VOL. XXIII., No. 13

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TH

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S POLICY.

HE accession of Theodore Roosevelt to the Presidency under conditions at once so deplorable and so dramatic has naturally given immediate interest to the personality of the new President and the policy it is believed that he will adopt. He is the youngest man who has ever occupied the Presidential chair, as several papers point out. "His is the greatest opportunity that has ever suddenly befallen an American citizen," adds the Memphis Commercial-Appeal (Dem.). The President's announced purpose to "continue absolutely unbroken the policy of President McKinley" is viewed generally as a deliberate statement of his intention, not merely an expression of sentiment, and both Democratic and Republican papers express the opinion that, even were it true that some of his past actions had caused apprehension, the graver and larger duties of the Presidency would arouse in him a response equal to their requirements and the welfare of the country. President Roosevelt's decision to retain all the members of the McKinley Cabinet is regarded with special favor, especially in view of the fact that rumors were already being printed to the effect that the new President meditated some important changes. "Nothing could so instantly and thoroughly convince the country of the sincerity of the new President's pledge to continue' absolutely and without variance' the McKinley policy as will his action in keeping the Cabinet," remarks the New York World (Dem.). Last week the new President informally outlined in some detail the measures and principles he understands to be embraced by the broad McKinley policy. They are summarized as follows:

The adoption of a more liberal and extensive reciprocity in the purchase and sale of commodities, so that the overproduction of this country can be satisfactorily disposed of by fair and equitable arrangements with foreign countries.

The abolition entirely of commercial war with other countries and the adoption of reciprocity treaties.

The abolition of such tariffs on foreign goods as are no longer needed for re venue, if such abolition can be had without harm to our industries and labor.

Direct commercial lines should be established between the eastern coast of the United States and the ports in South Amer

WHOLE NUMBER, 597

ica and the Pacific coast ports of Mexico, Central America, and South America.

The encouraging of the merchant marine and the building of ships which shall carry the American flag, and be owned and controlled by Americans and American capital.

The building and completion, as soon as possible, of the Isthmian Canal, so as to give direct water communication with the coasts of Central America, South America, and Mexico.

The construction of a cable, owned by the Government, connecting our mainland with our foreign possessions, notably Hawaii and the Philippines.

The use of conciliatory methods of arbitration in all disputes with foreign nations so as to avoid armed strife.

The protection of the savings of the people in banks and in other forms of investments by the preservation of the commer

cial prosperity of the country and the placing in positions of trust men of only the highest integrity.

"This program is the best possible commentary on the solemn pledge which followed the administration of the constitutional oath. It leaves nothing to be said or desired," says the Chicago Evening Post (Rep.), voicing the opinion that finds expression in almost all the Republican papers. Of the new President's tariff views the New York Evening Post (Ind.) says:

"Mr. Roosevelt has been a consistent Republican through all his political career, and has perhaps felt constrained at times to accept a protective policy more extreme than he would have liked. He has never been reckoned, however, as a high-tariff man. It is probable now that he will range himself with the more advanced thinkers of the Republican Party in this behalf, among whom may be reckoned all, or nearly all, the members of the present Cabinet, as well as Chairman Babcock of the Repub

lican congressional committee, and most of the Senators and Representatives west of Ohio, and the manufacturers represented in the Detroit convention of last spring."

Some of the Democratic papers think that President Roosevelt is not going to find it nearly so easy to carry out his outlined commercial policy as is generally assumed. The principle of trade reciprocity, maintains the Atlanta Constitution (Dem.), is "now in the hands of ene

mies." It continues:

"President McKinley, had he lived, would have been fought most bitterly all along the line, and the next Republican nomination would have been a battle between the extreme protection school and the reciprocity people. Mr. McKinley's unique position in the party might have drawn sufficient support to make the liberals successful. "With President Roosevelt the situation is quite different. He is not going to be accepted without default as the mentor

of his party. Neither is he going to have a walk-over for the nomination of 1904. Every position he takes will be antagonized by rival ambitions. He does not possess the same pull on his associates as did the late President, and they will not do as much for him. It may easily be seen that the Republican Party is now entering into a wrangle, in which President Roosevelt will head the better element, but most likely not the stronger. Reciprocity, the Isthmian Canal, and other important subjects, instead of passing through a period of construction, will become but the puppets in an inter-party

struggle for supremacy. The era of legislative progress, so fa as the Republican Party is concerned, may be considered a postponed until 1905."

There has been apprehension in some quarters lest the "stren uous" note in the character of the new President might lead to a too aggressive national policy, and several papers draw a comparison between the intellectual qualities of Mr. Roosevelt and

the militarist German Emperor. In Europe, especially, the feeling aroused by the accession of President Roosevelt has undoubtedly been one of uneasiness. The President's specific declaration in favor of international arbitration has had a reassuring effect. "As an assurance that he intends to pursue a pacific policy," says the Chicago Chronicle (Dem.), "Mr. Roosevelt's pledge is calculated to give satisfaction to all who love peace and justice, and rejoice in the progress of civilization and enlightenment, and deprecate aggression and violence." The Springfield Republican (Ind.) takes the same view, and adds:

"In one respect, the known prepossessions of the new President may be fortunate. He is not likely to veer too far toward an alliance with England, or to formulate a policy which is more concerned to keep the good-will of that country than the goodwill of other countries of the first rank. President Roosevelt at heart sympathizes with the Boers in their struggle and their passion for

"President Roosevelt will be more aggressive than President McKinley was," thinks the Savannah News (Dem.), "and he will be in evidence oftener and in more ways, but there is every reason for thinking that the people will never have reason to complain of a lack of fidelity to the great trust so tragically thrust upon him." The Raleigh (N. C.) News and Observer (Dem.) says:

"Mr. Roosevelt will disappoint those who look to see him do many radical things. He will, like Cleveland, lean on the finan ciers of Wall Street, and the banking world will pronounce him 'safe,' tho they will be afraid all the time that he may go to war to add new islands to our imperial Government. He will seek to make a great President, for he is at once ambitious and patriotic. He is like Mr. McKinley in nothing. Two men more unlike have not lived, and yet he had a sincere admiration for the President, which was reciprocated. He will also disappoint those who look to see him follow in Mr. McKinley's footsteps. He can not do that, for he must do things his own way. He is to be numbered among the men who do things and who do not mind a row, if one is necessary to accomplish his purpose. Naturally he is combative. He will not cultivate that trait, but at times he will fight to carry his point even if the dictate of wisdom would lead to yielding for a time and winning by indirection. He has plenty of sense-what is called horse sense, too-and as governor of New York rarely failed to do what his party leaders approved, and when he did act differently it was after consulting them. He will have a tenfold stronger incentive now to be in harmony with his party associates."

The Denver News (Dem.) thinks that Western interests should fare well with President Roosevelt at the head of the Government. "The West will look to Mr. Roosevelt hopefully for assistance in the development of irrigation and the reclamation of arid lands," it says; "he lived for years in the West and became acquainted with many of its needs and its boundless possibilities." The Denver Republican (Rep.) adds:

"There probably is not another prominent man living east of the Mississippi River who could enter upon the Presidency so well qualified to discharge its duties with intelligence respecting the affairs and the interests of the Far West. The West has had ground for complaint on this score against several Presidents, notably Mr. Cleveland, who has never been farther west than Sioux City, and to this day does not know whether Pike's Peak is a mountain or a hole in the ground. Mr. Cleveland never was able to appreciate the importance and strength of the Far West. But President Roosevelt enters upon his important duties with excellent knowledge of this part of the country and with sentiments of respect and friendship for our people."

"President Roosevelt," declares the San Francisco Chronicle (Ind.), “has appealed to the American people as the personification of ardent, generous, inspiring American youth. But that Roosevelt exists no longer. The solemnity of the responsibility of an American President would sober the most impulsive, and the shadow of the tragedy which calls him to high office can not be lifted for many a day. President Roosevelt will never again be young." "There need be no fear in any American breast," says the Jacksonville (Fla.) Times-Union and Citizen (Dem.); 'Roosevelt will make a safe President." The Chicago Inter Ocean (Rep.) says:

"The speculations as to possible changes of policy in which the American people indulge upon the accession of a new President have probably never proceeded from any lack of confidence in the good intentions and personal integrity of the incoming Executive. They arise solely from an appreciation of the peculiar position of our Chief Magistrate. To the President of the United States are entrusted greater powers, and upon him are laid heavier responsibilities, than any other ruler in the world has or sustains. Therefore the effect upon public affairs of a new personality in this great office is necessarily a subject of speculation. It raises

larger and more vital questions than does a change of executives in any other land.

"Hence the American people have every reason to be thankful that all questions as to the effect upon public policies of President Roosevelt's accession have been answered in advance by widespread knowledge of his character. That they have been answered and that the answer is one of implicit confidence in him we have abundant and conclusive evidence. . . . Americans and foreigners alike are assured that with Theodore Roosevelt at the helm there will be no alteration in the course set by William McKinley and that the ship in which the hopes of 80,000,000 people are embarked will be steered straight ahead."

“YELLOW” JOURNALISM AND ANARCHY.

IN

N the discussion that has recently been filling the editorial columns of the newspapers on the causes that lead to Anarchy and the methods for suppressing the Anarchist propaganda, the charge has been frequently made that the so-called "yellow" journals are responsible not only for class-hatreds in general, but for Anarchism in particular. The New York Sun (Rep.), the New York Press (Rep.), the Chicago Journal (Ind.), and the Philadelphia Inquirer (Rep.) have been especially ac

tive in the crusade against "yellow" journalism, the first three papers directing their shafts against the Hearst newspapers, while the last-named specifies the Philadelphia North American (Rep.). Mr. Abram S. Hewitt, ex-Mayor of New York, has also drawn attention, in an address before the New York Chamber of Commerce, to what he terms "the perverse teachings of a reckless press that has not hesitated to coin conscience into dollars." Referring to the President's assassination, he said:

"So long as prominent men in public life, or in the walks of business, or in the spheres of society, are willing to recognize by social receptions, by subscriptions to the papers which we all recognize as at the foundation of this sad development in public opinion, by their advertisements which support these papers, so long as gentlemen in your position shall give your countenance, either by social intercourse or otherwise, to these enemies of mankind, to these traitors to humanity, it is idle to deplore events like this. Let us see that they are made impossible by raising the standard of the conscience of the community to a higher plane, when it shall be impossible for the assassin to justify himself by the arguments of a destructive logic."

"That Czolgosz was egged on to his crime not only by professed Anarchists, but also by the newspapers that have continually depicted the President as a creature too contemptible to deserve the respect of a mongrel dog, is an unquestionable truth."

remarks the Chicago Inter Ocean (Rep.). The Brooklyn Eagle (Ind. Dem.) believes that the cartoons in the "yellow" journals are responsible for popular passion against public officials, and favors a law which shall "make it an offense to hold the rulers of the country up to the scorn or hatred of the people." The Philadelphia Inquirer (Rep.) says:

"Day after day McKinley has been made the victim of the most atrocious cartoons and editorial attack. The country has prospered, but because some vicious publisher had axes of his own to grind, he has turned his columns into thunderbolts of falsehoods. It is easy for sensational newspapers to gather around them a certain following, and in that following are sure to be persons who actually believe that 'yellow' journalism is the height of patriotism and truth. Some poor, miserable brain becomes turned, and then follows crime.

"Character assassination ends in physical assassination. "It is a wonder that more public men have not fallen victims to the vicious newspapers that are forever denouncing public men as thieves."

THE FIRST THING THE IMPRISONED ASSASSIN ASKED FOR WAS A NEW COLLAR. HE WILL BE ACCOMMO

DATED.-The Minneapolis Tribune.

appeal to the consideration of certain uncritical minds who have been induced to use it as a vehicle of communication with a supposedly large part of the public, to which its very coarseness gives it peculiar access. Even Christian ministers have consented to become conspicuous contributors to one of the journals of this school, and have enjoyed, or resented, the sight of the flaming portraits of themselves with which their association with the forbidden journalism was celebrated. . . . .

"Now that an atrocious Anarchistic assault on the President has been provoked by the teachings of this journalistic school, perhaps these bishops and other clergy will begin to see that their alliance was only courted in order that incendiary journalism might seem to have the sanction of priests of religion. For such journalism, from its original ribaldry and coarseness, adopted at first in order to attract the vulgar crowd, has now graduated into a serious and studied propaganda of social revolution."

"We are well aware that no law can be framed to reach yellow journalism and the men who promote it," declares the Chicago

name was unknown, and whose individuality was declared only by the throwing of the Haymarket bomb, had read one of August Spies's editorials and had acted upon the reading. "We have only to place Leon Czolgocz in the back room of a Chicago beer saloon reading William R. Hearst's paper," says The Press, "and we can place William R. Hearst at the bar of Erie County beside Leon Czolgocz, there to answer for the murder of William McKinley." The New York Sun (Rep.) says:

news

"This school of journalism began with vulgarity and indecency, and for that reason it was soon excluded from the homes of refined and selfrespecting families as a corrupting influence, and by formal action from all reputable clubs. Gradually, however, it has been able to

land, that rests in the bosoms of all men of right feelings and just regard for the public welfare. That law can be invoked to

-The Detroit News.

condemn such men as William R. Hearst. That law can punish him with the scorn of honest men. It can place him in the pillory of public contempt. It can make him an object of obloquy to all mankind."

The New York Journal (Dem.) in replying to the attacks made upon it, intimates that the "nauseating cynicism" and "pompous insolence" of such papers as The

Sun are the real breeders of class hatred, and declares:

"Is all life hereafter to be lived in a graveyard by Americans and by American journalism, lest when death comes to a public man the severe word, the light word, and the funny picture may be produced in the death-chamber by malice, shedding calculating tears, and shock by inappropriateness there?

"Suppose Mr. Bryan had been

'Has it assailed the state?

'Has it attacked the church? Has it antagonized any reform movement, or hurt at any time any legitimate business interest?" "No; but it has damaged bad causes, punished rogues in high places, and filled them with a passsionate desire for revenge.

"The sum of The Journal's offenses is that it has fought for the people and against privilege and class pride and class greed and class stupidity and class heartlessness with more varied weapons, with more force and talent and enthusiasm than any other newspaper in the country.

"All the enemies of the people, of the democratic order-conscious and unconscious—all who reap where others have sown, all the rascals and their organs, and many fools caught by the contagion of an interested or malignant and mendacious uproar are yelling at The Journal. Let them yell."

"Only a very extraordinary kind of a fool can be made to believe that because a murderous wretch has attempted the life of the President it becomes everybody's patriotic duty to cease criticizing the trusts, cease discussing the problem of poverty and the dangers threatening the republic through the rapid growth of enormous fortunes which have their roots in monopoly," says the Philadelphia North American (Rep.). "It is profoundly unscientific," adds the New York Times (Ind. Dem.), "to seek to establish a causal relation between yellow journalism and the beliefs and crime of Czolgosz. The Anarchists are crea tures apart from the mass of humanity. Outside the direct teachings of their own sect and the promptings of their own insane delusions, there is not only no evidence, but a strong improbability, that they are influenced by any utterances or precepts whatsoever."

The Independent (New York, September 19) thinks that if American newspapers of every class, "the best and the poorest alike," will learn a lesson from the President's assassination, and endeavor to raise their standards higher in the future, that tragedy will not have been altogether in vain. It says:

"In some measure the American newspaper is responsible for a low moral tone, a somewhat vulgar view of life, a cynical attitude toward all idealism, a tendency to violence and lawlessness, and even an increasing criminality, which thoughtful observers have long been noting with sorrow and with shame, as they have watched the development of a people in which, we sincerely believe, are centered the highest hopes for the future of mankind. "Could there be a better time than this, in the hour of national mourning, for all who in any degree share in the molding of the national mind, to abandon unworthy deeds of the past, and with higher aims, and kindlier hearts, and cleaner thoughts, to set about the work of strengthening in and for the people a moral life that shall be not only in its strong vitality without fear, but also, in its character, without reproach?"

Seth Low for Mayor of New York. The decision of the anti-Tammany conference committee of eighteen to present the name of Seth Low, president of Columbia University, to the various bodies in its membership as its choice for the nomination for mayor of New York wins hearty approval from the majority of the metropolitan newspapers, and it is generally believed that the nomination will be indorsed by the conventions that are to act upon the matter. "The redemption of the city from a political control that has blackened its name before the country and the world seems to be already in sight," says the Brooklyn Standard-Union (Rep.). As the nominee of the anti Tammany

forces, declares the New York Times (Ind. Dem.), Mr. Low "has the two essential qualifications," since he is "known to possess an entirely trustworthy character," and has "proved his ability in actual experience," as mayor of Brooklyn. Moreover,

says the New York Evening Post, he demonstrated his capacity to make an active campaign as the anti-Tammany mayoralty candidate in 1897. "No one need fear that under him honest administration would mean fanaticism," says the New York Tribune (Rep.), for his record in the government of Brooklyn shows that he can be trusted to give the city an honest government" without interfering with personal liberty or trying to force New Yorkers to conform to the standards of an old-time New England village." The comment the New York Sun (Rep.) on the nomination of Mr. Low is short, but to the point: 'Seth Low will be the next mayor of New York."

SETH LOW.

The New York Daily News, a supporter of Tammany Hall, declares that Mr. Low is simply a stalking-horse for the Republican politicians. "Ample as are the folds of President Low's silken college gown," says The News, "it scarcely serves to hide the face of the Republican spoilsmen; and benignant as is the smile that plays ceaselessly upon the features of Dr. Low, it does not conceal the familiar countenance of the real candidate, Thomas C. Platt."

WHILE

SOME RESULTS OF THE STEEL STRIKE. WHILE the terms of the recent strike settlement have not been made public, it is generally conceded that the Amalgamated Association has sustained considerable loss in its struggle with the Steel Corporation. This conclusion is confirmed by the dissatisfaction of the strikers themselves, who in many localities have disregarded President Shaffer's order declaring the strike over, and have refused to return to work. "The workingmen have lost millions in the strike and gained nothing," declares the Pittsburg correspondent of the New York Evening Post (Ind.); “in many cases their families are living in straitened circumstances with the winter at hand; the resources of all but a very few of the higher-paid men have been exhausted, and their bank accounts depleted; the general public blame the men for going into what they term a foolish and useless struggle, and are less inclined to support the principles of trades-unionism than before the struggle." The actual losses of the Amalgamated Association are estimated by the same writer as follows: In funds, $150,000; a fourth of the mills, if of the American Tin-Plate Company, have been made non-union, and the association in that branch lost 1, 300 members; a fourth of the strength in the mills of the American Sheet Steel Company has been lost, and 800 members have been lost in the sheet branch; in the National Steel Company 200 members have been lost, and 700 have been lost in the mills of the Illinois Steel Company. This is a net loss of about 3,000 men, reducing the membership from 13,800 to 10, 800, most of which is in the mills of the Republic Iron and Steel Company, an independent combine, and in independent tinplate, sheet, and hoop mills. About 4,000 men are all that remain in the mills of the corporation, and they are employed in the older and smaller plants. It is currently reported that less than $25,000 remains in the treasury.

The losses of the Steel Corporation have also been very heavy in the way of trade lost, cost of maintenance of plants during enforced idleness, in interest for several months on a vast invest