trips by Miss Roosevelt might prove a serious matter for the family.".

Miss Roosevelt herself, however, denies that the presents "represent any such value or are or such a fabulous character as reported in the newspapers," and she intimates that the papers have caused her more embarrassment than the customs officials have. For example, she says, "there is absolutely no foundation in fact for the absurd story that I took a dive into a tank on board ship as the result of a dare from Congressman Longworth, neither did I receive an offer of marriage from the Sultan of Sulu." Indeed, she avers," the circulation of such nonsensical stories is the only outcome of my whole trip that I have to regret," and she adds that as a result of her journey she is more than ever convinced that there is no country like our own.

SURPRISE

MUZZLING THE CABINET.

URPRISE is expressed by some papers at the announcement that President Roosevelt, one of the most conspicuous exponents of publicity, has forbidden the distinguished men who form his Cabinet to tell the newspaper men what is going on in the inner councils of the Administration. "Theodore Roosevelt as the advocate of secrecy is playing a new and interesting rôle," declares the Providence Journal, and the Boston Herald remarks that the attempt to gag the Cabinet illustrates the tendency of the time "to keep the people in the dark" as to what is going on, not only in government affairs, but in the corporate and trust companies. It appears, according to the Washington correspondent of the New York Sun, that after every Cabinet meeting the heads of the departments agree upon some one thing to tell the reporters, usually selecting some topic that is of no great consequence, and giving the impression to interviewers that this alone engaged the Cabinet's attention. The President decided that this should end, and issued instructions that no Cabinet officer should confide to outsiders anything that occurred inside the council-chamber. Such instructions had been issued before, but were never strictly observed. Hereafter, when the President and Cabinet decide upon any policy or action that they desire to announce to the country, the announcement will be made by the Cabinet officer whose department is chiefly concerned. The order also requested the

Why should not a member of the Cabinet give out a fair account of the proceedings at a meeting of the Cabinet? asks the Dallas News, and it goes on to say:

"The people will not approve it, and some of them will be moved by it to suspect that secrets of a serious nature are being withheld from them even at times when the proceedings are tame, and of which the usual reports would have been common-place and harmless. This is not a country in which such cheap assertions of authority will be apt to amount to much. The 'order will not be regarded, because it should not be regarded."

WO

THE NEW CIVIL-SERVICE RULE.

Two distinctly opposite veins of thought are discernible in the

press comment upon President Roosevelt's order giving Cabinet officers the power to dismiss any subordinate of their departments for misconduct or inefficiency, without further formality than filing a statement of the cause of dismissal. That the President, who has long been one of the most prominent and influential champions of civil-service reform in the country, should issue such a sweeping amendment to the rules is a guaranty to some papers that the order is inspired by sincere motives and will result in a great benefit. But the other side is greatly wrought up over it. They declare that the order is "un-American" and one that may undermine the whole civil-service system.

Heretofore it was necessary to file charges against an accused. employee with the Civil Service Commission, and he was permitted to file an excuse or a defense. But while the Cabinet officers can now discharge employees, the press point out that they can not appoint successors of those dropped. These must by law be selected from the list of those who have passed the civil-service examination. "Therefore," thinks the Boston Transcript (Rep.).

"if it is easy for partizanship to turn out clerks it will remain as difficult as ever for it to turn in partizans."

"It is a tremendous step backward," declares the Brooklyn Citizen (Dem.); and the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot (Dem.) thinks the effect of this amendment "is to absolutely nullify the civil-service laws as far as the departments are concerned." To the Sacramento (Cal.) Bee (Rep.) the new rule is "dangerous" and likely to make every man in a government office less personally independent; and the Houston Chronicle (Dem.) remarks: "This may not be tyranny and injustice, but it comes so near it that the people will not be able to distinguish between the two, and they will hold to accountability those responsible for an uncalled-for and arbitrary order."

Turning to the defenders of the order, one finds that the Chicago Inter Ocean (Rep.) believes that the new rule "establishes a real merit system" and "is civil-service common sense"; and the Philadelphia Ledger (Ind.) declares that the “knowledge that such a rule exists will doubtless have a wholesome effect upon government employees who are watched by their superiors." The New York Evening Post (Ind.) thinks that if the new power to remove is not abused, "its promulgation is to be considered a proof of the strength of the reform system rather than of its weakness."

A RUSSIAN STRIKE FOR UNIVERSAL
SUFFRAGE.

While our newspapers have long predicted that liberty must finally win in Russia, the news that the Czar had actually granted reforms so sweeping as practically to end the autocracy came as a surprise, for so many previous uprisings in Russia had come to nothing that this one was regarded with a skeptical eye. An ominous indication for the Government was seen, however, when Count Witte admitted last week that the Government might go down. "The Government may fall,” he said to a delegation of strikers," but its fall will involve your ruin, because the power will pass into the hands of the bourgeoisie, against whom you are arrayed." This failed to overawe the strikers, however, and the strike went on. On Monday the news came that the Czar had given way, and that Count Witte comes into power as MinisterPresident, with an imperial mandate which will enable him to convert the farcical National Assembly into a real legislative body, elected by greatly extended suffrage and to confer upon the people fundamental civil liberties, including free speech.

This news came after a week of strikes and rioting which were represented to be a protest against the restriction of franchise in the coming Douma elections, made by the classes barred from the ballot-in other words, a strike of the unfranchised for universal suffrage.

The New York Sun described and commented on the situation last week thus:

66

The state of things at this moment in European Russia is without a parallel in modern times. So far as the means of transportation are concerned, the whole structure of organized society has been resolved into its local elements. Not only the railway network centering in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but the Baltic and Polish lines and the roads traversing the territory between Kief and Odessa are tied up. It is no longer possible to reach the interior of Russia from the Western frontier. Indeed, the Czar himself at Peterhof is cut off from his capital. It follows that the transportation of soldiers by rail from one critical point to another is no longer possible. Should the strike be extended to the Siberian system, as perhaps it will be, months would necessarily elapse before the army under Linevitch could reach the Volga, for it would have to march on foot across the breadth of Asia. Under the circumstances it may prove extremely difficult, if not impracticable, for the Czar's Government, with the scattered military forces which remain at its disposal in European Russia, to quell a widespread insurrection.

"A universal strike has long been advocated by extreme Socialists as an irresistible engine of coercion. The experiment is now

being tried in Russia. We have always doubted its practicability, for the reason that the resultant starvation would subject its victims, including the strikers themselves, to a strain too great for human nature to endure."

The New York Times thought Witte could save the situation if anybody could, but the New York Globe thought the revolution must win in the end. It remarked:

"The Czar is fighting a losing battle against fate. Every victory he now wins but hastens, by increasing the general discontent, the final catastrophe. Sooner or later the army will yield to disintegration. If not this time, then some time in the not distant future. For centuries the loyalty of the Russian peasant to the Little Father' has resisted all attempts to weaken it. But at last, if not altogether gone, it is going. It is not likely that it can ever be restored. The Russian muzhik, stubborn in his conservatism, will be equally stubborn about surrendering his new ideas. His very slowness and stupidity will keep him true to the cause, allegiance to it taking the place of his old loyalty. In the end, therefore, czardom must be overthrown-if not this year, then the next or the next."

T

ANOTHER TREASURY SCANDAL IN PENNSYLVANIA.

HE failure of the Enterprise National Bank at Allegheny, Pa., while holding over a million dollars of State funds, and the suicide of its cashier on account of the financial difficulties that have overtaken the Santa Fé Central Railway of New Mexico and other ventures promoted by Pennsylvania politicians or upon which they borrowed large sums of money, have created a scandal of such far-reaching effect that some papers think it threatens the success of the Republican ticket in Pennsylvania this fall, and will also seriously interfere with the plans New Mexico has laid for securing Statehood in the near future. This gloomy view is held because of the prominence of the persons involved in the scandal and the criminal aspect of their acts, which seem to Attorney-General Moody so contrary to the law that he has decided to investigate the failure with the object of bringing the guilty, to justice. As the New York Evening Post remarks, this might upset the entire political situation in the State, for "Uncle Sam once started in an investigation of this kind is not apt to stay his hand, but is quite likely to see the case through to the bitter end, precisely as he has been jailing a Republican Senator and Congressman in Oregon."

The features of this latest scandal are not different in character from those of the many peculations and resultant deaths which the Philadelphia Record (Ind. Dem.) declares "have disgraced the fiscal annals of the State for thirty years."

In order to explain how it has been possible for the Treasury to be involved in so many scandals, we shall quote at length from a description given by the Philadelphia Public Ledger (Ind.) of the system employed by Pennsylvania in the management of the public funds. According to The Ledger the citizens do not know how much money is in the Treasury. Its funds are divided into two portions-the "general" account and the "sinking fund." The last named is made up of a certain proportion of the State revenues which are set aside each year for the liquidation of the bonded indebtedness of the State. No public accounting is required by law to be made of them. The retiring Treasurer simply informs his successor orally how much are left of the funds and where they are deposited. This is the way the business has been conducted for over forty years. At present there are supposed to be between $4,000,000 and $5,000,000 deposited in the various banks which, as was the case with the bankrupt institution at Allegheny, are controlled by politicians. The Philadelphia Press (Rep.) is authority for the statement that so well is it known that the politicians demand risky accommodations in return from the institutions which are favored by them that "some banks will not

accept State funds under any circumstances." These accommodations usually take the form of loans upon promissory notes without collateral or other security. This at least is the way the Enterprise Bank is supposed to have been ruined, as appears by the information available. The disclosures involve the names of Senator Penrose and other prominent members of the “organization," but are thought to point to W. H. Andrews, Delegate in Congress from New Mexico and brother of the chairman of the Republican State Committee of Pennsylvania, as chief cause of the trouble: for, as The Public Ledger reports his operations, Mr. Andrews secured hundreds of thousands of dollars through political influences from the bank to build the Santa Fé Central Railroad-a little line one hundred and twenty miles long, running south from Santa Fé and connecting the Denver and Rio Grande, the Santa Fé and Rock Island Railroad systems.

Homer L. Castle, the Prohibition candidate for justice of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania, is given the credit of exposing this misuse of the State funds that resulted in the collapse of the Enterprise Bank and the suicide of its cashier. The Pittsburg Post (Dem.) says Mr. Castle is thoroughly familiar with the way "the State machine has been huckstering the public funds about for the personal benefit of its leaders," and will produce more "startling information" as the campaign progresses. He is now making his fight on the issue raised by the scandal, as is also W. H. Berry, the Fusion candidate for Treasurer, who promises if elected to audit the accounts of the Treasury- -a thing which has not been done for forty-five years, and furthermore to "prosecute the men who have robbed the State." The Republican press, however, are vehemently decrying the political turn that has been given to the investigation of the banks holding State funds. They refer to the fact that a cent has never been lost or stolen from the Treasury, as proof that the management is honest; and so they are insisting that judgment be suspended and even the inquiry be stopped until the campaign is finished. Thus the Pittsburg Gazette (Rep.) re

marks:

"It is only fair to caution the people to suspend judgment, to accept partizan statements with due allowance only. Unscrupulous men and unscrupulous newspapers are flaunting the failure in its worst light; exaggerating the little that is known; manufacturing charges without any foundation in fact; drawing inferences that may be wholly erroneous; and making unwarranted assumptions. Intelligent people should beware of these sensation-mongers, especially as there is now a prospect of early, accurate information."

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CHATTANOOGA CONFERENCE.

THE

`HE attention given by the Southern press to the Immigration and Quarantine Conference which assembles at Chattanooga on November 9, presages that the convention will be the most important one of the year in the South. The purposes of the conference are indicated by its name. The connection between immigration and quarantine seems to have been suggested by the fact that the recent outbreak of yellow fever made its appearance first among the Italian immigrants in New Orleans, and gained its dangerous headway on account of the disinclination of these ignorant and secretive people to reveal its presence and subject themselves to sanitary regulations. But apart from this rather remote relation are many reasons which now make the immigration question of great importance to the South. The Birmingham News says "there is work for not less than twenty thousand industrious, intelligent, and law-abiding immigrants in Alabama; and . . . like conditions prevail in nearly every other Southern State." The New Orleans Picayune also declares" that it is beyond any question that the South needs large additions to its white population." And the Montgomery Advertiser remarks that" there is not a Southern State that does not need a good class

of immigrants, whether from abroad or the North, West, or East, and every effort should be made and every inducement should be offered to secure as many as possible." The reason for this demand for immigrants seems to be the rapid industrial development going on in the South and the inability of the colored race to be of much service in helping it along. Thus, to quote again from The Picayune:

The negro is rapidly leaving the cotton- and sugar-fields for the factories and the towns, and such as remain in the counrty are becoming yearly more shiftless and unreliable. How to supplement and supply this negro labor that is so rapidly diminishing is a problem the seriousness of which every farmer and planter is forced to admit, because it is annually brought home to him in a more forcible and tangible manner.'

Other Southern papers note that large numbers of immigrants are already entering some parts of the South, and refer to this fact as an additional reason why it is vitally important to discuss immigration at this time, so as to devise effective methods for a more even distribution and for preventing the coming of pauper and criminal classes. Thus the Houston Chronicle remarks:

"The South needs many immigrants, and in her eagerness to secure them there is danger of being unloaded upon her many of a class which is not desired here."

But while there is no denying the importance of the immigration problem to the South, it is easy to see that the quarantine issue was the chief cause that moved the Southern Governors to call the Chattanooga conference. Several quarantine conventions were held after the fever epidemic in 1897, in Mobile, Atlanta, and Memphis, to bring about uniformity of regulation between the States. But as Gustave Lehmann, vice-president of the New Orleans Health Association, says in an interview in the New York Sun, "local prejudices prevented any effective improvements."

The trouble continued, as will be remembered, until the work of eradicating the disease was, upon request of the Governor of Louisiana and the Mayor of New Orleans, placed in charge of the United States Public Health and Marine Hospital Service. This arrangement proved so satisfactory that many influential Southern journals are resolved that there shall never be a return to the old methods. It should be noted that the call for the Chattanooga conference suggests simply a "uniform system." But the Beaumont Times and many other Southern papers are more explicit and are asking that a law be passed by Congress that will give the Federal Government full authority to take charge of the situation when an epidemic of fever appears. Some prominent statesmen in the South agree with this idea. The New Orleans Times-Democrat in summarizing the discussion on the question says in substance :

Senator Morgan, Governor Jelks, of Alabama, and others, stalwart Democrats, all loyal supporters of the strictest Democratic doctrines, see that the constitutional objections raised in the past to the only system that can give us a uniform quarantine, are but a bugaboo, which must not prevent us from settling this quarantine question now and forever.

The Southern press, however, are not all in accord upon this troublesome subject. Thus the Houston Post declares:

"We call attention to the fact that Texas is the only gulf State that has succeeded in keeping yellow fever out, which fact completely attests the ability of Texas to manage her own affairs and guard the health of her people, and when it is considered that this State has, counting the river courses, several thousand miles of boundary to guard, the achievement is a tribute to the competency of local control. The Federal Government could not have done better; it probably could not have done so well. . . . It has come to be a habit throughout the country, when any emergency arises, to suggest that the Federal Government take charge. The tendency in many localities is to diminish State funcions upon the slightest pretext. It is one of the most insidious dangers of the day; and if persisted in, the time will come when there will be no excuse for maintaining State governments at all, except for the

SPEEL

SPEECH

their fellows, by precept and example 'toward sober, industrious law-abiding lives, to join hands in favor of law and order and to war against all crime, and especially against all crime by men of your own race.' All of this is acceptable in material and in spirit, and leaves little room for carping criticism. There is nothing original in it and nothing particularly striking. It might be said that there would be nothing interesting in it save for the fact that it is said by the President of the United States who has approached more nearly to an exemplification of social equality between the races than any other chief executive the nation has had, yet is probably quite as far from a belief in such an unnatural relation as any of his 'mother's people.'"

NORTH

PATRIOTIS

COMMERCIA

INTERESTS

MARRIAGE

TIES

FRATERNAL

FEELING

SOUTH

WILL CLINCH THEM TIGHTER.

-Evans in the Cleveland Leader.

Some papers have even gone so far as to look upon the respect he displayed for Southern

prejudices during his trip, as convincing evidence that his views on the race issue have recently undergone a noticeable alteration. This opinion arises from a sentence in his Tuskegee speech which reads:

"It is the Southern people themselves who must and can solve the difficulties that exist in the South."

The New York Tribune (Rep.), in discussing this remark of the President, says that the Southern people can see now that

lem," and must be let alone while they are striving to do so. And the Savannah News (Dem.) remarks:

The tone of the addresses made it clear that Mr. Roosevelt regards this as a white man's country, and that other races are permitted to reside in it through the grace of the dominant element. Of course he did not say that in so many words, but by reading between the lines it is easy enough to catch his meaning. His addresses to the negroes, while conveying practically the same ideas that he has voiced on other occasions to white audiences, were delivered in the manner of a representative of a superior race giving good advice to audiences of an inferior race."

Wages and the Cost of Living.-Statistics collected by the United States Bureau of Labor regarding changes in rates of wages, in average hours of labor, and in cost of living are strikingly summarized in a diagram given in Bulletin No. 59 of the bureau, bringing down its investigations to July, 1904. This diagram, says the editor of Engineering News (New York), "conveys just the information we wish to find and in a form that enables it to be comprehended almost at a glance, at least by the engineer accustomed to reading diagrams. The writer goes on to say:

been also since 1898 a steady reduction in the average hours of labor performed per week. This partly offsets the increase in the wage-rate per hour, so that if a line were drawn on the diagram representing the weekly earnings of workmen, it would follow even more closley the line representing the increased cost of the workman's food. The line at the top showing the change in the number of workmen is somewhat misleading, since it shows not the total number of workmen employed in an entire industry, but only the relative number employed in the particular establishments investi. gated. Nevertheless, it is probable that these establishments are representative of the entire industry and that the line at the top is fairly indicative of the increase in the number of workmen employed that has taken place since 1894."

TOPICS IN BRIEF.

THE Czar has signed the peace treaty, but not with his subjects.-The Atlanta Constitution.

SECRETARY TAFT threatens to sit down on football at West Point. Talk about brutality!-The Los Angeles Express.

SECRETARY SHAW's withdrawal from the presidential race was all that was needed to make it unanimous.-The Chicago Tribune.

THE bitter vehemence with which rate regulation is opposed almost convinces us that it would accomplish all its advocates claim for it.-The Detroit News.

No wonder the Hungarians cling so tenaciously to their language. They know that it would be impossible for any one ever to invent another just like it.- The Chicago News.

FOR the successful conduct of the war the Mikado again gives credit to the illustrious ancestors. It would be interesting to know how far the ancestors would have been held to blame if the war had gone the other way.-The Chicago News. THE Administration is credited with the assertion that the present generation should not bear the cost of the Panama-Canal construction. That seems reason. able, as the present generation's chances of sharing in the benefits are not particularly bright.-The Washington Post.