Gunton's magazine

GUNTON'S
MAGAZINE

GEORGE GUNTON, EDITOR

VOLUME XX.

JANUARY— JUNE

1901

NEW YORK
THE GUNTON COMPANY

41 UNION SQUARE

INDEX

Australian Commonwealth, The,

William Francis Schey 19

Billion- Dollar Corporation, The, The Editor ... 421
BOOK REVIEWS :

ADAMS, BROOKS ; America's Economic Supremacy 185

BRADFORD, AMORY H. ; The Age of Faith 472

BROWN, ALEXANDER; English Politics in Early Virginia

History 573

BULLOCK, CHARLES J. ; Monetary History of the United States 92

CONANT, CHARLES A. ; The United States in the Orient . . , 469

FERGUSON, CHARLES; The Religion of Democracy 476

HOBSON, JOHN A.; The Economics of Distribution ?79

JONES, EDWARD D. ; Economic Crises 183

JUDSON, FREDERICK; The Law and Practice of Taxation in

Missouri 91

KIMBALL, LILLIAN G. ; The English Sentence 92

MACPHERSON, HECTOR; Spencer and Spencerism 180

McVEY, FRANK L. ; The Government of Minnesota 474

MACY, JESSE; Political Parties in the United States 89

OPDYKE, GEORGE HOWARD; The World's Best Proverbs and

Short Quotations 93

PUTNAM, DANIEL; A Text-Book of Psychology 574

RED WAY, JACQUES W. ; Elementary Physical Geography.. . 283

RUEMELIN, GUSTAV ; Politics and the Moral Law 571

THURSTON, HENRY W. ; Economics and Industrial History for

Secondary Schools 378

WILLEY, FREEMAN OTIS ; Education, State Socialism and the

Trust 187

WOOD, HENRY; The Political Economy of Humanism ... 568

Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, The,

D. L. Cease 235

Chinese Civilization, Archer B. Hulbert 127

INDEX

Civic AND EDUCATIONAL NOTES:

Carnegie gifts, Psychological value of 555

Chautauqua work, Extension of 554

Crime, A continuous 267

Education and menial labor 3^9

Education in our new possessions. 1 69

English tongue, Save the . . . j6

Filipinos, Educating the 75

German industrial education 74

Oilman, Dr., and Johns Hopkins 77

Industrial education 459

Lectures, The essential thing in popular 267

Porto Rico, Meager school facilities in 75

Race problem, Labor and the 269

Ross, Professor, Dismissal of 367

Saving dollars and wasting men 460

Syracuse University, Progress of 553

Two points where we do not lead 1 68

Color Problem, Has Jamaica Solved the,

Julius Moritzen 3 1

Cooperative Men and Things in England, Some,

N. P. Oilman 403

Corporations, Government Ownership of Quasi-
Public, Edwin R. A. Seligman 305

Cuba, Our Educational Responsibility in,

Leonard B. Ellis, 256

Democracy and National Authority, The Editor, . 425

Direct Nominations by Petition: Some Note-
worthy Expressions 349

Doom of the Dictator, The Editor, 323

EDITORIAL CRUCIBLE :

Albany, Jobbery at 441

Babcock's illusion, Chairman 538

Bimetalism, international, a dead issue 156

Bryan, A fair challenge to 355

INDEX

Bryan and Cleveland 353

Bryan on plagiarism 537

Bryan, A severe test for , . . . . • 442

Bryan after Watterson 44 l

Carnegie vs, Schwab 539

Child- labor, Hopeful southern opinion on 447

China, Our army in 537

Citizenship, A southern paper on fitness for 6 1

Cleveland's pessimism 15^

Compete, Why we cannot 65

Cuban independence, The Monroe doctrine and 249

Economic folly from an unexpected source 251

Educational need, A great 59

Education, Great gifts to

Emperor within twenty- five years, An 354

Exports to the Philippines 537

Foreign alarm at American progress ,«.. 1 6 1

Gage's bank deposits, Secretary. 442

Government ownership, An unfortunate argument for .. . . 53^

Gorman law, Unexpected outcome of 537

Harrison's inconsistency, ex- President *59

Jobbery at Albany 44 J

Labor, Organized, and the negro 443

Labor unions, Mr. Schwab's stale criticism of . 54 *

Labor policy. New York Central's enlightened 44^

Labor, Southern generosity to 445

Labor unions, Sound advice to 539

Maryland's educational test not unjust 445

Monopoly in steel manufacture, No 54°

Monroe doctrine and Cuban independence 249

Minneapolis primary law, Extending the 353

Minnesota, Popular nominations law in .... 250

Music in the workshop 6 1

Negro, Organized labor and the 443

New York Central's enlightened labor policy 446

INDEX

Nominations, First step towards direct 351

Odell, Governor, a disappointment 249

Odellaftera "record" 160

Odell, Plattand 353

Odell, not Platt, is governor 63

Panic, Cause of the 1893 . 62

Philippines, " Exports" to the 137

Pope Leo on socialism 252

Protection vs, paternalism 59

Race problem, Fair questions on 357

Reform, Insincere critics of wholesome 157

" Ripper " bill, The infamous 353

Sanger, The case of Colonel 356

Schwab, Carnegie vs 539

Schwab's stale criticism of labor unions 541

Socialism, Ha verhill rejects 60

Socialist propaganda, Growth of 35^

Southern " generosity" to labor 445

South, No segregation for the 251

Steel manufacture, No monopoly in 54°

Steel strike settled 441

Strike, Why the workingmen 54 *

Tammany succeeds, Why 444

Tammany, Union against 54°

Ecole Libre in Paris, The, Leon Mead 543

England, Some Cooperative Men and Things in

N. P. Oilman 403

Electrical Development, George Styles 151

Government Ownership of Quasi- Public Corpora-
tions, Edwin R. A. Scligman 503

Historic Changes in the Character of Interest,

The Editor 516

Insecurity, The Uses of, Leonora B. Halsted .... 449
Jamaica: Has Jamaica Solved the Color Problem?

Julius Moritzen 3 1

INDEX

LETTERS FROM CORRESPONDENTS:

Annexation policy, An old soldier on ............ $6 1

Commendation, A word of .............. ...

Conciseness appreciated .................. 373

Economics in a great labor organization, Sound ...... 2/1

Fairness in discussion ................... 5 6°

Government, The peril of popular ............. 4^4

Jamaica color problem, Mr. Washington on ........ 464

Labor's needs, Organized ................. 373

National duty, present and future ............. 5 5 &

Nominations by petition, Popular ............. 4^3

Our right to govern .................... 463

Pan- American exposition, Ethnology at the ........ 79

Philippine policy, Our .................. I/I

Problem of the hour, The great .............. 560

Sentiments that are appreciated .............. I/I

Magazines, Extracts from, (Jan.) 95, (Feb.) 191,

(Mar.) 287, (Apr.) 383, (May) 479, (June) 575

Municipal Politics, The Editor ............. 47

Negro Education, New Orleans and, The Editor 66

Negro in Business, The, Booker T. Washington 209
New Books of Interest, (Jan.) 89, (Feb.) 189, (Mar.)

285, (Apr.) 382. (May) 477, (June) ....... 574

Private Philanthropies, One of Miss Gould's,

C. B. Todd 71

Party Degeneracy, The Editor ............. 414

QUESTION Box:

American municipal government, European and ...... 175

Anti-Tammany campaign, The .............. 84

British empire, Future of the ............... 173

Civilization decaying? Is ................. 82

Cleveland and Toledo elections, Meaning of ........ 467

Corporations and government aid ............. 5 62

Corruption and popular nominations ............ 565

INDEX

Corruption versus education 273

Cuba, Our duty to 465

Democratic party, Future of 8 1

Depressions; How will depressions be eliminated? 178

English borough and county franchise 375

European and American municipal government 175

Expansion, Prosperity or 4^5

Government aid, Corporations and $62

Labor laws, New York 277

New York city politics, now and in 1897 176

Prosperity or expansion 4^5

Ross, Professor, Case of 37^

Socialism's defeats and prospects 173

Socialistic discussion 275

Southern representation in congress 85

Steel combination, The giant 2 74

Steel "trust" and independent producers

Toledo and Cleveland elections, Meaning of

Wealth a social fact 563

Republic, A New, The Editor 29

REVIEW OF THE MONTH:

Aguinaldo, Capture of 393

Albany's street railway strike 488

Annexation, the danger of 293

Attorney general, The new .... 493

British policy outlined 9

Canal treaty, The 16

Centennial, The Washington I

Charter revision, New York city 39!

Chinese situation 5, 98, 196, 300, 399, 400

Clayton- Bui wer treaty, Abrogate the 17

Coal strike forestalled 386

Congressional reapportionment 206

Congress, First work of 14

INDEX

Congress, The independence proposal in 2OI

Constitutional question, The great 103

Cuban independence 292

Cuba's new constitution 203

De Wet, The pursuit of 7

Edward VII., Accession of 193

Election, Some details of the November II

Funston's exploit, Moral aspect of 394

Harrison, Benjamin, Death of 303

Hawaiian elections 172

Inaugural, President McKinley's 290

Kruger's European mission 9

Labor organization, Status of .^American 4

Labor, Crucial time for 385

Machinists' struggle for nine hours 485

Municipal campaign, New York's 491

Odell's doubtful statesmanship, Governor 114

Paris exposition, The 5

Philippine Problem 99, IOI, 199, 291, 397

President's message, The 12

Protest, A word of 197

Public, the law, and the speculators 483

Queen Victoria, Death of 97

Railroad deals, The great IO6

Railroad strike averted 387

Ramapo charter repealed 390

Reform efforts in New York city Ill

Revenue reduction bill 14

Russia, Tariff complications with 296

Russia in Manchuria 298

" Second term " in American politics 289

South African situation 194, 398

Steel strike, Reinstatement ends 3^8

Steel corporation, The giant 3O1

Stock market panic 48 1

INDEX

Strike, Albany's street railway 488

Strike averted, Important railroad 387

Tariff complications with Russia 296

Trusts, Present status of IOS

" Trust " growth, A permanent limitation to IIO

Wage conditions, Progress in 2

War tax reduction 295

Washington centennial, The I

"Ruskin Hall" Movement, The 163

Russia's Blow at American Commerce,

Romney Wheelock 432
South, Industrial Awakening of the,

Leonora Beck Ellis 527

Speculation — An Incident in National Develop-
ment, Joseph Weare 142

Statesmanship, Un American, The Editor 243

Strikes and Lockouts in North Carolina,

Jerome Dow d 136

Tariff Enforcement, Discreditable, The Editor . . . 345

Trade Routes and Civilization, Jacques W. Redivay 508

"Trusts "and Business Stability, The Editor. . . 117
Tuskegee Negro Conference as an Educational

Force, Max Bennett Thrasher 359

Uses of Insecurity, The, Leonora B. Halsted .... 449

Victoria and Her Remarkable Reign, The Editor 220

Wars of Wall Street, The, The Editor 495

Woman Suffrage Question, Some Scientific Aspects

of the, Mrs. Mary K. Sedgwick 333

CONTENTS

JANUARY

Review of the Month i

The Australian Commonwealth, William Francis Schey 19

A New Republic, The Editor 29

Has Jamaica Solved the Color Problem 1 Julius Moritzen 31

Municipal Politics, The Editor 47

Editorial Crucible 59

New Orleans and Negro Education 66

One of Miss Gould's Private Philanthropies, Charles Burr Todd. 71

Civic and Educational Notes 74

Letters from Correspondents 79

Question Box 81

Book Reviews 89

From December Magazines 95

FEBRUARY

Review of the Month 97

" Trusts " and Business Stability, The Editor 117

Chinese Civilization, Archer B. Hulbert 127

Strikes and Lockouts in North Carolina, Jerome Dowd 136

Speculation — An Incident in National Development, Joseph Weare 142

Editorial Crucible 156

The •• Ruskin Hall" Movement 163

Civic and Educational Notes 168

Letters from Correspondents 171

Question Box 173

Book Reviews , . . . 180

From December Magazines 191

MARCH

Review of the Month. , 193

The Negro in Business, Booker T. Washington 209

Victoria and Her Remarkable Reign, The Editor 220

The Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, D. L: Cease 235

Unamerican Statesmanship, The Editor 243

Editorial Crucible 249

Our Educational Responsibility in Cuba, Leonora Beck Ellis. . . 250

Civic and Educational Notes 267

Letters from Correspondents 271

Question Box 273

Book Reviews 279

From February Magazines „ 287

CONTENTS
APRIL

Review of the Month 289

Government Ownership of Quasi- Public Corporations, Edwin R. A.

Seligman 3°5

Doom of the Dictator, The Editor 323

Some Scientific Aspects of the Woman Suffrage Question, Mrs.

Mary K. Sedgwick 333

Discreditable Tariff Enforcement, The Editor 345

Direct Nominations by Petition : Some Noteworthy Expressions . . 349

Editorial Crucible 353

The Tuskegee Negro Conference as an Educational Force, Max

Bennett Thrasher , 359

Civic and Educational Notes 367

Letters from Correspondents 373

Question Box 375

Book Reviews 378

From March Magazines 383

MAY

Review of the month 385

Some Cooperative Men and Things in England, Nicholas Paine

Oilman 403

Party Degeneracy, The Editor 414

The Billion-Dollar Corporation 421

Democracy and National Authority, 7 he Editor 425

Russia's Blow at American Commerce, Romney Wheelock .... 432

Editorial Crucible 441

The Uses of Insecurity, Leonora B. Halsted 449

Civic and Educational Notes 459

Letters from Correspondents 463

Question Box 465

Book Reviews 469

From April Magazines 479

JUNE

Review of the Month 481

The Wars of Wall Street, The Editor 495

Trade Routes and Civilization, Jacques W. Redway 508

Historic Changes in the Character of Interest, The Editor .... 516

Industrial Awakening of the South, Leonora Beck Ellis 527

Editorial Crucible . 537

The £cole Libre in Paris, Leon Mead 543

Civic and Educational Notes 553

Letters from Correspondents 558

Question Box 562

Book Reviews 568

From May Magazines .575

WILLIAM FRANCIS SCHEY
Labor Commissioner of New South Wales

See page

GUNTON'S MAGAZINE

KEVIEW OF THE MONTH

On December i2th the city of Washing-
ton celebrated its one-hundredth anni-
versary as the capital of the nation. Just
a century ago the seat of government was removed
from Philadelphia to the new site on the banks of the
Potomac. The centennial, observed by a reception at
the white house to the governors of some twenty-four
states, a military parade, and formal exercises by the
senate and house of representatives in joint session, fur-
nished a fitting occasion for reviewing the marvelous
progress of the nation, typified in part by the transfor-
mation of the capital city itself from practically a wil-
derness in 1800 to one of the most artistically beautiful
and politically influential centers of civilization in the
world.

The close of the nineteenth century is as
Growth of natural a time for retrospect and com-

the Nation . ,, . - ,, ,. ,,

parison as the opening of the twentieth
is for planning and prophecy. Far more than ordinary
interest, therefore, attaches to the results of the twelfth
census. It serves as a basis not only for noting the
percentage of increase during a decade, but for centen-
nial comparisons of the utmost significance. The total
population in 1900 is 76,295,220; in 1890 it was 62,-
622,250; an increase of 22 per cent. During the pre-

1

2 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [January,

vious decade, 1880 to 1890, the percentage of increase
was 24.86. Our population in 1800 was 5,308,483; the
increase during the century being 1 340 per cent. Our
national territory has increased during the same period
from 909,050 to 3,846,595 square miles. The sixteen
states that formed the federal union in 1800 have in-
creased to forty- five, with the territories of New Mexico,
Arizona, Oklahoma and Indian territory, also Alaska,
Hawaii, Porto Rico, the Philippines, and several scat-
tered Pacific islands, in addition.

It is interesting to compare this growth of popula-
tion with that of some of the principal European coun-
tries during the century. In 1800 the population of
Great Britain and Ireland was 15,570,000, now it is
about 37,000,000; France in 1800, 27,720,000, now about
38,000,000; Germany in 1800, 22,330,000, now about
46,000,000; Austria- Hungary in 1800, 21,230,000, now
about 41,000,000. In other words, the population of
Great Britain and Ireland has increased about two and
a half times, of France about one-third ; Germany and
Austria- Hungary have about doubled, while the popu-
lation of the United States has increased almost fifteen
times.

Analyzing the details of the census, New York
state still remains in the lead, the population being
7,268,009; in 1890 it was 5,997,853. Pennsylvania is
second with 6,301,365, as compared with 5,258,014 in
1890. Illinois is in third place, as in 1890, the popula-
tion having increased from 3,826,351^4,821,550. Ohio
has increased from 3,672,316 to 4,157,545, and Missouri
from 2,679, 184 to 3,107,117. These states retain the
same relative rank as in 1890, but Texas now takes the
place of Massachusetts as sixth in size. The population
of Texas has increased from 2,235,523 to 3,048,828;
that of Massachusetts from 2,238,943 to 2,805,346. Al-
though Massachusetts thus falls behind Texas, the rate

xgoi.] REVIEW OF THE MONTH 3

of increase in the Bay State is larger than that for the
whole country and indicates that the westward trend of
population, while it does not actually diminish, is not
depleting the East. Indeed, there are many evidences
that the growth of manufactures and use of more scien-
tific methods of agriculture in the East is producing a
marked decline in the tendency of native Americans to
migrate to the West, and stopping the multiplication of
New England abandoned farms.

Of course, however, the most rapid rates of increase
are in the far western states, although the growth in
actual numbers is relatively small. Nevada is the only
state in the union which shows a decline in population.
This state contained 45,761 people in 1890 and only
42,334 in 1900; a population less than that of the city
of Yonkers, New York, although represented in the
national councils by one congressman and two senators.

Although the census statistics of wealth,
industries and labor are not yet complete,
other investigations and sources of infor-
mation testify to a highly gratifying progress during
the decade just ended, — a progress which would have
been far more impressive but for the severe industrial
depression from 1893 to 1897. United States Labor
Commissioner Carroll D. Wright has recently investi-
gated the average wages for the country and finds a
general increase since 1891 of 3.43 per cent. In many
industries the increase has been more like 20 to 30 per
cent., but Commissioner Wright's average is for the
whole country. In considering its apparent smallness
it must be remembered that only last year, 1899, did
wages recover sufficiently from the period of depression
to equal the rates of 1892. The seven years from 1893
to 1899 were an arbitrary interruption and period of
stagnation in what might have been a normal and

4 GUNTOWS MAGAZINE [January,

healthy forward movement in labor conditions. The
significant consideration to-day is not so much the
literal amount of increase since 1890 as it is the
fact that a satisfactory rate of progress has at last been
restored.

Status of Even more significant than the actual

American Labor wage progress is the increasing extent,
Organization influence and economic good sense of the
organized labor movement in this country. The best
general representation of this movement is the Ameri-
can Federation of Labor, whose membership includes
unions in practically all the most important trades in
the country. The federation apparently was never in
a more flourishing and healthy condition. According
to the December number of the A merican Federationist,
it:

"... has now affiliated to it no less than 82 national and international
unions, with 9,494 subordinate local unions, having an aggregate mem-
bership of 804,050. In addition to these before-mentioned general unions
there are at present date of writing 1,051 independent chartered local
unions having 79,150 members, making a total of 10,545 unions with a
membership of 883,200. These figures are exclusive of the membership
indirectly affiliated through the medium of the central labor unions of
205 cities and 16 state federations of labor. Thus it would be safe to
conclude that the grand total membership of our organization approxi-
mates one million members in good standing, or nearly four-fifths of the
entire known number of trade unionists on this continent. Each suc-
ceeding year this immense mass becomes more closely knitted together
and more clearly recognizes its mutual interdependence. With the
establishment and growth of adequate protective and beneficial funds,
the influence exercised by such a body will prove irresistible. "

A membership of one million means that fully five
millions of the American people are directly interested
and involved in the labor organizations of the country,
not counting the extra 20 per cent, in unassociated
independent unions. Obviously, the few old-school
doctrinaires who still want labor organizations abolished
are to be classed permanently with the Mrs. Partingtons.

I90I.J REVIEW OF THE MONTH 5

The growing economic good sense of the organized
labor movement could hardly have better evidence than
the -unanimous reelection of Samuel Gompers as presi-
dent of the federation, at its annual convention held in
Louisville, Kentucky, early in December. Mr. Gom-
pers' remarks in opening the convention reflected a
point of view and spirit thoroughly appreciative of the
proper economic position of labor organization in the
industrial life of the nation. It contained no tinge of
socialism, which it has so often been feared would cap-
ture the trade-union movement in this country.

The great world's fair held in Paris this

The Paris r inustrated the climax of nineteenth-

Exposition

century progress as well as anything of

a spectacular nature can illustrate achievements that
have wrought their broadening influence into the very
character -fibre of the nations. A formal exposition can
portray the material and artistic side of the progress of
civilization, but it can give only hints and suggestions
•f the profound psychological development that lies
beneath the material surface ; it cannot put into statu-
ary, paintings and machinery the expansion of individ-
ual life, knowledge and character which is the real test
of human advancement.

But of those things which an exposition can illus-
trate, the Paris fair was an elaborate and fairly com-
prehensive representation. It cost more than the
Chicago exposition of 1893, but it is doubtful if the
showing was so vast or so well displayed. Many of the
buildings, however, were erected of durable materials,
and so, while costing much more, will remain as perma-
nent architectural adornments of Paris. The attend-
ance at the Paris exposition was more than fifty
millions, or more than double that at the Chicago fair,
but it is stated in explanation that the admission fees

6 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [January,

were reduced to practically insignificant sums, so that
the actual gate receipts were probably less than at
Chicago. The largest attendance at the Paris exposi-
tion on any one day was 600,000, which was exceeded
in 1893, on October gth, when 716,881 people attended
the Chicago fair.

The last year of the century has witnessed
More Delay the beginning of what will ultimately

in China . _ .._, .

mean the complete opening up of China
to western civilization, but the twentieth century will
have come in before much progress is made in the set-
tlement of the immediate terms of peace and reparation
to Christendom for the Boxer outrages of last summer.
It is now clear that negotiations are to proceed along
more moderate lines than those laid down by Germany,
and this change of attitude is generally attributed to
the United States. Our state department submitted a
note to the powers, late in November, suggesting com-
promises in respect to the peace proposals that were
then being urged ; and, apparently in response to these
suggestions, an article, understood to have been inspired
by the German government, appeared on November
28th, in the Berliner Post, declaring that while

". . . allthe powers are convinced that the ringleaders deserve death, . . .
the question has been raised on various sides as to whether such a meas-
ure should be insisted upon from the standpoint of political expediency.
So far as Germany is concerned, she has never insisted upon the execu-
tion of specific persons, but has repeatedly declared that she laid chief
emphasis upon the harmonious action of all the powers in punishing the
guilty. This attitude corresponds with the guiding principle of Ger-
many's policy, which seeks, above all else, to preserve the harmony of
the powers."

Nevertheless, according to the general consensus
of reports, Germany's troops in China are doing their
best to embitter the Chinese and make settlement diffi-
cult. Harassing expeditions, with the object of taking
booty or punishing groups of Boxer offenders, are per-

i90i.] REVIEW OF THE MONTH 7

mitted if not literally ordered by Count von Waldersee.
The latest of these, in which the French shared but
afterwards desisted, is the confiscation and removal of
the elaborate astronomical instruments from the Peking
observatory. General Chaffee protested against this so
vigorously that von Waldersee returned his note un-
recognized, as a breach of official etiquette. Perhaps
it was somewhat brusque, but the American people
will feel that here was a case where politeness was
more honored in the breach than in the observance.
General Chaffee's conduct of American military opera-
tions in China thus far has been eminently satisfactory.
Rigid discipline is maintained among our troops and,
during the prolonged period of looting after the capture
of Peking, our men were strictly ordered to take no
part in the depredations. Presumably there were
violations of the rule, but they seem not to have been
numerous or serious.

As the situation now stands, formal negotiations
between the foreign ministers and the Chinese govern-
ment, represented by Li Hung Chang and Prince
Ching, are likely to begin within a very few days.
The terms finally agreed upon are understood to be
practically those proposed by Germany, summarized in
our December number, with a modification of the
demand for execution of specific persons and also some
modification in the indemnity requirements. All the
ministers except Great Britain's representative have
been instructed to sign the agreement for submission of
these terms to China. Just what further alteration, if
any, England means to suggest before negotiations
proceed, is at present an enigma.

If one cannot admire the good judgment,
The Pursuit ., . .

of De Wet xt 1S lmpossible not to admire at least the

valor and strategic skill of the few Boer
detachments that are still resisting British arms in

8 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [January,

South Africa. Lord Roberts being on his way home to
England, General Kitchener has succeeded him in chief
command. This is understood to mean, and doubtless
does mean, the end of leniency in dealing with the
Boers. British sentiment has been intensified in favor
of rigorous measures by the discovery of a plot, in
Johannesburg, in which a number of Italians, Greeks
and Frenchmen were implicated, to assassinate Lord
Roberts by blowing up St. Mark's church during service
on Sunday, November 1 8th. It is thoroughly realized
now that only rigorous measures can prevent these sub-
terranean methods of prolonging the useless struggle.
General De Wet scored another brilliant success on
November the 23d by capturing the British garrison of
Dewetsdorp, consisting of 400 men and two guns.
Lord Roberts' dispatch reporting the occurrence states
that De Wet's force numbered 2,500 men, showing that
where De Wet is, at least, the struggle has not quite
degenerated to the guerilla stage. Dewetsdorp is in
the southern part of the Orange River Colony, and only
the prompt action of General Knox prevented a raid
into Cape Colony. Knox succeeded in driving De Wet
back to the north, but the wily Boer has thus far
evaded capture. Since then, two more serious blows have
been inflicted upon the British. Four companies of
General Clement's fusileers, numbering more than 500
men, were captured on December isth, near Krugers-
dorp, in the Transvaal, and on the same day a force of
1 20 cavalrymen was taken near Zastron, in the Orange
River Colony. Serious as these reverses are, the Boers
are apparently unable to follow up the advantage, but
are compelled to release prisoners as fast as they are
taken. These exploits are tributes to brilliant general-
ship, but their only real significance is that the war will
have to be brought to an end by the slow wearing out
of the resisting powers of De Wet's diminishing army.

i90i.] REVIEW OF THE MONTH 9

Meanwhile, ex- President Kruger has
served as a rallying-point of French
animosity to England, and incidentally
learned for a certainty that he has nothing to hope for
in the way of European aid to his cause. Mr. Kruger
landed at Marseilles on November 22nd, proceeded to
Paris on the 23rd, thence, after a weeks' stay, to
Cologne on December 2nd, and to the Hague, capital of
Holland, on the 6th. In France he was everywhere
received as a popular hero and the French senate voted
him unanimously an expression of sympathy. This
was the full extent, however, to which France gave the
cooperation Kruger had virtually asked for in his
speech at Marseilles. In Holland the practical results
of his visit have been equally meager. The Dutch
people gave him an enthusiastic welcome, and the
Dutch government officially declared its sympathy but
declined to take the lead in any movement to secure
arbitration between Great Britain and the Transvaal.
As for Germany, Emperor William let it be known that
he would decline to receive Kruger, and therefore the
Boer ex-president abandoned his proposed visit to
Berlin. He is now expected to take up a permanent
residence in Holland, and will cease to figure in world
politics.

Naturally, the sessions of the British

British Policy , . « . , _

Outlined parliament, which convened on Decem-

ber 4th and has just adjourned for the
holidays, were almost exclusively occupied with the
discussion of South African affairs. The liberals, at
the very outset, directed an intensely bitter attack on
Joseph Chamberlain, not only on the score of his prac-
tical sponsorship for the South African war but accusing
him of personal dishonesty both in the parliamentary
campaign and in connection with financial interests

10 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [January,

involved in the war. Seldom has parliament witnessed
a more impressive change in the drift of sentiment than
occurred when the colonial secretary's turn came to
make his defence. Denial of the charges against his
personal integrity was to be expected, of course, but
the thing which seems practically to have destroyed the
liberal opposition was his statement of the govern-
ment's plans for dealing with the Transvaal and Orange
River colonies. These he explained in detail in the
house of commons on December 7th, summarizing the
three objects of the government as follows :

" First— To end the guerilla war. It would not surprise him if the
Boers had destroyed more farms than the English. Never in history
had a war been waged with so much humanity. The women had only
been deported for their protection. The native population was answer-
able for the acts of proved outrage of women and children, and it
had been shown that in no case had a British soldier been justly ac-
cused. The farm burning was greatly exaggerated. Lord Roberts had
only sanctioned the burning of farms as punishment in cases of com-
plicity in the rebellion, or damage done to the railroads. The govern-
ment sustained Lord Roberts absolutely. The government was bound
to leave large discretion to the military.

" The second object was that when pacification was accomplished a
crown government would be instituted.

"The third object was ultimate self-government."

In pursuance of this program it is proposed to
institute civil government at the earliest possible mo-
ment, giving the preference to Afrikanders in the civil
offices as far as practicable, and guaranteeing equal
rights and liberties to every man, Boer or Englishman.
The expense of the war will be met by taxation in South
Africa, since it was for the benefit of the Uitlanders
that the struggle was undertaken. These propositions
were even cheered from the liberal benches, and Sir
Henry Campbell- Bannerman, who had been the most
vindictive of all in his attacks on Mr. Chamberlain,
formally withdrew the liberal opposition. Of course,
the British government cannot begin to carry out these

looi.J REVIEW OF THE MONTH 11

plans until the Boers give up the struggle. Their
resistance could be understood so long as there was the
least chance of success, but in the present situation it
means simply the perpetuation of misery and desola-
tion and fruitless delaying of the peaceful regeneration
•of the country.

Some Details of The figures of the popular vote for presi-
the November dent, with the exception of minor candi-
Election dates, are at last practically complete and

show a popular plurality for President McKinley of
847,897. This is an increase of 246,025 over his plu-
rality in 1896. Mr. McKinley 's total vote was 158,487
larger and Mr. Bryan's 87,538 smaller than in 1896.

It appears from the returns that the bulk of this
republican gain comes from increased pluralities in the
West and a decreased Bryan vote in the South. In the
East the republican pluralities were generally lower,
especially in New York (268,469 in 1896, 145,143 in
1900) and Massachusetts (173,265 in 1896, 82,988 in
1900.) In the middle West there was a substantial in-
crease, except in Illinois, which gave President McKin-
ley a plurality of 95,990 as compared with 142,498 in
1896. The republican plurality in 1900 in Nebraska
was 7,372 ; in Kansas, 25,843 ; in South Dakota, 21,000;
in Wyoming, 4,381 ; in Washington, 12,613; in Utah,
2,140. All of these states were carried by Bryan in
1896.

In the South the results are equally significant,
and, but for the fact that they are based on a general
decrease in the total vote cast, indicating wholesale
neglect of the suffrage privilege, would be some indi-
cation of more wholesome political tendencies through-
out that section. Bryan's plurality was less in 1900
than 1896, in Alabama by 32,871 ; in Florida by 940 ;
in Mississippi by 12,776; in Louisiana by 17,974; in

12 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [January,

Arkansas by 36,149; in Tennessee by 3,024; in South
Carolina by 6,585. It was larger than in 1896, in Geor-
gia by 12,524; in North Carolina by 5,473 ; in Virginia
by 10,874. The net falling off in the Bryan plurality
in all these states is 114,562. If Missouri and Ken-
tucky be counted in, the total falling off is 117,231;
Bryan's plurality in Missouri was 10,907 less than in
1896, but in Kentucky he won by 7,957, as against a
republican plurality of 281 in 1896.

President McKinley's message to the

The President's , \,

Message second session of the 56th congress,

which convened on December 3rd, pos-
sessed two at least of the most familiar characteristics
of Mr. McKinley's state papers — extraordinary length
and comparative dearth of positive recommendations
for the guidance of national policy. It is chiefly an ex-
haustive historical review of the problems that have
confronted the administration during the past year and
the way it has dealt with them, and a statement of the
existing conditions at home and abroad. A large part
of the message is devoted to the Chinese situation, and
the familiar lines of our policy are again stated, — pun-
ishment of Boxer leaders, indemnity for losses suffered,
guarantees of trade privileges and opposition to dis-
memberment of the empire.

A suggestion that ought by all means to be
promptly and favorably acted upon is that provision be
made for handling through the federal courts instead of
through state courts all cases of outrages committed
against aliens within the United States. The inability
of the national government to guarantee any satisfac-
tion to foreign governments in cases such as the anti-
Italian outbreaks in Louisiana is an absurd anomaly.
Nothing like it exists in any other country, and it has
been and will be a fruitful source of misunderstanding

REVIEW OF THE MONTH 13

and ill-feeling whenever disputes of this sort come up
for settlement.

Reference is made to the growth of our foreign
trade, the increase in national banks under the currency
law of 1900, and the saving in interest on the national
debt through the refunding of bonds provided for in
that measure. Reduction of the war taxes by thirty
million dollars per annum is recommended. Little is
suggested as to the Philippines except continuation
along the lines already being pursued. The Taft com-
mission is apparently the rock to which the president's
faith is anchored, and, if only the Filipinos could be
made to see the beneficence of Mr. McKinley's program
of civilization as clearly as Mr. McKinley himself sees
it, not another shot would be fired. Evidently the
president does not expect the last shot to be fired for a
long while, since he recommends increasing the stand-
ing army to 60,000 men, with authority to raise it to
100,000 when necessary, and endorses Secretary Long's
request for an enlarged navy. The encouragement of
American shipping is urged, although no specific meas-
ure is endorsed, and there is the familiar suggestion
for legislation in control of injurious combinations in
restraint of trade. The message closes with a recom-
mendation of economy in public expenditures.

The tone of the document as a whole is optimistic,
and with good reason. The nation enters upon the
twentieth century under circumstances of extraordinary
prosperity and promise, backed by more than one hun-
dred years of experience with self-government along
lines which in 1800 were purely experimental, dis-
trusted everywhere outside of the United States, and
not even commanding full confidence here at home.
We are standing upon broader and firmer foundations
to-day, but it would be a fatal mistake to assume that
even now we can afford to make grave departures in

14 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [January,

policy from the fundamental principles upon which our
national existence is based.

Congress lost no time in getting: to work

The First Work £ „ . * .

of Congress upon measures of sufficient importance to

center the attention of the country upon
Washington. In the senate, discussion was begun
almost immediately on the Nicaragua canal treaty and
the ship subsidy bill ; in the house, on the revenue re-
duction and army reorganization measures. The latter,
providing for an army of 60,000 for the immediate
future, with authority to increase it to 100,000 if neces-
sary, passed the house on December 6th by an almost
strict party vote of 166 to 133. The ship subsidy bill
has been extensively and warmly debated already, its
principal defenders being Senators Frye and Hanna,
but its prospects are dubious in spite of the large re-
publican majority in the senate. The proposition to
spend $9,000,000 a year for twenty years in direct
bounties paid out of the treasury, a total of $180,000,-
ooo, so distributed that there is little reason to believe
that any important new shipbuilding establishments
would be called into existence, is so obviously no part
of recognized republican policy that senators are de-
clining to divide along party lines for and against the
bill. A measure providing for shipping protection by
an additional ten per cent, duty on all goods imported
in foreign vessels would be strictly in accordance with
sound protective policy and involve no drain on the
national treasury, but this proposition apparently must
wait until the subsidy scheme has been definitely put
aside.

Chairman Payne of the ways and means
The Avenue committee introduced the revenue reduc-

Reduction Bill

tion bill in the house on December 5th,
and followed it next day with a report showing the rea-

REVIEW OF THE MONTH 15

sons for the specific lines of reduction proposed. The
rule adopted in preparing the measure, according to
Chairman Payne, was « ' to remove the more annoying
taxes in the war revenue act by the entire abolition of
those which were most vexatious and by a reduction of
those which seemed to have proved a great burden upon
the several branches of trade to which they are applied."
In other words, the object is to remove as far as possi-
ble the more offensive features of an always offensive
system of direct taxation, and the extent to which this
has been accomplished the bill deserves hearty com-
mendation.

Some of the most important proposed reductions
are: on beer, from $2.85 to $2.60 per barrel ; on cigars,
from $3.60 to $3 per thousand; and entire abolition of
the taxes on bequests to religious, charitable, literary
or educational institutions, taxes on commercial and
custom-house brokers, circuses and theaters, and the
stamp taxes on proprietary medicines, perfumes, cos-
metics, etc., also those on bank checks, certificates of
deposit, postal money orders, express receipts, tele-
graph messages, deeds, insurance policies, leases, notes
and mortgages. The most important taxes retained, in
whole or in part, are those on beer and tobacco, wines,
legacies, bankers, stock brokers, and the stamp taxes on
stock and bonds of corporations, stock exchange sales,
freight receipts, certificates of profit, and custom-house
and warehouse entries.

The reductions are expected to cut off about $40,-
000,000 of revenue per annum, and those retained it is
believed will yield $65,000,000; so that the reductions
amount to about 38 per cent, of the total amount of the
special war taxes. Considering that the treasury sur-
plus for the year ending June 3oth last was something
over $79,000,000, and that the estimated surplus for the
current year is $80,000,000, and for the year ending

16 GUNTOWS MAGAZINE [January,

June soth, 1902, is about $26,000,000, by which time it
is to be hoped there can be a substantial reduction in
our military expenditures, the cutting off of $40,000,000
now seems to be amply justified. The proposed meas-
ure seems to have been prepared with unusually intel-
ligent appreciation of scientific principles of taxation.
Some effort will undoubtedly be made to reduce the
customs tariff revenues and preserve the war taxes, but
there is no popular support of this left-handed rein-
troduction of free-trade policy. The proposition at
present has only an academic interest.

President McKinley sent to the senate
Treaty*0 on December 4th the report of the isth-

mian canal commission, of which Rear-
Admiral Walker is the head. This report summarizes
the advantages and disadvantages of the Nicaragua and
Panama routes, and declares in favor of the former,
although the estimated cost of the Nicaragua canal as
surveyed by the commission is $200,540,000, while the
amount required to complete the Panama enterprise is
only $142,342,579. The principal advantage of the
Nicaragua route is the shorter journey it would make
possible between the east and the west coasts of the
United States; the principal disadvantage of the
Panama canal is the existence of French and Colombian
financial interests and rights of ownership which would
prevent proper control of the undertaking by the United
States.

The report is regarded as practically disposing of
the Panama project so far as the United States is con-
cerned, unless the outcome of the senate's action on the
Hay-Pauncefote treaty between the United States and
Great Britain should be an indefinite delay and blocking
of the Nicaragua enterprise. It will be remembered
that this treaty, which was sent to the senate on the 5th

1 9oi.] REVIEW OF THE MONTH 17

of last February, provides for a neutral canal, free and
open in war and peace to vessels of commerce and war
of all nations, with no fortifications erected to command
the canal or adjacent waters. This proposed neutral-
ization of the canal is in recognition of the neutrality
agreement embodied in the Clayton-Bulwer treaty with
England, made in 1850; but the senate has chosen
practically to disregard this by adopting, on December
1 3th, by a majority of 65 to 17, the amendment intro-
duced during the last session by Senator Davis, provid-
ing that the neutralization sections of the treaty should
not " apply to measures which the United States may
find it necessary to take for securing by its own forces
the defence of the United States and the maintenance
of public order." Other amendments are now pro-
posed, declaring definitely that the Clayton-Bulwer
treaty is superseded and striking out the provision
which requires England and the United States, after
concluding the new treaty, to bring it to the notice of
the other powers and invite them to adhere to it.

Abrogate the Whatever policy is finally adopted as to
Clayton-Bulwer the canal proposition, it is apparent
Treaty that t^e Clay ton- Bulwer treaty has long

outlived its usefulness and remains only an exas-
perating source of useless controversy. Probably the
bulk of the sentiment in this country against neu-
tralizing the canal has come from the impression that
we are being forced to yield this point to England
against our own best interests. If we had been entirely
free to act as we chose, the importance of fortifications
and exclusive control would certainly have seemed far
less weighty ; we might even voluntarily have chosen
the neutralization policy as safer in the long run, and
less expensive. But for the controversy with England,
the costly privilege of building forts and assuming the

18 G UNTON'S MA GAZINE

whole responsibility for protection of the canal would
have seemed much less valuable. The common-sense
fact would have been more obvious that no hostile fleet
could ever traverse the canal, whether fortified or not.
To enter it, such a fleet would first have to pass an
American fleet massed at its mouth, and would then
have to be guarded on both sides of the canal by an
enormous military force to prevent land attacks, and,
finally, to escape at the other end, the vessels would
have to contend one by one with an American fleet in
waiting. It would be a much more desperate under-
taking than Admiral Cervera risked in getting out of
Santiago harbor, since the Spaniards could at least come
through the channel at a high rate of speed and so be
ready for quick maneuvers, — an impossibility in emerg-
ing from a canal.

It is intimated that Great Britain will not accept
the amended treaty. If such proves the case, immediate
steps should be taken to secure abrogation of the Clay-
ton-Bulwer treaty, and, if this cannot be done by nego-
tiation, then the treaty should be declared no longer
binding upon our government. There is plenty of pre-
cedent for such action, in cases where circumstances
have so changed as to render treaties out of date and
burdensome. In the present case there is no doubt that
Great Britain long ago violated the Clayton- Bui wer
treaty by obtaining control over certain territory adjoin-
ing the canal region. Technically we have recognized
the validity of the treaty since this violation, but we are
in a position, morally at least, to revoke it if our inter-
ests so require. With this stumbling-block out of the
way, we can deal with the practical problem of the canal
strictly on its merits, free from the distorting effects of
anti- British prejudice and suspicion.

THE AUSTRALIAN COMMONWEALTH : A
NEW NATION

WILLIAM FRANCIS SCHEY, GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE
NATIONAL PROTECTIVE UNION OF AUSTRALIA

On the first of January 1901, there will be formally
inaugurated, with due solemnity and much ceremony,
another federation of English-speaking people, which
is destined to bulk largely in the coming years before
the nations of the world. And its doings will be of
much interest and great importance to the United
States of America. On that date six British colonies
who have hitherto been divided on many questions,
who have maintained fiscal barriers one against the
other, who have from time to time viewed each other
with jealous eyes, and sedulously sought to draw each
other's trade away and to minimize the power and im-
portance of all their neighbors, will be welded in a firm
and indissoluble union by one of those happy and busi-
ness-like conjunctions which seem peculiarly adapted
to the needs of the Anglo-Saxon race.

From the first day of the new year, which is also
the first day of the new century, Australia, inviolate in
her sea-girt shores, will drop away the belittlement of
merely colonies and become in deed and in truth an in-
dependent nation in all but name. Still subject to the
British crown in matters of imperial interest she will
be sovereign and autonomous in all that concerns her-
self. An island continent approximating in size the

19

20

GUNTON'S MAGAZINE

[January,

whole of Europe, and of area almost equal to the whole
of the United States of America, with but little over
three millions of people in all her borders, she will, if
her statesmen be but wise, soon be the dominating
factor of all the southern half of our great round world.
A few facts concerning this new nation, this
coming competitor, will be of interest to all thoughtful
Americans. The areas of the federating states are :

COLONY

Area in Acres

Area in Sq. Mis.

New South Wales . . .

198 848 ooo

qiO 700

Victoria

c6 24e; 760

87 88d

Queensland

427 8^8 O8O

668 497

South Australia

578,361 6OO

003,600

Western Australia

624,588,800

07^,020

Tasmania

16 778,000

26,215

Australian Commonwealth ....

1,902,660,240

2,972,906

The first settlement of Australia was commenced
by Captain Arthur Philip, who landed at Botany Bay
on January iQth, 1788, and formally took possession of
the whole continent, which was proclaimed a colony
under the name of New South Wales on February /th
of the same year. The island of Tasmania, off the
southeastern coast of Australia, was taken possession
of by an expedition from Sydney, as the town first
founded was called after a British statesman then in
power, on September i2th, 1803. It was governed
from Sydney till 1825, when it was proclaimed an inde-
pendent province under the name of Van Dieman's
Land, which name was subsequently changed to Tas-
mania. About 1803 an attempt was made to settle the
southeastern portion of Australia, and this subse-
quently became the colony of Victoria which was
separated from New South Wales in 1851. Swan River
settlement, now Western Australia, was first settled by
an expeditionary force from Sydney in 1826, and was

IQOI.J THE A USTRALIAN COMMONWEALTH 21

made a separate colony on June ist, 1829. South
Australia was first colonized in 1836 by immigrants sent
from . England by a colonization company, and the
colony was formally proclaimed on December 28th,
J836. Queensland, like Victoria, is an offshoot of New
South Wales. In 1825 a convict establishment was
formed at Moreton Bay, and in 1859 Queensland was
proclaimed an independent state.

Having thus briefly outlined the genesis of the six
colonies now about to be federated I shall not stay to
catalogue the numerous items of their progress, all of
which may be found in the various statistical publica-
tions. But it is worthy of note that the idea of union
was almost coeval with that of separation, and while
the enormous distances between the settlements ren-
dered the latter both necessary and advisable, the idea
of reunion was promulgated by the best of the colonists
from the earliest times, and indeed our early annals
contain many prophecies of the now consummated po-
litical conjunction both in prose and verse.

Probably the most radical difference between the
colonies, and certainly the most lengthy, has been in
their fiscal policies, which have varied from time to
time according to the political necessities of each, but
have always left the most striking contrast between the
adjoining colonies of New South Wales and Victoria.
Of course they all started very much on the same lines,
specific duties on large items of consumption being
levied on for revenue purposes. Generally speaking,
these have been increased from time to time, and ad
valorem duties added as exigency demanded, but little
scientific principle seemed to underlie the various rates
charged. Thus Tasmania raises by far the heaviest
per capita customs taxation, over 20% average ad valorem
on all imports, while Victoria, whose tariff is the most
protectionist and the most scientific of all the states,

22 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [January,

only levies an average of between n and 12 per cent.
It seems to have been accepted as a canon of taxation
that raw materials required for local manufactures
should not be taxed, but even this has been frequently
departed from. The customs revenue generally is on
the decline, attributable in the main to the fact that all
the states except New South Wales have given some
encouragement to native industry by means of customs
duties and bonuses, and so, gradually, manufactures
and producing interests generally have been developed,
and have in some instances obtained a firm hold on
Australian markets. Thus, with the exception of New
South Wales, very little agricultural produce is im-
ported, and locally-made goods in various classes are
produced in sufficient quantity to equal the demand.
The tariffs generally may be described thus: New
South Wales, except for four years (1892 to 1895 inc.)
of mainly ad valorem duties, generally free trade : Vic-
toria for the last twenty- eight years, protectionist, many
of her duties being specific and others ad valorem :
South Australia and Queensland, a judicious mixture of
protective and revenue duties, some of the latter having
a protective incidence also ; and Western Australia and
Tasmania, high revenue duties some of which of course
are incidentally protective as well.

On the proclamation of the commonwealth all the
customs collections are to pass immediately to the fed-
eral government to form its revenue, and the federal
parliament is charged with the making of a federal
tariff which it may set about at once, but must promul-
gate within two years of the commencement of the
federal authority. And already the din of battle is
commencing. The first federal elections, which will
take place early in the new year, will be almost exclu-
sively dominated by the question of protection versus
free trade, and both sides are now preparing as best

igoi.] THE A USTRALIAN COMMONWEALTH 23

they may for the greatest fiscal fight that has ever taken
place on this continent. While the infant industries
and their employees will range themselves under the
banner of protection, the importers and foreign manu-
facturers' agents are numerous and strong and are being
assisted in everyway by money and otherwise by their
principals in other parts of the world, notably in Great
Britain and Germany. The issue ought not to be in
doubt. It is a fight between patriotism and progress
on the one hand, and selfishness and stagnation on the
other. And only the apathy and cocksureness of the
national party gives the foreign traders a chance.

What a protectionist policy will mean to the Aus-
tralian commonwealth may be estimated from the
history of the United States. With a territory reaching
so near to the equator as the tenth parallel of south
latitude, high in the tropics, and stretching right down
below 43 degrees south into the colder portion of the
temperate zone, having a range of climate from the
fervent tropic heat to that of the snowy mountains
where snowshoe races are annually held, fires are re-
quired during eight months of every year, and the
mails are not infrequently stopped by winter snow
storms, it will be seen at once that every vegetable
product which can be furnished in any part of the world
can be grown in some part of Australia just as well.
With enormous mineral wealth of the most varied de-
scription there is absolutely nothing that could be denied
to a wise and industrious population. In short, within
our borders is to be found every element of national
greatness, and in a profusion unsurpassed in any
country of the whole world. Rich gold fields, from
which we have already extracted gold to the value of
$1,750,000,000, are backed by the greatest silver mines
known since the palmy days of Peru. From all corners
come the rich ingots of copper which modern scientific

24 GUN TON'S MAGAZINE [January,

development has raised almost to the rank of a royal
metal. Our streams yield abundant tin of the best
quality, while many of our mountains are built of iron
and other ores. Side by side with this embryo steel
run beds of limestone and great coal fields, the other
necessary ingredients of a great iron and steel manu-
facture. And this magnificent heritage of mineral
wealth is amply supported by the quality of our lands,
wherein huge tracts of the best sheep country to be
found in any part of the world are interspersed with
great areas of agricultural soils which can grow our
every requirement in cereal or fruit; from oats and
barley to sugarcane and coffee; from the apple and
the gooseberry to oranges, pineapples and bananas.

Yet with all this enormous mass of raw materials,
our population is sparse and our manufactories few.
Our minerals have fed people in every quarter of the
globe, while the unemployed have cried to us in thou-
sands in our own country. Our wool is sent away for
manufacture, much of it not even scoured in the country
of its production. Not a ton of steel has yet been made
from native ores, and our copper and tin are sent abroad
in ingots to return over the sea made up by alien
laborers into all the various things of our daily need.
Even much of the food we eat is still imported, while
our coal has gone to feed the mills of America, India
and Japan.

But a change is at hand. The interstate barriers,
which have isolated our people into small sections, are
about to fall, and with a scientific policy, framed prob-
ably on the lines which in the great republic of America
produce revenue for the government, and foster and
protect the industries of the people, the Australian
commonwealth will increase in as great a ratio as its
transoceanic friend and cousin. Our lands now idle,
or merely running sheep on stations as large as English

igoi.] THE A USTRALIAN COMMONWEALTH 25

counties, and sometimes as many of them put together,
will be made to blossom out with corn and wine.

"Our own we love; others we do not hate,
"But loving best our own we make their fate

"Our first concern;

' 'And, by the way we love our own dear land,
"And, by the wisdom make to govern her,
"We show the world the fruit of these is joy,
"And so by precept lead all on to good;
"Till truth omnipotent reigns everywhere,
"And by his offsprings: justice, wisdom, love,
"And by his grandchildren, joy and charity,
"Makes tears more scarce than the most precious pearl,
1 'And destitution quite a thing unknown ;
"While sorrow only comes to guide those back
"Who stray from wisdom's path;
"And pain and hatred, like white-feathered crows,
"Are very scarce indeed.
' 'Thus you can see by loving best our own
"Immediate friends, we best do serve the world."

A mordant illustration of what such a policy will
mean to our young nation was furnished a year or two
ago by our railway commissioners, themselves pro-
fessed free-traders but believing in good business
through and through. They set out to show how much
better it would be for the railways if our lands were
used for agricultural pursuits instead of being confined
to pastoral industries. They said :

"The following rough estimate of the value to the
railways of 10,000 acres of land under cultivation, as
against 10,000 acres of land employed for running
sheep, will strongly illustrate this point. A distance
of 300 miles from Sydney has been adopted in each
case.

Agricultural Result

"The average yield over the whole colony for the
past three years has been 12 ^ bushels per acre:

26 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [January,

Freight.

"Which gives 3,304 tons at $3.5o'per ton $11,564.00

"Carriage of wheat bags 423.67

"Machinery and implements of all kinds,
binder twine, etc., materials for re-
pairs, etc., 1,750.00

"Rations, clothing, etc., for one man for

every 100 acres — 100 men .... 1,990.00

$15,727.67

"No allowance is made for families or for travel-
ing upon the railways, which would be a fair additional
revenue.

"If the crops were reaped and the straw sent to
market, a large additional revenue would result.

Pastoral Result

"Average of the whole colony gives one
sheep to 2 1-5 acres — n tons of wool,
at $i 8 (5j£ Ibs. per sheep) .... $198.00

"Increase of the flock to be reduced by 25
per cent, each year by trucking to
market or by boiling down, say 600
sheep trucked and 525 boiled down 221.08

"Woolpacks, rations for one man for
every 4,000 sheep continuously, and
two men for 14 days per 1,000 sheep
at shearing time 33-25

$452.33

' 'In this instance a higher average is adopted for
the stock sent by rail than is found to be the usual re-
sult. No proper estimate can be arrived at in regard
to materials for improvements required in the future,
as the requirements in this respect will now be com-
paratively small, owing to the majority of the runs

igoi.] THE A USTRALIAN COMMONWEALTH 27

having completed their fencing, etc., maintenance sup-
plies only in future being required. Allowing $100 per
annum for each 10,000 acres for material of this kind,
an occasional wool press, etc., it gives a total revenue
of $550 per 10,000 acres, as against $15,727 per 10,000
acres under crop."

Now agricultural settlement depends ultimately on
being able to find a market for the produce, and the
market depends on having population to eat up what is
grown. And the population cannot eat unless it is em-
ployed ; and to employ the people manufactures both
numerous and varied must be founded and carried on.
And only protection can give us these.

Again, with the restricted market afforded by one
colony only, there has never been sufficient inducement
to invest capital in the manufacture of iron and steel on
a commercial scale. But the inauguration of the
commonwealth has changed all that. Already a Sie-
mens' steel furnace has commenced, although working
mainly on scrap, while one of our best citizens is now
in England busily organizing a great company to work
our rich deposits of which the government statistician
says: "Every natural advantage possessed by the great
iron and machine producing countries of the world —
such as England, America and Belgium — is also present
here. Not only are the iron and coal deposited in
abundance, and in positions easily accessible and readily
worked, but, as pointed out previously in this work
(' Wealth and Progress of N. S. W.'), the local iron ore
is exceedingly rich." And what is true of iron is true
of copper, of tin, of silver, of lead, of zinc and of every
metal or mineral commercially valuable. And so with
our abundant wool, our easily grown cotton, and so on
through all the long list of our wonderful resources.

Protection will be to us the magician's wand which
will set hammer to ring on anvil, make the wheels to

28 G UNTON'S MA GAZINE

revolve, the shuttles to whirr, and the hum of busy in-
dustry to sound through all our land, covered with
smiling fields and happy homes.

Then indeed shall we take our place among the
nations of the world, and, in the great world
market, compete in friendly rivalry with even
the great republic of the West. Then shall we
found, not only the great and mighty nation (phrase
beloved of post-prandial orators), but establish within
our borders the most desired and desirable thing on
earth, a prosperous, a happy and a contented people.
Then may we realize the pregnant words of Went-
worth, who, with prophetic glance, wrote some fifty
years ago :

"And, oh Britannia! Shouldst thou cease to ride

"Despotic Empress of old Ocean's tide:

"Should thy tamed lion — spent his former might —

"No longer roar, the terror of the fight:

"Should e'er arrive that dark, disastrous hour,

"When bowed by luxury, thou yield'st to power;

' 'When thou no longer freest of the free,

"To some proud victor bend'st the vanquished knee:

"May all thy glories in another sphere

"Relume, and shine more brightly still than here:

"May this, thy last born infant — then arise

"To glad thy heart, and greet thy parent eyes;

"And Australasia float, with flag unfurl' d,

' 'A new Britannia in another world ! "

A NEW REPUBLIC

The new federation of the Australian colonies con-
stitutes essentially a new republic. The link that still
connects it with Great Britain is formal and perfunc-
tory, and does not affect the internal affairs of the
commonwealth. Australia is in many respects similar
to the United States. It has hitherto consisted of six
British colonies which, like the early colonies in this
country, have been extremely jealous of each other and
always on guard to protect their own rights, political as
well as industrial. The progress in Australia has been
exceptionally great, in many respects no less extraor-
dinary than the progress in this country. The spirit
and principle of democracy have pervaded the entire
political structure of all the colonies, and their practical
advantages in self-government have been well-nigh
complete.

In the industrial development of Australia, the
influence of the United States and of England have been
perceptible. New South Wales followed closely the
English idea- of economic policy and adopted free trade.
Victoria was more influenced by the American idea and
adopted protection. In labor legislation the English
influence and example have been very great. The
eight-hour system has long been an established fact in
Australia, in which it may be said to have led the
world. Wages in Australia have been higher than in
any other country ; in this respect surpassing even the
United States, although doubtless representing a some-
what smaller purchasing power per dollar.

High wages and short hours always mean political
and economic progress. It is not surprising, therefore,
to find that the progress of Australia towards political
democracy, advanced forms of individual freedom and

29

30 G UNTON'S MA GAZINE

intelligent public policy, has been marked, constructive
and rational. Under such influences integrating forces
naturally operate. Accordingly, with the close of the
nineteenth century we find this community of English
colonies blooming forth into an integrated common-
wealth under a truly democratic form of government
and constitution. Happily, this consummation has
been brought about not by war or revolution but by
industrial development and natural political evolution.
The labor movement has had its wholesome influence
on Australian industrial conditions, and the policy of
protection has had its wholesome influence upon public
policy, so as practically to destroy that fetich of free
trade which denies the right of a nation to use its polit-
ical institutions to stimulate, enlarge and protect the
economic opportunities of its own people. Along the
lines of rational protective ideas, wholesome labor pol-
icy and truly democratic representative institutions,
Australia, not with the antagonism but with the sym-
pathy and cooperation of the English people and gov-
ernment, has evolved from six segregated colonies into
an integrated commonwealth and virtual republic.

We have the honor of publishing in this number
an article on the Australian Commonwealth from the
pen of Hon. William Francis Schey. Mr. Schey has
been conspicuously identified with the recent movement
towards Australian federation. He was a member of
parliament in New South Wales, and is a leading pro-
tectionist, being general secretary of the National
Protective Union, president of the New South Wales
board of labor commissioners, and otherwise conspicu-
ously identified with recent progressive economic and
political movements. Mr. Schey is peculiarly well
fitted to write upon what he calls " The New Nation,"
which is of special and suggestive interest to every
citizen of the United States.

HAS JAMAICA SOLVED THE COLOR PRO&LEM?

JULIUS MORITZEN

Allowing that the revolting Chinese drama pre-
sents racial animosity in its crudest and most barbaric
form, not since the civil war have questions of race and
color entered more largely into the affairs of the west-
ern hemisphere. Politics and religion undoubtedly
have had a hand in the world-imbroglio of the Orient.
Religious proselytism, however, cannot be assigned as
a cause of effects all too evident this side of the Atlan-
tic Ocean.

Perhaps the question of race and privilege assumes
specific importance as it concerns either the southern
or northern states. Each section, it may be supposed,
looks at the matter from its own point of view. But to
expect that a disfranchisement process of the North
Carolina stamp can make for the homogeneity of the
nation is to ignore morality. Political aggrandizement
here stands sponsor for a move recently treated of ex-
haustively in the public prints.

Since the cry of Anglo-American cooperation arises
every now and then when questions affecting both na-
tions are at issue, why not examine how each country
may benefit the other in solving the problem of race
and color ? No other two countries have been con-
fronted in a like degree with racial intricacies. Both
Great Britain and the United States have had dealings
with the African race antedating emancipation.

How much, then, has the British empire to teach
those responsible for the stewardship of the Afro-
Americans ? In how far can the rule of Britannia over
its colored subjects find even partial application as it

31

32 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [January,

concerns the right of suffrage due the American negro ?
The query teems with vital significance ; the more so
since the answer at best can be but a superior sort of
interrogation. Almost within speaking distance of
each other, the United States and Great Britain are
working for the solution of the color problem. Whether
greater success has crowned the efforts of the empire or
the republic is left for the consideration of such who
know what the United States has done for the colored
people in the past. The North Carolina disfranchise-
ment blunder need not necessarily stand out too boldly
against a background which may as yet be blended into
a harmonious whole.

Of the several British colonies in the West Indies,
none offer a better opportunity for studying the negro
problem than Jamaica. Few, if any, possessions of the
empire have been the scene of greater strife and vicis-
situde. How great a factor the negro has continued in
the existence of the island the history of Jamaica bears
witness.

James Anthony Froude visited Jamaica almost fif-
teen years ago. The itinerary included the greater
portion of the British West Indies and a cursory glance
or two bestowed on Hayti. The late historian went,
as he afterwards said, for the purpose of increasing his
knowledge of the British colonies. The people of Ja-
maica, whites, blacks and browns, are not yet done dis-
cussing Mr. Froude and what he gave utterance to as a
result of his journey to the Antilles and the Caribbean
Sea. Without reservation it is charged in many quar-
ters that the negrophilism of the eminent historian is
not altogether luminous. That Mr. Froude did not
consider negro suffrage of whatever kind desirable for
the British colony is evident enough from what he
wrote about Jamaica and the negroes.

The north coast of the island offers essential advan-

i9oi.] HAS JAMAICA SOL VED THE COLOR PROBLEM? 33

tages for the study of existing conditions. Between
Port Antonio and Montego Bay the Caribbean Sea
washes a stretch of country prodigiously rich in na-
ture's attributes. And it is in Portland parish that the
colored race is now demonstrating its capacity for
partly working out its own salvation. The white
minority in this section is doing all it can to aid the
others in their task.

Port Antonio fifteen years ago did not aspire to the
importance which now makes of the town the greatest
fruit-shipping port of Jamaica. But since Americans
were already acting as the redeeming agency of the
northern coast ; since what was then the Boston Fruit
Company — now the United Fruit Company— employed
a large number of blacks on its plantations, the re-
nowned author of " The English in the West Indies"
would have done well in visiting Port Antonio before
he published his work. The railroad did not then con-
nect the town with Kingston to the south, it may be
argued, but, without necessarily championing the cause
of the negro, a writer should take every feature into
consideration when to gain and disseminate knowledge
is the twofold purpose. The capital of a country is
never the place where the native pulse beats in unison
with its normal self.

The Spanish- American war came home to the Ja-
maicans as a conflict the result of which would be of
more than passing interest to them. To the colored
population in particular the aid in behalf of Cuba ap-
pealed as some fin de siecle emancipation. Fifty odd
years before, the efforts of Wilberforce and others of
his mind gave freedom to the negroes of Jamaica. The
Spanish yoke, as it concerned the Cubans, in the eyes
of the blacks and browns, did not seem one whit less
oppressive than the slavery of yore, into which many
of those living had been born. For which reason the

34 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [January,

advent of the stars and stripes in the Caribbean Sea was
hailed joyfully by the Afro-Jamaicans.

Landing at Port Antonio, colored quarantine offi-
cers inspect the steamer. The custom-house officials
likewise are of the colored race. It is the first encoun
ter with representatives of the crown, and on the very
threshold of Jamaica, therefore, the opportunity is pre
sented of studying the color problem. Colored clerks are
busily at work in the long room, occupied jointly by the
custom-house and the colonial bank which has a branch
here at Port Antonio. Deft fingers ply the ledgers.
Pounds and shillings and pence pass over the counters.
From the darkest hue to the lightest brown the ensem-
ble indicates that the British government considers its
colored subjects fit to transact part of its business. No
fault is to be found with the treatment bestowed on
the traveler. If now and then a tinge of officiousness
creeps in it is nothing more serious than what may be
met with where the representatives of the British gov-
ernment are white instead of black. The colored
official in Jamaica cannot be blamed entirely for desir-
ing to impress on the visitor that he considers himself
a trifle superior to those of his own race in the United
States. Of course his opinion of the colored people of
the North is based largely on what he has read concern-
ing the negro disfranchisement. But he is perfectly
familiar with the name of Booker T.Washington and the
importance of institutions like Tuskegee Institute and
the Hampton Training School . And there is not the least
doubt that whether black or brown the negro of Jamaica
sees in his anterior emancipation a proof positive that
he is somewhat in advance of his colored brethren in
the United States. He takes pride in knowing that
progress has attended the march of his race under the
stars and stripes. But he is not willing to concede this
progress to be equal with his own. He now and then

igoi.] HAS JAMAICA SOL VED THE COLOR PROBLEM? 35

strikes up an argument which from his point of view,
presumably, is conclusive. In this matter of excellence
and priority his traits are characteristically provincial.
This is said in no sense of disparagement.

In the matter of shedding fresh light on the color
problem of Jamaica the writer had to proceed somewhat
differently than anticipated. To make a logical begin-
ning it was the intention to show how the negro had
been brought from his native land a slave ; how he had
been instrumental in cultivating the colony these hun-
dred of years since ; what was his condition before and
after emancipation, and what changes for better or for
worse had been wrought in his material and mental
make-up since he had been granted his freedom. It
was the purpose to begin with the peasant and the soil
and rise gradually upward. But, as it happened, the first
representatives of the race to be met with were such as
held important government positions, and their case, as
it were, had to be disposed of first. Between the two
are other grades, each a factor in the development of
the colony and the colored race. Even the coolies be-
long by rights under the color caption.

During the Spanish- American war the large colored
population of Port Antonio and surrounding country
evinced a more than passing interest in the momentous
happenings to the north of the Caribbean Sea. Since
then the interest in all that concerns Cuba and the
United States has increased twofold. Port Antonio ly-
ing directly to the north of the island, which was form-
erly Spain's, news of importance nearly always found its
way here before reaching other points in Jamaica. In
common with the white residents the colored popula-
tion became keenly alive to all that transpired in Cuba
and Porto Rico, especially since thousands of blacks
•and browns were about to be relieved of the Spanish
yoke. Then came the conclusion of the war, Cuba was

86 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [January,

brought under the protecting wings of the United States,
and now the Jamaica negro is anxious to know what
political freedom will be given his brother in Cuba in
case independence is not granted the island. With his
left eye resting on some of the southern states, where
the disfranchisement plan is advocated, he cannot help
glancing to the right as well where Hayti is presenting
a spectacle anything but edifying as regards self gov-
ernment. It is true that the Haytians are not concern-
ing themselves with the outside world, but the negro at
large has a right to inquire what his colored brother in
Hayti is doing for his own elevation. More so since
here the race is working out its own salvation, let the
latter term be rightly applied or otherwise.

Speak to a Jamaica negro of average intelligence
about Hayti and the Haytians and he at once professes
his allegiance to the queen. Not that there are wanting
those who look to independence as the saving clause,
but the better element is of a different mind and spurns
in unmistakable language the idea that annexation to
the United States is for the best of the island. In this
respect the sentiment of the colored people has under-
gone a marked change during the past decade.

Of the more than 700,000 inhabitants of the island
about 17,000 are whites. This may seem the reason
then why so many negroes are found in the pro-
fessions, the arena of commerce and in similar walks of
life. As artisans they are also much in evidence, and,
as a matter of course, all heavy labor is performed by
them. But while numerical strength may have consid-
erable to do with their success in the higher branches
of existence the Jamaica negroes know only too well
that but for education they could never have attained
to positions which are seldom reached by the race
anywhere else. Whether on the plantations or at the *
docks it is difficult to find a negro who cannot at least

i9oi.] HAS JAMAICA SOL VED THE COLOR PROBLEM? 37

read or write. With a rudimentary foundation the rest
is easier.

The color question of the island in reality presents a
problem within a problem. To an outsider, at any
rate, there exists a distinct division between the blacks
and the browns. The latter as might be guessed are
those of mixed race, and not infrequently the browns
are referred to in Jamaica as the colored people. The
Maroons, the descendants of Carib Indians and negroes,
should not be confounded with the browns having
Caucasian blood in their veins.

Not once but a number of times the writer while in
Jamaica observed how the blacks and browns looked
upon themselves as individually superior to the others.
There is hardly a doubt that the pure blacks consider
the browns as great a danger to their race as the
whites.

Market day at Port Antonio brings together every
type of the negro race. The streets are crowded with
people in picturesque costumes. The country folks
passing up and down are almost invariably of the pure
negro class. The women are in the majority and
balancing heavy baskets on their heads they appear
splendid specimens of their sex as they pass by. The
black policemen look like statues in their spotless
uniforms of white.

In conversation with a colored merchant the writer
was reminded of what is told of Li Hung Chang when
the shrewd Chinese diplomat is being interviewed.
The Celestial statesman, it is affirmed, instead of being
interviewed turns himself interviewer. The Jamaica
merchant was approached for the purpose of learning
certain phases of the situation with which he was said
to be familiar to a high degree. It is true that much
was gained by the conversation which ensued, but
there was evident a desire on the part of the other to

38 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [January,

learn all he could about those of his own race in the
United States, even before he would commit himself.

"In the interest of my business I go to the states
twice a year," he said. " But while there I have not
much opportunity to study the color question. How-
ever, I feel that we of Jamaica have not a great deal to
complain of as concerns our contact with the whites.
Of course, here in Port Antonio you can only see one
side of the question, since the blacks and browns are so
greatly in the majority that you will find us in every
avocation. But even when you get to Kingston you
will find that the negro is perfectly able to keep step
with his white brother of the capital. Some of the
most eminent lawyers for instance are of my race."

In speaking of the color problem the merchant
affirmed that whites, Cubans, blacks and browns were
members of the several secret societies to which he
himself belonged. As to the real social intercourse
between the races there is a line drawn, although not as
definable as in the United States, he confessed.

The railroad between Port Antonio and Kingston
furnishes another chapter of information anent the
colored people of the island. It is not our purpose,
however, to dwell on the rolling stock, what manner of
roadbed is furnished or what the distance between
Port Antonio and the capital to the south of the
island. A more graphic pen than the present might
be able to picture adequately the magnificent landscape
through which the train speeds towards its destination.
The personnel of the train and the passengers, how-
ever, came entirely within the purpose of the journey
undertaken by the writer. From fireman to conductor
the crew was composed of negroes. Except for a few
persons the passengers were blacks and browns.

The conductor volunteered considerable informa-
tion as to the relationship between the white and

igoi.] HAS JAMAICA SOL VED THE COLOR PROBLEM? 39

colored passengers in general. The Jamaica Railroad
has first and second-class carriages, and color is no bar
to either. In fact, while many of the whites travel
second-class, blacks and browns not infrequently fill
the first-class carriages. On this first railroad journey
to Kingston the writer had as fellow passenger a
colored overseer of a large plantation, and the informa-
tion gained from him remains not the least valuable
material gathered in the island. What he had to say
about the peasant class proved him in possession of
logic and acumen.

In the United States the color question comes most
strongly to the fore where those of different races meet
in public places. As for Jamaica, it was to be expected
that whatever animosity prevailed would find antagon-
istic expression where whites and negroes were sup-
posed to meet on common ground. The writer recalls
an incident which, while strikingly unique to a stranger,
offers a fair example of what can be met with frequently
in the British colony.

It was on the evening of a dramatic performance at
the Theater Royal, Kingston. The amateur talent of
the city was to give a benefit for the fund for the wid-
ows and orphans of soldiers who had fallen in the
Transvaal war. A large audience had gathered to pay
tribute to the valor of the British army. The military
band was playing a stirring battle piece and the curtain
was about to rise. The writer was interested in the
mixed assemblage which from the point of fashion
would have done credit to an audience at the Metropol-
itan Opera- House on a gala night. Magnificent types
of Creole women, handsome dark-skinned mulattoes and
men and women of the pure negro type were scattered
throughout the lower floor and occupied conspicuous
boxes in the balcony. Sir Augustus Hemmings, gov-
ornor of Jamaica, was in the official box with Lady

40 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [January,

Hemtnings and other members of the family. Suddenly,
attention was directed toward the rear of the auditorium.
Down the center strode a couple, the man six feet tall
and black as ebony, the woman a perfect blonde. Like
some modern Othello and his fair Desdemona the couple
reached their seats where the removal of the woman's
opera cloak revealed a form which stood in striking con-
trast to that of her escort who looked almost inky black
from head to foot, except for his immaculate shirt front.

The man now rose and bowing toward the govern-
or's box gave intimation that the occupants were no
strangers to him. Then he turned aside and spoke to
some one sitting next to -him.

"Rather a difference in complexion," remarked a
typical Creole sitting near the writer. " Even to us such
a contrast is not an everyday occurence."

It transpired that the negro was one of the foremost
jurists on the island and that he had recently married
in England. His wife, who belonged to a prominent
family in the country across the sea, was making her
initial appearance before the social set that evening.
Nothing could have been advanced to prove more con-
clusively that Jamaica gives apparent social recognition
to the colored race. And still it is only as a sort of su-
perior toleration that the negro is admitted to the
charmed circle of society. As in the United States, the
color line would be drawn tight were it but politic. It
is the knowledge of this which makes the Jamaica negro
strive hard to earn social recognition through education.

The Anglo-Saxon element of Jamaica looks with
disfavor on intermarriage of the races. That such a
practice is conducive to the solution of the color ques-
tion is very doubtful. It is quite true that some of the
most brilliant mulattoes in the island testify to the fact
that mixed parentage has worked benefit in their par-
ticular cases. But as a rule the admixture of Caucasian

igoi.] HAS JAMAICA SOL VED THE COLOR PROBLEM? 41

blood is to be traced back a considerable period when
the negro was still a slave.

Entirely apart from the question of illegitimacy,
those of unmixed race do not admit that this contact
with the whites has been an exceptional heritage. The
pure negro with some reason says that since his lineage
is undisturbed he has a right to consider himself the
superior. On the other hand the browns as a whole
seem perfectly contented that their skin in many in-
stances borders on the white.

To treat conclusively of the Jamaica negro is out
of the question. The psychology of the race as it per-
tains to the colored people of the island has much to
differentiate it from what obtains in many other places.
Books of travel do not furnish all the facts about this
member of the African race. The writer fails to see
in what way most authors have placed the Jamaica
negro in his proper light. It is quite true that of
faults he has many, but the final estimate is not
obtained from some steamer's deck, as the tourist
merely glances at the coast of Jamaica and its people,
as it were. Mr. Froude did not do much better, even
though he made a stay on the island and was enter-
tained royally at the hands of the government officials.
It may be argued that his book is entitled "The
English in the West Indies.'' The more reason why
he should not have planned beforehand what to say
about the blacks and browns who constitute the ma-
jority. The late historian did not consider them fit
members to participate in the affairs of the local gov-
ernment. As an insular Englishman it could hardly
be expected that he would have advocated their partici-
pation too strongly ; but to compare the Afro- Jamaicans
with the Haytians is an injustice which some future
historian will surely correct. And that is in reality
how Mr. Froude summed up his result.

43 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [January,

Perhaps the reader will reach the conclusion that
the present article gives more than a due proportion of
credit to the negro and omits to speak adequately of the
whites. Such a conception is a fallacy except so far as
it concerns the object of the article : to tell what the
Jamaica negro is doing for his own elevation. Many
descriptive books are in the market which will enlighten
the curious in the matter of picturesque delineation.
Jamaica is an island like few in the West Indies. As
for the political situation it has been dealt with every
now and then. But the negro race is just beginning to
be a real factor in the destiny of nations. And whether
in the United States, the West Indies, or in their
native Africa, the racial bond must sooner or later assert
itself. And this, notwithstanding the mulatto, has of
late become a sub-division of the entity.

The schools and churches of the island are fertile
places in which to study the evolution of the colored
people of Jamaica. Since the emancipation several
important changes have been made in the educational
system. The wealthier classes among the whites in-
variably send their children to England to finish their
education. But to the writer it appeared as if the spirit
of amicability between the white and colored children
attending the parochial schools left nothing to be
desired. There comes to mind, for instance, the picture
of two young girls walking down the steps of a school
in Kingston. The one was of fair complexion with
blonde curls in profusion around her head ; the other
had the dark features and woolly hair of the typical
negro. With their arms around each other's neck the
contrast could not have been greater. No racial ani-
mosity could have rested in the minds of these young
girls at any rate. Perhaps the case in point was
exceptional. If so it is pleasant to have witnessed it in
a season of such world- wide racial contention.

i9oi.] HAS JAMAICA SOL VED THE COLOR PROBLEM? 43

The name of Booker T. Washington has already
been alluded to. It is exceedingly doubtful whether
Frederick Douglas in his time meant much more to his
race than the influence this masterful negro educator
now exerts over his people. It was to be supposed
that the aim and strenuousness of Professor Washing-
ton were quite familiar to the colored people of the
towns and cities of Jamaica, but even in the country
districts his educational propaganda has taken root, and
when the black peasant is asking questions pertaining
to his colored brethren in the United States he fre-
quently bases his inquiries on what he already knows
about the " Negro Moses" of the North, as Booker T.
Washington has been termed by his own people and
others. When on that day at Harvard, five years ago,
a colored man for the first time in the history of a New
England university was officially honored, the degree
of master of arts, conferred by President Eliot, placed
Booker T. Washington on a pedestal visible as far
south as the British colony in the Carribbean Sea.
When he said subsequently that work and education
are the levers by which the race is to be lifted up, he
may have given unconscious inspiration to thousands
of Jamaica negroes. For there is no doubt that within
the past five years the blacks, who constitute the labor-
ing class, have gone to work with more of a will than
in years gone by. Whatever Booker T. Washington
has written has gone straight to the mark, whether it
applied locally or in the aggregate.

Not a few negroes have found their way from
Jamaica to the United States, but in most instances a
grateful return has been beaten after a limited stay.
The numerous tourists who now flock to the island for
health and pleasure have perhaps stimulated a desire
on the part of the Jamaica negro to share in the opu-
lence which most travelers so openly display. Wages

44 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [January,

are small in the island it is true, but then again to the
natives the living is inexpensive. Narrowed down to
its due proportion the colored race here is quite as well
off as anywhere.

Unquestionably it is to the soil that the negro of
the tropical countries will have to turn for his ultimate
salvation. The industrial activity with which the
negroes have recently identified themselves in the
southern states of this country has its mainspring in
the cultivation of the cotton fields. In Jamaica and
other islands of the West Indies nature has prepared
the ground almost in advance. Since sugar must in
the future be confined to extensive territories under
the management of central factories, other products will
be found available to the peasant class. Bananas, co-
coanuts and other tropical plants and trees will be
made to yield even more plentifully than at present.
And it is the hope of a large number of negroes that
the whites will come to realize that this is for the best
of all concerned and not oppose the peasant proprie-
tary.

But who is to do the work of the larger estates, the
plantations where labor is wanted during certain periods
of the year? This is a question which has caused no
end of discussion, and was solved to some extent by
the introduction of the coolies who came to Jamaica
under contract with the British government. But since
men and women share equally the labor of the field,
the peasant, it is said, can manage his own plot of
ground and be at the service of the planters when most
needed. That the advent of the coolies has from the
first stimulated the negro to greater effort there is little
doubt. Patient, saving, the coolie has told the negro,
by example that if the latter does not continue indus-
trious the other will take his place.

The writer visited many country districts and saw

IQOI.] HAS JAMAICA SOL VED THE COLOR PROBLEM? 45

the workings of the peasant proprietary system. Ap-
parently the people are happy in the knowledge that
they have roofs of their own over their heads.

The constitution of Jamaica reads that in order to
vote at the election of a member of the legislative
council for any of the electoral districts the individual
must have attained the age of twenty-one years. He
must be a British subject by birth or naturalization,
and during the preceding twelve months must be the
owner or tenant of a dwelling house within the district.
This applies to whites and negroes alike and there is
no educational clause inserted for the reason that it
could not find application since nearly everybody can
read and write. Perhaps a certain element of the white
population is not too enthusiastic because their black
and brown fellow voters thus easily qualify themselves.
But the preponderance of colored voters is there to
stay and the white opponents might just as well make
the best of it. Careful investigation has shown that
rather than put in nomination one of their own color
the blacks and browns have chosen a white candidate
where the latter's qualifications for the office have been
more pronounced.

As for the cry of superstition, which so many
writers raise in their treatment of Jamaica and other
West Indian islands, that perhaps is a matter which is
inherent in the African race. But not once during a
stay of several months in Jamaica did the writer en-
counter anything which would lead him to believe that
education in time would not make an easy conquest of
this very superstition. Not a few writers have at-
tempted to show with a vengeance that devil worship
was a feature of the Jamaica negro in common with the
blacks of Hayti. Whatever authority lies behind, it is
safe to say that hearsay is alone responsible. It is in
the nature of the colored race to be easily influenced.

46 G UNTON'S MA GAZ1NE

But rather than expose to view whatever shortcomings
the negro of Jamaica may possess the white inhabi-
tants should take pains to tell the visitors of his better
qualities. A parent does not usually chastise his child
in public. Perhaps the Anglo-Saxon element of Jamaica
might do itself a service by at any rate extolling those
qualities and improvements which the Afro- Jamaicans
possess and show. As for the United States and its
thousands of recently acquired colored wards in the
West Indies, it is to be hoped that it will deal con-
scientiously with the negro population which is to
witness a new era likewise under Anglo-Saxon steward-
ship.

MUNICIPAL POLITICS

The next great public movement in this country is
destined to be in the field of municipal politics. It is
in the nature of all rapid progress that it moves in
sections. The first progress in a new country is always
industrial. It is the very prosperity of its industrial
enterprise that brings progress in all other phases of
society. Population centers around industrial activity ;
hence the development of manufacture and commerce
brings cities. The relation of cities to each other and
to agricultural regions brings the railroad system, and
so the nation grows along the lines of its industrial
activities, and the character of its institutions is largely
determined by the nature of its industries. When the
industrial progress is very rapid, especially if abnor-
mally so, the growth and government of towns and
cities are largely left to their own momentum.

This is vividly illustrated in the sudden growth of
a mining camp. The kind of houses, the conditions
of the town, the civic regulations, the sanitation, the
laying out and care of the streets, are for a time left
largely to the individual impulse of the people, with
the result of chaos, disorder and neglect. In short, all
the municipal and social features of the town are subor-
dinated to the prime impulse that brought the town
into existence, namely, industrial success. Next to
industrial success, and largely contemporaneous with
it, comes the political interest, especially as affecting
the relation of the industries of the place to the state or
national government. Under these forces, which are
naturally aggressive in proportion to the industrial
growth of the place, the municipal interests are for a
long time neglected.

47

48 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [January,

This neglect brings a multitude of vices as the
town grows. The lack of sanitation, neglect of streets,
of proper water supply, of building regulations, of
opportunities for education, etc., begin to show them-
selves in the poor character and unattractiveness of the
town. Politics, which is an early development, imme-
diately interests itself in the police department because
that is the source of control. The consequence is that
the place becomes known as rich but crude and shoddy.
It is characterized as sacrificing civilization to the dol-
lar, its laws are ill enforced, the free use of money and
purchase of privileges and bribery of public officials
become common. As a natural consequence, public
attention is first temporarily and then permanently
turned to the improved elevation and purification of
civic life. It becomes a part of the policy and politics
to raise the political and civic character of its institu-
tions to the level of its industrial accomplishments.
This is the natural order of development under the
influence of rapid growth, and hence is apt to be char-
acteristic of new "bonanza" countries. It has been
conspicuously illustrated in the history of the United
States.

Our industrial progress has no parallel in any other
country, neither has the comparative backwardness of
our municipal governments. We have more national
wealth, we have made more and greater economic
improvements, we have a greater degree of personal
and political freedom, we have a higher standard of
prosperity and individual income than any other nation,
and we have a lower standard of civic life, poorer city
governments, and more municipal corruption and de-
bauchery than can be found in any other country. This
is not evidence of the political debauchery of the Amer-
ican people, but it is the result of a neglected field in
our governmental activities. The national energy has

igoi.] MUNICIPAL POLITICS 49

been devoted to other fields, and in these unequalled
success has been accomplished.

The admittedly higher standard of municipal gov-
ernment in Europe is easily accounted for by the fact
that the progress in European countries has been more
uniform, because it has been much slower than in the
United States. The progress has been more homo-
geneous and more gradual, it has taken no great spurts,
either in industry, population, form of government or
other conditions. Its several nations have practically
no alien population, no "trust '' problem, no free silver
agitation and no Tammanys, because it has had no
extraordinary industrial expansion, which within a
single decade called into existence new municipalities
and sometimes new states. The city of London, for
instance, has had its charter nearly a thousand years.

During the first half of the present century the
industrial development of this country was compara-
tively normal, the diversification of industry was slight,
cities grew slowly, and municipal government kept
comparative pace with the growth of national institu-
tions. Tammany administrations were practically un-
known. It was not until after the war, A, hen the
extraordinary growth of industry came, with multipli-
cation of manufactures, almost magical appearance of
cities and conversion of small cities into large ones,
that the field of municipal activities came to be rela-
tively neglected. It is not that municipal interest
became less, but that it failed to grow apace with the
industrial expansion and urbanization of population.
We have now reached the point, however, where the
problem of municipal government with all it implies
must receive national attention or its very neglect will
react upon our industrial progress.

The debauchery and corruption developed in our
municipal life has already begun to spread into the field

50 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [January,

of state and national politics. At the present rate of
city growth, before, the first quarter of the twentieth
century is closed, the majority of the voters of the
nation will probably be in the cities and large towns,
and the national government will be controlled by the
methods and forces that govern the municipalities.

The national questions of immediate importance, if
not yet solved have been put beyond the point of immi-
nent danger. The tariff question, for instance, though
not scientifically settled, may be regarded as safely dis-
posed of for the next few years. The gold standard
has been established and the stability of our monetary
system practically secured. Although much remains
to be done to perfect our banking system, it is not in
danger of revolutionary disturbance, so as to jeopardize
our financial and business stability. Unfortunately,
new problems have been injected into our foreign
policy which to some extent will unduly absorb public
interest and tend to lessen the concentration of atten-
tion on domestic affairs, but this is largely an affair of
the national government, which should not and it is to
IDC hoped will not be permitted, even in the hands of
cunning politicians, to divert the attention of the people
from the now imperative question of municipal gov-
ernment.

New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and other large
cities have become the nests of political pestilence.
They are the breeding places of political ' ' Black
Death '' and are rapidly infesting the atmosphere of
the nation with their disease-laden germs. There is
one element, however, in the character of the American
people which furnishes the foundation for optimistic
confidence ; it is, that they generally rise to the occa-
sion when demanded. They have occasionally made
mistakes, but when brought face to face with vital
issues involving the nation's welfare and future progress

MUNICIPAL POLITICS 51

they have always taken the highway, though the
temptation to go cross-lots was ever so great. This
feature has been illustrated in the last two national
elections. The people— the masses — upon whom the
sophistry of quack statesmanship is expected to have
the greatest influence, who are the victims of industrial
dislocation and come most directly in touch with the
disadvantages and receive the meager end of the bene-
fits of industrial and social institutions, are naturally
expected to lend the most willing ear to drastic meas-
ures and even to revolution. But in 1896, and again in
1900, although in sympathy with much that was pre-
sented in favor of disruption, they rose to the level of
wholesome discrimination, selected the genuine and
rejected the spurious with a decision that stimulates
faith in democracy and furnishes a guarantee to civiliza-
tion. There is every reason to believe, therefore, that
when brought face to face with the problem of munici-
pal government the American people will be no less
equal to the task.

With the comparative subsidence of national ques-
tions the subject of municipal government is naturally
coming conspicuously to the front. It is also beginning
in exactly the right place, New York city. New York
is the metropolis of the country, it is the second largest
city in the world, it is the greatest center in this coun-
try of wealth, learning, art, science, commerce and' in-
dustry, and, for reasons already stated, it has perhaps
the most corrupt and debauched government of any city
in the world. Its administration has been so long in
the hands of a debased and debasing organization that
those responsible for it have lost the capacity to blush.
Instead of being a government for the protection of the
city, it uses the political power and wealth of the peo-
• pie to traffic in crime and protect criminals and levy
blackmail upon the unfortunate class whose duty it is to

52 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [January,

help and protect. It has converted politics into a cor-
rupt private business, to the scandal of the community
and disgrace of the nation.

This naturally tends to grow worse as it grows
stronger, and becomes more impervious to criticism.
Under the tendency to neglect municipal interests, these
corrupting and degrading methods have been systema-
tized into regular organized politics on the principle
that success succeeds and establishes the methods of its
success.

The corrupting methods evolved and so skilfully
adopted by Tammany have been imitated by the repub-
lican organization. It is no longer a question of differ-
ent principles or public policy that actuates the two
organizations in New York city, but how a division of
the spoils can be secured. While Tammany is in con-
trol of the administration, it is frequently more or less
in danger of dislodgment, and in order to perpetuate
itself it consents, according to the degree of danger, to
divide the emoluments with the other organization. It
has become a question of the division of spoils rather
than policy of municipal administration.

This evil has been generally believed to exist for a
considerable time, the evidence of it has been more or
less manifest for many years, but the proof of it now
exists in indisputable form. That the republican man-
agers and officeholders do trade with the leaders of
Tammany Hall is now susceptible of conclusive demon-
stration. We have in our possession the evidence that
such dishonest trading took place in the last election.
Although this vice is probably more flagrant in New
York than in any other city, it has become a feature of
municipal politics in all large cities.

This feature is responsible for the failure of many
wholesome efforts towards municipal reform. There
have been several spasmodic attempts to cleanse the

i9oi.J MUNICIPAL POLITICS 53

character of municipal politics, but when the movement
seems to reach anything like the danger point to either
organization the other comes to its rescue. This has
been done so many times and in so many ways that the
faith of the people in the wholesome integrity of the
local republican organization is not much greater than
in that of Tammany. It is probably true that 75 per
cent, of those who voted for McKinley in New York
city at the national election would be as reluctant to
give the republican party control of the city government
as they would to reelect Mayor Van Wyck. Indeed,
the public belief is that the municipal government un-
der the leadership of Thomas C. Platt would be in no
important sense better than the present one under
Richard Croker. This may be an unjust view. Mr.
Platt is not a duplicate of Mr. Croker, he is a cultivated
gentleman. It has not and probably cannot be proved
that he is a personal beneficiary of crime and the crim-
inal class. He has never yet had Croker's opportunity,
yet it is definitely known that those immediately under
him, who do his bidding, are ready to and do participate
in identically the same methods as do the men under
Croker ; indeed, that they participate in the same thing
with them. This belief regarding Mr. Platt and the
republican organization is so strong and knowledge of
the conduct of his subordinates is so conclusive that the
people will not and ought not to trust him.

Although a majority of the people of New York are
unquestionably opposed to Tammany and would gladly
rid themselves of Croker and all he implies, they will
not transfer the administration to the republican party,
which is so visibly tainted with Tammany methods.
This fact has now become so clear that a republican
nomination for mayor in New York city cannot be taken
seriously ; it is so clear that republicans who really want
clean politics would not favor it, and any effort to bring

54 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [January,

about that result would be properly interpreted as a part
of a plan to perpetuate Tammany and enable certain
republican politicians to divide with Tammany the reve-
nues from the city's degradation.

The fact that this is becoming an increasingly
definite view held by the citizens in both parties is a still
further hopeful sign that the people are getting ready
to face the municipal problem in a practical and efficient
manner. Past experience and knowledge of present
conduct on the part of the republican organization, and
its accommodating relation to Tammany, makes it in-
dispensable to any real success that the republican
organization be not trusted with any leadership in
municipal politics. There are many signs of real
awakening on the part of the public in this direction.
If the people take vigorously hold of this aspect of the
subject at the outset there are abundant reasons for
hoping and believing that a great step in the progress
of municipal government in this country can be taken
during the coming year. The movement to be success-
ful— and the time is supremely opportune — must be
under unquestioned leadership. The first, and perhaps
in this instance the only, proposition around which the
people should be asked to rally is the complete and un-
qualified dethronement of Tammany. This would
make the issue simple, the point of concentration easy,
and the motive for enthusiastic cooperation obvious.

The first thing to accomplish in dealing with the
municipal question is to inspire public confidence, in-
spire the faith of the people in the possibility of clean
politics and honest administration, with the dominating
motive to promote the welfare of the city, not merely
in making taxes low but in promoting public improve-
ments and ministering to the welfare of the people in
respect both to the conditions of living and the condi-
tions of doing business. If clean politics and honest

IQOI.] MUNICIPAL POLITICS 55

administration can once be assured, so that blackmail
and league with crime between government officials and
the criminal class shall disappear, so that the courts
shall be accessible to all citizens alike, regardless of
their relation to a political organization, then the oppor-
tunity for dealing with the real municipal problems,
like the sweatshops and other depressing features of
our city life, will be at hand.

An important and indeed vital question in connec-
tion with the movement for clean politics is the ma-
chinery for nominating candidates. It is at this initi-
atory stage where the Tammany and republican organ-
izations exercise their vicious control. The public in-
fluence in the caucuses is practically nil. The reason
for this is that through the power of patronage the
organization can control the delegates in the nominating
conventions, — Tammany through municipal offices and
Platt through federal and state offices. Here is where
much of the trading between the two parties is done. By
having office-holders as delegates, they can manipulate
the conventions for almost any candidate. If they can-
not change the result by putting the screws on existing
office-holders they can buy delegates with the promise
of office or other reward.

It is in this way that Croker dictated the nomina-
tion of Van Wyck for mayor in 1897, and forbade the
nomination of Coler for governor in 1900. It was ex-
actly in this way that, for a money consideration, the
nomination of William L. Douglas for congress in the
1 4th congressional district, New York city, in place of
Adelbert H. Steele, last fall, was dictated, although a
majority of 36 of the delegates were voluntarily
pledged to Mr. Steele. In this case Tammany office-
holders were used to accomplish the result. So long as
the organization leader through his control of patron-
age can thus dictate the nominations, the progress

56 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [January,

towards clean politics will be very slow. This obstacle
to free nominations ought to be immediately removed.

All that is required to accomplish this end is to
substitute nomination by petition for nomination by
delegate conventions. What is needed is simply to
abolish the convention and let the nomination of candi-
dates be made by petition of registered voters. Thus,
for instance, in the nomination of congressmen, provide
that every name presented with the endorsement of
fifty enrolled republicans or democrats shall be placed
upon the nominating ballot in alphabetical order. In
this way, any person whom fifty voters of his own
party desire to have submitted to the people's approval
as a candidate can be put upon the list. At the legal
primaries the voting is open to the entire electorate of
the district, who are entitled to vote in the party pri-
mary. The person who receives the largest number of
votes in the secret ballot thus taken becomes the party
nominee, whose name is to go upon the official ballot
on election day. This would do two things : it would
give the voters not merely the right but the protected
opportunity to nominate, because it would enable every
person of any appreciable popularity to have his name
submitted to the voters of his party for nomination.
The organization might nominate a candidate but they
could not influence the voters any more than they can
now do so at the polls. In short, this would place the
nomination of candidates under the protection of the
secret ballot, which has already been adopted as the
last resource for protecting the citizen's vote at the
polls.

If Platt or Croker and their friends could in-
fluence a large number of voters to support their candi-
dates, they would be perfectly justified in doing so, be-
cause they could only do this by influencing the judg-
ment of the voters, which it is every citizen's right to

igoi.] MUNICIPAL POLITICS 57

do, but their power to coerce office-holders would be
gone. This would be the practical elimination of both
office-holder and boss from politics. With this accom-
plished, the people would then be directly in control of
the nomination as well as the election of candidates,
and popular elections would be an established fact.

Of course, the Platts and Crokers would unite in
defeating any such important legislation in the interest
of popular elections. It would be like signing their
own death warrant. Nevertheless, this is the great
needed first step, and this is the opportunity for the
republican party to show whether it is really in favor
of clean politics. The republican majority in the
assembly at Albany is so great that if the party really
believes in popular nomination as well as election, and
believes in placing the entire machinery of the election
in the hands of the citizens, such a law can be promptly
passed early in the present session. If such a bill is
introduced, as it surely will be, the opportunity will be
presented and the test applied to republican political
ethics.

This power over the nominations makes cowards
of most members of the legislature, because they know
they will perish in silence before they have a chance to
appeal to the people. For instance, when Mr. Platt
was elected as senator from New York there were
seven members of the legislature who preferred Mr.
Choate, and voted accordingly. They all died ; not one
of them passed the renomination caucus guillotine.
This power to kill at the threshold of nomination would
be held over the head of every member of the legisla-
ture of either party who dared to favor a measure which
would transfer the nominations from the delegate con-
vention to petition by the people. But there is this
saving fact which should not be overlooked, that if the
law is passed neither Platt nor Croker can thereafter

58 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE

behead its advocates in the primaries. Their power to
kill by preventing nomination would be gone, and so
the success of such a measure would carry with it the
self -protection of its supporters.

If the republican party, with the endorsement of
the national administration, would favor such a propo-
sition, nothing could prevent its becoming a law in New
York state before next March. With such a law, plac-
ing the nominating machinery in the hands of the
people, the work of clean politics and real progress in
municipal government would have begun, and once
fairly established in one or two large cities it would
soon permeate the political machinery and methods of
the whole nation.

EDITORIAL CRUCIBLE

IN CRITICIZING the fallacy of the idea of government
repression of profits, so prevalent in many of the social-
istic movements, the Richmond (Va.) Times very sanely
remarks :

"It is the duty of government to open the way and give every
opportunity and encouragement to human endeavor. If the government
will do this, we shall continue to progress and improve, and be sure the
results will take care of themselves."

This is eminently sound doctrine. It furnishes the
true line of demarcation between wholesome, protective
public policy and coddling paternalism. It states the
rational and scientific ground between a policy of doc-
trinaire do-nothingism and socialism. Yes, it is the
duty because it is the true function ' ' of government to
open the way and give every opportunity and encour-
agement " to individual endeavor, and, in order to give
this encouragement, it must protect the opportunities for
the endeavor of our own people to make the most of
their possibilities. The Richmond Times sounds the
note of true political science and wise public policy.

MR. ANDREW CARNEGIE'S promised contribution of
three million dollars to build and endow a technical
institute at Pittsburg is another mark to his credit.
This makes about fifteen millions Mr. Carnegie has
contributed to public libraries and other educational
opportunities for the non-collegiate class. Now if some-
body will endow an institute for systematic industrial
and political education, through local classes, home
studies and lecture courses, with a permanent home in
New York and, ultimately, branches in the leading
cities, the real educational work of the twentieth cen-

59

60 GUN TON'S MAGAZINE [January,

tury will have begun. There are persons of great
wealth who could well afford and would be glad to aid
in such work if they only realized its importance and
necessity. Peter Cooper did his work well ; Mr. Car-
negie is making effective contributions to the prepara-
tory work in this field, and the university settlement
movement is also doing good work in breaking the
ground. The time is now ripe for a well-equipped,
constructive institution which shall systematically con-
duct this educational work throughout the country.

THE CITY of Haverhill, Massachusetts, for two years
has had a socialist for mayor. His election was re-
garded as a significant political event and the experi-
ment has been watched with interest. The outcome is
that after two years the people of Haverhill, like the
people of Kansas in their experiment with populism,
have had enough. A republican mayor has been
elected by nearly one thousand majority over a combi-
nation of socialists and democrats put together. Vaga-
ries are good to catch popular applause, but they are
usually disappointing in practice, and this is a very
practical world. When we get to them we find that
single-taxers, populists and socialists, in their interests
and daily action, are wonderfully like other people.
Such experiments do but emphasize the fact that, after
all, society is not to be suddenly made over by fantastic
ideals, but the improvements must come, if at all, by
development and expansion along the same lines by
which all the progress of the past has come. Idealism
is not to be inaugurated by electing a populist governor
or a socialist mayor, but by gradually improving the
conditions which lead to the development of the char-
acter and raise the standard of life of the people. It
is not miracles but progress that is wanted.

i9oi.] EDITORIAL CRUCIBLE 61

THE Jacksonville (Fla.) Times takes exception to our
criticism of the democracy in posing as the friend of
full political rights of the colored people in the Philip-
pines while suppressing those of the colored people in
the South. But really, its tone is so moderate and its
spirit so fair that we feel like apologizing though plead-
ing not guilty. ' 'We grant, " it says, * * that logic is on the
side of our opponents — we claim that all precedent and
experience sustains our position." Then, after ably
arguing that fitness is " a prerequisite in citizenship,"
it says :

"Let us pass out of the atmosphere of the campaign and talk seri-
ously and sensibly among ourselves. The South would gladly surrender
whatever strength in congress might be necessary to lay the specter that
has afflicted our land all these years — republicans have the power to de-
mand this if they choose, but no man who has an interest in the South
could see without apprehension any proof that the administration de-
signed to bring back the rule of ignorance and prejudice to a great and
growing section of the union. "

Here the Jacksonville Times is assuredly right. Its
position is sound theory and good practice. If the
South would take its stand squarely upon some scheme
of fitness for citizenship and apply it alike to all its
people, and voluntarily accept representation in con-
gress upon the constitutional basis of its voting popula-
tion, it would at once put itself beyond criticism and
command the endorsement and cooperation of the en-
tire nation. The Jacksonville Times has sounded the
true note. With such a policy, prejudice would soon
disappear and the industrial prosperity of the South
would take on even greater stimulus.

A CONCERN in Trenton, New Jersey, which employs
some 200 young women making cigars, has adopted the
novel experiment of furnishing music for them to work
by. A grand piano is placed in the work-room, a com-
petent pianist employed to furnish music two hours

62 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [January,

each day, and a music teacher is hired by the firm to
furnish singing lessons free to the operatives during the
noon hour. The hope of the management is that this
will render thejlabor of the women less monotonous and
help to stimulate good feeling for their employers and
something of refined taste which shall show itself in
their domestic lives. It is a little on the plan of the
National . Cash Register Company in Dayton, Ohio,
which provides facilities for the operatives to take
recreation, baths, etc., in the company's time. What-
ever the practical outcome of such departures, they
show that the tendency has actually set in among em-
ployers to do something for their work-people besides
exacting the maximum work for the minimum pay.
Every experiment of this kind is an indication of a
better spirit toward laborers, which will ultimately
bring better economic relations between labor and
capital. When employers, of their own volition, begin
to furnish recreation and music, we may reasonably
hope that the opposition of the employing class to
shortening the working day, securing ample oppor-
tunities for education for working children, and protec-
tion against accidents, will soon disappear, and a
general system of old-age and accident insurance for
laborers will receive their active encouragement.

IN A CLEVER article on democracy and panic, the
Savannah (Ga.) News comes to the rescue of the New
York Times in its effort to shield the Cleveland admin-
istration from the responsibilities of the panic of 1893.
After quoting our statement that : ' ' Of course it was
not what Mr. Cleveland did, it was what it was feared
he would do that ushered in the panic. The panic came
ahead of him, but it came because it was known he was
coming with disruption in his hands," the News says:

igoi.] EDITORIAL CRUCIBLE 63

" But is it not rather true that the public doubted the ability of the
government to continue for an indefinite period the purchase of dollars
for 100 cents that we.re only worth 67 ? We think so."

This could hardly have been the case, because, as
a matter of fact, the government was not ' ' purchasing
dollars for 100 cents that were only worth 67." Under
the Sherman law the government bought silver at the
market bullion price, and at no time during the opera-
tion of that law was silver 129 cents an ounce, which
would be " 100 cents " in the dollar. Indeed, much of
it was bought at less than $i an ounce, some of it as
low as 73 cents. Nor was there any real doubt in the
public mind on the subject. It was discussed a little in
Wall Street, but it did not become a question of public
agitation and popular concern until after the election.
The Sherman law ought not to have been passed, and
its repeal was a wise step, but there is no ground for
attributing the panic to that law. Probably it would
have created a panic just as easily as did the threat of
free trade, if the public had become frightened regard-
ing it, but the fact is the public did not become fright-
ened at it and consequently it had practically no pan-
icky effect. The panic was the result of fear, and the
threat against the tariff, whether well grounded or not,
was what caused the fear.

INDICATIONS ARE beginning to appear that Mr.
Odell is not going to be exactly a "Me too" governor
of New York. It was taken for granted by many, and
apparently by Senator Platt, that Mr. Odell would
remember his creator in the days of his youth and take
his "orders" without too much explanation. On this
assumption, immediately after the election Mr. Platt
announced with great assurance that certain things
would occur : Mr. Aldridge would be reinstated at the
head of the public works department, and a state con-

64 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [January,

stabulary bill would be " promptly passed." These
announcements, like his recent statement that Mr.
Bidwell would not be removed "while I live," were
made with as much assurance as if he alone were to be
consulted. But something seems to have occurred.
Mr. Odell is beginning to act as if it were he and not
Senator Platt that was elected governor, and to the
surprise of Mr. Platt he has already indicated that Mr.
Aldridge cannot be reinstated, but that Governor Roose-
velt's appointment of John N. Partridge will be sus-
tained. And, as if something serious had occurred
behind the scenes, Senator Platt has suddenly discov-
ered that a state constabulary bill will not be passed.
With all this awakening to wisdom who knows but what
Mr. Platt may yet discover that he is not president of
the United States, and that after all it was William
McKinley who was voted for at the last national election.
Mr. Platt once before mistook himself for the president
of the United States, and that too was about the collect -
orship of the port of New York. The people of New
York did not share his hallucination and it took him
fifteen years to recover from the shock. He is some-
what older now and may be wiser by the experience,
but whether he recognizes it or not it is quite clear that
the people are now in no mood to brook his dictator-
ship, either in New York city, Albany or Washington.

IT SOMETIMES seems as if it were impossible for a
certain class of journals to approach anything bearing
on protection without losing their reason. In discuss-
ing the ship subsidy bill, the New York Times says :

" The whole theory of the ship subsidy bill is that Americans cannot
compete with Englishmen or Germans in building and running ships.
If any American were told that he was inferior in brains, energy, and
business ability to the average Englishman or German, he would resent
the statement as an insult. . . . Why is it that the confidence in
himself and respect for himself which is so strong in each American
seems to vanish when the question of aid from the government is raised?"

EDITORIAL CRUCIBLE 65

The Times seems not to know that the ability of
manufacturing industries in one country to compete
with those in another does not depend alone upon their
energy and business ability ; it depends on a great
many other things over which the managers personally
have no control. For instance, the civilization of the
United States absolutely prevents American shipbuild-
ers from procuring labor at the same cost as English
and German shipbuilders. That item alone might ren-
der it impossible for Americans to compete with the
English or Germans though they were not in the least
" inferior," etc., and might even be superior.

But there is one simple fact that conclusively an-
swers this superficial and essentially false statement of
the case. American shipbuilders have not been able to
compete with English and German shipbuilders though
they are admittedly equal or superior "in brains,
energy, and business ability." Then manifestly there
is some other cause that prevents their success. If they
could compete they surely would. It is out of no feel-
ing of philanthropy that they permit 95 per cent, of
our commerce to be carried in foreign bottoms. Why
do people who reason sanely and even profoundly on
other subjects seem so silly when they come to this?
As if it implied a lack of "confidence in himself and
respect for himself" for an American manufacturer to
admit that he cannot compete with an English or Ger-
man competitor when he is handicapped by some
adverse economic conditions ! Such talk is not reason-
ing ; it neither enlightens the people nor reflects credit
upon those who make use of it. It ignores the entire
economic element in the protective theory. The ship-
ping bill may not be a good bill, it certainly is not the
best method of protecting our shipping industry, but
such stilted, cock-sure, half-charged arguments will
never correct the error.

NEW ORLEANS AND NEGRO EDUCATION

In the October number of GUNTON'S MAGAZINE
certain comments were made upon the action of the
school authorities in New Orleans regarding negro
education, which have given rise to considerable dis-
cussion. The portion of our comment that has been
chiefly selected for adverse criticism is the following :

"New Orleans has decided to discontinue all
grammar-school education for colored children and
admit them to nothing above the primary grade.
Following so closely on the heels of the anti-negro
riots in that city, with the burning of the extensive and
expensive Lafon school, built by a negro for the educa-
tion of negroes, this is particularly discouraging. It is
in line with the increasing tendency in the South, first,
to provide an educational test for negroes at the polls ;
second, to restrict their educational opportunities so
that they will never be able to meet that test, thus
making disfranchisement as universal as possible."

Commenting upon this, the New Orleans Picayune
said editorially, in its issue of October 26th :

' ' It would be difficult to find in any pretended
statement of facts such an assemblage of falsehoods.
There is but one fact in the entire declaration, and that
is that the Lafon school was burned during an anti-
negro disturbance in this city.

"Feeling assured that GUNTON'S only wishes to
state facts in this as in every other matter, and that its
expressions as given above were made in good faith on
information supposed to be reliable, the Picayune will
briefly state the facts in the case.

" In the first place, the New Orleans school board,
which is vested by law to administer the schools of this

NEW ORLEANS AND NEGRO EDUCA TION 67

city, has never decided to discontinue grammar-school
education for negroes. On the contrary, the school
system remains just as it has been for years, with both
primary and grammar schools for colored pupils, as
well as white, but separate from the white schools.
The state of Louisiana also maintains in New Orleans
the Southern University, for the higher education of
colored people. There has never been any action by
the school board, or by any other official organization
in this city, discontinuing or closing the grammar
schools for negroes.

"As to the Lafon school, the facts are that it was
not built by a negro for the education of negroes, but
was erected and established by the city of New Orleans
for the education of negroes. The only way in which
the school was associated with Thorny Lafon was that
it was named by the city in his honor. Lafon was a
colored man who had amassed a considerable fortune,
which, by his will, was in large part left to charities,
such as orphan asylums, hospitals, homes for the indi-
gent aged and the like. While his bequests were
chiefly left to institutions for the benefit of persons of
his race, this was not entirely the case, for several
bequests went to similar institutions for whites, but
mainly to the Charity Hospital, where the sick and
wounded of all races and colors are cared for.

" Now that the premises upon which GuNTON'shas
based its line of argument against the white people
of New Orleans have been proven false, the entire
argument itself falls to the ground."

GUNTON'S MAGAZINE has no desire to misrepresent
or unfairly criticize the conditions existing or policies
adopted in any city or section of the country. On the
contrary, it is anxious at all times to present the exact
facts and discuss them with entir : fairness.

Therefore, in the light of the Picayune s denial, we

68 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [January,

have taken the pains to write to several reputable
authorities in the city of New Orleans to obtain addi-
tional testimony upon the subject. We have the follow-
ing in reply, from Mr. William Beer, Librarian of the
Howard Memorial Library, New Orleans :

"On interviewing the authorities of the school
board I find that the only change that has been effected
in the education of the colored children in this city has
been to suppress the sixth, seventh and eighth grades,
and increase the space and teaching power dedicated to
the first five grades. It was found by experience that
colored children who had passed through the earlier
grades preferred to enter the earlier classes of the four
universities for colored people in this city. Of these,
one is supported by the state ; consequently it came
about that the space and teaching power in the higher
grades of public schools was so little used that the per
capita expense became abnormally high. The result
has been that almost double the number of colored
children are receiving the benefit of education in the
public schools, and are being prepared for the higher
education which they will obtain either in the state
university for colored people, or in three other univer-
sities supported for their benefit. The Lafon school
was, as the article shows, only a name.''

We have also received thus far one other reply,
from Mrs. Julia Truitt Bishop, literary editor of the
Daily Item, one of New Orleans' oldest journals, and
which describes itself as politically independent. Mrs.
Bishop interviewed Superintendent Easton of the pub-
lic schools, and makes the following statement :

"In the colored public schools, the sixth, seventh
and eighth grades have been cut out by the board for
the reason of the small attendance in those grades.
Superintendent Easton says, that it is probable the
board will restore the grades when negroes show a

igoi.] NE W ORLEANS AND NEGRO ED UCA TION 6»

disposition to take advantage of them. In the mean-
time there are four negro universities in the city, one
of which is free, and those who are anxious for a higher
education have this recourse."

It appears, therefore, that our original statement
was not a misrepresentation so far as concerns the fact
of negro education in the grammar grades having been
discontinued in New Orleans. The reasons assigned
for the change, in the letters above published, may be
entirely sufficient, but this is no adequate reason why
the Picayune, which is looked upon in the North as the
representative New Orleans organ of public opinion,
should flatly deny the facts in the case and accuse
northern journals of deliberate falsification when they
state these facts. If the Picayune had frankly admitted
the discontinuance of negro education in the higher
grades, and proceeded to defend it along the lines
stated in Mr. Beer's letter, it would have been a con-
tribution to public information on the subject and
avoided the unpleasant appearance of seeking to cover
up an indefensible policy. Conceding the situation to
be as stated by Mr. Beer, there is no reason why the
Picayune should not have discussed it in the same way.
A flat denial, under such circumstances, invariably cre-
ates the suspicion that there is a side to the case not
fully and fairly presented. Neither the New Orleans
press nor that of the South in general will find it easy
to convince northern people of the integrity and fair-
ness of southern policy as to negro education, when
northern criticisms are met by wholesale denial of facts,
coupled with something bordering very close on abuse,
instead of by temperate argument and discussion of the
true situation.

If, as is stated by Mr. Beer, the upper grades have
been closed because of the light attendance, and more
opportunities offered in the lower grades, while higher

70 G UN TON 'S MA GA ZINE

education for negroes is furnished by four universities,
we can see little ground for criticism of this rearrange-
ment on the part of the New Orleans school board.
The only reason for suspecting that there may be an
unrevealed side of the case is the fact of the Picayune s
denial that any change at all has been made.

We took occasion not long ago to commend in the
strongest terms the new policy of municipal improve-
ment in New Orleans, involving a rate of expenditure,
for a long time to come, hardly to be matched by any
other city in the country. We have no desire to mis-
represent the attitude of the city towards the negro
problem. Whether it is precisely true that the attend-
ance of negroes in the higher grades of the grammar
schools is so light that to discontinue these grades was
wise policy is a question of fact upon which probably
neither Mr. Beer nor Mrs. Bishop undertook to get
positive information. It may be that the new step was
designed, as is claimed, to distribute more effectively
the opportunities for negro education in the city, and
if so we are glad to withdraw our criticism. But it
could be wished that the general and traditional south-
ern policy towards the negro, politically, educa-
tionally and industrially, were such as to warrant
more complete confidence in the justice and necessity
of a step which, on its face at least, is a withdrawal of
an educational opportunity.

ONE OF MISS GOULD'S PRIVATE PHILAN-
THROPIES

CHARLES BURR TODD

Miss Helen Gould has many private charities of
which the public rarely hears. Of these the one that
interests her most no doubt is Woody Crest, her fresh-
air home and school for the children of the poor, at
Tarrytown, New York. The home is only about a
mile from her own country house, Lyndhurst, and is
one of those square, solid stone mansions with broad
piazza, wide hall and high ceilings which the Dutch
settlers were in the habit of rearing a century ago. It
stands on the crest of a wooded hill, one of the range
which divides the valley of the Hudson from that of
the Saw Mill River, and about two miles distant from
either. The view from its front porch is superb : rich
intervales green with grass and springing wheat and
shaded by groves clad in the crimson and scarlet of
autumn are at one's feet ; while farther away flows the
silver tide of the Hudson with dark mountains for a
background. Miss Gould bought the house, with thir-
teen acres of land surrounding it, in 1893, and at once
organized her beautiful charity. Its practical working
is best described in the words of Miss Miriam Jagger,
the matron in charge :

" Our fresh-air work begins on June ist. Eighteen
crippled girls, selected by the visiting physician of the
Hospital for the Ruptured and Crippled, are entertained
during June. July, August and September are devoted
to children, both boys and girls, from the Sunday-
schools of the New York city mission, who are chosen
by its missionaries. Each company of eighteen stays

71

72 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [January,

two weeks and is succeeded by a fresh one. The chil-
dren range in age from six to twelve years, and a mis-
sionary accompanies them in order that they may not
feel themselves wholly among strangers. The last two
weeks in September we take working boys over four-
teen, who are obliged to work to help maintain their
families and who could not afford a vacation at their
own expense, while the last two weeks in September
are given up to babies from the day nurseries of New
York.

"It is a fortunate child that comes to this breezy
home from the stifling heat of the tenements, and the
two weeks spent here usually give them a new lease of
life. Everything they get is of the best. We raise
our own vegetables both for winter and summer, of
every variety. The milk farm of the estate, with its
herd of thirty Jersey cows, adjoins us, and I send the
coachman down every morning with a requisition for
what is wanted. The children have fresh milk three
times a day. We have a gardener, a second man, a
coachman and three horses. Every afternoon the chil-
dren are taken to drive. Last summer the boys were
driven to the Hudson, to Miss Gould's private dock, to
swim. Then the Gould estate extends back nearly to
the Saw Mill River, much of it beautiful forests, high
timber, all of it free to us, and we take the children
through it on long rambles, instructing them in nature
studies. They tell their parents when they go back
that it seemed like heaven up here. A public-school
teacher in the city writes me that one of our boys, who
n her class, is doing splendidly this year, and she
attributes it to the health and strength gained with us.

" I do not consider the fresh-air work the most
important, however,*' Miss Jagger continued. "Our
winter school for boys is more so. This begins on
November ist and ends June ist. We teach the com-

igoi.] A PRIVATE PHILANTHROPY 73

mon English U! ranches and manual training. This
winter we have sixteen boys. The well boys are
selected by the superintendent of the city mission,
Mrs. J. L. Bainbridge, who takes her missionaries into
consultation, and they select boys who are ailing and
need country air, or who cannot find a place in the
public schools, or who are orphaned with no home but
the streets. The lame and crippled boys are selected
by the visiting physician of the Hospital for the Rup-
tured and Crippled.

" We are quite proud of our class in manual train-
ing, under the care of Miss M. Buck, who teaches in
the best schools in New York city. She assures us it
is the best class she has in her work. Paper-work or
basket-work is given them first, then sloyd, then carv-
ing, then iron-work. Here are some of the articles
they have made."

Miss Jagger opened the door of the old-fashioned
china closet in the corner of the room and displayed
quite a variety of articles of excellent workmanship ;
indeed a skilled handicraftsman might have been proud
of them. There were paper boxes in great variety of
form and color, carved wood-work of various designs,
and a number of examples of ornamental iron-work,
as photograph holders, thermometer frames, paper-
weights, etc.

The students edit and publish a monthly paper,
The Woody Crest Monthly, the subscription price of which
is twenty-five cents. Formerly, type for this was set
up and the paper printed by the manual-training class,
but the compositor and printer, Edward Tape, a lad of
great promise, died in December, 1898, and there has
since been no one to take his place.

It is the intention to build a large addition next
summer and materially increase the capacity of the
school.

CIVIC AND EDUCATIONAL NOTES

German Germany is not only the pioneer but

Industrial probably the leader, to-day, in technical

Education industrial education. A considerable

portion of German success in foreign trade competition
may be credited to this cause, although its influence
has been much overestimated in certain quarters. The
fact of possessing practically the equivalent of the best
machinery, operated J)y lower- wage labor, is the chief
reason why Germany has been able to compete, not only
with England in foreign markets, but in the English
market itself.

The newest proposed step in German industrial
and commercial education is a commercial university at
Hamburg. For the present it will confine itself to
such scientific subjects as bear directly upon commerce,
but an effort is to be made to induce large industrial
works to cooperate with the new institution and make
it possible for students to obtain practical industrial
experience which theoretical training does not fur-
nish.

Berlin also will probably soon have a higher com-
mercial school, one of the special features of which will
be the study of English, as 33 per cent, of Germany's
export trade goes to England and her colonies and the
United States. The Prussian government is giving
much attention to the increasing demand for technical
training. The amount set apart for this purpose has
been increased nearly 75 percent, in four years, but, as
this is still considered insufficient, a special committee
has been appointed to see how the appropriation can be
further augmented.

74

Cl VIC AND ED UCA TIONAL NO TES 75

If we are to have the Philippine problem
Educating permanently on our hands, its ultimate

solution will come, not by force, but
through the slow in- working of industrial and educa-
tional influences. Like the bringing of one thousand
Cuban teachers to Harvard last summer, the recently
started movement to educate young Filipinos in the
United States is in the right direction. Already, two
of our leading universities, Yale and Columbia, have
each offered free tuition to five Filipinos. Of course,
the obvious defect in this plan is the possibility, even
probability, that these young men when once trained in
American ideas and familiarized with American oppor-
tunities will decline to return and work among their
own people, and there is no law that could compel
them to do so. The really effective step would be to
establish a university on American lines, right in the
Philippines. This would be a center of civilizing influ-
ence placed exactly in the spot where the need exists.
What we now spend every three or four weeks on
bayonet civilization in the Philippines would build and
equip a fine institution of learning in Manila, — and this
is not to say that we can or ought, having come thus
far, to stop short of suppressing the insurrection. It
simply means that when peace is restored, if ever it is,
the same moral obligation that is now supposed to
justify our military expenditures will apply even more
forcibly to the furnishing of liberal opportunities for
the development of as high a state of civilization as
tropical conditions will permit.

Meager School Tne reP°rt of M. G. Brumbaugh, COm-
Facilities in missioner of education for Porto Rico, is
Porto Rico virtually a strong plea for more teachers,
better facilities and better systems in the island. The
present facilities only provide for 88,000 students, leav-

76 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [January,

ing 300,000 children of school age without means of
securing an education. Small as the number of en-
rolled students is, it is far too great for the number of
teachers, the average being only one teacher for more
than 100 pupils. Such a proportion makes good work
impossible.

The report states that Porto Rico contains no pub-
lic school buildings and no public colleges or universi-
ties ; 80 per cent, of the people are illiterate, while
thousands of children are half -clothed, half -housed and
half -fed. There are now over 100 American teachers
and more are demanded, provided they can teach Span-
ish and are in earnest, not mere seekers after novelty.
Commissioner Brumbaugh's report is a reflection, in
certain respects, on the work of his predecessor, Gen-
eral Eaton, who was the first commissioner of education
under American rule, and is naturally criticized by
friends of the latter as being exaggerated and unfair.
It may be that sufficient recognition is not given to the
improvements started by General Eaton, but there is
little reason to doubt the substantial accuracy of Com-
missioner Brumbaugh's statement of the existing con-
ditions. They may be much better than under Spanish
rule and still be very bad indeed ; it is hard to imagine
what a school system can be with no public school
buildings. How the Porto Rican legislature deals with
this problem will be an interesting test of its capacity
to exercise the powers of government.

Why the teachers in the public schools

EngHsh Tongue! of New York city should be directed to
reduce the amount of time devoted to the
teaching of English grammar is one of the things that,
on the surface at least, is beyond comprehension. If
the object is to permit a larger attention to the study
of English by more approved methods than formal con-

igoi.] CIVIC AND EDUCATIONAL NOTES 77

ning of text-books on grammar, then without doubt the
course of wisdom has been adopted. But if the time
taken from grammar is to be given to anything except
English, it is a mistake, regardless of what the subjects
are that will take its place.

If there is any one subject in which American
school children are deficient it is the proper use of the
English language. How anybody, who overhears the
average conversation of a crowd of average school boys,
can come away with anything but the sort of feeling he
would have after witnessing a murder, is incomprehen-
sible except on the theory that the man is himself a
regular perpetrator of linguistic crimes. Fortunately,
there are many exceptions among school boys on the
side of good clean speech, but, in the large cities es-
pecially, the English language in the mouths of school
boys is largely— one is tempted to say chiefly — an out-
pouring of vulgar slang, barbaric sentence construction,
and pronunciation so drawling and slovenly that the
street gamin's influence is apparently proved far more
powerful than anything brought to bear in the school-
room. It may be that formal grammar study is being
discarded as bad in method, but, if any change is to be
made in the time devoted to English, double it! To re-
duce it would be a crime.

The retirement of Daniel C. Oilman from

Dr. Oilman and ^ . , .. T ,

Johns Hopkins the presidency of Johns Hopkins Univer-
sity, because of advanced age, has again
brought into prominence the extraordinary nature of
his service to American educational progress. Perhaps
no other educational institution in the country has
stood so conspicuously for high standards of research
and instruction, in preference to imposing buildings
and numberless "fad" courses, as has Johns Hopkins
under President Oilman's direction during the last

78 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE

quarter of a century. It is probably true, as the Phila-
delphia Press says in the course of an able editorial on
the subject, that no institution with means so small has
exercised so large an influence in shaping educational
methods and elevating educational standards in this
country. The custom of issuing university publica-
tions, containing the results of the original research of
experts, which has now become a feature of nearly all
our universities, originated at Johns Hopkins ; and, al-
though these publications never do and never will have
a popular character or influence, their service in afford-
ing a constant test of educational methods and the
character of current instruction, conveying to all col-
leges and universities the results of the best work that
is being done anywhere, has been and is of the highest
importance. Dr. Oilman's long association with Johns
Hopkins (he became president in 1875) has so identified
him with the institution that it will be hard to think of
anyone else in his place. Probably the man best fitted
to succeed him, to carry on the work in the same spirit
and with full appreciation of its high purpose, is Pro-
fessor H. B. Adams, head of the department of histori-
cal and political science in Johns Hopkins. It is en-
couraging to note that Professor Adams is the man who
is now being most prominently mentioned for the place.

THE OPEN FORUM

This department belongs to our readers, and offers them full oppor-
tunity to "talk back" to the editor, give information, discuss topics or
ask questions on subjects within the field covered by GUNTON'S MAGA-
ZINE. All communications, whether letters for publication or inquiries
for the " Question Box," must be accompanied by the full name and ad-
dress of the writer. This is not required for publication, if the writer
objects, but as evidence of good faith. Anonymous correspondents are
ignored.

LETTERS FROM CORRESPONDENTS

Ethnology at the Pan-American Exposition

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE :

Dear Sir: — I would be very glad if you would call
the attention of your readers to the department of eth-
nology and archaeology of the Pan-American Exposi-
tion. The exposition has provided a circular building
128 feet in diameter and has also arranged for a •* Six
Nation " Indian exhibit on the grounds with a represen-
tation of the typical " Long House " of the Iroquoisand
an attendance of some sixty Indians who will be en-
gaged in such industries as basket-making, wood-work,
etc. As these Indians are pagans and have preserved
to a great degree their ancient customs, they will cele-
brate in appropriate seasons their various thanksgiving
festivals, dances and other rites.

It is not too early to assure the public that the
promises of such institutions as the American Museum
of Natural History, The Peabody Museum, University
of Pennsylvania, University of Chicago and the Buffalo
Society of Natural Sciences, as well as the friendly co-
operation of the ministers of the South American
republics, guarantee the success of this department. At
the same time, there is always room for more, and, as

79

80 G UNTON'S MA GAZINE

the aim of this department is not so much to get togeth-
er a large miscellaneous collection of relics as to afford
a means of popular instruction in American archaeology,
it is desired that students from all parts of the country
shall send on exhibits or memoranda descriptive of re-
sults obtained in their special fields of labor. For ex-
ample, one exhibit will show the animals domesticated
by the aborigines of the western continent and will ex-
plain why the lack of large useful animals capable of
domestication hampered the development of civilization
in the new world.

Through the cooperation of the department of
agriculture and horticulture, exhibits will be made of
the plants cultivated in both North and South America
before the discovery.

One point we would like to have made perfectly
clear, namely, that mercenary collectors will not find
the Pan-American Exposition a source of revenue,
although there would be no objection to a modest ad-
vertisement placed in a case of relics which are other-
wise of scientific value.

A. L. BENEDICT, Buffalo, N. Y.

QUESTION BOX

Future of the Democratic Party

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

DEAR SIR: — In your lecture on "The Passing of
Bryan," published in November, you said that it would
1 ' probably be a long time before a person of Mr. Bry-
an's stamp will again get possession of the democratic
party."

What signs are there of any new forces at work in
that party? Can anybody tell what it stands for if
Bryanism is taken out? What issue has it to rally
round that the American people have not already buried
beyond the hope of resurrection? For one I believe
that, although Bryan may drop out, what is meant by
Bryanism really represents whatever there is of oppo-
sition to the principles and tendencies of the now
dominant party in this country. Old issues are gone ;
old party characteristics are being merged into new
forms, and the issue of the future is going to be sharply
drawn in a deadly struggle ; vested interests and indi-
vidualism on the one side, against socialism on the
other. R. P. E.

Our correspondent has stated the case well. Bryan
may be gone — probably he is, — but the ideas for which
he stood are by no means gone. They may lull for a
little while, especially if business prosperity continues,
but with the first signs of business depression they will
surely reappear. All the issues which rallied under
the name of Bryanism were essentially of a socialistic
character; they expressed different degrees of doubt
and distrust of existing institutions ; they stood for
social and political revolution. The struggle in the

81

82 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [January,

future, and it may be in the' immediate future, will
indeed be a struggle between the right of individual
initiative and some form of socialistic experiment.
How deadly this struggle will be will depend largely
upon the wisdom of the owners of wealth and organ-
izers of industry on the one hand, and the informed
intelligence of the masses on the other. The character
of the struggle will largely depend upon how far social
prejudice and class feeling among the laborers shall be
superseded by knowledge and wholesome views on
industrial relations and political policies. If the wis-
dom of the wealthy is at all commensurate with their
interests and their duty to society, they will recognize
the importance of aiding the work of industrial and
political education among the masses as the only source
of safety for society against the havoc of disintegrating
experiments with socialism.

Is Civilization Decaying ?

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

Dear Sir: — The rapid growth of vice in our large
cities is an evidence of dry-rot at the heart of our civi-
lization, and brings to mind the beginning of Rome's
degeneracy so forcibly that it is no wonder men tremble
for the future of the republic. It is easy to be opti-
mistic when these things are only in the stage of being
merely signs and portents, but nobody in Rome realized
what was coming until it actually came. In these days
of fast living and chasing of money and pleasure, there
is a decay of individual conscience and individual sense
of strict morality. What can be done to turn the cur-
rent before it is too late? M. H.

The pessimism of our correspondent is unduly great.
There is no ' ' evidence of dry-rot at the heart of our
civilization. " The progressive forces in the community

i9oi.] QUESTION BOX 83

are neither dry nor rotten. The heart of our civiliza-
tion is sound, our people as a whole are honest, their
motives are upright, and their faith in progress is
strong. There are some evidences of political corrup-
tion and social impurity and industrial greed, but these
are really but specks on the surface of a general whole-
someness. We would not underrate the importance of
eliminating these evidences of vice in various forms,
but it is well to understand the case correctly and not
mistake a few miscreants for all society.

It is true that the most serious problems of the
twentieth century will be municipal. While the cities
are the seat of our civilization, they are also the birth-
place of economic and political iniquities. The chief
evil in the political methods of our cities is due, not to
the depravity of the people, but to the imperfection of
our political machinery. In the evolution of political
freedom we have at last reached the point of protecting
the vote of the citizen by the ballot, so that the evil
which has been so conspicuous during the greater part
of this century, of coercing and otherwise corruptly
influencing elections, has substantially disappeared.
The remnant of that corruption is now limited to the
methods by which candidates for office are nominated,
and very naturally that shows itself with the greatest
force in large cities. The next step in political progress
is to extend the secret ballot, which has given such
security and protection to citizens at the polls, to the
caucus machinery for nominations. The corruption
to-day exists at the sources of nomination. There is
where the buying and selling and trading is done.
There is where the corruption is practised. There is
where the office-holder is used as an instrument for
corrupt manipulation by the bosses. The masses of
the people are honest, and they protest against this,
they are disgusted, and their disgust is making them

84 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE \ January,

indifferent, not because they share the evil but because
it seems beyond their reach. The remedy for this is to
substitute nominations by petition and secret ballot for
the corruptible, patronage-packed, delegate conven-
tions. Then the people will have the same power in
nominating candidates for mayor that they have now in
voting for them after they are nominated. With high-
minded, characterful city officials, whose nomination
as well as election is made by the free choice of the
people, the jobbery, corruption and political vices now
so conspicuous in city administrations would rapidly
disappear.

The Anti-Tammany Campaign

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

Dear Sir: — What do you regard as the most feasi-
ble method of electing an anti-Tammany mayor in New
York city? The citizens' union is again in the field,
and so is the republican party. If they fail to come
together, as they failed in 1897, the people will have to
practically abandon one or the other organization if the
city is to be saved. Which shall it be? L. A. S.

There appears to be only one feasible method of
electing an anti-Tammany mayor, and that is to organ-
ize a municipal campaign and nominate a candidate out-
side the strictly party lines. The citizens' union made
a great many enemies by its blunders in 1897. It ar-
rogantly asserted to itself the sole prerogative of con-
ducting an anti-Tammany campaign, refusing definitely
to associate or enter into any arrangement with the re-
publicans. Such short-sighted egotism naturally pre-
vented the republican organization from cooperating.
This made unity of the anti-Tammany forces impossible,
and hence there were three candidates and Van Wyck
was elected. The citizens' union has learned some-

i90i.] QUESTION BOX 85

thing since then, and it is to be hoped the republican
organization has learned something, but there is one
thing manifest to all observers ; namely, that while the
people of New York are disgusted with Tammany rule
there is a very prevalent feeling that to transfer the ad-
ministration of the city from Tammany under Croker
to the republican organization under Platt would be
very little if any improvement, at least that the im-
provement would scarcely be worth the effort. In short,
the best people of New York, and probably seventy-five
per cent, of those who voted for McKinley, have no
faith in the Platt organization. For this reason, any
nomination for mayor in 1901 by the republican organ-
ization, under any circumstances, means defeat. It
must be general cooperation of all opposed to Tammany
and under leadership other than the Platt organization
or success will be impossible. Mr. Platt cannot lead a
successful movement against Croker. The people will
not follow him because they know, as the facts are now
in hand, that Mr. Platt, if not personally then through
his followers like Quigg and Bidwell, trades with Tam-
many, and the people have no faith in leaders who trade
with Tammany. Whether it is the citizens' union
movement or another and more largely republican
movement which shall make the campaign in 1901
against Tammany, one thing is absolutely certain, that
a successful contest cannot be made by the republican
organization.

Southern Representation in Congress

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

Dear Sir: — On page 34 of the Lecture Bulletin for
November isth the statement is made that: "The
southern states have representation in congress to-day
nearly one-third larger than they are entitled to be-

86 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [January,

cause of their suppression of the legal rights of colored
citizens.*'

I question the correctness of this statement. Is
not representation based on population and not on
voters? Will you kindly put me in the correct posi-
tion on this statement? I have seen it made several
times this fall but supposed it to be an oversight.

J. M. G.

It is true that representation is based on popula-
tion rather than on the number of voters. The four-
teenth amendment to the constitution of the United
States, which covers this point, says: " Representa-
tives shall be apportioned among the several states
according to their respective numbers, counting the
whole number of persons in each state, excluding
Indians not taxed."

But this same fourteenth amendment also provides
for exactly such a situation as is now presented in the
several southern states which have disfranchised the
negro. Here is the provision :

" But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of
electors for president and vice-president of the United States, repre-
sentatives in congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or
the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male
members of such state, being of twenty-one years of age, and citizens of
the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in
rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be re-
duced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall
bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in
such state."

There is no question, therefore, as to the propriety
and even the constitutional obligation of reducing the
representation of the southern states which have dis-
franchised the negro. As a matter of fact, this applies
not merely to Louisiana, Mississippi, North and South
Carolina, but to practically all the southern states, for
in no one of them- is negro suffrage much more than a

QUESTION BOX

87

farce. The extent to which the South has excess rep-
resentation in congress is a question of fact only, and
an approximate idea of it may be gained by comparison
of recent population and election statistics.

The 1900 census returns for total population are at
hand, but the figures showing the number of males
over 2 1 years of age have not yet appeared. We have
these figures, however, for 1890, and it is fair to as-
sume that the rate of increase in the total number of
males over 2 1 and the number of colored males over 2 1
has been substantially the same as the rate of increase
in total population in the various states. The follow-
ing table for the southern states shows the total num-
ber of males over 21, estimated in this way, also the
total vote cast for McKinley and Bryan this year, the
difference between the total number of legal voters and
those actually voting, the total estimated number of
colored males over 21, and the percentage by which the
legal voters outnumber those who actually voted :

STATE

Total
Males over
21, in 1900
(Esti-
mated)

Total Vote
cast in 1900
(Scatter-
ing votes
not
reported)

Legal
voters not
voting,

IQOO

Total male
negroes
over 21,
in IQOO
(Esti-
mated)

Per cent,
of excess,
legal vot-
ers over
those
actually
voting

Alabama .
Arkansas .
Florida

393,000
300,000
129 ooo

150,037
125,842

•2C CQ6

242,963
- 174,158
QO J.Q1

170,000
82,000
51 ooo

161

138

263

Georgia .
Louisiana.
Mississippi
North Carolina
South Carolina
Tennessee . .
Texas

480,000
310,000
325,000
401,000
275,000
460,000

7il OOO

H6,735
6l,840

57,459
290,733
49,982
236,105
4.84. 800

363,265
248,160
267,541

110,267
225,018

'223,895

246 2OO

216,000
149,000
180,000
127,000
155,000
105,000
139 ooo

3ii
401

465
37
450
94

CQ

Virginia ....

424,000

261,945

162,055

147.000

61

It will be seen, therefore, that taking these states
as a whole, the number of possible voters is more like
three times that of the actual voters than one-third
more, as was stated in the Bulletin lecture to which our
correspondent refers.

88 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE

Of course, nobody believes that the extraordinary
discrepancy between the possible and the actual vote in
these southern states is due entirely to the failure of
the white people to vote. In some cases the difference
between the possible and the actual vote is much larger
than, even more than double, the entire number of
negro voters, which allows a liberal margin for white
non-voters and leads irresistibly to the conclusion that
practically none of the negroes voted.

Necessarily, the total vote cast in any election never
equals the total number of possible voters, but nowhere
else in this country is there anything approaching the
remarkable discrepancies in the South. Even in Cuba,
this year, in the first general election ever held, the
registration was much larger in proportion to popula-
tion than the vote in some of the southern states. The
statement, therefore, that southern representation in
congress is one-third larger than the conditions pre-
scribed by the fourteenth amendment justify, is well
within the facts. It would be conservative to say that
the representation in several of these states is more
than double what the constitution authorizes under the
conditions there existing.

BOOK REVIEWS

POLITICAL PARTIES IN THE UNITED STATES ; 1 846-
1861. By Jesse Macy, A.M., LL.D. Half leather,
316 pp., with bibliography and index. $1.25. The
Macmillan Company, New York.

The real distinction between factions, parties and
propagandists is very seldom distinctly recognized. In-
deed, it would be not far from the truth to say that they
are commonly if not generally confused. Yet there is
a real difference. Each pursues a different object and
frequently exercises a different influence. When we
confuse their functions we frequently misinterpret their
object. This subject is ably discussed and clearly de-
fined by Professor Macy in the little volume under con-
sideration. In discussing modern political parties he
defines a political party as a conscious organic agency
of the people for the attainment of good government ;
in other words, a conscious organization whose specific
object is to transform public opinion into public policy.

Professor Macy fixes the date for the advent of
political parties at the passage of the first reform bill in
England in 1832. We commonly speak of parties ex-
isting in England from the reign of the Stuarts, and
conspicuously after the revolution of 1688, but these
the author explains as political factions. They differed
from political parties in that they were in no sense
organs of public opinion. They did not represent any
public opinion ; they took no means to consult public
opinion or to ascertain what public opinion was on any
theme of current interest. They did sometimes stand
for a certain policy as against the government, but in
this they represented no expression of opinion by the
country. They were for the most part small bands

89

90 GUN TON'S MAGAZINE [January,

who, sometimes for good motives and sometimes not,
struggled for a share in the administration, for the
right to be near the throne, the chief reason being, it
is needless to say, that nearness to the throne brought
richer emoluments.

The political party differs entirely from this in that
it is an organized representative of external opinion,
the opinion of some section at least of the public, and
the object of the party is to transform that opinion into
law.

The propaganda group differs both from the fac-
tion and the party in that it is a more or less organized
body whose object is to create public opinion. It is not
so much the representative of any section of public
opinion as the proclaimer of an idea which it endeavors
to convert into public opinion. Lincoln seems to have
recognized this distinction, so well brought out by our
author. When Wendell Phillips called on him during
the war to remonstrate against his toleration of slavery,
urging that Mr. Lincoln make abolition and not union
merely the issue of the war, Lincoln replied : Your
function and mine are different ; yours is to make pub-
lic opinion, mine is to use it. You make public opinion
in favor of abolition and I will use it as fast as you can
make it.

Professor Macy has not merely related the history of
political parties in the United States, but he has dis-
cussed the subject. Moreover, he has discussed it with
a delightful clearness which makes the book at once
instructive and interesting. It is a little book which
contains a fund of information for young readers, and
may be read with interest and profit by students. It
discusses in a clear, concise manner the existence and
work of factions in the evolution of political institutions
and the preparation for the rise of responsible political
parties. Its account of the origin, character and devel-

i9oi.j BOOK REVIEWS 91

opment of political parties in this country is full enough
to be clear and interesting, and brief enough not to be
tedious. It brings the history down to the war. It is
an excellent contribution to the discussion as well as to
the history of the subject.

THE LAW AND PRACTICE OF TAXATION IN MIS-
SOURI. By Frederick N. Judson, of the St. Louis bar.
Cloth, 358 pp. E. W. Stephens, Publisher, Columbia,
Missouri.

Mr. Judson prepared this volume because he felt
strongly impressed with the fact that before citizens
can demand reform in taxation they must know what it
is, how it has been developed and how it has been en-
forced. The result is not a general treatise on taxation
but a history of taxation in Missouri, the present
system and proposed amendments.

In discussing the presenj; system Mr. Judson points
out its effective and ineffective features, some of the
former being the valuation of such properties as are of
an interstate character by a central state authority, the
assessing of the shares of stock of banks, trust com-
panies and domestic insurance companies, and the
method of collecting delinquent taxes. Among the
inefficient features are found inequality of taxation,
direct personal taxation and double taxation. The
separation of the sources of state and local revenue as
a remedy for unequal taxation, and adoption of an in-
heritance tax as an effective method of reaching per-
sonal property, are some of the changes suggested.
Although inheritance taxes are taxes on personal prop-
erty, Mr. Judson seems fully to appreciate the fact that
modern scientific investigation of taxation is resulting
in an almost universal trend of the best opinion away
from any further efforts at personal direct taxation.
Taxes levied on real property only, as near as possible

92 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [January,

to the sources of production, are most equitably dis-
tributed throughout the community, and reach the
owners of personal investments far more certainly and
uniformly by this indirect method than by any direct
forms of personal property taxation ever devised.

MONETARY HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. By
Charles J. Bullock, Ph. D. Half leather, 273 pp., with
bibliography and brief index. The Macmillan Com-
pany, New York.

If one takes up this book with the idea that it is a
consecutive history of the monetary system of the United
States he will be disappointed. It is really three essays
or lectures, put together in book form. The first is a
brief review of the monetary experience of the United
States, covering three centuries. Although this
survey of monetary history is crowded into 121 pages,
it contains a good deal of information upon the sub-
ject, and withal there is a streak of sound banking
doctrine running through it.

The second paper is a history of paper currency in
North Carolina and the third is on the history of paper
currency in New Hampshire. Both of these essays are
confined to the colonial era. Much of the matter, how-
ever, in these essays is of interest only to investigators
who desire early data, and shed little if any light upon
modern monetary questions. The author has taken
great pains in giving frequent and sometimes copious
foot-note references. It is, in short, a contribution to
early data upon the subject, which evidently involved
painstaking effort, and as such it is a creditable product.

THE ENGLISH SENTENCE. By Lillian G. Kimball,
instructor in English, State Normal School, Oshkosh,
Wisconsin. Cloth, i2mo, 244 pp., 75 cents. American
Book Company, New York.

i9oi.] BOOK REVIEWS 93

This book, which is intended as a continuation of
grammar study, ought speedily to find a place in the
high schools and normal schools for which it is in-
tended. The style is so easy and natural that the book
is readable as well as instructive. Its object is the
analysis af the English sentence in relation to the
thought embodied. This takes the study of grammar
out of the realm of rules and definitions only, gives it
life and meaning, and trains the student to interpret
the speech of others and give correct expression to his
own ideas.

The sentences for analysis have been chosen from
the writings of reputable authors of the present
century. No attempt is made to criticize the sentence
structure, the object of the analysis being to determine
the efficiency of the sentences in conveying thought to
the mind of the reader.

THE WORLD'S BEST PROVERBS AND SHORT QUOTA-
TIONS. By George Howard Opdyke, M.A. Cloth, 271
pp. Laird & Lee, Publishers, Chicago, Illinois.

This compilation shows a careful selection from
the most important collections in all languages, and a
classification quite different from the usual order of
such works. An alphabetical arrangement by subjects
has been adopted which weaves the proverbs into
essays, making the book readable as well as useful for
reference.

Disraeli said : "There seems to be no occurrence
in human affairs to which some proverb may not be
applied," and, judging from the variety of topics
covered in this volume, he would seem to have been
very nearly right.

94 G UNTON'S MA GAZINE

NEW BOOKS OF INTEREST

Spencer and Spencerism. By Hector Macpherson,
author of "Thomas Carlyle," and "Adam Smith."
Cloth, 241 pp., $1.25. Doubleday, Page & Co., New
York.

The History of Colonization. From the Earliest
Times to the Present Day. By Henry C. Morris. 2
vols., crown 8vo, cloth, gilt tops, 459-383 pp., $4.
The Macmillan Company, New York.

Jesus Christ and the Social Question. An Examina-
tion of the Teaching of Jesus in its Relation to some
of the Problems of Modern Life. By Francis Green-
wood Peabody, Plummer professor of Christian morals
in Harvard University. The Macmillan Company,
New York.

The Settlement after the War in South Africa. By
M. J. Farrelly, LL.D., barrister at law, advocate of the
supreme court of Cape Colony. 8vo, cloth. 321 pp., $4.
The Macmillan Company, New York.

The Venetian Republic: Its Rise, its Growth, and its
Fall. 421-1797. By W. Carew Hazlitt. 8vo, cloth,
gilt tops, maps, 2 vols., 814-815 pp., $12. The Mac-
millan Company, New York.

The United States Naval Academy. By Park Benja-
min, of the class of 1867. 494 pp., $3.50. A history
of the evolution of the American navy. With 70 illus-
trations. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York.

Two Women in the Klondike. The Story of a Jour-
ney to the Gold- Fields of Alaska. By Mary E. Hitch-
cock. $3. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. With a
folding map of Alaska and 500 illustrations.

The Life of William Ewart Gladstone. Edited by Sir
Wemyss Reid. 2 vols., $4.50. G. P. Putnam's Sons,
New York. Containing over 200 illustrations.

FROM DECEMBER MAGAZINES

"The close of the century is signalized by a nota-
ble step taken by Russia in abolishing deportation as a
part of her penal system, with the exception of a small
penal colony for political and habitual offenders. This
is a step long contemplated by Russia, and now deter-
mined upon after the most positive evidence of the evils
of deportation to Siberia. Russia is about to make pro-
vision in prisons for 14,000 more prisoners; and she
has appropriated §3,520,000 for the new buildings
which must be erected for the 8,000 who cannot be ac-
commodated in existing prisons." — S. J. BARROWS, in
" Progress in Penology ;" The Forum.

"If only Gutenberg could return to the world,
with what astonishment would he behold his art,
fit for delicacy and learning, used to record the
tattle- tattle of a not too refined society? Would
he not feel shame at his own invention, when he
witnessed the ardent ingenuity wherewith men and
women intrigue to obtain press notices for themselves
and their friends, the active indiscretion wherewith the
journals belittle the heroes of our time? And might
he not justly refute Lamartine, declaring that the
printing press is not the telescope, but the microscope
of the soul?" — CHARLES WHIBLEY in "Jubilee of the
Printing Press;" The North American Review.

"The problem in China is not how to get the most
work out of a man, but how to divide a given piece of
work so as to give the greatest possible number of men
a chance to make a day's living out of it. The cheap-
est thing in the empire is a man, and therefore labor-
saving devices are not in demand. How cheap this
Chinese labor actually is may be better understood

95

96 G UNTON'S MA GAZINE

when it is known that, in certain parts of the empire,
Chinese carpenters have proved that it is cheaper to
saw up logs into planks by the use of hand labor than
with a sawmill; while in the great Kaiping mines,
which have been developed under English engineers,
it has been found cheaper to bring the coal to the sur-
face by the use of human labor than to use engines,
stationed at the very mouth of the mines and run with
coal taken from them." — ' 'Highways and Byways;"
The Chautauquan.

"The law of consolidation of capital and division
of labor holds as good in the field of distribution as in
that of production. It is inevitable, and it is profitable.
The department stores and the mail-order stores sell
for 10 per cent, instead of for 30 per cent, profit, and
the consumer thus saves 20 per cent. The profit ob-
tained by the distributor of staples, on the way from
the farmer to the consumer, is less than one-quarter
what it was thirty years ago. The farmer secures a
wider market, the consumer gets his staples just so
much more cheaply, and the enterprising middleman
avails himself of improved banking and transportation
facilities to do a larger business. This is why he has
adopted as his motto, 'Quick sales and small profits.'

"The real benefits of 'capitalistic production,' as
compared with production on a small scale, are two-
fold. The first and greatest benefit of industrial com-
binations goes to the whole body of the community as
consumers, through reduction in prices. The next
benefit, and that next most largely distributed, goes to
the workers through increase of wages, and thus it hap-
pens that the workingman gains simultaneously in two
ways. He gets more money for his work and more
goods for his money." — CHARLES R. FLINT, in "Indus-
trial Combinations in the United States;'' Gassier s
Magazine.

MICHAEL G. MULHALL
(Courtesy of Leslie's Weekly; Copyright by Judge Co., 1901)

See page 158

GUNTON'S MAGAZINE

EEVIEW OF THE MONTH

Just as we go to press comes the news of

t]be death of the aSed sovereign of the
British, empire. Though daily expected

for more than a week, the certainty that Queen Victoria
is no more is none the less an impressive fact, and will
shock the thought of Christendom into even keener
appreciation of what the great epoch marked by her
reign has meant to the world than the formal passing
of the old century into the new, three weeks ago, could
do, despite the tons of retrospective literature and
floods of sermonizing that accompanied the event. The
world sees most vividly through personality, and there
is something that profoundly stirs the imagination and
brings the marvels of the greatest century of human
progress sharply down into the foreground in the pass-
ing away of a monarch whose life and reign have been
so closely identified with it all as even to have given
it the name of the " Victorian Era/' Personally, the
queen was not a history -making monarch. She was an
exalted type of womanhood, but not a particularly
aggressive or determining force in the great world
movements that were developing and coming to fruit-
age all about her. The marvelous progress of the
epoch that has taken her name was the work of the
world, not of any individual or group of individuals ; it
was the work of the masses struggling for broader
liberties, of science seeking for broader knowledge, of

97

98 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [February,

invention reaching out for completer mastery over
nature, of literature, art and music, striving to express
the highest and finest thought of the age. Victoria's
place in history will not be that of England's most
brilliant sovereign ; rather, it will be that of the
worthy head and representative of the greatest empire
upon earth during the most illustrious period in human
history. She will stand out less as a personality than
as the personal embodiment of a wonderful age.

In our next issue, probably, we shall review some
of the epoch-marking features of this reign and try to
point out their significance. It is a striking and im-
pressive evidence of the growing solidarity of the
English-speaking race, no less than of the worldwide
respect, transcending national bounds, for a life whose
personal influence stands out far above its political, that
in this city to-day the flag is everywhere floating at
half-mast.

After lone delays, the representatives of

Settlement at ,, . • .T* *j

Last ia China foreign powers in Peking, on Decem-

ber 22d, signed the note conveying to
the Chinese government the conditions upon which
peace could be restored. The demands submitted were
grouped under twelve distinct heads, providing in brief
as follows :

1. China must send a special mission to Germany with the apologies
of the Chinese government for the murder of Baron von Ketteler, and
erect a monument to his memory on the spot of his assassination.

2. The severest punishment for ringleaders in the Boxer uprisings,
and suspension for five years of official examinations in all cities where
foreigners have been subjected to outrages.

3. Reparation to Japan for the murder of Mr. Sujyama.

4. Erection of a monument in every foreign cemetery in China which
has been desecrated by the Chinese.

5. Prohibition of the importation of war materials.

6. Indemnities to all foreigners who have suffered in person or prop-
erty during the Boxer uprisings.

1 90i.] REVIEW OF THE MONTH 99

7. A permanent guard maintained by each of the powers for its
legation in Peking.

8. Destruction of forts between Peking and the sea.

9. Military occupation by the powers of certain points between
Peking and the sea.

10. Publication by the Chinese government throughout the empire,
for two years, of decrees prohibiting membership in any anti-foreign
society, under penalty of death, and holding all viceroys and governors
responsible for the maintenance of order within their districts.

11. China to give commercial and industrial treaty rights within the
limits of the empire, as may be desired by the powers.

12. Reform of the Chinese department of foreign affairs.

As might be expected, the Chinese peace commis-
sioners vigorously objected to the provisions for de-
stroying the forts and permitting permanent guards for
the legations in Peking, but it was clearly hopeless to
offer any important resistance and the commissioners
were ordered to sign within a week after receipt of the
note. The act of signing, on January I3th or i4th,
closed the first chapter in the history of the final march
of western civilization into the great oriental empire
that has so long struggled against all external influ-
ences. Already the British minister at Peking has
proposed a new commercial treaty with China, securing
new rights and guarantees of protection for foreign
industry and trade within the empire. It is along this
line that progress in the immediate future may be
expected. The genuineness or otherwise of the pledges
not to engage in any partition of China will have to be
determined by experience. Faithfulness to this pledge,
unless the Chinese government should utterly break
down and chaos ensue, will be the test of the moral
integrity of Christendom's attitude in the East.

Endless The familiar report that Aguinaldo is

Philippine dead comes along with the other equally

Warfare monotonous items of news from the Phil-

ippines during the past month. Whatever may have

100 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [February,

become of the Filipino leader, it is certain that there is
a widespread revival of insurgent activity, especially in
Luzon, and this despite the fact that early in December
some 2,200 natives surrendered to General Young at
Santa Maria and took the oath of allegiance to the
United States. It will be remembered that President
McKinley in his letter of acceptance, on September 8th
last, declared that if it were not for the hope that Bryan
would be elected and withdraw American authority, the
Filipino insurrection would speedily cease. "But for
these false hopes," he said, " a considerable reduction
could have been had in our military establishment in
the Philippines, and the realization of a stable govern-
ment would be already at hand." This was certainly
an optimistic view of the situation ; — much more so than
the statement by Secretary Root less than a month ago,
to the members of the Senate military affairs commit-
tee, that so long as present conditions in the islands
continued we should need the full strength of our army
of 100,000 men. On January 3d Senator Sewell of New
Jersey, a strong supporter of the administration's Phil-
ippine policy, while arguing in the senate for the army-
increase bill, made this significant declaration, equally
out of joint with the president's predictions :

" It is perfectly apparent to anyone who will look into the situation
that we have got to continue about the same number of men (76,000 to
79,000) for some time to come. It may be for one or two years, or three
years, but it ought not to be limited. . . . There is a war going on,
a very serious war. It is not in great shocks of battle, which may occur
one day in a month, but the loss is equal to it, taking the aggregate in a
month or three months. Our troops to-day are being denuded by losses
which grow out of the little posts, where they are turned out as scouts,
and where they are ambushed, and all that kin a of thing. The country
has got to face the situation boldly as to whether we are to uphold our
flag in the Philippines or not. If we are— and I take it that we shall—
we certainly must provide the men with which to do it."

As a part of our policy of dealing with the situation
we have begun an exile or banishment system, deport-

REVIEW OF THE MONTH 101

ing Filipino leaders to the island of Guam, pending the
conclusion of peace ; which from the present outlook
very likely means that several of these men have seen
the last of their native land. It is still further inter-
esting to note in connection with the Philippine situa-
tion that, according to a special report from Major
Edie, there are some thirty thousand lepers in the
Visayas group, with practically no provision for isolat-
ing them or preventing a spread of the disease through-
out the archipelago at any time. This is a problem
that must be handled promptly and on a thoroughgoing,
wholesale plan, involving nobody knows how much
expense in ferreting out the unfortunate victims from
their hiding places and conveying them to some perma-
nent quarantined reservation. Clearly, those who
defend our Philippine policy as a purely philanthropic
rather than financially profitable enterprise have the
bulk of the experience to support them thus far.

Popular There is no question but that the Amer-

Weariness with ican people are becoming more and more
tired of the entire Philippine complica-
tion, and are rapidly losing patience with the desultory
movement of affairs. The Filipinos want self-govern-
ment, and the long continuance of this insurrection
offers increasing evidence of their probable capacity to
carry it on, at least as well as many other self-governing
peoples of relatively low civilization, with whose affairs
we do not consider it our mission to interfere. The
petition from some 2,000 leading Filipino citizens of
Manila and vicinity, read in the United States senate
on January loth, is another evidence of the persistence
and growth of the independence idea. The declaration
in this petition that, since the revolution began, the
peaceful natives engaged in their ordinary vocations
have liberally supported the Filipino soldiers in the

102 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [February,

field and seem disposed to support them so long as the
war lasts, is amply borne out by the statements of
General MacArthur in his official report, summarized
in our December issue. At present there seems little
evidence that the administration contemplates any
change of policy. Senator Hoar's resolution providing
that an armistice be granted the Filipinos, and that a
number of their leaders be brought to the United States
at our expense, with the view of arranging a suitable
and honorable termination of the miserable situation
now existing, was laid on the table on January nth by
a vote of 32 to 19, the only republicans voting for it
being Senators Hale and Hoar. We believe the time
will come, however, when Senator Hoar's attitude in
this matter will be regarded as that of high statesman-
ship, representing the true line of policy for our gov-
ernment ; and that if we persist in the extreme policy
of subjugation by force, with complete annexation and
no prospect of ultimate independence for the islands, it
may be the rock of disaster for the administration's sec-
ond term.

Out in Hawaii, too, the policy of terri-
Thc Hawaiian ' , ^ ,. J ,. ., ,

Elections torial expansion beyond the limits of

natural affinity and fitness has lately re-
ceived a significant setback. At the election, held early
in December, for the first delegate to be sent from the
new territory to the United States congress, Robert
Wilcox, a half-caste Hawaiian, aggressively represent-
ing the interests of the old native monarchy, was
elected over his two competitors, one a republican and
the other a democrat, who were understood to be favor-
able to American rule. The strangeness of this lies in
the fact that, for years before annexation took place,
the Hawaiian people were represented as vainly and
pathetically knocking at our doors, fairly pining away

igox.] REVIEW OF THE MONTH 103

with anxiety to get in. It will be remembered how the
reports of the public grief when our flag went up in
Honolulu came as a shock of surprise ; and the recent
election still further confirms the growing impression
that the supposed annexation sentiment was all the
time chiefly the creation of a group of American and
English residents, with scarcely any native support.
In fact, it is becoming clearer all the time that the
nation, which for more than a century has stood as the
shining type of political independence and advocate of
the right of self-government, is going to find the re-
sults of that example and influence confronting it, either
in sullen resentment or forcible resistance, wherever it
attempts to reverse its own principle of freedom by
forcing its authority upon unwilling peoples. It is a
strange and unwelcome situation that we should be en-
gaged in rooting up growths of our own planting.

The Great Meanwhile, the momentous question of

Constitutional the status of our new dependencies, un-
der the constitution, is at last before the
supreme court. A number of cases have been pre-
sented and argued but the issue involved is substan-
tially the same in all. The first cases to go before the
court were those involving the right of the government
to collect tariff duties on certain merchandise brought
from the Philippines and Porto Rico into the United
States. The Philippine case is that of a soldier named
Pepke, who brought back with him from the islands a
number of diamond rings which were subsequently
confiscated by the government. The Porto Rico case
is that of John H. Goetze, who paid duties on tobacco
imported from Porto Rico and is contesting the right
of the government to collect such duties. In both cases
the point at issue is whether these islands are parts of
the United States in the sense that would bring them

104 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [February,

under the constitution and require free rights of trade
with the states. Argument on these two cases was be-
gun in the supreme court on December i/th and con-
cluded on the 2oth, the government's contention being
that these islands are not necessarily under the consti-
tution but were annexed by the superior power of con-
gress and may be governed by congress. It is an issue
of extraordinary interest, involving an interpretation of
the intent of the constitution to a degree of importance
which has hardly been equalled since the great Webster-
Hayne debates in the senate.

Attorney-General Griggs, in presenting the gov-
ernment's case, contended for the extra sovereignty
rights of congress, along lines well indicated by this
brief extract :

1 ' They [the f ramers of the constitution] gave to
the nation they founded the usual untrammeled powers
of making war and treaties, the most frequent methods
by which foreign territory is acquired by the nations
of the earth. If they intended to restrict or limit their
own government in these respects, would they not have
done so in express terms? They did not do so by any
language \vhich can even be suggested as capable of
such import, and it is therefore right — nay, necessary —
to conclude that they did not intend to do so. ...

"Is the United States so bound and tied by this
constitution of ours that it can never acquire an island
of the sea, a belt across the isthmus, a station for a
naval base, unless it be at the cost of admitting those
who may happen to inhabit the soil at the time of pur-
chase to full rights as citizens of the union, no matter
how incongruous or unfit they may be, while the
foreign-born inhabitant or the aboriginal red man must
depend upon the grace of congress, though he dwell
half a century among us?"

On the other hand, the contention of the claimants

igoi.] REVIEW OF THE MONTH 105

is, in the language of Mr. Lawrence Harmon, one of
the attorneys for Pepke :

' ' By the treaty of peace between the United States
and Spain, the Philippines became a part of the United
States ; the government and the citizens of the United
States both enter said islands under the authority of the
constitution, with their respective rights defined and
marked out ; the former can exercise no power over the
person or property of a citizen of the United States
beyond what that instrument confers, nor lawfully
deny any right which it has reserved. . . . The
president of the United States has no legislative power.
The imposition of customs duties upon commerce be-
tween these islands and other parts of the United
States after the treaty of peace and exchange of ratifi-
cations, by executive order, is without lawful authority,
and the seizure of the property of the plaintiff in error,
a citizen of the United States, under such pretended
authority, constitutes a taking of his property without
due process of law."

The decision in any one of these cases will practi-
cally be the decision for all. It is now expected that
the court will declare against the government's conten-
tion and in favor of the position that uniform regula-
tions must prevail throughout all the annexed terri-
tories. If so, we shall begin without further delay to
see some of the consequences of our colonial policy.
The bars will be thrown down, and American capital-
ists will be able to take the most modern machinery
into these various groups of islands, employ ten-cent-a-
day labor, and import the products into the United
States in competition with American industries, to say
nothing of the free immigration of coolies into the
United States to compete with American laborers. Not
only this, but each of these possessions will have the
status of regular territories of the United States, in line

106 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [February,

for statehood. Whoever imagines that any effort to
convert them into states is an exceedingly remote con-
tingency should abandon the delusion without delay.
Already there is discussion of the possible admission
within a few years of both Hawaii and Porto Rico.

Whichever way the court decides, the real solution
of the problem will not be reached. If the constitution
goes with the flag, then, as we have just pointed out, it
is bars down and an open road for admission of these
groups of wholly unfit population to the privileges of
American citizenship. On the other hand, if the right
of congress to govern these possessions outside the con-
stitution is sustained, then the very principle of our
democratic institutions is undermined. Whether that
principle has been violated before, in minor instances,
does not modify the fact that to violate it now, in order
to permit the beginning of a new and distinctly monar-
chical policy of annexation and subjugation of alien
peoples without their consent, would mark the first
really great and fundamental departure from the rock
on which our republic was erected.

The only permanently safe solution of this prob-
lem is to adopt the principle that, where the flag cannot
go without danger to our institutions, it must not go at
all. We must adopt in the Philippines the policy we
have pursued in Cuba, and if we do so we shall be more
honored in this return to the principles of true democ-
racy than we ever could be in arbitrarily forcing through
a mistaken policy under the shallow " spread-eagle "
plea that where the flag has once been raised, whether
right or wrong, it must never come down.

The wave of capitalistic consolidation

Deals Railf ttat ^as been sweePin£ over tne country

during the last few years, reaching its

height in 1899, seems to be finding its final expression

REVIEW OF THE MONTH 107

in gigantic railroad combinations. Within the last few
weeks negotiations have been under way looking to-
wards the consolidation of a system of roads that would
give a through transcontinental line under one single
management, including steamship lines operating in
both the Atlantic and the Pacific. This consolidation,
in which the chief promoter is understood to be the
master railroad organizer James J. Hill, of the Great
Northern, will if completed probably include the Great
Northern Railway, the Northern Pacific, the Chicago,
Milwaukee and St. Paul, and the Erie Railroad ; the
total mileage being nearly 20,000. At the same time,
another group of roads have been passing under one
control here in the East, including more especially the
lines engaged in the coal-carrying trade. Mr. J. P.
Morgan, who represents the controlling interest in the
Philadelphia and Reading road, has recently acquired
also the Central Railroad of New Jersey and the Le-
high Valley, which, with certain other smaller lines,
will give to the Morgan interests more than sixty per
cent, of the eastern coal shipments. The other impor-
tant coal-carrying roads being under management
friendly to the Morgan lines, it is estimated that fully
96 per cent, of the coal tonnage will, when these re-
organizations are complete, be handled under practi-
cally uniform policy.

Railroad consolidation is no new thing. It has
been progressing for many years, but never before has
it taken on such tremendously far-reaching proportions.
Perhaps it is natural that this should come a little later
than the great tide of reorganization in manufacturing
industries, for the reason that railroad interests are so
vast, so widely separated geographically, subject to
such complex conditions, and with interests frequently
very antagonistic. If properly financed, however, and
not burdened with extravagant obligations which re-

108 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [February,

suits cannot justify, the economy of consolidation is
obvious, not to mention t}ie relief it will give from dis-
astrous rate wars and trie constant temptation to rate
discriminations. The chairman of the inter-state com-
merce commission, Hon. Martin A. Knapp, states this
aspect of the case clearly in the following interview,
based obviously upon hard experience with the difficult
problem of preventing discrimination where railroads
are prevented by law from pooling their earnings :

' • While combinations of this kind are not very desirable, in the
broad sense, still I hold them preferable to conditions brought about by
existing laws, especially the anti-trust law, with reference to large and
small shippers by the public carriers, and which have militated against
the latter to the extent of almost driving them completely out of
business.

"One of these things must happen — the legalized • pooling ' of com-
petitive traffic, general consolidation or government ownership. . . .

" I hold that railroad rates should be as uniform as the postal rates,
and that the business man, small or large, should be no more concerned
about his neighbor getting an advantage through lower traffic rates than
about postage."

Meanwhile, the great field of manufac-

Prcsent Status . . ' . ,

of Trusts tunng industry is characterized at present

by somewhat of a reverse movement.
The high-water mark of reorganization has been reached
and passed, and the more prominent feature now is the
growth of new competition. The recent out-reachings
by the Carnegie interests, including the proposed build-
ing of a vast new tube plant at Conneaut Harbor, though
seeming to be a part of the trust movement are really
steps in the direction of new competition with some of the
great steel and iron consolidations. The New York
Journal of Commerce and Commercial Bulletin, which has
for a long time occupied a position largely unfavorable
to trust organization, points out in a recent review of
the situation that the value of the interests which have
passed into great consolidations is much less than is
popularly supposed, and supports this by showing that,

igoi.] REVIEW OF THE MONTH 109

as a rule, only the preferred stock and bonds of the new
" trusts " represent the actual value of the properties
included ; the common stock being for the most part
non- dividend earning, for the present at least. This
conclusion is at least plausible, in view of the fact that
in the organization of most of the large new combina-
tions it was a practice to give away common stock as a
bonus to the promoters, and to the financial interests
that could be persuaded to buy the bonds. It is clear
at any rate that the gross amount represented in the
capitalization of the new concerns gives a considerably
exaggerated idea of the extent to which the industrial
interests of the country have passed under so-called
"trust" control. The same paper, on December 3ist,
published a classified list, showing by names and
amounts of capital stock, a very large number of new
independent corporations that have recently been organ-
ized to compete with the "trusts " in a variety of indus-
tries; notably wire nails, tin-plate, tubes, sheet steel,
glucose, matches, baking powder, oil, paper and ice.
This list makes no mention of a projected new sugar
refining company in Philadelphia, nor of the recent
extensive growth of competition with the United Fruit
Company (banana "trust"), nor of the formation in
Chicago of a new rubber shoe concern to compete with
the United States Rubber Company.

In spite of this growth of competition, there have
been a few instances lately of concerns which seem
determined to pursue the old path of folly which nearly
all the great corporations have been wise enough per-
manently to abandon : namely, trying to make excessive
profits through "squeezing" the consumers by high
prices. The Rochester Optical and Camera Company,
a combination about a year old, undertook this on a
large scale, and as a result its business fell in a year
from $1,500,000 to about $800,000. Its stock has de-

110 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [February

clined in value, and it is reported as having great
difficulty in paying dividends even on its preferred
stock. At the same time, the salt combination has been
raising prices to such an extent that there has actually
been a notable increase of salt importations from abroad,
in spite of the tariff. Just why this corporation should
deliberately select a policy that has been discarded as
ultimately ruinous by practically all the great well-
established industries is one of the things that passes
understanding. It is unfortunate that a large industry
should put itself into a position where it must sooner
or later learn by hard experience what it might avoid
by starting out with a wise economic policy.

It is interesting to note in this connec-

A Permanent tjon another difficulty which limits and
Limitation to -., , -. ., ,., f

"Trust" Growth 1S llkelY always to limit the growth of
gigantic combinations beyond a certain
point : namely, the increasing difficulty, as the combina-
tion extends, of securing sufficiently able managing
ability to conduct successfully enterprises so vast.
Professor Adams, of the University of Michigan, in a
recent address delivered at the university, called atten-
tion to this feature, and it is reported in connection
with it that the head of one of the great American
industrial combinations has recently declared that sev-
eral positions in his organization, commanding upwards
of $10,000 per year salary, were vacant from sheer
inability to find men with sufficient talent and capacity
for responsibility to fill them. Of course, with the
further development of business along these vast new
lines we may expect an increase in available managing
ability, but it is doubtful if human capacity can ever be
sufficiently extended to permit of effective control of
widely differing industries under one management, as
it is sometimes feared will eventually occur. The

i90i.] REVIEW OF THE MONTH 111

probability is that the line of greatest economic effi-
ciency (which is the line that always limits any further
growth of industrial combination, because of the cer-
tainty of new competition when that line is passed) will
be found to be in the organization under single man-
agement of industries of very similar character. The
natural law which limits superior human ability to at
most two or three distinct fields will be the permanent
bar to any universal "trust." Whenever that line is
passed, the economy of specialization will be more
effective than the economy of organization. The inde-
pendent establishment devoted to one distinct purpose
will win the day against any unwieldy, unnatural com-
bination of many diverse interests under what is certain
to be at least partially ineffective management.

The removal by Governor Roosevelt, on

Reform Efforts in ^ jr-r^-^-^A-L A

New York City December 22d, of District Attorney Gar-
diner of New York city, and appointment
of Eugene A. Philbin, a clean and capable democrat,
in his stead, has resulted in more activity in the prose-
cution of violators of the law than New York has wit-
nessed for a long time. It is at last possible to secure
indictments against offenders without indefinite delay,
so that those who are working for better conditions in
the metropolis can now feel that at least one depart-
ment of the city government is no longer in corrupt
league with the lawbreakers.

Mr. Croker's wonderful " committee of five," ap-
pointed as a Tammany instrument for unearthing vice
and bringing offenders to justice (!) has been chiefly
occupied thus far in explaining that law-breaking does
not exist to any important extent. For the very shame
of the thing, the efforts of this committee cannot be
wholly without fruit, but the obvious insincerity and
political expediency of its work places it in the category

112 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [February,

of things farcical so far as any permanent contribution
to clean government is concerned. There has been, it
is true, some shaking up of the police force, including
the substitution of Captain Titus for Herlihy in the
Eldridge Street district where some of the worst abuses
have existed ; and temporary improvement has occurred,
which may be expected to last just about as long as
public indignation remains sufficiently intense to cause
the Tammany ring any serious apprehension. Chief
Devery has refused to suspend Captain Herlihy and
Inspector Cross, pending trial for neglect of duty, and
the outcome is practically a deadlock between the chief
and the board of police commissioners, during which
further reform hangs in suspense.

The humiliating absurdity of the situation is lead-
ing up to an exceedingly strong sentiment in favor of a
single police commissioner in place of the present bi-
partisan board, to accomplish which a bill has already
been introduced in the legislature at Albany. Whether
this is the best solution of the problem experience will
have to determine, but certainly nothing could be much
worse than the bi -partisan board plan, which has here-
tofore meant either deadlock, with consequent stagna-
tion and inefficiency of service, or else systematic
trading and dealing between the two parties represented
in the control of the police department. The proposed
substitution of a single police commissioner does not
necessarily conflict with the democratic idea of govern-
ment, which ought to recognize the important difference
between legislative and executive functions. The
present arrangement is an attempt to embody legislative
features in what is really an executive function. The
true distinction should be to offer the amplest oppor-
tunity for expression of the public will in all matters
involving choice of public policies, and then to provide
ample power to enforce the results of the people's deci-

i goi.] RE VIE W OF THE MONTH 113

sion ; this power to be exercised in such a way that con-
flict of authority will be impossible and responsibility
for the results will be definite, explicit and unescapable.
Meanwhile, the committee of fifteen, organized on
December ipth under the auspices of the chamber of
commerce, and headed by Mr. William H. Baldwin, Jr.
as chairman, is planning and inaugurating a campaign
of progressive reform work which ought to have wide-
reaching results. It proposes to institute a thorough
non-partisan investigation into the causes of the more
extensive and familiar forms of vice now flourishing
under police protection, and to collect evidence show-
ing where the official responsibility rests. Next, it
proposes to publish the results of these inquiries and
work systematically for legislation which shall make it
possible to center more effectively the responsibility for
enforcement of the laws.

/ This committee is also arranging to undertake a
campaign of public education on the conditions existing
in the city and the kind of improvement in the social
environments that ought to be developed as offsets to
the innumerable incentives to vice and crime. If the
committee can carry out even a part of this most whole-
some program it will justify itself and become a per-
manently necessary institution. Bishop Potter, by the
way, has suggested a permanent vigilance committee of
several thousand members to keep constant watch on
the relations between the police and protected vice, all
over the city, and constantly stimulate active public
sentiment in favor of wholesome civic conditions. It
would be difficult to keep such an organization in good
working condition for any length of time, and it might
easily drift into misguided officiousness, but for a period
it might have a powerful effect in rousing public con-
science to a higher sense of municipal duty.

Both this plan and the efforts of the committee of

114 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [February,

fifteen will bear fruit in the slow betterment of civic
conditions, but at the present moment the most impor-
tant, direct and obvious way to secure the opportunity
for these efforts to yield the results expected of them is
for all the forces of decency to unite in a strenuous, deter-
mined movement to oust the Tammany organization
from every part of the municipal government. It is
possible to do this, but it cannot be done through any
one reform organization or political body. There must
be a complete sinking of prejudices and differences,
and harmonious union for the one object in view, if the
enemy is to be dislodged and an era of decency
ushered in.

Governor OdelPs Meanwhile, the new governor of New
Doubtful York is trying hard to make a reform

record of his own and is welding his
political future to the cause of economy in public ex-
penditures. This was the keynote of his first message
to the legislature, and his various suggestions are all
interesting, many of them clever, some of them useful,
but practically none of them reflecting any high order
of statesmanship. The most important specific recom-
mendations he makes are for the consolidation of the
board of mediation and arbitration, board of labor sta-
tistics, and factory inspection department into one new
department of labor, accomplishing a saving of some
$72,000 a year; consolidation of the forest preserve
board and forest, fish and game commission, saving
$35,000 a year ; abolition of the state board of charities,
state board of health and state prisons' commission and
substitution of a single commissioner in each case;
abolition of the state lunacy commission and return to
the old plan of separate management, saving $750,000
a year.

Mr. Odell has a plan for abolishing all direct state

REVIEW OF THE MONTH 115

taxation by virtue of these economies, and also by in-
creased taxation of savings banks, trust companies, in-
surance companies and the capital stock of corporations
organized in other states but doing business in New
York. There is no doubt that a larger revenue might
properly be drawn from some of these sources, but this
does not imply that there is either justice or economic
wisdom in trying to transfer the entire burden of tax-
ation to a few specific interests in the community. Our
present system of taxation is glaringly defective at
almost every point, but when it is reformed it should
be reformed scientifically, with a view to securing the
widest and most equitable distribution of the tax bur-
den. This will never be accomplished by any arbi-
trary scheme for transferring all the taxes of the com-
munity to a few interests that happen to be unpopular
on the political stump.

An economy program like Mr. Odell's may have
many meritorious features, but is the program of a
politician rather than of a statesman. The politician is
always striving for spectacular and semi-sensational
effects, always attempting to identify himself with some
proposition that has elements of popularity, and if it
can be something that seems thoroughgoing and radical
all the better for the purpose. But this sort of thing
is not possible for the statesman. The true statesman
knows that genuine reform can never be accomplished
by wholesale, sweeping, unqualified measures that cut
down good and bad together. Economy is a word to
conjure with, but it is the politician, not the statesman,
that holds it up as the highest attainable wisdom in
public policy.

The true end of statesmanship is to promote the
greatest public welfare, whether this means saving
dollars or spending dollars. Where economy will con-
tribute to this welfare economy is good, but where it

116 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE

will cripple some important branch of public service
then economy is bad, and the public official who tries to
make a record in defiance of this fact is no real friend
to public welfare. Where sinecures exist, or useless
political " job" commissions, or where waste occurs by
poor organization of the service, then economy and
reorganization are in order, but, where important work
would be less effectively done by arbitrarily abolishing
offices and reducing the number of employees, then the
path of statesmanship is to point out the grounds for
distinguishing between the two cases, and shape poli-
cies accordingly. In brief, Mr. Odell's attitude on this
matter thus far only goes to confirm the general im-
pression of him prior to his nomination, that he is a
clever politician and shrewd business man, but lacking
in broad-minded conception of the duties of progressive
rational statesmanship in any large field of public
affairs.

-TRUSTS" AND BUSINESS STABILITY

Business stability is a vital element in national wel-
fare and progress. Nothing contributes so much to
cheerful optimism and inspires such confidence in social
institutions as continued business prosperity. It broad-
ens the life, liberalizes the spirit, elevates the charac-
ter, stimulates the growth of altruism, and strengthens
the bonds of human association. It turns on the sun-
shine in human experience and fructifies the best there
is in human nature.

On the other hand, industrial uncertainty is the
most depressing fact in social experience. No other
element in society is so fatal to energy, enterprise and
hopeful anticipation. Laborers, business men, public
officials, the workers in every calling of life, can do
their best only under conditions of approximate secur-
ity. Present prosperity loses much of its stimulating
effect if the immediate future be shrouded in uncer-
tainty. While business prosperity acts as the main-
spring of progress, furnishing the inspiration for new
ideas, new methods of doing and new standards of liv-
ing, which bring new types of institutions and civiliza-
tion, business depression brings doubt, distrust and
pessimism, and contains the germs of disintegration
and disruption. Business depressions bring economic
heresies and the seeds of political revolution. The dis-
ruption in which farmers lose their land by foreclosed
mortgages, merchants and manufacturers lose their

117

118 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [February,

business and property by bankruptcy, and laborers are
forced into idleness, creates pessimism and distrust.
Under such conditions it is not unnatural for the dis-
located to doubt the equity of existing institutions and
feel that injustice is at the very basis of economic rela-
tions. When such feelings grow into theories, and
those theories become convictions of the community,
they are likely soon to be converted into political policy.
This is the way revolutionary theories arise and grow
into political movements. The greenback, free-silver,
populist and socialist movements, which are jointly ex-
pressed in Bryan's popularity, were the cumulative re-
sult of these forces.

Had 1900 been a year of industrial depression in-
stead of one of high industrial prosperity, nothing
could have prevented Mr. Bryan with all his economic
heresies and disintegrating political ideas from sweep-
ing the country. The period of business depression
and disaster from 1893 to 1896 furnished exceptional
nursery conditions for the development of revolutionary
economic and political theories. The doctrines of so-
cialism promulgated by Karl Marx and Rodbertus, as
the reaction against monarchical institutions in Europe,
took very little root in this country so long as prosperity
continued. Every industrial disturbance, like a strike
or labor riot, afforded temporary opportunity for the
socialist prophet, but it made little permanent inroads
with the American people. The fiat-money theory repre-
sented by greenbackism, and the debased-coinage doc-
trine represented by free silver, were latent ideas that
were starved into impotence by industrial prosperity,
but a four years' period of continued depression, idle-
ness and increased poverty furnished the opportunity
for these disintegrating ideas to be worked into social
and economic theories and be accepted as the higher
gospel of society.

"TRUSTS" AND BUSINESS STABILITY 119

Under this protracted experience of adversity, it
was easy for the suffering masses to yield a ready ear
to the gospel of antagonism to capital. The theory
that corporations are organized exploiters of society,
that private profits are robbery, that the capitalist sys-
tem is inherently unjust and that public ownership of
industry is the only equitable system by which the in-
justices and misfortunes that afflict mordern society can
be abolished, — all this and the reasoning leading up to
it was readily accepted. Consequently, when Mr.
Bryan appeared on the scene declaring against capital
and corporate industry and denouncing our industrial,
financial and judicial institutions, he was at once popu-
lar with the masses, not so much for the exact formu-
lation of his ideas as for the fact that he voiced the ag-
gregate discontent. He was friendly to the new eco-
nomic, financial and social theories that were developed
under the influence of industrial depression and social
hardship. Nothing but the hope and faith-inspiring
influence of returned business prosperity prevented his
success. The ideas and theories that were developed
to a greater or less degree of exactness were not dis-
pelled ; they are still lurking in the background, and if
another industrial depression overtakes us in the near
future these theories will reassert themselves with in-
creased force and vigor. Nothing but an extended
period of industrial prosperity or increased opportunity
for wholesome industrial and political education can
prevent an experiment with doctrines of the sort Bryan
represents. Business stability and widespread liberal
economic education are the only forces which can pre-
vent such a national calamity.

The characteristic feature of the progress of the
nineteenth century, particularly the last half of it, is
the development of the means of industrial prosperity.
Science, ability, organization, and indomitable energy

120 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [February,

have combined to increase the capacity of wealth pro-
duction. Nature has been made to yield more at every
touch ; steam, electricity, and gravitation have been
harnessed to the work. Wealth has been multiplied at
a marvellously diminished cost ; the wealth per capita
of the community, in this country, has increased four-
fold, wages have increased more than ninety per cent.,
the working day has been shortened by more than one-
quarter, and the purchasing power of a day's work has
more than doubled. All this has made for national
progress and whatever is implied in a higher civiliza-
tion.

But thus far this progress has been accompanied by
the menacing effect of recurring industrial depressions,
which furnish the soil and seed of social disruption.
These business disturbances have not only accompanied
the rapid progress of the century but they are a part of
very rapid progress wherever it takes place. There are
no business depressions in China, India, Africa, or any
countries where the methods of industry are uniform
and progress imperceptibly slow. There may be fam-
ines in these countries, but never business depressions.
Famines are the result of failing production ; business
depressions are the result of irregular, unbalanced in-
crease in production. Increased production can only
be permanently beneficial to the nation when it is ad-
justed approximately to the consumption or market for
products.

Industrial progress is itself a disturbance. It is a
constant substitution of new for old, of superior for in-
ferior methods of doing. Every such substitution
brings with it some dislocation. The benefits must be
greater than the injuries from dislocation, or there is no
real gain. Unless the new movement absorbs the dis-
located elements to their advantage, or at least not to
their disadvantage, a current of reaction will be created.

"TRUSTS" AND BUSINESS STABILITY 121

Several examples of this have occurred during the last
three-quarters of a century, with increasing havoc.
This is chiefly due to the fact that industrial activity
has been dominated by what some delight to call ' 'nat-
ural selection." The rule of "survival of the fittest,'
which is blind struggle for supremacy, has prevailed in
both theory and practice. The idea that unlimited and
unorganized competition is the source of success and the
sole solvent for economic problems has been taught by
the scholar and practised by the capitalist. Hence we
have had a protracted regime of struggle and strife,
with the maximum waste and the minimum economic
and scientific direction.

In the era of hand labor, with small production and
restricted markets, this unrestricted competition had
the effect of wholesome rivalry, but as production in-
creased in quantity, markets expanded in area and com-
petitors multiplied in number and strength, single-
handed competition became mere blind struggle against
the unknown. Ignorance of what others were doing,
and disregard of the law of market equilibrium, have
given us rapidly recurring business fluctuations, so that
we have been constantly rising on a "boom" or descend-
ing with an industrial depression. Under the stimulus
of advancing prices, capital rushes in as if the market
demand for products were infinite, and business men
borrow heavily in the effort to produce the maximum
and get the quick benefit of the boom. This uneco-
nomic stampede soon results in an inflated overdoing,
with the consequence of reaction and inability profita-
bly to dispose of products and pay credit obligations ;
all of which culminates in disruption and forced liqui-
dations, destruction of confidence, and enforced idle-
ness, with all its concomitant evils throughout society.
This has been no less general in agriculture than in
manufacture and commerce. When the price of corn

122 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [February,

or cotton is high, farmers, each regardless of what the
others are doing, immediately turn their energies to
raising more corn or cotton, with the disappointing ef-
fect of falling prices and a depressed market.

While these reactions accompany industrial prog-
ress and expansion they are not an inevitable part of
it. They are rather the result of adhering too long to
blind competition as the governing force in industry.
To reap the benefits of expanding industry, natural se-
lection must be superseded by scientific selection, blind
competition must yield to intelligent, comprehensive
organization. Unrelated individual effort can only be
successful in the realm of small things ; the civilization
of great things is the civilization of scientific organiza-
tion.

Successful business to-day involves more than the
mere capacity to produce or even to produce cheaply.
It involves maintaining the equilibrium between the
forces of production and consumption. This requires a
knowledge of the world's economic conditions in each
line of industry. To know the output and the demand
in any given line of industry, and correctly to antici-
pate their movement so as approximately to maintain a
working equilibrium, requires a knowledge of the state
of invention, the amount <?f new machinery used, capital
invested, stocks on hand, and substantially all the con-
ditions affecting industry in every part of the world
from whence competing products may come. This is
impossible to individual producers or small concerns.
It is only with immense capital and perfect organization
that this can be accomplished. Frequent and reliable
statistical advices of all the details of production, con-
sumption, transportation, stocks on hand, and antici-
pated innovations, are among the necessary equipments
of modern industry. Only with such information and
far-reaching organization is approximately correct eco-

"TRUSTS" AND .BUSINESS STABILITY 123

nomic forecast possible. With this knowledge of the
world's economic conditions, industrial enterprise will
be governed with more definite relation to the world's
economic demand.

Another feature of present industry is the sudden-
ness of changes in social desires and the immense
quantity which it is necessary to carry for the normal
supply. Small concerns are wholly incapable of ade-
quately adjusting these conditions. With small pro-
ducers, a little change and fluctuation in the public
demand for products when the supply on hand is large
causes numerous failures and bankruptcies ; with large
concerns, the stocks can be safely carried and even
transferred from one section or class of demand to
another. The losses involved in carrying declining
supplies will be offset by the increased margin in the
new supplies. Thus, what to-day would cause bank-
ruptcies and perhaps widespread business disturbance
would be absorbed in readjustment under the manage-
ment of adequately large concerns.

Moreover, very large concerns have so much in-
volved that a few mistakes will often involve the loss
of millions of dollars. Such establishments cannot
afford to be idle. A very small concern can close down,
throw laborers out of employment, and impair the
market demand of the community rather than endure
loss in running. The investment is so small that the
loss of stoppage may easily be much less than the loss
of disadvantageous working, but in large concerns,
where hundreds of millions are involved, the loss of
stoppage may soon be fatal. Where world markets are
the prize, the richest concerns cannot afford to retire
even temporarily, lest new competitors step in and per-
manently secure the business.

Thus all the conditions of large enterprise tend to
make the maintenance of market equilibrium or busi-

124 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [February

ness stability an important feature of success. It is in
response to this law of business success that large cor-
porations succeeded small ones, and so-called "trusts''
made their appearance. Despite all the public opposi-
tion to large corporations, they are admittedly here to
stay and have already begun to exercise a marked
steadying influence upon business. In the last business
disturbance, for example, which came suddenly through
a threatened change of national policy, it was the smaller
concerns which suddenly succumbed to the depressing
wave ; concerns which could not afford to carry large
stocks of goods and whose financial credit was limited.
Large concerns, like the Carnegie, Standard Oil and
sugar companies, withstood the shock almost undis-
turbed.

Business depression and uncertainty, which are the
bane of modern industry, can be avoided in only one of
two ways, either by returning to the era of small pro-
duction, or else by adopting the methods of larger and
more perfect industrial organization. With the growth
in size and complexity of productive enterprise must
come the growth in magnitude and complexity of the
organizations to deal with it. Liliputians cannot do the
work of giants. If we insist upon having small re-
stricted concerns to deal with the colossal interests of
the twentieth century, we may expect and will surely
have constant disturbances and failure with their train
of disrupting evils. As well might we expect to govern
a modern city by the primitive town meeting as expect
individual effort and small corporations adequately to
deal with the colossal proportions of modern industry.
Everything points to the conclusion that the real rem-
edy for business disturbance is more perfect develop-
ment of large corporations.

But here, as in every other phase of social life, the
spurious comes with the genuine. In the development

igoi.] "TRUSTS" AND BUSINESS STABILITY 125

of corporate enterprise as the natural method of dealing
with our increasing industrial interests have come a
species of uneconomic and unsubstantial organizations.
In the flush of business boom, the promoters in many
instances have taken the place of investors. Corpora-
tions have been organized for speculative rather than
economic purposes. Advantage has been taken of the
overconfidence of the public, and to give abnormal
rewards to promoters and speculators a system of over-
capitalization has come into vogue. This has been
especially true during the last two years. With the
settling down of business to normal conditions, how-
ever, these overcapitalized concerns will fail to yield
encouraging profits, some of them will collapse and
others be compelled to reorganize. This abnormal
inflation is so uneconomic that it will bring its own retri-
bution and teach the lesson that watered stock does not
earn dividends, but that after all it is only investment
and economically organized enterprise that yields per-
manent success. We are in some danger of condemn-
ing all corporations because of the conduct of the
spurious ones, but experience will educate the public
to discriminate between legitimate investment and
mere speculative inflation. If bankers would refuse to
lend their names and influence to watered-stock corpo-
rations, and the public refuse to invest in mere specu-
lative industrials, buy only stocks that represent legiti-
mate investment and established earnings, the occupa-
tion of the promoter in fabricating mere "wind"
corporations would soon be gone.

Corporations, like trade unions, which are another
phase of the same industrial movement, have many
crude uneconomic features, but the remedy for these
defects is not restriction and repression but more eco-
nomic, scientific and comprehensive organization. In-
discriminate antagonism to a natural movement always

126 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE

brings out its worst features. Suppression of free
speech, restriction of the press, and forbidding of free
public meetings always lead to inflamed secret discus-
sion and usually to conspiracy and physical-force
methods. This was true of the Fenian movement in
Ireland, is true of the nihilists in Russia ; and in fact wher-
ever organized authority is used to suppress a natural
movement it drives it from the field of open action to
secret underhanded methods which inspire less honora-
ble motives and develop the worst characteristics.
Much of the physical force used by trade unions is the
result of the same mistaken antagonism to the natural
growth of labor organization. For a long time a trade
union was conspiracy; then for decades it remained
outside the pale of law. Its funds had no protection
in court and the treasurer could steal the revenues with
impunity.

It is only when the normal movement is protected
by the moral sentiment and legal institutions of society
that it unreservedly comes out into the light and devel-
ops its best characteristics. Nothing more effectively
develops the worst in human nature than to put it
under the ban. To this universal law corporations are
no exception. An inflamed and perverted public senti-
ment against corporations, to which small -calibre poli-
ticians are ever ready to respond with petty inquisito-
rial repressive legislation, is the most effective means
of stimulating the worst phases of corporate develop-
ment. It constantly creates a presumption against the
new organization and leads to numerous devices of
secrecy and suppression, which grow into misrepre-
sentation. It develops the quality of the pirate instead
of true economic leadership.

CHINESE CIVILIZATION

ARCHER B. HULBERT, FORMERLY EDITOR OF THE KOREAN
' ' INDEPENDENT "

Civilization is a word of double meaning. It some-
times means that enlightened condition of society in
which each individual has the best opportunity for self-
development, and in this sense it is never used in the
plural. It may also mean one of several modes of
social and political development whereby different
styles of national life have been evolved. In this sense
we may use it in the plural — as the European, Moham-
medan and Chinese civilizations. Etymologically it
refers to the relation between the citizen and the
state, and depends upon that great law of human prog-
ress that necessitates a growing interdependence of
man upon man.

The various civilizations of the world differ widely,
not because of any difference in the fundamental ele-
ments of human nature but because these elements
have received such different handling. Thus it comes
about that we shrink from conceding any similarity
between our civilization and that of such a people
as the Chinese.

It must be granted at the start that the civilization
of China is as highly developed as the Anglo-Saxon,
but the lines of that development have been so different
that it may interest us to glance at some of the more
important of them, for by so doing we shall be able to
discover wherein lies the lamentable failure of the
Chinese system. A thorough discussion of the 'subject
would nil a volume ; we must confine ourselves, there-
fore, to one special phase of it — namely, what has China

187

128 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [February,

retained of the great original ideas of the race and
what has the West rejected.

I. China has retained the original theocratic idea,
the West has rejected it. We find that in the begin-
ings of history kings held their seats not only by a sup-
posed divine right but by some assumed direct connec-
tion with divinity, so that they were themselves clothed
with a dignity that claimed a kinship with the divine.
The reason for this is not far to seek. Let us grant for
the sake of argument that the biblical account is sub-
stantially correct, then we shall find that the divine
attributes given to kings was a counterpart of sacrificial
offerings. The apostacy of the race cut them off from
direct communion with divinity, and just as sacrifice
took the place of direct worship so the direct govern-
ment of God was modified to a delegated theocracy.
At least the universal acceptance of the general law of
divine government constrained men to recognize their
temporal rulers as the seat and symbol of that govern-
ment. In no other way can we account for the divine
honors that were given to the ancient kings of Assyria
and Babylonia, and later to the Roman emperors. It
survives to-day in the expression ' 'divine right of kings, "
but in our western civilization this means little more
than the divine right of any man to do his own proper
work whether he be king or mechanic.

The Chinese have retained the idea of a delegated
theocracy and their government is the logical outcome
of such a course. A delegated theocracy to succeed
must have a perfect medium. A Moses or a Samuel
might presumably be an approximately perfect medium,
but even in these instances we find that human fraility,
both in the medium and in the governed parties, ren-
dered the divine will nugatory, as expressed in many
instances, whatever may have been the undisclosed will
of the Almighty. If these men were only approxi-

i9oi.J CHINESE CIVILIZATION 129

mately successful what shall be said of those who have
had neither the ability nor the preparation for such a
calling as they had ? The ancient custom of giving
divine honors to kings worked boundless evils in society,
for the imbecilities, the cruelties, the injustices of those
supposed vice-gerents of God could not but lower the
peoples' notions of the Diety. The contemptible ac-
tions of God's agent would inevitably make the Divine
Being contemned by the people. At the same time, the
terror inspired by the belief that the king stood for
God himself in the government of the kingdom would
naturally engender that servility of manner which is
such a prominent feature of the Oriental court life.
Now these are precisely the features which differentiate
the Chinese form of government from ours. It has en-
gendered deceit, insincerity, servility in the outward
manner, while at heart there is secret contempt. This
pseudo-theocracy is a cloak for untold and untellable
oppression and injustice. It is the cause of venality,
nepotism and all political uncleanliness, for the basis
of a theocracy is necessarily absolutism, and a corrupt-
ed absolutism bears such fruit as we find in Turkey,
Persia, China and like absolute governments. Those
kingdoms whose sovereigns make the loudest claims to
divine vice-gerency are the most corrupt. The Mikado
of Japan was for two thousand years considered semi-
divine, and it was only when he laid aside this guise
and admitted his people as copartners of his responsi-
bilities and his honors that Japan became politically
regenerate.

The higher a thing is the more momentous is its
fall. An American writer has illustrated this by a tell-
ing though humble metaphor. The higher the form
of animal life the more offensive it becomes to the nos-
trils when it decays. Beginning with the mollusk and
proceeding through all the grades of animal life till we

130 G UNTON 'S MA GAZ1NE [February,

reach that of the human being we readily perceive the
truth of this statement. And it is on some such theory
as this that we can explain why a theocracy, the highest
ideal form of government, may become the very worst
when it loses the vitalizing force and becomes a corpse.
Such is the government of China. It has always been
a pseudo-theocracy and as such could neVer be other
than offensive to the lover of good government. The
West long ago rejected this idea and eliminated it from
its idea of human government, not because a genuine
theocracy is not the only perfect form of government
nor because rulers do not need divine guidance, but be-
cause Christianity has taught the fallibility of human
judgment and has thereby proved that a democratic
form of government is the next best to a pure the-
ocracy. Such democracy we find in all limited monarch-
ies to-day, modified in various ways to suit the condi-
tions and limitations of society. The evils of a parli-
mentary government are incidental and adventitious ;
those of a pseudo-theocracy like that of China are in-
trinsic and fundamental.

II. China has retained the original patriarchal idea,
but the West has rejected it. Here we touch upon the
social, not the political, organism. In the morning of
the race the term of human life ran into the centuries,
and we can readily imagine how a family in which ten
or a dozen generations were represented would look
with the utmost reverence upon the hoary patriarch at
its head and receive his words as well-nigh oracular.
China retained this notion. It was old when Confucius
crystallized it into a written dogma. It has never
ceased to be the basis of their social system. But this
idea, like that of her delegated theocracy, has run to
seed. Its most baneful effect has been to adumbrate
the individual by the clan. It has made China a
nation not of individuals but of cliques. It is difficult

i90i.] CHINESE CIVILIZATION 131

for a westerner, even after years of residence among
the Chinese, to realize the full significance of a China-
man's intense loyalty to his clan. He never thinks of
adopting an independent line of action. He must dis-
cuss every matter with the members of his family or
clan and his every act is that of the clan rather than of
himself as an individual. In short, as in America the
unit of value is the dollar and all less than that is mere
fractional currency, so in China the social unit is the
clan, and all the members that compose the clan are
mere fractions devoid of all integral force. A man can-
not name his son without consulting the clan. He can-
not give his daughter in marriage, nor sell his estate,
nor change his place of residence, nor make his will,
nor choose a profession without conferring with his
relatives. If he is fortunate enough to amass wealth
he shares it in great part with the clan. If he gets
into trouble he is sure of all the help the clan can give.
If he commits a capital crime a dozen of his relatives
may be decapitated with him, or sold into slavery or
driven into banishment. There is no such thing as a
purely personal course of conduct in such a country and
in consequence there is no such thing as personal re-
sponsibility. If he does wrong it is taken for granted
that his relatives are his accomplices. It would be
difficult to exaggerate the obstacles which such a system
throws in the way of national progress. Being not a
self-dependent and independent member of society but
only a single factor in a highly articulated family sys-
tem his every act must have a disturbing effect upon
the system. A barrow wheel may turn slow or fast,
backward or forward, without disturbing any one or
anything, but not so with a cog-wheel in a complicated
machine. Any erratic movement disorganizes the
whole mechanism. Thus it is that the life of a China-
man is circumscribed. He can have no genuine ambi-

182 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [February,

tion. He can never climb the ladder of fame or fortune
without dragging his clan with him. There is no such
thing as starting as an office-boy and ending as the
president of a railroad, or of beginning life as a news-
boy and rounding off his career as the governor of a
province. There is no such a thing as a son attaining
a fortune in trade and living in a city mansion while his
aged father lives on the old farm and rejoices in still
being independent of his son's help. Such a thing
would be subversive of all notions of Chinese propriety.
It would be impossible. There is no such thing as a
mother sending her sons out into the world to fight for
themselves. The boy chooses neither his occupation
nor his home nor his bride nor his companions. They
are all prepared for him and he never dreams of acting
independently in anything.

It is to this patriarchal idea that we must charge
the inertia of China. It is harder to move a clan than
an individual, and it is doubly hard for the younger
members of a clan to effect any change for they are con-
fessedly its weakest element. By the time they have
reached years of experience they have received the im-
press of the clan and no longer desire a change. This
is why, with all their civilization, they still make use of
implements and utensils that would be considered pri-
meval in America. Their arts and sciences are based
upon models as crude as those that did duty in the days
of ancient Babylon.

In the West all this is changed. Here again it is
Christianity that has effected the change. It inculcates
the principle of individual responsibility. It sets each
man upon his own merits and judges him thereby. It
makes each man a king by making him autocratic in
the field of personal opinion. It makes the individual
the social unit distinct from his parents, his wife and
his children, and leaves him to play with the facts and

i9oi.] CHINESE CIVILIZATION 183

the forces about him without having to square his
opinions to any set standard. This ideal has not yet
been fully realized but in so far as it has the world has
become enlightened.

III. China has retained the ancient ideographic
idea. The West has rejected it. The first attempts of
the race to transfer ideas by means of visible symbols
resulted in the hieroglyph, or more scientifically speak-
ing, the ideograph. The discovery of a phonetic system
took place only after man had attained a considerable
degree of intellectual growth, and when an ideographic
system failed to convey the fine shades of meaning
which such growth necessarily involved. But the
Chinese have never shaken themselves loose from the
crude system which the race learned in its infancy.
We find, nevertheless, that China has evolved a ponder-
ous literature and that the art of letters is considered
the art par excellence. An examination of this literature
shows that it is lacking in the very elements that one
would suppose it to lack in view of its cumbersome
system. In the first place they have no true poetry in
our sense of that term. They have imaginative ideas
expressed in a certain metrical or rather geometrical
form, but it is all a matter of literary finesse rather than
an outpouring of genuine poetic feeling. Chinese poetry
must be read from the page to be most highly appre-
ciated, while with us it is the human voice that carries
the poetic truth most closely home to the human heart.
In truth we may say that the element of heart is quite
lacking in Chinese literature as a whole. In like manner
we find that there is no such thing as oratory in China,
and thus one of the most important avenues of intellec-
tual intercourse is cut off from that people. For the
same reason also music means infinitely less to the
Chinese than to us. The professional musician in
China is classed with the acrobat, the butcher and the

134 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [February,

courtesan. But on the other hand the Chinese are
master hands at anything that appeals to the eye.
Their countless flaunting banners, their passion for
colors and the high significance given to these in all
walks of life, the showy pageant, the spectacular pyro-
technics, the parade of finery on all occasions — all these
things show that if you would appeal to the Chinese it
must be through the eye. To be able to take a brush
and write a single Chinese character faultlessly would
make a man's reputation more speedily in that country
than to speak like Demosthenes or sing like Jenny
Lind. Chinese literature deals with history and ethics
almost exclusively. What they call poetry would ap-
pear to us but a disconnected string of aphorisms,
many of them to the point, but without a gleam of that
genius which lights the page of Dante or Shakespeare.
Eye-service dominates all Chinese life. What
they see they will believe. Words are light, they are
made to play with. Nothing is true but that which is
seen to be true. This lies at the bottom of the material-
ism and utilitarianism of the Chinese. To him diplo-
macy consists in skilful lying and he commits himself
only by doing something. His deed has no necessary
connection with his word. In business life the Chinese
are exceptionally honest but this is only a part of their
hard common sense and their utilitarian spirit. It pays
them to be honest for they know that it is next to im-
possible to free themselves from their environments.
They cannot leave for parts unknown and begin life
anew. They have learned better than we that defal-
cation and indirection are not only bad morals but bad
business as well. But this applies only to business life
pure and simple. When it comes to the matter of
official peculation the merest novice in China would put
to shame the cunning of the worst ring that ever tried
to exploit the exchequer of a western government.

i9oi.] CHINESE CIVILIZATION 135

This ideographic system has proved a heavy drag
upon the progress of thought in China. Intellect has
pushed the cumbersome system to the wall. It has
continued to demand the formation of new characters
to express itself until the most erudite can hardly hope
to master more than a tenth part of them in a lifetime.
His education is almost exclusively glossarial and no
opportunity has been given him to bring his intellect
to bear upon the production of new and better ideas.
This has naturally resulted in intellectual coma. It is
only on the business side, the economical side, that he
is really alive.

China's retention of the ancient notions of the-
ocracy, patriarchy and ideography is what has thrown
her out of the current of the world's progress. To have
entered into a discussion of the religious side of the
Chinese character would have revealed a similiar diver-
gence from western ideals. But enough has been
said to show the pitiable need under which China lies
of being loosed from the intellectual, social and politi-
cal fetters with which she has been bound — lo, these
three thousand years.

STRIKES AND LOCKOUTS IN NORTH CARO-
LINA

JEROME DOWD, PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY,
TRINITY COLLEGE, NORTH CAROLINA

Within the last few months of 1900 there were
strikes and lockouts involving not less than thirty cotton
factories in North Carolina. As these outbreaks between
labor and capital are new in this section it may be of
general interest to learn something of their origin and
nature. One of the chief arguments used to tempt
capitalists into manufacturing in the South was that
there were no labor organizations to make trouble.
Mill presidents and promoters always gave out that the
most pleasant and cordial relations existed between the
employer and employee. Only last spring at the meet-
ing of the Southern Cotton Spinners' Association the
president felicitated the members upon the happy and
contented condition of the wage-earners.

Sometime in April of last year the American
Federation of Labor commissioned Mr. C. P. Davis
of High Point, North Carolina, to organize local unions
throughout the southern states. He began work first
in his own state, going from factory to factory and
quietly effecting organizations. The operatives lent
themselves readily to the movement, and before it was
known among the mill-owners many unions had been
formed.

About the first of May the first skirmish took place
between organized labor and capital at the Proximity
Mill, near Greensboro, where a thousand or more hands
were employed. When the president of the mill, Mr.
Cone, learned of the movement, about one hundred

136

STRIKES IN NORTH CAROLINA 137

and fifty operatives, including twenty-five women and
children, had enrolled. The mill was immediately
closed and a notice posted that all operatives were dis-
charged. Mr. Cone declared that he had come South
to get away from labor organizations and would tear
down his mill before he would run a day with union
labor. The company's store was at the same time
closed and no one could obtain provisions without going
to the city, two miles away. The post-office, which was
in the store, was necessarily closed also and people
complained of trouble in getting their mail. Many
families were caught without money, supplies or credit.
A widow, Mrs. Cox, with six small children, was in
destitute circumstances and the union made up five dol-
lars to aid her. The company, fearing damage to their
property, hired twelve extra watchmen and had the
sheriff on the grounds every day. All families in which
any one belonged to the union were ordered to vacate
their houses. The conduct of the company excited re-
sentment and the membership ran up to two hundred
and fifty. The members of the union held meetings in
the woods and decided to stand by their organization,
no matter what happened, After a lockout of a week
the mill resumed with non-union operatives, each one
being required to sign an agreement not to join any or-
ganization of laborers. Some of these who had joined
the union renounced it and returned to work, while
others, impelled by a sense of loyalty to their organiza-
tion, left the community to seek employment elsewhere.
The young men secured positions in the Erwin Mill at
Durham, but the same day they were discharged upon
information that they came from the seat of the trouble
at Greensboro. John Melvin and family obtained po-
sitions at the Cedar Falls mill, but were likewise sum-
marily dismissed upon advice that they hailed from

138 G UNTON'S MA GA ZINE [February,

Greensboro. Many other laborers who went in search
of work met with same fate.

The next clash between labor and capital took
place in Alamance county, where there are twenty or
more cotton mills. Organizer Davis had effected labor
unions at nearly every one of these plants. The clash
was precipitated on September 2/th over the discharge
of Miss Anna Whitesell in a mill at Haw River. This
girl, in attending to her looms, had to make trips into
an adjoining room to get rilling. On the day in ques-
tion, after she had made several trips, the superinten-
dent met her at the door and accused her of having
already made sixteen trips, and at the same time
threatened to discharge her. She flew into a passion,
denying his charge and scorning his threat. Instantly
she was discharged. Miss Johnie Pope, who worked in
another part of the mill, was offered the vacancy but
upon learning that Miss Whitesell, a member of the
union, had been discharged she declined to accept it.
The superintendent then waxed wroth and commanded
her to do the work assigned or walk out. Being an
orphan and having to choose between giving up her
job and incurring the frowns of her union friends, she
did not know what to do and burst into tears. This ex-
cited the indignation of the union workers and they
were on the point of quitting the mill. However, Miss
Pope went on with her work the remainder of the day.
When night came the union held a meeting and de-
cided that Miss Whitesell had been unjustly and rudely
treated, and that if Miss Pope should be forced to take
Miss Whitesell's place they would all abandon their
work. Next morning, Miss Pope being ordered to take
the vacant place, the union operatives threw up their
positions. In a moment the whistle of the mill blew
and the machinery stopped. Within an hour the three
other mills in the town shut down also and eight hun-

i9oi.] STRIKES IN NORTH CAROLINA 139

dred operatives filed out into the streets. The mill
proprietors had determined to bring the question of
organized labor to an issue. After several days of sus-
pense the union held a meeting and appointed a com-
mittee to confer with the managers of the mills with a
view to adjustment. The managers refused to treat
with the laborers except as individuals. Becoming
alarmed about some rumors of a plot to blow up the
mills, extra guards with Winchester rifles were sta-
tioned in and about the property. A notice was posted
that on Oct. 1 5th the mills would resume work with
non-union labor. The other mills in the county also
advertised that on the same day the services of all union
operatives would be dispensed with. According to an-
nouncement the Haw River mills started up, but with
only a few hands ; at the same time members of the
union and their sympathizers in the other mills of the
county, together numbering about four thousand, re-
mained out. The following day a great crowd of union
members assembled at the town of Graham, and after
parading the streets entered the court-house and lis-
tened to speeches by organizer Davis and others.

Since the commencement of the lockout many union
members have sought positions at other mills where
operatives are known to be in demand, but when ques-
tioned where they came from they are uniformly re-
fused employment. Nearly every mill in the state has
pronounced against union labor.

Upon inquiry among the laborers as to the nature
of their grievances and the object of their organization,
the writer learned that the operatives wished to protect
themselves against the introduction of low-priced labor-
ers to undermine those already at work, and to obtain
better wages for adults, so that the small children
might be sent to school instead of being obliged to work
in the mills. More than five thousand children under

140 GUN TON'S MAGAZINE [February,

fourteen years of age are employed in the industries of
this state. It is claimed that at many mills the stores
conducted by the companies sell at higher prices than
the ordinary merchants in other places. At Haw River,
for instance, ham was known to sell at 15 cents per
pound at the company store, and 12 ^ cents at the
stores of private merchants, and an employee told the
writer that he had ordered bacon in 100 pound lots
from Goldsboro, a distance of 90 miles, and after pay-
ing the freight it cost him i j£ cents per pound less than
he could have bought it at the store of the company.
The same employee stated that coal had been hauled by
wagon from Graham, two miles distant, and sold at 50
cents per ton less than the company was then charging.
Flour which in Durham sells for $4 per barrel is sold
for $6 at a factory store a few miles away.

Mr. Edward Johnson, president of the union at
Haw River, says that the chief grievance against the
mill owners is their opposition to organized labor: " I
think," says he, "that we have as much right to organ-
ize as capitalists and to belong to anything that is right
and honorable."

The mill owners affirm that they would never have
objected to the union had not unreasonable demands
been made, and had not the efficient working of the
mills been interfered with. The strike, they claim,
was precipitated by a flagrant violation of the rules by
Miss Whitesell, and that the union being made up
largely of women and children and the worst element
among the men it would be ridiculous to turn over the
management of the mills to such people.

There can be but one outcome of this lockout.
The laborers must renounce the union or seek other
means of earning a livelihood. The doors of all mills are
closed to them while hundreds of recruits are ready to
accept the places left vacant. The operatives chose a

IQOI.] STRIKES IN NORTH CAROLINA 141

very inopportune time to press the issue of organized
labor. The price of yarns is low and raw cotton high,
and many mills are running at a loss. A further mis-
take was that, after having organized, the operatives
began too soon to make demands.

The day-laborers in the South are peculiar in that
all have the southern characteristic of sensitiveness and
quickness of temper. They will not take an insult and
when spoken to roughly they retaliate with interest,
and, in case of women, often with interest compounded.
Much friction in mills and much of the moving from
one mill to another arise from this fact. Labor organ-
izations in the South will be hampered for some years
to come by their liability to hasty and untimely action.
They lack the experience and head-work necessary to
formulate wise policies.

[Professor Dowd's article is an interesting illustra-
tion of what nearly always takes place in the early
stages of the introduction of modern industry in old
agricultural communities. The public point of view is
exclusively that of the capitalist employer, and long
hours with low wages is the rule. What is now taking
place in the South is exactly what occurred in New
England twenty-five years ago ; the difference to-day
is simply that the New England manufacturers have
learned economic wisdom enough to recognize and
treat with labor unions, while the southern mill-owners
are pursuing the path of economic folly, every step in
which, sooner or later, they will have to retrace. No
doubt, as Professor Dowd says, the southern unions are
frequently rash and ill-managed, but this is largely due
to the intolerant opposition they are forced to meet.
In their extension and improvement lies the chief hope
of decent wages and working conditions in the new
manufacturing sections of the South.]

SPECULATION— AN INCIDENT IN NATIONAL
DEVELOPMENT

JOSEPH WEARE

It has been said that each era of prosperity as evi-
denced by many and many an experience is the advance
agent of a wave of depression which follows in its
wake. Equally true is the inverse proposition, and the
more hopeful among us prefer to regard the subject in
that light. Certain writers have set the cycle of rise
and fall at twenty years, as though there were magic
in that fateful number, but the fact remains that in a
country subject to conditions of development such as
bind us here, in a country which has reached a stage in
its growth so great as we have attained, this term of
years, indefinite at best, tends constantly to increase
and the waving line of height and depression seems
ever to become more straight.

So in speaking of speculation and panics in this
time of good cheer it is with no idea of dismal croaking
that we enter on the subject, but simply to study very
crudely the interesting phenomena of which the year
1900 will furnish its due share.

Speculation exists not to be ignored; few of us
have escaped its fascination. We are born into an
atmosphere saturated with it and strengthened in the
instinct by the hopefulness characteristic of the Amer-
ican people.

Now we have prosperity. The people engaged in
manufacturing industries are employed making and
saving money. Through a combination of circum-
stances agriculturalists are also doing well. Those
who are the media of exchange and those in the pro-

142

SPEC ULA TION 143

fessions, being directly dependent upon the first two
classes mentioned, are thriving as a natural outcome.
All have or will soon have capital to invest in the pro-
duction of more wealth. Where will this capital find
an outlet? Let us enumerate briefly the items in our
answer.

(1) In manufacturing industries, supplying the
domestic and foreign market.

(2) In agricultural lands, manufacturing and town
sites.

(3) In mining industries.

(4) In means of transportation, one of the media
of exchange.

(5) In commercial houses, another of the media of
exchange.

(6) In banking institutions, another of the media
of exchange.

(7) In city real estate.

(8) In building operations of all kinds in answer
to a present or supposed future demand.

Now surplus capital is turned into the above forms
of investment usually and principally through the fol-
lowing three channels :

(1) Money is borrowed from banks by individuals
or corporations upon security more or less sound. Note
that while there are legal safeguards to a certain ex-
tent banks get money from their depositors upon trust
alone.

(2) Promoters secure the money from individuals
or sets of individuals, it may be corporations, giving in
return stock or bonds in the new enterprise.

(3) Individuals invest their own money, see to its
expenditure, and have a tangible view of their trans-
formed wealth in the property which they may create.

The danger from speculation comes in this wise,
taking our outlets for speculation in their order :

144 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [February,

(1) Manufacturing Industries. The danger of an
oversupply in either or both the foreign and domestic
markets, or the lack of a demand in part or altogether
as better things supersede the old.

Labor troubles long continued, which may mean
ultimate ruin.

(2) Agricultural Lands. Lack of inherent qualities
in the soil, adversities due to weather or plague.

Lack of labor to develop.

Lack of capital to develop, consequent on an inade-
quate comprehension in the first instance of the amount
of necessary outlay before a project becomes self-sup-
porting.

Lack of transportation.

Manufacturing and city sites are rendered value-
less by failure of the expected influx of capital and
population.

(3) Means of Transportation. This class and the
agricultural, manufacturing and mining are all inter-
dependent. The transportation lines may be put out
in advance of the ability of the undeveloped mining,
manufacturing and agricultural industries to feed them,
and are for the time being run at a loss.

(4) Mining Industries, usually projected in futuri-
ties, we may regard as an important part of our subject
though not so weighty as manufacturing and agricul-
ture because not affecting so widespread a population.
The danger of a "slump" here usually takes more than
one form.

(a) Enough money may be raised to open up a
property, but, confidence waning, not enough more is
forthcoming to prosecute operations upon a business
basis.

(b) Transportation may be lacking.

(c) Labor may be hard to find even if the addi-
tional capital were ready.

ifoi.] SPECULATION 145

(d) Danger of dishonest promoters and the in-
ability of stockholders to get together for an efficient
reorganization.

So the property becomes a present loss though not
necessarily a total failure.

(5 and 6) Commercial Houses and Banking Institutions
are, as media of exchange, the one of goods the other
of capital, equally dependent with transportation upon
something to handle. Their prosperity then hinges
upon that of agriculture and manufactures and is largely
determined by the extent of their sphere of action, i. e.,
upon the markets that are within their reach. In say-
ing that the media of exchange are dependent for their
success upon something to exchange, it must be re-
membered that they may be the means of creating that
something by finding a market for its outlet.

(7 and 8) City Real Estate and Building Operations are
city questions. The city depending for its welfare
upon that of its inhabitants these two items receive
their value from the status of merchants, bankers,
traders, manufacturers (including of course their em-
ployees) and professional men. The manufacturers in
the city and the agriculturalists without, though assisted
to their markets and so advanced by the merchants,
bankers and traders, are in the first instance the meas-
ure of prosperity or depression. Of the professional
men the lawyers may give stability and security to en-
terprise and the engineers promote its details, but the
remaining professionals while indispensable to society
do not directly influence the question at issue.

Having classified the outlets for capital, the chan-
nels through which it is turned into these outlets, and
the dangers to which each class is subject, we can now
consider how panics are started and hastened on their
ruinous career. The causes are simple and can be ex-
plained in a word, yet they may be numerous, unde-

146 GUNTON'b MAGAZINE [February.

fined in origin and far-reaching in influence even as the
interests of the members of any society are bound to-
gether and all affected by change to any one.

Of the three channels for the outlet of capital,
banking loans, promoters' receipts, and individual ex-
penditures under personal supervision, the banks, and
promoters so far as they can resort to banks, have the
largest public share in panics, or more properly speak-
ing, industrial crises of which panics or heavy flurries
in the money market are but a subdivision. Money
panics often occur without disturbance to any interests
other than those of stock-brokers and their clients, as
when money is needed in the fall to pay for western
grain, and the banks by calling in their loans cause a
slump in stocks necessarily thrown on the market t®
meet their demand.

Individual effort, our third channel, upon failure
suffers by itself and affects confidence only as it is an
index to the general conditions.

Confidence or the lack of it is the keystone to the
arch upon which rests speculative investment. Re-
move it and the structure falls to the ground. Not al-
ways the cause of crises, if the dangers which we have
already enumerated have been openly invited, it is
often the occasion when a cause works itself out to a
legitimate effect. An apple may ripen in the orchard
in due season and eventually fall of its own weight.
But the wind blowing through the branches hastens
a result which gravity would have ultimately attained.
So lack of confidence shakes the tree of stability upon
which hang the fortunes of many and many an enter-
prise, and they fall to earth.

Distrust born before a political contest may prove
a check to business until that contest is decided, but
nothing more. After an election come the serious re-
sults. Now lack of confidence may become truly a

i90i.] SPECULA TION U7

cause of evil. Doubt and suspicion may be removed or
confirmed. Confidence in the continuance or better-
ment of existing circumstances upon which calculations
have all been based keeps enterprise sustained unless
natural dangers, such as those mentioned, be incurred
by the violation of economic law. Belief that a change
promised by a political party which has come into
power will overthrow existing conditions and in all
probability make them worse has numerous effects :

(1) Checks the continuance of effort toward sus-
taining investment until it becomes profitable.

(2) Is an instigation to the withdrawal of capital
from certain fields in which it has been placed.

(3) May depreciate the value of property in cer-
tain forms, which otherwise would fulfil all the condi-
tions for successful development.

(4) And may even affect the interests of all the
people of a country when such a change strikes at some
nerve center of the national creation and intercourse
such as money, a matter which touches the pockets of
every man.

So much for the influence of politics on industrial
welfare.

Confidence waning and suspicion beginning, indus-
trial insolvency and general bankruptcy may be the
outcome. How is this brought about ?

The people have lent money to banks, the banks
to promoters, to corporations or to speculative individ-
uals,— this in addition to what we would ordinarily call
safe investments. The banks of course want to make
money, and, the bigger the risk they run, either the
higher per cent, they get or the larger the volume of
loans they are able to make at a given rate of interest.
The limit is decided by a balance between their desire
for large profits and their duty to protect the savings

148 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [February,

of those who have trusted them, provided government
law enforces no other restrictions.

The banks learn that the enterprises in which
their capital was placed are not paying well enough to
promise stability. If possible they call in their notes,
or it may be these become due. It is impossible for
the individual or corporation, or for a stockholder deal-
ing in the public market, to pay with stocks purchased
with money borrowed from banking institutions. It
may be after this, it may be before, that the general
public learns that these enterprises are not flourishing
as they should. Though ignorant of just how or
where their money was invested, they see so many
symptoms of feebleness in many new as well as in
some old and tried projects that they deem it best to
draw their money from the banks at once.

Some one or two or a number of persons do so.
They get their money back. As their influence is and
in proportion as the knowledge that they have done
this and the reasons therefor spread among the rest,
in that proportion is the run on the bank large or small.
But now the general symptoms of a crash are in the
air and the feeling of uneasiness grows and extends
everywhere. The banks, unable to meet demands,
suspend payment. The people's money is gone, spent
in works, some of which will never be heard of again ;
others requiring development which can only come
with time to make them of any value.

Of course the banks are only agents. Those who
have paid their money directly into the hands of pro-
moters suffer as much, perhaps more, for they have not
the machinery and organization of the banks at their
disposal to secure such assets as may have value.

Business men have advanced goods to small or
large merchants who are trying to do business in places
usually new, or in old communities already overstocked.

i9oi.] SPECULATION 140

There is no demand. They cannot pay their bills.
The business man who has credited them owes in his
turn to the manufacturer or agriculturalist, and goes to
the wall. The agriculturist may have mortgaged his
farm and cannot now meet the interest, much less pay
the principal. The manufacturers, or it may be manu-
facturing corporations, operating on borrowed money,
have demands to meet, cannot do it and go under.
Their money may have come from banks. Thus
through the banks and back to the people again goes
the loss and trial.

Mining ventures follow the same career, and their
failure comes to swell the public wail in proportion as
the money invested comes from the many or the few.
So with land speculations and transportation. So with
our dependent but important real estate and building
investments.

At the bottom of all a speculative value merges
into the real only by the application of labor to the sub-
ject in hand, bearing in mind always that intelligent
direction of force is as much a part of labor as work of
the hands. Organization is the mechanism through
which all force works, whether that force be supplied by
work of the hands or by the marvelous and intricate
machinery of the present day.

So now the surplus of the people as a whole is
gone, some of it for all time, some of it waiting for
labor to close the gap between what an investment now
is and what it may become. What part shall the gov-
ernment take in spanning the chasm? The subject is
too broad for a fair treatment here. Van Buren, per-
haps rightly from his point of view, refused to build
the bridge. Hamilton indicated by all his works that
such would have been his attempt in any event. His
financial genius more than that of any statesman of our
country or of any other was equal to the task. Not

150 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE

that government should seek to postpone the inevitable
crash which comes of speculation long persisted in, but
it should seek to check panic in some way, until by
earnest effort and not by vain imaginings values become
more real.

The only external check upon indiscriminate spec-
ulation will spring from a law requiring all corpora-
tions and stock companies to publish at intervals reports
of their resources and liabilities, thus exposing their
operations to the light of day. To give a just and
equitable effect to such a law is one of the problems
baffling our statesmen now.

Reorganization of the banking system in such a
way that hard times will find the banks better able to
meet the situation is a great study of itself, and endless
schemes looking to greater elasticity in the system have
been suggested.

All internal remedy must lie in the educated and
progressive business sense of our people. It is very
probable that for some time to come the only check
will lie in the sobering shock of an old-time panic, the
only channel through which restraint can reach
those upon whom it is to be imposed. But let us look
forward to better things.

Perhaps our future has been mortgaged in the
prospect of present gain. Patiently we must begin to
pay these debts, patiently toil to accumulate anew a
reserve for coming years.

ELECTRICAL DEVELOPMENT

GEORGE STYLES

Outside of the telegraph the history of what we
may call applied electricity is practically only twenty-
rive years old. If the most advanced scientist of the
days of the centennial exhibition had died then and
were to return to-day he would be bewildered by the
various adaptations of this subtle power.

In no other period of the world's history have
there been so many scientific applications of a single
force as that of electricity, and the most advanced
electrician is the least disposed to limit its range in the
future. To-day one million people are employed in
the United States in enterprises which depend upon
electricity. At the beginning of the period of our text
hardly a telephone was in public use anywhere in the
world. In 1880 less than 35,000 miles of wire and only
3,350 employees were reported, while at this moment
there is in this country alone something like $85,000,-
ooo invested in telephones, controlling 600,000 miles
of wire and employing fully 15,000 persons.

Fifteen years ago there was not an electric road in
full operation in the world. But now in the United
States alone there are 15,000 miles of them, costing
$900,000,000. Ten years since there were only two
or three electric power and light companies here. To-
day we have 10,000 of them representing a capital of
$500,000,000. Especially during the last six or eight
years has the application of this force been marvelous,
not only in the different channels of its present use, but
also in the enormous pressures to which it is subject
for man's convenience. In no respect is it more start-

151

152 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [February,

ling than in its transmission over long lines. Four
years ago the highest pressure employed was 10,000
volts, that being the force used I believe on the line
between Buffalo and Niagara. Within fifteen months
this pressure was doubled, and to-day 40,000 volts are
in use. The increase in this respect means a good
deal from an economical standpoint, for the higher the
pressure the more economical is the plant, because the
conductivity of a copper thread increases as the square
of the pressure.

Relatively therefore you require less metal with a
high potential than with a low one. And while on this
subject we may notice that though the transmission
pressure is used in excess of what is required by the
purpose of the current, and for which purpose it is
transformed to the point needed, as for manufacturing,
lighting and propelling, still it will not be forgotten
that the limit of the possible voltage determines the
distance to which that power can be profitably sent.
This becomes of consequence in reference to the loca-
tion of the site for the use of the power with regard to
its source. In other words, it becomes of the highest
moment to determine whether the source of supply can
transmit the current one, two or any other number of
miles.

For example: at present the farthest distance to
which the Niagara current is sent is but little more than
twenty miles. But there are plants now in operation
which transmit the current four or five times that dis-
tance. This being so, a water privilege is no longer
valuable simply for those electrical industries in its
immediate vicinity; so that, the manufacturer who
happens to live where fuel is comparatively scarce will
suffer no disadvantage in using such a transmitted cur-
rent as compared with the one whose factory is situated
where fuel is plentiful. Only a few weeks ago the

i90i.] ELECTRICAL DEVELOPMENT 153

Snoqualmie Falls Power Company of Seattle performed
the feat of driving an electric motor one hundred and
fifty-three miles distant from the generator.

Returning from this digression we notice a few of
the things now accomplished by electricity, which until
within a few years were considered impossible. Thus
the use of the electric arc renders possible the creation
of a temperature of 7,200 degrees Fahr. This is more
than strong enough to reduce to its first elements every
known substance. Gold, platinum, copper, may be
volatilized in the electric furnace ; copper, steel and
nickel may be welded, and carborundum, the hardest
known substance next to the diamond, is now made at
Niagara.

By means of electricity one's handwriting may be
sent by telegraph, and half-tone pictures reproduced
many miles away from the subject. We can crowd a
wire with seventy simultaneous messages, and by
touching a button in Washington one can in a moment
alter clocks all over the United States to the true time.

There is no form of machine but what may be run
by this current, from the ponderous engine down to the
churn in the dairy ; and when we have turned in won-
der from the motions of the mighty crank that moves
and stops in obedience to the hand that presses the
lever we can turn the fluid's sparkling current to account
to enable us to see every bone, sinew and' muscle in
that hand.

Tiny incandescent lamps may be swallowed and
the hidden anatomy of the stomach be revealed without
impairing its processes. By it we can separate alumi-
nium from the earth and thereby furnish it for a frac-
tion of its former cost. The home may be heated,
lighted, ventilated, and the elevator run by it. And
we are here reminded that one of the latest appliances
of electricity enables us with perfect safety to use an

1$4 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [February,

elevator by means of a storage battery without requiring
an attendant to the machine.

Electrolysis separates from a vat of common brine
the chlorine and sodium, and thus two valuable chem-
ical agents are produced. You can place drugs on a
moistened electrode, and they can be carried intact to
diseased parts of the system. We cut coal by electricity
and the same force moves the pit-car to the mouth of
the shaft and hoists the coal to the surface. It even
ministers to the toilet of the man or woman of fashion,
and can be used to stimulate the hair or destroy it,
according to our wishes.

We put it in the form of a hundred gleaming stars
on our horse's harness and store it under the carriage-
seat to light our vehicle. It is no longer an open
question as to whether our railroads will eventually be
electric roads, the main difficulty being the value of our
present locomotives, with reference to the cost of laying
them aside for the electric motor, and the next genera-
tion will wonder how we endured the smoke and steam
and grime incident to our "steam-cars."

The possibilities of wireless telegraphy are too
many to keep it long in what are now its initial stages.
Only a few weeks since, Prof. Fessenden and his assist-
ant, Prof. Kintner, of the Western University of Penn-
sylvania, were reported as having produced a receiver
for this means of communication, which is 2,000 times
as sensitive as Marconi's coherer. The latter has shown
that he can send messages 90 miles, and the improved
receiver must of necessity lengthen this distance.

If so many of these things have already been
accomplished the query naturally arises, what yet
remains to be done? The question is necessarily
indefinite but suggestive. We have spoken of the high
voltage of the transmission-line and the enormous
power thus possible to be conveyed. A difficulty in

i9oi.] ELECTRICAL DEVELOPMENT 155

this branch met the experimenters at the outset, — to
invent insulators strong enough to withstand the strong
pressure. This has been overcome only to present
another arising from electrical leakage. At 30,000
volts this is hardly noticeable, but when this voltage
is doubled the loss on bare wires becomes too serious
as an economical factor to be passed by. It has been
suggested that placing the wires under ground or
enclosing them in tubes and placing oil in contact with
the copper might reduce materially the leakage.

Another undeveloped field of the highest import-
ance is the direct transformation of heat into electricity.
When this is done the great heat stores, as already
suggested, will become of much greater value in the
production of a given electrical end than now, and
cheaper electricity will result.

The sun and the tides are being canvassed to see if
their exhaustless stores of energy can be utilized as
electric creators. Nay, who will say that the magnetic
currents on the earth's surface may not be harnessed
for the same purpose? This may seem only a dream,
but so was the conception that first saw in Niagara's
rushing waters the potential strength of a mighty
motor.

For years we have been taught that there is elec-
tricity within and all about us, generated wholly by
natural forces. Now, that supply is supplemented by
the handiwork of man, ministering to his wants and
comforts until trade and art and science fairly bristle
with them. Franklin's key and kite have evolved the
mightiest force of nature as a servant to man, tireless,
resting neither night nor day.

EDITORIAL CRUCIBLE

IN HIS RECENT address before the Holland Society,
Mr. Cleveland gave another demonstration of his
capacity as a prophet of pessimism. He gave all the
influence of his imposing ponderosity to the solemn
prediction that we are going to the bad, but he had no
hint of a helpful suggestion to offer. His every appear-
ance before the public seems to justify his reputation
as a messenger of misfortune. When he cannot lead to
disaster he predicts it, but fortunately he has been
retired and for all practical purposes belongs to the
past.

IT is WITH no little surprise that we note in the
December number of Money an article by its editor urg-
ing the republican party to emphasize its adherence to
the doctrine of international bimetalism. In the evo-
lution of the subject the republican party has finally
taken the position of a gold-standard party. The con-
version from free silver to international bimetalism and
ultimately to the gold standard has been a gradual his-
toric process, and any return to the free -silver doctrine,
international or national, would be a retrogressive step.

Of the two kinds of free silverites the international
bimetalist is the worst, because he tends to keep the
subject in agitation on the theory that it is the true
future position, whereas the world is gradually tending
away from bimetalism altogether. The i6-to-i silver
advocate has become less dangerous because the absurd-
ity of his position is more obvious. The future improve-
ment of our monetary system lies in the direction of
better methods of banking and not in any new agitation
about the standard.

156

EDITORIAL CRUCIBLE 157

IT is ANNOUNCED that Mr. John D. Archbold has
contributed $400,000 to the endowment fund of Syra-
cuse University, and simultaneously comes the infor-
mation that Mr. Andrew Carnegie has contributed
$260,000 for the building of a public library in Syra-
cuse, following only by a few months his contribution
of $300,000 to Cooper Union, New York city. This
shows that our wealthy men are more and more seri-
ously realizing the importance of furthering opportuni-
ties for education. No better use can be made of great
wealth. The problems that are to be faced in this
country during the next twenty-five years are going to
be solved in a contest between the forces of construct-
ive, progressive, intelligent evolution and the forces of
socialism. The socialistic propaganda is already in the
lead. It has an organized army and a political chief in
the person of Mr. Bryan, and it feeds on social distrust
of industrial progress. Education of public opinion,
particularly among the masses, is the only weapon with
which this movement of hazardous experiment and
disruption can be successfully met.

INCONSISTENCY and insincerity sometimes look so
much alike that it is difficult to distinguish between
them. There are certain newspapers in New York
city which are so near the border line and so frequently
cross it as to justify the suspicion that they belong to
the less ethical side. These papers constantly parade
their virtues as the guardians of political ethics, yet
they are generally among the first to find reasons for
questioning the motives or denouncing the wisdom of
any official who has the courage effectively to deal with
scandalous political conduct. This was illustrated in
the hostile attitude of certain New York papers toward
Governor Roosevelt's removal of District Attorney
Gardiner of New York city, despite their moral pre-

1S8 GUNTOWS MAGAZINE [February,

tences. Every clean-minded and patriotic citizen of
New York, and for that matter of the country, feels
that the moral atmosphere was cleared and political in-
tegrity strengthened by the governor's act. The
American people have more faith in the virile integ-
rity of such men as Roosevelt, even though they make
some mistakes, than in the ethics of the cynical critics
whose chief virtue is to find fault with whatever is, and
take more comfort in picking a technical flaw in a vir-
tuous act than in supporting the courage and energy
that takes some risks in favor of public honesty and
political decency.

IN THE DEATH of Michael G. Mulhall the world has
lost one of the most remarkable statisticians of the nine-
teenth century. Unlike most statisticians, Mr. Mulhall
had the faculty of marshalling statistics into massive
generalizations and at the same time reducing them to
intelligible specific quantities. Dr. Giffen is probably
a more painstaking original investigator, but his results
are neither as comprehensive nor as intelligible as were
those of Mulhall. The great work of Mulhall was not
in original investigation, but in the massing and mar-
shalling into comprehensive form the work of the
world's investigators. He took the statistics of differ-
ent nations and made them intelligible to the average
mind. It may be said that he was not as accurate in
minutiae as some others, but he dealt with such large
quantities and in such a methodical way that minor de-
fects were offset and practically eliminated. In other
words, he had a faculty for and developed a system of
reducing the world's doings to the comprehension of
the ordinary mind. In his hands the average person
could understand almost at a glance statistics that run
into the billions. He did this so well and so persist-
ently that by sheer force of his superior ability he be-

i9oi.] EDITORIAL CRUCIBLE 159

came the most frequently quoted authority. He was a
statistical genius, who, besides having the eminent fac-
ulty for statistics, had the power of organization. He
reduced his work to a system which it is to be hoped is
sufficiently well-established to remain a permanent
source of world- wide statistical information.

IN HIS RECENT address at the University of Mich-
igan ex- President Harrison gave the key for his silence
during the recent national campaign. He advocated in
vigorous terms the doctrine that the constitution must
accompany the flag. If by governing under the con-
stitution he means giving the people full rights of suf-
frage and self-government with representation in con-
gress, then all our territorial government has been un-
constitutional. If Mr. Harrison contends that when
the flag goes to Porto Rico and the Philippines and
Hawaii it must carry with it all the rights of American
citizenship that are exercised in Indiana, he should
oppose annexation of inferior peoples altogether. But
he started the present annexation movement by annex-
ing Hawaii, a group of people economically, politically
and socially inferior to most of the inhabitants of Porto
Rico and probably to many of the Filipinos. If Mr.
Harrison is in favor of annexing barbarism, with the full
privileges of United States citizens, he is advocating
the most dangerous doctrine that has ever been pro-
mulgated in this country.

To take the position of ex-Speaker Reed and Sen-
ator Hoar that the annexation of barbarians is a bad
and even dangerous departure from American policy is
sound and defensible, but to advocate the annexation
of unclad savages and then insist that the constitution
must accompany the flag is a combination which makes
an intolerable doctrine for the United States or any
other civilized country. If we are to have the strict

ICO GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [February,

construction doctrine that ' ' the constitution goes with
the flag," then we must scrupuously avoid letting the
flag go where the people are industrially and politically
unfit for the constitution. Mr. Harrison's address at
Ann Arbor does not sustain his reputation for statesman-
ship and legal learning. If his annexation theory and
practice is sound his constitutional doctrine is bad, and
if his constitutional doctrine is right his theory of
statesmanship is disastrous.

GOVERNOR ODELL of New York appears to be
ambitious to make a record for economy. He has
begun by urging the abolition of many of the state
commissions, among which he has selected the board
of arbitration, the board of factory inspectors and the
bureau of labor statistics. The work hitherto done by
these three boards he recommends should all be per-
formed by one new department. This may save a few
dollars but it will impair the scope and efficiency of a
line of work that should be increased and strengthened
instead of curtailed. Instead of reducing the work of
factory inspection it should be increased. The demand
for workshop inspection in the interest of wholesome
labor conditions is increasing every year. Similarly,
the work of the bureau of labor statistics should not be
curtailed but rather extended. The data furnished by
an efficient bureau of labor statistics is altogether more
important than a governor's staff ; it furnishes a reliable
basis for sound discussion of public questions. There
is ample room for criticism of the work of these
bureaus, because they have been equipped largely by
political patronage instead of competent, efficient ap-
pointments. The one mistake Governor Roosevelt
made was in assuming that he could get efficient
service by parcelling out these positions to trade
unions. He soon found that trade unions were won-

igoi.] EDITORIAL CRUCIBLE 161

derfully like political organizations. As soon as they
saw an office they all wanted it, and it was a disgrace-
ful struggle in which all united to abuse the one who
got it. If these appointments were made solely on the
ground of fitness, regardless of trade union or any other
" pull," the boards of factory inspection, labor statistics,
and arbitration, would be three important features of
the state government and would be worth to the public
many times more than their cost. Abolishing these
bureaus or lumping them all under a single head with
reduced force would be a step backwards, distinctly
detrimental to the interests of labor throughout the
state, and against which the workingmen ought vigor-
ously to protest.

EUROPE is evidently becoming disturbed by the
striking progress of the United States. M. Leroy-
Beaulieu, the French economist, has sounded the alarm
and proposes a social union of Europe against the
United States. He says :

" They are on the point of becoming by far the most important
economic factor in the world. They may henceforth be regarded as the
first industrial nation, and their superiority will become more strikingly
evident year by year. Moreover, they will very soon have a consider-
able mercantile marine."

To prevent this he proposes a practically prohibi-
tive or highly discriminating duty against American
products throughout Europe. There is not much
danger that such a scheme will immediately prevail,
because of the suspicion and rivalry between many of
the European countries, particularly France and Eng-
land. This, following Mr. Chamberlain's proposition
for an industrial confederacy between England and her
colonies, having free trade within and imposing a duty
on all imports from without, shows the trend of affairs.
It shows that instead of the world growing towards free

162 G UNTON'S MA GAZINE

trade it is altogether likely to adopt a more comprehen-
sive system of protection, and that, after all, the great
and most important thing any nation can do for the
perpetuation of its own growth and prosperity is to
develop its own market resources through domestic
consumption. There is a lesson in this that American
statesmen will do well to learn. Those doctrinaires
who assume that either England or the United States,
or both, are going to be permitted long to monopolize
the markets of other countries for manufactured prod-
ucts are counting without the facts. The most ordi-
nary self-interest in social advancement will invent
some method to stop any such monopoly. As progress
advances, it becomes more and more obvious that
civilization and national power are incompatible with
merely agricultural industries. Manufactures and com-
merce, with their socializing effect upon population, are
indispensable to any appreciable national strength;
consequently, every nation is going to become a manu-
facturing country as fast as it shares in any appreciable
degree in the world's consumption of manufactured
products.

THE "RUSKIN HALL" MOVEMENT

The inauguration of the "Ruskin Hall" movement
in this country, by the starting of a school at Trenton,
Missouri, raises the question of the possible place of
such a propaganda among the educational forces of the
nation. The school at Trenton is to be operated by the
income received from students, who will provide for a
considerable part of their tuition and living expenses
by working on a farm connected with the institution.
On its practical side there is nothing particularly novel
about this plan, — there are numerous worthy educa-
tional institutions in this country conducted in much
the same way. But the next step the Ruskin Hall peo-
ple have in view is to establish branch schools in cities
throughout the country and carry on a propaganda of
economic doctrine by means of these schools, supple-
mented by home-study courses. The point of view and
general character of instruction given will, of course,
be largely determined by the influence of John Ruskin ;
which, in economics, means socialism pure and simple.

It is hardly worth while to comment on the pros-
pects of an undertaking before it has been submitted to
the test of practical experience, but it is not out of place
to discuss its probable effect in case it succeeds. With-
out minimizing the elevating and stimulating character
of much of Ruskin's teaching in certain important
fields, it cannot be said that his economic notions were
either sound in theory or helpful in their practical rela-
tion to society. Minor points aside, the two really
characteristic and vital features of Ruskin's economic
thought were antagonism to mechanical industry and
the use of machinery, on the one hand, and thorough
belief in a socialistic reorganization of society on the
other.

163

164 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [February,

Ruskin is regarded as the most prominent repre-
sentative, probably, of the literary school of modern
socialists. In this country several communistic experi-
ments have flourished (and most of them withered) un-
der the name of "Ruskin colonies." One of these,
started in Tennessee and afterwards reestablished in
Ware County, Georgia, was thus described by a writer
in the Savavnah (Ga.) News, last October :

' ' The Ruskinites have demonstrated by actual ex-
perience the lowest possible daily cost for food for their
entire community. . . .

' ' Everything they consume is bought at wholesale,
in large quantities, and is cooked in the community
kitchen. In the community dining-room tables are set
for three hundred people. Those who do not wish to
eat with the crowd are given the privilege of purchasing
company stores and cooking it at home. When vege-
tables are scarce these people are allowed seven cents
per capita a day, that is, seven cents for each person,
big, little, old, young, sick or well. When vegetables
are plentiful the cash allowance is only five cents. As
the community raises its own vegetables, the approxi-
mate cost is only about two cents per capita a dayf
making the actual cost of living at Ruskin from seven
to nine cents a day for each man, woman and child.

"Let us go into the community dining-room and
see how they live. We go at the invitation of Professor
Denny, an eminent socialist speaker and scholar. In a
large room 20 feet wide and 150 feet long we see nearly
three hundred men, women and children seated at long
tables. Breakfast is our first meal. It is well prepared,
savory and daintily served. We make a wholesome
meal on light bread furnished by the colony baker, but-
ter, Georgia syrup, oatmeal, Irish potatoes, milk, cereal
coffee and sugar. Sometimes we have fried mush with
fruits and jellies.

igoi.] THE "R USKIN HALL" MO VEMENT 165

' l Our dinner generally varies according to the sea-
son. Meat only comes to the table twice a week. The
bill of fare usually consists of rice or peas, beans or
macaroni, some two or more of these ; Georgia syrup,
beets, tomatoes, eggplants, potatoes, soup, bread and
cereal coffee — cereal coffee is manufactured by the col-
onists and is one of their main industries.

" For supper, cheese in some form, lemonade, cake,
rice or beans, sugar, grits, mush, fried potatoes, cold
tea and bread. The person visiting Ruskin and taking
his meals in the community dining-room will have the
above bill of fare placed before him, with slight varia-
tions. He will find that it is not only possible, but
practicable, for people to live at a cost of from seven to
nine cents a day per capita."

The same writer, in speaking of the economic views
and purposes of these colonists, says :

" The Ruskinites are socialists. . . . They be-
lieve firmly in the doctrine that society should be reor-
ganized by regulating property, industry and the
sources of livelihood. They also believe in a community
of property and the negation of individual rights in
that property."

t The only significance of this illustration is that it
shows the kind of efforts which naturally spring out of
Ruskin's economic influence, and even adopt his name
as best typifying the spirit of the undertaking. There
need be no uncertainty, and ought to be no lack of
clear understanding, as to just what sort of ' ' educa-
tional " work this Ruskin Hall movement is designed
to perform.

Any propaganda which has for its background a
practically communistic reorganization of society on the
basis of a return to agricultural conditions and hand-labor
industry, leading its votaries to glorify such a pitiable
ideal as being able to live on seven to nine cents a day,

1<J6 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [February,

cannot fill any useful place in modern educational effort
or exert any wholesome influence on public opinion or
upon the world's great industrial tendencies. The fatal
defect of Ruskin's economic teaching, which deprives
it of any really scientific standing and destroys its
capacity for broad practical usefulness, is the fact that it
arrays itself arbitrarily against the natural evolution of
industrial society, instead of recognizing the broad
advantages and opportunity-making character of this
progress and pointing out ways and means of removing
its hardships and defects while preserving and aiding
the general trend.

When it does teach preservation of the general good
and removal of the specific evils, economics becomes
both the guide and purifier of industrial progress, but
an economic philosophy cast on the general lines of
Ruskin's reactionary doctrines can never be anything
in its total effect but a stumbling block in the pathway
of social progress.

Ruskin was by nature incapable of formulating a
sound and well-balanced philosophy of social progress.
The reasons for this disqualification were fundamental,
and perhaps could not be better summarized than has
already been done by Charles H. Moore in the Atlantic
Monthly of last October. In a paragraph Mr. Moore
states the essential features of Ruskin's economic in-
capacity :

"For a social reformer Ruskin was not well
equipped, either by nature or by education. He did not
see that men must be led in freedom. He did not re-
spect freedom. He did not see that character can be
formed only by voluntary conformity with the divine
laws of life. Repression and compulsion, while neces-
sary under existing conditions for the maintenance of
outward order, have no potency to reform human na-
ture. He would enforce principles of right living, and

i90i.] THE "RUSKIN HALL" MO VEMENT 167

the slowness of men to conform to such principles made
him impatient. But a reformer needs vast patience.
Impatience, anxiety, irritability and excitability are
weaknesses which unfit a man to help his fellows ; and,
with all his genius and all his nobility of soul, Ruskin
had these weaknesses in large measure."

There is crying need of broader, more helpful and
a thousand-fold more extensive popular education in
economics in this country, but it must be education of
the sort that illuminates the pathway of natural evolu-
tion, instead of attracting the nation by false lights, into
the byways and pitfalls of revolutionary and reaction-
ary experiments.

CIVIC AND EDUCATIONAL NOTES

Two Points In summing tip the results of nineteenth-

E^N* ^ d century progress, it appears that educa-
tion is one of the few departments in which
the United States has not led the world ; probably has
not made as much progress as some other nations. Six-
ty years ago we were, with one exception, at the head
of the world in the general extent of education. That
is to say, we had a larger percentage of adults who
could read and write than any other nation except Ger-
many. In 1840, 80 per cent, of the adults in this coun-
try could read and write. In Germany there were 82
per cent. To-day Germany has 96 per cent, and we
have 92. In 1840 Russia had only 2 per cent, who
could read and write, to-day it has only 15 per cent.
Italy, sixty years ago, had 16 per cent., and now has 47
per cent. Spain had 14 per cent, in 1840, and has now
only 28 per cent. England in 1840 had 59 per cent.,
and now has 90 per cent. In other words, England was
25 percent, behind us sixty years ago, and is only about
2 per cent, behind to-day. It has made more rapid
progress in education than we. This is an important
matter. To be sure, illiteracy in this country is not
very great, and it may be true and undoubtedly is that
the percentage is largely affected by the South ; but
this only shows where the need for special effort is. If
this country is to keep to the front as a real power in
civilization it must keep up with its education, evenly
throughout the land. Wealth, industrial prosperity,
nothing will avail ultimately if it is not so directed as
to show a large part of its results in the general infor-
mation and culture of the people.

The same is largely true of our relative progress

168

CIVIC AND ED UCA TIONAL NO TES 169

in municipal government. Europe has made more
rapid progress than we. Our industrial advancement
has been so all-absorbing that municipal government
has been relatively neglected.

We do not say this in a pessimistic mood. Our coun-
try is not disgracefully in the rear in education and mu-
nicipal government, but we cannot afford to be at all in
the rear. These two things are more important with us
than with almost any other nation, because we are facing
new conditions and more complex problems than any
other country, and we have to face them unreservedly
by democratic methods. They are submitted, not to a
little cultured group but unqualifiedly to the people,
and the people must have the intelligence to deal with
them or our institutions will fail.

The annual statement of William T.

Education in Our TT . TT ., ., ~, . -

New Possessions Harris, United States commissioner of
education, contains some interesting re-
ports of the educational conditions in' our outlying ter-
ritories and possessions.

In Alaska 25 public schools have been maintained
during the past year, but on account of the increasing
population the present school facilities have become
wholly inadequate. The immigration of white men
has aroused an interest in education among the adult
native Alaskans, and in several sections there have
been requests for night schools. It has been impossible
to comply with these requests except in one instance,
but the results there have been most satisfactory.

A brief account is given of the condition of schools
in the Philippines before the disturbances of 1896- '97,
and their reestablishment under United States author-
ity, but no information is offered as to progress since
made and the present status of the schools, — possibly
because our efforts have been more actively directed

170 G UNTOWS MA GAZINE

thus far to pursuing the recalcitrant Filipino with the
bayonet than with the school book.

In Cuba there has been a more thorough reorgani-
zation of the school system than in any of the other
sections reported. Boards of education have been es-
tablished, a superintendent of schools appointed, who
prescribes the courses of study, free text-books fur-
nished and attendance made compulsory under fines of
from $5 to $25. In March, 1900, there were reported
131 boards of education, 3,099 schools, 3,500 teachers
and 130,000 enrolled pupils. In 1899 there were only
200 schools with an attendance of 4,000. The school
fund is taken from the customs receipts and the esti-
mate for 1900 was $4,000,000.

The report of the conditions in Porto Rico agrees
substantially with that made by M. G. Brumbaugh,
commissioner of education for that island, to which we
referred in our last issue. Intellectual apathy, born of
poverty, seems to pervade the island, and until the
United States took possession there was almost no at-
tempt at popular education. Progress has been made
in the past two years but the results do not compare
with those in Cuba.

In Hawaii the missionaries have carried on more or
less effective educational work for nearly a century.
The people have been eager to learn, and schools and
colleges have sprung up. As early as 1840 there was
a compulsory school law with penalties for non-attend-
ance, applying to both parents and children, as well
as a law which provided that no illiterate man should
" hold office over any other man." With the coming
of Englishmen there was an increase in the number and
quality of the schools, the most important change being
the teaching of English instead of the Hawaiian lan-
guage. At the present time in nearly all the schools
in Hawaii English is the medium of instruction.

THE OPEN FORUM

This department belongs to our readers, and offers them full oppor-
tunity to "talk back" to the editor, give information, discuss topics or
ask questions on subjects within the field covered by GUNTON'S MAGA-
ZINE. All communications, whether letters for publication or inquiries
for the •' Question Box," must be accompanied by the full name and ad-
dress of the writer. This is not required for publication, if the writer
objects, but as evidence of good faith. Anonymous correspondents are
ignored.

LETTERS FROM CORRESPONDENTS

Our Philippine Policy

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

Dear Sir: — Many of the views expressed in your
magazine are, I think, admirably sustained, but I
cannot fully endorse what seems to be your position as
to the course of the administration in dealing with the
Philippines. I cannot possibly see how any other
course could have been pursued. President McKinley
was bound to sustain the authority of the United States
therein. Had he failed so to do he would have been
liable to impeachment. These islands have been gov-
erned just as our other territories have been. We
have kept some of them out of the union many years,
and it will be many years before the Philippines will
be in such condition as to enable us to determine what
will be best for them, for us, and for the world. That
which will tend to promote their own best interests will
surely be best for the world at large, and I think every
sane man will conclude that our rule will best subserve
that purpose. J. W. S., Sault Ste. Marie, Mich.

Sentiments That Are Appreciated

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

Dear Sir: — Your January number is the first copy
of your magazine I ever saw, that I know of, and I

171

172 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE

confess I am pleased with the tone of the articles and
the lines along which you seem to be moving with ref-
erence to public affairs, recognizing the good that is
and at the same time demanding and expecting progress
in the future. It seems to me that the best results can
be obtained not by expecting a complete change of the
present order of things, and that your magazine will
supply a real need and meet with many sympathizers
among a large class of people who are not completely
and fully satisfied with every condition of the body,
social and politic, and yet are not so filled with pessi-
mistic sentiments, which are seemingly cherished, as
to see no hope in anything, unless such advice as they
approve is followed seriatim on all questions. What
pleased me most in your magazine was that I caught no
suggestion of any of the above spirit, a too common
spirit, both in the press and in private discussions. I
am glad to become acquainted with a magazine which
appears to possess the spirit of poise in its editorial
department. C. H. P., Greenfield, Mass.

QUESTION BOX

Future of the British Empire

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

DEAR SIR: — Mr. Schey's article in your January
number certainly makes out a cheerful showing for
Australia, but what does it all point to, if not the break-
ing up of the British empire into independent republics
— Australia, Canada, South Africa, and so on, leaving
England only her island kingdom? The bonds are
becoming so weak that it begins to look like an impend-
ing breakdown of the greatest colonial system in the
world. J. S. P.

Yes, true progress means the breaking up of em-
pires everywhere, German anc]. French as well as Brit-
ish. As prosperity advances and labor grows the essence
of empire is sure to decline, and colonies governed
by distant authorities will disappear. Canada and
Australia can only be held nominally by Great Britain
because they are permitted practically to be republics.
Progress is towards self-government, which is the
antithesis of colonial government. If we attempt to
establish a colonial system we shall be taking on what
even progressive monarchy is throwing off. This
republic may consistently cooperate with struggling
people to help them establish representative govern-
ment, but we cannot enter upon a colonial policy with-
out radically departing from the principle of our insti-
tutions, and the trend of political progress everywhere.

Socialism's Defeats and Prospects

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

DEAR SIR: — Because a socialist mayor has been
defeated in Haverhill, you seem to think socialism is

173

174 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [February,

done for. How many years ago was it that the idea of
a socialist being a formidable candidate for anything
was an absurdity? How many centuries did it take
people to win the right even to have a free religious
opinion, and then only in one corner of Europe? How
many centuries has it taken the masses in only a few
countries to get merely the right to vote? How many
defeats and long discouragements have they had? A
righteous cause may be ten centuries in winning, but
do not imagine it is going to be wiped out by an occa-
sional setback in one place while victories are being
won in dozens of others. E. N. G.

Our correspondent is mistaken. We do not "think
socialism is done for " at all. It is entirely true that it
has taken centuries of continuous struggle to win the
civil, religious and economic freedom that is now en-
joyed. It is equally true that a local setback did not de-
feat but only delayed the movement. A righteous cause
may indeed be centuries in winning, and if progress con-
tinues it is sure to win. It is because socialism is not a
"righteous cause," in the sense of being a sound social
movement, that we look for its failure wherever the
experiment is tried. Thus far, in all the forms of
attempted socialistic government, the result has been
disappointing failure. It is because socialism is opposed
to the highest type of individual freedom that we expect
its failure wherever tried. It is based, moreover, upon
a false economic assumption : namely, that profit or
"surplus value" is robbery, which is not true, and
cannot be sustained either by logic or fact.

It is true that every religious cause has to struggle
for recognition, but it does not follow that every religion
that struggles for recognition is true. On the contrary,
mistaken panaceas outnumber many times the sound
measures which make for permanent progress. Social-

i90i.] QUESTION SOX 175

ism is an unsound theory, and, although it will probably
have to be exploded by some degree of actual experi-
menting with it, the degree of its temporary success
will be the measure of social misfortune and setback to
real progress during its continuance.

European and American Municipal Government

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

Dear Sir: — Is it not generally recognized that mu-
nicipal government is much farther advanced in Europe
than in the United States, especially in respect to mu-
nicipal ownership of public enterprises? If so, cer-
tainly this is the first step we should take to make our
city institutions what they should be. E. M. S.

European experiments in municipal ownership of
public enterprises are not the respect in which their cities
are superior to ours. The respect in which municipal
government in Europe is more advanced than here is in
wholesomeness of political methods and broad-minded
attention to public improvements. In fact, public spirit
in Europe has been altogether more largely absorbed in
municipal government than in national government. It
is in municipal government that the democratic spirit
there has made its greatest progress, whereas in this
country municipal government has been the neglected
feature of our public life. The natural consequence is
that in Europe the cities are better governed, freer from
political corruption, and consequently freer from job-
bery in conducting municipal enterprises. There are
no Tammanys ; such institutions have not had the op-
portunity to take advantage of the people's inexperience
in civic affairs and absorption in other pursuits that they
have here. The characterful and responsible citizens
take an active part in municipal affairs and are fre-
quently elected to the most responsible offices. In this

176 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [February,

country municipal government is conducted largely by
cliques, and offices are given to incompetents, with the
result that local departments, like the New York city
police, become blackmailing and vice-protecting insti-
tutions instead of guardians of the public interests.

It is in these respects that Europe is farther ad-
vanced than the United States in municipal government,
and this is partly due to the methods of selecting candi-
dates for office. In Europe they have no delegate con-
ventions, where a few unscrupulous persons, through
the power of patronage, can buy and sell offices and con-
trol the selection of candidates. In England, for in-
stance, the nominations are made by petitions, so that
any comparatively small group of citizens can put a
candidate in nomination and thus easily reach the peo-
ple without the intervention of " bosses, "as in this
country. Indeed, that is perhaps the worst feature of
our whole municipal political machinery.

New York City Politics, Now and in 1897

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

Dear Sir: — You are certainly on the right side of
the case when you say that the people of New York city
are as willing to give the city government to Tammany
as to the republican organization. The two machines
do trade with each other all the time ;. there is no doubt
of it, and they have always done it. This was just as
true in 1897 as it is now, and I cannot understand why
you supported the republican candidate for mayor that
year if you recognized the true situation as you seem to
do now. There was a chance then to keep out both
machines and start the greater city under an honest and
able mayor, free from local partisan control. Mr. Low
did some exasperating things, no doubt, but you do not

igoi.] QUESTION BOX 177

imagine, do you, but what the republican machine pre-
ferred to see Van Wyck elected, if necessary, to defeat
Mr. Low? J. D.

It may be true that "dealing" between the republi-
can organization in New York city and Tammany "was
just as true in 1897 as it is now." If it was we did not
know it and did not believe it. It has been demon-
strated over and over again since the Tweed era (1872)
that Tammany is a corrupt and corrupting institution ;
that it is not in any legitimate sense a political party
but a private organization which goes into politics for
what it can make. Several official investigations have
conclusively shown that in the pursuit of its object it
uses the political administration for blackmail in its
vilest forms, by conspiring with the vicious classes,
furnishing protection to crime for a division of the
booty. It has been shown that this method of black-
mail and corruption permeates every department of the
government over which Tammany has control ; that the
police force is an organized system of corruption, black-
mail and persecution conducted on a systematic revenue-
receiving basis. To be sure, it was commonly said that
Platt was as bad as Croker, that the "republican ma-
chine" was a duplicate of Tammany, but it is so easy
and common to indulge in this sort of thing against
whoeve/succeeds to political leadership that it is wholly
unsafe to accept such charges without specific proof.

Our theory of ethical judgment is to assume a per-
son innocent until he is proved guilty, not believe him
guilty until he proves his innocence. We did not have
the evidence that the republican organization traded
with Tammany and used other coercing, intimidating
and corrupting methods in 1 897, but we have that evidence
now. Within a year we have seen the despotic methods
by which republican political officeholders use their

178 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [February,

power of patronage to coerce delegates and suppress the
rights of citizens and reverse nominations for public
office for the same low motives and by the same corrupt
means that Tammany employs. In 1897 we believed
Mr. Quigg to be a clean-handed, energetic, public-spir-
ited political leader. We now know him to be a manip-
ulator and user of the lowest kinds of Tammany methods.
In 1897 we did not believe the story that the republican
organization leaders traded with Tammany. We now
know they did on the personal admission of the men
who did it. Whether Mr. Platt is personally a party
to this sort of thing we know not, but we do know
that he is the supporter and defender of those whom he
knows have done it. The first-hand evidence of all this
we now have in our possession. We may have erred in
trusting the integrity of the republican organization in
1897, but we know we are warranted in wholly distrust-
ing it in 1901. Our correspondent may have been more
alert than we in discovering the true character of the
leaders of the republican organization in New York
city. Perhaps he was closer to the inside. We were
slow to suspect and reluctant to believe that Tammany
methods prevailed in the republican party, but we now
know they do and act accordingly.

How Will Depressions Be Eliminated ?

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

Dear Sir:— It does not seem to me reasonable to as-
sume, as you do in many of your editorials, that if prop-
erly educated the people would submit quietly to indus-
trial depressions and hard times. Education cannot hold
out against starvation. I can see no hope of permanent
industrial peace until the time comes when we can have
permanent prosperity under stable conditions and set-
tled policies. R. G. M.

igoi.] QUESTION BOX 179

Our correspondent is quite right, but it is exactly in
this direction that economic and political education
among the masses would help. Of course, the more intel-
ligent the people are and the more they know of indus-
trial causes and effects, the more impatient they will be
with the recurrence of industrial depressions ; on the
other hand, the more clearly they will recognize the
actual causes of depressions and the character of the
remedies needed. Industrial depressions are the labor-
ers' calamity. They can be remedied by no specific act
of the legislature, but will disappear with the increasing
permanence and stability of industry. This can come
only through the better organization and more scientific
application of capital. The era of industrial depressions
is the era of haphazard conducting of productive indus-
try, without scientific knowledge of the real market de-
mands and conditions. The era of industrial perma-
nence and stability must be the era of large coordinated
industrial enterprise, — enterprise on such a large scale
that it cannot afford to move by fits and starts, but in
self-preservation must so adapt itself to the conditions
as to make continuous use of its capital and tools possi-
ble. This is what the great corporations are tending
to accomplish, and an intelligent understanding of their
own economic interests on the part of the masses would
lead to endorsement of rather than antagonism to the
general trend of industrial evolution in this country.

BOOK REVIEWS

SPENCER AND SPENCERISM. By Hector Macpher-
son. Cloth, 241 pp. Doubleday, Page & Co., New
York.

This is really a review of the Spencerian philoso-
phy. The author is not merely an admirer of Spencer
and his philosophy, but he worships at the Spencerian
shrine. Of Spencer's works he says (page 233) :

4 ' There are no gaps to fill in ; the various volumes hang on • First
Principles ' like golden beads upon a golden string. Herbert Spencer
may rest from his labors with the proud consciousness that with his own
right hand he has carved his path from obscurity to a philosophic throne.
He now stands among the sceptred immortals."

It is true that Mr. Spencer has constructed a syn-
thetic philosophy which, with the works of Darwin,
Huxley, Lyell and Tyndall, and a few other great
writers of the period, has practically changed the point
of view of human thinking. The astonishment about
the doctrine of evolution is that it should have become
so generally accepted when so few have read its litera-
ture. The influence of the Spencerian school has been
spread far more by brief popularizations of it than by
the works of either Spencer or Darwin.

It is just such books as the one before us that give
popularity to the principle of evolution. As an evi-
dence of how completely Spencer impresses himself
upon his followers, nearly all his pronounced disciples
carry off his errors with the same devotion and alacrity
that they do the great truths he has taught. One pecul-
iarity of Spencer's teaching is his unqualified accept-
ance of the doctrine of laissez faire. It is no reflection
to say that in the realm of economics Spencer was not
a thinker but a borrower. It was one of the fields in

180

BOOK RE VIE WS 181

which he generalized upon other people's investiga-
tions. He accepted the orthodox English school as
represented by Adam Smith, Ricardo and Mill. He
received his economic impressions in the era of the
free-trade agitation, consequently he was an unqualified
free trader. He subjected every economic and indus-
trial policy to the test of its consistency with the free-
trade theory. If it diverges from that it is heresy. In
this respect he was very much like Buckle.

Mr. Macpherson is no exception to this rule. He
expounds " Spencer and Spencerism" in a most attrac-
tive and eloquent style. When he comes to the subject
of the economic evolution of society he bears the in-
delible imprint of the master's defects. He sees and
most eloquently describes the relation of economic de-
velopment to political progress. He sees that material
prosperity is the source of social and political diversifi-
cation and advance, yet he utterly fails to recognize
that equally conspicuous fact in history that whatever
promotes the diversification of industry contributes to
the evolution and advance of society, and that it is an
essential part of the science of statesmanship so to
direct the political and social forces as to promote this
development. Affording protection to property through
the establishment of a police force is a part of such
policy. Ultra laissez faire would have forbidden this
and rendered progress even much slower than it has
been, but Mr. Spencer was so thoroughly opposed to
government action that he even condemned popular
free education, and his criticism of anything like trade
unionism was unbounded. This was the defect in the
socialistic part of Spencer's doctrine, and Mr. Macpher-
son has taken it all. He extols free trade and con-
demns protection as the antithetical forces of good and
evil in economics (page 140) :

182 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [February,

" The intelligent adoption of Adam Smith's doctrine as the corner-
stone of foreign policy is only a matter of time ; and when Free Trade
is universal, humanity will advance from the stage of nationalism to
that of internationalism. When that day arrives, wars will cease.
. . . Under Free Trade the progress of one nation makes for the
progress of all. Fleets and armies are no longer needed to secure a
monopoly of trade, to preserve the balance of power, because in obedi-
ence to an economic law those countries which are industrially equipped
will share in the trade of other countries, even in the teeth of protective
tariffs. . . . Free Trade thus appears in its true light as, from the
economic side, the application of Christian ethics to the international
sphere. . . . Well might Richard Cobden describe Free Trade as
the international law of God Almighty."

How much this sounds like the orations of Villiers,
Cobden and Bright in the early forties. They pre-
dicted that the benefits of free trade needed only to be
seen to be eagerly imitated by all other nations, yet
more than fifty years have elapsed and no other nation
has followed England's policy, not one. On the con-
trary, the nation which has advanced along all the lines
of national evolution at a rate having no parallel is a
nation which has persistently adhered to the hated and
pernicious doctrine of protection. We have deviated
from it occasionally, only to be repaid by direful indus-
trial disaster. There was some excuse for Cobden and
Bright, who wrote and spoke over forty years ago, and
perhaps some for Spencer, who is not an original in-
vestigator in this field, but experience should count for
something with the followers and expounders of so
profound a doctrine as the synthetic philosophy. It is
the more surprising that the disciples of Spencer, like
Mr. Macpherson, should so tenaciously adhere to the
free-trade dogma, since protection is in no way incon-
sistent with the principle of evolution. On the con-
trary, it is but the substitution of intelligent, scientific
selection for blind natural selection. It is the substi-
tution of science for cosmic force and of statesmanship
for ignorant blundering empiricism.

i90i.] BOOK REVIEWS 183

Protection, in the sense of giving societary encour-
agement to industrial development, is as consistent
with and as much a logical part of evolution as is the
development of insurance, the application of steam and
electricity to production, or the guarding of the freedom
and property of citizens. Scientific protection is but
intelligently applying the great principle of evolution
to new phenomena as they arise. Instead of the world
becoming converted to the free-trade doctrine, even
England is beginning to waver. Her responsible
ministers are boldly discussing in the house of com-
mons a protective confederacy by which England and
her colonies shall have free trade between themselves
and protection against the rest of the world.

It is true Herbert Spencer stands for the great
universal philosophy which inductively interprets uni-
versal progress, but the application of his great prin-
ciple to the specific spheres of phenomena are subject
to the actual experience in each case ; to do which is
the duty of his modern disciples. To adhere to the
doctrine of laissez faire as Mr. Spencer did in un-
qualified form, when the best thought in economic
science has abandoned it in obedience to the scientific
induction of half a century's experience, is to get into a
rut and fail to learn the lessons of contemporaneous
induction and verification, which is in effect to be un-
Spencerian.

ECONOMIC CRISES. By Edward D. Jones, Ph. D.
Cloth, 223 pp., $1.25. The Macmillan Company, New
York.

This is an excellent discussion of economic crises
or industrial depressions. The subject is handled with
care, painstaking precision and in a true economic
spirit. It is altogether more analytic than synthetic.

184 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [February,

It is a careful analysis of the economic causes and con-
ditions which effect industrial disturbances. The
treatment is comprehensive yet close ; it shows wide
reading on the subject. The author calls to his aid a
liberal collection of writers of standing in all great
commercial countries. He indulges in some very
wholesome criticisms on the doctrine of parsimony,
saying (page 77) :

' ' When parsimony is rare it is highly paid in the
return given to capital ; when it becomes common its
rewards are reduced. The methods by which the in-
dividual advances his fortunes above those around him,
must not be confused with the methods by which
the economic life of society is properly regulated.
Maxims of private wealth-getting cannot be transformed
directly into principles of political economy. If capital
is accumulated more rapidly than the field for its use is
developed, the talents of the organizer are those de-
manded and a high remuneration will be given for or-
ganizing ability rather than for saving. The liberal
salaries now paid to men of superior organizing power,
in contrast with the low rates of interest prevailing
upon the markets of the world, show the present rela-
tion between the supply and demand for these qualities
so necessary to social progress.

Capital, however, can be used to assist in the solu-
tion of its own problem. Wealth may be used in the
encouragement of science and invention and in opening
those lines of possible economic activity which are not
generally appreciated. It may be used to promote the
study of new markets, to disseminate information as to
market conditions, and to perfect all those means of in-
dustrial control which would further a systematic dis-
tribution of capital over the realm of industrial enter-
prise. But the most abundant return, measured in
terms of public welfare, will probably result from the

igoi.] BOOK REVIEWS 18*

application of capital to the development of the higher
and more social economic needs of man."

This is eminently sound reasoning and is charac-
teristic of the author's treatment of the subject through-
out. He recognizes, as few writers do, that while the
equilibrium between production and consumption is the
great fact in industrial stability the social forces which
most need stimulating are on the side of consumption,
and, moreover, that the aggregate consumption of so-
ciety is governed altogether more by the social life and
standard of living of the laboring class than by all other
classes put together. For example (page 85):

"The assertion, which is made on good authority,
is therefore significant, that eighty per cent, of the
machine-made goods of the world are consumed by the
laboring class. The cutting off of the laborer's share
in distribution manifestly in an equal degree diminishes
his power to consume or to take the products of indus-
try off the hands of the producer."

Professor Jones has here made an important con-
tribution to the discussion of one of the most important
phases of modern economic stability, to accomplish
which is the next great step in industrial progress.

AMERICA'S ECONOMIC SUPREMACY. By Brooks
Adams. Cloth, 222 pp., $1.25. The Macmillan Co.,
New York. 1900.

Our swift triumph over decrepit Spain, with the
consequent expansion of our authority in the Philip-
pines, is having its effect upon the public imagination.
As was to be expected, distance is lending enchantment
to the view and the tendency to let the imagination run
wild and deal out immeasurable prophecy, reeling off
the colossal things done and to be done by the United
States, with the assurance that we are to work the

186 G UN TON'S MA GAZINE [February,

miracles of the immediate future, is being indulged, in
dimensions which make one fairly dizzy.

A most fascinating contribution to this tendency of
colossal generalization and cyclonic world absorption
has been made in this little book, "America's Eco-
nomic Supremacy." It is written in the same key as
Mr. Adams' "Law of Civilization and Decay." His
style is exceptionally lucid and shows the masterhand
in historical generalization. It tends to carry the
reader along breathlessly, with the assurance of reach-
ing the goal inevitably marked by evolution.

The author handles centuries and races as if they
were but months and families ; he sees the course of
civilization turned by a single event. He sees the cen-
ter of economic supremacy transferred from the Thames
to the Hudson by the fall of two shillings a hundred
weight in the price of sugar in London. Close and
colossal organization is coming, which is to equip us
for a great world work. It might "be effected by the
growth and amalgamation of great trusts until they
absorbed the government, or it might be brought about
by the central corporation, called the government, ab-
sorbing the trusts." In either event the author thinks
the result will be approximately the same. The eastern
and western continents will be competing for the most
perfect system of state socialism.

Mr. Adams is a kind of fairyland philosopher. He
touches facts so lightly and quickly and masses them so
sweepingly as to make the stolid plodding world seem
in a cyclonic whirl. His style is enchanting and elo-
quent, his reasoning plausible, and his conclusions in-
terestingly prophetic, but his structure is so loose and
airy that it will only hold good with the aid of a most
fertile imagination. He neither furnishes enough of
cohesive facts or inductive reasoning to warrant the ac-
ceptance of any specific conclusion he points to. He

i9oi.J BOOK REVIEWS 187

is an excellent specimen of imaginative writers, who
command the ages to obey their theories. In his
" Law of Civilization and Decay " he saw all the world
moving towards destruction, unless the money power
were dethroned and the free coinage of silver estab-
lished. In the present work he sees, with similar
clearness, England decaying and the United States de-
stined to take its place. While the book is highly in-
teresting reading and contains a touch-and-go reference
to many important economic facts, its chief influ-
ence, so far as it exerts any, is likely to be as a contri-
bution to a false, inflated sentiment regarding the
" world destiny " of the United States, to the injury of
the internal development and safeguarding of pros-
perity and welfare at home.

EDUCATION, STATE SOCIALISM AND THE TRUST. By
Freeman Otis Willey. National Economic League, New
York. Cloth, 125 pp.

The National Economic League is devoted to the
circulation of literature for the purpose of correcting
the prevalent idea that the rich are growing richer by
making the poor poorer. No better work can be done
in this country to-day than the circulation of sound
literature on this subject, but the object cannot be
accomplished by sending out mere special pleading for
capital. Although erroneous doctrines are prevalent
among wage-earners, it must not be imagined that
workingmen are dunces. In order to be of real service
in promoting intelligent opinion on modern economic
problems, it is no less important that the laborer's
interest and point of view be correctly presented than
that the interests of capital should be defended and its
utility explained.

The lack of this balance and fairness of presenta-
tion is the chief defect of Mr. Willey's little book. For

188 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [February,

example, in order to show that the laborers get a very
large proportion of the product, Mr. Willey argues,
with a liberal use of census figures (pp. 73-78), that if
an eight-hour day were adopted it would cause a loss
to capital of $10, 125,000,000 a year. He arrives at this
by taking the aggregate production and reducing it by
one-fifth. This method of reasoning on national pro-
duction is as false as is any method used by free-silver-
ites or socialists. It assumes that with a reduction of
the hours of labor everything else would remain the
same, hence the lessened production would be propor-
tionate to the reduction in the working hours, which is
contrary to all experience. Mr. Willey ought to know,
and if he does not intelligent workingmen do, that
nothing of this kind has ever occurred. During the
nineteenth century, and especially the last three-quar-
ters of it, every civilized country has had more or less
experience in reducing the hours of labor ; in England
the reduction has been nearly 40 per cent, and in this
country from 20 to 30 per cent., and nowhere has the
result predicted by Mr. Willey taken place. Instead of
either the aggregate output or the output per laborer
being reduced proportionately with the reduction of
hours, the reverse has everywhere occurred. Evidence
of this is as abundant and obvious as that railroads
have supplanted stage coaches.

The historic fact everywhere obvious is that com-
mensurately with the shortening of the working day
has come enlarged production, increased aggregate
profits, and concurrent increase of wages. The work-
ingmen know this : they know that the capitalists have
not grown poorer nor their own wages smaller with the
reduction of the hours of labor, and any literature
which teaches that disaster would follow a shorter
working day will receive little appreciation from intel-
ligent laborers. No better work can be done to-day

1901.] BOOK REVIEWS 189

than furnishing sound economic literature correcting
the false sentiment against capital, but literature can
not accomplish much in this direction which does not
discuss intelligently, with equal comprehension and
fairness, the laborer's side of the social problem.

NEW BOOKS OF INTEREST

The Attache" at Pekin. By A. B. Freeman- Witford,
author of "Tales of Old Japan," "The Bamboo
Garden," etc. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt top, 386
pp., $2. The Macmillan Company, New York. A
collection of letters written while Mr. Mitford was
attached to the British legation at Peking.

Memories of the Tennysons. By the Rev. H. D.
Rawnsley, honorary canon of Carlisle, author of ' ' Life
and Nature at the English Lakes." Cloth, gilt tops,
i2mo, 252 pp., $2.25. With portraits and other illus-
trations. The Macmillan Company, New York.

History of the Prudential Insurance Company of
America (Industrial Insurance). 1875-1900. By Fred-
erick L. Hoffman, F.S.S., statistician of the Prudential
Insurance Company of America. Cloth, 338 pp.
Prudential Press.

A Geography of the British Isles. By Lionel W.
Lyde, M.A., F.R.S.G.S. Cloth, i2mo, 128 pp., 60
cents, net. The Macmillan Company, New York.

The Future of the American Negro. By Booker T.
Washington. Cloth, i2mo, gilt top, 254 pp., $1.50.
Small, Maynard and Company, Boston, Mass,

The Postal Deficit. An Examination of Some of the
Legislative and Administrative Aspects of a Great State
Industry. By H. T. Newcomb, author of "Railway
Economics." Cloth, i58pp.,$i. Ballantyne and Son,
Washington, D. C.

190 G UN TON'S MA GAZINE

Tuskegee, Its Story and Its Work. By Max Bennett
Thrasher. With an introduction by Booker T. Wash-
ington. Cloth, 1 2 mo, decorative, 248 pp., $i. Small,
Maynard and Company, Boston, Mass. Containing 50
illustrations.

Spanish Highways and Byways. By Katharine Lee
Bates, professor of English literature, Wellesley Col-
lege. Crown, 8vo, $2.25. The Macmillan Company,
New York.

Political Theories of the Middle Age. By Dr. Otto
Gierke, professor of law in the University of Berlin.
Translated, with an introduction, by Frederic William
Maitland, LL.D., D.C.L., Downing professor of the
laws of England in the University of Cambridge.
Cloth, 8vo, 197 pp., $2.50 net. The Macmillan Com-
pany, New York.

Whos Who, 1901. An Annual Biographical Dic-
tionary. Cloth, i2mo, 1234 pp., $1.75. Fifty-third
year of issue. The Macmillan Company, New York.

The Men Who Made the Nation. An Outline of
United States History from 1760 to 1865. By Edwin
Erie Sparks, Ph.D. Crown, 8vo, cloth extra, gilt top,
415 pp., $2. The Macmillan Company, New York.
Illustrated with many reproductions of contemporary
prints, sketches, facsimiles, etc.

The Letters of Thomas Gray. Including the Corre-
spondence of Gray and Mason. Edited by Duncan C.
Tovey, editor of " Gray and His Friends," etc. Cloth,
I2mo, 393 pp., $i, net. The Macmillan Company,
New York.

Educational Aims and Methods. By Sir Joshua P.
Fitch, late chief inspector of training colleges in Eng-
land, author of "Lectures on Teaching," etc. Cloth,
$1.25. The Macmillan Company, New York.

FROM RECENT MAGAZINES

' ' I must, however, express the hope that the em-
ployers of the country will take into more serious con-
sideration the employees, who at the recent election
voted to give prosperity to all, in the face of the stren-
uous effort of the opposition, who would have had them
believe that the prosperity of the employer meant the
coercion of the employee, and that the only recourse of
the latter was to destroy the former. The workingmen
of our country have again resented the talk of dema-
gogues about coercion, and have voted for a continuance
of an administration that has given employers great
prosperity, in which they themselves have participated.
They have voted for the flag wherever it floats, and I
hope and believe that they will have their full share of
the benefits."— HON. PERRY S. HEATH, in " Lessons of
the Campaign," The Forum (December).

1 * One who has retired from the service, but not
from the love of his country, must be pardoned if he
finds himself unable to rejoice in the acquisition of
lands and forests and mines and commerce at the cost
of the abandonment of the old American idea that a
government of absolute powers is an intolerable thing,
and, under the constitution of the United States, an im-
possible thing. The view of the constitution I have
suggested will not limit the power of territorial expan-
sion ; but it will lead us to limit the use of that power
to regions that may safely become a part of the United
States, and to peoples whose American citizenship may
be allowed. It has been said that the flash of Dewey's
guns in Manila Bay revealed to the American people a
new mission. I like rather to think of them as re veal -

191

192 G UNTON'S MA GAZ1NE

ing the same old mission that we read in the flash of
Washington's guns at Yorktown. God forbid that the
day should ever come when, in the American mind, the
thought of man as a ' consumer ' shall submerge the old
American thought of man as a creature of God, endowed
with 'unalienable rights.'" — BENJAMIN HARRISON, in
" Status of Annexed Territory and its Inhabitants,"
The North American Review (January).

' ' Sometimes historians tell us that it was only
Dutchmen and not Englishmen who bought the red
men's land instead of stealing it. Such statements
have been made in New York, but if we pass on to
Philadelphia we hear that it was only Quakers who
were thus scrupulous, and when we arrive in Baltimore
we learn that it was only Roman Catholics. In point
of fact, it was the invariable custom of European set-
tlers on this Atlantic coast to purchase the lands on
which they settled, and the transaction was usually re-
corded in a deed to which the Sagamores affixed their
marks. Nor was the affair really such a mockery as it
may at first thought seem to us. The red man got
what he sorely coveted, steel hatchets and grindstones,
glass beads and rum, perhaps muskets and ammuni-
tion, while he was apt to reserve sundry rights of
catching game and fish. A struggle was inevitable
when the white man's agriculture encroached upon and
exhausted the Indian's hunting ground; but other cir-
cumstances usually brought it on long before that point
was reached. The age of iron superseded the stone
age in America by the same law of progress that from
time immemorial has been bearing humanity onward
from brutal savagery to higher and more perfect life
In the course of it our forefathers certainly ousted and
dispossessed the red men, but they did not do it in a
spirit of robbery." — JOHN FISKE, in "The Story of a
New England Town," The Atlantic Monthly ( Dec.).

BOOKER T WASHINGTON
Principal of Tuskegee * Institute

See page acxj

GUNTON'S MAGAZINE

REVIEW OF THE MONTH

Although England's new king was for-
EdwarcTviI. mally proclaimed and took the constitu-
tional oath on January 24th, the imme-
diate interest of Christendom remained with the dead
queen until well after the last and wonderfully im-
pressive ceremonials of February 2nd, when the funeral
cortege passed through London on its way to Albert
Chapel. Now that Victoria has passed into history,
however, King Edward becomes an object of interest
altogether greater than usually attaches to the person
of a new monarch. This is partly due to the extraor-
dinary length of Victoria's reign, making the very idea
of a new English sovereign a novelty not easily reduced
to the commonplace ; but in a larger sense the accession
of Edward attracts the attention of the world because
of the possible effect it may have upon English and,
therefore, upon world policies.

Thus far, with the possible exception of the gaudy
show of February i5th when the king and queen rode
to the houses of parliament in the gilded chariot of
George III., the new king's public appearances have
created only a favorable impression. Coming to the
throne in his sixtieth year, he will at least be free from
hot-headed indiscretions of the sort that marred the
opening years of his nephew William's reign, in Ger-
many ; but whether Edward will prove a man of large

193

194 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [March,

enough calibre for the headship of the greatest empire
on the earth can be settled only by experience. There is
little in the world's knowledge of him thus far to sug-
gest anything more than a correct-mannered, tactful,
pleasure-loving English gentleman, and it may be that,
in a country where the real governing power has passed
so completely out of the monarch's hands into those of
the ministers and parliament, this type of " ruler" is
quite as useful and much less bothersome than a strong-
minded individual set upon policies of his own. The
principal function of an English sovereign to-day is to
typify or impersonate the idea of authority but not
become too familiar with the thing itself.

The king's speech in opening parliament might as
well have come from the late queen herself, so far as
any hint of change of policy is concerned, either with
reference to domestic or foreign affairs. The only
significant incident that has occurred thus far, indica-
ting a possible modification of British policy, was the
peculiar wording of the proclamation of Edward's
accession with reference to the Transvaal. A special
phrase " Supreme Lord Of and Over the Transvaal "
was adopted, whether by the suggestion of the king or
not does not appear, but the effect of it is distinctly to
recognize a different sort of sovereignty over the new
South African colonies than England claims over all
her other possessions. There is in this the suggestion
at least of a conciliatory policy in store for the Boers
when the Transvaal's institutions are permanently
brought under British civil administration.

There is no evidence, however, that the

Boers are an? better Phased at the pros-
pect of British sovereignty, under what-
ever name or form, than they ever were. Lord Kitch-
ener's task, if not the most serious, is at any rate the

1 9oi.] RE VIE W OF THE MONTH 195

most exasperating and tedious phase of the South
African war. It is true, a peace committee of native
Boers was formed in Pretoria about the middle of De-
cember, and these men have been trying to persuade
their countrymen to give up the hopeless struggle
without further bloodshed ; but the very efforts of this
committee have served to bring out on the other side
fresh evidence of the intense bitterness of the Boers
still in the field. Three peace messengers sent by the
committee to General De Wet's camp about the middle
of January were seized, brutally flogged and then
shot, — an act of barbarity which destroys whatever
claim De Wet may have had to the admiration of the
world for his prolonged resistance against overwhelm-
ing odds.

Early in January the war took on once more a
really serious aspect, by reason of the formidable inva-
sion of Cape Colony by the Boer forces and the immi-
nent probability of a rising of Boer sympathizers. To
prevent this, martial law was proclaimed throughout
the larger part of the colony, and the efforts of Piet De
Wet, a member of the Pretoria peace committee and
brother of General De Wet, counted heavily against
any serious outbreak of the Cape Dutch. General Botha
is still active in the Transvaal, but the real heart of the
struggle is along the border-line between Cape Colony
and the old Orange Free State, where Kitchener has
taken personal charge of the campaign to capture De
Wet. Experience has proved that it is practically
impossible to trap the wily Boer by infantry move-
ments ; the British war department, therefore, is send-
ing Kitchener 30,000 additional mounted troops, which
presumably will be applied directly to this final task.
The remaining phases of the struggle have no interest
to the world so far as the future of South Africa is con-
cerned, for that is practically settled already. It is now

196 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [March,

simply a duel between two military geniuses, with the
end not far away.

Early in February the Chinese peace

More Trouble . . -V- - . J

in China commissioners and the foreign ministers

in Peking began holding regular meet-
ings to arrange for carrying out the terms of the peace
agreement. As might have been expected, trouble
arose over the very first important item, — punishment
of the ringleaders in the anti- foreign outrages last sum-
mer. The powers demanded the execution of twelve
persons, including Prince Tuan, father of the heir
apparent to the Chinese throne. It appears that two of
the twelve are already dead, but with reference to the
others China returned a compromise proposition by
which only one of the offenders, Yu Lu, the former
viceroy of Pe-Chi-Li province, would have been exe-
cuted outright. Another, Prince Chuang, commander-
in-chief of the Boxers, was to be compelled to commit
suicide ; Prince Tuan and Duke Lan exiled to Chinese
Turkestan ; Ying Nien, the accomplice of Chuang,
ordered executed but his sentence commuted to life
imprisonment ; and three others merely degraded. This
proposition substituted Yu Lu, whose execution had
not been demanded, for General Tung Fu Siang, com-
mander-in-chief of the army, for whose life the Chinese
commissioners made a special plea on account of prob-
able uprisings in certain provinces if the general were
sacrificed. The plea for Prince Tuan was put on the
ground that the government could not execute a prince
of the blood royal and continue to maintain proper
respect for its authority.

The effect of this reply was to incite a military
movement on the part of Germany, which, for a time,
promised the most serious complications. Count von
Waldersee announced a plan of campaign of far-reach-

igoi.] REVIEW OF THE MONTH 197

ing proportions, including a general invasion of Chi-
nese provinces to the west of Peking by the whole of
the allied force under his command. All the powers
were apparently ready to join in this movement except
Russia and the United States, and it is hardly sup-
posable that Russia's refusal was due to any special
consideration for China or excessive love of peace.
General Chaffee, however, promptly declined to join
the expedition, and Minister Conger was instructed
from Washington to inform the other ministers that
our government was opposed to any further hostile
movements at this time. It now appears that in all
probability the German proposition was never meant
seriously ; in fact, the German foreign office is under-
stood to have informed our ambassador, Mr. White,
that ' ' the expeditions were designed chiefly to con-
vince the Chinese government that the powers would
not be trifled with.'' The latest report is that this
threat has had the desired effect and that China will
grant the demands of the powers in full without further
parley.

Whether this should prove true or not,
Protc°[ it is quite clear that our government is

right in refusing to join in any whole-
sale campaign of devastation in the interior of China.
The fact is, evidence is accumulating of the discredi-
table performances of the foreign troops to such an
extent that the moral strength of Christendom's case
against China is already seriously damaged. Many of
the stories of pillage, outrage and murder of defence-
less men and women are doubtless exaggerated, but if
only a part of what is reported is true it is enough to
make Christendom ashamed of the later stages of its
descent upon China. At any rate, the situation is no
longer such that the powers have any moral justifica-

198 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [March,

tion for arbitrarily refusing to consider the traditions,
limitations and embarrassments of the Chinese in the
matter of fulfilling the penalties demanded.

The great object now to be gained is peaceful set-
tlement, on a basis that will maintain the integrity of
the empire and establish good feeling and friendly re-
lations between the Chinese people and the outside
world. This is incomparably more important than any
minor issue of execution versus banishment or life im-
prisonment for three or four fanatical princes and
generals. The terms that have been imposed upon
China are anything but lenient and the powers can well
afford to waive an occasional point for the sake of fu-
ture amity, without any danger of inflicting too mild a
"vengeance." The hands of Christendom are not
clean enough to enable it gracefully to assume the role
of faultless Justice dealing with a guilty culprit, — all
the right on one side, all the wrong on the other.
China must indeed pay the penalty of last year's out-
rages, but if the empire's independence is to be main-
tained its government must have at least the privilege
of submitting proposals in its own behalf without
having summary threats of annihilation thrown into
the negotiations at every step. Such a course, offensive
in itself, is the most shortsighted and impolitic. It is
certain so to intensify Chinese bitterness against
Christendom as to destroy trade opportunities and de-
lay any real regeneration of the empire for many
decades, however successful the allies may be in
forcing the "open door" and exacting industrial
privileges. It is one thing to drive the Chinese horse
to the stream of Christendom's trade but quite another
thing to make the animal drink.

igoi.] REVIEW OF THE MONTH 199

President McKinley on January 25th sent
"Pacification "in to ^Q senate a special message transmit-

the Philippines J 0 ° - . -

ting a report from Secretary Root which
included the full report of the Taft commission. In
this message the president strongly urged ' ' legislation
under which the government of the islands may have
authority to assist in their peaceful industrial develop-
ment in the directions indicated by the secretary of
war," — which is understood to have been an appeal for
the passage of the Spooner amendment to the army
appropriation bill. This amendment provides that,
until otherwise arranged by congress, "all military and
civil powers necessary to govern the Philippine islands "
shall be ' ' vested in such person and persons and shall
be exercised in such manner as the president of the
United States shall direct." If this amendment passes
it is practically certain that Judge Taft, chairman of the
Philippine commission, will be made governor of the
islands, with very large powers.

Probably it is wiser to centralize authority in the
Philippines in the way this amendment proposes, so
long as our present policy is maintained, but continued
experience does nothing to confirm the wisdom of the
policy itself. Deportation of Filipino leaders, banish-
ment of refractory newspaper editors, and increased
severity of military measures do not seem to " pacify "
the natives. In fact, it is probable that even the sur-
renders of groups of insurgents recently reported in
different quarters are little more than ruses designed to
throw our forces off guard. An illustration of the
thoroughly untrustworthy nature of Filipino submission
and " cooperation " with the American administration
is offered in a private letter from a United States gov-
ernment official in the Philippines to the editor of the
New York Evening Post, published in that journal on
January i6th. Said this correspondent :

200 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [March,

' ' The American authorities set up a local munici-
pal government; presidente, clerk, etc., are elected,
and everything seems to be working smoothly. A little
later it is discovered that the presidente and clerk also
represent the insurgent government, and that where
they collect 100 pesos tax for the Americanos, they
collect 400 pesos tax for the cause of the ' Filipino
nation.' "

The same official, earlier in the letter, observed :

" It is openly and repeatedly asserted by army offi-
cers in Manila to-day that the American army is on the
defensive in this archipelago, and that it has been on
the defensive for more than six months. It was on the
defensive when Gen. Otis went home to tell the people
of the United States that ' the Philippine situation was
well in hand/ Perhaps the official code of ethics for-
bade his successor's discrediting that statement, at least
until after the election ; but the time is at hand when
something radical will have to be done.

1 ' They report that the garrisons in two-thirds of
the territory visited are in a state of actual siege, and
that they dare not go more than a few hundred yards
outside their posts for fear of capture or of encounter-
ing an overwhelming force of insurgents ; that all of
the garrisons are too small for the territory watched
over, and that not a day passes that several American
soldiers are not picked off by the watchful and treach-
erous natives.

' ' The country is pacified and ' the situation is well
in hand,' but there are towns within a few miles of
Manila where the authorities will not permit an Amer-
ican to go for fear that he will be massacred. American
soldiers daily fall prey to the bold treachery of the
Malay, but these have ' needlessly exposed themselves.' '

As to the feeling of the Filipinos towards American
authority, the Post's correspondent said :

REVIEW OF THE MONTH 201

' ' Official reports to the contrary, officers and men
who know the situation and the natives are all agreed
that the Filipino hates us as he never hated the Span-
iard ; that every Filipino is an insurrecto ; and that the
present guerilla warfare will continue for years unless
some strong policy be inaugurated."

This is quite in line with General MacArthur's
statement in a letter to Secretary Root, which the latter
sent to the senate on February 4th. " Expectations
based on result of election," said the general, "have
not been realized. Progress of pacification apparent to
me but still very slow. Condition very inflexible and
likely to become chronic."

The Independence *n our ^ast issue we expressed the belief
Proposal that the American people are becoming

in Congress more and more tired of the entire Phil-

ippine complication, and eager for a safe and honorable
termination. A sidelight of confirmation was thrown
on this opinion by an incident in the house of repre-
sentatives February gih. Mr. Brown of Ohio, a repub-
lican in regular party standing, made a stirring speech
in favor of Philippine independence. His appeal was
so eminently practical and logical that a large number
of his party associates gave vent to their feelings in
hearty applause during the address and congratulations
at its close. This is only a straw, but we should not
be surprised to see other evidences develop that the
congressional support of the administration's Philip-
pine policy has become largely perfunctory. At any
rate, it would seem to be dangerous to let anybody
boldly express the rational and truly American doctrine
on this matter under circumstances which permit any
response of real feeling from the party ranks. Here is
the resolution Mr. Brown advocated :

"It is the purpose of the United States in retain-

202 GUNTOWS MAGAZINE [March,

ing possession of the Philippine Islands to aid their in-
habitants when they submit to the authority of the
United States in establishing a capable and stable free
government, and when this purpose shall be fully ac-
complished the United States, under such reservations
and conditions as may be wise and just, will relinquish
authority in those islands."

In support of this he said in part :

' ' Congress has never yet announced to the Fili-
pinos what the national purpose is with respect to them.
If this body will tell them now — tell them explicitly
and solemnly — that it is the fixed determination of this
nation to establish its authority in their country, and
that when this end shall be reached they shall have a
chance to become in due time free citizens of a free
government — if congress will say this to them, and say
it now, we may confidently expect that their rude
weapons of warfare will fall from their hands and that
they will sue for peace — peace which they will know
means more for them than anything ever held out to
them or to their fathers in any generation.

"This declaration would now be opportune. It
would be at this time a wise act, which the government
is strong enough to perform without having its motives
questioned by friend or foe. Even the most deluded
Filipino could not misunderstand it. It would go to
him, as he would know, and as all the world would
know, in the day of our triumph and his defeat. This
declaration by congress now would go to the Filipinos
as a great nation's amnesty to them."

It may be that Representative Brown was over-
sanguine as to the immediate effect of such a proclama-
tion. The Filipinos have acquired a deep-seated dis-
trust, based on 400 years' experience, of promises or
pledges made by an alien authority, and the added ex-
perience of the last two years has transferred to us the

REVIEW OF THE MONTH 203

animosity so long cherished towards Spain. This, how-
ever, only emphasizes our duty in the case. It is en-
tirely reasonable to anticipate that at least the leaders
of the insurrection could be convinced of the genuineness
of such a declaration. That it would materially im-
prove the situation cannot be doubted, besides giving a
moral strength to our presence in the islands that we
have not been able to command in any really high and
disinterested sense thus far, either at home or abroad.
It would pave the way towards settlement of the Phil-
ippine problem along the lines followed in Cuba, and
even if the task were longer and harder the results
would be incomparably better than anything whatever
to be gained from our present unnatural policy of sub-
jugation by extermination. This would be true whether
we reckoned the advantage of the rational and humane
policy in lives and money saved, or in the certain
raising of our moral standing throughout the world, or
in the preserving of our democratic principle of gov-
ernment from the insidious undermining effects of a
" colonial " policy.

Although not yet fully adopted and pro-
claimed, the principal details of the
proposed constitution of Cuba are prac-
tically completed. The full text of the constitution as
submitted to the convention in Havana late in January
has been published. Like the constitutions of all our
neighboring South American republics, it shows at
almost every point the powerful influence of our own
national constitution. In all three departments of the
government, legislative, executive and judicial, the pro-
posed Cuban system will be patterned very closely after
the United States model. The Cuban congress will
include a senate and house of representatives, the
former to consist of six senators from each of the

204 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [March,

six "departments" of the republic, the term to be six
years, and one-third of the senate to be elected every
two years. The house of representatives, will have one
member for every 25,000 inhabitants, the term being
four years, and one-half the house to be elected every
two years. The president's term will be four years,
and he is prohibited from receiving more than two
elections. Each of the six departments in the island
will have a local assembly and governor of its own,
with powers and duties corresponding in general to
those exercised by the various states in this country.
Each governor, however, will be responsible to the
national senate for any infraction of the constitution.

Fundamental guarantees of personal rights form
the largest single section of the constitution. They
include most of those great vital safeguards won by the
English-speaking people through many centuries of
painful struggle, such as these :

' ' No law can have a retroactive effect, except in
penal matters, when the new law is favorable to the
delinquent.

"No person shall be arrested, except by virtue of
a warrant from a competent judge ; the writ directing
the issuance of the warrant of arrest shall be ratified or
amended after the accused shall have been given a
hearing, within seventy-two hours following his im-
prisonment.

' ' No person shall be tried or sentenced, except by
a competent judge or tribunal, in consequence of laws
existing prior to the commission of the crime, and in
the manner that the latter prescribe.

* ' The expression of thought shall be free, be it
either by word of mouth, by writing, by means of the
public press or by any other method whatsoever, with-
out being subject to any prior censorship, and under
the responsibility determined or specified by the laws.

I9oi.] REVIEW OF THE MONTH 205

' ' No person shall be molested by reason of his
religious opinion, nor for engaging in his special
method of worship. The church and state shall be
separate.

' ' The inhabitants of the republic shall have the
right to meet and combine peacefully without arms for
all licit purposes.

' ' The penalty of confiscation of properties shall
not be inflicted, and no person shall be deprived of his
property except by the competent authority for the jus-
tified reason of public benefit and after being paid the
proper indemnity therefor. Should this latter require-
ment not have been complied with, the judges shall
give due protection, and, should the case so demand,
they will restore possession of the property to the
person who may have been deprived thereof.

" No person shall be obliged to pay any tax or con-
tribution of any kind whatsoever, the collection of
which has not previously been legally decided upon."

A great deal of wrangling is going on
as to whether or not the United States
congress should undertake to revise or
in any way pass upon the Cuban constitution. There
is nothing in the Cuban constitution, as it now stands,
defining any special or unusual relation between the
new republic and the United States government. For
that matter, we do not expect or care to exercise any
protectorate over Cuba, and there is no apparent reason
why our relations with the island, with the possible
exception of one or two very general provisions, should
not be left to be arranged between the two govern-
ments when Cuba's constitution goes into full opera-
tion. There is little practical value in the suggestion
that we should reserve the right to control Cuba's for-
eign relations. The Monroe doctrine covers that point

206 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [March,

just as it does with all the other American republics,
and we have never found it necessary to assume re-
sponsibility for the conduct of either the foreign or
internal affairs of any of them.

The only reason why it might be important to
have a special understanding with Cuba is that we
made our withdrawal from the island conditional upon
the establishment there of a sound and stable govern-
ment. As Senator Platt of Connecticut, chairman of
the committee on relations with Cuba, suggested in the
senate on January 3ist, congress might declare upon
what terms our military occupation would cease, and
couple with this such suggestions as we might regard
necessary to the establishment of a stable government.
The Cuban convention would then have the opportunity
to embody these suggestions in the constitution or
otherwise provide for their fulfilment, without formally
submitting the document to the United States congress
for approval. The point is technical rather than es-
sential. The only real reason for preferring a method
which implies the minimum authority over Cuban af-
fairs is the practical certainty that every opposite step
will be promptly taken advantage of by those who are
already urging annexation of the island to the United
States. The attitude of the administration in the
Philippines does not afford any satisfactory assurance
that if only the road could be made easy enough Cuba
itself would not be gathered into our "colonial" sys-
tem. Every point of procedure which emphasizes our
pledge not to do this is important just now, and may
profoundly affect the political future of the island.

The outcome of the recent struggle

Congressional . ^ -

Reapportionment ln congress over the matter of re-
apportionment of representatives on
the basis of the new census shows the difficulty of

i9oi.] REVIEW OF THE MONTH 207

living up to the national constitution when a problem
of inferior races is thrown into the situation. The
literal fact is that democracy cannot be made to work
for two distinct orders of civilization within the same
group, — constitution or no constitution. It would
seem as if the repeated demonstrations of this with
reference to our colored population in the South would
afford some warning of the wholesale nullification of
constitutional mandates that will be forced upon us in
our dealing with the even more degraded populations
of Porto Rico, Hawaii and the Philippines, as soon as
we attempt to confer anything like equality of political
rights upon them.

The new apportionment increases the total mem-
bership of the house from 357 to 386, which gives one
representative to every 194,000 inhabitants (approxi-
mately), instead of one to every 174,000 as at present.
Under this arrangement, Illinois, New York and Texas
each gain three members ; Minnesota, New Jersey and
Pennsylvania two each ; Arkansas, California, Colorado,
Connecticut, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missis-
sippi, Missouri, North Carolina, North Dakota, Wash-
ington, West Virginia and Wisconsin, one each. No
state loses a representative.

The very suggestion of reducing the representa-
tion of certain southern states because of their dis-
franchisement of negro voters raised a storm in con-
gress, and the exigencies of practical politics prevailed
against the plain mandate of the constitution. The
1 4th amendment provides in definite terms that, when-
ever the right to vote of any legally-qualified citizens is
denied them by any state, the representation in con-
gress of that state shall be proportionately reduced.
At present four states have, by a one-sided educational
test, denied this right to the negro ; in consequence of
which, as Representative Olmsted showed in his reso-

208 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE

lution introduced on January 3rd, the vote cast at con-
gressional elections declined between 1890 and 1898, in
Mississippi from 62,652 to 27,045 ; in South Carolina
from 73,522 to 28,831, and in Louisiana from 74,542 to
33,161. In several other states, as is well known, the
negro is practically disfranchised by force or intimida-
tion. The disenfranchisement act in North Carolina is
too recent to show results in tables of comparison, but
the obligation to reduce the representation of that
state is exactly as binding as in the other cases. The
grotesque absurdity is that, instead of obeying the
constitution and reducing the representation of these
states by fully one-half, the new apportionment actu-
ally gives Louisiana, Mississippi and North Carolina an
additional vote each in congress. No doubt this avoided
a sectional struggle of extraordinary bitterness, but at
what a price! As before pointed out, the real sig-
nificance of the matter is the apparent ease with which
the constitution is set aside to meet the necessities of a
race problem. Either the constitution must fall into
contempt or we shall have to stop taking on groups of
population to whom our fundamental institutions
cannot be extended in practice as well as in theory.

THE NEGRO IN BUSINESS

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, PRINCIPAL TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE

The conference of the National Negro Business
League, which assembled in Boston in August of 1900,
was unique. For the first time since the negroes were
freed an attempt was made to bring together, from all
over the United States, a company of representative
business men and women of the race. Over three
hundred delegates were present. They came from
thirty states, and from an area which extended from
Nebraska to Florida and from Texas to Maine.

Many of these men once were slaves. Others were
younger men, born since the civil war and educated in
the industrial schools and colleges ; but they were al-
most all alike in one respect, that they had come up
from the bottom and had gained whatever of property
and position which they possessed by their own efforts.
The business enterprises which they represented were
manifold; their range and the success which these
men have attained in them were object-lessons to the
country. Another lesson, no less striking, was the
conduct of the conference itself.

The New Orleans riots occurred while the prepar-
ations for the conference were being made. The
streets of New York resounded to the cries of a negro-
hunting mob just at the time when many of the dele-

209

210 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [Match,

gates were leaving their homes to come to Boston.
When the conference assembled, on the morning of
August twenty-third, the newspapers were rilled with
accounts of the disturbances at Akron. And yet,
throughout sessions which occupied two days and two
evenings, in which at least two hundred persons spoke,
there was not one single reference to the riots or to
the conditions which gave rise to them. These were
business men, come to Boston for a definite purpose
with which politics had no connection, and they at-
tended strictly to business. Nor was this the result of
fear or intimidation. The position of the promoters of
the league had been plainly stated beforehand and the
policy of the gathering outlined.

I quote from one of the most widely published an-
nouncements of the meetings: "Those who are in-
terested in the success of the league do not underesti-
mate the importance of seeing to it that the negro does
not give up any part of the struggle for retaining his
citizenship. They are against the repeal of the fif-
teenth amendment, and they believe that election laws
throughout the country should be made to apply with
equal justice to black and white alike. They believe
that if the franchise is restricted in any state it should
not be done in such a way that an ignorant white man
can vote while an ignorant black man cannot. At the
same time they recognize the fact that to retain citizen-
ship and the respect of the nation there must go with
the negro's demands for justice, tangible, indisputable
proofs of the progress of the race, or, briefly, that deeds
and words must go together. They believe that help-
ing the negro along commercial lines will help his
political status. This is not a political meeting. It is
a business gathering. Politics and other general mat-
ters pertaining to the race are dealt with at the sessions
of the national Afro- American Council."

i90i.] THE NEGRO IN BUSINESS 211

I think that a paragraph in an editorial in one of
the Boston papers, printed just after the conference
adjourned, described the tone of the gathering admira-
bly. It said: " There was no politics in this gath-
ering. There was no clamoring for rights. There
was as little sentimentality as in a meeting of
stock jobbers or railroad directors. . . . Wanton,
insane cruelty of white men was something which
colored men, minding their own business, could not
reasonably cause, nor effectually rebuke. With a per-
fect dignity they left the matter to those whom it con-
cerned. . . . Their conduct was a sign of power,
equal to any other that the conference gave witness of,
the supreme power of manliness that is recognized in
self-restraint."

It had seemed to me for some time that an organi-
zation was needed which would bring together the
colored business men and women of the country for
consultation and to obtain information and inspiration
from each other. As I had traveled through the coun-
try, especially in the South, I had often been impressed
and repeatedly surprised to see how many colored men
were succeeding in business enterprises, often in small,
out-of-the-way places where they are never heard of,
but where they are doing good work not only for them-
selves but for the race. I do not mean that the men
and women who are in business in the cities are not
doing equally well, but their work is better known
because it is more obvious. How much I wish that our
race might be judged by these people and by its stu-
dents and teachers instead of, as is too often the case, by
those who are in the penitentiaries and idle on the
street corners. Other races are judged by their best.
Why not the negro ?

Unless one has given some consideration to the
subject he will be surprised to learn how widely the

212 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [March,

colored people have gone into business. There were
present at the meeting in Boston the representative of
a colored cotton factory, a bank president, the president
of a negro coal mine, grocers, real- estate dealers, the
owner of a four-story brick storage warehouse and the
proprietor of a trucking business operating forty teams,
dry-goods dealers, druggists, tailors, butchers, barbers,
undertakers, the owner of a steam carpet- cleaning busi-
ness, manufacturers of brooms, tinware and metal
goods, hair goods, etc., a florist, printers and publishers,
insurance agents, caterers, restaurant keepers, general
merchants, contractors and builders, the owner and
proprietor of a brick yard (in North Carolina) which
turns out several million bricks a year, and in fact rep-
resentatives of almost every industry which can be sug-
gested.

Two men who were present at the conference were
the mayors of negro towns which they have built up in
the South. One of these men, Mr. Isaiah T. Mont-
gomery, was once a slave of Jefferson Davis. Fifteen
years ago he began to colonize a tract of land in the
valley of the Yazoo River, in Mississippi. Colored
people now own 12,000 acres there. In the town of
Mound Bayou, which is the nucleus of the settlement,
Mr. Montgomery said there are ten stores and shops
owned by colored people, doing a business of at least
$30,000 a year. Mr. J. C. Leftwich, of Alabama, owns
over a thousand acres of land not far from Montgom-
ery, where he is building up a town which he has
named " Klondike." All the business is in the hands
of colored people, even the postmaster being a colored
man.

Three of the best addresses were made by women,
one of them, Mrs. A. M. Smith, the president of a col-
ored business woman's club and employment agency in
Chicago ; one by Mrs. A. Thornton, a dermatologist, of

1 9oi.] THE NEGRO IN BUSINESS 213

Cincinnati, and one by Mrs. A. A. Casneau, a dress-
maker, of Boston. The last named woman is the author
of a book upon dressmaking which has been quite wide-
ly used. She told of an interesting experience with a
white woman who came to Boston to take some addi-
tional lessons from her, suggested from the book, and
who did not know that the woman she was coming to
see was a colored woman. For this to be understood I
must first relate an incident which occurred to one of
our Tuskegee Institute students, because it was to this
incident that Mrs. Casneau referred.

Among the other industries taught at Tuskegee In-
stitute is that of dairying. We have a herd of over one
hundred good dairy cows, and classes of young men and
women are constantly receiving practical instruction in
this industry, doing all of the work of the dairy at the
same time. There came to our knowledge the fact that
the owners of a certain creamery were looking for a
competent superintendent. We had just graduated a
man whom we knew to be thoroughly competent in
every way, but he was just about as black as any one
could possibly be. Nevertheless we sent him on to ap-
ply for the position. When the owners of the cream-
ery saw him they said: " But you are a colored man.
That would never do. We cannot hire a colored man."

Our candidate politely intimated that he had not
come there to talk about any color except butter color,
and kept on talking about that, while the owners kept
talking about his color. Finally something which he
said so caught their attention that they told him he
might stay and run the creamery for a fortnight, al-
though they still insisted that it was out of the question
for them to hire a colored man as superintendent.

When the returns for the first week's shipment of
butter made by our man came back, it was found that
the butter had sold for two cents a pound more than

214 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [March,

any product of the creamery had ever before sold for.
The owners of the establishment said: "Why, now,
this is very singular;" and waited for the next week's
report.

The second week's returns showed that the butter
had sold for a cent a pound more than that of the week
before, three cents more than before the colored man
had taken charge of the work. That time the owners
did not stop to say anything. They simply hired the
man as quickly as they could. The extra three cents on
a pound which he could get for his butter had knocked
every particle of color out of his skin so far as they
were concerned.

Mrs. Casneau, in her address before the league,
said that when she received a letter from her customer
saying that the woman was coming to Boston to call
upon her at a certain time, her courage failed her
because she knew that this customer had no idea that
she was to meet a colored woman as the author of the
book which she had been studying. When the day
came, and the bell rang, and she was told that this
woman had arrived, she was at first almost tempted to
send in word that she was ill and could not see her,
when suddenly there came into her mind the story of
the Tuskegee graduate who had declined to discuss any
question of color except the butter color which per-
tained to his business. "I went into the room as
bravely as I could," she said, "and, although the
woman looked and acted just as I felt sure she would, I
would not let myself take any notice of it, but went on
talking business as fast as I could. The result was that
we made a business engagement, through which, after-
wards, other work came to me.''

This meeting not only showed to the country what
the colored people are doing, but it gave the delegates,
especially those who came from the South, an oppor-

i9oi]. THE NEGRO IN BUSINESS 215

tunity to see something of the business methods em-
ployed by northern people. .1 think it will have some-
thing of the same good effect on them that the bringing
of the Cuban teachers to the United States may be ex-
pected to have on the Cubans.

If a record of the business enterprises operated by
colored men and women in the United States were
available it would be interesting and instructive, but
such information has not yet been very generally re-
ported.

From the published reports of the valuable studies
of Professor W. E. B. Du Bois I make a few extracts
bearing on the subject. In his book, "The Phila-
delphia Negro,5' Dr. Du Bois deals chiefly with the
colored people of the seventh ward of that city. The
author says that this particular ward is selected because
it "is an historic center of negro population and con-
tains one-fifth of all the negroes in the city." The
negro population of Philadelphia in 1890 was 40,000,
and over 8,000 lived in this ward. Both these numbers
will undoubtedly show an increase when the figures of
the census recently taken are available. In this ward
Dr. Du Bois found the following- named business estab-
lishments operated by negroes: 39 restaurants, 24
barber shops, 1 1 groceries, 1 1 cigar stores, 2 candy and
notion stores, 4 upholsterers, 2 liquor saloons, 4 under-
takers (two of these were women), i newspaper, i drug
store, 2 patent-medicine stores, 4 printing offices.

There were 83 caterers in the ward, but some of
these Dr. Du Bois reports as doing a small business,
and others as engaged in the business only a part of
the year, being otherwise employed the rest of the
time. The business of catering by negroes in Philadel-
phia has always been remarkable for the ability and
success with which it has been conducted. Several
men of the race in that city have been famous for their

216 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [March,

work in this line. Dr. Du Bois, in writing of the ca-
terer, reports "about ten who do a business of from
$3,000 to $5,000 a year."

In addition to these there were at the same time
in other parts of the city, among the negro business
establishments, 49 barber shops, 8 grocery stores, 27
restaurants, 8 coal and wood dealers. There was a
successful florist, a large crockery store, and success-
ful real-estate dealers.

From the reports of other studies of Dr. Du Bois,
in the South, I make some extracts. I do not quote
his lists in full, but give only a few of the leading en-
terprises reported :

Birmingham, Ala. — 8 grocers, 6 barbers, 4 drug-
gists, 4 tailors. Montgomery, Ala. — 6 grocers, 2 un-
dertakers, 2 drug-store keepers, i butcher. Vicksburg,
Miss. — 2 jewelers, 2 tailors, 2 drug- store keepers, 2
newspapers, 2 dry-goods dealers, i undertaker. Nash-
ville, Tenn. — 9 contractors, 6 grocers, 2 undertakers,
2 saloon keepers, 2 drug stores. Houston, Tex. — n
grocers, 10 real-estate dealers, 5 contractors, 6 barbers.
Richmond, Va. — 2 banking and insurance men, 2 under-
takers, 2 fish dealers. Tallahassie, Fla. — 3 groceries, 2
meat markets. Americus, Ga. — 12 groceries, i drugstore,
i wood yard. Seattle, Wash. — i real-estate dealer, 2
barbers, 3 restaurants. I do not have available a list
of enterprises in the city of Pensacola, Fla., but there
are at least two groceries there, conducted by colored
men, doing a business of $10,000 a year each, and suc-
cessful restaurants, contractors, drug- store keepers,
shoe- makers and tailors.

Much has been said and written about the fitness
of the negro for work in cotton factories. Until the
negro is given a fair trial under encouraging condi-
tions I shall be slow to believe that he is not fitted for
profitable work in factories. . For years the colored

THE NEGRO IN BUSINESS 217

man has been the main operative in the tobacco fac-
tories of the South, and, aside from this, he operates in
very large measure all of the cotton-seed oil mills in
the South and is engaged in every avenue of mechan-
ical work. I think those who hold to the theory that
the negro cannot be depended upon as a laborer in fac-
tories will find their theory exploded in a few years
very much in the same way that dozens of other the-
ories regarding him have been exploded.

The failure of the Vesta Cotton Mills, in Charles-
ton, S. C., has been laid to the door of the negro.
Those who have written on this subject seemingly for-
get, however, to state that these same mills failed once,
and I think twice, under white labor and that these
mills have never had colored labor exclusively in them.
When I visited Charleston a few months ago and made
a careful inspection of these mills, I found at least one-
third of the operatives were white people, the remain-
ing two-thirds being colored. The colored people, as
I remember it, occupied two floors and the whites the
other floor, so that the failure cannot be wholly ascribed
to colored labor.

Few cotton mills North or South have succeeded
in large cities where there is no opportunity to segre-
gate and control the labor. If the negro is given a fair
trial in a small village, or in a country district where
he is so situated in his home life that the operators can
control, as they do in the case of the white laborer, the
life of the families, I believe that the negro will suc-
ceed in the cotton factory equally as well as the white
man. Until such fair trial is given him it is unfair and
misleading to make sweeping statements regarding his
reliability in this respect.

In further proof of my statement that the negro
can succeed in factory work if given a fair opportunity,
I refer to the employment of colored persons in the

218 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [March,

silk factory at Fayetteville, N. C., a small town where
conditions are much more conducive to factory life than
in Charleston. Mr. H. E. C. Bryant, a white man and
one of the editors of the Charlotte Daily Observer, pub-
lished at Charlotte, N. C., recently visited this silk
factory in Fayetteville and after his visit said in his
paper :

"It is the most unique and interesting manufacturing plant in the
state, if not in the entire South. It is managed by Rev. T. W. Thurs-
ton, a mulatto, born in Pennsylvania and educated in Philadelphia, and
who is highly respected by the white and colored citizens of Fayette-
ville."

Mr. Bryant further remarks :

" It has proved a signal success. Its continued success will mean
much to the negro of the South. The building is of brick, three stories
high, and the mill has 10,000 spindles and employs 400 operatives, mainly
boys and girls between 10 and 18 years old. The first floor contains the
reeling department over which Mr. J. H. Scarbough, a young German,
is foreman ; the second is devoted to winding and doubling, and Ger-
trude Hood (colored), daughter of Bishop Hood, is in charge ; and the
third, weaving, with Mr. Harry Fieldhouse, an Englishman, as fore-
man. The mill has the appearance of a well-regulated school. The
operatives are thoroughly organized and work with perfect system. I
found order and neatness on every hand. The children did not seem
frightened but satisfied and ambitious. None but the best class of boys
and girls are employed at the silk mills. The employment of colored
labor has not caused racial trouble. It takes the young negro from the
streets and makes a good citizen of him and turns loose about $4,000 a
month to spend for food and clothing."

Despite these evidences of progress, it has been
said, sometimes, that negroes cannot come together
and successfully unite in holding such meetings as that
of the National Negro Business League, and that this is
a proof of their business incapacity. I think such a
meeting as that of last August disproves that theory.
What gave me the most encouragement was the manly
and straightforward tone used in all the papers and
discussions. There were no complaints. At the next
session I believe that there will be still larger numbers
and stronger support. I believe that as a race we shall

i90i.] THE NEGRO IN BUSINESS 219

succeed and grow, and be a people, with our due rep-
resentation in business life, right here in America.
We must not be discouraged, and we must watch our
opportunities and take advantage of them. There is no
force on earth that can keep back a brave people that is
determined to get education and property and Christian
character. They never can be defeated in their prog-
ress.

VICTORIA AND HER REMARKABLE REIGN

The death of Queen Victoria closed the longest
reign in the history of monarchical institutions. She
was on the throne sixty-four years (1837-1901), being
four years longer than the reign of any other European
monarch. George the Third's reign was the next
longest, being sixty years (1760-1820), but during the
last nine years he was insane and the government was
under the regency of his son, George IV. Henry III.
reigned fifty -six years (1216-1272), and Edward III.
fifty years (i 327- 1 377).

Besides being the longest, Victoria's reign was in
all respects the most remarkable. Under it more
political, industrial and religious progress was made
than during the reign of any ten other monarchs the
world ever saw. Since Victoria came to the throne in-
dustry has been revolutionized, the condition of the
laboring classes in England has been changed from that
of practical serfdom to political and social freedom ;
the hours of labor have been reduced one-third and
wages doubled ; the English workmen have been made
into active citizens with the full power of the franchise,
politically the equals of any lord in the realm. Religious
freedom has been definitely and irrevocably secured,
and in Ireland at least church and state have been
completely separated, catholics and protestants being
put upon a common level. The principle of democracy
has been thoroughly established, the right of nomina-
tion as well as of election has been taken from a fac-
tion and class and given to the people, so that not only
the house of commons but the officers of municipal
government throughout England, both in their selec-
tion and election, are in the hands of the people. In

220

VICTORIA AND HER REMARKABLE REIGN 221

this respect the political progress in England has
reached a more advanced and more truly democratic
plane than has yet been attained even in this country.

But in all this the queen played practically no part,
and so far as is known she never expressed an approving
opinion of any of the great reforms that shocked Eng-
land during her reign. Her chief virtue in this respect
was in refraining from opposition.

In the case of the abolition of the purchase of com-
missions in the army, she was practically coerced by
Mr. Gladstone. The house of commons^had acted in
favor of abolition, and, knowing the house of lords
would oppose it, he asked the queen to do it by royal
proclamation. She was utterly opposed to the meas-
ure, but he asked her in such a way that her very
frugal shrewdness prevented her from declining. Had
she done so the house of commons might have refused
to vote the supplies for the civil list and various special
allowances for the personal expenditures and perqui-
sites of the royal family, amounting to over a million
pounds a year, which in that case would have to be de-
frayed from her majesty's private resources. Nor did
she refuse to approve the bill to disestablish the Irish
church, nor for that matter any other bill passed by
parliament. She never once exercised the veto power.
But she never forgave Mr. Gladstone for forcing upon
her these disagreeable duties. The popularity of the
great Commoner was too great for even the queen
openly to oppose.

This should not be recorded as particularly against
the queen. She could hardly be expected to be per-
sonally in favor of such progressive steps. She was at
the very center of conservatism. Her whole environ-
ment, interests and thinking were of necessity from the
point of view of conserving the traditions of the mon-
archy, and with it, of course, the status of the aristo-

222 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [March,

cratic classes. It is not surprising, therefore, that she
should on a few occasions have shown reluctance to ap-
prove, or even opposition to, the innovations of a mani-
festly democratic movement. The surprise is, rather,
that she should have acquiesced in so much and op-
posed so little. This is really the secret of her popu-
larity. It was not for what she did but for what she re-
frained from doing that the English people learned to
love her so much.

She was reared in the era of middle- class struggle
for freedom and was queen during the era of the popu-
lar struggle for democracy. Less than three months
after she was born the " Peterloo massacre" occurred,
in which many people were killed and injured for at-
tending a public meeting in Peterloo Square, Man-
chester, to protest against the corn laws and demand
the right to vote. Instead of suppressing the move-
ment this massacre had the effect of intensifying it, and
under the leadership of Henry Hunt, who was chief
speaker at the forbidden meeting, it increased from
that time on. Overthrow of the " rotten-borough "
system and establishment of legitimate representa-
tion in parliament became the objects of an irrepressi-
ble demand which culminated in the passage of the re-
form bill of 1832, giving the middle-class representa-
tion in parliament.

Simultaneously with this movement the factory
system had come into existence. With it came a period
of increasing wealth and power for the middle class and
dire oppression for labor. The poorhouses were emptied
into the factories and little children as well as women
and men were worked sixteen hours a day. The landed
aristocracy, which was intensely jealous of this rapidly
growing middle class, protested against the brutality
of the factory masters under their new system of indus-
try, and thus encouraged the movement for reform of

igoi.] VICTORIA AND HER REMARKABLE REIGN 223

the factory conditions. In 1802 a law was passed pre-
venting children working in factories on Sundays, in
order that they might attend divine service. In 1815
a committee was appointed by the house of commons
to investigate the conditions of factory labor, which re-
sulted in the passage of a law in 1819 prohibiting the
employment of children under nine years of age, and
restricting all workers under sixteen years to twelve
hours a day.

Thus the movement for wholesome industrial legis-
lation had taken practical form at the time the queen
was born. Through the cooperation of the more phil-
anthropic members of the aristocracy and the increas-
ing boldness of the laborers, together with the experi-
ments of Robert Owen, the short-hour movement
pushed forward with increasing vigor. A further legal
reduction of the hours of labor to eleven and a half a
day was secured in 1825, and in 1831 the hours were
reduced to eleven, and night work for all persons under
1 8 years of age abolished. In 1833 this law was ex-
tended to numerous other industries and finally to coal
mines.

Under the leadership of Wilberforce, after twenty-
seven years agitation, slavery was abolished through-
out the British dominions, and in 1835 the chartist
movement was organized, demanding universal suf-
frage, vote by ballot, annual parliaments, equal elec-
toral districts, no property qualifications, and payment
of members of parliament. Thus, when Victoria came
to the throne, she found the middle class possessing the
suffrage, the factory acts in operation, and an organ-
ized movement among the masses for universal suffrage,
the secret ballot and a program amounting practically
to democracy.

All this had a wholesome influence on the young
queen. She had seen the danger of obstinate resist-

224 G UNTON 'S MA GA Z.INE [March,

ance to the popular will in the experience of her uncle,
William IV., who was compelled to promise an un-
limited increase of peers to pass the first reform bill ;
so that when she became queen, to her great credit be
it recorded, she left all the actual resistance to these
rapidly growing demands for reform to the aristocracy
and to parliament. Her non-interference steadily in-
creased her popularity with the people until they
almost came to believe that she favored their demands.
At any rate they felt sure that if they could secure
parliament they would have no trouble with the queen,
for which they learned to love her. The house of
lords, on the contrary, steadily interposed its opposi-
tion to every step of political advance, and thereby
earned the distrust and almost hatred of the common
people in about the same degree that the queen secured
their respect and admiration.

At this time also, England was greatly stirred by
an agitation for the repeal of religious disabilities,
which excluded everybody from holding office except
members of the church of England. This movement
had been growing more intense every year since the
passage of the reform bill, and in 1828 parliament was
compelled to yield to the pressure of the demand of the
non- conformists for the repeal of the "test and cor-
poration act." This act made it necessary to take the
sacrament of the Church of England to hold any office,
national or local, in Great Britain, and therefore ex-
cluded all non- conformists as well as catholics and
Jews from holding any public office whatever. The
repeal of this act gave encouragement to the catholics,
who for years had been struggling for the right of
representation in parliament. Their exclusion had
been accomplished by compelling them to take an oath
subscribing to the protestant religion. A measure for
abolishing this oath had already been rejected many

I9QI.J VICTORIA AND HER REMARKABLE REIGN 225

times by the house of lords, Daniel O'Connell having
been elected twice and prevented from taking his seat.
Under the advice of the Duke of Wellington, as a
choice between " reform and revolution," the house of
lords yielded and catholic emancipation was obtained
in 1829.

Now began that severe contest between the aris-
tocratic land- owning class and the mercantile class,
known as the anti-corn-law agitation. In 1839 the
anti- corn-law league was organized in Manchester. It
had behind it the wealth and vigor of the entire manu-
facturing class of England. The object of this league
was to secure the removal of all duties on foodstuffs,
which meant the adoption of free trade in England.
English manufacturers had outlived the need of protec-
tion, which had been vigorously insisted upon from the
time of Edward III. They had obtained a monopoly of
factory methods, which gave them an advantage over
all foreign competitors, and what they now wanted was
cheap food and foreign markets for manufactured wares.
The chartist movement, on the other hand, was a real
democratic industrial movement for the masses. This
demanded the same political rights for laborers that
their employers had received by the act of 1832. Al-
though it was a continuation of the Henry Hunt move-
ment, which included the repeal of the corn laws, the
chartists had dropped the repeal of the corn laws from
their demands. Their reason for doing so was that the
repealers, who were the manufacturers, wanted cheap
bread only that they might pay low wages. This atti-
tude of the chartists had been created by the bitter
opposition of the whole manufacturing class to the
factory acts.

The first years of the queen's reign, therefore,
were occupied with these two movements, which were
probably more intense than any two movements that

226 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [March,

ever existed simultaneously and were not actual war.
One movement represented the employing class and the
other the laborers and unenfranchised masses. The
landed aristocracy was the mortal enemy of the anti-
corn-law league, and hence, while not the least in sym-
pathy with anything like democracy, it gave some
encouragement to the movement of the masses, partic-
ularly on the line of factory legislation. Lord Ashley,
afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury, who was a traditional
landed aristocrat, a prominent tory and unrelenting
antagonist to the anti- corn-law league, was a member
of the first reform parliament and assumed the leader-
ship of the laborers' demand for factory legislation.
Beginning with 1840 he brought the subject before par-
liament almost every year. In 1844 he succeeded in
getting a law enacted prohibiting the working of chil-
dren under 14 years of age more than half time in any
industry whatever, compelling them to go to school the
other half-day, making attendance on school a requisite
to the right of employment. This law is still in opera-
tion and is one of the best pieces of legislation for the
health, education and social improvement of the Eng-
lish laborers that was ever enacted.

At this same time, under the leadership of John
Bright, who entered politics in 1841 and parliament in
1843, and Richard Cobden, the real leader of the anti-
corn-law movement, the struggle for free trade waxed
hot both inside and outside parliament. In parliament
the annual struggle was being made for more factory
legislation, out of parliament the agitation of the chart-
ists on the one hand and the corn-law repealers on the
other, keeping England in a constant state of ferment.
The chartists were meeting on Sundays in the fields
and on the hilltops near every large town, and the corn-
law repealers were holding mass meetings in all avail-
able halls and theatres in the large cities. During the

i90i.] VICTORIA AND HER REMARKABLE REIGN 227

four months from December, 1842, to March, 1843,
instance, there were 136 mass meetings held in London
at which Bright and Cobden spoke. In many instances
the leaders of the two movements held public debates
and in not a few instances the meetings ended in riot
and bloodshed.

Both of these movements which so stirred England
during the first ten years of the queen's reign culmina-
ted about the same time. In 1846 the corn laws were
repealed. This so exasperated the land owners that
the next year the tories voted for Lord Ashley's ten-
hour bill, to punish the manufacturers for having re-
pealed the corn laws. The chartists attempted revolu-
tion and were suppressed in 1848.

The queen having married, February loth, 1840,
now had the wise cooperation, counsel and support of
Prince Albert, who was sympathetic and sagacious and
always showed an intelligent appreciation of the tem-
per of the English people, — which was very necessary
during the very lively times of the middle of the century.
Instead of the people becoming indifferent after these
great accomplishments, success only whetted the appe-
tite for more. The operation of the ten-hour factory
law was so beneficial to all the laborers affected that it
laid the foundation for wider application of the factory
acts and gained increasing support from all the disin-
terested classes in the community. During the next
ten years, in almost every session parliament was asked
to extend the factory acts to new industries or amend
the law for its better enforcement, resulting in the
creation of a board of factory inspectors. This move-
ment gathered in its support not merely the factory
workers themselves but philanthropists, ministers, edu-
cators and physicians, all of whom testified to the bene-
ficial effects upon the physical health as well as the
mental and moral character of the operatives. But, in

228 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [March,

addition to all this, its economic effect was such as
effectively to disprove every pessimistic prediction
made by its opponents, the leaders of whom were
Bright, Cobden and the anti-corn-law advocates. Its
influence in this respect was perhaps the most mar-
vellous of all, since it actually converted several of the
staunchest opponents of the movement.

On one instance, in 1860, when the motion was be-
fore the house of commons to extend the operation of
the factory acts to hitherto unprotected industries, Mr.
Arthur Roebuck and Sir James Graham, two of the
most conspicuous speakers against the ten-hour law in
1847, rose in the house of commons and testified to
their entire conversion and apologized for having voted
against the ten-hour law. Both men supported the new
measure. Sir James Graham (formerly prime minister)
prefaced his vote by saying: "By the vote I shall give
to-night, I will endeavor to make some amends for the course
I pursued in earlier life in opposing the factory bill." Four
years later, Sir Thomas Bazley, Mr. Gladstone and
others changed their position on the question in the
same manner, and in 1874 with Mr. Gladstone's aid the
hours of labor were further reduced to nine-and-a-half
hours a day. During this period, also, labor unions
advanced from the position of conspiracies before the
law to a legal respectable status, recognized not only
by the laboring class but ultimately among the em-
ployers as a legitimate feature of successful industry.

While the immediate effect of the repeal of the
corn laws was not as expected, when industries were
adjusted to the new conditions the increase of manu-
facturing industries was enormous. Foreign trade
multiplied, labor for mechanics was increased, wages
rose, prosperity and its concomitant welfare prevailed
in all branches of manufacture, but the death blow was
struck to agriculture. The foreign influx of foodstuffs

igoi.] VICTORIA AND HER REMARKABLE REIGN 229

destroyed all energy and success in English agricul-
ture, and the progress of the agricultural class, par-
ticularly the laborers, was effectually arrested. What
is worse, it has essentially remained so until this day.
Wages of agricultural laborers in 1901 are not percep-
tibly higher than they were in 1840. The only ad-
vantage they have reaped from the immense progress
during the last sixty years is what has reached them in
the cheapening of the commodities they consume.
Even in the case of manufacturing industry, the ad-
vantage a free-trade policy gave England seems to have
nearly run its course. Other countries have been in-
troducing modern machinery, operated by labor cheaper
than English manufacturers can command, to such an
extent that manufactured goods are even shipped into
England and sold in the English market. The result
is that to-day England is seriously considering the re-
vival of a quasi-protective tariff policy.

In the sphere of politics, the progress about the
middle of the century was commensurate with the ex-
pansion of manufactures and commerce and the in-
creased welfare of the laborers. The new spirit of
liberty demanded freedom of the press, and in 1855 the
stamp tax on newspapers, which had once been as high
as eight cents a copy, was finally abolished. Moreover,
the struggle for religious rights, which in 1828 had
abolished the test and corporation act and in 1829 given
catholic emancipation, in 1858 removed the last dis-
abilities of the Jews and established their right to sit
in parliament.

On the principle that ' ' the blood of the martyrs is
the seed of the church," the suppressed chartist move-
ment rose again in the form of the cooperative move-
ment. The very year after the chartist leaders were
sent to jail, George Jacob Holyoake and a few of the
unimprisoned disciples of chartism met in Toad Lane,

230 G UNTON'S MA GAZ1NE [March,

Rochdale, and formed a pioneer cooperative society,
which is to-day the greatest cooperative enterprise in
the world. Imbued with the spirit of agitation born of
the chartist and short-hour movements, it became a
part of the policy of the cooperators to furnish a lec-
ture hall and reading room in connection with the co-
operative store, and as a very large number of them
owned their own buildings these lecture halls became
the chief places of public discussion for radical move-
ments, the churches and schoolrooms being reserved
for the opposition.

The importance of this to civilization was soon to
be apparent. When the civil war in this country broke
out, these cooperative lecture halls became the Faneuil
Halls of England, from which the voice of the people
effectively went forth and prevented the English gov-
ernment from siding with the South and giving victory
to the slave power against the union. This was indeed
a period of political education for the unenfranchised
laborers of England; and after the close of the civil
war, when the factories resumed work and prosperity
returned, the effect of this education showed itself in
the new political movements among the masses.

A league was organized in Birmingham, known as
the Birmingham reform league, for the purpose of
agitating another extension of the franchise. The
chief demands of this league were manhood suffrage
and vote by ballot. John Bright, although he had
been an unmitigated opponent of the factory acts, was
the most conspicuous and powerful leader in the move-
ment just referred to regarding the American war and
in this had become a popular hero of the nation. When
the new reform movement began, Mr. Bright gave it
his warmest support and became one of its most prom-
inent advocates. At the election in 18615 parliamentary
reform was made the issue and Mr. Gladstone its

IQOI.] VICTORIA AND HER REMARKABLE REIGN 231

leader. He was elected with a good majority in the
house of commons and immediately proceeded to intro-
duce a reform bill,— not, indeed, as radical as that
demanded by the Birmingham league but sufficiently
so to propose giving the householders in boroughs a
vote. Mr. Gladstone's bill was defeated, he resigned,
and Lord Derby was made prime minister with Disraeli
chancellor of the exchequer.

The avowed object of the new administration was,
as Lord Derby expressed it, ' ' to stem the tide of de-
mocracy." This was another sting to the people, who
had now become irrepressibly committed to an exten-
sion of the franchise. Under the spur of this setback,
Mr. Bright told a meeting of workingmen in London
that if they would ' ' fill the space between Charing
Cross and Westminster no ministry would dare to
refuse their demands." They took his advice, agitation
at once broke out, and in the large cities, particularly
in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, and
throughout the north of England, monster meetings
were held such as are unknown in this country. In
the summer of 1866, among other immense meet-
ings, a demonstration was arranged to be held in
Hyde Park, which had long been used for public gather-
ings. Learning that this was to be an immense affair,
the government made great preparations to stop it, and
gave orders through Scotland Yards to keep the gates
of Hyde Park locked and prevent the meeting from be-
ing held. This so enraged the people, who had hitherto
had no other than the most peaceful intentions, that they
broke the gates, tore down nearly two miles of the iron
railings surrounding the park, and rushed in, trampling
over shrubs and breaking small trees. They held their
meeting, with several platforms, the chief one being un-
der the largest tree in the park, which to this day is
called the "reform tree." That broke the resistance to

232 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [March,

parliamentary reform in the house of commons as com-
pletely as it did the railings around Hyde Park. The
tory ministry introduced a still more radical measure
than the one proposed by Mr. Gladstone, which they
had defeated a few weeks before ; and the second reform
bill became a law in 1867.

This radical change in the electorate, involving a
change in the constitution of the house of commons,
called for a dissolution of parliament, but just before its
dissolution Mr. Gladstone introduced what proved to be
another stirring reform. It consisted of three resolu-
tions calling for the disestablishment of the Irish church.
This was the issue of the campaign, and a bitter issue it
was. The proposition was one more step in the direc-
tion of religious freedom. It took away the state reve-
nues from the church and applied them to education in
Ireland. On that issue Mr. Gladstone was triumphantly
elected, with a majority of 120 in the house of commons.
To this reform, as to nearly every really progressive
step that had been taken during the century, the house
of lords was a force of obstruction. Bishops who had
seats in the house of lords became frantic at the pros-
pect of disestablishing the Irish church, not so much on
account of the church in Ireland but they saw in it the
ultimate disestablishment of the church of England.
However, the spirit of justice and religious freedom had
made successful opposition to disestablishment impossi-
ble. Gladstone and his majority in the new parliament
meant business, the church was disestablished, and reli-
gious equality secured for Ireland.

In 1870 parliament passed a law providing for pop-
ular education. Education, much less free education ex-
cept what was provided by the factory acts, was until then
unknown in England. In 1871 Mr. Gladstone also took
the radical step which led to the abolition of purchase
of commissions in the army, — a direct blow to the influ-

i9oi.] VICTORIA AND HER REMARKABLE REIGN 233

ence of the aristocracy winch fairly infuriated the house of
lords. It was this which led Mr. Gladstone to do the
exceptional thing already referred to, of asking the
queen to abolish the purchase of commissions by royal
proclamation and thus accomplish the desire of the
house of commons and the people independently of the
house of lords.

With all the progress that had taken place, the es-
tablished church in England still had the right to tax
dissenters of every denomination for the support of the
Episcopal church. It was common for rich clergymen
who were land owners with opulent rent rolls to go
around and exact church rates from the poorest inhab-
itants of their parishes, and if they refused have them
sent to jail. Cases of this kind were commonly occur-
ring in different sections of England, of course most
frequently in the agricultural sections where the people
had made the least progress. A long account of one
such case is given by the Suffolk Mercury, in October,

1873, where a rich land-owning clergyman had thrown
a poor man named James Grant into jail because he
refused to pay church rates, and his family were star-
ving for lack of income because of his incarceration.
The next year, 1874, Mr. Gladstone introduced a bill
abolishing this scandalous religious tax, and so removed
the last offensive burden upon the people for the state
church, although the church still enjoys an income of
some ten million pounds a year from state sources.

With every new advance progress moved still more
rapidly, and, since the second reform bill only extended
the suffrage to householders in boroughs and established
a ten-pound qualification for voting outside of counties,
the spirit of democracy again asserted itself and de-
manded the extension of suffrage to all householders
in both county and borough. This was granted in

1874, again under the leadership of Gladstone, thus

234 GUN TON'S MAGAZINE

extending the suffrage to the remnant of the unenfran-
chised classes — the agricultural laborers. This made
England for all practical purposes a democracy.

All in all, the progress England has made during
Queen Victoria's reign is the most remarkable chapter
in the world's history. It is even greater in many re-
spects than the progress that has been made in this coun-
try. At the beginning of her reign the United States
was already a firmly established republic. Religious
freedom and popular education were already accom-
plished facts. Universal suffrage was in general prac-
tice, whereas in England at the beginning of her reign
popular government was unknown. Only the smallest
group of the middle class had any political voice, the
house of commons was practically a packed assembly,
the press was taxed, the right of religious opinion was
vouchsafed only to the believers in the established
church. Laborers had no right to organize or safely to
conduct public meetings in their own interests. In
fact, ignorance, squalor, physical deformity and relig-
ious and political oppression were the lot of the average
English laborer. During her reign, to a very great
extent, despotism has been transformed into democ-
racy, ignorance into intelligence and enlightenment,
poverty into prosperity and social welfare, persecution
into protection ; and the principle of liberty and human
rights, both at home and abroad, has become the ruling
spirit of the English nation. All this has taken place
under Queen Victoria's reign, and for the most part, if
not by her aid, at least without her obstruction, — some-
thing which can be said of no other monarch, and for
which her descendants, as well as the English people
and for that matter the English-speaking race every-
where, may be supremely proud.

THE BROTHERHOOD OF RAILROAD
TRAINMEN

D. L. CEASE, EDITOR " RAILROAD TRAINMEN'S JOURNAL "

The Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, organized
at Oneonta, New York, September 23d, 1883, is a pro-
tective labor and insurance association ; that is, it en-
deavors to secure for its members, and all others in the
same class of service, what is believed in fairness to be
due to them in the way of wages and conditions of em-
ployment, and it conducts an insurance department on
the mutual assessment plan, in which every member,
physically qualified, must participate. The organiza-
tion is not, strictly speaking, a trade organization,
although its members come from the train service of
the steam railroads and each member must be em-
ployed thereon as either conductor, baggageman, brake-
man or switchman. The three last mentioned classes
of service predominate, for the conductors have a well-
established organization in which the great majority of
that branch of the train service is to be found. Gener-
ally speaking, the conductors who are members of the
Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen are those who have
been members of that organization while in the lower
grades of the service and have retained their member-
ship rather than seek other affiliation.

The history of labor organization is very much the
same and divides the organized labor movement into
two classes, namely, the successful organizations and
the unsuccessful ones. There can be no middle ground
between effectiveness and impotency, for a labor
organization must be either one or the other. It does
not necessarily follow that, to be successful, an organ-

235

236 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [March,

ization must revolutionize the working conditions of
the trade it represents but it is essential to its success
that it protect wages and working conditions, except
when, because of business depression or adverse trade
conditions, it is forced by business exigency temporarily
to accept unsatisfactory conditions. A labor organiza-
tion may be entirely unsuccessful in improving the
wage-earning capacity of its members and yet, because
of its educative opportunities afforded the members, it
may be eminently successful in every other respect.
An organization failure can generally be traced to per-
sonal ambition and jealousy on the part of its leaders,
inability to govern its affairs intelligently, participation
in partisan politics, and internecine dissensions that
ultimately lead to disruption and loss of influence.

The Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen feels en-
titled to recognition as a successful labor organization,
and for the reason that within the few years of its be-
ing it has accomplished more than usually falls to the
credit side of a labor organization account.

The Brotherhood started its career with the ex-
pressed belief that there was no reason for serious dif-
ferences between the employer and the employee, and
it included in its declaration of principles this state-
ment : ' ' Persuaded that it is for the interest both of
our members and their employers that a good under-
standing should at all times exist between the two, it
will be the constant endeavor of this organization to
establish mutual confidence and create and maintain
harmonious relations," and the organization can lay
honest claim to the fact that it has never repudiated its
declaration.

The organization, by its practical methods of fair
dealing, has overcome to a large extent what opposi-
tion was against it at its inception ; it has secured to its
members all the advantages that accrue from increased

igoi.j BROTHERHOOD OF RAILROAD TRAINMEN 237

wages and improved conditions of employment ; it has
secured favorable legislation in some instances, and in
particular was very effective in securing the passage of
the automatic safety -appliance act, protecting trainmen
in their employment ; it has furnished its members
insurance at cost and, what can be considered as a most
worthy achievement, it has raised the moral and intel-
lectual standard of its members and their families and
in consequence has advanced them to a higher social
position. The organization has been a school of prac-
tical economics in which the members have learned
many valuable lessons on the relative questions of work
and wages ; and, in the knowledge that differences are
not all one-sided, the organization has sought to adjust
all questions that have arisen between the employer
and the employee in an amicable manner. It has stood
fast to its ideas of the advantage of conference, and in
the failure of an agreement it has sought to adhere to
its principles pertaining to conciliation, mediation and
arbitration, rather than indulge in serious controversy
with the employer.

The protective feature of the organization has been
instrumental in accomplishing the most satisfactory
results. Before there was an organization the men in
the train service were paid ridiculously low wages and
were subject to the arbitrary performances of their
superiors, who exercised their authority to discharge or
suspend without question. No redress was possible
and the employees were absolutely helpless against any
decree that might be formulated by the employer.

To demonstrate briefly what has been done, the
statement can be made that at present the members of
the Brotherhood have secured contracts upon all of the
leading roads of this country and Canada. The majority
of the agreements bear the signatures of the managers
and the committees representing the employees, but

238 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [March,

there are a few companies that do not care to enter into
a written agreement but which have made verbal agree-
ments; and, whether written or verbal, it can be said
to the credit of both employers and employees that the
spirit and letter of the contracts have been generally
observed.

These contracts represent increased wages, shorter
hours, improved conditions of service, and guarantee
promotion if ability warrants, in addition to which they
assure the right of appeal against unjust treatment and
generally cover all questions pertaining to the rules
governing the service. An average increase in wages
of thirty-five per cent, has been secured since the for-
mation of the organization, and when it is remembered
that this statement applies to all the employees in the
service as well as to the members of the Brotherhood
the far-reaching results can be appreciated.

There has been so much said of the arbitrary per-
formances of labor organizations that a word concerning
the method of procedure may not be out of place here.
An agreement is first undertaken by the committee
representing the men, asking for an audience with the
management. When the date is fixed the manager and
the committee meet and go over the proposition sub-
mitted by the committee. The meeting is a business
one and opinions concerning the matters under discus-
sion are freely expressed by both sides. If, after a
hearing and consideration of the question, the proposi-
tions are conceded or satisfactorily modified, the agree-
ment is concluded and the committee returns to its du-
ties in the service. Should there be a failure to agree,
the committee will request the presence of the chief
executive officer of the organization to assist them in
effecting a settlement. Generally the manager, that
officer, and the committee will arrange the questions in
dispute, and many managers prefer ^to have the attend-

i90i.] BROTHERHOOD OF RAILROAD TRAINMEN 239

ance of the officer, since the experience and knowledge
of prevailing conditions possessed by him greatly assists
to facilitate the business in hand.

But if it so happen that no agreement can be reached
and the questions in controversy are of vital importance
to the employees, the result of the conference is given
to the men and they decide whether it shall be pressed
further or dismissed. If they decide to continue the
affair, the question of striking (leaving work peaceably
and in a body) is submitted to a secret ballot of the men.
If two-thirds of them vote for a strike, and the vote re-
ceives the sanction of the grand master and the com-
mittee, a strike may be declared, but not until every
effort that is consistent without sacrifice of honor and
self-respect shall have been made to avert trouble. The
organization is opposed to a strike and provides, as a
penalty for indulging in an illegal strike, expulsion
from the Brotherhood.

It has been necessary to indulge in two strikes, but
to-day the men have a good contract on each system
where the strike occurred and both employer and em-
ployee have the highest regard for each other. The
organization was forced in each instance to take the po-
sition it did, and I believe that at this time the officers
of each company appreciate that fact.

The Brotherhood is desirous of maintaining friendly
relations with the employers and will always contribute
its part toward that end.

I know of no more convincing argument to present
to bear out this statement of the good feeling existing
between the employers and the Brotherhood than to
point to the fact that, aside from four railways with an
aggregate mileage of 6,500 miles, out of the (approxi-
mately) 200,000 miles in the United States and Canada,
the relations are harmonious and have been brought
about by conference and contract. What opposition

240 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [March,

there is is of the evasive kind, and I feel perfectly safe
in saying that it was founded in a mistaken idea of the
purpose of the organization,

The insurance feature of the Brotherhood deserves
special mention, since the hazardous nature of the em-
ployment of the members prevents them from enjoying
the advantages offered to men in less dangerous voca-
tions by fraternal associations. This department is
operated from the fund raised for the conduct of the
general business of the organization, and every dollar
received on the assessments is paid back in the payment
of claims. At this writing the amount paid reaches the
respectable sum of $6,250,000. Insurance is provided
against disability and death, at a rate of $20 per thou-
sand per year. Three classes of policies are issued ;
namely, for $400, $800 and $1,200. The great good
that has come from this feature of the organization can-
not be appreciated until a realization is had of the
benefits that have accrued to thousands of the depend-
ents of the disabled and deceased members.

The organization publishes a monthly journal,
known as the Railroad Trainmen s Journal. It is sent to
each member of the organization and to subscribers
who desire it. It is intended for the general informa-
tion of the members and their families and calculated
to furnish them with reading matter along the lines
that are adjudged to be of particular interest to them.
It has been a very effective means of educating them
along social and economic lines and has led them to
become close students of social problems. I believe
that, as a class, they are more devoted to such matters
of interest than any other one class of workers.

I have prepared the following brief statement con-
cerning the membership, the insurance carried, and its
cost, for each year of the organization :

igoi.] BROTHERHOOD OF RAILROAD TRAINMEN 241

STATEMENT OF MEMBERSHIP, COST OF INSURANCE, NUMBER AND AMOUNT
OF CLAIMS PAID IN THE BROTHERHOOD UP TO DEC, 31, 1900.

°si

°i|

1*

to
I

"3

0,0 fc

°*>>P«

5

0

Fiscal Period.

lis

111

fi

CM
O
!H

Amount Paid
on Claims.

a^ *

g*J

•S'S10"

a?

^ /v^ ^

fl) flj ^

o C S

B£

S °

S««s

gfl-C

55

188 '8

GO I

870

$ 6,596 82

l884-'85 .

V

4 766

w / 7
4,7O3

$16 oo

17

44,976 63

i885-'86

*TJ / ^^

*T» i^J
7.QI4

21 66

83

QQ.IOO OO

i886-'87

8*622

/ » y X4r

8,476

16 25

*/

147

V ;7>

123,106 25

1887 '88

w> *T / ^^

16 oo

145

253,318 oo

i888-'89 . , . ...

lV^62

Il'l22

21 OO

250

274,027 25

i88Q-'oo .

14,057

13,837

22 OO

•** jv

271

368,637 05

1890— "91

*-T>v'J /

20, 409

20,198

21 OO

366

1,014,424 oo

Sep.i,'9itoAug.3i,'93

28,540

28,219

23 oo

J W

1,014

590,310 20

Sep. 1/93 toDec. 31/94

22,359

22,070

15 83

533

( A 22 50

1805-96 .

22,326

21,846

] B 22 50

751

893,407 89

( C 20 00

/ 3 *

A 22 50

l8o7-'o8 .

11 185

28,198

B 22 5O

028

1,042,014 44

C 2000

V

A 22 50

1800— 'oo

41 225

AI <f)K

B 22 5O

£ 3l6

1,419,828 42

4O» •** j

C 20 00

Total . .

5,830

$6,129,746 95

Two assessments only of $i each for year 1884.

From Aug. i, 1895, to July 31, 1897, there were three classes of in-
surance: A, $400; B, $800; C, $1,200. Members had option of carrying
any or all of them.

In its operation the Brotherhood is thoroughly
democratic, it interferes with neither religious nor po-
litical opinions, it endeavors to educate its members,
that they may adapt themselves to the changing social
and economic conditions. It has raised the financial,
moral and intellectual standing of its members and
their families, as can be attested by their comfortable
homes, their high standing in the communities in which
they live, and the education that each family head is
trying to give to his children, a combination of advan-

242 G UNTON'S MA GAZINE

tages that shows for itself in the general condition of
the families of our railroad employees.

It has not been my purpose to elaborate the princi-
ples of the organization but simply to present the gen-
eral idea of the Brotherhood and its attitude toward the
employer, together with such other information as
seemed to be of interest. The policy of the Brother-
hood is one of fairness in all things, and in following it
out it has endeavored to be just and courteous to the
employer and at the same time make every endeavor to
secure each possible advantage for its members. As it
commenced with its platform of amity and fairness,
so it has continued and is now, standing for the indus-
trial peace that is so necessary to industrial success.

UNAMERICAN STATESMANSHIP

The police law just enacted by the republican leg-
islature of New York, under the leadership of Governor
Odell, is a bold partisan violation of the essential prin-
ciples of local self-government and is contrary to the
spirit and genius of American institutions. The act
abolishes the present board of police commissioners and
substitutes a single commissioner, who is to be ap-
pointed by the mayor but who can be arbitrarily re-
moved by the governor without cause or right of hear-
ing. A person once so removed is declared forever in-
eligible for reappointment. This means that, unless
the mayor appoints a commissioner who is agreeable to
the governor for whatever reason, the governor can
arbitrarily remove him. The logic of this is that the
commissioner must be obedient to the governor and the
powers the governor represents, rather than to the
mayor and the citizens of the municipality who alone
are interested.

The passage of this recklessly partisan measure has
given Tammany, whose administration is a reeking
scandal, the opportunity to pose as the champion of the
people's right of self-government, and it has promptly
taken advantage of the opportunity. Mayor Van Wyck's
veto of the police bill was a strong and almost states-
manlike document. It exposed the partisan object of
the measure, its manifest evasion of the constitution
and its suppression of the right of the people to local
self-government. The mayor had tradition, principle
and the authoritative declaration of American states-
men in his favor ; nay more, he had the history of con-
stitution-making and the interpretation of the courts to
support his rejection of the measure. If the republi-

343

244 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [March,

can legislature and governor had especially designed to
come to the rescue of Tammany politicians in their
effort to get another lease of power in the metropolis, a
more effective method could hardly have been devised.
It puts the republican party in the position of an enemy
to home rule and leaves the defence of the people's
rights to Tammany.

In passing this measure the republican legislature
does not represent the expressed or implied desire of
the people. No such proposition for taking the gov-
ernment away from the people was hinted at during
the campaign ; yet, before the legislature convened, it
was ''authoritatively" announced that a single-headed
police commission bill would be passed before the end
of February. This was not the result of any public
discussion of the subject by the people, not even of
discussion among the members of the legislature, but
"an announcement of what the legislature would do"
by an individual who was not a member of either branch
of the legislature nor even of the state government.
This, therefore, is not a republican measure in the
sense of representing the opinion or policy of the re-
publican party, much less of the people of the city or
state of New York, but it is the product of the personal
management of the republican organization, which de-
termines the nomination of candidates for both branches
of the legislature and consequently controls their
action.

It may be truly urged that the police force in New
York city, under the control of Tammany, is an organ-
ized assistance to crime and fraud, that it is the black-
mailing guardian of vice, the protector of crime to the
neglect of the interests of decency, honesty and the
wholesome forces of society, and if the indictment were
made twice as severe it could not overstate the case.
It is a desperate problem, but will the mere

igoi.] UNAMERICAN STATESMANSHIP 245

transferring the control of the police force from
New York city to Albany furnish any remedy?
If we have reached the pass that a recourse to despot-
ism is necessary to correct the vices of democracy and
save society, we must at least be assured that the newly
created autocrat will be clean, honest and efficient.
With the present condition of organized politics in
New York, however, this new law simply divides the
power between the two political organizations. The
power which announced that this bill would become a
law before the end of February is the power which
would control the action of the governor in his inter-
ference with the police department. We have just had
conclusive evidence that this power which governs
republican politics is as unclean as Tammany itself. It
corrupts the primaries and coerces delegates, it dictates
and sells nominations and blackmails corporations ; in
short, it lives and thrives upon the same debasing
political methods which Tammany has reduced to a
science. Under such conditions, to give the removal
of the commissioner of police to a creature of the re-
publican organization is simply to increase the power
of that organization to force Tammany into a better
division of the spoils.

It may be said that the power of arbitrary removal
would seldom be used without proper cause, but the
methods of Tammany are such that a proper cause
could nearly always be found to exist, and consequently
a division of the spoils could easily be exacted as the
price of approval of a Tammany appointee.

There is little reason to believe that anything
would be gained for clean government by placing the
power of arbitrary removal of local officials in the
hands of state or even of national authorities. Evi-
dence is fresh in the minds of the people of a case
where an appeal to the president, whom most people

246 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [March,

regard as honest, utterly failed to secure recognition
and action against the corrupters of our political ma-
chinery, although the very federal official who used his
position to intimidate delegates, defeat the will of the
people and destroy the very virtue of popular election,
was of his own appointing and absolutely subject to the
president's power of removal. The mayors, governors,
and even president are for the most part creatures of this
star-chamber political machinery. For political pre-
ferment even great journals bow to its power, and
either attack virtue or suppress the exposure of vice as
the interests of " personal politics" may dictate.

The first encounter between the two organizations
for power and spoils under this new bill has already
taken place. The police bill, through abolishing the
police commission and office of chief, was intended
permanently to remove Chief Devery and compel the
Tammany mayor to put the police force of New York
in cleaner hands, but it entirely miscarried in the first
day of its existence. The character of the police bill is
so perniciously partisan and undemocratic throughout
that it emboldened Tammany's mayor to follow his
very able veto by complete official defiance, and in less
than twenty -four hours after the bungling measure
became a law Devery was practically reinstated. The
mayor promptly appointed one of the most offensive
Tammany partisans to the position of single police
commissioner, and the new commissioner within a few
hours appointed the obnoxious Devery as his first
deputy, which made him practically chief of police.

So that, in the first instance, the bungling scheme
to make Tammany "come down" has utterly failed.
The victory is completely with Tammany. The whole
performance is so clumsy and partisan that it justifies
the people in distrusting the republican party as man-
aged by the "machine,1' and regarding it as in no

i9oi.J UNAMERICAN STA TESMANSHIP 247

/

important respect superior to Tammany. This meas-
ure is bad politics as well as low statesmanship. It
represents neither the republican party nor public
opinion in the city or state. It is a bold but clumsy
effort to use the legislature as an instrument of a
politically degraded organization.

The people are honest ; they believe in and desire
clean politics, honest administration and a high stand-
ard of public life. They have no part in or sympathy
with the methods of Tammany or the republican or-
ganization ; they are the patient and discouraged vic-
tims of both. The people are honestly, anxiously, but
doubtfully waiting for some method of emancipation
from the dishonorable despotism thus exercised in the
name of democracy. There is no hope of accomplish-
ing any real reform in this direction by placing arbi-
trary power in the hands of any segregated political
authority. The virtue of the nation is in the people.
They furnish the moral fibre, conscience and integrity
of our public life. Any reform, therefore, which shall
impart cleanliness and virtue to our politics and public
life must proceed by placing the government and re-
sponsibility for honest and competent administration in
more direct touch with the people.

The road to home rule and direct responsibility of
public officials is not in substituting governor for mayor
but in making the mayor and the mayor alone responsible
to the people for all municipal appointments and giving
him the power of prompt removal. Then, if he act
not the cause of his inaction will be obvious, the place
of responsibility easy to locate, and the remedy directly
in the hands of the people. In order to make this pos-
sible, however, the people must have the power to act ;
they must not only have the power to remove a bad
mayor but they must have power to nominate as well as
elect a good one. This cannot be secured, and the con-

248 G UNTON'S MA GAZINE

trol of the people over the government fully established,
until the power to dictate nominations is put beyond
the reach of office-holding " organizations " by substi-
tuting nomination by petition for the present method
of party conventions. Let the people once have the
free and protected right to vote for the nomination of
public officers as they now have to vote for their elec-
tion, and the power of the "boss" in politics will be
gone. Then, and not till then, will the virtue, con-
science and character of the people be truly repre-
sented in the government.

EDITORIAL CRUCIBLE

IT is ESPECIALLY unfortunate for Mr. Odell that he
should have followed Theodore Roosevelt as governor.
The contrast is painful and emphasizes the fact that Mr.
Odell's promotion from chairman of the state committee
to governor was a mistake. He seems desirous of doing
something striking, and thus far it has been strikingly
poor. His police bill is a discreditable botch. Instead of
making Odell a hero it has put Van Wyck in the saddle
and given Tammany an opportunity to pose as the
friend of self-government. Governor Odell's much her-
alded and badly digested tax bills show the same lack
of statesmanship, and, as if this were not enough, he is
now credited with urging the revival of last year's
mortgage-tax bill. If it be really true that he is not an
instrument of the ' 'organization," some one should
whisper a little sane advice in his ear.

MR. BRYAN SEEMS to have the notion that Cuban in-
dependence means absolute sovereignty. To admit
that would be to abrogate the Monroe doctrine alto-
gether. Independence does not necessarily mean abso-
lute and unqualified sovereignty. Greece is an indpen-
dent state, but it could not exist an hour but for the
interference of Europe in its behalf. Nearly all sover-
eignty is subject to the general peace and interests of
other nations. When Turkey defeated Greece it was
not permitted to do what it pleased with the little
kingdom. When Japan defeated China it was not per-
mitted to dictate the entire terms of peace. When Rus-
sia conquered Turkey, with its victorious armies at the
gates of Constantinople, it was not permitted to dictate
the terms of peace ; the peace and future of other na-
tions had to be considered. For the same reason that we

249

250 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [March,

would not permit Spain endlessly to protract a harrow-
ing war in Cuba, we should not permit Cuba to invite or
allow any monarchical power to have possession of the
island. Cuban independence should mean the freedom
of Cuba to govern Cuba, but to govern it consistently
with peaceful relations with the United States. If
Cuba wants the right to sell the island back to Spain or
to England or to Russia it should not, and in accordance
with the Monroe doctrine and the very principle of our
interference it would not, be permitted so to do.

IN 1899 the Minnesota legislature passed a law pro-
viding for nominations by petition in counties having
200,000 or more inhabitants. The only county in the
state having the requisite population appears to have
been the one in which Minneapolis is situated. Last
fall, therefore, Minneapolis held an election under this
new primary law. It demonstrated one fact conclu-
sively : namely, that when the people realize that they
have a right to vote and that their votes will count and
not be offset by any coercing conspiracy they will attend
the primaries with about the same interest that they have
in voting on election day. In Minneapolis 32,000 people
attended the primaries and voted for the nomination of
candidates. This was more than the entire city vote
cast at the preceding election for governor. The Minne-
sota law appears to have the defect of not limiting the
primaries to the previously enrolled members of the re-
spective parties ; hence they are still exposed to the evil
of "padded rolls" so prevalent in New York previous to
the new primary law, which provides that only the en-
rolled voters of the respective parties shall be permitted
to vote at a party's primaries. With this exception the
Minnesota law for nominations by the people appears to
be a complete success. No time should be lost in pass-
ing a similar law in New York ; it should be passed be-

igoi.] EDITORIAL CRUCIBLE 251

fore the legislature adjourns in order that the people
may have the benefit of it in the coming municipal elec-
tions.

THE MACON Telegraph does not entirely like our
criticism of its appeal to the South to adopt political ex-
clusion, and rises to explain with a column-and-a-half
editorial which touches the high-water mark of southern
eloquence. There is always something delightfully
frank about the southerner. While the Telegraph could
not relish our remark that its ' 'proposition is provincial-
ism and not statesmanship" it frankly admits that its
"impassioned appeal'' was made in a moment of despair.
That is all right. We all have moments of despair and
say things that we do not expect will be held against us
forever. Of course our contemporary could not let the
occasion go by without delivering a soul-stirring oration
on the horrors of reconstruction, too much of which is
painfully true. But it does get in some very wholesome
characterizations of the Altgelds and Crokers of the
democratic party and justly draws the line with pride
between these and the statesmen of whom the South is
so proud. We do not mind at all the few hard things
the Telegraph says, so long as it did not really mean to
be taken seriously on that "political secession" proposi-
tion. If the South will only encourage its factories to
adopt the program of the North Carolina manufacturers,
of shortening the working day and promoting the edu-
cation of factory children, nothing will stop her from
fulfiling the Telegraph's prediction that : "In her own
good time she will become the garden spot and pride of
the greatest nation of the earth.''

"Where wealth accumulates there men decay . . . The prosperity
of the few means the robbery of the many." GEO. E, McNEiL.

THIS MIGHT have been expected from a young hot-
head, an ignorant proletariat, or from an impulsive

252 GUNTOWS MAGAZINE [March,

miner or factory operative, but from the first deputy
chief of the Massachusetts Labor Bureau and "sage of
the labor movement/' such utterances are unpardonable.
They are contradicted by all experience. Wealth is
steadily accumulating in this country and men are not
decaying but are progressing; men are stronger and
better and freer now than they ever were before wealth
began to accumulate. The nation in which wealth does
not accumulate is a nation of poverty and barbarism.
Nor is it true that ' 'the prosperity of the few means
the robbery of the many.'' A broader spirit among the
employing class might have made a greater proportion of
the increasing wealth go to the poor, but it is not true
that their wealth has been acquired by * 'robbing' ' the
poor. The welfare of the masses has progressed with
the prosperity of the capitalists. Labor leaders like Mr.
Gompers, Mr. Maguire and others, who have studied
the economics of the labor question and attach more im-
portance to fact than to rhetoric, constantly proclaim
this. Laborers have no interest in stopping the "accu-
mulation of wealth" nor in preventing "the prosperity
of the few, ' ' but have an interest in seeing to it that the
prosperity which at first comes to the few should be
rapidly extended to the millions. It is in the nature of all
progress that the benefits first come to the few and then
extend to the larger groups until they reach the whole
community. Empty epigrams may sway a meeting but
they can never really help a cause.

THE POPE'S recent encyclical against socialism is
another evidence of his progressive statesmanship. His
recognition of the political tendency toward democracy,
and the economic tendency among the masses for or-
ganized action in their own interests, gives him the
right to speak as a friend of society and of civilization,
not merely for the upper class but for the masses. In

igoi.] EDITORIAL CRUCIBLE 253

now encouraging the masses in desiring a more liberal
participation in the benefits of industrial progress, and
at the same time defending the rights of property and
condemning the doctrine of socialism as inequitable,
unchristian and uneconomic, he has rendered a real
service to Christendom.

Rash socialism, which rests primarily upon unen-
lightened feeling, bolstered by perverted economic
reasoning, is the most dangerous force with which so-
ciety will have to deal in the first half of the twentieth
century. If the great leaders among the capitalists in
this country and Europe would act with as much in-
telligence and discrimination as the pope exhibits
towards the present industrial movement, many of the
ominous tendencies which threaten society would dis-
appear. The spirit of socialism is abroad and it cannot
be stamped out by arrogance and force. It must be led
by reason, experience and ethics into the light of true
social progress, upon the principle that the legitimate
success of any means the improvement of all, and that
no class can permanently improve its position by in-
juring that of any other. While it is clear that the
destruction of capital means the poverty of the masses,
it is equally manifest that the prosperity and progress
of the masses is the only sure foundation of permanent
success for capital.

IT is MORE than encouraging to learn from Mr.
Edward H. Sanborn, general manager of the National
Association of Manufacturers, that the mill owners and
managers in the South have become alive to the evil of
child labor and are willing to cooperate in any measure
to exclude children under twelve years of age from the
factories, and still further that they are ready to adopt
the ten-hour working day. To this end, Mr. Sanborn

254 G UNTON'S MA GAZ1NE

says, an agreement has been signed by one hundred
North Carolina manufacturers, as follows :

"We, the undersigned, cotton-mill owners and managers, agree to
the following, taking effect March i, 1901:

"(i) That one week's work shall not exceed sixty- six hoars.

" (2) That no children less than twelve years old shall work in a
cotton mill during the term of an available public school.

" Provided, this shall not apply to children of widows or physically
disabled parents; provided further, that ten years shall be the lowest
limit at which children may be worked under any circumstances.

" (3) That we will cooperate with any feasible plan to promote the
education of working people in the state, and will cheerfully submit to
our part of the burdens and labors to advance the cause of general edu-
cation.

" (4) On the basis of the above agreements of the cotton-mill
owners and managers, we hereby petition the legislature not to pass any
labor laws at this session of the legislature."

This is the most remarkable thing of its kind that
ever occurred. Individual employers have voluntarily
reduced the hours of labor and otherwise improved the
conditions of their laborers, but never before did manu-
facturers organize to bring about a general shortening
of the hours of labor, restriction of the employment of
children, and compulsory education for working chil-
dren. If the above be true, to the manufacturers of
North Carolina belongs the honor of initiating such a
wise and beneficent policy among employers. It is
rather natural that the people of the South should be
opposed to restricting the hours of labor by law, because
by tradition and education they are opposed to state in-
terference. The only way to prevent such legislation
is for manufacturers throughout the South to adopt
the program of their North Carolina brethren. It is
not important to laborers which way the shorter day
comes ; it is only important that it come. In proposing
voluntarily to adopt a ten-hour system, North Carolina
manufacturers are taking the position of the real leaders
of social progress in the South.

OUR EDUCATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY
IN CUBA

LEONORA BECK ELLIS

One immediate effect of a protracted and vital war-
fare in any country, no matter how just the contest,
how sublime the principle in which it originates, is
to bring upon the stage of national action a tumultuous,
often a lawless generation. This could scarcely be
otherwise in Cuba, where through half a century the
savage fire of one struggle for freedom has only died
away to let another flash up from the embers.

Barely thirteen months and a few days had elapsed
since Havana's joyous demonstrations on the hauling
down of Castile's royal colors to make way for the re-
publican stars and stripes on the ramparts of old Morro
and the governor general's palace when an unexpected
scene at the Albisu Theatre startled, angered, and
momentarily embittered hundreds of Americans, both
resident and visiting in that city. Pit, boxes, and gal-
leries were crowded, and, the play being pleasing, the
audience was good-humored. At the close there was a
spectacular finale, and the flags of many nations were
run up seriatim, to be received with cheers and ap-
plause. Each one met its bravas and hand- clappings
without counter demonstration until the beautiful sym-
bol of our republic made its appearance. The Ameri-
cans cheered and clapped loudly, a few Cubans joined
them without warmth, but above all sounded a spon-
taneous outburst of hisses, in which boxes kept gal-
leries company while the pit outvied both.

"Cowards and traitors" the Americans cried. But
is it so? Do the many incidents of this and similar

255

256 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [March,

kind daily recorded, some more trifling, some apparent-
ly more momentous, go to prove that the Cuban nation
hates our flag and our people as mean spirits often hate
their benefactors? Certainly this sort of proof cannot
weigh with thoughtful minds.

But two things clearly indicated by these and kin-
dred demonstrations are, first, that long strife in the
island- country has fomented turbulence and pushed it
to the front; second, that four centuries of unkind treat-
ment and unfair dealing on the part of Spain towards
this child of hers have of necessity bred a suspicion
difficult for any guardian to allay, a distrust lasting as
her wardship towards all purposes that cannot be marked
out by definite time and method limits. Both these re-
sults we should put ourselves in the attitude of compre-
hending, since each constitutes an element of value in
the solution of the educational problem which the Unit-
ed States government now finds itself ethically bound
to work out in Cuba.

It must be assumed that no man of righteous
decisions will deny the existence of our responsi-
bility towards the next generation of Cubans — and
this implies our responsibility towards all Cubans
of the future — in the matter of their education,
mental, moral, civic, spiritual. The present paper
is not written to set forth an argument leading up
to a point already so well established, but rather to
give a short exposition of what has been accomplished
in the discharge of this responsibility during the time
intervening since the ratification of the Spanish treaty.

In order to comprehend clearly what has been done
one must understand first what material there was to
work with and how it had been affected by antecedent
influences.

The educational system instituted and conducted
in Cuba by Spain was far from being a thing that any

IQOI.] ED UCA TIONAL RESPONSIBILITY IN CUBA 257

mother country could be proud of or any colony grow
strong and intelligent under. If one looks at it closely
he needs but little additional help from his knowledge
of the oppressive taxes imposed upon the island, the
revenues tyrannically extorted, the inadequate and un-
righteous judiciary it suffered from, the false priesthood
that added to the sum of licentiousness instead of holy
living, in order to trace unmistakeably the paths by
which this people have arrived at the present low plane
of productive industry, domestic and civic virtue, in-
tellectual stamina, and spiritual striving. He can no
more be surprised that 72 per cent, of the islanders can-
not read or write than he is surprised at the statistics
of illegitimacy among them, or the ominous prevalence
of miscegenation, or the boasted fact that the most ad-
mired tacos or "swells" of Havana have attained su-
premacy through their fame as duelists, gamblers,
and roues. In fact, he is more inclined to be astonish-
ed that 28 per cent, can read and write, as he is at first
moved to pleasant wonder that the island has bred
some illustrious patriots, and that there are homes in Ha-
vana, Matanzas, indeed scattered all over Cuba, which
shelter virtue, love and unselfishness equal to any in
earth's more favored spots.

Von Humboldt's famous educational proposition
is not more true than its converse ; for whatever is in-
troduced into the schools of a people will surely be
wrought into the intrinsic fabric of that people's nation-
al existence. Look at the only schools Cuba has known
in the three hundred and ninety-nine years that have
dragged over her since the planting of her first colony,
and see if they were such institutions as would foster
courage and honor and truth, industry, temperance,
virtue, strenuous moral purposes.

For the girls belonging to the classes that are sup-
posed to have educational needs, there have always

258 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [March,

been conventual schools. In these the future women of
the nation were shaped by nuns and priests of two
classes: those who knew nothing of the world, and
those who knew nothing of the world saving its wicked-
ness, to the sum total of which they often contributed
incalculably. Yet, upon women whose hearts, char-
acters and intellects were molded by the unnatural
forces pent up within these convent walls, has develop-
ed for ages the part of rearing those who were to con-
stitute the chief body of citizens of the island.

The boys of the upper classes have had some advan-
tages over their sisters. The provincial institutions
have offered fair training for their minds, and Havana
University has opened its doors to some 1,400 of them
annually. There was no savor of anything Cuban in
these institutions: everything was Spanish; all teach-
ing tended towards the ultimate end of setting Spain
upon the pinnacle of the world.

Thus much for the more fortunate classes, which
include in their ranks comparatively few genuine Cu-
bans, being largely filled with the peninsular and
insular Spanish. But what of "the masses, " which
means here the people themselves?

No need to say that for centuries there was noth-
ing in the way of education set within their reach. But
when the spread of intelligence, the general diffusion
of knowledge and rapid establishment of schools in
other countries had forced hard taskmasters to do
something here, a weak and false system of public
institutions was tardily built up. A review of this
would scarcely prove profitable for the general reading
public. It is sufficient to state that Cuban municipali-
ties paid extravagantly for the maintenance of the
system, but Spanish school inspectors and boards,
Spanish commissioners of education, superintendents,
and frequently teachers held all the power and dictated

igoi.] ED UCA TIONAL RESPONSIBILITY IN CUBA 259

every item down to the minutest in organization, man-
agement, employment of funds, courses of study,
standards of scholarship and discipline.

By Spain's Cuban census of 1887, which gave the
island a population of 1,631,687, there were 775 public
schools in operation. This may or may not be trust-
worthy. At any rate, in 1890, when the most authori-
tative educational statistics of the world showed that
23 per cent, of the people of the United States were
attending school, by the same showing there were only
3^ per cent, of Cuba's population engaged likewise.
Yet a lower point was still to be touched, — for an offi-
cial statement promulgated some time before our
occupation of Cuba announced that only 449 public
schools were in operation in the whole island, and it is
undoubtedly true that most of those were but semblances
of schools. Only 4,000 children were in these schools.
The instruction given under this system was as inade-
quate and unsatisfactory as could be expected from
such conditions. An investigation of it will reward
the student who is seeking to locate the most fatal germ
of Spain's decay.

Turning from such a view with the solemnity upon
us which it necessarily engenders, we are likely to ask
ourselves very sternly if we have done as much better
as the conditions and capabilities involved make it meet
we should do. We assumed this responsibility with
eyes wide open, senses awake to its gravity, mind
measuring its far-reachingness. If we have met it
weakly, if we are discharging it ineffectually, if we
have failed to give Cuba a system of schools — or, more,
an adequate system of good schools — if we are neglect-
ing to infuse into those schools the eternal principles
which we claim it is our desire to see the national life
of the Cubans imbued with, then the shame is undying,
the stain upon our national honor ineffaceable.

260 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [March,

It will be remembered that the United States took
formal possession of the Cuban forts and government
buildings on January ist, 1899. But the final ratifica-
tion of the treaty with Spain was not accomplished until
April nth following our occupation. In the chaotic
state in which matters financial, industrial, municipal,
national and individual were found, it was impossible
to institute any school reform before the summer holi-
days were on. In truth, those first few months were
quite full enough with dispensing daily bread to 150,-
ooo starvelings whose wretched bodies demanded the
earliest care. When September came, the Americans
in authority were not unmindful of the schooldays so
full of meaning and import ; they did not fail to grasp
the fact that a generation could slip from neglected
childhood into illiterate and probably criminal manhood
and womanhood in the brief time required to adjust a
few urgent questions of government and finance.

Mr. Alexis E. Frye, a man of experience in the
educational world and possessing standards as high as
his ability is great, accepted the difficult position of
superintendent of the schools of Cuba, and set himself
to his arduous task with the zeal and efficiency marking
men of his stamp. Yet so great were the obstacles to
be surmounted, especially that constituted by the lack
of available revenues, that in spite of heroic endeavors
December had come, and the eighth month of our com-
plete occupation of the Great Antille and control of its
resources was drawing to a close, before the military
governor was able to promulgate a decree for the reor-
ganization of the "elementary and superior schools in
the island of Cuba, " and educational regeneration began
to leaven a nation.

The little pamphlet whose authorship Professor
Frye can claim, and whose two dozen pages of English
and Spanish embody a system destined to shape in

I90I.1 ED UCA TIONAL RESPONSIBILITY IN CUBA 261

great measure the future fate of the island-nation, is a
potential document. The historian and the prophet of
education will each grasp it eagerly, finding it rich in
significance to their respective provinces. It bears the
date December 6, 1899, and presents in the clearest and
simplest form the plan upon which public schools were
to be provided for, organized and opened, without
delay throughout the length and breadth of inhabited
Cuba. So effective did this plan prove, so strong and
sound was its conception, and its execution so unfalter-
ing, that within two months from the date of its publi-
cation I found 2,024 schools opened and in successful
operation in Cuba, gathering to their shelter 100,000
children ranging from six to fourteen years of age. A
startling proportion of these had never seen the inside
of a schoolroom before.

The good work moved swiftly forward, and another
month swelled those figures amazingly. A letter from
Professor Frye, dated March 14, 1900, says: "Up to
the present time there are 3,025 public schools in the
island, with over 125,000 children. The growth of the
schools has been so rapid and the expense so great that
the government has issued an order postponing the
opening of more schools. Otherwise, I think the en-
thusiasm of the start would have carried our numbers
up to 4,000 schools with nearly 200,000 children by
next June."

Since that time, however, the number of pupils
has increased to almost 150,000, and the government,
conquering financial difficulties, is setting on foot prep-
arations for opening during the present scholastic year
many more schools as conditions may require.

Thus much for numbers. The system itself next
calls for our consideration.

It is doubtful if another country can be pointed out
in which so much has ever been demanded of a new

262 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [March,

educational system as in this little ex-colony of Spain's,
now standing unique in the world of nations, being
neither bond nor scarcely free. Its system of schools
must spring full grown after the briefest prenatal life ;
this system must be adequate, it must be elastic, capa-
ble of marvelous expansion. It must satisfy the wide-
mouthed needs of the immediate present, yet remain
competent to answer fully to the larger ones of the
future. In homely metaphor, it must fit the infant
nation to-day and still be a dignified and graceful garb
for the adult to-morrow. No time could be spared to
the experimental processes, the gradual evolution, the
building of new beauty upon old ruins, which other
countries, awakening early and starting with the first
germs of scholastic systems, have been able to follow
out. An unschooled people was to be endowed at once
with the educational resources and appliances, the
requisites, even the possibilities, which in our own
country as in Germany or England have been hardly
won through centuries of endeavor, failure, and sterner
new endeavor.

One who comprehends the singular case and meas-
ures well the difficulties of the task will not be slow to
find the points of strength in the system which this
little pamphlet so modestly but ably sets forth. Com-
pulsory attendance of pupils will perhaps strike him
first ; and, ascertaining that all children between the
ages of six and fourteen years inclusive must attend
school, public or private, provided that public schools
are accessible, for not less than thirty weeks in each
scholastic year, he recognizes the imperative necessity
to which such a measure answers among a people igno-
rant of the value of education and rendered suspicious
by their past of all government benefactions showing
no immediate material advantages.

To have provided free schools, however adequate

1 9oi.] EDUCATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY IN CUBA 263

and excellent, and left attendance voluntary, would
have been to leave our educational responsibility in
Cuba unmet. The compulsory attendance measure is
enforced by suitable fines imposed upon parents and
guardians, and is relieved of hardship by proper pro-
visions to meet the case of children physically or men-
tally defective, and also of those having widowed
mothers depending wholly upon them for support. A
liberal clause follows it providing for the granting of
permission by boards of education to young men and
women over fourteen years of age to attend the public
schools, either elementary or superior, though it does
not need to be said that such attendance is not to be
compulsory.

Schools are provided in proportion to the popula-
tion, each municipality having clearly defined districts ;
and, when the plan is fully consummated, as we have
good reason to conclude it will be in the course of a
very short time, every Cuban city or town of over 1500
inhabitants will have at least one public school for boys
and another of equal grade for girls, or, if the board of
education so please, a single school open to both sexes.
As many more schools, complete and incomplete, will
be distributed over the municipality as the board shall
deem necessary.

The sanitation of school buildings and premises,
as well as the healthfulness of locations chosen, is
much emphasized, while the monthly lectures to teach-
ers stress such points as the daily and hourly guidance
of pupils into ways of cleanliness, tidiness, and mod-
esty ; and it will not be denied that these lessons are
more needed by the islanders now than even spelling,
arithmetic and civil government.

The public-school sessions, under the present order,
are of some ten months' duration. They open on the
second Monday of September, and, with vacations dur-

264 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [March,

ing Christmas and Holy week, in addition to such other
legal holidays as may from time to time be appointed,
continue until the last Friday in June.

The subjects of study in the elementary schools
embrace very thorough and well-conducted courses in
reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, history, hy-
giene, music, drawing, nature studies, and languages.
The last named is to include Spanish and English, but
up to the present moment very little has been accom-
plished in the teaching of English because of the un-
reasonable expense involved in securing teachers.
However, the normal schools which are being rapidly
established, and the summer courses which Professor
Frye is taking care to provide for the teachers already
employed, will shortly supply this deficiency. The
course of study in the superior or high schools is yet to
be marked out definitely. The time is scarcely ripe
for their organization upon a new basis, and the old
provincial institutions can very well continue to supply
their places for some sessions to come.

Salaries of teachers range on as liberal a scale as
the cramped condition of finances will warrant for the
present. Beginning with $30 per month to assistants,
they reach $60 and even $75 to regular teachers, with
$10 additional for all who perform the extra duties of
principals. Women receive equal pay with men for
similar service, and they alone are to be employed in
schools for girls, while either women or men may teach
in the male schools. With a wise and generous fore-
thought it has been arranged that for some time to
come these salaries are to continue during vacations as
well as actual school sessions, for the purpose that the
teachers shall employ these vacations in attendance up-
on normal classes, teachers' meetings, or in following
other courses of instruction prescribed for them by the
superintendent of schools in Cuba. The attendance of

igoi.] ED UCA TIONAL RESPONSIBILITY IN CUBA 265

the large body of Cuban teachers on the Harvard sum-
mer school last year must be regarded as a gratifying
result of so excellent a measure.

Another evidence of discreet liberality not to be
overlooked is the free distribution of text-books and all
minor supplies. The teachers are made responsible
for the care and safe-keeping of this necessary equip-
ment.

It will be asked how the heavy expenditures in-
volved in conducting such a system of schools are to be
met by the impoverished municipalities of the island.
Another instance of the happy elasticity required in the
general scheme is shown here: "Until otherwise de-
creed, the department of finance of the island of Cuba"
is to provide the necessary funds, all extravagance be-
ing guarded against by distinct stipulations.

The main points have now been gone over. Minor
ones must be left to individual students of the unique
conditions. Few will be found who would arraign the
United States for failure in any portion of this solemn
duty up to the present hour. Without claiming public
credit for what private charity and religious societies
from our states have already accomplished for the Cu-
bans in an educational way ; with but a glance towards
the new agricultural schools and training "homes" es-
tablished by such philanthropic organizations as the
"Cuban Orphan Society" of New York ; with a bare
allusion to the Compostela School and many other in-
dustrial and technical institutions created and working
towards success through government sanction and
assistance ; with scarcely a claim as yet for what has
been done for civic education by the judiciary and state
reform process instituted, — we must stand before the
world and be judged in regard to our discharge of this
peculiar educational responsibility,

We have not hoped to convert these islanders into

266 G UNTON'S MA GAZJNE

a people of Anglo-Saxon habitudes, forms, and ideals.
Their traditions are against success in such an attempt,
and their temperaments are with their traditions. Ar-
dent and pleasure-loving, with the inconsequent gayety
of the negro and the passionate love and hate of the
Indian grafted upon the arrogance, the sentiment,
bigotry, and shifting moral purposes of the Latin,
their natures would mock such endeavor. But we con-
scientiously believe our intentions toward the Cubans
to be reasonable and attainable as well as unselfish.
Fortified by this conviction, we are unafraid to invite
the world's scrutiny of our educational processes in the
island-country for whose welfare in matters spiritual
our responsibility cannot end when we are done with
our brief guardianship in matters temporal.

CIVIC AND EDUCATIONAL NOTES

The Essential Efforts to interest wage-earning people
Thing in Popular in educational lectures or regular studies
Lectures are frequently failures, but usually the

cause is not lack of interest on the part of the people.
More often by far it is due to the failure to give the peo-
ple what they can enjoy, assimilate, and make useful
to themselves. The free public-lecture system just or-
ganized in Brooklyn borough, New York city, in con-
nection with the public-school system, is being con-
ducted with proper recognition of this fact, fortunately ;
and as a result the attendance of 4,000 at the first week's
lectures rose to 8,000 the second week. From the
standpoint of the scholar the amount of information
offered is rather meager, and there is a surplus of stories
and pleasantries, but where the saloon is one of the
chief counter attractions something must be provided
which will really interest the weary shop-toilers and
housekeepers which such lectures are intended to reach.
A few suggestive and practical facts, presented in an
attractive manner, will be remembered and exert a
stimulating influence, while information that exceeds
the conscious needs of the people will find no lodgment
and serve no helpful purpose.

Everybody who attended the recent pub-

A Continuous 1 • « • r ^-u A -L

Cfimc lie hearings of the tenement-house com-

mission in New York city was made to
realize how full of present alarming significance the
situation is. As ministers, doctors, nurses, teachers,
missionaries and settlement workers came before the
commission with their matter-of-fact accounts of filth,

267

268 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [March,

want, disease and crime, it was difficult to realize that
there could be anything1 more than grim irony in the
assurance we get from time to time that conditions are
really "better than they used to be." The most dis-
piriting feature of the situation is the fact that there is
already a law against nearly every kind of tenement-
house evils and abuses that are still reported as rampant.
Even in the construction of new buildings this holds
true ; the experts appointed by the commission to ex-
amine new tenements reported that out of 333 such
buildings examined 318 contained violations of the law.
The amazing fact also came out that, out of nearly 1 1 , -
ooo reports of violations of the building laws sent to
buildings department in a year, only four were follow-
ed up to the point of imposing a penalty upon the vio-
lator. As a sidelight on Tammany Hall's numerous
subterranean sources of revenue, the practice of buy-
ing exemption from the imposition of penalties for
violations of the building laws would be an interest-
ing study in itself. The case is sufficiently clear, in
the light of this outrageous 4-out-of-n,ooo showing.
Officials paid by the city to enforce the laws are the
very ones who connive at and profit by its violation.
The miserable denizens of sweatshops ( not suppressed )
and vile tenements (not brought under the law),
victims of tuberculosis (not protected against ), and of
flagrant immorality ( not restricted ) in all the surround-
ing environment, are the ones who suffer by this abomi-
nable system of organized official rascality. The situa-
tion is a continuous crime, — but there is one possible
contingency that would be an even greater crime,
namely : failure on the part of the decent elements in
New York city to get together and politically annihi-
late this cabal of unscrupulous freebooters, beyond hope
of resurrection.

igoi.] CIVIC AND EDUCATIONAL NOTES 269

Labor and Principal Booker T. Washington's article

the Race published in this number is gratifying by

Problem reason of the possibilities it indicates, in the

way of negro advancement through the disciplining and
stimulating influence of industrial education. Of course,
to regard the case of "The Negro in Business" from
Mr. Washington's standpoint, without duly remembering
that the overwhelming mass of the colored race is still
sunk in ignorance, poverty and degradation, would be
to cherish a monumental illusion as to the real status of
the whole problem. Because success crowns the efforts
of a few brave, able and devoted men, we ought not to
delude ourselves with the pleasing notion that they are
doing all that is necessary and are able single-handed
to elevate the black race to self-respecting, industrious,
independent citizenship. One swallow does not make
a summer, nor one oasis fertilize a desert.

Mr. Washington's labors are most admirable in
purpose, encouraging in results, great in possibilities
and full of genuine promise ; but his task would be al-
most hopeless if there were not other forces at work in
many quarters tending toward the same ends. He is
with the flow of the tide, not the ebb ; and by reason
of this his efforts have a promise of success that would
not exist if the solution of the race problem depended
wholly on what such institutions as Tuskegee can do.

The entrance of the modern factory system and la-
bor organization into the South is one of the strongest
forces that may be expected, in cooperation with efforts
like Mr. Washington's, to bring about the slow eleva-
tion of this unfortunate race. The community of in-
terest developed through organized labor is already
striking heavy blows at the dead-line of color prejudice
which bars the negro's industrial advance in the South.
For example, at the convention of the American Fed-

270 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE

eration of Labor last December, in Louisville, Presi-
dent Gompers made this declaration :

"Realizing the necessity for the unity of the wage-earners of our
country, the American Federation of Labor has upon all occasions de-
clared that trades unions should open their portals to all wage -workers,
irrespective of creed, color, nationality, or politics. In making the
declaration we have, we do not necessarily proclaim that the social bar-
riers existing between the whites and blacks could or should be felled with
one stroke of the pen ; but when white and black workers are compelled
to work si-de by side under the same adverse circumstances and under
equally unfair conditions, it seen, s an anomaly that we should refuse to
accord the right of an organization to workers because of a difference in

their color."

•
This frank statement only confirms in another way

what we have often said in these pages, that the solu-
tion of the race problem in the South will come, when
it does come, through the forces and influences center-
ing around industrial life, rather than by sentimental
oratory or arbitrary legislation or even by common-
school education. When white men and colored men
can be brought to work in harmony and close cooper-
ation, because of a real community of interests ; when
conditions are such that they must stand or fall together
with respect to the most vital problem of all — the get-
ting of a living — the lesser considerations of prejudice,
animosity and distrust will disappear. This point
reached, recognition of the broad equality of human
rights will extend out from the industrial into other de-
partments of life. Social intermingling may never
come, but there will be mutual respect, and the social
segregation will be for the same kind of natural reasons
that already separate white people into innumerable
social groups ; it will no longer be due to any brutal
classification of the colored race as an inferior order of
beings just because their turn to rise out of savagery
came a little later in history than our own.

THE OPEN FORUM

This department belongs to our readers, and offers them full oppor-
tunity to "talk back" to the editor, give information, discuss topics or
ask questions on subjects within the field covered by GUNTON'S MAGA-
ZINE. All communications, whether letters for publication or inquiries
for the •' Question Box," must be accompanied by the full name and ad-
dress of the writer. This is not required for publication, if the writer
objects, but as evidence of good faith. Anonymous correspondents are
ignored.

LETTERS FROM CORRESPONDENTS

Sound Economics in a Great Labor Organization

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE.

Dear Sir: — I have noted with considerable satis-
faction the attention you have been giving to the
progress of the labor movement, for I am fully aware
that your publication will reach many persons who
have very little idea of what the labor movement, rep-
resented by labor organization, really means.

The Railroad Trainmen s Journal for December and
January gives briefly something of what has been done
in the past year by the Brotherhood of Railroad Train-
men, and I take the liberty of sending you marked
copies, thinking the statements might be of interest to
you.

If at any time you care to know anything of our
plan of organization, its insurance and protective fea-
tures, etc., I will be pleased to furnish you with any
information pertaining to the Brotherhood you may
desire, for our business is an open book and we feel
that it will be to our advantage to have the public un-
derstand what our organization really means and how
far into practice it has carried its theories.

271

272 G UNTON'S MA GAZINE

I will also take this opportunity to use from time
to time articles that appear in your Magazine, giving
you due credit and promising to not abuse the privi-
lege. You have many thoughts ^that come from an ap-
parently unbiased source, and there is much in your
publication that I would be more than glad to have the
members of our organization read. Our greatest am-
bition is to educate them along the exact lines as laid
down in your " Prosperity and Education." We ap-
preciate the fact that labor can make mistakes and
overreach as easily as capital can, and we use our
every endeavor to educate them along the lines of real
social and economic truth. That we make slow prog-
ress is not to be wondered, when everything is taken
into consideration, but that we are progressing stands
in evidence. Your publication stands between capital
and labor and I feel makes every effort to be fair to
both, something that cannot in justice always be said
of the publications of both capital and labor. The
tendency to judge by immediate necessities and preju-
dices, generally born in a lack of knowledge of true
conditions, is responsible for a great deal of the trouble
that we hear so much of between the two classes. If
we knew more of each other we would profit, I am
sure of it.

D. L. CEASE, Editor Railroad Trainmen s Jour-
nal, Cleveland, Ohio.

QUESTION BOX

Corruption versus Education

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

Dear Sir: — I have read with much interest one of
Professor Gunton's recent lectures on the need of more
education on economic subjects, for the sake of political
safety. He seemed to imply that the last two elec-
tions had to be won by the corrupt use of money, but
it seems to me the masses are more intelligent than he
gives them credit for. They have buried Bryanism
twice, and the last time worse then the first. P. N. J.

The implication intended in the lecture referred to
was that more or less use of money had been regularly
relied upon in our elections. Undoubtedly it was used
to some extent in 1896, but it was used very much less
in the last election. Nor does this imply that we do not
give the masses credit for intelligence. The American
people are the most intelligent of any on the face of the
earth, but they are not educated on economic questions
to anything like the extent that our highly sensitive
and complex conditions require. In 1892 the appeal to
the anti-capital sentiment succeeded in inducing the
masses to vote for the the overthrow of our national in-
dustrial policy, chiefly as a punishment to capital.
That appeal to class prejudice, it is fair to say, laid the
foundation for much of the ill-feeling which now exists,
but the withering effect of the 1892 election was so
swift and fierce that the people realized their mistake.
The punishment lasted down until 1896, when the ef-
fect of hard times led a very large number to accept
Bryan's debased-money doctrine. That questionable use
of money was resorted to in that election will not seri-
ously be disputed. The case was desperate and the

273

274 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [March,

methods used were equally so, but in the election of
1900 there was very little of this. Yet the result showed
that more than six million voters still cling to the
cheap-money and populistic theories represented by
Bryan. The one thing which more than all else pre-
vented a still larger number from supporting Bryan's
theories was the temporary fact that their dinner-pails
were full. They were living in a period of great pros-
perity and had not altogether forgotten the experiment
of '92. But, let a national election come in the midst
of industrial depression and we shall see the effect of
revolutionary doctrines and the general economic mis-
information or lack of sound education among the
masses. From such a castastrophe only a broader edu-
cational movement on permanent and systematic lines
can save us.

The Giant Steel Combination

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

Dear Sir: — What do you think of this billion-
dollar steel combination? You have been telling us
that the limit of " trust" organization was nearly
reached, but this does not look like it. What pro-
tection is the consumer to have when the whole steel
industry of the country is united in one concern?

M. P. A.

It is difficult to tell exactly what will be the out-
come of this billion-dollar combination. The very
statement makes one dizzy. There is surely a limit to
the extent to which economy can be secured by in-
creasing the size of industrial organization. In this
direction as in all others there is a limit which econo-
mists call the point ot diminishing returns ; that is to
say, a point where the waste from unwieldiness more
than equals the economy from aggregation. When this

i9oi.] QUESTION BOX 275

point is reached there is nothing further for capitalists
to gain by combination except it be in the hope of
securing a monopoly and then arbitrarily increasing
prices. Whether this billion-dollar steel combination
has reached the point of diminishing returns can only
be determined by experience. If such be the case, and
the promoters of the scheme hope to secure a monopoly
for the purpose of raising the price to the consumers,
they are surely making a fatal mistake, a mistake that
may bring cyclonic disaster.

The consumer, for whom our correspondent is
concerned, is in very little danger in this direction
provided the government will see to it that the gates of
potential competition are kept well ajar. In the first
place, if the combination does not really give any
economy in production it cannot keep out competitors,
because at the present basis of cost there are many
small concerns that can keep in business at fair profits.
If it attempts to reap a harvest by putting up the price
on the strength of having a practical monopoly, then
new enterprises will at once come into existence be-
cause of the largeness of the margin. If in this effort
it should put the price materially above the price
abroad, the people will promptly demand the removal
of all protection and thus let in the full force of
foreign competition. So that, in reality, there is no
great danger to the consumer, since there are at least
three potent forces that stand ready to go to his assist-
ance, but there is great danger to the investors in this
colossal scheme if it is not based on a sound economic
foundation.

Socialistic Taxation

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

Dear Sir : —Governor Odell may be aiming to sim-
plify taxation, but what justice is there in abolishing

276 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [March,

the state general property tax and putting the whole
burden on a few special corporate interests? Is not
this, in effect at least, adopting the principle of sliding-
scale progressive taxation, making the burden heavier,
not only actually but relatively, for large property than
for small? S. P.

In his scheme of taxation Governor Odell appears
to be trying to accomplish what was aimed at in the
mortgage-tax bill of last year: namely, to separate
state from local taxation, but he is evidently sur-
rounded by some poor advisers. He appears not to
have very closely considered the effects of his taxing
scheme, or else he is entering upon a reckless policy to
tax corporations for the purpose of popular applause,
especially among those who know the least about the
incidence of taxes.

For instance, the tax on the surplus of the savings-
banks is a direct blow at the security of savings-banks.
The surplus is carried with the view of making the
savings-bank safe against emergency, but if that sur-
plus is to be made the special object of taxation it will
naturally have the effect of making savings-banks
carry as small a surplus as possible, and thus weaken
the security of the millions of small depositors.

The special tax on the capital stock of corporations
proposed by this bill is no less extraordinary. It would
amount to a tax in some cases of from fifteen to twenty-
five per cent, of the income from investments. The
purpose of the law, as announced, is to lift the burden
from real estate and put it upon personal property,
which is the very worst kind of "reform " in taxation
that could be undertaken. If we are to have any
change in the principle of taxation— and there is indeed
plenty of need of it — it should be in the opposite
direction. It is agreed by all investigators a

i90i.] QUESTION BOX 277

students of taxation that a personal tax is the worst
method of collecting public revenues. The tendency
of tax reform should be to simplify taxation, but sim-
plify it in the direction of levying taxes upon property
which cannot be concealed or seriously misrepresented.
There are many ways of separating state from city
taxes without having recourse to the demagogic method
of j levying special taxes on corporations in order to
secure the applause of the socialistic sentiment against
wealth. One of the numerous proposals already sug-
gested is to levy a tax, exclusively for state purposes,
on cities, counties, etc., in proportion to the aggregate
amount of their own revenue collected. This would be
simple, it would be separate, and it would make every
taxing body in the state contribute to the expenses of
the state in proportion as they collected for local pur-
poses. This may not be a very scientific proposition,
but it is far better than any of the schemes for singling
out special interests for exceptional taxation.

New York Labor Laws

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

DEAR SIR:— Will you please tell us what is the
New York law as to hours of labor? What is a legal
day's work? C. H. D.

The New York law on the hours of labor, amended
in 1899, in reference to the employment of women, and
minors under the age of 18, is that no such person shall
be employed more than ten hours a day or more than
sixty hours a week. If employed more than ten hours
in any one day it must be offset by a shorter day during
the same week. This permits the working of ten and
a half or eleven hours, so as to have a shorter day on
Saturday ; but even in this arrangement the working
time must not begin before six in the morning nor con-

278 G UNTON'S MA GA ZINE

tinue after nine in the evening, in any day. This act
came into force April ist, 1899, anc^ *s enforced by
penalties for its violation, of fine or imprisonment or
both.

The last act on the subject of a legal day's work
was also passed in 1899, and provides that : "Eight
hours shall constitute a legal day's work for all classes of
employees in this state, except those engaged in farm
and domestic service, unless otherwise provided by
law."

The intention of this act was to make eight hours
the standard for a day's work in the absence of any
special contract, so that, if a person is engaged to work
without any special arrangement, eight hours will count
as a day's work, and any additional hours in the same
day will count as overtime and can be collected for in
addition. But the court has interpreted this to mean
exactly the reverse : namely, that it gives the laborer a
legal right to contract that his day's work shall be only
eight hours, but if he works without special contract all
the work he performs within a calendar day is included
in the day's work. This decision is an obvious wrench-
ing of the plain meaning. It is little short of silly,
since anybody, regardless of this or any other statute,
has a right to make a contract that his hours of labor
shall be any number the parties may agree upon. It
needs no law to enable an American citizen to agree to
work two hours a day if his employer will consent.
The obvious intention of the law was to give a legal
presumption in favor of the eight-hour-day and make a
special contract necessary for a longer day. Courts are
sometimes very mortal.

BOOK REVIEWS

THE ECONOMICS OF DISTRIBUTION. By John A.
Hobson. Cloth, 361 pages, $1.25. No index. The
Macmillan Company.

This is one of the very excellently written books
in the "Citizen's Library" series, edited by Professor
Ely. Like everything Mr. Hobson writes, the present
volume shows evidence of close application not merely
to economic literature but to economic principles. The
author undertakes to present a close discussion of the
theory of economic distribution, and one of the special
claims to originality he puts forth is that he has discov-
ered a "fundamentally erroneous" element in the
doctrine that ' ' rent does not enter into the expenses of
production."

As the author announces in the preface, the book
is chiefly made up of lectures previously delivered and
articles published in current periodicals. In reality,
Mr. Hobson began his discussion of this subject in an
article in the Quarterly Journal of Economics for April,
1891, on "The Law of the Three Rents." The pur-
pose of that article was to reduce the income from
labor, land and capital all to forms of rent ; interest and
profits as the rent of capital, wages as the rent of labor,
and the income from land as the rent of land ; the rea-
son for calling each kind of income by the same name
being that they are of the same economic character,
defined and determined by the same economic law.

The present book is somewhat of a further elabora-
tion of this idea. In the opening paragraph of the
article on "The Law of the Three Rents," Mr. Hobson

279

280 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [March,

said: "The law of rent is perhaps only a law in the
sense that it provides an exceedingly convenient rule
of measurement for fluctuations in the value of land.
It is strange that writers like General Walker and Mr.
Gunton, who have rigidly applied this law to profits,
should have failed to see that it is equally applicable to
to the other participants of the net product."

The position that "General Walker and Mr. Gun-
ton " have taken in regard to profits is that the marginal
capital in any given industry in the same competing
market works without profit, and that the profit of com-
peting capital is determined by the degree to which it
can produce more cheaply than the marginal or least
productive capital in use. This principle was rigidly
applied by both these writers to land and by Mr. Gun-
ton to interest also. Instead of Mr. Hobson applying
this principle to all the factors as here suggested, he
objects that it even apply to land.

The essence of this doctrine is that the surplus
income in the form of interest, profits and rents does
not enter into price. The special contribution Mr.
Hobson claims to have made is that even rent enters
into price. This is such a definite challenge to the
most generally accepted doctrine in economics that one
eagerly turns to his discussion of this topic.

An examination of his reasoning, however, is dis-
appointing. The Ricardian theory, that rent is the
difference in the different degrees of productivity of
competing tracts of land, always implied that people
would have recourse to still poorer lands, which at
existing prices of products would not pay for cultiva-
tion. In order to make his point that rent would
become a part of necessary cost and hence enter into
the price of products, Mr. Hobson supposes a case in
which all the available land has already been brought
into use, no substitutes are available, and no improve-

i9oi.] BOOK REVIEWS 281

merits in the land already in use can render the poorest
tract unnecessary. In that case the owner of the poor-
est land, which, for a given unit of product, requires
the greatest outlay of capital and labor, would command
a rent and this minimum rent would become a part
of the cost and hence of the price of all products.

No Ricardian would dispute that for a moment.
It involves not the slightest change in the theory of
rent as formulated by Ricardo and as repeated and
restated by his unbroken line of followers. There is
really nothing new in the abstract theory of this con-
tention ; it simply assumes that all land on the earth,
usable for a given purpose, has been called into use, a
condition which has never existed in fact and is not
likely to for an indefinite time to come. Yet in the
abstract theory it is supposable, and in such a suppos-
able case the rent (that is, the amount of rent that this
least productive, or most expensive, increment would
yield) would be added to price. If the conditions here
supposed should ever actually exist, this most expen-
sive increment might not be the poorest, it might even
be the most productive, but it might also be so far
removed from the market that the transportation or
other expenses involved by the distance would make it
the dearest portion. But, as already remarked, this
can scarcely be regarded as a contribution to economic
theory. At least it cannot be regarded as the correction
of " erroneous doctrine," for it corrects no error, it
simply shows that under certain imaginary or supposa-
ble conditions a slight increment of rent might be added
to prices, but even this would take place by the logical
operation of the Ricardian law.

In dealing with the question of wages, however,
Mr. Hobson is less fortunate. He proceeds upon the
assumption that the standard of wages in a competing
group of laborers is determined by the least efficient

282 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [March,

laborers ; that in the group the law of value applies to
everything that is bought and sold, whether labor or
commodities, alike. But there is this fundamental dif-
ference between the effect upon prices of the income
from labor and the income from land and capital. In
the case of capital there is, in every well-established
industry, a great difference in the productivity of dif-
ferent competing concerns. This may be due to geo-
graphical situation, wisdom of management, condition
of machinery or many other causes, but in all such
competing groups there is some capital which yields no
profits while its competitors receive a profit just in
proportion as their production per unit of expenditure
is greater. According to this, therefore, profit does
not enter into the price, and the same is true of land,
at least until Mr. Hobson's supposable case arises, and
even then none of the rent except that of the final
increment would enter into the price of the commodities.

In the case of labor no such condition exists, be-
cause there is no group of laborers who work for
nothing, not even under slavery, for even there the
laborer must receive the amount of his living. So that,
while there is a great deal of no-rent land and no-inter-
est capital in use, there is nowhere any no- wage labor.
All wages are a part of the cost of production.

In reality, therefore, the doctrine of three rents, or
the theory that the income from capital, land and labor
are all of the same economic character, is not correct.
Any economic teaching based upon such a conclusion is
not merely misleading in theory but is apt to be very
injurious in fact, because it gives a mistaken point of
view from which to treat the economic problems in so-
ciety. Economic theory is of little scientific utility,
except perhaps as furnishing exercise in mental gym-
nastics, unless it really aids useful public policy.

i9oi.J BOOK REVIEWS 283

ELEMENTARY PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. An Outline
of Physiography. By Jacques W. Redway, F. R. G. S.
Cloth, i2mo, 383 pages, $1.25. Charles Scribner's
Sons, New York and Chicago.

Mr. Redway's contributions to physiographic sci-
ence are so well known and their merits so fully recog-
nized that this latest work comes to us with the
presumption already strongly in its favor. As a speci-
men of bookmaking alone it is worth special commen-
dation. The cover is particularly attractive, the paper
of fine quality and the typographical work excellent.
The book is a i2tno, of 383 pages, and in this respect,
therefore, is one more step in the rapid abandonment
of the old-style cumbersome quartos which, by some
venerable superstition, have heretofore been regarded
as absolutely essential to any proper comprehension of
geography. The small size seems not to interfere with
the pictorial feature, the illustrations in this book being
abundant and clear: besides numerous half-tones there
are several colored maps and charts.

The volume is intended for use in the junior grades
of high schools, and in normal schools, and many use-
ful features are introduced to aid the teacher. We
suspect, however, that the teachers who have time and
enthusiasm enough to "get in close touch with the
United States Geological Survey and the Weather Bu-
reau," as a part of their work in this subject, will be
amazingly few in number. This implies a degree of
thoroughness hardly to be expected from any instruct-
ors of less limited time and facilities than are afforded
in the colleges. Nevertheless, Mr. Redway's book is
in itself so comprehensive that the teacher using it
ought to be able to do ample justice to the subject, at
least within the necessary limits of high -school and
normal- school work.

The author is strongly impressed with the impor-

284 G UNTON »5 MA GAZINE [March,

tance of geographical environment in determining the
industrial and social conditions of mankind. He has
an abundance of interesting and suggestive data in
support of this view, proper appreciation of which
is of course essential to any clear comprehension of
history. No discussion of this general topic can be
entirely adequate, however, which does not more fully
take into consideration the enormous influence of sci-
ence, invention, transportation, and intelligent societary
regulation, as forces modifying and sometimes even
nullifying the local limitations of geographic environ-
ment. In the early days of the race, and in crude
society wherever it still remains, man was and is con-
trolled and shaped by nature, but human progress is
the record of his steadily augmenting control over
nature, throwing off little by little the shackles of time,
place and natural barriers, turning infertility into fer-
tility, and building up diversification of industry, for
social and political reasons, which economic or geo-
graphic conditions alone would not have accomplished
for generations or even centuries.

Nor is any discussion of this matter wholly com-
plete which omits to consider those dynamic psycho-
logical, religious and moral forces which, in cooperation
with social, political, economic and geographic influ-
ences, have wrought the progressive transformation of
the face of society throughout the ages. It is only
natural, however, that a work devoted strictly to physi-
ography should emphasize physiographical influences
and not extend out into general discussion of the
philosophy of history. This book conveys the unmis-
takable impression of very wide individual research,
scientific classification of data, and systematic develop-
ment of the subject in accordance with sound peda-
gogical principles. It ought to have a generous re-
ception.

BOOK REVIEWS 285

NEW BOOKS OF INTEREST

Democracy and Social Ethics. By Jane Addams, head
of "Hull House," Chicago, joint author of "Philan-
thropy and Social Progress." Cloth, i2mo. The Mac-
millan Company, New York.

The Limits of Evolution. And other Essays in Phi-
losophy, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Per-
sonal Idealism. By G. H. Howison, LL.D., Mills pro-
fessor of philosophy in the University of California.
The Macmillan Company, New York.

Life and Letters of Thomas H. Huxley. By his son,
Leonard Huxley. Cloth, 2 vols., 8vo, 549 -f- 547 pp.,
$5, net. D. Appleton and Company, New York. With
eight photogravures and several other illustrations.

The Private Life of King Edward VII. (Prince of
Wales, 184.1-1901). By a Member of the Royal House-
hold. Uniform with " The Private Life of the Queen."
Cloth, i2mo, $1.50. D. Appleton and Company, New
York. Illustrated.

China : Travels and Investigations in the Middle King-
dom— A Study of Its Civilization and Possibilities. To-
gether with an Account of the Boxer War, the Relief
of the Legations and the Reestablishment of Peace.
By James Harrison Wilson, A.M., LL.D. Cloth,
i2mo, $1.75. D. Appleton and Company, New York.
Third edition, revised throughout, enlarged and reset.

An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History
of England. By Edward P. Cheney, A.M., prof essor of
European history in the University of Pennsylvania.
Cloth, crown 8vo. The Macmillan Company, New
York.

Social Control. A Survey of the Foundations of
Order. By Edgar Alsworth Ross, Ph.D. Cloth, i2mo.
The Macmillan Company, New York.

286 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE

Custom and Competition. By Richard T. Ely, LL.D.,
author of " Monopolies and Trusts." Cloth, i2mo.
The Macmillan Company, New York.

American Municipal Progress. By Charles Zueblin,
B.D., associate professor of sociology in the University
of Chicago. Cloth, i2mo. The Macmillan Company,
New York.

An Essay on Western Civilization in Its Economic
Aspects (Medieval and Modern Times). By W. Cunning-
ham, D.D., Hon. LL.D. Cloth, i2mo, 300 pp., $1.25
net. The Macmillan Company, New York.

The French Monarchy (i 4.83-1 -789). By A. J. Grant,
M.A., of King's College, Cambridge. Cloth, 2 vols.,
1 2mo, 311 + 3 H PP- » $2.25. The Macmillan Company,
New York.

The American Negro. What He Was, What He Is,
and What He May Become. By William Hannibal
Thomas. Cloth, 8vo, gilt top, 440 pp., $2. The Mac-
millan Company, New York. A critical and practical
discussion.

The Rulers of the South, Sicily, Calabria and Malta.
By F. Marion Crawford, author of "Ave Roma Immor-
talis," " Via Crucis," etc. 2 vols., crown 8vo, $6 net.
The Macmillan Company, New York.

The Law and Policy of Annexation. With Special
Reference to the Philippines ; together with Observa-
tions on the Status of Cuba. By Carmen F. Randolph
of the New York bar, author of " The Law of Eminent
Domain." Cloth, 219 pp. Longmans, Green, and Co.,
New York, London and Bombay.

The Destruction of Ancient Rome. A Sketch of the
History of the Monuments. By Rudolfo Lanciana,
D.C.L., professor of ancient topography in the Uni-
versity of Rome. Cloth, gilt tops, i2mo, $2. The
Macmillan Company, New York.

FROM FEBRUARY MAGAZINES

« ' The queen . . . had the strongest prejudices
against public men with whom she differed in politics ;
and, though she was far too constitutional a queen ever
to allow her feelings to interfere with public business,
she had her likes and dislikes strongly defined. Her
favorite prime ministers were Lord Melbourne, Lord
Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury. She never was on
easy terms with Mr. Gladstone or any of the liberal
party, except, perhaps, Lord Rosebery, at the begin-
ning of his administration. As to Mr. Chamberlain,
she had long a great fear that he would prove a danger-
ous factor in English politics ; but, when the question
of the union broke up the liberal party, she showed in
the most unmistakable manner her approbation of the
liberal unionist leaders. On the occasion of the open-
ing of the Imperial Institute, it was remarked by every
one that she placed strong emphasis on the words, ' the
union of my empire.' It was always said that Lord
Beaconsfield, who was a thorough courtier, gained his in-
fluence over her by giving way to her opinions on nearly
every point, or, at any rate, by persuading her that he

did so Her affection for him, at any rate, was

very deep and sincere, and she mourned for him not
only on national, but personal grounds." — LADY JEUNE,
in " Victoria and Her Reign ;" North American Review.

" Here and there, dotted about where circumstances
and conditions have caused their growth, are found the
slums. They used to be plague-spots, and, in a sense,
they are so still ; but of late years they are much
improved. To find the real old slum, the foul, inde-
scribable pigsty, one must not look for it in East Lon-
don. It lingers, here and there, on the south of the
Thames. Any of the medical students of Guy's Hospi-

287

2S8 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE

tal, who have to attend the sick in the courts of South-
wark, will lead you readily to such a slum ; but in East
London itself I should find if difficult to take you to
places such as I remember, twenty years ago, to have
looked into, shuddering. Therefore, if you read novels
of the day describing things brutal and horrible beyond
endurance, you should regard these descriptions with
suspicion. If they are true, they belong to the past,
and exist no longer save in rare and very exceptional
cases, and then against the voice of public opinion in
their quarter. "—SiR WALTER BESANT, in "The Helping
Hand in East London;" The Century.

1 ' Speaking particularly of the American attitude
on this question, it is held that any plan which prohib-
its recourse to the strike, when all other efforts at
adjustment fail, must by that fact destroy the power
necessary to the efficiency of the trade union. Organi-
zation among the workers, while tending to lessen the
number of strikes by preventing or remedying those
grievances which inevitably induce strikes, is possible
only where the power to strike is held in reserve. In-
deed, compulsory arbitration as practised in New Zea-
land makes the trade union superfluous for all real
good. Under that law, any seven men or women
workers, organized or registered in the prescribed man-
ner, can accomplish as much, in the final event, as any
greater number. An organization of a thousand work-
ers exercises a proportionate influence upon the condi-
tions of their calling, provided always that they retain
the power to enforce their demands by refusing to work
until these are granted. The power of united numbers,
consisting as it does in the power correspondingly to
affect production, becomes nil when the power to cease
producing is lost.5' — WALTER MACARTHUR, in "Ameri-
can Trade Unions and Compulsory Arbitration ;" The
Forum.

EDWIN R. A. SELIGMAN, PH.D.
Professor of Political Economy and Finance, Columbia University

See page 305

GUNTON'S MAGAZINE

REVIEW OF THE MONTH

The "Second ^ nas been twenty-seven years since a
Term " in president was inaugurated in this country

American Politics £or a second consecutive term. During
this period Mr. Cleveland has held the office twice, but
not twice in succession. The reelection and second
inauguration of President McKinley draws attention to
the gradual change in the character of the considerations
that have determined the election of presidents, espe-
cially second-term elections, since the early days of the
republic. After Washington, for a quarter of a century
the second term was regarded practically as a matter of
course, demanded by courtesy and precedent and en-
forced by the desirability of keeping experienced men
in office, — a sentiment which unfortunately has grown
weaker with the spread of the spoils system and ' ' rota-
tion in office " idea. By the time of Jackson the per-
sonality of the man had begun to count for more than
tradition. Jackson himself was largely instrumental in
bringing about rotation in office as a recognized practice
in the government, and owed his own second term chiefly
to his extraordinary personal popularity. This is further
evidenced by the fact that from Jackson to Lincoln no
man of really commanding personality occupied the
presidency, and no one was chosen for a second term.
Lincoln's reelection was partly due to his personal pop-
ularity but more largely to the war issues which ab-
sorbed the nation. Grant's second term was almost

289

290 G UN TON *S MA GA Z1NE [April,

entirely the reflection of his individual hold on the
people.

In recent years, however, the determining factors
have been much more largely the issues at stake than
the personality of the candidates. Mr. Harrison was
little known when he first became a presidential candi-
date, but he won chiefly on the tariff issue, and a
reversal of popular sentiment on the same subject, cou-
pled with a growing hostility to capitalistic interests,
carried Mr. Cleveland back into office four years later.
The issues more than the men were the real storm cen-
ters, and in the reelection of Mr. McKinley we have
this tendency carried almost to the extreme limit, — a man
of very lukewarm popularity continued in power by an
overwhelming vote because of the issues he repre-
sented. In reality it was not William McKinley who
triumphed last fall, but the three-fold cause of sound
money, business stability and what was believed to be
the safer of two proposed foreign policies.

President As ^ there seemed to be some need of

McKinley's emphasizing the president's personality

Inaugural }n t^e midst of the great issues that over-

shadow him, the inauguration ceremonies of March
4th were arranged on an elaborate scale, quite surpass-
ing any previous occasions of the kind in spectacular
effect. The inauguration address had the merit of
brevity, and on the whole breadth of sentiment. Al-
though seldom noteworthy for any strong original
statement of policy, Mr. McKinley's public papers are
always marked by able and ingenious defence of courses
already pursued. His references in this second inau-
gural to the business prosperity and successful outcome
of the Spanish war, during his first administration,
were brief and entirely justified by the facts, and the
spirit of national rather than party obligation in the

REVIEW OF THE MONTH

291

discharge of presidential duties was prominent
throughout. Indeed, so far as its sentiments are con-
cerned, there is no particular criticism to be made on
the inaugural. Criticism begins when we compare
some of these sentiments and statements of facts with
recent and perfectly familiar experience.

Take, for example, the president's dec-
laration with reference to the nature and
extent of the Philippine insurrection,

alongside of which we reprint an extract from General

MacArthur's report of October ist last:

Nature of the

Philippine

Warfare

President McKinley's Inaugural

"Our countrymen should not be
deceived. We are not waging war
against the inhabitants of the Phil-
ippine Islands. A portion of them
are making war against the United
States. By far the greater part of
the inhabitants recognize Amer-
ican sovereignty, and welcome it
as a guarantee of order and se-
curity for life, property, liberty,
freedom of conscience and the
pursuit of happiness. To them
full protection will be given. They
shall not be abandoned. We will
not leave the destiny of the loyal
millions in the islands to the dis-
loyal thousands who are in rebel-
lion against the United States.
Order under civil institutions will
come as soon as those who now
break the peace shall keep it.
Force will not be needed or used
when those who make war against
us shall make it no more."

General Mae Arthur's Report

"The success of this unique sys-
tem of war depends upon almost
complete unity of action of the en-
tire native population. That such
unity is a fact is too obvious to ad-
mit of discussion ; how it is brought
about and maintained is not so
plain. Intimidation has undoubt-
edly accomplished much to this
end, but fear as the only motive is
hardly sufficient to account for the
united and spontaneous action of
several millions of people. One
traitor in each town would eventu-
ally destroy such a complex or-
ganization. It is more probable
that the adhesive principle comes
from ethnological homogeneity,
which induces men to respond for
a time to the appeals of consan-
guineous leadership even when
such action is opposed to their own
interests and convictions of expe-
diency. These remarks apply with
equal force to the entire archipel-
ago, excepting only that part of
Mindanao occupied by Moros. and
to the Jolo group. "

292 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [April,

General MacArthur is, of course, our chief military
officer in the Philippines. Comment on the above is
unnecessary, unless it be on the grim humor of the
suggestion that ' ' force will not be needed or used when
those who make war against us shall make it no more."
This exactly reverses the facts, for it is well established
that the complete change in our own attitude in the
Philippines during the summer of 1898 is what really
led to the break with the natives. If we had applied
our Cuban policy in the islands, as the Filipinos at first
believed we would do, we should undoubtedly have had
their continued cooperation instead of hostility.

Again, with reference to Cuba: the

Cuban Inde- . - ^ ..... -• -. -,

pendence president in his inaugural declared that

our consistent purpose had been and was
"the establishment of a free and independent govern-
ment prepared to assume and perform the obligations
of international law," and that the new Cuban institu-
tions "should be adapted to secure a government
capable of performing the duties and discharging the
functions of a separate nation."

Just previous to this, the senate, reflecting the
wishes of the administration, had adopted as an amend-
ment to the army appropriation bill a series of condi-
tions upon which the president would be authorized
to withdraw American troops from Cuba and leave the
island to itself. These, in substance, are as follows :

(1) That Cuba must never make any treaty with a foreign power
tending to impair Cuban independence or permit such power to obtain
lodgment in or control over any part of the island.

(2) That Cuba must not contract any public debt beyond the capa-
city of the island's revenues to sustain.

(3) That the United States shall have the right to intervene to
preserve Cuban independence and maintain a government capable of
protecting life, property and liberty.

(4) That all acts of the United States in Cuba up to date shall be

igoi.] REVIEW OF THE MONTH 293

ratified and all American rights thus far acquired in the island main-
tained and protected.

(5) That Cuba must continue to carry out all our plans for the
sanitation of cities throughout the island.

(6) That the Isle of Pines shall not be regarded as a Cuban pos-
session.

(7) That Cuba must sell or lease to the United States lands neces-
sary for coaling and naval stations.

Whatever name may be given to this arrangement,
it amounts simply to a protectorate of the United States
over Cuba. The island will neither have a "free and
independent government" nor be "a separate nation."
Control of public finances, foreign relations and internal
government constitute practically all the functions of
an independent state, and in each of these particulars
the United States either expressly declares what shall
and shall not be done or else demands the perpetual
right of intervention. In other words, we shall exer-
cise a "suzerainty" over Cuba many times more com-
plete and definite than England pretended to claim
over the Transvaal from 1881 to 1899. Perhaps all this
may be very necessary, but if Cuba is so thoroughly
unfit for independence why does not the president
frankly say so and tell the country why we are thus
obliged to take the island into perpetual wardship? If
experience has proved that this is after all our highest
duty, why keep up the pretence of calling Cuba a
"separate nation" under a "free and independent gov-
ernment?"

The Cuban convention had adopted a
of Ann«atTon constitution before the passage of this

declaration of policy by the United States
senate, and the draft of the document was signed by
the delegates on February 2ist. The convention is still
in session, debating the details of our demands, and
from the present outlook it will yield to unwelcome

294 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [April,

necessity and accept the conditions for the sake of get-
ting the form and machinery at least of an independent
government.

It is true that we assumed a certain moral respon-
sibility for the future of Cuba, and that if the Cubans
cannot govern themselves without our help and control
then interference will be justified for some time to
come at least. But there is no reason for assuming that
the Cubans need any such wholesale permanent super-
vision, any more than do the various South American
republics. We have never felt called upon to manage
or interfere with these countries, further than to draw
the line of the Monroe doctrine around them, which
has proved an entirely sufficient ' 'regulation" of their
foreign relations and would be equally effective in the
case of Cuba. We have acted toward our neighboring
republics on the double theory that we have problems
enough of our own to absorb all our best energy and
statesmanship, and that other countries will develop
real capacity for self-government faster by being left
practically on their own responsibility than if they are
saved from the consequences of every mistake by the
strong arm of a paternal ' 'protector." The same prin-
ciple of political evolution is quite as applicable to
Cuba, for Cuba's own sake, while from the point of
view of our own interests it is exceedingly important
just now to minimize whatever steps seem to head in
the direction of annexation. If the senate declarations
were to lie quiescent as containing merely a reserva-
tion of power to interfere in extreme cases, they might
prove practically harmless, but in the light of our pres-
ent Philippine policy there is every reason to expect
that we shall proceed to exercise a very real and effec-
tive kind of intervention in Cuba's affairs, until this
course has become so familiar that annexation can be
urged as the natural and easy next step.

igoi.J REVIEW OF THE MONTH 295

This is really the chief danger in the senate decla-
rations. It is the phase of the situation to which public
sentiment should be most keenly alive. The quality of
American citizenship, upon which depends the safety
and success of our democratic institutions, is already
sufficiently threatened by the city -slum and immigra-
tions problems, still more by the negro problem in the
South, and bids fair to be further complicated before
very long by the admission of Hawaii and perhaps
Porto Rico as states. In each case it is a problem of
alien and dissimilar races that has put and is putting
the most severe strain upon our democratic experiment,
and to bring in Cuba and later on the Philippines would
probably insure us a complete setback if not failure.
These various groups may be able to carry on indepen-
dent governments of their own, adapted to their own
conditions, but, forced into an unnatural combination
with Anglo-Saxons on a plane of political equality, the
result can only be arrest of our progress or suspension
of the democratic principle in our institutions by pro-
viding different forms of government for each different
group, thus returning practically to the methods of
monarchy.

One of the last acts of the 56th congress

\y-»f *T%X

Reduction was t^ie Passage °f a bill to reduce the

internal revenue taxes imposed on ac-
count of the war with Spain. The conference report
adopted by both houses on February 28th is expected
to reduce the revenues of the government by some
$42, ooo, ooo per year, the largest single item in which is
about $10,000,000 on the beer tax, next about $7,000,000
on tobacco and snuff, the same amount on bank
checks, some $4,500,000 on cigars and cigarettes,
$4,000,000 on proprietary medicines, etc., $3, 500, ooo on
promissory notes, and so on. The reduction in the beer

296 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [April,

tax is 25 cents per barrel instead of 35 cents as first pro-
posed, the change being due probably to a strong popu-
lar impression that the brewing interests were much too
effectively in evidence in the congressional lobbies.

It is cause for public congratulation that the guid-
ing rule seems to have been to remove those taxes which
have proved most offensive in the daily transactions of
the masses of the people, and retain those that could be
borne with least inconvenience and petty annoyance.
For example, the two-cent stamp on bank checks, of
which the people have grown utterly weary, will be a
thing of the past after June 3Oth next, when most of the
other reductions go into effect. The tax on promissory
notes disappears at the same time, as well as that on
money orders, express receipts, telephone and telegraph
messages, insurance policies, leases, warehouse receipts,
etc. These taxes are entirely repealed, while the chief
reductions without complete repeal are in the taxes on
beer, tobacco, cigars, foreign bills of exchange, legacies,
etc. The principal taxes retained are those on bankers'
capital and surplus, stockbrokers and pawnbrokers, the-
aters, circuses, manufacturers and dealers in tobacco,
certificates of stock, wines, oil and sugar refineries,
mixed flour, tea, etc. It is expected that the taxes
retained will just about enable the government to meet
the increased scale of expenditures to be made necessary
by the new army and navy appropriations, but in case
of a business depression it would be necessary to draw
on the treasury surplus and eventually probably to
reimpose some of the taxes now removed.

Tariff The needless excitement over a possible

Complication tariff war with Russia is rapidly dwin-
with Russia dling, as the facts in the case and rela-

tively trivial proportions of the trade involved become
more clearly understood. The substance of the case is

igoi.] REVIEW OF THE MONTH 297

simply this : under the Dingley tariff law the secretary
of the treasury is required to impose an extra duty on
sugar coming from any countries which pay a bounty
on the export of sugar to the United States, and under
this law additional duties have been regularly assessed
on sugar imported from Germany, France, Belgium, the
Netherlands and certain other sugar-exporting coun-
tries. A duty of this kind was also assessed on Russian
sugar until May, 1900, when it was temporarily sus-
pended pending an investigation as to whether Russia
really paid an export bounty. After nine months it
was decided that Russia did practically pay such a
bounty and therefore, on February i4th, Secretary
Gage ordered the reimposition of the "countervailing"
duty, based on the net amount of such bounties. This
increased the duty on Russian sugar by almost one cent
a pound.

There is nothing new or unprecedented in the sec-
retary's action. It simply restores a duty which it is
found ought to be paid, and not to impose which would
be justly regarded by Germany, France and the other
countries interested as an unfair discrimination in favor
of Russian sugar. Since Russia does pay this export
bounty, there is absolutely no reason why it should be
relieved from the same extra duty that is paid by other
countries on their bounty- assisted exports.

The Russian minister of finance, M. De Witte,
seems to have imagined, however, that he can force a
special concession from the United States by imposing
a retaliatory duty on American iron and steel products.
Whether he will literally do this as a permanent policy
is still uncertain, but it is this prospective retaliation
that has aroused all the discussion and needless alarm
here in the United States. It appears, taking the most
liberal Russian estimates of American imports of iron
.and steel, whether coming directly or indirectly, that

298 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [April,

we do not send Russia more than $5,000,000 worth per
year, while that going direct to Russia and paying the
Russian import duty as American products is less than
$4,000,000 worth per year. Since a good part of these
exports are for the Russian government itself , in building
the Siberian railroad, and since Russia's sugar exports to
this country amount to only a few hundred thousand
dollars per year, M. De Witte's policy will cost the
Russians a very material advantage and gain them
nothing in return. As for the loss to American iron
and steel exporters, it is altogether trivial compared
with the possible loss that might come from commer-
cial unfriendliness with such a country as Germany,
which buys from us fifteen to twenty times as much as
Russia purchases. That this trade would be seriously
injured is altogether probable if we should make a
special exception on the sugar duty in favor of Russia.
It is to be hoped that the whole controversy will drop
into the oblivion which it thoroughly deserves by its
very unimportance.

Russia is a much more serious object of
concern in the far East, however. Dur-
ing the whole period of the disturbances
in central China last summer and the occupation of
Peking by the powers, Russia was carrying on a war of
its own in Manchuria, along the line of the Siberian
railroad and along the Manchurian- Siberian frontier.
Chinese troops invaded Russian territory, and were not
only driven back but were followed throughout Man-
churia until Russian military posts practically covered
the province. It now appears that the Russians have
been arranging with the local Chinese authorities, inde-
pendently of the powers at Peking, for the joint pres-
ence of Russian and Chinese troops in Manchuria for an
indefinite period. The Russian minister of foreign

REVIEW OF THE MONTH 299

affairs, Count Lamsdorf, declares that this action has
been taken for the same reasons that compelled the
powers at Peking to exact terms from China sufficient
to protect foreign interests throughout the empire.
Nevertheless, the impression is strong that the czar's
government regards Manchuria as distinct from the
general Chinese problem and expects to arrange with
China direct for the future status of the province.

There is much to confirm this suspicion. Russia
naturally would have a strong interest in getting con-
trol of the region which includes all the eastern portion
of the great trans- continental railroad and would also
afford a bulwark and base of operations in case of
trouble with the czar's most powerful eastern neighbor
— Japan. There is good reason, too, for the Russians
to look for trouble with Japan. Port Arthur, which
Russia has monopolized for the terminus of its railroad,
was really won from China by the Japanese, who were
prevented by Russia from keeping the prize, and Japan
is constantly suspicious that Russia will push on and
absorb Korea, the little "buffer state/' which the
Japanese will some day want for themselves. Of
course, if Russia should finally determine to establish
a protectorate over Manchuria, which would be equiva-
lent to annexing it, the powers would have to prevent
the grab by force or else join in a complete dismember-
ment and partition of the Chinese empire.

Our own government could not possibly permit
itself to share in any such spoliation, and therefore
we must steadily resist every diplomatic tendency that
heads in the direction of partition. Our one great
interest in China is the preservation of the ' * open
door," and it happens that Manchuria furnishes the
largest part of our Chinese market for cotton goods.
Russian absorption of this province would mean an end
of the open door in that quarter, and if the rest of

300 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [April,

China were divided up we should find ourselves en-
tirely on the outside, with an interesting collection of
" open- door" pledges as our only reminders of the
wonderful trade expansion we were to enjoy in the
Orient, and to which Hawaii and the Philippines were
to be the stepping-stones. If ever we needed a strong
diplomatic policy it is now with reference to Russia's
presence in Manchuria. There is the real kejr to the
whole future policy of the powers regarding China, and
we ought not to take ourselves out of the controversy
so long as our influence is needed against dismember-
ment of the empire.

Meanwhile, China is proceeding to carry
The Powers out ^ Demands of the powers. Several

of the Boxer offenders have been exe-
cuted and the negotiations now relate chiefly to the
amounts and methods of paying the indemnities. The
powers are planning the details of gradual withdrawal
from Chinese territory. Probably the American and
French will go first, the British will take the summer for
it, and the Germans are expected to stay as long as Count
von Waldersee continues to enjoy himself in the heroic
function of chasing and looting little bands of offending
Chinamen who are luckless enough to let their where-
abouts come to his ears. The count doubtless expects
a monument when he returns to Germany and it ought
to bear a statue representing him in Brobdingnagian
proportions, armed to the teeth, and with the rapt ex-
pression of the giant who has just " smelled the blood"
of a Chinaman.

Just recently, a flurry has arisen at Tien-Tsin be-
tween England and Russia, the importance of which has
been much exaggerated for sensational purposes. It
appears that through some error the Chinese granted the
same piece of land as a railroad concession to both Eng-

igoi.] REVIEW OF THE MONTH 301

land and Russia. The English, upon undertaking to
build a siding on it, at once clashed with the Russians.
No question of large importance is affected by this mis-
understanding, and it is incredible that so slight a cause,
obviously growing out of a mistake and perfectly capa-
ble of easy settlement, should lead to serious difficulties
between the two powers, much less to war.

The United States Steel Corporation was
The Giant Steel ~ 11 . , ^ - ,, -

Cor ration finally organized on February 25th, under

the laws of New Jersey, with a nominal
capitalization of only $3,000, soon to be increased to
$850,000,000, with some $304,000,000 of bonds; repre-
senting in all a capitalization of $1,154,000,000. This
giant concern represents by far the larger part of all the
iron and steel manufacturing industries of the country,
including the Carnegie Company, the Federal Steel, the
American Steel and Wire, the National Tube, the Na-
tional Steel, the American Tin Plate, the American
Steel Hoop, the American Sheet Steel and other large
establishments. One-half the capital stock will consist
of 7 per cent, preferred stock and the other of ordinary
common stock, while the bonds will bear interest at 5
per cent. It is understood that the $304,000,000 of
bonds of the new company are to be given in exchange
for the bonds and 60 per cent, of the stock of the Car-
negie Company. The Carnegie Company's bonds
amount to $160,000,000, leaving $144,000,000 for the
purchase of 60 per cent of the stock. As the Carnegie
Company's stock also amounts to $160,000,000, 60 per
cent, of which would be $96,000,000, it appears that the
$144,000,000 to be given for this would be at the rate of
$1,500 for each $1,000 share. As Mr. Carnegie's indi-
vidual interest in the Carnegie Company amounted to
$86, 3 79, ooo in stock and about the same amount in bonds,
it will be seen that the consolidation has enabled him to

303 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [April,

retire with a guaranteed interest-bearing fortune of con-
siderably more than $200,000,000.

It is estimated by Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, to whose
efforts chiefly this vast consolidation is due, that proba-
bly $150,000,000 would have been spent by the various
companies now combined in the next five years in com-
petition and the building of additional plants, all of
which will now be saved. In order to pay 5 per cent,
on the bonds, and an average of 5 per cent, on the pre-
ferred and common stock (which means, of course, only
3 or 4 per cent, on the common stock) the new corpora-
tion will have to earn a net surplus of about $50,000,000
per year. As it is estimated that the various industries
consolidated represent a total production of more than
10,000,000 tons annually, it will be seen that a profit of
at least $5 per ton must be earned to get this $50,000,-
ooo. With continued prosperity and expansion of for-
eign trade it does not seem unreasonable that this can
be done, assuming, of course, a degree of ability in man-
agement adequate to so gigantic a business. This is a
large assumption, it must be admitted, and only experi-
ence can determine whether any individual manager or
any board of directors that can be brought together will
be competent successfully to handle an institution of
such prodigious bulk, competing in the world's markets
and subject all the time to new competition at home
whenever the maximum efficiency of management is not
maintained.

Such a consolidation probably represents the high-
water mark of industrial integration. The new corpo-
ration, if it endures, may expand with the growth of the
steel industry in this country, but there is no other line
of industry which offers the opportunity for consolida-
tion on any such gigantic scale. The only possible
approach to the steel combination in the matter of size
would be a consolidation of several different kinds of

1 90 1 . ) RE VIE W OF TH EMON TH 303

industries — an experiment which is almost certain to
exceed the limits of greatest economic efficiency by its
very unnaturalness, cumbersome bulk and diversity of
policy, and therefore to invite failure from the outset.
The United States Steel Corporation not only represents
the high-water mark of consolidation but it is a monu-
ment to the extraordinary financial genius of the man
who was able to bring together in this way interests so
vast, diverse and antagonistic.

If this gigantic corporation has not been bur-
dened with a capitalization beyond its earning capacity,
and if the management proves equal to its task, the con-
solidation ought to be a permanent success. If it is, it
will prevent a possible demoralization of the steel indus-
try, which might very likely have come through exces-
sive competition and brought panic and hard times in
its train. The billion-dollar corporation, under wise
management and conservative financial guidance, would
make for industrial stability at least, and in this every
laborer and indeed every citizen of the republic has a
constant and vital interest.

Ex- President Harrison, who died at In-

Death of ^ . . . , .. -

Benjamin Harrison dianaP°lls March 1 3tfc. was a statesman
of great intellectual ability, definiteness
of political views and firmness in the discharge of pub-
lic duties. These qualities, together with unquestioned
personal integrity, make up a type of man not so
numerously represented in our public life to-day that
any can be spared without the loss being felt. General
Harrison was one of the old-school republican states-
men of the period made memorable by many other
strong individualities, — such, for example, as Elaine,
Conkling and Sherman. Indeed, it will probably be a
long time before a national administration offers such
a combination of ability and brilliancy as we had in

304 G UNTON'S MA GA ZINE

Harrison, Blaine and Reed, as president, secretary of
state, and speaker of the house, respectively.

General Harrison was born at North Bend, Ohio,
in 1833, and educated at Miami University. In 1854
he settled in Indianapolis and built up a law practice,
interrupted by two years of active service in the field
during the civil war, in the course of which he rose
from the rank of lieutenant to brigadier-general. He
was United States senator for Indiana from 1881 to
1887 and president of the United States from 1889 to
1893. He was not in sympathy with the foreign policy of
the McKinley administration, but refrained from active
criticism until what he considered the greater danger
of Bryanism was safely averted by the election of 1900.
It must be said, of his recent contention that the con-
stitution extends uniformly to all our new possessions,
that it placed his own earlier policy of Hawaii annex-
ation in an unfortunate light, since, if the Hawaiians
were entitled under the constitution to political equality,
they were clearly unfit to be annexed at all. General
Harrison did not repeat this mistake, however, in his
attitude on the Philippine question. He was strongly
opposed to annexation of these islands, and this partly
because of his conviction that if once annexed we could
not avoid admitting them to the full enjoyment of
American constitutional privileges.

General Harrison was never a mere carping critic
or "back-number" statesman with a grievance. Indeed,
his private life after retiring from the presidency was a
model of active usefulness and dignified reserve. His
recent position on the government's foreign policy was
that of abroad-minded statesman and thorough patriot.
Had his hand been at the helm during the last four
years we should probably have had no Philippine war
and no need of wrenching the constitution to provide
for the exigencies of a "colonial" policy.

GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OF QUASI-PUB-
LIC CORPORATIONS

EDWIN R. A. SELIGMAN, PH.D., PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL
ECONOMY AND FINANCE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

It has long been recognized that there are certain
forms of enterprise which differ in some important re-
spects from ordinary business ventures. They may be
divided into two classes. The first class comprises
those where the industry tends strongly to become an
actual monopoly and where uncontrolled monopoly be-
comes injurious to the interests of society. In such a
case no one denies the necessity of some form of social
intervention. The difficulty arises when we have to de-
cide whether this should take the form of government
ownership or only of government control. The second
class of industries comprises those which may continue
to be subject to competition, but where the social
interests involved are of such commanding importance
as to demand the active interference of government.
An attentive observation will disclose the fact that both
classes of enterprise may be included under the general
name of transportation and communication, understand-
ing these words in the broadest sense to include the de-
livery of values as well as the transmission of intelli-
gence. It is largely about some of these forms of en-
terprise that the great controversy is taking place in
every modern country. These industries may be
classed under the following heads :

305

306 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [April,

I . Transfer of Values.

(i) Coinage; (2) Issue of Notes; (3) Banks of Deposit; (4) Banks of
Issue.

II. Transfer of Products.

(i) Markets and Fairs; (2) Docks and Piers.

III. Transportation of Persons and Freight.

(i) Roads; (2) Canals; (3) Ferries; (4) Bridges; (5) Railways; (6)
Street Railways ; (7) Express Companies.

IV. Communication or Transmission of Intelligence,
(i) Post Office; (2) Telegraph; (3) Telephone.

V. Transmission of Utilities and Power.

(i) Water Works; (2) Lighting Companies, Gas and Electric; (3)
Electric Power Companies; (4) Steam Heating Companies; (5) Hot
Water Companies ; (6) Irrigation and Power Canals.

Although in the beginning all these enterprises
are in the hands of private individuals, some of them
are gradually subjected to more and more social control,
until they are finally taken over by government itself ;
and when once the government manages these enter-
prises the fiscal policy involved slowly changes. So far
as this progress takes place at all, there seems to be a
definite law of evolution in all the media of transporta-
tion and communication. No less than five stages of
development may be discerned :

Everywhere at first they are in private hands and
used for purposes of extortion and profit, like the high-
ways of mediaeval Europe, or the early bridges and
canals and markets. In the second stage, they are "af-
fected with a public interest," and are turned over to
trustees who are permitted to charge fixed tolls but are
required to keep the service up to a certain standard.
This was the the era of the canal or turnpike trusts or
companies. In the third stage the government takes
over the service, but manages it for profit, as is still the
case to-day in some countries with the postal and rail-
way systems. In the fourth stage, the government
charges tolls, or fees, to cover expenses only, as was un-
til recently true of canals and bridges, and as is the theory

1 9oi. ] GO VERNMENT O WNERSHIP 307

of the postal system and municipal water supply with
us at the present time. In the fifth stage, the govern-
ment reduces charges until finally there are no charges
at all and the expenses are defrayed by a general tax on
the community. This is the stage now reached in the
common roads and in most of the canals and bridges,
and which has been proposed by officials of several
American cities for other services, like the water sup-
ply.

It is obvious, however, that many of the industries
referred to above have not gone through the whole of
this evolution, and that some of them still remain in the
very first stage. It is necessary to consider what are
the reasons for this inequality of development and what
may be expected in the immediate future.

The general principle may be stated as follows.
The problem of governmental ownership of industry de-
pends primarily upon three considerations :

(1) The existence or non-existence of a widespread
social interest.

(2) The amount of capital invested.

(3) The complexity of management.

It is plain, for instance, that there can be no de-
mand in a community for the governmental assumption
of any industry unless that industry is of such fundamen-
tal social importance to everyone in his efforts to get
a living as to justify interference by government to that
extent. No one but the extreme socialist would ask that
government should manage a shoe factory. For this,
after all, involves a special, and not a general, interest.

It is the same with most industries. There are
so many different kinds and grades of consumers for
well-nigh every commodity that there is scarcely any
consciously felt community of interests in the matter.
But when we come to the enterprises mentioned above,
the case is different. Everyone feels that there is a

368 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [April,

distinction between such industries and purely private
industries, because the former are far more intimately
associated with the life of every citizen and with the
common welfare. Accordingly, even though they may
be retained in private hands, it is generally recognized
that there is in them a quasi-public element which justi-
fies some form of effective social control.

In the case of the industries here included under the
head of the ' 'transfer of values, " there is comparatively
little discussion to-day. The coinage of money, which
was formerly in private hands, is now everywhere con-
ceded to be a public function. The banking business
is also seen to be quasi-public in character. Although
in many countries banks are still owned by private in-
dividuals, government control in the way either of ac-
counting or of participation in the management is every-
where recognized as a necessity. The only moot ques-
tion is as to whether the paper currency of a country should
be issued by private banks or by the government. The
decision of this question is largely dependent upon the
political situation in the respective countries.

Much the same may be said of the class of industries
mentioned under our second head. The markets, which
in the middle ages were almost exclusively private, are
now coming more and more to be under public control.
The survivals of the old system in England, whereby
individuals who received medieval grants of market
rights are still enabled to control the market privileges
in many of the towns, are now felt to be anachronisms ;
hence in England as in many other places in Europe
the vested rights of individuals are being bought out
by the local corporations. In America the provision mar-
kets on a large scale are very largely under public con-
trol, and yield a substantial income to the city authori-
ties. In the case of the docks and piers, very much the
same development has taken place. In the United

igoi.J GO VERNMENT O WNERSHIP 309

States the progress has not been so rapid as abroad, but
no one acquainted with the recent history of New York
city can doubt that the municipalization of the river
front is leading to a great increase of facilities as well as
of public revenue.

When, however, we come to a consideration of the
last three classes in our schedule, we reach the problems
which are being so actively discussed at present. In
a few of the sub-divisions the controversies have been
laid to rest. For instance, in the case of the common
highways the process is about complete. Originally the
roads were the private property of the petty princes,
who used them for purposes of extortion. It was only
after a long period that the general government took
over the highways, although they frequently allowed
private trusts or companies to manage the turnpikes, on
condition that the payment of tolls to them would insure
the keeping of the roads in good repair. It is only of
comparatively recent occurrence that the tolls have been
abolished and that the roads have become the common
highways of the country. In certain rural sections of
the United States to-day there is still some controversy
over the principle. But in general it may be said that
the period of discussion is at an end.

The same state of affairs is found in the case of
bridges and very largely also in that of canals. Canals
were almost everywhere at first owned by private parties.
New York, however, from the very outset made a shining
exception in the case of the Erie Canal, and her exam-
ple has been largely followed in this countrv. It will
be remembered that it is only within the last two dec-
ades that canal tolls were abolished in New York and
that the canals were made free to all. But the canal
problem is to-day of minor importance because of the
advent of newer media of transportation.

In the case of ferries, when they are of distinct social

310 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [April,

importance, they are generally in the hands of the gov-
ernment, although they may, as in the case of New York,
be rented out to private parties.

The same considerations apply in the main to the
fourth class of industries. Discussion over the post-office
has been largely laid to rest, so far as the transmission of
letters, at all events, is concerned. Everybody, with the
exception of some extreme individualists, like Mr. Her-
bert Spencer and his followers, is agreed that the post-
al business should be in the public hands, because in a
democracy everybody is supposed to read and write,
and thus to have an equal interest in the use of the
mails. The chief reason, however, why there is no dis-
pute on the question of the post-office, is that the gov-
ernment post originated at a time when there was no
controversy over the limits of government interference ;
when this controversy arose, the postal service had be-
come such a well-settled government institution that
few people even thought of raising the question.
Moreover, in the case of the postal service it will be
recognized that all three of our criteria hold good. In
the first place, there is a widespread social interest ;
secondly, the amount of capital invested is very slight,
nothing being needed but the sites and buildings for the
post-offices, and a few simple devices for stamping and
transporting the letters ; and, thirdly, the management
itself is comparatively simple. Yet even in the post-
office it is a notorious fact that government manage-
ment is more costly than private management. A fa-
mous postmaster general of the United States once told
the present writer that if instead of being employed by
the government he were at the head of a large private
corporation running the post, he could save at least
twenty million dollars a year. He could do this princi-
pally through the more effective administration and con-

GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP 311

solidation of post-offices, which is at present rendered
impossible by political conditions.

Nevertheless, no one would think of abandoning the
government postal service. The only controversy in
this country arises over what are in other countries some
of the ancillary features of postal administration. Such,
for instance, is the problem of the postal telegraph, to
be discussed below ; and such, also, is the problem of
parcels post. Almost everywhere, except in the United
States, this is a well recognized function of the post-office ;
with us, the private express companies are so firmly en-
trenched that there seems to be little prospect of alter-
ing the situation. Yet all the arguments in favor of a
letter post would apply almost equally well to a parcels
post. In theory at all events, there is no reason for
further continuance of private express companies in the
United States.

When we come to the telegraph, what has been
said of the post-office applies in the main also to the
telegraph service. Unfortunately, in this country the
telegraph service is not used by everyone. The charges
are apparently so high and the conditions are such that
the telegraph is used chiefly for business purposes, and
only to a very slight extent for social purposes. In
other countries, where the telegraph is an adjunct to
the postal system, and where the rates are lower and the
facilities greater, the people use it, as everyone knows,
to a far greater extent in proportion to the intelligence
of the people, than we do. Therefore, from the point
of view of possible widespread social interest, the tele-
graph service ought to be put on a par with the postal
service. In the United States postal charges are lower
and telegraph charges are higher than abroad. Sec-
ondly, as regards the capital invested, while in the case
of the telegraph the necessity for the application of
capital is somewhat greater than in the case of the post.

312 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [April,

it is slight as compared with, other interests. All that
is necessary is to procure enough capital to put up poles
and to string the wires, and possibly also to secure
certain rights of way. If the government were to
attempt to buy out the telegraph lines there would
therefore be a capital outlay, but still an insignificant
one as compared with that invested in ordinary enter-
prises for other means of transportation. Finally, in
the case of the telegraph, the complexity of manage-
ment would also be a slight factor. Naturally there
will be from time to time new inventions in telegraph
apparatus. The experience, however, of even such
sleepy administrations as those of France and England
shows that the telegraph service does contrive to keep
on a level with the new inventions. And while the
telegraph operators may in some respects be com-
pared to the postal clerks, the government telegraph
generally manages to secure a high level of efficiency
in its officials.

Therefore, it seems that if we look at the problem
from each of these three points of view, the widespread
social interest, the amount of capital involved and the
complexity of management, all the conditions are in
favor of the assumption of the postal telegraph by the
government. This has been recognized by almost all
the countries of the world, including the most advanced
democracies, such as Switzerland and Australasia. The
history of almost every country except our own shows
that, although the telegraph may have started in private
hands, it was sooner or later brought under government
control.

It is well known that when the first telegraph in
the world was started in the United States in 1844,
it was practically in the hands of the government, and
that the government decided not to go on with the tele-
graph business, largely for the same reason that led the

igoi.} GO VERNMENT O WNERSHIP 313

postmaster-general in England at about the same time
violently to oppose the postal reforms of Mr. Rowland
Hill. The administration thought that the whole
matter would not amount to anything and did not want
to commit the government to such a hazardous experi-
ment. On the other hand, the originator of the tele-
graph system, who was wise enough to appreciate the
ultimate outcome, did not conceal his opinion that it
ought to form a natural adjunct to the postal system.

The only reason why there is not a louder outcry in
this country for governmental assumption of the tele-
graph is that the abuses of the telegraph system are far
less than those connected with other forms of trans-
portation. It must be remembered, however, that the
question of abuse is not the only one, and that what is
to be desired is above all the greatest possible social
utility. It might be claimed that if the government
managed the telegraph lines of this country it would not
make as much money as the Western Union Telegraph
Company. This is no doubt true; but, on the other
hand, the object of the government should be not to
make profits but to run the service just as the postal
service is run. In the post-office, any possible profit is
utilized to reduce the rates. In the case of the tele-
graph, we know that the rates are far higher in this
country than abroad, even allowing for the difference in
the value of money ; the rates are higher not only for
long distances, but also for short distances. As a result
the use of the telegraph service in this country cannot
be compared with that abroad. Therefore, although
there may not be any serious abuses connected with
the telegraph management in the United States, it
seems that every argument that can be made in favor of
the retention of the postal service by the government
can be applied to the assumption of the telegraph service
by the public.

314 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [April,

Practically the same arguments would hold good in
the case of the telephone. Only a few months ago
England enacted a law whereby in a very few years the
whole telephone system will be part and parcel of the
English post-office. Almost everywhere else in the
world, even though the telephone service may have
been originally in the hands of private parties, it is now
fast coming to be under the control of the government.
It is true that the arguments are not quite so strong for
the telephone as for the telegraph. The complexity of
management is somewhat greater in the case of the
telephone than in that of the telegraph, and it requires
a little more care to keep up to the level of modern
science. Nevertheless, the difference is not material.
To the extent that the long distance telephone, since
the great invention of Professor Pupin, will probably
become even more important than the local telephone,
the arguments in favor of the retention of the telephone
in the hands of the federal government rather than
of the local government become much stronger. It
is to a great extent considerations of this kind that have
led England to take the power over the telephones away
from the municipalities and to put it in the hands of
the central government. Of course, all this assumes
that, hand in hand with this progress, there will go a
development of civil service reform. As a matter
of fact there have been few political dangers in this
country shown in connection with the postal service.
To the extent that they have manifested themselves they
have been more than counterbalanced by the political
dangers that would have ensued had the postal service
been in private hands. In all such cases it is necessary
to balance the good against the evil.

While the arguments hitherto advanced would lead
to the governmental assumption of the telegraph and
the telephone, they would lead to precisely the opposite

igoi.J GO VERNMENT O WNERSH1P 315

conclusion in the case of the railways. So far as the
general social interest is concerned, the situation would
indeed not be different. It is this fact which has brought
everyone in this country to a recognition of the need of
some form of social control over the railways. But the
main reasons why government railways would be a fail-
ure in the United States have been mentioned in the
other two general considerations adduced above. Take,
for instance, the question of the investment of capital.
In the case of the post- office, even though we spend
over a hundred millions a year there is no large capital
account. It is chiefly current expense. But in the case
of the railway service we have the most stupendous of
all modern industries. The amount of capital invested
is gigantic. The fiscal reason would suffice to kill the
scheme for government rail ways. Governmental owner-
ship would throw the whole budget out of gear ; the
revenues and expenditures of our railways would be
two or three times as great as all the rest of our
revenues together, and the entire budget would depend
upon the temporary prosperity or lack of prosperity of
the railway system. We know that in bad times the
revenues of the railways in this country shrink by tens
and even hundreds of millions of dollars. This would
so embarrass the whole revenue side of our budget as to
lead to a complete revolution not only of our tax system
but also of our entire budgetary methods. This point,
which has commonly been overlooked, is of considerable
significance.

Still more important, however, is the problem of
the complexity of management. This alone would be
an insuperable bar to governmental management of rail-
ways. Of all businesses, the railway business calls for
the most delicate handling and must needs pay for the
highest possible business ability. The great salaries of
to-day are given to the railway presidents — salaries from

316 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [April,

$25,000 to $100,000 a year, and deservedly so, because
without consummate capacity the attempt to run a rail-
way would be a failure. Governments could not hope
to compete successfully in this respect with private
individuals.

Conditions may indeed change during the next few
decades, but under the present system we cannot expect
a democracy to pay as high salaries to its officials as pri-
vate industrial enterprises are able to do. The average
man of business or professional ability will not be
attracted to the government service. There are
indeed honorable exceptions to the rule. Yet we all
know of men who would have been glad to accept gov-
ernment positions when offered to them, but who
have stated that they could not possibly afford
to do so. It is asking a great sacrifice of a
man, in these days of such immense opportunities for
special ability, to give up comfort and wealth for the
more ideal end of serving the public. Only the best
and the noblest men do that, and their numbers are as
yet exceedingly few. It may be claimed that govern-
ment can get the same talent at a somewhat cheaper
rate than private corporations, but this is not true to the
extent that it would be necessary to equalize the differ-
ence between public and private management. There-
fore, to turn over the greatest, the most complex and
the most fundamental industry of modern times to the
hands of the government would, under present con-
ditions in the United States at all events, lead to such a
decrease in efficiency as soon to become well-nigh intol-
erable. The great advantage of individual initiative in
industry is that the ability of the citizen is turned to-
ward the reduction of the cost of production. All prog-
ress in the world consists very largely in lowering the
cost of production of commodities by driving out old
processes and introducing new processes. This results

1 9o i . ] GO VERNMENT O WNERSHIP 317

not alone in lower prices for the commodity, but, as our
history has amply shown, in higher wages for the oper-
ative as well as in more prosperity for the employer.
A prominent German who was one of the chief advo-
cates of the assumption of railways by Prussia, and who
has written admirable books on the American railway
problem, has said that if he were an American he would
be the most outspoken opponent of government assump-
tion of railways in this country. The difference in po-
litical conditions must everywhere be borne in mind.

To say that the government should not assume the
railways does not mean that the government should per-
mit free competition in the railway service. The great
advantage of the competitive system is that competition
always forces the price down to the level of the cheapest
competitor. It is only through the force of competition
in ordinary industry that the conditions arise under
which new inventions are made, under which new ma-
chines are introduced, under which the cost of produc-
tion is lowered. All progress, therefore, which directly
depends upon the decrease of the cost of production de-
pends upon the competition between producers. That
is why, under the competitive system of the nineteenth
century, the world has been making such immense ad-
vances. Now, this very excellence of the competitive
system discloses its weakness when applied to a public
or quasi-public enterprise. Prices can be brought down
and lowered only through the effort of producers to get
the better of each other and to offer to their purchasers
all kinds of inducements in order to widen their mar-
ket. Every merchant and manufacturer tries so far as
he can to secure control of the market, and he attempts
to do this by reducing his own price to any point that is
consistent with profits to him. If I go to a woollen house
in Worth Street, I try to ascertain what my competitor
is paying for these goods, and then I try to get a little

313 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [April,

lower rate. Upon my getting that lower rate or not
will perhaps depend the success or failure of that par-
ticular merchant. In other words, private business men
can succeed only by playing off one man against another.
That is the meaning of getting the best rates available.

While this is the normal and necessary condition in
ordinary economic life, it becomes bad instead of good
when applied to a quasi-public enterprise, because the
fundamental condition of all such quasi- public institu-
tions is that consumers shall be put on the same level.
It is just the opposite principle of what we have in
ordinary business. Ordinary competitive enterprise
means the preferring of the one over the other. The
transportation business, which is primarily a quasi-
public business, if it is to be conducted on the principle
of social utility, means putting everybody on the same
level. The only competition which is permissible in
transportation is not a competition as to rates but a com-
petition as to efficiency of service ; whereas in ordinary
business life competition includes not only competition
in efficiency but also competition in rates. Hence the
conclusion that competition is not applicable to the
transportation business in the same sense that it is to
ordinary enterprise. The sole meaning of the social
control of the transportation business is to preserve the
advantages of competition in facilities while doing away
with that of competition in rates. But this by no means
necessarily implies government management.

When we come finally to the so-called municipal
monopolies, it will be seen that the consideration of the
same general principles would lead to a conclusion in
harmony with those already arrived at. In the case of
the water supply, the arguments are largely in favor of
municipal ownership and management. The social
interests are of the utmost importance and there is
almost no complexity of management. When once the

i9oi.] GO VERNMENT O WNERSHIP 319

aqueduct and the water pipes are ready, all that is neces-
sary is to regulate the pressure from time to time, which
can be done under the charge of any competent engi-
neer. Of course, with the growth of cities in size, the
capital involved would become increasingly greater
until, as in the case of the new scheme for the addition
to the water supply of New York, tens of millions of
dollars may be required. On the other hand, however,
it must be remembered that here, as in the case of con-
struction of new piers or docks, charges or rents can
easily be fixed at such a point that, without unduly
burdening the public, they will be sufficient to defray
not only the running expense but also the interest on
the debt and what is needed in the way of an amortization
quota to fund the debt. Recent documents have shown
that in the period from 1890 to 1898 alone the total profit
of the Croton water supply of New York, over and above
all expense of maintenance, amounted to almost $14,-
000,000, — a fact which may be used in support of the
proposition that water charges for residence purposes,
at all events, should be still further reduced in New
York. The argument in favor of municipal water own-
ership is thus strong. It will therefore not surprise us that
the tendency toward municipalization of the water sup-
ply is a great and growing one in the United States.
Over fifty -three per cent, of all water plants in the
country are now in the hands of local governments.

In the case of the gas business the matter is more
complicated. The social interests indeed are wide-
spread, but not so overwhelmingly important as in the
case of water. For, while everyone needs water, gas is
only one among many methods of illumination. Sec-
ondly, the complexity of management is considerably
greater than in the case of the water supply. The
stimulus of private initiative is needed to a far greater
extent in order that the management may avail itself of

320 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [April,

the continual improvements in the process, thus leading
to a reduction of cost. In the one great example of
municipal gas ownership that we have had in the United
States, namely, in Philadelphia, the results were satis-
factory neither to the treasury nor to the consumer.
Whatever may be said of the methods employed by the
private monopoly to which the city of Philadelphia has
farmed out the management of the gas service for a term
of years, there is little doubt that both the consumer
and the city treasury have profited to a considerable
degree.

In the case of the electric light, the arguments in
favor of municipal ownership are perhaps somewhat more
convincing, at all events in those smaller towns where
natural conditions favor the situation, and where the
outlay is relatively inconsiderable. The complexity of
management is largely minimized, but even here con-
siderable care must be observed.

Finally, in the case of street railways, the argu-
ments in favor of municipal management are less strong
than in either the water or the electric light supply.
For here, although the complexity of management is
by no means so great as in the steam railway, it is of
far more importance than it would be in the case of the
telegraph, the telephone, or water works. It is very
unlikely that the municipal authorities of any
American city would have had the courage to under-
take such great revolutions in the methods of transpor-
tation as have been successfully inaugurated and com-
pleted during the past few years in our chief cities.
Not only is this true, but the capital involved is so tre-
mendous that, without complete changes in our whole
system of constitutional limitations, it would be entirely
out of the question for our American cities to burden
themselves with the gigantic debts that would be neces-
sary to carry out the scheme. The far safer plan, for

i9or.] GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP 321

the immediate future at all events, seems to lie in the
direction of safeguarding the public interests through
governmental regulation, rather than through govern-
mental management. And even if government owner-
ship be decided upon, every argument would be in
favor of following the plan of the underground rapid
transit scheme in New York, namely, government
ownership but private management under conditions
fixed by the municipality, which should cover at once
the social interests of the community, the needs of the
treasury and the relations between the corporation and
its employees. In this way the best features of each
system could be retained.

We see then, that in the consideration of this ques-
tion we must not be led away by preconceived notions
on either side. The outcry of socialism is utterly be-
side the mark, for in enterprises of the kind contem-
plated in this paper, the principle of free competition
cannot possibly apply. Where the industry is neces-
sarily a monopoly, the only choice is ;between a public
monopoly and a private monopoly under social regula-
tion. No one should be frightened by,the bugaboo of
socialism. It is a question for final decision after a
careful weighing of the arguments for and'against ; and,
in such a complicated problem as this, good arguments
will be found on either side. But, above all, it must
be remembered that the problem is not simply the ab-
stract one of the general limits of governmental activi-
ty, but the very concrete problem ^'as^to how far the
practical political conditions in any particular country
permit of the realization of the ideal. We may all agree,
for instance, that in these enterprises, whether they
are called quasi-public businesses or public.service cor-
porations, the public element is the preponderant one.
We may all concur in the belief that even where it
seems desirable to retain for the time the management

322 G UN TON'S MA GAZINE

of such enterprises in private hands the period may
come when the advantages to be derived from social
control of private management may be outweighed by
the benefits of direct governmental operation. Yet in
a democracy it is always wise to make haste slowly and
to refrain from taking a leap in the dark. If
there is any truth in the historical tendency men-
tioned at the beginning of this paper, it is more than
likely that the future— how remote a future we cannot
tell — has in store for us a complete transference of
quasi-public enterprises to the public itself. But until
the general political and economic conditions are ripe
for such a wholesale change, the probable result would
be the realization of an abstract principle at the cost of
efficiency and progress. That social control of quasi-
public enterprises will in the near future receive a
marked development is beyond any question. But
it is not until social control has been tested and
found wanting, that in the case of some of the distinctly
municipal monopolies we shall be ready for the further
step of public management.

DOOM OF THE DICTATOR

Dictation is government by force. Throughout
the history of advancing society there has been a more
or less continuous struggle to eliminate the dictator, to
supersede dictation by representation. The effect of
dictatorship is demoralizing even to the dictator him-
self, because it lacks the moral influence of responsible
accountability. Human progress has not yet produced
a type of being perfect enough to exercise the power of
dictator without degenerating into an oppressive
despot. Dictation and democracy, therefore, are in-
compatible; they are mortal enemies of each other.
This is true in every sphere of social life, and, just as
fast as the conscious demand for freedom and the
capacity to exercise it advances, the tendency to super-
sede dictation by representation increases. Sometimes
it requires a revolution, sometimes it comes by the less
violent means of gradual evolution, but it always comes
wherever civilization advances. The advance of this
representative principle in government has been the
conspicuous feature in the political progress of the
nineteenth century. In Europe it began in England
with the first reform bill and gradually extended from
class to class until it finally embraced the masses, and,
for the major portion of the political institutions, prac-
tically established democracy. In various degrees this
principle of representation has extended to every
country in Europe with the exception of Russia and
Turkey. There dictation still remains supreme.

In this country our institutions are founded en-
tirely upon the theory of representation. Dictation is
an element obnoxious to the very nature and character
of our institutions, but, as dictation is the prime ele-
ment in all ante-democratic institutions, it naturally

323

824 G UNTON 'S MA GAZINJS [April,

asserts itself wherever the democratic principle is not
sufficiently safeguarded to prevent it. In the develop-
ment and perfection of democratic government in this
country, therefore, it has been a more or less constant
struggle to maintain the practical operation of the
democratic principle. With every new phase of na-
tional development, creating new conditions and rela-
tions, the ever latent force of dictation asserts itself.
It showed itself in industry, not merely in slavery but
in all phases of factory and mercantile development.
The concentrated organization of industry, the develop-
ment of cities, the creation of large enterprises, all
tended to produce new societary conditions and rela-
tions, and with every such new step the lack of experi-
ence was taken advantage of for the assertion of the
power of the dictator. The struggle to preserve the
idea of freedom, in fact as well as theory, has made an
immense amount of protective legislation necessary
along all the lines of social and industrial life. The
rights and opportunities of the people to assert their
desires, to organize and act for their own interests and
be recognized by representation, have had to be
defined and protected in an infinite variety of ways;
in fact, in every phase of life where progress has
produced new and more complex conditions. The
guarantee of education, domestic sanitation, restriction
of hours of labor in which women and children shall
be employed in factories, shops and mines, the rights
of the laborers to organize in trade unions, the rights of
the people to act for and by themselves, are all a part
of the constant movement in progressive society to
eliminate the dictator and establish freedom and repre-
sentation as the ruling principle.

In politics the representative principle has been
more definitely recognized in theory but it has con-
stantly encountered the powers of dictation in practice.

i90i.] DOOM OF THE DICTA TOR 325

It is the spirit and purpose of the written constitution
as well as the unwritten theory of this republic that in
all its branches and subdivisions the government shall
be the representative of the people, that the represen-
tation shall be actual from top to bottom, from begin-
ning to end. As already observed, the growth of
industrial institutions and civic life brought new condi-
tions and forces which militated against the free opera-
tion of this representative principle, and in every
instance dictation asserted itself. To correct this
tendency and safeguard the democratic principle, sev-
eral experiments of special legislation have been neces-
sary. For instance, in the early days of the republic,
before large industrial interests arose, open voting was
an easy way of providing for the free exercise of the
suffrage, but with the growth of special interests and
development of a large wage class an element of
coercive dictatorship arose, and organized efforts were
made to use the power of employment to control the
votes of the employed. This gradually came to be the
substitution of dictation for representative election.
For, while the form of voting remained, the freedom
of the voter was gone. As this extended, discontent
arose, protests were heard and at first punished by dis-
charge and other penalties which could be secretly
inflicted. Ultimately the protest against dictation,
economic and political, culminated in protecting the
citizen's right to vote by arming him with a secret bal-
lot which neither employer, neighbor, creditor nor
politician could intrude upon. Thus, by protecting
the right of the citizens, the principle of democracy
was extended to the ballot box.

This took many years, and many forms of experi-
ment were adopted to accomplish the result. The dic-
tator with larger resources and strong motives was
constantly inventing new devices to circumvent the

326 GUNTOWS MAGAZINE [April,

protection afforded the citizen. Here, as in the protec-
tive industrial legislation, the first effort was usually a
failure, loopholes in the laws were frequently found,
so that amendment after amendment was necessary in
every step of such legislation before real protection to
the individual was secured. For instance, it took ten
years of amendment upon amendment for the ten-hour
law for women and children in Massachusetts to be
effective. The word " wilful " had been inserted, so
that the law-breaking corporation could escape the
penalty by saying it did not know and hence did not
" wilfully " break the law. So with the ballot. Many
forms of ballots were tried in different states before
effective protection to the voters could be secured by
giving a secret ballot that was practical ; namely, one
which would not confuse the voter and defeat the object
of the law. Finally, however, this has been substan-
tially accomplished in the larger part of the United
States and in England also. But here again, the prin-
ciple of dictation, ever struggling for an opportunity
to assert itself, has found a new field of operation.
Driven from the polls by a long series of amended and
reamended efforts of the people, it has concentrated
itself upon the primaries.

Having lost the power to control elections, the dic-
tator now concentrates his efforts upon the nominations.
Under our party system this is scarcely less effective
and in some respects more dangerous to public inter-
ests than was the more open coercion at the polls. In
controlling the nomination of candidates to political
office, the party boss becomes a veritable despot. This
dangerous power is exercised in two important direc-
tions :

First ; by dictating the nomination through the co-
ercive use of patronage he destroys the rights of citi-
zenship and thereby discourages the people from taking

i9oi.] DOOM OF THE DICTA TOR 327

any active interest in the primaries. The result is that
practically nobody except agents of the " organization"
attend the primaries, except under rare instances of
special excitement. The whole slate is prepared be-
fore the primaries are held, and the primary and ulti-
mately the convention is reduced to a formal confirma-
tion of the dictator's will. This has been so completely
reduced to a system that the public despair of accom-
plishing anything except by a herculean effort, and
consequently respectable citizens with no other motive
than performing their public duty have ceased to at-
tend the primaries.

Second ; another effect of this dictatorship in the
primaries is to give the political boss unlimited power
of blackmail. By controlling the nomination of candi-
dates to the legislature he can dictate the legislation.
This gives him the power to " bleed " business men
and corporations in fabulous amounts. If they do not
pay the blood money he has the power to enact injuri-
ous legislation against them, and in the desire to move
in the line of the least resistance they pay the tax as a
means of protection. This forced tribute from business
men again further increases the power of the boss, by
enabling him "personally" to contribute to the cam-
paign expenses of needy candidates, thus further seal-
ing their subjection to his dictation.

It is through this power that Mr. PJatt is able to
say before the legislature meets what legislation will
be adopted. Before the present legislature was con-
vened and before the members of either branch had
any ideas on the subject, Mr. Platt announced that a
police bill would be passed before the end of February,
and it was. The members of the legislature had noth-
ing to say about it, their function was to obey or re-
ceive their political death warrant. The effectiveness
of this method was illustrated when Mr. Platt was made

323 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [April,

United States senator, — it could hardly be called an
election. He wanted a unanimous vote, and there were
seven members of the legislature who were so far mis-
taken as to imagine that they had the right to disobey
this injunction and vote for another candidate. In
pursuance of this erroneous notion they voted for Mr.
Joseph H. Choate instead of Mr. Thomas C. Platt, and
they all paid the penalty for harboring such false notions.
Every one of them died at the threshold of the primary,
not one was permitted to have a renomination, so as to
receive the approval or disapproval of his constituents.
They offended the dictator, which was the unpardonable
sin for which only political death was the penalty.

At the last election this method was worked with
marvelous accuracy. Despite the popular demand for
]\Ir. Coler for governor, Mr. Croker at the eleventh
hour gave forth the edict that Coler must not be nomi-
nated. He apparently had no special candidate to name ;
the edict was, whomsoever you please except Coler,
and Coler was not nominated. In the republican con-
vention a similar edict went forth in favor of Mr. Odell.
Once in a lifetime a tidal wave arises which the boss
cannot control, as in the case of Roosevelt, but in ninety
out of a hundred cases the edict is effective.

In one congressional district in New York city the
boss was late in making up his mind on a candidate,
and, the orders not having been effectively promulgated,
the people elected delegates to a convention with near-
ly 40 majority for a candidate of their own choice ; but
the boss subsequently decided that another man must
have the nomination, and, through the methods of
rewards and punishments by giving and taking away
offices, this majority was effectively turned into a mi-
nority.*

Another illustration of the far-reaching and effec-

* See Lecture Bulletin, February 15, 1901.

DOOM OF THE DICTA TOR 329

tive use of this power is now being enacted in Pennsyl-
vania. There are two or three cities in Pennsylvania
which have not been entirely subordinated to the Quay
machine. Being utterly unable to reach them through
public opinion he ordered his legislature to pass a
law abolishing the office of mayor in second-class cities,
and providing that the duties be performed by a ' ' re-
corder," who was to be appointed by the governor.
Of course, the act defines what constitutes second-class
cities, and it exactly fits the municipalities which so far
forgot their duty as not to elect Quay mayors, for which
they are to be punished by disfranchisement. If they
do not know enough to let the dictator select their
mayor, they shall not have one, but shall be governed
by a recorder appointed by a Quay governor.

Nothing has occurred since the dawn of parliamen-
tary government which so boldly and ruthlessly tram-
pled down the principle of representation as this Penn-
sylvania performance. There have been coercions and
briberies and intimidations, England had her rotten
boroughs and all the degrees of corruption, but never
before was a political dictator bold enough and bad
enough openly to legislate away the right of a munici-
pality to elect a mayor, because it did not permit the
election to be dictated by him.

But New York and Pennsylvania are not alone in
this experience ; it is comparatively general, especially
in large cities throughout the country. The boss is the
bane of American politics, and he is operating by simi-
lar methods with varying success from one end of the
country to the other. Upon the principle that the same
cause tends to produce the same effect, similar evils call
for similar remedies. Nothing more clearly indicates
the naturalness and the ultimate necessity of a social
reform than the fact that it is simultaneously demanded
by different communities without organized concert

330 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [April,

with each other. The corruption and intimidation at
the polls under the open-voting system was an evil as-
sociated with the unprotected popular vote; consequent-
ly, it arose wherever popular open voting took place ;
in Australia, in England and in the United States. In
the natural tendency to counteract this evil, experi-
ments were made in the different countries and in the
different states to devise a workable system of
secret or protected voting. The people of Aus-
tralia were the first to discover the effec-
tive method, and the Australian ballot is now well-nigh
universally used. It has become obvious to students of
popular government and honest elections that the same
protection furnished by the secret ballot at the polls
must be applied to the primaries. The people of New
York city, who have recently been shocked by an over-
dose of boss dictation, are awakening to the fact that,
to insure approximate integrity of popular government,
the nomination as well as the election of candidates for
public office must be put into the hands of the people;
in short, that the convention, the seat of boss manipula-
tion, must be abolished and direct nomination by the
people substituted in its place.

The very naturalness of this step is here again con-
firmed by the fact that the same causes are producing
the same effects and the same evils are suggesting the
same remedies throughout the country. The righteous
demand for direct nominations, which is just now stir-
ring the people of New York city, is revealing
itself in numerous other states : Kentucky, Missouri,
Kansas, Ohio and Pennsylvania have all been stirred
by and are experimenting with this question. Last
year Minnesota adopted a law for direct nominations,
and now the state of Wisconsin is shaken to its center
by a popular demand for the same reform, which is now
before the legislature. It is clear that the evil arises

i9oi.] DOOM OF THE DICTA TOR 331

out of the nature of the system, since its existence is
coextensive with the system. The only efficient remedy
is to take the power of nomination away from the dic-
tator and give it to the people.

The people are honest. They have no motive for
corruption and jobbery, but every motive for honest,
wholesome and clean government. Put nominations
in the hands of the people and protect the citizens in
their nominating duties and the power of the boss will
be gone. Here as everywhere else, experimentation is
the road to perfection. The enemy will be ever-present
in trying to render every such measure imperfect. It
is the universal experience in government that, when
the demand fora measure cannot be suppressed, the
aim is to defeat the object by making the law ineffective.
This has been the experience with every step in indus-
trial and social legislation when the interests of any
powerful class were arrayed against it, and curiously
enough it has been the experience with the experiments
on this subject of direct nominations. Laws have been
passed in several states, aiming to give direct nomina-
tions, but they have had many defects. They have
been, in short, partial experiments toward the evolu-
tion of a practicable and workable measure. New York
has the benefit of that experience. Like the Australian
ballot, the principle is sound, it is only the machinery
for its application that needs perfecting.*

In New York state some important preparatory
legislation has already been secured. There was a pe-
culiar kind of vileness in New York; namely, the
fraudulent packing of the rolls of the primaries, so that
not only the boss could dictate but, if there was any
danger of defeat, he could get the aid of the boss of the
other party. The rolls of the republican primaries
could be padded by names of democrats and vice versa.
*See Lecture Bulletin, March 15, 1901,

332 G UNTON'S MA GAZINE

To meet this evil a very comprehensive and thorough
primary law has been adopted in New York state, which
provides for the careful enrolment of the voters in the
respective parties and makes indiscriminate passage
from one party primary to the other practically impos-
sible. All this has been first-class preparation for the
adoption of direct nominations. It has practically
solved the difficulties which the experiments in other
states have encountered. To have nominations for
public offices made directly by the people, under the
protection of the secret ballot, is the next important
step in political progress. The death of the dictator is
essential to the life of democracy.

SOME SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF THE WOMAN
SUFFRAGE QUESTION

MRS. MARY K. SEDGWICK

Men and women of serious intent know no more
inspiring words than reform, development, progress.
These are the watchwords of the advocates of woman
suffrage, and it is hard to resist their summons.

We anti- suffragists stand therefore at a disadvan-
tage, seeming at first sight to be merely in opposition,
always a difficult and ungracious position, while the
suffragists seem positive and progressive. In reality,
however, it is they who oppose progress, in disregard-
ing the conclusions of the long struggle for civilization,
while we desire to advance the race along the lines of
its development hitherto, sure that in evolution, not
revolution, lies the safety of our country.

We advocate the highest advancement of the whole
race, especially of women, in so far as their interests
can be considered apart from those of men. We be-
lieve that woman suffrage would retard human progress
— that it would introduce unforeseen complications into
our social system, already too complicated — above all,
that it would bring new burdens upon woman just as
she is outgrowing her former disabilities and enjoying
new opportunities congenial to her nature.

The old notion of "woman's sphere,'' narrowed
to the round of domestic duties, is obsolete, and a
woman may unchallenged do anything right and suited
to her capacities. We differ from the suffragists more
in methods than in ideals of usefulness, regarding them
as radicals who would risk dangerous experiments and
endanger the true proportions of life.

The movement for woman suffrage, a legacy from

834 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [April,

the civil war, furnishes an outlet to able and restless
women, not contented with ordinary mental and physi-
cal occupations. These women, deploring the blunders
and corruption under male suffrage, feel quite as com-
petent as men to deal with economic problems and po-
litical situations. They forget that the practical hand-
ling of these problems differs entirely from the theoretic
treatment of the same ; that it is not for themselves
alone or for their equals in ability and patriotism that
they ask full suffrage, an overturn of nature and of
government, but also for the vast number of women not
similarly inspired.

Anti- suffragists especially urge upon all women a
broad and intelligent knowledge of public affairs.
Whatever makes for righteousness in social, national
or international matters profoundly concerns woman,
that she may be an enlightened citizen and wisely in-
fluence the opinions of children and of men with whom
she is in daily and friendly relations, adding to her
naturally keen intuition the subtle discrimination that
comes of training.

We welcome all efforts to help women to intellect-
ual freedom, but with power comes responsibility and
they must know how to use their freedom. We weave
a new tyranny about ourselves if we assume more obli-
gations than we are equal to, or responsibilities more
fitly left to those better adapted to bear them, both by
nature and experience. Education and opportunity for
women have no necessary connection with the ballot.
The path trodden by men is not conclusively the only
road for women.

A recent writer has well said that, though it is still
undetermined how far woman's needs and activities
should be bounded by sex limitations, "no system of
education can be comprehensive and satisfactory which
leaves out of account the primary dividing principle;"

I9or.] THE WOMAN SUFFRAGE QUESTION 335

that there is "a division of labor upon lines of sex dis-
tinctly marked far down in the animal world.'' It does
not follow that because the interests of men and women
are identical their functions should therefore be identi-
cal. If they were, our civilization would become
dwarfed and one-sided. As education is primarily a
1 'training for power, ' ' it should be for the advantage of
the normal relations of educated men and women in
ordinary households where "the constant exchange of
services and interaction of functions make the whole
into an organism. That education is best for the two
sexes which emphasizes difference, rather than that
which obliterates it. Either, sex is an appalling
blunder, or else it must have been intended that each
sex should have its own work to do, not merely in the
physical economy of the race but also in the social and
intellectual world,'' to which we would add, the politi-
cal world.

The present conditions of society have been reached
only through a gradual development. The arrange-
ment is not perfect, but it can be improved only slowly,
and any fundamental upsetting of this slow progress
must be mischievous to the body politic. There must
be good reason for the present arrangement, as it con-
forms to two fundamental laws governing the social
organism: the physiological division of labor, and the co-
operation of dissimilars for mutual benefit.

The suffragists defy these elementary and funda-
mental laws of nature in demanding the ballot as a
remedy for the present evident social evils. Instead of
specialization they put wilful individualism, and instead
of cooperation wasteful duplication. To my mind our
strongest hope lies here ; for they who defy natural law
inevitably in the end suffer overwhelming defeat.

Dr. Felix Adler, in saying that extravagant liberty
and wholly untrammeled individualism are at the

336 G UNTON'S MA GAZINE [April,

bottom of the curse of divorce, strikes trie keynote of
most of our social evils. It is because too many of us
disregard our duties and responsibilities to society in
its ethical sense that women consider themseves un-
righteously restricted.

The development of the race has been a steady
growth in specialization; from the differentiation of
tissues in the lower forms of life, producing different
organs with different functions ; on through the division
of labor which makes man an important member of a
community instead of an isolated savage ; up to the
wonderful complexity of our modern life in which each
man or woman, filling his or her special niche, has in-
terests inextricably interdependent with those of count-
less other men and women. The outcry about "the
subjection of women'* seems to have little other foun-
dation than the unreasoning longing of a child for what
it has not.

" In Mr. Herbert Spencer's view," says Professor
Giddings, "society is an organism not in mere fanci-
ful analogy, and not morally only, but physiologically
as well, because in its constitution there is a division of
labor that extends beyond individuals to groups and
organizations of individuals. There is a sustaining
system made up of individual groups ; a distributing
system made up of commercial activities ; and a regu-
lating system, made up of political and religious
agencies. Mr. Spencer takes much pains to show that
the ethical progress and happiness of mankind are con-
ditioned by this functional organization of society. The
medium in which the highest development of person-
ality is possible is a society having a specialized
constitution, and presenting many degrees of com-
position. The individual must have a definite part in
the divisions of labor and in the common life of the
nation, the local community and the family.

IQOI.] THE WOMAN SUFFRAGE QUESTION 337

" Whether his daily duty identifies him (i) with
productive industry, or (2) with directive functions, or
(3) with the extension of knowledge and the spiritual-
ization of life, the individual is affected by all these
interests if there is no derangement of the social organ-
ization. Those economic writers are mistaken who see
only an economic gain in the division of labor, and deny
that it can be 'morally and mentally beneficial to in-
dividuals. The division of labor gives a definite end
to life. It ensures a definite discipline and that minute
thoroughness which every investigator knows is one of
the essential conditions of a rational mental habit. At
the same time it releases men from their tasks to enjoy
more hours of leisure than they could otherwise
command."

Equality does not necessarily mean similarity of
functions, and the suffrage agitation is a retrograde
movement, which carried to its logical conclusion would
take the race back towards the condition in which no
sex characteristics existed. For, the farther back we
go in the scale of animal development, the less is
the difference between the sexes, until we reach
primitive forms of life in which sex is indistinguish-
able. Women in civilized nations differ more from the
men about them than do those in savage tribes, history
here confirming the teachings of evolution. Parkman
says : ' * The social power of women has grown with the
growth of civilization, but their political power has
diminished. In former times and under low social
conditions women had a degree of power in public
affairs unknown in the foremost nations of the modern
world. The most savage tribes on this continent, the
Six Nations of New York, listened in solemn assembly
to the counsels of its matrons, with a deference that
has no parallel among its civilized successors. Four
hundred years before Christ the question of giving

338 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [April,

power to women was agitated among the most civilized
of ancient peoples, the Athenians, and they would not
follow the example of their barbarian neighbours."
This movement for full suffrage, therefore, seems his-
torically to be in a backward direction.

Moreover, the women of to-day are gainers by this
process of specialization, as we are free to fill our time
with the occupations for which we are best fitted. Not
only is economy of time and effort thus achieved, but
the quality of the work done is far higher, the best
strength being given to a limited range, which would
be impossible if both men and women of superior ability
should devote themselves chiefly to the same social
interest. Specialization may lead to narrowness, but
the workers of the world will rightly prefer the ex-
cellence resulting from intensified effort to breadth with
shallowness. The jack-of-all-trades is proverbially
master of none.

Moreover, the extreme specialists will probably be
only a moderate number in the realm either of mind or
of matter. More men and women are needed capable
of appreciating and enjoying the fruits of specialized
study. Women particularly will represent this general
culture. Dr. Adler has said, in effect, that the history
of the world has taught us that while the feminine
mind on the whole (we must make laws for the average
and not for exceptions) is less original than the mascu-
line mind, yet women do an equally necessary and
difficult service to mankind in their finer, keener
aptitude for criticism. They discriminate, not only
more quickly but more subtly, between the important
and the unimportant, the suitable and the unsuitable.
This implies no mental inferiority ; to sift the chaff, to
select qualities and results, the true critical function,
often confers on an original creation all its practical
value.

igoi.j THE WOMAN SUFFRAGE QUESTION 339

In an ideal society men and women choose their
occupations to suit both individual and sex fitness ;
wherever this is impossible energy is lost. Many
occupations fall naturally to one sex or the other
because of special fitness or unfitness. Men should do
all the work calling for great physical strength, con-
tinued exposure, or long absence from home ; in general,
work involving the combative powers. Women must,
on the other hand, take care of the children and home ;
they must do most of the teaching and nursing. Many
other occupations may be entered by men and women
with equal advantage, except that women are constantly
handicapped by their peculiar physical limitations, a
point which most suffragists ignore.

Women have every opportunity that men have for
intellectual development and public usefulness, except
in government and war. To counterbalance these
limitations, women have at least two functions that men
have not, — bearing children and training them, functions
obviously quite as important as politics or military
service. A third function may be added, for women
have so far captured the direction of primary education
that there are few men left teaching in elementary
grades.

As has often been said, if men have proved such
poor lawmakers as the suffragists assert, the mothers of
the nations should prove that they can train their sons
better before demanding the responsibility of the ballot.
In any case it remains for the suffragists to show why it is
such a supreme disadvantage to women to be free from
the conduct of government and of war. Why should
women sacrifice the privilege of untrammeled opinions,
disinterested work and effective influence for the heated
debate and bitter struggle for recognition and office
which are such a ordeal for men in public life?

The suffragists assert that probably not more than

840 GUNTON'S MAGAZJNE [April,

ten women in a hundred would care for active partici-
pation in politics. There are grave objections to grant
ing the suffrage for the use of so small a proportion of
the sex. These ten women in each hundred are prob-
ably the ablest and most ambitious of their group,
women needed for the more important work of training
children, or for boards of philanthropy and reform where
the disinterested work of women tells enormously, sim-
ply because disinterested. Woman's power in matters
of public reform is much greater because she cannot be
accused of having any selfish or ulterior motive. She
is known to be working simply to right abuses, and to
protect poor and defeated members of society; if she
wins, it is the triumph of justice, her cause is human-
ity's. But the necessary corollary of the ballot is eligi-
bility to office, and there would always be voices to accuse
of interested motives the woman voter contending for
reform. It is absurd to say that the women on public
philanthropical and educational boards are in politics,
and that they have therefore shown their political capa-
bilities already. The struggle in Boston in 1896 to
separate politics from its public charitable, correctional,
and reform institutions refutes any such statement.

If only ten women in a hundred used the suffrage
wisely, there would be ninety in each hundred to swell
the ranks of the indifferent, which means uninstructed,
voters, of whom we have far too many among men.
Moreover, many of these inactive women voters would
be more than uninstructed ; they would be ignorant and
and unconscientious, some of them vicious.

Women would have not only to cast a vote but to
attend fand watch primaries, caucuses, conventions.
Many men do not do this, but unless women are to
improve matters it is futile to double the present vote.

Our trouble lies in calling women a distinct class, and
in regarding the question from the point of view of the

THE WOMAN SUFFRAGE QUESTION 341

individual rather than of the whole state and nation.
The men and women of a given stratum of society form
one class together ; for men and women living together,
whether in tenements or palaces, are not antagonistic
nor even indifferent to each other's welfare. It is only
in comparing the exceptional woman with the average
man, or the educated and public- spirited woman with
the ignorant laborer that we get an apparent basis for
equal suffrage. The whole agitation is founded upon
a misapprehension of the social unit, which is not the
individual but the family, of which each part contributes
its share to the general good.

Those who argue that women would purify politics
think of women of the higher type, more conscientious
than men of less education and lower moral standards.
But the vote of this kind of woman does not replace
that of an idle, worthless man. If she votes, so does
he, and the women of his family. Where is the gain
of doubling the vote without improving its quality ?

If woman's vote would purify politics, it would
seem worth while to run the risk of revolution and to
controvert the laws of nature. But why should it so
operate? In their eagerness for the suffrage, women
have descended to the arts of the ward politician. That
arch-demagogue once governor of Massachusetts was
supported by their leading journal because he declared
in their favor. They offer themselves to every party
convention promising adherence to whichever party will
gain them the ballot, and a still darker feature is the
female lobby said to be always working with insidious
arts behind the scenes at Washington and at state capi-
tals. Women are no wiser, purer, or more unselfish,
politically, than men of their own class. The purifica-
tion of politics by woman must come by her constant
upholding of the highest standards. Free from the
confusion of political strife, anxious only for the right,

342 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [April,

"seeing straight and thinking clear," she has a far
nobler field of power than if she were struggling in the
dust and smoke of the battle.

Let us now consider the second great principle
governing the social organism, — the "cooperation of
dissimilars," which is fundamentally nature's wise use
of the first great principle, — "the physiological divis-
ion of labor." Just as that is specially directed toward
the perfection of the individual, this is a united effort
for the improvement of the mass. The differing quality
of mind in the sexes makes their cooperation upon all
social and philanthropic problems not only important
but necessary for the best results. We here observe
the beautiful law of proportion as opposed to the waste-
ful duplication of effort.

On this very ground it is urged that, if men and
women are mutually helpful on boards of reform and
education, they will be equally so in the ward room and
the legislature. The suffragists ask: "What special
fitness is there in the average male voter that the laws
of division of labor and cooperation of dissimilars are
obeyed in excluding women from the franchise?" We
answer: "Men rather than women have always been
the voters of a community, not because of superior
judgment or higher moral sense, but because their sex
stands in general for the physical strength that can
enforce its decisions."

Since women are in many ways less fitted for pub-
lic life than men, here is a satisfactory division of labor
brought about by sex, saving for women much precious
time and many precious qualities. At the same time,
our second great law is observed through the coopera-
tion of these dissimilars by different methods for a
common end. As Dr. T. T. Munger says, women have
not what is technically known as the legal mind, while
it is equally true that men lack the delicate and sensi-

igoi.] THE WOMAN SUFFRAGE QUESTION 343

tive perceptions of women. Men are therefore more
fitted for public life, and women for personal and
domestic relations.

Much of the alleged unfitness of women for public
life could undoubtedly be eradicated by proper educa-
tion during the impressible period of youth. It will,
however, always be true that women are more delicately
organized than men, more quickly stirred emotionally
and imaginatively. In political life women cannot
acquire control of their emotions or the necessary prac-
tical training in public morals and manners; such
training must be largely obtained before the age of
twenty- one, and the arena of politics is plainly the last
place in which to secure it.

Has political life trained our men to such lofty
ideals of public honor, such impartial administration of
justice, such habits of calm and fair discussion that we
wish to entrust to its turmoil the impetuous and ardent
nature of woman? Secretary Gage has said by news-
paper report: "The increasing emotionalism which
characterizes American politics is one of our greatest
dangers, the tendency for great floods and waves of
feeling to sweep over the community, and to carry
thousands and millions with them into a sudden cur-
rent. What we need is less emotionalism in politics,
not more; I think," he concluded, "that the sudden
admission of women into political life would greatly
aggravate this danger."

Men admit that there is no career equal to politics
for tense feeling and nervous wear. It demands the
greatest coolness and deliberation, complete detach-
ment from the personal view; and it demands these
ready-made, it is not a school for developing them.
Women do not need politics to incite them to cultivate
their sense of public duty ; they are, no less than men,
bound to serve the state, and able to serve it wisely.

344 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE

" The end of government is the good of mankind," said
Locke, and that good can be attained only by convey-
ing all the various forces of the race toward the common
end. The contribution of women toward this end,
while equally essential, is necessarily unlike that of
men.

To conclude as we began : If women are eager to
do their share in aiding the reform, development, prog-
ress of the world about them, they do not need the
suffrage. The progress of nature herself has brought
us to the present condition of a ' ' physiological division
of labor;" we are strongest when working in accord-
ance with the laws of our own being ; we have every
opportunity to do all the work that our individual and
sex limitations permit ; while our best contribution to
the political welfare of our country is not the same as
that of man, but the cooperation of our dissimilar gifts
with his for our mutual benefit and that of the state of
which all are members. ' ' We are all members of one
body, but all the members have not the same office."

DISCREDITABLE TARIFF ENFORCEMENT

The prime object of a protective tariff is to render
encouragement to the development and prosperity of
domestic industries. It is to furnish to the capital and
labor of the country the full advantages of the home
market. This very importance of a protective policy
to the welfare of the nation carries with it a correspond-
ing responsibility for its wise and non-offensive admin-
istration. This necessarily calls for a high degree of
administrative ability as well as integrity. In the
hands of incompetent officers, appointed for their
caucus -packing and convention-manipulating abilities
instead of business capacity and integrity, a tariff law
may easily be made an intolerable nuisance alike to
business men and the traveling public. In the very
nature of things a tariff law is inquisitorial : it pries
into the private belongings of citizens ; it goes behind
their locks and even to the inspection of their pockets.
This naturally opens the door for bribery, insolence
and the infliction of various kinds of inconvenience and
indignity upon individuals. Nothing is so well calcu-
lated to bring a tariff policy into disrepute and
strengthen the hands of the advocates of free trade as
maladministration by a collector of customs revenue.

If the present administration of the New York
custom house had been organized for the special pur-
pose of bringing the tariff into disgrace and laying the
foundation for a successful attack upon protection it
could hardly have been directed with more success.
Every arriving steamer from Europe seems to cause a
commotion which furnishes the press another text on
the harassing of travelers and the irritating incon-
veniences imposed upon everybody having either
friends or merchandise coming into the country.

345

346 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [April,

A few weeks ago an order was issued excluding all
friends of incoming passengers from the docks and
preventing them from speaking to their friends until
after the baggage had been examined and passed upon.
This has become so scandalously offensive to the public
that the assistant secretary of the treasury has felt
called upon to explain. As a reason for this order he
says:

" Evidence has reached the department tending to show that for a
considerable period of time the government revenues have been de-
frauded by the failure on the part of some inspectors at New York to
perform their plain duty. Unquestionably considerable quantities of
millinery, dress goods and other merchandise have been brought into
this country without payment of the duty and have been put into com-
petition with goods which have been imported by honest merchants who
have paid the duties required by law. The government is doing its best
to put a stop to this practice."

This tells the whole story. Incompetency or dis-
honesty or both, in the custom-house administration, is
at the root of the whole trouble. It will be remem-
bered that, just before this irritating order went into
force, some thirty-one inspectors and other customs
officers in New York were discharged from the service
in a single day. What did this mean? Were they dis-
honest or incompetent? It would seem that they were
one or both, since the eight incoming steamers during
the first ten days of March 1900 yielded only $1,398.56
in revenue, while the same number of incoming steam-
ers on the same dates in 1901 yielded $19,413.09. If
the service was so rotten that it was necessary to make
such wholesale discharges, which were apparently justi-
fied by the results, it would seem as if the cause was
deeper than the mere inspectors. This thing has been
going on for four years. It is pertinent to ask how this
sudden shake-up and assertion of virtue came about.
It is reported from trustworthy sources that it is all the
result of a private investigation made by the treasury

igoi.] DISCREDITABLE TARIFF ENFORCEMENT 347

department when it was discovered, as Mr. Spaulding
says, that "for a considerable period of time the gov-
erment revenues have been defrauded by the failure
on the part of some inspectors at New York to perform
their plain duty."

Who is responsible for this inefficient and de-
frauding administration? Surely not the subordi-
nates. One might as well charge the privates in the
ranks with the inefficiency and demoralization of the
army. Of course it is the responsible head of the
department. If this state of affairs is found to
exist after four years of administration, it is
conclusive evidence of inefficiency, if nothing
worse. Instead of discharging thirty- one subor-
dinate inspectors, obviously the proper remedy
was to remove the head who was responsible for
the maladministration and put a more competent per-
son in his place. This the public would have under-
stood ; such a measure would have shown that a whole-
some moral force was flowing through the government
service. But instead of that the responsible party is
retained and a large bunch of subordinates, who were
probably not responsible at all but only acting as do
Tammany subordinates, in accordance with the " under-
standing," are discharged, and, as if to make a show of
special virtue, an intolerable amount of red tape is sud-
denly thrown round the entire customs service, to the
unnecessary inconvenience and irrepressible disgust of
the community.

Yet all this is rather natural. An official who
would pack caucuses, corrupt primaries and coerce dele-
gates to political conventions can hardly be expected
competently to administer so important a public
office as the collectorship of the port of New York.
That office requires a higher standard of ability and
moral perception and attention to duty than could be

3 18 G UN TON' S MA GAZINE

expected from a mere ward politician. Next to the
presidency of the United States, this is the highest- paid
position in the federal government. It was intended
that it should command the services of a high- class
man, but alas ! If we ask why this is tolerated, why
this one-penny method of dealing with the creature in-
stead of the creator of the offence is adopted, the ob-
vious answer is, because the "pull" of the local boss is
stronger than the courage of the president. When evi-
dence was presented abundantly justifying Collector
Bidwell's removal for interfering with the rights of
citizens,* Mr. Platt said: "Not while I live."

There lies the secret of the whole scandal. It is
this degrading, overawing power of personal dictator-
ship in politics that is the cause of the whole scandal-
ous disturbance. If the administration had exercised
the moral courage to ignore the machine and, upon the
discovery of dishonesty in the department, had re-
moved the Jiead and placed a strong hand there to re-
organize the force independently of the local boss, the
public would willingly have endured the inconvenience
involved, but when it comes only in the exhibition of a
new-born virtue in the very parties under whom "the
government revenues have been defrauded,5' it very
naturally produces only disgust and protest. Thus,
not merely the integrity of our nominating and electing
machinery is undermined but the very policy of the
nation is brought into disrepute by the incompetency
and dishonesty born of the degrading influence of ma-
chine dictatorship in party politics.

* See Lecture Bulletin, Feb. 15, 1901 ; also New York Press, Feb. 18,
1901.

DIRECT NOMINATIONS BY PETITION: SOME
NOTEWORTHY EXPRESSIONS

Mr. Gunton's lecture on "The Peril of Popular
Government," published in the Lecture Bulletin of the
Institute of Social Economics, February I5th, has called
out a flood of press comment and a large amount of
correspondence, showing the widespread popular inter-
est in a direct- nomination system to protect the people
in their rights of self-government against the unscru-
pulous methods of corrupt political rings. We have
selected, and publish below, a few of the most interest-
ing communications received :

My dear Mr. Gunton :

I have just read "The Peril of Popular Govern-
ment," and want to thank you heartily for it. It has
doubtless required some courage to make this plain
statement and its direct attack upon the machine. But
I am sure you are fearless in the presence of the con-
viction that has stirred in your heart. You have done
a good piece of work which ought to bear good fruit. I
am not surprised at the tale you tell — the surprise is
that so many people still believe in the respectability of
the machine. Cordially yours,

(Rev. Dr.) R. HEBER NEWTON
(Rector of All Souls Church, New York City).

My dear Sir:

Since reading your address on "The Peril of Popu-
lar Government " I have ordered a number of copies,
and, at the meeting of the Executive Committee of the
Society for the Prevention of Crime, yesterday, we
passed a resolution to procure and distribute 5,000 cop-
ies of it. . . . I only preface in this way in order

849

350 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [April,

that you may understand the interest that I feel in the
work that you are doing and in the way in which you
have put forward one feature of our present situation.

Yours very sincerely,

(Rev. Dr.) C. H. PARKHURST
(Pastor of Madison Square Presbyterian
Church, New York City).

Dear Sir :

I recently cancelled my subscription to your Maga-
zine, but I now beg to renew same for another year,
and enclose my check in your favor for $2.50 in pay-
ment.

I am led to do this through reading the lecture you
delivered February isth last, on " The Peril of Popular
Government,'' and I earnestly beg of you to deliver
more lectures on the same subject, and so bring home
to all those who love these United States and its form
of government the necessity of fulfilling their duties
towards that government and so prevent its falling into
the hands of such men as Quay in Pennsylvania ; Platt,
Croker, et al. in New York, who use their power so
obtained for debauchery and corruption. I hope you
will not let Mr. Steele's case die in a pigeon-hole of the
president's desk. Yours truly,

F. H. SKELDING
(Cashier First National Bank, Pittsburg, Pa.)

Dear Sir :

I desire to express my gratification with your lec-
ture of February isth on "The Peril of Popular Gov-
ernment." It is most hopeful that you realize the truth
and are in the way of making the public see it.

As there is evidence that the press is muzzled in
the same way, the outlook has been a gloomy one. I

i9oi.] DIRECT NOMINA TIONS BY PETITION 351

wish I had your faith in the president's action in the
matter.

Wishing you ample courage and persistence, and
the earnest cooperation of your board of counselors,

EDGAR TUCKER,
Cambridge, Mass.

Gentlemen :

I believe you are entitled to know by positive state-
ment that I fully appreciate your efforts in the direc-
tion of good government and clean politics, and wish
that it might be possible to have your articles on those
subjects put into the hands of every voter of the country.

Yours very truly,

FRANK A. Ross,

President, Board of Regents of Normal Schools,
State of Wisconsin : West Superior, Wis.

My Dear Professor:

If you succeed you will be as great an Englishman
as Howard or Wilberforce. And why not?

(Rev.) D. A. MERRICK,
New York City.

Dear Sir :

Your brave and intelligent action, very business-
like in its practicality and efficient in its seizure of
the opportunity and of the central, salient points of
attack, must arouse the admiration of all citizens who
want an honest political system and an honest adminis-
tration of government in all its parts.

Your one proposed step is right and must mean
much. It will make the bosses' work very much harder
than now, at the least, and at the best may sharply clip
their wings. Let us not hope for too much. The
people get about what they want, and surely what they

852 G UNTON'S MA GAZ1NE

deserve, for the most part. It perhaps would surprise
the theoretical, the thinkers, the academic, to know in
what way the average, smart, successful, more or less
Christian, somewhat church-going and certainly very
respectable and influential American business man
views these identical matters that arouse in you such
abhorrence. Let us not forget in our calculations the
average man ; he is in the crushing majority.

Push the good work along. Do up the existent
primaries, give us the secret ballot for nominations.
Let us make the bosses' work just as hard as possible.
The rest of us have to earn our livings, don't let us
permit them to get theirs any more easily than we ours.
Your readers will await with deep interest the result of
your thus-far moves, and when the time comes to speak
up for the nominating ballot let us hope that they will
be found solidly by your side, with many good men
and true back of them.

Yours truly,

ROBERT HALLAM MUNSON,
Vice- President Hall & Munson Company,

Bay Mills, Mich.

EDITORIAL CRUCIBLE

IN HIS ultimatum to Governor Odell, Mr. Platt seems
to have done the dictator once too often. If the
governor will back up his refusal to *' obey " by rational
leadership, he may prove to be Platt's complete undoing,
to the great advantage of the whole nation.

AT LAST Mr. Bryan has taken Mr. Cleveland in
hand. It is done in Mr. Bryan's best editorial style ;
the directness, and for the most part the correctness, of
the treatment makes at least two columns of the Com-
moner very interesting reading. It really takes a Bryan
or a Dana to do full justice to the subject.

IT is interesting to note that the press of Minnesota,
especially of Minneapolis, is urging its legislature to
extend the primary election law providing direct nomi-
nations, which has been tried in Minneapolis, to the
entire state. It is admitted that there are imperfec-
tions in the law, but these, it is contended, can be
easily remedied. The trial in Minneapolis appears to
have been sufficiently satisfactory to prove the sound-
ness of the principle of direct nominations. "The
world do move!"

SENATOR QUAY'S paper, the Philadelphia Inquirer,
which is the most conspicuous advocate of the "Ripper"
bill in Pennsylvania, defends the scheme of depriving
the cities of Scranton, Alleghany and Pittsburg of the
right to elect their mayors, on the ground that the city
government of Pittsburg is very corrupt. The only
way to have pure government in these cities is to have
a Quay governor appoint the mayor. Could anything

353

354 GUN TON'S MAGAZINE [April,

more breath-taking be imagined? With Croker sup-
pressing vice in New York city, Platt purifying the
politics of New York state, and Quay exterminating
corruption in Pennsylvania, the millennium must surely
be near.

PRESIDENT HADLEY of Yale explains that he has
been badly misquoted regarding the " emperor in
twenty-five years " statement that has been going the
rounds of the press. It appears he did not say it in
reference to trusts at all. What he said was :

' ( We must accept the moral responsibility com-
mensurate with our new political problem, and that if
any one says that we cannot get the people to accept
this responsibility the only alternative is an emperor in
Washington within twenty-five years."

This shows how much more eager the press is for
sensation than for truth, and warns public speakers
who would not be misrepresented to avoid saying start-
ling things which furnish food for demagogues, for the
most unconscionable demagogue abroad is the sensa-
tional newspaper reporter.

IN OUR EAGERNESS to compliment the North Caro-
lina manufacturers on agreeing to adopt the sixty-
hours-a-week system we made a mistake. Their scheme
is for sixty-six hours a week, which is seventy-five years
behind England. Our praise was premature and un-
merited. Even South Carolina has a sixty-six hour
law, while in no state outside of the South is the
working day more than ten hours and in some it is less.
Had they adopted the ten-hour day as we mistakenly
supposed, there might have been some reason in their
request to defer legislation on the subject, but with a
belated sixty- six-hour proposition there is none. Manu-
facturing industries which at this late day cannot

igoi.J EDITORIAL CRUCIBLE 355

succeed without working women and children more
than ten hours a day have no right to exist under a
protective system in the United States.

AT LAST Mr. Bryan has a rival. Mr. H. Gay lord
Wilshire of Los Angeles, who also publishes a revolu-
tionary paper, challenges him to mortal combat thus :

Hon. W. J. Bryan, Lincoln, Neb.

Dear Sir: — Your solution of the trust problem is: " Let the nation
destroy the trust," while my solution is: "Let the nation own the
trust." I will pay all your expenses and give you $1,000 to debate with
me, you to elect time and place. If the audience decides you have the
better of the debate, I agree to increase the payment to $2,000. Await-
ing your reply, I am, H. GAYLORD WILSHIRE.

The difference between these two candidates for
leadership in the "coming revolution" is that in
demanding that the nation " own the trusts" Mr. Wil-
shire represents straight socialist doctrine, while in
demanding the suppression of trusts Mr. Bryan repre-
sents no recognized economic doctrine at all, but
simply advocates the destruction of industrial organiza-
tion, which is virtual anarchy.

A BILL has been introduced in the New York legis-
lature by Assemblyman John Hill Morgan of Brooklyn,
providing for the election of delegates to state, national
and other party conventions by direct vote. It is en-
couraging to see that the idea of direct nominations has
at last reached the New York legislature. But really
it is little less than a waste of time and opportunity to
pass a law for direct nominations merely for delegates
to conventions. The mischief of the party dictator is
worked with the delegates to conventions. It is upon
them that the rewards and punishments are meted out.
It is there that the deals are made and the source of
popular elections corrupted. To be of real service Mr.
Morgan's bill should apply to the nomination of candi-

356 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [April,

dates for office instead of to delegates to conventions.
He would then strike at the real evil, and besides great-
ly simplifying the nominating machinery would really
put the selection as well as election of public officers in
the hands of the people.

THE SOCIALIST propaganda is showing great and
apparently increased energy. New socialists papers are
coming into existence, and now a socialist college is
announced. This current is augmented by many who
are not definitely identified with it. President Had-
ley 's recent prediction that : ' ' We shall have an emperor
in twenty-five years," unintentionally furnished a sweet
morsel for advocates of "the revolution." By thus
sweeping in its current all forms and phases of social
pessimism, socialism threatens to become a veritable
crusade against society. It is useless to scold ; censure
and ridicule do but stimulate the leaders and augment
the ranks of the crusading army. Enlightenment,
intelligent understanding of the nature of progressive
society and the relation of industrial classes to each
other and to the natural order of social progress, can
alone save society from a disastrously disrupting exper-
iment. This is the field where industrial and political
education will tell most quickly and effectively upon
the safety of our institutions and the security for the
future progress of society.

THE CONTEST between the party boss and the pres-
ident in the Sanger case is in reality a victory for the
boss. To be sure Colonel Sanger is appointed, but at
the sacrifice of the dignity of the president and his
right to appoint his official family. Mr. Sanger was
charged with not being on good terms with the ' ' organ-
ization," and before he was appointed he had to call at
49 Broadway and explain to Mr. Platt ' ' that he not

1 9oi.] EDITORIAL CRUCIBLE 357

only is now an organization man but also he intends in
future to work in perfect harmony and accord with the
state organization," and that when nominating Mr.
Choate for United States senator he only • ' eulogized
Choate without traducing me " (Platt). The mere fact
that Colonel Sanger had to go through this humiliating
process is a moral defeat for the president. Had Mr.
McKinley the proper moral courage becoming a presi-
dent, he would have protected the dignity of his office
by appointing Colonel Sanger regardless of whether he
was an organization man or had criticized Mr. Platt
when in the legislature. Mr. Platt appears to be dem-
onstrating the truth of his diagnosis of Mr. McKinley
in 1896, that "he is too impressionable a gentleman."

THE JACKSONVILLE (Fla.) TIMES, one of the very
bright, good-natured southern papers, pointedly asks :

"If we have no right to impose a government without the consent
of the governed shall we go behind Appomattox? If it be suicidal to in-
corporate unfit groups into our body politic, what shall we do with the
negro? .... Does Professor Gunton hold the Africo-American
fit? .... Was Cleveland right when he refused Hawaii? . . .
Shall we repudiate McKinley ism utterly? Is it a proof of progress that
our financial system is so far behind that of the other great powers?
Should the treasury remain a bank?"

These are fair questions and we will answer them
in the order asked.

(1) No, we should not go behind Appomattox be-
cause that has become an inseparable part of our history.
The mistake of Appomattox was made at Fort Sumter.
Statesmanship cannot unmake history, it can only avoid
future mistakes.

(2) As a group "the Africo-American" is not fit
and the policy which followed Appomattox in giving the
negro the franchise was a mistake. It was "incorpora-
ting the unfit," and has cost the nation dear.

(3) To the question "what shall we do with the

358 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE

negro?" there is but one rational answer: treat him
like other people. If he is not fit for the suffrage his
unfitness is due to some personal or social qualification ;
it is not his color. If it is his ignorance, or his inabili-
ty intelligently to exercise the franchise, deal with these
shortcomings, but deal fairly. If you want to make edu-
cation, or the ownership of property, or both, the test
of fitness, do so, but make them the test for everybody
— white as well as black. Raise the standard of fitness
as high as you please but make it the same for all.

(4) "Was Cleveland right when he refused
Hawaii?'* Yes, but he was wrong in using the power
of this government in trying to put Queen Lil back on
the throne.

(5) "Shall we repudiate McKinleyism utterly?"
Not utterly, because McKinleyism is not utterly bad.
McKinleyism stands for protection, for the develop-
ment of manufactures, for using the influence of gov-
ernment to promote domestic prosperity, for sound
money and national development, but we should repu-
diate the "Philippine-ism" and the "bowing to bossism"
of McKinley, even if it involves rejecting McKinley
himself.

(6) "Should the treasury remain a bank?" The
treasury is not a bank. As Lincoln said, it is a "miser's
iron box/' It is not McKinleyism but pure Jackson-
ism. The sub-treasury system should be abolished and
the funds of the government kept on deposit in a bank
or banks properly organized, so that the government
revenues will not create fluctuations of the currency.
Some day the sub- treasury system will have to go.

THE TUSKEGEE NEGRO CONFERENCE AS AN
EDUCATIONAL FORCE

MAX BENNETT THRASHER

Professor W. E. B. DuBois, who is recognized as an
authority upon statistics pertaining to inquiries into
the economic and educational conditions of the negro
race in America, estimated as a result of a study which
he made of the Tuskegee negro conference this year,
that one session of the conference represented fully six
thousand persons upon whom it would have a direct
influence. The effect of the entire conference, then,
would be felt, directly or indirectly, by a very much
larger number.

The Tuskegee negro conference was established
ten years ago by Booker T. Washington, principal of
Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. Mr. Wash-
ington sent out an invitation to the negro farmers
living near Tuskegee to come to the Institute upon a
certain day to spend a few hours in " talking over" the
things which most interested them. Mr. Washington
has said that he thought perhaps twenty-five or thirty
might respond to the invitation. Somewhat to his sur-
prise four hundred negro men and women, representing
all classes and conditions, gathered at the Institute at
the appointed day, and this number has increased with
each successive year's sessions.

Mr. Washington has explained the reasons which
led him to think of the possibility of such a gathering
as this in these words : ' ' Soon after the school at
Tuskegee was established I became impressed with the
idea that much good might be accomplished by some
movement which would interest the older people and in-
spire them to work for their own elevation. I think I

359

860 G UN TON' S MA GAZINE [April,

first came to think of this when I had occasion to notice
again and again the unusual amount of common sense
displayed by what is termed the ignorant colored man
of the South. In my opinion the uneducated black man
in the South, especially the one living in the country
districts, has more natural sense than the uneducated
ignorant class of almost any race. This led me to the
conclusion that any people who could see so clearly into
their own condition, and could describe it so vividly as
the common farming class of colored people in the South
can, could be led to do a good deal to help themselves.
As a result I called the first session of what has since
come to be known as the Tuskegee negro conference."

The first sessions of the conference were held in
what was then the school's chapel, the largest hall
which any of the school buildings then afforded. Both
school and conference soon outgrew this room, and a
rude temporary structure was put up for their accom-
modation. This building was of rough boards, with no
windows but wooden shutters. Its floor was the earth,
and the seats were backless benches made by spiking
planks on to posts driven into the ground. The bareness
of the inside walls was somewhat softened by draping
them with Spanish moss, over which flags were caught
back here and there with palmetto leaves. The light
in this broad low room was dull at best, and when the
late-comers who could not get inside the building
clustered around the doors and windows like bees
around the mouth of a hive they made the dusky
interior look still more dim. I saw the conference for
the first time in this building five years ago, and I have
seen every session since then. Now, the meetings are
held in the institute chapel, a handsome brick building
which will seat two thousand persons, and in which, at
this year's session, many had to stand.

This chapel is the building in which President

igoi.] TUSKEGEE NEGRO CONFERENCE 361

McKinley spoke to the students when he visited
Tuskegee two years ago with his cabinet. Like nearly
all the buildings at the school, it was built by the
students as a part of their industrial education. Classes
of young men who expect to earn their living as brick-
makers made the bricks of which it is constructed —
1,200,000 in number — in the school's brick yard.
Other young men who are learning brick-masonry laid
the walls. The men in the carpentry classes did the
wood work. The tinsmiths covered the roof. The
electric lighting fixtures and the steam heating ap-
paratus were put in by students. The pews were made
in the school's joiner shop after a model designed by
one of the students. I mention these facts here not to
show what the methods of the school are, and how
practical its results, but to call attention to one of the
many object-lessons which the men and women who
come here to attend the conference get. They may
not realize that they are coming to Tuskegee for any-
thing but a "meeting," at which they are to hear
speaking, and perhaps speak themselves ; but from the
minute they come in sight of the school grounds they
are learning, even if unconsciously, by being obliged
to see what people of their own race have done, what
they and their sons and daughters may do if they will
but try.

I speak of "women" and "daughters" in the pre-
ceding paragraph, and perhaps some one may say that
the women who would attend the conference would not
get the same benefit as the men from these object-
lessons because they would not be engaged in the trades
represented in the erection of the buildings. About
one-third of the eleven hundred students at Tuskegee
are young women. At each year's meeting of the con-
ference the spacious vestibule of the chapel is trans-
formed— under the direction of Mrs. Washington into

362 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE \ April,

a suite of model living rooms, in which the teachers of
industries for girls, with the help of some of their
pupils, show how the students are taught housekeeping,
sewing, dressmaking, millinery, cooking, laundry work,
mattrass making and upholstery, and dairying. In the
yards outside they also see the young women learning
poultry raising, bee-keeping, market gardening, and
the care of lawns and flower beds. In all these ways,
and in the school's barns and dairy, on its farm and in
its gardens, in the shops, and, not least by any' means,
in the homes of its teachers and officers, the visitors to
Tuskegee at conference time get instruction and inspi-
ration.

An Alabama negro farmer who was born a slave
and who cannot read or write recently gave $10
towards the support of a newly-established school for
white students in his state. At this year's session of
the conference he gave the same sum towards the sup-
port of Tuskegee Institute for colored students. This
man owns several hundred acres of land, and good live
stock, all acquired by his own exertion and that of his
wife. They ascribe all their thrift and prosperity to
the inspiration and teachings of the Tuskegee confer-
ence, at which they have been regular attendants ever
since it was established.

Mr. Washington presides at all of the sessions.
The speakers at the first day's session are the farmers
themselves and their wives. There are no officers and
rules. The only formal feature is the adoption each
year of a series of declarations setting forth the pur-
poses and sentiment of the gathering. Nothing which
I could write would give so good an idea of the practi-
cal nature of the subjects discussed as for me to quote
this year's declarations :

i. We have reached the tenth annual session of the Tuskegee Negro
Conference. During all the years since the conference was started, we

i9oi.] TUSKEGEE NEGRO CONFERENCE 363

have clung steadily to its original purpose, viz. , to encourage the buy-
ing of land, getting rid of the one- room cabin and the abuse of the mort-
gage system, the raising of food supplies, building better school houses,
the lengthening of the school term and the securing of better teachers
and preachers, the doing away with sectarian prejudice, the improve-
ment of the moral condition of the masses and the encouragement of
friendly relations between the races. In all these particulars we are
convinced from careful investigation, that substantial progress is con-
stantly being made by the masses throughout the South.

2. We would urge our people not to become discouraged while the
race is passing from what was largely a political basis to an economic
one, as a foundation for citizenship.

3. We urge, since the country school is the backbone of the intelli-
gence of the masses, that no effort be spared to increase its efficiency.
Any injury to the country schools brings discontent to the people and
leads them to move to the cities.

4. Statistics show that crime, as a rule, is not committed by those
who have received literary, moral and industrial training.

5. Regardless of how others may act, we urge upon our race a
rigid observance of the law of the land, and that we bear in mind that
lawlessness begets crime and hardens and deadens not only the con-
science of the law-breaker, but also the conscience of the community.

6. The rapid rise in the price of land throughout the South makes
it doubly important that we do not delay in buying homes, and the
increased demand for skilled workmen of every kind makes it nec-
essary that a larger proportion of our young people prepare them selves
for trades and domestic employment before they are crowded out of
these occupations.

7. Community and county fairs, as well as local conferences and
farmers' institutes, should be organized as rapidly and widely as pos-
sible.

8. We call the attention of our women, especially, to the wealth
there is for them in the garden, the cow, the pig and the poultry
yard.

9. We note with pleasure that landlords are building better
houses for their tenants. We feel sure that all such improvements are
a paying investment from every point of view.

These declarations are plainly printed at the In-
stitute's printing office before the conference adjourns,
and copies are given to all of the delegates to take
home, with the injunction that if they cannot read them
themselves they find some one who can read them to
them. On the back side of the same sheet, this year,
was printed a suggestion that during the coming year

364 G UNTO WS MAGAZINE [April,

the people get some one to give simple talks before
their local conferences upon the following named topics,
or, if no local conference exists in their community,
talk these matters over among themselves :

(i) How to raise pigs . (2) What crops pay best. (3) How to raise
poultry. (4) How to plant a garden. (5) How to begin buying a home.
(6) The value of a diversified crop. (7) How the wife can assist the
husband. (8) How the husband can assist the wife. (9) The right kind
of minister and teacher. (10) How to make the house and yard beauti-
ful, (n) How to live at home instead of out of the store. (12) The im-
portance of keeping the children busy in school and out of school.

The influence of the conference has been steadily
broadening. Similar meetings are now held in nearly
every southern state, and usually every southern state
is represented at this central meeting here. This year
there were representatives here from twenty states, and
from Indian Territory and Oklahoma. For the last
four years Tuskegee Institute has employed a man as
conference agent, to extend the influence of the confer-
ence, primarily in the state of Alabama. There are
now two hundred and fifty local conferences organized
in this state. Most of these hold regular meetings —
usually once a month — and report here. One of the
most interesting and valuable features of this year's
meeting was arranged by the conference agent. Dur-
ing his going about in the state he has collected photo-
graphs showing the wretched one-room cabins in which
many of the farmers lived a few years ago. He has
also secured photographs of the comfortable houses and
fine live stock which some of these same men now own,
very largely as a result of the teachings of the confer-
ence. A stereopticon exhibition was given of views
made from these photographs, and the lessons which
the contrasting pictures taught were more emphatic
than any mere words would have been.

At times unfavorable reports were made, or un-
favorable features brought out in a report which other-

i9oi.J TUSKEGEE NEGRO CONFERENCE 365

wise was encouraging, but in general the tone of the
gathering was hopeful and quite in contrast to the pes-
simistic opinions in regard to the negro's future which
have been put forth in some quarters. Mr. Washing-
ton himself, in speaking to the delegates of the ten
years' existence of the conference said that he thought
the greatest good which had come from it had been the
creation of a feeling of hopefulness among those who
had attended— a spirit of faith in the future of the race.
The gathering of so many negro men and women
here, and the frank discussion of their conditions, the
difficulties which beset them and the ways in which
some of these difficulties have been overcome, soon be-
gan to attract the attention of people of both races who
are engaged in educational or philanthropic work, and
they began to come to Tuskegee in large numbers each
year for the purpose of watching and studying the con-
ference in session. Observation led to discussion of
what they saw, and to plans for future work, until there
has been developed a second day's session, called the
"workers' conference," attended by two or three hun-
dred men and women of both races, many of them of
national reputation. Among those present this year
was Mr. Charles W. Chesnutt, who one evening in the
chapel read aloud his Southern story, " Hot-foot Han-
nibal;" Professor DuBois, Bishop Turner, Bishop
Grant, Bishop Tyree, Dr. I. B. Scott, at least ten col-
lege presidents, several well-known philanthropic
workers, professional men, and a great number of
teachers. The topic for this year's "workers' confer-
ence," around which the discussions centered, was:
" The negro's part in the upbuilding of the South: as
a farmer and a mechanic ; as a professional man ; as a
moral and religious factor." Last year the topic was :
"What have thirty-five years of freedom done for the
negro? "

866

GUNTON'S MAGAZINE

It was at the "workers' conference" that Professor
DuBois made the report to which I have referred in the
first paragraph of this article. Professor DuBois had
prepared a series of questions which he asked of about
two hundred farmers taken at random from the dele-
gates to the first session of the conference. The 199
men whom the professor saw represent real estate as
follows :

Own land 57

Number of acres owned. . . 7048^
Average 123^

Rent land 142

Number of acres rented. . . 666o£
Average 59

HOMES.

Number of rooms.

Owners.

Renters.

i

13

5

2

89

24

3

28

9

4

6

5

3

6

i

In comparison with the average number of negro
farmers in the South who own land, and of those who
still live in one-room cabins, this report is significant
and encouraging to those who have founded and pro-
moted the Tuskegee negro conference.

CIVIC AND EDUCATIONAL NOTES

The more that comes to light about the
Dismissal of dismissal of Prof. Ross from Stanford

Professor Ross

University the more indefensible does
the proceeding appear. A committee of well-known
economists, including Prof. Seligman of Columbia,
Prof. Farnam of Yale and Prof. Gardner of Brown, has
made a careful investigation of the case, and finds, as
is admitted by President Jordan himself, that Prof.
Ross was not dismissed because of any reflection on his
private character or on the ability and success of his
work as a professor in the university. The fact L,
other matters aside, the dismissal seems to have been
chiefly due to Professor Ross' criticisms of coolie im-
migration from the Orient. The committee finds that
"not until immediately after delivery of the coolie im-
migration speech did Mrs. Stanford force Prof. Ross'
resignation .... In a letter of June, 1900,
President Jordan stated : ' The matter of immigration
she (Mrs. Stanford) takes most seriously.' In the same
letter, while Mrs. Stanford's objection is declared to be
due to the fact that the reputation of the university for
serious conservatism is impaired by the hasty accept-
ance of social and political fads, it is added, that these
'local criticisms' which weighed with Mrs. Stanford
'unfortunately are based on chance matters and obiter
dicta, and not at all upon your serious work.' "

We have steadily maintained in these pages that
the management of a university must have the final
right to decide the general character of the instruction
to be given in its name, and to maintain the educational
standards it considers necessary to keep the institution
in its proper place in the community. There is no

367

368 G UN TON'S MA GA ZINE [April ,

other source of authority by which such standards can
be maintained. To insist that no control shall be exer-
cised over the professors is to convert a university into
a mouthpiece for the propagation of whatever fads or
vagaries may happen to appeal to any of the individuals
who have been included in its faculty. A university
should no more permit professors of economics to teach
any rash, untried, undigested notion that may have
chanced to attract them than it should allow, for exam-
ple, a professor of natural science to make the institu-
tion ridiculous by advocating the claims of the Keely
motor as scientific proof of perpetual motion. If a
professor wishes to propagate new and peculiar views
he should do so outside of university walls, and not ex-
pect to utilize for that purpose the funds and prestige
of an institution which is intended and expected to rep-
resent only the best consensus of well-developed opinion
and thoroughly sustained data in each of its various de-
partments.

At the same time, it is highly important that the
control of a university be such that it does accurately
reflect the best generally accepted sentiment of the
time and not the prejudices or opinions of individuals
who may have helped endow it. The latter unfortu-
nately seems to be the case with Leland Stanford Uni-
versity. The offence seems all the more glaring be-
cause of the fact that Prof. Ross was unquestionably
right in his position on coolie immigration, and that the
only real objection to his attitude on that subject was
the fact that Mrs. Stanford's husband made a portion
of his fortune by importing Asiatics to work on his
railroads. It is impossible for a university to be under
the personal control of one or two individuals who have
endowed it, and still maintain its standing as an inde-
pendent educational force in the community. The
management should be exercised by boards of trustees

igoi.j CIVIC AND EDUCATIONAL NOTES 369

— groups of men of broad general culture, sensible, con-
servative, and yet open-minded mentality, and a local
interest in the welfare of the institution. This at least
makes it reasonably certain that whatever control is
exercised over the policy of the university will be the
result of free discussion of the subject on its merits,
by the trustees ; and not the mere reflection of the per-
sonal feelings or grudges of some individual who may
regard the institution as his or her personal property.

The Chicago Times-Herald, in citing some
Education and . , ,. .• .' r ,1 1 \

"Menial" Labor interesting statistics of the large number
of pupils in American colleges and
universities, says in comment :

" Aside from all other considerations this general tendency toward
education means one thing — labor in this country must be dignified
socially. It is going to be impossible for all the boys and young men
who are now in the schools and colleges to go into professions. Many
of them will have to work with their hands. Manual labor will still
have to be done even after everybody is educated.

4 ' Perhaps the condition forecast by Bellamy — when those who work
as laborers shall receive just as much consideration as men who get
into the professions and shall be compensated for the sacrifices they
make in taking what we now consider inferior places in society — is not
so far away. "

This hits the right nail and hits it squarely on the
head. Regardless, for the time being, of the defects in
Bellamy's plan for reaching a social condition where
no labor shall be unhealthful or degrading, the idea
itself is perfectty reasonable and will some day be
realized. If the Times-Herald had been wandering in
the medieval gloom that surrounds many eminent
journals and economists who mistake cynical pessimism
for profound wisdom, it would have followed up these
quoted statistics by just the opposite conclusion. It
would have solemnly pointed out that, since certain
kinds of labor are degrading and exhausting, they
must always remain so and hence that education be-

370 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [April,

yond certain limits is a mistake. It would have pic-
tured the misery of the masses who must forever be
doomed to toil at these inferior tasks under the burden
of an increasing repulsion due to the education and
ambition and social desires thrust upon them by a mis-
taken public policy. Then it would have drawn a
number of sage conclusions about the blessedness of
contented ignorance for those to whom knowledge can
never be anything but a curse. If it had happened to
think of immigration, it would assuredly have finished
up by pointing out the folly of excluding foreign
peasant labor, and asked who could be expected to do
the work these people perform if they are not allowed
to come? Of course, since so much of the world's work
must forever be unfit for civilized laborers, there is no
way to get it done in an advanced country like ours
except by importing people who have been properly
prepared for it by wearing the yoke and doing the
work of oxen and mules on the agricultural lands of
southern and eastern Europe.

Fortunately, however, this is a phase of old- school
economic teaching which is rapidly passing away, to-
gether with many other of its disheartening and utterly
mistaken dogmas. What science and invention and
humanitarian legislation have done for scores of other
industrial pursuits, can and will be done for practically
all departments of productive effort necessary in a
civilized community. Indeed, from one point of view,
industrial experience might be called the record of the
transformation of degrading menial labor into healthful
and agreeable occupations. A large part of the ancient
drudgery of farm labor, for example, has been overcome
in advanced industrial communities by the widespread
introduction of labor-saving machinery in almost every
department of agriculture. Mining has been robbed
of its chief terrors and much of its excessive toil by the

i90i.] CIVIC AND EDUCATIONAL NOTES 371

use of safety appliances and large introduction of ma-
chinery. Factory labor, which less than a century ago
involved fourteen to sixteen hours' work per day, with
dangerous and unprotected machinery, brutal over-
seers, and criminally unsanitary conditions both of
working and living, has now been brought within
reasonable time limits, machinery protected, sanitary
conditions secured, the labor of small children pro-
hibited, and the whole occupation for the most part made
decent, respectable and ordinarily healthful.

It is possible for this same movement to continue
with reference to occupations which are now regarded
as always and necessarily menial. The false notion
that these tasks cannot be made decent is used as an
argument, not only against universal higher education,
but against a whole series of wholesale labor reforms
such as shortening the hours of labor, improving the
sanitary surroundings and broadening the general
social opportunities; whereas, in reality, it is by
stimulating these very sources of broader personal de-
velopment that the proper economic forces will in turn
be set in motion to abolish the exhausting and degrad-
ing features of tasks now reserved for imported peas-
ants and coolies. The very discontent which educa-
tion and improved social surroundings are certain to
stimulate will show itself in demands for improved
conditions and higher wages. This, of course, will
mean a constantly increasing cost of labor, the certain
result of which, as all industrial experience shows, will
be to stimulate invention to furnish labor-saving de-
vices which will economize some of this increased labor
cost. Where there is nothing to provoke discontent
with stultifying conditions of toil, as in China, there is
no motive to develop any scientific methods of econo-
mizing human muscle.

The economic truth of the whole matter in a nut-

373 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE

shell is that in the encouragement of education, increase
of leisure to the workers, and extension of their social
opportunities, lie the very forces necessary to raise the
lower order of industries to a higher plane of economic
efficiency which shall permit them to be decent, respect-
able and healthful. The harder it becomes to hire
cheap and contented laborers for menial tasks, the faster
will invention furnish means of abolishing the worst
features of such employments by machinery and natural
forces.

We are perfectly safe, therefore, in lending the
most enthusiastic encouragement to general higher
education and to every stimulating, inspiring and
refining influence in the community, in the certainty
that the economic consequences of all this can be relied
upon to take care of themselves, and provide the means
of elevating all industries by summoning nature to
carry more and more of the burdens that men have
heretofore carried on their own shoulders.

THE OPEN FORUM

This department belongs to our readers, and offers them full oppor-
tunity to "talk back" to the editor, give information, discuss topics or
ask questions on subjects within the field covered by GUNTON'S MAGA-
ZINE. All communications, whether letters for publication or inquiries
for the " Question Box," must be accompanied by the full name and ad-
dress of the writer. This is not required for publication, if the writer
objects, but as evidence of good faith. Anonymous correspondents are
ignored.

LETTERS FROM CORRESPONDENTS

Conciseness Appreciated

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

Dear Sir: — If the standard of your magazine is kept
up to the sample, no one need complain of the price.
The concise manner in which you present history now
being made in the world, especially in connection with
the United States, will be appreciated by those with
little time to spend in reading. I am one of them.
J. M. ORVIS, Des Moines, Iowa.

Organized Labor's Needs

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

Dear Sir: — I am glad to see Editor Cease's letter and
article on the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen in the
March magazine, which shows us that among the rail-
road organizations there are those who appreciate
sound logic and take a non-perverted view of economics
as well as appreciate and understand the philosophy of
GUNTON'S MAGAZINE, recognizing its position as a factor
in the capital- labor world as a publication which views
matters in the light of truth and wisdom and under-
stands that citizens have an equal right to organize for
any legitimate purpose.

373

374 G UNTON 'S MA GAZINE

There are many sound, long and level heads in the
railroad organizations who by their logic keep down the
disposition and spirit of " vandalism " which destroys
all that is good when it once gets the lead. But there
is still a vast amount of educational work to be done in
order to bring all good people around to the point of
positive wisdom, when they will cease to advocate such
abnormalties as : " All the products belong to labor,"
or, ' ' Loss of opportunity to work is not an important
factor ; we want products rather than work " ; or, " We
find that there is no such a law of nature as that of no
gain without loss."

Should thedefamers of GUNTON'S MAGAZINE (of which
there are a few in the woods) have the courage to over-
come their repugnance or prejudices with reference to
capital and have less needless sentiment with reference
to humanity, they could see that GUNTON'S has no " cor-
ner" or " column'' for the express purpose of catching
the labor subscription, or that it does not advocate cap-
italistic methods out of deference for capitalistic pat-
ronage.

" Knowledge is power,'5 and we find it out when we
run up against the hard-headed and hard-fisted officials
who will sit down and count the cost and bring for-
ward economic arguments. The employee does not
want to permit himself to be lassoed, but wants to be
educated, so that when a committee goes for a confer-
ence they can talk business, and avoid being patted on
the back, agreeing that the relations of both parties
have always been amicable, and sent back empty-
handed, not realizing how it was all done until they
have slept and dreamed. Education, age, experience,
and a clear head will gain more points than wild argu-
ment based on sentiment backed by a pugnacious
attitude.

S. W. KILLER, Railroad Telegrapher,

Philadelphia, Pa.

QUESTION BOX

English Borough and County Franchise

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

Dear Sir: — In the article on Queen Victoria's
reign, in your March number, you stated near the bot-
tom of page 233 that the "second reform bill only ex-
tended the suffrage to householders in boroughs and
established a ten-pound qualification for voting outside
of counties." An American reader does not understand
the political sub-divisions in England unless he has
especially studied the subject, and your statement
seems confusing. G. R. P.

The statement about a ' ' ten-pound qualification
for voting outside of counties," may well be confusing,
because it is not correct. It was a typographical error,
and should have read "outside of boroughs,in counties."

The political divisions in England are boroughs
and counties. For parliamentary purposes, a town is a
borough if its population is large enough to entitle it
to one member of parliament. Some boroughs have
two members and there are a few that have three. The
counties are very similar to counties in this country.
They are simply larger political divisions, taking in
the rural population. Mr. Gladstone, for instance, was
elected once for northeast Lancashire and once for
southeast Lancashire; those were county constituen-
cies. Down to the third reform bill the franchise was
always higher in the counties than in the boroughs,
hence the counties had a more conservative voting
population. Counties in the political sense include all
the population outside of boroughs.

The second reform bill (1867) gave a vote to every

375

376 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [April,

householder in the boroughs, that is, to every person
who rented a house or housekeeping quarters, and a
special provision was made for single men by inserting
a lodger- franchise clause.

The third reform bill (1874) extended the house-
hold suffrage, previously limited to boroughs, to the
counties, making the qualification for suffrage uniform
throughout the country.

The Case of Professor Ross

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

DEAR SIR: — I suppose you have noticed the logical
outcome of your views in regard to limiting the free-
dom of college professors, as illustrated in the case of
Professor Ross of Leland Stanford University. Mrs.
Stanford owns the institution and, as I interpret your
position, has therefore an absolute right to employ
professors who will teach what she orders. Professor
Ross is sacrificed, therefore, because he opposes Chinese
immigration, and Mrs. Stanford thinks this is a reflec-
tion on her husband, who made money by hiring these
coolies. If this sort of thing only goes far enough our
young men will lose all respect whatever for anything
that is taught them on economic questions in American
universities. W. D. P.

In universities, as in everything else, the law of
evolution tends to promote the "survival of the fittest."
Universities, like most other institutions, represent the
consensus of opinion on the vital subjects affecting
social life. When they cease to do that they are very
likely to cease to receive the support either of those
who furnish the financial maintenance or those who
furnish the students. With reference to socialism and
other theories directed to the perversion or overthrow

igoi.] QUESTION BOX 377

of the existing order of society, it may be said they are
not desired either by those who furnish the money or
those who furnish the students for our universities.
When there is a demand for such teachings among
either those who endow or those who attend universi-
ties, new institutions will come into existence or else
existing ones will come to teach those doctrines.

The case of Stanford University is nearly opposite.
The importation of Chinese coolies, especially under
the conditions established by the six Chinese compa-
nies, is opposed by the best sentiment of the best people
in all classes throughout the country. It is supported
by no principle of fair business, public policy or polit-
ical science. That was an experience which would not
again be tolerated by any state or by the United States.
It is as obnoxious to the principles of free labor and
modern economic conditions as is the system of slavery
itself. If Mrs. Stanford really removed Professor Ross
from the Leland Stanford Jr. University because he
opposed Chinese immigration she placed herself in
antagonism to the best thought of the nation, and her
act will find no defence in any quarter. It is very much
as if she had removed Professor Ross because he taught
that slavery was wrong and should nowhere be toler-
ated. In short, if this be true, she has brought dis-
credit upon herself and to that extent upon Stanford
University, and if she continues in this course, insisting
that the doctrine of cheap-labor and importation of
degraded Asiatics should be encouraged in this country,
she will soon create effective ostracism of her university
and destroy the public appreciation of her husband's
generosity in giving his millions to establish that
educational institution.

BOOK REVIEWS

ECONOMICS AND INDUSTRIAL HISTORY. For Sec-
ondary Schools. By Henry W. Thurston. Scott,
Foresman & Company, Chicago, Cloth, 300 pp.

It has long been a question of growing importance
how to introduce the study of economics in secondary
schools. Mr. Thurston has endeavored to solve the
problem in the present volume. Perhaps the most
distinctive feature of the book is the effort to make the
student study the subject from his own experience or
that of his neighbor; as, for instance, taking some
industry, large or small, that is being conducted in his
own neighborhood. Part I. is devoted exclusively to
this. The author's claim for originality in this par-
ticular may be granted, so far as text-books are con-
cerned ; yet the work laid out and the manner of the
laying out would seem to be more fitted for post-
graduate students than for students in secondary
schools.

Part II. is given to "Outlines of the Industrial
History of England and the United States." In many
respects this is excellently done. The description of
the manor and other medieval institutions and condi-
tions is very lucid and suggestive, but frequently too
meager, it would seem, for the unread student. The
accounts of the domestic period of industry and of the
factory period are excellent. There is enough citation
of fact to make it interesting as well as instructive. In
the opening of his chapter on the factory period, he
gives a nearly complete list of the inventions covering
the factory system in textile manufacture. Keferences
to other authors are ample but altogether beyond the
capacity of under-graduate students to pursue.

378

BOOK RE VIE WS 379

The third part is devoted to the elements of eco-
nomic theory, and even this is composed nearly as
much of questions as of statement. Certainly the
author cannot be charged with representing too strongly
any school of economic theory, for he hardly dwells
long enough on any point to deliver a constructive
idea. On wages, for instance, it would be difficult to
ascertain what the author's ideas are, and, for that
matter, the ideas of anybody else. On the question of
rent the chief point is the explanation of Henry
George's idea of "unearned increment,'5 and the author
says:

" From this point of view, then, there is one direct line of study and
thinking which will lead toward a knowledge of what single-taxers and
socialists think ought to be done."

He then quotes a long extract from the report of
the Illinois Labor Bureau (1894) showing how a quarter
of an acre of land in Chicago rose in value from twenty
dollars in 1830 to a million and a quarter in 1894. He
touches questions like "the eight-hour day" and the
tariff with an evident ix\tent of impartiality. On the
eight-hour day, for instance, the author suggests the
importance of leisure to the laborers, the social signifi-
cance of opportunity for seeing new things, studying
art, visiting public libraries, acquiring better tastes and
so broadening the social life of the laborer, but the
feasibility of the eight-hour day he presents only from
the side of production. Can the laborer " produce as
much in eight hours as in ten or twelve," is the ques-
tion. The suggested answer given to this is that where
the laborers cannot for any reason produce as much in
the shorter as in the longer day, the workman must
determine whether he is willing to sacrifice something
in wages for the sake of greater leisure and social satis-
faction. This is purely the employer's answer, not the
answer of the statesman or social philosopher. If that

380 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [April,

were to be the determining reason, the hours of labor
would almost never be shortened in the crude hand-
labor industries, because in all such industries the
shortening of the day below a certain point will for a
time at least lessen the output, and unless it propor-
tionately reduces the wages it will increase the cost of
production, and, if no reduction in the hours of labor
can come economically without lessening the output or
even increasing the price, then in all these industries
the working day can never be shortened.

Practice based on such reasoning would doom the
laborers in that group of industries to be excluded from
most of the benefits of invention and civilization. In
the broad sociological point of view, the laborer is more
important than the product, and if a shorter working
day would add to his social opportunities and the de-
velopment of a broader character and higher standard
of life and citizenship, that is eminently the thing to
be done, even though it lessens the output and increases
the cost of the product. As a matter of fact, that is
what has taken place during the entire century as a
part of the economic progress. The public policy in
this matter cannot be tested by its effect upon the
product of each particular industry, but rather upon the
product of industries in general.

For instance, in the progress of invention, machinery
has been applied to a very large number of industries,
so that the output has been multiplied many fold and
the cost greatly reduced. In certain other industries
machinery has not been, and in the nature of things
cannot be, applied but to a limited extent. In these
industries the hand-labor or slow methods must needs
prevail. With the increased wages and reduced hours
commensurate with the general growth of civilization,
the cost of production has actually been increased and
in those industries the prices of the products have

I90I.J BOOK REVIEWS 881

risen, but, taking all industries together, the economy
where machinery has been used has more than offset
the increased cost where machinery could not be used,
and consequently the whole community is benefited.
If this were not the case, only those laborers would get
the benefit of civilization who happened to work in
industries where machinery could be applied. That is
why the laborers who work with highly improved
machinery do not get increased wages proportionate to
the increased output. The benefit of that increased
output and machinery should in equity, and does, go to
the whole community, so that those laborers who work
in non-machine using industries are given a share in the
gain as well as those who work with the new machines.
And, conversely, the community must pay a little
more for the product of the laborers working in non-
machine using industries in order that they may have
the benefit of the advancing wages and shortened hours
demanded by the general progress of society.

Mr. Thurston's presentation of the tariff question,
while not at all partisan, lacks philosophic suggestion.
The idea that the character of a nation largely depends
on the nature of its industrial occupations, and that
diversified and urbanizing industries have an altogether
different social effect upon the people than rural ex-
tractive industries, has no recognition ; yet this is the
basic principle by which protective legislation should
be determined. Although the author brings out no
suggestion of constructive principle, he is entirely free
from that cynical sneering at the tariff that is charac-
teristic of many text-books. The book is well written
and bears the evidence of painstaking effort throughout.
Whether it is adapted for secondary schools must be
tested by experience, but it is a book that may be read
with interest by advanced students. It contains a great
deal of valuable data, a good index, and a brief but

382 G UNTON' S MA GAZINE

excellent general introduction by Professor Small of
Chicago University.

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FROM MARCH MAGAZINES

"In the case of the Irish and the Germans, their
roots have struck deep into the soil ; what New York
might have become without them it were idle to guess.
They cannot be absolved from their share of responsi-
bility for the evils that have grown upon us. In par-
ticular, the Irish have written a chapter of corruption
and misrule upon the city's records. In other cities, it
is only fair to say, native Americans have done the
same. But in New York the Irishman's superiority in
the domain of ward politics has been unquestioningly
accepted by the other populations, and the fabric that
has arisen is his own handiwork. Beauty and refine-
ment have not entered very largely into its composi-
tion ; where is the political machine that can show us
beauty or refinement? But before condemning it utter-
ly, let us remember one essential fact which, if not in
its present favor, at least holds out a hope for the
future, — namely, that it springs from the people." — J.
K. PAULDING, in "A Plea for New York;" Atlantic
Monthly (February).

' ' Nearly four months have elapsed since election
and there has been not only no appreciable progress in
establishing civil government in the Philippines, but
no indication that the majority in congress realize that
the country has a right to expect from them a definite
Philippine programme. While the lives of volunteer
American soldiers have been in deadly peril, congress
has been debating the details of a shipping subsidy bill.
What is still worse, the country has been deceived as
to the plain facts of the Philippine situation. The
reports of generals in the field, the finding of the two
commissions, the messages of the president, the speeches
of recognized leaders of the party, contain absolutely

383

884 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE

irreconcilable statements. Ours is a government by
opinion. But how is the public-spirited citizen to learn
the truth about the most elementary facts concerning
the Filipinos, such as their tribal relations, the extent
to which they use a common language, the state of pop-
ular education and political intelligence, and the terri-
torial limits of their present rebellion against the United
States? Even upon fundamental questions like these,
our newspapers and magazines are as confused and con-
tradictory as any intelligence given out by the admin-
istration. Are the revolutionists 'a few disaffected
Tagalogs,' or are we encountering the patriotic resist-
ance of a practically united people? Every American
voter has a right to the possession of these facts, pro-
vided the facts are known at Washington. If they are
not known at Washington, they ought to be." — The
Atlantic Monthly.

In Great Britain ... an agricultural implement
works makes road engines, threshers, mowers and
reapers, cultivators, and a variety of small farm tools.
But when they put any one of their machines into the
field, they meet a Chicago made article which is laid
down on the spot at a less price than that for which the
British firm can hope to simply produce it. The Chi-
cago manufacturer builds a vast works to make nothing
but mowers and binders. One concern employs thou-
sands of men on threshing machines and road engines
to haul them, while still other large factories make the
cultivators, drills, etc. Machines turned out by tens of
thousands, instead of thousands, can be made in greater
perfection and at materially lower cost, even if all other
factors are uniform. But if cheaper raw materials,
more efficient labour, better management, and more
up-to-date works be added, the transatlantic competitor
of America is, indeed, facing a difficult proposition." —
ARCHER BROWN, in "American Competition in the
World's Engineering Trades;" Gassier s Magazine.

CHARLES M. SCHWAB

President of the United States Steel Corporation
(Courtesy of "The World's Work")

See page 421

GUNTON'S MAGAZINE

REVIEW OF THE MONTH

The larger and more widespread indus-
tr*a^ concentration becomes, the more
important it is that organized labor
should develop correspondingly in strength, influence
and high quality of leadership. It is not one whit less
essential that a "stable equilibrium" of economic
power be maintained among the various factors that
share in the distribution of wealth than that these same
factors be organized to the point of greatest efficiency
in the production of this wealth. Indeed, from the
broad social standpoint, there is no justification for the
concentration of capital unless the resulting benefits
extend to the community in general, which means chiefly
the wage-earners, because more than three-quarters of
the population is in the wage- or salary-receiving class.
This sharing with the community of the advan-
tages of combination comes through several channels.
Of course the more important are lower prices, higher
wages, shorter hours and improved working conditions
of the laborers. The lower prices come about either
through the normal force of competition or as a result
of the profit- making superiority of a large market over
a small one. But the higher wages depend chiefly,
and at bottom almost entirely, upon the pressure that
can be exerted by the workers, — the success with which
they can insist upon increased remuneration to main-
tain higher standards of living along with the enlarging

385

386 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [May,

production of wealth. This ability to compel a just
distribution of wealth is even more a matter of organ-
ization among the laborers than ability to produce
cheaply is a matter of organization among the capital-
ists. Therefore, if those who are wasting time and
strength in denouncing ''trusts'5 as the great menace to
American workingmen, would exert themselves to en-
courage, advise and secure recognition for organized
labor, they would really do something practical for
economic justice, industrial peace and stability.

Just at this moment, when the greatest industrial
consolidation in the world's history has been consum-
mated, it is of crucial importance that no point be lost
in maintaining and advancing the proper status of
organized labor. If a serious effort were to be made to
break down labor organization or restrict the freedom
of laborers to unite for mutual advantage and protec-
tion, by discharging men for belonging to unions, the
whole American people would have an interest in
seeing that any such undertaking met with the most
determined and widespread resistance.

Coal Strike

Fortunately all signs at present point
away from any such disastrous tendency.

Forestalled

In three very important instances lately,
serious strikes have been averted by a mutual attitude
of conciliation and conference, indicating a reasonable
disposition on the part of the corporations and a spirit
of willingness to "make haste slowly" on the part of
the employees. Late in March there were prospects of
a great strike in the anthracite coal region of Pennsyl-
vania, over the wage scale for the coming year, and
other matters. A party of labor leaders, headed by
Father Phillips who was instrumental in settling the
strike last fall, came to New York to confer with Mr.
J. Pierpont Morgan as the representative of the con-

igoi.] REVIEW OF THE MONTH 387

trolling financial interests in the coal corporations and
coal-carrying railroads. Mr. Morgan met and conferred
with Father Phillips, and it is believed that a private
conference was held with some of the labor men them-
selves, including Mr. John Mitchell, president of the
United Mine Workers' Association. Whether this
latter meeting actually took place or not, the result of
the negotiations was practically equivalent to recogni-
tion of the mine workers' association. Assurances were
given that the present advanced wage rates would be
continued another year at least, and the executive com
mittee of the miners' association has since given out a
statement showing that, if the unions can prove their
ability to control their men and abstain from engaging
in local strikes during the present year, they are prac-
tically assured of "full and complete recognition/
The committee adds that, while ' ' we were unable to
secure all the concessions we hoped for and believe we
are justly entitled to, we are of the opinion that the
willingness of the various coal companies to receive
committees representing mine workers for the adjudi-
cation of grievances records an important advance step
in the right direction and presages more harmonious
and equitable relations between employers and em-
ployees than have prevailed in the anthracite region
heretofore."

Important Another threatened labor dispute of still

Railroad Strike more recent origin has just reached
Averted equally satisfactory settlement. This

was on the Central Railroad of New Jersey, and the
demands of the men were for increased wages, limita-
tion of the length of a day's "run," etc. As in almost
every other labor dispute where the company does not
recognize the labor union, the trouble soon centered
round the issue of whether the railroad officials would

388 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [May,

treat with committees representing the men or insist
upon dealing with the employees individually. The
efforts of the men to get a hearing for their committee
were at first unsuccessful, but when a strike seemed
imminent the vice-president of the company instructed
the general superintendent and division superintendent
to meet and confer with the committee and if possible
adjust the grievances. This concession to reasonable-
ness did what it always may be counted upon to do in
similar cases, — brought out the quality of reasonable-
ness likewise in the other party, and in the resulting
conference points were yielded on both sides and a
strike averted. Some of the demands of the men were
granted and others postponed for further discussion.
Recognition of the employees' committee cost the com-
pany nothing, saved it a costly strike, and will un-
doubtedly gain it much in renewed harmony of relations
and more faithful service from its men. Here, once
more, the psychological influence of a just and friendly
attitude counted for more than a full concession of the
wage and other demands would have done, if coupled
with refusal to recognize the employees' committee.

Of still greater concern, with respect to

Reinstatement .- ., n 1 - .,- ...

Ends Steel Strike Posslble developments, than either the
coal or the railroad controversies was the
strike in one of the plants of the American Sheet Steel
Company at McKeesport, Pennsylvania. No question
of wages or hours seems to have been involved in this
contest, but solely the issue of the men's right to join
a union. Seven men were discharged from the Mc-
Keesport works, presumably because they had joined
a newly formed lodge of the Amalgamated Association
of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers, and, on April i$th,
about half the employees went on strike. It was de-
clared by President Shaffer, of the association, that

i9oi.] REVIEW OF THE MONTH 389

unless these men were reinstated a strike would be or-
dered in every plant of the United States Steel Corpo-
ration, of which the American Sheet Steel Company is
a part. The controversy lasted several days, and the
company, while refusing to recognize the union, never-
theless did what amounted to the same thing in sending
Mr. John Jarrett as a special representative to the
meetings of the amalgamated association to argue the
company's case and make propositions. Another im-
portant conciliatory influence entered the contest in the
person of Colonel G. W. French, vice-president of the
Republic Iron and Steel Company, who volunteered to
act somewhat in the capacity of mediator between the
sheet steel company and the union. Finally, on April
1 8th, Mr. Jarrett appeared before the executive board
of the amalgamated association in Pittsburg and offered
to reinstate all the discharged men except one, who was
to be suspended ten days, which was afterward reduced
by agreement to three days. The following agreement
was drawn up and signed by President Shaffer and
Secretary Williams of the amalgamated association,
and Mr. Jarrett for the skeet steel company :

" We have discovered, after a careful examination of the points at
issue that, as usual, mistakes and misunderstandings underlie the trouble
at McKeesport, and we reach the conclusion that it will be to the ad-
vantage of all parties concerned to start the Wood mill with the old em-
ployees on next Monday, April 22, 1901.

1 ' And it is further agreed that the contract with reference to
working conditions in the mill and scale matters shall be observed until
July i, 1901, and in the mean time Mr. Smith and Mr. Holloway shall
have a meeting to adjust any difficulty which may exist between them."

We quote this agreement merely to show that, al-
though the company refused to recognize the local
union at McKeesport, it practically recognized organ-
ized labor by treating with the amalgamated associa-
tion and submitting propositions to it. Indeed, this is
even more significant than a conference with the local

390 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [May,

union would have been, since the latter included some
of the company's own employees, while the general
association only indirectly represented them.

The outcome of these controversies is most encour-
aging. It gives evidence that the increasing organiza-
tion of capital, instead of " crushing out" labor, is
actually tending to make the pathway of industrial
peace smoother. The fact is, these giant consolidations
cannot afford to engage in costly labor contests. The
number of employees is so large that if they should all
go on strike it would be almost impossible to replace
them, at least not until after enormous losses. This
fact has already shown itself in practical experience to
such an extent that prominent labor leaders frequently
declare that they prefer to treat with these large estab-
lishments than with petty corporations or small busi-
ness firms. The normal progress of industrial organ-
ization, both of capital and labor, will do away with the
black list and hounding of labor unions, while pre-
serving the economic advantages of competition, con-
centration and expert specialization in productive meth-
ods ; thus accomplishing by the natural economic process
the very thing that radical "reformers " would have us
believe can come only by arbitrary legislation, de-
signed to revolutionize our industrial and social insti-
tutions.

It is always a pleasure to commend good

Ramapo Charter , . _ - c ~, .

Repealed conduct, and especially when found in
unexpected quarters. The action of the
New York legislature on the Ramapo scandal is one of
these exceptional occasions for unqualified praise.

On March i2th and i4th, respectively, the assem-
bly and senate passed the bill repealing the Ramapo
Water Company's charter, and on the igth Governor
Odell signed the measure. Except for a possible con-

igoi.] REVIEW OF THE MONTH 891

test in the courts over the constitutionality of the re-
peal, this ends the long struggle of New York city to
regain the extraordinary privileges granted to the
Ramapo Company six years ago. The good work is
made more complete by the passage of laws enabling
New York city to condemn lands for watersheds and to
increase its debt limit for the purposes of additional
water supply. The debt-limit law, however, is in re-
ality an amendment to the constitution and will have
to be repassed by another legislature and submitted to
the people before it can go into effect.

Excess of virtue sometimes brings reac-

New York Cfty , ,

Charter Revision tlon to the opposite extreme. Appar-
ently the legislature believed that by re-
pealing the Ramapo charter it would get a reputation
sufficient to cover many sins ; at least, this is a reason-
able deduction from its handling of the New York
charter revision problem. The bill embodying the
recommendations of the charter-revision commission,
appointed last year, was passed, with numerous amend-
ments, early in April, and sent to the mayor of New
York city for approval or disapproval, according to the
routine required by law. The intent of the revision
measure was to remedy the defects in the greater New
York charter as brought out by experience, and in gen-
eral to simplify and concentrate authority in both the
legislative and executive departments of the city gov-
ernment. It was proposed among other things to abol-
ish the two houses of the municipal assembly (28 coun-
cilmen and 61 aldermen), and substitute a board of
aldermen of 120 members; give the mayor the power
to remove heads of departments throughout his entire
term instead of for only a limited period at the begin-
ning, as now; abolish the board of public improve-
ments, department of sewers, department of highways,

392 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [May,

department of buildings, department of public build-
ings, lighting and supplies ; and transfer the functions
of these boards chiefly to the respective borough presi-
dents; increase the powers of the board of estimate
and apportionment and give it eight members instead
of five as now, the members to have graded voting
power as follows : the mayor, controller, and president
of the board of aldermen, three votes each ; presidents
of the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn, two votes
each ; presidents of the boroughs of the Bronx, Queens
and Richmond, one vote each; abolish the bi- partisan
police commission and substitute a single police com-
missioner ; establish a board of elections of four mem-
bers, appointed by the mayor ; and take away from the
heads of departments the power to fix salaries.

Most of these changes were real improvements, but
by the time the revised charter had gone through the
legislature it was loaded down with ''job " amendments
designed to make the distribution of political spoils
easy and prolong the grip of the "bosses" on the city
government. Such, for example, was the provision that
city magistrates shall be appointed by the mayor in
Manhattan borough but elected (and their number in-
creased) from specially arranged districts in Brooklyn
borough, while only in Manhattan need these magis-
trates be lawyers ; the provision authorizing the board
of education to appropriate school funds for the sup-
port of private schools ; the provision appropriating
§160,000 a year for printing official notices, etc., in
daily newspapers of the two leading political parties in
the boroughs of the Bronx, Queens and Richmond, —
papers which could be brought into existence solely on
the strength of this booty and officially "designated"
to receive it by the party committees in the boroughs
named.

Mayor Van Wyck vetoed the revision measure but

i QOI.] REVIEW OF THE MONTH 393

it has been repassed by the legislature by almost a strict
party vote, — the republicans for and the democrats
against it ; and signed by the governor. Just before the
adjournment of the legislature, additional measures
were passed, weeding out some of the offensive amend-
ments referred to, especially the printing appropriation
and "private school " schemes. But the people cannot
and will not forget that the attempt was made, at first
successfully, and only defeated by a storm of public in-
dignation, to foist this series of offensive jobs on the
municipality. Already, the moral effect has injured
the prospects of a good-government victory in the
coming municipal election, because it has been made
clear that, once given power and a sufficient temptation,
the republican organization in this state and city is
quite as capable of corruption as Tammany itself.

The taking prisoner of Emilio Agui-
Captureof naldo on March 23rd is the most notable

Aguinaldo

occurrence in the Philippine warfare,
since the outbreak of hostilities in February, 1899.
Undoubtedly the power of the Filipino leader had
declined during the last year, but he was still the most
conspicuous personage among the hostile natives and
wielded a considerable influence even where his
authority was no longer recognized. He was not taken
in open conflict, but as the result of a rather dubious
exploit planned and executed by General Funston, who
has since been made a brigadier general in the regular
army in special recognition of this service. Funston's
success was made possible by the treachery of four of
Aguinaldo's former officers, who guided the party to
the Filipino camp at Palanan, near the east coast of
Luzon and north of Manila. Funston took with him
four American officers and a party of about eighty
Macabebes, the latter dressed as Filipino soldiers and

394 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [May,

laborers. Word was sent to Aguinaldo, by the help of
insurgents who were deceived by the uniforms, that a
body of Filipino soldiers had captured five Americans
and were now bringing them to his headquarters.
Along with this information, and to assist in the de-
ception, Funston sent two forged letters addressed to
Aguinaldo and purporting to come from the Filipino
general Lacuna, whose camp with official papers, seals,
etc., had been captured by our troops some time
previously.

Aguinaldo was completely deceived and even sent
out supplies to the approaching party, with orders to
treat the American prisoners kindly. When the Maca-
bebes, led by the four Filipino traitors and ostensibly
conveying the five Americans as prisoners, got within
Aguinaldo's camp, they suddenly opened fire and took
the Filipino leader prisoner. The party then marched
to Palanan Bay and were brought back to Manila on the
Vicksburg. Aguinaldo, recognizing the hopelessness of
the Filipino cause, has since taken the oath of allegi-
ance to the United States and prepared an address to
his people, advising them to give up the struggle and
incidentally trying to justify his own recantation by
declaring that the policy of peace through surrender
has already been "joyfully" accepted by the majority
of his countrymen.

The method by which this ' ' master-
Moral Aspect of stroke» was accomplished has been

Funston's Exploit /

fiercely assailed and stoutly defended,

and of the controversy as a whole it may be said that
while the criticisms have been made on moral grounds
the defence has been almost uniformly upon technical
grounds. The old cynicism: "All is fair in war" has
been made to do such noisy duty in this case that in the
din one might almost forget that with the moral progress

i9oi.J REVIEW OF THE MONTH 395

of civilization it was long ago established that all is not
fair in war. Some of the more intolerable things have
even found their way into codes of international agree-
ment, and among them is the prohibition of the use of
an enemy's uniform to deceive him. Professor Theo-
dore S. Woolsey, of Yale University, in a recent con-
tribution to the Outlook, speaks of this practice as pro-
hibited not only by the Hague Conference of 1899, but
by the Oxford Code of the Institute of International
Law, and by the Brussels Code of 1875. Prof. Wool-
sey's justification of Funston's act is that Aguinaldo's
army and government were not recognized by any civ-
ilized power and hence not entitled to the rights of
belligerents. In fighting them, "he says, " in turn the
United States is not bound by rules which are only
binding reciprocally when the other party observes
them also." In other words, my neighbor and I may
agree not to cheat each other, but remain perfectly free
to cheat a third party if we do not choose to give that
third party the opportunity to pledge himself not to
cheat us.

The importance of discussing the moral bearing of
Funston's exploit, confessedly a daring and clever one in
itself, lies in its effect upon our standards of justice and
quality of ethical thinking here at home. To us, Prof.
Woolsey's argument seems wonderfully like the old
Hebrew notion of morality, which required a Jew to
observe strict justice towards other Jews but permitted
him to " spoil " the stranger whenever he could lay
hands upon him. The international code of warfare
was adopted upon the broadest moral and humanitarian
considerations, but it would seem now that civilization
is not even morally obligated to observe it towards
others who would gladly accept it and actually do ob-
serve it, but only towards those whom it chooses to
"recognize" as entitled to the benefit of moral law.

396 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [May,

Logically carried out, this interpretation would permit
a civilized country to practice against " unrecognized "
enemies any of the gross offenses forbidden by the code.
Prof. Woolsey says: No, the rules of humanity must
still govern. But why? Certainly not because the
code makes any distinction between the different kinds
of outrage or perfidy it forbids. If "humanity" must
govern our relations, what are the things humanity
enforces upon us ? Who is to decide ? As we have said, it
was upon principles of humanity and morality that
every provision of the international code was based,
and if any of them apply to unrecognized governments
they ought all so to apply. Warfare at best is a carni-
val of barbarities and immoralities, and the code only
pretends to cover the more glaring and despicable out-
rages against common humanity and fairness. If these
are too bad to be tolerated against recognized belliger-
ents they are too bad to be tolerated against any mili-
tary body which is willing to and does refrain from
these acts on its own part.

Even Prof. Woolsey admits that the rules of the
international code should be binding upon one party
" when the other party observes them also," whether
that other party is a recognized belligerent or not. There
is no evidence that the Filipinos have been less obser-
vant of these rules than our own forces ; on the con-
trary, it is matter of record that they have conducted
an orderly warfare, and shown a degree of considera-
tion and humanity in the treatment of American pris-
oners which might have been copied with considerable
profit by some of the "civilized " powers in their deal-
ings with the Chinese during the last few months.
General Funston's method cannot be justified on the
ground of Filipino perfidy, and therefore, if Prof.
Woolsey is right, it is not clear how it can be justified
at all.

IQOI.] REVIEW OF THE MONTH 397

Moreover, our own general, MacArthur, as recently
as December 2oth last, issued a proclamation to all in-
habitants of the islands, whether in arms or not, com-
manding them to observe all the "laws of war" and
quoting several provisions from the international code.
As the Springfield Republican observes :

" What of the legality — after all a mere husk — of setting up a code
of laws for your enemy to follow and then violating them yourself, in
the most deliberate style, at the first opportunity?

Of course, indefensible and even dishon-
our Philippine orable acts must be expected occasionally
Policy Henceforth

under conditions so peculiar, but when

we begin seriously to justify all this and accept it as a
part of our customary and excusable way of doing
things it is a grave misfortune and points to a relaxa-
tion of moral backbone and gradual drift towards the
cynical spirit of: "Whatever succeeds is right." If this
republic should lose its grip on the high principles
wrought into its very foundations, it will decline from
its long-maintained position of moral leadership and
come to be reckoned with simply as one more commer-
cialized factor. Its influence, if that time arrives, will
be estimated in advance according to its probable inter-
est or share in new fields of trade or conquest rather
than by its disinterested love of fairness or devotion to
the rights of man.

Much as our public opinion ought to deplore the fact
that Aguinaldo was not taken in an open, straightfor-
ward way, it is far better for all concerned that the
Filipino resistance is finally brought so near its end.
The administration was determined not to offer any
hope of future independence, and therefore peace
could not have been restored except by some such con-
clusive stroke as this. Probably the road will soon be
clear for determining our future political relations to
the islands, free from the distracting effects of an ac-

398 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [May,

tive military problem. Neither the capture of Agui-
naldo, nor the possible ending of hostilities which may
soon follow, will alter the fact that our highest duty
toward these people and toward ourselves is to prepare
them for independent self-government at some future
time and not make them an integral part of the United
States. The Filipinos, whether in rebellion or in sub-
mission, are equally unsuited to become governing units
in a free democracy of Anglo-Saxon people of the
highest social and intellectual status in the world.
They may, however, attain capacity for independent
self-government fitted to their own needs and peculiari-
ties, and it is to this end that our policy ought to be
directed, with them no less than with the Cubans, whom
Admiral Dewey emphatically declared inferior to the
Filipinos in several important respects.

However well- deserved General Kit-

Chener's military «putation may be, he
is earning no fresh laurels of conse-
quence in the South African campaign. DeWet is not
only still at large but continues to raid the British in
unexpected quarters, capture occasional squads of men
and carry off supplies. Nevertheless, it has been re-
ported frequently of late that the hopelessness of his
cause has driven DeWet to the verge of insanity, so
that he is mentally irresponsible for his acts. Possibly
on account of this, General Botha, commanding the
remnants of the Transvaal army, has been growing
more and more anxious for peace, and on February
2/th he met General Kitchener in conference. The
terms offered to the Boers included amnesty for all
bona fide acts of war, return of Boer prisoners from St.
Helena and Ceylon, establishment of civil administra-
tion and later of a representative government, estab
lishment of a high court independent of the executive,

igoi.] REVIEW OF THE MONTH 399

non- molestation of land, church property, trusts and
orphan funds, teaching of the English and Dutch lan-
guages, payment of Boer debts to the amount of
•£1,000,000 even if contracted during the war, and lim-
itation of the franchise rights of the Kaffirs when such
rights are extended to them under the future represen-
tative government. To this was added subsequently an
offer to lend money to the Boers for rebuilding houses
and restocking farms, and a proposition that in the new
government to be established there would be a council
including some of the prominent Boer leaders.

General Botha rejected these terms, for just what
reasons is not clearly known, but the chief is believed
to have been his determined opposition to having Sir
Alfred Milner made governor of the Transvaal, which
was understood to be a part of the British program.
If there is really nothing more serious than this in the
way, a common basis for peace will probably be found
before many weeks, covering at least the Transvaal
situation, whether DeWet can be persuaded to surrender
or not.

Early in April the Chinese government

Manchuria Saved . „•,•-,

to China formally declined to accept the treaty

proposed by Russia regarding Manchuria.
The expressed opposition of England, the United States
and Japan to the signing of any such treaty is undoubt-
edly what encouraged China to take this action, and on
the other hand prevented Russia from trying to force it
upon China by threats of punishment. At the time the
three protests referred to were made it was not clearly
understood just what the Manchuria treaty contained,
and, even though Russia has since explained that it was
simply to provide for maintaining peace in the province
until Russian troops could be withdrawn, the net effect
would probably have been prolonged Russian occupa-

400 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [Mayr

tion and steady growth of Russian influence, leading
towards a protectorate if not annexation at some future
date. It is gratifying to note that our own government
did not heed the clamor against taking any further
action in the Chinese negotiations, but consistently
acted on the theory that, having shared the responsi-
bility of invading China, we could not properly with-
draw until we had fully discharged our share of the
obligations growing out of that action. We have defi-
nitely taken a stand for the "open door'' in China, have
so declared ourselves to the powers, and could not with
self-respect withdraw from that position at the first sign
of a dispute over it. The "open door," as opposed to
dismemberment, is the cause not only of civilization
but of justice to China. To stand firmly for this cause
is one of the most creditable things, in foreign policy,
•that our government has an opportunity of doing, at
present, anywhere.

Another and no less creditable thing is
The Question of f or Qur gOvernment to stand out against
Indemnities *

the efforts of some of the powers to ex-
tort absurd indemnities (fully $500,000,000) from China
for the Boxer outrages of last year. Payment should
be made, and ample payment, sufficient to serve as a
lasting warning against any more such offenses, but to
demand more than five times as much as a liberal esti-
mate of all the damages and expenses would amount
to, including the losses of the missionaries, simply
because China is helpless and cannot resist, is unworthy
of Christendom, and is the more offensive because the
burden will fall in the shape of heavy additional taxa-
tion on the whole poverty-stricken Chinese population,
the great majority of whom had nothing whatever to do
with the Boxer uprisings. The total revenues of the
empire are estimated to amount to only about $65,000,-

igoi.] REVIEW OF THE MONTH 401

ooo per year. Of course, the innocent members of a
community always have to share in the payment of just
penalties for offences committed by any portion of it,
but, when the penalty demanded is exorbitant and op-
pressive, the misfortune of the innocent majority becomes
a moral problem which the claimants cannot dodge
merely by appealing to the technicalities of "national
responsibility."

It may be urged that no sum is too large for the
human lives lost in China, but it is a recognized prin-
ciple of equity that when damages are being collected
from a community or organization for offences commit-
ted by some of its members the penalty, which is to fall
alike upon the innocent and guilty, must be within rea-
sonable limits. It is upon this manifestly just principle
that the limit of damages which may be collected from
a railroad company in many of our states, for the kill-
ing of a human being, is fixed at $5,000, although from
the standpoint of the relatives and friends no conceiva-
ble sum of money would have been accepted in exchange
for that person's life. If there was criminal careless-
ness, the full penalty for manslaughter may be visited
only upon the one directly guilty. As a matter of fact,
no money indemnity is adequate reparation for the
taking of a human life, and, in the case of China, the
chief reparation exacted might much better take the
form of such measures and concessions as will guarantee
future peace with freedom of industry and protection
of individual rights.

Russia demands §90,000,000, France $65,000,000,
and Germany $60,000,000, for military expenses alone,
exclusive of penalties quite as large or larger for the
losses of life and property suffered by missionaries aud
others in China. The fact that England demands only
$22,500,000, and the United States $25,000,000 with an
offer to reduce this one-half if the others will do the

402 G UNTON'S MA GAZINE

same, throws some light on the probable reasonable-
ness of the Russian, French and German claims. It
should be remembered that these demands are not of
the character of war indemnities, such as Germany ex-
acted from France in 1870. There has been no "war"
between the powers and the Chinese government ; no
declarations of war were made and no ministers re-
called. Although the circumstances were extraordi-
nary and aggravated, these claims for indemnity are
really of the same sort that governments frequently
present to each other for outrages committed against
the citizens or property of the one within the borders
of the other. Such claims are always supposed to be
reckoned on some reasonable estimate of the actual
losses incurred . In the present case the powers must also
be remunerated for having had to take the place of the
Chinese government in protecting foreign interests in
China and restoring order, but this does not alter the
principle of the case ; and, if the dispute were between
two European countries instead of between Christendom
and China, no other basis of settlement would be toler-
ated. It is to be hoped that the United States at least
will take no part in a policy which can only convince
the "heathen" Chinaman that the Christianity long
preached to him by western missionaries simmers itself
down in practical experience to the doctrine of : "Might
makes right."

SOME COOPERATIVE MEN AND THINGS IN

ENGLAND

NICHOLAS PAINE OILMAN, EDITOR "THE NEW WORLD"

I was in Europe some six months of last year, and
as my interest in labor questions is deep I improved
as many opportunities as were open to me to observe
cooperation as it is. Without making an exhaustive
study, which was out of the question, I saw a number
of men and institutions that are doubtless attractive to
the readers of GUNTON'S MAGAZINE, and I will therefore
report of them briefly.

An American advocate of profit-sharing naturally
makes his way in London, first of all, perhaps, to the
headquarters of the Labour Association * 'for promoting
cooperative production based on the copartnership of
the workers," at No. 15 Southampton Row, Holborn, not
far from the British Museum. Needless to say, he will
meet there a cordial reception from Mr. Henry Vivian,
the energetic secretary of the association. Mr. Vivian is
a self-made man, as we say here, but not one of those
who worship their maker with too profound an adoration.
A graduate of the factory, he has a mind of much natu-
ral force and speaks with a simplicity and directness
that commend his well-reasoned addresses on his favor-
ite subject to a working-class audience as well as to per-
sons who have had what is called a liberal education.
He has a thorough command of the logic and the facts
of profit-sharing, and is a persuasive apostle of its gos-
pel. Labour Copartnership, the excellent monthly organ
of the association, keeps standing at the head of each
number a short statement, "To New Readers," of the
principle in industry for which it contends, ' 'and of the

403

404 G UNTON* S MA GAZINE [May,

progress which has been made in the application of it
. . . we advocate the copartnership, that is, the
equal partnership, of labour with capital, the system
under which, in the first place, a substantial and known
share of the profit of a business belongs to the workers
in it, not by right of any shares they may hold, or any
other title, but simply by right of the labour they have
contributed to make the profit; and . . . every
worker is at liberty to invest his profit, or savings, in
shares of the society or company, and so become a
member entitled to vote on the affairs of the body
which employs him. This system is no mere dream.
It is already carried out by British productive busi-
nesses which at the end of 1 899 (statistics for Ireland
are given separately) numbered 102, had a capital of
£1,285,339; sold in the year £2,476,216 worth of goods;
made a net profit of £135,100 (after deducting losses);
and paid to labour, in addition to provident funds, a sum
not easily ascertained, but exceeding £19,000, as labour's
share of the results over and above standard wages. In
some the part of labour, whether in profit or in manage-
ment, is smaller, and in some larger, but in all there is
copartnership." *

This brief statement will suffice to denote the po-
sition, both logical and self-consistent, it appears to me,

*These figures of capital and sales refer, it should be remembered
by readers of cooperative literature, to productive cooperation in which
the principle of profit-sharing is recognized. In the last report of the
Central Board of the Cooperative Union, made at Cardiff, June 4, 1900,
the "returns relating to cooperative production" give the total capital
employed in Great Britain for 1899 as £2, 539, 013, the sales during the year
as £5,729,349, the profit as £307,725 and the loss as ^4, 842. But these
figures include the large factories and flour mills of the English Whole-
sale Society and some other minor productive enterprises, which do not
give a bonus to labor, but only to the shareholder and the consumer.
The figures of the Labour Association, on the other hand, include the
Scottish Wholesale Society, which recognizes the copartnership princi-
ple.

i goi. ] COO PER A TION IN ENGLAND 405

of those Englishmen and Scotchmen who are co-
operators in fact as well as in name, if the name means
"working together" on the principle of equality and
sharing the results. The membership of the labour
association includes, as the observer from abroad will
quickly see from running over the list, the vast ma-
jority (if it is not almost a monopoly) of those who
claim to be the « 'thinkers" in the general cooperative
movement in Great Britain. The authorities of the
English Wholesale Society and their sympathizers on
this point (of refusing a bonus in wages to their actual
workers in the so-called cooperative stores and factories)
are men whose great ability in business is very evident,
whose devotion to cooperation as they understand it is
unquestionable, but whose methods of reasoning and
whose prejudices are typically those of business men
in the world outside of the cooperative movement. It
was their fathers or grandfathers who did the thinking re -
quired to make the cooperative stores the great success
they have become. This generation has the usual
business-man's pride in the imposing figures of the
sales and profits of the stores and the English whole-
sale. Its chief maxim (or sub-conscious principle) is
" Let well enough alone," one always brought forward
when men who reason out principles ask them to take
the worker into full cooperation as the natural next
step in the application of true cooperative ideas.
"Philistine" is perhaps a. much overworked epithet
since Matthew Arnold first employed it, but surely it
has few applications more just than to the English co-
operators who here reject the logic of Neale and
Hughes and Holyoake, and all the economists of Eng-
land with scarcely an exception. I met at Cardiff, last
June, the business leaders of the Wholesale Society,
and endeavored to realize the state of mind which leads
them to part company with men whose ability and sin-

406 G UN TON'S MA GA ZINE [May,

cerity in the cause of cooperation they never incline to
dispute — the " children of light " preeminently in their
body. But I could perceive no specific difference (so
far as my opportunities of conversation and attending
meetings went) between what I may call, for conven-
ience' sake, "the English Wholesale mind" and the
mind, familiar to all of us, of the ordinary business
man, averse to any change in his relations with his
employees, and impatient to a degree with reformers
or " theorists '' of any description. *' The Labour As-
sociation mind " appeared to me to be really a mind,
i. e., a power of thinking over new ideas and following
out principles to their natural conclusions and proper
results. The Labour Association people have ideas and
are willing to move with them ; the Philistines have a
set of prejudices to which they adhere with that virtue
we are so wont to call " firmness " — in ourselves.

For an outsider it is difficult to see what serious
danger could threaten such a great concern as the
" Wheatsheaf " shoe works at Leicester for instance,
making a million and a half pairs of boots and shoes
annually, if they gave their thousand employees a
modest bonus on wages, such as much smaller coopera-
tive concerns in the same town give and still prosper —
or rather, one might well say, are more prosperous
because they do pay a bonus. Nevertheless, the long
contest in the cooperative movement between the con-
servatives and the liberals on this matter seems to have
resulted in a virtual victory for the conservative ele-
ment. The subject is now avoided at the congresses
and the liberals express little hope of a change of heart
or a change of program on the part of their more
numerous opponents. An American may be excused
for having faith that the very evident logic of coopera-
tion will work itself clear in time, if not with the help
of this sincere but intellectually limited majority, then

igoi.] COOPERA TION IN ENGLAND 407

without them, or against them. That cooperation is to
stop with consumption is a supposition quite too dim-
cult for a far-seeing mind to entertain. English coop-
erators even now are not allowed to enjoy the complete
pleasure of their prejudices ; sometimes it is a trade-
unionist like Mr. Steadman, the East London M.P.,
speaking at Cardiff, who reminds them of their incon-
sistencies;* sometimes it is an economist like Prof.
Marshall or Prof. Nicholson; sometimes it is the
Spectator or the Speaker, that points out with more or less
mildness the better way; their feet will not know
lasting peace until they tend in that direction !

It was my good fortune to attend the first day's
session of the Cooperative Union at Cardiff (a body too
few Americans see), and two or three preliminary
meetings. Other unions produce as big pamphlets as
this union every year (the report is a formidable docu-
ment), or even bigger, but I doubt if the American
traveler in England can find a convention of a thousand
men that will impress him more favorably than such
a congress. We Americans have so many compliments

*Mr. Steadman said that "he had been a trade-unionist for over
twenty-six years, and he was proud to stand upor that or any other
platform as a representative of the organized labor of the country. He
had never been a keen sympathizer with the cooperative movement for
this reason. If he purchased some goods at the stores, and if, after
spending a sovereign, his only object was to secure a five per cent,
dividend, he might just as well spend his money with a private capital-
ist as with the stores which are run upon the lines of dividend hunters.
He might be mistaken (cries of ' You are ! ') — but, if he were, so much
the better. He did know a small productive society in his own con-
stituency that not only paid trade union wages, but also gave the workers
a share in the profits. If that was cooperation, if all other cooperative
organizations were run on similar lines, then he was a cooperator."

This quotation from the official report of the Cardiff congress, re-
lating to a most interesting incident of the first day's proceedings, shows
the feeling entertained by many trade-unionists, and the ill grace with
which the criticism was received witnesses the sensitiveness which
people in the wrong usually feel toward comment which they have voted
down in their own body by force of numbers.

408 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [May,

paid us by foreigners on our readiness of speech on
the platform or the floor of a convention" that we
have gotten into a way of expecting painful slowness
or hesitancy from the average Briton on his feet in
the agony of making "a few remarks." But we are
Quickly undeceived by such steadily good speaking as
the cooperative congress affords — ready, consecutive,
unrhetorical, preeminently sane and sober discussion
of the matter in hand. The verbosity and superficial-
ity of too many American speakers on such an occa-
sion would be painful to one who attends in order to
get facts and truth, not to be drenched with " words,
words." The solid, concrete English mind was here
to be seen at its best, exemplifying the finest tradi-
tions of respect for free speech and demand for
sound speech, and obedience to the laws of parlia-
mentary discourse. It was a congress of labor with
the demagogue silent and the usual "flea of con-
ventions" absent!

The most attractive figure at the congress was, of
course, the "old man eloquent " who is now the veteran
par Eminence of these gatherings. A congress without
the fine presence and the vigorous word of Mr. George
Jacob Holyoake would be sadly lacking. Eighty-three
years young on this occasion, he obeyed the voice at
eve, obeyed at prime, and did not omit, in season or
out of season, to remind cooperators to be faithful to
the whole body of doctrine as delivered by such
apostles as Neale and Hughes. When Mr. Holyoake
has gone over like them to the vast and increasing
majority, the leadership of the liberal wing will proba-
bly be accredited generally to Mr. William Maxwell,
the chairman of the Scottish Wholesale Society, whose
great business abilities are not separate from a profound
attachment to the principle of fraternity in industry to
its fullest extent. His position gives him great ad-

igoi.] COOPERATION IN ENGLAND 409

vantage in championing the cause of labor copartner-
ship, and if he should be elected to the next parliament
(his candidacy this last fall was unsuccessful on account
of the war feeling) he will take the prominent position
before the general public to which his unusual powers
as a thinker and as an orator entitle him. Mr. F. Mad-
isson, lately M. P. for a Sheffield constituency, takes
in these days a notable part in the cooperative move-
ment, and it is to be hoped that his voice may again be
heard in St. Stephen's, where his sincerity and his sanity
won the respect of the house for a self-made man well
made.

Mr. Aneurin Williams, treasurer of the Labour As-
sociation, is one of the last persons whom an American
friendly to cooperation should leave unvisited ; in more
ways than one he has followed in the footsteps of Mr. E.
V. Neale, and he aids the association with a personality
of unusual attraction. Mr. George Thomson, the
woolen manufacturer of Huddersfield who applies the
Ruskinian doctrines of truth and sincerity to that busi-
ness, is another man who should be better known to
us. This industrial partnership is one of the most im-
portant cooperating enterprises in England, not so
much for its size or its success, thus far, as for its con-
sistency and courage in adherence to principles. The
American who visits Huddersfield to see the unique
establishment should also see at Hebden Bridge, near
by, the oldest and most successful of profit-sharing co-
operative manufactories in Great Britain. Here Mr.
Joseph Greenwood, a cheerful veteran of the cause,
.and his associates frankly make fustian and sell it as such
to a cooperative world not yet educated up as a whole
to Mr. Thomson's standard of perfection in woolen
goods. The esteem which these two men feel for each
other reminds us how necessary it is in a varied world
to meet different demands. Mr. Greenwood is one of

410 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [May,

the first to say that Mr. Thomson's way is best, if only
cooperators could be made to see it, and wear, as he
himself does, the product of the Huddersfield mill.

While I am speaking of persons, let me advise visit-
ors to cooperative England in the near years before
us to make, if possible and proper, the acquaintance of
Mr. J. M. Ludlow, the associate of Maurice and Kings-
ley. If he is able to see them, they will converse with
a beautiful spirit, and see a man with a wonderful pair
of eyes for eighty. Mr. George Livesey, the chief
director of the South Metropolitan Gas Works in Lon-
don, is carrying profit-sharing on to what he considers
its natural and desirable development in the workman-
stockholder and the workman- director, and he is sure to
have a great influence on the future of English labor,
if his measures succeed, as they have so far succeeded.
Mr. Walter Hazell, lately M. P. for Leicester (an in-
stance of the excellent English custom of allowing a
constituency to choose its representatives from any
part of the land), is another of the employers of labor
on a large scale who put conscience into their work,
and are always desirous to "become better employers."
Mr. Hazell's plans of "industrial betterment" for his
large printing establishment deserve study.

At Manchester and London one may see the im-
mense warehouses of the English Wholesale Society,
and come into pleasant contact with the sturdy Britons
like Messrs. Shillito (the present chairman,) Ben Jones
and F. Hardern, who indeed reject profit-sharing as an
error of the doctrinaire, but show an amount of good
"horse- sense" and solid English manliness that can
but win the respect of any one not in fact a doctrinaire
himself. Mr. J. C. Gray, the efficient secretary of the
cooperative board, will be sure to extend every cour-
tesy to an American sympathizer with distributive
cooperation.

IQOI.] COOPERA TION IN ENGLAND 411

The important thing, however, for one to do who
would know how cooperative production stands to-day
in England is to visit Leicester or Kettering, or better,
as they are only twenty miles apart, Leicester and
Kettering. For the ordinary tourist Leicester (which
he is too little apt to see) has the attraction of great
antiquity, running back to Caesar's time, of which nu-
merous relics have been preserved ; on the lines of en-
larged municipal activity it is one of the most advanced
towns in England: and Kettering is an admirable
instance showing how neat a manufacturing place
may be which has grown up out of an old village. In
these two places, (Leicester a " city '' as we should say,
of 150,000 people, and Kettering one of 25,000), co-
operation of all kinds has flourished greatly, and
especially has cooperative production done exceedingly
well of late years. I will not go into details, as Mr.
H. D. Lloyd's very readable book on "Labour Co-
partnership " is easily accessible with its chapters
on these two places; but I will quote from the "Co-
operative Year Book" for 1900 this brief table giving
the progress of working-class copartnership in these
two midland towns.

IN LEICESTER.

Profit, after pay-
No, of ing 5 per cent.
Year. Societies. Capital. Trade. on capital.

1888 2 £6,800 £ll,28o £260

1898 7 81,300 130,000 5,694

IN KETTERING.

1889 i £1,032 £3,588 £328
1898 5 28,010 85,086 5,411

A point to which Mr. Lloyd does not call especial
attention interested me as a student of economics not a
little. I "wanted to know" how the managers of

412 G UN TON 'S MA GAZINE [May,

these cooperative productive concerns think and feel
about their " wages of superintendence," which are
usually very low from an American standpoint, being
oftentimes not much more than the wages of a skilled
workman. Of course one must be mindful, in estimat-
ing the work such a manager is called upon to do, that
most, if not all, of his trade comes from the Wholesale
Society, his product going into the distributive stores
through this agency, and that a business connection
thus made is easily kept up by maintaining the excel-
lence of the product. Much anxiety is thus taken off
from the manager's mind, and he can devote himself
more freely to the direct superintendence of the manu-
facture. But, often, these managers, who have usually
risen from the ranks, are men who would receive at
least twice or three times as much salary if at the head
of factories of the same kind, conducted on the common
lines. I questioned some seven or eight such managers
in Leicester and Kettering on this point. With one
exception, they agreed that, from the economic stand-
point, it is a mistake for the societies to pay such
small salaries, inasmuch as the ability shown is not
sufficiently rewarded. Cooperators are properly anxious
that the various grades of hand labor shall be fully
recompensed ; but they do not rate brain labor suffi-
ciently high in comparison. The managers who thus
expressed themselves were not complaining ; they were
accepting, as we all have to do in one way or another,
a condition of things which can change only gradually.
The one manager who was the exception had had
but a few months' experience in his place, in the shop
where he had been a foreman, and he emphasized the
fact that the Wholesale is their only customer. He
seemed to me too modest, and the others as not at
all irrational in thinking that their salaries should be
higher. But they are all true " cooperative men" in

igoi.] COOPERA TION IN ENGLAND 413

the sense that they believe in cooperation to the extent
of making it practically a religious faith for which they
are willing to sacrifice or to suffer. (I am not saying
that this is their only religion ; on the point of their
conventional religiousness I am not well informed.)
They are loyal to their fellow laboring men and are
willing to work for half-pay, so to speak, for the good
of the cause. Such a sacrifice should not be perman-
ently demanded of them by the rank and file of work-
ingmen ; in time the mistake will probably be cor-
rected. But we see here an example of the cooperative
spirit, which it would be vain to expect in the United
States where the cooperative man is not so thoroughly
or so frequently developed. But with such earnest and
capable men abounding in England, one of the chief
difficulties in the way of cooperative production here
is absent. The "cooperative man," able to lead, will
work for a small salary, and he will stay with his so-
ciety as a rule, when offered higher pay in the outside,
competitive world. Judging from the progress made
in the last ten years in England, we may wisely expect
to see cooperative production become a much larger
factor in the national life than it has been, or now is.

PARTY DEGENERACY

Political parties come into existence for the pur-
pose of incorporating certain ideas into the public policy
of the nation. They are born with a program which
generally rests on some moral idea, economic or polit-
ical policy. To the extent that these ideas represent
the consensus of the community and are honestly lived
up to, the party grows in strength and influence and
exercises a wholesome moral as well as political influ-
ence upon the nation. So long as a party is vitalized
by an idea, whether in the majority or not, it is usually
clean and aggressive.

On the other hand, it is as natural as for the sea-
sons to follow each other that political parties will
sterilize and decline in character and influence in pro-
portion as moral ideas and vital principles cease to be
their controlling motives. A party is born with a pro-
gram and dies when the program is exhausted, unless
a new program is evolved. Success tends to beget
self-confidence, which grows into conceit, and is fol-
lowed by indifference to principle and high standards
of public policy. Leadership through ideas is gradually
converted into dictatorship through the distribution of
rewards and punishments from the " flesh-pots" of
patronage.

The republican party appears to be nearing, if it
has not already reached, this stage. When it was born,
in 1856, it came with a mission. Its program was
national unity, human freedom and equal rights. It
led the forces of civilization against the last remnants
of the slave system in Christendom. It placed itself
upon the basis of moral ideas and human rights, first in
the form of resisting the extension of the iniquitous

414

PA R TY D EG EN ERA CY 415

system of human slavery. This soon involved the fur-
ther step of defending the principle of national unity,
which made the United States a nation instead of a
federation of petty sovereignties.

Inspired with the moral and political righteousness
of its policy, it neither wavered nor weakened, but rose
to the occasion with every increase of responsibility.
It then commanded the endorsement and admiration of
the best minds of every race and nation, and earned
the title of "the party of moral ideas." Then it was
progressive and inspiring, pure and elevating, a leader
in progress, patriotism and civilization. It saved the
union, blotted out slavery, and made the United States
a nation. Under its leadership for a quarter of a cen-
tury the nation experienced unparalleled industrial
development and prosperity. New states were added
in the West and new industries in the East. During
this period we passed from a comparatively insignificant
agricultural country to the foremost industrial nation of
the world; showing greater progress in wealth, popu-
lation, intelligence and popular welfare than ever
marked the history of any other people in double the
length of time.

Here the republican party reached the end of its
program, and instead of developing in ideas and states-
manship commensurate with the progress of the country
it began to fossilize. It became self-satisfied and indif-
ferent to the high principles it had made historic, and
began to bask in the sunshine of office and to rely on
the favor of patronage for success.

Thus, instead of entering upon a new era of high
statesmanship, the republican party entered upon the
stage of degeneracy and sterility. Already great lead-
ership has practically disappeared from its ranks, and
in the place of leaders are now mere "boss" dictators,
deriving their power from the control of patronage.

416 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [May,

This substitution of dictators for leaders lias practically
obliterated political principle from the policy of the re-
publican party. It is no longer "the party of moral
ideas." The Monroe doctrine, which was the guiding
principle in our international relations, has been prac-
tically forgotten, and under the rudderless policy of
" drift " a republican administration has committed the
nation to a colonial system utterly foreign to our tra-
ditions, habits, experience and interests, and justified
on neither economic, moral nor political grounds. It
has saddled us with the government of several groups
of semi-barbaric peoples, which will be a permanent
burden upon the nation, creating new sources of patron-
age and corruption, leading to fraud, maladministra-
tion and political degeneracy, to the distraction and
discredit of the nation. Moreover, the national admin-
istration is so encompassed by the degenerate dictator-
ship of local bosses that dishonesty and corruption by
federal officers cannot be suppressed. The threats of the
local "boss" paralyze the hands of the president himself.
During the last few years this deadening process has
grown apace. In Pennsylvania, where the republican
party is securely in power, the organization manager
dictates, not merely public policies but the details of
scandalous, vindictive legislation, even to taking away
the elective rights of cities as a punishment for diso-
bedience to the boss. Perhaps the most surprising fea-
ture of this is that Quay's ability to order his legisla-
ture to abolish the office of mayor in three cities and
substitute a recorder to be appointed by his governor
has created almost no indignation throughout the
country. There is some rebellion in the cities thus
decapitated, but the great republican journals of the
country are practically "mum." The ruthless tramp-
ling on representative institutions is practically so com-
monplace that it passes without serious protest.

igoi.} PARTY DEGENERACY 417

On every hand the evidence is apparent that the re-
publican party has practically outlived its reputation as
"the party of moral ideas" and is deteriorating into a
party of moral indifference, political drift and "boss''
manipulation. It is rapidly losing the confidence of
the nation. Republican cities have already begun to
elect anti-republican and even revolutionary adminis-
trations. It may with truth be said that the democratic
party is not any better, but this will not serve to stem
the tide. The national administration is becoming less
popular every day ; criticisms of its policy are increas-
ing in frankness and fierceness on every hand. Evi-
dence is not wanting that the deadening spell of
"boss" rule has nearly reached its limit and that a
breakup is imminent. Whether this will result in a
new party with radically different objects, or a reorgan-
ization of the best elements of the old parties, will
largely depend on how soon the reorganization comes.
If it is postponed long enough, the very rottenness of
the existing systems and methods may bring a revolu-
tionary party with a radical socialistic platform. The
bold dictation of Quay in Pennsylvania and Platt in
New York, which has reduced the legislatures of the
two greatest states in the union to mere instruments of
personal caprice, is well calculated to hasten the
breakup. If Platt and Croker were conspiring to force
a revolt they could hardly work more successfully to
the point, for never was the hand of the dictator more
wantonly and unscrupulously shown anywhere than in
the New York city hall and the Albany legislature.

Of course, Tammany does not represent the de-
mocracy of Greater New York. It represents only an
organized body which is directly benefited by patronage
and protection to office-holders and law-breakers.
These do not constitute the democratic party, but they
furnish a compact, active, organized element in every

418 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [May,

election district of the metropolis. The decent citizens
are more numerous than these, but they are neither so
well organized nor so active.

The natural opposition to this should be the re-
publican party. In most cases the opposition party,
especially if it has been out of office a long time, is the
reform party, the clean party, the party of ideas and
high public standard. The very incentive for success
usually creates this. New York city is the one great
exception to this rule. Although the republican party
is almost never in power in New York city, yet it has
utterly failed to rise to the plane of political morals
which would command public confidence ; it is, in fact,
distrusted about as much as Tammany. The reason is
that the republican organization is a Tammany in
everything but the name. It has the same characteris-
tics, almost the same lack of honor, integrity and pub-
lic spirit, much the same style of political crookedness,
and stands equally ready upon occasion to practice
scandalous methods. In fact, it is the political twin of
Tammany Hall and therefore naturally prefers to con-
duct deals with the Tammany management, for a share
in the spoils, to honestly leading a movement for high-
minded, clean municipal policy.

But this organization does not represent the repub-
licans of New York city. Fully seventy-five per cent,
of the republican voters desire clean politics and honest
government and would regard it as an invaluable bene-
faction to be emancipated from this band of political
pirates which disgraces the name of the republican
party. But, like the decent element in the democratic
party, they are not organized, they are not attracted by
the odors of the flesh-pots, and, like the unorganized in
every sphere of life, they patiently endure the evil.
This is partly due, no doubt, to the fact that they be-
lieve in the general policy of the republican party in

i9oi.] PARTY DEGENERACY 419

national affairs and hence are more or less timid about
breaking up the organization which assumes the lead of
the republican forces whenever state and national poli-
cies are under consideration. The same is true of the
democratic party. It is true everywhere that a small
number organized is more powerful in any public
movement than a many times larger body unorganized.
That is because the great mass always follows and the
very few lead. In the labor movement this is true. It
is constantly repeated that the organized laborers do
not constitute ten per cent, of the workingmen, yet
they can always lead the other ninety, and solely be-
cause they are organized, have a specific purpose and
follow certain recognized and trusted leaders.

But there is a degree of incompetence and depth
of depravity beyond which organized "bossism" can-
not go without sacrificing progress and endangering
free government. That point has obviously been
reached in New York at least. The salvation of de-
cency and ordinary integrity in public life now demands
a reorganization of political forces. Experience has
already demonstrated that the republican party cannot
be trusted. Its depravity is being demonstrated at
Albany, where it has control. It is equally clear that
Tammany can neither be ousted nor reformed under
present lines of organization. The next step, and the
only feasible one, is for all the decent elements of the
city which are tired and disgusted with both organiza-
tions to meet in the open and form a new integration
of political forces. The preservation of neither the
democratic nor the republican party in the nation is to-
day of sufficient importance to prevent this movement
for municipal regeneration. The national democratic
party is on the rack, it stands for nothing of pressing
importance, it has been led astray into the fields of va-
gary verging on revolution. The republican party,

420 G UNTON'S MA GAZINE

while safer along the line of established policies, rep-
resents no really vital new principle in the national
life. It has broken from its moorings in many impor-
tant respects and represents nothing important for the
immediate future. It is practically in a state of polit-
ical drift, heading for no particular port, guided by no
definite chart, and floats aimlessly along like a ship
without compass or rudder.

Indeed, there are many signs indicating a strong
necessity for and probable tendency towards reorgani-
zation of political forces in both parties, for national
as well as municipal purposes. There is, therefore,
no reason why the clean and progressive elements
in both the democratic and republican parties should
hesitate to organize for a higher type of municipal
government. If this should be successfully done in
New York city, it might and probably would be the be-
ginning of a similar movement in other large cities and
ultimately extend to state and national politics as well.
It might, indeed, be the beginning of a new era in po-
litical organization and leadership in American politics.
The movement of the Carnegie-Hall democrats under
the leadership of Mr. Crimmins, and of the republicans
under the leadership of Mr. Brookfield, and the non-
partisan movement of the citizens' union, all show
that this wholesome work has already made a good be-
ginning. If crankiness can be suppressed, and the
single purpose of clean, honest administration, with
some specific lines of reform, be made the platform,
1901 may prove the great year of opportunity for the
successful breaking-up of the hide-bound, corrupt po-
litical organizations, and a new integration of political
parties which shall give new life, strength and virtue
to the political methods and public spirit in New York,
and elevate the tone and broaden the character of the
public policy of the nation.

THE BILLION-DOLLAR CORPORATION

The industrial billionaire has arrived; if not in
the person of a single individual, he is here quite as
definitely in the form of a single corporation. The
United States Steel Corporation is more than a billion -
dollar concern ; it is about a billion and a half. Noth-
ing approaching it has hitherto been attempted. Its
magnitude and far-reaching purposes are bewildering
to the ordinary observer. It is too stupendous for
intelligent criticism at this juncture. It is an experi-
ment which will demonstrate the wisdom or danger of
the modern tendency of industrial integration.

If it succeeds it may be the beginning of a new era
of industrial organization which shall have a world influ-
ence on business conditions. The rewards of success are
great, and the responsibility of failure is tremendous.
Undertaken in good faith as an industrial enterprise,
the United States Steel Corporation may prove an
invaluable contribution to the industrial development
of the twentieth century, but, if organized as a scheme
for speculation to convert watered stock into cash for
promoters, it may prove a disaster to the nation and a
crime against civilization.

The responsibility of deciding the course and char-
acter of this epoch-making enterprise is with a few men.
If we consider the character of the men, the nature of
the enterprise, and the interdependent relations of the
concerns integrated, everything seems to warrant the
hope and faith that this mammoth integration is a
legitimate economic business reorganization. Its direc-
tion and character practically rest with three men, —
J. Pierpont Morgan, John D. Rockefeller and Andrew
Carnegie. These are conspicuously the three greatest

421

422 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [May,

minds in the world in their respective fields. As a
financier of industrial enterprises Mr. Morgan has no
equal. He may not be the richest financier in the
world but he is the most successful financial promoter
of great concerns. He has made no important mistakes
and no failures. In 1894 he promptly and successfully
negotiated an important loan for the United States
government at a critical moment, heading off a disas-
trous panic almost without a ripple. In his promoting
experience with railroads and industrial concerns he
has never been a wrecker but always conducted the
financiering on the lines of ultimate profitable invest-
ment.

Mr, Rockefeller is the world's greatest industrial
organizer. He has, through the steady application of
more than thirty years' experience, developed the
greatest, most extensive and successful industry ever
organized. His enterprise represents investment which
would permit a legitimate capitalization of three-quarters
of a billion, and its products reach the most backward
of the settled portions of the human race. He brings
to the new steel enterprise the widest experience in
complex industrial integration of any living man.

Mr. Carnegie is the greatest iron and steel manu-
facturer the world has produced. As a developer of
methods, together with the organization of productive
facilities and efficient marketing of iron and steel prod-
ucts, he is preeminently at the head of his class.
Moreover, he has never indulged in stock speculation ;
his enterprise was not even a corporation until about a
year ago. This is the more important as the new con-
cern is dealing with the whole field of iron and steel
production. Moreover, these three men, supported by
others of similar type, though of less magnitude, are
on the board of managers. Mr. Morgan and Mr. Rock-
efeller are there personally, and Mr. Carnegie is there

i goi. ] THE BILLION-DOLL A R COR FOR .4 TION 423

by proxy through Mr. Charles M. Schwab. Mr. Schwab,
whose photograph we publish in this issue, is in many
respects the most remarkable industrial manager in his
line that this wonderful age has produced. He is prac-
tically the industrial child of Mr. Carnegie, and, though
less than forty years of age, he was at the head of the
Carnegie concern. And it was only on condition that
Mr. Schwab should be president that Mr. Carnegie con-
sented to merge his plant in the great steel company.
A dozen such men as these, equipped by temperament
and successful experience for such an undertaking,
probably could not be found. All this augurs genuine
industrial enterprise, not Wall Street and Lombard
Street speculation.

The character of the industries integrated and the
field of operation is equally reassuring. This new con-
cern has not collected an indefinite assortment of enter-
prises but has limited itself to the iron and steel
industries. In this it has reached out into all the
important branches, from mining the ore to marketing
the finished product, including the facilities for trans-
portation. Thus it is in reality a consolidation of the
facilities and processes of one of the greatest industrial
fields in the country, with its multitude of interdepend-
ent branches. If this enterprise is conducted on a
strictly economic basis under the present management,
several important results may be expected.

(i) It ought to exercise a steadying influence over
the market conditions of the whole iron industry, and
if wisdom prevails it will do this without any rise in
prices but ultimately with a lowering of prices. No great
economies in the cost of production can be expected at
the outset. It would be difficult to conceive any imme-
diate improvement of methods in such concerns as the
Carnegie works. But the best processes employed by

424 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE

the most successful concerns can be extended to the
whole.

(2) Great advantages and ultimate economies may
be expected from a better distribution of managing and
administrative ability. Where special ability shows
itself, and the opportunity for its development and pro-
motion does not exist in the given concern, the man
can be transferred to others where improvement is
needed, and thus the very highest managing skill can
be placed where it will render the greatest service
throughout the entire working field.

(3) It will check the tendency to wasteful duplica-
tion of processes in times of boom inflation, and the
consequent ruinous competition, thus giving perma-
nence and stability to the entire industry and prevent-
ing business-disturbing fluctuation. In this way it may
and under present management probably will become
the great steadier of the iron and steel industries of the
whole country. This would be the first great step to-
wards the elimination of industrial depressions. If
this policy, so characteristic of the Rockefeller and
Carnegie concerns, is pursued by the new company, it
will not only justify its existence but it will do much to
remove from the public mind the apprehension and dis-
trust of large corporations as enemies of public welfare.
That would do more to establish public confidence
in the normal and rational development of modern in-
dustry than anything that has occurred in half a cen-
tury. On the other hand, if these men should for any
reason convert their holdings into cash, or use their
stock for the purposes of speculation, and let the man-
agement pass into inferior hands, it might result in one
of the most disastrous calamities this country has ever
experienced. The reward and honor of success is
theirs, and also the responsibility of failure.

DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL AUTHORITY

The United States entered upon its national career
with the theory that the essential principle in democ-
racy is local sovereignty. Jefferson thought that the
only safety for democratic government is to keep po-
litical power in the hands of the smallest workable
groups. This is good doctrine but, like all general
principles, must be intelligently interpreted. The idea
of local sovereignty is not opposed to national sover-
eignty, but merely implies that authority should only
be transferred from the smaller to the larger political
units when the smaller become inadequate to the prop-
er performance of the task. That is to say, no function
should be transferred to the community which can be
properly performed by the individual ; no local function
should be transferred to the state which can be ade-
quately performed by the municipality ; and, similarly,
no function should be transferred to the national gov-
ernment which can be adequately performed by the
state.

This doctrine implies with equal force that authority
should pass to the larger group whenever the interest
involved transcends the sphere of the smaller group.
Thus all interests which extend beyond the realm of
individual authority should pass to the local authority,
and those reaching beyond the local should go to the
state, and those going beyond state lines should pass
under national jurisdiction. The principle of local
sovereignty is eminently democratic ; but it is in the
nature of a working principle and not a fixed state or
condition. It is just as much a violation of the prin-
ciple involved, however, to retain state control of inter-
state interests as it is to transfer purely state interests

425

426 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [May,

to national authority. In a progressive country where
local sovereignty exists, the transfer of interests from
the smaller to the larger groups and even sometimes
from the larger to the smaller becomes a necessary part
of progressive political adjustment in order to maintain
efficiency of administration along with the democratic
principle. For instance, in the middle ages trade was
easily within the bounds of municipal authority. Cities
governed all the conditions of trade, but as industry
expanded it so transcended all municipal bounds as to
render narrow local authority a menace to progress
and make national authority necessary.

This principle is constantly operating in the United
States. In the early days of the republic there were
very few internal interests that transcended state
boundaries. Interests that were entirely national and
properly came under federal authority were those which
related to the national defence and a few very general
matters like the coining of money and the postal system.
It soon became evident, however, that any appreciable
progress in national life would require a national bank-
ing system. Jefferson and the adherents to the local-
sovereignty doctrine resisted this, because they thought
it contrary to the principle of democracy ; but, by force
of financial chaos and disaster, though not converted
from that error they were compelled to adopt a nation-
al bank. Under the influence of this idea, that de-
mocracy is limited to local sovereignty, the Jefferson
party refused to renew the charter of the national bank
and on its expiration another period of financial havoc
with wild cat currencies resulted, which finally forced
the chartering of the second Bank of the United States.
This experience was again repeated in 1836 at the ex-
piration of the charter of the second bank, and another
period of disaster followed. This was the natural re-
sult of subjecting national institutions to state control.

i9oi. J DEMOCRA CY AND NA TIONAL A UTHORITY 427

Like the postal-service and the circulation of coin, bank-
ing extends throughout the nation. In the nature of
things, therefore, and in strict accordance with the
principle of local sovereignty and home rule, we have
finally been compelled to adopt a national banking sys-
tem.

What was true of banking has been true of several
other important interests of society. The development
of our industrial resources has made almost every in-
dustry extend beyond state lines. There is almost no
industry of any considerable proportions in this coun-
try which is now limited to the area of any state. For
this reason it became necessary to adopt the interstate
commerce law, which took the power of regulating
railroads in certain respects out of the hands of the
states and transferred it to the national government.
This was no violation of the principle of local sov-
ereignty, because it only transferred the authority from
the state to the nation when the industry ceased to be
a state institution and became national.

This has been true also of bankruptcy. As busi-
ness became more and more interstate, local or state
bankruptcy laws became incompatible with the broader
interests of national industry. The industrial relations
of debtor and creditor became so clearly national that
widely different local and state bankruptcy laws became
the means of perpetrating fraud and injustice, to cor-
rect which a national bankruptcy law became indispen-
sable. This again was no surrender of the principle of
local government. It was only transferring the inter-
ests to national authority when they became national
in character and influence. To insist on keeping mat-
ters under state jurisdiction which are national in their
character does not strengthen the democratic principle
but, on the contrary, is a menace to efficient govern-

428 G UN TON 'S MA GAZINE [May,

ment and the adequate protection of individual and
local interests.

A forcible illustration of this was furnished in the
anti-Italian riots in New Orleans some years ago.
Italian citizens were murdered in cold blood, and when
Italy protested and asked for redress our government,
through Secretary Elaine, had to reply that unfor-
tunately the murderers of the Italian subjects in New
Orleans were under state authority and beyond the
reach of the United States government. Thus we
practically said to Italy : We are sorry but we cannot
help it. If Italy had replied, as she well might have
done: Well, if you cannot deal with the people of
Louisiana we can and will send a battleship with an
ultimatum, our government would have replied : No,
that would be an attack upon the United States. We
cannot punish the murderers of your citizens ourselves,
nor can we permit you to punish them either.

This is a discreditable anomaly. We deny the
right of states to have any direct relation with foreign
nations, and yet we have no power to make the states
respect the rights of citizens of foreign nations. When
the Turks murder our missionaries in Armenia, or the
Chinese do the same in China, we demand redress or
take steps to despatch army and navy to enforce it, but
when American citizens perpetrate similar outrages
upon foreign subjects our government is compelled
shamefully to admit its inability to afford either pro-
tection or redress. Since all our relations with foreign
countries are in the hands of the national government,
it is clearly a part of the duty of the federal authority
to afford the same protection to citizens of foreign
countries that we demand for American citizens in for-
eign countries. Clearly the time has come for trans-
ferring the protection of foreign citizens, regardless of
the state they reside in, from the state to the national

igoi. J DEMOCRACY AND NA TIONAL A UTHORITY 429

government. This matter was referred to in the
president's last message and should receive the prompt
attention of congress.

Many economic interests have also reached a stage in
development which makes them, logically and properly,
belong tinder national rather than state administration.
For example, all conditions which involve important
business competition are now too large for state ad-
ministration. The organization of corporations, for
example, should now pass to the national government,
because the interests and intercourse of nearly all cor-
porations extend over many states, and many of them
over the entire country. State legislation may impose
all sorts of varying conditions upon corporations, which
handicap them in their business competition with each
other. It is essential to economic fairness that all rival
concerns in the same business should be on the same
footing throughout the entire area of their operation ;
consequently, the conditions imposed upon them should
be uniform throughout the nation. For this reason the
national government should grant charters for business
corporations, and such charters should operate as the
charter of a national bank does, throughout the entire
United States, thus putting corporations beyond the
power of nagging legislation from local prejudice.
This does not mean that corporation charters should be
less precise and restrictive, but it simply means that
they should properly come under a political authority
which is commensurate with the area of modern indus-
trial interests and activities.

The same is true with reference to labor legisla-
tion. It is a detriment both to business enterprise and
to the social welfare of the laborers that labor legisla-
tion should be limited to state lines when the interests
and mobility of laborers are national. Take, for ex-
ample, the hours of labor. To the extent that reduc-

430 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [May,

tion of the hours of labor may affect even temporarily
the condition of capital, it is a disadvantage that it
should be local when the competition is national. New
York, New England, and in fact all the eastern states,
have by the very force of growing civilization adopted
a body of humane legislation regulating the hours of
labor, education, sanitary conditions and other con-
ditions affecting the workshop welfare of the laborers.
All this contributes to the improvement of the social
life and standard of comfort and culture of the masses.
But in certain other states, notably the South, where
this pressure of civilization has not been exercised to
any such degree, the corporations are continuing the
conditions which existed at the opening of the century.
Women and children are employed in the factories and
shops without any legal restriction or regulation as to
hours of labor, sanitary conditions or any form of pro-
tection against the mere greed of corporate employers.
This disparity between the conditions of labor in
the East and South is a menace to industrial progress.
It puts the corporations in the two sections of the coun-
try, engaged in the same industry, on an unfair com-
petitive basis. It gives the premium of superior
opporunity to those who furnish the poorest conditions
and lowest wages and hence do the least for national
advancement.

State legislation, while wholly adequate to deal
with labor conditions when industries are limited in
their competitive relations to purely local areas, is
wholly inadequate now that they are national. When
the manufacturers of New York and Massachusetts
have to meet in the same market with those of Georgia
and South Carolina the conditions for their competition
have manifestly passed beyond the limits of state
authority and clearly belong to the federal government.

This is quite as true in the interests of labor as of the

igoi.] DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL AUTHORITY 431

corporations. It is a part of the opportunity for the
industrial and social advancement of laborers that they
be able easily to pass from one employer or one locality
another to improve their condition. It is, therefore, a
part of equitable economic competition, that, so far as
legislation and government influence are concerned,
the industrial opportunities should be the same through-
out the nation. The differences in conditions should
be entirely economic and climatic rather than legisla-
tive, so that the best environment could furnish the
greatest attraction and best opportunities.

On the other hand, it is no less important that in-
terests which become more local should pass under the
exclusive control of municipal authority. To transfer
the authority over city police to the state is as contrary
to the spirit of home rule as it is to keep authority in
the hands of the state over interests that have mani-
festly become national. To be true to the principle of
democracy and local home rule, political authority
should pass from the greater to the smaller or from
the smaller to the greater body according as the area
of the interests involved is great or small. Interests
that are inevitably national should pass under the juris-
diction of the national government and interests that
are local and municipal should not be transferred to
the state. True democracy means self-government and
self-government must always be co- extensive with the
interests and rights to be guarded and protected.

RUSSIA'S BLOW AT AMERICAN COMMERCE

ROMNEY WHEELOCK

The Russian government is following the example
of the United States in the construction of a Union Pa-
cific railway. It means as much to Russia as the build-
ing of the first Union Pacific meant to America. It is
proper that Americans should carefully gauge the in-
fluence which the Siberian railway will have upon
American interests.

As society is now constituted the principle ' ' live
and let live" is practically inoperative. Pet phrases
are getting stripped of their adventitious meanings and
we are getting down to facts. Men find it cheaper in
the long run to say what they think. There is some-
thing brutally direct about this, but what is lost in ele-
gance is gained in honesty ; and it saves time. Self-
preservation is of course the first law of national life,
and we may as well admit that the principle ' ' live and
let live " should read " live and let live unless it inter-
feres with your living; if so, kill." This is not a
Christian principle nor even a moral one. It is simply
the natural one and is likely to remain operative until
we discover such a thing as a national conscience. A
wounded bird is set upon by its mates and killed. A
maimed wolf becomes food for its fellows. In some
parts of the world men bury their parents when they
have become useless encumbrances. This is nature and
is essentially the law that prevails between nations.

Such being the case no one can say that Russia or
any other power is doing wrong in using every possible
means to forward her own interests. The protective
tariff of the United States hurts England but we care
nothing for that. British control of the Suez canal

432

R USSIA'S JBLO W AT AMERICAN COMMERCE 433

hurts France but England cares nothing for that. Rus-
sia's imminence upon the borders of Afghanistan hurts
England but Russia cares nothing for that. It is an
indication of the honesty of the times that no one
blames Russia for her advance in Manchuria, for any of
us would have done the same under like circumstances.

Russia is doubtless aware that the forward steps
she is taking in the far East must be followed up and
vindicated by a vast industrial and commercial change
among her people, or else the advance will not be per-
manent. The interests of the Russian people as well
as of the Russian oligarchy must be vested in their
new acqusitions or else they will become mere encum-
brances. It is the investment of English capital and
English lives in India that makes their eastern empire
so full of meaning to them and to the world at large.
England has put to proof the law that, in successful
colonization, as much must be given as is expected in
return. There lies the difference between England's
colonies and those of France.

An examination of the figures shows that as yet only
an insignificant fraction of the Chinese people have been
brought into contact with western markets in any vital
sense. As yet we have driven only the entering wedge.
Enough is known of the Chinese temperament to pre-
dict that in any new regime the dominant influence will
be industrial and commercial, and it follows that those
who are most closely in touch with the industrial and
commercial interests of China will wield a dominant
moral, though perhaps not at first political, influence in
that vast commonwealth. For this reason I believe the
position is a sound one that Russia must follow up her
diplomatic by a corresponding commercial advantage
and justify the laying of her heavy hand upon a large
section of Chinese territory by making herself commer-
cially indispensible to the inhabitants of that section.

434 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [May,

The question is, how can this be done? Trade is as
blind as justice. People will continue to buy cheap and
sell dear in spite of all patriotic considerations. The
cry " patronize home industries" is a futile one. It is
the industries that must do the patronizing. It is gen-
erally accepted that at the present time Russian indus-
tries are not in a position to compete on equal terms
with those of England, Germany or America in the
open markets of China, and so long as this remains true
it will be impossible to build up Russian industries by
any natural process. The necessary stimulus is lacking
for the building up of a great industrial class in Russia
so long as they are unable to compete.

There are two artificial means whereby the neces-
sary stimulus can be afforded. The first is a system of
government bounties that will enable manufacturers to
put their goods upon the market at such prices as to
outbid their competitors. This is what the protective
tariff is doing in the United States in a different
though cognate form, for there the people have to pay
the bounty. This might prove successful within the
limits of Russia, for a protective tariff is an indirect
tax ; but, when it comes to paying cash bounties out
of a national treasury to any and all firms who propose
to compete for the trade of an alien market like that of
China, it is evident at once that the scale is too vast.
It is impracticable.

The second possible method would be to create
spheres of commercial activity outside the borders of
Russia proper, in which the competing products of
other countries shall be put under such disabilities as
will kill all competition. Such a method is especially
feasible for a compact, military empire like that of
Russia where the army could be made the instrument
in bringing about the necessary conditions.

By corralling a portion of the race and then saying

1 90 1 . ] A USSIA ' 5 BLO W AT A M ERIC A N COMMER CE 435

"buy of me at my prices or go without," it is possible
to make a market and so stimulate industrial activity ;
and even as a protective tariff in America has made it
possible for her, at least for her manufacturers, to
compete in the markets of the world, so the plan here
stated might in time work up an industrial class in
Russia that could stand on its own legs. Of course the
basis would have to be military, for nothing but a show
of arms would ensure the continued exclusion of com-
peting goods from the sphere so "preserved." The
possibility of getting the same goods cheaper in another
market would cause a constant outward pressure like
that of water behind a dam.

It has been said that "trade follows the flag.''
This is far truer of Russia than of England. For with
England it has ever been the flag that has followed
trade to protect it, while with Russia it is only by a
military initiative that her trade has been and is to be
made possible. Here as elsewhere the antipodal
geniuses of the Anglo-Saxon and Muscovite civiliza-
tions appear. England needs an army and navy to
protect her trade. Russia needs trade to protect her
army and navy — that is, to follow up and complete her
military and naval, or perhaps rather diplomatic,
achievements.

The Siberian railway is admirably adapted to the
carrying out of such a plan for the expansion of Russian
industries. It would not be complimentary to the good
sense of Russian statesmanship to suppose that this
expensive road is being built for the purpose of mere
territorial aggrandizement. Too much territory is
often worse than too little. The aim back of it all
must be to find a way to bring the Russian people up
to the industrial standard of the rest of Europe. The
purpose is a most laudable one and does credit to a
statesmanship that few dare or care to underrate.

436 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [May,

It has been widely advertised that one of the main
objects in view in building this line is the development
of Siberia. But we can hardly believe that this is the
main object or even one of the main objects. As other
nations are advancing and the markets of the East are
being gradually supplied from other than Russian fac-
tories we can scarcely believe that Russia will wait for
Siberia to be developed before entering upon an active
commercial policy, when on each side of the Man-
churian division of her new line there are millions of
Chinese who are buying freely from foreign markets.
No, the cheapest and easiest way to insure the success
of an industrial and commercial policy for Russia would
be to obtain complete control over a section of the
Chinese market and exploit it in the interests of her
own people. This would provide a market that would
stimulate Russian industries up to a twentieth- century
basis. With her railroad and her army working in
conjunction it would be strange if she could resist the
temptation to detach a portion of China for the purpose
of building up distinctively Russian industries.

It may be claimed that this is mere supposition.
But among the many indications that such is Russia's
intention one may be mentioned which goes far to
warrant the supposition. It consists in Russia's notion
of an " open port," as explained in the Russian impe-
rial decree of July soth, 1899. After dilating upon the
benefits to accrue from the building of the Siberian
railway the decree goes on to say :

" In view of the commercial development of the future city (at the
Yellow Sea terminus) we confer upon it for the whole term during which
that territory has been leased to Russia by China the rights of free trade
which belong to free ports, upon the following conditions:

4 '(I.) The right to import and export merchandise of every descrip-
tion free of customs duties as established in the city, the port and in the
adjacent territory, up to a fixed boundary line which may be changed by
the minister of finance.

R USSIA'S BLO [V AT AMERICAN COMMERCE 437

" (IV.) Merchandise imported into Russia and coming from the terri-
tory to which the right of free trade is thus extended shall be examined
and shall pay such duties upon entering the limits of the empire as are
provided for by the general laws which govern the importation of foreign
goods."

In order to understand this language we must
glance at the position which Russia holds in Manchuria.
She has leased from China the ports of Talienwan and
Port Arthur for a specified number of years, and within
those ports Russia is sovereign for that period. But
Russia has not leased Manchuria. That still remains
Chinese territory, though included in the Russian
sphere of influence. Russia has acquired the right to
run her railroad through Manchuria, but the adminis-
tration of the province is still in Chinese hands, the
taxes of the people still flow into the Chinese coffers,
and the boundary of the Russian empire remains where
it was before. It follows that whatever rights America
or any other of the treaty powers enjoys in any part of
China she enjoys equally in Manchuria. If Manchuria
belongs to Russia then Russian duties must be paid.
If it belongs to China, Chinese duties must be paid.
But we find here that Russia disclaims sovereignty over
Manchuria, for the decree refers to merchandise im-
ported into Russia and coming from the territory to
which the right of free trade had been " extended."

This says plainly that the Russian boundary is
somewhere beyond and outside the territory to which
the right of free trade is extended. Goods imported
into the free port of Talienwan and passing beyond the
free-trade limit will pass into what is admittedly Chi-
nese territory. It would naturally be supposed then
that upon entering Chinese territory it would pass
through Chinese custom houses in the hands of the
imperial Chinese customs, and if it was desired to send
goods through to Russian territory they would pass
through in bond until they reached the Russian boun-

438 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [May,

dary, where they would of course pay the regular Rus-
sian duty. But what do we find? That goods having
entered the free port of Talienwan can be carried free
into the adjacent territory up to a fixed boundary that
can be changed — a fixed, changeable boundary, by the
minister of finance. In other words, Russia considers
herself so far sovereign in Manchuria that she can
extend or contract the free-trade boundary at will. She
can make it include the whole of Manchuria or she can
draw the "fixed boundary" to within five miles of
Talienwan and stop all goods from entering the adja-
cent territory except under her own regulations ; for
it is not to be supposed that China can move her
line of customs stations back and forth at the caprice of
the Russian minister of finance.

A port of entry is worth nothing except as a dis-
tributing center, and if Russia reserves the right to cut
the arteries which connect Talienwan with the adjacent
territory the freedom of that port is rather more than
less of a mockery. It is like putting food into a starv-
ing man's mouth and then twisting a rope around his
neck so that he cannot swallow.

The decree is careful to state how goods can be
carried from the free territory into Russia proper, but
that is not what we wish to know. There is little
or no market in Siberia. What American and English
and other producers want to know is how goods can be
gotten across the " fixed boundary " into the adjacent
territory that is not Russia but China. Of course, in
the free port Russia does not expect to compete with
others but she has so arranged it that at the will of her
minister of finance the territory thus made free shall be
so contracted as to be worthless as a market. If Russia
controls the " fixed boundary " she controls the rates of
duty that American or other goods must pay in cross-
ing that border. This, as I have said, is a natural de-

igoi.] R USSIA'S BLO W AT AMERICAN COMMERCE 439

duction from the fact that Russia claims the right to
enlarge or contract the free territory at will. This is
the vital point. It may be presumed that along the
borders of China there are Chinese customs stations,
and goods coming in from Russia pay the regulation
duties according to Chinese law. This amounts on an
average to something less than ten per cent., in fact
there are few things that pay more than seven per cent.
Russian goods coming south across the border will
therefore pay this low rate of duty. What we want to
know and be assured of is that when goods enter the
free port of Talienwein and pass out into the surround-
ing territory beyond the " fixed boundary" they shall
not pay the smallest fraction more of duty than the
Russian goods that come in from the north. On this
point the decree is significantly silent.

In this decree Russia makes two open claims. One
is that she has the right to make any part or all of Man-
churia free territory for the goods of all nations, for we
see that the " fixed boundary " may be changed with-
out the concurrence of China by the mere fiat of the
Russian minister of finance.

The second is that Russia has the right to control
the conditions under which goods shall pass across the
" fixed boundary" into Chinese territory. Manifestly
Russia's notion of a free port is a curious one.

Every man who is a permanent resident in a par-
ticular locality is the subject of the government to which
he pays taxes and to whose courts of justice he has to
appeal. That is better evidence than any oath of alle-
giance and that test is the one on which rests the right-
eousness of England's cause in South Africa. Now
it is plain that import duties are a tax and the people of
Manchuria are subjects of that government which col-
lects and pockets the customs duties. At least it divides
their allegiance. Even supposing that upon reaching

440 G UNTON'S MA GAZINE

the " fixed boundary " American goods should be sub-
ject to the ordinary rates of Chinese duty, the ultimate
danger is not evaded. Russia's claim to the right to
expand or contract at will the free territory about Tal-
ienwan is the plainest one that could covertly be made
to complete sovereignty over the whole of Manchuria.

And right here is where the danger to American
interests lies ; for, though Russia has lately given guar-
antees that in no part of China shall American goods
be excluded from equal privileges with those of Russia,
it must be clearly borne in mind that the moment any
portion of Chinese territory becomes the actual prop-
erty of Russia the guarantee is valueless.

American exporters should be alive to the fact that
their most hopeful field of enterprise in the far East is
in northern China and Manchuria. It is here that we
are most rapidly outstripping all competitors. It is
not enough that Russia should guarantee that all
Chinese territory shall be kept open to us. We must
have a further guarantee that Chinese territory shall
not become Russian territory.

Russia cannot be blamed for desiring to prepare for
her people an exclusive field of commercial enterprise
in northern China. The moral element in international
politics is not sufficiently developed for us to charge
her with any wrong intent, for there is not another
government in the world to-day that in like circum-
stances would not do the very same thing. The open
door is good for England and she clamors for it for a
determined right. It is bad for Russia, and we cannot
blame her if she inveighs against it as a barrier which
blocks her way to complete development. The morals
of the question depend upon the point of view. On
general principles, what is helpful is right and what is
harmful is wrong. Here in a nutshell we have all
the moral element in the code of modern international
comity.

EDITORIAL CRUCIBLE

AND NOW Bryan is after Colonel Watterson. In
one of his moods of grandiloquent deliverance, the
shaggy -maned editor of the Courier -Journal ascribed the
war and the taking of the Philippines to the Almighty.
With due reverence for spiritual things, Mr. Bryan
takes him in hand to the extent of a page in the
Commoner, and really leaves little of Watterson worth
preserving.

THE JOBBERY of the Platt legislature in dealing
with the revised charter has given Mayor Van Wyck
another opportunity to pose as the friend of popular
rights. It really begins to look as if the only hope for
any wholesome political action in New York state lies
in taking the state administration from the republicans.
If the democrats had full control in both Albany and
New York city, the corrupt trading between the two
organizations would disappear. There would at least
be an opportunity to drive Plattism to the rear and
make room for clean, wholesome leadership. The re-
publican party in New York state clearly needs bap-
tising in the waters of defeat. With this corrupting
element washed away it might again show wholesome
vitality and become the party of moral ideas and
policies.

THE PEACEFUL settlement of the threatened strike
among the steel workers is another evidence that labor
when properly organized can really accomplish more
with large corporations than with small petty employ-
ers. The billion-and-a-half corporation is indeed strong
enough to make a tremendous fight against labor, but

441

442 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [May,

it has other and better means of making money. More-
over, although much richer it is more sensitive to pub-
lic opinion than the small half-million-dollar affair.
The truth is that in a multitude of ways every year's
experience makes it clearer that, all in all, laborers can
do better in hours of labor, permanence of employment
and wages, with large corporations than with small
ones. If the capitalists will pursue this rational policy,
facts will ultimately become too strong for Bryanism
and socialism to prevail against them.

JUST BY WAY of saying something exciting, the
New York World makes a violent attack upon Secretary
Gage for placing some of the surplus government
funds in the strongest banks in New York, receiving as
security the deposit of government bonds. These
banks received in the aggregate $27,689,940. 16. They
are among the strongest banks in the city, having an
aggregate capital of §29,600,000, with aggregate de-
posits of $389,578,300. Would the World have Mr.
Gage put the government's funds in the smallest and
weakest banks, or would it have the treasury lock up
over five hundred millions and thus contract the vol-
ume of currency available for business and force up
the rate of interest for the "poor borrower?" And
yet this silly criticism of the only sane and safe policy
Mr. Gage could have pursued is reprinted by Mr.
Bryan on the front page of his paper as another case of
robbing the poor by "favored banks." When he is
whacking Watterson or chastising Cleveland, Bryan is
clever, but when he touches money or banking or any
phase of constructive statesmanship he seems to go
helplessly into the air.

IN BECOMING editor, proprietor and exclusive
writer of the Commoner, Mr. Bryan has exposed himself

EDITORIAL CRUCIBLE 443

to a test that few men could stand. He does not even
make the Commoner a newspaper, but exclusively a
paper of political ideas. It is something of a draft
upon a man's resources to talk two or three times a day
for several months, but when the speeches were de-
livered to different audiences, two or three or half a
dozen at most served for a year's work. But with the
Commoner the case is different. It must appear every
week and go substantially to the same people and
therefore cannot be entirely repetitious. Can Mr.
Bryan's capacity for constructive statesmanship stand
this test? Judging from the first nine numbers it
would seem doubtful. The distinguishing character-
istic of every number of the Commoner thus far is
smart thrusts. Now this does very well for silencing
questioners in a mass meeting, but it will hardly serve
as continuous diet for students of political doctrine,
and especially as the gauge of the statesmanship of a
national political leader. To be merely a sharp critic,
a pert fault-finder, an expert at annoying jabs, may
make a brilliant agitator but can hardly make a
statesman.

IT is HIGHLY encouraging to note that the one clear
unfaltering voice of statesmanlike fairness on the negro
question comes from the trade unions. They are really
the first to treat the negro as a man and an equal when
he shows equal qualities and character. The attitude
of the American Federation on this subject is ably set
forth in an editorial by Mr. Gompers in the April Fed-
erationist, who points out with great frankness that the
trade unionists hold out the hand of equal comradeship
to the white and colored laborers alike. Instead of
ostracising the negro from the unions, they have
specially-paid organizers ''who are devoting their time
exclusively to the organization of the colored workers."

444 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [May,

They are showing the good sense, moreover, of not
trying to do the impossible by establishing absolute
social equality but aiding the negroes to obtain im-
provement in their economic and social position by ex-
actly the same methods that are employed by the white
laborers; namely, intelligent, organized cooperation.
This policy contains the element of true statesmanship,
which the politicians of South and North alike might
well emulate. It is a wholesome, encouraging sign of
the times that the much-censured and despised labor
unions are the real leaders in this field of statesman-
ship where politicians have failed.

4 ' The Tammany organization is not democratic in faith or works.
It is a private, predatory and criminal business concern operated chiefly
to make its managers rich out of public spoils." — New York Times.

It would be difficult to give in the same number of
words a more correct description of the Fourteenth
Street institution. The character, purposes and meth-
ods of Tammany are well known to the people, and
still it is elected to power year after year. Why is
this ? Is it because the people of New York city pre-
fer the type of wickedness Tammany represents ? Not
at all. A majority of the people are in constant rebel-
lion against it. The real reason for Tammany's con-
tinuance in power is that the republican party is verily
believed to be little better. The people of New York
have no more faith in Platt and his followers than they
have in Croker and his followers, and, since Tammany
has power to injure those who oppose it, directly or
indirectly, by persecuting them through the police
force, punishing through tax assessors, or otherwise
harrassing them in the numerous petty ways that law
and authority cannot reach, the people will endure
rather than incur all this persecution only to get an-
other organization of the same kind. The depravity

T9oi.] EDITORIAL CRUCIBLE 445

of the republican organization in New York city is
really responsible for the perpetuation of Tammany
rule.

UNDER THE leadership of Mr. Gorman, Maryland
is adopting a more plausible and more equitable
method of disfranchising the negro. The Maryland
plan is to adopt a uniform educational qualification for
voters, regardless of color. This is surely constitu-
tional and not altogether irrational ; indeed, it may be
necessary. It will doubtless disfranchise a much
larger number of negroes than of whites, and in this
instance may accomplish the desired results and make
Maryland safely democratic for the immediate future.
That is of little importance, however, compared with
the fact of dealing with the question on broad social
principles regardless of race prejudice. Under this
scheme, negroes will have the right to vote when they
learn to read and write, and white people will not have
it unless they do the same. Perhaps there will be
some discrimination in favor of the whites, but this
cannot prevail against negroes who can actually read
and write, which makes their full political citizenship
easy of attainment. Mr. Gorman may be unscrupulous
but he has more real sense and recognition of the prin-
ciples of government and the temper of the American
people than the Tillmans who would flagrantly violate
both the letter and the spirit of the constitution and
even the established rights of individuals to coerce the
negro out of the franchise, — a method which can never
command respect in the United States.

WITH STRIKING unanimity the southern papers re-
printed our complimentary remarks on the North Caro-
lina manufacturers' proposal " voluntarily to adopt the
ten-hour system," with flattering remarks on the supe-

446 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [May,

riority of the southern employers over the northern in
their treatment of labor. The Houston (Texas) Post
proudly remarks :

" We are more tolerant to labor of all kinds in the
South than they are in the North. . . . And it is
fortunate for the factory laborer of the South that in
the beginning of our industrial or factory life, and dur-
ing the absence of legal regulations relating to mill
labor, the management of the mills is in most cases in
the hands of southern men, who do not know how to
grind their employees as do the big bosses of other
sections of the union."

This is really delightful and everybody must hope
that it is true. But, unfortunately, since publishing
the complimentary passage quoted and commented on
by the Post, we have discovered that we were in error.
The North Carolina manufacturers have not proposed to
adopt the ten-hour system at all but only an eleven-
hour system. Since no southern manufacturers have
yet adopted the ten-hour work-day we shall expect to
see these papers hereafter urging them on to do so.
We have a right to expect hereafter that southern em-
ployers be at least as liberal on the question of employ-
ment of children and the hours of factory labor in 1901
as England was in 1847, as Massachusetts was in 1874,
and as every eastern state was more than a decade ago.
Give honor to whom honor is due, but remember that
actions speak louder than words.

As ANOTHER evidence of progress and improved
relations between large corporations and labor, the
New York Central Railroad is making it a part of its
policy to recognize that it has a duty toward the social
and civic welfare of its employees as well as an interest
in their economic efficiency. The excellent example
set by Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt in erecting a building

i9oi.] EDITORIAL CRUCIBLE 447

for the use of the employees of the New York Central,
furnishing attractive quarters for social meeting, well-
equipped dining-rooms, sleeping rooms for the men
away from home, a library, reading room, baths, gym-
nasium, lectures, etc., practically free, set the pace
which the company is making it a part of its policy to
follow. According to a recent report, these facilities
are being established along this whole system. An
encouraging feature of this is that the company ex-
pressly recognizes that it is inspired to this policy for
social and patriotic as well as business reasons. They
have found that the better the conditions under which
the employees live and work the better and more in-
telligent citizens they are and the more trustworthy
and competent workmen. In other words, the experi-
ence is that the best economic policy for a large cor-
poration is that which does the most for the social
opportunities and personal welfare of the laborers ; that
the bloodless method of treating labor solely as an
instrument of production, out of which the maximum
work should be extracted and into which the minimum
wealth, opportunity and social culture should be
infused, is bad business, bad economy, and ultimately
results in bad statesmanship which may react disas-
trously upon business ; in short, that it is as uneconomic
as it is unpatriotic.

THERE ARE many hopeful indications of progress
in the South on the child-labor question. The Colum-
bia (S. C.) State declares that:

" Child labor must go, and that the system, as a system, will soon
be abolished there is every reason to believe. . . . There must be in
the mill -villages not only schools and churches but libraries, reading-
rooms, lyceums, and theaters. A life of incessant toil makes a poor
workman. Diversion is requisite to efficiency."

The Farmer s Review (Texas), in criticising the

448 GUNTOWS MAGAZINE

Georgia democrats for refusing to pass a child- labor
law, says:

"No state deserves to be called civilized that does not possess a
sufficient amount of virtue to protect helpless children against the bru-
tality of capitalism."

By way of encouragement, the Raleigh (N. O)
News and Observer says :

" It is gratifying to see that mill-owners, church leaders, educators,
and the press are agreed that child labor shall end in the factories.
There may be here and there disagreement as to the manner of putting
a stop to it, but an effective method will be found to do it. ... The
children must be saved from the dwarfing process of early confinement
in the factories ! It will not do to wait another year for this reform that
is demanded in the name of humanity."

In his recent message to the legislature the gov-
ernor of South Carolina says :

" Unless something is done to protect the tender children of vampire
parents, who spend their time in idleness and live off the labor of their
little ones, who are required to labor in the mills from year to year with-
out the advantages of school, the situation for the future becomes
alarming."

In Alabama a bill for the prevention of child labor
under twelve years of age is before the legislature and
is being liberally supported by the newspapers of the
state. Substantially the same measure has been intro-
duced into the senate of South Carolina. It is thus
clear that, although the Georgia legislature has refused
to pass the child-labor bill, the movement is marching
on and is bound soon to succeed.

THE USES OF INSECURITY

LEONORA B. HALSTED

The desire for security is world- wide and age-long.
The effort to attain it has been a large factor in civil-
ization, building dykes to preserve what has been
gained by arduous toil. It is the rear guard of the
revolution that is always going on, for progress means
peril. Conservatism never imitates ; it holds fast but
does not reach out. Disaster may be made to pay toll,
as in life insurance ; man may be protected increas-
ingly from the ruthlessness of his creation, machinery,
or the careless rapacity of other men ; but while pro-
tective measures are taken at one end, daring runs out
at the other. It performs new feats of peril, it risks
all for possible gain, it wins new victories over matter
regardless of hazard. The very pivot of civilization
lies here ; man is dissatisfied to rest in what he has ob-
tained and leaps forward across chasms and seas and
continents to what he mayget if his life is not lost in the
effort. Countless lives are so lost but man lives, and,
after many years, if he faint not, reaps the reward.

While there is this vigor of incentive for the en-
terprising, there is the deadly spur of actual starvation
for the laggard. Nothing less will move him and
sometimes even that fails. It has been argued that if
a living wage of the lowest amount were inviolably
secure, men would be saved a great waste of force in
worry and apprehension and there would be still end-
less incentives to progress. So there would, but with-
out that final goad of absolute insecurity there are
always some who would not answer to the higher
motives. At one extreme is the parasite, a species

449

450 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [May,

comparatively unknown in this country, and which is
predicted will disappear in the twentieth century, the
world following the example of America where the rule
is that every man shall work. Of the other extreme a
convincing illustration was the case of some miners in
Pennsylvania. They earned their daily wages by
digging coal, married and brought up children, had
thrifty little homes with the decencies of life and even
some of its ornaments. Oil was discovered and the oil
company controlling that region made a standing offer
to buy at the market price any well that might be
opened. Wells were found on every side and almost
every miner became an owner. A regular income,
unearned by daily work, was secured to them, a trifle
to be sure, one or two hundred dollars a year, but
energy could not withstand the temptation. They
ceased work and settled down in idleness to live on
their incomes. They degenerated, their standard of
living fell, their wives became slatterns, their children
grew up without schooling and vicious, their homes
were tumble-down, untidy hovels. Security, even at
this minimum, ruined them, and a thriving village be-
came a festering sore. And this in America, where
the air breathes energy and enterprise.

Even if security went no further than to assure a
man of work by which he and his family could live, a de-
mand seemingly modest, Mallock has long since pointed
out that this would mean no colonization, no America,
no Australian commonwealth. Population like water
finds its level. When it becomes easier to emigrate,
with all that implies, it signifies much suffering at
home and a general diffusion of insecurity.

Change of occupation resulting from new wants
and methods is another cause for insecurity that keeps
men alert, versatile, intelligent. It is not the guiding
of one machine but the power to learn quickly any

igoi.] THE USES OF INSECURITY 451

machine that makes now the capable workman, and
through him sets our industries at the head of the
world. Intelligence alone economizes. Ignorance and
dullness waste opportunities that the intelligent seize.
The saving of a fifth of a second in one movement of a
machine touched by the left hand instead of the right
makes the difference between profit and loss.

Urban life with all its implications causes a thou-
sand perils and a million activities unknown before.
Light is an example. The candle was as safe as fire
can be, but who would be content with candles?
Fluid lamps, explosive and nauseous, came as an im-
provement, then oil, then gas, then electricity ; always
the finer force, the more brilliant light, the greater
peril. Or, transportation shows. In the days of horse-
cars they caused no accidents. To-day every paper
records one or more injuries from trolleys or cables,
and frequent deaths result therefrom, yet what town
would choose to resume horse-cars?

In fact, when one stops to think, one realizes that
every condition of life is based on insecurity. No man
is consulted about coming into this world nor about
leaving it, and all the way between birth and death in-
security fosters every virtue. The infant falls many
times before he learns the magic art of keeping on his
feet, but then he increases fast in wisdom. Insecurity
makes him by degrees self-reliant, dextrous to avoid
danger, shrewd in calculating consequences, keen to
foresee events. It comes to be recognized as the nor-
mal and healthy human state. All of us sigh for cer-
tainty, no matter of how little, and life teaches us that
it is only by incessant peril that we gain courage,
adaptability, calmness, unselfishness. With security
we are apt to become lax. While we walk the tight
rope of this hour over the abyss of what may be, the
situation keeps us alert and tolerates no drowsy-headed

452 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [May,

indolence. Balancing on the rope with no net beneath
is excellent development for the muscles. We gain
poise, and every instant snatch the blossom safety from
the nettle danger. We are like Eliza flying across the
river on broken ice. To pause is to be swept away or
to drown. On, on, on we must go, resting our weight
here only for the moment it takes us to throw it for-
ward. Ahead is freedom and life, behind are the dogs
of slavery, and all about us are hopes and fears, a
clamoring throng.

It is not a restful picture, but rest is not for this
phase, unless it be the rest the heart gets between its
beats. For rest we must go up higher. Serenity comes
not through security of material things but through lay-
ing hold of the eternal verities, changeless in their
shining, inalterably secure, " letting us pent-up crea-
tures through into eternity, our due." But eternity it-
self can give us only this moment to live ; that is why
time is.

While it is quite true that insecurity pushes us on
ceaselessly, it is equally true that what is secure in-
creases from age to age, and we inherit in ease what
myriads have bled to attain. The savage has nothing
secure, the American of 1900 has much. But when the
dyke is built a great deal yet remains to be done, and
insecurity touches continually to finer issues. The idea
of the monogamic tie is secure in Christendom (despite
the many aberrations in practice), and hence the holding
of love, its growth in harmony, becomes the flower-strewn
field of victory or defeat. Love is the solvent of near-
ly all troubles ; love wisely directed, loyally lived out.
Adjustment and readjustment, the twice-daily ebb and
flow of affection, unselfishness, wisdom, is at once the
practice and aim of home-life. To love and be lovable,
with the constant change that begets constancy, are the
means.

igoi.j THE USES OF INSECURITY 453

*• Love needs a thousand loves, forever new.
" And finds them — in the hollow of your hand."

The nation encompasses all individuals and families,
and the same need for the prod of insecurity is here
manifest. After the civil war was over and slavery
was abolished, we were inclined to say: "We have set-
tled our formidable problems, we can take now our
ease." And we did, waxing rich and self-confident,
maintaining a sturdy independence with a rising stand-
ard of living that surpassed any in the world. Then
came the time for the test. It had to be made evident
to ourselves and to others whether or no we were intent
upon what is supreme. We were confronted with a cry,
and we answered it. The tyranny of Spain over Cuba
was ended, whatever the future may bring. On the
whole, we were adequate to the demand made upon us.
Though all of us were reluctant and some were recal-
citrant, we moved across the threshold, out of our
measureless content into the fuller life of the world,
drawn by the pull of human need. In consequence we
find ourselves before the door closed for ages, now at
last ajar, whose opening has such illimitable signifi-
cance for the destiny of man.

Power to do is responsibility to achieve. In our
little hour of strain all the weak links snapped and an
immense amount of strength had to be exercised for
comparatively trivial tasks, because security had bred
indolence and inadequacy. It is the bane of Anglo-
Saxons, the defect of their splendid quality of self-re-
liance, that they appreciate too little the need of train-
ing and discipline. Witness the mortifying failure of
our transportation and medical systems in the Spanish-
American war ; see England's resources strained to put
down the Boers. Germany, on the contrary, is so situ-
ated that enemies are on every side ; her insecurity is
great and she trusts only in watchfulness, in discipline,

454 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [May,

in endless vigilance and practice. Hence she has the
finest army in the world. Insecurity keeps all the rust
rubbed from her arms. China, immemorially wrapped
in her security of isolation, finds herself now the foot-
ball of every other nation, for none is so inert as she.
Even while her people are murdered, her towns rav-
aged, her capital held by the hated foreigners, she con-
siders herself the supreme monarch of the universe to
whose empress the powers come to kotow.

But — China ! How can a Christian say the word
and his face not burn with shame ? Christendom is on
trial there and how does it bear the test? If we are
firm in virtue evil does not allure. Temptation proves
whether our security is fancied or real. As dust re-
flects light, and our eyes are so adjusted that we should
be in darkness no matter how intense the light were it
not for these dusty particles, so should we be without
the insecurity of temptation. "Outer darkness" simply
means the darkness outside the light for which we are
prepared. The light is there but it is not light to us
because our medium is dust. On the other hand, the
dust may be so impenetrable that light cannot be re-
flected, and then indeed are we in thick darkness.

Christendom was secure in its "vice outlived," its
savagery civilized, its brutalities humanized. The Red
Cross treaty, signed by every nation, including China,
mitigated the sufferings of war and gave efficient pro-
tection to non-combatants. But what do we see when
the test comes? The heathen does heathenish acts and
Christendom sends representatives to chastise him,
each country her own, and Japan besides ; what will
they do? Relieve those they have come to save, of
course, and with a severity that shall be just if implaca-
ble. But when this is accomplished what more do we
see? — It is unspeakable for shame.

A few years ago Europe was agog against the Turk

igoi.] THE USES OF INSECURITY 455

for his massacres in Armenia ; Christendom cried aloud
with indignation that some one should prevent these
horrors. Now, Christendom in China rivals the Turk
in every atrocity and doubles the number of victims.
Not only is the Kaiser's savage dictum obeyed — "Give
no quarter; take no prisoners" — but, when for months
there has been no armed opposition, the helpless non-
combatants, men, women and children are bayoneted
in heaps, ammunition being too precious to waste ; in-
fants are plucked from their mothers' arms and impaled
or tossed in the river ; women meet a worse fate unless
they escape by death — and this is the work of Christen-
dom. Millard says: "The graves of the Simcox and
Green children (martyred missionaries' families) might
be enclosed by a fence, each picket bearing the name
of a Chinese boy or girl who has, within three months
just passed, suffered worse at the hands of men whose
skins are white. Against the awful background of this
war, the death of the few missionaries is lost in the
mists of a ghastly perspective." Not only every ves-
tige of mercy but any pretence of justice has vanished
among the most of the allies ; and those most capable
and least cruel do not belong to Christendom but are
Japanese.

Not that Americans are known to have taken part
in the outrages of every sort that have stigmatized the
allies. Indeed, while one's heart is rent and one's in-
tellect is horrified by the conduct of these troops, it
assuages a little to turn to the quarter of Peking con-
trolled by Americans. A single company of American
soldiers policed a district there inhabited by 250,000
Chinese, giving them unbought justice such as they
had never known, keeping order, and winning respect
and esteem from the Chinese under their protection.

But after all, America is one of the allies, and
hasn't she responsibilities even if her men do not take

456 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [May,

part in the acts of her comrades-in-arms? Christendom
indeed! It does not follow even the Mosaic code.
What commandment, from the greatest to the least,
has Christendom failed to break in China? And we
stand by, silent. Europe was blamed for not prevent-
ing the Turk ; should America keep silence and remain
in view of her allies' actions? No doubt the complica-
tions are immense, but a thorough American has said :
1 ' Failure to dare greatly is often to run the greatest of
risks."

Where security has its rightful base, and there
alone, is in principle. This is the rock of ages, the
foundation of the universe. Matter, and all conditions
dependent thereon, is in a perpetual flux ; its law is
change, hence its very being is insecure ; but above
matter security is reached. General principles cover
all men's actions. To accommodate the action by com-
promising the principle is to sacrifice the greater to the
less. But perception must come before action, before
even striving to act. We must realize that a thing is
desirable before making an effort to attain it. That is
where America leads and her glory lies. She has seen
and voiced the truth that all men are born free and
equal, not in worldly goods nor mental endowments,
but in liberty from the coercion of other men. This
idea she takes with her to China or elsewhere. Obedi-
ence to the law is enforced, for it is a principle and
hence to it any man may be sacrificed ; she may kill
but she will not murder ; she may confiscate but she
will not thieve. Democracy applies the law equally, in
theory at least. Of course in application we come again
to the value of insecurity and the need of vigilance.

The perils that now surround us, within even more
than without, the vast responsibilities accumulating on
our shoulders, should keep us alive to the danger of
security. It may be well even that our fancied immu-

igoi.] THE USES OF INSECURITY 457

nity from savagery in our own breasts should be broken
up, and that we should look into the seething mass of
uncurbed passions, since they are there. But the sense
of failure, not of one's little self, which is bad enough,
but of a great entity, set on the highest hill the world
has, such as Christendom, is hard indeed to bear.
Nothing is so unnerving as failure. Grief has an ex-
altation of its own ; suspense stretches at least a line
across the abyss, but to fail is to fall headlong into it.
Of course there is nothing left but to crawl out as best
one may, and an immense help in this task is the rec-
ognition that to fail is to find there is a lesson we need
to learn. The sense of failure empties one of conceit
and it may be desirable for us to be overturned peril-
ously rather than carry further the poisonous stuff, for
there is nothing more hindering than conceit, than
self -righteousness in any form. Perhaps the first step
out of this pit of failure is to realize that while some
people in every nation are still savages, they are fewer
than they were a thousand, even a hundred, years ago ;
and the better people of every nation have the ideals
Christ implanted for every human being.

Despite the cruel, unnecessary horrors, it is a
glorious time to live, to feel oneself part of the epoch-
making whole. Obligation means capacity ; we are re-
sponsible only for that which is possible, but all things
seem possible now. Democracy has become the solvent
word not only for us but for the world ; it is the politi-
cal form of Christianity. It may take time to educate
the Filipinos, the Chinese, to the meaning of democ-
racy, which is not license at all but its very opposite,
self-restraint and hence freedom. However, time is of
no consequence in view of an idea, and the democratic
idea towers higher day by day before the eyes of an
astonished world. Decrease in rents, increase in wages ;
money bringing return only in use, is the democratic

458 G UNTON'S MA GAZINE

idea in economics. Daring, invention, concentration
of capital and administrative ability win the great
prizes. The greater the risk, the more alert the mind
and the larger the return. The joy of the situation is
that no man can work profitably to himself in any
sphere without serving others; the more he gives of
himself, the greater his gains, and thus even selfishness
is curved to the perfect round.

Democracy in all ways, the freedom of the indi-
vidual through the unity of man, is the task set to the
world ; the final task apparently, for beyond the perfect
law of liberty for every human being, what is there?
The time is throbbing with new opportunities, new
bourgeonings, new life pricking through the black soil
of ancient customs and promising food for coming mil-
lions. Goethe saw the truth in Faust's highest moment
of bliss ; not accomplishment, but the power to accom-
plish, and not for himself but for others.

" He only earns his freedom and existence
" Who daily conquers them anew."

Hence the significance of this era: for the first
time man enters into the full inheritance of the earth.
The vision from the mountain top is mighty, majesti-
cally divine. It awes. And when we come down a
little, how the blood riots in exultation ! All this is
ours, ours as sons of God. And noblesse oblige. Here
is where aristocracy and democracy meet : no man can
have a more noble ancestor, and every man is sure of
this pedigree.

Once the meaning is made clear, one can suffer
with ''durable cheerfulness, a serene blitheness," what-
ever may come, be it in the great life of the world or
one's own petty, poignant part. So, seeing, we come
to understand how ' ' future historians will look back
upon this period as the one of most breathless interest
in human annals."

CIVIC AND EDUCATIONAL NOTES

Industrial We are requested by the Manufacturers'

Association of New York to call attention
to an appropriation of $2,000 recently made by the
association, for a scholarship to cover four year's tuition
and expenses for some young man to take a thorough
course in industrial education. The particular young
man is to be selected by a competitive test, particulars
of which may be obtained by application to the asso-
ciation at 198 Montague Street, Brooklyn Borough.
Although as yet provision is made for the education of
only one young man, the step is intended to serve as
an object-lesson to arouse interest in industrial training
as an increasingly acute necessity in the present in-
dustrial expansion of the nation. The purpose of the
appropriation is stated to be " to encourage young men
to qualify themselves for leadership in industrial pur-
suits by adding to the dignity of labor the advantage
of trained hands directed by developed minds."

Although of not very widespread interest, this is
interesting as an evidence of the increased pressure in
the industrial community for men of trained capacity
and peculiar ability to organize and direct business
operations on the enormous scale demanded by present-
day conditions. As we had occasion to mention in a
recent number, the head of one large industrial concern
recently stated that several positions under his control,
each commanding upwards of $10,000 a year salary,
were vacant through sheer inability to find men com-
petent to fill them. However true it may be, there-
fore, that the great majority can never attain to any of
these exceptional posts, it is certainly clear that the
doors of special opportunity for special talent were
never wider open nor the demand greater than to-day.

459

460 G UNTON >S MA GAZINE [May,

In accordance with Governor Odell's

!nd' Wan ' ' economy" program in New York state,

the bureau of labor statistics, board of
factory inspectors and board of arbitration have been
consolidated into one department of labor, with a single
commissioner and several deputies in charge of the
various departments thus consolidated. Since the ob-
ject of this change was solely "economy," it is need-
less to say that there will be no increase in the force
employed, but if anything a decrease. It is understood
that a part of the proposed economy will come from
making the factory inspectors collect statistics and do
the bulk of the work formerly done by the employees
of the bureau of labor statistics.

This is simply a case of trying to save a few thou-
sand dollars of public money, utterly insignificant in
the total budget, by a method which wastes an indefi-
nitely larger amount in the quality of the community's
civilization. Instead of having more labor put upon
them, the factory inspectors ought to be left entirely
to the work they were first intended to do, and their
numbers materially increased. How appalling are the
evils these few inspectors are called upon to contend
with can hardly be indicated by mere statistics. A
few hints may be gained, however, from the last an-
nual report of the state factory inspector, made before
the consolidation. " The field is so vast," said the in-
spector, "and so difficult of inspection that more
facilities are plainly needed to enable the department
to maintain an almost constant espionage over the most
thickly settled and populated sections of the cities
wherein this class of work is carried on." The New
York law provides for the licensing of home manu-
facture under certain conditions, and of course the
success or failure of the scheme depends upon the
effectiveness with which the conditions in such shops

CIVIC AND EDUCATIONAL NOTES 461

can be held up to the standard required by the license.
During 1900 some 16,519 licenses were granted in
greater New York. In these licensed places there
were 39,598 persons employed. This is a sufficiently
large field for the comparatively small number of in-
spectors permitted by the law, and it is only necessary
to read the state inspector's account of the extraordinary
scenes encountered in visiting these shops and procur-
ing evidence sufficient to warrant interference for en-
forcement of the law, to realize how reactionary and
unappreciative of the grave nature of this social problem
any proposition is which aims to reduce instead of
increase the facilities provided to grapple with it.

In spite of all the inspectors have been able to do,
and in spite of the supposed improvement in sweatshop
conditions, we still have a situation so vile as to make
one shudder merely to read the unembellished state-
ment of the facts. Mr. James B. Reynolds, the well-
known head-worker of the University Settlement, in a
recent letter to the New York Tribune, had this to say
(in part) concerning the east- side bakeshops: —

" Extensive questioning has convinced me that fifteen and sixteen
hours daily would not be an overestimate of the average day's work
performed by the east side bakers. One baker with whom one of our
residents talked gave the above time as his average, but stated that on
Thursday and Friday he worked twenty one and twenty-two hours.
Another stated that he worked eighteen hours four days in the week
and twenty- two hours two days. Another that he went to work at 6 P.M.
and regularly worked until 2 o'clock the next afternoon, the only
exception being on Thursday, when he went to work at 2 o'clock and
worked until n o'clock the next day.

"The sanitary conditions in these shops, which are usually in
basements, are such that I believe no one could eat the bread if he knew
how it was made. The bread made in the east side shops is usually
baked in a large loaf and is smeared with egg to give the top of the loaf
a certain gloss. The eggs used for this purpose are frequently such as
would stagger an egging party. They are bought at from 25 to 50 cents
a hundred, and some of the bakers have assured us that they were not
infrequently positively rotten.

"The rooms are constantly kept at a most unwholesome heat, in

462 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE

order to raise the bread, the workers toiling in trousers and flannel
shirts. In no shops visited by us were there signs of recent whitewash-
ing of the side walls, which, under the law, the factory inspector
may require to be done once in three months. In one shop, dingy
whitewash was peeling off directly over the place where the bread was
being made. In this shop the men were dirty and their clothing was
dirty. There were no windows, except over the tables where the bread
was being made. No waterclosets are provided as a rule, unless it is in
a corner of the room used for the bakeshop, in which case the stench of
the closet adds to the general bad odor of the place. Men frequently
sleep in the bakeshops on the benches where the bread is rolled, or even
on the bread itself."

In the face of such, a situation as this, to diminish
the practical efforts to cope with it is something worse
than poor statesmanship. It practically amounts to with-
holding the arm of the law in one of the very quarters
where more than anywhere else its strength is needed in
ten-fold greater degree than it has ever yet been given.
Conditions like these in the tenement-house districts
lie at the root of many of the worst evils running
through our political and social fabric. For the state
to do its utmost towards wiping out these sources of
contaminated citizenship is enormously more impor-
tant than the building of armories or digging of barge
canals.

THE OPEN FORUM

This department belongs to our readers, and offers them full oppor
tunity to "talk back" to the editor, give information, discuss topics or
ask questions on subjects within the field covered by GUNTON'S MAGA-
ZINE. All communications, whether letters for publication or inquiries
for the " Question Box," must be accompanied by the full name and ad-
dress of the writer. This is not required for publication, if the writer
objects, but as evidence of good faith. Anonymous correspondents are
ignored.

LETTERS FROM CORRESPONDENTS

Our Right to Govern

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

Dear Sir: — When I hear a man say " Where we
cannot govern by democracy we have no right to gov-
ern at all," I want to listen to him.

HENRY B. GRUBB, Burlington, N. J.

Popular Nominations by Petition

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

Dear Sir: — I read with interest your last lecture
regarding the nominations of candidates, in which you
considered and approved the direct primary nomina-
tion. The scheme seems to me a most excellent one.
It has come to my attention but recently, but it more
and more attracts me. It would certainly make the
life of a leader of a machine a most precarious one if
he continued to exist at all. I wish we could secure
its adoption. JAMES B. REYNOLDS,

Head Worker University Settlement,

New York City.

463

464 G UNTON *S MA GAZINE

"The Peril of Popular Government"

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

Dear Sir: — lam much pleased with your Lecture
Bulletin of February i5th, and congratulate you and all
good citizens upon your having the independence and
courage to publish it. I have for many years known
that the condition you describe existed and felt that
the facts should be brought to the notice of all honest
men, but I have never been able to get such absolute
proof of a clear case as you have published. You are
doing excellent and much needed work in the noble
cause of popular government and should have the sym-
pathy and support of every man fit to be a citizen of
the United States.

SAMUEL ADAMS ROBINSON, M. D.,

Portland, Oregon.

Mr. Washington on the Jamaica Color Problem

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

Dear Sir: — I have read Mr. Moritzen's article on
Jamaica and the color problem in your January num-
ber and noted the kindly and generous reference to
myself. The article is most illuminating and encour-
aging. It is the wisest and best thing that has been
written on the color problem in Jamaica. We all feel
grateful to you for having given place to this subject.
I am taking measures to see that the article gets a wide
reading by calling attention to it through the medium
of some of the strongest colored papers.

I am becoming more and more interested in your
magazine and am constantly indebted to you for the
brave and generous things you say so often in regard
to my own race.

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON,
Principal Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, Ala.

QUESTION BOX

Prosperity or Expansion

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

Dear Sir : — Was it not a mistake, for fear of a possible
financial panic and era of hard times, for us to depart
from our precedents, and vote for colonialism ? It
seems a short- sighted policy to commit ourselves to a
course which may be the means of undermining the
very prosperity we voted to sustain. R. K. N.

No, it could hardly be regarded as a mistake, because
no other course was open without inviting nationa
disaster, which would have been worse. Nothing at
present could have been worse than the election of
Bryan. Under the circumstances that would have been
an endorsement of all that is vicious and false in the
undigested reckless program he represented. Of
course the issues were confused. It was impossible to
reject the Philippine policy without taking Bryan, who
represented all that was dangerous, without any guar-
antee of a materially different policy in the Philip-
pines.

Our Duty to Cuba

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

DEAR SIR: — Since the senate resolutions have com-
mitted this country to perpetual interference with both
the domestic and foreign affairs of Cuba, why not an-
nex the island outright? For us to have this unlimited
power while the Cuban government stands responsible
for the consequences is to open the largest field for cor-
ruption and carpet-bagging anywhere in sight on the
political horizon. If we are practically to run Cuba's
affairs ought we not to assume the responsibility also?

G. P. S.

465

466 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [May,

We went to war to get Cuba its freedom and we
are in honor bound to Cuba and to the world as
well as to our own interests to give Cuba its free-
dom. By freedom is meant self-government without a
lot of meddling interference from us. It should not be
assumed, however, that self-government means abso-
lute sovereignty — that is to say, freedom for Cuba to
do whatever it may see fit in utter disregard of the
interests of the United States, such for instance, as
selling the island to some European country. In that
case we should be justified in objecting on the princi-
ple of the Monroe doctrine. It was in the spirit of the
Monroe doctrine that we helped Cuba drive out Spain.
It would be a part of the same doctrine that we prevent
any other European nation coming in. But if Cuba
wanted to be annexed to Mexico that would be another
matter. It does not seem unreasonable to ask for the
right of coaling stations after what we have done for
Cuba, but to meddle further with its internal affairs
would clearly be interference wholly inconsistent with
the right of self-government. Whatever rights we re-
tain in regard to Cuba should simply be in self-defence,
consistent with the Monroe doctrine.

Yes, such meddling would clearly be a fruitful op-
portunity for an era of corrupt and discreditable carpet-
bagging. The reconstruction period in the South has
demonstrated what we can do in that line. The influ-
ence of politicians over the national administration is
already too great for us safely to give any new oppor-
tunities in that direction. Far better that Cuba make
a few mistakes in the experiment of self-government
than that she should be subjected to the corrupting, de-
basing influence of the Platts and Quays with their
Quiggs and Bidwells and other minions of the "boss"
system in this country, which apparently permeates our
politics from primary to white house. Cuba should be

igoi.] QUESTION SOX 467

given practical independence, within the spirit of the
Monroe doctrine, and then with as great expedition as
possible the same policy should be instituted in the
Philippines and Porto Rico, and Hawaii as well.
Friendly relations, coaling station facilities, and
promise not to sell out to foreign powers, are all the
control we should exercise over any of these island
peoples.

Meaning of the Cleveland and Toledo Elections

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

Dear Sir : — How do you account for the election of
Tom L. Johnson mayor of Cleveland, and the demo-
cratic successes in numerous municipal elections where
public ownership was the issue? Does it mean the
growth of socialism, or dissatisfaction with the Mc-
Kinley administration? E. G. M.

The election of Tom L. Johnson as mayor of
Cleveland, and the reelection of ' 'Golden Rule Jones "
as mayor of Toledo, are the materialization of the grow-
ing public sentiment away from the administration and
towards socialism. There are several forces actively
contributing to this result. First, the increasing un-
popularity of the McKinley administration. It is be-
coming more obvious every day that it is largely a
" boss "-ridden administration, and what makes the
case worse is that it is fully as much so in the second
term as in the first. The American people are liberal
in their construction of such things, they know that in
the first term of a president he may be under many ob-
ligations that he would gladly avoid — obligations that
were created for him and over which he had practically
no control. But in a second term, when there is no
opportunity to plan for reelection, it is obvious that
the highest and broadest statesmanship can be properly

468 G UNTON'S MA GAZ1NE

expected from him, and a wholesome moral indepen-
dence of ' ' boss " dictation may be demanded. In these
respects Mr. McKinley is disappointing. He seems to
have no more moral strength to resist these discredit-
able and discredited corrupters in his second term than
in his first, which shows lack of the true stuff of which
presidents should be made. This is becoming manifest
in so many ways that the people are losing faith in the
administration and in the party it represents.

Mr. Bryan, on the other hand, as leader of the
democratic forces, has used and is now using all his
opportunities to sow the seeds of political disruption,
shake the faith of the people in existing methods and
men in every department of public life. All this is
very naturally creating a disposition among the people
to cry " plague on both your houses," and where they
see honesty and capacity leading the forces of socialism
they are more and more disposed to join the movement
and make the experiment. This sentiment is growing
everywhere throughout the country.

In Cleveland, the strong, emphatic, comparatively
consistent man appeared in the person of Tom L.
Johnson, and he had plenty of money. At least for a
time Cleveland will probably get a vigorous adminis-
tration that will be honest and clean. The new broom
will reach many of the cobweb corners, which may do
much to put Mr. Johnson in line for promotion. Patri-
otic proclamations and weak submissiyeness to the
worst elements of political life will destroy the popular-
ity of any administration or party that indulges in it.
When the people get disgusted with their idols they
smash them with a ruthless hand. No administration
since Lincoln's has had such a good opportunity for
establishing a policy of high statesmanship and clean
politics as the present one.

BOOK REVIEWS

THE UNITED STATES IN THE ORIENT. By Charles
A. Conant. Cloth, 237 pages, §1.25. Houghton,
Mifflin & Company, Boston.

This book is a series of seven essays published in
different magazines from 1898 to 1900 on different
phases of expansion. Mr. Conant is a careful economic
writer, one who has more than an average regard for
facts. He follows essentially the lines of the Man-
chester school, and therefore usually observes economic
phenomena through the telescope, always attaching
great importance to foreign economic conditions, espe-
cially markets a long way off. From the point of view
of this school it usually seems more important to do a
dollar's worth of trade in India, China or Russia than
five dollars worth at home. Familiarity seems to ' 'breed
contempt," while ' 'distance ever lends enchantment to
the view."

In his chapter on " Russia as a World Power " he
gives an interesting account of the development of
industry in Russia. From the immense figures, in
rubles converted into dollars, one would almost feel
that Russia is rapidly forging to the front as a manu-
facturing country with commensurate progress in her
people. The condition of labor is described as improv-
ing and wages rising, which may soon be expected to
put the Russian factory operative "upon a level with
his fellow in western Europe and America." But
when, in the same tone, we are told that: "Technical
education is finding a large place in the policy of
the Russian government," and find there were only
twelve higher technical schools in the country in 1896,
the rose color begins to vanish from the picture.

469

470 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [May,

It needs a little optimism to think of * 'twelve
higher technical schools" as giving technical education
"a large place in the policy'' of a nation with a
hundred millions of population. Russia is indeed a
world power, but is destined to become comparatively
less so unless it takes on industrial diversification and
the spirit of liberalizing its institutions much faster
than it has hitherto done. Its conduct in China has
served to reveal anew the barbaric elements in the
Russian character. Even in the official relations with
nations it is cunning and evasive. More than any other
country called civilized, it employs spies and conspira-
tors to accomplish its ends. It is constantly being
found to have agents at work fomenting revolution at
foreign courts in order that it may find an excuse to
use force to obtain from weaker neighbors what it
otherwise would not dare demand. The prediction
that " Russia promises in another generation to be the
great competitor of the Anglo-Saxon race for the com-
mercial and military supremacy of the world" may be
taken at some discount.

It is no less misleading to assume that the struggle
for commercial superiority involves the capture of the
world's markets. Commercial strength and interna-
tional influence do not necessarily rest upon foreign
trade. A nation is strong financially and politically as
it advances in civilization, which, converted into com-
mercial terms, means according to the social welfare of
its people. It is not great by what it sells to other
countries, but by what it consumes in its own. The
influence of the United States among the nations is not
to be acquired by rivalling the other powers in China,
but by the development of the character of our own
people and the resources of our own country.

Mr. Conant seems to entertain considerable appre-
hension lest capital should accumulate too fast and not

BOOK REVIEWS 471

find an outlet in foreign countries. He is very much
afraid lest the rate of interest should fall to the vanish-
ing point, compelling capital to go recklessly into
industry. The danger is more apparent than real.
Abundance of capital will undoubtedly tend to lower
the rate of interest, but it will tend to the use of
capital for the minimum return, and thus give to the
community the maximum share in the earnings of cap-
ital. This means an increased exploitation of nature
and diminution in the price of commodities. The sec-
ondary effect of that is to increase the employment of
labor, and also the aggregate consumption of goods.
When capital becomes abundant it will also diminish
the incentive for saving, which is equivalent to stimu-
lating the incentive to use. Whatever stimulates con-
sumption, whether by diminishing the impulse to save
or increasing the capacity to produce, contributes to a
higher standard of living and national welfare. Under
such a state of affairs profits may be smaller but invest-
ments and consumption will be greater, which means
that a more democratic distribution of wealth will be
established. Moreover, this very process will tend
automatically to lessen the relative increase of capital,
both by diminishing the rate of profits and the rate of
savings.

There is no danger to be feared from too much
capital. There are abundant opportunities for increased
economic investments in this country for an indefinite
future. Moreover, there is no reason why American
capital may not go to the Orient without being accom-
panied by American armies and navies and political
authority. It is not necessary to own a country in order
to trade with it.

Mr. Conant has written a very interesting and in
many respects instructive book. It is an intelligent
contribution to the discussion of the expansion problem,

472 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [May,

but it falls far short of showing any great advantages
to be gained either to this country or to Asia by thrust-
ing the United States permanently into the political
affairs of the Orient.

THE AGE OF FAITH. By Amory H. Bradford,
D.D. Cloth, 306 pp., §1.50. Houghton, Mifflin &
Co., Boston and New York.

This book is one of the many bridges that are be-
ing thrown across the gulf of misunderstanding that
has so long divided in useless controversy those who
should be allied in friendly cooperation. It is typical
of the best spirit of the times, which does not demand
the surrendering of denominational traditions, but mu-
tual recognition of the larger and worthier objects that
ought to inspire every organized religious body. The
movement is not towards giving up individuality, but
it is towards unity of belief and aim with independence
of form and method — "liberty and union."

Dr. Bradford is clearly among those who recognize
that the Christian church is really entitled to bear that
name only in proportion as it devotes itself to uphold-
ing and spreading the great essentials of religion in-
stead of wrangling over dogmatic theology. We do
not mean to imply, however, that the author ignores
theology as of no importance. His attitude is not at
all that theological problems cannot be solved or theo-
logical differences reconciled, and that both should
therefore be dodged or evaded because of the larger
importance of something more useful ; on the contrary,
"The Age of Faith "is decidedly a theological book,
but its purpose is to show that even in this ancient hot-
bed of controversy the excuse for controversy has
largely passed away.

In a spirit very similar to that of Dr. Rylance,
whose " Christian Rationalism " we reviewed in these

igoi.] BOOK REVIEWS 473

pages in January, 1899, Dr. Bradford shows how the
broader and less " wintry" modern conceptions of re-
ligion are not only consistent with the great sources of
Christian belief but infinitely more in harmony with
the chief of those sources than anything in the hard,
mechanical creeds worked out by the dim light of me-
dievalism in an age when excommunication and inqui-
sition here, and threats of everlasting torture hereafter,
were the chief weapons of theological assault and de-
fence.

The title of the book was apparently suggested by
Dr. Henry van Dyke's " Gospel for an Age of Doubt,"
but Dr. Bradford writes from the point of view that:
" Instead of being an age of doubt, in comparison with
other times, this is an age of faith." It is natural,
therefore, to find the spirit of optimism running
through the volume ; indeed, the author declares that
the necessary result of the modern point of view on
these matters is to " furnish a sure basis for optimism ;"
even after applying to the claims of religion so severe
a test as this :

" The days of authority are gone. No one any longer believes any-
thing simply because it was formerly believed. ' Is it reasonable? '
Even revelation is brought to this test. The truth for an age of faith,
above all other things, must be reasonable. Whatever contradicts
reason and the moral sense cannot be of God. Whatever harmonizes
with reason and the moral sense presumptively is true."

Dr. Bradford is an orthodox clergyman, pastor of
the First Congregational Church of Montclair, New
Jersey, and illustrates in his attitude that transforma-
tion of religious thought within denominational lines
of which other conspicuous examples are found in such
men as Lyman Abbott, Newell Dwight Hillis and
Heber Newton, and, in a somewhat less positive but
hardly less significant sense, Henry van Dyke, Bishop
Potter, Dr. Parkhurst, Dr. Gunsaulus and scores of
others. " The Age of Faith," voicing this tendency in

474 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [May,

a new way and most admirable non-controversial spirit,
is one of the sort of books of which, we can say, literally
for all practical purposes, that too many cannot be
forthcoming.

THE GOVERNMENT OF MINNESOTA. Its History
and Administration. By Frank L. McVey, Ph.D.
The Macmillan Company, New York. Cloth, 236 pp.
75 cents.

Unlike many of the books that are now going
through the press, this is not a series of articles and
lectures delivered and published at different times and
places and finally put together as a book. On the con-
trary, it is wrought out with the specific object of pre-
senting, as the author tells us, " a harmonious picture
of the history and government of the commonwealth
of Minnesota," and the work is well done. Prof. Mc-
Vey has analyzed and presented in readable form all
the features and phases of government in state, county,
city and township which exist in Minnesota. He gives
withal an interesting account of the physical conditions
of Minnesota together with something of its history,
supplemented by a very instructive chronological
account of the important events affecting the develop-
ment of the state from 1634 to 1900. Under appro-
priate headings our author gives a succinct explanation
of the constitution, bill of rights, and the powers and
duties of the offices within the state, from governor
to pound-keeper. The workings of the political in-
stitutions are so clearly explained that the inquiring
mind of any age can fully comprehend. The methods
of nominations and election and the character of pri-
maries and conventions are admirably set forth.

It is clear from this book that Minnesota is well to
the front in applying modern ideas of government,
having learned either from experience or the reputation

igoi. ] BOOK RE VIE WS 475

of the older states that nominating conventions, while
in theory representing the people, are in reality an
organized method of "boss "or "ring" nominations.
Whatever they might once have been, they have now
become the instrument of corrupt manipulation and
dictatorship in our political life. They have become
effective means by which nomination to public office is
made the result of corrupt bargains by which both
elections and appointments to public office are bought
and sold, by which legislation is dictated and cor-
porations blackmailed under the threat of legislation.

Minnesota appears to have been the first state to
take steps to protect its citizens from coercion and its
business men from blackmail, by abolishing the nom-
inating convention altogether and substituting in its
place direct nominations by the people, or, as it is
called "nomination by petition," which has long been
in operation with such signal success in England.
Prof. McVey further tells us that Minnesota has taken
still another step in the fortification of clean politics
in adopting a "corrupt-practices act," which follows
very closely along the lines of the act by the same title
that was passed in England in 1867. In a very full
appendix is given the growth of the population of
Minnesota, the growth of cities, the act establishing
the territorial government, 1849; tne enabling act of
1857; the act for the admission of Minnesota into the
union, 1858; the constitution of the state and bill of
rights, adopted in 1857; etc. It is an excellently
arranged, well-written book, and is full of information
that will be no less useful to adult voters than to
college students. It is a good piece of work well done,
and fully justifies the author's purpose to " present in
a small volume a harmonious picture of the history
and government of the commonwealth of Minnesota."

476 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [May,

THE RELIGION OF DEMOCRACY. A Memorandum
of Modern Principles. By Charles Ferguson. Funk
& Wagnalls Company, New York and London, 1900.
Cloth, 170 pp.

If one takes up this book with the expectation of
finding democracy discussed with relation to any re-
ligious principle or any religious principle discussed in
relation to democracy, or their bearing each upon the
other, he is in danger of being disappointed. There is
no orderly or philosophic discussion of either religion or
democracy. God and religion are mixed in with democ-
racy and despotism with great freedom throughout the
book, but in such a way as to convey no intelligent idea
of either. Just why the book was published is not
easy to determine, except as a safety valve by which
the author could let off his pent-up emotions which al-
ternate between mistaken pessimism and irrational op-
timism. He has not been enough in touch with real
things to appreciate the usefulness of machinery to man-
kind, and devotes one chapter to "The Last Day of the
Machine Age," which he opens with this hysterical
paragraph :

"To-day the world is in bondage to the Law. To-morrow we hope
the gospel of Liberty shall again be everywhere proclaimed. It will be
proclaimed. It will be shouted from the house-tops and sung in the
streets, and it will be necessary to go into a closet and stop one's ears if
one would not hear it. We are at the lowest ebb ; the tide will surely
turn ; then the free, swinging seas will come rushing in, and the king
and his courtiers, the doctors and lawyers, will have to gather up
their skirts and run."

One would think from the following that the author
was living in eighteenth- century England, when the
cry of "No popery" was the ever ready alarm signal
for every occasion :

"In the sphere of institutional! religion the century has witnessed
the rehabilitation of Romanism and the sacerdotalizing movement in the
Episcopal Churches of England and the United States .... The

igoi] BOOK REVIEWS 477

triumphal career of Mr. Moody and General Booth means what the re-
surgence of the Papacy means — that a man is nothing unless he is a
crowd, and that the mind is nothing without a miracle."

There may be a religion of democracy, but, what-
ever it is, Mr. Ferguson has not presented it. The
English-speaking people at least have passed the point
in progress where the "No popery "cry can be effective-
ly used either as a signal for reform or a banner of
revolution. Those who have not learned this fact can
be of little service as teachers or leaders in the twentieth
century.

NEW BOOKS OF INTEREST

Falstaffand Equity. By Charles E. Phelps, judge of
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The Spanish People : Their Origin, Growth and Influ-
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Ten Months a Captive Among Filipinos. Being a
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TJie Progress of the Century. By Eminent Special-
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Lincoln's Plan of Reconstruction. By Charles McCar-
thy. 8vo, 300 pp., $2.50. McClure, Phillips & Co.,
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Industrial and Social History of England. By Edward
P. Cheyney, professor of European history in the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania. Cloth, 312 pp., §1.40. The
Macmillan Company, New York. Intended for college
and high school classes.

478 G UNTON 'S MA GAZINE

The Working Constitution of the United Kingdom. By
Leonard Courtney. Cloth, 383 pp., $2. The Macmil-
lan Co., New York.

Custom and Competition. By Richard T. Ely,
LL.D., author of ''Monopolies and Trusts." Cloth,
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Domestic Service. With an additional chapter on
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The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays. By
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A Landmark History of New York. By Albert Ul-
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English Politics in Early Virginia History. By Alex-
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China: Travels and Investigations in the "Middle
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Canada Under British Rule, 1760-1900. By Sir John
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$1.50, net. The Macmillan Company, New York.
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History of the United States from the Compromise of
1850. By James Ford Rhodes. A new edition in four
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FROM APRIL MAGAZINES

" If the war has disclosed many defects in the
British system, it has shown also that, when the British
Empire goes to war its sons are but sorry pupils for
those who write patriotism a crime. There is not a
single British land from the St. Lawrence to the Hugli,
from Carlisle Bay to Spencer's Gulf, but has offered its
best blood to the cause. The Canadian farmer, the
West Indian planter, the Australian station-hand, Eng-
lish earl and Indian prince have nobly fulfilled the poet's
challenge :

" • Shedders of blood ! When hath our own been spared ?' "

— ALLEYNE IRELAND, in "The Victorian Era of British
Expansion;" North American Review.

1 ' The 'scab* has but little place in the industrial
world of Japan. Last spring six hundred and fifty of
the ship-carpenters of Yokohama formed a union and
asked to have their wages raised. Previously, however,
they sent word to the ship-carpenters of Kobe of their
intention to quit work if their request was refused, and
asked them not to take their places. The request for
an advance was refused, and the men struck. As was
expected, the dock company sent for ship- carpenters
from three great centers, but even at higher wages the
men refused to come. Carpenters were eventually
secured from towns not previously warned, but the
greater number of these, when informed of the situa-
tion, gave up their work and returned home. The re-
sult was that the smaller companies took back their men
at reduced wages. The Yokohama Dock Company, a
powerful corporation, held out, but paid its new men

479

480 G UN TON1 S MA GAZ.INE

larger wages than were asked for by the men who
struck. — MARY GAY HUMPHREYS, in "Trade-Unions in
Japan;" The Century.

"American labour is under better control, is more
intelligent and ingenious, and works to better purposes
than the labour of Great Britain and the continent.
Each one of the competing industrial nations is handi-
capped in some form or other by its workmen. In
Great Britain trades unionism devotes its energies to
reducing the per diem output of each man to a mini-
• mum, in order that employment may go further and
wages be higher. Sir Hiram S, Maxim, in a late
address, gave an instance of a small gun attachment
which the labor union committee classified as a day and
a quarter's work. He invented a machine to make it,
but the men would produce the piece only in a day and
a quarter, even with the machine. He then hired a
German workman, who easily produced thirteen pieces
in a day.

"A further point is that the British workman cele-
brates many holidays, compelling the closing of fac-
tories for days at a time, during, perhaps, busy periods.
In Germany hours are longer nominally, but the entire
cessation of work during certain hours of the day for
beer and lunches cuts down the units of product.
Besides, the German workman, while patient and
industrious on familiar lines, is less facile when it
comes to new and unaccustomed forms. I have seen
in German, Swiss and Alsatian machine shops finer
finished machinery than I have ever noticed in America,
but under their system it could not be produced cheap-
ly."— ARCHER BROWN, in "American Competition in
the World's Engineering Trades;'' Gassier s Magazine
(March).

GUNTON'S MAGAZINE

REVIEW OF THE MONTH

The New York stock market has just
The Stock passed through a panic of unexampled

Market Panic . . Jf r ... ,

violence, without the failure of a single

important financial house or any disturbance of indus-
trial conditions throughout the country. Whatever
else this may indicate, it is the most convincing proof
possible of the soundness of our national prosperity and
generally stable basis of industry. On the day of the
panic, a large number of old-established stocks of
steady earning capacity were forced down, on an aver-
age of between twenty or thirty points, only to recover
promptly as soon as the pressure was over. The losses
of speculators and of some bona fide investors, by these
sudden declines, were enormous, but they were solely
the outcome of a stock speculation crisis and not re-
flected from any real or even imaginary doubt of the
soundness and assured earning capacity of the stocks
themselves.

The whole disturbance grew out of a fierce struggle
by rival interests to secure control of the Northern
Pacific railway. Mr. James J. Hill, president of the
Great Northern system, with the backing of J. P. Morgan
& Co., had secured the cooperation of the Northern
Pacific in an effort to buy a controlling interest in the
Chicago, Burlington & Quincy road, and through this
control to divert to the northern lines a large amount

481

482 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

of traffic which now passes over the Union Pacific
route. The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy operates a
network of important lines out of Chicago, connecting
both to the West and North, and is a very essential
factor in through East and West business. Naturally,
the Union Pacific interests were determined not to have
one of their main feeders turned in another direction,
and, through the brokerage house of Kuhn, Loeb & Co.,
undertook to get control of the Northern Pacific itself
in order to block the C., B. & Q. deal. The rapid buy-
ing of course sent up the price of Northern Pacific
stock, and here is where the purely speculative interests
began to come in. The " bears," as a group, and a
large number of general speculators, not being fully
aware of the reasons for the rise in Northern Pacific,
believed it could not possibly last and therefore sold
" short," in the expectation of being able to buy in
time for delivery at much lower prices. Of course, the
interests that were contending for control of the road
bought up every share thus offered by the " shorts,"
until it finally developed that more stock had been sold
in this way than there was in existence, making deliv-
ery in a large number of cases impossible.

On Thursday, May gth, the struggle
How the Crisis Cached its climax. Northern Pacific

stock was practically ' 'cornered'' and the
shares went up to $700, some even being sold at $1,000
outside the exchange, according to report. Every avail-
able share that could be bought was desperately sought
after by the shorts, who had so thoroughly miscalculated
the trend of the market, until finally practically none
could be had except from the very men to whom the
shorts had been selling: namely, the rival interests con-
tending for control of the Northern Pacific system.

The demand for money to buy Northern Pacific at

RE VIE W OF THE MONTH 483

the fabulous corner prices sent the interest rate up to
50 per cent, on the day of the panic, and forced the sell-
ing of standard industrial stocks at enormous sacrifices.
There is no question but that a series of disastrous fail-
ures and a prolonged financial panic would have re-
sulted had it not been for two saving circumstances —
the forming of a special loan fund of nearly $20,000,000
by a group of prominent banks, and the publishing of
an offer by the Kuhn-Loeb holders of Northern Pacific
stock, by which the shorts owing any such stock to this
house were permitted to buy it for redelivery at $150
per share. The arrangement of course meant heavy
loss in most cases to the shorts, but saved them from
bankruptcy and practically ended the struggle.

Just where the control of the Northern Pacific now
rests is still a matter of uncertainty, but it is believed
to remain with the Hill-Morgan interests. Ordinarily,
the offer of the Kuhn-Loeb interests to settle with the
shorts would have meant either that the fight to get
control of the Northern Pacific had been abandoned, or
else that it had proved successful so that no further col-
lecting of stocks due was necessary ; but in this instance
the possible deciding reason for the compromise offer
was an injunction issued by Justice Gildersleeve of the
supreme court, under which certain short sellers were
relieved of the necessity of delivering the stock, on the
ground that the bears knew when they bought it that the
stock offered them was not in existence and could not
be delivered. Similar injunctions would undoubtedly
have been secured by all the hard-pressed shorts if the
settlement offer had not been made.

The Public, the ^or the heavy losses incurred by the
Law, and purely speculative interests involved in

the Speculators tbjs conflict the general public need give
itself no concern. No sympathy need be wasted here.

484 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

Indeed, it is hard to understand why the court should
have interfered to protect any speculators from the nat-
ural consequences of their risk-taking. Had they won,
it would have been at the expense of somebody else
whom no court could have protected from the loss
inflicted. It was purely a matter of assumption, not of
known fact, to conclude that the buyers knew the stock
could not be delivered. On the contrary, they were
buying wherever stock was offered, and some of this
stock was actually being delivered. How could they
know, therefore, who would be able to deliver and who
would not? But, even supposing that the buyers had
known that the stock could not be delivered ; the origi-
nal responsibility for every such transaction is on the
seller, not the buyer. If the seller, in the hope of
profiting at somebody else's expense, offers stock that
he does not own and does not know whether he will be
able to deliver it, he ought to bear the full penalties of
a possible failure in his scheme just as certainly as he
would reap the harvest in case of success. There is
enough of the principle of, '• Heads I win, tails you
lose," already exemplified on the stock exchange with-
out the court coming in to give it the sanction of law.

There are only two rational ways of dealing with
gambling, of whatever variety. One is to leave both
parties to the game free-handed, and protect neither
one from the possible rebound of his effort to injure his
opponent ; the other is to abolish it entirely, or at least
strip it of its dangerous and havoc-creating possibilities.
If the latter, the restrictions must apply equally and
evenly to all. The injunction granted by Justice Gil-
dersleeve was doubtless intended to prevent bankrupt-
cies and severe panic, but the really effective and best
method of dealing with this whole situation, either by
Wall street itself or by the public, is to restrict and
define the limits of stock-exchange transactions in such

igoi. ] RE VIE W OF THE MONTH 485

a way that only legitimate and bona fide transfers of
interests can be made, and panics and depressions can-
not be forced on the country by the mere scramble of
speculators to profit at each other's expense by dealing
in imaginary rather than actual securities. Here is a
field for government interference, in the interests of
financial and industrial stability, and it ought from now
on to receive the most careful study, looking towards
possible legislation in case the exchange will not cor-
rect the evils itself. The guiding principle in any such
legislation, however, should be clear and unmistakable.
It should have no other object than simply to protect
the interests of the great industrious, wealth- producing,
non-speculating millions from disruption at the hands
of the purely gambling elements in stock -exchange
transactions. The state should never interfere merely
to save these manipulators from themselves.

Like the stock- exchange panic, the wide-
The Machinists' spread prevalence of strikes at this

Struggle for . - . ., - -

Nine Hours season is no indication of unstable or

unhealthy business conditions. On the
contrary, it reflects the determination of organized
labor to share the tangible results of the extraordinary
prosperity existing in nearly all lines of industry
throughout the country. In times of depression,
strikes are mainly defensive, directed chiefly against
reductions of wages, but in times of prosperity they are
aggressive, designed to secure increases of wages or
reduction of working hours or some improvement in
working conditions. The prosperity strikes are the
more numerous and vigorous and much more largely
crowned with success.

One of these is now in progress. On May 2Oth
about fifty thousand skilled machinists, employed in the
metal trades throughout the country, began a long-

486 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

anticipated strike which thus far seems likely to be
successful. The movement is very widespread and
apparently well organized, the most important of the
many points affected being San Francisco, Cincinnati,
New York city, Scranton, Boston, Buffalo, and the
state of New Jersey. The basis of the strike is stated
by President James O'Connell, of the National Associa-
tion of Machinists, as follows :

"We are demanding a nine -hour day universally throughout the
trade, with an increase of wages sufficient to overcome the loss of the
hour in time ; regulation of the apprenticeship system and the number
that shall be employed in accordance with the number of journeymen
machinists employed ; agreements as to arbitration of all disputes that
may arise in the future; the right of the machinists to be represented
by a committee, and agreements that there shall be absolutely no dis-
crimination against machinists because of their membership in the
union."

An interesting feature of the strike is that in some
places the non-union workers have joined the union
men in the general demand for a nine-hour day. A
considerable number of firms, especially in Chicago and
New York, have already granted the demands and the
men have returned to work.

It will be a difficult matter for the em-
The Issues plovers to resist this movement, since the

at Stake '

men are all skilled workers and not re-
placeable at will by simply drawing on the general body
of immigrants and miscellaneous unemployed. More-
over, there is nothing unreasonable in the demands for
a nine -hour day, increase of wages, and right of the
men to be represented by committees and guaranteed
against any discrination due to membership in a union.
These are proper demands, and it is only by thus pushing
forward the standard of wages and hours, in times when
the conditions of industry make these concessions pos-
sible, that labor can permanently advance and obtain

i9oi.] REVIEW OF THE MONTH 487

its share in the increasing wealth-production of the
community.

It is possible, of course, that the resistance of the
employers does not really rest upon these particular de-
mands, but hinges on certain points of shop manage-
ment involved in the somewhat vague demand for
"regulation of the apprenticeship system," etc. Trade
unions frequently make the mistake of trying to "run
the shop" of the employer, by dictating conditions
which seriously affect the economic efficiency of the busi-
ness in matters not involving wages or hours. If indus-
try is to prosper, and the wealth production from which
wages as well as profits are paid is to increase, expert
management must be free to bring the best results out
of the organization, division of labor, and use of ma-
chine methods in the shops and factories. It may be,
of course, that no really serious issue of this sort is at
stake, and that the demand in regard to apprentices
grows out of some actual abuse, which the men have
found by experience to be a subtle means of introducing
a considerable cheap-labor element. If so, the matter
would be a proper subject for trade-union protest and
quite within the proper limits of organized labor's eco-
nomic function, which is to protect the.wages, hours and
general working conditions of the wage-earning class.
To the extent that the machinists keep within these
limits, the men are entitled to win.

It should be remembered in this connection, how-
ever, that the machinists have for some time had a
strong arbitration agreement with the metal trades as-
sociation, under which no strike could be ordered until
after a series of conferences in which both parties were
equally represented. It would be interesting to know
whether this agreement was lived up to in the present
case. If it was, and a strike came nevertheless, it seems
clear that there must be other issues at stake quite as

488 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

serious as the demand for nine hours work at ten hours
pay. With the present flood of prosperity, it is unlikely
that the employers in the metal trades would incur a
costly strike simply to resist reasonable demands along
these lines. Perhaps, on the contrary, this phase of the
struggle could have been settled if the employers had
felt that they could be secured against annoying en-
croachments upon departments of their business which
must, of economic necessity, lie within the employers'
rather than the employees' domain.

The Albany The riotous an(i deplorable labor contest
Street Railway in Albany (extending to Troy), from
Stfike May 7th to i8th, was of quite different

character from the machinists' strike. It seems to have
originated in two distinct demands on the part of the
union — one, that all nightmen and pitmen employed by
the United Traction Company should receive twenty
cents per hour, the same as the regular day rate for con-
ductors and motormen, and the other that employees
not members of the labor union be discharged from the
company's service and that any employees who might
be expelled from the union at any time should also be
discharged by the company.

The first demand was reasonable and had the sym-
pathy of the people of Albany. The second was utterly
indefensible and could not, as it did not deserve to, at-
tract any public sympathy whatever. The same effort
has been made before by ill-advised labor unions here
and there, but never we believe with success. It is so
obviously contrary to ordinary justice that it has been
doomed to failure in advance, wherever undertaken. A
labor union has a perfect right to persuade non-union
workers to join the ranks of the organized, if it can, but
it has no right whatever, moral, economic or legal, to

REVIEW OF THE MONTH 489

persecute such men or force their discharge if they do
not choose to become union members.

Bad as this was, the case of the Albany strikers was
made many times worse by the mob violence which be-
gan as soon as the company tried to operate its lines
with non-union men. It may be that the union leaders
did not encourage violence, and possibly but few union
men actually took part in it ; but it is almost incredible
that rioting of such violence and persistence could have
been wholly the work of disinterested outsiders having
no grievance to warrant the risks they took. The citi-
zens of Albany may have sympathized with the strikers,
and the rough element may have welcomed the chance
to make trouble on any pretext, but neither cause is
sufficient to explain the extraordinary proportions and
bitterness of the Albany disturbance. The union, in
order to escape any share of responsibility for this,
ought to have publicly declared against it at the outset
and promptly disciplined any of its members found
participating in any way in the riots or encouraging
others to use violent methods.

By May i4th the disturbances became so
and the°Otitcome seri°us that the sheriff of Albany county

had to call for state troops to maintain
order. The loth battalion and 3rd signal corps of Al-
bany and the 23rd regiment from Brooklyn were
promptly called out. The riot reached its height on
May 1 6th when, in the midst of a fierce attack, the
troops fired into the crowd, wounding a laborer and
killing two well-known business men of Albany, none
of the three having been in any way connected with
the strike. More troops were at once sent to the scene,
the 2nd regiment from Troy and vicinity and the gth
from New York city, making so large a body of military
that the rioters were finally overawed and no further

490 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

casualties occurred. On the night of May i/th the
company and the union finally reached an agreement
and the strike was declared off.

As usual the outcome was a compromise. The
company granted the wage and several minor demands
and agreed to ' * continue to recognize and treat with
any committee of its employees, representing organized
or unorganized labor, when they desired to be heard in
relation to any grievance." On the other hand, the
strikers surrendered the demand for exclusive employ-
ment of union men and agreed that in the future ' ' no
proposition for a strike shall be acted upon by any di-
vision at the same meeting at which it is introduced,
but that at least forty- eight hours shall elapse before
such a proposition shall be voted upon. And if a strike
shall be ordered it shall not take effect until at least six
days have elapsed after notice to the company, during
which time the employees shall continue their work."
Most of the non-union workers who had been brought
to Albany have left town and the former employees
have been reinstated, except such as are under arrest
charged with acts of violence. These men, unless
proved innocent, will not be taken back.

The whole conflict was most deplorable, and might
have been entirely avoided by a broader spirit of con-
ciliation on the part of the company and a larger meas-
ure of economic wisdom on the part of the union. The
company could just as well have granted the wage
equalization at the outset and saved itself the expense
of the strike, and the men might just as well have con-
fined themselves to the legitimate wage demand and
not forced the indefensible issue of the right to deprive
non-union men of their jobs. Every such needless,
costly and tragic conflict only re-emphasizes the urgent
importance of greater economic enlightenment, and
thus, of course, of more widespread popular education

1 90I.J REVIEW OF THE MONTH 491

among all classes of the community on the true eco-
nomic, social and ethical relations between employers
and wage earners.

New York city is on the eve of its
New York's Ap- * .

preaching Munici- second great contest for control of the
pal Campaign municipal government, since the organ-
ization of the greater city under the new charter. The
result is perhaps even more important than in the first
election, since experience has now shown the places
where thieves can plunder to the best advantage, on
the one hand, and where honest progressive men can do
the most for decent government and wholesome expan-
sion of the best there is in civic life, on the other.
Furthermore, the city charter has just been amended
in several important particulars, making a much more
satisfactory administration of the city's affairs possible,
if the control shall be vested in honest and capable
hands.

The anti-Tammany elements, for this time at least,
are not going to base their campaign on any special re-
port of any particular investigating committee. They
will take the broader, more dignified and effective posi-
tion that Tammany's rottenness is so flagrant and fully-
established that every intelligent citizen ought to
understand and acknowledge it without having to be
offered any elaborate proof. In other words, it is not
a case for argument but is simply an established fact,
and the only real question at stake is how best to in-
spire those who want good government with the neces-
sity of really working for it. This seems to be the
spirit thus far, and if it lasts it will probably result in a
non-partisan anti-Tammany union, more formidable
than anything that has been accomplished since the
memorable campaign which elected Mayor Strong in
1894.

492 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [Juue,

Of course, the two organizations whose cooperation
is absolutely indispensable if Tammany is to be de-
feated are the republican party and the citizens' union.
A third significant factor is the recently organized
''Greater New York Democracy," led by a group of in-
dependent democrats of high standing and supported
by some others of less creditable reputation, whose chief
title to fame is that, having once been in the Tammany
councils, they are now, for whatever reason, there no
longer.

All three of these organizations have declared
themselves frankly on the policy of the campaign. On
February 2ist the republican county committee
adopted resolutions including the following :

"Resolved, That in view of the present conditions this committee is
in favor of an administration of the city's affairs which shall be broadly
non-partisan and observant in all its economics of the ordinary rules of
an honest and well conducted business, the end to be sought in all
municipal matters being simply the welfare of the city and in nowise
the advantage of any political organization.

" Resolved, Also, that in the belief and judgment of this committee
the republicans of New York stand ready to cooperate as an organization
with all other organizations and associations, social or political, and with
all persons, without regard to party affiliations, in laboring for the
election of a municipal ticket selected without regard to partisanship,
and commanding public confidence that in the event of its success the
principles above stated will assuredly control."

The citizens' union on April 26th adopted a plat-
form, summarizing the charges against Tammany and
the specific demands of the union for clean and pro-
gressive city government. No definite offer of coop-
eration with other organizations was made, but the
spirit of the union as expressed by its leading men
promises to be very different this year from the unfor-
tunate exclusive position it took in 1897.

The Greater New York democracy, through its
executive committee, has also adopted a platform, de-
claring its purpose to be :

igoi.] REVIEW OF THE MONTH 493

"To assist in the formation of a solid and harmonious union of all
parties, organizations and associations opposed to boss rule and bad
government."

It is most fortunate for the prospects of a clean-
government victory that the spirit of cooperation and
sinking of organization differences is abroad. No one
body of men, working single-handed, could for a mo-
ment hope to win. The citizens' union is not popular
enough, the Greater New York democracy is not even
approachably large enough, and the republican organi-
zation does not possess popular confidence enough, —
it has given too many instances of adeptness in Tam-
many methods whenever the appropriate opportunities
are offered. However, if the republican organization
can be harnessed in with the others, its strength can be
thrown to the side of good government, where the
great mass of the rank and file in the party earnestly
want it to be, whatever the private preferences of the
machine leaders. A victory won by such a combination
could not be diverted to partisan advantage; there
would be too many groups and interests ' ' on the inside, "
and decency, if not actually in the majority, would at
least hold the balance of power.

The appointment of Philander C. Knox
of Pittsburg to be attorney-general of
the United States, succeeding John W.
Griggs of New Jersey, is severely criticised in many
quarters because Mr. Knox has at various times done
important legal work for large corporations. It is ad-
mitted that the new attorney-general is a man of marked
ability and personal integrity, but it is assumed never-
theless that he cannot be impartial in the discharge of
his duties whenever the interests of the public may
come in conflict with those of corporations.

Whether Mr. Knox will actually make a just and
impartial attorney-general can be determined only by

494 G UNTON'S MA GAZ1NE

experience, but there is nothing in the mere fact that he
has done legal work for corporations to justify sus-
picion either of his personal motives or his faithfulness
to public interests in his new office. If this test were
to be applied to all prospective appointees to the
attorney-generalship, it would be nearly impossible to
find any lawyer of conspicuous and trained ability in
the country to fill the position. Under modern condi-
tions of industry, the bulk of the important business of
the country is either in direct connection with or closely
related to stock corporations, and the lawyers of suffi-
cient ability to command a large practice must of neces-
sity have more or less to do with corporation litigation.
Naturally, the corporations seek for able legal tal-
ent, and a lawyer is no more to be criticised for serving
these clients than a doctor is blamed for prescribing for
a millionaire. To say that an honest lawyer must
always be on the side against the corporations is an-
other way of saying that a corporation is of necessity
always in the wrong, should have no rights, no power
of legal defence and no claim to the ordinary protection
of the law. This sort of idiocy may be popular with
campaign audiences, but it amounts to characterizing
the majority of American business men as industrial
pirates or brigands.

The fact that Mr. Knox has appeared in defence of
corporations argues nothing either for or against his
capacity for impartial discharge of a public trust. In-
deed, if he is a man of integrity, and sensitiveness to
public opinion, it may be that he will feel an even
keener obligation to give his very best talent to the
government in cases where corporations are involved,
from the very fact of the suspicion directed towards
him. At any rate, the ordinary American sense of jus-
tice ought to secure him at least what is freely ac-
corded to a common malefactor before judge and jury
— the right to be held innocent until proved guilty.

THE WARS OF WALL STREET

The alarming panic which occurred in Wall street
on Thursday, May gth, was another of those business-
disturbing affairs which do so much to feed the preju-
dice and gradually undermine the confidence of the
popular mind in existing industrial and financial insti-
tutions. Wall street has long been the target for pop-
ular prejudice, suspicion and distrust. It is commonly
believed to be the center of dishonest and sometimes
wicked conspiracy against the public weal. There are
millions of people to-day who believe that the chief
business of Wall street is to create corners, make pan-
ics, destroy values, and make a few people rich by
wrecking large numbers of honest business men. Such
disastrous eruptions as occurred in Wall street on Black
Friday (Sept. i8th, 1 8 73) and Black Thursday (May pth,
1901) are well calculated to sustain this all too-preva-
lent belief.

Of course the people are not philosophers. The
masses do not think deeply on these questions, but they
feel keenly and follow leaders. These leaders are not,
as is too commonly assumed, dishonest; they are usu-
ally superficial and ill-informed enough honestly to be-
lieve that they are called to save society. Mr. Bryan,
for instance, appears to be honestly laboring under the
delusion that he is a second Thomas Jefferson. This
movement, in its multifarious forms from socialism to
anarchy, with all the intervening degrees of disintegra-
tion, has one belief in common : namely, that the pres-
ent accumulation of wealth by capitalistic methods is an
unjust exploitation of the masses for the benefit of a
comparatively small privileged class. There is a variety
of reasoning, logical and illogical, on this general prop-
osition and how to deal with it, but the general assump-

495

496 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

tion is that the rich are consciously or unconsciously
the robbers of the poor, and that the great wealth of
the millionaires and large corporations to-day is the re-
sult of unjust monopoly of the opportunities and
instruments of civilization. Under a community like
ours, prejudice and uninformed feeling are very effec-
tive in making votes and shaping public policy. If the
revolution hoped for by the socialists or the disruption
worked for by Bryan are to be avoided, and orderly
progress is to continue, the great leaders of finance and
industry will have to be more and more careful of the
interests of the public. Opportunity and power carry
with them responsibility. Large capitalists and finan-
ciers are practically quasi-public servants. They control
so much, their interests are so far-reaching and in-
volved, that their every scheme affects thousands of
others who are not consulted and are helpless to act ;
their interests carry with them the interests of the
whole community. This is one of the consequences of
scientific development and economic organization and
social progress.

All this is true, but it is equally a part of the
nature of things that this centralizing direction and
power carries with it a commensurate increasing re-
sponsibility,— not merely responsibility to oneself for
his own fortune, not merely responsibility to one's
family for its future, but responsibility to the com-
munity for the direction of these great affairs on which
the welfare of the nation itself depends.

The two kinds of calamity which contain the most
dangerous elements of national disaster are industrial
depressions and financial panics. Nothing quite so
securely protects our institutions from attack as finan-
cial stability and industrial prosperity. Industrial
prosperity secures an increase in wealth and production
which carries with it as a part of the very process of its

igoi.] THE WARS OF WALL STREET 497

creation an increased diffusion of welfare throughout
the community, so that in any considerable period of
continuous prosperity every class in the community
shares in some degree in the increased production.
Moreover, every decade or even half decade of increased
welfare results in a higher standard of social life and
general intelligence and consequently a more compe-
tent public opinion, which necessarily results in more
equitable adjustment of economic and social relations,
which is a net advance in civilization.

So long as these conditions continue, the crusade
against society is comparatively harmless. But when
the industrial conditions are disturbed and business
depression brings reduction in wages and enforced idle-
ness, with their train of hardships among the masses,,
not merely the laborers who are at the point of maxi-
mum suffering, but the sympathizing public, have a
ready ear for any explanation which shall make some-
body directly responsible for this state of affairs. They
readily turn to those who have the wealth and wha
have had the direction and control of industrial affairs,.
as the cause of the calamity. Under these conditions,
it is not difficult to influence the masses to follow the
most plausible even though most flippant leader who
proposes a caustic remedy for the evil, especially if the
remedy shall look toward the dispossession of those in
authority, whether in industry or politics.

Nothing but prosperity prevented the election of
Mr. Bryan and his followers in 1900. The appeal to
the prejudice of the masses against corporations and
millionaire capitalists was not without effect. It was
seldom resented ; in fact, it found very general lodg-
ment in the popular mind. Indeed, Mr. Bryan's on-
slaught upon corporations and the money power was the
most popular thing in all the campaign. He was tem-
porarily, at least, in every locality the lion of the pop-

498 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

ulace, but when they came to vote they had to choose
between plausible sentiment and practical welfare, and
the welfare won.

During the last four years, and particularly the
last two, this unparalleled prosperity, which has really
prevented a disintegrating revulsion of policy, has
brought startling changes in the methods and policy of
industrial organization and management. The concen-
tration of productive control has been breath-taking.
More than a billion and a half dollars' worth of prop-
erty has been concentrated into a single concern and is
practically directed by less than half a dozen persons.
As already pointed out,* this may be and probably is
another step towards greater production at less cost and
consequently, in the long run, higher wages and
cheaper products to the public as well as greater profits
to the capitalists.

As a part of this movement, we have the high-
wrought conditions of Wall street. Of course, Wall
street, like large corporations, is not an unmitigated
evil, as some imagine. It is not an organized con-
spiracy against honest investors any more than cor-
porations are huge robbers. Wall street is the great
distributing agent of investment and is as essential to
the mobility of capital as a distributing market for
products is to industry. This is true in a country like
this, where industry is mostly conducted by corpora-
tions, which represent the collective investments of
small amounts owned by thousands of people-

One of the conspicuous elements in the marvellous
industrial progress this country has achieved is due to
this corporate form of industrial organization. If our
industries had been compelled to depend upon indi-
vidual ownership or the partnership form of enterprise,
as is the case in many of the older countries of Europe,
* GUNTON'S MAGAZINE, May, 1901, pp. 423-424.

igoi.] THE WARS OF WALL STREET 499

only a fraction of the development would have been
possible. It would have been prevented by the sheer
lack of capital. Our progressive possibilities were so
great that we needed capital many times faster than it
could be created out of the previous investments. The
corporation made it possible to collect the small savings
as well as the large, of the people all over the country,
in amounts from five and ten to a hundred dollars and
upwards, and capitalize it into productive industry under
corporate management. Moreover, it enabled American
enterprise to have the advantage of millions upon mil-
lions of foreign capital. For a long time the greater
part of the railroads, the city improvements and large
industrial enterprises of this country, were conducted
by foreign capital, added to the small investments of
millions of Americans. This made the capital fund
and productive capacity of the country grow many
times faster than it otherwise could possibly have done,
and also involved the method of investment by pur-
chase of stocks, for which Wall street furnishes a cen-
tral market where anybody who has a small amount can
invest in any properties in the country, and if they
want to convert their little holdings into cash for pres-
ent use they can always do so as quickly as they could
draw it from a bank. The machinery for accomplish-
ing this is the broker. Through the active operation
of the economic forces that converge in Wall street, the
value of stocks, their dividend-earning capacity and
their probable future, are constantly indicated and reg-
istered. Thus Wall street and the brokers do for in-
vestors what large corporations do for production and
mercantile houses do for the retail distribution of com-
modities.

But there are uneconomic as well as economic
methods of doing business in Wall street, just as there
are in the organization and conduct of corporations and

500 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

in any other form of business. Large corporations, by
using unfair pressure and dishonorable means of com-
petition, can unjustly injure and drive out competitors.
For instance, they can and sometimes do send their
goods into a special locality and sell them considerably
below cost in order to kill off a competitor. Of course
they do not intend to keep the price at that low point,
but, as soon as the competitor is driven out, the price
is put back and perhaps raised to a higher point than
before. That is dishonorable business, it is detrimental
to public welfare and as far as possible should be sup-
pressed.

In Wall street there are methods of a similar
character by which the price of stocks is forced up and
down without any regard to the earning capacity of the
property they represent. This is brought about by
what is known as "bulls" and "bears." A war between
these two factions frequently brings disturbance of
prices, which creates panic and is disastrous to busi-
ness. These havoc-creating panics must be avoided. If
they are not dealt with on rational conservative lines
by the capitalists, through stock-exchange regulations
and other business rules, they will be dealt with by the
revolutionary method. As James J. Hill said the morn-
ing after the panic, the people will find some way to
prevent rich men from using their wealth to create such
havoc with the lives and interests of the millions of
people who are honestly going about their business.

On the other hand, it may be said that people have
the same right to buy and sell stocks that they have to
buy and sell potatoes, and there is no more reason why
law should prevent a man from giving more for stocks
than they are worth than there is for paying more for
potatoes than they are worth. All this is true, but as a
matter of fact panics are not created by legitimate buy-
ing and selling of stocks. It is when transactions take

igoi.] THE WARS O* WALL STREET 501

on the gambling phase and people buy what they do not
want and sell what they do not possess that the danger
begins.

It may be urged that a man may take whatever
risks he pleases in buying and selling. If he makes a
mistake he suffers the loss, and vice versa, but this is not
entirely true. He may have the legal right to do it be-
cause no attempts have been made to prevent it, but, in
the larger sense of the public interest, which is the
basis for limiting and regulating all individual conduct,
he has not the right to do what tends to injure other
people who take no part in and are in no way responsi-
ble for the action. A man will not be permitted to
create an explosion merely because he is willing to risk
his own life. The public has rights as well as indi-
viduals.

To this Wall street is no exception. Of course
there can be no restriction on a citizen's right to buy
and sell as much stock as he can pay for. That would
be an interference with personal freedom which would
destroy the right of private investment and be fatal to
corporate industry. Moreover, if certain individuals,
or a group of them, would like to control the manage-
ment of a large corporation in which they have heavily
invested, their only way is to buy a majority of the
stock, and Wall street is the place to do it. In order
to secure the stock, they will have to bid enough to
induce the present holders to sell. It is equally clear
that if another group of persons have present control
and would like to keep it, they can accomplish their end
only by preventing such sales or increasing their own
holdings. A contest between two such groups is sure
to put stock at an abnormally high price. In the end,
those who give the highest price would get the prop-
erty, just as they would in buying a piece of real estate
at auction. There is a limit to which the price will go

502 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

under a contest thus conducted. The limit will be
determined by the earning capacity of the property.
No capitalist or group of capitalists will try to control
a property by giving very much more for it than it is
ever likely to be worth, because they would be invest-
ing their wealth in unprofitable assets, which capitalists
seldom do.

Now this is substantially what took place in Wall
street on the gth of May. For valid business reasons,
the owners of two great systems of railroads wanted to
strengthen, or at least maintain, the earning capacity
of the property. The Northern Pacific people thought
the ownership of either the Chicago, Milwaukee and
St. Paul or the Burlington and Quincy would strengthen
their system, and accordingly they went into Wall
street, quietly, of course, to buy control of the St. Paul.
This failed, and they proceeded to buy the Burlington
and Quincy and secured control before their great com-
petitor, the Union Pacific, discovered what was going
on. Thus far nothing illegitimate had taken place.
When the Union Pacific people learned of this they
scented danger. They interpreted the movement as an
intent to injure the opportunities of the Union Pacific.
Now, one of two things seemed to them necessary in
self-defence ; either that an amicable arrangement
regarding these properties be entered into, or that they
must fight for the control themselves. The first failed
and the war began. The two great interests entered
into a war in Wall street for control, the Union Pacific
struggling to get control of the Northern Pacific and
the Northern Pacific to keep control of the advantage
it had acquired.

All this was entirely proper in the interest of wise
administration of great properties. If the struggle for
control had been limited to real purchases for invest-
ment, no panic or calamity would have occurred. If

igoi.] THE WARS OF WALL STREET 503

the Union Pacific people had simply bought all the
Northern Pacific stock they could, and kept it, and kept
on buying until the price rose to the point where it
would not pay even with control, the buying would
have stopped. The point would soon have been reached
when neither side would care to buy, and that would
have decided who had the most faith in the possibilities
of the property. This would undoubtedly have led to
some little disturbance in the prices of stocks, because
purchasers on both sides would have sold other securi-
ties in order to purchase stocks in one or the other of
these concerns, but in all probability nothing approach-
ing a panic would have occurred. But this is not what
took place. As soon as the buying began to be percep-
tible, another element entered ; people began to buy
what they did not want and sell what they did not have.
They " bought long" by putting up small ten per cent,
margins, and so bought ten times as much stock as they
could pay for, solely in the belief that the price would
continue to rise and that they could sell it again at a
higher price.

Under this bull pressure more stock was bought
than existed. Indeed, there was no intention of having
the stock, but purely gambling that it would go higher
and they could sell again. This created a fever, not of
buying stock, but of gambling on the rise in stock. If
people had bought only what they could have paid for,
only a fraction of this could have taken place. This
fever, which had no relation whatever to economic buy-
ing and selling for investment, carried people to the
point of insanity, where no judgment whatever pre-
vailed, any more than is involved in betting a fortune
upon drawing the longest straw from a bundle.

When the price reached a sufficient height, this
movement was responded to by the bears selling
"short;" that is, selling what they did not have. When

504 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

a stock is only worth about 865 and will sell at $600 or
§1,000, it is clear that it is not bought for investment
and therefore is sure to fall, and, when people begin to
sell in large quantities at a lower price than that at
which the last was offered, everybody wants to unload
for fear of loss. Under this pressure, the "shorts" are
willing to take the risk of buying a little later at a less
price than they sell at now, and so offer to sell what
they do not possess, feeling sure that they can get it a
little later at a lower price and have the difference as
profit, and so many times more shares are sold than
there are in existence. When this takes place, all those
who have bought on margins as a gamble lose their de-
posits. If the margin is ten per cent, and the price
drops, that is wiped out and a new margin is required
or they lose all, and so on ; whereas, if they had bought
honestly only what they could pay for, and on the judg-
ment of good investment, they could have kept their
stock and not lost anything. But, having spread their
purchase over ten or fifteen times as much stock as they
can pay for, when the price falls they are unable to sus-
tain their margins and are wiped out. Under this pres-
sure another phase of disturbance begins.

In order to maintain their margins by putting up
more money to protect what they have already placed
on the gamble, they sell their bona fide properties, pay
a high interest for the loan of securities, and so begin
to lower the price of other securities which are not oth-
erwise involved. This makes a disturbance throughout
the whole field of investment.

Then another fact is likely to enter : namely, that
some one party will actually get a "corner'' on the stock
which is the subject of the war. In that case, when the
shorts are selling what they have not got, those who
hold the corner can buy with impunity no matter what
the price may be, because they are certain that the

THE WARS OF WALL STREET 505

others cannot deliver without coming to them for their
stock. It was under this pressure that the Northern
Pacific went up to $1,000 when it was not worth $70.
When this fact becomes known, the break comes and
those who have been selling short are called upon to
buy the stock and deliver it. It cannot be obtained ex-
cept from those who have bought it, and the price is
put up by them to the ruining point, and failure and
bankruptcy begin.

This is just what occurred on Black Friday, 1873,
and also on May gth, 1901. It was because Jay Gould
and his friends had a corner on gold on Black Friday,
'73, that when the shorts came to settle it broke the firm
of Jay Cooke & Co. , and the next day forced nineteen
banking houses into bankruptcy. It was because the
Northern Pacific stock was finally cornered that it rose
to $1,000 a share, and those who had sold short stood
to settle at ruinous rates ; and in the fall which neces-
sarily followed all margins were wiped out. Both the
longs and shorts were caught in the wreck. It is true that
by prompt action of a number of banks, and a mutual
agreement, the shorts were allowed to settle on what
were called reasonable terms, by paying about twice
what the stock was worth. But if this had occurred
under a state of depressed business it would probably
have carried with it several brokerage houses and banks,
and they in turn would have forced a large number of
business houses to fail.

None of the disastrous effect of this struggle would
have occurred if nobody had bought more than he
could pay for and nobody had sold what he did not
possess. It is this speculation, gambling, and in many
instances dishonest transaction that is the cause of the
disturbance and panic. If this element were removed
from Wall street there would be no more danger of
panics and business disturbance from the buying and

506 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

selling of stocks than there is in dealing in any other
commodities. Occasionally the same methods have
been applied to wheat and certain other products, and
usually with the same business-disturbing effect. When
the corner in copper broke, it nearly took the Bank of
France and some of the greatest millionaires in the
world with it. When the recent wheat corner was
broken, it took Leiter and many others with it, and all
because they had bought what they did not want and
could not pay for, or had sold what they did not
possess.

There was considerable truth in Mr. Hill's indig-
nant declaration the morning after Black Thursday,
that somebody would have to settle with their con-
sciences for this panic, that the law ought to step in
and prevent millionaires from using their millions with
such disastrous effect to public interests. Whether
this was honest indignation or mere bluff to cover a
part Mr. Hill himself had played is not entirely clear,
but it expressed a sound sentiment nevertheless. If
the evil of this gambling is not dealt with by the gov-
ernors of the stock exchange, or the adoption of higher
methods by the responsible leaders in Wall street, it
will some day be dealt with in a less intelligent but
more caustic way by the public. Borrowing and lend-
ing are legitimate business transactions. Buying and
selling are essential to the distribution of wealth in the
community, but buying what one can never pay for and
selling what one does not own are not legitimate indus-
trial transactions. They are dangerous gambling, and,
what is more, they are gambling in a way and with in-
terests that involve the public. When a man bets on a
race horse and loses, somebody else has his money and
that is the end of it. He cannot bet again until he gets
more money. That is not the case with this gambling
element in the stock market. The risk is not limited

igoi.] THE WARS OF WALL STREET 507

to the amount involved by the individual speculator,
but it affects the value and status and perhaps solvency
of hundreds of thousands of others who have no part in
the gambling transaction. The wiping out of margins
by the bears selling short brings with it the forced sale
of other stocks at a sacrifice and lowers the value of
everybody's holdings for the time being, and if for any
reason they are compelled to sell they have to do so at
a loss.

Wall street is a legitimate business market so long
as its methods are confined to the practice of buying
what can be paid for and selling what is possessed. It
is not merely a legitimate institution but is indispensa-
ble to modern business. But, to the extent that it en-
dorses and encourages the practice of partial buying
and fictitious selling, it is the breeding place of panics
and industrial disturbance. This uneconomic and dis-
honest element in the practice of Wall street will sooner
or later have to be dealt with. The question is, shall
the remedy come in a sane and conservative way
through the stock exchange and the great leaders of in-
dustry and finance, and thus strengthen Wall street as
a center of money, business and banking, or shall it
come at the behest of an excited indignant public
through the methods of caustic and perhaps revolution-
ary legislation?

TRADE ROUTES AND CIVILIZATION

JACQUES W. RKDWAY, F. R. G. S.

Trade routes have always been the most sensitive
factors in history. Water flowing to the sea does not
pick out its channels with greater exactitude, and the
pulse does not respond more quickly to the throbs of
the heart than do routes of traffic to the slightest dis-
turbance along their course. Almost always trade
flows along lines of least resistance ; its one obstacle is
the force of gravity, and the movements of commerce
have become so highly organized that the science of
transportation is practically reduced to a compromise
between the expenditure of time and the lift against
gravity.

The history of Aryan civilization is inseparably
wrapped up in commerce and trade routes, and, what-
ever may have been the prime impulses or the genesis
of civilization, commerce moving along its self-chosen
lines of least resistance — that is, along natural trade
routes — has been the chief factor in its diffusion. In al-
most his first journey into the heart of Africa Mr. Liv-
ingston recognized that if civilization were to penetrate
the continent it must be the work, not of the missionary,
but of commerce flowing along trade routes. All
Europe had learned this lesson, and the latter had
about six centuries of illustration ; moreover it required
that the lesson scarcely more than half learned should
be reviewed under the most practical of all masters —
bitter experience.

From very early historic times there had been
more or less commercial intercourse between Mediter-
ranean ports and the far East — the cities of India, and a
few of those of China. The merchants of Tyre sent

508

TRADE RO UTES AND CIVILIZA TION 509

their ships back and forth over the Red sea, and, after
the conquest of Alexander, over the old Phoenician
route through Persia to various points still farther
east. A still more important route lay by the way of
the Caspian sea along an arm (or perhaps the main
thalweg) of the Amu Daria*, thence by caravan to the
Indus, and thence to the marts of India. Another im-
portant route was through Syria by caravan to the
Euphrates, and thence down the river through the Per-
sian gulf. This route was the making of Palmyra and
the direct cause of its greatness. All these routes, it
will be observed, centered at the eastern ports of the
Mediterranean sea, and for a long time there were prac-
tically two sets of carriers ; especially was this the case
before the rise of the Saracenic empire, the two meet-
ing at the eastern ports of the Mediterranean. The
growth of the Saracenic power advanced until it in-
cluded Spain and the whole northern coast of Africa.
Trade was prosecuted briskly, but the Asian part was
nearly all in the hands of the Mussulmans. Only one
port was open to Christian merchants ; Persian and
Armenian merchants sent their goods to Batum and
thence to Constantinople; silks and oriental goods
were carried by the Oxus route to the Caspian and
thence overland to Constantinople. As a result of this
trade Constantinople grew from a barbaric military
camp to be the richest city and the seat of the high-
est civilization in the world.

With the inspiration of the crusades the commerce
grew amazingly. Venice and Genoa came into impor-
tance. The former, by a piece of unparalleled treach-
ery, wrought the downfall of Constantinople in order
to grasp her trade, and then engaged in a fierce struggle

* This river, better known by its former name, Oxtis, now flows di-
rectly into Aral sea. The old channel to the Caspian sea is plainly
traceable.

510 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

with the latter in order to hold it. Genoa obtained full
possession of the northern, Venice of the Red sea route ;
each, however, wanted both. Nevertheless, the trade
grew to mammoth proportions. And then came the
end. The handwriting on the wall was only too plain ;
but there are none so blind as those who will not see.
The Turk had been converted to Islam ; and in his zeal
for his newly adopted religion he decided that he could
strike no severer blow to Christendom than to arrest its
trade. So the trade routes to Asia were hermetically
sealed. As Mr. Fiske puts it : — The most magnificent
commerce the world had ever seen was cut with the
shears of Atropos.

But why, one may ask, did not the commercial
powers of Europe divert their trade along other routes?
An answer to this question is very easy : there were
none. There is a very definite boundary between the
Europe of history and the Asia of history. Not the
boundaries shown on the maps, however; they are
merely fiat lines that separate Russian from Siberian
provinces on the east, and from Caucasian provinces on
the south ; the real boundary is a great desert highland
rising from the Persian gulf, culminating in the stu-
pendous Hindu Kush, and gradually disappearing in
the steppes and tundras of the Arctic shores. In but
three or four places is that massive highland desert
traversed by defiles that permit commercial intercourse.
All the trade that had so tremendously stirred Europe
and Cathay had either crept close along the immediate
coast or else had threaded one or more of these narrow
passes.

One of these passages has found a place in the litera-
ture of almost every nation under the sun, and the
echoes of its history have reached every quarter of the
civilized world — Khaibar pass. It is scarcely thirty-
five miles from Peshawur to Jellalabad, and the pass

1 9oi.] TRADE ROUTES AND CIVILIZATION 511

itself is hardly wider than a cart path. Yet for more
ten centuries it has been an artery through which ori-
ental and occidental civilization passed, repassed, and
mingled — a steady, never-ending stream. The com-
mercial energies of two continents for a long time were
concentrated in this one artery. When Great Britain,
reaching out for colonial markets, acquired India, Sir
Robert Peel recognized the importance of this trade
route ; impregnable elsewhere, the life could be stran-
gled out of her at Khaibar pass. Lord Clive never ad-
dressed the home government without urging it to
fortify the pass. General Elphinstone knew its value
when he placed the army there, which was to perish so
miserably on that bloody Sunday. Dost Muhammad
knew its tremendous importance, and he spoke with
the wisdom of inspiration when he repeated the old
tradition, " Whoso would be master of India must first
make himself lord of Kabul;" and the history of
Khaibar pass, written in the blood of centuries, has re-
echoed the words of the tradition.

The blocking of the trade routes between Europe
and Cathay set in motion a train of events that even to
this day are in swift action. The growth and expan-
sion of this mighty commerce had developed a tremen-
dous energy. Now, energy, like matter, cannot be
annihilated. Like the subtle force that appears as heat,
light, electricity, magnetism, or motion, there may be
transformation, a change of form ; but neither final
gain nor loss. So it was with the energy of thought
that had concentrated upon commerce ; it was not de-
stroyed by the blocking of the trade routes, but merely
transformed — transformed into the energy of search for
an all-water route to India. Turkish corsairs might
sweep the Mediterranean but they could not blockade
the whole ocean.

And great things were to grow out of the transformed

512 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

energy, for the latter was to develop to an extent the
like of which the world had never dreamed. In the
search for India and a safe route thereto, Bias crept
southward along the coast of Africa until he reached
the " Cape of the Furies," and a year or two later Vasco
da Gama rounded the cape — no longer the abode of the
Furies, but the Cape of Good Hope — and, when his
anchors were let go, his ship was at the port of Callicut,
in India. The problem seemed to be solved.

With the new route open, great events began to
cast their shadows. Venice and Genoa, could not readily
adapt themselves to the new conditions; moreover,
they were so hopelessly sodden in their own rottenness
that gradually they fell to pieces. The Mediterranean
sailors, likewise, were not the men for deep-sea sailing,
and so little by little the thread was taken up by the
descendants of the Norse, — pirates only a few genera-
tions back, it is true, but sailors for a hundred gener-
ations. And so step by step the new trade route led to
the shores of the North sea. Then, too, the founda-
tion stones of the feudal castle began to tremble, and
as time passed on they crumbled beneath the shock.
When the dust and smoke of battle had cleared away
there was another transformation and the factory had
grown up on the dead carcase of the feudal system. In
a contest between brains and brute force the result is
always the same.

Man proposes, but the hand of divinity shapes the
destinies of man. In pushing the search towards the
West, instead of the East, Columbus discovered a New
World. One would better say, perhaps, that he began
the discovery, for the latter was not completed till the
voyage of Magellan had been finished. And so the
blocking of the trade routes between Europe and Cathay
brought about the industrial reformation of Europe, the
downfall of feudalism, and the discovery of a New World.

igoi.] TRADE ROUTES AND CIVILIZATION 513

The commercial intercourse of peoples is always
restricted by natural geographic barriers. A sea or any
large body of water is a barrier, but with the aid of
ships and steam and wind it is one that may be very
readily overcome. A desert is a barrier, and, no matter
how even and level its surface, the lack of food and
water make it impassable to all species except man. A
high mountain range is a barrier, for, even though its
surface may not be so rugged as to prevent locomotion,
there still remains the pull or lift against gravity. The
difficulty of overcoming the obstacle of gravity in the
transportation of commercial products is illustrated by
a case at our own doors. From New York to San
Francisco by way of Cape Horn is 16,000 miles; across
the continent it is scarcely 3,000 miles. Yet such a
tremendous barrier is the thousand miles of Rocky
Mountain ranges that freight can be shipped by the
Horn for less than the lowest rate for which the trans-
continental railways can carry it. The Greeks, more-
over, could spread more easily along the Mediterranean
shores than they could cross the Balkans.

Because the transportation of commerce implies a
lift against gravity, it follows that commercial routes
must follow lines that have the nearest approach to a
level — that is, lines of least resistance. Thus the esti-
mation of the effectiveness of the barrier is finally
reduced to the basis of expense.

Now, land routes of transportation cannot be lines
of dead level. Even in the prairies of the great central
plain there are serious problems in overcoming grades.
A long grade of sixty feet to the mile entails an enor-
mous constant expense in the surmounting of it; a
grade of three hundred feet to the mile is practically
prohibitive to steam roads. Every foot therefore of
the lift against gravity means the piling up of expense;
and there are so many places where the maximum limit

514 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

of grade is exceeded that the routes available are few
and far between. It is for that reason that everywhere,
except in the most level of plains, the railway must
seek the river valley and the pass, or else hug a shore
line. These are the lines of least resistance, the routes
of the minimum lift against gravity — and hence the
traffic paths of commerce. Ancient trade routes were
governed by this principle ; the inland steam transpor-
tation of to-day is vastly more sensitive to its applica-
tion. And so the selection of the nineteenth century
traffic route requires the maximum of skill, and its
equipment frequently involves enormous expense.

The effect of opening a trade route is strikingly
illustrated in the case of the Erie canal. From the time
of its settlement, western New York, with its rich food-
producing lands, practically had been cut off from the
markets of the East. At this time the railway scarcely
had been dreamed of and the only possibility of traffic,
except the freight wagon, was a canal. But the con-
struction and operation of a canal involved topographic
conditions hard to find, because the canal must cross
the Appalachian mountains. Of the three or four pos-
sible routes only two were practicable. One of these
lay through the Cumberland gap to the Ohio ; the other
by way of the Hudson estuary and the Mohawk gap to
Lake Erie. Only the latter was of avail to New York.
Construction operations were undertaken on both ca-
nals, but the former was never completed.

The completion of the Erie canal revolutionized
the trade of the United States. Before its opening
Philadelphia was the commercial metropolis of the
country, and nearly all the foreign commerce, except
that landing at Boston, passed over its docks. At that
time, moreover, many if not most of the vessels dis-
charging at the ports of the United States returned in
ballast. With the completion of the canal there was an

igoi.] TRADE ROUTES AND CIVILIZATION 515

open door between the East and the West and thereaf-
ter every vessel discharging at New York was certain
of a return cargo. Under such circumstances is it
strange that the foreign commerce should concentrate
itself at the latter port? There was another item, too ;
wheat, which was a dollar and a half a bushel at New
York, fetched just one-third of that sum at Buffalo ; the
difference in price represented the cost of transporta-
tion. With the completion of the canal the latter was
reduced to forty cents* and the farmer got the other
sixty. Is it surprising that with such tremendous gains
New York should have become the Empire State? And
yet it was all in the selection of the natural trade route
— the line of least resistance — the minimum lift against
gravity.

And even to this day the same trade route is mak-
ing history as rapidly as it did in the early decades of
the century. From Buffalo to New York city a mag-
nificent railway system, with its six tracks, parallels the
canal and the Hudson estuary. From Buffalo to tide-
water the millions of tons of freight are lifted in the ag-
gregate about five hundred feet ; from Chicago along
the shores of the two lakes it is not far from eleven
hundred feet. In the case of the trans-Appalachian
roads the aggregate of up-grades varies from three thou-
sand to five thousand feet. This is the entire lift
against gravity. And that lift means hundreds of ex-
tra locomotives and train crews. It means, moreover,
that in the end the cost of transportation between the
East and the West must be reckoned on the basis o
the Mohawk gap route ; and, whatever may be the
economic history of the United States in the future, its
development will be inseparably connected with this
great line of least resistance.

* From Chicago to New York, by water, it is now about six cents.

HISTORIC CHANGE IN THE CHARACTER OF
INTEREST

In the evolution of industry, interest has had a
very eventful career. From the earliest times it has
been under the ban alike of philosophers, theologians,
moralists, humanitarians and statesmen. The hand of
authority is still raised against it, as seen in the preva-
lence of anti-usury laws. Even in this country interest
is still limited by law, while in no country in Christen-
dom is there any restriction on rent or profits. The
opposition to interest is both older and more intense
than that to any other form of capitalistic distribution.

This is due chiefly to the peculiarity of its early
social character. Although economic interest is essen-
tially of the same nature as rent and profit, being a
part of the surplus created by the use of capital, it
differs from these in that it has a pre-capitalist as well
as a capitalist history.

Interest has always been identified with borrowing
but not with borrowing capital. It acquired its un-
savory reputation long before it had any recognized
association with capital, indeed before capital became a
factor in general industry. While exacting interest for
the loan of money was one of the earliest pre-capitalist
devices, a credit system of industry and capitalistic
production are comparatively recent developments.

In primitive times loans were made, not as now to
increase the efficiency of production and so make the
payment of interest beneficial to borrower as well as to
lender, but money was borrowed chiefly for immediate
domestic consumption and often under the pressure of
dire distress. "Borrowers," says Professor Nicholson,
"were not induced to borrow as a rule with the view
of employing the capital so obtained at a greater profit,

516

. CHANGE IN CHARACTER OF INTEREST 517

but they were compelled of necessity to borrow as a
last resort."

Since such loans yielded no increased income, nor
any income at all in fact, the borrowers were neces-
sarily impoverished to the full extent of the interest
exacted. To borrow a loaf of bread, for example, and
return a loaf and a quarter would necessarily impover-
ish the borrower to the extent of a quarter of a loaf, be-
cause the principal borrowed was used to satisfy hunger
and not to aid in producing more bread. All money so
borrowed to secure food in times of scarcity and famine
increased by so much the poverty of the poor. Borrow-
ing under such circumstances by the needy poor was
practically pawning themselves to the prosperous rich
for the necessaries of life. It is not surprising, there-
fore, that under such conditions the spirit of justice and
humanity should array itself vigorously against interest
as an unjust exaction of the rich from the poor. That
this was the case among the early Jews is clear from
the terms of the Mosaic code forbidding usury :

" If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou
shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him
usury."1 Again: "If thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay
with thee; then thou shalt relieve him. . . . Thou shalt not give
him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase."8
41 Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother: usury of money, usury
of victuals, usury of anything that is lent upon usury." 3

The practice seems to have been too prevalent and
too profitable for even Moses, backed by divine author-
ity, to suppress it altogether, so by way of compromise
he limited his prohibition to the Jews in their dealings
with one another, but gave them express permission to
continue exacting usury from strangers. 4 Despite the

O Exodus XXII., 25. (2) Leviticus XXV., 35, 37.

(3) Deuteronomy XXIII., 19. Cf. Psalms XV., 1-7. Nehemiah
V., 2-5.

(4) "Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury; but unto thy
brother thou shalt not lend upon usury." Deuteronomy XXIII., 20.

518 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

injunction of Moses against usury it continued to be a
lucrative means of exploiting the poor. And, under
the prevalent custom of making bondage the penalty
for debt, 1 usury became a direct cause of slavery.

A thousand years later we find the people com-
plaining "against their brethren the Jews." Some
said : ' ' We have mortgaged our lands, vineyards, and
houses, that we might buy corn, because of the dearth.'*
Others said : " We have borrowed money for the king's
tribute, and that upon our lands and vineyards . . .
and, lo, we bring into bondage our sons and our
daughters to be servants, and some of our daughters
are brought unto bondage already : neither is it in our
power to redeem them ; for other men have our lands
and our vineyards."2 The prevalence of this is also
shown by Job's complaint about giving children in
pledge, 3 and by the widow's cry to Elisha that * ' the
creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be
bondmen."4

Nor was this peculiar to the Jews ; similar condi-
tions prevailed throughout the ancient world. Under
the Roman republic " the insolvent debtor was either
put to death or sold in foreign slavery beyond the
Tiber."5 So also in ancient Greece. We are told that
the Athenian like the Roman debtor had often sunk
under the legalized oppression of his creditor into an
actual slave and had from time to time been sold and
exported.

There is abundant evidence that this debtor-slave
system with usury as its chief handmaid was a general
feature of pre- capitalistic society. "At Athens," we
are told, "up to the time of Solomon an insolvent

(*) Leviticus XXV,, 39-50. (2) Nehemiah V., i, 3, 4, 5.
O Job XXIV., 9. (4) 2 Kings, IV., i.

(5) Gibbon's " Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," Vol. IV.,
P. 373-

i9oi.] CHANGE IN CHAR A CTER OF INTEREST 519

debtor became the slave of his creditor."1 " Every
debtor, "says Grote,2 " unable to fulfil his contract was
liable to be adjudged as the slave of his creditor ....
So severely had these oppressive contracts been en-
forced that many debtors had been reduced from free-
dom to slavery in Attica itself, — many others had been
sold for exportation, — and some had only hitherto pre-
served their own freedom by selling their children."
By this means the population of Attica, which is esti-
mated to have approximated 240,000 souls, had 173,000
slaves, or about three out of every four. 3 In ancient
India the same general system prevailed. According
to Buchanan,4 it was established both by law and cus-
tom that if a laborer was unable to pay his debts he or
his wife and children became the property of the
creditor. Turner found the same customs in Bengal. 5
Little wonder, therefore, that hatred of usury and
usurers should be among the earliest phases of social
discontent. The protests, often reaching to conspiracy
and revolt, with which the leaders of the Jews and the
ancient kings had to deal, arose from the impoverish-
ment and slavery resulting from converting debtors
into slaves, which was commonly the result of borrow-
ing for bread. It was to quell the revolution and utter
disruption of Greece from this cause that led Solon to
introduce his sweeping revolutionary reforms, chief
among which was the abolition of debt and the slavery
that had resulted therefrom. It was this which led
Aristotle to condemn interest as unnatural and hateful
on the theory that money does not breed money. To

(1) Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. XXII., p. 130.

(2) "History of Greece," Vol. I., p. 580.

(3) Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. XXII., p. 130.

(4) "Journey through the Countries of Mysore, Canara and Mal-
abar," Vol. II., pp. 320-562.

(5) "Embassy to the Court of Thibet," pp. 10-11. Cf. Ashley's
" English Economic History," Vol. II., p. 398.

520 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

demand interest for money loaned to an unfortunate
neighbor for " victuals" was detestably oppressive.
Hence he says : l

" Usury is most reasonably detested, as the increase of our fortune
arises from the money itself, and not by employing it to the purpose for
which it was intended. For it was devised for the sake of exchange, but
usury multiplies it. And hence usury has received the name of TOKOS
or "produce," for whatever is produced is itself like its parents; and
usury is merely money born of money: so that of all means of money-
making this is the most contrary to nature."

The enmity to the Jew in Europe during the mid-
dle ages and in Russia to-day is due mainly to the same
cause: namely, exacting interest for loans used for
immediate personal purposes and not for productive
investment. Clearly, every dollar of such interest im-
poverishes the borrower, and under the system of
slavery for debt makes him the property of the lender.
Every social instinct and ethical impulse naturally
revolts against a system which converted what ought
to have been a neighborly kindness into a means of
oppression and slavery.

The censure of usury among the Jews by Moses
and the prophets, its condemnation in Greece by the
reforms of Solon and the philosophy of Aristotle,
Roman legislation against it in the twelve tables and
the Justinian code, and the crusade of canonists and
schoolmen against it in the middle ages, were but the
logical result of thirty centuries of experience. But it
was experience under pre-capitalist conditions, where,
as we have seen, usury meant the impoverishment and
sometimes slavery of the borrower.

With the division of labor and development of
capitalist production a new industrial era began, in
which all this was radically changed. To be sure, bor-
rowing continued but under different economic condi-

(>) "Politics and Economics." Book I., Chapter X., Gillies' Transla-
tion, p. 25.

1 9oi. J CHA NGE IN CHA RA CTER OF INTEREST 521

tions and from entirely different motives. The advent
of capitalist production brought with it a new industrial
class whose function was to furnish laborers with tools,
pay them wages and assume all the responsibilities of
the enterprise. As this system extended, employment
became more regular and permanent and laborers lost
both the motive and the means for extensive borrowing.
In the first place, the greater regularity of income
tended to make borrowing for mere domestic consump-
tion less necessary, and, laborers having neither crops
nor merchandise to pledge, the inducement to lend
them money disappeared, and charity took its place,
first by giving alms, encouraged by the Christian
teaching, then enforced by the church, and finally, as
now, provided by the state. Moreover, since capitalists
who alone could give security would borrow only for
productive purposes, they, of course, would continue to
borrow only so long as the increased product equalled
the interest paid for the loan, — no other motive would
induce the borrowing. In this way, by the mere force
of industrial differentiation and development, borrow-
ing was changed from an uneconomic to an economic
basis, and interest became a means of increasing pro-
duction instead of a device for increasing poverty. In
other words, through the industrial transition of society
by the advent of a distinctive capitalist industrial class,
interest changed from an immoral extortion to a moral
distribution of wealth.

This transition, however, was slow and long drawn
out. The progress of capitalist production for centuries
was too slight to give public emphasis to this economic
transition and command serious consideration for the
new aspect of the subject. Consequently, the pre-
capitalist theory of interest Continued long into the
period of capitalist industry. It should be remembered
that for the first twelve centuries of the Christian era, eco-

522 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

nomic theory and public policy, as well as the standards
for personal conduct, were determined by the church.
All high authority on religion and philosophy was
arrayed against interest for the highest ethical reasons.
The injunctions of Moses against usury, the teachings
of Aristotle on the "barrenness of money," and the
Christian command to ' * lend, hoping for nothing again, "
made a moral bulwark against usury, in the interest of
humanity, philanthropy and neighborly kindness.

Nor was this the only economic subject upon which
the church exercised its authority, and, to its credit be
it said, so far at least as its teachings were concerned
the economic authority of the church was used in the
interest of equity and protection of the poor, especially
in regard to prices. The masses were for the most part
quasi -slaves. The church took an early stand against
chattel slavery and always resisted the pagan cus-
tom of slavery -for -debt, and substituted charity for
borrowing bread. An important economic question
then was to prevent the simple freemen from being
swindled in their purchases. Hence honest selling was
made a moral and religious question rather than an
economic one. Was it allowable, according to the
golden rule, ' « to sell a thing for more than it is
worth?" l For a long time it was laid down as a sin to
charge more for a thing than it was worth, the cost of
production being taken as the measure of worth. 2 Thus
it was made sinful to sell a thing for more than it cost,
a doctrine which, to say the least, contains a strong
element of economic equity.

The tendency of producers to seek a profit naturally
led to a multitude of ways of evading this principle.
Hence we find, during the twelfth and thirteenth cen-
turies, a gradual but steady modification of the doctrine

(J) Ashley's "Economic History," Vol. I. p. 134.
(«)Ibid. p. 138.

i9oi.] CHANGE IN CHARACTER OF INTEREST 523

that "cost is the limit of price." At the time of
Thomas Aquinas it was argued that if a purchaser would
suffer greatly for the want of a thing he might properly
give the dealer a little more than it was worth ' ' from
good feeling,"1 though the seller might not properly
exact it. A little later it was argued that a man might
charge more for a thing than it cost to provide against
loss at some other time, which he was forced to incur. So
too, with reference to the quality of goods. On the
rigid application of the golden rule it was at first laid
down as highly sinful to sell defective goods without
pointing out the defects to the customer, and then this
doctrine was modified so as to permit selling of defec-
tive goods without exposing the defect, provided the
defect would not cause loss to the purchaser.

All this shows how the church, which was the sole
authority on economics, struggled to keep business on
an ethical basis and force the observance of the golden
rule in the market. It is not surprising, therefore, that
interest was kept under the ban long after it had ceased
to be an immoral exaction. The schoolmen of the
thirteenth century were scarcely less students of Aris-
totle than teachers of Christianity. Hence the doctrine
that " money is barren " and "cannot breed money "
was clung to as sound economic philosophy and the
command to " lend, hoping for nothing again " was the
highest Christian philanthropy. But in the industrial
transition one important fact had occurred which made
the condition of the common people, even in the mid-
dle ages, radically different from that in ancient Greece,
Rome and Palestine: namely, that the element of
slavery for debt had entirely disappeared, and that the
habit and even possibility of borrowing for food prac-
tically was gone. The capitalist had assumed the re-
sponsibility of furnishing employment and paying
O ibid. p. 136.

524 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June

wages, and the church had assumed the responsibility
of dispensing charity to the needy ; so that, with the
establishment of Christianity slavery for debt was
abolished, and by the advent of the capitalist system
the custom of borrowing for bread had disappeared.

Interest now became a matter of economic equity
rather than social oppression, and while it was anathe-
matized the anathema was necessarily modified as the
evils disappeared and as the benefits became apparent.
This tendency became so marked that by the fourteenth
and particularly the fifteenth century borrowing at in-
terest became an economic necessity to business and its
prohibition a detriment to society. When the payment
of interest thus became a positive benefit to both bor-
rower and lender its suppression became practically
impossible as well as injurious. It must be said in favor
of the Christians that the principle has always been
theoretically applied to all. They did not permit the
Christians to take interest of strangers while forbidding
it to their brethren, as did Moses. Yet, in the progress
of events, when interest became a business necessity
and the church was still refusing to withdraw its cen-
sure, it directed its penalties for usury mainly against
the Jews. It may be that they were the chief sinners
in this respect and often exacted more than the ' ' pound
of flesh," but they received the penalty in the cumula-
tive wrath of the Christians.

In England, for instance, the whole nation practi-
cally turned to persecuting the Jews. They were
hemmed in on every hand by law ; they were not al-
lowed to hold real property nor employ Christian ser-
vants nor even to move through the streets without a
colored badge on their breasts to distinguish their race.
They were not allowed to build synagogues nor eat
with Christians nor act as physicians for any but their
own race. As the culmination of this persecuting

igoi.J CHANGE IN CHARACTER OF INTEREST 525

fanaticism, in 1290 all who would not become Christians
were expelled from the country. "Of the sixteen
thousand," says Green,1 "who preferred exile to apos-
tasy few reached the shores of France. Many were
wrecked, others robbed and flung overboard. One ship-
master turned a crew of wealthy merchants out on a
sandbank, and bade them call a new Moses to save them
from the sea. From the time of Edward to that of
Cromwell no Jew touched English ground."

Although the exacting of usury in its many offen-
sive forms was doubtless very largely the cause of this
hatred of the Jews, as it is now in Russia, their expul-
sion did not stop the payment of interest. On the con-
trary, its payment became indispensable to industry,
and the doctrine of the church gradually adjusted itself
to the persistent necessities of society. In the four-
teenth century it began to be argued that interest might
be exacted where loss had occurred, but the loss must
be proven. Then it was admitted that interest might
be demanded to cover probable loss, and finally it was
admitted that interest might properly be charged to
compensate for the "loss of opportunity " for otherwise
profitably using the money.

As industry developed and freedom advanced, po-
litical government superseded ecclesiastical authority
in secular and particularly industrial affairs. The next
step was to limit the amount of interest that might be
taken. Under the Tudors this became a matter of law.
The first decisive step in this direction was taken in
1545, the last year of Henry VIII. 's reign; it restricted
the rate of interest to a maximum of 10 per cent. It
had previously been much higher. This to the old-
fashioned Christians seemed like legalizing what was
forbidden by the word of God, and caused a reaction
against interest, and the law was repealed in 1552 only
[l] "A Short History of the English People," p. 224.

526 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE

to be reenacted twenty years later (1571), since which
time interest has been legally recognized by the state
and morally recognized by the church and economically
demanded by society.

Historically, therefore, the economic as well as
ethical character of interest has undergone a complete
revolution. Moses and the prophets, Solon and Aris-
totle, Aquinas and the scholastics, were right in de-
nouncing interest as oppressive and immoral, because in
their time it was a direct means of poverty and slavery.
So, during the first thousand years of the Christian era,
the injunction to "lend, hoping for nothing again,"
was the embodiment of moral philosophy and economic
equity, but, when the new industrial era came and eco-
nomic production involved borrowing capital for the
purpose of increasing productive power, interest be-
came helpful to society. As is always the case, neither
religion, philosophy nor law could permanently prevail
against the silent working of economic forces. Hence,
when the profitable use of capital made the payment of
interest as beneficial to borrowers as to lenders, it grad-
ually and inevitably became a recognized feature of
legitimate business. In ultimately changing its atti-
tude on the subject, the church did but follow the
movement of progress, and it is economically and ethi-
cally as correct now in justifying interest as it was from
the first to the thirteenth centuries in opposing it.
Those who quote the sayings of Moses, Solon, Aristotle
and the early Christian fathers as arguments against
modern interest, show, like Rip Van Winkle, that they
have lost track of time and missed the movements and
metamorphoses of social progress. They are asking
for the methods of barbarism because they understand
not the economics of civilization.

INDUSTRIAL AWAKENING OF THE SOUTH

LEONORA BECK ELLIS

It is not always a conspicuous event that marks the
turning point in momentous issues. Seamen may note
changed tides and currents from trivial floatage. There
came a day in the autumn of 1899 when Liverpool,
whose immemorial privilege of dictating the price of
our great staple had never previously been questioned,
was offering seven cents per pound for cotton; New
York, needless to add, was offering the same ; but the
buyer for the Kincaid cotton mills, in the little town of
Griffin, Georgia, went to the wagoner with the accept-
able offer of seven and a half cents.

This did not mean that a serious blunder had been
made somewhere ; it was, on the contrary, a premature
sign, trifling, transient, and read by few, but pointing
assuredly to a victory of unmeasured import about to
be achieved by the southern mill men. A score of
factories in the same belt quietly followed Griffin's pre-
cedent, and the English buyers stood confused and un-
certain of purpose. Yet there was no stir or commo-
tion to draw the gaze of the outside world ; and thou-
sands, probably millions, even of those whose interests
were closely involved, remained blind to the shifting
of the mighty balance.

In the planting months of the succeeding year,
change pressed sharply upon change, each sweeping a
conscious pace nearer to the overthrow of old conditions.
Before the market had fairly felt the movement of the
cotton harvest of 1900, before, indeed, the revolution-
ary prices of the present season were definitely fore-
shadowed, it became manifest to all serious onlookers
that the revolution itself was achieved ; that the section

527

528 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

producing three- fourths of the world's cotton had
wrested from abroad the prerogative which belongs to
her, the right long unclaimed but inherently inalien-
able, of getting her own valuation upon this magnifi-
cent annual contribution to the wealth of nations.

The South has come to her own. Lancashire may
not know it ; but the lower Atlantic and gulf states no
longer constitute a mere agricultural tract, huge, un-
wieldly, badly tilled, with transportation dependent
almost solely upon wagon roads and water ways, with
scattered towns and a sparse and anomalous population
composed of but two classes, the man with the hoe and
the landed aristocracy.

The world must learn, instead, that this vast area,
comprehending nearly three-quarters of a million square
miles, endowed by nature with marvelous climatic and
topographical advantages as well as practically inex-
haustible mineral, forest, water and soil wealth, is now
threaded by something like 46,000 miles of railway,
while its facilities for coast and river navigation are be-
ing daily improved ; that its prosperous cities are draw-
ing population and capital from every part of the globe ;
that between the tillers of the soil and the autocratic
element once controlling alike issues of economic sig-
nificance, social interest and state policy, there has
sprung up a numerous class, vigorous, versatile, clear-
headed, composed of men sometimes with money and
blood and sometimes without one or both, but men
who urge that the present is the ripe moment for this
section to rise to the fulfillment of her destiny as an in-
tegral and adequate part of our great federal union,
and that she can only do so by the same judicious utili-
zation of her resources and opportunities that the East
has shown. The first conclusion to which their doctrine
has led is practical and far from complex, but it has a
revolutionary significance in the industrial world ; it is,

i9oi.] INDUSTRIAL A WAKENING OF THE SOUTH 529

that we are to turn a yearly increasing portion of onr
own raw products into finished articles of use before we
let the outside world, even the sisters of our house, lay
hands on them; it is, to specify in one direction, that
old and new England are shortly to be brought into line
with China, Japan, and eventually all other countries
of the globe, as purchasers not of our cotton but of our
cotton cloths and garments.

Manufacturing scorned or belittled in the South?
That is a lost sentiment, belonging to a past which,
though picturesque and with much of pleasure in it, is
also lost. Something with better seeds of vitality, en-
durance, and worth, is found in its place.

England in the sixteenth century felt the first de-
cided movings of the same impulse that now throbs-
from Virginia to Texas. She went into that critical
period a third rate, or, it is more accurate to say, a.
fourth rate power; she came out an acknowledged
leader among nations, with a primacy the strength and
duration of which no one now hesitates to attribute in
great part to the commercial ascendancy acquired
through her immense manufacturing interests. Few
will dispute the claim that when the subjects of Eliza-
beth ceased to send their fleeces to be woven in Flanders
and dyed in Florence they had worked out an achieve-
ment of better worth and more notable results than
when they defeated Philip's armada. In the wake of
that great wave of spinning, weaving, fulling, and dye-
ing, which spread from the English towns to the whole
country side, there swept along, moreover, all other
practicable forms of manufacturing then developed ;
and behind these followed a prosperity and comfort
that came to include low as well as high, the dissemi-
nation of intelligence and education, and a patriotism
of truer, more imperishable fibre. Great, undeniably,
is English valor, renowned the prowess of the seamen

530 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

and soldiers who have victoriously entered nearly every
port and fort both in and out of civilization. But do
not forget that before Great Britain was recognized as
mistress of the seas, her merchant marine was whiten-
ing the Atlantic ocean, the Levantine waters, and
countless bays and inlets along which good markets
were to be found ; that before the court of St. James
began to be looked to first in every European crisis,
London was acknowledged the mart of the world. With
such facts in his mind, no one need undervalue the new
manufacturing movement in the cotton belt of the
United States.

From the point of view of more than one man, one
class, or one section, it is unfortunate that this country
should have developed less normally, more unevenly,
than climatic differences necessitated or advantages in
the character of the early population and the first dis-
tribution of economic forces required. In studying the
development of the material resources of other coun-
tries, the fact becomes manifest that they have usually
followed more natural lines, that the accidental or the
abnormal in such evolution has been eliminated with
greater readiness than in our case. Their capital, en-
terprise, and ability have in general sprung up beside
their raw products, and industrial growth with them
has thus been an uncomplicated process. For plain
instances, recall that Champagne first grew its vast
sunny vineyards and then made the favorite wine of the
world ; that Ireland and the Netherlands not only pro-
duce the flax but send their fine linens to all civilized
countries; that the Jacquard loom was invented and
has hummed ever since in the shadows of the white
mulberry terraces ; that the clays and sands of Limoges,
Sevres, Saxony, Worcestershire, held the original im-
pulse that converted those spots into seats each of a
globe-compassing industry.

igoi.] INDUSTRIAL A WAKENING OF THE SOUTH 531

In the early days of our own country, manufactur-
ing was carried on wholly in a domestic way, and the
various colonies exhibited about equal thrift in occupa-
tions so worthy. On the plantations along the lower
seaboard, all the plain clothes, household fabrics, shoes,
and hats were made from the raw materials at hand,
the home-grown wools, flax, hemp, hides, and the
huntsmen's furs, and practically the same system pre-
vailed in Pennsylvania and New England. The farm-
ing implements likewise were of home manufacture,
the nails, cooking utensils, and countless other articles.
Bloomery forges and smithies, household looms, tan-
neries, boot, shoe, and carpenter shops, were essential
parts of every well-conducted domestic cosmos on the
large estates. From the earliest days of the Carolinas
and Georgia, silk-weaving as a domestic industry as-
sumed promising proportions, and great expectations
were built upon after that famous anniversary on which
Queen Caroline wore her handsome and much sonnet-
ized gown of Georgian silk.

But in 1621 a handful of cotton seed had been
brought to this country from Cyprus or Smyrna and
planted in a Virginian garden, where they grew rather
unthriftly for a few seasons. The hour came when a
vagrant dreamer, who was laughed at for his pains,
predicted that the sorry-looking plant was yet to banish
the silk worm from this continent, crowd out the indigo
harvests, narrow down the flax, hemp, tobacco, and
grain areas. But it was only by some fortunate em-
piricism that the rusty stalks and white fruitage found
their way to more propitious soil and air than the gar-
dens of tide-water Virginia could furnish. The house-
hold looms shortly created a demand for wider and
wider cultivation. England had begun to buy Levan-
tine cotton and manufacture it in a small way some
twenty years after the handful of seed was brought to

532 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

her colony on the James River. When the revolution-
ary war ended, and the young states with the British
instinct strong in them began to cast about for a profit-
able foreign trade, one of their earliest export ship-
ments was that of 1,200 pounds of cotton, in the year
1784, to the abandoned mother- country : a meager con-
tribution it seems when her annual consumption was
already 11,250,00 pounds, but as a foretokening it held
a ponderous import.

A dozen years more and new machinery, with the
harnessing of new power, had made the mighty indus-
trial revolution complete. Why was not the cotton-
producing section ready then to become England's rival
as a cotton-manufacturing center? For the plain reason
that the slave population had crowded out and made
impossible the growth of the classes that alone could
promote and carry on such an industry. The presence
of slave-trade and the conditions of slave-labor had pre-
vented the filling up of that vast gap between the land-
holding aristocracy and their human chattels.

The opportunity which the South found herself
absolutely unable to grasp was, to the satisfaction of
both, seized by democratic and enterprising New Eng-
land. Her mechanic and laboring classes were large,
capable, and thrifty. Transportation of the raw mate-
rial to her factories would be a simpler matter than
across the Atlantic. She built her great mills, one fol-
lowing another speedily ; she rilled them with the best
machinery and most intelligent labor; and for the
South's fine fibre she seconded old England in paying
prices that made the plantation lords forget their for-
feited inheritance and sink into easy contentment. The
entire North drew lessons from Fall River and Lowell,
and factories sprung up everywhere in that section.
For the products of such mills markets opened on all

igoi.] INDUSTRIAL A WAKENING OF THE SOUTH 533

sides and the wealth of the world rewarded " Yankee"
enterprise.

Meantime, below Mason and Dixon's line the fatal
element of slavery was working out its inevitable trag-
edy. The disaster came at last in the form of a life
and death struggle that ended in the semblance of death
to the South. The depths of suffering and poverty to
which her people were hurled by the appalling cata-
clysm can never be adequately portrayed, nor can the
protracted period of torpor be wondered at by anyone
who reflects that the slaves emancipated without reim-
bursement represented a loss of 83,000,000,000 to a
white population of less than 5,000,000, and the de-
struction that goes hand in hand with war eliminated
or rendered useless almost that much more in public
and private buildings and works. This, to say nothing
of a labor-system in chaos and nearly half a million
homes deprived of their defenders and supporters !

But the principle of life in a race of this blood is
not easy to crush out. Resuscitation set in at last, fol-^
lowed by slow but complete restoration to usefulness
and happiness. The southern people have shown them-
selves as hardy as they are brave, and have wrought out
their own salvation from an almost impossible situation
with a courage and energy scarce short of miraculous.
While they were painfully restoring their homes and
instituting the difficult reorganization of labor, they en-
deavored also to repair other ravages, to rehabilitate
arts and industry, to offer all advantages they could
possibly muster to the influx of new population and
capital among them.

Meantime, the wise and strong among us have
preached and led the good crusade towards the entire
remodeling of our agricultural system and the protec-
tion of it by those invincible bulwarks of well-estab-
lished commerce and well-developed manufactures.

534 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

When the vast plantations rolling back from the lower
Atlantic and the gulf of Mexico were white with the
mimic snow so readily convertible into Danae's shower
of gold, it was not wholly destructive to crown cotton
as king absolute and sacrifice some valuable things to
such a cult. But when the struggling farmers and their
poor tenants were alike starving, with the price of their
most valuable product forced steadily downward until
it touched six, five, and finally four and a half cents per
pound, it was time to depose the despot, or, better,
make him the head of the most liberal constitutional
monarchy.

This has been done. A prudently measured diver-
sity of crops is proved by the bulletins of 1900 from
every agricultural commission in the South. On the
other hand, clear heads everywhere recognize that a
home market for the raw cotton and the whole world as
a market for their cotton goods is the destiny towards
which the cotton-growing states are rapidly sweeping.
When this section reaches the point it is now aiming
squarely at, that is, the point where it makes all its own
bread and meat and at the same time transfers every
pound of its cotton direct from the ginneries to the
home mills, it may roll up the number of millions of
bales, multiplying indefinitely, but there can be no such
thing as overproduction. The demand of the growing
nations will increase as the South's capacity increases.

It would be difficult to point out another industry
in another country exhibiting the same phenomenal
growth as cotton manufacturing in the South. In the
decade since 1890, our number of spindles has increased
from 1,699,082 to approximately 7,000,000, while the
looms have kept a fairly even pace with the spindles,
and the quality of goods manufactured has averged con-
stantly higher. Moreover, textile institutions, formerly
an unknown factor here, are springing up in every cot-

1 9oi.] INDUSTRIAL A WAKENING OF THE SOUTH 535

ton state, thus assuring to the movement both worth
and perpetuity. No one can fail to interpret these facts.
North Carolina manufactures the * whole of her cotton
crop of 1900 and demands more, while South Carolina
and Georgia are consuming very large proportions of
their vaster ones. With these facts, there must be taken
into account the additional one that there is no present ex-
pansion of the industry of any consequence at a distance
from the cotton fields either on this continent or in the
old world.

Emerson's warning about the famous might that
dwells in recoil and reaction is often of late repeated to
us, but it does not apply in this case. Growth along
natural lines, however rapid in the sappy spring, is
never pendulous or retroactive.

All the economic conditions are favorable to the
transplantation of this mighty industry in its entirety
to southern soil. It is not merely proximity to the
cotton fields that renders it expedient, but the marvel-
ous abundance of building materials, the copious water
power, the nearness of vast coal fields and timber
stretches that give us fuel often at less than half the
price paid in New England, the long summers and
brief mild winters that make heating and lighting far
less expensive, and the presence of an ample supply of
native white labor, There is a supplementary claim to
all these put forward by a number of practical cotton
manufacturers who have tested the matter with thor-
oughness and assert, from experience, that in this
milder climate the machinery ' 'treats" the delicate fibre
more favorably and with better results than under the
influence of the long and rigorous northern winters.

Space is not allowed, in the compass of a single
article, to set forth proof that southern industries in
any other line are keeping pace with that of cotton
manufacturing, or that our own commercial centers are

536 G UNTON'S MA GAZINE

meeting the movement with adequate forces ; but one
who cares to look into the matter further may read the
official reports from the Alabama iron districts, the
Carolina and Florida phosphate fields, and the hundreds
of minor industries that are springing up to make the
new development symmetrical. He will also observe
how amazing has been the gain of the southern ports in
the past half a dozen years.

The question presents itself at last : In taking our
own, do we hurt sister sections? The answer is a
ready negative: a temporary inconvenience which
eventually regulates abnormal development can do no
harm ; rather, it passes to leave a permanent good.

Industrial and commercial considerations must be
taken more and more from the national point of view,
and with a truly national sympathy to direct them, if
we are to assume and maintain our normal position in
the forefront of progressive peoples. Through the
more generous, wider-reaching Americanism which has
been forged in the white heat of recent circumstance,
superseding petty local jealousies and smiting out pro-
vincial narrowness, the whole great empire of the West
must find matter of satisfaction in this new adjustment
and distribution of economic forces.

EDITORIAL CRUCIBLE

THE TOLEDO Blade is getting quite hilarious over
the fact that our exports to the Philippines have increased
more than twenty-fold since we took possession. This
sounds well, but the Blade seems to forget that nearly
all this increase (about §2,000,000) is for the United
States government itself in conducting the war. Enough
of that kind of exports would be disastrous both to us
and to the Philippines.

IN THE Commoner Mr. Bryan reads a very excellent
little moral lecture on plagiarism, and aptly says :

"As the wrongful ness of ordinary larceny does not depend upon the
discovery of the theft, so the offence of plagiarism is the same whether
it is found out or not."

All writers and speakers who have ideas or power
of expression have occasion thoroughly to agree with
Mr. Bryan. Congressman McCall may now properly
expect to receive the belated acknowledgement of the
celebrated " cross-and-crown " peroration.

THE MARYLAND Gorman law seems to have proved
the unexpected. It has shown that when illiteracy and
ignorance are eliminated the South is not so uncondi-
tionally " democratic " as was supposed; that after all
the chief element that has made the South " solid " for
delivery to anything labeled democratic is ignorance,
not color, and, when the voting in the southern states
is really left to the intelligent people with education
enough to read, there is a division of opinion on public
.affairs very much the same as in other states. That is
a wholesome discovery.

NOTHING so complimentary to the influence of this
country abroad has ever occurred as the recent petition

537

538 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

presented to General Chaffee by a mass meeting of
Chinamen in Peking. It shows that in China as every-
where else decency and fairness make an impression.
Had all the missionaries as nearly lived up to Christian
precepts as General Chaffee has, they would not now
be under the painful necessity of having to defend, ex-
plain or apologize for many of their doings in China.
The conduct of our army in China is a credit to the
United States and to western civilization.

CONGRESSMAN DICK of Ohio, once the power be-
hind the throne in the republican national committee,
has become a convert to government ownership of tele-
graphs and telephones on the ground that the post-
office is a success, The only reason that the post-office
has not gone into bankruptcy long ago is that its losses
are made up out of the taxes. Does Col. Dick want to
see the industries of the country run in the same way?
With our present " boss "-ridden system of politics, and
its corrupting jobbery, what reason is there to suppose
great industries would be more honestly or efficiently
conducted? Before industries can be transferred to
public control, with any real hope of improvement, a
higher standard of integrity and efficiency in public
service must be established.

CONGRESSMAN BABCOCK seems to think that cater-
ing to anti-trust sentiment by removing the duty from
" trust "-made products is " living up to the republican
theory of protection." If he imagines the republican
majority in congress can be kept up by this kind of tac-
tics, he is doomed to disappointment. When it comes
to mere posing for popular applause, Mr. Bryan can
win every time. If the republicans are to keep their
power at all they must rise to the level of honest and
intelligent protection to industrial interests. It is true

EDITORIAL CRUCIBLE 539

that there are products upon which the tariff may prop-
erly be modified or even removed, but that should not
be done for any such foolish reason as the formation of
a so-called " trust." Mr. Babcock seems to be more
interested in the politics than the economics of the
tariff.

IN A CIRCULAR recently sent to the affiliated unions
throughout the country, President Gompers gave work-
ingmen some very wholesome advice. He laid it down
as a rule that :

No strike should be inaugurated until every effort has been made by
the committee to settle the differences with the employer.

Arbitration should be offered before the strike is begun.

It is easier to adjust a difference before a strike than after.

No unauthorized strike should be recognized or supported.

Secret ballots should always be used when voting on strike matters

When the union enters into an agreement with an employer, its
terms should be faithfully kept, regardless of the temptations to break it.

The efforts of the unions should be concentrated to reduce the hours
of labor until the eight-hour day is established.

If these recommendations were faithfully lived up
to, the trade-union movement would escape much criti-
cism and be very much stronger with the public and
unorganized labor as well as with its own members.

MR. CHARLES M. SCHWAB seems to be following
very closely in the footsteps of his master, but evi-
dently, when he made his recent speech to the boys of
the St. George Manual Training School, he had not
been informed of Mr. Carnegie's change of front on
college education. He told them that a college educa-
tion puts a young man ' ' so far behind in the race that
he can never catch up." Of course Mr. Carnegie used
to talk in a similar strain, but his gift of ten million
dollars to make education free in the universities of
Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and St. Andrews shows
he has entirely changed front. This is not merely a

540 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

radical change on Mr. Carnegie's part but it is an as-
tonishing innovation in university education. Mr.
Schwab had better line up at once. It will not do for
him to be opposing college education when Mr. Car
negie is giving millions to make it as free as air.

IT APPEARS after all that the outcry about "mo-
nopoly," against the United States Steel corporation,
is a false alarm. Mr. Willis L. King, representing
Jones and Laughlin, one of the largest firms in the iron
and steel business, recently stated before the industrial
commission that the independent manufacturers had
nothing to fear from the "trusts." On the contrary,
he thinks that the trust is quite as vulnerable as the in-
dependents, especially if the latter combine. If this be
true — and Mr. King is a high authority — good, strong,
wholesome competition is still assured in the iron and
steel industry. The fact is that the iron and steel in-
dustry is too large to be monopolized by any single
corporation. A concern large enough to monopolize
that industry in this country would be too large for
successful administration. There is really little danger
of actual monopoly.

THE FORCES for the campaign to wrest the govern-
ment of New York city from Tammany are beginning
to assemble. It is quite significant that from every
faction comes the keynote that unity against Tammany
is the single issue. If this can really be made the plat-
form and all anti-Tammany elements will enthusiasti-
cally organize under that banner, without qualification
as to distribution of patronage, there will at least be a
good fight and possibly a victory. But if the citizen's
union insists upon a number of crank propositions and
the republican organization demands certain appoint-
ments, a Tammany victory will be assured. The co-

igoi.] EDITORIAL CRUCIBLE 541

operation of republicans as well as all an ti- Tammany
citizens is essential if the contest is to be anything more
than a sham fight. If Quigg and Platt demand their
pay in advance by dictating candidates or other deals,
Tammany might as well be given the walkover and the
public allowed to know specifically who is keeping
Tammany in power. No arrangement which shall give
the patronage of the city over to the Platt and Quigg
element would be worth the fighting for.

THOSE WHO are disposed to censure the working-
men for inaugurating strikes when they are getting
good wages, seem to forget that this is nearly the only
way workmen can secure a share of the national pros-
perity. A few cases have occurred where employers
have voluntarily given shorter hours or an advance of
wages. On the first of May last year the Standard Oil
Company raised the wages and shortened the hours of
its forty thousand laborers without being asked, but
this is a rare exception. For the most part every de-
mand is refused until the laborers take the means to
make it cost the employers more to refuse than to grant
the request. The machinists' strike is a clear case in
point. They ask for a nine-hour day, — a very legiti-
mate and proper request. It is refused. If the metal
manufacturers of this country cannot afford to give the
mechanics the nine-hour day now, when business is
booming and profits are bubbling, they never can.
There is no reasonable ground for refusing a nine-hour
day for American mechanics, and if they conduct the
strike with decorum and respect for law and order they
will in all probability get it.

IN TESTIFYING before the industrial commission, on
trusts, Mr. Schwab took a side thrust at labor unions,
charging that :

543 GUNTON'b MAGAZINE

"Under the labor-union system all members are reduced to a dead
level of equality, and the wage scale largely is determined by the worth
and capability of the cheapest workman, instead of the most capable and
highest priced. This narrows opportunity, dulls ambition and gives no
man a chance to rise."

This is the old stale charge against trade unions,
which never was sustained because in any general sense
it never was true. It is not surprising that the federa-
tion of labor has asked to submit a rebuttal to Mr.
Schwab's statement on this point, and we shall be
greatly surprised if it does not effectively dispose of him
to his discredit. Mr. Schwab appears to have imbibed
the bad as well as the good in Mr. Carnegie's methods.
The treatment of organized labor, and especially that
disastrous conflict at Homestead in 1892, stands out and
probably will forever stand out as a blot on the indus-
trial management of Mr. Carnegie, which no amount of
free libraries can ever obliterate.

That workingmen make mistakes, are narrow, sus-
picous and sometimes treacherous, and do not always
keep their agreements, will not be denied. They have
all the weaknesses that ignorance and crude conditions
naturally produce, but their improvement can only come
along the same lines as the improvement of all other
classes — association and organization. Of this Mr.
Schwab, as the president of the billion-and-a-half dollar
steel corporation, is the most conspicuous representa-
tive. A more striking spectacle of unfairness could
hardly be found than the head of the steel "trust" ar-
guing before the industrial commission against the right
of workingmen to organize in their own interest. A
mere sense of the fitness of things should have admon-
ished Mr. Schwab to be silent on that subject.

THE ECOLE LIBRE IN PARIS

LEON MEAD

This article treats of an institution which has a
unique history and is among the foremost of its kind in
the world ; and, as a similar school may be founded
sooner or later in this country, it should be said at the
outset that the Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques, in Paris,
is in many particulars most worthy of our imitation.
In fact, several universities in the United States have
already established courses modelled upon those pur-
sued in this institution.

Inaugurated in 1871, its founder, Emile Boutmy,
who is still its director, had perceived that while liberal
culture existed in France among the middle classes it
lacked prestige. The college provided elementary
learning ; it turned out men who knew their mother
tongue, a little Latin, science and history. The special
high schools, like the law, medical, polytechnic and
normal schools, aimed to develop purely professional
abilities. The Sorbonne and College de France made
scholars and learned men. But the keen and sagacious
observer of the great movements and spirit of the nine-
teenth century, the man who was able to modify or
stimulate them, the judicious citizen, the competent
judge of political questions, the man who was equipped
to discuss them thoroughly and to lead public opinion —
where did he come from ? What school prepared him ?

Such men M. Boutmy met sometimes in the world,
but they were entirely self-made. They were fortui-
tous ; chance did not often produce them. This combi-
nation of intelligence, which is the strength and bond
of society, was extremely rare among the middle-class
in France. Every day a nation deteriorates when

543

544 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

scholars have only professional men for their auditors ;
when the statesman can find capable auxiliaries only
among those who have steady employment, and intel-
ligent criticism only from those who want his place.

Why, for instance, did the direction of public
opinion belong to venal, frivolous journalism? It was
because the men who appreciated a conscientious, in-
corruptible press comprised too small a minority to
maintain it. Among some other necessary things,
France had not known how to produce every year two
or three hundred men of high culture who, mingling
with the masses of the nation, might have imbued them
with a respect for learning and taught them the habit,
even though with difficulty, of doing difficult things.
The faction that judged and decided everything with-
out study thus would have received a mortal blow.
These worthies reign to-day alas! just as did the noble-
men and courtiers in the time of Moliere, but their
number is growing beautifully less.

Therefore M. Boutmy believed he announced the
evil and the remedy together when he said: "We lack
in France an organized system of high culture, or, if
you prefer, of high liberal education — we must organize
it."

But how was this to be done? Certainly not by ad-
dressing to the proper minister a project destined in
advance to be ridiculed by cartoons and to be speedily
forgotten. " Let us begin," urged M. Boutmy, — " the
time is ripe for it — by making our own arrangements."
The government was no longer obligated to make ex-
periments in teaching, any more than it was to specu-
late with individual finances. It was not equal to the
absolute requirements of that dark hour.

Private initiative is daring, active and supple. It
is to the honor of independent nations that spontaneous
associations are permitted to test new ideas, and the

igoi.] THE ECOLE LIBRE IN PARIS 545

moral strength of nations is measured by the share
which each citizen has in such trials. Liberty belongs
only to those who put their hearts in the great affairs
of their country and have the wisdom and energy to
keep them in their own hands.

The modern methods of teaching, in France, were
designed for those who had settled positions and the
leisure to devote to the cultivation of their minds.
Formerly these classes had had in their favor law and
customs and political preponderance, but sometime be-
fore the year 1871 they were menaced. Suddenly
everywhere, customs betray them, law abandons them.
The peasant excludes from his town council the large
landowner and the descendants of the old lords. As a
rule, the workman votes against what his employer
wants, and vice versa. In this ruin of favors which
gave them power, in the decline of sentiment which
assured them moral influence, the classes, in their turn,
lost much in being excluded from their acquired situa-
tions, from those vested rights and privileges which
they had for so long a time interdicted to the majority
of their fellow-citizens. This, to be sure, was unjust
revenge, and by striking men thus it did not touch the
two vital conditions of any progressive human society —
the authority of intelligence, and the administration of
the government by the best men.

Those two things, declared Boutmy and his coad-
jutors, must not perish. The threatened classes would
have been foolish to believe that they could, by legal
resistance, be maintained in the positions they still
occupied and recover lost ones. We may recover that
which escapes, but not that which falls into dust. The
privilege no longer existed ; democracy would not re-
trace her steps. Obliged to suffer the numerical will,
classes which called themselves high classes could pre-
serve their political homogeneity only by invoking the

546 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

protection of the most able. It was destined that, be-
hind the falling walls of prerogative and tradition, the
waves of democracy should meet a second rampart —
made with a view to stanchness and utility.

The objections against a political school depending
upon the government were many. It was argued that
the state is a great composite personage. All her move-
ments are watched, all her actions challenge criticism.
Men desire her to do everything, but they find some-
thing wrong in all she does. That she will never be
without some danger which she will try to cover with
her name is a teaching of French politics. But through
fear of raising storm and tumult she is obliged to limit
this teaching ; to hedge it in with certain reservations.
The minister of foreign affairs (in 1871) had once enter-
tained the idea of establishing in his department a
regular course in diplomatic history. He soon gave it
up. Perhaps he foresaw that if the professor depended
ostensibly on a ministerial department the latter would
become responsible for his utterances and exact of him
discretion, concealments and euphemisms, which obvi-
ously are a rule of the service. What course of instruc-
tion could have been subjected to so many precautions
and such coddling without becoming enervated and
anaemic? It would be a difficult thing for a school of
administration to treat fearlessly all the subjects that
belong to it if the state should assume the direction and
protection of the school as well as the responsibility for
such training.

Another point taken into consideration was that the
teaching of political science in France was then a re-
cent innovation. In this system there were many tests
to be made, many improvements to try, whether they
should prove successful or not. But the state, with
proper apprehension, would not allow the work to pro-
ceed under her name and auspices so long as the results

igoi.j THE ECOLE LIBRE IN PARIS 547

aimed for were uncertain. She did not wish to place
herself in a relationship that would expose her to cen-
sure. She would act only when the success of the un-
dertaking was sure. Of course, when the establishment
had passed beyond the stage of an experiment and was
dignified by age, the state's full and unqualified en-
dorsement would be easy enough to obtain. But she
is an indifferent guardian to young enterprises of this
kind, which are not well defined. If she watch them
too closely and suspiciously, she is quite likely to sus-
pend them before they have time to ripen. For these
reasons it was desirable, for the time being at least,
that any school of administration should be indepen-
dent of the state.

The conclusion then was evident. The most satis-
factory solution of the problem was the founding of a
school of political science in France by private initia-
tive. Independent of the government ; responsible
only to itself for the direction of the curriculum ; able
to treat freely any subject, governed only by conve-
nience and extent ; freer than official establishments to
attempt improvements, if not better able to accomplish
them quicker, — it would give birth to progressive and
valuable ideas. The only official action to be desired
was that of legislation, which would prescribe competi-
tive examinations for those who were ambitious to enter
the public service. The study of political and admin-
istrative science thus would be fostered, without com-
mitting the government to any formal obligations.

In one of his strongly written monographs, M.
Boutmy gave the following epitome of the purpose of
the school: "When we say: there is organized instruc-
tion in France for physicians, lawyers, engineers, sol-
diers, etc., but none for statesmen, are we not betray-
ing an anomalous condition? Or must we believe that
natural gifts and experience in public affairs, without

548 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

special instruction, are sufficient to supply all the states-
men our country needs? If we may judge by the last
twenty or thirty years, nature has not been so prodigal
of her gifts. And as for experience, that only insures
capability in one narrow groove of activity. Therefore,
there is a manifest lack of publicists in the broad and
complete sense of the word. A special, well-ordered
instruction is indispensable, but even that will not ren-
der superior those who are born ordinary men. It will
indicate the character of various vocations, multiply
views and develop that general and oracular ability
which distinguishes the born statesman. It will reveal
a greater number of aptitudes and a higher level of
mental competence will be attained."

What France unsuccessfully tried to do was ac-
complished through the initiative of a few citizens,
who started and maintained the Ecole Libre for eighteen
years with their own private resources — about three
million francs — without any pecuniary help from the
government, without any salaries for their services.
During that period over 3,000 young men trained in
this institution found places as public functionaries ;
the standard was considerably raised in those courses
having in view an entree to the four great departments
of the French government ; about one thousand for-
eigners were attracted to the school, where they im-
bibed French ideas, and in many cases were relieved of
preconceived prejudices against the Gallic tempera-
ment.

There precious friendships were formed, and in
after years it was an inexpressible pleasure for some of
these students to meet again as accredited diplomats to
a foreign court. Many new studies were inaugurated,
several books of great value were expressly written for
the use of the students, and thus the institution which
in the beginning, by its very nature, was depreciated

i9oi.j THE ECOLE LIBRE IN PARIS 549

or ignored as a partisan project finally won the esteem
of all parties and partisans, as well as their respect by
its catholic and thorough management ; so that it is to-
day an efficacious instrument of national education and
of French influence in the world.

Different conditions, aptitudes and vocations answer
to the different careers for which the school prepares
its members. What qualifies a diplomatist, according
to the French notion, is well known. He needs a cer-
tain amount of wealth, influential acquaintances, the
tastes and habits of society, self-possession, the grace
of yielding easily to a certain formalism. Wealth is
less necessary in the consulates and administrative
careers. They need there a punctilious and diligent
spirit which takes pleasure in clearing up and re-
solving the difficulties of a question. The decree of
November 20, 1894, which reorganized the con-
course of admission to the ministry of foreign affairs,
established two series of examinations for future diplo-
mats and consuls. The first series must be undergone
after four months, the second after twelve months of
probation — exclusively accomplished in the offices of
the ministry or partly as a functionary in a foreign
country. Young men who are destined for diplomatic
or consular careers could scarcely be advised to begin
their term of probation before having finished their
studies in the school. The obligations imposed upon
them during their official apprenticeship do not leave
them leisure enough to pursue the courses and do be-
sides the personal work that is essential to their success
as students. Before entering the offices of the ministry
they must have all the knowledge which they will be
required to demonstrate and which they would not
have the time to acquire during the period of their
official drudgery. Consequently, they are supposed or

550 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

ought to have followed the two years' course in the
diplomatic section of the Ecole Libre.

The following is a summary of what is taught in
the ficole Libre :

History of economical doctrines. (Perpetual En-
dowment.) Founded by J. H. Goldschmidt.

Social economy. (For twenty years.) Founded
by Countess de Chambrun.

Double courses for one year :

Diplomatic history from 1789 to 1878.
Administrative matters.
Simple courses for one year :

Political history of Europe during the past 20

years.
Constitutional history of Europe and the

United States.
Political and economical questions in eastern

Asia.

Public finances.
Administrative organization.
Rights of nations.
Conventional international law.
Two years' courses :

Diplomatic history from 1713 to 1789.
Affairs of the orient.

Colonial policy of European states since 1783.
Parliamentary and legislative history of

France since 1789.
History of political ideas and of public spirit

during the last two centuries.
History of external commerce and custom-
house legislation of France.
Political economy.
Money-credit-exchange.
Affairs of banking.
Public hygiene.

igoi.] THE ECOLE LIBRE IN PARIS 551

Legislation of work and wages.

Railroad legislation.

Compared commercial and maritime legisla-
tion.

Compared civil legislation.

Mussulman law.

Compared colonization.

Colonial legislation.

Economical geography.

Geography of French possessions.
Geography and Ethnography.
Geography and Military Organization.
In the language courses many special lectures and
complementary studies are given. In short, the sched-
ule embraces everything that a man who wishes to be
a well-informed citizen ought to know. The knowl-
edge here purveyed is particularly necessary to the
statesman, the thinker and the political writer. The
instruction acquired here is the best initiation to public
life as well as a splendid introduction to the study of
social science.

In a more special point of view, the school of
political sciences purposes to carry out the object of the
former school of administration — abandoned by the
French government. Each one of the chief divisions
of its instruction constitutes a complete preparation for
one of the following careers and to concourses or ex-
aminations which give the cachet to them :

1. Diplomacy (ministry of foreign affairs, lega-
tions—consulates).

2. State council (auditor at of second class).

3. Administration. (Both central and depart-
mental. Law business in the ministries; under- pre-
fectships — general secretaryships of department — pre-
fectship councils.)

4. Inspection of finances.

552 G UNTON 'S MA GAZINE

5 . Court of accounts.

6. General government of Algeria (central admin-
istration— administration of mixed communities).

7. Protectorate of Tunis. (Service of control.)

8. Financial, industrial and commercial enterprises
in France, in the colonies and in foreign countries.

The program combines the elements of superior in-
struction which prepare for posts of initiative or control
in the commercial and legal services in the great indus-
trial and financial companies, especially those which
are based upon a concession or a monopoly— banks,
railway companies, ground- credit companies, financial
societies, etc. It also offers the necessary preparation
for consulates in the Orient and for employments de-
pending on the companies which have vast interests in
those countries. Various companies have founded
scholarships for their clerks in the Ecole Libre.

During the last seven years the results obtained in
competitive examinations for careers to which the
school prepares young men show that all the successful
candidates for positions in the departments of inspec-
tion of finances and court of accounts came from the
school ; and that 95 per cent, of the candidates for the
state council and ministry of foreign affairs, who passed
and were accepted, came from the school.

As for the corps of instructors, it includes some of
the most learned and distinguished men in France.
Among them have been or are: H. Taine, M. Lavas-
sieur, Albert Sorel, Renault, Funck-Brentano, Leon Say,
Andre Lebon, Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, De Fonville and
others. Some among those mentioned hold very high
and responsible positions in the French government.

A school of diplomacy in this country might well
be modeled after the one in Paris, with of course such
modifications as would place it in accord with the
genius of our government and people.

CIVIC AND EDUCATIONAL NOTES

Pro ress of ^^e new catal°gue °^ Syracuse Univer-

Syracusc sity is creditable to that institution and

University ought to be encouraging to its friends.

Under the vigorous and stimulating management of
Chancellor Day the university has reached second place
among the great educational institutions of New York
state, and now has more than 1,600 students, with an
alumni body numbering about 3,000. The university
was opened in 1871 with only 41 students in the aca-
demic department. It now offers nearly 200 courses of
study in the college of liberal arts alone. Recently it
has received several generous additions to its endow-
ment fund, which will mean of course increased facili-
ties and superior educational advantages for its student
body. Probably few eastern universities are able to
offer so much at so moderate a cost, the average ex-
penses of the students being only about three to four
hundred dollars per year.

Much of the growth and increasing prominence of
Syracuse University is due, unquestionably, to the
happy combination of a liberal modern spirit with rea-
sonable conservatism, in its management. Syracuse is
happily free from the sporadic "faddism" which occa-
sionally gains entrance to some of our American
universities. It is governed on the principle that a
university has no moral right to train young men in
anything except the best verified knowledge and sound-
est educational and scientific opinion of the time. In
other words, it does not believe that to be liberal and
modern in the true sense a university must give free
rein to all kinds of radical and undigested doctrines
long before they have been adequately tested by expe-
rience and scientific investigation. However fascinating

558

554 GUN TON'S MAGAZINE [June,

this sort of "freedom" may be, a university ought to
have some conscientious regard for the well-balanced
training and sound mental processes of the young men
for whose education it becomes responsible. An indi-
vidual, responsible to nobody, has the privilege of
propagating practically whatever ideas he chooses, but
it is not for a university to endorse and spread them un-
til they have been established as true, so far as investi-
gation and the best consensus of opinion and experience
can establish them at any given time. The attitude of
Syracuse University in this matter is well described as
"conservative in declining to sacrifice to the spirit of
mere novelty what has been found by long experience
to be valuable in education, but ready for all that prom-
ises advancement in method or results."

The Chautauqua movement is steadily

Extension of the extending its influence and scope of
Chautauqua Work

work. One of its recent reports gives
the interesting information that, last season, "the total
enrollment of students in the summer school reached in
round numbers 2, 500, who pursued 168 different courses
under 83 instructors. This represents the largest sum-
mer school attendance in the United States. The report
of the division of Chautauqua home study showed
that the reading courses were being energetically ex-
tended and enthusiastically pursued in many of the
eastern states as well as in the states and terri-
tories of the middle and far West. Over 260,000
readers and 50,000 graduates have taken advantage
of these home reading courses. The purchase, during
the year, by the Mother Chautauqua of the inter-
ests of the Winona reading circle, Winona, Ind., has
brought into the membership of the C. L. S. C. alarge num-
ber of new recruits from Indiana. One of the most re-
markable of the reading circles is located in the prison at

igoi.] CIVIC AND ED UCA TIONAL NO TES 555

Stillwater, Minn., where, for the past ten years, it has
exerted a notable influence among the convicts in the
regeneration of life and character. Active circles have
also been carrying on the work for years in the Argen-
tine Republic, Chili, and the Hawaiian Islands. Ja-
maica in the West Indies, Yokohama, Japan and India
report large new circles. Chautauqua readers are also
pursuing the courses in Mexico, Venezuela, Portugal,
England, France, Germany, Finland, Alaska, Porto
Rico, Cuba and the Philippines and other foreign
islands and countries. Last summer over 120 Chautau-
qua assemblies were held in 34 different states and ter-
ritories, the attendance at which aggregated a million
of people. Thus the Chautauqua agencies operate as
radiating literary centers for the intellectual and social
life of the people of this and other lands."

Of course, the Chautauqua system is no approach
in accuracy or thoroughness to the regular courses of
instruction in colleges and universities; indeed, it
makes no pretence of the sort. It does reach a great
field that the universities cannot touch, however, and
exerts a most wholesome social as well as educational
influence. Moreover, while its courses are admittedly
somewhat superficial, they are considerably less so than
they were ten or fifteen years ago. The quality of the
work is much better and the results more creditable.
The summer courses at Chautauqua lake this season
promise to be unusually attractive, and preparations
have been made for a large attendance.

Psychological Considerable criticism has been directed
Value of the against Andrew Carnegie's great gift of
Carnegie Gifts $5,200,000 to New York city for free
public libraries. It is pointed out that in the end the
furnishing of building sites and annual support for
these libraries will cost the city many times the amount

556 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

of this gift, while Mr. Carnegie will get all the credit ;
in other words, that future generations of taxpayers
will have to carry the permanent burden of perpetu-
ating Mr. Carnegie's name on each and every one of
these institutions.

From one point of view it is quite true that Mr.
Carnegie's custom of building " Carnegie " libraries, on
condition that the town or city shall perpetually support
these institutions, is a rather effective way of making
the public keep his memory green. Every locality
which accepts one of these libraries virtually gives Mr.
Carnegie a mortgage on fame and binds itself perpetually
to pay the interest.

This way of regarding the matter, however, is nar-
row, hypercritical, and quite as unworthy on the part
of the public as any possible egotism on the part of Mr.
Carnegie. The community is not primarily concerned
with the personal motives of a particular individual. It
is concerned with the libraries and with the actual get-
ting of them. If Mr. Carnegie's plan of furnishing a
building, on condition that the municipality supply the
amount of the maintenance funds, has the effect of
stimulating a large number of towns and cities (espe-
cially New York) to appropriate generous amounts for
these purposes, then so much the better for the Carne-
gie method. New York city ought to spend much more
than it does, and more all the time, for educational and
civilizing institutions and influences, and experience
continually shows how hard it is to make headway in
behalf of such expenditures against the everlasting cry
of economy and low tax rates. Nearly every appropri-
ation for new or enlarged educational or socially-civil-
izing institutions has to be fairly wrung out of the city
treasury by a constant process of public demand, argu-
ment, scolding and agitation, but an offer like Mr.
Carnegie's at once starts so strong a current in favor of

. ] Cl VIC AND ED UCA TIONAL NO TES 557

assuming the obligations coupled with it that, in con-
sequence, a great stride is taken almost without effort.
Every such stimulation to public generosity, in
behalf of wholesome and progressive institutions, is
worth a great deal more than the literal amount of
cash involved. It creates a psychological atmosphere
favorable to expansion in all these directions more
readily and easily than months or sometimes years of
agitation could develop ; and the good effects of this
reaching out into new fields grow by their own momen-
tum. New York ought to accept the Carnegie gift,
therefore, if for no other reason than that it will create
a public opinion favorable to spending large amounts
for public education in various important ways. From
this standpoint, the wrangling about Mr. Carnegie's
individual motives is too trivial and insignificant to be
worthy a moment's public attention.

THE OPEN FORUM

This department belongs to our readers, and offers them full oppor-
tunity to "talk back" to the editor, give information, discuss topics or
ask questions on subjects within the field covered by GUNTON'S MAGA-
ZINE. All communications, whether letters for publication or inquiries
for the " Question Box," must be accompanied by the full name and ad-
dress of the writer. This is not required for publication, if the writer
objects, but as evidence of good faith. Anonymous correspondents are
ignored.

LETTERS FROM CORRESPONDENTS

National Duty, Present and Future

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE :

Dear Sir: — I have enjoyed your magazine very
much. It has been helpful to me. A minister feels
the need of such a periodical. I turn back to the old
numbers many times in looking up some question of
government policy. Your articles are able and un-
prejudiced. Though I do not fully agree with you in
your attitude toward the new possessions, yet you have
put the matter before my mind in such a way that I
can very clearly see that you have good ground for
your position. I recall also Froude's words in the first
chapter of his Biography of Caesar: "If there be one
lesson which history clearly teaches, it is this, that free
nations cannot govern subject provinces. If they are
unable or unwilling to admit their dependencies to
share their own constitution, the constitution itself will
fall in pieces from mere incompetence for its duties.'*

If I knew that the present administration was seek-
ing to hold these provinces simply because it wished to
enlarge the territory of our possessions I would accept
your position. But it does seem to me that our nation,
having declared that Spain was incompetent to govern
her dependencies, was bound to try in some way to
better their condition. Personally I am not willing to

558

LETTERS FROM CORRESPONDENTS 559

admit the natives to share our constitution, nor am I
willing that this nation should turn away from an evi-
dent duty in seeking to establish better conditions.
The situation is unusual and has no exact analogy in
history. (Rev.) D. E. WILLIAMSON, Hillsdale, Mich.

[We have no difficulty in appreciating our corre-
spondent's point of view with reference to the foreign
policy of the government. It is indeed an unusual
situation. We have never wished to convey the im-
pression that we favored simply * 'sailing away" and
abandoning our new island possessions. On the con-
trary, we believe that it was and is our duty to remain
until a normal and natural transfer of government
under peaceful conditions can be made. Our point of
view has been that, while we ought to remain as long
as the conditions demand, the policy of our govern-
ment should be to direct the peoples of these islands
towards independent self-government rather than to-
wards becoming an integral part of the United States.
This is why we are so urgent that our government
live up strictly to the pledge made to Cuba, and why
we have steadily declared in favor of adopting our
Cuban policy in the Philippines. What we are inter-
ested in is the general trend of our policy with refer-
ence to the future rather than the immediate presence
of our troops in these islands. Our present occupation
can be justified on the grounds of emergency and ex-
pediency, and if necessary it might last for a number
of years, but the important thing in our judgment is so
to shape our policy during our occupation that we may,
later on, be able to leave these people to work out their
own political evolution, and not subject our own insti-
tutions to the strain of taking on inferior groups, on
the one hand, or practically nullifying the constitution
in order to govern them arbitrarily, on the other.]

560 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

A Word of Commendation

Editor GJUNTON'S MAGAZINE :

Dear Sir : — Of all the good things of this progressive
age, GUNTON'S MAGAZINE is without doubt fulfilling a
great and grand mission; fearless, fair, condensed,
helpful, hopeful, pointing the way to a higher, broader
and a better civilization. It has been gladly received
and fully appreciated. E. P. CONNER, Redding, Cal.

A Great Problem of the Hour

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE :

Dear Sir: — In some way I have mislaid my copies
of the Bulletins on "The Peril of Popular Government,"
and "Shall the People Nominate, and How?" They
are so valuable, so statesmanlike and timely — that I
cannot do without them. Please mail me another copy
of each. (Chancellor) ]. H. KIRKLAND,

Vanderbilt University,

Nashville, Tenn.

Fairness in Discussion

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

Dear Sir : — The direct, fearless manner in which sub-
jects are handled in your magazine is certainly very com-
mendatory. There is no subserviency. Truth is only
half a truth when in the interests of a special class. I
admire GUNTON'S MAGAZINE because it is fair and un-
biased, seeking to present the truth for truth's sake.
There is no rank fanaticism in it. I trust it will con-
tinue to maintain the high regard for the right presen-
tation of public questions which so far has character-
ized it from the beginning.

EDGAR L. DAVIS, Educational Director Y. M.
C. A., Indianapolis, Ind.

LETTERS FROM CORRESPONDENTS 561

An Old Soldier on Annexation Policy

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

Dear Sir: — The conservative course, as regards na-
tional politics, taken by your magazine induces me to
encourage its views by taking a copy of it, as per
enclosed order. I do hope that you will insist that
Cuba must be free, and that the United States does not
saddle itself with that island nor any other ones where
the character and ignorance of the people make it im-
possible for their population and our own good, honest,
industrious people to assimilate.

We have much to congratulate ourselves for, that
Generals Scott and Taylor did not wildly shriek : ' 'Where
the American flag goes it must stay'' when they en-
tered the city of Mexico half a century ago. The doc-
trine which now stands on this principle would have
little sympathy from Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln
or Cleveland ; and we are led to consider the question
whether we are advancing or retrograding in our
national purity and honesty.

AN OLD SOLDIER, Philadelphia, Pa.

QUESTION BOX

Corporations and Government Aid

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

£„ - Dear Sir: — In a recent lecture you have said that
our great corporations no longer require government
aid, yet here is the shipping industry, and the manu-
facturing concerns having steamship interests, trying
desperately to get heavy bounties out of the govern-
ment,— not merely protection but direct gifts of money.
The facts show that the great bulk of these bounties
would go to a few large establishments, and it seems
like a straight case of corporations looting the public
treasury. M. E.

The statement in the lecture to which our corre-
spondent refers was not that all corporations, nor even
all large corporations, ' ' no longer require government
aid.'' It was stated, however, that the tendency is for
corporations to become less dependent and the very
large ones entirely independent of government aid.
The shipping industry is far short of having reached
that stage of economic efficiency. It is one of the in-
dustries, and there are many others, which still need
protection and a considerable amount of it. The recent
bill providing shipping bounties is a very poor, and
perhaps the worst, way of affording that protection. It
has whatever objections a truly protective measure
through discriminating duties would have, and less of
the virtues. But the fact that the shipping industry
still needs protection does not militate in the least
against what I have said. The woolen, silk and other
industries still need protection ; but some of the very
largest concerns illustrate the fact that the tendency
of large corporations is to outgrow the necessity of gov-
ernment aid.

562

Q UESTION BOX 563

Wealth a Social Fact

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

Dear Sir: — We would like to have you settle a
question for us. It may seem trivial, but we wish to
have an exact understanding of the principal definitions
and to understand fully why one thing is included in
and another excluded from the several definitions.

Upon reading the first part of the second para-
graph on page 65 of " Principles of Social Economics"
it would appear that food, such as game, oysters, etc.,
in the possession of a man living apart from his fellows,
and necessary to his subsistence, would not be wealth,
while under the definition given about the middle of
page 67 such food would be wealth. It would be capa-
ble of gratifying human wants and desires, and human
effort would be necessary in order that it might be util-
ized. An explanation of this matter will be greatly
appreciated. B. F. M., JR.

Your confusion has arisen, evidently, over the
statement that wealth is " essentially a social phenom-
enon." The meaning intended to be conveyed by this
expression was simply that wealth, as such, exists only
in relation to man. The word social was used to imply
man in general. As a practical matter, wealth almost
universally has reference to groups of men ; isolated
existence being so rare as hardly to come within the
range of economic discussion except in illustration of
primeval or hypothetical conditions. In actual experi-
ence, although there may be a few voluntary exiles
from active society, there are almost none entirely with-
out the range of social influences to at least some meager
extent. Therefore, the word social is used for con-
venience in the definition of wealth simply because it
illustrates the almost universal condition, but theoreti-
cally a group of people is not essential to the idea of
wealth. Wealth is wealth if it is being utilized or con-
sumed by only one person in isolation just the same as
if by an entire community.

564 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

The Steel "Trust" and Independent Producers

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

Dear Sir : Even though the new steel trust should
keep industry steady and prices down, does not the ob-
jection still hold against it that it closes the door to
individual industry? It compels every one who would
engage in the iron and steel business to do so as an
employee instead of as an independent man.

R. M. S.

The opportunity to enter the iron and steel in-
dustry as "an independent man" has long ago dis-
appeared, if by independent man is meant individual
effort. For a long time, nothing short of a collection
of capital has been possible to give the world the best
results and make possible successful competition in the
iron and steel business. But the opportunities for in-
dividuals to display their special ability and get greater
and greater returns for it are increased by these large
corporations. The "independent man," so called,
never can be a success in business except to the extent
that he has exceptional ability. If he has exceptional
ability as a manager, which is the chief element of
success in the " independent man/' the opportunities
are greater and greater every day as corporations de-
velop. In fact, the demand for exceptional managing
ability is increasing faster than the supply. There is
a greater call for managing genius than ever before,
and higher salaries are offered.

As for the great mass who constitute the army of
workers, under no condition of industry are they inde-
pendent factors. They always make up the mediocre
rank and file and follow the lead of the enterprising
few. That has been the case in all ages and in all
classes. This great mass gets its benefit from civiliza-
tion, not by its own innovations and exceptional enter-
prise, for it has none, but from the improved general

i9oi.J QUESTION BOX 565

conditions created by the few who take the lead and
inaugurate the new. Every improvement in products,
reduction in price, increase in wages, every added
social opportunity by improved sanitation and con-
venience in home conditions, wholesome influences in
workshop life, shorter hours, increased education; in
fact, every addition made by the progress of civiliza-
tion they share in. But it is always the experimenta-
tion, enterprising genius and inventive devices of the
few which produce these improvements. In reality,
therefore, opportunities for the "independent man,''
that is, the eneigetic and exceptional man, have steadily
increased as industrial development and diversification
have advanced. To-day with the numerous large cor-
porations there are hundreds of avenues for exceptional
effort that did not exist at all under the small concerns
and simple methods of fifty and seventy-five years ago.
A single city now affords a greater number of oppor-
tunities for individual effort than were to be found in
the entire country at the beginning of the century.

Corruption and Popular Nominations

Editor GUNTON'S MAGAZINE,

Dear Sir: — I believe it is admitted that legislatures
are no better than the people who elect them. You
have been urging the "direct-nominations" reform,
but even if the people had free choice in nominations
we should still have a large number of corruptible men
elected. The bosses could still control legislation, by
bribing these men after their election, instead of pre-
venting their nomination beforehand. In short, I do
not see that you will ever really cure this evil until the
people are educated up to the point of choosing only
clean, sensible men to represent them. J. H. S.

Of course it is true that no mere system of nomi-
nation or election will eliminate from politics all the
motives for corruption. The legislatures will not be

563 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

materially better than the people. They are not now
as good as the people. The reason for wanting direct
nominations is that the people are much honester and
less interested in corrupt practices than are the bosses,
who blackmail corporations and dictate nominations.
But if the people are ignorant and servile, the legisla-
tures will not be very intelligent and independent. All
that political machinery can ever do under a democracy
is to insure that the opportunities — guaranteed oppor-
tunities— shall exist for the people to nominate and
elect representatives as good as themselves.

As to the bribing after election, there may be some
of that, but the bosses would have no organized control
over the legislature and could only affect legislation by
the direct expenditure of money upon the members.
They could not threaten them with defeat at the polls
the next year or prevent their renomination in the
primaries, and in order to have the means to buy the
legislatures they would be forced to go to the corpora-
tions for the money to do it, and the corporations would
only furnish the money for such purposes when there
was some legislation that they either very much needed
or dreaded, and they would only contribute then when
the boss could give reasonable assurance that he
could " deliver his goods." With purer popular nomi-
nations, much of the motive for all this would disap-
pear, because there would only be a few people in any
legislature open to such approaches, and they seldom
would be able to control the policy of the legislature,
especially if the object was an unworthy one.

It is not pretended that corruption would become
impossible by direct nominations, but that it would be-
come much more difficult. It is believed that the mem-
bers of the legislatures would be freer, because assured
of the right to appeal to their constituents for endorse-
ment ; and that the bosses, having lost the power to

igoi.] QUESTION BOX 567

dictate nominations, could not coerce the legislatures ;
and that corporations, wanting no special legislation
and being comparatively free from "blood-money " ex-
action, would take comparatively little active interest
in legislation, as corporations, and hence would refuse
to hand over large sums to the bosses. Nothing would
drive the boss to the rear quite so effectively as the
falling off of his revenues.

BOOK REVIEWS

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF HUMANISM. By
Henry Wood, 1901. Lee & Shepard, Boston. Cloth,
319 pages. $1.25.

This is an attempt to interpret political economy
through human nature. The author declares that:
" Conventional political economy, as professionally
formulated, lacks a practical element which renders it
of little utility in actual experience. Not being fitted
into the nature and constitution of man, it is largely a
mass of fine-spun intellectual abstraction." There is
some truth in this, and yet this kind of criticism may
be altogether too sweeping. If there is one criticism
to which scholastic political economy is more open
than another it is that it has done exactly what Mr.
Wood sets out to do, viz. to find a universal law in
human nature and give that complete freedom to solve
its own problems. Self-interest has been selected as
this universal principle and unrestricted competition its
only weapon. The political economy of humanism as
presented by Mr. Wood is in effect a restatement of
this negative laissez faire theory.

Mr. Wood seems to think freedom is the key to
social life. He sees it as the cause instead of the con-
sequence of progress. He is so carried away with this
idea that, like Edward Atkinson, he thinks shortening
the hours of labor is a restriction of the laborers' free-
dom. He says : " It may be asked : Do you favor long
hours? No; but personal freedom. If one choose to
work ten hours instead of eight it is his privilege, and
no man, organization, nor even the state, has the moral
right to coerce him. . . . The workman does
need time for mental and moral improvement, but,
important as these are, freedom is still more so."

568

BOOK RE VIE IVS 569

Nothing has been written for a long time more sur-
charged with error than this. It is superficiality itself.
It presupposes that in the absence of all legal restriction
every individual is free. That is simply the freedom
of barbarism, which is the direst slavery.

The author seems not to know that it is a part of
the very nature of modern industrial society that the
individual laborer has practically no control over the
number of hours and other conditions in his individual
case. By the nature of things he is compelled to work
the same number of hours and for the same general
wages that the group of which he is a part works. If
he is a shoemaker, cotton operative, a railroad engineer
or a skilled mechanic, these conditions are all deter-
mined for him more than by him. He is but one of a
large group embracing the whole industry, in which
practical uniformity of conditions is an economic neces-
sity. It is for this reason that, despite the sort of rea-
soning Mr. Wood here presents, the use of organization
and legislation in the regulation of conditions under
which laborers live and work have steadily increased,
and concurrently with this the laborer's freedom has
advanced and not diminished.

Here is another statement which is characteristic
of Mr. Wood's "Political Economy of Humanism." It is
so fundamental that it is put in italics : "If it were pos-
sible by universal combination among workingmen to
advance wages fifty per cent., it would not in the least
improve their condition. The price of everything
which they need would be enhanced in the same pro-
portion, and they would have no larger surplus at the
end of the year than they had before." Could anything
smack more of "intellectual abstraction," and could
anything be more contrary to the continuous experi-
ence repeated over and over again during the last cen-
tury? If it were true that an increase of wages en-

570 G UNTON'S MA GAZJNE [June,

hances the price of all commodities in the same propor-
tion, there could have been no real improvement in the
laborer's condition by virtue of increased wages. In-
stead of this the reverse is well-nigh universal experi-
ence. Lowering of prices has been a concomitant of
advancing wages. There are some peculiar conditions
under which Mr. Wood's statement would be true ; for
instance, where the product is all the result of hand
labor ; but the fact is that where hand labor is universal
wages seldom rise, and the reason that hand labor re-
mains universal is very largely because wages do not
rise. Men are cheaper than horses or machines. The
rise in wages is one of the greatest forces that have
operated during the last century to force into existence
the use of machinery and with it the ultimate cheapen-
ing of products. Mr. Wood's book is seriously open to
the defect which, according to his preface, it was writ-
ten to correct, namely, reasoning from abstraction with
too little relation to actual experience.

The title, "Political Economy of Humanism," is a
good one. All the forces which make for economy in
doing the world's work are developed through influ-
ences operating upon human character. Cheapness is
not born of invention but of expanded human consump-
tion. Briefly, demand is the great force that sets all
society in action and supply is the result. The in-
creased demands arise from the expansion of human
desires, and human desires expand and multiply in re-
sponse to human experience. The opportunities for
these experiences, when scientifically treated, can be
helped in innumerable ways by government. Educa-
tion, sanitary surroundings in domestic life, short hours
of labor, and contact with cultivating and inspiring
social influences are among the numerous things that
stimulate development of character. Increased demand
for products leads to the development of science and

igoi.J BOOK REVIEWS 571

invention in manufacture and a whole world of wealth-
cheapening devices. The character- stimulating con-
ditions out of which these increased demands grow
have been, are and can be established and promoted by
organization, association and legislation ; and any
theory of political economy which denies this omits to
count with the chief facts in human progress.

POLITICS AND THE MORAL LAW. By Gustav Rue-
melin. Translated from the German by Rudolf Tom-
bo, Jr., Ph. D., Columbia University. With introduc-
tion and notes by Frederick W. Holls, D. C. L., 1901.
125 pages, cloth, 75 cents. The Macmillan Co., New
York.

This is an essay on treaty obligations or the re-
lation of the moral law to international politics. It is
a very able and comprehensive discussion of the subject.
The author, however, appears to think that neither the
decalogue nor the golden rule applies to international
politics. He says:

"The injunctions 'Thou shalt' and 'Thou shalt
not* of the decalogue and of legal language have a
sanction only when they are imposed by the state as the
supreme authority upon the obedience of the indi-
vidual." Thus the commands "Thou shalt not kill"
and ''Thou shalt not steal" do not apply to nations.
This kind of moral law has been fairly well lived up to.
The golden rule he regards as equally inapplicable be-
tween nations, and says: "The command, 'Love thy
neighbor as thyself,' cannot be applied here. The
state is so far from turning the left cheek to him who
strikes the right, that on the contrary, it does and must
endeavor to anticipate even a threatened blow with an
energetic counter stroke. ... In short, the en-
tire chapter of the duties of love, which is the chief
doctrine of the moral law, has no application to the con-

572 GUNTON'S MAGAZINE [June,

duct of the state. A nation depends, not upon the love
of others, but upon the love of self, upon the fostering
and development of its own power and prosperity ; and
if we characterize this by the term 'egoism' — a term in-
deed that is scarcely applicable — then egoism certainly
is the foundation of all politics/'

The practical truth of this will scarcely be disputed.
This theory of the relation of politics and the moral
law is carried into internal as well as international poli-
tics in the most practical way. If somebody would only
weave a theory showing that party machines have no
relation to the moral law, and should not be held ac-
countable to it, what a relief would come over some of
our statesmen. What a burden would be lifted from
the president for broken promises and from the poli-
ticians for their buying and selling offices and coercing
citizens out of their political rights. Fortunately, how-
ever, there is no such easy way of escape. The Platts,
Quiggs and Quays are held to some accountability to
the moral law by the people, and, although the people
are patijnt and long-suffering in their endurance, they
occasionally call for an accounting and deal out the
penalty with cumulative effect, and at bottom the peo-
ple are right. They really stand on the moral law, and
this applies to nations as well as individuals within the
nation. It is poor philosophy and immoral statesman-
ship which puts a nation in its administrative capa-
city above the decalogue and outside the moral law.

Stealing is a crime by whomsoever committed. It
is as wrong for a nation to plunder its neighbor, merely
because the aggressor has superior strength or because
it thinks its neighbor might plunder it, as it is for an
individual to commit burglary. This doctrine that na-
tions have no moral obligations is born of barbarism in
defence of the carnage and plunder of predatory society.
It is indeed true that a nation cannot be ordered to obey

igoi.] BOOK REVIEWS 573

the moral injunction like an individual, since there is
no stronger authority except a more forceful nation, but
this does not remove the moral obligation to refrain from
plunder, carnage and murder. The authority for the
state is the people and the people should insist upon
equity and fair treatment of neighboring nations, and
regard for the rights of others who are too weak to de-
fend themselves against the strong should be a control-
ling motive in the action of governments as much as of
individuals.

The difference between the American troops and
those of Russia, Germany and other European countries
in China is a striking illustration of this fact. The idea
that politics has no relation to the moral law is alto-
gether too prevalent. It is unconsciously taken advan-
tage of to excuse conduct in politics that would not be
tolerated in business or social life. When office-hold-
ers at the behest of politicians pack primaries, coerce
delegates, corrupt legislatures and trample on the rights
of citizens, it is commonly excused by otherwise re-
spectable people with the remark, "Oh, that's politics."
Until it becomes a recognized principle that politics not
only have a relation to but rest upon the moral law, and
that the conduct of national administrations as well as
of individual citizens is strictly measured by that stand-
ard, politics may be expected to be corrupt and dishon-
orable and public service tainted with discredit.

ENGLISH POLITICS IN EARLY VIRGINIA HISTORY.
By Alexander Brown, D. C. L. Cloth, 277 pp., $2.00.
1901. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston.

Digging up the early evidences of political organi-
zation is a useful contribution to accurate history, and,
though it may not always be popular reading, it is inter-
esting to the student and important as throwing light
on institutional development. Such is the purpose of

574 G UNTON 'S MA GA Z2NE

the author in this instance, and he has evidently worked
without stint to accomplish his purpose. By painstak-
ing efforts to collect hidden data and reveal the hair-
lines of motive as well as the obvious acts, Mr. Brown
has made a real contribution to the early history of
Virginia. It is a piece of historic research that was
well worth doing and has been well done.

A TEXT-BOOK OF PSYCHOLOGY. By Daniel Put-
nam, LL.D. Cloth, 300 pp., $1.00. American Book
Company, New York.

This book is excellently adapted for either the stu-
dent or the general reader. It is written in a direct
explicit style, with precision enough to be scientific and
simplicity enough to be intelligible. Indeed, it is com-
paratively free from the technical forms of expression
which usually cumber text books on psychology. At
the end of each chapter is a summary of the points
made, which will be very helpful to the student and
also to the teacher wherever it is used as a text-book.

NEW BOOKS OF INTEREST

Outlines of Political Science. By George Gunton,
author of " Principles of Social Economics," "Wealth
and Progress," etc , and Hayes Robbins, Dean of the
Institute of Social Economics. Cloth, 228 pp., 75
cents. D. Appleton and Company, New York.

The Political Economy of Humanism. By Henry
Wood, author of "The Political Economy of Natural
Law. i2mo, 319 pp., paper 50 cents, cloth, $1.25.
Lee & Shepard, Boston.

The Measurement of General Exchange-Value. By
Correa Moylan Walsh. Cloth, 580 pp., $3. The Mac-
millian Company, New York.

The Hall of Fame. By Chancellor H. M. Mac-
Cracken, of New York University. Cloth, 8vo, $1.75.
G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. Fully illustrated.

FROM MAY MAGAZINES

' ' In reality, he who runs may read more of the
spirit of Jeffersonian democracy in the Chicago and
Kansas City platforms than can be found in any other
platform of the democratic party. Furthermore, in his
political beginnings, when he knew or had read little
else, Mr. Bryan crammed himself with lessons from Jef-
ferson's life and was an ostentatious disciple of that emi-
nent radical. Indeed, it is precisely this quality of
Jeffersonism in Mr. Bryan and his platforms which is
offensive to the conservative or old-school democracy.
It was left to Bryanism to illustrate the fact, which the
Bourbon democracy does not even yet comprehend, that
Jeffersonian democracy is quite out of joint with the
times. If Jefferson should come back now to the coun-
try whose political institutions and polity he so largely
shaped and inspired, he would meet the same sort of a
reception, as, in Mr. Stead's opinion, would be given
in Chicago to his great forerunner as a social leveller."
— ALBERT WATKINS, in "Bryanism and Jeffersonian
Democracy;" The Forum.

1 ' In our municipal government at present there is
a great and wholesome struggle toward a higher and
better order of things. This vigorous movement takes
many different forms, four or five of which may be
noted very especially. The first of these, and in some
ways the most important, is the general movement
toward better principles and methods in the technical
organization of a municipal government. A little in-
quiry shows that municipal reform in the United States
is proceeding upon the whole very hopefully ; and it is
truly remarkable how rapid of late has been the growth
of the sentiment in favor of non-partisanship in munici-
pal elections and appointments. Many men who only
four or five years ago were strict republicans or demo-

575

576 G UNTON' S MA GAZINE

crats even in local elections, are now avowedly with the
independents where municipal matters are involved.
Thus, it was the independent vote that turned the scale
in Chicago and elected Carter Harrison again, although
if the republicans had nominated John M. Harlan, as it
was at first supposed they would do, they would prob-
ably have carried the day by virtue of non-partisan
support." — "The Progress of the World;" Review of
Reviews.

11 1 The problem of the unemployed in America is a
problem of the distribution of workers,' taking them
from regions where many men are looking for a job, to
other regions, where many jobs are looking for a man.
But it would be a shallow truth, with little insight into
the real condition of multitudes, whose life struggle is
for a day's bread and in whom the gregarious instinct
is an irresistible gravitation. It is not difficult to show
that the congestion in an industrial center, with its ac-
companying misery, might be relieved by an exodus to
country districts, where an unsatisfied demand for
hands is chronic. But the human adjustment involved
in the change would be beyond all calculation ; and,
even were they effected, it would be not a little disturb-
ing in the end to find large numbers returning to the
town, frankly preferring want with companionship and
a sense of being in touch with their time to the com-
parative plenty and, with it, the loneliness and isola-
tion of country living. A part of the penalty that one
pays for attempting to deal with elements so fascinating
as those of human nature is in their very incalculability,
in the elusive charm of men who develop the best that
is in them in spite of circumstances the most adverse,
and in an evasive quality in others who sometimes fail
to respond to the best- devised plans for their better-
ment."— WALTER A. WYCKOFF, in "With Iowa Farm-
ers;" Scribners Magazine.

H Gunton's magazine

1

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