religion,  but  endeavors 
to  be,  and  actually  is,  their  absolute  master  in  their  civic  relations  ? 
Is  this  not  a  theocracy,  with  all  of  evil  to  the  character  of  the  indi- 
vidual and  of  danger  to  the  Hberties  of  the  body  politic  that  the 
theocratic  idea  of  government  involves  ? 

Admitted.  This  is  a  menace  indeed  to  popular  government. 
But  a  greater  menace  to  free  society  and  to  popular  government 
then  the  Mormon  Church  may  easily  arise  out  of  unwise  prece- 
dents intended  to  suppress  the  evils  or  check  the  power  of  that 
institution.  Much  as  we  may  despise  and  detest  Mormonism  the 
confirmation  of  an  unwise  precedent  may  be  fraught  with  vastly 
far  more  to  despise  and  detest  by  all  who  know,  and  value  the 
Constitution  of  our  land.  We  therefore  dare  to  freely  scrutinize 
the  precedent  and  fear  not  to  condemn  if  it  be  dangerous  even 
though  we  may  for  the  moment  seem  to  the  thinking,  the  super- 
ficial and  the  foolhardy  to  be  defending  or  palliating  the  evil  of 
Mormonism  at  which  the  precedent  is  aimed. 

By  what  right,  under  our  written  Constitution,  does  either 
House  of  Congress  exclude  a  Mormon  member? 

This  is  the  first  question  to  be  considered.  Evidently,  if  Con- 
gress excludes  Mormons  without  Constitutional  right,  who  can 


62  THE  GLOBE. 

say  when  it  will  not  utilize  that  precedent  to  exclude  Catholics, 
Episcopalians,  Methodists,  Presbyterians,  Christian  Scientists, 
Socialists,  Populists,  Democrats,  or — with  a  change  of  party  senti- 
ment— even  Republicans  ?  As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  the  time  of  the 
American  Revolution,  Episcopalians  were  sometimes  distrusted  as 
of  an  Anglican  religious  allegiance.  What  if  a  precedent,  then, 
were  established  discriminating  against  that  denomination?  A 
chief  cause  of  the  Know  Nothing  agitation  of  the  50's,  and  that 
more  recently  of  the  A.  P.  A/s,  was  the  allegation  that  Roman 
Catholics  were  under  civil  allegiance  to  the  Papal  Sovereignty,  to 
a  foreign  potentate,  which  was  inconsistent  with  full  loyalty  to  the 
Government  of  the  United  States.  Obviously,  there  was  no  ground 
by  this  allegation,  for  the  allegiance  of  the  Roman  Catholic  to  the 
Pope  of  Rome  then  as  now  is  spiritual,  and  not  political.  But  the 
raising  of  the  question  caused  much  bitter  feeling,  and  its  advo- 
cates, had  they  their  way,  Congress  would  then  have  civilly  dis- 
qualified Roman  Catholics  and  thus  have  established  a  dangerous 
precedent.  So  likewise,  if  a  Mormon  is  to-day  to  be  excluded 
from  Congress  simply  for  the  reason  that  he  is  a  Mormon,  what 
remains  of  our  Constitutional  principle  of  the  freedom  of  religious 
conscience  ? 

There  is  no  limit  to  the  policy  of  might,  save  opposing  might. 
If  one  majority  may  construe  the  Constitution  as  adverse  to  Roman 
Catholics,  Episcopalians,  Socialists,  aye.  Mormons,  to  please  its 
friends  or  satisfy  public  clamor,  another  majority  may  later  on 
construe  it  another  crooked  way  to  punish  its  enemies.  Thus  in 
course  of  time  there  will  come  to  be  no  living  Constitution,  but 
only  chaotic  anarchy  with  the  dead  Constitution  for  a  plaything. 

But,  we  are  reminded,  does  not  the  Constitution  provide  for 
the  power  of  exclusion  from  Congress?    Does  not  "Section  V"  of 
"Article  P'  of  the  Constitution  say,  ''Each  House  shall  be  the  judge 
of  the  elections,  returns  and  qualifications  of  its  own  members." 
and  may — 

"punish  its  members  for  disorderly  behavior,  and,  with  the  concur- 
rence of  two-thirds,  expel  a  member"  ? 

Does  not  this  article  give  the  right  of  expulsion  if  Congress  so 
judge  proper?  We  reply  there  is  in  this  article  evidently  no 
authority  either  for  adjudging  a  polygamous  Mormon  ineligible 
or  for  expelling  him. 


As  to  the  latter,  manifestly  the  right  of  expulsion  must  rest  upon 
some  act  of  disorderly  conduct  by  the  member  while  a  member 
and  as  a  member. 

The  Constitution,  moreover,  does  not  give  to  two-thirds  of  Con- 
gress the  right  to  expel  arbitrarily.  That  would  be  in  efifect  power 
to  deprive  a  constituency  of  representation;  and  if  any  one  thing 
about  the  Constitution  is  more  clear  than  another,  it  is  that  Con- 
gress has  no  Constitutional  power  to  deny  representation  to  con- 
stituencies. 

The  obvious  purpose  of  the  expulsion  clause  is  to  enable  each 
body  to  preserve  order  within  its  own  walls.  It  is  simply  a  limited 
police  power. 

Congress  is  a  representative  body  forced  by  the  Constitution  to 
admit  to  membership  all  persons  possessing  certain  specified  quali- 
fications. Those  possessing  these  Congress  has  no  option  as  to 
their  admission.  What  then  could  be  more  absurd  than  to  suppose 
that  having  admitted  a  member  possessing  these  specified  qualifica- 
tions that  it  might  thereupon  expel  such  a  member  for  lack  of  some 
qualification  not  so  specified  ? 

Clearly  if  Mormons  may  be  denied  seats  in  Congress  at  all,  for 
upholding  or  practising  polygamy,  it  cannot  be  by  expulsion;  it 
must  be  by  exclusion  for  lack  of  the  Constitutional  qualifications. 

The  question  arises,  therefore,  what  are  these  qualifications  ? 

They  are  specified  in  "Article  I,"  ''Sections  II,  III  and  VI,"  as 
follows :  A  Representative  must  be  chosen  every  second  year  (at 
times  and  places  and  in  a  manner  which  the  Congress  may  regu- 
late,) by  voters  of  his  State  who  are  qualified  to  vote  for  the  most 
numerous  branch  of  the  State  Legislature ;  he  must  be  twenty-five 
years  of  age;  he  must  have  been  a  citizen  of  the  United  States 
for  seven  years ;  and,  he  must  when  elected,  be  an  inhabitant  of  the 
Slate  in  which  he  is  elected.  A  Senator  must  be  chosen  by  the 
Legislature  of  his  State  (at  times  and  in  a  manner  which  the  Con- 
gress may  regulate)  ;  he  must  be  thirty-five  years  of  age ;  he  must 
have  been  a  citizen  of  the  United  States  nine  years  and  he  must, 
when  elected,  be  an  inhabitant  of  the  State  for  which  he  is  chosen. 
Neither  Representatives  nor  Senators  may  hold  any  other  Federal 
office. 

Now  it  is  on  those  qualifications,  and  on  those  alone,  that  either 
House  has  any  Constitutional  authority  to  pass  judgment  upon 


64  THE  GLOBE. 

their  respective  members.  If  the  appHcant  for  membership  has 
been  duly  elected,  if  he  is  of  the  prescribed  age,  if  his  citizenship 
•  has  been  of  the  prescribed  duration,  if  he  was  when  elected  an 
inhabitant  of  the  State  whose  credentials  he  presents,  and  if  he 
holds  no  other  Federal  office,  he  must  he  admitted, — not  may  be, 
hut  must  he.  Congress  has  no  more  Constitutional  right  to  exclude 
such  an  applicant  than  judges  would  have  if  the  power  to  "judge 
of  the  elections,  returns  and  qualifications"  of  members  of  Con- 
gress were  lodged  in  the  courts.  The  power  is  judicial,  not  arbi- 
trary. 

Polygamy,  therefore,  is  not  specified  one  way  or  other  in  the 
Constitution.  As  well  might  Congress  assume  to  impose  a  prop- 
erty qualification  or  a  religious  test  as  to  require  that  members 
shall  not  be  polygamous  Mormons.  As  a  matter  of  fact  this  is  a 
religious  test. 

It  is  not  against  polygamy  itself,  nor  against  concubinage  in  any 
form  that  the  precedent  under  consideration  is  being  made.  Mr. 
Smoot  would  meet  with  no  obstacle  at  the  doors  of  the  Senate  if 
he  were  a  bigamist  from  Massachusetts,  unless  he  had  been  con- 
victed therefor  as  a  felon  and  not  restored  to  citizenship ;  and  then 
the  obstacle  would  be  the  same  that  any  other  disfranchised  felon 
would  encounter.  It  would  have  no  special  reference  to  polygamy 
as  being  in  itself  a  disqualification.  Or  if  Mr.  Smoot  had  main- 
tained a  harem  in  Boston,  not  as  a  religious  rite,  but  in  open 
defiance  of  all  decent  sentiment,  he  would  encounter  no  obstacle 
at  all  at  the  Senate  doors. 

Polygamy  as  such  admittedly  is  not  contrary  to  the  primary 
principles  of  the  natural,  however  the  secondary  principles  of  that 
law  may  disapprove  of  it.  By  reason  of  this  fact  the  plural  wives 
and  concubinages  of  the  patriarchs  Abraham,  Isaac,  Jacob,  etc., 
etc.,  of  the  Old  Law  can  alone  be  justified.  In  a  complex  state  of 
society,  those  secondary  principles  of  natural,  such  as  support, 
care,  upbringing  of  offspring,  means  and  finances,  etc.,  become 
paramount  and  even  the  primary  principles  of  the  natural  law  that 
might  have  permitted  the  mentally  and  physically  sound  the  Bibli- 
cal number  of  wives,  are  overcome  and  entirely  set  aside. 

From  the  viewpoint  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures  the  scholar  like- 
wise faces  the  fact  that  polygamy  has  been  sanctioned  by  the 
ancient  Hebrew  law,  and  from  that  of  history  he,  too,  confronts 


SHALL  MORMONS  BE  EXCLUDED  FROM  CONGRESS?    65 

the  further  fact  that  even  in  comparatively  modern  times  the  great 
German  Reformer,  Martin  Luther,  allowed  polygamy,  as  did  John 
Milton,  the  Puritan  Christian  poet. 

Polygamy  as  such  can  scarcely  be  then  the  object  of  the  Senate's 
setting  up  of  a  precedent  plainly  in  contravention  to  the  Constitu- 
tion. And  as  to  concubinage,  polygamous  or  otherwise,  that 
would  be  rather  delicate  ground  to  enter.  Should  it  become  a  rule 
of  the  Senate  to  discuss  the  conditions  of  the  married  life  of  every 
distinguished  "Gentile"  Senator,  whether  he  had  been  legally 
married,  whether  he  had  been  legally  divorced,  and  other  kindred 
matters  of  the  same  unseemly  character,  what  would  the  end  be? 
Clearly  it  is  not  here  question  of  polygamy  or  concubinage  in 
themselves,  but  it  is  question  of  a  polygamous  marriage  as  a  rite 
of  the  Mormon  Church.  The  question  is  therefore  essentially  a 
religious  question,  the  test  a  religious  test. 

The  religious  test  for  offices  is  one  that  most  Americans  hesitate 
to  advocate.  For  this  reason  this  inevitable  conclusion  as  to  the 
Mormon  question  is  held  in  the  background.  It  is,  however,  only 
weakly  and  perfunctorily  disputed.  We  meet  less  frequently  the 
denial  because  the  fact  cannot  be  disputed.  But  the  line  of  argu- 
ment made  use  of  rests  upon  the  tenns  upon  which  Congress 
admitted  the  Territory  of  Utah  to  Statehood.  Those  terms  are 
construed  to  mean  that  Utah  must  perpetually  prevent  Mormon 
polygamy ;  and  it  is  argued  that  Congress  may  enforce  the  terms 
by  refusing  to  admit  Mormon  polygamists  to  membership,  even 
though  they  are  duly  elected  and  possess  all  the  Constitutional 
qualifications.  The  argument  is  convenient  for  the  occasion,  but 
it  is  sophistical  and  heavily  charged  with  every  sort  of  political 
explosive. 

What  Constitutional  authority  had  Congress  to  impose  upon  a 
new  State  an  irrevocable  non-Constitutional  condition  of  State* 
hood?  None  at  all.  The  Constitution  itself  prescribes  the  only 
Constitutional  limitations  that  can  rest  upon  the  sovereignty  of  any 
American  State. 

But,  we  may  be  asked,  might  not  Congress  impose  any  condi- 
tion for  admission  to  Statehood?  Certainly,  provided  that  condi- 
tion  is  not  expressly  un-Constitutional ;  for  admissions  to  State- 
hood are  discretionary  with  Congress.  In  this  case  of  Utah  the 
condition  was  expressly  un-Constitutional.  A  condition  that  Mor« 
mon  polygamy  shall  be  prohibited  is  tantamount  to  setting  up  a 


66  THE  GLOBE. 

religious  test ;  and  the  Constitution  expressly  forbids  the  making  by 
Congress  of  any  'iaw  respecting  an  establishment  of  religion  or 
prohibiting  the  free  exercise  thereof." 

But  for  the  sake  of  argument  let  us  disregard  the  religious 
nature  of  the  condition  imposed  upon  Utah  and  consider  it  merely 
as  a  requirement  that  the  new  State  should  make  bigamy  a  crime, 
regardless  of  religious  sanction,  even  in  this  case  the  conditior 
would  have  no  Constitutional  vitality.  True  it  could  have  operated 
to  deny  to  the  Territory  the  benefits  of  Statehood  at  the  pleasure  of 
Congress,  but  this  would  have  been  an  operation,  not  of  Constitu- 
tional right,  but  of  un-Constitutional  might.  The  potency  of  the 
non-Constitutional  condition  precedent  imposed  upon  the  subordi- 
nate Territory  of  Utah  could  not  survive  the  Constitutional  cre- 
ation of  the  sovereign  State  of  Utah. 

It  cannot  be  gainsaid  that  when  Utah  became  a  State  it  acquired 
all  the  rights  of  sovereignty  that  the  original  States  enjoy.  Now 
one  of  those  rights  is,  according  to  the  Twelfth  Amendment  to  the 
Constitution,  the  right  to  all  ''the  powers  not  delegated  to  the 
United  States  by  the  Constitution,  nor  prohibited  by  it  to  the 
States'  Powers  delegated  to  the  United  States  or  prohibited  to  a 
State  otherwise  than  by  the  Constitution  "are  reserved  to  the 
States  respectively."  Consequently  the  State  of  Utah  may  legalize 
polygamy,  whether  as  a  religious  rite  or  not,  and  may  send  polyga- 
mous Representatives  and  Senators  to  Congress,  notwithstanding 
any  bargain  the  defunct  Territory  of  Utah  may  have  made  with 
Congress  in  the  name  of  and  behalf  of  the  then  non-existent  State. 
Even  if  made  by  the  State  itself,  otherwise  than  through  an 
amendment  to  the  Federal  Constitution,  such  a  bargain  would  be 
impotent. 

The  question  of  Mormon  polygamy  in  Utah  is  as  clearly  a 
domestic  question,  subject  to  regulation  by  the  State  itself,  as  was 
the  question  of  slavery  in  Alabama  or  Virginia  half  a  century  ago. 

Some  good  people,  realizing  that  the  legal  argument  for  Mor- 
mon exclusion  fails,  throw  all  consideration  of  law,  order  and 
the  Constitution  to  the  winds,  if  law,  order  and  the  Constitution 
stand  in  their  way.  These  good  people,  who  are  no  more  numer- 
ous in  the  labor  movement  than  in  the  churches,  clubs  and  Con- 
gress, together  with  many  newspapers  which  ordinarily  are  level- 
headed are  allowing  themselves  to  be  stampeded  on  the  Mormon 


SHALL  MORMONS  BE  EXCLUDED  FROM  CONGRESS?  67 

question.  We  hear  them  clamorously  demanding,  "must  the  peo- 
ple of  the  United  States  suffer  the  disgrace  of  protecting  a  polyga- 
mous institution,  and  incur  the  danger  of  having  their  liberties  fall 
under  the  blight  of  a  theocratic  Church,  because  that  Church  hap- 
pens to  have  control  of  one  of  the  States  of  this  Union  ?" 

Let  us  calmly  consider  this  question. 

The  real  issue  is  not  whether  Mormon  polygamy  shall  be 
stamped  out,  but  how?    Shall  it  be  done  lawfully  or  lawlessly? 

In  order  to  better  grasp  that  issue  at  the  roots,  let  us  suppose  a 
similar,  though  worse  problem,  without  the  minor  complications 
of  this  one.  We  will  suppose  that  the  objectionable  institution 
exists  not  in  a  new  State,  with  which  Congress  has  made  a  State- 
hood bargain,  but  in  one  of  the  original  States.  We  will  suppose 
that  in  Massachusetts,  let  us  say,  a  theocratic  sect  has  become  very 
powerful  politically,  and  that  one  of  its  rites  is  blood  sacrifice — 
the  murder  of  children,  for  instance,  under  ecclesiastical  sanction 
and  local  legal  permission. 

Instances  of  this  are  so  rare.  Cohasset,  Mass.,  has  something 
of  the  kind  to  its  credit.  Even  this  very  month  the  press  dis- 
patches tell  of  a  community  of  500  persons  on  Beal's  Island,  near 
Jonesport  in  the  State  of  Maine  who  are  in  a  state  of  religious 
frenzy  and  fanaticism  which  threatens  to  result  in  the  loss  of  inno- 
cent lives.  It  is  reported  that  preparations  have  been  made  to  kill 
numerous  children  as  a  sacrifice,  the  parents  believing  that  they 
had  power  to  do  so  and  also  the  power  to  restore  them  to  life. 
Similar  things  have  indeed  flourished,  though  not  in  Massachu- 
setts or  Maine,  just  as  ecclesiastically  polygamy  has;  and  as 
polygamy  has  revived,  so  might  these  child  sacrifices. 

What  should  Congress  do  in  such  a  case?  What  could  it  do? 
We  could  be  indifferent  to  the  practice  or  assent  to  toleration  of  the 
horror  nationally:  either  would  be  unthinkable.  We  could  not 
content  ourselves  with  repeating  that  we  are  not  a  nation  respon- 
sible for  the  morality  of  our  States,  but  a  federation  responsible 
only  for  certain  specified  kinds  of  public  management,  and  that 
these  horrors  do  not  fall  within  our  Federal  jurisdiction.  In  spite 
of  all  such  protests,  the  civilized  world  would  think,  and  we  should 
feel  that  the  blood  of  these  little  victims  of  superstition  was  upon 
our  hands. 


68  THE  GLOBE. 

As  long  as  the  sheriffs,  officers  of  the  law  and  citizens  of  the 
States  would  be  able,  as  in  the  instance  referred  to  as  now  hap- 
pening in  Maine,  the  matter  would  be  a  purely  local  one,  but  in 
the  case  under  supposition,  we  could  no  longer  regard  it  as  strictly 
local.  Therefore  we  could  not  but  shudder  at  the  thought  of 
admitting  participants  in  these  ecclesiastical  orgies  into  our  national 
Congress.  We  should  insist  and  be  right  in  insisting,  that  the 
practice  be  brought  under  national  control. 

But  how  ? 

Surely  not  by  invading  a  sovereign  State  arbitrarily.  Nothing 
but  harm,  incalculable  harm,  could  eventually  come  from  a  pre- 
cedent, even  with  so  great  provocation,  under  which  Congress 
could  usurp  the  reserved  domestic  rights  of  any  State. 

Surely  not  by  excluding  from  Congress  Representatives  and 
Senators  from  Massachusetts,  who  were  possessed  of  all  the  Con- 
stitutional qualifications,  on  the  ground  that  they  lacked  the  non- 
Constitutional  qualification  of  abstention  from  the  practice  of 
ecclesiastical  blood-sacrifices. 

Neither  by  expelling  those  Congressmen  for  disorderly  conduct 
as  members,  because  of  their  participation,  sanctioned  by  their 
Church  and  unrebuked  by  the  State  they  represented,  in  this  awful 
yet  non-Federal  crime. 

What  then?  If  the  people  of  the  United  States  were  really 
opposed  to  blood-sacrifice,  there  is  a  way  in  which  they  could 
stamp  it  out  more  speedily  than  by  any  such  acts  of  lawlessness  on 
the  part  of  Congress — a  way  which  would  possess  the  advantage 
of  being  lawful,  orderly  and  Constitutional. 

It  is  for  such  emergencies,  among  others,  that  the  Federal  Con- 
stitution provides  for  its  own  amendment.  It  was  by  taking 
advantage  of  this  that  we  finally  stamped  out  chattel  slavery, 
another  barbarian  survival  with  the  iniquities  of  which,  moral  and 
political,  the  Nation  suffered  long.  So  we  could  stamp  out  the 
horrible  ecclesiastical  practice  we  have  imagined  to  have  become 
prevalent  and  legal  in  one  of  the  original  States. 

Some  difficulties  would,  it  is  true,  be  encountered  in  this  course. 
Both  Houses,  by  a  two-thirds  vote,  would  have  to  propose  the 
Amendment ;  or,  on  the  application  of  two-thirds  of  the  States, 
Congress  would  have  to  call  a  convention  for  proposing  and  con- 
sidering it;  and  the  Amendment  would  have  to  be  ratified  by 


SHALL  MORMONS  BE  EXCLUDED  FROM  CONGRESS?    69 

three-fourths  of  the  States.  But  these  things  could  be  quickly- 
done  if  the  emergency  were  great  enough  to  have  aroused  the 
National  conscience. 

Now  in  the  foregoing  illustration  is  the  answer  to  those  who 
would  attack  Mormon  polygamy  by  dangerously  trifling  with  the 
Constitution  instead  of  regularly  amending  it. 

If  there  is  not  enough  National  sentiment  against  Mormon 
polygamy  to  carry  through  an  Amendment  to  the  Federal  Consti- 
tution, there  is  certainly  not  enough  cause  to  justify  the  creation 
of  precedents  under  which  a  bare  majority  in  Congress  may  at 
any  time  find  authority  for  overriding  the  Constitutional  rights 
of  weak  minorities. 

There  is  only  one  safe  disposition  of  the  Mormon  question,  and 
that  is  through  the  Amendment  clause  to  the  Constitution. 

To  expel  Utah  from  the  Union  is  out  of  the  question.  It  would 
be  revolutionary  even  if  it  were  possible. 

To  exclude  Representatives  and  Senators  for  any  cause  not 
applicable  to  Congressmen  from  every  other  State,  is  also  revolu- 
tionary ;  and  to  exclude  them  for  causes  not  specified  in  the  Con- 
stitution is  to  credit  a  category  of  unwritten  qualifications,  the 
ultimate  magnitude  and  despotic  effect  of  which  no  man  could 
foretell. 

To  expel  them  after  their  admission,  for  causes  not  in  the  nature 
of  disorder  prejudicial  to  legislative  precedure,  and  which  do  not 
Constitutionally  disqualify,  is  to  open  up  new  avenues  for  shutting 
off  popular  representation  in  Congress. 

Yet  the  evil,  if  the  people  of  the  United  States  so  regard  it — 
and  if  they  do  not  it  is  not  a  proper  subject  for  Congressional 
interference — can  be  speedily,  safely,  effectively  and  lawfully  sup- 
pressed. Nothing  is  necessary  but  the  adoption  of  a  Constitutional 
Amendment  subjecting  marriage  and  divorce  to  National  regula- 
tion, along  with  other  matters  of  personal  and  local  concern,  such 
as  bankruptcy,  which  have  already  been  committeed  to  National 
control.  We  say  ''the  evil, — if  the  people  of  the  United  States  so 
regard  it" — since  "de  facto,"  while  Utah,  one  State,  is  founded  on 
polygamy,  forty-four  other  States  tolerate  successive  polygamy 
through  divorce,  which,  to  use  the  words  of  the  Jesuit  Father 
Sherman,  speaking  before  the  Knights  of  Columbus  in  the  Audi- 
torium at  Chicago,  111.,  "is  worse  than  simultaneous  polygamy. 


70  THE  GLOBE. 

because  it  gives  no  fixed  status  to  women."  Forty-four  States, 
which  have  in  the  last  twenty  years  granted  three  hundred  thou- 
sand divorces,  i.  e.,  ratified  successive  polygamy  in  three  hundred 
thousand  instances,  may  incline  one  to  say  that  a  two-thirds 
majority  of  their  number  is  a  remote  probability,  and  with  the  St. 
Louis  Globe-Democrat,  in  its  editorial  (March  15),  **Wild  Talk 
About  Utah,''  say  that  "this  proposition  (adoption  of  an  Amend- 
ment to  the  Constitution),  could  probably  not  be  passed.  It  could 
not  pass  the  requisite  number  of  States."  In  that  case,  with  the 
Globe-Democrat,  we  must  patiently  await  ''civilization  and  con- 
tact with  the  outer  world  to  kill  the  practice,"  and  the  further  cer- 
tainty "that  this  vice  will  be  extirpated  soon  by  the  death  of  the 
persons  indulging  in  it."  Well,  let  us  hope.  Meanwhile,  whether 
an  Amendment  to  the  Constitution  ought  or  ought  not  to  be 
adopted  is  beside  the  question.  The  point  is  that  the  adoption  of 
such  an  Amendment  is  the  only  lawful,  Constitutional  manner  of 
accomplishing  the  object  sought  to  be  accomplished  by  the  dan- 
gerously arbitrary  expedient  of  excluding  Mormon  Representa- 
tives and  Senators  from  Congress. 

Rkv.  John  T.  Tuohy,  LL.D. 


RUMINATIONS. 


The  world  over  are  social  economists  and  political  economists 
prescribing  wise  measures  to  prevent  strikes,  to  ameliorate  the 
condition  of  the  workingman,  to  destroy  pauperism,  to  protect 
capital,  to  safeguard  public  interests.  One  is  loud  in  the  praise 
of  compulsory  arbitration,  another  sagely  suggests  a  combination 
of  labor  and  capital  (  !)  and  still  another  sees  a  cure  positive 
for  all  our  social  ills  only  in  the  public  ownership  of  everything; 
and  each  is  conscientiously  assured,  satisfied  in  his  own  mind  and 
labors  to  convince  his  disciples  that,  of  course,  all  the  other 
economists  are  wrong.  And  most  of  them,  as  well  as  the  general 
public  seem  to  believe  that  the  conditions  about  us  to-day  are 
brand   new    and    require    drastic,    immediate   and    extraordinary 


RUMINA  7 IONS.  n 

treatment,  they  sigh  for  the  *'gCMDd  old  times  when  things  were 
differently  regulated,"  when  the  iron  heel  of  the  trusts  did  not 
crush  the  laboring  man,  when  the  individual  amounted  to  some- 
thing, when  there  was  a  premium  upon  skilled  labor,  an  incentive 
for  a  man  to  do  his  best,  for  then  there  was  a  future  before  him. 
Ah,  "the  good  old  times" !  What  a  fascination  in  the  retrospect, 
what  a  charm  and,  withal,  what  a  mystery  in  those  words !  And, 
alas,  we  must  also  add,  what  a  mass  of  plain  myth  there  is  wrapped 
all  about  them  !  As  a  matter  of  fact  are  we  not,  all  of  us,  generally 
satisfied  with  that  wrapping,  the  outer  husk:  how  often  do  we  get 
right  into  the  kernel  of  those  alleged  good  old  times  ? 

European  economists  seem  even  more  perturbed  over  the  con- 
dition of  things  in  America  particularly  than  are  our  own  sages. 
They  see  nothing  but  dire  social  calamities  ahead  of  us.  In  fact 
with  them  to-day  America  is  the  uppermost  subject  of  discus- 
sion, (we  might  add,  too,  that  we  are  a  serious  cause  of  worry 
to  more  than  their  economists ;  our  political  and  commercial  moves 
are  watched  with  breathless  attention)  and  in  their  press  and 
upon  their  rostrum.s  the  concensus  of  opinion  is  that  we  are  in  a 
very  bad  way  indeed,  that  we  have  fallen  from  grace  and  that  our 
poor,  our  workingmen,  the  people  are  in  worse  straits — not  to 
mention  that  they  are  confronted  by  even  still  worse — than  the 
same  classes  have  ever  been  in,  anywhere,  before.  And  some  of 
these  men  stand  high  in  the  learned  societies  of  their  several 
countries ! 

True,  extreme  poverty  seems  the  harder  to  bear  in  proportion 
as  the  luxuries  of  extreme  wealth  increase,  and,  I  grant  you,  that 
our  wealthy  class  is  extremely  wealthy  and  luxurious.  The  con- 
trast is  a  painful  one,  but  it  seems  to  be  an  eternal  law  here  below : 
it  is  no  new  condition.  Degraded  misery  has  ever  been  hidden 
behind  the  splendors  of  great  cities.  Yet  New  York  and  Chicago 
cannot  hold  a  candle  to  London  or  Paris  in  that  respect,  or  to  any 
of  the  European  metropolae  of  those  aforesaid  good  old  times  for 
that  matter.  In  all  the  latter  the  chief  effort  seemed  and  seems  to 
be  to  thoroughly  hide  that  misery,  while,  thank  God !  with  us 
more  earnest  and  intelligent  efforts  are  being  made  than  ever  to 
not  only  bring  that  m.isery  to  light  and  alleviate  it  but,  chimerical 
as  it  may  seem,  to  destroy  it  root  and  branch,  and  those  efforts 
are  meeting  with  noteworthv  success. 


72  THE  GLOBE. 

But  the  contention  that  workmen,  the  humbler  class  generally 
and  particularly  in  our  country  are  worse  off  than  they  ever  were, 
and  that  social  conditions  are  growing  from  bad  to  worse  is  a  most 
cruel  libel,  unjust,  untrue  and  shows  an  unfamiliarity  with  history 
that  is  astounding,  or  else  a  deliberate  perversion  of  facts. 

Never  before,  or  elsewhere,  has  the  workingman  been  freer 
from  extraneous  fetters,  let  us  call  them.  He  has  placed  him- 
self voluntarily  under  certain  restrictions  of  freedom,  but  merely 
to  the  end  of  improving  his  ultimate  condition;  the  law,  his  em- 
ployer hamper  his  actions  but  little;  and  never  before  have  there 
been  such  opportunities  for  advancement,  such  material  incentive 
for  individual  effort,  for  never  before  has  it  been  possible  for  man 
to  rise  to  such  heights  by  his  unaided  efforts  and  force  of 
character. 

The  good  old  times,  pshaw,  what  delusions !  Let  us  glance  at 
them,  those  wonderful  old  times  when  all  men  were  true  and  brave 
and  free  and  when  all  women  were  beautiful  and,  oh,  so  virtuous. 
The  histories  and  records  that  the  economists  have  at  their  elbow, 
but  that  they  seem  never  to  consult,  are  open  to  us,  clear  to  any 
who  will  but  read.  We  have  been  taught  that  poverty,  the  indi- 
vidual and  accidental  fact,  is  of  all  times  and  climes,  but  that 
pauperism  is  a  creation  of  modern  times :  that  formerly,  while 
there  may  have  been  abuses,  even  violences,  there  was,  neverthe- 
less, a  well  established  tradition,  an  obligation,  that  bound  those 
in  high  places  to  protect,  to  help  those  in  the  lower  ranks;  the 
Christian  ages  gave  the  industrial  classes  absolute  peace  for  cen- 
turies at  a  time,  a  fixity  of  wages  and  stability  of  occupation  and  a 
solidarity  of  interests  that,  one  would  suppose,  assured  a  most 
heavenly  and  beatific  state  of  affairs ;  peace  reigned  supreme,  there 
was  perfect  harmony  of  interests,  the  classes  knew  no  rivalries, 
or  jealousies  or  hatred,  for  holy  Church  dominated  all  and  her 
influence  kept  her  children,  employers  and  employed,  masters  and 
serfs,  great  lords  and  humble  retainers,  in  the  proper  spirit  of 
love  and  charity.  Would  that  those  good  old  times  were  still 
with  us ! 

So  much  for  the  teachings;  let  us  glance  over  the  records  of 
fact,  the  histories  indubitable  and  clear,  that  all  may  read  who 
will.  Fortunately  in  European  countries  county  and  district 
officers  used  to  keep  very  careful  record  of  the  doings  and  condi- 


R  UMINA  TIONS.  73 

tion  of  the  people,  their  ability  to  pay  the  taxes,  police  records 
of  behavior,  deaths,  births  and  what  not,  an  infinity  of  detail  that 
has  come  down  to  us  in  very  good  shape;  they  used  good  paper 
and  a  fair  quality  of  ink. 

First  let  us  turn  our  attention  to  the  agricultural  classes  of  old, 
later  we  will  look  at  the  industrial  records  of  the  times.  We 
find  that  in  entire  sections  of  England,  France  and  Germany, 
even  as  late  as  the  early  seventeen  hundreds,  when  actual  serfdom 
no  longer  existed,  the  common  people  had  meat  but  three  or  four 
times  a  year,  their  bread  was  of  rye  and  oats,  husks  and  all,  salt 
was  a  great  luxury,  small  fruits  and  mean  garden  stuff  formed 
the  bulk  of  their  food,  the  ground  was  worn  out  and  they  had 
neither  the  implements  nor  the  fertilizers  nor  the  energy  to  work 
it  properly.  *'We  must  not  be  surprised,"  adds  a  high-sheriff  re- 
porting to  his  king,  "if  people  so  poorly  fed  lack  force ;  they  also 
suffer  from  nudity,  three-quarters  of  them  wear  half-rotten  cotton 
clothing  winter  and  summer ;  they  lack  the  strength  to  work  and 
have  degenerated  into  mere  animals  not  unwilling  to  be  rid  of  life. 
Those  we  draw  for  the  army  will  have  to  be  built  up  for  a  year 
before  they  are  iit  to  fight     ..." 

The  Intendant  of  Limoges,  a  district  then  of  about  110,000 
people,  writes  under  date  of  January  12,  1692:  'Xast  year  was 
bad  enough,  now  it  is  worse,  already  70,000  of  the  people  of  this 
district  are  reduced  to  beggary,  those  too  proud  to  beg  live  upon 
herbs  and  roots."  Another  officer  writes  that  in  his  district  26,000 
people  are  begging  their  bread  ''not  counting  those  too  proud  to 
beg"  (?)  and  in  Basse  Auvergne  ''thousands  are  dying  of  hunger." 
All  this  in  France,  thrifty,  fertile  France.  Even  in  the  very  zenith 
of  its  glory  under  Louis  XIV,  when  that  monarch  revelled  in  a 
very  surfeit  of  splendor,  grim  hunger  stalked  about  the  country. 
In  Germany  it  was  even  worse,  England's  evil  days  were  not 
over  either. 

Some  impute  these  vicissitudes  to  the  inherent  vices  of  the  old 
regimes,  the  crimes  of  the  rulers  and  the  errors  of  their  politics. 
Rather  should  we,  with  Haussonville  and  Privoff,  attribute  them 
solely  to  the  state  of  civilization  that  then  obtained,  the  insuffi- 
ciency of  means  of  communication,  the  lack  of  system  and  the 
ignoriance  of  the  people.  Not  only  was  each  people  but  each 
little  province  and  county  absolutely  dependent  upon  its  own  re- 


74  THE  GLOBE. 

sources;  if  they  failed,  thousands  must  perish  before  supplies 
could  be  gotten  from  elsewhere  and  in  fact  they  seldom  thought, 
.even,  of  drawing  upon  distant  points  until  far  too  late.  In  those 
"good  old  times"  the  peasant's  condition  was  "singularly  precar- 
ious and  in  the  periodic  crises,  of,  alas,  too  frequent  occurrence, 
he  fell  far  below  the  minimum  of  well-being  that  is  assured  him 
to-day."  And  that  was  written  forty  years  ago,  since  when  we 
have  raised  the  possible  minimum  of  the  peasant's  state  several 
notches  higher. 

As  for  the  craftsmen,  the  workers  in  cities,  we  have  splendid 
records  of  their  condition  from  the  time  of  Julius  Csesar,  and  I 
do  not  think  our  workmen  of  to-day  would  willingly  step  back  into 
the  condition  of  any  antecedent  period,  though  they  have  always 
been  better  off  than  the  peasantry,  the  workers  of  the  field.  To 
take  the  casual  reader  back  to  Julias  Caesar  with  me,  however, 
might  be  something  of  an  infliction — upon  the  casual  reader — so 
we  will  but  cast  a  sweeping  glance  over  the  period  since  the  XIII 
century.  Prior  to  that  time,  let  me  assure  you,  conditions  were  not 
one  whit  better  than  since.  For  centuries  at  a  time  they  were 
far  worse  than  anything  that  we  know  of  in  the  past  500  years,  so 
let  us  dismiss  the  dim  past,  assuming  that  the  "good  old  times"  do 
not  antedate  1200. 

About  that  time  associations,  unions,  began  to  spring  into  exist- 
ence and  rapidly  grew  into  considerable  importance.  The  Church 
takes  credit  for  their  birth,  or,  at  least,  as  their  foster  parent.  As 
a  matter  of  fact  she  violently  opposed  them  at  first ;  she  was  jealous 
of  them  as  she  always  is  of  any  growing  power  outside  of  her  dom- 
ination. She  forbade  her  children  joining  them  and  hurled  eccle- 
siastical bombs  at  their  leaders.  The  Unions  grew,  nevertheless ; 
they  took  on  a  semi-religious  phase,  adopted  patron  saints  and 
contributed  to  the  support  of  the  clergy  and  Mother  Church, 
always  a  graceful  yielder  under  stress  of  circumstances  when 
opposition  is  fruitless,  took  them  to  her  bosom  and  swore  she 
gave  them  birth. 

These  societies  did  a  great  deal  of  good,  they  took  care  of  the 
sick,  their  indigent,  and  unemployed,  they  promoted  the  interests 
of  their  members  and  gave  men  a  certain  solidarity  theretofore 
unknown,  but  there  was  no  harmony  between  them.  It  was  a  con- 
stant warfare  between  harness  makers  and  shoemakers,  armorers 


R  UMINA  TIONS,  75 

and  blacksmiths ;  every  trade  stood  out  against  the  other.  Then 
there  was  strife  and  everlasting  friction  between  employer  and 
men.  The  unions  though  not  organized  for  that  end  really  were 
to  the  greater  profit  and  advantage  of  the  employers  and  the 
burthen  of  their  support  was  upon  the  workmen. 

Before  these  organizations  sprang  up  there  existed  corpora- 
tions, guilds  of  the  different  trades,  associations  of  employers  of 
labor.  They  established  customs  that  the  unions  later  adopted 
as  laws  of  labor.  Take  but  one  for  instance,  apprenticeship,  who 
was  benefited  by  that  ?  The  unions  bit  at  the  bait  imagining  they 
would  thereby  restrict  their  numbers  and  consequently  the  compe- 
tition in  labor;  the  employer  meantime  got  seven  and  even  ten 
years  of  labor  (that  became  skilled  in  two  years)  for  nothing; 
yes,  almost  slavery !  The  two  forms  of  organization  began  fight- 
ing within  six  years  after  the  first  union  was  established  and  the 
first  recorded  strife  of  importance  was  in  "merrie  old  England." 

The  legitimate  outgrowth  of  guilds  and  such  associations  of 
employers  was  a  system  of  combinations,  great  manufacturing 
plants  sprang  from  these,  just  as  those  plants  were  later  merged, 
in  our  day,  within  still  closer  lines,  trusts.  It  is  all  consistent  with 
the  very  natural  evolution  of  things.  Up  to  that  particular  time 
each  little  employer  had  his  little  shop  and  little  force  of  men,  and 
competition  in  prices  and  in  qualities  was  "right  livelie."  Sully  in 
France,  Goeckel  in  Germany,  and  Smythe  in  England  seem  to  have 
been  the  first  to  think  of  organizing  such,  for  that  time,  mammoth 
establishments.  These  became  privileged  institutions,  existing 
"under  royal  charters  and  enjoying  rights,"  subsidies,  immunity 
from  taxes,  etc..  that  simply  wiped  out  the  competition  of  small 
fry.  Around  these  factories  were  grouped  the  workmen,  "articled" 
to  ea^ch,  their  very  existence  depending  upon  the  prosperity  of  that 
factory.  Whatever  sentiment  there  may  have  been  was  entirely 
wiped  out,  no  more  unions,  trade  banners,  patron  saints  or  special 
chapels,  but  just  plain  business,  "get  all  that  can  be  gotten  out 
of  them  for  as  little  as  can  be  paid  them"  was  the  motto — ^in  that 
I  find  but  little  difference  twixt  the  old  and  the  new  times.  In 
other  words  men  became  pieces  of  machinery,  the  wages  being  in 
lieu  of  oil,  that  was  the  sole  difference ;  that  time  saw  the  birth 
of  the  proletariat  as  we  understand  the  word. 


76  THE  GLOBE. 

Stringent  laws  protected  these  factories,  for  were  not  the  gar- 
ments, the  baubles,  the  arms,  the  fripperies  of  their  sacred  majesties 
made  there  ?  Those  factories  were  nearly  all  purveyors  or  makers 
•of  something  or  other  to  the  king.  Wages  were  fixed  by  law,  the 
men  were  articled,  they  had  to  work  here,  or  nowhere  else.  When 
work  failed,  the  manufacturer  stopped  pay,  of  course ;  if  the  work- 
man had  saved  money  from  his  starvation  pittance,  well  and  good ; 
if  he  had  not  why,  he  could  go  into  no  other  trade  or  district,  he 
stayed  there  and  begged  or  starved. 

We  find  such  records  as  these ;  one  a  petition  from  a  state  officer 
to  the  king  begging  for  a  special  dispensation  allowing  the  men 
of  a  certain  factory  district  to  go  elsewhere  and  work,  or  else  send 
on  royal  provisions,  for  since  the  factory  had  closed  down  "already 
twenty-eight  deaths  had  occurred  in  one  day;  but  two  died  of 
disease  the  remainder  passed  away  by  the  act  of  God  and  lack  of 
food."  Another  officer  complains  most  bitterly  that  *'he  had  tried 
to  encourage  300  women  wig  makers  to  be  patient,  that  the  factory 
would  resume  work,  or  else  they  would  be  allowed  to  go  to  the 
next  town  and  find  other  employment,  but  they  paid  no  attention 
to  him,  insulted  him,  crying  out  they  were  hungry  and  wanted 
bread  or  work,  not  words."  And  still  another  writes  he  has  not 
sufficient  forces  at  hand  to  prevent  frequent  and  serious  desertions 
from  a  factory  in  his  district.  Then  we  find  another  petition  to  a 
king  to  force  his  court  to  wear  a  certain  kind  of  point-lace,  that 
since  the  fashion  had  been  not  to  wear  it  6000  women  were  thrown 
out  of  work,  these  might  have  to  be  allowed  to  go  into  other  trades 
elsewhere  and  that  would  cause  desertions  and  disorder  on  the  part 
of  the  men,  the  husbands  who  were  employed  in  the  petitioners' 
cloth  factory  that  then  had  many  large  orders  ahead ! 

Another  record  is  interesting;  it  is  a  redeeming  one,  it  shows 
that  in  those  days  at  least  investigations  resulted  in  something. 
Voluminous  papers  go  to  show  that  a  certain  factory  employing 
1500  operatives  had  raised  the  price  of  their  goods  nearly  100 
per  cent.  Living  had  become  more  expensive  yet,  by  misrepresen- 
tations it  had  secured  the  right  to  reduce  the  wages  nearly 
half  and  that  blessed  record  shows  that  the  factory's  privileges 
were  cut  off  and  the  patronage  of  the  court  withdrawn  for  four 
years ! 


RUMINATIONS.  77 

What  think  you  of  men  being  articled  to  a  factory  from  which 
they  could  not  go  farther  than  a  league  ,and  that  for  two  years' 
period,  under  pain  of  fine,  imprisonment  and  even  corporal  punish- 
ment if  the  offense  was  repeated  a  third  time  ? 

And  all  this  was  in  the  "good  old  times."  Strange  what  a  fas- 
cination the  past  has  for  us,  what  an  irresistible  tendency  there  is 
in  us  to  paint  it  in  brilliant  colors  and  poetic  terms.  Disappointed 
with  the  present,  fearful  of  the  future,  every  generation  seems  to 
turn  from  its  own  bright  sunlight  to  the  past,  seeking  in  the  mists 
and  uncertainties  of  yesterday  to  find  that  ideal  to  which  the  aspi- 
rations of  man  ever  tend.  But  yesterday  was  no  better  than  to-day. 
Suffering  and  strife  have  been  of  all  times ;  that  we  have  less  of 
them  than  yesterday  is  very  evident  and  we  ought  to  be  prayerfully 
thankful  therefor.  I  doubt,  however,  if  we  owe  it  to  the  panaceas 
or  nostrums  of  our  economists.  We  must  seek  the  cause  else- 
where. 

As  a  matter  of  fact — even  if  by  the  admission,  we  glorify  the 
economists  in  conceding  them  if  but  the  power  of  evil — I  believe 
that  much  injury  has  been  done  the  cause  of  humanity  by  the 
acceptance  by  not  only  individuals  but  even  by  states  of  the  the- 
ories of  Gournay,  of  Adam  Smith,  of  Cobden  and  of  Garnier,  not 
to  mention  the  living  exponents  of  economic  vagaries,  such  an 
one,  for  instance,  as  Dr.  Benjamin  Andrews,  of  the  Chicago  Uni- 
versity, who  has  lately  discovered  that  Malthus  was  right  in  much 
of  his  theory.  And  the  learned  doctor  proceeds  forthwith  to  study 
out  some  means  of  stopping  the  increase  in  our  numbers.  He  finds 
that  checks  ''must  be"  put  upon  us.  So  far  he  has  kindly  thought 
of  but  the  positive  method,  i.e.,  "wars,  disease  and  if  necessary, 
immoral  means,"  and  the  privitive  or  preventive  means.  At  the 
present  writing  he  is  attempting  to  devise  a  moral  privitive  method 
of  keeping  down  the  population ! 

One  thing  we  have  to  thank  the  economists  for.  Their  agitation 
of  the  labor  and  other  subjects  started  the  people  to  think  for  them- 
selves, not  necessarily  along  the  lines  laid  down  for  them  by  the 
sages,  but  along  reasonable,  sensible  ones,  and  the  result  has  been 
to  influence  the  state  to  tamper  less  with  the  subject  than  it  ever 
did  before.  It  keeps  aloof  from  legislation  directly  affecting  those 
conditions  and  enforces  existing  laws,  anent  them  much  as  it  would 
handle  red  hot  coals.    It  realizes  it  cannot  prevent  conflicts  'twixt 


78  THE  GLOBE. 

labor  and  capital  and  endeavors  only  to  keep  those  conflicts  within 
the  bounds  of  propriety. 

As  men  are  constituted  to-day,  and  probably  will  be  for  several 
generations  to  come,  such  competition,  rivalry  and  confl^ict  are  the 
inevitable  consequences,  accompaniments  of  industrial  vitality. 
There  where  no  such  conflict  and  rivalry  exist,  there  will  you  find 
stagnation,  decadence,  a  moribund  industry. 

The  intervention  of  the  state  must  perforce  be  measured  most 
carefully,  prudently  and  equitably,  otherwise  to  attempt  to  regulate 
too  much  simply  means  spoiling  it  all,  aye  even  self-destruction 
for  that  foolhardy  state.  But  the  state  must  intervene  when  one 
of  the  first  principles  of  its  very  basis  is  involved,  it  must  ever 
stand  for  the  protection  of  the  weaker,  be  it  either  side,  in  any 
controversy. 

Some  would  have  us  cry  for  absolute  liberty  and  liberty  alone, 
and  both  sides  to  manage  each  its  own  interests  as  best  seems. 
That  cry  of  liberty  is  thrown  at  us  from  every  corner,  it  seems  to 
be  the  eternal  refrain  to  every  song.  Yet,  the  game  of  "liberty" 
is  a  rough  one :  some  of  the  players  are  bound  to  get  hurt  and  the 
fatalities  are  not  few.  Absolute  liberty  means  to  let  the  great  natu- 
ral laws  work  out  their  own  results.  The  law  that  seems  to  control 
the  evolution  of  our  material  world  is  the  "survival  of  the  fittest," 
the  everlasting  conflict  between  the  strong  and  the  weaklings, 
resulting,  of  course,  in  the  destruction  of  the  latter.  The  chances 
are,  therefore,  that  that  very  liberty,  so  insistently  clamored  for, 
works  to  the  detriment,  the  undoing  of  the  weak,  though  in  it  may 
also  be  found  the  weapons  for  their  defense.  But  the  state  must 
not  be  constantly  invervening  in  the  vain  endeavor  to  establish 
an  artificial  equilibrium.  The  moment  it  plants  itself  doggedly 
athwart  the  way  of  those  natural  forces  and  laws  it  but  produces 
worse  disorder  than  would  they  if  left  unopposed.  Those  laws, 
those  forces,  like  electricity,  may  be  gently  guided,  subjugated, 
carried  into  useful  channels,  harnessed  for  our  use  and  greater 
good,  and  that  is  the  province  of  the  state  in  those  questions :  In 
times  gone  by,  it  attempted  and  alas,  often  to-day,  it  blunderingly 
attempts  to  handle  them,  so  to  speak,  without  rubber  gloves,  let 
alone  any  scientific  knowledge  of  their  power,  nature  and  effects. 

The  sight  of  the  two  great  armies  of  Capital  and  I^abor,  ranged 
in  battle  array,  face  to  face,  is,  I  grant  you,  an  alarming  one. 


RUMINATIONS.  79 

Seemingly  their  const^mt  and  sole  preoccupation  is  each  other's 
destruction.  It  would  also  seem  that  there  might  be  occasional 
armistice  but  never  assured  and  lasting  peace  between  them,  and 
such  cessations  of  strife  occurring  only  when  both  needed  time 
for  the  renewal  of  armaments  or  fresh  drafts  of  men  to  continue 
the  strife.  To  say  the  least  it  all  does  seem  most  senseless,  nay, 
insane. 

Yet  that  very  condition  of  preparedness  for  strife  does  not  neces- 
sarily beget  over-belligerency.  Note  the  great  nations  of  the  earth. 
Each  is  spending  vast  sums  upon  navies,  new  arms  and  what  not 
in  warlike  material.  There  is  a  vast  lot  of  glaring  at  each  other, 
some  loud  and  bellicose  talk  and  peppery  correspondence  but — very 
little  fight.  So  much  is  at  stake,  the  outcome  so  uncertain,  no  one 
dares  begin.  Then,  too,  people  are  growing  more  sensible :  war  is 
not  gone  into  upon  the  mere  say  so  or  whim  of  any  king  or  little 
princeling;  it  costs  money  that  the  people  have  to  pay  and  every 
little  skirmish  the  great  nations  indulge  in  but  further  illustrates 
to  the  people  the  costliness  and  uselessness  of  such  ventures.  For 
instance,  the  Boer  war  was  begun  as  a  sort  of  sham  battle  affair 
of  but  a  few  weeks'  duration,  an  occasion  for  the  distribution  of  a 
few  medals,  the  promotion  of  a  few  generals  and  the  enlargement 
of  a  few  private  fortunes.  It  resulted  in  terrible  loss  of  life  and 
national  prestige,  a  very  hollow  victory  and  an  unprecedented 
drain  upon  the  people's  pockets.  Mark  you,  it  will  be  many  a  day 
before  England  picks  another  quarrel  with  however  lowly  an 
opponent.    And  other  nations  have  profited  by  the  lesson. 

So  with  our  economic  struggle :  both  factions  have  precipitated 
trouble  heretofore  and  upon  very  slight  provocation.  The  experi- 
ence has  been  costly,  but  it  has  been  worth  while.  They  have 
gauged  each  other's  strength  and  increased  mutual  respect  has 
been  the  result,  greater  concessions  are  made,  arbitration  is  wel- 
comed and  the  outlook  for  a  better  understanding  is  bright. 

The  last  great  coal  strike  cost  the  parties  involved  at  least 
$ioo,ooo,ocx).  There  have  been  22,000  strikes  in  the  past  twenty 
years  in  this  country  and  they  and  the  ''lockouts"  of  that  same 
period  have  cost  employer  and  employed  nearly  $500,000,000 — not 
counting  indirect  losses — and  have  thrown  some  7,000,000  men 
out  of  employment!  Can  such  lessons  be  without  value  in  this 
alleged  enlightened  century  ? 


8o  THE  GLOBE. 

Never  before  has  a  strike  of  such  magnitude  and  among  so 
naturally  turbulent  a  people  been  so  well-managed,  so  orderly,  as 
was  that  last  coal  strike.  It  speaks  volumes  for  the  men  at  the 
head  of  affairs:  they  have  won  the  respect  and  the  sympathy  of 
the  nation.  The  blatant  demagogue  in  labor  circles  has  stepped 
down  and  out,  the  leaders  to-day  are  cool,  sensible,  business-men, 
gentlemen,  the  equals  of  any  class  in  intelligence  and  real  patriot- 
ism. All  of  which  means  another  step  toward  better  conditions. 
The  coal  strike  of  1902  is  one  of  the  last  great  strikes  we  will  see. 
The  more  perfect  organization  of  labor  may  impel  some  to  make 
rash  displays  of  their  strength  for  a  time,  but  better  counsel  will 
prevail ;  the  more  perfect  and  far-reaching  the  organization  the 
quicker  and  surer  will  labor  settle  down  into  well  defined  and 
reasonable  lines  that  will  be  accepted  by  all  parties  as  standard. 

On  the  other  hand  there  is  capital,  proud,  defiant,  all-powerful, 
merging  itself  into  trusts  and  threatening  us  with  all  sorts  of  dire 
calamities — if  we  are  to  believe  our  economists.  It  is  amusing  to 
read  some  of  the  predictions;  they  have  actually  gotten  some  of 
the  financiers  themselves  thoroughly  scared.  Russell  Sage,  in  an 
interview  of  a  few  days  ago,  declared  that  combinations  of  indus- 
tries are  a  menace  to  good  government;  he  sees  financial  ruin 
ahead  of  us  and  a  bloody  revolt  against  the  money-power !  Poor 
old  gentleman,  no  one  blames  him  for  harboring  disquieting  visions 
of  bombs  and  things  of  that  sort.  But  most  of  the  complaint 
against  combinations  is  entirely  unwarranted  and  begins  with 
"those  who  have  failed  to  win  fortune  and  who  are  eager  to  tear 
down  those  won  by  the  industry  and  wisdom  of  others." 

The  history  of  great  organizations,  as  that  of  great  political 
parties,  is  written  in  few  words.  They  grow  and  grow,  absorbing 
all  about  them,  their  self-reliance  and  vanity  make  them  top-heavy ; 
they  become  unwieldy  by  their  very  size  and  inflation;  there  are 
ruptures  in  the  management,  defections,  personal  jealousies,  they 
split  up  into  a  half-dozen  minor  organizations  and  there  is  compe- 
tition again.  And  later  these  contending  forces,  composed  of  new 
men  with  new  ends  in  view,  get  together  once  more  only  to  run 
over  the  selfsame  course.  History  repeats  itself.  There  are  revo- 
lutions in  our  process  of  evolution,  only  to-day  they  are  peaceful, 
figurative,  commercial  revolutions  where  they  used  to  be  bloody 
and  real  upheavals. 


RUMINATIONS, 


8i 


And  there  is  where  the  government  comes  in  with  a  judicious 
interference  in  ''those  things  which  conduce  to  the  conservation 
of  the  entire  commonwealth  and  must  perforce  modify  those  made 
for  the  welfare  of  particular  districts  and  interests."  If  these 
combinations  are  hurtful — and  it  is  generally  conceded  some  are — 
and  exist  by  reason  of  certain  taxes  or  concessions  created  by  legis- 
lation that  has  outgrown  its  usefulness,  then,  at  the  proper  time 
legislation  must  remove  those  aids  to  those  combinations,  and,  be 
assured,  it  will  remove  them.  Vox  populi  is  strong  and  wall  ulti- 
mately prevail,  though  certain  gentlemen  in  Congress  assembled 
may  squirm  mightily  during  the  operation. 

Things  have  a  faculty  of  adjusting  themselves  or  being  adjusted 
at  the  right  moment.  This  old  world  of  ours  is  not  such  a  bad 
place  to  live  in  after  all,  and  we  who  live  in  this  bright  beginning 
of  a  new  century  have  much  to  learn  from  the  past,  but  nothing 
to  pine  for  in  those  alleged  good  old  times  so  much  harped  upon 
by  certain  of  our  economists. 

Neither  lord  nor  peasant,  trust  magnate  nor  laborer,  has  any 
right  or  reason  to  complain  of  the  time  he  lives  in,  nor  need  he 
look  back  longingly  at  the  times  or  conditions  that  are  gone  by. 
We  have  everything  anyone  ever  had,  and  ten  thousand  times  more 
to  be  thankful  for.  Rather  let  us  look  ahead,  being  the  while  con- 
tent and  appreciating  and  enjoying  to  the  full  our  splendid  advan- 
tages. And  let  us  so  sensibly  arrange  the  education  of  our  sons 
that  they  may  be  even  broader  minded  than  their  sires,  that  they 
may  forget  that  might  was  ever  considered  right,  that  they  may 
awaken  to  the  full  realization  of  the  true  brotherhood  of  man  and 
live  to  enjoy  that  peace  that  we  and  our  fathers  may  have  hoped 
for  but  that  almost  passeth  our  understanding. 

F.  W.  FiTZPATRICK. 

Washington,  D.  C. 


REV.  FATHER  O'NEIL,   O.  P. 


Early  the  present  year,  I  saw  in  one  of  our  exchanges  that  Rev. 
Father  O'Neil, — formerly  and  for  many  years  editor  of  the  Rosary 
Magazine,  and  of  late  years  editor  of  D ominicana,  a  little  monthly 
pubHshed  in  San  Francisco,  and  devoted  mainly  to  the  work  of  the 
Dominican  Orders  in  this  country — had  met  with  a  second  acci- 
dent, and  was  confined  to  the  hospital  in  the  latter  city,  and  remem- 
bering how  neglectful  of  him  I  had  been  on  the  first  occasion,  I 


82  THE  GLOBE. 

immediately  sat  down  and  wrote  him  what  I  meant  to  be  a  cheery- 
letter,  telling  him  of  a  Jesuit  I  had  known  in  New  York  who  per- 
siisted  in  butting  a  trolley  car  until  the  car  knocked  him  out,  and 
maimed  him  for  life,  and  that  a  bright  young  Dominican  like  him- 
self ought  to  know  better  than  to  engage  in  such  sport — that  it 
was  running  against  modern  machine-civilization  —  a  hopeless 
undertaking,  etc. 

A  week  or  so  later,  I  received  from  him  the  following  letter : 
St.  Joseph's  Hospital,  San  Francisco,  January  26th,  '04. 
My  Dear  Mr.  Thorne: 

I  thank  you  for  your  kind  letter  of  i8th.  My  accident  is  not 
so  serious  as  the  former,  but  I  have  just  passed  through  a  severe 
ordeal — threatened  pneumonia.  I  feel  better,  thanks  be  to  God, 
but  I  am  very  weak. 

I  should  be  glad  to  see  you,  and  were  it  in  my  power,  I  would 
send  you  passes  for  the  round  trip.  God  grant  you  every  needed 
blessing,  my  dear  Mr.  Thorne,  and  may  He  bless  your  work. 
Hoping  to  see  you  ere  long.  East  or  West, 

Cordially  yours, 

L.  J.  O'Neil. 
The  evening  of  the  day  that  this  came,  in  the  morning,  I  received 
the  following  letter  from  our  mutual  friend,  Rev.  Father  Jones, 
O.  P.,  of  Benicia,  California : 

St.  Dominic's  Priory,  Benicia,  Jan.  28th,  '04. 
My  Dear  Mr.  Thorne : 

I  take  upon  myself  the  duty  of  conveying  the  sad  intelligence  of 
the  death  of  our  mutual  and  valued  friend.  Father  Louis  J.  O'Neil, 
O.  P.,  which  occurred  at  three  o'clock  this  morning.  The  full 
details  have  not  as  yet  reached  me,  but  the  immediate  cause  was 
heart  failure,  incidental  to  an  attack  of  pneumonia,  which  he  con- 
tracted while  being  treated  for  a  broken  ankle,  in  the  hospital.  It 
is  very  sad  indeed  that  this  should  happen  after  he  had  suffered  so 
much,  and  when  we  thought  that  a  new  and  happier  future  awaited 
the  present  trials.  He  received  your  letter  a  few  days  ago,  which 
he  forwarded  to  me,  knowing  that  I  shared  in  the  admiration 
and  regard  in  which  he  always  held  you.  Let  us  pray  that  our 
friend  may  soon  enjoy  the  reward  which  he  abundantly  earned. 
I  am  ever  yours, 

F.  S.  Jones,  O.  P. 
Just  two  days  after  his  kind  letter  to  me,  and  Father  O'Neil  was 
gone. 

"Bled  inly,  while  he  taught  us  peace. 
And  died  while  we  were  smiling." — 
I  immediately  wrote  Father  Jones,  telling  him  frankly,  how  very 
fond  of  Father  O'Neil  I  had  been  for  many  years,  and  asked  him 


REV.  FATHER  a  NEIL,  O.  P.  83 

to  send  me  any  facts  at  his  disposal,  touching  our  friend's  earlier 
life.    The  following  extracts  from  two  newspapers  are  the  result 
of  this  inquiry : 
From  The  Record,  Louisville. 

''The  many  friends  of  Father  James  Louis  O'Neil,  O.  P.,  in 
Louisville,  were  made  sorrowful  by  the  sad  news  of  his  death, 
which  occurred  in  California,  on  Thursday,  January  the  28th. 

"In  response  to  some  requests,  and  as  Father  O'Neil  had  labored 
for  some  years  in  Louisville,  the  writer,  who  was  long  and  inti- 
mately acquainted  with  him,  will  give  to  the  readers  of  The  Record 
the  more  important  facts  of  Father  O'Neil's  life.  It  is  to  be  hoped 
that  the  noble,  virtuous,  pious,  self-sacrificing  life  of  the  earnest, 
cultured,  brilliant  Dominican,  may  be  as  an  example  and  inspira- 
tion to  others. 

''Father  O'Neil  was  born  in  Brooklyn,  Long  Island,  on  August 
7th,  1858 ;  and  was  baptized  on  August  loth,  at  St.  Paul's  Church, 
Court  Street,  in  the  same  city.  Hence,  he  was  in  his  forty-sixth 
year.  After  having  attended  the  parochial  school,  he  entered  St. 
Francis'  College,  on  Butler  Street,  Brooklyn,  in  1869,  and  was 
graduated  there  with  class  honors,  and  the  degree  of  Bachelor  of 
Arts  in  1875. 

"In  September,  1876,  he  entered  the  Dominican  Novitiate  at 
Somerset,  Perry  County,  Ohio,  where  he  made  his  simple  vows 
on  the  feast  of  the  Purification,  1878.  He  made  his  solemn  vows 
to  the  late  Master-General  of  the  Dominicans,  the  Most  Reverend 
Joseph  LaRocca,  who  was  then  making  a  visitation  of  St.  Joseph's 
province,  at  St.  Louis  Bertrand's,  this  city,  in  July,  1881. 

"After  having  received  Minor  Orders  and  the  preceding  Major 
Orders,  he  was  ordained  to  the  priesthood  on  the  Saturday  pre- 
ceeding  Passion  Sunday,  1883.  On  the  following  Easter- Sunday, 
Father  O'Neil  had  the  great  happiness  of  celebrating  his  first  Holy 
Mass,  in  the  presence  of  his  parents,  family  and  friends,  in  St. 
Vincent  Ferrer's  Dominican  Church,  New  York  City.  Thus  was 
the  first  great  ambition  of  his  life — to  offer  the  Most  Holy  Sacri- 
fice of  the  Mass — realized.  Then  he  set  out  with  all  the  earnest- 
ness of  his  soul  to  labor,  in  any  position  his  superiors  may  place 
him,  for  the  cause  of  humanity,  the  salvation  of  souls,  and  the 
glory  of  God. 

"Father  O'Neil  leaves  a  venerable  father  and  three  brothers,  and 
thousands  of  loyal  friends  to  mourn  his  loss.  The  world  of  letters 
has  lost  an  excellent  editor  and  writer.  Humanity  has  lost  a  bene- 
factor and  friend.  The  Church  has  lost  a  pious  and  learned  priest. 
The  Dominican  Order  has  lost  a  very  brilliant  member.  Peace  be 
to  the  memory  of  James  Louis  O'Neil,  eternal  rest  be  to  his 
immortal  soul!  May  the  dear,  sweet  Mother,  Mary,  in  whose 
honor  Father  O'Neil  labored  and  preached,  and  wrote,  and  to 


84  THE  GLOBE. 

whom  he  had  a  most  wonderful  devotion,  obtain  from  her  Divine 
Son  a  crown  of  eternal  glory  as  a  reward  for  his  fidelity  to  her 
during  all  his  trials  and  tribulations  in  this  unhappy  vale  of  tears." 

And  here  is  a  note  with  the  true  ring  in  it,  from  the  Star,  San 
Francisco : 

''With  thousands  of  others  we  mourn  the  loss  to  the  world  of 
Father  J.  L.  O'Neil,  the  Dominican  priest,  who  died  in  this  city 
on  Thursday  morning.  We  knew  him  well,  and  loved  him  more 
than  pen  or  tongue  could  tell.  A  more  kindly  man  never  lived. 
He  was,  in  the  best  sense  of  the  term — like  the  Gentle  Nazarene, 
whose  teaching  he  taught  and  whose  precepts  he  practiced — a 
Christian  gentleman. 

''Blessed  with  a  God-given  mind  whose  thoughts  attracted  the 
attention  of  the  world,  he  blessed  others  with  that  big  heart  of  his 
which  beat  in  sympathy  with  and  for  all  humanity. 

"Father  O'Neil  was  one  of  the  greatest  pulpit  orators  in  all 
California,  a  litterateur  who  gained  fame,  and  a  man  of  ripe 
scholarship.  Yet,  withal,  he  was  like  his  Master,  meek  and  lowly, 
seeking  not  the  world's  applause,  but  striving  ever  only  to  lift 
up  and  bless  his  fellow  men. 

"He  hated  all  cant  and  hypocrisy,  and  scorned  the  minister  or 
priest  who  dragged  his  religion  into  the  filthy  pool  of  politics. 

"His  gentle  manner  charmed,  his  eloquent  voice  appealed  to 
and  his  noble  soul  won  the  hearts  of  all  who  met  him. 

"Little  did  we  think,  on  New  Year's  day,  as  we  saluted  him  in 
St.  Joseph's  Hospital,  that  it  was  good-by  and  farewell.  Little 
did  we  think,  as  he  took  our  hand  and  said,  'God  bless  you,  God 
bless  you,'  with  an  earnestness  not  to  be  misunderstood,  to  a  man 
not  of  his  own  faith,  that  we  would  see  him  no  more.  Those  sim- 
ple words  fill  and  thrill  us  yet,  and  will  until  we  too  are  called 
away. 

"The  world  is  better  that  such  a  man  as  Father  O'Neil  lived, 
because  to  do  good  was  his  religion." 

Twelve  years  ago  this  spring,  while  visiting  the  venerable 
Father  Walker,  O.  P.,  then  Chaplain  of  the  St.  Clara's  Convent 
and  Academy  at  Siusinawa,  Wisconsin,  I  first  met  Rev.  Father 
O'Neil.  It  was  about  the  time  of  the  anniversary  of  the  College, 
and  many  priests  were  visitors  there. 

For  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century,  I  had  been  a  pretty  close 
and  careful  student  of  men.  I  could  then,  and  can  now,  remem- 
ber my  old  class-mates  at  the  Theological  Seminary,  but  only  in 
the  case  of  one  or  two  of  them,  can  I  recall  ever  being  impressed 
with  the  strong  and  beautiful  admiration  that  I  at  once  felt  for  the 
lovely  soul  who  has  so  recently  gone  from  us  to  a  holier  and 
heavenlier  sphere. 


REV.  FATHER  O'NEIL,  O.P.  85 

I  confirm  all  that  the  good  brother  asserts  of  him,  in  the  San 
Francisco  Star.  The  first  impression  with  me  was  how  simple 
and  natural  is  this  man,  a  priest,  but  without  any  formality,  for- 
malism or  put-onism  such  as  we  usually  expect  of  these  gentle- 
men :  He  was  simply  brotherly,  friendly,  and  sweetness  and  kind- 
ness incarnate.  He  always  tried  to  make  as  little  as  possible  of 
the  faults  or  the  unkindnesses  of  others ;  never  seemed  to  be  look- 
ing for  or  suspecting  evil  in  others,  and  wherever  he  v/ent,  seemed 
to  carry  with  him  the  smile  of  heaven;  the  sunshine  of  a  quiet 
and  lovely  day.  We  had  various  talks  together  while  visiting  in 
the  beautiful  grounds  of  St.  Clara's.  Some  of  the  good  sisters 
who  had  heard  him  preach  told  me  that  I  should  greatly  admire 
him,  but  though  I  had  tried  to  practice  the  same  sort  of  quiet  and 
Christ-like  life  for  many  years,  and  had  in  my  conceited  moments 
thought  something  of  myself  as  a  preacher,  yet  I  was  not  prepared 
to  find  this  so  quiet  and  lovable  man,  eloquent  with  thrilling  power 
as  a  preacher. 

The  Sunday  came,  however,  when  Father  O'Neil  preached  in 
the  dear,  blessed,  little  Chapel  of  the  Covenant,  and  the  beauty  of 
it  all  was  that  his  speaking  as  a  preacher  was  as  free  of  mannerism 
and  pretension  as  was  his  conversation ;  but  the  words,  though 
clearly  born  of  love  to  God  and  love  of  his  fellow  men,  and  full 
of  gentle  kindness,  were  as  keen  and  penetrating  as  lightning 
flashes,  and  every  word  was  full  of  Christ  and  His  dear  charity. 

I  was  amazed  to  find  a  Catholic  priest  who  could  and  did  preach 
Christ  so  clearly,  simply  and  sweetly,  and  yet,  with  such  burning 
power.  Had  he  been  a  Protestant  of  my  own  creed ;  had  he 
studied  Jesus  as  I  had  studied,  and  had  become  enamoured  of  his 
Christ's  blessed  kindness  and  simplicity,  I  might  have  been  simply 
delighted ;  as  it  was  I  was  surprised  and  delighted,  and  from  that 
hour,  I  think  that  I  have  loved  Father  O'Neil  more  beautifully 
than  any  other  man  alive. 

I  now  fancy  that  this  was  the  impression  he  made  on  every  sen- 
sitive and  sincere  Christian  soul. 

I  never  understood  fully  why  he  left  the  Rosary  Magazine,  but 
it  has  never  been  since,  what  it  was  under  Father  O'Neil's  direc- 
tion. A  second  periodical  representing  the  Dominican  Orders  in 
this  country,  seemed  to  me  to  be  utterly  uncalled  for.  There  is  no 
longer  any  East  and  West  in  American  letters ;  but  let  that  pass. 

When  Father  O'Neil  was  going  abroad  some  five  or  six  years 
ago,  he  was  at  my  office  in  New  York,  once  and  again,  and  know- 
ing that  I  had  been  for  years  something  of  a  sufferer,  and  was 
worn  out  and  in  need  of  rest,  he  urged  me  repeatedly  to  go  with 
him:  He  knew  of  my  poverty,  and  I  knew  that  he  was  not  rich, 
but  he  offered  to  make  himself  responsible  for  my  ticket  going 
and  returning,  if  I  would  only  go.    On  the  morning  of  his  sailing. 


86  THE  GLOBE. 

he  telegraphed  me  from  up  town,  renewing  his  offer,  and  urging 
me  to  reply  "yes,"  and  meet  him  on  the  steamer.  I  replied  "no," 
and  begged  him  not  to  tempt  me  again  with  his  more  than  broth- 
erly kindness. 

Naturally  I  am  fond  of  the  Dominicans — Sisters  ?nd  Fathers, 
for  it  was  through  their  kind  ministry,  and  patience  with  my 
doubts  and  questions,  that  I  was  finally  led  into  the  Catholic 
Church :  But  above  all  creeds  and  all  orders,  Father  O'Neil  was  a 
princely  child  of  God  and  follower  of  His  dear  Son,  our  Lord  and 
Savior,  Jesus  Christ,  to  whose  tender  comprehension  and  divine 
mercy  we  commend  his  choice  and  hallowed  spirit,  ever  praying 
"that  his  soul  and  the  souls  of  all  the  faithful  departed,  through 
the  mercy  of  God,  may  rest  in  peace." 

William  Henry  Thorne. 


PREPARATION. 


"Thou  canst  not  serve  two  masters,"  spoke  the  Lord, 

In  terse  philosophy,  thus  summing  up 

The  limitations  of  his  handiwork. 

And  that  the  fairest  growth  of  mental  strength 

Which  grasps  this  truth,  and  holding  firm  thereto 

Achieves  success  by  turning  not  aside. 

And  so  we  specialize  in  every  path. 

And  set  the  man  in  childhood's  very  hour 

To  learn  those  tasks  his  hand  must  later  do. 

In  vague  uncertainty  doth  girlhood  walk 
Through  youth-lit  day  dreams  of  idylic  life 
Which  is  not  here.    Awakening  suddenly 
Too  oft  she  finds  her  feet  are  far  afield 
In  uncongenial  wastes  whose  vapors  kill 
Her  God  sent  message  to  humanity. 
Is  happy,  careless  boyhood  made  less  glad 
By  viewing  duty  as  it  really  is? 
Then  why  not  give  the  sister  of  his  years 
An  equal  chance  at  understanding  well 
Those  things  which  bear  upon  her  destiny — 
What  God  and  man  demand  of  her  who  takes 
The  helm  of  home's  deep  mystery.     For  there 
But  one  can  lead,  and  she  who  brings  as  bride 


GROWTH  OF  CHICAGO. 

Best  dower  of  mentality  would  be 

The  last  to  choose  a  weakling  for  her  mate. 

We  eat  and  drink,  ay !  fix  our  time  to  pray — 

That  e'en  those  primal  cravings  of  our  lives 

May  fit  the  leisure  of  the  one  who  toils, 

And  ''solo"  ne'er  again  is  writ  upon 

The  sweet,  strong  part  which  makes  love's  song  complete. 

Not  unto  all  is  given  the  mother  heart. 

Or  housewife  interest  in  the  daily  rites. 

Then  why  still  think  that  woman  is  the  child 

Of  mothers  only ;  drawing  naught  from  out 

Long  generations  of  male  ancestors  whose  mark 

Is  stamped  upon  her  personality 

In  calm  indifference  to  fireside  cares. 

If  she  elects  to  tread  a  broader  way 

Why  send  her  on  it  with  a  training  aimed 

At  nothing  in  particular  ?    Just  made 

Of  cobweb  fancies  and  accomplishments. 

The  day  must  come  when  her  curriculum 

Will  give  mere  books  a  secondary  place 

But  turn  her  mind  and  energies  upon 

A  masterful  conception  of  that  part 

She  picks  to  play  upon  creation's  stage. 


87 


Chicago. 


Clo  Keogh. 


GROWTH  OF  CHICAGO. 


Fort  Dearborn,  built  in  1803-4,  is  generally  regarded  as  the 
beginning  of  Chicago.  The  centennial  celebration,  held  during  the 
week  of  September  26-Oct.  i,  commemorated  the  hundredth  anni- 
versary of  the  permanent  settlement  by  whites  of  the  Garden  City. 

The  annals  of  Chicago  before  1803  are  only  meagre.  The  his- 
torical records  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  con- 
tain some  references  to  Chicago,  which  was  then  the  site  of  an 
Indian  village.  In  1673  it  was  visited  by  the  French  explorers, 
Joliet  and  Marquette,  the  first  Europeans  known  to  have  been 
here.  In  1682  the  Jesuit  missionaries,  Hennepin  and  La  Salle, 
reached  Chicago,  which  is  marked  on  the  map  drawn  probably  by 
La   Salle.     Thenceforth   it  was   occasionally  the   rendezvous  of 


88  THE  GLOBE. 

voyagers,  fur-traders,  and  soldiers.  The  French  were  quick  to 
appreciate  the  advantages  of  the  situation,  commercial  and  mili- 
tary. They  intended  it  to  be  a  link  connecting  Canada  and  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico. 

As  early  as  1682  La  Salle  foresaw  the  future  greatness  of  the 
city  destined  to  be  built  on  the  southern  shore  of  the  lake,  at  a 
point  favored  by  nature  with  the  best  harbor  for  many  miles. 
Long  afterward  his  prophesy  came  true:  "The  boundless  regions 
of  the  West,"  he  wrote  in  a  letter  to  a  friend  in  France,  "must 
send  their  products  to  the  East  through  this  port.  This  will  be 
the  gate  of  empire,  this  the  seat  of  commerce.  Everything  invites 
to  action.  The  typical  man  who  will  grow  up  here  must  be  an 
enterprising  man.  Each  day  as  he  rises  he  will  exclaim,  *I  eat,  I 
m.ove,  I  push,'  and  there  will  be  spread  before  him  a  boundless 
horizon,  an  illimitable  field  of  activity ;  a  limitless  expanse  of  plain 
is  here — to  the  east  water,  and  at  all  other  points,  land.  If  I 
were  to  give  this  place  a  name  I  would  derive  it  from  the  nature 
of  the  place  and  the  nature  of  the  man  who  will  occupy  this  place 
— ago,  I  ask ;  circum,  all  around ;  Circago."  This  name  may  have 
been  heard  from  La  Salle's  lips  by  the  Pottawatomies,  who  trans- 
formed it  into  Checagou.  Such  is  the  view  of  Mr.  E.  O.  Gale, 
one  of  Chicago's  oldest  settlers,  who  rejects  the  "wild  onion"  and 
the  "pole-cat"  theories  of  the  origin  of  the  name  Chicago.  Others 
assert  that  the  locality  and  river  (Desplaines)  were  named  Checa- 
gou by  the  savages  before  the  French  visited  them. 

After  the  French  and  Indian  war  the  Illinois  country  passed 
under  English  control.  The  capture  of  Quebec  in  1759  changed 
the  destiny  of  the  American  nation  and  made  possible-  the  rise  of 
Chicago.  For  some  years  this  western  country  was  British  terri- 
tory;  then  it  became  a  part  of  Virginia,  and  in  1790  a  county  of 
Ohio  Territory.  By  the  terms  of  the  treaty  with  the  Indians  in 
1795  they  ceded  to  the  United  States  "one  piece  of  land,  six  miles 
square,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Chicago  river,  emptying  into  the  south- 
west end  of  Lake  Michigan,  where  a  fort  formerly  stood."  This 
old  French  fort  was  built  in  1685,  and  not  long  afterward  the 
Jesuits  made  it  the  site  of  a  mission.  In  1800  Indiana  Territory, 
including  Illinois,  was  organized,  and  in  1809  Illinois  became  a 
Territory  with  the  seat  of  government  at  Kaskeskia. 

In  the  meantime  Chicago's  "first  settler"  had  arrived.  Strange 
to  say,  he  was  a  negro  from  San  Domingo,  Jean  Baptiste  Point  de 
Sable  by  name,  who  built  a  log  cabin  (in  1777)  on  the  north  side 
of  the  Chicago  river  near  the  lake.  Besides  the  Indians  his  only 
companion  was  a  Jesuit  missionary.  In  1796  he  sold  out  to  a 
French  trader,  Le  Mai,  who  in  turn  sold  his  claim  to  John  Kinzie, 
then  the  agent  of  Astor's  fur  company.  Kinzie,  who  was  Chicago's 
first  permanent  settler,  came  in  1803  and  bought  the  Le  Mai  hut. 


GROWTH  OF  CHICAGO.  89 

which  he  later  rebuilt  into  a  comfortable  house,  known  as  the 
old  Kinzie  mansion. 

In  1803  by  the  Louisiana  purchase,  our  government  came  into 
possession  of  the  vast  region  beyond  the  Mississippi,  and  it  deter- 
mined to  build  a  fort  at  the  mouth  of  the  Chikago  river  (as  it  was 
then  sometimes  spelled).  The  government  schooner  Tracy 
entered  the  harbor  with  supplies,  and  on  August  17,  1803,  Major 
Whistler's  soldiers,  under  the  command  of  Lieutenant  Swearingen, 
began  to  erect  a  fort  (called  Fort  Chicago).  This  military  post 
was  then  our  outmost  defence. 

At  the  same  time  the  American  Fur  Company  established  here 
a  trading  station  under  the  protection  of  the  garrison.  According 
to  Mrs.  Whistler,  Chicago  in  1804  consisted  of  "but  four  rude 
huts  or  traders'  cabins,  occupied  by  white  men,  Canadian-French 
with  Indian  wives. 

When  the  war  of  18 12  broke  out  this  frontier  port  was  in  dan- 
ger. ''By  order  of  Gen.  Hull  it  was  evacuated  August  15,  181 2, 
after  its  stores  and  provisions  had  been  distributed  among  the 
Indians.  Very  soon  after,  the  Indians  attacked  and  massacred 
about  fifty  of  the  troops  and  a  number  of  citizens,  including 
women  and  children,  and  next  day  burned  the  fort.  In  18 16  it  was 
rebuilt,  but  after  the  Black  Hawk  war  it  went  into  gradual  disuse, 
and  in  May,  1837,  was  abandoned  by  the  army,  but  was  occupied 
by  various  government  officers  till  1857,  when  it  was  torn  down, 
excepting  a  single  building,  which  stood  upon  this  site  till  the 
great  fire  of  October  9,  1871."  So  reads  the  inscription  on  the 
tablet  that  marks  the  spot  at  the  foot  of  River  Street,  near  the 
south  end  of  the  Rush  Street  bridge.  The  fort  rebuilt  in  18 16  was 
called  Fort  Dearborn,  after  General  Henry  Dearborn,  Secretary 
of  War  under  President  Jefiferson. 

The  little  trading  community  slowly  grew.  In  181 2  Alexander 
Beaubien,  the  oldest  native  resident  now  living,  was  born.  The 
next  oldest  resident  of  Chicago  is  Fernando  Jones.  Both  men  are 
hale  and  hearty,  though  past  eighty.  In  1829  there  were  only 
thirty  people  in  Chicago,  and  no  one  expected  that  it  would  ever 
be  a  town  of  any  importance. 

In  1830  the  village  of  Chicago  was  plotted  and  there  was  an 
auction  sale  of  127  lots  in  the  heart  of  the  present  city.  The  lots 
that  sold  in  1830  for  prices  ranging  from  $11  to  $346  are  now 
worth  hundreds  of  thousands  each.  "There  were  only  some  five 
or  six  houses,  built  m.ostly  of  logs,  and  a  population  of  less  than 
one  hundred."  In  1832  the  first  bridge  was  constructed  across 
Chicago  river.  This  year  the  first  frame  building  in  Chicago,  a 
store  at  Wolf  Point,  was  built.  In  1834  some  brick  buildings 
were  erected. 

"The  year  1832,"  says  Norris,  "may  be  regarded  as  the  period 
from  which  to  date  the  commencement  of  the  city.    Many  causes, 


^  THE  GLOBE. 

the  Indian  war  among  them,  conspired,  about  this  time,  to  bring 
Chicago  into  general  notice.  What  was  called  the  'Western 
Fever'  had  begun  to  rage  generally  throughout  the  country.  Thou- 
sands were  flocking  from  the  East  to  seek  homes  in  the  West.  The 
first  premonitions  of  the  speculating  mania  had  manifested  them- 
selves. Eligible  sites  for  towns  and  cities  were  sought  out  and 
eagerly  appropriated.  The  superior  advantages  of  Chicago  in  this 
period  of  general  inquiry,  when  enterprise  was  universally  aroused 
and  incited  by  the  hope  of  sudden  wealth,  could  not  long  escape 

public  attention The  West  suddenly  became  the 

center  of  men's  thoughts  and  wishes,  and  Chicago,  as  the  most 
important  point  in  the  West,  the  goal  to  which  all  directed  their 
aspirations."  (Chicago  City  Directory,  1844). 

In  1833  Chicago  was  incorporated  as  a  town,  having  then  some 
350  inhabitants.  An  auction  sale  of  138  blocks  brought  $38,865. 
Work  on  the  harbor  was  begun  and  a  new  light-house  built.  In 
1835  there  was  a  great  boom  in  real  estate  values,  and  the  popula- 
tion, was  estimated  at  5500,  including  many  transients.  In  1836 
work  was  begun  on  the  Illinois  and  Michigan  Canal  (completed  in 
1848) .    In  the  meanwhile  the  lake  commerce  had  greatly  increased. 

In  1837  the  city  of  Chicago  was  incorporated  and  William  B. 
Ogden  was  elected  the  first  mayor.  Chicago  then  had  519  build- 
ings, including  dwellings,  churches,  stores,  taverns,  etc.  The 
population  was  reckoned  at  4180.  This  year  saw  an  interruption 
in  the  city's  growth.  It  was  ''the  period  of  protested  notes,"  due 
to  speculation  carried  to  excess.  Although  Chicago's  business 
interests  suffered  and  many  of  her  citizens  were  embarrassed,  her 
prosperity  was  checked  for  only  two  or  three  years.  Like  Sieur 
de  La  Salle,  they  saw  the  magnificent  possibilities  of  the  "Queen 
City  of  the  Northwest,"  and  they  had  confidence  in  her  future. 
"Situated  on  the  waters  of  the  only  great  lake  exclusively  within 
the  United  States,"  wrote  J.  W.  Norris  in  1843,  "being  the  termi- 
nation, on  the  one  hand,  of  the  navigation  of  the  lakes,  and  on 
the  other,  of  the  Illinois  and  Michigan  Canal — affording  great 
natural  facilities  for  a  harbor  by  means  of  Chicago  river  and  its 
branches — the  excelling  site  for  a  capacious  ship  basin  in  the  very 
heart  of  the  town,  at  the  junction  of  said  branches — having 
dependent  upon  it  a  region  of  country  vast  in  extent  and  of  extra- 
ordinary fertility,  it  must  always  be  the  dividing  point  between 
two  great  sections  of  the  Union,  where  the  productions  of  each 
must  meet  and  pay  tribute.  It  is  susceptible  of  the  easiest  dem- 
onstration that  the  route  by  the  lakes,  the  canal  and  the  Western 
nyers,  when  once  the  channels  of  communication  are  completed, 
will,  for  cheapness,  safety,  and  expedition,  possess  advantages 
superior  to  every  other.  Among  the  advantages  of  this  route,  the 
climate,  so  favorably  adapted  to  the  preservation  of  produce, 
deserves  especial  notice." 


GLOBE  NOTES. 


91 


Sixty  years  have  passed  and  the  expectations  of  the  Chicagoan 
of  1843  have  been  more  than  surpassed.  With  the  opening  of 
the  Drainage  Canal  in  1899  the  system  of  inland  waterways  has 
been  completed.  1850  saw  the  first  railroad  to  run  out  of  Chicago 
(to  Elgin),  and  in  1852  the  Michigan  Southern  line  connected  the 
city  with  the  East.  Chicago  is  now  the  greatest  railway  center  in 
the  world.  Its  population  has  grown  from  7580  in  1843  to  2,221,- 
000  in  1903.  It  is  more  than  an  ''overgrown  town,"  as  it  was 
described  in  1882;  it  is  the  second  city  in  the  United  States,  and 
is  the  peer  of  the  mighty  metropolis  of  the  Old  World,  except 
London.  Since  the  fire  of  1871,  which  swept  over  2100  acres  of 
buildings  and  left  70,000  homeless,  its  growth  has  been  phenome- 
nal. Since  1875  the  number  of  buildings  erected  each  year  has 
run  into  the  thousands,  and  some  of  these  buildings — the  Masonic 
Temple,  the  Chicago  National  Bank,  the  Public  Library,  the  new 
Post  Office,  and  the  University's  stately  halls — rank  among  the 
famous  structures  of  the  world.  In  striking  contrast  with  ''The 
Fair,"  the  first  department  store  (erected  in  1873),  are  the  great 
down-town  mercantile  establishments — Marshall  Field's,  Siegel 
&  Cooper's,  Schlesinger  &  Mayer's,  the  "Boston  Store,"  and 
others. 

Chicago's  citizens  have  been  men  of  the  type  described  by  La 
Salle.  Not  only  have  the  merchant  princes,  the  captains  of  indus- 
try, and  intellectual  leaders — N.  K.  Fairbank,  Philip  D.  Armour, 
George  M.  Pullman,  David  Swing,  Theodore  Thomas,  W.  R 
Harper,  etc.,  been  enterprising  and  resourceful,  thousands  of 
men  (many  of  them  of  foreign  blood)  have  possessed  these  char- 
acteristics and  contributed  to  Chicago's  greatness. 

EuGEjNE  Parsons. 


GLOBE  NOTES. 


I  am  indebted  to  the  editor  of  The  Press,  Troy,  New  York,  for 
the  following  editorial  notice  of  an  article  of  mine  in  the  last 
December  Globe  Review,  and  also  for  many  previous  notices  of 
The  Globe,  as  well  as  for  many  characteristic  quotations  there- 
from, and  if  the  editor  of  the  Troy  Press  will  excuse  the  liberty  I 
would  say  that  his  frequent  use  of  the  Globe  Review,  as  indicated, 
taken  in  connection  with  many  other  marks  of  unusual  intelligence 
and  wide-awakeness,  seem  to  indicate  that  the  Troy  Press  must 
have  a  superior  class  of  readers  and,  as  a  gentleman  from  Troy 


92 


THE  GLOBE. 


whom  I  met  at  Atlantic  City  a  few  days  ago  expressed  it,  that  the 
Troy  Press  and  its  editor  are  noted  for  their  general  level-headed- 
ness ;  but  here  is  the  notice — which  I  do  not  wholly  approve : 
•  ''Reds,  Blacks,  Whites  and  Yellows. — An  entertaining  comment 
on  the  negro  problem  is  copied  elsewhere  from  the  pen  of  William 
Henry  Thorne,  not  because  we  approve  of  what  he  says,  for  we  do 
not,  but  to  give  a  view  that  is  somewhat  widely  cherished.  The 
fact  that  the  black  man  has  made  a  poorer  showing  in  past  cen- 
turies than  the  white  is  no  proof  of  hopeless  inferiority;  the 
assumption  that  the  whites  are  inherently  the  superior  of  the 
blacks,  reds,  browns  and  yellows  among  the  human  race  simply 
because  they  have  the  upper  hands  to-day  is  sophistical.  Chinese 
civilization  was  centuries  old  while  the  Caucausian  races  remained 
in  barbarism,  and  during  that  period  the  conceited  Chinamen  could 
as  well  claim  that  the  yellow  man  was  a  God-ordained  superior  to 
the  white  with  as  much  plausibility  as  Mr.  Thorne  contends  that 
the  white  man  is  the  superior  of  the  black  man  to-day.  A  world 
of  such  defective  reasoning  has  been  employed  by  males  to  con- 
vince themselves  that  they  are  by  nature  superior  to  the  female 
sex ;  but  wherever  the  latter  has  a  fair  field,  and  no  favor,  it  dem- 
onstrates the  fallacy  of  the  theory.  We  believe  the  children  of  God 
embrace  all  races,  of  whatever  nationality  or  color,  and  that  the 
Ethiopean  or  the  Indian  was  as  much  designed  to  reflect  the 
image  of  the  Almighty  as  any  Englishman  or  Yankee,  and  capable 
through  opportunity  of  attaining  as  lofty  a  moral,  mental  and 
spiritual  plane.  However,  it  is  a  common  privilege  to  differ,  one 
with  another,  and  we  have  no  fault  to  find  with  honest  thinkers, 
even  when  they  are  on  the  wrong  track." 

A  few  days  later  the  editor  of  the  Troy  Press  again  returned  to 
the  theme  as  follows : 

"Sounding  brass  !  The  bigot  who  imagines  that  his  color  counts 
for  more  than  superior  or  'moral  and  mental  quahfications'  in  peo- 
ple of  a  darker  hue  has  more  to  learn  to  acquire  wisdom  than 
Governor  Vardaman  knows. 

"A  short  time  ago  we  took  issue  with  William  Henry  Thorne,  a 
far  more  scholarly,  forcible  and  intellectual  controversialist  than 
Vardaman,  but  who  also  took  the  hackneyed  and  unproved  view^  of 
the  incomparable  superiority  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  and  the  hope- 
less inferiority  of  the  darker  races.  But  we  have  only  to  turn  our 
eyes  toward  Mexico,  and  the  amazing  advancement  of  civilization, 
liberty  and  material  prosperity  under  President  Diaz  and  his  col- 
laborators of  mixed  blood,  to  demxonstrate  the  preposterousness  of 
this  theory.  An  eminent  Anglo-Saxon  authority,  John  W.  Foster, 
ex- Secretary  of  State,  in  a  most  able  and  discriminating  article  in 
the  International  Quarterly,  soberly  declares  that  in  his  judgment 
President  Diaz  is  the  greatest  statesman  in  America.  Measured 
by  the  crucial  criterion  of  achievement,  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  it. 


GLOBE  NOTES.  93 

Yet  he  is  part  Indian,  much  of  his  blood  belonging  to  what  Anglo- 
Saxon  conceit  calls  a  savage  race." 

Both  of  these  editorials  cover  the  same  general  ground,  and  in 
the  same  spirit  of  good  motive  and  good  sound  orthodox  belief. 
In  the  second,  Mr.  John  W.  Foster  is  relied  upon  as  to  certain 
mixed  bloods  in  Mexico,  and  President  Diaz  is  named  as  an 
exceptionally  gifted  member  of  the  mixed  races. 

We  have  heard  the  opinion  of  President  Diaz  expressed  by  per- 
sonal friends  of  ours  who  have  had  the  honor  of  meeting  the  gen- 
tleman, and  we  do  not  in  any  measure  or  degree  question  the  noted 
excellence  of  this  very  gifted  and  noble  man.  I  only  wish  we  had 
him  as  President  of  the  United  States.  But  do  not  let  us  wander 
from  our  main  point.  I  am  beginning  my  comment  on  the  editor- 
ials at  the  end  of  the  second.  President  Diaz  is  not,  however, 
under  discussion.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  Governor  Varda- 
man  knows  more  about  the  negro,  and  hence  is  more  competent  to 
speak  on  the  negro  problem  than  I  am  or  than  the  editor  of  the 
Troy  Press  is,  and  I  am  all  the  more  obliged  to  the  Troy  Press  for 
the  comparison  it  makes  so  favorable  to  myself,  but  still  we  do  not 
rightly  get  at  the  point  of  criticism  in  question. 

In  my  article  in  the  December  Globe  I  discarded  all  orthodox 
and  other  theories  regarding  the  origin  or  origins  of  the  human 
race  as  in  no  way  helping  one  to  understand  the  facts  of  human 
history,  but  as  tending  to  prejudice  and  confuse  the  human  mind 
in  its  consideration  of  the  works  of  any  man  or  race  of  men,  black, 
yellow  or  white,  and  therefore  I  do  not  think  it  quite  fair  to  have 
the  Fatherhood  of  God,  the  brotherhood  of  man,  or  any  other  clap 
trap  and  threadbare  theory  of  the  moral  nature  and  the  several 
relations  of  the  case  used  against  my  simple  statement  of  facts.  I 
have  had  and  still  may  have  my  own  pious  and  reverent  theories 
of  the  ultimatums  of  the  human  race,  but  in  my  December  article 
I  discarded  theory  and  held  to  the  facts  and  the  deductions  drawn 
from  them  touching  the  actual  status  of  the  black  n;an  all  over  the 
world.  I  respectfully  refer  the  editor  of  the  Troy  Press  to  said 
article  for  further  consideration  of  the  subject. 

In  the  next  place,  I  cannot  allow  the  editor  of  the  Troy  Press 
or  any  other  person  to  represent  me  as  saying  anything  derogatory 
to  the  yellozv,  the  hroivn  or  copper-colored  families  of  the  earth. 
The  record  of  this  magazine  is  well  known  on  that  theme.  I  have, 
ever  since  I  began  to  write,  defended  the  yellow  and  brown  races 
as  representing  in  many  directions  a  higher  type  of  civilization  than 
any  branch  of  the  white  race,  and  especially  higher  than  our  own 
anglo-americanism ;  therefore  it  is  not  just  to  represent  me  as 
classifying  the  yellow  or  brown  with  the  back  man.  I  have 
always  considered  Chinese  civilization  as  far  superior  to  our 
American  civilization  in  every  phase  of  it  except  as  to  fighting  and 


94  THE  GLOBE. 

that  wonderful  gift  of  Americanism  like  our  gift  of  lying  I  con- 
sider, both  of  them,  as  the  most  convincing  evidences  of  our 
essential  barbarism  and  brutality.  I  do  not  think  that  the  last  and 
highest  destiny  of  man  is  to  learn  to  shoot  well  or  to  stand  as  a 
target  to  be  shot  at. 

In  the  first  number  of  this  magazine,  published  over  fourteen 
years  ago,  I  noticed  and  deplored  the  acknowledged  and  new 
tendencies  of  Japan  to  become  more  and  more  European  as  to 
fighting  tendencies  and  declared  in  favor  of  the  many  centuries 
old  form  of  asiatic  civilization.  Of  course  a  Chinaman,  a  Japanese, 
a  Philippine,  a  Turk,  or  even  a  negro,  a  dog  or  a  cat  can  fight, 
especially  if  you  train  and  arm  either  animal  with  European  arms 
of  the  latest  pattern — great  art  that ! ! 

Let  us  keep  the  questions  and  the  races  separate  and  talk  as  to 
facts;  never  mind  the  theories.  Again  the  editor  of  the  Troy 
Press  brings  in  the  old  question  as  to  the  comparative  inferiority 
of  men  and  women,  and  declares  with  "Hberal"  woman's  ortho- 
doxy in  favor  of  the,  to  me,  crack-brained  theory  that  ''given  a 
fair  chance"  women  are  not  only  equal  to  but  superior  to  men. 
But  why  this  reflection  should  be  brought  in  to  slur  my  position  in 
regard  to  well  proven  facts  of  history  that  the  negro  has  every- 
where been  known  as  the  inferior  of  the  white  man  I  do  not  know. 
It  has  absolutely  ''nothing  to  do  with  the  case." 

As  to  the  woman  question,  all  sane  men  from  Adam  down  have 
everywhere  recognized  the  fact  that  in  certain  vocations  and  lines 
of  life  woman  was  the  finer  man  of  the  two,  but  when  you  bring 
this  question  down  to  civilized  statistics,  first  as  to  comparative 
weight  of  the  female  brain,  the  figures  as  far  as  known  are  de- 
cidedly in  favor  of  the  male  brain,  and  second,  as  to  the  amount 
and  quality  of  accomplished  work  in  the  recognized  hues  of  work 
of  genius — literature,  art,  in  all  lines,  music,  commerce,  science, 
philosophy,  the  man  is  away  ahead — thousands  of  miles  ahead. 

Now  where  is  the  use  of  fixing  the  faded  imagination  of  Susan 
B.  Anthony  &  Co.  against  this  array  of  facts.  I  have  published 
them  in  this  magazine  years  ago.  They  are  known  to  all  people  wor- 
thy the  name  of  intelligent  people ;  yet  even  I  do  not  believe  them. 
I  say  that  spite  of  all  your  scientific  data  woman  was  born  greater 
in  her  own  way  and  accomplishes  more  every  way  than  man,  but 
not  the  woman  who  is  aching  to  vote  in  these  days,  or  the  woman 
who  is  aping  man  in  a  thousand  new  lines  of  work.  She  is  nonde- 
script, even  her  beauty  is  brazen  and  uninviting  as  her  mind  and 
heart  and  I  not  only  discredit  all  the  modern  family  of  termagants, 
mannish  equals  of  poor  and  mediocre  man,  but  I  would  turn 
Niagara  on  them  and  drive  the  entire  and  prying  family  into  the 
depths  of  the  sea. 

In  a  word  we  still  hold  that  our  views  of  the  negro  were  the 
only  views  open  to  just  criticism  and  that  those  views,  instead  of 


GLOBE  NOTES.  95 

being  "hackneyed,"  are  based  upon  the  latest  and  widest  facts  of 
human  history  as  interpreted  by  clearest  human  reason,  and  the 
only  thing  for  editors  and  others  interested  is  to  accept  the  facts 
and  start  new  theories  of  the  origin  of  the  race,  the  brotherhood 
of  the  race,  the  equality  of  the  famiHes  of  mankind  and  try  to  get 
them  in  harmony  with  the  facts  and  not  any  longer  try  to  twist  the 
facts  into  some  sort  of  harmony  with  their  stupid  and  ignorant,  no 
matter  how  seemingly  pious  and  antiquated  theories. 

*  *  :^  *  *  * 

I  had  intended  to  write  a  separate  article  for  this  issue  on  our 
Presidential  outlook,  especially  comparing  the  two  lives  of  the  late 
Senator  Hanna  and  Theodore  Roosevelt  as  bearing  upon  the  polit- 
ical question,  but  Senator  Hanna's  death  made  such  an  article 
unnecessary,  and  a  return  of  my  own  old  malady  left  me  less  than 
two  weeks'  ability  of  work  since  the  December,  1903,  issue,  so  this 
and  other  matters  had  to  be  slighted  any  way.  I  here  give  a  quota- 
tion from  the  New  York  Sitn,  which  expresses  my  own  view  of  the 
Hanna-Roosevelt  case  perfectly,  and  so  will  leave  dome'stic  politics 
for  the  present. 

"When  Mr.  Roosevelt  succeeded  to  the  Presidency,  Mark 
Hanna  gave  him  his  ungrudging  support.  The  President's  gen- 
erous impulse  when  he  pledged  himself  to  carry  out  the  policies  of 
William  McKinley  won  his  heart,  and  he  proclaimed  his  stanch 
adherence  to  Mr.  Roosevelt's  fortunes  so  long  as  he  should  adhere 
to  that  course.  He  kept  his  word.  But  when  he  found  that  Mr. 
Roosevelt  had  forgotten  all  about  the  promise  so  dramatically  and 
so  effectively  uttered  at  Buffalo  and  had  no  other  thought  but  to 
convert  the  whole  power  of  his  great  office  to  securing  his  own 
nomination,  then  Mark  Hanna  halted.  He  saw  the  Constitution 
relegated  to  limbo,  the  Bill  of  Rights  ignored,  lawlessness  pro- 
pitiated, class  arrayed  against  class,  unrest  and  distrust  succeed 
where  had  been  peace  and  confidence,  and  the  patronage  dispensed 
with  an  eye  single  for  what  it  would  secure.  These  and  many  other 
things  he  saw ;  and  in  common  with  all  patriotic  Republicans,  and 
all  men  of  sound  principles  and  good  sense,  he  deeply  deplored 
them.  And  Mark  Hanna  no  longer  adhered  to  Mr.  Roosevelt. 
He  thought  he  was  not  a  safe  man  to  be  entrusted  with  the  duties 
of  the  President  of  the  United  States.  He  did  not  know  what  he 
might  not  do  when  he  entered  upon  the  Presidency  for  another 
four  years  with  none  of  the  restraints  upon  him  that  the  necessity 
of  being  elected  might  impose  or  his  consciousness  of  inherited 
obligations  entail.  He  thought  Mr.  Roosevelt's  candidacy  implied 
a  condition  of  uncertainty,  if  not  of  actual  peril,  to  which  the  coun- 
try ought  not  to  be  exposed.     And  Mark  Hanna  held  aloof.    .    .    . 

"We  doubt  if  he  at  any  time  in  these  later  years  harbored  any 
serious  ambition  toward  the  Presidency.    He  felt  that  he  was  physi- 


0  THE  GLOBE. 

cally  unequal  to  either  the  campaign  or  the  duties  of  the  office.  If 
he  survived  the  former,  he  said,  he  could  not  hope  to  live  through 
or  even  adequately  discharge  the  functions  of  the  latter.  The  one 
desire  of  his  was  that  the  right  man  should  be  chosen  for  it,  a  man 
morally  and  intellectually  fitted  for  so  great  a  trust  and  one  who  by 
education,  training,  and  experience  had  developed  a  character  in 
consonance  with  the  Constitution  and  with  the  established  theory 
of  our  Government.  That  Mark  Hanna,  had  he  lived  and  had  the 
strength  been  spared  to  him,  would  have  fought  for  to  the  last 
ditch.  And  Mark  Hanna  would  have  won.  He  would  have 
averted  a  great  peril  from  his  party  and  guided  it  into  safer  places 
than  it  can  now  discern." 


March  19th. — By  reason  of  my  illness  the  March  Globe  is  late, 
and  smaller  than  usual.  On  March  i8th  I  received  from  Rev. 
Father  Tuohy  the  following  clipping  from  the  New  York  Sun: 

"Portland^  Me.,  Feb.  17. — Replying  to  a  rumor,  which  appar- 
ently originated  in  New  York,  that  the  Right  Rev.  William  H. 
O'Connell,  Bishop  of  Portland,  had  given  Cardinal  Merry  del  Val 
1,000  lire  to  help  equip  a  Spanish  ship,  the  Bishop  said  to-night : 

"The  report  is  a  lying  calumny.  Its  purpose  is  clear.  I  cannot 
waste  precious  time  in  following  impersonal  *it  is  saids.'  From 
such  rascality  and  cowardly  thrusts  in  the  dark  no  one  is  safe, 
neither  Pope,  nor  President,  Bishop  nor  Civil  Governor.  But  I 
shall  prosecute  to  the  full  extent  of  the  law,  if  I  can  find  him,  the 
originator  or  the  propagator  of  this  vile  lie." 

The  clipping,  like  all  the  Sun  rays,  is  clear,  but  it  leaves  his 
lordship,  the  Bishop  of  Portland,  Maine,  in  a  threatening  position, 
hardly  becoming  an  ecclesiastic.  I  knew  nothing  or  remembered 
nothing  as  to  the  fact,  and  did  not  dream  that  the  Maine  man  was 
after  me  or  the  Globe.  Father  Touhy  was  kind  enough  to  add 
the  following  comment,  which  seems  to  indicate  that  Bishop 
O'Connell  may  not  be  as  mad  as  he  seems  to  be,  and  that  he  cer- 
tainly is  not  as  ignorant  of  the  facts  as  he  pretends  to  be.  I  had 
utterly  forgotten  that  his  lordship  was  ever  mentioned  in  the 
Globe  Review.  I  am  not  now  able  to  do  the  matter  justice,  but 
here  is  Father  Tuohy's  comment : 

"I  notice  in  N.  Y.  Sun  recently  the  enclosed  clipping.  This 
clipping  refers  to  the  'Innominato'  article,  'Sidelights  on  Recent 
Church  History,'  which  the  Globe,  No.  XLIV,  Dec,  1901,  pub- 
lished. As  the  facts  relating  to  the  'cruiser'  are  true  and  his  Lord- 
ship of  Portland  knows  that  they  are  true,  and  perhaps  now  in  his 
'campaign'  for  the  Coadjutorship  of  Boston  feels  the  force  of  the 
truth  of  the  'cruiser'  story,  he  makes  this  'bluff.'  The  story  has 
for  its  basis  the  authority  of  a  recently  promoted  monseigneur  of 
the  New  York  Archdiocese,  who  told  it  to  me  at  the  time,  before  a 


GLOBE  NOTES.  97 

witness,  one  of  New  York's  prominent  rectors;  the  story  was 
repeated  several  times  after  it  was  published  in  the  Globk 

''Again,  a  corroborative  point  showing  the  inconvenient  truth,  is 
the  story  that  has  all  along  been  known  to  the  good  Bishop.  It 
was  widely  known  and  spoken  of  in  New  England  at  the  time. 
He  overhauled,  called  out  of  his  name,  a  prominent  rector  of 
Boston  for  having  ventured  to  ask  whether  he  had  seen  the  Globe. 
So  his  denial  at  this  time  is  rather  belated. 

''Again,  another  powerful  point.  Last  summer,  when  I  was  in 
Rome,  I  met,  among  others,  a  well-known  American  correspond- 
ent. The  'cruiser'  matter  came  up.  He  stated  it  exactly  as  the 
Globe  related  it.  When  I  showed  surprise  that  an  official  would 
make  such  an  outrageous  diplomatic  blunder,  this  correspondent 
said  he,  since  he  knew  the  man,  was  not  at  all  surprised.  This 
story  then  was  related  in  detail  to  me  in  the  presence  of  two  other 
witnesses.  I  have  sent  a  communication  to  the  N.  Y.  Sun,  embody- 
ing this  statement  of  facts.  In  the  statement  I  do  not  mention 
names,  but  in  a  confidential  letter  I  state  the  names  of  all  these 
witnesses,  the  correspondent,  etc.,  etc.  So  far  the  Sun  has  not 
given  the  communication.  But  it  was  sent  in  only  late  last  week. 
It  appears  over  the  nom-de-plume  'Veritas.'  You  may  if  you 
think  well  of  it,  embody  this  in  a  'Note,'  or  if  there  be  time,  I  may 
write  something  upon  it.'* 
****** 

I  will  send  Bishop  O'Connell  a  copy  of  this  March  Globe,  so 
that  he  may  no  longer  remain  in  assumed  ignorance  as  to  the 
source  or  sources  of  what  he  foolishly  calls  a  "vile  lie."  I  am 
usually  to  be  found  at  home  at  the  address  given  on  the  first  cover 
of  the  Globe,  and  though  not  well  of  late,  growing  old  and  no 
longer  inclined  to  fight  anybody,  we  would  not  mind  putting  on 
the  gloves  with  an  amusing  gentleman  like  his  Lordship,  Bishop 
O'Connell,  of  Portland.  Maine. 


At  the  date  of  this  writing,  March  17th,  the  entire  country  is 
about  as  evenly  divided  as  to  the  ruling  of  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court  on  the  merger  question  as  the  judges  themselves 
were  divided  when  they  reached  and  published  their  conclusion.  I 
accept  and  approve  the  opinion  and  reasoning  of  the  minority.  I 
think  the  opinion  and  ruling  the  majority,  which,  if  held  to,  will 
destroy  the  merger,  is  about  as  good  law  as  it  would  be  for  the 
five  justices  to  start  out  on  a  mission  of  highway  robbery  and  then 
induce  Roosevelt  to  approve  and  commend  their  action  as  lawful, 
constitutional  and  patriotic ;  but  I  am  not  able  to  write  on  this  or 
on  any  other  subject  in  this  number  of  the  Globe  with  my  old- 
time  clearness  and  vigfor. 


98 


THE  GLOBE, 


Maybe  the  old  strength  will  come  back  to  me,  maybe  not.  In 
any  case  the  subscribers  to  the  Globe;  will  be  kept  informed.  Mean- 
while I  shall  be  much  obliged  if  all  delinquents  will  forward  the 
amounts  they  are  owing  me,  and  the  many  who  are  always  prompt 
may  be  as  generous  as  they  are  inclined. 

William  Henry  Thorne:. 


THE  GLOBE. 

NO.  LIV. 


JUNE,  1904. 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LITERATURE. 


For  more  than  twenty  years  I  have  had  it  in  mind  to  write  a 
series  of  papers  or  a  book  on  the  Philosophy  of  Literature.  I  have 
hoped  for  leisure,  while  health  and  strength  lasted  to  begin,  if  not 
to  finish  the  work.  Leisure  I  have  ceased  to  hope  for,  and  have 
thought  it  best  to  begin  the  undertaking  while  what  strength  I  have 
remains,  or,  like  the  sunshine  or  the  tide  ebbs  and  flows,  as  the 
years  go  steadily  on. 

In  this  issue  I  shall  hardly  attempt  more  than  a  general  introduc- 
tion to  the  theme;  a  more  or  less  lucid  statement  of  it,  with  such 
reasonable  suggestions  as  may  perhaps  win  the  minds  and  atten- 
tion if  not  the  conviction  of  such  as  may  be  prepared  to  receive 
the  truth. 

Most  of  our  modern  writers  of  any  extensive  reading  and 
thought  are  too  modern,  too  physically  scientific  and  wedded  to 
narrow  views  of  all  spiritual  and  mental  phenomena  to  give  any 
comprehensive  and  illuminative,  not  to  say  inspiring  view  of  world- 
literature  or  the  philosophy  of  the  same.  Whenever  clerical  stud- 
ents of  the  lectures  on  literature  given  in  our  American  Colleges 
and  Universities  have  spoken  to  me  on  the  subject  they  have 
promptly  volunteered  the  remark  that  while  the  lectures  of  A.  B. 
C.  or  D.  were  clever,  or  l>eautiful,  or  prett}',  or  pedagogic  and 
sometimes  amusing,  as  to  anything  like  a  world  view  of  the  phil- 
osophy of  world  literature,  it  was  not  dreamed  of  or  attempted 
by  said  professor,  and  simply  for  the  reason  that  the  gentleman 
had  'plainly  never  comprehended  the  subject  and  therefore  could 
not  teach  it  in  a  million  lectures  from  now  till  doomsday. 

Of  course,  I  am  familiar  with  the  brilliant  work  of  M.  Taine 
and  others  with  sharp-eyed  rhetoric,  squinting  at  certain  sections 


loo  THE  GLOBE. 

of  world  literature,  in  England,  France,  Germany,  Spain,  Italy  and 
other  ancient  and  modern  nations,  but  not  one  of  these  has  at- 
tempted or  contemplated  a  grouping  of  the  whole  vast  thought  of 
man,  nor  attempted  to  expound  any  general  law  of  growth  or  evo- 
lution in  the  same;  and  as  for  our  so-called  American  literature 
of  Walt  Whitman,  Howells  &  Co.,  it  is  like  Topsy  in  Uncle  Tom — 
it — spelled  with  a  small  i  if  you  please,  simply  "growed  up"  out 
of  the  ground,  most  of  it  out  of  the  sand  lots  or  out  of  the  mud 
of  imbecility  and  depravity. 

I  have  been  working  on  the  literary  farm  for  over  fifty  years, 
and  it  is  my  judgment  that  only  a  true  Catholic  writer  can  throw 
much  light  on  the  subject,  and  that  it  is  time  some  of  us,  instead 
of  rehashing  worn  out  dogmas,  were  trying  to  open  this  theme  to 
the  eyes  of  mankind.  In  the  beginning,  from  eternity,  was  the 
word  and  the  word  was  with  God  and  the  word  was  God.  All 
things  were  made  via  the  word.  It  ever  has  been,  is  now,  and  ever 
will  be  the  perpetually  uttering  utterance  or  revealibilityof  the  other- 
wise inconceivable  and  incomprehensible  eternal  spiritual  force  or 
power  or  Being  the  ancients  have  called  by  a  score  of  names  and 
what  wx  call  God.  Without  him  never  a  word  was  spoken  by  God 
or  man.  He  is  and  ever  has  been  the  vocal  and  active  generating 
force  or  radium  of  the  boundless  universe  of  soul  and  being  of 
matter  and  force,  of  all  forces,  without  beginning  or  end  of  days 
and  years.  He  hath  ever  spoken  as  the  voice  of  the  Eternal  and 
the  deed,  every  deed  was  done,  is  still  done  and  ever  will  be  done 
as  it  was  in  the  beginning,  is  now,  and  ever  shall  be  world  without 
end.  Without  the  word,  all  nations  would  still  be  worshipping  the 
"unknown  God,"  but  the  word  was  made  flesh,  born  of  a  woman, 
dwells  among  us;  we  have  beheld  alike  His  suffering  and  His 
glory;  both  shone  upon  us,  the  glory  of  one  who  being  Hke  unto 
God,  thought  it  not  robbery  to  claim  true  and  eternal  sonship,  at 
last  revealed  by  the  spirit  of  His  boundless  love,  for  the  true  God  is 
love  as  well  as  law ;  and  the  word  of  God  which  ever  has  been  and 
ever  will  be  as  speech  to  the  soul,  hath  revealed  Him,  is  ever  more 
and  more  revealing  Him,  and  must  and  will  do  so  more  and  more 
till  the  end ;  till  we  all  see  eye  to  eye  and  are  one  with  Him  in  the 
Eternal  God. 

I  am  not  speaking  of  the  Alexandrian  School  of  Philosophical 
Theology,  nor  of  Catholic  Theology.  I  am  not  a  dogmatist.  I  am 
speaking  of  the  true  and  essential  relationship  of  the  revealed  word 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LITER  A  TURE.  loi 

of  God,  the  Unknown  as  the  only  voice  and  method  of  making 
Him  known,  and  of  the  certainty  of  the  evolution  and  radium  of 
this  word  of  the  eternal,  till  all  shall  know  Him  perfectly,  from 
the  least  to  the  greatest,  till  the  soul  of  His  soul,  which  is  purest 
and  most  comprehensive  and  self-denying  perfect  love,  concen- 
trated in  those  most  perfectly  ruled  by  the  eternal  spirit  of  love, 
shall  rule  the  earth  as  the  perfected  sons  of  God  in  Christ  Jesus. 
There  not  only  was  no  other  way  of  making  the  Eternal  and  in- 
comprehensible known  to  finite  minds,  as  ours,  but  there  never  was 
possible  another  method  of  revealing  or  imparting  the  Eternal  God 
to  man  and  dominating  the  soul  and  life  of  man  in  the  ideal  divine 
and  yet  perfect  and  simple  justice  and  truth  of  the  just  and  true 
and  perfect  Deity,  ruling  forever  in  the  boundless  universe.  The 
word  hath  revealed  all  this  in  Him,  and  will  make  it  so  plain  that 
every  wayfaring  man,  though  a  fool,  cannot  err  therein.  The  word 
is  at  the  heart  of  things — at  the  heart  of  God  and  is  also  ever  His 
message  in  and  through  all  the  spheres  and  realms  of  science  and 
law  and  the  perfect  all  conveying  and  immortal  love.  Not  every 
Pope  has  known  this  and  not  every  Bishop  knows  it  now.  . 

The  word  in  its  amplified  and  widest  sense  is  the  literature  of 
God,  the  light  that  always  was  on  sea  and  land  at  last  made  vocal 
and  swelling  into  all  creeds,  all  songs,  all  music,  all  symphonies, 
all  art,  all  speech,  the  confusions  and  the  final  unities  of  thought 
uttered  in  infinite  varieties  of  speech,  and  song,  till  all  the  re- 
deemed are  gathered  and  taught  the  hymns  of  the  ages,  the  faith 
of  the  Christian,  the  worship  of  the  incarnate  and  eternal  word, 
still  living  and  blessing  and  helping  all  souls  on  the  altars  of  our 
churches  where  the  righteous  kneel ;  the  Word  made  flesh,  trans- 
substantiated  into  the  flesh  of  life,  the  concentrated  love  of  God. 

As  the  word  is,  so  the  soul  is  in  God  and  in  man.  Our  central 
and  vivifying  thought  or  truth  therefore  is  this,  that  the  word  of 
man,  the  literature  of  man,  of  nations,  of  the  wide  world  and  the 
ages,  all  literatures  of  men  and  nations  are  the  expressions  of  the 
souls  of  said  men  and  nations  from  beginning  until  now.  The 
speech  of  the  race  is  the  mirror  of  the  race.  Speech  is  to  the  soul 
of  man,  what  the  incarnate  Word  of  God  was  and  forever  remains 
to  the  soul  of  God. 

Speech  or  literature  is  the  revelation  of  the  soul  of  mankind. 
Speech  the  most  perfect  revelation  possible  of  the  soul  of  mankind. 
Music,  harmony,  melody  are  but  phases  of  the  universal  literature 


lOB  THE  GLOBE 

of  the  human  soul.  Jesus  spoke  the  language  of  God.  Shakespeare 
spoke  the  language  of  the  hidden  soul  of  the  human  race.  Wagner 
caught  the  meanings  of  the  same  spirit  of  humanity  and  uttered  it 
in  song.  All  are  revealers  of  their  respective,  otherwise  unrevealed 
soul,  but  the  plainest  of  these  is  the  Word,  the  literature  of  God 
and  the  literature  of  humanity. 

Without  any  lack  of  respect  for  any  phase  of  art  or  music,  I  am 
here  claiming  that  the  word  of  man,  the  literature  of  man  is  the 
most  perfect,  the  fullest,  the  completest  expression  of  the  soul  of 
mankind,  that  nothing  else,  no  single  phase  of  any  art  or  song  or 
worship  can  compare  with  the  simple  word  of  man  as  the  fullest 
revelation  of  the  soul  of  man,  of  mankind,  as  the  Word  of  God  was 
the  completest  and  final  revelation  of  the  soul  of  God.  The  in- 
visible things  of  Him,  from  the  creation  of  the  word,  from  nature, 
the  heavens  and  the  earth,  the  mountains  and  the  valleys  and  the 
rivers  and  the  seas,  were  clearly  seen  and  are  to  this  day  so  that 
the  atheist  is  without  excuse,  but  only  in  and  through  the  eternal 
Word  of  God  become  flesh  and  dwelling  among  us,  are  these  depths 
and  heights  of  the  eternal  love  of  the  eternal  God,  made  known 
unto  mankind,  and  only  by  Ministry  of  the  Holy  Spirit  of  love  are 
these  applied  to  and  evolved  in  the  varying  spirits  of  men  in  all 
nations  and  ages  of  the  world. 

My  soul  has  ever  responded  to  the  faintest  touch  of  music,  as 
the  finest  harp  to  the  vibrant  air.  Every  touch  of  true  art  wins 
my  immediate  admiration,  but  with  the  utter  confusions  of  belief 
in  our  modern  times  the  foolish  critics  are  applying  the  language 
of  the  battlefield  to  the  dreams  of  love — the  language  of  music,  the 
tones  of  spirit  forces,  to  the  colors  of  the  rainbow,  so  that  in  truth, 
a  pedantic  mechanic  like  Whistler  was  in  some  sense  needed  to 
call  his  work  simply  "black  and  white,"  etc.,  etc.,  for  our  critics 
are  mostly  sentimental  and  unseeing  clowns.  It  may  be  still  better 
as  we  have  done  to  speak  of  music  and  art  in  all  lines  as  having  a 
language  of  their  own  and  acting  as  aids  and  abettors  of  the  ver- 
nacular speech  of  every  man  and  nation  as  the  true  and  perfect 
manifestation  of  the  soul  of  mankind.  But  speech  or  literature  is 
not  the  flimsy  thing  that  a  famous  Bishop  has  defined  it,  that  is, 
as  an  entertainment  for  children;  it  is  rather  a  revelation  of  the 
troubled  or  cheerful,  or  doubting,  or  believing,  and  triumphant  and 
victorious  soul  of  man,  and  finally  of  mankind.  The  reason  why 
so  many  writers  and  writings  are  so  verv  foolish  is  at  heart  that 


p 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  LITERA  TURK.  103 

said  writers  have  nothing  worth  saying  to  say,  hence  they  disport 
themselves  as  children  or  as  lambs  or  puppies.  But  let  us  keep 
close  to  our  theme. 

The  literature  of  mankind  is  precisely  the  same  sort  of  revelation 
of  the  quality  and  character  of  mankind  as  the  Word  God  in  Christ 
Jesus  was  a  revelation  of  the  soul  of  the  Eternal  God ;  Literature 
being  thus  a  perpetual  revelation  of  soul,  the  quality,  the  character, 
the  changing  mood,  the  belief  or  unbelief  or  the  variety  and  kind 
of  beliefs  of  men  and  nations  at  any  and  every  particular  era  of  the 
world's  history  it  becomes  clear  that  the  literatures  of  nations  are 
the  perfect  revelations  of  the  minds,  the  art,  the  worship  of  nations, 
revealing  therefore  the  exact  quality  and  character  of  the  soul  and 
mind  of  nations ;  and  in  every  separate  era  of  the  world's  history, 
therefore  of  the  comparative  evolution  of  the  soul  of  mankind 
from  the  beginning  until  the  latest  hours. 

In  the  face  of  this  conception  will  arise  clouds  of  darkness,  doubt 
and  storm,  so  varied  are  the  minds  of  men,  of  races  and  of  nations. 

But  there  is  a  true  law  of  comparative  structure  of  sentences  and 
of  souls  and  the  meaning  of  the  same.  No  sane  and  cultured  man 
will  mistake  the  spirit  and  utterance  of  Jesus  for  the  spirit  and  ut- 
terances of  Buddha,  of  Zoroaster  or  the  Prophets  of  any  ancient  na- 
tions. No  sane  and  cultured  man  has  ever  mistaken  the  language 
of  William  Shakespeare  for  the  utterances  of  Lord  Bacon ;  only 
untaught,  uncultured  clowns  make  such  blunders  as  these.  Only 
men  who  have  studied  the  literatures  of  nations  can  have  any  true 
conception  of  the  comparative  position  and  status  of  said  litera- 
tures, whatever  may  be  the  varieties  of  the  same.  A  clown,  like 
Mark  Twain,  has  no  right  to  an  opinion  as  to  the  comparative 
value  of  the  literature  of  a  gentleman  like  Walter  Scott.  We  must 
get  away  from  our  notions  of  equality  or  genius,  and  the  spirit  of 
God  Himself  is  swamped  in  the  bottomless  pit  of  our  stupid  lies. 

Spite  of  all  our  boasted  knowledge  of  the  so-called  science  of 
comparative  anatomy,  I  believe  that  no  modern  Dean  of  Medical 
Faculty  has  yet  constructed  a  satisfactory  and  finished  statue  of 
the  Venus  of  Milo,  and  there  were  arts  and  scientific  knowledge 
of  all  kinds  among  the  ancients  that  we  have  never  found  and  are 
now  only  trying  to  fish  for  among  the  ruins  of  buried  capitals,  tem- 
ples and  the  households  of  buried  kings  and  nations. 

My  general  plan  in  this  work  was  to  reproduce  in  limited  quota- 
tion the  best,  the  highest  literary  expressions  of  the  poetic,  historic, 


104  THE  GLOBE, 

dramatic  and  religious  or  so-called  inspired  literatures  of  all  na- 
tions and  peoples  of  the  earth  up  to  this  hour,  and  by  most  careful 
contrast  and  comparison,  following  only  the  accepted  universal 
laws  of  criticism  and  the  universal  consent  of  mankind,  to  point 
out  in  what  respects  the  highest  utterances  of  Christian  writers 
from  St.  Paul  to  Carlyle,  have  differed  from  and  will  forever  differ 
from  the  best  Pagan  utterances  in  all  ages;  then  to  show  that 
though  by  finest  degrees  as  the  light  of  dawn  spreads  over  the 
heavens  and  the  earth  the  conclusion  reached  relative  to  a  certain 
and  absolute  superiority  of  the  best  of  Christian  writers  over  all 
ages  of  the  world,  as  confirmed  also  by  a  scientific  study  of  the 
comparative  physiognomy  of  the  ages  and  nations  of  mankind,  so 
that  though  Emerson  and  Washington  and  Carlyle  and  Ruskin 
and  Newman  and  Leo  XIII  and  Moltke  and  Frederick  the  Great 
and  Hugo  and  Napoleon  and  Goethe  and  Schiller  and  Dante  and 
Tasso,  back  to  John  and  Paul,  as  the  typical  faces  of  Christian  cul- 
ture do,  all  things  considered,  represent  a  sure,  though  slow  ad- 
vance in  and  toward  the  realms  of  God  and  truth  and  honor  and 
culture  of  the  finest  and  supremest  kind.  But  I  am  not  now  able 
to  do  justice  to  this  theme. 

In  recent  quotations  in  popular  American  Journals  of  the  utter- 
ances of  popular  and  so-called  American  statesmen,  called  by  us  the 
merest  politicians,  I  have  seen  such  utterances  as  these,  that  in 
the  middle  ages  and  back  of  these  to  Calvary  and  that  in  spite  of 
Christ's  word  that  has  transformed  and  is  revolutionizing  the 
world,  war  was  the  only  profession  open  to  human  ambition  and  to 
possiDle  greatness;  such  is  the  narrow  sighted,  untaught  folly  of 
the  representative  men  of  these  last  American  days. 

With  time  and  health  I  can  trace  the  words  and  faces  and  deeds 
of  men  and  women  through  all  our  Christian  ages  that  would  cast 
in  shadow,  if  not  in  shame,  the  deeds  of  any  warrior  the  world  has 
ever  known ;  men  and  women  who  by  their  deeds  of  heroism  and 
duty  and  modesty,  in  obedience  to  the  law  of  Christ  have  kindled 
the  summits  of  time  and  eternity  with  a  brilliance  brighter  than 
the  brightest  rays  of  the  sun,  showing  in  their  souls  a  subdued,  yet 
acting  and  conscious  power  able  to  rule  nations,  lead  armies  and 
teach  the  philosophies  which  their  beautiful  lives  have  exemplified. 
No  career  on  this  earth  but  war  and  politics ;  feed  both  profes- 
sions to  the  devil  their  father  and  the  world  would  still  be  full  of 
the  noblest  souls  that  have  ever  lived  and  made  the  race  immortal 
by  words  and  deeds  of  love,  endurance  and  victory. 


I 


MODERN  SECULARISM,  105 

The  Philosophy  of  Literature  is  a  marshahng  of  facts  to  find 
their  laws.  By  some  such  arrangement  as  I  have  indicated  can  the 
philosophy  of  the  infinite  utterances  of  the  human  soul  be  found. 
When  it  is  found  that  all  competent  men  agree  as  to  the  superior 
quality  of  certain  utterances  as  developing  and  coming  from  a  su- 
perior order  of  soul  or  mind,  and  again,  as  developing  a  certain 
superiority  of  face  and  life  in  men  and  in  nations  we  are  getting 
to  such  a  law  of  the  qualities  of  words,  faces,  souls  and  lives  as 
gives  us  the  law  of  growth,  of  evolution,  of  the  survival  of  the 
fittest  and  we  begin  to  understand  the  true  meaning  of  the  Apostle 
who  saw  and  said  He — that  is,  the  Eternal — maketh  all  things  to 
work  together  for  good  tc  them  that  love  God. 

Also  we  begin  to  see  into  the  truth  of  the  old  saying — there  is 
a  divinity  that  shapes  our  ends,  rough  hew  them  how  we  will. 

The  mere  asserter  of  ignorant  falsehood  must  down.  It  is  not, 
however,  by  the  assertion  of  the  law  of  authority  of  any  church 
that  the  modern  fool  will  down.  Kindle  the  light  and  fan  it  into 
flames  that  burn  into  his  eye  balls,  into  conviction  that  you  have  the 
scientific  truth  of  the  world  and  he  may  believe  you  even  though 
he  may  be  an  American  Funston  or  a  Senator  Lodge. 

WiLiviAM  Henry  Thorne. 


MODERN  SECULARISM. 


Secularism  has  its  own  place.  The  Master  himself  said,  ''Ren- 
der unto  Caesar  the  things  that  are  Caesar's."  But  the  question 
now-a-days  presses  insistently,  *'What  are  Caesar's  things?"  be- 
cause he  seems  to  be  claiming  the  whole.  He  is  becoming  a  sort 
of  Briareus,  or,  as  they  say  of  the  Trusts,  an  Octopus. 

Caesar,  in  the  direct  context  of  the  Divine  saying,  plainly  meant 
the  civil  government  of  the  day — the  power  of  Rome,  as  shown 
in  her  tax-gathering.  Therefore,  say  the  men  of  our  day,  politics 
and  government  belong  to  Caesar.  Yet  the  Christian  who  really 
followed  Christ,  was  not  permitted  by  Him  to  do  a  wrong  thing, 
even  to  please  secular  Rome.    It  was  to  be  martyrdom,  rather.  And 


io6  THE  GLOBE. 

His  early  followers  thus  understood  it.  The  doubt  is,  whether  or 
no  it  is  thus  understood,  to-day. 

Yet  secular  affairs,  properly  speaking,  are  neutral.  Taxes  and 
public  roads,  in  Ancient  Rome,  railway  franchises  and  Govern- 
ment Budgets  in  England  and  America  at  the  present  time  are  fair 
examples.  There  is  also  a  wide  world  of  things — artistic,  musical, 
social  and  literary — which  are  claimed  as  neutral  and  purely  secular 
by  the  general  public  in  our  own  day,  yet  over  which  the  Church 
in  years  past  exercised  close  supervision,  so  far  as  her  own  mem- 
bers were  concerned.  These,  at  present,  form  a  sort  of  Debatable 
Land,  because  the  attitude  of  religionists  towards  them  affects  the 
general  situation. 

Besides  these  we  have  the  world  of  commerce  and  manufacture, 
that  of  agricultural  production  and  mining,  and  the  world  of 
finance  closely  bound  up  with  all  these.  Secular  interests  these 
surely  are,  though  not  governmental,  but  conducted  by  private  en- 
terprise. Here  the  Church  has  no  hand  at  all  in  the  game,  ex- 
cept as  she  may  rule  the  consciences  of  men.  This  she  finds  it 
increasing  difficulty  to  do  and  Caesar,  on  the  whole,  seems  get- 
ting more  than  his  own. 

Still  another  class  of  things  confronts  us,  which  had  no  place  in 
Caesar's  day,  the  world  of  benevolent  operation.  This  is  the  pe- 
culiar glory  of  Christianity,  radiating  the  divine  sweetness  and 
love  of  its  Fouiider.  Yet,  even  here,  the  spirit  and  power  of  secu- 
larism grows  more  and  more  dominant.  Hospitals,  for  instance, 
are  sometimes  religious  in  character,  but  far  more  frequently  mere 
public  institutions.  So  with  schools,  orphan  homes,  and  the  like. 
Caesar  is  in  control,  the  Christ-work  forming  but  a  side  issue. 

All  this  and  much  more  is  meant  when  the  newspapers  discuss 
''The  Secular  Tendencies  of  the  Age." 

Take  the  matter  of  civil  and  military  authority  under  whatever 
form  may  be,  monarchy,  republican,  despotism  or  oligarchy.  One 
thing  is  certain,  government  should  be  good  government,  well  ad- 
ministered, safeguarding  the  governed  and  upholding  sound  mor- 
als, to  the  end  of  solid  general  prosperity.  Fraud,  oppression, 
bribery  and  the  like,  defeat  this  end.  Righteous  government  but 
imitates,  in  its  feeble,  earthly  way,  the  righteous  sovereigntv  of 
God.  Caesar's  power  is  decreed  of  Heaven.  It  can  be  over- 
thrown instantly,  when  such  is  the  Divine  Will.  Do  Americans, 
as  a  whole,  perceive  this?  Or  do  they  only  see  the  weakness  of 
secular  forces,  when  death,  disaster  or  assassination  supervene? 


MODERN  SECULARISM,  107 

Their  indifference  to  wrong-doing  in  affairs  social  and  public 
seems  to  indicate  that  they  divorce,  in  their  own  minds,  these  sec- 
ular things  wholly  from  the  Divine,  as  if  the  sceptre  had  been  taken 
from  God  and  given  to  Caesar.  If  kings,  or  Presidents,  or  party 
leaders  happen  to  be  pious  Antonines,  so  far,  so  good.  But  if  they 
are  bad,  their  henchmen  bad  and  their  methods  bad,  no  indignation 
rises ;  it  is  a  secular  matter,  one  is  told. 

This  decay  of  the  moral  sense  on  the  part  of  the  public  consti- 
tutes the  greater  peril.  The  good  Caesar  is  the  product  of  a  good 
Rome.  Whenever  plebs  and  patricians,  the  upper  and  lower 
classes,  as  we  fluently  phrase  it,  are  united  in  staunch  support  of 
integrity  Caesar  becomes  a  noble  ruler ;  otherwise,  we  get  a  Tam- 
many politician. 

Calm  observers,  everywhere,  bear  testimony  to  this  moral  apathy. 
Rev.  N.  D.  Hillis,  of  Plymouth  Church,  Brooklyn,  recently  uttered 
the  disquieting  opinion  that  the  day  of  positive  convictions  and 
ardent  advocacy  of  the  same  had  passed  in  this  country  and  that 
the  present  ethical  and  spiritual  lethargy  was  appalli-.g  in  its  sig- 
nificance. Much  the  same  tone  pervades  Mr.  Bliss  Perry's  article 
in  the  Atlantic  on  the  indifferentism  of  the  times. 

''More  recently,  "  says  Harpers  Weekly,  in  a  late  issue,  "have 
come  startling  revelations  as  to  venality  in  Federal,  State  and  Mu- 
nicipal governments  and  the  relative  apathy  of  the  people  respect- 
ing these  crimes,  juries  failing  to  convict  unless  the  evidence  is 
overwhelming,  and  voters  continuing  the  venal  bosses  and  their 
hirelings  in  power."  Proof  of  such  things  daily  accumulates  and 
the  assertion  thereof  is,  by  no  means,  ''pessimism." 

Closely  interwoven  with  this  question  of  government  are  the 
commercial  and  financial  interests  of  nations.  Here,  in  the  United 
States,  the  irresponsible  one  man  power  proceeding  from  im- 
mense wealth,  has  brought  a  real  danger.  Thirst  for  wealth  and 
thirst  for  power  have  reached  the  point  of  delirium.  This  has  been 
ably  discussed  in  a  recent  paper  by  David  G.  Phillips,  in  Every- 
body's Magazine.  He  declares  that  John  G.  Rockefeller  was  "the 
original  exploiter  of  vast  irresponsible  power,  the  original  indus- 
trial victim  of  the  madness  of  too  much  power."  He  has  been  the 
model  for  thousands.  Every  town  that  has  an  organization  of  any 
one  man  has  a  faint  imitation  of  Rockefeller. 

But  when  any  one  man  or  any  cluster  of  men,  organized  into 


io8  THE  GLOBE. 

either  company,  trust  or  corporation,  has  power  to  control  legisla- 
tures and  legislation  and  override  the  proper  restraints  imposed 
by  these,  the  rights  and  interests  of  the  j^ublic  are  in  jeopardy. 
And,  if  the  public  condones  the  wrong,  so  much  the  worse  all 
round. 

Mr.  Phillips  brings  the  following  spirited  indictment: — "Take 
Addicks  and  Delaware, — a  sovereign  State  the  door-mat  for  the 
muddy  boots  of  a  carpet-bagger.  Take  Montana,  distracted  and 
debauched  by  the  fights  of  rival  copper  kings,  who  shamelessly  buy 
not  only  legislatures,  but  also  courts.  Take  Piatt,  the  agent  of  the 
big  New  York  State  corporations,  and  in  his  arrogance  he  uses 
the  Republican  party  to  elect  Democrats,  that  he  may  assail  the 
ambition  of  his  sturdy  and  aggressive  young  rival,  Odell.  In  the 
cities, — there  are  Durham,  of  Philadelphia ;  Croker,  of  New  York ; 
there  are  the  ravenous  rings  which  have  been  exposed  in  St.  Louis 
and  Minneapolis,  and  so  on  through  a  long  and  humiliating  list. 
The  organizations  which  are  at  once  the  sources  of  this  kind  of 
'bosses'  and  their  instruments  are  called  political.  In  fact  they  are 
in  every  case  purely  business  enterprises,  engaged  in  the  same  in- 
dustry the  Standard  Oil  Company  is  so  successful  at,  and  the  Ship- 
building Trust  is  so  unsuccessful  at, — the  business  of  fleecing  the 
private  citizen  openly,  insolently,  with  the  Tweed  grin,  'What  are 
you  going  to  do  about  it?'  ...  .  Mr.  Rockefeller,  or  Mr.  Gould, 
or  Mr.  Morgan,  or  Mr.  Carnegie,  or  a  hundred  other  lesser  lords 
of  finance  and  trade,  wave, — or  rather  hire  expensive  and  crafty 
lawyers  to  wave, — the  magic  wand  of  organization  and  the  federal 
administration  is  helpless.  A  few  men  meet  in  an  office  in  New 
York  or  Chicago  and  prices  rise  or  fall,  and  the  law  chatters  its 
fangless  gums  and  gnaws  its  nails  in  helplessness." 

But  apart  from  the  dangers  of  millionaire  individual  or  corpo- 
rate control  of  legislation,  the  spirit  of  commercialism  grows  other- 
wise overbearing.  It  aspires  to  dictate  our  foreign  policy  as  a  na- 
tion ;  it  assumes  openly  that  ''every  man  has  his  price,"  that  integ- 
rity is  but  an  old-time  notion  and  men  who  uphold  it,  in  practice, 
are  fanatics  and  out  of  date ;  that  leaders, — Labor  leaders,  or  what 
not — can  be  bought  cheaply — to  say  nothing  of  newspaper  men; 
that  Mr.  Rockefeller  carries  his  Chicago  University  in  his  vest- 
pocket,  as  they  used  to  carry  penny  pieces,  it  being  a  mere  asset, 
like  any  other  possession,  and  wholly  at  his  disposal.  Literature, 
art,  scholarship  and  even  religion,  feel  this  purse-proud  control. 


MODERN  SECULARISM.  109 

Churches  are  built  or  not  built,  rectors  and  College  Presidents  kept 
or  dismissed  at  its  bidding.  Its  millionaire  is  sure  to  be  what  the 
Irishwoman  called  *'the  white-headed  bye  in  the  Church." 

Caesar's  image,  on  the  penny,  is  apt  to  interfere  with  the  things 
that  are  Ck)d's.  Commercialism  daily  cries  out,  "Blessed  are  the 
rich,  for  they  shall  attain  more  riches !" 

In  a  recent  issue  of  the  Atlantic  John  Graham  Brooks  says  a 
few  words  much  to  the  point.  "It  would  be  but  a  fool's  paradise," 
he  asserts,  "to  cozen  ourselves  with  the  hope  that  the  evils  of  com- 
mercialism will  much  abate  until  we  desire  other  objects  more  eag- 
erly than  we  desire  what  the  overdoing  of  commercialism  gives 
us — that  is,  the  too  long  list  of  our  materialistic  excesses ;  the  un- 
natural lust  for  bigness,  glare,  intensity,  display,  strain  and  need- 
less complication.  In  coming  days,  when  the  national  heart,  per- 
haps from  very  surfeit,  sickens  of  all  this,  and  looks  for  peace  and 
health  in  simpler  and  less  distracted  ways,  it  may  be  that  our  span 
can  be  lived  out  with  new  capacity  for  achievement  more  consist- 
ent with  serenity,  repose  and  gladness." 

Three  beautiful  possessions — serenity,  repose  and  gladness  !  Can 
any  amount  of  glare  and  show  and  tinsel  make  up  for  their  loss  ? 
Were  Caesar's  coin  piled  mountain  high,  it  could  not  buy  for  souls 
the  precious  things  that  are  God's. 

Yet  how  can  the  interests  of  Art  and  music  and  letters  be  fos- 
tered apart  from  these?  The  lack  of  serenity  and  calm  goes  far 
to  explain  our  modern  failures.  Therefore,  perhaps,  we  see  Art 
giving  way  to  clap-trap  or  even  viciousness,  as  in  the  modern 
French  school; — literature  to  the  sex- romance  and  yellow  jour- 
nalism— poetry  to  Kiplingism  and  Swinburne's  **Laus  Veneris." 
Writers  who  revel  in  the  writhings  of  passion,  dramatists  who  drag 
open  vileness  before  the  curtain  with  Ibsen  blackness  of  despair, 
perhaps,  to  enhance  its  effect  and  further  "secularize"  their  audi- 
ences— these  are  popular  men  and  highly  applauded.  The  people 
love  to  have  it  so ; — yet  the  solemn  Scripture  warning  still  recurs — 
"What  will  ye  do,  in  the  end  thereof?" 

There  has  been  a  change  in  the  moral  attitude  of  the  public. 
Formerly  all  this  was  excused,  condoned  or  palliated;  now,  it  is 
defended,  nay,  even  praised.  The  secular  voice  is  bold;  that  of 
pious  people,  so-called,  very  yielding,  suspiciously  so.  What  pastor 
would  dare  to  say,  when  all  the  world  is  running  after  some  new 
drama  known  to  be  worse  than  risky,  that  none  of  his  lambs  are  in 
the  throng? 


no 


THE  GLOBE. 


England  is  in  like  evil  case  with  ourselves,  in  these  matters.  The 
secular  conscience  there  as  here  seems  far  from  tender.  Canon  H. 
Hensley  Henson,  of  Westminster  Abbey,  recently  said  of  high 
English  society :  "For  most  of  us  it  is  not  open,  palpable  vice  that 
is  our  principal  danger,  but  just  the  quiet  worldliness,  the  decent, 
habitual  self-indulgence,  the  sustained  indifference  to  the  claims  of 
the  higher  life.  We  have  acquiesced  in  the  notion  of  an  effort- 
less, painless  discipleship  and  the  stern  agnostic  language  of  the 
Master  and  His  Apostles  has  ceased  to  disturb  or  alarm  us.  Chris- 
tianity has  come  to  fit  on  comfortably  to  the  social  conventions 
that  fill  our  lives  ;  nay,  it  is  but  one  of  those  conventions  and  w^ields 
an  authority  no  less  and  no  more." 

Now,  if  this  spirit  of  indifference  rules  the  best  of  England's 
people —  those  who  are  Christian  in  name,  at  all  events — what  must 
be  true  of  the  others — the  poor,  secular,  unchurched  masses  ? 

The  Bishop  of  Durham,  preaching  just  after  the  postponement 
of  Edward  VII's  coronation  when  he  was  so  seriously  ill,  welcomed 
the  sudden  halt  because  it  would  turn  the  attention  of  the  British 
people  to  serious  things,  to  evils  that  were  clamant,  and  would 
prove,  he  hoped  that  "under  the  blank  surface  of  indifference  to 
religion  there  still  abode  the  instinct  of  prayer." 

The  Episcopal  trumpet,  here,  has  a  very  dubious  sound. 

Secularism,  in  its  defence  of  the  things  that  are  Caesar's,  in- 
stances many  things  in  excuse  or  explanation  of  its  advanced  posi- 
tion. It  fortifies  every  point  gained.  Witness  the  action  of  Re- 
publicanism in  France  as  to  the  Religious  orders.  If  the  iirst  early 
attack  could  have  been  frustrated,  all  this  which  is  coming  now  and 
is  still  to  come,  would  have  been  avoided.  Well  organized  action 
on  the  part  of  Catholic  voters,  who  are  in  numerical  majority 
throughout  France,  as  a  whole,  would  have  accomplished  this.  But 
indifference  or  lethargy,  such  as  is  lamented  in  Great  Britain,  has 
brought  forth  its  fruit.  The  hole  in  the  dyke,  unstopped,  has 
flooded  the  land.    Caesar  wins  the  day. 

Having  thus  won  it,  he  proceeds  to  boast.  His  victory  also  en- 
courages the  forces  of  secularism  in  other  lands,  in  Italy,  Ger- 
many and  Spain. 

The  divisions  of  Christendom  are  in  his  favor.  They  amuse 
him.  In  the  Note  Book  of  the  London  News,  an  excellent 
secular  paper,  splendidly  illustrated,  Mr.  L.  F.  Austin  has  the  fol- 
lowing *'skit,"  or  squib,  on  this  matter.    "Once  upon  a  time  there 


MODERN  SECULARISM.  1 1 1 

was  a  Free  Church  divine  who  did  not  see  eye  to  eye  with  the  ma- 
jority of  Free  Church  divines  in  this  country.  He  had  an  opin- 
ion of  his  own  about  tariff  reform  or  some  other  secular  trifle.  That 
was  pretty  bad ;  but  he  made  the  case  infinitely  worse  by  going  to 
'the  Court  of  King  Edward  under  the  wing  of  the  Bishop  of  Lon- 
don.' Up  rose  a  Conscience,  many  Consciences,  and  solemnly  re- 
buked him.  A  Free  Church  divine  to  put  himself  under  the  care 
of  a  Bishop,  when  he  did  homage  to  his  Sovereign !  O  scandal ! 
O  sacrilege !  And  how  came  the  King  not  to  perceive  the  horrors 
of  this  unholy  conjunction?  He  might  have  said  privately:  'My 
dear  Bishop — a  word  in  your  ear.  Always  delighted  to  see  you, 
of  course,  but  not  with  a  member  of  an  uncanonical  denomination.' 
Then,  he  might  have  whispered  to  the  other  visitor :  'Charmed  to 
meet  you,  but  not  in  company  with  a  Bishop.  That  may  give  of- 
fence, you  know,  to  so  many  Consciences.' — But  his  Majesty  seems 
to  have  been  rather  pleased  than  otherwise  by  this  association  of 
the  Episcopalian  lion  with  the  Free  Church  lamb.    O  Erastianism !" 

Then,  this  lively  writer  runs  on  about  exaggerated  claims  of 
conscience,  as  used  in  their  own  defence  by  English  party  poli- 
ticians. "A  quaint  spectacle,"  he  declares,  "is  presented  by  the 
politicians  who  assure  you  that  they  alone  possess  the  talisman 
which  they  call  Conscience.  When  this  begins  to  operate,  it  distin- 
guishes them  sharply  from  such  earthly  creatures  as  endeavor  to 
form  a  judgment  by  facts  and  arguments.  The  talisman  lifts  its 
blessed  owners  far  above  such  a  grovelling  exercise.  Not  long  ago 
a  Judge  on  the  Bench  made  some  observations  as  to  the  bearing  of 
the  law  on  a  certain  controversy.  Up  rose  one  inspired  who  said  a 
mere  court  of  law  had  no  concern  with  a  matter  already  decided 
in  the  Court  of  Heaven.  When  asked  how  he  knew  that,  he  said  he 
had  it  on  the  authority  of  his  divinely  illuminated  Conscience. 

This  recalls  Cromwell's  Ironsides,  surrounding  him,  Bible  in 
hand,  and  proving  from  texts  that  Charles  ought  to  lose  his  head. 
Anybody  who  had  ventured  to  point  out  that  the  texts  proved  no 
such  thing  would  have  been  denounced  as  a  Malignant,  to  whom  the 
radiant  visitations  of  Conscience  were  unknown.  Perhaps  it 
would  be  shocking  to  say  that  the  talisman,  working  in  this  fashion, 
produces  more  sophistry  than  the  most  worldly  guile.  Still,  the 
spectator  who  is  no  partisan  gets  no  small  instruction  from  this 
aspect  of  our  beautiful  party  system." 

Here  we  have  some  misunderstanding  as  to  the  relations  between 


112  THE  GLOBE. 

the  things  which  are  Csesar's — things  judicial  and  secular — and 
the  power  of  Conscience,  which  is  assuredly  of  God.  But  Con- 
science cannot  decide  or  adjudicate  any  questions,  except  as  said 
conscience  be  guided,  enlightened  and  instructed. 

The  amused  and  cool  attitude  of  the  secular  mind,  as  to  these 
matters,  is  evident  in  the  whole  tone  of  the  above  and  its  conclud- 
ing sentences  deserve  special  note. 

To  the  credit  of  our  own  Tammany  politicians  be  it  said  here 
that  they  do  not  claim  to  be  conscientious.  Hypocrisy  and  bigotry 
are  not  among  their  sins. 

The  unloveliness  of  much  so-called  Christian  character  is  eagerly 
pounced  upon  by  the  secular  mind.  The  latter  does  some  hard 
hitting  at  times,  nor  is  it  always  the  "faithful"  woundingof  a  friend. 
Yet  it  makes  us  "see  oursels  as  ithers  see  us."  A  sharp  popular 
novel  represents  a  man  of  the  world,  a  great  traveler  and  not  un- 
familiar with  conflict,  as  opening  his  purse  freely  for  all  good  ob- 
jects, yet  absolutely  refusing  personal  service.  "He  was  a  man  of 
peace,"  said  Colin  Mackenzie,  "and  a  long  experience  had  shown 
him  that  there  were  no  such  quarrelsome  people  as  church  peo- 
ple when  they  attempted  to  work  together  on  behalf  of  their 
church." 

That  the  secular  spirit  grows  more  and  more  dominant  there  is 
abundant  evidence.  A  leading  English  journal  says,  in  a  recent 
issue : — "This  has  been  a  disappointing  Lent  so  far  as  special  serv- 
ices are  concerned.  It  cannot  be  said  that  any  preaching  course 
has  attracted  exceptional  attendance  or  awakened  general  interest. 
Among  the  ablest  Lenten  sermons  were  those  of  Canon  Body,  who 
has,  however,  been  taking  rather  a  gloomy  attitude  towards  the 
problems  of  the  time.  In  one  of  his  addresses  he  remarked  that 
there  are  unmistakeable  signs  of  a  great  apostacy,  moral  and  in- 
tellectual. He  thinks  we  (the  English)  are  in  the  backwash  of  a 
great  religious  movement  and  adds  that  the  great  need  of  England 
at  the  present  time  is  a  vitalized  Church." 

But  we  do  not  need  expert  opinions  on  this  matter;  we  have 
only  to  look  about  us.  The  secular  press,  in  every  land,  finds  ample 
upholding,  the  Sunday  newspapers  with  the  rest;  the  religious 
papers  Have  a  struggle  for  life.  The  latter  often  consolidate,  when 
at  death's  door,  financially,  as  with  the  "Congregationalist  and 
Christian  World,"  the  ''Christian  at  Work  and  Evangelist" — such 
double  titles  showing  each  to  be  a  case  of  Jonah  swallowing  the 


MODERN  SECULARISM.  113 

whale  or  vice  versa.  \\\  the  Pilgrim  Commonwealth,  of  Massa- 
chusetts, Fast  Day  has  become  Patriots'  Day,  its  prayer  and  peni- 
tence exchanged  for  Caesar's  glorification.  And  this  because  its 
observance  had  come  to  mean  only  base-ball  games  and  drunken- 
ness. 

In  the  great  field  of  benevolent  effort  the  outlook  is  better,  especi- 
ally in  this  land.  We  find  Caesar  hard  at  work  for  his  helpless  sub- 
jects and  this  the  editor  of  Harper's  Weekly  deems  a  hopeful  sign. 
In  fact,  the  whole  trend  of  his  article  is  a  quiet  laudation  of  secu- 
larism, a  votive  offering  to  "the  God  of  Things  as  They  Are." 

''Self-sacrifice  and  devotion  to  a  cause,"  he  avers,  ''is  showing 
itself  in  new  ways.  Instead  of  giving  vast  sums  to  cathedrals  or 
training  schools  for  the  clergy,  as  have  men  of  the  past,  the  men  of 
to-day  are  building  universities  and  training  schools  for  artisans 
and  engineers.  Heroism  is  shown  daily  by  thousands,  not  in  the 
old  pursuit  of  arms,  but  in  the  careers  of  policeman,  fireman,  rail- 
road engineers,  electric  car  motorman.  Youth  of  fortune  and  sta- 
tion enlist,  not  to  support  a  dynasty  or  an  aristocracy,  but  to  make 
for  themselves  a  career  of  helpful  service  for  their  nation  or  mu- 
nicipality."   Secular  lay  exertion  seems  his  remedy  for  our  evils. 

In  this  land  with  its  recent  floods  of  emigrants,  Protestant  and 
Catholic,  German,  Swedish,  Italian  and  Irish — besides  uncouth 
masses  of  Russian  Jews,  Chinamen,  Japanese  and  discontented 
Armenians — we  have  a  problem  to  face  like  none  ever  seen  before 
in  the  whole  history  of  our  globe.  The  ancient  Roman  empire 
held  all  these,  to  be  sure — or  most  of  them — but  it  was  not  a  Re- 
public, nor  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Now,  religious  effort.  Cath- 
olic and  Protestant,  though  made  by  each  to  the  uttermost  for  its 
own  co-religionists,  is  inadequate  to  the  stupendous  task.  Caesar 
must  needs  put  his  shoulder  to  the  wheel :  wherefore,  to  his  credit 
be  it  said.  City  and  State  Hospitals,  almshouses  and  various  Char- 
ity institutions  abound.  But — did  not  the  Church  teach  Caesar 
all  this,  as  to  the  blessedness  of  doing  good  ?  Was  it  known  in  Pre- 
Christian  nations  ? 

Officialdom,  despite  its  great  failures,  on  the  whole  does  good 
work,  and  is  more  successful  here  than  with  the  schools.  We  must 
have  railroads,  despite  occasional  collisions ;  and  we  must  have 
public  charities.  Secular  and  religious  agencies  unite  to  better  pur- 
pose in  their  affairs ;  and  a  good  chaplain,  like  Father  Chidwick, 
of  the  ill-fated  Maine,  with  the  aid  of  good-hearted  people,  often 


114  ^^^  GLOBE. 

of  his  own  flock,  brings  sweetness  and  light  into  many  bare  and 
barren  institutions.  Unfriendly  influences  often  thwart  him  and  he 
is  sidetracked  by  secular  officials;  then,  loss  results.  Yet  here, 
more  than  elsewhere,  the  world  and  the  Church  clasp  hands,  striv- 
ing to  save  and  aid  the  Lord's  poor.  This  approaches  the  ideal  of 
*'the  Christian  State,"  as  far  as  evil  days  permits;  and,  since  the 
secular  world  may  do  good  unconsciously,  building  better  than  it 
knows,  it  may  honestly  ask  in  the  Great  Da}^ — "Lord,  when  saw  we 
Thee  athirst,  or  an-hungered,  or  sick,  or  in  prison?"  and  receive 
the  gracious  answer  "Having  ministered  to  the  least  of  these  my 
brethren,  ye  have  done  it  unto  me." 

"As  the  world  ages,"  says  Harper  s,  "Hfe  does  not  grow  simpler 
either  in  theory  or  in  practice  and  those  who  affect  to  secure  re- 
form from  current  so-called  indifferentism  by  restoration  of  primi- 
tive man's  aboriginal  conditions  of  life  are  trying  to  turn  back  the 
hands  on  Time's  dial  or  alter  the  procession  of  the  seasons." 

This  sounds  specious,  but  one  has  doubts  of  it.  The  stars  are 
glorious,  says  Goethe,  "as  on  the  first  day."  Times  and  seasons, 
ordained  of  God,  still  remain  and  still  determine  the  conditions  of 
life.  Simple  agricultural  pursuits  and  other  primitive  things  still 
remain,  since  the  world  must  be  fed.  Science  and  elegance  have 
not  eliminated  that.  The  quiet  Trappists,  tilling  their  fields  are  not 
troubled  with  indifferentism,  and  Cincinnatus,  at  his  plough,  is  not 
worried  by  the  stuffing  of  ballot-boxes.  The  Sisters  of  Charity 
live  unvexed  by  the  changes  of  fashion  which  overwhelm  their 
gay  sisters  of  the  Horse  Shows.  Peace  and  happiness  seem  to  lin- 
ger about  the  plainer  conditions  of  life. 

Mr.  Phillips  is  hopeful  of  a  return  to  a  saner  and  better  mind 
on  the  part  of  the  secular  world.  "For  the  turn  of  the  tide,"  he 
says,  "we  must  look  to  the  people,  to  the  masses  of  Americans 
who  wish  neither  to  rob  nor  to  be  robbed,  who  may  admire  'smart- 
ness' and  'aggressiveness,'  but  who  do  not  have  these  qualities  as 
their  own  moral  standards,  nor  approve  of  them  as  standards  for 
American  politics,  business  or  professions.  This  mass  is  deliber- 
ate of  motion.  It  must  first  see  just  what  to  do.  Then,  it  must 
find  leaders  to  do  it.  Then,  it  must  be  assured  that  in  the  doing 
more  will  be  gained  than  lost.  When  that  time  arrives  there  will 
be  a  great  'sobering  off,'  a  sharp  recovery  of  sanity,  a  sudden  dis- 
covery that  'the  majesty  of  the  law'  is  not  merely  something  to  tell 
the  fellow  one  has  robbed  in  order  that  he  may  not  become  violent^ 


ROOSEVELT  AND  THE  CANAL  STEAL.  115 

but  is  something  to  take  home  to  one's  self — even  though  one  be 
President  of  the  United  States,  or  of  a  railway  company,  or  of  a 
manufacturing  or  mining  concern,  or  in  whatever  other  position 
of  responsibility — to  be  honest,  just  and  faithful  to  the  public.  .  .  . 

The  possibility  of  power  in  this  country  came  hardly  half  a  cen- 
tury ago.  Latterly  it  has  been  developing  with  accelerated  speed. 
This  will  be  temporarily  checked  from  time  to  time  by  such  spec- 
tacles as  Mr.  Morgan's  recent  discomfitures,  and  Mr.  Schwab's 
hauling  in  the  wretched  remnants  of  a  once  umbrageous  pair  of 
antlers. 

*'And  the  permanent  check  may  come  sooner  than  we  expect.  All 
the  'smartness'  in  this  country  is  not  used  in  the  exploiting  of  this 
much  power  lunacy.  A  considerable  part  of  it  is  trying  to  contrive 
sober,  practical  measures  for  retiring  lunatics  and  abolishing  the 
opportunities  which  were  their  undoing.  And  the  measures  will 
surely  be  found." 

Let  us  pray  for  this,  avoid  anger,  clamor  and  grumbling,  and 
look  on  the  aggressions  of  the  secular  world  with  a  kindly  gaze 
whenever  they  tend  to  anything  good. 

If  the  secular  world  can  be  permeated  and  filled  to  overflowing 
with  the  Christ-spirit,  through  the  touch  of  love  on  individual 
hearts,  the  great  problem  will  be  solved,  and  the  angels  again  sing, 
as  at  first,  "'Peace  on  earth,  good- will  to  men." 

Caroline  D.  Swan. 


ROOSEVELT  AND  THE  CANAL  STEAL 


Wlien  in  A.  D.  9  Anminius  and  the  German  Tribes  under  his 
command  completely  destroyed  the  Roman  legions  under  the  com- 
mand of  Quintilius  Varus  at  the  battle  of  Teutoburgerwold,  the 
Emperor  Augustus  stunned  by  this  unexpected  blow  repeatedly  ex- 
claimed in  anguish  of  mind,  ''Quintilius  Varus,  give  me  back  my 
legions ;  Quintilius  Varus,  give  me  back  my  legions ;"  so  to-day 
every  true  lover  of  America  exclaims  in  equal  anguish  of  mind, 
"Theodore  Roosevelt,  give  us  back  our  honor."  How  serious  the 
blow  is  that  has  been  dealt  American  moralitv  or  what  there  is  left 


ii6  THE  GLOBE. 

of  it,  by  the  dastardly  action  of  Theodore  Roosevelt,  President  of 
the  United  States  in  his  underhand  dealings  with  Colombia,  time 
can  alone  reveal ;  but  the  immediate  effects  upon  the  morality  of 
the  individual  American  citizen  will  soon  become  apparent.  Al- 
though Roosevelt's  action,  in  vivisecting  Colombia,  is  justly  in 
keeping  with  our  piratical  instincts,  so  clearly  shown  in  our  con- 
duct towards  Spain,  and  in  our  behavior  towards  the  Philippine 
Islanders,  yet  there  may  be  some  excuses  offered  by  some  by 
stretching  sophistry  to  its  utmost  limits  in  our  benevolent  attempts 
at  assimilating  the  population  of  those  distant  islands,  but  what 
excuse  can  indeed  be  offered  in  this  our  other  piece  of  brigandage, 
the  stealing  of  the  Panama  strip  from  the  Republic  of  Colombia. 
In  vain  has  Mr.  Roosevelt  used  all  the  arts  of  sophistry  and  casuis- 
try to  soften  this  crime,  yet  like  Banco's  ghost  it  will  not  be 
downed. 

There  is  an  irreducible  maximum  in  villainy  as  well  as  an  irre- 
ducible minimum  in  morality;  whoever  transcends  the  irre- 
ducible maximum  in  villainy  must  necessarily  descend  below  the 
irreducible  minimum  of  morality,  a  point  is  reached  where  we  can- 
not go  much  above  or  much  below,  any  oscillation  between  these 
extreme  limits  may  be  tolerated  and  recovery  possible,  but  once 
having  passed  beyond  these  extreme  bounds,  recovery  becomes  im- 
possible and  if  one  lives,  he  lives  only  to  carry  with  him  to  his 
grave  an  insupportable  burden  of  infamy  and  disgrace.  We  main- 
tain that  Theodore  Roosevelt  in  his  attitude  towards  Colombia 
has  transcribed  all  bounds  of  tolerated  national  villainy  and  tol- 
erated national  immorality  and  has  placed  upon  this  nation  of  ours 
a  burden  of  infamy  which  we  will  have  to  carry  to  our  dying  day, 
however  near  or  far  that  day  may  be.  Not  alone  does  Theodore 
Roosevelt  stand  in  this  atmosphere  of  national  disgrace  and  im- 
morg^lity;  all  stand  with  him,  all  who  have  condoned,  aided  and 
made  possible  this  national  crime.  Take  tnose  Senators  like  Mr. 
Hoar  for  example,  who  thundered  against  the  perpetuation  of  this 
high-handed  piece  of  jobbery,  and  then  voted  for  the  consumma- 
tion of  it,  and  those  Senators  and  newspaper  editors  who  induced 
the  people  of  these  United  States  to  swallow  the  noxious  morsel. 
You  editors  and  you  Senators  who  have  aided  and  abetted  this 
wrong,  can  you  give  us  back  our  honor?  Search  the  history  of 
Colombia's  dealings  with  our  government  and  we  defy  Roosevelt  to 
show  aught  that  can  justify  his  high-handed  conduct.     It  may  be 


ROOSEVELT  AND  THE  CANAL  STEAL.  117 

true  (only  surmised  truth  mind  you)  that  the  individual  Senators 
of  the  Colombian  government  hoped  to  gain  some  private  award 
in  their  bargain  with  our  government,  and  they  therefore  sought 
to  delay  or  nullify  the  Hay-Herron  Treaty,  but  nobody  can  deny 
but  that  they  were  acting  wholly  within  their  rights  as  Senators 
of  the  Colombian  Government  in  rejecting  or  delaying  that  Treaty, 
and  indeed  did  they  not  give  very  plausible  excuses  for  such  ac- 
tion? What  right  has  anybody  in  general  or  Theodore  Roose- 
velt in  particular  to  question  the  sincerity  of  this  action?  What 
right  have  we  to  say  to  those  Senators,  you  fellows  are  only  bluf- 
fing. You  are,  to  use  a  slang  impression,  endeavoring  to  give  us 
the  double  cross ;  these  excuses  of  yours  are  mere  pretenses,  your 
obvious  intention  is  to  hold  up  our  government  for  your  own  per- 
sonal aggrandisement!  In  point  of  fact  you  want  us  to  give  you 
money  and  plenty  of  it  to  vote  this  treaty !  It  is  of  no  moment  to 
us  whether  your  constitution  prohibits  you  from  alienating  any 
part  of  your  territory !  It  is  of  no  moment  to  us  whether  you  con- 
sider this  treaty  irregular !  It  is  of  no  moment  to  us  whether  you 
justly  consider  that  we  are  endeavoring  to  secure  an  invaluable 
national  asset  for  a  mere  fifty  millions  of  dollars,  of  which  you 
are  to  have  a  mere  ten  millions  and  some  little  annually  besides, 
an  asset,  which  will  in  a  few  years  bring  in  an  immense  revenue, 
and  will  add  hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars  of  the  value  of  the 
property  of  our  country  and  hundreds  of  millions  of  dollars  to 
our  seaboard  and  deep  sea  commerce  and  will  immeasurably 
strengthen  our  military  and  naval  position  upon  this  continent! 
It  is  of  no  moment  to  us  that  you  are  acting  strictly  within  your 
international  rights  and  have  a  perfect  right  to  reject  this  treaty 
with  us,  even  without  giving  us  any  excuses  whatsoever!  It  is 
of  no  moment  to  us  that  you  hold  a  true  appreciation  of  the  value 
of  your  property  and  the  invaluable  geographical  position  of  your 
isthmus !  It  is  of  no  moment  to  us  that  the  possession  of  your 
isthmus  has  always  been  a  cardinal  feature  of  your  national  and 
international  policies !  It  is  of  no  moment  to  us  that  we,  the 
United  States  government,  have  solemnly  entered  into  treaty  with 
your  government  to  always  protect  the  sovereign  right  of  your 
possession  of  the  isthmus !  It  is  of  no  moment  to  us  that  your 
government  has  ever  endeavored  to  the  best  of  its  ability  to  fulfill 
your  treaty  obligations  to  the  United  States  government !  It  is  of 
no  moment  to  us  that  you  have  accorded  to  us  valuable  treaty 


1,8  THE  GLOBE, 

rights  in  the  isthmus,  feeling  assured  that  you  were  deahng  with 
a  just  and  upright  nation  and  government !  It  is  of  no  moment 
to  us  that  you  have,  at  all  times,  acted  up  to  the  letter  of  your  con- 
cessions to  the  government  of  the  United  States !  All  this  is  as 
dust  to  us !  We  will  have  none  of  it !  We  are  going  to  have 
your  isthmus,  we  want  the  canal  sorely  in  our  business !  And 
knowing  that  we  want  it  sorely,  you  fellows  are  trying  to  hold 
us  up !  We  have  not  a  scintilla  of  evidence  to  show  that  you  are 
acting  dishonestly,  but  we  feel  that  you  are !  And  if  we  feel  that 
you  are,  why  you  are,  and  that  is  all  about  it,  and  that  is  the  end 
of  the  matter !  There  is  nothing  further  to  be  said !  We  have  ar- 
raigned, tried,  condemned  and  vivisected  you  without  your  being 
heard  in  your  own  defence,  it  is  true!  We  have  been  plaintiffs, 
prosecutors,  jury,  judges  and  executioners  all  in  one,  it  is  true! 
But  w^ho  and  what  are  you,  anyway !  A  lot  of  nondescript,  petti- 
fogging revolutionary  dagos,  and  we  can  blow  you  to  ''blazes" 
with  one  broadside  of  our  big  navy!  Thus  argued  Mr,  Roose- 
velt, Mr.  Root,  Mr.  Hay,  those  United  States  Senators  and  those 
Editors  that  supported  and  voted  and  helped  along  the  infamous 
steal.  In  vain  did  Colombia  protest,  in  vain  did  the  best  national 
and  international  sentiment  of  morality  cry  out  against  the  out- 
rage, but  committed  it  was,  in  broad  daylight,  uncovered  even 
by  the  decency  of  darkness,  a  piece  of  cold  blooded  rascality,  only 
to  be  compared  wath  in  modern  history,  to  the  partition  of  Po- 
land, and  yet  Theodore  Roosevelt  has  had  the  unmitigated  ef- 
frontery to  defend  his  nefarious  steal  by  columns  upon  columns 
of  blatant  sophistry  and  casuistical  arguments,  that  have  deceived 
nobody  but  himself  and  those  who  were  only  too  willing  to  con- 
sent to  a  high-handed  international  immoral  atrocity.  The  action 
is  done,  exclaims  Mr.  Roosevelt  and  those  who  have  aided  and 
abetted  him,  it  is  a  closed  incident  thev  say,  it  is  a  "fact  accom- 
pli." We  are  now  going  to  get  our  canal,  Hip  !  Hip  !  Hoorah  !  And 
one  more! 

Now  to  take  Mr.  Roosevelt's  bland  and  child-like  explanations 
as  literally  true,  everything  that  transpired  just  happened  to  be  a 
mere  coincident,  one  of  those  extraordinary  coincidental  narratives 
that  we  were  wont  to  read  of  in  our  books  of  fairy  tales  when  we 
were  children,  how  in  the  very  nick  of  time  the  benevolent  fairy 
appeared  and  quickly,  by  one  wave  of  her  wand,  converted  the 
malevolent  cannibal  giant  into  a  stone  and  the  bad  stepmother  inta 


ROOSEVELT  AND  THE  CANAL  STEAL.  119 

a  swan,  and  liberated  the  imprisoned  groom  and  rescued  the  in- 
carcerated princess  from  a  horrible  death,  and  bestowed  a  kingdom 
upon  both  of  them  and  how  the  young  people  were  married  and 
lived  happy  ever  afterwards.  So  with  our  Mr.  Roosevelt,  he  had 
an  overmastering  passion  to  wed  the  Isthmus  of  Panama  to  the 
United  States,  but  those  bad  genii,  the  Colombian  Senators,  con- 
spired against  his  chaste  and  beneficent  purposes,  but  some  benevo- 
lent fairies  opportunely  showed  up  in  the  disguise  of  certain  inter- 
national adventurers,  living  and  trading  at  Panama,  these  fairy 
international  traders  manufactured  a  mystical  wand  in  the  shape 
of  a  flag  for  the  Republic  of  Panama,  so  that  when  they  waved 
the  wand,  presto !  a  United  States  man-of-war  appeared  upon  the 
scene !  Another  shake  of  the  wand,  United  States  marines  landed 
on  Panama  soil.  Another  shake  of  the  wand,  another  United 
States  man-of-war  within  hailing  distance !  Another  shake  of  the 
wand,  armed  emissaries  and  soldiers  of  the  bad  genii  sent  to  cap- 
ture said  fairies  and  to  punish  dishonest  officials  of  the  said  genii, 
were  put  to  confusion  and  turned  back  and  returned  to  the  bad 
genii !  Another  shake  of  the  wand,  a  new-fledged  Republic  of 
Panama,  born  over  night,  looms  up!  Another  shake,  a  clear  war- 
rant of  action  and  vindication  from  the  President  of  the  United 
States,  the  powerful  Godfather  in  the  story,  appears  in  the  form 
of  a  recognition  of  the  rapidly  hatched  republic !  Another  shake 
of  the  wand  and  a  whole  school  of  United  States  men-of-war,  all 
heading  for  Panama,  spring  up  like  Jona's  gourd,  or  from  whales 
or  dragons'  teeth !  Still  another  shake  of  the  wand,  and  lo !  a 
treaty  between  the  new  pawn  republic  of  Panama  and  the  United 
States  of  America,  conceding  canal  strip  to  the  government  of  the 
United  States,  that  is  Mr.  Roosevelt !  Last  shake  of  the  wand,  Mr, 
Roosevelt  has  canal  dangling  from  his  belt !  What  a  delightful 
fairy  tale  to  relate  to  eighty  millions  of  supposedly  intelligent 
people!  It  was  only  a  coincident  that  a  United  States  man-of- 
war  just  happened  to  be  at  Panama  at  the  very  nick  of  time!  It 
was  only  a  coincident  that  United  States  marines  should  have 
been  so  opportunely  landed  to  protect  United  States  interests  on 
the  Isthmus  and  incidentally  to  frustrate  Colombian  authorities  in 
their  endeavors  to  seize  the  gang  of  international  adventurers  who 
had  conspired  to  overthrow  Colombian  authority  there !  Oh,  yes  I 
It  was  only  a  coincident  that  United  States  war  vessels  were  there 
to  prevent  the  landing  of  soldiers  sent  to  Panama  by  the  Colom- 


I20  THE  GLOBE. 

bian  government  sent  to  replace  dishonest  and  recreant  Colombian 
officials  at  Panama!  Such  an  interesting  fairy  tale!  And  how 
nicely  told,  Mr.  Theodore  Rooseveh!  Ah!  Mr.  Roosevelt,  Mr. 
Roosevelt,  this  is  too  thin!  You  have  used  all  your  arts  of 
sophistry  and  casuistry  in  vain.  Your  columns  of  explanation 
given  to  the  people  through  those  ponderous  addresses  of  yours  to 
Congress  cannot  acquit  you  of  having  a  double-dyed  hand  in  the 
whole  discreditable  transaction  !  Oh,  no  !  You  had  no  knowledge 
of  what  was  coming !  How  could  you  indeed  see  into  the  future  ? 
It  was  only  a  coincident  that  the  United  States  naval  officers  on 
ships  stationed  at  the  West  Indies  were  openly  talking  about  some- 
thing interesting  soon  to  happen  at  the  Isthmus  of  Panama !  And 
you  expect  the  people  to  believe  it,  don't  you  ?  You  cannot  say  no, 
you  foolish,  foolish  man !  Theodore  Roosevelt,  when  the  accursed 
assassin's  bullet  removed  the  hand  of  William  McKinley  from  the 
helm  of  the  State,  all  people,  irrespective  of  party  passion  and 
politics,  rallied  around  you  and  pledged  themselves  to  uphold  you 
in  the  difficult  position  into  which  fate  had  so  suddenly  thrust 
you,  and  right  loyally  have  they  redeemed  their  pledges,  they  have 
forgiven  you  many  of  your  childish  and  petulent  ebullitions,  your 
vagaries  and  your  strenuosities ;  but  do  you  think  that  they  will 
forgive  you  smirking  the  good  name  of  the  United  States  gov- 
ernment with  dishonor?  You  have  mortgaged  the  honor  of  the 
people,  you  have  violated  international  morality,  you  have  shocked 
the  sensibilities  of  all  right  thinking  men,  you  have  awakened  the 
suspicions  and  wounded  the  susceptibilities  of  all  the  central  and 
South  American  republics.  You  have  dragged  the  good  name  of 
the  republic  in  the  dust,  you  have  set  the  pace  for  wholesale  inter- 
national stealing  and  spoliation.  A  terrible  example  has  been 
set  the  vicious  and  the  criminal  classes  in  our  own  country ;  you 
have  upset  the  ordinary  moral  acceptations  of  the  words  ''meum" 
and  "teum"  in  domestic  and  international  politics  and  diplomacies. 
The  President  of  the  United  States  and  those  who  aided  and 
abetted  him  have  held  up  Colombia  and  stole  a  canal  from  her,  why 
indeed  should  not  a  highwayman  or  a  footpad  hold  up  a  pedestrian 
and  steal  from  him  his  money  and  his  valuables.  What  is  the  real 
difference  between  the  action  of  the  President  and  the  footpad? 
We  hold  that  there  is  absolutely  no  difference ;  the  actions  in  both 
instances  are  identical.  The  demoralizing  effects  of  this  national 
steal  upon  the  growing  youth  of  the  country  must  be  and  will  con- 


ROOSEVELT  AND  THE  CANAL  STEAL.  iii 

tinue  to  be  appalling.  Did  you  not  think  of  all  this,  Mr.  Roose- 
velt ?  Ah,  Mr.  Roosevelt,  give  us  back  our  honor.  You  try  again 
to  defend  your  action  by  saying  that  the  world  needed  the  canal 
and  a  world  necessity  could  not  and  would  not  brook  the  delay 
caused  by  a  party  of  dishonest  Senators  of  the  government  of 
Colombia.  Did  the  world  expect  you  to  purloin  the  honor  of  the 
United  States,  Mr.  Roosevelt,  so  that  the  world  might  have  the 
canal  two  or  five  years  the  sooner  ?  What  country  was  it  that  put 
pressure  upon  the  government  of  the  United  States  to  dishonor 
itself  so  that  the  construction  of  the  canal  may  be  hastened  ?  An- 
swer this,  please.  You  see  how  lame  your  excuses  and  arguments 
are  when  we  come  to  dispassionately  analyze  them,  how,  indeed,  all 
your  sophistry  is  unavailing!  No,  no,  you  cannot  fool  all  of  the 
people  all  of  the  time.  When  the  votes  are  counted  next  Novem- 
ber you  will  find,  Mr.  Roosevelt,  that  you  have  fooled  but  a  small 
section  of  the  people.  You  will  not  readily  be  forgiven  by  the 
people  of  this  country  for  heaping  dishonor  upon  them,  nor  will 
you  be  forgiven  by  the  other  democracies  of  the  world  by  adding 
discredit  and  dishonor  to  a  democratic  government.  We  have  got 
to  redeem  the  mortgage  which  you  have  placed  upon  the  good 
name  of  our  country.  And  we  will  do  it  next  November,  or  we 
greatly  deceive  ourselves.  This  great  country  cannot  remain  a 
great  moral  force  in  the  world  without  at  first  removing  the  dis- 
grace and  stigma  which  you  have  placed  upon  it  by  your  canal 
steal.  Far  better,  indeed,  that  it  should  perish  from  the  face  of  the 
world  than  that  it  should  live  on  a  ''moral  nonentity"  for  future 
generations  to  point  the  finger  of  reproach  and  scorn.  Then  again 
the  floodgates  of  domestic  crime  and  immorality  which  you  have 
opened  by  your  example  of  international  immorality,  no  mortal 
man  can  compute  it,  it  is  beyond  computation.  You  have  trans- 
cended the  bounds  of  strenuosity  you  have  set  a  pace  to  the  inter- 
national bandetti.  You  have  been  tried  and  have  been  found  want- 
ing, for,  after  all,  take  from  the  nations  of  the  world  their  code  of 
international  morality  and  what  is  there  left  that  will  make  na- 
tional life  worth  the  living  ?  What  star  will  there  be  to  guide  weak 
and  defenseless  nations  from  the  paths  of  those  devouring  and 
rampant  nations  of  the  world,  who  go  about  seeking  whom  they 
may  devour?  You  have  struck  our  nation,  Mr.  Roosevelt,  a 
coward  blow  beneath  the  belt,  and  though  you  have  at  all  times 
preached  honesty,  yet  you  have  not  scrupled  to  set  an  example  of 


122  THE  GLOBE. 

gross  international  dishonesty.  We  should  always  judge  men  by 
what  they  do  and  not  by  what  they  say.  Deeds  count,  words  are 
mere  froth.  To  what  purpose  have  you,  Theodore  Roosevelt,  been 
constantly  preaching  political  and  national  morality  on  all  and 
every  occasion,  when  you  yourself  have  been  the  head  and  front  of 
a  rascally  scheme  of  a  gigantic  international  steal?  Surely  you 
have  stultified  yourself;  the  next  time  you  talk  of  honesty  to  a 
crowd  somebody  will  surely  ask  you,  What  about  that  canal  steal 
of  youfs?  Then,  indeed,  will  come  a  collapse  of  the  political 
moralist  and  moral  reformer.  You  will  find  that  people  living  in 
glass  houses  cannot  afford  to  throw  stones.  In  the  meanwhile  the 
nation  will  have  to  carry  its  load  of  disgrace  to  the  third  and  fourth 
generation:  Those  Senators,  public  men  and  newspaper  editors 
who  supported  Mr.  Roosevelt,  President  of  the  United  States,  in 
his  "role"  of  international  highwayman,  are  not  one  whit  less 
guilty  than  he;  they  could  easily  have  prevented  the  consumma- 
tion of  the  villains;  they  are  all  aiders  and  abettors  and  acces- 
sories before  and  after  the  fact,  and  will,  with  Theodore  Roosevelt, 
inherit  the  odium  of  posterity.  They  have  all  debased  our  na- 
tional life  and  lowered  our  national  standard  of  morality.  They 
have  perverted  and  corrupted  those  high  ideals  which  we  have 
always  loudly  professed  and  insisted  that  we  have  and  hold.  It  is 
hardly  conceivable  that  any  man  of  sensibility  and  imagination  can 
view  otherwise  than  with  disgust  and  abhorrence  the  low  and  un- 
derhand dealing  of  the  United  States  government  in  her  dealings 
with  the  government  of  Colombia  anent  the  Panama  steal.  Theo- 
dore Roosevelt,  you  have,  by  these  transactions  of  yours  relative 
to  the  Isthmus  of  Panama,  and  the  acquisition  of  that  coveted 
canal  strip,  you  have  placed  this  government  of  ours  on  an  emi- 
nence of  baseness,  and  have  set  a  vicious  example.  You  have 
covered  our  public  and  good  faith  with  suspicion  and  odium.  You 
have  smeared  the  flag  of  the  country  with  dishonor,  you  have  cast 
upon  the  country  a  taint  of  infamy  which  it  will  have  to  carry 
down  to  the  farthermost  ends  of  time.  You  have  caused  us  Theo- 
dore Roosevelt  to  have  deliberately  outraged  a  sister  republic; 
there  is  now  nothing  left  for  us  to  do  but  to  guerd  our  loins  and 
hasten  towards  incestuous  sheets,  and  thus  it  will  remain  anathema, 
marathema.    Theodore  Roosevelt,  give  us  back  our  honor? 

Justice. 


A  VISIT  TO  CARLYLB.  i»J 

A  VISIT  TO   CARLYLE. 


Most  literary  articles  in  these  days  are  written  to  boom  some 
author  or  the  reverse  of  that,  and,  incidentally,  for  cash.  This 
slight  paper  is  written — as  the  boys  say  when  going  a-sledding — 
just  for  fun — the  boom  and  the  honorarium  following  as  the 
monkey  follows  the  organ-grinder — simply  as  financial  attachment. 

The  other  day  it  was  Mark  Twain,  and  lots  of  it  everywhere; 
that  the  humorist  had  paid  his  debts — as  if  that  was  a  heroism  in 
these  times,  and  had  gone  to  Europe  for  a  rest,  quite  exhausted 
with  his  amusing  and  herculean  efforts.  Almost  immediately 
thereafter  the  esoteric  papers  that  had  puffed  the  statuesque  and 
immortal  hayseed,  had  flaming  advertisements  of  St.  Mark's  pub- 
lishers announcing  a  new  edition  of  his  works,  authorized,  of 
course, — that  is  the  monkey  business  of  the  show,  and  now  we  hear 
of  his  new  commentary  on  Adam's  residence  in  Eden. 

Catholics  are  ''catching  on"  to  the  art.  Day  before  yesterday 
it  was  Eagan — the  same  story,  as  yet  untold.  Yesterday  it  was 
Bishop  McFall — ecclesiastical  patron  of  the  United  Catholic  So- 
cieties, and  their  pressing  need  of  an  "organ"  to  proclaim  and 
defend  their  Catholic  dictum; — and  the  monkey  tagging  along  in 
due  time.  This  morning  it  is  the  Rev.  Father  Judge,  S.  J.  and  his 
organ  under  a  so-called  new  but  thrice  borrowed  name,  and  a  new, 
imported,  anthropoid,  orthodox,  four-footed  gentleman  to  take  up 
the  collection,  and  it  all  seems  to  amuse  our  "advanced  people"  of 
the  twentieth  century.  Hence  we  are  here  with  a  few  reminis- 
cences of  Carlyle — at  once  the  greatest  and  most  amusing  figure  in 
modern  literature.  For  the  past  twelve  months  English  and 
American  weeklies  and  monthlies  have  published  many  articles  on 
Carlyle.  In  fact,  there  has  been  a  genuine  Carlyle  "renascence" — 
to  what  purpose  we  all  shall  see. 

In  the  year  1872  I  went  abroad,  hoping  to  repair  an  impaired 
state  of  health,  having,  however,  two  serious  objects  in  view — 
iirst,  to  see  and  study  at  first  hand  the  famous  and  beautiful  Turner 
paintings  in  the  British  National  Gallery,  and,  if  possible,  to  see 
and  have  a  chat  with  Carlyle.  I  had  already  visited,  via  the  intro- 
duction of  a  friend,  Carlyle's  only  American  friend,  Emerson,  at 
his  home  in  Concord,  Mass.,  and  had  told  him  of  my  hopes  and 


124  ^^^  GLOBE, 

intentions  touching  an  interview  with  the  prophet  of  Chelsea, 
England.  Emerson  dissuaded  me,  as  had  my  old  friend,  Dr.  Wil- 
liam H.  Furness,  of  Philadelphia,  each  saying  in  his  own  way 
practically  the  same  thing — ''Don't.  He  will  only  bluff  you.  You 
are  sensitive,  etc.  You  have  seen  the  best  of  him  in  his  works. 
He  is  an  old  man,  and,  spite  of  his  years,  a  very  busy  man,  etc., 
etc.,"  but  I  was  no  infant  in  1872;  had  been  ten  years  in  the 
Protestant  ministry  and  thought,  of  course,  that  I  knew  Carlyle 
better  than  Emerson  or  Furness — and  Mr.  Emerson,  seeing  my 
purpose,  said :  ''When  I  was  abroad  once  and  again,  and  desired 
to  see  any  prominent  man  that  my  own  studies  gave  me  in  some 
sense,  a  right  to  see,  it  was  my  habit,  besides  presenting  my  card, 
to  address  the  person  a  brief  note  stating  my  desire,  and  I  was 
usually  successful."    That  was  a  hint,  and  it  was  all  sufficient. 

The  time  came,  and  I  went  abroad,  and  went  from  my  resting 
place  in  Southern  England  up  to  London,  with  the  objects  men- 
tioned fixed  in  my  mind.  In  due  time  I  took  the  'bus  for  Chelsea, 
and  in  the  afternoon  of  the  day  found  myself  at  what  I  supposed 
to  be  the  Carlyle  number  in  Cheyne  Row.  I  knocked  or  rang  the 
bell,  I  forget  which — it  is  all  so  long  ago — and  soon  learned  that 
Carlyle  did  not  live  there;  learned  also  that  eleven  persons  had 
been  there  that  very  day  on  the  same  errand  as  myself,  and  the 
servant  politely  added  the  information  that  there  was  a  small  street 
in  the  neighborhood  called  Great  Cheyne  Row,  and  that  perhaps 
the  gentleman  I  sought  lived  there.  He  did,  and  in  a  few  moments 
I  was  at  the  same  number  in  Great  Cheyne  Row.  I  knocked  or 
rang  here  also;  a  girl  came  to  the  door.  I  inquired,  "Does  Thomas 
Carlyle  live  here?"  She  replied:  "Mr.  Carlyle  lives  here."  I 
smiled  at  my  first  rebuke  and  handed  her  my  brief  note,  asking 
her  if  she  would  please  hand  it  to  Mr.  Carlyle.  She  did  so,  and 
this  is  something  of  what  followed : 

I  stood  at  the  open  front  door,  only  a  moment,  waiting  a  reply. 
In  my  note  I  had  simply  stated  my  name  and  vocation,  adding  that 
I  was  in  London  for  a  few  days,  and  would  like  very  much  to  see 
him,  if  he  were  so  inclined.  He  had  read  my  brief  note  and  had 
interpreted  my  expression  that  I  would  like  to  see  him,  etc.,  as  if 
he  understood  me  as  meaning  that  I,  being  a  lion  hunter,  wanted 
to  gaze  upon  him  and  go,  or  at  all  events,  that  his  inclination  of 
the  moment,  was  so  to  understand  it. 

The  house  was  a  modest  three-story  brick,  such  as  could  be 


■9 


A  VISIT  TO  CARLYLE,  125 

rented  in  Philadelphia  for  twenty-five  dollars  a  month ;  a  modest 
hallway  extending  to  the  foot  of  the  stairs  where,  on  the  left,  a 
doorway  opened  into  what  would  be  a  back  parlor  or  dining  room. 
Out  of  this  doorway  there  came  and  stood  in  the  narrow  hall  the 
stately  figure  of  Thomas  Carlyle;  assuming,  as  seems  to  me,  an 
unusual,  unnecessary  and  unnatural  dignity,  and  looking  toward 
the  doorway  where  I  stood  waiting,  only  about  ten  feet  from  me, 
the  great  man,  wrapped  in  his  famous  long,  black  wrapper — look- 
ing something  like  the  cassock  of  a  priest — said  to  me  somewhat 
sternly :  "You  want  to  see  me,  do  ye ;  here  I  am,  if  that's  all  ye 
want."  He  did  not  move,  but  I,  who  revered  him  and  saw  in  a 
flash  the  blunder  of  soul  that  he  had  made,  stepped  directly  in 
front  of  him,  ready  to  weep  for  him,  not  for  myself.  I  saw  that 
he  had  utterly  misunderstood  my  motive  and  my  being — as  unfor- 
tunately some  would-be  great  men,  persist  in  doing  to  this  day. 
The  two  motives  of  self-respect,  and  pity  for  him,  were  upper- 
most in  me,  and  I  said  very  quietly,  but  with  an  intensity  that  he 
seemed  to  understand  in  a  second :  '*I  have  read  your  works  these 
many  years,  and  I  have  revered  their  author.  I  am  not  seeking  to 
gaze  upon  any  man ;  but  being  in  England  felt  that  I  would  love  to 
see  the  author  and  speak  with  him  a  moment,  that  is,  if  perfectly 
agreeable  to  yourself,  sir." 

The  attitude,  the  manner,  the  voice  of  the  prophet,  all  changed 
instantly,  as  a  sunburst  out  of  a  cloudy  day,  and  quiet  as  moon- 
light on  the  water,  or  the  true  voice  of  a  noble  and  brother  man, 
he  extended  both  hands  to  mine,  and  said,  with  infinite  politeness, 

"Will  you  walk  in  and  be  seated,  sir." 

We  walked  into  the  front  room,  he  leading  the  way  a  little,  and 
we  were  seated,  face  to  face,  and  immediately  he  said,  "And  where 
are  you  from,  and  what  are  ye  doing?"  I  told  him  where  I  was 
from  last,  and  what  I  had  been  doing  for  several  years,  naming 
a  southern  city  where  I  had  been  a  minister,  and  his  first  remark 
was,  "And  the  Yankees  treated  ye  pretty  badly  down  there  during 
the  war,  I  suppose."  I  told  him  that  I  was  a  Yankee  of  the  worst 
kind  myself,  and  abolitionist  and  a  free  thinker  generally,  almost 
as  bad  as  a  famous  American  then  preaching  in  London,  whom  he 
knew,  I  presumed.  He  said,  **I  hope  not,  I  hope  not."  Then  I 
succeeded  in  leading  him  to  talk,  and  was  myself  glad  to  be  silent 
and  listen;  and  being  provoked  to  it,  he  talked  for  about  three- 
quarters  of  an  hour,  I  only  saying  so  much  as  would  lead  him  on. 


J  26  THE  GLOBE. 

He  talked  of  the  prevailing  falseness  of  modern  life,  of  the  inca- 
pacity of  men  in  public  office,  of  the  pretentions  of  modern  science, 
so  called,  saying  that  notwithstanding  it  all,  "we  could  not  get  a 
clean  drop  of  water  to  drink,  even  in  London." 

If  he  had  lived  in  Philadelphia  a  generation  later,  with  science, 
invention  and  money  piled  up  to  the  skies,  he  would  have  found 
that  in  this  city  of  soft  drinks  and  republican  statesmen,  where  we 
are  spending  seventy  odd  millions  of  dollars  for  water  filtering  and 
jobbery  and  paying  taxes  accordingly,  we  cannot,  except  now  and 
then,  after  severe  weather,  get  a  supply  of  water  clean  enough  to 
wash  our  faces  with,  or  clean  enough  even  to  flush  without  chok- 
ing them,  the  sewer  or  drainage  pipes  in  our  houses.  So  much  for 
then  and  now.  I  again  reverted  to  our  blunder  in  the  hallway,  but 
he  evaded  the  matter,  and  when,  finally,  I  not  only  said  that  I  must 
^go,  but  arose  to  take  my  departure,  he  also  arose,  as  if  reluctantly, 
and  said :  "If  you  will  be  seated  a  moment  I  will  put  my  coat  on 
and  walk  a  bit  with  you.''  That  was  apology  enougli.  I  waited 
and  he  went  upstairs,  coming  down  very  shortly  and  together  we 
strolled  out  of  Great  Cheyne  Row  on  to  Cheyne  Walk,  and  strolled 
along  by  the  Thames,  perhaps  a  couple  of  miles,  talking  all  the  way, 
when  he  said,  "And  what  do  ye  preach?"  I  told  him  as  briefly 
as  possible,  when  he  remarked,  shaking  his  old,  gray  head:  "It 
is  a  serious  business'  to  teach  religion  and  very  serious  to  interfere 
with  the  fixed  beliefs  of  mankind;" 

"Very  true,"  I  said,  "but  I  do  not  know  of  any  man  who  has  done 
that  more  seriously  than  yourself,"  still,  I  added  gladly,  "but  never 
without  giving  to  me  at  least  a  stronger  religious  conviction  in 
return."  "Ah,  weel,"  he  replied,  and  we  halted  at  the  corner  of 
two  streets  by  the  Thames,  shook  each  other  by  the  hands,  warmly, 
and  parted,  never  to  meet  again. 

Of  course  it  would  be  easy  for  me  to  enlarge  indefinitely  on 
our  conversation  during  this  interview,  but  that  would  tire  the 
general  reader.  I  might  draw  you  a  pen  picture  of  the  physiog- 
nomy of  the  old  man  with  his  quietly  serious  and  intense  expres- 
sion, his  thick,  shock-like,  iron  gray  hair,  his  cropped  gray  beard, 
the  mobile  lips,  open  or  shut,  the  strong,  straight  nose,  and  the 
deep  set,  dark  blue,  piercing  eyes — all  of  which  the  so-called  artist 
Whistler  utterly  missed  in  his  famous  portrait  of  Carlyle,  about 
which  the  dilettante  so-called  art  critics  have  been  raving,  in  these 
late  months;  but  his  portraiture  has  become  familiar  to  the  literary 


A   VISIT  TO  CARLYLE,  127 

world.  His  wife,  Jane  Welsh  Carlyle,  about  whom,  and  her 
relations  with  her  famous  husband,  the  late  cheap  historian  Fronde, 
and  his  fellow  miscreants,  have  said  so  many  vilifying  and  ques- 
tionable things,  was  dead  when  I  visited  Carlyle  in  1872.  He 
was  already  a  verv  old  man,  and  had  broken  his  heart  over  wha^^. 
he,  in  his  old  age,  thought  might  have  been  seeming  neglect  of 
her,  on  his  part — or  I  might  write  you  a  critical  estimate  of  each 
of  his  incomparable  works,  and  enlarge  upon  the  estimate  other 
great  men  had  entertained  of  those  works,  but  as  I  have  enlarged 
to  some  extent  on  these  themes  in  my  own  magazine  and  in  books 
of  mine  already  published,  it  seemed  best  to  me,  to  treat  here  of 
the  interview  alone,  and  its  immediate  suggestions. 

I  have  known  personally  many  of  the  famous  men  of  the  present 
and  the  preceding  generation,  both  in  the  literary  and  clerical 
fields  of  labor,  and  I  have  some,  to  me  at  least,  very  amusing  times 
to  myself,  in  comparing  the  men  of  the  past  with  the  so-called  men 
of  the  present,  but  after  nearly  fifty  years  of  study  of  their  faces 
and  the  work  of  their  brains  and  hearts,  I  put  Carlyle  first ;  ablest, 
strongest,  most  upright,  sincere  and  fascinating  of  all  the  men 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  not  excepting  Hugo  or  Goethe,  Bobbie 
Burns  or  the  great  Leo  XHI. 

Carlyle  was  early  bitten  of  the  mad  dog  known  as  the  "new 
thought,"  the  new  theology,  "the  higher  criticism,"  now  all  dwin- 
dled to  agnosticism,  unbelief,  and  the  godless,  but  confident  flip- 
pancy of  the  late  Robert  Insersoll ;  but  from  first  to  last  the  splen- 
did insight  of  his  Scotch  nature  and  training,  the  profound  sin- 
cerity of  nature,  derived  from  the  same  racial  source  and  instincts ; 
the  natural  religiousness  of  his  birth,  and  his  deepest  conviction, 
always  kept  him  fast  to  the  divine  center  of  the  universe,  the  God 
of  almighty  truth  and  justice  in  whom  we  all  live,  and  move,  and 
have  our  being;  and  though  there  are  many  skeptical  utterances 
in  his  words,  there  is  absolutely  no  unbelief,  no  irreverence  for 
anything  that  the  inmost  soul  of  any  saint  has  ever  revered. 

Carlyle  saw  in  the  heart  of  our  Catholic  faith — as  Goethe  had 
seen  before  him, — the  deepest  of  all  worships,  the  divine  worship 
of  sorrow,  though  he  often  spelled  our  creeds  in  Scotch  fashion, 
and  was  hardly  a  practical  Catholic  of  the  orthodox  traditional 
kind.  But  when  God  gathers  up  his  jewels  we  shall  look  sharply 
and  expect  to  find  among  them  the  great  and  masterful  thinker, 
the  reverent  and  silently  worshipful  face  of  the  world's  great 
friend,  Thomas  Carlyle. 

William  He^nry  Thorne. 


128  THE  GLOBE, 

LIFE'S  HAPPIEST  STATE. 


Plutarch  well  remarks — "that  state  of  life  is  most  happy  where 
superfluities  are  not  required  and  necessaries  are  not  wanted/' 
Conceding  this  statement  to  be  true,  it  still  remains  to  be  ascer- 
tained, what  desires  are  necessary  and  what  superfluous  to  man's 
happiness,  which  states  of  life  include  these  necessary  desires, 
from  which  they  are  excluded,  and  in  which  states  superfluities 
are  included  ?  To  carefully  investigate  these  points  will  constitute 
the  chief  objects  of  this  paper. 

A  preliminary  question,  important  for  us  to  ask  here,  is,  what 
is  a  state  of  life?  This  question  is  all  the  more  necessary  to  be 
determined,  as  we  shall  discover,  in  the  conclusion  of  this  paper, 
that  the  phrase  has  several  significations.  Plutarch,  we  shall  see, 
employs  the  phrase  in  its  broadest  acceptation.  It  has,  however,  a 
meaning  much  narrower,  which  is  necessary  to  be  understood  be- 
fore we  can  hope  to  fully  comprehend  the  phrase  in  the  broad 
light  in  which  Plutarch  employs  it.  Defined,  then,  in  its  limited 
sense,  a  state  of  life  is  one  of  those  classes  or  circles,  into  which 
society  in  all  parts  of  the  inhabited  globe,  divides  itself  by  well- 
chalked  boundary  lines.  Some  of  these  states  of  life  exclude 
others  from  their  precinct  entirely;  as,  for  instance,  the  state  of 
riches  debars  the  state  of  poverty.  Others,  again,  overlap  one  an- 
other ;  as,  the  state  of  riches  and  of  public  life,  in  which  two  states 
it  may  be  easily  conceived  that  a  man  can  live  at  one  and  the  same 
time.  Of  these  limited  states  of  life  into  which  society  is  divided, 
the  principal  are  the  following:  The  idle  state;  the  state  of  riches; 
the  state  of  rank  and  title ;  the  state  of  poverty ;  the  state  of  pri- 
vate life;  the  fashionable  state;  the  public  state;  the  state  of  sla- 
very ;  the  contented  or  settled  state ;  the  state  of  being  comfortably 
off;  the  overworked  state;  the  virtuous  or  Godly  state;  the  state  f , 

of  solitude;  the  pleasure-seeking  state;  the  industrious  state;  the 
state  of  confinement ;  the  unmarried  state ;  the  state  of  liberty ;  the 
marriage  state ;  the  vicious  or  ungodly  state ;  and  the  social  state. 

From  these  twenty-one  states  of  life  we  shall  now  endeavor  to 
point  out  those  which  include  happiness,  as  well  as  those  from 
which  this  blissful  state  is  excluded.  First,  then,  from  which  of 
these  states  is  happiness  excluded  ?    To  answer  this  question  prop- 


LIFE'S  HAPPIEST  STATE.  129 

erly  we  must  apply  the  rule  of  Plutarch,  and  in  whichever  state 
we  discover  some  necessary  wanting  or  some  superfluity  to  exist, 
there  shall  we  know  that  happiness  is  absent. 

Happiness,  it  is  most  evident,  is  excluded  from  the  idle  state  of 
life ;  since  that  occupation  of  mind  and  body,  so  necessary  to  man's 
welfare,  is  here  lacking.  A  sufficient  amount  of  mental  and  physi- 
cal exercise  is  as  great  a  necessity  to  the  well-being  of  man  as  is 
proper  food  and  drink.  Indeed,  hunger  and  thirst  could  be  pro- 
ductive of  no  worse  wretchedness  for  man  than  idleness.  For 
the  idle  man  finds  a  prolonged  hell  on  earth  in  ungratified  desires 
and  the  just  contempt  of  a  busy  world.  Happiness,  on  the  other 
hand,  if  not  found  in  the  state  of  idleness,  is  neither  found  in  the 
state  of  overwork, — -the  opposite  extreme,  and  to  which  Ameri- 
cans, in  particular,  are  too  prone  to  indulge.  For,  if  in  the  state 
of  idleness  occupation  be  lacking,  in  the  state  of  overwork  rest  of 
mind  and  body,  also  necessary  to  man's  well-being,  is  lacking. 
And  such  a  lack  of  rest  is  productive,  always,  of  two  things;  a 
broken-down,  nervous  system  and  a  diseased  physical  organization. 

Neither  is  happiness  to  be  found  in  the  states  of  riches  or  pov- 
-erty.  Solomon  aptly  remarks :  "Give  me  neither  poverty  nor 
riches  lest  I  be  full  and  deny  Thee,  and  say,  Who  is  the  Lord? 
Or  lest  I  be  poor  and  steal,  and  take  the  name  of  my  God  in  vain." 
(Prov.  30:  vii.,  ix.)  That  happiness  is  excluded  from  the  state 
of  poverty  is  a  fact  that  few  persons  will  deny.  The  poor  admit 
it  and  are  ever  deploring  their  lot,  while  the  rich  look  down  upon 
it  as  on  some  loathsome  disease.  Their  reasons,  for  thus  viewing 
poverty,  are  not  far  to  be  sought,  since  in  such  a  state  many  of 
the  necessaries  of  life,  as,  proper  food,  clothing,  shelter,  etc.  (all 
of  which  things  conduce  greatly  to  the  comfort  and  happiness  of 
man),  are  lacking.  That  happiness  is  not  to  be  found  in  riches,  is, 
however,  a  fact  not  so  obvious  or  so  easy  of  conviction.  The 
poor,  blinded  by  poverty,  will  scarcely  believe  it,  while  the  rich, 
blinded  by  glitter,  seldom  discover  the  fact  till  too  late  to  retrieve. 
Solomon,  we  have  just  read,  tells  us  that  riches  are  productive 
of  ungodliness.  Christ  says :  '*It  is  easier  for  a  camel  to  go 
through  the  eye  of  a  needle  than  for  a  rich  man  to  enter  into  the 
Kingdom  of  God,"  a  remark  that  might  induce  the  poor  to  be  con- 
tented with  their  lot.  James,  in  his  fifth  Epistle,  gives  no  flatter- 
ing opinion  of  the  happiness  supposed  to  be  derivable  from  riches. 
He  says :     "Go  to  now,  ye  rich  men,  weep  and  howl  for  your 


13G  THE  GLOBE. 

misery  that  shall  come  upon  you.  Ye  have  lived  in  pleasure  on 
the  earth,  and  been  wanton ;  ye  have  nourished  your  hearts,  as  in  a 
day  of  slaughter."  These  extracts  reflect  the  consensus  of  opinion 
of  all  wise  men.  Indeed,  on  no  other  point  are  the  sages  more 
generally  agreed  than  that  happiness  is  excluded  from  riches.  The 
reason  is  easily  discoverable  on  applying  the  rule  of  Plutarch;, 
for  in  the  state  of  riches  are  found  all  those  superfluities  which  he 
tells  us  are  not  included  in  a  happy  life.  Every  passion  and  desire 
of  the  rich  is  open  to  gratification  without  restraint;  and,  as  man 
is  weak  and  prone  to  fall,  the  rich,  in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a 
hundred  are  precipitated  headlong  into  a  bottomless  gulf  of  ex- 
cesses out  of  which  it  is  next  to  impossible  to  arise.  Of  course, 
there  are  exceptions  to  this,  but  they  are  rare  and  only  to  be  found 
in  the  greatest  characters.  Among  the  mass  of  mankind  temper- 
ance exists  alone  by  a  force  of  circumstances.  But  the  deceitful- 
ness  of  riches  is  wisely  summed  up  by  La  Bruiere  in  the  following 
extract :  "Let  us  not  envy,''  says  he,  "some  men  their  accumulated 
Riches ;  their  burden  would  be  too  heavy  for  us ;  we  could  not 
sacrifice,  as  they  do.  Health,  Quiet,  Honor  and  Conscience,  to 
obtain  them :  It  is  to  pay  so  dear  for  them  that  the  bargain  is  a 
loss." 

If  happiness  does  not  exist  in  the  state  of  riches,  it  is  certainly 
not  to  be  found  in  the  vicious  or  ungodly  state.  The  purpose  of 
this  paper  is  not  to  preach,  but  simply  to  show  what  is  inconsistent 
with  real  happiness.  No  man  is  perfect;  and  he  who  professes 
never  to  have  sinned  is  a  hypocrite.  Those  who  have  fallen,  there- 
fore, deserve  our  kindness  rather  than  our  censure.  Christ  said 
He  came  to  save  sinners,  not  those  who  are  whole.  The  vicious, 
then,  certainly  deserve  our  attention.  K  man  who  leads  a  vicious 
life  does  so  from  the  conviction  that  it  is  with  him  the  happiest; 
for  no  rational  creature  (and  the  man  may  be  such  and  still  vici- 
ous) ever  acts  knowingly  in  a  manner  that  he  believes  to  be  to  his 
own  injury,  hence  many,  since  they  believe  that  virtue  debars  them 
from  all  sensual  pleasures,  prefer  vice  to  virtue.  But  is  this  true? 
Were  not  the  senses  given  man  to  enjoy  legitimately?  And  is  it 
not  really  the  illegitimate  use  of  them  that  is  productive  of  vice? 
When,  then,  a  man  enjoys  his  senses  legitimately  does  he  not  ever 
derive  therefrom  the  greatest  happiness?  But  when  he  abuses 
their  legitimate  use,  as  in  leading  a  vicious  life,  is  he  not  really 
hatching    for   himself   unhappiness?     Ask    the   dipsomaniac,   the 


LIFE'S  HAPPIEST  STATE.  131 

gourmand,  the  rake,  the  libertine,  the  demi-Rep?  Ask  them,  one 
and  all,  to  compute,  first,  the  duration  of  time  of  the  pleasures  en- 
joyed from  their  respective  illegitimate  ways  of  living?  Then 
request  them  to  compute  and  compare  the  duration  of  time  of  the 
misery,  anxiety,  cares,  bodily  pains,  and  remorse  which  has  cer- 
tainly followed  the  illegitimate  indulgence  of  such  deceptive  pleas- 
ures? They  will  tell  you,  one  and  all,  that  for  a  few  moments 
pleasure  they  have  suffered  a  lifetime  of  pain,  misery  and  remorse. 
Happiness  they  have  not  found ;  because  they  lack  that  tranquillity 
and  peace  of  mind  and  body  which  is  the  foundation  of  a  happy 
life.  A  life  of  viciousness  is  transitory,  and  never  fails  to  leave  its 
stings;  a  life  of  happiness  is  permanent,  and  reaches  into  a  future 
state. 

Happiness  exists  neither  in  that  state  of  life  wherein  man's  sole 
aim  is  pleasure-seeking.  It  is  an  vmdeviating  law  of  mind  and 
body  to  acquire,  daily,  a  certain  amount  of  solid  employment. 
Some  play  there  must  be,  of  course ;  but  all  play  has  the  same  per- 
nicious results  upon  happiness  that  the  making  of  one's  meals  of 
cake  and  sweetmeats  has  upon  the  health.  In  the  one  case,  a  lack 
of  solids  is  productive  of  bodily  diseases ;  in  the  other,  a  weaken- 
ing and  disorder  of  the  mental  faculties.  Happiness,  then,  is  de- 
barred from  this  state  of  life  because  when  we  apply  Plutarch's 
rule,  we  ascertain  that  the  mind  lacks  that  solid  occupation  for 
which  Nature  designed  it. 

The  states  of  rank  and  file,  fashion,  and  public  life  are  here 
lumped  together,  since  they  are  all,  to  a  greater  or  less  degree, 
in  the  public  eye.  But  in  none  is  real  happiness  found.  In  public 
life  that  rest  of  body  and  peace  of  mind,  so  necessary  to  man's 
welfare,  are  both  wanting.  This  is  a  fact  too  well  known  to  re- 
quire further  exposition.  Rank  and  title,  thank  God,  exist  no 
longer  in  the  United  States  of  America.  The  American  people 
are  well  satisfied  that  the  prefixing  a  Sir,  a  Count,  a  Lord,  a  Duke, 
or  a  Prince  to  their  honest  Christian  names  is  in  nowise  necessary 
to  their  permanent  happiness ;  nor,  yet,  a  certain  recommendation 
of  brains  and  integrity.  To  some,  indeed,  the  vanity  in  a  name 
may  be  a  very  ticklish  thing,  but  real  happiness  is  beyond  the 
emptiness  of  superfluous  sound.  Such  things,  in  the  United 
States,  find  a  market  only  among  rich  heiresses,  who,  brought  up 
to  look  down  upon  plain  Americans,  are  the  easy  prey  of  any  de- 
funct princely  spiders  who  have  the  tact  to  entice  these  flies  into 


132  THE  GLOBE. 

their  meshes.  Whether  the  exchange  of  their  wealth  and  person, 
for  a  high-sounding  name,  ever  brings  them  real  happiness,  is  a 
problem  that  can  only  be  solved  by  the  heiresses  themselves. 

The  state  of  fashion,  likewise,  excludes  happiness.  For  in  this 
state  all  is  external  show  and  pleasure-seeking, — superfluities 
which  Plutarch's  rule  exclude  from  real  happiness.  We  have 
shown  already  why  happiness  is  not  found  in  mere  pleasure  seek- 
ing. It  requires  no  subtile  arguments  to  prove  that  it  is  not  to  be 
found  in  decorating  the  person  in  the  latest  hat,  scarf,  or  clothes, 
while  we  are  neglectful  of  the  mind.  Happiness,  we  shall  discover, 
is  a  thing  of  permanency  and  solidity,  not  to  be  found  in  the  butter- 
fly state  of  gaudy  colors.  In  short,  happiness  is  no  wise  concerned 
as  to  whether  Mrs.  Jones  dresses  as  richly  as  Mrs.  Smith,  whether 
her  equipage  is  as  stylish  or  her  retinue  as  numerous,  or,  finally 
whether  she  occupies  the  front  pew  in  a  fashionable  church  to 
slumber  heavily  through  the  dull  sermon  of  a  fashionable  preacher. 

If  happiness  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  public  states  of  life,  it  is 
neither  to  be  found  in  the  opposite  extremes  of  solitude,  slavery 
and  confinement.  God  made  man  a  sociable  as  well  as  a  free  being. 
Placed,  then,  in  the  states  of  solitude,  slavery,  or  confinement,  he 
is  deprived  the  gratification  of  those  innate  desires  for  society  and 
freedom,  which  his  nature  craves.  Like  the  caged  lion,  he  frets 
and  pines  away  for  the  freedom  and  associations  of  his  nativity. 

Thus  we  discover  that  happiness  is  excluded  from  twelve  of 
of  the  twenty-one  states  of  life  enumerated.  In  the  remaining 
nine  states  we  shall  see  that  some  happiness  is  discoverable  in 
each.  To  show  this  we  must  apply,  as  in  the  foregoing  instances, 
the  rule  of  Plutarch. 

First,  let  us  analyze  the  state  of  liberty.  Here  happiness  is 
found,  always; because  it  supplies  a  natural  desire  in  every  human 
breast ;  namely, — to  be  free.  'Interwoven,"  says  Washington,  "is 
the  love  of  liberty  with  every  ligament  of  the  heart."  Liberty  is 
derived  from  the  Latin  "libertas,"  and  means  Freedom.  Free- 
dom is  divisible  into  five  kinds;  to  wit,  freedom  of  person,  of 
speech,  of  action,  of  writing,  and  of  conscience.  That  freedom  of 
person  and  of  action  are  necessary  to  man's  happiness  is  a  fact 
conceded  by  every  true-born  American.  For  such  the  fathers  of 
American  freedom  fought  and  conquered;  for  such  a  handful  of 
Cuban  heroes,  to-day,  are  sacrificing  their  life-blood  against  merci- 
less tyrants,  like  Leonidas  and  his  faithful  band  of  Spartans  of 


LIFE'S  HAPPIEST  STATE.  133 

vore.  A  man,  however,  may  possess  both  freedom  of  person  and 
action,  yet  not  his  freedom  of  speech  and  writing.  This,  to  a 
greater  or  less  extent,  is  the  case  in  most  Monarchies  where  the 
voice  of  the  people  is  muzzled  by  the  tyrannical  hands  of  govern- 
ment. As  to  the  happiness  derivable  from  such  freedom,  Euripides 
has  admirably  hit  the  nail  on  the  head  in  the  following  verses : 

"This  is  true  Liberty — where  free-born  men. 
Having  to  advise  the  public,  may  speak  out; 
Which  he  who  can  and  will,  deserves  high  praise ; 
Who  neither  can  nor  will,  may  hold  his  peace : 
What  can  be  juster  in  the  state  than  this?" 

Freedom  of  conscience  is  the  highest  refinement  of  liberty.  It  is 
that  freedom  which  tolerates  all  honest  and  law-abiding  men  ex- 
pressing their  opinion  according  to  their  own  convictions  of  right 
and  wrong.  Such  men  cannot  be  truly  happy  unless  they  are  free 
to  think  and  act  in  accordance  with  their  own  knowledge  of  the 
truth.  These  are  the  men  who  have  brought  the  world  from 
darkness  to  its  present  state  of  light.  Have  they  not  suffered  for 
conscience's  state  every  conceivable  torture  from  the  cruel  and  re- 
lentless persecution  of  ignorance,  prejudice,  bigotry,  tyranny,  and 
narrow-mindedness?  Name  the  land  where  Truth,  at  some  time 
or  other,  has  not  been  cruelly  persecuted  in  religion,  science,  art, 
politics  and  literature?  Even  to-day,  in  free-breathing  America, 
freedom  of  conscience  is  not  tolerated  as  it  ever  should  be.  It  is 
true,  thank  God,  that  the  just  laws  of  the  United  States  forbid  any 
man  offering  bodily  injury  to  another  for  his  candid  expressions 
of  opinion.  But  may  not  a  bigot  or  a  fool  injure  another  by  his 
calumny?  In  a  free  land  like  ours  the  highest  toleration  is  re- 
quired. If  one  expresses  contrary  views  to  the  opinions,  not  his 
person  or  reputation  should  be  attacked.  If  a  man's  person  or 
reputation  be  attacked  for  the  expression  of  honest  convictions, 
how  do  we  Americans  differ  at  heart  from  those  tyrants  abroad 
whom  we  all  profess  to  hate.  Any  of  us  Americans  would  con- 
sider it  a  most  flagrant  infringement  upon  our  rights  not  to  be 
allowed  to  speak  out  our  minds,  yet  many  of  us  in  religion,  poli- 
tics, art,  society,  and  literature  will  not  tolerate  such  free  expres- 
sions of  opinions  in  our  neighbors.  I  repeat,  how  do  many  of  us 
differ  from  tyrants?  For  surely,  if,  in  a  free  land,  one  man  has 
a  right  to  speak  out  his  mind,  all  have  the  same  right  equally. 
What  true-born  American  would  refuse  his  hand  to  the  humblest 


134 


THE  GLOBE. 


amongst  us?  Then  why  should  he  refuse  to  hear  (much  less  in- 
jure) his  neighbor  when  he  expresses  honest  though  contrary 
opinions  ? 

We  come  next  to  the  private  state  of  life.  In  this  state  we  dis- 
cover that  rest  of  body  and  peace  of  mind,  so  necessary  to  man's 
permanent  happiness.  Here  is  found  that  "blessed  retirement'" 
so  beautifully  depicted  in  that  most  perfect  and  beautiful  poem, 
"The  Deserted  Village."  It  is  opposed,  particularly,  to  the  turmoil 
and  excitement  of  public  life,  to  the  emptiness  of  rank  and  title, 
and  to  the  show  and  fast  living  of  the  fashionable  state.  Further, 
it  is  that  state  of  life  in  which  the  states  of  life  yet  to  be  described 
may  be  brought  with  least  opposition,  to  the  zenith  of  perfection. 
Hume  calls  it  the  middle  state  of  life.  He  says:  *'The  middle 
station,  as  it  is  the  most  happy  in  many  respects,  so  particularly 
in  this — ^that  a  man  placed  in  it  can,  with  the  greatest  leisure, 
consider  his  own  happiness  and  reap  a  new  enjoyment  from  com- 
paring his  situation  with  that  of  persons  above  or  below  him." 

The  virtuous  or  godly  state  is  the  next  in  which  we  shall  find 
something  necessary  to  man's  happiness.  Happiness,  by  the 
ancient  Stoic  philosophers,  was  placed  entirely  in  a  virtuous  life. 
This,  however,  is  but  a  one-sided  view  of  a  happy  life,  and,  strictly 
speaking,  is  far  from  the  truth.  For  a  man  may  lead  a  most  virtu- 
ous life  and  be  far  from  happiness.  Of  the  truth  of  this,  the  lives 
of  the  Apostles  afford  the  best  known  instances.  But  if  virtue 
itself  does  not  constitute  earthly  happiness,  it  is  equally  certain 
that  no  man,  who  does  not  lead  a  life  of  virtue  can  be  permanently 
happy.  It  forms  the  only  solid  foundation  upon  which  true  happi- 
ness can  be  built,  either  in  this  world  or  the  next,  and  the  truth 
of  this  has  ever  been  conceded  by  the  wisest  men  in  all  ages.  The 
reason  is  very  simple;  since  it  is  only  by  virtue  that  a  man  can 
lead  a  life  conformable  to  nature.  But,  it  will  be  asked,  in  what 
does  virtue  consist  ?  Many  believe  it  necessitates  a  man  spending 
his  time  at  prayer  meetings  and  sopping  milk.  No  such  thing; 
though  prayer  meetings  and  milk,  if  temperately  indulged  in,  may 
often  prove  beneficial.  Christ  inveighs  against  the  ostentatious 
show  of  much  public  praying.  (Math.  6,  vi.)  A  man  may  never 
have  attended  a  prayer  meeting  or  drunk  milk  in  his  life,  and 
still,  be  more  virtuous  than  many  who  have.  But  what,  then,  is 
virtue?  The  Stoics  tell  us  that  it  consists,  chiefly,  in  prudence, 
fortitude,  temperance  and  justice.    To  these  cardinal  virtues  may 


LIFE'S  HAPPIEST  STATE.  135 

be  added  a  fifth, — patience.  Without  the  exercise  of  these  virtues 
it  is  plain,  to  every  intelHgent  and  reflecting  mind,  that  no  man 
can  lead  a  life  conformable  to  nature ;  by  a  due  observance  of  them 
one  may  live  more  as  nature  intended  he  should,  as  he  exercises 
them  to  a  greater  or  less  degree.  Thus  virtue  supplies  a  natural 
want  of  man's  nature. 

It  requires  little  exposition  to  prove  what  most  people  know, 
or  always  learn  sooner  or  later  in  life,  that  industry  is  absolutely 
necessary  to  a  happy  life.  Both  mind  and  body  crave  that  occupa- 
tion without  which  everyone  must  be  miserable.  The  industrious 
state  is  requisite  to  man's  happiness,  because,  applying  Plutarch's 
rule,  it  is  found  to  fill  a  necessary  desire  of  man's  nature.  This 
state,  however,  is  not  only  opposed  to  idleness,  but  to  the  other  ex- 
treme of  overwork.  It  is  the  happy  mean  between  these  extremes, 
and  is  admirably  described  in  the  following  admirable  lines  of 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes : 

''Run  if  you  like,  but  try  to  keep  your  breath ; 
Work  like  a  man,  but  don't  be  worked  to  death." 

Following  close  on  the  heels  of  the  industrious  state  of  life 
is  a  state  of  being  comfortably  off.  This  state  is  sometimes  called 
the  independent  state,  and  is  always  the  result  of  the  state 
of  industry.  On  the  one  hand,  it  is  opposed  to  the  state  of  pov- 
erty, on  the  other  to  the  state  of  riches.  It  is  not  to  be  definitely 
defined  in  dollars  and  cents ;  as  that  amount  which  would  be 
sufficient  to  satisfy  one  man's  wants  would  be  insufficient  to 
satisfy  another's.  For  instance,  a  Chinese  laborer  can  live  cheaper 
in  the  United  States  than  an  American  laborer,  because  his  wants 
are  less.  Generally  speaking,  then,  the  comfortable  state  is  that 
wherein  there  is  sufficient  means  to  provide,  properly,  for  man's 
necessary  bodily  wants;  as,  food,  drink,  clothing,  shelter,  fire, 
etc.,  and  many  of  his  intellectual  wants ;  as,  education,  lamps, 
books,  writing  materials,  etc.  It  always  stops  short  of  super- 
fluities; that  is,  riches.  Everyone  can  ascertain  its  boundaries 
by  considering  what  things  are  absolutely  necessary  to  his  com- 
fort and  what  things  are  possible  for  him  to  live  without.  The 
line  once  determined  must  be  strictly  adhered  to  by  all  who  de- 
sire to  lead  a  happy  life. 

We  have  shown  elsewhere  that  men,  in  general,  cannot  live 
happily  in  a  state  of  solitude.  Exceptions  are  found  to  this,  but 
exceptions  never  prove  the  rule.     Man,  pre-eminently,  was  de- 


136  THE  GLOBE. 

signed  for  a  sociable  being.  In  his  breast  is  a  burning  desire  to 
mix  with  his  fellow  men,  hence,  the  world  over  men  are  found 
living  together  in  communities,  more  or  less  refined.  This  living 
together,  with  the  many  relationships  arising  therefrom,  we  call 
the  social  state.  It  conduces  to  man's  happiness,  as  it  supplies  a 
natural,  and  therefore  a  necessary  desire  in  his  breast. 

The  married  state  of  life  is  always  found  within  the  social 
state.  Notwithstanding,  both  are  distinct  states  of  life,  since 
many  who  live  in  the  social  state  are  not  married.  Hence  the 
social  state  includes  two  states  of  life,  namely,  the  married  state 
and  the  unmarried  state.  For  both  of  these  states  of  life  there 
are  advocates  each  claiming  his  own  state  to  be  the  happiest. 
Everyone  has  heard  of  ''matrimonial  bliss"  and  everyone  has 
heard  of  "single-blessedness."  Certain  it  is  that  each  has  its 
advantages  suited  to  the  temper,  disposition  and  circumstances  of 
the  individual.  As  many,  however,  often  find  it  difficult  to  deter- 
mine whether  they  should  remain  single  or  enter  into  the  state 
of  matrimony,  we  shall  transcribe  for  their  benefit,  from  "Bur- 
ton's Anatomy  of  Love  Melancholy,"  the  following  most  inter- 
esting pros  and  cons,  both  in  favor  of  "single-blessedness"  and  of 
"matrimonial  bliss" : 

"Single  bkssedness"  is  advocated  by  the  following  twelve  rea- 
sons. They  point  out  the  advantages  of  a  single  life  and  the  dis- 
advantages of  a  married  one. 

"i.  Hast  thou  means?    Thou  has  one  to  spend  it. 

"2.  Hast  none?    Thy  beggary  is  increased. 

"3.  Art  in  prosperity?    Thy  happiness  is  ended. 

"4.  Art  in  adversity?  Like  Job's  wife  she'll  aggravate  thy 
misery ;  vex  thy  soul ;  make  thy  burden  intolerable. 

"5.  Art  at  home?    She'll  scold  thee  out  of  doors. 

"6.  Art  abroad  ?  If  thou  be  wise,  keep  thee  so ;  she'll  perhaps 
graft  horns  in  thine  absence;  scowl  on  thee  coming  home. 

"7.  Nothing  gives  more  content  than  solitariness;  no  solitari- 
ness like  this  of  a  single  life. 

"8.  The  band  of  marriage  is  adamantine ;  no  hope  of  loosening 
it ;  thou  art  undone. 

"9.  Thy  number  increases,  thou  shalt  be  devoured  by  thy  wife's 
friends. 

"10.  Thou  art  made  a  cornuto  by  an  unchaste  wife;  and 
shalt  bring  up  other  folks'  children  instead  of  thine  own. 


LIFE'S  HAPPIEST  STATE.  137 

"11.  Paul  commends  marriage,  yet  he  prefers  a  single  life. 

"12.  Is  marriage  honorable?  What  an  immortal  crown  belongs 
to  Virginity!' 

The  following  reasons  show  the  advantages  of  matrimony  and 
the  disadvantages  of  a  single  life: 

"i.  Hast  thou  means?    Thou  hast  one  to  keep  and  increase  it. 

"2.  Hast  none  ?    Thou  hast  one  to  help  get  it. 

"3.  Art  in  prosperity  ?    Thine  happiness  is  doubled. 

"4.  Art  in  adversity?  She'll  comfort,  assist,  bear  a  part  of 
thy  burden,  to  make  it  more  tolerable. 

**5.  Art  at  home  ?    She'll  drive  away  melancholy. 

"6.  Art  abroad  ?  She  looks  after  thee  going  from  home,  wishes 
for  thee  in  thine  absence,  and  joyfully  welcomes  thy  return. 

"7.  There's  nothing  dehghtsome  without  society;  no  society 
so  sweet  as  matrimony. 

"8.  The  band  of  conjugal  love  is  adamantine. 

"9.  The  sweet  company  of  kinsmen  increaseth ;  the  number 
of  parents  is  doubled,  of  sisters,  of  brothers,  nephews. 

"10.  Thou  art  made  a  father  by  the  fair  and  happy  issues. 

"11.  Moses  curseth  the  barrenness  of  matrimony,  how  much 
more  a  single  life? 

"12.  If  Nature  escape  not  punishment,  surely  thy  zvill  shall 
not  avoid  it." 

Lastly,  we  come  to  the  contented  state  of  life.  Here  one  finds 
that  peace  and  serenity  of  mind  which  is  as  necessary  to  man's 
happiness  as  proper  food  and  shelter.  But  while  it  is  self-evident 
to  every  reflecting  person  that  contentment  brings  happiness,  it 
is  one  thing  to  state  that  a  person  should  be  contented  and  quite 
another  to  show  him  the  practicability  of  becoming  so.  But  as 
space  would  not  permit  us  here  to  enter  into  the  Remedies 
against  discontentment,  the  best  we  can  do  is  to  refer  the  reader 
to  that  chapter  of  "Burton's  Anatomy,"  which  treats  the  subject 
fully. 

From  what  has  now  been  advanced,  we  are  able  to  deduce  sev- 
eral important  conclusions.  First,  it  is  evident  that  happiness  is 
not  found  in  a  single  state  of  life,  but  in  many  states,  just  as  the 
pleasures  of  the  imagination  are  not  traceable  to  one  source  only, 
but  from  many  sources.  Happiness  has  been  placed  by  some 
philosophers  in  virtue  alone,  others  have  discovered  it  only  in 
contentment,  while  others  again  have  limited  its  sphere  to  bodily 


138  THE  GLOBE. 

pleasures.  All  these  views  are  narrow  and  one-sided.  For  they 
overlook  the  fact  that  man  is  a  composite  of  a  three-fold  nature  ; 
to  wit,  of  a  body,  a  mind  (i.  e.,  intellect),  and  a  soul;  and  that 
the  desires  springing  from  his  several  natures  must  be  equally 
gratified  before  the  greatest  earthly  happiness  is  possible.  Plu- 
tarch, then,  has  correctly  defined  a  happy  life,  since  he  has  pro- 
vided for  the  gratification  of  all  the  necessary  desires  of  man's 
three-fold  nature,  while  he  excludes  only  that  which  is  super- 
fluous. But  it  is  very  plain  that  he  did  not  intend  to  place  happi- 
ness in  a  single  state  of  life,  (as  we  have  here  defined  such  states)  ; 
because  we  find  that  the  necessary  desires  of  man's  several  na- 
tures are  discoverable  only  in  exactly  eight  states.  These  states 
we  have  already  shown  to  be  the  state  of  liberty,  the  private 
state,  the  virtuous  state,  the  industrial  state,  the  state  of  being 
comfortably  oflP,  the  social  state,  the  married  or  single  state,  and 
the  contented  state.  The  very  nature  of  these  states  excludes 
every  superfluity,  whilst,  as  just  remarked,  they  include  the 
gratification  of  every  desire  necessary  to  man's  happiness.  Lib- 
erty, peace  of  mind  and  body,  virtue,  industry,  a  competency, 
society,  a  wife,  contentment, — what  more  needs  a  man  to  be 
happy?  Further,  in  these  eight  states  of  life  a  man  may  live  at 
one  and  the  same  time  in  perfect  agreement ;  and  thus  we  discover 
in  the  combination  of  these  eight  states  that  one  grand,  harmoni- 
ous state  of  which  Plutarch  told  us  all  may  live  happiest.  Here 
man  finds  everything  that  God  and  nature  intended  he  should 
possess  on  earth  to  make  him  truly  happy. 

Secondly,  these  eight  states  of  life  are  within  the  reach  of  all. 
No  one  so  poor  or  humble  but  that  he  may  not  attain  them;  no 
one  so  rich  or  high  but  that  he  may  not  find  it  advantageous  to 
descend  from  the  vanity  and  emptiness  to  which  riches  have 
raised  him.  Here  the  rich  as  well  as  the  poor,  the  high  as  well 
as  the  low,  the  good  as  well  as  the  bad  can  alone  meet  on  equal 
footings  to  attain  what  all  are  striving  after — real,  unalloyed  hap- 
piness. 

Lastly,  in  no  other  land  are  these  states  of  life  brought  to  such 
a  high  degree  of  perfection  or  attained  more  easily  than  in  the 
United  States  of  America.  Here  the  incomparable  states  of  lib- 
erty, privacy,  virtue,  industry,  independence,  society,  matrimony 
and  contentment  are  held  out  alike  to  all  who  will  devote  the 
necessary  time  and  labor  to  secure  them.     None  is  restrained: 


ARCHAEOLOGICAL  MOVEMENTS  IN  ROME.  139 

the  way  lies  clear  and  open  to  all.  Hence  America  may  not  only 
be  called  the  land  of  the  free,  but,  with  equal  justness,  the  land 
of  the  happy.  And,  if  a  man  cannot  find  happiness  in  the  United 
States  of  America,  where,  on  earth,  can  he  ?  Let  him  take  advice 
in  one  word,— reHect.  R.  t,,  Schmitt. 

New  York. 


ARCHAEOLOGICAL  MOVEMENTS  IN   ROME. 


In  the  first  instalment  of  the  great  work,  the  Storia  degli  Scavi 
di  Roma,"  in  which  Professor  Lanciani  has  undertaken  to  record 
the  results  of  his  labors  and  researches  for  a  quarter  of  a  century, 
we  are  told  that  we  must  go  back  more  than  a  thousand  years  to 
find  the  beginnings  of  that  process  of  discovery  among  the  ruined 
buildings  of  ancient  Rome  which  has  gone  on,  almost  without 
interruption,  to  our  own  days.  It  is  true  that  in  all  but  a  fraction 
of  this  time  the  ancient  sites  were  excavated  simply  for  the  sake 
of  materials;  the  object  was  spoliation,  the  result  destruction. 
It  is  not  till  the  fifteenth  century  and  the  revival  of  classical 
studies,  that  we  find  architects  jand  antiquaries  taking  note  of 
what  was  being  unearthed  and  destroyed,  without  a  protest,  be- 
fore their  eyes :  it  is  only  in  the  nineteenth  century  that  we  come 
to  excavations  undertaken  with  a  scientific  object.  Yet  what  a 
picture  does  this  long  history  present  to  us  of  the  inexhaustible 
fecundity  in  antiquities  of  the  soil  of  Rome,  and  how  surprising 
the  fact  that,  after  all,  there  was  reserved  for  our  own  day  and 
for  the  last  few  years  series  of  discoveries  perhaps  more  impor- 
tant than  any  that  had  gone  before ! 

The  history  of  the  systematic  investigation  of  ancient  Rome 
in  modern  times  falls  into  three  periods.  In  the  first  and  longest, 
which  may  be  said,  roughly,  to  have  extended  from  the  Napo- 
leonic epoch  to  the  fall  of  the  Temporal  Power,  though  not  so 
fruitful  in  discoveries  as  more  recent  periods,  were  laid  the  foun- 
dations of  our  present  knowledge  of  the  topography  and  contents 
of  ancient  Rome.    It  was  marked  by  the  creation  of  the  German 


I40  THE  GLOBE. 

Archseological  Institute  in  1829;  by  the  publications  of  Fea, 
Canina,  Nibby,  Becker,  and  Burn ;  above  all  by  the  encyclopaedic 
"Beschreibung  der  Stadt  Rom"  of  Bunsen  and  his  colleagues. 
With  the  incorporation  of  Rome  in  the  kingdom  of  Italy  as  its 
capital  began  an  era  of  discovery.  Even  under  the  Papal  regime 
a  beginning  had  been  made  with  the  excavation  of  the  Palatine 
and  the  Forum.  But  between  1871  and  1885  immense  additions 
were  made  to  our  knowledge  of  ancient  Rome,  partly  as  the 
result  of  systematic  exploration  of  the  Forum,  Palatine,  and 
other  important  sites,  partly  owing  to  the  reconstruction  within 
the  city  and  its  extension  over  districts  where  the  soil  had  not 
been  moved  for  centuries.  With  this  period  the  name  of  Lanciani 
must  always  remain  associated,  and  its  great  monument  is  the 
archaeological  map  of  Rome  produced  under  his  direction  for  the 
Academy  of  the  Lincei.  Without  pausing  to  mention  the  names 
of  many  other  competent  workers  in  the  same  field,  we  may  say 
that  the  new  movement  in  Roman  archaeology  produced  by  these 
discoveries  was  worthily  represented  in  English  by  Mr.  F.  M. 
Nichols  and  the  late  Professor  Middleton.  Nor  must  we  omit 
the  colossal  work  for  Christian  epigraphy,  and  the  history  of  the 
Catacombs,  achieved  by  De  Rossi,  whose  publications,  begun  in 
the  last  decade  of  the  Papal  regime,  were  continued  all  through 
the  period  we  have  just  been  describing. 

When  the  subject  of  ancient  Rome  was  last  dealt  with  in  the 
pages  of  this  journal/  the  hope  was  expressed  that  we  were  at 
the  beginning  of  a  new  period  of  excavation.  That  hope  has 
been  more  than  fulfilled,  and  the  last  four  years  have  seen  a 
progress  in  the  methods  and  results  of  discovery  which  has  sur- 
passed all  previous  attainment.  The  watchword  of  this  new 
eflfort  was  ''Thorough."  Beginning  with  the  Forum,  the  ground, 
so  far  as  possible,  was  to  be  explored  down  to  the  virgin  soil,  and 
every  secret  which  it  contained  was  to  be  laid  bare.  In  this  way 
not  only  have  extensive  and  important  buildings  of  the  Imperial 
age  been  brought  to  light ;  we  have  got,  almost  for  the  first  time, 
below  what  may  be  called  the  superficial  ruins,  to  the  Rome  which 
was  obliterated  by  the  reconstructions  of  Augustus  and  his  succes- 
sors, the  Rome  of  the  middle  and  early  Republic,  and  below  that 
again  in  places  to  the  Rome  of  the  Kings.  The  interest  aroused  by 
these  discoveries  has  been  deep  and  widespread.  Of  their  effect  on 
scholars  it  is  unnecessary  to  dilate,  but  it  is  significant  that  they 


ARCH^OLOGICAL  MOVEMENTS  IN  ROME.  141 

have  been  eagerly  chronicled  by  the  daily  press,  though  sometimes 
not  without  a  touch  of  the  marvellous  and  the  romantic  which 
subsequent  knowledge  has  scarcely  justified.  The  indirect  results 
have  not  been  less  striking.  The  Italian  national  consciousness 
has  been  powerfully  stimulated  by  this  appeal  to  the  great  days 
of  its  past — a  welcome  relief  and  counterpoise  in  a  country,  satur- 
ated with  ecclesiastical  traditions.  And  the  discoveries  in  the 
Forum  have  indirectly  affected  all  the  antiquities  of  RomxC.  The 
results  may  be  seen  in  the  measures  taken  for  the  preservation 
or  restoration  of  the  buildings,  or  fragments  of  buildings,  which 
have  always  remained  above  ground,  in  the  activity  displayed  in 
the  arrangement  and  improvement  of  the  Museums,  in  the 
renewed  energy  and  friendly  rivalry  of  the  Christian  archaeolo- 
gists and  their  work  in  the  Catacombs  and  churches.  The  credit 
of  initiating  this  great  movement  belongs  in  the  first  instance 
to  the  Minister  of  Public  Instruction  in  1898,  Guido  Bacelli.  The 
names  of  the  Commission  appointed  to  supervise  the  work — 
Gatti,  Lanciani,  Sacconi,  Huelsen — were  a  sufficient  guarantee  of 
the  character  of  the  enterprise;  but  it  was  scarcely  possible  for 
anyone  to  have  imagined  the  importance  of  the  results  to  be 
obtained  when  the  actual  direction  of  the  excavations  was  placed 
in  the  hands  of  the  Venetian  architect  Giacomo  Boni,  who  added 
to  his  technical  training  a  wide  experience  in  the  treatment  of 
ancient  monuments.  Under  his  masterly  organization,  his  keen 
insight,  and  unequalled  devotion,  the  work  of  recovering  the  his- 
tory of  the  Forum  is  being  carried  out  with  astonishing  success. 
It  need  scarcely  be  added  that  the  new  movement,  almost  coinci- 
dent with  his  accession,  found  a  warm  friend  in  the  King  of  Italy, 
who  to  historical  and  archaeological  attainments  of  a  remarkable 
order  unites  a  reputation  as  a  numismatist  which  is  not  the  less 
considerable  because  he  is  also  the  energetic  and  devoted  sover- 
eign of  a  young  and  progressive  nation. 

Within  the  limits  of  an  article  like  this,  it  would  be  impossible, 
even  if  it  were  desirable,  to  give  a  detailed  account  of  these  dis- 
coveries, and  we  must  content  ourselves  with  noticing  some  of 
the  most  important  items  in  the  mass  of  knowledge  which  the 
new  excavations  have  placed  at  our  disposal.  The  first  thing 
to  strike  those  who  were  accustomed  to  the  appearance  of  the 
Forum  before  1898  is  the  increase  of  the  excavated  area.  It  will 
be  remembered  that  up  to  a  few  years  ago  that  area  was  bounded 


142  THE  GLOBE. 

on  the  north  and  south  by  public  roads.  These  roads  have  been 
abolished  or  curtailed,  and  it  was  in  the  space  thus  gained  that 
some  of  the  most  precious  discoveries  have  been  made.  On  the 
northern  side  the  fagades  of  two  ancient  buildings,  the  Senate 
House  (S.  Adriano),  and  the  Temple  of  Antoninus  and  Faustina 
(S.  Lorenzo  in  Miranda),  have  always  marked  the  limits  of  the 
Forum  in  that  direction,  and,  by  the  removal  of  the  accumulated 
earth,  they  once  more  rise  up  clear  from  the  ancient  level.  But 
between  them  the  buried  site  of  the  Basilica  vEmilia  had  become 
covered  with  modern  houses,  and  these  it  was  necessary  to 
acquire — a  heavy  addition  to  the  cost  of  the  excavations,  already 
considrable  for  a  country  like  Italy,  with  many  claims  on 
its  revenue,  and  comparatively  small  resources.  We  may  be  glad 
to  think  it  was  the  generosity  of  an  Englishman,  Mr.  Lionel 
Phillips,  which  came  to  the  rescue  and  presented  the  site  to  the 
Italian  authorities.  On  the  southern  side  of  the  Forum  a  diffi- 
culty of  another  kind  confronted  the  explorers.  Partly  from 
inference,  partly  from  the  evidence  of  older  excavations,  it  was 
probable  that  the  site  occupied  by  the  church  of  S.  Maria  Libera- 
trice  and  its  surroundings  concealed  remains  of  great  importance. 
The  church  was  not  parochial,  and  its  date  could  not  be  carried 
back  beyond  the  sixteenth  century.  Still  it  was  a  church,  and  the 
susceptibilities  of  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  had  to  be  consid- 
ered. Fortunately  these  were  overcome  without  great  difficulty, 
and  it  is  satisfactory  to  reflect  that  not  only  did  the  subsequent 
discoveries  equal  and  even  surpass  every  expectation,  but  that 
nothing  has  come  to  light  which  would  give  to  the  vanished 
church  a  greater  archaeological  interest  or  a  longer  ecclesiastical 
pedigree  than  had  been  supposed. 

When  we  turn  to  glance  at  the  results  which  have  been 
obtained  from  these  changes  we  may  begin  by  observing  that 
perhaps  the  most  striking  general  idea  gained  from  the  excava- 
tions is  the  conception  of  the  original  orientation  of  the  Forum. 
The  Forum,  as  we  know  it,  is  an  area  of  irregular  shape,  but  it 
is  none  the  less  evident  that  an  attempt  has  been  made  to  give 
it  an  air  of  symmetry  and  uniformity.  At  the  western  end  the 
Tabularium  with  the  temples  and  the  Rostra  below  it,  confronted 
the  temple  of  JuHus  Caesar,  at  the  opposite  extremity;  just  as  on 
the  south  the  Basilica  Julia,  precisely  aligned  with  the  temple  of 
Castor,  formed  a  pendant  to  the  Basilica  ^^milia  and  the  Curia 


ARCH^OLOGICAL  MOVEMENTS  IN  ROME,  143 

«n  the  north.  This  regulation  of  the  Forum  was  the  work  of 
the  age  of  Augustus  though  there  can  be  Httle  doubt  that  its 
Hnes  were  determined  by  the  Tabularium  erected  some  thirty 
years  before  the  death  of  Julius  Caesar.  To  achieve  it,  ideas  of 
architectural  symmetry  carried  the  day,  especially  in  the  case  of 
the  Curia  and  the  Rostra,  over  the  old  augural  rules  for  the 
orientation  of  temples,  to  which  category  those  buildings  techni- 
cally belonged.  The  evidence  for  their  old  orientation,  approxi- 
mately due  north  and  south,  and  therefore  at  an  oblique  angle 
to  the  lines  of  the  Imperial  Forum,  the  significance  of  which  had 
already  been  perceived  by  Hudson,  has  been  notably  increased 
by  the  present  excavations.  It  may  be  seen  in  the  pavement  of 
various  republican  periods  unearthed  in  and  near  the  Comitium, 
the  enclosed  space  in  front  of  the  Senate  House ;  and  a  similar 
tale  is  told  by  part  of  the  archaic  structures  covered  by  the  Black 
Stone,  to  which  we  shall  refer  presently.  We  must,  in  fact, 
conceive  a  time  when  the  speakers  on  the  Rostra  with  the  Senate 
House  behind  them,  faced  the  northern  angle  of  the  Palatine  Hill, 
and  not,  as  in  later  times,  the  temple  of  Caesar.  There  is  no  reason 
to  suppose  that  the  line  of  the  northern  side  of  the  Forum  has 
been  substantially  altered,  and  of  the  original  arrangements  on 
the  south  we  have  at  present  no  evidence.  But  if  we  are  to  fol- 
low out  the  lines  of  the  Regia,  of  the  original  House  of  Vestals, 
and  of  the  newly  discovered  shrine  of  Juturna,  which,  perhaps 
from  its  small  size,  has  escaped  the  shifting  necessary  in  the  case 
of  larger  buildings,  we  might  suppose  that  the  eastern  end  of 
the  Forum  corresponded  to  the  angle  of  the  old  Curia  and 
Comitium,  and  that  the  temple  of  Castor  was  orientated  in  a 
similar  manner. 

One  other  observation  of  a  general  character  is  suggested  by 
these  excavations.  We  have  already  alluded  to  the  wholesale 
spoliation  of  the  ruins  which  took  place,  especially,  in  the  great 
building  epoch  of  the  Cinquecento.  Professor  Lanciani,  who  has 
made  the  subject  his  own,  had  already  warned  us  what  we  must 
expect.  But  to  realize  the  way  in  which  the  great  remains  of 
classical  times  were  plundered  to  build  the  palaces  and  churches 
— and  how  insatiable  in  the  way  of  materials  the  colossal  fabric 
of  St.  Peter's  must  have  been ! — one  must  see  the  buildings  which 
have  been  uncovered  reduced  to  mere  foundations,  the  cavities 
from  which  the  vast  blocks  of  travertine  have  been  extracted,  the 


144  THE  GLOBE. 

marble  of  pavement  and  wall  and  column  only  left  because  it  was 
too  shattered  to  be  worth  removal.  The  state  in  which  the  Basilica 
yEmilia  was  discovered  gives  us  little  hope  of  finding  more  than 
the  leavings  when  the  removal  of  the  Villa  Mills  once  more 
reveals  the  site  of  the  temple  of  Apollo  on  the  Palatine.  There  is 
one  consolation  in  face  of  these  irreparable  depredations :  they 
were  generally  confined  to  the  buildings  of  the  Imperial  epoch 
of  which  the  remains  are  abundant  and  our  knowledge  consider- 
able. They  seldom  interfered  with  the  older  strata;  and  it  is 
just  among  the  remains  of  primitive  and  prehistoric  Rome,  where 
our  knowledge  was  most  deficient,  that  we  can  reckon  some  of 
the  greatest  gains  from  the  new  discoveries. 

Among  these  primitive  remains,  to  which  we  may  now  turn 
our  attention,  first  in  order  of  time,  and  perhaps  of  historical 
importance,  comes  the  prehistoric  cemetery  brought  to  light  at 
the  eastern  end  of  the  fagade  of  the  temple  of  Antoninus  and 
Faustina.  Whatever  its  precise  date,  it  must  belong  to  a  time 
when  what  we  know  as  the  Forum  and  the  Via  Sacra  were  out- 
side the  walls  of  the  town  which  the  occupants  of  the  graves 
had  once  inhabited,  presumably  that  city  of  the  Palatine  Hill 
the  walls  of  which  have  in  part  survived  to  this  day,  identified 
with  the  foundation  of  Romulus.  How  much  of  the  cemetery 
was  destroyed  by  the  surrounding  temples  and  other  buildings 
we  shall  never  know :  it  is  by  a  mere  accident  that  so  much  has 
survived ;  but  there  is  enough  to  show  that  most  of  the  methods 
of  burial  known  to  primitive  Latium  w^ere  practiced  here,  in 
other  words  that  the  interments  cover  a  considerable  time,  and 
exhibit  a  regular  course  of  development.  The  oldest  are 
undoubtedly  those  in  which  the  body  was  consigned  to  an  urn. 
These  receptacles  were  either  the  well-known  hut-urns — a  fact 
which  directly  connects  the  Roman  cemetery  with  the  primitive 
Latin  civilization  of  the  Alban  Hills,  or  later  modifications  of 
these  in  which  only  the  characteristic  roof  survives  serving  as 
the  lid  of  a  jar,  finally  becoming  pots  of  the  ordinary  forms, 
generally  enclosed  with  other  remains  in  a  larger  doliiim.  At  a 
later  period,  and,  perhaps,  as  has  been  suggested,  as  a  result  of 
contact  with  the  Etruscans  beyond  the  Tiber,  inhumation  was 
practiced,  and  here  again  the  rude  tufa  tombs  may  be  brought 
into  connection  with  the  epoch  of  the  early  necropolis  on  the 
Esquiline.     Among  the  objects  discovered  is  a  vase  in  the  so- 


ARCHAEOLOGICAL  MOVEMENTS  IN  ROME.  145 

called   "Proto-Corinthian"   style  which   would   indicate  that  the 
cemetery  was  still  in  use  as  late  as  about  700  B.  C. 

To  a  far  later  stage  in  the  growth  of  the  city  belong  the  archaic 
structures  and  inscription  covered  by  the  Black  Stone.  They 
must  come  from  the  time  when  the  Forum  was  the  centre  of 
Roman  life,  and  not,  apparently,  from  the  earliest  period  in  which 
that  condition  of  things  was  established.  Experiments  made  in 
the  Comitium — and  these  remains  are  included  in  its  area — have 
shown  the  existence  of  no  fewer  than  twenty-three  different 
strata,  each  containing  characteristic  remains,  between  the  latest 
pavement  and  the  virgin  soil ;  and  the  level  on  which  these  struc- 
tures are  placed  is  not  lower  than  about  a  third  down  these 
strata.  These  remains  were  described  in  this  journal  in  1900, 
but  they  have  aroused  so  much  interest  that  we  may  be  forgiven 
for  returning  to  the  subject  in  order  to  sum  up  what  is  known 
and  said  about  them.  It  may  be  convenient  to  remind  the  reader 
that  early  in  1899,  when  the  area  in  front  of  the  Curia  (S. 
Adriano),  i.  e.  the  ancient  Comitium,  was  cleared,  one  of  the  first 
things  that  came  to  light  was  a  small  space  paved  with  black 
marble  and  protected  on  at  least  three  sides  by  a  parapet.  There 
was  little  hesitation  in  identifying  this  with  the  "Black  Stone" 
which,  according  to  the  Roman  antiquaries  of  the  Augustan  and 
later  ages,  marked  the  grave  of  Romulus  in  the  Comitium.  It 
was  clear  that  in  its  existing  form  it  was  of  late  date,  for  it  was 
at  the  level  of  the  most  recent  ancient  pavement  in  its  neighbor- 
hood, probably  not  older  than  the  fourth  century  A.  D.  In  order 
to  ascertain  what  grounds  there  were  for  the  learned  or  popular 
opinion  that  the  Black  Stone  covered  the  tomb  of  the  founder  of 
the  city,  the  ground  below  was  carefully  explored,  and  here,  at 
the  depth  of  a  few  feet,  the  remains  in  question  were  discovered 
and  permanently  exposed  to  view,  the  Black  Stone  itself  being 
artificially  supported  above  them.  To  the  left  of  a  spectator 
standing  with  his  back  to  the  Curia  was  a  small  oblong  space 
lined  with  tufa,  and  flanked  by  two  moulded  bases,  the  whole 
presenting  the  appearance  of  the  foundations  of  a  sacellum  or 
shrine  built  against  a  platform  of  tufa  blocks  behind  it.  To  the 
right  stand  isolated  a  conical  pillar  and  an  inscribed  cippus  or 
obelisk,  both  truncated  by  some  act  of  destruction.  They  stood 
beside  another  platform  of  masonry  which  rises  beyond  them, 
apparently  approached   by   steps.     The  whole  series  had  been 


,46  THE  GLOBE. 

buried  in  an  artificial  stratum  of  debris  which  contained  the 
remains  of  sacrifices,  votive  objects,  fragments  of  bronze  and  of 
early  pottery,  some  of  it  Greek,  and  small  pieces  of  marble  both 
of  the  white  and  colored  varieties.  According  to  the  most  trust- 
worthy accounts  the  various  objects  range  in  date  from  the 
seventh  to  the  first  century  before  Christ,  and  they  were  found 
intermingled  and  not  in  strata  corresponding  to  their  age.  In 
other  words  the  whole  mass  was  probably  brought  from  else- 
where to  be  used  in  this  manner  when,  in  some  re-arrangement 
of  the  Forum,  the  archaic  structures  were  finally  concealed  from 
view. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  shrine  now  discovered  is 
what  the  Romans  understood  by  the  tomb  of  Romulus.  Whether 
Varro  and  his  contemporaries  had  actually  seen  the  objects  may 
be  doubtful,  but  the  memory  of  them  was  sufiiciently  fresh  to  pre- 
serve such  a  detail  as  that  the  grave  was  marked  by  two  lions 
"like  those  which  may  be  seen  on  tombs,"  alluding  no  doubt  to 
remains  of  Etruscan  art.  It  would  certainly  have  been  more 
satisfactory  to  have  discovered  some  fragments  of  the  lions,  and 
it  must  be  remembered  that  another  of  the  Augustan  antiquaries, 
Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  speaks  of  only  one  lion ;  still,  we 
may  regard  it  as  not  improbable  that  two  lions  reposed  on  the 
moulded  bases  which  form  the  sides  of  the  shrine.  When  we 
come  to  ask,  was  this  a  "Heroon"  erected  under  the  influence  of 
Greek  ideas  for  the  worship  of  the  traditional  founder  of  the  city, 
or  was  its  connection  with  him  a  piece  of  folklore  having  its 
origin  perhaps  in  a  misunderstanding  of  some  word  of  the  archaic 
inscription  hard  by,  already  an  unknown  tongue  for  all  but 
philologists? — and  it  is  suggestive  that,  as  we  learn  from  one 
of  our  authorities,  there  were  rival  traditions  which  substituted 
Faustulus  or  Hostus  Hostilius  for  Romulus — in  face  of  ques- 
tions like  these  we  are  reduced  to  mere  conjecture,  and  may  there- 
fore hesitate  to  be  more  precise. 

Not  less  uncertainty  confronts  us  when  we  turn  to  examine  the 
other  group  of  objects,  the  inscribed  pillar,  the  column  or  cone, 
and  the  platform  approached  by  steps.  They  do  not  appear  to 
have  any  direct  connection  with  the  shrine.  While  the  Black 
Stone  itself  is  orientated  on  the  lines  of  the  Senate  House  and 
Comitium  of  later  times,  the  structures  which  it  covers  agree 
generally,  as  might  be  expected,  with  what  we  have  described 


ARCH^OL  O  GICAL  MO  VEMEJS  TS  IN  ROME.  147 

above  as  the  old  orientation  of  the  Forum.  But  while  they  both 
follow  this  general  direction,  the  two  groups  are  not  set  on 
exactly  the  same  lines ;  and  it  is  noticeable  that  the  platform  with 
which  the  inscribed  pillar  is  apparently  structurally  connected 
lies  almost  precisely  north  and  south.  This  suggests  a  possible 
explanation.  One  thing  that  our  ancient  authorities  tell  us  about 
the  tomb  of  Romulus  is  that  it  was  by  the  Rostra.  Now  the 
Rostra  was  a  femplum,  orientated  to  the  four  points  of  the  com- 
pass, as  we  should  say ;  and  it  does  not  appear  an  excessive  piece 
of  credulity  to  identify  it  with  the  remains  of  the  platform 
approached  by  steps,  of  which  we  have  spoken.  If  it  be  so,  we 
need  hardly  pause  to  observe  that,  of  all  the  monuments  of 
Republican  Rome,  the  Rostra  was  perhaps  the  most  interesting 
from  its  associations. 

There  remains  the  inscription  on  the  pillar,  and  its  interpre- 
tation. The  letters  are  almost  as  fresh  as  the  day  they  were  cut, 
and  they  belong  to  the  Greek  alphabet  of  the  Chalcidian  colonies 
in  Italy,  which  was  the  source  of  Roman  as  of  Etruscan  writing. 
Nor  do  the  words,  when  they  are  complete,  present  excessive 
difficulties  of  interpretation:  the  Latin  may  be  archaic,  but  it  is 
recognizable.  But  thejines  run,  as  the  Greek  would  say,  boustro- 
phedon,  i.  e.,  from  right  to  left,  and  then  back  again  from  left 
to  right :  and  as  at  least  one-half,  possibly  two-thirds  or  more,  of 
the  pillar  has  been  destroyed,  the  result  is  that  only  a  word  or 
two  at  the  beginning  or  end  of  the  lines  has  been  preserved.  Now 
if  we  were  dealing  with  an  inscription  of  classical  times  our 
knowledge  of  Roman  epigraphic  formulae  is  such  that  it  would 
be  by  no  means  impossible  to  restore  the  sense,  if  not  every 
detail,  of  even  so  fragmentary  a  record  as  this.  But  here  we 
have  to  do  with  one  of  the  three  oldest  pieces  of  Latin  writing 
in  existence,  and  the  material  for  comparison  provided  by  the 
other  two  (we  refer  to  the  inscriptions  on  the  vase  of  Duenos 
and  the  fibula  from  Palestrina)  is  insufficient  to  give  us  any  help. 
Under  these  circumstances  can  we  do  more  for  the  present  than 
agree  with  Dr.  Huelsen,  who  has  as  much  right  as  any  one  to 
speak  on  such  a  subject,  that  restoration  of  the  text  is  impossible, 
and  that  we  must  guess  at  the  meaning  as  best  we  can  from  the 
few  isolated  words  which  are  certain?  Not  far  different  is  the 
conclusion  of  the  greatest  of  living  Italian  philologists,  Domenico 
Comparetti,  though  he  would  endeavor  to  be  more  precise  and 


148  THE  GLOBE, 

complete  in  his  interpretation.  Leaving  aside,  then,  various 
ingenious  or  fanciful  attempts  at  reconstruction  where  recon- 
struction is  impossible,  we  content  ourselves  with  noting  the 
points  which  are  certain.  The  inscription  appears  to  open  with 
a  general  prohibition  accompanied  by  a  sanction.  "Whoever  does 
so  and  so,  let  him  be  accursed"  (i.  e.,  devoted,  sacer).  Then 
follows  a  statement  in  which  the  rex  and  the  kalator  are  men- 
tioned, but  there  is  no  context  to  show  whether  the  sovereign  of 
the  regal  period  or  the  rex  sacriUculus,  the  priest-king  of  the 
Republic  is  meant.  In  one  of  his  last  utterances  the  illustrious 
Mommsen  inclined  to  the  former  alternative.  On  the  other  hand, 
we  know  that  the  priest-king,  attended  of  course  by  his  minister 
or  calator,  appeared  on  certain  days  in  the  Comitium  to  perform 
religious  rites,  notably  on  February  24,  when  the  regifugium 
was  commemorated.  Taking  into  consideration  the  position  of 
the  cippus  within  the  Comitium,  turned  perhaps  so  that  its  first 
words  met  the  eye  of  one  ascending  the  platform  which  is  pre- 
sumably the  Rostra,  if  we  were  to  hazard  a  conjecture,  or  rather 
to  select  the  most  reasonable  among  the  various  conjectures 
which  have  been  made,  we  should  say  that  it  was  not  unlikely 
that  the  inscription  contained  directions  for  protecting  the  sanc- 
tity of  the  Comitium,  or  of  the  Rostra,  with  a  special  reference 
(perhaps  in  the  nature  of  exception)  to  the  visits  of  the  Rex 
Sacrorum.  With  this,  little  as  it  may  be,  we  must  for  the  present 
be  content. 

One  more  question  remains  to  be  touched  upon  before  we  leave 
these  monuments,  and  that  is  the  date  of  their  destruction,  solemn 
burial,  and  final  disappearance.  That  we  have  before  us  an 
example  of  the  havoc  wrought  by  the  Gauls  when  Rome  was  at 
their  mercy  in  390  B.  C.  is  a  view  which  is  picturesque  and  there- 
fore popular,  but  there  is  much  to  be  said  against  it.  Especially 
when  we  consider  the  late  date  of  part  of  the  debris  used  for  the 
burial,  it  seems  more  probable  that  the  monuments,  perhaps  pro- 
tected by  a  retaining  wall  as  the  levels  were  raised  all  round  them, 
remained  visible  till  they  were  damaged  in  one  of  the  political 
upheavals  which  marked  the  last  century  of  the  Republic ;  and 
that,  perhaps  in  the  course  of  the  great  structural  alterations  in 
the  Forum  under  Augustus,  of  which  the  most  significant  was 
the  transference  of  the  Rostra  from  its  old  religious  site  on  the 
edge  of  the  Comitium  to  a  new  position  in  which  it  dominated 


ARCHAEOLOGICAL  MOVEMENTS  IN  ROME,  149 

the  Forum,  these  relics  of  antiquity  were  not  removed,  but  buried 
beneath  the  new  pavement.  Whether  anything  indicated  their 
position  we  cannot  tell.  The  Black  Stone,  as  we  have  noticed,  is 
at  the  level  of  the  latest  paving  of  the  Forum  area  which  belongs 
to  ancient  times,  probably  to  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century 
A.  D.  It  is  possible  that  the  black  marble  slabs  are  much  older, 
and  have  simply  been  raised  with  every  alteration  of  the  Forum 
level.  But  it  is  an  interesting  and  likely  conjecture  of  Dr.  Huel- 
sen's  that  we  have  here  another  instance  of  the  zeal  shown  by 
Maxentius,  the  champion  of  Paganism,  in  endeavoring  to  infuse 
new  life  into  the  ancient  national  cults,  and  particularly  that  of 
the  Founder  of  Rome,  whose  name  he  conferred  upon  his  own 
son.  Hard  by  in  the  Comitium  area  a  pedestal  has  been  discov- 
ered which,  as  the  inscription  tells  us,  bore  the  figures  of  Mars 
and  the  twins  his  offspring,  dedicated  by  Maxentius  on  April  21, 
the  traditional  anniversary  of  the  foundation  of  the  city.  What 
more  natural  than  that  he  should  renew  in  visible  form  the  Black 
Stone  recorded  by  learned  writers,  and  perhaps  never  entirely 
forgotten?  It  is  easy  to  understand  how,  under  such  circum- 
stances, when  the  objects  had  been  long  invisible,  the  Black 
Stone  only  approximately  indicates  their  position,  and  is  set  on 
the  lines  of  the  Imperial  Curia  and  Comitium,  and  not  on  those 
of  the  monuments  themselves. 

W>  cannot  linger  over  the  other  finds  in  this  quarter  of  the 
Forum — the  so-called  Rostra  of  Julius  Caeesar,  perhaps  only  the 
substructure  of  the  road  to  the  Capitol,  or  the  primitive  altar  iden- 
tified with  more  probability  as  the  Volcanal.  We  will  only 
remark  in  passing  that  there  are  hopes  of  clearing  out  S.  Adriano 
to  the  level  of  its  original  pavement,  so  that  we  should  be  able 
to  tread  the  floor  of  the  last  home  of  the  Roman  Senate.  And 
the  Basilica  Emilia  need  not  detain  us  long.  Since  its  remains 
were  first  described  in  this  journal  the  excavation  has  been  prac- 
tically completed,  but  it  adds  little  to  our  knowledge  of  the  build- 
ing. More  interesting  perhaps  is  the  discovery  beneath  it  of  the 
lowest,  and  therefore  presumably  the  oldest,  of  the  great  sewers 
which  converged  in  and  crossed  the  Forum  on  their  way  to  the 
Tiber. 

This  then  should  be  the  Cloaca  Maxima,  and  a  street  shrine 
above  it  in  front  of  the  Basilica  perhaps  marks  the  cult  of  Venus 
Cloacina.     Among  our  disappointments  we  must  reckon  that  at 


j^o  THE  GLOBE. 

present  no  trace  of  the  temple  of  Janus  has  been  discovered.  On 
the  other  hand,  in  the  centre  of  the  Forum,  we  have  recovered 
the  base  of  the  colossal  statue  of  Domitian,  so  elaborately 
described  in  the  opening  poem  of  the  "Silvae"  of  Statius. 

Comparable  in  interest  to  the  discoveries  in  the  Comitium  is 
the  group  of  monuments  which  have  been  revealed  at  the  opposite 
angle  of  the  Forum.     Here  not  only  have  the  temple  of  Castor, 
and  the  vast  structure  dedicated  to  the  worship  of  Augustus  and 
his    successors,   been   completely   cleared   and   isolated,   but   the 
removal  of  the  church  of  S.  Maria  Liberatrice  has  for  the  first 
time  laid  bare  everything  between  the  Forum  and  the  Palatine. 
This   immense   undertaking   has   given   us   in   the    Fountain   of 
Juturna   the   most   picturesque   of   all   the   discoveries,   with   its 
marble-lined  basin  still  fed  to  some  extent  by  the  ancient  springs, 
lying  in  the  shadow  of  the  three  surviving  columns  of  the  temple 
of  Castor,  just  in  the  position  in  which  it  is  marked  on  a  fragment 
of  the  ancient  marble  plan  of  Rome.     Picture  after  picture  is 
called  up  by  the  scene  and  its  suroundings;  the  spring  used  by 
the  dwellers  in  the  Palatine  City,  and  dedicated  by  them  to  the 
old  Italian  water-goddess,  with  a  shrine  hard  by  which  still  pre- 
serves, in  a  comparatively  recent  form,  its  primitive  orientation; 
the  legends  which  connect  it  with  the  battle  of  Lake  Regillus  and 
the  early  independence  of  the   infant   Republic,  commemorated 
when  the  fountain  was  reconstructed  on  the  lines  of  the  Augustan 
Forum  by  a  group  of  the  divine  twins  standing  by  their  horses 
in  its  midst,  now  become  the  centre  of  a  group  of  shrines;  and 
then  the  day  when  the  old  beliefs  being  dead,  Christian  icono- 
clasts hurled  the  images  from  the  pedestals,  and  tumbled  altars 
and  horsemen  alike  into  the  basin.     Not  less  enlightening  for 
the  history  of  Rome  is  the  building  which  rises  beyond.     Here, 
wedged  in  between  the  cliff  of  the  Palatine  and  the  towering 
back  wall  of  the  temple  of  Augutsus  which  rivals  it  in  height, 
we  find  a  great  hall,  and  beyond  it  an  atrium  with  rooms  opening 
from  it ;  the  elements,  in  fact,  of  the  plan  of  a  Roman  house,  but 
on  a  grand  scale.    It  has  had  a  curious  history.    These  structures 
date  from  the  last  decades  of  the  first  century  A.  D.,  but  they 
doubtless  replaced  others  of  similar  character,  perhaps  destroyed 
in  the  fire  under  Nero.     In  fact,  below  the  floor  of  the  entrance 
hall  has  been  found  a  great  tank,  once  lined  with  marble,  perhaps 
the  impluvium  of  some  palatial  residence.     When  we  remember 


i 


ARCH^OLOGICAL  MOVEMENTS  IN  ROME.  151 

the  story  that  CaUgula  extended  his  palace  as  far  as  the  Forum, 
and  connected  it  with  the  temple  of  Castor,  the  idea  suggests 
itself  that  this  may  be  part  of  his  plan.  The  means  of  communi- 
cation between  the  Palatine  and  the  heart  of  Rome  were  in  fact 
inadequate.  Apart  from  the  narrow  flight  of  steps  coming  down 
from  the  northern  angle  to  the  temple  of  Vesta,  the  only  approach 
was  by  way  of  the  Via  Sacra  and  the  Arch  of  Titus.  To  create  a 
palace-entrance  on  the  level  of  the  Forum  would  be  an  obvious 
convenience,  and  the  only  point  where  this  could  be  done  is  in  the 
space  behind  the  temple  of  Castor.  This  may  well  have  been 
the  intention  when  the  buildings  were  reconstructed  under  Domi- 
tian.  On  the  one  side  they  communicated  with  the  temple  of  the 
Imperial  cult ;  on  the  other,  by  a  covered  ascent  of  easy  gradients 
with  the  palaces  on  the  hill  above.  An  explanation  of  a  different 
kind  comes  to  us  recommended  by  the  learning  and  sagacity  of 
Dr.  Huelsen.  But  in  this  case  he  hardly  persuades  us  to  recog- 
nize in  a  building  of  this  character  the  library  attached,  according 
to  an  ancient  authority,  to  the  temple  of  Augustus.  It  is  as  likely 
that  the  temple  referred  to  was  a  different  one,  and  on  the 
Palatine.  We  must  hope  that  the  promised  excavations  on  the 
site  of  the  Villa  Mills  will  restore  to  us  at  least  the  plan  of  the 
famous  library  connected  with  the  temple  of  Apollo.  At  present 
our  knowledge  of  Roman  libraries  is  too  slight  to  be  of  much 
avail  in  the  case  before  us.  We  are  on  surer  ground  when  we 
see  in  some  part  of  this  building,  or  perhaps  in  the  portico  which 
runs  along  its  northern  face,  the  repository  of  the  diplomas 
of  Roman  citizenship  granted  to  soldiers  on  their  discharge. 
These  documents,  which  are  not  uncommon,  are  certified  copies 
of  the  originals  "at  Rome  behind  the  temple  of  Augustus  at  (or 
by)  the  shrine  of  Minerva" — so  the  formula  runs.  If  we  could 
recognize  the  latter  in  the  small  temple-like  structure  immediately 
to  the  left  of  the  entrance,  converted  in  post-classical  times  into 
the  Church  of  the  Forty  Martyrs,  we  might  amuse  ourselves 
with  the  fancy  that  we  had  found  another  of  those  curious  cases 
of  continuity  between  the  Pagan  and  Christian  associations  of  a 
building,  and  that  the  legend  and  pictured  forms  of  the  martyred 
legionaries  of  Sebaste  were  peculiarly  appropriate  to  a  spot  which 
was  perhaps,  even  in  Christian  times,  full  of  memorials  of  the 
army. 

However  these  things  may  be,  in  the  days  when  the  Emperors 


152  1HE  GLOBE. 

no  longer  lived  in  Rome,  and  the  pagan  world  was  dying  or 
dead,  the  great  vestibule  and  atrium,  which  we  have  described, 
became  a  church — the  earliest  instance,  no  doubt,  of  such  a  con- 
version of  an  ancient  building  in  the  heart  of  the  city:  a  fact 
which  is  emphasized  by  its  name,  S.  Maria  Antiqua — Old  St. 
Mary's.  The  date  of  its  foundation  must  remain  uncertain ;  it  is 
in  the  Byzantine  age  that  it  first  comes  to  our  notice,  and  it  is  as 
a  Romano-Byzantine  church,  with  its  decorative  scheme  fairly 
preserved,  that  it  appeals  to  our  interest.  It  was  a  rare  chance 
which  has  enabled  us  to  see  the  wall-paintings  and  internal 
arrangements  of  a  church  of  the  eighth  century.  From  their  very 
continuity  of  use  no  buildings  have  suffered  more  than  the 
Roman  churches ;  and  it  is  hardly  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  we 
know  far  more  of  the  contents  and  decorations  of  ancient  tem- 
ples than  of  the  outward  appearance  and  characteristic  art  of  the 
churches  in  the  early  mediaeval  period.  In  the  case  of  S.  Maria 
Antiqua  change  was  arrested  by  a  catastrophe  which  buried  the 
church  out  of  sight  before  the  middle  of  the  ninth  century.  If 
its  life  was  short,  there  was  time  for  it  to  receive,  in  parts,  three 
and  even  four  new  schemes  of  decoration — each  in  turn  taking 
the  place  of  that  which  is  concealed.  The  most  important  of  these 
restorations  was  that  carried  out  in  the  early  years  of  the  eighth 
century  by  Pope  John  VII  who  had  special  ties  connecting  him 
with  the  church.  But  it  is  little  short  of  a  revelation  to  find,  in 
what  we  are  accustomed  to  regard  as  the  darkest  of  the  dark 
ages  a  Rome,  such  artistic  activity  in  a  church  of  the  second  or 
third  rank.  It  would  be  impossible  here  to  dwell  upon  these 
paintings,  which  are  fully  described  and  explained  in  the  volume 
of  papers  of  the  British  School  at  Rome  which  we  have  placed 
at  the  head  of  this  article.  It  is  rather  for  the  history  of  art,  and 
not  as  works  of  art,  that  they  are  valuable,  belonging  as  they  do 
to  a  time  when  our  evidence  is  most  scanty:  In  date,  as  in  style, 
they  are  separated  by  centuries  from  the  dawn  of  the  Italian  art 
which  we  know.  They  are  rather  echoes  of  the  past  than  a 
presage  of  the  future. 

Not  the  least  curious  and  suggestive  thing  about  this  church 
are  the  burials  crowded  within  its  walls.  It  was  a  strange  sight 
when  the  removal  of  the  floor  of  the  entrance  hall  in  1901  revealed 
the  interior  of  the  impluvium  which  we  described  completely 
filled  with  brick  graves.    Other,  and  perhaps  more  distinguished, 


ARCH^OLOGICAL  MOVEMENTS  IN  ROME.  153 

persons  reposed  in  sculptured  marble  sarcophagi  pilfered  from 
the  villas  or  mausoleums  of  the  Campagna.  Others,  again,  lay  in 
niches  hollowed  out  of  the  walls  like  the  loculi  of  the  Catacombs. 
It  is  a  far  cry  from  the  prehistoric  cemetery  of  the  Via  Sacra  to 
the  Byzantine  graves  in  S.  Maria  Antiqua;  from  the  days  when 
the  Forum  was  not  yet  to  the  days  when  the  death  of  the  old 
world  for  the  first  time  made  burials  possible  within  the  city. 
But  we  shall  do  well  to  think  of  them  together  in  spite  of  the 
thousand  years  and  more  which  lie  between,  for  so  we  shall 
realize  the  wonderful  continuity  of  life  in  Rome,  as  well  as  the 
profound  changes  of  thought,  and  custom,  and  belief,  involving 
the  very  essence  and  character  of  a  race,  which  it  has  survived. 

At  the  beginning  of  this  article  we  suggested  that  the  enthu- 
siasm and  interest  aroused  by  the  discoveries  in  the  Forum  had 
stimulated  other  departments  of  antiquities  in  Rome.  We  must 
glance  at  these  before  concluding.  First  come  the  museums. 
The  Roman  collections  of  classical  antiquities  were  unrivalled  for 
the  abundance  and  variety  of  the  materials  which  they  provided 
for  the  connoisseur  and  the  student ;  yet,  in  the  period  with  which 
we  are  dealing,  their  wealth  has  been  largely  increased.  Not  to 
speak  of  the  treasures  which  the  soil  of  Rome  and  Italy  is  con- 
stantly yielding  up,  the  purchase  by  the  State  of  the  Ludovisi 
collection  has  enriched  the  National  Museum  in  the  Baths  of 
Diocletian  with  many  interesting  specimens  of  ancient  art  and  a 
few  masterpieces.  The  Borghese  marbles  have  been  acquired 
in  the  same  manner,  though  their  importance  is  perhaps  less  than 
that  of  the  pictures  from  the  same  collection,  which  are  also  now 
public  property.  The  Municipal  Museum  in  the  Palace  of  the 
Conservatori  on  the  Capitol  has  been  reconstructed  and  rear- 
ranged so  as  to  exhibit  in  their  local  connection  the  works  of  art 
which  adorned  the  gardens  of  the  Roman  nobles  on  the  Esquiline 
in  the  golden  age  of  the  Empire.  Not  less  interesting  is  the 
partial  reconstruction  of  the  ancient  marble  plan  of  Rome,  all 
recognizable  fragments  of  which  have  been  set  in  their  relative 
position  on  a  blank  wall  in  the  garden,  so  that  we  see  them  as 
they  were  intended  to  be  seen.  We  need  hardly  add  that  the 
restoration  is  mainly  due  to  Professor  Lanciani,  and  we  can  only 
hope  that  the  further  search  which  we  believe  is  to  be  made  will 
largely  increase  the  number  of  fragments,  and  enable  him  still 
further  to  make  intelligible  this  unique  and  precious  monument 


X5^  THE  GLOBE. 

of  Imperial  Rome.  The  Vatican  Museum,  the  largest  of  all,  has 
not  the  same  means  or  motives  for  increase  as  the  State  collec- 
tions, but  here,  too,  the  archaeological  movement  of  the  time  is 
leaving  its  mark  in  the  shape  of  the  first  complete  and  scientific 
catalogue  of  the  contents  of  the  galleries,  produced  in  a  worthy 
form  under  the  auspices  of  the  Imperial  German  Archaeological 
Institute.  Nor  is  it  only  the  growth  and  improvement  of  the 
existing  museums  which  we  have  to  chronicle;  new  ones  are 
being  created.  The  convent  buildings  attached  to  S.  Francesca 
Romana  and  its  charming  cloister  have  been  converted  into  a 
museum  in  which  the  minor  objects  found  in  the  Forum,  every- 
thing in  fact  which  it  is  impossible  to  replace  in  its  original  posi- 
tion, will  be  exhibited  in  appropriate  and  convenient  surround- 
ings. 

Nor  must  we  omit  to  notice  the  important  collection,  mainly 
of  Greek  marbles,  formed  by  Senator  Barracco,  and  generously 
presented  by  him  to  the  city.  Peculiary  valuable  as  representing 
types  of  art  in  which  the  Roman  galleries  are  not  rich,  it  will 
be  worthily  housed  in  the  building  which  is  being  erected  for 
it  in  the  Corso  Vittorio  Emmanuele.  But  there  are  not  a  few 
who  will  miss  the  genial  personality  of  the  founder  which,  for 
those  who  were  privileged  to  enjoy  it,  made  a  visit  to  his 
treasures  doubly  attractive.  It  is  as  yet  too  soon  to  say  what 
will  be  the  destination  of  the  sculptures  of  the  Altar  of  Peace 
which  are  in  course  of  being  recovered  from  their  buried  site 
beneath  the  Palazzo  Fiano  on  the  Corso.  But  there  can  be  but 
little  doubt  that  they  will  be  once  more  reunited  to  the  fragments 
already  in  the  State  collecions,  and  it  is  not  perhaps  too  much 
to  hope  that,  of  the  pieces  in  other  hands,  at  least  those  which 
have  never  left  Rome  will  go  to  join  them.  Then  it  will  be  pos- 
sible to  enjoy  and  study  in  its  completeness  a  monument  which 
was  the  masterpiece  of  Roman  art  in  the  Augustan  age. 

Christian  antiquities  occupy  a  large  and  increasing  place  in 
Roman  archaeology  and  here  again  activity,  emanating  generally 
from  ecclesiastical  sources,  meets  us  on  every  hand.  Parallel  to 
the  discovery  of  S.  Maria  Antiqua  has  been  the  scientific  explora- 
tion and  restoration  of  S.  Saba  on  the  Aventine,  where  the 
remains  of  the  earlier  church,  destroyed  in  1084,  have  been 
revealed,  with  wall-paintings  of  the  same  epoch  as  those  in  S.  | 

Maria,  and  in  part,  perhaps,  by  the  same  hands.    The  exploration 


WOMEN,  CATS  AND  DOGS.  i55 

of  the  Catacombs  is  being  vigorously  pursued  by  the  Commission 
which,  under  papal  auspices,  carries  on  the  work  of  De  Rossi, 
and  important  discoveries  are  rewarding  Professor  Marucchi 
and  his  colleagues.  The  completion  of  De  Rossi's  great  work 
"Roma  Sotteranea,"  suspended  since  his  death  in  1894,  has  been 
taken  in  hand,  and  a  new  volume  is  shortly  to  appear.  Not 
less  remarkable  is  the  splendid  supplementary  volume  dealing 
with  the  art  of  the  Catacombs,  compiled  by  Mgr.  Wilpert,  where, 
often  for  the  first  time,  the  paintings  have  been  adequately  and 
accurately  reproduced,  and  the  material  thereby  provided  on 
which  their  correct  interpretation  may  be  based.  The  importance 
of  such  a  work  for  the  history,  not  only  of  Christian  art,  but  also 
of  early  Christian  ideals,  will  readily  be  acknowledged. 

It  is  in  the  midst  of  these  manifold  activities  that  a  British 
School  has  at  length  been  planted  in  Rome  to  enable  students 
from  the  British  Empire  to  come  within  the  range  of  this  move- 
ment and  to  take  their  part  in  the  scientific  work  which  is  in 
progress  in  all  departments  of  historical  knowledge.  That  work 
is  educational  in  the  highest  degree,  and  it  is  at  the  same  time 
constructive.  Its  value  was  long  ago  perceived  by  the  foreign 
nations  which  have  their  schools  and  institutes  in  Rome,  not  left 
to  private  initiative,  but  subsidized  by  the  State.  We  do  not 
say  that  that  would  be  a  desirable  or  possible  condition  of  things 
for  us,  but,  all  the  more,  it  behooves  those  who  believe  in  the 
reality  and  vitality  of  classical  and  historical  studies  to  see  that 
this  enterprise  does  not  fail  for  want  of  adequate  support.  This 
is  not  the  day  when  we  can  aflFord  to  restrict  our  culture,  and 
in  the  expansion  of  knowledge  we  must  take  our  proper  place 
among  the  competitors  of  the  civilized  world. 

— Edinburgh  Review. 


WOMEN,  CATS  AND  DOGS. 


In  the  old  abolition  days,  whenever  Lucretia  Mott,  the 
once  famous  Quakeress,  was  making  a  speech  and  wanted  to  be 
especially  sarcastic  toward  the  stronger  sex,  she  spoke  of  his 
classification  of  the  chosen  people  as  "women  and  niggers"  with 
the  most  withering  contempt.  Though  very  partial  to  the  negroes, 


J56  THE  GLOBE. 

it  did  not  always  please  the  fancy  of  Quakers  to  be  classed  with 
them,  so  to  speak,  and,  in  truth,  there  never  was  any  good  reason 
for  such  classification. 

We  have  passed  the  old  days.  "Niggers"  have  grown  to  be  as 
well  dressed  as  white  folks,  and  occasionally  moderately  well 
behaved.  But  all  refinement  of  negro  manners  died  with  the 
old  days.  Nowadays  all  people  have  stage  manners,  even  to  their 
cats  and  dogs.  And,  though  white  women  have  troubles  enough 
at  times  with  their  colored  "lady  help,"  and  though  the  race  prob- 
lem is  not  entirely  solved,  the  average  white  women  of  to-day  are 
not  over-anxious  about  "niggers"  or  human  bipeds  of  any  color, 
except  for  a  moment  now  and  then,  but  are  giving  all  their  spare 
hours  and  energies  to  the  care  and  training,  and  feeding  of  cats 
and  dogs. 

Agnes  Repplier,  the  most  gifted  literary  woman  in  the  country 
since  Gail  Hamilton  ceased  to  twirl  her  pen,  has  recently  written 
a  classic  on  cats,  showing  the  ancient  pedigrees  of  many  breeds ; 
the  honors  paid  them  in  olden  times,  especially  by  termigant 
females  and  hen-pecked  men,  when  our  ancestors  were  still  wor- 
shiping serpents  or  their  images,  in  wood  and  stone;  showing, 
also,  their  innate  rights  to  pur  or  scratch  men  or  each  other  to  the 
fullest  Kilkenny  extent,  and  to  make  the  midnight  hideous  with 
their  solemn  music.  There  are  said  to  be  numerous  blots  on  the 
cat  escutcheons  of  ancient  and  of  modern  times,  but  none  worth 
noticing  in  serious  cat  philsopohy;  and  as  for  dogs,  what  rights 
have  they  where  a  cat  is  around?  And  as  for  men,  what  rights 
have  they  when  a  woman  and  her  pet  dog  are  around?  Puss 
has  her  boots  on  at  last — poor  dogs  and  poor  men ! 

According  to  the  Philadelphia  newspapers  a  man  residing  in 
Camden,  N.  J.,  actually  hanged  himself  dead  on  Sunday,  June 
1st,  1902,  out  of  jealousy  of  his  wife's  pet  dog.  The  thought  that 
his  beloved  wife  cared  more  for  the  dog  than  she  cared  for 
him  was  too  much  for  him.  He  could  not  stand  it,  and,  being  a 
kindly  and  magnanimous  soul,  and  not  wishing  to  be  hung  for 
the  murder  of  his  dear  wife  or  her  precious  hound,  he  took  the 
heroic  method  and  hung  himself.  He  has  had  many  forerunners 
and  a  few  followers.  "O,  woman,  in  our  hours  of  ease,"  etc. 
All  men  are  not  so  accommodating,  and  are  not  always  ready  to 
sail  the  seas  or  commit  suicide  when  the  beloved  partners  of 
their  lives  desire  a  liaison  with  the  doctor  or  some  other  mongrel 


WOMEN,  CATS  AND  DOGS.  157 

cur.  At  all  events,  as  these  quadrupeds  are  now  taking  a  leading 
position  in  the  ^'social  order"  of  our  "Christian  Democracy,"  we 
must  gladly  note  them  now  and  then.  We  would  like  to  treat  the 
matter  seriously,  but  that  is  impossible.  Tolstoy  tried  and  miser- 
ably failed. 

Most  women  seem  to  be  cranks,  anyway ;  that  is,  in  an  exalted,, 
aesthetic  sense,  as  it  were,  and  nearly  all  the  strong  minded  among 
them,  that  is,  after  they  have  reached  the  sharp  and  uninteresting 
age,  profess  to  care  more  for  cats  or  dogs  than  for  men.  There  is 
nothing  like  hating  an  object  that  you  have  grown  too  old,  or 
feeble,  or  ugly  to  attract  or  attain. 

I  suppose  that  nearly  all  the  daughters  of  the  American  Revo- 
lution, married  or  unmarried,  have  settled  upon  some  pet  cat  or 
dog  that  they  prefer,  or  profess  to  prefer,  to  the  men,  who  have 
naturally  grown  beyond  their  reach,  and  they  are  only  fair 
specimens  of  their  sex  of  corresponding  age  and  make-up  in  all 
lands  and  in  all  times. 

It  is  supposed  to  be  very  aristocratic,  very  fashionable,  and 
even  intellectual  for  women  to  prefer  dogs  to  men.  Every  lady  to 
her  taste,  however.  Some  fruits  grow  mellow  as  they  ripen, 
but  this  can  be  said  only  of  a  very  few  specimens  of  the  female 
kind — of  long  ago. 

Some  years  ago  I  was  spending  a  few  days  in  Williamsport, 
Pa.,  as  the  guest  of  a  lady  who  kept  four  tremendous  speci- 
mens of  the  ordinary  variety  of  the  Thomas  Cat,  one  of  which, 
the  handsomest,  of  course,  was  named  for  me.  He  was  a  fine 
fellow,  but  we  must  not  yield  to  admiration,  and  I  was  to  become 
the  owner  if  I  ever  grew  rich  enough  to  maintain  a  home  worthy 
of  such  a  luxury. 

One  day  we  were  all  in  the  garden  admiring  the  roses,  the  cats 
marching  behind,  or  trotting  behind,  as  pleased  their  moods,  and 
they  were  altogether  the  most  dignified  members  of  the  family. 
There  is  said  to  be  something  indescribably  dignified  and  very 
funny  about  the  tumble  of  the  smallest  kitten.  Ofttimes  it  takes 
the  aesthetic  eye  of  a  venerable  lady,  plus  her  spectacles,  to  see 
and  understand  all  this.  There  is  supposed  to  be  an  esoteric, 
inner  shrine  of  mysticism  about  all  cats ;  there  is  a  dream  of  grace 
in  their  motion,  until  they  lose  their  temper,  when  facing  each 
other  in  the  prize  ring;  then  all  dignity  and  mysticism  fly  as  the 
fur  flies,  and  every  lady  understands  that  something  is  plainly 


158  THE  GLOBE. 

wrong.  But  we  must  return  to  the  garden,  where  we  were 
strolling  ''toward  sunset"  in  a  plaintive  and  sentimental  mood, 
when  a  dear  little,  harmless,  white  and  brown  pet  dog  came  along, 
passing  on  the  pavement  outside  of  our  inclosure,  and  quiet  as 
a  lamb.  It  might  have  been  a  lamb,  or  a  weasel,  or  a  baby,  or  an 
elephant,  perfectly  harmless,  when  the  lady  spied  the  horrid 
bruit  beast,  and  immediately  set  up  such  a  screaming  that  scared 
the  cats  and  the  dog,  and  the  rest  of  the  family. 

The  lady  was  actually  frightened  out  of  her  senses  with  fear, 
lest  that  dear,  sweet,  little  canine  should  jump  the  fence  and  tear 
her  four  enormous  cats  to  mere  fur  and  tails. 

By  the  time  the  rest  of  us  saw  what  was  supposed  to  be  the 
matter  the  frightened  lady  had  gathered  all  her  Thomases  to 
her  arms  and  had  them  safe  in  the  house.  Did  we  remonstrate? 
With  a  woman?  And  she,  strong-minded,  and  a  cat  fancier? 
We  always  avoid  impossible  dangers — take  the  other  tack  and 
come  in  when  the  tide  is  full.  No  woman  will  regard  a  man's 
remonstrance  when  the  fate  of  her  Thomas  cat  is  concerned. 
Very  gifted  women  do  not  regard  a  man's  remonstrance  at  any 
time,  or  any  subject  not  to  speak  of  cats  and  dogs.  They  are  all 
a  law  unto  themselves.  The  cat  homes  and  the  dog  homes  in 
our  leading  cities,  while  so  many  poor  and  excellent  people  are 
homeless, — homes  mostly  instituted  and  supported  by  women,  all 
show  which  way  the  female  heart  is  tending;  though  all  this 
may  only  be  a  peak  of  disposition.  In  truth,  however,  they  show 
which  way  Christian  civilization  is  tending,  and  this  tendency  is 
working  and  making  strange  problems,  especially  among  the 
would-be  aristocratic  females  of  our  day,  ''The  Woman  of  the 
Renaissance."  I  knew  a  lady  in  New  York  who  was  sure  of 
meeting  the  chastened  spirits  of  her  pet  dogs  in  Heaven,  if  she 
ever  got  there,  and  of  course  she  had  no  doubt  on  the  latter 
point.  With  all  their  faults  no  modern  woman  can  be  accused 
of  having  a  poor  opinion  of  herself  or  her  cat. 

The  whole  race  of  modern  women,  especially  those  of  the 
would-be  fashionable  set,  have  become  stage-struck  in  this  par- 
ticular that  each  female  among  them  must  have  her  pet  dog,  to 
which,  of  course,  she  is  intensely  devoted,  loving  the  beast  above 
all  human  kind  and  resolved  that  doggie  shall  neither  suffer  nor 
take  any  insult,  but  have  the  best  of  care,  the  best  position  at 
table  and  the  best  food  to  be  procured.    This  may  be  said  to  be 


WOMEN,  CATS  AND  DOGS.  159 

the  one  passion  of  the  modern,  up-to-date  woman.  Did  not  the 
late  Mrs.  Harriet  Beecher  Stowe  advocate  the  doctrine  that  a 
good  dog  was  infinitely  more  companionable  than  a  good  man. 
But  she  was  rather  old  and  stale  when  she  proclaimed  her  creed; 
and  we  all  know  what  she  thought  of  wild,  bad  men  by  the 
spectacled  ferocity  with  which  she  rolled  up  her  shirt  sleeves 
and  sailed  in  to  knock  out  the  reputation  of  Lord  Byron.  But 
the  old  lady  was  hardly  responsible  in  her  later  years.  Her 
own  wrinkles  and  the  reaction  of  the  falsehoods  in  Uncle  Tom's 
cabin  had  become  too  much  for  her.  Had  Lord  Byron  made  a 
call  upon  her  in  her  flirting  days  she  would  have  jumped  over 
all  the  chairs  in  the  drawing  room  to  welcome  the  noble  lord,  the 
peerless  poet  of  the  day. 

It  is,  however,  a  pet  theory  of  womankind  with  a  few  million 
of  vivacious  and  good-looking  exceptions  that  any  old  dog  is 
better  than  a  man.  Only  the  other  day,  in  New  York,  a  woman 
horsewhipped  a  man  on  the  street  for  insulting  her  little  dog. 
Men  must  be  more  careful. 

Not  long  ago  a  friend  of  mine,  a  noble,  sensitive  fellow,  gave 
his  fiance  a  watch  and  chain,  of  solid  gold,  very  dainty  and 
beautiful.  He  thought  she  would  prize  the  gift  highly  for  its 
own  sake  as  well  as  for  his  sake.  She  hung  the  watch  as  an 
ornament  on  her  dog's  collar  and  used  the  little  chain  as  a  lead- 
ing string  for  the  cur  until  watch  and  chain  were  both  at  the 
dog  doctor's  to  be  mended.  Women  are  said  to  be  as  fine-nerved 
as  the  angels,  and  so  thoughtful  of  the  feelings  of  others,  but 
all  this  heavenliness  of  the  female  sex  seems  to  have  gone  to  the 
dogs. 

During  last  summer  it  is  said  that  hotelkeepers  in  nearly  all 
our  fashionable  summer  resorts  were  at  their  wits'  ends  to  know 
how  to  please  the  ladies  and  not  offend  their  dogs.  The  mana- 
gers of  railroads  and  steamboat  lines  throughout  the  country  are 
also  perplexed  as  to  what  to  do  with  their  old-fashioned  notions 
about  excluding  dogs  from  the  passenger  coaches,  the  saloons  of 
steamboats  and  the  parlor  cars. 

The  women  who  have  husbands  cannot  and  do  not  care  to 
have  them  always  on  hand.  The  men  must  stay  at  home  to  look 
after  business  and  flirt  with  the  ladies  who  have  to  stay  at  home, 
while  said  married  women  spend  the  season  at  this  and  the  other 
resort  and  play  with  their  dogs  and  amuse  themselves  with  such 


j5o  the  globe. 

men  as  happen  by  appointment  or  otherwise  to  be  on  hand.  The 
dog,  in  such  cases,  is  sometimes  a  companion,  sometimes  a  blind 
and  an  excuse,  but  always  the  dearest  pet  of  the  woman's  heart. 
It  is  a  passion  devoutly  to  be  despised,  but  no  wonder  the  dear 
women  want  their  pets  by  their  side,  in  the  cars,  in  the  dining 
rooms  of  hotels  and  in  closer  and  more  familiar  intercourse. 

Hotel  men  say  that  this  passion  of  the  human  female  has  be- 
come a  nuisance  to  them.  In  fact,  the  inclination  has  become  so 
strong  on  the  part  of  dog  fancier  females  to  have  their  dogs 
with  them  all  the  time,  day  and  night,  and  everywhere,  in  their 
rooms,  in  their  beds  and  at  table  in  the  public  dining  rooms  that 
said  hotelkeepers,  it  is  said,  have  about  concluded  to  build  novel 
kinds  of  hotels  in  the  near  future  so  that  each  woman  with  a  dog 
will  have,  must  have  a  larger  or  smaller  suit  of  rooms,  including 
special  dining  rooms  fitted  up  with  dog  chairs,  cushioned  in  the 
softer  materials  and  colors  restful  to  the  eyes,  the  nerves,  etc., 
of  the  animals,  and  where  fond  women  who  so  desire  may  eat 
with  their  dogs  instead  of  with  their  husbands  and  male  acquaint- 
ances. 

Tolstoy  says,  the  Kreutzer  Sonato,  page  75,  "that  our  women  are 
savages.  They  have  no  belief  in  God,  but  some  of  them  believe  in 
the  Evil  Eye,  and  others  in  doctors  who  charge  high  fees."  The 
female  adoration  of  dogs  had  not  set  in  in  his  day. 

It  is  admitted  on  all  sides  that  about  the  only  direction  in  which 
modern  Christian  civilization  so-called,  is  showing  any  improve- 
ment on  old  pagan  civilization  is  in  the  line  of  sentimental  benev- 
olence, especially  toward  animals  and  orphan  babies;  but  the  dis- 
picable  Turk  has  always  been  very  friendly  toward  dogs  and 
would  never  have  them  killed.  There  is  something  of  the  Turk 
about  most  women,  anyway,  but  at  all  events  it  must  still  be  said 
in  this  view  of  the  case  that  they  are  in  the  van  of  advancing 
civilization. 

There  is  not  only  a  woman  in  it,  but  she  is  at  the  fore,  becon- 
ing,  with  her  face  as  usual. 

What  is  a  man,  anyway,  and  what  the  rights  of  a  married  or 
single  man  compared  with  a  pug  or  a  terrier  ?  Man  has  had  his 
day,  and  has  proven  himself  a  conspicuous  failure,  that  is,  as 
far  as  dry  and  sour  and  disappointed  women  are  concerned.  In 
truth,  he  is  a  failure  in  war  and  in  peace,  in  art,  science  and  litera- 
ture.    Witness  our  noble  President  Roosevelt.     Let  him  go  to 


WOMEN,  CATS  AND  DOGS.  i6i 

the  rear  and  let  the  dear,  ugly  and  fascinating  woman  with  her 
divided  skirt,  her  masculine  swing  of  the  arms  and  her  kennel 
of  pups  advance,  wheel  to  the  right  and  march,  double  quick,  to 
her  waiting  and  panting  destiny. 

One  of  the  most  accomplished  ladies  I  ever  knew  used  to  feed 
her  cats  out  of  her  own  hands  at  meal  times,  in  the  dining  room, 
so  they  munched  fish  and  fish  bones  and  other  small  joints  on 
the  Brussels  carpet  much  to  the  disgust  of  her  guests  and  the 
housekeeper,  and  yet  the  perfume  of  the  best  cigar  made  this 
lady  so  ill  and  so  disagreeable  that  under  the  circumstances  there 
was  no  pleasure  in  her  company;  but  she  was  a  widow,  never 
had  any  children,  and  is  now  dead.  Let  vis  speak  only  good  of 
the  departed.  Did  not  the  great  and  infamous  Bismarck  feed 
his  own  hounds  at  his  own  table?  By  and  bye  the  dogs  will 
occupy  the  fashionable  pews  in  our  churches;  mayhap  they  will 
occupy  the  pulpits,  and  bark  till  the  female  orators  arrive ;  that  is, 
when  the  entire  business  of  religion  is  given  over  to  the  Edison 
talking  machines,  and  the  women  only,  out  of  insatiable  curiosity, 
compose  the  audiences. 

Recently  a  case  came  to  my  notice  where  a  young  married 

couple,   poor   as   the    famed   Job's   turkey;   without    offspring — 

and  the  woman  a  sloven  of  the  fall-to-pieces  kind — hardly  with 

ability  to  feed  themselves — kept  three  dogs.     The  woman  was  a 

devout   Catholic;   never   failed   to   attend   early   mass,   but  very 

seldom  washed  the  dishes  or  mended  her  own  garments  or  her 

husband's.     She  needed  some  inspiration,  and  perhaps  the  dogs 

inspired  her  toward  piety,  though  not  of  the  practical  sort.     But 

the  dogs;  they  must  be   fed  and  watched  and   screamed  over. 

It  is  now — Love  me,  but  wait  on  my  dog.     Men  are  of  no  other 

use,  anyway.    They  had  better  go  to  Europe,  to  Heaven  or  the 

other  place,  for  the  summer  at  least,  and  give  women  and  their 

dogs  a  free  hand  and  a  free  foot  on  this  much-traveled  and  more 

and  more  interesting  world. 

W.  H.  ThornE. 


i62  THE  GLOBE, 

SHALL  CIVIL  COURTS   RECOGNIZE  AND   EN- 
FORCE THE  SACRED  CANONS  ? 

The  Supreme  Court  of  Nebraska  on  March  17,  1904,  handed 
down  a  decision  of  far  reaching  importance  in  the  matter  of 
rehgious  societies,  expulsion  of  their  members  and  essential  forms 
of  procedure  in  the  same.  In  fact,  it  may  be  said  in  these  respects 
it  is  the  most  complete  and  direct  of  any  similar  decision  ever 
handed  down  in  the  United  States  or  in  any  of  the  State  Courts. 
Even  that  past  master  in  the  art  of  time-serving  and  shifty  expe- 
diency, the  editor  of  the  Western  Watchman  observes  that  it  is 
the  clearest  expression  thus  far  delivered  by  the  civil  authorities 
in  matters  of  the  Catholic  Church,  and  is  a  menace  to  certain 
accepted  views  of  episcopal  authority,  in  that  it  lays  down  that  the 
civil  arm  will  be  refused  to  a  Bishop  who  violates  the  Canons  of 
the  Church.  This  delphic  utterance  and  apodictic  declaration  of 
the  Nebraska  decision  by  the  Nestor  of  the  Catholic  Press  of  the 
United  States  led  us  to  immediately  resolve  not  to  take  this 
important  matter  on  trust,  but  to  procure  from  the  Court  a  full 
official  report  of  the  decision  itself.  Therefore,  having  before  us 
Vol.  98,  "Northwestern  Reporter,"  1030,  we  give  the  case  in  its 
bearings  to  the  readers  of  the  Globe:. 

Right  Rev.  Thomas  Bonecum,  as  the  Bishop  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  in  the  Diocese  of  Lincoln,  Neb.,  brought  a  civil 
action  against  the  appellee.  Rev.  Wm.  Murphy,  a  priest  of  his 
Diocese,  formerly  the  Bishop's  own  Fiscal  Procurator,  but  at  the 
time  of  this  action  priest  of  the  mission  of  Seward  in  the  Diocese 
of  Lincoln.  The  action  was  brought  by  the  Bishop  to  enforce  the 
decree  or  order  of  the  curia  or  ecclesiastical  court  of  the  Diocese 
against  Father  Murphy  for  alleged  wilful  and  continued  disre- 
gard and  violation  of  the  canons,  rules,  regulations  and  discipline 
of  the  church,  and  for  wilful  disobedience  to  his  superiors. 

The  Right  Reverend  Bishop,  in  his  two  counts,  sets  out  his 
cause  of  complaint  in  detail  and  at  great  length.  All  other  ecclesi- 
astical controversies  brought  into  civil  courts  in  all  the  States 
and  in  the  United  States  were  quoted  and  the  doctrine  therein 
embodied,  invoked  and  applied  to  this  case.  The  Bishop  fully 
cites  twelve  of  them.  In  the  exact  words  of  the  Supreme  Court 
decision  the  material  allegations  of  the  Bishop's  petition  are  as 
follows : 


I 


SHALL  CIVIL  COURTS  RECOGNIZE  SACRED  CANONS?  163 

After  alleging  that  he  is  Bishop  of  the  Diocese  of  Lincoln, 
which  comprises  that  part  of  the  State  of  Nebraska  south  of  the 
Platte  river,  it  is  stated  that  the  mission  of  Seward  comprises 
certain  real  estate,  upon  which  is  located  a  church  and  parsonage, 
(both,  by-the-bye,  humble,  unpretentious  frame),  and  also  cer- 
tain real  estate  and  the  church  building  thereon  at  Ulysses.  In 
1897  Father  Murphy  was  appointed  to  this  mission  and  took  up 
his  abode  in  the  parsonage  of  Seward.  The  Bishop  then  pro- 
ceeds to  set  forth  that  by  virtue  of  the  laws,  canons,  statutes,  dis- 
cipline, rules  and  regulations  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  he 
is  invested  by  virtue  of  his  office  of  Bishop  with  the  power  and 
authority  to  transfer,  at  his  pleasure,  any  priest,  pastor  or  rector 
from  any  parish  or  mission  within  the  Diocese  of  Lincoln,  as  an 
administrative  act,  and  also,  if  required  by  the  nature  of  the  case, 
by  a  judicial  act.  In  the  exercise  of  his  prerogative  Bishop  Bone- 
cum  alleges  that  he  suspended  and  transferred  Father  Murphy 
from  the  mission  of  Seward  on  May  5,  1900,  and  thereafter 
appointed  the  ReverendJohnA.  Hayes  as  rector  and  pastor  of  said 
mission ; — and,  moreover,  on  May  5,  1900,  in  the  exercise  of  his 
authority  he  transferred  Father  Murphy  from  the  mission  of 
Seward  to  that  of  Red  Cloud,  in  Webster  county,  Neb.  He  then 
alleges  that  it  was  the  duty  of  Father  Murphy,  under  the  rules 
and  regulations  of  the  church,  to  immediately  comply  with  such 
sentence  of  transfer,  upon  the  same  being  known  to  him,  but  that 
he  failed  and  refused,  and  still  refuses  to  vacate  and  to  surrender 
to  Bishop  Bonecum  possession  of  the  church  and  church  furni- 
ture and  fixtures,  sacred  vessels,  vestments,  and  other  church 
property  belonging  to  the  church  in  the  said  mission  of  Seward. 

The  Bishop  further  sets  forth  that  on  July  14,  1900,  he  com- 
menced an  action  in  the  District  Court  of  Seward  county,  recit- 
ing in  his  position  the  foregoing  facts  and  asking,  among  other 
things,  that  Father  Murphy  be  restrained  and  enjoined  from 
entering  either  of  said  church  edifices  in  the  said  mission  of 
Seward,  and  from  exercising  any  rights  of  a  priest  or  rector  in 
said  mission,  and  from  collecting  the  revenues  of  said  church  in 
said  mission,  and  from  hindering  or  in  any  manner  interfering 
with  or  preventing  the  Reverend  John  A.  Hayes  from  perform- 
ing his  duties  as  a  priest  or  rector  in  said  mission.  The  Bishop 
then  recites  that  after  a  partial  hearing  of  this  civil  action,  and 
before  it  was  submitted  to  the  courts,  he  dismissed  the  action  with- 


i64  THE  GLOBE. 

out  prejudice,  and  that,  notwithstanding  said  dismissal,  the  court 
proceeded,  wholly  without  jurisdiction,  to  render  judgment  in  said 
cause,  and  it,  moreover,  appearing  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  court 
that  Father  Murphy  had  appealed  to  Rome  from  the  sentence 
and  order  of  transfer  and  suspension  made  by  Bishop  Bonecum 
on  the  5th  day  of  April,  1900,  and  that  no  final  decision  had  been 
made,  or,  at  least,  had  not  been  promulgated  on  said  appeal. 

The  Bishop  then  alleges  that  when  the  court,  on  January  6, 
1902,  ordered  and  decreed  that  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln  be  enjoined 
from  further  proceeding  in  the  Civil  Courts  under  Father  Mur- 
phy's appeal  to  Rome  had  been  heard  and  determined  by  an 
ecclesiastical  court  having  power  and  jurisdiction  to  render  judg- 
ment in  said  cause  that  said  court  acted  wholly  without  jurisdic- 
tion. Moreover,  the  Bishop  alleges  that  the  appeal  of  Father  Mur- 
phy had  been  heard  and  determined  by  the  Sacred  Congregation 
of  Propaganda,  the  highest  court  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church, 
and  the  tribunal  having  power  and  appellate  jurisdiction  to  deter- 
mine the  matter. 

In  the  second  count  of  his  petition  the  Bishop  alleges  that  on 
January  23,  1901,  he,  in  the  further  exercise  of  his  prerogative 
of  Bishop,  excommunicated  Father  Murphy  and  expelled  him 
from  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Diocese  of  Lincoln  for  misdemeanors 
committed  and  gross  insubordination,  which  acts  and  misdemean- 
ors are  in  violation  of  the  laws,  canons,  statutes,  discipline  and 
regulations  of  the  church,  and,  moreover,  gave  notice  of  the  same 
to  Father  Murphy.  In  consequence  of  the  latter  the  said  Bishop 
alleges  that  Father  Murphy,  from  the  date  of  said  notice,  had  no 
right  or  authority  to  act  or  officiate  as  a  priest  or  rector  of  the 
mission  of  Seward  in  any  capacity  whatever,  or  to  hold  posses- 
sion of  the  church  edifices,  the  sacred  vessels,  vestments,  furni- 
ture and  fixtures  belonging  to  said  mission ;  that,  notwithstanding 
this  fact.  Father  Murphy,  in  defiance  of  the  laws,  canons  and  dis- 
cipline of  the  church,  has  usurped  the  rights  of  said  mission,  and 
of  the  priest  and  rector  thereof,  and  forcibly  intruded  into  each 
of  the  church  edifices  belonging  to  the  mission,  and  assumed  to 
exercise  all  the  function  of  a  priest  and  rector,  and  forcibly  and 
wrongfully  excluded  from  said  churches  and  rectory  the  Rev- 
erend John  A.  Hayes,  and  prevented  him  from  officiating  as  priest 
and  rector  of  the  said  mission,  and  that  he  is  collecting  the  rev- 
enues of  said  church. 


I 


SHALL  CIVIL  COURTS  RECOGNIZE  SACRED  CANONS?  165 

The  Bishop  goes  on  to  relate  that  he  has  exhausted  all  the 
resources  known  to  the  ecclesiastical  law,  and  is  powerless  to 
prevent  the  further  unlawful  acts  of  Father  Murphy,  save  in  a 
court  of  equity,  and  he  therefore  prays  that  Father  Murphy  be 
restrained  and  enjoined  by  an  order  of  the  court  from  entering 
into  any  of  the  said  church  edifices  or  the  rectory  of  said  mission, 
or  from  exercising  any  of  the  rights  and  privileges  of  a  priest 
therein,  and  from  officiating  or  assuming  to  act  as  a  priest  or  rec- 
tor of  the  church  in  said  mission  of  Seward,  and  from  hindering 
or  interfering  with  or  in  any  manner  preventing  the  Reverend 
John  A.  Hayes  from  performing  his  duties  as  priest  or  rector  of 
said  churches  in  said  mission. 

Thus  the  issue  is  very  fully  and  fairly  set  forth  as  to  the 
Bishop's  side.  The  court  then  proceeds  to  do  the  same  for 
Father  Murphy's  side.  The  court  states  that  the  priest  in  his 
answer  admits  that  the  plaintiff  is  Bishop  of  the  Diocese  of  Lin- 
coln, that  the  mission  of  Seward  is  in  said  Diocese,  and  com- 
prises the  parsonage  and  churches  in  Seward  and  Ulysses,  that  as 
rector  he  took  possession  of  the  mission  in  1897,  and  has  ever 
since  resided,  and  does  now  reside,  in  the  parsonage  of  Seward; 
and  that  since  his  appointment  he  has  held  possession  of  the  mis- 
sion, and  performed  the  duties  of  minister  therein. 

The  court  then  relates  that  Father  Murphy's  reply  denies  that 
the  laws  of  the  church  have  clothed  a  Bishop  with  power  at  all 
times  to  remove  a  pastor  from  one  mission  to  another  in  his  Dio- 
cese, and  avers  that  under  the  laws  of  the  church  a  pastor  cannot 
be  removed  against  his  will,  except  for  cause,  and  should  he  so 
demand,  (and  he  usually  does  if  there  be  no  "skeletons"  in  his 
closet),  after  having  had  a  fair  and  impartial  trial.  Father  Mur- 
phy then  goes  on  to  show  that  Bishop  Bonecum  gave  him  notice 
to  appear  at  Lincoln,  Neb.,  on  March  20,  1900,  to  answer  charge^ 
preferred  against  him,  and  that  he  appeared  on  that  date,  and, 
before  issues  were  joined,  according  to  the  requirements  laid  down 
in  the  Roman  Instruction,  objected  and  challenged  the  Bishop's 
right  to  sit  in  judgment  in  the  case,  for  the  reason,  among  others, 
that  the  Bishop  was  his  enemy  and  prejudiced  against  him,  and 
that  within  the  ten  days  required,  also,  by  the  Roman  Instruction, 
he  sent  his  objection,  challenge  and  appeal  to  the  highest  church 
court,  and  that  said  objection,  challenge  and  appeal  have  never 
been  adjudicated  by  said  court. 


i66  THE  GLOBE. 

Father  Murphy  admits  that  again,  in  October,  1900,  he  was 
summoned  before  the  Bishop  in  the  second  case,  but  he  repeated 
the  same  objection,  challenge  and  appeal,  and  immediately  sent 
the  same  to  the  highest  court  of  the  church,  and  that  the  same 
has  never  been  adjudicated  by  that  court.  In  a  supplemental 
answer  filed  by  Father  Murphy  it  is  stated  relative  to  the  civil 
action  brought  by  Bishop  Bonecum  pending  the  appeal  to  Rome 
that,  on  January  6,  1902,  the  District  Court  of  Seward  county 
rendered  a  judgment  against  the  Bishop  in  an  action  between 
the  Bishop  and  Father  Murphy,  which  action  was  founded  on 
the  first  ecclesiastical  judgment  mentioned  and  described  in  the 
petition  in  this  action,  and  that  that  judgment,  among  other 
things,  enjoins  the  Bishop  from  commencing  any  other  civil 
actions  involving  the  same  controversy  until  Father  Murphy's 
appeal,  taken  from  the  Bishop's  judgment,  has  been  determined 
by  the  highest  tribunal  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  having 
power  and  jurisdiction  to  hear  and  determine  the  matter  com- 
plained of,  and  until  the  same  is  determined  by  the  highest 
judicature  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church. 

Father  Murphy's  answer  furthermore  is  made  a  cross-bill, 
states  the  court,  and  affirmative  relief  is  sought,  by  way  of  an 
injunctional  order,  against  the  Bishop  from  in  any  manner  or 
way  interfering  with  him  as  priest  or  rector  in  the  mission  of 
Seward  until  the  challenges,  protests,  and  appeals  of  his  now 
pending  and  undetermined  appeals  in  the  highest  church  court 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  are  finally  heard  and  settled  by 
said  court. 

The  court  recounts  that  the  Bishop's  reply  to  this  cross-bill 
and  demand  for  affirmative  relief  alleges  that  the  decree  and 
judgment  of  the  District  Court  of  Seward  county  rendered  Jan- 
uary 6,  1902,  is  null  and  void,  for  the  reason  that  before  said 
cause  was  submitted  to  the  said  District  Court  he,  the  Bishop,  had 
dismissed  his  action,  and  the  court  had  no  jurisdiction  to  pro- 
ceed and  enter  judgment  against  him.  Besides,  Father  Murphy 
is  not  entitled  to  any  affirmative  relief,  in  that  he  did  not  in  that 
action  file  any  cross-petition  or  set  up  any  counter  claim,  or 
set-off  that  would  entitle  him  to  affirmative  relief,  or  give  the 
court  jurisdiction  to  proceed  after  the  dismissal  of  the  Bishop's 
case,  and  that  said  order  was  not  made  to  enforce  any  ecclesi- 
astical decision.     The   Bishop's  petition   further   avers  that  the 


I 


SHALL  CIVIL  COURTS  RECOGNIZE  SACRED  CANONS f  167 

District  Court  of  Seward  county  had  no  jurisdiction  to  restrain 
him,  as  Bishop,  from  exercising  his  ecclesiastical  rights  in  the 
government  of  his  Diocese  in  relation  to  the  discipline  of 
priests  therein,  or  the  discharge  of  their  ecclesiastical  duties 
in  the  several  parishes  of  that  Diocese.  He  further  alleges 
that  Father  Murphy  has  been  lawfully  convicted  and  sentenced 
to  removal,  suspension,  excommunication  and  expulsion  from  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  by  an  ecclesiastical  tribunal  of  that 
church  having  power  and  jurisdiction  to  hear  and  determine  the 
matter,  and  that  such  conviction  and  sentence,  and  each  of  them, 
have  been  finally  determined  by  the  highest  judicial  judicature  of 
the  church. 

This  then  constitutes  the  court's  summary  of  the  case  as  it 
comes  before  it  on  the  record,  and,  moreover,  succinctly  sets 
forth  the  issues  involved.  On  the  final  hearing  the  court  states 
that  it  found  all  the  issues  against  the  Bishop  and  in  favor  of 
Father  Murphy,  and  that  it  entered  a  decree  dismissing  the 
Bishop's  petition. 

The  court  then  passes  on  to  discuss  the  reason  for  this  finding. 
The  decree  of  the  District  Court  of  Seward,  January  8,  1902, 
restraining  the  Bishop  from  interfering  with,  or  in  any  manner 
disturbing  Father  Murphy  until  Rome  had  finally  determined  the 
issues  of  the  controversy,  and  which  decree  Bishop  Bonecum 
held  as  null  and  void,  as  likewise  the  affirmative  relief  demanded 
by  reason  of  said  decree  because  of  want  of  jurisdiction  in  the 
court  to  enter  the  one  or  afford  the  other,  the  Supreme  Court 
maintains  the  district  of  Seward  county  had  ample  jurisdiction 
under  the  circumstances. 

The  court  moreover  states  that  it  has  carefully  examined 
Father  Murphy's  answer  in  that  case,  and  while  there  is  no  state- 
ment therein  denominated  a  ''cross-bill,"  there  are  many  allega- 
tions upon  which  affirmative  relief  to  Father  Murphy  could  be 
properly  founded,  and  his  prayer,  based  on  these  allegations, 
could  ask  the  relief  granted  by  the  decree.  The  court  concedes 
that  to  interfere  with  the  regular  exercise  of  his  ecclesiastical 
duties  by  the  Bishop  is  not  to  be  thought  of  so  irregular  would 
be  such  a  proceeding,  but  that  the  court  had  ample  jurisdiction, 
under  the  circumstances,  to  enjoin  the  Bishop  from  instituting 
further  civil  proceedings  until  Father  Murphy's  appeal  had  been 
determined  cannot  be  doubted.     Whether  the  decree  was  war- 


i68  THE  GLOBE. 

ranted  by  the  evidence,  or  is  one  which  should  not  have  been 
made  now  does  not  matter.  It  was  nevertheless  a  judicial  order, 
and  must  be  obeyed  until  set  aside  or  reversed.  (State  vs.  Bald- 
win, 57  Iowa,  266,  10  N.  W.  645.)  Wherefore  concludes  the 
Court,  the  decree,  in  so  far  as  it  restrained  the  Bishop  from  com- 
mencing an  action  in  the  civil  courts  until  Father  Murphy's 
appeal  had  been  determined,  was  not  beyond  the  power  of  the 
court  to  make,  and  that  order  should  be  enforced. 

The  court  now  proceeds  to  consider  the  procedure  of  the  Lin- 
coln ecclesiastical  court  and  says,  the  two  questions  of  para- 
mount importance  are,  first,  did  the  ecclesiastical  court  convened 
by  Bishop  Bonecum  at  Lincoln  have,  under  the  circumstances, 
power  or  authority  to  proceed  to  judgment  against  Father  Mur- 
phy; and,  second,  if  so,  have  the  appeals  taken  by  Father  Mur- 
phy been  determined  by  the  appellate  ecclesiastical  court?  The 
law  of  Nebraska  (like  that  in  all  the  States),  is  well  settled  that 
civil  courts  will  not  review  or  revise  the  proceedings  or  judg- 
ments of  church  tribunals  constituted  by  the  organic  laws  of 
the  church  organization,  where  they  involve  solely  questions  of 
church  discipline,  or  infractions  of  the  laws  and  ordinances 
enacted  by  its  ruling  body  for  the  government  of  its  officers 
and  members.  ( Pounder  vs.  Ashe,  44  Neb.  672 ;  63,  N.  W.  48 ; 
Bonecum  vs.  Harrington  (Neb.)  91  N.  W.  886;  Watson  vs. 
Jones,  13  Wall,  679,  20  L.  Ed.  666.) 

Bishop  Bonecum,  relying  upon  this  rule,  says  the  court,  in- 
sists that  he  being  the  governing  authority  in  the  Diocese  of 
Lincoln,  his  action  in  relation  to  the  trial  of  priests  and  regula- 
tions of  the  church  cannot  be  questioned  by  the  civil  courts; 
that  he  has  exclusive  original  jurisdiction  in  such  matters;  and 
that  relief  can  be  obtained  only  by  appeal  to  a  higher  ecclesiasti- 
cal body. 

The  court  proceeds  to  recite  from  the  record,  that  when  Fa- 
ther Murphy  was  called  to  answer  before  the  curia  or  church 
court  at  Lincoln,  he  interposed  a  challenge  to  the  Bishop  as 
judge  of  said  court,  upon  the  ground  among  others,  that  he 
was  prejudiced  against  him,  and  a  bitter  personal  enemy. 

The  court  then  says  that  Father  Murphy,  the  defendant,  as- 
serts that  when  a  challenge  of  this  character  is  interposed,  the 
matter  of  the  qualification  of  the  judge  objected  to  must  be 
submitted  to  arbiters,  one  to  be  chosen  bv  the  Bishop,  one  by 


SHALL  CIVIL  COURTS  RECOGNIZE  SACRED  CANONS?  169 

Father  Murphy,  and,  if  they  cannot  ag^ree,  a  third  to  be  selected 
by  them.  In  support  of  this  contention  Father  Murphy  intro- 
duced a  somewhat  lengthy  translation  from  the  Decretals  of 
Pope  Gregory  IX,  Book  IL,  title  28,  chapter  31,  and  also  chapter 
61.  The  court  respectfully  considers  this  Decretal  of  the  great 
Pope  Gregory  IX  and,  in  fact,  proceeds  to  embody  it  in  its  dis- 
cussion of  the  point  raised  as  to  the  challenged  judge.  It  says: 
This  challenge  by  Father  Murphy  raised  not  simply  a  question 
of  the  jurisdiction  of  the  court  to  try  the  case,  but  of  the  dis- 
qualification of  the  judge  presiding  in  the  court.  A  court  may 
have  ample  or  even  exclusive  jurisdiction  to  try  a  case,  and  vet 
the  judge  presiding  may,  on  account  of  bias,  partiality  or  in- 
terest in  the  case,  or  of  his  kinship  to  one  of  the  parties,  be  dis- 
qualified to  sit  in  the  case.  Such  is  the  case  in  our  Probate 
courts.  They  have  exclusive  jurisdiction  in  Probate  matters, 
and  yet  the  Probate  judge  cannot  act  in  those  cases  where  the 
Statute  disqualifies  him. 

The  question  here  for  our  determination,  says  the  court,  is 
not  whether  the  curia  at  Lincoln  had  jurisdiction,  but  whether 
the  judge,  the  Bishop  presiding  therein,  was  disqualified  from 
trying  this  particular  case.  For  the  Bishop,  it  is  contended  that 
the  Decretal  of  Pope  Gregory  IX  and  its  orders  are  not  in  force 
in  the  United  States,  and  are  not  applicable  to  the  particular 
proceeding  had  against  Father  Murphy. 

By  way  of  digression  permit  the  writer  to  here  say,  how 
familiar  sounds  this  cavalier  way  of  setting  aside  the  great 
authorities  of  law  and  order.  To  only  quote  a  few  from  his  file 
of  letters,  "There  is  no  canon  law  in  the  United  States,"  is  a 
familiar  phrase.  ''You  quote  Decretals  of  Gregory,  the  'Regulae 
juris.'  Decisions  of  the  'Roman  Rota,'  'Schmalzgruber  &  Reif- 
fenstuel,'  these  refer  to  systems  of  judicature  we  have  never 
had  in  this  country  and  are  therefore  not  to  the  point."  The 
"Dispositions"  of  Baltimore  Council  as  interpreted  by  direct  de- 
cree to  a  particular  case  sets  all  this  erudition  aside !  Or,  "you 
quote  laws  of  Gregory,  Sante,  Fagnanus,  Monacelli,"  etc.,  etc., 
permit  us  to  say  these  state  the  law  "doctrinally,  we  apply  the 
law  authoritatively."     How  like  a  well-remembered  Vanderbilt 

phrase  anent  the  public?     Authorities  erudition,  " "  to 

the  winds.  "Je  suis  le  Droit"  in  good  Louis  XIV  absolutist 
phrase.     This  kind  of  tactics  availed  little  before  the  Supreme 


I70  THE  GLOBE, 

Court  of  Nebraska  in  the  present  instance.  The  Court  states 
that  a  review  of  the  several  authorities,  church  rules,  and  De- 
cretal orders  offered  in  evidence  would  unduly  extend  its  opin- 
ion, but  sufficient  to  state  that  having-  examined  them  it  is  not 
satisfied  that  the  Bishop's  contention  is  upheld  by  the  evidence. 

On  the  other  hand  the  court  declares  that  it  is  entirely  satis* 
fied  with  the  holding  of  the  District  Court.  This  the  more  so 
from  the  fact  that  the  first  idea  in  the  administration  of  justice 
is  that  a  judge  must  necessarily  be  free  from  all  bias  and  par- 
tiality. It  would  be  a  reflection  upon  the  Church  to  which  Bishop 
Bonecum  and  Father  Murphy  both  belong  and  owe  their  alle- 
giance if  it  could  be  asserted  and  maintained  that  one  put  upon 
trial  could  not  show  how  the  disqualification  of  the  judge  before 
whom  he  was  cited  to  appear,  but  was  compelled  to  submit  his 
case  to  an  interested  party,  or  to  one  so  embittered  against  him 
that  a  fair  trial  could  not  be  hoped  for  or  expected.  It  is  the 
rule  of  the  civil  courts  that  a  judgment  entered  by  a  judge  dis- 
qualified to  act  in  the  case  is  absolutely  void.  (Walters  vs. 
Wiley,  Neb.  95  N.  W.  486,  and  cases  cited.)  And  if  the  Canons 
of  the  church  are  to  be  regarded  as  the  rules  or  statutes  con- 
trolling the  proceedings  of  ecclesiastical  courts,  then,  on  princi- 
ple, the  same  rule  should  apply  to  a  sentence  pronounced  by  an 
ecclesiastical  judge  disqualified  from  sitting  in  the  case. 

It  would  appear  that  the  Bishop  evidently  felt  the  weight  of 
this  point  in  that  the  record  would  show  that  Father  Murphy 
simply  raised  the  point  of  the  judge  being  disqualified,  but  filed 
no  argument  or  proof  thereof.  Canonical  authorities  hold  this 
in  case  of  a  judge  ordinary,  Father  Murphy  need  and  at  the  time 
do  no  more.  Arguments,  proofs,  etc.,  are  to  be  submitted  to  the 
Arbiters.  In  case  of  a  Judge  delegate  a  challenge,  as  the  Bishop 
states,  does  not  oust  him  of  authority  to  try  the  case.  He  asserts 
accordingly  that  in  the  proceedings  or  at  least  in  one  of  them, 
had  against  Father  Murphy,  he.  Bishop  Bonecum,  was  acting  as 
"judge  delegate."  The  court,  however,  disposes  of  this  point 
by  saying  that  there  is  no  allegation  in  the  Bishop's  petition  that 
in  either  of  the  proceedings  brought  against  Father  Murphy  in 
the  church  curia  at  Lincoln  the  Bishop  was  acting  as  a  "judge 
delegate,"  and,  moreover,  a  careful  examination  of  the  evidence 
fails  to  disclose  any  license,  commission  or  mandate  from  any 
of  the  Bishop's  superiors  vesting  him  with  that  authority.     Be- 


SHALL  CIVIL  COURTS  RECOGNIZE  SACRED  CANONS?  171 

sides,  as  the  Court  says,  in  both  of  the  decrees  made  by  the  curia 
of  Lincohi  against  Father  Murphy  are  signed  "Thomas  Bonecum, 
Bishop  of  Lincoln,  JUDGE  ORDINARY,"  and  as  the  Court 
reads  the  record  of  the  proceedings  had  in  those  cases,  it  was  not 
claimed  that  the  Bishop  was  acting  as  a  Judge  delegate  in  either 
case;  on  the  other  hand,  the  record  in  the  second  case  seems  to 
contradict  the  claim  and  assert  that  the  Bishop  as  Judge  ordinary 
sat  in  the  case,  and  after  the  challenge  and  in  spite  thereof  de- 
cided the  same.  Therefore  the  Court  concludes  on  this  point 
that  a  consideration  of  the  record  makes  it  apparent  to  us  that 
the  Bishop  in  the  proceedings  referred  to  was  acting  as  Judge 
ordinary,  and  not  as  Judge  delegate,  and  has  so  represented  and 
designated  himself  by  the  record  of  his  own  court.  The  Court 
then  passes  on  to  show  in  cases  and  decisions  handed  down  that 
civil  courts  have  no  jurisdiction  as  to  the  conditions  for  mem- 
bership in  church  societies  or  of  revision  of  the  ordinary  acts  of 
a  church  in  admitting  or  dismissing  members,  at  the  same  time 
the  Court  fully  shows  that  in  questions  involving  property  rights 
civil  courts  will  enforce  the  findings  of  the  supreme  ecclesiastical 
court  when  it  has  finally  spoken.  The  assertion  of  jurisdiction 
in  such  event  is  not  an  interference  with  the  control  of  the 
society  over  its  own  members,  but,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  an 
assumption  on  the  part  of  civil  courts  that  the  church  constitu- 
tion or  law  or  canon  was  intended  to  be  mutually  binding  upon 
all,  and  it  protects  the  society,  in  fact,  by  recalling  it  to  a  recog- 
nition of  its  own  organic  law.  (Bouldin  vs.  Alexander,  15  Wall, 
131;  21  L.  Ed.  69;  Shannon  vs.  Frost,  3B.  Mon.  253;  Hatfield 
vs.  De  Long,  (Ind.  Sup.)  59  N.  E.  483;  5i  L-  R-  A.  75i ;  83, 
Am.  St.  Rep.  194;  Chase  vs.  Cheney,  58  111.  509;  11  Am.  Rep. 
95;  Pounder  vs.  Ashe,  36  Neb.  564;  54  N.  W.  847.) 

The  Court  in  view  of  these  precedents  will  not  review  an 
ecclesiastical  case  after  the  highest  ecclesiastical  court  has  de- 
termined that  the  court  of  orignal  jurisdiction  had  proceeded 
regularly,  and  has  affirmed  its  findings.  In  the  case  at  bar, 
however,  the  appeal  taken  by  Father  Murphy  from  the  judgment 
of  the  curia  at  Lincoln  had  not  been  determined  at  the  time  the 
injunction  of  the  District  Court  of  Seward  county  was  issued, 
and  that  decree  only  attempted  to  stay  the  hand  of  the  Bishop 
until  the  appellate  ecclesiastical  court  had  passed  upon  the  ques- 
tion.    The  Court  then  proceeds  to  laud  the  judicature  of  the 


172  IHE  GLOBE. 

Catholic  Church  when  the  Sacred  Canons  are  respected,  viz: 
The  rules  governing  Catholic  Church  trials  are  much  more 
liberal  in  behalf  of  the  accused  than  are  those  prevailing  in  the 
civil  courts,  it  being  laid  down  that  the  omission  of  a  substantial 
formality  vitiates  and  annuls  the  judgment  pronounced.  In 
Smith's  "New  Procedure,"  which  Bishop  Bonecum  as  well  as 
Father  Murphy  cited  as  authority  in  Catholic  Church  trials,  it 
is„said  in  Article  43,  Section  2:  ''The  rule  of  law  is  'Quae 
contra  jus  fiunt  debent  utique  pro  infectis  haberi ;'  hence,  all 
Canonists  teach  that  the  omission  of  a  substantial  formality  dur- 
ing the  trial  vitiates  and  annuls  the  entire  proceeding.  *  *  *  * 
When  the  trial  is  null  by  defect  in  the  proceedings,  the  sentence 
passed  after  such  trial  will  also  be  null  and  void.  For  the  law 
prescribes,  indeed,  that  the  guilty  shall  be  punished,  but  it  pre- 
scribes also  that  they  shall  be  punished  by  the  forms  of  law. 
These  forms  are  considered  by  the  law  the  essentials  of  finding 
out  the  truth." 

The  Court  then  proceeds  to  say  that  it  has  adopted  the  rule 
that,  where  the  construction  of  a  Canon  or  rule  of  the  church 
is  in  controversy,  it  will  accept  the  construction  put  thereon  by 
the  highest  church  authority,  and  that  where  the  regularity  of 
the  proceedings  of  an  inferior  ecclesiastical  court  is  passed  on 
by  the  highest  governing  authority  of  the  church,  and  the  regu- 
larity of  the  proceedings  sustained,  the  Court  will  accept  such 
decision  as  final  and  conclusive.  (Pounder  vs.  Ashe.)  More- 
over the  Court  holds  that  the  decree  of  the  highest  church  power 
in  the  State,  when  not  appealed  from,  would  also  be  accepted 
by  the  Court  as  a  correct  exposition  of  the  question  in  con- 
troversy. Nevertheless,  as  the  Court  declares,  "we  have  never 
gone  so  far  as  to  say  that  we  would  enforce  the  orders  of  an 
ecclesiastical  court,  the  members  of  which  are  disqualified  from 
acting,  or  that  we  would  accept  as  conclusive  the  construction 
put  upon  the  canons  and  rules  of  the  church  by  an  inferior 
ecclesiastical  tribunal,  when  that  construction  was  a  matter  of 
controversy,  and  an  appeal  had  been  taken  therefrom  to  a  higher 
ecclesiastical  body,  and  was  still  a  matter  for  the  decision  of 
the  highest  governing  authorities  of  the  church." 

The  record  shows  that  both  Bishop  Bonecum  and  Father  Mur- 
phy have  devoted  considerable  time  to  the  question  whether, 
under  the  rules  governing  church  trials,  an  appeal  taken  from 


SHALL  CIVIL  COURTS  RECOGNIZE  SACRED  CANONS f  173 

the  decrees  of  the  curia  of  Lincoln  would  have  the  effect  of 
staying  the  execution  of  such  decrees,  i.  e.,  whether  the  appeal 
was  "suspensive"  or  "devolutive." 

This  is  a  familiar  contention  that  has  come  up  in  every  con- 
troversy of  recent  years.  It  has  been  taken  for  granted,  and  per- 
haps too  readily  admitted  by  an  unthinking  or  indifferent  clergy, 
that  there  is  no  "suspensive  appeal"  in  the  United  States,  and  this 
by  reason  of  the  "Dispositiones"  of  the  Third  Council  of  Balti- 
more. The  "Minutes  of  the  Conferences  of  the  American  Metro- 
politans" at  Rome  in  1883  disclose  the  fact  that  His  Eminence 
Cardinal  Gibbons  urged  that  the  "Jus  commune"  as  to  the  right 
of  effective  appeal  in  the  United  States  be  changed  and  limited 
to  "Devolutive"  appeals  only.  The  reason  given  according  to 
these  "Minutes"  is  to  restrain,  hypothetical  "bad  priests"  "Malus 
sacerdos"  from  holding,  after  appeal,  his  rectorship,  and  so,  in 
so  far  as  preventing  his  removal  until  Rome  has  finally  spoken, 
the  Bishops'  decree  of  removal  going  into  effect,  or  perhaps 
rendering  the  same  nugatory.  It  seems  from  the  same  "Minutes" 
that  Rome  lent  a  somewhat  deaf  ear  to  this  request  for  a  deroga- 
tion so  radical  from  her  Common  law.  The  question  then  lay 
in  abeyance,  and  at  the  Baltimore  Council  it  again  was  brought 
up;  a  great  deal  of  agitation  was  made  thereon.  Finally  it  was 
put  in  as  Decree  No.  286  with  a  phrase  "Annuente  Pontifice" 
enacted  as  a  Decree.  Since  which  time  it  has  been  urged  as  a 
sanction  of  the  most  radical  violation  of  the  Church's  "Jus 
Commune"  in  the  matter  of  effective  appeal. 

Considering  the  fact  that  this  "Vulnus"  on  the  Church's  com- 
mon law  owes  its  presence  in  the  Baltimore  Council  legislation 
to  such  admitted  expediency,  which  has  for  its  sanction  no 
specific  approval  of  Rome,  only  a  mere  taking  for  granted, 
"Annuente  Pontifice,"  it  is  astounding  that  the  entire  body  of 
the  priests  of  the  United  States  be  thus  deprived  of  the  right 
of  appeal,  i.  e.,  subject  to  the  rights  and  privileges  of  their  posi- 
tion as  rectors  or  their  good  name  as  men,  being  denied  or 
aspersed  until  the  supreme  and  final  court  of  the  Church  has 
finally  spoken.  If  this,  nevertheless,  be  the  law  of  the  Church 
in  the  United  States,  as  is  held,  the  Supreme  Court  of  Nebraska 
has  in  this  recent  decision  suggested  an  effective  means  to  cir- 
cumscribe, aye,  paralyze  its  effect,  viz.,  by  a  writ  of  injunction 
should   ouster   proceedings   be   attempted   before   the   appeal   to 


174  THE  GLOBE. 

Rome  had  been  finally  heard  and  determined.  A  righteous,  in- 
telligent and  courageous  rector  with  a  fair  degree  of  "Savoir 
faire"  may  readily  keep  his  good  lay  trustees  with  him  and  have 
their  co-operation  in  securing  such  injunction  from  the  court 
into  which  he  has  been  dragged  in  self-defense,  and  because  he 
is  standing  for  the  Sacred  Canons  of  the  Church.  Under  such 
protection  it  will  matter  little  whether  his  appeal  be  "suspen- 
sive" or  "devolutive,"  so  far  as  his  "property  rights"  are  con- 
cerned. A  review  of  the  evidence  as  to  the  "suspensive"  or 
"devolutive"  character  of  church  appeals  will  be,  as  in  Nebraska, 
unnecessary  for  the  reason  that  the  in  junctional  order  will  re- 
strain, as  it  did  Bishop  Bonecum,  says  the  Court,  from  bringing 
a  civil  action  against  the  priest  until  the  appeal  taken  has  been 
determined  by  the  highest  church  authority,  or  until  this  injunc- 
tion has  been  set  aside  or  modified. 

The  fact  of  an  appeal  on  the  ground  of  the  court's  disqualifica- 
tion is  evidently  a  leading  issue  in  this  Nebraska  case  upon 
which  a  large  mass  of  evidence  was  submitted.  The  Bishop,  it 
seems,  contends  that  no  challenge  was  interposed  by  Father  Mur- 
phy to  the  disqualification  of  the  Bishop  to  sit  as  a  judge  in  the 
case  and  endeavors  to  prove  his  contention  by  stating  that  Father 
Murphy  at  the  time  and  before  pleading  to  the  charge  against 
him,  desired  to  read  a  "Statement"-  that  he  at  no  time  inter- 
posed or  offered  to  read  a  "Challenge."  The  Court  proceeds 
to  state  apropos  of  this  contention  that  the  record  shows  that, 
when  called  upon  to  plead,  Father  Murphy  asked  to  read  a 
statement,  but  this  privilege  was  denied  him,  and  he  was  told 
that  he  would  have  opportunity  after  entering  his  plea  to  the 
charge  to  make  such  statement  as  he  desired.  He  then  attempted 
to  read  his  statement,  but  was  interrupted,  and  great  confusion 
prevailed.  He  then  attempted  to  file  the  statement  with  the 
secretary  of  the  court,  but  this  was  refused  under  the  direction 
of  the  judge,  Bishop  Bonecum. 

The  writer  must  be  pardoned  for  recognizing  in  these  tactics 
a  proceeding  of  no  little  personal  familiarity,  viz.,  a  certain  curia 
denying  the  right  to  make  a  statement  of  the  court's  competency, 
the  refusal  of  listening  to  an  affidavit  embodying  the  grounds 
of  such  statement,  the  refusal  to  receive  or  file  the  same,  the 
omission  of  the  entire  proceeding  by  the  secretary  in  the  minutes 
of  the  same ;  and  to  cap  the  climax  the  hardihood  later  on  when 


SHALL  CIVIL  COURTS  RECOGNIZE  SACRED  CANONS?  175 

appeal  was  made  to  deny  that  such  question  had  been  raised  or 
such  statement  made  in  writing  as  required  by  the  Canons.  Worse 
than  all,  to  cackle  and  rejoice  when  the  higher  court  of  appeal, 
on  the  ground  of  the  axiom  of  law,  viz.,  "Quae  non  sunt  in 
Actis,  non  sunt  in  mundo,"  thus  misled,  perhaps  too  willingly,  by 
an  erroneous  and  defective  record, — rather  no  record  at  all, — 
declared  no  challenge  had  been  made  or  filed  in  writing!  Such 
tactics  sadly  suffer,  are  made  a  "holy  show  of,"  when  put  along- 
side of  the  secular  court  of  Nebraska.  For,  says  the  Court, 
"When  Bishop  Bonecum  says  that  Father  Murphy  did  not  in- 
terpose a  challenge, — that  he  merely  offered  a  'Statement,' — he 
is  making  a  play  upon  words ;  it  being  evident  that  it  was  known 
that  this  statement  was  in  reality  a  challenge,  which,  according  to 
the  forms  of  procedure  formulated  by  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  for  the  trial  of  cases,  had  to  be  interposed  before  the 
defendant  entered  a  plea  to  the  charges  against  him."  In  Droste- 
Mesmer,  "Canonical  Procedure,"  Chap.  3,  Art.  2,  it  is  said: 
"Recusation  is  only  a  dilatory,  not  a  peremptory,  exception,  and 
must  be  made  in  writing  to  the  judge  himself,  before  the  public 
pleading  begins.  After  that  time  the  recusant  can  enter  this  plea 
only  upon  making  affidavit  that  he  had  no  knowledge  of  the  rea- 
sons for  the  challenge  before,  or  in  case  the  ground  of  the  chal- 
lenge arose  only  afterwards."  And  in  a  note  to  this  article  it  is 
said,  "It  is  the  nature  of  a  recusation  that  it  must  be  made  be- 
fore the  person  thus  challenged  begins  to  exercise  his  jurisdic- 
tion. To  let  him  do  this  would  be  to  admit  his  authority."  The 
argument,  therefore,  that  there  was  no  challenge,  or  that  it  was 
not  offered  at  the  proper  time,  is  wholly  without  foundation,  and 
needs  no  further  discussion. 

The  Court  now  passes  on  to  consider  the  alleged  disposition  of 
Father  Murphy's  appeal  by  the  Holy  See.  It  states  that  what  is 
claimed  to  be  an  order  of  the  Sacred  Congregation  of  the  Propa- 
ganda Fide,  disposing  of  Father  Murphy's  appeal,  is  contained 
in  a  letter  addressed  to  the  Bishop,  as  follows : 

"Sacred  Congregation  of  the  Propaganda  of  the  Faith. 
Protocol  No.  43,771.  Concerning  the  Appeal  of  Rev. 
William  Murphy. 

Rome,  April  13,  1901. 

*  'Rt.  Rev.  and  Dear  Sir: — In  reply  to  your  letter  of  the  i8th 
of  March  last,  in  which  you  make  inquiry  as  to  whether  Rev. 
William  Murphy,  a  priest  of  the  Diocese  of  Lincoln,  had  appealed 


176  THE  GLOBE. 

to  this  Sacred  Congregation  of  Propaganda  against  a  sentence 
of  your  Diocesan  Curia,  I  have  to  inform  you  that  the  afore- 
mentioned priest  did  on  the  20th  of  March,  1900,  forward  an 
appeal,  but  it  was  rejected;  and  again  on  the  ist  of  October, 
1900,  he  made  another  appeal  against  a  mandate  which  you  issued 
to  him  in  your  letter  of  the  29th  of  September  of  the  same  year, 
but  that  appeal  was  likewise  rejected. 

'Traying  Almighty  God  to  keep  you  in  His  holy  keeping, 
I  am,  Rt.  Rev.  and  Dear  Sir, 
(Signed)     "M.  CARDINAL  LEDICHOWSKI. 

''ALOYSIUS  VECCIA,  Secretary." 

(By  way  of  parenthesis,  the  writer  observes  this  letter  was 
given  somewhat  of  circulation  four  years  ago,  he  having  seen  it 
in  Boston  that  Summer.) 

It  is  claimed,  proceeds  the  Court  that  this  is  the  original  order 
disposing  of  Father  Murphy's  appeal.  In  support  of  this  theory 
the  deposition  of  Francis  Marchetti,  Auditor  of  the  Apostolic 
Delegation  to  the  United  States,  and  at  the  time  acting  Apostolic 
Delegate  for  the  church  in  the  United  States,  was  taken.  The 
deposition  testifies  that  Cardinal  Ledichowski  was  at  the  date  of 
the  letter  Prefect  of  Propaganda  and  that  Aloysius  Veccia  was 
Secretary,  that  Propaganda  is  the  Supreme  tribunal  for  the  de- 
termination of  all  matters,  spiritual  and  temporal,  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  in  the  United  States,  (and  this  is  conceded  by 
the  parties),  that  the  officers  of  this  tribunal  are  the  prefect  and 
secretary;  that  the  decison  of  Propaganda  being  determined,  it 
is  reduced  to  writing,  signed  by  the  prefect  and  secretary,  and  the 
original  document  is  forwarded  to  one  of  the  parties  interested. 
He  further  states  that  the  letter  above  set  out  is  not  a  copy,  but 
the  original  decree  or  decision  entered  in  the  case. 

Father  Murphy  objected  to  all  this  evidence  as  incompetent  and 
the  Court  declares  *'we  incline  to  the  belief  that  the  objection 
was  well  taken.  A  court  is  required  to  keep  a  record  of  its  pro- 
ceedings. Even  the  curia  of  Lincoln  had  a  very  complete  and 
minute  record  of  all  its  proceedings.  If  there  is  a  court  which 
fails  to  make  a  record  of  its  orders  and  decisions,  then  the  best 
evidence  of  what  such  unrecorded  orders  and  decisions  may  be 
is  the  evidence  of  a  member  of  the  court.  If  the  rules  of  the 
court  require  its  decisions  to  be  recorded,  then  a  copy  of  the 
record  properly  identified  is  the  best  evidence  of  the  decision. 
But  if  the  rules  do  not  require  such  a  record  to  be  made,  the 
Court  is  unable  to  see  how  anyone,  except  some  member  of  the 


SHALL  CIVIL  COURTS  RECOGNIZE  SACRED  CANONS?  in 

court  participating  in  the  decison,  is  qualified  to  say  what  that 
decision  is  or  was." 

The  letter  above,  on  its  face,  shows  that  it  was  written  in  reply 
to  an  inquiry  made  by  the  Bishop,  and  does  not  purport  to  be  a 
decision  of  the  appeal,  but  speaks  of  the  decision  as  a  past  event, 
something  that  had  taken  place  prior  to  the  writing  of  the  letter. 
Moreover  the  letter  clearly  speaks  of  the  decison  on  the  two 
appeals  as  having  been  made  some  time  prior  to  the  writing  of  the 
letter,  "and  cannot,"  says  the  Court,  *'as  we  see,  be  construed  as 
an  order  then  made  rejecting  these  appeals,  or  affirming  the 
orders  appealed  from." 

Other  letters  from  Rome  were  also  offered  touching  this  ap- 
peal, as  well,  also,  as  a  document  certified  by  a  Notary,  whose 
certificate  was  further  attested  to  be  in  due  form  by  Officers  of 
the  Government  of  Italy.  This  latter  stated  that  at  the  request  of 
Secretary  Veccia,  the  said  Notary  went  to  the  Secretary's  office, 
and  was  there  shown  a  letter  by  the  custodian  of  the  archives, 
addressed  to  Bishop  Bonecum,  a  copy  of  which  shows  it  to  be 
the  same  letter  above  copied. 

The  Court  states  that  this  evidence  is  clearly  incompetent,  as 
we  know  of  no  statute  or  rule  of  the  common  law  which  admits 
a  certificate  of  a  Notary,  however  solemnly  attested  by  other 
officials,  to  be  received  as  evidence  in  matters  of  this  character, 
or  of  any  matter  except  acts  of  their  own  committed  to  them  by 
the  laws  of  the  state  or  country  where  they  reside.  All  of  the 
foregoing  should  be  a  wholesome  and  salutary  instruction  to 
Diocesan  curias  on  the  competency  of  evidence.  Ye  Gods !  what 
sometimes  passes  for  evidence  in  a  curial!  Especially  as  some- 
times is  the  case,  witnesses  and  the  confrontation  and  cross- 
examination  thereof  are  denied  the  accused !  In  connection  with 
this  alleged  letter  of  Cardinal  Ledichowski,  whose  authenticity  as 
well  as  effect  seems  called  into  question,  the  Court  mentions  an 
interesting  fact,  viz. :  A  commission  was  taken  out  of  the  District 
Court  of  Seward  by  Father  Murphy,  directed  to  Hector  de  Cas- 
tro, United  States  Consul-General  at  Rome,  to  take  the  deposi- 
tion of  Cardinal  Gotti,  successor  of  Cardinal  Ledichowski  as  pre- 
fect of  Propaganda,  and  of  Monsignor  Veccia  and  Monsignor 
Onronini,  one  of  the  objects  being,  as  shown  by  the  interroga- 
tories propounded,  to  ascertain  what  disposition  had  been  made 
by  the  Sacred  Congregation  of  the  appeals  of  Father  Murphy. 


,78  THE  GLOBE, 

This  commission  was  returned  by  the  Consul-General  with  the 
statement  that  "he  had  personally  interviewed  each  of  the  wit- 
nesses, who  declined  to  answer  their  respective  interrogatories; 
availing  themselves,  in  their  official  position,  of  the  rights  con- 
ferred to  them  by  the  laws  of  Guaranty  of  the  Kingdom  of  Italy." 

By  the  bye,  what  a  contre-temps  constructively  for  Rome  the 
exigencies  of  this  case  occasion !  Ardent  advocates  of  the  Roman 
Question,  as  many  readers  of  the  Gi^obe:  are,  they  will  be  aston- 
ished to  learn  that  Propaganda  itself  recognizes  and  avails  itself 
of  the  Laws  of  Guaranty !  These  laws  of  United  Italy  are  then 
not  the  dead  letter  some  have  been  led  to  suppose.  If  the  Lincoln 
Diocese  has  done  no  more  than  elicit,  though  by  its  controversies, 
this  fact,  that  is  something. 

The  Court  continues,  it  may  be  that  the  Bishop  knew  of  the 
exemption  extended  to  the  officials  composing  the  Sacred  Congre- 
gation of  Propaganda  by  the  laws  of  Italy,  and  on  that  account 
made  no  effort  to  secure  their  evidence,  and  relied,  and  was  com- 
pelled to  rely,  on  the  evidence  contained  in  the  bill  of  exceptions, 
in  his  attempt  to  show  that  Father  Murphy's  appeal  had  been 
disposed  of. 

If  this  be  the  case,  the  Bishop  cannot  probably  be  charged  with 
negligence  in  failing  to  obtain  competent  evidence  to  show  what, 
if  any,  disposition  has  been  made  of  Father  Murphy's  appeal. 
Still,  so  long  as  the  Bishop  has  not  obtained  and  offered  legal 
evidence  determining  the  question,  he  is  in  the  same  position  as 
any  other  litigant  upon  whom  is  cast  the  burden  of  proof  upon  a 
material  issue  of  fact,  and  who  is  unable  to  sustain  that  burden 
because  of  the  death  of  the  only  witness  who  knew  the  fact,  or  the 
refusal  of  the  witness  to  testify,  where  the  court  has  no  means  of 
compelling  him  to  do  so.  In  other  words,  where  a  party  upon 
whom  is  cast  the  burden  of  proof  is  made  to  furnish  compe- 
tent evidence,  the  Court  cannot  treat  such  inability  to  produce  the 
evidence  as  an  equivalent  of  the  evidence  itself. 

It  will  be  noticed,  also,  says  the  Court,  that  the  decree  in  the 
previous  case  enjoining  the  Bishop  from  commencing  this  action 
until  the  disposition  by  the  appellate  ecclesiastical  tribunal  of 
Father  Murphy's  appeal  was  entered  on  the  6th  of  January,  1902. 
The  letter  of  Cardinal  Ledichowski  is  dated  April  13,  190T.  If 
Father  Murphy's  appeal  has  been  disposed  of  in  the  manner  indi- 
cated by  that  letter,  such  disposition,  being  prior  to  the  decree  of 


SHALL  CIVIL  COURTS  RECOGNIZE  SACRED  CANONS f  179 

January  6,  1902,  should  have  been  interposed  as  a  defense  tQ 
Father  Murphy's  prayer  for  affirmative  rehef  in  that  action. 

That  decree,  so  long  as  it  remains  undisturbed,  is  an  adjudica- 
tion that  on  January  6,  1902,  Father  Murphy's  appeal  was  still 
pending  and  had  not  been  disposed  of,  and  by  that  decree  the  fact 
that  Father  Murphy's  appeal  was  still  pending  on  January  6, 
1902,  was  '^^'Res  judicata"  for  the  purpose  of  this  case.  It  was 
still  open  to  the  Bishop  to  show  that  the  appeal  was  disposed  of 
subsequent  to  January  6,  1902,  but  he  was  precluded  by  the  decree 
of  that  date  from  showing  that  it  had  been  disposed  of  as  early 
as  April  13,  1901. 

Concludes  the  Court:  ''Because,  as  we  think,  the  decree  sought 
to  be  enforced  was  one  entered  by  a  judge  disqualified  to  act,  and, 
further,  because  by  the  terms  of  the  injunction  of  January  6,. 
1902,  Bishop  Bonecum  was  enjoined  from  bringing  this  action 
until  the  appeal  taken  by  Father  Murphy  had  been  determined, 
and  the  evidence  failing  to  show  that  the  appellate  court  had 
passed  upon  that  question,  we  recommend  the  judgment  of  the 
District  Court  be  in  all  things  affirmed. 

The  decision  is  concurred  in  by  the  entire  Supreme  bench  of 
Nebraska,  unanimously.  Soon  after  the  Bishop  asked  for  a 
rehearing.  It  would  seem  at  the  date  of  this  writing,  June  10, 
that  the  Supreme  Court  had  granted  the  rehearing.  If  granted 
it  must  have  been  on  the  allegation  that  Rome,  the  highest  tri- 
bunal of  the  Church,  has  spoken  and  determined  the  appeal.  Bye- 
the-bye,  the  promulgation  of  this  item  of  news  coincidently  with 
the  arrival  of  his  Eminence  Cardinal  Satolli  is  significant.  May 
it  not  be  more  than  a  coincidence  ?  May  it  not  be  that  his  coming 
is  on  a  special  mission,  as  the  Chicago  Record-Herald  stated 
recently,  and  among  other  things  the  Bishop  Bonecum-Father 
Murphy  matter?  His  Eminence  is  already  quite  familiar  with 
the  issues,  having  gone  to  Nebraska  when  First-xA.postolic  Dele- 
gate. 

If  this  be  so,  when  the  case  is  reopened,  as  it  now  will  be,  that 
final  decision  of  Rome  must  be  shown  by  competent  evidence  to 
the  Court,  and,  whatever  such  final  decisions  of  Rome  shall  be 
the  Supreme  Court  of  Nebraska  as  well  as  the  authority  of  that 
Commonwealth  will  enforce.  Meanwhile  until  such  fact  of 
Rome's  final  decision  and  determination  of  Father  Murphy's 
appeal,  the  same  Court  and  authority  will  protect  him  from  all 


i8o  THE  GLOBE 

civil  actions  on  part  of  the  Bishop.  That  is  what  Father  Murphy 
had  contended  for;  that  is  what  the  Court  has  done,  and  more- 
over, all  that  the  Court  can  do.  Rome  is  supreme  and  final  in 
such  a  matter  for  all  Catholics ;  when  it  is  duly  and  legally  shown 
that  Rome  has  spoken  the  case  is  finished,  but  not  until  then. 
Father  Murphy,  like  every  intelligent  and  loyal  Catholic,  will 
courageously  stand  for  the  Sacred  Canons  of  his  Church,  and 
when  "Roma  locuta  est,"  "causa  finita  est."  In  any  event  his 
defence  and  vindication  have,  by  the  decision  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  Nebraska,  been  embodied  in  the  law  of  the  land;  and 
as  the  State  Reports  are  preserved  in  the  archives  of  the  nation 
and  the  libraries  of  our  land,  that  defence  and  vindication  will 
now  be  as  enduring  as  the  land  itself.  "Exegi  monumentum  acre 
perrennuis"  might  he  say  in  old  classic  phrase. 

But  the  importance  of  the  Nebraska  decision  is  national,  not 
local  or  diocesan.  It  establishes  the  fact  that  our  civil  law  rec- 
ognizes the  Sacred  Canons,  and  will  await  their  action  and  will 
enforce  their  observance  of  them  on  bishops  as  well  as  upon 
priests  and  people.  The  Church  has  her  written  Constitution  and 
laws, — Sacred  Canons,  which,  in  the  words  of  the  Missouri 
Supreme  Court  some  years  ago,  and  by-the-bye  reaffirmed  later 
on,  "the  ecclesiastical  judicatories  have  no  authority  to  violate; 
they  are  as  much  bound  by  the  provisions  of  this  Constitution, 
as  the  supreme  law  of  the  Church,  as  the  State  and  Federal  gov- 
ernments are  by  their  respective  Constitutions."  (54  Mo.  Wat- 
son vs.  Garvin,  379).  What  more  can  the  Church  desire  of  the 
civil  arm?  The  civil  arm  will  be  refused  to  a  bishop  who  vio- 
lates the  Sacred  Canons.  So  that  the  Nebraska  decision  is  a 
great  triumph  for  canon  law.  The  rights  of  priests  are  protected 
thereby  and  also  the  rights  of  bishops.  Heretofore,  so  far  as  the 
writer  knows,  there  has  been  no  such  declaration  of  a  Supreme 
Court  of  the  relation  of  church  and  state.  Among  lawyers  it 
therefore  must  become  the  leading  case  in  such  matters.  All  other 
cases  of  ecclesiastical  controversy  brought  into  the  civil  courts 
of  this  country  were  quoted  and  the  doctrine  therein  declared 
invoked  and  applied.  The  Bishop,  as  above  stated,  cited  some 
twelve  in  his  petition,  while  Father  Murphy  cited  these  same 
twelve  and  all  others,  and  moreover  rightly  deduced  and  applied 
the  doctrine  therein  contained. 

Now  the  Supreme  Court  of  Nebraska  has  embodied  all  this  in 


SHALL  CIVIL  COURTS  RECOGNIZE  SACRED  CANONS?  i8i 

an  irrevocable  decree  and  made  it  a  precedent  or  law  for  the 
country.  In  fact  the  decision  may  be  said  to  be  the  embodiment 
in  our  civil  law  of  the  Decretal  of  Book  I,  Title  II,  Chapter  i,  and 
Chapter  5  of  the  Decretals  of  Gregory  IX.  It  is  the  greatest  and 
clearest  expression  thus  delivered  by  the  civil  authority  in  matters 
of  the  Catholic  Church,  and  it  is  pleasing  to  know  that  this 
expression  is  co-operative  and  not  antagonistic.  It  informs  the 
rulers  of  the  Church  thus :  ''If  you  expect  us  to  enforce  your 
decrees,  you  must  first  obey  your  canons  and  constitutions,  organ- 
ize and  conduct  your  courts  in  conformity  with  the  canons.  Such, 
too,  is  the  teaching  of  the  Constitutions,  the  instructions  of  the 
Holy  See  and  the  Sacred  Canons.  Thus  the  Sacred  Canons  and 
the  civil  law  are  one.    Happy  union  and  not  fusion! 

If  nothing  else  were  the  result  of  the  perennial  disturbances 
of  the  Church  in  Nebraska, —  (when  the  writer  visited  the  Trans- 
Mississippi  Exposition  at  Omaha  in  1898,  he  was  reliably  in- 
formed that  no  less  than  twenty  actions  of  law  were  on  the 
dockets  of  the  courts  of  the  State,  in  which  the  Ordinary  or  Lin- 
coln was  either  plaintiff  or  defendant), — than  this  decision  of 
the  Supreme  Court  there  is  no  little  compensatory  offset.  All 
this  is  working  in  aid  of  the  struggles  of  the  Holy  See  to  impress 
upon  all  Catholics  that  the  guidance  of  the  Sacred  Canons  is 
impersonal  and  not  distorted  by  the  acceptation  of  persons,  and 
that  in  the  Sacred  Canons  there  is  more  wisdom  than  in  the 
bishops  or  priests;  and  the  Sacred  Canons  are  the  safest  rule 
for  guiding  and  for  governing. 

The  system  of  government  established  by  the  Sacred  Canons  is 
certainly  far  better  than  the  "ad  nutum,"  the  "nod"  or  "whim," 
or  "at  my  pleasure"  of  any  religious  body.  With  canon  law  no 
one,  least  of  all  the  clergy,  can  have  a  quarrel.  On  the  other 
hand  they  would  be  sadly  derelict  if  rather  than  "give  scandal," 
forsooth,  they  were  indifferent  to  or  silent  on  usurpations  and 
violations  of  most  Sacred  Canons.  We  believe  it  is  the  great 
Canonist  Van  Espen  who  says  of  such  conduct:  "Atque  ita  per 
ignaviam  quorundam  clericorum  dum  plus  SUBSUNT  quam 
oportet,  ecclesiasticus  ordo  subvertitur  ac  perturhatur  cenitus. 
Adeo  ut  merita  pins  Parisiensis  Cancellarius  impridem  dixerit, 
quandoque  meritoruni  et  honoriUcum  esse  ecclesiasticae  potestati, 
quod  praelato  (abutenti  suae  potestati)  in  faciem  resistatur  cum 
appositione    inculpatae    tutelae,    quemadmodum    restitit    Paulus 


i82  THE  GLOBE. 

Petro."  For  the  would-be  ''pious"  one  who  considers  himself  a 
true  shepherd,  brave  leader  and  defender  of  truth  and  duty  by 
''fleeing  like  the  hireling,"  these  words  of  the  great  Van  Espen 
have  not  much  consolation. 

Wonderful  how  even  some  who  should  be  leaders  can  form 
conscience !  No  wonder  the  public  influence  of  such  a  great  body 
is  not  what  it  should  be.  It  is  the  divine  organization  of  the 
Church  alone  that  keeps  the  ship  afloat,  and  not  the  skill  or  efforts 
of  such  sailors.  Conscious  want  of  moral  courage,  individuality 
finds  expression  in  denominating  everything  that  right  or  duty  or 
law  dictate  as  "scandal."  That  rule  of  law,  "Utilius  scandalum 
nasci  permittitur,  quam  Veritas  relinquatur/' — Reg.  Ill,  in  5°.), 
such  cowardly  piety  never  allows  such  individuals  to  investigate 
or  practise.  This  is  the  line  with  what  the  editor  of  the  "Western 
Watchman'  some  years  ago  put  it,  viz,  "that  the  priest,  in  order 
to  get  on  well  must  do  two  things,  viz :  He  must  keep  in  good 
health,  and  he  must  keep  on  the  good  side  of  his  bishop,  right  or 
wrong." 

All  such  controversies  as  that  of  the  Lincoln  Diocese,  and  of 
some  others  we  might  mention,  are  doing  much  to  bring  about 
a  reformation  in  matters  canonical.  The  essential  of  this  refor- 
mation is  that  the  rights  of  even  the  humblest  in  the  Church  are 
protected  by  the  Sacred  Canons  and  moreover,  that  they  do  not 
depend  on  the  good  will  or  the  friendship  of  any  dignitary,  much 
less  upon  sycophancy  or  slavish  subserviency.  On  the  contrary 
the  rights  of  all  alike,  priest,  bishop,  laic,  depend  upon  duty  well 
and  faithfully  done.  In  such  a  delightful  condition,  and  in  being 
instrumental  in  bringing  it  about,  the  "dramatis  personae"  of 
these  controverses  in  the  Church  of  Nebraska,  Missouri  and  else- 
where cannot  but  justly  rejoice  and  share  in  the  reformation 
when  it  comes.  x\nd  that  reformation  is  not  so  far  oflf.  Cardi- 
nal Moran,  of  Sidney,  not  long  since  requested  Pope  Pius  X  to 
make  some  arrangement  to  allow  of  a  better  and  more  intimate 
and  more  direct  representation  of  Australian  ecclesiastical  affairs 
in  the  Roman  Curia,  giving  as  a  reason  that  they  have  been 
neglected,  misunderstood  and  unsympathized  with  for  the  reason 
that  none  of  their  people  are  in  the  offices  at  Rome.  Pope  Pius 
replied  to  him  and  said  that  he  would  go  farther,  and  that  he 
would  create  for  the  Church  in  his  country  an  autonomous  gov- 
ernment, and  would  do  the  same  for  each  of  the  English  speaking 


SHALL  CIVIL  COURTS  RECOGNIZE  SACRED  CANONS?  183 

countries  in  the  British  Empire  and  also  in  the  United  States  of 
America.  Leo  XIII,  it  is  true,  several  times  attempted  such  a 
reformation,  but  met  with  resistance  in  the  Church  of  the  United 
States.  The  Roman  instruction  of  1884  was  forced,  and  an 
Apostolic  Delegate  later  on,  nevertheless.  Pius  X  says  now  that 
he  will  create  for  each  of  these  countries  an  autonomous  govern- 
ment, which  will  have  complete  and  exclusive  jurisdiction  in  all 
matters,  except  the  defining  of  doctrines.  Moreover,  the  work 
begun  and  left  unfinished  by  the  late  Vatican  Council,  the  revis- 
ion and  codification  of  the  entire  Canon  law,  Pius  X  has  now  of 
his  own  motion,  on  the  19th  of  last  March,  taken  up  anew.  The 
future  code  of  Pius  X  will  be  the  first  complete  and  systematic 
codification  of  the  laws  of  the  Church.  Its  scope  will  be  fourfold : 
(i)  The  complete  abolition  of  all  the  unnecessary,  obsolete, 
imperfect,  antiquated  legislation  which  has  drifted  down 
through  centuries  to  the  universal  Church  or  to  any  of  the 
parts  thereof;  (2)  The  creation  of  such  new  statutes  as  may  be 
required  throughout  the  Church  to-day;  (3)  The  systematic 
arrangement  of  the  entire  body  of  Canon  Law,  so  that  it  will  be 
possible  for  any  intelligent  person  to  put  his  finger  at  once  upon 
the  special  canon  which  threats  of  any  particular  question;  and 
(4)  The  extension  of  the  general  code  of  Canon  Law,  to  all  the 
parts  of  the  Church, — this  following  as  a  natural  consequence 
from  the  abolition  of  merely  local  laws.  (The  Review,  St.  Louis, 
No.  19.)  When  this  work  is  completed,  possibly  the  long-pro- 
rogued Council  of  the  Vatican  may  be  convened  for  its  promul- 
gation. As  a  matter  of  fact  there  is  to-day  in  Rome  a  well 
defined  rumor,  which  will  not  down,  that  Pius  X  will  reconvene 
the  Vatican  Council. 

In  such  conditions,  controversies  such  as  good  priests  have 
undergone  in  Nebraska,  Missouri  and  other  states  will  be  rare, 
and  never  protracted  if  they  needs  must  come;  nor  will  then  be 
possible  for  a  prelate  to  declare  up(5n  the  witness  stand,  as  was 
done  in  one  of  our  greatest  cities  a  couple  of  years  ago,  that  the 
Church  and  clergy  of  the  United  States  are  not  as  capable  of 
having  the  full  benefit  of  Canon  Law  as  are  the  Italians,  or  even 
the  Chinese  and  Filipinos.    Hasten  !    Hasten  !    Happy  day. 

John  T.  Tuohy,  LL.  D. 

St.  Louis,  Mo.,  June  11,  1904. 


,84  THE  GLOBE. 

BISMARCK'S  SECOND  DEATH. 


The  Anglo-French  agreement  is  an  unprecedented  example  of 
a  diplomatic  instrument  concluded  by  two  Powers  in  the  midst  of 
peace,  but  possessing  all  the  scope  and  importance  of  the  great 
international  settlements  only  arrived  at  in  the  past  as  the  result  of 
historic  wars.  The  Treaty  of  Utrecht,  in  spite  of  the  Newfound- 
land clause,  which  has  only  now  been  annulled  after  two  cenutries, 
raised  England  to  her  place  at  the  head  of  the  Great  Powers. 
Fifty  years  later  the  Treaty  of  Paris  recognized  that  unparalleled 
expansion  by  which,  under  Chatham's  inspiration,  the  British 
Empire  was  created.  With  the  lapse  of  yet  another  twenty  years, 
the  American  Colonies  were  wrenched  away  under  the  Treaty  of 
Versailles,  but  even  for  that  loss  there  was  complete  internal  com- 
pensation, through  an  immediate  growth  of  manufacturing  wealth 
and  population,  no  less  wonderful  in  its  way  than  the  conquests 
of  the  previous  generation  by  land  and  sea.  There  was  no  real 
interruption  in  the  further  development  of  power.  Following  our 
next,  and  by  far  our  greatest  war,  the  Treaty  of  Vienna,  in  1815, 
marked  the  achievement  of  a  British  predominance  relatively 
more  decisive  than  at  any  former  period. 

From  that  climax  of  our  relative  influence  began,  as  we  can 
now  perceive,  its  decadence.  To  attempt  an  analysis  of  the  causes 
here,  would  be  out  of  place.  They  were  emotional  and  economic 
so  far  as  they  were  insular,  they  were  economic  and  military  so 
far  as  they  were  Continental.  Whatever  these  causes  were,  the 
changes  they  produced  were  partly  inevitable,  as  well  as  partly 
avoidable.  The  results  of  the  Crimean  War,  as  embodied  in  the 
Treaty  of  Paris,  were  in  every  respect  an  anti-climax  by  com- 
parison with  the  achievements  to  which  we  had  been  accustomed 
in  previous  generations.  Sea-power  had  lost  its  primacy,  and 
the  military  idea — using  the  word  in  the  narrower  sense- 
obtained  a  more  exclusive  ascendancy  than  it  had  ever  possessed 
during  the  eighteenth  century.  A  fugitive  interval  of  phos- 
phorescent brilliancy  under  the  Second  Empire  restored  diplo- 
matic predominance  upon  a  military  basis  to  France.  With  the 
Treaty  of  Frankfort,  it  passed  to  Germany,  which  became  the  first 
Power  in  Europe.  The  Treaty  of  Berlin  itself  recognized  the 
German  capital  as  the  centre  of  diplomacy,  and  Lord  Beaconsfield, 
on  behalf  of  this  country,  played  an  interesting  but  a  secondary 


BISMARCK'S  SECOND  DEATH.  185 

role.  Striking,  as  it  seemed,  when  England  had  already  begun  to 
be  ignored  in  Europe,  it  was  not  a  part  which  would  have  seemed 
large  enough  to  Chatham,  to  Palmerston,  or  even  to  Castlereagh. 
Of  the  subsequent  record  of  humiliation  and  effacement  there  is 
no  need  to  speak  in  detail.  Under  Mr.  Gladstone,  British  foreign 
policy  became  a  thing  to  be  neglected,  ridiculed  and  flouted. 
Anti-Bismarckian  in  spirit,  its  impotence  in  Europe  left  Bis- 
marckian  influences  supreme.  Lord  Salisbury,  in  his  turn,  allowed 
our  policy  to  harmonize  habitually  with  German  purposes.  Lord 
Rosebery  was  less  willing,  but  more  helpless.  The  nature  of  the 
situation  was  only  fully  revealed  to  average  Englishmen  by  events 
in  the  Far  East,  from  the  Treaty  of  Shiminoseki,  to  the  seizure  of 
Port  Arthur  and  Kiaochau.  The  British  Empire  was  treated  as 
a  cipher,  even  in  the  vital  sphere  of  oversea  policy,  where  her 
voice  has  always  been  decisive  since  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne,  and 
Germany,  with  premature  ambition,  became  something  like  an 
open  candidate  for  the  succession  to  our  sea-power  and  Imperial 
influence.  The  Anglo-French  agreement  means  that  she  has 
missed  her  grasp.  Germany,  with  extraordinary  rapidity,  has  lost 
at  all  points  her  former  sureness  of  hold  upon  the  international 
situation.  In  the  international  concert  she  no  longer  plays  the 
part  of  conductor.  She  has  exchanged  Prince  Bismarck's  baton 
for  Count  Billow's  "flute."  The  semi-official  journals  may  rhap- 
sodize to  order  about  the  unshakable  integrity  of  the  Triple 
Alliance.  The  severe  truth  is  that  Germany  is  at  the  present 
moment  the  most  isolated  Power,  that  Berlin  has  been  deposed 
from  its  predominance  in  Europe,  and  that  the  whole  Bismarckian 
system  of  policy  has  come  to  total  bankruptcy  in  the  hands  of  the 
Iron  Chancellor's  successors.  We  can  now  see  that  by  the  Treaty 
of  Frankfort  England  lost  as  much  in  influence  as  France  did  in 
territory. 

Without  another  war  the  political  grouping  of  Europe  has  been 
placed  upon  a  new  basis,  with  a  centre  of  gravity  widely  removed 
from  the  point  at  which  it  had  been  maintained  for  a  generation. 
Germany  feels  that  her  diplomacy  has  suffered  a  silent  debacle 
with  disastrous  and  inexplicable  completeness.  France,  with  a 
security  for  her  whole  colonial  dominion  she  had  never  possessed 
till  now  since  her  colonial  history  began,  is  free  once  more  to  con- 
centrate upon  Continental  policy  and  acquires  a  Continental  posi- 
tion such  as  Berlin  had  not  for  one  moment  expected  her  to  com- 


i86  THE  GLOBE. 

mand  again.  As  regards  this  country,  Lord  Lansdowne  has  had 
the  distinction,  to  a  large  extent  deserved,  of  signing  an  instru- 
ment which  does  more  to  restore  England's  relative  influence  in 
•  Europe  than  anything  that  has  happened  for  two  generations.  It 
divides  two  eras  by  a  clean  line  of  cleavage.  It  liquidates  old  quar- 
rels and  leaves  us  with  the  freer  hands  we  needed  to  deal  effi- 
ciently with  new  and  perhaps  more  formidable  problems.  We 
cannot  say  that  England  stands  again  at  the  head  of  the  Euro- 
pean system,  for  there  is  no  longer  any  head  to  that  system.  But 
what  we  can  say  with  certainty  is  that  the  magnetic  pole  of  diplo- 
macy has  so  altered  towards  a  point  that  lies  somewhere  between 
Paris  and  London,  but  no  longer  lies  between  Berlin  and  St. 
Petersburg. 

In  itself,  and  as  regards  the  two  Powers  concerned,  the  settle- 
ment is  one  which  must  increase  the  hopes  of  all  reasonable  men 
for  a  reign  of  reason  in  international  affairs.  Each  country  has 
secured  direct  advantages  of  value  as  well  as  indirect  advantages 
of  incalculable  importance.  Neither  has  been  called  upon  to  make 
any  serious  sacrifice.  Where  both  Powers  have  gained,  indeed, 
France  must  be  admitted  to  have  gained  most.  M.  Delcasse  has 
secured  beyond  all  question  the  most  solid  diplomatic  triumph 
yet  achieved  under  the  Third  Republic.  If  it  had  been  won  by  a 
professed  pupil  of  Richelieu,  like  M.  Hanotaux,  all  Europe  would 
have  devoted  itself  to  picturesque  speculation  upon  the  reappear- 
ance of  the  Great  Cardinal's  spirit  on  the  stage  of  twentieth-cen- 
tury policy.  The  whole  of  the  praise  must  be  shared,  no  doubt, 
with  M.  Paul  Cambon,  the  admirable  Ambassador  of  France  to 
this  country,  whose  success  wrings  the  withers  of  his  diplomatic 
competitors  in  another  quarter.  His  achievement  is  even  more 
remarkable  than  that  of  his  brilliant  colleague  at  Rome,  M. 
Camille  Barrere.  Here  we  may  glance  at  the  striking  fact  that 
although  the  highest  diplomacy  is  conventionally  considered  to  be 
a  monarchial  institution,  France  was  never  better  served  by  her 
Ministers  abroad  than  she  has  been  during  the  last  twenty  years. 
Their  efforts  in  every  direction  but  that  one  which  is  purposely 
allowed  to  remain  open  like  the  gap  in  the  Vosges,  have  gone  very 
far  to  redress  the  fortunes  of  war. 

Above  all,  France  has  now  acquired  a  position  which  will 
afford,  as  long  as  she  chooses,  an  absolute  guarantee  of  the  integ- 
rity of  her  colonial  dominion.    British  sea-power  was  the  greatest 


BISMARCICS  SECOND  DEATH,  187 

danger  to  it.  British  sea-power  becomes  the  final  security  for  it. 
This  country  would  undoubtedly  go  to  war  to  prevent  French 
colonial  dominion  from  becoming  a  German  colonial  dominion.  In 
other  words,  France  can  turn  her  eyes  towards  the  Rhine  and 
towards  Continental  affairs  generally  with  a  feeling  of  security  as 
regards  her  sea-interests  that  she  has  never  known  since  Riche- 
lieu. In  the  settlement  of  the  colonial  question  for  France,  and 
the  renewed  predominance  of  the  Continental  interest  in  her  pol- 
icy, we  touch  part  of  the  vital  significance  of  the  agreement  in  its 
reflex  effect  upon  European  affairs. 

For  England  the  gains  are  equal  or,  perhaps,  more  than  equal. 
The  sacrifices  at  the  same  time  are  more  obvious.  The  Republic 
does  not  cede  one  inch  of  her  dominion,  and  was  not  called  upon 
to  do  so  for  the  happy  reason  that  not  one  inch  of  French  ground 
is  coveted  by  this  country.  We,  on  the  other  hand,  have  conveyed 
considerable  pieces  of  British  territory  to  another  flag.  No  sane 
man  can  pretend  that  we  are  weakened  relatively  by  the  loss  of  a 
few  imperceptible  inches  of  such  an  empire  as  ours.  You  might 
as  well  represent  the  dusting  of  the  piano  to  be  an  injury  to  the 
instrument. 

In  point  of  mere  utilizable  territory,  we  gain  more  by  the  release 
of  the  French  shore  from  the  diplomatic  mortgage  which  had 
weighed  upon  it  for  two  centuries  than  we  lose  upon  the  Niger 
or  the  Gambia.  Egypt  released  so  far  as  the  Third  Republic  is 
concerned  from  financial  restraints  no  less  embarrassing  than  the 
territorial  obstruction  which  existed  upon  the  Newfoundland 
shore,  becomes  as  British  in  reality  as  Newfoundland  itself.  If 
France  were  likely  to  become  a  hostile  Power  within  the  next 
two  generations,  the  relinquishment  to  her  influence  of  V  'Empire 
qui  Croule,  would  be  a  bad  one.  But  since  it  strengthens 
immensely  the  likelihood  that  the  friendship  between  England  and 
France  will  gradually  harden  into  a  permanent  alliance  based 
upon  a  natural  harmony  of  interests,  the  Morocco  arrangement 
must  be  regarded,  on  the  whole,  as  thoroughly  sound,  and  Lord 
Lansdowne  has  shown  in  this  particular,  the  statesmanlike  cour- 
age that  wise  concession  demands. 

For  here,  again,  we  see  the  master-feature  of  the  agreement  in 
its  effect  upon  the  position  and  prospects  of  the  Powers.  It  com- 
pletely destroys  the  diplomatic  prospects  of  Germany.  To  say 
that  it  was  not  directed  against  her,  is  a  verbal  formula.    The  fact 


i88  THE  GLOBE. 

is  only  partly  true.  So  far  as  it  is  true  it  is  not  important.  If  not 
directed  against  Germany,  the  Anglo-French  settlement  works 
most  powerfully  against  Germany.  It  leaves  her  statesmen  non- 
plussed; it  deprives  her  diplomacy  of  the  fulcrum  by  which  it 
had  exerted  its  strongest  leverage  upon  the  international  situation. 
The  Franco-Russian  Alliance  was  already  the  principal  obstacle  to 
all  the  ambitions  of  Pan-Germanism  on  land.  The  Anglo-French 
agreement  places  a  more  formidable  obstacle  across  the  path  of 
the  Kaiser's  ambitions  by  sea.  Again,  the  whole  world  asks  that 
searching  question  which  the  present  writer  has  repeatedly  raised 
in  these  pages  during  the  last  few  years.  Is  it  Germany's 
''future,"  in  the  Kaiser's  sense,  that  lies  "auf  dem  Wasser,"  or  is 
Germany's  fate  far  more  likely  to  be  found  there?  In  any  case, 
the  international  situation  is  altered  to  her  disadvantage  to  an 
extent  that  appeared  inconceivable  only  a  few  years  ago,  when 
the  first  events  of  the  Boer  war  deprived  the  whole  German  nation 
of  its  caution,  and  for  one  delusive  moment  seemed  to  open  the 
door  to  illimitable  aspirations.  There  is  an  utter  collapse  of  the 
foundation  upon  which  the  Wilhelmstrasse  has  rested  for  a  gen- 
eration. All  Bismarck's  diplomatic  work  after  the  Treaty  of 
Frankfort — yes,  the  whole  of  it,  as  we  shall  presently  perceive — 
is  undone.  We  may  well  picture  the  vindictive  shade  of  the  Iron 
Chancellor  rising  before  William  II.  in  midnight  intervals  of 
thought,  with  the  whisper  of  Nemesis  from  shadowy  lips. 

The  great  ghost  will  not  haunt  the  slumbers  of  Count  Biilow. 
It  would  not  consider  the  fourth  Chancellor  worth  the  visitation. 
We  may  depend  upon  it  that  Bismarckian  insight  would  not  have 
been  deceived  for  a  moment  as  to  the  real  quality  of  that  accom- 
plished but  over-estimated  man.  Count  Biilow  has  proved  the 
Lord  Rosebery  of  the  German  situation.  With  more  fibre  and 
also  with  more  difficulties,  he  has  become  as  completely  the  victim 
of  events.  Phrases  in  both  cases  form  the  faqade  of  a  reputation, 
but  time  has  proved  that  the  architecture  behind  the  fagade  was 
curiously  lacking  in  solidity  and  depth.  Count  Biilow  has  com- 
mitted the  worst  of  all  possible  errors.  He  has  sacrificed  the  vital 
interests  of  German  diplomacy  to  phrases — phrases  spoken  in  the 
Reichstag,  phrases  in  the  columns  of  the  semi-official  Press.  His 
strange  conception  of  the  extent  to  which  England  could  be  trifled 
with  has  proved  as  crude  and  costly  a  blunder  of  its  kind  as  a 
statesman  ever  made.     Beside  an  ex-journalist  like  M.  Delcasse,, 


BIS  MAR  CK  S  SECOND  DBA  TH.  189 

with  his  genuine  insight,  his  faultless  reticence,  his  sober  and 
patient  method,  the  successor  of  Bismarck  has  revealed  himself  in 
essentials  an  amateur. 

Few  things  in  the  history  of  diplomatic  method  are  more 
instructive  than  this  bankruptcy  in  the  hands  of  sufficiently  clever 
men  of  a  system  by  which  one  of  the  greatest  figures  of  modern 
Europe  ruled  Europe  for  thirty  years,  and  achieved  constructive 
results  comparable  with  those  of  Richelieu  and  Chatham  alone. 
Why  was  the  Bismarckian  system  adopted?  Why  was  it  suc- 
cessful. Why  has  it  failed?  The  inquiry  shows  that  the  ideas  of 
a  supreme  man  are  a  priceless  possession  and  a  dangerous  heri- 
tage. Nations  will  presently  learn  what  the  Iron  Chancellor  knew 
better  than  any  one,  that  diplomatic  expedients  wear  out  like  bat- 
tleships and  guns,  and  that  they  ought  to  be  as  regularly  discarded 
and  replaced. 

There  was,  of  course,  nothing  novel  in  the  Iron  Chancellor's 
practical  method,  though  he  applied  the  oldest  of  all  diplomatic 
devices  with  extraordinarv  freshness  and  address.  Bismarck,  as 
it  were,  was  Richelieu  reversed.  Richelieu  sought  to  consolidate 
France  and  to  divide  and  weaken  the  rest  of  Europe  to  the  utmost 
possible  extent.  Bismarck  created  a  united  Germany  and  desired 
a  disunited  Continent.  Success  in  the  latter  aid  was  the  condi- 
tion of  success  in  the  former.  No  conception  amidst  the  circum- 
stances in  which  Prussia  found  herself  could  have  been  sounder, 
more  legitimate,  more  inevitable.  His  procedure  started  with  the 
abstention  of  Prussia  from  any  participation  in  the  Crimean  War. 
Berlin  maintained  an  attitude  of  benevolent  neutrality  towards  St. 
Petersburg. 

This  was  the  first  ostentatious  proclamation  that  Prussia  had 
no  interest  in  the  Near  Eastern  question.  It  is  apparent  at  once 
that  this  was  the  corner-stone  of  the  Iron  Chancellor's  diplomacy. 
So  long  as  Berlin  professed  to  have  no  interest  in  the  Eastern 
question,  its  moral  alliance  with  Russia  rested  upon  a  natural  basis. 
Vienna  and  St.  Petersburg,  upon  the  contrary,  had  for  a  long 
time  believed  their  interests  in  the  Balkans  to  be  fundamentally 
antagonistic.  Russia  thought  her  immediate  interest  lay  in  the 
weakening  of  Austria.  She  looked,  accordingly,  with  complaisance 
upon  an  overthrow  of  the  Hapsburg  monarchy,  which  seemed  to 
clear  the  path  towards  Constantinople.  Napoleon  the  Third 
wished  to  weaken  Austria  in  order  that  she  might  be  expelled 


igo  THE  GLOBE. 

from  Venetia.  Much  more  did  Italy  desire  the  same  resuh  for 
the  same  reason.  Thus  the  Dual  Monarchy  was  isolated  with 
astonishing  skill  until  it  was  struck  down.  Why,  it  was  some- 
times asked,  did  not  Bismarck  seize  the  moment  to  consummate 
the  Pan-German  idea  by  annexing  Bohemia  and  absorbing  the 
Teutonic  provinces  of  the  Hapsburg  dominions.  There  were  over- 
whelming reasons.  The  moderation  displayed  by  Bismarck 
towards  Vienna  was  a  moderation  dictated  by  necessity,  even 
more  than  by  wisdom.  That  he  did  not  want  to  strengthen  the 
Catholic  opposition  in  Prussia  by  adding  millions  of  new  citizens 
to  its  ranks  is,  doubtless,  true.  But  if  the  Iron  Chancellor  had 
wished  to  incorporate  them,  he  could  not  have  done  it.  France 
would  have  taken  up  arms,  and  Germany  would  have  been  com- 
pelled to  take  over  the  Eastern  policy  of  Vienna.  Austria  had 
to  continue  to  exist.  The  next  necessity  was  that  she  should  be  a 
friend. 

France  was  the  next  victim  of  Prince  irJismarck's  diplomatic 
efficiency.  France  had  to  be  attacked.  France  had  to  be  isolated. 
Europe  had  again  to  be  kept  divided,  but  upon  new  lines.  France 
had  not  interfered  for  Austria.  On  the  contrary,  she  had  indi- 
rectly helped  to  bring  about  Sadowa.  The  policy  of  Vienna  looked 
passively  upon  Sedan.  The  recollection  of  the  Crimean  War  still 
kept  St.  Petersburg  neutral.  England,  in  a  mood  of  re-action 
from  Palmerstonian  restlessness,  was  kept  apart  by  many  reasons. 
But  at  that  particular  moment  she  had  not  the  ability,  even  if  she 
had  had  the  will,  to  influence  the  evolution  of  Europe.  She  was 
in  presence  of  one  of  the  things  which  no  amount  of  sea-power, 
apart  from  great  military  force,  can  prevent.  Neither  did  we 
understand  that  a  new  competitor  for  the  sea  had  been  born  in  the 
battles  upon  the  Belgian  frontier.  Bismarck's  second  creative  pur- 
pose was  accomplished.  It  is  idle  to  ask  by  the  light  of  the  experi- 
ence we  are  now  acquiring,  whether  he  would  not  have  done  bet- 
te,  from  his  own  point  of  view,  to  leave  France  unmutilated  as  he 
had  left  Austria.  But  Austria — c'n'est  qu'un  GouvernemeiU. 
France  is  a  nation,  and  one  of  the  proudest.  Her  memory  of  mere 
defeat  would  not  have  been  easily  extinguished,  and  had  her  terri- 
tory remained  intact,  she  might  have  attempted  the  revanche 
sooner,  who  can  tell  ?  But  almost  every  day  since  the  telegraph  to 
Mr.  Kruger — certainly  every  day  since  the  beginning  of  the  Boer 
war,  has  made  it  clearer  than  Alsace-Lorraine  forms  the  most 


BISMARCK'S  SECOND  DEA  TH.  191 

serious  barrier  to  all  the  wider  ambitions  of  Germany  by  land  and 
sea. 

After  1870,  the  problem  was  altered.  Bismarck  sincerely  desired 
the  peace  he  succeeded  in  preserving,  while  he  remained  in  power. 
But  he  did  not  desire  it  for  ethical  or  humanitarian  reasons.  With 
such  reasons  he  had  nothing  to  do.  Another  war  would  neces- 
sarily have  meant  Armageddin,  involving  disproportionate  risks. 
To  create  fresh  enemies  would  have  been  to  create  the  probability 
of  a  universal  coalition  against  Germany  as  formerly  against 
Napoleon  and  Louis  the  Fourteenth.  Bismarck  showed  the  char- 
acter of  his  political  judgment  by  stopping  the  career  of  German 
conquest  where  he  did. 

The  Eastern  question  had  played  from  the  first  a  profound 
though  unseen  influence  in  the  manoeuvres  of  Berlin  to  combine 
or  separate  the  Powers.    The  Dreikaiserbund,  which  had  no  con- 
crete basis  of  mutual  interest,  only  lasted  while  the  Eastern  ques- 
tion remained  in  abeyance.     Some  Power  had  to  be  permanently 
strengthened  as  the  result  of  the  Berlin  Congress,  and  here,  for 
the  first  time,  Prince  Bismarck's  statesmanship  was  subjected  to 
a   crucial   ordeal,    from    which    it   emerged   more    successful    in 
appearance  than  in  reality.     It  was  of  the  essence  of  his  purpose 
that  neither  of  the  neighboring  Empires  should  be  strong  enough 
to  be  independent  of  Germany,  nor  weak  enough  to  be  useless  to 
Germany.     In  spite  of  the   formula  of  disinterestedness  in  the 
Eastern  question,   the   Iron   Chancellor   was  compelled  to  assist 
Austria  in  preventing  the  excessive  aggrandizement  of  Russia, 
and  in  annulling  the  Treaty  of  San  Stefano.     From  that  moment 
popular  sentiment  in  Russia  never  got  over  its  passionate  feeling 
that   Germany  was  a   false   friend.     The  hotter   Pan-Slav  spirit 
began  to  declare  that  the  road  to  Constantinople  lay  not  through 
Vienna,   but  through   Berlin.      Recent   developments   have   sug- 
gested that  they  were  more  seriously  right  than  they  knew.     Since 
the  interposition  of  Alexander  II.  against  the  plans  of  the  military 
party  in  Berlin  for  a  second  attack  upon  France,  Bismarck's  pro- 
phetic fears  had  convinced  him  that  an  alliance  between  the  Tsar- 
dom  and  the  Third  Republic  could  not  be  permanently  averted. 
But  for  another  ten  years  he  postponed  the  evil  day  with  amazing 
adroitness,  Austria-Hungary  was  dependent,  certain  to  be  ''con- 
served," as  long  as  the  interests  of  Berlin  should  demand.     Italy 
was  drawn  into  the  net  by  playing  upon  the  irritation  created 


1^2  THE  GLOBE. 

in  Rome  by  the  Mediterranean  adventures  which  France  was 
secretly  encouraged  to  undertake. 

Three  Powers  still  remained  more  or  less  outside  the  diplomatic 
orbit  of  Berlin — two  wholly,  one  partially.  The  latter  was  Rus- 
sia, the  other  two  France  and  England.  The  Bismarckian  system 
aimed  at  the  isolation  of  all  three  and  yet  maintained  considerable 
influence  over  the  policy  of  all  of  them.  The  famous  insurance 
treaty  with  St.  Petersburg  was  a  last  desperate  device  to  convince 
Russia  that  Germany  would  never  waste  the  bones  of  a  Pome- 
ranian grenadier  in  defence  of  Austrian  interests  in  the  Balkans. 
With  the  denunciation  of  the  insurance  treaty,  and  the  long  train 
of  events  leading  up  from  the  Battenburg  abduction  to  the  fetes 
of  Cronstadt,  the  foundations  of  Bismarckian  diplomacy  began 
definitely  to  settle.  Neither  France  nor  Russia  was  any  longer 
isolated,  and  for  the  first  time  since  the  Iron  Chancellor  had 
enjoyed  the  confidence  of  his  former  Sovereign,  an  alliance  of  two 
Great  Powers  had  sprung  into  existence  as  a  check  even  if  not  as  a 
menace,  to  Berlin. 

Whether  Bismarck,  if  he  had  remained  in  office,  could  have 
employed  any  expedient  to  dissolve  or  sterilize  the  Dual  Combi- 
nation, we  shall  not  know  until  the  diplomatic  secrets  of  our  time 
are  far  more  completely  revealed.  There  were  dim  shapes  of 
solid  meaning  in  the  gloomy  oracles  of  the  old  Chancellor's  retire- 
ment, and  in  his  vitriolic  attacks  upon  the  policy  of  his  successors. 
To  those  who  inherited  his  maxims  but  not  his  skill,  Bismarck 
bequeathed  one  priceless  asset  exploited  for  a  while  with  a  success 
that  concealed  the  fundamental  failure  of  policy  with  which  the 
new  Kaiser's  personal  government  began.  France  and  Russia 
were  no  longer  divided.  But  England  remained  alone  outside  the 
sphere  of  Continental  combinations.  The  Iron  Chancellor  had 
invented  the  famous  principle  of  "creating  a  diversion."  He 
encouraged  England  in  Egypt  in  order  to  embroil  her  with 
France.  He  patronized  the  colonial  policy  of  Jules  Ferry,  in  the 
hope  that  it  would  involve  the  Third  Republic  sooner  or  later  in 
some  direction  or  other  with  the  British  Empire.  London  was 
baited  from  time  to  time  to  keep  St.  Petersburg  in  play.  He  used 
his  own  colonial  policy  in  Africa  and  Australasia  to  deepen  the 
impression,  both  in  Paris  and  St.  Petersburg,  that  in  colonial  mat- 
ters a  common  front  might  be  presented  against  this  country  by 
the  three  greatest  Continental  Powers.  This  particular  portion  of 
the  Bismarckian  system  was  in  some  ways  the  most  complex  and 
cunning  mechanism  of  wheels  within  wheels  ever  employed  in 
diplomacy.  It  was  the  infernal  machine  or  submarine  mine  of 
diplomacy,  warranted  to  explode  with  automatic  certainty  at  some 
inevitable  moment  of  contact. 

After  Prince  Bismarck's  retirement,  therefore,  the  calculations 
of  the  Wilhelmstrasse  were  governed  bv  an  idea  which  led  in  the 
end  to  stereotyped  formulas  and  mechanical  action.  It  was  assumed 


BISMARCICS  SECOND  DEA  TH.  193 

that  Germany  had  no  irreconcilable  differences  with  any  Power — 
but  that  the  interests  of  Germany  were  at  the  same  time  provi- 
dentially secured,  without  expense,  by  the  existence  of  absolutely 
irreconcilable  differences  between  England  on  the  one  hand  and 
France  and  Russia  on  the  other.  When  the  effort  failed  to  empha- 
size German  predominance  in  Europe  by  drawing  England  defi- 
nitely into  a  Quadruple  Alliance,  the  alternative  course  of  organiz- 
ing Continental  hostility  against  this  country  was  pursued  with 
more  and  more  audacity,  while  the  faith  of  the  British  Govern- 
ment and  the  British  people  in  Teutonic  friendship  became  more 
and  more  implicit.  There  was  no  longer  any  very  eminent  skill 
employed  by  the  diplomatic  ministers  and  agents  of  Berlin,  but 
insular  credulity  was  an  asset  up  to  the  very  outbreak  of  the  Boer 
war  not  less  valuable  than  Bismarck's  genius. 

It  is  difficult  to  realize  at  this  m.oment  how  narrowly  this  coun- 
try, in  its  sublime  unconsciousness,  escaped  the  intended  conse- 
quences of  by  far  the  most  dangerous  diplomatic  tactics  that  have 
ever  been  directed  against  her.  From  the  very  first,  those  who 
ran  might  have  read  the  semi-official  Press,  but  for  years  German 
appeared  to  be  a  language  undiscovered  by  the  Foreign  Office. 
The  Dual  Alliance  was  clamorously  represented  by  the  semi- 
official journals  in  Berlin,  and  their  obsequious  echoes  in  Vienna, 
to  be  directed  against  England,  Every  art  was  used,  indeed,  to 
direct  it  against  England,  just  as  in  later  days  the  operations  of 
this  diplomacy  have  reached  from  Washington  to  Constantinople 
in  simultaneous  attempt  to  manipulate  America  and  the  Turk  as 
part  of  the  extensive  but  single-minded  conspiracy  for  relieving 
Berlin  from  embarrassments  at  the  sole  expense  of  Whitehall. 
The  Kaiser  seized  the  opportunity  of  joining  France  and  Russia 
in  the  Triple  Alliance  of  the  Far  E^st.  Japan  was  expelled  from 
the  mainland.  Kiao-chau  and  Port  Arthur  were  seized  in  con- 
cert. Manchuria  was  not  a  German  interest.  Yet  the  Yangtsze 
agreement  was  advertised  as  a  triumph  over  the  cupidity  of  an 
impotent  and  baffled  island. 

Upon  the  other  hand,  M.  Hanotaux  had  become  a  convert  to  the 
theory  that  France,  in  tacit  concert  with  Germany,  should  seek 
Colonial  compensation  for  her  Continental  injuries,  and  should 
compound  in  Egypt  for  Alsace.  Almost  simultaneously  with  the 
appearance  of  the  new  triplice  in  the  Far  East,  Colonel  March- 
and's  expedition  was  directed  towards  the  Nile.  **Now  let  it 
work,  mischief  thou  art  afoot."  The  first  ominous  check,  with  the 
refusal  of  Paris  to  support  the  Kruger  telegram  policy,  did  not 
disconcert  the  calculations  of  the  Mark  Antonys  of  Berlin,  as 
much  as  has  been  since  pretended.  In  1898  came  the  Fashoda 
imbroglio,  and  the  crisis  in  the  Far  East  reached  its  acute  char- 
acter. It  was  now  believed  in  Germany  that  the  effect  of  the 
infernal  machine  must  be  infallible.  A  struggle  upon  the  Fash- 
oda question  would  have  been  a  godsend  to  all  German  purposes, 


194  THE  GLOBE 

as  it  would  have  been  ruinous  for  all  British  and  French  pur- 
poses. That  struggle  was  avoided  by  a  hair's-breadth.  In  Siam, 
the  prescient  policy  which  delighted  to  see  Jules  Ferry  in  Tonkin 
had  already  seen  the  risk  of  war  become  grave.  Even  after  the 
fatal  disappointment  over  Fashoda,  it  was  still  believed  that  Eng- 
land's relations  with  Russia  must  ultimately  involve  her  with  both 
the  Powers  of  the  Dual  Alliance. 

The  year  1899  was  the  greatest  business  year  that  commercial 
Germany  had  ever  known.  There  was  some  intoxication  in  the 
air.  Even  sober  temperaments  succumbed  to  it.  Measureless 
ambitions  assumed  the  persuasive  shape  of  readily  attainable 
things.  Russia  was  absorbed  in  the  Far  East.  France  was 
emerging  painfully  from  the  throes  of  the  "affaire/'  England  was 
about  to  be  plunged  into  the  South  African  war.  The  posture  of 
the  world  has  rarely  seemed  more  favorable  to  the  purposes  of 
any  great  Power  than  it  was  to  those  of  Germany,  nor  less  au- 
spicious for  the  future  of  any  country  than  it  seemed  for  us,  with 
the  opening  months  of  the  Boer  war.  The  climax  of  opportunity 
is  always  the  point  of  peril.  The  Kaiser,  w^ith  prodigal  rashness, 
with  a  brilliancy  of  daring  that  took  away  the  world's  breath,, 
exposed  the  aims  of  German  policy  in  every  direction.  Count 
Billow  gloried  with  equal  zest  in  revealing  the  pulse  of  the 
machine.  The  Baghdad  railway  concession  startled  Russia  for 
the  first  time  into  recognition  of  the  fact  that  the  formula  upon 
which  Bismarckian  diplomacy  was  founded  in  the  beginning,  and 
with  which  St.  Peteisburg  had  been  successfully  amused  at 
repeated  intervals  long  after  it  had  ceased  to  be  true,  had  in 
reality  become  a  thing  of  the  past.  With  the  concession  for  a 
German  railway  to  the  Persian  Gulf,  it  was  impossible  to  pretend 
any  more  that  Germany  had  no  political  interests  in  the  Eastern 
question.  Russia  has  since  listened  to  the  formula  on  several 
occasions,  with  well  simulated  solemnity,  but  she  has  never  since 
believed  it.  She  realized  for  the  first  time  that  the  loss  of  the 
Near  East  was  the  price  she  was  expected  in  Berlin  to  pay  for  her 
acquisitions  in  the  Far  East.  At  the  same  time,  Austria  was 
alarmed  by  the  Pan-German  excesses  against  which  the  Wilmelm- 
strasse  has  never  yet  made  any  serious  demonstrations. 

Infinitely  more  serious,  however,  was  the  mistake  made  in  the 
treatment  of  this  country.  In  the  circumstances  of  the  last  ten 
years  it  would  perhaps  have  been  impossible  for  the  Great  Chan- 
cellor himself  to  have  continued  his  policy  of  keeping  Russia  and 
England  simultaneously  in  play  with  equal  satisfaction  to  both 
these  nations.  The  task  has  proved  disastrously  beyond  Count 
Billow's  capacity.  England  might  have  remained  blind  to  the 
meaning  of  the  Navy  Bills  for  some  years  longer,  had  not  the 
fourth  Chancellor  taken  every  care  to  enlighten  her  in  his  endeavor 
to  strengthen  a  career  of  phrases,  by  more  phrases.  He  essayed 
to  improve  his  reputation  as  a  Parliamentary  orator  by  turning 


BISMARCK'S  SECOND  DEATH.  195 

facetious  periods  at  the  expense  of  the  Great  Power  which  was 
about  to  prove  itself  a  very  Great  Power  indeed.  The  Boer  war 
showed  that  German  hatred,  which  was  largely  the  deliberate 
creation  of  German  policy,  was  arming  itself  with  fleets.  This  was 
a  more  unmistakable  warning  to  this  country  than  the  Baghdad 
railway  scheme  had  been  to  Russia.  When  England  awoke  during 
the  South  African  war,  she  awakened  not  to  one  thing,  but  to 
everything,  and  in  the  intention  not  to  sleep  again  on  certain  mat- 
ters. With  that  awakening  the  whole  scheme  of  Teutonic  ambi- 
tion, by  all  the  irony  of  human  affairs,  came  crashing  at  the  very 
moment  when  the  situation  at  last  seemed  most  secure. 

It  cannot  be  too  clearly  understood  that  the  bankruptcy  of  the 
Bismarckian  system  has  been  due,  on  the  one  hand,  to  the  over- 
trading upon  it  in  the  country  of  its  origin,  and  on  the  other  hand, 
to  the  revolt  of  the  English  people  themselves  against  it.  Little 
more  than  a  year  ago  we  had  the  \'enezuelan  imbroglio,  and  a 
final  attempt  to  enter  into  a  special  partnership  with  Germaily  in 
the  Baghdad  railway  enterprise.  It  was  the  decisive  refusal  of 
this  country  to  tolerate  any  further  subservience  to  German  plans 
which  fully  opened  the  eyes  of  the  French  people  to  the  fact  that 
England  was  no  longer,  as  for  nearly  twenty  years  she  had  seemed 
to  be,  the  moral  ally  of  Berlin.  This  feeling,  and  this  feeling 
alone,  made  the  Republic  fully  responsive  to  the  influence  of  King 
Edward's  personality,  and  set  in  train  the  happy  series  of  circum- 
stances resulting  in  the  Anglo-French  settlement.  Although  it  is 
true  that  his  Majesty's  Government  was  rather  forcibly  detached 
by  public  opinion  from  its  former  adhesion  to  Germany,  Lord 
Lansdowne  has  earned  the  appreciation  of  all  patriotic  men  for  the 
skill  and  judgment  with  which  he  has  risen  to  a  very  memorable 
opportunity.  His  Majesty  ripened  the  harvest,  Lord  Lansdowne 
has  had  the  good  fortune  to  reap  it,  but  the  seed  was  sown  by 
German  anglophobes,  and  by  the  efforts  in  this  country  of  all  who 
have  worked  to  enlighten  British  public  opinion  upon  the  subject 
of  German  policy. 

Bismarck's  plans  were  definitely  directed  against  one  Great 
Power  at  a  time,  and  he  succeeded  twice  in  isolating  the  Power  at 
which  he  intended  to  strike.  That  was  the  very  essence  of  the 
diplomacy  to  which  the  creation  of  modern  Germany  is  due.  The 
Imperial  Alcibiades  has  failed  for  two  reasons,  first,  in  the  choice 
of  men.  secondly,  as  brilliant  versatility  is  most  apt  to  do,  for  lack 
of  singleness  of  aim.  Count  Biilow  has  not  proved  a  fortunate 
choice,  though  it  is  not  clear  that  he  could  be  easily  replaced. 
France  has  shown,  since  the  liquidation  of  the  "affaire,"  that  she 
still  possesses  remarkable  reserves  of  political  talent.  That  is  a 
plant  which  has  not  seemed  to  ripen  easily  in  the  Kaiser's  shadow 
—his  own  ubiquitous  initiative  leaving  too  little  scope  for  that  of 
others. 

But  the  fundamental  error  lies  elsewhere.     Speculating  upon 


196  THE  GLOBE. 

the  irreconcilable  differences,  the  inevitable  conflict  between  Eng- 
land and  the  Dual  Alliance,  Germany  has  too  openly  prepared 
herself  to  profit  by  the  expected  embarrassments  of  both.  The 
prize  of  sea-power  was  the  most  coveted  object  of  the  Kaiser's 
ambition.  That  could  only  have  been  won  by  improving-  upon 
the  classic  Bismarckian  precedents — by  throwing-  the  weight  of  a 
Continental  coalition  against  an  isolated  island.  ''Fortune  has 
bantered  me,"  said  Bolingbroke.  Fortune  has  bantered  me, 
said  the  Kaiser.  Of  this  dream,  events,  with  astounding 
caprice,  have  made  an  utter  end.  Not  only  has  the  Anglo-French 
agreement  been  signed,  though  the  failure  of  Berlin  diplomacy 
in  that  respect  is  exactly  what  Bismarck's  would  have  been,  if 
Austria  had  effected  a  firm  rapprochement  with  France  before 
1866,  or  France  with  Russia  before  1870.  The  Japanese  war  has 
simultaneously  extinguished  for  the  present  the  naval  power  of 
the  Tsardom.  Again,  the  infernal  machine  has  failed  to  explode 
in  the  manner  expected.  In  the  midst  of  a  crisis  which  was  most 
confidently  depended  upon  to  plunge  them  into  war,  the  two  West- 
ern Powers  have  cemented  something  like  the  basis  of  a  perma- 
nent friendship.  Upon  that  side  the  theory  of  irreconciliable 
differences  is  disposed  of.  But  what  of  the  other  side  ?  Whether 
Russia  retains  effective  possession  of  Manchuria  as  a  result  of  the 
present  war,  or  whether  she  is  utterly  beaten,  the  pendulum  will 
swing  back  from  the  Far  East  to  the  Near  East,  and  there  the 
irreconcilable  differences  are  more  likely  to  open  along  the  line  of 
the  Baghdad  railway. 

It  would  be  premature  to  speculate  upon  the  prospects  of  an 
Anglo-Russian  settlement,  under  the  conditions  following  the  war. 
These  conditions  have  first  to  be  determined,  and  very  much  will 
depend  upon  the  exact  position  occupied  by  the  combatants  at  the 
close  of  the  struggle.  But  it  is  at  least  almost  certain  that  the 
situation  will  present  opportunities  such  as  have  not  before  existed 
for  a  provisional  arrangement  with  Russia,  likely  to  harden  natur- 
ally into  a  permanent  compromise.  Berlin,  at  least,  perceives  with 
blank  concern  that  the  theory  of  fundamental  antagonism  between 
England  and  Russia  is  no  longer  one  which  can  be  built  upon  in 
the  future  with  the  old  sense  of  security.  In  one  word,  Germany 
is,  for  all  positive  purposes,  an  isolated  Power.  The  Triple  Alli- 
ance exists  as  superfluous  safeguard  against  an  attack  upon  her, 
which  no  one  designs.  For  all  the  active  objects  of  diplomacy, 
Germany  has  no  ally  whatever,  except  the  Sultan  and  the  Pope, 
neither  of  whom  are  sea-Powers.  The  Bismarckian  tradition  has 
ended  in  German  isolation,  and  the  Wilhelmstrasse  has  awakened 
to  the  fact  that  German  politicians  have  behaved  in  diplomacy  as 
the  British  subaltern  was  behaving  four  years  ago  in  war. 

It  would  be  an  irreparable  mistake  to  imagine  that  a  danger 
temporarily  in  abeyance  is  a  danger  which  has  finally  disappeared, 
that  a  problem  postponed  is  a  problem  disposed  of.     Germany's 


GLOBE  NOTES,  197 

greatest  asset  resides  within  herself.  With  the  present  year  her 
population  reaches  the  figure  of  60,000,000.  Her  wealth  increases 
more  than  proportionately  with  the  development  of  industry  and 
trade.  It  is  a  matter  of  life  and  death  for  German  policy  to  seek 
new  combinations.  The  very  collapse  of  Bismarckian  methods 
must  lead  to  the  evolution  of  a  new  policv  better  adapted  to  the 
existing  state  of  international  facts.  We  cannot  afford  to  delude 
ourselves  for  one  moment  as  to  the  aim  upon  which  the  German 
diplomacy  of  the  future  will  endeavor  to  concentrate.  What  is  the 
one  solid  and  progressive  achievement  of  the  Kaiser's  reign?  It 
is  the  policy,  which,  for  all  practical  purposes,  has  already  made 
Germany  the  third  Naval  Power  in  the  world,  and  which  at  no 
distant  date  will  make  her  the  silent  and  obstinate  competitor  with 
America  for  second  place.  No  matter  what  fluctuations  of  policy 
may  appear  in  other  directions,  the  Kaiser  continues,  without 
pausing  or  swerving,  to  add  ship  to  ship.  For  the  last  half  decade 
every  international  crisis  involving  this  country  has  been  marked 
by  a  new  Flottengesetz.  The  certain  result  of  the  Anglo-French 
agreement  will  be  another  increase  in  the  German  Fleet.  The 
chief  value  of  that  settlement  to  us  is  that  it  leaves  us  with  hands 
free  to  cope  with  the  growing  peril,  which,  soon  or  late,  will 
become  the  nearest  and  greatest  concern  of  all  our  policy. 

Calchas. 


GLOBE  NOTES. 


In  opening  the  Globe;  Notes  of  this  issue  I  send  my  sincere 
thanks  to  the  few  scores  of  faithful  subscribers  who,  without 
waiting  for  the  new  year,  or  the  first  issue  of  this  year,  promptly, 
and  many  of  them  with  a  friendly  word,  sent  in  advance,  their 
subscriptions  for  1904.  I  also  send  my  hearty  thanks  to  the  hun- 
dreds of  subscribers  who  promptly,  and  several  of  them,  gen- 
erously, responded  to  our  first  bills,  sent  out  almost  immediately 
after  the  issue  of  the  March  Globe.  We  issue  bills  twice  a  year, 
after  March  and  September  numbers. 

One  good  father  sent  his  check  for  $10.00,  being  particular 
to  say  that  it  was  intended  only  to  square  us  for  this  one  year.  I 
considered  this  action  all  the  more  generous  because  he  found 
and  mentioned  the  fact  that  in  a  certain  article  in  the  March 
Globe  there  were  two  untrue  and  unworthy  flings  at  the  general 
action  of  the  Church  toward  certain  guilds  or  societies  of  work- 
ingmen  during  the  "middle  ages."  I  at  once  wrote  him  the  simple 
truth,  that  I  had  been  too  ill  during  the  period  of  preparation  of 
the  issue,  to  read  with  any  thoroughness  the  article  in  question 
either  in  the  manuscript  or  in  the  proof,  but  as  the  writer  of  the 


198  THE  GLOBE. 

article  was  much  inclined  to  be  optimistic  and  usually  genial  and 
harmless,  I  had  simply  tasted  his  ''ruminations"  here  and  there, 
without  detecting  the  shallow  poison  they  contained.  I  do  not 
hold  myself  responsible  for  all  that  the  contributors  to  the  Globe 
write  and  say  therein.  Many  articles  are  from  Protestants,  for- 
tunately, or  the  Globe  would  or  ought  to  have  died  of  inanition, 
as  most  of  the  Catholic  periodicals  have  long  been  dead,  except 
as  they  have  been  kept  alive  by  the  official  goadings  of  half- 
taught  and  long-worded  ecclesiasticism ;  but  I  do  not  knowingly 
allow  any  writer,  whoever  he  or  she  may  be,  to  say  anything  in 
this  magazine  that  is  false  to  any  fact  of  history,  or  anything  false 
to  or  in  violation  of  true  reverence  for  the  Catholic  Church.  I 
have  grown  used  to  being  boycotted  by  bigoted  Protestantism 
on  the  one  side,  and  bigoted  Catholicism  on  the  other,  and  to 
find  that  the  process  does  not  hurt  half  as  seriously  as  the  per- 
petrators of  the  boycot  imagine. 

The  Globe  stands  for  God's  truth  and  human  trueness  and 
loyalty  to  the  truth.  The  editor  long  ago  got  beyond  the  notion 
that  any  church,  as  a  whole  or  individually,  is  infallible  or  im- 
peccable. The  Globe  knows  too  well  that  lots  of  priests  are  both 
fallible  and  imperfect,  that  is,  on  the  human  side  of  them,  which 
in  many  cases  seems  to  be,  by  far,  the  broadest  side;  but  he  does 
not  allow  mere  petty  worldlings  to  vent  their  stupidity  in  the 
Globe  on  questions  of  theology  or  the  Catholic  Church.  They 
are  essentially  ignorant  or  ill-informed  on  these  questions,  and 
it  is  not  often  that  they  try  to  weave  their  ignorance  into  this 
magazine.  I  have  stated  my  excuse  for  the  present  instance,  and 
shall  try  to  be  always  watchful  in  the  future.  In  this  age  every 
mechanic,  especially  of  the  professional  kind,  thinks  he  knows 
it  all,  and  unfortunately  many  of  our  so-called  literary  journals 
are  given  over  to  defending  the  infidel  folly  of  fools ;  I  mean,  the 
wiseacre,  scientific  and  would-be  theological  fools.  Other  priests 
very  kindly  sent  me  five  dollars  instead  of  two,  and  a  few 
ecclesiastics  were  more  generous  still.  I  am  especially  thankful 
to  all  of  these,  and  at  times,  spite  of  serious  ill  health,  which 
no  one  who  sees  me  suspects,  I  still  hope  to  realize  the  best  ex- 
pectations of  my  dearest  friends.  The  age  is  trivial ;  cares  little 
for  the  higher  morality,  thinks  itself  smart  in  talking  now  and 
then  of  what  it  calls  the  higher  criticism,  forgetting  this  one 
eternal  truth,  that  no  man  has  ever  been  able,  and  that  no  man 
ever  will  be  able  to  understand  the  Church,  the  Scriptures  or  the 
higher  criticism  who  does  not  practice  the  highest  morality.  Only 
the  saints  are  true  seers.  It  is  easy  to  find  fault  with  the  flowers, 
the  stars,  and  to  find  or  imagine  spots  on  the  sun.  Errors  in 
the  Scriptures !  Certainly.  My  friends,  they  have  gone  through 
too  many  human  handlings  to  escape  that,  but  God  Almighty 
still  reigns  supreme  in  the  Scriptures,  still  shines  in  the  dawnings 
of.  nature,  and  wins  true  hearts  with  the  beauty  of  the  flowers. 


GLOBE  NOTES.  199 

I  am  even  thankful  to  the  deHnquents  who  hold  ofif  year  after 
year.  At  all  events,  they  show  too  much  appreciation  of  the 
GhOBt,  or  too  much  regard  for  me  to  give  up  the  magazine;  and 
who  knows,  perhaps  my  poor  words  may  tend  by  slow  degrees 
to  make  their  minds  broader  and  open  their  eyes  clearer  to  see 
truths  that  might  otherwise  have  been  hid  from  them. 

In  truth,  I  am  thankful  to  all  readers  of  the  GlobK  for  the 
patience  they  manifest  in  buying  and  reading  it  year  after  year. 
I  know  that  many  of  my  utterances  must  now  and  then  irritate 
and  hurt  some  of  them,  but,  dear  fathers  and  friends,  my  words 
utter  my  sincere  and  earnest  convictions,  based  on  serious  study 
and  a  wide  experience,  and  if  the  writer  has  the  courage  of  his 
convictions,  knowing  them  at  times  to  be  unpopular,  surely  his 
Christian  friends  may  be  counted  on  to  exercise  patience,  and  be 
excused  for  a  little  admiration  now  and  then. 


Speaking  of  the  utter  secularity  and  triviality  of  the  age  in 
which  we  live,  I  was  recently  caught  in  a  sickening  outpouring 
of  it  on  the  stage.  I  went  on  April  23d  to  the  Garrick  Theatre, 
Philadelphia,  to  see  what  shallow  pated  critics  of  the  newspapers 
have  called  "a  revival  of  Shakespeare"  in  honor  of  his  birthday- 
It  is  like  Whistler's  ''revival  of  true  art,"  an  insufferable  black 
and  white  scarecrow,  with  a  pink  Elizabethan  feather  in  its  hat. 
It  is  like  a  William  Morris  revival  of  Christianity  with  Lutheran 
attachments  and  easy  chairs,  or  a  speech  by  President  Roosevelt 
before  a  lot  of  modern  cartoonists,  journalists,  newspaper  editors 
and  so-called  periodical  publishers,  on  "restraint."  Think  of  it; 
Theodore,  on  "Restraint"  in  utterance,  etc.,  or  Mark  Twain  taken 
to  serious  talk,  or  Howel's  as  the  Dean  of  American  Literature, 
or  Henry  James,  the  involved  sentence  stretcher,  as  the  leading 
American  stylist. 

Here  is  a  taste  of  what  the  mouthing  and  utterly  silly  so-called 
''critic"  of  the  Public  Ledf^cr  said  of  the  revival  the  day  after  the 
show :  "Real  Shakespeare.  Poet's  birthday  observed  with  note- 
worthy revivals.  Mr.  Greet  produces  two  dramas  in  their  orig- 
inal form.  On  the  anniversary  of  Shakespeare's  birth,  with 
nearly  350  years  intervening  between  that  event  and  to-day,  it 
was,  indeed,  an  odd  experience  to  sit  in  the  Garrick  Theatre  yes- 
terday and  feel  that  performances  of  such  v/ell-known  plays  as 
"The  Merchant  of  Venice"  and  "Twelfth  Night"  could  develop 
a  new  revelation  of  the  poet's  genius."  "Odd  experience"  it 
certainly  was,  and  about  the  stupidest  that  this  particular  editor 
ever  had  the  honor  and  disgust  of  going  through,  and  as  to  the 
suggestion  that  we  had  to  wait  350  years  until  Mr.  Greet  brought 
his  wax  dolls,  his  stuffed  apes,  his  -pasteboard  and  wooden  figure- 
heads, called  actors,  on  this  earth  to  "develop  a  new  revelation 
of  the  poet's  genius,"  etc.,  it  is  exactly  like  the  revival  itself  and' 


200  THE  GLOBE, 

the  players,  one  and  all  of  them.  It  is  Mark  Twain  at  his  worst, 
trying  to  be  serious. 

Garrick  was  one  of  the  earliest  and  best  of  English  actors  to 
develop  a  spontaneity  of  dramatic  art  in  the  Shakespearean  plays, 
and  that  this  latest,  and  dastardly,  and  soulless  and  senseless 
apology  for  acting  should  be  given  in  "revival"  of  Shakespeare 
in  the  fine  old  city  of  Philadelphia,  in  a  modern  back  door  and 
coal-heaving  theatre  called  after  his  name!  It  is  all  of  a  piece; 
Shakespeare  and  his  genius,  Christ  and  His  truth,  brought  out 
and  thrown  around  by  nigger  coal  heavers  in  the  back  alley  of  the 
North  American  Building;  and  it  is  all  so  superior,  so  refined, 
so  beastly,  and  abominable,  and  damnably  coarse,  and  brutal, 
and  modern,  and  mock  cultured  that  even  the  Ledger  has  fallen 
to  its  level,  and  sings  its  praises.  It  would  just  kill  George  W. 
Childs,  William  McKean  and  the  Rev.  John  Chambers  could 
they  come  back  and  view  the  circus  for  a  day. 

In  the  total  company  that  gave  the  "Merchant  of  Venice" 
there  was  not  one  competent  or  even  decent  actor.  They  were 
all  of  them  the  merest  mouthing  wooden  automatons.  They  could 
not  act,  could  not  either  comprehend  or  give  utterance  to  the 
sentiments  or  the  thoughs  of  Shakespeare.  Any  old  rag-picking 
or  money-lending  and  usurious  Jew,  if  taught  by  such  a  lisping 
genius  as  the  Ledger  man,  could  manage  to  express  the  senti- 
ment, "I'll  have  my  bond ;"  even  an  ordinary  New  York  or  Phila- 
delphia Jew  could  say  that  without  training,  and  loud  enough  to 
be  heard,  and  "hear  me,"  spoken  with  wooden  clearness  is  not 
impossible  to  Mr.  Greet's  actors,  so-called,  but  neither  the  women 
or  the  men  understood  or  were  in  any  measure  capable  of  ex- 
pressing one  single  sentiment  or  fine  thought  of  the  dramatist. 
They  were  all  simply  wooden,  mouthing,  shallow-headed,  un- 
taught. New  York  cockney  clowns. 

I  am  not  thinking  or  speaking  of  what  the  consummate  fool- 
critic  of  the  Ledger  chooses  to  call  an  earlier  or  a  later  style  of 
rendering  Shakespeare.  There  have  been  great  and  small  actors 
in  all  these  350  years.  There  are  to-day ;  but  to  credit  a  lot  of 
stuffed  and  mouthing  incom.petents,  with  developing  new  con- 
ceptions of  the  genius  of  Shakespeare,  when  the  dumb-headed 
secular  show  was  enough  to  make  an  angel  or  a  real  devil  swear 
is  the  most  despicable  instance  of  so-called  criticism,  that  we  have 
ever  seen,  and  the  Ledger  has  now  and  again  perpetrated  some 
pretty  tall  folly  under  that  head,  in  its  so-called  literary  columns. 
I  am  speaking  of  the  unutterably  beautiful  emotions  and  poetic 
dreams  of  love  and  beauty  that  any  intelligent  reader  of  the 
"Merchant  of  Venice"  has  never  failed  to  find  in  the  play  from 
Shakespeare's  day  till  the  present  hour ;  that  any  actor  worthy 
the  name  has  never  failed  to  make  exquisitely  beautiful  and  com- 
manding from  the  earlier  years  and  hours  until  now.  It  is 
possible  the  Ledger  man  has  never  read  the  play  or  seen  it  well 


GLOBE  NOTES.  201 

acted.  If  so,  he  had  no  more  right  to  attempt  a  criticism  of  this 
one  acting  or  to  praise  it  than  he  had  to  enter  my  house  and  steal 
my  purse.  A  man  who  praises  such  acting  is  either  an  inborn 
scoundrel  or  a  consummate  fool.  But  he  is  entirely  at  home  in 
this  advance  age  of  rascals  and  fools  from  the  President  down.  It 
is  on  account  of  this  phase  of  the  question,  and  not  because  of 
the  failure  of  one  set  of  wooden  actors,  or  one  blunder  of  a 
wooden  critic  that  I  am  touching  it  here.  Everywhere  things 
are  called  by  their  wrong  names,  and  the  higher  the  theme,  the 
less  is  it  understood  or  revered,  and  the  more  is  it  abused. 

:}:  :ii  ijc  ;;<  ^  ^  ^ 

Only  yesterday,  May  3d,  I  found  in  the  Booklover's  Magazine 
a  new  Philadelphia  venture  of  color  and  gush,  worse  than  Lip- 
pincott's  even,  but  smarter  after  the  Ledger's  manner  of  detect- 
ing methods  of  developing  new  plans  of  the  devil's  genius.  The 
following:  "Creed  or  Conviction?  The  picture  Creed  or  Con- 
viction f  shown  in  this  issue,  is  one  of  the  successes  of  the  year  at 
the  Dore  Gallery  in  London,  a  centre  of  attraction  which  is  rarely 
missed  by  Americans  who  visit  the  English  capital.  The  painting 
is  by  a  young  artist,  C.  G.  Anderson,  who  is  as  yet  comparatively 
unknown.  The  present  painting,  which  represents  his  best  work 
so  far,  though  not  the  only  work  which  has  figured  in  the  London 
galleries,  is  along  the  lines  of  the  celebrated  production  of  Luke 
Fildes,  The  Doctor.  The  dying  man  is  assumed  to  be  a  scientist 
who,  as  the  end  approaches,  gravely  debates  in  his  own  mind 
whether  he  shall  please  his  tearful  wife  and  sorrowing  son  by 
yielding  himself  up  to  the  strenuous  priest  who  appeals  to  him 
so  powerfully  and  dramatically ;  or  whether  he  shall  still  resist 
them  all,  and  leave  the  world  sternly  unbelieving  himself,  and 
refusing  his  family  the  consolation  that  would  make  his  last  act 
one  of  hypocrisy."  As  we  do  not  publish  pictures  in  the  Globe:, 
let  us  describe  this  picture.  A  handsome  and  somewhat  refined 
old  man,  of  the  hardened  refinement  of  the  scientist,  so-called,  is 
reclining  upon  his  bed  supposed  to  be  his  deathbed,  though  the 
approach  of  death  has  made  no  advance  or  sign  upon  his  face. 
He  is  full-bearded,  the  beard  moderately,  but  not  overly  long; 
long  enough  to  display  and  make  the  face  more  noble  and  at- 
tractive, that  is,  to  the  average  shallow  observer,  and  the  entire 
picture  is  meant  mainly  to  catch  the  shallow  and  untaught  mind. 
The  dying  scientist  is  having  an  easy  pasasge — looks  shallow- 
wise,  imperceptive  not  far-seeing,  but  calculating  and  would-be 
penetrative  and  severe,  especially  toward  the  priest  and  his  sup- 
posed creed  ;  the  priest  stands  at  the  foot  of  the  bed,  erect,  with 
the  crucifix  elevated  in  his  right  hand,  looking,  also,  dignified 
and  in  earnest.  By  the  right  hand  of  the  handsome  and  severe 
scientist  sits  his  wife,  the  scientist's  arm  about  her  neck,  and  his 
hand  resting  on  her  right  shoulder.  She.  also,  is  looking  steadily 
toward  the  priest  and  the  elevated  crucifix.     Her  face  is  a  be- 


202  THE  GLOBE, 

lieving,  strong  and  beautifully  motherly  face,  as  good  as  we"  may- 
conceive  the  Blessed  Virgin  to  have  been.  The  Madonna  of  the 
household.  By  the  bedside  kneels,  what  must  be,  a  daughter,  as 
if  weeping,  and  in  prayer.  Of  the  three  faces  seen  and  named, 
the  face  of  the  scientist  is  the  most  handsome,  pronounced,  deter- 
mined, soulless,  willful  and  humanly  set  and  uninspired.  Some- 
thing like  the  long-bearded  Puritans,  or  the  atolitionist  of  the 
Burleigh  type,  but  more  severe.  It  is  meant  to  be  ideal,  but  it 
really  is  damnable  in  its  subtle  willfulness  and  so-called  reason. 
The  wife  and  mother  knows,  loves  and  sees  more  in  a  moment 
than  her  dying  husband  has  ever  seen  or  probably  ever  will  see. 
The  priest  is  a  god,  beside  the  gray-bearded  and  handsome,  old, 
conceited  centre  of  the  group.  The  priest  and  the  mother  are 
really,  by  all  the  laws  of  art  and  physiognomy,  the  divine  ideals 
and  dreams  of  God  in  the  picture.  They  represent  what  the 
artistic  calls  the  "creed" — thank  God  for  Madonnas  of  such 
faces,  shining  upon  the  pages  of  all  the  Christian  ages,  and  illum- 
inating the  world.  The  old  man's  face  represents  what  modern 
conceit  calls  science,  or,  in  this  case,  proudly  and  foolishly  called 
"conviction." 

I  have  no  personal  knowledge  of  the  artist.  A  better  title 
would  have  been,  the  Angels  of  Life  and  Death.  The  artist  is 
plainly  in  touch  with  what  is  called  modern  science,  and  believes 
in  it,  or  thinks  he  does.  He  really  believes  nothing ;  is  an  agnostic 
with  a  foolish  contempt  for  religion,  which  he  neither  under- 
stands, believes  in  or  reveres;  but  even  his  own  hand,  however 
guided  in  trying  to  ridicule  the  faith  of  the  mother  and  the 
priest,  has  cut  his  own  throat.  In  a  word,  the  artist  in  him 
was  better  than  the  man  ;  true  to  nature  and  to  God. 

Note  the  pride,  falsehood  and  presumption  of  the  title,  "Creed 
or  Conviction."  All  our  modern  conceit  of  conviction  and  hatred 
of  creeds  is  in  the  title  alone.  In  the  first  place,  the  presumption 
is  that  conviction  so  called,  is  infallible  and  always  to  be  obeyed ; 
the  pride  and  falsehood  of  private  judgment;  Protestantism  and 
science  gone  mad,  even  unto  death  ;  and  the  face  of  the  hero  is 
meant  to  portray  all  that.  In  the  next  place  the  presumption  is 
that  creed  represents  no  conviction,  is  not  genuine,  sincere  and 
intelligent,  but  a  sort  of  imperious  superstition  and  not  an  evolu- 
tion of  highest  conviction  and  often  inspired.  Now,  I  say  that 
all  this,  regardless  of  any  specific  Church  or  creed,  is  an  insuf- 
ferable manifestation  of  ignorance  and  impudence. 

Did  Christ  and  Paul  and  the  innumerable  multitude  of  Chris- 
tian martyrs,  who  for  two  thousand  years  have  made  the  blood- 
stained soil  of  this  earth  more  sacred  than  a  mother's  love ;  did 
all  these  have  no  convictions?  Are  those  of  us  who,  w^hile  keep- 
ing our  eyes  open  to  view  all  that  science  and  anti-Christian 
so-called  "conviction"  has  to  show  in  pictures,  or  to  say  in  word.^, 
but  who  still  try  to  imitate  Christ — and  His  followers ;  have  we 


GLOBE  NOTES.  203 

no  "conviction?"  Bring  your  un-Christian,  proud  scientist  and 
agnostic  or  Jew  masonic  booby  out  into  the  market  places  of  the 
daylight  and  let  him  suffer  something  besides  fulsome  newspaper 
flattery;  something  like  death  and  hell  in  defense  of  his  con- 
victions ;  something  like  millions  of  Christian  martyrs  have  done 
before  him,  and  what  will  he  or  has  he  done,  or  dare  he  volun- 
teer to  do  or  bear,  that  the  humble  follower  of  Christ  to-day  will 
not  do  for  the  conviction  hid  in  the  heart  of  him  and  his  ''creed." 
Oh,  you  shallow  and  conceited  fool,  put  a  gag  in  thy  mouth  and 
tie  up  thy  lying  artist  hands. 

In  the  same  Booklovers  gush  we  find  the  following  from  that 
gad-about  and  well-worn  clown,  Mr.  "Mark  Twain"  and  the  new 
follower  of  his.  It  tells  the  same  story.  Both  fools  want  to  undo 
the  order  of  nature  and  convict  God  for  the  clown,  instead  of 
themselves. 

"No  North  or  South.  Mark  Twain  said  that  the  South  had 
been  overthrown  by  reading  Ivanhoe :  that  it  had  gone  down 
before  the  knightly  ambition  bred  of  that  literature,  and  now  only 
lived  to  mount  a  horse,  grasp  a  lance,  and  joust.  My  own 
thought  is  that  the  great  injury  to  the  South  results  from  its  being 
Southern.  If  I  owned  the  South  I  should  have  a  law  in  every 
State  abolishing  the  word  Southern.  It  is  much  smaller  than 
the  word  American.  Besides,  it's  a  fallacy.  There. can  be  no 
such  thing  as  a  Southern  interest  or  a  Southern  question  of  a 
Southern  man.  The  interest  or  the  question  or  the  man  is  every 
time  American.  Take  the  negro  question :  it  is  an  American,  not 
a  Southern,  question.  If  you  were  shot  in  the  leg  would  you 
call  it  a  leg  question  ?  If  you  had  pneumonia  what  could  you 
think  of  your  leg  if  it  said : 

"  'I'm  sorry  for  Lungs  with  that  pneumonia.  However,  it's 
none  of  my  affairs.' 

And  if  i  were  the  South  I'd  not  only  quit  being  Southern,  but 
I'd  quit  being  solid.  To  create  a  force  is  to  create  an  opposition ; 
otherwise,  some  day,  somehow,  some  Archimedes  would  capsize 
the  earth.  A  solid  South  means  a  solid  North.  If  the  Democracy 
were  wise  it  would  give  the  Republicans  Louisianst,  Alabama, 
Florida,  and  South  Carolina.  The  Democracy  would  carry  a 
dozen  Northern  States  if  it  did. 

Let  it  be  understood  that  I  like  the  Southern  man.  There's  no 
smell  of  Europe  about  him.  Moreover,  he  is  apt  to  be  a  man  and 
unlikely  to  be  a  snob.  I  have  never  met  a  Southern  member  who 
remembered  that  he  was  a  Congressman  ;  I  have  never  met  a 
Northern  member  who  forgot  it. 

That,  doubtless,  is  the  result  of  education.  A  Northern  man  is 
taught  that  it  is  a  mark  of  honor  to  go  to  Congress.  Finding 
himself  thus  distinguished  he  is  correspondingly  puffed.  Now, 
your  Southern  man  is  like  a  squab  pigeon,  biggest  when  he's 
born.     The  fact  of  his  nativity  is  the  greatest  honor  reachable. 


204  ^^^  GLOBE. 

He  is  cradled  on  a  peak;  he  can  climb  no  higher.  Wherefore, 
although  he  go  later  to  a  Senate  or  a  Cabinet  or  even  a  White 
House,  he  goes  ever  downhill. — Alfred  Henry  Lezvis  in  The  Sat- 
urday Evening  Post." 

Now,  on  all  this  coarse  and  contemptible  folly  we  have  to  say : 
First.  It  is  a  lie  to  state  that  Walter  Scott  is  responsible  for  the 
style  of  man  called  the  Southern  man,  but  Mark  Twain  is  a 
clown,  knows  no  better,  and  is  not  to  be  taken  seriously.  Second. 
The  style  of  man  called  the  Southern  man  has  always  been  in  the 
world  since  civilization  took  fire  and  began  to  grow  on  our  soil ; 
has  always  been  as  different  from  such  men  as  Mark  Twain 
,as  refinement  is  different  from  coarseness,  or  as  beauty  is  different 
from  ugliness.  That  Sir  Walter  was  in  touch  with  this  element 
of  human  culture,  and  fed  it,  we  admit  with  pleasure,  that  he  was 
and  remains  the  writer  of  the  purest  and  simplest  English  of  all 
the  novelists  of  the  last  two  hundred  years,  we  admit  and  affirm 
with  pleasure ;  that  there  is  all  the  difference  between  his  writing 
and  the  writing  of  the  eulogized  Mark  and  Walt  Whitman,  that 
there  is  between  rubble  stone  and  gutter  slush,  and  true  soil  and 
pure  water  or  wine,  we  admit  and  affirm  with  pleasure,  but  to 
blame  him  for  the  superior  nature  of  the  average  Southern  man 
of  long  ago,  as  compared  with  the  modern  Western  man,  or  the 
modern  Yankee,  is  to  write  himself  down  the  most  amusing  and 
clownish  of  all  animals,  the  kicking  little  jackass.  I  like  to  see 
clowns,  in  the  circus.  Gentlemen  always  kept  them  for  amuse- 
ment, but  called  them  truly  ''fools."  I  like  to  read  Mark  as  a 
clown.  He  has  a  clown's  wit,  sharp  and  appetizing,  but  to  talk 
of  him  as  a  gentleman  shows  your  own  lack  of  sense  and  breeding. 

Apparently  his  young  disciple  is  also  a  pretty  good  clown. 
If  Mr.  A.  H.  Lewis  owned  the  South  and  made  such  a  law  as  he 
names,  he  would  prove  himself  an  excellent  tyrant  and  a  petty 
clown.  The  Westerner  seldom  mentions  the  fact  that  he  is  a 
Westerner.  He  is  not,  at  least,  proud  of  the  fact,  as  the  Yankee 
is  proud  of  New  England,  or  as  the  Southerner  is  proud  of  his 
native  section,  but  for  a  shock-hair.  Western,  common  clown  to 
run  about  the  world  trying  to  ridicule,  explain  or  annihilate  the 
South  as  such  or  the  Southerner,  is  to  be  contemptible  and  less 
than  amusing. 

Mr.  Lewis'  cure  for  the  solid  South  is  about  equal  to  Mr. 
Joseph  Chamberlain's  cure  for  un-American  tariff ;  give  him  more 
of  it,  and  he  will  become  a  skulking  free  trader  like  Chamberlain 
himself.     Somebody  has  to  speak  the  truth,  gentlemen.     What  ^f 

he  says  of  the  grand  finale  of  the  politician   is,  unfortunately,  ?^ 

almost  always  true.  | 

After  spending  their  pious  lives  in  marrying  almost  anybody 
and  everybody  that  came  to  them,  for  a  fee,  of  course,  what  is 
called  public  sentiment,  that  is  newspaper  gush,  has  at  last  moved 


GLOBE  NOTES.  205 

large  bodies  of  Protestant  clergymen,  so-called,  to  take  up  the 
general  question  of  marriage  and  divorce,  in  earnest,  and  now  his 
majesty,  the  devil,  champion  of  American  morality,  is  to  be 
whipped  at  the  stake  or  lynched  if  necessary,  so  that  the  preachers 
may  hope  once  more  for  full  churches  on  Sundays  and  no  delay 
in  their  salaries.  It  is  a  consummation  devoutly  to  be  wished, 
but  Mr.  "Bargain  Counter  Millionaire"  &  Co.  have  gotten  too 
good  a  start,  I  fear. 

Here  is  the  latest,  and  about  the  stupidest,  that  has  come  from 
the  parsons  on  the  subject: 

"Will  Not  Marry  Divorcees.  Reading  Ministers  Adopt  Reso- 
lutions Regarding  the  Subject.  Special  telegram  to  Public 
Ledger.  Reading,  May  3. — The  Reading  Ministerial  Associa- 
tion, which  includes  pastors  of  the  Reformed,  Evangelical,  Meth- 
odist, Baptist,  United  Brethren,  United  Evangelical  and  Presby- 
terian Churches,  held  a  largely  attended  meeting  to-day,  when 
action  was  taken  on  the  divorce  question.  They  give  notice  that 
they  will  not  marry  a  divorced  man  or  woman  while  the  divorced 
husband  or  wife  be  living,  with  one  exception,  and  then  only 
the  innocent  party.     The  following  was  unanimously  adopted: 

"  'We,  the  undersigned  ministers,  members  of  the  Reading 
Ministerial  Association,  recognizing  the  constantly  increasing 
number  of  divorces,  and  deeply  sensible  of  the  peril,  not  only  to 
the  home  but  to  the  Church  and  State,  from  this  growing  evil, 
do  most  earnestly  protest  against  the  lax  views  prevailing  upon 
the  subject  in  our  community,  and  the  indifference  of  the  general 
public  in  regard  to  it. 

"  'And  in  the  hope  that  we  may  be  able  to  do  something  in  a 
practical  way  to  further  the  cause  of  morality,  decency  and  social 
stability,  we  hereby  make  this  public  declaration  that  we  will  not 
marry  a  divorced  man  or  woman,  while  the  divorced  husband  or 
wife  be  living,  except  where  the  divorce  was  granted  for  adultery, 
and  then  only  the  innocent  party,  with  this  reservation,  however, 
that  a  number  of  us  will  not  marry  a  divorced  person  under  any 
circumstances  whatsoever  while  the  other  party  to  the  divorce 
be  living.' 

"About  forty  pastors  signed  the  minute." 

When  modern  preachers  attempt  to  get  into  any  practical 
work  they  usually  get  their  foot  into  it  and  leave  their  heads  out 
entirely.  This  all  looks  to  me  a  good  deal  like  Piux  Xths  recent 
treatment  of  the  Imperial  or  Temporal  power,  the  veto  recently 
used  by  Austria  and  which  practically  resulted  in  Piux  Xths 
election  to  the  Papacy.  It  is  also  about  as  crazy  as  his  taking 
offense  at  Loubets  visit  to  Italy.  Mind  your  own  business.  Holy 
Father,  and  don't  waste  your  time  snubbing  presidents  or  kings. 

The  Pope  and  the  Cardinals,  directed,  it  would  seem,  too 
largely  by  the  many-tongued  young  Cardinal  Merry  Del  Vail, 
concluded  to  revive  the  well-worn  and  generally  discarded  power 


2o6  THE  GLOBE. 

of  excommunication,  and  hurl  it  at  any  future  emperor,  king-  or 
temporal  power  pretending  to  assert  the  veto  in  any  of  the 
church's  proceedings,  or  offices,  and  some  of  our  American  Cath+ 
olic  weeklies  with  their  usual  pig-headed  presumption  and  stu- 
pidity, announced  the  ''death  of  the  veto"  by  the  old  disease  called 
excommimication.  The  Globe;  hates  and  despises  the  power  of 
veto,  as  it  hates  and  despises  any  and  every  sort  of  interference  of 
the  temperal  power  with  affairs  spiritual,  but  to  attempt  to  use  or 
to  speak  of  the  faded  and  false  glory  of  excommunication  as  the 
"death  of  the  veto''  seems  to  me  more  silly  and  despicable  still. 
Francis  Joseph  had,  or  thought  he  had,  good  reasons  for  check- 
mating the  game  of  making  Rampolla  Pope,  though  some  very 
able  writers  have  since  argued  that  Leo  XIII  and  not  Rampolla 
was  responsible  for  the  Papal  policy  in  Austro-Hungary  that  has 
so  seriously  divided  the  Empire,  without  doing  the  Church  any 
good  at  all,  and  perhaps  Rampolla  was  only  a  scapegoat  after  all. 
He  needed  the  humiliation  any  way.  Most  of  the  Italian  Cardi- 
nals need  it.  But  again:  what  Emperor,  King  or  ruler  of  any 
nation  in  the  world  now  cares  a  farthing  for  a  Papal  Excommuni- 
cation, any  way?  And  that  is  where  and  how  the  sting  is  taken 
out  of  the  Papal  thrust,  which  never  in  Christian  decency  ought 
to  have  been  allowed  to  get  in.  Quit  taking  the  pay  of  the 
Emperor  of  Austria,  the  King  of  Italy,  or  the  President  of  the 
French  Republic ;  act  like  a  man  of  some  independence  before  you 
threaten  a  King  with  a  power  that  made  your  predecessors  alike 
terrible,  foolish  and  contemptible. 

So  it  is  with  our  Reading  parsons :  they  see  that  the  place  is 
growing  tight  for  them,  get  morally  indignant  and  threaten  not 
to  marry  divorcees  in  the  future,  with  exceptions.  Gentlemen  of 
the  cloth,  why  did  you  not  begin  at  the  other  end  ?  Remember  the 
point,  the  so-called  Christian  man  or  woman  who  will  fly  from 
the  ills  known  and  sure  to  be  in  married  life  to  the  unknown  ills 
of  divorce  and  Co.  has  ceased  to  care  one  rap  whether  your  parson 
will  marry  him  or  her.  His  or  her  conscience  is  but  a  blank  cart- 
ridge. It  has  lost  all  aim,  and  has  no  force.  The  divorcees  can 
get  and  command  all  the  lawful  marriages  they  want  by  the  infa- 
mous laws  appealed  to  in  divorcing  them,  whether  such  muck 
heaps  of  so-called  laws  are  in  Pennsylvania  or  in  Dakota.  What 
need  or  care  have  they  for  such  as  you  ? 

Fourteen  years  ago  I  published  the  simple  truth  on  the  whole 
question  in  an  article  in  this  magazine,  called  the  "Infamy  and' 
Blasphemy  of  Divorce;"  plead  for  a  uniform  American  marriage 
law,  also  for  such  law  touching  divorce  and  remarriage.  The 
article  took  from  the  first  moment.  The  late  Col.  Bob  Ingersoll' 
and  the  late  termagant  editor  of  a  Washington  weekly  wrote  on 
the  other  side,  and  the  North  American,  still  in  the  business  of 
pandering  to  vice  and  liars,  published  the  Ingersoll  bosh  on  the 
subject  then. 


GLOBE  NOTES.  207 

About  a  year  ago  I  republished  the  article,  word  for  word. 
Again  it  took  fire.  The  Jesuits  have  taken  up  the  theme  pub- 
licly. Father  Sherman  has  orated  on  it,  doing  fairly  well  for  an 
unmarried  man ;  and  the  immaculate  American  Congress  has  tried 
to  apply  ultra  fine  American  morality  to  Senator  Smoot,  of  Utah, 
but  it  will  not  go,  even  in  politics.  The  election  is  approaching  and 
the  Republic-stealing  saint  in  the  White  House  is  desperate  for 
electors,  married  or  single,  divorced  or  undivorced,  or  married 
several  times.  "All  is  fair  in  love  and  war."  My  dear  preachers, 
you  are  in  a  land  utterly  lost  to  morality  and  the  claims  of  honor, 
and  nobody  cares  whether  you  marry  people  or  not,  and  it  will 
all  grow  worse  rather  than  better,  and  in  spite  of  you  all.  You 
can't  create,  or  elevate,  or  change  the  average  morality  of  this 
nation  by  a  few  stupid  clerical  resolutions,  or  crack  sentences  by 
Father  Sherman  or  other  inexperienced  Catholic  priests.  In  our 
article,  and  in  all  we  have  ever  said  on  this  subject,  we  have  kept 
close  to  the  Biblical  and  the  Catholic  position,  no  matter  what  silly 
boys  or  parsons  may  say,  and  we  shall  win.  But  the  morality  of 
the  United  States  ! !  God  save  us  and  all  the  savages  of  the  world 
from  such  crude,  and  rude  and  blasphemous  stuff. 


While  in  the  line  of  Catholic  reform,  etc.,  we  may  notice 
another  modern  phase  of  would-be  Papal  sanctimoniousness. 
Years  ago  we  advocated  a  more  serious  and  dignified  musical  ren- 
dering of  the  mass  in  Catholic  Churches ;  had  experts  in  Gregor- 
ian chant  music  advocate  their  theories  in  these  pages.  Perhaps 
our  little  efforts  had  something  to  do  with  developing  the  Papal 
sentiment  that  some  months  ago  disclosed  itself  in  favor  of  a 
general  return  to  the  more  devout  form  of  Catholic  music;  but 
within  a  few  weeks  of  this  writing  the  Catholic  papers  announced 
that  the  Hierarchy  of  the  United  States,  in  meeting  assembled  at 
Washington,  I  believe,  and  after  mature  consideration  simply 
directed  that  their  chief,  His  Eminence,  Cardinal  Gibbons,  write 
the  Pope  that  the  commanded  return  to  the  chants  in  music  is 
impossible  in  a  land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey  and  money, 
bedecked  with  the  "United  Brotherhoods"  of  the  ''Knights  of 
Columbus,"  themselves  a  rebellion  against  similar  utterances  of 
Leo  Xni.  In  a  word,  in  this  land,  without  a  conscience  or  any 
real  piety,  it  would  be  a  greater  mockery  to  sing  the  Gregorian 
Chant  than  the  opera  music  now  usually  indulged  in  on  Sundays 
in  our  Catholic  Churches. 

So  the  ecclesiastical  gentlemen  over  in  Rome  who  dictate  to 
aggressive  American  Catholics,  clergy,  choir  masters,  Knights  of 
Columbus,  editors  and  what  not,  who  threaten  excommunication 
to  Kings  and  Emperors,  etc.,  etc.,  may  have  to  learn  a  little 
themselves,  correct  or  alter  some  of  their  narrow  and  conceited 
notioflvS,  and   learn,  after  all,  themselves   that  they  are  not  the 


2o8  THE  GLOBE. 

Church  and  apostles  of  deadly  authority  they  have  sometimes 
assumed  themselves  to  be.  It  is  not  that  v^e  like  Rome  less  and 
Caesar  more,  but,  gentlemen,  the  world  is  very  complex;  getting 
more  and  more  mixed  every  year,  and  if  the  Pope  of  Rome  and 
his  Secretaries  of  State  cannot  find  anything  better  to  do  than  to 
waste  their  leisure  in  formulating  decrees  condemnatory  of  our 
American  Catholic  Church  and  silencing  and  condemning  such 
able  scholars  as  the  Abbe  Loise,  of  France,  and  protesting  against 
the  brilliant  visit  of  President  Loubet  to  the  Italian  King  and 
Capital,  we  advise  them  to  get  out  of  Rome,  come  to  New  York, 
or  Philadelphia,  or  Chicago,  and  help  those  of  us  poor  but 
earnest  critics  to  do  what  we  can,  with  eyes  as  clear  as  their  own, 
and  with  hearts  as  pure,  are  doing  to  check  the  tidal  waves  of 
iniquity  in  this  land  of  freedom,  and  let  Kings  and  singers  go 
where  they  please,  any  way.  If  you  are  hungry  for  martyrdom, 
most  Holy  Father,  we  will  guarantee  it  you  here  in  the  finest  of 
roles,  plus  the  crown  tacked  on. 


And  now.  May  23rd,  they  say  that  Satolli  is  coming  over  again 
to  "visit  friends"  and  to  see  to  it  that  any  new  cropping  out  of 
Americanism  is  nipped  in  the  bud.  There  was  a  good  deal  of 
mischief  done  by  his  previous  visit.  Italian  ecclesiastics  in  com- 
ing to  this  country  seem  to  take  it  for  granted  that  all  American 
Roman  Catholics,  no  matter  how  loyal,  orthodox  or  saintly,  need 
disciplining  according  to  Italian  methods  and  standards.  In  my 
judgment  they  had  infinitely  better  stay  at  home  and  discipline 
themselves  and  their  conduct,  according  to  the  methods  and  stand- 
ards of  Jesus  Christ.  Precious  lives,  years  and  fortunes  are 
wasted  in  trying  to  make  free  and  great  nations  into  the  groveling 
and  duplicate  morality  and  orthodoxy  of  Rome,  herself  always 
too  much  of  an  imitation  of  the  old  days  of  Pagan  pride  and 
duplicity.  In  a  word,  I  think  that  Cardinal  Satolli  had  better 
stay  at  home,  or  make  a  rapid  swing  around  our  imperial  world 
and  return  to  Rome  by  way  of  Port  Arthur  and  the  Philippines. 

He  might  stay  in  Rome  and  help  Pius  X  and  Cardinal  Merry 
Del  Val  reclaim  to  the  Church  the  hundreds  of  Italian  families 
now  leaving  it,  because  they  cannot  stand  the  foolish  Papal  pres- 
sure brought  to  bear  on  them  because  of  the  hopelessly  lost  tem- 
poral power  of  the  Pope.  Or  Cardinal  Satolli  might  go  home  by 
way  of  Ireland,  and  try  to  make  more  effective  the  wise  advice 
of  the  American  Hierarchy  to  the  Irish  people  to  stay  at  home 
and  not  come  to  America,  where  they  are  only  in  danger  of  losing 
their  faith  by  becoming  aldermen,  mayors  of  great  cities,  fat  and 
rich,  and  of  enormous  conceit  of  themselves.  The  Pope  or  Cardi- 
nal, who  imagines  that  all  goodness  and  truth  begins  and  ends 
with  him,  or  in  Rome,  had  better  sell  out  in  Rome  and  take  up 
a  thousands   acres   of  government   land   on   our   great   Western 


GLOBE  NOTES.  209 

prairies  and  learn,  once  for  all,  that  conceited  ultra  and  censorious 
ecclesiasticism  never  has,  and  never  will,  or  can  be  of  much  ser- 
vice in  this  all  too  practical  world.  Let  them  quit  for  a  century 
the  soft  places,  the  gorgeous  palaces,  the  purple  robes  of  silly  lux- 
ury, and  go  forth  into  the  world  of  heathendom  again  calling  sin- 
ners, not  the  righteous,  to  repentance.  Every  bird  sings  its  own 
note  or  song,  and  you  cannot,  and  should  not,  attempt  to  make 
them  all  look  alike  or  sing  alike.  Even  Herbert  Spencer  was  a 
vulgar,  conceited,  commonplace  mechanic  when  he  went  to  speak 
of  a  woman  who,  till  she  fell  into  error,  was  infinitely  his  superior 
in  mind,  heart  and  person.  As  a  New  York  priest  once  said  to 
a  Bishop  who  tried  to  arouse  him  from  his  bed  at  midnight,  stop 
your  noise  and  go  to  a  hotel  and  be  a  gentleman,  even  if  you  are 
a  Bishop.  So  we  would  say  to  all  the  upstart,  proud,  Italian  and 
other  ecclesiastics,  "down  on  your  knees,"  do  your  first  works 
over  again,  and  be  modest  and  Christ-like  and  charitable,  and 
know  that  in  every  nation  there  are  scores  of  men  as  wise  and  as 
good,  or  better  than  you ;  and,  above  all,  be  true,  straightforward 
and  manly  in  all  your  works  and  ways. 

The  Church  for  several  centuries  was  badly  spoiled  by  what  has 
been  called  the  Temporal  Power.  We  have  written  very  fully  on 
all  phases  of  this  in  previous  numbers  of  the  Globe.  Now  it  has 
come  to  the  fore  again  by  the  foolish  action  of  Pius  X  toward  the 
French  Republic,  as  if  this  Temporary  Power  still  existed.  This 
is  at  the  bottom  of  its  action  in  regard  to  the  visit  of  President 
Loubet  to  the  King  of  Italy  in  Rome.  It  is  the  consummation 
of  Papal  childishness  to  presume  to  interfere  with  the  visit  of  the 
head  of  any  nation  to  the  King  of  Italy.  The  head  of  every 
nation  on  earth  would  delight  to  honor  Pius  X  as  the  spiritual 
head  of  the  Church  of  Rome — and  that  is  all  that  he  has  any  right 
to  claim — but  what  King  or  President  in  Christendom  is  going  to 
ask  consent  of  the  Pope  to  visit  the  King  of  Italy?  What  ordi- 
nary citizen  of  intelligence  would  condescend  to  any  thing  of  the 
kind  ?  The  age  has  gone  by  for  such  folly,  and  will  never  return. 
Let  the  Pope  acknowledge  the  blunder  of  the  Church  in  ever 
claiming  the  Temporal  Power,  accept  all  the  reverence  volun- 
tarily given  him  as  spiritual  ruler  over  all  that  admit  his  claim, 
accept  any  presents  of  money  or  lands  the  faithful  may  give  him, 
but  no  nonsense  of  Temporal  Power.  It  is  not  in  their  power 
to  give  this,  nor  is  it  the  Pope's  right  to  receive  princedoms  or 
wages  from  Kings.  He  is  solely  the  servant  of  God  and  the 
servant  of  the  faithful. 

I  ask  the  pardon  of  any  friend  whose  stricter  or  narrower 
notions  on  this  or  other  themes  I  may  offend.  But  I  am  weary  of 
seeing  a  great  and  beautiful,  and  wonderful  power  like  the 
Church  spoiling  the  work  of  Christ  and  its  own  highest  ends  by 
pretending  to  be  what  it  is  not,  and  thus  making  itself  a  laughing 
stock  in  the  eyes  of  the  world.    It  is  not  that  I  love  Christ  and  His 


2IO  THE  GLOBE. 

Church  less  than  Pius  X,  Satolli  &  Co.,  but  that  I  have  a  better 
head  and  a  truer  education  than  they. 


It  was  my  intention  to  write  a  careful  review  of  the  entire 
Roosevelt- Panama  business  for  the  March  Globl;,  but  my  health 
did  not  permit.  After  Mr.  Hanna's  death  I  ceased  to  take  any 
interest  in  American  politics  or  the  presidential  campaign.  To-day, 
May  31st,  all  that  is  left  of  Senator  Quay  has  gone  to  rest  in  a 
quiet  graveyard,  beside  the  remains  of  his  long-lost  father.  With 
the  death  of  Hanna  and  Quay,  the  two  ablest  men  in  public  life  in 
the  United  States,  the  politics  of  the  country  are  a  shapeless  mass 
of  dry  rot  and  corruption,  which  I  never  want  to  touch  again. 
An  old  contributor  has,  however,  sent  a  severe  article  on  his 
immaculate  boobyship,  the  accidental  President,  which  I  publish, 
having  the  author's  name  ready  at  need.  These  Gi.obk  Notes 
and  other  few  words  on  the  Philosophy  of  Literature  are  all  I 
have  been  able  to  do  for  this  issue.  At  this  time  1  am  still  less 
able  to  do  any  sort  of  justice  to  the  questions  I  have  attempted 
to  handle,  or  that  need  handling,  and  shall  have  to  trust  myself 
to  the  generous  consideration  of  my  many  friends.  1  republish 
the  article  on  Roman  Archaeology,  not  that  I  have  nuich  respect 
for  the  industrious  cellar  diggers,  but  because  I  think  it  may  be 
of  general  interest  to  my  readers,  as  it  was  to  me.  Let  us  be 
patient,  and  the  true  light  will  dawn  on  all  souls  in  God's  owm 
time. 

At  this  date,  June  loth,  I  concluded  to  republish  the  article  I 
have  called  "Bismarck's  Second  Death"  in  preference  to  the 
original  work  of  various  other  authors  at  my  disposal.  I  consider 
it  the  ablest  article  on  the  international  problem  of  to-day  that 
has  come  under  my  notice.  It  seems  particularly  suggestive  in 
view  of  Emperor  William's  recent  edict  abolishing  the  entire 
action  of  Bismarck  touching  his  banishment  of  the  Jesuits  and 
his  unreasonable  persecution  of  German  Catholics  in  general.  The 
Emperor  William,  being  somewhat  hard  pressed  for  allies,  is 
plainly  conciliating  Rome,  though  at  heart  and  in  practice  he  is  the 
most  ultra  Protestant  in  Germany,  and  does  as  he  pleases  without 
regard  to  justice  or  the  laws  of  God,  resembling  thus  our  own 
modest  Theodore.  But  the  Emperor,  President,  or  Pope  who 
undertakes  to  win  against  nature  and  God's  eternal  truth  and 
justice  gets  himself  badly  rnixed  after  a  while. 

WlIXIAM  H^NRY  ThORNK. 


THE  GLOBE. 

No.  LV. 


SEPTEMBER,  1904. 


ROOSEVELT,  ROOT  &  CO. 


At  this  writing,  August  23d,  the  National  Politics  of  America 
and  the  relation  of  these  to  the  ever  changing  international  world 
view  of  politics,  diplomacy  and  war,  have  reached  a  full,  ample 
and  varied  statement  upon  statement,  in  our  own  journalism  and 
in  the  international  journalism  of  the  whole  civilized  world;  so 
that  the  entire  field  of  human  endeavor,  aspiration  and  ambition, 
as  well  as  the  conflicting  interests  of  capital  and  labor,  especially 
as  blazing  out  in  Colorado  and  as  fighting  in  grim  determination 
and  unchristian  error  in  Fall  River,  Massachusetts,  with  scores 
of  other  and  minor  conflicts,  murder  and  rascality,  involving 
and  depicting  what  are  called  the  domestic,  social  and  national 
and  international  life  of  our  times,  are  spread  out  before  the 
thoughtful  reader  as  a  more  or  less  changing  panorama  of  life 
and  death. 

In  and  through  all  this  the  names  of  the  gentlemen  placed  at 
the  head  of  this  article  are  almost  constantly  recurring,  and  their- 
portraits  or  pictures  in  one  artistic  or  clownish  caricature  and  an- 
other are  constantly  bobbing  up  in  the  assaulted  and  frequently 
insulted  presence  of  the  public,  showing,  however,  always  what 
a  large  part  these  comparatively  young  and  rather  small  men. 
are  playing  in  the  affairs  of  the  world  to-day. 

The  wide  awake  newspapers  of  New  York  announced  on  the- 
22d,  that  one  Admiral  Sterling  of  the  United  States  Navy  had 
run  his  war  ship  between  the  pursuing  Japanese  war  vessel  and 
a  pursued  Russian  war  ship  in  order  to  protect  the  Russian  man 
of  war  from  the  attack  of  the  Japanese,  he,  the  same  Admiral 
Sterling,  with  the  usual  Yankee  presumption,  effrontery,  assum- 
ing to  decide  and  dictate  the  terms  and  laws  of  the  rights  and 


212  THE  GLOBE. 

privileges  of  the  war  ships  of  belligerants  and  neutrals,  and  in  a 
breath  to  clear  his  ship  for  action,  with  the  foul  gases  of  his 
own  ambition  and  idiocy  and  to  show  the  world  what  a  crazy 
clown  of  a  U.  S.  naval  officer  could  do  to  make  an  ass  of  himself 
and  his  nation  when  in  possession  of  one  of  the  fine  ships  be- 
longing to  Roosevelt,  Root  &  Co. 

The  slow  and  plodding,  always  half  asleep  newspapers  of 
Philadelphia,  republished  on  the  23d,  the  wild  and  wide  awake 
news  of  the  New  York  journals  of  the  22d,  and  the  general  talky 
talky  journalism  of  the  country,  while  standing  ready  to  applaud 
Sterling's  impudence,  was,  however,  obliged  to  add  this  little 
item  of  news  from  Washington  or  from  Oyster  Bay:  Roosevelt 
says,  telegraphs,  or  causes  the  poor  shifting  Secretary  Hay  to 
say  and  telegraph  to  Sterling  et  al,  "Hands  off,"  gentlemen,  this 
is  not  our  quarrel,  at  least  not  yet,  Mr.  Admiral  Sterling,  you 
of  the  hasty  clearing  of  the  decks  for  action,  you  of  the  polished 
brass  belt  and  buttons  and  the  loud  mouth,  mind  your  own 
business.  Meanwhile  China  insists  that  the  Russian  ships  of 
war  in  Chinese  ports,  must  dismantle  or  clear  out,  as  they  ought 
to  have  done  long  before,  and  the  Russian  disabled  ships  that 
liave  just  felt  the  fond  and  protecting  embrace  of  our  gushing 
'Admiral  Sterling  promise  once  more  that  they  will  dismantle  or 
quit,  acknowledging  China's  right  so  to  order  and  their  own  duty 
to  obey,  and  at  the  same  time  proving  to  the  amazement  of  all 
the  world  that  our  Admiral  Sterling  was  an  all  too  previous 
fool. 

I  am  beginning  this  leading  article  thusly,  for  which  I  had  been 
making  clippings  for  review  during  the  last  three  months,  wholly 
and  solely  for  the  sake  of  saying  here  at  the  outset  that  Theodore 
Roosevelt,  if  he  did  telegraph,  as  the  papers  of  this  date  state, 
I  consider  it  the  first  sane  and  manly  and  wise  and  statesman- 
like act  that  he  has  perpetrated  since  the  accident  of  hell  made 
him  President  of  the  United  States  nearly  three  years  ago,  but 
I  almost  fear  that  the  next  news  will  contradict  his  reputed 
action. 

The  newspapers  of  this  same  date,  August  23d,  reported  a 
dispatch  from  Senator  "Me  too"  Piatt,  of  New  York,  stating 
that  a  recent  letter  from  Elihu  Root,  makes  it  practically  impos- 
sible to  think  of  him  any  longer  as  a  possible  candidate  for  Gov- 
ernor of  New  York  this  coming  Fall,  and  that  the  Republican 


ROOSEVELT,  ROOT  <2f  CO.  213 

State  Convention  will  be  an  open  convention,  the  present  Gov- 
ernor, Odell,  consenting  thereto  and  approving  this  course. 

Here  again  it  is  seen  how  large  a  part  Roosevelt,  Root  & 
Co.  are  playing  in  the  national  and  international  politics  of  our 
day. 

Mr.  Root  may  or  may  not  be  the  next  Governor  of  New  York, 
but  here  is  what  no  wide  awake  editor  has  yet  mentioned :  Mr. 
Root  will  be  the  Republican  candidate  for  the  presidency  in  1908, 
and  if  our  general  schemes  of  Imperial  Ambition  go  at  all  well 
these  next  four  years,  he  will  win,  and  prove  himself  the  most 
popular  and  capable  and  most  able  president  the  country  has  had 
since  the  days  of  the  late  Mr.  George  Washington. 

Of  Judge  Parker,  the  democratic  nominee  for  president  in 
opposition  to  Roosevelt  this  year,  I  shall  have  more  to  say,  di- 
rectly. He  is  included  in  a  far  off  silent  partner  fashion,  with 
the  firm  I  have  in  mind. 

Having  thus  glanced  at  the  latest  facts  touching  the  general 
subject  of  review,  I  propose  to  revise  in  some  detail  the  progress 
of  our  national  politics  in  their  recent  struggles,  to  this  hour,  and 
possibly  carry  along  with  this  review  the  actions  relative  to  the 
Russo-Japanese  war. 

I  had  intended  to  treat  the  national  political  contest  for  the 
presidency  in  one  article  and  write  a  review  of  the  war  to  date 
in  another,  but  our  national  political  contest  is  so  nearly  related 
to  the  larger  affair  that  it  suits  my  purpose  to  work  them  both 
together. 

In  all  probability,  before  it  is  decided  whether  Theodore  Roose- 
velt or  Alton  Parker  shall  be  our  next  President,  the  Japanese 
will  have  captured  Port  Arthur,  will  have  taken  possession  of 
Vladivostock,  driven  Kuropatkin  beyond  Mukden  to  the  North, 
made  themselves  masters  in  the  whole  disputed  country  of  Man- 
churia, smashed  the  Russian  army  and  navy,  and  thus  within 
about  six  months  from  the  beginning  of  hostilities,  will  have 
made  Japan  one  of  the  leading  nations  of  modern  so-called  civil- 
ization, and  henceforth  will  become  a  factor  to  be  reckoned  with 
in  every  national  and  international  contest  in  the  modern  world. 

When  twenty-four  hours  before  this  writing  it  looked  as  if 
Roosevelt  had  sanctioned  a  naval  action  that  would  have  fled 
in  the  face  of  seventy-five  per  cent,  of  the  intelligent  sympathy 
of  the  American  people,  the  first  thing  a  reviewer  of  events  found 


214  THE  GLOBE. 

himself  called  upon  to  do  was  to  look  for  a  motive  of  such 
action  in  the  present  condition  of  the  national  conflict,  and  so 
find  the  meaning  of  the  international  action  in  the  exigencies  of 
party  machinery. 

For  a  moment  the  nation  was  stunned  to  staggering.  What 
did  it  mean?  Was  Roosevelt  so  hard  pressed  for  votes  in  New 
York,  New  Jersey  and  Wisconsin,  that  he  was  willing  to  offend 
the  mind  and  heart  of  the  nation  in  order  to  make  sure  of  the 
Irish  American  vote  by  appearing  for  the  time  being  not  only 
to  offend  the  good  feeling  existing  between  Great  Britain  and 
this  country,  but  to  fly  in  the  face  of  all  past  civilized  history  by 
a  violation  of  our  own  pledged  neutrality,  in  our  presumptive 
self-assertion  to  defend  what  our  bombastic  naval  captains  de- 
fined as  an  overstepping  of  the  rights  of  a  belligerant,  instead 
of  forcing  the  other  belligerant  to  adhere  to  the  rightful  requests 
of  the  one  great  pivotal  neutral  nation  concerned.  Many  delicate 
and  far-reaching,  unexpected  questions  of  international  rights 
are  aroused  in  every  great  war,  but  Admiral  Dewey  apprehended 
the  heart  of  this  question  when  during  our  American- Spanish 
war,  a  German  war  vessel  undertook  to  put  itself  between  the 
American  Admiral  and  his  Spanish  prey.  The  Admiral  simply 
notified  the  German  that  his  ship  was  in  the  line  of  the  Admiral's 
line  of  firing  on  the  enemy's  navy,  and  to  prove  it,  so  the  story 
goes,  fired  a  shot  at  the  enemy,  which  shot  went  through  the 
rigging  of  the  German  man  of  war,  which  again,  having  a 
sensible  officer  aboard,  withdrew  out  of  the  line  of  the  American 
Admiral's  line  of  fire. 

Of  course,  the  newspapers  in  this  country  could  have  found 
reasons  upon  reasons  in  defense  of  Sterling's  foolish  action, 
American  interests  might  be  shot  into  and  through,  if  the  little 
brave  brown  sailors  persisted  in  their  pursuit  of  their  Russian 
prey,  etc.,  etc.,  and  it  is  infinitely  to  the  credit  of  the  Japanese 
nation,  and  to  their  officers  in  the  army  and  navy,  that  they  have 
throughout  this  struggle  so  closely  adhered  to  all  the  just  claims 
of  neutral  nations,  while  Russia  has  violated  such  claims  at 
every  turn,  as  she  had  previously  violated  all  the  claims  of  natur- 
al truth  and  justice  in  forcing  the  issues  that  made  war  with  her 
an  absolute  necessity. 

I  abominate  the  spirit  and  the  action  of  war  in  every  instance. 
I  hold  that  the  action  of  our  own  nation,  our  army  and   our 


ROOSEVELT,  ROOT  &  CO.  215 

navy  in  declaring  and  forcing  war  with  Spain  over  Cuba,  and  in 
destroying  the  Spanish  fleet  in  the  Philippines  and  in  destroying 
the  Spanish  Catholic  civilization  in  the  Philippines,  that  all  our 
action  in  that  case,  by  sea  and  on  land,  was  infamous,  boastful, 
brutal  and  damnable,  and  that  all  the  results  of  our  action  must 
and  will  be  pernicious  and  harmful  to  the  end  of  time.  I  hold 
that  all  that  was  the  destruction  of  a  civilization  superior  to  our 
own  and  not  an  advancement  of  civilization  at  all.  1 
blame  Russia  for  the  Russo-Japanese  war  as  I  blame 
America  for  the  American-Spanish  war,  but  if  any 
power  under  heaven  could  have  made  me  a  naval  officer 
for  one  hour,  that  is,  the  bond  slave  of  a  president 
or  king,  I  would  have  done,  like  a  flash  of  lightning,  just  what 
Dewey  did  in  the  case  named,  and  just  what  a  Japanese,,  high 
in  authority,  reported  from  London  on  the  22d  of  August,  the 
Japanese  would  do,  that  is,  simply  go  on  with  their  own  business, 
and  if  one  of  Roosevelt's  ships  stood  in  the  line  of  their  firing 
at  the  enemy  simply  shoot  through  the  Sterling  bombast,  and 
if  the  bombast  was  hurt,  let  it  blame  the  arrogance  of  the 
American  flag  and  American  seamen. 

In  order  to  get  down  to  business,  cross  the  Yalu  and  fire  into 
the  accumulated  Russians  at  all,  Japan  had  to  ride  right  across 
American  rights  in  Corea,  but  the  Japs  did  it,  and  we  held  our 
peace,  and  it  must  be  so  to  the  end.  It  was  a  piece  of  insuflEer- 
able  impudence  for  Hay  to  attempt  to  define  and  limit  the  boun- 
daries of  the  war  any  way.  It  wa!s  merely  a  weak-headed 
amateur  suggestion  at  best.  If  China  and  Japan  choose  to  be- 
come allies  in  this  fight,  and  so  drive  every  Russian  not  only 
out  of  Manchuria,  but  out  of  all  China,  and  all  approaches  to  or 
avenues  through  China,  it  is  their  right  to  do  so  and  none  of  our 
business  whatever.  The  white  man  does  not  own  the  universe. 
Only  fools  scare  at  the  "yellow  peril." 

We  have  long  paraded  and  pretended  to  defend  the  so-called 
Monroe  doctrine  in  America  while  flying  the  free  hooters'  flag  in 
all  other  parts  of  the  world,  and  for  one,  I  think  that  the  end 
of  that  hypocrite  business  is  nigh  at  hand.  Sauce  for  goose  is 
gander  sauce,  even  for  Mr.  Jonathan  Gander. 

But  we  must  look  a  little  at  our  national  political  humbuggery 
and  see  how  it  squares  with  truth  and  history,  with  science, 
religion,  etc. 


2i6  THE  GLOBE. 

The  portraiture  of  our  presidential  campaign  has  been  one 
of  its  most  interesting  and  prominent  features.  The  faces  of 
Roosevelt  and  Fairbanks,  and  of  Parker  and  Davis  are  as  fa- 
miliar to  most  people  as  the  figures  on  our  silver  and  paper 
dollars.  The  portraits  of  Roosevelt  and  Parker  are  before  me. 
Parker's  is  a  more  mature  face,  but  on  the  whole  a  weaker  face 
than  Roosevelt's.  Every  school  boy  knows  the  face  of  Theodore. 
The  face  and  bust  and  expression  are  those  of  a  strong  country 
athlete,  almost  those  of  a  prize  fighter.  The  chin  and  lower  face 
are  not  heavy  but  strongly  set  over  the  neck  and  shoulders  but 
always  with  an  unsatisfied  and  unsettled  look  about  the  lips 
barely  covered  with  a  good  mustache,  and  generally  the  teeth  are 
showing  like  those  of  an  angry  dog,  and  when  the  upper  lip  is 
drawn  down  a  little  to  cover  the  teeth,  the  expression  is  that 
which  I  have  mentioned,  a  scheming,  raw  young  countryman, 
ready  at  a  moment  to  blaze  into  good  fellowship  or  burn  into 
suppressed  or  outspoken  rage.  The  nose  is  straight  and  strong, 
but  the  eyes  after  the  modern  American  tendency  of  eyes,  are  too 
close  together,  and  looking  in  as  it  were,  toward  the  nose..  There 
is  no  breadth  of  vision  in  them,  no  nobleness  of  expression,  but 
they  have  a  half  shut  appearance,  like  a  pig's  eyes.  His  fore- 
head is  large  and  full  and  high,  with  hair  growing  down  toward 
the  scant  eyebrows.  Theodore's  father  had  a  much  more  in- 
tellectual forehead  and  altogether  a  nobler  and  better  face,  more 
human,  higher  principled  and  more  sincere. 

By  politics,  or  other  ancestry,  Theodore  has  the  same  poor, 
mixed  face  that  his  whole  career  has  shown.  There  is  the  father's 
tendency  to  dignified  and  persistent  nobleness  and  goodness  and 
honor  and  principle,  but  in  Theodore's  face  and  career  there  is 
no  clear  nobleness  or  goodness,  no  adherence  to  principles  of 
truth  and  honor,  but  a  possibility  of  vascillating  endlessly  into 
the  shoddy  and  shifting  politician. 

The  culture  of  the  face,  is  like  the  so-called  culture  in  his 
books  and  speeches,  only  skin  deep.  He  had  a  good  father, 
wealth  and  every  opportunity,  but  he  never  had  and  never  will 
have  a  streak  or  a  touch  of  genius,  either  of  the  literary  brand  or 
of  statesmanship.  He  never  sees  clearly  beyond  his  nose  and  he 
never  will.  Aided  by  Root,  Taft,  Wood,  Lodge  and  other  medi- 
ocre cronies,  he  has  often  planned  and  acted  with  seeming  fore- 
sightedness.     His  face,  like  all  of  his  speeches,  is  full  of  con- 


ROOSEVELT,  ROOT  &  CO.  217 

tradictions  and  possible  failures,  but  his  good  luck  is  that  of  the 
country  big  fellow  who  means  well  and  whom  everybody  takes 
to  because  they  have  not  sight  to  see  the  contradictions  of  his 
face,  or  reason  to  see  through  and  despise  the  contradictions  of 
his  speeches,  his  books  or  his  national  and  international  meas- 
ures. 

Parker,  as  we  said,  has  a  much  clearer  face,  wider  open  eyes, 
a  good  nose  and  chin  and  a  fine  mustache.  Parker's  face  is  much 
more  that  of  a  New  York  man  of  accomplished  position  and 
settled  principles  and  ways  than  Roosevelt's  ever  has  been  or  can 
be;  but  for  all  that  Roosevelt  would  by  hook  or  crook  get  the 
better  of  the  maturer  man  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  and  he  would 
have  and  will  have  hundreds  of  rascals  to  help  him,  and  he  will 
probably  get  the  better  of  him  in  the  coming  campaign.  The 
American  people,  as  a  whole,  have  grown  so  used  to  the  crooked 
wire  pulling  and  fooling  ways  of  Roosevelt  that  they  prefer  them 
every  way  to  the  more  sober  and  modest  ways  and  methods  of  a 
man  like  Parker.  Roosevelt's  crookedness  has  become  second 
nature  to  the  American  majorities.  I  respect  Parker  as  a  judge 
and  as  a  gentleman,  but  would  not  bank  or  bet  on  him  as  a  can- 
didate for  the  Presidency. 

The  two  Vice-Presidential  candidates  may  never  amount  to 
much,  but  should  the  emergency  ever  arise  it  would  be  safer,  a 
million  fold  safer  for  the  American  people  to  have  as  Chief 
Magistrate  the  old  man,  Davis  with  his  old-fashioned  notions  and 
ways  of  manhood  and  honor  than  it  would  for  them  to  have  Mr. 
Fairbanks.  The  Republican  candidate  for  Vice-President  is  a 
weak  man  who  has  always  gone  in  leading  strings,  and  he  will 
and  must  always  go  that  way  to  the  end.  There  are  thousands 
of  men  of  his  type  among  the  lawyers,  real  estate  men,  and  small 
business  men  in  the  city  of  Philadelphia,  all  very  small  men,  but 
he  and  they  are  not  worth  minding.  Nobody  is  likely  to  kill 
Roosevelt ;  he  is  not  worth  it,  and  he  will  not  die  a  natural  death 
for  another  four  years. 

So  much  for  the  personality  of  the  candidates.  As  to  the 
principles  of  their  respective  parties  and  the  records  of  their 
immediate  and  far  distant  past,  all  that  is  another  and  more 
serious  matter.  Spite  of  Judge  Parker's  hesitation  in  declaring 
his  preferences  on  the  money  question,  and  the  foolishness  and 
danger  to  his  own  party  in  declaring  those  preferences  as  and 


2i8  THE  GLOBE. 

when  he  did,  all  indicating  essential  weakness  and  pliancy  of 
actual  principles,  and  hence  a  disregard  of  the  safety  of  his  party, 
I  would  rather  a  hundred  fold  trust  Parker  with  the  Presidency 
than  trust  Roosevelt  any  longer  with  the  great  national  and 
international  questions  at  issue  in  these  days. 

Spite  of  all  the  boasting  of  the  record  of  the  Republican  party 
and  of  Roosevelt's  adherence  to  the  principles  of  that  party,  I 
cannot  help  looking  upon  Roosevelt's  Presidential  career  as  the 
career  of  an  adventurer. 

Unfortunately  nearly  all  the  old  men  of  the  party  are  dead  or 
dying,  and  the  young  bloods  have  things  their  own  way.  Hanna 
and  Quay  were  bad  enough,  but  they  were  air  brakes  of  the 
safest  kind  compared  with  the  recklessness  of  Roosevelt  and  his 
young  cronies.  Hoar  was  a  conservative  old  man,  but  never 
strong  in  his  enthusiasm  of  moral  principles,  and  though  he 
rebuked  in  the  Senate  the  high-handed  methods  of  Roosevelt,  he 
fell  into  line  before  the  last  call  homeward  that  came  to  him. 
The  same  may  be  said  of  a  few  others.  But  let  us  look  at  the 
boastings  of  the  younger  men.  Uncle  Joe  Cannon  belongs  to  the 
Vice  President  Davis'  generation  and  for  a  while,  as  Speaker  of 
the  House,  he  talked  as  any  man  in  this  land  over  sixty  years 
old,  is  very  apt  to  feel  and  talk  in  view  of  the  recent  records  of 
Roosevelt  and  the  Republican  party,  but  "Uncle  Joe"  has  been 
provided  with  honors  enough  or  the  promises  of  them  to  com- 
pensate him  for  his  partisan  antics  with  truth  and  fidelity  thereto. 
We  do  not  expect  anything  but  such  antics  of  the  younger  gen- 
eration of  men  that  Roosevelt,  Root,  Taft  and  the  new  manager 
Cortelyou  all  belong  to.  Years  ago  we  pointed  out  that  for 
some  deep  and  as  yet  uncomprehended  principle  of  national 
morality  it  is  almost  impossible  for  men  of  their  generation  to  be 
loyal  to  the  old  standards  of  truth  and  honor.  This  brings  us  to 
the  issue.  The  Republican  Convention  that  nominated  Roose- 
velt met  in  Chicago  in  June  with  Roosevelt's  old  friend  ex-Sec- 
retary Root  as  far  and  away  the  leading  character  in  that  con- 
vention. In  quoting  anything  said  by  Root  I  shall  quote  from 
the  Philadelphia  Press,  one  of  the  leading  Republican  newspapers 
in  the  country,  and  because  I  want  to  give  as  favorable  and  fair 
a  representation  of  the  Republican  management  from  Roosevelt 
down  as  it  is  possible  to  give. 

The  head  lines  of  the  first  page  of  the  Press  on  June  22nd 


ROOSEVELT,  ROOT  &  CO.  219 

were  as  follows :  Republican  Convention  Meets  Amid  Scenes 
OF  Enthusiasm.  Below  these  blazing  words  is  a  blazing,  stat- 
uesque portrait  of  Elihu  Root,  presenting  to  the  Convention 
the  record  of  the  Republican  Party.  Notice  first,  that  this 
convention  was  very  largely  a  packed  convention  of  office  holders 
or  of  persons  seeking  office,  or  who,  like  Root,  had  gratitude  to 
express  for  favors  received,  which  is  said  to  be  also  a  lively 
expectation  of  favors  to  come.  Notice  also,  and  secondly,  that 
the  enthusiasm  was  such  as  any  great  body  of  men,  pork  packers 
or  strikers,  is  sure  to  arouse  by  the  friction  of  such  meeting.  It 
is  generally  admitted  that  to  begin  and  end  with  there  was  no 
genuine  enthusiasm  for  Roosevelt,  but  that  the  destiny  of  party 
politics  made  him  the  only  available  candidate  for  the  time. 

Next  notice,  if  you  please,  that  the  blazing  portrait  of  Mr.  Root 
is  as  undignified  and  ignoble  as  are  usually  the  portraits  of  the 
orators  at  the  various  conventions  of  strikers.  Root's  face,  under 
any  pressure  of  the  necessary  suppression  of  the  truth,  will 
always  be  of  a  higher  type  than  that  of  the  best  of  our  strike 
leaders,  Sam  Parks  or  John  Mitchell,  etc.,  but  in  this  portrait, 
in  the  expression  of  the  face,  in  the  attitude  of  the  person,  in 
the  rigidity  of  the  muscles,  there  is  not  one  noble  or  manly  atti- 
tude or  expression.  It  is  the  villain  of  gambling  on  the  stage 
when  horse  racing  is  being  played  and  he  is  urging  the  crowd 
to  some  climax  of  infamy.  This  is  the  great  picture  drawn  in  a 
friendly  organ,  of  the  orator  of  that  convention,  and  the  follow- 
ing is  the  characteristic  passage  chosen  by  the  friendly  paper  to 
display  the  speech  of  the  orator : 

"Come  what  may  here — come  what  may  in  November,  God 
grant  that  those  qualities  of  brave,  true  manhood  shall  have 
honor  throughout  America,  shall  be  held  for  an  example  in  every 
home,  and  that  the  youth  of  generations  to  come  may  grow  up 
to  feel  that  it  is  better  than  wealth,  or  office,  or  power,  to  have 
the  honesty,  the  purity,  and  the  courage  of  Theodore  Roosevelt. 
(Great  applause).  Elihu  Root. 

Addressing  the  Republican  Convention." 

The  orator  is  a  college  bred  man,  has  been  trained  to  the  types 
of  eloquence  prevalent  in  these  rhetorical  days,  and  naturally 
has  at  his  command  the  catch  phrases,  expressions  and  attitudes 
of  the  so-called  orators  of  the  late  nineteenth  and  the  early  twen- 
tieth century,  and  all  this  has  a  certain  effect  on  the  ears  of 


220  THE  GLOBE, 

the  groundlings;  but  these  catch  phrases  and  trained  attitudes, 
gentlemen,  can  never  supply  or  take  the  place  of  the  real,  sincere 
and  noble  convictions  of  the  true  orator  of  any  age  or  nation 
from  Demosthenes  to  Wendell  Phillips,  and  we  propose  to  look 
a  little  into  the  truth  or  falsehood  of  this  Httle  paragraph,  because 
by  so  doing  we  can  cover  the  ground  we  have  in  mind. 

First,  notice  the  absolute  irreverence,  if  not  blasphemy  and 
daring  of  this  morally  reckless  and  untaught  man  in  his  call  upon 
God  Almighty  to  bless  the  qualities  of  a  man  like  Theodore 
Roosevelt  and  the  unspeakable  and  brazen  effrontery  of  the  man 
in  holding  up  such  vascillating  so-called  principles  of  the  hack 
politician  to  and  for  the  admiration  and  the  following  of  future 
generations. 

Why  the  only  statesmen  in  the  land  who  have  considered  the 
so-called  principles  of  Theodore  Roosevelt's  actions  as  worth 
considering  have  condemned  them  utterly  in  every  particular. 
Hoar  and  Cannon  and  others  of  Roosevelt's  own  party  in  the 
Senate  and  the  House  have  shown  that  the  actions  of  the  acci- 
dental President  usurped  in  the  executive  powers,  belonging  alike 
to  the  American  Congress  and  the  Judiciary,  and  all  this  in  times 
of  peace.  Even  children,  of  the  South,  have  pointed  out  that 
while  making  speeches  commending  the  course  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  in  fighting  and  downing  secession,  and  claiming  to  be  the 
representative  of  Lincoln,  Roosevelt,  as  President,  had  in  the 
most  subtle  but  sure  ways  encouraged  and  practically  hired  the 
merest  adventurers  in  Panama  to  secede  from  Colombia,  thus 
playing  false  to  the  most  cherished  principles  of  the  American 
union  and  aiding  at  every  point  by  the  use  of  the  American  army 
and  navy  the  absolute  violation  of  said  principles.  Every  news- 
paper in  the  country  has  charged  and  proven  that  Roosevelt, 
while  swaggering  out  his  declarations  that  the  postal  frauds 
throughout  the  land  must  be  sifted  to  the  bottom  and  the  crim- 
inals punished,  has  shifted  in  principle  and  execution  the  carry- 
ing out  of  these  declarations  so  that  the  largest  criminals  should 
go  free  and  even  unnamed  of  justice,  while  the  old  goddess  has 
stood  or  knelt  in  shame,  blindfolded  these  last  three  years.  Even 
representatives  of  the  army  and  navy  have  openly  testified  that 
Roosevelt,  in  prosecuting  the  war  with  Spain,  in  Cuba,  and  his 
representatives  in/  the  Philippines,  acted  with  indecent  haste, 
with  brutality  and  presumptive   ignorance;   and   are  these  the 


I  ROOSE  VEL  Z;  ROO  T  &  CO.  221 

principles  that  even  Elihu  Root,  young  and  smart,  and  daring 
as  he  is,  and  for  old  croney's  sake,  will  dare  hold  up  to  the 
admiration  of  future  generations  of  the  American  people  and 
urge  them  to  follow  such  leadership  of  hypocricy,  vacillation  and 
godless,  coarse  brutalism? 

Our  children  and  grandchildren  may  follow  such  leadership 
though  it  be  false  to  truth,  to  honor,  to  God,  to  manhood,  and 
I  am  inclined  to  think  that  they  will  follow  and  do  as  the  young 
leader  has  done  and  more  so,  for  I  hold  that  God  has  forsaken 
and  left  to  itself  the  hellish  and  selfish  spirit  of  the  American 
people. 

So  much  for  Roosevelt,  Root  and  that  following  of  the  com- 
pany concerned. 

The  Philadelphia  Public  Ledger  of  Sunday,  July  3d,  published 
three  pretty  good  portraits,  of  Judge  Parker,  David  B.  Hill  and 
Wm.  J.  Bryan,  with  a  single  headline  stretching  across  the  page, 
as  follows:  Who  will  Win  Democracy's  Greatest  Prize? 
On  the  lower  part  of  the  page  were  very  good  portraits  of  Mayor 
McClellan,  of  New  York ;  Judge  Gray,  of  Delaware ;  ex-Governor 
Robert  E.  Pattison,  of  Pennsylvania;  ex-President  Cleveland,  of 
New  Jersey;  Congressman  Wm.  R.  Hearst,  of  New  York;  Sen- 
ator Arthur  P.  Gorman,  of  Maryland,  and  ex-Secretary  of  State 
Olney,  of  Massachusetts.  At  this  date,  August  29th,  David 
B.  Hill,  with  the  pigheaded  bluntness  characteristic  of  his  whole 
career,  announces  his  withdrawal  from  all  national  and  State 
politics,  and  poor  Pattison,  having  been  cheated  out  of  his  for- 
tune by  a  smarter  Democrat  than  himself,  died  the  other  day  in 
comparative  poverty,  that  is,  for  a  successful  politician. 

With  the  exception  of  Cleveland,  whom  I  have  long  despised 
for  his  falseness  to  his  own  and  his  party's  principles,  either  one 
of  these  men  has  always  displayed  more  patriotism  and  prin- 
ciple in  a  day  than  Theodore  Roosevelt  has  displayed  or  can 
display  in  a  life  time.  But  Judge  Parker  won  the  prize  of  the 
nomination  only  to  lose  it  at  the  polls,  as  is  most  likely. 

Of  all  the  men  before  the  Democratic  Convention,  and  of  all 
the  men  in  that  convention,  Wm.  J.  Bryan,  though  constantly 
abused  and  ridiculed  by  the  Republican  press  and  by  many  Dem- 
ocratic organs,  has,  first  and  last  and  all  the  time,  the  clearest, 
most  upright,  the  ablest,  most  sincere,  the  strongest  and  most 
persistent  and  consistent  face,  the  most  renowned  and  honorable 


222  THE  GLOBE. 

and  stainless  record  as  his  speeches  show  him  to  be  the  ablest 
and  most  comprehensive  statesman  in  the  United  States  to-day. 
And  spite  of  the  petty  and  contemptible  flings  of  the  redheaded 
and  redhanded  reporters  of  the  Press,  which  constantly  belittled 
Bryan  throughout  that  convention,  I  consider  that  the  editor  of 
the  Philadelphia  Press,  a  gentleman  of  unusual  fairmindedness 
for  an  editor,  did  himself  and  his  paper  an  honor  when  he  put 
the  leading  editorial  of  the  Press  of  July  12th  into  his  Republi- 
can paper,  and  nobody  doubts  Hon.  Charles  Emory  Smith's  Re- 
publicanism, with  this  heading,  '*Mr.  Bryan  still  a  power,"  be- 
ginning thusly:  "The  only  man  who  emerged  from  the  St.  Louis 
Convention  with  increased  reputation  was  William  Jennings 
Bryan.  Much  as  we  m.ay  deplore  this  fact,  candor  and  fairness 
compel  its  acknowledgment.  Of  the  other  figures  who  partici- 
pated some  proved  that  they  were  essentially  parochial;  some 
demonstrated  that,  however  capable  in  other  fields,  they  were 
not  fitted  for  the  vast  and  trying  arena  of  a  national  convention  ; 
and  some  forfeited  opportunity  by  lack  of  perception  and  cour- 
age. Not.  one,  not  Williams,  not  Clark,  not  Bailey,  added  a 
single  inch  to  his  stature. 

"Mr.  Bryan  alone  among  all  the  conspicuous  actors  on  the 
stage  of  the  convention  was  equal  to  his  role  and  even  gave  it 
new  distinction.     And  a  most  difficult  role  it  was." 

I  am  not  a  Democrat ;  I  have  never  voted  a  Democratic  ticket, 
and  I  never  expect  to.  I  am  a  Republican  of  the  Republicans, 
believing  in  a  strong  central  and  national  government,  and  I  am 
not  squeamish  about  the  Constitution,  which  I  conceive  of  as  a 
useless  piece  of  old  furniture  that,  like  some  of  our  warships, 
cost  more  to  move  about  and  keep  in  repair  than  they  are  or  ever 
will  be  worth.  I  at  first  believed  in  Theodore  Roosevelt  for  his 
father's  sake,  and  his  own  sake,  but  when  it  comes  to  swallowing 
such  utter  stuff  as  Mr.  Root  commends  to  the  appetite  of  the 
American  people,  I  will  take  to  the  woods  and  to  prayers  and 
leave  such  dogs  vomit  of  the  devils  of  falsehood  alone. 

This  is  but  a  brief  utterance  of  what  I  would  have  said  with 
more  elaborateness  had  I  the  strength  of  a  year  ago,  and  which 
I  hope  yet  to  have  again  one  of  these  days. 

William  Henry  Thorne. 


SATOLLI'S  MISSION  TO  THE  UNITED  STATES.        223 

SATOLLl'S  MISSION  TO  THE  UNITED  STATES. 


His  Eminence  Francis  Joseph  Satolli,  ''Cardinal  Bishop  of 
Fhascati,  Patron  of  S.  Maria  in  AracoeH,  Prefect  of  the  Congre- 
gation of  Studies,  Protector  of  CathoHc  University  of  America, 
and  Arch-Priest  of  S.  Giovanni  in  Laterano,"  arrived  at  New 
York  on  or  about  June  2nd.  A  great  deal  of  speculation  has 
been  indulged  in  as  to  the  meaning  of  his  coming  at  this  time, 
whether  he  has  a  mission  or  not,  etc.,  etc  The  speculation  is 
increased  by  the  fact  that  His  Eminence  is  now  a  Cardinal  in 
curia,  one  who  belongs  to  the  Roman  Court.  Yet  unprecedented 
as  this  fact  may  be,  nevertheless,  as  His  Eminence  is  reported  to 
have  said  in  explanation,  these  are  the  days  of  unprecedented 
things  generally.  The  first  public  act  of  His  Eminence  has  been 
a  visit  to  the  President  of  the  United  States  conveying  to  him  a 
special  message  from  the  new  Pontiff.  This  visit  is  likewise 
unusual,  since  during  his  residence  in  Washington  as  the  first 
Apostolic  Delegate,  Cardinal  Satolli  did  not  visit  the  White 
House.  Beyond  assisting  at  the  annual  commencement  exer- 
cises of  Notre  Dame  University,  and  also  assisting  at  the  nuptials 
of  the  Philadelphia-Millionaire-Contractor-Maloney's  daughter 
at  Spring  Lake,  N.  J.,  and  visiting  and  being  the  guest  of  the 
Louisiana  Exposition  at  St.  Louis,  Cardinal  Satolli's  program 
has  not  been  given  out.  It  is  stated,  however,  that  he  will  renew 
the  acquaintance  of  the  many  friends  which  he  met  during  the 
years  of  his  sojourn  at  Washington,  D.  C,  as  First  Apostolic 
Delegate. 

There  is,  however,  a  persistent  suspicion  and  steady  rumor, 
neither  of  which  will  down,  to  the  effect  that  Cardinal  Satolli's 
presence  at  this  time  is  more  than  a  mere  visit,  that  it  is  in  fact 
a  special  mission.     "Che  lo  sa." 

The  personality  of  His  Eminence,  aside  from  the  fact  of  a  visit 
or  a  mission,  embodies  no  little  history  of  contemporary  men  and 
things  ecclesiastical.  With  the  late  Pope,  he  was  on  terms  of 
closest  friendship  from  his  early  youth  upwards.  Pope  Leo 
early  took  him  in  hand,  natives  as  they  both  were  of  Carpineto. 
At  first  Cardinal  Satolli  was  intended  for  the  Benedictine  Order. 
His  protector.  Pope  Leo,  took  him  from  the  great  Benedictine 
Monastic  School  at  Monte  Cassino  and  placed  him  in  the  College 


224  THE  GLOBE. 

of  Noble  Ecclesiastics  at  Rome  in  order  to  fit  him  for  a  career 
in  the  public  service  of  the  Church.  Here  his  Eminence  devel- 
oped that  talent  for  profound  philosophic  studies  in  which  he 
has  since  been  such  a  master.  Pope  Leo,  it  will  be  recalled,  was 
a  patron  and  admirer  of  St.  Thomas  and  Scholastic  Philosophy. 
He  must  have  rejoiced  to  see  his  protege  far  outstrip  himself 
in  the  study  of  the  teachings  of  the  Angelic  Doctor.  Pope  Leo 
rewarded  him  early  in  his  Professorial  career  by  assigning  him 
the  Chair  in  Philosophy  and  Scholastic  Theology  in  one  of  the 
great  Universities  of  the  Eternal  City.  Later  Pope  Leo  pro- 
moted him  to  the  dignity  of  the  Episcopate  and  still  later  chose 
him  to  be  the  representative  at  the  Catholic  Centenary  of  the 
American  Hierarchy  in  1891  and  the  opening  of  the  Catholic 
University  at  Washington,  D.  C,  and  again  to  be  its  represen- 
tative to  the  Columbian  Exposition  at  Chicago  in  1893. 

Pope  Leo,  it  now  seems,  destined  his  Eminence  for  still  higher 
honors,  viz.,  for  the  Cardinalate.  It  was  told  the  writer  in  Rome 
that  his  Eminence  had  not  an  inheritance,  and  so  had  not  an 
adequate  income  for  the  proper  maintenance  of  such  an  exalted 
honor.  Pope  Leo  chose  him  therefore  for  a  Mission  to  the 
United  States  for  the  purpose,  among  other  things,  of,  incident- 
ally, enabling  him  to  acquire  a  proper  competency.  Accordingly 
his  Eminence  was  appointed  on  the  above  mentioned  missions 
and  later  on  made  the  first  American  Apostolic  Delegate,  with 
his  residence  at  Washington,  D.  C. 

For  years  and  years,  even  in  Pius  IXth's  time,  Rome  had 
wished  to  appoint  an  Apostolic  Delegate  permanently  in  the 
United  States.  The  Holy  See  was  disuaded  by  the  representa- 
tions made  from  time  to  time  by  the  Bishops.  Rome  at  last  took 
the  "Bull  by  the  horns,"  so  to  say. 

Taking  the  advantage  of  the  torn-up  and  divided  conditions 
produced  by  the  school  controversy,  Pope  Leo  inaugurated 
Rome's  long-cherished  plan  to  select  and  appoint  a  Delegate  to 
the  United  States.  Ostensibly  Cardinal  Satolli  was  sent  upon 
as  temporary  Delegate  with  a  special  mission,  viz.,  the  promul- 
gation of  the  "ToLERARi  potest''  decision  on  the  School  ques- 
tion. Archbishop  Ireland  was  instrumental  in  bringing  Cardinal 
Satolli  for  this  promulgation,  but  it  is  fair  to  say,  that  even 
he  did  not  bargain  for  the  Delegate  doing  more  than  this.  Be- 
sides a  couple  special  cases,  viz.,  the  case  of  Dr.  McGlynn  and 


I 


SATOLLI'S  MISSION  TO  THE  UNITED  STATES.         225 

that   of   Fr.    Kozlowski,   the   leader   in   the   then   long-standing 
Detroit  Polish  controvery,  were  delegated  by  the  Holy  See  to 
him  with  supreme  authority  to  settle  the  same.     In  both  of  these 
principle  and   sound   law  were  brought  to  bear,   and   Cardinal 
Satolli   settled  both   favorably  to  the    priests.     The    McGlynn 
matter  soon  being  a  closed  incident  to  the  satisfaction  of  all, 
and  the  Polish  troubles  of  Detroit  when  settled  by  the  laws  of 
the  Church,  have  ever  since  given  no  trouble.     These  matters 
gave  such  promise   for  the  ''Reign  of  Law"  in  the  American 
Church  that  widespread  satisfaction  was  felt  among  the  clergy. 
Tentatively  at  first,  feeling  his  way  as  its  Delegate,  finally  Rome 
decided   to  make  the   Delegation  at   Washington  a  permanent 
feature  of  the  American  church.     Oh !  wasn't  there  a  howl  and 
a  growl  in  certain  quarters !     Cardinal  Satolli  pursued  the  even 
tenor  of  his  way.     He  proceeded  in  cases  that  came  before  him 
to  make  all  concerned  realize  that  before  the  Canons  there  was  no 
distinction  of  persons.     Law  and  evidence,  not  arbitrariness,  sur- 
mise and  a  priori  conclusions  in  those  early  cases  were  paramount. 
To  have  been  the  very  first  official  in  the  American  Church  to 
stand  for  the  ''Reign  of  Law"  is  indeed  a  unique  distinction.    That 
distinction  beyond  question  is  the   Most   Rev.   Francis  Joseph 
Satolli's.     To  have  done  so  much  to  make  that  "Reign  of  Law" 
a  permanent  institution  has,  despite  everything  else,  made  the 
memory  of  the  First  Apostolic  Delegate  one  long  to  be  cherished 
by  the  intelligent  and  law-loving  ecclesiastics  of  the  United  States. 
May  we  not  apply  to  his  Eminence  in  this  respect  the  words 
of  Lord  Brougham :  "It  was  the  boast  of  Augustus  that  he  found 
Rome  of  brick  and  left  it  of  marble.     But  how  much  nobler 
shall  be  the  sovereign's  boast  when  he  shall  have  it  to  say,  that 
he  found  law  dear  and  left  it  cheap;  found  it  a  sealed  book,  left 
it  a  living  letter;  found  it  the  patrimony  of  the  rich,  left  it  the 
inheritance  of  the  poor;  found  it  the  two-edged  sword  of  craft 
and  oppression,  and  left  it  the  staff  of  honesty  and  the  shield  of 
innocence." 

That  was  Cardinal  Satolli's  mission  to  the  United  States.  It 
was  somewhat  frustrated  by  intrigues.  What  he  had  inaugurated 
was  indeed  a  menace  to  intrenched,  long-settled  arbitrariness  and 
exaggerated  un-Canonical  ideas  of  authority.  While  it  is  true 
that  obedience  to  authority  is  the  sheet  anchor  of  Catholic  life 
and  practise,  authority  is  principle,  righteousness,  and  obedience 


226  THE  GLOBE, 

is  Canonical.  When  "authority"  means  more  than  the  Decalogue 
of  Mt.  Sinai  and  the  Sacred  Canons  of  the  Church,  and  when 
it  is  invoked  to  sanction  such  excess  it  should  not  stand.  Obedi- 
ence in  such  a  case  is  devoid  of  merit.  The  sentiment  "authority 
right  or  wrong"  is  a  pirate  sentiment,  to  be  drunk  down  only  by 
buccaneers  in  human  blood  and  out  of  hollow  skulls  for  drinking 
cups.  As  well  propose,  says  a  certain  writer,  the  pledge  "My 
wife,  alike,  whether  chaste  spouse  and  mother  or  degraded 
strumpet." 

Influence,  nevertheless,  was  brought  to  bear  upon  Propaganda, 
under  whose  jurisdiction  the  Church  in  the  United  States  is  at 
present.  A  permanent  Delegation  at  Washington,  with  appel- 
late jurisdiction  to  which  the  clergy  may  have  the  right  of, 
direct  appeal,  though  much  to  be  desired,  was  nevertheless  con- 
sidered a  menace.  Besides  it  might  gradually  bring  about  the 
autonomy  of  the  American  Church  and  thus  place  it  under  full 
Canon  law  directly  subject  to  the  Pope.  This  would  carny  with 
it  loss  of  prestige  and  patronage  for  Propaganda  and  at  the 
time  restrict  the  Episcopa  powers  to  those  under  the  Canons  of 
the  Church.  A  sort  of  Herod  and  Pilate  alliance  was  the  result. 
The  Apostolic  Delegate's  powers  and  position  were  clipped  to 
the  minimum.  The  Delegate,  in  Mgr.  Martinelli's  time  had  no 
appellant  jurisdiction,  was  a  wholly  extra-judicial  institution, 
and  in  the  term  of  his  successor  has  become  a  veritable  Canonon" 
ical  non-entity.  The  result  has  been  that  during  the  past  four 
or  five  years  Rome  has  been  fairly  deluged  with  the  direct  appeals 
and  "Lamentations  cleri"  to  a  degree  similar  to  that  of  ante- 
Delegation  days.  Few  priests  to-day  think  of  obtaining  any 
direction  or  relief  canonically  elsewhere  than  at  Rome. 

Cardinal  Satolli  left  this  country  with  some  idea  of  this  inevi- 
table result.  He  had  a  full  and  lively  knowledge  of  the  essential 
need,  ecclesiastically,  of  the  Church  in  America,  viz.,  Law,  Canon 
law  without  fear  or  favor.  He  soon  was  in  position  at  Rome  to 
aid  in  securing  this  result;  he  became  a  Cardinal  in  curia  and 
one  of  the  Consultors  of  Propaganda.  To  neutralize  his  influence 
stories  were  given  out  in  abundance  and  circulated.  These 
stories  implied  the  charges  of  venality,  bribery,  bribe-taking, 
simony ! ! !  We  recall  reading  an  article  in  New  York  Sun 
wherein  it  was  stated  on  certain  Ecclesiastical  authority  that  the 
Apostolic  Delegate  came  to  the  United  States  four  years  pre- 


SATOLLPS  MISSION  10  THE  UNITED  STATES.         227 

viously  with  comparatively  no  money  and  took  with  him  from 
the  country  some  forty-five  thousand  dollars.  From  time  to 
time  communications  setting  forth  similar  allegations  have  ap- 
peared in  other  papers,  all  emanating  from  the  same  inimical 
spirit,  no  doubt.  In  fact,  so  widely  disseminated  were  these 
groundless  statements,  that  they  eventually  crossed  the  Atlantic 
and  misled  many.  The  late  St.  George  Mivart,  of  England, 
feeling  that  Cardinal  SatolH,  at  the  time  in  Rome  a  Cardinal  in 
curia,  had  perhaps  been  indirectly  a  cause  for  the  condemnation 
of  one  of  his  articles,  took  occasion  to  use  this  weapon  imported 
from  America  and  said,  "If  my  information  is  correct,  the  nat- 
ural science  to  which  Cardinal  Satolli  is  most  devoted  is  Miner- 
alogy, and  especially  Metallurgy,  he  having  made  in  the  United 
States  a  very  large  collection  of  specimens  in  the  form  of 
dollars." 

In  this  connection,  the  writer  recalls  having  replied  to  the 
President  of  one  of  our  American  Theological  Seminaries,  who 
had  repeated  some  of  these  referred-to  aspersions  in  his  pres- 
ence, "What  a  number  then  there  must  be  of  unprincipled,  mean, 
time-servers  and  bribe-givers  in  the  United  States,  from  those 
who  are  said  to  send  princely  honorarii  to  Rome  to  those  who 
have  given  these  alleged  offerings  for  a  purpose?  Father,  I  can 
readily  conceive  and  explain  how  money  gratuities  and  compli- 
mentary offerings  may  be  accepted,  but  the  giving  of  such,  espe- 
cially in  undue  amount  for  motives  and  ways  that  are  dark  and 
devious,  for  the  sake  of  currying  favor,  that  is  downright  bribery, 
and  I  can  see  no  explanation  of  extenuation  for  it.  The  less  said, 
therefore,  as  to  what  was  thus  given,  the  better  for  the  public's 
idea  of  men  in  general.  It  is  a  two-edged  word,  instead  of 
hurting  the  one  maligned,  fatally  wounds  those  who  use  the- 
weapon."  The  good  President  admitted  the  cogency  of  the  reas- 
oning, and  said  that  he  had  not  adverted  to  this  view  before. 

There  was  system  in  the  giving  out  of  such  allegations  and  the- 
creating  of  such  an  opinion.  Thus  aspersed,  his  possible  influ- 
ence as  a  Cardinal  in  curia  would  be  impaired,  and  that  was  the 
point  of  attack  precisely.  Especially  when  it  was  question  of  a 
successor  to  the  late  Cardinal  Pedochowski  as  Prefect  of  Prop- 
aganda it  became  manifest  that  there  was  serious  opposition  to 
the  late  Pope  promoting  to  that  position  the  Cardinal  of  his  first 
choice,  viz.,  Cardinal  Satolli.     So  powerful  indeed  was  the  oppo- 


228  THE  GLOBE, 

sition  that  a  compromise  on  Cardinal  Satolli's  closest  and  confi- 
dential friend  was  determined  upon,  viz.,  Cardinal  Gotti.  Having 
failed  to  provide  position  for  his  protege,  one  of  the  last  public 
acts  of  Pope  Leo  was  to  promote  Cardinal  Satolli  to  one  of  the 
seven  Suburban  Sees  of  Rome,  viz.,  the  Bishopric  of  Frascati, 
carrying  with  it  a  grand  Benifice  for  life.  Previously,  however, 
Pope  Leo  had  elevated  Cardinal  Satolli  to  the  position  of  head- 
Canon  or  Arch-Priest  of  St.  John  Lateran.  It  is  in  this  basilica 
that  Pope  Leo  XIII  decided  to  erect  his  mortuary  Chapel  where 
his  remains  are  to  be  transferred  next  year  and  repose  per- 
manently. 

One  thing  certain,  although  losing  out  as  to  succeeding  Car- 
dinal Ledochowski  in  the  Prefectship  of  Propaganda,  no  one 
in  Rome,  outside  the  Pope,  continued  up  to  the  very  hour  of 
Pope  Leo's  death,  to  have  more  interest  in  or  authority  over 
American  Church  affairs  than  Cardinal  Satolli.  To  him  is  admit- 
tedly due  the  appointments  of  Archbishop  Farley,  of  New  York ; 
Archbishop  Quigley,  of  Chicago;  Archbishop  Harty,  of  Manila, 
.and,  too.  Right  Rev.  Mgr.  O'Connell  as  Rector  of  the  Catholic 
University;  and  it,  too,  may  be  said  that  upon  his  tacit  approval 
was  due  some  time  ago  the  appointment  of  Archbishop  Keene, 
of  Dubuque. 

Admittedly  influential  as  was  Cardinal  Satolli  with  the  late 
Leo  XIII,  be  it  known  that  he  is  all  but  omnipotent  with  the 
present  Pontiff,  Pius  X.     It  is  fairly  certain  that  no  Cardinal  in 
Rome  at  all  rivals  Cardinal  Satolli  in  this  particular.     During 
the  Conclave  last  August,  it  was  the  general  talk  in  well-informed 
ecclesiastical  circles  at  Rome,  that  Cardinal  Satolli  took  a  leading 
part  in  the  proceedings  of  the  Conclave.     He  entered  the  Con- 
clave more  or  less  committed  to  the  candidacy  of  Cardinal  Gotti. 
The  second  Scrutazion  made  it  evident  that  none  of  the  candi- 
dates could  be  elected.    Therefore  Cardinal  Satolli  advocated  the 
election  of  Cardinal  Sarto,  the  Patriarch  of  Venice.    The  entire 
vote  of  Cardinal  Gotti  at  once  went  to  those,  five  it  seems,  cast 
on  the  first  Scrutazion  for  Cardinal  Satolli  took  the  position 
for  this  advocacy  that  for  twenty-five  years  we  had  a  Pontiff 
whose  specialty  was  the  political  side  of  the  Church,  that  now 
we  need  a  Pontiff  for  the  religious,  the  interior  life  and  consti- 
tution of  the  Church,  and  that  the  Patriarch  of  Venice  embodied 
this  view.    He  therefore  advocated  and  strenuously  worked  in 


SATOLLPS  MISSION  TO  THE  UNITED  STATES.  229 

the  Conclave  for  Cardinal  Sarto's  election.  On  the  morning  of 
Cardinal  Sarto's  election  Cardinal  Satolli  left  the  cell  of  the 
former  at  or  about  two  o'clock  in  the  morning,  having  spent 
the  night  urging  upon  him  the  duty  of  accepting  the  election, 
sure  to  come  at  the  next  Scrutazioni.  Cardinal  Satolli  left  Car- 
dinal Sarto  buried  in  tears  and  embarrassed  over  the  inevitable 
election  the  morrow  was  to  bring,  and  of  which  Cardinal  Satolli 
was  the  beginner  and  consummator. 

It  is  no  exaggeration  then  to  say  that  Cardinal  Satolli  is  all 
but  omnipotent  with  Pope  Pius  X,  and  that  the  Holy  Father  looks 
to  him  to  aid  in  bearing  the  burden  of  the  sublime  dignity  he 
was  thus  the  occasion  of  placing  upon  him.  Cardinal  Satolli  it 
was,  whom  Pope  Pius  X  chose  to  consecrate  his  successor  in  the 
See  of  Venice.  He  was  at  first  mentioned  for  the  Secretary- 
ship of  State  in  succession  to  the  distinguished  Cardinal  Ram- 
polla,  but  having  no  particular  taste  for  affairs  diplomatic  and 
political,  he  declined.  Cardinal  Satolli's  tastes  run  more  to  the 
public  law  and  Constitution  of  the  Church  and  her  Sacred 
Canons.  It  is  therefore  providential  that  he  holds  such  towering 
prestige  with  the  new  Pontiff. 

The  new  Pontiff  appears  to  be  bent  upon  making  the  common 
law  of  the  Church  being  made  general  in  all  countries.  This  is 
evidenced  in  his  "Motu  proprio'''  providing  for  the  codification 
of  the  Canon  Law,  its  reduction  to  a  code,  system  or  digest  of 
the  laws  of  the  Church  and  their  application  to  all  the  parts  of 
Christendom.  Rev.  Benjamin  De  Costa,  who  in  his  72nd  year 
was  ordained  to  the  Priesthood  last  November,  said  on  his  re- 
turn recently  from  Rome,  "Pope  Pius  X  is  about  to  enter  on  a 
work  that  has  never  been  attempted  before  by  the  Catholic 
Church,  that  is  the  official  visitation  by  representatives  of  the 
Vatican  of  all  the  Dioceses  of  the  Church  universal.  Each 
priest  will  be  required  to  give  the  record  of  his  parish  and  each 
Bishop  the  record  of  his  Diocese  down  to  the  minutest  details, 
and  each  record  will  be  put  into  print.  When  the  proposition 
was  first  suggested,  the  Cardinals  said  it  was  impossible.  The 
Pope  said,  'Go  ahead!'  The  first  visitations  will  be  made  in 
Italy.  The  visitors  are  commanded  to  accept  no  invitations  to 
social  functions,  but  to  confine  themselves  to  work." 

In  this  connection  it  is  well  to  observe  that  in  our  day  civil 
society  has  undergone  great  changes.    Canon  law  must  not  lose 


230  THE  GLOBE. 

any  of  its  mild  force  of  effective  suavity.     That  its  application 
to  civil  society  be  made  more  and  more  effective  it  must  be  con- 
siderably modified  in  order  that  it  chime  in  and  harmonize  the 
better  with  the  prevalent  conditions  in  the  world  of  to-day.     The 
Vatican  Council  was  disposed  to  undertake  this  revision  of  the 
general  Canon  law.     In  fact,  a  Commission  of  Canonists,   learned 
and  expert  Theologians,  was  ordered  to  be  appointed  to  study  and 
collaborate  a  new  "Corpus  Juris  Canonici/'    This  would  elim- 
inate all  that  was  obsolete  and  not  in  harmony  with  present  con- 
ditions.    It  was  provided  that  the  result  of  this  Commission's 
labors  be  submitted  for  the  discussion  and  sanction  of  the  Council, 
or  if  this  was  not  possible,  that  it  be  submitted  at  some  future 
Council.     Bishop   Martin,   of   Paderborn,   mentions   this   in   his 
"Work  of  the  Vatican  Council."     It  would  seem  Pius  X  has 
not  forgotten  that  determination  of  the  Vatican  Council.     Now 
that  he  is  Pope,  he  seems  to  take  it  as  his  duty  to  carry  out  that 
provision   of   the   Council.     God   speed   him.     The   exercise   of 
Jurisdiction,  uniformity,  completely,  universally,  is  a  much  to  be 
desired   desideratum.     Should  the  Holy   Father   enact  a   Hier- 
archical or  Ecclesiastical  Code  the  Canons  would  be  drawn  up 
in  the  form  of  simple,  concise,  clear  formulas;  their  number 
would  be  as   far  as   possible   restricted.     Antiquated   censures, 
reservations   and   impediments   are   so   much   old    lumber,   and 
to-day  are  practically  not  in  force;  they  are  honored  far  more  in 
the  breach  than  in  the  observance,  and  if  they  exist,  they  exist 
only  to  be   dispensed   from.     Laws   which   are   constantly   dis- 
pensed by  this  very  fact  are  of   no   longer   application.     The 
rights,  therefore,  obligations  and  duties  of  Bishops,  the  relative 
degrees  of  the  Hierarchy  and  the  regimen  of  the  clergy  and  the 
faithful  will  be  laid  down  in  this  Code.     Thus  could  be  issued 
in  one  compact  and  handy  volume  the  Digest  of  all  Ecclesiastical 
laws,  which  all  would  the  more  freely  observe,  as  they  could  the 
more  readily  and  easily  learn. 

It  is  providential  then  that  Cardinal  Satolli  holds  the  prestige 
that  he  does  with  the  new  Pontiff.  With  a  Pontiff  of  such  evi- 
dent spirit  of  law,  and  with  such  a  prelate  as  Cardinal  Satolli, 
standing  as  he  does  for  law  and  order  Canonical  in  the  Church 
of  the  United  States,  already  the  impetus  is  being  felt.  It  goes 
without  the  saying  the  Cardinal  has  indeed  a  Mission  to  the 
United  States. 


SATOLLPS  MISSION  TO  THE  UNITED  STATES.  231 

That  mission  is  the  inauguration  and  continuance  of  the  reign 
of  law.  Law,  the  Sacred  Canons  are  the  best  protection  for  the 
highest  and  for  the  humblest  in  God's  Church.  The  ostensible 
object  of  Cardinal  Satolli's  coming  may  be  the  Louisiana  Ex- 
position. May  it  not  also  be  the  inauguration  of  the  work  good 
Dr.  De  Costa  speaks  of?  May  it  not  be,  a  few  months  hence, 
that  he  may  announce  a  word  from  Rome  relative  to  a  Fourth 
Council  of  Baltimore?  The  Globe  in  an  article  some  time  ago, 
"The  Fourth  Plenary  Council"  (Vol.  XI,  No.  4),  said  among 
other  things,  "Rt.  Rev.  Bishop  John  J.  Glennon  (now  Arch- 
bishop of  St.  Louis,  whose  guest  Cardinal  Satolli  is  during  his 
visit  to  St.  Louis),  then  recently  returned  from  Rome,  was 
quoted  in  the  Baltimore  Sun  paper  to  have  written  a  personal 
friend  in  Washington,  D.  C,  that  "the  authorities  of  the  Propa- 
ganda are  considering  the  feasibility  of  convening  a  general 
council  of  the  prelates  at  Baltimore."  Also  it  was  stated  that 
in  one  of  his  interviews  with  the  Cardinal  Prefect  of  Propaganda 
that  dignitary  emphasized  the  need  of  such  a  Plenary  Council 
at  a  no  distant  day,  as  then  nearly  16  years  (now  20  years)  have 
elapsed  since  the  last  Council.  It  is  known  that  among  other 
matters  Archbishop  Farley's  visit  to  Rome  last  January  had  for 
its  purpose  the  Hierarchy's  representation  to  hold  back  the  con- 
vening of  the  Fourth  Council. 

As  "we  don't  need  a  house  to  fall  upon  us  in  order  to  tumble" 
all  the  foregoing  is  evidence  of  "something  doing."  Cardinal 
Satolli  has  a  Mission  and  one  fraught  with  results  for  the  Amer- 
ican church.  The  Apostolic  Delegate  Falconio  has  gone  to 
Rome.  A  press  cablegram  to-day  (June  11)  states  "There  is  a 
possibility  that  Archbishop  Falconio,  Apostolic  Delegate  at 
Washington,  will  not  return  to  his  post.  He  says  his  work  in 
America  is  to  be  neutralized  because  of  intrigues  at  Rome."  It 
was  known  at  the  time  of  his  nomination  or  probable  nomina- 
tion three  years  ago,  that  an  endeavor  had  been  made  to  head 
off  that  nomination  at  Rome.  The  fact  of  his  having  been 
years  before  secretary  to  or  on  the  staff  of  a  bishop  of  Har"bot 
Grace,  N.  F.,  prejudiced  his  appointment  with  those  who  recalled 
some  incident  of  that  period;  especially  his  thorough-going 
rounding  up  of  some  Church  men  in  Canada  made  it  undesirable 
that  he  succeed  the  paternal  Martinelli. 


232 


THE  GLOBE. 


His  whole  term  at  Washington  seems  to  have  been  "feazed" 
by  some  power  behind  the  scenes.  Likely  he  is  disgusted  with 
the  role  of  being  a  sort  of  Canonical  nonentity,  not  to  say 
"stuffed-club,"  and  has  resigned.  His  administration  has  been 
NIL  so  far  as  the  priests  of  this  country  are  concerned.  Car- 
dinal Satolli's  coming  and  Mgr.  Falconio's  going  and  now  the 
announcement  of  his  not  going  to  return  emphasize  the  fact 
that  Cardinal  Satolli  is  here  for  business,  that  there  is  an  evident 
crisis  in  the  Church  of  the  United  States.  Law,  order,  and 
Canon  law  will  be  the  outcome  of  it,  and  therefore  we  welcome 
the  crisis.  We  welcome  the  precursor  of  the  crisis.  Success  to 
the  Cardinal,  his  Eminence  Most  Reverend  Francis  Joseph 
Satolli !  "May  the  Lord  preserve  him,  and  prolong  his  life,  and 
make  him  happy  upon  earth  and  deliver  him  not  up  to  the  will 
of  his  enemies."  Humphrey  Ward. 


THE  SAGE'S  WORD. 


("To  a  good  man,  neither  in  life  nor  in  death  can  any  evil 

come." — Socrates. ) 
To  God  there  is  no  failure  nor  mischance 

And  never  can  His  purpose  thwarted  be. 
And  they  who  falter  or  advance 

Alike  are  held  in  His  Eternity; 
And  all  as  one  are  those  who  joy  or  weep; 

The  sweet  good  can  no  evil  keep. 

The  accident  is  still  His  law. 

His  vastness  gives  and  takes  our  breath, 
In  all  the  universe  there  is  no  flaw, 

A  larger  life  enfolds  our  little  death. 
Tho'  as  ye  sow,  my  love,  ye  reap; 

The  sweet  good  will  no  evil  keep. 

Ah,  tearful  one !    Ye  somehow  do  believe 

That  there  is  balm  for  wounds  of  those  who  mourn, 

The  Soul,  that  hath  the  power  to  grieve, 
Is  finer  than  its  fitful  mood  forlorn. 

So  weary  brain,  be  still  and  go  to  sleep ; 
The  sweet  good  can  no  evil  keep. 


WORLD-CHANGES  OF  HALF  A  CENTURY.  233 

There  is  a  light  whose  beams  are  pure  and  whole, 

Afar  in  space,  ultimate  of  heaven. 
In  man  on  earth,  Infinity  of  Soul; 

Distant  or  near,  the  granite  dark  is  riven. 
Oh,  breaking  heart!  the  sage's  word  is  deep; 

The  sweet  good  can  no  evil  keep. 

Edward  E.  Cothran. 


WORLD-CHANGES  OF  HALF  A  CENTURY. 


To  an  elderly  person,  educated  in  the  schools  of  fifty  years 
ago,  modern  methods  and  processes  of  instruction  seem  like  bits 
out  of  a  new  world.  To  be  sure,  the  eternal  verities  change  not. 
Two  and  two  still  make  four  and  the  old  relations  still  subsist, 
as  between  lines,  arcs  and  angles.  Homer  still  gives  poetic  vis- 
ions and  Horace  expounds  the  Art  thereof.  This  to  successive 
generations,  our  own  simply  included.  Before  us  the  eternal 
truth  shone,  as  at  the  beginning;  after  us,  it  will  go  on  shining. 

Yet,  in  some  directions,  it  does  burst  upon  us  with  fresher 
light,  like  the  green  and  red  stars  found  by  modern  astronomers. 
Science  opens  new  fields,  its  instruments  show  more  delicacy  and 
precision,  its  text-books  bring  to  the  student  wonderful  infor- 
mation, facts  formerly  unheard  of  being  brought  to  bear  on 
theories  just  as  amazing. 

But,  to-day,  we  will  concern  ourselves  with  one  thing  only, 
one  small  portion  of  it  all,  the  matter  of  Geography — a  simple 
study,  comparatively  speaking,  pursued  in  the  lower  schools. 
How  many  changes  have  come  about,  even  here — in  modes  of 
study  and  of  teaching — together  with  equally  important  changes 
in  all  maps  which  portray  the  earth. 

These  numerous  changes  in  the  depicting  and  description  of 
Mother  Earth  come,  in  many  cases,  from  more  exact  knowledge 
of  her,  as  from  better  measurements  of  height  on  her  mountains, 
of  depth  in  her  seas.  In  others,  they  spring  from  new  explora- 
tions of  her  less  frequented  countries.  The  fabulous  Mountains 
of  the  Moon  have  disappeared  from  inland  Africa,  for  instance, 
giving  place  to  realities  born  of  knowledge.  Political  changes, 
brought  about  by  wars  or  domestic  uprisings  or  else  by  peace- 


234  THE  GLOBE. 

able  arrangements  of  purchase,  have  altered  the  boundaries  of 
nations,  transferring  the  territory  of  one,  or  portions  of  it,  to 
another  near-by  or  perhaps  far  away. 

In  all  these  cases  the  maps,  in  their  variations  through  the 
years,  mark  national  epochs  and  national  changes  fraught  with 
profound  significance.  What  more  grievous  than  the  Partition 
of  Poland?  What  more  surprising  and  questionable  than  the 
expansion  of  the  United  States? 

It  may  not  be  without  interest  to  recall  some  of  the  stupendous 
changes  which  have  modified  our  atlases  within  the  last  fifty 
years. 

The  three  continents  which  show  the  greatest  changes  are 
those  of  Europe,  Africa  and  North  America.  South  America 
presents  few  modifications.  Patagonia  has  been  obliterated,  and 
Chile  and  Argentine  now  extend  respectively  to  the  southern- 
most part  of  the  continisnt.  Bolivia  has  lost  what  sea  coast  she 
possessed  (which  was  not  much)  to  Chile,  and  Colombia  has 
taken  the  place  of  the  more  familiar  New  Granada,  although 
their  territorial  area  is  nearly  the  same.  Brazil  is  no  longer  an 
empire,  but  a  federal  republic. 

Colombia  has  lost  the  heart  out  of  her,  of  late.  The  Isthmus 
of  Panama,  seceding  from  her  confederation  of  States  and  setting 
up  independently  for  itself  under  the  protection  of  our  own 
country,  has  wrought  ruin  to  her  in  a  money  way,  and  its  new 
Canal,  now  practically  sure  of  completion,  will  do  more  than 
change  the  map  of  the  world.  It  will  turn  the  channels  of 
commerce  westward,  alter  the  course  of  trade  and  fling  open  a 
new  door  to  the  Orient,  the  ancient  land  of  the  sunrising.  Co- 
lombia had  a  glorious  opportunity  of  being  the  beautiful  intro- 
ducer when  the  West  should  hold  out  its  strong  hand  anew  to 
the  ancient  East,  but  has  only  lost  it.  So  Panama  will  stand 
by  herself  on  future  maps  from  this  time  forth,  a  single  star  and 
not  one  in  Colombia's  constellation;  while  the  new  Canal  marks 
the  strange  disruption  of  one  republic,  the  creation  of  another 
and  above  them  both  the  overhanging  and  overshadowing  great- 
ness of  a  third. 

Brazil,  in  her  change  from  monarchy,  to  republic,  lost  in  her 
Emperor,  Don  Pedro  II,  a  noble  ruler,  distinguished  for  general 
culture  and  scientific  tastes,  and  in  so  doing  seems  to  have 
thrown  away  a  share  of  her  own  greatness.     Nor  does  the  Re- 


WORLD-CHANGES  OF  HALF  A  CENTURY.  235 

public,  as  at  present  established,  show  itself  exceptionally  pros- 
perous. 

The  greatest  enterprise  in  South  America  at  present  is  the 
new  Andean  Railway,  which  will  show  on  our  maps  of  years  to 
come  a  Through  Line  across  that  continent  connecting  Chile 
and  the  Argentine  Republic.  This  road,  now  under  construction, 
has  been  advancing  from  both  termini  until  the  mountains  have 
been  reached  and  the  truly  gigantic  task  of  tunneling  the  Andes 
is  solidly  in  hand.  Immense  capital  stands  behind  the  com- 
pany undertaking  it,  labor  is  plentiful,  and  with  the  recent  ad- 
vance in  engineering  the  great  Andean  Tunnel  may  be  deemed 
a  reality  of  the  near  future. 

Mendoza,  at  the  base  of  the  Andes,  is  the  metropolis  of  the 
western  section  of  Argentina  and  the  centre  of  a  great  vine- 
growing  district.  The  piece  of  railway  which  leads  from  this 
city  up  into  the  mountains  will  connect  with  the  Great  Tunnel. 
At  the  present  time  it  takes  seven  hours  on  mule-back  to  pass 
over  the  trail  from  the  end  of  the  railroad  on  the  Argentina  side 
to  the  railroad  on  the  Chilean  side.  In  the  summer  when  this 
trail  is  free  from  snow  the  trip  from  Buenos  Ayres  to  Valparaiso 
may  be  made  in  less  than  three  days,  while  at  other  seasons  the 
trip  by  steamer  around  Cape  Horn  occupies  nearly  three  weeks. 
The  immense  advantage,  therefore,  of  the  completed  railway 
to  travel  and  to  commerce  is  obvious. 

Australia  has  two  new  divisions  from  what  characterized  its 
map  half  a  century  ago.  Alexandra  Land  is  the  central  part  of 
the  continent,  comprising  a  large  portion  of  former  Western 
Australia;  and  Queensland  is  the  most  eastern  portion.  North 
Australia  being  reduced  to  very  small  territory  in  the  extreme 
north. 

On  the  map  of  Asia  fifty  years  ago.  Independent  Tartary 
occupied  a  large  space;  it  is  now  incorporated  in  the  Russian 
Empire  under  the  name  of  Turkestan.  Georgia,  which  lay  south 
of  the  Caucasus,  between  the  Black  and  Caspian  seas,  has  also 
become  a  part  of  Russia.  Little  Thibet  north  of  the  Himalayas 
is  now  included  in  India,  which  is  no  longer  Hindustan,  and  the 
empire  of  Burmah  has  become  Farther  British  India.  Anam 
has  lost  the  northern  portion  of  its  territory  to  France,  which  is 
now  known  as  Tonquin. 

The  geography  of  Thibet  is   at  last  no  longer  a  thing  of 


236  THE  GLOBE, 

mystery.  Several  travellers  of  late  have  entered  and  even  tra- 
versed this  unknown  country,  penetrating  its  recesses  in  disguise 
at  the  risk  of  their  lives,  enduring  a  thousand  sufferings  and 
•  returning  broken-down  men,  but  bringing  back  with  them  fairly 
clear  charts  of  its  general  features.  Its  Forbidden  City  has 
been  explored  and  our  magazines  enriched,  in  recent  days,  with 
accounts  of  its  inhabitants  and  their  rulers,  together  with  pic- 
tures of  its  great  monasteries — or  lamaseries — where  swarms  of 
priests  reside.  More  than  this,  a  force  of  British  soldiery  under 
competent  leadership  has  invaded  Thibet  and  is  rapidly  approach- 
ing Lhassa.  Despite  the  best  resistance  the  indignant  Thibetans 
can  make — and  there  has  been  some  lively  fighting — it  seems 
likely  that  the  country  will  fall  from  its  high  and  lone  estate  into 
a  mere  dependency  of  England. 

The  heights  of  the  Himalayas  have  been  scaled  and  measured 
by  sundry  British  explorers — notably  by  Sir  William  Martin 
Conway — so  that  our  geographical  knowledge  of  those  peaks 
and  table-lands  is  far  greater  than  was  dreamed  of  as  attainable 
ten  years  ago. 

But  no  portion  of  Asia  has  altered  more  than  Siberia.  From 
being  a  mere  desolation  of  waste  country,  peopled  sparsely,  its 
mines  worked  by  political  convicts  who  there  dragged  out  a 
mere  death  in  life,  it  is  slowly  becoming  a  valuable  region.  From 
recent  advices  we  learn  that  its  resources  are  now  in  process  of 
development.  Its  arable  lands  are  now  finding  a  few  settlers 
willing  to  remain  upon  them,  and  harvest  the  crops  of  the  short 
but  hot  summers,  when  its  rivers  become  channels  of  communi- 
cation and  the  conditions  of  life  grow  more  favorable. 

Of  still  more  import  is  the  construction  of  the  Russo- Siberian 
Railway,  at  enormous  expense,  by  the  Russian  government. 
It  threads  the  whole  country,  with  the  exception  of  a  short  gap 
at  Lake  Baikal,  and  is  already  proving  its  value  in  the  transpor- 
tation of  troops.  This  wonderful  enterprise  will  do  much  to 
uplift  and  unify  the  regions  it  traverses  and  must,  henceforth, 
be  a  conspicuous  feature  on  every  map  of  Asiatic  Russia.  Port 
Arthur,  its  eastern  terminus,  is  strongly  fortified,  and  the  gaze 
of  the  world  riveted  upon  it;  for,  whatever  be  the  issue  of  the 
present  struggle  between  Russia  and  Japan,  the  great  changes 
which  civilization  has  brought  to  Europeanized  Japan  are  sure 
to  affect  the  future  of  Corea,  Manchuria  and  all  Northern  China, 


WORLD-CHANGES  OF  HALF  A  CENTUR  V.  237 

and  to  make  Port  Arthur,  whoever  it  may  fall  to,  a  city  of  mark 
on  future  charts  of  our  world. 

The  map  of  Africa  has  undergone  numerous  changes.  The 
great  Sahara  has  been  reduced  one -half,  and  is  nearly  covered 
with  oases.  In  its  southeastern  part  is  the  great  country  of  the 
Soudan.  The  ancient  Barca  has  disappeared,  its  territory  being 
divided  about  equally  between  Egypt  and  Tripoli. 

In  1 84 1,  the  whole  of  central  Africa  was  known  as  Ethiopia 
(land  of  darkness),  a  very  appropriate  name,  as  the  most  of  it 
was  unexplored.  On  the  maps  to-day  the  same  territory  is 
included  in  the  Congo  Free  State,  and  in  Damara  Land  and 
Bechuana  Land.  Zanguebar  has  been  much  reduced  and  is  now 
known  as  Zanzibar. 

The  great  lakes  of  the  Nyanzas  and  Tonganyika,  and  the 
sources  of  the  Nile  and  the  Congo,  which  seemed  so  mysteriously 
hidden  for  ages,  have  all  been  discovered  since  1840,  thanks 
largely  to  the  late  Henry  M.  Stanley.  The  region  north  of  Cape 
Colony  and  Natal  were  at  that  time  occupied  by  savage  tribes. 
The  two  extensive  states  of  the  South  African  Republic  and  the 
Orange  Free  State  are  of  quite  recent  formation. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  changes  that  Africa  has  seen  is 
the  regeneration  of  Egypt.  When  the  British  first  took  it  in 
hand,  everything  looked  hopeless.  The  masses  of  Egypt  lay  sunk 
in  degradation,  crouching  beneath  dire  misgovernment  and  a 
fearful  weight  of  taxation;  the  whole  country  being  non-produc- 
tive, with  its  government  facing  both  an  empty  treasury  and  a 
paralyzing  debt.  This  latter  forced  them,  at  last,  to  accept 
English  domination.  Then,  the  organizing  genius  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  began  to  show  its  strange  power  of  uplifting.  Taxes 
grew  lighter,  the  fellaheen  were  encouraged  and  set  to  raising 
cotton,  a  profitable  crop,  better  implements  appeared  and  more 
irrigation,  schools  were  established,  railways  built — with  better 
roads,  making  easier  transportation — the  Suez  Canal,  not  on  our 
maps  of  fifty  years  ago  helping  to  solve  the  problem — until, 
presently,  Egyptian  Bonds,  supposed  to  be  worth  little  or  nothing, 
took  a  rise  in  London  markets. 

This  improvement  has  steadily  continued  and  the  high  figures 
at  which  Egyptian  securities  are  now  held  witness  the  revival 
of  life  in  the  home  of  the  Pharaohs. 

The  control  of  the  Nile  and  its  inundations,  however,  remained 


238  THE  GLOBE. 

very  imperfect  for  a  long  time;  but,  now  that  the  Great  Dam 
at  Assuan  is  completed,  the  crops  can  be  depended  upon  and 
irrigation  reveals  the  wonderful  richness  of  the  soil.  Never 
again  shall  we  see  "a  famine  in  the  land  of  Egypt." 

The  last  coping-stone  of  the  Great  Dam  was  laid  July  30,  1902. 
It  marks  a  great  victory  of  science  and  peace  and  a  new  era 
for  an  immense  tract  m  the  Nile  valley,  whose  fertility  will  no 
longer  hand  on  the  changing  seasons.  The  work  was  begun 
July  I,  1878,  and  has  employed  sixteen  thousand  persons.  Sir 
B-njamin  Baker  was  the  chief  engineer.  The  Dam  creates  a 
reservoir  tlTt  will  supply  every  year  1,000,000,000  cubic  inches 
of  water,  enabling  a  vast  tract  to  bear  two  crops  instead  of  one 
and  bringing  a  considerable  region  into  cultivation  for  the  first 
time.  This  dam  is  supplemented  by  another  at  Assouit.  The 
cost  of  both  together  was  over  $23,000,000. 

The  outcome  of  the  Boer  war  in  South  Africa  gives  the 
English  supremacy  in  that  region  also.  As  one  result  railroad 
development  has  been  rapid  in  Rhodesia  and  Cape  Colony.  Al- 
ready railroads  run  northward  from  the  latter  point  about  1,500 
miles  and  southward  from  Cairo  about  1,200  miles,  thus  com- 
pleting 2,700  miles  of  the  proposed  "Cape  to  Cairo"  railroad. 
Late  explorations,  and  particularly  the  discovery  of  the  Wankie 
coal  beds,  led  to  the  adoption  of  the  present  route  crossing  the 
Zambesi  at  Victoria  Falls.  The  first  section  of  this  magnificeni 
line  runs  nort^  to  Lake  Tanganyika.  One  can  now  journey  from 
London  to  Lake  Victoria  Nyanza,  by  way  of  Cape  Colony,  vi 
six  weeks. 

Victoria  Falls,  the  African  cataract  which  rivals  Niagara  in 
its  magnificent  proportions,  is  now  made  accessible  to  the  travel- 
ling public.  It  is  on  the  Zambezi  River  nearly  a  thousand  miles 
from  its  mouth.  The  ''Cape  to  Cairo"  Railway  crosses  the 
gorge  within  sight  of  its  falling  waters. 

Nearly  half  a  century  has  passed  since  David  Livingstone, 
exploring  the  unknown  interior  of  Africa,  discovered  this  cat- 
aract and  named  it  for  the  Queen  of  England.  He  lived  for 
several  months  on  an  island  just  above  the  edge  of  the  falls  and 
thence  explored  and  mapped  the  surrounding  region. 

''Above  the  Falls,"  says  a  writer  in  the  Pall  Mall  Magazine, 
whose  pleasant  narrative  is  worth  the  quoting,  '*the  Zambesi  is  a 
placid  stream  sometimes  a  mile  in  width,  dotted  with  beautiful 


WORLD-CHANGES  OF  HALF  A  CENTURY.  239 

islands  clad  in  tropical  verdure.  Hippopotami  and  waterfowl 
make  these  islands  their  home,  and  the  river  is  full  of  fish. 

By  some  means  a  rift  has  been  formed  in  the  river  bed,  a  hole 
more  than  four  hundred  feet  deep,  eighteen  hundred  yards  long 
(across  the  river)  and  less  than  three  hundred  feet  wide.  Into 
this  narrow  chasm  the  river  drops  with  an  awful  roar,  sending 
up  clouds  of  mist  in  which,  wherever  the  spectator  looks,  he  seea 
multiple  rainbows. 

The  narrow  rift  has  but  a  single  outlet,  two  hundred  yards 
wide,  through  which  must  rush  all  the  waters  of  the  mile-wide 
river.  Coming  from  both  ends  of  the  chasm  to  the  outlet,  they 
form  a  whirlpool  of  wonderful  grandeur.  For  thirty  miles 
below  the  cataract  the  river,  boiling  and  roaring,  tears  at  tremen- 
dous speed  through  a  gorge  four  hundred  feet  deep,  out  of  which 
it  flows  again  into  a  valley  to  become  the  same  placid  stream  it 
is  above  the  falls. 

The  gorge  is  one  of  the  most  peculiar  features  of  the  cataract, 
being  extremely  rugged  and  crooked.  After  flowing  in  one 
direction  for  more  than  a  mile  from  the  outlet  of  the  chasm,  the 
river  suddenly  turns  sharply  round  to  the  left,  almost  paralleling 
that  course  for  another  mile,  then  as  acutely  turns  to  the  right 
again.  In  all  the  thirty  miles  but  two  places  have  been  found 
at  which  descent  to  the  surface  of  the  stream  is  possible. 

The  water  falling  into  the  chasm  carries  down  with  it  a  quan- 
tity of  air,  so  that  up  the  opposite  side — called  "Danger  Point" — 
a  tremendous  draft  always  rushes,  which  has  pruned  sharply 
away  the  overhanging  branches  of  the  evergreens  on  the  cliff. 

From  up-stream  one  can  come  at  low  water  safely  down  in  a 
skiff  to  Livingstone  Island,  from  which  excellent  views  of  the 
Falls  are  to  be  obtained.  The  "Cape  to  Cairo"  Railway  crossed 
the  gorge  just  below  the  outlet  on  a  bridge  four  hundred  and 
twenty  feet  above  low  water  and  six  hundred  and  eighty  feet 
long.  The  announcement  of  its  ability  to  run  passenger  trains 
to  this  interior  point  is  causing  many  travellers  to  announc?  their 
intention  of  going  to  view  the  grand  spectacle. 

Looking  at  the  map  of  North  America,  the  great  territory  of 
Alaska  covers  that  portion  known  as  the  Russian  Possessions. 
British  America  has  undergone  great  changes.  Lower  Canada 
is  now  the  province  of  Quebec  and  Upper  Canada  is  Ontario. 
New  Britain,  which  comprised  three-fourths  of  old  British  Ameu 


240  THE  GLOBE. 

ica,  and  belonged  to  the  Hudson  Bay  Company,  has  disappeared, 
and  instead  we  find  North  West  Territory  and  North  East  Terri- 
tory. All  that  portion  lying  on  the  Pacific  coast  is  now  British 
Columbia. 

Along  the  southern  border  are  the  provinces  of  Manitoba, 
Athabasca,  Assinaboia,  Alberta  and  Saskatchawan,  all  organized 
within  the  last  twenty  years.  Labrador  has  been  narrowed  to  a 
stretch  of  country  along  the  Atlantic  coast  between  the  straits 
of  Belle  Isle  and  Hudson. 

A  modern  map  of  Alaska  gives  us  a  world  of  new  information 
in  regard  to  it.  Since  the  discovery  of  gold  in  the  Klondyke,  the 
wild  rush  thither  of  maddened  gold-seekers  has  transformed  the 
whole  face  of  the  country.  Towns  have  sprung  up  as  in  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye.  Old  settlements  and  mission  stations,  like 
Sitka,  known  to  the  Russians  before  they  sold  the  Territory  to 
us,  have  become  small  cities  with  shops,  hospitals  and  churches. 
Bits  of  railway  are  replacing  the  ancient  trails  and  the  Alaskan 
is  in  sight  of  civilization.  The  country  has  been  explored,  its 
mountain  ranges,  bays  and  rivers,  glaciers  and  volcanoes  accu- 
rately charted ;  in  fine,  it  is  terra  incognito  no  longer. 

The  whole  marvel  reminds  one  of  the  California  "gold  fever" 
of  1851. 

Alaska  proves  to  be  a  larger  country  than  most  of  us  imagined. 
Its  area  is  about  one-sixth  of  the  whole  territory  of  the  United 
States;  and  it  is  larger  by  about  three  hundred  millions  of  acres 
than  the  thirteen  original  states.  The  Eskimo  remains  the  pre- 
dominant race  and  they  reside  principally  north  of  the  Yukon 
River.  Sitka  is  the  capital;  Juneau,  the  second  town  in  import- 
ance, but  first  in  size,  having  a  population  of  1,253.  Circle  City 
is  a  town  on  the  Yukon,  of  very  modern  date,  while  Karluk  is  a 
place  boasting  over  a  thousand  inhabitants. 

The  physical  geography  of  Alaska  is  very  interesting,  and  is 
naturally  divided  into  three  regions  marked  by  the  difference  in 
climate  and  agriculture.  These  districts  are:  (i)  The  Yukon 
region;"  (2)  the  islands  and  peninsula;  and  (3)  the  Sitka  dis- 
trict, comprising  the  rest  of  the  territory  of  Alaska. 

By  the  Yukon  region  is  meant  of  course  the  district  through 
which  this  great  river  flows — a  distance  of  2,000  miles.  This 
mighty  river  is  perhaps  the  principal  feature  of  the  mainland  of 
Alaska.     It  rises  in  British  Columbia,  200  miles  northeast  of 


WORLD-CHANGES  OF  HALF  A   CENTURY.  241 

Sitka,  and,  describing  a  rough  semi-circle,  it  almost  bisects  the 
mainland  and  empties  its  waters  into  Bering  Sea.    This  river  is 
a  mile  wide,  nearly  six  hundred  miles  from  its  mouth,  and  fresh- 
ens the  water  in  Bering  Sea,  ten  miles  from  the  coast,  so  great 
is  the  volume  it  discharges.    It  is  said  to  discharge  a  third  more 
water  than  the  Mississippi.     The  northern  ranges  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains  pass  through  the  Sitka  district,  and  bordering  on  the 
coast  of  the  mainland,  and  nearly  all  of  the  islands  compose  a 
scene  of  natural  beauty  and  grandeur  which  is  hardly,  if  at  all, 
excelled  in  Switzerland  or  Norway.    Mt.  St.  Elias  is  19,500  feet 
high,  this  being  1,000  feet  higher  than  the  highest  mountain  on 
the  continent  of  Europe.    The  coast  is  cut  by  numerous  bays  and 
fiords,  which  are  navigable  for  large  vessels,  and  it  will  not  be 
long,  we  predict,  before   sight-seeing  and   pleasure  expeditions 
will  be  as  common  in  Alaska  as  they  are  now  in  Norway.    Alaska 
is  especially  rich — if  such  a  word  can  be  used — in  glaciers.    There 
is  nothing  in  Europe  to  compare  with  the  great  Muir  Glacier. 
It  covers  an  area  between  Mt.  St.  Elias  and  the  White  Mountains 
of  1,200  square  miles;  and  discharges  its  ice  through  an  opening 
two  miles  wide.     Its  depth  where  it  breaks  off  into  the  water 
is  nearly  one  thousand  feet.    Another  glacier  is  forty  miles  long, 
and  from  four  to  five  miles  wide.     Evidences  of  volcanic  action 
are  everywhere  present,  and  there  are  several  active  or  dormant 
volcanoes  still  to  be  seen.    When  one  thinks  of  all  this  grandeur 
of  glacier,  mountain  and  fiord,  bathed  in  the  wonderful  light  of 
the  aurora  borealis,  which  is  seen  here  as  nowhere  else,   the 
sublime  beauty  of  the  picture  may  possibly  be  imagined — it  can- 
not, certainly,  be  expressed. 

The  word  Alaska  means  "great  country."  It  was  discovered 
by  the  celebrated  Russian  explorer,  "Behring,"  in  the  year  1741, 
and  belonged  to  Russia  by  virtue  of  this  discovery-,  till  March  30, 
1867,  when  it  was  ceded  to  the  United  States  for  the  sum  of 
$7,200,000  in  gold. 

As  a  good  specimen  of  the  unheard-of  ways  by  which  new 
places  receive  their  names  the  following  is  not  without  interest, 
in  connection  with  Alaska. 

Dr.  George  Davidson,  of  the  University  of  California,  says 
E.  S.  Martin  in  Harper's  Weekly,  has  been  wondering  for  four 
years  past  how  Cape  Nome  got  its  name.  Geography  is  his  special 
field,  and  it  is  his  professional  concern  to  know  the  wherefore 


242  THE  GLOBE, 

of  geographical  names.  But  "Nome"  beat  him.  He  set  to  work 
to  trace  it  back  to  its  origin,  and  the  earHest  appearance  he  could 
find  for  it  was  in  a  British  Admiralty  chart  of  1853.  That  led 
him  to  surmise  that  the  cape  was  named  by  officers  of  the  Eng- 
'  lish  frigates  "Herald"  and  "Clover"  during  an  expedition  in 
search  of  Sir  John  Franklin.  So  he  wrote  to  the  Admiralty 
Office  in  London  to  inquire  if  there  were  any  "Nomes"  on  the 
list  of  men  who  sailed  in  those  vessels.  The  reply,  recently  com- 
municated by  Dr.  Davidson  to  the  National  Geographic  Maga- 
sine,  was  that  when  the  chart  in  question  was  first  made,  aboard 
the  "Herald,"  attention  was  called  to  this  point  by  the  mark 
(?  Name).  The  chart  was  sent  home  in  a  hurry,  and  the 
draughtsman  who  inked  it  made  the  mark  read  "C.  Name."  But 
he  did  not  make  his  "a"  distinctly,  and  the  Admiralty  hydro- 
grapher  made  it  "C.  Nome."  And  so  Cape  Nome  the  point  has 
been  ever  since,  and  is  likely  to  remain  so  until  it  gets  rich  enough 
to  support  a  board  of  aldermen.  Then  its  name  will  be  changed, 
for  that  is  one  of  the  mischiefs  that  aldermen  can  be  trusted  to  do. 

The  extension  of  the  Canadian  Pacific  Railway  across  the 
Continent  to  its  terminus  at  Vancouver  has  been  followed  by 
a  swift  development  of  the  country  it  traverses.  The  wilder 
regions  of  British  America,  as  one  approaches  the  Pacific,  are 
now  dotted  with  small  new  stations  and  settlements.  Manitoba, 
in  particular,  has  grown  into  an  important  province — unmarked 
on  the  maps  of  fifty  years  ago — and  Winnipeg,  its  capital,  is  a 
thriving  city. 

The  United  States  fifty-five  years  ago  numbered  twenty-six  and 
there  were  six  territories.  The  latter  included  Florida,  admitted 
as  a  state  in  1845;  the  Indian  which  included  beside  its  present 
area,  Kansas  and  Colorado;  Wisconsin,  admitted  as  a  state  in 
1848;  Iowa,  which  included  also  Minnesota  and  a  portion  of  the 
Dacotahs ;  Missouri,  which  lay  west  of  Iowa  and  extended  to  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  beyond  which  stretched  the  vast  territory  of 
Oregon.  The  Old  Dominion  was  then  compact  and  undivided, 
for  West  Virginia  was  not  made  a  state  until  1862. 

Mexico  in  1841,  included  all  that  territory  now  embraced  in 
Nevada,  Utah,  California,  Arizona  and  New  Mexico.  This  large 
extent  of  country  was  detached  from  Mexico  in  1846,  and  was 
organized  as  a  part  in  1850. 

From  1835  to  1845  Texas  was  an  independent  state,  but  at  the 
latter  date  was  annexed  to  the  United  States. 


WORLD-CHANGES  OF  HALF  A     CENTUR  Y.  243 

Other  new  states  added  within  late  years  are  Nebraska,  Wyom- 
ing, Idaho,  Montana,  Washington  and  Oklahoma,  which  was 
once  the  Indian  Territory.  The  unification  of  all  these  has  been 
effected  by  five  great  railway  lines  crossing  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains, thus  binding  the  new  West  to  the  older  states  East  and  the 
Mississippi  Valley.  First  came  the  Union  Pacific,  the  earliest 
"through  line";  then  followed  the  Northern  Pacific  and  Great 
Northern,  the  Southern  Pacific,  or  ''Sunset  Route;"  and  last  of 
all,  the  line  recently  opened,  running  from  Salt  Lake  City  to 
Los  Angeles  in  Southern  California,  crossing  what  was  once 
known  as  the  Great  American  Desert  and  opening  up  much  sil- 
ver and  gold  country. 

Any  adequate  account  of  the  growth  of  these  United  States 
within  the  last  fifty  years,  its  increase  in  population  and  material 
prosperity,  would  transcent  the  limits  of  this  article.  Its  great 
cities,  New  York,  Chicago,  Philadelphia,  Brooklyn  and  St.  Louis 
— not  to  mention  San  Francisco — tell  their  own  story,  and  the 
development  of  the  newer  States  above  mentioned  is  the  history 
of  wonderful  crops,  mines  and  commerce  both  on  the  Great  Lakes 
and  the  Pacific.  The  internal  development  of  the  country,  even 
in  its  older  portions,  has  been  marvelous  and  marvelously  assisted 
by  electricity  and  other  modern  scientific  discoveries. 

"It  was  not  many  years  ago,"  says  Country  Life  in  America, 
"that  people  lived  in  the  suburbs  as  a  matter  of  economy.  Now 
they  live  in  these  parts  because  higher  ideals  may  often  be  at- 
tained here.  From  reports  personally  obtained  from  twenty- 
eight  of  the  largest  cities  in  America,  North,  South,  East  and 
West,  it  was  shown  that  during  two  recent  years  over  $420,- 
Doo,ocx)  had  been  incorporated  and  spent  in  private  purchases 
and  the  development  of  lands  adjacent  to  large  cities,  for  sub- 
urban operations.  Over  $60,000,000  have  been  voted  and  spent 
by  trolley  and  railroad  companies  to  extend  their  service  beyond 
the  limits  of  these  cities.  Nearly  half  a  bilHon  of  dollars  have,., 
therefore,  been  invested  within  two  years  in  the  proposed  devel- 
opment of  suburban  properties,  in  addition  to  the  millions  of 
dollars  already  so  invested." 

Co-incident  with  this  internal  development  is  the  advance  of 
the  United  States  as  a  world-power.  The  maps  of  the  future 
must  show  this,  also. 

At  the  close  of  her  short  war  with  Spain  this  country  found 


244  1^^^  GLOBE. 

herself  mistress  of  the  PhiHppines  and  Porto  Rico,  with  the  fate 
of  Cuba  in  her  hands  and  the  Sandwich  Islands  indisputably  hers, 
as  a  half-way  house,  so  to  speak, — a  naval  station  and  coaling- 
place  for  her  fleets  in  crossing  the  Pacific. 

Moreover,  her  prestige  is  now  recognized  by  the  great  nations 
of  the  world ;  she  is  taken  into  account  as  one  of  the  forces  to  be 
reckoned  with.  This  involves  the  maintenance  of  a  larger  navy 
and  a  keener  diplomacy  than  has  been  hers  during  the  many 
years  of  her  aloofness.  How  she  will  carry  herself  under  the 
new  dispensation,  with  how  much  grace  and  power  she  will 
clasp  hands  in  the  circle  of  the  nations,  the  coming  years  alone 
can  decide. 

The  present  international  map  of  Europe  bears  little  resem- 
blance to  that  of  1 84 1.  At  that  date  the  last  vestige  of  Poland 
existed  under  the  name  of  the  Republic  of  Cracow,  which  was 
suppressed  and  incorporated  with  Austria  in  1846.  In  1848  the 
principality  of  Neuchatel,  which  had  been  given  up  to  Russia  in 
18 14,  declared  its  independence  and  became  a  canton  of  Switzer- 
land. 

After  the  Crimean  war  Russia  surrendered  a  portion  of  its 
territory  along  the  banks  of  the  Danube  to  Moldavia.  In  Italy 
anany  changes  were  effected  about  the  same  time.  In  1859,  ^^ter 
Solferino,  Austria  surrendered  Lombardy  to  Napoleon  the  Third 
of  France,  who  presented  it  to  the  king  of  Sardinia.  The  next 
year  that  king  came  in  possession  of  Parma,  Tuscany,  Romagna, 
Naples  and  Sicily,  which  had  been  a  separate  kingdom  under  a 
line  of  Bourbon  princes. 

Thanks  to  the  consummate  statesmanship  of  Count  Cavour 
United  Italy  has  prospered.  Its  unification  was  effected  by  the 
opening  of  many  railway  lines,  so  that  all  the  above-mentioned 
provinces  became  closely  welded  by  ties  of  commerce  and  trade. 
The  great  popularity  of  King  Victor  Emanuel  was  also  a  factor 
in  this  new  growth  of  patriotism.  Differences  were  laid  aside 
and  all  Italy  now  frankly  supports  the  present  king,  who  has 
made  Rome  his  capital. 

An  important  change  was  effected  in  the  year  186 1  by  the 
union  of  Moldavia  and  Wallachia  under  the  name  of  Roumania. 
The  Ionian  Islands,  which  had  formed  a  parliamentary  republic 
under  the  protection  of  Great  Britain  since  1827,  were  ceded  to 
Greece  in  1864. 


WORLD-CHANGES  OF  HALF  A   CENTURY.  245 

In  consequence  of  the  battle  of  Sadowa  in  1866,  Prussia  was 
enlarged  by  the  annexation  of  the  kingdom  of  Hanover,  the  Hesse 
electorate,  Schleswig  and  Holstein,  and  the  free  city  of  Frank- 
fort. Another  consequence  of  that  battle  was  that  Austria  aban- 
doned Venetia  to  Victor  Emanuel  of  Sardinia,  who  at  the  same 
time  obtained  the  States  of  the  Church,  and  was  declared  king 
of  Italy.  The  foundation  of  the  New  German  Empire  gave  the 
leadership  to  Prussia  which  had  been  enjoyed  by  Austria  for 
several  hundred  years. 

The  Frankfort  treaty  of  1870  robbed  France  of  the  two  large 
provinces  of  Alsace  and  Lorraine  which  were  ceded  to  the  new 
German  Empire. 

The  present  government  of  France  is  republican  and  appears 
to  be  stable.  The  peasant  proprietors  in  the  provinces  find  lower 
taxes  and  more  privileges  for  themselves  than  ever  before  and 
are,  therefore,  content  with  the  Republic.  Paris  is  more  uneasy; 
yet,  on  the  whole,  willing  to  support  things  as  they  are. 

The  Russo-Turkish  war  of  1878  changed  the  boundaries  of 
several  European  states.  Servia  was  enlarged  and  constituted 
an  independent  kingdom.  Roumania  was  also  made  a  kingdom. 
Bulgaria  became  a  mere  tributary  province  of  the  Turkish  em- 
pire, and  Russia  exchanged  the  Dobroudia  district  for  southern 
Bessarabia.  Montenegro  was  given  an  increase  of  territory,  and 
Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  were  surrendered  to  Austria. 

The  last  important  change  on  the  map  of  Europe  was  the  en- 
largement of  Bulgaria  by  eastern  Rumelia,  snatched  from  Turkey 
in  1885. 

The  phenomenal  growth  of  Russia  and  the  internal  develop- 
ment of  that  immense  empire  are  largely  the  work  of  the  last 
fifty  years.  Of  the  Siberian  Railway  we  have  already  spoken, 
while  the  issue  of  the  Russo-Japanese  war  now  in  progress  re- 
mains to  be  seen. 

The  independence  of  Cuba,  as  guaranteed  by  the  United  States, 
is  a  result  of  the  American-Spanish  war,  while  the  late  develop- 
ment of  Mexico,  industrially  aided  by  railways  opened  by  Ameri- 
can capital,  is  a  pleasant  thing  to  contemplate.  The  credit  for 
much  of  it  belongs  to  President  Diaz,  whose  policy  in  the  sepa- 
ration of  church  and  state  seems  to  have  worked  well  in  quieting 
a  restless  nation. 

That  the  maps  of  the  world  will  soon  indicate  further  changes 


246  THE  GLOBE. 

goes  without  saying.  There  is  much  space  still  for  the  study  of 
geography.  A  new  book  by  Mr.  Geo.  Hogarth  bears  a  title  full 
of  significance,  "The  Penetration  of  Arabia."  Strangely  enough, 
,  though  Arabia  has  been  relatively  accessible  for  two  thousand 
years,  there  are  parts  of  it  still  wholly  unexplored,  and  Mr. 
Hogarth  tells  us  that  there  is  no  assurrance  that  even  a  native 
has  ever  crossed  the  heart  of  the  Southern  Sand  Desert,  a  name 
of  terror  throughout  all  Arabia.  It  is  a  surprise  to  most  of  us 
to  be  told  that  even  to-day  not  one  hundredth  part  of  Arabia  has 
been  mathematically  surveyed  and  the  altitude  of  not  a  single 
point,  even  on  the  coast,  exactly  fixed.  This,  despite  the  acknowl- 
edged fascination  of  that  ancient  land. 

Similar  experiences  occur  elsewhere.  Every  now  and  then  we 
hear  of  the  discovery  in  some  well-known  land,  of  a  new  lake, 
or  a  canon,  or  a  natural  bridge. 

The  numerous  expeditions  of  late  have  added  immensely  to  our 
knowledge  of  the  Arctic  and  Antarctic  regions.  Any  recent  map 
gives  us  new  lands,  new  capes  and  islands,  with  names  which 
prove  their  modern  discovery.  To  furnish  the  details  of  these 
additions,  with  their  dates  and  names  of  their  discoverers,  would 
be  to  write  a  whole  history  of  Arctic  research.  But  though  im- 
possible to  do  this,  it  should  be  said,  in  general,  that  we  know 
more  and  more,  as  the  years  go  by,  of  the  Polar  spaces  and 
their  wonders.  The  picture  magazines  give  us  splendid  colored 
plates  of  their  bergs  and  Auroras,  their  skies  and  sunsets,  till 
these  great  results  of  recent  heroic  adventure  pursue  us  every- 
where and  haunt  our  day-dreams. 

Sure  we  are  that  the  Poles  themselves  will  be  conquered  ere 
long,  becoming  the  great  and  final  prize  of  all  geography. 

C.  D.  Swan. 


VERSIONS  OF  THE  BIBLE. 


We  have  clipped  the  following  editorial,  one  of  a  series,  from 
a  recent  issue  of  the  New  York  Freeman's  Journal,  and  we  re- 
publish it  here  for  the  purpose  of  showing  to  the  Globe's  intel- 
ligent and  critical  readers,  both  Protestant  and  Catholic,  the 
immense  superiority  of  Catholic  scholarship  when  closely  con- 


VERSlOi\S  OF  THE  BIBLE.  247 

trasted  with  the  best  that  Protestantism  has  to  say  in  favor  of 
its  one  great  idol — the  Bible. 

I  suppose  that  this  article  was  written  by  Rev.  Father  Lam- 
bert, who,  for  his  scholarship  and  his  piety  ought  long  ago  to 
have  been  made  Cardinal  Archbishop  Lambert,  as  his  archdiocese 
already  covers  the  continent  of  America.  The  Mr.  Jones  quoted 
by  the  Freeman's  Journal  speaks  for  himself. 

Mr.  Jones :  ''With  respect  to  your  inquiry  of  the  'official' 
recognition  of  the  American  Revised  Version,  we  don't  recog- 
nize any  official  authority  to  foist  on  us  a  book — even  the  Bible — 
except  by  consent  of  a  majority  of  the  denomination,  or  the  local 
church  to  which  we  belong." 

Then  you  do,  after  all,  recognize  an  "official  authority  to  foist 
on  you  a  book,"  that  authority  being  "the  consent  of  the  majority 
of  the  denomination  or  of  the  local  church  to  which  we  belong." 

Here  you  recognize  the  Catholic  principle  of  authority — some 
authority  outside  of  yourself.  In  doing  this  you  sacrifice  your 
Protestant  principle  of  private  judgment.  But  while  recognizing 
the  principle  you  err  in  accepting  a  fallible  authority  that  is  no 
more  competent  to  determine  what  books  are  inspired  than  you 
or  we  are.  You  yield  your  fallible  judgment  to  another  fallible 
judgment. 

The  Catholic  is  more  exacting  than  you  are  on  what  books  are 
inspired  and  what  are  not.  He  will  not  yield  his  fallible  judg- 
ment to  any  other  fallible  judgment,  or  fallible  authority,  on  a 
matter  that  can  be  determined  only  by  an  authority  holding  a  di- 
vine commission  and  guaranteed  divine  protection  from  error  in 
its  utterances.  Such  authority  is  the  Church  which  our  Lord 
established  and  commissioned  to  teach  for  all  time  all  things 
whatsoever  He  commanded. 

No  modern  sect  or  denomination  claims  to  be  that  teaching 
corporation  established  by  Christ  nearly  two  thousand  years  ago. 
They  were  born  too  far  out  of  time  to  make  such  claim  with  any 
hope  of  making  any  one  believe  it. 

You  reject  this  divinely-established  Church  and  all  her  great 
historical  councils  of  the  past.  You  do  this  in  the  name  of  en- 
lightened reason,  and  after  doing  it  you — if  we  hold  you  strictly 
to  what  you  say — bow  down  before  and  sacrifice  your  judgment 
to  some  little  sectarian  crossroads  majority,  and  accept  its  con- 
sent as  to  what  is  and  what  is  not  the  word  of  God !    If  this  be 


248  THE  GLOBE. 

not  degeneracy  of  reason  and  theology,  we  know  not  what  name 
to  give  it.  The  only  analogous  case  we  can  call  to  mind  is  that 
of  the  heathens  who,  turning  from  the  true  God,  never  stopped 
in  their  descent  until  they  got  down  to  worshiping  sticks  and 
stones. 

Mr.  Jones:  "We  always  want  the  best,  and  the  Bible  that 
proves  itself  the  best  edition  comes  to  the  top  spontaneously." 

You  stated  some  time  ago  that  the  American  Revised  Version 
was  the  best  and  was  so  accepted  by  American  Protestants.  We 
asked  you  your  authority  for  this  statement.  What  denomination 
had  officially  approved  it?  It  appears  now  that  none  has.  Have 
Protestants  approved  of  it  individually?  It  appears  from  the 
following  correspondence  in  the  Brooklyn  Eagle  that  they  have 
not: 

"The  great  revulsion  on  the  part  of  the  public  in  the  case  of 
the  revised  version  is  remarkable  and  forms  food  for  thought, 
especially  when  one  recollects  the  intense  interest  which  was 
manifested  when  the  first  edition  was  placed  on  the  market. 

"Book-shelves  groaned  under  its  weight.  The  eagerness  to  buy 
it  was  phenomenal.  The  sales  were  immense.  Street  fakirs  ped- 
dled it  in  New  York  from  pushcarts  for  a  few  cents  a  copy.  The 
chief  and  only  thing  about  it  was  novelty.  It  was  then,  as  now, 
looked  upon  as  a  curiosity.  Its  existence  was  ephemeral.  Public 
opinion  quickly  consigned  it  to  oblivion,  and  the  efforts  of  all  the 
literary  cranks  'from  Dan  even  unto  Beersheba'  will  not  be  able 
to  resurrect  it  from  the  realm  of  'innocuous  desuetude.'  And  is 
it  any  wonder?  The  sacred  text  was  torn  limb  from  limb  and 
mutilated  in  such  a  degree  as  to  be  unrecognizable." 

Commenting  on  this,  the  Literary  Digest  says : 

"In  this  connection  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  American 
Bible  Society  has  decided  to  publish  an  'American  Standard  Edi- 
tion' of  the  revised  Bible,  embodying  the  ideas  of  many  eminent 
American  scholars.  At  the  time  of  the  revision,  in  1885,  the 
suggestions  of  the  American  committee  were  added  as  an  ap- 
pendix to  the  revised  version,  but  were  not  incorporated  in  the 
text.  These  suggestions,  as  well  as  others  subsequently  made, 
are  to  be  embodied  in  the  new  edition,  which,  it  is  claimed,  will 
reach  a  higher  level  than  that  attained  by  any  previous  version 
of  the  Bible." 

This  decision  of  the  American   Bible  Society  is  so  far  as  we  or 


VERSIONS  OF  THE  BIBLE.  249 

you  know,  the  only  formal  utterance  that  we  have  from  the 
American  Protestants,  and  it  condemns  your  favorite  version  as 
unfit  to  survive,  and,  therefore,  they  will  get  out  another  version. 
Your  favorite  American  Revised  has  not  "come  to  the  top  spon- 
taneously." We  hope  the  proposed  new  version  will  imitate  the 
American  Revised  in  its  approach  to  the  text  of  the  Vulgate,  and 
go  still  further. 

Mr.  Jones :  *'I  asked  you  about  the  proof  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  of  to-day  being  similar  to  the  early  Christian  Church." 

We  did  not  claim  that  the  Catholic  Church  is  "similar  to  the 
early  Christian  Church."  To  say  that  a  thing  is  similar  to  an- 
other thing  is  to  say  that  it  is  not  that  other  thing.  Thus  you  see 
that  to  claim  similarity  is  to  deny  identity.  To  say  that  Mr.  Jones 
is  similar  to  the  boy  Jones  of  many  years  ago  is  to  say  that  the 
boy  Jones  and  the  man  Jones  are  two  different  persons — in  other 
words,  it  denies  your  identity  and  affirms  that  that  boy  was  not 
you,  but  somebody  else.  In  order  to  give  you  a  boyhood  we 
must  assert  that  the  boy  and  you  are  not  two  similar  persons,  but 
one  and  the  same  person  under  two  different  aspects,  that  of 
youth  and  that  of  age. 

A  counterfeit  is  similar  to  a  genuine  note,  and  the  greater  the 
similarity  the  greater  the  likelihood  of  deception  through  mistak- 
ing the  imitation  for  the  genuine.  If  this  be  the  kind  of  sim- 
ilarity to  the  early  Church  whch  you  claim  for  your  sect  we  could 
not  in  conscience  object. 

These  illustrations  will  show  you  why  we  did  not  and  do  not 
claim  for  the  Catholic  Church  similarity  to  the  early  Church. 

What  we  claim  is  not  similarity,  but  identity;  that  the  Catholic 
Church  is  the  early  Church,  just  as  we  claim  that  you  are  now  the 
same  person  you  were  when  you  were  many  years  younger.  As 
years  did  not  cause  you  to  lose  your  identity,  neither  did  cen- 
turies cause  the  Church  estabHshed  by  Christ  to  lose  her  identity. 
She  is  a  divine  corporation,  holding  a  charter  and  commission 
that  must  run  to  the  end  of  the  world.  Imitations  may  have 
greater  or  less  similarity  to  her,  but  the  similarity  is  itself  a  bar 
sinister  of  illegitimacy,  for  it  proves  they  are  not  she  or  of  her. 

What  would  be  thought  of  a  corporation,  or  the  sanity  of  its 
members,  that  would  claim  the  property  of  the  Central  Pennsyl- 
vania Railroad  on  the  plea  that  it  was  similar  to  the  corpora- 
tion of  that  road ;  that  it  held  the  same  principles  as  the  original 


250  THE  GLOBE, 

corporation.  What  would  be  the  standing  of  such  a  claim  in  a 
court?  Would  not  the  court  be  justified  in  issuing  a  writ  de 
lunatico  inquirendo? 

That  is  precisely  the  attitude  of  the  modern  sects.  Having  no 
historical  or  organic  connection  with  the  divine  corporation,  the 
Church,  established  nearly  two  thousand  years  ago,  they  en- 
deavor to  associate  themselves  with  it  by  claiming  that  they 
teach  the  same  principles  and  doctrines.  Even  if  it  were  granted 
— which  it  is  not — their  sameness  of  teaching  would  not  confer 
on  them  the  authority  to  teach  which  was  conferred  on  the  orig- 
inal corporation  by  its  divine  founder;  and  on  that  corporation 
only.  Their  efforts  in  that  direction  are  as  futile  as  would  be 
those  of  a  foreigner  who  would  teach  the  principles  of  the  De- 
claration of  Independence  and  the  constitution  with  the  hope 
that  by  doing  so  he  would  ipso  facto  acquire  the  rights  of  citi- 
zenship, or  the  authority  to  legislate  for  the  citizens  of  the 
republic.  He  would  be  disillusionized  by  being  told  that  to 
become  a  citizen  he  must  be  incorporated  into  the  body  politic — 
naturalized.  The  equivalent  is  to  be  told  to  the  would-be  imi- 
tators of  the  primitive  Church.  They  must  be  incorporated  into 
that  Church,  which  still  exists;  super-naturalized  by  being  born 
into  her.  Until  then  they  are  outsiders,  foreigners  to  the  House, 
Hagarites. 

Mr.  Jones:  "It  is  evident  that  your  conception  of  the  Church 
of  Christ  is  un-Scriptural,  unreasonable  and  absurd." 

It  is  evident  that  you  are  suffering  from  a  severe  attack  of 
private  judgment.    What  brought  it  on? 

Mr.  Jones :  "It  was  never  built  on  Peter,  as  a  foundation.  When 
Christ  said  the  words :  Thou  art  Peter  and  upon  this  rock  I  will 
build  My  Church,'  he  did  not  mean  Peter  to  be  a  rock." 

He  certainly  did  not  mean  that  he — Peter — ^was  a  large  mass 
of  concrete  or  stoney  matter,  such  as  is  placed  under  a  material 
building  as  a  corner  stone  or  foundation.  If  you  think  that  is 
our  conception  of  the  Church  of  Christ,  it  is  you,  not  we,  that 
is  unreasonable  and  absurb. 

Mr.  Jones :  "For  the  Greek  word  Petros  means  a  stone,  entire- 
ly different  from  the  second  word  petra,  which  means  a  rock." 

Oh,  now  we  see  your  meaning.  It  is  a  difference  between 
Petros  and  petra,  between  stone  and  rock.  But  what  would  you 
have  to  say  if  our  Lord  used  neither  of  these  words  ?    He  spoke 


VERSIONS  OF  THE  BIBLE.  251 

in  Syro-Chaldaic  and  used  the  word  "cephas."  And  if  you  look 
in  Kitto's  Cyclopaedia  of  Biblical  Literature  you  will  find  the 
following  definition:  "Cephas;  in  later  Hebrew  or  Syriac,  a  sur- 
name which  Christ  bestowed  upon  Simon  (John  1-42),  and  which 
the  Greeks  rendered  by  Petros  and  the  Latins  by  Petrus,  both 
works  meaning  a  'rock/  which  is  the  signification  of  the  orig- 
inal." 

St.  Jerome  in  his  commentary  on  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians 
says:  ''We  know  not  the  name  of  any  other  so-called  Cephas; 
except  his  who  is  also  in  the  Gospel,  and  in  the  other  epistles  of 
St.  Paul,  and  this  very  epistle,  too ;  it  is  one  time  written  Cephas 
and  at  another  Peter.  Not  that  Peter  means  one  thing  and 
Cephas  another;  but  what  we  in  the  Latin  and  Greek  languages 
call  Petra  (a  rock),  this  the  Hebrews  and  Syrians,  because  of 
the  affinity  of  their  two  languages,  call  Cephas." 

According  to  this,  Christ's  words  to  Simon  would  be:  "Thou 
art  Cephas  (a  rock)  and  on  this  Cephas  (rock)  I  will  build  My 
Church." 

Wilberforce  says:  "In  Syriac,  as  appears  at  present  from  the 
Peschito  version,  the  term  in  each  member  of  the  sentence  is 
identical." 

This  identity  of  terms  appears  to  the  eye  in  the  Syriac  version 
thus:  "Anath  chipha,  vehall  hada  chipha." 

From  all  of  which  we  must  conclude  against  you,  that  Petros 
and  petra  mean  one  and  the  same  rock,  the  rock  on  which  Christ 
said,  "I  will  build  My  Church." 

Mr.  Jones:  "If  Christ  meant  Peter,  the  rock,  why  did  He 
change  the  object  and  go  from  a  Greek  word  meaning  stone,  of 
the  masculine  gender,  to  a  word  meaning  rock,  of  the  feminine 
gender  ?" 

As  we  have  seen,  He  did  not  go  from  one  Greek  word  to 
another.  He  spoke  in  Syro-Chaldaic  and  used  the  same  word 
for  rock  in  both  cases. 

Why,  then,  the  difference  of  determination  in  Petros  and  petra 
in  Greek?  you  will  ask.  To  this  Kenrick  says:  "Peter  is  called 
Petros  because  the  Greeks  never  apply  a  feminine  noun  to  a  man, 
except  in  derision ;  the  rock  is  called  petra  because  this  term  more 
appropriately  designates  a  rock,  although  the  other  term  is  equiv- 
alent. The  relative  plainly  identifies  the  subject  and  excludes 
all  distinction,  as  the  language  in  which  our  Saviour  spoke  has 


252  THE  GLOBE, 

the  same  word  in  both  places."  To  the  Greek  mind  it  would  be 
as  improper  to  call  Petros  petra  as  it  would  be  to  the  Latin 
mind  to  call  Julius  Julia,  or  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  mind  to  call 
Louis  Louisa." 

We  have  sometimes  complained  that  the  Cardinalships  were 
given  too  exclusively  to  Italians,  not  that  we  have  an  overwhelm- 
ingly exalted  conception  of  the  extravagant  ability  of  the  Anglo- 
American  or  other  national  hierarchies.  We  think,  that  as  a 
whole,  they  compare  favorably,  however,  with  the  best  the 
Church  has  ever  had,  a  little  too  pompous,  all  of  them,  and  if 
the  Church  ever  expects  the  clear  mind  and  heart  of  the  world  to 
admit  its  claim  to  universality  the  Church  simply  must  be  more 
universal  in  the  bestowal  of  its  exalted  honors.  Some  of  my 
best  friends  these  many  years,  have  been  among  the  American 
Italian  priesthood.  We  admire  their  enthusiasm,  their  general 
integrity,  and  if  we  have  found  one  rare  sneak  in  the  grass  among 
them,  we  do  not  blame  all  Italy  or  Pius  X  for  that  poor  fellow. 
We  consider  the  present  newspaper  arraignment  of  Italian  emi- 
grants, as  more  criminal  than  the  men  of  other  races,  as  simply 
indicating  the  blinded  and  windy  prejudices  of  the  average 
American  newspaper  scribbler,  and  when  we  remember  what 
the  Italy  of  the  past  has  done  for  all  the  world,  in  the  lines  of 
culture,  piety  and  statesmanship,  we  feel  inclined  to  wish  that 
the  church  was  truly  united  with  the  nation,  and  quite  willing 
that  Italy,  thus  united,  were  mistress  of  the  world.  But  that  is 
a  large  subject.  We  want  to  see  more  American  Cardinals  and 
some  of  them  chosen  from  the  simple  priesthood — first  of  all, 
Father  Lambert,  the  stainless  priest  and  the  incomparable  writer, 
and  editor  of  The  Nezv  York  Freeman's  Journal.  We  do  not 
agree  with  the  Augustinian  priest  who  once  assured  us  that 
bishops  constitute  the  Church. 

William  Henry  Thorne. 


THE  TSAR  AND  HIS  GOVERNMENT. 


The  Emperor  Nicholas  II  has  already  reigned  for  nearly  two 
years,  and  ruled  for  fully  eight;  yet  the  concrete  man,  his  indi- 
vidual character,  and  the  order  of  motives  to  which  it  is  sensible, 


THE  TSAR  AND  HIS  GOVERNMENT  253 

are  nearly  all  as  legendary  as  those  of  Numa  Pompilius.  Clouds 
of  journalistic  myths,  mainly  of  German  origin,  enwrap  his 
figure,  hiding  it  from  the  vulgar  gaze  as  thoroughly  as  though 
he  were  the  Dalai  Lama;  and  the  fanciful  portrait  which  we  are 
asked  to  accept  is  as  abstract  and  as  colorless  as  that  of  our 
legendary  Russian  princes.  Beyond  the  precincts  of  the  palace 
his  person  is  transfigured,  his  most  trivial  deeds  are  glorified, 
and  his  least  disinterested  motives  are  twisted  and  pulled  into 
line  with  the  fundamental  principles  of  ethics.  The  result  is  a 
caricature  closely  bordering  on  the  grotesque  Nikolai  Alex- 
androvitch  is  depicted  as  a  prince  of  peace,  a  Slav  Messiah  sent 
for  the  salvation,  not  of  his  own  people  only,  but  of  all  the  world. 
The  most  precious  porcelain  of  human  clay  was  lavished  in  the 
making  of  this  unique  ruler,  who  stands  upon  a  much  higher 
level  than  that  of  the  common  run  of  mortals  or  of  kings,  in 
virtue,  not  only  of  the  dread  ressponsibilities  laid  upon  him  by 
the  Most  High,  but  also  by  reason  of  his  own  passionate  love  of 
humanity  and  his  selfless  devotion  to  the  true  and  the  good.  In 
short,  he  is  an  "Ubermensch"  whose  innate  goodness  of  heart 
exceeds  even  his  irresponsible  power. 

But  no  newspaper  hero  is  a  prophet  in  his  own  country  for 
long;  and  Nicholas  II  did  not  play  the  part  in  Russia  for  more 
than  a  twelve-month.  His  father's  reign  had  ended  in  utter 
moral  exhaustion,  in  the  blasting  of  hopes,  the  killing  of  en- 
thusiasm, the  blackness  of  despair.  Better  things  were  confidently 
expected  of  the  son,  because  worse  were  rashly  held  to  be  impos- 
sible. But  the  credulous  masses  were  again  mistaken,  and  soon 
became  conscious  of  their  error.    All  Europe  will  know  it  soon. 

Nicholas  II  began  his  reign  in  1894  as  a  highly  sensitive,  retir- 
ing young  man,  who  shrank  instinctively  from  the  fierce  light 
that  beats  upon  the  throne.  In  spite  of  his  camp  experience, 
he  was  still  his  mother's  child,  passivity  his  predominant  trait,  and 
diffidence  one  of  its  temporary  symptoms.  But  that  phase  of 
his  existence  was  short,  and  the  change  from  the  chrysalis  to 
the  butterfly  very  rapid. 

Men  still  call  vividly  to  mind  the  Emperor's  first  meeting  with 
one  of  the  historic  institutions  of  the  Empire.  It  was  a  raw  No- 
vember day  in  1894.  The  members  of  the  State  Council,  many 
of  them  veteran  officials,  who  had  served  the  Tsar's  great-grand- 


254 


THE  GLOBE, 


father,  were  convened  to  do  homage  to  the  new  monarch,  and 
long  before  the  time  fixed  were  gathered  together  at  the  appointed 
place,  their  bodies  covered  with  gorgeous  costumes  and  their 
faces  hidden  with  courtly  masks  expressive  of  awe  and  admira- 
tion. But  he  came  and  went  like  a  whiflf  of  wind  in  a  sandy 
waste,  leaving  them  rubbing  their  eyes.  They  had  expected  im- 
perial majestj,  but  were  confronted  with  childish  constraint,  a 
shambling  gait,  a  furtive  glance,  and  spasmodic  movements.  An 
undersized,  pithless  lad  sidled  into  the  apartment  in  which  these 
hoary  dignitaries  were  respectfully  awaiting  him.  With  down- 
cast eyes,  and  in  a  shrill  falsetto  voice,  he  hastily  spoke  a  single 
sentence :  "Gentlemen,  in  the  name  of  my  late  father,  I  thank  you 
for  your  services,"  hesitated  for  a  second  and  then,  turning  on 
his  heels  he  was  gone.  They  looked  at  each  other,  some  in 
amazement,  others  in  pain,  many  uttering  a  mental  prayer  for 
the  weal  of  the  nation;  and  after  an  awkward  pause  they  dis- 
persed to  their  homes. 

The  nation's  next  meeting  with  his  Majesty  took  place  a  few 
days  later,  upon  an  occasion  as  solemn  as  the  first;  but  in  the 
interval  he  had  been  hypnotized  by  M.  Pobedonostsefif,  the  lay- 
bishop  of  autocracy,  who  has  the  secret  of  spiritually  anointing 
and  intellectually  equipping  the  chosen  of  the  Lord.  The  key- 
note of  the  Emperor's  second  appearance  was  dignity — inac- 
cessible, almost  superhuman  dignity. 

All  Russia  had  been  gathered  together  in  the  persons  of  the 
representatives  of  the  Zemstvos  or  local  boards — we  may  call 
them  embryonic  county  councils — to  do  homage  to  his  Majesty 
on  his  accession  to  the  throne.  Loyal  addresses  without  number, 
drawn  up  in  the  flowery  language  of  oriental  servility,  had  been 
presented  from  all  those  institutions.  One.  of  these  documents 
— and  only  one — had  seemed  to  M.  Pobedonostseff  to  smack  of 
Liberalism.  No  less  loyal  in  form  or  spirit  than  those  of  the 
other  boards,  the  address  drawn  up  by  the  council  of  Tver 
vaguely  expressed  the  modest  hope  that  his  Majesty's  confidence 
might  not  be  wholly  restricted  to  the  bureaucracy,  but  would 
likewise  be  shared  by  the  Russian  people  and  by  the  Zemstvos, 
whose  devotion  to  the  throne  was  proverbial.  This  was  a  rea- 
sonable wish ;  it  could  not  seriously  be  dubbed  a  crime ;  and,  even 
if  it  bespoke  a  certain  spirit  of  mild  independence,  it  was  after 
all  the  act  of  a  single  Zemstvo,  whereas  the  men  who  had  come 


THE  TSAR  AND  HIS  GOVERNMENT.  255 

to  do  homage  to  the  Emperor  were  the  spokesmen,  not  of  one 
Zemstvo,  but  of  all  Russia.  Yet  the  autocrat  strode  majestically 
into  the  brilliantly  lighted  hall,  and  with  knitted  brows  and  tight- 
ly drawn  lips  turned  wrathfully  upon  the  chosen  men  of  the  na- 
tion and,  stamping  his  little  foot,  ordered  them  to  put  away  such 
chimerical  notions,  which  he  would  never  entertain.  Such  was 
the  Tsar's  first  imperious  assertion  of  his  divine  viceroyalty;  and 
even  staunch  partisans  of  the  autocracy  blamed  it  as  harsh  and 
ill-advised. 

Between  those  two  public  appearances  of  Nicholas  II  lay  that 
short  period  of  suggestion  during  which  the  impressionable 
youth  had  been  made  not  so  much  to  believe  as  to  feel  that  he 
was  God's  lieutenant,  the  earthly  counterpart  of  his  divine  Mas- 
ter. From  that  time  forward  his  Majesty  has  been  filled  with  a 
spirit  of  self-exaltation  which  has  gone  on  gaining  strength,  in 
accordance  with  the  psychological  law  that  pride  usurps  as  much 
space  as  servility  ready  to  yield.  Nikolai  Alexandrovitch 
soon  began  to  look  upon  himself  as  the  centre  of  the  world,  the 
peacemaker  of  mankind,  the  torch-bearer  of  civilization  among 
the  "yellow"  and  other  "barbarous"  races,  and  the  dispenser  of 
almost  every  blessing  to  his  own  happy  people.  Taking  seriously 
this  his  imaginary  mission,  he  has  meddled  continuously  and 
directly  in  every  afifair  of  State,  domestic  and  foreign,  thwarting 
the  course  of  justice,  undermining  legality,  impoverishing  his 
subjects,  boasting  his  fervent  love  of  peace,  and  yet  plunging  his 
tax-burdened  people  into  the  horrors  of  a  sanguinary  and  need- 
less war. 

Before  setting  forth  a  few  of  the  many  facts  known  personally 
to  most  of  those  who  live  in  the  shadow  of  the  throne — facts 
which  justify  the  foregoing  estimate  of  his  Majesty's  mental  state 
and  character — it  should  be  clearly  understood  that  we  are  sup- 
porters of  monarchy  and  opposed  to  nihilism,  to  socialism,  and  to 
every  kind  of  revolutionary  agitation.  We  do  not  wish  even  for 
a  paper  constitution,  which,  conditions  being  what  they  now  are, 
would  but  serve  as  a  trap  for  liberal-minded  men,  gathering  them 
together  for  imprisonment  or  exile.  Our  sole  desire,  as  it  is 
that  of  most  broadminded  men  in  Russia,  is  to  see  the  spirit  of 
administration  made  to  harmonize  with  the  needs  of  the  time 
and  of  the  people,  and  the  institution  known  as  the  Council  of 
Ministers — created  by  a  ukase  of  Alexander  II  which  has  re- 


256 


THE  GLOBE. 


mained  a  dead  letter — summoned  and  set  to  work ;  for,  the  people 
having  outgrown  the  ancient  form  of  government,  the  fact  should 
be  openly  admitted,  and  the  practical  conclusions  drawn. 

The  only  government  suited  to  Russia  is  a  strong  monarchy; 
but  between  this  and  a  wild  oriental  despotism  there  is  a  differ- 
ence. Nicholas  II,  although  not  guided  by  his  official  advisers, 
has  never  been  a  free  and  independent  ruler.  During  the  first 
part  of  his  reign  he  was  kept  in  leading-strings  by  his  mother, 
who,  as  soon  as  he  ascended  the  throne,  impressed  upon  him  the 
necessity  of  imitating  in  all  things  his  "never-to-be-forgotten 
father."  That  phrase  was  engraven  upon  the  tablets  of  his 
memory,  and  is  ever  at  the  top  of  his  tongue  and  the  point  of  his 
pen.  For  long  it  was  the  "open  sesame"  to  his  heart  and  mind, 
because  he  strives  conscientiously  to  be  a  perfected  copy  of  Alex- 
ander III,  and  believes  that  he  has  already  attained  the  end. 
In  reality  the  two  men  are  as  far  asunder  as  the  positive  and 
negative  poles.  The  father,  sincere,  gloomy  and  narrow-minded, 
at  least  instinctively  felt  his  limitations,  and  steadily  kept  withir 
them.  He  strove  with  indomitable  perseverance  and  occasional 
success  to  secure  within  the  narrow  circle  of  his  acquaintances 
the  best  men,  and,  having  once  chosen  an  adviser,  always  asked 
his  counsel,  and  usually  followed  it.  Again,  breach  of  faith  was 
an  abomination  to  him,  and  his  word  was  regarded  as  better 
than  any  bond,  in  spite  of  his  mistaken  attitude  towards  the 
Finns,  and  his  broken  promise  in  regard  to  Batoum.  But  in  all 
these  characteristics  the  son  is  the  very  opposite  to  his  father. 
Unsteady,  half-hearted,  self-complacent,  and  fickle,  he  changes 
his  favorites  with  his  fitful  moods,  allowing  a  band  of  casual, 
obscure,  and  dangerous  men  to  usurp  the  functions  of  his  respon- 
sible ministers,  whose  recommendations  are  ignored,  whose 
warnings  are  disregarded,  and  whose  measures  for  the  defence 
of  the  State  are  not  only  baffled,  but  resented  as  symptoms  of 
disobedience. 

The  sway  wielded  by  his  mother  over  Nicholas  II  soon  came 
to  an  end,  owing  chiefly  to  differences  between  herself  and  her 
daughter-in-law  on  the  subject  of  the  Emperor's  children.  In 
the  course  of  that  rivalry  the  strenuous  opposition  of  the  young 
wife  checked  the  influence  of  the  mother  over  the  son.  One  of 
the  consequences  of  this  domestic  struggle  for  the  mastery  was 
that  the  Emperor  freed  himself  partially,  and  for  a  time,  from 


THE  TSAR  AND  HIS  GOVERNMENT.  257 

unofficial  control;  and  his  first  spontaneous  act,  in  the  second 
year  of  his  reign,  was  to  appoint  M.  Goremykin,  a  man  devoid  of 
qualifications,  to  the  post  of  Minister  of  the  Interior  (1896). 
This  official  remained  in  power  for  three  years,  and  was  then 
translated  to  the  presidency  of  the  Committee  of  Ministers — a 
sort  of  respectable  refuge  for  ex-statesmen.  His  successor,  M. 
Sipyaghin,  chosen  by  the  influence  of  the  Dowager  Empress, 
who  pointed  out  that  he  had  been  favorably  noticed  by  "your 
never-to-be-forgotten  father,"  deserves  a  few  words  of  mention. 
For,  next  to  a  man's  acts  examined  in  the  light  of  his  avowed 
motives,  there  can  be  no  safer  guide  to  his  moral  character  and 
mental  vigor  than  his  choice  of  associates  and  fellow-workers; 
and  some  monarchs'  claims  to  the  gratitude  of  their  subjects  are 
founded,  like  those  of  old  Kaiser  Wilhelm,  entirely  uppn  the 
wise  selections  which  they  made,  and  the  tenacity  with  which  they 
clung  to  their  ministers  through  thick  and  thin.  Judged  by  this  . 
standard,  Nicholas  II  will  be  ranked  amongst  the  most  unfor- 
tunate rulers  of  the  Russian  people. 

His  second  choice,  M.  Sipyaghin,,  was  nicknamed  "the  Boy- 
arin,"   from   his   extreme  love  of  ancient  Russian  customs  and 
traditions,  and  the  childish  ways  in  which  he  manifested  them. 
Intellectually  Boeotian,  but  socially  agreeable,  he  was  a  welcome 
guest  in  the  houses  of  our  nobility,  where  tea-table  gossip  is  at 
a  high  premum.     His  political  force  lay  in  the  thoroughness 
with  which  he  threw  himself  into  the  part  of  courtier,  and  the 
skill  with  which  he  acted  it.     Ever  blithe,  his  face  wreathed  in 
smiles,   his   words   sweetened   with   the   honey  of   adulation,   he 
infected  his  master  and  many  of  hi»  own  equals  with  the  opti- 
mism of  Candide.     All  was  for  the  best  in  that  best  of  states, 
Russia,  thanks  to  the  greatest  and  best  of  monarchs,  Nicholas 
11.     That  was  the  faith  of  Sipyaghin,  who  loved  his  sovereign 
sincerely,  and  mistook  that  love  for  patriotic  duty.     In  return 
the  Emperor  warmed  to  him,  making  him  not  his  friend  only, 
but  his  comrade,  and  singling  him  out  for  special  marks  of  favor, 
for  instance,  although  his  Majesty,  as  a  rule,  never  dines  or  sups 
at  the  house  of  a  minister,  he  made  an  exception  for  M.  Sip- 
yaghin. 

M.  Sipyaghin's  ascendency  over  Nicholas  II  reached  a  point 
at  which  the  jealousy  of  M.  Pobedonostseff  was  aroused:  it 
touched  even  religion.     For  the  Minister  of  the  Interior,   en- 


258  THE  GLOBE. 

croaching  in  his  light,  off-hand  manner  upon  the  domain  of  the 
Chief  Procurator  of  the  Most  Holy  Synod,  induced  the  Tsar  to 
visit  Moscow  and  spend  Passion  week  there;  and  the  trip  was 
successful  beyond  expectation.  On  this  pilgrimage  M.  Sipya- 
ghin  treated  the  Emperor  as  Potyemkin  dealt  with  Catherine  II ; 
he  enveloped  him  in  an  atmosphere  of  popular  affection,  sur- 
rounded him  with  signal  proofs  of  his  subjects'  prosperity,  in- 
toxicated him  with  the  wine  of  self-satisfaction.  But  while  his 
Majesty  was  thanking  heaven  that  his  people  were  happier  than 
foreigners,  millions  of  his  best  subjects  were  being  despoiled  of 
their  hard-earned  money,  and  many  were  being  imprisoned  or 
banished,  some  for  obeying  the  commands  of  God,  others  for 
infringing  the  unjust  laws  of  the  Government.  M.  Sipyaghin, 
who  was  not  a  cruel  man  at  heart,  was  hated  as  the  champion 
and  inspirer  of  this  misrule.  Friends  warned  him  to  be  on  his 
guard;  but,  replying  that  he  would  continue  to  do  his  duty,  he 
went  light-heartedly  on  his  way. 

On  Monday,  April  14,  1901,  he  invited  his  Majesty  to  dinner 
for  the  following  Thursday;  and  the  Emperor  graciously  con- 
sented. In  the  domestic  circle  and  the  State  department  prep- 
arations were  at  once  made  for  the  repast.  Officials  of  the  min- 
istry were  dispatched  in  search  of  a  special  kind  of  big  straw- 
berries, larger  than  those  which  were  to  be  found  at  Yeliseyeff's 
in  the  Nevsky  Prospekt.  Fiery  gipsies  were  engaged  to  sing 
before  royalty;  telegrams  were  dispatched  to  Paris  for  prize 
chickens,  piping  hot  pancakes  were  ordered  a  la  Russe  to  be 
eaten  with  cold  caviare;  despatches  were  sent  to  the  caterer 
Prospere,  of  Kharkoff,  for  dainties  for  the  imperial  palate;  and 
many  officials  of  the  ministry  scoured  the  capital  for  piquant 
delicacies.  But  on  the  Thursday  fixed  for  the  imperial  repast, 
Sipyaghin's  body  was  carried  to  its  last  resting-place.  The  min- 
ister had  been  assassinated  by  a  youth  named  Balmashoff,  not 
twenty-one  years  old,  as  a  warning  and  a  protest. 

His  Majesty  now  had  another  opportunity  for  showing  his 
judgment  and  gratifying  his  predictions.  Amenable  chiefly  to 
tangible  and  visible  influences,  his  choice  fell  upon  M.  de  Plehve, 
who  speedily  developed  into  the  formidable  Dictator  of  All  the 
Russias.  This  official  is  tolerably  instructed,  possesses  an  intri- 
cate acquantance  with  the  seamy  side  of  human  nature,  knows 
how  to  touch  deftly  the  right  cords  of  sentiment,  prejudice,  or 


THE  TSAR  AND  HIS  GOVERNMENT.  259 

passion,  and  can  keep  his  head  in  the  most  alarming  crisis. 
When  state  dignitaries  and  officials  lost  their  nerve  on  the  tragic 
death  of  Alexander  II,  M.  de  Plehve,  then  public  prosecutor, 
was  cool,  self-possessed,  resourceful.  These  qualifications  were 
duly  noted,  and  his  promotion  was  rapid ;  he  became  successively 
Director  of  the  Police  Department,  and  Secretary  of  the  Council 
of  the  Empire,  where  he  helped  to  ruin  the  Finnish  nation  before 
the  destinies  of  150,000,000  Russians  were  finally  placed  in  his 
hands. 

M.  de  Plehve  cannot  be  classified  by  nationality,  genealogy, 
church,  or  party.  Of  obscure  parentage,  of  German  blood  with 
a  Jewish  strain,  of  uncertain  religious  denomination,  bis  ethical 
worth  was  gauged  aright  years  ago  by  his  colleagues  in  the  Min- 
istry of  Justice,  and  recently  again  in  the  Council  of  Ministers. 
Aware  of  their  hostile  judgment,  his  first  acts  were  calculated 
to  modify  it.  He  set  out  for  the  sacred  shrine  near  Moscow, 
the  Troitsko-Serghieffsky  Monastery,  where  he  devoutly  received 
Holy  Communion  at  the  hands  of  an  orthodox  priest.  While 
he  was  thus  displaying  his  piety  in  view  of  his  subordinates,  the 
peasants  in  Kharkoff  and  Poltava  were  being  cruelly  flogged 
by  his  orders  for  showing  signs  of  disaffection.  Visiting  those 
provinces  in  person,  M.  de  Plehve  promptly  awarded  the  gov- 
ernor of  Kharkoff  for  flogging  the  malcontents  at  once,  and 
punished  the  governor  of  Poltava  for  flogging  them  only  as  an 
afterthought. 

That  revolt  of  the  peasants,  which  was  repeated  in  Saratoff 
and  elsewhere,  marks  an  era  in  Russian  history,  for  it  resulted 
in  M.  de  Witte's  commission  of  inquiry  into  the  condition  of  the 
agricultural  classes  in  Russia,  and  in  that  minister's  fall.  The 
marshals  of  the  noblity  were  empowered  to  summon  members 
of  the  Zemstvo,  landed  proprietors,  and  anybody  else  who  could 
enlighten  them  in  their  investigations.  Peasants  too  were  asked". 
to  give  their  views ;  and  all  were  encouraged  to  speak  out  freely^. 
And  this  was  the  question  asked :  If  the  peasantry  are  materially- 
impoverished  and  physically  degenerating,  if  their  live-stock  is; 
dwindling  to  nothing,  and  if  the  food  they  eat  is  less  in  quantity 
and  worse  in  quality  than  ever  before,  is  Nature  to  blame  or 
man?  And  if  man,  what  man?  The  results  of  the  enquiry  were 
convincing;  for,  without  previous  consultation,  those  spokesmen 
of  various  social  classes  throughout  Russia,  whose  interests  con- 


26o  THE  GLOBE. 

flict  in  many  ways,  were  practically  at  one  in  their  opinion.  Par- 
tial to  euphemisms,  they  condemned  the  system  of  administra- 
tion. Dotting  their  i's  and  crossing  their  t's,  M.  de  Plehve 
called  that  system  by  the  name  of  autocracy;  and  no  Russian 
can  honestly  say  that  he  was  wrong. 

The  reform  inaugurated  by  Alexander  II,  when  he  struck  off 
the  fetters  of  serfdom,  ought,  so  these  commissioners  held,  to  be 
further  developed.  The  peasants  should  be  freed  from  the 
shackles  of  special  penal  legislation.  They  should  be  taught  to 
read,  to  keep  themselves  clean  in  body  and  in  soul,  to  cope  with 
the  horrible  diseases  which  in  their  ignorance  they  now  com- 
municate to  each  other,  to  shake  off  the  network  of  superstition 
which  is  eating  away  their  spiritual  nature  as  the  poison  of 
infection  is  undermining  their  physique,  and  to  fit  themselves  for 
trade  and  industry.  That  was  the  opinion  of  all  Russia's  repre- 
sentatives— noblemen,  landed  proprietors,  doctors,  lawyers, 
tradesmen  and  peasants.  Yet  the  men  who  uttered  it  were  pun- 
ished for  their  audacity.  M.  de  Witte  had  exhorted  them  to 
speak  their  minds;  the  Tsar  punished  them  for  obeying  his 
minister;  and  M.  de  Plehve  encouraged  the  Tsar. 
•  That  Land  Commisson  was  the  turning  point  in  the  career 
of  M.  de  Witte,  whose  services  the  Emperor  had  inherited  from 
his  "never-to-be-forgotten  father."  The  ease  with  which  the 
minister  fell  into  disfavor,  and  the  irrelevant  grounds  on  which 
he  was  dismissed,  are  characteristic  of  the  Tsar's  arbitrary  ways 
of  thinking  and  acting.  M.  de  Witte  is  a  statesman  of  high 
powers — and  great  limitations — a  financier  whose  earlier  policy 
did,  I  believe,  much  harm,  as  his  mature  acts  did  much  good,  to 
the  nation.  As  minister,  he  came  eventually  to  understand  the 
needs  of  his  time  and  country,  and  sought  with  alternating  suc- 
cess and  failure  to  satisfy  them;  his  work  was  a  mixture  of 
promise,  achievement  and  failure.  If  the  one-eyed  man  is  neces- 
sarily the  leader  in  the  kingdom  of  the  blind,  M.  de  Witte 
deserved  to  be  the  head  of  the  Government  in  contemporary 
Russia.  But  the  members  of  the  camarilla  refused  to  have  him, 
and,  with  the  monarch's  support,  they  proved  more  powerful 
than  he.  For  they  already  had  brought  things  to  such  a  pass 
that  none  can  now  serve  Russia  as  ministers  but  such  as  are 
skilful  in  flattering  the  Tsar;  and  M.  de  Witte  was  not  one  of 
these.     He  not  only  spoke  freely  to  Nicholas  II,  but  refused  to 


THE  TSAR  AND  HIS  GOVERNMENT,  261 

change  his  opinion  in  accordance  with  the  Emperor's  desires.  He 
also  declined  to  dupe  the  foreign  Powers.  "Your  Majesty 
pledged  your  word  to  evacuate  Manchuria,  and  the  world  be- 
lieved you.  Russia  will  now  lose  all  credit,  and  perhaps  not  even 
gain  Manchuria,  if  it  pleases  your  Majesty  to  break  that  pledge. 
War  also  will  follow,  and  we  sorely  need  peace.  Besides,  Man- 
churia is  useless  to  us.  Therefore  I  cannot  be  a  party  to  this 
policy."  Thus  plainly  spoke  the  Finance  Minister,  heedless  of 
courtly  phraseology.  "Witte  is  a  haughty  dictator,  who  gives 
himself  the  air  of  an  Emperor."  So  spoke  the  courtiers  among 
themselves  and  to  his  Majesty  through  the  Grand  Dukes.  And 
the  autocrat,  wrathful  that  a  subject  should  oppose  his  wishes 
and  refuse  to  co-operate  with  him  in  professing  to  work  for 
peace  while  provoking  war,  dismissed  him.  To  the  Russian 
nation  that  loss  meant  great  bloodshed,  vast  expense,  wide-spread 
misery :  what  else  it  involves  we  cannot  yet  say. 

M.  de  Plehve  is  now  the  most  influential  personage  in  the 
Russian  Empire — a  Muscovite  Grand  Vizier,  who  wields  abso- 
lute power  over  what  we  may  be  pardoned  for  calling  the  great- 
est nation  on  the  globe ;  and  he  holds  his  position  at  the  pleasure 
of  his  imperial  master.  Whether  he  remains  in  oflice  or  is  dis- 
missed to-morrow  depends,  not  on  the  good  or  the  evil  that  may 
result  from  his  arbitrary  administration,  but  on  the  success  which 
attends  his  endeavors  to  keep  the  Tsar  in  countenance  and  to 
persuade  the  wayward  monarch  that  autocracy  is  safe  in  his 
hands.  The  massacres  of  Jews,  the  banishment  of  Finns,  the 
spoliation  of  Armenians,  the  persecution  of  Poles,  the  exile  of 
Russian  nobles,  the  flogging  of  peasants,  the  imprisonment  and 
butchery  of  Russian  working  men,  the  establishment  of  a  wide- 
spread system  of  espionage,  and  the  abolition  of  law,  are  all 
measures  which  the  minister  suggests  and  the  Tsar  heartily  sanc- 
tions. M.  de  Plehve,  like  his  colleagues,  would  not  be  minister 
if  his  regime  were  really  helpful  to  the  country.  That  is  the 
unpalatable  truth  which  must  be  told  about  the  government  of 
Nicholas  II. 

Another  of  the  Tsar's  well-beloved  advisers  is  M.  Muravieif, 
the  Minister  of  Justice,  who  has  cheerfully  and  steadily  subor- 
dinated all  justice  to  the  personal  vagaries  of  his  sovereign.  He 
is  one  of  those  plastic  public  men,  of  the  type  of  Bertrami 
Barere,  whom  one  finds  in  all  countries  in  a  state  of  social  and 


262  THE  GLOBE. 

political  chaos.  To-day  there  is  no  limit  to  his  subserviency  to 
the  Emperor ;  to-morrow  no  man  would  be  surprised  to  see  him 
vote  with  Russian  Jacobins  for  the  suppression  of  the  autocracy. 
Through  him  the  law  courts  receive  timely  hints  about  the  wishes 
of  the  Crown  in  those  cases  which  interest  the  rulers  of  Russia. 

It  is  a  mistake,  therefore,  to  imagine  that  the  Emperor  is  a 
tool  in  the  hands  of  his  ministers;  it  is  they  who  are  his  instru- 
ments, merely  suggesting  measures  palatable  to  the  monarch  and 
formulating  his  will.  They  make  him  feel  that  what  he  thinks 
is  correct,  what  he  says  is  true,  what  he  does  is  right.  This 
Hobbesian  view  of  his  position  has  been  carefully  engrafted  upon 
his  mind  by  the  two  theorists  of  autocracy,  M.  Pobedonostseff 
and  Prince  Meshtshersky.  The  Procurator  of  the  Holy  Synod, 
a  cold-blooded  fanatic  of  the  Torquemada  type,  is  the  champion 
of  oriental  despotism  in  its  final  stage,  equipped  with  railways, 
telegraphs,  telephones,  and  rifles,  and  hallov/ed  with  canoniza- 
tions, incense,  and  holy  oil;  the  feats  of  Ivan  the  Terrible 
achieved  with  the  blessings  of  St.  Seraphim.  Of  Prince  Mesht- 
shersky, the  editor  of  the  "Grashdanin"  and  the  private  counsel- 
lor of  the  Tsar,  it  would  be  difficult  to  convey  an  adequate  pic- 
ture without  introducing  scenes  which  would  offend  the  taste 
of  the  non-Russian  public.  His  political  ideas  are  those  of  the 
Dahomey  of  fifty  years  ago  or  the  Bokhara  of  to-day,  modified 
in  two  important  points.  According  to  him,  every  governor  of 
a  province,  every  peasant-prefect,  should  share  the  irresponsible 
power  of  the  autocrat,  and  when  dealing  with  the  peasantry  need 
observe  no  law. 

"Questions  of  the  Zemstvo  have  no  more  to  do  with  the  law 
courts,"  he  writes,  "than  questions  of  family  life.  If  a  father 
may  chastise  his  son  severely  without  invoking  the  help  of  the 
courts,  the  authorities — local,  provincial,  and  central — should  be 
invested  with  a  similar  power  to  imprison,  flog,  and  otherwise 
overawe  or  punish  the  people. 

The  Tsar,  then,  is  what  inherited  tendencies  and  the  doctrines 
of  Pobedonostseff  and  Meshtshersky  have  made  him.  Between 
humaity  and  divinity  he  is  a  tertium  quid.  Such  is  the  doctrine 
of  the  two  theorists  of  autocarcy;  such  the  conviction  of  their 
pupil.  He  is  the  one  essence  in  the  Empire ;  they  are  his  organs. 
Hence  they  strive  to  please  him,  to  carry  out  his  behests,  to 
anticipate  his  wishes,  to  suggest  plans  in  harmony  with  his  fixed 


THE  TSAR  AND  HIS  GOVERNMENT.  263 

ideas  or  passing  moods.  Necessarily  also  they  color  and  distort 
facts,  events,  and  consequences;  for,  while  he  can  appreciate 
effects,  his  faculty  of  discerning  their  relations  to  causes  is  almost 
atrophied.  He  is  ever  struggling  with  phantoms,  fighting  with 
windmills,  conversing  with  saints,  or  consulting  the  spirits  of  the 
dead.  But  of  the  means  at  hand  for  helping  his  people  or  let- 
ting them  help  themselves  he  never  avails  himself.  Books  he  has 
long  ago  ceased  to  read,  and  sound  advice  he  is  incapable  of 
listening  to.  His  ministers  he  receives  with  great  formality  and 
dismisses  with  haughty  condescension.  They  are  often  kept 
in  the  dark  about  miatters  which  it  behooves  them  to  know  thor- 
oughly and  early.  Thus,  shortly  after  the  present  war  had 
begun,  a  number  of  dignitaries  and  officials  gathered  round  Gen- 
eral Kuropatkin  one  day  and  asked  him  how  things  were  going 
on.  With  a  malicious  twinkle  in  his  eye  the  War  Minister  re- 
plied :  "Like  yourselves^  I  know  only  what  is  pubHshed.  The  war 
is  Alexieff's  business,  not  mine."  When  three  ministers  im- 
plored the  Tsar  to  evacuate  Manchuria  and  safeguard  the  peace 
of  the  world,  he  answered :  'T  shall  keep  the  peace  and  my  own 
counsel  as  well."  To  one  of  the  Grand  Dukes,  wlio,  on  the  day 
before  the  rupture  with  Japan,  vaguely  hinted  at  the  possibility 
of  war,  the  Emperor  said :  "Leave  that  to  me.  Japan  will  never 
fight.  My  reign  will  be  an  era  of  peace  to  the  end."  With  such 
little  wisdom  are  the  affairs  of  great  nations  directed. 

The  pity  of  it  is  that  there  is  no  intermediary  between  the 
isolated  sovereign  and  the  disaffected  nation,  no  one  who  has  free 
access  to  the  monarch  for  the  purpose  of  telling  him  the  truth. 
Our  history  records  the  deeds  of  emperors  whose  authority  was 
as  absolute  as  is  his;  but  they  were  not  inacessible  to  public 
opinion,  indifferent  to  public  needs,  or  deprived  of  the  counsel 
of  strong  men.  Alexander  I  was  wont  to  spend  whole  nights  in 
talking  freely  and  frankly  to  individuals  who  told  him  what  they 
knew  and  thought.  Nicholas  I  profited  by  the  services  of 
Benckendorff,  to  whom  Russians  could  speak  plainly,  and  who 
had  the  courage  to  tell  his  master  what  was  needed.  Alexander 
n  was  served  by  Count  Adlerberg,  who  played  a  similar  part 
with  tolerable  success.  General  Richter  was  the  mentor  of  Alex- 
ander HI,  and  his  influence  was  powerful  and  beneficent.  But 
Nicholas  H  stands  alone  on  his  dizzy  pedestal,  a  Simon  Stylites 
among  monarchs.     His  adjutant,  Hesse,  who  is  privileged  to 


264  THE  GLOBE. 

see  him  at  all  times,  is  an  officer  who  can  scarcely  write  his 
name.  The  Tsar  has  created  a  gulf  between  the  autocracy  and 
the  people,  between  himself  and  his  fellow  mortals,  which  is 
nearly  as  deep  and  as  broad  as  that  which  separates  the  deity 
from  mankind. 

Many  educated  Russians  are  wont  to  compare  their  present 
Emperor  with  Feodor  Ivanovitcs,  the  weak-willed,  feeble-minded 
son  of  Ivan  IV.  But  there  were  points  even  in  that  monarch's 
favor  which  we  miss  in  the  life  of  Nicholas  II.  He  was  at  least 
conscious  of  his  weaknesses.  "I  am  the  Tsar  of  executioners !" 
his  artistic  biographer  makes  him  exclaim,  on  an  historic  occas- 
ion. And,  after  all,  his  own  weakness  was  more  than  outweighed 
by  the  strength  of  will  of  his  prompter,  the  great  statesman 
Boris  Godunoff.  The  sad  conviction  is  now  rapidly  gaining 
ground  that  Nicholas  II  is  getting  to  resemble  in  certain  ways 
the  unfortunate  Paul  I.  He  is  eminently  unfit  to  control  per- 
sonally the  destinies  of  a  great  people;  and  he  is,  unfortunately, 
ignorant  of  his  unfitness.  That  is  the  danger  which  hangs  over 
Russia  at  home,  and  over  Russia's  peaceful  neighbors  abroad. 
Deep-rooted  faith  in  his  own  ability  prompts  him  to  shun  men 
whose  statesmanship  might  shield  his  people  from  the  conse- 
quences of  his  faults,  and  to  choose  officials  who  will  serve 
merely  as  tools  in  his  unsteady  hands.  Consequently  his  choice 
of  favorites  and  of  ministers  is  deplorable.  Thus  the  idea  that 
he  should  have  offered  the  post  of  Minister  of  Public  Instruction 
to  a  man  so  entirely  and  deservedly  discredited  as  Prince  Messt- 
shersky  embitters  those  of  his  subjects  who  are  aware  of  the 
facts  as  much  as  would  the  appointment  in  England  of  such  a 
man  as  Jabez  Balfour  to  the  archiepiscopal  see  of  Canterbury. 

A  great  deal  has  been  written  about  the  Tsar's  love  of  peace, 
his  clemency,  his  benevolence,  and  his  fairness;  but  the  Russian 
authors  of  these  eulogies  belong  to  the  category  of  flatterers, 
who,  when  his  Majesty  sleeps,  are  busy  quoting  profound  pass- 
ages from  his  snoring.  His  reputation  as  a'  staunch  friend  of 
peace  is  but  the  reflex  of  the  views  laboriously  impressed  upon 
him  by  M.  de  Witte,  whose  whole  policy,  good  and  evil,  was  based 
upon  peace.  But,  owing  to  the  defective  condition  of  that  faculty 
by  which  the  mind  traces  effects  to  causes  and  calculate  results, 
all  he  does  contributes  to  bring  about  the  very  ends  which  he 
abhors. 


THE  TSAR  AND  HIS  GOVERNMENT.  265 

In  the  conduct  of  state  affairs  the  Tsar  is  reserved  and  formal. 
Like  his  father,  when  presiding  over  a  committee  or  coun- 
cil he  listens  in  silence  to  the  opinions  of  others,  almost  always 
withholding  his  own.  He  sometimes  departs  from  this  rule  when 
he  wishes  to  give  a  certain  direction  to  the  discussion.  It  was 
thus  when  M.  de  Plehve  brought  in  the  bill  to  enlarge  the  arbi- 
trary powers  of  provincial  governors,  proposing  that  these  offi- 
cials should  be  the  representatives  not  only  of  the  government 
but  also  of  the  autocrat,  and  should  therefore  share  his  powers. 
The  Emperor  then  opened  the  sitting  with  a  few  words  to  the 
effect  that  he  concurred  in  that  view.  In  his  study  he  is  gener- 
ally busy  signing  replies  to  addresses  of  loyalty,  or  writing  com- 
ments on  the  various  reports  presented  by  ministers,  governors, 
and  other  officials.  He  is  encouraged  by  his  courtiers  to  believe 
that  all  these  replies  and  comments  are  priceless;  for  even  such 
trivial  remarks  as,  "I  am  very  glad,"  "God  grant  it  may  be  so," 
are  published  in  large  type  in  the  newspaper,  glazed  over  in  the 
manuscript,  and  carefully  preserved  in  the  archives  like  the  relics 
of  a  saint.  But  the  most  interesting  are  never  published;  and 
of  these  there  is  a  choice  collection.  Here  is  one.  A  report  of 
the  negotiations  respecting  the  warship  "Manchur"  was  recently 
laid  before  him  by  Count  Lamsdorff.  The  tenor  of  it  was  that 
the  Chinese  authorities  had  summoned  the  "Manchur"  to  quit 
the  neutral  harbor  of  Shanghai  at  the  repeated  and  urgent  request 
of  the  Japanese  consul  there.  On  the  margin  of  that  report  his 
Majesty  penned  the  memorable  words :  "The  Japanese  consul  is 
a  scoundrel." 

The  Emperor  imagines  it  to  be  the  right  and  the  duty  of  the 
Autocrat  of  All  the  Russias  to  intervene  personally  in  every  affair 
that  interests  himself  or  has  any  bearing  on  his  mission.  The 
instances  of  this  uncalled-for  personal  action  are  nearly  as 
numerous  as  his  official  acts;  and  the  consequences  of  several  are 
written  in  blood  and  fire  in  the  history  of  his  reign.  They  have 
undermined  the  sense  of  legality ;  and  the  end  of  legality  is  always 
the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  violence.  The  saddest  part  of  the 
story  is  that,  the  more  unsteady  he  becomes,  the  more  vigorously 
he  sweeps  away  the  last  weak  barriers  which  stand  between  the 
autocracy  and  folly  or  injustice,  such  as  the  Council  of  the  Em- 
pire, the  Committee  of  Ministers,  and  the  Senate.  A  few  ex- 
amples will  enable  the  reader  to  judge  for  himself.     The  late 


266  THE  GLOBE. 

Minister  of  Public  Instruction,  Sanger,  who  was  not  an  enemy  to 
instruction  like  so  many  of  his  predecessors,  brought  in  a  bill 
changing  a  preparatory  grammar  school  in  Lutzk,  supported  by 
voluntary  subscriptions,  into  a  complete  one.  It  was  a  useful 
measure;  and  the  Council  of  the  Empire,  having  taken  cog- 
nizance of  it,  passed  it  unanimously.  On  the  report,  as  pre- 
sented to  the  Tsar,  his  Majesty  wrote:  "No,  I  disagree  entirely 
with  the  Council  of  the  Empire.  I  hold  that  we  must  encourage 
technical  and  not  classical  education."  The  bill  was  killed,  and 
Sanger  resigned;  but  neither  technical  nor  classical  education  is 
encouraged. 

The  Senate,  being  a  judicial  and  also  an  administrative  insti- 
tution, can  pass  resolutions  which,  if  approved  by  the  majority 
and  not  opposed  by  the  Minister  of  Justice,  have  the  force  of  law. 
But  neither  the  Council  of  the  Empire  nor  the  Committee  of 
Ministers  can  enact  a  law,  because  their  decisions  have  to  be 
referred  to  the  Tsar,  who  may  agree  with  the  proposal  of  the 
majority  or  the  protest  of  the  minority,  or  ignore  both  and  act 
on  his  own  initiative.  Alexander  III  usually  took  the  side  of 
the  minority ;  and  his  son  and  successor  has  followed  his  example 
religiously.  He  has  also  established  a  practice  of  first  approv- 
ing the  bill  in  principle  and  then  allowing  the  minister  to  send  it 
before  the  Council  or  the  Committee,  so  that  all  the  members  know 
beforehand  the  opinion  of  the  monarch.  But  if  the  majority 
is  bold  or  honest  enough  to  throw  it  out,  the  Tsar  always  adopts 
the  view  of  the  minority. 

Here  is  an  amusing  case  which  characterises  our  government 
and  our  rulers.  A  bill  was  introduced  to  indemnify  landed  pro- 
prietors in  the  Baltic  provinces  for  the  losses  they  had  incurred 
through  the  government  monopoly  of  alcohol.  M.  de  Witte  held 
that  the  sum  of  several  millions  should  be  paid  over  to  them  in 
the  course  of  a  number  of  years ;  the  majority  maintained  that  it 
ought  to  be  paid  at  once.  M.  de  Witte  first  informed  the  Tsar 
of  this  divergence;  and  his  Majesty  promised  to  confirm  the  view 
of  the  minority.  The  minister  then  wrote  a  letter  to  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Council,  M.  de  Plehve,  telling  him  that  the  Emperor 
had  promised  to  confirm  the  decision  of  the  minority  so  soon  as 
the  documents  were  placed  before  him.  M.  de  Plehve  freely 
communicated  this  announcement  to  all  the  members.  Then 
many  officials,  seeing  that  opposition  would  be  fruitless,  changed 


THE  TSAR  AND  HIS  GOVERNMENT.  267 

their  views,  or  their  votes,  so  that  the  minority  unexpectedly 
became  the  majority.  In  the  course  of  time  the  documents  were 
laid  before  the  Tsar,  who  remembered  only  that  he  had  pledged 
himself  to  M.  de  Witte  to  reject  the  proposal  of  the  majority. 
Accordingly,  without  reading  the  papers  or  taking  further 
thought,  he  redeemed  his  promise;  and  the  wrong  bill  became 
law. 

The  course  of  justice,  civil  and  criminal,  is  liable  to  be  impeded 
in  the  same  way.  Here  is  an  example.  A  certain  person  in- 
curred large  debts  in  St.  Petersburg,  and  was  declared  bankrupt. 
In  the  ordinary  course  of  law  his  estates  were  to  be  sold  and  the 
creditors  satisfied.  The  Tula  Bank  was  charged  with  the  sale  of 
the  estates ;  but  the  Tsar,  having  meanwhile  been  asked  to  inter- 
fere, issued  an  order  stopping  the  sale  and  suspending  the  opera- 
tion of  the  law.  An  action  was  brought  against  Princess  Imere- 
tinsky  by  her  late  husband's  heirs.  The  Princess,  who  had 
powerful  friends,  privately  petitioned  his  Alajesty  to  intervene 
on  her  behalf,  and  her  prayer  was  granted.  The  Tsar  ordered 
the  plaintiffs  to  be  nonsuited  and  the  action  quashed ;  and  his 
will  was  duly  executed.  In  the  third  case,  some  noblemen  sold 
their  estates  to  merchants ;  the  transactions  were  properly  carried 
out  and  legally  ratified.  But  the  Tsar,  by  his  own  power,  can- 
celled the  deed  of  sale  and  ordered  the  money  and  the  estates 
to  be  returned  to  their  previous  owners.  Such  instances  of  inter- 
ference with  the  course  of  justice  might  easily  be  multiplied. 

Of  the  course  of  justice  in  political  trials  little  need  be  said. 
The  prosecution  of  the  murderers  of  the  Kishineff  Jews  is  fresh 
in  the  memory  of  all.  An  incident  unparalleled  in  our  history 
before  the  present  reign  rendered  that  trial  celebrated  for  all 
time;  the  counsel  for  the  prosecution  in  the  civil  case  threw  up 
their  briefs  and  left  the  court  because  of  the  systematic  denial 
of  justice  to  their  clients.  When  the  flogging  cases  were  heard 
in  the  Government  of  Poltava  last  year  a  similar  course  was 
taken  by  the  lawyers.  The  rights  which  our  laws  bestow  upon 
prisoners  were  so  persistently  denied  them  that  the  advocates  of 
the  accused  peasants  had  no  choice  but  to  throw  up  their  briefs 
and  leave  the  court.  In  every  political  trial  the  Minister  of  Jus- 
tice closes  the  doors;  and  he  is  prepared  to  do  the  same  in  any 
civil  lawsuits  if  either  of  the  parties  has  influence  at  Court. 
Peasant   malcontents   are   flogged   without   trial    or   accusation. 


268  THE  GLOBE. 

working  men  are  shot  down  when  parading  the  streets.  In  all 
this  M.  Muravieff,  the  human  embodiment  of  Russian  law,  the 
Minister  of  Justice,  is  the  executioner  of  justice  and  the  executor 
of  unrighteousness. 

Yet,  undoubtedly,  the  power  of  the  autocracy  could  be  em- 
ployed to   further   the   cause   of   humanity,   enlightenment,   and 
justice,  if  such  were  the  will  of  him  who  wields  it.     A  single 
word  from  the  Tsar  would  cause  a  profound  change  to  come  over 
the  condition  of  the  country  and  the  sentiments  of  his  people. 
The  responsibility  for  his  acts  cannot  be  laid  upon  the  shoulders 
of  his  ministers,  whose  advice  he  refrains  from  seeking  in  the 
most  dangerous  crises  of  his  reign.     It  was  not  his  ministers 
who  prompted  him  to  break  the  promise  he  had  given  to  evac- 
uate Manchuria ;  they  entreated  him  to  keep  it.     It  was  not  they 
who  proposed  that  he  should  curtail  the  power  for  good  still  left 
to  such  institutions  as  the  Council  of  the  Empire,  the  Committee 
of  Ministers,  and  the  governing  Senate.     It  was  not  they  who 
impelled  him  to  make  the  monarchy  ridiculous  by  seeking  wisdom 
in  the  evocation  of  spirits  and  strength  in  the  canonization  of 
saints.     It  was  not  they  who  urged  him  to  break  up  the  Finnish 
nation  by  a  series  of  iniquitous  measures  worthy  of  an  oriental 
despot  of  ancient  Babylon  or  Persia;   on    the    contrary,    they 
assured  him  in  clear  and  not  always  courtly  phraseology  that 
justice  and  statesmanship  required  him  to  stay  his  hand.    It  was 
not  his  official  advisers  who  suggested  that  he  should  despoil  the 
Armenian  Church  of  its  property  and  endowments,  while  leaving 
all  other  religious  communities  in  the  possession  of  theirs,  and 
should  punish  with  bullets  and  cold  steel  the  zealous  members 
of  that  Church  who  protested  in  the  name  of  their  religion  and 
conscience.     Almost  all  his  ministers  united  for  once  in  warning 
him  that  this  was  an  act  of  wanton  spoliation,  and  in  conjuring 
him  to  abandon  or  modify  his  scheme.     But,  deaf  to  their  argu- 
ments, he  insisted  on  having  his  own  way. 

The  Tsar's  reign  has  therefore  brought  everything  into  a  state 
of  flux;  nothing  is  stable  with  us  as  in  other  countries.  No 
traditions,  no  rights,  no  laws  are  respected,  there  are  only  ever- 
increasing  burdens,  severer  punishments,  and  never  dwindling 
misery  and  suffering.  The  Tsar's  meddling  unsettles  the  whole 
nation  and  disquiets  even  the  obscure  individual,  because  nobody 
is  sure  that  his  turn  will  not  come  to-morrow.     Thus,  on  the 


I 


IHE  TSAR  AND  HIS  GOVERNMENT,  269 

one  hand,  a  whole  county  council  in  Tver,  with  its  members,  its 
officials,  its  schools,  doctors,  teachers,  and  statisticians,  was 
lately  annihilated  by  a  stroke  of  the  imperial  pen;  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  a  general  here,  a  journalist  there,  lawyers,  physicians, 
officials,  have  been  seized  in  various  parts  of  the  country  and 
imprisoned  or  banished.  Under  Paul  I  only  those  who  were  in 
the  neighborhood  of  the  Emperor  had  reason  to  apprehend  his 
outbursts  of  eccentricity ;  but  Nicholas  II  has  sent  genuine  pashas 
like  Prince  Galitzin  and  General  Bobrikoft  to  govern  the  prov- 
inces ;  and  these  men  are  as  arbitrary  as  himself. 

What  strange  and  unpleasant  mishaps  may  befall  private  per- 
sons can  be  inferred  from  a  few  examples.  A  short  time  ago  a 
journalist  of  the  capital,  who  writes  with  considerable  verve,  was 
packed  off  to  Siberia — not  in  a  day  or  an  hour,  but  in  a  twinkling. 
His  crime?  The  Tsar's  imagination  worked  upon  by  an  over- 
zealous  priest.  One  day  early  in  1902  M.  Amphitheatroff  pub- 
lished a  moderately  interesting  article  describing  the  home  circle 
of  a  landed  proprietor,  whom  he  depicted  as  very  firm  and  strict 
with  his  family,  and  so  scrupulous  in  his  dealings  with  the  other 
sex  that  he  boiled  with  indignation  if  his  wife's  chamber-maid 
flirted  with  any  male  relative  or  stranger.  He  had  a  sympathetic 
son,  with  eyes  like  a  gazelle's — a  well-meaning  youth  who  wished 
everybody  to  be  happy,  but  possessed  no  ideas  on  practical  mat- 
ters. The  kind-hearted  mother  sat  between  father  and  son, 
tenderly  loving  both.  It  was  an  idyllic  picture  of  Russian  life 
at  its  best — and  nothing  more.  The  censor  read  it  and  saw  noth- 
ing wrong.  The  minister,  Sipyaghin,  glanced  at  it  and  passed 
on  cheerfully  to  his  hot  pancakes  and  cold  caviare.  The  Tsar 
himself  perused  it  and  liked  it,  it  was  "such  a  pleasing  picture 
of  the  serene  life  of  a  Russian  squire."  But  the  Emperor's 
chaplain,  Yanisheff,  descried  high  treason  between  the  lines. 
According  to  him,  the  landed  proprietor,  who  struck  the  table 
with  his  fist  whenever  he  heard  of  a  little  flirtation  on  the  part 
of  his  wife's  maid,  was  no  other  than  the  Emperor  Alexander 
III ;  the  son  with  the  sympathetic  eyes  and  vacillating  character 
was  Nicholas  II.  As  the  portrait,  if  intended  as  such,  was  not 
flattering,  it  needed  audacity  on  the  part  of  the  priest  to  say, 
"Sire,  the  ingenuous  youth  of  limited  ideas  is  obviously  your 
Majesty";  and  the  Tsar  must  be  credited  with  a  large  dose  of 
naivete  to  have  been  persuaded  that  the  cap  fitted  the  imperial 


270  THE  GLOBE. 

head.  He  at  once  summoned  and  questioned  Sipyaghin.  "Yes, 
I  read  the  fueilleton,  your  Majesty,  but  noticed  nothing  offensive 
in  it."  ''Well,"  replied  the  Emperor,  "you  may  take  it  from  me 
that  it  is  a  treasonable  skit  on  my  never-to-be-forgotten  father 
and  myself.  Send  the  scoundrel  to  Siberia."  And  to  Siberia 
he  was  whisked  away,  without  a  chance  to  buy  warm  clothing 
for  the  journey  or  to  get  money  for  his  needs.  It  was  not  much 
consolation  to  M.  Amphitheatroff  that  he  was  subsequently  par- 
doned for  a  crime  of  which  he  was  innocent,  and  then  banished 
to  Vologda,  where  he  is  now  undergoing  his  punishment. 

Under  Nicholas  I,  when  serfdom  still  prevailed  in  Russia,  such 
arbitrary  acts  were  not  unknown.  But  even  that  autocrat  treated 
the  persons  whom  he  exiled  with  a  certain  paternal  kindness 
foreign  to  his  namesake.  Thus,  in  1826,  the  poet  Poleshayeff, 
who  had  written  some  verses  to  which  the  police  took  exception, 
was  dispatched  to  the  army  as  a  common  soldier.  But  the  stern 
autocrat  gave  him  an  audience  on  the  eve  of  his  departure,  spoke 
kindly  to  him,  kissed  him  on  the  forehead,  and  said,  "Go  and 
mend  your  ways."  And  in  those  days  of  absolutism  no  Russian 
general  was  ever  packed  off  to  the  Far  East  by  way  of  punish- 
ment for  taking  broad-minded  views  of  the  people's  needs,  as 
General  Kuzmin-Karavayeff,  professor  at  the  Military  Judicial 
Academy  of  St.  Petersburg,  was  a  few  weeks  ago,  by  the  express 
orders  of  the  Tsar.  MM.  Falberg  and  Pereverzoff,  two  gentle- 
men who,  at  the  Congress  of  Technical  Education  held  in  St. 
Petersburg  last  January,  hissed  the  instigators  of  the  Kishineff 
massacres,  were  also  seized  by  the  police,  and,  without  trial  or 
question,  without  even  time  to  put  on  warm  clothing,  were  hur- 
ried off  to  Yakutsk,  the  very  coldest  part  of  the  inhabited  globe. 
"Severity,  served  up  cold,  is  the  only  way  with  empire-wreckers," 
as  M.  de  Plehve  remarked.  In  like  manner  M.  Annensky,  an  old 
man  who  lived  at  peace  with  all  the  world,  was  suddenly  expelled 
by  the  police  from  his  home  and  city  because  a  spy  accused  him 
in  error  of  having  pronounced  a  speech  a  few  days  before  at  the 
funeral  of  Mikhailovsky,  the  editor  of  a  review.  Everybody 
knew  and  knows  that  Annensky  did  not  utter  a  word  on  that 
occasion.  But  a  spy  made  a  blunder;  Annensky  suffered  for  it; 
and  there  was  no  redress. 

In  alhthese  measures,  in  their  most  trivial  details,  the  Tsar 
takes  an  eager  and  personal  interest,  because  he  treats  them  as 


THE  TSAR  AND  HIS  GOVERNMENT.  271 

part  of  the  defence  of  autocracy.  He  knows,  therefore,  what  is 
being  done  in  his  name;  he  expressly,  and  in  writing,  approves 
coercion  and  the  many  novel  forms  of  it  brought  into  vogue  by 
the  ame  damnee  of  autocracy,  M.  de  Plehve.  Thus  he  conferred 
a  star  upon  Prince  Obolensky  for  his  energy  in  flogging  the 
peasants  of  the  Government  of  Kharkoff  until  some  of  them  died ; 
he  even  raised  this  zealous  official  to  the  unique  rank  of  Lieuten- 
ant-general of  the  Admiralty — a  post  of  which  the  Russian  public 
had  never  heard  before.  He  appointed  M.  Kleighels,  one  of  the 
most  corrupt  of  police  officials,  to  be  his  general  adjutant.  At 
this  the  nation,  and  even  the  Court,  murmured  audibly,  for  no 
police  officer  had  ever  received  this  rank.  But  the  Tsar  set  their 
dissatisfaction  at  naught,  and  made  Kleighels  Governor-general 
of  Kieff.  A  minister  timidly  hinted  to  his  Majesty  that  all  Rus- 
sia hated  Kleighels,  and  that  so  unpopular  an  official  would 
hardly  succeed  in  administering  so  difficult  a  province  as  Kieff. 
But  Nikolai  Alexandrovitch  answered,  *T  care  nothing  for  what 
they  say.     I  know  what  I  am  doing." 

So  far,  one  of  the  most  salient  results  of  his  Majesty's  return 
towards  the  epoch  of  serfdom  has  been  the  estrangement  of 
almost  every  class  from  the  dynasty  and  its  chief.  For  a  nation 
like  Russia,  which  cannot  yet  dispense  with  the  monarchical  form 
of  government,  this  is  a  calamity.  The  nobles  are  generally  on 
the  side  of  the  people,  which,  unfortunately,  is  not  that  of  their 
ruler.  An  example  of  this  attitude  was  given  by  an  ex-minister, 
Prince  Vyazemsky,  who  publicly  condemned  the  conduct  of  the 
police  in  flogging  the  students  in  the  Nevsky  Prospekt.  The 
nobles  of  Tver  have  not  only  spoken  but  suffered  for  the  popu- 
lar cause,  which  the  Tsar  spurns  as  impious  and  punishes  as 
treasonable.  In  order  to  extinguish  this  resistance,  the  Emperor 
has  lately  signified  his  wish  to  confer  such  powers  upon  every 
governor  of  a  province  as  will  enable  him  to  deport  any  person, 
without  trial  or  accusation,  not  only  for  a  political  offence,  but 
for  disagreeing  with  the  views  of  his  Excellency  the  Governor 
on  any  local  question.  Arbitrary  regulations  have  lately  been 
issued  by  the  Chief  of  the  Police  in  St.  Petersburg,  by  the  Gov- 
ernor-general of  Moscow,  and  by  the  governors  of  other  prov- 
inces, which  supersede  the  laws  of  the  Empire ;  and  any  mfringe- 
ment  of  them  is  visited  with  fines  of  R.  3000 — and  larger  sums  in 
Poland — and   three   months'    imprisonment   besides.     Governors 


272  THE  GLOBE. 

upon  whom  special  powers  have  been  conferred  can  now  oblige 
a  landed  proprietor  to  do  anything  which  they  hold  to  be  requisite 
for  what  they  call  public  order.  If  such  a  governor  wishes  to 
fine  and  imprison  the  owner  of  an  estate  whom  he  dislikes  he 
has  but  to  send  a  policeman  to  seek  and  find  a  rubbish  heap  or 
a  pool  of  water  in  the  courtyard,  and  the  end  is  attained. 

The  English  reader,  for  whose  admiration  many  fancy  por- 
traits of  the  Autocrat  of  All  the  Russias  have  been  drawn,  may 
ask  how  these  things  can  be  reconciled  with  the  manifesto  pro- 
mulgated by  his  Majesty  on  March  ii,  1903,  which  promised 
certain  reforms  to  his  people.  The  answer  is  that  the  manifesto 
was  a  mere  display  of  fireworks.  That  document,  which  made 
a  stir  in  Russia  and  abroad,  was  drawn  up  by  M.  de  Plehve  and 
altered  again  and  again  by  the  Tsar  himself,  until  he  elaborated 
a  statement  of  which  the  form  was  solemn  and  the  contents 
trivial.  Setting  aside  its  mere  frothy  phraseology,  the  only  tan- 
gible reforms  it  foreshadowed  were  the  abolition  of  the  joint 
responsibility  of  the  peasants  for  taxation  and  the  maintenance 
of  religious  tolerance.  As  foreigners  understand  religious  toler- 
ance better  than  the  incidence  of  taxation,  let  us  briefly  compare 
the  imperial  promise  touching  religion  with  the  imperial  achieve- 
ment. 

Since  he  issued  the  manifesto,  Nicholas  II  has  done  nothing 
for  religious  tolerance  and  very  much  against  it.  The  Jews  have 
been  persecuted  even  more  cruelly  and  more  extensively  than 
before  his  welcome  words  were  uttered.  The  Emperor's  uncle, 
the  Grand  Duke  Sergius,  who  is  Governor-general  of  Moscow, 
has  made  it  a  sort  of  sport  to  hunt  out  the  Jews  and  drive  them 
from  the  city.  Anti-semites  who  go  further  are  safe  from  pun- 
ishment, and  would  find  many  imitators  if  the  pastime  were  less 
obnoxious  to  the  people  of  the  United  States.  Jewish  surgeons 
and  doctors  have  been  gathered  in  large  numbers  and  sent  to 
meet  danger  or  death  in  the  Far  East.  Roman  Catholics  are 
ceaselessly  worried  in  their  work,  insulted  in  their  religious 
sentiments,  and  almost  forcibly  driven  into  Orthodoxy  by  spite- 
ful orders  unworthy  of  a  Christian  government.  To  belong  to 
the  Armenian  Church  is  to  be  branded  with  the  mark  of  Cain; 
and  it  is  sometimes  worse  to  be  a  Russian  non-conformist  than 
to  worship  idols  or  to  poison  one's  neighbor. 

A  golden  opportunity  arose  for  the  fulfilment  of  the  Tsar's 


THE  TSAR  AND  HIS  GOVERNMENT.  273 

promise  shortly  after  it  had  been  made.  The  new  Russian  penal 
code  was  then  being  drawn  up;  and  the  section  dealing  with 
crimes  against  faith  was  under  discussion.  Here  the  Emperor's 
mild  and  tolerant  spirit  was  expected  to  bring  about  great  and 
desirable  changes.  But  the  hope  was  disappointed.  One  change 
was  made  for  the  better,  but  only  one.  An  Orthodox  believer 
who  wishes  to  leave  his  denomination  may  henceforward  go 
abroad  and  there  change  his  religion  without  fear  of  punishment, 
whereas  formerly  he  was  liable  to  pains  and  penalties.  That  is 
all.  But,  even  now,  if  such  a  man,  being  unable  to  go  abroad, 
should  ask  a  Russian  Lutheran  or  Roman  Catholic  priest  to 
receive  him  into  his  Church,  the  minister  in  question  must  refuse. 
To  comply  with  the  request  would  entail  severe  punishment. 

There  can  be  no  mistake  about  the  Emperor's  personal  action 
in  hindering  his  subjects  from  serving  God  in  their  own  way,  for 
it  was  vigorous,  personal,  and  direct.  Whenever  the  existing 
institutions  of  the  responsible  ministers  were  inclined  to  loosen 
the  grip  of  the  law  on  the  conscience  of  the  individual,  the  Tsar's 
veto  formed  an  insuperable  impediment.  Examples  are  numer- 
ous. The  following  is  instructive.  The  laws  dealing  with  relig- 
ious misdemeanors  being  under  discussion,  a  minority  of  the 
Council  of  the  Empire  steadily  advocated  toleration;  but  at 
every  turn  his  Majesty  sided  with  the  majority.  Once,  and  only 
once,  the  bulk  of  the  members  favored  a  clause  which  was  reason- 
able and  humane;  and  then  the  Emperor  quashed  their  decision 
without  hesitation.  The  question  was :  If  a  Russian  who  is 
Orthodox  only  in  name,  and  something  else — say  Lutheran — in 
reality,  asks  a  clergyman  of  his  adopted  Church  to  administer 
the  sacrament  to  him  on  his  deathbed,  should  the  minister  be 
punishable  if  he  complied?  The  Council  of  the  Empire,  by  a 
considerable  majority,  answered  "no" ;  and  their  arguments  were 
clear  and  forcible.  So  plain  was  the  case  that  even  the  Grand 
Dukes  took  the  side  of  the  majority.  But  the  Tsar,  putting  down 
his  foot,  said,  "A  clergyman  who  shall  administer  the  sacraments 
of  his  Church  to  such  a  man  shall  be  treated  as  a  law-breaker; 
it  is  a  crime";  and  his  decision  has  received  the  force  of  law. 
As  this  declaration  of  the  imperial  will  was  made  after  the  mani- 
festo, to  speak  of  the  Emperor's  tolerant  views  would  be  satirical. 
Another  instance  took  place,  also  after  the  promulgation  of 
that  "Magna  Charta"  of  Russian   liberty.     Baron   UexkuU   von 


274  THE  GLOBE. 

Gildenband  proposed  that  certain  sections  of  the  population, 
who  had  been  forced  several  years  ago  to  join  the  Orthodox 
Church,  all  of  them  against  their  will  and  some  even  without 
•  their  knowledge,  should  now  be  permitted  to  return  to  their 
respective  Churches  if  they  chose.  Some  of  these  people  had 
been  Lutherans  of  the  Baltic  provinces ;  others  had  been  Uniates 
of  western  Russia,  i.e.  Catholics  who,  with  the  liturgy  of  the 
Greek  Church,  hold  the  beliefs  of  the  Latin,  and  are  in  com- 
munion with  Rome.  It  was  an  act  not  of  magnanimity,  but  of 
common  justice  that  was  here  suggested.  But,  when  the  general 
debate  was  about  to  begin,  the  Grand  Duke  Michael,  acting  in 
harmony  with  his  Majesty's  known  disposition,  withdrew  from 
the  Baron  his  right  to  speak  in  favor  of  the  proposal,  which  there- 
fore dropped.  By  these  and  other  like  fruits  the  tree  may  be 
known. 

What  is  most  astonishing  is  that  the  head  of  Orthodoxy  should 
cause  the  members  of  an  important  branch  of  his  own  Church  to 
be  harried  as  if  they  were  public  enemies.  Here  are  a  few  speci- 
mens of  the  methods  employed  against  the  Old  Believers  in  the 
present  reign.  One  of  their  monasteries — the  Nikolsky  Skeet 
in  the  Kuban  Government — was  seized  by  an  archimandrite 
named  Kolokoloff,  who,  at  the  head  of  fifty  Cossacks,  drove  out 
the  monks  and  took  possession  of  their  dwelling.  One  of  their 
bishops,  Siluan,  protested  and  was  thrown  into  prison.  Yet 
the  archimandrite  who  had  won  this  easy  victory,  not  satisfied 
with  his  violence  against  the  living,  also  wrecked  his  spite  on  the 
dead.  Two  Old  Believers  who  had  departed  this  life  in  the  odor 
of  sanctity.  Bishop  Job  and  Gregory  the  priest,  were  reputed  to 
be  in  heaven;  and  their  bodies  were  said  to  be  immune  from 
decomposition,  a  fact  which  pointed  to  their  saintship.  But  the 
Old  Believers  cannot  be  permitted  to  have  miracles  or  saints. 
The  Orthodox  archimandrite,  therefore,  violated  the  tombs  and 
dug  up  the  bodies.  He  found  the  latter  really  intact,  and,  break- 
ing their  coffins,  he  saturated  the  boards  with  petroleum  and  then 
burned  the  mortal  remains  of  the  holy  men  to  ashes. 

To  affirm  that  positive  laws  are  broken  in  order  to  render 
religious  persecution  possible  is  but  to  assert  a  truism.  The 
proofs  are  of  frequent  occurrence.  The  Senate,  by  one  of  its 
legislative  decrees,  authorized  the  Old  Believers  to  open  a 
chapel  in  Uralsk.     This  permission  had  already  been  given  by 


THE  TSAR  AND  HIS  GOVERNMENT.  275 

the  ministry,  so  that  it  could  not  lawfully  be  called  in  question. 
Yet  the  governor  of  the  province  cancelled  it;  and  there  was  no 
redress.  On  another  occasion  three  children  in  the  village  of 
Simonoska,  in  the  Government  of  Smolensk,  were  forcibly  taken 
from  the  custody  of  their  father,  one  Rodionoff,  because  he  was 
a  Dissenter,  and  were  placed  in  charge  of  a  complete  stranger, 
who  was  a  member  of  the  Established  Church.  In  many  districts 
of  the  interior  priests  of  the  sect  of  the  Old  Believers  are  arrested 
and  imprisoned  because  they  let  their  hair  grow  long  Uke  the 
clergy  of  the  State  Church.  This  punishment  is  administered 
in  violation  of  the  decrees  of  the  Senate  and  the  circulars  of  the 
Minister  of  the  Interior,  which  have  laid  it  down  over  and  over 
again  that  long-haired  clergymen  are  not  punishable  for  neglect- 
ing to  use  the  scissors.  The  Tsar  has  been  told  of  all  these 
grievances,  but  he  has  made  no  sign. 

A  tragic  story,  the  hero  of  which  was  Bishop  Methodius,  one  of 
the  pillars  of  the  Old  Believers,  will  bring  home  the  cruelty  of 
the  system  to  the  minds  of  humane  readers.  It  has  lately  been 
brought  to  the  notice  of  his  Majesty  without  eliciting  even  an  ex- 
pression of  regret.  Born  in  CheHabinsk,  Methodius  was  or- 
dained a  priest,  and  zealously  discharged  the  duties  of  his  office 
for  fifteen  years  before  he  was  raised  to  the  episcopal  see  of 
Tomsk.  One  day  the  Bishop  administered  the  sacraments  to  a 
man  who,  born  in  the  State  Church,  had  joined  the  community 
of  Old  Believers.  This  was  precisely  a  case  of  the  type  discussed 
in  the  Council  of  the  Empire,  and  so  harshly  provided  for  by  the 
Emperor  himself.  Methodius  was  denounced,  arrested,  tried, 
found  guilty,  and  condemned  to  banishment  in  Siberia ;  and  the 
sentence  was  carried  out  with  needless  brutality.  With  irons 
on  his  feet,  penned  up  together  with  murderers  and  other  crim- 
inals of  the  worst  type,  he  was  sent  by  etape  from  prison  to- 
prison,  to  the  Government  of  Yakutsk.  Through  the  interces- 
sion of  an  influential  co-religionist  he  was  allowed  to  stay  in  the 
capital  of  that  province;  but  soon  afterwards,  at  the  instigation: 
of  a  dignitary  of  the  State  Church,  Methodius  was  banished  to. 
Vilyuisk,  in  north-eastern  Siberia,  a  place  inhabited  by  savages. 
The  aged  Bishop — he  was  seventy-eight  years  old — was  then  set 
astride  a  horse  and  tied  down  to  the  animal,  and  told  that  he 
must  ride  thus  to  his  place  of  exile,  about  seven  hundred  miles 
distant.     "This  sentence  is  death  by  torture,"  said  Methodius's 


2j6  THE  GLOBE. 

flock.  And  they  were  not  mistaken.  The  old  man  gave  up  the 
ghost  on  the  road  (1898);  but  when,  where,  and  how  he  died 
and  was  buried  has  never  been  made  known. 

If  the  repressive  measures  to  which  the  Tsar  thus  attaches  his 
'name  have  Httle  in  common  with  true  reUgion,  his  constructive 
action  appears  to  be  inspired  by  thinly-disguised  superstition.  In 
miracles  and  marvels  he  takes  a  childish  delight,  and  is  as  ready 
to  believe  the  messages  from  the  invisible  world  which  the  spirits 
send  through  a  M.  Phillippe  in  the  Crimea  as  in  the  wonders 
wrought  by  the  relics  of  Orthodox  monks  whose  names  he  him- 
self adds  to  the  roll  of  Russian  saints.  His  predecessors  were 
more  chary  of  peopling  heaven  than  of  colonizing  Siberia.  Nich- 
olas I  assented  to  the  canonization  of  Mitrophan  of  Voronesh 
(1832),  whose  body  was  found  intact  after  it  had  lain  over  a 
century  in  its  coffin ;  but  that  was  the  only  beatification  made  dur- 
ing the  reign.  Alexander  II  allowed  the  Holy  Synod  to  enrich 
the  Church  with  one  saint — Tikhom,  Bishop  of  Voronesh  (1861)  ; 
the  teeth  is  a  sufficient  qualification  for  saintship;  and  he  has 
not  only  canonized  two,  but  he  personally  ordered  one  of  the 
candidates,  Seraphim  of  Saroff,  to  be  proclaimed  a  saint,  in  spite 
of  the  disconcerting  fact  that  his  body,  although  buried  for  only 
seventy  years,  was  decomposed.  The  Orthodox  Bishop  Dmitry 
of  Tamboff  protested  on  this  ground  against  the  beatification  as 
contrary  to  Church  traditions;  but  he  was  deprived  of  his  see 
and  sent  to  Vyatka  for  venturing  to  disagree  with  the  Tsar.  His 
Majesty  holds  that  the  preservation  of  the  bones,  the  hair,  and 
the  teeth  is  a  sufficient  qualification  for  saintship;  and  he  has 
been  assured  by  prophetic  monks  that  God  will  soon  work  a  mir- 
acle and  restore  Seraphim's  dead  body  in  full. 

But  it  would  occupy  too  much  space  to  enter  fully  into  these 
details,  or  into  the  grounds  of  his  Majesty's  belief  that  an  heir 
will  soon  be  born  to  him  through  the  mediation  of  his  favorite 
saints,  with  whose  image  he  lately  blessed  the  Siberian  and  South 
Russian  troops.  The  main  point  is  that  upon  Church  affairs, 
as  upon  every  other  branch  of  administration,  the  Emperor  has 
brought  his  personal  influence  to  bear,  and  made  it  prevail  over 
the  objections,  the  protests,  and  the  sound  advice  of  those  who 
were  best  able  to  guide  him. 

Who  then,  it  may  be  asked,  influences  the  autocrat  whose  per- 
sonal rule  is  thus  absolute?     If  his  ministers  are  but  his  organs 


THE  TSAR  AND  HIS  GO  VERNMENT  277 

and  even  his  women-folk  are  powerless  to  move  him, 
whose  is  the  spirit  that  animates  him?  The  answer  lies 
on  the  surface.  In  the  sweeping  theories  of  autocracy,  which 
he  has  made  his  own,  M.  Pobedonostseff  and  Prince  Meshtsher- 
sky,  the  Torquemada  and  Cagliostro  of  contemporary  Russia, 
were  his  teachers.  Their  abstract  aphorisms  and  personal  ap- 
peals engendered  a  faith  and  fervor  in  the  spirit  of  their  plastic 
pupil  which  have  become  second  nature;  and  he  now  measures 
every  new  idea  by  its  bearing  upon  autocracy.  The  teaching  of 
these  masters  is  backed  by  certain  Grand  Dukes,  who  form  a 
sort  of  secret  council  like  that  which  regulates  the  life  of  the 
great  Lama  of  Tibet.  Under  Alexander  III  they  had  no  part  to 
play,  for  that  monarch  kept  them  in  their  places.  Nicholas  II, 
on  the  contrary,  is  easily  swayed  by  these  self-seeking  members 
of  his  family.  They  paint  their  plans  in  the  hues  of  his  own 
dreams,  present  him  with  motives  which  appeal  to  his  prejudices, 
and  always  open  their  attack  by  gross  flattery.  They  are  conse- 
quently more  than  a  match  for  poor  ''Nickie,"  as  they  call  him; 
and  their  influence  over  him  is  pernicious.  One  of  them,  who 
was  for  years  the  manager  of  the  vast  funds  supplied  by  loyal 
Russia  to  build  a  church  to  the  memory  of  Alexander  II,  has  yet 
to  account  for  enormous  sums  of  money  which  disappeared  mys- 
teriously under  his  administration. 

The  Grand  Duke  Sergius,  Governor-general  of  Moscow,  a 
man  addicted  to  Jew-baiting  and  other  unworthy  sports,  is  the 
Tsar's  mentor  in  question  of  religion,  whether  abstruce  or  prac- 
tical. It  was  he  who  proposed  to  abolish  the  Juridical  Society 
of  Moscow,  which  he  suspected  of  liberal  tendencies;  and,  when 
it  was  objected  that  the  members  were  scrupulously  observant 
of  every  law  and  regulation,  he  answered:  'That's  my  point — 
they  are  for  this  very  reason  all  the  more  dangerous  to  the 
State !"  The  Grand  Duke  Constantine  offers  brilliant  sugges- 
tions on  questions  of  public  instruction  and  military  affairs.  The 
Grand  Duke  Alexis,  whose  foreign  mistress,  a  French  actress, 
causes  ministers  to  tremble,  is  the  great  palace  oracle  on  the 
navy,  of  which,  however,  he  expresses  a  very  poor  opinion  in 
private.  Perhaps  the  most  influential  of  all  is  the  Grand  Duke 
Alexander  Mikhailovitch,  who  has  for  a  considerable  time  been 
the  alter  ego  of  his  Majesty. 

This  grand-ducal  ring  is  the  Russian  governing  syndicate  un- 


278  THE  GLOBE. 

limited;  and  no  minister  could  withstand  it  for  a  month.  It  is 
able  to  thwart  his  plans  in  their  primary  stage,  to  discredit  them 
in  the  Tsar's  eyes  during  the  discussion,  or  to  have  them  can- 
celled after  the  Emperor  has  sanctioned  them.  Obviously  Russia 
has  more  autocrats  than  one.  \ 

Always  in  want  or  in  debt,  the  Grand  Dukes  flock  together 
wherever  there  is  money  to  be  had,  like  vultures  over  a  battle- 
field; and,  if  they  stand  to  win  in  any  undertaking,  they  care 
little  about  the  nationality  of  the  losers,  and  less  about  the  ethics 
of  the  game.  Their  latest  venture  was  the  Lumber  Concession 
on  the  Yalu  river  in  Corea,  which  had  no  little  share  in  plunging 
our  unfortunate  country  into  the  present  sanguinary  war.  The 
scheme  had  been  proposed  on  the  strength  of  M.  Bezobrazoff's 
assurances  that  it  would  bring  millions  to  the  pockets  of  the  lucky 
investors,  and  add  a  kingdom  to  Russia's  far-eastern  possessions. 
At  first  his  Majesty,  dissuaded  by  his  ministers,  shrank  from  the 
thought  of  mixing  shady  speculations  with  imperial  politics.  Ac- 
cordingly he  issued  a  strict  command  to  the  Grand  Dukes  to 
keep  aloof  from  the  discreditable  business.  The  ducal  ring  then 
sent  M.  Bezobrazoff  to  knead  the  imperial  will ;  and  so  ingeni- 
ously was  this  done  that  the  Tsar  not  only  withdrew  the  prohi- 
bition, but  himself  joined  the  investors,  and  put  some  millions  of 
his  own  into  the  concessions.  The  Grand  Dukes  reasoned  cor- 
rectly that,  if  the  Emperor  had  money  in  the  undertaking,  every- 
thing possible  would  be  done  to  make  it  increase  and  multiply — 
and  with  it  their  own  investments.    And  that  is  what  happened. 

Upon  the  mind  of  their  simple  relative  the  Grand  Dukes  worked 
with  consummate  skill.  Every  candidate  for  imperial  favor  whom 
they  present  is  a  specialist  who  promises  to  realize  the  momentary 
desires  of  the  Tsar.  Thus  Mr.  Philippe,  the  spiritualist  who  ap- 
peared during  the  Emperor's  illness  in  Yalta,  promised  him  a 
son  and  heir,  and  was  therefore  received  with  open  arms.  As 
time  passed,  and  the  hopes  which  this  adventurer  raised  were  not 
fulfilled,  the  canonization  of  St.  Seraphim  was  suggested  by  a 
pious  Grand  Duke  and  a  sceptical  abbot,  because  among  the  feats 
said  to  have  been  achieved  by  this  holy  man  was  the  miraculous 
bestowal  of  children  upon  barren  women. 

Another  of  the  Tsar's  passing  favorites  was  an  eccentric  idealist 
named  Khlopoff,  who  occupied  a  small  post  in  the  Ministry  of 
Ways  and  Communications.     Through  the  Grand  Duke  Alex- 


i 


THE  TSAR  AND  HIS  GOVERNMENT,  279 

ander  Mikhailovitch,  to  whose  children  he  gave  lessons,  he  was 
brought  to  the  notice  of  the  Emperor,  who  conceived  a  liking 
for  the  honest,  disinterested  reformer.  Khlopoff  idealized  the 
Russian  people,  enlarged  poetically  on  their  qualities,  dramatized 
their  actions,  and  prophesied  the  marvels  they  would  accomplish 
after  certain  reforms  had  been  effected.  His  Majesty  hung  upon 
his  eloquent  recitals  of  the  peasant's  hopefulness  in  sufferings, 
and  asked  his  new  friend  to  travel  through  the  country  and  to 
report  on  the  grievances  of  the  people.  But  after  a  twelvemonth 
of  Khlopoff's  irresponsible  activity  the  ministers  grew  restive; 
Pobedonostseff  requested  the  Tsar  to  give  his  favorite  a  respon- 
sible position  or  else  dismiss  him;  and,  the  novelty  of  his  rhap- 
sodies having  worn  off,  his  Majesty  ceased  to  receive  the  re- 
former. As  he  continued,  however,  to  read  his  reports,  M. 
Pobedonostseff  spoke  earnestly  to  the  Grand  Duke ;  and  Khlopoflf 
was  dismissed  with  a  pension. 

But  the  most  dangerous  of  all  the  imperial  favorites  is  M. 
Bezobrazoff,  a  cross  between  a  clever  company-promoter  and  an 
eccentric.  This  gentleman,  who  in  his  lucid  intervals  gives  proofs 
of  extraordinary  shrewdness,  began  his  career  as  an  officer  in 
the  cavalry  of  the  Guard,  passed  on  to  the  post  of  Master  of  the 
Hounds,  and  in  this  capacity  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  grand-ducal  ring.  In  time  he  resigned,  and,  hoping 
to  do  a  brilliant  stroke  of  business  a  VAmericaine,  went  to  the 
Far  East,  where  he  was  to  look  after  the  financial  interests  of 
the  Grand  Dukes.  The  Yalu  forests  seemed  to  promise  well  as 
a  speculation,  and  he  returned  with  a  proposal  for  exploiting 
them.  The  sharp  criticism  with  which  the  project  was  received 
by  M.  de  Witte,  Count  Lamsdorff,  and  others,  at  first  alarmed  the 
Tsar.  But  M.  Bezobrazoff,  who  was  received  by  his  Majesty 
at  the  request  of  the  Grand  Dukes,  had  no  difficulty  in  winning 
over  the  waving  young  monarch;  and  the  Tsar,  as  has  already 
been  stated,  himself  became  an  investor.  From  that  moment  M. 
Bezobrazoff's  ascendency  began.  He  returned  to  the  Far  East 
with  plenipotentiary  power  such  as  no  minister  ever  possessed. 
General  Kuropatkin,  Baron  Rosen,  Count  Lamsdorff  were  sub- 
ordinated to  him ;  and  his  report  on  the  Manchurian  railway  accel- 
erated M.  de  Witte's  fall.  He  caused  Admiral  Alexieff,  a  man 
of  narrow  outlook  and  vast  ambitions,  to  be  appointed  viceroy; 


28o  THE  GLOBE. 

and  between  them  they  lured  the  unsteady  monarch,  and  with 
him  all  the  nation,  into  the  present  costly  and  disastrous  war. 

Thus  the  whole  Russian  Empire,  with  its  peasantry,  army, 
navy,  clergy,  universities,  and  ministries,  is  but  the  servant  of  an 
inexperienced  prince  who  is  not  only  deficient  in  the  qualities 
requisite  to  a  ruler,  but  even  devoid  of  the  tact  necessary  to 
enable  him  to  keep  up  appearances.  At  home  the  nation  is 
suppressed;  it  cannot  make  its  voice  heard  on  the  subject  of 
war  or  peace,  of  taxation  or  education,  of  industry  or  finance; 
it  cannot  even  save  its  soul  in  its  own  way.  Abroad  the  policy 
of  Russia  is  a  policy  of  expansion  without  end,  planned  by 
officials  without  scruples,  and  executed  by  a  Government  without 
responsibility.  It  has  brought  things  to  such  a  pass  that  assur- 
ances given  by  ambassadors  are  not  binding  on  the  Foreign 
Minister ;  promises  made  by  the  Foreign  Minister  are  disregarded 
by  the  heads  of  other  departments  and  dishonored  by  the  Tsar; 
treaties  ratified  by  the  Tsar  are  not  binding  on  the  Government, 
which  may  plead  a  change  of  circumstances  as  a  justification  for 
breaking  them.  This  theory,  which  to  our  shame  is  become  as 
specifically  Russian  as  the  Monroe  Doctrine  is  American,  has 
been  firmly  established  by  Nicholas  II,  who  may  truly  say  that 
the  Empire  is  himself  and  that  his  ways  are  inscrutable. 

It  is  no  exaggeration  to  state  that  the  domestic  consequences 
of  this  system — if  system  it  can  be  called — are  calamitous.  Two 
ministers  have  already  been  murdered;  several  governors  and 
officials  have  been  shot  at  and  killed  or  wounded;  numerous 
country-houses  have  been  set  on  fire  and  burned  to  ashes;  peas- 
ants are  being  flogged,  noblemen  banished,  lawyers,  school- 
masters and  officials  imprisoned,  working  men  fired  upon  by 
troops;  while  the  whole  nation  is  kept  in  ignorance  and  super- 
stition in  order  that  one  man  should  be  free  to  realize  his  ideals 
of  autocracy.  All  that  broad-minded  monarchists  like  the  present 
writer  desire  is  to  save  our  people  without  injuring  our  Tsar. 
Against  monarchical  institutions,  without  which  our  nation  could 
not  work  out  its  high  destinies,  we  have  nothing  to  urge.  Even 
the  dynasty  we  accept  as  a  fact.  But  we  strongly  hold  that  the 
affairs  of  the  nation,  which  are  not  identical  with  the  changing 
caprices  of  an  individual  or  the  insatiable  greed  of  a  ring,  should 
be  conducted  by  competent  and  moderately  honest  men  independ- 


J 


A  DOWN-EAST  FOOL  CRITIC.  281 

ently  of  Court  influence  and  on  ordinary  business  principles. — 
The  Quarterly  Review. 

P.  S. — When  this  article  was  written  M.  Plehve  was  still  alive. 
His  recent  assassination  is  a  commentary  on  the  article. — Editor. 


A  DOWN-EAST  FOOL  CRITIC. 


The  Fool's  Words. 

"Egotism  Vying  with  Scurrility." — We  have  in  mind  a  pub- 
lication that  bears  the  title  of  The  Globe  Quarterly  Review, 
claiming  its  home,  as  per  announcement  in  red  ink  on  the  out- 
side front  cover,  at  the  "new  address,  1727  Aberdeen  street, 
Philadelphia,  Pa."  One  William  Henry  Thorne  is  the  editor, 
manager  also  as  we  infer.  In  fact,  if  we  may  trust  our  judg- 
ment in  the  matter,  the  chief  fugleman  as  associated  with  "The 
Globe  Quarterly  Review,  and  his  own  estimate,  something 
more  than  primus  inter  pares  in  the  literary  world  generally. 
Several  numbers  of  The  Globe  Review,  written  for  the  most 
part  by  Mr.  Thorne,  printed  on  excellent  quality  of  paper  and 
bearing  rather  an  aristocratic  appearance,  as  we  look  with  a 
mechanical  eye  on  the  periodical  literature  of  the  day,  have  come 
to  our  desk,  and  in  some  measure  have  been  accorded  our  atten- 
tive perusal. 

Our  favorable  predilection  toward  the  publication  has,  on  each 
occasion,  met  with  woeful  discouragement  in  the  egotistical 
crudity  and  the  coarsely  erratic  modes  of  expression  we  have 
encountered  between  its  covers.  But  not  until  we  dipped  into 
the  treasures  of  the  June  number  were  we  brought  to  realize  the 
full  ampHtude  of  egotism  run  mad  and  criticism  degenerated  to 
bald  and  vulgar  abuse.  Out  of  a  total  of  eight  original  contri- 
butions in  this  particular  number,  just  four  are  from  the  pen 
of  Editor  Thorne.  This  speaks  well  for  the  gentleman's  indus- 
try, but,  we  regret  to  say,  that  regard  for  truth  cuts  the  compli- 
mentary notice  short  at  this  point. 

The  first,  according  to  our  shrewdest  guess,  purports  to  be  the 
beginning  of  a  series  of  articles  on  the  philosophy  of  literature, 
such,  it  is  modestly  asserted,  as  it  has  not  been  within  the  capa- 
bilities of  other  of  the  world's  savants  to  produce.    In  the  initial 


282  THE  GLOBE. 

effort  there  is  rapid-fire  generalization  that  has  to  do  with  philos- 
ophy, with  theology,  with  art,  with  politics — but  touching  the 
realm  of  literature  there  is  naught  save  a  quotation  from  the 
Master  Bard,  designated  in  suspiciously  irreverent  phraseology 
as  *'an  old  saying"  and  rendered  incorrectly  both  literally  and  in 
character. 

But  it  is  not  what  this  gentleman  has  to  say  in  the  philosophical 
vein  so  much  as  what  he  contributes  in  the  form  of  political  criti- 
cism and  while  indulging  in  discursive  essay,  that  attracts  and 
holds  the  attention.  He  is  ''forninst"  the  Administration  in  this 
country  broadly  and  brutally,  and  he  wishes  to  have  it  so  under- 
stood. He  is  a  wielder  of  the  bludgeon,  not  the  stiletto.  Dis- 
cussing Mr.  Roosevelt's  action  in  the  Panama  affair,  here  is  the 
manner  in  which  he  beats  the  earth  with  his  terrible  weapon : 
''In  vain  did  the  best  National  and  international  sentiment  of 
morality  cry  out  against  the  outrage,  but  committed  it  was  in 
broad  daylight,  uncovered  even  by  the  decency  of  darkness,  a 
piece  of  cold-blooded  rascality,  only  to  be  compared  with  in 
modern  history  with  the  partition  of  Poland,  and  yet  Theodore 
Roosevelt  has  had  the  unmitigated  effrontery  to  defend  his 
nefarious  steal  by  column  upon  column  of  blatant  sophistry  and 
arguments  that  have  deceived  nobody  but  himself  and  those  who 
were  only  too  willing  to  consent  to  a  high-handed  international 
immoral  atrocity."  The  quotation  is  letter  perfect,  punctuation 
and  all.  ''Uncovered  even  by  the  decency  of  darkness"  is  good ; 
and  another  gem  is  the  "high-handed  international  immoral 
atrocity."  What  could  we  have  said  had  the  atrocity  been  one 
of  moral  character?  As  to  the  "rascality"  and  "steal,"  the 
author  is  clearly  interpreted  by  another  hysterical  exclamation  in 
the  context.  This  time  President  Roosevelt  is  directly  addressed : 
"It  is  of  no  moment  to  us  whether  you  justly  consider  that  we 
are  endeavoring  to  secure  an  invaluable  National  asset  for  a 
mere  fifty  millions  of  dollars,  of  which  you  are  to  have  a  mere 
ten  millions  and  a  little  annually  besides."  In  another  instance, 
the  public  is  informed,  in  the  elegant  diction  of  this  eminent 
Hterator,  that  the  President  is  "giving  us  the  double  cross." 

The  discursive  essay  alluded  to  is  entitled,  "Women,  Cats  and 
Dogs,"  in  which  the  edifying  proposition  is  laid  down  that  in 
feminine  regard,  the  cat  and  the  dog  is  mawkishly  and  vulgarly 
pre-eminent.    Quotation  is  unnecessary.    Scurrility  is  the  keynote 


A  DOWN-EAST  FOOL  CRITIC.  283 

in  this  as  in  the  other  contribution.  The  writer  of  a  philosophy 
of  literature,  forsooth!  Ye  gods  that  once  did  reign  on  the 
classic  heights  of  Parnassus!  Whenever  such  labor  shall  be 
clothed  with  authority  the  literary  world  may  well  be  likened 
to  the 

....  "six  men 
Who  wept  and  gnashed  their  teeth,  and  laid  their  palms 
Upon  their  mouths,  walking  disconsolate." 

Other  Views  of  The  Globe. 
By  way  of  catrast  here  are  a  few  very  brief  utterances  of  what 
certain  well-known  men  and  able  newspapers  said  of  the  Globe  and 
its  editor  within  a  year  or  two  after  I  founded  the  magazine: 

''One  of  the  ablest  reviews  in  the  English  language,  and  we 
cheerfully  commend  it  to  all  intelligent  readers." — Mxi  Rev. 
P.  J.  Ryan,  Archbishop  of  Philadelphia.  Hon.  A.  K.  McClure, 
Editor  Philadelphia  Times. 

"The  spiciest  and  most  thought-provoking  magazine  that 
comes  to  this  office." — The  Boston  Herald. 

"Will  certainly  catch  the  public  ear,  and  has  set  itself  a  hard 
task  to  keep  equal  with  itself." — Prof.  J.  H.  Allen,  in  the  Uni- 
tarian Review,  Boston. 

"Chaste,  pure,  original,  and  reliable  in  every  sense." — The 
True  Witness,  Montreal. 

"Mr.  Thorne  is  a  brilliant  essayist,,  and  he  has  made  the 
Globe  an  organ  of  opinion  on  social,  literary,  religious  and 
political  matters,  quite  unique  in  contemporary  letters." — The 
Boston  Times. 

"We  strongly  recommend  the  Globe  as  deserving  a  place  on 
the  library  shelf  of  every  family." — Abbey  Student,  Atchison, 
Kansas. 

"It  is  always  a  pleasure  to  welcome  a  new  number  of  the 
Globe.  It  is  the  most  refreshing  and  thought-provoking  read- 
ing imaginable." — The  Journal,  Milwaukee,  Wis. 

"A  publication  of  much  more  than  usual  force  and  of  unusual 
sprightliness." — The  Chicago  Israelite,  Chicago. 

"Mr.  Thorne  is  a  brilliant  man,  and  his  magazine  is  the  organ 
of  an  audacious,  aggressive,  many-sided  intellect." — The  Stand- 
ard, Syracuse,  N,  Y. 

"Brimming  over  with  'good  things,'  and  will  be  greatly  en- 
joyed by  readers  who  appreciate  the  best  in  composition  and 


284  ^^-^  GLOBE, 

the  noblest  thought  of  the  human  mind." — Commercial  List  and 
Price  Current,  Philadelphia. 

"Nothing  so  original,  so  fearless,  so  scornful  of  shams,  so 
strong  in  intellectual  integrity  as  your  articles  in  the  Globe  have 
ever  come  under  my  eye." — Col.  Thomas  Fitch,  New  York 
City. 

"Nothing  extant  of  which  I  know  anything  in  the  way  of 
thought  can  compare  with  your  living  words. — Rt.  Rev.  Thomas 
A.  Becker,  Late  Bishop  of  Savannah, 

Here  is  one  quotation  from  the  June  Globe  which  appeared  in 
italics  at  the  head  of  the  first  column  of  the  editorial  page  in  the 
Troy,  New  York  Press  of  August  3,  1904. 

"  The  age  is  trivial;  cares  little  for  the  higher  morality,  thiyiks  it- 
self smart  in  talking  now  and  then  of  what  it  calls  the  higher  criti- 
cism, forgetting  this  one  eternal  truth,  that  no  man  has  ever  been 
able,  and  that  no  man  ever  will  be  able  to  understand  the  Church, 
the  Scriptures  or  the  higher  criticism  who  does  not  practice  the  highest 
morality.  Only  the  saints  are  true  seers.  It  is  easy  to  find  fault 
with  the  flowers,  the  stars,  and  to  find  or  imagine  spots  on  the  sun. 
Errors  in  the  Scriptures!  Certahily.  My  friends,  they  have  gone 
through  too  many  human  handlings  to  escape  that,  but  God  Al- 
mighty still  reigns  supreme  in  the  Scriptures,  still  shines  in  the 
dawnings  of  nature,  and  wins  true  hearts  with  the  beauty  of  the 
Howers."" — William  Henry  Thorne. 

In  the  eyes  of  ignorant  fools  how  egotistic  this  must  seem  and 
how  full  of  scurrility. 

Here  is  a  brief  editorial  clipping  from  the  same  able  and  conser- 
vative Journal  under  date  of  August  10: 

"Eloquent  Faces. — A  virile  and  learned  writer  on  literary, 
religious,  political,  social  and  miscellaneous  topics — we  refer  to 
William  Henry  Thorne,  editor  of  The  Globe-Review,  from 
which  we  republished  an  elaborate  and  attractive  article  on 
'Physiognomy'  about  a  year  ago — contends  that  a  man's  char- 
acter, his  very  soul,  is  infallibly  expressed  in  his  face.  With 
this  conclusion  we  do  not  dissent ;  but  the  accuracy  of  the  trans- 
lation depends  upon  the  talent  or  psychical  gift  of  the  translator. 
Physiognomy,  phrenology,  palmistry,  graphology,  clairvoyance, 
astrology  and  psychology  all  emanate  from  the  infinite  Fountain 
of  Truth — a  fact  dimmed  to  the  perception  of  superficial  minds 
because  there  are  so  many  professed  physiognomists,  phrenol- 


A  DOWN-EAST  FOOL  CRITIC  285 

ogists,  palmists,  graphologists,  clairvoyants,  astrologists  and 
psychologists  who  are  very  crude  students  or  mercenary  pre- 
tenders. Eliminating  incompetents  and  impostors,  however,  there 
remain  enough  exponents  and  demonstrators  of  the  arts  or  gifts 
named  to  justify  our  claim.  God  is  order-loving,  and  He  rules 
in  the  minutest  as  well  as  the  mightiest  things  by  immutable  prin- 
ciples. Hence  He  never  places  the  benignant  face  of  a  Lincoln 
upon  a  Nero,  nor  the  well-moulded  hand  of  a  Herbert  Spencer 
upon  a  Jack  the  Ripper.  But  all  this  is  aside  from  the  principal 
purpose  of  this  article. 

"Mr.  Thorne  has  made  a  specialty  of  physiognomical  lines, 
and  those  who  read  the  paper  referred  to  will  scarcely  deny  his 
superiority  as  an  investigator  in  this  entrancing  field  of  obser- 
vation." 

The  writer  in  each  case  is  unknown  to  me,  but  that  the  one  is  a 
low-born,  ill-bred  and  ignorant  beast  and  the  other  a  thoughtful 
gentleman,  who  will  question  or  deny. 

Here  is  a  criticism  of  the  June  Globe  Review  clipped  from  the 
St.  John's,  N.  B.,  Globe  of  July  15.  The  same  issue  that  moved 
the  Portland  clown  to  his  ignorant  brutalisms. 

"The  Globe  Quarterly  Review  of  Literature,  Society,  Re- 
ligion, Art  and  Politics  for  June  opens  with  an  article  by  the 
editor  on  the  'Philosophy  of  Literature.'  Mr.  Thorne  states  that 
for  more  than  twenty  years  he  has  had  the  idea  of  writing  a 
work  on  this  theme,  intending  to  commence  it  when  he  had  the 
leisure.  But  leisure  he  has  ceased  to  hope  for,  and  now  thinks 
it  best  to  begin  the  undertaking  with  such  opportunities  as  are 
at  his  command.  This  particular  paper  is  a  general  introduction 
to  his  theme.  His  leading  idea  was  to  reproduce  in  limited 
quotations  'the  highest  literary  expressions  of  the  poetic,  his- 
toric, dramatic  and  religious  or  so-called  inspired  literature  of  all 
nations  and  peoples  of  the  earth  up  to  this  hour,'  and  thus  show 
that  the  highest  utterances  of  Christian  writers  from  the  days  of 
St.  Paul  'are  superior  to  the  best  Pagan  utterances,  and  so  prove 
that  there  is  a  sure,  though  slow  advance  in  and  towards  the 
realms  of  God  and  truth  and  honor  of  the  finest  and  supremest 
kind,'  but  now  he  cannot  attempt  so  massive  a  work.  However 
much  or  little  Mr.  Thorne  may  accomplish  it  will  be  of  value,  for 
he  is  an  earnest  thinker  and  fearless  in  the  expression  of  his 
opinions.     Other  articles  which  he  contributes  to  this  number 


286  THE  GLOBE. 

of  The  Globe  Quarterly  are  'A  Visit  to  Carlyle'  and  'Women, 
Cats  and  Dogs,'  the  latter  a  strong  satire  on  certain  conditions 
of  women;  the  former  a  warm  appreciation  of  Carlyle:  *I  have 
known  personally,'  he  says,  'many  of  the  famous  men  of  the 
present  and  the  preceding  generation,  both  in  the  literary  and 
clerical  fields  of  labor,  and  ...  I  put  Carlyle  first;  ablest, 
strongest,  most  upright,  sincere  and  fascinating  of  all  the  men 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  not  excepting  Hugo  or  Goethe,  Bobbie 
Burns  or  the  great  Leo  XIIL'  Caroline  D.  Swan  contributes  a 
paper  on  'Modern  Secularism,'  practically  an  essay  on  the  gen- 
eral condition  and  tendency  of  the  time.  R.  L.  Schmitt,  who 
writes  on  'Life's  Happiest  State,'  concludes  that  if  a  man  cannot 
find  happiness  in  the  United  States  he  cannot  find  it  at  all  on 
earth,  but  the  suggestion  is  that  happiness  is  a  state  of  mind, 
with  which  reflection,  judgment,  good  conduct  have  much  to  do. 
Other  articles  include  'Roosevelt  and  the  Canal  Steal,'  'Archaeo- 
logical Movements  in  Rome,'  'Shall  Civil  Courts  Recognize  and 
Enforce  the  Sacred  Canons?'  'Bismarck's  Second  Death,'  and  a 
number  of  notes  by  the  editor  on  current  matters.  The  Globe 
Quarterly,  William  Henry  Thorne,  editor,  1727  Aberdeen 
street,  Philadelphia,  Pa." 

There  are  many  others.  There  have  been  thousands  and  thou- 
sands of  them,  these  many  years.  I  seldom  read  or  notice  them 
any  more,  especially  of  late,  when  I  have  feared  that  I  might  have 
to  quit  work  altogether,  but  these  contrasts  have  moved  me  to 
these  few  words. 

I  do  not  write  for  money  or  for  applause,  but  for  the  truth  as  it 
is  in  Christ  Jesus.  When  a  viper  attacks  me  I  call  him  or  her  a 
viper,  as  the  Master  did,  and  I  call  a  spade  a  spade.  This  was  my 
announcement  in  the  first  issue,  fourteen  years  ago.  I  did  not  ex- 
pect to  be  heard  at  all.  I  am  thankful  alike  to  friends  and  foes  for 
their  patience  with  me  and  their  praise  and  their  abuse  of  me.  I 
have  tried  to  deserve  well  of  my  fellow  men  who  care  for  truth  and 
righteousness.  If  I  have  failed  1  ask  their  forgiveness,  as  I  have 
had  to  forgive  many  things  and  as  I  hope  to  be  forgiven.  As  to 
the  Portland  fool-critic  I  pity  and  despise  him  or  her. 

William  Henry  Thorne. 


POOR  GOLDSMITH.  287 

POOR   GOLDSMITH. 


An  opinion  pretty  widely  circulated,  even  among  the  learned, 
is  that  the  author  of  'Sweet  Auburn"  was  a  man  of  letters  much 
abused  and  neglected,  by  his  contemporaries.  This  opinion  has 
been  undoubtedly  spread  and  strengthened  by  Mr.  Foster,  who, 
having  imbibed  the  silly  idea  that  literary  persons  are  the  particu- 
lar objects  of  the  world's  cruel  persecutions,  has  done  his  utmost, 
in  his  life  of  Goldsmith,  to  paint  the  dark  side  of  his  picture  in 
colors  the  most  gloomy.  The  following  extract  is  a  fair  sample 
of  how  the  biographer  of  Goldsmith  draws  on  his  imagination: 
"There  has  been  a  Christian  religion  extant  for  seventeen  hundred 
and  fifty-seven  years,"  he  writes,  "the  world  having  been  ac- 
quainted for  even  so  long,  with  its  spiritual  necessities  and 
responsibilities ;  yet  here,  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
was  the  eminence  ordinarily  conceded  to  a  spiritual  teacher,  to 
one  of  those  men  who  come  upon  the  earth  to  lift  their  fellow- 
men  above  its  miry  ways.  He  is  up  in  a  garret,  writing  for  bread 
he  cannot  get,  and  dunned  for  a  milk  score  he  cannot  pay." 
Now  the  effect  of  such  opinions  has  not  only  misled  many  as  to 
the  truth  in  Goldsmith's  case,  but  has  done  much  in  attaching 
to  authorship  the  bad  name  of  "Beggar's  Art" ;  and  this,  in  turn, 
has  been  the  cause  of  frightening  many  young  men  of  ability 
and  genius  from  pursuing  a  literary  life.  With  more  cheerful 
views  of  the  subject  before  them,  they  might  have  been  induced 
to  persevere  in  their  art  until  they  had  won  a  well-merited  suc- 
cess, alike  beneficial  to  themselves  and  to  their  fellow-beings. 
Of  course,  every  scribbler  cannot  hope  for  literary  success  any 
more  than  every  clerk  in  a  down-town  office  (who  is  not  cut  out 
for  it)  can  ever  hope  to  make  a  successful  merchant.  But  where 
there  is  sufficient  ability,  it  will  never  go  unrequited  either  by 
honors  or  money,  provided  the  person  shows  that,  beside  talent, 
he  possesses  perseverance,  patience,  and  a  fair  amount  of  ordi- 
nary every-day  common  sense.  A  few  facts  therefore,  to  place 
Goldsmith's  case  in  its  true  light,  may  not  only  prove  interesting 
in  themselves,  but  may  possibly  tend  to  draw  aside  the  dark 
curtain  which,  for  so  long  a  time,  has  hung  over  authorship, 
while  at  the  same  time  they  point  out  to  the  young  literary  aspi- 
rant the  rocks  upon  which  Goldsmith's  vessel  split. 


288  THE  GLOBE, 

In  1760,  when  Oliver  Goldsmith  was  in  his  thirty-second  year, 
and  after  having  done  a  considerable  amount  of  hack-writing,  he 
was  engaged  by  Mr.  Newbery  to  write  two  letters  per  week  for 
the  Public  Ledger.  For  each  of  these  letters  he  received  a 
guinea  a-piece.  From  this  time  on  till  about  1764  he  received 
steadily,  according  to  Foster's  account,  an  annual  sum  of  £200 
equivalent  to  about  $1,000  of  American  money.  While  this  in 
itself  was  not  a  fortune,  it  was  certainly  more  than  sufficient,  if 
economically  handled  to  keep  want  from  his  door.  But  Gold- 
smith and  Economy,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  were  total  strang- 
ers. In  1704,  "The  Vicar  of  Wakefield"  (not  published  till 
1766),  brought  him,  through  Johnson's  good  offices,  $300.  This 
was  not  much  for  that  excellent  work,  but  a  fair  sum  for  a  MS. 
in  which  the  publisher  put  little  faith.  About  the  same  time 
"The  Vicar  of  Wakefield"  was  purchased  Goldsmith's  publishers 
gave  him  $100  for  a  selection  made  and  published  from  his  best 
essays.  In  1768,  he  received  for  "The  Good-natured  Man," 
which  was  then  put  upon  the  stage,  the  round  sum  of  $2,000; 
and  subsequently  an  additional  sum  of  $500  for  the  printed  pub- 
lication of  the  play.  One  year  after  the  publication  of  "The 
Good-natured  Man,"  in  1769,  Griffin  offered  him  $4,000  to  write 
his  "History  of  Animated  Nature."  Of  this  sum,  $2,500  was 
paid  to  him  in  advance;  the  rest  subsequently.  His  "History 
of  England"  netted  him  $2,500,  and  his  "History  of  Greece," 
$1,250.  In  1773,  for  "She  Stoops  to  Conquer,"  he  received  the 
fair  sum  of  $2,500.  This  completes  the  list  of  payments  he  re- 
ceived for  his  more  prominent  writings,  but  does  not  include 
those  many  smaller  remunerations  he  received,  from  time  to 
time,  for  hack-writing,  an  employment  in  which  he  seems  to  have 
been  constantly  engaged.  By  adding  up  the  foregoing  items, 
we  discover  that  he  received  from  1760  to  1774,  one  year  before 
his  death,  the  sum  total  of  $17,050.  Macaulay,  in  his  Bio- 
graphical Essays,  makes  a  calculation  of  the  receipts  obtained 
by  Goldsmith  for  his  writings.  He  tells  us  that  he  received  dur- 
ing the  last  seven  years  of  his  life  a  sum  equivalent  to  800 
guineas  per  summer,  or  about  $4,000  in  American  money.  Con- 
sequently for  the  entire  seven  years  he  must  have  received  the 
sum  total  of  5,600  guineas,  or  $28,000.  Add  to  this  the  money 
he  received  from  Mr.  Newbery  before  1768,  and  we  have  a  grand 
total  of  about  $32,400,  which  he  received  for  his  entire  writing 


k 


POOR  GOLDSMITH.  289 

from  1760  to  the  time  of  his  death,  a  period  of  fourteen  years. 
This,  assuredly,  is  a  sum  not  to  be  sneezed  at  by  an  author  even 
to-day.  But  the  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  Goldsmith  would 
have  been  no  better  off  had  he  possessed  ten  times  this  sum. 
As  far  then  as  money  is  concerned,  and  this  is  just  the  point 
where  most  people  stickle,  we  cannot  concede  with  the  world 
that  Goldsmith's  lot  was  such  a  hard  one. 

Besides  the  foregoing  amounts,  of  which  Goldsmith  was 
actually  the  recipient,  he  had  many  good  opportunities  placed 
within  his  reach  by  which  he  might  have  improved  his  fortunes. 
If  he  threw  them  away,  if  he  refused  them  as  beneath  his  dignity, 
who  but  Goldsmith  is  to  blame?  If  money  is  a  man's  object,  he 
cannot  be  over-delicate  and  fastidious  in  obtaining  it;  least  of 
all  refuse  opportunities  which  do  not  just  please  his  fancy.  If 
money  is  not  his  object,  and  he  will  not  accept  that  put  into  his 
hands,  he  must  not  grumble  at  finding  his  pockets  empty.  Gold- 
smith did  not  hesitate  to  lie  and  trick  to  obtain  money  from  his 
uncle,  as  every  one  knows  who  has  read  his  life.  Why  then 
was  he  over-delicate  in  refusing  to  write  for  a  party?  A  man 
who  strains  at  a  gnat  and  swallows  a  camel,  if  not  just  a  hypo- 
crite, is  certainly  acting  on  the  side  of  affectation.  When  then, 
Mr.  Scott,  Chaplain  of  Lord  Sandwich,  once  applied  to  Gold- 
smith in  order  to  engage  his  services  as  a  writer  on  the  behalf 
of  the  government,  he  foolishly  threw  away  a  good  opprtunity. 
The  interview  that  took  place  is  given  by  Mr.  Scott  in  these 
words :  "I  found  him  in  a  miserable  set  of  chambers  in  the  Temple. 
I  told  him  my  authority;  I  told  him  I  was  empowered  to  pay 
most  liberally  for  his  exertions;  and,  would  you  believe  iti  he 
was  so  absurd  as  to  say,  *I  can  earn  as  much  as  will  supply  my 
wants  without  writing  for  any  party;  the  assistance  you  offer  is 
therefore  unnecessary  to  me.'  And  I  left  him  in  his  garret." 
What  else  could  be  done?  Here  he  refused  a  golden  oppor- 
tunity, simply  because  he  affected  that  he  could  not  stomach 
writing  for  a  party.  And  yet  he  flew  into  a  violent  passion  when 
his  landlady  demanded  her  just  rent,  did  not  hesitate  to  spend 
other  people's  money,  made  his  creditors  suffer  by  his  unpaid 
debts,  nor  shrunk  from  writing  his  Uncle  Contarine  tricky  letters 
for  money,  which  he  squandered  without  ever  a  thought  of  re- 
turning. That  a  man,  in  affluent  circumstances,  may  have 
scruples  against  writing  for  a  party,  we  admit ;  but  such  scruples, 


290  THE  GLOBE. 

especially  when  they  are  affected  as  in  Goldsmith's  case,  are  too 
delicate  for  a  man  starving  in  a  garret.  Beggars  cannot  be 
choosers.  Besides,  nothing  dishonorable  was  required  of  him. 
The  whole  political  world  has  ever  been  split  into  parties,  and  no 
man  who  adKeres  to  this  or  that  side  need  act  dishonestly. 
Goldsmith,  however,  chose  to  be  an  independent,  and  as  such 
received  an  independent's  reward — nothing.  We  can  admire 
him  for  his  independence,  but  we  cannot  censure  the  world  for 
leaving  him  in  his  garret.  For  first,  he  chose  it,  when  it  was  in 
his  power  to  better  his  circumstances.  Secondly,  he  tells  us  that 
he  earned  enough  to  supply  his  wants.  How  then  was  his  lot 
a  hard  one? 

Goldsmith  not  only  threw  away  many  golden  opportunities, 
but  was  a  spendthrift,  ever  living  from  hand  to  mouth,  and  as 
far  as  economy  and  frugality  are  concerned  was  little  better 
than  a  dunce.  This  is  the  common  opinion  of  all  his  biogra- 
phers. In  his  early  days,  his  Uncle  Contarine  repeatedly  fur- 
nished him  with  funds  which  he  squandered  as  soon  as  in  his 
possession.  Even  the  good-natured  uncle  ceased,  at  last,  his 
remittances,  and  Goldsmith's  letters  home  were  left  unanswered. 
Every  one  knows  the  story  of  the  bottle  of  Madeira  purchased 
with  the  guinea  Johnson  sent  him  to  stay  the  arrest  for  unpaid 
rent  that  was  staring  him  in  the  face.  Long  before  he  com- 
pleted his  ''History  of  Animated  Nature"  the  800  guineas  which 
he  received  from  the  same  were  all  spent.  Thus,  he  not  only 
squandered  his  funds  as  soon  as  they  came  into  his  possession, 
but  accumulated  upon  his  hands  work  from  which  he  could  hope 
for  no  future  remuneration.  This  was  actually  drawing  the 
cart  before  the  horse  with  all  its  increased  difficulties.  Scott  is 
another  instance  of  this  pernicious  and  altogether  too  common 
habit  among  men  of  letters;  and  the  great  pity  is  that  Scott,  in 
this  respect,  learnt  nothing  by  the  example  of  Goldsmith.  But 
example  is  least  heeded  where  most  needed. 

We  have  already  stated  that  for  "The  Good-natured  Man" 
Goldsmith  received  $500.  Of  this,  $400  was  immediately  laid 
out  in  spacious  apartments;  $100  was  held  in  reserve  on  which 
to  frolic.  The  story,  as  related  by  one  of  his  biographers,  is 
put  in  the  following  words:  "The  appearance  of  "The  Good- 
natured  Man"  ushered  in  a  halcyon  period  of  Goldsmith's  life. 
The  "Traveller"   and   "The  Vicar"   had  gained   for  him   only 


POOR  GOLDSMITH,  291 

reputation;  this  new  comedy  put  $500  in  his  pocket.  Of  course 
that  was  too  large  a  sum  for  Goldsmith  to  have  about  him  long. 
Four-fifths  of  it  he  immediately  expended  on  the  purchase  and 
decoration  of  a  chamber  in  Brick  Court  Middle  Temple;  with 
the  remainder  he  appears  to  have  begun  a  series  of  entertainments 
in  this  new  abode,  which  were,  perhaps,  more  remarkable  for 
their  mirth  than  their  decorum.  There  was  no  sort  of  frolic 
to  which  Goldsmith  would  not  indulge  for  the  amusement  of  his 
guests;  he  would  sing  them  songs;  he  would  throw  his  wig  to 
the  ceiling;  he  would  dance  a  minuet.  And  then  they  had  cards 
forfeits,  blind  man's  buff,  until  Mr.  Blackstone,  then  engaged  on 
his  Commentaries  in  the  room  below,  was  driven  nearly  mad  by 
the  uproar." 

When  a  man  of  genius  and  talent  is  unfortunate,  when,  after 
doing  all  that  human  foresight  and  prudence  can  dictate,  his  best 
thought  out  plans  miscarry,  as  they  often  do  in  this  life  of 
unceasing  vicissitudes,  the  world  pronounces  justly  that  that 
man's  lot  is  a  hard  one.  But  when  a  man's  misfortunes  are  the 
inevitable  results  of  his  own  follies,  weaknesses,  and  short  sight- 
edness,  the  world,  when  aware  of  the  true  causes,  places  the 
blame  of  that  man's  misfortunes  where  it  rightly  belongs — upon 
that  man's  own  shoulders.  If  then  Goldsmith  before  his  death 
was  in  debt  to  the  amount  of  $10,000  who  but  Goldsmith  was  to 
blame?  Can  we  blame  his  creditors  for  demanding  their  just 
due?  Can  we  blame  the  world  for  his  own  weaknesses  and 
folly?  Why  did  he  live  beyond  his  means?  Why  did  he  spend 
his  money  foolishly  ?  Why  did  he  throw  away  the  golden  oppor- 
tunities that  might  have  mended  his  fortune?  And  if  he  died  in 
a  garret  it  was  of  his  own  choosing ;  he  preferred  to  do  so  rather 
than  to  write  for  a  party  The  world,  therefore,  cannot  be 
accused  of  neglecting  Goldsmith,  and  we  cannot  say,  with  justice 
to  the  world,  that  the  lot  of  Goldsmith  was  a  hard  one.  It  was 
of  his  own  choosing,  due  to  his  own  follies  and  weaknesses, 
brought  about  by  his  own  improvidence.  We  can  pity  Gold- 
smith with  all  our  heart,  but  we  cannot  place  the  responsibility 
of  his  lot  upon  other  shoulders  than  his  own. 

F.    L.    SCHMITT, 


292  THE  GLOBE. 

GLOBE  NOTES. 


The  June  Globe  was  no  sooner  out  than  I  received  two  scold- 
ing communications  from  two  representatives  of  a  certain  order 
of  Fathers  because  of  what  I  had  said  in  the  Globe  Notes  of  that 
issue  touching,  what  I  had  called,  the  mistakes  of  Pius  X  in  his 
entire  dealing  with  the  then  burning  French  Question. 

I  am  totally  and  very  earnestly  opposed  to  all  interference  on 
the  part  of  the  State — of  any  and  all  States — with  the  dogmas 
and  discipline  of  the  Church.  I  would  as  soon  think  of  selling 
myself  into  old  time,  absolute  slavery,  as  suffer  any  Prince,  King 
or  President  of  any  nation  to  dictate  to  me  what  I  should  beheve 
or  think.  I  hold  that  all  the  infernal  acts  of  the  French  Repub- 
lic looking  to  the  expulsion  of  Bishops,  priests  or  Nuns  from 
France,  like  similar  acts  in  England  centuries  ago,  and  in  Ger- 
many during  the  last  century,  as  beneath  the  contempt  of  modern 
civilization,  and  I  have  been  sorry  that  Leo  XIII  did  not  from 
the  start  of  the  latest  French  movement  treat  that  movement  with 
more  prompt  and  severe  judgment,  but  there  are  some  things 
that  the  Church  cannot  do  and  there  are  other  things  that  it  ought 
not  to  try  to  do,  even  when  in  some  sense  it  can  do  them ;  and  I 
look  upon  the  whole  action  of  the  Church  touching  the  visit  of  the 
President  of  the  French  Republic  to  the  city  of  Rome  and  the 
King  of  Italy  as  pretty  childish,  foolish,  and  hence  very  im- 
politic. 

I  do  not  expect  Roman  Prelates,  trained  in  the  fading  school 
of  the  Temporal  power  to  see  such  matters  as  I  see  them.  They 
are  spiritually  blinded  by  the  vanity  of  their  own  princedoms, 
which  never  existed  and  never  will  exist,  but  I  do  expect  Ameri- 
can Catholics  to  be  free  of  such  nonsense,  and  to  understand 
the  simple  principles  of  right  and  wrong,  as  expounded  by  Christ, 
before  such  nonsense  of  the  Temporal  power  invaded  and 
crumbled  the  Church,  and  I  am  annoyed  to  find  such  narrow 
heads  among  our  free  and  wiser  men.  I  am  perfectly  famil- 
iar with  the  habit  of  Catholic  writers  never  to  criticise  or  find 
any  fault  with  the  actions  and  words  of  the  Hierarchy,  from 
the  Pope  down,  but  I  have  never  accepted  or  pretended  to  accept 
that  habit  as  a  guide  for  myself,  and  in  fact,  I  greatly  deplore  the 
habit.     I  think  that  if  good  Catholics  with  sufficient  learning 


GLOBE  NOTES.  293 

and  intelligence  would  express  their  views  freely  on  the  im- 
portant movements  in  the  Church  there  would  be  far  less  need 
for  the  piquant  and  severe  criticism  of  Protestant  writers  on  the 
same  measures.  A  good  deal  of  Catholic  bigotry  is  very  close 
to  idolatry. 

All  the  light  of  the  son  of  God  is  not  founded  by  the  brain  of 
any  Pope  that  has  ever  lived,  and  if  some  of  them  in  the  old  days, 
and  some  of  the  hierarchy  in  our  days,  would  be  more  willing 
to  accept  God's  true  light  or  the  light  of  God's  truth  when  hurled 
into  their  faces  by  their  brethren  who  dare  to  do  so  instead  of 
answering  with  large  assumption  of  self-confidence  and  authority 
that  God's  light  of  truth  is  "all  wrong,"  it  would  be  better  for 
the  Church  of  the  future.  The  entire  Church  cannot  make  one 
falsehood  a  truth  or  any  truth  a  falsehood. 

We  select  the  face  of  Pius  X  as  one  of  the  very  best  among  all 
the  faces  from  which  the  Pope  was  to  be  chosen,  but  to  treat  him 
and  all  his  words  as  holy  and  infallible  is  simply  the  weakness 
and  folly  of  superstition,  and  I  would  as  soon  criticise  his  words 
and  acts  as  the  words  and  acts  of  John  Wanamaker  or  Theodore 
Roosevelt. 

When  the  Pope  speaks  ex  cathedra  on  doctrine  or  morals, 
and  for  the  whole  Church,  with  authority,  that  is  another  matter. 
But  his  opinions  on  a  question  of  diplomacy,  authority,  the 
Temporal  power,  or  on  church  music  are  to  be  examined  and 
judged  fairly,  but  clearly,  as  the  opinions  of  other  able  men, 
no  matter  how  exalted  or  humble  their  sphere.  Exalted  position 
has  not,  as  a  rule,  originated  or  defended  truth.  We  have  always 
treated  the  Popes  in  this  way  and  we  propose  still  to  do  so. 
Idolatry  is  not  a  part  of  our  creed  or  of  our  makeup  in  any  sense. 
We  hope  the  scolding  Fathers  may  take  a  thought  and  mend. 
People  without  character  and  ignorant  people  may  need  figure 
heads  of  authority,  but  we  do  not  belong  to  the  classes  of  chil- 
dren or  fools.  What  the  editor  of  The  Globe  says  on  any 
subject  is  worthy  of  a  respectful  hearing.     Think  it  out,  my 

friends. 

*********** 

Of  late  there  has  been  a  good  deal  of  foolish  talk  in  certain 
Catholic  and  other,  so-called  religious  journals,  on  the  subject 
of  marriage  and  divorce  and  remarriage.  Mere  fool  Catholics 
undertake  to  publish   what  they   call  the   Catholic   law  on  the 


294  THE  GLOBE. 

subject.  I  here  quote  word  for  word  from  Baart's  Legal  Formu- 
lar,  page  214,  the  CathoHc  law  on  the  subject. 

'The  defect  of  liberty  or  the  bond  of  a  prior  marriage  is  a 
diriment  impediment  to  a  subsequent  marriage ;  but  it  is  required 
that  the  prior  marriage  be  validly  contracted  and  t^at  it  still 
exist.  A  marriage  once  validly  contracted  ceases  to  exist  by 
the  death  of  one  or  the  other  party.  Among  baptized  persons, 
a  marriage  which  is  validly  contracted,  indeed,  but  not  yet  con- 
summated, also  ceases  by  papal  dispensation  a  matrimonio  rato 
et  non  consummato,  and  by  the  solemn  vows  made  by  one  of 
the  spouses  in  a  religious  order.  Among  unbaptized  persons, 
when  marriage  has  been  validly  contracted  and  even  consum- 
mated, and  one  party  becomes  converted  to  the  Catholic  faith  and 
the  other  refuses  to  live  with  the  converted  party  without  con- 
tumely of  the  Creator,  the  convert,  using  the  Pauline  privilege, 
may  contract  marriage  with  a  Catholic  and  the  former  marriage 
becomes  dissolved  by  the  latter.  To  prevent  complications  a 
civil  divorce  should  be  obtained  under  direction  of  the  ordinary. 
The  interpellation  of  the  infidel  spouse  should  be  made  in  reg- 
ular form  whenever  possible.  When  not  possible  an  apostolic 
dispensation  may  be  granted,  for  which  some  bishops  have  an 
indult;  but  in  such  cases  a  summary  of  the  facts  showing  the 
impossibility  of  interpellation  should  previously  be  made  and 
preserved,  and  a  minute  thereof  entered  in  the  marriage  record." 

There  are  blunders  enough,  of  principle  and  philosophy,  in 
this,  but  it  is  Catholic  law,  any  cardinal,  archbishop  or  priest  to 
the  contrary  notwithstanding. 

Since  the  issue  of  the  June  Globe  various  friends  of  mine 
have  expressed  their  regrets  that  I  had  attacked  Bishop  O'Con- 
nell  of  Portland,  Maine.  I  have  never  attacked  the  gentleman 
named  and  I  never  wish  to  attack  him  or  any  other  bishop  of 
the  Catholic  Church. 

Rev.  Father  Tuohy,  of  St.  Louis,  two  or  three  years  ago,  wrote 
an  article  for  the  Globe  in  which  he  made  mention  of  a  rumor 
to  the  effect  that  his  Lordship,  then  of  Rome,  had  offered  to 
equip  a  ship  to  help  the  Spanish  fight  the  Americans.  I  took 
no  notice  of  the  rumor  or  of  the  article.  Had  I  said  anything 
about  it  or  the  Bishop  at  that  time,  I  should  have  applauded 
O'Connell's  action  as  the  most  heroic  I  had  heard  of  during  the 


GLOBE  NOTES.  295 

war,  and  should  have  praised  him  for  making  the  offer.  All 
readers  of  The  Globe  know  that  such  action  would  have  been 
in  perfect  accord  with  the  entire  course  of  The  Globe  during  the 
incipiency  and  the  prosecution  of  the  American-Spanish  war.  I 
have  not  changed  a  particle  in  my  estimate  of  that  whole  episode. 
But  some  fooHsh  person,  from  Portland,  under  pretense  of  not 
knowing  who  the  person  was  that  started  the  rumor  in  The 
Globe,  committed  Bishop  O'Connell  to  some  very  silly  abuse  of 
the  editor  and  writer,  as  "irresponsible  liars,"  etc.  So  Father 
Tuohy,  over  his  own  name,  offered  to  prove  the  truth  of  his  state- 
ments, and  the  editor  of  The  Globe  called  upon  the  Bishop  to 
apologize  for  his  offensive  words.  Up  to  this  date,  August  31st, 
he  has  not  done  so.  That  is  the  whole  story,  as  far  as  I  am 
concerned.  But  if  any  bishop  calls  me  a  liar  openly,  I  demand 
one  of  two  things  openly,  a  manly  apology  or  a  fair  fight  and 
to  a  finish. 

*********** 

On  August  30th  I  found  the  following  very  small  editorial 
in  the  Catholic  Columbian: 

"Mr.  Charles  M.  Schwab  has  made  public  this  statement:  T 
am  a  Roman  Catholic,  but  I  am  a  strong  believer  in  the  public 
schools.'  Mr.  Schwab  as  a  Catholic  who  has  built  a  Protestant 
church,  recalls  the  answer  of  a  little  girl,  who  was  asked  if  her 
father  was  a  wheelwright.  'No,'  she  replied,  'he's  a  Methodist, 
but  he's  not  working  at  it  much  these  days.'  " 

I  don't  believe  in  the  public  schools  and  I  believe  in  the 
Parochial  schools,  and  for  reasons  given  clearly  enough  in  The 
Globe  Review  many  years  ago,  but  I  do  believe  in  treating 
honest,  thinking  Catholics  who  differ  with  me  with  proper  re- 
spect, and  I  believe  that  the  bigoted  spirit  of  this  paragraph,  so 
frequently  found  in  so-called  Catholic  journals,  is  doing  more 
harm  to  Catholic  journalism,  the  Catholic  Church  and  to  public 
morality  than  the  Church  with  its  splendid  record  of  faith  and 
sainthood  can  undo  in  a  great  many  years.  Take  up  the  work 
of  fighting  the  devil  in  earnest,  Mr.  Editor,  beginning  at  home, 

and  let  other  good  Catholics  alone. 

*********** 

In  this  issue  I  am  publishing  an  article  by  a  doctor  of  the 
Church  on  the  mission  of  Satolli  to  this  country.  It  was  written 
for  the  June  Globe,  but  came  too  late  for  insertion  in  that  issue. 


296  THE  GLOBE. 

It  gives  an  entirely  different  view  from  that  of  my  Globe  note 
on  the  subject  in  the  June  Globe,  and  I  find  that  this  view  is  the 
one  usually  held  by  the  American  priesthood,  especially  by  those 
of  them  who  have  had  trouble  of  various  kinds  with  their  bishops. 
Such  priests  are  usually  of  the  impression  that  the  tendency  of 
American  bishops  is  to  be  tyrannical  and  overbearing  toward 
their  priests,  and  that  the  correction  and,  as  is  assumed,  the 
more  constitutional  power  of  Roman  Cardinals  is  necessary  at 
times  to  keep  the  American  bishops  in  order.  There  have  been 
numerous  cases  of  late  years  that  seem  to  favor  this  view  of  the 
case.  At  the  time  I  wrote  my  Globe  note  on  the  subject  I  was 
inclined  to  take  the  part  of  the  American  hierarchy  as  against  the 
Roman  Cardinals,  but  there  are  two  sides  to  this,  as  to  every 
question.  A  little  more  of  the  spirit  of  Christ  and  less  of  the 
spirit  of  authority  would  help  all  the  parties  concerned  im- 
mensely. 

We  think  that  the  following  showing  of  the  Tsar's  benevo- 
lences is  a  fair  comment  on  the  article  relating  to  the  Tsar  and 
Russia,  elsewhere  published  in  this  issue;  and  it  will  not  make 
any  difference  if  the  baby  boy  is  only  a  substitute.  Sometimes 
a  substitute  does  better  than  might  have  been  expected  of  the 
original. 

Heir  Brings  Blessings  to  the  Russian  People. — To  commem- 
orate the  christening  of  his  son,  the  Czarevitch  Alexis  Nicho- 
laevitch.  Czar  Nicholas  II  yesterday  issued  a  manesfesto,  bestow- 
ing various  benefits  upon  the  Russian  people.  The  benefits  are : — 

1.  The  entire  abolition  of  corporal  punishment  among  the 
rural  classes  and  its  curtailment  in  the  army  and  navy. 

2.  Fines  imposed  upon  the  Jewish  communes  in  the  cases  of 
Jews  avoiding  military  service  are  remitted. 

3.  All  fines  imposed  on  villages,  towns  or  communes  of  Finland 
for  failure  to  elect  representatives  or  to  serve  on  the  military 
recruiting  boards  during  1902  and  1903  remitted. 

4.  Permission  granted  to  Finns  who  have  left  their  country 
without  sanction  of  the  authorities  to  return  within  a  year.  Those 
returning  who  are  liable  to  military  service  must  immediately 
present  themselves  for  service,  but  Finns  who  have  evaded  mili- 
tary service  will  not  be  punished,  provided  they  present  them- 
selves within  three  months  of  the  birth  of  the  Czarevitch. 


GLOBE  NOTES.  2^j 

5.  The  Governor  General  of  Finland  to  alleviate  the  lot  of 
those  forbidden  to  live  in  the  grand  duchy. 

6.  The  remission  of  land  purchase  arrears  through  Poland 
as  well  as  in  the  Empire  proper. 

7.  The  education  of  children  of  officers  and  soldiers  killed  or 
disabled  in  the  war. 

8.  One  million  five  hundred  thousand  dollars  donated  for  the 
benefit  of  the  landless  people  of  Finland. 

9.  General  amnesty  for  political  offenders,  save  in  cases  of 
murder. 

10.  Political  prisoners  who  have  distinguished  themselves  by 
good  conduct  may,  on  the  interposition  of  the  Minister  of  Jus- 
tice, obtain  the  restitution  of  their  civil  rights  at  the  expiration 
of  their  sentences. 

11.  Persons  guilty  of  poHtical  offenses  committed  within  the 
last  fifteen  years  who  have  remained  unidentified  will  no  longer 
be  subject  to  prosecution. 

12.  Political  offenders  now  fugitives  may  apply  to  the  Minister 
of  the  Interior  for  permission  to  return  to  Russia. 

13.  Persons  arrested  for  offenses  punishable  by  fines,  impris- 
onment or  confinement  in  a  fortress  without  loss  of  civil  rights 
and  who  were  still  awaiting  sentence  at  the  time  of  the  birth 
of  the  Czarevitch  are  pardoned. 

14.  Reduction  in  sentences  for  common  law  offenses. 

15.  Offenders,  excluding  thieves,  robbers,  murderers  and  em- 
bezzlers, are  pardoned. 

How  many  of  these  blessings  may  prove  real,  and  how  many 
of  them  painful  dreams,  may  depend  largely  on  how  the  war 
between  Japan  and  Russia  finally  ends.  But  some  swollen  heads 
will  be  broken  and  through  the  cracks  a  few  rays  of  light,  jus- 
tice and  truth  may  creep  in. 

At  this  date,  September  2d,  dispatches  from  Tokio  indicate 
that  the  great  battle  of  Liaoyang,  one  of  the  greatest  in  all 
history,  most  skilfully  generaled  and  fiercely  fought  on  both  sides, 
had  ended  in  the  retreat  of  the  Russians,  pursued  by  the  victori- 
ous Japanese. 

The  Tsar  of  Russia  and  the  incompetent  and  rascally  favorites 
placed  in  positions  of  trust  and  honor  by  him  led  the  great 
empire  into  the  position  from  which  the  Japanese  have  driven 


298  THE  GLOBE. 

them.  Kuropatkin  was  called  too  late  to  retrieve  the  blunders 
of  figureheads  and  fools,  but  he  proved  himself  one  of  the  ablest 
generals  of  a  century.  Kuroki  and  his  fellow-generals  proved 
too  much  for  him,  and  the  Japanese  troops  fought  from  the 
start  with  an  intelligence  and  heroism  never  surpassed  in  all 
human  history. 

In  this  succession  of  victories  for  the  Japanese — a  quiet,  prac- 
tical, polite  and  unassuming  people — I  see  far  more  than  the 
defeat  of  Kuropatkin  and  the  Tsar  of  Russia.  I  see,  or  seem 
to  see,  the  beginning  of  a  world-defeat  for  every  form  and 
manifestation  of  big  headism,  pretension,  overfed  and  richly 
clothed  purple  and  crimson  painted  put-on-ism  throughout  the 
military,  political,  naval  and  ecclesiastical  domination  of  the 
world. 

I  am  a  very  white  man,  but  it  is  of  no  consequence  to  me  what 
color  rules  the  world.  It  only  matters  to  me  that  men  of  clear 
minds  and  good  hearts  rule  the  world.  It  is  time  for  super- 
stition and  all  signs  of  it,  the  froth  of  rhetoric  and  all  shams  of 
power  to  go  to  the  rear.  Let  falsehood  down;  easily,  if  you 
will,  and  let  all  true  men  stand  together  in  the  name  of  God,  for 
truth,  loyalty  and  honor. 

William  Henry  Thorne. 


THE  GLOBE. 

No.  LVI. 


MIDWINTER,  1905. 


PRIMITIVE  AND  MODERN  CHRISTIANITY. 


I  assume  and  take  for  granted  the  simple  truth  that  in  every 
age,  nation  and  community  the  actions,  rulings,  measures  and 
systems  originated  and  executed  even  by  superior  men  in  all 
callings  and  professions  have  been,  as  they  are  to-day,  full  of 
errors,  faults  and  imperfections,  in  a  word  that  the  works  of 
men,  their  temples  of  art,  their  forms  of  government,  their  sys- 
tems of  art,  their  rulings  as  judges,  their  executions  as  rulers, 
their  codes  of  morals,  their  creeds,  their  modes  of  worship  and 
their  theologies  have  simply  been  and  always  must  be  the  imper- 
fect products  of  their  own  imperfect  and  faulty  natures  and  un- 
derstandings;  and  if  this  is  true  of  the  masterpieces  of  handi- 
craft, art,  law,  worship  and  belief,  the  products  of  men  of  intel- 
lectual and  moral  genius,  of  saints  and  scholars,  what  can  be 
expected  of  the  works  of  the  rough  riders,  the  trades  unions,  the 
common  and  vicious  fools  and  thieves  in  power  in  our  day?  All 
are  imperfect,  whether  by  reason  of  the  "fall  of  man,"  or  by 
reason  of  his  half  civilized  nature. 

It  is  the  nature  and  habit  of  some  men  to  view  with  more  favor 
the  work  and  characteristics  of  past  ages  and  it  is  the  nature 
and  habit  of  others  to  prefer  and  advocate  the  work  and  char- 
acteristics of  their  own  age,  while  many,  perhaps,  most  of  us,  show 
our  comparative  insincerity  by  professing  to  believe  in  and  prac- 
tice ideals  w'hich  to  the  mere  observers  of  our  lives  may  seem 
never  to  have  entered  our  heads.  In  such  a  strange  mixture  of 
imperfection  and  contradiction  is  our  whole  human  life  cast ;  and 
therefore,  how  blessed,  how  perfect,  superhuman  and  how  divine 
is  that  charity  lived  to  perfection  by  Jesus  of  Nazareth  and 
taught  with  supreme  eloquence  by  His  apostle,  St.  Paul. 


,oo  THE  GLOBE. 

My  nature  and  the  habit  of  my  life  has  always  been  partial 
■  to  the  past.  I  have  always  cared  mainly  for  the  most  perfect 
flowers  for  the  masterpieces  of  art,  almost  exclusively  for  the 
very  beautiful  among  women,  for  the  selected  supreme  notes  of 
song,  and  for  the  true  saints  of  God,  no  matter  what  their  creed. 
The  mediocre,  the  commonplace  in  life  and  thought  and  action 
has  never  interested  me  to  any  great  extent;  never  fascinated 
me,  and  having  loved  my  own  mother  with  an  exquisiteness  and 
an  intensity,  as  if  there  were  no  other  mothers  in  the  world,  I 
have  always  very  naturally  taken  to  and  approved  the  people 
who  revere  their  ancestors ;  have  favored  the  past  rather  than  the 
present,  or  to  put  it  in  modern  phrase,  I  am  a  believer  and  a 
worshiper  rather  than  what  is  called  a  scientist.  I  am  speaking 
of  the  prevailing  tendencies  of  men  and  of  nations,  including 
my  own,  and  perhaps  as  coloring  the  general  thought  that  may 
be  found  in  this  article.  We  are  none  of  us  above  our  natures, 
we  always  partake  of  our  parentage,  have  imbibed,  inherited  and 
cannot  help  expressing  in  some  way  the  shape  of  the  hovels  or 
palaces  in  which  we  were  born  and  reared,  the  civilization  or 
savageness  out  of  which  we  came.  Every  creed  formed  and  ut- 
tered is  a  true  expression  of  the  average  length  of  the  noses  of  the 
men  who  sat  and  wrangled  in  the  council  or  convention  out  of 
which  it  came,  and  reveals  the  average  contour  of  their  brows, 
the  scowl  on  their  faces  or  the  radiant  light  and  outlook  of  their 
eyes. 

Infallibility!  Look  into  the  heavens!  Orthodoxy  and  the 
liatreds  thereof !    Look  into  the  flames  of  hell. 

Some  men  will  glory  in  the  display  of  robes,  in  the  punc- 
tillia  of  minutest  dogmas;  a  procession  of  ecclesiastics  in  New 
York,  clothed  in  crimson,  purple  and  fine  linen,  marching  through 
the  crowded  streets  of  fashion  and  lowest  vice,  to  the  worship 
of  Grod  in  the  eucharist,  or  another  procession  of  would-be  fam- 
ous ecclesiastists,  clothed  in  the  more  modest  robes  of  episcopacy, 
marching  through  the  narrow  lanes  of  the  Hub  of  contracted 
Puritanism,  vice  and  deadly  immorality  to  the  unmelodious  tune 
of  the  "American  Church"  with  J.  P.  Morgan  as  head  piece,  car- 
rying as  a  banner  the  stolen  cope  of  a  monastic  of  the  church  of 
Rome,  either,  or  both  processions  may  much  impress  the  sense 
of  wonder  in  our  modern  savages  and  scientists.  To  me  ,both 
are  an  exhibition  of  modem  conceit  and  folly,  and  I  most  care  to 


PRIMITIVE  AND  MODERN  CHRISTIANITY.  301 

remember  a  silent  and  modest  procession  of  old,  when,  after 
they  had  sung  a  hymn,  O,  the  hallowed  glory  of  that  dear 
hymn!  they  went  out  to  the  Mount  of  Olives,  and  waited,  with 
the  stars  for  a  glory  unseen  of  science,  savagery  or  creeds. 

I  make  this  simple  contrast  wholly  and  solely  to  illustrate 
the  pertinence  of  the  text  of  this  poor  sermon ;  not  that  I  expect 
modern  civilization  to  express  its  religious  worship  with  the  same 
simplicity  as  it  was  expressed,  that  great  and  wonderful  night, 
by  the  Son  of  God  and  His  followers;  nor  do  I  mean  to  assert 
that  the  modern  method  is  utterly  insincere,  but  mainly  to  assert 
tl'at  the  earlier  and  simpler  method  impresses  my  soul  divinely 
while  the  modern  and  more  showy  method  impresses  me  with 
questioning,  if  not  with  contempt. 

I  am  fully  aware  that  modern  civilization,  so  called,  in  all 
forms,  political  and  religious,  claims  and  seems  to  enjoy,  if  it 
does  not  depend  upon  great  and  showy  ceremonial.  I  am  frankly 
more  in  sympathy  with  the  simplest  forms  of  Quakerism,  and 
above  all  I  say,  assert  and  command  in  the  language  of  the  apostle 
when  the  foolish  formalists  and  idolators  of  his  day  would  wor- 
ship himself — "worship  Cjod" — and  again  in  the  words  of  Jesus 
"God  is  a  spirit'*  or  "God  is  spirit,  and  they  that  worship  Him, 
must  worship  in  spirit  and  in  truth.*' 

I  am  a  Christian  and  a  Catholic.  I  believe  in  the  worship  of 
the  ^Highest ;  I  love  the  Catholic  church  among  many  other  things 
for  this,  that  while  its  whole  ceremony  makes  first  and  last  for 
the  worship  of  Almighty  God  in  His  dear  Son,  it  also  advocates 
the  holiest  of  reverence  for  the  Blessed  Virgin  Mary,  and  be- 
cause of  her  admitted  piety  and  holiness;  and  inculcates  rever- 
ence for  all  the  saints  of  God.     If  it  only  stopped  there. 

In  a  word,  I  believe  in  and  practice  all  the  worship  and 
reverence  advocated  by  the  True  Church,  while  I  fear  that  many 
of  her  modern  forms  and  tendencies  incline  to  mere  formalities 
of  devotion  and  often  tend  to  mislead  the  spirits  of  learned  and 
ignorant  alike  to  false  notions  of  faith  and  pitiable  forms  of  de- 
votion, and  I  am  certain  thousands  of  intelligent  priests  feel 
much  in  the  same  way. 

During  the  month  of  November  the  Philadelphia  daily 
papers  gave  extended  reviews  of  certain  recent  utterances  of 
Robert  Collyer,  known  as  the  Yorkshire  blacksmith  Unitarian 
minister,  and  of  all  the  self-glorification  I  have  ever  heard  or 


302  THE  GLOBE. 

read  of,  Collyer  out  Herod's  Herod.  Of  course  he  is  old  and 
always  was  garrulous,  but  God  pity  the  parson  who  has  to  preach 
himself  in  perpetual  self-glorification.  Any  form  of  Catholic 
relic  worship  is  better  than  that. 

Quite  recently  Edward  Everett  Hale,  the  Unitarian  Chap- 
lain of  the  United  States  Senate,  declared  that  a  hundred  years 
from  now  no  existing  form  of  church  worship  or  theology  would 
be  extant.  So  little  do  the  best  of  modern  socinians  know  of  the 
person  and  power  of  Christ,  or  of  the  real  worship  of  Almighty 
God.  They  simply  cannot  worship  any  being  or  thing  but  them- 
selves.   There  are  forms  and  forms  of  worship. 

During  the  early  part  of  last  October  the  daily  newspapers 
were  full  of  graphic  accounts  of  an  "imposing  display'*  of  ec- 
clesiastics, richly  garmented  parading  on  Madison  avenue.  New 
York,  on  their  way  to  the  Catholic  Cathedral  to  unite  in  a  very 
impressive  ceremony  on  the  occasion  of  a  sort  of  national  meet- 
ing of  what  has  been  called  "The  Eucharistic  Council,"  or  Con- 
gress— especially  to  worship  Almighty  God  by  every  form  of  dis- 
play of  wealth — as  supposed  to  be  embodied  in  a  little  white 
wafer  previously  consecrated  by  priestly  ceremony,  and  believed 
in  henceforth  by  the  faithful  as,  henceforth,  not  merely  in  a  beau- 
tiful and  pious  way  to  represent  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ, 
but  as  actually  being  by  a  subtle  law  of  transubstantiation,  the 
actual  and  very  body  and  blood  of  Christ,  for  consubstantiation 
will  not  do;  it  must  be  transubstantiation;  not  as  typical  of  the 
divine  King  who  died  to  redeem  the  priest-ridden  and  devil- 
ridden  world  of  His  day  and  of  all  days,  but  as  being  really  and 
truly  His  body  and  blood  by  a  supernatural  mixture,  a  transfor- 
mation of  the  simplest  elements  of  nature  into  the  divine  and 
supernatural  as  by  magic  of  the  spiritual  touch  of  the  priestly 
conjuror.  So  resolved  are  highest  ecclesiastics  even  upon  the 
very  common  human  folly  of  worshiping  the  work  of  their  own 
hands. 

Some  years  ago,  while  still  young  in  the  Catholic  faith,  but 
always  having  an  inquiring  mind,  I  once  asked  a  priest  in  whom 
I  then  had  and  still  have  unbounded  confidence,  at  just  what 
point  or  moment  in  the  act  of  consecration  of  the  elements  of 
the  Eucharist  father,  does  the  church  hold  that  the  actual  tran- 
substantiation occurs  or  takes  place  or  becomes  real,  so  that  the 
elements  were  no  longer  simply  bread  and  water,  mixed,  but  the 


PRIMITIVE  AND  MODERN  CHRISTIANITY.  303 

actual  and  marvelous  and  supernatural  body  and  blood  of  Christ? 
In  a  moment  I  noticed  that  my  friend,  the  priest,  became  con- 
fused and  did  not  answer  straight  and  lucid  as  the  true  saint  I 
had  believed  him  to  be,  but  faltered,  hesitated,  and  in  fact,  gave 
me  a  very  unsatisfactory  answer.  I  loved  the  priest  as  a  man 
and  as  a  priest,  and,  as  I  unhesitatingly  believed  then  and  believe 
now  the  Catholic  dogma  of  transubstantiation,  I  regretted  that 
I  had  asked  the  simple  question,  and  did  what  in  me  lay  to  re- 
lieve the  confusion  consequent  upon  my  question. 

Perhaps  I  ought  never  to  have  asked  the  question,  but  I  had 
for  many  years  been  a  preacher  of  the  gospel  of  Christ,  had  of- 
ten publicly  expounded  what  seemed  to  me  to  be  the  truth  at  the 
bottom  of  the  controversies  of  the  first  and  second  general  coun- 
cils of  Nice  and  Constantinople,  which  defined  the  dogma  of  the 
Ircarnation;  had  dwelt  time  and  again  upon  the  persistence  with 
which  Martin  Luther,  even  after  declared  an  heretic  and  excom- 
municated, still  asserted  and  reasserted  the  Catholic  dogma, 
founded  on  the  words  "This  is  my  body  broken  for  many  for  the 
remission  of  sins" — the  stalwart  Martin  simply  repeating  the 
words  of  his  Master — "This  is  my  body"  and  pounding  them  into 
the  desk  before  him,  not  having  faith  or  reason  or  unfaith 
enough  to  see  any  but  the  bald  and  literal  meaning  of  the  text; 
and  in  view  of  these  facts  I  felt  then  as  I  still  feel,  as  seriously  a 
student  of  theology  as  any  priest  that  has  ever  lived  or  will  live. 
Still,  for  my  friend's  sake,  I  was  sorry  that  I  had  asked  the  ques- 
tion, and  went  on  with  my  own  cogitations  and  prayers,  resolved 
never  again  to  ask  any  priest  or  larger  ecclesiastic  a  question 
which  the  faithful  were  supposed  to  believe;  yet  it  is  but  just 
and  honest  to  assert  here  that  I  know  myself  capable  of  under- 
standing and  comprehending  whatever  fact  or  thought  has  ever 
possessed  the  mind  of  any,  the  most  gifted  ecclesiastic,  apostle  or 
prophet  that  has  ever  lived,  and  as  the  dogma  is  simply  a  dogma 
of  faith,  and  incomprehensible,  I  wanted  to  find  a  priest  straight 
and  clean-souled  enough  to  answer  my  query  and  say  just  that  he 
simply  did  not  know  the  point  or  moment  of  the  act  of  transub- 
stantiation, but  he  believes  the  fact  as  a  dogma  of  faith,  and  I  am 
just  as  capable  of  believing  the  dogma  as  the  wisest  or  most 
stupid  priest  ever  born.  But  admitting  the  fact,  I  am  moved 
to  say  here  that  when  I  see  a  great  and  growing  company  of 
distinguished  ecclesiastics — Cardinals,  Archbishops,  Bishops  and 


304  1HE  GLOBE, 

Priests  marching  through  the  streets  of  New  York  in  flaming 
colors,  and  with  the  imposing  and  supposed  dignity  of  their  robes 
of  office  as  if  to  inspire  the  modern  newspaper  world,  or  the 
modern  commercial  world,  or  the  flaunting  or  sneaking  world 
of  poor  prostitutes,  newsboys  and  gutter  gamins,  with  the  sub- 
limity of  their  worship  of  God  in  a  thin  white  tablet  of  mixed 
bread  and  water — admitting  all  that  the  dogma  claims,  I  cannot 
help  saying  that  the  heads  and  members  of  the  procession  seem 
to  me  to  be  hard  up  for  a  real  God  to  worship  in  a  universe  flam- 
ing with  His  presence  in  every  star  and  sun  a  flower  and  heroic 
deed  of  love  that  circles  the  world  and  that  have  circled  it  with 
divine  glory  these  thousands  and  thousands  of  years.  It  is  not 
with  the  dogma,  but  with  the  flaunting  display  of  their  faith  in 
it — as  if  the  Almighty  Creator  and  Saviour  of  our  race,  existed 
exclusively  in  the  Eucharistic  wafer,  as  if  we  and  our  immortal 
souls  were  not  His  offspring;  as  if  we,  every  human  soul  that 
breathes,  did  not  live  and  move  in  Him,  and  were  not  every  mo- 
ment of  our  lives,  inbreathing  and  exhaling  the  infinite  and  ex- 
quisite ineffable  beauties  of  His  boundless  and  changeless  love 
and  Being.  In  a  word,  I  am  inclined  to  contrast  the  habit  and 
attitude  of  mind  and  life  of  a  modem  ecclesiastical  congress  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church  with  the  simpler  congress  of  the  few 
apostles  waiting  and  suffering  with  the  Master  before  He  entered 
upon  the  heroic  and  bloody  footpath  that  led  to  Calvary  and  to 
His  infamous  and  judicial  murder — I  am  a  Catholic,  but  also 
something  of  a  Quaker. 

The  High  priests  and  the  rulers  of  the  people  murdered 
Him  then,  and  I  fear  that  were  this  same  Christ  of  God  to  come 
am.ong  us  as  He  once  came,  poor  and  despised,  the  priests  and 
rulers  of  our  day  and  of  our  nation,  would  treat  Him  to-day 
as  the  same  classes  treated  Him  nearly  two  thousand  years  ago. 
The  churches  seem  to  glory  in  dogma  and  despise  moral  prin- 
ciples and  character. 

In  a  word,  the  clothed  and  flaming  glories  of  wealth  and 
temporal  power  have  not,  in  my  judgment,  added  a  hair's  breadth 
or  shadow  of  the  real  power  of  the  real  Christ  of  God  to  the 
modern  church,  much  less  to  the  modem  government  under 
which  we  live  to-day.  Yes,  put  it  plain,  I  do  not  believe  in  the 
display  in  New  York,  or  that  the  Congress  meeting  there  would, 
under  real  pressure  or  principle  of  truth  and  loyalty  to  truth, 


PRIMITIVE  AND  MODERN  CHRISTIANITY.  305 

prove  itself  more  loyal  to  the  real  Christ  than  the  tramping  and 
purple  clothed  priests  and  rulers  that  shouted  "crucify  Him, 
crucify  Him"  in  the  dreadful  days  of  old.  I  believe  and  fear  that 
the  great  and  boastful  Catholic  Church  and  the  churches  of  to-day 
have  strained  at  and  toward  false  ideals  while  neglecting  the 
weightier  matters  of  the  law  and  the  quenchless  love  of  Christ 
our  Lord.  But  we  live  in  the  glitter  of  dog^a  and  forget  the 
true  Son  of  God. 

Now  while  I  regretted  having  asked  the  priest  the  question 
referred  to,  I  believe  it  is  best  to  bring  every  dogma  to  the  test 
of  reason  and  to  watch  carefully  its  definitions  upon  the  average 
minds  of  the  hour  in  which  we  live.  There  are  powers  and 
powers  of  ruling,  but  no  king  or  Pope  dare  to  say  to  the  soul  of 
man,  believe  this  or  be  damned. 

During  the  past  autumn  a  faithful  priest  in  responding 
kindly  to  a  little  testimonial  some  friends  inaugurated  in  my  be- 
half, used  these  words,  **I  hope  that  in  using  your  talents  you 
will  be  careful  to  keep  within  the  bounds  of  Catholic  teaching, 
for  surely  you  are  nothing  but  a  Catholic  in  belief !" 

So  I  feel  and  believe,  but  as  when  I  was  a  Protestant  min- 
ister, I  never  had  any  of  the  hatred  for,  or  prejudice  against 
Catholicism  that  characterized  many  Protestants,  so  now  I  find 
it  impossible  to  feel  toward  tens  of  thousands  of  Protestants  as 
certain  Catholic  teachings,  so-called,  would  oblige  me  to  feel 
were  the  so-called  Catholic  teachings  true;  and  as  to  the  points 
of  which  we  are  speaking,  I  feel  that  in  regard  to  the  Catholic 
practice  in  question,  there  is  the  same  tendency  toward  gorgeous 
display  of  superstition  that  has  marked  all  the  idolatrous  nations 
of  all  ages  of  the  world.  » 

You  cannot  make  the  person  and  character  of  Christ  more 
noble,  imposing  or  glorious  by  magnifying  the  glories  of  the 
priests,  bishops,  archbishops,  cardinals  or  the  Pope  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  Imbibe  His  spirit  in  your  life,  your  face  your  conduct, 
and  do  not  mistake  it  for  some  whim  of  your  own  poor  untutored 
soul,  and  though  you  may  die  in  shame,  rejected  and  despised 
as  he  died,  all  the  world  will  rise  up  and  call  you  blessed.  All 
ecclesiastical  display  leads  toward  idolatry,  and  though  you  robe 
the  Pope  with  garments  of  gold,  you  leave  him  simply  a  man 
with  such  graces  of  character  as  God  may  have  given  him. 

One  of  the  brightest  and  purest  sisters  of  the  church,  in 


3o6  THE  GLOBE. 

writing  to  me  years  ago  touching  certain  exalted  ideas  of  the 
priests,  said  ''for  they  are  really  the  creators  of  God,"  having 
reference  to  their  consecration  of  the  Eucharistic  elements  of 
which  we  are  now  writing.  The  only  God  Almighty  possible 
for  any  sane  man  to  believe  in,  in  these  days,  has  existed  perfect, 
absolute  and  infinite  from  all  eternity,  and  does  exist  to  all  eter- 
nity, and  yet  here  was  a  dear  sister  of  the  Church  who  had  so 
imbibed  the  Eucharistic  idea  as  to  speak  of  the  priests  as  creators 
or  makers  of  God.  I  would  rather  be  a  heretic  than  a  fool. 
There  are  tens  of  thousands  of  Protestants  whose  heaven  I  hope 
to  share.  And  as  for  the  Divine  Being  where  is  He  not  and  to 
v/hat  element  of  nature  does  not  His  presence  give  a  dignity  and 
a  glory? 

In  every  blade  of  grass  that  grows, 

In  every  tidal  wave  that  flows, 

There  is  a  silent,  deathless  power, 

That  lives  beyond  the  passing  hour, 

And  throbs  throughout  life's  shoreless  sea, 

Unto  the  last  eternity. 

In  every  ray  of  light  that  shines, 
In  every  human  heart  that  pines 
For  deathless  wisdom  while  it  stands 
Amid  the  wrecks  of  seas  and  lands, 
That  once  were  populous  and  free, 
Is  life  that  lives  eternally. 

In  every  darkness  that  doth  spread 
Around  our  loved  and  buried  dead, 
Throughout  the  countless  years  of  time, 
There  shines  a  rainbow  hue  divine, 
Whose  soul,  in  every  land  and  sea. 
Is  part.  Immortal  God,  of  Thee. 

At  this,  some  poor  unpoetic  dogma  crammed  critic  may  say, 
as  has  often  been  said — but  this  is  pantheism.  I  do  not  define  the 
poem.  It  is  not  up  for  criticism  just  here ;  I  tell  you  it  is  the  truth 
of  God,  as  every  poet  has  seen  God  from  the  dawning  of  the 
world's  first  day,  till  the  Eucharistic  Congress  met  in  New  York. 
I  am  not  denying  the  Catholic  dogma,  I  believe  it  as  every  poet 
must  believe  it,  or  play  the  hypocrite  for  show  or  gain. 

I  am  not  discussing  the  philosophy  of  my  faith  or  another 


PRIMITIVE  AND  MODERN  CHRISTIANITY,  307 

man^s  faith.  Dogmatists  the  most  orthodox  are  not  the  only 
believers  in  God  nor  the  only  followers  of  Christ,  not  His  only 
servants.  My  experience  these  last  fifty  years  has  taught  me 
that  in  every  religious  company  of  men,  in  every  church,  the 
hyper-orthodox,  the  men  who  are  always  more  orthodox  than  the 
pope,  who  carry  their  hair-splitting  dogmatism  to  the  finest 
points  of  force  and  stab  their  fellows  with  said  stilettos  with 
Xh/t  rounded  nomenclature  of  it  on  their  foreheads  and  ever  have 
it  at  their  tongue's  end,  calling  their  creed  the  Holy  Catholic 
creed  and  calling  all  other  beliefs  heretical  or  some  less  worthy 
name,  are  as  a  rule  the  unholiest,  narrowest,  least  lovable,  least 
Christ-like,  in  word  and  in  spirit,  and  really  the  least  religious 
creatures  in  the  world.  And  I  fancy  many  a  hide-bound  eucharis- 
tic  and  other  dogmatist  will  be  startled  in  the  Day  of  Judgment, 
which  even  now  may  be  right  at  his  ear  responding  to  his, 
"Lord,  Lord,  have  we  not  believed  in  Thee  and  in  Thy  name 
cast  out  devils,  and  in  Thy  name  paraded  all  the  public 
streets  of  the  world,  despising  the  doubting  and  the  lowly,  and 
in  Thy  name  worn  purple  and  scarlet  and  done  many  wonderful 
displays  of  faith,  responding  to  all  this,  saying,  "Depart  from 
me.  I  never  knew  you.  Go  to  purgatory  for  a  change  of  heart, 
and  perhaps  some  day  in  the  everlasting  future  I  may  use  you 
to  scrub  the  pathways  of  saints  whom  you  have  despised." 

I  am  well  aware  that  Christianity  by  the  right  of  private 
interpretation  of  modern  Protestantism  leads  to  all  sorts  of  creeds 
and  all  sorts  of  false  judgments  of  morals,  leads  in  a  word  to  in- 
fidelity, atheism,  Americanism  and  conceit  of  infamy,  calling 
black  white  and  white  black,  and  still  winning  the  approval  of 
mankind  by  reason  of  the  wealth  and  power  of  its  commercial 
success.  On  the  other  hand  the  average  conduct  of  Protestantism 
surpasses  the  average  conduct  of  Catholicism.  The  nations  that 
have  been  fed  on  Catholicism  and  ruled  by  the  Church  have 
grown  stupid  or  feeble  or  corrupt  and  mainly  useless  in  the  strug- 
gle of  civilization.  But  even  if  they  were  wise  and  strong  to- 
day, as  true  virtue  brings  wisdom  and  strength,  I  should  still 
denounce  the  narrow  bigotries  of  the  Church,  its  puerilities,  its 
palpable  tendency  towards  idolatries,  and  its  many  misleading 
pretensions  toward  power  and  the  exclusive  right  to  and  pos- 
session of  the  abiding  and  eternal  truth  of  God  in  His  eternal  Son. 
It  is  not  any  dogma  of  the  Church  that  I  am  combating,  but  the 


308  THE  GLOBE. 

overweening  ardor  of  most  churches  to  depend  too  exclusively 
upon  exact  definitions  of  dogmas  that  no  church  or  man  under- 
stands or  can  understand,  too  much   dependence  upon  v^ealth 
and  the  signs  of  wealth  in  all  ceremonies  and  church  displays, 
too  much  dependence  upon  magnificent  church  and  university 
buildings,  and  not  enough  recognition  of  the  divine  law  of  char- 
ity or  in  the  power  of  truth  and  poverty.    The  Catholic  Univer- 
sity at  Washington  is  the  latest  and  largest  illustration  of  the 
utter  foolishness  of  this  sort  of  depending  upon  wealth  and  the 
show  of  it,  when  as  a  matter  of  fact  and  in  spite  of  the  recommends 
of  popes  and  archbishops,  and  where  in  face  of  piles  of  costly 
buildings  the  total  power  of  the  Church  and  its  enormous  wealth 
have  never  been  able  to  get  enough  students  intoi  the  university 
to  pay  a  proper  tuition  fee  for  one  competent  professor  of  any- 
thing worth  professing  or  teaching  in  this  deluded  and  hyper- 
scientific  age.     The  university  had  wealth  without  brains,  and 
so  flung  it  all  to  the  winds  of  foolish  extravagance.    Again,  as 
to  the  Church's  stringency  of  dogma,  does  any  sane  man  believe 
that  the  Athanasians  were  the  only  Christians  or  followers  of 
Christ  on  earth  during  the  years  of  the  controversy  with  Arius 
ages  ago?    A  little  more  of  Christ's  love  and  charity  might  have 
softened  the  controversy  and  halted  the  anathemas  that  made 
the  air  red  hot  in  those  days  and  have  cursed  many  millions  of 
saints  throughout  the  ages.    Again  a  church  that  claims  solarity, 
unity  and  infallibility  should  at  least  b^  logical.    The  Council  of 
Trent,  often  quoted  against  liberals  of  various  grades  in  these 
days,  only  applies  here  and  there  throughout  the  world.     Mis- 
sionary countries,  among  which  certain  parts  of  the  United  States 
are  included  and  some  excluded,  as  if  sauce  for  goose  were  not 
gander  sauce,  as  if  there  was  not  one  law  and  one  gospel  for  all 
men,  but  one  for  Rome  and  another  for  Chicago.     In   God's 
name,  if  the  Roman  is  the  only  church  of  Christ,  is  justified  in  its 
claims  to  be  universal  and  a  unit  for  all  men  and  all  all  nations, 
why  does  it  not  simplify  its  creeds,  drop  out  a  thousand  puerili- 
ties, adhere  to  the  one  gospel  of  Christ  for  all  men,  which  in  fact 
few  if  any  civilized  men  object  to  or  deny?    I  am  not  an  Arian, 
a  Unitarian,  an  Episcopalian,  a  Russian,  a  Baptist,  a  Presby- 
terian, a  Methodist,  or  a  Dowieite,  but  I  know  that  thousands  of 
men  and  women  in  all  these  communions  are  as  sure  of  heaven 
as  Pious  X  or  Archbishop  Ryan.    Don't  try  to  exclude  whom  you 


PRIMITIVE  AND  MODERN  CHRISTIANITY,  309 

simply  cannot  exclude,  and  don't  try  to  damn  the  already  saved. 
Again,  if  the  Catholic  Church  is  all  that  it  claims,  why  is  it  not 
consistent  as  well  as  logical.  The  Vatican  Council  declared  and 
re-declared  the  dogma  that  there  is  no  salvation  outside  of  the 
Church  of  Rome,  and  more  than  ninety  per  cent,  of  the  faithful 
in  the  United  States  believe  it  to-day,  but  no  priest  or  bishop 
among  us  will  dare  preach  it  from  his  pulpit,  no  priest  or  bishop 
among  us  will  defend  it.  He  will  everywhere  try  to  whittle  it 
down  and  down  till  it  means  simply  nothing  more  or  less  than 
all  Christians  believe,  and  what  was  the  use  of  Pious  IX's  hair- 
splitting anathemas  and  denunciations  of  all  Catholics  who  op- 
posed or  wrote  against  the  temporal  power  of  the  popes  or  of 
the  Church?  Those  anathemas  have  been  printed  in  vast  Latin 
folios  and  have  been  resorted  to  by  many  heresy  hunters  as  laws 
of  condemnation  for  any  Catholic  with  freedom  and  intelligence 
enough  to  see  the  plain  facts  of  Christian  philosophy  or 
the  plain  facts  of  Christian  history,  and  all  the  storm- 
ing controversy,  all  the  wasted  verbiage,  all  the  extrava- 
gant self-assertion  of  said  pope  and  his  Vatican  council  might 
have  been  spared  to  the  world,  and  all  the  endless  controversy 
that  has  succeeded  it  might  well  have  never  been  uttered  or 
thought  of,  much  to  the  advantage  of  an  exasperated  and  dogma- 
disgusted  world.  It  is  all  a  part  of  the  same  scheme  of  the  auto- 
cratic worship  of  self-made  dogmas,  starched  titles,  fine  buildings 
and  a  show  or  parade  of  power  that  exists  only  in  the  deluded 
heads  of  poor  ignorant  fools. 

While  the  late  eucharistic  display  of  the  Almighty  was  go- 
ing on  in  New  York,  the  daily  newspapers  were  full  of  blazing 
headed  accounts  of  another  ecclesiastical  display  of  conceited 
and  church-robed  folly  in  the  great  and  crooked  city  of  Boston. 
"The  Primate  of  all  England"  and  his  wife  were  visiting  this 
country,  and  the  visit  of  the  Primate  and  his  wife  ostensibly  to 
advance  the  so-called  social  and  political  union  of  England  and 
America,  was  seized  upon  by  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  of 
America  to  rope  the  Primate  into  their  scheme  of  making  the 
American  Church  out  of  a  dwindled  one-tenth  of  diluted 
Protestantism  in  America,  and  so'  by  the  same  august  display  of 
ecclesiastical  dignity  in  Boston  of  all  places  for  such  folly  to  ad- 
vance the  principles  of  American  civilization  so-called,  the  spe- 
cial object  of  the  united  display  being  to  place  the  American 


3IO  THE  GLOBE. 

Protestant  Episcopal  Church  on  record  as  opposed  to  marrying 
couples  any  one  of  whom  might  have  been  unfortunate  enough 
to  have  been  forced  against  his  or  her  will  to  submit  to  a  di- 
vorce by  the  civil  and  so-called  civilized  courts  of  the  land,  and 
after  debating  for  weeks  under  the  glare  of  newspaper  reported 
discussion  to  find  that  the  common  sense  of  the  convention  was 
opposed  to  such  infamous  and  stupid  folly.  I  am  bringing  this 
reference  to  episcopacy  in  at  this  place  to  point  out  the  simple 
fact  that  stiff  and  starched  and  hide-bound  ecclesiastical  conven- 
tions are  as  wide  of  the  truth  of  Christ  in  Boston,  as  in  Rome 
or  New  York,  in  this  the  twentieth  century  of  Christ's  Chris- 
tianity. Bishop  Doane  made  a  good  suggestion  of  advances  to^ 
v/ards  Rome  by  recognizing  the  primacy  of  the  Roman  bishop. 
To  remind  the  reader  however  of  how  little  respect  the  Roman 
Church  of  Christ  has  for  the  would-be  American  or  other 
Protestant  ministry  touching  this  very  matter  of  marrying  di- 
vorced or  undivorced  persons,  it  is  a  well  known  law  of  the 
Catholic  Church  that,  while  acknowledging  the  force  and  the 
legality  of  a  civil  marriage,  that  is  a  marriage  solemnized  by  a 
justice  of  the  United  States  courts  or  by  any  judge 
of  the  United  States  courts,  it  holds  as  final  the  law 
that  any  Catholic,  though  marrying  a  Protestant  who 
chooses  or  allows  himself  for  whatever  reasons  satisfactory 
to  his  own  conscience  to  be  married  by  a  Protestant  clergyman, 
Episcopal  or  other,  commits  a  mortal  sin  and  is  de  facto  there- 
by excommunicated  from  the  Church  of  Rome.  Any  old  justice, 
but  never  a  Protestant  clergyman.  Now,  first  of  all,  I  hold  this 
law  on  a  par  with  many  other  stupid  utterances  by  Catholic  coun- 
cils from  the  days  of  Constantine  till  now,  and  as  being  in  itself 
as  unchristian  and  presumptuous,  unreasonable  and  unjust,  as 
any  human  law  could  well  he,  and  as  far  removed  from  infallibil- 
ity as  was  the  devil's  first  rebellion  in  heaven  and  for  which  he 
was  cast  down  to  hell.  Any  law  which  makes  any  single  act  of 
a  human  soul  everywhere  Christian  at  heart  and  of  life  self-ex- 
communicating from  the  church  of  his  choice  is  worse  than  the 
worst  of  all  the  Puritanical  blue  laws  that  curse  many  of  our 
statute  books  to  this  hour.  We  are  all  citizens  of  the  United 
States.  Any  opposition  of  or  organized  opposition  to  the  laws 
of  our  country  is  treason  against  the  government.  The  laws  of 
the  States  authorize  certain  persons,  above  named  justices,  par- 


PRIMITIVE  AND  MODERN  CHRISTIANITY,  311 

sons  and  what-not,  to  perform  the  marriage  ceremony.  The 
Quakers  act  more  reasonably  and  recognize  the  simple  truth  that 
neither  priest  nor  parson  nor  justice  is  necessary  to  marry  a  couple 
having  a  lawful  right  to  marry,  that  the  couple  marry  themselves 
or  choose,  as  they  have  a  right  to  choose,  whether  the  act  of  mar- 
riage shall  be  done  before  a  justice  or  a  parson,  a  Protestant 
Episcopal,  or  a  priest  of  the  Roman  Church,  and  for  any  council 
of  any  church  to  declare  that  marriage  by  or  in  the  presence  of 
any  clergyman  save  a  Catholic  priest  is  a  mortal  sin  and  an  act  of 
personal  excommunication  de  facto  is  a  crime  against  justice, 
against  human  liberty,  and  against  every  principle  of  Christian- 
ity worthy  the  name. 

Again,  for  a  set  of  upstart  Episcopal  primates,  bishops,  et 
cetera,  to  sit  for  weeks  trying  to  pass  a  law,  an  ecclesiastical  law, 
that  none  of  their  ministers  shall  marry  a  divorced  person  re- 
gardless of  whether  he  or  she  is  to  blame  or  not  is  the  sublimity 
of  arrogant  ecclesiastical  folly  and  treason.  So  much  for  the 
Roman  and  Episcopal  law  on  this  point.  What  divorced  person 
wants  a  priest  or  a  parson  to  marry  him  anyway?  If  he  has 
chosen  the  law  to  separate  him  from  his  wife,  will  he  not  prefer 
a  justice  to  do  the  re-marrying?  Now  as  to  the  primate  of  all 
England  and  his  wife  and  their  visit  to  this  land  of  Mammon  and 
the  devil  we  have  to  say,  first,  the  so-called  primate  of  all  Eng- 
land was  and  is  no  such  thing.  As  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  he 
is  the  successor  by  old  and  settled  stealing  of  his  see  from 
Thomas,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  a  loyal  and  faithful  follower 
of  the  see  of  Rome  and  a  much  better  man  than  the  present  Pri- 
mate of  all  England  can  ever  dream  of  being.  Second,  that  as 
all  the  world  knows,  the  Episcopal  Church  of  England  is  a  state 
church  set  up  on  the  wrecked  and  ruined  character  of  Henry 
VIII  of  England,  and  not  in  any  true  sense  a  church  in  obedience 
first  of  all  to  the  spirit  and  teachings  of  Christ  at  all.  Primate  of 
stuff  and  nonsense  and  wholesale  robbery !  I  am  not  saying  that 
the  Church  of  Rome  is  in  every  particular  the  church  of  Christ. 
I  have  already  argued  to  the  contrary,  but  when  it  comes  to  steal- 
ing its  church  property,  its  titles,  its  honors,  and  after  exclud- 
ing its  lawful  priests  and  bishops  and  primates  to  dub  ordinary 
state-appointed,  state-ordained,  and  state  social  functionaries  as 
primates  of  all  England  in  the  name  of  Christ  and  of  Christian- 
ity, we  have  to  say,  to  perdition  with  such,  Anglo-Saxon  or  not ! 

Going  back  for  a  moment  to  the  question  of  marrying  divorced 


312  THE  GLOBE, 

people,  we  have  to  say  that  more  than  fourteen  years  ago  we 
published  in  this  Globe  Review  an  article  on  marriage  and  di- 
vorce which  was  intended  to  arouse  the  thought  and  conscience 
of  the  world  on  this  great  question.  The  arguments  and  conclu- 
sions of  that  article  are  pretty  generally  known.  We  held  then 
and  hold  now  that  no  state  has  a  right  to  interfere  with  any  re- 
ligious act  of  a  Christian  person,  especially  no  right  to  grant 
a  divorce  to  any  married  people,  that  its  presuming  to  do  so  was 
and  is  an  act  of  usurpation  and  infamy ;  nevertheless  that  an  in- 
nocent party  to  such  an  infamous  divorce  was  as  free,  according 
to  Saint  Paul,  to  marry  again  as  the  freest  man  born.  The  Cath- 
olic Church  plainly  admits  this  principle  when  the  person  causing 
the  divorce  or  deserting  his  or  her  duty  as  a  married  person  was 
an  infidel,  that  is,  an  unbaptized  person  who  had  deserted  and 
proceeded  against  his  or  her  spouse  on  religious  grounds,  the 
Church  holding  that  in  such  case  the  deserted  person  had  better, 
for  property  reasons,  secure  a  divorce,  and  that  such  deserted 
and  divorced  person  had  and  has  a  right  to  marry  again,  but  to 
marry  a  Catholic,  and  further  that  the  first  marriage  is  annulled 
by  the  second.  Even  this  is  better  than  the  wind  blown  eccles- 
iastical folly  of  our  twentieth  century  episcopacy  meeting  in  Bos- 
;ton.  By  better  I  simply  mean  to  say  that  it  is  more  moral  and 
more  reasonable.  In  previous  issues  of  the  Globe  I  have  pointed 
out  the  folly  of  the  Catholic  law  in  saying  that  the  first  mar- 
riage is  annulled  by  the  second;  if  it  had  not  been  already  an- 
nulled by  the  act  of  desertion  and  the  act  of  divorce,  the  second 
marriage  could  never  have  been,  but  must  always  have  remained 
simple  bigamy.  In  a  word,  the  law  is  kind  and  Christian  in  spirit, 
Scriptural  and  lawful,  but  it  is  foolish  in  its  claim  just  men- 
tioned. The  separated  couple,  that  is,  at  least  the  innocent  party 
to  the  divorce,  that  is,  the  loyal  member  of  the  conjugal  tie,  was 
free  or  he  or  she  dared  not  marry  again  by  the  law  of  any  church 
or  any  state  of  this  land.  In  short,  I  put  it  thus.  Desertion 
persisted  in  by  either  party  to  the  marriage  bond  breaks  the  bond 
in  law  as  in  fact,  no  matter  how  made,  and  the  deserted  man  or 
woman  is  free  to  marry  again  anywhere  and  at  any  time,  free  by 
the  law  of  God  and  free  by  the  law  of  any  state  or  nation  which 
has  assumed  the  right  to  divorce  or  to  marry  any  people  under 
the  sun.  The  sin  of  divorce  and  its  infamy  are  in  the  act  of 
seeking  divorce,  and  the  sinner  in  every  case  is  the  person  seek- 


PRIMITIVE  AND  MODERN  CHRISTIANITY,  313 

ing  it.     Let  the  parson  cure  that  or  shut  his  mouth  forever.    He 
is  simply  an  upstart  fool  when  he  attempts  to  legislate  against 
re-marriage.    It  has  seemed  to  me  of  late  needful  to  define  what 
is  meant  by  the  innocent  party  to  any  case  of  divorce.    I  simply 
mean  the  one  party  of  the  two  who  for  any,  and  especially  for 
conscientious  reason,  has  opposed  the  divorce  or  opposed  the 
severing  of  the  marriage  bond,  or  at  least  has  not  sought  it.    No 
man  and  no  woman,  married  or  single,  is  innocent  in  the  sight 
of  the  laws  of  God.     In  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  cases  out 
of  every  thousand  of  married  people  a  state  of  absolute  inno- 
cence is  unexpected  and  unthought  of,  misunderstandings  between 
husbands  and  wives  are  proverbial  and  universal.     Absolute  in- 
nocence is  out  of  the  question.     Offences  must  come,  married 
or  single.     In  every  quarrel,  one  or  the  other  is  more  to  blame 
than  the  other,  but  God  only  can  decide  such  questions.     No  old 
maids  or  parsons  can  decide  such  questions,  but  it  is  the  duty  of 
every  friend  of  the  married  people  when  appealed  to,  to  advise 
patience  and  charity,  and    not  to    fan  the    flames    of    discord. 
Here     is     where     the     priest    and     parson     and    true     friend 
are     needed.       If     you     wish     to     defend     social     morality, 
guard  it  at  its  roots.    From  the  days  of  Eden  until  now  absolute 
innocence  among  single  or  married  people  does  not  exist.    Only 
fools  imagine  such  a  state.  But  a  man  or  a  woman  may  be  so  im- 
pressed with  the  sacredness  of  the  marriage  bond  as  to  be  loyal 
to  it  and  never  strive  to  break  it,  hence  to  oppose  every  form  of 
divorce  by  church  or  state,  and  that  person  in  any  case  is  the  per- 
son that  we  speak  of  as  the  innocent  party  in  any  case  of  divorce. 
He  or  she  may  not  be  innocent  in  the  larger  or  absolute  sense,  but 
is  innocent  of  the  crime  and  folly  of  divorce.     Now  I  hold  that, 
according  to  Saint  Paul,  any  priest  or  parson  who  refuses  to 
marry  such  a  person,  man  or  woman,  is  unworthy  the  title  of 
priest  or  parson;  and  if  the  Anglican  or  the  Roman  Church -legis- 
lates and  attempts  to  enforce  such  a  law  of  refusal  to  marry  such 
person,  such  Church  in  its  official  capacity  deserves  to  die.    The 
Church  is  here,  any  and  every  church,  to  save  and  not  to  damn 
souls. 

Again,  I  have  held  for  many  years,  in  fact  always  since  I  be- 
gan to  study  the  matter,  that  when  a  church  in  council  or  a  priest 
or  parson  in  person  begins  to  talk  about  saving  society  by  refusing 
to  marry  the  innocent  among  divorced  people,  they,  said  priests 


314  THE  GLOBE, 

and  parsons,  are  beginning  at  the  wrong  end  of  the  question.  It 
i^  another  form  of  fastening  your  stable  door  after  your  horse 
has  been  stolen.  Your  business  is  to  save  human  souls  from  sin, 
and  not  to  assert  an  authority  which  neither  God  nor  man  has 
ever  given  you ;  not  to  madden  the  already  offended  and  innocent 
by  asserting  a  false  idea  of  morality  and  religion  and  yourselves 
as  the  priests  of  these  false  ideas.  A  priest  is  here  to  seek  and 
to  save  the  lost,  not  to  be  bumptious  and  offensive  towards  the 
innocent.  Priests  and  parsons  often  assume  that  they  alone  are 
the  innocent  of  the  earth.  The  reverse  of  this  is  often  the  case. 
There  is  so  much  shifting  and  shuffling  in  all  ecclesiastical  mat- 
ters, whether  dogmatic  or  moral,  that  it  is  difficult  for  a  priest 
to  understand  or  believe  in  simple  truth  and  straightforwardness. 
The  whole  trouble  comes  of  trusting  to  certain  dogmas  of  doc- 
trine or  of  morals  instead  of  trusting  in  God  Almighty  and  the 
simple  truth  of  things.  Jesus  was  as  simple  and  true  as  a  star 
or  a  flower.  Herein  he  manifested  his  own  true  divinity.  The 
Church  too  often  seems  to  think  the  greater  the  mystery  believed 
in  and  asserted,  the  clearer  the  proof  of  its  divinity.  The  contrast 
is  enormous  and  fatal.  Any  child  can  fool  a  wise  man  by  ask- 
ing a  question  touching  the  heart  of  nature  or  religion.  The 
work  of  a  priest  is  to  clear  and  simplify  the  universal  enigma 
of  life,  not  by  tying  but  by  freeing  men's  hands  and  enlightening 
the  mind  of  the  world.  What  have  priests  and  parsons  to  do  with 
legislating  on  any  subject  on  God's  earth?  Make  men  and  wo- 
men better,  sweeter,  truer,  holier,  more  charitable,  beginning 
with  yourselves,  and  the  dogma  will  take  care  of  itself.  Not  by 
authority  but  by  penitence  and  the  grace  of  God  are  all  men  and 
women  saved.  You  damn  them  first  of  all  by  enslaving  them. 
One  in  every  ten  marriages  in  this  country  results  in  divorce,  and 
it  is  simple  folly  for  cardinals,  primates,  priests  or  parsons  to 
talk  of  ostracising  or  refusing  to  marry  these  people.  The  busi- 
ness of  the  Church  of  Christ  in  this  world  is  to  save  and  not  to 
condemn.  Don't  talk  of  saving  society,  do  your  plain  duty  to  the 
people  and  begin  at  home.  The  whole  business  of  the  Church  of 
Christ  in  this  matter  of  marrying  is  to  guide  by  all  good  advice 
and  influence  the  parties  about  to  marry,  younger  or  older,  to 
use  all  its  influence  to  guard  against  foolish  or  unwise  mar- 
riages. Then  to  use  its  utmost  endeavors  as  a  moral  and  spiritual 
force  to  teach  all  people  within  its  hearing  the    principles    of 


PRIMITIVE  AND  MODERN  CHRISTIANITY.  315 

Christ's  purity,  charity,  patience,  forbearance,  mutual  indulgence, 
knowing  that  all  have  erred  and  do  err  and  come  short  of  the 
ideals  of  loyalty  and  love,  and  above  all,  to  urge  against  every 
form  of  separation  and  divorce,  regardless  of  the  trifle  of  bap- 
tism or  religion.  Marriage  and  morality  are  older  than  the 
Church,  and  its  power  and  its  rights  are  wholly  and  solely  as  a 
moral  and  spiritual  and  advisory  force  to  keep  married  people 
loyal  to  one  another  and  away  from  divorce  and  all  evil  life,  im- 
purity, and  impatience. 

But  again,  if  the  devil  has  entered  into  a  house,  a  home,  and 
has  caused  irretrievable  discord  so  that  husband  and  wife  cease 
to  be  husband  and  wife  and  either  party  takes  the  bit  in  his  or  her 
mouth,  deserts,  and  causes  the  law  to  commit  a  divorce,  the 
Church  has  only  to  investigate  the  facts  quietly  and  carefully, 
and  without  any  starched  or  false  notions  that  it  has  any  say  out- 
side the  law  referred  to,  simply  and  fairly  to  determine  which  is 
the  innocent  party  in  the  sense  named  and  to  make  him  or  her 
free.  And  any  churcH  that  presumes  to  set  itself  above  the  state 
in  a  matter  first  of  all  involving  legal  and  property  issues  or  above 
a  free  human  soul,  and  to  say  it  will  or  will  not  marry  or  admit 
such  soul  to  its  communion,  may  defend  and  advance  its  own 
false  notions  of  dignity  but  can  never  serve  the  true  laws  of 
God  or  a  free  and  upright  human  soul.  Mind  your  own  business, 
gentlemen.  Shut  the  stable  door  before  the  valuable  animal 
known  as  a  human  soul  has  gone  astray,  and  do  not  attempt  to 
bind  burdens  upon  men's  shoulders  that  neither  you  nor  they  are 
anyway  able  to  bear.  Reform  society  by  preventing  the  evils 
of  life.  Begin  at  home,  and  not  strut  and  parade  as  if  Almighty 
God  had  made  you  masters  and  tyrants  of  the  human  soul.  Your 
duty  is  to  save  society  by  preventing  its  evils  and  sins,  and  not 
to  damn  and  bind  free  men  or  women  by  your  senseless,  Christ- 
less,  utterly  stupid  laws. 

In  what  is  supposed  to  be  one  of  the  most  sacred  and  holy 
places  on  earth,  though  one  of  the  dirtiest  and  foulest,  in  Llhasa, 
the  capital  of  Thibet,  in  one  of  the  farthest  and  darkest  recesses 
cf  the  Temple  there  is  set  up  the  Jo-kang,  a  massive  image  of 
the  greatest  Buddha,  Guadama,  once  the  self-sacrificing  and 
princely  but  poor  reformer  of  the  Hindu  faith.  The  image  is  of 
solid  gold  and  larger  than  life  size.  It  is  sitting.  Its  counten- 
ance and  person  only  dimly  illuminated  by  twelve  golden  lamps 


3i6  THE  GLOBE, 

of  burning  oil,  its  neck  and  shoulder  and  bust  are  decorated  and 
almost  covered  with  necklaces  of  gold  and  precious  stones  and 
pearls,  the  solid  gold  and  the  priceless  decorations  are,  and  for 
many  ages  have  been,  the  gifts  of  the  faithful,  and  their  great 
value   was   and   is   intended   to  express   the   utmost  veneration 
and  worship  of  the  learned  Hindus  for  the  shining  and  beautiful 
and  Christlike  qualities  of  character  that  distinguished  the  man 
Avho  died  and  was  buried  twenty-five  centuries  ago.     That  the 
Jo-kang  thus  adorned  has  become  an  idol  in  the  minds  of  the  ig- 
norant, and  is  now  perhaps  itself  adored  instead  of  the  greaf 
prophet,  we  only  believe  and  admit.  But  what  Catholic  image  is  safe 
and  exempt  from  the  same  idolatrous  worship.     Beware  of  Jo- 
kangism,  O  ye  worshipers  of  the  Eucharist    Is  not  the  Son  of 
God,  Jesus  the  immortal,  present  enough  in  your  hearts  that  ye 
have  to  worship  his  Jo-kang  in  one  shape  and  another  and  in  a 
thousand  silly  forms.    Worship  God  in  spirit  and  in  truth.    Wor- 
ship God  in  the  person  and  spirit  of  His  eternal  Son,  but  do  not 
go  in  garish  robes  parading  the  streets  to  show  your  own  import- 
ance, and  all,  as  no  doubt  you  mean  it,  to  robe  the  mystic  person 
of  Christ  in  bands  of  gold.    As  I  view  it,  your  pompousness,  your 
fine  robes,  your  priest-made  dogmas,  as  if  you  could  improve  on 
Christ's  own  words,  all  tend  to  Jo-kangism,  or  the  plainest  idola- 
tiy,  and  to  certain  superstition.     No  wonder  that  free  masonry 
and  the  American  and  French  republics  laugh  at  your  civilization 
and  topple  it  down.    For  more  than  forty  years  I  have  opposed 
and  fought  divorce,  and  in  every  case  when  appealed  to  for  ad- 
vice I  have  urged  and  tried  to  help  in  the  lines  of  loyalty  on  both 
sides  but  I  will  have  no  ecclesiastical  presumption  of  audacious 
authority.    I  saw,  and  said  when  I  wrote  my  article  in  the  Globe 
more  than  fourteen  years  ago,  that  the  evil  of  divorce  had  grown 
to  fearful  proportions,  but  I  also  saw  and  said  that  the  matter 
was  bound  to  grow  worse,  rather  than  better.     It  has  done  so  till 
priests  and  parsons  are  now  aroused  at  the  enormity  of  the  evil. 
I  still  tell  you  that  until  the  old  laws  of  the  decalogue  and  the 
newer  interpretations   of  Christ  are  more   loyally  lived  up  to 
daily,  in  church  and  in  state,  by  men  and  women,  among  parents 
and  children,  and  absolutely  by  men  and  women  alike,  the  divorce 
evil  and  every  other  evil  of  public  and  private  theft  and  de- 
bauchery and  crime  of  every  sort  is  bound  to  grow  worse  till  it 
becomes  unendurable  and  works  its  own  destruction.    Htmdreds 


PRIMITIVE  AND  MODERN  CHRISTIANITY.  317 

and  thousands  of  men  and  women  who  profess  to  be  Christians, 
Catholic  and  Protestant,  make  no  honest  attempt  to  keep  the  laws 
of  Christ.  Poor  sophists  and  infidels  pretend  to  have  outgrown 
such  laws.  This  nation  is  so  sunk  in  falsehood  that  it  has  lost 
the  sight  of  truth  and  honor.  Touching  the  very  matter  re- 
ferred to  here,  I  have  known  of  my  own  experience  cases  upon 
cases  in  which  when  and  where  under  the  pressure  of  inevitable 
differences  between  husbands  and  wives,  until  such  differences 
have  led  to  threatened  divorce,  and  one  or  the  other  of  the 
parties  has  been  foolish  enough  to  fly  to  priest  or  parson  or  sup- 
posed mutual  friend,  instead  of  standing  by  the  laws  of  Christ 
and  doing  their  simple  duty,  the  priest  or  parson  or  mutual 
friend  has  out  of  a  false  sympathy  for  the  party  appealing  to  him 
or  her  counseled  desertion,  divorce,  and  all  its  consequent  evils, 
defaming  the  party  likely  as  not  the  most  innocent  of  the  two  and 
so  leading  the  more  guilty  party  to  the  last  resort  of  evil  and  to 
the  courts  for  divorce.  Here  is  where  the  work  of  the  servant 
of  Christ  tells.  A  priest  or  parson  had  better  cut  the  tongue  out 
of  his  head,  or  cut  his  rotten  organ  or  false  and  untaught  heart 
cut  of  his  body,  than  allow  his  sympathy  'to  warp  his  mind  till  he 
advises  contrary  to  the  law  of  Christ  and  the  laws  of  holiest 
eharity.  Mere  rampant  ecclesiasticalism  is  no  better  than  party 
politics  when  its  mountebank  is  on  the  defence  of  its  own  dignity 
rather  than  a  defence  of  the  laws  of  Christ.  Stop  worshiping 
idols  and  begin  to  serve  the  Master ! 

The  almost  universal  atheism,  silent  but  persistent,  oi  modern 
secular  literature,  while  pretending  to  present  noble  but  really  false 
ideals  for  men  and  women,  is  one  of  the  deepest  curses  of  the 
nineteenth  and  the  twentieth  centuries,  and  Catholic  writers  are 
presenting  contemptible  stories  and  worse  dogmatic  writers  in  the 
place  of  this  same.  The  smashup  of  ecclesiasticism  in  Italy 
and  France,  with  similar  smashups  threatened  in  Austria  and 
Spain,  are  proofs  beyond  question,  to  my  mind,  that  Romanism 
has  missed  its  true  and  holy  moral  aim  and  errand,  and  has  stood 
up  for  its  own  dignity  and  authority  until  it  has  very  little  dig- 
nity or  authority  left,  except  in  its  clothes  and  titles.  The  auto- 
cratic and  holy  pride  of  the  Czar  of  Russia  and  his  autocratic 
and  holy  Greek  Church  are  in  these  last  months  proving  how 
little  their  holiness  and  authority  amount  to  when  brought  face  to 
face  with  the  little  people  that  they  have  despised.    One  true  man 


3i8  THE  GLOBE, 

with  God  is  stronger  than  a  whole  convention  of  fools.  I  am 
tiot  commending  the  Japanese  for  their  fighting  qualities.  The 
great  wrongs  of  usury  that  are  deceiving  and  invading  human 
rights  and  justice,  and  truth  preceded  the  fighting.  A  nation 
deluged  with  the  modern  and  holy  church  was  the  agressive  and 
guilty  party  in  all  these  wrongs,  and  I  tell  you  again  and  again 
that  no  church  authority  can  take  the  place  of  Christ's  truth  and 
justice.  The  Church  of  Rome  cannot  by  its  authority  make  one 
wrong  right  or  one  falsehood  true.  I  have  all  my  life  been  so 
used  to  associating  the  words  holy  and  holiness  with  saintly 
loyalty  to  the  principles  of  Christ  that  I  find  it  difficult  to  apply 
the  terms  **Holy  Catholic  Church"  to  an  organization  that  I  find 
to  have  been  and  still  to  be  now  and  again  utterly  disloyal  to  the 
first  principles  of  Christianity.  Hence,  to  save  my  own  consist- 
ency and  to  be  loyal  to  the  simple  truth,  I  seldom  use  the  expres- 
sion, "the  Holy  Catholic  Church,"  so  again,  *'Holy  Mother 
Church."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Church  as  a  church  is  not  holy. 
It  is  very  wide  of  any  such  mark.  And  as  for  "Holy  Mother 
Church,"  as  if  a  man  could  not  open  his  lips  without  assenting 
to  a  lie.  My  thought,  my  mind  in  its  relation  to  my  own  mother 
is  all  so  sacred  that  I  feel  as  if  committing  a  sacrilege  when  I 
attempt  to  apply  such  epithets  to  the  Church  of  Rome  or  any 
other  church.  My  feeling  is  wholly  diflferent  when  thinking  or 
speaking  of  Jesus  Christ  Himself.  I  know  Him  to  have  been 
holy  and  divine.  But  when  it  comes  to  the  Church,  which  in  many 
things  seems  to  expect  honors  that  Jesus  never  claimed,  I  have  to 
draw  the  line.  And  as  for  the  holy  barque  of  Peter,  the  Lord 
save  me  from  such  folly  of  words!  Whether  under  Puritanism 
or  Romanism  in  this  land,  the  church  in  the  upper  hand  at  the 
hour  has  usurped  and  asserted  to  such  an  extent  a  false  and  too 
exalted  an  idea  of  its  own  divine  prerogative  and  authority  that 
I  do  not  wonder  that  the  men  of  the  mental  accuracy  of  Emer- 
son have  turned  against  all  its  shows  till  he  and  others  have  felt 
and  said  that  Jesus  Himself  could  not  be  to  them  as  were  their 
own  brothers  and  sisters ;  and  Emerson,  as  quoted  in  another  ar- 
ticle in  this  issue,  has  spoken,  I  think  foolishly  and  wrongly,  of 
the  self-assertion  of  Jesus,  evidently  not  recognizing  the  divinity 
and  peculiar  majesty  of  the  Son  of  God.  My  discrimination  and 
my  contest,  therefore,  is  that  primitive  Christianity  dwelt  almost 
ent-rely  in  and  upon  the  simple  and  primal,  universal  truths  of 


I 


IN  ROME.  319 

God  in  Christ  Jesus,  and  depended  upon  these  as  applied  by  the 
Holy  Spirit  for  their  prestige,  their  power,  their  authority,  and 
beyond  question  they  had  some  success,  or  we  should  not  be  here 
to-day  defending  their  methods  in  preference  to  a  church  or 
churches  whose  changed  methods  are  now  put  in  the  place  of 
God  and  Christ  himself,  and  almost  worshiped  as  divine  through 
the  substitution  of  one  dogma  and  another  to  the  confusion  of 
many  instead  of  the  person  and  teachings  of  the  God-Man, 
Christ  Jesus,  whose  simplicity  and  purity  of  person  and  life  even 
modern  infidels  acknowledge  to  have  been  divine.  Let  us  quit 
the  multiplying  of  shibboleths  and  quit  worrying  about  the  tem- 
poral power  or  other  authority  of  the  Church,  and  hold  to  the 
essential  ideal  of  Christ,  God  With  Us,  Emmanuel,  the  eternal 
Son  of  God.  As  for  me,  this  is  my  choice,  excommunication  or 
no,  and  I  pray  heaven  daily  for  guidance,  and  am  sure  of  eventual 
victory. 

William  Henry  Thorne. 


IN  ROME. 

On  every  side  are  crumbling  walls, 
Huge  monuments  of  former  power, 

And  birds  inhabit  banquet  halls, 
And  sing  away  the  hour. 

The  climbing  Ivy  with  its  green, 
Struggles  to  hide  the  scars  of  time, 

And  e'en  a  Rose  the  stones  between 
Graces  the  place  with  smile  sublime. 

And  I- -a  traveler  of  the  way — 
Am  seated  at  an  Emperor's  door; 

*Tis  strange  to  think  how  short  the  day 
E'er  hearthstones  know  their  Lords  no  more. 

To-morrow  'tis  another's  hand 
To  rule,  to  lead,  to  point  the  way; 

The  friendly  Ivy  'tis  to  hide 
The  broken  things  of  yesterday. 


320 


THE  GLOBE. 

They  loved  your  golden  head,  O  King! 

And  e'en  forgot  the  feet  of  clay. 
The  Ivy  whispers  o'er  the  walls, 

Forgive  the  faults  of  yesterday. 

You  built  a  nesting  place  for  birds, 

O  Ruler  of  an  age  before. 
And  you  built  well — for  here's  a  Rose 

To  greet  a  traveler  at  your  door. 

St.  Paul,  Minn.  Howard  P.  Sanders. 


MODERN  INTERNATIONALISM. 


Three  thousand  years  ago  the  notions  of  internationalism  as 
they  exist  or  are  supposed  to  exist  to-day  were  hardly  dreamed 
of.  Egypt  had  developed  a  well  defined  civilization  of  its  own 
which  modern  scholarship  is  still  trying  to  understand.  From 
all  appearances  it  was  as  autocratic  as  modern  Russia,  but  plainly 
in  many  respects,  as  to  science,  religion,  and  literature,  it  was 
superior  to  what  is  called  the  Christian  autocracy  of  the  vast  be- 
longings of  the  Czar.  It  stood  or  seems  to  have  stood  alone  in 
its  greatness  and  held  the  neighboring  peoples  of  the  region  of 
the  Mediterranean,  not  as  fellow  peoples,  but  as  smaller  affairs 
to  be  preyed  upon  or  enslaved,  if  occasion  ofifered.  About  the 
same  period  there  were  distinct  centers  of  civilization  in  what 
we  now  call  China,  India,  and  Assyria,  with  scores  of  unknown 
and  comparatively  unimportant  peoples  in  all  the  sections  of 
country  intervening  between  the  larger  centers  mentioned,  and 
while  modern  scholarship  talks  wisely  in  reference  to  all  of  these 
centers  of  territory  and  their  various  forms  of  culture,  modern 
scholarship  is  really  m  no  measure  clear  in  its  definitions  of  the 
actual  manner  of  men  then  existing,  and  it  is  still  less  lucid  as  to 
the  differences  of  men  and  diflferences  of  ancient  culture.  That 
Egypt  from  the  earliest  times  however  inclined  to  and  developed 
in  its  own  way  a  species  of  civilization  similar  in  many  respects 
or  closely  akin  to  what  we  in  these  days  call  European  civiliza- 
tion seems  clear,  and  that  all  the  Asiastic  peoples  in  general  de- 
veloped forms  of  culture  akin  to  what    we    now    find    among 


MODERN  INTERNA  TIONALISM.  321 

Asiatic  peoples,  and  that  their  general  type  of  civilization  differed 
from  the  Egyptian  type  seems  clear.  Whether  this  difference 
came  naturally  from  the  radical  difference,  that  is  from  a  differ- 
ence of  nature,  color,  and  race,  or  from  difference  of  climate  and 
geographical  contour,  and  to  what  extent  these  varying  condi- 
tions and  origins  produced  the  dissimilar  conditions  of 
the  nations  and  peoples,  their  forms  of  government,  et 
cetera,  we  really  do  not  know  to-day,  and  in  my  opinion  we  are 
not  likely  to  know  from  the  present  methods  of  oriental  study 
pursued  by  modern  research.  Twenty-five  centuries  ago  the  con- 
ditions were  largely  changed.  The  old  civilization  of  Egypt 
seems  to  have  been  born  again,  but  into  new  centers  of  the  earth ; 
the  various  Mediterranean  peoples  known  as  Greeks  had  already 
developed  a  culture  in  art  and  in  literature  which  still  dazzles  the 
world.  Very  nearly  contemporary  with  David  and  Solomon  and 
Isaiah,  the  famous  kings,  poets,  and  prophets  of  the  Hebrew 
people,  there  flourished  Socrates,  Plato,  Sophocles,  D'emosthenes, 
and  Phidias,  the  greatest  thinkers,  philosophers,  poets,  orators 
and  architects  of  ancient  times.  And  while  Asiatic  civilization 
of  the  same  period,  either  from  our  general  ignorance  concerning 
it  or  mayhap  in  the  radical  difference  in  the  relative  forms  of 
Asiatic  and  European  civilization,  it  seems  clear  in  general  that 
individualism  never  developed  along  the  same  splendid  lines  of 
human  culture  in  Asia  as  they  existed  in  the  centers  of  Greece 
and  Palestine.  There  may  have  been  in  China,  in  Persia,  India 
and  Assyria  men  as  able  and  brilliant  as  the  Greeks  and  Hebrews 
named,  but  as  far  as  our  knowledge  goes  Asiatic  culture  seems 
always  to  have  developed  much  as  it  exists  to-day,  only  in  more 
limited  form  along  the  meditative  lines  of  Zoroastrianism  and 
Buddhism  and  in  the  autocratic  lines  of  such  gentlemen  as  Cyrus 
and  the  Babylonian  kings;  and  as  far  back  as  history  takes  us 
there  was  an  Asiatic  civilization  and  a  European  civilization  not 
only  different  from  each  other  but  in  the  old  days  even  more 
than  at  present  opposed  to  each  other,  and  this  continued  acute 
and  bitter  in  various  opposition  until  the  Greek  mastered  the 
Asiatic  and  gave  an  almost  exclusive  start  to  European  culture 
down  to  our  own  times.  Later  all  European  civilization  centered  in 
Rome,  whose  autocratic  emperors,  generals  and  politicians  fin- 
ished the  victories  that  Greece  had  begun  and  made  Asia  sub- 
ject to  Roman  imperial  power. 


322  THE  GLOBE. 

Into  this  state  of  world  affairs  came  the  Christ  child,  and 
began  by  his  simple  death  the  foundation  of  a  spiritual  power 
wholly  different  in  conception,  character  and  law  from  any  power 
that  had  hitherto  existed,  and  won  its  way  through  all  the  na- 
tions, conquering  and  to  conquer  by  the  simple  force  of  individ- 
ual consecration  to  truth,  to  God,  and  to  charity,  conquering  by 
love  and  death,  and  not  at  all  at  any  time  or  in  any  place  by  what 
has  been  known  as  the  temporal  or  princely  power  of  the  Church 
of  Rome,  but  always  conquering  and  always  bound  to  conquer  in 
the  exact  proportion,  by  exact  law,  as  men  become  saints  and  not 
dictators  or  rulers  according  to  notions  derived  from  the  most 
corrupt  and  autocratic  days  of  imperial  Roman  rule.  Through 
all  the  conflicts  between  Greece  and  Asia,  through  all  the  con- 
flicts between  Rome  and  Asia,  and  even  long  after  the  days 
of  Constantine  and  his  abortive  efforts  to  nationalize  Christian- 
ity, such  a  phase  of  life  as  we  now  call  internationalism  never 
existed,  and  of  course  it  was  not  known  in  the  days  of  ancient 
Egypt.  Whatever  has  come  of  the  conception  and  working  of 
the  idea  of  internationalism  has  come  first  of  all  from  the  in- 
sertion of  the  human  principles  of  Christianity  into  the  various 
peoples  and  their  rulers  of  modern  ages,  and  how  little,  if  not 
contemptible,  are  the  advances  of  any  and  every  phase  of  justice, 
truth,  and  Christian  brotherhood  into  the  internationalism  of 
these  last  hours  may  be  gathered  Irom  a  brief  glance  at  some  of 
the  facts  in  the  case.  Men  and  kings  and  presidents  of  nations 
still  seem  to  be  as  savage  and  bloody  and  divided  in  their  plans 
and  purposes  and  acts  as  they  were  three  thousand  years  ago, 
but  as  the  populations  of  the  newer  centers  of  civilization  are 
larger,  more  numerous,  and  more  democratic,  more  imbued  with 
the  false  and  silly  notions  of  human  equality,  and  as  newspaper 
civilization  is  taking  the  place  of  ancient  intellectual,  moral,  and 
religious  civilization,  the  semblance  and  the  language  of  inter- 
nationalism has  become  the  popular  language  of  our  time.  Every 
editor  of  the  vilest  newspaper  uses  the  language  and  treats  as 
a  fact  the  universal  semblance  of  modern  internationalism.  "V^Hiat 
is  there  in  it?  Does  it  exist  in  any  real  and  true  sense,  or  are 
we  as  ever  the  vilest  of  savages,  lapping  each  other's  blood  in 
war,  anB  in  Iving  deceotive  conflicts  of  commerce,  rascality  and 
pernicious  hell  fire?  There  are  many  ways  of  viewing  the  case 
and  of  answering  the  question.     I  have  often  said  in  the  pages 


MODERN  IN  TERN  A  TIONALISM.  323 

of  this  magazine  that  there  is  a  poetic  as  well  as  a  dogmatic 
way  and  method  of  stating  theology,  and  that  I  have  always 
preferred  the  poetic  way.  Dante  stated  it  his  way;  the  councils 
of  the  Church  in  their  way.  There  is  also  a  poetic  way  of  stat- 
ing modern  internationalism.  There  is  also  a  newspaper  way, 
the  parson's  way,  the  politician's  way,  and  the  philosopher's 
way;  perhaps  we  may  as  well  state  the  case  as  here  mentioned. 
Here  is  the  way  a  poet  recently  stated  the  international  problem : 

THE  CRY  OF  THE  LITTLE  PEOPLES. 

The  cry  of  the  Little  Peoples  went  up  to  God  in  vain; 

The  Czech  and  the  Pole,  and  the  Finn  and  the  Schleswig  Dane. 

We  ask  but  a  little  portion  of  the  green  and  ancient  Earth; 

Only  to  sow  and  sing  and  reap  in  the  land  of  our  birth. 

We  ask  not  coaling  stations,  nor  ports  in  the  China  seas; 

We  leave  to  the  big  child  nations  such  rivalries  as  these. 

We  have  learned  the  lesson  of  time,  and  we  know  three  things  of  worth; 

Only  to  sow  and  sing  and  reap  in  the  land  of  our  birth. 

Oh,  leave  us  our  little  margins,  waste  ends  of  land  and  sea, 
A  little  grass  and  a  hill  or  two,  and  a  shadowing  tree. 
Oh,  leave  us  our  little  rivers  that  sweetly  catch  the  sky. 
To  drive  our  mills  and  to  carry  our  wood  and  to  ripple  by. 
Once  long  ago,  like  you,  with  hollow  pursuit  of  fame, 
We  filled  all  the  shaking  world  with  the  sound  of  our  name; 
But  now  we  are  glad  to  rest,  our  battles  and  boasting  done, 
Glad  just  to  sow  and  sing  and  reap  in  our  share  of  the  sun. 

And  what  shall  you  gain  if  you  take  us,  and  bind  us  and  beat  us  with 

thongs. 
And  drive  us  to  sing  underground  in  a  whisper  our  sad  little  songs? 
Forbid  us  the  use  of  our  heart's  own  nursery  tongue; 
Is  this  to  be  strong,  you  nations;  is  this  to  be  strong? 
Your  vulgar  battles  to  fight  and  your  shopman  conquests  to  keep; 
For  this  shall  we  break  our  hearts,  for  this  shall  our  old  men  weep? 
What  gain  in  the  day  of  battle,  to  the  Russ,  to  the  German,  what  gain 
The  Czech  and  the  Pole,  and  the  Finn  and  the  Schleswig  Dane? 

The  cry  of  the  Little  Peoples  goes  up  to  God  in  vain, 
For  the  world  is  given  over  to  the  cruel  sons  of  Cain. 
The  hand  that  would  bless  us  is  weak,  and  the  hand  that  would  break 

us  is  strong; 
And  the  power  of  pity  is  naught  but  the  power  of  a  song. 


324 


THE  GLOBE, 


The  dreams  that  our  fathers  dreamed  to-day  are  laughter  and  dust, 

And  nothing  at  all  in  the  world  is  left  for  a  man  to  trust. 

Let  us  hope  no  more,  or  dream,  or  prophesy,  or  pray; 

For  the  iron  world  no  less  will  crash  on  its  iron  way. 

And  nothing  is  left  but  to  watch,  with  a  helpless,  pitying  eye, 

The  kind  old  aims  for  the  world  and  the  kind  old  fashions  die. 

— Richard  Le  Gallienne,  in  London  Chronicle, 

I  do  not  say  that  Mr.  Gallienne  states  the  whole  question 
justly  or  fully.  Mr.  Kipling  in  varying  measure  and  power 
states  the  converse  of  all  this  in  his  song  of  "The  White  Man's 
Burden,"  which  has  been  much  parodied  and  imitated  and  ridi- 
culed, especially  by  the  Irish-American  newspapers  of  the  pres- 
ent time.  These  latter,  forgetting  the  rights  and  wrongs  of  all 
other  nations  and  peoples,  except  the  vastly  and  constantly  ex- 
aggerated wrongs  of  a  handful  of  Irish  peasants  who  were  al- 
ways too  one-sided  to  appreciate  their  own  heroes  or  any  good 
their  conquerors  have  ever  done  them,  and  who  are  now  repre- 
sented by  a  few  incompetent  Irish  politicians  who  travel  in  great 
style  now  and  again  across  the  ocean  to  appeal  to  their  well  to 
do  fellows,  the  Irish-American  ecclesiastics  and  cheap  politicians 
in  the  United  States,  always  aiming  to  stir  said  prosperous  Irish 
Americans  in  this  country  to  engage  in  some  plotting  or  rebellion 
against  the  British  nation. 

Quitting  the  eternal  Irish  wail  for  a  moment,  the  intelli- 
gent reader  of  public  events  may  tell  of  the  advancing  strides  and 
the  settled  deceivings  of  the  Christian  Russian  Bear  in  all  his 
crawlings  and  usurpations  in  Manchuria,  and  of  Uncle  Sam 
in  striped  petticoat,  pantaloons,  dragging  his  American  army  and 
navy  behind  him  and  prowling  like  a  savage  Puritan  over  the 
erstwhile  and  long  civilized  provinces  of  Spain  in  the  Philippines, 
Cuba  and  Porto  Rico,  in  tampering  with  French  adventurers  in 
order  to  secure  Panama,  one  of  the  states  of  a  sister  republic,  and 
holding  Panama  by  the  throat  till  the  North  American  politician 
is  safely  in  possession.  Mr.  Kipling  and  his  weak  kneed  British 
admirers  may  call  all  this  a  legitimate  part  of  the  white  man's 
burden,  while  the  infallibly  moral  and  utterly  stupid  Irish- Ameri- 
can Catholic  editor  sees  little  or  nothing  to  complain  of  in  it,  and 
keeps  up  his  perpetual  bowlings  against  the  English  because 
Cromwell  proved  himself  a  better  man  than  O'Neill  some  hun- 
dreds of  years  ago. 


MODERN  INTERNA  TIONALISM.  325 

When  I  see  what  utter  and  inconsistent  blockheads,  what  un- 
christian and  vituperative  bigotry  this  Irish  hatred  of  the  EngHsh 
turns  all  things  into,  I  wonder  what  any  editor  or  priest  or  man 
of  the  kind  named  means  by  pretending  to  be  a  Christian,  and 
can  only  laugh  at  the  term  Catholic  as  used  by  such  people. 
Again  when  I  see  that  the  Catholic  Church  presumes  to  deny  the 
Italian  citizen  the  right  to  vote  on  purely  civil  matters,  I  marvel 
at  the  patience  of  the  Italian  citizen  no  less  than  at  the  overbear- 
ing presumption  of  the  Pope  and  many  of  his  advisors.  The  Pope 
cannot  make  such  absurd  tyranny,  rational,  just,  or  even  toler- 
able. The  same  great  and  glaring  inconsistencies  are  manifest 
ii-.  the  modern  papal  treatment  of  France,  as  if  the  Church  ever 
needed  the  Concordat  or  as  if  such  an  agreement  forced  by  the 
great  Napoleon  on  a  weak  and  vacillating  pope  ever  could  have 
been  anything  but  a  grandiose  declaration  of  a  polito-ecclesias- 
tical  agreement  that  v/as  never  worth  the  paper  it  was  written  on, 
much  less  worth  the  noise  that  has  been  made  over  it  for  nearly 
a  hundred  years.  Here  we  touch  on  the  religious  relationship  as 
affecting  modern  internationalism.  But  let  us  return  to  the  po- 
litical question  pure  and  simple,  beginning  always  at  home. 

The  flighty  and  weak-headed  editor  of  the  New  World,  a 
Catholic  weekly  published  in  Chicago,  seems  to  be  one  of  the 
craziest  anti-English  Irish-American  maniacs  in  the  country,  and 
of  late  he  has  taken  a  fearful  dislike  to  Secretary  Hay  because 
of  a  presumed  mutual  understanding  between  the  American  Sec- 
retary of  State  and  the  British  Government,  which  is  presumed 
to  amount  to  a  virtual  alliance  between  America  and  England. 
Instead  of  welcoming  such  an  alliance  as  one  of  the  greatest  se- 
curities for  the  peace  of  the  world,  as  a  practical  healing  of  a 
very  old  family  quarrel,  breach  of  an  old  peace,  and  in  wars  that 
never  should  have  been  fought,  and  as  an  instance  of  incipient 
and  true  internationalism,  this  crazy  Irish-American  editor,  per- 
haps only  in  obedience  to  a  crude  and  half-idiotic  Irish  constitu- 
ency, for  the  editor  is  a  man  of  some  real,  at  least,  poetic  genius, 
this  flighty  and  foolish  person  undertakes  to  abuse  Secretary  Hay 
and  to  demand  his  dismissal,  giving  as  special  reasons  therefor 
the  fact  that  the  Secretary  of  State  is  not  himself  another  crazy 
Irish-American  Catholic. 

All  the  old  States,  tribes,  and  peoples  were  openly  and  avow- 
edly opposed  to  each  other,  each  tribe  or  nation  seeking  an  ally 


326  THE  GLOBE. 

or  allies  now  and  then  solely  and  wholly  for  the  purposes  of 
warfare.  Spite  of  the  splendid  culture  of  many  of  the  Greeks 
and  Romans,  they  were  as  peoples  at  heart,  and  in  habit  the 
veriest  beasts  and  savages.  I  do  not  say  that  Roosevelt,  Root, 
Taft  and  Company  are  any  less  savage,  or  that  the  ultimate  aim 
cf  an  alliance  between  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  is 
any  more  or  less  than  a  cowardly  and  brutal  attempt,  under 
the  disguise  of  diplomacy  and  internationalism,  to  bring  matters 
to  such  a  shape  that  in  case  of  a  war,  a  great  world  war,  such  as 
must  come.  Secretary  Hay,  as  directed  by  the  President,  is  not 
aiming,  as  all  savage  tribes  have  ever  aimed,  to  get  two  to  one 
in  their  own  favor  in  the  fight  that  is  sure  to  come.  Neither  do  I 
charge  this  crime  of  savagery  upon  Hay  and  Roosevelt ;  but  what- 
ever the  ultimate  aim  of  such  an  alliance  may  be,  it  must  be  plain 
to  every  intelligent  student  that  one  of  the  immediate  results  of 
such  an  alliance  will  be  to  ensure  or  foster  the  peace  of  the  world, 
rather  than  to  aggravate  or  provoke  any  world-wide  catastrophe. 
No  Irishman  of  these  days,  however,  seems  to  have  any  concep- 
tion of  or  care  for  the  peace  of  the  world  or  the  truth  of  Al- 
mighty God  in  general,  but  only  to  howl  over  the  exaggerated 
wrongs  of  a  few  narrow-headed  Irish.  The  first,  last,  and  deep- 
est aim  of  their  souls  seems  to  be  to  avenge  some  fancied  wrongs 
done  their  ancestors ;  and  I  say  here  that  the  total  Irish- American 
effort  in  this  direction  is  worthy  only  of  the  darkest  days  of 
pagan  savagery,  and  is  utterly  unworthy  of  the  thought  and  ef- 
fort of  the  poorest  or  richest  Christian  man ;  nor  can  any  Catho- 
lic or  other  church,  claiming  to  be  divine  or  otherwise,  by  any 
possibility  put  even  a  glamour  of  Christian  principle  into  such 
devilish  motives  of  life.  I  am  not  preaching  for  the  English, 
but  for  God's  justice  and  truth,  and  no  matter  upon  whose  head 
the  truth  may  fall.  The  English  nation,  like  every  other  strong 
and  aggressive  nation  of  modern  times,  in  executing  its  designs 
has  done  many  dastardly  and  damnable  things.  Among  others, 
its  conquest  of  Ireland  may  have  had  aspects  of  deviltry,  but  for 
my  part,  cosmopolitan  and  Christian  as  I  try  to  be,  it  seems  clear 
as  daylight  to  me  that  the  British  Isles,  including  Ireland,  of 
course,  had  to  be  under  one  government,  and  I  thank  God  that 
Oliver  Cromwell  had  the  good  sense  as  well  as  the  strong  arm 
to  bring  the  matter  to  pass.  The  Irish  never  could  rule  them- 
selves, were  always  fighting  among  themselves,  were  more  vin- 


MODERN  INTERNATIONALISM.  327 

dictive  and  of  more  hateful  action  toward  one  another  than  Eng- 
land has  ever  been  toward  Ireland  as  a  whole.  If  you  do  not 
believe  this,  and  if  you  wish  to  hang  me  for  saying  so,  read  the 
history  of  Ireland  over  and  over  again,  as  I  have  done,  and  sub- 
mit to  truth,  and  stop  your  Irish  brogue  conventions  of  folly 
and  vengeance.  Do  not  misunderstand  me,  and  do  not  rise  in 
your  magniloquent  orator  fashion  to  denounce  me.  I  have  fought 
for  Irish  liberty,  even  for  home  rule,  as  late  as  Gladstone  and 
Parnell,  mouthed  over  it,  but  the  one  was  a  traitor  to  British 
instincts,  and  the  other  was  a  traitor  to  the  simplest  principles 
of  loyalty  to  his  friends.  The  Gladstone  Home  Rtile  Bill  was  an 
abortion,  and  died  still-bom,  as  it  ought  to  have  died.  I  frankly 
and  repeatedly  assert  that  in  this  great  land,  if  men  are  seeking 
money  and  temporal  prosperity,  they  must  be  fools  not  to  find 
their  gratification.  I  as  frankly  admit  thousands  of  Irishmen 
in  this  country  are  true  men  and  gentlemen,  and  deserve  the  suc- 
cess they  have  won.  •  It  must  also  be  plain  that  many  of  the  ablest 
sons  of  Ireland  have  fought  bravely  and  won  distinction  under 
British  rule  in  the  British  army  and  navy  and  in  British  litera- 
ture, while  many  of  the  so-called  Irish  patriots,  so  much  lauded 
by  modern  Irish- Americanism,  from  Robert  Emmet  to  the  pres- 
ent hour,  had  much  of  English  blood  in  their  veins,  and  like  Em- 
met deserved  the  stupid  deaths  that  fell  to  their  lot. 

That  the  genuine,  dyed  in  the  wool  Irish  Catholic  ecclesiastic 
even  hates  and  despises  his  brother  Irish  now  as  of  old  may  be 
gathered  from  a  recent  utterance  of  Archbishop  O'Dwyer,  pub- 
lished in  the  New  York  Freeman's  Journal  in  display  type  in 
November  9th,  of  last  year : 

"BISHOP  O'DWYER'S  OPINION.— We  Irish  Catholics  Must 
Submit  Our  Claims  to  the  Judgment  of  the  Orange  Opposition,  and 
Until  that  Opposition  is  Appeased  Irish  Educational  Reform  in  Every 
Branch  Must  be  Postponed.  They  are  a  Handful,  We  are  the  Nation; 
You  Count  Them  by  Thousands,  We  are  Millions;  Yet  in  the  Councils 
of  Mr.  Wyndham  This  Handful  of  Fanatics  Counts  for  More  than  the 
Claims  and  Needs  of  the  Whole  Nation."— Most  Rev.  Edward  T. 
O'Dwyer,  Bishop  of  Limerick. 

Here  is  hatred  and  disparagement  of  all  Protestant  Irish, 
A  contempt  for  Mr.  Wyndham  and  all  good  impulses  of  English 
generosity  toward  Ireland,  as  evinced  in  the  now  practically  re- 
jected Irish  Land  Bill,  and  a  silly  magnifying  of  a  handful  of 


3*8  THE  GLOBE, 

Irish  Catholics,  as  if  they  were  the  whole  nation  or  the  whole 
universe.  In  view  of  such  language  is  there,  can  there  be  any 
Wonder  that  Ireland  is  down  trodden  ?  Let  its  leaders,  and  above 
all,  its  religious  leaders,  its  self-assumed  infallible  leaders  and 
directors  of  the  lives  and  consciences  of  mankind,  let  these  at 
least  show  some  reason,  truth  and  charity,  manhood  and  right- 
eousness, some  real  civilization  before  Ireland  can  expect  to  be 
free.  Every  nation  under  the  sun  to-day  has  reason  upon  reason 
for  falling  into  the  same  growling  dog-in-the-mangerism  that 
Ireland  has.  The  English,  made  up  of  various  countries,  though 
with  some  homogeneity  of  blood,  fought  among  themselves,  as 
all  the  world  knows,  and  blundered  enough  in  all  their  selections 
of  kingly  dynasties,  but  there  ever  was  a  sense  of  right  in  their 
leaders,  and  when  they  were  weary  of  battles,  they  settled  down 
a  peaceful  nation,  now  become  the  greatest  empire  of  the  world. 
But  the  Irish,  and  it  seems  especially  the  Irish  Catholics,  snarl 
and  growl  and  plot  every  kind  of  treachery  and  murder,  under 
one  guise  and  another. 

England  under  her  incompetent  Georges  was  whipped  by 
the  brother  English  under  George  Washington,  but  the  English 
do  not  hate  the  Americans  to-day.  France  in  Canada  was 
whipped  by  the  English,  but  Frenchmen  do  not  hate  all  England 
on  that  account.  Dry  your  eyes,  O  ye  sons  and  daughters  of 
Ireland,  and  seek  newer  fields  to  conquer  by  your  genius  and 
your  undoubted  bravery.  A  few  years  ago,  so  intelligent  a  man 
as  the  late  Archbishop  Hennessey,  of  Dubuque,  spoke  and  wrote 
of  the  United  States  as  a  new  Ireland.  God  forbid!  This  land 
is  made  up  of  very  numerous  representatives  of  all  the  white 
nations  of  the  world.  Its  language  is  English,  not  a  dead  Irish 
brogue,  that  some  green  as  grass  young  Irish  poets  are  pretend- 
ing to  advocate  as  a  substitute  for  the  masterful,  though  compli- 
cated English  tongue,  and  it  is  often  intimated  that  the  Knights 
of  Columbus  having  nothing  better  to  do  with  their  spare  cash, 
have  in  mind,  after  they  have  reformed  all  the  Catholic  editors 
to  the  tune  of  Archbishop  O'Dwyer's  Gregorian  and  solemn 
humbuggery,  to  re-establish  the  old  Irish  language  in  place  of  the 
English.  It  is  a  good  deal  like  that  crazy  Irishman,  Ignatius 
Donnelly's  attempt  to  substitute  Lord  Bacon  for  William  Shakes- 
peare, only  even  more  unutterably  silly  and  impossible.  Of  all 
fools,  the  unpracticed  Irish  literary  fool  is  the  fool  of  fools. 


MODERN  INTERNA  TIONALISM.  329 

• 

There  are  a  few  things  as  good  as  settled  in  this  world,  and 
among  them  one  would  think  is  the  wide-spread  supremacy  of 
the  English  language;  but  every  Irishman  hates  everything 
English,  and  his  hatred  and  his  yearning  for  vengeance  makes 
fools  of  Ireland's  wisest  men,  that  is,  of  the  clique  that  follow 
the  savagery  of  the  craving  for  vengeance,  while  forgetting  the 
eternal  and  divine  la'w  and  utterance,  "Avenge  not  yourselves. 
Vengeance  is  mine.  I  will  repay,"  saith  the  Eternal.  But  this 
is  a  long  digression,  and  I  may  pay  dearly  for  trying  to  teach 
justice  and  truth  to  hosts  of  avenging  and  infallible  Irish..  A 
very  large  number  of  my  subscribers  are  and  have  been  for  years 
Irish  priests,  so  there  must  be  a  center  of  God's  truth  in  their 
hearts,  or  they  would  have  murdered  me  long  ago.  This  all 
came  from  our  beginning  at  home  as  to  internationalism  as  ex- 
hibited in  the  Anglo-American  friendly  understanding,  if  not 
alliance,  for  the  peace  of  the  world.  In  the  same  line,  I  here 
quote  a  Chicago  dispatch  of  November  19th,  which  appeared 
in  the  Philadelphia  Ledger  of  Sunday,  November  20th,  of  last 
year  : 

IRISH    PARTY    DISRUPTED— SECESSION    FROM    LEADER- 
SHIP OF   REDMOND   THREATENED. 

Chicago,  Nov.  19. — The  Irish  Nationalist  party  is  on  the  verge  of 
a  serious  split  within  its  own  ranks.  Unless  some  amicable  arrange- 
ment can  quickly  be  arrived  at,  Messrs.  Dillon  and  Sexton,  with  their 
personal  following,  will  secede  from  the  leadership  of  John  Redmond. 
In  this  event  Mr.  Redmond  will  have  the  aggressive  support  of  William 
O'Brien,  over  whom  a  dispute  has  arisen. 

In  recent  speeches  in  Ireland,  Mr.  Redmond  is  held  to  have  openly 
sid^d  with  Mr.  O'Brien  regarding  the  differences  of  opinion  which 
have  long  existed  between  Mr.  O'Brien  and  the  Dillon-Sexton-Davitt 
faction.  It  is  stated  on  good  authority  that  Mr.  Redmond  has  been 
told  that  unless  he  withdraws  his  support  from  Mr.  O'Brien  secession 
will  result.  No  definite  conclusion  has  been  reached,  but  it  is  under- 
stood that  Mr.  Redmond  prefers  to  throw  in  his  lot  with  Mr.  O'Brien. 

In  the  event  of  the  breach  becoming  definite  it  is  thought  that  the 
factions  would  at  the  moment  be  fairly  evenly  divided,  Mr.  O'Brien's 
tremendous  popularity  in  the  south  being  offset  by  the  influence  of  Mr. 
Sexton's  powerful  organ,  "The  Freeman's  Journal,"  and  the  more  rad- 
ical following  of  Messrs.  Davitt  and  Dillon.  Such  a  division  probably 
would  leave  the  followers  of  Mr.  Healy  with  what  might  become  the 
balance  of  power,  and  this,  according  to  present  indications,  would  be 
thrown  in  favor  of  Messrs.  Redmond  and  O'Brien. 

The  present  internal  crisis  is  the  result  of  the  gradually  increasing 
disagreement  over  the  action  instigated  by  Mr.  O'Brien  and  carried 
out  by  Mr.  Redmond  in  their  famous  land  purchase  conference  with 
the  Irish  landlords. 


330  THE  GLOBE. 

Without  presuming  to  understand  or  define  the  difference 
among  the  members  of  the  Irish  Parliamentary  party,  and  doubt- 
ing utterly  if  they  understand  themselves,  their  aims,  or  their 
differences,  and  having,  we  admit,  only  the  poorest  opinion  of 
the  entire  membership,  we  are  moved  to  state  that  this  last  so- 
called  disruption  is  what  has  been  constantly  occurring  in  Ireland 
for  more  than  a  thousand  years.  The  Irish  never  could  agree 
among  themselves,  and  hence  they  unavoidably  and  inevitably 
became  a  prey  to  the  stronger  and  more  united  English  people, 
and  that  tells  the  whole  story. 

*Now  for  more  than  one  hundred  years  little  selfish  cliques  of 
Irish  politcians  have  been  trying  to  unite  the  traitor  elements 
of  Ireland  on  some  measure  of  revenge.  To  this  end,  the  average 
poverty  of  the  Irish,  their  oppression  by  the  English,  and  their 
eloquent  rhetorical  yap-yap,  have  been  magnified  and  glorified, 
and  appeals  have  constantly  been  made  to  the  prosperous  Ameri- 
can Irish  to  aid  the  home-made  politicians,  not  only  to  exert 
their  lawful  rights  as  a  part  of  the  British  Empire,  but  to  aid  in 
every  sort  of  unlawful  and  murderous  assertion  of  their  assumed 
rights,  and  to  use  the  growing  powers  of  the  American  nation 
to  avenge  the  supposed  and  magnified  wrongs  of  Ireland.  Any- 
thing to  circumvent  and  take  vengeance  upon  England  for  a 
piece  of  work  well  done  hundreds  of  years  ago.  I  say  it  is  vile. 
It  is  unmanly,  unworthy  the  name  of  patriotism,  and  beneath 
the  dignity,  honor  and  faithfulness  of  any  Christian  that  breathes 
on  earth.  If  Catholics  can  do  this  and  still  claim  to  be  Christians, 
so  much  the  worse  for  the  Catholic,  whoever  or  whatever  their 
exalted  or  their  humble  station  may  be ;  wherever  a  genuine 
political  Irishman  is,  he  thinks  that  the  total  nation  is  there  in  his 
single  boots  and  in  his  poor  cranium.  I  think  that  any  Irish- 
American  archbishop,  priest,  or  politician,  who  cannot  see  the 
clear  mission  of  the  Irish  in  Ireland  or  America  is  unfit  to  be  a 
teacher  or  a  ruler  of  men  as  a  common  fox  or  wolf  is  unfit  to 
protect  the  hen  roost.  And  if  the  prosperous  American-Irish 
of  any  profession  or  calling  are  bent  upon  freeing  old  Ireland 
and  making  it  independent  of  England,  a  separate  and  a  imited 
nation,  let  them,  every  man  jack  of  them  quit  their  archbishop- 
rics, their  priesthood,  the  politician  his  snug  berth,  and  all  the 
car  conductors  and  policemen,  saloon-keepers,  cab  drivers,  etc., 
etc.,  let  them  all  quit  their  easy  gotten  wealth  in  this  land  and 


MODERN  INTERNA  TIONALISM.  331 

band  themselves  together,  charter  a  Hundred  ships  of  war  of 
their  own,  and  go  over  Hke  real  men,  not  like  a  lot  of  spouting 
water  buckets ;  let  them  go  over  and  shoot  England  into  the  sea 
or  get  themselves  shot  to  death,  which,  of  course,  would  happen, 
and  so  the  world  would  be  relieved  of  such  palaverous  brogue  for 
perhaps  a  thousand,  or  at  least  for  a  hundred  years,  till  the  dawn 
of  the  millennium. 

The  Scotch  and  English  fought  as  hard  as  the  English  and 
Irish,  but  the  Scotch  have  seized  the  laws  of  nature  and  have  ap- 
plied them,  not  without  much  suffering  and  humiliation,  till  they 
have,  hundreds  of  them,  yea,  thousands  of  them,  have  long  ago 
become  leading  factors  in  the  British  Empire.  I  was  born  in 
England,  but  I  never  knew  a  feeling  of  hatred  toward  the  North- 
men who  conquered  what  has  always  seemed  to  me  a  more  beau- 
tiful civilization  than  the  Northmen  brought  with  them.  I  think 
it  was  an  angel  who  whispered  to  Saint  Paul  not  to  kick  against 
the  goads,  or,  one  might  say,  against  Almighty  God.  But  the 
Irish  Catholic  and  the  Italian  Pope  seem  to  think  that  the  Catho- 
lic Church  sanctifies  any  sort  of  treachery  and  makes  it  holy. 
Gentlemen,  it  will  not  do!  I  once  knew  an  Irish  priest  so  full 
of  the  heresy  of  temperance  that  he  taught  his  people  that  they 
were  under  no  obligation  to  pay  a  bill  contracted  at  a  tavern, 
and  he  thought  himself  in  the  right.  The  mischief  of  it  all  is 
that  his  people  thought  him  right.  No  man  who  understands  a 
single  law  of  God  or  man,  however,  can  think  such  infamy  right, 
no  matter  how  many  priests  sing  it  or  preach  it  in  so-called 
holiest  places  of  the  world.  What  is  needed  is  deeper  and  simpler 
principles,  and  less  froth  and  sham  of  all  kind.  Truth  and  jus- 
tice underlie  all  nations  and  churches  worth  revering.  Every 
liar  and  every  deceiver,  no  matter  how  pious,  deserves  to  be 
hung  and  fed  to  carrion  crows. 

Dtiring  these  very  hours  and  days,  more  than  a  half  million 
men,  armed  to  the  teeth  like  hellish  savages,  are  facing  each 
other  on  various  battlefields  in  Manchuria,  ready  still  to  murder, 
as  they  have  been  murdering  each  other  for  nearly  a  year.  It 
is  a  hell-breeding,  heaven  appalling  sight.  It  is  the  infamy  of 
hellish  cruelty.  No  tongue  nor  pen  can  ever  describe  the  awful- 
ress  of  anguish  wrung  from  the  heart  of  the  world  by  this  cruelty 
of  the  Russo-Japanese  War,  and  yet  groping,  successful  editors 
write  about  it  coolly  and  pretend  to  weigh  nation  with  nation 


332  THE  GLOBE. 

and  compare  the  two,  which  is  all  an  infernal  wrong,  perpetrated 
by  the  stronger  nation,  Russia,  upon  a  supposed  weaker  nation, 
Japan,  and  the  entire  infamous  perpetration  of  the  Russian 
wrong  was  done  and  persisted  in  under  the  banners  of  the  Or- 
thodox Church  of  Christ.  I  wonder  God'  Almighty  does  not  spit 
on  and  destroy  the  lying  flauntings  of  such  commerce  wherever 
they  are  floated.  Russia  simply  cannot  whip  Japan,  and  all  the 
world  ought  to  fall  on  the  Bear  in  death  if  there  should  seem  to 
be  any  danger  of  Russian  victory. 

Just  fifteen  years  ago,  believing  then  as  now  that  the  war- 
like, aggressive,  selfish,  infernal  action  of  what  is  called  West- 
ern civilization  was  and  is  unchristian,  self-destructive  and  damn- 
able, I  noticed  in  the  first  issue  of  the  Globe,  page  sixteen,  the 
following:  "Among  other  signs  of  the  times,  and  what  with 
newspaper  reports  that  Japan  and  China  are  rapidly  acquiring 
the  ways  of  European  and  American  civilization,  there  are  not 
wanting  indications  that  some  sort  of  a  millennium  is  at  hand, 
and  any  man  of  serious  thought  finds  more  signs  of  the  times 
than  he  can  readily  understand."  It  has  always  been  the  way  of 
the  Globe  to  suggest  rather  than  define  and  prophesy  the  in- 
famies that  said  western  civilization  has  held  and  still  holds  like 
the  black  shadow  of  death  hanging  over  the  fair  face  of  the  world. 
As  bearing  upon  the  general  question  of  modern  internationalism, 
and  especially  on  the  point  just  noted,  a  recent  writer  in  the 
London  Spectator  made  the  following  pregnant  and  very  perti- 
nent and  comprehensive  remarks,  entitled  "The  New  Power" : 

"The  political  results  of  this  war  must  be  great,  whatever 
iis  immediate  fortunes..  It  is  improbable  that  Russia  will  escape 
grave  political  changes ;  but  even  if  she  does,  the  fear  of  Russia, 
which  for  half  a  century  has  weighed  upon  the  nations  of  Eu- 
rope, must  be  materially  lightened.  The  soldiers  of  Russia  are 
numerous,  and  have  shown  throughout  this  campaign  all  their 
traditionary  devotion ;  but  it  is  obvious  that  her  military  organi- 
zation, considered  as  a  scientific  one  intended  for  conquest,  is  not 
so  strong  as  it  has  been  believed  to  be.  She  has  no  right  to  the 
claim,  which  the  autocracy  has  made  for  so  long,  of  being  always 
ready  for  battle,  and  her  officers,  though  splendidly  brave,  are 
probably  inferior  in  resources  and  energy  to  those  of  Central 
Europe  or  the  Western  Powers,  or  of  the  Japanese.  The  initia- 
tive is  crushed  out  of  them  by  the  very  strength  of  the  machine 


MODERN  IN  TERN  A  TIONALISM.  333 

which  they  are  compelled  to  obey,  and  which  in  crushing  individ- 
ual thought  and  hopefulness  drives  them  to  seek  in  pleasure  a 
refuge  from  despondency.  Russia,  it  is  clear,  can  be  beaten 
when  once  her  armies  are  off  their  own  ground ;  and  formidable 
as  she  always  must  remain  while  her  soldiers  obey,  the  charm  of 
invincibleness,  which  takes  the  heart  out  of  enemies,  has  for  the 
moment  passed  away.  Moreover,  the  task  before  her  must  for 
some  years  to  come  constitute  a  preoccupation.  Looking  at  the 
position,  not  like  the  'dreamers  of  the  West,'  but  as  any  sane 
Russian  must  look,  it  is  obvious  that  if  the  war  continues,  her 
whole  strength  must  be  employed  for  years  to  secure  what  at  the 
best  can  be  only  a  partial  victory.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  she 
makes  peace,  the  energy  of  her  governing  bureaucracy  must  be 
devoted  to  reorganization.  A  new  fleet  has  to  be  built,  manned, 
and  taught  by  experience  the  lessons  which  cannot  be  learned  at 
Kronstadt,  or  even  in  the  Black  Sea.  The  army  must  be  provided 
with  better  officers,  must  be  made  more  mobile,  and  must  be 
trained  to  think  a  little,  as  well  as  to  obey.  All  these  operations 
take  time,  a  process  of  education,  and  a  supply  of  money  which, 
though  Russia  is  richer  than  the  world  imagines,  can  only  be 
created  by  financial  ability  of  a  kind  which  'the  system'  is  not  well 
fitted  to  develop.  Quarreling  with  all  the  Jews  in  the  world,  for 
instance,  is  not  wholesome  work  for  a  great  Treasury.  To  say, 
as  has  been  said,  that  Russia  will  for  the  next  generation  be  a 
negligible  quantity  is,  in  the  absence  of  revolution,  mere  foolish- 
ness ;  but  that  she  will  weigh  less  in  the  politics  of  the  world  is, 
w^  venture  to  believe,  quite  certain.  The  sj>ell  which  has  para- 
lyzed diplomatists  even  more  than  the  people  for  the  moment  has 
snapped,  and  we  shall  find  that  the  relations  of  all  States  to  each 
other  have  been  perceptibly  modified.  This  will  be  the  case  even 
if  there  is  no  internal  outbreak;  while  if  there  is,  and  its  result 
is  any  permanent  diminution  of  Russian  force,  the  external  poli- 
tics of  Europe  will  of  necessity  all  be  rearranged.  Think,  to 
take  only  one  small  example,  what  it  would  mean  to  all  the  Baltic 
Powers  to  feel  that  they  had  no  longer  a  potential  master  in  St. 
Petersburg. 

"This  change,  however,  great  as  it  is,  is  not  the  greatest. 
There  is  no  longer  any  doubt  that  a  new  Power  of  the  first  mag- 
nitude has  arisen  on  the  edge  of  Eastern  Asia.  Its  rise  has  been 
almost  miraculously  rapid,  for  though  everybody  is  recalling  pre- 


334  THE  GLOBE. 

monitions  which  might  have  taught  us  all  something,  a  truth  in 
politics  is  not  a  truth  until  it  has  been  realized  and  acknowledged. 
Japan  has  sprung  to  the  front  in  less  than  half  a  generation.  The 
experts  of  the  Continent,  political,  military  and  diplomatic,  who 
have  for  months  refused  to  believe  what  to  them  all  was  most 
unwelcome,  now  accept  the  evidence,  and  in  a  tone  of  resignation, 
which  would  be  comic  if  it  did  not  mean  sO'  much,  admit  that 
they  have  been  lacking  in  knowledge  as  well  as  imagination.  The 
Power  which  can  place  half  a  million  of  men  upon  a  mamland 
separated  from  it  by  the  sea,  which  can  maintain  successfully  a 
siege  like  that  of  Sebastopol,  and  defeat  great  European  armies 
in  battles  which  rival  in  magnitude  and  in  slaughter  those  of 
Kapoleon  with  the  Russians,  or  of  the  Germans  with  the  French, 
cannot  be  characterized  even  by  the  stupidest  of  Courts  as  either 
an  inferior  or  a  braggart  State.  Success  on  the  battlefield  ap- 
peals to  the  statesmen  of  the  Continent  as  it  can  appeal  only  to 
those  who  control  conscript  armies,  while  the  soldiers  around 
them  regard  one  quality  which  the  war  has  revealed  in  the  Japa- 
nese with  an  admiration  not  untinged  with  fear.  The  Japanese 
officer  can  call  on  his  men  after  a  bloody  battle  with  a  confidence 
which  even  conquerors  like  Napoleon  only  secured  after  a  long 
career  of  victory.  Whether  their  courage  is  inherent  in  their 
race — which  has  a  thread  in  it  other  than  Mongolian — or  whether 
it  arises  from  the  absence  in  them  of  any  creed  which  makes 
death  alarming,  or  whether  their  love  for  Japan  has  risen  in  the 
course  of  centuries  into  a  furious  passion,  or  whether  all  these 
peculiarities  act  together,  the  fact  remains  that  the  Japanese 
Army  is  composed  of  the  kind  of  men  who  in  other  armies  vol- 
unteer for  forlorn  hopes.  The  Russian  officers,  themselves  com- 
manding men  of  singular  courage  and  endurance,  profess  them- 
selves amazed  by  the  daring  of  the  Japanese,  and  sometimes  give 
utterance  to  the  half-treasonable  doubt  whether  such  men  can 
be  defeated  by  any  troops  in  the  world.  The  new  Power  is,  in 
fact,  acknowledged  to  be  one  of  the  first  class,  far-seeing,  reso- 
lute, and  possessed  of  immense  resources  for  battle,  and  with  that 
acknowledgment  the  bottom  falls  out  of  many  of  the  data  of 
European  diplomacy.  In  a  very  short  time  the  Japanese  fleet 
may  be  made,  its  advantages  of  position  being  considered,  the 
strongest  on  the  Pacific;  and  even  as  it  is,  the  current  action  of 
European  Powers  towards  the  States  on  the  North  Pacific  will 


MODERN  INTERNA  TIONALISM,  335 

be  abruptly  arrested.  Who  is  to  seize  the  Eastern  Archipelago, 
now  the  object  of  so  many  ambitions,  if  Japan  remarks:  'No! 
that  is  part  of  my  reversionary  heritage?'  Who  is  to  dictate  to 
China  if  Japan  prohibits?  The  Frenchmen  who  say  that  Indo- 
China  is  in  danger  from  Tokio  may  be  talking  nonsense,  but  it 
is  certain  that  if  Japan  claims  Siam  as  an  ally,.  Siam  will  not  be 
invaded,  and  the  grand  idea  of  the  French  colonizing  party, 
which  is,  to  speak  plainly,  the  absorption  of  Siam  and  Yunnan, 
Avill  not  be  realized.,  Japan  may  not  be  able  to  rule  China,  as 
those  who  believe  in  the  'yellow  peril'  think  that  she  will,  for  the 
pride  of  an  ancient  Empire  may  forbid,  and  the  Chinese  govern- 
ing classes  may  have  gone  too  rotten  to  be  regenerated ;  but  the 
protection  of  China  from  disintegration  has  already  become  a 
Japanese  interest  of  the  fundamental  kind,  for  though"  her  first 
necessity  is  room  to  expand,  and  China  cannot  find  her  that  room, 
her  second  necessity  is  economic  prosperity,  and  her  own  idea 
is  that  prosperity  will  come  from  a  virtual,  though  not  official, 
monopoly  of  the  Chinese  market.  She  will  have  no  necessity  to 
close  ports  while  she  can  undersell  competitors.  Japan,  once 
left  at  peace,  will  be  an  energetic  trading  Power,  will  produce  a 
great  merchant  fleet,  if  only  to  feed  her  navy,  and  will  regard 
the  Pacific  as  we  think  of  the  Atlantic,  as  her  own  waterway. 
That  in  such  circumstances  she  should  regard  a  contemptuous 
exclusion  from  the  American  Pacific  States,  from  British  Co- 
lumbia, and  from  Australia  with  anything  but  angry  annoyance 
seems  to  us  impossible ;  and  an  annoyed  Japan  will  be  a  weighty 
factor  in  the  arrangements  of  the  Eastern  World.  Japan,  no 
doubt,  may  honestly  intend  toi  make  her  civilization  solidly  West- 
ern, and  to  be  admitted  in  all  respects,  benevolence  included,  as 
one  of  the  Western  Powers ;  but  to  claim  the  privileges  of  a  cor- 
poration, if  you  sacrifice  yourself  for  its  interests,  is  only  human. 
The  meekest  Christians  are  impatient  of  insult,  and  the  last  of 
the  Christian  virtues  which  Japan  will  display  will  be  humility." 
What  sort  of  a  millennium  was  and  is  now  at  hand  the  half 
a.  million  brown  and  white  men  now  facing  each  other  in  deadly 
warfare  plainly  enough  indicates.  It  is  well  to  bring  in  arbi- 
tration to  settle  the  stupid  blunders  of  the  Baltic  fleet,  or  the 
deep  laid  worse  than  blunders,  aided  and  connived  at,  as  I  be- 
lieve, by  William  Hohenzollern ;  It  is  well  for  Roosevelt,  Hay 
and  Company,  having  violated  every  principle  of  the  American 


336  THE  GLOBE.  , 

Constitution  and  every  international  right  known  to  modern  na- 
tions, and  having  fought  bloody  but  unequal  battles  to  add  to 
the  territory  of  a  country  already  too  enormous  to  manage  in 
any  decent  way  of  government,  to  call  for  a  peace  congress  at 
The  Hague  or  elsewhere.  Consistency  is  a  sham  in  the  grasp- 
ing advance  of  modern  international  imperialism.  But  I  tell  you 
that  neither  by  the  subterfuges  of  arbitration  nor  by  an  inter- 
national congress  of  peace  can  the  Emperor  William,  President 
Roosevelt,  the  Czar  of  Russia,  or  the  Emperor  of  Austria-Hun- 
gary, nor  all  combined,  stop  the  natural  results  of  their  own 
grasping  infamy,  or  long  prevent  the  deadliest  world  war  the 
earth  has  ever  known.  Whatsoever  men  and  nations  sow  that 
shall  they  reap,  and  the  hours  of  darkest,  bloodiest  infamy  are  at 
hand. 

The  latest  realization  of  this  Christian  infamy,  or  rather  the 
momentary  ending  of  one  of  the  bloodiest  instances  of  it  in  all 
history,  is  announced  the  day  of  this  writing  (January  3,  1905) 
in  the  final  fall  of  Port  Arthur,  showing  the  Japanese  the  masters 
of  the  praying  and  posing  priest-ridden  Russians,  as  if  priests 
and  prayers  had  any  right  and  power  in  such  inhuman  conflicts, 
and  one  of  the  most  striking  illustrations  of  the  beautiful  inter- 
nationalism of  our  day  may  be  found  in  the  account  of  an  inter- 
view between  Count  Von  Buelow  and  J.  L.  Bashford,  republished 
in  the  Living  Age  for  December  31,  1904,  from  the  Nineteenth 
Century  and  After,  of  a  previous  date.  This  interview,  while 
it  calmly  denies  the  absurd  view  of  Germany's  hatred  of  England, 
made  prominent  a  year  or  two  ago  by  the  foolish  poetic  bowlings 
of  Kipling,  and  preach  the  Anglo-German  attitude  as  one  of 
friendly  rivalry,  at  the  same  time  is  lucidly  explicit  in  Its  coolly 
and  calmly  brutal  commercialism,  and  has  not  in  it  from  begin- 
ning to  end  a  single  hint  that  modern  nations  or  modern  inter- 
nationalism have  or  has  anything  in  mind  higher  than  the  com- 
mercial success  of  each  nation  on  its  own  account.  Nothing  is 
said  of  national  shrinking  from  war  because  of  its  inhuman  and 
unchristian  butchery.  Nothing  is  dreamed  of  higher  than  cold 
blooded  calculations  leading  to  commercial  success.  It  is  all  in 
seeming  kindness  and  all  as  hellish  a^  Roosevelt  and  Hay's  in- 
ternationalism in  freeing  Cuba  and  enslaving  the  Philippines 
and  coaxing  Panama  to  secede  from  the  Republic  of  Colombia, 
in  order  to  facilitate  the  American  ownership  and  control  of  the 


ROSAMUND  MARRIOTT  WATSON.'  337 

Panama  Canal;  and  it  is  all  just  about  as  humane  and  dignified 
as  Roosevelt's  prosecution  of  the  infamous  postal  stealing  of  the 
last  eight  years  in  order  to  damn  a  few  insignificant  underlings 
and  allow  the  master  thieves,  living  and  dead,  to  go  unstained 
of  the  blinded  justice  of  our  own  day  and  nation.  On  the  whole,  I 
prefer  the  cool  and  deliberate  unemotional  methods  of  Count 
Von  Buelow  and  Company  by  far  to  the  sickening  and  pious 
posing  methods  of  the  Richelieus  and  their  most  Christian  mon- 
archs,  or  those  of  the  praying  and  God-conceited,  infallible  Czars, 
not  to  speak  of  our  own  insufferable  and  would-be  Puritan  meth- 
ods of  robbing  and  enslaving  nations  and  peoples  in  the  name  of 
God  and  for  the  sake  of  His  holy  Sabbath  Day. 

Let  officials  of  all  grades  work  in  their  own  line  and  mind 
their  own  business.  Let  archbishops  preach  Christ,  and  let  rob- 
ber Presidents  do  their  appointed  work  without  praise  of  the 
consecrated.  As  the  world  grows  a  little  older,  things  will  have 
to  come  to  this.  The  people  will  not  always  be  bulldozed  and 
fooled,  and  one  of  these  days,  when  a  few  more  Christs  have 
suffered  for  the  truth,  the  shining  face  of  eternal  justice  and 
mercy  will  be  seen  again  at  the  sunrise  and  the  sunset  and  men, 
having  found  the  infamy  and  uselessness  of  lying  and  war,  will 
be  ready  and  glad  to  dwell  in  peace,  and  a  real  culture  will  en- 
velop the  world.  But  moral  stamina  fled  the  life  of  this  nation 
during  our  Civil  War,  as  really  as  the  prophetic  power  fled  the 
Hebrew  race  after  the  crucifixion  of  Jesus. 

William  Henry  Thorne. 


ROSAMUND  MARRIOTT  WATSON. 


To  Mrs.  Watson's  new  volume  of  poems,  "After  Sunset,"  the 
London  Academy  awards  the  first  place  in  the  output  of  feminine 
verse  in  Great  Britain  in  1903.  Among  the  women  who  are 
writing  poetry  to-day  she  ranks  deservedly  high,  perhaps  the 


338  THE  GLOBE, 

highest,  among  British  poetesses.  Alice  Meynell  has  written 
graceful  poems ;  Michael  Field,  thoughtful  poems ;  Edith  Nesbit, 
noble  poems ;  and  Katharine  Tynan,  fascinating  poems.  How  to 
characterize  Mrs.  Marriott  Watson's  work  is  not  easy,  except  to 
say  that  her  poetry  is  like  a  breath  from  Arcady.  Her  poems 
have  all  the  above-mentioned  characteristics  belonging  to  the 
writings  of  her  sister-poets. 

If  it  be  the  mission  of  poetry  to  give  delight,  then  this  vol- 
ume of  Mrs.  Watson's  fulfills  its  mission.  Her  earlier  books,  "A 
Summer  Night"  (1891)  and  ''Vespertilia"  (1895),  were  remark- 
able for  their  artistic  excellence.  Mr.  William  Archer  praises 
the  correctness  of  her  rhymes  and  meters.  In  the  later  poems, 
some  of  which  have  appeared  in  the  Athenaeum  and  other  peri- 
odicals, there  is  the  same  striving  after  faultless  expression,  us- 
ually with  success,  as  in  the  limpid,  melodious  verses  of  her  other 
books.  If  there  be  any  change  in  form,  it  is  toward  further 
elaboration.  A  slight  grammatical  error  disfigures  a  line  in 
"Chanson  Briton." 

"And  he  I  love.   .    .    .  Thou  art  not  he." 

In  "The  White  Way,"  a  lyric  that  exhibits  to  good  advantage 
her  skill  and  charm,  the  thought  is  at  times  subtle  and  obscure. 

The  prevailing  note  of  the  poems  in  "After  Sunset"  is  ser- 
iousness, but  not  sadness. 

The  motto  opposite  the  table  of  contents  is  suggestive : 

"Le  seul  reve  interesse, 
Voire  sans  reve,  qu'  est-ce?" 

Of  the  fifty-two  pieces  in  the  volume  all  are  short.  A  num- 
ber of  the  lyrics  are  addressed  to  friends ;  those  at  the  end,  "Songs 
of  Childhood,"  to  her  child. 

In  some  of  Mrs.  Watson's  earlier  poems  were  reminiscences 
of  Tennyson  and  other  English  poets.  Of  late  years  she  has  evi- 
dently been  reading  foreign  authors,  if  one  may  judge  from  the 
numerous  titles  in  Frefich  and  German.  At  times  she  makes  ef- 
fective use  of  Scripture. 

In  "After  Sunset"  there   is  but  little  suggestion  of  other 


ROSAMUND  MARRIOTT  WATSON.  339 

poets — the  verse  is  her  own;  and  yet  the  imagery  of  ^'Children 
of  the  Mist"  strangely  reminds  one  of  Poe : 

"There  is  no  sound  'twixt  stream  and  sky, 

But  white  mists  walk  the  strand, 
Waifs  of  the  night  that  wander  by, 

Wraiths  from  the  river-land — 
While  here,  beneath  the  dripping  trees. 
Stray  other  souls  most  lost  than  these. 

"Voiceless  and  visionless  they  fare, 
Known  all  too  well  to  me — 
Ghosts  of  the  years  that  never  were. 

The  years  that  could  not  be — 
And  still,  beneath  eternal  skies. 
The  old  blind  river  gropes  and  sighs." 

Although  original,  the  following  lines  from  "A  Ruined  Al- 
tar" almost  sound  like  an  echo  of  Edward  Rowland  Lill: 

"Here,  long  ago,  were  toil,  and  thought,  and  laughter, 
Poor  schemes  for  pleasures,  piteous  plans  for  gain, 
Love,  fear,  and  strife — for  men  were  born  and  died  here — 
Strange  human  passion,  bitter  human  pain." 

Similarly  a  line  in  "D'Outremer," 

"And  if  'tis  silence,  then  so  best,  my  dear: 
All  will  be  with  me," 

recalls  Huxley's  tribute  to  Tennyson. 

Of  the  reflective  poems  one,  *'The  Coup  de  Grace,"  is  es- 
pecially happy: 

"Pain  and  the  years  press  hard  upon  our  track. 

Sleuth-hounds  of  Time  and  his  grey  huntsman,  Death; 
And  now  we  hide — and  now  would  double  back — 
And  now  we  stand  and  halt  awhile  for  breath. 

"Most  green  and  goodly  is  the  hunting-ground. 

With  pleasant  shade  and  golden  glints  of  sun, 
Yet  still  we  hear  the  baying  of  the  hounds, 
Or  far,  or  near,  until  the  chase  be  done. 


I 


340  THE  GLOBE. 

"The  gaunt  grey  Huntsman  stalks  behind  the  trees 

Until  the  laboring  heart  is  spent  and  broke, 
Till  the  doomed  quarry  stumbles  to  its  knees 
And  he  may  stoop  to  deal  the  mercy-stroke." 

It  is»a  genuine  delight  in  nature  that  breathes  through 
"Wanderlied"  and  ''Die  Zauberflote."  One  hardly  knows  whicfi 
of  these  two  lyrics  to  admire  most.    The  latter  is  quoted  in  full : 

"A  thrush  is  singing  on  the  walnut  tree — 

The  leafless  walnut-tree  with  silver  boughs, 
He  sings  old  dreams  long  distant  back  to  me — 
He  sings  me  back  to  childhoods'  happy  house. 

"O  to  be  you,  triumphant  Voice-of-Gold, 

Red  rose  of  song  above  the  empty  bowers, 
Turning  the  faded  leaves,  the  hopes  grown  cold. 
To  Springtide's  good  green  world  of  growing  flowers: 

"Might  the  great  change  that  turns  the  old  to  new 

Remould  this  clay  to  better  blossoming, 
I  would  be  you,  Great-Heart,  I  would  be  you, 
And  sing  like  you  of  Love  and  Death  and  Spring." 

There  is  a  felicitous  touch  in  ''Zigeunerlied :" 

"Dim  are  the  stars  though  the  moon  rose  bright; 
My  chamber  is  full  of  the  sweet  Spring  night." 

''After  Sunset"  is  a  book  to  be  grateful  for,  although  nothingj- 
in  it  be  so  memorable  as  "Vespertilia,"  whose  keynote  is  in  the 
powerful  line, 

"Love  will  be  life     ...     ah  Love  is  Life!  she  cried." 

So  far  Mrs.  Watson  has  attempted  nothing  beyond  short 
flights  of  song.  It  remains  to  be  seen  how  she  would  succeed 
in  the  drama  or  extended  narrative.  Her  work  would  then  in- 
vite comparison  with  the  plays  of  Miss  Bradley  and  Miss  Cooper, 
the  two  ladies  who  write  under  the  pseudonym  of  Michael  Field. 

Mrs.  Watson  is  a  woman  of  attractive  personality.  She  is 
the  wife  of  a  literary  man,  Henry  B.  M.  Watson,  author  of  "The 
Adventurers,"  "Alarms  and  Excursions,"  and  other  books. 

Eugene  Parsons. 


GLOBE  NOTES.  341 

GLOBE  NOTES. 


During  the  month  of  October,  1904,  while  mentioning  to  a 
friend  the  fact  that  the  Fall  of  1904  marked  the  fifteenth  anni- 
versary of  the  founding  of  the  Globe  Review^  it  was  suggested 
that  many  of  its  subscribers  might  be  glad  to  contribute  some 
slight  testimonial  in  appreciation  of  the  work  of  its  founder  and 
present  editor ;  and  as  this  was  talked  over  I  finally  went  through 
the  subscription  book,  and  after  marking  off  some  hundreds  of 
names  of  persons  to  whom  for  various  reasons  I  did  not  wish  to 
have  any  appeal  made,  I  turned  the  books  over  to  my  friends 
and  said  they  might  do  what  seemed  proper  to  do  under  the  cir- 
cumstances named.  In  consequence,  a  very  modest  note  was 
sent  to  those  who  might  be  glad  to  avail  themselves  of  the  op- 
portunity indicated. 

If  any  persons  received  such  note  who,  for  any  reason, 
thought  that  their  names  should  not  have  been  included,  I  sin- 
cerely ask  their  pardon  for  any  momentary  inconvenience  of 
thought  that  might  have  been  caused  them.  I  sincerely  hope 
that  they  may  survive  the  shock.  Those  whose  letters  of  kind- 
ness, accompanied  by  larger  or  smaller  remittances,  of  apprecia- 
tion of  my  work  came  to  me  as  sunbeams  out  of  a  cloudy  sky 
of  toil  and  sickness,  I  can  but  return  my  sincerest  and  grateful 
thanks.  I  did  not  assum,e  or  presume  that  every  person 
sending  to  the  testimonial  agreed  with  all  of  my  utter- 
ances in  the  Globe  Review.  In  fact,  I  knew  to  the  contrary, 
and  all  the  more  appreciated  their  generous  kindness.  The  re- 
mittances so  sent  enabled  me  to  meet  certain  pressing  obligations, 
and  if  my  health  will  permit,  to  continue  the  work  which  for 
many  years  has  received  its  full  share  of  praise  and  blame.  I 
am  writing  this  on  Christmas  Eve,  1904.  I  founded  the  Globe 
Review  in  order  to  bring  the  teachings  of  the  Ten  Command- 
ments and  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  as  understood  by  me,  to 
bear  upon  all  the  literary,  political,  financial,  and  social  phenom- 
ena of  this  day  and  generation,  and  in  the  light  of  said  teachings 
to  call  a  spade  a  spade,  whether  used  by  kings,  presidents,  popes, 
and  archbishops,  or  by  any  hack  politician  or  labor  reformer, 
and  without  dreaming  of  fear  or  favor  from  any  man  or  organi- 
zation of  men  under  the  sun.  All  that  I  can  say  is  that  I  have 
been  loyal  through  these  fifteen  years  to  the  purpose  I  had  upper- 


342  THE  GLOBE, 

most  in  founding  this  magazine.  I  sincerely  regret  any  offence 
that  I  have  given,  but  I  have  set  nothing  down  in  malice,  or  vin- 
dictiveness,  and  the  severest  things  I  have  ever  written  of  any 
man  I  would  have  said  to  the  face  of  such  a  man  had  he  pre- 
sented himself  to  me  at  any  time.  I  have  been  called  a  good 
hater,  but  I  have  never  hated  any  human  being.  I  have  forgiven 
more  insults  than  usually  fall  to  the  lot  of  any  one,  and  I  still 
believe  and  try  to  practice  the  doctrine  that  it  is  better  to  for- 
give than  to  avenge.  I  still  try  to  pray  for  those  that  despite- 
fully  use  and  abuse  me,  trying  in  all  things  tO'  shape  my  life  to 
the  teachings  of  the  divine  Master,  Whose  life  and  Whose  words 
I  believe  with  all  my  heart  and  soul  to  be  the  master  words  and 
the  master  teachings  and  the  master  forces  of  all  the  ages  and 
the  eternity.  I  have  no  apology  to  make  for  any  teachings  or 
words  of  mine.  My  only  regret  is  that,  having  had  so  many 
cares  and  such  poor  health,  especially  these  last  eight  or  ten 
years,  I  have  not  always  been  able  to  express  my  thoughts  with 
the  clearness  and  power  that  at  times  God  seems  to  have  given 
me.  And  with  these  explanations,  I  bid  my  friends  and  by  ene- 
mies a  Christian  and  a  happy  New  Year. 

Many  times  during  the  past  fifteen  years  it  has  time  and 
again  been  a  question  with  me  whether  I  should  have  the  finan- 
cial or  physical  strength  to  issue  the  succeeding  and  expected 
number  of  the  Globe  Review.  Never  has  this  anxiety  been  more 
perplexing  than  during  the  two  or  three  months  preceding  the 
present  issue,  and  similar  experiences  may  occur  again.  Friends 
that  I  have  trusted  m  have  once  and  again  failed  me  utterly,  but 
I  have  determined  at  every  hour  that  the  Globe  Review,  if  it 
came  out  at  all,  should  stand  for  the  simple  truth  of  Christ,  and 
that  no  cardinal,  archbishop,  priest,  parson,  politician,  or  any 
simpler  and  more  untaught  figurehead  should  dare  to  interfere 
with  the  simple  ^^uth  of  God  as  it  has  been  given  me  to  utter  it. 
And  if  the  Globe  still  lives,  it  shall  live  on  these  lines,  though 
all  hell  yawns  to  suppress  it.  I  am  not  anxious  about  its  life  or 
mv  own  life. 


The  last  three  months  of  the  year  1904  were  unusually  pro- 
lific of  events  that  called  for  intelligent  and  fearless  review.  I 
was  well  enough  to  read  and  see  all  the  facts  and  to  note  the  op- 


GLOBE  NOTES.  '  343 

f  ortunities,  but  was  not  well  enoug-h  to  do  the  needed  work. 
Roosevelt  was  elected  by  a  total  majority  amounting  to  millions. 
The  party  organs  placarded  the  fact  by  geographical  charts, 
showing  how  the  Democratic  'vote  had  been  cut  down  to  the  old 
slave  section  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line,  and  in  large  fig- 
ures crowed  and  crowed  over  the  unprecedented  victory.  The 
toothpick  organs,  like  the  New  York  Times,  the  New  York  Sun, 
and  the  Philadelphia  Public  Ledger,  tried  to  apologize  for  the 
errors  of  their  so-called  "independent"  utterances,  and  concluded 
practically  that  they  had  all  been  blind  and  kicking  and  senseless 
asses;  proclaimed  Theodore  Roosevelt  as  the  one  representative, 
modern  American  man,  upright,  straightforward,  clear  headed, 
courageous,  and  true  to  all  the  leading  questions  and  principles 
of  government  and  of  humanity ;  and  Archbishop  Ryan,  of  Phila- 
delphia, in  the  Catholic  Cathedral  of  Saints  Peter  and  Paul,  con- 
firmed the  infamous  falsehood. 

Of  course,  the  leading  Catholic  journals  throughout  the 
country  repeated  the  archbishop's  laudatory  palaver  in  praise  of 
Roosevelt.  Whether  as  an  act  of  pious  devotion  to  the  prelate 
or  in  loyalty  to  supposed  Catholic  faith,  I  know  not;  but  it  is  a 
custom  of  the  ''faithful"  to  begin  always  with  lauding  the 
Church  in  all  its  papal  words  and  works;  to  laud  and  defend 
any  members  of  the  hierarchy  in  any  and  all  of  his  utterances, 
right  or  wrong;  in  fact,  it  seems  to  be  an  understanding  among 
Caholics  to  worship  and  defend  their  local  priest,  first,  next  their 
local  bishop,  next  their  local  archbishop,  next  and  highest,  the 
Pope  and  the  Church,  whatever  the  attitude  toward  any  question, 
domestic,  social,  political,  personal,  philosophic,  national  or  in- 
ternational, as  the  case  may  be.  How  does  it  work  in  the  pres- 
ent instance? 

Of  all  the  public  men  in  the  United  States,  President  Roose- 
velt, from  the  time  he  was  Assistant  Secretary  of  War  under 
Long,  during  McKinley's  first  term,  and  all  through  McKinley's 
second  term,  while  Theodore  was  Vice-President,  and  then  acting 
President,  Roosevelt  was  first  and  foremost  in  agitating  in  favor 
of  the  infamous  war  with  Spain,  playing  the  humanitarian  dema- 
gogue, as  if  foT  the  sake  of  Cuba,  Porto  Rico  and  the  Philip- 
pines, and  since  the  war  has  been  constantly  persistent,  whether 
violating  all  the  known  usages  of  war,  as  in  the  advancement  of 
General  Wood,  as  in  his  defence  of  all  the  tyranny  of  Taft,  and 


344  ^^^  GLOBE. 

Up  to  the  latest  hour,  one  of  the  most  persistent  in  decrying 
Spanish  rule  in  all  the  old  Spanish  provinces,  now  American  so- 
ealled,  and  in  persecuting-  and  slaying  the  natives,  no  matter  how 
intelligent,  religious  and  patriotic  they  have  been,  and  all  this 
from  the  first  day  to  the  last  goaded  by  Catholic  hating  Free 
Masonry,  or  by  his  own  hatred  of  the  Church,  and  yet,  because 
he  has  in  the  last  few  months  appointed  two  or  three  Catholics 
to  secondary  positions,  and  of  course  for  political  and  selfish 
reasons,  even  Archbishop  Ryan  had  to  slop  over,  and  on  Christ- 
mas Day,  as  a  part  of  the  holiest  and  divinest  service  known  to 
the  world,  had  to  glorify  and  profane  the  occasion,  not  by  mag- 
nifying the  quenchless  glories  of  the  love  and  victory  of  Jesus 
Christ,  but  by  daubing  with  untempered  mortar  the  grinning 
cracks  in  the  character  of  Roosevelt,  and  proclaiming  him  as  the 
typical  Christian  man  of  our  generation. 

Spain  has  for  centuries  been  one  of  the  foremost  Catholic 
nations  of  the  world;  Spanish  priests  and  bishops  of  heroic, 
human  mould  came  to  this  continent  when  it  was  a  wild  and 
howling  wilderness,  and  taught  the  very  savages  the  glories  of 
the  Cross  and  the  Christ ;  Spanish  monks  of  various  orders  spent 
their  lives  in  civilizing  and  Christianizing  the  Philippines,  while 
the  ancestors  of  the  Roosevelts  and  the  Ryans  were  Dutch  traders 
or  beggars  nearly  three  hundred  years  ago.  At  all  events  the 
Spanish  missionaries  to  the  Philippines  were  civilized  and  de- 
voted God-fearing  Christians  and  Catholic  men  and  scholars,  and 
some  of  them  martyrs,  Catholic  at  all  events,  and  Theodore  by 
one  subterfuge  of  casuistry  or  infamy  and  another  has  crushed 
out  their  work  and  set  up  the  Dutch  and  Taft  Puritan  business 
instead.  For  what  part  of  all  this  infernal  infamy  does  the  Arch- 
bishop now  dare  toi  praise  him  ? 

If,  as  has  Feen  asserted  over  and  over  again,  to  me  person- 
ally, and  in  the  public  press,  the  Spanish  friars  in  Cuba,  Porto 
Rico  and  the  Philippines  were  an  immoral,  brutal,  tyrannical,  un- 
just and  unchristian  set  of  Catholic  saints,  or  if  the  Archbishop 
of  Philadelphia  believes  them  to  have  been  such,  and  that  they 
deserved  the  brutal  conduct  of  our  government  toward  them,  let 
the  Archbishop  come  out  openly  and  say  so.  TBen  may  he  find 
some  reason  or  some  thin  excuse  for  his  laudation  of  Theodore 
Roosevelt.  But  Catholic  magazines  of  repute,  edited  by  Ameri- 
■can  Catholic  gentlemen  of  repute,  have  held  and  taught  the  con- 


GLOBE  NOTES.  345 

trary,  defending  the  bright  and  saintly  character  of  the  friars  of 
the  PhiHppines,  and  expatiating  on  the  noble  and  beautiful  civiliz- 
ing work  they  did  among  the  natives  for  nearly  three  hundred 
years ;  and  if  Archbishop  Ryan  is  a  true  Catholic,  believes  in  the 
work  of  such  Catholic  heroes  and  believes  in  the  representations 
of  said  Catholic  writers  and  publishers,  then  he  has  no  more  right 
to  laud  Roosevelt  as  a  representative  Christian  than  he  has  to 
laud  the  devil  in  hell. 

By  nature,  birth  and  early  training,  I  incline  to  the  Roose- 
velt and  Root  type  of  men  and  service  far  more  than  I  ever  hope 
to  incline  toward  the  archbishops  and  friars  of  America,  Ireland 
or  Spain,  but  in  later  years  I  have  learned  the  glories  and  con- 
sistency of  Catholic  truth,  and  from  the  inception  of  the  Ameri- 
can-Spanish war  I  have  allowed  my  preferences  for  the  Catholic 
religion  to  color  my  utterances  touching  that  war;  not  that  I 
have  ever  allowed  adherence  to  any  creed  to  warp  my  sense  of 
truth  or  to  blind  my  hatred  of  war  as  the  sum  of  all  so-called 
Christian  villainy. 

A  thing  pr  a  man  is  not  right  or  good  or  true  because  an 
archbishop  says  so,  and  Ryan  had  better  begin  again  to  study  the 
first  principles  of  right  and  wrong,  and  he  had  better  make  less 
pretention  and  pray  more  seriously  and  sincerely  from  his  soul 
to  Almighty  God  to  aid  and  inspire  him. 
%  *  *  *  *  * 

Here,  from  the  Literary  Digest  of  December  31,  1904,  is  a 
peep  into  another  vexed  question  the  Globe  has  noted  from  time 
to  time: — 

THE  VATICAN  AND  QUIRINAL. 

"For  the  first  time  since  the  origin  of  the  long  and  sullen 
discord  between  the  Vatican  and  Quirinal,  Roman  Catholics  have 
openly  borne  a  conspicuous  part  in  an  Italian  national  election 
with  something  resembling  a  display  of  approval  by  ecclesiastical 
authorities  of  the  highest  position.  Now  that  all  the  votes  have 
been  counted  and  the  Prime  Minister,  Signor  Giolitti,  is  seen 
to  have  come  off  in  triumphant  style,  the  result  is  claimed  in 
Italian  clerical  organs  as  a  victory  for  the  'forces  of  order,'  sup- 
ported- in  many  constituencies  by  church  influence.  'But,'  de- 
clares the  Paris  Figaro,  Tius  X  has  taken  no  step  and  made  no 
declaration  regarding  the  maintenance  or  the  withdrawal  of  the 


346  THE  GLOBE. 

prohibition  formulated  by  ,Pious  IX.  and  confirmed  on  various 
occasions  Sy  Leo  XIII.'  THis  refers  to  the  'non  expedit/  as  the 
prohibition  referred  to  is  officially  designated.  The  French  daily 
adds : 

'  "The  Pope  simply  let  matters  take  their  course,  and  Italian 
Catholics  understood  that  they  had  the  tacit  acquiescence  of  the 
Pope.  They  went  to  the  voting-booths  and  where  there  were  no 
clerical  candidates  they  voted  for  monarchists  and  for  members 
of  moderate  parties.  Signer  Giolitti  thus  owes  his  success  largely 
to  Pius  X.  and  the  Vatican  prelates  who  gave  the  word. 

"At  Rome  the  parish  priests  took  a  direct  part  in  the  elec- 
tion. Their  campaign  was  particularly  disastrous  to  the  social- 
ists. The  same  thing  may  be  said  of  all  parts  of  Italy.  This 
first  attempt  is  the  prelude  to  full  participation  by  Catholics  in 
the  parliamentary  elections." 

Our  position  on  all  this  has  been,  is  and  will  remain,  first 
that  Pius  IX.  in  presenting  a  hard,  proud,  and  unrelenting  face 
toward  the  forces  that  tended  tO'  unite  all  Italy,  and  in  not  recog- 
nizing the  de  facto  government  of  Italy,  with  its  headquarters 
at  Rome  as  its  capital,  and  especially  in  attempting  to  dictate  to 
all  Italian  Catholics  as  to  their  rights  as  citizens  and  to  forbid 
them  to  act  or  take  part  in  the  government,  acted,  it  is  true,  with 
the  high  conceit  of  authority  so  characteristic  of  a  mediaeval 
Churchman,  whether  you  find  him  in  St.  Petersburg,  Philadelphia 
or  Rome,  but  acted,  nevertheless,  with  childish  lack  of  common 
sense,  without  any  sign  of  diplomacy;  acted,  in  a  word,  like  a 
spoiled,  mistaught  and  pampered  child,  and  no  infallibility  about 
it  at  all;  second,  I  have  all  along  attributed  this  action  and  the 
later  action  of  Pious  X.  and  his  many-tongued  secretary  of  state, 
to  the  cross-grained,  contradictory  and  silly  error  of  adherence 
to  the  dream  of  papal  temporal  power,  and  the  vitiating  effect  of 
this  radical  error  of  Catholic  teaching  and  philosophy  upon  the 
vital  service  of  the  entire  Catholic  hierarchy  Moreover  it  was 
just  like  the  dogged  and  proud  persistency  of  Pius  IX.  to  agitate 
in  favor  of  and  finally  to  enact  the  troublesome  and  only  half- 
defined  and  only  half-true  dogma  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Pope, 
which  dogma  has  already  caused  more  hypocricy  and  more  need- 
less and  utterly  useless  debate  and  discussion,  and  more  suspicion 
of  and  charges  of  heresy  than  all  the  proifound  and  beautiful  and 
spiritual  words  that  Jesus  Christ  ever  uttered.    Third,  not  only  is 


GLOBE  NOTES.  347 

it  perfectly  clear  to  me  that  the  error  of  the  claim  of  temporal 
power  is  at  the  root  of  the  Catholic  opposition  to  the  Italian  gov- 
ernment, but  that  it  is  at  the  root  of  nine-tenths  of  all  the  absurd 
pretentions  and  foibles  of  the  Catholic  hierarchy  in  all  parts  of 
the  world.  Pius  IX.  himself  tried  to  surround  the  dogma  of  the 
temporal  power  with  such  a  halo  of  sacred  scare  and  sham  that 
only  the  bravest  and  most  spiritual  of  the  faithful  have  dared  to 
openly  question  its  truthfulness,  and  only  the  utterly  faithful  to 
abstract  truth  and  justice  have  dared,  as  I  have  dared,  to  refute 
and  ridicule  the  notion.  In  fact,  within  the  last  six  years  a  deep- 
laid  scheme  was  started  by  certain  pliable,  obsequious  and  self- 
seeking  prelates,  some  in  Rome  and  some  in  the  United  States,  to 
press  the  dogma  of  the  temporal  power  as  a  moral  dogma,  bind- 
ing upon  all  the  faithful,  to  be  believed  under  ban  of  excommuni- 
cation, whereas  the  total  promulgation  is  as  contrary  tO'  the  spirit 
and  teaching  of  Christ  as  it  is  inimical  to  the  true  spirit  of  any 
properly  constituted  and  inspired  priest  teaching  and  represent- 
ing the  simple  and  sincere  religion  of  the  divine  founder  of  Chris- 
tianity. 

The  garish  and  foolish  article  of  the  temporal  power  is  at 
the  heart  of  all  the  recent  silly  conduct  of  Pious  X.  toward  the 
French  Government.  Secretary  Merry  del  Val  is  a  subtle,  earn- 
est and  clever  hater  of  the  House  of  Savoy,  a  narrow  offspring  of 
the  most  recent  Vaticanism  of  the  Catholic  Church.  Like  various 
of  the  acts  of  the  Council  of  Trent  in  relation  to  the  Reformation, 
the  Vatican  Council  was  born  of  intense  hatred  of  the  upheavals 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  all  the  hide-bound  disciples  of  Vati- 
canism are  a  conceited  company  of  gentlemen,  overcharged  with 
the  consciousness  of  temporal  powerism,  as  applied  to  all  their  acts 
and  conduct,  as  if  it  were  possible  to  browbeat  Christ  into  the 
heart  of  the  human  race  by  means  of  a  pretentious  and  unreal 
authority.  Teach  Christ,  live  Christ,  be  ready  at  need  to  die  for 
Christ,  as  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  Christians  of  all 
creeds  have  been  before  you,  and  the  world  will  respect  and 
honor  you.  Accept  your  salary  from  a  French  president  or  king, 
and  pretend  to  oppose  his  visits  to  an  Italian  Catholic  king,  and 
the  world  will  laugh  at  and  despise  you.  To  perdition  with  such 
1  eligion ! 

The  sharp  and  repulsive  features  of  much  of  this  temporal 
powerism  were  held  in  abeyance  during  the  pontificate  of  Leo 


348  THE  GLOBE. 

XIII.,  and  the  question  of  the  infalHbiHty  of  the  utterances  of  the 
Pope  was  vailed.  Leo  XIII.  was  a  supreme  diplomat  and  an  ex- 
perienced gentleman;  brave-minded  for  a  modern  Italian,  and 
though  he  reaffirmed  the  Vaticanism  of  Pius  IX.  regarding  the 
temporal  power,  the  attitude  of  the  Church  toward  the  Italian 
Government  and  the  dogma  of  infallibility,  his  defence  of  all  this 
was  not  as  a  dogmatist,  nor  as  an  imperial  ruler,  but  as  a  Chris- 
tian gentleman,  as  a  diplomatist,  and  as  a  philosopher,  and  his 
final  and  greatest  act  was  to  establish  a  tribunal  on  the  Scriptures, 
which  placed  him  side  by  side  with  all  advanced  Biblical  schol- 
ars; that  is,  he  acted  as  a  brother  and  as  a  friend  of  mankind, 
and  not  as  a  tyrant  or  butcher;  not  as  an  inexperienced,  insular 
and  many-tongued  butcher,  determined  to  jam  even  his  duplicity 
into  the  heart  of  the  world  under  the  pretence  of  infallibility  and 
authority,  backed  by  the  folly  of  papal  temporal  power. 

Several  good  Catholic  subscribers  and  friends  have  written 
me  in  mild  and  kindly  rebuke  of  my  assumed  censoriousness  of 
the  Pope  and  the  Catholic  hierarchy,  and  I  appreciate  their  kind 
utterances.  But  is  it  not  rather  their  own  sensitiveness  about 
hearing  any  criticisms  of  their  teachers  and  so-called  rulers  ?  For 
my  friends'  sake  I  would  rather  never  again  write  any  criticism 
of  any  pope  or  prelate  whatever,  but  as  long  as  my  own  mission 
in  this  world  is  to  bear  witness  to  God's  truth  in  the  light  of  my 
own  intelligence,  I  cannot  deny  the  light  that  is  clear  to  me  or 
deny  my  own  duty  to  truth  in  anj  case.  Pius  X.  is  a  good  man 
unexpectedly  exalted  to  the  highest,  the  most  difficult  position  in 
the  world.  For  advisor  he  has  a  young  man  of  scholastic  learn- 
ing, but  of  very  limited  cast  of  vision.  The  greatest  questions 
that  have  ever  vexed  the  mind  of  man  are  now  vexing  their 
minds,  and  their  actions  prove  of  how  little  use  mere  stilted 
dogmas  are  in  the  settlement  of  such  questions.  The  world  is 
not  full  of  children,  and  there  still  are  some  able  men. 


Hfere,  from  the  New  York  Sun,  as  copied  by  the  New  York 
Freeman's  Journal,  is  the  latest  piece  of  journalistic  high  and 
mighty  tumbling  clownism  that  has  adorned  the  circus  business 
of  the  twentieth  century.  We  give  it  word  for  word,  as  the  tom- 
fool journals  printed  it  and  repeated  it: 


GLOBE  NOTES.  349 

"WHY  NOT  LET  IRELAND  GO?" 

"The  best  thing  that  England  could  do  to-day  would  be  to 
set  Ireland  at  liberty.  There  is  nothing  else  that  would  so  much 
conduce  to  English  happiness,  prosperity  and  security. 

"Give  Ireland,  not  Home  Rule,  but  complete  separation  and 
liberty.  Let  her  be  a  race,  a  people  and  a  nation  apart.  Tie  no 
string  to  her  freedom,  impose  no  restriction  but  the  sea  between, 
and  let  her  go  free  as  the  air,  like  a  bird  from  its  prison. 

"There  is  no  way,  and  there  never  will  be  any  way,  of  turn- 
ing Irishmen  into  Welshmen  or  Scotchmen.  They  are  impossible 
of  absorption.  To  govern  them  is  in  vain.  They  might  be  all 
shot,  or  they  might  be  all  drowned,  but  they  can  never  be  domes- 
ticated while  Ireland  remains  an  island. 

"Since  England  became  civilized — about  a  century  agone — 
all  her  attempts  at  governing  instead  of  murdering  Ireland  have 
been  the  derision  of  attentive  nations.  Her  injustice  has  been 
hard  to  bear,  but  her  conciliation  has  been  more  intolerable  yet. 
The  more  she  placates,  the  more  she  bears  gifts  with  both  hands, 
the  more  exasperating  and  utterly  without  hope  th6  situation  be- 
comes. 

"There  was  once  a  man  that  did  languish  seventeen  dreadful 
years  in  a  darksome  dungeon  foul,  when  a  bright  thought  struck 
him  and  he  opened  the  window  and  got  out!  There  is  the  very 
iaea.  Put  away  the  futility  of  ages,  open  the  window  and  let 
Ireland  go. 

"Captain  Mahan,  who  is  really  an  Irishman  in  a  heavy  dis- 
guise, says  England  cannot  afford  to  set  Ireland  free,  because  of 
the  fatal  weakness  that  would  then  be  hers  when  she  went  to 
war  with  one  of  the  powers,  by  reason  of  having  a  hostile  nation, 
however  small,  in  her  rear.    We  do  not  believe  a  word  of  it. 

"Ireland,  given  her  liberty  without  condition,  agreement, 
treaty  or  stipulation,  could  never  be  an  enemy  in  the  rear.  The 
Irish  are  not  built  that  way.  To  make  such  a  thing  possible, 
Ireland  would  have  to  be  removed  to  the  furthest  spot  on  the 
globe.  Contiguity  for  an  Irishman,  other  things  being  equal,  is 
fatal  to  hostility.  If  Ireland  were  set  free,  as  an  act  of  sponta- 
neous nobility,  generosity  and  justice,  and  the  Continent  of  Eu- 
rope were  to  set  upon  England,  the  Irish  would  swim  across  the 
Channel,  if  they  couldn't  get  boats,  to  be  in  the  fight  from  the 
start. 


350  THE  GLOBE. 

"No  matter  what  the  row  was  about,  the  Irish 'would  have 
to  be  in  it ;  and  nowhere  else  in  the  whole  world  would  they  fight 
so  congenially,  heartily  and  naturally  as  on  the  side  of  the  Sasse- 
nach for  the  cause  of  Albion,  Albion  perfidious  never  more.  Hu- 
man nature  is  more  potent  than  all  the  ties  that  statesmen  can 
fashion  or  impose,  and  human  nature  is  much  the  same  all  over 
the  world,  but  nowhere  else  is  it  of  a  warmer  quality  than  it  is 
in  Ireland. 

"What  would  the  whole  world  say  if  England  were  to  pro- 
claim today :  'Next  Christmas  Day  as  ever  is  the  soil  of  Ireland 
and  all  the  people  that  inhabit  Ireland  shall  be  quit  of  Britain  for- 
ever. On  that  gracious  and  hallowed  day  it  shall  be  theirs,  with- 
out let,  hint  or  hindrance,  to  shape  Fate  to  their  own  liking;  and 
may  a  beneficent  Deity  smile  upon  the  time!' 

"It  would  take  a  year  to-  withdraw  all  the  paraphernalia, 
whitewash  the  Pigeon  House,  get  the  Castle  fit  for  a  gentleman 
to  live  in,  prepare  the  Bank  of  Ireland  for  the  Senate  and  the 
House,  and  otherwise  get  everything  ready. 

"What  would  the  world  say?  The  world  would  say  that 
England  had  not  done  so'  good  or  so  grand  a  thing  since  her 
people  took  her  rulers  by  the  neck  and  extorted  from  them  the 
Great  Charter.  The  world  would  say,  too,  and  truly,  that  never 
at  all  had  England  done  an  act  so  wise." 

For  the  sake  of  deliberate  honesty  and  seriousness,  though, 
and  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  Sun  has  long  been 
charged  with  Irish  and  Catholic  tendencies,  we  suspect  that  the 
sole  meaning  of  this  editorial  is  a  huge  joke.  Let  us  briefly  go 
over  some  of  its  points  and  indicate  its  weakness  and  folly.  I 
agree,  however,  with  the  first  paragraph,  and  hold  that,  were  it 
possible,  the  thing  proclaimed  would  be  the  best  thing  that  Eng- 
land could  do.  But,  in  all  the  past  centuries  Ireland  never  has 
been  and  never  can  be  a  people  and  a  nation  apart.  For  two 
thousand  years,  at  least,  Ireland  and  her  people  have  intermingled 
with  and  never  have  been  apart  from,  but  part  of,  the  British 
Isles.  The  migration  has  never  all  been  one  way,  is  not  now  and 
never  will  be.  Many  of  the  best  and  bravest  men  of  Irish  birth 
have  become  integral  parts  of  the  army,  the  navy,  the  law,  and 
the  literature  of  Britain.  It  is  only,  or  very  largely,  the  unreason- 
able Irish  politician  and  beggar  that  is  forever  abusing  England 
and  the  English.     Above  all  it  is  the  Irish  politician,  come  to 


GLOBE  NOTES.  35i 

America  for  begging  purposes,  that  is  awfully,  awfully  wild  in 
his  antipathy  to  England.  The  enthusiasm  of  the  Irish  as  a  whole 
for  the  Catholic  religion  often  augments  the  Irish  politician,  and 
some  of  its  prelates  in  this  country  will  go  to  strange  irrational 
lengths  in  their  partiality  for  what  is  called  the  Irish  cause.  Let 
them,  and  let  the  prosperous  Irish-American  politicians  quit  their 
fat  positions,  raise  an  army,  and  cross  the  sea  and  free  Ireland, 
if  their  hearts  are  really  bent  on  it.  But  were  Ireland  free,  cut 
adrift,  free  as  a  bird,  how  long  would  the  dove  of  peace  accom- 
pany the  starling  of  Irish  peace  ? 

Where  the  fool  writer  of  this  editorial  speaks  of  when  Eng- 
land became  civilized  ''about  a  century  ago,"  he  shows  his  ignor- 
ance of  history  or  his  purposed  misrepresentation  of  it,  but  he 
admits  rather  frankly  that  England's  kindnesses  to  the  subject 
people  are  utterly  unappreciated.  Let  him  compare  the  history 
of  Ireland  previous  to  the  English  possession  with  the  history  of 
Ireland  since  Cromwell's  time.  Ireland  has  been  better  and  more 
peacefully  governed  these  last  three  hundred  years  than  ever 
before.  As  Irishmen  at  home  show  any  capacity  for  government 
and  peace,  positions  are  open  to  them ;  but  as  long  as  they  show 
especial  aptitude  for  deception,  trickery  and  treachery,  they  will 
probably  find  the  traitor's  grave,  and  whether  on  land  or  on  sea, 
that  has  never  been  the  most  enviable  sort  of  resting  place  for 
any  man. 

'No  matter  how  England  might  act  in  any  conceivable  method 
of  cutting  Ireland  adrift  and  ignoring  her  existence,  Ireland 
would  not  be  ignored,  and  she  could  not  organize  and  fight  her 
own  way  out  were  all  the  Irish  wealth  in  the  United  States  to  go 
over  to  help  her.  It  would  only  be  a  new  attempt  to  bridge  the 
air  with  the  brogue  of  barbarism.  Irishmen  are  not  unlike  other 
men  in  this,  that  they  want  the  universe  for  their  portion,  and 
untrammelled  freedom  as  their  own.  But  to  aim  for  this  is  to 
fight  in  some  dire  way  and  perhaps  to  die,  as  many  Irish  ecclesi- 
astics known  to  us  little  dream  of.    Let  them  try. 


And  even  Philadelphia  has  got  a  wiggle  on.  What  is  worse, 
it  is  an  ecclesiastical  wiggle,  with  ramifications  and  male  ai^d 
female  wigglings  extending  into  the  prominent  and  pious  circles 
of  several  States  of  the  Union ;  hence  we  notice  it,  supposing  that 


352  THE  GLOBE. 

the  circle  of  Globe  readers  may  have  heard  or  felt  its  interstate 
wigglements  in  one  shape  or  another.  ,  The  warlike  spirit  of  the 
twentieth  century  calls  it  all  a  fight,  of  course,  and  here  from  a 
copy  of  the  Philadelphia  Press  of  last  December,  is  a  character- 
istic statement  of  the  case : 

The  Talbot-Irvine  controversy  had  its  inception  in  1899  i^ 
Huntingdon,  when  Mrs.  Emma  D.  Elliott,  the  most  generous 
contributor  to  St.  John's  Church,  quarreled  with  Dr.  Irvine  over 
a  $30  contribution  she  said  had  been  diverted  from  its  purpose. 
Knowing  that  the  woman  had  been  divorced  on  grounds  not 
recognized  by  the  Church,  Dr.  Irvine  sought  to  have  her  excom- 
municated, asking  Bishop  Talbot's  opinion  without  mentioning 
Mrs.  Elliott's  name.  The  bishop  decided  that  the  woman  should 
be  excommunicated.  Following  is  a  synopsis  of  the  developments 
from  that  time  on : — 

February  8,  1899 — Dr.  Irvine  refused  to  administer  com- 
munion to  Mrs.  Elliott. 

February  9 — Mrs.  Elliott  wrote  to  Bishop  Talbot  explaining 
tht  situation,  and  making  charges  against  Irvine. 

February  10 — Bishop  Talbot  wrote  toi  Irvine,  saying  a  mis- 
take had  been  made  in  Mrs.  Elliott's  case,  as  she  was  the  inno- 
cent party  in  a  divorce,  and  asking  the  rector  to  make  up  his 
quarrel  with  the  woman. 

February  11 — Irvine  refused  to  restore  Mrs.  Elliott  as  a 
communicant,  and  Bishop  Talbot  ordered  him  to  resign. 

February  12,  or  thereabouts — Dr.  Irvine  resigned.  A  week 
oj  two  later  the  vestry  elected  him  to  the  rectorship  again,  anger- 
ing the  bishop. 

March  7,  or  thereabouts — Irvine  was  arrested,  accused  of 
forgery,  Mrs.  Elliott  being  the  accuser. 

March  17 — At  the  hearing  in  the  forgery  case  the  famous 
letter  written  by  Bishop  Talbot  to  Mrs.  Elliott,  in  which  the  bis- 
hop suggested  that  if  the  woman  could  convict  Irvine  in  a  court 
of  record  he  (the  bishop)  would  ''unfrock  the  slimy  fellow." 

May  2 — The  forgery  indictment  against  Irvine  was  quashed 
for  lack  of  evidence. 

May  9 — Irvine  was  cited  by  the  bishop  to  appear  in  Wilkes- 
Barre  before  the  Church  Standing  Committee  to  show  cause  why 
he  should  not  resign. 

May  17 — Court  enjoined  the  bishop  in  this  proceeding. 


GLOBE  NOTES.  353 

May  23 — While  Irvine  was  away  the  committee  went  to 
Huntingdon  and  heard  testimony,  most  of  it  ap-ainst  Irvine,  who 
says  his  friends  were  not  welcome  witnesses. 

May  29 — Bishop  Talbot  appointed  a  committee  to  investi- 
gate rumors  said  to  have  been  set  afloat  about  Irvine  by  the  bis- 
hop himself  and  Mrs.  Elliott. 

September  14 — The  committee  reported  a  presentment 
against  Dr.  Irvine,  serious  charges  being  made,  but  the  present- 
ment was  defective,  it  is  alleged  by  Irvine's  friends. 

September  27 — The  bishop  signed  the  presentment. 

January  25,  1900 — An  ecclesiastical  court  assembled,  and 
Dr.  Irvine  refused  to  plead. 

February  20 — The  court  reassembled  and  overruled  D^.  Ir- 
vine's demurrer  to  the  presentment.  Bishop  Talbot  had  been 
summoned  to  this  session,  but  ignored  the  summons. 

March  27 — The  bishop  again  violated  the  canons  by  refusing 
to  appear  to  give  testimony  regarding  his  letter  to  Mrs.  Elliott. 

April  7 — The  court  reached  a  verdict,  recommending  that 
Irvine  be  deposed  from  the  ministry. 

April  25 — Bishop  Talbot  unfrocked  Dr.  Irvine. 

September  28,  1901 — Dr.  Irvine  sent  an  appeal  to  the  House 
of  Bishops,  in  general  convention  in  San  Francisco,  demanding 
reinstatement.  A  committee  acting  on  his  petition  suggested 
that  Irvine  proceed  in  the  church  tribunals  against  the  bishop, 
hoping  thus  to  furnish  a  solution  of  the  problem. 

This  Dr.  Irvine  did,  and  presenters  made  charges  early  in 
1902  before  a  court  of  inquiry  at  Harrisburg.  This  court  ignored 
the  charges. 

December  12-17,  '^9^'2- — The  suit  of  Dr.  Irvine  against  Bis- 
hop Talbot,  Mrs.  Elliott  and  her  husband,  for  $25,000  damages 
for  alleged  conspiracy  was  tried  at  Huntingdon,  and  the  judge 
instructed  the  jury  to  give  a  verdict  for  the  defendants.  The 
State  Supreme  Court  dismissed  an  appeal. 

December  24 — The  action  taken  in  preparing  a  new  present- 
ment against  Bishop  Talbot  was  announced. 

Throughout  all  this  controversy,  as  far  as  I  am  able  to  judge 
of  newspaper  reports  and  private  conversations,  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Irvine  suffers  the  disadvantage  of  seeming  to  be  the  under  dog. 
An  unfrocked  or  a  deposed  clergyman  cuts  a  sorry  figure  in  the 
eyes  of  the  world,  and  himself  is  such  an  unfortunate  person  as 


354  THE  GLOBE, 

to  command  my  sympathy  at  the  start.  As  for  a  bishop,  who  is 
simply  a  priest  or  clergyman  with  a  parish  more  or  less  extended, 
X6  unfrock  or  depose  a  clergyman  is  to  my  mind  an  act  so  vital, 
so  deep,  and  so  far  reaching,  alike  in  its  effects  on  bishop  and 
priest  and  the  community  at  large,  that  a  bishop  had  better  hang 
himself  than  depose  a  clergyman,  unless  he  is  clear  as  heaven  as 
to  the  clergyman's  actual  and  serious  crime,  and  as  to  his  own 
absolute  duty  in  the  specific  case. 

I  use  the  terms  clergyman  and  priest  here  as  synonymous, 
because  they  are  so  used  in  the  common  parlance  of  the  day,  not 
that  I  believe  them  so,  but  still  further  because  in  the  note  I  have 
to  make  of  the  Talbot-Irvine  case,  will  apply  equally  to  certain 
well-known  Roman  Catholic  instances  of  a  similar  character  . 

One  of  the  charges  laid  at  the  door  of  Df.  Irvine,  and  one 
that  sticks  most  closely  in  the  popular  mind  is  the  charge  of 
perjury  noted.  On  this  charge,  as  noted,  the  indictment  was 
quashed  for  lack  of  evidence,  and  on  that  charge,  therefore,  Df. 
Irvine  stands  forever  free.  The  other  knotty  snarl  in  the  case 
is  that  long  ago  when  on  occasion  Dr.  Irvine  asked  Bishop  Tal- 
bot's advice  or  direction  how  to  act  in  the  case  of  a  divorced 
woman,  the  bishop  decided  that  said  woman  should  be  excom- 
municated, but  when  said  bishop  found  that  the  woman  in  the 
case  was  one  Mrs.  Elliott,  so-called,  a  woman  who  had  worn 
purple  in  honor  of  his  own  visits  to  her  house,  the 
IBishop — God  save  the  mark  and  pity  the  foolish  soul,  wrote  to 
Irvine,  saying  a  mistake  had  been  made,  etc.,  etc.,  and  in  due  time 
charges  were  made  against  Irvine  by  the  same  so-called  Mrs. 
Elliott,  and  in  due  time  Irvine  was  unfrocked  and  deposed. 

A  very,  very  sorry  case  indeed,  the  latest  thing  out  about 
\^  at  this  writing  being  that  Mrs.  Bishop  Talbot — again  God  pity 
them  both — is  making  a  statement  charging  that  sensations  are 
coming;  that  Irvine  is  getting  up  presentments  against  Talbot 
and  Talbot  is  seeing  his  lawyer  to  have  the  lawyer 
prove  that  the  presentments  are  not  genuine  or  regular,  that 
there  have  been  other  forgeries,  etc.,  etc.,  all  easy  for  a  lawyer 
to  do,  and  in  Pennsylvania,  where  the  howling  heroes  of  political 
warfare  give  nearly  a  half  million  majority  toward  making  the 
cowboy  hero  of  many  political  battles  President  of  the  United 
States,  there  is  no  telling  what  a  Sunday-school  picnic  may  be 
made  out  of  this  scandal  in  the  long  run. 


GLOBE  NOTES.  355 

Talbot  himself  may  be  deposed,  get  a  divorce,  become  a  con- 
vert and  start  on  a  Catholic  mission  to  the  lepers  of  Molokoi,  and 
end  as  a  saint,  while  Irvine — God  pity  him! — may  become  the 
first  journalistic  martyr  under  Pennsylvania's  proposed  new  gag 
law  for  newspaper  men.  Many  queer  things  occur  in  Pennsyl- 
vania. Nearly  fifty  years  ago  one  James  Buchanan,  a  so-called 
Democrat,  was  elected  President  of  the  United  States,  and  while 
president  did  not  know  whether  the  Constitution  gave  him  any 
right  or  power  to  put  down  by  force  the  most  gigantic  rebellion 
of  modern  times,  and  when  the  lawyers  and  politicians  of  those 
days  were  debating  over  the  problem,  one  "Abe  Lincoln,"  a  rail 
splitter,  did  the  job  and  became  immortal. 

If  we  were  a  picture  paper,  it  would  be  interesting  to  print 
the  pictures  of  the  ladies  and  clergymen  involved  in  the  Talbot- 
Irvine  "warfare,"  with  a .  running  commentary  on  the  physiog- 
nomy of  the  saints  and  angels  involved,  the  primness,  slyness,  or 
trickery  playing  their  little  game  beneath  the  bangs  of  the  fe- 
males and  the  pious  robes  of  the  clergymen.  But  we  cannot 
do  so  now. 

The  case  forcibly  reminds  us  of  certain  famous,  if  not  in- 
famous, cases  that  have  occurred  in  the  American  Roman  Cath- 
olic Church  during  recent  years  and  some  of  which  made  noise 
and  mischief  enough  at  the  time. 

The  case  of  Bishop  McQuaid  and  Father  Lambert  in 
Rochester,  New  York:  But  the  somewhat  tyrannical  Bishop 
and  the  learned  and  able  priest,  the  most  able  and  the  most 
famous  Roman  Catholic  writer  now  in  this  country,  are  both 
still  living  to  tell  the  story.  The  Bishop  deposed  the  priest,  who 
thereupon  appealed  his  case  to  Rome,  and  the  Bishop  had  to  eat 
liumble  pie,  had  to  reinstate  the  priest,  and  henceforth  "rule  his 
diocese"  something  more  like  a  Christian  teacher  ought  to  con- 
duct himself  in  all  his  affairs. 

The  case  of  Archbishop  Corrigan  and  Father  McGlyn  of 
New  York  City,  in  which  with  needless  tyranny  and  no  lack  of 
cruelty  the  Bishop  deposed  the  Priest,  and  after  prolonged  and 
unutterable  misery  on  both  sides,  and  after  the  Priest  had  ap- 
pealed to  Rome,  the  Bishop  again  had  to  eat  humble  pie  and 
reinstate  the  priest.  Both  the  parties  are  now  dead,  and  how  the 
good  God  has  disposed  of  their  souls,  you  nor  I  nor  nobody 
knows  or  cares.    Still  later  in  St.  Louis,  Missouri,  in  which  case 


356  THE  GLOBE. 

the  late  Bishop  showing  no  less  tyranny  and  no  more  real  Chris- 
tianity  proved  himself  quite  willing  to  depose  an  able  priest,  but 
said  priest  was  too  much  for  him,  and  appealed  his  case  to  Rome 
before  the  fell  deed  was  done,  got  an  indefinite  leave  of  absence, 
and  while  the  slow  and  heavy  and  expensive  Roman  prelates  were 
sitting  on  the  case  the  Bishop  died,  but  the  priest,  reinstated  by 
the  act  of  providence,  still  lives  to  point  the  moral  for  other 
bishops  who  may  be  tyrannously  inclined.  Still  another  case,  re- 
cently explained  in  the  Globe  Review^  fought  itself  out  in  Lin- 
coln, Nebraska,  and  their  fellow  cases — more  or  less  severe  are 
fighting  themselves  out  all  the  time,  and  to  talk  of  such  actions 
in  the  Episcopal  or  Catholic  Church  as  Christian  teaching  is 
simply  absurd.  Any  half  taught  Irish  or  American  Bishop  can 
play  the  petty  tyrant  and  write  himself  down  a  holy  piece  of 
humbuggery,  but  to  rule  one's  own  soul  in  justice  and  charity, 
or  to  rule  a  diocese  or  one's  fellow  man,  priest  or  layman,  is  an- 
other story.  Archbishop  Ryan  of  Philadelphia  assures  the  editor 
of  the  Globe  Review  that  said  editor  was  **all  wrong"  in  his  re- 
view of  the  career  of  Archbishop  Corrigan,  who  was  a  "holy- 
man,*'  et  cetera.  If  Ryan  had  studied  human  character  half  as 
seriously  as  he  has  studied  rhetoric,  he  would  know  better.  If 
the  editor  of  the  Globe  chose  to  tell  one-tenth  of  the  facts  at  his 
disposal,  he  might  let  enough  daylight  in  through  the  Arch- 
bisop's  eloquence  to  convince  the  Churchman  that  he  and  not 
the  editor  of  the  Globe  Review  is  the  person  who  is  moderately 
wrong.  And  in  view  of  such  an  array  of  infallibility  surely  some 
prelates  had  better  pursue  their  own  sphere  of  ecclesiastical 
rhetoric  and  ruling  and  leave  the  intelligence  of  this  age  to  seek 
the  truth  and  express  it  and  try  to  learn  therefrom. 

As  for  the  Archbishop's  eloquent  tribute  to  President  Roose- 
velt, if  he  had  been  a  close  student  of  the  events  of  the  past  seven 
years,  or  were  he  an  enlightened  student  of  character  or 
physiognomy,  not  to  speak  of  consistency  in  his  own  high  and 
holy  calling,  he  would  never  have  so  uttered  himself  in  such  a 
place  and  at  such  a  time,  in  fact,  never,  at  any  time ;  but  officialisna 
will  praise  and  laud  officialism  as  best  it  can.  A  man  who  occu- 
pies what  is  called  a  large  position,  socially  or  politically,  natur- 
ally looks  to  men  occupying  corresponding  positions  as  having 
gifts  and  abilities  corresponding  to  their  positions.  Nothing 
could  be  farther  from  the  truth.     There  are  at  least  fifty  men 


GLOBE  NOTES.  357 

among  the  priests  of  the  archdiocese  of  Philadelphia  abler  and 
more  consistently  pious  than  Archbishop  Ryan,  and,  taking  in  all 
the  great  leading  commercial  concerns  in  the  United  States,  ex- 
cepting the  Roosevelt  Cabinet,  there  are  more  than  one  hundred 
thousand  Americans  more  capable  of  being  President  of  the 
United  States  than  Theodore  Roosevelt  is  at  this  very  hour. 


Archbishop  Ryan's  palaverous  eulogy  of  our  very  ordinary 
President  may  serve  as  an  introduction  to  our  final  Globe  Note 
in  this  issue.  We  have  already  spoken  of  the  Archbishop's  lack 
of  ability  to  act  as  judge  in  Roosevelt's  case.  In  previous  issues 
of  the  Globe  we  have  given  some  pretty  careful  studies  of  the 
subject,  studies  that  abler  men  than  Roosevelt  or  Ryan  have  noted 
and  praised.  In  this  instance  we  have  only  to  request  our  readers 
to  refer  to  those  notes,  and  to  add  that  by  all  the  facts  of  our  po- 
litical history  and  by  all  the  facts  of  scientific  physiognomy  those 
characterizations  are  true.  Roosevelt  was  well  born  and  well  ed- 
ucated. In  entering  public  life  he  had  exalted  ideas  of  personal, 
social  and  political  life,  and  especially  of  the  people's  duty.  His 
father  before  him  was  one  of  the  noblest  and  gentlest  specimens 
of  Christian  charity  I  have  ever  known,  not  so  exacting  regarding 
other  people's  duty  as  regarding  his  own,  not  so  prying  a  detec- 
tive as  our  President,  but  far  more  earnest  in  doing  missionary 
work  among  the  poor  and  outcast  of  New  York  City ;  not  so  eager 
to  cage  the  saloon  keeper  and  disgrace  him  and  the  gambler  as 
to  lend  a  helping  hand  to  help  and  save  the  victims  of  evil  in  all 
lines.  Theodore's  record  is  known.  This  record  proves  the  lines 
of  discrimination  I  have  made.  He  was  born  in  a  less  serious 
age,  educated  among  a  set  of  young  men  who  all  considered  it 
smart  to  be  rather  wild,  loud,  and  cowboyish,  and  Theodore  al- 
ways a  leader  in  loudness  and  mischief  as  well  as  in  reform  of 
his  kind ;  the  kind  noted,  has  had  to  crack  from  the  start  the  most 
contradictory  nut  that  we  have  described.  Two  or  three  years 
ago,  possessed  righteously  with  a  sense  of  the  enormous  rob- 
bery and  wrongs  of  the  American  tariff  and  tHe  American  trusts, 
he  started  on  a  tour  of  the  continent  to  expose  and  check  or  catch 
the  robbers.  The  late  Senator  Hanna,  a  man  of  more  sense  in  a 
day  than  Roosevelt  has  ever  had  in  a  year,  somehow  got  word  to 
Theodore  that  he  was  hunting  trouble  and  it  might  be  well  to 


358  THE  GLOBE. 

come  home  at  once,  Theodore's  lame  leg  gave  him  trouble  and  he 
came  home. 

For  the  past  two  years  at  least  the  snarl  in  Theodore's  char- 
acter has  been  giving  him  a  heap  of  trouble.  The  genuine  am- 
bi*-ion  to  reform  things  was  strong  within  him  and  the  record 
and  the  needs  of  the  Republican  party  were  strong  above  and 
around  him.  He  wanted  to  do  justice  and  to  be  a  reformer.  But 
justice  and  reform  are  made  of  sterner  stuff  than  the  Ryans  or 
the  Theodores.  He  also  wanted  very  much  to  be  President  on 
his  own  account.  Hanna  and  Quay,  both  of  them  and  their 
party  cronies,  said  to  Theodore,  "Shut  your  mouth  on  reform  and 
the  trusts,  Mr.  President,  and  don't  make  too  much  noise  about 
postal  frauds,  Indian  frauds,  in  fact  about  any  frauds.  All  life 
is  mostly  a  fraud,  even  your  own.  Keep  a  little,  in  fact  a  good 
deal  quiet.  Outrage  the  so-called  honor  of  the  nation  in  the 
Colombia  and  Panama  deal  if  you  will;  that  is  in  our  line,  only 
a  little  smarter,  and  puts  you  in  our  class.  Now  never  mind  the 
noise  about  broken  national  honor;  never  mind  the  absurdity  of 
parading  as  the  follower  of  Lincoln  and  the  enemy  of  secession 
while  all  the  time  inveigling  Panama  and  encouraging  her  to  do 
the  very  same  work  that  Lincoln  and  a  million  better  and  nobler 
men  than  you  died  to  conquer.  Lincoln  was  not  a  saint.  The 
people  do  not  reason,  are  in  fact  largely  fools.  Go  ahead,  push 
Wood  ahead  and  push  Root  ahead  and  bring  on  Taft  if  you  will 
and.  make  the  whole  national  tyranny  a  coterie  of  young,  loud 
and  unserious  men.  You  are  in  all  this  a  good  Republican,  in 
our  class,  and  we  will  stand  by  you.  Usurp  in  the  acts  of  the 
executive  the  powers  and  rights  of  the  judiciary  and  the  legisla- 
tive bodies  of  Congress  and  the  Supreme  Court.  We  are  all 
usurpers  and  fool  intriguers  of  a  sort.  Never  mind  all  that,  the 
people  will  get  over  their  shock.  The  newspapers  will  help  them. 
Never  mind.  Stand  pat  with  us  and  we  will  stand  pat  with  you, 
make  you  President,  and  Pat  shall  praise  you." 

Now  perhaps  his  Grace  the  Archbishop  of  Philadelphia,  with 
his  usual  essence  of  wisdom  and  with  his  usual  on  the  fence 
suavity  and  rhetoric,  may  see  in  all  this  the  consistency  and  cour- 
age of  an  upright  and  able  man. 

I  do  not  claim  or  hold  that  Washington  or  Lincoln,  "the 
father  and  saviour"  of  his  country,  were  saints.  The  orthodoxy 
rf  both  was  of  a  questionable  character,  but  I  hold  and  claim 


GLOBE  NOTES.  359 

that  either  Washington  or  Lincoln  would  have  chosen  to  be 
burnt  at  the  stake  as  martyrs  in  the  cause  of  Truth  and  Justice, 
Righteousness  and  Liberty  and  adherence  tO:  the  primal  principles 
of  the  American  Republic  before  either  one  of  them  would  have 
had  his  name  fouled  with  such  a  record  as  the  past  three  years 
have  forced  upon  President  Roosevelt,  and  that  he  has  accepted, 
and  that  the  nation  has  confirmed. 

The  President  may  now  go  on  tours  of  eloquence.  Truth 
and  liberty  alone  have  ever  fired  the  tongues  of  orators,  and  as  I 
have  loved  and  tried  to  honor  this  man,  for  his  father's  sake  as 
well  as  for  his  own,  I  would  now  rather  that  he  would  still  keep 
quiet.  There  is  enough  work  for  him  without  speech  making. 
It  is  a  mockery  for  him  to  exult  in  such  a  victory.  If  the  Amer- 
ican millions  voted  for  him  out  of  hurnan  enthusiasm,  God  have 
mercy  upon  their  stupid  and  blinded  souls. 

It  is  now  January  5,  1905.  This  morning's  Philadelphia 
Press  publishes  a  handsome  portrait  of  Attorney-General  Moody, 
alert  and  wide  awake,  hardly  yet  in  full  middle  life,  arraigning 
the  Beef  Trust.  I  am  not  after  the  law  in  the  case,  though  I  be- 
lieve that  the  total  meddling  of  the  government  with  trusts  and 
corporations  is  as  foolish  as  it  is  unlawful,  the  government  itself 
thus  putting  a  powerful  restraint  on  trade  and  going  out  of  its 
own  line  of  business.  I  am  interested  here  in  the  personnel  of 
the  Moody  member  of  the  Cabinet.  His  face  and  his  pose  and 
expression  are  all  of  the  Roosevelt  age  and  pattern.  Root  is  the 
same.  Taft  is  the  same,  with  a  little  more  reserve.  Cortelyou  is 
aping  the  same  eye  and  expression,  all  showing  that  the  nation 
is  in  the  hands  of  youngsters,  and  though  I  was  never  an  admirer 
of  the  ways  of  Hanna  and  Quay,  I  grieved  when  the  two  strong 
old  men  died.  And  though  I  have  never  been  an  admirer  of  Piatt 
and  Depew,  Mr.  Odell  and  Mr.  Black  are  again  of  the  Roosevelt 
and  Moody  type  and  generation,  and  nothing  of  late  in  politics 
has  pleased  me  more  than  the  recent  so-called  victory  in  New 
York  of  Piatt  over  Odell  and  the  easy  return  of  Senator  Depew 
to  his  old  position. 

I  know  that  the  old  must  give  place  to  the  young  and  to  the 
new,  but  there  are  not  many  of  us  left.  Quay  and  Hanna  and 
Piatt  and  Depew  are  the  most  prominent  of  the  older  generation 
living  in  politics.  Old  man  Cannon  does  not  count.  He  never 
was  good  for  anything  but  to  make  money.    We  are  of  the  gen- 


36o  THE  GLOBE, 

cration  that  fought  the  civil  war.  We  are  few,  I  say,  but  I  can 
pick  out  and  count  still  alive  at  least  five  hundred  men  about  or 
above  the  age  of  sixty  any  one  of  the  five  hundred  of  whom  could 
give  lessons  in  sterling  manhood,  with  or  without  gloves,  in 
scientific  intelligence  in  all  lines,  in  political  sagacity,  in  states- 
manship, in  diplomacy,  in  art,  in  literature,  in  actual  work  of  any 
kind,  and  in  true  rehgion  and  principle  and  truth  and  honor,  as 
well  as  in  deportmanship  and  true  dignity  of  bearing  and  in  all 
the  essentials  of  the  character  of  a  gentleman,  any  one  of  the  five 
hundred  of  whom  could  not  only  give  lessons  to  the  upstart, 
boisterous  Roosevelt  brood,  but  could  single  handed,  man  to  man, 
outthink,  outfight,  outgeneral  and  outgovern  them.  You  may  think 
of  this  only  as  the  envy  of  an  old  man,  but  nevertheless,  gentle- 
men, of  an  old  man  who  has  won  the  crown  for  which  he  started 
in  the  race  forty-four  years  ago. 

Recent  newspapers  are  discussing  the  question  whether  or 
not  Congress  may  or  may  not  be  a  mere  side  show,  and  hinting 
that  the  much  abused  so-called  executive  usurpation  has  come 
to  stay.  Late  in  December,  the  able  and  experienced  editor  of  the 
Philadelphia  Press  published  a  very  significant  editorial  on  "the 
supremacy  of  the  executive."  Now  while  Professor  Young  of 
the  University  of  Pennsylvania  and  Charles  Emery  Smith,  being 
blazing  high  tariff  Pennsylvania  Republicans,  and  as  such  are 
lamentably  astray  in  my  estimation,  they  are  both  right  on  the 
question  of  the  supremacy  of  the  executive.  I  have  hinted  more 
than  once  that  I  had  no  opposition  to  Roosevelt  for  asserting  the 
supremacy  of  the  executive.  Every  ruler,  every  king  or  president 
that  has  ever  lived  has  either  attempted  or  accomplished  this.  It 
is  the  essential  and  fundamental  law  of  all  rule.  "But  in  this 
land  the  people  rule."  Such  folly  is  well  enough  for  children. 
Washington  ruled.  Lincoln  ruled.  Roosevelt  may  now  rule.  I 
hope  he  will.  It  is  the  principle  on  which  and  the  end  for  which 
kings  and  presidents  rule  that  alone  concerns  me.  But  this  too 
will  fight  itself  out  here  as  elsewhere  as  we  shall  see. 

Late  in  December  the  New  York  Herald  published  a  very 
bright  dispatch  giving  an  account  of  a  short  passage  at  arms  in 
the  Roosevelt  Cabinet  where  and  when  Cabinet  member  Hitch- 
cock, in  urging  the  claims  of  a  friend  of  his  for  an  appointment, 
declared  to  the  President  that  said  friend  was  too  good  and  too 
honest  to  hope  for  election  to  office,  a  queer  slip  revealing  the 


GLOBE  NOTES.  361 

whole  story  of  American  politics.  Roosevelt  himself,  too  good 
and  honest  by  nature  to  take  offence,  spoke  of  his  recent  over- 
whelming majority,  simply  laughed  at  Hitchcock's  outbreak  of 
candor,  but  when  the  other  boys  grew  indignant  over  the  remark 
and  Hitchcock  wanted  to  explain,  his  almighty,  attenuated,  stul- 
tified, starched,  official  nonentity.  Secretary  Hay,  arose  to  the 
dignity  of  the  occasion  and  demanded  that  Hitchcock  should  not 
be  allowed  to  explain  except  as  a  "private  person,"  not  in  the 
presence  of  the  offended  dignity  of  the  Cabinet.  But  Hay, 
though  oldish,  does  not  count.  When  three  years  ago  I  con- 
gratulated the  nation  on  the  fact  of  having  a  new  and  younger 
and  abler  man  for  president,  and  suggested  that  he  would  doubt- 
less gather  abler  and  smarter  men  around  him,  I  took  it  for  grant- 
ed that  Hay  would  be  one  of  the  first  to  fall.  But  Hanna  still 
lived  and  Hay  had  married  into  the  family  of  wealth,  and  the 
starched  and   foolish  stripling  still  holds  on. 

The  editor  of  the  Globe  and  his  readers  may  or  may  not  meet 
again.  We  cannot  tell.  But  I  am  moved  to  close  this  issue 
with  a  little  outlook  into  the  future.  But  as  this  December  Globe 
is  very  late,  the  March  Globe  will  not  be  out  till  April  certainly — 
the  past  is  gone.  The  future  is  at  hand.  We  can  hardly  halt  to 
notice  the  dead.  The  Catholic  Church  seems  to  have  trouble 
with  her  converts.  My  old  friend.  Dr.  Dia  Costa  was  no  sooner 
well  into  the  priesthood  than  he  started  for  heaven.  May  he 
reach  his  deserved  reward  and  rest  in  peace.  Archbishop  Elder 
v/as  a  little  too  severe  and  absolute  touching  the  parochial  school 
problem  toward  the  last,  but  the  good  Lord  called  him  away  to 
his  well  earned  rest.  Not  that  he  was  a  convert.  We  are  nam- 
ing men  and  items  that  come  in  the  natural  range  of  memory. 
The  Catholic  universities  are  having  their  troubles.  We  have 
already  noted  the  financial  troubles  of  the  Catholic  University  at 
Washington,  and  the  long  array  of  priests  who,  while  forgetting 
weightier  claims,  had  invested  money  with  the  long  successful 
treasurer  of  the  University  and  lost  it  in  the  main — is  all  very 
suggestive.  His  eminence.  Cardinal  Gibbons,  has  shown  himself 
a  hero  in  wreck,  just  such  as  would  be  expected  of  his  unpretend- 
ing and  saintly  life.  The  Augustinian  University  at  Villa  Nova, 
Pennsylvania,  has  also  been  in  affliction,  suffering  from  a  swelled 
head  professor  who  has  been  airing  his  honors  and  woes  in  the 
Philadelphia   newspapers.      John    M.    Reiner,  sometimes  called 


362  1HE  GLOBE. 

Dr.,  was  so  afflicted  with  big  head  or  big  manners,  that  some 
of  the  simple  minded,  seeing  the  poor  professor  living  like  a 
prince,  driving  or  rather  getting  himself  driven  by  a  darkey 
from  his  mansion  to  his  class  room,  and  showing  a  good  deal  of 
arrogant  pride  and  conceit,  by  placing  a  portrait  of  himself  with 
an  awful  protruding,  hooked  nose,  I  say,  some  of  the  honest 
students,  feeling  the  weight  of  these  protruding  features  and  man- 
ners, deliberately  trespassed  upon  the  sanctity  of  Reiner's  room 
and  despoiled  the  gorgeous  picture,  whereupon  Reiner,  it  seems, 
appealed  to  the  newspapers,  magnified  the  ''honor"  the  college 
had  thrust  upon  him  before  he  assumed  his  great  proportions 
that  is,  the  College  had  sent  him  on  errands  that  the  priests  did 
not  want  to  do  themselves,  which  seemed  to  the  little  man  like 
honors,  and  the  newspapers  printed  the  trash.  I  read  it  while 
ill  at  Atlantic  City  and  know  no  more  than  I  then  read  in  the 
newspapers;  but  I  know  Reiner,  rather  well,  I  thank  you,  and 
I  know  Villa  Nova  College.  I  know  the  man  whose  herculean 
and  heroic  toil  collected  the  money  and  built  the  splendid  edifice 
and  was  afterwards  sot  upon  by  some  foreign,  bumptious  nobody 
who  had  more  authority  than  sense  or  religion,  as  is  too  often 
the  case  among  Catholic  ecclesiastics.  And  so,  when  I  saw  that 
Reiner  too  had  been  sot  upon  and  had  his  portrait  damaged  by 
students,  I  wept  for  the  small  man  and  the  hero  and  concluded 
that  in  some  way  Providence  was  bringing  things  around  to 
some  sensible  settlement.    But  let  us  to  the  future. 

No  matter  how  Archbishop  Ryan  may  parade  President 
Roosevelt  as  a  sterling  hero  of  action,  and  no  matter  how  Maurice 
Egan  in  Men  and  Women  for  reasons  may  sound  the  glories 
of  the  President  as  a  man  of  letters ;  better  call  it  hack  writing  at 
once,  Maurice;  Roosevelt  has  never  written  a  line  that  had  or 
has  genius  or  power  in  it,  and  you  know  it,  having  once  had  a 
touch  of  the  divine  flame  yourself.  And  no  matter  how  Mr. 
Sidney  Lee  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  and  After  may  parade 
Roosevelt's  greatness  and  his  opportunities,  I  tell  you  that  a  man 
never  rises  higher  than  RTs  own  soul.  Roosevelt  has  had  the 
greatest  opportunity  of  any  living  man  of  these  two  centuries, 
and  he  sold  it  for  the  mess  of  pottage  known  as  an  immense  Re- 
publican majority.     He  can  never  regain  that  opportunity. 

To  the  future  we  point. 

The  commanding  intelligence  of  this  age  and  nation  is  not 


GLOBE  NOTES.  363 

in  politics  but  in  commerce.  I  have  said  that  there  are  a  hundred 
thousand  men  in  the  United  States  any  one  of  whom  would  make 
a  better  president  than  Roosevelt  has  made  or  can  make.  That 
is  a  general  remark  I  would  agree  to  pick  from  any  one  of  the 
great  railroad  combinations  of  the  country,  from  any  one  of  the 
great  manufacturing  corporations  of  the  country,  from  any  one 
of  the  great  financial  combinations  of  the  country;  yes,  from 
any  one  of  the  great  wholesale  or  retail  commercial  firms  of  the 
country  one  dozen  men  who  would  take  the  entire  legislative, 
judicial  and  executive  departments  of  the  United  States  and  run 
the  whole  government,  with  a  few  clever  assistants,  in  peace  and 
prosperity,  better  than  Roosevelt  and  Company  in  all  the  depart- 
ments have  ever  done  or  will  ever  do  it.  And  yet,  gentlemen, 
these  great  concerns  and  the  men  that  now  manage  them  are 
the  very  people  and  interests  that  the  government  presumes  to 
worry,  harass  and  retard;  and  you  call  all  this  the  evidence  of 
Republican  institutions.  The  whole  thing  would  have  gone  to 
wreck  long  ago  if  a  few  strong  men  of  commerce  had  not  ruled 
the  land.  Again  I  point  to  the  future.  I  could  give  the  names 
of  certain  of  the  commanders  I  have  hinted  at,  but  let  that 
pass.    We  only  deal  in  public  with  the  names  of  public  men. 

The  politicians  of  middle  age,  that  is,  of  the  Roosevelt  gang, 
are  nearly  everywhere  in  positions  of  trust.  There  are  a  few 
exceptions.  For  that  reason  alone  I  pointed  to  Piatt  and  Depew 
among  the  few  exceptions,  but  unless  wisdom  comes  to  Roose- 
velt through  some  other  source  than  the  hack  newspaper  men 
and  fence  riding  ecclesiastics,  his  growth  and  his  youth  and  his 
conceit  will  swamp  him  yet.  There  are  a  few  strong  men  and 
able  men  now  in  politics.  For  the  sake  of  brevity  we  will  name 
them  with  hardly  a  word  of  comment,  and  so  farewell  for  awhile. 
President  Roosevelt  has  already  named  Elihu  Root  as,  in  his  es- 
timation, the  ablest  man  in  the  country.  I  do  not  agree  with 
him  in  this.  In  fact  I  know  to  the  contrary,  but  Roosevelt  is  no 
better  as  a  judge  of  men  than  as  a  writer.  We  are  now  speak- 
ing of  the  few  able  men  in  politics  of  the  newer  generation, 
never  forgetting  the  older  men  and  the  commercial  men  that  are 
infinitely  their  superior.  In  the  last  Globe  Review  I  spoke  of 
Root  as  the  ablest  and  likeliest  man  for  Roosevelt's  successor; 
and  in  all  the  essentials  of  shrewdness,  smartness,  greatness  of 
intellect,  he  is  far  Roosevelt's  superior.    He  has  not  more  but 


364  THE  GLOBE. 

less  moral  insight,  strength  and  moral  courage  and  comprehen- 
sive grasp  of  things  than  Roosevelt,  and  our  estimation  of  Theo- 
dore is  well  known.  And  he  is  Roosevelt's  closest  friend,  and 
Theodore  has  pledged  himself  not  to  be  a  candidate  for  the 
presidency  again,  hence  with  all  things  in  view  and  considering 
the  state  he  hails  from,  I  consider  Root's  chance  four  years  hence 
as  the  best  to  be  thought  of;  and  he  is  and  will  be  four  years 
hence  a  singularly  able  man.  But  a  new  man  has  entered  poli- 
tics. I  do  not  pretend  to  agree  with  him.  I  approve  of  his 
entry  and  consider  him  a  vast  gain  to  the  statesmanship  of  this 
generation.  Senator  Quay  was  a  very  shrewd  and  capable  man. 
Every  wide  awake  man  admits  so  much;  but  nobody  could  de- 
pend upon  him.  There  was  admittedly  no  basis  of  conduct  but 
mammon.  In  the  speeches  of  the  new  Senator  Knox,  from  Penn- 
sylvania, I  notice  a  very  different  type  of  mind.  I  believe  and 
repose  in  the  fact  that  there  was  very  little  popular  suffrage  in 
his  election,  but  of  that  I  am  not  speaking.  I  do  not  agree  with 
his  proclivities  regarding  the  tariff  and  some  other  matters.  In 
some  things  a  man  is  educated  by  and  is  bound  to  his  state  and 
his  surroundings.  But  the  way  a  man  treats  himself  and  his 
subject  is  his  own,  and  in  Senator  Knox's  treatment  of  his  sub- 
jects, whether  it  be  Roosevelt  or  the  Senate,  or  his  own  career, 
1  see  the  unquestionable  capacity  of  statesmanship;  the  first 
statesman  in  sight  for  many  years  and  simply  and  solely  for  this 
ability  alone  I  would  make  him  President  of  the  United  States 
four  years  from  now;  and  of  all  the  Republicans  known  to  my 
intelligence,  I  cannot  name  another  man,  Knox  of  Pennsylvania 
or  Root  of  New  York,  and  of  the  two,  spite  of  his  faulty  theory, 
I  prefer  the  man  from  Pennsylvania.  It  is  forty-five  years  since 
the  Keystone  State  had  a  man  in  the  White  House,  and  he  was 
an  old  woman,  worse  than  alL  an  old  maid. 

We  all  know  what  modern  Republicanism  has  become  and 
what  it  stands  for,  and  as  regards  all  its  constitutional  and  ex- 
ecutive sympathies  I  am  and  always  have  been  a  Republican.  I 
should  like  to  vote  and  work  for  Senator  Knox's  nomination  and 
election  to  the  presidency.  A  few  words  more  and  we  must 
quit.  If  this  country  should  grow  tired  of  this  executive  im- 
perialism during  the  next  few  years  and  should  just  ache  to  re- 
turn to  constitutionalism  and  Thomas  Jefferson  D>emocracy  and 
live  in  peace,  spite  of  the  gold  lenders,  it  cannot  do  better  than 


GLOBE  NOTES,  365 

renominate  and  elect  this  time  by  an  overwhelming  majority 
William  J.  Bryan  of  Nebraska.  Cleveland  and  Hill  and  the  big 
rooster  tom-fools  of  the  party  are  dead.  Let  them  never  be 
heard  from  again.  The  inner  facts  of  the  first  Bryan  campaign  are 
now  leaking  out.  Men  know  what  Hanna  did  when  he  tried 
to  save  the  country  from  Bryan.  RepubHcan  as  I  am  I  would 
to  God  the  country  had  not  been  so  saved.  But  the  fight  of  the 
future  is  between  Knox  and  Root  and  Bryan.  There  are  thou- 
sands of  small  men  for  clerkships  in  either  party,  and  with  this 
we  send  our  best  thanks  to  our  friends  and  wish  them  all  the 
truth  of  soul  that  they  can  stand. 

William  Henry  Thorne. 


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