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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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