Watson’s Magazine, Vol. IV, No. 2, April, 1906

Editorials BY THOMAS E. WATSON — Sam Spencer — The Ungrateful Negro — An Indignant Wisconsin Editor — The Man and the Land — Random Comment

Not long ago the Voting Trustees of the Southern Railway Company wrote to Samuel Spencer, President of that robber combine, in the following terms:

“We congratulate you upon the success achieved in the extension and operation of the property which have resulted in nearly doubling the extent of its lines, trebling its gross earnings, and increasing its net earnings above fixed charges, over five hundred and twenty-five per cent. in the period of eleven years which have elapsed since its formation.”

Bully for Sam!

He set out to please the men who bought him, and he has done it.

The Wall Street rascals who grabbed up the railroads in the Southern States knew very well that they themselves could not do the work which was required for the success of their schemes. The Belmonts and the Morgans could not in person approach the editors, the politicians, the legislators and the federal judges.

Strategy requires that local men be used in the looting of any given state or section. One traitor inside the citadel is worth ten thousand soldiers on the outside, when the object is to take the citadel. To bribe somebody from within to open the gates is far more effective, vastly more to be desired, than to attempt to breach the walls or batter down the gates.

Consequently when Western states are to be plundered, the Wall Street corporations use Western men as their tools. Local Western corruptionists sell out to Wall Street, and do in Western states the dirty work of their Wall Street masters.

So in the South, the Wall Street robber-gangs do not operate in person; they act through Southern agents.

In pursuance of this subtle policy, the Wall Street corporations, who gobbled up the various lines which now compose the Southern Railway System, put at the head of it a Southern man, a Georgian, of the name of Samuel Spencer.

They chose wisely. They generally choose wisely. The expert workman does not better know how to select his tools than such men as Belmont, Morgan, Ryan, Rogers and Rockefeller know how to pick out the men who can do what Wall Street expects.

The Wall Street rascals had faith in Sam Spencer, and Sam has justified that confidence.

Never did any robber-chief have an abler lieutenant than Belmont, the Rothschild agent, has had in Sam.

The task to which they set him was hard. It demanded that he freeze his heart and stifle his conscience. It demanded that he shut out from his view of life every other purpose whatsoever, save the heaping up of dividends for a ravenous gang of Wall Street rascals.

To make his work seem good in the sight of the men who had bought him it was necessary that he combine railroads which the law said should not be combined, that he destroy competition where the law said it should live, that he charge excessive rates to shippers and passengers when the law said the rates should be reasonable.

He has done this in spite of the law, in spite of the people.

How?

“One traitor inside the citadel is worth ten thousand soldiers on the outside.”

Editors have been bribed into collusion or silence; politicians have been softened with boodle; lobbyists have been kept in clover; legislators have been duped or corrupted. Railroad Commissions have been seduced or defied, federal judges have been mellowed with favors, blandishments, indirect temptings which poor human nature can seldom resist.

Bully for Sam!

He is victorious all along the line. From Washington City he rules the South. In his native State of Georgia he is monarch of all he surveys. He made Terrell governor, and he means to make Howell governor. He controlled nearly all the daily papers, but he wanted another—so he had Jim English to cut the ground from under the feet of John Temple Graves and scoop the Atlanta News.

Hamp McWhorter is his hireling, and Hamp keeps the mechanism of corruption oiled. Hamp keeps the Legislature in pliant mood. Hamp jollies and greases the local politician. Hamp peddles the free passes. Hamp picks and chooses the “local attorneys.” Hamp “sees” the editor who appears to require “seeing.”

But the Brain and Will of the whole plot are those of Sam Spencer.

For eleven years that God-given brain and will have been concentrated upon one purpose, only one—to heap up riches for Wall Street rascals! Great has been the result. Sam Spencer’s masters are so highly pleased with his work that they congratulate him!

How interesting! It seems to me that they are the fellows to be congratulated. Sam has doubled the amount of their property, he has trebled the gross income from that property, and has increased their net revenues over 525 per cent!

Colossal profits these. How were they made?

By such a system of dishonesty, extortion, law-breaking, and reckless disregard of human life as has rarely been known, even in the history of modern commercialism.

The merchants and farmers throughout the Southern States have been ruthlessly robbed. The melon growers, the fruit men, the truck gardeners have, in thousands of cases, been so hounded and harried and victimized by excessive charges, secret rebates and discriminations in favor of other shippers, that they have been literally driven out of the field, broken and despairing.

Roadbeds, bridges, safety appliances, have been so wantonly neglected that almost every mile of the Southern Railway System from Washington southward has known its tragedy, where men, women and children were dashed to sudden, horrible death.

It was not the hard necessity of poverty that drove Sam Spencer to a policy so heartless as this. He had the means wherewith to put his roads in first-class order, had he wished to spend the funds in that way. It was not necessary for him to rob the men who were obliged to patronize his roads. If a fair, legitimate profit upon actual investment was all that he sought, he could have got it without doing the slightest injustice to any human being.

But he wanted more than that. A reasonable return upon the actual investment was not enough. So, he neglected the bridge until it fell, with its sickening horror, its shrieking mass of passengers doomed to frightful death. He neglected the safety appliances, and the full force of workmen, until some rotten crosstie, or defective rail, or open switch, or telegram which the dulled brain of an overworked engineer failed to comprehend, brought about derailments and collisions, with the heartrending consequence of crushed and burning cars, of crushed and burning men, women and children.

“The merchants and farmers throughout the Southern states have been ruthlessly robbed.”

Had the same proportion of the earnings been used to improve the property, as is the universal custom in Europe, there would have been the same security to the passenger that there is in Europe.

But the net profit to Wall Street would have been only a fair return upon the money actually invested—as it is in Europe.

Wall Street demands more than that. Sam Spencer’s task was to get what Wall Street wanted.

Have I not already said that Wall Street knows how to pick out its man?

It never chose a better tool for its purpose than Sam Spencer.

He has doubled the amount of their property.

That is good.

But he has done better than that.

He has trebled the gross earnings.

And that is good, too.

But he has done still better than that.

He has increased the net earnings more than five hundred and twenty-five per cent!

Good, better, best.

That enormous profit had to be made out of somebody.

Freight rates and passenger rates are taxes which the transportation companies levy upon freight and passengers. When Sam Spencer added 525 per cent. to the net revenue of his masters, he had to tax it out of the people who patronized the Southern Railroad.

Who were these people? Mostly, Southern people. The tax was levied upon the South, and paid by the South.

Sam Spencer is a Southern man?

Bless you, yes!

Wall Street hired him to systematize the robbery of his own people, and he has done it.

“We lost fewer lives to the invading host of Sherman than we have lost to the railroads under Sam Spencer.”

During the eleven years of his rule he has plundered his own people of more money than they lost by Sherman’s “Marching through Georgia.”

The people of the South have lost more to the Wall Street railway corporations than they lost to the whole of Sherman’s army.

The battles of the Civil War were bloody, for it was Greek meet Greek, and it was, in truth, the tug of war. Especially were the battles bloody when Sherman came down against us, for he brought Western troops—the best that the Union had.

But we lost fewer lives to the invading host of Sherman than we have lost to the railroads during the eleven years that Sam Spencer has been one of their most relentless and unscrupulous lieutenants.

He and his allies in plunder and crime killed and wounded, last year, the staggering total of 92,000 human beings.

The ghastly record grows bloodier every year.

Human life is nothing; dividends are everything.

Five hundred and twenty-five per cent!

And Sam Spencer’s bosses pat him on the back and congratulate him.

Ah, yes; they were feeling good. They expanded. They bubbled over.

As who should say: “Sam, you are a trump. When we bought you, we believed we had bought a good thing; now we know it. You have been tried, and you have proven true. We set you to the task of plundering your own people, and you have not flinched from the job. You have skinned them to the queen’s taste. You have doubled our estate, trebled the earnings, and so squeezed the train-crews, the section hands, the roadbed, the shipper and the passenger, that you have swelled our profits more than 525 per cent. We congratulate you—and, we pocket the money.”

From a Newspaper

THE AMERICAN FLAG INSULTED BY NEGRO BISHOP IN MACON.

DENOUNCED GLORIOUS EMBLEM AS A CONTEMPTIBLE RAG AT THE STATE NEGRO CONVENTION.

Macon, Ga., Feb. 16.—In an address before the five hundred delegates attending the convention of negroes in this city to discuss racial problems, Bishop H. M. Turner declared the American Flag to be a dirty and contemptible rag. He further said that hell was an improvement on the United States when the negro was involved.

In closing he said:

“I have heard of both white and black men perpetrating rape upon innocent, angelic women, but no negro in this country has been tried by the courts and found guilty of the heinous crime of rape in fifteen years.

“I know that bloody-handed and drunken mobs have said so, but what Christian people would accept what they say? Yet there are millions of men who pretend to be moral and claim to be sensible in this country, who go to these drunken mobs to get information relative to the conduct of colored men.”

How it came to pass is a question which human wisdom may not solve, but in the earliest dawn of history we find the races of men separated by color and by characteristics, very much as they are at this time.

In spite of all the comings and goings, the migrations and conquests, the discoveries and colonizations, the world is pretty nearly the same old world, so far as the distinct races of men are concerned. The Jew is still the Jew, the Gentile still the Gentile. All the currents of the ages have not washed the yellow man white, nor turned the red man yellow, nor the black man red. The hot sun of the tropics pours down upon the heads of the sons of men as fervidly as in the days of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but it has not been able to kink the hair, flatten the nose, blubber the lips or blacken the hide of a single man, woman or child of the Aryan race. The Chinaman, racially, is what he was in the time of Confucius; the Hindoo is yet the dark man whom Khrishna sought to lead to the higher life.

In Africa, the home of the negro, there has been a monotonous repetition of the same old facts which historians learned from monumental inscriptions and indestructible tablets thousands upon thousands of years old.

The African negro has always been a distinct type, an inferior type, a savage type, a non-progressive type. Left to himself, he wore no clothing, built no houses, had no commerce, systematized no production of any sort and never had the faintest conception of doing anything to improve himself or his condition. He killed for the day the game he needed for the day. For the future, he made as little provision as the Indian and the Esquimau.

Beyond the herding of cattle he had no instinct for accumulation. His normal state was that of warfare against some other black tribe. His religion was the grossest superstition. He offered up to his heathen gods the sacrifice of the negro child; and when his appetite for four-legged animals was sated, he changed his diet by cooking and eating another negro.

Where the sexual relations of the men and women were not promiscuous, they were polygamous. Strictly speaking, there was no such thing as morals known among them. Property rights which certain men had, or claimed, in certain women might be respected, but the conception of virtue was not reached.

They never evolved an alphabet. They never advanced beyond the crudest, rudest, most brutal tribe-life.

They had chiefs, or kings; and these kings exercised, despotically, the power of life and death over their ignorant subjects.

They had conjurers and witch doctors, and it was one of the time-honored customs that the witch doctors should “smell out,” for death, the wretched creatures whom the king wanted to kill, or whom the witch doctors themselves wished to put out of the way.

Thousands upon thousands of years ago, negro warriors sold their negro captives into slavery. Negro husbands would offer their wives and daughters to foreign travelers. Negro fathers would sell their children. In some of the oldest monumental inscriptions of the human race, the negro appears as the chained slave of foreign masters.

Anybody on earth who wanted to buy him could do it. His king was ready to sell him; his father was ready to sell him. The Egyptian, the Greek, the Roman owned black slaves as far back as the records go; and the historian Gibbon did no more than express the universal experience and opinion of the ages when he wrote that the negro was a distinctly inferior race.

“His normal state was that of warfare against some other black tribe.”

Of all the negroes that have ever lived Tchaka was the greatest. He ruled in Africa, in the eighteenth century.

He was a man of immense natural power. His ambition was boundless, his soul untroubled by fear or scruple. Absolute master of a strong tribe, he hurled it against other tribes, one after another, until he had conquered and devastated an imperial territory. In his march to dominion, it is estimated that he caused the slaughter of a million human beings, all of whom were his brothers in black. But he never built a city; never put a ship on the sea; never made two blades of grass grow where one had grown before. He founded no institutions of any kind. He was densely ignorant and superstitious himself, and he had no conception of anything higher or better.

To kill, to conquer, to feast, to indulge bestial lust, to inspire terror, to exploit and mercilessly abuse the abject servility of the negroes over whom he ruled were his “pleasures of living.”

It was believed that he caused the death of his own mother; it is known that when he buried her he buried fourteen young negro girls with her—buried them alive!

It is known that, during the “period of mourning” which followed, he caused the death of some thousands of maddened and helpless negroes. It is also known that his sisters got his brothers to assassinate him. Then one of these brothers murdered the other, and so became king of that happy land.

In Africa where the negro is still to be seen in his natural state, you can still buy negroes from negroes. Husbands will yet sell wives, fathers will yet barter daughters and sons. The buying and selling of negroes goes on now just as it did in the days of the Pharaohs. There is not so much of it as there used to be—to the regret, doubtless, of African chiefs who have negroes they would like to sell.

One of the San Domingo Nobility.

Not long ago there was a story which went the usual rounds. An English traveler was about to set out from a certain coast town of Africa upon a journey into the interior. He expected to be gone for several months. In fitting himself out with camp equipage, he bought a negro girl to carry along—to serve as his mistress. Her father sold her, and the only surprise that was caused by the transaction was the amount paid. The Englishman gave about one hundred dollars for the girl and it was generally considered an extravagant figure. As to the girl, she seemed proud to have been selected, and gratified at having been sold so high. When the Englishman had finished his trip, he probably sold her at a discount to some other white man who desired a complete camp outfit.

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Excepting those portions of Africa wherein the white man has set his foot and impressed his will, the negro is at this day the same lustful, brutal, besotted cannibal and voodoo slave that he was thousands of years ago.

In Jamaica, the white man has to steer for him, and control him.

He did not even know what to do with bananas till Col. Baker, a white man, came along and taught him.

In Liberia, he has gone back to heathenism and savagery, because the white man’s strong hand is not there to guide and control.

In San Domingo, he had—as a starting point—one of the fairest civilizations the world has known. Aided by the yellow fever, the black man drove out the white; and now he has gone back into chaos, voodooism, cannibalism and imbecility.

In the United States, negroes can run a bank, for they can see white men running banks all around them and they are quick at imitation.

How is it in San Domingo, where the black man rules the white?

Apparently there is not a bank in San Domingo. If there is, it cannot be trusted. Why do I say this?

Because that portion of the San Domingan custom-house receipts which was to be paid to the creditors of the negro republic had to be deposited in a New York bank for safe-keeping.

In the United States, the negroes can run colleges, manufacturing establishments, automobile street-car lines, newspapers and magazines. Why? Because they see how the whites run colleges, manufactories, and automobiles, newspapers and magazines.

In San Domingo there is no Tuskeegee, Hampton or Howard. In San Domingo there are no flourishing manufactories created and operated by negroes; and no up-to-date automobile street-car lines, such as the negroes started in Nashville, Tennessee.

The negroes of San Domingo ought to have a commerce—one of the most profitable in the world; but they haven’t. Their navy is a myth, and their army a joke. One revolution chases after another with such confusing rapidity that when our Senate meets to debate the ratification of the San Domingan treaty which Roosevelt had arranged, the “President” with whom Roosevelt had made the treaty is a fugitive, whose “Cabinet” has compelled him to take to the woods.

There used to be an “Order of Nobility” in San Domingo, with its Marquis of Lemonade and its Duke of Marmalade; but as these eminent Noblemen have failed to show up in the later turmoils I fear their titles have become extinct, or that the “Order of Nobility” has been abolished.

Which is a pity. It would have been something worth living for to have seen the Duke of Marmalade paying a visit to this country, receiving the adoring attentions which New York’s “Swell Set” pay to all “noblemen” whomsoever.

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Nowhere else in the universe is the negro treated so well as in the United States.

He was once a slave, but his own people sold him. Either he was a captive in war who would have been slain, broiled and eaten, if the English or Dutch sailor had not come along and offered to buy him; or he was in the power of his chief, his father or his brother, and was by them offered for a price.

Some of the blacks who were brought to this country may have been kidnapped, but, as a rule, there was no need for kidnapping. Negroes could be bought for a song all along the Coast and all through the interior of Africa. The most successful “kidnapper” was New England rum.

Yes, it is a literal historical fact that the negro was sold into slavery by his own people, just as Joseph was sold by his brethren.

In the long run what was the consequence to the negro?

He was changed from a savage into a semi-civilized man.

In his native land he had been an ignorant serf whose life depended upon the temper of a despotic brute—his chief.

He exchanged a slavery for a slavery; and the slavery to which he was brought lifted him from a brute into a man.

We taught him how to work; we taught him how to read; we taught him how to think; we taught him how to live.

To free him from the bondage into which his own brethren had sold him, a million white men rose in arms. There were four years of terrible, horrible strife; half a million white men fell in battle; six billions of dollars were devoured in the flames of Civil War; and over all that period of strife, and over the host which finally triumphed, waved the flag which the freed negro—freed at such frightful cost—now safely denounces as a dirty and contemptible rag!

When the “Brothers’ War” was over and while the former owner of the slaves was prostrate, those who had fought that the black man might be free, clothed him in the garments of citizenship, giving him the ballot, giving him office, giving him power, at the same time that tens of thousands of white men were outlawed.

“Show to the world that you are capable of government,” said the white philanthropist to the blacks; and the result was a hideous carnival of mismanagement, incompetency and gross rascality which at last made even the professional white philanthropist sick and ashamed.

Taking out of the hands of the blacks the political power which he had shown himself unfit to wield, the whites have ever since occupied toward him the attitude of a guardian over a ward, manifesting for him a helpful sympathy, aiding his advancement with substantial contributions, leading him upward and onward by precept, example and wholesome control.

Schools were established for him. Churches were built for him. White men and white women devoted their lives to lifting the black man, the black woman, the black child into the nobler, purer paths. White men taxed themselves to put an end to the negro’s ignorance and superstition. The white man opened his purse to endow colleges for the negro’s special benefit. The white man opened the door of opportunity to the black, and gave him a chance in every field of human endeavor.

“We taught him how to work; we taught him how to read; we taught him how to think; we taught him how to live.”

Not for one month could the negro prosper in the United States, if the white man became his enemy.

In one month, we could by concert of action, so smite the negro that his mushroom growth would wither like the severed gourd-vine. The maddest thing, the most suicidal thing that the black man could do would be to arouse the enmity of the whites.

When that day comes, if it shall ever come, the white man will not any more stop to count the cost of annihilating, or of driving out the blacks, than Spain halted to count the cost of smiting and driving out the Moor.

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In the United States the negro is seen at his best, because of the constant example, guidance and control of the whites.

Nowhere else on the planet has the negro the religious establishment which he has copied from us, with our earnest help.

Nowhere else has he the educational system which he has patterned after ours, aided at every step by us.

Nowhere else has he the banks, manufactures, newspapers, magazines, modernized farms, elegant professional offices which he has fashioned upon our models, amid our plaudits of approval and encouragement.

By the hundreds, by the thousands, the negro has been admitted to positions of honor and trust. He has been in the Senate; he has been in the House of Representatives; he has been in the State Legislatures; he has served on juries; he is in the army; he is on the police force.

In the proud, aristocratic city of Charleston doth not the redoubtable Dr. Crum, a negro, sit at the Receipt of Customs, drawing a fatter salary than was ever enjoyed by Matthew, the Apostle of Christ?

“To free him from bondage half a million white men fell in battle.”

There are no Dr. Crums in Africa or Liberia. And in San Domingo it is the white man who sits at the receipt of customs—nobody being willing to trust the negro with his own money.

Hath not our Roosevelt declared that when Judson Lyons, Register of the Treasury, goes out, another negro shall take his place? Thus it shall continue to happen that Uncle Sam’s paper money will not be good in law until a negro has set his name to it.

Once upon a time, a white man, in the United States, gave a negro school a million dollars in a lump. Doctor Booker Washington got the money. I wonder how long the learned Doctor would have to live in Africa, Liberia, or San Domingo before he could get a million dollars with which to operate a school.

Really, it sometimes occurs to me that if such negroes as Bishop Turner are honest in their denunciations of the United States, they would pack up their belongings and go right back to dear old Africa, the home of the race. Nothing on earth prevents their doing so.

Rather than go to hell I would go to Africa; and if I believed I was living in a land which was worse than hell, I would even try San Domingo, for a change.

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What bosh, nonsense and self-assertive insolence is embodied in Bishop Turner’s denunciation of the Flag and of the Government!

Poor, down-trodden negro!

What a doleful howl he sets up when he is asked to ride in a separate car; and when he is told that separate churches, separate schools, separate hotels, and separate social life is best for both races. How he raves and froths at the mouth when we tell him that for his own sake, as well as ours, we who have, with desperate difficulty and hardship and sacrifice, built up our civilization, cannot afford to allow it to fall into the power of the inferior race. We have seen what they did with this same Civilization in San Domingo when the French Revolution, most unwisely, entrusted it to the blacks.

Reconstruction days taught us that the San Domingan experience would be repeated here, if the negro rule continued. To save ourselves from such a calamity, and to save the negro from himself, we put back into the hands of the whites that civilization which had been the outcome of centuries of effort on the part of the whites.

And when the Negro Convention of today has not met to howl but to brag, what a beautiful, brilliant picture their orators can paint, as they proclaim the progress and prosperity of the negro. What wonderful statistics they use to prove that the negro has advanced in knowledge more rapidly than the whites of Russia, of Hungary, of Italy and of Spain! What a glittering array of accumulated millions do they claim, in lands, chattels and hereditaments! With what vociferous gusto do they “point with pride” to their farms, their stores, their banks, their newspapers, their magazines! To listen to them when they have assembled to jubilate instead of to howl, you would suppose that, so far as the negro was concerned, the horn of plenty was full, the land flowing with milk and honey. Even Bishop Turner, with an amazingly unconscious inconsistency, fills his letter of so-called denial with boastings of the handsome homes in which the negroes live, the furniture which the white man just ought to go and see, the “library” which would delight the scholar, the piano music and the organ melodies which, in negro homes, soothe the ear and charm the sense.

Let us admit that every bit of this bragging and boasting is founded upon solid fact. Then, in the name of common sense, let me inquire: “Where, oh, where, is the negro race doing all these marvelous things?”

In what country, under what flag, is he piling up these millions of money? Under what government is he outstripping the Russian, the Spaniard, the Austrian? Where is it that he has bought so many farms, established so many banks, built such fine houses, secured such attractive furniture, and gotten an organ for ’Liza Jane and a piano for Susan Ann?

Is it in Africa? No. In Liberia? No. In San Domingo? No.

The negro is doing the splendid things to which he “points with pride” in that country whose flag is a dirty rag, in that land which is worse than hell!

Poor, down-trodden negro!

He makes an idle wager in Baltimore that he will kiss a white girl, in a white hotel; and he walks up to her in the public dining room, puts his hands upon her and kisses her!

In Chicago, he sits down in a white restaurant, and beckons a white woman waitress to come and wait upon him; and when she refuses, he goes straight to a magistrate, swears out a warrant, has the girl arrested, and sends her to prison!

Poor down-trodden negro! In New York City, and perhaps in other cities, negro men hold white women in a state of slavery, to minister to their lusts; and the political power of these negroes is so great that the lawful authorities have been utterly unable to free these white slaves from the bestial degradation in which they are held by their black masters.

In Washington City—but that would require a chapter to itself. If there is a Paradise on this earth, a Garden of Eden filled with ceaseless joy for the non-producing, insolent, self-assertive blacks, it is our Capital City of Washington, where more than two thousand negro men and women draw Government pay in federal offices.

Oh, that Bishop Turner had described to the Macon Convention one of those “Receptions” at the mansion of Judson Lyons, Register of the Treasury—such as Judson often held. Oh, that the Bishop had told the Convention how many of Judson’s colored guests came in automobiles, which were left lining the sidewalk and obstructing the street. Oh, that the Bishop had described to the Convention the similarity between the negro “Reception” at the mansion of the Register of the Treasury and the white reception of the President of the United States!

“Poor down-trodden negro!... he is sometimes compelled to take dinner with John Wanamaker and lunch with Theodore Roosevelt.”

Poor, down-trodden negro! In this land which is worse than hell, it actually happens that he is sometimes compelled to take dinner with John Wanamaker, and to lunch with Theodore Roosevelt!

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The amazement within me grows as I dwell upon the black man’s woes, and I marvel that Doctor Washington, Judson Lyons, Bishop Turner “and others among ’em” do not pack right up and go straight back to dear old Africa.

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And to think that the man who declared this country to be worse than hell is a “negro preacher.” I had supposed that if there was any human being who found the United States an ideal abode, it was the “negro preacher.” He is the one incumbent whom I had been led to believe had a mighty rich thing in salary, and a still richer thing in “perqueesits.” If I had been asked to go out and find the man who could unreservedly indorse the proposition that life is worth living, I should have struck a bee line for the nearest negro preacher.

Of course, if I had been unable to find him, my next choice would have been the negro school-teacher.

The army of negro preachers is a shining host, waving palms of victory, and apparently happy; the army of negro school-teachers is another shining host, waving palms of victory, and apparently happy.

The white man’s money, directly and indirectly, supplies the sinews of war to both these shining hosts—a fact which it did not suit the purpose of Bishop Turner to mention in the convention which had met to howl, and which, consequently, was bound to howl.

In Africa, in Liberia, in San Domingo, negro preachers have not flourished, increased, or put their hands upon so many good things as they have done in poor, little, old North America. And the shining hosts of negro school-teachers, flush with the white man’s money, do not wave any palms of victory beyond the limits of the country which is worse than hell, the country whose flag is a dirty, contemptible rag “where the negro is involved.”

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Take out of your pocket a five-dollar or one-dollar treasury note, or certificate, and look at the name signed to give it validity.

“Judson W. Lyons, Register of the Treasury.”

Do you find it?

Well, that name has been a legal necessity to every treasury note issued by the Federal Government during the last eight years.

Judson W. Lyons is a negro.

For the last eight years he has been holding the high, responsible and well-paid office of Register of the Treasury of the United States.

Nevertheless, this Judson W. Lyons went down to Macon, Georgia, to attend a convention of negroes, and in this convention he heard Bishop H. M. Turner, a negro, denounce the flag of his country as “a contemptible and dirty rag;” and Judson did not open his mouth to protest.

He also heard this ungrateful Bishop declare that—“Hell is an improvement on the United States when the negro is involved.”

Still, Judson W. Lyons sat there in apparent acquiescence—he an officer of the Government!

Now when you are told that every blessed son and son-in-law of Bishop H. M. Turner was appointed to office under President Cleveland, and when you bear in mind that Judson Lyons has so long been in the enjoyment of a Federal office which pays him $8,000 per year, you can form a fair idea of a radical defect in negro character. It is Ingratitude.

Bishop Turner has been treated with the utmost consideration by the whites. He enjoys a larger income than he could hope to draw as witch doctor in Africa, or as voodoo man in San Domingo. He lives on the fat of the land, grows juicy himself, and yet runs no risk of being hot-potted by hungry brethren—as he would in his native land of Africa. He dresses in a manner which would have stunned King Tchaka; and to see him take his ecclesiastical ease in a Pullman car is a sight for the sore-eyed.

What is the Bishop angry about?

Apparently for the reason that “drunken mobs” in the North, South, East and West diabolically persist in accusing the negro of committing rape.

The Bishop says that the negro is innocent. Being innocent, he is necessarily as innocent as a new-born babe. The Bishop declares that “no negro has been tried by the courts and found guilty of this crime of rape in fifteen years.”

This statement makes the other twin for Booker Washington’s assertion that “not more than six” graduates of negro colleges have ever gone wrong. A more precious pair of Siamese-twin lies have not been put in type since the decease of the late lamented Baron Munchausen.

My opinion is that Bishop Turner, if he continues to cultivate the evil spirit which broke loose in the Macon Convention, will some day know, by experience, whether hell IS an improvement over the United States; but, before that time comes, I would suggest that he step down to San Domingo and soak himself in the luxuries of that region for awhile, as a preparation for the other place.

“In New York a negro is at the head of the white slave traffic.”

Note.—Public opinion expressed itself so hotly concerning his attack on the flag that Bishop Turner felt driven into a perfunctory and involved denial; but having read this so-called denial I am convinced that the bishop did use substantially the words reported, because of the significant fact that his so-called denial contains language quite as offensive, quite as insulting, as that which he surlily pretends to disclaim. Had this been the first time that Bishop Turner had denounced the Government that has done so much for his race, had it been the first time he had outrageously vilified the people among whom he lives, there might be room for doubt concerning the Macon speech. But Bishop Turner has for years been speaking and writing in precisely the vein which appears in the reports that went out from Macon. He has become conspicuous as a chronic assailant of the whites. Therefore I have not the slightest doubt that he used at Macon in substance, if not in the very words, the reports as telegraphed all over the country.

Mr. John L. Sturtevant, whose card informs the interested universe that he, the said John L., is editor of The Waupaca Post, of Waupaca, Wis., flew into a passion when he read the February number of this Magazine.

The why and the wherefore of his sudden rage are best explained in a red-hot letter which I now give in full, just as it came sizzling from the frying pan:

Feb. 17, 1906.

Thomas E. Watson, New York.

Dear Sir: In the February number of your magazine, on page 400, under the caption “Best on Earth” you state: “The big Milwaukee First National Bank burst and the people lost $1,450,000.” The statement is absolutely false. F. G. Bigelow, president of the bank, appropriated that amount from the bank’s funds to his own use, but the bank did not burst nor did the “people,” in the sense in which you use the word, lose one cent. The loss fell upon the stockholders and was fully paid from the surplus which the bank had accumulated during an honorable and successful career. Your magazine is full of just such reckless and libelous statements as this, which make thoughtful readers look with distrust upon the few truths it contains. Intentionally, or otherwise, you constantly do grave injury to many people and the pity of it is your readers who do not think or reason are led along the paths of populism, socialism and anarchy.

Sincerely yours,

J. L. Sturtevant.

Touching the falsehood to which the furious John L. refers, I have this to say: My article was based upon a “special” sent out from Chicago which went the rounds of the Press, and which was not contradicted.

The “special” from which I took the facts, appeared, on December 19, 1905, in the Augusta Herald, one of the most reliable and conservative Democratic daily papers in the United States.

The indignant Sturtevant does not deny that the bank was looted of the sum stated by me, but because I said that “the people” lost the money he charges me with having made a statement that was “absolutely false.” Sturtevant alleges that the money was not stolen from “the people” but from “the stockholders!”

He is equally indignant because I said that the bank “burst.” He alleges that the stockholders were able to stand the theft of nearly a million and a half dollars, and that the bank didn’t burst.

An Editor of a Magazine is at a disadvantage when compared to the Editor of The Waupaca Post, of Waupaca, Wisconsin. Sturtevant evidently stands at the head-waters of information, and gets his news fresh from the spring. That’s one of the luxuries of living and editing at Waupaca.

A poor devil of a Georgia editor, like me, has to take his information second-hand. In spite of all that I can do, it is impossible for me to be there, all over the world, when things are happening.

Sturtevant was close to Milwaukee when Bigelow looted his bank, and therefore, knew at first hand what the facts were. On the contrary, I was thousands of miles off, and had to rely upon telegraphic despatches, published in reputable newspapers.

In the “special” from Chicago which appeared in the Herald, of Augusta, Ga., December 19, 1905, this language appears:

“The three big bank wrecks which are still fresh in the public mind on account of their size and recent date are: the Enterprise National Bank of Allegheny, Penn.; The First National Bank of Topeka, Kans.; the First National Bank of Milwaukee, Wis.!”

Then in a tabulated statement, the “special” gave sums which were classified as “losses.”

In this separate list of “losses” occasioned by “the bank wrecks,” the First National Bank of Milwaukee, heads the table with $1,450,000.

Therefore, instead of my statement in the Magazine being reckless and false, it was carefully based upon a “special” sent out from Chicago in December, which at the time my paragraphs were written had gone unchallenged for more than a month.

Even when corrected by Mr. Sturtevant, how much good is done to the National Banking system whose claim to be “the best on earth” I was ridiculing? My point was that the lootings of this boasted “best system on earth” were so frequent and so colossal that it was absurd to claim that the system was “the best on earth.” How does the Waupaca Champion of looted banks improve matters by explaining that the president of the bank merely stole a million and a half from the stockholders?

How does he weaken my attack by saying that the bank was able to stand the huge robbery?

Is bank rottenness saved from denunciation because the looted bank happened to be rich enough to survive the blow?

Is bank gutting made respectable because the stockholders alone were gutted?

Suppose the stockholders had not been rich enough to make good the loss; suppose the bank had not possessed “a surplus” of that immense size—wouldn’t “the loss” have fallen upon “the people,” and wouldn’t the bank have “burst”?

Ah, Mr. Sturtevant! When you say that a National Bank has gained such tremendous profits out of the privilege of creating money and lending it to the people at high rates of interest that a robbery which runs up into the millions does not stagger it in the least, you simply convince the intelligent reader that National Banks reap far greater gains out of Special Privilege than their champions are in the habit of admitting.

As to the “other” reckless and libelous statements which the Waupaca Editor says I have been making in the Magazine, I can only invite him to name them.

The Magazine is here to stay, and it is not conscious of having made reckless and libelous statements.

The columns are open to brother Sturtevant, and to all others, who wish to challenge any statements made therein.

Whenever I am shown to be wrong, I will gladly make correction, and, if need be, apology.

If, on the contrary, the other fellow happens to be wrong, I will endeavor, in a mild, conciliatory but earnest spirit to show him his error.

Brother Sturtevant, of Waupaca, asserts that I am constantly doing grave injury to many people.

I appeal to Sturtevant to furnish me a list—a partial one, at least—of the people whom I am constantly injuring so gravely.

If he can establish the fact that in the 200,000 words or more, which I have written for the Magazine, a grave injury has been inflicted upon any man, woman or child, I stand ready to make the fullest amends.

Make good, brother Sturtevant!

Certain good friends of mine were shocked, a few months ago, when they learned that I was one of those monsters who believe in the private ownership of land.

Some of them deplored my ignorance, and urged me to go straightway and read “Progress and Poverty.” Well, I had read Henry George’s book soon after its publication, and had once had the precious advantage of serving a term in Congress with the great Tom Johnson; yet I never had been able to see the distinction, in principle, between the private ownership of a cow and the private ownership of a cow-lot.

Some men are just that stupid, and when Ephraim gets “sot” on a thing of that kind, even Louis Post, of The Public, has to let him alone.

Certain other friends made the point on me that I did not understand Count Tolstoy. That is possible. In his various ramblings into various speculative matters, Tolstoy, like our own Emerson, gets lost, sometimes, in mazes of his own making; and he uses language which may delight professional commentators, but which is sorely vexatious to an average citizen who really wants to know what the philosophers are driving at.

Tolstoy is careful to avoid History. The flood of light which might be thrown upon the land question by the records of the human race is shut out altogether.

And this is the weak spot in the armor of every champion who enters the list against the Private Ownership of Land. If History makes any one thing plain, it is that a Civilization was never able to develop itself on any other basis than that of Private Ownership.

Like other champions of his theory, Tolstoy forgets the elemental traits of Human Nature. He forgets how unequal we are by Nature; how we differ, in character, capacity, taste and purpose; how few there are who will labor for the “good of all,” and how universal is the rule that each man labors, first of all, for himself.

He forgets that every beast of the field has its prototype in some members of the human family; he forgets that the man-tiger is now more numerous than the four-footed sort; that the man-fox is more cunning than his wild brother; that the man-wolf hunts with every human herd; that the man-sloth is marked by nature with her own indelible brand; that some men are born timid as the deer are; that some are born without fear as the lion is; that the human hog grunts and gorges, and makes himself a nauseating nuisance, on the streets, in hotels, in the Pullman cars—in fact everywhere, but most of all where people have to eat and sleep.

This is the fundamental error which doctrinaires are prone to make. They forget what Human Nature actually is, always has been, and perhaps, always will be.

They argue about ideal conditions, unmindful of the fact that ideal conditions require ideal men—and that we haven’t got the ideal men.

Every society, every state, must from necessity be made up of the Good, the Bad, and the Indifferent and the law-makers of that society, that state, will from necessity be compelled to frame laws suited to that community. Hence, the laws will not be absolutely the best, considering the question as an abstract question, but they will be the best which that community is capable of receiving.

All legislation, like all Society, is a compromise.

In a state of Nature I would be absolutely free. But I would be alone. To protect myself in person, property or family, I would have to rely upon my individual arm. My absolute freedom would be an absolute isolation and a relative helplessness.

I would find that I could not endure such a life. I would therefore seek companionship among other men who felt the same needs that I felt, and we would come together for the “good of all.” One hundred families coming together in this way form the nucleus of Society, of the State. Each man gives up a portion of his individual freedom when he enters this union of families which forms such a nucleus.

Why does he surrender a portion of his wild, natural, individual freedom? Why does he agree to be bound by the will of the Community instead of his own will? Why does he consent to be governed by the public when he had previously been his own ruler? He does it because it is to his interest to do it. He finds that, while he has surrendered much, he has gained more. The Community throws around him the protection of a hundred strong arms where previously he had but his own.

The Community, in a hundred ways, ministers to his wants, his weaknesses, his desires, his prosperity.

In other words, the Community gives more than it took.

Association which improves the Community tends to improve each member thus associated; and from this association come all those blessings which we call Civilization.

Resolve the Association back into its elements; let each individual separate from the mass; let each one say, “I’m my own man,”—and what becomes of Civilization?

It perishes, of course.

Now where will Tolstoy find the basis of Society in Nature?

In the human instinct for getting-together. And that instinct seems to grow out of our hopes, and our fears, our profound belief that we need our fellow-man, and that we are not strong enough to stand alone, no matter how much we would like to do so.

Deep down in your heart you will find the primeval, natural craving for independence, individuality, separate living, separate doing. With the great common mass of humanity this tendency has been weakened by disuse until it is not an active principle. It is like a muscle which has lost its strength from inaction. Hence, the common man goes with the herd, just as a flock of sheep follows the bell-wether.

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Society, then is a matter of convention: Nature did not frame it.

Nor does Nature impose upon us the relation of Husband and Wife.

Why do we adopt the present marriage system, which differs in so many respects from Nature, and from former practices of the human race?

Simply because we believe it to be an improvement. We know it is better than the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes: we believe it to be better than Polygamy; we hope that it will some day be a more radiant success than the Divorce Courts would seem to indicate.

Now as to the land.

Undoubtedly, the earth was given to the human family as a home for the family. Undoubtedly, Nature teaches that the earth belongs in common to the entire human race.

Thus it was in the beginning. But, just as the wild horse became the property of the bold tribesman who caught it and tamed it; just as the natural fruit of the forest belonged to him who gathered it; just as the cave or hollow tree became the dwelling of the first occupant, so the well in the thirsty plain became the property of him that had dug down to the waters; and the pasturage which one had taken up might not be taken away from him by another.

Mine was the bark hut which my labor had built; mine the canoe which my hands had hollowed out; mine the bow and arrows which I had fashioned; mine the herds and flocks, the goats and asses which I had tamed and reared and cared for till they had multiplied.

Should the idler, or the thief of the tribe, take from me that which my labor had produced? Must my canoe belong to the whole tribe? Must my garment which I had made out of the skins of the wild beast belong to the sloth who loafed in the tent while I risked my life in the woods?

Nature said, no!

Nature, speaking through elemental instinct said: “That which your labor made is yours.”

Yours the hut, yours the canoe, yours the garment of skins, yours the bow and arrows—and that was the beginning of Private Property in Personalty.

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But look again at the ways of Nature and of the tribe.

Pasturage failed after awhile; natural fruits were no longer sufficient to sustain life; game disappeared from the forest; fish grew scarce in the streams. Something had to be done to make good the shortage. The soil was there, suggesting cultivation. The products of Nature must be supplemented by human industry. But before the soil could be cultivated, the trees had to be cut away; cattle and wild beasts had to be fenced out; the virgin earth had to be made the bride of toil before the fruitful seed would bring forth harvests.

Now who was to do the work?

The Idler wouldn’t; the Feeble couldn’t; the Hunter didn’t; the strong, clear-headed Laborer made the farm.

Those who assail private ownership of land say that “the man who makes a farm doesn’t make it in the sense that one makes a basket or a chair.” They see clearly that, if they admit that the pioneer who goes into the wilderness or the swamps and creates a farm, is to be put on the same footing as the man who goes into the woods, gets material and makes a canoe, or a chair or a basket, it is “farewell world” to their theory about the land. Therefore they say that the farm was already there, waiting for the farmer. All the farmer had to do was to go there and tickle the soil with a hoe, and it laughed with the harvest.

How very absurd! You might just as well say that the willows that bent over the waters of the brook were baskets waiting for the tardy basketmaker to come and get them. You might just as well say that the hide on the cow’s back was a pair of ladies’ shoes waiting for the lady to come and fit them to her dainty feet.

Must we get rid of our common sense, our practical knowledge, before we can argue a case of this sort? Do not these doctrinaires know that they are denying physical facts, plain everyday experience, when they say that a piece of wild land in the desert, in the swamps, on the mountain side, or in the woody wilderness is a farm waiting for the farmer? Sheer nonsense never went further. But they are compelled to this extent because of the necessities of their case. They see at once that if ever they admit my position that the laborer takes raw materials with which nature supplies him, and out of those raw materials creates something that did not exist before, then the laborer is entitled to that which his labor creates.

Now, do you mean to tell me, that for thousands of years there were farms waiting the pioneers here in North America? Consider for a moment what the New England, or the Southern, or the Western farmer had to do before he had made a farm. He had to go into the woods with an axe in one hand and a rifle in the other. Very frequently he was shot down before he could make his farm, just as Abraham Lincoln’s grandfather was killed. Very frequently he died from the fever engendered in the woods before he had made his farm, just as Andrew Jackson’s father did, in the effort to make a farm in the wilderness of North Carolina. Supposing the farmer was able to snatch up his gun quick enough to shoot the Indian who was trying to shoot him, and supposing that his constitution was strong enough to resist the malarial atmosphere in which he had to labor while creating that farm, what was the process through which he went in making that farm? He had to cut off an enormous growth of timber. He had to grub up stumps and roots. He had to plow and cross-plow the soil until it had become a seed bed. He had to inclose the farm to keep out the wild animals which would have devoured his crop. If in a rocky section, he had to remove the stones which encumbered the ground. If in a damp, swampy section, he had to exercise skill, as well as labor, in draining the soil. After four or five years, the laborer had made a farm—something as different from the wild land which he found in the woods as the pine tree is from the lumber which lies upon the lumber-yard; as different as the wool on the sheep’s back is from the coat which you wear; something as different as the willow and the bamboo are from the chairs and the baskets which are made from them.

Now, the doctrinaires say that it would be a sufficient reward to that laborer to give him the crop that he made on the land. Would it? For what length of time will you give him those crops? If you ask the laborer, he will say, “I made this farm; I risked my life in the work: I shortened my days by the labor, the exposure, the drudgery of making this farm. I never would have gone to this amount of toil if I had not believed that society would secure me in the possession of the farm after I made it.”

Having established him in his security of possession, which I say is tantamount to title, suppose that laborer wants to change his farm for a stock of manufactured goods, or for silver and gold, or for horses, or for another piece of land, do you mean to say he shall not have the right to do it? If so, you limit his title, and you have not the right to do so. That which he made he ought to have the right to dispose of on such terms as please him. His title having originated in the sacred rights of labor, you should not limit his enjoyment or his disposition of that which his labor created. If you recognize his right to exchange one product of his labor for another, you recognize his right to exchange all products of his labor for others. In other words, by plain course of reasoning, you arrive at the principle that the bargain and sale of lands is founded upon the right of the laborer to exchange the product of his labor with those who may have product of labor which he could use to better advantage than he can use his own.

Now, let us see. The laborer who made the farm dies. What shall become of it? Away back in the origin of property, occupancy was the first title recognized. As long as one individual, or one tribe, occupied a certain spot their right to use it was recognized, but no longer. When possession was abandoned, the next individual, or the next tribe who occupied that spot, had the right of possession. When tribes ceased to wander about, the occupancy of the spot which the tribe had taken possession of became permanent.

Therefore, the title to that spot grew up in the tribe along with permanent possession. No civilization was ever created by wandering tribes. It is only when the tribe fixes its permanent residence in some particular spot, recognized as exclusively its own, that there is any such thing as law and order and civilization. It is clear enough when we consider one tribe in its relations to other tribes. Let us consider the tribe in its relations to its members. Each individual in the beginning had a title by occupancy to the spot which he cultivated, and this security of possession lasted so long as the occupancy lasted. If the tribesman abandoned his spot of land, with the intent to surrender the same, then the next fortunate tribesman who came along could take possession of it and hold it. But, in the course of time, this created great inconvenience, because, as favored spots became more desirable, the competition to get them was fiercer. Hence, there were feuds, bloody struggles, disorders in the tribe. Consequently, by natural evolution society was forced, first, to recognize the right of the individual as long as he wished to occupy the spot which he had taken possession of; second to provide for the succession to that title when the spot became vacant.

The learned men tell us that, at the death of the occupant, his own family, his own children, being naturally the first who would know that he was dead, were naturally the first who would take possession after his death. Therefore, the sons of the deceased tenant always became the first occupants of the vacant land which had been left vacant by the death of their father. This succession of the sons to the fathers becoming universal, was finally recognized by the law of the tribe; and in the course of time it was recognized further in the law which allowed the tenant to make a will and to say who should take his property after his death.

Thus by slow and almost imperceptible degrees, the tribe recognized, first, the right of the man who had made a farm to hold it as long as he lived; second, the right of his children to follow in his footsteps and to receive the benefit of that which their father had created by his labor; third, and last, came the law of wills and testaments which allowed the tribesman to say what should go with his property after his death.

If the occupant died without heirs and without having made a will, the land went back to the tribe, or the state, to be disposed of as public property. This principle is recognized to this day in the doctrine of escheats.

Property in land differs in nowise from property in horses and cows. The law of property is the same naturally in real estate as in personal estate, and I can conceive of no revenue in any community which is so just as that which lays itself with an equal burden upon all kinds of property in proportion to the amount thereof. In the beginning, one tribesman, like Abraham or Lot, might have his cattle browsing upon a thousand hills, while another tribesman might have made a little farm in some secluded valley, or upon some thirsty, rocky mountain-side where vines were planted, or where olive trees bore their fruit to the industrious citizen who had year in and year out watched and tended their growth. Would there be any justice in compelling those little farmers to supply the revenue for the common purpose of the tribe, and not compel a contribution pro rata from the men who owned “exceeding many flocks and herds”?

The trouble about these doctrinaires is that they start at the present day and reason backward, while I start at the fountain head and reason down. I take things as history shows them to have been; they take things as they think they ought to have been.

The doctrinaire further says that if the tribesman who made a farm had been satisfied to fence in his farm, only, the common would have remained after all had been supplied. In this country, we have millions of acres of “commons” now waiting any one “member of the tribe” who wants to go and take his share. The truth of it is, the doctrinaire doesn’t want to go out into the wild land and make a farm. He wants to stay where he is, and take one that some other fellow has made. Especially doth he crave a slice of the Astor estate, which doctrinaires have talked of so much that they can almost identify their shares therein.

One of the doctrinaires quotes the following from “Progress and Poverty”: “If a fair distribution of land were made among the whole population, giving to each his equal share, and laws enacted which would impose a barrier to the tendency to concentration, by forbidding the holding by anyone of more than a fixed amount, what would become of the increased population?”

I do not consider it any part of my task to assail the position taken in “Progress and Poverty,” but I think it a satisfactory answer to the foregoing question to say that in the very nature of things posterity must be the heirs-at-law of the conditions of those who went before. To say that we can so frame a social fabric as flexibly and automatically to give an equal share of everything to every child born into the world hereafter, regardless of whether that child’s parents were thrifty, industrious, virtuous people, or, on the other hand, were thriftless, indolent, vicious people, seems to me to be one of the wildest dreams that ever entered the human mind. No matter how equal material conditions might be made today by legislation, the inherent inequality in the capacities of men, physically, mentally, spiritually, would evolve differences tomorrow. There is no such thing as equality among men, and no law will ever give it to them. What the father gains the children lose; and the grandchildren may regain. While one man runs the race of life and wins it; another man, equally tall and strong will run the race and lose it. Just why, it is, in some cases, difficult to tell.

Some men naturally lead; some naturally follow; some naturally command; others naturally obey: some are naturally strong; others are naturally weak. The law of life to some is activity; others say that they were born tired; and there is a certain pathos in their excuse for indolence, for they were born tired. One man is naturally brave—physically, morally—and he will venture. Another man is naturally a coward—physically or morally—and he will not venture. A dozen different traits, or combination of traits, make failure or success in life, and to say that success or failure, vice and virtue, good and bad, are the results of environment and social conditions, is as misleading, as a general statement of fundamental facts, as to say that the dove and the hawk, the tiger and the sheep, the rattlesnake and the harmless “black runner” are the results of environment. Nature in its act of creation made the difference between the fowls of the air, the beasts of the field, the fish of the sea, the men and women who inhabit the earth. From the remotest ages, of which we have record, human nature has been the same that it is today. Paganism presented precisely the same types of man in its savagery and its civilization that Christianity now presents in its savagery and civilization. “There is nothing new under the sun,” and the very theories which the doctrinaires now think are matters of modern discovery, unknown to our ancestors, and which would have been adopted had our ancestors been as wise as we, were discussed in the days of Aristotle and had the very best thought of the sages of antiquity.

Let it be remembered, however, that I have always qualified the Private Ownership of Land by acknowledging the supremacy of the State. The tribe, the community, the State, the Government holds supreme power over the life and liberty of citizens, and over the ownership of the soil. The State calls for me to give up my individual pursuits, my individual liberty, my individual preference, and to take my place as a soldier in the ranks of the army. I am compelled to obey; that is an obligation which rests upon me as a member of society. Thus the State can demand my life of me whenever the State declares that it is necessary for the defence of the State. In like manner, the State can restrain me of my liberty. For instance, in times of epidemics, we have shotgun quarantine which destroys my liberty of movement. I would be shot down like a dog if I sought to break through the lines of quarantine, although to make such an escape might mean my individual salvation, whereas obedience to law amounts to sentence of death. In this case, as in the other, the State practically demands my life as an individual as a sacrifice for the good of the greater number of citizens. So, as to property, no man holds an absolute title to land as against the State. The Government, acting for all the tribe, for all the people, can tear down or burn my house to stop the spread of fire. It can confiscate my property for public purposes, when the public need requires it. It can take my land for public buildings, for canals, for railroads, or for new dirt roads through the country. My rights in the premises would be recognized in the payment to me of damages. My individual rights would be assessed in so many dollars and cents. Thus my home, which might be almost as dear to me as my life, would be coldly valued in money, and although I left it with bitter regrets, even with bitter tears and a bitter sense of wrong, I would have to surrender my individual preference to what is supposed to be by constituted authorities the necessity of the State. This right of the public to take away any portion of the soil from the individual, and to dedicate it to the use of the public, is called the right of Eminent Domain, and is a remnant of the old system which recognized that the title to all the lands was in the King. Of course the King stood for the State. Centered in the personal sovereign were those sovereign rights which belong to the people as a whole, and the people as a whole, represented by the King, were admitted to be the owners of the ultimate fee in the land, and could compel any individual to surrender his individual holdings for the benefit of the entire people, just compensation having first been paid to the individual. It is in that sense that I say private ownership of land is just as holy a principle, just as equitable, as private ownership in the basket which I made from the rushes I gathered along the stream, or from the splints which I rived out from the white oak; just as sacred as my right to the boat which I hollowed out from the forest tree, or the bark hut, or the hut of skins, which my labor erected to shelter me and my family.

The doctrinaire asks: “Could he not be as secure in his possession if the land were owned and exaction made by all the people?” Certainly. That is my contention. The whole tribe did exercise dominion over the land, but to encourage the individual member of the tribe to improve a particular portion of the wild land, the tribe agreed to protect the individual in that which his labor had created, namely a farm. My contention now is that the ultimate ownership of the land is in all the people; but society had a perfect right to divide it on such terms as were thought best and to guarantee to each individual “security of possession,” or title, to that which he had produced. The great trouble with Mr. Doctrinaire is that he does not begin at the beginning. If he would study the condition of the human race as it gradually evolved from the patriarchal state, the tribal state, the nomad state, into that fixed and complex status which we now call “Christian Civilization,” he would readily understand how private ownership of land was the axis upon which the improvement of the conditions of the individual and of the State turned. As long as tribes wandered about from province to province, with their herds of goats, or sheep, or cattle, nibbling the grass which nature put up, and moving onward to another pasture as fast as one was exhausted, there could be nothing but tent life, nothing but personal property. The house had to move every time the family moved. Therefore, when the herds devoured the grass in one place, and the tribe had to move to another, tents were struck, the few household goods were packed on the backs of the wives, or on the backs of other beasts of burden, and the family moved. When man and beast multiplied to such an extent that nature no longer supplied a sufficiency of food, it became necessary for the tribe to settle down, and to divide the territory upon which they settled among the various members of the tribe. That was done in Germany, as well as in various other countries, but I take Germany because the German tribes were our own ancestors. They divided the lands every year. It was seldom the case that the same tribesman occupied the same home for more than one year. Like the Methodist preachers of today, their homes were always on the go. The farmer’s home in those days was precisely like the Methodist preachers’ homes today—a matter to be fixed at the annual conference. The Methodist preacher who today is preaching in the town may next year be sent into the remote rural precincts: the mountain parson may next year be sent to the seaboard. The church is fixed and the parsonage is stationary, but the preacher and his wife and his children are forever moving. Now in precisely the same manner the tribesmen of the German tribes used to be going from farm to farm, and there were no considerable improvements made while that state of affairs existed. Why? Because we are just so constituted that we do not care to build houses for other people to live in, if we know it. When we start out to beautify a home, we may never enjoy it, but we expect to do so at the time, and without that expectation there would be no beautiful homes.

Mr. Doctrinaire thinks because each tribesman would try to grab the best piece of land, there was original injustice in allowing private ownership. If he will think for a moment, he will realize that the native selfishness of man does not make against the private ownership of land to any further extent than it does to the private ownership of personal property. When the tribesmen went out to hunt, each hunter sought to bring down the finest stag. Each hunter naturally wanted to hunt where the best game was to be found. Hence those eternal wars between the Indian tribes which brought down the population on the American continent. Hence also those feuds and tribal wars which desolated the East in the times of nomad life.

We find Abraham and Lot in a bitter dispute over a certain pasture; but as to the well which Abraham “had digged” there was no resisting his claim, that well was his property. Why? Because in the quaint language of the Bible, “He had digged that well.” In other words, while nature put the water in under the soil, and while nature made the soil itself, it was Abraham’s judgment which selected the place where he could find the water, and it was Abraham’s labor that removed the earth which covered the water. In other words, Abraham made the well, in precisely the same sense that the pioneer in the wilderness makes a farm.

But, as I said, the competitive principle, each one wanting to get what is best, reveals itself in all directions. Every fisherman has always wanted the best fishing grounds. Nations have been brought to war by this cause, to say nothing of tribal disputes and individual contests.

Nowhere have I contended that it was private ownership of land that made it possible for the laborer to claim and retain the product of his labor. I could not have said that because I know quite well that personal property preceded property in land. In other words, the laborers acquired a full title to the rude garments in which they clothed themselves, the rude implements which they used in the chase, their weapons, canoes, etc., long before they ever made farms. This has been explained fully elsewhere and does not at all antagonize the statement that after a tribesman has acquired by his labor an interest in the land, the government of the tribe may be so arranged that the produce of the land will be taken away from the land-owner as fast as he produces it. Instead of robbery by taxation in land—products preceding private ownership in land—the reverse is the case. To fleece the laborer of what he produces on his farm was the after-thought of those who governed the tribe.

This is shown by the wretchedness of the peasant class in Russia today. Historians tell us that the Russian peasant formerly owned a very considerable portion of the land, just as the French peasants did, and in addition to the individual ownership which was in the Russian peasantry, there was a large quantity of communal land which belonged to each community of peasants as a whole. In the process of time, the ruling class in Russia put such burdens upon the peasant proprietor that he gradually lost his land and became a serf. Of course, Mr. Doctrinaire recalls that in 1860 the serfs of Russia were freed, and they were given a large portion of the land which had been taken away from them by the Russian nobles. They also held the communal lands. What has been the result? The ruling classes have put such heavy burdens in the way of dues and taxes upon the peasants that their ownership of the land, communal and individual, has brought them none of the blessings which they anticipated. Thus we have a striking and contemporaneous illustration of the great truth which I have sought to emphasize, namely, that the mere ownership of land does not emancipate the people.

Arthur Young, the famous “Suffolk Squire,” rode horseback over the rural districts of France, just before the Revolution broke out. He found that the French peasants owned their own farms. He made a close and sympathetic study of their condition.

And what was that condition?

Wretched to the very limit of human endurance. The king, the noble, and the priest were literally devouring the Common People. Privilege, Titles, Taxes, Feudal dues were driving the masses to despair, to desperation.

Yet the French peasant had “access to the land.”

In England, at that time, the peasants did not own land, and yet their condition was incomparably better than that of the French.

Why? Because they were not ground down by Taxes and Feudal dues.

Could you ask a more convincing illustration?

Mr. Doctrinaire makes the point that when one member of the tribe decided to undertake the arduous task of making a farm out of a few acres of the millions which belonged to the tribe, this industrious member of the community “robbed” all the others when he claimed as his own that which his hands had made. I can see no more “robbery” in this case than in that of another tribesman who went and cut down one of the millions of forest trees which belonged to the tribe, and with painful labor hollowed out this tree and created a canoe. At the time the one tribesman made the canoe, every other tribesman had the same chance to do the same thing. At the time the one tribesman went into the woods and made a farm every other tribesman had the same right. If Mr. Doctrinaire thinks that the first occupant of any particular spot did not have the right to locate a farm, he might as well say that the first finder of the cavern, or the hollow tree, did not have the right to occupy that which he had first found, and yet he knows perfectly well that this right of discovery and occupancy was always recognized from the beginning of time and that from the very nature of things it had to be recognized to prevent the bloodiest feuds in every tribe. (A curious survival of this Right of Discovery is to be seen even now in the claim to the “Bee Tree” by the first to find it.)

Mr. Doctrinaire says, impliedly, that if the tribesman had fenced in no more than the spot out of which he had made a farm, injustice would not have been done to the tribe: but he says the tribesman went further and fenced in a great deal more—“vast areas,” which he could not use, and also “claimed” these as his own. How does Mr. Doctrinaire know that? I did not state anything of the sort. Nor does the historian state anything of the sort. I was tracing title to land to its origin, and I contended that the origin of title to land was labor. Consequently, my contention was that the tribesman fenced in that which his labor had redeemed from the wilderness—his original purpose in fencing it in being partly to identify what was his own, partly to assert his exclusive possession, but chiefly to protect his crop from the ravages of the wild animals that were still roaming at large in the forest. Mr. Doctrinaire must remember that the fencing of the farm was one of the most tremendous difficulties that the pioneer met with. He had no barbed wire; he had no woven wire, he had no convenient sawmill from which he could haul plank. No; he had to cut down enormous trees, and by the hardest labor known to physical manhood, he had to split those trees into rails, and with these rails fence in that little dominion which he rescued from “the wild,” that little oasis in a great desert of savagery.

To put up the fence was heroic work. To keep it up was just as heroic, for forest fires destroyed it from time to time, and the pioneer had to replace the barrier against the encroachment of animal life and the inroads of savagery with as great a tenacity and as sublime a courage as that of the people of Holland, who tore their country from the clutches of the ocean and barred out the sea with dikes. Tell me, that after the pioneer had created this little paradise of his—rude though it might have been—amidst the terrors and the toils and sacrifices of that life in the wilderness, it should be taken from him by the first man who coveted it, and who said, “here, take your crop, that is all you are entitled to: take your crop and give me your farm!” Would that have been right, at the time private property was first recognized by our people in Germany? Would that have been right at the time our pioneer farmers in New England and Virginia created their farms, endured difficulties and dangers which make them stand out in heroic outline on the canvas of history? No, by the splendor of God! It would have been robbery and nothing less than robbery for the tribe to have confiscated the farm which the pioneer of America had made—partly with his rifle, partly with his axe, partly with his spade—and throw it into the common lot where the idler and the criminal would have just as much benefit from it as the pioneer who had made the farm.

As to the abuse of land ownership, that is an entirely different question. I agree that there should be no monopoly of land for speculative purposes. The platform of the People’s Party has constantly kept that declaration as a part of its creed. The abuse of land ownership is quite a different thing from land ownership itself. I am not defending any of its abuses. I am simply saying that the principle is sound. All those things which belong to the class of private utilities should be left to private ownership, because I believe in individualism; but all those things which partake of the nature of public utilities should belong to the public.

Mr. Doctrinaire says that railroads have their power based in the fixed principle of private ownership of land. I deny this utterly. It was always necessary for the civilized community to have public roads. Even the Indians had their great trails which were in the nature of public roads. A public road never of itself did anything injurious to a community. The taking of land for a public road confers a benefit upon the entire community. It is for that reason it is laid out. The amount of land which is taken for a road, whether you cover it with blocks of stone, as the Romans did, or whether you cover it with iron rails, as modern corporations do, can inflict no injury whatever upon the community unless you go further. For instance, if you erect toll gates on the public highways and vest in some corporation the right to charge toll on freight and passengers at those toll rates, then you have erected a tyranny which can rob the traveler and injure the community. In that case, you can clearly see it is not the road, it is not the land over which the road passes, that is hurting the individual and the public. The thing which hurts is that franchise which empowers the corporation to tax the citizens and the property of the citizens as they pass along that highway. In like manner, the road which the transportation companies use could never have inflicted harm upon individuals or communities. The thing which hurts is the franchise which empowers the corporation to rob the people with unjust freight and passenger tolls as they pass along the highway.

Mr. Doctrinaire mires up badly in trying to evade the point which I made about Italy. I contended that while it was true that great estates were the ruin of Italy, there had to be some general cause at work, injurious to the average man, before the soil could be concentrated into these great estates. This is very obvious to anyone who will stop to think a moment. Mr. Doctrinaire thinks that the great estates in Italy were acquired by simply claiming the land and fencing it in, by “each individual claiming far more than he could use.” If all the land of Italy had been claimed and enclosed, the power that these land claimers had over subsequent comers is obvious; but how did “the claimers” get the lands? The most superficial knowledge of Roman History ought to convince Mr. Doctrinaire that Italy was cut up into small holdings until one branch of the government, the aristocracy, represented by the Senate, gathered into its own hands by persistent encroachment all the powers of the State. After that had been done, they fixed the machinery of government so that the aristocracy were almost entirely exempt from public burdens, whereas the common people had to bear not only their just portion, but also the portion which the aristocracy shirked. The ruling class, the patricians, not only escaped their burdens in upholding the State but they appropriated to themselves the revenue which the Roman State exacted from the lower class, the plebeians. The result was that the Italian peasant found himself unable to sustain the burdens which the government put upon him and he abandoned his farm, just as the French peasant quit the land, for the same reason, prior to the French Revolution. In other words, the small proprietor had to sell out to the patrician, and the patricians got these great estates in the same manner that Rockefeller, for instance, got the estate which he now holds at Tarrytown. The Standard Oil King did not simply stretch his wires and “claim” land. He bought out the people who found themselves unable or unwilling to hold their lands. Rockefeller stood relatively on the same ground of advantage held by the Roman patricians. Governmental favoritism, and special privilege, the power of money which he had attained through unjust laws, made him more able to buy than the individual owners around him were to hold. Therefore he absorbed the small estates, and his estate became the “great estate,” just as such great estates were created in Italy.

Mr. Doctrinaire can see the process going on around us. He can see how great estates absorb small estates. Our legislation for one hundred years has been in the interest of capital against labor. A plutocracy which enjoys the principal benefits of government, and contributes almost nothing to the support of the government, has been built up: charters have been granted by which large corporations exploit the public; and in this way great estates, whether in stocks or bonds, or gold, or land, have been created.

The same principles, the same favoritism, the same privilege, working in different ways, brought about the same results in France before the Revolution, in Rome before its downfall, in Egypt, in Persia, in the Babylonian Empire. If there is any one word which can be appropriately used as an epitaph for all the dead nations of antiquity, that word is “privilege.” The government was operated by a ruling class for the benefit of that class, and the result was national decay, national death.

Mr. Doctrinaire asks me: “How did the ruling class at Rome come to control the money?” I might answer by asking him: “How did the controlling class in the United States come into control of the money?” He would certainly admit that they have got control of it. How did they get it? They took into their own hands, in the days of Alexander Hamilton, the control of governmental machinery. They erected a tariff system to give special privileges to manufacturers. Out of this has come the monopoly which the manufacturers enjoy of the American market, and the natural evolution of the tariff act which Alexander Hamilton put upon our statute book more than one hundred years ago, produced The Trusts.

Again, the power to create a circulating medium to be used as money and to expand and contract this circulating medium, thereby controlling the rise and fall of markets, was a vicious principle embedded into our system by, Alexander Hamilton, more than one hundred years ago.

Again, the granting of charters to private companies to exploit public utilities is another means by which our patrician class has secured the control of money. Now at Rome there was a similar process. Instrumentalities were different, the names of things were different, but the ruling class at Rome had the power of fixing the taxes, and they appropriated to themselves the proceeds of these taxes. They had the power of legislation in their hands and exploited the public for their own benefit. In this way they secured, of course, the control of money. The one advantage of paying no tax themselves and of appropriating to themselves the taxes which they levied upon the plebeians was sufficient to give them not only the control of money, but the control of the land and of the man. In fact that tremendous power, to fix the taxes and to appropriate the public revenue, is all that the ruling class of any country need have in order to establish an intolerable despotism over the unfavored classes.

Mr. Doctrinaire has the fatal habit of crawling backwards with his logic. He says that the Roman Patrician could not have controlled the money until he got control of the land. The slightest reflection ought to convince him that this cannot be true. No class of men ever secured the control of money by merely controlling the land. Just the reverse is the universal truth. Without any exception whatsoever governmental machinery, the taxing system, usury, expansion and contraction of the currency hold the land-owner at their mercy. The land-owner, as such, never had them at his mercy and he never will.

Another instance of the crawl-backwards method of reasoning is given when Mr. Doctrinaire says that usury grew out of land monopoly instead of land monopoly growing out of usury. When a man gets himself into such a state of mind that he can deliberately write a statement of that sort for publication, he is beyond reach of any ordinary process of conviction and conversion. My statement was that usury is a vulture that has gorged itself upon the vitals of nations since the beginning of time. Mr. Doctrinaire says this is not true. On the other hand, he says that land monopoly came first, and then usury. If the rich people got all the land first, so that they had a land monopoly, upon whom did they practice usury? How could they fatten on those who had nothing? If Mr. Doctrinaire is at all familiar with the trouble between the Russians and the Jews in Russia he knows that one of the accusations brought by the Russian against the Jew is that the Russian land-owner has been devoured by the money-lending Jew. If he knows anything about our agricultural troubles in the South and in the West, he knows that the Southern and Western farmer complains that he has been devoured by usury. If he knows anything about the history of the Russian serf, he knows that the money-lending patricians made serfs out of the small land-owners by usury. If he will study the subject, he will find that in Rome, Egypt and Assyria the small land-owner was devoured by usury, had to part with his property and thus surrender to those who were piling up great fortunes by governmental privilege and by the control of money.

Take the Rothschild family for an example. Did they have a land monopoly which made it possible for them to wield the vast powers of usury? Theirs is a typical case. Study it a moment. A small Jewish dealer and money-lender in Frankfort is chosen by a rascally ruler of one of the German States as a go-between in a villainous transaction whereby the little German ruler sells his subjects into military service to the King of England. These soldiers, who were bought, are known to history as the Hessians, and they fought against us in the Revolutionary War. This was the beginning of the Rothschild fortune, the transaction having been very profitable to the Rothschild who managed it. Later, during the Napoleonic Wars, the character of a Rothschild for trustworthiness became established among princes and kings who were confederated against Napoleon and many of the financial dealings of that day were made through him. Of course, these huge financial transactions were profitable to the Rothschild. Again, a certain German ruler, during those troublesome times, entrusted all of his cash to the safe-keeping of a Rothschild, the purpose being to put the money where Napoleon would not get it. For many years the Rothschild had the benefit of this capital, and he put it out to the very best advantage in loans and speculations, here and there. By the time Napoleon was overthrown at Waterloo the Rothschild family had become so rich and strong that it spread over the European world. One member of the family took England, another France, another Austria, another Belgium, the parent house remaining in Germany, and to this day the Rothschild family is the dominant financial influence of the European world. In other words, by the power of money and the power of usury, they were able to make a partition of Europe and they are more truly the rulers of nations than are the Hapsburgs, the Hohenzollerns, the Romanoffs, or any other one dynasty which nominally wields the sceptre.

Now, can Mr. Doctrinaire ask for a better illustration of the truth of my statement that the power of money is not based upon the monopoly of land; and that the monopoly of land is the fruitage of the tree of usury? Originally, the Rothschilds owned no land. It was only after they had become so rich that they were compelled to look around for good investments that they began to buy real estate. Their vast fortune, which staggers the human mind in the effort to comprehend it, was not the growth of land monopoly, but was the growth of usury. What the Rothschilds have done in modern times, men of like character did in ancient times, and just as the modern world will decay and collapse if these evil accumulations be not prevented, so in ancient times people went to decay and extinction because no method of reform was found in time to work salvation.

Mr. Doctrinaire asks me what is the cause of the Standard Oil monopoly. I thought that if there was any one thing we all agreed about it was that the Standard Oil monopoly had its origin in violations of law, in the illegal use of those public roads which are called transportation lines, the secret rebate, the discriminating service, the favoritism which the transportation company can exercise in favor of one shipper against all others, to the destruction of competition. You might end land monopoly, but as long as the railroad franchises exist, the Standard Oil monopoly will exist, if they can get the favored illegal treatment which they got in the building up of their monopoly and which they still have in sustaining it. The power of Privilege in securing money, and the power of money in destroying competition, was never more strikingly evident than in the colossal growth of Standard Oil. Mr. Doctrinaire might own half the oil wells in America, but unless he made terms with the Standard he would never get his oil on the market at a profit. The Big-Pistol is not the ownership of the oil-well. The Big-Pistol is the mis-use of franchises.

With all the power that is in me, I am fighting the frightful conditions which beset us, but I know, as well as I know anything, that the principle of the private ownership of land has had nothing whatever to do with our trouble.

Repeal the laws which grant the Privileges that lead to Monopoly; equalize the taxes; make the rich support the government in proportion to their wealth; restore public utilities to the public; put the power of self-government back into the hands of the people by Direct Legislation; restore our Constitutional system of finance; pay off the National debt and wipe out the National banking system; quit giving public money to pet banks for private benefit; remove all taxes from the necessaries of life; establish postal savings banks; return to us the God-given right to freedom of trade.

With these reforms in operation, millionaires would cease to multiply and fewer Americans would be paupers. Trusts would not tyrannize over the laborer and the consumer, Corporations could not plunder a people whose political leaders they have bought. Some statesman might again declare as Legaré declared twenty years before the Civil War: “We have no poor.”

English travelers might have no occasion to say, as Rider Haggard said last year, that our condition was becoming so intolerable that there must be reform or revolution. On the contrary, the English travelers might say once more, as Charles Dickens said in 1843, that an Angel with a flaming sword would attract less attention than a beggar in the streets.

And with these reforms accomplished any man in America who wanted to work a farm of his own could do it.

I cannot promise that he would get one of the corner lots of the Astor estate, but I have no doubt whatever that if he really wanted a farm, and were willing to take it a few miles outside of the city, town, or village, he could get just as much land as he cared to work.

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Sir Walter Scott used to say that he had never met any man from whom he could not learn something. No matter how ignorant the humblest citizen may appear to be, the chances are that he knows a few things which you do not know; and if you will “draw him out” you will add to your knowledge.

The Virginia negro who happened to pass along the road while the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States was puzzling his brains over the problem of mending his broken sulky-shaft, knew exactly the one thing which John Marshall did not know.

The great lawyer was at his wit’s end, helpless and wretched. How could he mend that broken shaft and continue his journey? He did not know and he turned to the negro for instruction.

With an air of superiority which was not offensive at that particular time, the negro drew his pocket-knife, stepped into the bushes, cut a sapling, whittled a brace and spliced the broken shaft.

When the Chief Justice expressed his wonder, admiration and pleasure, the negro calmly accepted the tribute to his talent and walked off, remarking,

“Some folks has got sense and some ain’t got none.”

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That little story is a hundred years old, but it’s a right good little story. A school-teacher, whom I loved very dearly, told it to me when I was a kid. He was the only man I ever knew who had it in him to be a great man, and who refused to strive for great things because, as he said, “It isn’t worth the trouble.”

He was naturally as great an orator as Blaine or Ben Hill. He was far and away a loftier type than Bryan, for he had those three essentials which Bryan lacks—humor, pathos and self-forgetful intensity of feeling. But after one of his magnificent displays of oratory he would sink back into jolly indolence, and pursue the even tenor of his way, teaching school. “It is not worth while. Let the other fellows toil and struggle for fame and for office, I don’t care. They are not worth the price.”

Few knew what was in this obscure teacher, but those few knew him to be a giant.

Once, at our College Commencement, the speaker who had been invited to make the regular address was the crack orator of the state. He was considered a marvel of eloquence. Well, he came and he delivered his message; and it was all very chaste and elegant and superb. Indeed, a fine speech.

He sat down amid loud applause. Everybody satisfied. Then the obscure genius to whom I have referred rose to talk. By some chance the faculty had given him a place on the program.

I looked at my old school-teacher as he waddled quietly to the front. I saw that his face was pale and his eyes blazing with fire. I felt that the presence and the speech of the celebrated orator had aroused the indolent giant. I knew he would carry that crowd by storm—would rise, rise into the very azure of eloquence and hover above us like an eagle in the air.

And he did.

Men and women, boys and girls, laughed and cheered and cried, and hung breathless on his every word, as no crowd ever does unless a born orator gets hold of them. Actually I got to feeling sorry for the celebrity who had made the set speech. He sat there looking like a cheap piece of neglected toy-work of last Christmas.

The faces of the leading people after my old teacher had sat down, were a study. The expression seemed to say, “Who would have thought it was in him!”

I don’t think he ever made another speech.

The brilliant eyes will blaze no more. The merry smile faded long ago. The great head, that was fit to bear a crown, lies low for all the years to come.

He left no lasting memorial of his genius. Only, as through a glass darkly, you may see him, in a book called “Bethany,” written by one in whom he, the unambitious, kindled the spark of an ambition which will never die.

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There being no smokers in the “smoker,” I went in there to stretch out. The Florida East Coastline train was working its way down the peninsula, and was doing it very leisurely.

Into the “smoker” came a young fellow with whom I opened conversation. It turned out that he had been pretty much all over Europe. He had toured Germany several times. On the Sir Walter Scott principle, I sought knowledge from him, and he told me several interesting things.

One evening he had been at Heidelberg when the soldiers mounted guard. This being a regular function many civilians had assembled to see it.

An officer was putting the men through some of their exercises, when, at the order to “ground arms,” one of the privates let his gun down too slow.

The officer flew into a rage, rushed up to the soldier, slapped his jaws, kicked him repeatedly on the shins, struck him with the flat of his sword, and spat time and again in the man’s face!

Of course the officer was cursing the private for every vile thing he could lay his tongue to, all the while.

Said my informant, “He not only spat in the man’s face once, but he did it four or five times.”

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I asked, “Was there no murmur of disgust or indignation in the crowd of citizens who were looking on?”

“None whatever,” he said. “The people took the occurrence as a matter of course. It happens so often.”

Then the young man rose up in the smoker, and showed me how the private had stood in his place, rigid, staring straight ahead, not daring to change his position or expression while enduring the kicks and spits of the officer. Not a word of protest or complaint did he venture to utter.

That’s Militarism, gone crazy.

Not long ago one of our high-priced city preachers declared publicly that we Americans needed an Emperor to head our army.

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Do you recall a story which went the rounds of the newspapers a few years ago? In substance it hinted that William Hohenzollern, Emperor of Germany, had compelled one of his young officers to kill himself.

My traveller related to me the particulars as he had learned them in Germany.

The Emperor was holding a banquet, a revel, on board his yacht, the Hohenzollern: wine had been drunk freely; loose talk was going on. The Emperor made some insulting reference to the mother of a lieutenant who was seated near him.

Upon the impulse of the moment, the brave boy did a most natural thing—he slapped the brutal defamer of his mother in the mouth.

Consternation paralyzed the Emperor and all his guests.

The lieutenant left the yacht; no one tried to stop him. Going ashore, he made ready to quit the world; and next morning he rode his bicycle deliberately off a precipice and fell headlong to his voluntary death.

And the high-priced, city preacher declared that we needed an Emperor!

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Frederick the Great was really a great man.

Riding along the streets of Berlin one day, he saw a crowd looking up at a placard on a wall, Reining his horse, the old King inquired, “What is it?”

He was told that the placard contained a lot of violent abuse of himself.

“Hang it lower, so that the people can read it better,” ordered the King, and he rode on.

The pompous despot who now sits upon the throne of Frederick the Great puts girls and old women, as well as boys and men, in jail if they dare to say, or to write, anything disrespectful of him.

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Is democracy gaining ground anywhere? Are not those historic allies, the Church and the State, encroaching steadily upon the masses? Are not the High Priest and the War Lord constantly putting a greater distance between themselves and the Common People?

Does not the individual citizen have less power and recognition now than at any other time since the founding of our Government?

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Poor General Wheeler! After all his efforts to please Northern sentiment, they would not permit him to be buried with the Confederate flag in his coffin!

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The Nation is a mighty good paper, but it ought not to class General N. B. Forrest as “a scout” and “guerrilla.”

General Forrest was named by General Lee, during the last year of the war, as the best soldier that the Civil War had developed.

Forrest was greater than his commanding general at Fort Donelson, at Murfreesborough, and at Chickamauga. He finally swore that he would not obey any more fool orders from blundering superiors, and he struck out for himself. During the short time that he held independent command his achievements, considering his resources, rivalled those of Stonewall Jackson in the Valley Campaign.

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Nor should The Nation be too hard upon the West Point officers who followed their native states out of the Union. Justice to those officers requires one to remember that they were taught at West Point that the States had the right to secede from the Union.

If The Nation will consult the text-book from which Generals Lee, Johnston, Beauregard and Wheeler were instructed in Constitutional Law, it will discover that these young officers simply put in practice that which their teachers had taught them to be their right.

The book to which I refer is Rawle’s work upon Constitutional Law.

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After General Wheeler had tried so hard to win the heart of the North, don’t you think they might have allowed the Confederate flag to rest upon his folded hands?

That was the flag which he had followed in the storm of actual war. The Cuban business was nothing. It was child’s play, and pitiful child’s play at that. But the Civil War was real, was colossal, rent a continent asunder, and shook the world. It was the Confederate flag which had led Wheeler to his fame. His youth, his first and best, had been given to that; of all the banners on earth none could have been dearer, holier to him than that.

To look upon it was to bring back the years and the deeds which had brought him glory. It associated itself with the heroes who had listened to his battle-cry, and who had sanctified their sacrifice to duty with their blood. It spoke to him of the hopes and the griefs and the despair of his home, the South; it recalled the enthusiasm and the heartbreak; the splendid devotion of noble women, and the resignation of conquered men.

Surely, surely the Confederate flag must have been the dearest emblem of Duty and Sacrifice to General Joe Wheeler.

Don’t you think that Charity might have softened the heart of the North to the old warrior who was dead, and that they might have let him rest under the “Conquered Banner?”

The House: I give you warning, old man; it’s loaded!

Bart, in Minneapolis Journal

If George Washington Came to the Capital Today

Morris, in Spokane Spokesman-Review

The Stirring War Drama Entitled: “Chased By the Enemy; or, Curfew Shall Not Ring This Evening”

Opper, in N. Y. American

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Machine Rule and its Termination BY GEORGE H. SHIBLEY President of the People’s Sovereignty League and Editor of the Referendum News. — THE WINNETKA SYSTEM — A NEW THIRD PARTY

Underneath the existing political and legislative evils in this country there is found a common cause—the rule of the few through machine politics. The powers of sovereignty are exercised by the few. Proof of this is the fact that the evils complained of are banished, or are in process of disappearing, wherever the people have established their sovereignty—have established the right to a direct vote on public questions. This system is the initiative and referendum. It is exercised in combination with representatives, and the system as a whole is termed Guarded Representative Government—the people’s sovereignty is guarded.

This improved system of representative government is an evolutionary product, and being such it will gradually extend throughout the world. A practical question is: How best can its spread be promoted? To arrive at an answer, one must study the methods whereby the improved systems came into being.

We find that the forerunners were third parties and non-partisan organizations. The first declaration by a political party in this country was the Socialist Labor Party in 1889. Next came a declaration by the Knights of Labor in 1891. The same year there appeared “The Referendum in America,” by Ellis Paxton Oberholtzer, Ph.D. The next year J. W. Sullivan published his book, “Direct Legislation.” During the year the National Direct Legislation League was organized. There was also published, during 1892, “Direct Legislation by the People,” by Nathan Cree of Chicago.

On July 4th of the same year, 1892, the newly organized People’s Party commended “to the favorable consideration of the people and the reform press the legislative system known as the initiative and referendum.” And state conventions of the People’s Party and the allied parties also paid considerable attention to the initiative and referendum. During the Autumn the American Federation of Labor gave its emphatic endorsement to the initiative and referendum by commending “to affiliated bodies the careful consideration of this principle and the inauguration of an agitation for its incorporation into the laws of the respective states.”

The same year the National Grange adopted a resolution recommending to the state and subordinate granges the Swiss legislation method known as the referendum and the initiative.

The following year the People’s Party, wherever it was in power, endeavored to submit to the people a constitutional amendment for the initiative and referendum, but as a two-thirds vote was required there was a temporary failure.

In 1896 the People’s Party at its national convention came out strongly for the initiative and referendum, as also did the National Party convention, composed of 299 delegates who seceded from the Prohibition convention. The Socialist Labor Party also reaffirmed its people’s sovereignty plank of 1892.

The first legislation in this country for the initiative and referendum was by the People’s Party in Nebraska, 1897. The voters in municipalities were empowered to petition for the adoption of the initiative and referendum system for local affairs, and the system was to be adopted if approved by a majority of those who should vote upon the question. Hon. John W. Yeiser was chiefly instrumental in securing the law, and he endeavored to secure its adoption in Omaha, but without success.

The same year, 1897, the People’s Party representatives in the South Dakota Legislature combined with the Silver Republicans and Democrats to submit a constitutional amendment for the initiative and referendum. Most of the Republicans in the Legislature fell in line and voted with the promoters of the reform. At the next election, 1898, the voters adopted the system. Afterward the Republican party, which then had a majority in each house, enacted the statute to put it in operation. Since then two sessions of the Legislature have been held and the effects of the referendum (the people’s veto) have been splendid. The following words are credited to the Republican Governor, Hon. Charles Herried, by a member of the Toronto Parliament:

“Since this referendum law has been a part of our constitution we have had no chartermongers or railway speculators, no wildcat schemes submitted to our Legislature. Formerly our time was occupied by speculative schemes of one kind or another, but since the referendum has been a part of the constitution these people do not press their schemes on the Legislature, and hence there is no necessity for having recourse to the referendum.”

The initiative in South Dakota was crippled by inserting a “joker”! The system provides that five per cent. of the voters may propose bills to the Legislature, “which measures the Legislature shall enact and submit to a vote of the electors of the state.”

The year (1898) that the voters of South Dakota balloted upon the question of adopting the improved system of representative government, the People’s Party, Silver Republicans and Democrats in Utah submitted to the voters of the state the question of adopting a constitutional amendment for the referendum and initiative. At the next election the voters adopted the system; but the Republican party gained control of the Legislature and refused to enact a statute for putting the constitutional amendment into operation. Two years later the same thing occurred.

The same year that the Fusionist Legislature in Utah submitted the amendment a similar thing was done by a Republican legislature in Oregon. A proposal for an amendment in Oregon has to pass two successive legislatures; therefore the question was a live issue in the next campaign—1900. The People’s Party, the Democratic and the Republican state platforms each pledged that, should the party be placed in power in the Legislature, it would permit the voters to ballot upon the question. The Republican party secured a majority in the Legislature and submitted the question. In the next campaign, 1902, the question was again a live issue, for it was to be balloted upon by the voters; and again all the parties declared for the improved system and advised the voters of the state to adopt it, as also did the Granges and Organized Labor, likewise both the United States senators and the Republican governor, and nearly all the prominent men in political life in Oregon, together with most of the newspapers in the state. All advised the adoption of the system, and the vote of the people was 11 to 1 for the system.

Governor Geer’s advice to the voter was: “If the referendum amendment is adopted by the people and made use of after adoption, it will be helpful all around as a restraining influence over careless legislatures. Even if not often brought into requisition, the fact that it is a part of the state Constitution, ready to be used as a check against ill-advised legislation at any time, will justify its adoption. It may not be needed now any more than it was 100 years ago, but there have often been times in the past when even ‘Our Fathers’ could have been wisely checked by this wholesome reservation of the rights of the people.”

In Nevada, at the legislative session of 1901, the Fusionist party had a majority in the Legislature and voted to submit to the people the question of adopting the referendum. The next Legislature gave its consent and submitted a constitutional amendment for the initiative. At the following election the voters adopted the referendum, but the Legislature elected was Republican and it refused to consent to the submission of the constitutional amendment for the initiative.

The same year in Illinois, 1901, a Republican Legislature and governor established the advisory initiative in municipalities and in state affairs. Through this system the voters in Chicago have voted three times for municipal ownership of street railways and the instructions are being obeyed.

The Republican senators from Illinois, Cullom and Hopkins, are both on record as favoring the initiative and referendum.

Since 1901 the progress of the initiative and referendum has been through the systematic questioning of candidates by non-partisan organizations. The start in this direction came from the successful experiences of Winnetka, Illinois. These experiences began in 1896 and continued from year to year with unvarying success.

Winnetka is a suburb of Chicago, peopled largely by bright and active business men. Certain would-be monopolists proposed to the village council that it grant them a forty-year franchise for a gas plant. This was opposed by the citizens, for they wanted public ownership of city monopolies. They possessed a publicly-owned waterworks system and aimed to keep themselves from the clutches of private monopoly. Fortunately, at the time the gas franchise was asked for, there was being held each month a public meeting to consider public questions. It was called the “town meeting.” At the next town meeting, after the gas question came up, a resolution was adopted asking the village council to submit the question to the people. A deputation of leading citizens called upon the city council at its next meeting and Mr. Lloyd was accorded the privilege of speaking. After a warm time the council reluctantly agreed to submit the question to the voters and abide by their decision. The polls were opened and the proposed franchise received only 4 votes, with 180 against it.

This settled the gas franchise and it did much more, for at the next caucus for nominating village trustees it was proposed and decided that only those men should be nominated who would stand up before their fellow-voters and promise, if nominated and elected, to submit all important questions to a vote of the people and abide by their decision. This was agreed to by the voters present, and each nominee for village trustee stood before his fellow-citizens and promised.

Thus was the system installed, for there were no competing nominations. The casting of ballots on election day was a mere form.

From that day until the present time the people of Winnetka have been the sovereign power as to ordinances. They are a Self-emancipated People.

Reviewing the foregoing, it is seen that the pledges for installing the referendum system were secured by questioning candidates, while the system itself is through rules of procedure, which may be incorporated in the rules themselves or in an ordinance or statute. The system is the advisory referendum, the candidates being pledged to carry out the people’s advice. This they have done in Winnetka and elsewhere, as we shall show. But the system is intended for use only until the usual form can be installed. In fact, it is through an advisory initiative that a change in the Federal Constitution is to be secured, and in the near future.

Immediately after the election in 1900 the writer, who was a delegate to the People’s Party National Convention of that year, withdrew from the Bureau of Economic Research and began devoting his entire time and energies to spreading the news concerning the Winnetka System, the primary aim being to help establish the people’s sovereignty in national affairs and to do so without waiting to change the written words of the Federal Constitution—a practically unalterable instrument until such time as the advisory initiative is installed. The following July the second social and political conference at Detroit approved the Winnetka System—the advisory initiative and advisory referendum—as also did the National Direct Legislation League.

And Prof. Frank Parsons, president of the National Referendum League, said: “The Winnetka System is clearly great in its possibilities—a bridge ready for immediate use to the promised land.”

Mr. Eltweed Pomeroy, president of the National Direct Legislation League, wrote: “I am also glad that you demonstrate that direct legislation is not only a great scheme which will be of inestimable value in its entirety, but that it is more than that, and can be applied on a small scale here and now, and that almost anyone can exercise influence enough to secure a first step.”

Mr. Louis P. Post, editor of The Public, visited Winnetka during August, 1901, and in his paper of September 7 described the system, saying in conclusion:

The Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor, at a meeting in Washington, D. C., September 20, 1901, considered briefly the Winnetka System, and the following is the published report:

Thus the new system—the systematic questioning of candidates for the establishment of the people’s sovereignty—began and was endorsed throughout the land. During the four and a half years that have since elapsed the system has made steady and rapid progress.

In December, 1901, President Gompers, of the American Federation of Labor, in his annual message recommended the system, and the convention ordered that it be explained in the American Federationist, “in order that Trade Unionists may be able to study it as carefully as it deserves.” Accordingly it was published in an eighty page extra number and 20,000 copies were circulated in addition to the regular mailing list.

Gov. Altgeld wrote concerning this extra number: “It presents the subject of the initiative and referendum and representative government in the most lucid, striking, and comprehensive manner that I have ever seen.” He added: “Through the agency of the labor organizations it ought to get into every neighborhood, and in time it will create a sentiment that will be irresistible.”

Gov. Altgeld’s prediction is correct. The very first year after the issuance of the extra number of the Federationist the Winnetka System was established in Detroit, Mich., Toronto, Canada, and Geneva, Ill.; with the pledging of the Missouri Legislature for the submission of a constitutional amendment for the initiative and referendum; also the systematic questioning of candidates by organized labor in several other states, and the questioning of candidates as to the initiative and referendum by the granges in the state of Washington. The net result of questioning candidates was a majority vote for the initiative and referendum in six legislatures; also the pledging of nine of the sixteen congressmen of Missouri for a national system of advisory initiative and advisory referendum, and the pledging of the United States senators elected from Missouri and Illinois. During the course of the campaign the actions of four state conventions of the two great parties were reversed—the Republican state conventions in Missouri, California and Montana; and the Democratic state convention in Montana. The states where the majority vote in the legislature was secured were Missouri, Colorado, California, Montana, North Dakota and Massachusetts. In Illinois there was a two-thirds vote in the House, but the Senate refused to act. This Illinois vote was caused by an instruction from the voters through an advisory referendum taken under the 1901 act of the Legislature. The vote of the people was 5 to 1 for the establishment of the improved system.

Before the meeting of the legislatures, after the autumn elections, the American Federation of Labor at its annual convention established a national system for the questioning of candidates, the interrogatories to apply to such measures as the organization should deem most important.

The next year, 1903, legislatures were elected in but ten states and, as organized labor in these states had not yet been educated to the use of the questioning system, except in Massachusetts, little was accomplished for the initiative and referendum. In Massachusetts the labor people found themselves almost alone in demanding the people’s sovereignty, and during 1903 were quiescent. But in Kentucky Hon. J. A. Parker did valiant work. Through his paper, The Home Tribune, he called for workers for the referendum in Kentucky. At a joint state convention of the Allied People’s Party and the United Labor Party, a platform was enunciated in which existing political and legislative evils were outlined; and it was pointed out that the remedy is an improved system of government—the establishment of the people’s sovereignty through the initiative and referendum, to be exercised in combination with representative government. The proposed change, it was declared, was the open door through which all the desired legislative reforms would come. It was further declared that candidates of the Democratic and Republican parties should be questioned, and wherever a reliable candidate would pledge in writing for the improved system of government, no opposing candidate of the Allied Party should be nominated, and that every possible effort would be made to help elect the pledged candidate. The result in Mr. Parker’s own words at the close of the campaign was as follows:

The following year, 1904, the Presidential contest absorbed a large degree of attention, yet the people’s sovereignty cause was triumphant in four states—Montana, Nevada, Texas and Delaware—with considerable progress in many others; and a 33⅓ per cent. increase in pledged congressmen in Missouri, i.e., twelve of the sixteen are pledged to the people’s sovereignty in national affairs through the advisory initiative and advisory referendum, as also are five of the Chicago congressmen, and scattering ones throughout the country. The Pennsylvania granges, which are very strong, established a magazine of their own and questioned candidates for the initiative and referendum and other measures.

The next year, 1905, like 1903, was a year in which few legislatures were elected, yet one state and probably two were rescued from machine rule—Ohio and possibly Massachusetts. In Ohio the required three-fifths of the Legislature are pledged to the submission of a constitutional amendment for the initiative and referendum; and in Massachusetts it is hoped that an advisory referendum system will be established. The Ohio campaign is especially noteworthy in that most of the Republican candidates refused to pledge, while the Democratic candidates pledged universally, the initiative and referendum being part of the state platform. Election day was a surprise to every one, for many of the people’s sovereignty candidates were elected where it was supposed they were hopelessly beaten. The Democratic gain in the Senate was 47.5 per cent.—an unprecedented landslide. The change was not caused by the Anti-Saloon League’s work, for the Republican candidates were pledged to its cause. The change was due to the independent voters, who had been apprised of the attitude of candidates through the publication of the answers to the initiative and referendum question. Early in October the State Federation of Labor at its annual convention instructed that all candidates for the Legislature should be questioned as to the initiative and referendum, and the replies published. The Woman’s Suffrage Association also questioned candidates as to the initiative and referendum. Referendum Leagues were active, and years ago the Union Reform Party had specialized on the initiative and referendum, thereby instructing the voters—a lesson which they evidently did not forget.

This same year the State Federation of Labor increased most materially their activity for the people’s sovereignty. The Pennsylvania Federation of Labor set the pace. At its annual convention it provided not only for the questioning of political candidates, but took steps to provide for a people’s sovereignty committee within each union, and arranged in other ways for an educational and non-partisan campaign for the initiative and referendum. A fraternal delegate was received from the state grange, which also is working for the people’s sovereignty. Later in the year the New Jersey State Federation of Labor adopted the Pennsylvania program, and a few weeks afterward the New York State Federation did likewise. At the annual convention of the American Federation of Labor, representing one-eighth of the people of the United States, the executive council report recited the rapid spread of the people’s sovereignty cause through the questioning of candidates, and said:

The state Granges in sixteen commonwealths have declared for the initiative and referendum. These states are: Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Montana, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Maine.

The Farmers’ Union, a rapidly growing organization (described in Watson’s Magazine for February) has adopted the initiative for use within the association. The National American Woman’s Suffrage Association declared last year for the initiative and referendum, and this year’s convention has urgently requested action by the state associations. Last year in Ohio the Woman’s Suffrage Association questioned candidates as to the initiative and referendum, and this year it is likely that the suffrage association in every state will apply the system. The Referendum Leagues are also questioning candidates.

All these organizations have learned or are learning that the questioning of candidates immediately terminates the machine’s power to sidetrack the live issues, provided there is an organization to take the case to the voters. One individual in a state can easily co-ordinate the forces for the questioning of candidates, and thereby secure the immediate termination of the machine’s power to evade the live issues. One person in a state has repeatedly secured this result; in fact, every reform within a state is largely due to the engineering tact and skill of some one individual. Today, as never before, it is easy and practically costless to terminate machine rule by establishing the initiative and referendum.

Heretofore the essential element in questioning candidates as to people’s sovereignty has been a State Referendum League, in order that the business and professional interests shall be represented. But in January a new departure occurred in Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Referendum League changed its form of organization to the Referendum Party of Pennsylvania. The platform is as follows:

The members of the preliminary committee on organization are:

• Clarence V. Tiers, Chairman, Pittsburg, Pa.,
• Clement V. Horn, Wilkinsburg, Pa.,
• H. F. Lea, Bellevue, Pa.,
• H. W. Noren, Allegheny, Pa.,
• Walter Becker, Allegheny, Pa.,
• John C. Innes, Pittsburg, Pa.,
• George D. Porter, Philadelphia, Pa.,
• John E. Joos, Allegheny, Pa.,
• Nathaniel Green, Swissvale, Pa.,
• J. Ludwig Koethen, Jr., Pittsburg, Pa.,
• Hon. W. F. Hill, (Master State Grange) Chambersburg, Pa.,
• James Wm. Newlin, (Member of Constitutional Convention 1873) Philadelphia, Pa.

Reformers will watch with great interest this new experiment in third party politics. By limiting the demand to a constitutional convention and the initiative and referendum, and proposing to endorse such of the reliable candidates as pledge for the people’s sovereignty, the program is largely that of a Referendum League, plus the possibility of making an independent nomination. But a league can circulate nomination papers; in fact, every league impliedly stands ready to do so, if necessary. One thing is clear; that the Pennsylvania situation was such that the change to a Referendum Party put life and vigor into the referendum movement. Not only were hundreds of enthusiastic offers of support sent in, it is said, and from every quarter of the state, but leaders in the minority party and in the Lincoln party were brought to a point where they found it desirable to take immediate notice of the organization.

One reason for this is that the granges in the state, large in number and strong in membership, and organized labor, have not only declared for the initiative and referendum, but are systematically questioning candidates and publishing their replies. All that is needed to give great political power to these voters is an organization that stands ready to nominate referendum candidates. The mere existence of such an organization will accomplish most of its purposes. In this connection the experience of Jo A. Parker, in Kentucky, described above, should be borne in mind; also the fact that the People’s Party Conference of 1902 at Louisville almost adopted the program which Mr. Parker applied in Kentucky the following year. But in states where the minority party is under progressive leadership it is probable that a State Referendum League is the best possible instrument.

Isn’t it clear that the thing for the People’s Party to do is to complete at once the establishment of the initiative and referendum in America by going at it through the Kentucky or Pennsylvania program? Or that the workers in a state should organize an Initiative and Referendum League?

If we review the foregoing pages several things become clear:

1. That machine rule can be terminated and the people’s sovereignty re-established without waiting to change the written constitution. All that is required is a majority vote in the city council, legislature or congress. By this means an advisory-vote system can be established and then the candidates for public office can be pledged to obey the will of their constituents when expressed by referendum vote. This is merely the re-establishment of a direct vote system for instructing representatives—a system as old as representative government itself. The President of the United States is selected through an advisory vote by the people and public questions are also being determined by advisory vote; for example, municipal ownership of street railways in Chicago.

2. The basis of machine rule is an evasion of vital issues by both the leading parties. This power can be terminated at once by the systematic questioning of candidates as to vital issues, provided an organization or candidate stands ready to take the case to the people. Another way of stating the reason for questioning candidates is that the people are entitled to know how the candidates will vote if elected.

3. A third party organization can question candidates and declare that unless there is within each district a clear-cut written pledge by a reputable candidate, it will place one in nomination.

Or the program can be to place on the third-party ticket some of the old line party candidates, except in those states where fusion is prohibited by law.

4. The People’s Party during its palmy days was a leading factor in popularizing the initiative and referendum, and in securing its adoption, and today, by centering its effort on the termination of machine rule through the establishment of the initiative and referendum, it can at once complete the rehabilitation of the American system of government. Not only can the remaining states be redeemed within the next two years, but it is thoroughly practicable to exert in national affairs this year an influence that shall result in a pledged majority in the national House and Senate—the pledges to be for the advisory initiative and advisory referendum. The entire body of organized labor is centering its efforts in this direction, the referendum leagues are demanding it, and all that is needed to secure immediate victory is a political party that stands ready to put up candidates. The mere existence of such a party will win the day. How best can the desired end be attained?

A Basket And A Fortune By Louise Forsslund AUTHOR OF “THE STORY OF SARAH”, ETC.

A moment’s intense silence followed the matron’s public reading of this letter in the large hall which served as the community room of the Old Ladies’ Home. The matron, her young gray eyes twinkling and shining, looked from one old face to the other. Some were broadly grinning under their crowns of gray hair, some were hurt and scornful, some were only puzzled and amazed—these belonging to the old ladies who had held their shriveled, shaking hands as trumpets before their ears during the reading of the letter. And some faces were marred by a shrewd, keen, calculating look as if to exclaim: “I wonder if—!” The matron looked at them all, her smile slowly growing broader, then quickly she looked down at her desk and said with business-like briskness:

“That is a very honest letter. I wish you could all give it your serious attention. There is no fraud in it, for I have telephoned to the Old Men’s Home, and Mr. Jessup is a noble, straightforward character. Now, are any of you willing to see him this afternoon? I suggest that all those who can not or who will not give Mr. Jessup a chance for their hands this afternoon, leave the hall.”

There was a curious reluctance on the part of the old ladies to move. There was much wagging of heads, much nudging of elbows, whispers and winks and murmurs from every quarter, but no one stirred. Those who really had no personal interest or legitimate right to an interest in Mr. Jessup’s quest for a wife stayed to see what the others might do. The matron repeated her request. Then old Mrs. Smith, bent and humpbacked, took up her cane and hobbled slowly toward the stairway.

“Ef he wanted me,” she declared with mock asperity, “he should oughter come twenty year ago. Ye notice,” she added, looking over her shoulder with her sharp, shrewd peaked face, “he didn’t tell how old he was.”

“He’s sixty-nine,” laughed the matron. “Most men of his age would have insisted on a wife of eighteen.”

There was a scurrying sound among the group of old ladies and suddenly there darted across the hall a younger, slimmer, straighter figure than Mrs. Smith’s.

“Miss Ellie!” protestingly called the matron, “where are you going?”

Miss Ellie paused, her face flushed with shame to think she had not fled from the hall before. She paused and looked at the matron. However old she was, Miss Ellie did not look more than fifty years. Her hair was luxuriant, half silver, half gold, faded, yet giving a curious effect of a halo of moonlight. The flush mounted higher up the spinster’s cheeks until it crept over her forehead to the edge of her hair. For a moment she stood thus, looking at the youthful matron. Then, with a world of reproach in her tones, she said simply: “Miss Jessica!” Then she went up the stairs with quick and trembling limbs, but with an air of dignity that acted as a rebuke upon those lingering the hall.

“Proud Miss Ellie!” murmured Jessica, herself feeling ashamed.

“I do think,” began Mrs. Honan in a loud, strident key, “I do think myself that the man didn’t show very fine feeling. The idea of him a-spectin’ a woman ter jump at his head. Ef he wanted a wife, why didn’t he come a-lookin’ around modest an’ quiet-like in the good, old fashioned way?”

With that she swept out of the hall. She was down on the register as having passed her seventy-third birthday, and anyway, she mused, she had always preferred a yard full of chickens to a yard full of flowers, because chickens are more lively. They keep you better company, she said. Then, with or without verbal excuse, one woman after another left the hall. There were two with the deplorable squint, several far on the shaded side of seventy, some who wore honest wigs, and some too honest to proclaim either that they did not dye their hair or that they had never sniffed at the contents of a snuffbox. Then there were the dear old ladies loyal to their dead husbands, the old ladies who did not care to give up the serene, uneventful security of the Old Ladies’ Home for a house shared only with a man afflicted with lumbago and very decided notions. However, ten remained, openly ashamed, yet not sufficiently ashamed to reject Samuel Jessup’s hand before they had seen him.

“It don’t mean that none of us promise to take him, oh no!” said Mrs. Young, a woman living in the memories of her long reign as a belle. “It only means that we’d like to get a good look at him. We’ve had plenty of chances all our lives. We ain’t none of us here because no man wanted us—neither us widders nor us maidens. We’re here from ch’ice, Miss Jessica, from ch’ice! But still if there’s another ch’ice open to us with a real, kind honest man—his letter shows he’s that, bless his heart!—we’d each of us ten like to have one tenth of a show at him.”

Then, greatly flustered at having spoken with such unmaidenly freedom on such a subject, Mrs. Young moved away from the desk across the hall and out of doors, where she could take a good long breath. After she had gone, one of the nine remaining candidates wondered aloud how Mrs. Young would look without her false front, for of course no one would deceive Samuel Jessup as to her quantity of hair.

“But the rest of it?” whispered another. “You can’t wash all that dye off in one day, can you?”

“Waal!” retorted a third, coming hotly to Mrs. Young’s rescue, “a man who wears a wig hasn’t no right ter be so particular.”

Said the first one firmly: “She shouldn’t deceive him.”

Answered a third: “Deceive him all she wants ter as long as it’s in somethin’ no man would have wit enough ter find out.”

At three o’clock to the minute, Samuel Jessup appeared, emerging from a closed coach together with a plump middle-aged woman who carried with extraordinary care a large market basket covered with a red tablecloth.

“Good gracious!” exclaimed Mrs. Young, peeking with half the household from the upper hall windows. “He’s been an’ picked up a wife on the road an’ come to offer his apologies.”

She laughed merrily at the possible joke against them all. And yet what a pity that would be, too, for Samuel was a pleasant, self-reliant looking little man with his head hanging sideways as if he had never lifted it from a one-sided attack of the mumps. Somehow this attitude made him appear younger. But the wig! That was too much in evidence and they all decided that it must be clipped at once. Samuel did not scan the house with lover-like eagerness as he came up the steps. Instead, he watched the basket with intense interest—so intense that he stumbled on the way.

“I bet he’s got a dog in it!” cried one of the candidates. “I will not stand no leetle measly pet dog around the house, a-sheddin’ hair all over the parlor sofy. I ain’t agoin’ downstairs!”

But she went with the others and met Mr. Jessup. The woman with the basket was nowhere in sight, having been relegated to the dining-room. No attempt whatever was made to explain her to the old ladies. Samuel Jessup was immediately enthroned by the matron in her private office; and one by one in alphabetical order of their names, Jessica sent the candidates to him, thinking that this would be more delicate than to have them all face him at once. Delicacy in this affair did not seem so difficult after coming face to face with little Mr. Jessup. Very modestly, and with his head more on one side than ever, he told the matron that she must convey to the ladies his doubts as to any one of them accepting him. He thought it was very kind of them to receive him anyway, and—this with a quick keen look into Jessica’s wise and bonny face—he hoped that they would not laugh at him.

The first five filed out of the room after only a few moments’ conversation, each briefly explaining in her turn why Mr. Jessup “hadn’t took” with her. One did not like the way he held his head. One never could stand that wig. She knew that it got askew every time he took a nap. One thought him too much like her dead husband. One thought him too unlike her departed John to make a happy union possible. One said she never could bear a pump dribbling water in the kitchen; and he was too stubborn and “sot” in his ways to take it out. Then went in the sixth—she who had not rebuked the deceit of Mrs. Young’s dyed hair and she who hated pet dogs. After a longer period, she came out and with customary candor bluntly declared that she would have had Samuel Jessup in a minute, but she saw that she did not take with him.

“The woman that gits him will be lucky,” she declared, “basket and all.” Nothing more would she tell. Then into the private room went the seventh old lady. She immediately demanded of Samuel an explanation of the woman and the basket; whereupon Samuel said that he refused to be questioned by any woman and he knew that they could not get along well together. She came out sniffing contemptuously, and vowed that in her opinion there was something very mysterious about this man. Number Eight went in even more eagerly, on tip-toe. She had read romances all her life. She loved mysteries and she was so sensitive about living in an Old Ladies’ Home partly on charity that she would have married any man that asked her. Almost any man—but not quite. She and Samuel Jessup talked together for a long time.

“I am sure we would git along,” said Samuel at last, his heart stirred to sympathy for one who hated a Home of this sort with the same proud hatred that he had borne. “But,” he went on, “before I let you decide, I be agoin’ to take you into the dining-room and show you the basket. What belongs in the basket belongs with me an’s agoin’ with me. I ain’t much ter git, but come an’ see the basket!”

Her romantic old heart beating high with excitement, Miss Ruby tip-toed ahead of him, across a tiny, dark back hall into the dining-room. On the very threshold she paused, her eyes popping out of her head as she looked within; then she uttered a faint scream and went scuttling into a corner among the shadows of the dim passage.

“Good-bye, Mr. Jessup!” she called tragically. “Good-bye!” and there ended Samuel Jessup’s affair with Miss Ruby.

A humorous light twinkled in the old man’s eye as he went back into Jessica’s office and waited for the ninth candidate. She was a woman famous in the Home for always managing to find some one to wait upon her, and she wanted a house of her own with several servants, an unobtrusive husband, and stained glass windows in the parlor.

“I kinder fancied stained glass winders myself,” said Samuel. “But you can’t be keepin’ a hull passel o’ servants. One servant gal—that’s all I agree to, ma’am.”

She thought that one servant might do if they put out the washing. Samuel looked dubious for a moment, seeing himself a henpecked husband, and then that twinkle came again into his wholesome eye.

“Before we decide, m’am, I want ter show you what I got in that there basket. Me an’ the basket be inseparable.”

She preceded him into the dining-room, her shoulders high and her nose uplifted. She stood for some moments staring at the contents of the basket, the basket’s owner, and the basket’s guardian staring at her. Slowly her face grew rigid. She shook her head once. She strove to speak, swallowed hard and then gasped;

“How dast you presume, Samuel Jessup!”

Samuel winked at the guardian of the basket and chuckled soft and low. But then he realized that he really wanted a wife, a companion in his old age, a mistress for the snug little home, and now there was but one candidate left. To be sure he might find some one outside the Home, but he had wanted in truth to share all that he had—the basket not excepted—with one who had tasted as he had the well buttered bread of charity in an old folks’ home. Soberly he went back to the private room, and Mrs. Young came drifting leisurely in to him. She congratulated herself on being the last. She wanted never to be twitted with having failed to give the others every possible chance, and she knew that had she entered the private room first the result would have been the same. She would be the wife selected by Mr. Jessup if she wanted him. A woman with real charm for old men, a woman who could have graced many a home in her lazy, yet pleasingly frivolous ways, she felt that Samuel could not resist her if she chose to throw her charm around him.

“This is a very ridiculous position,” she began, with a quavering little trill of laughter. “I never went a-seekin’ a man before. They always sought me.”

This was more than Samuel’s natural gallantry could withstand. He took her small lean fingers in his and drew her down beside him on the couch. Her fingers twined around his hand. She wore jewels—relics of bygone splendors—which seemed pitifully out of keeping with her present state. To Samuel they told a long, familiar story, and sent a feeling of pity out from him to her.

“Mis’ Young,” he said gently. “I am jest as much obliged to all of you folks fer seein’ me as I kin be.”

“To us all?” she asked and lifted her eyes.

They had been very fine blue eyes once and now they were bright in spite of their puffy lids. And her thin hair, parted simply in the middle, was more becoming than the false front had been. He wondered that she had no gray hairs, but was too straightforward himself to suspect the deception. What a very pretty woman she still was, and, with that not displeasing girlish attempt at flirtation, how exceedingly feminine!

“Obliged to us all?” she repeated, her eyes still uplifted, her hand still clinging to his. She remembered how eloquently hands can speak and so did Samuel, but of a sudden he felt that his horny old hand had become tongue-tied. He knew that she wanted him to say: “I be obliged to you in perticular, Mis’ Young.”

And he did stumble through some such gallant speech, but all the while he was thinking: “So I have got to take this! This frivolous old lady with a spot of red paint on either cheek and a pair of penciled eye-brows.” Why had he not mentioned rouge in his letter? Mrs. Young still looked at him, still held his hand, remembering of old the value of long looks and of silence. Of a truth many and many a man had she captivated in this way in the days of long ago and once again in her mind’s eye she could see suitor after suitor at her feet. She had refused them all, after the first one had given her his name and then gone into the unknown world. Even after coming into the Old Ladies’ Home, she had refused offers of marriage, and yet, now of a sudden, she wished to share the good fortune and the ill fortune of Samuel Jessup. She laid her free hand on his shoulder and murmured a line from her favorite Browning—Browning who was a mere name and scarcely that to Samuel:

Samuel was embarrassed. He pushed his wig back from his brow and, going opposite to the natural, sidewise slant of his head, it gave him a rakish expression, delightful to Mrs. Young’s eye. Then all of a kindle with the light of an eager hope went Samuel’s own brown orbs.

“Yes, yes,” he said glibly, “but the best ain’t ter be. It’s here, right now, in the dinin’-room. Come along with me.”

He was so mixed as to his own desires and emotions that he half hoped, half feared that she would stand the test, but when she saw the basket and its contents, first horror crossed her face, then the shadow of a deep disappointment fell among the wrinkles and the rouge and the penciled eye-brows. Sadly she faced Samuel Jessup as if certain of his answer before her questioning:

“And you insist on a-keeping it?”

“It’s mine. It belongs ter me. I had it jest half a day, but now all the women in the country couldn’t make me give it up. I don’t want ter be imperlite,” added Samuel in a milder tone, “but them’s the facts. Me an’ the basket, or ‘Good-bye, Samuel.’”

She interpreted him literally. Holding out her fragile, jeweled hand, she clasped his warmly, yet with honest sadness and compassion:

“Good-bye, Samuel. If it hadn’t been for the basket—.” She paused, slowly withdrawing her hand, and then went on again: “You’re makin’ an awful mistake. Who’d a thought it of a man o’ your age! I shall never forget you. Good-bye, Samuel.”

With one swift, half hungering, half frightened glance at the basket, she slipped out of the room. Samuel did not laugh and his eyes did not twinkle as he went up to the matron’s desk.

“Miss Jessica, they’ve all practically refused me. What shall I do?” He had a vision of an endless quest of an eligible, willing old lady from an old folks’ home.

Miss Jessica thought a long while, biting the end of her pencil, and at last she said slowly, half reluctantly:

“There is one more—who—answers your requirements, but she was too proud to enter the lists.”

Samuel’s face lit up. Proud women can be very tender and only a tender soul could accept the basket. Moreover, a woman with sufficient spirit to resent his action today was a woman after his own heart. He lifted his head from its sidewise slant and, throwing back his shoulders, looked Jessica square in the eyes:

“What’s the woman’s name?”

“Miss Ellie Smith.”

“Waal, I be goin’ ter change it!” vowed Mr. Jessup. “Whar be she?”

The matron hesitated, wondering whether she could play the part of the traitor to dignified, self-reliant Miss Ellie, but Jessica was very young. She looked down the long years that these two had traveled, and seeing how dusty and stony and hard the road had been, wondered why they should not come into a restful, fragrant garden at last. Ellie, she knew, even yet, with the help of the right man, could make the garden. And now as she looked keenly into Samuel Jessup’s eyes—eyes shaded by iron-gray brows, but deep, dark brown eyes, limpid, sparkling, full of tenderness and an appealing hunger for tenderness—she felt that Samuel could play an all-sufficient Adam to Ellie’s Eve, in the garden.

“Miss Ellie’s all alone in the kitchen, hulling strawberries for supper,” she said very low. Then bending far over her desk, as if completely absorbed in her books, she went on: “It’s the south dining-room door. Go right in, take the basket with you—no, no, not that woman, too—and ask Miss Ellie if she won’t take charge of your basket for an hour or so.”

Samuel grinned. He wagged his head back and forth until his wig shook in sympathetic anticipation. Years and years seemed to fall from him, until with his small, thick-set figure and his sparkling, youthful eyes he looked like a boy getting ready to steal apples. With short, firm, quicksteps he entered the dining-room. No one would have thought him a victim of lumbago from his gait now. Then of a sudden, Miss Jessica, no longer able to contain herself, went into her private room, where he had consulted with the ten, and danced around with glee.

“Miss Ellie, you darling!” she whispered to herself. “I know you’ll do it!”

Miss Ellie, in a prim, dainty blue gingham dress, with a great bib apron enveloping her slender figure, sat at the south kitchen window hulling berries, the basket of red fruit on the table beside her, a yellow earthen bowl in her lap. Her silver-gold hair caught sunbeam lights from the window until each single thread danced and twinkled. Little curls of silver gold nestled against the nape of her slender neck. Her face was that of an April lady’s—first the clouds chased across it, clouds of contempt, of anger and of regret; and then it took on a soft blaze of tenderness and of passionate longing.

She did not want Mr. Samuel Jessup or any other man. She scorned the woman who might take him today for his home and that little sum of money; but why—why had she with all her power of loving and of attracting love, all the unspent passion of motherhood that had been her ruling passion since the doll-baby age—why had she come to see sixty-one without finding Mr. Right? Lovers in moderate numbers she had had in the days of long ago, and old people do not forget the loves of the springtime, but all the while—all through the spring and the summer and this swiftly passing autumn—or was it really winter-time?—there had never come to her one whom she would rejoice to call her mate! Him she did not regret so much nowadays, or she regretted him with a vague, indistinct feeling. He might have liked strong drink and smoked a strong pipe indoors. But the children! Ah, the children that had never come!

She had outlived all her people. There were no nieces, no nephews, no one in all the world whom she could call her own, and there had never been and never could be a little grandchild to pull at her skirts.

“Dran-ma! I love oo, dran-ma!” Only yesterday she had heard a little child lisp this into the ears of Mrs. Young.

“Dran-ma, I love oo, dran-ma!” whispered Ellie, bending far over the berries with the hot gushing of tears coming into her eyes.

Both the ache of motherhood and the ache of grandmotherhood were upon her. Never to have felt the touch of her own babe at her breast! And, now that old age had withered the breast, never to hear the prattle of grandchildren in her ears! And her ears were still so finely attuned, unlike the average grandmother! Miss Ellie looked up from her berries at the window. Her eyes were too dim to see, and wiping the tears away she looked out of the window again, down the garden. So, young girls stare wistfully as if they would look to the very end of the world and discover what, in the very end, may come to them.

The dining-room door opened. Miss Ellie turned back to her task. She scorned to look up and ask her fellow inmate of the Home who had won Samuel Jessup. It was probably Mrs. Homan coming to help with the supper. Steps came across the kitchen. Ellie bent far over the yellow bowl and went on with her berry hulling. It needed a great many berries to supply that supper table. The sunbeam darted down from the top of Ellie’s head to seek out with its twinkling, gold-shod feet the silver-gold curls in Ellie’s neck. The steps paused close beside Ellie. Suddenly the spinster realized that they were not Mrs. Homan’s steps and she looked up. Scorn, indignation, amazement, and then something more subtle, something which one sees in faces everywhere all over the world, and something which makes the world more beautiful, crossed her face. There stood Samuel Jessup with the huge market basket in one hand. He held out the basket to Miss Ellie. He looked at her eagerly, almost with piteous appeal, as if to say:

“They would have none of it, but—you! You?”

The red table cover had been thrown off the basket. There lay the contents before Miss Ellie’s eyes. A big white pillow and resting upon it, a baby—a real, live, pink-and-white, wide-awake baby. More than this, a baby who at first sight of Miss Ellie holding poised in her hand a huge, red strawberry, struggled up into a sitting position, held out his two pudgy, dimpled little hands and cried with the softest, most ecstatic little cry imaginable: “Dranny!”

The baby’s grandmother had died last week, but neither Miss Ellie nor the baby knew that, and Samuel Jessup kept a wise silence.

Trembling, agitated, scarcely able to see or hear for the moment following the baby’s cry, Miss Ellie put down the red berry, placed the bowl on the table, and then turned to take the baby. She asked no questions. She simply took him. She knew that he was hers. Even now again—would her heart burst with joy and her ears lose their power of hearing!—even now again he was murmuring and mumbling: “Dranny! Dranny!” Now she knew that she would hear the prattle of one she called grandchild in her ears and guide with her shriveled old hands the unsteady movements of these little feet. Samuel Jessup counted not at all just then; but if he had attempted to take away that baby, she would have fought him like a mother-tigress.

Samuel had meant to say much. He said nothing, but simply put his hand against his throat and looked at her. He saw her devour with eyes and lips the tender little form—saw her seek out the baby wrinkles in the fat little dimpled neck—saw her munch hungrily at the baby’s yellow curls—saw her feel every bone of the little body through the stiff starchy white dress as if she loved each one more than the other. And then at length he watched her unfasten the shoes, pull off the tiny white socks and then adore with the pent-up passion of the lonely years the adorable little rosy heel of his baby.

Samuel cleared his throat with a loud noise and walked across the room. He noticed a red calico curtain at the cupboard door and wondered whether Miss Ellie had made it. In his mind’s eye, he saw another kitchen, smaller than this, cosier, but still with red calico curtains at the cupboard door and crisp white swiss ones—as crisp as the baby’s dress—at the windows. He knew that Miss Ellie would not want to get those curtains stained up with tobacco smoke—she looked so dainty—so he would volunteer to do his smoking on the back porch. If she left the window open, he could look through and talk to her and the little one. He came beside Miss Ellie’s chair and stood looking down at her lovely head and the baby’s cheek pressed against her own. The baby, quieted with happiness against that breast, was profoundly still.

Through the open door came a wonderful fragrance—as the fragrance of youthful love—blown in from the syringa bush beside the kitchen door. They must plant a syringa beside the kitchen door-step in the new home, thought Samuel. Out of the stillness, he spoke, his voice very husky.

“You be a woman arter my own heart—I knowed it when I see you a-settin’ here a-hullin’ berries. It’s more than I ’spected. I never dreamed it could be: I was that old. But, Miss Ellie, you be—you be—” He lost his voice entirely for a space and fearfully, reverently, he lifted in his trembling fingers one of the silver-gold curls that lay on her neck, lifted it and immediately let it fall in place again. “You be,” he whispered, “a woman arter my own heart. I never found sech a one when I was young. I know it now, fer ef I had, I wouldn’t ’a’ been afeared of no bad luck fer neither her ner me. I’d a took her an’—” another pause and then with brave, masculine assurance, “she’d ’a’ took me.”

Miss Ellie did not move, she did not speak. She felt that his voice was very far away, away off back in her youth where she had dreamed of the mate who was yet to come. Closer she pressed her cheek to the baby’s and so assured herself that baby and the man who had brought her the baby were real and belonged to today.

Samuel was speaking again, his hand now on the back of her chair, so that it brushed against the ruffle that ran across the shoulders of her apron.

“I allers wanted children, an’ when I got too old to have the hope o’ ever a-marryin’, I used ter say ter myself: ‘Oh, ef they was only leetle grand-younguns now!’ Then the fortune come. Says I fust thing: ‘I’ll have a baby. I’ll be a granddaddy yit.’ Thar wa’n’t much mean about me. I be sixty-nine, but I wanted my own home, an’ my own wife, an’ my own baby. But I wanted the baby most of all. So the fust thing I done when the money come was ter go to that thar Margaret Jane Orphan Asylum an git this here baby. He hadn’t been there but a week. Jest lost his grandma an’ his grandpa—didn’t yer, yer pore leetle cuss, yer? He’s legally adopted. His name is Samuel Biggs Jessup, Jr. Ain’t he a wallopin’ fine feller!”

Samuel exploded at the last. His bashfulness, his self-depreciation, his afraidness, were all gone. He bent over, his hands on his knees, and looked into the baby’s face. The baby’s face was very close to Ellie’s. The baby’s face was dimpled and smiling, while over Ellie’s face there was a flush of joyous young motherhood together with the proud, all-wondering delight of grandmotherhood, and blending with both, a sweet shame and shrinking such as no one but a virgin can wear. Oh, exquisite, young-old Miss Ellie! Your eyes swimming in unshed tears were so beautiful then with the inner light that Samuel blinked to see them.

“Miss Ellie,” he whispered. Very still was the kitchen. The syringa outside the door shook out its perfume just for these two. The wind murmured through the fragrant flowers—it murmured:

“Again and again and again! Even for the old, this same old story!”

“Ellie,” whispered Samuel. “I want you even more than I want the baby. Will you marry me?”

Again the silence fell, and after a long while, the voice of Ellie’s dream-swept, ideal-keeping youth came from within the curves of the baby’s cheek where her lips were hiding:

“Samuel, you been a long time comin’.” Her voice faltered and then gathering a girlish tremor went on, “But, even ef you hadn’t brought the baby, I should say you was wuth all the waitin’.”

Control or Ownership? BY CHARLES Q. DE FRANCE

Few men who have studied the question, and who are free to make a frank statement of their views, see much hope for a “square deal” in railroad rates under private ownership. Most of those who really want a square deal, however, are giving the President their moral support, not because they expect him to solve the problem with his formula of “control,” but because they feel that the agitation he has caused and is fomenting will inure to the benefit of the public ownership and operation idea. His opponents charge as much—and they are correct. Many of their arguments against control are valid, too, if we grant that private ownership in this age of our civilization is best. Of course, we do not grant that.

It seems certain at this writing (March 4) that the Hepburn-Dolliver bill will become a law—one of those dead letters, so many of which already encumber our Federal and State statute books. That it cannot and will not be enforced, except in a few spectacular instances to fool the multitude, is as certain as anything in human affairs. The roads will continue to take all that the traffic will bear, to give rebates, and to water stock in the good old way. If any doubt this, let them read the intensely interesting letters in various newspapers sent out each week from Washington by Lincoln Steffens. Mr. Steffens has, after most thorough investigation, reached the conclusion that our people are suffering not so much because of bribery and corruption as from having abdicated in favor of the railroads and other big corporations. It is not necessary now for a railroad corporation to bribe a congressman or senator—because most of these supposed people’s representatives are actually the railroad representatives, and many of them heavy stockholders.

Mr. Steffens can lay no claim to a patent on this information by right of original discovery, for Populists said the same thing (only not so aptly, perhaps), twelve to fifteen years ago. But he is reaching an audience that the Populists did not and possibly never could reach. And he tells the story so well that we must accord him the highest meed of praise. I cannot refrain from quoting a paragraph concerning the spectacle he sees in Washington (New York World, March 4):

That is the deliberate statement of a man who has gained an enviable reputation for thorough-going investigation. He is not a demagogue or a writer of penny-dreadfuls. He is on the ground and supports every one of his general statements with concrete examples.

Mr. Steffens blames the people for the present state of affairs. I heartily agree with him. But I believe we should try to reason out where the first big mistake was made and arrive at a conclusion as to the best way out of the difficulty, unless, perchance, our people really like the rule of railroad oligarchy. I believe it is a useless task to chide the people for lack of civic righteousness, for indifference, for supineness, for failure to go to the primaries, etc., unless we point out clearly how complete sovereignty may be secured. It is useless to scold a man for not filling his lungs with oxygen, if you advise him to stay in a room overcharged with carbonic acid gas.

The present state of affairs is due primarily to two great causes, or really to one cause operating through two different channels:

(a) The private ownership of railroads.

(b) The private control of the issue and circulation of money.

The latter cause, in my judgment, is immeasurably greater than the former; but public opinion is now directed toward the former, so that a discussion of it is sure of a careful hearing. I do not insist that permitting the private ownership of railroads was an irremediable mistake; in fact, there is much good argument in favor of the contention that under private ownership the roads were developed faster and better than they, in all likelihood, would have been under public ownership. And we may admit, without at all prejudicing our case, that in the evolution of railroading, private ownership was best at the start. This is not capable of demonstration—but we need not quarrel over it.

A railroad is a highway; and a highway is one of the attributes of sovereignty. Whoever owns and controls the road is to that extent a sovereign. And under our aggravated system of laissez faire, ownership and control always go together, except with the slightest modifications. Hence, with private ownership of railroads, it was inevitable that we should reach just such a state of affairs as Mr. Steffens pictures. Why shouldn’t “representatives of those railroads and their allied corporations” sit here enthroned?

The owners of those roads are absolute sovereigns over the principal avenue for the distribution of commodities; and under our highly developed methods of production, with extreme division of labor, a great distribution of commodities is absolutely essential. With power to tax at will all users of highways, their owners can control, in a great measure, all productive industry.

I am not a believer in total depravity. I can see no necessity or reason for calling railroad magnates hard names, or accusing them of unpatriotic scheming for power—except, possibly, for the purpose of arousing a lethargic people to a sense of their own wrongs. Being an actual sovereign, because owning the highways—the real, vital highways—and possessing the power to tax, I can understand how the railroads were, in a great measure, compelled to unite de jure and de facto sovereignty. With non-railroad or anti-railroad men in the legislative, administrative and judicial bodies, “sand-bagging” and hold-ups were common. In self-defense (for no man ever lived who likes to be deprived of power), the railroads bribed and corrupted. They were by no means the sole culprits. The taker of a bribe is just as despicable as the giver. But gradually the system evolved to its present state—the union of all sovereign powers. The Government persisted in its refusal to go into the railroad business—so the railroads quite naturally went into the governing business.

We cannot undo what has been done. We cannot turn back the wheels of time and begin all over again with public ownership of railroads; but we can, and I think we will, in not many years hence, take over the railroads and make them public property, operating them by Government officials. The union of sovereign powers is now complete: the owners of highways and “their allied corporations,” by their representatives, are now enthroned as the actual Government. This is as it should be, except that the ownership is too limited. It should be made to include the whole people.

Will It Come to this at Niagara?

Morris, in Spokane Spokesman Review

“What, Doctor, All of This?”

Warren, in Boston Herald

Puzzle.—Which Way Is He Going?

Handy, in Duluth News Tribune

R. R. Magnate: I cannot tell a lie. I am going to do it with my little hatchet.

Handy, in Duluth News Tribune

THE SACRIFICE BY JACK B. NORMAN.

“Don’t think that I ain’t willin’ for you to have the home-place like pa wanted you to, Indie,” said the thin, tired voice that was fast wearing into silence, “’cause I am. It’s no more ’n right after all you’ve done for me ’n pa. The t’others has all got homes o’ their own an’ you ain’t got nobody to fall back on. But, Indie, promise me you won’t close the door agin poor Tom if he should come back. Give him shelter an’ welcome for my sake, won’t you?”

Indie promised solemnly. Her thoughts went back to one still, tranquil night years before, when the doors of that same home had been closed against the wayward son by the father who vowed never to look upon his boy’s face again. The mother—a frail, submissive, toil-worn woman—had mourned in secret, but her prayers had been unanswered.

“You’ve been dreadful good to us,” the dying voice murmured; “I hope the Lord will make it up to you somehow, Indie. Do you reckon the girls will git here ’fore I die?”

“Yes, Aunt Viney, I really b’lieve they will. But you go to sleep if you can. I’ll wake you as soon as they git here.”

By and by the sick woman fell into a gentle doze that deepened into the sleep that knows no earthly waking. The married daughters came too late, but if they were greatly grieved over their mother’s death they made little outward sign. They stayed at the home place for two days, during which the will was read. It deeded all that remained of the Pasely farm, that had been divided and subdivided to supply marriage portions for four, to Indie, in consideration of her faithful services for the old folks.

“Maybe you can ketch Lem Powers with this bait,” was Louise’s spiteful comment, after the reading was over. “Everyone knows you always wanted him bad enough.”

Mary, the eldest cousin, laughed dryly. “Indie can’t complain of the way our folks treated her,” she said with ill-concealed bitterness. “This farm is worth a thousand dollars above the mortgage money. It ain’t many poor relations that has property like this left to ’em.”

“I guess Indie knows that she didn’t come by it plum honest,” the third cousin remarked. “She knowed how to work around the old folks so’s to git ’em to leave her what they had. Well, we ain’t the kind to make trouble even if we have been wronged.”

When they had gone, Indie abandoned herself to a passion of helpless, piteous grief. She recalled one cruel hour long ago when her cousin Louise had accused her of caring, unasked, for friendly, pleasant Lem Powers, whose off-hand calls on the family stood out in Indie’s memory as the brightest events of her lonely, toilful life. Indie was twenty-three and plain, for the flower-like prettiness of her early childhood had long since succumbed to the triple blight of care and drudgery and loneliness. It had been known among her neighbors and acquaintances that Indie, at the age of eighteen, had never been “spoke for,” wherefore she had meekly accepted the stigma of spinsterhood that comes very early to the Southern country girl and had withdrawn from the mild frivolities of youth to become a household drudge in her uncle’s family in order that her cousins might have more leisure and freedom. After the death of her hard-working uncle, she had stayed with her ailing aunt while the girls married and left her.

“I wisht I’d died instid of Aunt Viney,” Indie sobbed in utter loneliness.

For two years Indie lived quietly and comfortably in the old home, paying her simple expenses by raising garden truck for the town hotel. Then a letter came from Tom’s widow imploring his people to send her enough money to defray Tom’s funeral expenses to avert his threatened burial in the potter’s field. It was a pathetic appeal, involving the brief story of Tom’s struggles, how he had worked his way with his little family from Texas to the old home state, where he had obtained employment in a factory. He had met his death through a boiler explosion the day before the letter was written. Tom had always hoped for a reconciliation in spite of his father’s unyielding hardness, the widow wrote. In conclusion, she begged his people not to allow his body to be consigned to a nameless grave.

Indie went straight to Mr. Griggs, the real estate agent, who held the four-hundred-dollar mortgage on her farm, and asked him to lend her a hundred dollars. He refused gently but firmly.

“Why, Indie, by the time you sell that farm it may not be worth five hundred dollars in all,” he said. “The interest on the mortgage is about due now and here you are wanting to borrow more!”

“It’s for a particular purpose that can’t wait a day,” Indie told him anxiously, trembling in every nerve with the fear of disappointment.

“I can’t help that. Business is business you know, and every man must look out for his own interests. There is only one way to get that money and that is to sell the place as it stands before the debts eat it up completely. I know a party that would buy, probably.”

“Oh, I couldn’t sell the only home I’ve got,” Indie said piteously.

“It’ll come to that in the end, anyhow,” Griggs answered indifferently. “My advice is to get rid of it now, while there is a few dollars in it for you. Anyway, you can’t raise that hundred you want any other way. If I was in your place I’d sell and go down to Birmingham and get work in the factory, where you’ll make something besides a mere living.”

Indie’s heart almost stopped beating at the very thought of leaving the old familiar haunts for a strange city. Yet, Tom must have a decent burial at any cost to herself.

“What could you get for the farm?” Indie asked huskily.

“Eight or nine hundred I reckon.”

“Could you let me have the hundred right now if I agree to sell the place?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll sell—because I’ve got to have that money right off.”

Indie hurried home and began to put things to rights. She packed up her personal belongings and moved all her humble furniture into one room, where it could be easily got at in case she should send for it a little later, if she were fortunate enough to secure steady work in the factory which Mr. Griggs had referred to. He had even given her a clipping from the Sunday paper containing an advertisement calling for twenty new hands, “experience not necessary.”

Indie was sweeping the back yard when some one strode up the pebbled walk with brisk, business-like steps, which she mistook for Mr. Griggs’s walk, for he had promised to stop in on his homeward way. But it was not the agent. It was Indie’s old friend Lem Powers, whom she had so timidly avoided for years. His broad-brimmed hat was turned up squarely in front, framing his dark, strong, sunny face in a sort of a rough halo.

“Evenin’, Indie,” said he, with a tug at his up-standing hat-brim. “Do you happen to have a wrench about the place? My buggy wheel’s locked an’ I ain’t got no tools with me.”

Indie shook down her sleeves hurriedly, keenly conscious of her unpleasing appearance. “Won’t you set down while I hunt up the wrench?” she asked, nodding toward the veranda bench. “I’ve done packed up everything, but I can find the wrench easy’s not.”

“Packed up!” the young man echoed in blank astonishment, with a sweeping glance at the denuded premises. “Why, you don’t aim to move, do you?”

“I expect to leave Shallow Ford to-morrer mornin’,” Indie answered solemnly.

“You don’t say so? Goin’ to live with your cousins?”

“No, oh no,” Indie answered quickly, with a dry smile. “None of them ain’t never asked me to live with ’em, and even if they had I wouldn’t go.”

“I didn’t know you had other kin.”

“I ain’t. I aim to go to Birmingham to work in the factory. I seen a advertisement callin’ for twenty new hands and I thought it would be a good chance to get started.”

“Whatever put that idee into your head, I’d like to know? I don’t b’lieve you’ll like the work one bit, Indie,” the young man said with grim conviction. “It ain’t healthy, to begin with. Don’t you rec’lect how pale an’ peekedy them Baldwins looked when they come back here on a visit after havin’ worked in the thread factory down at Birmingham? They didn’t have the sperit of a jack rabbit between ’em, an’ their ways was plum changed too—sorter forrard like. You won’t like the sort of company they keep, Indie.”

“I’ve got to go now,” said Indie, doggedly, “cause I’ve done put the place for sale. Mr Griggs thinks he can sell it without any trouble.”

“He may. Indie, is it on account of the mortgage you’re leavin’?”

Indie shook her head. She could not tell Lem her real motive.

“’Cause if it is,” said Lem, earnestly, “I’d be only too glad to stand good for the debt if you’ll let me.”

Indie’s pale face reddened painfully, and her head went back an inch or two, for she had her pride in spite of her helplessness. “I couldn’t ever raise enough truck to pay off the debt, anyhow,” she answered coldly.

“You could rent the place an’ pay off that way. I do wish you would let your old friends do a little something for you, Indie,” he pleaded, growing red and embarrassed under her increasing coldness.

“It’s too late to rent now, ’cause it’s way past corn-plantin’ time,” Indie objected, “an there ain’t nothin started but two acres o’ roastin’ ears an’ some garden truck.”

“I should think you’d hate to leave the old place,” Lem observed, letting his bright gaze wander over the green pasture strip and the narrow creek bottoms where the young corn waved idly in the evening breeze.

Indie’s thin face clouded with the shadow of regret, but she made no reply, for she would not have admitted, on pain of death, that her heart ached with the pathos of renunciation.

“Ain’t there nary thing I can do for you, Indie?” Lem asked, after an awkward pause, in what seemed to the listener a very off-hand, indifferent voice.

“No thanky. There ain’t a thing to do but to take the cow over to board with the Bankses. Seems like I can’t bear the thoughts of sellin’ her to out-an’-out strangers, so I thought I’d board her till some of the neighbors gits ready to buy her. Miss Clayton’s goin’ to keep Billy for me till I get settled, so’s I can take him.”

Billy, the big tortoise-shell cat that purred on the door step, lifted his head at the sound of his own name and blinked contentedly, whereupon Lem stooped and stroked his glossy fur. “I guess Billy’ll miss you if no one else does,” he remarked dryly.

Then he rose and held out a big brown hand. “Well, good-bye, Indie, an’ good luck to you,” said he. “If ever I can do anything for you, let me know, will you?”

“Good-bye,” said Indie gravely.

Indie went away the next morning—a morning full of balm and peace. Fresh, fragrant winds scattered the rose petals thickly over her shoulders as she hurried down the garden path to meet the stage. She did not trust herself to glance back, for some strange, dumb emotion tugged at her heart-strings and soundless voices called to her out of the sweet silence that enveloped earth and sky.

She shivered as she entered the hot, sultry, dust-laden train with its burden of dull, spiritless travelers. “It must be the air,” she murmured to herself as she sank into a seat. “These cars is awful clost with the sun beatin’ down on ’em an no air stirrin’. Now, if a body was at home they could open the doors an’ winders an’ set in the shade.”

“Home! Home! Home!” said the swiftly revolving wheels that bore her relentlessly away from the old, sweetly familiar scenes toward an unknown, lonely future. She watched the green fields and woods that whirled past the windows until they grew less and less frequent, with dingy little stations squatted between them. The landscape changed and the car grew hotter and the smoke thicker, for the train was approaching the factory district of Birmingham, the Alabama metropolis. Children, with unclean, pallid, faces, stared up at the car windows as the train pulled through their grimy quarters, and men in blackened, greasy clothes lounged along the tracks in the occasional shade of a sweltering brick wall.

Indie found the squalid home of Tom’s widow after much patient wandering about the uneven, unswept streets. Many minutes passed before her ring was answered; then a white-faced woman opened the door a very little way. Yes, she was Mrs. Pasely. Did anyone want to see her?

“I am Tom’s cousin, Indie,” the caller announced simply. “I’ve brung the money for Tom’s funeral.”

The widow cried a little at first while she told Indie of Tom’s tragic death, but her mind was too absorbingly occupied over the funeral to permit of the luxury of self-pity. She dressed hurriedly and went out to communicate with the undertaker, leaving Indie with the children, three little, frail, colorless, old-young beings, who reminded Indie of cellar-grown plants. The widow was not long away; late that afternoon the two women and their three charges followed Tom’s remains to consecrated ground.

“I never can tell you how thankful I am,” was all Mrs. Pasely said to Indie concerning her sacrifice, “for now I feel at rest about poor Tom bein’ laid away like he ought to be. If the baby was just well I’d try to start out an’ make a livin’ and do my best without Tom,” she added mournfully, “but it seems like I ain’t got no heart to do nothin’ while he’s so weak and puny. He ain’t been to say real well since we left Texas, where we lived right out in the country. I’ve tried everything I could think of but nothin’ don’t do him no good as I can see. The doctor says he won’t never git well till I take him back to the country, an maybe not then. Me’n Minnie’s got promise of work in the factory next week, but if little Tom ain’t no better I can’t leave him with jest Jim to look after him. If we only could git back to Texas agin we’d all git well an’ stout, an’ I wouldn’t care if we was poor. All I care about is for little Tom to git well.”

Oh, if she could only take them all back to the farm with her, thought Indie. A great wave of home longing surged through her heart as she thought of the peace and beauty of the deserted home. She knew just where the shadows of noontide lay darkest over the old rose-bordered yard—knew that the back veranda where she always ate her simple midday meals with Billy purring at her feet was just then in the thickest shadow of the china-berry trees, and that all was still and sweet and tranquil in that far-off haven of rest. Instead of factory walls there were green, blossomed hedges; instead of the strident clamor of motor cars and mill gongs there was a ceaseless chorus of song birds, and instead of the hot, smoke-tainted air of the city, there was the fine, earthy fragrance of the good sweet soil that lay fallow while so many weary toilers sweltered in their city prisons.

Indie made Tom’s widow understand the whole situation, then she offered herself in any capacity that could serve little Tom, who had the look that she dimly remembered in young Tom when she first went to live with his parents. Indie would take work in the factory as she had planned to do and board with Tom’s widow to help along all she could, or she would take them all back to the farm and work very hard to make a mere living while little Tom had a chance for his life.

“Why, I’d be willin’ to work day an’ night on a farm!” the widow answered earnestly. “I’m jest plum certain Tom will git well way off there in the country. Oh, do take us back with you! Me’n Minnie an’ Jim can make a real good crop between us. You’ll see!”

That was what Indie wanted. She would sacrifice the last thing that remained to her—her pride—and ask Lem to help her by standing good for the hundred-dollar note, and far the rest she would work as she had never worked before.

“We’ll go tomorrow,” Indie announced. “You git right to work packin’ up what you want to take.”

The world was aflame with the splendid fires of sunset when the little party alighted before the farm gate on the following evening. “I’m real glad it’s light enough for you to see the flowers an’ things,” said Indie, as she led the way up the rose-bordered walk that seemed to greet her with sweet familiarity. “Good thing I left the key under the porch steps right where I could find it handy. There, now walk right in an’ set down, while I kindle a fire an’ git some supper.”

She had bought a few eatables the last thing before leaving Birmingham, which she speedily converted into a tempting meal. Her guests rewarded her industry to a gratifying degree, even to little Tom, who seemed to have acquired a good appetite which delighted his frail, worried mother beyond bounds. “He ain’t et like that in I dunno when!” she exclaimed with tears of joy.

It was close upon Indie’s usual bedtime when her ministration ended. She slipped out for a quiet rest on the front door-step to enjoy the peace and loveliness of the perfect spring night, but hardly had she seated herself when the garden gate creaked rustily and someone strode up the walk with heavy strides. At the sight of the dim figure on the step the intruder stopped precipitately.

“Who’s there?” asked a familiar voice.

Indie rose tremblingly. “It’s Indie Bright,” she answered. “Did you want to see me?”

“Indie!” exclaimed a voice so thrillingly joyous that the listener felt herself quiver from head to foot with a strange, inexplicable ecstasy.

“Ain’t it Lem Powers?” she asked. “Has anything happened?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” came the surprised answer. “I thought you was gone!”

Indie told her story briefly, carefully deflecting all merit from herself. “I’m real glad it happened that way,” she finished, “for I did hate to sell the old place.”

Lem drew a deep breath. “You’re jest five hours too late, Indie,” he said in a queer voice, “for the agent sold the farm this afternoon at four o’clock.”

Indie felt the solid earth recede beneath her. “Sold it!” she echoed fearsomely. “Oh, Lem, whatever shall I do!”

“I dunno. There ain’t no use in tryin’ to buy it back, ’cause the man that bought it won’t part with it for anything, except——”

He paused and went a step nearer. “Except you’ll give him what he’s always wanted—yourself. Indie, I never did want no other girl but you, an’ never will.”

Indie shrank away, but a strong, warm hand found hers in the shadow, while the low earnest voice went on to tell her of a miracle that thrilled every fibre of her being with unspeakable happiness.

“I aimed to ask you the day you told me about leavin’,” Lem confessed, “but by the way you talked I thought it wouldn’t be no use, so I bought the place hopin’ you’d want to come back some day.”

“Lem,” said Indie, after a long, happy silence, “I never had no idee that—that you ever wanted me. I thought it was Cousin Louise you wanted.”

“Louise—after I’d seen you!” Lem cried incredulously. “Why that would be like chosin’ a bit o’ glass instid of a real diamond. It was Louise as told me how you’d took a dredful dislike to me from the very first, an’ of course I couldn’t help but believe it by the way you always acted when I was around. I tell you, Indie, that made a heap o’ difference to me. I’d a done anything in the hull world for you an’ would yit if you’d only let me.”

Indie drew a deep breath that sounded strangely like a stifled sob. “Oh, Lem, that’s just the way I’ve always felt about you,” she confessed very softly and hesitatingly.

After a long, long while, during which the years and their burden of care and loneliness and heart-ache slipped away from Indie’s heart like an wornout garment, she drew her hands away from Lem’s close clasp. “You’d better go now, Lem,” she said very gently, “’cause it’s gitting late an’ I don’t want to wake the folks up after they’ve got to sleep.”

“All right, Indie. I’ll be back tomorrow to see about putting in a late crop o’ corn for Tom’s folks to work out. We’ll jest let ’em keep the place free of rent for a while an’ see to it that they make enough to keep ’em. You can look after ’em all you want to, for it ain’t but a little piece from our place over here. Good night, Indie.”

Indie lingered in the soft, starry dusk for a few moments after Lem had gone, to gloat over her great happiness; and presently something dark and small scuttled out of the lilac hedge and bounded into her lap with a mew of welcome. It was Billy, quivering with elation and delight.

Indie caught her pet to her breast with a cry of rapture. “Oh, Billy, Billy, ain’t it lovely to be home again!”

Our Civilization BY COUNT LYOF TOLSTOY

Men say that civilization, our civilization, is a great good. But they who have this conviction belong to the minority who live not only in this civilization but by it; who live in ease, almost idleness, in comparison to the lot of workmen.

All such men; kings, emperors, presidents, princes, ministers, functionaries, soldiers, proprietors, investors, merchants, engineers, doctors, scientists, professors, priests, writers, are so sure our civilization is a great good that they cannot bear the thought that it should disappear or that it should even be changed.

Ask, however, of the great mass of agricultural people, slave people, Chinese, Hindus, Russians—ask nine-tenths of humanity whether this civilization, which seems a superlative good to those who are not agriculturists, is really a blessing or not? Strangely enough, nine-tenths of humanity will reply in the negative.

What they need is soil, fertilizer, irrigation, sun, rain, forests, harvests, and simple farming implements that one can make without abandoning the agricultural life. As for civilization, either they know nothing of it, or it presents itself to them under the aspect of the debauchery of cities, with their prisons and their bagnios; or under the aspect of taxes and useless monuments, of museums, of palaces; or under the aspect of duties which prevent the free circulation of products; or under the aspect of cannon, of armor and of armies that ravage whole countries. And they say, if that is civilization it is of no use to them, and that, it is even hurtful to them. The men who enjoy the advantages of civilization maintain that it is good for all humanity; but in this case they cannot bear testimony because they are both judges and parties concerned.

One cannot deny that we are now far along the road of technical progress; but what is far along on that road? A little minority lives on the back of the work people; and the work people, they who serve the men that enjoy civilization in the whole Christian world, continue to live as they lived five or six centuries ago, profiting only from time to time of the leavings of civilization.

Even if they live better, the breach that separates their lot from that of the rich classes is rather wider than it was six centuries ago. I do not say, as many think, that, since civilization is not an absolute good we should throw out at one stroke the structure men have devised for the struggle against nature; but I do say that, to make sure this structure shall really serve men well, it is necessary that all and not only a small minority enjoy it. No one must be deprived of his due by others under the pretext that these benefits will return one day to his descendants.

The good and reasonable life consists in choosing, of many ways that lie open, the way that is best.

Therefore Christian humanity in the present situation should choose between two things: either to continue along the path of wickedness in which existing civilization gives the greatest number of benefits to the smallest number of people, keeping the others in poverty and slavery; or immediately, without postponing it to a future more or less remote, to renounce in part, or wholly, the advantages which this civilization has given to certain privileged ones, thereby preventing the liberation of the majority of men from poverty and serfdom.

A Coal Miner’s Story BY CHARLES S. MOODY, M. D.

The average worthy citizen reclining beside an open coal-grate, reading the press accounts of the latest coal strike, has little interest in the matter further than his interest in the probable effect of the labor disturbance upon the price of his winter’s fuel. When he reaches that part of the narrative that tells of the troops having been ordered to the scene of action, the powerful arm of the military invoked to put down the uprising among the working-men, he heaves a sigh of relief that now the strike will be of short duration and the price of coal will not be advanced. Seldom does he consider the matter from the standpoint of the man who mines the coal.

Were that one big lump glowing warmly in the centre of the grate gifted with the power of speech, it would tell a tale that might well harrow up the feelings of the most callous. Alas! it is dumb, just as the man who dug it out of the bowels of the earth is dumb. It glows its heat away, crumbles into gray ash, and the worthy citizen retires to his rest with mind untroubled by any unpleasant thought of want or penury among those who go down into the unwholesome deeps of the mine and toil all day shut out from God’s gracious light that he and you and I may enjoy comfort and warmth.

At one time of my life the relentless wheel of Fate in its ceaseless revolving whirled me to its nadir, and spilled me into the squalid chaos of a coal-mining town, and, not content with that, hurled me into the nethermost hell of all that seething vortex of toil and poverty.

That the worthy citizen may see something of that side of the shield—the side sable—I will attempt to tell it, not with the graces of one skilled of pen, but in all its plain, naked, glaring hideousness.

At this point allow me to crave pardon for the frequent use of the personal pronoun. I am speaking as a coal-miner, and can tell it better by using the first person.

I was raised in the Far West. My life had been spent among the green mountains of the Pacific Coast, and I knew but little of the land beyond the Rockies. When ambition came, as it comes to youth everywhere, I dreamed of other lands where that ambition might find its full fruition. I left the mountain home, and set out to conquer the world of my dreams. My journey ended at the little town of Excello, in Northern Missouri. I was moneyless, and, as I soon ascertained, friendless. Disappointment glared at me from every door. Every vocation in life seemed filled, and all the avenues leading thereto were crowded with men eager to push the possessor of a job from his place and occupy it in his stead. I tried every possible chance for work, but without avail. Not even a country district school, with all its manifold possibilities of poverty, was open to the stranger.

Not far from Excello, the Kansas and Texas Coal company have opened up extensive mines at Ardmore. At last, desperate and in absolute despair, I turned to the coal mines that wait with black, widespread maws to suck in such flotsam of humanity as I was then. I set out from Excello on foot in the bleak dawn of a March morning, for the only Mecca left open to me. A donkey-engine drawing a train of coal-cars soon overtook me, and the engineer stopped his train and took me on. It was but a trivial act of kindness to a stranger, but it stands out so distinct and vivid by reason of its rarity that I must speak of it here. Motives of the most sordid meanness so completely actuate the principles of those people that the simple act of one of them giving a tramp a ride glows from out the grime of greed like a gem.

The little engine grumbled and rattled its way down the banks of a dirty yellow stream, dignified by being called a river, until it halted beside the head-house of one of the mines, and I was permitted to take my first view of Ardmore, one of the worlds that I had come so far to conquer. Ah, the irony of it all! What a contrast to the mental picture that the boy had painted upon the canvas of fancy not so many weeks before!

First the tall head-house and hoist, with the coal-screens all under one roof standing black and grimy at the mine’s mouth. Then the long incline, up which crawled the laden cars from the mine, looking for all the world like filthy serpents from some subterranean world. Off to one side towered the culm-pile, emitting its choking sulphurous smoke and polluting the muddy water of the little stream that wound about its base. Off yonder, on either side of the same stream, perched a double row of squalid grimy shacks, like gigantic carrion birds waiting to pounce upon the filth that flowed down the current of the river. These were the homes of the miners. Home! What a travesty on the sweetest word in any tongue! In the distance clustered the offices of the Company and the Company store, that most powerful tentacle of the giant octopus by which the Company holds its operatives.

I made my way down the narrow sidewalkless street, past the rows of miserable huts with their reeking front yards filled with children in no less degree reeking, past that bane of all mining towns, the low doggery, where for a few cents the miner buys the vilest of vile liquor, on to the town proper. The contrast between the two was startling. The officials must perforce reside where they collect their tithes, but they strive to make life bearable. Every house was neatly painted and every lawn set with trees and smoothly kept. I saw ill-clad women and low-browed men black with the grime of the mine entering a large building which I rightly surmised to be the Company store. The offices were on the other side, and those who entered there did so with an air of the utmost servility, as though they fully expected to be kicked into the street.

It is wonderful what an influence one’s surroundings will have upon their character. Here I had been in Ardmore, only thirty minutes and I caught myself approaching that office in the same servile manner affected by all whom I saw enter there. I stood for some minutes hesitating before the portals where sat enthroned those who held my destiny in their hands. Cold and hunger are grim and determined drivers, however, and both were flaying me with their whips. Summoning my manhood I entered, approached the employment window and begged the right to earn my bread. The clerk gave me one keen look that swept me from head to foot and tersely assigned me to servitude in Mine 33, the one I had passed in the morning. He handed me an order on the store that entitled me to a miner’s outfit to be paid for out of the first money earned. He also assigned me a number by which I was henceforth to be designated in all my dealings with the Company. I became Number 337, and if I differed in any particular from the man bearing that same number in the Jefferson City penitentiary I was unable to detect that difference. True, I was permitted to walk the streets unmolested, but the product of my toil belonged to the Kansas and Texas Coal Company. I felt relieved. I had passed from the ranks of the unemployed. Henceforth I was to be a sovereign American citizen enjoying, as such, the Constitutional right to earn my bread.

I passed into the store and purchased such things as appeared needful, using one of the miners as a model from which to deduce my needs. A coarse pair of heavy shoes, ducking overalls and shirt, a pit cap with place in front to carry the lamp, the lamp itself, a gallon of lard oil for the same, a dinner-pail called a “deck” and the necessary picks and shovel about completed the outfit.

One of the clerks rather grudgingly answered my question regarding a boarding-place by informing me that there was a house on the hill that made a practice of feeding miners. Carrying my bundle, I called at the designated house and secured board and lodging. The house was slightly better than those I had passed before and, standing upon higher ground, was rather less filthy. I soon found that the miner is expected to do without all the luxuries and generally all the necessities of life. Water seemed the only article that could be obtained in plenty and for that I soon had reason to be truly grateful. The table fare was of the coarsest and cheapest variety possible. It possessed the sole merit of sustaining life, and that to me at the time overbalanced all other considerations. The beds were arranged in rows in an upper room. Two people were expected to occupy one bed. I had assigned to be my bed-fellow a young Cornishman, and I suspect the landlady selected him for that position owing to the fact that he was slightly less dirty than her other boarders.

That evening my “buddy,” that is, the man who was to be my working companion, called to see me. He was a man of middle-age who had spent his life in the mines. He had the pronounced stoop that I noticed in all the miners and which I very soon acquired. His skin was of that sickly yellow hue characteristic of convicts and coal-miners, brought about by being shut out from the light of day. It seems that I drew a very lucky number in having this man assigned me for “buddy.” The other miners told me that he possessed a “machine.” That is, after years of toil in the mines he had been able to save enough to buy a drilling-machine that retails at the Company store for fourteen dollars. Wonderful fortune! Almost a lifetime spent in labor, and all that he had to show for it was a fourteen-dollar drilling-machine! We talked long into the evening and I found him not without ideas that were expressed in a crude way, but above all, and, what was of vastly more importance to me just then, he was a practical miner. I do not know what he might have thought about it, but he had the tact not to hint anything about objecting to a green hand as “buddy.” Indeed, I suspect that the Company would hardly tolerate any criticism of their actions in that regard.

I appeared next morning clad in the habiliments of a coal-miner. My “deck” was filled and handed me and I followed the long line of stooping figures headed for the mines. We paused at the mouth of the pit and lighted our lamps and swung them from the front of our caps. Then, stooping still lower, passed down the long incline that leads into the coal vein. Soon the gloom surrounded us, and the flickering yellow-light from the burning lamp became our only guidance. Once upon the level of the coal body, the air became oppressive and warm. Used as I had always been to the free air of the mountains, I paused and gasped for breath. I was merely one atom of the inward moving black stream and was pushed onward. I soon grew accustomed to the lack of oxygen and before many days learned to exist upon a minimum supply of that article just as I learned to exist upon a limited supply of many other articles that in my ignorance I had considered essential.

I neglected to state that I had been met at the pit mouth by my “buddy,” who escorted me through the mazes of the underground streets of the mine to the Third West, which was the field of our future efforts for some time to come. On the way in he conversed very cheerfully about the condition of one of his children who was ill with pneumonia and not expected to live the day through. I half suspect that he secretly hoped that the Death Angel would come, and not only relieve the little one of her sufferings, but relieve him of one hungry mouth to feed.

It was over a mile from the surface to where our work lay. It consisted in “turning off a room”—that is, making an entrance into the bare face of the coal at right-angles to the direction of the tunnel. This was necessarily slow work and we accomplished but little the first day. All day long I sat upon my heels and picked a narrow trench from top to bottom into the resisting body of the coal. Long ere night came my cramped limbs refused to move another inch. I was simply racked from head to foot with pain. There never was a more welcome sound than the signal at the head of the entry to begin firing. Soon the boom of shots reverberated down the entry like the sound of cannonading, and the miners began straying out past us. We gathered up our tools and, placing them in a safe place, followed them. Ah, the blessed exhilaration of that air as I reached the surface! It was like being conveyed into another and better world. I glanced at my “buddy.” He had not changed one muscle of expression. With dogged, shambling footsteps he was setting off toward one of the miserable shacks.

Curiously I watched the miners as they appeared. All nations seemed gathered there. Italians, Czechs, Russians, Finns, Hungarians, Slavs, Cornishmen, Americans, yes and negroes. While the colored man was not permitted to become a miner in that particular mine, he was employed in various other capacities. I saw children of tender years going from work, their dinner-pails upon their arms, the stoop already in their shoulders, the hectic flush already in their cheeks. “Merciful God,” I thought, “this greedy giant, not content with sucking the life-blood of men, must rob the school as well to sate its lust!” I learned afterward that there was a child-labor law on the statute books of good old Missouri, but that it was openly and flagrantly violated, and that the Commissioner of Labor was a party to the violation.

I passed on homeward. Every step seemed weighted with lead. I dragged myself up the long hill and entered the house. I was shown the wash-room and my particular washing-tub filled with steaming hot water. The room was already filled with miners taking a bath. I stripped and found that though I had been in the mine but a day my body was black with coal-dust. The next half-hour I spent in trying to remove the grime, with but poor success. The other miners finished their ablutions and departed. I was shocked at the manner in which the most of them performed that important duty. A dash of water on the head and neck, a wet towel over the body, rubbing off the most evident particles, a brisk scrubbing of the head, neck and ears, and they were ready for supper. I was so long at my bath trying to accomplish the impossible that the landlady tapped on the door and informed me that supper only waited my appearance. I overheard one of the miners designate me as “that new dude” when I entered the dining-room. To be cleanly, then, was considered among these sons of toil as being a species of foppishness. (I soon learned to perform my ablutions more scientifically, and remove a maximum amount of coal-dust in a minimum length of time.) I was too tired to eat, too weary to sleep. All night long I tossed about in that comfortless bed and sighed for the coming of morning. It came at last and dawned upon another day of labor.

Today we drilled our first hole and placed the first shot. I had the satisfaction of loading my first box of coal, affixing my leather tag to it and starting it on its journey toward the weighing office, thereby satisfying a small part of the Company’s claim against me for the clothes I wore. My “buddy” had lost his child the night before, and this afternoon the little one was to be buried in the graveyard on the hill back of the town. He asked me, as though requesting a favor, whether he might attend the funeral! Asked me, almost a stranger, whether he might attend the funeral of his own child! Heavens, what a system! My heart was so heavy that I could not work, but he seemed to take it all as a matter of course. In fact I detected a cheerful note in his voice as he informed me of the demise.

During the afternoon I had nothing to do but carry the picks out to the blacksmith-shop to be sharpened, for which service we are to pay the smith each a dollar per month. After they were prepared I returned with them to the mine and employed the time in looking into the other rooms where the miners were at work. In almost every instance I found them idle. Inquiry revealed the fact that they were waiting for coal-boxes. They had plenty of coal to load, but no boxes to load it in. The Company makes it a practice to allow no man to get ahead. Once he falls into their grasp the idea is to keep him there. Even at thirty-five cents per long ton, the price paid, the miner could make fair wages if he were furnished boxes, but the Company does not intend that he shall make fair wages.

Our room advanced rapidly now, and we always had coal ahead to load what boxes came to us, which were few enough. The most we ever got in any one day was six, that is three for each of us, and could we succeed in placing a ton in each one we would have made the munificent sum of $1.05. Out of that princely wage we were supposed to pay for board, lodging, hospital fees, blacksmith, and powder. By the way, there is the greatest steal perpetrated by the coal companies. They furnish the miner with his powder at a cost to him of $2.50 per keg. Of course they do not say in so many words that he shall not buy his powder from other dealers at 90 cents per keg, but if he does do that they see to it that his tenure in the mine is very short, and they have divers ways of disposing of him without discharging him outright.

There are two methods of mining soft coal. The method used in Mine 33 was what is known technically as “shooting off the solid,” that is, drilling a deep hole in the solid coal body and blasting it down very much as rock is blasted in railroad building operations. This method, while it procures the greatest amount of coal with the least expenditure of labor, is at the same time very expensive to the miner who must buy his powder and in addition to his regular blacksmith tax must pay for the sharpening of all the drill bits.

It is in these blasting operations that so many men in soft-coal mines lose their lives. The force of the blast loosening the coal at the same time jars the slate roof of the mine. When the workman returns and starts picking down the standing column of “shot” coal the treacherous top gives way, and, like a deadfall, buries the unfortunate man beneath tons of slate. Then there are three bells signaled to the top and down comes the padded car, if the man is not entirely dead, and he is carted away to the hut miscalled a hospital. The next day some of his friends are around with a paper and each miner is supposed to contribute a box of coal to the relief of the injured miner. Should the accident, however, result in the instant death of the man there is no such ceremony as calling the padded car. He is simply dumped into an empty coal box and hauled to the surface with the next trip going out. Once there, his very existence is forgotten in the mine and work goes on as before. The same formality regarding the gift of the box of coal is gone through with for the benefit of his widow and orphans. In all my mining experience I never knew of a miner refusing to subscribe to a fund of this kind, though they could ill afford to do so out of the scanty wage they were earning. You feel inclined to do it, for you know not what instant you will yourself require like assistance.

One method employed by the Company in getting rid of an objectionable miner is so ingenuous in its simplicity that it deserves mention. They have what is known as a sulphur bell. If a miner loads a lump of sulphur into his box that is so large that he might be supposed to detect it the men at the screens pull a rope that rings a bell in the weighing-office and the unfortunate miner has a check placed against his number. He not only has that box of coal docked about half, but he gets a demerit as well. Three of these demerits results in his dismissal from the mine. Now, let us illustrate. In the first place, there is so much of the sulphurous mineral scattered through the coal body that it is an absolute impossibility to remove all of it down there in the half light of the underground world. There is hardly a box of coal that reaches the weighing scales that does not contain several pounds of the substance. That some miners do place lumps of it in their boxes to increase the weight is perfectly true. A miner becomes objectionable to the powers that be by reason of talking too much (for some of them do think and express their thoughts to their fellows) and the powers that be decide to get rid of him. They could simply call him into the office and hand him his time, but that is not the policy. The word is passed to the man at the bottom of the screens to “bell” Number so and so out. The Argus eye of the man is upon every box of coal that comes sliding down the incline. He hears this man’s number called and detects a lump of sulphur sliding along with the descending coal. He reaches up, yanks the bell rope and that miner is one-third out of a job. It may take several days to complete the task, but Fate is no more certain than that it will be completed. Usually a miner who knows himself to be under the ban and sees a sulphur check opposite his number takes the hint and calls for his time. Wonderfully simple. Charmingly effective.

Another and equally effective method is that of slow starvation. The banned miner finds that he is not getting an equal number of boxes with his fellows. He complains to the driver and obtains but scant satisfaction. Things go on until pay-day and he finds himself behind with the company. He is questioned very closely as to the reason for this and solemnly warned not to allow it to occur again. Naturally it does occur again and he is forced to look elsewhere for work.

These instances are, however, comparatively rare. It is the policy of the octopus to hold securely every victim who falls into the slimy toils. Only when a man has the courage to assert his manhood does he become objectionable to the company. So complete is the system that there are few such.

It does not require one skilled in the economics of the labor problem to point out the glaring evils of a coal-mining system. They are so evident that even he who runs may read. They are so patent that even the dull creatures who toil under them feel in a blank way that something is wrong. Just what, they cannot say. They realize that they are always hungry, always toiling and always in debt. There are three things that the strong arm of the judiciary should suppress—child labor, peonage, and weight frauds.

I have purposely placed child labor first, for it deserves the first place. Children of very tender years are forced into the mines, where they serve in various capacities, some of them even being utilized by their parents in the actual mining operations. This is done that the parent may obtain an extra supply of coal boxes by reason of his having a “buddy,” though the coal is all loaded out under his number. Principally, however, the little fellows are employed as “trappers,” to open and close the immense valves that direct the air current down the various entries. All day long these infants stand in the noisome draft and swing back and forth those heavy doors. With the strong current of air pushing or pulling against these valves it is no light task for even a man to perform. Then the damp air, playing about the half clad figure, induces colds, pneumonia and consumption. It is a rare thing to see one of these little “trappers” who is not coughing with some form of respiratory trouble. The parents lie cheerfully regarding the child’s age, and the child itself lies just as cheerfully. Poor creatures, they are hardly to be blamed! The few pennies that are thus obtained help to keep the almost empty pot boiling at the squalid home.

The system of peonage is worse far than African slavery ever could have been. From year’s end to year’s end the miner never sees money. He is paid in coupon books good at the store for the necessities of life and that is all he is expected to have, and precious few of them. In almost every instance the Company has sold to the miner one of the miserable houses, for which he is to pay a certain sum every month. The Company proudly boast that their miners own their own homes. The miner is given a contract to be held in escrow (by the Company) whereby upon the payment of the purchase price he is to have a deed to the property. It is a very significant fact that there were only eighteen deeds on record in Macon County covering these properties. In other words, only eighteen miners actually owned their homes. It was never the intention of the Company to allow the miner to secure title to his “home.” If any considerable number of them showed symptoms of making good on the payments, the Company had many ways of causing them to default and thus violate the ironclad terms of the contract.

The contention regarding weights is one of long standing. The miner is supposed to mine a long ton of 2240 pounds. In reality he mines nearer 3000 pounds. The scales are hidden from the view of the miner and the weigh boss cheerfully deducts from the weight of the miner’s box anything that he sees fit and he usually sees fit to deduct about one fourth. This systematic robbery is carried on all the time. Could the miner obtain what his labor actually produces, his condition would be less miserable. He does not obtain it, however, and he seems powerless to bring about change. Now we will return to my own personal experiences in the mine. Our room was a good one, save that the slate top was very treacherous and we took particular care to keep it well timbered. My “buddy” was a thorough miner and fully knew the virtue of propping the top perfectly. The room had been driven up some sixty yards when the accident happened, that brought home to me the dangers of mining.

We fired a fourteen-foot hole in the evening, before leaving the mine. The next morning my “buddy” arrived before I did, and began loading the box that was standing in the room. Upon my arrival I found the box half filled, but my “buddy” nowhere in sight. A mass of slate had fallen and I knew instinctively that my “buddy” was beneath the mass. I called some of the nearby miners and, after propping the top, we fell to work removing the debris. First an arm showed; then the entire body was exposed to view. He had been instantly killed. I loaded the body into the half filled box and accompanied it to the top. It became my duty to inform the wife of the misfortune. She, poor woman, took the news stolidly, as though she had long expected it. Indeed, I think they grow to look forward to the time when the husband will be carried in, crushed out of all semblance to a human being. We buried him in the bleak graveyard on the hill and, as his “buddy,” it became my duty to carry around the paper that asked assistance for the widow. In her stolid way, I suppose, she was grateful for the charity, but she never showed it by any emotion of the face, taking the whole thing as a matter of course.

It had been a very wet Spring and the falling rain had completely saturated the ground and, soaking through, had loosened the slate and soapstone top until falls were of almost daily occurrence. As yet we had not been visited with any that were disastrous in nature. A few tons of rock in some of the rooms, a miner killed or hurt, was about all. In June, however, occurred the fall that imprisoned several hundred of the miners in the West entries for two days. Down toward the beginning of the first West an old deserted room caved in, carrying with it the top above the entry proper. For several days the miners had noted that the room was “working,” that is, the top was pressing upon the props. This was evidenced by the collection of fine flakes of slate that covered the room and the entry when we entered the mine in the morning. With characteristic negligence the matter was passed up and nothing done but to remove the iron track from the room. One day I paused at the mouth of the room, attracted by a peculiar noise. At intervals there was a sound like the snapping of an overwrought violin string. I afterward learned that the sound was produced by the bending props throwing off fine splinters. That evening when we passed out the props were snapping as they broke under the enormous pressure. A faraway rumbling was heard, like wagons passing over a covered bridge. The room was certain to fall during the night, the old miners said.

It did not, however, for it was still “working” the next morning. Sometime during the forenoon I heard a sound as of distant artillery fire. Boom, boom, boom,—the sound came up the entry, causing a current of air to flare the lights hither and yon. This continued for an hour; then the room caved. There was a crash of falling stone, a sound impossible to describe in any other words than terrible, a great gust of wind, and every lamp in the entry was extinguished. We rushed down the entry to find that all egress was shut off. The fall of the room had carried with it the entry as well, and we were prisoners behind thirty feet of solid rock. The pit boss instantly ordered every man to put out his light and lie down. Every cubic foot of air must now be conserved, for it would be hours at least before the pipe could be driven in to supply fresh. There we lay in the Stygian blackness in that foul atmosphere waiting the signal from the relief party. Hours passed, and no signal from the other side. Every minute the air became more foul until at last we were panting for breath, the sweat running from every pore. Then came the faint tap that told us the rescue party was driving the pipe. Never a sound came with such melody to my ears. It seemed an age before the steel-nosed pipe broke through and a welcome rush of oxygen was forced in by the air-pump. The pit boss signaled along the pipe that all was well. Then the work of rescue began. All day they picked out and carted away the fallen rock. All night the work went on without ceasing. Another day and another night followed before they broke through the barrier, and we streamed out of the mine, hungry, thirsty and weary from loss of sleep.

I was beginning to realize that while in time I might become an accomplished coal-miner, my chances for living a long life to enjoy that trade were exceedingly limited. I decided to sever my connection with the Kansas and Texas Coal Company, fully realizing that the Company would not mourn much at my loss, and I had no intention of falling on its neck to weep at the parting.

The incident that crystallized my half-formed ideas into immediate action took place in the room one day when I approached nearer the swift current of the Dark River than I cared to do. By accident the driver shoved a box into our room (by this time I had a new “buddy”) and we had no coal with which to load it. A box was so valuable that we could not afford to allow it to be taken out unloaded, so we cast about for sufficient coal for the purpose. Sometime since we had shot a small blast on the pillar and the pit boss, coming in, had ordered us to let it stand as we were too far to the south. This shot was still standing. The coal was loose and needed only to be mined off for us to have sufficient coal to load out the box. That duty devolved upon me, and I shoved the box back and began mining off the shot. In a short time I had it all cut round save a small portion that I could not reach with the pick. I returned to the “face” and procured a long chum drill and with it began to cut down the standing coal. I was seated tailor-like upon the floor, my legs doubled under me. When the coal mass gave way it rolled toward me and pressing the drill across my body pinioned me beneath it. I felt no danger, for my “buddy” could soon extricate me from the position. I called to him and he started in my direction. As he did so I glanced up and was horrified to see several yards of the slate top easing downward. Frantically I grasped the drill that was binding me down and gave it a wrench. It gave and another wrench broke it in twain. To flop over and crawl on my hands and knees out of the way of danger was only the work of an instant. As I did so the great slab fell, tearing off my shoe soles as though they were but paper. I owe my life to the fact that the top did not give way instantly, but broke gradually. So thoroughly frightened was I that I sat in a stupor for some time. When I had sufficiently recovered to be able to walk I made my way out of the mine, went to my boarding place, removed my pit garments and bade Ardmore a lasting and affectionate farewell.

I have torn a few soiled and tattered leaves from my book of life and have here given them to you. That the story is not well told I fully realize. That it is true in every particular must stand its only merit.

The Pessimist; His View-Point

THOSE THAT ARE JOINED TOGETHER BY CHARLES FORT

You are standing on an Eighth Avenue corner, looking down a side street toward the ugly black streak made by the Ninth Avenue elevated railroad. You see peddlers, right hands curving at the sides of their mouths, left hands holding pails of potatoes; a woman with a basket of wash, which is tucked under a sheet; many fire escapes that look like a jumbling of giant gridirons, when seen from the corner. You notice the signs over doorways: a gilded boot; a carpenter’s sign projecting a little farther; glazier’s sign, of stained-glass squares trying to eclipse signs of shoemaker and carpenter; tailor’s sign almost obscuring all of them. In the tailor-shop windows are prints of the latest fashions, labeled, “Types of American Gents.” American gents, going to work, in overalls and sweaters, pause to enjoy the very latest in riding, golf, and hunting costumes, and perhaps go in to order a three-dollar pair of breeches. The tailor shop occupies the first floor of a three-story frame house—a grimy-looking house; its grimy clapboards are stained by streaks of rain dripping from the rusty fire-escape.

The McGibneys lived in the second-floor rooms. McGibney was log-shaped; he seemed as big around at his ankles as at his chest, and, though he wore collars, it was because everyone else wore collars, and not because his neck was perceptible. Close-cropped hair, a rather sharp nose, bright, alert eyes, cheeks red and all other visible parts of him pinkish. Mrs. McGibney was a plump, delicately featured little woman, who could express most amazing firmness upon her small features. When she had household cares, she worried; when she had household duties, she bustled. And it would surely please you to look at Mrs. McGibney when she worried; left forefinger beginning over the fingers of the right hand; left forefinger lodging on right little finger, Mrs. McGibney pausing to look into space, counting up to assure herself that the butcher had not cheated; forefinger beginning again and dealing with the grocer, this time; another fixed look into space to be sure the grocer had not imagined a can of tomatoes or a pound of flour. It would please you, because you would know that not one penny, worked so hard for by McGibney, would be wasted. When Mrs. McGibney bustles—ah, now that is pretty! That means a very keen sense of responsibility, nothing shirked, nothing that will make McGibney’s comfort neglected. Bustling to the oven door, opening and shutting it; fingers dabbing at under lip and sizzling on under side of a flat iron; frying-pan moved back on the stove; quick, short steps to the table to roll out breadcrumbs; dash to a window to sharpen a knife on the sill—when Mrs. McGibney bustles!

Evening! Both of them in the cheerful kitchen. Very cheerful kitchen! Three conch-shells, like big pink ears, up on the mantelpiece, and four palm leaves, painted green, stuck in a flower pot, just like a bit of Florida. The dish-pan, on the stove murmuring; a subdued rattle and good-natured growling of bubbles forming on the bottom of the pan, and dishes fluttering on them. The oil-cloth was bright and new-looking, except in the corner where heavy McGibney sat. There, chair legs had indented as if someone had beaten around at random with a hammer. And in his corner, reading the newspaper, sat McGibney, his wife sitting beside the table his elbow was on, frowning, puzzling, and counting her fingers. “Yes,” said Mrs. McGibney, “I can keep expenses down to five dollars a week, but you mustn’t charge on my book what you spend. I don’t think I ought to mark down the cent for your newspaper, do you? I’m not going to have my book any more than it’s got to be. I’ll cross off this two cents for a stamp. Now, you know you oughtn’t to charge me for that; it was for your own letter—don’t sit like that! How often have I told you you ruin the oil-cloth?”

McGibney not only continued to tilt back and dig into the oil-cloth but rocked himself on the hind legs of the chair; one is sometimes tempted to torment severe little women when they are too serious.

“Oh, I don’t care; you’re not harming me. Go ahead, if you feel like paying for new oil-cloth.” McGibney could not sit straight without some demonstration to cover his accession; he put out fingers like tongs and pinched just above her knee. If you are an old married man, you know just how far from dignified and severe that immediately made McGibney. Then McGibney sat straight, sat as if he would have sat straight anyway.

A rap on the door. Mrs. McGibney put away her account book as if it were wrong to keep account-books; McGibney sat crooked as if it were wrong to sit straight. No matter what one is doing, one feels that someone else coming makes a difference. Mrs. McGibney started toward the door, went to the stove instead, and covered the dish-pan; started again but paused to twitch a curtain; finally got to the door and opened it, but had glanced back twice and had motioned to McGibney to put away a bag of crackers.

“Oh, it’s you, Clara?” exclaimed Mrs. McGibney. “Why, come right in!”

Into the room came a stocky person, with a broad, flat, amiable face. Everything about her seemed to suggest that she was made to work hard and suffer, usually not complain, but, quite without reasoning, flash into short-lived rebellion against hardships now and then. Like your impression of peasantry more than a century ago, down-trodden, without leaders, should be your impression of Clara. In her heavy arms was a huge bundle, done up in a sheet, four corners of the sheet hanging loose at top. She appeared to be carrying a monstrous turnip, all white, loose ends like white turnip-tops.

“Why, good evening!” said Clara awkwardly, turning to the right, turning to the left, with her huge bundle, looking for a place to set it down, but still clinging to it, her chin buried in the top of it, the big bundle making her look like a pouter-pigeon.

“Mrs. McGibney,” said Clara, turning to the right, to the left, still clinging, “I don’t like to ask you, knowing you ain’t got accommodations, but could you lend me the loan of your ironing-board for the night? I’ve flew the coop on him for good and all this time, and tomorrow will get a room for myself; but, if you can let me have your ironing-board, I can sleep on it here, on the floor tonight. This is my wash, which I brought with me, not to leave him so much as a stitch that’s mine. Would it be too much to ask for your ironing-board?”

“Why, put down that heavy bundle, Clara!” cried Mrs. McGibney, having dabbed at the bundle, but missed it; “it’s sopping wet!”

“Sopping wet!” repeated Mrs. McGibney, as if pleased. And she was pleased, for here was an occasion for her to bustle around the room. Very much did Mrs. McGibney like to bustle around a room. And Clara, by the door, sat at the table at the other end of which McGibney sat.

“It’s wet because I just took it in off the line, not to leave him anything of mine,” said Clara. She moved uneasily in her chair. And she winked, as if in physical distress.

“I can’t move my line, because the rain’s made it too tight,” said Mrs. McGibney, “but we can hang up the wash here to dry. Ironing-board? Ironing-board, how are you!” She pounced upon the huge turnip, seizing turnip-tops, plucking them apart. “No, but we can make you comfortable in the front room, Clara.” Sheet spread out and wash in a mound. “And you’ve carried this with you all the way through the streets? I’ll fix up lines.” Two parallel lines, rigged up one from each end of the table to the opposite wall, sheets thrown over them; kitchen looking like Monday morning in your back yard. Room divided into three compartments: Clara in one, by the door; middle one, including the table, reserved for Mrs. McGibney; McGibney isolated in the third. Mrs. McGibney hung wash on the backs of chairs, and, forgetting how picture frames collect dust, jumped up at comers of picture frames, with more wash. Then she returned to her chair, which was in the middle compartment.

“Not bothering you too much,” began timid Clara. An expression of pain suddenly shot across her broad face. “Oh,” she breathed, “I guess that must be the tintypes! Anyway, don’t bother about me. Oh! yes, I’m sure it’s the tintypes. Tintypes has such sharp corners, even if there is pink paper frames to them. I had nowhere else to carry my belongings, which I’d not leave behind, as I have flew the coop on him.”

Clara stuck one foot out and lifted her skirt somewhat. Untied a handkerchief from somewhere, though I have heard that the material is usually more elastic—never mind; in a most matter-of-fact way, Clara untied the handkerchief. As if it were the most natural thing in the world to do, and very serious about it, she delved and drew forth an alarm clock, a comb, shoe-strings, a looking-glass, a tea-strainer, a box of matches, the tintypes——

“It was the tintypes!” cried Clara. “I knew, because they got such sharp corners and was sticking me, all the way over, most every step I took.”

Mrs. McGibney and McGibney, who drew his sheet aside, stared at the astonishing collection on the table and then laughed heartily. Clara, looking calm and unintelligent, drew forth a can of baking powder. Nothing to laugh at could she see, but the others seemed amused, so she smiled sympathetically with them.

“Yes,” said Clara, no longer timid, for it was her way to be awkward at first and then feel as much at home as anybody, “I’ve flew the coop on him forever. I’ve said I meant it before, but this time I do mean it. And he can be so nice when he wants to be. You know that yourself, Mrs. McGibney.”

“He always seemed a perfect little gentleman whenever I saw him,” declared Mrs. McGibney.

“It’s a shame you two can’t get along better!” was heard from behind McGibney’s sheet. “I’ve always found Tommy all right.”

And Clara exclaimed: “He’s the nicest little man in the world! This time I have flew the coop on him forever.” She smiled at her sheet, so that no one within hearing should be depressed, just because she had troubles.

“I don’t know!” said Clara, with her broad, slow smile, “it’s pretty hard for a woman to come home from her day’s work, and find the man stretched on the floor before her sleeping it off. Isn’t it?” she asked, as if by no means sure and wishing to hear what others thought.

From behind two sheets:

“It certainly is hard!”

Rumbling up over McGibney’s sheet:

“You hadn’t ought to put up with it! It is hard!”

“Isn’t it!” cried Clara, as if crying. “There, I was right, after all! I thought, myself, it was hard, and here’s others thinks the same. And then, when you’re getting along nice, both working and laying by a little, and going to buy the brass lamp in Mason’s window, and get a whole half-ton of coal instead of by the bag, which is robbery, and then he goes out to change the savings into one big bill which you’d never be tempted to break, and comes back in the morning without one cent—” Clara paused. She would not like to be ridiculed for regarding trifles too seriously. “I don’t think he does right by me—does he?”

Both sheets agitated. Over both sheets:

“He certainly don’t do right by you!”

“Does he!” cried Clara, almost excited, also triumphant, hearing her own suspicions verified.

“He oughter be ashamed of hisself!” rumbled McGibney.

Clara looked up, and there was a slow heavy frown, instead of the slow heavy smile.

“There’s worse than him!” she said sharply.

“I’ll never speak to him again!” declared Mrs. McGibney.

“You might speak to worse, Mrs. McGibney. I’m sure he always spoke most kind of you——”

“How could he speak otherwise of me?” demanded Mrs. McGibney in quick anger.

“Now! now! now!” rumbled McGibney, thrusting his sheet aside and looking warningly at his wife.

“Not making you a sharp answer, Mrs. McGibney,” pursued thick, slow, heavy Clara, “he never said nothing but kind words of you. There’s lots worse than him and he was always a good husband to me, excepting when he was bad, and I hope I’ll never lay my two eyes onto him again.”

And Mrs. McGibney looked at the McGibney sheet as if to say, “You’d best always keep quiet!” and her resentment was over, for she was fond of Clara and had known her many years.

“I’ll get a pint of beer,” said McGibney. “Can I leave youse two without there being a clinch? You like a little ale in it, don’t you, Clara?”

“Don’t never mind me!” said Clara restlessly. “I just remember I left the gas burning and him sleeping his buns off. Do you think the gas would go out and then start up again and not burning? I’ve heard tell of such cases. Not meaning to go back to him, maybe I’d better go back and turn the gas out.”

“Do go back, Clara!” urged Mrs. McGibney, feeling through the sheet for Clara’s hand and impulsively seizing Clara’s nose, trying again for the hand, closing fingers upon Clara’s ear, Clara leaning over, with head near her knees, “Give him another chance. A wife’s place is at home. Don’t mind what others tell you—your husband is dearer to you than all the rest of the world. Go back and make him promise to do better.”

“I don’t wish him no harm,” said Clara, hesitatingly. “This time I’ve flew the coop on him forever, even if he is the nicest little man in the world when he has a mind to be—if I thought the gas would go out on him, I might go back and turn down the gas, anyway.”

Oh, then, here was a fine chance for Mrs. McGibney to bustle. Down came everything on the lines, as if it were Monday night in the back yard. Down came everything from the backs of chairs and from picture frames. Back into a bundle with everything! Big white turnip again, loose, sprawling turnip-tops.

“I might try him again for a week, anyway,” decided Clara. Out and away and back home with her big white, turnip and its pouter-pigeon effect, too bulky for her arms to go around, her chin lost in fluttering turnip-tops; back home with bundle, alarm clock, looking-glass, box of baking-powder and tintypes taken one almost impossibly happy day at Coney Island.

An evening or two later. McGibney out for a walk. Mrs. McGibney up to her elbows in the washing that had driven him out, for if he had remained in he would have had to carry boilers of water to the stove from the sink in the hall. So McGibney had said, “Marietta, I ain’t getting fresh air enough. I don’t sleep good unless I take a little walk in the evening.” Mrs. McGibney had to fill the boiler one dishpanful at a time and that was satisfactory to McGibney.

Rap on the door. Mrs. McGibney quickly concealed socks with holes in them and turned to the door. Vain little Mrs. McGibney! She paused to rummage through the wash until she found curtains. They were very fine lace curtains. The very fine curtains were placed where a caller would surely see them and note how very fine they were. Then Mrs. McGibney’s hand did around and around on the door knob, hand slippery with soap-suds, until the slipperiness wore off and she could open the door. She exclaimed: “Why, Tommy! come right in.” The “nicest little man in the world” was an uneasy, squirming, twisting, little man; bald-headed; Hebraic nose like a number six inclining at forty-five degrees; chin with a dimple looking like a bit gouged out of it; very neat; fussy. And a very polite little man, scraping, bowing, grinning.

“Sit down, Tommy. You won’t have much room to stir. The old man is out, but will be back almost any minute. Sit down, but first I’ll trouble you to fill the boiler for me, if you don’t mind. How is Clara?”

Tommy seemed to scrape and bow to the boiler, before lifting it, seemed to scrape with his right foot and bow to the wash-tub as he passed it and went scraping and bowing down to the sink, filled the boiler, came back with it, set it on the stove and stood grinning, prepared to scrape and bow, if given half a chance to, until invited again to sit down.

“My!” said Mrs. McGibney, “the wash does gather on one so!”

Tommy opened his eyes wide and wrinkled his forehead to express profoundest sympathy. Not only with eyes and forehead, but with elbows, feet, knees and hands, it was his way to show how very attentively he listened to anyone speaking to him; ready to laugh heartily at anything he might be expected to smile at; equally ready to commiserate with anybody.

“Are you feeling pretty well?”—soap dabbed on a McGibney shirt. “How is—” laundry-brush up and down where the soap was, which was at elbows; McGibney would lean on elbows. “Clara? Is she—” up and down with the shirt on the wash-board—“feeling pretty—” wringing out and dropping shirt on pile, on a newspaper, “well?” Pile too high and toppling over, top pieces falling on the floor outside the newspaper. Not a speck on them, but rubbing over for them, anyway.

“Oh, yes, ma’am; Clara is very well. I have left her.”

“You’ve what? You’ve left her?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am!” said Tommy, head bobbing, shoulders, arms, knees, all of him bobbing. “I called to see would you keep these tintypes for me? I’m going to Maddy-gascar, where I hear there’s openings.”

“Why, Tommy, what’s the matter?”

“She don’t keep the house picked up—not saying a word against her,” answered Tommy. “These tintypes is mine, and she can have everything else; but these is mine, and it was my money paid for them down to Coney Island, me and her in them, and all I got in the world I care about, and will you keep them for me till I can send for them from Maddy-gascar?”

“Why, of course I’ll do that, Tommy; but you know you’d never do such a thing as leave Clara. That would be very wrong of you.”

“Oh, yes, indeed, ma’am, very wrong of me! Not saying one word against her, she lies in bed all day and won’t so much as do any sweeping. There’s never any cooking, and I’m tired to death of the delicatessens and rather go to Maddy-gascar and eat spiders, me going in the spider-web industry there. She don’t do no wash like you, Mrs. McGibney, but just rinses out in cold water. She’s so lazy she washes dishes by rubbing newspapers on them. That ain’t so bad as when she does wash them; she washes clothes in the dish-pan and then washes dishes after them—not that I’d say one word against her. So, will you mind the tintypes with her and me in them, ma’am? They’re all I have to care about, ma’am.”

“Oh, now Tommy—” But how could one possibly argue with Tommy? With eyes and forehead and elbows and knees, he would most emphatically agree with everything said to him.

“Your wife is a very good woman.”

Of course she was! Best in the city! Best in the whole world! But would Mrs. McGibney care for the tintypes?

“It’s very wrong of you, Tommy!”

Wrong? Shocking! Heartless! Wicked, shocking, heartless Tommy! Of course he was, and he admitted every word of it; but would Mrs. McGibney take care of the tintypes until he could send from “Maddy-gascar” for them?

Tommy left the tintypes on the mantelpiece, hoping he was disturbing nothing by so doing; imploring Mrs. McGibney not to bother with them if she thought they would take up too much room, begging her to throw them in the ashes or burn them, or jump on them if they should be the slightest annoyance to her; then he went away.

Back in five minutes. Well, after all, “Maddy-gascar” was pretty far away and he had heard stories about the Esquimaux there, so he would take the tintypes back with him; Clara might wonder where they were. Five minutes later. Back again. Perhaps Mrs. McGibney had better not say anything to anyone about the tintype matter. Bowing, bobbing, scraping.

Oh, not a word would Mrs. McGibney say! Rest assured of that! Indeed, she had quite enough to do in attending to her own affairs. Mrs. McGibney promised to say nothing, and like a busy little housewife with too much to do to waste time gossiping, breathed not a word of it till McGibney came in.

“It’s all Tommy’s fault!” said McGibney.

“I’m afraid Clara is a good deal to blame,” said Mrs. McGibney.

“Oh, yes, always stand up for the man, of course!”

“Oh, yes, take the woman’s part every time, won’t you?”

The next time the McGibneys saw Clara, there was no persuading her to go home. She had no home.

“Because,” said Clara, “when we found there wasn’t no use in our trying to get along together, we just broke up and gave away everything in the rooms and went down the stairs and down the stoop together. We didn’t so much as say good-bye nor nothing; he went up the street and I went down.”

“That’s right!” declared McGibney, “when two people can’t get along together, it’s best for them to part, I say!”

“You say!” cried indignant Mrs. McGibney. And scornful Mrs. McGibney!

“Well, I’m entitled to speak, ain’t I?” grumbled McGibney.

“No!” firmly. “Leastwise, not when you talk like that.” She looked her scorn and continued:

“No, Clara, there’s nobody dearer to any woman than her own husband.” Looked at McGibney as if he were a pile of wash just toppled over into the ash-pan. “Your husband will be with you when others are far away.” Looked at him as if he were two piles of wash toppled over into three ash-pans. “There ain’t any luck in any such advice as he’s giving you. I know how I love my own dear husband, and you know you’re the same, and you’ll find what the world is when you’re alone in it.” Glared her indignation, scorn, contempt for McGibney, who mumbled, with an air of sagacity, astonishing to himself:

“Ain’t wimmen the queer things, though!”

“I’ve flew the coop on him forever!” said Clara, with her broad, amiable, unintelligent smile. “I got a little hall room for myself, and—me go back to him? Oh, my! is that a step on the stairs? I wouldn’t wish it, not for the world, for him to find me here! I never want to see the face of him again!” Clara looked around for a place to hide; ran to the door of the front room, and, with her hand on the knob, stood listening.

“’Tain’t him! It’s someone going upstairs,” she said, smiling her relief. “I’ll never go back to him.”

A week later. Clara again. And Clara was out of breath.

“Oh, Mrs. McGibney, has the man come yet? I thought I saw him over on Ninth Avenue, and I run clear around the block for fear he’d be after me and track me here. I was just buying a bit of furniture and going to start rooms for myself, when I get a few bits together. And is it too much to ask you to store them for me till I get rooms, Mrs. McGibney?”

“We’re only too glad—” began Mrs. McGibney.

“Oh, on your life, don’t stir! It’s him! He mustn’t know where I am, or he might try to get me back! I don’t never want to see him again!” whispered Clara. “On your life, not giving no orders, don’t stir, or he’ll know you’re in and see me here.”

There was a rap on the door.

“Oh, my! Look out—would he hear us?”

Out in the hall:

“McGibney! Anyone know where McGibney lives?”

“Oh!” breathed Clara, “that’s all right. It’s the furniture men.”

And two men from a Ninth Avenue furniture store came in with a bureau. At least they set it in the hall, and turned to hasten down the stairs; paused to do little better than that, and rolled the bureau half way into the room; turned to run back to the store, but, in turning, thrust back with their heels, and pushed the bureau quite into the room, which was conscientious enough delivering of goods to suit anybody.

“I bought that!” said Clara, proudly. The bureau was rolled into the front room, and she helped, her hands caressing more than pushing. There was no back to the bureau. The varnish was worn off. Some one had broken open the top drawer, splintering the wood on each side of the keyhole.

“It’s mine!” said Clara rapturously. “It took three days of hard scrubbing on hands and knees, for me to buy that. It’ll be every bit as good as new, with a few boards nailed on the back, and a little oil rubbed over it.”

The bureau was rolled to a corner of the front room, but Clara could not leave it, hovering over it, stooping and pulling out drawers, one by one, gazing delightedly at the disgraceful old wreck.

“Yes!” said Clara. “The other day when I was scrubbing the restaurant floor, there was customers looking at me, and they says, ‘Look at that poor woman! Ain’t some got hard lots in life!’ They needn’t of pitied me! I was earning that! Just a few boards and a little oil is all it needs, and I’ll get as fine a home together as anybody’s got—what’s that?”

Clara ran to the kitchen to listen.

“I’m so afraid he’ll find me that I do be hearing sounds all the time!” she said. “Ain’t that bureau something elegant? I’ll have my own bit of a home and never see him again.” Then, as McGibney came out to the kitchen, shutting the front-room door behind him, she asked;

“Ain’t that sounds of excitement in the street? Maybe there’s a fire!” Clara ran to the front room and pretended to look out the window. She had heard nothing; it was only a pretext to get back to the disgraceful old wreck. On her own hands and knees she had earned it.

“Ain’t it nice!” said Clara, ecstatically. “I got my eye on a gilt-framed mirror I’ll buy next week. It’s nice, ain’t it?”

Clara went away. Back in five minutes.

“I guess maybe I left my rolled-up apron in the front room.” Whether she had or not, she stood looking at the bureau; turned to go; looked again; moved it to get a better light on it; stepped toward the door; paused and looked back.

“I bought that!”

And she went away, leaving McGibney standing in the front room. With an expression of deep melancholy he stood looking at the clumsy, broken bureau. He looked at his best furniture surrounding it—fragile, gilded chairs, on a big rug better than any other rug in the neighborhood—a sideboard with French plate glass in it; the very fine curtains. He was a log-shaped man, and not remarkably æsthetic, but his eye was sorely offended.

“Oh, well,” said the melancholy, log-shaped man, “if us poor folks don’t help each other, who will?” And the eye of Mrs. McGibney was equally offended; but Mrs. McGibney was not melancholy, for here was an opportunity for her to bustle. Out with the sofa and around in front of the bureau! The standing lamp placed where it would help to conceal the bureau. To hide the bureau was quite a problem, but Mrs. McGibney rejoiced in it. She bustled.

The next Saturday night Clara bought a wicker rocking-chair. Fearful-looking old rocking-chair! Interstices of it filled with white paint; all paint worn off wherever arms, legs, and backs had rested on it.

“It’s nice, ain’t it?” said Clara, dreamily, fondly.

McGibney sat straight, as if he had just dug through the oil-cloth and feared reprimanding. Then he fell back limply.

“Yes, ve-ry,” he said, without enthusiasm.

“It’ll fill out your front room nice, while I’m waiting for it, won’t it?”

“Oh, ye-es; it’ll be ve-ry nice.”

“And so comfortable!” said Clara. She sat in the chair and clumsily rocked it. “Try it, Mrs. McGibney! You ain’t got no idea how comfortable it is. You sit in it, Mr. McGibney. Just lie back and push with your feet and see what a comfort it is. My! I can just see myself in it, me with my shoes off and resting after the day. Such comfort in it! I don’t guess I ever made such a bargain before. But what do you think? That mirror I was so set on was bought! That’s mean, ain’t it? I was awful provoked when I heard it. Just the same, I got my eye on a stove that’s fine and well worth the four dollars they ask for it. It’s all nickel in front, and only one of the bricks broken, and can be fixed with five cents’ worth of fire-clay. It’ll look nice in your front room, won’t it?”

“Ve-ry nice!” answered distressed McGibney.

Clara got up to go. Had to sink back and take another rock in the chair, so comfortable after the day’s work, and one’s shoes off. It was indeed worth scrubbing for! Up to go. Well, just one more rock—away back and slowly down again, you know. And you, too, look again at it! My! but what a bargain! And Clara bought it! On her own hands and knees she had earned it. Before going away, Clara lingered at the door. Perhaps they would laugh at her if she should take another rock, but she might look at the chair for another moment.

“Ain’t this pretty oil-cloth you got!” Looking only at the chair.

“I must get a kitchen table like yours.” Looking only at her own rocking-chair. She left McGibney staring gloomily, but saying, sturdily:

“Us poor folks must help each other!”

Mrs. McGibney bustled.

It was a different Clara when seen again. Her face was flushed; the unintelligent but soft eyes were like eyes that could not see outward things, as if they were engaged in the unusual occupation of looking within at her own mind. Convince Clara that she had a grievance, and thick, obstinate brooding replaced uncomplaining stolidity.

By force of habit, Clara’s slow, amiable smile flickered, but her eyes were as if turned upon brooding within.

“Someone’s did that a-purpose!” said Clara, slowly, deliberately, staring, seeming to see neither McGibney nor Mrs. McGibney. “Me that thought I didn’t have a enemy in the world! Where would I get a enemy, me always kind to everybody? I had my heart set on that stove that only needed a little fire-clay. Someone’s bought it, just to annoy me. When the mirror went, I didn’t think nothing of it, but the stove too, is to annoy me. They won’t make nothing by that, and bad luck will come upon them for it.”

“Why, Clara, it only happened that way,” reasoned Mrs. McGibney. “Nobody would go and be as mean as that to you, specially as they’d have to spend money.”

“It’s tricks done me!” declared sullen, dogged Clara. “Oh, there’s somebody at the door. Maybe it’s him after me. Say I’m not here, Mrs. McGibney! On your life, don’t let him find me! I got to work for my living, anyway, and I’ll work for myself and not divide with no man. Never—oh, I guess it’s the kitchen table!”

“A kitchen table, Clara?” demanded McGibney. “Did you say a kitchen table?”

“Yes!” said Clara, brightening. “It’s nice! You can put it in the centre of your front room and maybe have ornaments onto it. It’s a very nice kitchen table.”

Door opened; a table thrust into the room; heels flying down the stairs.

“Don’t you think it’s nice?” Clara asked eagerly.

“Nice?” repeated honest McGibney. “Oh, is that the table?”

Scratched legs to it; two plain boards forming the top of it; heads of nails sunk in the boards, and once filled with putty; putty fallen out.

Clara shook it to show that the legs were firm. She would varnish it and cover it with a beautiful table cover she had seen in the five-and-ten-cent store, though there was one just as good in the three-and-nine-cent store.

“Next week,” said brightened Clara, “it’s going to be portcheers. They’re chenille and grand for a doorway. No room ain’t complete without portcheers.” She again shook the table to show how firm the legs were and then went away.

McGibney and Mrs. McGibney stood out on the front stoop of the rust-stained frame house, looking at the tailor, who was putting up a new sign: “Pants pressed, ten cents. Full-dress suits cleaned and pressed, one dollar.” McGibney thought of “full-dress” suits and looked down the street, at rags and dirt and ashes. It was Saturday night and they were going over to Ninth Avenue, to Paddy’s Market. Along came Clara, reaching the stoop, starting up the stoop, half up the stoop before she saw the McGibneys.

“Oh, is it you?” said Clara, with only the beginning of the slow, amiable smile.

“The portcheers is gone!” she said, without excitement. “My heart was set on them—the portcheers has gone. Would you say to me, now, that it only happens that way, Mrs. McGibney? Is there somebody playing mean, low tricks on me, or ain’t there? Does three times in succession just happen? The portcheers was bought last Monday. Was that only accident? Oh, but I came around to see would you lend me fifty cents? There’s a hat-rack I want. It’s meant for a front hall, but the mirror in it is nice and there’s a bit of marble to it, and it’ll look nice in my rooms, where, to my longest day, no man’ll ever hang his hat on it, unless you, Mr. McGibney, when you and Mrs. McGibney come and see me. I don’t like to ask you for fifty cents, Mrs. McGibney, and you just going to do your bit of marketing.”

“There’s fifty dollars in the bank that you can have any time you say so, Clara!” exclaimed McGibney.

“We’d rather have you owing it than have it in the bank, Clara,” said Mrs. McGibney, “because the bank might bust.”

Clara looked embarrassed. “Don’t you want to come look at the hat-rack?” she asked. “It’ll set your front room off fine!” The McGibneys pinched each other’s arms, as if saying, “Oh, Lord, preserve us!” All three went down the street toward Ninth Avenue, Clara preferring one side of the street; then, thinking the other side was darker, choosing the darker side so that if they should meet “him” he might not recognize them.

Torches on wagons, wagonloads of oranges, twenty for twenty-five cents; pairs of rabbits slung on headless barrels, plump rabbits hanging outside, furry rags, shot to pieces, inside the barrels; piles of soup greens and mounds of cabbages; cries of “Everything cheap! Only a few more left!” Paddy’s Market! Then the second-hand furniture store, with bed springs and pillows outside it; stoves with covers and legs in the ovens; rolls of matting; everything second-hand, even crockery and tea-kettles. Clara went into the store, Mrs. McGibney having paused to dig a thumb-nail into potatoes to see whether they were frozen, McGibney lingering with her, because he would have to carry the potatoes.

Clara came back to the sidewalk. Again her eyes were unseeing. “The hat-rack,” said Clara, staring at nothing visible, “is sold. I ain’t been gone from here ten minutes. It’s sold. Everything I got my heart on is sold. I don’t know who’s doing it, but they’ll never have a day’s luck for it.”

“But what could I do, lady?” The furniture man came cringing out to her. “You know you didn’t leave no deposit. Would you like to look at some mats for your front hall? You didn’t leave no deposit, so what could I do? I got a very heavy, rich and elegant mat here for your front hall; though the number of a house is onto it.”

“Look here, Jack,” said McGibney. “Who’s buying up all the things this lady looks at? Is it any particular party?”

“Come to think of it, it is,” answered the furniture man. “He’s the gent took the unfurnished rooms upstairs. ‘What’s he look like?’ Well, he bows most polite every time my wife waits on him and I see his head was some bald——”

“Wait for me!” said Clara. “Up on the next floor, you say? Just only wait one minute for me, Mrs. McGibney, and I’ll only go to tell him what I think of this latest meanness he’s playing me. Then I’ll be through with him forever. This is the last trick he’ll play me!” And she went to the stairs leading to the rooms over the store.

“It must be Tommy,” said McGibney.

“And I always took him for such a perfect little gentleman,” was Mrs. McGibney’s comment.

“Just wait a minute!” Clara had said; but, after several minutes, McGibney became uneasy.

“I’ll go up and see,” he said. “It maybe ain’t Tommy, and Clara may start mixing it with some stranger that’s got as much right to the furniture as her.”

But it was Tommy, for, as the McGibneys went up the stairs, Clara’s words, plainly audible, told them so.

“Never!” they heard—“Was it my dying day, I’d never forgive you. It was too cruel and I’ll never forget it.”

“Ain’t she the stubborn thing!” snapped Mrs. McGibney.

“Did I live to be as old as Mickthusalem, I’d not forgive you for it! Oh, Tommy, how could you go up the street when I went down? To treat me so! Don’t never mind nothing else; play me tricks and scold me and don’t do right nor anywheres near right, but how could you do that? Oh, Tommy, how could you go up the street when I went down? Me expecting your feet after me every second, me looking back at the corner. You going up, and me going down! Rob me of them portcheers I see you got there, and play me tricks with that mirror, and do like you want to about all the hall-racks in the world, but you never come to find me when I was hiding away! Have the red portcheers and welcome to everything my heart was set on, but you never come to me when I was hiding, and how could I tell you where I was hiding away? Oh, I been so unhappy without you, Tommy; there’s nobody got any sympathy for a deserted wife, but just a jeer at her and say, ‘No wonder he left, if you take one look at her big platter face’—but my eyes is nice and my hair is lovely, I was always told. Take away the red portcheers my heart was set on, Tommy, and I know you don’t love me, but we belong to each other, just the same, but don’t—oh, if you ain’t looking to break my heart—don’t never again go up a street when I’m going down!”

The McGibneys saw them standing in the centre of the room, arms about each other, hands patting each other’s shoulder-blades.

Tommy began to whimper. Arms mothered him. Steady tapping away on his shoulder-blades. Then Tommy blubbered outright:

“Oh, Clara, I been missable! I been missable something fierce, living alone! I ain’t ate nor slept, but been working straight along and got a good job and doing pretty good, and so much as a day’s work you’ll never have to do. No! not if it’s your longest day!” A bow and a bob and a scrape, for he had discovered the McGibneys standing irresolute in the hall. He continued to blubber and he continued to tap away at shoulder-blades.

“But why didn’t you come to find me, Tommy, when I was hiding away? I told the Finnigans and everybody, so you must of known where I was hiding away!”

Clara would not have seen a hundred McGibneys. Clara was tapping most mightily with both hands upon shoulder-blades.

“On account of the brass lamp!” blubbered Tommy. A bob and a bow and a scrape! “I done fierce bad spending our savings that was for the brass lamp, and I couldn’t go find you where you was hid till I had that here, in this new home, for you to see, and be complete, and then you’d know I was sorry and it would prove I was going to do right. But it wasn’t tricks, Clara! Honest, it wasn’t tricks! Me standing on the other side of the street, and looking in the store window at you, and no overcoat, because I needed every cent to show I was going to do right. And you look at the mirror. I say, ‘Clara likes that mirror. Then Clara must have that!’ Me standing with my toes all pinched up, as my shoes is bad, and you looking at them red portcheers. Then Clara must have red portcheers! Me jumping up and down, like I’m froze, but standing there every Saturday night to see what Clara likes and Clara’s going to have that!” Bobbing, bowing, and scraping toward the hall, from Tommy; from Clara, rather a look of resentment toward the hall.

A final tap on shoulder blades and: “Why, come in and see where we’re going to start up again!”

“Ain’t it strange!” said calm, stolid Clara. “He found me, after all!”

And from all four of them, and all four meaning every word:

“In all the world, there ain’t nobody like your own! If it ain’t but big enough to hold a trunk, there’s no place like your own!”

“And,” said supremely happy Tommy and Clara, “now we’ll celebrate!”

Will It Keep Them Off?

Carter, in New York American

The Money Power

“All things come to him that waits.” Fifteen or sixteen years ago, when the Farmers’ Alliance was flourishing throughout the West and South, it was a matter of common occurrence to hear some old horny-handed farmer, on a Saturday at the county seat, disputing with his neighbor about existing conditions. Almost invariably the Alliance man blamed the “money power” for causing things to go criss-cross. Occasionally the country merchant or small banker would butt into the discussion. “The money power,” he would say, with infinite scorn, “Humph! Why, you poor fool, there ain’t any such thing as ‘the money power.’ Might as well talk of the agricultural power, or the mercantile power. There are rich bankers and rich farmers and rich merchants—but that don’t make them a ‘power’ in the sense you use that term.”

For a number of years the “money power” has been given a much needed rest in the West and South. Most of the pioneers there have substituted the term “plutocracy.” But in the East reformers are just now beginning to sit up and take notice. One hears the term frequently. “Roosevelt,” said Jacob Riis, in a recent interview in the New York Herald, “is fighting the greatest tyrant of them all. Slavery affected only the South, but the Money Power means the enslavement of all human beings and all homes.” Many an old, long-whiskered farmer said the same thing just as well fifteen years ago—and the Herald called him an anarchist.

“The Senate,” says Ernest Crosby in the March Cosmopolitan, “is now the agent of the Money Power—the representative of Wall Street.” Absolutely true; and no one can doubt the sincerity of either Mr. Crosby or the Cosmopolitan; but when the farmers of the West and South said the same thing fifteen years ago, they were greeted with hoots and jeers from the East. I don’t say that Messrs. Riis and Crosby joined in the hooting and jeering; I am quite sure they did not; but they are accorded a respectful hearing in making statements for the making of which thousands of respectable men fifteen years ago were branded as anarchists, wild-eyed fanatics, lunatics, and so forth.

The world do move.

L. H. B.

The Russian Apostle of Populism BY THOMAS C. HUTTON — Naturally

Fifty years ago a grayheaded prisoner, neglected, gaunt, unbefriended, died in the dungeons of Schlüsselburg, and today a thousand Russian cities are ringing with the name of Mikal Bakunin, the apostle of Populism, one of the many reformers who were stoned by a contemporary public and sainted by its descendants.

Russia spurned the impassioned orator; Germany exiled him, after a few months of toleration, and now his projects are discussed by millions who seem determined to give them a fair trial.

“A pack of knout-serving flunkeys,” Bakunin called the German officials who enforced the frontier-laws in the interest of the Czar, and soon after a messenger in uniform served him with a copy of the Prussian press-laws, and a hint at the expedience of making himself invisible.

His virulent tongue hurt him a good deal, and his popularity was somewhat modified by his social radicalism; but the long neglect of his revenue plan is one of the strangest facts in the literature of political economy. One might as well reject Kepler’s solar hypothesis, because the great astronomer got a little cloudy on the question of witchcraft.

And, after all, Bakunin only whispered his matrimonial theories, but shouted his tax-protests before multitudes who ought to have known better than to class them with his chimeras.

Briefly stated, his main reform plan is this: That governments ought to earn their own revenues as they cast their own cannon and build their own battleships.

“Look at your great Government stud-farm of Trakehnen,” said he, in a speech on the old Breslau market-square. “Model stables, model granaries, fine pastures, all more than self-supporting, monthly auctions of forage and surplus horses. Oats are barreled in airy magazines, and, for greater security, the granary warden breeds cats, and hires two boys to take care of them.

“All lovely, so far. But now suppose those boys were to break in a private cottage and snatch away a poor youngster’s kitten, on the pretext that the Government might have need of it? At sight of a club, the little lad would have to let his pet go, but could you blame him for growling?—Why don’t you get oats of your own? And let my little kitten alone?—And that is exactly what I am growling about when I see tax-collectors confiscate a poor man’s last milch-cow or nanny-goat.”

The orator then described the estate of Prince Gorkas, a semi-independent land-magnate near Tiflis, in the southern Caucasus. The Prince’s tenants pay a moderate rent; freeholders keep his good will by buying his cattle and coal. Free schools, fairly good, and no tax-collectors—a pattern of what an empire ought to be on a large scale. Foreseeing the eventual need of money for the purchase of a neighboring estate, the Prince had a mountain-side planted with plum trees, to sell the dried fruit. His engineers opened a mine of cannel-coal, and soon had a large market. Their master hoarded and was thought capable of driving a sharp bargain, but gossips would have risked the lunatic-asylum if they had spread a report that Prince Gorkas had broken into the little crossroad store and helped himself to a share of the old storekeeper’s savings.

Fruit plantations are also managed by the Shah of Persia, and mines of vast values by the Russian Government. Prussia and Austria own extensive timber forests and realize a handsome profit after paying reasonable wages to thousands of wardens, rangers and woodcutters.

Saxony operates national mines and large national glass-works.

Do kings need ordnance? Let them hire foundries to cast it for them. Do they need gunpowder? Hire chemists to mix it for them.

Do they need money? Why, let them hire business-men to earn it for them. Not the faintest ghost of a doubt but it can be done.

A little more difficult than raising royal race-horses? Perhaps so. But does that give His Majesty the right to race down a peddler and take his money away from him? Now reflect, and do not let your verdict be biased by the idea that might makes right, or that a long-established absurdity becomes reasonable.

Why collect revenues by Government highway robbery, by Government hold-up methods, by harpies in Government uniform, when the test of practical experience proves that revenues can be raised by Government industries?

Would you bring the State in unfair competition with individuals? “Don’t for one moment,” says Bakunin, “believe that lie of lazybones. Secretaries of Finance find it easier to hire marauders than to hire skilled mechanics, that’s all.”

Who is hurt by the great stockfarm at Trakehnen? It could be enlarged twenty times, and still give private enterprise a chance to raise prize-horses at a considerable profit. Who complains about Government forestry? It gives bread to hundreds of thousands; it protects the fountains of fertilizing streams; it prevents droughts, but does not prevent individuals from conducting timber-plantations at a profit exceeding that of grain farms.

The Belgian Government owns coal-mines, but private mine-owners will continue to prosper till they exhaust the supply of the mineral. No glass-worker has ever objected to the Government glass-works of Saxony. They invite co-operation; the demand for artistic glass products exceeds the supply.

If Government mines and factories, why not Government commerce, and, above all, Government real estate transactions—Government landlordism to an extent that will hurt no other landlord, and benefit millions of tenants?

Found new communities on the plan of reserving a certain percentage of building lots for state purposes, and lease those reservations for five to ten years to the highest bidder. If the Government erects buildings, let them be models of their kind—fire-proof storehouses, sanitary tenements.

Government plantations ought to be drained till gnat-plagues are no more; equipped with improved machinery, with airy cottages; a blessing to all concerned, and yet an undoubted source of revenue, since experience proves that wholesale farming operations are the most profitable.

One tobacco plantation of the French Government yields a yearly net revenue of 2,000,000 francs, and the only objection is the nature of the crop; national agriculture could raise profitable harvests without catering to a stimulant habit. Government commission houses should import Jamaica bananas, rather than Jamaica rum.

On the Bakunin plan, national revenue industries should, as a rule, select their ground where the strain of competition is the least likely to be felt. After that, objectors should be referred to a chronicle of such alternatives as trust despotism.

“No governments,” he asks, “decline to dirty their hands delving for boodle? Oh, ye prayerful pirates! Lineal descendants of the bushwhacker princes who preferred clubs to spades! Below their dignity to cut wood, but did cut purses and throats. Too highborn to clean out a pig-sty, but did clean out peddlers and often whole caravans.

“And now the descendants of those beautiful buccaneers, too proud to mine or farm, but not ashamed to fall upon a poor farmer’s homestead and confiscate his last horse! Not too dignified to hold up a crippled huckster and collar two-thirds of his hard earned pennies. Too sensitive to work the windlass of a silvermine, but rough-handed enough to wring silver from a consumptive shopkeeper. Our grandiose rulers, I should say, are in small business when they break in to snatch a widow’s kettle and cot-bed.

“Yet that’s done every day in the year. Statistics claim that somewhere on earth a child is born every second. And at least every minute sees the birth of a child that will have to die of hunger, because its mother’s bread has been filched by tax-collectors.

“Have Governments a right to supply their needs at the expense of widows and orphans, while thousands of able-bodied young men stand ready to earn revenue for them?”

High tariff bullies, says the Russian reformer, are marine highway robbers. At first sight, the burden of spoliation seems shifted to the shoulders of foreigners, but, look closer, and you find natives obliged to buy imports at extortion rates.

Passengers, waiting to be examined by custom-house officers, says Bakunin, always remind him of travelers, lined up to be searched by footpads.

“How commerce revives,” he says, “wherever those shackles are partly removed! How would it flourish if they were altogether abolished? Traffic that now obliges skippers to starve their sailors could be made abundantly profitable.”

A hundred years before the birth of Henry George, a revenue system, closely resembling the “Single Tax” plan, was recommended by the father of Gabriel Mirabeau, and by the Roget School of French Communists.

“It would relieve some classes of our wage-earners,” says Bakunin, “but would burden others, and why harass them, if we can undoubtedly find ways to get along without direct taxation?”

Why make land the scapegoat of a sin that might be avoided?

In 1849 the Russian Government got its clutches on the bold reformer, and silenced him by the usual argument of despots. The voice that had entranced mass-meetings in a hundred cities of southern and western Europe was stifled in the catacombs of Schlüsselburg.

But Time, the All-Avenger, has made the martyr’s name a rallying cry of East-European reformers, and America should honor the memory of Mikal Bakunin as that of a hero and pioneer of reform—a man whose marvelous gift of intuition had recognized all the ideals of Populism, all its principles and promises, but who succumbed to the superhuman task of effecting its progress under the handicap of a monarchical government.

Knicker—There goes a man who would rather fight than eat.

Bocker—Soldier?

Knicker—No, dyspeptic.

LUCIANNA’S KEEP BY ELLIOT WALKER.

“I’ve got twenty dollars for the rent an’ fifteen more for what’s likely to come up,” observed Enos Matchett cheerfully, as he put down his teacup. “There’s nothin’ to worry about this first of month, anyhow. Eh, Martha?”

His wife fingered her napkin in a nervous way, usual to her when the appalling call of their landlord was due, not to mention others who fished from pockets soiled packages of rubber-banded slips to draw out tentatively and none too expectantly those alarming accounts marked at their tops with the discredited name of Enos Matchett.

Poor Martha. The “Oh! Yes. I’ll speak to my husband about it,” and the hundred other subterfuges were growing gaunt with repetition. She had a regular repertory of excuses to apply as conditions demanded. For a first presentation a fixed and nonchalant smile and a “come ’round next month,” caused quick riddance of the unwelcome. “Next month,” it was, “I declare, I guess Mr. Matchett overlooked that little bill. Perhaps, you’d better leave it so he’ll keep it in mind.”

From then on, rang the changes of high prices, hard times and honest intentions until at last came the sharp, bullying threat of the collection lawyer and the crawling process of paying by small installments.

Sometimes she tore up the bills, sometimes they went into the fire, never, until her last bridge had collapsed, did she worry Enos.

He worked, hopefully, from morning to night at odd jobs and occasional bits of carpentry. A fortunate month might fatten their attenuated exchequer to a bulge of sixty dollars, but the months were not all fortunate and there was seldom a penny came in that remained over a fortnight. To meet the rent was imperative. That had to be met. For the rest—wits, hopes, and a somewhat shattered faith in the Lord’s providence.

However, when the Lord endowed average femininity with a high scorn of bills and an abnormal intelligence in the evasion of payment much was done for man.

Enos, undoubtedly, would have become as flighty and irresponsible as was Lucianna, upstairs, had he been obliged to face the shafts which his worried better half so successfully foiled to the last ditch.

Now, Martha gazed across the table at him, with the smile of one temporarily relieved from anxiety.

“That’s good,” she answered. “It’s queer how we’ve kep’ along.”

“Ain’t it?” responded Mr. Matchett. “I was consid’rable pestered ten days ago as to how we’d come out this month, but Miss Joslyn paid me, an’ I had a week steady on Doctor Bullen’s fence. No one in particular a-hurryin’ us jest now, I s’pose?”

“Don’t think of any special tormentor,” returned Martha, biting her thin lips. Indeed, no obvious projection in the wall of torment occurred to her at the moment. Their creditors were “lined up,” in equal aggression. One was as bad as another.

Enos tugged at his gray mustache—a sparse adornment, getting white at the ends.

“Guess we’ll blow a dollar on something for Lucianna then,” he ventured generously.

“Guess not!” exclaimed Martha, with decision. “The child’s got toys enough. Feedin’ her is more to the point. I never see such an appetite. She’s happy. Let her alone and put your money where ’twill be appreciated.”

Lucianna, now a child supposed to have attained twenty-five years, and a very queer one at that, had employed most of her day in making faces at such of the passers who did not meet her approval, and smiling at those who did. These courtesies were accentuated by taps on the window panes.

The poor harmless creature could be allowed little liberty as she ran away and sat on doorsteps, proclaiming herself a burglar of kittens. Given a kitten, or stealing one, Lucianna would go home delighted.

The influx of kittens became too trying. Enos, a soft-hearted man, would do no murder. Martha, steeled to crime through desperation, had disposed of several, really unfit to exist, and found homes for more. Lucianna forgot them over night. Therefore, it had lately become necessary to confine her to her room, where she was allowed one kitten during the day.

This satisfied Lucianna completely. Besides, she possessed six dolls, toys galore, and when these joys palled there was the window.

Whatever possessed the Matchetts to make a home for the unfortunate girl was a mystery to their acquaintances, as she was no kin. Years before, when life was younger and brighter, with Enos at a paying job, and Martha ambitious for a servant yet unable to afford a regular domestic, Lucianna, then a pretty child of about thirteen, had appeared and asked for something to eat.

She was well grown and seemed strong, although exhausted by walking and hunger.

Martha took her in, and an idea seized the good woman, after certain questions had been put and answered.

It was their plain duty to keep this little stranger until somebody claimed her, and in the event of no one turning up for the waif, why not train her for service?

Lucianna was reticent about her past career. Enos thought she lied. Martha said she was too young to remember. It seemed a case of no mother, a father who had gone away leaving her with unkind people who did not love her.

In corroboration of this last statement Lucianna exposed a plump arm decorated with small bruises of various ages and colors.

“Pinches,” she explained, snuffling. This settled Enos, who went down cellar and split more kindlings than he had ever done at one bout.

When he came up, perspiring and still glaring, Lucianna had been fed and put to bed. Martha was washing the soiled socks, and singing thoughtfully.

“Seems nice to have a child in the house,” she remarked.

“We’ll keep her along,” returned Mr. Matchett. “Good little thing.”

“As gold,” affirmed his wife.

This was the advent of Lucianna. Beyond the fact of her surname being Crowson, her clothes plain, her eyes blue, her light hair cut short, and that she bore marks of abuse, the worthy couple knew nothing.

Neither did they go out of their way for information. Lucianna proved affectionate, willing and useful, with a passion for cats.

In a year she had become almost as their own. Enos worshiped her. Martha did, too, but made Lucianna work, as befitted her position as helper.

Another year and the girl developed peculiarities that worried them. She eyed them shyly. She grimaced at Enos most impertinently when he trod on her cat’s tail. Martha spanked her. Lucianna laughed.

A few months more and she became erratic, irresponsible and useless, but always good natured. As Enos expressed it, “Lucianna had gone back to bein’ a kid.”

Some money went for medical advice. There was but one opinion. “Weak-minded. The patient might grow worse, but hardly probable if kindly treated. With great care under expert treatment she might improve. Such cases were outside the regular practice. Would recommend a sanitarium, or an asylum. Of course, if they wished to have her remain at home, no objection could be raised; but a burden—a burden.”

“We’ll keep her along,” announced Enos. “We’ve got hands and hearts yet, hain’t we?”

“God forgive me for spankin’ her,” wept Martha. “The poor thing couldn’t help her actions, an’ she never held it against me. Jest laughed, she did, takin’ it all in good part.”

“She sha’n’t go to no asylum,” cried Mr. Matchett, rising to the occasion. “Sanitariums an’ expert doctors ain’t for our pockets. She come to us for carin’, growed to be our little girl, an’ by Josh! Lucianna will be kep’ along.”

She was; and always reported to be “about the same.”

Ten years of it—ten long, trying, down-hill years, but neither Enos Matchett nor his wife had ever wavered in loyalty or love to their charge. Indeed, the worse things got, the more they thought of Lucianna.

Her daily airing (on the wiry arm of Martha), her whims, her playthings, were all attended to, religiously.

If, as frequently happened, she made a bright remark, her devoted keepers nodded sagely, saying, “She’s gettin’ better.”

As for the expense, whatever their thoughts in secret, both kept a guarded silence. Only this evening had Martha for the first time deprecated the failing of Enos to “blow a dollar for Lucianna.”

He stared at her, curiously, and grunted.

“Pooh!” said he, recklessly. “Got fifteen ahead.”

Martha’s tongue uncurbed at this unseemly boast. Her long nose twitched.

“Ahead!” she snorted. “You stay in my place tomorrow, Enos Matchett. You mind the door for one mornin’ and see how much you’re ahead.”

“All right,” returned Enos, his placid features animating resentfully. “I can spare the time till noon. No need of snappin’ at me as I see. No sense in deprivin’ Lucianna of a little pleasure, neither. There’s nobody pressin’ us hard—said so yourself. What’s a dollar, anyway?”

Alas! to the contempt of Mr. Matchett for the single dollar was due much of their financial tribulation.

“I’m going up to visit with the girl,” he added. “She won’t be snappy.”

This parting thrust rankled in Martha’s bosom, and the supper table was cleared with rather unnecessary clatter. The improvident, easy-going Enos always let her have her own way. He turned over his earnings to her more careful hands, spending very little on himself, and trusted implicitly to wifely wisdom in all household matters. A real quarrel between them had never occurred.

Responsibility, shifted from his fat shoulders to her narrow ones, was both agreeable and natural to Enos. His make-up was that of the man who never “troubled trouble,” until cornered. Then he became actually belligerent and invited war. Up to this rare point Mr. Matchett bluffed good-humoredly.

When assailed by creditors on the street he was invariably in a hurry to perform some important and paying job—a fictitious pleasantry.

“Can’t bother about that now,” he would grin. “Drop ’round to the house an’ see Mis’ Matchett. She ’tends to the finances, an’ if she hasn’t spent all I give her lately, you’ll get something.”

This ingenious disposition of duns was not meant to be unkind.

“Martha’ll fix him,” Enos would chuckle, trotting along. “She don’t mind.”

So the brunt fell on Martha, and it was patiently borne.

But nerves grow irritable under constant pricking until they are ready to snap. Martha did mind. Of late she had felt like hiding whenever the door-bell rang. It took a long breath, a determined effort, a clutch at her quick beating heart for an appearance of unconcern, and her poor brain quivered with apprehension at its dearth of successful excuses.

“Let him have a turn,” she muttered, wiping the dishes. “The rent collector won’t be ’round ’till afternoon, but there’s a-plenty of others likely to show up. His fifteen dollars will get melted fast enough. I could sprinkle it right, but he don’t know how. The first feller will get it all, an’ then——”

Martha paused to laugh, dismally. There was another side. How about future calls from those turned down by Enos? He might lose his temper. All the worse for her.

“I’m most hopin’ nobody’ll come,” she faltered. “I ain’t so sure of gettin’ the best of this.”

However, the following morning saw her marching off smilingly, with Lucianna in high feather at the prospect of a long stroll.

Enos regarded their departure with complacence, expecting an undisturbed session. At the most, some small bill might be presented. He knew just how he would pay it; carelessly, with a jaunty, indifferent air, as if the amount was a trifle. This was his unvarying attitude of settlement—when he settled.

With newspapers and a pipe, it would be quite a holiday. He established himself comfortably, soon forgetting indebtedness in perusing the details of late murders.

Shortly after nine o’clock came a ring of the bell—a feeble peal—Enos went to the door.

The caller was a stranger to him,—a dapper, gentlemanly man whose pleasant face bore an embarrassed expression.

“I—I wish to see Mrs. Matchett,” he began.

“Out for a walk,” said Enos, a bit pompously. “Any message? I’m Mr. Matchett.”

“Well,” the man pursed his lips and hesitated. “I—I wanted to speak with your wife about an account. Something of her own, you know—er—wearing apparel. If I could get the money today it would be a great convenience.”

Enos laughed indulgently.

“Clothes, eh? You needn’t be modest about that. I don’t rec’lect her havin’ any new ones for years, but it’s all right, I guess. I’m payin’ the bills. Trot it out an’ I’ll settle right now an’ glad to.”

The man looked relieved. “If it’s perfectly convenient?” he said.

“Perfectly,” puffed Enos. “I’ve got the stuff ready for any little thing that may come up.”

He unfolded the paper and glanced at the total under a short list of items. It was just thirty-five dollars.

Matchett gazed at the figures, too appalled to change countenance beyond a drop of the jaw.

Slowly, he pulled out his precious roll, and counted the money into the other’s hands.

“Receipt that bill!” he grunted.

“I’m ever so much obliged,” said the man glibly, his eyes on the paper as he signed the long name of a well known dry goods house, “and I wish you would explain to Mrs. Matchett.”

“I will,” returned Enos shortly.

“You see, we’ve sold out recently,” pursued his caller. “We are collecting all old accounts. This, as you perceive, is very old. We have never bothered Mrs. Matchett. I hated to come, really I did, but the present conditions made it imperative. Before your wife purchased the goods, she went to Mr. Morley—head of the old firm, you know, and told him so honestly that she couldn’t tell when she would be able to pay, and her reasons for buying, that it quite tickled the old gentleman. He came to me—I have charge of the dress goods department—Parker is my name.

“Says he, ‘Parker, wait on this lady and I’ll speak to the bookkeeper as to the bill.’ He gave orders to keep it back, so it’s never been presented. Very unusual and unbusinesslike, of course, but Mr. Morley had peculiarities. Pity he died. Our new head is a very different sort. Very strict. So I felt it was my place to see Mrs. Matchett, as I sold her the goods and she would remember. Ladies are apt to forget their little bills if not reminded. I think your wife will remember.”

“I think so,” said Enos. “Well, the thing’s paid and that’s all.” His voice was steady, but deeper than usual.

“That’s all. Yes, sir. Sorry to trouble you, and very many thanks. I’m much relieved to find it was no inconvenience. So many people complain of hard times. Good day.”

Mr. Parker skipped down the steps. Mr. Matchett locked the door.

He went to the most remote room in the house and sat for two hours in a state of apathetic despair, broken only by short bursts of wrath. Oh, Martha should long recollect this day! Several times the bell rang insistently, but Enos paid no heed.

At last he settled on a plan of action and went wearily down to unlock the door.

The two women came in, shortly before noon. In the sunshine and freedom, Martha had cast care to the winds. Her eyes were bright. In her thin cheeks played a faint color. Lucianna had behaved beautifully. Now, she giggled at sight of Enos, and clamored for dinner.

“We’ll have some soon,” said Martha, stirring about. “Had a quiet morning, husband?” mischievously.

“I ain’t seen a bill against me,” replied Mr. Matchett, calmly. “I’ve set still till I’ll be glad to get into the air. Let’s eat, an’ I’ll be startin’.”

The eye-brows of his wife lifted in wonder. After all, she was glad of the news. It would have been too bad to have Enos upset.

He ate in silence while she chatted volubly of her outing, not remarking his lack of attention.

“Through?” he asked, as Martha rolled her napkin and sat back.

“All through,” she smiled.

“Well, I ain’t,” said the man, leaning forward, his eyes stern and reproachful. “Nor you, neither. We’ve a bit of dessert to chew on, Martha Matchett. I told you I hadn’t seen a bill against me. I’ve seen one against you, an’ I’ve paid it! Yes, marm. Paid it! Here!” he thrust the paper at her.

“Dear God!” moaned the woman, after a lightning glimpse. “It’s come on to me at last. Oh! Enos, husband, don’t look so at me. It was for Cousin Minna’s weddin’—four years ago;—I wanted to go. I didn’t have no dress, nor fixin’s. You was away. I went to Mr. Morley’s store an’ had ’em charged. He said I could pay when I had the money. I’ve never had it. The dress I’ve never worn since. I—I hid it away till I could pay for it, Enos—oh, dear, oh, dear.”

She sobbed, piteously, staring wildly at him through her tears.

“An’—you—paid—it,” came her horrified gasps. “Every—cent—we had.”

“You can attend to the rent, Martha,” the voice of Enos was unmoved as he arose. “I’m goin’ to rake lawns.”

He went out without another word or look, leaving her weeping and rocking to and fro.

From the outside he gazed at the house. It was a pretty cottage of a cheap kind. They had lived there for three years, and Martha’s vines had grown. Her flower bed, so carefully tended, how pretty it was! On the opposite side of the road lay a great vacant lot—a pasture on the city outskirts. Trees were there—and cows. In summer, children played among the grasses. In winter, they coasted. It was just the place for Lucianna—for Martha—for Enos, too.

“Got to leave it,” groaned the man. “No use talkin’. It’s pay or get out. Plenty wants it—and old Craddock won’t wait again. Third time we’ll have moved. Confound Minna’s weddin’ an’ a deceivin’ woman. If I’d known it—oh! if I only had—but I said I’d pay an’ I did. Now, let her do some payin’.”

Lucianna tapped on the window and beamed at him. His answering smile was a ghastly farce. Tears were on the round cheeks of Enos as he hurried away. Last night he had been so confident and happy. He stumbled, walking on.

No suspicious moisture showed on Martha’s cheeks, as she marched over her doorsill twenty minutes later. Her tears had dried. A hard determination glittered in the black eyes. Under her hastily arranged bonnet, Mrs. Matchett’s face, strained and set, was tense with resolve.

Lucianna did not witness her departure, else there would have been wailing and much pounding on the window. Fortunately the girl had fallen asleep. Only on occasions of great moment was she left alone. This was one of them.

Martha hastened along.

The old sign of “Morley, Cowperthwait, Rensellaer and Company” still remained over the entrance of the great department store—but the kindly old founder was gone.

Martha knew that—she had read of his death, and the passage of the business into new hands. But that old bill wouldn’t be a worry. She had a whole string of excuses and explanations for the lingering liquidation of her debt in the case of the resurrection of this buried but haunting ghost. Now, Enos had “gone and paid it,” to the ruin of them all.

Through the throng she pushed and elbowed. How changed everything was. How busy and big. Martha had not entered that growing emporium since the date of her reckless purchase.

For a second her heart failed at the enormity of her mission. Then she clenched her teeth and grabbed a passing bundle boy by the shoulder.

“Say!” she exclaimed, hoarsely. “I want to see the head of the firm, the man who is attendin’ to Mr. Morley’s work. Where is he?”

The startled lad pulled away, blinked and grinned.

“Guess not,” he retorted. “He’ll take yer skelp off. He won’t talk to nobody this time o’ day.”

“It’s important, I tell you,” cried the woman, fiercely. “It’s a money matter an’ I will see him.”

“Gwan ter trouble, then!” said the boy, pointing a mischievous finger at a closed door marked “No admittance.” “I’ll call de ambulance. He ain’t no Mr. Morley. I see you come out a flyin’ in jest two seconds.”

But Martha was past him, her grasp on the knob, and the door closed behind her as he stared.

“Here! Here!” ejaculated a stout, bald man, turning impatiently from his desk with a twist of his revolving chair. “You’ve made a mistake, madam. Go right out, please.”

“I won’t,” said Martha. “I’m here on important business—an’ I’ll state it before I move one step. You’ve taken Mr. Morley’s place. You’re the head of things, an’ I’ve come straight to you.”

A queer smile crossed the broad face. The man took out his watch. “I’ll give you just one minute,” he said, coolly. “What’s the trouble. Talk fast, now.”

Martha talked fast.

“I got thirty-five dollars worth of stuff here most four years ago,” she began, excitedly. “Mr. Morley said I could pay when convenient. Now you’ve sent to my house when I was out, an’ my husband paid it. I want that money back.”

Her listener laughed outright.

“Why! Why!” he coughed. “My dear woman, you have a very accommodating husband; that’s evident. Four years! What were you thinking of? Madam, the account should never have run so long. You owed it. It’s been paid. The transaction is closed. We cannot give you back the money. What a ridiculous request!”

The woman drew in her breath, shudderingly.

“People must settle their obligations, you know,” pursued the man patting his fat leg. “That is the rule of business. If I owed you anything I should pay it. If you owe me, you have to pay also. Such a demand as yours is absurd. Can’t you see that?”

“I can see me an’ Enos turned out of our little home.” Martha’s voice was stony. “The money for that bill of mine was every penny we had. The rent’s got to be met before night. My husband’s an honest man—too honest to have any credit. I can see him growin’ old an’ gray in some shanty. I can see a poor half-witted girl cryin’ for the room she loves. These are the things I can see. Yes, sir, that’s the worst of it. Lucianna won’t understand——”

“Eh!” interrupted the merchant sharply. “Who?”

“Lucianna, sir. Not our own daughter, but most the same, poor thing. We’ve been glad to have her, an’ make her a home, an’ never minded the cost. She was so little when she came to us for shelter, smart an’ bright as anybody with her blue eyes an’ yellow hair, winnin’ us like she was our born baby. ’Twasn’t her fault she got queer. We wouldn’t put the child where she’d be abused again, so we kep’ her. Now, to root her out from comfort into the Lord knows what—I can’t bear to think of it. Me an’ Enos might get along somehow, but there’s Lucianna. I want that money back!”

Martha’s tone became sharp as she remembered her errand. Tears had blinded her eyes during the rapid explanation, quite forgetful for the moment of all save the coming deprivations of her loved ones.

Now, she winked them away to glare at the man in the chair. His ruddy face had gone to a dreadful whiteness. His hands were working. A strange sound came from the thick throat before he stammered feebly:

“I—I—lost—a little girl. Her—this—one—do you know the last name?”

“I’ve most forgot—she’s had ours for so long.” Martha began to tremble. “Let’s see? Yes. Say, it can’t be, your name is Crowson? That’s hers, Lucianna Crowson.”

“My God!” the stout man sprang up. “It is! It is! Everything points to her being the same. It must be so.”

He seized Martha’s hands with such vehemence that she recoiled with a startled, backward step.

“Don’t act so crazy!” came her alarmed exclamation. “You let go an’ be careful. The blood’s clean to the top of your head. Set down an’ behave.”

“Yes! Yes!” cried Crowson, releasing her, to pace the small room with a broken laugh and a fierce curse. “Wait! I’ll be myself in a minute. She’s my girl—I tell you. They wrote me she was dead—the people I left her with—after the child was cured. I’m her father, my dear woman. Don’t mind me, I’ll pull up directly. Wait!”

Martha shrank against the wall, as he laughed wildly and growled imprecations.

Presently he steadied, tightening his muscles and breathing deep.

“I’m all right,” said he, huskily. “You must excuse this, Mrs.—Mrs.—”

“Matchett,” answered his caller. “Certainly! ’Tain’t no wonder you felt shook up, if you’re really Lucianna’s father.”

“There is no doubt about it;” the man sat heavily in his chair. “Listen! She was eleven years old when she fell off her pony and injured her head. I was a comparatively poor man then, but I got the best surgeons. For months my little one lay in a hospital. We had no settled home. My wife died long before. Business called me away. When I returned Lucianna was pronounced cured. At least it was deemed safe to place her with some family where she would have every care, and no excitement. Should the trouble recur, an operation would be necessary.

“I found a home for her. Matters were arranged. Again I went West. Letters reached me regularly for many months. All seemed to be going well, in fact so satisfactorily that I, immersed in the starting of a business, ceased to worry. Yes, it must have been two years before I stopped my remittances, although those crafty letters had grown infrequent.

“I wrote the Harpinsons that I would be East soon and intended to take the child back with me.

“Then I received the shocking news of her death. Diphtheria, they said, and very sudden. A malignant case, and—well—the burial had been at night. Everything was done as if she belonged to them. As soon as quarantine was over they were going to move and would inform me of their location.”

Martha stood with her mouth open.

“Did they?” she hissed. “We must have had Lucianna for a good while before those critters said she was dead.”

“Yes,” said Crowson, frowning. “They bled me as long as possible. I received one more letter, postmarked Boston—a few details of no importance, but I had no suspicions. Since then, my letters have come back stamped, ‘no such party at address.’”

“But—” broke in Martha.

He held up an appealing hand.

“I know, I know,” he interrupted. “I should have gone on at once. Yet what could be done? The quarantine—the detention from business—the added grief. My child was gone. All was over. Nothing seemed left to me save strenuous work and the making of money. I own three stores like this, the result of losing Lucianna. Now I have found her, I’ll not work so hard.”

“She won’t know you from Adam,” said Martha, jealously.

“Perhaps—in—time,” replied Crowson, stroking his forehead. “Thank God! I’ve the means to find out.”

“Have we got to give up Lucianna?” quavered the woman. “If—if it’s for her good, I s’pose I could stand it, but what will Enos say? She won’t want to go, neither.”

The man turned his head suddenly, and coughed.

“We will fix everything right,” he said, gently. “I’ll take no step without your consent. Let’s see! To get back to business—” he smiled, whimsically. “You mustn’t think a personal matter can influence our regulations. That bill of yours must be settled.”

Martha jumped. In her excitement she had quite forgotten the landlord, the house and the gravity of the Matchett situation.

Speechless, she drew herself up. Could this hard-headed man be so devoid of humanity, after what had happened, as to refuse her assistance?

“Still,” he went on in his matter-of-fact tone, “I’ll give you a little more time on it. Till next week, say. Here is the money, but say nothing about it. Quite against rules, you know.”

He pulled out a wallet and handed her four bank notes, three tens and a five.

“Thanks!” said Martha, counting them mechanically. “I s’pose you want this;” she held out the receipted bill.

“Oh yes—I must have that.” He put it carefully in a pigeon-hole.

“I’m ever so much obliged,” murmured the woman, “an’ I’ll try to scrape up something by next week. I s’pose you’ll be ’round to see Lucianna—an’ talk with Mr. Matchett.”

“Very soon.” Crowson’s mouth trembled at the corners. “How long have you had Lucianna?”

“Twelve years come Saturday. Enos was sayin’ so night before last. We call it her birthday, an’ most always give her something. Not this year, though. Can’t afford it.”

The merchant figured on a pad. “Twelve. Six hundred and twenty-four,” he whispered. Then aloud. “The Harpinsons charged me ten dollars a week for Lucianna’s keep. It was none too much.”

“They skinned you,” said Martha, adjusting her bonnet. She felt dazed and tired; quite bewildered at the prospect of losing Lucianna, uneasy regarding Enos, yet thankful for the temporary financial respite.

“I’ve got to hurry home,” she announced. “There’s nothing more to say except that I’ll do my best to settle my bill and I’m obliged to you. I’m mighty glad for you, sir, but the thought of what we’re losing makes me fairly sick. It ain’t right to say so, but I most wish I hadn’t come.” She turned with a choke.

“One moment,” said Crowson. “I want your address. What is your full name, Mrs. Matchett?”

“Martha.”

“Any middle name?”

“Hum! Lupkins,” returned Martha reluctantly. “We live at 462 Goodland Avenue—used to be Squash Street. You’ll find us easy enough—good day.”

“One thing more. It will take only a minute. You have arranged your old account. There’s another you seem to have overlooked.” He touched a button on his desk.

“There ain’t another!” declared Martha, defiantly. “I don’t owe a cent here besides this.”

The door opened quickly. A young man bustled in.

“Hinkley,” ordered Mr. Crowson, and his eyes twinkled, “draw a check at once to the order of Martha L. Matchett for six thousand two hundred and forty dollars.”

When Enos crawled into supper, he was a weary, conscience-smitten person. His anger had dissipated. What should come he knew not, but Martha’s feelings must be considered, first of all. He pictured her in the depths of despair—forlorn, distracted, possibly “packing.”

An appetizing odor filled the house. Enos sniffed.

“Beefsteak an’ onions an’ coffee,” he commented, gratefully. “Jest my likin’s. She wants to make up. Where did she get the meat?”

Drawing his chair to the table, Mr. Matchett gazed at his spouse with a dismayed visage.

Surely there was something wrong here. The display of luxuries, Martha’s unnaturally bright eyes, her compressed lips, the new black dress, her air of superiority.

“What’s the matter?” said Martha. “Pitch in. I’ve got a nice supper an’ dressed up to show you how smart I can be under afflictions.”

Enos took a mouthful.

“I—I guess Craddock didn’t come for the rent,” he essayed. “Never knew him to skip us before.”

“He come,” replied Martha, loftily.

“An’ you—” the man’s fork shook against his plate.

“Paid him, of course,” said Martha, airily. “You told me to attend to it.”

Her husband half rose from his seat. “You ain’t right, my dear,” he said, soothingly—“what’s affected you?”

“Set down!” commanded the woman, laughing. “We’ve found a friend, an’ our girl’s found a father. It’s all straight, Enos. In case you want a bit of spendin’ money, I’ve endorsed this over to you.”

Mr. Matchett did sit down. His countenance underwent many changes as he fingered the check. “Wh—what’s it for?” he stuttered.

“Lucianna’s keep,” said Martha.

On the pleasant days, when the roads are fine, an automobile stops before the Matchett’s door. Presently it rolls slowly away. Martha sits very erect by the side of a golden-haired companion, and an Angora kitten nestles between them. There is a good deal of laughing and talking, and sometimes passers stare, but no one in the big car minds. The stout man in front with the chauffeur turns, smiling at the women.

“Pretty distressing for us all, the removal of that lesion,” he says, “but she’s reading little books, now.”

And when Enos asks a question with his eyes, upon Martha’s return from these trips, he gets the same old words: “She’s gettin’ better.”

Who Pays the Taxes? BY WILLIAM H. TILTON

The residents of a small New Jersey village were recently called together for the purpose of considering the advisability of incorporating the village into a borough; and the Philadelphia newspapers reported that an application for incorporation had been signed by a large number of “taxpayers and citizens.” What is meant by this dividing of the people into two distinct classes? This question becomes of more than passing importance in view of the fact that the case cited is not an isolated one. For instance, during the political campaign of 1905, in New York City, a prominent newspaper spoke editorially of the candidacy of William R. Hearst for Mayor on a municipal ownership platform as an “appeal to the untaxed and an attack upon the taxpayers.”

The Secretary of the National Reciprocity League, in an address at Chicago, is reported to have said that “Municipal ownership and operation of street railways had become a craze; that people who do not pay taxes are the most enthusiastic supporters of the craze, as those who pay taxes are opposed to the idea.”

The late Charles T. Yerkes, in reference to the election of Judge Dunne as Mayor of Chicago on a municipal ownership platform, said: “The city will run heavily in debt. Will the poor man suffer? No; because the poor man does not pay taxes. Men with property pay taxes; these will suffer.” Mr. Yerkes did not say just what kind of property was meant; but as the returns of personal property in Chicago are said to be less today than they were twenty years ago (although the city is three times as large, with six times the wealth), it is evident that the owners of that kind of property—stock-owners of that kind of property—stocks, bonds, mortgages, paintings, jewelry, silver services, etc.—are not going to suffer to any great extent if they can help it. Then it must be the real estate owner, again, who is expected to do the suffering, because of the increase of taxes, should there be any such increase.

Day after day we read in the newspapers communications in reference to public questions which are signed “Taxpayer,” or “Property Owner,” as if that fact should give more weight or influence to their opinions or suggestions. Others go still further. A Pittsburg preacher in a recent sermon denounced universal suffrage, saying, “Only property owners should vote and all others should be disfranchised.” Numerous other instances could be cited which tend to show a growing tendency to consider the real estate owner as the only person who pays taxes.

Now the great majority of our people have probably not looked upon these signs of the times with any apprehension as yet; but “great oaks from little acorns grow,” and this increasing disregard for the rights of men, as men, this creating of class distinctions with a tax-bill as a line of demarcation, on the theory that one small class pays all the taxes and is, therefore, entitled to rights and privileges that are denied to others, is dangerous and contrary to all principles of Democracy.

Owing to the inherent defects of human nature, no doubt there will always be those among us who will expect and demand more than they are entitled to, but the average American is satisfied with a square deal. When deprived of what he considers his just rights, however, he is, like most other people, inclined to become indifferent to the rights of others. Sooner or later he helps to swell the large army of the discontented; and history teaches that discontent is not only the mother of progress, but the mother of trouble. “On the contentment of the poor rests the safety of the rich.”

It is not intended to discuss in this article the justice or injustice of any particular tax, but simply to consider the question of taxes—how they are paid and who pays them—in the hope that we may thereby the more intelligently render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s.

Let us consider first the tax on real estate, one of the most important illustrations of the so-called “direct” taxation which Mill has defined as “that which is demanded from the very person who, it is intended or desired, should pay it.” Now it is, of course, true that this tax is levied against the property and the tax-bill is rendered in the name of the nominal owner, who is, naturally, expected to pay it; but whence comes the money with which he discharges this debt against his property? If the premises are rented or leased, are not the taxes, insurance, cost of repairs, interest on investment, etc., all added to the rental which is asked of and paid by the tenant? There are leases drawn today which contain a clause providing “that any increase in the taxes shall be added to the rental.” And yet, during the late struggle in Philadelphia over the attempted lease of the gas works to a private corporation for seventy-five years, a gentleman appeared before the committee of councils on behalf, as he said, of the taxpayers and rent-payers.

During the passage of the mortgage bill through the 1905 session of the New York Legislature, a member of the committee appointed by the real-estate owners to oppose the measure said: “The result, should the bill pass, will be for the real-estate owners to raise the rents. It is the public who will have to bear the burden, not the real-estate owners.” So we appear to have very relevant testimony to the effect that the man who receives the tax-bill, the man “on whom the tax is levied and who is expected to pay it” really acts as an agent, collecting the tax from his tenant and passing it on to the authorities. Is the tenant then a taxpayer or a citizen? As more than eighty per cent. of the people of the United States occupy rented houses, the sooner this question is satisfactorily answered and each of us understands his own individual responsibility, the better for all concerned.

Would not the rent-payer hesitate to cast his ballot for corrupt municipal government—with its accompanying reckless and dishonest expenditures of the public money—would he not hesitate to strike or riot, if he knew that the expenses (the teamsters’ strike in Chicago, in 1905, is said to have cost the city $100,000 a month for special policemen) and losses would eventually have to be paid by increased taxes added to his rent?

The United States Steel Company is said to have done much to eliminate strikes at its different plants by selling a portion of the capital stock of the company to its employes. Every man who owns even one share now feels that he is a part of the organization, that its interests are his interests, its losses his losses; and he is not inclined to do anything that will injuriously affect himself. When property owners understand and admit it, and rent-payers realize that they are a part of the municipal corporation, of the state and of the republic, that the public interests are their interests, the public losses their losses, that we must all rise or fall together, a great deal will have been accomplished toward the creation of better feeling and a consequent improvement in existing conditions.

Adam Smith says of taxation that “the subjects of every state ought to contribute toward the support of the Government as nearly as possible in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the states.”

Montesquieu defined taxation as “that portion of a person’s property which one contributes to the state in return for protection in the enjoyment of the balance.”

Both these eminent authorities look upon the payment of taxes as a duty which the citizen owes to the state in return for something which he receives from the state; but neither says in just what manner that duty must be performed, and there are undoubtedly numerous ways in which the obligation of the citizen may be discharged.

A very important phase of the tax question to be considered here (owing to its being the source of almost the entire income of the United States Government) is what is known as “indirect” taxation, or the tax on commodities, processes, etc. This is more easily collected than a direct tax, because the consumer hardly realizes that he is being taxed when paying for articles which he may use his own discretion about purchasing; but it bears most heavily upon the poor, as only articles in general use will yield the necessary revenue.

For instance, the tariff on imports, for the fiscal year ending 1905, produced more than $260,000,000. This enormous amount was, of course, paid at the custom house by the importer of the goods, but it was then added to the cost of the goods and finally paid by the consumer. This tax is great or small, depending entirely upon the necessities or desires of the people.

The higher the social and economic development of a people, the greater will be the burden of this tariff tax; as what were once considered luxuries eventually become necessaries of life, and a larger proportion of income is consequently expended for food, wearing apparel, household goods, etc. Under such circumstances, a man who is in receipt of a fair-sized income (even though possessing little or no taxable property), if he buys freely for the wants of himself and his family, may contribute more toward the support of the Government than his wealthy landlord, who buys sparingly, swears off his personal taxes, and collects his real estate taxes from his tenants.

The internal revenue tax on spirits, fermented liquors and tobacco produced in 1905 about $230,000,000, which, while also paid primarily by the manufacturer or distiller, is then added to the cost of production and included in the selling price, which is paid, of course, by the consumer. Not only the man who smokes or drinks, but everyone who uses spirits in the manufactures or arts, in patent medicines or drugstore prescriptions (many of which contain large quantities of liquor), is contributing a share of this tax. Oleomargarine produced during the same period over $600,000, and playing cards about $425,000.

Another very important source of income, levied in times of emergency, as during the war with Spain, is the stamp tax, which produces millions of dollars. The man with a small bank account pays as much for a stamp when issuing a check for one dollar, as does the man who issues a check for $100,000 or more; and each pays the same when purchasing an article of manufacture which is sold under a stamp.

Again, we should not overlook such items as license fees, financial, mercantile and franchise taxes, which, while levied by the city, state or national governments upon some particular person, firm or corporation, are really added to the cost of production or operation and ultimately paid by the general public. For instance, during the political campaign of 1904 in New Jersey, when equal taxation of railroad property was the burning issue, the Republican candidate for governor, in a speech at Trenton, stated: “No matter how high the tax on railroad property is made, the people who pay the freight rates and passenger fares will, in the end, pay it.” As a railroad director, he undoubtedly knew whereof he spoke. Like the salesman’s expense account—which included an overcoat, although it didn’t show—the freight and passenger rates also include the franchise taxes, which tend to increase the cost of everything we eat, everything we wear, every article of use or adornment in the home, every portion of the material required in building the house, which ultimately has its effect on the rent the tenant must pay. In the light of these facts it would seem that, instead of there being question as to “who pays the taxes,” the problem is to discover the man who does not pay taxes in some form.

Again, there are thousands of Americans who do not own one dollar’s worth of real estate, and many of them very few household goods, but who have a birthright in this free land by reason of descent from the heroes who pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor for the liberties we now enjoy; who fought and bled and died for the principle of equal rights, no taxation without representation, and who established upon this continent a “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

And the men of ’61! Have they not as much right to a voice and vote in the affairs of the nation as those who remained at home and laid the foundations of a fortune during that critical period? Had the soldier remained at home, perhaps he too might now be a heavy taxpayer, or tax-dodger. But he answered the nation’s call in the hour of need, he sacrificed his opportunities and offered his life upon the altar of his country. And, if he escaped with his life, he returned home, after years of privation, suffering and hardship, probably ruined in health or crippled for life, compelled to make a new start. Has he not discharged his obligation to his country?

Who are the men who would rob an American of his birthright, who insist that none but property owners should vote or hold office while all others—the payers of rents, of the tariff, of the internal revenue, of franchise and stamp taxes, etc.—should be disfranchised? Can they show a better title than the men, or their descendants, who do the work in time of peace and the fighting in time of war, but who may not have been able to secure any real property—honestly or otherwise?

The Constitution of the United States provides that no man shall be deprived of his right to vote on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude. What right have we to attempt to deprive any man of that privilege because he does not own property and pay “direct” taxes?

Mettius Curtius said that “Rome’s best wealth was her patriotism.” Yet that patriotism was deadened and destroyed by privilege and class distinction, and Rome fell. Patriotism is unquestionably the best wealth of any nation; but it cannot be aroused or fostered in a republic by dividing the people into classes, the rulers and the ruled, on the basis of ownership of property.

The success, progress and safety of this republic rests upon the contentment of the whole people, and that contentment depends upon justice and fair dealing. And every citizen, “unless he goes naked, eats grass, and lives in a hole in the ground,” is a taxpayer to a greater or less extent, according to the benefits he derives. He has the same interests in the national welfare; the same responsibilities; is entitled to equal rights and privileges before the law; and when we have fully realized the fact we will have established a higher standard of citizenship, we will each have more respect for ourselves and for one another, and a deeper, truer love and higher regard for our country and its institutions.

Their Joke on the President

Davenport, in N. Y. Evening Mail

Our Uncommon Carriers

Bart, in Minneapolis Journal

Sick ’em!

Macauley, in N. Y. World

Letters From The People

Our readers are requested to be as brief as possible in their welcome letters to the Magazine, as the great number of communications daily received makes it impossible to publish all of them or even to use more than extracts from many that are printed. Every effort, however, will be made to give the people all possible space for a direct voice in the Magazine, and this Department is freely open to them.

J. D. Steele, Charleston, W. Va.

I have been a reader of your Magazine since its first issue, and while I partly agree with Mr. George H. Steele, Rockham, S. D., that none of us are perfect, I admire you for having the courage of your convictions, and it would be impossible to estimate the good your publication has all ready done.

As a remedy for the evils existing, as set forth by Mr. Bert H. Belford, Widners, Ark., I would suggest that our poor, ignorant, down-trodden farmers in the South get posted. There certainly is no reason for any grown up man of the present generation not being able to read, and almost every daily and weekly newspaper would put the most ignorant backwoodsman in possession of the facts which Mr. Belford states the farmers are ignorant of.

I believe I have never seen a letter from this state, but West Virginia hasn’t waked up yet. She is always behind in everything except graft.

May you live long and continue the good work you have undertaken!

A. J. Jones, Parlier, Cal.

Tom Watson’s Magazine is one of the greatest educators of the age, stands prominent in its class, is fearless, bold and decisive, is just what the people want. Every Populist should read it and give it the widest circulation possible.

Watson’s editorials are great and to the point. The Letters from the People are very interesting. Would be pleased to hear from our workers throughout the United States every month through the columns of Tom Watson’s Magazine. In regard to the work in California, we are preparing our petition for a place on the ballot, and will have a People’s Party ticket in this State this coming election. Our slogan is: “The middle of the road now and forever!” We take no part in any other party in existence, or coming into existence. Let us profit by past experience. The people here, regardless of party, are ready to accept our principles. You may hear something drop in California in 1908. We have a press ready to join us at once. Let us get busy at once. Brothers, the fields are white for harvest.

G. S. Floyd.

The lucid manner in which you expose the evils of our banking system should convince any one not blinded by ignorance or prejudice of the evils lurking therein, even as at present conducted, but if they secure the additional special privileges that they seek, what may we expect?

Brother Starkey of Nebraska who writes discouragingly in the December number should take heed, as the worm has turned in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and one may hope and believe that your efforts have helped to produce that result.

I was in Kansas in the early seventies when the horde of bogus Greenback editors, shipped out from New York and New England with rolls of Wall Street money, bought up the Greenback press throughout the West, pretending loyalty to the principles until secure in possession, when the hireling traitors came out in their true colors and the Greenback press vanished like mist before the noonday sun.

The President’s eulogy of the pension office is worth no more than his certificate of character to Paul Morton. To judge from observation and the star-chamber methods of that bureau one would conclude that it is run primarily as a factor in politics, and that the only criterion for the grade and tenure of a pension is the whim or discretion of an irresponsible official. Evidently the system is rotten and needs overhauling or revolutionizing. From the nature of the service it is doubtless true that irregularities are inherent therein, but certainly there is room for improvement.

Conventionality, a parent of aristocracy, is responsible for the misfortune of Midshipman Meriweather; herein we see one of the evils of militarism; the discipline they recommend so highly is the discipline of an underling, and this is mainly why they desire it.

Hurrah for Hearst!

You give Henry George, Jr., a severe prod in the current number. The single tax is sprung by the plutocrats when they wish to confuse and demoralize the reform forces.

Nelson D. Stilwell, Yonkers, N. Y.

The non-appearance of the February number of your magazine caused me genuine concern. I stand by you, every inch, in what you advocate and teach, and wish the circle of your readers might be extended many fold. I first had my attention called to the present evil condition of things by reading Lloyd’s “Wealth vs. Commonwealth,” and that but paved the way for further reading and investigation until my present condition of freedom from the bondage of ignorance has been attained.

I have observed the trend of things for ten years last past and confess that instead of improvement and reform, I see a steady progress towards further enslavement. What will be the end of it all? I am beginning to doubt the maintenance of society and law and order if the entrenched forces attempt to maintain their control. God forbid that our country should be baptized again with blood. But upon the heads of these “fools and blind” men be it, who cannot see the handwriting on the wall.

Your articles on finance and money interest me and absorb all my attention and edify me very much. Your Magazine has a purpose back of it, and no one will give a more ready acquiescence than the writer.

To be a reformer is to align oneself with the noblemen of bygone days whose hearts throbbed for the people. No greater example could be found than Christ, whose kingdom is called “the times of Reformation.”

Permit me to bid you God-speed.

Horace C. Keefe, Wallula, Kan.

I have somewhere said “this is the decade of the three Toms”—Tom Watson, Tom Johnson, and Tom Lawson. They are each or all likely to leave lasting footprints on the century, and I’m anxious that my Tom’s shall not be the least. I say “my” because Tom Watson stands for all that the country—if not the world—must come to, to have peace and answer the daily Christian pleadings—that “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven”; to be His will it must embody all that the doctrine of brotherly love contemplates; that is ideal, that is Populism. The other Toms stand for that part of the whole they contemplate or are willing to concede from a more or less selfish standpoint. Your Magazine is startlingly convincing in its arguments and facts—but, my dear fellow, it lacks that dignity that a Presidential candidate for a great principle should command. I know your excuse will be that your appeal to the masses must be in such style—DON’T DO IT.

It is the aggressive intelligent few that shapes the destinies of countries, and that will be so with ours; if the reverse were true, why does not the labor class have 50 or more, the farmers 100 or more, the socialists a like number of members in Congress? Such a result would show intelligence and a hope that something would result. Cut out such queries as—Why the negro maids? Deductions and conclusions are debatable but not style. The writer is one of the martyrs for the cause and has been your ardent admirer and well wisher. There is no question as to the ultimate outcome—though you and I may not be permitted to enter in.

W. E. Arrant, Alto, Tex.

I read and will say that your Magazine is interesting and entertaining in many respects, and I admire your ability and style in showing up the evilness and corruption of this age, which no doubt is doing good in the way of educating the readers thereof on the main cause of the present economical and industrial conditions that now confronts the whole people and oppresses the poor that labor and toil that they may share a small portion of their labor: while the rich revel in riches and the poor live in poverty.

I have been a student for several years, studying the economic conditions, the causes and effects of present conditions. The more I read and learn of the causes and effects, the more I wonder how and why the masses of the people have been so completely deceived so long.

I have been a Populist for several years. Was discouraged and disgusted with the fusion act in 1896, and since that time I began to read and study the Socialist doctrine to find out what they had to offer as a remedy for the whole people. Through this search for knowledge I found that the Populist Party was only a reform measure dealing with the effects and only a national movement, while the Socialist Party is international, and goes to the root of the cause of the unjust system of exploitation, and means the emancipation and freedom of the whole human family—a plan and system by which one can not rob another by a plan of legalized system of robbery. It means a system to be established upon earth by which one can live for all and all for one. It means that we shall establish a righteous system by which one nation shall not have its hands at another’s throat for pelf. It means a system by which it will be possible for all Christians to live a pure Christian life and practice the Golden Rule in fact and truth.

I realize the error of having more than one party representing the interest and prosperity of the whole laboring and working people; therefore, judging between the two, the Populist and the Socialist, have cast my lot with the Socialists, and expect to make the fight for justice and emancipation for wage slavery in the Socialist Party.

I appreciate your position and hope that you will accomplish much good with your valuable Magazine in the way of educating the people. I fail to see how you can ever expect to help to finally free the laboring people from economic bondage of slavery, without joining the Socialist Party. You have asked the people to give their ideas as to what they think about the existing conditions. I have given my views as I see them. I can realize no permanent hopes for relief outside of the Socialist and the co-operative commonwealth.

Harry Partington, City.

I took the publication since the first number and today I have in the house only the December copy, as I want to get everybody to read them that will and thereby have persuaded several to buy them, and you can depend on me to continue to do so, and will try and get others to do so. I look at it that I am in the city and can get it at the news-dealers with more certainty than as a yearly subscriber.

What I think of Tom Watson’s Magazine can never be told. I would like it semi-monthly, but I know I shall have to wait possibly some time before that comes. Dear sir, believe me, I am a very sincere believer and practicer of his doctrine and have been since the Democratic party undertook to carry the 16 to 1 doctrine under the auspices of W. J. B. of Nebraska. Sorry Billy failed then and 1904.

Hurrah for W. R. Hearst, but the money power is too strong yet. But hammer at them and teach us to be steadfast.

David Meiselas, Brooklyn, N. Y.

I have at last determined to congratulate you upon the success you have made with your Magazine. It is, beyond any doubt, good work. In reality I can hardly think to write all the praise the editorials are worth. I enjoy them as I would some classic by Shakespeare, or some scientific work by Darwin. The more I read them, the more I like them. They are digestible; and talk about brain food—it is the best.

Yes, Thomas E. Watson should be well considered as a champion for the cause of the people. Either he is a second Hearst or Hearst is a second Watson. They are so much alike in their fights for the people you can hardly tell which is which.

Over here in New York we are having a grand time, viz:

Murphy telling things about McClellan and vice versa. The big insurance grafters howling for more. Mr. Ivins telling things about the “reform grafter,” Mr. District Attorney, etc., etc.

Abraham Lincoln said we should have a “government of the people, by the people and for the people.” I must say we are living up to it, in New York—nit. We are having “a government of McCarren, by McClellan and for Murphy.” Great government, is it not?

If this is not the age of wonder, I don’t know what. But, Mr. Watson, keep up your steady work; don’t forget the Hon. Platt and Depew, the former our Chinese advocate and president of the largest express company; the latter the champion lobbyist of them all. Don’t forget our generous Senator Knox (with his generous rate bill). There are many more whom you should prey upon.

G. White, Enloe, Tex.

Yes “I will help”; it is one of the very, very few papers and magazines that I can heartily indorse from the old Liberty Bell to the last sheet of its reading matter; the gags and brakes that are applied to other editors, or a great majority, at least, disqualify them as editors.

The things that we most need to know are suppressed and the reading public are kept in the background on the most vital questions of the day. There is a mighty storm gathering in this once glorious republic; its muttering thunders can be distinctly heard. The glaring, forked tongues of wrath can be plainly seen over the tops of the distant hills that hedge in our eighty million people.

The old ship on which we have sailed thus far is out of repair; the pilot asleep, or cares nothing for the safety of his passengers; the captain has bought most of the crew; the breakers are just ahead.

I know not how my fellow-countrymen may feel over the affair, but for your humble Texas farmer it’s a sad picture. The light that once burned so bright not only lit up North America from Alalch Mountain to the Rockies, but crossed both oceans and gave to the world an object lesson of what a free people could do.

The same light guided Prescott at Bunker Hill. It was the never-setting star at Valley Forge that led Washington to the gate of glory at Yorktown. Is it true that the territory bequeathed to us (“and it was paid in blood”) is to be betrayed into the hands of the enemy for the small pittance of thirty pieces of silver? Is the money-bag of America to rule or ruin? Or will those who think and yet have a chance to act demand a settlement? Tom Watson’s Magazine is one that is asking for a settlement. May the day soon come.

N. M. Hollingsworth, Terry, Miss.

I see that you contemplate enlarging and improving the Magazine. I can see the place for enlarging, but not improving in the subject matter, except by enlarging and perhaps improving the material, etc. It is as good as human agency can make it. I only wish it could be read by every man, woman, boy and girl in the land. It is such an educator as we need, and it is being read by a great number.

I was at our county cotton-grower’s meeting last Saturday and was delighted to find so many reading your splendid Magazine. I secured a subscriber and have promise of several more which I will forward in a day or two. I have seen your letter to the Atlanta Journal in which there is enough exposure of Clark Howell’s perfidy, etc., to consign him to the garbage heap.

If you think it worth while in the Educational Department of the next number of your Magazine, tell us what effect bucket shops and trade exchanges have on the price of such produce as are dealt in.

Wishing you and your Magazine all the good that can come to a mortal and a great publication, I remain your devoted friend and admirer.

S. T. Z. Champion, Sterrett, Pa.

I am a constant worker and reader of this great reform movement and have been for the past twelve years, and have voted the ticket straight till they got me to straddle W. J. B. one time and I got such a fall I fear I will never live to get over it. I am getting old. I am one of Robert E. Lee’s old web-foot boys and stacked my old Enfield rifle at Appomattox Court House on the 9th of April, 1865. It looks like a miracle to see the fingers pushing a pen that pulled the trigger 40 years ago, and yet when I think of the blood that was shed for this great nation’s freedom and to see it being stolen away from us by those money knaves it makes me feel like I am just 16 years old. I have nine boys, all Populists. Oh, how I want us to live to get at least one more vote for that grand and noble boy, Thomas E. Watson, for our next President. Don’t you all feel me rejoicing over New York’s election, but I fear they will not let Hearst have his seat as mayor of New York. I have just read Watson’s answer to Hoke Smith’s letter. It is a grand reply.

You can count on me when the last roll is called. I’ll be there. Yours for reform.

W. H Thomas, Fairhaven, Mo.

After spending 25 years in the thickest of the fray I could hardly go back to the “wallowing in the mire.” No, my brother, I never say die, but am still pegging away. Yes, I am a Populist. I am a rampant Socialist and I think that most of my old comrades have followed my example and I can see no reason why all Populists should not do the same. You know, my brother, that the Socialists are growing as no other party ever grew and they are bound to become a dominant factor in politics in the near future. It is evolution. Reforms do not go backward. The Populists have done a grand work, but Socialism is inevitable and I would rejoice to see all old Populists get aboard the band wagon. You are doing a noble work and to show you that I appreciate it I am going to send you a dollar for the magazine and 50 cents for that fountain pen, although I can illy afford it, as I am 65 years old and dependent on my labor for the support of my family.

Don’t Teddy, the Trust-buster, make you tired? I think he is the biggest fraud that ever sat in the Presidential chair.

Wishing you long life and abundant success, I am with you till the battle is won.

James A. Logsden, Moline, Ill.

I have read with great interest the editorial, “Tolstoi and the Land,” in the October number of Tom Watson’s Magazine, and while I cannot agree with you in the position you take upon the land question, I accredit you with sincerity and honesty of purpose. In common with many others of us, you are giving of your time, energy and substance, to bring remedial justice and economic truth to human society.

Being fair-minded and in earnest pursuit of economic truth and equity, you will, I am sure, accept honest criticisms of your opinions.

In the outset you propound three questions, which are as follows:

To negate these questions you call upon history to bear witness:

With this I am heartily in accord. It has been rightly said:

But history does not prove, as you assert, that civilization exists as a result of private ownership of land. These are your words:

In passing upon this and statements appearing in subsequent paragraphs, I think I shall have fully answered your three previous questions. When it “became a matter of self-interest for some individual to improve the land” was it because of his ownership or of his security of possession? When you admit that “as long as each individual felt that his parcel of land might go out of his possession at the next regular division there was no incentive to improvement,” you have admitted the latter. “Not until the individual became assured that the benefit of his labor would accrue to himself did the waste become a farm and the hovel a house.” What was his assurance—private ownership or security of possession? That it was not private ownership is proven by the tenant system in vogue in every civilized country in the world. Obviously it is not private ownership that impelled the landless tenant to go upon land owned by others, clear away the forest and “make the land a farm.” Then what is his assurance? Security of possession—the knowledge that he will be left unmolested to enjoy the “product of his labor.” This tenant enjoys his security of possession because of the tribute he has been compelled to pay to the owner to leave him unmolested in his possession and enjoyment. Could he not be as secure in his possession if the land were owned and the exaction made by all the people?

Therefore, “if the history of the world shows anything at all, it shows this,” that civilization has developed and progress has gone forward, not by reason of private ownership of land, but in spite of it.

Your assertion that there would be no improvement under such a condition as you mention is self-evident. But this, instead of being an argument against the Henry George philosophy, is, in fact, an argument in its favor.

What Mr. George does propose I shall endeavor to make clear in subsequent paragraphs when I touch upon your hypothesis regarding the primitive tribesmen.

Before passing to this, however, I desire to direct your attention to your observation that “the right of each citizen to hold as his own began with the laborer who claimed the product of his labor.” The convincing power of this statement is lacking, because you have failed to prove to us that without private ownership of land man can not “claim the products of his labor.” As a matter of fact, you can not furnish such proof because it is manifestly untrue. Before the savage, wandering in the primeval forest, ever dreamed of laying claim to any parcel of the soil as his own, did he not so lay claim to the fish and game he took? Did he not so lay claim to the fruits and berries he gathered? Did not the tribesman who followed his flocks and herds over the plains so lay claim to them as the product of his labor? Without ever a thought of the private ownership of the soil, he had produced them as truly as the stockman of today produces the cattle he sends to market, and he valiantly disputed the right of any person to any share of them. Most truly he who labors is entitled to labor’s product, but to say that in order to claim such product it is necessary to privately own land is to fly into the face of obvious fact. How many of the wage earners of today are land owners? How much is added to the wages of those few who are, by reason of this fact? You yourself raised the point that it is not necessary to own land in order to fleece the public, laborer, land-owner and all out of their earnings. If this be true how do you harmonize it with your former claim that it was private ownership of land that first made it possible for the laborer to claim and retain the product of his labor.

I come now to the case of the “score of tribesmen” of whom you speak. While the score were fishing, hunting, drinking or gambling, the one cleared the wild land, fenced out the rest and claimed it as his land. But, in fact, did this make it his land? By virtue of what did it become his land? You doubtless had this question in mind when you attempted to answer it in the following:

What was his ultimate purpose in putting his labor into the farm? Was it not the products which his labor, applied to the land, would bring forth? You say “he made it a farm.” He found it a farm awaiting his efforts. You will agree that he was entitled only to the result of his own labor. In fact, this is the truth for which you are contending. What were the results of his labor, the farm or the products? Manifestly the latter. These he enjoyed. Upon what possible ground, then, could he go still further and claim also the soil as belonging to himself and his heirs forever?

Moreover, you will concede that before this tribesman determined to abandon the spear and the rod and become a farmer, this piece of ground could have been taken by any of the other twenty men; in other words it was common. It must be further conceded that in casting about to find a suitable location for his farm, he chose the site which offered the best natural advantages relative to fuel, water, fertility of soil, and proximity to the tribal bartering place. At this point let us carry your illustration still further and assume that all or part of the other twenty tribesmen decided to become farmers also.

In the same manner as their forerunner, they look about for the best location, and the one offering the best advantages. But it is taken, and the others must take second, third or fourth place, according to who gets located first. But these men have equal rights. Why should some of them enjoy the exclusive ownership and possession of those sites which give them natural advantages over the others? Manifestly, they should not. But how can they equalize these advantages? Just to the extent that farmer number one holds advantage over farmer number twenty-one—just to that extent should number one compensate the little community as a whole for the privilege which he enjoys. And so with all the others. A community is forming, with its natural demand for revenue for common purposes. Here is the natural revenue. Here lies the fundamental principle which political economists call the Law of Rent. Here reposes the very essence of the law of compensation. Here also is found the basis principle of economic justice, which, traced to its last analysis, as civilization advances, is capable of developing the highest expression of human society. Here is the answer to your question,

It was not “just that the twenty idle tribesmen should take away from the one industrious tribesman that which his labor had created.” Neither was it just that he should rob the other twenty when they came to exercise their equal right to the use of the land, as he manifestly would if he were left to the exclusive use of the soil, or the best portion thereof, without compensating those he has excluded.

Let him retain possession of the farm and his products under these conditions, and you have, not private ownership of land, but common ownership.

Another point that you have obviously overlooked, and one that goes to the heart of the social problem, is the element of land monopoly. Your tribesman was not satisfied with selecting the best land, and fencing so much thereof as he could till by his own exertion, but he fenced in vast areas that he could not use, and also claimed that as “his own.” By so doing he not only enjoyed the fruits of his own labor, but forced the other twenty to share their products with him as a tribute for using that part of “his land” which he himself could not, or did not, care to use. You may say that they had equal opportunities with him to get first choice. Even if this were granted, it makes no difference in principle. The fact still remains that he has the power to wring unwilling tribute from them. Only one could have the best, and though his contemporaries may have been justly punished for their lack of foresight—which I do not admit—there is yet another side to the question. What is the status of future generations in relation to this proposition? Are they guilty of sleeping upon their rights when all the land has been taken before they were born, or are they born into conditions which they have had no voice in making?

If your lonely tribesman, for whose welfare you manifest such solicitation, had been content with the amount of land he could utilize to good advantage, had he been willing to contribute his just share to the common expense, and had he been sufficiently just to recognize and respect the equal rights of his compeers, the common would yet have remained after all had been supplied. What was true of the primitive state is true today in our highly organized society. Shifting conditions make no changes in universal principles.

“Society” (did not) “as a matter of self-preservation admit the principle of private ownership of land.” It admitted it because it did not know a better plan—because it did not know the Laws of Rent and of Compensation.

You deny that “great estates were the ruin of Italy.” “Before a few could buy up all the land there must have been some great cause at work, some advantage which the few held at the expense of the many.” “What was that advantage?” you ask. No better answer can be given to this query than to refer you back to your own illustration of the farmer tribesman. Did he buy the land? You say he “fenced it in and claimed it as his own.” In like manner did all land pass into private control, each individual claiming far more than he could use. After all the land of Italy had been “claimed” and enclosed, or that of any given community thereof, the power that these land claimers held over subsequent comers is obvious. The only asset of the individual without material wealth is his labor, which is only one—the active—factor in production. Under circumstances such as the foregoing, he is debarred from the passive factor—land—and can apply his labor to it only by paying tribute to those who have claimed it.

In the circle of the human family, those endowed with keen, unerring foresight are comparatively few. It cannot be gainsaid that those few, knowing that land is fixed in quantity—which cannot be expanded as population increases, and as demand for it increases—saw in the early periods, as they see today, what a powerful advantage they could wield over their fellows by “fencing in” all the available land—by fencing out, not only the cattle, as you put it, but also their fellow-men. Is it not plain that this was the source of the power of which you complain? Was it not this that furnished the advantage you name? Can you not see the stream of unearned tribute wrung from the hands of honest labor constantly flowing into the coffers of these land owners? And seeing it, can you then maintain that great estates were not the ruin of Italy?

What made the “ruling class of Rome, that had concentrated into their own hands all the tremendous powers of the State?” What gave them the power to “fix the taxes” and enact the “infernal laws” which you rightly contend ought to have been repealed? “Ah!” you say,“they controlled the money.” By what power did they come to control the money? Was it by a power inherent within themselves, or was it not the power which they derived from the corner which they held upon the natural revenue which they diverted from the public treasury into their own coffers, thus making it necessary to provide for the common expense by unjust taxes upon the products of labor?

“They controlled the money.” But what is money? Is it the means or the end? Is it not merely a labor-saving invention to facilitate trade? Is it not money only by common consent? Is it not merely a commodity converted for convenience into a medium of exchange? You make the point that by controlling the money, they controlled commodities. But if they had not controlled the land, which is the source of all commodities—even the money itself—how could they have controlled the money?

Can you not see that men divorced from the toil and permitted to produce only on the terms of some other person are forced into the labor market, to vie with each other in a competition that grows keener and more vicious as a population increases?

You say that “the power to fix taxes is the power to confiscate.” The very opposite is true. The power to confiscate is the power to tax. Give that power to one class and what more does it want? Let that class confiscate land values, which you agree are naturally common property, and you give it the power to rob its victim, not merely to the “limit of their capacity to pay,” but to literal starvation, if they choose to carry the principle of private ownership of land to its logical conclusion. For certainly to recognize the right to private property in land is to recognize the owner’s right to do with his land what he pleases. To recognize this is to recognize the land-owner’s right to deny to the landless either the use of his land, or any of its products, on any terms whatsoever. Thus, in carrying the principle of private ownership of land to its logical conclusion, and recognizing it as a just principle, is to sanction literal murder. Can a system that has this for its ultimate, be other than a vicious system, even though it may never be carried to that extent? It is by means of this vicious system that human sufferings are augmented by a thousand fold and the sum of human happiness is correspondingly diminished.

Do not the foregoing facts prove to you that your statement that “usury is the vulture that has gorged itself upon the vitals of nations since the dawn of time,” is economically untrue? Is it not clear that usury is only an effect of a deeper-seated cause inherent in land monopoly?

As proof that the universal condition of inequality is not inherent in land monopoly, you say that the Rothschilds and other “kings of high finance” do not “buy up vast domains that they may be served by a lot of tenants.” But when touching upon this phase of the question, you should always bear in mind that all land is not farm land. The power of the coal barons to exploit does not arise so much from the fact that they own large tracts of land, as from the fact that it bears large deposits of coal. Nor does their power to exploit affect merely the miners of coal. Coal is a public necessity, and the ownership by these barons of a comparatively small area of land places them in a position to place—by reason of unreasonable prices—a tax upon every user of coal.

What is the basis of the railroad’s power for unrestrained exploitation? Unquestionably it arises from its exclusive franchises, inherent in its rights of way.

Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan and others of his class do not derive their unearned revenues from their power to tax. But whence this taxing power which affects every user of their several products?—Monopoly of franchises, monopoly of mineral resources, such as mines, quarries, etc.? What is the source of the Standard Oil monopoly?—Its ownership of oil land or enough thereof to force independent owners to sell on the company’s terms, and its consequent power to force railroad discriminations in its favor? Where did the beef trust and other industrial corporations derive their monopoly power? Railroad rebates—“the big pistol”—railroads with their monopoly franchises. And the railroad monopoly and these other breeds will be extinct in an instant. End land monopoly and make railroad franchises common property and the railroad monopoly will be at an end. Had not the Amalgamated Copper Co. controlled the majority of the copper-bearing lands of the world, “The Story of Amalgamated” would never have been told.

Referring again to the railroads, was it not largely the great land grants donated to them by our Government that were the beginning of their power? These grants operated in two ways to the advantage of the railroads. First, they greatly increased the wealth of the railroads, and, second, they diminished the power of the people by diminishing the area of land open to settlement.

“Land is plentiful and it is cheap. The country is dotted with abandoned farms that can be had almost for the asking.” You say “almost for the asking.” This implies that he who takes these farms must pay something to him who has “abandoned” them. Why almost? Why not take them, as in the case of the primitive tribesman, without asking? You state that they have been abandoned because the owner could not make a decent living upon them. Then why make the condition of the next owner more hopeless by levying tribute against him for the use of a worthless farm?

Make land common property, safe-guard the interests of all by assuring to each land-holder perpetual use, providing he pay his equitable share into the common treasury—which in each case would be the increment of value. Then “abolish all other forms of taxation.” This will secure every one in the enjoyment of his labor’s product, will abolish monopoly and the individual or corporate taking power, vicious tariffs, and all. This is all you have demanded.

Your demand is a just one, but—as I trust you may be brought to see—your remedy is superficial and cannot be made effective. You must dig in deeper soil, else your laudable efforts are vain. The abrogation of offensive legislative enactments and the enactment of other statutes dealing with effects will avail nothing. Nothing save the rooting out of the mother of evils can possibly accomplish the end for which you are so courageously and manfully striving.

Your work is a noble one, and its power for good is measured only by the number of people whom you can reach. I admonish you to give the land question thorough and painstaking investigation. I trust you will bear with me for what may seem excessive frankness. But you are not looking for bouquets, but simple, unembossed truth. When I say to you that in my opinion you have not familiarized yourself with the philosophy you are attempting to refute, you will accept this criticism in the broad view of public interest.

I have gone into greater detail in my comments upon your editorial than I expected to go in the outset, but it has seemed advisable, in order to get a clear view of all the points raised by you. However, I trust I have not gone beyond the limit of the space that may be available.

Editor Independent: Here are a few figures for men who think.

In the year 1901 there was manufactured in the United States thirteen billions of dollars’ worth of goods. Authority, Secretary Shaw.

The average rate of duties upon imported merchandise is 52 per cent. Authority, Walter Wellman.

Now, fifty-two per cent of thirteen billions of dollars is $6,770,000,000, which the present tariff of duties authorizes the manufacturers to collect of the American people each year, if they can. It actually enables them to collect a large portion of it—but not all. The probabilities are they collect about two-thirds. They collect nothing for goods exported.

There is honest competition on some classes of goods, such as flour and the cheaper cotton fabrics, and perhaps some others, that prevents them from collecting it of the people. So, in order to be fair, we will cut this sum in halves.

We then have the sum of $3,385,000,000, which is considerably less than is probably collected. In order not only to be fair, but to be absolutely safe, we will cut off the $385,000,000, and we have the sum of three billions of dollars—three thousand millions—collected by the manufacturers and paid by the people as the result of the Dingley tariff bill.

Bear in mind, that this is over and above what is collected in duties for the support of government. Bear in mind, this money is paid to the manufacturers, the capitalist and not to the laborers. Bear in mind that if this three billions of dollars were divided among the employees of the manufacturers, it would give to them something less than six millions of laborers a little over $500 apiece. Bear in mind, that this would pay the entire labor bill of all the manufacturers of the United States.

Then ask yourselves: Is this state of things the result of the intelligence or genius of the people? Or is it the result of misinformation or stultification?

E. S. Gilber.

W. F. Short, Eurekaton, Tenn.

I am well pleased with the Magazine and think it is superior to any other magazine that I ever read. It is just what I expected our brave and noble Tom to get up. Yes, the Magazine is all right. The language is beautiful, forcible and courteous. I was a subscriber from the first issue and have sent in my renewal for this year. I have more confidence in Tom Watson than in any man who has tried to right the wrongs of the people. I believe him to be so conscientious that he would not sacrifice principles for any office in the gift of the people, and I do wish we had one thousand men like our true and honest Tom to battle for justice and rights of the people. I stand for the principles advocated by Jefferson, Jackson and Lincoln.

I can make but one suggestion for the Magazine, and that is to place it in a better wrapper, so it will not be lost in the mail.

R. Brown, Buck Knob, Ark.

I am no writer and no scholar, but I write a few lines to you in order to congratulate you on your Magazine. I think it the best magazine on earth and the Missouri World the best paper and the most patient publishers on earth. I could not have the patience to publish a paper and send it out among so many prejudiced block-headed farmers and laborers and get so little return for my labor. I live in the mountains of Arkansas and I have been lashing with my tongue and knocking at these old Mossbacks with T. E. Watson Magazines and the Missouri World for one or two years. Some of them won’t read a reform paper when it is given to them, but I give T. E. Watson’s Magazine and the Missouri World to them all the same. On some of them the moss I see is loosening. I am going to try to organize a club in our township shortly. I am for government ownership of all the railroads, coal mines, oil fields and all manufactures that take a company to run and government money, and no one man to own more than one hundred and sixty acres of land and not that unless he lives on and cultivates the same. I will fight for all this and more as long as I live and have a dollar that my family can get along without.

I am nearly sixty-four years old and have eight sons, all of whom will vote the Populist ticket and all be old enough in 1908 to vote, and will vote the Populist ticket.

Stephen Lewis, Martin’s Ferry, O.

Your article in the January issue of your Magazine in regard to the high-handed methods of the U. S. Steal trust in obtaining property from defenceless people has been read with much interest, and I approve of your bold and fearless manner in attacking unlawful corporations and lawless promoters.

That part in your article on the Steal trust where you raise the point as to whether the men who demolished the widow’s home were union men or not was noted in particular and I venture the opinion that they were not, because Pittsburg, with all its much vaunted prosperity is and has been recognized by union workmen as the cradle from which that disreputable class of workmen known as scabs have come. Pittsburg harbors more scabs than any other city in the country, regardless of size. The man who made the Steal trust possible operated his mills at Homestead with scabs at the sacrifice of human life and forced a lower scale of wages upon the men with the state militia. Yet this man is regarded by a great many so-called respectable people as a philanthropist because he is erecting monuments to himself in the form of libraries in different parts of the country.

M. G. Carlton, Zolfo, Fla.

I appreciate the Magazine and feel that it is one of the best. I am a Populist and took great pleasure in casting my vote for you at the last election, knowing at the time that the chances for success were bad. Yet I cast the vote with as great pride and satisfaction as if I had known you would be elected. I know how to sympathize with a defeated candidate as I myself ran on the Populist ticket for Representative against the noted Zuba King—the wealthiest man in De Soto County and one connected with one or more of the best banks of the country, and got beaten, of course, but I was not whipped but beaten by the money crowd and I believe as strongly in the principles of the Populist Party as I ever did. I am just the same today.

W. Scott Samuel, Pawhuska, Okla.

Thinking that Tom Watson’s Magazine might like to hear from a locality where politics “rules the court, the camp, the grove,” I relate this little incident. A few weeks ago, when the town sites of the Osage reservation were to be opened for sale and an auctioneer appointed to sell the lots, the news was published that a certain man, Amos Ewing, had received the appointment of auctioneer. Now, the reputation of this man, Ewing, is a stench in the nostrils of every honest man in Oklahoma. From petty defalcations to embezzlement of trust funds, which he was forced to disgorge, comes the reputation of the versatile and oleaginous Amos. And so, when it was known that our great “square deal” bear hunter had through his secretary named Amos for this promotion of trust and emolument, it was not long before the mails were loaded with protests from different localities in Oklahoma where the seductive Amos had exercised his peculiar grafts. Did it do any good? Alas for the square deal! When the sale of lots commenced at Pawhuska this creature, Ewing was in the position that should have been filled by some one at least not a self-convicted grafter, and he’s there yet, and all the protests, charges, etc., filed against him are as though they never happened. How’s that for the “square deal”?

In conclusion, permit me to compliment Tom Watson’s Magazine for its fearless exposé of moral rottenness in high places. Hoping the good work will go on, I desire to share in the glory of the time when its principles shall prevail.

Malcolm B. Webster, Atlantic City, N. J.

I have been an interested and delighted reader of your Magazine for some time past, and feel that I am getting from it a political, social and economic education such as I should not have known where to look for else.

While still but very young, I have long felt that I could say upon the above subjects:

Now I begin to feel that there is a back door used by the “powers behind the throne,” and that your Magazine leads one to it to observe the edifying spectacle of the manipulation of the puppets by the powers.

James Porges, Chicago, Ill.

Keep up the good work. You have the support of thousands in your efforts to awaken the lethargic American public to the fact that they are being robbed with the aid of our corrupt laws and the special privilege Government.

T. B. Rogers, Logansport, Ind.

I don’t know how to praise that book enough. I think it is the strongest political document we have. Surely, if we could get the voters of the nation to read it, we would have reform, for if any reasonable person reads it he can’t help but endorse those principles. I have been loaning those magazines I received to my neighbors, and they all acknowledge that the book tells the truth. I think I can get up a club in the near future, for those that read them promise me they will subscribe for it.

As for myself, I don’t need any literature on the subject, for I have been in the front ranks of the movement ever since 1872. I was a Peter Cooper man and have marched along in that line ever since. Never voted for anything else. When I cannot vote the Populist ticket, I don’t vote at all. There were a few of us that started the movement here in Cass County, Indiana, and we worked hard and spent a good deal of money. We had some of our best speakers here to help us. We had the Hon. Jesse Harper of Danville, Ill., N. H. Motsinger of Sholes, Ind., Judge S. W. Williams of Vincennes, Ind., and a number of other good speakers, and the result of our work was that we cast over 900 votes for the Populist county ticket. We felt very much encouraged, but when the next campaign came—well, you know what happened to our Party.

We are right and all we can do is to keep on fighting. I am in favor of staying in the fight until the last ditch is taken.

I will close by wishing you great success.

Thomas Knox, Bennett, Neb.

I appreciate reading your Magazine. I also appreciate your manly and courageous way of putting the truth before your readers. My only hope is that I would like to have the pleasure of knowing that the writings of as strong a reasoner and clear thinker could enter every home of the common herd so that reason could displace prejudice or party insanity. We all regret the disconnection of that able defender of the common people, Mr. T. H. Tibbles, from the editorial columns of the Nebraska Independent. We hope for his health and his early return to Nebraska, to continue the battle for us common people. In conclusion I hope for Mr. Charles Q. De France’s health and happiness. May his labors be a power for good and light to the people. I also hope Thomas E. Watson’s health and life may be spared for many years in the good cause.

H. L. Fagin, Kansas City, Mo.

Is it not good to feel that the present wave of civic, economic and industrial righteousness seems practically certain to sweep every thing before it? There is a quiet, studious earnestness and determination everywhere existent, that portends certain and tremendous results. The best part of it is that the masses have largely been educated to the point where they no longer expect to accomplish everything in a day, but rather realize that to get even a large share of what they insistently demand they must begin in the primaries and conduct a continuous campaign.

You are doing a great work and you have your reward and will have it. Every honest and ardent spirit everywhere communes with and strengthens every other such. No more honest, open, fearless man than you is on earth today. That might be better expressed, but the meaning is there—I will let it pass.

The universal spirit of righteousness encompasses and permeates you—you are surely a part of the divinest essence. Being a man, you must like to know that other men appreciate and approve—and to the utmost. And that they do in an ever expanding circle. The days of sophistry, of deception, of class and special privileges, of municipal, state, and national corruption are rapidly passing. The people are becoming wise. They know their friends. They know who is true, despite the tremendous efforts of a press, largely subsidized to mislead and deceive. But there are newspapers and newspapers, just as there are magazines and magazines.

I need not tell you to keep on straight ahead. You couldn’t stop if you wanted to. Tell the truth just as you are doing, and as much of it as you have space for, in allopathic doses. I cannot agree with all your conclusions, nor will any thoughtful student; but in most I do most heartily concur, and I do know that all your influence is for good.

John McFord, Sheridan, N. Y.

I like your Magazine very well, but I would like it much better if you and your Magazine would come out flat-footed for Socialism. If public ownership or collective ownership of the railroads, telegraphs, etc. is a good thing for the people, why not have public ownership, or rather collective ownership, of the lands, the machinery, etc.? Political democracy without industrial democracy is futile and amounts to nothing. I had the pleasure of voting for you in ’92, and it is a matter of profound regret to me that you cannot see your way clear to step forward into the Socialist Party, where all true middle-of-the-roader Populists logically belong. Populism is a compromise, a half way measure. Socialism is the whole cheese.

John P. Thorndyke, Canaan, N. H.

You publish more real stuff than any magazine I have ever read in my life. I am sixty years of age, and we take seven other magazines, and without any exaggeration it is but justice to your efforts to say that there is by far more real, good, well-seasoned, relishable food for the digestion of the average brain, than is afforded in any other magazine I have seen. Having practiced medicine for a number of years, I have sometimes volunteered my diagnosis of the disease troubling some of our great (?) men and I flatter myself that an observance of that particular case has proven the correctness of my examination at a distance. For instance, I think the main trouble with our great Senate is constipation of the brain, which invariably forbids the entertainment of honest thought. Now I hope that some one with sufficient “sand” in his gizzard will see that every member of the present Congress and Cabinet receives a copy of your very valuable Magazine. It will be worth more to them than a post-graduate course in the schools of Rockefeller and Morgan.

John B. Bott, Grant, Pa.

To a constant and appreciative reader of Tom Watson’s Magazine (purchased monthly at the Union News Co.’s stands) it does seem strange that so great and good a man as “Tom” should, under the stimulus of praise and success or the twittering of a pert maid, really become ashamed of his familiar cognomen and his old clothes.

For two days I have been searching, here and there, high and low, for Tom Watson’s Magazine: always explaining that “Tom” has gone into “innocuous desuetude” and “Watson” has stript himself of his old clothes and donned full regulation uniform, but all to no effect.

Am hoping the new clothes won’t make Mister Watson too vain, and that at least his relations, Populist friends and host of well wishers will not fail to recognize him in his docked designation and fine regimentals.

I wish to add that it was the “Tom” that appealed to me, above all things else, when the news agent showed me No. 2 of Vol. I. and asked me if I had seen Tom Watson’s. I replied that I had not, but that “Tom” had the true flavor and I’d take a dose.

There are, I am sorry to say, Watsons big and Watsons little; Watsons wise and Watsons foolish; Watsons mediocre galore, but only one “Tom” Watson, and he seems to be, God forbid, going to the bad.

Robert L. Cooper, Savannah, Ga.

I have been, previous to the last year, what may be termed a “Tom Watson hater.” Like a lot of other “pig-heads,” I have heard the other side all the time, declining to read or look upon with reason anything you wrote or said. I was prevailed upon to read your “Napoleon.” I followed it up with “France” and “Jefferson,” together with a number of your speeches, letters and magazines. I have arrived at the conclusion that of the very few sincere men of the day, WATSON STANDS IN THE FRONT RANK.

You have my unbounded admiration and very best wishes for the splendid fight you are making for improvement of conditions in our country—especially our beloved state, Georgia. I may add that there are a great many other young men in this community who are of the same opinion.

That your books are being read is attested by the frazzled-out copies in our public library, and the difficulty one has in securing the use of them even for the short time allowed for the use of a popular book.

Aaron McDonald, Galveston, Ind.

I received a copy of the old guard news letter some time back, and was not in shape to respond at that time, and when I got in shape to, I took sick and was not able; but now as I am able and in shape I will send one dollar to help pay expenses of organizing. It seems that through this part of the country Populists are dead. There are lots that are sick on account of the rascality of the officers of the old parties, but speak to them about Populists and you can seldom get a grunt out of them. It may be a calm before the storm. Hope it is, for I think there are Independents enough in this neighborhood to cut things short when they do get at it. The hardest pull seems to be in giving up the old name. They seem to think that reform must come through their party. I have asked several how they expect to get reform when Wall Street owns the Cabinet and Senate. That is like putting the devil in the pulpit to preach the gospel.

Hoping you will meet success.

H. B. Paxton, Wheatland, Mo.

I am 66 years old, and have been in the reform movement from Cooper to Watson, except once for Bryan. Everything is being quiet with us—politics as well as everything else. We had at one time 500 Populist voters in this Hickory Co., about one-fourth of the voting strength of the county. As we haven’t any organization in the county, I haven’t much idea what our strength is at this time, but there are quite a number of true blues yet.

Your Magazine is all right. Will send my renewal soon and I assure you I will try to get others to subscribe.

T. T. Mattox, Hope, Ark.

I am still a Populist and read Watson’s Magazine. Think there are no words nor figures to enumerate or define the good effect it is having on the one big National party made up of the new parties, Democrat and Republican. There are but two National parties now—the Watson and the Swollen-tails. Good news gone to Canada and the nations of the globe.

Dear Watson, you are doing more good than if in office.

H. E. Pomeroy, Mason, Ill.

I think you are fooling away time and money. Look at William J. Bryan in the last National convention. See Judge Parker now. This nation is too wealthy to be ruled by patriots. Wall Street is the government. You can’t do anything with Wall Street. The masses have no principle above whiskey and tobacco, and the churches are in the hands of priestcraft. If you have a copy of Æsop’s Fables read about the fox and the flies.

J. A. Dahlgren, Bradshaw, Nebr.

I cannot let this opportunity go by without telling you what I think of your Magazine. It is undoubtedly the very best reform magazine now published. Your editorials certainly have the right tone. Your article on the situation in Georgia gives us Northerners new light on the subject. While we do not have the negro problem to contend with here in Nebraska, we nevertheless have the railroad question to fight over from year to year. We must pay tribute to Harriman and Hill, and other Wall Street kings, besides countless two-by-four politicians who apparently have no other aim in life than to serve the railroads and betray the people. I am glad to see that grand old man Tibbles writing for Watson’s Magazine. Before I close I must ask you to give us another story something like “Pole Baker.”

George Chapman, East Cleveland, O.

I am prompted to write you from the fact that I believe you to be the right man in the right place, and I honestly think that the seed that you are now sowing will take root and bear fruit, as they are being sown in fertile soil.

No party, or parties, can long withstand your bombardments, no matter how well fortified they may be, as your guns are loaded with facts.

W. S. Stanley, Logansville, Ga.

I feel it my duty to express that in my estimation, which I take from a national and reasonable standpoint, Tom Watson is one of the greatest Americans living and his Magazine the best I ever read.

I earnestly hope that some day not far distant, Tom Watson will be our Commander-in-Chief of our National Government.

How any honest and patriotic man can oppose the principles advocated by Tom Watson, I cannot see.

Tom Watson is a great man. Why? Because he is honest, brave, fearless and aggressive. Because he is standing for the rights of the great mass of people at large, leading them onward and upward from a Government of the privileged few to a Government of the unprivileged many.

For the last fifty years our Government has been leading more and more toward anarchy.

Tom Watson, may you live long to voice the principles of Jeffersonian Democracy!

J. J. Hall, Hutchinson, Ark.

Tom, why don’t you knock that “intrinsic value” rot into a cocked hat? I think that policy is one of the greatest barriers to progress of the masses in studying finance. The sooner they learn that value does not exist in substance but in the mind, the better. This is the first and most important fact to be learned by the student of monetary science, and when once understood all the relative facts are easy. Take a shot at it, Tom. You can make it both instructive and readable.

Yours for success.

Of course I like the Magazine.

Alfred French, Washington, D. C.

I look forward to the arrival of your Magazine every month with a great deal of interest. Other magazines I give away, but yours I do not care to part with.

I shall speak for it, have spoken for it, and very likely shall continue to stand by it so long as you condemn the discrimination made by officials in favor of the bankers. I have said for years that the men who own the railroads and the bankers rule the country.

L. R. Green, Spottsville, Ky.

I am proud of being one of the “old guard,” having marched without halting in the “middle of the road,” without ever lowering our colors or ever thinking of surrender.

Am proud of our matchless leader, Tom Watson, and his Magazine, his two-edged sword. Friends of popular government, let’s give the Magazine a million subscribers and make its editor President in 1908!

Arthur F. Mann, Brooklyn, N. Y.

The Magazine is O. K. The February number is strictly 100%. It would be cheap at 25 cents. Thank you for the sample copy received today. I’d already purchased mine of my news-dealer. However, I’ll see the sample copy is put into good hands and hope it will “work.” Mr. Watson, you are doing “us plain Americans” a world of good. Keep it up. May your life be spared to us for many years to come!

F. F. Gordy, Richland, Ga.

Aside from the fact that both Howell’s and Smith’s friends claimed the victory at the joint debate, was the further fact that Tom Watson got the greatest ovation of any. The first half of Howell’s speech brought out your name, which caused the audience to rise en masse and the applause shook the building. While I am for Smith, still I am looking beyond him to something better.

C. Will Shaffer, Olympia, Wash.

The Magazine is all right and is on the right track.

M. W. Henry, Waelder, Tex.

I am a reader of your most excellent and truly demo-republican Magazine. Our adversaries assumed the garb of angels to serve the devil in. There is not a single fundamental principle contended for by our patriotic democratic-republican forefathers contained in either the democratic or republican party platforms, but both parties are thoroughly Hamiltonized and irretrievably committed to the aristocratic British Banking and Bonding System which financiers know to be absolutely incompatible with the perpetuity of democratic institutions. All of the enemies of our free institutions are in one or the other of these parties and their bosses are engaged in making dupes of the common voters. The interests of the capitalists are the same whether North or South, and as they have complete control of both the old parties the people have no reasonable hope of relief from oppression from either. Direct legislation is essentially democratic and is what the enemies of our free institutions most fear. Its triumph will be the triumph of human liberty over plutocratic despotism. It will restore the Government into the hands of our people, from whom it has been wrested by the boodlers and grafters, prompted by conscienceless greed and avarice. A victory along this line will be a greater victory for humanity than that of Yorktown or Appomattox.

Thomas S. East, Anderson, Ind.

One of the very best magazines that I have ever read. I want to say to you that the good seed you are sowing will live long after you and I and others of the “Old Guard” have passed to the other side. And just as soon as my business matters will permit, I want to send you a large subscription list and in this way help on the good work. For I truly believe all who have the cause at heart will at this time lend their influence to the work, so that Plutocracy and all the attending evils that flow out from the corrupting influences that spread and grow like vile and obnoxious weeds in a corn field, may be rooted out.

Ever yours for the cause of humanity, I am in the fight to the finish.

I have every number of the Magazine up to date.

Fred Diehl, New York.

I am very sorry to hear that you are not well and permit me to send you all the good health wishes I can give. We need you in our struggle for progress. You should be preserved for our work in the coming crisis that I believe will soon take place in the world, especially in this country.

This article on the Chinese question I send you contains my innermost convictions on that problem and I believe should be listened to before we create another problem almost impossible to solve. I do not want to impose upon your good nature, but if you find it possible to publish in your Magazine, would you kindly do so?

If not, then kindly send it back to me.

My mind is for what is right. I would like to work for the betterment and right adjustment of all conditions in need of improvement.

There are, to my mind, many reasons why Chinamen should be restricted from coming to the United States. The Chinese are not eligible to citizenship. It is not good policy to encourage immigrants to come here in great numbers that cannot become citizens. Every man (and let us hope every woman, in the near future) should bear his portion of responsibility to the government. Chinamen do not seem to grasp the idea of freedom as do the people of Anglo-Saxon and Latin origin, nor do they appreciate our rights and privileges for which we struggled for centuries. Chinamen would, perhaps could, not use these rights intelligently nor enthusiastically.

They bring to us peculiar oriental vices from which we are yet free, but they would contaminate us and undermine our lives.

Economically and socially they are impossible; economically, because they would undersell the American workman and destroy our standard of living; socially, because they lack the necessary elements to make a congenial race. It is not true, to my mind, that a race is superior because it can undersell another any more than a herd of rats is superior over man or tiger and lions over man because they can overcome man by numbers and ferocity. The Chinese themselves protected and preserved their civilization from invaders by building that huge wall around it thousands of years ago. It was Chin, it is said, the great reformer, as he was called, that did it and the great land today bears his name. The Huns invaded Germany and robbed the unprotected peasants. The fact that the Germans could protect themselves from endless invasions through fortifications and armed resistance showed the superiority of the Germans over the Huns.

I believe I am a friend of humanity and that is the reason I believe in the restriction of the Chinamen (our brothers) from coming here. One of the reasons (and I think it is the greatest of all) should be sufficient, that is that they are in great danger of being massacred through the economic struggles and competition and the inevitable crash is sure to come. We had already symptoms of such massacres in the West. The killing of the Jews in Russia will look mild in comparison. Chinamen coming here in great numbers would result in greater disasters than we can imagine. We would create another race problem. Have we not enough with our negro problem? There is an excuse for people coming here whose homelands are overpopulated and who can easily and naturally assimilate. China has vast unoccupied lands with unopened resources and its population, great as it is, is not actually compelled to seek foreign territory. The Chinamen should pioneer their own great land. Let them stay at home and open their unworked national wealth. We cannot blame the ignorant peasants for coming here. They do not know the possibilities of their own country and if they did it would do them no good. It is the so-called intelligent, progressive Chinese that are to blame. The people of China are hampered and restricted by their own ancient customs fatal to themselves. Chinamen are coming to the United States to reap the benefit of civilization of another race with which they have little in common. It does not seem that the Chinese come here to become actual settlers, and such immigrants are not beneficial to the land in its present state of development.

May the time be not far distant when all can go where they wish without any barrier or restriction. When that time comes we must free first ourselves and within our own countries. We must not endanger another land with our own shortcomings.

Joel B. Fort, Adams, Tenn.

In your valuable Magazine you hit the “Rascals,” who have combined in violation of law and good morals to rob the producer and consumer, to suit me exactly.

If it should come in the way of your comments, the good people of the Dark Tobacco District of Tennessee and Kentucky would rejoice with “exceeding great joy” if you in your inimitable style would hit the infernal Tobacco trust a jolter. This, the most heartless of all, took possession of this District, composed of about twenty-two counties, and laid it off in territories and appointed an agent to buy the tobacco (the only money crop) at his own price. No one was allowed in his territory, and consequently there was no opposition or competition. They took the tobacco at two dollars less than the cost of production. The condition became pitiable and laborers who were unable to support their families left the country and went to the cities, railroads and mines. The people became angered, and on the 24th of September, 1904, organized “The Dark Tobacco Protective Association.” This association controlled 75% of the tobacco, and in six months raised the price to double the former price. Now tobacco is selling for more than twice its price under the Trust rule. We appealed to the law, but had we waited for the law to protect us we would have starved. We went after the thieves red-hot and for more than a year hell would have been a good cooling place for them. Any help you can render us in your excellent Magazine, which is largely read in this section, would be greatly appreciated.

Before I close let me pay you the tribute you richly deserve by saying that any heart breathing the gentle and ennobling sentiment found in your pieces “In the Mountains” and “A Day in the Autumn Woods” lives close to his God and fellow-man, and a man who could write the “Widow Lot” can never die, and is a national benefit. Great men have always had the misfortune to die before their works were appreciated and admired: I sincerely hope you may be spared to fight the battle of the people against Snobbery, Shams, Hypocrites, Grafters, and the Robber Barons of the Trusts.

I send you a copy of a speech against the Tobacco Trust; if you have time to read it you will see why it is that I so eagerly await the issuance of every number of your Magazine.

James Griffith Stephens, Valdes, Alaska.

I am reading every number of your Magazine with great interest. I notice that you never touch on subjects pertaining to Alaska; have you forgot that we are on earth? Listen to this tale of woe.

Alaska cost the United States seven million five hundred thousand dollars in the year 1867. Since then Alaska has paid into the treasury the sum of one hundred and fifty million. Note the interest on the purchase. Still we have no means of representation. There are today in the District of Alaska 60,000 population who stand in the same place that our forefathers stood when the tea-party took place. It is a shame that in this land of the free we are denied ANY means of representation. There is a mistaken idea that Alaska has a territorial form of government. It has no voice from the people whatever. We are peoned. And why? Because Alaska affords one of the choicest trees in the orchard of graft. And its political plums are distributed among the carpetbag grafters who enforce their presence upon the pioneers who are fostering and fathering the country. There is not an elective office in the District. Our mining laws are obnoxious and afford the greatest chance for official graft. Did you ever stop to consider what a great country Alaska is, and how it is controlled? If I may, without taking too much of your valuable time, I will call your attention to the following facts.

Alaska is one-third as large as the United States.

It is not an iceberg, but affords future homes for millions.

Alaska is in the same latitude as England, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Russia.

Alaska has the greatest fisheries on earth. These fisheries are controlled by the beef trust. GRAFT!

Alaska has great beds of finest anthracite coal, now being gobbled up by the Pennsylvania coal barons. GRAFT!

Alaska is covered by fine forests now being taken up by means of soldiers’ fractional script. GRAFT!

Alaska has the largest stamp mill on earth. The mine has produced over $22,000,000 in gold, more than three times the cost of the District. This mine is not timbered and there is an average of one man killed a day by caving. GRAFT!

Alaska has the only fur-seal islands in the world. These islands are leased to a big corporation. GRAFT!

Alaska has a navigable river twenty-eight hundred miles in length, a reservation at the mouth controls the harbor and permits are issued for warehouses to two big corporations only, so Alaskans again have to stand for GRAFT!

I could go on giving cases of graft for a month, but time is limited. An article by a well informed writer in Appleton’s Booklovers’ Magazine, entitled “The Looting of Alaska,” is well worth reading.

S. C. Le Baron, Smiley, Tex.

Three numbers of your Magazine received, for which I am truly thankful inasmuch as it stands for the principles which have been my political platform ever since the Greenback party was organised. It is only financial inability that kept me from becoming a subscriber at the start, for I felt very certain it would be a powerful educator, and the copies at hand prove my hopes fully realized. If it could be gotten into the hands of those who feel the need of a change in conditions but still can’t be made to understand the cause of these conditions, it would indeed be a powerful factor in the reform movement. The copies received are out doing missionary work; there is enough strong and conclusive argument in any one of them to set an unprejudiced mind to thinking seriously whether these things are so. I have been in this movement over thirty years, and having passed my eighty-first birthday, feel that I am not destined to work much longer, but when I see the circumstances which inevitably tend to an enthrallment of the masses, I feel like doing my best to avert the coming disaster. My hope lies in the integrity of an intelligent citizenship and it is through outspoken literature that intelligence can be acquired.

E. J. Whelan, Tipton, Mich.

I like the way you write and the way you put it, but I am discouraged. It doesn’t seem as though the rank and file will ever see the point. The most of them will agree with me about the condition of the country, but when they come to vote, they vote the same old ticket. That is the way they do. Some one gets hold of them before election and they vote it straight. Only a short time ago a friend of mine said to me that he thought we as a Government were getting right where Russia is, and it would take the same internal revolution to get rid of the monopolies and trusts that are holding us down. Now I will venture anything that that same man will vote with the old G. O. P. and vote a straight ticket too. Now it makes me sick, but I think if they can stand it, I can, and have made up my mind to let the whole thing go to the devil. It looks as though the men with Hon. before their names were thieves. It is called “graft” now.

F. A. Jeter, Alto, Tex.

I am on your side, never have been on any other way and I know that if the laboring people do not get some relief, and that soon, we are gone. Your Magazine has done good here. Has changed hot-headed Democrats to Populists.

A. C. Shuford, Newton, N. C.

In a letter some time back you stated that you believed the “Money Question” to be infinitely more important than any other before the American people. You are undoubtedly correct in the view you take of the matter. People take the same superstitious view of money that they do of religion, and how to reach the reason of the average man through all this thick covering of superstition is quite a problem. I have thought over this problem for years and am not much nearer the solutions of it now than when I first began. I have practiced caution in my contact with men, and to look back for twenty years I can see quite a change has taken place in my own neighborhood as well as elsewhere. I have been a great admirer of Jefferson and have read everything he has written which I could get my hands upon. His boldness in attacking the church is a marvel to me. Here is the power which enslaves the minds of the people and keeps them from using their thinking machines. The result of such methods is that the average man is afraid to think for himself. No step of progress can be made until this vast machine is shattered, and yet care must be used in doing so, because man must have some foundation upon which to stand. Do not misunderstand me, please. I am a believer in Christian principles as I understand them.

The money power and other monopolies are allowed to maintain their grip through the church largely. How best to expose and open this organisation to attack is a problem I wish you or some other man would solve. The average politician knows well how to play upon this feeling which the Church creates and as long as the organisation is allowed to continue its process of enslaving the minds of our children, just so long will the crop of “Grafters” be an abundant one.

Sallie T. Parrish, Adel, Ga.

I believe your Magazine is more eagerly awaited than any other publication extant, and I think the people read what you write first. I am sure I do. You are the only writer who has ever made politics more fascinating to me than romance.

I used to read your paper when I was a child almost as ardently as I read the Magazine now. Some of the editorials appealed to me so strongly that I preserved them in my scrap book, not because I understood them then, but because I felt intuitively that there was something sublime in them.

Not long since I showed one of those selections—The Highest Office—to a young man—a Democrat and a teacher in the same school that I was. He finished reading it just as the bell rang for the morning session. The moment the opening exercises were over he sprang upon the rostrum, shook his black hair out of his face and exclaimed: “Children, I have found a gem! Let me read it to you.”

Your Magazine is being read by many honest Democrats who a few years ago thought the Democratic party was all it claimed to be and that you were wrong. Now they frankly endorse your principles and praise your courage, honesty and brilliant intellect.

I must thank you for a clearer knowledge of political questions, public affairs and economic conditions than I ever would have had had it not been for you.

Your “Bethany” I consider one of the treasures of my modest collection of books. Not long ago one of those reasonable, broad-minded, intelligent Democrats was telling me how much he liked your Magazine. He said he read everything in it—“Pole Baker” and all the rest—that he didn’t think you had ever written an uninteresting sentence in your life and that he thought you the purest, most upright man in public life today.

I asked him if he had read “Bethany.” He had not, but when I told him about it he was anxious to do so. I sent him mine. He is a man near sixty and he read it with all the intensity and abandon that a sentimental girl of sixteen would devour one of Laura Jean Libbey’s novels. He and I were alternate day watchers at the bedside of a convalescent patient—one very dear to us both—but I had it all to myself that day until late in the afternoon, when the blessed trained nurse decided to forego a part of her nap and relieve me awhile.

I think you have done and are doing the world more good than any other man in it, and I hope that you may be granted many years of life and strength to champion the cause of humanity and labor for justice, truth and equity, and I know that some time your noble life will be rewarded.

I am very glad you have added the department of “Books” to your Magazine. I don’t think it could be improved now, unless you were to add an amateur or young writer’s department.

Mrs. B. C. Rude, Lyons, N. Y.

I am getting Tom Watson’s Magazine from the news-stand and like it very much. It is refreshing to see one man who dares say what he believes.

Halley Halleck.

I have read every issue of your Magazine up to and including December publication. It is certainly the greatest publication of the kind in existence. As an educator it has no equal. It expresses more opinions and views and in the most fearless manner of any paper in the world. Long may it live and reach all parts of the globe!

The question which you are so ably advocating is taking root and spreading and arousing public opinion so as to bring the monarchical money-kings to justice. May God speed the time when they will be handled as other criminals, to wear the stripes, balls and chains!

That local state government is no exception I got from that ex-representative of the Legislature, the King Lobbyist, Hamp McWhorter. He has an office in the Equitable building, and any senator he thinks he can use he simply ’phones one of his henchmen at the Capitol, telling him to send such and such a senator to his office, where he gets in his dirty work.

In another instance, when a member a few years ago introduced a resolution to have the Governor appoint a committee to investigate the merging of railroads, the vice-president of the Southern Railroad was soon in a seat beside him, making inquiries as to what would satisfy him. Well, the member was appointed local attorney at a salary of five hundred per annum for a number of years. The motion was quickly withdrawn and if this individual ever represented the road in a case I never heard of it. However, he drew the salary and rode on a free pass.

This lobbyist is for suing. He commences with his free pass on probable candidates. As I remember, at a station a man who was a country merchant, farmer and mill owner presented a pass to the agent and asked if it was valid. The agent informed him it was genuine. Sure enough, he was a candidate and elected as senator the next race.

Don’t you think the Texas law should be applied, which is that the guilty party is taken out and given a good thrashing the first time and for the second offence double the dose?

W. D. Wattles, Winchester, Ind.

Permit me to express my appreciation of the February number of Watson’s. It is the best Magazine I have seen, and I have seen most of the good ones. I like your practice of publishing short, pointed articles, and your cartoons are of the best. Your educational and news summary departments seem to me to be especially valuable. I shall take it into my pulpit Sunday evening, and read from your editorial.

D. C. Pryor, Uvalde, Tex.

When I was a boy I saw a carpenter place side by side three pieces of lumber which he was pleased to call “dimension timber.” These pieces were something like forty feet long and were two inches wide and eight inches deep. He took iron spikes and nailed the three pieces together until they looked to be all in one piece. He told me it was “a girder” for the “warehouse” he was constructing. I wanted to know why he did not use a solid piece of timber of the same measure. He answered by saying that the three pieces united together with the stronger part of the one fitting opposite the weaker part of the others would give the girder a greater strength in the power of resisting the immense weight that would have to be borne than if the girder had been made of just one piece of lumber.

In connection with the foregoing incident I wish to draw a pen picture of a scene which is passing before my vision: At Washington, within the shadow of the Capitol, standing side by side facing the west upon the steps of that magnificent structure, are three of the greatest men of renown the world has ever known. In the centre of the group stands the “Immortal Lincoln,” to the right of Mr. Lincoln stands the “Irreproachable Jefferson,” and to the left stands the “Irrepressible Watson”—whose mind is the very incarnation of Jeffersonian principles. Above this scene on either side, hanging toward the centre at half mast, are our national colors, beneath which is a life size portrait of “The Father of Our Country.” Above the portrait in raised letters I read “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

Now I wish to impress upon those who may care to read this article and who are tired of living under the present system of “graft and greed,” and to those of us who have always believed in party lines and are more or less prejudiced in favor of our political tendencies, that there can be no reformation ever made in either of the old parties that exist at the present time. I therefore believe we should endeavor to secure the very best “dimension timber” that can be had out of the now scattered ranks of the Republican, Democratic and Populist parties, and with the nails of iron and bands of steel bring them together and make of them a girder for our country that the gods of ancient Greece could not knock asunder! And why not at an early date advertise this new party and organize party clubs throughout the land and let the watchword be “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty”?

I would suggest that we name this “new party” Demo-Re-Polican or so word the name that each member from an old party may not feel that he had lost all of his former identity. I have not the least hope of electing as the chief magistrate of the nation a Southern man for years to come, and it is useless to put one at the head of the ticket to be slaughtered just to make a Roman holiday. But Mr. Watson can be our leader, and when we win “There will be glory enough for us all.”

“Conckalochie.”

(This is an Indian word for encampment, or a bringing together of the tribes for the exchange of commodities.)

Edwin Hyde Nutt, Dresden, N. Y.

I think you are on the right track exactly, and will do all I can to get you some new subscribers. I live in a land of Gold-bugs, and if there is a place on earth that needs a missionary it is Yates County, N. Y. We have lost our interest in Mr. Bryan. How could he stultify himself to vote for Parker, we can’t see. Think he will have a hard time to make Democrats out of old Greenbackers. He knows the greenbacks are the best money in the world. Why does he try to break up the Populist Party?

R. N. Crowell, Rob Roy, Ind.

I am on the down-hill of life; nearly sixty-four years old. Have been a student of history for twenty-five years and would love to do something to free us from the slavery and tyranny of boss rule. When I go hence I will leave a posterity behind me and would love to know that I have done a little something to make our country a free and independent and a Christian people in deed and in truth. Have traveled in fourteen states, been through the Indian Territory and have had some opportunity of learning something of the situation that we now are in both religiously and politically.

I glory in the principles of Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln and the People’s Party. I admire Thomas E. Watson because he stands square to the front for right and justice for the common people against money, greed and selfishness for place and power. Brother American, wake up and help shake off the shackles that our money lords are binding us with before it is too late!

Yours for liberty, peace and righteousness, for God and a common brotherhood of man. Let us unite and tear down the walls of sin and selfishness and bring in the millennial age of peace and righteousness that we may be called the children of God in deed and in truth.

T. M. Barton, Butler, Ky.

You evidently have mistaken me for my deceased brother, William, who was an ardent Populist, while I am a good Republican “from away back.” I am not with you in public ownership, free silver, etc., but with you heart and soul in downing the great trusts, monopolies, etc. Now it seems to me this can be done in no better way than by standing right at President Roosevelt’s back. We can hardly hope to find an abler, more courageous and more earnest champion of the people than he. Personally, Mr. Watson, as I have measured you, mentally and morally, by your speeches and writings, I like you, just as I do many a good Democrat and Populist, without agreeing with them politically. The fact is that the late elections have given us a great lesson in free thought and free action—in placing principle and patriotism above party allegiance. As we witness the aggressive greed, the intolerable impudence, the great power of the great corporations, we may well remember “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

Peter E. Cooper, Dover. N. J.

Like very much your arrangement of having only four numbers to a volume, as four will make a convenient size to handle when bound. Hope you will continue that feature.

In making changes, spoken of in January issue, I hope you will not change the size (you can add as many pages as you like) as present size is very convenient and, when bound, will look much nicer if of uniform size.

I am going to have mine bound in full law sheep, as I consider them a valuable addition to any library.

William Hamilton, Cleveland, O.

I am interested in the success both of your Magazine and its ideas and would be pleased to know how you are coming on and what the prospects are.

Educational Department

A STORY CONCERNING GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON

A correspondent, in the course of a private letter, reports a very interesting tradition which illustrates the character and bearing of The Father of his Country.

I give it in the language of the writer:

ANSWER

The book is out of print, but is easily obtained through the old book dealers.

The price ranges from $5 to $10.

Try Joseph McDonough, Albany, New York, or The Americus Book Company, Americus, Ga.

ANSWER

The New York Stock Exchange is simply an exclusive gambling hell where very rich gamblers bet on the rise and fall of the stock of the big corporations.

The “nearly $100,000” is the entrance fee.

The reason why the price is so great is because the operations and the opportunities are so vast.

Compared to the colossal stakes and winnings of the Stock Exchange, the gambling which goes on at Monaco, or at Tom Taggart’s place at French Lick Springs is puerile. Since the world was created, no such gigantic gaming has been known as the mad speculations in the New York Stock Exchange.

Of course, the losses are as large as the gains, but those on the inside of the Exchange have an enormous advantage over those on the outside. Those on the inside are generally the masterful fellows who shear the lambs outside.

The organized, experienced and expert players within the Exchange have the same point of advantage over the gullible, unorganized public that the cool dealers at the gaming tables have over the men and women who buck against the bank.

For the privilege of getting on the inside of the game, Mr. So and So pays nearly $100,000.

ANSWER

(1) Single Tax puts all the burden of supporting the Government on one form of wealth, viz.: the value of land.

Populism equalizes taxation, and would compel each owner of property to pay in proportion to his wealth.

The Single Taxer would put all the load on land, leaving money, stocks, bonds and personal property of every sort untaxed.

Populists cannot see any justice in taking the value out of the land of the farmer, while twelve billion dollars of railroad stocks and bonds go untaxed.

Carnegie holds about three hundred million dollars in the bonds of the Steel Trust. Those bonds are as good as gold. They pay Mr. Carnegie a regal income. Why should my land have the value taxed out of it and Carnegie’s bonds go free? There is no justice in this scheme. It does not measure up to the Populist dogma of “Equal rights to all.”

(2) Yes. To cloak insurance rascality with his respected name. The robbers who run those insurance companies simply bought the use of Mr. Cleveland’s name. He consents to play the humble but useful part of decoy duck for $1,000 per month.

Gen. Robert E. Lee, just after the Civil War, was offered $50,000 per year by one of these very companies. He refused to sell the use of his name. He was a poor man, and went to teaching school for a living. In this quiet, modest, but noble way “the greatest soldier that the Anglo-Saxon race ever produced” (see Theodore Roosevelt’s “Life of Thomas H. Benton”) was supporting his family at the time of his death. Mr. Cleveland is not a poor man. His income is $5,000 per year, over and above what silly magazines pay him for occasional articles which are valueless. Therefore Mr. Cleveland need not have sold his name to the life insurance rascals. But the $12,000 tempted him, and he sold out.

(3) Dryden’s Prudential was investigated and very rotten it was shown to be.

(4) No. He is simply stealing the money. Calling it “salary” does not keep it from being loot.

ANSWER

(1) The conditions under and the manner in which an alien may be admitted to become a citizen of the United States are prescribed by sections 2 and 165 to 174 of the revised Statutes of the United States. The alien may, immediately upon landing in this country, declare upon oath before a Circuit or District Court of the United States, or a District or a Supreme Court of the Territories, or a Court of Record of any of the states having common law jurisdiction and a seal and clerk, that it his bona fide intention to become a citizen of the United States. He cannot take out his final papers until after he has resided at least five years continuously within the United States, and within the State or Territory where such Court is at the time held, one year at least. He cannot take out his final papers until the lapse of two years after declaring his intention. Accordingly, if the alien should immediately declare his intention upon landing, it would be necessary for him to wait until the expiration of five years before taking out his final papers. However, if he had resided three years in the United States before declaring his intention, then he could secure his final papers at the end of two years.

(2) The right to vote comes from the state. Naturalization is a Federal right. In nearly one half of the states of the Union an alien who has declared his intention has the right to vote equally with fully naturalized or native born citizens. In the other half, only citizens vote.

(3) In your case, living in the State of Illinois, it would be necessary for you to declare your intentions and take out your final papers inasmuch as only citizens of the United States can vote in that state.

In Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas and Wisconsin, an alien who has declared intention is permitted to vote. In some of these states additional qualifications are added. For example, in Indiana he must have resided one year in the United States, not necessarily in Indiana. In Michigan he must have declared his intention two years and six months prior to November 8, 1904; otherwise he is barred from voting. In Missouri, if he has declared intention not less than one year, or more than five, before election. And so on. In Nebraska, if he has declared his intention thirty days before election, provided he has resided within the state six months. And so on, several of the other states having similar qualifications. In the states not mentioned the requirements are that voter must be a citizen by nativity or naturalization. In some of the states there is a provision that the citizen shall have paid a registration fee of $1, as in Delaware. That he shall have paid taxes within two years, if twenty-two years old, or more, as in Pennsylvania. If he can read and write, as in Massachusetts. If he can read or understand the Constitution, as in Mississippi. If he has paid all his taxes since 1877, as in Georgia. If he is an Indian, with several tribe relations, as in South Dakota.

As was said before, naturalization is a Federal right. The laws relating to it apply to the whole Union alike, and provide that no alien may be naturalized until after five years’ residence. Even this doesn’t give him the right to vote unless the state confers the privilege upon him. On the other hand, the right to vote comes from the state, but the state could not confer this right upon an alien who had not declared intention.

HOME BY Mrs. Louise H. Miller. — HOME DEPARTMENT — MAKING YOUR COMMUNITY BETTER — FLOWERS FOR JUNE NUMBER — For May, June and July — Suggest Future Subjects — WHY SHOULD WOMEN BE INTERESTED IN POLITICS? — THE INTEREST OF EVERYDAY THINGS. — Sponges — Maize — VARIOUS HINTS. — Home Talk. — Valuable Pointers — To Make Sure of Milk Churning in Cold Weather — To Polish Nickel on Stoves — To Clean Iron Kettles — To Remove Large Stones From Fields — Shoe-Soles — To Clean Wall Paper — To Clean a Chimney — For a Cut — To Cleanse Sponges — HEROISM AT HOME. — A PRIZE FOR THE BEST TRUE STORY — HER CAREER — HER SACRIFICE — QUIET COURAGE — RECIPES, OLD AND NEW. — Bread Pudding — Ginger Snaps — Corn Batter Cakes — Sponge Cake — Pea Soup

The Home Department welcomes suggestions, recipes, useful hints, brief articles, short accounts of what women have done in their homes and home towns, and brief, true stories of “Heroism at Home.” We are all working together and we want to put into our Department anything that will make the housewife’s life brighter and more useful. We, all of us, are the editors of “Home”; let us make it as good as we can.

Every month there will be a prize of a year’s free subscription to Watson’s Magazine, sent to any address desired, for the best contribution. There will also be, every month, a prize of another such free subscription for the best true story of “Heroism at Home.” These two prizes will not be given to the same person.

The names of those contributing recipes and suggestions will be printed with what they send in, unless they request to have their names omitted. The names of those contributing stories of “Heroism at Home” will not be printed unless in exceptional cases. The reason for not printing the names in this case is that the stories are true and the characters in them are real people who might be sensitive about having their most private affairs set forth in type with their right names appearing in it. If we published the names and addresses of the person who sends in the story about them it would be almost the same as publishing their own names. In each number there will be a note saying that such and such a story receives the prize, but no names will be given. The names in the story will be left blank or fictitious names will be supplied. Under the head of “Heroism at Home” are further particulars.

There is no need to worry about “not knowing how to write.” What our Department wants is the facts. If any corrections are really needed, they can easily be made. We aren’t trying to be “authors”—we’re just women trying to help one another.

The Editors of the Magazine tell me that it will simplify matters very much if we make a few simple rules for sending in contributions. Let us see how the following will work out:

1. Make all contributions short and to the point.

We have only a few pages altogether; there are a lot of us to contribute and there are many things to talk about.

2. Address everything carefully and in full to Mrs. Louise H. Miller, Watson’s Magazine, 121 West 42d Street, New York City.

3. Write on one side of the paper only.

4. No letters or manuscripts will be returned.

Make a copy of everything you send if you want to keep it.

May Number.—A continuation of this month’s subject for discussion.

June Number.—Our common ornamental flowers, wild and cultivated.

July Number.—What women can do toward improving and beautifying their home cities, towns, or country districts.

The Department this month is something like! The Other Editors have taken hold! I knew that I should have to write most of it for the first two months, until time enough had passed for contributions to come in from the rest of you. Now the suggestions, recipes, articles, and stories of “Heroism at Home” have begun to come from all over the country and our Department begins to take on its permanent form. Every month from now on ought to be a big improvement over all that went before.

The letters received have made me very happy, for they contain many words of praise and good wishes for the Department and prove that the writers are ready and willing to help edit it and that they can. Don’t misunderstand me. The words of praise are not for my work in the Department, but for the Department itself—for the plan of having us all work together for our common good. It is a good plan and, now that you are actually at work with me, I know we are going to work that good plan out and work it out well!

Unfortunately, some of the letters did not reach me in time for publication in this number. They will not be lost to the Department on that account, however. Also, the final date set for letters on Why Women Should be Interested in Politics came so soon after the day when the March issue was mailed out that there was hardly time for many to reach us. The Magazine was very late last month. The Editors couldn’t help it, and they are trying hard to get this April number out promptly on time. After this we will not set any particular date for letters to be in, but if, for instance, you want to say something in the May number, send it to me as soon as you can after getting this issue.

After talking with the Editors and thinking it over by myself I can see that it will not always be best to publish every letter as soon as it comes in. For example, an excellent letter has been sent to us from Nebraska telling how the women of a certain town have organized and done a great deal for the beauty, comfort and usefulness of their little city. It came in response to something I had said in the Department. Now this letter is just the kind of thing we want, but it seems to me better not to use it in this issue which is devoted chiefly to woman’s interest in politics.

Don’t you think it would be better to devote a whole number later on to the subject of what women can do for their native towns or districts? They have organized in a great many places and there are several national societies devoted to civic improvement. The members either do things themselves, or use their influence to secure good local laws to bring these things about. It is surprising how much they accomplish.

The field is a large one and covers many things—beautifying public squares and streets, making front and back yards attractive, improving the schools and school-yards, securing parks for the people, making better the towns’ sanitary conditions, establishing dinner-clubs for factory girls, pushing the right kind of legislation for the community, planting trees, flowers and grass, establishing traveling or stationary libraries, starting church or public lecture courses, public baths, hospitals, suppression of smoke and other nuisances such as overhead telephone wires and ugly advertising boards—oh, there is no end to what can be done! Of course, no two communities need just the same improvements and town and country have different problems, but wherever you live you will find something that can be made better. And we women can do it! “A revolutionizing power as to all that changes the ‘order of one day’ lies in feminine hands, through the use of what is distinctly hers,” says that wise woman who, under the name of “C,” writes those splendid articles called “Home Thoughts” for the New York Post.

All this isn’t a matter of theory. These things have been done in many places. And why shouldn’t woman be able to bring about public improvements? More than half the population of the United States are women. In many places we can vote. Everywhere we wield a great influence over those that do vote. And surely we have brains enough.

To my mind, local women’s clubs organized for some such purpose as this are a good deal more worth while than women’s clubs organized merely for self-improvement. Work for the improvement of others—that is the best way to improve yourself. Be a citizen as well as an individual. Women’s literary and current events clubs are good institutions when they don’t try to do foolish things or make us neglect our home duties, but these same clubs might do the world, and the members, too, greater good if they would also turn their attention to helping the whole community to better things.

But to return to that Nebraska letter. I suggest that we keep it till our July number and devote that whole issue to the question of women and civic improvement. I hope that every one of you who has done any work of that kind, or seen it done, will write to the Department and tell us about it. Remember that the July number comes out June 25 and that the letters should reach me about three weeks before that time. Write now.

June is a month of flowers, how will it do to devote the June number to them? That is a very big subject, so we’d better narrow it down a little. Suppose we consider only the ornamental flowers common to our gardens, woods and fields. Let us all contribute something as to the care and raising and nature of them.

We will not “study botany,” as they do in school and college, but, besides collecting information on planting, watering, repotting etc., we can get a very good bird’s eye view if what flowers are. Nearly all of us have probably raised flowers or seen them raised, but there are enough interesting facts about them to fill a hundred numbers of our Department. Let us try to collect as many interesting facts as possible so that we can have a broader knowledge when we see them or work with them in the future.

We will not include the plants or trees that bear our common fruits and vegetables. This is a subject by itself and perhaps we can take it up in some later number.

Though we are going to confine ourselves to our common flowers and plants let us get a general idea of where they belong in the vegetable kingdom—in regard to ferns, mosses, mushrooms, sea-weeds, lichens, etc.

For instance, which of these is the nearest relative to the asparagus—the oak, the fern, the lily, the mushroom or the rose? The question isn’t important to us in itself, but a very little effort will enable us to understand the general arrangements of the plants so that it will be an added pleasure all our lives.

What is a plant? What is it composed of? What does it eat? Drink? Breathe? What are the leaves for? The roots? The flowers? Why do plants differ so among themselves? Why does one grow from a bulb, another from fine roots? Why is the seed of a maple put in that peculiar little case you crunch under foot on the pavement?

Oh, there are lots of “whys”! The nice part of it is that it is all very simple, after all. We can find out a great deal with very little trouble. There are plenty of easy books on the subject, nowadays, and a good many people who know about plants. Many of you know all these things, and more, without asking.

The things suggested in the last paragraph are important to us if we are raising flowers. If you raise flowers you are a flower-nurse and a flower-doctor. How can a nurse or doctor do much for a patient unless she knows what the patient eats, drinks and breathes, and what the various members and organs of the patient are for?

Where did our flowers originally come from? Are they all native to America? If not, how did they get here? Were they always as they are now?

How do plants reproduce their kind? Do all plants have seeds? Do seeds always grow into plants just like the one on which they grew? If so, have all the many varieties existed from the first? If not, how can you get another plant like the parent? Do you know what Luther Burbank, the “California Wizard,” is doing? Has a seed one parent or two? Where is it, or where are they? It’s easy to ask questions, isn’t it?

Yes, and it’s surprisingly easy to answer them, if you try. An encyclopedia will help you, if you consult it. So will an unabridged dictionary, though it doesn’t say much and is often very technical. Of course a botany will and there are many “popular” books now that give you much interesting information. Don’t make a lesson out of it. You may be able to answer some or all of the above questions without help of any kind. If not, take a few minutes some time soon and browse around among some of those books and pick up anything that strikes your fancy. If there are no books handy, ask your friends. It is as good as a game of “Authors” any day! If your friends don’t know, you are very lucky. Then you can do a little observing and thinking on your own hook. That is a hundred times better than being told or taught.

There is nothing that can be made more deadly dry and tedious than “botany”: there are few things that can be made more delightful and interesting than a commonsense study of flowers!

Have flowers played a part in history? What was the “War of the Roses?” What is the fleur-de-lis, the emblem of France and used so much in decoration and jewelry? Do you remember the story of Narcissus in Greek mythology? What other flowers have figured in history? Do you remember, in our February number, what royal family had the broom flower as their badge? What is the national flower of Scotland? Of Ireland? Of our country?

Do we Americans use much taste in making bouquets? What is your idea of a really beautiful and artistic bouquet? Do you know the Japanese idea of a bouquet?

Is it healthful to have many plants around you? How do plants keep the water fresh in an aquarium?

Tell us your best remedies for insects that injure plants? What plants are best for the house in winter? In summer? Do you know how to make good window-boxes? Tell us anything you know about plants and their care.

Would your town or district be pleasanter and better to live in if more flowers and trees were growing in it? What are parks worth to a large city? But there. I am running into our subject for July!

Are you supposed to answer all those questions? Bless you, no! No one has to do anything in our Department. We get work enough in our daily lives—our Department is to afford us a change and relief from everyday work. It isn’t any the less play because we can profit by it and learn things from it. And perhaps it will teach us how to turn some of our daily work into an interesting kind of game (if we haven’t learned how to do that already) and yet do it better than we did before. The questions are merely to suggest things for our June number. Pick out a few that interest you and find out something about them or tell us what you know already. Mercy, no! You don’t have to! But you’re likely to find a little of it amusing and pleasant and to add a bit more interest to your life.

If we only know how, and try, we can make our lives so much more pleasant for ourselves and those about us! It is very easy. And it doesn’t take much time or brains or money or anything else, except “gumption” enough to try.

So for May we will continue our discussion of woman’s interest in politics; in June, our common, ornamental flowers, wild and cultivated; in July, what women can do toward improving and beautifying their native town or district.

I have asked the printer to put the above announcement at the beginning of our Department for the sake of convenience. I believe it will be a good plan to announce our monthly subjects three numbers ahead all the time, so that we can have plenty of time to think them over in advance, make suggestions and send in information.

Now, what shall we have for the August number? If there is something you are interested in or want to talk about or hear others talk about, send it in to the Department. Do this not only for August but for all the following numbers. I chose the subject for the first few months in order to get our plan started. Now I have had more than my share of “chooses” and all the others are for you to select. It may be that I can arrange to have a special prize offered each month for the best monthly topic suggested. I’ll try.

There is one answer that is sufficient in itself—Because her daily bread depends upon politics!

Is there any particular reason why she should go about her daily work like a mole and pay no attention to the things that make her life hard or make it easy? Doesn’t she suffer from unjust laws and bad conditions and profit by just laws and good conditions as much as her husband does, or her father, son, or brother?

Someone objects that politics is for the man to take care of; housework is woman’s sphere. That isn’t quite a fair statement of the case. The man’s part in the care of the family is his business: the woman’s is her housework. Politics is a third question. Why should the man alone have this to see to? A good many objections will be offered to this, too, but all these objections will boil down to just one thing—because he does! And that isn’t any reason at all. If you were asked why little children should work in factories and kill their health and youth, would you consider “Because they do!” a sufficient or sensible reason?

The men say that when women discuss anything they never get anywhere because they fail to define the terms they use, and may all be talking about different things under the same name. I think men make this mistake about as much as we do, but let’s be on the safe side this time and define just what we mean by “politics.”

Politics in our country have become so disreputable that we are likely to feel that having anything to do with them is bad taste or even degrading. It is natural to feel that way, but is it silly, nevertheless. It is bad taste, or even degrading, to have anything to do with a notorious criminal, but not if you are making him better instead of letting him make you worse! This is particularly true when it is partly your fault that he became a criminal!

Now as to the definition of politics. The Standard Dictionary gives this:

The word, then, has three shades of meaning. The third one we need not bother with, since it merely means any man’s opinion on the things given under Number 1 and Number 2.

Now let’s contrast Number 1 and Number 2. There are some large words there, but if we take it a piece at a time we shall at least see that there is a tremendous difference between the two shades of meaning.

In Number 1 politics means the fair and unprejudiced study of how a nation should be governed, but in Number 2 politics means How much can you get out of it regardless of the general welfare!

In Number 1 the object is the “peace, prosperity and safety of the state,” but in Number 2 the object is to “carry elections and secure public offices”—“party intrigues; political wire-pulling; trickery.”

It is Number 1 we are considering primarily. True, if our daily bread depends on politics, we are also interested in “how much we can get out of it,” but we mean by this how much we can get justly and honestly—our equal share along with everyone else. “Equal rights to all, special privileges to none.”

No, no! I’m not advocating the People’s Party principles just because I quote one of their watchwords. That motto is not theirs alone, but that of every honest citizen, no matter to what party he belongs. It is merely an expression of the principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence. Whatever I may believe personally, it is no part of my business to plead the cause of any political party in our Department. We have nothing to do with parties. Our object is to consider how our nation is governed and how it should be governed—national, state, county, township and city governments, under whatever names these divisions may be called in different places.

We are primarily concerned with definition Number 1. We want to know how our nation should be governed. After that we will consider Number 2, and see how it is governed.

Now, considering the awful amount of writing and talking there is about politics, the infinite number of questions there are to decide, and the unending difference of opinion on these questions, we can see at the outset that we can’t decide it all in two numbers of our Department. Nor in a hundred. We are not going to try to. All we want is an intelligent idea of the general situation and of our duty in the matter.

What is government at bottom? In the beginning there was no government or organization of any kind, not even the family organization. Each man or woman lived his or her own life separate from all others. The first organization came about when a man and woman decided to live together and raise children. They soon found that when they had a child to take care of they could not go on independently of each other as they had before. They had two things to do—to care for the baby and keep it safe every minute from wild beasts and other people, and to secure food for themselves and their child. If they both went hunting for food there was no one to watch the baby; if they both watched the baby, there was no way of getting food. They saw that they had to have some arrangement. They had to divide the labor. So the woman tended the baby and the man went hunting for all three. Each of them gave up a little of the former independence and received a new thing in return—help from another person. Thus the “family” began. It was the first step towards society and government. They gave up part of their freedom in return for help from others.

People lived by hunting animals and gathering fruits and berries at first. If a man laid by any food for his family, another man was likely to take it away while he was away hunting. He found it pretty hard to have to do anything himself and he at odds with other men. Pretty soon it dawned on him that it would pay to make some “arrangement” with those other men. He wouldn’t rob them, if they didn’t rob him. Later he arranged with a few of them to keep their families close together so that some of the men could protect them while the other men hunted for all. In some such way began the “town.” Each of them gave up a part of his freedom in return for help from others.

When many towns had sprung up these towns began to see they could to advantage make “arrangements” among themselves (just as individual men had done) for protection and other purposes. Thus the “state” or country came into existence. Each town gave up part of its “independence” in return for help from other towns.

Thus “society” was formed and grew more and more complex. Of course, I have only sketched the process in a very general way, but the idea is there. The one point we have to consider is that no one of these arrangements or institutions—the family, town and state—would be possible unless every member gave up part of his original freedom in return for help from others. A bargain has to be made. For instance, the different men and their families each made a bargain with the whole number to give up part of their freedom, time and energy to the band. In return each was to receive his share of the freedom, time and energy the others had given to the band or town. Each man made a bargain with the town. He owed the town something: the town owed him something.

That was the beginning of government, and that is the arrangement at the bottom of any government to this day. Every government (town, county, state or national) is just a bargain between the various individuals and all of them taken together. Each owes something to all: all owe something to each.

The point is, in each case, is this bargain a fair one? Does the individual give up more than he receives in return?

In olden times the average individual did give up far more than he got in return. Often he didn’t get much besides protection against some other government. Yet for this he frequently had to give up nearly all his freedom, time and energy. A few individuals gained control of the government and, though they might not contribute as much as the others, took most of what the others gave for the use of the whole number, calling themselves kings, or dukes or emperors. The mass of the people forgot that originally the “government” meant all the people. They came to consider the few who had gained control of the government as the government itself. That is, they let themselves be cheated out of their share in it.

Our Declaration of Independence was one of the things that resulted when, after centuries of misrule and suffering, the mass of the people began to wake up to the fact that they had been cheated all that time under a bargain which had originally been fair. They had been giving more than they got in return.

In an absolutely fair government every individual would receive just as much as he gave and give just as much as he received. A modern government is so vast and so complex that it would be hard to measure each man’s share exactly, but the nearer any government comes to that, the better and fairer it is. England, for example, comes nearer to that ideal than does Russia; Russia nearer than Afghanistan.

The chief trouble in Russia is that the mass of the people have to give more than they receive. A comparative few have gained possession of the government and each takes a very, very large share of what all contribute, leaving almost no share at all for the majority.

Of course it is almost impossible to trace out just what each Russian peasant gives up to the government, and what he receives in return. Without a government of some kind he could not produce or hold anything except by force against his fellows—land, goods, money, family, all would be totally insecure. As it is, he does get some security in these respects. In return he gives practically all his freedom, time and energy. On the other hand, a Grand Duke may give up to his country hardly any freedom, time and energy, and yet be rolling in wealth. Something is wrong. It is not a fair bargain. It is not a good government.

How about our government? Is it a fair bargain?

Modern civilization is very complex. No two men can really give just the same amount to the common country, since all men differ in ability. But the country asks only certain things from its individuals. To be fair the point is to ask the same from all. The country gives only certain things to its individuals: the point is to give the same to all. Our country doesn’t demand military service in time of peace, as do many other countries. And, in return, it doesn’t give us a tremendous standing army. If it did demand military service, to be fair it would have to make the demand equally of all able to bear arms. If it did give us a big standing army, to be fair it would have to use this army to protect us all equally.

If our country taxes certain goods, it must tax them everywhere—not for one man and not for the next. If there is a tax of one cent on every bale of a certain commodity, each man should pay one cent for every bale he owns. If there is a tax of one cent on every dollar, each man should pay one cent for every dollar he owns.

Is this the case in the United States?

If the Government gives certain privileges to a few men, it should give the same to all. Is this always done in our country?

Of course all may not always want a certain privilege. It is open to all, but only a few use it. Is this all that is required of the Government? Or, since the Government has nevertheless given some of the general fund to only a few, should these few make some adequate return for what they have used from the common property? Is this always done in our country?

Ask yourself similar questions about every case that comes up. What I have said doesn’t pretend to “explain politics,” but it ought to give everyone a test or basis to refer everything back to. Ask yourself whether any law or custom is a fair bargain. You can tell well enough when you deal with the grocer or the milkman whether you are getting a fair bargain. Try to in these other matters.

But to come back to why women should take an interest in politics. One reason has been suggested—that her daily bread is affected by them. Another has been hinted at—that it is partly your fault that politics as practiced in this country are corrupt (definition No. 2). Since we are to devote the next number of our Department to this same question, we will do little now in this issue except suggest reasons and ask questions. I’m not going to do all the expressing of opinion just because I happen to have the chance all to myself this month. By next month I hope there will be letters and opinions from a great many of you.

In some parts of our country women can vote and it is likely that some day they will do so everywhere. When the country or state gives her the right to vote does that put her under any obligation to do or give anything in return for this privilege?

Who gives women (or men) the right to vote—the city, state or country?

Is it fair to give it to some women and not to all? Is it fair to give it to men and not to women?

Would politics be purer if women took more interest in them? If women voted?

In those places where women cannot vote what can they do towards securing good government? Can they do anything through their husbands, brothers and fathers? Through their neighbors? Through their own children? Can they do anything through the church? The schools? Last year, when Philadelphia threw off boss-rule, what was the method that succeeded in making the corrupt politicians surrender after all other methods had failed?

Can you tell the Department of any instance where the women have brought about, or helped to bring about, reforms in town, country, state or national government even when they were not allowed to vote?

Do you remember the saying that “the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world”? How much truth is there in it?

If you had a really intelligent idea of politics as they should be and as they are, would it bring you into closer touch with the men-folks of your family? Would it broaden your horizon? Would it interfere with household duties? Would it make you a better citizen? Could you accomplish real good by having this knowledge?

What is the best way of acquiring an intelligent idea of the subject, it you haven’t one already? Take the opinion of those around you? Read weighty and technical books and articles? Read first a very simple book on civics—on the organization of our Government? Would it be a good plan to read your boy’s school text-book on this subject?

Can some one point out a few articles in the numbers of this Magazine which make their point very clear and are easy enough for anyone to understand? Send the Department the names of a few that appealed to you, so that some more of us can venture on them. Similar articles in other magazines which the average woman can grasp without a previous extensive knowledge of politics or political economy? Books?

Can you decide a question until you have heard both sides of it?

Is it safe to believe all you read, or does it pay to consider when you read it, who wrote it, what personal or party reason he may have had for writing it?

Consider your local newspaper. Do you know the difference between the “set” matter and the “plate” matter and the “ready-print” matter in its pages? Why is this difference very important in deciding as to the value of an article in that paper? Who writes set matter? Has he “any fish to fry” when he writes? Who writes plate and ready-print matter? Has he any fish to fry? With a little care you can tell these three kinds of printed matter apart in your local paper. (Ready-print matter is used only in some country weeklies and dailies and some other small local papers. It can be “spotted” by noticing what pages of the paper always have it. Unfold the paper and lay it flat on the floor. If it is ready-print and has few pages enough to make only one sheet, all of the pages on one side will be ready-print. There won’t be any local articles or items in the print. Both ready-print and plate are in different type from set matter.) If a corrupt man or corrupt men wrote the ready-print and plate could they wield a vast influence? More than by writing the set matter? It is well worth thinking about.

Are there many magazines or papers that are not controlled by political or business interests? How much can you believe in a publication controlled in that way?

The voters of the country are divided into several political parties. Would it be better or worse if there were no regular parties and every voter voted independently?

What is a real democracy? Is the United States a real democracy now? Why?

What is meant by direct legislation—the initiative, referendum, recall and imperative mandate? Big words, but they stand for things worth knowing about and having an opinion on. And they are easy enough to understand. Would these things tend toward real democracy? Have they been tried in actual practice? If so, have they proved a success? Why? What effect would they have on the whole party system?

There, I think that is enough questions for one person to ask. Someone is likely to ask me a question in return—How do politics affect our daily bread? Well, there are several hundred answers to that. Let’s each of us suggest for the May number one or more ways that politics (according to both definition No. 1 and definition No. 2) affect our daily living.

We are not going to try to become experts in politics, but we do want to have an intelligent general idea of them. It is our duty. In our May number I hope to have many opinions from women all over the country.

We had a glimpse last month at some of the interesting things concerned in bread and bread-making. The house is full of things we have known so long that we scarcely think of them except as parts of the daily routine, but which, if we turn our attention to them, prove veritable mines of information, history, travel and even romance.

A sponge is the skeleton of a very, very, tiny animal, or rather of a colony of thousands of such animals that live under water. When the little animals die they leave behind them this network of elastic fibers that they have built up. For a long time it was thought that sponges were plants, and even now scientists know really very little about these little animals. You have noticed how many kinds of sponges there are. These different varieties are caused partly by differences in temperature and chemical composition of the water and partly by the fact that there are more than one species or variety of the animal itself. There is no need to enumerate all the kinds of sponges from the fine, soft ones used in surgical operations to the big, coarse ones used for washing carriages. Nearly all the sponges inhabit salt water and the best ones come from the Mediterranean, particularly the Levant or that eastern part of the Mediterranean bounded by Syria, Asia Minor and the Holy Land and Egypt. Others are found in the waters around Florida and in those near Australia. The sponges are secured by means of native divers. In some places these men work all day long from sunrise to sunset through six months of the year, resting during the winter. The work is, of course, very hard and few of them reach old age. Often they are treated with inhuman cruelty by their employers and many are killed by sharks. Particularly in Florida there have been attempts made to raise sponges artificially, but though it is easy to secure the spawn of the tiny animals and succeed in getting them to attach their little colonies to stones, coral or other objects under water, the sponges never reach any considerable size and are commercially useless. They have also tried to propagate them by cuttings or slips, but here arises the difficulty of making the cuttings attach themselves to other objects, which is necessary to their development. And the little animals themselves, they go right on very quietly drinking in water and getting all they need from it—air, food and drink—whether they are off the coast of Europe, Asia, Africa, America or Australia or in a little glass aquarium being looked at through a microscope by a dried-up old man with spectacles and side-whiskers. And we use the sponges.

The right name of what we call corn or Indian corn is maize. The word is derived from the Spanish word maiz, which comes from the native Haitian word mahiz. Corn in Europe means what we call wheat. Maize, or corn, like all our grains, belongs to the big Grass Family and is a native of America. Most of our other grains come from Europe and Asia, just as we ourselves did. It probably came from the table-lands of Mexico and Peru and has always been the chief food of the Indians. It was introduced into Asia, southern Europe and northern Africa and spread quickly and widely for a while. However, the climate was not hot enough for it in Europe and it is not raised there very much now. The English generally consider it fit only for animals and rather turn up their noses at us for eating it ourselves. The only time I ever saw any offered to an Englishman he was very polite about it but managed to avoid eating even a single mouthful from the nice, tender ears. Other nations are horrified at seeing otherwise well-bred Americans pick up a roasting-ear and gnaw it off the cob, and it must be confessed that it does look pretty bad unless a person is careful to hold it with only one hand and bite it off daintily. Many Americans who travel in Europe miss it terribly and one woman confessed to me that her chief reason for coming home was just to get some real American corn once more. I understand, though, that the English look on our popcorn very differently. It is said that two New England spinsters introduced it over there a number of years ago and their little stand rapidly became so popular that they amassed a very considerable fortune and lived happily ever afterwards. We use sweet corn not only on the cob, for fritters, puddings and so on, as corn-meal and for stock, but extract from it whisky, starch and glucose sugar. Besides sweet corn and popcorn the common kinds are flint and dent. Sweet corn gets its name from the large quantities of sugar in it. Popcorn pops because it has a great deal of oil and this oil explodes when sufficiently hot. Corn varies in color from white to black, but most of it is yellow or white. Like wheat, Government experts and other scientists in this country, Canada and elsewhere have been experimenting with corn for years and by cross-breeding and selection (about which processes I hope the Department will receive some interesting contributions for our June number) they have vastly improved the old varieties and produced many new ones.

When I was a child I remember being much impressed on being told that you never, never could find an ear of corn with an odd number of rows in it. Maybe you can, but I never have been able to, and, as that advertisement says, “there is a reason.”

Can someone tell us for our June Department? You may have heard the story of the Southern planter before the War who offered to give freedom to any slave who could find an ear of corn with an uneven number of rows. None of them could, though it is easy to believe they hunted a good deal, until finally another white man showed one of the slaves how he could cut a row out of an ear when it was very young so as to leave no mark when he presented it and demanded his freedom. The master kept his word and the slave went free.

It was almost equally hard to award the prize for the best general suggestion or recipe sent in. After some careful deliberation, it seemed that, all things considered, the free subscription this month should go to Alicia E. Storm, of Plessis, N. Y., though we hesitated, especially between this and Mrs. Richardson. A little later I hope to be able to send a little souvenir to everyone who sends in a contribution and doesn’t get a regular prize. In case this plan carries out, as I think it will, of course all who have contributed before that time will be remembered. And always there is the gratitude of those who benefit from your suggestion, and my own sincere thanks and your consciousness of having helped other women in their daily trials and perplexities.

We have no kitchen cabinet, and we keep a small table set for three in our kitchen, which is not large. The cooking stove, sink, and cupboards taking most of the room. I needed a small table to use for work and mixing table. There was a space behind the stove. I bethought me of the crate in which my sewing machine came. It is just the thing. The table is just about the right height, and the shelf below is as convenient as the top. I find that on baking day it helps very much to get everything one needs before commencing work. I use an earthen mixing bowl. After the bread and biscuits, I make pies, as the lard is then cold. Then I make my cakes and afterward doughnuts. It is a saving of time and fuel if one can bake a variety at once, as in cold weather victuals keep longer than in summer. A convenience for storing pies can be made by having several shelves sawed out large enough to hold your tins. One can use laths (four of them) for uprights, fastening them well at the four corners of the bottom shelf; then fasten the others about three inches apart. This gives more space, and keeps pies from being mussed.

Did you ever experience the difference between two neighborly calls? Mrs. A. relates the latest bit of gossip, making up in insinuations what she lacks in fact. She talks about her dressmaker, criticizes the appearance and dress of her friends, and gives you an uncomfortable feeling—thinking perhaps you will be the subject of unpleasant remarks. Mrs. B. is fresh and cheery. She asks about your plants, and tells of the growth of her own—of every new bud. She tells of the cunning things her baby has said, of the nest her canary is building, of the new book she is reading. She tells, perhaps, of some ludicrous mistake she has made in her cooking, laughing at the same. This woman may not be intellectual in the highest sense, but she is charming. Her call will have made you happy all the day. We leave the effect of our presence—sometimes for long. So should we act that no sting of uneasiness be left in the hearts of those with whom we come in contact.—Alicia E. Storm, Plessis, N. Y.

Every work is easy and pleasant if you go at it as you go to a picnic. In house cleaning I fix one room at the time. It takes a week, but I have the most of each day and I do my work better, as I don’t have to hurry. No confusion in the regular routine of work; one thorough sweeping and dusting is enough for one day. If the tablecloth is clean enough for the home folks, it is all right for company. Don’t try to cook a variety of dishes each day. You won’t hold out so well, and one or two will do as well, and change them every day. Sheets, towels and some other things can be used all right without ironing. If you smoothed all the wrinkles out of all the rough clothes, you might have the wrinkles in your face. I read and rest some every day. Prepare two dinners on Saturday, and go to church and Sunday-school. I do have some trouble and everyone does, but I am always thankful, and my life-work is a delight to me. Let us try to do all things to the glory and honor of God. Although in the country, we have one of the best “teachers.” Our children attend, cold or hot, regularly. They are taught the Sunday-school lesson at school Friday afternoon.—Mrs. E. A. Richardson, Thomaston, Ga.

Many persons who churn in winter have trouble because butter will not come if chilled, and are obliged to throw the milk away, or feed it to the stock. If they will steam, not boil, the milk after milking, they can allow it to freeze solid and it will churn all right if thawed and warmed properly. This recipe has been worth many dollars to me, and hope it will help other women housekeepers.—Mrs. D. L. Burrows, Gibson, Ga.

Use stove polish. It is the very best thing. Rub a light coating over it and polish with polishing cloth or brush. The cloth or brush is generally sufficient. Only give an occasional coat of polish.—Mrs. D. L. Burrows, Gibson, Ga.

Boil skim-milk in it and then wash with good soap-suds. Use six quarts for an eight-quart kettle, and boil and simmer for twenty-four hours. This will also prevent future trouble.—Mrs. E. R. Putney, Kansas City, Mo.

Make the stone very hot on one side only; pour water on it to make it crack, and help it along with a heavy hammer. Another way, in the winter, is to bore a hole pretty well into the stone, fill with water and plug it firmly shut. The force of the water as it freezes will crack the stone. Still another way is to make a hole in the direction of the veins or cleavage of the stone, put in a cleft cylinder of iron, then drive an iron wedge between the two halves of the cylinder. L. L. Deweese, Piqua, O.

Melt together tallow and common resin, two parts of first to one of second. Apply hot—as much as the sole will absorb. Neat’s-foot oil is good also. These remedies keep the leather soft, prevent its cracking, and make it waterproof.—Mrs. N. O. Baker, Jersey City, N. J.

Take off the dust with a soft cloth. With a little flour and water make a lump of stiff dough and rub the wall gently downward, taking the length of the arm each stroke, and in this way go round the whole room. As the dough becomes dirty, cut the soiled parts off. In the second round commence the stroke a little above where the last one ended, and be very careful not to cross the paper or to go up again. Ordinary papers cleaned in this way will look fresh and bright, and almost as good as new. Some papers, however, and these the most expensive ones, will not clean nicely. In order to ascertain whether a paper will clean nicely, it is best to try it in some obscure corner. Fill up any broken places in the wall with a mixture of plaster of Paris and silver sand, made into a paste with a little water, then cover the place with a piece of paper like the rest, if it can be had.—Mrs. B. C. Benton, Denver, Col.

Place a piece of zinc on the live coals in the stove. The vapor thus produced will carry off the soot.

Sift powdered resin on the wound, wrap with a soft, clean cloth, and wet occasionally with water.—Miss Anna Paisley, New Orleans.

Wash in a solution of a teaspoonful of ammonia to two quarts of water, and afterwards in a solution of one part of muriatic acid to twenty-five of water. Sponges should be thoroughly rinsed, aired, and dried after every using. Unless they are kept very clean it is not well to use them. A piece of rough towel or tablecloth hemmed at the edges is much better. Another way to clean sponges is to steep them in buttermilk for some hours, then squeeze out and wash in cold water. Lemon juice is also good.

Every month the Department will publish a little story of heroism in the home—not any one act of heroism, but the tale of how someone lived heroically, lived self-sacrifice in everyday life. It must be true and must be about somebody you know or have known or know definitely about. It must not have over 500 words. The shorter, the better. Whoever sends in the best story each month will not only have it printed but will receive a year’s free subscription to Watson’s Magazine sent to any name you choose. Tell your story simply and plainly.

Please state whether the names and places mentioned in your story are real or fictitious. The Department does not print real names in these stories. Please do not send in stories about someone rescuing another from drowning or anything like that—we don’t want stories of single acts of heroism but of lives bravely and unselfishly lived out.

The stories of “Heroism at Home” have begun to come in. We can not print all of them in this number, but there will be a place for the others later on. Only one told of a single heroic incident. It was a brave, unselfish act, but that isn’t what we are going to use under this head—not things done suddenly, perhaps on impulse or by instinct, but the kind of heroism that lasts day after day. This one story, too, was told in verse and though it was good I fear we had better confine ourselves to simple prose. I hope the writer will send us another good true story in prose and of heroic living.

The prize this month is awarded to “Her Career.” It was very hard to decide among several stories that told of some very beautiful and useful lives, so I got others to help me. I imagine it is never going to be easy to decide which is the very best of the stories each month. How the stories are told is not considered at all, but the heroic lives described are very hard to weigh against one another. But I will do the best I can.

No, she never wrote a book, nor went as a missionary to Japan, nor won a degree in college. She never even taught school, nor belonged to a woman’s club.

But she has been the inspiration of her family and has radiated blessings on all she knew.

Thirty years ago she was a dark-haired, dark-eyed bride of eighteen. They were poor, but they had health and strength and bright dreams of the future. They built a small log house on the land they had bought on credit and began to improve it. Their days were filled with hopeful work and their nights brought rest and refreshing sleep.

But soon a shadow fell across the sunlight that streamed on her pathway. Her husband began to drink. He was soon a helpless victim of the fiery appetite and could not go where liquor was without getting drunk.

She was refined and regretted to the very depths of her soul her husband’s weakness. Sometimes she was righteously indignant, but she never upbraided him with moral lectures in which she posed as a mistreated angel, though she often talked it over with him after the “spree” was over.

Children came. The “sprees” became more frequent and things looked more gloomy, but she worked tirelessly and trusted everlastingly.

At last the county voted liquor out. This did some good; the temptation was farther away. But even then he would make several trips a year to the nearest liquor town and always with the same result. If a neighbor were going to town at the same time she would ask him to look after her husband. And when the erring man staggered home she would put him to bed and cook him something to eat—not always ham and eggs and delicacies, but the best she had. She never slipped anything in his coffee to cure him secretly.

And she has almost won. He is not proof against them yet, but the “sprees” are few and far between.

Six children call her mother—two womanly daughters well married, another a lovable and accomplished young woman, a handsome son, with his mother’s wonderfully calm eyes, who detests liquor, and two young girls at school.

A neat white house with green blinds has taken the place of the log structure. She is a model housekeeper and has always done all her work—cooking, sewing, washing, ironing, scrubbing, milking, churning, sweeping, poultry-raising and one thousand and one other things. Besides this she has tied up sore toes and cut fingers, poulticed boils, applied hot salt to all manner of aches and pains; doctored mumps, whooping-cough and la grippe; and successfully nursed measles, pneumonia and fever.

Her face has lost some of its freshness and her hair is turning gray, but she is still the blessed counselor of her family and she still finds time to visit and make herself a true, cheerful friend and neighbor.

Miss ⸺ lives in ⸺, Ohio. She was born on a farm where she lived with her father and mother and two brothers and one sister. The father became surety for a friend who failed, and it took the father’s farm to pay the debt. The family therefore left the farm, and moved to the county-seat, in the suburbs, and in a small house and two lots began life anew. He rode the country buying stock for other men, kept cows and peddled milk in the town, kept forty hens and sold eggs, cultivated the lots in garden produce, and kept the family together. One fortunate result of leaving the farm, the children were put into the city schools. Miss ⸺ graduated in the high school, and obtained a certificate to teach. The two brothers married and left the city. Then finally the sister married and left. Miss ⸺, at the age of 26, was left to care for her parents in their declining years.

She obtained a position as teacher in the city schools and devoted her wages to the care of the home, and looked after her parents when out of school hours. There came offers of honorable marriage, for she was strong, healthy, comely and attractive. She could not consider them. Her parents could not do without her. They were declining in strength and looked to her for the care of the household. She taught on, and with her wages kept them in comfort. Two years ago the good old mother, weary of life, departed for the better land. Two years longer the old father lived, kept the house during the day while the daughter was in the schoolroom and awaited the sound of her footsteps in the evening returning from the school. In January he lay on the bed stricken with a fatal sickness, though unknown to him or her, and while they talked together as she bent over him he ceased to breathe, and she was left alone in the world, unmarried, without a home, and the prime of her good life spent in assiduous care of her parents—at the age of forty years! All hope of a home and family of her own sacrificed to her sense of duty to her father and mother! What is to be her reward? Many another has made a like sacrifice, but how is she to recoup the loss of the fourteen years spent in their service—the loss of her own home and family and children and all the sweet consolations of the state of motherhood? Was it not a heroic life? How few would have met it! Only those who know of her self-sacrifice will know how to honor her. Her fidelity, so unobtrusive, will be little noted by the world. But how grand and noble the sacrifice she has made!

Elizabeth Stanton was born about sixty-five years ago in a beautiful Southern town. She was the youngest daughter of Judge James Stanton, one of the ablest jurists of the state.

Few young ladies had superior advantages to Elizabeth, and fewer still possessed her amiable disposition and strong character. Being beautiful, accomplished and wealthy, it is no wonder she married the only son of a millionaire. A few years after their marriage her husband erected the finest residence in the state. Although built forty years ago it stands proudly today without an equal in the state.

Elizabeth had everything that heart could wish save one—her husband was dissipated and grew more so as years came on. But no ear save the Master’s ever heard her complain and she was always cheerful.

A few years after the Civil War her husband died, leaving his palatial home mortgaged and his vast estate squandered. Elizabeth was left with three children and a small amount of money. She gave up her magnificent home and wealth without a murmur and returned to her old home. In a few years she married again, a man of fine personality, a scholar and typical Southern gentleman, one born to wealth and knowing little how to acquire it. His fortune was like that of most Southern people after the Civil War. They remained in their native home till their small fortune was nearly gone. Then they removed to Florida and lived on a homestead, in a tent with a dirt floor for two years. Elizabeth had never before lived without servants, never cooked a meal or laundered a handkerchief. Now she did all her own work, even to the washing, and taught a country school several months of each year. She found time to visit and elevate the poor, rough people around her, and never by word did she let them know she was not of their class. She was greatly admired and beloved by all who knew her. During these years of hardship she was just as bright and cheerful and apparently as content as when she trod the marble floors of her former mansion. She smilingly remarked to me once that she was glad they had been chastened. It had made her a better woman and was the means of her husband’s conversion. As fortune always favors the brave, she did not always live in poverty. In a few years they had a fine orange grove bearing, and her husband was elected to a high office.

I have never known a more heroic life of any woman. When clouds have hovered over me I have thought of this brave, beautiful character and it has been my inspiration.

From a collection of recipes that dates back almost to “War-Time” we shall give a few every month. Along with them will be given new recipes of the present day.

One pint bread crumbs, fine, one quart milk, three or four eggs. Season and sweeten to taste, then bake. Spread a layer of jelly or jam quite thick or white of eggs a little sweetened, and brown a little.

Three cups of molasses, one cup of brown sugar, two small cups of lard, four tablespoons of ginger and one of cloves, and enough flour to roll them out.

One and a half pints of corn-meal, the same of milk, one half teaspoon of salt, five eggs beaten together and put in with the corn-meal and milk, one and a half teaspoons of baking-powder.

Six eggs, one pint of flour, one pint of sugar, three-fourths of a cup of water, two tablespoons of baking-powder.

One half peck peas. Take the shells and put on with two quarts of water. When well boiled take off and put through the colander. Take the water and pour into it the peas. Let boil until very soft and tender. Take off and put through the colander again. Take a quart of cream, or cream and milk, two even tablespoons of flour and less than one ounce of butter. Put in and let come to a boil. Pepper and salt to taste.

CHANGING THE DIRECTION

Warren, in Boston Herald

Before After

DeMar, in Philadelphia Record

“Sh— Sh— You Blamed Ass!”

Rogers, in N. Y. Herald

April, 1906

BOOKS BY Thomas E. Watson.

Note: Reviews are by Mr. Watson unless otherwise signed.

On the Field of Glory. By Henryk Sienkiewicz. Little, Brown & Co., Boston.

After the reader has finished reading this book he disapproves of the title. He has been taken into ancient Poland, where the winter snows lie deep, where the wolves of the forest come with the night to make danger for the traveler. He has been shown how the upper class lived in the time of the Soldier-King, John Sobieski. He follows the thread of a passionate and tender and happily ended love-story. He laughs with and at the four brothers, the huge, rude, boisterous, but brave and good-hearted foresters. He feels impressed by the genius of the author during the whole time, for he knows that this strange Polish world, with its unfamiliar men and women, is a creation born of the mental processes of a great literary artist.

It is not an historical novel in the sense that “Quo Vadis” was. There is no field of glory at all. John Sobieski does not appear before us as Nero was made to do in the book just named.

The John Sobieski of this novel might be any other King. So far as we are told about his appearance, manners, dress, personal peculiarities, he might have been Rudolph of Hapsburg or Henry of Valois.

There are no battles, no sieges, no heroic advance or retreat. As the book closes, the Polish army has set out from Cracow to Vienna; and that’s as near as we approach the field of glory.

With the heroine the reader never gets in full sympathy. She drives away the man who has always loved her and whom she loves without knowing it.

She then consents to wed her hideous, lecherous, old guardian. More indignant than the bride, the spirits of the Unseen World resent this unnatural union, and they prevent it by claiming the groom while the marriage feast is being eaten.

With the hero the reader is on good terms from first to last, for his is a fine character finely drawn.

When the guardian and intended husband is dead, and the rejected lover is far away, the hero is subjected to trial and temptation, beset by dangers, marked for destruction by a lustful brute, neglected and hated by family connections. It is then that human interest of the deepest kind centres in the poor orphan girl Panna Anulka, whom we had condemned on account of her readiness to marry old Pan Gideon. We follow her fortunes then with painful attention and we rejoice when she is saved.

While “On the Field of Glory” is not, perhaps, so great a book as “Quo Vadis,” its atmosphere is purer, its store of love more tender and its portrayal of ancient manners and character apparently quite as faithful.

The Strange Story of the Quillmores. By A. L. Chatterton. Stitt Publishing Company, New York.

To write a novel which shall hold the reader with a strong and constant grip, and yet give him no love-story, is a feat not done by everyone that tries it. Mr. Chatterton tells no story of love, but I have not read many books that interested me more than “The Strange Story of the Quillmores.” Mr. Chatterton’s pictures of life are true to life: his men are the men who wear breeches—not impossible abstractions who say or do things which no human beings ever said or did. And his women are as real as his men.

Uncle I’ and his store, where the neighbors buy all sorts of things, from ham to coffins, and where a group of loafers and tattlers is generally on hand, are as well known to the reader as if he had been there. Uncle I’ must be a character taken from life. He is full of quiet humor, homely wisdom, sound common sense, manly courage and loyalty.

Old-fashioned Uncle I’, keeping his old-fashioned carry-all store, swapping stories and repartee with his old-fashioned neighbors, struggling heroically with his old-fashioned telephone, and with it all, living up to the best standards of honesty and usefulness—yes, Uncle I’ is a complete artistic success.

So is Doctor Gus. True, he reminds the reader, in a general way, of Ian Maclaren’s Scotch country doctor, but Doctor Gus is American, and he is stamped with sufficient individuality to make him a very live man to the reader.

What could be better than the old German woman, Mother Treegood? The chapter in which Mother Treegood comes to visit Uncle I’s wife, who is broken with grief on account of her dying daughter, is one that is worthy of Dickens. It has the heart-throb of human sorrow, human sympathy, human love.

I don’t know of anything more touching, in its simple unpretentious way, than the story of how Mother Treegood’s boys, the twins, ran away from home, and how one of them was drowned in the Ohio River, and was sent home for burial.

“My pretty boy was to our house brought, aber no one could him know—he was in the wasser—de water—so long—oh das Kalte, Kalte Wasser! so many, many days. I took more of the fever—und go out of my head—und so I never my Liebling seen again.”

The cry that was heard in Ramah, “Oh, that cold, cold water!”

Then, later on, there came a little box of tin-iron, “mit a hole cut in the on-top side.” But let Mother Treegood tell it in her own way:

“One day there came by the express company a little bundle. When it was opened—it was an oyster can—a box of tin-iron, mit a hole cut in the on-top side. The letter was from de other boy—und it say—that his brudder, who vas ver-drownded, did begin his business life in a hotel in Cincinnetty, as a bellboy, und he safe his money und put it in the oyster can. Und in dat oyster box was the shin-plasters, the five centses, und de ten centses—yoost as he take them in for noospapers and shoe-blacking—und it was yoost enough, ach mein lieber Gott!—yoost enough to pay for his grave at Brookfill.”

Surely this is very effective. It probably happened just that way. To know that it could, and perhaps did, is just the right impression for the author of a novel to make on the reader.

Another splendid episode is that wherein a “run on the bank” begins, as the funeral of Colonel Quillmore is in progress. The chapters which relate the tragedy, the fire in the Colonel’s laboratory, the wild ride of Father Lessing and Uncle I’; the dramatic climax where Mrs. Quillmore lashes herself into raving madness; the funeral procession whose mourners get caught up in the growing excitement of the “run on the bank,” and leave the hearse to fly to the bank for their money; the nerve and resource of Doc. Gus in saving the bank, and in saving the cashier from the would-be lynchers—are chapters which bear convincing testimony to the power and creativeness of the author.

The book is so finely conceived and written that one is tempted to scold the author for a few glaring faults which are well-nigh inexcusable.

Why paint L’Oiseau so black when he was to be white-washed at the end? There was no need to have him behave so brutally to the boy, Lanny Quillmore. It was a blunder to make him insult the boy, incur the hatred of the boy, assault the boy, and drive the boy from his own home. The lad is allowed to think and believe that L’Oiseau is on terms of criminal intimacy with Mrs. Quillmore, Lanny’s mother. There was no necessity for this. If L’Oiseau was brother-in-law to Mrs. Quillmore, and was prompted by paternal interest in paying her such suspicious attention, and in being out in the woods with her at unseasonable hours in the night, why permit the lady’s son to torture himself under a misapprehension?

What earthly reason was there for keeping from her only son a knowledge of the fact that L’Oiseau was her brother-in-law, and that her abnormal physical and mental condition required these unusual and suspicious attentions from him?

Again, L’Oiseau was rambling about at night with Mrs. Quillmore when she lost consciousness, fell by the wayside, was found by the priest, and succored by Doc. Gus.

What had become of her escort, L’Oiseau?

He had mysteriously disappeared, and Doc. Gus had a right to put the worst construction upon his conduct. Father Lessing knew the truth; why did Father Lessing allow Doc. Gus to remain in ignorance?

But the most serious blunder in the plot relates to the climax—the fire in Colonel Quillmore’s laboratory.

Doc. Gus sees the shadow of two men thrown upon the window shade. Only one of these men is accounted for, and the reader is left not only in doubt as to what happened, but in hopeless confusion. He cannot adopt any theory which will explain all the facts.

Now, that is against the rules. Let the plot be ever so complicated, the mystery ever so deep, the author must either clear it up himself, or furnish the reader with the clue. Wilkie Collins, in spite of his bewildering tangles, unravels everything before he quits. In “Edwin Drood,” the book which Dickens was writing when death interrupted the story, the author had constructed one of his most involved and difficult plots. Before he had furnished the key to the riddle, he died. Yet Edgar Allan Poe was able to tell, with unerring certainty, just how the story was meant to end. By a keen analysis of the facts which Dickens had already related, and by a course of reasoning that left no room for doubt, Poe demonstrated that Jasper, the guardian and devoted friend of Edwin Drood, had murdered him; that jealousy was the motive; that the body of the victim was hidden in the new tomb which the inflated ass, Sapsea, had recently built for the deceased Mrs. Sapsea; and that the corpse was located by old Durdles, the drunken workman whose skill with his hammer was so great that he could, by tapping, tapping, tapping on the outside or a wall, tell whether a foreign substance, such as a human body, was inclosed within.

Poe’s own matchless story, “The Gold Bug,” illustrates the rule which Mr. Chatterton broke. There are all sorts of mystifications to start with, but they are cleared up at the end.

Even in Frank Stockton’s famous “The Lady or the Tiger,” the rule is kept. The reader is left in a dilemma, but he can clear up everything by choosing one horn or the other. If he says that it is the lady who is behind the door which is about to be opened, no mystery remains. If he says that it is the tiger which is behind the door, nothing is left of the puzzle.

But in the Quillmore story there is no possible explanation which will dispose of the facts. If Colonel Quillmore died in the laboratory, and L’Oiseau did not kill him, who did? What about the two men quarreling in there at the time of the tragedy? What becomes of that other man? And how could Quillmore’s son meet him again in Paris? With the exception of L’Oiseau, no one had the motive to kill Colonel Quillmore; and the author made a point of showing that other people were afraid to go near the laboratory.

But if the Colonel did not die in the laboratory, how did his false teeth get into the mouth of the dead man when Doc. Gus dragged him out of the flames? How did the Colonel’s Masonic ring get on the dead man’s finger? How did the Colonel make his escape without being seen, and, who was it that he quarreled with and killed before he fled? Nobody appears to have been missing from the neighborhood. Usually when somebody is killed, somebody is missed.

Had Mr. Chatterton refrained from putting another man in the laboratory, had he left the Colonel dead in the flames, identified by his Masonic ring, had he left the reader to suppose that the sudden death of the Colonel and the sudden blaze which broke out in the building resulted from some dangerous chemical experiment, such as the Colonel delighted in—the story would have lost not a grain of interest and would have escaped a flagrant violation of the rules of literary construction.

The Game and the Candle. By Frances Davidge. D. Appleton & Co., New York.

Frances Davidge set herself too difficult a task when she attempted to make the characters in her novel. “The Game and the Candle,” speak in epigrams on every other page. The consequence is that the story, with its really brilliant beginning, develops into a commonplace love-story, and is only saved from absolute banality by its unforeseen and dramatic ending. In the field of literature which attempts to picture New York society the story will not find an enduring place, but it serves its purpose very well. The novelists are numberless who have sought to satirize our men and women of wealth and leisure; but few have given us any books that have lived longer than their allotted span of one brief season. The big society novel has not yet been written. Miss Davidge evidently knows a great deal of the foibles, the follies and the manners of the people of whom she writes, and her career is worth watching. At present she seems a bit immature and prolix, but there is no doubt as to her ability to write amazingly clever dialogue and to tell a story logically and well. Some of her characters are greatly overdrawn. One wishes that there were less of Gussie Regan, the hair-dresser; and Emily Blair, lovable as she is, could never have existed. Altogether, however, the story is pleasing and will find, doubtless, a large and appreciative audience.

H. C. T.

The Carlyles. By Mrs. Burton Harrison. D. Appleton & Co., New York.

In “The Carlyles” Mrs. Burton Harrison relinquishes the modern field which she has occupied for so long and with such marked success, and goes back to Civil War times for the scenes of her story. The Reconstruction period has been covered by innumerable writers. Indeed, it has been so frequently used by novelists and proven so fruitful a field, that one is apt to be overcome at the courage of an author who selects it now as the background for a tale; but Mrs. Harrison brings a certain freshness and charm to a subject that, it would seem, could inspire none. The opening chapter, which describes the impoverished condition of the Carlyles, brought on by the ravages of war, reveals the author at her best, and shows her intimate knowledge of life in Richmond in the ’60’s. The splendid fortitude of old Mr. Carlyle in the face of his calamity and financial ruin, and the pride of the aristocratic Southerner are depicted with faultless art.

The story itself is the old one of a girl who is unable to choose between two lovers, one of whom, of course, is a Yankee soldier and the other a Southerner fighting as a lieutenant-colonel under Lee. The usual complications occur. Lancelot Carlyle, a cousin and lover of Mona, the heroine, is imprisoned at Fort Delaware, and of the long period of his confinement Mrs. Harrison writes graphically, describing minutely the terrible ordeal of prison life. Fine as this portion of the novel is, however, it is in the chapters dealing with quiet domestic scenes that Mrs. Harrison writes with most force and distinction. The incident of the Christmas dinner-party, with the unheralded return of Lancelot and the sudden death of old Alexius Carlyle, is handled with consummate skill. The author has written no finer passage in any of her previous novels, nor one more certain to move her readers to tears.

H. C. T.

The House of Mirth. By Edith Wharton. Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Undoubtedly no novel during the past season has elicited more favorable criticism and more numerous letters from constant readers than “The House of Mirth.” The book had a certain artificial success from the start, because the impression went abroad that here at last was a book about Society, meaning the smallest number of the narrowest brains in any community from Kankakee to New York. On this very account there are a few millions of people in the United States who would not care to read it; but in view of the fact that some of the most serious critics have hailed “The House of Mirth” as a great American novel—only the bookseller now speaks of the American novel—a good many of the few millions, being persons of means and intelligence, would be tempted to indulge themselves in the rare luxury of such a boon. We cannot profess to treat the book as a true picture of American Society; because while we know how to wear the clothes and order the things to eat and drink, when we have the money, we have never, in our best-dressed and best-fed moments, been able to convince ourselves that we are anything but hopelessly middle class. Yet we are happy—sometimes; and we are bound to marvel at some of the things the society people in “The House of Mirth” do. For the most part they act like those people in New York who are loosely described as Fifth-avenue bohemians, which means they are people of much money, thoroughly informed about the decorative issues of life, with nothing to do but bore themselves and with a taste and intelligence that, in literature or the theatre, never craves anything more exciting than a musical show or a third-class novel, written by a man in Chicago, about lords and ladies of some corner lost and forgotten in Continental Europe. Our marvel that these society people should seem so underbred is only an exhibition of our unfamiliarity with a certain social stratum. We would have no right to make record of it, if it were not for the fact that so many people, of the better class themselves, have written letters of protest to divers publications, protesting against the impression that “The House of Mirth” is a story accurately representing New York society. We quote one letter from the New York Times Saturday Review:

For our part, we prefer to depend upon the octogenarian who has just spoken, and who asserts his membership in one of the oldest families in New York, for an opinion upon the accuracy of “The House of Mirth” as a Society novel. As a novel pure and simple it seems to us to be radically defective in imaginative power, slow and cumbrous in construction, and wholly ineffective to impose an illusion. We say this with regret because we have read a good many of the author’s short stories from the time the first volume of them was issued; and the impression conveyed by her work in the short story field, as contrasted by the impression of this novel, makes clearer to us than ever the conviction that to write a short story a short-story writer is required, and to write a novel a novelist, and they have always been two persons from Mr. Kipling down and across. The author’s style is clear, sharp, refined, as before; but the gross defect of “The House of Mirth” is that the characters are pushed here and there by the author like so many wooden soldiers on a cardboard field of battle. They have no more volition than marionettes. In fact they are merely described names except in the instances of the three chief characters. One could have borne with the waxlike fibre of the attendant persons if the figure of Lily Bart, the heroine, would stand the gaze of the naked eye during even half the book. Lily is described by the author as possessing a fine sense of diplomacy in intercourse with the people of her set, yet her whole register of action from the first page reveals her as moving through the comedy without prudence, yet without conscience, with maneuver, yet without skill; with an under-appeal to the reader’s sympathy, yet exasperating the reader until in the moment of tragedy he feels that the heroine deserved all she got and ought to have got it sooner. But, when one gets away from the book, one feels that the fault is not the fault of the character, but of the author who has paltered by trying to make literary academics and psychology square with life itself and a good story.

The minor irritations of the book are the absolutely fictional flavor of the names of most of the characters, the use of English or Continental idiom, and the mummery of the illustrations. Among the English phrases which the author so much affects is the word charwoman for scrubwoman. It may be that Society calls a scrubwoman a charwoman, but we would like to see any society man or woman do it to the lady’s face.

It is announced that Clyde Fitch is to dramatize “The House of Mirth” for production next fall and that he will adhere to the construction of the story as much as possible. The book is worthy of Mr. Fitch’s lofty talent.

R. D.

Letters and Addresses. By Abraham Lincoln. Unit Book Publishing Company.

Even if there were a man, at this day of awakening in the United States, who could honestly say he had no interest in politics, providing he had any intelligence at all and ambition to think, he could not pass over such a book as “Lincoln’s Letters and Addresses” for the simple reason that on account of the style alone, the reading of them is a solace and a refreshment that endures. Of course, most of us are familiar with the addresses and the letters that have been so widely quoted, repeated, and learned by heart in school, that they are become as household words; but in such a book as this, containing infinite riches in little room, one secures not only the loftiest kind of pleasure but also a strangely intimate and attractive vision and understanding of the gaunt, unshapely figure whose genius towers higher as the years are added to the history of our country.

R. D.

Contrite Hearts. By Herman Bernstein. A. Wessels Company, New York.

Some books are interesting because of their content alone; some only on account of the personality of their author: some for the reason that both the author and the content of his book are humanly valuable. Of the third distinction is “Contrite Hearts,” a story of Jewish life in Russia and the United States, by a writer who on occasion before has shown that he can use an alien language with simplicity and force. He has shown before also that he can present a picture of the people of his race without bias and with a due understanding of their defects and qualities. The Jew in America as presented in melodrama is a creation almost wholly of the romance spirit of the theatre. It is not to be denied that the prevalence of the very poor Jews in the lowest ranks of traffickers among men has provided an obvious type. In sharp contrast to this is the growing dominance of the Jew in the very highest ranks of commerce. Between the two must of necessity exist the Jew of the middle class; and all these varieties of the race have expanded to their utmost in the United States rather than in any other country. From a purely artistic standpoint, therefore, there is nothing more evident than that the field of Jewish manners and customs is wide and rich ground for the novelist. The transmutation in one generation of a peasant in Russia, with no rights beyond those of a street mongrel, to a man in the most advanced as well as the most vigorous civilization of the day, is material too obvious to be overlooked by the most casual scribe.

Mr. Bernstein, while not a writer of dramatic quality has that quieter and more sincere gift native to Russians, whether Jew or Gentile, of presenting life as an actuality against the artificial background of the printed page. Many who are called novelists among ourselves, and who have never talked or written any language but English, could learn a good deal of simplicity from this foreign-born author. Of course, one runs across the traces of his birth in certain peculiarities that even constant practice cannot wear out. These blemishes, however, are never vulgar as are the strainful phases of an indigenous author who uses his language as a race-track tout spreads himself with the flashy colors and fabrics that the clothier and the haberdasher of his station provide. It is rather interesting to hear what one of the characters in “Contrite Hearts” has to say of this country.

“Here in America it is different. All are equal. Everyone is free. And all roads to success are open to the able, the enterprising, the persevering. There is no difference here between Jew and Gentile. People flock hither from all lands, and within a few years the Jew, the Frenchman, the German, the Irishman, the Italian—all are proud that they have become American. You ask me about the Jews, about Jewish affairs, about Jewish institutions—well, we have various kinds of Jews here. Orthodox Jews—these are the plain Jews like ourselves. Reform Jews—Jews who imitate the ways of the Christian. There are also Jews here who try to be both Orthodox and reform at the same time—that is, neither this nor that.”

Is this all true?

R. D.

Politics in New Zealand. By Prof. Frank Parsons. Edited by Dr. C. F. Taylor. Dr. C. F. Taylor, Publisher, Philadelphia, Pa.

This is one of the Equity Series published quarterly by Dr. Taylor, and contains the chief portions of the political parts of a book entitled, “The Story of New Zealand,” by Prof. Frank Parsons and Dr. Taylor. The latter is a large, heavy book selling at $3.00, and is doubtless the most complete history of New Zealand and exposition of present conditions there ever published. It is a beautifully illustrated volume containing 860 pages, and includes history, description, the native people (the Maoris) and their treatment by the whites, the splendid resources of the country, and, more than all, a full and interesting account of the rise and development of the remarkable institutions and government of New Zealand which are attracting the attention of all the rest of the world.

As Dr. Taylor well says in his explanatory note in “Politics in New Zealand,” the size and cost of the “Story of New Zealand” prevent it from reaching the masses of our people, and the political facts, particularly of that progressive country should reach the mind and thought of our voters. “It is,” he says, “with a view of placing these political facts within the easy reach of the masses of our people, that I have selected the most important of these facts from the large book and arranged them as you see them in this unpretentious pamphlet.” “Politics in New Zealand” is now being used in combination with subscriptions to Watson’s Magazine. (See advertising pages.)

The great value of “Politics in New Zealand” lies in the fact that it gives the workings of many Populistic ideas put into actual practice. In this country the People’s Party has been obliged to theorize and resort to an appeal to the reasoning faculties of the people. It has been unable to point out many illustrations of the actual working of its theories, except by reference to foreign countries. For example, to sustain its contention for public ownership of railroads, it has been obliged to use the lines in Germany and other monarchies as illustrations. The United States is such a vast domain as compared with countries in Continental Europe, that considerable discrimination is necessary in order to draw a fair conclusion. Besides, the European countries are so old that the habits of the people are a great factor not to be lightly dismissed. In using New Zealand, however, as our object lesson, the conditions are more, nearly parallel. It is true that country is much smaller than the United States, but in point of age and habits of the people, there is much similarity. Accordingly, New Zealand is without doubt the best object lesson in the world for proving the soundness of Populistic theories.

Those who have either bought or sold real estate in the older portions of the United States, understand the difficulties and uncertainties surrounding land titles under the system which is in vogue generally. As Prof. Parsons points out, it is often necessary to search through many big volumes of deeds and mortgages, and carefully construe the provisions of various wills and conveyances in order to follow the title to its source, and form an opinion as to its validity. And even then the opinion of the most accomplished expert may prove fallacious, and the purchaser may lose his land through some defect of title. As early as 1860 the New Zealanders passed an act to remedy this condition of things by establishing what is known as the Torrens system of title registration. The owner of land may give the registrar his deeds and the claims of all persons interested, and the registrar investigates the title once for all. He accepts it if he finds it valid, and registers the applicant as proprietor, giving him a certificate to that effect. The certificate gives an indefeasible title in fee, subject only to such incumbrances and charges as may be entered on the register. An independent purchaser has only to consult the register to learn at once who is the owner of the land, and what burdens, if any, rest upon it. He is not obliged to trace the title back to the Government Patent. This system is now in force in some places in the United States, but its adoption is generally opposed by those who profit by examining titles—that is to say, the lawyers.

There were some telegraph lines constructed under the provincial governments of New Zealand prior to 1865, but nothing was done in a national way until that year. Then the General Assembly authorized the Governor to establish electric telegraphs and appoint a commissioner to manage them. Existing lines and offices were to be purchased, new lines built, and a national system developed. The commissioner made the regulations, fixed the rates, and employed operators to transmit all messages presented. Afterward the telegraphs became a part of the postal system. This naturally led to government ownership and operation of the telephone when the latter means of transmitting intelligence was introduced. It is also a part of the postal system, and as Prof. Parsons points out, “The Government is ‘hello-girl’ as well as postmaster, telegraph operator and banker.”

Mr. Gladstone secured the establishment of postal savings banks in England in 1861. New Zealand adopted the idea in 1865, and since that time nearly every country in the civilized world, except the United States, has followed England’s example. The object of the New Zealand Post Office Savings Bank Act (1865) was stated to be: “To give additional facilities for the deposits of small savings at interest, and with the security of the Government behind it.” Practically all the money order offices in New Zealand (470 a few years ago) were open under the Postal Banking Law for the transaction of savings bank business, while there were but five private savings banks in the Islands. In New Zealand there is a place of bank deposit for each 1,800 people. In the United States there is one for each 7,650 people. The total deposits in all sorts of banks is $110 per head of population in the United States, $125 in Great Britain, and $140 in New Zealand. Comment seems to be unnecessary. The postal banks will not receive less than a shilling at a time, but printed forms are furnished on which stamps may be pasted, one or more at a time, until the total amounts to a shilling or more, when the slip can be deposited as cash to the amount of the stamps pasted on it. The great advantage of postal banking, and in fact all government banking, is its safety. No postal bank in any country has ever closed its door for liquidation, or experienced a run on its funds.

In view of our insurance scandals and the recent investigation, the chapter on Government Insurance is especially interesting at this time. In 1870 New Zealand adopted the Australian ballot and a public works policy, together with a Government Life Insurance Department. As the author points out, “The philosophy of this new departure was very simple. The purpose of insurance is the diffusion of loss. Instead of allowing a loss to fall with crushing weight on one individual, or family, it is spread out over a large number of stockholders or premium payers. If it is a good thing to distribute loss over a few thousand people who hold stock in a given company or pay premiums to it, it is still better to distribute the loss over the whole community. It is also wise to eliminate the expenses and profits of insurance so far as may be, and put the guarantee of the Government behind it, so that it may reach as many people and afford as much security as possible.”

The insurance department was popular from the very start. The latest report when this book was written (1901) showed in force 42,570 policies covering $51,000,000 of insurance, or practically half the total business of the Colony. The Government office had beaten the private companies in fair competition, for there was no attempt to exclude private insurance companies. It had, in 1901, a much larger business than any of the companies, and almost as much as all the companies put together. This refers, of course, to the ordinary life insurance business, for there were 21,000 policies in industrial societies, which were not included in the regular life insurance statement. Two of our companies mixed up in the recent scandal, the Equitable Life and the New York Life, had, in 1901, been in the Colony 15 and 13 years respectively. The Equitable had 717 policies in force and the New York Life 139, as against 42,570 Government policies.

The people of New Zealand prefer the Government insurance because of its safety—it has the guarantee of the Government behind it. It is in no danger of vanishing through insolvency, as ordinary insurance does now and then. Because of its cheapness, the rates being lower than any ordinary private companies; and because of its freedom from all oppressive conditions. The only conditions are that the premiums must be paid, and the assured must not commit suicide within six months after the insurance is taken out. As Professor Parsons says, “The policy is world-wide. The assured may go where he will, do what he likes—get himself shot in battle, smoke cigarettes, drink ice-water and eat plum pudding, or commit suicide under the ordinary forms after six months, and the money will still be paid to his relatives.” Instead of wasting valuable time and gray matter on devising schemes to prevent scoundrels from looting private insurance companies, why not devote a little thought to inaugurating a system of government insurance?

An unique institution in New Zealand is the Public Trust office, established in 1872. Its purpose is to serve as executor, administrator, trustee, agent, or attorney, in the settlement and management of the property of decedents, or others, who for any reason are unable or unwilling to care for it themselves; to insure honest administration and safe investment; to provide for a wise discretion that may avoid the difficulties and losses incident to a strict fulfilment of wills and trusts imperfectly drawn; and to give advice and draw up papers, wills, deeds, and other instruments for the people in all parts of the Colony.

“In the earlier years,” says the author, “nominations for representatives were made and seconded vocally at an assembly of the voters of the district. But since the Act of September (1890) representatives are nominated by petition in writing, signed by two or more voters of the district, transmitted with the candidates’ assent and a $50 deposit to the returning officer, who immediately publishes the names of the candidates. Each candidate must be nominated on a separate paper which must be transmitted to the returning officer at least seven days before the polling day. If the nominee doesn’t get one tenth as many votes as the lowest successful candidate, the $50 deposit is forfeited to the public treasury. This shuts out frivolous nominations. The nominations are usually made some time before the voting day, and the candidates go about the district and meet and address the electors in all parts of it. No candidate would stand any chance of election who failed to give the people he wished to represent an opportunity to get acquainted with him and ask him questions about his attitude on issues likely to come before the next Parliament. Seamen, sheep-shearers and commercial travelers are permitted to vote by mail. Such person gets a ballot paper filled up by the Postmaster with the names of the candidates in the applicant’s district, and the postal voter then marks the ballot and mails it.”

Another Populistic economic theory put in practice in New Zealand is the Land and Income Assessment Act which abolishes the personal property tax and establishes graduated taxation on land values and incomes. The avowed objects of the law are to tax “according to ability to pay,” “to free the small man,” and, “to burst up monopolies”; and its cardinal features are the exemption of improvements and of small people and the special pressure put on the big monopolies and corporations and on absentees.

All improvements are exempt. All buildings, fencings, draining, crops, etc.—all value that has been added by labor, all live stock also and personal property; only the unimproved value of the land is taxed. Mortgages are deducted also in estimating the land taxes as they are taxed to the lender. There is a small-estate exemption of $2,500, where the net value of the estate doesn’t exceed $7,500. So that if a farmer has no more than $2,500 of land value left after deducting improvements and mortgage liabilities from the value of his real property, he pays no land tax.

Besides the three exemptions mentioned, there is another conditional exemption. If an old or infirm person owns land or mortgages returning less than $1,000 a year, and can show that he is not able to supplement his income, and that the payment of the tax would be a hardship, the commissioner may remit the tax. Here the custom is quite the other way. The millionaire swears off his tax. Out of 110,000 land owners, in New Zealand, only 16,000 pay tax.

The graded tax begins when the unimproved value reaches $25,000. It rises from ¼ of a cent on the pound of $25,000 to 16⁄4ths, or 4 cents, a pound on a million dollars, or more, of unimproved value. This graduated tax is in addition to the ordinary level-rate land tax levied each year, which is 2 cents on the pound. Absentee owners of large estates have still another tax to pay. If the owner of an estate large enough to come under the graded tax has been out of the country a year, this graded tax is increased 20%.

The income tax applies to net income from employment, and net profits from business. There is an absolute exemption of $1,500, except in the case of absentees, and companies whether absentees or not, and a further additional exemption up to $250 a year for life insurance premiums, if the citizen wishes to spend his money that way. All income derived from land or from mortgages, so far as they represent realty, is outside this tax, which affects only income from employment or business. The farmer, who derives all his income from land, pays no income tax. The same may be said of a lawyer, doctor, teacher, artisan, or any other person who makes no more than $1,500 a year. The total number of income-tax payers is only about 5,600.

United States Consul Connolly, reporting to our Government in 1894 and 1897, has considerable to say regarding taxation in New Zealand. He says that country excels in the matter of taxation. That in a very short time the system of taxation had been revolutionized and the incidence almost entirely changed, not only without disturbing to any appreciable extent existing interests, but with the most beneficial results. He says the income tax was most fiercely denounced as inquisitorial, destructive of the first principles of frugality and thrift—in fact all the forms of evil lurked in the shadows of the words “income tax,” and a united effort was made to resist this “iniquitous tax,” but all to no purpose. And that in 1897, after six years of experience, the more liberal and fair-minded of those who opposed the income tax frankly admitted that it is a fair and unembarrassing tax. “In New Zealand the land and income tax is now popular; it is accepted in lieu of the property tax; it is a success.”

In the United States the Government is paternalistic toward banks, railroads and manufacturing interests. It loans its credit to the national bankers at most advantageous terms, but has persistently refused to favor other classes in a similar way. In New Zealand, however, in 1894, there was established a Government loan office which lends public funds to farmers, laborers, business men, etc. at low interest, and on easy terms. The security taken is on freehold, or leasehold, interest clear of incumbrances and free of any breach of conditions. The loans are on first mortgage of land and improvements. No loan is to be less than $125, or more than $15,000, and the sum of the advances to any one person must not exceed $15,000. There are two kinds of advances, fixed loans and installment loans. The first may be for any period not exceeding ten years, and the principal is due at the end of that term. The second is for 36½ years, and part of the principal is to be paid each half year. Interest in both cases is at 4½%, if paid within fourteen days of the time it is due (5% if payment is not prompt); and in the case of an instalment loan, 1% more is to be paid for the reduction of the principal.

Passing over the chapters devoted to the labor department, the state farm, the factory laws, the shop acts, the 8-hour day, industrial arbitration and co-operation, all of which are of intense interest, but of such a nature as to preclude brief statement, we come to the Government ownership and operation of the railways. The year 1894 Prof. Parsons calls “the glory year of land resumption. Government loans to farmers, nationalization of credit, labor legislation and judicialization of strikes and lock-outs.” It was in this year that another important move was made through a vital change in the national railway policy. In 1887 a commission system was inaugurated, under which the roads were put in the hands of commissioners appointed by the Governor, with the assent of Parliament. This did not prove satisfactory to New Zealand. The commissioners managed the roads with a view to making a good financial report. They were looking for profit. In the Parliamentary debates it was charged that rates were so high that firewood went to waste in the forest, and potatoes rotted in the fields, while the people in the cities were cold and hungry in the years of depression; that goods were frequently hauled more cheaply by wagon than by rail; that while rates were reduced somewhat now and then, it was done by reducing wages; that the pay of the men was cut while the salaries of high-priced officials were increased, and so on. This is a striking parallel to conditions in the United States today.

Prof. Parsons admits that the commissioners were honest, but they were simply railroad men, running the roads to make money for the treasury. Finally public indignation became intense. The air was full of complaints, and in 1893 the abolition of the commission was made an issue in the campaign, and the people, by an overwhelming majority, elected representatives pledged to put the roads under direct control of the Minister of Railways and the Parliament, and to bring the railroads within speaking distance of the people.

The result of this change is that the roads are no longer run primarily for profit, but for service; and the men are treated with the consideration due to partners in the business. It is announced that the definite policy of the Government shall be that all profits above the 3% needed for interest on the railway debt shall be returned to the people in lower rates and better accommodations. This is in striking contrast to the facts brought out in the letter of Engineer William D. Marks to Hon. Wharton Barker, recently printed as a public document at the instance of Senator Tillman of South Carolina, in which it is shown that the people of the United States are today paying interest on a fictitious railway capitalization of something like $7,000,000,000.

In 1899 the Minister of Railways announced a reduction of 20% on ordinary farm products and 40% on butter and cheese, etc. These concessions, Prof. Parsons declares, amount to one seventh of the receipts—equivalent to a reduction of $150,000,000 on the yearly freight rates in the United States. That alone would be a yearly saving of almost $2 a head for the people of the United States. In 1900 Mr. Ward, the new Minister of Railways, announced a general lowering of passenger fares as the first fruits of his administration. “The announcement was received with cheers by the audience—stockholders in the road.” Care is taken in New Zealand that small men shall not be put at a disadvantage. The State roads carry 400 pounds at the same rate as the ton rate, or the train-load rate, and one bale of wool goes the same rate as a thousand. No such thing is known in New Zealand as the lowering of rates to a shipper because of the great size of his shipments. All the rates are made by the management openly. There are no secret modifications of the tariff. There may be a variation on scheduled rates to equalize a long haul, or enable a distant mine or factory to reach the market in condition to compete with nearer rivals, but the total charge is never lower than the rate that is given to others for the same service.

The State roads are used to advance the cause of education. Children in the primary grades are carried free to school. Other children pay $2.50 to $5, according to age, for a three-months season ticket up to sixty miles. This gives them a possible 120 miles a day for 3 to 6 cents in round numbers, or 20 to 40 miles for a cent. A child who goes in and out six miles each day rides 12 miles for 3 cents.

It is impossible in the limits of this article to more than touch upon many of the other advances made in New Zealand. The Referendum is now used to a considerable extent in local affairs, and its use is being extended. Old age pensions are in force, being a much better method than maintaining poor houses. Immigration is carefully guarded. The State is now opening coal mines and engaging in the business of furnishing fuel to the people. Many other innovations of this character are being considered and put in operation from time to time.

Prof. Parsons summarizes his study of New Zealand in some sharp contrasts and conclusions, from which we quote in part:

“The United States is in form a Republic, but ... an aristocracy of industrial power. New Zealand is in form an Imperial Province, but in fact it is substantially a Republic. The will of the great body of the common people is in actual control of the Government.

“In America, farmers organize for agricultural needs, and the working-men organize for labor purposes, but they do not join forces to take control of the Government in their common interest, as is the case in New Zealand. Not only have our farmers and workers failed to get together, but neither group has learned to use the ballot for its interest in any systematic way. The farmers divide at the polls and organized labor divides at the polls. In New Zealand the small farmers are practically solid at the ballot box, and organized labor is solid at the ballot, and the two solids are welded together into one irresistible solid.”

C. Q. D.

BACK HOME. By Eugene Wood. S. S. McClure Co., New York.

It isn’t often that an author writes a real review of his own book. Well, maybe he does, too, but it seldom happens that he writes it as a preface to the book itself, very seldom that it is an interesting one, very, very seldom that it tells you what to expect to find in the book, and very, very, very seldom that he isn’t too much wrapped up in his own private idea of his story to write a fair one from our point of view. However, Eugene Wood, being unconventional and other pleasing things, has done all this in the preface to his “Back Home.” When you have read the preface, you are glad you did, instead of feeling sorry you wasted time on it and fearful lest a book by the same author of that preface will be something of a bore. After Mr. Wood’s preface you know Mr. Wood and about what to expect in Mr. Wood’s book. You like one, and you know you are going to like the other.

It would be the easiest thing in the world for the reviewer to sit down and write reams of “copy” on “Back Home” and the good things therein, but it is much more to the point for him who reads to listen to Mr. Wood himself. If you are human instead of petrified, you will enjoy both the preface and the book. Both reach for the heart-strings, and the terms—the term is good.

Here is the larger part of the preface:

“Gentle Reader:—Let me make you acquainted with my book, ‘Back Home.’ (Your right hand, Book, your right hand, Pity’s sake: How many times have I got to tell you that? Chest up and forward, shoulders back and down, and turn your toes out more.)

“Here’s a book. It is long? No. Is it exciting? No. Any lost diamonds in it? Nup. Mysterious murders? No. Whopping big fortune, now teetering this way, and now teetering that, tipping over on the Hero at the last and smothering him in an avalanche of fifty-dollar bills? No. Does She get Him? Isn’t even that. No ‘heart interest’ at all. What’s the use of putting out good money to make such a book; to have a cover-design for it; to get a man like A. B. Frost to draw illustrations for it, when he costs so like the mischief, when there’s nothing in the book to make a man sit up till ‘way past bedtime’? Why print it at all?

“You may search me. I suppose it’s all right, but if it was my money, I’ll bet I could make a better investment of it. If worst came to worst, I could do like the fellow in the story who went to the gambling-house and found it closed up, so he shoved the money under the door and went away. He’d done his part.

“And yet, on the other hand, I can see how some sort of a case can be made out for this book of mine. I suppose I am wrong—I generally am in regard to everything—but it seems to me that quite a large part of the population of this country must be grown-up people. If I am right in this connection, this large part of the population is being unjustly discriminated against. I believe in doing a reasonable amount for the aid and comfort of the young things that are just beginning to turn their hair up under, or who rub a stealthy forefinger over their upper lips to feel the pleasant rasp, but I don’t believe in their monopolizing everything. I don’t think it’s fair. All the books printed—except, of course, those containing valuable information; we don’t buy those books, but go to the public library for them—all the books printed are concerned with the problem of How She got Him, and He can get Her.

“Well, now. It was either yesterday morning or the day before that you looked in the glass and beheld there The First Gray Hair. You smiled a smile that was not all pure pleasure, a smile that petered out into a sigh, but nevertheless a smile, I will contend. What do you think about it? You’re still on earth, aren’t you? You’ll last the month out, anyhow, won’t you? Not at all ready to be laid on the shelf? What do you think of the relative importance of Love, Courtship, and Marriage? One or two other things in life just about as interesting, aren’t there? Take getting a living, for instance. That’s worthy of one’s attention, to a certain extent. When our young ones ask us: “Pop, what did you say to Mom when you courted her?” they feel provoked at us for taking it so lightly and so frivolously. It vexes them for us to reply: “Law, child! I don’t remember. Why, I says to her: ‘Will you have me?’ and she says: ‘Why, yes, and jump at the chance.’” What difference does it make what we said or whether we said anything at all? Why should we charge our memories with the recollections of those few foolish months of mere instinctive sex-attraction when all that really counts came after, the years wherein low passion bloomed into lofty Love, the dear companionship in joy and sorrow, and in that which is more, far more than either joy or sorrow, “the daily round, the common task?” All that is wonderful to think of in our courtship is the marvel, for which we should never cease to thank the Almighty God, that with so little judgment at our disposal we should have chosen so wisely.

“If you, Gentle Reader, found your first gray hair day before yesterday morning, if you can remember, ’way back ten or fifteen years ago—er—er—or more, come with me. Let us go ‘Back Home.’ Here’s your transportation, all made out to you, and in your hand. It is no use my reminding you that no railroad goes to the old place. It isn’t there any more, even in outward seeming. Cummins’s woods, where you had your robbers’ cave, is all cleared off and cut up into building lots. The cool and echoing covered bridge, plastered with notices of dead and forgotten Strawberry Festivals and Public Vendues, has long ago been torn down, to be replaced by a smart, red iron bridge. The Volunteer Firemen’s Engine-house, whose brick wall used to flutter with the gay rags of circus-bills, is gone as if it never were at all. Where the Union School-house was is all torn up now. They are putting up a new magnificent structure, with all the modern improvements, exposed plumbing, and spankless discipline. The quiet, leafy streets echo to the hissing snarl of trolley cars, and the power-house is right by the Old Swimming-hole above the dam. The meeting-house, where we attended Sabbath-school, and marveled at the Greek temple frescoed on the wall behind the pulpit, is now a church with a big organ, and stained-glass windows, and folding opera-chairs on a slanting floor. There isn’t any “Amen Corner,” any more, and in these calm and well-ordered times nobody ever gets “shouting happy”.

“But even when “the loved spots that our infancy knew” are physically the same, a change has come upon them more saddening than words can tell. They have shrunken and grown shabbier. They are not nearly so spacious and so splendid as once they were.

“Some one comes up to you and calls you by your name. His voice echoes in the chambers of your memory. You hold his hand in yours and try to peer through the false-face he has on, the mask of a beard or spectacles, or a changed expression of the countenance. He says he is So-and-so. Why, he used to sit with you in Miss Crutcher’s room, don’t you remember? There was a time when you and he walked together, your arms upon each other’s shoulders. But this is some other than he. The boy you knew had freckles, and could spit between his teeth, ever and ever so far.

“They don’t have the same things to eat they used to have, or, if they do, it all tastes different. Do you remember the old well, with the windlass and chain fastened to the rope just above the bucket, the chain that used to cluck-cluck when the dripping bucket came within reach to be swung upon the well-curb? How cold the water used to be, right out of the north-west corner of the well! It made the roof of your mouth ache when you drank. Everybody said it was such splendid water. It isn’t so very cold these days, and I think it has a sort of funny taste to it.

“Ah, Gentle Reader, this is not really ‘Back Home’ we gaze upon when we go there by train. It is a last year’s birds’ nest The nest is there; the birds are flown, the birds of youth, and noisy health, and ravenous appetite, and inexperience. You cannot go ‘Back Home’ by train, but here is the magic wishing-carpet, and here is your transportation in your hand all made out to you. You and I will make the journey together. Let us in heart and mind thither ascend.

“I went to the Old Red School-house with you. Don’t you remember me? I was learning to swim when you could go clear across the river without once ‘letting down.’ I saw you at the County Fair, and bought a slab of ice-cream candy just before you did, I was in the infant-class in Sabbath School when you spoke in the dialogue at the monthly concert. Look again. Don’t you remember me? I used to stub my toe so; you ought to recollect me by that. I know plenty of people that you know. I may not always get their names just right, but then it’s been a good while ago. You’ll recognize them, though; you’ll know them in a minute.”

A. S. H.

The Easter Hope BY CORA A. MATSON DOLSON — Explained

The Say of Other Editors — The Best

Clark Howell’s politicians and newspaper supporters over the state are sending up a unanimous wail because Tom Watson, a Populist, manifests some interest in Georgia politics. They swear he is trying to break up the Democratic party and gain control of the state. Well, what about Major J. F. Hanson, the Republican president of the Central Railway? He has been active in state politics for a long time, and wields more influence than a thousand ringsters who are “cussing” Tom Watson. If it is a high crime for Populist Watson to take a hand in Georgia politics, what kind of crime is Republican Hanson guilty of when he joins Hamp McWhorter and Sam Spencer in a prolonged struggle to dominate the public policies and politics of Georgia? Will some of the political time-servers please answer?—Newnan (Ga.) News.

The fact that Mr. Howell has never replied to the question why he was so anxious for Watson to call and see him, leads us to believe that he was after the same thing he accuses Smith of—attempting to get what honey he could out of the Populist beegum.—Washington (Ga.) Reporter.

The latest proposition is to put the Quay statue at Harrisburg in a niche. That would be a good plan provided they wall up the niche afterward.—Broken Bow (Neb.) Beacon.

The railroad rate bill was passed by the House by a vote of 346 to 7, last week Thursday.

The bill is now up to the Senate. It may stay there for some time before it passes, if it is passed at all.

The corporation-ridden Senate is a disgrace to a people who are said to elect their public servants. The men who made the Senate so far from the touch of the common people either were short-sighted, or defrauded the real American citizen out of one of the most necessary needs in this age of graft and political corruption.

The Grange favors the direct nomination and election of our United States Senators, and in due course of time we, the people, shall be electors in deed and action. By direct vote of the people, making the senators responsible and answerable to the masses, alone can we inject purity into our elections and accomplish reform in public affairs.—Sandusky (Mich.) Salinac Farmer.

Up to January 16 the Congressional Record contained 2,300 columns of speeches made so far by congressmen, but it has to record only one important bill passed.

William Jennings Bryan’s costume in the honorable position of a “Datto” of Mindanao consists of a high hat and a black silk apron. In cold weather he is permitted to varnish his legs.—McEwen (Tenn.) New Era.

The members of the lower house of Congress are debating the railroad rate bill this week. At the end of that time the public will know which ones are entitled to railroad passes under the new regulation of the companies that only employees are to receive them.—Matthews (I. T.) News.

We admire patriotism but we don’t like toadyism. It makes us tired to see how quick some editors sneeze when a high official takes snuff. And when the snuff is taken purely and solely for political effect it makes it all the more disgusting.—Marshville (N. C.) Our Home.

“This is the time,” says Senator Platt, “when little bosses will find their level.” And it is also the time when some great bosses are finding rock bottoms.—Stanberry (Mo.) Owl.

What’s the difference between a street curb boodler and one that sells out for a promise of an appointment? Ans.—One gets his money before voting while the other gets it afterwards, if he does not get left—principle same.—Batavia (O.) Democrat.

Why are all the candidates opposing Hoke Smith? There must be some reason for it. Everyone had faith in him, believed him far superior to a majority of other people, until he got into the race. Why this change? Why so many attacks upon him? Is it because he is advocating reforms which have already been adopted by several of the other Southern states? It must be because he stands for something, and is not ashamed or afraid to tell what it is.—Marietta (Ga.) Courier.

With Clark Howell devoting most of his time to “cussing” out Tom Watson, Hoke Smith is sailing smoothly on to the gubernatorial chair.—Dalton (Ga.) Citizen.

The New York Sun puts it this way: “If John Mitchell’s statement at the miners’ convention is not a bluff, there will be either an enormous increase in the coal bills of the American people or the most costly and disastrous strike the country has ever seen.” But what do the mine owners and the striking mine workers care about that, so long as the people who buy the coal are willing to bear their suffering in silence—paying without a murmur any price the coal barons put on their product; and feeling well assured that nothing will be done by the suffering people to change the laws by which these barons are enabled to inflict this suffering.—Waterbury (Conn.) Examiner.

During the last ten years stocks and bonds amounting to $12,500,000,000 have been floated in this country. This additional capitalization of the industries and railroads of the country is about equal to the total value of all grain crops raised by the farmers during the same period. It is one-third more than the total value of the products of all mines in the country for the same period. It is equal to one-eighth of the total wealth of the United States in 1900. That is the way the “great” financiers absorb the wealth produced by the toilers of the nation. After studying the above statistics you may realize the force of Gov. Johnson’s statement that fictitious valuation and the consequent tax on the producers is the great curse of this country. Ignatius Donnelly used to tell a story about a hen that laid an egg in a nest fitted with a false bottom. The egg disappeared, and the hen laid another, continuing in her vain effort to have an egg show up in the nest until there was nothing left of her but the feathers. The fictitious capitalization is the false bottom that takes the products of the laborer, leaving him nothing to show for his efforts.—Willmar (Minn.) Tribune.

The Hepburn rate bill now pending in Congress is nothing more nor less than the Hearst bill with a few loopholes in it for the convenience of those railroad companies that may desire to side-step its provisions.—Globe (Ariz.) Register.

The fact that the congressmen of both old parties are almost a unit for the railroad rate bill now pending in Congress, should be enough to satisfy any reasonable man that the people can get their rights only through a new party. The bill is a miserable pretense engineered by railroad tools in Congress, and its object is to make the people believe they are going to get relief through the old parties.—Chillicothe (Mo.) World.

Gov. Magoon testifies that men may be put to death in the Panama Canal zone without trial. It seems to be easier to put them to death than to put them to work.—Athens (Ill.) Free Press.

The time has come when we need men that stand for something. The day is past when our forefathers stood for truth, honor, principle; and all that was right must be called into play again or this republic will be but an iridescent dream.—Marion (Ala.) Democrat.

A writer in a recent issue of a so-called farm paper says the reason boys go to towns and cities to live is because they long for a life in which they will be independent of every one else on earth. Then why in thunder do they go to the cities to find it? A man might as well dig out gopher holes expecting to find wolves as to go to the cities to find an independent life. The place to find that is on the farm. Here we are our own boss, and if any one else does not like the way we do, we are in a position to tell him to go to—with no danger of losing our job.—Irrigon (Ore.) Irrigator.

It now looks like Marion Butler is arranging to take charge of the Republican Party in North Carolina. We make no prediction about what will be or what will not be done. Those who know his past record will hesitate before surrendering entirely to a man who is so thoroughly repudiated by all classes in this state.—Asheboro (N. C.) Courier.

The Chicago Tribune asks: “Granting that it will take seven years to construct the Panama canal, have the seven years begun yet?” That is rather a hard question, not knowing the personality of the timekeeper. However, there is one thing in connection with the scheme that we are all well aware of—the big salaries of the political constructors have begun, all right.—Farmington Valley Herald, Hartford, Conn.

According to the Pantagraph, Senator Cullom should be re-elected because he stayed in Washington after the session of Congress of last winter and did work that he was drawing a salary of $5,000 a year to do. The statement that his present illness was brought on by overwork seems preposterous. Who ever heard of a United States Senator overworking, unless it was to keep himself in office? From present indications, it seems that the people of the state are willing to give Mr. Cullom a rest from his overwork.—Colfax (Ill.) Press.

John A. McCall, late head of a giant life insurance company, is dead, and, as far as mortal knows, is at rest for the first time for months. This erstwhile gentleman and master of high finance was “weighed in the balance and found wanting.” The weighing was done by fellow citizens, which made remorse all the more keen. Rapid decline followed and McCall, broken-hearted, deserted and despised, is gone. His fate should be an example to others who are tempted to do wrong. A half dozen other luminaries of New York, who were caught dead to rights in the insurance frauds, are fast following in McCall’s wake, and are even now all but ostracized by social and business associates. The weight of the common verdict against them is bearing heavily upon their shoulders, streaking their hair and furrowing their faces. Their sins are finding them out.—Washington (Ill.) Register.

Old political systems are being broken up by the heat of public common sense and non-partisan movements. The independent American citizen and voter is going to make himself felt, by gosh!—Mt. Vernon (Ind.) Unafraid.

John A. McCall has departed to the great bar of all time. There is no doubt but that shame and humiliation killed this proud, self-made man.

Wrong-doing is bound to bring its death sentence to all lives, rich or poor.—Milford Centre (O.) Ohioan.

“Some day, we pray to God, there will come a House which will hold tight the purse-strings, and, on some measure of right, say to our lords: ‘Pass the bill or get no money. We will go to the country on this issue.’ And then we will have achieved what the English House of Commons won in 1832, and our Senate will become the perfunctory body the House of Lords ever since has been.”—St. Louis Dispatch.

That sounds like it came from way up in the amen corner, and is likely to have many hearty responses.—Salem (Va.) Times-Register.

Mr. Rogers, of the Standard Oil Trust, is the last man in the world who should show contempt for the law. The law which is brought about through class legislation has enabled him to become a millionaire by robbing the public, and it is through respect for the law that an enraged public permits him to hold his ill-gotten gains.—Rolla (Mo.) Sharp Shooter.

Well, the railroad rate bill has passed the House, with only seven negative votes—all Republicans. But in the Senate is where the tug-of-war comes.—Malad (Ida.) People’s Advocate.

Pure food is once more an issue in both houses of Congress, and the bill bids fair to be defeated in the Senate, which numbers among its members not a few who have interests in groceries, fisheries, packing and canning houses that will be unfavorably affected by pure food legislation. The clause most necessary to the effectiveness of the bill, the one providing that all packages shall be labeled to show exactly the contents of the package whether medicine, food or beverage, and which enables the purchaser at least to know with what and when he is poisoning himself, is the very clause that seems in greatest danger of defeat.—Adams (N. Dak.) Budget.

And now the assertion comes forth that a large white goat in a New York town by the name of Rockefeller, while the family heads were bowed in sorrow, climbed upon the porch and devoured the wreath of flowers which hung on the door. But, pshaw! that is only characteristic of the name—swiping all in sight.—Wrens (Ga.) Reporter.

It is probable that when the Hepburn railway rate bill gets back to the lower house of Congress that it and its author will scarcely have a bowing acquaintance.—Glenwood (Mo.) Phonograph.

The fight in Congress over the railway rate bill seems to center on court review of the orders of the Interstate Commerce Commission. Now the courts have the right under the Constitution to review all orders of the commission or they have not. Therefore why should the fight be over this feature of the bill unless the railroads believe that the courts have had this authority if denied in the measure, we are unable to comprehend. On the first blush we should say that the courts, if asked, would have this right, for they have claimed the right to review almost any and every thing till the Democratic Party was forced to denounce “government by injunction.” Still, the railroads occupy a peculiar position toward the people of the country.

The stockholders in a railroad corporation have not the same rights the stockholders have in nearly every other corporate body.

The railroads have been permitted to condemn our land for their use, but in so doing they incurred certain responsibilities to the public that are imposed on no other corporation.

It would therefore seem but just that if railroads can force us to part with our real estate, surely we, the people, have a right to say that these roads shall be managed just as the people through their representatives in Congress desire, and unless such regulations are confiscatory the courts shall have no say.—Tarboro (N. C.) Southern.

Having resigned from seventy corporations, Senator Depew must be awful lonesome when the directors meet and make a noise like declaring a dividend.—Schaghticoke (N. Y.) Sun.

Here is what we found in Sunday’s Constitution about the Governor’s race.

One article about Hoke Smith and Tom Watson brands them as assassins of Democracy. In another place is the following complimentary clipping about Estill: “The weekly papers are giving Colonel John H. Estill the squarest kind of a deal. The Savannahian is the man to watch and his following seems to be growing rapidly in all quarters of the state.”

And on the same page is another clipping from the Tifton Gazette, in which Estill, Judge Russell and Mr. Howell are spoken of as men of the most sterling integrity, distinguished ability and unflinching honor, and either of them would do Georgia credit in the gubernatorial chair.

Is it a wonder that the common people believe that Clark Howell, Estill and Judge Russell are in a combination to beat Hoke Smith?—Lawrenceville (Ga.) Gwinnett Journal.

The old adage “competition is the life of trade” has been transformed to “combination is the life of trade” to suit the condition of the times.—Oakland (Md.) Journal.

“Wall Street Is Playing with Fire” is the startling head line in a local paper. There is no need for alarm, though. Wall Street has plenty of water to put out any fire.—Almond (N. Y.) Gleaner.

The great copper war which for years has been waged between Heinze and the Amalgamated has been ended by what is practically a merger of the opposing interests. This fight between stock gamblers for the control of immense properties has for years divided the people of Montana into bitter factions, has disorganized politics, corrupted judges and legislatures and had a baneful effect upon all the people of the state. Now that the contending forces have made peace the public will probably be the more thoroughly fleeced.—Warren (Minn.) Sheaf.

Precedent has been found which shows that Henry H. Rogers could have been legally made to testify. We have been of that opinion all the time, but it is only another instance where the sword of Justice and the law has proved insufficient when met by the shield and armor of gold.—Santa Anna (Tex.) News.

Congress has decided to investigate the coal and oil trusts. A nice summer’s job is here cut out for somebody. It is hoped there will be no Garfield business about the investigation. The miserable failure Commissioner Garfield made of that Beef Trust investigation should be enough to disgust even a Roosevelt.—Seaford (Del.) News.

According to a statement issued by the Bureau of Statistics last Saturday with reference to the number and value of farm animals in the United States, there are more cows than any other one domestic animal. But the horse, while next to the lowest in number, is more valuable. The mules rank lowest in number and the sheep lowest in value. The report shows that the total value of all the farm animals to be nearly $4,000,000,000.—Hamilton (Tex.) Herald.

The United States Senate, by a vote of 38 to 27, has passed the shipping subsidy bill. The bill appropriates $200,000,000 of the taxpayers’ money for the American merchant marine. What a lovely gift! Voting the people’s money to boost a class of wealthy business men. What a lovely principle!—Veblen (S. Dak.) Advance.

While a lot of fellows have been sent to jail for stealing loaves of bread, hams, shoes and such, none of the big insurance thieves have even been indicted. Justice is not only blind, but she is deaf as a post, dumb as an oyster, and she couldn’t smell a fertilizer factory at ten feet.—Pennsboro (W. Va.) News.

To judge from the Standard Oil witnesses in the New York investigation, we shall no doubt hear a demand for the Government to be ruled for contempt in wanting to know too much.—Parco City (Okla.) Democrat.

John A. McCall, ex-president of the New York Life Insurance Company, who confessed that he stole hundreds of thousands of dollars belonging to widows and orphans and used the money as a corruption fund to help elect McKinley and Roosevelt presidents of the United States, is dead and gone,—we don’t know where, but if we were dead too, we wouldn’t hunt him up.—Granville (Ia.) Gazette.

Members of the lower house are chuckling over the predicament one of their colleagues finds himself in. It seems the unsophisticated private secretary of this especial representative forwarded to Washington by mail three parts of a sectional bookcase, using his employer’s postal frank. The bookcases contained private books, and one of them is said to have concealed a miscellaneous collection of kitchen utensils intended for the owner’s home there. The entire collection was “unfrankable” and the local postmaster has called on the representative to pay postage on his property to the amount of $72. The name of the representative is being kept secret, but that doesn’t soothe his feelings to any great extent.—Bowlder (S. Dak.) Pioneer.

President Roosevelt and Secretary Taft are said to favor a lock canal. If reports are true, that’s the matter with the project now. It’s locked with red tape and departmental interferences.—Clifton (Tenn.) Mirror.

Governor Pattison of Ohio signed the Freiner two-cent fare bill which was accepted by the Senate and it is now a law. It will not go into effect, however, until thirty days have elapsed. The law provides that two cents shall be the maximum rate charged in Ohio for transporting passengers on the railroads of Ohio for all distances in excess of five miles.—Winfield (La.) Comrade.

The Senate has passed the corrupt subsidy bill granting $20,000,000 a year to the steel trust infant industry so that our merchant marine can compete with that of other nations. Isn’t that satisfactory evidence that U. S. senators should be elected by direct vote of the people? Remove the tariff and our ship builders can “compete” without a subsidy.—Alva (Okla.) Renfrew’s Record.

There’s one consolation to the poor man when he thinks of John D. Rockefeller being the richest man in the world; he knows that the devil won’t let him bring a cent of it to hell with him.—St Louis (Mo.) National Rip Saw.

It is just as true today as it ever was that the safest and most honorable way for a man to secure a competence is to do it little by little, taking a lifetime for the work. The haste to be rich and make money fast is the economic curse of America today. Every man wants to draw a prize in the business lottery and it is seldom indeed that he is content with small savings and safe investments.—Headland (Ala.) Post.

Managers of the Hepburn Rate Bill contemplate providing it with a set of puncture-proof tires when it starts its round of the Senate.—Alma (Neb.) Record.

The United States Senate passed a “Ship Subsidy Bill” the other day in just three minutes. Anything that has “Subsidy” (the proper word is graft) to it gets through just as soon as some member makes plain the amount of graft in the measure.—Smith Crater (Kan.) Messenger.

It is being told that a Kansas man, accompanied by his little son, visited the Senate while in Washington last week and the boy was particularly interested in Edward Everett Hale, a magnificent looking old man. His father told him that he was the chaplain. “Oh, he prays for the Senate, doesn’t he?” asked the boy. “No,” replied the father, “he gets up and takes a look at the Senate and prays for the country.”—Enid (Okla.) Echo.

The Ohio legislature has passed a law making a uniform rate of two cents a mile on all railroads in that state. The railroads on the other hand have decided to cut off all forms of transportation except the two cent fare. This includes reduced transportation for conventions, 1,000-mile books, all charity business, round trip rates, and clergymen’s rates.—Stewartville (Minn.) Times.

Leslie Shaw, Secretary of the Treasury, says that we have the best banking system on earth. Still in the past few months failures in five national banks have footed up to almost $7,000,000. Now if these banks had had out a flood of asset currency, backed only by the assets of the banks, and no doubt they would have had, the Government would probably have lost as large a sum, and all of this would have had to come out of the people for the benefit of the speculators.—Lansing (Mich.) Capital City Democrat.

The end of old Steve Elkins, the blocks-of-five-election buyer, he, who, with the aid of his father-in-law, Gassaway Davis, got control of most of the coal mines and railroads of West Virginia, is in sight. The extortions of the coal trust and railroad combine that Elkins organized have become so unbearable that the Republican governor of that state has appealed to Senator Tillman to secure an investigation. The Republicans of the Senate dare not deny it. When the truth comes out that will be the end of Elkins, for which all the people will give thanks unto God.—Omaha (Neb.) Investigator.

They don’t seem to be doing much digging on that great canal, but they manage to bury a considerable amount of money there.—Cresson (Tex.) Courier.

She (indignantly)—Stop, sir! You shall not kiss me again! How rude you are! Don’t you know any better?

He (cheerily)—I haven’t kissed every girl in town, it is true, but as far as I have gone I certainly don’t know any better.

News Record — Home News — Foreign News

FROM FEBRUARY 8 TO MARCH 8, 1906

Along The Firing Line BY The Circulation Manager

January was our best month for subscriptions at the time I wrote for the March number, but I guessed that February would be better still—and I guessed correctly. Although January had 27 business days, as against 22 in February (Lincoln’s and Washington’s birthdays cut in on the little, short month), yet we received nearly fifty-one per cent more renewals and new subscriptions in the latter month. And if we may judge the March business by the first three days (I write this March 4), the stormy month will bring more subscriptions than January and February combined. It may possibly be a case of “coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb”—but I do not think so. Our subscribers, agents, and clubbing newspapers are showing a much greater interest than formerly—and as the list grows our field of opportunity broadens.

One would naturally suppose that every subscription received would narrow our field—but it doesn’t. On the contrary. I can imagine a state of affairs—a list so large—that every subscriber secured would make it harder to get another, for we can’t expect every man, woman and child to take any one publication. But no magazine ever reached that dizzy height. Practically every subscriber we get is a missionary who brings in at least one convert within the year, and many of them send in dozens of new subscriptions. I need hardly use space in saying that we thoroughly appreciate these kindnesses and endeavor to show our appreciation by making Watson’s Magazine better and better each month. That’s a foregone conclusion.

Temporarily, however, we are embarrassed by the great influx of subscriptions, and for a little while we ask the kind indulgence of our friends. Everything shall be taken care of, but for a few weeks there may be some delays. It takes time to train new subscription clerks.

Our one weakness heretofore has been lack of proper organization to keep in touch with and look after the interests of the news-dealers. This has been remedied by placing a thoroughly competent man in charge of the news-dealer circulation. A complete roster of the news-dealers is being made and every effort will be put forth to increase news-stand sales. The tens of thousands of booksellers and news-dealers throughout the United States, supplied by the American News Company and its branches, constitute an army of distribution which has taken many years and an immense sum of money to raise and equip. We want to make use of that army to the best advantage of our patrons, the dealers and ourselves. Probably more than one-half of the reading public buys regularly of news-dealers, and a much larger percentage buys occasionally. Wherever our friends prefer to buy of the dealer, we earnestly wish them to do so; and if at any time there is any difficulty in securing Watson’s at the news stands, write us about it. We are now equipped to take care of all complaints of this character promptly.

There is, however, an immense reading public receiving mail on R. F. D. routes—yet it is only thirteen years ago that Mr. Watson, after a hard fight, secured a small appropriation in Congress to be used in experiments with rural free delivery of mail—real “rural” delivery, not the kind Mr. Wanamaker had tried in the small towns previously. But even after Mr. Watson got the appropriation, Cleveland’s Postmaster-General refused to use it. “Scandalous use of the people’s money,” he doubtless argued, “and, besides, it might develop into something which would hurt the express companies.” To Mr. Watson is due the credit for securing the first appropriation for rural free delivery. He is the father. But we must give the devil his due—the Republican Party built up the system Mr. Watson originated. Well, that party never was afraid to spend the people’s money.

Now, these R. F. D. patrons get mail at their respective doors every weekday. They need not, and do not, go often to the nearest village or town. Hence, they cannot so well depend upon news-dealers for Watson’s. They are best served by subscribing and having Uncle Sam’s mail-carrier bring it to the door.

The news-stand buyer pays thirty cents a year more for Watson’s than does his rural brother—but he invests a much smaller amount each time, so the two sacrifices (but it isn’t exactly correct to call buying Watson’s a “sacrifice”) are about equal. This calls to mind a suggestion, that has been made several times, to allow taxes to be paid in instalments. Cold-blooded figures say that it is exactly the same whether one pays a $24 tax in one payment, or in four of $6 each, or in 12 of $2 each; but actual experience says, No; there is a difference.

Funny, isn’t it, how the Republican Party denounces some proposition as a Populistic vagary—and then turns ’round and does the very thing it has denounced! In 1896 we were told that the people would have none of silver—those “fifty-cent dollars”; yet between 1897 and 1903 the Republican Party coined more silver than in any other seven years of the country’s history. Not “free coinage,” of course, but that Sherman silver which was stacked up in vaults, and which no one wanted.

Public ownership was denounced as “confiscation,” anarchy, socialism, paternalism, and so on. But Teddy and Uncle Sam went into the railroad business down in Panama, and only recently that fat boy, Taft, bought 300 acres of coal lands at Batan, Philippine Islands, for $50,000, money voted by Congress for the purpose, and it is given out flatly that “it is the intention of the Government not to relinquish title to the mines.” They will be leased to competitive bidders. The Secretary of War is drawing a bill to provide for this leasing, and says, oh, ye gods, listen: That the Government will regulate the price of coal in the Philippines!

Didn’t we hear something about the impossibility of doing such a stunt as “regulating prices” away back in 1896 and later? Couldn’t regulate the price of silver by letting it into the mints at $1.39 plus an ounce. Oh, no! Seems to me we ought to have an “International agreement” on the price of coal. Otherwise, what’s to prevent those disreputable “furriners” from dumping their pauper-mined coal into the Philippines, and carrying away every ounce of our gold?

Who said the People’s Party is dead? Out in Coal City, Ill., the Populists recently nominated the following village ticket:

Some call it the decadence of party spirit, but others believe it a recovery from partisan insanity—this independent attitude of men who formerly wore a party collar with meekness, if not with actual pride. A year or more ago Dr. Engelhard, of Rising City, Neb., expressed it in the picturesque language of the West, thus: “I am now a political maverick.” At a recent dinner of the Wisconsin Society of New York, Representative Henry C. Adams, of the Badger State, pleading for the “insurgents” who are in rebellion, not “against good government but against bad government,” graphically described the political situation of today as follows:

In Mr. Edgerton’s excellent article on “Farmers’ Organizations” (February number) he failed to mention a very strong one in the grain belt—the American Society of Equity, with headquarters at Indianapolis. It claims a membership of over 200,000 farmers, and its president, J. A. Everitt, asserts that its members will hold their wheat for $1.00 and other cereals correspondingly—and that they expect to win. Let’s hope they may.

But let’s think a little. That won’t cut down railroad dividends, or make kerosene and rent any cheaper; and it will make bread higher. So suppose the Farmers’ Union, down South, pushes cotton up to 15 cents; and the American Society of Equity pushes wheat up to a dollar; and the “Big 6” here wins its fight for an 8-hour day at 9 hours’ pay—won’t all these wealth-producers, after matters get readjusted, be about where they were before? I’m not throwing cold water on the efforts of any of these organizations, for I glory in their fighting proclivities—but I can’t see any permanent advantage accruing to any of them so long as the railroads and the banks are armed with letters of marque and reprisal, and legally empowered to rob every actual producer and every consumer. Each of these organizations carefully avoids politics. Is that wise? Possibly; but I can’t see it that way.

“How shall I remit for subscriptions?” ask a number of agents. Well, most anything that will bring the money will do, but we have this preference: A United States Post Office Money Order, made out to Tom Watson’s Magazine. That will give us your name on the order, making it easy to trace errors—and our bank charges no exchange for handling. But we never refuse cheques, drafts, express orders, currency, or postage stamps, if sent us in good condition.

“But,” I hear a chorus of voices saying, “we thought you’d changed the name, and just now you said ‘Tom Watson’s Magazine.’” Just so, I did. That is the name of the corporation which publishes Watson’s Magazine. The corporation known as Tom Watson’s Magazine has not changed its name. It has five offices: President, vice-president, secretary, treasurer and cashier. These offices are held by three Populists, as follows:

President, Thomas E. Watson.

Vice-President and Treasurer, H. C. S. Stimpson.

Secretary and Cashier, C. Q. de France.

I need not introduce Mr. Watson. Mr. Stimpson is secretary of the People’s Party in New York State; and I am secretary of the National Committee.

Don’t make your remittance payable to any of the officers, but simply to the company, Tom Watson’s Magazine, and address your communications to the Magazine—not to individuals.

C. Q. de France

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a collection of notable state papers chronologically arranged to form a documentary history of this country. It opens with the first Virginia Charter of 1606 and closes with the Panama Canal Act of 1904, and comprises all the important diplomatic treaties, official proclamations and legislative acts in American history.

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